azurelunatic | From work...

Awake and at ‘em! I have a big old mug ~~singing my favorite song~~ of my favorite vehicle of caffeine delivery, on ice. My hair is half-up in my silly blue-fake-hair ponytail holder. I have a plastic container of cherries. (Yay cherries.) I have on lipstick and eyeshadow. It seems that when I have on lipstick and eyeshadow, the rest of my face looks like it’s made up, whether it is or not.

In the girly-vain side of things, I am pleased to note that my eyebrows are nearly perfect and do not require much touching up in order to achieve some form of stylistic ideal.

I’ve been singing “Lie Still, Little Bottle” out loud to myself, because it’s a slow enough morning in some respects that I need the extra stimulation of this kind.

I am monitoring today. After we are through with our people, we will be validating.

I am wondering if this split/skill has not gone bad or gotten corrupted, because DAMN. Eight minutes between calls? Bad.

Cherries good.

One of my darling co-workers has a habit of pulling up the wrong name for the wrong person. She was searching for my name for about a minute this morning. She called me Jane. And that is pretty close. *waves at

raranax’s mom*

Is too hot here. Really.

Valllllliiiiidaaaaaating. Not the most interesting work in the world. Hard to count rings and type at the same time, because I am not used to doing that.

Whee validation. I should really get some actual paper for doing things on.

The stockings that rivet up the back have not created the expected and desired sensation at work. For one thing, I am sitting in the monitor room. For another, the skirt is too long to show the calves where the rivets are, and they just look like fishnets. It’s a very modest skirt, as it goes down almost to the ankles.

To write up: the differences between heterosexuality and politely declining a pass, heterosexuality showing a hidden homophobia when declining a pass, and outright homophobia.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

On the write up:
I'd argue that there is a fourth: considering oneself heterosexual and having unexpected reactions to the pass and panicking(not necessarily homophobia - having one's world shaken up can illicit violent responses one might regret later). I can see where this situation could be mistaken for the second or even the third(in extreme reactions). Of course, maybe I should just wait for the write up before throwing out my two cents.

I'm curious, though, if this write up is in anyway being brought on by a somewhat recent fiction post over on K5 that touches on the same topic?

Actually, inspired by an ex-roommate and a dumbass I work with. My ex-roommate thought that she was perfectly accepting and not homophobic, but declared that if a woman started hitting on her, she'd start swinging. If a guy started hitting on her, she'd declare she was taken first, then start swinging if he persisted. I pointed out the disparity and she got really quiet.

*boogles*

One more reason to not raise kids in a trailer park in Mesa.

Does/did $ex_roommate consider herself avowedly or visibly heterosexual? If she does, then she might perceive a woman making a pass at her as deliberately choosing an inappropriate target, which might explain the different reaction.

(Granted, that assumes "avowed/visible heterosexuality" is indeed visible to others, which may not always be true. Hmm.)

Avowedly heterosexual and avowedly Taken, at the time of the conversation. If it had been an initial punch-reaction for a guy hitting on her, I would not have been at all surprised or alarmed, but when she said that she'd give a guy the benefit of the doubt enough to tell him she was taken and therefore not available and wait and see if he persisted before swinging, but not give a woman the "hey, I'm heterosexual", I pointed out the inconsistency. There's a lot of subtle and often overlooked heterosexism that rises from the assumption that everyone is by default heterosexual and if they're not, they'll be clearly labeled.

I make my "this reaction is different" mark not from a reasonably hot and eligible-looking member of the opposite sex doing the hitting on (because that could be construed to be a flattery no matter how taken you are) but a skagling (term from one of my writer-ladies' sf book) of the opposite sex, someone who socially should not even be making passes in your general direction. Think the class female misfit who knows her place in the high school pecking order actually making a pass at the #1 jock. If the reaction to an opposite-sex skagling and a same-sex person making the pass is the same, I could see how that could happen.

If, however, it's a different reaction -- if an opposite-sex skagling of approximately the same physical intimidation level (because there is an appreciable difference between a pass from someone who is muscular enough to pose a threat if they don't take no for an answer and a pass from someone who you could overpower if they got pushy) would get a brush-off and a same-sex pass would get a beating -- there's a problem. (If an opposite-sex skagling would get a beating too, that's an entirely different kind of problem.)

Disclaimer: I didn't witness the scene, and I don't know the people involved, so I'm speaking about the narrative you provided, as a pattern of behavior between hypothetical or generic people.

You seem to be saying that $ex_roommate is treating any woman making a pass at her as a skagling. (or should that be "skagling"? I couldn't figure out whether it's a noun or a gerund.) That sounds consistent with her statement, but I don't follow you when you say (or imply) that her actions stem from "the assumption that everyone is by default heterosexual and if they're not, they'll be clearly labeled."

I'm not denying that this assumption exists (I've made it myself more often than I care to remember), but I'm not as sure as you seem to be that it's always responsible for the behavior pattern you describe. It could be that her assumption is "I'm fully aware that I'm heterosexual, so everyone looking at me should know that I am." (the "everyone can/should be able to read my mind" assumption.) Or it could be completely unrelated to any such assumptions she may have, and she may be wanting to let the guy down gently because of the numerous blunt rejections he (presumably) endured before.

I guess the unspoken assumption here was part of another discussion I had with Az-the-Elder. There was a communication gap in the Bujold mailing list about

tygerr's perception that every hit on him was pure flattery, and

ataniell93's perception that not every hit on her could be interpreted as flattery.

In the average female mind (making a blanket assumption while pointing out that there are exceptions) (and possibly not the average male mind) there is a subroutine measuring the eligibility of any suitors. In the female mind, if a person making a pass is below a certain standard of physical and social suitability, the pass is interpreted as an insult. An extreme example might be "I am a supermodel and you are that grungy, vomit-smelling boozed-up street bum. How dare you think that I am even in a league you could eventually hope to attain even after you clean up a bit?"

The usual is a bit closer in social standing, but it's a very real mental phenomenon in at least some women.

The part that was blazingly heterosexist was where in the explanation of why she'd treat any woman hitting on her as doing so in violation of the "I am socially not in the class of women you should be hitting on" clause, she said something along the lines of "Since they're ignoring the fact that I'm obviously straight, they obviously won't listen to it when I tell them no."

I put the brakes on her assumptions and backed the hell up. "What do you mean, the fact that you're obviously straight?"

"Because I'm dating a guy."

"And if a guy who didn't know you were to walk up to you and ask you on a date, you would...?"

"Tell him I was taken and dating $DUDE."

"...and if a woman who didn't know you asked you out, how exactly was she supposed to know that you were dating $DUDE?"

"...Um."

At some short length she was clued in to the fact that lesbians do not have the power "read mind" any more than straight guys do.

Hmm, yes. Seems like a mix or a compound of both assumptions, in that case. Or, now that I think of it, there may be yet another assumption at work: namely that the woman hitting on her guessed her orientation wrong (instead of not guessing at all). (Assuming she makes assumption for men as well, a guy hitting on her would have guessed right, which might explain the difference in treatment.)

Certainly a bit of the ol' "How dare you think me a dyke?" in there. There's a parallel outraged male response that probably drives a rather lot of male/male gaybeating violence.

"Let the guy down gently" does not appear anywhere in her lexicon of dating terminology.

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