“What the public really loathes in homosexuality is not the thing itself but having to think about it.”
–E.M. Forster
Strip away all the ads and angst surrounding recent gay rights referendums, and the most cogent observational kernel came when Dan Savage averred that much of the dread and revulsion orienting around opposition to gay rights comes down quite literally to our sexual practices.
Candidly, it’s ass sex that riles up every Neo-Puritan to start rattler-handling and speaking in tongues, and the threat of it somehow being taught/instructed/endorsed (where was this course when I was school?) to oh-so-vulnerable school kiddies was the implicit push behind the Yes on 1 Referendum in Maine.
Lesbians get more than their fair share of flak, but really the worst skullduggery is probably associated with men, with everything from child molestation, public indecency, pornography, serial murder, disease, and trannies stalking gender-neutral restrooms likely to conjure up the image of a male predator on the lurk.
Is it that gay women aren’t quite as threatening, their relationships not as disruptive to this natural order we keep hearing about? Certainly we’re all vilified for apparently clutching at the wedding band so we can turn it into some kind of grotesque farce (maybe a Fellini Satyricon hitching at sea, or a Flash Gordon theme wedding?), but in terms of measured public acceptance, it seems to be women who are having an easier time of getting over the wall.
We’re forever excoriated for running Hollywood and the media after all, but even if that’s true, it hasn’t really translated into visible success for us in the way it has for ladies. Gay (or even just gay-seeming) women have achieved a prominence in just the last decade, with Rosie O’Donnell, Wanda Sykes, Rachel Maddow, Queen Latifah, and Jane Lynch managing to either A) slip in under the radar and ingratiate themselves before coming out, B) work steadily without rocking the boat, or C) have their careers thrive unscathed despite gay rumors while their male counterparts often rot on the vine or are given their walking papers. Even something as crass as Lezsploitation has an innate marketability that male-on-male eroticism lacks across-the-board, perhaps because it’s perceived as vaginal and/or non-penetrative.
Remember when Rupert Everett was supposed to be the first out gay matinee idol (it sounds almost quaint now), or how Tinseltown could never figure out what to do with Jaye Davidson — as natural-born a talent plucked out of virtual obscurity as you can ever hope to find? Hell, even Torture Princess Mary Cheney gets a pass from the Right in a manner that I suspect an Uncle Tom son of a bigwig in the party wouldn’t receive.
Is it perhaps Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi that hets who are softening on the issue are picturing in their minds when they envision a lesbian couple, one partner tomboyishly cute in that still comfortably androgynous way (the state of being what comedienne Elvira Kurt notably dubbed a “Fella Girlie”), the other tall and glamorous with a mane of cascading Birth of Venus hair? Who and what are they picturing when they think of us? A gaggle of fey club kids with pacifiers in their mouths overrunning the Vatican? Leathermen on hogs sacking Salt Lake City? The cast of the latest Hot House epic assailing a city hall near you?
The tacit comfort factor with a female pairing isn’t even really all that new. 19th Century Boston Marriages involving two women — usually hailing from the upper crust of society and/or art, literature, or education circles — living together and supporting themselves were often regarded as harmlessly eccentric.
I know what sexual imagery involving two men springs to mind for the most vehement biological reductivist and benignly bemused heterosexual, but I wonder what they see when they think of two women. Does it fall somewhere between All-Girl Action and a gauzy Swedish schoolgirl movie from the ’60s?
Our I Am Curious (Fellow) sex lives seem to be more inflammatory and monstrous by comparison, the infantile “the parts don’t fit” argument inextricably associated with us. If sodomy is a non-procreative and (or?) non-vaginal sex act, then pretty much anyone outside of those Pez Dispenser-wombed reality TV moms is “guilty” of it in some manner, yet we bear the brunt of the stigma.
Though I have no real desire to wed or even cohabitate — I could never allow anyone to have that amount of control over my life — I still wonder if gays might not have a better run at the whole thing than hets simply by virtue that we have a more pragmatic view of it. It’s about legal protection, pooling financial resources, achieving the fiscal benefits it allows; we know marriages fall apart because of unmet expectations, financial woes, infidelity, abuse, and abandonment, not because John and Mark up the street are doing their thing.
Too many of us have seen our parents part ways to glamorize that loaded word “tradition,” so we’re probably not planning ridiculously overwrought ceremonies from the time we’re six (yes, there are actual adult women who want to be Disney princesses), trying to land Prince Charming, or buying into the myth of virginity. That last one just gets you locked up in a convent, wed to a god who never calls, or tossed into a volcano.
Bruce LaBruce coined the notion of a “gay husband” years back, terming it a fantasy man who we become attached to via porn or TV and who subsequently turns up in our love dreams as our official hubbie we never really expect to find.
It’s true. I’ve been alternately hitched to Dolph Lundgren, Colton Ford, Chris Meloni, Billy Herrington, Matthew Fox, Joe Zaso, David Boreanaz, Joel McHale, and (briefly) the Old Spice Centaur, and even if the face changes, the man is essentially the same.
I don’t need the neoteric equivalent of a shaman sanctifying my union in the eyes of a god, and it does seem blatantly stupid that I could marry any chick I met ten minutes ago inside a shell pink Las Vegas wedding chapel presided over by an Elvis impersonator as long as we’re both just lucid enough to slur “I Do.” Even when I picture nuptials, all that really sends me is campy King Kong featuring me in the Jessica Lange role, complete with an island setting, a puka shell headdress, a chanting chorus of natives, a gyrating hard body witch doctor, a humongous fucking bolt being lubed up to open the gates, and a chest-beating beast of a groom lumbering out of the darkness. Swoon!
All the anti-gay rhetoric amounts to The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street-inspired alarmism, so we may find our Scissor Sisters are the ones who end up tipping the balance away from the fundies of the world. Very recent history seems to have only brought out the worst in those who exist on some alien landscape full of gods and monsters that we on terra firma don’t tread. The Amazons are at the gate.
And Mars Needs Women indeed.
© 2009, Shawn Baker. All rights reserved. Nightcharm.com
I’m confused. If the public opposes gay marriage because they wrinkle their noses at the idea of anal sex, how does that constitute “why gay guys fuck up the same-sex marriage movement?” It seems like society’s fixation/speculation with what 2 guys do together fucks up the same-sex marriage movement.
If I’m a gay guy who does’t have anal sex, I don’t think I’m responsible for “fucking up the same-sex marriage movement.” If I’m a gay guy who has anal sex all the time, but doesn’t really wear it on my sleeve, I don’t think I’m to blame either.
It seems as though the stereotype and the reputation of gay guys as being intrinsically interested in buttfucking “fuck up the same-sex marriage movement,” and I’d put the responsibility on the people who vote and act on their flawed conceptions rather than the people they’re preaching limited views about.
Gays fuck up their acceptance by the hetero world every year when folks see the freak show that is a Gay ‘Pride’ Parade. It’s all downhill from there.
Nice to see the whopping load of internalized homophobia from Flint Ten leaving stinking grace on the comment section.
First off, if somebody wants to walk down Main Street wearing lip gloss and assless chaps, he can damn well do it. If you don’t like it, go live in Plano or Bakersfield where they keep their gays mild-mannered, closeted and All-American.
Second, you can find a “freak show” with wild behavior in every minority (or majority) group that exists anywhere on Earth, any time in history. I could list them if I had to, but I don’t want to spark the kind of conversation that would likely ensue. Still, every group has those people, and they’ve never been sufficient grounds for taking that group’s rights away or adopting prejudiced views against the group.
On the Internets, no one can hear you sarcasm.
This article is not a finger pointin’ at all those nasty gays, it’s an ironic look at why the fundies REALLY have such a hard time letting us get married. It’s not an ethical dilemma over the innate sinful nature of homosexuality, it’s not some concern over kids growing up unbalanced without a mom and a dad, it’s BUTT SEX. BUTT SEX will be our undoing because BUTT SEX gives non-BUTT SEXERS the heebie-jeebies.
It’s true. People can argue ours is not a racial or ethnic struggle, but it does center around sexual biology at its core. The idea is that same sex unions can’t be equitable because of the genitals, which is redolent of claiming that women couldn’t fly planes or men can’t raise children alone. It’s like everything you aspire to must come down to whether you’re sporting a dick or a vadge. This is why transsexuals have almost nothing in the way of rights under the law.
@ Jonjon: No one is saying that someone doesn’t have the right to walk down the street in lip gloss, assless chaps, a rainbow wig, sucking on a dick-shaped lollypop if they want to, just don’t expect anyone to take you seriously if you do. Which takes us to the larger point: if you want acceptance from the world at large (which gays are asking for with the whole marriage debate) you may have to compromise something. All a lot of straight folks see of the gay subculture is the annual freak show, and no wonder they are turned off by it. The ‘internalized homophobia’ comment is pretty funny, do you do stand up?
Nuff with the philosophising. make with the nekkid men.
I think the problem is that the leaders in the gay marriage movement failed to acknowledge the political reality that incremental gains will help you reach your goal faster. There was a moment when the leaders of the gay groups in DC had to choose between a full out campaign for same-sex MARRIAGE, an emotionally loaded term that they knew would face tremendous pushback from conservatives and churches, and CIVIL UNIONS that bestowed all the same rights and benefits as marriage. Had they chosen the latter course, we’d be there, or much closer. The opposition can argue against marriage all day long, but would be hard pressed to effectively argue against hospital visitation, tax savings, inheritance rights, etc.
@ Flint Ten, you treat gays and lesbians like they meet at some kind of a committee once a week to set common rules and boundaries.
You say “it’s no wonder they’re turned off by it.” Is that really what you want to say? That’s like saying “no wonder the Nazis hated the Jews after so many Jewish people ran the businesses that screwed them over” or “no wonder Americans hate Mexicans when so many Mexicans got here illegally.”
It sounds like you’re making excuses for homophobia, or worse, like you’re blaming the group that is discriminated against for the discrimination it faces. I think what jonjon was pointing out is that there is no way we’re ever going to get every gay person to act modest or reserved or clean-cut the way heterosexuals like. Just like the poor Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust had no control over wealthy Jewish businessmen, and an ordinary Mexican guy who was born in the U.S. has no control over other Mexican people coming across the border without papers.
So if we’re going to say someting like “until we shape up, homophobia will be here,” that means that homophobia will always be here. I’m not responsible for another person’s actions and the way you think of those actions – actions that aren’t even criminal or harmful beyond testing someone’s prudish sensibilities.
And as has been pointed out before, every group that has ever been discriminated against faces the same thing, so to say “well no wonder they’re discriminated because ________” excuses all discrimination.
I believe in individualism. My character cannot be judged by another person’s deeds. And my rights are the same regardless of what somebody else does.
Individualism also means that bigots are responsible for their OWN bigotry, and you can’t say “they’re just doing that because someone in the minority group did something annoying first.”
@Matt-I’m not trying to justify homophobia, but when I look at the face the gay community shows the world, I understand it. That’s all I’m saying. To be accepted in any society, you should meet them at least part of the way.
All these referendums are about sex. For the fundies, allowing gay marriage=allowing gay sex. That’s way they always depict it as tempting and illicit. They’re obsessed with people enjoying doing it and not conceiving a child every fucking time they do. They’re morons that way.
Society has no right to demand we act like them. On the whole, society is full of subcultures and every one of them is very different in how they act from the others. It’s really no different for gays.
The fact is that if we all decide to go along with it and adhere to what society wants us to be, then it’s not really the fact that homophobia goes away. We’ll just be hiding the target of their bigotry, which is about the same as saying that there are no homosexuals.
No, the point about stopping discrimination is that it can’t be partial. You can’t say ‘oh well, they stopped discriminating against the gays that act like they want us to, so I guess that’s fine then’. It simply won’t work.
Gay Pride has always been a sore spot for both the people who are against gay ‘lifestyle’ and for a lot of gay people as well because they believe it to promote bigotry. The point is that people need to be made aware that Gay Pride is a time in the year when we party and pull out all the stops. We don’t do that stuff every day year-round. But somehow, people think that that’s the case. There are plenty of college parties that would send a pulse of shock and revulsion throughout the ranks of politicians everywhere. But that’s conveniently ignored because we’re an easy target.
Let’s face it, society (and politics) will always need scapegoats to plot against. It makes it easier for them to provide some targets to vent rage and frustration at. If it’s not us, then it’ll be something else. You’re never going to get rid of it. You can get laws and regulations instated that give us equal rights, in the long run, but you’re not getting rid of bigotry and discrimination. The government likes to pretend it can regulate everything, but it can’t.
I’m not saying we should be giving up. Not at all, that would be disastrous. But at the same time we shouldn’t be expecting apologies from the president on a silver platter, hand-delivered to our front doors. Because, somewhere inside, I feel like making too much of a fuss about some things really doesn’t help. But then, what do I know of politics…
I’m with John. When I first came out of the closet, I was very political LGBT issues, starting a GSA at my school and being sure that everything I did as a leader gave a positive face to the gay community.
And that’s absolutely true for any spokesperson or leader whose aims are focused on general society, whose actions will be judged by the whole. They have a responsibility to be tactful and careful.
But I still went to Pride, and when my parents said things like “but how does that affect how straight people see you,” I had to blow it off. Does EVERY MOMENT OF MY GODDAMN LIFE have to be a political statement? Face it, homophobia is not going to go away in my lifetime. So I can keep trying and keep trying and keep trying to prove myself hoping to make it there, or I can resign myself to the fact that there are ignorant bigots out there, and just do what I feel like doing for ONE DAY A YEAR.
That’s what I see Pride to be. We’re no longer trying to put on our most wholesome face for the world, and for ONE day pretending like the world is as tolerant and accepting as we want it to be. Which is why we have Pride in an outdoor, public place. It’s therapy for our own community, and since the occasion is so rare, we definitely overcompensate (ever notice how the generation who grew up with more intense homophobia takes their Pride antics a step farther than the younger guys?) but it’s really about convincing ourselves there is room for us in the world.
And honestly, the bigots have to work pretty hard to even pay attention to Pride, which doesn’t get that much news coverage outside the major cities where the festivals are the largest. They have to work pretty hard to think all gay people are like the 60-year-old men in thongs and floats full of singing drag queens. It’s such an obscure thing to fixate on, I’m convinced that those people would be bigots regardless of what we did on that day, and we shouldn’t worry about it.
It’s been my suspicion for a while now that part–if not most–of the intense opposition to gay marriage by fundies and neocons and even average folks stems from the realization that if they “allow it,” then it’s going to be in their faces all the time. It’s one thing to see a male couple holding hands or a female pair kissing on the news or on some cable program, but quite another if it’s right there in your own neighborhood. “What happens,” they worry, “when some queer married couple moves in two houses down from me? Then they’ll feel free to just broadcast their perversion everywhere, including here in Small Town, U.S.A.” That’s my theory about it, anyway, because even those who claim to be progressive and pro-gay rights often flinch when it comes to actually witnessing even minor acts of same-sex affection. How much more so the bigots?
Even if we had nasal sex, it shouldn’t matter to whether we get to be married or not. What does sex have to do with marriage anyway!? Straight people have it less often when married, is all I know; but that doesn’t even count for us!
If people have issues with how we have sex, that is their problem. It only becomes our problem because those people have the right to vote, sadly, and therefore get to vote on our love life.
I think people who voted against gay marriage should be disabled to vote again. They’ve obviously proven themselves a-subjective and downright stupid by voting against something perfectly positive as gay marriage. And what about the separation of church and state? How come people are allowed to take God into consideration when voting for something not-God-related?
@joshr: hi
Here here John and Matt. The notion of being some fucking token hetero emulating role model nauseates me. Every time a pride apologist opens their mouth I want to shove a fat pink sequined dick in it. No one bitches about risque Mardi Gras festivals like they do pride festivals even though they’re the same eccentricity. Excellent piece Shawn.
Hey Rob W. — I’m n your side of this particular (tired) debate, so I say this out of love: you need to double check the definition of the word “apologist” in a dictionary. It means the opposite of what you think it does.
We have a more nuanced view of the world because we live and work with straight people; we don’t have the luxury of moving in our own cloistered circles. How many sexual assaults happen every year? Do we think of every straight guy as a sex offender or rapist-in-the-wings? Do we judge women by the standards of Reality TV skanks, “Girls Gone Wild,” and “Grey’s Anatomy”? Having experienced the worst young kids have to offer at that age, do we really think every brat is God’s “innocent” gift? Could they just be miniature adults with all their corresponding flaws, weaknesses, and prejudices?
All these popular votes on civil rights (as if the right thing is ever popular) are about wanting the world to conform in a manner it won’t and can’t ever be able. Naive, arrogantly so.
Good catch, grrg. What our quick and talented Rob W. means to say, I believe, is that he wants to put a sequined dick (ouch!) in the mouth of critics of the gay marches.
An apologist would be someone promoting a proposition, usually with spin instead of facts, depending for their argument on logical fallicies and assuming what they are supposedly setting out to prove in their premise.
Thus, we often hear of “Christian apologists” who argue for a supposed scientific basis for their beliefs, be it the creation myth in Genesis or the insistence that Christ did not literally mean what he said when he predicted that his would be “the last generation” of humanity. That would be over two thousand years ago, well before “the greatest generation,” the beat generation, Generation X or the children of the corn.
What the apologist seems to be apologizing for, then, is his lack of evidence and his dependance on flashy rhetorical sleight-of-hand.
We are all much improved, grrg, by this correction.
The problem with fundamentalist christians, be it with creationism, queer issues, prayer in school, so on and so forth is that their worldview is fixed in stone and reality needs to bend into pretzels in order to fit it. Well, to be truthful, fixed until someone hungry for power and followers decides they have a different “interpretation” From that they will deduce that gay marriage is somehow harmful to them, because any dissonance between reality and their warped world view is too much for their poor wittle psyches. No amount of persuasion or reason will do anything to change these fairly fixed views. It doesn’t matter that “traditional” marriage has only been like it is for a relatively short time compared with the entirety of civilization.
In that same vein, I don’t see any point in trying to tone down any pride celebrations to please them since honestly they won’t be satisfied until society is 100% homogenized. Don’t get me started about how we lack a national holiday that lets normal social mores be relaxed, like mardi gras does currently on a smaller scale.
Right, I totally meant hetero-emulating apologists. I use big words without checking because I’m pretentious and suck at life.
Face it: you’re all a bunch of sluts.
I am not a slut!!! I’m just quite generous with my man snatch!
Flint Ten: you are 100% right
The article oversimplifies things tremendously. Anal sex alone is not the issue. Straights have anal sex all the time. Some lesbians do as well. Issues of masculinity come into play here, and that which defines an alpha male, something every straight male is expected to aspire to. A male controlling his world can claim anything he wants, including a male lover, with little fallout. It’s when the male rejects his birthright and takes on a perceived weaker and feminine role, permanantly, does it become threatening. Regarding lesbian couples, they too become threatening if they cease to be viewed in a bisexual capacity, lose too much femininity, and appear to reject the societal structure in place, – which for straight males include deeply held memories of nurturing mother and erotic girlfriend in their youth. The butch female appears to betray those memories. Therefore, she is perceived not as a female lover to another female, with feminine energy but in fact devoid of the feminine and a man-hater. Such ideas are ludicrous, but the straight mind can reconcile these feelings no other way. In terms of specific sexual roles within a gay coupling, it seems to me that the male bottom and the female top most illustrate this and are in the most physical danger by homphobes.
In short, none of us get a free ride.
“The article oversimplifies things tremendously. Anal sex alone is not the issue. Straights have anal sex all the time.”
You’re sure about that? They can also rape, molest, murder, break up marriages, wipe their feet on their spouses, neglect their children, have multiple train-wreck unions, and confess it all away on a weekly schedule to a man in a dress. Still, their doings are “natural,” though.
Were sodomy laws crafted to target heterosexuals? When was the last time a hetero male was deemed a rapist simply because another man committed the crime? Why is it that slutty Republicans never engage in actual transgressions, but only make “mistakes” or have “lapses”?
I also wonder where are all the propositions and referendums designed to make infidelity a crime, divorces illegal, and second marriages sins? When will the Evangelicals attempt to influence foreign legislation that leads to the imprisonment or execution of adulterous and/or libidinous heterosexuals?
Some rides seem a little freer than others, don’t they?
I think it’s fair to say that a huge element in anti-gay views is gender roles, rather than anal sex. A man trading a woman for a man is making himself more effeminate, which makes straight people uncomfortable. I mean, how many people do you hear saying “I don’t mind gay guys as long as they don’t act TOO gay” meaning as long as they aren’t effeminate? They can understand why a lesbian would trade up and achieve more power though masculine behavior, but can’t understand why a man would take his own power away to act effeminate.
We know that kids as young as first and second grade express a lot of hatred towards an effeminate boy; a lot more than they have towards a masculine girl.
But I think it’s also fair to say that anal sex is a huge element when it comes to homophobia, or at least a between-the-lines innuendo that anti-gay folks will make when they’re arguing against gay marriage (i.e. “gay marriage will be taught in schools” = “anal sex will be taught in sex ed.”) It’s fair to say it plays a role, but it’s also fair to argue that the role is not as the article portrayed.
Gry, you did not seem to understand my post. Anon seems to have, however. Anon provides a good example of the 1st or 2nd grader, who knows nothing about explicit sex, but can perceive differences in behavior, speech, and attire. Having said that, I know that anal sex is a big sticking point, it’s just not the whole problem, or even most of the problem, is my point.
I understood it. You did rather glibly gloss over the sexual biology component, which the article rightly points out is a bigger issue than you think and often is veiled under rhetoric about “natural law.” That’s the oversimplification. It isn’t deemed the same transgression with a hetero couple, and for us, it is directly linked to the issues of masculinity you mention.
When dealing with a collective mentality that would like the vagina to function one way as a birth canal only — and even then ideally through immaculate conception — you can’t really downplay how dangerous the notion of pleasurable, non-procreative intercourse is.