It doesn’t seem likely people would confuse me for being gay anymore, what with the wife and child and rural red-state lifestyle and the Wal-Mart clothes, but if they did, you know what I would think? Good. Here in the US, gay is the new British, which is to say that if people think you’re gay, they also think you are smarter, wittier, and more fun to be around than the average guy. Sure, you sodomize other men on occasion, but that’s your business, and we Americans always suspected British men had sodomy as a required subject at Eton. So it’s all the same, really. And in the meantime you always say the perfect thing at the perfect moment. You’re more entertaining than cable! And what could possibly be wrong with that? If people know you’re a straight guy, on the other hand, they automatically think you’re a beef-witted social dullard in a Linux shirt hoping to delude some poor woman into accepting a sperm packet or two. In a word: Eeeeeeew.

I love John Scalzi.

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2 Comments

  1. I have always admired your intelligence and sophistication. It never occured to me to attach a sexual orientation to it, but I see what you mean.

  2. hahaha…

    that was pretty funny…

    Interestingly enough.. I saw that article in the Times also.. I found it pretty superfluous like most of the others…

    of course..one should note that the article is in the “fashion&style” section of the paper… so it’s not that surprising.. and is a bit of a stretch to bitch at the paper for not dealing with the war just because there is an article in the fashion section about how fashion is no longer so strictly oriented by sexuality in men.. (I mean.. if there was an article about the influence of gay culture on movies in the movie review section, would it make sense to bash the paper for not covering the war there???)

    overall, though, I agree with most of the rest of his points… I actually regularly do get considered “gay” by most of the people who meet me for the first time… most likely since I adopted some european fashion sense when i lived in Germany for three years–where men actually have been dressed well for centuries…

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