At first I thought it was just spam that slipped through Gmail’s filter. It happens. The subject: hot efron lookalike bottom.

I didn’t open it, just clicked Spam and was done. The email promptly forgotten.

Then reply-alls started coming in. “Hooker or Hook-up?” One asked. “Escort for sure,” another said. And just now, “escort ad i think. says he’s a gay bottom in nevada. plays football. cute like zac.”

Now I’ve been mistaken for lesbian more times than I can count. No special manfriend, short hair, no makeup, fond of flannel, drives a truck, loves Jeanette Winterson, I fit a lot of stereotypes. I don’t mind being mistaken for a lesbian because I don’t find homosexuality anything to be ashamed of.

I’ve also been mistaken for a man more times than I can count. I do mind being mistaken for a man because I’m proud to be a woman and also as much as I like to think that I don’t buy into the beauty myth I still like to think I look like a woman. I have breasts that look like actual woman-breasts and not flabby manboobs. In my fragile ego’s defense, 99.5% of the times I’ve been mistaken for a man it’s been by some cashier who hasn’t really paid attention to me and just catches a giant being out of the corner of their eye and assumes it is male. the other .3% of the time I’ve been accused of being a man is by someone on the Internet who has never met me and thinks I’m some sort of sick dude perpetrating an elaborate hoax on other hapless dudes who want to be dominated by a 6’5″ woman.

This email chain is the first time I’ve ever been mistaken for a gay man. It’s a little disappointing. Because if I were a gay man I’m pretty sure I’d go for the bearlike dudes and not the skinny pretty boys like Zac Efron.