Lazy Guide to Net Culture: I'm totally straight but...

Published on 13/04/2005 14:26

If you want to appear like you’re at the cutting edge of net culture but can’t be bothered to spend hours online, then never fear. Scotsman.com’s pathetic team of geeks, freaks and gimps will do the hard work for you. While you sip wine, read a book or engage in normal social interaction, they will burn out their retinas staring at badly designed web pages and dodge creeps in chatrooms to prepare for you: Scotsman.com’s lazy guide to net culture.

Sex.

It's a tired old gambit but I know I now have your full attention. In the words of Cole Porter: "Birds do it. Bees do it. Even educated fleas do it." And, of course, people with access to the internet do it and take pictures of it and reveal their innermost thoughts about it and seek partners with whom to do it and get bombarded with emails offering pills, lotions and potions to help them do in bigger and better and longer ways.

Gay sex.

Given that anywhere between 1 and 10 percent of the population are homosexual, it's not surprising that a sizeable proportion of the online material about matters of the flesh relates to "friends of Dorothy".

However, it is the heteroflexible hinterland – the grey area between gay and straight – that has been the focus of a recent and popular online gameBloggers have been typing the phrase "I'm totally straight but" into Google and then chuckling at how the sentence is completed in the results.

Just as you know that any sentence beginning with the words "I'm not one of those racialists but…" will end in a diatribe about immigration, it is obvious that the closing part of a statement beginning "I'm totally straight but" will be something along the lines of "I'm not totally straight". Some of them are hilarious. Some are shocking. All are entertaining.

Those of you who don't mind strong language and explicit references to the things that birds, bees and educated flees do can find a selection of the best on cruel.com but here are some of the cleaner responses that I have culled from a browse through Google..

I'm totally straight but don't mind other sexually aroused males in close proximity

I'm totally straight but I'm not scared to admit that another man is good-looking

I'm totally straight but I like Malibu Rum & Pineapple eek

I'm totally straight but Jude Law...? [shrug]

I'm totally straight but when I see David Bowie in tights ... I don't know man!

I'm totally straight but might be a little bi-curious

I'm totally straight but the guy knows how to wear a t-shirt, y'know?

I'm totally straight but I did have a gay cat once

I'm totally straight but I was attracted to him

I'm totally straight but there's something about a guy in a dress that make them more approachable.

I'm totally straight but I just love to tease

I'm totally straight but thanks for asking.

Without wishing to spoil the game, it has to be said that some of the best of these are jokes or statements that others are "reported" to have made. Though rather worryingly, some of the responses to "I'm not into bestiality but" appear to be genuine…