IS this guy a fucking idiot? Yeah, he is. But here's something to consider: knowing how creepy and stupid this fucker is, why would anyone come to him for advice? It's almost like a feminist writing MAXIM or FHM magazine or Penthouse for advice ...it just doesn't work.

I can't help but feel as though there are better sources/columnists to whom this woman could have written.

That said, he's a total asshole.

wow, i guess this guy would consider me a "trickster" as well, what with my very short hair and all those comfortable shoes I wear.

A few years ago I got my passport photo done and had short hair then as well. I was told that my photograph "made me look like a lesbian", Whatever that is suppose to mean.

Hey ambiguous sexuality is cool!

A few years ago I was living in Tokyo and at the time had short hair and ran a women's football team, and everyone in the office thought I was a lesbian. I used to joke about it with a guy-friend who was very camp acting and was often mistaken for gay. When the Iraq war started we went on the protest march under a banner that read "Persons of ambiguous sexuality against the war". And loads of people came and joined us saying "hey, i get that, people always think i'm gay/straight".

Why does that response sound so familiar...?

"Wow, your boss is a real jerk. But you know, you asked for it by dressing like that. It's obvious you dress that way because you really like the attention."

Oh, right. That's why.

Good point, Vervain. Another example of how women's clothing/hair/makeup/etc is interpreted as an indicator of who they are, what they want, and how others are supposed to treat them.

Yay for "But I'm A Cheerleader"!

This is interesting, even though the columnist is an obvious jerk, because as a queer woman I feel like even the lesbians judge one another. It's not just the straight folks, but rather we all judge one another, all the time. To say that we don't care, or try to represent ourselves through clothing, hairstyles, etc would be wrong. I am currently going through a very frustrating point in my life because I am tall, thin, have long hair, yet I dress androgynously. I am attracted to "masculine-looking" women, but my "look" attracts otherwise. Or, I attact no one because my "look" is either here nor there. My friend told me to simply don a shirt that says, "I'm a dyke," just in case people can't tell.

Is it as easy as that? What about lesbians who have their choices of partner limited by the heterosexual "norm" in society? It's hard enough coming out, and then to find someone else who has done the same--especially in smaller towns? Having to look harder for clues, and knowing that a counter-culture of lesbian style exists for this purpose, may lead some to be frustrated with those who are not seeking inclusion. I know that the labels placed on feminism during the backlash--ugly, man-hating, bra-burning lesbians raise our ire, get our backs up, but is it only because we don't like being sterotyped, or is it because we are actually afraid of that last label--or at least being perceived of being handed that label? Do we defend our heterosexuality so closely because we are afraid of losing such a privileged status? I know I'm afraid of hate crimes. But I'm more personally conflicted because I was molested at a young age by an older girl.

This may not be the point of the article, but I wanted to discuss it with you here.

I agree Manifestdestiny that the heteronormativity pisses me off in that we still have this dichotomous look that people try to fit in. I hate it, which is why I just sit back and wait. If someone is interested in me - and not simply because I am dressed to fit in to my assigned labeled box - then that is satisfying because I would rather be with someone who cares about me, and not an obvious "look."

Another example of how women's clothing/hair/makeup/etc is interpreted as an indicator of who they are, what they want, and how others are supposed to treat them.

Can a man call "sexism" on a woman? We frown on that because women are not the sex in power. Same way we frown on white men calling "racism" on black men. Leaving out the man's advice in the article (which I think we can agree shouldn't even have been requested), we are left with the woman's boss. Was the boss a lesbian? And if the boss was a lesbian (or a closeted lesbian), how would her opinion change this discussion? Would the above quote be pointing fingers at the words of a person whose status as a lesbian has less power in society than a heterosexual person? Could we call her out without frowning at ourselves? : )

HAHAHAHAHA. I know hundreds of women who don't shave their legs or wear makeup. They're called engineers, and we date plenty -- both women and men. I wonder if he would refer to the entire scientific community as "tricksters"? Get out into the world a little, dude.

This reminds me of when I was in high school, my marching band director told all the other kids in the band that I was gay. I am not. I thought it was kind of amusing, at age 15, to have an adult out me. I didn't mind too much, because at the time and to this day, I don't think there is anything wrong with being gay. However, after sometime it did begin to bother me that I had been misrepresented in this way. As I matured, I became even more disturbed by the fact that this was done by an adult and a teacher. Imagine how devastating it could have been if I had really been in the closet.

Cary Tenis is the WORST advice columnist ever. I like reading his rambling, free-form, self-obsessed advice more than anything.

This one though, wow, it's beyond the pale. Beyond the simply bizarre phrase trickster energy, there's the hint of Oh, and maybe it would be OK if you looked like a big old LES-BE-AN if you actually had a date once in a while, baby! Vervain made an excellent point.

Oh, and by the way, the next time society as a whole decides to have a meeting about what we "agree to call a lesbian
" can someone PLEASE send me a reminder? I keep missing these "society agrees" meetings on the gay, liberal, and feminist agendas and its taking a toll!

THIS is why the trans inclusive verbiage is important for ENDA.

THIS is why it is important for ALL WOMEN, not just bi, lesbian or trans.

"Would Tennis say the same of a femme lesbian--that she is trying to trick people into thinking she's straight?"

Um, yeah, yeah he would (obviously). Jerk.

DivaJean, excellent point.

I swear it's "Blame the Victim" week at Since you asked. Earlier this week he told a man who was subject to his wife's violent, jealous rages that he needed to stop provoking her. Special.

I do think there was something interesting in Cary's bizarre mini-essay-- that when people dress a certain way, certain assumptions are made about them. And we, or I at least as a feminist, don't like many of those assumptions-- that a girl with short hair = lesbian, for example. But on the other hand, I do like some of those expectations and assumptions-- if I'm interviewing someone for a job, for example, I want them wearing clean, professional clothes. But I don't want them to have to wear pantyhose! I think one of the things we have to do culturally is figure out what expectations are reasonable, and even good for our society, and what's just poisonous, like the 'don't dress like a lesbian' meme.

manifestadestiny, the advisee states several times that her boss is a lesbian. It's actually part of her problem - she doesn't feel that she should have to get in a long discussion with her boss over her personal affairs, but she doesn't know how to simply ask her to knock it off without seeming like a homophobe - or, at least she's worried that's how she'll be perceived, and it seems to be partly rooted in the fact that her boss is gay. I do like your points though, because it often seems that only certain people have the right to comment on perceived wrongdoings, based on their respective positions in life, and I don't know if where a person is coming from is necessarily an indicator of their ability to make good judgments.

People at school simultaneously thought I was a slut and a lesbian... It was all very confusing for me... especially the fact that they thought those were insults.

I know that the labels placed on feminism during the backlash--ugly, man-hating, bra-burning lesbians raise our ire, get our backs up, but is it only because we don't like being sterotyped, or is it because we are actually afraid of that last label--or at least being perceived of being handed that label? Do we defend our heterosexuality so closely because we are afraid of losing such a privileged status?

manifestadenstiny, you make a good point. This woman's situation is quite different than that of a femme lesbian who "passes" as a straight woman because of the potential of lost social privilege. While this woman might not lose privilege in her office (her boss is a lesbian, after all), maybe the fact that people are assuming she is a lesbian makes her worry about her privilege outside the office.
I've often thought about this when I catch myself emphasizing my heterosexuality more than normal when hanging out with my lesbian friends. I see no reason why I should be privileged for being heterosexual, and I certainly don't consciously do it, but I find myself asserting my heterosexuality all the time.

Thank you. As feminists, we want more power in this society--not less--so to give up heterosexuality would mean setting ourselves back, even though it's precisely that male-defined norm construct that we're fighting. That's one of the conflicts that I recognize.

Sorry, I didn't go to the article. What was weird was that I assumed the boss was a lesbian, re-read the above post, and found no evidence in that--perhaps I thought that the boss was projecting. That's interesting. Anyway, that's why I posed it as a "hypothetical."

I think Peggy-ness and I had the same band director. I also thought it was amusing that my short hair put my sexuality in question.

I guess I'm a total mind fuck, 'cause when I had a pixie, I shaved most everything, and now that I have longer hair, I shave pretty much nothing.

It's oppressive that society expects the LGBTQ community to be both out and closeted. On the one hand, people want homosexuals not to have pride parades or hold hands with their partners in public, and on the other hand, people want to make sure that every homosexual is out and fabulous so that they know who's gay, either to stay away from them or to know that the homsexuals aren't secretly attracted to them. It's really messed up.

Someone asked me if I was a lesbian after explaining the show Trading Spaces to him. I really don't know where that came from!

i have a weird tangential question to ask spawned by this post: as a straight woman, i have pretty good "gaydar." there, i said it. for whatever reason, i have a good track record for picking up on these things.

i don't go around assuming that every man who is into musical theater and takes pride in his personal appearance is gay, nor do i assume that every woman with short hair and no makeup who drives a pickup truck and dresses androgynously is a lesbian. generally i make extrapolate only on people that i've actually had a conversation with and somehow read some kind of subtext. however, this has me questioning to what extent i (and other people) consciously or unconsciously use such stereotyped cues to determine sexuality, especially when attempting to justify my intuition to other people ("i think bob totally is gay though." "i can't explain it, just a feeling i get. he DOES like cooking and really bad house music, though.")

what do y'all think about this?

Gaydar, for me at least, is all about knowing who makes a person act funny. I pick up on attractions, so sexual orientation comes as a consequence. Plus, closet cases are a bit twitchy, so their nervousness acts like a highlighter in their interpersonal relationships.

On to straight women mistaken for gay:
When I'm out with straight friends, and the subject of my gayness comes up around a third party, I do say "well, (friend) is straight, not that there's anything wrong with that." I realize my friends can easily be mistaken for gay, and that mistake can have consequences for them in terms of awkward relationships with friends and missed opportunities with men who misunderstood.

manifestadestiny, the boss actually is a lesbian.

Sorry, I didn't go to the article. What was weird was that I assumed the boss was a lesbian, re-read the above post, and found no evidence in that--perhaps I thought that the boss was projecting. That's interesting. Anyway, that's why I posed it as a "hypothetical."

Yes, I responded to this. It wasn't mentioned in the story here at the site.

I got this all the time in high school and somewhat in college and a little bit into my professional career.

I am what you would call a "masculine" woman, I don't like makeup and I don't really like feminine clothing and usually you'll find me decked out in geek ware (sci-fi t-shirts, etc.) and all through my life I've had people accuse me of being gay, including a sister who not so kindly called me a dyke at Christmas (we have not been on good speaking terms since).

I know how hard it is to have to walk that line between being comfortable in your own skin and wanting to be attractive and not miscontrued. It's really hard for me to talk to or attract straight men and I go long periods of time without dating, causing a lot of my current co-workers to question my sexuality, without even asking me about it before hand and it will randomly come up in conversation as "Oh, I thought you were gay," and I have to tell them that I'm straight, which they find odd.

I'd say the only advice I have to the writer is that she's got to live her own life, as scary as that can be when you don't fit the "norm". If she tries to conform she'll only make herself miserable and might end up looking foolish.

I know how hard it is to have to walk that line between being comfortable in your own skin and wanting to be attractive and not misconstrued.

I totally just had this conversation with my little sister (in college) last week, who tried to convince me that the reason I don't get dates is that I've never shaved my legs. Her argument was that 90% of guys I'm going to be interested in will think I'm unclean and a lesbian just 'cause I have hairy legs. I was so incredulous when she first brought it up I couldn't stop laughing. But she was serious!

What amazed me was my sister's belief, culturally, that this one personal appearance thing could communicate so much. There are lots of ways that I'm comfortable with more classically "feminine" styles (skirts, long hair) at the same time that I eschew others (makeup irritates my skin) . . . yet she was reducing it to this one thing that is, apparently, shouting out to the world erroneous messages about my sexuality and self-care.

By the end of the conversation I was getting really stubborn. If this one thing matters so much, it actually makes me less inclined to give in. Even if I'm miscommunicating to some extent. I think being comfortable in your own skin, and communicating THAT, is one of the most important ways to "perform" your identity. If people make mistakes, how hard is it to gently correct them?

I've been mistaken for a lesbian multiple times. Not because I "dress like one" but because my best friend actually is a lesbian, and is very open about it. A lot of people assume that I must be her girlfriend.

I'm a lesbian! And I look fabulous every day :)

That was completely unrelevant to anything, but I've just started coming out and I figure I may as well say it anonymously to the internet.

Er, irrelevant. I can't write today.

I think being comfortable in your own skin, and communicating THAT, is one of the most important ways to "perform" your identity.

I know, plus otherwise you're going to end up with people who aren't compatible with you if you just go around stifling yourself and trying to please everybody. I guess I'm pretty lucky in that my leg hair is really thin and almost invisible -- now that I've stopped shaving a lot of people asked me why I ever did to begin with -- but guys I go out with always notice at some point. It's their reaction to that that gives me a good idea of whether we're compatible or not. I mean, why would I WANT to go out with somebody who obviously has issues with the human body, who's honestly convinced themselves that women don't grow body hair? All I can think of when guys get squicked out about women having body hair is that they're closet pedophiles, and I also think it's an underlying pedophilic streak in our society that dictates that women MUST shave if they want to be attractive.

I saw this last night on salon.com, and I was soooo pissed. I'm so glad you blogged this, Jessica!

I mean, why would I WANT to go out with somebody who obviously has issues with the human body, who's honestly convinced themselves that women don't grow body hair?

That was pretty much my argument to my sister, but she wasn't buying. I love her to death, but sometimes I'm amazed that we grew up in the same family! (Anecdotal "proof" that nurture isn't all there is to it :D).

It's crazy to me that I have to explain/defend NOT altering my body, rather than the other way around.

I'm a lesbian and I often get mistaken for straight. Even by gay people. I even shaved my head a couple months ago (not to look like a lesbian, but for a play) and people still assume I fancy the lads. It gives me a bit of a complex sometimes because I hardly meet lesbians and when I do I try to make a point of my lesbianism so they'll know and that's usually just...awkward.

I'd like to pose a question: where do you think lesbians fall today in the feminist movement? Feminists seem to bristle at the "hairy lesbian" stereotype, but what about those of us who are hairy lesbians? Manifestadestiny, you started an interesting discussion about feminists giving up heterosexual privilege. But we haven't taken into account how many feminists have already "given up" het privilege by being born gay, or technically, by coming out. Is there a heteronormative hierarchy within the current wave of feminism?

Is there a heteronormative hierarchy within the current wave of feminism?

From my experience, it depends on where you are geographically and who you're with. To the extent that there's heteronormative privilege in the mainstream culture, I'm sure all of us women-born-women hetero feminists have to struggle to be aware of and reject where possible our privilege.

On the other hand, as an undergrad, I spent a lot of time with lesbian feminists from both my own generation and the several generations previous, and sometimes it felt like I was the odd one out :). Most of them went out of there way to make me feel like I could be a straight feminist, but there were also a few who were very suspicious of men, of women who were connected to men, and of bisexual women and trans people as feminists. So I think it's a complex picture.

I personally feel like it's values and actions that make a person feminist--not gender or sex identity or sexual orientation.

And as a feminist, I feel like the more people who call me a "hairy lesbian," the less likely I am to shave my legs because I don't want to buy their argument that that's a negative portrayal! Kind of like the more negative press Hilary Clinton gets for being a woman, the more tempted I am to vote for her :).

I think that it's virtually impossible to truly live in a world where we aren't judged to some degree by our appearance. Maybe if visual media were to totally disappear we could do that, but otherwise, we all carry some sort of 'judgment' concerning how people dress, how they act, how they wear their hair and speak. A few of my former coworkers have told me and others that they thought I was a 'carpet muncher' because I never discussed my personal life and maybe because I wear my hair back a lot. At first I became really upset about this, but then had to stop myself and ask if it was really anyone's business to begin with. The resounding answer was hell to the no.

I'm a young straight woman but more than anything I'm a private woman. And there are too many nosy-assed people in the world. This young girl needs to politely tell her boss that her intimate life is something that doesn't involve anyone at the office. Or, if that doesn't work, shock her ass by telling her that she actually prefers animals. And then question whether or not this information has anything at all to do with the job at hand.
My motto in life to the masses - "Mind your business bitch!."

Yes, I'm a female and I said bitch. I've embraced it and use it frequently. Carry on!

Well, if it is proven that people are born gay, then those feminists who are in any gradation (which includes me) uptight about making that distinction between themselves and lesbians won't have to worry--they'll just get a test to find out. I don't know. If not, we can just go on with the "I'm totally not homophobic--some of my best friends are lesbian," or "now, she is a lesbian, and I have absolutely no problem with this." Maybe the fear is that the box will restrict other choices? Maybe men will smell "teh gay" and not give our het versions a chance to express themselves. I don't know what the majority of the feminist movement consists of. Probably open-minded people who just want to understand their sisters and make things easier for them. There's a lot to struggle with in the process, like built-in hang-ups and negative personal experiences, but that's every relationship.

WTF is the boss doing going into her personal life whatsoever? If her attire violates a neutral company policy, that's one thing. But her boss has no business going there about who she dates. It sounds like hostile work environment almost per se for sexual harassment and may also violate local laws against sexual orientation discrimination if those laws also cover "perceived or actual" sexual orientation. Full stop.

cola! i thought i was the only girl who in highschool was able to simultaneously be known as a big ol lesbian AND the town slut. wheee, it feels good to not be alone anymore.

i guess it could have been cos i was out as being bi (i prefer the term pansexual tho, now that its in my vocabulary, it makes far more sense)which i guess meant i was a walking talking girls gone wild video, kissing girls and whipping my boobies out.

and advice column dude is a douchebag. im pretty freaking butch and hairy and my boyfriend adores me more than he ever would some cookie cutter mindless barbie clone. but im pretty lucky on the boyfriend front, as he dislikes pretty much all sterotypical dumb boy interests and activities save for punk rock and skateboarding which we both enjoy. and he gets really mad when anything sexist/racist/homophobic comes on the television. squeeee, im blessed!

I am heterosexual, but I have found a lot of people who think that I am a lesbian, and most of them are gay. They say that they have this gay radar and know my own sexual orientation better than I do, and that I should admit it. WTF?

Okay, here is where I admit to being a SYA fan. I actually like Cary Tennis -- his unconventional responses and approach, his often-on-point insight, etc.

But you're right, something is seriously up with Cary lately. I really don't understand it. First he tells an atheist to go to church with his religious-fundamentalist daughter because he doesn't understand religion. Then he tells a husband whose wife has hit him and is going through his things that it's his responsibility to "build trust in the relationship." There are others I can't remember where I just thought to myself, "What the hell is Cary smoking?" Now this.

I don't think Cary used to be like this. He had some "off" responses before, but this is, like, five in the past month that I can think of, just off the top of my head. I know he advocates personal responsibility on the part of the letter writers in almost all cases -- he wants to focus on the person who wrote him the letter -- but I think he really is getting self-indulgently status quo.

If this continues, I will have to stop reading his column.

A few of my former coworkers have told me and others that they thought I was a 'carpet muncher' because I never discussed my personal life and maybe because I wear my hair back a lot.

I am heterosexual, but I have found a lot of people who think that I am a lesbian, and most of them are gay. They say that they have this gay radar and know my own sexual orientation better than I do, and that I should admit it. WTF?

I find the obsession with sexuality and lesbian=bad sooo frustrating. I've never got an opportunity to deal with it frankly but it's annoying - I don't want to say "no I'm not!" or say anything either way because that's buying into the idea that homosexuality is bad (not to mention negates your arguments apparently??), but really it's a conversation-stopper. Plus I like accuracy and I'd feel dishonest leaving the impression I am a lesbian, but it's still better than "I don't have a problem with lesbians but I'm not!"

Oh, and I never wear my hair up, never wear makeup, generally wear mens pants and big boots with whatever top comes to hand. I don't generally give the impression I'm a lesbian, but then NZers are less obsessed with femininity I guess *shrug* :P