I am a man who likes men.
I find this fact about myself extremely insignificant in the grand scheme of my life. I find the environmental work that I do and my goals of working in community development much more important than my sexuality. I can’t speak for every gay male because, believe it or not, we are all different. We have different value structures, upbringings and interests, and we are all products of the varied cultures into which we were born. But even though this idea of innate uniqueness seems to be common sense and in no need of debate, a very specific label has been put on gay people collectively that in no way defines what it means to be a gay man in the United States.
We aren’t all effeminate. We don’t all enjoy pop music. Every gay man in America didn’t squeal “Yaaaaaas” after the self-proclaimed “Queen” of the gays, Lady Gaga, belted a medley of Sound of Music songs at the Oscars (I loved that performance, but she is a great example of gay stereotyping).
I am not saying that these characteristics are in any way negative, but I am saying that their association to every gay man is unfair and often offensive.
Many of us love the outdoors, like to go hunting, listen to alternative music, have no idea what’s popular on Tumblr and have never watched a single episode of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” in our lives. When I was growing up, I felt a profound disconnect between myself and other gay males. The only places a Mississippi boy could learn about gay culture in America are television and the media.
Whether looking at the dark and conniving Thomas in Downton Abbey or the sensitive and stylish Kurt in Glee, gay males have been misrepresented through a variety of stereotypes that have educated the media-hungry people of this country about what it means to be gay.
I understand how these stereotypes came to be, which makes the current state of gay culture even more frustrating. As homosexuality became more widely accepted over the past twenty years, all of the pent up frustrations of gay people not being able to live out who they are for so long ruptured and millions of gay people began to search for their identity openly. The media was able to utilize this fundamental change in what was socially acceptable and helped push the movement by providing the archetypes necessary to typify, normalize and sell a people that most Americans knew (and know) nothing about. As the media took it upon itself to define us, our search for individual identities was hindered, and we began to embody and embrace the culture that was fed to us.
Disco music, fashion, mannerisms, show tunes, lisps and promiscuity don’t typify me or most of the gay men that I know, and we generally don’t appreciate being associated with things with which we can’t identify. But as generations of gay people all attempt to simply exist in a world that is just now beginning to accept them, strict definitions ingrained in the worldviews of every media connoisseur have negatively affected gay peoples’ ability to self-actualize.
Again, I don’t believe that identifying with any or all of the things that I labeled here as stereotypically “gay” to be negative or positive. I think that they are simply personality traits and should be treated as such on an individual basis. I write this not with the intention of fueling a splintering of the gay male population in terms of identity, but to put into words how myself and so many others have felt about having our identity chosen for us.
We all fall prey to stereotyping and to treating people differently than we would those who we consider to be our equals. We all see some people differently due the inevitable labels that society places on us. But no matter if you are heterosexual or gay, black or white, male or female, labels can’t even begin to outline the intricacies in every individual’s personality.
I am a man who likes men, and there are obviously other men who like men. This fact about myself and about the rest of us is true, but it has no bearing on what our interests are and what kind of people we are. Get to know a few of us and see how beautifully different we are from one another. Placing us in a box and acting as if we are clones may allow you to keep your personal worldview, but it also makes your worldview incongruent with reality.
Alex Borst is a sophomore international studies major from Madison.
