I feel safe in saying that by this point in the academic year, most people here have found a couple new students that they fancy. Not in a creepy way; it’s more of a “we should totes grab a coffee, and by that I mean lick each other out” kind of way. For most people on this campus, hooking up with that person will hopefully be a simple scenario: you came, you saw, you came again. However, the queer community at large (and myself definitely included) can sometimes feel a four-word guillotine looming above our heads, threatening to come crashing down and ruin all hopes of a future fling: Does he suck dick? Does she lick pussy? Or more generally: are they even queer?
Merely typing those made me shudder. After all, what could be more disappointing than if the impeccably dressed, lean, mean sex machine you’ve been smizing at for a solid two weeks (or failing to, in my case) turned out to be out of your reach because of something that you fundamentally cannot change about yourself? I feel like that is one of the main reasons for the angst this situation entails: the fact that our identity is specifically what’s in the way of a home run. And so, in an attempt to validate our own identities, we question theirs; we fantasize about them realizing they bat for the other team, or maybe even inform them of their glaring slip: we want to flip them. But how does such a desire feel justified, and how does it usually play out?
There’s always a seemingly good reason to try. There’s something about his gait, her haircut, or her glance as you held the door for her. A favorite has to be the personal history argument: “You know, he was from such a conservative background, there really is no way he’d be out so soon after leaving home…” Most of the reasons we can come up with do little but perpetuate and reinforce the queer stereotypes that we try so hard to fight against. After all, if we associated gay men with accountants in black suits, I’d have little reason to hope that the cutie I mentioned earlier could be flippable. Quite frankly, I do see some reason behind a typical gaydar reading: I know I’ve internalized preconceptions of gay men that have been floating around me (and by that I mean the archetype of the fiercely vapid bitchy queen) that have in some ways affected my behavior as I try to fit into a wider community and conform. I’m not saying everyone has gone through a kind of socialization similar to mine, but if we assume that I’m not alone, a nonchalantly limp wrist might be a good place to start in identifying some queer men. Neither am I in support of such attempts at identification: I am being realistic about my own flawed thought and am identifying causes without attempting to justify them.
So at this point you’re trying to figure out how to go about the flip, which is far from easy. Will you aim for a late night DMC (deep meaningful conversation) in which she reveals her long anticipated love for fanny? Or take a “queer until proven straight” approach? Wait for a soft porn-worthy scenario where they grab you and kiss you out of the blue? The options are wondrously plentiful, but is there a guaranteed-success-step-by-step guide? As you’ve probably guessed, there really isn’t. No matter how much I wish those online banner ads would stop selling terrifying facelifts and instead focus on what really matters (getting laid), it hasn’t paid off yet. Although the situation may seem dire, I can only reprimand those eager beavers who claw people out of the closet as if their (sex) life depended on it. It’s one thing to make a guess about someone, it’s another to force that person to convert to it, and worse yet to out someone before they’re ready. That’s so not kawaii. You could also hope to get lucky, with that irksome success story we’ve all heard about the one girl who realized she was a lesbian after a tantalizing first experience with someone who had a hunch and they nested and went to yoga on Thursday evenings happily ever after. Will that be any of us? It might, and if so I’m glaring at you just a tiny bit, but probably not.
So what next? I hope you didn’t expect me to answer all your questions on why straight people can be so goddamn misleading. If I had those answers, I wouldn’t be single and slightly sexually frustrated. I can however leave you with a personal twist: I find that the mystery has an element of fun. What would a few poofs having a kiki over one mojito too many be like without the most recent rumors of potential queers? As much as reiterating stereotypes is a big no-no, I also fear I don’t have the strength of character to completely dispel my preconceptions. If you’re able to ignore yours, I wholeheartedly applaud you. And even if I knew how to dispel my own whispering demons, I’m worried about how much more Sharples comfort food I’d end up eating in sheer desperation.
