15 Stereotyp That Lim Our Perceptns Of Gay Men

AN ILLTRATED GUI TO REGNIZG YOUR GAY STEREOTYP

In the spir of batg stereotyp by reclaimg and celebratg them, BBDO NY Art Director Jam Kuczynski and illtrator Pl Tuller have created a “Gui to Gay Stereotyp, ” a seri of silk screened imag pturg the sence of your neighborhood gay posters, released this week as we head to Pri season, celebrate the recent Supreme Court cisn on DOMA. The posters are available for $18 each, and some of the proceeds will go to the “Thk B4 You Speak” mpaign, which supports LGBT teens and rais awarens about homophobia and the e of terms like “That’s so gay, ” “Dyke” and “Faggot. In a 2001 survey of “Canadian Perceptns of Homosexualy, ”[i] people across the untry were asked, “In your opn, are homosexuals the same as everyone else?

THE PORTRAYAL OF GAY MEN MEDIA

” The notn that homosexuals are the same as everyone else (save for the unimportant ltle fact of who we love) was first advanced by queers search of tolerance. [v] There is a vast and dangero divi between the notn that queer people are the same as everyone else, and acceptance of the social and cultural difference that is homosexualy. Genr is one space of great unease for ntemporary society, which we are nonted wh the homophobic stereotyp of the big, butch, man-hatg lbian and the swishy, effemate gay man.

If we keep our rponse to homophobic stereotyp at the level of stereotypil rpons, we valorize genr nformy and “straight-lookg, straight-actg” gays and lbians. But if we reach through the homophobic stereotyp to embrace the submerged archetyp, we will fd godss who pot to women’s pacy for anger and vengeance, like Msa (Ancient Greece), Sedna (Inu), and Camunda (India).

LORD OF THE RG TAPS A GAY ARCHETYPE

A host of homophobic stereotyp fall unr this bric – that we are unstable and immature, that we have dysfunctnal, impermanent relatnships, that we unrme the fay. But we abdite the powerful cultural meangs that here our relatnships when we unter homophobic stereotyp by claimg adherence to heteronormative valu.

Will Rose not that the archetype of iatn lks gay experience wh the shaman’s journey, which also volv submissn, a shatterg of the ego, and a return.

[x] We n see homosexuals as the nocent victims of unjt stereotypg, and simultaneoly follow the stereotyp as maps that lead to buried treasure – the cultural meangs and social power of homosexualy. In 1894 Edward Carpenter wr, “[It] is possible that the Uranian [(homosexual)] spir may lead to somethg like a general enthiasm of Humany, and that the Uranian people may be sted to form the advance guard of that great movement which will one day transform the mon life by substutg the bond of personal affectn and passn for the moary, legal and other external ti which now ntrol and nfe society.