Gay Pride as a model of straight male sexual freedom.
Due to the simple fact that our ideas of gender are so deeply tied to heterosexual sex, LGBT individuals have done a much better job of personally advancing past outdated, unnecessary, and unjust gender ideology than a lot of the rest of us have. That progress is not an accident. Along the lengthy, still-continuing journey toward equality for LGBT individuals, there has been arson, assassination, and an abundance of homophobic hate crime. Among the many effects of that great and difficult advance, the progress of the gay community on the front of male sexuality is, to me, the most interesting. And here’s why.
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As far as I can see, for a lot of straight guys, going to a Pride Parade for the first time is probably really weird. And, I’m going to put myself in this category. I went to my first Pride Parade a few weeks ago, and it was unusual, to say the least. Believe me, I loved it, for a whole host of reasons, but it was a little weird at first.
That is because it’s likely the first time we’ve ever seen that much open, unbounded, diverse male sexuality on display in one place. A good portion of the male sexuality on display at Pride is demonstrative and purposefully designed to be looked at. Soaking wet men twerk, shake, and dance in speedos. Well-built, sculpted guys pose on the top of floats. Other men show off tight, flamboyant costumes.
This sort of flaunted, attention-focused exuality is something that you just don’t see from straight guys. Straight male sexuality is all over the place, of course, but, despite its cultural dominance, it tends to be more functional and subdued. Men are conventionally seen as always desiring and working toward sex, and frequently even understood as controlled by their sex drive (Hugo Schwyzer calls this ‘The Myth of Male Weakness’). They are thought to be more focused on the acquisition of sex than the possession of sexiness. A good deal of pick-up-artistry is based on this premise, encouraging men to fine-tune their “approach,” and their “openers”. Straight, patriarchal male sexuality is all about getting sex.
Why is that? Why are we told to be, and seen, as always initiating and going after sex, often aggressively and obsessively? It does not need to be this way. There are a wealth of new studies demonstrating that such a strong sex drive is not inherently tied to masculinity. To explain, like so many of our ideas surrounding gender, this understanding of male sexuality is rooted in a long history of multi-faceted male control, and developed along with a tandem view of female sexuality. Women are traditionally thought to be “passive”, dressing and acting sexy, “in order to gain a man’s attention,” so that he can be the one to initiate and seek some form of sexual involvement.
This comprehensive concept of straight sexuality, where men pursue and women acquiesce, is not as monolithic as it once was, but it’s boundaries are still enforced. Men who focus on their looks, thus ignoring the expectation that they should be gazing, rather than concerned with being gazed at, are criticized for their lack of manhood through homophobic and sexist slurs, or they are derisively called ‘metrosexual.’ Women who are too aggressive in their pursuit of sex are frequently called sluts, whores, sex freaks, or seen as desperate.
Through campaigns for more reproductive freedom and efforts against slut-shaming, the Feminist movement has done a good job attacking the idea that female sexuality should be passive. And in their efforts to end sexual assault and domestic violence, they have succeeded in identifying the awfully negative effects of dominant male sexuality. However, whereas many women have used that progress to experience greater sexual freedom, we straight men haven’t realized any of the gains that such a critical understanding of our own sexuality could grant us.
That is what makes Pride Parades so very interesting and special to me. So many male members of the gay community have come to realize some of those gains, in a way that very few of straight guys have. At Pride, there is no stigma surrounding men who attempt to look handsome and sexy, or work to gain sexual attention. But of equal importance, there is no mandate that sexuality be lived in this specific way. There is a range of male sexuality at Pride, with gay men, proud as ever, dressed simply in collared shirts and jeans. just as there are men cross-dressing and showing off light bondage gear. On the topic of male sexuality, the point of Pride is this: our sexuality can, and should, be heterogenous, as open to personal interpretation and expression as any other area of our existence.
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We do not need to be dominant. We do not need to be always initiating. We do not need to be the pursuers or the pick-uppers. We can be as passive as we want to. Our sex drive does not lord over us. And, we should reasonably enjoy, rather than fear it as ‘un-manly’, any effort toward increased sexiness and individual beauty.
The way that we present and live our sexuality is not deterministic, and it does not need to be eternal. It should be flexible and open for each and every one of us straight guys. And, the great diversity of male sexuality at Pride, some of it flamboyant and some of it subdued, some of it alternative and some of it gender-bending, is a beautiful and wondrous example of the sexual liberty that I hope we might all come to know one day.
Image ViaKey Foster/flickr
For more on male sexuality: Loosening up on Looks and Moving Beyond Status
For more on masculinity and homophobia: Ending Anxiety with Solid Shields and Open Vents