Gay Peter Pan-isms: No interest in cologne or perfume

I've started to get back into cologne for the first time in awhile, and whether it's browsing through the men's fragrance area in a department store or reading through online forums to get opinions on stuff I can't sample in person, it's striking how minimal the gay presence has been -- like, practically non-existent. Not just on the customer side, but on the store assistant side as well. It's either normal men or women who take care of that part of a department store.

Furthermore, you don't see them in the world of perfume either. That's a woman-only domain, on the customer and service sides alike.

This is in stark contrast to many other areas of apparel, grooming, etc., where if there's a sizable queer presence in your city, you can bet on over half the "men" in H&M being gay during any given visit. Gays also express interest in all kinds of female fashion and beauty -- styling hair, make-up, clothing and accessory design, and so on -- but not in fragrance. They like the idea of playing dress-up because they're infantilized. Somehow fragrance doesn't play so central of a role in dress-up games -- too overpowering.

They just don't like the stuff. Here is a short thread from Yahoo! Answers asking what the best cologne for gay men is. Unlike other questions that ask what your favorite cologne is, which will restrict respondents to those who actually do like to wear it themselves or smell it on others, this more open-ended question allows for more general and less personal answers, like this revealing one from a real-life homosexual:

"In my experience, gay men aren't that into cologne. I've known some who wear it but mostly not."

Looking around the answers of the small minority that is into it, they go for the standard unassertive effervescent stuff that is sold to awkward teenagers in Hollister, Abercrombie & Fitch, etc. At a forum for users of "powerhouse" fragrances -- i.e., ones that last long, project far, and smell in some way imposing -- there's no apparent gay presence at all. Looks like metalheads from the '80s are the only detectable over-represented group there, not airheaded faggots.

All of this points to the gay fear of self-assertion, part of their broader syndrome of infantilization. You're too afraid to take up lots of space when you're just a little dork, but that all changes when puberty hits. You start to compete more with other males, and you also want to assert yourself more around girls. The same is true for females: they get more catty and boy-crazy during puberty, and assert themselves more.

Part of that naturally expresses itself as a sudden interest in fragrances, both to wear yourself and to smell on others. They don't bother putting sample strips of cologne or perfume into Highlights magazine, or advertise on Nickelodeon. When I started out as a teenager, it was Rolling Stone and Sports Illustrated where you first learned about cologne. I'm sure there was something similar for girls reading Seventeen or whatever to learn about perfume.

Not to mention the rite of passage of going to the cologne / perfume section of the department store and actually getting to sample all of the dozens of scents they had there. Dude, what if we run into some babes at the food court? Better spray on a little Obsession first at Hecht's. You never know...

Gays never felt that normal inclination that both heterosexual guys and girls felt as they matured into adolescents. Sure, some normal people don't find it attractive either, but not across the entire demographic group. The only group that is unequivocally uninterested in and even mildly weirded out by personal fragrances, especially the more assertive ones, are children.

This goes to show that it's not helpful to see gays as hyper-masculine (lol) or as feminized -- which is plausible in some cases, but not all. Females tend to be more juvenile than males in appearance, mindset, and behavior, so many cases will support both the idea that gays are infantilized and that gays are feminized. The crucial cases pit the two against each other, and infantilization always wins.

Most notably, gays have no nurturing or parenting instinct, whether of a mothering or a fathering kind, even when they're well into middle age. Here we see another example where both guys and girls, in their own sex-specific ways, develop an interest in fragrance during adolescence, while gays remain stunted in childhood.

That's true for other aspects of how both normal boys and girls start to change their appearance during adolescence, both to compete against same-sex rivals and to attract mates. Hairstyles get bigger, jewelry begins to accumulate, and designs or patterns get bolder. Gays wear minimal haircuts, don't adorn their bodies, and rarely wear striking patterns like plaid, geometric prints, and so on, only feeling comfortable to go as far as stripes and the odd gingham shirt. Their childish nature keeps them from being very assertive.