To make a short story longer, he suddenly dropped the bomb on me: he was straight. "Oh, that's okay", I thought to myself. "We could still make it work." Then it suddenly hit me how difficult it would be to have a romantic or sexual encounter with someone who is not attracted to those of my sex.
"I'm interested in your friend, though" he casually mentioned, nodding over to my female companion who had also come with me.
I think my reaction was something eloquent, well-thought-out, and political, like "huh?"
He explained to me that he likes to flirt with and get to know gay men in order to have "access to" their attractive straight female friends. "Gay guys always know hot girls to bring to frat parties." Yes. He said this.
Pause.
Before I continue, let us first consider the implications of the various degrees of exploitation that are eminating from this Ivy-league-wonder.
1. I will exploit this dashing gay man by using my charm to woo him and use him as an all-access pass to pussy land.
2. I will exploit young women by stroking the ego of this young gay man with flirtation, in hopes that he will barter with me and prostitute his hot female friends to me and my fraternity brothers.
3. I will welcome these young women into my frat house in hopes that they will have awkward drunk sex with my fraternity brothers, thus solidifying my social status within my fraternity as the guy who brought humans with vaginas into the frat house.
Before I go on, we must also consider the ultimate dehumanization of women the privileged-Ivy-League-dudebro is insinuating, as he didn't even want to talk to women, but wanted to have sex with women. He wanted to level with another man about the business transaction of sex that was occurring. He wanted to 'get with' my female friend and perhaps more of my female friends, but to do this he was going only approach another man (me) who he somehow assumed was gatekeeper of the sexuality of other women. What a clever boy... treating women like cattle... he did go to Cornell, after all!
Let's put aside for a second how humiliating it was for me to realize that he had no interest in me (which is not easy to do). He did not ask what my friend's name is. He did not ask me what her favorite color is, or if she has any hobbies. I could imagine a situation in which he was shy with talking to women, and wanted me to introduce him to her... but there was no point in the entire evening in which he viewed my friend (or women, for that matter) as distinct human beings with names, personalities, ambitions, lives, and their own sexual desires. Nope. He was just really preoccupied with:
A. His social status within his small world of rich boys with extremely misplaced priorities.
B. Getting the sex so he could raise his social status.
The identity of your female friend? I could care less. Your feelings? Pffffffft, feelings are so gay.
I ended up telling him that he's disgusting. Whoops.
It's really entirely possible that he was making some weird elaborate cover story in his own mind to convince himself that he's not attracted to men (I like to tell myself this), but either way it's not exactly a feel-good story.
Heterosexual privilege #6: It is not necessary for me to consider the feelings of those with a different sexuality than mine in order to get along/ahead in the world.
I would consider this situation to be unique to an oppressor-oppressed phenomenon... meaning: The oppressor does not need to consider the feelings/insights/perspectives of the oppressed in order to live/work/breathe... but the oppressed sure as hell needs to learn the oppressor front-wards and backwards in order to get along in the world.
LGBT individuals essentially need to treat straight people with respect simply to exist in this world, as straight people by and large rule this world and define its rules... but hets don't need to treats non-heterosexuals with respect in order to live/breathe/work peacefully. In fact, many heterosexuals seem to make a living by capitalizing off the hatred of the uneducated masses.
So many straight people want to continue this legacy of keeping non-hets on the bottom of the social/economic ladder... because equality would mean less privilege for them to enjoy. There are even many heterosexual individuals who fully admit that inequalities exist within our society, but are not willing to give up their social and/or economic privileges because they feel like they somehow earned it by having genetics/social conditions that pushed them into a heterosexual self-identification.
Oh, and yes. My friend does have a name, but I won't be posting it unless she wants me to.
Anywayz, I'm off to go barter with the big boys over the sexualities of my straight female friends... maybe my feudal serfdom lord can help with that.
-Harvs
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