Commentary: I Love "Cute Boy Syndrome"
TNG co-founder Zack spent some time over Valentines Day reevaluating what inconsequential things he loves. All this week he will tell you what he came up with. Check in tomorrow for “Things I Love” pt. 5.
Boys: You’re at a bar when you look over your left shoulder and see paradise. 5’9″ with medium shoulder and spiky black hair. Jeans that fit just right. That clean-shaven look that so few guys can pull off without looking prepubescent. Most importantly they are missing that air of guarded masculinity that you find so repugnant on the men you meet at bars. Your eyes lock. You go over to say hi, but before you even open your mouth the object of your gaze sticks a hand out. “Hi,” they say, looking in your eyes. “I’m Janine.”
This is cute boy syndrome. It’s when a girl so fits your type that you are attracted to her. I love this. As someone who identifies clearly as “gay” it is rare to have my sexuality challenged. I went through a regrettable (for the girls involved) straight/bi phase and haven’t really looked back since its ended. I’ll find myself platonically falling for the occasional beautiful guitar girl or appreciate a female yoga teacher’s ability to fold up like a Murphy bed. But try as I might I can’t go the extra mile and imagine doing anything untoward with them. It just seems foreign to me now.
But if I meet a girl who looks like a cute guy all bets are off. It makes a person question the most fundamental tenets of their sexuality: Am I as gay as I thought I was? What is gender, anyway? Would I rather get pegged on my back or on my hands and knees?
Has this happened to anyone else? Ladies: Have you ever been the victim of Cute Girl Syndrome?
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Haha. Well, maybe I am missing something, but my friends pick on me for my confessed love of “Baby Butches.” I am a gay man, but love some butch girls, too, sometimes. At first it caught me offguard, but I soon embraced it and felt a lot better after.
A friend of mine & I were walking around Hampden up in Baltimore one day and we both checked out this cute girl working in a bookstore, until she turned around and we realized that she was actually a skinny little dude with curly hair.
Can guys stop dressing like lesbians???
I totally fall into this trap whenever I’m at mixed gay events… so many of the skinny little boys look like adorable lesbians and it’s only after extended staring that I realize my mistake.
At my college’s LGBT alliance we had this cute Cali skater boi-type among our members… I found out quickly that the “boi” was actually a girl, and a lesbian at that. (sigh…)
About 10 or so years ago there was a young latino/a lesbian bike messenger, liberally sprinkled with tattoos, who used to hang out around 17th St. Wiry tough frame, spiky hair, energetic and fit. S/he was hot. I was wishing the boys on 17th looked like that.
Zack. I just found this site about a week ago and I think your “Things I love” posts are pure hilarity. Keep up the excellent posts! (no pressure. haha..)
I can always tell the difference between a guy and girl pretending to be a guy. Really gets on my nerves when they do that. Are they trying not to be women?
I understand the gender neutral thing but how bout signifying in some small proud way that they’re still women? Is the point denial? Only to “pass” as “cute boys” and fake people out? Or is it that women can define their own appearance without denying being women?
Faking people out or “passing” is pointless.
Anonymous– get over it. There are many forms of gender expression and not all of them will be convenient for you.
Zack isn’t talking about women “pretending” to be anything. He’s talking about hott boi dykes who gay men think are cute.
Zack, get back to me on how you want to be pegged.
Back in the day when the Jury was still around, some gal pals brought me out for a night of dancing. I thought I was the only guy there (it was difficult for them to even get me in) until from the across the dance floor I caught eyes with what appeared to be a dirtier version of Ryan Philippe. “OMG – a totally cute guy and given we’re the only ones, maybe I’ll get laid tonight!” Then the crowds parted and I realized by dream boy had tits. Ugh.
re: Nick
I am neither impressed nor fooled by “hott boi dykes”. The fantasy of “passing” is precisely that.
Anonymous, if there is an issue here, I think it has less to do with people and how they choose to express or their own conception of their identity, but the fact that you can be ‘so annoyed’ by this.
How about you spend more time focusing on yourself and less being concerned with other people.
re: Gavin
It’s annoying b/c ALL expression of identity is contrived. Not because they’re dykes, or “passing, or “queer”. There is no such thing as objectivity or unalloyed identity.
Anon, you are free to find androgyny unappealing, but you should at least have a try at understanding it as a concept. You sound like grandpa shaking his fist about women in pants!
I have a soft-spot for gender-benders of all stripes, but yes, cute boy syndrome is a problem, especially in SF, where the trans population is higher…
re: Paris
I never said I “find androgyny unappealing”. You did. Let me gently warn you against equating criticism with disapproval.
My point is these calculated, affected poses are just more inauthentic noise. I hate to be around people who are trying to get my attention. I have enough things going on.
Why can’t people be enough for themselves? You know we all don’t need to pay attention to you.
And, for the record, I love women in pants!
Paris, why would a higher trans population make this more of a problem in San Francisco?
I don’t think that “boi dykes” are trying to mask their femininity or that they are trying to not be women. The girl I was last interested in is a pretty little “boi” They seem to be my type, but I’ll tell you what they are no less a woman than I am. And I’m pretty femme. She loves that she’s a girl it’s WHO she is. But she’s not comfortable in heels, makeup, with long hair, or dresses. She’s never liked and so she classifies herself as a “boi”. I guess it has to do with the motives of the person, because while I have found someone who is honestly and unabashedly this way I do know many other lesbians in my community who do it to get noticed by all the little bubblegum dykes who provide a quick lay. I don’t know why though, sometimes being the bottom is fun. No shit sherlock.
Re: Anon
I don’t think that Anon is trying to say that it bothers them on principle, I think what they’re conveying here is the annoyance with FAKE PEOPLE. If you dress the way you do and you do it because it makes you happy I say the more power to you. If you’re doing it to fit in with the rest of the crowd then that’s going to be painfully obvious. And people are going to see it. I could divide the community here in Spotown into those categories; People who dress and act the way that makes them comfortable and happy and ok and the people who do it to be cool, and fashionable. And there would be people on either side of that line. Not just one or the other.
Sorry I had to add to what I had said previously because I had caught something else.
Yes, I very much understand what you mean. I am very much a gay woman, and the idea of sex with a man is just..something I couldn’t do. But…I think it’s ridiculous to assume people can’t recognise the attractiveness of a cute person who is the gender they aren’t attracted to. I have seen a lot of boys I thought were very cute, probably not in a “I want to have sex with you”, way, but in an “I want to cuddle you and I have a bit of a crush on you,” way. It’s a bit weird.
Also, one thing I don’t understand are straight girls who have attractions to VERY feminine men, a la gackt (who is indistinguishable from a cute butch,) or Noel Fielding (who is more feminine than I am.) I am often attracted to men like this..I happen to think that when the man you are attracted to is THAT feminine, you may as well be LGBT.
I have been a partaker of this myself but it makes nervous to feel this way…I find girls who look like guys to be so adorable and cute (particularly Justin Biebians)…but the fact that they have girl parts is what makes me not so interested. what is it that draws me to this?
My position regarding this might be a little different because I am a straight guy, but frequently find myself into girls who dress completely masculinely, and don’t do anything feminine besides being female (like without masculine features, but who dress totally like a guy, and who don’t wear make-up etc.). They are usually Lesbians if there could be any confusion, but very occasionally are straight. I can tell they are girls, or at least I always think they are. I think I’m attracted to androgyny because I really don’t like gender boundaries all that much. I don’t really know. But I definitely don’t think its someone trying to pass for something they are not.
Ok so I guess I would classify myself as a boi dyke if I had to pick something right now. My affiliation with gender has been pretty confusing to me for most of my life, and I am just now starting to decode it in my own mind. It’s pretty tricky stuff. I’ve recently been going back and forth between thoughts of actually transitioning and staying the way I am as a “boyish lesbian”. Interestingly enough I also feel a stong connection with gay men in the sense that many of my mannerisms and a lot of times my style of dress reflect that of a typical gay male. I am not trying to peg myself into any gender catagory right now, i’m just kind of letting it ride out, and giving myself time to mull it over. So I guess that’s my gender expression in a nutshell, which i feel relates to the discussions in this thread. Oh also I get hit on by gay guys a lot. I find it adorable, but am not compelled to do anything with them because I am strictly into ladies. So it’s not like i’m trying to pose as a gay man or anything- it’s really just how my own thoughts reflect in my appearence. But i do enjoy the ambiguity and being “unclassified” at times.
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