"It's Not Gay If..."

I remember that a gay friend of mine who used to live in the US once talked about the pressure he felt to fit into the mold of the stereotypical homosexual man. As a gay guy, you had to have a sharp tongue, but be witty at the same time, you had to go to the gym weekly, be interested in committing to a long-term relationship, etc. My friend questioned some of these expectations and managed to find out which social norms worked for him.

There are other men, in rural America who, although they’re not engaging in this like activists, with full awareness, and maybe a plan, they are however shaking the notion of what it means to be a gay man. First off, they don’t identify as gay. They are just straight, traditionally masculine guys, with wives and families, who occasionally have sex with their buddies. They are generally turned off by feminine features in other men, from effeminate appearance to “emotional clingyness”. “I don’t want the effeminate ones, I want the manly guys… If I wanted someone that acts girlish, I got a wife at home”, one man says. 

It’s not just sex between them, though. They often see each other regularly, go shopping, go to dinner, talk extensively before having sex. “They frame their bud-sex, even when it’s accompanied by other forms of intimacy, in a way that reinforces their rural, straight masculinity.”

One problem with this “I do gay stuff, but I’m not gay” is that we again have white privileged males setting the standard and the outlines for what gay is supposed to be.

“Given the cultural incentives that remain for a straight-seeming gay, given the long-road to self-acceptance that makes many feel incapable or fearful of honestly answering questions about identity—which would undoubtedly alter the often vague data that provide the basis for Ward’s arguments—it seems that one should care about the wide canyon between what men claim they are and what they actually are.”

P.S.: Check out Jacqui Banaszynski's Pulitzer-winning feature about a rural gay couple.