Oh dear. I only really knew Richard Rodriguez through his autobiographical essay (which I’ve taught), “Working.” I had no idea he was family. Nevertheless, came across this in Salon today. Go ahead, read it, come back, and follow up.
Although there’s a lot here to chew on, I want to look at one quote from Rodriguez: “we need to identify the relationship between feminism and homosexuality.”
I have experienced that relationship, and it’s really not pretty. There is, in the gay community I came of age in, a subtle current of misogyny among gay men. Patriarchy and male privilege still exists, although obviously isn’t defined biologically.
It comes down to a butch (or masc)/ fem (or femme) dynamic. When you look at online ads, there is a much more definite need to identify oneself as “masc” or “only looking for masc[emphasis most of these ads, not mine] guys.” There is even a hierarchy in gay communities that the top is the dominant figure in the relationship, and the bottom, the submissive. The penetrator is in charge of the relationship, while the passive partner is subservient to the top (And here, by dominant and submissive, I don’t mean abusive or “dominating.” Just terms). Now, we know just from looking at heterosexual relationships, that this is only true 50% of the time. Even if the woman “wears the pants,” or if it truly is a “50/50″ partnership, casual and public perception tends to favor the male partner (if in no other form, look how many women, even in a “50/50″ or “woman dominated” relationship, still take their husband’s names in marriage, as do any children).
Even in bars and among gay social circles, there was (in my day) a- “fear” isn’t the right word- reluctance, perhaps- to identify as “bottom” or “fem.” ”Versatile” (which, if you ask me, basically means one is biting the pillow after two drinks- and the drinks? Diet cokes.) was the much more socially acceptable answer. Even though there wasn’t open discrimination in the community, there are still snickers- friendly, teasing, and gentle remarks- nothing openly hateful- but still, even that those comments exist suggest an undercurrent of patriarchy.
And I can tell you, in my experience, in the 90s, this wasn’t imagined. I lived through it in metro Atlanta- albeit I was never a circuit queen (unless Backstreet- may she rest in peace- counts), but I spent many nights at bars, many nights with gay friends, etc. (Sadly, all of them have moved away and I’m the lone sane homo in my part of the world.) and was part of the misogynistic dynamic myself.
For more proof, watch any episode of the American version of Queer as Folk (I’m not knocking the show, by the way- LOVED it. Trashy and all. Hot boys helped.)- just the dialogue, again, joking, loving- plays into this subtle dynamic.
I had a former student, queer, who told me last month that he had experienced no such dynamic, and that in his interactions, the jokes didn’t exist, and that this dynamic as I explained it to him (and repeated here, just above) was outdated. I have been out of the youth scene long enough to not know whether or not this is universally true. Granted, the young man who explained this to me was a Log Cabin Republican (although he claims to be a Libertarian) and Sarah Palin supporter, so it’s possible that he’s clueless and/or batshit crazy.
Anyway, still true or not, my opinion is that the gay rights movement and feminism may indeed be linked, forces in oppression against the world at large, but once you limit yourself to the microcosm of the gay community, the top, at least jokingly, comes out on top every time. (Pun intended.)
Oh, and don’t even get me started on inter-community racism and race dynamics.
Filed under: Current Events, Gay Stuff/Gay Rights | Tagged: backstreet, Bottom, Butch, churches, Fem, feminine, feminism, Femme, gay, Gay Bars, Gay Community, Gay dynamics, gay men, generational gap, homosexuality, Log Cabin Republican, male privilege, Masc, masculine, misogyny, patriarchy, Queer as Folk, Richard Rodriguez, Rodriguez, Salon, Salon.com, Sarah Palin, Top
The last sentence of your post completely read my mind. A lot of really nasty mores have slipped into gay communities by way of the dominant culture, the most prominent of which–to me at least–seems to be racism. I always cringe when I watch TV and see these commercial or sitcom couples– gay or straight–that are the picture of Aryan perfection. The gay community ought to do a lot more to embrace inter-racial couples, and I think we ought to start by looking at what media moguls endorse us and in what ways they portray us.
And on that note ( as well as your thoughts on limiting oneself to the microcosm of the gay community), I agree with you that the gay rights movement won’t get much further if it can’t break out of its microcosm. An article a fellow wrote for a magazine called Z expressed your same sentiments. He believed that the gay community hadn’t made the leaps that feminism had because it limited itself to the mantra of gay rights only. So perhaps instead of the gay community trying to compare its cause to the civil rights movement–as the article stated–the two ought to align themselves under the banner of civil rights for all people. Likewise, marriage ought to be disentangled from its religious context and set in a purely legal context. That way, gay marriage becomes a way for gay couples to get medical and insurance benefits for each other. And with a purely legal marriage, churches won’t feel that gays are attacking their view of marriage ( however unproven it might be).
Hey Jobes,
My thought of the T/B issue is that there is still latent sexism. If you look at it from a power point of view, being a bottom can be construed as a rejection of your masculine privilege in the gender dichotomy. The man has given up his most innate power, the oh-so-Freudian penetrative power. The homophobia phenomena is based on the lack of understanding how one can reject their own level of power, and feeling that gay men undermine the power that straight men feel subconsciously, or not, entitled to. Note that straight men do not get really hateful over lesbians: they just want to see them make out.
This is even more obvious in the hispanohablante population. The language actually takes control of the hatespeech itself. Your sexuality is not really defined by who you fuck, but how you fuck. The top is considered the “hombre hombre” literally translated as ‘man man’ (shouldn’t that be reserved for muscle bears?). On the other hand, ‘marimari’ or ‘mariposa’ or ‘maricón’ are reserved for the bottom. These literally translate as a feminine noun derivatives from ‘butterfly’. This term has as of late become pejorative, and many places like Paraguay have moved to adopt ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ as borrowed words from English. “Receptor”, or “receiver,” is also commonly used.
A few thoughts: first, as you point out, the degradation of the feminine is a key problem here and, second, so is the conflation of gender (butch/femme) with sexuality (top/bottom). Lesbians have learned a great deal from gay men, and–reading your post–I found myself thinking that gay men could learn a lot from lesbians, particularly recent work on butch-femme and lesbian and queer genders.
BTW I don’t know how familiar you are with queer theory, but you might be interested in Leo Bersani’s classic essay “Is the Rectum a Grave?”
Boy, this has generated some thought. Who knew?