In Defence of Feminine Men

2002-10-24 - 1:15 a.m.

I was going to just say this in response to someone else's diary, in their guestbook, but then I realised that maybe it's something that I could put as an entry...

I basically work one step away from the sex industry. There are only one or two tasks that I'm not required to do that keep me from the same category as a phone sex worker or a prostitute. My job, in addition to ringing through credit card orders for hours on end with no hope of it ever stopping also includes that I monitor our company's website, where gay guys post personal ads looking for sex, to make sure that minors aren't posting (or that they at least become better liars), and that illegal activities aren't being endorsed. I also listen to voice personals, where men call into the system, record ads looking for sex, and do the same thing: weed out illegal or inappropriate ads. Because of the nature of my job, I'm in the position where I'm exposed to a lot of the "seedy underworld" of gay life. It ain't pretty, folks.

I also have, years ago, had my turn as a volunteer in an organisation meant to educate queer youth, and to provide support and activities where they did not have to be afraid of homophobia. I worked on a phone line for several months, received (and gave) seminars on various forms of 'sensitivity,' as well as leadership, working in groups, understanding different points of view, etc.

One of the things I've learned, and sometimes it's a tough lesson, is that there is no normal. In the course of a day, I am exposed to guys who like spanking, watersports (pissing on each other), wrestling, playing with shit, fucking, fisting, leather, whips, cutting, suffocation, wearing panties, motorcycles, exhibitionism, being-harmful-to-your-genitals, boys (yes, as in really young people), "over twenty different masturbation techniques," crossdressing, transvestites, animals, rape, role playing, hard core violence (as in Ultimate Fighting, or "Fight Club" style)...there's probably some I've forgotten. And bring on the google hits, baby.

Some of those we don't allow, some make me squirm, some make me worry, and some I am so blase about at this point that I sometimes surprise myself. I work at a job where me and my supervisor will have to look up bukakke so we know if needs to be disapproved or not (it is fine: it's basically a group cum-on-some-poor-guy's-face scene).

Out of all my experiences, one thing that bugs me, and bugs most of my co-workers, aside from the fat-phobia, is the "straight-acting, straight-looking" theme. Almost everyone has some variety of it - they want someone masculine, a jock, burly, don't be swishy, don't be obvious, you must "pass..."

I'm not innocent myself...I can be turned off by "overly-feminine" characteristics, I prefer a "man's man," I'm with Pookie in part because he can be so butch (I'm also with him because of his sensitive side, too, but that's another discussion). I don't think I'd ever go so far as to exclude someone based on this, even in something so innocuous as a personals ad, but it's true I've been affected by it.

It rears its head quite often...I've seen activists sneer, especially around Pride events, saying that the effeminate people, the drag queens, the obviously queer, are harming the gay movement. Straight people will never have a good idea of what we're really like if they keep seeing the freaks.

To me, this attitude is a sign that even gay people don't get it: the fight for gay rights should never have been for homosexuals to have the right to live the same life as straights. It should be about considering -everyone- to have a right to dignity and respect, no matter how different from you they seem. Drag queens, crossdressers, transgendered folk, gender fuckers, radical fairies, that guy who wore that 8-foot-tall rainbow-feathered headdress last year at pride, and nothing else...they all have a stake in a battle for equality, and they all have the right to it as well.

Why might a person who lisps, swishes a little when he walks, wears oddly-coloured, tight clothes, and giggles "Oh, Mary!" everytime he's excited be considered a negative representation of gay men? If he is who he is because of an honest development, a reaction to the world he grew up in, through a series of factors he doesn't control, or simply his own personal aesthetic, who are we to assign a negative value to his behaviour and appearance? Swishing doesn't hurt anyone, it's our perceptions of men who swish that do.

The reason why I don't like this attitude is because it smacks of internalized homophobia, and of sexism.

Internalized homophobia, because I can completely see the self-hate in the comments against effeminate men. Anytime someone says something, they're also saying something about the abuse or fear of abuse they felt when they were children, they're saying, "Gee, I'm gay, and that kinda sucks but at least I'm not -that- gay," even if they don't think they're saying that.

And sexism: effeminate. Feminine. What traits do we assign women? And why is it not a good thing for a man to have women-associated traits? This attitude first assigns certain behaviours and serteotypes to gender roles, and then it assigns value to those gender roles, basically glorifying stereotypically masculine ideals and scorning the feminine. Women rarely get mocked for wearing colourful, uncomfortable-looking clothes (I'd be uncomfortable in what Christina Aguillera wears in her "Dirty" video, for example).

I don't think homophobia is even a little bit linked to the more flamboyant of our community: if anything, they have the most to gain by fighting it. Those of us who "pass" may have to live a lie, but at least we don't have to spend our lives under the threat of violence.

Creating a line of seperation between "normal" homosexuals and effeminate ones doesn't help us, it just helps to create a society where one group gets to oppress another group for a reason that doesn't even matter. Sound familiar?

Cheers,

The Magus

PS: All this entry needs now is for me to write "Sex!Sex!Sex!" and my counter should go through the roof.

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