I'm here checking up on my Google Reader when I stumble across this lil gem from Towleroad.
Apparently, some guy wore a cut-off T-shirt to his gym in California with "I need a man or a date, serious inquiries only" on it and had his gym membership revoked. Naturally, I decided to go read the comments to see what the gays who read Towleroad had to say about it. True to form, it was mostly split between reasonable people who admitted that wearing that shirt was incredibly retarded and that the guy probably deserved it, and those who cried wolf at what they see as another instance of the supposed "double standard" that exists for gays, as though a similar shirt worn by a straight guy would not garner complaints from women who felt objectified when they are trying to work out.
As someone who goes to the gym fairly often, I can tell you that even without a t-shirt explicitly stating someone's intentions, it is not often that I can go without being confronted with at least one troll who leers at me all through my workout or flashes himself at me in the sauna. This guy said he did it as a gag, but come on. What do you expect the reaction will be when you basically wear a craigslist ad on your shirt advertising your desire to meet someone? That's gross and troll-like. Guys often (rightfully) feel uncomfortable in the locker rooms because there are always dirty old men hanging around longer than necessary; doing something like this does nothing to remove that feeling, and in fact, probably just makes even more people think gays are dirty trolls who come to the gym with the intention to find a date rather than just work out like everyone else.
And I can't stand these stupid people who post on everything on Towleroad crying about how we're so damn oppressed and how this guy should sue the gym and win a huge settlement (which would never happen, given that someone called the gym and found out that he threatened them). I wonder whether he did that after they asked him to remove the shirt. Just because gays have faced oppression and still do in a lot of cases, does not mean we are entitled to wear inappropriate t-shirts and expect that everyone just let us do whatever we want lest we cry prejudice. The real double standard is thinking that you can wear something like that while saying that we're just like everyone else. Obviously, this is not to say that all gays are dirty trolls. I don't go to the gym to pick people up (except maybe my abs instructor...;)
People like this give as bad a name to gays as the old straight men who leer at girls asses as they run on the treadmills or ellipticals. Leave the trolling to Craigslist and the working out to the gym.
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4 comments:
I have to weigh in on behalf of whiny homosexual everywhere to say that your logic has a few holes in it.
Surely I understand that people may feel "uncomfortable" when confronted with grody old trolls, but how, exactly, does this shirt raise to that level? Unlike the Craigslist ads you compare it to, his shirt features neither of picture of his cock nor the phrase "I need some cream in my coffee." It merely says "I need a date," and then on top of that dares to proclaim that he is interested in men. There's no way in which this is even vaguely comparable to a man leering at your ass while you do the treadmill.
As for the double standard, do you honestly think a man wearing a T-Shirt saying "I Need A Girlfriend" would have had his membership revoked? I have serious doubts about that. In fact, it strikes me as implausible that he'd have been so much as reprimanded. Not to mention the fact that you seem to assume the complaints come from men who feel "objectified" and not from men and women who disapprove of his open proclamation of sexual orientation in a "family" (i.e. public) place.
I think there's something troubling to the notion that only certain public places are acceptable venues for hitting on people. While you can argue that a bar is a place people expect to be hit on, the very history of gyms is riddled with gym hookups, hetero as well as homo. It's a place where people with similar interests gather. It's natural that people will flirt under these circumstances.
The only thing that can be construed as offensive about this shirt in any way is that it was worn by a man and says "I need a man." Which means that his only crime is publicly saying he's gay.
So when you say that men like this give gays a bad name what you're really saying is that homosexuality is just fine and wonderful as long as we don't flaunt it and keep our sexuality locked away in the privacy of our own homes.
I apologize if I seem whiny because I refuse to believe that my homosexuality is something that must be hidden from the view of respectable people.
PS: I wonder how much of your "troll" reaction has to do with the fact that the man in question is a) older than 25 and b) has the audacity not to be extremely good looking.
PPS: Sam Adams, who is a gay man serving on Portland's City Commission, broke up with his boyfriend during his election. He jokingly told reporters he was going to put "I'm Single. Call me! " on his yard signs. Which I suppose means he is also giving us a bad name.
Sorry, but I have to disagree with you here.
I have absolutely no problem with someone daring to proclaim that they are gay, however I won't ever really think the gym is the place to do that. Honestly, I would find that shirt to be totally lame in any setting, it's just worse in a gym. All that shirt would serve to accomplish is making people feel awkward around him, even if he did nothing but run on his treadmill and keep his eyes on the television.
I don't advocate separation of gay men and straight men in locker rooms, but how do you think that shirt would affect the atmosphere in there? Suddenly, you're not just undressing next to another dude, you're undressing next to another dude who is actively coming on to the men around him. I just don't think the joke is particularly funny.
To be clear, I have no problem at all with someone striking up a conversation with someone at the gym. Certainly, when like-minded people get together, there's the potential for a connection.
I do think that a man wearing a shirt saying "I Need a Girlfriend" with his phone number on it, would get complaints. I don't know the details surrounding why this guy's membership was revoked. It's a bit extreme if they simply took it away without a warning, but then again he went to a gym called "Family Fitness." Just what does he expect going to a place with Family in the title and then trying to pick people up in a gym. I highly doubt that gym would look any kinder on straight come-ons.
Also, to be fair I don't know who was complaining, but I know that if I saw another gay man at my gym wearing that shirt, I'd feel uncomfortable. Look, if he wore a shirt that proclaimed he was gay in some way that wasn't an obvious come-on with his phone number attached, I'd agree that it's discrimination.
Besides, this gym was not a public place in that sense. He paid for a membership and they had a dress code for what was appropriate to wear. Just because he's gay does not mean he can break that dress code because it's "who he is." That's total bullshit.
And we'll have to agree to disagree that the only thing offensive is that he wanted a man. I could give a shit about that part.
Also, please don't presume to guess at what my feelings are on how gay men should flaunt or not flaunt their sexuality. I have held hands and kissed men in basically every public place imaginable where it would be appropriate for straight people to do so. He gives gay people a bad name by crying discrimination at something where he basically was an idiot.
PS - I can't view the photo at work, so when I wrote my post, I hadn't seen him. There are plenty of young, relatively attractive trolls at my gym (even old, relatively attractive trolls!) and they are still trolls. Because come hither eyes are not what I look for when I go to work out. Maybe for some people it is, and then they should go open their own, sex-based gym. Gays need to pick their battles.
PPS - I actually don't have a problem with that for a few reasons. He was clearly making a joke (not as clear cut on a t-shirt). It was in a public forum where he can say what he likes.
I have no problem particular problem with the dress code notion -- of course a private business can enforce whatever rules it wants. I'm not saying the guy should sue, or that he'd be successful if he did. But just because it's theoretically LEGAL to enforce a dress code doesn't mean it's something that can't upset us.
I mean, in most states in this country it's still LEGAL to fire an employee for being gay. Should I support employers who do that simply because it's technically okay?
And besides which, this guy wasn't "actively" coming on to anyone -- at least based on what we know. He was wearing a shirt with his phone number on it. No one could possibly be threatened by that. It's not a personal come on to any particular man. It's not obscene. It's not gross. It's not a solicitation for sex. It's a request for a date. It's not as if his magical gay mind powers could force a poor, weak, vulnerable straight man to pick up the phone and dial the digits.
Gay men in small, conservative towns spend most of their time feeling a bit more than "uncomfortable" around straight men so I'm hardly sympathetic to the notion that any gay man is somehow personally responsible for the effects of what amounts to a straight crime against us. Heterosexist culture insists that gay men are always and everywhere a threat to straight mens' anuses. We didn't start THAT fire -- they did.
And while I realize that you don't believe gay men shouldn't flaunt their sexuality, I still believe that the ultimate result of your line of thinking is a presumption that gay men shouldn't display their sexuality in any way that might seem "crass" or might make straight men uncomfortable. And even that might be fine (if wrong) except for the fact that at least some straight men will find ANY display of homosexuality discomforting. So where does it end?
Like I said, I'd be fully behind the upset side of this argument if they enforced the dress code for a shirt that said like "Gay Men's Chorus" or "Gay Disco" or something that wasn't a pickup. And that's a pointless question about employers, because obviously I would not support employers who discriminate based on sexuality.
My whole initial argument anyway just used the shirt as a springboard to my thoughts on how gay men typically approach this type of what they see as discrimination. It was born out of reading the comments to that post on Towleroad and seeing gay men (and a lot of them) say things like "Gay men have had sex in gyms for years. These people should get used to it."
I take issue with that idea, because a family gym is not the place to wage a battle on getting them used to gay sex. I dislike how there are still those in our community who believe we need to shove gay sex in people's faces in order to gain acceptance, or as some sort of rebellion against being repressed for so long.
Obviously, this shirt is not obscene or even offensive. At most, it would just make me uncomfortable.
My problem is with how our community reacts to something like this. What's with the obsession to sexualize everything in order to prove a point? I understand that in the beginning that is how it had to be, but it's not that way anymore. To move forward, we need to start sloughing off the seedy sexual aspect that still dogs gay culture, or at least we need to choose our battles for more important things (like ENDA) rather than crying about some dude in a t-shirt. Because I see these things and think of how they are perceived, and it seems to me that I'd rather have the rest of society looking at gays in the news opposing the DOMA or supporting ENDA rather than supporting some guys right to troll a gym for booty.
And as for your final point, I have no qualms making straight men uncomfortable and I will always defend the right of two men to (reasonably) display affection in public all they want to. I say reasonably, because I'm as disgusted by straight couples heavy petting in public as I am gay couples. I do think we should at least try not to rise up as a community to defend crass displays of sexuality because it just reinforces incorrect stereotypes of what it means to be gay. Once, gays grew up utterly repressed and their sexuality had to be expressed in shady ways. But when we argue on one hand that we deserves marriage and adoption rights (which we do), it does not help public perception for people to see the community defending that shady sexuality that has (on the whole) not been necessary for years.
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