not likely to assert or actively think that not all sissies are necessarily
gay. In a course I once took on sexism and gender roles, my teacher
drew a continuum from "all masculine" to "all feminine".
It was asserted that a person could be in the middle (androgynous) and still
be heterosexual, and therefore men should give up their homophobic
concern with being "all masculine". When asked about the fate
of a male who was much closer to the "all feminine" pole of the
continuum, the teacher shrugged and said, "I think they'd probably
all rather be gay over there." In Richard Greene's research [The
Sissy Boy Syndrome and the Development of Homosexuality. New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press 1987], the author provides case histories that
are presumably representative of his total sample - boys who were sissies
who grew up to be gay, boys who were masculine who grew up to be straight,
boys who were sissies who became masculinized later and grew up straight,
and so on. None of the case studies were of boys who were sissies, remained
sissies, and grew up to be heterosexual sissies. If not one of the
sissies in his sample of boys had grown up to be heterosexual without becoming
masculinized beforehand, that would have been a major finding, central to
his research interest, but it wasn't even commented upon. On the other hand,
neither was it stated that some sissies remain sissies and grow up to be
heterosexual. It is seldom said that some sissies are heterosexual, and
it is difficult to notice the pattern formed by an absence.
Cute Cartoon of Straight-acting
Gay Reincarnated as Effeminate Straight Man by Jim Coughenour
(return)