Men display more homophobic attitudes when feeling insecure about their masculinity: Part 2...
I was sitting there quietly, after getting some (mostly non-essential :P) supplies at a Chinese grocery @ Brisbane's Chinatown, waiting for the train to arrive. The last two days have been pretty cold, even during mid-day in supposedly sunny Brisbane; "like a typical English day" according to one of my friends. Anyway, currently I am not badly affected by the change in temperature as I was in my first few months here. Which should be a good sign, since I've been constantly ill on and off for God knows how long. Other then meeting a horribly narcisstic person @ Perth, Australia...I also caught a really nasty flu. I wonder if it's some sort of new 'viral superstrain'; it refused to go away after the first antibiotics course (and it Augmentin damnit), and I've just finished the second. Other then the odd near-asthma attacks once in a while, I'm feeling great. Also, I'm having a semester break this coming week. After this frantic week of rushing assignments and little sleep, I need it. :)
Okay, back to the subject at hand. The scenario is pretty brief, really: I was startled by a tough-looking black man (since its Australia, I assume he's of aboriginal descent, or he could even be an American expatriate), who was sitting with his girlfriend on a bench just a garbage can apart from mine, barking "Hey! You're gay!" at a flamboyantly dressed passerby who looked like he could grace the walkways of Paris and Milan as one of those A-list fashion designers' models, most of these people whose creations are hardly characteristic attire of society's conventional masculine model.
That's it. Oh, and the man stared for a long time at the passerby's direction, even after he was out of sight. I think a minute has passed before he even turned away. Not sure what his girlfriend said to him, or thought about his outburst. Hmm...curious.
I can draw several conclusions from this observation...but what intrigued me the most was that, today in predominantly white (and some Asian) Brisbane at least, I have yet to see anyone take issue with a male stranger's not-so-conventional fashion sense - even though the lot of the gay community here hasn't improved much, and discounting its capital Brisbane, the state of Queensland as a whole is very (white) redneck in mentality. That guy looked just like the 'tough hip-hop-loving bling-bling-wearing black gangsta wannabe image' the American media is selling today - a bit out of place in Australia, but I do spot once in a while, a few aboriginal youngsters who dig the whole hip-hop black American culture thing. But I guess its irrelevant to the issue discussed.
I can forget about doing a Psychology degree anytime in the near future(am going to do Law after the pre-uni program), since my father was pissed when I told him I want to pursue the field of Psychology as my future vocation. But I've taken an Applied Psychology subject for the pre-uni course, which is currently eating up a lot of my time, and I've developed the trait of being fascinated by how and why people would react this way to a particular person or situation. And for that guy to react that way to a complete stranger, AND staring long at that 'gay' man who conveniently ignored his insensitive growl, like how a woman savour what could be the last few moments she could see her consripted husband alive during wartime....seems all too familiar to me.
Here's a link to an earlier entry of mine. And I think I'm now more convinced then ever by what was suggested in that news article. The link is on this entry.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/klias/8400.html
If you're disgusted and repulsed by something you perceive as offensive, theoretically you probably won't draw a second look at the subject/object concerned as it should be repulsive. But if you've expressed your disgust openly, AND you gaze long and hard at the aforementioned subject/object as if you're fascinated by it...just it makes so much more intriguing, doesn't it?
Bah, and while all these thoughts were swimming in my head as I boarded the train, I left my half-drunk bottle of refreshing ginseng and honey flavoured green tea (it was divine!) on the bench. >:( I think my English tutor who taught me when I was 8 years old made a fair assessment about me: I'm an absent-minded 'professor'. *shrugs*
Okay, back to the subject at hand. The scenario is pretty brief, really: I was startled by a tough-looking black man (since its Australia, I assume he's of aboriginal descent, or he could even be an American expatriate), who was sitting with his girlfriend on a bench just a garbage can apart from mine, barking "Hey! You're gay!" at a flamboyantly dressed passerby who looked like he could grace the walkways of Paris and Milan as one of those A-list fashion designers' models, most of these people whose creations are hardly characteristic attire of society's conventional masculine model.
That's it. Oh, and the man stared for a long time at the passerby's direction, even after he was out of sight. I think a minute has passed before he even turned away. Not sure what his girlfriend said to him, or thought about his outburst. Hmm...curious.
I can draw several conclusions from this observation...but what intrigued me the most was that, today in predominantly white (and some Asian) Brisbane at least, I have yet to see anyone take issue with a male stranger's not-so-conventional fashion sense - even though the lot of the gay community here hasn't improved much, and discounting its capital Brisbane, the state of Queensland as a whole is very (white) redneck in mentality. That guy looked just like the 'tough hip-hop-loving bling-bling-wearing black gangsta wannabe image' the American media is selling today - a bit out of place in Australia, but I do spot once in a while, a few aboriginal youngsters who dig the whole hip-hop black American culture thing. But I guess its irrelevant to the issue discussed.
I can forget about doing a Psychology degree anytime in the near future(am going to do Law after the pre-uni program), since my father was pissed when I told him I want to pursue the field of Psychology as my future vocation. But I've taken an Applied Psychology subject for the pre-uni course, which is currently eating up a lot of my time, and I've developed the trait of being fascinated by how and why people would react this way to a particular person or situation. And for that guy to react that way to a complete stranger, AND staring long at that 'gay' man who conveniently ignored his insensitive growl, like how a woman savour what could be the last few moments she could see her consripted husband alive during wartime....seems all too familiar to me.
Here's a link to an earlier entry of mine. And I think I'm now more convinced then ever by what was suggested in that news article. The link is on this entry.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/klias/8400.html
If you're disgusted and repulsed by something you perceive as offensive, theoretically you probably won't draw a second look at the subject/object concerned as it should be repulsive. But if you've expressed your disgust openly, AND you gaze long and hard at the aforementioned subject/object as if you're fascinated by it...just it makes so much more intriguing, doesn't it?
Bah, and while all these thoughts were swimming in my head as I boarded the train, I left my half-drunk bottle of refreshing ginseng and honey flavoured green tea (it was divine!) on the bench. >:( I think my English tutor who taught me when I was 8 years old made a fair assessment about me: I'm an absent-minded 'professor'. *shrugs*