From: amz@iguana.cis.ohio-state.edu (Arnold M Zwicky)
Subject: Re: practicing roles
Followup-To: soc.mots
Summary: gaydar around the world
Organization: earnestly practicing faggots
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 02:45:43 GMT

how can it be that american guys visit beijing and pick up on "nelly"
mannerisms in chinese guys hanging around the downtown hotels?  (this
has now been reported to me three times.  it didn't happen to me, but
then i hung around the university district in the northwest, not
downtown.)  doesn't this mean that nelliness can't be some learned
behavior, but has to be, like, *innate*?  (he says, sounding like a
crazed early chomskyan arguing from the poverty of the stimulus.)

everybody talking about these events focuses on one side of them, the
people *exhibiting* the "gay" behavior.  there is, as jess and i have
explained, reason to think that even in very different cultures
these behaviors might sometimes be a bit similar: certain culturally
"masculine" behaviors are likely to recur, which means that behaviors
that deviate from these are likely to recur as marks of "being gay".
not maybe a lot of these behaviors, in any one culture, but overall
there will be some recurrences.

now look at the other side, the people *viewing* and judging these
behaviors.  the task here is to detect a special, or "marked", social
identity.  this is a different task from detecting ordinary, default,
unmarked identities; most people hearing a random voice on the
phone are not listening for evidence that it's a white person, or
a straight person, because these are the ordinary first guesses.
people do, however, listen (and look) for evidences of marked
identities; for instance, on the phone they'll listen for things
that indicate that the person they're hearing is black, or gay.

you might think the way this works is that people (tacitly) check
through the big list of characteristics they know about that indicate
this marked identity, and sort of calculate a total score.  this would
be difficult to manage, and - no surprise - it doesn't seem to be what
people do.  instead, they look for *any* piece of evidence they think
is salient, which means that it is almost the case that a single
"slip" can tip other people off to your marked identity.

this makes it very hard for black people to "sound white" on the radio
or the phone.  (my own idea here is that they shouldn't have to
or want to, but that's a different matter.)  a single occurrence
of a single diagnostic feature might show them up.

now...back with the chinese gay guys hopefully floating around the
beijing sheraton.  all it takes is *any* behaviors that americans, or
other foreigners, can recognize as gay, and the viewers classify these
guys as gay.  there probably will be some, given what i said above and
the fact that beijing is a cosmopolitan place (ok, shanghai is *much*
more cosmopolitan).  what's more, the chinese guys are hoping to
project their identity, at least to the right audience, so they're
going to be playing their most likely numbers.

so, sure, it works.  this doesn't mean there are gay genes
that will make my wrists go limp, or whatever.  there's plenty
of room for learning.  just remember that we learn what we
are prepared to learn, and what we want to learn.  

arnold


Newsgroups: soc.motss