On the subject of “What Are Men, Really?” and “why do I relate and connect so strongly with gay/bi men, but straight men feel like a strange alien species to me?”
I’ve partly clarified what the difference is between my strong affinity for masculinity and whatever it is straight men are doing.
Straight men’s attachment to masculinity is reactionary. They lean in to masculine norms out of fear of being perceived as unmanly, as gay, as effeminate or feminine, as inadequate. They fear demotion, loss of status, loss of privilege, a fall from grace. They’re not embracing masculinity so much as they’re backing into it, out of fear of what lies outside it, as one might back into a safe compound while brandishing a gun at an approaching zombie horde.
Whereas my attachment to masculinity stems from 2 sources:
1) “I’ve had femininity crammed down my throat my whole life without my consent and now I’m freeeeee” AKA sort of reactionary, but in an empowering, liberating sense. Throwing off the chains and rebelling against society’s rules.
2) Sincerely relishing and enjoying masculinity, enjoying things like suits, waistcoasts, neckties, leather jackets, sweater vests, pocket watches, cologne, visible sculpted musculature, showing off one’s physical strength, sitting or standing with one’s legs spread, direct blunt communication, confidence, assertiveness, taking the lead during sex, a million little things society has arbitrarily coded “men stuff,” are things I take enthusiastic delight in, like Ariel gushing about her collection of human paraphernalia. I’m like a weeaboo, but for masculinity.
(And yes, there is a heavy element of eroticism for me in a lot of what I listed above.) (Insert autoandrophilia joke here)
In Daniel Lavery’s book, he noted that Gomez Addams has FTM energy because Gomez seems to relish being a man so much, whereas Herman Munster is simply phoning it in, and therefore lacks that vibe. And it’s true! A lot of cis straight men really are just phoning it in. In fact, if they put as much energy and enthusiasm into performing masculinity as I do, they’d probably be perceived as gay! Or at least as a dandy. (Gomez is something of a dandy.) The straight male role seems to demand phoning-it-in. They have to sleep-walk through it.
And the thing is: Women aren’t like this! Some women phone it in, but I can think of plenty of women who sincerely enjoy certain types of femininity, and aren’t doing it because society told them to, or to please men. Femme lesbians are an obvious example, but also straight women who are into goth or lolita fashion, or who volunteer to be surrogates because they enjoy being pregnant and participating in motherhood, or who buy sexy underwear purely because it makes them feel good. Or look at the way women who are hardcore into makeup culture react when some man, unsolicited, says “You know, men think you’re prettier when you don’t wear makeup.” Said man usually gets thrown to the wolves for his impertinence. They’re not doing it for you, bro!
But it’s hard to think of any men in my life who really relish masculinity in that same way except for, well, the gay and trans ones. I feel like the few straight men who do that in our culture get labelled “dandies” or “metrosexuals” and are seen as proximal to gayness.
here’s my take on the situation:
men with traditional views on gender have largely painted themselves into a corner. they only find affirmation of their gender in expressions of male supremacy, and there are fewer and fewer of those all the time, because men aren’t actually inherently better at anything than women are, because it turns out gender doesn’t work like that. men as a class have to actively suppress women as a class to maintain superiority over them, and even then, as we’ve seen, women can still push back effectively, and gender variant people throw wrenches into the works too.
joyous, voluntary expressions of masculinity are gay *because* they’re not reactionary, because they’re not violent, because they don’t respect the established hierarchy of strong men over weak men and all men over women. finding men beautiful, being a beautiful man that loves other men, is not traditionally how it’s supposed to work. taking the outward forms and gestures of domination and repurposing it into something reciprocal is scary to people who have only ever seen the binary of hurting and being hurt. playing with gender has to be taught to people who only know it as a fight.
i’m a trans man. i’m also a committed feminist. i’ve had to come to masculinity after a lot of thought. i’ve had to learn to like men and to forgive them. i’ve had to figure out how to be a man apart from the forms and functions of men trying to be better than women. i’ve had to try to explain this to my dad. adherence to male supremacy isn’t the only way to express your masculinity. it’s just the only way a lot of men are ever taught.
i do like being a man, though. it feels good. i’m not zipping around with the ecstatic abandon of gomez addams, but i’ve got time to learn.
prokopetz
