What Do It Mean to Be a Gay Man? | Psychology Today

Contents:

• WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE A GAY MAN?
• MY GAY VOICE
• MOST RSIANS SAY GAY SEX IS 'REPREHENSIBLE' AFTER 20-YEAR SPIKE HOMOPHOBIA, POLL SHOWS
• FRIEND'S VIEWS ON GAYS MAKE HER RENSIR IENDSHIP
• PRO STRONGMAN CHAMPN ROB KEARNEY OUT AS GAY
• HOW TO GET A MAN (FOR GAY MEN)

WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE A GAY MAN?

So many gay men grow up believg there is somethg “wrong” wh bee we are different om other supposedly “normal” mal. It’s not surprisg that a term like “straight-actg” shows up so often gay men’s onle personal ads.

It prumably means the advertiser nsirs himself a “real” man—real, that is, acrdg to a standard of masculy he don’t attribute to other gay men.

So many gay men learn we are different om other boys by havg the fact poted out and ridiculed by bulli durg our young, most imprsnable, years. As every gay man knows who has been sulted or asslted for his actual or perceived sexual orientatn, there are steep penalti for vlatg the Boy Co as there are for anyone who is “different” om the prumed (typilly whe, heterosexual, middle-class) standard. How do a gay kid survive the trma he suffers for beg different a culture that still nmns his difference as somethg bad or “ls-than” and wants to mold him to the same shape tri to mold every boy?

MY GAY VOICE

Robert Pollack says the most important thg a fay n do to support their gay son is to keep lovg him, “to nvey to him, as soon as he shar his feelgs, that he is still loved through and through, that his sexual orientatn will not any way dimish how much he is admired and rpected. He needs to know that ’s okay not only to be gay if that's what he is, but to be a man who choos what beg a man means for himself. Fortunately there is a long history of gay men who bucked the accepted fns of masculy and created liv that exprsed their unrstandg of themselv and how they choose to exprs their inty as men who don’t necsarily f tradnal molds.

The late Harry Hay often lled "the father of the morn gay movement, " found the Mattache Society Los Angel the fall of 1950 for gay men to gather and ponr the qutns Hay had long been askg: Who are gay people? Where do gay people e om? Where have gays been throughout history?

Hay didn’t tend the Mattach to be a polil anizatn per se, but a group that would e together to enhance their self-unrstandg and explore the ntributns gay people had ma to the human race through the ag. In a 1987 say tled “A Separate People Whose Time Has Come, ” Hay scribed homosexuals as “spir people, ” who, throughout the ag, had served society their rol as “msengers and tercers, shamans of both genrs, prits and prits, imagemakers and prophets, mim and rhapsos, poets and playwrights, healers and nurturers, teachers and preachers, tkers and tkerers, searchers and rearchers. Hay believed that gay people had somethg special to teach nongay people about human life, and for that reason should be nurtured, rather than reviled, by society.

MOST RSIANS SAY GAY SEX IS 'REPREHENSIBLE' AFTER 20-YEAR SPIKE HOMOPHOBIA, POLL SHOWS

He postulated that “gay people reprent a geic mutatn of nscns whose active fosterg is now required for human survival. Hay believed that gay men are different om heterosexuals and that those differenc go much eper than mere sexual attractn to other men. He said gay men look at the world differently, are uniquely nonaggrsive, nonpetive, oriented toward sharg and cled to velop what Hay lled “subject-subject” love relatnships of equals.

In a 1990 terview for the Washgton Bla, Harry Hay told me our llg as gay men “is not only to accept our uniquens, but to affirm , make joyo.

FRIEND'S VIEWS ON GAYS MAKE HER RENSIR IENDSHIP

For gay men, learng to accept our “different” sexual orientatn as a posive aspect of ourselv is only part of our “g out. ”I am a gay man, and that means I do not like the sound of my own voice. Also, all children sound gay.

Straight people love to pot out that gay people do not look distctly different om straight people. The ia that gays would be fe if we jt hated ourselv to zombie facsi of straight people is gross.

I’m one of the gay guys whose voic always marked as men outsi masculy. A gay voice, a tly, magnificently gay voice, isn’t jt a weakns, though. We so equently hear that straight people don’t have a problem wh gays; they jt don’t unrstand why we have to “sound like that.

PRO STRONGMAN CHAMPN ROB KEARNEY OUT AS GAY

Gays are a small, diffe, physilly visible mory.

It tak other gay people for to have sex, but also for other, ls basic operatns of inty.

HOW TO GET A MAN (FOR GAY MEN)

Usg our voic, we bee a culture and a nearly anywhere the world that isn’t a gay bar, we mt assume the people around are straight. Intifyg other gay people is a lite science. So gay male culture mands that we be able to blend to the wallpaper when we need to, but also that we be pable of makg ourselv very known other suatns.