Gay Male Culture Is HARSH From What I Can Tell

angryqueerisangry:

thepeacockangel:

bmoiz:

unduplicated:

endracismandhomophobia:

thepeacockangel:

From what my brother tells me, everyone’s always throwing each other under the bus (and all other queers, esp people of colour, esp. the poor, esp. trans folks) and there’s this whole “LET’S PICK ON THE FAGGOT” ethos that people learned from being bullied in school, so even though you go to the gym three times a day and spray tan and do honey masks, you feel entitled to pick on the guy in a baby tee or the guy who’s just a little too camp.

And no one can ever be vulnerable ever, and the verbal barb slinging that started out as a defense mechanism against the outside world pervades and so no one ever gets to just be emotionally vulnerable, and there are all these dudes being like “Yeah, we’re just two straight dudes, hanging out and eating pizza and playing video games and having sex with each other” as the ideal relationship, except  no they’re still ordering salads with no dressing, and saying shit like “I just cannot deal with picking out a colour for the trim right now” and it’s so hypocritical and sad that in a culture that’s supposed to embrace breaking out of gender roles, that’s supposed to be all about “fuck patriarchal masculinity” it’s enforced as hard or harder than anywhere else, and all these dudes are throwing other gay dudes under the bus trying to grab a sliver of straight privilege, with “I’m not like other gays” nonsense.

People are three dimensional human beings, and yes it’s absolutely fine to play super smash bros with your boyfriend with mud packs on your faces and hair masque in your hair, that’s really sweet, but don’r do the bullshitty “we’re not really gay cause we’re just two dudes hangin’ out” thing.

And there’s all this really barbed humour that’s almost vulnerable but not, like one of my brothers friends announced to a party “I talked to my step father about being gay for the first time” and the room goes quiet and he’s like “He asked me how the gay scene is at RISD, and I was like it sssssuckssssssssss”

Which is painfully sad if you think about it, it’s a joke only a very vulnerable young man, who feels he can’t be emotionally open with anyone would tell (there are many similar ones) and it just makes me sad.

Because I see my little brother, who’s smart, and sweet under the extremely bitchy shell, and profoundly, profoundly emotionally vulnerable not able to let anyone in, in the same way SO many men are never allowed to let anyone in because of the stupid bullshit ideas we have about what men are supposed to be like, and he talks and jokes around the issue, and it just breaks my fucking heart.

100% on the money, cutting right to the cause.

I AM SHEDDING FUCKING TEARS. THIS IS BEAUTIFUL. YESSSSSSS!!!

This was an amazing read and I’m glad someone wrote it. ❤

Gay culture isn’t a monolithic bloc so please can people stop pretending the gay hivemind exists. We’re not about embracing break out gender roles, please stop putting that onto us. Masculine worship comes from a deeply held internal oppression, a reflection of heterosexist society’s demands on an oppressed community. Chastising people who strive to conform to straight societies rules deepens that oppression and their rejection from Queer society for their non-conformity to Queer gender expectations places them in a destructive limbo between two opposing forces, neither of which wish to accept them

Emotional vulnerability isn’t celebrated because all LGBT people are extremely vulnerable, and we don’t have to be weeping constantly for anyone else. The barbed humour is rightly identified as a coping mechanisim, and you know what, if someone doesn’t want to tell a whole room of people his emotional state, then that isn’t for you or anyone else to question. It’s not painfully sad, it’s just someone not doing what you want him to do. You’re brother might be emotionally vulnerable, and maybe his bitchiness is his way of dealing with it and who are you to tell him to cry for you

It comes across to me that an idealised vision of gay culture isn’t being realised for the OP and it’s distressing for them because it validates them. Gay male culture is not the plaything of Queer activists, and it shouldn’t be demanded of us to be how you want because it would please you

This text is problematic and oppressive in many ways

This is a personal post about my brother, it was reblogged by a bunch of people, who if they relate, they relate, but it’s about my brother, who is an amazing kid.  Who’s smart and funny and sharp as a tack.  He’s three years younger than me, and I am extremely protective of him.  We’re very close, and I know my brother’s in pain, he talks to me about it, and about feeling like he can’t talk to his friends, he talks about feeling betrayed by a culture that’s supposed to protect him and boys like him, that’s supposed to be different from being ostracized in middle school.  

I am not a queer activist trying to shame other queers for their coping mechanisms (I’m queer as fuck too if that wasn’t clear, genderfluid, feminine oriented) unless those coping mechanisms are throwing my baby brother under the bus, because throwing boys like my baby brother under the bus is fucking shitty, and oppressive, because excluding a gay man from gay culture for being too fucking  gay, is FUCKING bullshit.  I don’t demand anyone cry on cue for me, I just want someone to act like they give a rat’s ass about the amazing kid in a lot of pain, who feels like he can’t talk to anybody because of bullshit expectations about masculinity.  I want someone to say something, anything to his friend who’s always on the aggressive, so emotionally cut off he’s never had a boyfriend, who’s always joking about “wanting to die at twenty nine” to prevent him from dying at twenty nine.  I want someone, ANYONE to do something when they see someone who hurts that much, instead of pulling out some damned snarky remark.

Ostracizing my brother for his pain is not a fair coping mechanism, not a fair way to treat someone who’s been ostracized all his fucking life.

Guys who want to pull a fucking Ernst Röhm and be the only queer left by siding with the oppressor against everyone else in the community can go fuck themselves, 

Yeah, fucking forgive me for feeling protective of the kid I was the only one with the presence of mind to give the “safe gay sex” talk to, because my dad was too fucking traumatized by his best friend dying of AIDS in the 80s to do it.

If stepping on, excluding and mistreating vulnerable, young men, who are vulnerable for the same reason you are is you’re coping mechanism, well then I don’t accept your fucking strategy for coping with oppression.

I mean it’s no worse than the way men’s emotions are treated in other groups, but the effect is worse on boys who’ve been marginalized

Tl;dr: So apparently it’s oppressive to call people out for treating my kid brother badly for not being “straight acting” but it’s not oppressive for people treat him badly for not being straight acting. Uh-huuuuuh

I’m an atheist, but AMEN TO THAT. You’re original post was awesome, it’s definitely something that needs saying, it’s definitely one of the most pressing issues in ‘gay culture’ today, and I utterly reject the criticism made of you above by “bmoiz”. The only thing wrong with what you had to say was the fact that you felt the need to write so many words defending what you shouldn’t have had to defend. You rock, and the queer naysayers who want to pull everything apart and who have absolutely nothing constructive to offer in doing so can STFD, STFU, or GTFO.