no worries after so many years on the net I learnt not take offense on random people!

Sorry Stella I deleted other comments from this person because they were quite rude to people but I must have missed this one. I’m sorry that someone was so obnoxious to you.

If you are referring to me I am over it 😛 I was never “on” it actually. But those percentages you are talking about are not realistic. Maybe it’s like it where you come from but it’s not like this in Greece at least. Men are “conservative” enough and afraid of being called gay enough to even avoid colonoscopy when it’s required for health issues. Imagine how open they are on experimenting with other guys…

Well, no one really needed to tell dad and bro, now did they? How did that happen?

Not too long ago, maybe 20 years, it was common in Korea to see 2 men walking and holding hands. Outside influence has lessened that, but it is still seen now at times, mostly between people not yet considered “adults”. Holding hands is considered holding hands. They know it is different from sex because it is a different word. Too bad Westerners can’t be so smart.

..and yet, I walked out of the store with my girlfriend’s tampons and told them I didn’t need a bag. Screw ’em if they can’t take a joke and it’s none of their business, anyway. For all they know, I was going to smoke them.

It only makes sense in English (though very little really). Korean has many idioms, too, that you couldn’t begin to comprehend.

Fight! Fight! (Just keep busy people. I’ll just grab Taemin and head out the back.)

Um, you didn’t say where this was. But in general, I think the concept of the body is different in most Asian societies. It is partly because their religions do not have sins, they view their bodies as tools more than as themselves, and they don’t think everything is sex, unless it is. It is a different geography of thought and their minds work differently from those of Westerners. Tests show consistently, for example, that context is far more important to Asian perceptions and that even appears in what they remember from things they have seen (quite different from Westerners). In Japanese, it is even difficult to talk about oneself and one’s belongings in ways that are exactly equal to those expressions in English.

The word “gay” has taken on so many meanings and subtexts that it is hard to say what anyone really means when they use it. Saying something looks “gay”, like that picture, at least to me, would mean that it had characteristics of effeminacy, perhaps, or too much attention to one’s own appearance. He would be what they used to call a “dandy”, sometimes, but not always, implying weakness and effeminacy, too. But I would not think the word was offensive in describing the picture as it would be in describing a nearby person – it smacks more of a limited vocabulary and a lack of awareness of possible offense to others.

But, yes, American guys are incorrigible about this stuff. They will say a dog is beautiful but at the same time say that they “can’t tell” if a man is handsome because they are not supposed to be equipped to even make that judgement. It’s cowardly, and probably due to the fact that 80% of men have sex with another male at some point in their lives, usually in their teens, and they are afraid you might guess that if they said a guy was good-looking. They really need to understand the continuum of sexuality and that no one is a pure-bred member of either club. A person’s orientation is determined by preference, not even by who they actually have sex with. All people can have sex with all other people. If you are a guy and sleep with men every night but prefer women, you are not gay.