hot dogs for me, tacos for you

During a conversation with a friend this weekend, the subject of being persued by a homosexual came up. It'd happened to both of us, and we both had the same reaction to it: anger. It made me wonder, why we are so offended when a gay person expresses interest in us? Even the most homophilic (!) of us can become downright hate-crime-mad when hit on by a person of the same sex.

My friend, who is a guy, said that part of the irritation was the graphic nature of the come-on. (Apparently gay guys can as big a pig as straights!) My huntress was not graphic, but she still hacked me off.

A couple of years ago a girl I knew, "Y", came out to me and a couple of my (female) friends. We were pretty cool about it as it was no big suprise, but in retrospect, we may have been too cool, because Y started to think that we were playing for her team too. For some reason, she thought one of the girls was a lesbian, despite the fact that she was married. Equally bizarre was her notion that I liked the vag - I'm quite certain I'd talked about my boyfriend plenty of times in her presence. Maybe it was the way we always joked about being lesbefriends - hell, I don't know.
All I do know is that once Y got it into her head that I was like her, the pursuit was on. It was very subtle, and I don't think anyone noticed, but to me it felt like she was trying to whack me over the head with a club and drag me off to the cave! Her game was little stuff, like always sitting next to me, touching me too much, getting too close - you know, the kind of things we straight girls do to guys we like.
You'd think that for an open-minded person such as myself, I'd just blow it off, or even be flattered by it. But oh, no. I was pissed! I can't figure out for the life of me why, either. Of course, Mister Good Advice said I was angry because I was a closeted dyke. Mmm-hmmm. (This would have possibly held more credence if he hadn't followed it with, "So why don't you and Y come over to my house Friday and I'll, you know, watch you two work it out.") Maybe it was frustration of the "Jesus, men don't look at me, but women do? What the hell?" sort. I guess no straight person wants to be perceived as gay, and there must be some kind of deep, maybe even biological instinct that makes you react so adversely to it.

I wonder if gay people are offended when straights hit on them? Maybe they are - I could definitely understand them being mad if it continues even after the pursuer becomes aware of their homosexuality. (Someone needs to find an answer to that question.)


I'm reminded of a funny/not funny story along these lines that a friend of mine told me. She and her friends went to a gay bar in Houston. It was Drag night, and the TV's and Queens were out in abundance. At one point, one of the Queens breezed up to my friend and said, "Oooh girl! You are FLAWLESS!" (Which of course, is a drag queen's way of telling you that your transformation is so good that no one would ever think you were a man. . . ) HA!!

So the moral of the story is, stay with your own damn team. Nobody's switching sides.

Always (hetero),
S