The Burning Bush
thoughts from a cunning linguist

July 03, 2003

Playing it Straight

Picture it: Halifax, 20 June 2003. The Whore of Babylon and The Bush Whacker waltz into a car dealership--queer as $3 bills. Having surveyed the lot for a few minutes, we are approached by our soon-to-be attentive salesman, Damian. The next four hours constitute our adventures in car-shopping, replete with feats worthy of Harry Potter: mind-reading, mathematical adjustments, and magically increasing the worth of Maurice's old car from $400 to $1500. (Must've been my magic wand. Oops, no, wait, I left that home...) But most of all, it's an adventure in heterosexuality.

Damian took Maurice and me to be a straight couple. And, well schooled in the dramas of the queer world, we played our parts to a tee. Damian asked where we lived; Maurice told him I lived in the south end "for now." (Not a lie, but not the truth as Damian believed it either.) Damian asked which colour car Maurice preferred; Maurice shuffled his choices somewhat to reflect the colours that I liked. And in the middle of the negotiations over price, it was me to whom Damian spoke most. He had to convince "the wife." Interestingly enough, when it came to the female business agent at the dealership (who did the paperwork after the deal was sealed), she directed all her attention at Maurice. Tell me now that the selling of cars is not sexualized.

I'm always amazed at how easy it is to pass as straight--not because one has to really work at it, but because so many people just want to believe that a male and a female together constitute a couple, no matter how queer they may appear. (I wonder, Maurice, what might have happened had you worn your "Homo Depot" shirt? Maybe next time?) It's a bizarre form of wishful thinking, driven largely, I think, by the fact that people assume it would be an insult _not_ to assume that people are straight.

As far as I'm concerned, if people want to believe so much in the mythology of heterosexuality, it is a queer's right to use it to his or her advantage. And so Maurice got a good deal on his car. Isn't that a "fairy"tale ending?

Posted by Bush Whacker at July 3, 2003 11:51 PM
Comments

it is too easy to pass as straight... i pretended for the first 22 years of my life and just about everyone believed it. *shakes head*

Posted by: kimmie on July 4, 2003 11:28 AM
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