Uptown Funk and sapiosexuality
In the annals of “stupidest thing I’ve read today” we get Pink News
ah well enough said, isn’t it. We get Pink News.
Prepare to be stunned and amazed and admiring all at once:
In news nobody saw coming today, Mark Ronson has come out as sapiosexual, which describes being attracted to intelligence in a person above all else.
The chart-topping record producer behind hits such as ‘Uptown Funk’ revealed his sexual identity on today’s Good Morning Britain.
Hosts Ben Shepherd and Kate Garraway congratulated the disc jockey for being “out and proud”.
I’d say this has got to be parody, but it’s Pink News – I don’t think they know what parody is.
Why would anybody see it coming? Why bother to say nobody saw it coming about some random claim about a random person?
And “has come out as”? Isn’t “coming out” meant to refer to something that is the object of unjustified stigma? To wit, being attracted to people of the same sex as opposed to the other one? Surely it’s not supposed to refer to attraction in general, is it? People don’t “come out as” being attracted to, say, people with short hair.
The UK morning talkshow held a debate on sapiosexuality after French equality minister Marlene Schiappa was mocked for coming out as a sapiosexual last month.
The 44-year-old, freshly single Ronson was, according to Garraway, “very involved in our debate backstage”.
Ronson said: “Yeah I didn’t know that there was a word for it.
“We were all arguing backstage in the dressing room with a couple of your producers. And yes, I feel like I am identifying as sapiosexual.
Shepard replied: “So, you are coming out as sapiosexual.
Ronson recently split from his wife Joséphine de La Baume in 2018.
Not sapio enough? Bit dim? Thick as a plank?
Mind you, Ronson doesn’t sound all that sapio himself.
What is sapiosexuality?
It’s not about what’s in their pants, it’s about what’s going on in their brain.
The term ‘sapiosexual‘ is relatively new. A LiveJournal user named Wolfieboy claims to have invented the word in 1998.
And 21 years later Pink News has decided we have to take it seriously?
I’m attracted to people who don’t talk this kind of unmitigated shite.
I once actually heard a bisexual* smugly proclaim “I’m not attracted to genitalia, I’m attracted to people.” I had read online that supposedly some bisexuals liked to say that, but I was so surprised to encounter it IRL that I couldn’t summon an appropriately snarky reply. Which was probably for the best, because his comment just sort of laid there like a smelly turd until someone else changed the subject.
*Well, he** may not have been bi; I think he was one of those “I don’t really think of myself in terms of labels” people
**Well, this person may not have identified as male for all I know. I guess I forgot to ask for pronouns.
So the fact that I am not attracted to people who speak like Donald Trump, without polysyllables, is something to come out as? Gee, now I can be a cool hipster, too. I can be all woke and jargony. Wow! I get to be special, no longer a boring old heterosexual cis-woman.
I’ve been attracted to all sorts of traits in my time – humour, nice eyes, long hands, musical ability. Will each of those attraction-magnets have a separate name?
Humour – jocosasexual
etc
Bit like the groan/laugh I had reading about “Furbies” over at PZ’s the other day. The problem seemed to be that neo-Nazies were infiltrating furbie communities, unsure why or what the attarction is. There was a lot of concern.
But nobody, NOBODY I tellsya, was concerned about ensuring Furbies were not mis-specied, or being placed in the wrong genus or being addressed by an incorrect epithet.
I think they missed a chance to police another group of self identitarians and provide laws the rest of us must follow.
What pronoun do sapiosexuals use? Sap?
One doesn’t “come out” as sapiosexual because being sapiosexual isn’t associated with systemic discrimination, violent assault, guilt, shame, and suicidality. “Out and proud”?! Truly, fuck off. I endured a year of living on Vancouver’s mean streets as a young teen — and that’s just a small sliver of the horrors — after I was outed as gay. I never got to attend high school because I came out as gay. I was too busy navigating the shelter system, gang violence, pimps and drug dealers, and just trying not to get beat up, raped or lulled into heroin addiction and prostitution by basically every man who pretended to be a friend trying to help me. My experience wasn’t uncommon among young men and women who came out in the ’90s. I’m surrounded by gays and lesbians with similar stories.
Now this famous multimillionaire straight guy sidles up to me and my fellow “out and proud” survivors and wants to join us and get kudos because even though he could totally bang elite supermodels all day if he wanted to, his tastes in beautiful young women run to mere regular-models who have an education? And this merits celebration and admiration? Fuck right off, Pink News. What a punch in the face to gay men, lesbians, and women (be they elite-supermodel, regular-not-super-model or not-at-all model). Shame.
Nothing to add to the discussion. But if you allow video links I do have to say that this is delightful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1F0lBnsnkE
Jesus, sorry about the mean streets and missing high school. It sounds wretched.
Heh. That is cool.
I hereby come out as enjoying tiramisu.
Well now I want tiramisu.
I’ve often thought “Tear O’ Me Sue” would be a good song title. For all I know, it is one already.
A bit off-topic, but Andrew Sullivan has one of his better essays in the New York magazine, about the disgraceful business of persuading children at an early age that they are really ‘trans-‘:
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/09/andrew-sullivan-when-the-ideologues-come-for-the-kids.html