Things That Most Guys Do, Regardless of Whether They're Gay, even if Bruce Willis Wouldn't...

[cimorene]

...Do Them in a Movie.

Even though generally 90% of everything is crap and by extension 90% of everyone is a moron, there are certain shifts in demographics, like how the likelihood of someone being female, gay, politically liberal, and able to use a computer is higher in lj fandom. Those factors occasionally reduce the quantity of stupid too, because, okay, there is plenty of stupid in fandom, but you don't really run into it as much on a day-to-day basis unless you hang out in big communities. This is a great thing about fandom. But there are hills and valleys. And there is badfic, and there are occasional kerfluffles to remind us that there is stupid everywhere, and that includes in fandom, just when we might have been starting to forget (I wasn't, or anything - that was just a hypothetical).

Any rant - or, alternatively, any calm and reasonable explanation in words of one syllable - that I could make about it today would just reiterate this rant I made a few weeks ago called Things That Guys Don't Do Unless They're Gay (Hint: There's Only One), and besides, I kind of need to save up my ranting for more serious issues once I have the stomach for it. So I'll just keep this short, and say that straight men can not only sing showtunes and wear pink and cuddle and kiss their friends - they can also go shopping.

I know it's a shocker, but most straight men who are adults don't live with their parents, and many of them don't live with female significant others, either. If they didn't buy things, they wouldn't have clothes, food, toilet paper, light fixtures, electronics, things in which to sleep, etc. Now, some of them might be billionaires, and some of them might never wipe their asses, and some of them might just sleep on the floor in their clothes and eat all their food directly from the carton and never dry off after they shower, and some of them might have mothers who made sure, at least, that they had some eating utensils and towels before they moved out. But really: most of them learn how to go to retail establishments, where they exchange money for goods and services. I promise.

And then they watch tv, and sometimes it's girly tv. If they're straight, they often do that while cuddling their girlfriends, because cuddling also isn't genetic, but the desire to feel up the people that you're sexually attracted to is.

Comments

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I've heard that...some straight guys not only go shopping, but...*gasp!!!* enjoy it! I've also heard that some women? Don't like shopping! It's just a totally unfounded rumor I read on the internets, mind, so I dunno. Girls reeeeeeally love shopping, and it's like, genetically built into them, so I don't know if it's really possible that some might not like it. You really can't trust the internet.

[perhael.livejournal.com]

Lol, trufax. My brother shares a flat with two male roommates, all of them are straight guys, and it's a perfectly nice, reasonably tidy flat. They take turns doing laundry and cooking dinner, which more often than not includes real vegetables, and they occasionally watch girly movies (especially when one of the guys has his girlfriend over).

Also, even my dad wears pink shirts.

[dunautremonde.livejournal.com]

Ahahah, "90% of everything is crap and by extension 90% of everyone is a moron". Why are the morons allowed to be making so much crap though?

[anglepoiselamp.livejournal.com]

...my brother doesn't like shopping for himself, but he likes to have other people go and buy pink clothes for him. I wonder what that means. :D

[vass]

Sometimes, just sometimes, this fandom feels like secondary school. And yeah, I know I just set myself up for a fandomwank law, but I don't mean "like the mean girls at high school," I mean like how cut and dried secondary school was, how hard the labels stuck.

Not just the gay thing or the 'real boy/not a real boy' thing, although good GODS are those chafing... but even the nerd/dork/geek thing. Saying what you mean does not make you a geek. Being literate, at all, and publically admitting to it, does not make you a geek (for pity's sake, that's fucking year *seven* stuff.) Knowing what a furry is does not make you a geek, and neither does making fun of furries. Owning a Playstation does not make you a geek. And I'm sorry, but even playing Warhammer does not make you a geek, not that it isn't a pretty good indicator... do you (generic you, not you personally) think Warhammer would survive economically if only serious hardcore geeks bought it and sometimes casually played it?

I will go as far as to say that Gerard Way is a great big nerd. *That's* fair enough, and bless him for it, I wouldn't be in this fandom if he wasn't. But sometimes it seems like people are shifting the frame to where the Panic! boys are geeky, and Gerard Way is practically Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons, which, just... *no*.

I could understand if it was just people overidentifying, but it doesn't seem to be. It's the same as the gay thing, people positioned closer to the middle of the bell curve overstating every hint of difference... and I get that they're doing it because they think those differences are cool, but it's objectifying, and it's policing the boundaries, and as a geeky, lesbian, not-totally-gender-normative person, it makes me feel like that much more of a freak when I see them holding up perfectly ordinary behaviour as SO gay, or SO female, or SO geeky. (Or SO fat, btw: if I hear one more person describe Gerard Way or Spencer Smith or anyone else in bandom as fat, I'm going to scream.)

[morningfine]

Hahaha, I totally fall into that thinking too often: OMG! I know this guy and he just BOUGHT NORMAL HOUSEHOLD STUFF HOW AWESOME. And then I'm like, OH WAIT.

(And then sometimes I've already posted about it on LJ. Those are the best times.)

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Hey, man, I'm not saying they have to LIKE it.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

I ask myself that question every day.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

I keep linking people to your two posts now, maybe that helps/is more effective than me arguing my ass off.

[viggofest.livejournal.com]

"90% of everything is crap and by extension 90% of everyone is a moron..." is now my quote of the week! :-)

This is a great discussion, thanks for the links!

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Does that mean you used to directly engage with people who think guys don't exchange money for goods and services or cuddle? I never have the patience for that myself.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

Yeah.

[eliyes.livejournal.com]

Men who are good cooks are also not automatically gay! It's amazing the things fandom tries to get over on people, really.

These are awesome posts.