So we learned the other day from that Man Going His Own Way that male violence was, like, totally the fault of evil sexy ladies. Now, from this Men’s Rights Redditor, we learn that homophobia — or at least homophobia directed at gay men — is all the fault of straight women and their desire for macho dudes. Because straight men don’t ever express any sort of hostility towards gay or effeminate men — it’s just those darn ladies!
But, huh, what about all those straight dudes who are always calling other dudes “gay” and, you know, that other word that starts with an “f?”
Well, apparently that’s just playful joshing. No harm, no foul! If anything, it shows how wonderfully tolerant of gayness these guys are. I mean, come on, if you can’t see this, you must be stupid, or something. Or so says this other Men’s Rights Redditor:
They’re just having a little fun. You’re not against fun, are you?
Thanks to the AgainstMen’sRights subreddit for pointing me to these quotes.
IT’S JUST FUN. FUN PLAYFUL FUN. THEY ARE JUST SHARING FUN PLAYFULLY AND FUNLY. NO I HAVE NEVER READ ACT 3 SCENE 2 OF HAMLET WHY DO YOU ASK.
So… Women can’t want sex much because then we’re sluts. We can’t NOT want sex because then we are depriving men of sex. We can’t be anything less than attractive because men need us to look good! We can’t have preferences in what we are attracted to because, not only are woman so shallow, we also cause nonstop problems for both gay and straight men.
Man, woman really can’t win.
That totally explains all the times I, a straight woman, have fallen for gay men.
Except it doesn’t.
Try again.
Why do so many homophobes seem to think gay men = effeminate/feminine men? This assumption persists despite hypermasculine men on covers of gay magazines, hypermasculine men dancing as go-go boys in gay clubs, hypermasculine men modelling in Aussiebum and Abercrombie and Fitch ads, hypermasculine men in the artwork of Tom of Finland… and don’t get me started on the concept of camp, which is arguably another way of expressing masculinity for men who are particularly assured of their sexuality and don’t give a fuck what anyone else thinks…
Of course this goes beyond the MRM but for them this is yet another example of their relentless gender role policing.
… there’s also Gymrat’s claim that he “appears gay”- what the fuck is that supposed to mean? Gay men and women are a diverse bunch and while some may be walking stereotypes, there are many heterosexuals who could also be said to “appear gay”- not least of all the “feminazis” MRAs attack for not looking feminine enough. Again, this is more gender role policing.
Is Gymrat’s “I look too gay” just another variant of “I’m too nice”?
Also, Gymrat maybe should consider that his (real or perceived) homosexual orientation is not the only reason anybody could possibly dislike him.
So their response to real or perceived homophobia in the MRM is “I know you are but what am I?”?
Also, gay bashing was never a thing apparently. All those people were really beat up by women and not the men they claimed in their statements.
Ugh. They cannot be this dense.
Lol, “obtuseness.” Because only intent matters here!
This must be why I have had some wonderful gay male friends.
*Rant Alert*
“When one man calls his friend “gay”, he is playfully asserting his own dominance over his friend.”
Hm, and why is this ‘asserting his dominance’ over the friend he calls gay/ f*g? I guess that associating ‘gay’ with ‘dominated by alpha hetero guy’ totally doesn’t portray any assumption of inferiority.
In my world, ‘subtle’ homophobia is pretty evenly distributed between genders. It seems that aggressive homophobia falls more on (cis hetero) men, but let’s talk about the relationship argument.
Many people assume ‘real lesbians’ don’t exist. All she needs is the right cock, and poof! not a lesbian anymore. Plus, they totally were lesbians to turn the guys on. Interestingly, I know many guys’ little egos that got bruised by their girlfriend leaving them for a woman. Don’t get me wrong, it hurts to be dumped. But the ‘for a woman’ part seems to be the ultimate blow for many men (the opposite is also true for women being dumped for a man).
The opposite is true for men. People, men and women, often assume that if a man has ever had same-sex attractions, he is gay forever. There’s a significant difference in perception, and both are messed up.
On a possibly TMI personal story: my partner and I are both bi (I’m a cis woman, he’s a cis man). It is constantly assumed that I am not really into women, I’m just trying to be hawt for men. My partner is always seen as gay, I have been warned that he will dump me when he fully accepts his homosexuality. As if it would be worse to be dumped for a man than for a woman. *eyeroll*
Our culture doesn’t see lesbians as a ‘thing’. What’s the first thing that pop-up in the media when discussing same sex marriage? Two white guys. Because that’s still what ‘same sex’ means in many people’s head.
Finally, about women loving super hyper masculine guys. I thought MRAs were bitching about the opposite? That women love the ‘metrosexual’ look to shame male sexuality? Not anymore?
I searched for “sexiest man” and these came up:
http://www.last.fm/music/Shane+Harper/+images/54729661
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20669632,00.html
http://www.crushable.com/2012/03/13/entertainment/25-crushable-guys-under-25-for-2012/gallery-page/15/
http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/the-jonas-brothers/images/2696330/title/joe-jonas-wallpaper
Too… much… caveman! Chest hair, grmblblb….POW! (that’s my libido going through the roof because I cannot possibly escape my cavewoman instincts)
Somehow it’s a bit hard to believe that a gay man has NEVER had any trouble whatsoever being accepted by straight men, ONLY trouble being accepted by women… It’s a bit like fundies going “here, let me share my views on da evol homosexuals, although I TOTES HAVE LOTS OF GAY FRIENDS”. Don’t know if American fundies do this, but Swedish fundies do it all the time, like they think the “I TOTES HAVE LOTS OF GAY FRIENDS” part will make people go “Oh, you must really know what you’re talking about then”. Only this is taking it one step further with the “I’m totes gay myself!”.
(Yeah, I know it’s generally bad form to question people’s sexual orientation like that, but this “I’ve never ever experienced any kind of homophobia from men” is just SO weird.)
So “playfully asserting his own dominance over his friend” by implying his superior masculinity is all about acceptance. Who knew?
Yeah, this SO MUCH. I talked about this with a male colleague. We’re both bi, but while I’m usually considered (if it even comes up, nowadays I guess most people just assume I’m a “normal” straight woman since I’ve been in a monogamous marriage for twelve years and in a mono relationship with husband for thirteen years and a half) an extra hawt straight girl, while he’s usually considered actually gay man who for some reason don’t really wanna own up to being gay.
No, it goes like this: Women like to fuck hyper masculine assholes, but they simultaneously like to shame male sexuality because women are EVOL. Plus women also want to marry a less masculine submissive man who’ll support all her shopping sprees, the scented candles etc, while she’s fucking hyper masculine assholes on the side, at least until she gets old and ugly (thirty) when the assholes won’t want her anymore. That’s how it works.
Maude- you beat me to mentioning “metrosexual man”! It seems that MRAs complain about women wanting feminised “metro” men, but also about women wanting masculinised “alpha” men… maybe they think we’re doing this deliberately to confuse them, that we’re lying about what we really want from them as if there’s a secret formula we’re keeping under wraps, and this is why they all claim to know what we really want when none of them seem to have a clue.
Really they should consider the radical notion that- get this- us women are all different and have different preferences! Of course they will never consider this because they don’t want to believe we have sex drives and desires of our own.
Item 0 on the expanded Kinsey scale: “So heterosexual that you think all other heterosexuals should be shot, because they seem a little gay.”
I must have been dreaming up all the women I’ve had sex with after I told them I was actively bisexual. Also, there is no such thing as the “I <3 Yaoi" fetishizing of gay/bi dudes from (some) geeky anime-loving heterosexual women.
Is there some heteronormative bullshit homophobia and biphobia sometimes coming from heterosexual (and the occasional bi) women? Have I seen it when dating, or on OKC? Yes. But in my day to day life, it pales in comparison to the ubiquity of male gender policing.
It takes “advanced cognitive ability” to understand why men call each other gay, and why that’s not homophobic when they do that. Hmm. That’s one way to put it. Another way to put it is that he is rationalizing men’s homophobia away, so that women are always at fault for all homophobia. Oh, but my mistake, only women have a rationalization hamster. He’s just doing some manly reasoning with his manly logic!
Oh THANKS Katz!
I always say there’s a difference between being a) straight, and b) so super-straight that you can’t even grasp the difference (if your male) between Ryan Gosling and Quasimodo – they’re both MALE so how are you, a straight man, supposed to know which one is hotter? – and would rather shoot yourself in the head than make out with someone of the same gender.
My husband is straight, but I’m glad he’s not super-straight. I don’t think I could ever be with someone super-straight.
Also, yes, hetero dude bros are all *very* accepting of lesbians and bisexuals… as long as it’s pornified fantasy and has some odds of resulting in a dude-centered threesome. In my experience though, lesbians get massive backlash for Failure To Cater To Men, and bisexual women tend to often face a lot of sudden insecurity and backlash when they come out to their boyfriends or lovers, even when they were all for bisexuals as long as it remained theoretical/fantasy.
(In fact, being a cynic I feel like most het dudes are turned on by the idea of their gf getting it on with a woman while *having no interest at all in doing it*, and that any hint that the threesome or lesbian encounter would result in pleasure on the part of anyone but The Dude is an immediate No No.)
Don’t most stats show that the majority of women are for gay rights, while only under 50% of men are for them?
Also “asserting dominance” does not sound like play. Were Matthew Shepard’s “friends” just having some fun too?
@ Dvarghundspossen
Oh, I forgot the “EEEVOL women!!1!” factor. I need to keep my MRA theory up to date.
@ Stepford Knife
Finally I’m the ninja-er, not the ninja’ed! 😉
But no, I don’t accept your radical notion that women are individuals. That’s just not what the evo psych scientists over on mr/reddit have been finding. And evo psych explains *all their theories.* (in fact, give me any theory and I can fit it into a pleistocene narrative I pulled out of my ass, no problem. Science!)
#1 The tight relationship between all women and scented candles is due to our hunter gatherer past, when women’s olfactive glands had to be developed to find berries in the forest while the men hunted mammoth for them selfish whores, so the men didn’t give a shit about scented candles and they just bonded over a mammoth roast in the night while the ladies sat on their asses eating berries. It works!
As a bisexual man, I have totally encountered women on the dating scene who were totally freaked out about me having been with dudes. It’s an interesting phenomenon, I think, because across the board, these are intelligent, liberal-leaning people who openly and loudly support things like the rights of transsexuals and gay marriage. Surprisingly to me, the men I dated never seemed to care.
I got some insight when I asked a friend about it who didn’t know I was bi. She loudly asserted Oh my god I would NEVER date a bisexual man!, and then when I told her, she had this look on her face that made it very clear that she never actually expected to ever interact with a bi dude in her entire life. So I think that’s part of it, as people have said: many folks just don’t empathize with someone they never expect to see.
She apologized and has since been a great ally. But I asked her and another friend to explain those initial feelings, and they said two things that were enlightening. One was, “He’ll cheat on you with a man!” (they never said “he’ll leave you,” it was always cheating), which is what people have said before: This idea of men’s sexual power allowing them to take whoever they want.
But the other was, “It’s hard enough competing with all women. I couldn’t take having to compete with all MEN, too!” So (aside from it being a misunderstanding of how bisexuality works) it also ties in to things like women being in competition with one another, with women’s self-esteem and worth being inherent in being “chosen” by a man, with men having the agency.
Huh, sounds a lot like that patriarchy shit that feminists are always complaining about. Why aren’t these guys on our side, again?
Yeah, and that’s why when dudebros talk about how much they love lesbians or bi women, they also mean femme ones only. They are awful to butch women, because they aren’t doing everything to look the part of that pornified fantasy.
All these cases where men has beaten up or murdered gay men just happened because da evol womenz were cheering them along.
@TedtheFed: That kind of reaction explains why bisexual male colleague broached the question of orientation by asking me if I’d ever consider dating a bi man, and I cheerfully answered: “Sure! I already have! And I’m bi too!”. I’ve always considered it, if anything, a PLUS that a date is bi too, since bi men (in my experience at least) seems to have less weird views of bi women than most straight men (I mean, my husband is straight and completely normal about bi:s, but LOTS of straight men really have a fucked-up view on bi women).