The earring signal has been completely destroyed by straight people who got earrings because it was cool,
Either those straight people by wearing those earrings were deliberately lying about their sexual orientation (which doesn’t sound likely to me), or there wasn’t actual common knowledge about the earrings’ meaning.
That assumes that the straight people in question cared about what their piercings signaled. Given the culture of the group which popularized ear piercings in men, I’m not sure that’s a safe assumption.
Well, if I really don’t care about whether people will mistake me for a gay man, I won’t complain when they do mistake me for a gay man, either, so there’s no problem (except for the momentary confusion in gay men who were going to hit on me).
Not for you. There -is- a problem for gay men, who are no longer able to reliably interpret the signal. It directly raises the odds of rejection on the average approach based on that signal.
I wouldn’t care about gay men momentarily mistaking me for gay, because there is an immediate opportunity to correct the misapprehension. Attractive women mistaking me for gay, on the other hand, would be problematic. If they never strike up a conversation in the first place, you never get the chance to clarify.
I’m not sure that’s a problem. I’ve heard that women are more likely to start conversations with men they think are gay because they won’t get hit on. There are PUA techniques based to initially pretending to be gay.
Either those straight people by wearing those earrings were deliberately lying about their sexual orientation (which doesn’t sound likely to me), or there wasn’t actual common knowledge about the earrings’ meaning.
That assumes that the straight people in question cared about what their piercings signaled. Given the culture of the group which popularized ear piercings in men, I’m not sure that’s a safe assumption.
Well, if I really don’t care about whether people will mistake me for a gay man, I won’t complain when they do mistake me for a gay man, either, so there’s no problem (except for the momentary confusion in gay men who were going to hit on me).
Not for you. There -is- a problem for gay men, who are no longer able to reliably interpret the signal. It directly raises the odds of rejection on the average approach based on that signal.
I wouldn’t care about gay men momentarily mistaking me for gay, because there is an immediate opportunity to correct the misapprehension. Attractive women mistaking me for gay, on the other hand, would be problematic. If they never strike up a conversation in the first place, you never get the chance to clarify.
I’m not sure that’s a problem. I’ve heard that women are more likely to start conversations with men they think are gay because they won’t get hit on. There are PUA techniques based to initially pretending to be gay.