Interesting opinion article in Huffington Post a couple days ago, discussing incidence of effeminacy (and the coming out thereof) in gay males.
Read and discuss.
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Comments
Odd article
I always thought the effeminate males were usually like that growing up. Mannerisms don't usually change when one is an adult do they? It's also true that most cross dressers are otherwise happy heterosexual men, and not gay. I'm really not sure what if anything I can take away from this...
{{Hugs}}
Indeed!
It's a very odd article from my point of view. OTOH, it's written from the point of view of a feminophobic (yes, I just made that word up) fag (preferred term of art used by Dan Savage, who is himself, an avowed fag.)
Dan Savage is the one who posted the link to the article that I found. In the link, he said something like, "Someone should tell THIS guy that some fags like faggy men."
Laika, below, absolutely nails this character. Absolute brilliant analysis, too! Thank you, Laika!
One of the reason I posted the link at all was for the "nature or nurture" argument, which in terms of effeminate characteristics, would apply equally to gay or straight men. As you note, above, some 95% or more of crossdressing men are indeed straight, roughly the same proportion of the entire population including non-crossdressers.
I'm not sure there's one right answer, either. I think we are so very capable beings, that we can suppress urges, and submerge portions of our personalities under pressure, so deeply we don't even know they're there, as a survival technique. Obviously, I think "Nature" is paramount. Without that, there's no propensity. "Nurture", however, MIGHT serve a role in that creating a safe environment allows the less traumatized of us to let that part of our personas emerge.
But, who knows? Certainly not me.
___________________
If a picture is worth 1000 words, this is at least part of my story.
Evidently not...
...or "finishing schools," "boot camps," etiquette classes, golf coaching, and performing arts training would be completely ineffective.
People learn their manners and habits from those around them, and change them when they feel motivated enough. Learning to eat with the right hand and perform one's ablutions with the left isn't innate, but a sensible adaptation to living in conditions which make washing one's hand difficult or impossible.
Likewise, military salutes and other behaviours are drilled into one, not the natural reaction of anyone wearing a uniform.
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
disappointed
~~some actor
I was really disappointed with this editorial. I thought it was going to say something intelligent. The author pretends to be simply posing questions but his loaded word choice makes his views clear. Effeminacy in gay men is something unnatural that otherwise stalwart & manly cornholers are lured into, like his ex-boyfriend who "slid into" the "pansy vortex" and once assimilated came out swish. Sounds pretty ominous when he puts it that way. And then he offers his proof why gays acting somewhat femme is counter to the natural order of who should be attracted to what. It's weirdly echoic of the language of homophobia, although he's a gay man levelling at one portion of the gay population; the queens who have born the brunt of plenty of this sort of thing, on a number occasions over the years being forbidden to march with his "normal" gays, I guess for being an embarrasment to them. I'll bet if you dig down deep enough into his psyche, through all the layers of intellectual hoakum and rationalization you'll find a sizeable core of sexism- the atavistic booga-booga caveman notion that for men to be effeminate is "less than manly" (Or as he puts it: "the masculinity they've bleached out of themselves", cleverly and subtly pathologizing it, likening it to a sapping of some vital essence...) because women are inferior to men. Wotta jerk!
~~~hugs, laika
Well shit, I guess it really CAN happen here..,
.
what Laika said
she says it nicer than I would. I found the sissy, pansy, swishy refs decidedly patronising... sort of the old, I may be a poof but I'm a better class of poof than that campy lot. Then I guess the same sort of thing applies everywhere don't it.
Kristina
yep
There are 'butch' lesbians who deride the 'lipstick' variety for arguments that EXACTLY line up with the ones in this article: maleness is better than femaleness. But the truth is, gender identity, gender expression, sexual identity and sexual attraction are all different axes of human variation.
So you have femmy lesbians that are attracted to other femmy lesbians, butch male queers that are attracted to other butch male queers, androgynes that are attracted to androgynes and transexuals who are attracted to other transexuals exactly like them BUT you also have every other possible combination and there is just NO explaining it by navel lint logic like in the article referenced.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
What puzzles me ...
... is why gay males would be attracted to effeminate men anyway. I would have thought if they found effeminacy to be an attractive trait they'd go for the mother lode - women. I'm a heterosexual once upon a time TV and I find the camp scene quite unattractive - I've no problem with it but it's just not my thing. Julian Cleary and Graham Norton just irritate me although Kenneth Williams seemed to pull it off very much better. Perhaps it's my age.
Of course once you include TG elements the permutations of potential sexualities seems to be never-ending.
Other than that I agree with Laika. It's not a very good piece for lots of reasons.
Robi