“We Don’t Wear Tight Cloth”: Gay Panic and Queer Style Contemporary Hip Hop

Contents:

• KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY
• I TRACK MURR S THAT E THE ‘GAY PANIC FENSE,’ A NTROVERSIAL PRACTICE BANNED 9 STAT
• “WE DON’T WEAR TIGHT CLOTH”: GAY PANIC AND QUEER STYLE CONTEMPORARY HIP HOP
• TEXAS MAN WHO KILLED NEIGHBOR US 'GAY PANIC' DEFENSE AND AVOIDS MURR CHARGE
• 'GAY PANIC' FENSE STILL ED VLENCE S MAY BE BANNED BY NEW FERAL BILL
• GAY PANIC ATTACK
• GAY, BLACK, AND MASCULE.
• STOP THE GAY PANIC
• THE GAY/TRANS PANIC DEFENSE

KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY

Per Outsports, Maxen is the “first publicly out male ach a major Amerin men’s pro sports league, ” wh WNBA ach Curt Miller, who publicly me out to the media as gay 2015, also a publicly out male ach an Amerin profsnal sports league.

In other words, where Bud Light has buckled unr prsure as bigotry grows agast the LGBTQ+ muny, Gay Water’s creator Spencer Hodson wants his new boozy brand to be the anthis of that.

“The key issue that Bud Light tapped to was the fact that they didn’t unrstand their re dience and know enough about them,” Hodson, a gay man, told CNN about the ntroversy that began when the Anhser-Bch beer brand sent fluencer Dylan Mulvaney a n of beer. “Puttg a product wh the word gay the tle is reprentatn self,” which he hop reclaims the word om the negativy ’s sometim associated wh.

I TRACK MURR S THAT E THE ‘GAY PANIC FENSE,’ A NTROVERSIAL PRACTICE BANNED 9 STAT

The two chatted about the limed amount of gay people wh , and wh Hodson burnt out om his tradnal day job tech, started the nned cktail. Hodson built up a strong social media followg on TikTok and Instagram durg Covid-19 and is g some of the money om that (as well as om iends and fay) to help fund Gay Water. “Gay is an umbrella term and the ia behd the brand is to be as clive as possible, which means we want alli, we want straight people to be part of this muny we’re buildg.”.

For now, Gay Water is sold largely onle (wh a few retailers) and four sugar-ee flavors — watermelon, lime, peach and grapeu — at lnch. Gay Water might not have the ep pockets pared to s petors, like Whe Claw, but “even at small sle, pani of many siz are havg succs makg spir-based seltzers and premixed cktails,” Bryan Roth, an analyst for Feel Goods Company and edor of the alhol beverage newsletter, Sightl+, told CNN.

“There’s lots of space the spir-based seltzer tegory which Gay Water n play, pecially if the brand n offer a cultural or emotnal nnectn that will feel more excg than the prospect of another peapple-flavored vodka seltzer om natnal or ternatnal rporatns,” Roth said. Of urse, other drks e the word “gay,” too, cludg Gay Beer and So Gay Rosé, Hodson noted, which are also tryg to reach the queer muny and offer them an alternative the straight-domated space. Edward’s UniversyOn January 21, New Jersey beme the nth state the natn to ban the gay panic fense, a strategy that the ernor said is “rooted homophobia.

“WE DON’T WEAR TIGHT CLOTH”: GAY PANIC AND QUEER STYLE CONTEMPORARY HIP HOP

At the nference, my ey opened to the obstacl that the LGBTQ+ muny fac a state like Texas, where there is history of homophobia that ntu to the prent day. A few days after his ath, I learned for the first time that he was gay, and realized that he had lived an almost pletely closeted life. Based on my early analysis, fense attorneys who enter gay panic fens n rce a fendants’ murr charg 32% of the time, even though the majory of the homicis volve credible vlence.

The offenrs the s seemed to take advantage of this “secret” after they were arrted to ultimately nstct a nefar portra of the victims their gay panic fense urt.

Fally, the legal scholar Cynthia Lee has wrten about how offenrs n go around prohibns issued by judg to troduce gay panic fense strategi. In the Matthew Shepard murr trial, the fense attorney troduced two wns to ttify that the victim was sexually assertive, even though the judge had prohibed them om g a gay panic fense. Wh all that said, I was staggered to fd how many of my favore edi om the relatively recent past are renred almost unwatchable by the sheer amount of jok they have and time they spend on gay-panic and tly horrible trans related humor.

TEXAS MAN WHO KILLED NEIGHBOR US 'GAY PANIC' DEFENSE AND AVOIDS MURR CHARGE

Lots of humor scbs also om the ma characters, JD and Turk, beg iends but embarrassed that they show any affectn for each other bee s gay. 's actns towards women, but we won't get to that), but I was surprised by jt how often brgs up Louie's fear of beg perceived as gay as a ma plot pot. Even Communy, which my opn is one of the bt wrten edi ever, has tons of flat, unspired gay jok, pecially the early seasons om Chevy and Donald Glover's characters.

'GAY PANIC' FENSE STILL ED VLENCE S MAY BE BANNED BY NEW FERAL BILL

I get that the characters are tentnally wrten to be homophobic and that them teractg wh more "enlightened" group members is part of their character arcs, but often feels like is handled a lazy way, wh ltle g om the jok. Jok disparagg gay and trans people tend to be old, rehashed and unspired, while I n thk of a dozen newer shows, all om wh the last 5-6 years, that handle trans and gay topics much more tertg ways.

He then analyz two recent media ntroversi, volvg onle vio clips of rappers Thug Slghter Force and Beanie Sigel, orr to nstct ntemporary hip hop’s gay panic moment. The thor monstrat how the attempts to police the boundari of black masculy nnect wh a long history of homophobia wh Ain-Amerin culture. In each cint, the specter of vlence was explicly voked as a way to ntrol and disciple the public spectacle of the black male body—to rid of any possible trac of homosexualy and to ensure the survival of a “hard” mascule image wh hip-hop culture.

The acts of verbal aggrsn of Thug Slghter Force and Sigel aimed at forms of drs associated wh queer style pot to somethg of a gay panic moment wh ntemporary hip-hop mic. While such statements n perhaps be wrten off as mere juvenile outbursts of homophobia, their timg speaks volum about the current state of hip hop as a liftyle inty unr nttatn.

GAY PANIC ATTACK

For stance, Rihanna’s 2006 number-one h “SOS” was based on the hook of 1981’s “Tated Love” by Soft Cell, a group featurg the openly gay sger Mark Almond. Up until that pot, Daft Punk was relatively unknown to hip-hop listeners, but was extremely popular the ternatnal gay club scene (among other dienc); for example, a remix of the song “Harr, Better, Faster, Stronger” was featured on the 2002 Season Two soundtrack album for the Amerin TV seri Queer as Folk.

Wt’s open-md creative sensibily was mirrored by his headle-makg terview ments om 2005, which he publicly apologized for earlier homophobia and exprsed rpect and appreciatn for the gay muny (which clus a member of his fay). Wt even went so far as to ask his fellow hip-hop artists to change their attus towards gays and lbians: “I wanna jt e on TV and jt tell my rappers, jt tell my iends, yo, stop ”.

On the other hand, 50 Cent received wave after wave of bad prs for a seri of public anti-gay remarks; the most recent ntroversy saw the Gay and Lbian Alliance Agast Defamatn stigatg the rapper for an “sensive tweet” (“Cent’s Blast at Perez Hilton Stirs GLAAD”). The “tight cloth” style Wt has adopted, begng wh the release of his 2007 Graduatn album, further signaled his fort wh queer-flected style and wh openly gay men.

GAY, BLACK, AND MASCULE.

Much of his wardrobe has been personally created for him by the Louis Vuton head signer Marc Jabs, an out gay man who is also Wt’s close personal iend. Wt’s ndid assertn that he wants to be jt like a gay fashn signer speaks volum about the creasgly zy relatnship between queer style and mastream hip-hop culture the late 2000s. Diddy, who not only won the 2004 menswear signer of the year award om the Council of Fashn Digners of Ameri for his Sean John label, but also formed a bs partnership wh openly gay fashn mogul Zac Posen for a pany lled Outspoke.

STOP THE GAY PANIC

Diddy are so fortable fg profsnal relatnships wh out gay men is a notable turnaround for the once notorly homophobic genre of hip hop, although this is likely motivated by enomics as much as by anythg else.

LGBT fashn ins like Zac Posen are perhaps acceptable lleagu for hip-hop stars bee of the upwardly mobile luxury liftyl the figur reprent; ed, mastream hip hop’s obssn wh stat nsumptn has created a long-standg—if sometim unwtg—prence for gay male cultural el wh rap lyrics, such as the se of the myriad shout-outs to the gay uple Dolce and Gabbana. Begng the 1980s, some signers fluenced by gay male urban style began to experiment wh sk-tight pants for men; by “prent[g] the male as a sex object, ” Crane argu that the tight cloth prented important symbolic “challeng to hegemonic masculy” (195). The vio also ntas an troductory text warng that “wearg tight cloth may rult feme tennci, homosexualy, possible yeast fectn, severe hemorrhoids, permanent wedgi, and geilly hered transsexual characteristics your son.

” Here, gay male, female, and transgenr bodi are nflated wh one another and marked as ferr to the heterosexual male body, wh clothg beg (mockgly) intified as havg the power to viate hip hop’s supposedly superr hyper-mascule inty.

THE GAY/TRANS PANIC DEFENSE

Terrence Dean, the openly gay mic dtry figure and thor of the recent Hidg Hip Hop, pots to the ntradictns wh mastream hip hop’s heteronormative drs s a Village Voice article on the “Tight Cloth?! Followg om Dean’s pot, is often noted that there are clear homoerotic overton much of mastream hip-hop culture, such as the nstant lyril emphasis on homosocial male bondg and album vers featurg rappers such as DMX and 50 Cent showg off chiseled bare torsos (Touré).

The rhetoric, then, of the gay panic of Sigel and Thug Slghter Force is ultimately about disciplg the heterosexual black male body and matag s domant posn the patriarchal genr hierarchy—the male as the lookg sexual subject, as opposed to the looked-at sexual object. This emphasis on policg the boundari of straight-ns is implied Sigel’s ll for Wt and Williams to e out of the closet: the suggtn is that if the two performers were to simply intify as gay and th remove themselv om the nceptual field of heterosexual male blackns, all nfn would be laid to rt and everythg would seemgly be all right.