Gay masculinity
Photo credit: Shed Mojahid
Article by Hugo Mega (edited by Alyssa Lepage)
I used to think that “coming out” was going to be the hardest part of existence gay. That, being free to be me, I could finally stop pretending. I would be able to drop the heteronormative disguise that I used to wear, to ensure that I belonged and that I felt safe. Little did I understand that in the years that followed, more often than not, I would find myself butch-ing up, trying to be more masculine than what I naturally was. How did I locate myself here again?
Like walking on thin ice, any false maneuver I made, could easily pitch me back into a loop of old patterns that condition my ways of being and behaving without me even seeing it.
Tired of this self-limiting pattern, I decided to confront my beliefs around masculinity. Since then I’ve been engaged in deconstructing my conditioning and notions of what it means to be a man. In the process of deconstructing my beliefs it was difficult to avoid one’s own toxic masculinity. I used to believe that being same-sex attracted absolved me from being toxic like many straight man ca
Reflections on Gay Masculinity
By Justin Natoli, JD, MFT
If market price is a function of supply and demand, then my advice is to start investing in masculinity. That stuff is flying off the shelves. For a variety of reasons—innate and learned—masculinity is like catnip to a significant percentage of lgbtq+ men, and it appears to be in short supply. The appeal of masculinity isn’t breaking news. A swift glance on Scruff reveals one masc/musc man after another seeking masc-only sexual connections. What sparks my curiosity is the role masculinity plays in our sex lives and what our longing for and fetishizing of masculinity says about the homosexual experience.
I sat down with some ‘masc-only’ gay men recently to understand superior what they undergo like when connecting with men they judge to be masculine. These conversations suggested three clear but overlapping roles masculinity plays in sexual relationships with men. One team is drawn to masculine men because they feel protected. Another group says they enjoy feeling dominated by masculine energy. A third group reveals that connecting
Many gay men grew up feeling ashamed of not conforming to cultural expectations about “real boys” or “real men.” Especially during middle and high college, they may have been bullied or publicly humiliated because of their difference—made to feel like outsiders and not “one of the boys.” They may have found it easier relating to women than men, though they didn’t fully belong to the girl group, either.
Every same-sex attracted man I’ve seen in my practice over the years has had a conflicted, troubled relationship with his own masculinity, often shaping his behavior in destructive ways. Writing for Vice, Jeff Leavell captures the dynamic nicely: “Queer people, especially gay men, are known for dealing with a slew of self-doubts and anxieties in noxious ways. Gay men are liable to perceive incredibly insecure over their masculinity, a kind of internalized homophobia that leads them to idolize 'masc 4 masc', 'gaybros' and [to] shame and oppress femme men.”
Here we notice one of the most common defenses against shame: getting rid of it by offloading or projecting it onto somebody else; in this case, one
There has been little discussion of the ways pale gay male culture, in particular, is rife with its own brand of toxic masculinity.
W hen I was in graduate educational facility, I worked part-time in retail. One of my co-workers — let’s call him Jake — was a white gay bloke who liked to say stories about his various dating exploits each day we had a change together. These conversations fast went from amusing to problematic. Jake’s tales frequently centered on his conservative rural upbringing, his “love” of black men, in part because of how “masculine” he thought they were, and how he didn’t like guys who were too “femme.” “How would your family react if you were digital dating someone who wasn’t white?” I asked, trying to make small talk during a lull between customers. “That would never happen,” Jake said. “Black men are for fucking; alabaster men are for bringing home to your family.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised, but the frankness of his words stunned me into silence for the remainder of my shift. I later tried to create Jake aware of his racism, but he said that had nothing to do with him. He