Straight People Watch: Spring 2K18

Welcome back to Straight People Watch, a sobering series where we track what kind of cannon straight parents are using to shoot their baby’s gender out of, what straight women are putting in their vaginas, how straight couples are getting engaged, what kind of coffee mugs straight people are drinking out of, how tightly straight people are still holding onto gender norms, and other heterosexual essentials that are logged as exhibits A through Z-eleventy in the case against how okay straight people are.

You can’t unsee it once you’ve seen it, so prepare yourself if this is the first time you’re joining us, because it’ll follow you into your daily life. I know this all too well as a gay liaison. I’ve seen too much. It’s why when I’m out in public now I do this thing where I imagine calling 911 and getting Connie Britton as Abby Clark from the hit Fox drama 911 on the line who’s like…

Fox Tv Help GIF by 9-1-1 on FOX - Find & Share on GIPHY

… and I’m like, “Please, there are straight people in my general area!” and she’s like…

Fox Tv Omg GIF by 9-1-1 on FOX - Find & Share on GIPHY

… and I’m like, “Help me!!!” and she’s like, “Sweetie, stay on the phone with me, we’re gonna get our crew out there as fast as we can,” and it makes me feel better for about five seconds. You’ll probably need your own version of this once you see what they’ve been up to this spring.

I’m so excited for the birth of my * window breaks car alarm goes off three pedestrians get wiped out two lawn chairs get launched into a tree a power line snaps and whips sparks around like an angry snake *

This is of course only something a white person would think to do or get away with, so it’s already not starting out great. But let’s get into the layers of this one. One, the man has requested he, the driver, be taken out of the car and put in frisk position. Already right there as a passenger in 2018 in America (which is obviously where this takes place) I’m deleting every treasured video on my phone to make room for what could be an hour-long recording. Corrosive adrenaline is coursing through my veins. Then the man requests that I, the passenger, also be taken out of the car, which only happens, oh, never. Beautiful. Love is love. Now we’re both outside the vehicle with our backs to a man with a gun. Am I McDonald’s cause I’m lovin’ it. Now he’s taking our I.D.s and clocking where we live and, hmmm, is there a recent example in a long history of examples of how that might not turn out great for me, a woman? My future husband, planning this all out… for me. The answer was always yes.

Congratulations, it’s a gun.

Diamonds are forever. They are all I need to please me. They can stimulate and tease me. They won’t leave in the night, have no fear that they might desert me… Because they’re of my flesh now.

Why not nine weeks? If you’re going to invite your friends over on what is probably their day off and then ask that they sit in silence and list any name they can think for nine whole minutes, the damage’s been done. Go to town on the time frame. Did I recently initiate a game with someone where the objective was to list every kind of body of water we could think of? Sure. But that was for like two minutes, tops, and was seamlessly incorporated into an already established get-together. This game isn’t even for the explicit purpose of helping with the baby-naming process! That’s just a possibility — a potential added bonus. This is listing names to list them. Who Can Name the Most Names. I love to party.

This has over 1500 five-star reviews on Etsy.

I obviously have a lot of questions about this, but my main question is: how’d they get the jello in the watermelon? Runner up questions: How’d the chomp look? Satisfying? Who’d the gator go after first? Did they rent a gator? Where can I rent a gator? And, as always: is anyone okay?

“Increasingly Violent Groomsman Gifts” is maybe my favorite part of series. Above we have gun shell bottle openers, a personalized hatchet, and gun knives. Do you want to gift your friend a knife as a thank you for being in your wedding, but are scared it’ll come off gay? Try gun knives, knives that are designed like guns. These gun knives see regular knives’ bet of “I wouldn’t hug you without making it a joke and immediately punching you after” and raises them an “I’d never even sit on the same couch as you.” Finally, a product for me.

TFW you’re an adult.

Honestly? Would watch Kangaroo Police, Kangaroo’s Bachelorette, Kangaroo Women, and Kangaroo Bride. Oop, I’m getting word that Netflix has just secured Adam Sandler to star in them all.

It is truly thrilling me that one of the main components of heterosexuality is that you hate the other person and you’d do anything to distract yourself from having to actually engage with them, like sexualizing a piece of chocolate or ranking the food items you’d prefer over them. Mancaves and Winesday were created for this very reason. Get the hell away from me, my spouse. Inspiring.

Clearly this man has never shaved his legs with a women’s Bic razor, ’cause buddy, that’ll teach you a thing or two about skinning yourself alive.

This feels deliberate, and also: y’all couldn’t even do an aisle? You had to jam yourselves into the shopping cart area like you’re retail bushwhacking? Sir, your hair is faded for the gods and you’ve chosen to showcase it among chariots of bacteria? How is another person supposed to love you if you don’t love yourself?

In addition to the last name being changed to reflect her being a woman (?), the shirt’s gotta be a skirt, the whip’s gotta be a bra, the boulder’s gotta be a compact, and the snakes gotta be tampons.

Ah!!!!!!!! An endless attack against your friends. The war rages on. The fighting never stops. The babies we celebrate inheriting the terror of it all.

Croutons? I top my salad with my crippling inferiority complex.

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!
Related:

Erin

Los Angeles based writer. Let's keep it clean out there!

Erin has written 208 articles for us.

117 Comments

  1. spielberg, that’s… that’s not how surnames work. in any way.

    also, “This has over 1500 five-star reviews on Etsy.” made me go WHAT out loud and all my colleagues looked at me and idk how to explain it to them because THEY’RE ALL STRAIGHT

      • oooooh its about monogamy! I thought it was people celebrating keeping their own junk. Like “look at my mug i am SUPER cisgendered” … although i guess it still says that too.

        • It’s definitely about monogamy but I also read it as “Yayyyyy! I’m so cis! He’s so cis! We’re such a cisgendered heterosexual couple!!”

      • I love that we are all so queer and removed from straight society that it all took us several minutes to understand a straight inside joke on marriage. This is definitely the positive outtake that I will take away from all of this straight nonsense.

      • I’m so happy that I’m not the only one who was super confused by those mugs.

    • I’m reading them as warnings:

      “Yes! I’m planning on being a dick/cunt foreeeeever”.

      Aka who to avoid mugs.

      • Honestly the first thing that popped into my head when I saw those mugs is that it’s great to be a lady who’s into ladies cause our dick are interchangable! ?

  3. If that manchild in the gender reveal video who didn’t want a daughter was my baby’s daddy I’d move far far away and tell her that her daddy got run over by a Brink’s armored truck. Jesus.

  4. Glad someone is finally recognizing that Pearls and Pistols are the only two real genders. So tired of this “pearl handled pistols” nonsense.

  5. I would laugh but this is legit terrifying.
    Ok I will laugh at the salad.. masculinity really this fragile that they need to think what ingredients doesn’t look too feminine in their salads what ???

    • It’s so absurd! Like, what’s an acceptable dressing for a Man Salad? Crude oil? Turpentine?

      I hear a 2:1 mix of paint thinner and molten lava is to die for when drizzled over a medley of cactus, rebar and finely diced football laces.

      • My partner and I sometimes make something we call “Man Salad” (while making a face) because those words were literally in the recipe.

        Alas, there’s no crude oil or turpentine. It’s mostly peanut butter. And the salad is just about equal parts pasta and mixed greens/shredded carrots/shredded cabbage. Shredding things is manly. Like peanuts.

      • That’s way too much work for a cishet man to admit to putting into a salad.

        Man Salad is just a 20 pack of McNuggets with the sauce poured overtop to save dipping time.

    • I work with mostly all guys and “Men need meat and can’t be caught eating just vegetables” is an actual thing. Like, when they bring in lunch, there is always one veggie pizza for me and my mom (the two vegetarians on staff) and No One Else will touch it because “ew, vegetables”.
      Maybe That’s why men don’t live as long……..

      • This weird masculinity thing also extends to drinks. I had a male coworker once ask me to go buy a pumpkin spiced latte from Starbucks for him because he could not get caught buying coffee that was not black. I just rolled my eyes at him and said no.

    • Based on the fact straight people’s marriage involves hating each other and not wanting to engage with each other I believe that the women in these marriages came up with the salad only for women thing so the men would not eat healthy and die faster so they can spend the final decades of there life in peace.

    • What’s odd is salads became more popular partially because of men. As farming was becoming less of a thing(men generally were dong more of the manual labor back then) and people moved to factory and office jobs salads rose in popularity.

    • As a preteen I read that if you eat olives you attract more girls so I ate olives even though I hated them… it’s that sort of mentality but in adults! Just eat what you like.

      That said I do like alternative salads with croutons, bacon bits, pickled onions etc over just green veg.

  7. “chariots of bacteria” made me alienate my co-workers with 120decibel laughter

  11. I didn’t know Winesday was a thing. My Winesday is Thursday, aka Shonday, when I sit down to watch Grey’s Anatomy, scandal and station 19. Gonna miss Scandal…

  12. Those mugs read like they are dripped in sarcasm

    “Yayyyy same penis forever”

    • That’s how I also read them. They get increasingly more sad the longer I look at them.

  13. Wow, that ring finger piercing. The idea that straight couples are supposed to hate each other is such an odd, ingrained thing that people are surprised when couples want to spend time together. Now I’ll think “chariots of bacteria” every time I go to Target.

    • I know, right? My partner is a cis man type person and I’ve started referring to him as my partner instead of my husband in straight spaces (as well as queer spaces) because something weird happens when I talk about having a husband to people who haven’t met him (especially acquaintances I’m not out to). It’s like they assume I’m married to this unlikable, helpless creature that I just tolerate for … reasons.

      • Right. “My husband” comes with all sorts of assumptions about him, but also your relationship and you, because you’re now perceived as a man’s “wife”, which has its own super gendered expectations.

        • Well if you are married to a man than you are his wife. Right? Same as if you were married to a woman. That’s not perception, that’s semantics.

          • True, but I do think that being a wife to a man brings a lot of gendered expectations that being a wife to a woman doesn’t have.

      • Yeah, like something similar happened with a group of people I know, they were talking about how one woman had dinner with her husband every night. The common assumption was that he was helpless and needed her to make dinner, not that they might actually enjoy each other’s company and want to spend time together. I’m probably guilty of assuming people’s partners are helpless, but so many people play into that… It’s like the old slogan or sticker, ” Queer, the power to imagine more,” and imagining more is just thinking you should have a partner that you like.

  15. Take a bed of iceberg lettuce top with a rack of ribs and a 20oz. T-bone, sprinkle some croutons made of stale expired hotdog buns and garnish with the teeny-tiniest baby gherkin. Motor oil vinaigrette on the side.

  17. How many of these gifts were ironically sold by queer salespeople tho?

    “Yes a bullet with their name on shows them you care.”

    “The only way that engagement diamond could show the permanence of your love more is if you grafted it on.”

    “That jello-watermelon gender reveal is going to be almost as exciting as alligator wrestling!”

  18. Erin, I always wonder how you manage to gaze into the darkest corners of (cishet) human nature and come out in one piece.

  19. Even when they cannot speak their pain, their Pinterest boards cry out that they’re still not ok…

  21. The logical next step after gun knives is a combination of all six of the weapons from Clue.

  23. Pretty certain that bullet bottle opener was on Shark Tank. There was a special episode of merch made by folks in the military. Everyone loved it.

  24. What percentage of straight women eating “man-chocolate” bite their heads off first, at a guess?

    • No! My Pinterest boards are art, tattoos, queer haircuts and inspiration for my preschool teaching job. It’s possible to queer up your pins, trust me.

  28. So when will “men stabbing their man-salad with a gun knife” become the next Shutterstock cliché?

  29. my MAN SKIN is EXTRA TOUGH and MANLY and i need a razor that is EVEN MORE TOUGH AND MANLY and if a woman used it the blades would cut through her soft woman-skin like butter and literally flay her alive. THAT’S JUST SCIENCE FOLKS

  30. My gender reveal party is going to be a cake with white frosting and when we cut into the cake, it’s gray. Then I’ll pass a basket around with pamphlets about how gender is socially constructed. My MIL will hate me and frankly everyone will be deeply uncomfortable and I’ll be like… sorry guys you shoulda seen this coming.

    • Oh man. I’m huge and pregnant and it’s almost 90 degrees and you just dreamed up something that will bring the biggest slice of subversive joy to my life to get me thru the next 2-3 months. Thank you for your service.

      • it could also be a rainbow cake! Or just your favorite kind of cake, if you like cake.

    • I have another fun party idea! Have people “guess” by giving them a short quiz like:

      My baby prefers:
      a) footballs
      b) tutus
      c) both
      d) neither
      e) it’s a literal fetus so it has no idea what these things are

      • I like that questionnaire. If I can make a suggestion, I would also have a history of color and how in the past pink was seen a color for boys and blue was seen as the color for girls.

        I’m sure someone will say, football because your child will be for life. I’ve seen it said to a few parents wrt Lakers.

        • That’s a good idea! I’d have to do more research to pull it off. I’m thinking everyone would choose a pink or a blue paperclip from a basket and pick up a quiz.

          Then the quiz says:
          I think the baby is a __________________ .
          It’s now x years in the past and the color of paperclip signals something different. Go to the front and get a different paperclip.

          Okay, the baby will wear a dress. Would you like to change your guess?

          All babies where dresses at this time. If you switched you can go back and get the previous paperclip.

          Now finally, what sex is the baby? _____________
          The answer is male, all babies are assumed to be male at this time.

          *** I didn’t do any research so this is probably has some inaccuracies.

    • My best friend sent me a thing like this a few years ago, but you cut into the cake and it’s green M&Ms and then you lock everyone in a room for a Gender 101 presentation. Definitely how any baby shower I have will go. :)

  31. Jeez, I thought I’d heard every bioessentialist bullshit claim, but I have to say that “man skin works different from woman skin” is a new and terrifying one. I’m picturing some sort of Eldritch skin demon now. Please tell me, a foolish mortal, what powers your man skin possesses that my fragile skin does not.

    • Well, clearly, the hability to resist the power of a manly razor without being flayed alive!

  32. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I agree with the straights about the razors. Not because women’s skin works different but because the razors are designed differently for use on different parts of the body.

    As a trans lady I’ve used both men’s and women’s razors on all parts of my body. And using a men’s on anything other than my face cuts me pieces, razor burns me to hell, and gives me so many ingrown hairs that I look like I have small pox. Same if use a women’s razors on my face.

    Can’t believe I agreed with a straight guy, I feel dirty…and not the good dirty ?

    • Also everyone’s skin is different. I use men’s razors to shave my legs because they tend to have more blades, have a closer cut, and are cheaper. I never had any problems with my skin while using them.

    • HELLO RAZOR TALK

      i’m a lady and i use men’s FACE razors to shave my legs, i switched like 10 years ago and now i don’t get razor burn anymore! i cut myself way less! mens’ razors are better for my EXTREMELY sensitive and very thin skin. i also use men’s shave gel and aftershave. it’s a miracle cure for all the shaving problems i used to have.

      i think men’s razors are just designed better and less likely to cut you because if a man cuts his face then well what then

    • This now has me curious to know how well those shavers(you know the ones with wheels on them) for the head work on the leg. Will it be better or worse than the traditional handle razors?

  33. I read that one as 10 Awful Gender Reveal Games and thought “is there any other kind?’.

  34. Ugh. My cousin’s husband did a proposal with a cop scenario just like that. I’m so sad to know it’s happened more than once.

    • I originally misread this as “My husband did a proposal…” and I really wanted to ask you why you said yes, but didn’t because I wanted to be polite. I’m so glad that I read it again and now I know that unlike straight people, you’re probably okay.

  35. As someone who A) Goes to school in Central PA and B) Just accepted a full-time position in Altoona, I can promise you that the cop-aided proposal is 100 percent ~On Brand~ for this region.

    • That’s…that’s terrifying. Really genuinely terrifying. If my partner did that I would have an anxiety attack and say no until they know me better

  36. guys i was in a REAL LIFE STRAIGHT PEOPLE WATCH MOMENT!! i have been waiting for straight people watch spring 2k18 to share!!! my friend showed me her cousin’s baby reveal party which had four different gender reveal parts which is already wild because once you know one wouldn’t you not need the others? unless you’re operating with a much deeper and more complex understanding of gender than a gender reveal party suggests??

    but ANYWAY one was the standard “tutus or touchdowns” cake, but another was a pinterest sign that said NUTS OR NO NUTS above a bowl of M AND MS. so that you could BITE INTO A CANDY and find out YOUR FETUS’ GENITALIA. i have not recovered!!!!!! straight people: not okay!!!!!!!!!

    • You know that thing where someone is so dumbfounded by something that they keep opening their mouth to say something but nothing comes out and they do that over and over? I did the keyboard version of that for 5 minutes after reading that

    • The baby has: **drumroll** one nut right in the middle!

      We also took there DNA and 3D printed a model of what their genitalia will look like! Yaaaaaay!

    • I’m flailing about thinking about the possibility for allergic reactions at the Nuts or No Nuts party. Like, I know it’s super cisnormative so they’re not going to be taking nut allergies into account either, but the idea of potentially risking death to find out what gender your fetus has been assigned seems like such a metaphor and straight people are not okay.

      • If you are allergic to peanuts, you can’t eat any M&M’s—they’re all cross contaminated.

        So then you’d just never know?

  37. Those Fries Before Guys fries are grossing me out so much. They look like pieces of sculpted butter!

    Speaking of butter, I don’t know if this qualifies as a straight people thing or just a horrifying consequence of living in the South, but recently at the movie theater, I saw some people absolutely drowning their popcorn in melted butter and then filling plastic trays with butter and I was already thinking, “Well, that seems excessive,” and then I saw one of them drink the butter from their tray. It was truly nightmarish and I haven’t felt safe since.

    • I think butter is one of those weird things everyone likes, but knows it’s not the best for them. I was in Scotland years ago and the locals there were telling me, “I haven’t lived until I had a deep fried candy bar with butter dip.” Same week I deep fried salted pizza that came with large-ish shot glass(plastic actually) worth of melted butter and the store owner(POC) told me, “bottoms up mate” as he was handing me the butter. I think he wanted me to take a shot of butter, but neither the person I was with or I were certain. It was the same thing bar tender told me the night before.

      • Somehow, a butter dip doesn’t gross me out (I’ve dipped lobster meat in butter), but drinking straight butter is a complete horror show to me. I guess my brain just has a very strict, but possibly arbitrary line that it will not cross.

  38. I always enjoy Straight People Watch, but this one is on another level. Erin, those captions are outstanding.

  39. One of my all time favorite songs is Say Hey There by Atmosphere(white passing mix-raced rapper). In the song he has the line watch these white kids eat it up like it was mayonnaise. Which lead me to find the most straight white male item ever.

  40. Okay I agree with all but the hatchet. Because….yeah, tbh that might be a thing that I’d get for friends in my wedding because if said hatchet is a good quality we can avoid any FUN* HATCHET AND/OR AX MISHAPS in the future. Or I might do some decent foldable saws because almost nobody fucking owns them (well ok after a hardware store trip at least one (1) friend owns one now) and foldable saws are things that should probably be in everyone’s river safety kit, though like ok for some serious wood hazards a foldable saw ain’t gonna do shit, and I’m just not buying everyone chainsaws because NO. That is too much power to give my friends, who I love very much and trust with my life, but are also frequently supreme dumbasses and cannot be trusted with chainsaws (and if that sounds kind of ironic…well, okay it is I guess but I stand by it).

    *by fun i mean terrifying. newly-sharpened ax heads flying off is GODDAMN TERRIFYING and yet it’s happened on multiple occasions. giving someone a decent hatchet is really just a self-interest gift to prevent getting impaled by an ax head that is improperly set on the handle on the backswing because a.) no do not want b.) getting a safe cutting wood for campfires down tool is cheaper than buying firewood that is already cut by like….a LOT. Ppl selling wood in the summer are going for the tourists that are too lazy or ignorant to know how to gather dead and down wood and they rip you off SO HARD.

    • Honestly I too would not be mad if I got a cool personalized hatchet as a gift.

    • I feel like I have so much to learn from you Hollis. I’ve been wanting to learn how to chop my own firewood for ages, and could use hatchet and ax recommendations as well.

      Thought of pitching an article about it?

  41. You know it’s good when you keep checking the comments throughout the day ? Thanks for the LOLs everyone!! ??

  42. On the topic of straight people watch – did anyone else notice the point made in that ‘How to masturbate like a champ’ post the other day, that queer women masturbate more often than straight women? I thought that was bizarre. Unsurprising, maybe, on reflection, but still. I also liked the older post that the link went to. Do straight women not know where their clitoris is? I’d add, is it unusual for a straight woman to feel comfortable touching her genitals? Is it strange to accept the idea of getting off independently from a partner, in their case a male one? Whaat? Sensing ominous undertones here.

    • My girlfriend had to teach me how to masturbate- like I didn’t really KNOW about the clit. So it’s possible that some info just misses some straight women.

    • Wait… Have you somehow avoided this phenomenon? What magical utopia ate you from?

  44. Oof. My brother-in-law gave his groomsmen those bullet bottle opener things, and my brother gave his groomsmen personalized weapons (throwing knives, maybe? Or throwing axes?).

    In my brother’s defense, he recently couldn’t give me a ride from a family funeral because his “car was full of swords,” so this was very on-brand for him.

    I would say that neither of them are okay, though.

  46. The second I changed my pronouns on facebook from she/her to they/them and googled “wood watches,” my targeted ads immediately changed to give me Gentlemen’s Box (?) subscription boxes with hipster flasks and axes and hatchets. Cishetero masculinity under capitalism is so wild. I never thought I would miss lipstick and weight loss ads?

  47. The absolute best thing about all this is that finger dermals are a T E R R I B B L E idea (source: work at a fancy piercing studio). They’re SO high traffic that they pretty much always reject, painfully, leaving the finger with a nasty scar. Which, when you think about it, is probably a pretty great metaphor for the marriages of people getting finger dermals.

  48. Altoona, that was hilarious, sounds like the redneck idiots I grew up with

  49. I just…why. Those mugs especially. I saw “wifey” / “hubby” mugs at Target and I thought those were bad…nope.

    Wow.

    Side note this is the first time I’ve read the Straight People Watch and though I’m cringing forever, I’ll def come back. These are great.

Comments are closed.