By David Futrelle
Straight male insecurity can be a sight to behold. The list of things that make men doubt the masculinity of other men (or of themselves) is, it seems, endless. That’s what makes the “Fellas, is it gay” meme so effective, and so funny. By simply taking the tenets of some weird and toxic belief about masculinity and rewording it as a question you can reveal just how absurd it is. Fellas, is it gay to drink a smoothie? Fellas, is it gay to wipe your own ass?
The phrase “fellas, is it gay” has been floating around Twitter for more than a decade, starting on black twitter, but at first the questions were at least semi-sincere, and most of them were in some ways about sex. “Fellas is it Gay for you to Watch a Porno or 2 wit ya dudes?” asked one Tweeter. “FELLAS is it GAY to shave your PUBIC HAIR” asked another. Back in those days, the questions often had answers to them.
It took until 2017 or so for the question to transform into a sort of running gag — and it wasn’t until 2018 that it finally turned into the ironic meme we know today, at least on Twitter. (I haven’t looked into other social media sites and their history with the meme.)
So let’s scroll back over the past several years of the meme on Twitter and see some of the things that real people actually think make straight men gay.
We’ll start with marriage between a man and a woman, one of the cornerstones of the patriarchy but also, somehow, gay?
Even more suspect: having a baby with your girlfriend or wife.
Even dating a woman is apparently a gay panic risk:
It’s even worse if you’re occasionally giving her compliments:
Then of course there are the hygiene issues, as in, some straight men seem to think that keeping clean is a gay thing.
It’s apparently even worse if you use some of your time in the shower to soap up your dick … and wash it.
Worse than the dick is the butt, as some guys apparently think it’s gay to clean anything in the general vicinity of their asshole. (No, really. Really really.)
Some give in to the need to wipe, but only if they can couch it as a macho thing to do:
Still others insist that even touching a woman’s asshole is sort of gay:
Cunnilingus is also deeply suspect:
As is having sex with any woman who isn’t a virgin, because then basically she’s partly a man??
Indeed, any kind of sex between a man and a woman can be gay if the guy makes any noise.
Even aside from love and sex and hygiene, the sheer number and variety of things coded “gay” is mind-boggling. Here’s a selection:
Owning an umbrella:
Buying TP for your bunghole:
Tweeting:
Enjoying a nice dessert:
Talking on the phone with a male friend:
Having self-esteem:
Caring about climate change:
Thoroughly appreciating good food:
Eating boneless chicken wings:
Practicing good coronavirus hygiene:
Looking someone in the eyes:
Saying something nice to a woman:
Lying on your couch watching TV:
Buying chocolate chip cookies:
Knowing the rules of grammar:
Having a smoothie:
Or drinking anything involving whipped cream:
That’s all — for now. Tomorrow: Part Two of “Fellas is it gay.”
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Fellas, is it gay to love someone of the same gender as yourself?
IIRC some men think it’s gay to use reusable shopping bags (and others get very mad at the insinuation).
I mean, ancient Romans thought it made you look pretty damn effeminate to be too publicly into your wife. There’s a reason ‘uxorious’ is not a compliment. People have had weird notions about manliness for a very long time. But ordering dessert? Making noise during sex? Wiping your butt? DAMN. These guys do not make being a man look fun.
Someone should tell that since gay people are alive, life is gay.
I think several of those posts actually use the term “gay” not to talk about a sexual orientation, but as a synonym of “bad” or “wrong”. Others seems to use it as a synonym of “feminine”. Decades of homophobia and sexism has influenced language.
I wipe by ass, have sex with women, care about the environment and like a lot of those foods, however I don’t have an umbrella or a twitter, don’t always make eye contact and my grammar leaves something to be desired.
Does that mean I’m bi?
Apart from anything else surely a lot of those should be “is it trans” or at least “is it NB” rather than “is it gay”. Gay men are not necessarily or even particularly commonly effeminate, nor are effeminate men particularly likely to not be straight.
But I suspect I’ve thought about this more than I should have.
Ha. I have observed this one. Even in my childhood I saw how some men eschewed umbrellas if the rain wasn’t a downpour. In the ’80s or maybe the ’90s, I saw a different yet complementary trend: men carrying huge umbrellas. At the time I was pretty sure these guys thought they were outdoor cafes. You know, the kind with huge umbrellas. Standing next to these guys with their huge, wet umbrellas on public transit was pleasant.
If structuring your sentences and using punctuation makes this woman (me) a gay man, so be it.
@GAZZA
fellas, is it nb to:
-wear hoodies and loose clothing in middle/high school
-be very good at drawing cute things and also tired of everything you draw being cute
-welcome the quarantine
-play animal crossing: new horizons
-seek out tacky paisley monstrosities to wear
-make ironic meme lists
-obsess over unpopular fictional characters
-take a grayhound for 18 hours just to see friends in real life
-have depression
-prefer orange juice to soda
-go through headphones at an astounding rate
-desire to overthrow capitalism
-be very tired in general
That depends
If you mean the Bus, then no, anyone can want to see a friend.
If you mean the breed of dog then yes. REAL MEN(tm) get big tough dogs German Shepherds, pit bulls or Huskys. Women get small fluffy dogs like poodles, Shih Tzu or bichon frise. Greyhounds however are large but not very tough and therefore make you NB if you get one.
And here I thought it was the comedic juxtaposition of tall thin dog and short fat person (plus their ears are REALLY soft) that made me want to rescue a greyhound, not my gender identity ?
I have so many questions. Like is it sufficient for gayness to simply own an umbrella, or do you need to use it too? What if someone (like you mother) gifts you an umbrella you don’t want to have? You should probably just throw it out since I guess it would be gay to care about your mother’s feelings or fear that she’ll nag you if she finds out, but even then you would have owned an umbrella. How long does it take for umbrella-gayness to wear off?
What if someone visits your home and forgets to take their umbrella with them and never comes to collect it? How long can that umbrella just sit there before it starts making you gay? Or does it just not do that because it isn’t yours per se? Are you required to leave the umbrella behind when you move because dealing with in any way (incl. throwing it out) would mean admitting it was your responsibility, which would make it yours, which would make you retroactively gay?
What if you have an umbrella in your possession without knowing it? If you happen to find it under a pile of coats or something, does it mean you were gay all along or does finding it just suddenly make you gay all in one go?
And what is gay about umbrellas anyway? Are tough men not supposed to care if they get wet? Do gay men melt in water? Or would owning an umbrella mean running the risk of lending it to a woman, thereby becoming a simp?
Can you touch an umbrella without becoming gay? What if you are a salesperson and need to stock umbrellas on the shelves? What kind of packaging would constitute adequate protection?
I’m not asking for a friend, since I own two umbrellas but rarely use them, since any sort of wind makes that seem like a chore.
Quit that job. You need the kind of job where you never come into contact with umbrellas in any way. Otherwise? You’re gay.
Is it gay to not asking yourself every minute every second if any of your action is gay or not ?
At the same time, there are men who will swear up and down that it’s not gay to have sex with another man, as long as you’re the pitcher.
I think it has something to do with thinking that being penetrated is the women’s role. It’s the same mindset that says being pegged is gay.
@Giraffe-
I’m a big fan of Jenna Marbles, and she and her boyfriend Julien have two Italian Greyhounds (pint sized, shaped like a lowercase n) and one regular Greyhound. What, in your opinion, does that say about their gender identity?
The only non-gay umbrella is one with either a concealed flask, or concealed sword. Though, in the former case, you’d better use the flask for a non-gay drink such as whisky. God forbid that you fill it with a drink which might otherwise be drunk from a glass with a miniature umbrella in it: that would be double gay.
I just googled for “umbrella concealed weapon”, and found an article earnestly discussing “tactical umbrellas”. “Tactical” is a really useful word for ungayifying pretty much anything.
@An Autistic Giraffe:
Counter-example: K’eyush the stunt dog:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgtFg1SYgA8
I’m not a dog person, but huskies and malamutes are really entertaining.
Huskies and malamutes are clowns. They probably can beat golden retriever in goofiness and light-hearted shenanigans. That being said, I am not sure there is any dog who isn’t a goof at heart
I mean, the non-aggressive, correctly trained one. I have seen one abused husky, and he was pretty terrifying and frightened me, before being put down for having bitten a children.
So I guess the conclusion is that correctly manly dogs are abused dogs.
Is it lesbian to roll your eyes at gender stereotypes? Or does not caring either way make me an attack helicopter? Because I don’t think helicopters drink anything with little umbrellas and they definitely go out in the rain without an umbrella.
/s
@An Autistic Giraffe
I have a Husky. As much as I love her, I can’t say she’s world’s biggest or toughest dog, seeing as she’s full grown and about 21kg, and refuses to be outside when it rains (maybe that makes her gay?).
In my experience, huskies are generally very high energy but most are not aggressive unless abused.
@Sheila Crosby
It’s hard to hold an umbrella upright while flying. And it would create a lot of drag.
Can we somehow convince them that not drinking lots of bleach everyday is gay?
@Naglfar:
@Moggie
Being Mary Poppins probably takes skill.
Mary Poppins is gay. Real men don’t feed the birds or dump sugar on anything.
So, what I’m getting from this post:
1) Anything fun is “feminine”/“gay”.
2) Real men are joyless, dirty, puritanical, and scared. Always scared.
3) The big bad world is a nonstop assault on masculinity.
4) The only acceptable forms of self expression are rage and hypervigilance.
5) Masculinity is more important than happiness, self-love, and Planet Earth.
No wonder they kvetch all the time about women having it easy. Women get umbrellas and whipped cream and compliments, while men have to sit around in dirty skivvies, monitoring the crab bucket.
They’re the ones who divide the world up and rigidly enforce the boundaries, so it’s disingenuous to then complain about getting the short end of the stick.
@Buttercup
What dish exactly does that make? And which side of the umbrella do I put the cream on?
Indeed, if MRAs actually cared about the wellbeing of men, they would work to break down a lot of these stereotypes and social restrictions on behavior. You know, like feminists have been doing for years.