Homophobia and self-hating straights

One of the most common complaints made by gay men is how we are stereotyped as either sex maniacs or effeminate cross-dressers. Look at how many of us are bankers, lawyers, computer professionals or military commanders, they say. Or taxi-drivers, house-painters and hawkers, they don't say. And how many too are faithful to their lovers.

Yes, but it's a question of visibility, as many of my friends will point out. If the bankers, taxi-drivers etc would only be visible as gay men, then the public's perception will shift. They are right, but I wonder if that is all there is to that. I am going to explore the possibility, in this essay, that prejudice against gay people go well beyond ignorance. Please bear in mind that nothing that I say below is new -- these theories have been circulating among academic circles for years -- nor are they firmly established facts. But they are worth thinking about.

All minorities are defined by the one or few ways by which they are different. However, on top of that, there is also the question of perception. Sikhs are defined by their adherence to their Punjabi-Sikh culture and their religion, but the word 'Sikh' conjures in the mind their turbans, their lusty manhood and (if you are old enough to remember) their occupation as night-watchmen.

Accountants are people of that profession, but often we hear others describe them as bean-counters who "know the value of everything and the worth of nothing!"

In the case of gay men, the essence of our difference is that we are erotically and romantically attracted to others of the same sex. We are seen however as swishy queens, sex maniacs or immoral perverts performing disgusting and subversive acts.

In most cases, people can distinguish between the matter-of-fact definition and the hyperbolic imagery that they hold, of any minority. People can tell you calmly how they would define a Sikh or an accountant. They will also be able to comment, even laugh, at how potentially false, or touchingly funny, their stereotyped views are.

Very, very few can make similar distinctions when they speak of homosexuality, and I do not think that greater visibility will completely solve the problem, though it will go some distance. When they know of homosexual sons, cousins, nephews, colleagues and community leaders, they may stop immediately associating the idea of homosexuality with effeminate queens and sex maniacs, but I wonder whether they may still consider it perverse, disgusting and subversive. I believe the reason for this is that sex and gender roles are emotionally tangled topics, and to the extent that our existence challenges habits or conventions, we are seen as threatening. The response of the majority will unsurprisingly be defensive and antagonistic.

Why are sex and gender roles such emotionally tangled topics in the first place?

Because they are artificial. More than that, they are created out of massive repression of huge parts of the normal human psyche. The resulting notions of straight masculinity or femininity are always unstable. Boys have to be taught to be straight men, and girls taught to be straight women. It is not natural.

Oh, the erotic attraction to the opposite sex may be natural for the heterosexual person, but everything else about their identity, I would say, is not. Boys are taught not to cry, not to be sissy, to bear pain 'like a man', to be a responsible breadwinner, to eschew physical warmth and contact, even handholding, with another male. Girls are taught to be demure, to be deferential to the males (think of how widespread it is for males to interrupt females in conversation, but not the other way around), to hone their guile in order to win and keep their man and to be self-sacrificing care-givers.

You think it's far-fetched that gender roles are artificial? Well, ask yourself this: why do so many cultures search neurotically for 'role models'? Why do school heads wring their hands over an imbalance of women and men teachers?

In the process of growing up, a person's natural spontaneity in emotions and expression is leashed, leaving behind a tightly-wound role-conscious straight adult. And a very insecure one.

The whole idea of homosexuality spits at this imprisonment in gender roles. The thought that some males go to bed with other males subconsciously undermines everything they have painfully learnt about being male (or female for that matter). Prerogatives and social standing are at stake. Their whole identity is thrown into question. No wonder then they react defensively to us. And it is a defensive reaction, as seen by the tendency to fall back on quoted authority, e.g. religious texts; to make appeals to the 'natural order' (despite the opposing empirical evidence); to rattle fears of social anarchy. There is over-reliance on words like 'wrong', 'unnatural', 'filthy' and 'disgusting'. Notice how subjective these terms are? The reaction is not a rational one; there are hardly any intellectually rigorous and objective arguments among the homophobes. What we hear instead are the lashing scowls of chained beasts.

Yet therein lies the problem for homosexual people. So long as society is constructed in a heterosexist model, with distinct male roles and female roles, every generation will have to undergo this gender shaping trauma. Every generation will produce insecure adults with a psycho-history of emotional repression, and many people in every generation will find us intolerably provocative.

Thus the hate we suffer has its roots in more than just how we are perceived, but also how they perceive themselves. The hets who hate themselves may be redirecting that hate onto us.

© Yawning Bread 

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