It cracked me up to find out that Tom MacMaster, the straight American dude masquerading as Syrian blogger 鈥楢 Gay Girl in Damascus鈥� was busted creating another online persona 鈥� another Arab woman 鈥� to say nice things about him online and defend his fake-lesbian antics.
Too bad some smart cookie realised the IP address of the new lady, 鈥楳iriam鈥�, was the same as MacMaster鈥檚!
Like the rest of the lez community I was totally pissed when I heard about Tom. Not only because I鈥檇 had genuine concern for 鈥楢mina鈥�, his fictional alter ego, but because I鈥檓 sick of the straight bloke obsession with lesbianism 鈥� whether it鈥檚 sleazy dudes posing as chicks on dating sites or the vast array of 鈥榣esbian鈥� porn, clearly for the male gaze (long fingernails, humungous fake boobs), that I come across online when searching for the real deal.
But here I am getting worked up about some dude getting his lez on when I鈥檓 guilty of the same internet fakery myself. Confession: I have an online male alter ego called Jasper who occasionally hangs out on Grindr.
He鈥檚 an indie boy who鈥檚 attracted to cute, tattooed, masculine hipsters. He likes to flirt but gets a bit frigid at the first mention of 鈥榗ock pic鈥�. I mainly use Grindr to communicate with my homo-housemate (who never answers his phone) but I also like using it to explore parts of my identity that I can鈥檛, or don鈥檛 want to, explore, in real life.
It鈥檚 super dodgy but that鈥檚 what鈥檚 great about the internet. It鈥檚 a playground where you can experiment with different genders and sexualities in an anonymous and relatively safe way. We鈥檙e all complex, curious, contradictory creatures and it鈥檚 nice to have a platform to test out the bits of ourselves that we might not necessarily understand.
I鈥檓 in no way excusing MacMaster because there鈥檚 no shortage of 鈥榤ale voices鈥� in the world. But I do wonder if the public reaction would have been different if it was a girl posing as a guy.
Hungry Beast pal Marc Fennell recently said he鈥檇 love to secure the film rights to MacMaster鈥檚 story. Excellent idea. But in the true spirit of Hollywood gender bending, I鈥檇 want a Scooby-Doo ending where they rip off Tom MacMaster鈥檚 face to reveal Miley Cyrus.
‘A Gay Girl In Damascus鈥�:
By MONIQUE SCHAFTER
Ha it’s funny that all the replies are from men, or are they women posing as men?? I didn’t follow the McMasters controversy as I try to avoid “news” but maybe the question isn’t about morality but just old fashioned fraud? The Net is real communication where everything we write has the potential to touch and affect others. Maybe he should allow the real Syrian lesbians to have their own voices? keep up the good work MS you’re a good writer, I like where you’re coming from. Miley Cyrus!! LMFAO :D
Wow yeah the internet is a wonderful playground full of people creating fake personalities. Hope aspiring pedos don’t see this article.
I went to google, typed in genuine lesbian porn, and got … where was the difficulty in that? They looked pretty genuine? Free stuff is harder to find; maybe men do most of the postings or just violate copyright more easily.
has a good rep and used to be Australian until the wowsers drove it off-shore.
As for lesbian dating, searching on that gave a lot of hits but the second one showed this profile, which looks pretty genuine.
Mind you, most of the lesbians I know have sexual feelings for men (even if only fictitious ones) at some time, and the only outright gay male friend i had at Uni had a falling out with me over a shared crush on a woman, so maybe everyone is bi and males just repress it more (i dunno, i find male bodies icky!) or maybe it’s just women…
…and don’t dis the cravings men have for women on women action, it’s just shaming us for being ourselves, and if the objects of our fantasies cannot possibly exist, they are no more unreal than the vampires women seem obsessed with ;-)
You wouldn’t be stereotyping males as to what kind of porn they like would you Monique?
I can assure you not all of us think that beauty is spelled with two ‘D’s that’s just what sells best. Also it stands to reason that many lesbians do enjoy that particular style, surely there is as much variety among homosexuals as among heterosexuals in all tastes. That being said women who claim to be lesbians and act like a garden variety chauvinist are typically dismissed as fake for being overt about it but is it impossible that some number of them are actually like that?
TL:DR? Men in general aren’t ‘the enemy’ when it comes to sexuality, it’s just that many humans happen to be complete tools
Oh and most porn is ridiculous and fake, its not confined to lesbian porn
Really well said Monique, balanced. There may be a lot of guys ‘posing’ for stupid reasons, but I’d say it’s statistically likely there are some ‘posing’ for the same reasons you do. I guess it’s the difference between ‘trolling’ and actually being curious.
Always good to make sure we don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I also, as a hetero male, find the fake depiction of ‘lesbians’ to be laughable.
I really liked how this was written, especially the 6th paragraph.. hit close to home. Sometimes we can be unsure about how to portray ourselves in real life and more generally, who we really are. The Internet provides a fantastic platform to experiment with these ideas for the good and the bad.