What is a 'gay man?', an article I'm writing

[Lube]

No. You said (and I repeat): "What I am saying is that most if not all gay men have some combination of special (effeminate?) attributes that distinguishes us from straight men."

"Most if not all" does not equal "on average".

It most certainly can.

If straight men tend to have very few effeminate traits, then, on average, gay men will have more. And, most if not all gay men will have some (some having more than others).

That's perfectly logical.

 

[Lube]

Bullying has to do with the weak needing to feel strong, so they prey on what they perceive to be the weak - which has no relevance here.

It most certainly does have relevance here.

Bullying may be the weak needing to feel strong, but what they choose to bully about (i.e., effeminate traits) is certainly relevant here. They're not bullying 8 year olds because they like Walter Cronkite or they have big muscles.

They're bullying 8 years olds because they're weak or sensitive or passive or like pink or Olivia Newton John or whatever. They can see it.

8 year olds can see it.

But miraculously, gay guys here at JUB can't.

Or don't want to.

 

[Passels]

well, since you clearly haven't read what I've written, there's no point in writing anything else in this reply.

You're drawing an essentially meaningless distinction in language because you've repeatedly demonstrated that you're an absolutist in every other sense.

You have the gall to imply that you know better whether a person you've never met and will never meet is gay than that person's own friend. And if anyone contradicts you, you chirp about them being in denial.

And you can't seem to grasp that just because many openly gay men might participate in some activity, that doesn't mean most or nearly all would, or that what are essentially cultural properties can be reduced to genetics. You're degrees removed from people who ascribe intelligence and behavioural traits to certain ethnicities; the only thing lacking in your conviction is a terrible historical legacy.

Your own insistence that there are a significant percentage of closeted gay men out there doesn't really help matters either, because you don't actually know the specifics of what they like. I think in your paradigm, there are only openly gay men who fit your narrow box and men you [STRIKE]suspect [/STRIKE] stridently maintain are gay because something of them might be able to fit this box you've constructed.

You also have absurd standard for evidence in determining whether someone is gay. A man can have sex with dozens or hundreds or different women, yet there's still a good chance he might be gay if he exhibits any modicum of human sensitivity.

I don't know why I'm continuing this conversation, because you have such a head-in-the-sand mentality towards this. It's of the same tenor as a discussion with a young earth creationist. It doesn't matter how much evidence you provide, they inevitably denounce you as the crazy one for subscribing to the non-magical explanation.

All I can finish with is that it is a hateful and narrow worldview such as yours that kept me closeted into my 20s, because I did not want my sexuality to define and dictate the rest of my existence. And the cultural message I got then - and from you now - is that it does. And it is no more true now than it was then, and I'm thankful to the individuals I branched out to back then to confirm it. And I don't want anyone else going through that to have to think that way.

 

[Passels]

It most certainly can.

If straight men tend to have very few effeminate traits, then, on average, gay men will have more. And, most if not all gay men will have some (some having more than others).

That's perfectly logical.

It's only logical if it proceeds on your narrowly constructed premise. It has no existence in the real world.

They're bullying 8 years olds because they're weak or sensitive or passive or like pink or Olivia Newton John or whatever. They can see it.

I find your invocation of logic hilarious, given this particular fallacious gem.

 

[Lube]

Passels and Jasun:

You have it backwards. It is you two who are equating effeminacy with something negative.

It is I who is saying it is ok to be effeminate in your own unique way.

Everything you guys write implies that effeminacy is bad. That's your world view, not mine.

It is you who are homophobic.

Ask the guys in gay pride parades if effeminacy is a bad thing.

 

[Passels]

Passels and Jasun:

You have it backwards. It is you two who are equating effeminacy with something negative.

It is I who is saying it is ok to be effeminate in your own unique way.

Everything you guys write implies that effeminacy is bad. That's your world view, not mine.

It is you who are homophobic.

Ask the guys in gay pride parades if effeminacy is a bad thing.

Nice misdirection that does absolutely nothing, particularly because:

It's partly cultural. And it's like porn--you know it when you see it.

How else can you explain 8 year olds picking on the "faggy" kid, long before anyone reaches puberty and thinks about sex? Bullying isn't just in high school, or adulthood.

They're bullying 8 years olds because they're weak or sensitive or passive or like pink or Olivia Newton John or whatever. They can see it.

You provide no definition of effeminacy, other than ascribing natural weakness, sensitivity, and passivity to it. Do you really view the women in your life as naturally weak, passive creatures as well?

I'm not really commenting on effeminacy at all, beyond dismissing your laughable attempts to link some very nebulous things to its specific construction. I don't denigrate it, only your ham-handed attempts to link all or most of my activities (as well as my friends) to some notion of gayness.

See, I get the simplistic beauty of your arguments, though maybe you don't. It doesn't matter what I do. Everything is ultimately indicative of 'gayness' if it needs to be to prove your point.

But getting back to this homophobia accusation for a second: I am unequivocally saying that gay men should be whoever they want to be. You are the one who has persisted in telling them who they are and must be.

 

[gsdx]

Passels and Jasun:

You have it backwards. It is you two who are equating effeminacy with something negative.

It is I who is saying it is ok to be effeminate in your own unique way.

Everything you guys write implies that effeminacy is bad. That's your world view, not mine.

What's 'bad' is the fact that you're insisting that virtually all gay men are effeminate in some way or other, whether or not they are willing to admit it. You might openly express your feminine side, but I (and many other gay men) don't have one to express.

 

[JasunStrikesBack]

You think guys living in city lofts are a perfect cross section of society? That there are as many straight, 50-year old men with kids living in lofts as young single (gay) guys?

What? No... lofts aren't for people with families... they're for single people or couples. But when I lived in that loft building, there were 10 units on that floor and only 3 of them with gay occupants. I don't know why you think living in a loft is a "gay" thing.

And you say you don't have any external gay traits,

I'm saying that there are no "gay traits." There are plenty of straight men who like Glee and plenty of gay men who don't. Your desperation to say that gay men are "feminine" is just bizarre.

Not all gay men wasted their lives away in the closet, you know. We're not all like you.

and yet by your own admission, in high school you didn't want to fuck Olivia Newton John, you wanted to be Olivia Newton John?

Good fucking god, you're going back to a joke I told three years ago?

 

[JasunStrikesBack]

Passels and Jasun:
It is you who are homophobic.

Ask the guys in gay pride parades if effeminacy is a bad thing.

Well, no... nobody is saying that being effeminate is a bad thing. I'm saying that it's not a "gay" thing. I know plenty of soft, sensitive straight men and plenty of gay assholes such as myself.

It's you who seems to think that everyone is just gay and in denial. Like I said... we're not all losers at the game of life.

 

[Passels]

Not all gay men wasted their lives away in the closet, you know. We're not all like you.

Wait, what?

 

[JasunStrikesBack]

Wait, what?

That's the sound of Jasun's last nerve snapping.

I'm not going to let someone who spent most of his life in the closet to tell me what gay men are "like." He did that because he DOESN'T know what gay men are "like."

Yes... I'll say that there are a disproportionate number of effeminate gay men. There are a disproportionate number of straight men who don't bathe.

That, however, doesn't mean that gay men are all into Divas and all straight men stink.

 

[Passels]

That's the sound of Jasun's last nerve snapping.

I'm not going to let someone who spent most of his life in the closet to tell me what gay men are "like." He did that because he DOESN'T know what gay men are "like."

Thanks, that kind of clarifies his zealotry in regards to this. Someone spends most of their life feeling like they don't belong, and when they finally do find belonging, they insist everybody else feels the exact same things and accordingly must behave the same way.

 

[gsdx]

maybe some people just don't like to be told what they are by somebody who doesn't know them.

Thank you for that. : =D:

 

[Lord Booticus]

Dear sinattak,
You, sir, are an asshole. However, you are clever enough to have spawned several pages of forum member's sniping at one another as a result of your posting. Amazing.

Sinattacks just a flame bait poster, his threads don't usually go far however Lube has given this one legitamacy by agreeing with the theme of Sinattacks post. If it weren't for Lube it wouldn't have made it past a single page.

 

[neruda]

So I just need to ask... I hate Glee, I hated Charmed, I'm aggressive, I like to explore, I know fuck-all about fashion (and don't care to), I'm not empathetic and I've been called a bully on more than one occasion.

OK, more than 100 occasions.


Does this mean that Sinttak is a complete fucking moron or does it mean I'm a straight guy who sucks cock?

We should plot a graph y'know.
How many Jasuns/Jasun clones in a random population of gay men?
How many limpwristed Nellies?
How many eyeshadow wearin flamin' Queens?
How many of the Elvin kind (stubble an all)?
How many everyday blokes?

The Nellies may well turn out to be outliers...
Or the Jasuns.
Who can really tell?

 

[iiiset]

One can never write generalizations carefully enough, but these are basically right. -Why- remains a driving mystery in my internal intellectual narrative.

 

[iiiset]

Okay, reading the other responses, I can see that this OP needs a champion. I hope people respond to my post in which I defend the OP.

Firstly, it's always, always foolish to look at an individual and say "why don't you fit the stereotype?" Nobody has to explain themselves; people just are the way they are.

However, generalized observations about members of a certain category can be beneficial if done carefully. We make them innately because they helped our ancient ancestors survive and reproduce. Unfortunately, we evolved to do our innate generalizations very uncarefully. Okay for a snap judgment in a real emergency, but bad if you want to know the truth in sober, everyday civil society.

Researching the characteristics of members of categories, in particular how their traits and tendencies differ from the population as a whole, can be enlightening about what that category and membership in it is all about.

It would be hard to test in a truly scientific way, but I suspect that if you could, you would find that all of the OP characterizations are more likely to be true of gay men than straight men. I redundantly reiterate: this does not mean every gay man has all the traits, and it does not mean no gay man exists with very few of them.

The gendered implications of our natures, identities, and behaviors as gay men is most interesting to me. And trends are more compelling evidence of underlying truth than anecdotes or biographies. I also find it interesting not that so many gay men vigorously reject characterization of themselves (nobody likes to be summarized, we'd prefer to introduce ourselves, thanks) but that they so vigorously deny what I know they all see and encounter everyday. Namely, that the statement "a gay man chosen at random is likely to be more emotionally sensitive than a straight man chosen at random" is true, and you will make money if you bet against someone insisting that they are equally likely to be sensitive.

 

[gsdx]

However, generalized observations about members of a certain category can be beneficial if done carefully.

How can you generalise a category (in this case, homosexuals) when everyone is an individual? That's like saying every banana bread recipe you find on the internet will make an identical loaf of banana bread.

 

[fetaby]

Namely, that the statement "a gay man chosen at random is likely to be more emotionally sensitive than a straight man chosen at random" is true,

Straight men are as emotionally sensitive as gay men. The majority of expression differs, and not necessarily across the lines of division. But it would be more telling to examine the social demands that push, pressure and mold straight and gay men into the beings they are.

 

[JasunStrikesBack]

We should plot a graph y'know.
How many Jasuns/Jasun clones in a random population of gay men?
How many limpwristed Nellies?
How many eyeshadow wearin flamin' Queens?
How many of the Elvin kind (stubble an all)?
How many everyday blokes?

The Nellies may well turn out to be outliers...
Or the Jasuns.
Who can really tell?

I mean... i know a lot of gay men who are more masculine than me.

you should hear me scream when I see a tarantula in the wild.