As sociologists and others have noted for years, suicides, particularly among the young, seem to happen in clusters. In the last few weeks in North America, more than half-a-dozen gay or lesbian youngsters have taken their own lives in response to bullying or harassment. On this National Coming Out Day, I’d like to point towards a site — and a movement — that has gone viral in recent days, the It Gets Better project hosted at Youtube. It Gets Better features videos from celebrities and ordinary folks alike; the messages are funny, moving, and consistent in their reassurance that the pain and heartache and loneliness that GLBTQ teens suffer will not last forever. My favorite is BD Wong’s deeply moving contribution.
As it is National Coming Out Day, it’s important to point outthe role that homosociality plays in the harassment of gays and lesbians. Homosociality is a primarily male phenomenon, particularly common among young American guys. Simply put, it’s the idea that the approval of male peers (and male authority figures) is the driving factor in men’s lives. Well documented by sociologists, the theory of homosociality suggests that winning approval from other men is more important to young men than anything else, including validation from women.
A few years ago, C.J. Pascoe wrote a marvelous study that I reviewed here on the blog: Dude, You’re a Fag. A study of compulsory heterosexuality and gender norms in a California high school, it’s the best work I’ve ever seen on the role public displays of homophobia play in shoring up fragile masculinity. From that post:
Pascoe writes of what she calls the fag discourse. The discourse manifests itself in the almost incorrigible way in which young men label each other “fags†while seeking to avoid having that label applied to them. According to this discourse, fear of being called out publicly as a “fag†is the primary driving force behind what Pascoe cleverly calls the display of “compulsive heterosexulity.†Playing on Adrienne Rich’s classic notion that contemporary society functions with a discourse of compulsory heterosexuality, Pascoe notes that among young men desperate to establish their masculine bona fides with their peers, what we see in American high schools amounts to compulsive, almost frantic efforts by young men to prove their manhood.
Anyone who has worked with adolescent boys knows how much anxiety many of them feel about their own masculinity. It’s not news to say that our sons, like their fathers before them, often have to endure or participate in physical or at least verbal violence that we tragically and falsely believe is necessary to transition into manhood. It’s not news that boys torment each other with the “fag†epithet. And it’s not news that the real stigma in being labelled a “fag†doesn’t lie in the association with homosexuality, but with being seen as feminine.
As Deborah David and Robert Brannon pointed out in their pioneering 1976 work on masculinity, The Forty Nine Percent Majority: The Male Sex Role, there is one cardinal rule for American men: “No sissy stuff.” While the feminine can be defined in a variety of ways, David and Brannon (and their successors in men’s studies) point out that American masculinity begins with a negative definition: what is manly is, first and foremost, that which isn’t feminized. A boy will be teased far more often for throwing (or talking, walking, acting) “like a girl” than his sister will be for being too much “like a boy.” Since the 19th century, the equation between male homosexuality and femininity has been a powerful part of American boyhood. And thus tormenting “faggots” (be they authentically queer or not) has become an essential part of proving manhood. At its crudest, as Pascoe and others note, you either have to beat up queers (verbally or physically) or risk being associated with them. In high school, there is rarely middle ground for young men.
None of this is to suggest, of course, that young lesbians don’t also suffer public harassment from their peers. But while there certainly are girls who make life miserable for their queer sisters, the primary tormenters of lesbians are not straight women, but rather the same group of young men who are so vicious towards young gay men. Young men may eroticize one particular kind of “faux lesbianism” (the sort that is a staple of straight porn), and they may nag their female friends to “make out” at parties, but their feelings towards genuinely queer young women are hardly positive. Lesbians, after all, remind all of us that women can be happy without a romantic relationship with a man, a reality that makes those who insist on male sexual indispensability uneasy.
When we look at what the factors are that make life so miserable for young gays and lesbians, it’s tempting for progressives to point the finger at religious traditions that are hostile to sexual pluralism. But the young men in American high schools who are beating up other boys whom they suspect of being gay are rarely doing so in order to comply with a misunderstood dictate from the Torah or the Pauline epistles. It’s not faith that drives the hate as much as it is an overwhelming desire to establish masculine bona fides. “I torment faggots, therefore I can’t be one; I beat up queers, therefore I’m a man.” That toxic equation may be aided and abetted by conservative religion, but it isn’t rooted in it. Rather, the hateful behavior is rooted in the rigid rules of American masculinity, a masculinity predicated on a contempt for and a paranoia about even the slightest whiff of femininity among the be-penised.
As we fight to build a more accepting world for young queer folk, we need to fight hard against the inflexible rules of gender conformity. There are many ways to do this, but perhaps the best way to “inoculate against cruelty”is (as I’ve written before and as Michael Kimmel has argued) is to encourage strong non-sexual relationships between boys and girls at every age. As I wrote in a review of Kimmel’s Guyland,
The received wisdom from the “When Harry Met Sally†generation is that men and women can never be friends without sexual desire on the part of one or both people in the friendship ruining everything. Kimmel notes that young people today (many of whom were born after the iconic Billy Crystal/Meg Ryan film came out in 1989) are much more comfortable being “just friends†with the other sex than their elders were at their age. Kimmel notes that boys who have close female friends are much less likely to exhibit the worst and most destructive tendencies of the Guy Code. After all, the “guy code†is wrapped up in the notion that approval from other men (specifically, homosocial validation of one’s masculinity) is the most precious commodity a young man can pursue. Even heterosexual conquest is, ultimately, a means of gaining approval from the guys. Young men who have friends of both sexes are less likely to be held hostage to solely masculine approval; they can receive non-sexual validation from their female friends — and that validation is less likely to be connected to the brutal “sturdy oak†ethos of the Guy Code.
And they are less likely to participate in the relentless onslaught of cruelty towards their gay and lesbian peers.
“But while there certainly are girls who make life miserable for their queer sisters, the primary tormenters of lesbians are not straight women, but rather the same group of young men who are so vicious towards young gay men.”
That was definitely my experience growing up lesbian. Although some girls were really homophobic toward me, I was harassed by many more boys than girls. And, I feared male harassment much more because I knew that it could quickly turn into physical violence/sexual assault, which it sometimes did for feminine and gay/bisexual boys at my high school.
I wasn’t a lesbian, but the way I dressed, acted, and my interests seemed to give people that impression…I was teased WAY more by guys than girls… Girls avoided associating with me, some guys found me easier to talk to, and some guys showed a large amount of disrespect towards me and generally feared that I would find them attractive. I found the guys that disliked me the most were guys I may have expressed an interest in, either in the past or in the present, and guys I did talk to told me those guys were afraid of being labeled fag because a girl who was “masculine” liked them..it got easier the clearer I made it to those guys that I was NOT attracted to them and the comments started to stop…but it was still alienating and made everyday social interactions such a chore.
SEXUAL PHENOMENON: homophobia
HOW IT AFFECTS MEN: bullying and harassment
HOW IT AFFECTS WOMEN: bullying and harassment
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR ITS EFFECT ON MEN? Cruel and homophobic “bros” who mercilessly tease queer boys (this is true).
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR ITS EFFECT ON WOMEN? Cruel and homphobic “bros” who mercilessly tease queer girls (this is not true, and while may be anecdotally accurate, on the whole it is women who tease other women).
(Note: this post is an aberration because the focus is on queer issues, not women and their horrible suffering per se. Thus, women are not depicted as having it 10x worse than men. This is extremely rare.)
It seems unlikely that religious concepts have not bled their way into our culture and become so commonplace as to appear social in origin rather than religious. Most of Western attitudes stem directly from the blunt hand of Christianity. That we accept them as only demonstrates how blunt the Christian instrument was.
When boys called me “fag” they were just insulting me. I suspect if they knew more about me it might have become far more vicious. When girls called me a “fag,” they did so to specifically challenge my masculinity, and there was a far greater risk. Boys are supposed to have sex with girls, so if a girl called me a “fag” people would think it was true no matter what I said because the only reason she would say that is if I rebuffed her, and the only reason a boy would rebuff a girl is if the girl is ugly or the boy is gay. That word carried a lot more authority coming from a girl, and on two different occassions I had to prove I was not gay by making out with some girl in front of a group of people. Neither incident ended well.
I do not think you can set this all at the feet of the Victorians. Most of the images of homosexual men boys see are of effeminate men. Most of the male icons in the gay community are effeminate men. The sub-culture itself seems to focus on gay men who embrace femininity. That does not just reinforce stereotypes about gay men, it also puts gay men like my brother in a tough spot because a segment of the gay community considers him a poser because he is “straight-acting.”
Er…what?
Most of the images of homosexual men displayed in mass media are probably of ‘effeminate’ men, because that’s the stereotype, just as when the news channel wants to show a segment of Pride Parade, it shows clips of the naked-guys-in-speedos float instead of the vastly larger hordes of people in jeans and T-shirts.
I can’t speak to where your brother lives, but in larger urban areas there is no monolithic subculture than embraces femininity. In fact, there’s a very large segment of the gay male community that embraces hypermasculinity. (And we’re not even getting here into wh
“Straight-acting” is not about feminine/masculine stereotypical behaviors, but more about acting in a way that’s perceived as trying to be like Mr. Whitebread Middle Class Guy in order to win the approval of homophobic straights.
Bad editing above; And we’re not even getting into what counts as ‘effeminate’ behavior.
Mythago, I live in Chicago. The gay community here is diverse, but the image of gay men presented to the public by the media and by the gay community does tend to fit the stereotype that gay man = effeminate man.
As for my brother, instead of people accepting that he behave in the way natural to him, they assume he is playing it up to fit in. If anyone said that effeminate men were playing up their effeminacy to fit in with the gay community, that would be considered homophobic. But somehow it is acceptable for people to trash my brother because he reads as “straight.” Having witnessed some of the comments directed at him, I am pretty sure it has more to do with stereotypes than my brother vying for the approval of homophobic straight men he does not associates with.
@Toysoldier: I’m looking through my local LBGT newspaper, and in 20 pages I can only find one article that could conceivably be read as describing male effeminacy (specifically, cross-dressing). Googling for a comparable Chicago paper, I find http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/windycitytimes.html, and on a quick skim I can’t see male effeminacy on display there at all.
My sympathy to your brother — quite agreed that some queer communities have their own oppressions, their own standards that they try to enforce unpleasantly. But to say that “the image of gay men presented to the public … by the gay community” is generally effeminate… well, I’ve certainly not seen that anywhere I’ve lived.
Maybe the reason effeminacy looms so large is because it is, at least, one part of the mix of models on display among queer men, whereas in traditional mainstream culture, it’s pretty much completely taboo; so it stands out more than eg hypermasculinity, which is big in some gay subcultures but also acceptable outside them?
[Aside: is there a better term for what I'm calling 'traditional/mainstream culture' here? I don't want to say 'straight culture', because it includes plenty of gay folks; what I want is a word that fits " '??' is to 'queer' as 'secular' is to 'religious'", roughly.]
Peter, if effeminacy were only about how someone looks, I would agree with you. However, it is also the mannerisms and behaviors a person exhibits (which are hard to detect in print), and for the most part the images of gay men presented by the media and gay community are of the stereotypical effeminate gay man (look at the LOGO channel), just as the images of straight men present by the media and society are of the stereotypical masculine man.
I think that if people saw more images of masculine (i.e. traditional) gay men it would do more to change their perceptions about homosexuality. It would certainly change what boys think about gay men, as my brother has done with some of my godson’s friends.
Peter,
“straight is to queer…” is the usual equation, but you might try “cisgendered (cis for short).? I don’t think your choice of traditional/mainstream left anyone guessing what you meant.
The gay community has its own issues and disquiet with gender presentation that can make things difficult, as the comments have brushed on and the dichotomy, for one example, between the “Castro clone” and twink stereotypes demonstrates. It isn’t the case that the big, bad beast of heterosexual, homosocial manhood is alone terrorizing the liberated paradise we’d all otherwise be in. Whether that’s a result of “internal colonization” or something like that resulting everyone assimilating unhelpful gender norms or stereotypes is left as a problem for the reader.
@Randomiser: I don’t think ‘straight’ is what I’m after; going back to the analogy, surely ‘straight’ is to ‘queer’ more like ‘atheist/agnostic’ is to ‘religious’, at least in the usage I’m familiar with. I don’t mean ‘(sub)cultures of people who aren’t gay (or bi, trans, etc.)’, I mean ‘(sub)cultures not defined particularly by sexuality, gender identity, …’. (And I certainly don’t mean ‘cis’; that’s a different specific meaning again.)
Heteronormativity being what it is, I can see why mainstream culture is often called ‘straight culture’, but there are times when one definitely wants a distinction analogous to ‘secular’ vs. ‘atheist/agnostic’, rather than having ‘straight’ do double duty for both.
And it’s not news that the real stigma in being labelled a “fag†doesn’t lie in the association with homosexuality, but with being seen as feminine.
This seems like a really dodgy comment. It isn’t (remotely) like there isn’t a huge stigma on being gay among really butch acting gay men. Just-introduced-to-feminism types might get away with it, but it runs awfully close to “Women, not gay men, are the true oppressed class” for someone “in the know” to be making it.
There is an enormous, enormous stigma on gay men, of all stripes, that comes from straight men basically having no internalised gatekeeper, or even conception that they might be able to take a role like that, that leaves them seeing no possibilities between “make it impossible for a gay man to be interested in you” and “have gay sex”. That puts a lot of phobia in homophobia.
It shows up in hostility to forward women as well, though less so I think?
I think part of that is probably due to a lack of interaction with gay men. For whatever reason, a lot of straight men think gay men will find them attractive and want to have sex with them. Men usually get disabused of this idea in regards to women very early on because there are a lot of women who will inform men that they are not interested. However, there are far fewer gay men than women, so straight men and boys probably do not encounter enough gay men to realize that gay men are just as selective about their sexual partners as straight men.
@Brian:
It should be mentioned that Western culture is and has been uniquely beset with some rather queer notions (sorry, I couldn’t resist) about sexuality that came mostly out of the early 20th century and efforts by the medical and psychiatric communities to categorize and pathologize “deviant” behavior and that ultimately led to the questionable conceit that most or all human beings are possessed of a fixed and immutable “sexual orientation”. (Ironically, the LGBT movement arose out of embracing and affirming a label that had originated as a stigma of deviance and disorder.) Most cultures in the world have historically been of different opinions on the matter, and there’s always been good evidence that many people are not immutably and exclusively hetero- or homosexual throughout their lives.
That fact has caused me a bit of a confessedly-mixed reaction as to this “It Gets Better” project, just from the fact that a mostly-gay male community is again casting for simple and sympathetic martyrs out of a multitude of complex individual situations (something that it has a LOT of experience doing). But I won’t deny the seriousness of this big problem or the LGBT community’s particularly salient (though NOT exclusive) claim to it.
…to realize that gay men are just as selective about their sexual partners as straight men.
That has not been my experience as a bisexual man.
Toysoldier
I don’t think it’s very relevant, and I think the empirical data suggests your premises are mostly invalid anyways. Most women are attracted to men, and want to have sex with them. And while (as a straight man) I’ve never had a woman take the initiative and express unsolicited interest, I certainly have had gay/bisexual men do so. Hanging around women is probably helpful, because they’ll model gatekeeping for you, vs. hanging out with ~12 year old boys, because they do not such thing (at least, not when I was 12, in my crowd) But I don’t think I knew anyone who was openly gay until I was fourteen or fifteen, and by then I probably had enough modelling of gatekeeping by women that I could emulate them? (Well, by the time I was twenty, anyhow, and the number of out gay/bisexual men I knew was pretty low.)
That said, I have no idea if Tom’s trying to imply that gay men are more selective than straight men, or less. And I kinda read you as trying to imply both are fairly selective, which certainly isn’t my experience of either group.
@ Robert: In my experience, plenty of gay men have types of men they are interested in and types of men they have no interest in, just like straight men. That is what I meant by selective.
@ Brian: What I meant is that girls and women are usually quite clear that just because they are interested in males does not mean they find all males attractive. That teaches boys and men that there is a good chance the females they are attracted to might not be attracted to them. Conversely, people do not experience the same thing with gay people. Most men do not have enough interactions with gay men to know that just because a gay man is interested in other males does not mean he is interested in all males. What people do experience is what you described: unsolicited interest. That could give the impression that gay men are interested in all male (just as many women may think straight men are interested in all women), but that is not the same as all gay men actually being interested in all men. However, I do think many straight people believe that, which probably prompts some of the hostile responses gay men and lesbians receive.
“But to say that “the image of gay men presented to the public … by the gay community†is generally effeminate… well, I’ve certainly not seen that anywhere I’ve lived.”
I think TS mangled it a bit, but he was headed in the right diorection – effeminacy is the side of gayness that kids in mainstream communities see because it’s what sells in the mass media. The actual reality of this or that gay commuity is beside the point.
This is dead on the money:
“While the feminine can be defined in a variety of ways, David and Brannon (and their successors in men’s studies) point out that American masculinity begins with a negative definition: what is manly is, first and foremost, that which isn’t feminized. A boy will be teased far more often for throwing (or talking, walking, acting) “like a girl†than his sister will be for being too much “like a boy.â€
It’s not just masculinity but maleness itself that little boys have to fight for, starting with differentiating themselves from their mothers. Girls don’t do this until much later if ever. The strain this puts on boys becomes part of the structure of thier being.
This however is a detour:
“is to encourage strong non-sexual relationships between boys and girls at every age.”
It is not about female approval. What good is female approval of a man’s masculinity, what can it ever be worth? What would she possibly know about it? The key is healthy realtionships, not anxious ones, with other males, especially male models of a healthy masculinity, because that is where the anxiety is that is driving all this. A girl can’t give what she doesn’t have.
“And it’s not news that the real stigma in being labelled a “fag†doesn’t lie in the association with homosexuality, but with being seen as feminine.”
I think this is a false and misleading distinction, aside from the fact that it once again for the ten thousandth time centers women and women’s concerns in a discussion of males. The way i experienced masculinity as a boy was as something that had to be achieved and proven, and that wass so ill-defined that achieving and proving it was in itself an achievement. In the teen years this was about “success” with girls. Heterosexuality was the measure of masculinity, since no other existed, or so I thought. This was going to be hard for a gay boy.
But I came to realize from observation that were lots of other measures – feats of courage and so on. It was just my modern-day culture that had centered women in masculinity.
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Hugo,
I’m not sure about your prescriptions. I would large agree with your analysis. But I’d say that the main problem is that – as you explain – the notion of masculinity is getting ever thinner. We’ve been there over and over, and we’ll come back to that again, I reckon, because it’s the core of the problem.
And – as your example of out-of-the-system-alpha-masculinity demonstrates – what is needed is some kind of role model for “beta masculinity”. The guys beating up gay kids aren’t the “alphas”, they’re the ones who believe they have something to prove. Look at the depiction of the bullies in “Glee”, they’re not role models, the role model is singing in the show choir. They’re clinging to the last straw they have. It’s the same with all such things – the most aggressive ones are those on the lower end of the ladder who believe that it will be easier to get up by stepping on the hands of those below them. It never made sense, but a lot of things don’t.
Looking at Glee, and elsewhere – the masculinity problem is not solved. There’s nothing a woman can’t do that a man can do, except for the tiny difference. Strong – dare I say, sexually successful – men may be able to live, and live well, without the help of behavioral prescriptions. But even if you call male weakness a myth, I’m sure you’ll agree that there are far more “beta” men, who need prescriptions, than those who are strong enough to live without.
I think it’s great that we live in a culture that is valuing individual freedom, even though freedom does have a price. If we want to reduce the costs born by those bullied, we need to give those bullies who are not merely sociopaths (who will always be around) a way to exhibit masculinity in different ways. There needs to be positive masculinity and masculinity rituals for those (young) men who aren’t able to live without, otherwise they will define their own rituals (to create a ranking), and, as you not rarely say, those have a tendency to be socially dyfunctional.
Yes!! I was talking about this very topic with some high school students after school today and totally agree. I try to explain to these high school boys who are feeling awkward about their masculinity and, therefore, are prescribing to such homophobic beliefs that it can and IS different once they graduate: they’ll find themselves in college with more hall mates, classmates and friends who are queer, and they’ll realize that their friendship or acquaintanceship with someone LGBTQ is “no big deal” and does mean they are or, more importantly, they *seem* gay themselves (not that it should even matter but it does to them.)
I told those young men today that I wish there were speakers, like my brother and male friends of his in their early twenties, could come in and give talks on said topics; it’s one thing coming from me but another thing coming from a young man they respect and admire. It’s REALLY hard to combat that when they don’t have a lot of males in their lives who pass on that positive message. Fortunately, there are many young men who are tolerant and accepting, which leads me to:
“Young men who have friends of both sexes are less likely to be held hostage to solely masculine approval; they can receive non-sexual validation from their female friends — and that validation is less likely to be connected to the brutal “sturdy oak†ethos of the Guy Code.
And they are less likely to participate in the relentless onslaught of cruelty towards their gay and lesbian peers.”
I absolutely agree. However, what I’m finding hard is encouraging those students to stand up when they overhear something negative or derogatory. Many have a chill, almost laissez-faire attitude on things, Ã la “to each his (or her) own.” This can be good but intolerance really IS unacceptable. I’m trying to show them how the personal is political and the political is personal. Obviously, they’d speak up if someone directly criticized a queer sibling; however, when someone makes a negative sweeping statement about LGBTQ folk in general, there’s hesitation to get involved (not out of fear but respecting differences.)
I know you and most of your readers totally get this; one day I hope my more reluctant students do, too!
Peter, I think the word you’re looking for is “Breeder”:-) “Breeder” is to gay what atheist is to Christian.
I totally disagree with the statement about the abuse that gays suffer being about their femininity. Nobody has ever tortured me the way that homophobes torture some gays. I’d put the percentage of gay men and trans women in my old neighbourhood who have been bashed at around one in five. And those are just the people who felt comfortable enough with me to talk about it.
Lesbians do get bashed, but less often. Here’s why:
Macho jerks equate alternative expressions of gender and sexuality with lack of self control and deviant sexual behaviours like bestiality and child rape. Bible thumping homophobes are the worst for this. They think that anybody born with a penis that s/he doesn’t want to use on a woman must be possessed by some incubus that needs to be tortured and sent back to hell for the good of the children. I shit thee not. Lesbians see less outright brutality because homophobes assume they don’t have the parts to force themselves on the little ones. I have heard some thoroughly vile and obviously UNTRUE Mean Girl gossip about a few lesbians’ relationships with their pets, though.
It’s the same reason people (in my area at least) torture young men with atypical cognitive styles. To their thinking, schizophrenics, autistics and men with down syndrome can’t control themselves; therefore every child within miles is at risk of being raped. Fear for my autistic son keeps me awake sometimes. In the last few years, 2 autistics near here were burned alive, and a few young men with down syndrome were severely beaten.
I think the word “fag”, as a taunt equated with “sissy” is more of a warning directed at a young man whose gender identity isn’t really in question, but whose loyalty to the alpha is. Loyalty to the “Guy Code” is the alpha’s way (however misguided it may be)of promoting group cohesion. Gay men have their own bonding rituals and displays, and some of them are ANYTHING BUT feminine.
By that I mean masculine in a good way
I agree with everything you are saying about the need to end homophobia and bullying in general, so it pains me to say it, but:
“In the last few weeks in North America, more than half-a-dozen gay or lesbian youngsters have taken their own lives in response to bullying or harassment.”
No. They took their lives because the bullying hurt them and made them feel suicidal and they did not know where to turn for help. There is a big elephant in the room here and ze has not seen a therapist and ze has not discussed medication options with zis doctor. The most important thing we can do for gay and lesbian youth who are suicidal is to get them help ASAP. Period. Perhaps this says it better than I can: http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101013/pl_yblog_upshot/expert-says-media-dangerously-ignores-mental-illness-in-coverage-of-gay-teen-suicides.
People who really care about gay students who are killing themselves need to be focusing on suicide first and foremost. Bullying did not kill these kids. Suicide did. [i]A person who is suicidal in the face of a major life crisis is best helped by aggressively tackling the suicidality first, THEN handling the crises one by one.[/i] I don’t mean to pick on you, Hugo, but I noticed this trend and the article I linked confirmed that I’m not the only who noticed it.
This hits very close to home with me because my little brother is gay, which is kinda why I’m geting worked up. In fact, he just came out in August and I am very proud of him for doing so. If my little brother were to say to me “a bunch of kids at school are calling me gay and I really want to kill myself because of it” (thankfully he is just starting college at a very liberal university) I would IMMEDIATELY talk to him about suicide, steer him to a therapist, and THEN we could discuss navigating toxic homophobic environments.
I guess my point is when we’re talking about how tragic it is that these kids killed themselves we need to talk about, you know, the act that killed them. The suicide. And why it happens. And why kids feel that they can’t talk about suicidal feelings with anyone. And why my brother can tell my parents that he is gay and has gone on with his life but I am too frightened at the potential backlash to tell my family and friends how suicidal I have been on and off for the past decade because our culture says that suicide is selfish and sinful. I’m sure as hell not the only one. And yet, all the stories I’ve read on this topic keep talking about homophobia, as if homophobia killed these kids. It’s a shame.
Toysoldier – please note that I said “perceived as”. I’m not commenting on your brother, I’m talking about the people hurling those terms at him.
The accusation “straight-acting” is not new in the LGBT community (heck, it’s a running gag in the old Ethan Green comics and it wasn’t new then) and is not really about feminine/masculine-acting behavior as it is about a perception that somebody is setting heterosexual norms as the goal to be achieved and trying to conform to them, ostensibly to ‘fit in’. (Nobody accuses Lance Roughthrust, the leatherdaddy who thinks Tom of Finland’s characters were softies, of being “straight-acting”.)
Hugo, excellent post.
I talk about it, and draw a lot from it, in this post on my blog, which is dedicated to criticizing the Men’s Rights Movement:
http://manboobz.blogspot.com/2010/10/fag-bashing-woman-hating-and-mens.html
Oh, that’s very good, manboobz. Thanks for this.
Can we acknowledge that ostensibly heterosexual relatively gender-compliant girls are also bullied under this paradigm? Because I was sexually harassed the hell out of as a kid, as was every woman I’ve ever spoken to about it. In homosocial bro culture, girls are considered stupid, inferior objects to be acquired by boys as evidence that they’re not “fags” – or honorary girls – themselves. It’s all of a piece, and homophobia isn’t going anywhere unless we do something about misogyny at the same time. And I get a bit tired of all the focus in these discussions being on what harm is done to boys.
Everybody’s all fucked up about Tyler Clementi, as they should be, but I haven’t heard shit but victim-blaming for Hope Witsell.
Snobographer, Hugo’s post was not focused on the harm done to boys, but the harm done to girls via homophobic attitudes towards gay boys. Had the post actually focused harm done to boys, it would have been far less sympathetic given Hugo’s denialist attitude about male pain.
Toysoldier, I’m mystified that you could read a post about men beating up other men and think that it reflected a “denialist attitude about male pain.” Male pain is very, very real — you and I agree. I just note that other men tend to be the causes of that pain the overwhelming majority of the time. We agree that men suffer, TS, but we disagree as to the cause of that hurt.
Right, Toysoldier thinks that individuals cause other individuals pain, and every individual has the potential to cause pain. You think that the sinister social entity known as “Men” has a complete monopoly on every shred of evil and harm in this world.
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In case I wasn’t clear enough, men are not the agents of “other male’s pain the overwhelmingly majority of the time.” Honestly, that statement is so moronic I’m having trouble comprehending it.
I agree with most of the original post, although in general I’d say that it’s more that everything Different should be stomped out because it doesn’t fit into the pack (if we’re going with other relatively canine terms like ‘alpha’ and such). Girls are in my experience equally likely to want to correct or get rid of girls who don’t act like girls ‘should’. They are (or were — it’s been a decade or more since I went to school), however, more likely to express this socially than physically. Someone who doesn’t fit in is shunned, and it’s damn hard to break through that glass wall once it’s up.
This doesn’t mean that guys always ignore the outcast girls; they are outcast, after all, and provide an excellent target to prove yourself on. Sexuality wasn’t as much in the picture when I grew up — back then the derogatory term was CP (as in cerebral palsy, yes), used both for everything bad and as an emphatic word, e.g. “CP-cold” instead of “cold as hell” or similar. Above elementary school the term whore was ‘naturally’ included, but used differently. Girls generally labeled those girls who were more ‘successful’ in getting guys than them, whereas guys labeled those girls who rejected them (ironically enough). And, of course, guys were never whores. [insert annoyed rolling of eyes here]
I’m a TS guy, though due to me being accepted as a tomboy (by my family and what few friends I have, that is — never by my so-called class mates) it never occurred to me until later in life, and came out as bisexual when I was fourteen or fifteen. I did notice that people tended to avoid me after finding out (who knows, lesbianism might be contagious!), which did mean I used that as an excuse sometimes to get rid of idiots who thought they were studs who could get anyone. (“Yeah, I would go out with you, but my girlfriend would be so jealous…” “OMFG, you’re a lesbo! Eugh!”)
I probably got way OT there, but I think that part of why homosociality and homophobia (ironic term, since it’s generally a fear of what’s Different) go hand in hand is because today’s derogatory term is gay or fag, used about most everything that’s bad. Although I suppose it’s somewhat of a chicken-and-egg situation about what came first — did the collective They start using those words that way because they were ‘bad’ word, or did they become bad words because They used them that way?
Either way, I think that those that don’t act the way society expects them to would be pushed down/away no matter what words were used. The current trend is towards the homophobic, and I bet that in twenty or thirty years from now it’s going to be some other ‘deviation’ that bears the brunt of the conform-or-die message.
(Sorry if I don’t make much sense; I don’t always translate well between brain and text.)
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