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I was reading "Strangers," the book ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
daegaer sent me, and happened across the phrase "Is he musical?" listed as one of the many ways that people - particularly straight people - would attempt to determine if someone they were talking about was gay, and I had to laugh.
I'd had a conversation with my co-worker, Mr. Pink, a couple of weeks ago - he was telling me that he's bored with the whole who is and who isn't gay speculations and revelations, because he went all through that with this gay guy he was in a band with, years ago. (I'm completely vague on how many years ago, as I have no memory and particularly no memory for anything resembling numbers, but I think it was before the 80's.) Among several stories Mr. Pink proceeded to tell me about his friend he at one point (or several) stated that gay guys "always recognize each other."
Several days later, after I had begun reading this book, I mentioned to him that that was a myth that was conclusively disproven in Victorian times, and explained how the one doctor had two gay patients who never spotted each other, although each claimed to always be able to recognize another gay man. We were working in screening baggage, that day, and a short time later a young man approached and presented us with a hard-sided case. On seeing the picture on the x-ray screen I said it was a keyboard. Mr. Pink said, "some kind of electronics." I insisted that it was not just any kind of electronics, it was a keyboard, and it quickly escalated into a bet. We opened the case and he had to give me a dollar because it was, indeed, a keyboard, much like one he himself has at home.
At which point I had to needle him - "You didn't realize he was a musician? I thought musicians always recognized each other!"
daegaer sent me, and happened across the phrase "Is he musical?" listed as one of the many ways that people - particularly straight people - would attempt to determine if someone they were talking about was gay, and I had to laugh. I'd had a conversation with my co-worker, Mr. Pink, a couple of weeks ago - he was telling me that he's bored with the whole who is and who isn't gay speculations and revelations, because he went all through that with this gay guy he was in a band with, years ago. (I'm completely vague on how many years ago, as I have no memory and particularly no memory for anything resembling numbers, but I think it was before the 80's.) Among several stories Mr. Pink proceeded to tell me about his friend he at one point (or several) stated that gay guys "always recognize each other."
Several days later, after I had begun reading this book, I mentioned to him that that was a myth that was conclusively disproven in Victorian times, and explained how the one doctor had two gay patients who never spotted each other, although each claimed to always be able to recognize another gay man. We were working in screening baggage, that day, and a short time later a young man approached and presented us with a hard-sided case. On seeing the picture on the x-ray screen I said it was a keyboard. Mr. Pink said, "some kind of electronics." I insisted that it was not just any kind of electronics, it was a keyboard, and it quickly escalated into a bet. We opened the case and he had to give me a dollar because it was, indeed, a keyboard, much like one he himself has at home.
At which point I had to needle him - "You didn't realize he was a musician? I thought musicians always recognized each other!"