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When he says "I'm so gay", he's saying "I'm such a woman". There is an implicit association of gayness with feminine-ness (sic).
We all (or we all should) say things among our closest people that could easily be taken wrong by those who are not in on the joke.
Probably not a good idea if you're trying to seduce Kim Davis.
In this case, I hear a straight guy who isn't defensive about his tastes and is secure in his orientation.
But since we're hearing different meanings to the same words, yes, @3, the LW should be prepared for someone to take it differently.
A better stereotype for gays is that we have great taste, and quite frankly, that kinda precludes liking most musicals.
Not the most grave offense I've heard. Not Kim Davis refusing to issue marriage licenses level of offense. Not bully calling a smaller kid a sissy faggot level of offense. It isn't a nuclear level offense, merely a whisper of an offense.
If you were my straight friend and said that in my presence, I might even laugh politely because I know your heart is in the right place. But it is nevertheless a tacky stereotype that I don't subscribe to, and simply don't find funny. It's minor silly little stereotypes like this that leads some people down the path to believe that all gay men really are sissy faggots.
Please don't feed the stereotypes.
How do they respond? Oh, ok.
Conversation killer, a line like that. You think no other straight men
who love to watch boys run around in tights on the football field are embarrassed re loving musical theatre?
The line is, I'm totally straight for musical threatre.
This is probably a refinement of my original objection, but what irks me is that it conjures up images of days when gay men didn't have acceptable social outlets and had to make do with rather pathetic overreadings of mediocre musicals as "speaking to us" or "coded". It feels like a longing for the days of The Closet, which isn't LW's intention.
And what the flip is so manly about fried bologna sandwiches? Such a matter of taste is about equally divided between the sexes.
I've never heard that either! Instead of manliness, I think of fussy children or cooking for the elderly / people with weakened immune systems, where I have to ensure that there's no bacterial contamination on the lunchmeat. I know i cooked it for my grandfather, is it a pre-Boomer thing?
Having said that, the reason I think Dan is wrong is that while I was reading through the comments and thinking he was right, the phrase "I'm black for R & B" came into my mind.
So...yeah. He probably needs a better catch phrase.
Here's hoping he has a sassy gay friend to help him out.
Why? Consideration is underappreciated, apparently.
I love that our footballers, with their perky arses and beautiful arms and thighs, give each other hugs when they score.
Why is liking musical theater any less "manly" than liking bologna? Don't plenty of women love football?
I'm certainly not God's ally gift to the world, but I'm vanilla-straight (well, more like a Kinsey-1 who does some drag) cis-male. I've spent my lifetime loving musical theater, bologna, and...well, I don't love football like I used to, but I used to. And never once have I apologized for or joked off one of my interests because of any perceived attack on my masculinity.
I'd say his choice of words is ignorant, insecure, misogynistic, and by tying gay to feminine, therefore homophobic.
Is it an intentional slur? Is it the worst thing someone can say? Of course not.
But it's probably about as close to macro as you can get while still being a microaggresion.
He should think hard about his unconscious biases and how important it is for him to be able to make one shitty almost-cute, almost-joke.
As for you, LW, what's wrong with just saying, "I like musical theatre" or "I'm totally into musical theatre"? That way you don't have to worry about any potentially stereotypical bullshit, the way you did by saying you love the NFL (plenty of women like professional sports--I'm a big hockey fan) or eating bologna sandwiches (I'm sure plenty of women like that crap, as do gay men) and other supposedly "manly" things.
Anyone who uses the phrase "political correctness" tends to be an asshole anyway, present company excepted.
I doubt it's much different from saying, "My inner black woman comes out when I eat fried chicken" or "I'm so Jewish about my 401(k)". Perhaps you can see how those might offend, or at least, raise an eyebrow about exactly what decade of the 20th century you're still stuck in.
Many gay men are passionate about musicals but my guess is that far more gay men are not passionate about them, don't have a strong feeling one way or the other, or simply don't like them at all. So perhaps I don't really understand the statement "I'm so gay for musicals..." What's the point? Why can't you just say, "I love musicals..."?
I submit that Mr. Savage is wrong about what "being 'gay'" for something means.
Back in the 80's when I was in college, we used to say we were "whores" for things. As in, "I'm a whore for chocolate." It was a humorously exaggerated way of saying we would do anything for [whatever it was]. I didn't start hearing the term "attention whore" or "publicity whore" (which used to be "publicity hound" even longer ago) until several years later; make of that what you will.
Saying you're "gay" for something is exactly the same thing. In effect you're saying " Here's how much I love musical theater: I'm not gay, but if musical theater had a dick, I would suck it." Just as someone else might offer to overcome their personal aversion to selling their asshole on the street for a piece of really good chocolate.