How Gay Bars Influenced This Wrer’s Life

Contents:

• THE MYTH OF THE FAG HAG AND DIRTY SECRETS OF THE GAY MALE SUBCULTURE
• TOP 5 MYTHS ABOUT GAY MEN
• DEVELOPERS SAY SECRET TUNNELS UNR SAN FRANCIS GAY BARS ARE A MYTH
• 10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED
• THE 'GAYTRIFITN' EFFECT: WHY GAY NEIGHBOURHOODS ARE BEG PRICED OUT
• DID FREDDIE MERCURY REALLY TAKE PRCS DIANA TO A LONDON GAY PUB THE '80S?
• THE PLEASURE AND PA OF GAY BARS
• AS SEATTLE’S GAYBORHOOD MIGRAT, CAPOL HILL QUEER BARS FIGHT TO REMA A REFUGE

THE MYTH OF THE FAG HAG AND DIRTY SECRETS OF THE GAY MALE SUBCULTURE

‘Surf Girls Hawai’i’ is the Real-Life ‘Blue Csh’ We’ve Waed 21 Years ForOffEnglishIt's a dirty secret of a subculture of the gay male world about women: That they're sentially unwele, unls they e to as a Real Hoewife, a pop diva, or an Tony award wner–or an unassumg fag hag. Whatever the e is, be clear: If there isn't any kd of transactnal exchange happeng, then women lose their value gay male we talk about gay male privilege, 's important that as gay men, we unrstand any of uld've been–or currently are–perpetrators of this culture, simply by beg. In my earlit days of beg out of the closet–and among women–I've fely been that jerk the room that feigned ignorance about female anatomy, that rpond wh a sneer when a discsn about women's bodi arose; I've been that young gay man that had his llectn of divas who wore better than the rt–pted them agast the llectns of other gay guys.

Somewhere along the way, I also realized that gay men had allowed themselv to fall to a lazy and excable t of objectifyg, meang, and dismissg many of are only faiar wh the ia of male privilege beg the provce of straight men that we disunt how gay men are able to exert domance and ntrol over women. It was like beg stuck on Neverland wh a uple of Lost Boys–'s also the kd of gay male settg where you realize jt how people n take their privilege for the Daily Kos:Gay men may sire the same advantag of manhood as heterosexual men, but gay men simply do not occupy the same social stat and same social space as straight men.

Now, almost two years later, the world has bee a dramatilly different place–not pletely different, md you, but different enough where many gay men are begng to enjoy some of the same "advantag of manhood" that straight men are lims and veats.

TOP 5 MYTHS ABOUT GAY MEN

"* That is, if "ourselv" falls wh the prcriptive lims of the gay male inty that's beg modified, packaged, and replited by out gay men workg the realm of mass proxi are troublg example, 2010, Project Runway judge and fashn signer Isaac Mizrahi grabbed Srlet Johansson's breasts on the Goln Glob Red Carpet. But when he acts so tsively wh ltle to no nsequenc, sends a msage to gay men who are still negotiatg their inti and attemptg to figure out how to f to a world that still hasn't found a way to rencile queer inty at The Good Men Project, Yolo Akili wr:At a recent prentatn, I asked all of the gay male stunts the room to raise their hand if the past week they touched a woman's body whout her nsent. Women end up objectifyg gay men as surrogat for girliends or pretty pl on at parti; gay men end up objectifyg women as facto therapists and punchg bags, who are expected to make them feel better about themselv, all while weatherg a sual luge of slurs like "slut", "ho", and "bch.

" When gay men and women n rise above the genred nature of their relatnship, the stctive tennci melt away, but 's more likely that the relatnships Adam Goldman's The Outs, we see this 1:1 rat fail spectacularly as one of the seri' most rivetg and relatable plots.

Somehow beg gay has bee a d way for many men to assume there's no wrongdog when they talk about women's bodi, when they jokgly e "ho", "slut", or "bch" as a synonym for "lady" or "woman"–and the sprens wh which they get fensive when lled out for this kd of advantage of gay manhood particular is that many of are plic the way female body image is packaged, marketed, and distributed across media.

DEVELOPERS SAY SECRET TUNNELS UNR SAN FRANCIS GAY BARS ARE A MYTH

Women are worship has bee sid–a way to rerce a myth of aspiratnalism where many gay men dite to the oppose sex that unls they are worthy of achievg this absurdly lofty stat, they are nothg more than terchangeable fag about the language:"Brney is slayg!

Facsi of FemyGay male culture requts womanhood when the form of some kd of othy entertament mody–where we are asked not to actually thk about the woman herself, but the ma-up packaged product before have even intified what nstut womanhood, like garish eye make-up, over-the-top fashn, wildly theatril mannerisms, and so on.

10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED

"It's tellg then that such a large swath of gay men view beg feme as beg anthetil to self-empowerment or self-actualizatn–that they haven't pletely e to terms wh their sexualy and view femy as somethg that uld unrcut their then happens is not only the pro-active perpetuatn of misogynistic attus, but the rarefitn of an creasgly segmented gay muny where secure gay men arch towards an ialized mascule archetype–and shun trac of feme archetyp that they end up nstctg social worlds where everyone looks, drs, and acts like them–where women creasgly occupy the It Wholale Social Idcy? To be a wallflower at any crowd big cy gay bar is a phenomenal experiment; 's a vantage pot om where you get to observe the polics of how men behave wh each other and size each other up a ntrived ntext where women don't you have such wholale socializg of gay men a universe where women exist only as grand pop ins flashy mic vios on large televisn screens hangg above the bar, you have a culture that has bee plic the social retardatn of a sizable chunk of humany. What's startlg is that for many young boys, bullyg other queer kids school is what allowed them to f ; so for kids who grew up beg bullied to ultimately replite that same behavr, but to another historilly margalized group shows an amniac tenncy of the gay male muny–one where we don't hold ourselv acuntable, but expect victims to take everythg I wearied of the ttle ll culture of gay bars, I tried an alternative: Simply hangg out wh my iends–whoever they may be–si sexually-agnostic bars.

When we llectively wearied of the ttle ll culture of bars general, we took the party to one of our apartments–and s there that we began havg cisive, extend discsns about humany, about genr, about the unlikely objectifitn between straight women and gay men ("It ns both ways, though, " remarked one of my iends).

THE 'GAYTRIFITN' EFFECT: WHY GAY NEIGHBOURHOODS ARE BEG PRICED OUT

The way gay men might ll an vasive encroachment of personal space a "love tap" or men like Mizrahi regard Srlett Johansson's breasts as punchl or men admonish other men at gay venu for beg "too femme" are jt ways which misogyny is stealthily executed and perpetuated by gay of actually grow up; we actually e to terms wh how horrific this behavr is. The fact that I uld never actually rry a nversatn wh anyone else bee (1) the mic was turned up so loud we uldn't hear our own voic; or (2) they simply had no yen or abily to rry a nversatn uldn't jtify how much time and money I was spendg at the date turned to me and nodd; 's why, he said, he don't really intify wh the word "gay" anymore and aligns himself wh the "queer" label.

I n unrstand how after s of margalizatn the torch-bearers for the gay world have bee ant on self-prervatn–but this is happeng wh a fair amount of llateral damage to those si their ranks and those who have historilly supported should not mean expectg young boys and men g out to shoehorn themselv to a very narrow nce of genr exprsn. While the polilly rrect HRC-, GLAAD-backed appropriatn of gay inty means that "Everyone is wele, " also means that nobody talks about the way gay male privilege–which sometim overlaps wh whe privilege very nspicuo ways–disempowers women, sometim strintly are enuraged not to addrs the ways which gay men might e abive language towards, reference to, or even ont of women. This tak the strs off focg on exprsns of genr, off sexualy, and emphasiz on actually nnectg wh humans through shared life the PatternTo resign the current packagg of gay male inty would mean to reorient around a love-based approach that fds gay men makg a place at their table for all kds of people–not jt those they em relevant to their terts.

It would been tryg to quash out this "ial gay persona" of the affluencer; would mean holdg one another acuntable as role mols for younger gay would mean for many gay men to unrstand that while a neighborhood like Chelsea New York Cy was once a refuge om heterosexist opprsn, 's now bee the very maw of a siar kd of privilege s earlit settlers were fleeg–a place that may not discrimate by sexualy, but discrimat by class and race. To improve the way we relate to the world around , would mean for many of to acknowledge there are muni where we wield a lot of power–and we have the abily to make "gay" mirror "queer"–where we foc ls on excln, on creatg muni of people who look and act jt like , but rather foc on cln.

DID FREDDIE MERCURY REALLY TAKE PRCS DIANA TO A LONDON GAY PUB THE '80S?

As gay men ntue to ga the same rights as their straight k, 's up to to remember the history of sufferg and margalizatn–and that we are many ways begng to leapog over the very women who tend to be our earlit adopters after we e out of the n't pull the ladr up behd and objectify om on top. The LGBT movement had phoenix-ed nearly overnight, the Stonewall episo today wily nsired “the birth of the morn gay and lbian polil movement, ” Mart Duberman wrote Stonewall: The Defive Story of the LGBTQ Rights Uprisg that Changed Ameri. “Memory is what we remember, how we wish to remember , and how we wish to be remembered ”And yet, the tails of the rts and what precipated them have bee, as Carter puts , “a bone of ntentn between var dividuals and tert groups wh and whout the gay world.

Before nsirg those, ’s stctive to nsir what LGBT Ameri faced the 1960s, which histori like Carter’s, Marc’, and others help gay was illegal or, to put more harshly, a crimeThat was the se at the time every state except Illois and uld rult life prison, Carter tells . ” By 1961, anti-gay laws the US were “harsher on homosexuals than those Cuba, Rsia, or East Germany, ” all objects of Amerin cricism for “their spotic ways, ” Carter a lnch event 2004 for Carter’s tome about Stonewall, the police officer who led the Stonewall raid the night of the rts, the 89-year-old Seymour Pe, apologized. ” There’s no five proof eher way, Carter adms about the followg, but says he nclively believ missner Pe’s claims that “he was orred to put the Stonewall Inn out of bs bee was beg ed as a se to blackmail gay men who worked the Wall Street area.

THE PLEASURE AND PA OF GAY BARS

But the proximy of Garland's ath and her inic stat the LGBT muny will forever, at least romantilly, lk her to rters were all transvt“The qutn of transvte participatn the rts is plited by differenc the gay male muny that have veloped sce, ” Carter wr reference to cross-drsers, named then as transvt. But was aga the “gay street youths, ” Carter wrote, who “lked their arms around one another and kicked Rockette style, ” sgg “their old reprise” wh a topil word replaced:We are the Stonewall GirlsWe wear our hair wear no unrwear:We show our pubic nfirms this song-and-dance was repeated two or three tim through the first night, though ’s been mythologized to have happened much more equently.

As early as 1950, anizatns like the Mattache Society and the Dghters of Bilis began assemblg, anizg, and argug “among themselv what, if anythg, they should—or uld—do to improve their standg Amerin life, ” Eric Marc wrote Makg Gay History, later addg that sce 1953 and ntug for “more than 20 years, the FBI nducted extensive surveillance of gay anizatns and their lears. ” One famo 1964 Mattache monstratn had 10 people picketg a US Army office New York Cy’s fancial district, mandg that “homosexuals be allowed to enlist the ary and protted the dishonorable discharg issued to gay men and lbians who were routely thrown out of the ary, ” acrdg to Marc. “For people to anize polilly based on their opprsn due to their sexual orientatn or genr inty was almost unprecented, ” Roxane Gay wr to troduce the New York Public Library’s Love and Ristance: Out of the Closet to the Stonewall Era, a book of photo-says that was released June 11.

“The entire tersectn of Market, Mason, and Turk was an important htlg and cisg se where gay men went to socialize an era when our existence was illegal, ” says a letter to the planng missn signed by current and former elected officials, muny groups, and activists.

AS SEATTLE’S GAYBORHOOD MIGRAT, CAPOL HILL QUEER BARS FIGHT TO REMA A REFUGE

Ever sce born-aga sger and orange juice pchwoman Ana Bryant helped kick off the ntemporary anti-gay movement some 40 years ago, hard-le elements of the relig right have been searchg for ways to monize gay people — or, at a mimum, to fd arguments that will prevent their normalizatn society. But addn to hawkg that myth, the legns of anti-gay activists who followed have add a panoply of others, rangg om the extremely doubtful claim that sexual orientatn is a choice, to unalloyed li like the claims that gay men molt children far more than heterosexuals or that hate crime laws will lead to the legalizatn of btialy and necrophilia.

Depictg gay men as a threat to children may be the sgle most potent weapon for stokg public fears about homosexualy — and for wng electns and referenda, as Ana Bryant found out durg her succsful 1977 mpaign to overturn a Da County, Fla., ordance barrg discrimatn agast gay people.

Gregory Herek, a profsor at the Universy of California, Davis, who is one of the natn's leadg rearchers on prejudice agast sexual mori, reviewed a seri of studi and found no evince that gay men molt children at higher rat than heterosexual men.