Ever wonder why men don’t lock eyes unless they’re going to fight … or fuck?
Or why adolescent boys leave empty seats between them when they go to the movies?
That is the burning question today over on AlterNet, kicking off a long and ponderous meditation on manhood by a professor of American culture. The essay’s title: Don’t Look Gay: Why American Men Are Afraid of Intimacy with Each Other
Yes, we’ve made this trip before — many times before –but let’s strap ourselves in for one more thrill-packed, hands-in-the-air go-round on the Cyclone, that splintery old roller coaster of cultural frettings over men who just can’t handle heavy duty man-on-man, dick-in-ass action — the wimps! … and definitely not our kind, darling.
“On Saturday afternoon at the Cineplex you can see them: adolescent boys, there to watch one of the action films that Hollywood makes with an audience of young males in mind,” begins John Ibson, who teaches courses on male sexuality at Cal State Fullerton. “What’s distinctive is where the boys sit in the theater. Though they might’ve come to the movie together and might even be close friends, they’ll leave an empty seat between them.”
That seat, he maintains, tells you all you need to know about manhood in America: the empty space, the psychosexual no-man’s-land that must be maintain and rigorously policed at every moment when real guys get together for some noisy, manly fun.
Lots of cinematic explosions and gross-out fart jokes help fortify the invisible barbed wire. And while this goes a long way to explain the box office for the Jackass movies (Johnny Knoxville, head Jackass at right), it doesn’t at all explain the lusty guy-bait that was 300, a beefcake buffet that veteran Nightcharmers know we never miss a chance to plug. (It comes out in Hi-Def on July 31, kids. Can you stand it?)
“What I’m alluding to,” the professor explains for the slow class, “is homophobia.”
It seems that after years of examining “the shifting history of intimacy among American males,” from the Civil War onward, the professor has concluded that “sexual orientation” may be a somewhat oversold concept — something every gay man learns the first time he snags, as they say, a bit of strange — the odd straight man on the hoof, the street-corner trade with the baseball cap jammed down over his eyes.
“Though … widely accepted today in the United States, the idea that one’s own identity is grounded in the sex of those whom one desires — that [it] identifies the yearner, rather than simply defining his desires — is a … recent cultural notion.” In fact, Ibson concludes, one’s sexual orientation is not nearly so ironclad as one’s physical gender.
“Heterosexual” and homosexual” were coined, initially in German, less than a century and a half ago, a simple fact that should give pause to those who speak as if everyone everywhere has always been subject to inborn biological imperatives directing their sexual attention… Those who expect to discover a “gay gene” may be just as wrong-headed as those who believe that they have discovered a Biblical injunction against homosexuality.
My own belief .. is that sexual meanings do not travel well across time and space, that history suggests that “sexual orientation” may be more of a recent human contrivance than a timeless biological phenomenon.
In the late nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth, as Americans increasingly came to believe that “homosexual” was both an adjective and a noun [as Gore Vidal often points out: acts are "homosexual," not people --ed. ] and that the word referred to something highly undesirable, men became much more hesitant to express, and even perhaps to feel, intimacy toward one another.
In what might aptly be called a lost world of American men, it once was different. Other scholars, notably E. Anthony Rotundo in his 1993 book American Manhood, have shown that intimacy between men was once so encouraged and so widespread in our society that we may accurately speak of “romantic friendships” between males of the nineteenth century.
While others have relied on traditional historians’ sources, letters and diary entries, to document nineteenth-century comfort with male intimacy (elaborate terms of endearment and unselfconscious physical closeness, for example), my own documentation of the lost world has been with everyday photographs of two or more American men together. With these photographs we can literally see the lost world as it existed, as it later began to disappear…
The poses they once commonly struck were even more revealing [as a book of 19th Century male photos Dear Friends, right, amply documents --ed.]
With notable nonchalance, they might hold hands, sit on a companion’s lap, share a chair, drape their arms around each other, or perform for the camera what I’ve termed a “pageant of masculinity,” perhaps dressing up as cowboys or striking a frivolous pose that often included a “token of manhood” such as a cigar, liquor bottle, or firearm. Official athletic team portraits were once especially common scenes of closeness among males, with teammates sometimes lying atop each other.
The first sign of the sea change in atitude, he writes, was “a distancing and stiffness of pose” that began to overtake these same team portraits. “If there was to be any more hand-holding, lap-sitting, or chair-sharing, there would usually be an exaggerated facial expression — reassurance … that this was all purely in fun, with no genuine intimacy involved.”
The practice of males having their studio portraits taken together, once such a common token of association, was by comparison virtually extinct by the 1930s.
The closeness of old, and even studio portraits of men together, survived, however, even thrived, in the military, particularly in wartime. So common were poses of obviously tender affection between servicemen during the Second World War, and so extensive was men’s participation in that war, that one can speak of no less than a widespread revival during those years of romantic friendships among men.
Some of the wartime photos displayed in Picturing Men [Ibson's own book on this subject] may well be of those who discovered other men with same-sex yearnings during the War, a development analyzed well in Allan Berube’s 1990 book, Coming Out under Fire. But the everyday photos that I have studied, unless there is some explicit inscription on an image, cannot document a sexual relationship between the subjects. The presence or absence of intimacy is another matter, and is something to which an everyday photo can sometimes eloquently attest.
The hardening against male intimacy finally calcified in the 1950’s, Ibson writes, when even the photos of small boys together showed “a formality and lack of closeness that mirrored the poses older males had been striking for decades. The fear of intimacy that would account for the empty theater seat had triumphed, commonly inhibiting the relationships of American males of all ages.”
The culture as a whole, he argues, “and not just men who yearn for each other sexually” is paying a high price for this stunting of the male emotional life. “An intense fear of being thought gay can lead to various forms of overcompensation with cruel consequences.” Returning to the Cineplex where the essay began, he notes more in disgust than amusement:
“With a tiresome, utterly predictable, yet highly revealing frequency, the lead actors in Brokeback Mountain were asked what in the world it was like — implicitly how they could possibly have endured — kissing another guy. You’d have thought that Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal had climbed Everest.
“Culturally speaking, for male leads in a major American film, apparently that’s just what they’d done.”
Ibson ends his piece on a fragile upswing that seem a bit more wishful than one would prefer. Like many of us, he draws comfort from the last election when Democrats threw out the Republicans, who could no longer count on a hyped fear of gay marriage to distract the casual voter.
“We would be a considerably healthier society were we to see sexuality as a matter of … nuance [rather] than a simple gay-straight dichotomy… And American men, whoever their sexual partners, would surely have a better time of it if they were able to restore some of that world lost to homophobia.
“At its heart, history teaches us that little in life is inevitable or immutable, that things surely don’t have to stay the way they currently are.”
As the Bush presidency dwindles away, sickened by its own incompetence and hubris and disinformation, the administration’s signature slurs against gay people have become an embarrassment even to its most cynical manipulators.
This alone can only augur brighter days.
©2007 Nightcharm
I dunno. All the straight males I’ve been friends with who go to the movies together don’t have that empty seat thing. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed that behavior. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, just that I’m not aware of it personally.
I’ve seen the “empty seat thing” a number of times, usually amoung teen boys. Being originally from central Illinois and all (the heart of the Bible Belt) its not uncommon. It used to confuse me and sometime annoy me that boys could be that homophobic but now all it does is amuse me.
I haven’t seen the chair thing. Though I am from the Northwest. So who knows?
i feel, and hope, that young men nowadays are not averse to their sexual desires towards their companions….even their girlfriends - who may not condone it - will not discourage or disparage such feelings, or acts….that the pressure is off and and openness is okay….in most parts of the country, that is.
Starkin, ohhhh. See, I grew up in Southern California. I wonder if anyone’s done a regional study.
I certainly remember the single space in theaters with friends during highschool and Cegep. I’m happy that my current hetero friends are happy to share an arm rest.
When I first came out of the closet, I would reserve hugs only for my gay friends and other girls. I wouldn’t even necessarily initiate a handshake with a hetero, thinking that he may not want to touch me at all. Interestingly, it was my later hetero friends who would insist on the generous hugs I would give my gay and female friends.
It would be fair to say that it was mostly hetero men who’d pulled me out of some of my own internalized homophobia.
I didn’t go to too many movies as a teenager at all, but, when I did, from what I recall, my friends and I would not leave an empty seat.
Mind you, my friends were kind of outcasts in general for other reasons, so none of us particularly cared what others thought of us anyway - and, since my friends were generally ALL in that category, we had no idea what others might be doing.
Yes, I’ve noticed that straight friends of mine seem much more inclined to hug their friends than gay friends - odd, that.
It may be less about being percieved as gay as being percieved as being weak, which in our culture is about the same thing. Unfortunately that’s something that the subculture cultivates. So instead of there being strong gay role models, the subculture gives us Cher/Judy Garland/Joan Crawford worship and ‘Queer eye for the Straight Guy’ fashionista types. It’s no wonder that teenage boys don’t want to be seen as gay.
Thorn: I’m from L.A. and I’ve seen the open chair things loads of times, almost always with teenagers. It’s even been done to me, where I sit down and my friend inexplicably leaves a gap. Strange because he’s the LAST guy to have homophobe issues. I spoke with him about it and he said it’s something most of his friends do, so it’s become habit. He sits next to me now.
I’ve encountered this type of gulf between men. One experience for me in particular was so shocking and humiliating that it was like a punch in the face.
I had a hetero friend that I valued very much not long ago in college. At various times we would be mistaken for brothers (which is exactly how I regarded him) because we had similar features. We just happened to be out to dinner one night in New York and this really handsome waiter made a completely harmless remark about us possibly being boyfriends. Suddenly my friend’s face contorts in sheer disgust, he emits a loud and horrified “Yuuuuck!”, and he promptly charges off outside, leaving me and the waiter just appalled. The waiter felt terrible and I was just livid about the outburst.
There are these moments where you get an instant, unguarded insight into a person’s character and exactly where you truly stand with them. Many times I’d be out with female friends and someone would ask if I was one of their boyfriends. I never once acted repulsed or put off by the idea. I couldn’t bring myself to brush it off like it was nothing. His acting as if even the possibility of mistakenly being romantically linked with me was positively revolting to him killed our friendship for me. I couldn’t bear to be around him anymore after that.
Gry,
That is heartbreaking.
Daniel, good for you for saying something about it. Now that your friend sits next to you, maybe he’ll mention the behavior to other straight friends and help break the habit.
the symbolism — real, feigned, or indifferent — maintains why peculiarities would remain in certain places, yet, not certain if that explains aspects that have made new york rather boring. the overly anal focus on brokeback — perhaps, i was busy with so many other things, the intense outrage at a certain relational event made me scratch my head in puzzlement in relation to more acute outrage at scapegoating of an entire group of people while two “straight” actors missed best picture. as if the actual picture of their own lives, and varying degrees of intimacy and relations were tarnished. one way relations seem a little too common-place and ultimately an insane harbor for dysfunctional relations….if that is even anything to consider as an option for mooring much of anything. yet, these varying notions of space or discomfort — not surprising yet somehow unfortunately surprising while alarming in the context of knowledge and global positioning as well as what makes a culture or nation civilized when so many great states were relaxed with same-sex love, affection, or intimate relations. karma coma!!
Add to it the layer of someone figuring out their sexuality and it is compounded quickly. I fell in love with my best friend who came out when he was 56, about three years ago. When I asked him what he felt about me, he said, “I don’t know how falling in love with a guy feels. I might be in love with you, but I’ve always enjoyed the company of men around me. How do I know what love should feel like with another guy?”
God, there is too much to say on that matter…
hi! I’m a 23 man raised with a lotta luv and care and very open minded parents that totally accept my Gaytorade.
But, unconsciously, I have been raised by sciety to that type of behavior. In some ways, even though I am gay, I can’t help; I conform to this silly code of conduct because not doing so has always been percieved as a demonstration of weakness. The result is, besides those I told, very few people have noticed or doubt I am gay. Maybe this situation would simply be qulified as “closeted”, but I just dont feel like screaming out my needs and interests. I am acting like a man, because I consider myself as a man before being gay at all. I dont feel the need to share intimacy with people whom I don’t “love”. Now, I’ve been single all my life and actually never known love. This is pretty sad, I’d say but I’m workin on it. The real thing is the role models must adapt to our evolving wolrd where dynamics between men and women might generate even more identity issues.
With the rise of the women, the only way for modern man tho keep his strong image seems to eliminate any path to making him Gayer!
As women were appart, closeted in their miserable condition of “reproducing devices”, friendship between men was much more logical and the uppertold memories of intimacy inside friendship or not between men maybe coincided with a post-vitorian msogynistic and the romantic era. Nevertheless, as always, the pride and strenght of men was not at stake. Men now wash the dishes, so what is left before they fall into the voind of no self-identity?!
Now, homophobia seems to have pointed out rules of behavior to fight the exposition to the “contamination” of “that strange feeling of absolute pleasure!!”
Homosexuality, for homophobes, is a threat, of course. Men act like the sword of Damocles is hanging over their heads, clearing their ways of any gesture or behavior that could betray them or make them fall into depravacy!
The real thing is the society’s fear of loosing control. From my uninstructed and occidental point of view, the repression of women and their contact and exposure to men in asia reveals a fear of constantly tempty the devil, playing with the fire: in my neighborhood, a mid-eastern man raped a woman at local pool and said for his defense that women wearing such clothes (bthing suite!) in his country were considered whores: as ifunveiling the hair of a woman would unevitably end up in a rape scene.
Our society has accepted sexual intercourse and relation between men and women (maybe sometimes to a too great extend), and so is not afraid of promoting contacts between both sexes.
But as society - through the reminiscences of a world built by warriors and conservative - continues to fear homosexuality (as if they feared that any intimacy between men would unevitabely end up in a sex intercourse!), it will continue to promote the weakness of sensitivity or intimacy between men.
It’s all about staying true to ourselves: educating people into self control accordingly to their needs, not taking everything away because it is tempting the devil. And so, if they want to go on with their iron byceps phallocracy, I suggest they leave more space between the seats in the theaters and between the urinals.
This thread could go on and on… There is so much to say about fears and social conventions. This site is becoming an Anthropology study!!
This is an old thread, I suppose (I haven’t been to the site in a while), but I’m going to write this anyway, if for no other reason than to get my thoughts straight.
I think that the notion that gay identity didn’t exist before the twentieth century, and that it is therefore somehow an inauthentic category — and most of all, that this means that we should not think of people as homosexual — is problematic, potentially even homophobic. Gay identity (I mean in the sense of a publically acknowledged difference between homosexuals and hetereosexuals) has existed in other forms in the past. I’ve even read an ancient Greek dialog between a preferrer of men and a preferrer of women that sounded like it could have been written today (the “gay” praised urbanity, leisure, art; the “straight” praised discipline, slack, and practical knowledge). I imagine that the identity meets some need — a need deeply rooted in difference in everything from culture to brain chemistry — so wherever it is not *actively suppressed* it takes some form, although the details of that form might change with the culture. (Just like the details of women’s roles, or the idea of a rite of passage to manhood, change over time and place, but rarely vanish entirely.) It is just that in the West the only available role for gays and lesbians was “criminal deviant” for a very long time. (Suggesting that this means they didn’t actually exist as a distinct form is tantamount to suggesting that feminism is inauthentic, because look how few women writers were publishing such complaints before the nineteenth century!) It didn’t exist in a public, self-conscious form, because it was a CRIME. As soon as people could talk about it on a large scale, POOF (no pun intended), it was suddenly everywhere. But the German doctor didn’t invent it with his pen. It was already there, hiding.
Also, just because the boundary is blurry, doesn’t mean there isn’t a boundary. I mean, for God’s sake, use your eyes. Even when a straight man temporarily “crosses over,” he’s still obviously a straight man crossing over. Ditto for a gay man defecting. Or just look at any lesbian. They look like lesbians, in a way that straight girls with short hair and boy’s clothes never do. It seems simple enough to me to say that nature has a gender mechanism and a desire mechanism, and sometimes they go out of synch, and sometimes they’re muddled, and although the sum of that might make a spectrum, it’s a spectrum made out of people with *relatively fixed* preferences. The existence of some bisexuals does not mean that we’re all bisexual, any more than we’re all hermaphrodites. (Just like the existence of orange doesn’t negate the identity of red or yellow.) The desire to pretend otherwise comes from the desire to erase the implications of difference. (Like people who claim that race has somehow stopped mattering; the media loves them like they love the “post-gays.”) It’s homophobia in its latent, spore form.
Or, to bring it down to Earth, don’t you remember how many of your friends expressed their discomfort with your coming out by saying, “Why do you have to label yourself?”
I do that with my friends when we goto the movies together. But I do it because it’s only two of us and I have more room to stretch out if there is a chair in between us. If it was three people we usually sit together so we can hear each other if someone makes a remark.
I agree with most of what Johnny said, except that I think that MANY members of our society insist on labeling OTHER people even if those labeled don’t wish to wear the aforementioned label. Even the appearance of same sex intimacy can STILL have negative repercussions in rural areas. For example, I went out to dinner with a male friend some years ago (about 4). Evidently my “activities” were reported to the higher ups at my job. I was called into the office and grilled extensively. It seems that the contract that I was working under had a “morals clause” and a person could be “released” for just the suspicion of being gay. I never gave a “straight” answer about the nature my relationship since I felt it was no business of my employers. My boyfriend and I never held hands, sat on the same side of the table, or did anything that could be considered remotely romantic in public. We always left the “gay seat” empty between us at the movies. After the questioning, I was regularly harassed at work by being exposed to random drug testing (something that was in their right, but it was ONLY applied to me in my department), and I had to defend myself from all sorts of anonymous allegations for ridiculous charges. It was a great paying job, but I am glad that I no longer work for that company. My boyfriend got married just over a year ago ending our relationship because he said he couldn’t deal with being perceived as “gay” and the harassment that comes with it. We were together for 10 years since college, but were never open in public. Apparently repeatedly going to the movies together or out to dinner with the same guy is still considered “odd” in some places. Some companies still fire gay employees, and some men that are complete bottoms still marry women in order to be perceived as straight.