The recent lgs of the Supreme Court on gay marriage have spired me to wre on a subject I have been thkg about for some time. Rather than tacklg the issue of whether same-sex upl should be allowed to get married and the impact on society, I jt want to answer this: Can a gay man be manly?
Contents:
- WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE A GAY MAN?
- CAN A GAY MAN BE MANLY?
- KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY
- WHY ARE THERE GAY MEN?
- JAGS' MAXEN IS FIRST MALE AMERIN PRO SPORTS ACH TO E OUT AS GAY
WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE A GAY MAN?
* manly 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.
CAN A GAY MAN BE MANLY?
Kev Maxen has bee the first male ach a US men’s profsnal sports league to e out as gay. * manly gay man *
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? 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?
KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY
New rearch shows the gen that make men gay appear to make their mothers and nts more reproductively succsful. * manly gay man *
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.
WHY ARE THERE GAY MEN?
A page for scribg Lanic: Manly Gay. A gay man wh hyper-mascule athetics and behavr. * manly gay man *
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. For gay men, learng to accept our “different” sexual orientatn as a posive aspect of ourselv is only part of our “g out. Vcent Keh of MASCULAR Stud and Oliver Zke of Photomolekuel are pleased to announce the lnch of A Portra Isolatn, a project explorg emotnal and physil space the end of March 2020, as the COVID-19 global panmic grew spe and impact, gay men around the world were asked to subm self portras that reflected their experience of the ronavis lock-down.
JAGS' MAXEN IS FIRST MALE AMERIN PRO SPORTS ACH TO E OUT AS GAY
The ia behd the llectn was to show that gay men are affected by the crisis a siar way to everyone else but more so. Livg liv which are often agmented between nventnal work ndns and their private liv leav many gay men whout the tradnal support mechanisms of heterosexuals and this shows through the separated by geography, culture and age, the men the imag all share fears for the future, lonels, job secury, and separatn. MASCULAR is a London-based stud tablished by Vcent Keh that explor elements of gay and male inty through photography.