Masculine gay man
There has been minute discussion of the ways white male lover male culture, in particular, is rife with its have brand of toxic masculinity.
W hen I was in graduate school, I worked part-time in retail. One of my co-workers — let’s call him Jake — was a pale gay man who liked to inform stories about his various dating exploits each time we had a change together. These conversations quickly went from amusing to problematic. Jake’s tales frequently centered on his conservative rural upbringing, his “love” of black men, in part because of how “masculine” he thought they were, and how he didn’t like guys who were too “femme.” “How would your family react if you were dating someone who wasn’t white?” I asked, trying to make small converse during a lull between customers. “That would never happen,” Jake said. “Black men are for fucking; white men are for bringing home to your family.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised, but the frankness of his words stunned me into silence for the remainder of my shift. I later tried to make Jake attentive of his racism, but he said that had nothing to do with him. He
Reflections on Gay Masculinity
By Justin Natoli, JD, MFT
If market price is a function of supply and require, then my advice is to start investing in masculinity. That stuff is flying off the shelves. For a variety of reasons—innate and learned—masculinity is like catnip to a significant percentage of queer men, and it appears to be in limited supply. The appeal of masculinity isn’t breaking news. A quick glance on Scruff reveals one masc/musc man after another searching masc-only sexual connections. What sparks my curiosity is the role masculinity plays in our sex lives and what our longing for and fetishizing of masculinity says about the gay experience.
I sat down with some ‘masc-only’ homosexual men recently to comprehend better what they sense like when connecting with men they judge to be masculine. These conversations suggested three distinct but overlapping roles masculinity plays in sexual relationships with men. One group is drawn to masculine men because they feel protected. Another group says they enjoy feeling dominated by masculine energy. A third group reveals that connecting
Can a Gay Man be Manly?
The recent rulings, and non-rulings, of the Supreme Court on homosexual marriage have inspired me to write on a subject I have been thinking about for some time. Rather than tackling the issue of whether gay couples should be allowed to get married and the impact on society (which is probably better on some other blog or larger discussion) I will try to keep the subject focused on manliness and homosexuality. However, I want to be clear at the outset about my stance on marriage. I believe marriage is between one man and one woman for life, and for the last 18 years I have been faithful to hold to that belief, though, as any marriage can attest, it has not always been easy. I don’t think God, nature, biology, sociology, etc. could be more explain on how the sexes are supposed to go together. Doing my best to avoid a naturalistic fallacy, I’ll say this. If we observed in any other species a growing percentage of its members confused about which sex to mate with, it would be an noticeable red flag. At the least we would say, “That is not the way nature intended Many gay men grew up feeling ashamed of not conforming to cultural expectations about “real boys” or “real men.” Especially during middle and high college, they may have been bullied or publicly humiliated because of their difference—made to feel like outsiders and not “one of the boys.” They may have found it easier relating to women than men, though they didn’t fully belong to the girl group, either. Every homosexual man I’ve seen in my practice over the years has had a conflicted, troubled relationship with his own masculinity, often shaping his behavior in destructive ways. Writing for Vice, Jeff Leavell captures the dynamic nicely: “Queer people, especially gay men, are known for dealing with a slew of self-doubts and anxieties in noxious ways. Gay men are liable to sense incredibly insecure over their masculinity, a kind of internalized homophobia that leads them to idolize 'masc 4 masc', 'gaybros' and [to] shame and oppress femme men.” Here we notice one of the most common defenses against shame: getting rid of it by offloading or projecting it onto somebody else; in this case, one