The appearance of distinctly gay masculinities came in the wake of advances made by the homosexual liberation movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Its successor, gay liberation, was less defensive than the earlier homosexual activism and had considerable success in wresting definitions of same-sex sexuality out of the hands of the medical and psychiatric professions. The term ‘gay’ was widely adopted in Western countries in part because it did not have the medical associations of homosexual and neither did it carry the stigma of gender non-conformity associated with words such as ‘queer’, ‘pansy’ or ‘fairy’. To be gay no longer automatically implied or demanded rejection of many elements of conventional masculinities. Gay male relationships also underwent changes and became increasingly egalitarian rather than organised around differences of age, class or gender roles.
One of the earliest and most visible forms of gay masculinity was the clone style of the 1970s consisting of short hair, a moustache or short beard, tight jeans to emphasise the bottom and crotch, a heavy belt, working men’s boots, and a flannel shirt or tightly fitting Tshirt to emphasise the chest and arms (Levine 1988). The rejection of femininity also extended to sexual behaviour which did not always have to conform to a model based on gendered roles of active top or passive bottom. The latter role was masculinised in phrases like ‘Take it like a man!’ Yet, despite its initial visibility, the clone style was never more than one expression of gay masculinity and nowadays is largely confine d to No America and older gay men. In terms of appearance and style, gay masculinities today display at least as much variation as heterosexual masculinities (Cole 2000).
A major difference between earlier homosexual masculinities and gay masculinities lay in the insistence on the need to ‘come out’ as gay. This entailed openly stating and embracing a core sexual identity based on same-sex attraction. The existence of urban commercial infrastructure also made it possible to come out into a social milieu. In most larger Western cities, white, gay-identified men enjoy access to a wide range of organisations such as gay bikers, clubs for leather and fetish devotees, and sports clubs, through to gay hikers and ramblers to opera lovers, devotees of drag, and literary groups. These cater to most tastes and many are less concerned with emphasising conventional masculinity.
Given that gay masculinities are associated with urban centres and commercial entertainment, the inaccurate assumption that gay men are all hedonistic and wealthy has been encouraged. The increasing visibility of gay men and their concentration in larger cities to specific neighbourhoods—especially but not exclusively in North America—also encouraged the view that gay men (and lesbians) constitute a distinct minority. The minoritarian view has also been promoted by opponents of gay rights who exaggerate the distinction between a gay minority and heterosexual majority.
The vulnerability of a minority definition became apparent with the onslaught of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. If gay men constitute a clearly defined minority, then a disease that affected them disproportionately was not perceived as a threat to the heterosexual population and some governments were slow to respond to the threat that HIV posed. Because gay masculinities were built first and foremost on a sexual identity, HIV struck at the very core of that identity. Yet, however devastating the impact of AIDS, the response to it from within the gay male community, including political protests and mobilisation, safe-sex campaigns and voluntary support groups, showed that gay male communities were more resilient than purely commercial sexual subcultures.
Just what kinds of masculinity ought to be encouraged within the gay community is the object of considerable discussion. There has long been a tension within gay male cultures between the emphasis on masculinity and sexuality (evident in the clone style) and the equation of gay men with a ‘feminine’ interest in consumption, fashion and taste that distinguishes them from heterosexual men, an equation that the commercial urban gay scene has done much to reinforce. The latter stereotype has recently been revived in the pervasive media image of the gay consumer and the belief among advertisers and business that a distinct and wealthy gay male consumer niche exists in urban centres (Chasin 2000).
Yet there has long been dissatisfaction with the more consumerist aspects of urban gay male culture. Young urban professionals with disposable incomes are the targets of many gay male publications. Indeed, class differences have always marked gay masculinities as with all other masculinities. Differences in wealth determine access to commercial venues and also which parts of the gay scene, and which of the gay masculinities found there, are most attractive and accessible. For example, the skinhead style in the UK (with or without right-wing ideological baggage) has existed since the 1960s, but became very visible in the 1980s. More recently in the UK the ‘scally’ style, based on the eroticisation of sportswear and training clothes and its emphasis on tough working-class masculinity, has also emerged. Such styles can be seen as protests, or at least alternatives, to the more commercial and consumer-oriented sectors of the gay urban scene.
Gay critics have also pointed to the marginalisation of feminine men within gay subcultures that began in the 1970s as part of the reaction against the feminine stereotype of the male homosexual. Other men object to the almost exclusive focus on youth and physical beauty in many gay publications and to the segregation along racial and ethnic lines that is noticeable in some countries and cities. (For a variety of critical opinions, see Simpson 1996.)
Politically conservative gay men have criticised what they see as the overemphasis on the sexuality of gay men who, they argue, are basically no different from their heterosexual counterparts except in the gender of their sexual object choice. By placing less emphasis on sex, they argue that an assimilationist strategy is possible and desirable (e.g. Bawer 1993). More recently, the demand for gay marriage has highlighted the division among gay men between those who see it as a fundamental and necessary right and those who view it as succumbing to heterosexist demands for sexual conformity. It is dissatisfaction with the more assimilationist position that partly underlies the appearance of queer masculinities among younger men.
As these debates have proceeded in Western countries, the term ‘gay’ has spread to other parts of the world where its key assumptions that sexual identity and sexual behaviour coincide and its status as a ‘modern’ and more ‘advanced’ form of sexual identity have been variously embraced, reworked or challenged (Manalansan 20003; Binnie 2004).
The divisions that exist between gay men in Western countries clearly reflect social cleavages and forms of inequality that affect all men regardless of their sexual orientation. The debates surrounding them also point to the dynamism of gay masculinities. The development of gay male subcultures has been rapid and all the indications are that the proliferation of gay masculinities is likely to continue. One consequence is that the boundaries between young gay men and their heterosexual peers in terms of fashion, tastes and consumer behaviour, and socialising are becoming increasingly blurred, even if they have by no means disappeared entirely.
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