Originally Posted by
80's90's
*Disclaimer: These are general, not meant to offend, not meant to stereotype or be verbatim as 100% absolute. Styles change so frequently, what can you expect?
I've lived in the Portland, Oregon area for 13 years and had to walk down town (5th/Taylor) for employment, I lived on 12th avenue and I’ve been around the Pearl District area etc. walked all over downtown when I first moved there. I learned really quickly the LGBT areas, and learned quite a bit about their community, speech patterns and dress styles.
Bisexual men and women utilize dress codes from the straight side and the homosexual side depending on their own preferences.
Bisexual Men: For example, if bisexual men want to hide their sexuality, you will never find out. But, for bisexual men wearing office attire, I’ve worked with more than a couple: the V neck under shirt, dress shirts of flamboyant bright colors and stripes, dots, (straight men may wear salmon but *typically* not pink, purple or pastels), same goes for ties of pink or bright colors with stripes, dots etc., shoes: long in the toe, really long. Belts typically have a flamboyance or flash in embroidery, shiny metal for example. Bisexual haircuts, ever see the cartoon character TinTin? Or PeeWee herman? Those types of hairstyles are prevalent. Flamboyant hair mid to long spiky hair, heavy gel for different styles. May wear makeup on the face. Flamboyant glasses.
Where do they crossover? In the crew cut of mid length and the buzz cut, very had to tell just based on the hairstyle.
The hipster dress style is very prevalent among bisexuals and homosexuals, thicker big rimmed black glasses, beanies. Very hard to tell straight from LGB in this area, but tight jeans that hug real snug down to the ankle and shoes of pink, bright colors show a definite trend.
The biggest determinate factor, is the dialect, often with a lisp in speech at the end of the S sounding words. “Yesss, I would totally like to go there. You’re so fabulousss.” I’ve heard two gay men talk that way. Bisexuals can use that to display their sexuality if they’re looking for another bisexual man. Women use this dialect as well.
Bisexual Women: Hair is usually short, the shorter the more Lesbian or Bisexual they *could* be. But when coupled with dress, I could tell who I wouldn’t really have a chance with being straight on *most* occasions of course. Tomboy clothing of course helps, speech patterns helped the most. Dress, same flamboyance, but it can be harder to tell for me as a man.
Now back to my disclaimer, in some cases, straight men like the way bisexual and homosexuals dress, they typically don’t like it when they find out that it is LGB style codes, like myself, not because “THATS Gay!” But because I want to represent myself as straight and attract straight women.
So it can be very hard to tell.
Experience: I’ve been hit on by a homosexual male and I noted what I was wearing, a tight black beanie on my head, I removed it and never had a problem since. I was standing on the Maxline which is the electric tram in Portland, and I had a gay man walk by he said “you look nice” I said “thanks” and he said “you’re straight I can tell”. I would have never been able to tell he was gay, had he not started talking, but his form of speech tipped me off before he said I was straight, I could tell he was either Gay or Bisexual.
There you have it, I can tell coming from a straight man, you might be offended. But all I have to say is this. I’ve lived in Portland, it has a huge LGBT community and I’ve seen quite a bit. Don’t believe me? Then move there. But I’m not a liar, I can just as easily catalog straight dress codes. I could type maybe more but would risk stereotyping because indeed some straight men model after the LGB community. I’ve done it more than once before and have to watch my dress. But I wouldn’t prohibit a straight person dressing that way, it always nice to understand where something comes from before you dress a certain way. That is how I feel at least.
Take care.
