Can you “Do si do”? I can. And it got me thinking. It was during the additional PE instruction I’d chosen to take in dance – yes, chosen, I even had to pay for it. We were choreographing our square dance, we’d just come out of a promenade, round the back, and were mid do si do, and it struck me. Here I am in a class of 30 women, me and one other guy (who clearly had no doubts about his sexuality), and I’m enjoying choreographing square dance. Could it be that I’d come out to bat for the other side without even realizing it?
See, the thing is, it’s not the only sign. I drink white wine. In pubs. Not all the time, I’m quite partial to a pint of Guiness (or sometimes a half – doh!), but quite often I will go into a pub and have a small glass of white wine. That’s not screaming typical male heterosexual behavior to me (though screaming may be an unfortunate choice of words).
And the whole teaching in primary school thing. I’ve been in reasonably sized schools and not seen any male members of staff at all. In our lectures, when they give advice on writing assignments, they actually have to tell the students not to refer to teachers as “she” or “her”.
Of course, I’m not knocking it. In a house where I have three daughters and me other half (maybe she would have a view on the subject), it could be quite convenient if I started wearing flowing skirts and mascara (what, exactly, is mascara?). In a few years it should give me something to talk to them about.
And, on the subject of pubs, I could even start going to the loo with the girls. I really am curious what it is that women talk about that requires the presence of urine.
Of course, there are a few contrary indicators. I play football. And I mean proper get kicked until it hurts football, open wounds kind of football. Not “I can’t chest the ball ‘cos my blue and white top will get muddy” football.
And, when I can, I ride my very fast motorbike very fast. And wrap myself in leathers to do so. That’s actually pretty hypocritical of me, I’m a vegetarian and don’t believe we should kill animals for clothes, but I’ve fallen off a bike going pretty fast more than once, and have been very glad to have a bit of dead cow between me and the tarmac. In fact, given the choice, I’d probably have a whole dead cow between me and the tarmac, but I can’t see that doing much for the power to weight ratio.
There is probably only one way to settle this. Given that it is public policy to encourage men to become teachers, I assume that it is deemed beneficial to the education of our children to have more male primary school teachers knocking about the place. However, this can quite clearly lead to some confusion on the question of sexual identity on the part of prospective male teachers. So, if your young, and female (OK, I know that isn’t strictly logically necessary, but don’t lets muddy the waters) and serious about education, and you see a slightly confused male student primary school teacher wandering around, you know what you have to do. Your country needs you.
