A stereotype I have always faced difficulty with is the idea that gay men naturally present feminine and are not masculine. It is something that, for me personally, just happened. I grew up with sisters and very excitedly participated in pop culture online by posting about my favorite pop girls, and keeping up with the trends because it genuinely made me happy. I had the typical mannerisms of a “feminine gay man” and overall came to embrace them as something that just came to me. But there was always a discomfort, I never quite felt like “feminine” described me. I often got more excited when another person labeled me as “masculine”. It always surprised me that I felt this way because I developed an “inherent distrust” of straight men, as I often call it, while growing up. I never really had close male friends, especially with straight men. I still struggle to this day. But I overall came to the conclusion that yes, gay men tend to lead with more feminine traits but not for the reasons you might expect. It’s actually a little jarring to see that it’s a frequent crisis for gay men to interact with their masculinity, but it allowed me to delve a bit more.
Social media has been pivotal in how I viewed myself and “masculinity”. On social media I would often interact with a lot of gay men and I would find that they are very “thirsty”. They very openly post about their desire for some masculine straight guy celebrity, and it would often develop into almost comical violence how they would describe this desire. Take this tweet:
The tweet is relatively tame, but it’s the comments that take it to another level. The man in the photos is Jack Innanen, the new “white boy of the month”. This is not an abnormal reaction to straight men, in fact it’s the natural reaction.
It was also very natural for most of us to chase after the next unattainable straight guy. But it always centered on their “masculinity” as the defining feature. For gay men it’s almost used as a detector of being inauthentic. Masculinity ended up being viewed as unobtainable and not able to be genuinely represented by a “queer” man, because being “queer” made us inherently “not masculine”. A recent figure under scrutiny would be Leo Skepi, who recently posted a video about how he is not happy it’s PRIDE month
He is a gay man making this comment, so many are calling out that he’s “self-hating” and “pick-me”. His video and the reaction to it lead me to this video. I particularly caught eye of how gay men seem to have rejected Leo Skepi as an influencer that represents us primarily because he gives off a more masculine kind of vibe to his online persona.
Masculinity has often been used as a front for some queer men to avoid detection. Masculine gay men like “blending in” and feel like feminine men often want to stand out in a way that brings negative attention from bigots. This quote describes how I learned to see it, ““The result of this relentless social conditioning is that every gay man inherits an identity crisis: They must reconcile their sense of masculinity with their failure to conform to its compulsory heterosexuality.” (Mega. H, 2022) We keep trying to be and chase after figures that represent “traditional masculinity”, but ultimately it’s incompatible with gay men, even as a defense. Using it as a defense often puts us at odds with the goals of queer political movements. Overall, I came to believe that yes, gay men do tend to lean more feminine. But it’s only because traditional masculinity is designed to reject queerness.
Unfortunately this stereotype is harmful, not just because it groups gay men as a monolith, but because it doesn’t allow us to fully connect with a part of us. I have had to reject traditional masculinity and develop an identity of my own that blends the aspects from both sides of the gender spectrum that I hold dear. To discover that, I had to explore my own masculinity. We have to reject the label from both sides of the political spectrum and define what it means to be a “modern man” as individuals and as a group. I encourage gay men to detach from the traditions and embrace modernity when it comes to masculinity, and to always keep in mind how we as individuals can contribute to an ethical and happy society.
Politics Is Everything 