What is a male cable? What is a female connector or plug? What is a M/M cable? How to sex a cable

As I've stated, I am a sales person and my job is to make your shopping experience fast and easy. In my experience, I've found that the simplest things present stumbling blocks and points of embarrassment and frustration for my customers.

One of these situations involve cable terminology. I'm shocked at how many sales people use the selling floor as podiums to exclude customers and talk down to customers rather than include and inform customers. I don't know how many sales these guys get by making a customer feel stupid.

Perhaps that kind of snobbery works in high fashion and I suppose it USED to work in Information Technology back in the good old, bad old days of the tech bubble, but in this economy, where the consumer is king or queen and can take their money elsewhere; I don't see the advantage.

That kind of selling is foolish. It isn't selling at all, it's just making a point of being condescending and you as a consumer, have a right to talk to someone else who treats you like a human being.

You've heard about the birds and the bees, I'm sure, but did you know that cables and adapters have sexes? Well, they do and nobody should be embarrassed for not knowing.

And these cables get around! They're quite promiscuous, always hooking up with each other, same sex or opposite sex, and converting into different types of transmissions. So uncover your virgin eyes and ears and get savvy on the sexual world of cables and adapters.

So let's define what is a male end of a cable or an adapter versus a female end of a cable or an adapter.

When a cable end or an adapter end is male, it means the prongs are protruding out. When a cable or adapter end is female, it means there are holes instead of prongs.

There are different configurations of adapters and cables M/M (both ends with prongs protruding outwards), M/F (one end with prongs protruding outwards and one end with holes instead of prongs) and F/F (both ends with holes instead of prongs.

A M/F cable or an adapter is generally used as an extension cord or an extender.

A F/F adapter is also known as a coupler. It connects to male ended cables to one another to make a longer cable.

A M/M adapter or cable (usually a M/M is an adapter) is generally a converter. One of the male ends is one kind of tip and the other end is another kind of tip, such as a M/M USB to PS/2 adapter.

I hope this clears up the cable sexing conundrum and you can now speak to your IT person on equal ground and shop with more confidence.