What sense does it make to say that I’m femme because I’m influenced by the culture and the media? Here’s what culture and the media told me all the way through my childhood: Boys do not do that under any circumstances, so stop it or we’ll hurt you.
I am not so facile as to suggest that men who are butch are such because of culture or the media, but on the face of it, it would seem to be a far more likely proposition to me.
Honestly, you sound like my father when he asked me if I was saying I was gay in order to be popular. “If I were,” I told him, “you can bet I’d be reevaluating my strategy.”
And ulterior motives – oh, I can’t wait to hear this one explained…
It doesn’t have to be, and believe me, it would be far more convenient for me if it weren’t. I’m not trying to make a point by being femme. I’m just behaving the way it suits me, the way I feel comfortable.
But in a society that insists on a certain set of gender roles for males, if I for whatever reason don’t live up to those roles, society is going to make that its business. I’m not trying to make a point by being femme; but I find I have to constantly make points about being femme just to get people to let me be.
You seem to suggest that if gender weren’t enforced, no males would be femme, because there would be no point to be made. I happen to think that if it weren’t enforced, there would be far more of us, but nobody would notice.
Nevertheless, I think it’s okay to question the reason for this discomfort. If it’s a matter of taste, that’s one thing. I don’t particularly enjoy sports bars, so I don’t expect others to enjoy my screeching happily over the last Pet Shop Boys CD or kvetching about what some evil queen said in Parliament this week. I do not expect every person in the world to get along with me, since I don’t get along with every person in the world, and that’s okay.
But if they decide they don’t like me because I don’t conform to what they expect of a male, or because I do happen to live up to what they “expect” of a gay male, I will call them on it. I do not put up with being told I can’t exhibit a certain set of harmless characteristics due to my gender or sexual orientation.
Okay. I’ve been away, and this whole thread has been nagging at me. I’ve had some time to think, and I want to ask a couple of questions. No one has offended me (how could they?), and I’m not out to anger anyone, I am just genuinly curious:
Why does “flamboyant” *need * to be explained? **Matt_mcl ** may have already covered this territory, but it’s exactly what has been bugging me. Yes, it’s a choice. But why does it have to explained? What about those rednecks? Should they explain why they swagger instead of swish? Why or why not?
Why do flamboyant men bother anyone? I can understand if certain personalities grate on one’s nerves. Is that all it is? Why do they make you nervous? What is it, exactly, that makes you uncomfortable enough that it needs to be explained (assuming so you can better cope with it)?
Turn the question inside out, backwards, and upside down. Apply it to everyone you know. Does a girl you work with have to explain why she’s so professional and has such a sturdy work ethic? Does the guy next to you at the bar have to explain why he loves sports so much? Does the cowboy have to explain why he swaggers? Does a girl have to explain why she likes/dislikes the colour pink, when it’s such a girlish colour? What about you? What makes you tick? What makes you uncomfortable around flamboyant gay men? What makes you swagger instead of swish? Have you tried swishing? Why or why not?
Whew. Okay. None of this was written in anger, or intended to be inflammatory. I believe the OP is really just trying to learn some things, and I respect that and don’t feel he is judging anyone. I may be totally missing the point, and I’ll be the first to admit if I am wrong. My questions might even be irrelevant to the issue at hand. My debating style, quite frankly, sucks. But I am curious to know what the answers to some of these might be.
First off let me better phrase the sentance which you’re taking offense at. I should have said “All are certainly influenced by their culture, the media around them and have ulterior motives to varying degrees.”
My statement is 100% true. You’re adding more implication to it than intended. Every man, woman and child is affected by their surroundings. Some people conform to it, some people rebel against it, some people do both at once. Nowhere am I speculating on causality.
Again, I never claimed there was a cause-effect relationship. Straight “butch” men are how they are for infinate reasons, ditto for gay men both femme and not. Still, all those reasons are viewed through the prism of our culture both on a macro and micro scale.
This is total transference. No where can I see any such thing in my comments, implicit or explicit.
Here’s where the “varying degrees” addendum applies most. I was making a generaliztion. Black men may or may not have an ulterior motive when taking on the thug stereotype. Perhaps compensating for percieved injustices or attemtping to better survive a dangerous environment. Perhaps simply attempting to be more attratcive or accepted within their peer group by associating with popular icons. Whatever, some of those stereotypical traits can have motive, some may be totally inherent. A similar comparison can be made for flaming gay men. They may have a motive which hopes to attract potential mates by advertising their preference. Then again, they may not, I don’t suppose you or I can speak for all gay men. They may act that way because it is a badge of pride, being unashamedly out and loud presuming that they are doing themselves and their kind some service by being as uncloseted as possible. I’m simply making the comparison of overly flamboyant gay men to other stereotypes and pointing out that all are colored to varying degrees by the world around them.
In many ways it’s a “chicken and the egg” conundrum. Are some black men prone to becoming their stereotype because of their popular media, or is the popular media the way it is because of the embodiment of that culture? Are some gay men flaming because the gay subcultures and neighborhoods are pervasive with it or are those places that way because of the gay men’s preferences? It’s a self-propogating cycle.
Good for you. Do what you like and who gives a crap what the norms are. That’s great if it’s what works for you. But lets not pretend that anyone’s doing a great service to gays or to society. (Not claiming that’s your point, but there’s a certain subtext in some of these discussions as they crop up to that effect). Society isn’t going to overwhelmingly change and nonconformists of all kinds are left on the outskirts. Gays don’t have the market cornered on breaking societal norms. Let’s not pretend that people having a reaction to any of these profound expressions of self is especially cruel or oppressive.
Come again? I suggested this how?
It’s ok to question it, sure. But IMHO it’s OK to be uncomfortable. You’re uncomfortable in stereotypically macho environments. Others are uncomfortable in the company of flamboyant men, some in the company of devout religious families and so on. There’s nothing wrong with someone being uncomfortable around another person for whatever reason, nowhere is it expect that everyone be best buddies with everyone else. Being far outside the norm simply makes the likelyhood of it more likely, gay, religious, political, whatever. Nothing wrong with that but don’t deny the reaility of it.
Why? They are entitled to dislike you. It may not make them particularly open-minded, but that doesn’t make them in need of you to enlighten them. You probably would dislike someone who’s the walking stereotype of an evangelical. You don’t want to be called on the fact you don’t accept their views any more than they want to be called on the fact they recoil from the flaming gay man.
As long as none of these stereotypes devolve into hate they all are valid and to each his own.
I’ll repeat something here that I wrote in a thread a little while ago, concerning attitudes about gay people. “It’s something I can comprehend intellectually and by reason, but I still don’t get it. If the rest of us heterosexuals could just get it, homosexuality might never be a problem for anyone.”
I can’t speak for the OP or anyone else, but it’s my opinion that this is where the question comes from. We don’t get it, and we would like to know because it is a very curious thing, why some gay men act this way and others don’t. And then we get responses like, “well, why does there even need to be a question? I don’t have to justify my behavior to you, it just is…” which just pre-assumes prejudice on the part of the questioner, and is actually very defensive, and it doesn’t help to answer the question or fight any ignorance.
Here’s what I think. Flamboyant men don’t necessarily bother people. Obnoxiousness bothers people. Many flamboyant men are obnoxious and that’s grating to many. Just like boisterous frat boys bother people. Bible thumpers bother people. Militant feminists bother people. And so on…
There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of them, but it shouldn’t be shocking that something that’s obnoxious and outside the norm raises eyebrows.
It couldn’t possibly be that my personality is such that I’m femme? That’s impossible?
We’re not talking here about subcultural specifics. We’re not talking about liking certain recording artists or wearing certain clothes. We’re talking about personality traits.
And what I’m questioning is why certain personality traits that happen to contravene gender roles are dissected and questioned, while others, that happen not to, do not receive the same treatment.
The whole thread is asking me to explain my personality. I’m asking why it’s me who has to do so and not others.
If you acknowledge it’s a giant strawman, why even bother to go into it?
But as long as we’re going there, I’d like to point out that I have been threatened with death for holding a purse. I’ve gotten off easy; boys have been murdered for less.
Because you’re talking about how we’re affecting femmeness as some kind of big blow to homophobia and social restrictions, when you talk about “portray[ing] a gay man being stereotypically flabmoyant as a an act of great social impact.” Taken to its conclusion, this would mean that if those restrictions didn’t exist, neither would femmeness.
I repeat myself: there are two possibilities when it comes to not wanting to be around me. There’s boredom or animosity as a matter of chance, personality, and taste, which is non disputandum. And then there’s discomfort as a reaction to violation of sexual orientation and gender norms. The latter deserves to be confronted, in my view.
But here again you’re conflating two things: views (i.e. opinions and stances) and gender roles.
I don’t care if people call me on disagreeing with the views of others, because I can stand there and argue with them until I’m blue.
Someone who doesn’t accept the fact that not all men behave in accordance with the gender role they’re assigned to? Needs to be educated, IMHO.
I wrote a few days ago in another thread that I used to liberally socialize with gay men in college even though I am very straight. It started when I got a great job with a boss that was gay and he treated me like a sugar daddy. This was in New Orleans where there are obviously tons of gay men and I got to hang out with gay media people and businessmen etc. All of them were masculine and had their own gay subculture.
They absolutely HATED flamboyent and effemininate gay guys. I mean, I don’t think a group of KKK rednecks could have hated them worse. They called them many names but usually “Nancy Boy!” and “Sissie Nancy Boy!” I asked why a couple of times but they never had a good explantion. Sometimes they would heckle them or threaten violence when they would come over to the table.
I never got the full story but I got the strong impression that many gay men who aren’t flamboyent really don’t like those that are.
I guess the reason is because all the real answers to the question “Why are some gay men femme?” is so boring: because people are different, because we like it like that, because we’re not very good at being some other way.
The question, “Why are we asked the question and not others?” is more interesting.
Neither matt_mcl nor anyone else should be in a position to justify why they are what they are, which I think it what you’re really saying, and of course 99% of the time the subject comes up that’s really what’s being asked.
Intellecutally, however, it’s a fascinating question. Explaining why our cultural habits are what they are is interesting just from an educational, historical point of view., like asking the origin of “black” English (which I don’t know) or the differences between Anglo and Continental traditions of Christmas.
Why are rednecks the way they are? I read an NYT explanation of Larry the Cable Guy that explained the history and theory behind “redneck humour” and it was very interesting. I learned some stuff I’d never known before.
Talking about where “flamboyant gay” culture and behaviour comes from strikes me as being an interesting topic.
I’m not femme in mannerisms or in interests. I loathe any kind of housework, couldn’t tell you what is and isn’t fashionable, would as soon eat my own toenail clippings as have a stuffed animal or a poodle or anything else “cutesy”, I only played with Barbies as a kid when my Best of the West action figures needed extras or when I wanted to burn one at the stake for witchcraft (Midge to be precise) and with the exception of a vocal loathing of sports of any kind (except for dodgeball and bowling) and a love of showtunes most of my interests were “masculine” enough to not arouse serious suspicion when I was a kid. I was in a play last year in which I played half of a gay couple- the allegedly straight guy who played the other half of the couple got raves but I was told that I wasn’t acting like a gay man. (This pissed me off more than a bit- I’ve known gay men who made John Goodman look like Orlando Bloom and Orlando Bloom look like John Goodman, Liberace look like Rambo or Rambo look like Liberace, teetotallers, devout Christians, smack addicts, Wiccans, imbeciles, geniuses, insanely promiscuous, virgins, totally monogamous, waifs, slobs, garrulous, painfully shy, narcissstic, total bastards, Christlike, superstitious, coldly rational, etc…: how exactly does a gay man act?)
Sorry, I’m rambling, but the point is femme/“nellie” is one type of gay man. I can’t agree more that when you get to know them they’re as different on the individual basis as people-with-blue-eyes or large-black-women or any other arbitrary description for a group, and while I’ve known flamboyant gay guys that I liked and respected a great deal and others who were bitchy vapid queens I totally agree that if they had one thing in common, they were all tough. These are the kids who got the shizzle harassed or beaten out of them in high school and they survived. For some gay guys it’s a hammy little act but for others, especially those in school, I can almost guarantee you that they could have doused the flames upon occasion because it can be damned inconvenient to be so identifiably gay but for many they can no more “butch it up” for an extended period than I can convincingly look Japanese. It’s how they are. (Carson Kressley got furious when he was said to be playing to a stereotype on Queer Eye when what he was doing was speaking in his natural voice and with his natural mannerisms.)
But for those who don’t know much about the history of being gay in America, it should never be forgotten that all of us who are out today owe it to these nellie queens. It was the gay men who could not hide it that essentially began the gay liberation movement at Stonewall, in the Castro and elsewhere. The butch gay guys (the ones who go to the gay country karaoke bars in Atlanta or whatever) were about the last group to come out because it was too damned easy to hide it and laugh at queer jokes (again, it takes a lot of balls to act so femme). Those like me who are in the middle by way of mannerisms and actions came out in the middle.
Exceptions all around on the individual basis, of course- I’ve known super nellie guys who simply would not admit they were gay when their own mothers knew it and there’ve been big macho boys who were out in the 1930s, but by and large it was the flamboyant and the drag queens and the flamers who said “we don’t give a shit who knows” that started the gay communities in metropolises and fought back against the cops at Stonewall. It’s so ironic to me that so many want to toss them to the back of the gay pride parade and forget they’re there in favor of gay soccer players and ex-Marines, a sort of odd Rosa Parks in reverse (send them to the back after they start the movement), but to quote Maude from Harold & Maude, “logical consistency is not a human trait”.
Agreed, agreed, I think behaviour is a fascinating topic of discussion. And in **Omniscient’**s response to part of my post, I think we’re in agreement - as long as “flamboyant” doesn’t immediately equal “obnoxious”, and it’s taken in a case by case basis, certainly, that’s fine. I don’t get along with some people who are obnoxious to me, but of course, I have to know they, personally, are obnoxious, first. ie: Cowboys aren’t obnoxious… but one cowboy I know certainly is. And every cowboy I’ve ever met actually is pretty obnoxious - but I’m not about to paint them all with that brush.
Unless someone is doing something that harms you or interferes with your own lifestyle, I don’t think anyone needs to explain why they swish instead of swagger, or drink tea instead of coffee, or whatever. No one has to like them, no, and that’s a choice you make. But I don’t think anyone should have to explain why they act the way they act any further than: That’s who I am and how I am comfortable. You can loathe them, love them, or not care, but I don’t understand why anyone should “explain”.
matt, you seem to be the one imparting gender roles into this discussion. The OP was simply commenting on the man on the phone acted in the TV/comedic stereotype device. You became defensive to his simple query of are there gay men who act that way and is it attractive.
My responses are a reaction to what I see as you taking it out of context as an opportunity to take to task anyone who asks why. In my first post I said:
Everyone else has basically said the same. Everyone, including me, has agreed that it’s just the way some men are. I don’t believe that all flaming men are doing it purely by reflex, but certainly many are.
The way you have taken taken my comments and framed them around totally irrelevant anecdotes and misrepresented what I’ve said is where my comments about making a “social statement” apply. You took the innocuous OP and pulled it into a discussion of peoples hate for non-conforming-gender roles. That smacks of motive to me. My response is calling into question the act of making human responses to flaming gays different from any other response to other subcultures. To making a simple inquiry implicitly hateful. It’s simply off the point.
Why? I don’t suppose you want to be in a room with a bunch of jocks. It’s not because they are straight but because they are stereotypically macho and belligerent. A man might not want to be in a room with a bunch of flaming gays, not because they are gay but because they are obnoxious and theatrical.
I just don’t think it’s the same think to discuss flamboyancy as it is to discuss homophobia which is where you keep taking the discussion.
What in the world are you talking about? I answered the OP’s question in the first sentence of my first post in this thread. And I said I wasn’t “taking him to task,” I was adding my experience dealing with this issue.
[qupte] You took the innocuous OP and pulled it into a discussion of peoples hate for non-conforming-gender roles.
[/quote]
Maybe that’s because the OP and several of the initial posts touched on (as opposed to “espoused”) responses to the subject that are far from innocuous to me. Hell, half the shit I get for being femme starts with the idea that I’m doing it for a reason, anyway.
Simply stating “those of us who do it, do it because we like it and because people are different from one another” would only be giving half the story. The other half is about why it even matters.
I’m sorry if this startles you, but I am living in this situation and I have put up with a fuck of a lot of bullshit, and so I give people the full explanation when the subject comes up.
I told the OP several times that I realized why s/he was asking the question and that I was not imputing any base motives to him (a courtesy, incidentally, that I would appreciate in return). And as I’ve told you, this is all very much to the point. The abuse I take for being who I am is pretty prominent in the way I experience the world as a femme gay man, as is my questioning of why the subject is even interesting. It is a simple matter of giving a full answer to the question posed.
Know what? All my posts here? Throw 'em away. Flush 'em down the toilet. Forget I spoke.
Sampiro is here!
I mean that with all the respect I can muster. I do not have the ability to communicate that which I want to communicate, and when I try, I am doing a lousy, lousy job, and running off on some strange tangents. That, on top of being unqualified to even begin to answer, and should have shut up and not marred the thread up to begin with with my inane ramblings. Sampiro is better with the words, and seems to be able to think without his underoos getting bunched, unlike mine. He’s saying what I* want * to say without coming across as a raving, drooling lunatic.
My apologies again. I will now keep quiet and listen and learn. I promise this time.
Right (except that all flamboyant men are not obnoxious or theatrical).
And a different person might not want to be in a room with a bunch of flamboyant gay men because she feels uncomfortable among people who do not conform to gender roles. That needs to be dealt with.
True, but I don’t think one discussion requires the discussion of the other. In this thread I perceived it as going down the path as RickJay’s first post outlined. I felt you were steering to a discussion of gender roles issues within society. My original post comparing race and class stereotypes to gay stereotypes was in response to the former discussion. Your reply to that addressed the latter discussion. And here we are.