Two recent articles about gay men and masculinity offer a hand-in-hand snapshot of us gays and our masculinity. Yes, we are still talking about gay men and masculinity. It’s forever 1991 for some of us.
In the wordy and over-wrought Bay Area Reporter article, where “Pyrrhic” and “aversion to male love” and “standard of brotherhood” are used far too liberally, Brendan Tapley writes:
Indeed the reinvention of masculinity ends with what some might see as a Pyrrhic victory – the extinction of masculinity’s excuses, its low expectations. Because renegotiating the male contract will strip from us the straitjacket whose limitations we men may uncomfortably but willingly wear.
Not only will a new masculinity free us from our straitjackets, it will also, according to the NY Post, make gaydar a whole lot less effective:
If your gaydar’s been acting up lately or seems to be in need of a tweak, you’re not alone.
“Gay men are butcher than they used to be, and straight men aren’t as inclined to butch it up as much,” says Ross von Metzke, editor of Advocate.com.. . . “I think [straight] guys are genuinely interested in hanging out with gay people,” von Metzke says. “As society evolves, people are much less inclined to be weird about it.”
Less weird is great, but this man-on-man convergence has made our conventional gaydar obsolete. Have you ever tried asking a guy if he’s straight? I have. It’s awkward.
RIP, gaydar, we’ll miss how you kept us from winking at the other team.
Lesson? As masculinity changes, the more we embrace the brotherhood of man, which means that men will want to grope each other more and more, until no one will care who’s gay.
Cheers to masculinity! Who knew it was so flexible?
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