In my experience, as a straight man, it's actually Beer that gives men breasts. I'm sure I have other hang ups I'm not accounting for, but being worried that eating certain styles of food makes...
Ryan says he’s also heard since he was a vegetarian in the ’90s, stuff like “tofu was going to give you breasts” on sensationalist daytime talk shows. This is the third category of food that makes you gay: Food that might actually queer your body.
In my experience, as a straight man, it's actually Beer that gives men breasts.
I'm sure I have other hang ups I'm not accounting for, but being worried that eating certain styles of food makes you gay or changes your body (other than making you fat) sounds exhausting and quite frankly, I'd rather quit living life than give up Pho and Ramen.
I've been a vegetarian most of my life, and before that I ate meat that I hunted and fished myself. Back before it had entered the mainstream and was just starting to get public scrutiny, you...
I've been a vegetarian most of my life, and before that I ate meat that I hunted and fished myself. Back before it had entered the mainstream and was just starting to get public scrutiny, you would see all kinds of wild claims. People writing letters to the editor about how vegetarians will get sick and die, tofu giving you breasts, etc. People really do love finding anything different to hate.
To your point, I've eaten tofu weekly for 25 years. Still no breasts. However, I'm also a healthy weight, which I think is the real driving factor here. 🙂
If I recall from the vegan propaganda I used to consume and the research that I actually did because the soy boobs joke annoyed me to no end - the phytoestrogens in beer are something like 50x as...
If I recall from the vegan propaganda I used to consume and the research that I actually did because the soy boobs joke annoyed me to no end - the phytoestrogens in beer are something like 50x as strong as that in soy milk!
I agree with you and wonder how seriously these bigots actually enforce things like not eating ice cream. Like, I assume Jesse Watters is eating ice cream at home, just from a bowl, and this...
I agree with you and wonder how seriously these bigots actually enforce things like not eating ice cream. Like, I assume Jesse Watters is eating ice cream at home, just from a bowl, and this nonsense is a "more acceptable" way of expressing his homophobia.
I love most of the foods written about in this article and I'm still not gay. So what's more manly? Avoiding gay foods or eating gay foods and not turning gay? Checkmate homophobes!
There's definitely some level of "it's not ok to do this in public' and also "it's not ok for person whose politics I disagree with and already don't like to do this in public"
There's definitely some level of "it's not ok to do this in public' and also "it's not ok for person whose politics I disagree with and already don't like to do this in public"
I thought this was a fun article that discussed the foods that "real men" aren't allowed to eat, what queerphobic (and racist) stereotypes exist around food, and the idea that if food can change...
I thought this was a fun article that discussed the foods that "real men" aren't allowed to eat, what queerphobic (and racist) stereotypes exist around food, and the idea that if food can change you, what really is gender and orientation anyway?
What these fears of food marking one as queer recognize on some level — whether it’s with a corn dog that makes a man look gay to his friends or tofu with phytoestrogens — is fluidity. Because what if? Chewing licorice root with the intent of changing your body is an acknowledgment that the body can be changed. Which means that none of this is static. “I think what [my research] really gave me is a sense that all of this stuff is very fluid, very arbitrary and extremely, extremely dependent on the perspectives of the thinker,” says Felker-Martin. Just as our associations of what is masculine, feminine, gay, straight, and trans have fluctuated, so do those very categories. “As soon as you realize that our bodies are changeable, you start to ruminate on the incredible fineness of our ideas of gender,” she says. “What makes you a man? Is it just that you don’t have tits?”
I think this feels like a subcategory of the trend of "icks" too, right? Sure, there are some valid ick's but i feel like as social media does, I've seen a lot of "street interviewers" that rage...
I think this feels like a subcategory of the trend of "icks" too, right? Sure, there are some valid ick's but i feel like as social media does, I've seen a lot of "street interviewers" that rage bait people into some of the most insane ones, that ultimately are just things that make people "look less manly" (whatever that means).
Maybe, but it also seems used more as a form of harassment too - Biden shouldn't eat an ice cream cone, it's not manly. I've literally seen women online talk about how gay desserts are for guys in...
Maybe, but it also seems used more as a form of harassment too - Biden shouldn't eat an ice cream cone, it's not manly. I've literally seen women online talk about how gay desserts are for guys in general. I don't understand it. It's really just a lot of social policing of others behavior to enforce societal gender roles.
Any time someone does this to me I do a pretty good job of laughing in their face and telling them they're enforcing toxic patriarchal gender roles. In some places I might get laughed at for...
Any time someone does this to me I do a pretty good job of laughing in their face and telling them they're enforcing toxic patriarchal gender roles. In some places I might get laughed at for saying that but in San Francisco I've been getting a lot of people to experience moments of self-awareness where they stop and think for a minute.
I mean I get that last one, eating frozen water = homosexuality; didn't we settle that debate long ago? /s The data nerd in me immediately wants to go check if I can find a weak correlation...
I mean I get that last one, eating frozen water = homosexuality; didn't we settle that debate long ago?
/s
The data nerd in me immediately wants to go check if I can find a weak correlation between enjoyment of specific deserts and sexual orientation. Are lemon sherberts particularly lesbian or trending towards pan? How many chocolate sprinkles on a sundae makes you go up 1 point on the Kingsley scale?
I've heard lemon bars are enjoyed bisexuals. So maybe lemon sherbet as well? I do enjoy lemon sherbets and lemon drops and limoncellos. It's gotta be because I'm half-gay, right?
I've heard lemon bars are enjoyed bisexuals. So maybe lemon sherbet as well? I do enjoy lemon sherbets and lemon drops and limoncellos. It's gotta be because I'm half-gay, right?
Oh yeah that's a thing though I'm always just disappointed it's not an ooey gooey butter cake. But I make up for it by never sitting in a chair straightly.
Oh yeah that's a thing though I'm always just disappointed it's not an ooey gooey butter cake. But I make up for it by never sitting in a chair straightly.
Okay, I know everybody’s dunking on the idea of linking food consumption to gender identity and sexual orientation (which is genuinely good fun), but I’m going to be serious about this topic for a...
Okay, I know everybody’s dunking on the idea of linking food consumption to gender identity and sexual orientation (which is genuinely good fun), but I’m going to be serious about this topic for a second.
We had a catered staff lunch one time, and another colleague and I both ordered one of the veggie options on offer. When the whole staff was in line to pick up our food, she saw that we had gotten the same dish. She asked if I was vegetarian, and I quietly confirmed. She then excitedly exclaimed “Yay, vegetarians!” loud enough for everyone to hear and went to give me a high five.
I didn’t want to give her a high five.
I was actually a little mortified.
I felt like I had been publicly outed.
It honestly feels a little shameful to say this, but I am way more comfortable telling people I’m gay than telling them I eat a (mostly) vegetarian diet. Most people I know are cool with the former, but the latter still tends to dredge up a lot of baggage and judgment.
It’s just easier to not say anything about it? I could eat twenty vegetarian meals in front of people and no one would notice, but if I say I’m vegetarian then what I eat becomes “a thing” and opens me up to scrutiny that I’d rather just avoid altogether in the first place.
Oh, wow, this is intensely relatable for me. I am intentionally free with this flavor of personal information in public, but I steel myself far more before revealing that I’m vegan than revealing...
Oh, wow, this is intensely relatable for me. I am intentionally free with this flavor of personal information in public, but I steel myself far more before revealing that I’m vegan than revealing that I’m bi.
Part of it is definitely that I feel confident in dismissing the opinions of, and even relationships with, anyone who isn’t accepting of the fact that I’m bi (I’m extremely lucky to be in a place where this group hasn’t included anyone important to me). But a much, much larger group of people, upon first learning that I’m vegan, have some gut reaction that compels them to challenge it in some way.
I think that it’s made more difficult by the fact that being vegan is indeed a choice, if not one that I feel I could have chosen differently, and the fact that I have made such a choice, especially on moral grounds, pushes others into a place of defense about their own choices on how they engage with industrial farming and animal rights. As people have become more comfortable with the idea that being queer isn’t a choice, it’s become easier (I think) for folks to learn that someone else is queer without that knowledge affecting their perception of themselves; because food choices are in fact choices, it’s harder for people to avoid the way those choices reflect on them.
What kind of scrutiny do you experience? I think I’ve not had one bad reaction since I eliminated almost all meat a few years ago. I do make sure to say I’m a fake vegetarian though (I eat meat to...
What kind of scrutiny do you experience? I think I’ve not had one bad reaction since I eliminated almost all meat a few years ago. I do make sure to say I’m a fake vegetarian though (I eat meat to get in on special occasions where there’s no good vegetarian option).
None, but that’s because I don’t really tell people about it. I do hear what other people say though, and it’s not uncommon for other people’s dietary habits to be water cooler gossip,...
None, but that’s because I don’t really tell people about it.
I do hear what other people say though, and it’s not uncommon for other people’s dietary habits to be water cooler gossip, unfortunately. I actually had a whole section of my comment that I deleted before posting about how the moment somebody has a dietary restriction some people take it as an opportunity to scrutinize their food or look for moments of hypocrisy (“she said she was gluten free, but did you see her lunch yesterday?”).
Also, I come from the American south where there’s a very strong meat-based food culture, as well as a very strong meat-masculinity link. If I were to bring it up with, say, my parents, it would be like “great, I’m disappointing them all over again.”
I do think some of this is in my head as a product of my own queer hangups. I already feel like I lose a lot of “man cred” in some people’s eyes for being gay — being vegetarian feels like I’m doubling down on that, and being on the receiving end of not being seen as a “man” is… off-putting? Nobody ever says anything outright, of course, but with the more dude-y guys I work with there’s definitely a vibe difference in how they interact with me versus other guys.
Also, like you I’m a “fake” vegetarian. I usually phrase it as “I’m 90% vegetarian” when I do talk about it. I’ll eat meat when served it, when there aren’t other good veggie options and, most often, when I’m weak-willed and order it by choice. Despite my best intentions I still do this, more than I should. I definitely feel like it gets seen from the outside as hypocrisy rather than an understandable action taken by a fallible human though, and I’d rather just dodge that kind of judgment altogether.
I find it really frustrating that there’s so much baggage around food choices. I’m in a very similar place as you it sounds like in terms of eating habits and generally keeping it to myself in...
I find it really frustrating that there’s so much baggage around food choices. I’m in a very similar place as you it sounds like in terms of eating habits and generally keeping it to myself in many circles. It’s gotten better over the years, but any time veganism comes up in conversation, there always seem to be a few very outspoken people who really, really don’t like vegans. Any reduction in animal products puts you closer to “those people”, and like you said, people loooove policing for presumed hypocrisy.
One of my aunts is generally plant-based and not shy about it, and my mom has literally gossiped to me about the time they went out to dinner and my aunt ordered meat. It’s infuriating.
I’ll also add that at restaurants I’ll often order meat because the non-meat options are often not that different in price, and I’ve had a lot of experiences where the chefs didn’t really know how to make a vegetarian or vegan entree taste good. Plus it’s like a treat since I very rarely cook meat at home.
Oof I hate moments of self-realization like that. I mean they're good and help us work through our shit but also I hate being forced to do that. It is odd sometimes which things we avoid. Being...
Oof I hate moments of self-realization like that. I mean they're good and help us work through our shit but also I hate being forced to do that.
It is odd sometimes which things we avoid. Being more comfortable in my skin has been nothing but good for me in the long run, so I try to keep living by that.
I think being gay (and several other flavors of queerness) is more widely accepted than vegetarian or vegan here in the US. That would largely be because most people who have had contact with gay...
I think being gay (and several other flavors of queerness) is more widely accepted than vegetarian or vegan here in the US. That would largely be because most people who have had contact with gay people would have been on a personal level where it is easy to demonstrate you are a good person.
On the other hand, if you are vegetarian or vegan, you are far more likely to be eating with people who eat the same as you do, so contact that would out you is more rare. Perhaps more importantly there is a lot less political will for acceptance. And for a lot of people their goodwill is exhausted by groups like PETA with their gross-out marketing and those vegans who will spout the most negative messaging possible at the drop of a pin.
But it does depend on where you live. The further inland you are, meat becomes more and more culturally important. Here in California we grow a huge amount of vegetables; the food culture is already focused on fresh veg, so being veg is not so big of a deal. You’re likely to find likeminded people and have it not be a big deal.
But I do think that things are changing. As much as I have badmouthed vocal vegans, their presence has made people more aware. They are all over culture and more and more people have made the change as a result.
I absolutely beg you to remember that there are states that aren't coastal blue states in the US. I have never met someone who's been cut off by their parents or sent to conversion therapy or a...
I think being gay (and several other flavors of queerness) is more widely accepted than vegetarian or vegan here in the US. That would largely be because most people who have had contact with gay people would have been on a personal level where it is easy to demonstrate you are a good person.
I absolutely beg you to remember that there are states that aren't coastal blue states in the US. I have never met someone who's been cut off by their parents or sent to conversion therapy or a reeducation boarding school for being a vegetarian or vegan. I know multiple people who experienced that just from my personal circle growing up in Ohio, and I'm not even from a rural area or a small town. Things have gotten better for gay people throughout the US over my lifetime so far but it is wildly out of touch with most of the country to believe that being gay is more acceptable than being vegetarian or vegan in the US.
Interesting. I'm sorry you went through that. When I was younger, I loved hamburgers. It was one of my favorite foods. Especially fast food hamburgers. But when my mom died in my early twenties,...
Interesting. I'm sorry you went through that.
When I was younger, I loved hamburgers. It was one of my favorite foods. Especially fast food hamburgers. But when my mom died in my early twenties, my sister became vegan because she was convinced that it was my mom's diet that gave her breast cancer and killed her. My wife and I joked that my sister became "the prophet of veganism." Gradually, what she would talk about when we visited her made me start to question how I could reconcile eating meat with animal suffering. Eventually, I became a lacto-ovo pescatarian. I haven't eaten a mammal or bird in close to 15 years.
Though I grew up in somewhat rural Northern California (a few hours north of Sacramento), I ended up in the Portland, Oregon metro area. So maybe it's where I live now, but I've never felt like I had to be ashamed of being (for simplicity's sake) "vegetarian." At least not in person.
It's obvious from Reddit that people are quite passionate about being anti-vegan/vegetarian. They clearly see those diets as being a threat to their identities and they respond by attacking those lifestyles. And certainly nobody likes being proselytized to, which plenty of vegans and vegetarians have been guilty of. But in real life, it's never been a problem for me. I've never had a meat eater demand that I justify my vegetarianism.
That said, I suspect that at least some of my conservative, "meat and potatoes" coworkers judge me for my diet. Not harshly, but I suspect it's there. It doesn't help that, despite being a cisgendered, heterosexual man, I'm scrawny, dorky, and neurotic. I've long been considered outside the "proper" realm of American masculinity for an elder Millennial. I've even wondered if people quietly blame my disability (chronic pain when I use the extensor tendons in my hands for any kind of repetitive activity like typing or using a mouse) on my diet. But, again, I've never seen anyone openly suggest that or give me any shit for my diet. Except maybe my dad every once in a while, who is disappointed that I didn't get on the "eating lots of red meat" train that my sister recently did.
But as for the rest of the article, and the general idea of being worried about being insufficiently masculine in a variety of activities (including what and how we eat), I definitely feel that. As someone who was bullied in middle school, I'm acutely aware of things that will draw negative attention to myself. I'm worried about some of it more than others. But fortunately, my diet isn't one of those things. And the older I get, the less I care about some of it.
I think it's interesting that food has had a long-running connection with sexuality. It's no surprise: their shapes can resemble genitalia, their consumption may elicit behaviors misaligned with...
I think it's interesting that food has had a long-running connection with sexuality. It's no surprise: their shapes can resemble genitalia, their consumption may elicit behaviors misaligned with gender role expectations, and they come in contact with our orifices (either on the way in... or out).
It reminds me of how bananas were briefly seen as an immoral fruit in the early 1800s because they were phallic. Not to mention how foods like oysters have been seen as aphrodisiacs.
I'm a bit too zonked out now to do a proper search, but haven't some of those aprodisiacs been proven true (albeit very minimal effects?) Can't recall if oysters were one of them
I'm a bit too zonked out now to do a proper search, but haven't some of those aprodisiacs been proven true (albeit very minimal effects?) Can't recall if oysters were one of them
In my experience, as a straight man, it's actually Beer that gives men breasts.
I'm sure I have other hang ups I'm not accounting for, but being worried that eating certain styles of food makes you gay or changes your body (other than making you fat) sounds exhausting and quite frankly, I'd rather quit living life than give up Pho and Ramen.
I've been a vegetarian most of my life, and before that I ate meat that I hunted and fished myself. Back before it had entered the mainstream and was just starting to get public scrutiny, you would see all kinds of wild claims. People writing letters to the editor about how vegetarians will get sick and die, tofu giving you breasts, etc. People really do love finding anything different to hate.
To your point, I've eaten tofu weekly for 25 years. Still no breasts. However, I'm also a healthy weight, which I think is the real driving factor here. 🙂
Various hop compounds, such as 8-prenylnaringenin, are phytoestrogens that interact with the bodies estrogen metabolic pathways!
If I recall from the vegan propaganda I used to consume and the research that I actually did because the soy boobs joke annoyed me to no end - the phytoestrogens in beer are something like 50x as strong as that in soy milk!
I agree with you and wonder how seriously these bigots actually enforce things like not eating ice cream. Like, I assume Jesse Watters is eating ice cream at home, just from a bowl, and this nonsense is a "more acceptable" way of expressing his homophobia.
I love most of the foods written about in this article and I'm still not gay. So what's more manly? Avoiding gay foods or eating gay foods and not turning gay? Checkmate homophobes!
There's definitely some level of "it's not ok to do this in public' and also "it's not ok for person whose politics I disagree with and already don't like to do this in public"
I thought this was a fun article that discussed the foods that "real men" aren't allowed to eat, what queerphobic (and racist) stereotypes exist around food, and the idea that if food can change you, what really is gender and orientation anyway?
I think this feels like a subcategory of the trend of "icks" too, right? Sure, there are some valid ick's but i feel like as social media does, I've seen a lot of "street interviewers" that rage bait people into some of the most insane ones, that ultimately are just things that make people "look less manly" (whatever that means).
Maybe, but it also seems used more as a form of harassment too - Biden shouldn't eat an ice cream cone, it's not manly. I've literally seen women online talk about how gay desserts are for guys in general. I don't understand it. It's really just a lot of social policing of others behavior to enforce societal gender roles.
Any time someone does this to me I do a pretty good job of laughing in their face and telling them they're enforcing toxic patriarchal gender roles. In some places I might get laughed at for saying that but in San Francisco I've been getting a lot of people to experience moments of self-awareness where they stop and think for a minute.
Wait, you've seen people police what foods others can eat in SF? That's absolutely wild, I must hang with very different people lol
Yeah, absolutely crazy but someone was telling me last week that tofu might turn me into a woman. Tech bros...
OH right tech bros, yea that tracks
I mean I get that last one, eating frozen water = homosexuality; didn't we settle that debate long ago?
/s
The data nerd in me immediately wants to go check if I can find a weak correlation between enjoyment of specific deserts and sexual orientation. Are lemon sherberts particularly lesbian or trending towards pan? How many chocolate sprinkles on a sundae makes you go up 1 point on the Kingsley scale?
Ok I knew about iced coffee but is it all frozen water now? Ugh this is a lot to keep up with.
I've heard lemon bars are enjoyed bisexuals. So maybe lemon sherbet as well? I do enjoy lemon sherbets and lemon drops and limoncellos. It's gotta be because I'm half-gay, right?
Oh yeah that's a thing though I'm always just disappointed it's not an ooey gooey butter cake. But I make up for it by never sitting in a chair straightly.
My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.
It's monster energy drinks due to their extremely loose relation to Subaru culture. Start guzzling!
Fish tacos? Muffins? Pickles? Lavender iced coffee? Cheese (fascinate a woman)?
Pomegranate feels right. So does a peach but I feel it's been co-opted already
Cheese is always a success though. I'm endlessly fascinated
Ladyfingers.
Okay, I know everybody’s dunking on the idea of linking food consumption to gender identity and sexual orientation (which is genuinely good fun), but I’m going to be serious about this topic for a second.
We had a catered staff lunch one time, and another colleague and I both ordered one of the veggie options on offer. When the whole staff was in line to pick up our food, she saw that we had gotten the same dish. She asked if I was vegetarian, and I quietly confirmed. She then excitedly exclaimed “Yay, vegetarians!” loud enough for everyone to hear and went to give me a high five.
I didn’t want to give her a high five.
I was actually a little mortified.
I felt like I had been publicly outed.
It honestly feels a little shameful to say this, but I am way more comfortable telling people I’m gay than telling them I eat a (mostly) vegetarian diet. Most people I know are cool with the former, but the latter still tends to dredge up a lot of baggage and judgment.
It’s just easier to not say anything about it? I could eat twenty vegetarian meals in front of people and no one would notice, but if I say I’m vegetarian then what I eat becomes “a thing” and opens me up to scrutiny that I’d rather just avoid altogether in the first place.
Oh, wow, this is intensely relatable for me. I am intentionally free with this flavor of personal information in public, but I steel myself far more before revealing that I’m vegan than revealing that I’m bi.
Part of it is definitely that I feel confident in dismissing the opinions of, and even relationships with, anyone who isn’t accepting of the fact that I’m bi (I’m extremely lucky to be in a place where this group hasn’t included anyone important to me). But a much, much larger group of people, upon first learning that I’m vegan, have some gut reaction that compels them to challenge it in some way.
I think that it’s made more difficult by the fact that being vegan is indeed a choice, if not one that I feel I could have chosen differently, and the fact that I have made such a choice, especially on moral grounds, pushes others into a place of defense about their own choices on how they engage with industrial farming and animal rights. As people have become more comfortable with the idea that being queer isn’t a choice, it’s become easier (I think) for folks to learn that someone else is queer without that knowledge affecting their perception of themselves; because food choices are in fact choices, it’s harder for people to avoid the way those choices reflect on them.
What kind of scrutiny do you experience? I think I’ve not had one bad reaction since I eliminated almost all meat a few years ago. I do make sure to say I’m a fake vegetarian though (I eat meat to get in on special occasions where there’s no good vegetarian option).
None, but that’s because I don’t really tell people about it.
I do hear what other people say though, and it’s not uncommon for other people’s dietary habits to be water cooler gossip, unfortunately. I actually had a whole section of my comment that I deleted before posting about how the moment somebody has a dietary restriction some people take it as an opportunity to scrutinize their food or look for moments of hypocrisy (“she said she was gluten free, but did you see her lunch yesterday?”).
Also, I come from the American south where there’s a very strong meat-based food culture, as well as a very strong meat-masculinity link. If I were to bring it up with, say, my parents, it would be like “great, I’m disappointing them all over again.”
I do think some of this is in my head as a product of my own queer hangups. I already feel like I lose a lot of “man cred” in some people’s eyes for being gay — being vegetarian feels like I’m doubling down on that, and being on the receiving end of not being seen as a “man” is… off-putting? Nobody ever says anything outright, of course, but with the more dude-y guys I work with there’s definitely a vibe difference in how they interact with me versus other guys.
Also, like you I’m a “fake” vegetarian. I usually phrase it as “I’m 90% vegetarian” when I do talk about it. I’ll eat meat when served it, when there aren’t other good veggie options and, most often, when I’m weak-willed and order it by choice. Despite my best intentions I still do this, more than I should. I definitely feel like it gets seen from the outside as hypocrisy rather than an understandable action taken by a fallible human though, and I’d rather just dodge that kind of judgment altogether.
I find it really frustrating that there’s so much baggage around food choices. I’m in a very similar place as you it sounds like in terms of eating habits and generally keeping it to myself in many circles. It’s gotten better over the years, but any time veganism comes up in conversation, there always seem to be a few very outspoken people who really, really don’t like vegans. Any reduction in animal products puts you closer to “those people”, and like you said, people loooove policing for presumed hypocrisy.
One of my aunts is generally plant-based and not shy about it, and my mom has literally gossiped to me about the time they went out to dinner and my aunt ordered meat. It’s infuriating.
I’ll also add that at restaurants I’ll often order meat because the non-meat options are often not that different in price, and I’ve had a lot of experiences where the chefs didn’t really know how to make a vegetarian or vegan entree taste good. Plus it’s like a treat since I very rarely cook meat at home.
FWIW, my wife likes to refer to herself as flexitarian.
Oof I hate moments of self-realization like that. I mean they're good and help us work through our shit but also I hate being forced to do that.
It is odd sometimes which things we avoid. Being more comfortable in my skin has been nothing but good for me in the long run, so I try to keep living by that.
I think being gay (and several other flavors of queerness) is more widely accepted than vegetarian or vegan here in the US. That would largely be because most people who have had contact with gay people would have been on a personal level where it is easy to demonstrate you are a good person.
On the other hand, if you are vegetarian or vegan, you are far more likely to be eating with people who eat the same as you do, so contact that would out you is more rare. Perhaps more importantly there is a lot less political will for acceptance. And for a lot of people their goodwill is exhausted by groups like PETA with their gross-out marketing and those vegans who will spout the most negative messaging possible at the drop of a pin.
But it does depend on where you live. The further inland you are, meat becomes more and more culturally important. Here in California we grow a huge amount of vegetables; the food culture is already focused on fresh veg, so being veg is not so big of a deal. You’re likely to find likeminded people and have it not be a big deal.
But I do think that things are changing. As much as I have badmouthed vocal vegans, their presence has made people more aware. They are all over culture and more and more people have made the change as a result.
I absolutely beg you to remember that there are states that aren't coastal blue states in the US. I have never met someone who's been cut off by their parents or sent to conversion therapy or a reeducation boarding school for being a vegetarian or vegan. I know multiple people who experienced that just from my personal circle growing up in Ohio, and I'm not even from a rural area or a small town. Things have gotten better for gay people throughout the US over my lifetime so far but it is wildly out of touch with most of the country to believe that being gay is more acceptable than being vegetarian or vegan in the US.
Interesting. I'm sorry you went through that.
When I was younger, I loved hamburgers. It was one of my favorite foods. Especially fast food hamburgers. But when my mom died in my early twenties, my sister became vegan because she was convinced that it was my mom's diet that gave her breast cancer and killed her. My wife and I joked that my sister became "the prophet of veganism." Gradually, what she would talk about when we visited her made me start to question how I could reconcile eating meat with animal suffering. Eventually, I became a lacto-ovo pescatarian. I haven't eaten a mammal or bird in close to 15 years.
Though I grew up in somewhat rural Northern California (a few hours north of Sacramento), I ended up in the Portland, Oregon metro area. So maybe it's where I live now, but I've never felt like I had to be ashamed of being (for simplicity's sake) "vegetarian." At least not in person.
It's obvious from Reddit that people are quite passionate about being anti-vegan/vegetarian. They clearly see those diets as being a threat to their identities and they respond by attacking those lifestyles. And certainly nobody likes being proselytized to, which plenty of vegans and vegetarians have been guilty of. But in real life, it's never been a problem for me. I've never had a meat eater demand that I justify my vegetarianism.
That said, I suspect that at least some of my conservative, "meat and potatoes" coworkers judge me for my diet. Not harshly, but I suspect it's there. It doesn't help that, despite being a cisgendered, heterosexual man, I'm scrawny, dorky, and neurotic. I've long been considered outside the "proper" realm of American masculinity for an elder Millennial. I've even wondered if people quietly blame my disability (chronic pain when I use the extensor tendons in my hands for any kind of repetitive activity like typing or using a mouse) on my diet. But, again, I've never seen anyone openly suggest that or give me any shit for my diet. Except maybe my dad every once in a while, who is disappointed that I didn't get on the "eating lots of red meat" train that my sister recently did.
But as for the rest of the article, and the general idea of being worried about being insufficiently masculine in a variety of activities (including what and how we eat), I definitely feel that. As someone who was bullied in middle school, I'm acutely aware of things that will draw negative attention to myself. I'm worried about some of it more than others. But fortunately, my diet isn't one of those things. And the older I get, the less I care about some of it.
I think it's interesting that food has had a long-running connection with sexuality. It's no surprise: their shapes can resemble genitalia, their consumption may elicit behaviors misaligned with gender role expectations, and they come in contact with our orifices (either on the way in... or out).
It reminds me of how bananas were briefly seen as an immoral fruit in the early 1800s because they were phallic. Not to mention how foods like oysters have been seen as aphrodisiacs.
Interesting read, thanks for sharing.
I'm a bit too zonked out now to do a proper search, but haven't some of those aprodisiacs been proven true (albeit very minimal effects?) Can't recall if oysters were one of them