ABC’s 20/20 will be showing an updated version of an old theme; gaging how people view public displays of affection. This time the couples are gay and the reactions range from reasonable to overbearing.
The setting is NJ for lesbian wives and Alabama for a gay couple. Guess where the 911 call happens.
Tonight at 10pm ET.
They put a male gay couple in alabama and told them to be publicly affectionate?? I hope they had bodyguards hidden at the ready…
Personally, I don’t like ANY kind of PDA. I think it’s distracting and annoying. I’m ok with holding hands and maybe some small smooches, but other than that, I think it’s annoying and sometimes kinda gross. Gay, lesbian, straight, whatever.
From the video, that’s about all there was, Emily. I have to admit, as long as it doesn’t get to the point where one feels the need to yell “get a room,” I am fine with it. If a couple of people in love expressing affection in public is our idea of a problem, I think we are doing pretty good.
But I suspect it has a lot to do with family background, what one is accustom to. This probably did push it for Alabama 😉
I agree about family background, although I seem to have sprung “conservative” from a very liberal family. I vote democrat – and I’m into social justice – i’m just very reserved when it comes to romance, affection, and sexuality.
It’s weird that they put lesbian couples, who are stereotyped as having a much easier time expressing affection in public than gay men, in the community that, one assumes, willl be far more tolerant (unless they put them in an inner-city slum or something). I wonder why.
I can’t help but worry that stacking the deck like that will only serve to feed into the stereotype that lesbians have it downright easy and that only gay men have reason to fear for their safety in public. I don’t think a misconception like that does us any favors.
I’m probably reading to much into it, though.
PDAs that go beyond handholding and chaste pecks are kind of annoying, whether partaken in by homosexual or straight couple. Just a couple weeks ago I saw a random lesbian couple begin to make out. On the corner of a busy intersection at the University of Minnesota. It was probably the first lesbian PDA I’ve ever seen outside of a Pride festival.
Elise, i also had that thought. Granted, there are people who wouldn’t walk through Camden alone in broad daylight – but it’s probably easier for gay people of all sexes to express themselves in the Northeast than the Deep South. Maybe it should’ve been switched – to show that even the “progressive” Northeast fears gay men, and that not even lesbians can be publicly affectionate in the Deep South. These, of course, feed into stereotypes even further. But it’s a TV news magazine – we’re already going down that ally so we might as well make it a bit more even.
After watching, it appears they did have the lesbian couple try in Alabama first (not sure why they didn’t do the same for the gay couple in NJ). The reaction seems to have been similar, ie. straight men were titillated, but some women were offended. I’m not sure either setting was really a good test of how unsafe it can be because the areas seemed pretty open and well, safe.
The one part that did really sicken me was the clip from an earlier show where they had a cab driver pose as anti-gay to see how his passengers really felt. One guy came in complaining that “half the guys he saw at the airport on arrival were *bleeping* gay. When the cabby agreed, the passenger lamented of the old days when more people carried guns and people like that could be “put down.”
My partner and I have a sort of different perspective. I’m FtM trans, and for the first 10 years of our married life we looked like a typical male/female couple. Some hand holding and, perhaps, a few pecks on the lips, in the general community. (Shopping center, etc. Where I have seen far more intense, yet not technically “over the line” PDAs by my *adult* heterosexual neighbors.)
Are we comfortable with the same level of demonstrative behavior now, 10 years later, after my transition, when we look like a gay male couple? (I’m gay, yes. He’s not. But he’s committed to our partnership.)
Uh. No. My husband is a big, 6+ foot guy, with years of Aikido training. But we’re not into even verbal bashing. So we restrain ourselves from even casual, quite non-offensive (if we were a straight couple), demonstrations of affection.
Really not fair, speaking as a previously straight member of a previously straight partnership. Why can’t we all hold hands, kiss the lips, of those we hold dear?
The 911 call had me laughing.
Although when the cop showed up that stopped me from laughing.
“It’s weird that they put lesbian couples, who are stereotyped as having a much easier time expressing affection in public than gay men, in the community that, one assumes, willl be far more tolerant (unless they put them in an inner-city slum or something). I wonder why”
Its completely socially contructed, imo.
WHen i was watching Harld and Kumar at the movies it was interestign how, when the two girls kissed, there was no reaction from the public.
But at the end when the two guy were kissing… ma GOd there was not a soul that didnt say EWWW(ye, exaggerated, but u get my point).
I’m sure that the kind of people that watch Harold and Kumar movies are the same kind of people that would prefer seeing two girls kiss than two guys kiss (that is, young men/adolescent boys). But then most Hollywood movies are geared toward that audience. Talk about social construction.
which makes little sense as Neil Patrick Harris is the guest star in those movies and a big homo himself.
Having seen the program, it is my understanding that BOTH couples were placed in Alabama AND New Jersey.
When the lesbians wew in Alabama, they were actually given compliments by a group of all-male businessman (suprise!). A police car also rode through the site in New Jersey, but it didn’t stop.
At least the police were called. Sometimes if someone is offended they take matters into their own hands and assault the couple.
But is WAS ludicrous to call the police on someone for being affectionate in public.
Perception of affection and perception of SEX in public are on different levels in the experiment.
The gender bias truly steams me though. I am by nature a very affectionate person. My whole family is like that.
Sometimes, when I hear a somewhat homophobic woman express her annoyance and assume that lesbians are ‘checking her out’, that just makes me want to laugh my a$$ off.
Is it wrong for me to consider THAT ludicrous, especially in the future tense or conjectured tense?
It’s an easy one to let ’em down with. I just say:
If it hasn’t happened…I like to say….it WON’T!
And if it does…SO WHAT?
We shall note people, that the couples of this experiment are drop dead gorgeous.