Being Gay

[Emiliano]

I meant it like this: The people (straight macho men) who have formed the concept of women being the beautiful sex (because they are into them) or the weak gender (because they define "strength" by mere physical power, something they know they're superior in), are the same people who have formed the cliché of gays. They saw that we are liking men, so they didn't consider us as "real man", and more put us into the same box as women (sorted by the label "people who are into men"). People have often mixed up "liking men" with "being a woman", and still do. I don't see anything feminine in gay guys, and this is why I am having huuuuge issues with the concept of drag queens, but this is material for another thread. In short, I think that the concept of drag queens is "giving in to straight macho culture" and "giving up gay emancipation". Drag Queens, to me, are NOT an expression of gay emancipation, rather the opposite is the case, in my opinion.

I don't know whether it's social power or financial influence, and I don't even know if it's changing that much in first place, but yep, what you say about gay fashion designers is indeed very interesting.

Now I wrote a lot, and I'm not even sober so excuse me if I was talking bullshit at some point... bottom line, I think that guys are beautiful, and don't have to put up with giving in to straight macho culture and making them more feminine than they actually are.

In the end, another theory: Have gays feminized themselves in last decades and centuries because - in a time when there was no gay community - they hoped that straight guys would be interested? I think that's what happened. And I think that's exactly why gay culture doesn't need drag queens anymore. Because we don't need the attention of straight guys anymore... we can find each other now, mostly legally in our countries.
Something that gay guys couldn't in past millennia.

About the talking bullshit thing, I have to laugh. I like talking bullshit with people, just putting ideas out there and discussing them. You dont need citations or mathematical proofs to have a conversation with me.

About the drag queen stuff, I guess I just see that as one aspect of gay culture, of gay expression. I think that gay men are just allowed to play with gender lines more than straight men are. Being sexually liberated and all. I think there tends to be a clear distinction between trans and drag though, even if sometimes individuals might blur it. Drag is more like performance art vs this is how I live my daily life or how I want to be seen by others. At least in my experience of it. But thats just my feelings on it. Its not something id want to see disappear.

I think it benefits the straight men who are made uncomfortable by gay men to see us a feminine rather than masculine. Feminizing and de-sexualizing gay men removes the threat. I think in some ways gay men have feminized themselves in order to find better acceptance, like how certain jobs like stylist, theater, designer are more open for gay men. Its also kind of like interpreting the world through a familiar context. That there is a male and a female role even between two men. I think its a lot of not understanding what homosexuality, not caring to understand it, and wanting it to be easily classified... if that makes sense.

When homosexuality is taken as hypermasculinity - which is what I see it more as too, its more threatening. If straight men were treated by men in the same way many of them treat women, that would make them very uncomfortable. There can be something predatory about male sexual expression. I think its easier for some to dismiss a gay man as not being a real man, as wanting to be a woman, as being feminine than seeing him as someone who could overpower him and fuck him.

My hope is that in the future we dont go to either extreme, or lose anything.. Id like to see what it means to be gay, what is gay and acceptable, to be expanded. There are many, many types of gay men, just as there are many types of straight men and women and lesbians, and everything else. You said you see being gay as a more masculine thing, I see it that way, and I know [MENTION=21405]meridannight[/MENTION] does as well. But we are just tiles in the larger mosaic of what actually makes up the homosexual experience.

Im all about identity and common experience and how certain aspects influence who we are and how we are treated, but I try to always deal with people as individuals. And it would be nice if as a society we were more able to see eachother as complex individuals as well.