A page out of my life:
I was not aware that given another male a blatant compliment was an unspoken law amongst men. This law was introduced to me when I was in middle school. Six or seventh grade to be exact. We were all getting in line to get our food out of the cafeteria. And someone thought this dude gave another dude a compliment, which cause him to defend his masculinity for all it was worth. He gets loud and ignorant saying "What? That is so gay. What do I look like giving that man a compliment? Do I look gay?" Apparently, he didn't because that ended the accusation of him giving another guy a compliment. I was standing there observing the whole thing. A question came to my mind, what does giving a compliment to another guy has to do with your sexual orientation? I was a little confused. We do know when someone is ugly, right? Consequently, we know when they are handsome, right? I grew up around mostly women, so I never really paid this any attention, but trust I made a mental note not to compliment anyone of the same sex. I never did before, but I made a conscious decision not to. After all, I didn't want to be accused of being gay. But the question still remains, how does complimenting someone tell you about their sexuality? Women do it all the time. "Girl you look good?" Well, I wasn't asking, but I had a clear understand that your androgen level was definitely called into question if you did.
"Nothing even matters"~Lauryn Hill & D'angelo
Until this day, I don't have a concrete answer of why statements of this nature are so detrimental to your sexual orientation. Again, women give each other compliments all the time. Shoot! They talk about each others @$$es, breast, thighs-you get the point. Rather or not I understand it completely I definitely abide by the rules. You DON'T give blatant compliments. You say something is cool, tight, cold, mean, fresh, fly, whatever. And the compliment is never direct, it's always about an item they have on or that belongs to them. If a guy called another guy fine or something to that effect, I could understand the eyebrows raising (for the most part). That definitely implies something, but does it mean that this person is gay? After reading all these books women are like H-to the YEAH!
I just find male-to-male conversation so interesting. I am a male myself and I'm puzzled from time-to-time. I'm like darn, when did we get this insecure. However, I have been guilty of this myself, so I can't talk too much. However, I'm not like some of these guys. There has been many times when guys say something to or about another male in a complimentary way, but they give like 5 disclaimer concerning that sexuality before they say it (the compliment that is). I find it somewhat puzzling. That makes me question it...what are u so afraid of? So a straight male can become a gay male in an instant if he gives another male a compliment? That's what we are implying essentially. Give me your feedback?
4 comments:
You gone have to asks the straight brothas about this one. I'm with you on this one. I don't get it either.
To put it bluntly, it’s plain ignorant. Although I’m a confident and respected (as well as respectful) gay man, I always give advice to my str8 male friends and my younger brothers and nephews. I consistently tell them that it is a mark of a secure man to be able to compliment a brotha and recognize a brotha and/or something a brotha is wearing. This isn’t to imply that a str8 man should be complimenting a brotha’s ass, legs, lips, etc. Let’s keep it real… some things are better left unsaid… I’d do a double-take on a str8 female who compliments women’s anatomy in a way that had sexual undertones. It’s one thing to say, the brotha has some nice hair and another to say, damn I’d like to pull that brotha’s hair. Like all ignorant “rules” this one is perpetuated by precisely what you’re doing… feeding into the mentality originated by some insecure, likely-closeted fool who believed that an innocent comment would be misconstrued.
Quoting from Susan Powter…. “STOP THE INSANITY!”
@dude:You are crazy. I wrote this because it like one of those rules you follow and you don't know why. Well, not so much in recent years
It's probably an unspoken rule that goes back centuries. Maybe it served some purpose in ancient times during periods of war and creating rutheless soliders. But there is no clear need for such a rule now. The rule only fosters download behavior.
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