I watched an episode of Modern Family and the scene was as follows:

The character Cam is wearing bicycle shorts that are very revealing.

Cam: I can't decide whether to take Lily to the park or the lake. Im leaning towards the park

Claire: I can see that (staring at his crotch)

I know it is a double entendre but i want the reference explained please. It is really bugging me!

I know she means his "leaning" is in the direction of homosexuality. I did not know that "park" is a synonym for gay?

I thought she is referring to what she is seeing when staring at his shorts. Does this somehow imply that he is gay? I want to know what she means by "I can see that"

Maybe it'll take 12 episodes to get this unraveled. Cloudy business.

Okay you want it spelt out? (Sorry Jackie/Faldage-s.) A Cornish guy once told me that if a man is gay he keeps his penis on one side of his shorts. If he is straight it's on the other side. Now can some one say if park means gay. That bit(s), I don't understand.

Alright I understand that reference now. I was simply confused because he said leaning towards the park. I did not understand the sentence in its entirety. I watch many shows and I always understand the subtexts and nuances and whatever. I couldn't handle not understanding this =)

we live near a city park that is reputed to have a trail where gays can make contacts; maybe this is a common phenomenon.

Interesting, those guys should get Iphones (there are apps for organising such encounters) This is an awesome forum, glad I found it, although it seems like I will have to brush up on my linguistics to participate meaningfully.

BTW: do you use American or British English? I don't want to seem grammatically challenged...

Just post and don't worry about it. You'll get told
off if you offend someone, out of line or not.

I use Australian but we are multilingual here

You don't have to worry about brushing up on your linguistics. We have several here who can handle the linguistics end quite well; goofy and zmjezhd come to mind. Just be curious about words and language and be ready to enjoy yourself.

I know nothing about the show, but I don't find anything in the quoted dialog that implies more than which side he's on physically. But I may not be up on the lingo either, or it may require knowledge of the characters.

Peter

I don't see how it has to do with being gay at all. Perhaps his junk was simply leaning toward the actual direction of the park?

Yeah, that's what I meant; your statement is just 87.3% more clear than mine.

Yeah, what he said.

I use Australian Good heavens--and here I was, imagining you speaking Strine.

That's pretty much it, obi. I watch this sitcom. In this particular show, Cam's husband was upset about how revealing the bicyle shorts were - the show even pixeled out the part around Cam's penis - so they continued the joke by having Claire comment about the side to which Cam was pointing.

That confirms by musings! The physical direction. I was ignoring the simple answer and looking for depth

Nope, I'm not going to say it.

In the military, when you are fitted for dress uniforms, it will be noted whether to 'dress right' or 'dress left' depending on which side your penis normally rests so that your trousers fit correctly and more important, comfortably.
Just another one of those odd bits of whatever stuck in my brain from having been a service brat.

Only in the military.

And in Britain/Europe, I think. I recall novels with a proper tailor inquiring of Our Hero (who's only recently come into his own) "How do you dress, Sir?"

In the US we don't use tailors any more, as a rule.

Now that you mention it, I've read that sentence too, and had
no idea what it meant. I think I remember my father trying to
explain it when we went clothes shopping, but I was too busy
to pay much attention to him. Dang.

ah, but 'dress right' or 'dress left' can also mean to look that direction and 'form up' on that person so that your line is straight and you are a measured distance from the other person. I think it is actually, 'dress, right, dress' if I remember from my daughter's marching band days.

Indeed; that was the source of the title of my post, and also another instance of the original thread title "double entendre" !