Reply #13: The ferocity of it may be something somewhat new

[DarkTirade]

but this attitude isn't. It's born of ignorance, plain and simple. There are people who don't realize that sexuality and doing stereotypical 'guy' things have absolutely NOTHING to do with each other.

I knew one guy in high school who, for several months, REFUSED to believe that I liked girls. He wasn't trying to be insulting about it like these jackasses in the article, he just couldn't believe it. I didn't care about sports. I didn't care about projecting some masculine image. I was okay with the fact that I was more 'pretty' than 'handsome'. I was a musician. Therefore I MUST be gay. That was his logic. Whether or not I liked girls or guys had absolutely no effect on this train of thought. The only way he finally shut up about it was when I started dating... wait for it... a girl. One who up until she met me hadn't been all that interested in guys too. So not only did I prove that I was into girls, but that I was 'manly' enough to turn the head of an attractive girl who up until then hadn't shown much interest in guys as a whole. :)

In my case that stereotype is rather ironic though, considering that the only 'sports'-like thing I've ever been interested in is martial arts... so anyone who might go so far as to start a physical confrontation would have more than likely gotten his ass kicked. I may be a nonviolent person, but when it comes to self-defense or defense of others I won't hesitate any longer than I would need to figure out how to take them down with a minimum amount of damage. Thankfully I seem to have developed a fairly innate bully-b-gone attitude somewhere in my school years so it never came to that. (And I wish I could describe it to anyone here who might need that attitude, but like I said, it was fairly innate. I'm not sure exactly how I did it. Probably just by not showing fear and looking them in the eyes. That always seems to work with wild animals... :) )