Urban appearance alone can confer identity without any verbal claim

Evidence

Sometimes the game is played in a more subtle, a more inward manner. I refer here to the expression of identity that accompanies being present in the appropriate location and I or dressing for the pan. Here the individual makes no verbal claim to the identity in question. Nor does he receive any verbal ratification for it. Instead, his knowledge of urban meanings allows him to assume that if he appears in a cenain place and/ or in a certain way, those about him will make the appropriate “identification” and this “assumed” ratification is sufficient. The shy young man, ill at ease and unsuccessful with women, can, at least for a moment, “be” the swinger of his secret dreams by the simple expedient of standing about in a body bar “looking cool.” — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 969

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes the inward, non-verbal form of identity play from the declarative version described in prior paragraphs.