The envelope, please...

And the winner of the first annual "Guess who's Gay" contest is... *drum roll* Chris Soth. He got it right, albeit just as a last minute wildly thrown Hail Mary rolled into a joke thing. Yes, boys and girls, ALL GAY. The two on the right were a couple at the time, the brunette to my left? My date. We've all moved on to other women (or more accurately, in my case, back too and then broke up with [again] the same person, but I digress).

So, why'd I take us through this little game? It's all about perception, baby. See, I wanted to see how many of you, when presented with pretty women, who didn't fit the stereotype of "dykes" and "lesbos" would consider that perhaps the "trick" wasn't that they were "all straight" but "all gay". Not one of you got it. Ask yourself why. No need to tell me. Or put it in the comments (unless you wanna).

Now, I'm not saying that ANY of you are homophobic, I don't believe my readers are. BUT. Just as there's an unconscious level of racism in most people, there's an unconscious level of buying into gay stereotypes in there too. My aim is not to point fingers or call any one names, rather, it is to help you as writers (some of whom will include gay characters in your work) to stretch beyond those stereotypes when you are writing those characters. To that end, some other facts about the women in the picture....

(All true when the picture was taken, some details may have changed since.)

2 worked as executives for Fortune 100 companies
1 owned her own business
1 was a graphic designer
1 is a twin
1 was adopted
1 was studying for her MBA
2 were home owners
3 had pets
1 had 2 sisters and no brothers
1 had a gay brother
1 spins records for fun and sometimes money
2 had gone paintballing the weekend before
1 ran 3 miles a day
1 didn't exercise at all
2 went the gym on a fairly regular basis
All were going to a $$$ per ticket charitable event
By the end of the night, all our feet were killing us!

Comments?