So there’s a pretty interesting discussion developing on Self-Made Man over at Alas. I know I have a contractual obligation to comment on the book, but my deep and abiding hatred for Norah Vincent and all her works have thus far prevented me from fulfilling it.
Anyway, for starters, I just wanted to highlight this comment from Q Grrl. Because, well, it’s just a very good comment.
This nice gal’s response was to stick her seven inch heel platform on top of my privates and daringly asked: “Are you saying you don’t want a dance from me!” She successfully broke my spell and my privates responded in something akin to a fight or flight response. My libido suddenly returned.
Oh, what a tender rendition of the social quagmire men find themselves in. You were fine with your libido, you said so repeatedly; you were against the objectification of women, you said so repeatedly. But one word from your brother, one word that castrated your manhood in a way only brothers can do, opened the door to your sexual release through the purchase of a woman’s body.
He called you a PUSSY, didn’t he?
Irony much?
You were so distraught at thinking that other men would put you in the same sexual category as women (i.e, the fucked, not the fucker), that you went against your organic sexual state (low libido) and your explicitly stated morality. And I can only imagine your innocent wonder when your erection blossomed under the dancer’s stilleto. Ah that sweet tight swelling, freeing you through humiliation and moral castration.
Congratulations!
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I saw that. Q grrl is absolutely on the money. This guy says he didn’t want to participate in this act of commodifying sexuality; and the dancer was a traumatized Iraq War vet whose election (“election”?) to do sex work is in the context of a sexually repressive childhood; she admits that she will not dance for guys she considers friends; yet a threat to his self-image got him to participate anyway, and that’s his defense of sex work?!
No kidding, Thomas. For every ten words that loon wrote, two of them were conveying his conscious message, and eight were telling us exactly how self-deluded he is. I would’ve been considerably less polite than Robert was if I had been the one he was misrepresenting. But I guess teachers get used to deal with self-absorbed adolescents who don’t have any self-awareness.
There’s also something else in what Q Grrl wrote that I think about some. She wrote:
I wonder if the fucker/fuckee dichotomy as user/used is getting eroded as more het men engage in receptive anal sex. Sure, it’s not the one magic bullet that brings the whole patriarchy crumbling down. But the obsessive focus of anti-gay conservatives on anal sex and the use of “fucked” as a general negative, that whole constellation of ideas around the idea that to be penetrated sexually is to be debased and powerless .. as more privileged het white men find themselves in that position, are they going to keep uncritically accepting that association? They can’t all be self-identified submissives, right?
Just a thought.
Hmmm, I’m not sure how much that has to do with it. I mean, if a guy had serious issues with thinking getting fucked was equivalent to being weak, chances are he wouldn’t let his girlfriend top him anyway.
I do think that with so many out gay men around, some heterosexual males are getting a little less paranoid about the “submissive” power imbalance in being on bottom because they know more gay people. I mean, there are lots of people who don’t have a family member or a close friend who is gay. But nowadays chances are they have a casual friend, a co-worker, a neighbour, etc, etc. And of course, those people have always been queer, but I think being out to the whole world is something that wasn’t all that common for a long time. There’s been a lot of activism the past few decades and being out has become significantly less dangerous.
Yeah, in small towns and in very macho environments queer people are still liable to be deep in the closet, and thus their straight male friends nad acquaintances won’t know about their sexuality, but a lot of middle-class white heterosexual males live in big cities which have cosmopolitan populations. If you’re mildly homophobic but not totally paranoid about it, then regular exposure to gay male acquaintances and co-workers, plus TV shows like Will & Grace and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (and yeah, I know, both of those shows are very flawed, but at any rate the viewer sees gay men interacting with straight men in a non-predatory manner) and being draqged to “Brokeback Mountain” by their girlfriends may make these guys less freaked out by homosexuality because it’s not that scary anymore.
Most homophobic straight guys seem to be convinced deep down that they are irresistibly attractive and that unless they are actively hostile towards gay men, said men will inevitably attempt to convert them. Oddly enough, there is sometimes an inverse correlation between the physical ugliness or slovenliness of the guy in question and the intensity of that belief. Enough Monday morning water cooler chat with Mike in Accounting and any reasonably perceptive straight guy is going to realize that no, Mike actually has no designs on his ass.
Sorry, forgot to finish my train of thought. Basically, your average middle-class het guy will probably be less freaked out by the idea of the icky gay sex if he interacts with gay men in a casual, non-sexual context on a regular basis. He probably doesn’t want to think closely about the fact that Mike in Accounting has probably taken it up the ass, but if Mike has a picture of his boyfriend on his desk, and brings him to the office Christmas party, the idea that maybe gay men and gay sex aren’t that scary may percolate through.
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