Dudebros gone wild.

So there was this guy... let's call him privileged-Ivy-League-dudebro... or frat boy for short. He approached me at a bar and chatted me up. There was some definite flirtation going on, and we seemed to hit it off pretty well. He leaned in and cooly whispered that he wanted my number, and I gave it to him. By the end of the night, he was even buddy-buddy with my platonic male heterosexual lifepartners who came with me to the bar and he bought them drinks! All was well.

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

Tuesday Bloggaround

New York becomes the first state to pass legislation that will allow trafficking victims to clear their criminal records of prostitution charges.


A teacher is fired from a Christian school for having premarital sex.

[Trigger Warning] Everyday, at least 5 children in the U.S. have their healthy genitals mutilated, including at Cornell University. Liss over at Shakesville covers the story and starts a discussion thread.

See if you can spot the threat to moral values.


A French Trans-woman is mandated to enlarge her breasts before she can legally be considered a woman. Carrie Polansky over at Gender Across Borders gives us the story.

Link Love

We also have exciting news! Two of my pieces were accepted for Blog Carnivals:

My Controversial piece appeared in the June edition of the Carnival of Progressive Politics and is available over at My Political Side, run by the fabulous S. Gaissert. 

My True Blood piece appeared over at the June 20th edition of the Bobo Carnival of Politics and is available over at The Bobo Files.

-Harvey

Sex

Greetings! I am Harvey Milk Jr., and I will be your blunt, gay blogger who will shower you with love letters in the form of blog posts about current events, sexuality, heterosexism, and maybe even 'polite' topics every once and awhile. You know, topics that you could discuss with your grandparents without feeling shameful.

Speaking of polite topics, let's talk about gay sex. Yes, I did not just title this post 'Sex' to entice prospective readers. Well, maybe that was part of my reasoning... but never fear, there will be a discussion of sex, oh yes! By discussion, I mean I talk at you in the form of text. Let's start!

Heterosexual Privilege #1: I do not have to explain how I have sex.

Did you know that gay men can have sex in more than one position? C'est vrai! I'm not making it up! One ordinary day, some well-intentioned friends asked me if having sex in the same position gets boring. Now, I don't exactly view us gays as a whole an uncreative group, so I was rather confused by this inquiry. When I probed into the anus of this conversation topic, I discovered that my gay-friendly, liberal friends thought that gay men only have sex 'doggie-style'! How surprised I was to find out this tid bit of straight perspective, as us gay men are often over-sexualized to the point of being compared to sexual deviants of a more severe ilk (pedophiles, those who engage in bestiality... the Knockturn Alley of sexual deviance, if you will). Look, just because we are wizards does not mean we belong in Slytherin. Last time I checked, muggles can be sexually deviant as well. Um. I mean straight people.

Anyway,

my point of that analogy is that I was surprised to find out how little my friends knew about gay male sex, when gay men are so often depicted in the media (when we actually are depicted in the media at all) as hyper-sexual. You could imagine my surprise when they didn't even have the basic lowdown of teh gey sex! It's as if they we're reading Harry Potter and didn't even know that Dumbledore was playing on my team the whole time! (Well, to be honest, I had no idea Dumbledore was gay until Rowling made a public statement... I guess something could be said about presumed heterosexuality as default in this situation).

Where was I? Ah yes, anal sex. One of my gay male friends even told me that his straight female friend felt badly for gay men because they can't kiss while having sex.

Huh?

Okay, let me dispel a few rumors here... actually, this may be easier:

Watch Queer as Folk for five minutes. You will see a multitude of acrobatic gay sex positions that you thought only existed in heaven. Well, maybe I'm exaggerating... but I swear, that show's plot if so sex-dependent. Trust me, I'm all for sex-positivity and I'm a huge supporter of depicting accurate same-sex relationships in popular media... but man, that show is porn! I'm not saying I want a Gay Charlie Brown Christmas special on TV.... actually, yes I am. On careful consideration, that would be every shade of awesome. Think about it... Jesus has 2 dads! "How Progressive!" the congregation will murmur excitedly. "Why, peppermint patty isn't a lesbian after all!" They will proclaim. Merry Christmas Charlie Brown!

I smell sequel.

To wrap up this Christmas present of a post, I'll just say that hetero-sex was not as huge and awkward of a mystery to me as gay sex was to me well-meaning friends. I can't watch a mainstream TV show anymore without being hit in the face with penile-vaginal intercourse (please think about this imagery). The next time Jack Bauer and his male lover try out 69 after saving the world, let me know so I can TiVo that shit.

peace, love, and butt plugs,

Harvey Milk Jr.