Tag Archives: gay male culture

Reading History: Buying Gay: How Physique Entrepreneurs Sparked a Movement (David K. Johnson)

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Note: My sincere thanks to NetGalley for providing me a copy of this book for review.

In Buying Gay: How Physique Entrepreneurs Sparked a Movement, noted historian David K. Johnson (known for his research on the Lavender Scare), does a deep dive into the world of physique magazines and the strong connection between capitalism and activism in the fledgling gay rights movement.

Johnson shows the extent to which these magazines provided a site in which gay male desire could have free rein, an important psychic and collective space in a culture and society that relentlessly pathologized and policed gay desire. As a result, these magazines also played a pivotal role in the coalescing of a specifically gay male identity, one that was unequivocally centered on erotic desire. Those who bought these magazines–and who wrote to them–recognized that they were part of something greater than themselves.

As Johnson amply demonstrates, it’s a mistake to keep consumption and politics separated; instead, we should see them as two streams that constantly fed into and reinforced one another in the years preceding Stonewall. Indeed, the owners of these magazines were often at the forefront court cases that were to have a significant impact on the trajectory of gay rights and, indeed, the very legitimacy of gay identity. Several cases went right up to the Supreme Court, which surprisingly frequently decided matters in their favour. One of the great strengths of Johnson’s book is that he brings to light these oft-forgotten cases.

Johnson doesn’t unnecessarily valourize these men and women (because yes, there were women who owned physique magazines). They were often at odds with one another (hardly surprising, considering the large personalities involved), and they were not always allies with one another. Despite their differences, however, they all played a part. Collectively, they forged important sites of resistance that continue to have an effect on our culture today.

The book also makes it clear just how ubiquitous was the condemnation of homosexuality in Cold War America. It’s one of those things that you probably know on a subconscious level, but which you can’t really grasp in its enormity until you read about it from a historian’s perspective. From our standpoint, it seems so silly that so many people in government and in society at large would have such bigoted ideas about people who happen to love differently than they do, but it does explain why it is that there are still far too many Americans who would like nothing more than to chase queer people back into the closet. In the era that Johnson documents, the post office was determined to crack down on what it termed “obscenity,” a ridiculously flexible term that allowed them to subject numerous individuals to state persecution.

It’s important to point out, as Johnson does, that this was very frequently a white gay male community. While some magazines did feature men of color, it was far more common for the era’s segregationist ethos to permeate its magazines. It’s actually rather refreshing to see a writer of queer history acknowledge the implicit (and often explicit) racism that has long plagued the LGBT rights movement.

Those with little familiarity with Cold War history, or with queer history, will learn a great deal from Johnson’s book. Though he primarily focuses on physique magazines, he also demonstrates that there were a variety of other print venues in which gay men found expression. There were even book clubs devoted to distributing gay-oriented books to (surprisingly large) numbers of subscribers. If anyone has ever told you that there weren’t gay people when they were young, you can simply brandish the examples that Johnson documents to show them just how wrong they were. Gay people have always existed in America, and it is important to recognize the many ways in which their experience has taken shape.

Johnson’s work does justice to an all-too-often ignored aspect of gay life in Cold War America. Just as importantly, it shows us the ways in which the the actions of Stonewall in 1969 did not emerge from a vacuum. Instead, it was a logical outcome to a gay community that had slowly been taking shape in the years after the end of the World War II and that, in the wake of Stonewall, would finally come into its own.

QSA #2: How Not to Be a Tool on Grindr (Part 1?)

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Hello, darlings. As is my wont, I am here to share some thoughts on Grindr, that app that is at once so repugnant and yet so utterly compelling. In the spirit of my last musing on this subject, I want to offer a few words of advice on how to behave appropriately on Grindr. Here, then, are a few rules to keep in mind as you venture into the world of one of the most popular hookup apps.

Rule #1–Don’t be Needy. I get it; you’re probably on Grindr because you’re lonely and want to reach out to another human body. That’s totally okay. However, if someone doesn’t respond right away, or if they don’t agree to a date right away, DON’T CONTINUE TO HARASS THEM ABOUT IT. I understand the temptation, believe me I do, but it’s because I understand it that I can say without equivocation that it is the surest thing to drive other guys away. (By the way, this whole thing about being needy also applies if you happen to get into a relationship. Learn the boundaries that are acceptable. Your life will be a lot happier. Trust me).

Rule #2–Don’t be Desperate. This may seem like the same thing as Rule #1, but it’s slightly different. Again, if the presumed aim of being on Grindr is to get laid, or at least to attract someone, you definitely don’t want to appear desperate. You may be in the digital world, but that doesn’t mean that people can’t sense that desperation in the ways in which you comport yourself. Now, this doesn’t mean that you have to be an ice queen; it does, however, mean that you have to learn the balance between showing interest and not leaping at every guy that messages you. It’s a hard skill to master (and even I am still working on it), but it’s well worth mastering. I guarantee it will help you to be more desirable, and it will give you more confidence in yourself and your self-worth as well.

Rule #3–Don’t be a Nuisance. Again, this is somewhat similar to the preceding two rules, but there is a certain point at which your persistence becomes irritating. If someone doesn’t respond to you, even if you’ve been messaging for a while, be patient. And if they still don’t respond, then maybe you should take a hint. There’s something to be said for the long-lost arts of patience and subtlety, and I really do think that men respond much better to those than they do pestering and badgering. Remember that not everyone is glued to their phone 24/7 (I know that’s hard to believe), so be patient. Sometimes a good thing really is worth waiting for and even if that one guy you really like doesn’t respond, just remember that there are many other fish in the sea.

So, there you have it. More words of advice for Grindr. It’s a hard world out there (<<see what I did?), but if you really think about what you’re doing on Grindr (and other hookup apps), the experience can be genuinely pleasurable for all the parties.

Happy grinding!

QSA (Queer Service Announcement) #1: 5 Rules for a Better Grindr Photo

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Being on Grindr is, quite possibly, the most horrid experience most gay men can have. There are so many shallow, frankly awful people on there that it often makes me wonder why I (or anyone) bothers with it. And yet I keep returning to it, despite all the things I hate.

Chief among those hates are bad photos. Most of us aren’t professional photographers, but there are still a few things we can do (or don’t) that will help make our collective Grindr experience a little easier to bear.

Rule #1:  Show more than your abs. Yes, we get it. You work out a lot. You have a great body. You clearly want us to fetishize your body and fall over ourselves praising you for going to the gym so often. But some of us often want to see a face, as well, so please, do us a favour and show it. (Oh, and while I’m at it, knock of the pictures of legs. That’s just plain ridiculous).

Rule #2:  DON’T SHOOT A PHOTO FROM BELOW. Just don’t do it. NO ONE looks good shot from below. Even the finest, most chiseled jaw will look flabby and unappealing when shot with your head drawn in like a turtle (which is what almost inevitably happens). Always shoot from above, or have someone take it for you.

Rule #3:  Don’t show scenery. Yes, scenery is great to look at, BUT NOT WHEN WE’RE LOOKING TO ACTUALLY MEET SOMEONE. If, as is usually the case, people are on Grindr to get laid, do you really think they want to see some bullshit picture of a waterfall?  Of course not. What then happens is that we have to have this awkward exchange where I ask for your photo, so just cut out the middle part and post your damn face already.

Rule #4:  Don’t make a goofy face. I don’t know about most people, but I like to have a clear and accurate view of the person I’m trying to hook up with/chat with/go on a date with. Besides, making a goofy face just makes you look like an ass.

Rule #5:  TAKE A GOOD PHOTO. You’d think this would go without saying, but I see literally dozens of shitty photos anytime I pull up the app. People who are bowling, people who are standing so far away from the camera that you can’t see their face, people standing in dim lighting. It’s a selfie, people, not brain surgery. Get it together (or find someone to take the picture for you).

Love them or hate them (I don’t much care which), here are 5 fairly easy rules for making your Grindr photo a little better, both for yourself and those of us who have to look at it.

Happy grinding!

Why Do Gay Men Love Abs?

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If you’ve ever spent a minute on the popular gay hookup app Grindr, you know it’s no secret that gay men love abs.  Scores of shirtless pics jockey for position any time you open the app, each one trying to outdo the others in terms of the amount of abdominal definition on offer. And a casual perusal of any gay porn studio will show a similar fixation, with both studios and stars jockeying to outdo one another with their conspicuous display of their abdominal fortitude.

Gay men, clearly, love abs, and they love men who have them. They are, in fact, one of the hottest commodities in the dating and hookup scenes.  The question is, though, why?

I’ve given this matter a lot of thought, and while I’m always a little cautious about generalizations about gay men, I also think that there are some deeply-rooted reasons why we seem to have a particular penchant (I might even so far as to say an obsession) with both procuring abs and sleeping with/dating a guy who also has them.  At least part of the desire, I suggest, has to do with the area of the body in question.  The stomach, as we all know, is the focal point for questions about health and wellness, not only in terms of fat (it’s the part of the body that often shows it the most, certainly in men), but also in terms of actual food consumption.

Just as importantly, however, to have a stomach that is soft rather than hard speaks to one’s inability to control one’s appetite, and the ability to control one’s bodily appetites has long been associated with the masculine, as opposed to the feminine, which is characterized, as much as by anything else, by an inability to bring those desires under control, to regulate them and channel them appropriately.  To be anything other than ripped and defined, then, is to become unmasculine, to become perhaps the most dreaded thing in contemporary gay male culture:  the feminine. To be soft and feminine is to take a headlong tumble into the world of the gay abject, subject to the ridicule and cruel dismissal of hook-up culture (which is not, as a rule, known for its compassion).

There’s no question that gay men have long had a vexed and often contradictory relationship with masculinity.  It is at once the thing that we desire and the thing that we want to be. There is no object more desired in the world of gay dating than the hot, muscled, masculine top. One need only look at the many hook-up profiles proclaiming something along the lines of “no fats, no femmes” to get a sense of how vitriolic and jaded gay hook-ups (and, if we’re being honest, gay dating) can be in the world of Grindr and other similar apps.

This isn’t to say that any of this always operates on a conscious level (though it does certainly do so at times).  While many gay men make no secret of the their abhorrence for the feminine, many more, I think, have probably so internalized the demands of our culture at large that it becomes almost second nature to disavow any traces of the feminine or the soft.  To be either is to abrogate any claim to be an object of desire (David Halperin has an excellent discussion of this issue in his book How to Be Gay) and, perhaps just as importantly, to slip into those pernicious stereotypes of flaming queens and limp-wristed fruits that were used by mainstream culture to pathologize gay men for much of the 20th Century.

Having a hard, chiseled body, then, becomes a way of proving oneself to the wider world, a means of proving that you have escaped from the chains of those old stereotypes and reached into a new day, when gay men can have all of the attributes (and privileges) of their straight brethren. And to top it all of, by having that body you also become the commodity that everyone is after, and that brings with it its own particular form of power.

The most frightening thing about this whole situation is that even I, with my critical apparatus honed by years in an English graduate program and immersion in queer and feminist theory, still fall prey to the perniciousness of this body ideology.  I constantly scrutinize my own belly, desperately seeking that first set of signs that my abs have finally begun to develop.  It’s not enough, I’ve found, simply to be thin (though a thin and lithe body has its own attractions). You have to be able to show that you’ve put in the time and the effort (and the discipline) to make your body truly splendid and powerful.

In order to truly become the object and the subject of desire that I want to be, my body should (so my indoctrinated self tells me), fall into the molds prescribed by the culture of which I am a part. It really is a daily struggle to start loving my body for what it is, even while wanting to make it better. And it is also a struggle to make better mean healthier, rather than simply look better. Yes, it is nice to have that outward show of having accomplished a fitness goal, but not at the price of losing one’s sense of intrinsic self-worth.

Of course, this isn’t to say that working out and watching what you eat isn’t good. They absolutely are, and we should do both more. It’s just that we should also be aware of the cultural baggage that always accrues around the body, and we shouldn’t let ourselves become so enamoured of a particular body type that we begin to exclude and pathologize those who don’t fall into those very restrictive modes and models. If we can begin to think outside of that scope, I firmly believe that we will all be the happier for it. Now that’s a goal I can get behind.

What We Mean When We Ask “Are You SURE You’re Gay?”

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We’ve all either heard or it said it.  Upon hearing that our gay friend doesn’t like musicals, or has never seen The Golden Girls, or doesn’t like and/or has not heard of Judy Garland, we inevitably ask that unfortunate person, “are you sure you’re gay?”  Now, most of us probably say this in good fun, and most of us are guilty of it (even as we pretend outrage when someone else says it), but the important question is, what do we mean when we ask it?  (Let me be clear at the outset that this post will mainly deal with gay men, as it is that experiential position with which I am most familiar.  I welcome gay women to share their experiences in the comments section).

As with any expression that gets bandied about, it raises a host of questions that have multiplicitous and often contradictory answers.  The simplest answer is this:  when we ask someone if they are sure they are gay, what we are really asking is whether they have been adopted into or trained in the ways of gay culture.  Not whether they, in fact, desire and have sex with men, but whether they have, as it were, learned what it means to be gay, i.e. learned the ropes of what constitutes the gay way of life.

As numerous scholars—including such queer theory luminaries as David Halperin, Alexander Doty, Steven Cohan, and Brett Farmer—have observed, gay men, as a result of their marginal place in 20th (and, to a lesser extent, 21st) Century culture, have developed strategies for appropriating straight mass culture in ways that make it meaningful for them.  These have, typically, included such “gay” staples as Judy Garland and her films, the Hollywood and Broadway musicals, glamorous female stars like Dietrich, Crawford, and Davis (if you don’t know their first names, you might not be, ahem, gay), and female-centered television series such as The Golden Girls and Designing Women.  Though obviously and primarily intended for straight audiences, these texts and personas have become objects of gay male worship, to the extent that liking them has come to be equated with being gay, or at least to having a gay sensibility (after all, there’s no law stating that a perfectly heterosexual man can’t love Judy or Dorothy or Bette as much as a gay man).

“Gay” has, however, come to assume an ever-increasing number of cultural functions and desires, including fashion, design, and all things tasteful.  Again, part of the reason may be that these professions were often relegated—and by this I mean the dominant, patriarchal culture saw it as such—to women or those who, because of their gender performance (not, necessarily, their object choice) failed to live up to the masculine standard.  What better way to make one’s way in a patriarchal/homophobic world than to master those arts that have been denigrated as beneath the notice of the masculinist dominant order?

Of course, all of this has begun to change, as gay men have become increasingly visible and increasingly mainstreamed.  There is a persistent denial of “gayness” within gay male culture, which usually translates, in the world of online dating at least, into:  “Masculine guy here.  No fems or queens.”  Read:  DON’T REALLY BE GAY, ‘CAUSE I’M NOT THAT, DUDE.  I MAY DIG OTHER GUYS, BUT I’M A REAL MAN, NOT A PUSSY FAG.  As has happened numerous times in the past (as David Halperin notes, this was a common sentiment among young gay men in the 1980s), there is a persistent disavowal of femininity in the gay male community, and that usually includes those trappings of gay life that have, for better or worse, usually served as identifiers and signifiers of precisely that collective cultural identity.

All of this is not to suggest that gay men have to do these things.  It is merely to point out that it is and has been a strong current in gay male culture for most of the 20th and, for some, the 21st.  And, more importantly, that we should not forget and should definitely not condemn this way of life as being somehow abhorrent.  Hard as it may be for these “straight acting gays” (and I hope my loathing of that term shines through the quotation marks) to comprehend, there are still those of us who like to sing along to showtunes, worship the ground that Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, and Joan Crawford walk on, and even enjoy Glee and The Golden Girls.  And, believe it or not, some of us also enjoy typically “masculine” pursuits as well.  Hell, some of us even like sports and, gasp, even play them.  And all while singing a line from Chicago and thinking about our nice outfit that we’re going to wear to the theatre, too.

Thus, although it may be offensive/irritating when people ask the pointed question “Are you sure you’re gay?” in many ways the question captures the complexities of contemporary gay identity.  This is not to suggest that gay male subjectivity has not always been complex and contradictory; it is to suggest, as David Halperin does in his recent book How to Be Gay, that there is a cultural initiation.  Perhaps we—and by “we” I mean straight, gay, queer, and everyone else—would be better off accepting the multiplicity and the sheer diversity of lived gay male experience.  Or, at the very least, we should be a little more self-reflexive about what we mean when we ask that most dangerous and irritating (and, let’s face it, most gay) of questions.