My wife and I just got back from vacation in San Francisco.
I expected to see lots and lots of gay people everywhere but, if they were there, they didn't stand out. I saw two young girls holding hands but no men holding hands. We didn't go to the Castro. We spent most of our time at Fisherman's Wharf, North Beach and Golden Gate Park. Did notice quite a few male couples pushing baby strollers but then some of those couples could have been cousins or friends. Which brings me to another surprise. I was expecting very few children and a lot of men to be effeminate and women to be butch. There were families with kids everywhere and the men were pretty much typical guys and the women were pretty much typical women (except dressed much nicer than usual). Again this may be because of where we were at.
My gaydar was pretty quiet. Usually it's set off when I sense people are trying to hide something or there is something not quite right with the picture. For instance, all the male couples pushing baby strollers set off my gaydar because of the frequency of the number of male couples. Two men pushing a baby stroller isn't enough to draw on. Several male couples is something to draw on.
But for the most part my gaydar was silent. Maybe gay people being out in plain sight makes it all melt into the background.
I spent three days in Salt Lake City for a convention. I expected to see very few signs of gay people anywhere. And I didn't see any obvious signs but my gaydar was constantly going off. I didn't know what to make of it.
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3 comments:
Your gaydar is finely attuned to repressed sexuality. It works better in SLC than in San Francisco.
Believe it or not, but it's actually a lot easier to spot homos in SLC than San Francisco. I went to SF this summer with my friends (and we have excellent gaydar) and we hardly saw any gays, except in Castro. Every time we go to SLC we see tons.
I couldn't agree more. I love going downtown in SLC to People Watch, the "Gaydar" is on constant alert! I think people carry a different, for a lack of better word, "Aura" about them when they are hiding something from the world. I havn't decided if it's physical or spiritual but I do think that as gay men we are more sensitive to whatever it is. Many a time I have turned to my straight friend and said, looking at someone, "Gay" and he often replies, "How do you pick up on them? I can't tell a difference".
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