Does my car say I’m gay? Some believe what you drive points to your orientation
Ron Geren, an actor in Los Angeles, commutes to auditions and jobs throughout Southern California in a sleek black Mazda MX-5 Miata convertible. But for a recent date with a woman, he rented a Cadillac Escalade because he was so used to friends saying his Miata is “gay.”….”Guys say, ‘Hey, that’s cute,’ ” Geren, 40, said, adding that the comments come from gay as well as straight men. “You have to fend off that perception.”
OK, so this is just about the silliest thing I’ve heard in a while. Then again, I’m pretty naive when it comes to this sort of thing. Or perhaps I’m secure enough in my sexuality to know that I don’t have to drive a Hummer H2 or a Ford F250 in order to demonstrate my masculinity and heterosexuality. I’ve never really thought that the vehicle I drive says anything at all about my sexuality. Au contraire….
Isn’t it nice to know that we’ve evolved as a culture to the point where we can now pass judgement on a person’s sexuality based on the car they drive? Where the mere act of being a female driving a Subaru labels you as a lesbian? Man, this scares the hell out of me. I drive a 2004 Mazda Tribute; I wonder what this says about me (hmm…lessee…here it is: “If you drive a Mazda Tribute, you’re an insecure, middle-aged man with thinning hair and a tiny penis”…. Damn.)
Tune in next week when we’ll tell you how you can decipher a person’s sexuality by learning what their favorite ice cream flavor is….
A few years ago, Meghan Daum, an op-ed contributor to the Los Angeles Times, wrote about a promising first date with a man that never led to a second one because, she later learned, the guy saw that she drove a Subaru Outback and concluded she must be a lesbian.
And when Joe LaMuraglia, the founder of Gaywheels.com, an informational site modeled on the likes of Autoweb.com, told his partner he wanted to buy a Mini Cooper convertible, the boyfriend joked that he would not be seen in it because the couple “would look like such a gay cliche,” LaMuraglia said.
Cars are no more straight or gay than cell phones or weed whackers. But in recent years that truism has not stopped a perception among some that certain cars can, in the right context, be statements about a driver’s sexual orientation.
At a time when carmakers are marketing aggressively to gay consumers, and mainstream culture has become more literate about stereotypically gay tastes through TV shows such as “Will & Grace” and “The L Word” (on which one of the main characters, Alice, drives a Mini Cooper), it may not be surprising that some people make such assumptions about motorists based on their cars.
OK, so this is a horribly shallow method of attempting to pigeonhole someone, but I suppose it beats spending weeks trying to get to know someone before you discover that…GASP!!…they swing from both sides of the plate. Bummer, dude….
