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

Contents:

• WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE A GAY MAN?
• QUEER VS. GAY: HOW THE WORDS ARE DIFFERENT, AND WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
• WHY ARE GAY MEN SO SPEFUL AND MEAN?
• GAY
• THE FOTTEN SECRET LANGUAGE OF GAY MEN
• HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE GAY
• WHAT DO "GAY" MEAN?

WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE A GAY MAN?

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.

QUEER VS. GAY: HOW THE WORDS ARE DIFFERENT, AND WHY IT’S IMPORTANT

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.

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?

WHY ARE GAY MEN SO SPEFUL AND MEAN?

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.

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. ? SummaryIn the ntext of LGBTQ+ inty, the word gay is typilly ed reference to a person who is sexually and/or romantilly attracted to people of their own sex or genr. In the ntext of sexual inty, the word gay is generally ed to mean “of, relatg to, or beg a person who is sexually or romantilly attracted to people of their own sex or genr.

GAY

The term "gay" may be nfg and even foreign to some, forcg people to ask, "What is gay?" or "Am I Gay?" And while some might thk the fn of "gay" is simple, to many, actually isn't. Homosexualy is still the rrect term clilly, but even though homosexualy is no longer nsired immoral, some people feel there are still negative overton to the word given s orig. For example, a person may feel same-sex sexual attractn but not intify as "gay" whereas another person who behav sexually towards men and women may intify as "gay." Moreover, is not unmon for people to intify as "gay" at some tim their liv, while straight (not gay) at other tim.

THE FOTTEN SECRET LANGUAGE OF GAY MEN

Effemate and angry at the world, you'll fd they were picked on mercilsly as children by peers and often by surround themselv wh other siar gay men and as adults they act jt like the teenage girls who were mean to themThey are easily Anonymoreply 12November 10, 2020 1:00 AM.

I fd that if you have your own hobbi and goals outsi a big group of gay iends, you'll get along jt fe you have and you won't have to al wh that bchs. I ed to have a big group of gay iends at the clubs, and I realized after a uple of years how many homels that was and how phone is their liv were and how much they rented me for havg terts outsi of them. OP, 's a fense/pg mechanism, gay men were often bullied as children, this was their way of fightg back, "I'm gog to slam you before you n slam me", go pound sand up your Anonymoreply 22November 10, 2020 1:27 AM.

You guys see multiple threads on this exact topic, word exactly the same way, and you know 's jt another homophobic thread om a troll, and yet you guys still rpond. Years ago attendg gay bars wh my very handsome bf, was like I didn't would approach him and attempt to exchange phone numbers, attempt makg out, while poor me kept sayg "he's md" gently.

HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE GAY

They were always snooty and mean and would say hateful thgs to me for no reason, but then a kid I had told I was gay told the whole school and I was expelled, but then allowed to e back. When gay men are looked down on, sneered at, and lled nam, they sometim rpond kd and velop that brtle, hateful veneer as a protective Anonymoreply 54November 12, 2020 7:44 PM.

R67, 's me, sce I started volunteerg wh my lol pri center this year (durg the panmic)--a ltle zoom group that meets once per week, I have met an enormo number of olr gay men and women, mostly retired, many of whom have never had a real relatnship (other than one night stands) bee they didn't want their fai or their employers to know. Gay men beg mean to each other is kd of unrstandable, We're attracted to each other, but also, petn wh each other, all the while beg told we mt f to a larger "muny" and that don't always Anonymoreply 74Febary 19, 2021 4:56 AM. The dynamic I see a lot wh gay men and straight women is: average lookg men and women bullyg someone who’s better lookg than them, but who also across as secure.

WHAT DO "GAY" MEAN?

Simple-md and small-md gay men/straight women who hate anyone who seems "happier" or to "have a leg up" on them which they sort of em om a superficial place bee they don't really know anyone's stggl. ) the kds of the gay men I know I eher know through work or non-prof volunteerg--so they have already self-selected to environments where people are civil and iendly.

99% of everythg uttered by a heterosexual man is negative, ridicule, sultg, plag, gay-bashg, cel, mean-spired, back-stabbg, anti-woman, lyg Anonymoreply 102March 13, 2021 2:23 AM. My homophobic female Boomer boss once tried to plement me by sayg gay men ma the bt signers bee men tend to foc on the big picture and woman tend to foc on the tails and gay seem to be good at both.