Gayneralizations




There are many ways to tell if a guy is gay or not. And here in beautiful Las Islas Filipinas, most people find it easy. Of course, the trusty (or rusty) gaydar claimed to be possessed by many of us, is one of them. For those who don’t have a gaydar, there are other ways.

I remember asking a series of questions (which, now, I find overly illogical as the answers will give me a hasty generalization of the person’s sexuality) about the guy-in-question’s interests and lifestyle. Oh how I love stereotyping!

  1. Does he know how to play basketball? (If not, he is gay)
  2. Does he play volleyball and is he very good at it? (Gay!)
  3. Does he like Mariah, Madonna, Regine, Lani, Cher (sama na natin si Lola to cover all bases)? (Need I say more?)
  4. Does he love cooking? (Debatable)
  5. Is he a big fan of musicals and theatre? (uhm… ate Lea?)
  6. Is he very vain and/or neat? (Debatable)
  7. Does it take him more than 5 minutes to fix his hair? (okay, 6 minutes, he’s still straight. A second more then hello gaylandia!)
  8. Does he immediately shift to a different topic when the question of sexuality is asked? (Uhm, next question please)
  9. Does he have a goodlooking guy for a “best friend”? (Oh i love hot best friends!)
  10. Does he love shopping? (Semi-kinda debatable)

These were my standard questions. And if the answer is an affirmative for at least 4 or 5 questions, then I would come to the conclusion that Mr. Straight Guy is a PLUS. PLUS is the term I use for gay men. Most of gay men here in the country only use PLU (each letter pronounced individually) but I’d rather use PLUS as it is less obvious to people with very discerning ears.

So back to my questions. These are very hasty generalizations. Of course, at one point or another, these may have been successful in determining gayness. But it doesn’t happen all the time. You see, I am a hasty gayneralist – I generalize hastily when branding men as PLUS. Oh yes, I’m a big fan of stereotyping!

I don’t have enough credibility to instantly tell if a guy is straight or not just by getting 10 facts about the guy. Sure, I can do what Malcom Gladwell calls thin-slicing, but I’m no good at it when it comes to thin-slicing gay men. You see, I have this penchant for branding all hot men as gay. It’s called wishful thinking.

And just to prove how unreliable my questions above are, I answered it myself (looking back at the time when I was still in the closet) and out of the 10 questions, only 2 or 3 were true for me:

  1. Yes, I used to play Basketball! (Not gay)
  2. Nope. No Volleyball for me (Not gay)
  3. I never really liked Mariah, in fact I hated her (I think I still do). I only liked Madonna in recent years. And please, don’t even get me started on Regine Velasquez! (Totally straight, dude!)
  4. I love cooking fried eggs, hotdogs, ham, instant noodles. I don’t know how to cook, and if I can have it my way all the time, I’d rather have food take-out or delivered. (not gay)
  5. Not really a big fan. But I could sing all the songs (very badly though) in Evita, Miss Saigon, The Phantom of the Opera, Fiddler on the Roof, West Side Story, and a few more. I was forced to memorize them all since I grew up waking up to those “soundtracks” every single day! (First Gay Point)
  6. Not totally vain, but yes, I was quite neat. (Gay Point 2)
  7. It normally took me 10 minutes to fix my hair (Gay Point3)
  8. Nope. I was fine with sexuality talks. (Not Gay)
  9. I was the goodlooking guy best friend, or so I wanted to believe! (not gay)
  10. I only loved shopping after I cam out (Not gay!)

So thats 3 out of 10. Had I answered these questions 5 years ago, I would have been considered straight. This just proves that my self-proclaimed foolproof theory was a hoax!

There really are many ways to skin a cat or spot a gay man! And hasty gayneralizations are still up and about in this land. In this day and age, I think it’s gotten more difficult to tell who’s a PLUS and who’s not.

Oh, and yeah, a girl just asked me in disbelief over the weekend that if I’m gay, why don’t I know how to play volleyball! San ka pa!

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Published: April 25th, 2007 at 7:09
Categories: Paano Ba Maging Bakla


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