No homo. Oh. Okay. Yeah, as if someone is just going to go up and jump you without consent simply because you happen to be the gender of which they’re attracted. I personally don’t work that way, and neither does most of the sane human population. Just because someone happens to be gay does not mean they are attracted to every person of the same sex, and plan to aggressively hit on every member of the same sex regardless of a return in the attraction.

The phrase “no homo” is offensive, because it implies that without it, an unwanted advance would happen, and that this phrase is needed to prevent some sort of physical or emotional development. It’s also useless.

There is absolutely no reason for this phrase to exist, because a mere conversation about sexuality and attraction could be had in its place. A simple act of communication. That’s all that needs to happen.

One of the most annoying things about “no homo” is the fact that some people feel the need to say it as a precursor to a compliment. As if you really need to establish that you aren’t sexually attracted to someone before you say that you like their shoes. Most people just accept a compliment and don’t view it as a proposal for sex.

Have you ever been in class and someone is explaining something about homosexual lifestyles or something and at the end they’re like, “I’m straight though.” Just in case we really wanted to know what your sexuality is.

In case everyone thought you were gay–because being thought of as gay is a terrible thing, apparently.

Knowing that a person is gay or straight does not change my opinion of them, especially in a classroom setting. It’d be different if we were in a Gender and Woman’s Studies course or talking about our personal experiences, but it’s usually not.

That’s their business. If I care, I’ll ask them.  If you want someone in your class to know you’re not gay, it’s probably due to an attraction towards them or because you’re insecure with anyone thinking you are gay. Which is completely fine, but own up to it. In almost every class I have taken, someone has felt the need to make it clear to everyone that they enjoy the opposite sex. Congratulations. You fit nicely into the heterosexual box. I, for one, do not feel the need to open the habitual “fun fact” conversation by explaining that I consider myself gender blind or pansexual.

If the “no homo” situation were reversed, would you really care? If someone came up to you and wanted to sit next to you at lunch, wouldn’t it sound just as silly saying “no hetero” before they sat down? If it does sound as silly to you as it does to me, that means it shouldn’t even be a thing that people say. At least in the queer community here at Gustavus, no hetero is a non-existent phrase that has no use, and for good, logical reason.

It’s not just me who has the opinion that “no homo” is a rubbish phrase. The NBA didn’t fine Indiana Pacers center Roy Hibbert $75,000 because they thought it was an awesome way to state how he was feeling towards LeBron James at the time. They fined him because it was an inappropriate way to respond to the conversation he was having. There are better ways to respond to this situation, and there are better ways to say “no homo.”

As a culture, we have created an age where open discourse is slowly becoming obsolete. If not all discourse, intelligent discourse is increasingly becoming an endangered topic. We create short phrases to explain what we are feeling or thinking, but they make us sound like idiots. Fro-yo? I literally didn’t have to add fro-yo into the dictionary while writing this in a Word document. That says so much right there–that even though these phrases are stupid and unnecessary, the world immediately accepts them, because they are so popular. Fro-yo might not be on the same level as “no homo,” but it’s still just as useless. Any silly word or phrase can be avoided by the successful usage of your ability to communicate. If you want to convey something, make Jules Winnfield proud and use your knowledge of the English language.