* I'm even inclined to say you are kind of abusing these Big Words, but not care to start argument.
But really the point isn't that no gay man has ever posed for a photo like this. (I'm sure some straight men have too.) The point is that the photo is used to make a joke about how ridiculous Scott would look if he was gay. He couldn't just have a normal dating profile photo.
You seem to have decided that Troy is homophobic and therefore this picture is mocking gay people, and not just mocking Scott's attempts at being sexy.
> He couldn't just have a normal dating profile photo.
They both delight in getting unflattering pictures of each other into every security presentation they can. I think you're reading into this too much.
What would be the point of changing the photo if it didn't annoy Scott when he saw it?
Do I think Troy is a raging homophobe? No. But his initial response to my comment was to claim that he chose the photo because it looked like a typical Grindr profile photo (!), rather than to just admit that it was a joke. That doesn't increase my confidence that the photo was chosen with good intentions. You apparently think that there is another explanation for the choice of photo relating to some inside baseball between Troy and Scott (which I frankly don't care about, not knowing either of these guys). If that is the real reason then Troy could just have said so himself.
In general, making in-jokes in public blog posts that anyone can read doesn't always go over so well. I'm not saying "Troy is a class A homophobe and must be deleted from the internet". I'm just registering that I'm one gay dude who is bored of this kind of gay joke.
