Reply
Sun 17 Aug, 2003 09:13 am
Had a weird thing happen to me on the beach yesterday. Something unexpected.
Nancy and I, as we usually do, got to the beach early -- about 8:00 in the morning. Not a lot of people around yet -- and we enjoyed an long early walk picking up sea glass and interesting shells
I found a red hair thingy -- one of those elastic things women use to tie their hair back in a ponytail. And as I have done at the beach for a long time when I find one of them -- I put it on my right wrist.
I already had some adornment on the wrist -- two elastic band kinds of things. One was a beaded wristband that Nancy had bought me on the boardwalk earlier in the year -- and the other was a gold hair thingy that I had found a few trips back -- and decided to keep because it complimented the band Nancy had given me.
The red thingy was an especially brilliant red color -- and it has some substance to it -- a "nap" about the diameter of a telephone cord.
At some point, I started to feel uncomfortable about the red thingy. In fact, as I remember it, I asked Nancy if it looked "fruity."
"Nah...not tooo fruity," was her reply.
I left the thingy on -- but it definitely was on my mind that "real men" don't often wear bright red wristbands. In fact, the thought that started to creep into my mind was to question if "real men" wear wristbands at all.
Why are we straight guys so often concerned about stuff like that?
The wrist stuff looked just fine -- a decorative bit of fluff that made absolutely no difference on a beach where people are walking around damn near naked. I dare say it was even attractive.
I'd like to think I am pretty open minded about what adults do with other adults -- and I have been an outspoken opponent of the kind of thinking that causes so much trouble for homosexuals. But here I was wondering if I were compromising my masculinity by wearing a bit of bright red!
Any thoughts?
Hmmm, did you like the red thing? Why worry about what others' think about it? Were you just carrying it to throw out (collecting trash off the beach)?
Naahhh, it's not about the color, it's about where you wear it.
Now, if you had put it on your ankle, that would be fruity.
I was thinking there was an ending...
i wonder if it's the dimension of the thingie that made you uncomfortable. i know that i find big hair thingies awkward on the wrist - i feel like i'm wearing a wrist corsage. nothing fruity about it, just uncomfortable. i'm also a picker-up and carrier-about person. right now i've got the thingie from someone's shoe tied to the dog-walking pouch. a fair sized blue and white flower with long white leather strings. definitely too big for the wrist.
Don't they resent being cooped up in a pouch when they're supposed to be walking?
Frank,
I think your escapades with Pablo are making you second guess yourself. Just an opinion.
I think sunshine and other tropical influences make us more frivolous and susceptible to feelings of sensuality.
ohhhhhh Roger, you're such a silly!
Why and how did a ponytail thingy become a fruity symbol?
Acquiunk wrote:Why and how did a ponytail thingy become a fruity symbol?
I'm tellin' ya, it depends on
where you wear it.
Put it on your penis, for example...
Friedrich Nietzsche would have loved this...!
According to all those gastly Arthurian romances written by Tennyson et al, the Knights of the Round Table always went off to battle with their beloved's vail or some other article hanging from their helmet, and no one thought they were fruit's, just over armored thugs. For all anyone else know Frank could have been wearing his beloved's hair thingy. Why might they think instead he was a fruit?
The hair tie suddenly became a symbol and we have one reason location, any other?
.
I think it's time to get the man himself in here. If he's not too shaken by his epic adventure
'Tain't the red thingy, is it Frank, 'tis the WORRY you are talking about? I think.
I cannot answer your question - not being male and all - but I do think this concern about sexuality is writ deep into, at least, the western male psyche, (classical Greece and its male/male tradition notwithstanding - I understand that, as an IDEAL, that love was not supposed to be consummated, anyway).
I really cannot understand it rationally at all - nor does it make sense to me in terms of frameworks like evolutionary psychology, (cos homosexuality is found throughout the animal world - and plants too, for all I know!), or any other psychology. Well, once you HAVE homophobia, I understand why it becomes a psychological imperative not to appear to be something that is the target for such opprobrium - (and, given that I think we are, in our natural state, pretty much polymorphously perverse, that is, that homosexual feelings, to some extent or another, are pretty universal, at least at some point, this is likely to need a lot of policing - as you can see from the ways in which men police THEMSELVES over it) - but how it came to BE is a mystery to me.
I do sometimes wonder, given the subordinate position of women through much of history, if some of it might not be a fear of seeming feminine? But, regarding this, that may be way out of (in?) left field.
Speaking of women - I don't THINK the fear of being/seeming lesbian is as great - but I do not know what other women might think re this?
I think it is certainly a concern that pops up when other sexual issues do, around puberty/adolescence - but I do not think it has the same impact and external/internal policing that male homosexuality has.
This has been reflected in the laws around the matter, generally, I believe.
Certainly, lesbians will say that they experience vilification and discrimination though.
I was quite upset once listening to a conversation between two people I knew to be (to consider themselves) fine upstanding liberals, tolerant in nature, sophisticated. They were half-whispering about another friend whom I didn't know, gossiping about whether he was, or wasn't... You know... Uh... Gay... etc. etc...
I figure when people have to whisper and wonder in this manner, they are still a little short on tolerance, understanding. If we keep saying, I'm really tolerant and it doesn't matter to me, then why do we keep classifying people? Which we do. Which you know, Frank. Which is why, of course, you were worried.
Which, of course, marks you indelibly as heterosexual... the wrist thingy accompanied by a worried frown -- that says it all!!
dlowan got the meat of the problem.
It was a moment of....oh how I hate this word...insecurity.
Now don't get me wrong -- I didn't wring my hands over this thing -- and in fact, the surprise reaction lasted probably 60 seconds or so. Then I went on with my business with the fru;ity red thingy on my wrist.
But the moment it happened -- I decided it would be a good topic for a thread here -- and here it is.
I'm enjoying the responses -- and we'll see where it leads. I still have the red thingy -- and who knows, perhaps I'll add it to the few wrist things I wear regularly on the beach.
We'll see.
However free we think we are, it seems there are always some limits lurking in our unconcious. All of those limits seem to both push and pull us. Some of those limits come from our upbringing. Some come from society. Part of us fights those limits, part of welcomes having them near.
It is about both fitting into your social group and being yourself.
If you had walked onto that beach and you were the only man not wearing a red schrunchie you might felt the same momentary discomforture, the same "whoops, have I crossed some line?" feeling. The fun part is when a person can say "screw that conventional, everybody wears a red thingie, thing, I doing what feels good for me" AND
(here's the hard part.) still manages to be a part of the larger society, able to love and be loved, to have true friends and be at peace with himself. Those people are usually called leaders.
I'd wager that if some hetero guys saw you wearing the schrunchie they would suddenly feel more at ease if they decided to wear one. (That how fashion changes, alpha males lead the way out of convention.)
joe
Good comments, Joe.
Now you made me even more happy that I decided to just wear the thing -- and not give it any more thought.
BTW -- off topic, but, I have finally managed the technique of simply letting a thing go and not giving it any more thought.
That has nothing to do with the red thingy, except that I did just put it out of my mind and not dwelling on it.
Earlier in my life, that would have been almost an impossibility. I would dwell and dwell on things -- never letting go.
Somehow, I've grown up.
Whew -- just in time. At 67 you'd better have accomplished that -- or time might suddenly run out.
Good for you, Frank. Best of luck.
Stumble It!
Tweet This
Bookmark on Delicious
Share on Facebook
Share on MySpace