Things That Guys Don't Do Unless They're Gay (Hint: There's Only One)

[cimorene]

"No straight man would [wear that shirt, move his hips like that, cuddle a man like that, stand like that, like that music, wear that eyeliner]" is a lamentably common refrain in fandom. It's probably popular for all the right reasons, usually, because gay is a compliment from the fannish point of view.

It's also something I'll forever associate with tinhats (ie: slash fans who believe their RPS pairings are Really And Truly Real), because this was the favourite argument of the most famous tinhats of all - the Domlijah True Believers back in Lord of the Rings RPS fandom. The favourite arguments of the tinhats had to do with body language, despite the fact that they purported to have actual contact with a secret Source close to the happy couple who fed them messages of comradeship. Pictures of actors standing close together or looking at each other or standing in the same pose are purported to be incontrovertible proof of long-term coupleship, or sexual attraction: it's a So-Married pose, it's the kind of unconscious mirroring that grows up naturally after years of being Soulmates, etc.

But the argument in a more general sense usually has to do with gayness, and we see it a lot nowadays. But this statement is wrong.

A straight man could wear eyeliner, or a pink shirt, or stand like that. And would.

Because the only thing that no straight man would do is be in a sexual relationship with another man. That's it. They can cuddle, cry, talk about their feelings, dress how they want to, gesticulate, sound swishy, wear pink. These are all cultural prohibitions - they aren't naturally or genetically associated with sexual orientation at all. They're things that many men avoid in our culture (not, for example, in Japan) because they are frightened of being characterised as gay.

So if you're calling guys gay because they cuddle and kiss their friends, wear feather boas, cry, love shoes, talk with their hands, love showtunes - even if you're saying it because you LOVE them for it, because you love that they're that gay - you're reinforcing the very cultural norms and stereotypes which they're fighting against.

Comments

[tilney.livejournal.com]

Very Very True. Thank you for that.

[isilya]

I can just imagine the outrage if fandom said this sort of thing about female celebrities: "Oh my god, no straight girl would do that!"

I can't, actually, imagine anything a straight girl wouldn't do bar pretty much oral sex or fisting. Groping of boobs, kissing and hanging out in underwear all being pretty much par for the course.

And can you imagine how offended fandom would be if people started trying to peg women's sexuality based on behaviours. "Oh my god, she wears ____ and likes ____ and says ____! There's no way she's straight!".

[perhael.livejournal.com]

Wait, fisting is a lesbian thing?

Shit, I think I'll turn straight.

[perhael.livejournal.com]

Aww cim, don't be so frighteningly sensible! You're taking the fun out of rps.

[buddleia.livejournal.com]

[removed long-winded discussion of performativity]
Yep. If any of that stuff were true, my fucking boyfriend might be less likely to steal my eye liner.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Hey, what happened to 'what's mine is yours'? ;)

[northern]

Good post.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU.

This has been driving me up the wall with SGA fandom (with bandom, too, but I'm not really involved in the fandom so I can more easily ignore it) and I just...argh! What is so hard about "what makes someone gay/bi is being attracted to someone of the same sex"? It doesn't matter whether you think calling someone gay is a positive or negative thing, it's still stupid.

[vass]

Thank you. Sing it.

[miriam-heddy.livejournal.com]

They're things that many men avoid in our culture (not, for example, in Japan) because they are frightened of being characterised as gay.

I actually think that many (if not most) fans are aware of that. But the tendency is to extrapolate from one's own culture, and to forget that, in Hollywood, the cultural norms are quite different. In most parts of the US, "frightened" is exactly the right word. You can still get beat up if someone so much as thinks that maybe you're gay. (And I won't even go into the fact that Oscar Wilde was initially accused of looking like a sodomite, not of actually being one).

The weird thing about Hollywood is that the heteronormative assumptions allow actors quite a bit more leeway than is available to the ordinary man. I suspect that many of these actors would never, ever, have behaved pre-Hollywood in the ways that they do once they hit the public eye.

Anyway--I'm guessing you're responding to some particularly dumbass fans with this rant, but I just wanted to put out there the opinion that it's not "reinforcing cultural norms and stereotypes" if you're consciously referring to cultural norms being broken rather than presuming that such behaviours are biologically "gay."

If you look at some of the outtakes and blooper reels from buddy shows, you often see the actors themselves blowing off steam and breaking the tension brought about by getting into each other's physical spaces (far more than they may be comfortable with outside of work) by actually indulging in jokes about sodomy (X-Files) or breaking into tears (Starsky & Hutch) or playfully macking on each other (Sentinel) or climbing on top of one another (Stargate). In those moments, the actors are responding to having broken cultural norms, and they have to re-establish their heterosexuality by pushing it that much further into camping it up.

[trobadora]

God, I love you. I'm not in Bandom, but it's bad enough in SGA. I am so, so sick of fandom perpetuating these kinds of stereotypes. Thank you for speaking out.

(Here via kyuuketsukirui, btw.)

[gloss]

Here via kyuuketsukirui. THANK YOU for this - it's succinct, it's awesome, and it's sorely needed.

[fallingfortruth.livejournal.com]

Of course, bragging about having sucked more cock than David Cassidy is both 1. insanely geeky and 2. pretty fucking gay.

God, I love my fandom.

Of course, I have my attendant rant about how most of the things that band boys do that people peg as being "gay" are in fact merely at odds with the gender norms to which the boys have been assigned, and the word we should be using is "queer" because you can fuck around with gender a whole hell of a lot (see: Ryan Ross) and still want to go home and bone your girlfriend at the end of the night, and that is completely, totally 100% okay. But, yes, more than a little queer. Rosevest, I'm looking at you.

[azurejay.livejournal.com]

and the word we should be using is "queer" because you can fuck around with gender a whole hell of a lot (see: Ryan Ross) and still want to go home and bone your girlfriend at the end of the night

You win for life too! Because, from the OP: These are all cultural prohibitions - they aren't naturally or genetically associated with sexual orientation at all.

What we're running in to here is more of the sex=physical, gender=social shit (blahblahblah they overlap for most people, etc.), and the (continuing, eternal, ridiculously frustrating) ramifications of however many years of people assuming sex and gender are synonyms.

[pendra92.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've ever commented on your stuff before, but I wanted to thank you for posting this.

I used to be deep in Franz Ferdinand fandom and there was so many people giving lists of reasons why they were gay. These typically included things like sharing clothes, pink ties, fringe, stage performance, and eyeliner.

It was really fun to joke about, but once I realized these people were dead serious, I quickly began to back off. I know a lot of guys who do all that, but are straight as an arrow. I also know a lot of gay guys who wear muscle shirts, listen to rap music, and only reveal their sexuality to a few people. I only know one gay man who fits all the afore mentioned stereotypes that were used as "proof," but he's still comfortable with who he is.

There is no "gay" look, nor is there a "straight" look. There might be things you can find to be ambiguous, but ultimately, the only way to know someone's sexuality is to ask them.

Thank you again for saying this. This is something RPS fangirls need to be reminded of.

[azurejay.livejournal.com]

Also here via kyuuketsukirui.

Yay! Word! Thank you so much for articulating so well exactly what has been in my head since even before the gaynanigans thing (which is not exactly what you're talking about, but is related).

You win for life! \o/

[cimness.livejournal.com]

It's definitely related! The indignation there really bothered me because it was stepping all over this issue. Kissing and hugging is only cultural appropriation if you accept that kissing and hugging between members of the same sex somehow belongs only to Real Gay People. That idea I find far more harmful to than protective of gayness, in reinforcing these artificial boundaries - even if at least we lucky gay ones get stuck on the side of the fence with kissing.

[farwing.livejournal.com]

This is an excellent post. Thank you.

[sweetvalleyslut.livejournal.com]

Yes! I love that they go against societal norms with their behavior; I don't think that the fact that they do that indicates anything at all about their sexuality.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

My words exactly.

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

This is why I like you.

And thank you for the reminder of just how full of fucked-up bullshit the tinhats were. There's a tendency in some quarters to make out that they were basically harmless, while in reality they made a cult of perpetuating the stereotypes they were supposedly fighting. Also: fucking crazy.

[dinpik.livejournal.com]

You mean people forgot the accusations that Sean Austin had raped Elijah that started from someone's interpretation of a photo?

[meninaiscrazy.livejournal.com]

Hmm ... all very true.

[blackbird-song.livejournal.com]

Yet another here via kyuuketsukirui. Thank you SO much for this post! For too long, I worried (stupidly) that I might be the only slash writer out there who understood things this way, and was, frankly, too cowardly to say anything about it.

I'm so sick of seeing the assertions that only gay men cry, cuddle or even hug! Even in America, I know plenty of straight guys who hug, a goodly number who cry and a fair few who cuddle. (I won't even get into the ones I know who wear makeup, or the number of gay men I know who don't!) Tinhattery has always put me off my feed, particularly the brand of psychotic lunacy that seemed to affect some of the Domlijah shippers so strongly, so this dose of reality and clear thinking is doubly welcome. Well said!

Catherine

[kegom.livejournal.com]

Because the only thing that no straight man would do is be in a sexual relationship with another man.

I wouldn't say that's exactly true. It's generally like this, yes, but there might be factors that make a straight man have a gay relationship. I'm not even talking about porn actors, or ancient Greeks, because they still have/had relationships with women, too; but there've been recorded cases in shamanistic cultures where the male Shamans would wear female clothes and take on the "female" part in a homosexual relationship for at least a few years, because that kind of transvestism was supposed to make their magic stronger. Not all of those guys were gay (some of them had married women and fathered children before or after that part in their lives), but they had sex with other men in order to become more powerful.

I'm not trying to dispute the point you're making here, but I'd go as far as saying that pretty much everything that dictates sexual norm is culturally influenced, including the intercourse itself, so we can never know whether a guy is straight or gay until he declares himself to be one or the other, which might mean that even calling someone gay, because you know that he sleeps with another man, is a reinforcement of cultural norms and stereotypes.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I would word it as being attracted to the same sex, rather than simply having sex, makes you gay (or bi).

[shibbyfangirl.livejournal.com]

A little comment about the behavior of Japanese guys:

Oh man, would they be considered gay by USA "standards/cultural norms/stereotypes"

The idol singers, handpicked by Mr. Johnny for their looks only and passible singing ability? They wear pink. They dress in slightly slutty clothes in slightly slutty poses. They, for example, dress up in cutesy Halloween outfits for the covers of magazines. They don't have a problem putting arms around each other. The junior high school boys that I teach are like that, too. They always sit in each other's laps or whatever. There's make up/skin care marketed towards guys. It seems like EVERYONE is metrosexual here.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Yes, but they're not all metrosexual (if it's everyone it's not abnormal; and if it's not abnormal it acquires no special label), because that behaviour has no stigma and no special meaning attached to it. The behaviour of Japanese men is circumscribed in other ways, but not in those ways.

[norah.livejournal.com]

You and I have already discussed this, but YES. AMEN.

[elfiepike.livejournal.com]

thank you. ♥!

[hungry-worm.livejournal.com]

Because the only thing that no straight man would do is be in a sexual relationship with another man. That's it. They can cuddle, cry, talk about their feelings, dress how they want to, gesticulate, sound swishy, wear pink. These are all cultural prohibitions - they aren't naturally or genetically associated with sexual orientation at all.

Yes! Best observation/post I've read in the last weeks. I have a lot of friends in Bali, and over there the guys occasionally hang around with their arms over the other's shoulder, they sleep together in a large bed in the staff room, they lean on/over each other while watching tv, and the way they walk is so full of elegance and swaying that someone who sees it for the first time surely thinks they're gay. But they aren't (well, not by default, I'm sure they have a normal rate of homosexuality, too).

[originalpuck.livejournal.com]

Just another post to say that this is fantastic, and that it's something that fandom needs to be reminded of. ^^