To the heterosexual men of DU

[dsc]

Would you have gone on Boy Meets Boy and pretended to be gay? For the unitiated the show had 16 guys at the start with some gay and some heterosexual. The main guy, James, winnows down the men to one who will be his boyfriend. The straight men obviously pretend to court him.

So would you do this? If so why?

I find it fascinating that people willingly decided to do this. I absolutely hated lying about myself back when I was in school and the worst for me was when I decieved girls into thinking something was there when it wasn't.

[sfecap]

1. How much does it pay?

Is that what my wife was watching earlier? :-)

[dsc]

4. Hmm I honestly don't know

what the prize, aside from James, is. They got to stay in a very nice house in Palm Springs for a while and do really cool stuff. I don't think they get paid.

[sfecap]

13. But won't James figure it out?

My gay friends are always doing the "is he gay or is he straight thing...", but they always figure it out! :-)

[dsc]

17. He hasn't had reason to suspect up till now

but he has done remarkably well in eliminating straight guys. And he usually has for either the thought there was no chemistry or that they were hiding something. Up till now I have done reasonably well with the gay/straight thing but the three left are tough. Without the conspiracy theory angle I would have no idea. I am assuming that the two remaining straights were paired so one would be left for the final show thus I think I know who the straight guy is otherwise I wouldn't.

[sfecap]

21. What about gaydar?

My friends swear by it!!

I'm gonna have to watch this show...

[dsc]

22. That works to a point

but given that people rarely say they are gay when they aren't a person isn't going to completely trust that. We know the gimmick and he doesn't. That said he has eliminated 9 people that I have seen and it was 5 straight and 4 gay or the other way around. He now has 2 gay and 1 straight left. He has been doing well at eliminating them and for reasons that sort of fit. So he sort of does know.

[Lady President]

23. $25,000

I remember reading somewhere that if James picks a straight guy, the guy will win $25,000. I think that James and the winner, if gay, will go on a vacation together~ don't quote me, but Australia rings a bell.

James seems to have such a gentle personality and I'll be a little sad if he gets tricked into a broken heart.

[dsc]

24. Now I am pissed

I can't imagine that they are going to win money if they trick him. That is evil. They should rot in Hell for that.

[sfecap]

25. Just wait...they won't..

...and he'll get the vacation and the money and....?

[dsc]

26. I really hope he doesn't choose the straight goy

He is clearly in some amount of love with all three guys. It is massively difficult for even decent, good looking gay guys to find people and it would be very sad if this blows up in his face.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

2. I'm a hetero female, but given a similar situation

I wouldn't do it for any amount of money. What kind of job is it that requires you to break someone's heart? That's pretty damn callous...

[roughsatori]

3. Thank you--that is the part that I despise

The callousness appalls me. I just told my sister this and she gave me the new catchall response: "lighten-up"

[GoddessOfGuinness]

8. Yeah right...

Lighten up until it happens to her...

This is similar to those "Funniest Home Videos" that showed kids frightened and crying and people getting hurt.

Yup. It's Poppy's "kindler gentler America" coming back to slap us silly.

[roughsatori]

9. I just copied and sent your response to my sister

"Lighten up until it happens to her" LOL

[GoddessOfGuinness]

LOL...

Did she reply?

[roughsatori]

15. I'm waiting for her reply

She will get a kick out of it. She has always considered herself a heartbreaking punk rock woman, but "the bigger they come, the harder they fall." And sister better get ready for a landing.

[TreasonousBastard]

6. I agree.

I'm a straight guy. I wouldn't, and it has nothing to do with sexual preferences.

The entire concept sucks rocks. But, like pig dates and other sophomoric pranks, some peeps get off on watching people get hurt.

[dsc]

7. I hate that part of the show

especially for poor James. But the rest of the show is a keeper. It is so cool to watch these guys interact and see it treated as normal activity. That doesn't suck rocks at all.

[SmileyBoy]

5. Hell, I'm a straight guy with a gay-guy facade. It'd be REAL easy for me.

People often mistake me for gay. Throughout high school, the whole female demographic of the student body thought I was gay. I'd win, too. I wouldn't care if gay guys hit on me.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

11. You have a refreshing attitude...

I never understood why so many straight men make comments like "He'd better not hit on me or I'll punch his lights out!"

I always thought it was a compliment for someone to be attracted to you. Who cares what their preferences are?

[sfecap]

12. I agree!

Anyone can hit on me...

I like it.

:party:

[SmileyBoy]

16. Exactly. I'd inform them I was straight, but I wouldn't freak out about it

I wouldn't see it as a threat to my masculinity (however much of it exists). Quite contrary, I'd take it as a boost to my heterosexuality.

[roughsatori]

18. My rather feminine male heterosexual psychologist

Told me (a gay man) I needed homosexual lessons. He said this after I mocked his Broadway Musical poster and his "stylish" clothing. (No he was not suffering from counter-transference, he was joking.)

[Aristus]

10. I once pretended to be Jewish in order to score a cute Jewish chick.

Didn't work, but I scored some cute shiksas!

Woulnd't pretend to be gay, though.

[ButterflyBlood]

14. nope

don't see the point

[IranianDemocrat]

19. I don't see the point either.

eom

[dsc]

20. The guys gave different reasons

in their exit interviews. Some just seemed to be on a lark. One wanted to make history so to speak. I think most just really didn't give a ton of thought to it. They didn't know what they were getting into.

[pfitz59]

27. Cheapens life's experience.........

Why would I pretend to be something I'm not? 20 years ago I was considered extremely attractive..to both sexes. I was unattainable to the guys, (I let them know in an honest straight-forward manner) and hard for any one girl to hold onto. "Boy Meets Boy" is just one more exploitation show which deadens our tastebuds and dulls the senses. It's all a Brown Acid flashback!

[Quahog]

28. Oh for cryin out loud

So this is the latest spin on "The Bachelor?"

Pardon me while I vomit. This is why we don't have a TV hooked up in our house. I was on a business trip, and stumbled across "The Bachelor" in the hotel room. My question was, what guy would ever want to hook up with a woman so desperate for a relationship that she'd humiliate herself like that on national tv?

This isn't reality programming, because the "reality" is totally contrived and utterly unlike anything that real people would do in their real lives. Watching these shows is like watching the clean-up after a particularly gory industrial accident. It's just sick.

I can't wait to see how far they'll lower the bar in the next incarnation of these "prostitute yourself for chump change" shows.

I do have an idea for keeping "Fear Factor" interesting though. Now that we've determined that there are people out there who will eat raw pig rectums for a chance at $50k, start lowering the prize amount and see how many will still do it. I predict that you could find people willing to do that shit for $100.

Did you know that this whole idea of getting real people to do humiliating things in front of a camera originated in Japan? This is true. But the Japanese audience never thought these people were brave or heroic or romantic. The whole point of the shows in Japan was to expose the participants as debased, money-grubbing, shameless fools. I think the name of the show in Japan translated more like "Humiliation Circus" than "Fear Factor"

Shoot your television!

[dsc]

30. I agree with much of what you are saying

I rarely watch reality TV. The only two I have watched were this and a couple of seasons of the Real World. The year Pedro was on may well have done more for generating enlightened views about PWA in the young than anything else of its era. I cried when I found out he had died and was very moved at how he lived his last part of his life. Boy Meets Boy may do the same thing on portraying gays as normal people who do normal type things.

[Braden]

29. probably not

it wouldn't take too long to figure out which team I play for. I couldn't feign interest in a man.

[salmonhorse]

31. No ~

I work six days a week and the rest of my time I diddle with my girlfriend...