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


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