“Most of the gay folks I know consume meat, and most of the vegetarians I know are straight progressives.”

That’s funny. That’s pretty much how it breaks down for me, now that I think about it.

I’d hate to think what this guy would have said about me, what with all the wine instead of beer and mani/pedi appointments I attend w/my wife (actually one of my favorite things that we do together).

Come on? Don’t you know you have to eat a big raw steak with deep fried fries and an ice cold Coors to let everyone know that you’re a MAN DAMN IT!!

(end snark)

Srssly, the last time I heard a term like “vegetarian homo” used in a non-ironic matter, it was at the lunch table in 8th Grade!

“Sales” is what the frat-boy crowd does when it doesn’t grow up.

I said this on another blog: the boss sounds like he’s so deep in the closet he’s about to enter Narnia.  A grown man doesn’t taunt another grown man and create that hostile of a workplace just for shits and giggles, that’s borne of self-loathing and projection.  Not that that condones his behavior, obviously.

I wish the “real men eat meat” thing would just die already.  Right now the bane of my existence is that Guy Fieri douchebag on Food Network, who pretty much cooks nothing but “man food,” i.e. Buffalo wings, meatball subs, steak, etc.  He also shills for TGI Friday’s.  He’s gotta be at least 40 and still does that frat boy high-fiving, “what up, brah?” shit.  It’s really a little sad.

wearing snug-fitting shorts during triathlons

Now it’s gay to be a freakin’ triathlete?  Straight men make no sense.  And I say that as a straight man.

Guy Fieri is atrocious.

Vegetarians == gay?!!

That’s a new one.  When I was growing up, being vegetarian was more popularly associated with some socio-economically privileged upper-east siders fancy themselves more enlightened than the rest of us along with some ex-hippies and their children. 

Vegetarians == being gay???  Weird association…....

One of the few bright sides of this economic freefall is seeing these self-important financial firm big shots be taken down a few notches. These guys have gotten too far for too long with a lot of money and not a lot of brains.

I often use them as one data point illustrating that being a graduate from a fancy private Ivy/Ivy-level undergrad, by itself, is not necessarily indicative of high intellect…especially with the existence of legacy admissions. 

Our recent outgoing President is another perfect example of this…...

I’m betting a lot of aspiring bigshots from NYU and Columbia who talked big during their college careers are now crestfallen now that they’ve been downsized by Wall Street’s collapse. 

On the slightly brighter side…it may make upcoming high school/college reunions easier for those who were crapped upon/considered underachievers by those types…....

Vegetarians == gay?!!

Think “unmanly”.  This is generally when the only image the idiot-in-question has of gays is the swishy stereotype (which describes, oh, one out of the four or five gays I deal with daily).

But let’s clarify the story a bit - it’s a discrimination lawsuit because Pacifico was fired, claiming that it was due to these factors.  He’s not suing because of the remarks per se.

But consider - Enron were, famously, “the smartest guys in the room”.  These are the lukewarm intellects that are also in that room.

I was going to second the only ladies don’t eat meat thing.  It has been used by some fast food company and Hummer who suggested that you can make up for the emasculating experience of buying tofu for your harridan wife by buying a Hummer.  And, you know, it’s only a short step from lady-town to homodom. 

There’s a whole lot of pathology going on in that workplace.  I’m fortunate that the only harassment I get in my workplace is from my co-workers who are convinced I’m on death’s door from malnutrition because of my veganism.

A grown man doesn’t taunt another grown man and create that hostile of a workplace just for shits and giggles, that’s borne of self-loathing and projection.

Not necessarily.  In a frat-boy atmosphere like that where “fags” are constantly denigrated, it’s also the quickest way to dominate and humiliate someone.  Catalanello needed a scapegoat, someone he could beat into the ground to prove to the rest of his team that he’s the alpha male in charge, and Pacifico was the unlucky designee.  You’ll see the exact same behavior if you visit the monkey house at the zoo.

Once, just for the hell of it, I Googled one of the biggest assholes in my class at Andover. He was, yup, a Wall Street trader. There was even a photo of him talking on a cell phone on Sept. 11, no doubt checking to see how all the unpleasantness would affect his investments.

Although, to be fair, I just this morning interviewed a research analyst who was very helpful with an article I’m writing. In a hurry,  but very helpful.

This doesn’t have anything to do with people thinking this guy, or vegetarians, are gay.  This is just standard, alpha male joking.  “When did you figure out you were gay” is something guys say all the time.  I mean, not all guys.  But it’s the kind of thing that, as a guy, you hear all the time, and never said to someone who is actually gay.  In fact, a gay person is the last person you’d say this to.  Same with things along the lines of “he’s the fag that ____________”.  “uses Facebook”, “has an espresso maker in his office”, “drives a minivan”.  Is it really gay to drive a minivan?  Obviously not.  But that wouldn’t keep a guy from saying, “He’s the homo who drives a minivan”.

I mean, I’m not trying to excuse the behavior.  But I don’t think there’s any chance anyone this guy worked with really thought he was gay, and I’m skeptical that this had anything to do with why he was fired.  Sounds to me like a victim of our poor economy, not above filing a frivilous lawsuit and lucky enough to have circumstances to sue over.

you can make up for <strike>the emasculating experience of buying tofu for your harridan wife</strike> having a small penis by buying a Hummer.

FTFY.

Wallace, while I don’t doubt that this is something that (ignorant, juvenile) men do to each other as harmless teasing, it’s really not appropriate at the workplace.  This wasn’t a bunch of 12 year-olds on a school bus.  If the boss doesn’t know where to draw the line for such things, he may want to find a different line of work.

OK, Wallace, it doesn’t literally refer to what the guy likes to do with his erogenous zones, but it’s not a coincidence that he’s being taunted for insufficient masculinity and that the word for that is “gay.”

It’s news that desk traders are complete assholes?

I’ll feel nothing but entertained schadenfreude if Catalanello’s behavior crossed the line into court-actionable behavior and he becomes liable for damages, but if you don’t want to be surrounded by assholes or be in an environment where assholery is rewarded, get a real job—don’t become a floor trader/desk trader. It’s full of guys who are selected because they’re tall and loud but not bright enough to do math where they’d be useful as quants.

If the boss doesn’t know where to draw the line for such things, he may want to find a different line of work.

Yeah, a line of work where he gets to handle meat all the time ... or at least ask if people want fries with theirs ...

Wallace, the term for this is “unprofessional”.  The boss opened the company to a whole lot of these lawsuits by not giving him the HR Slapdown.  A colleague of mine is married to a HR Lawyer who gets to clean up after asshats like this get out of control, and their companies are court-ordered to take steps to prevent recurrances of permitted asshattery.  The company is liable for the managers actions if they take no action to stop him.  Period.

I’m pretty sure you have the same cause of action if you’re fired for your perceived ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc., just as if you were fired for actually being gay. So, straight trolls, employment non-discrimination for gays protects you, too.

Tyro, those are the same excuses uses to prevent or drive women away from certain professions.

In other words, bullshit.

Tyro, those are the same excuses uses to prevent or drive women away from certain professions.

I think I’m got to stand my ground with this one: these are toxic work environments populated by angry, loud, smalle-minded people. If you aspire to be that, great. If not, find a profession that doesn’t select for sociopathy. I’ll be highyl amused if the alpha-male posturing by Catalanello finally gets the punishment he’s probably so richly deserved for his entire life, but it’s not as if his behavior was in any way unexpected.

Same with things along the lines of “he’s the fag that ____________”.  “uses Facebook”, “has an espresso maker in his office”, “drives a minivan”.  Is it really gay to drive a minivan?  Obviously not.  But that wouldn’t keep a guy from saying, “He’s the homo who drives a minivan”.

I’m not sure I even understand this.  Wouldn’t all these examples be intended to say “This guy does something that makes him less of a man, harhar”?  Or are you saying that “fag” is now just a generic insult applicable to any man, so A Guy (tm) might say “He’s the fag that beat me in the belching contest”?

Vegetarians == gay?!!

When I was in school, it was vegetarian=hippy. It would never have been thought of as gay.

Mark, I thought manly conservatives saw hippies as gay too, because of the long hair.  Ronald Reagan made a Tarzan-themed joke about how hippies walked like Jane and smelled like Cheetah.  So vegetarian = hippie, but hippie = gay, so vegetarian = gay.  It’s the transitive property of gay.

The (il)logic goes thusly:

Vegetarians are all part of the liberal, Volvo driving, latte swilling elite
Homosexuals are all part of the liberal, Volvo driving, latte swilling elite
Vegetarians are thus homosexuals

Stupidity on multiple levels. The premises are wrong. And the argumentation FROM the premises is wrong. A => B and C => B, therefore A => C? Err, nope. You flunk Formal Logic. Be proud of that MBA, son. Try for a real degree next time.

It’s definitly a même amongst my younger(early-twenties) brother’s hunting crew. It goes “vegetarian-liberal-hippy-gay”, like FlipYrWig illustrated above. There seems to be this weird conflation of *all* progressive issues under one rubric with younger conservatives(okay, all conservatives.)

Come on Pam, don’t you know that nothing says Straight Man like shoving a big, juicy, thick hunk of meat down your throat?

I have questions. Say the boss didn’t literally think Pacifico (a straight guy) was gay. Say further that Pacifico was, however, fired for being irritatingly unmanly. That would fall under gender expression, wouldn’t it? So regardless of how this “harmless teasing” (which, side-note, really does make for a pretty hostile environment for people who actually are gay) was meant, it seems Pacifico has at least the outlines of a case.

‘course, he doesn’t get all my sympathy:

“A trading floor is certainly a manly man’s world,” Pacifico said. “I just never expected someone to think it’s gay to be a vegetarian or to constantly poke fun at me.”

Really? The problem isn’t hostility towards gays or un-manly-men—it’s that you were wrongly identified as gay? Way to cling to your privilege there, buddy.

Dan:

LOL!

I am so stealing that from you.

“Or are you saying that “fag” is now just a generic insult applicable to any man, so A Guy (tm) might say “He’s the fag that beat me in the belching contest”?”

In my little corner of the world, yes.  My brother and his friends and virtually every guy I’ve ever met use “gay” as a generic insult for*EVERYTHING* t.v. shows they doesn’t like are “gay”, if a sock goes missing, it’s “gay”, the team that beat their favorite football team are a “bunch of F*gs”.  If one of them buys the wrong kind of beer, they’re the “f*g that bought [insert brand here]”. It is a one-size fit all insult.

The weird thing is, these same guys are the least sexist guys I’m aware of.  And, they’re very quick to say that they don’t care who’s *actually* gay.  That “gay” just means “lame” (as if that’s somehow better), and is not meant to be mean to gay people. 

I don’t get how they could be so disconnected from the meaning of the words they’re using*, but there it is. Its something we but heads over constantly.

In my little corner of the world, yes.  My brother and his friends and virtually every guy I’ve ever met use “gay” as a generic insult for*EVERYTHING* t.v. shows they doesn’t like are “gay”, if a sock goes missing, it’s “gay”, the team that beat their favorite football team are a “bunch of F*gs”.  If one of them buys the wrong kind of beer, they’re the “f*g that bought [insert brand here]”. It is a one-size fit all insult.

I used to do that….when I was 12.

Gosh I’m so surprised at the vegetarian = gay stereotype, given how assiduously PETA targets the straight male demo with their numerous publicity stunts involving naked women. 

Sorry to threadjack, but the ad PETA tried to get on the Superbowl featuring lingerie clad women simulating sex with vegetables was beyond the pale. 

PETA is teh suck.  Carry on.

“I used to do that….when I was 12.”

Exactly. Which is something I point out to them constantly.  of course, that just means i’m the overly sensitive humorless feminist who wants to ruin the party.

Gypsy Lee, I’m acquainted with this usage of ‘Gay’ from my childhood. I would even use it, carelessly, as a catch-all insult. Much as my freinds did.

Until the day when I collided with the real meaning—I was trying to point out that someone was being homophobic, so I called him a ‘fag’. Needless to say, this only resulted in complete confusion and rejection from all quarters. From then on, I started to watch my vocabulary more carefully.

It is a one-size fit all insult.

Great.  Maybe eventually “fag” will get reclaimed and turned around, like the way college-aged women casually call each other “bitch.”  “Fag, why didn’t you call me?”  “Hey, fag, let’s play some Madden!”

“Until the day when I collided with the real meaning-”

And this is the heart of the problem.  They live in a hermetically sealed world where everyone does it, so its okay.  There aren’t any gay people in their lives (at least not openly) and so something like what you’ve described ever happens to them.  I’m the only one who objects, but I’m a “weirdo”, so it’s okay to ignore me.

In my little corner of the world, yes.  My brother and his friends and virtually every guy I’ve ever met use “gay” as a generic insult for*EVERYTHING* t.v. shows they doesn’t like are “gay”, if a sock goes missing, it’s “gay”, the team that beat their favorite football team are a “bunch of F*gs”.  If one of them buys the wrong kind of beer, they’re the “f*g that bought [insert brand here]”. It is a one-size fit all insult.

The weird thing is, these same guys are the least sexist guys I’m aware of.  And, they’re very quick to say that they don’t care who’s *actually* gay.  That “gay” just means “lame” (as if that’s somehow better), and is not meant to be mean to gay people. 

Which is why “gay” is the insult, as opposed to, say, “straight.”

“Srsly.  Didn’t y’all read Liar’s Poker?”

There is a sequal out btw that deals with the subprime crisis and lets just say the same people that were responible for Liar’s Poker and wanted to know how to do it were heavily involved in the subprime scams.

George Bush was another example of this kind of asswipe. In a way, not really caring about people’s sexual prefernce makes it even worse to use these kinds of epithets. You’re picking what’s worst in the culture around you and using it to get ahead.

But I don’t think there’s any chance anyone this guy worked with really thought he was gay, and I’m skeptical that this had anything to do with why he was fired.

No, he was probably fired because he didn’t “fit in.”  However, you’re not allowed to falsify people’s job reviews just because you don’t like them and want to fire them.

But as others have pointed out, a straight person who’s fired because his/her boss thinks they’re gay has the exact same right to sue as an actually gay person fired for the same reason.  It’s the firing for discriminatory reasons that’s the issue, not whether someone really is gay, or black, or Latino.

There aren’t any gay people in their lives (at least not openly) and so something like what you’ve described ever happens to them.

Gypsy Lee, if they are fairly openminded, like you have described them, then I think they will eventually have to confront the real meaning of their favorite joke insult. Nobody’s “hermetically sealed” for very long.

I think with some people “gay” the insult is totally compartmentalized away from “gay” the sexual identity.  They think of it like “tap,” which has a sexual slang meaning, one literal meaning from which the sexual one derives, and then also a bunch of other literal meanings.  This is not to excuse those people, because the _reason_ “gay” has insulting associations is obvious with a moment’s reflection or less.

They think of it like “tap,” which has a sexual slang meaning, one literal meaning from which the sexual one derives, and then also a bunch of other literal meanings.

There’s a popular joke/t-shirt in the Magic: The Gathering community that goes:
“I’d <tap symbol> that.”

In case this wasn’t readily apparent, M:TG community != a paragon of feminist awareness.

I was once accused of being gay because women liked to talk to me.

Spend your free time only with other guys—that’s a sure earmark of straightitude.

You know, in a decade we might be seen as cranky as the wingnuts complaining that homosexuals shouldn’t be referred to as “gay”, because it means “happy”...

Hector, one of my friends in high school was the first male cheerleader. You can imagine what hell the other guys tried to give him, but he just smirked until they were ready to listen to him. And he pointed out that for several Saturdays, he spent hours on a bus with over 30 girls in short skirts, and being the only guy for them to flirt with.

The next semester, there were 6 male cheerleaders.

****
Re: training people who aren’t really homophobic to stop using it as an insult
My partner used to say “fairy” as an insult to bad drivers. One day he yelled it while we were walking on a slow street and a reckless driver scared us. I pointed out to h im all the open windows around us and asked how he thought a gay person would feel if they’d heard him yelling that. It really woke him up, because he wouldn’t want to hurt anyone.

Is there some trend up in NYC where this all got conflated in the mind of this Wall Street Cro-Magnon?

More like a Bronxville/Greenwich CT trend.  That’s where all those wall street execs live.

No, he was probably fired because he didn’t “fit in.”

This is why it’s important to include gender presentation in anti-discrimination suits.  Even if they didn’t truly believe he was gay, they were clearly uncomfortable with the way he presented his masculinity.  It’s not just about trans people being discriminated against (though that is a big problem, too), it’s also the woman who seems “too manly” and the man who seems “too effeminate.”

Weird. When I lived in rural Australia, my vegetarian was often one of the reasons cited for labelling me a lesbian.

That was kinda accurate, but that’s beside the point.

I work in a prison, which is about the most sexually-repressed environment there is outside of the clergy (and I have the uh…pleasure of knowing at least one guy who has been both.)  In prison, the word “punk” is the ultimate insult.  It suggests that not only is someone gay, but that they are doing gay acts out of desire rather than a way to pay off a debt owed.  “Punk”, if said, will almost always lead to a fight.

These men have chosen a life where they spend almost their entire lives around men, on the whole pretty much hate all women, some pay other inmates for blowjobs or the use of their assholes, and do things that result in long prison terms away from their wives and girlfriends and babymamas.  But if anyone calls them “punks”, there’s going to be blood.

This dynamic is why prison rape can’t be stopped.  The latest Federal rules require that any sexual contact be reported as a rape, which is absurd no matter how much we want to suggest that inmates don’t have the rights needed to be able to consent to sex.  The old idea was that sexual contact was to be ignored as much as possible, which was worse.  Somewhere in between is both reality, the truth, and a better way to deal with the problems associated with incarcerating sexually-active inmates.  The truth is that some of the men in prison are sucking and fucking because they like it, but they sure as hell don’t want such facts to lead to the conclusion that they aren’t 100% heterosexual.  There’s a spectrum of men who won’t do that and don’t want to, men who don’t but would love to if not for the fact that there’s too many diseases in the prison, men who decide to do it but only this once and to pay this debt and they’ll never bet on football again but they are sure about the Super Bowl, men who need some money to buy a television, and men who enjoy the prison’s sausage party atmosphere.

Lovely place.  Often wish I could find a different job.

I’m pretty sure you have the same cause of action if you’re fired for your perceived ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc., just as if you were fired for actually being gay.

Yes, you do.  As we’re reminded every year in the company Sexual Harrassment seminar.

This guy is certainly a PUSSY if not a homo. Anyone that would sue over this is a WEENIE.

But I don’t think there’s any chance anyone this guy worked with really thought he was gay, and I’m skeptical that this had anything to do with why he was fired.

Or, as the person who outed me at my job said afterwards, apologizing, “Oh my god—I would never have said that if I’d known you were really gay!”