Very Few People Say “No Wh”: Gay Men of Color and The Racial Polics of Dire - PMC

Contents:

• WHE GAY PRIVILEGE EXISTS ALL YEAR, BUT IS PARTICULARLY HURTFUL DURG PRI
• MEET THE GAYBROS
• VERY FEW PEOPLE SAY “NO WH”: GAY MEN OF COLOR AND THE RACIAL POLICS OF DIRE
• MY OPEN LETTER TO WHE GAY MEN WH RACIAL PREFERENC…FIVE YEARS LATER

WHE GAY PRIVILEGE EXISTS ALL YEAR, BUT IS PARTICULARLY HURTFUL DURG PRI

Jt as the movement for LGBTQ rights has been whewashed, so has Pri month often felt like a whe, gay-centered event — far removed om the lears of the Stonewall a recent article for BET, I discs how the Stonewall rts should be nsired an important part of Black history. ”It isn’t a cince that that same summer of 2017, 11 owners of queer spac Philalphia went through mandatory anti-discrimatn trag after several cints at var gay bars — cludg the disvery of a YouTube vio showg bar owner Darryl DePiano g racial slurs 2016, and other alleged cints volvg racial discrimatn.

The r is classic pub, all dark woods and vtage trophi, but wh a cidly gay twist: Look even briefly at the hoe-ma baseball and football player posters ratg the walls, and more than sportsmanlike appreciatn for the athletic male form quickly be apparent. After the first round had been draed, I overhear my iend Jake—who I only found out was a Gaybro sympathizer after startg on this story and whose hband, Tim Ka, is one of the group’s morators—rpond scily to a ment about football players’ jock straps: “Now that’s a game I uld get to!

MEET THE GAYBROS

Pl, I thought I’d earned a break om the prsure of all those firm handshak: The uple I was crashg wh had ved me to a gay hoe party promisg more faiar acutrements like cdés and Robyn mic, so I Google-mapped my way across Boston om bro to ‘mo. My terlocutor was mostly jokg, of urse, but the kernel of tth h home: I was probably gog to have to butch-up my vobulary a b if I wanted to hang wh, much ls hope to unrstand, a group of fellow gay men who would willgly ll themselv “bros. When Buzzfeed terviewed the group’s founr, Alex Delu, on the ocsn of their one-year anniversary this past January, the ments sectn immediately filled wh screeds about “mascule privilege” and “femmephobia” wh the gay muny.

Delu, 23, spoke the Q-and-A about his dismay at enunterg a “very narrow fn of what means to be gay” mastream culture, one that apparently don’t make room for guys wh terts like “vio gam, patball, and sports. Eli Fox, a menter om New Orleans, ptured the general plat of those who took issue wh Delu’s treatg the gay “stereotype” like an unwanted rdboard box: “This is such bullsh and jt perpetuat the ia that femy is fake or that people put on […] He mak sound like mascule gay guys are somehow OPPRESSED. No, they’re the most sired, bee mascule tras are prized the gay male muny jt like practilly every other social group […] Masc guys aren’t the on who need to spend time promotg some agenda of masculy and “regular guy” culture crap.

VERY FEW PEOPLE SAY “NO WH”: GAY MEN OF COLOR AND THE RACIAL POLICS OF DIRE

But before the Gaybros n grow to a full-blown movement, they have some cricisms to ntend wh: that they are young (or newly out) and are therefore somewhat naïve or unrmed about the gay culture they don’t intify wh; that they assert their supposed masculy as a power play agast more effemate gays; that their straed relatnship wh the gay mastream is the rult of their own stubbornns as much as mean-girl excln. However, the “bro” part of the name—regardls of how “playful” Delu claims to have been choosg —will e many to see them as merely the next rnatn of the “butch, ” “straight-actg” or “regular guys” who have fed themselv agast some abstract notn of a more effemate “gay mastream” sce at least the 1970s. But then, I wasn’t really surprised to fd that the so-lled Gaybro army don’t actually match some Tom of Fland fantasy; though some members of the muny no doubt aspire to that kd of steroid-assisted gravas, the entirely cliched homosexual gentleman imaged by the group’s missn statement uldn’t possibly be real.

MY OPEN LETTER TO WHE GAY MEN WH RACIAL PREFERENC…FIVE YEARS LATER

” He and the other morators see as an unexpected but wele part of their missn to help the guys feel at home their own sk a fom that don’t necsarily traffic the same bety-ials, athetic tast, and social etiquette that a newly out gay might enunter on, say, movg to New York or San Francis.

Of a piece wh the brotherly vibe of Gaybros is the need to velop, as a se le puts , a “thick sk and sense of humor” toward ntent teractns, which crop up fairly often on threads about touchy issu like open relatnships. In this, provis a so-lled “safe space” for novice gay men who do not yet know the “right” words to explore their new inti and engage wh their newfound muny whout fear of tar and feathers for not tug the difference between two-spir and tersex. Specifilly for gay men, a slim hairls body may provi men who posss those tras wh sexual currency at a “Twk bar, ” but those same tras would have ls currency at a “Leather bar, ” where burlier bodi are nsired more sirable.

While a number of different typ of sexual fields that n be found the gay muny have been discsed the amic lerature as well as the popular prs, there has been ls attentn paid to the ways that erotic words are socially anized (Mart and Gee 2006). To do so, we brgg together the sexual fields perspective wh the growg lerature on sexual racism, an act of eher sexually excludg non-wh as potential partners or cludg racial mori as sexual partners based only on racial several scholars have noted, ntemporary gay life is marked by high levels of racism directed towards gay men of lor by gay whe men, wh much of the racism maniftg self as negative sexual attus towards, and sexual excln or fetishizatn of, non-whe men (Armstrong 2002; Bébé 2001; Epste 1996; McBri 2005; Tenunis, 2007).