A Handy Gui to All Gay Men

Contents:

• WHAT IS AN OTTER IN GAY CULTURE
• CHICKENS AND OTTERS AND BEARS, OH MY! SIX TYP OF GAY YOU SHOULD PROBABLY KNOW BEFORE YOU TWEET
• A HANDY GUI TO ALL GAY MEN
• WHICH GAY TRIBE DO YOU BELONG TO?
• ‘GAY TRIB’ ON GRDR: WHY ’S TIME TO STOP TEGORISG EACH OTHER

WHAT IS AN OTTER IN GAY CULTURE

She documents the liv of gay llege stunts, and do so through an engagg wrg style that brgs the rear to the liv of her rmants. Last semter, I had a chance to observe some of the difficulti first hand while studyg the micro culture of gay male llege stunts.

I foced specifilly on the gay muny on a small liberal arts llege mp and ral, more nservative muni, like the on my rmants live and study , the Midwt. The fdgs of my rearch led me to nclu that llege-aged gay men, particularly those studyg at a small liberal arts llege, face a variety of challeng different om those their heterosexual unterparts face and that the men have many ways of pg wh the difficulti. Fally, thgs that are nsired to be general issu faced by all gay men are addrsed at the end of the sectn, cludg: fear of hate crim, difficulti wh people’s relig beliefs (both the beliefs of gay men and those of the people they teract wh), stereotypg, and the rise of the “GBF” (or gay bt iend), as well as self-acceptance and the popular view that homosexualy is a choice.

CHICKENS AND OTTERS AND BEARS, OH MY! SIX TYP OF GAY YOU SHOULD PROBABLY KNOW BEFORE YOU TWEET

One of the first, and possibly biggt, challeng a gay man fac is the cisn to “e out”, or reveal his sexual orientatn to his fay, iends, and acquatanc. Though there is the mon ia that g out has to be a specific s down talk, there are many other ways gay men choose to munite their sexual orientatn, which vary greatly based upon the ntext which a person out. Simon mentned that his boss and many of his workers disvered he was gay bee they heard him mentn durg a nversatn wh another worker.

This rmal way of g out is credibly popular wh my rmants (and, acrdg to them, other gay men who are already out wh their fay and iends), and many new iends and acquatanc get a more sual treatment than if they had known Simon or Rorich when they were first explorg their new sexual orientatn. Comg out is a b easier for Rorich bee his meanor more closely nforms to the mon stereotypil perceptn of how a gay man behav. Simon mentned when he began the procs of his “big” g out (the first time he began publicly prentg himself as a gay man, but after he had e out to his close iends and fay) and he was meetg new people, he would drop hts about his orientatn durg a game lled “20 qutns”.

A HANDY GUI TO ALL GAY MEN

For example, one of Simon’s aterny brothers disvered that he was gay bee he was helpg Simon ed one of his papers for a class which he was discsg his sexual orientatn. Social media provis a new platform on which gay men n munite their sexual orientatn and s e seems to be prevalent among llege-aged gay men. In orr to intify the range of rpons that gay men face, I had Rorich and Simon participate a ee listg exercise which they listed all the possible ways someone might react upon disverg a gay man’s sexual orientatn.

He said ’s jt strange when a person acts like nothg has changed even though both of them (the gay man and the person they have e out to) know thgs are not the same.

WHICH GAY TRIBE DO YOU BELONG TO?

In orr to illtrate this, Rorich reunted a story of a iend who dated another gay man on mp that end a bad break up.

Although the gay muny on his mp is small, still provis Rorich wh more of an opportuny to nnect wh other gay men than when he is at home. He believ that most gay men meet each other eher through iends or at social gathergs, like bars or at nferenc for gay rights. This mak a b more difficult for him to meet other gay men if there is no personal nnectn already, which n be through a iend or acquatance or meetg them bee of an LGBTQ+ group on mp.

In orr to bat the issu of the limed datg pool on a small mp (and the difficulti due to beg ls obvly gay), my rmants e onle rourc, like datg webs or apps like Tr or Grdr, to meet other gay men.

‘GAY TRIB’ ON GRDR: WHY ’S TIME TO STOP TEGORISG EACH OTHER

Acrdg to Simon, when you meet someone through an app like Grdr (an app for meetg other gay men, or, as Rorich puts , “…a trackg service for other gay men” that allows you to msage other ers) or an onle datg se, there is more of a sexual nnotatn. The two groups appear to be the most popular wh the llege-aged gay muny, and are the two trib I have heard mentned most often durg my ethnographil rearch, both si and outsi of . Matthew Shepard was a young gay man livg Wyomg the early 90s who was killed after meetg two homophobic strangers a bar one eveng.

Relign n be one of the biggt nflicts for gay men both bee of their relig beliefs and bee of the beliefs of their loved on.

While problems wh relig beliefs often leave a gay man feelg alone and isolated, he may also beg to face problems wh people beg too terted him bee of his sexual orientatn. He hypothized that the girls liked him bee he behav a more stereotypil way and is an ial ndidate for a “GBF”, or gay bt iend, popularized by the mastream media. If a man has been tght his whole life that homosexualy is a s, he is ls likely to accept his sexual orientatn and will not e out of the closet.

I asked him if he believed there were any posiv to beg gay, and he rpond, “Hontly, I n’t thk of any, which is why I thk people who say beg gay is a choice are fuckg morons… It is not an easy road that I’m on now. Neverthels, spe of the difficulti they face, both Simon and Rorich clared they will ntue to be who they are and they will never go back to the closet and will persist their efforts to overe the obstacl associated wh beg gay.

In addn to the very specific issu gay llege stunts al wh, there are several general problems they face that affect all gay men. If a gay man fs a certa stereotype, like Rorich who is more flamboyant and effemate that Simon, they might be seen as a potential “GBF” (gay bt iend). All of the challeng make life difficult for gay llege stunts and make thgs that are easy for their heterosexual unterparts much harr for them.

Many straight people take for granted that they n adopt, get married, and easily buy a hoe while the simple thgs are still stggl for gay men.