Nothing sets me off faster than hearing a gay guy say the following:
"I'm just into masculine guys. If I wanted to date girls, I would."
This usually tells me one of the following things about the speaker:
1) They've been out of the closet for less than five minutes.
2) They're saying this from inside the closet.
3) They're still in that self-hatred phase that most gay men find inexplicably attractive.
4) They're worried that they themselves may not be all that masculine.
5) They have no interest in learning anything about their community or its culture.
In other words, I want nothing to do with them, and yet, I find myself engaged in debate with guys regarding the "masc/fem" thing over and over again.
When I came out of the closet, I wasn't interested in dating a lumberjack (okay, maybe I was, but only for a day or a long weekend in Vermont). I was interested in dating another gay guy.
In my head, this Ideal Gay Man was going to be very stylish, very funny, and gay.
Not masculine--gay, although it never occurred to me that the two could be mutually exclusive.
I didn't come out and think--Now I have to find someone who doesn't seem gay at all but is so that I can date him.
Call me ignorant, but it seemed obvious to me that the "nobody would ever guess I'm gay" guys were going to be few and far between, and besides, what makes them such hot commodities?
Don't get me wrong, I love straight men, but if I wanted to date them, I'd become a woman (not that there'd be anything wrong with that).
I like dating gay guys, because I'm gay. I would never say I'm only interested in masculine or feminine guys because I've never seen an example of a purely masculine or feminine guy and if I did, I'm not sure I'd believe that the person I was looking at was being genuine.
Even men and women aren't purely masculine or feminine, so why should gay guys be expected to be?
Once, at a club, a guy approached me and was clearly trashed. He was talking loudly (even for a club), dancing to music in his own head instead of what was being played, and attempting to grope me even though we hadn't even exchanged names. After he got the hint and took off, my friend said--
"You weren't into him, huh?"
I confirmed that he was right, and he replied--
"Because he's so girly?"
Of everything that was wrong with that guy, why would THAT be the thing that turned me off?
I didn't even think of him as being "girly" because I was too busy thinking about what a mess he was, and should I have my shirt dry-cleaned because he drooled on it at one point.
It seems to me there's more stuffed into the term "feminine" than just "somebody who acts like a woman."
For some reason, we label a guy "too feminine" when what we really mean is that they seem to be disingenuous.
Let me explain:
I believe that when a gay man is flamboyant to the point of bothering other people, it's not that his flamboyancy bothers them, but that there seems to be something insincere about him that turns people off. I dated a guy once who was the life of the party, very loud, and very, well, out there, but that's who he was, and nobody seemed to have a problem with it. I wasn't the only one who liked him, and I never heard him be called "feminine" even though, in retrospect, he did have more feminine tendencies than masculine ones.
The point is, he was who he was, and people responded to that.
The flip side is that I know someone who came out and felt the need to "act" gay because he felt it was what was expected of him. Later on, he mentioned that he had trouble getting dates when he was younger because of how he looked.
I felt like saying to him--Maybe it wasn't how you looked, maybe it was the fact that you weren't being yourself.
I'm not saying that accepting yourself is always going to get you dates, but being somebody else is definitely not going to help get you dates, and even if it does, where are those kinds of relationships going to go when you're not being your true self?
That's a little farther off-topic than I wanted to go (Somehow during these ramblings I always seem to turn into Eckhart Tolle), but the point is, we can't go on thinking people are simple enough to put labels on.
We certainly don't like it when straight people put labels on us, so why should we put labels on each other?
And you can say wanting a masculine or a feminine guy, or being attracted to one type or another can't be helped, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to examine what it is you're really looking for from another person, and whether or not that has anything to do with what you think it does.
You may realize that what you're really looking for is something that simply can't be named.
"I'm just into masculine guys. If I wanted to date girls, I would."
This usually tells me one of the following things about the speaker:
1) They've been out of the closet for less than five minutes.
2) They're saying this from inside the closet.
3) They're still in that self-hatred phase that most gay men find inexplicably attractive.
4) They're worried that they themselves may not be all that masculine.
5) They have no interest in learning anything about their community or its culture.
In other words, I want nothing to do with them, and yet, I find myself engaged in debate with guys regarding the "masc/fem" thing over and over again.
When I came out of the closet, I wasn't interested in dating a lumberjack (okay, maybe I was, but only for a day or a long weekend in Vermont). I was interested in dating another gay guy.
In my head, this Ideal Gay Man was going to be very stylish, very funny, and gay.
Not masculine--gay, although it never occurred to me that the two could be mutually exclusive.
I didn't come out and think--Now I have to find someone who doesn't seem gay at all but is so that I can date him.
Call me ignorant, but it seemed obvious to me that the "nobody would ever guess I'm gay" guys were going to be few and far between, and besides, what makes them such hot commodities?
Don't get me wrong, I love straight men, but if I wanted to date them, I'd become a woman (not that there'd be anything wrong with that).
I like dating gay guys, because I'm gay. I would never say I'm only interested in masculine or feminine guys because I've never seen an example of a purely masculine or feminine guy and if I did, I'm not sure I'd believe that the person I was looking at was being genuine.
Even men and women aren't purely masculine or feminine, so why should gay guys be expected to be?
Once, at a club, a guy approached me and was clearly trashed. He was talking loudly (even for a club), dancing to music in his own head instead of what was being played, and attempting to grope me even though we hadn't even exchanged names. After he got the hint and took off, my friend said--
"You weren't into him, huh?"
I confirmed that he was right, and he replied--
"Because he's so girly?"
Of everything that was wrong with that guy, why would THAT be the thing that turned me off?
I didn't even think of him as being "girly" because I was too busy thinking about what a mess he was, and should I have my shirt dry-cleaned because he drooled on it at one point.
It seems to me there's more stuffed into the term "feminine" than just "somebody who acts like a woman."
For some reason, we label a guy "too feminine" when what we really mean is that they seem to be disingenuous.
Let me explain:
I believe that when a gay man is flamboyant to the point of bothering other people, it's not that his flamboyancy bothers them, but that there seems to be something insincere about him that turns people off. I dated a guy once who was the life of the party, very loud, and very, well, out there, but that's who he was, and nobody seemed to have a problem with it. I wasn't the only one who liked him, and I never heard him be called "feminine" even though, in retrospect, he did have more feminine tendencies than masculine ones.
The point is, he was who he was, and people responded to that.
The flip side is that I know someone who came out and felt the need to "act" gay because he felt it was what was expected of him. Later on, he mentioned that he had trouble getting dates when he was younger because of how he looked.
I felt like saying to him--Maybe it wasn't how you looked, maybe it was the fact that you weren't being yourself.
I'm not saying that accepting yourself is always going to get you dates, but being somebody else is definitely not going to help get you dates, and even if it does, where are those kinds of relationships going to go when you're not being your true self?
That's a little farther off-topic than I wanted to go (Somehow during these ramblings I always seem to turn into Eckhart Tolle), but the point is, we can't go on thinking people are simple enough to put labels on.
We certainly don't like it when straight people put labels on us, so why should we put labels on each other?
And you can say wanting a masculine or a feminine guy, or being attracted to one type or another can't be helped, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to examine what it is you're really looking for from another person, and whether or not that has anything to do with what you think it does.
You may realize that what you're really looking for is something that simply can't be named.
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