Str8 Acting

This concept dubbed Str8 instead of straight serves a purpose, although, for the naked eye we think it might not. Str8 was seen in gay culture about the mid 90's when it was important or perceived important to act as those we strive to be. Let me explain this Str8 Acting concept more and allow the reader to comment and ponder on their thoughts, views and even experience in this behavior trait.

Having never really been a str8 male of course, but growing up being treated like one until junior high, I still find it incredible how the concepts of competition and survival of the strongest seem to drive so much of str8 male culture. Maybe it is all evolutionary genetics, but jeez boyz, give it a rest.

Being a scrawny adolescent gay guy did teach me a lot about male competition. In fact, sometimes, I wonder if the macho bluster I had to deal with didn't have something to do with my turning out gay--you know, like trying to defuse all that guy fear and guy anger with guy sex and guy love. It rings really true for me.

Of course, it's chickens and eggs with the causality, but I do feel pretty deeply that a part of my desire for men (starting, I think, in 3rd or 4th grade on a trip to the Boston Museum of Science I became jealous and upset that I could not sit with another boy on the bus. Continuing through junior high school where I used to get beaten up and harassed ending up with me running into the school crying from two other classmates that tried to play with me in the attic while doing a petition drive on censorship for history) is linked with the attempt to find ways to break through the strutting and blustering of all the oh-so-macho guys around.

I remember vividly one incident where one guy who taunted me in junior high came up to me after school when I was walking home, coming up to me with a black girl. The black girl used to stab people with forks in the cafeteria and this guy used to blow up condoms in the cafeteria. We had the same algebra class and the teacher was someone I knew from church. She asked if another had seen this student and I commented that he was at lunch. So this guy follows behind me with his sidekick and comes up to me and punches in the mouth, for squealing on him. I ended up walking off after and the next day stayed home because I didn't want to go to school with a fat lip. What he told people was that he had kicked my ass.

There was another time I was just standing there talking to a friend and holding a plastic thing of candy to sell in my hand (we always seemed to be selling lollipops or chocolate bars for something for FBLA and Kids for Animals). The guy from junior high had been doing laps around the hallway for with his social clan, and they had passed us a couple of times; So, after they're done, he stops by my locker and starts tossing himself around, asking me what I'd said to them, being belligerent, puffing up his ego and body, leaning over me and just generally being a dick, right? And I'm standing there, intimidated--hell, really scared--but also thinking to myself "what the fuck is this all about?" and trying to look at his eyes to see what's going on in his head, because I really didn't have a clue. And my friend's totally silent, trying to fade away (I'd have done the same, so no judgment there), and I get the feeling I'm supposed to respond to guy's presence somehow but I must have missed that day in Guy School because I'm at a loss here and just stand there knowing that if it gets physical I'm in deep shit, and then there's this pause, see, this wonderful little pause where he isn't saying anything, and I'm looking up at him, and he's looking down at me, and I'm sure he sees the fear in my face, but also the question, like "What do you want? Just tell me, guy, because I'd probably be willing to give you more than you think, but not until you cut the crap and stop threatening me," which is what I was thinking in and around the fear, and I wonder how much of it penetrated the dense testosterone haze (probably very little) but then he breaks eye contact and turns to the plastic thing full of candy in my hand and says "what are those?" and I kind of just look at him because I'm still really scared and he says "give me some" and I hand it to him and he takes a handful of candy and he's looking at me and I'm like, what? Take as many fucking candies as you want, dude, and then he makes some comment like "watch what you say from now on" which totally makes no sense to me but works as a way to end this thing and off he goes to be back with the other boys. And, strangely enough, I kind of feel like I've won, somehow. Like, somehow, his inability to make anything sensible happen with the clear macho advantage was my victory, you know?

Sure, as I'm left there with my friend, I feel pretty violated, and we're both obviously embarrassed by the whole thing, but I'm also kind of fascinated with what just went down, and even a tiny bit more confident in my belief that the guy of the world are the ones with the problem, not me. Of course, my friend and I couldn't bring ourselves to talk about it, being guys and all, so we just went on with our lives as if it never happened, as if the alpha males never exercised their alpha male jerk privileges on us, and as if it didn't matter even if they did.

Here's the good part:

Those nights after these incidences I had amazing wet dreams about this guy and his friends and me. Oddly enough, it wasn't about him being a jerk, rather it was about him being kind of quiet, but still very macho, and me being myself, but confident, and the two of us making out like crazy in the back of his pickup truck (not sure where the truck came from) and I remember waking up with the lingering dream-feeling that I could really like him, that there was this kind of lovable guy there, asking me for candy, and that maybe he was even wishing that he had better ways of showing me his interest than being a macho dickhead, but he didn't quite know any other way to say, "hey you're interesting and I'm feeling this kind of spark here and I'd love to touch you and kiss you and make out with you but I'm a macho dickhead and so I don't know how so I'll puff myself up and act intimidating and very *very* male and maybe you'll see that what I'm trying to do is make myself desirable to you and then we can maybe connect, if you know what I mean."

I know, I know, but what are dreams for, right?

I'm not sure what the point is, except that cleaning myself off that morning just might mark the start of my suspicions that all this "straight-acting" stuff isn't what it seems to be. They act str8 acting, but isn't that a game of pretend? Acting as something you are not to achieve being that thing; in this case straight? Are those who label themselves as str8 acting uncomfortable and afraid of being rejected for being 'self acting'.? Why are they afraid to be themselves and not label. I find myself not overly butch and not over feminine. I am in the middle I tell others. Out view of what str8 acting is what society portrays: masculine, muscles, and all those things what we characterize a straight or heterosexual male would do. Do the straight talk, walk around the block. Why copy something other people do, rather than doing your own thing. I personally think those who label themselves as str8 acting do not possess sensuality and passion, because the typical male does not portray those characters. That is more a feminine trait or romance. The butch male looks funny in making pastries and setting the table for a romantic dinner with a complimentary bubble bath. But as everyone possesses these traits they can be harmful when you label yourself and put that self-worth in someone else's view of yourself. Rejection is the stamp of what str8 acting really is.

If you can be str8 acting, then, can you be gay acting. More specifically a straight guy acting gay. Of course you can. This is seen most common with women though. You see a plain women who has characteristics of being a lesbian or dyke, but they do not find or understand the reasoning to label themselves as anything. So those guys who are straight and possess a high voice, sorry guys. You're a straight man acting queer. Comments? Your str8 acting behavior may become a part of a thinking tank, where the term straight acting is reflected to the male behavior which is them define every decade. The male figure has changed from the Cowboys in western films, to beatles to disco boys, Marlboro man to Frank Sinatra, Jean Claude Van Dam to even the president.