1. Goths worship Satan and are anti-christian

Goths are perceived as Satanic for many reasons; black clothes, nocturnal habits, vampiric associations, blurred or nonexisistent gender roles, and other quirks that seem grossly abnormal to the fundamentalist Christian right. As a result, Goths are sometimes lumped together with Satanists and Wiccans as perceived dangers to America's youth.

In reality, every religious tradition in America is represented in the Goth community. True, many Goths identify themselves as Wiccans or Pagans, and some are indeed Satanists. However, there are also many Christian Goths, Jewish Goths, Buddhist Goths, and I presume that there is somewhere a Muslim Goth, though I have never met him or her. In addition, there are a large number of Goths who are atheist, agnostic, or undecided about their spirituality. This ecletic mix is possible because Goths as a rule are fairly tolerant of individual decisions regarding religion.

2. Goths are constantly depressed and forever trying to kill themselves

3. Goths are a bunch of stuck-up, pretentious snobs. They take themselves too seriously and have no sense of humor

As noted before, Goths tend to be very open-minded and accepting regarding religious and personal differences. However, three factors have combined to give Goths in general a reputation for snobbery:

Firstly, in the early days of the lifestyle, Goths in small-minded areas were often subject to ridicule and attack. As a result, they adopted a pack outlook in order to survive and in many cases formed very tightly-knit and loyal groups, which appeared to outsiders as cliques.

Secondly, Goth has recently been the subject of a surge of interest (as I will discuss below). A great many people, many of them of the younger and more impressionable persuasion and some of them patently insincere, are attempting to get the aforementioned tightly-knit groups to accept them. Many long-term Goths are in something of a shock and suspicious of these newcomers.

And of course, there are some members in any group who treat everything as a popularity contest and love to form cliques. I'm sure you remeber these people from high school. Gothdom is not free of their curse and in some cases they have gathered little circles of followers around them. They often claim to speak for all Goths or to be more Gothic than others, and will declare their critics to be "not real Goths."

Despite all this, the majority of Goths are not especially judgemental and are perfectly capable of laughing at themselves. Some Goth humor pages:

4. Goths think that they are vampires

5. Goth women are all kinky sex fiends.

This legend has caused many perfectly good beverages to end up thrown in men's faces at bars... a tragic waste. Goths tend to lack the traditional American cultures' repressed attitude towards female sexuality, and to add to the confusion fashions from the bondage/fetish lifestyle have been adopted into the Goth wardrobe. Be warned, frat boys - you actually stand much less chance of easy sex with a Goth woman, because she is empowered to go for what she wants and because she has many superior Goth guys to choose from.

6. Goth men are all homosexuals

Another myth with many sources. As I said before, Goths are not given to sexual stereotypes, and are quite tolerant of homosexuality. Many straight male Goths dress in a manner considered feminine by the mainstream simply because they feel that it is attractive. Add to that the Victorian stylings of many Goths, which fashion calls for both men and women to be pale, willowy, and delicate. Throw in a dash of wishful thinking from the drunk in the bar who wants to believe that he can get with that "kinky" goth chick (see above), despite the fact that she's got a man on her arm. What do you get? Mass stereotyping of Goth men as gay. Trust me, many of these guys are very straight indeed *evil grin*.

Anyway, when you think about male anatomy, it really does make more sense for men to wear skirts.

7. Anyone with an eyebrow ring and black clothing is a Goth

Piercings and black clothing are commonplace among college and high school age people of all tastes and persuasions these days. Conversely, Goths wear colors other than black and may have no piercings at all. At any rate, it's impossible to tell a "true" Goth by externals alone. Outlook and attitude are key.

8. Goth is just a trend started by Marilyn Manson; it will soon go away.

I could just point to the long history of Goth discussed in other sections of this webpage and trust this misperception to evaporate. However, the "trend" idea seems so prevelant these days that I'm going to address it seperately here.

The truth is that there has in fact been a surge of interest in the Gothic lifestyle, and yes, some of it has been prompted by Marilyn Manson (who, by the way, is not personally goth and has never claimed to be). However, Goths existed long before this surge of interest, and will continue to exist after the large mass of people have succumbed to their craving for novelty and shifted their interest to whatever the next "thing" is to be. Back in the 60's, many hippies thought that their day was done when the media made them trendy and big businesses started selling tie-dyes to thirteen year olds. But the core of hippiedom lives on even today. And we're at least as resilient as hippies, aren't we?