April 2004

Homophobia as a crisis in masculinity

    

  

 
I thought the Question and Answer session at the NUSS forum of 29 March [See my paper on Legislating sexual behaviour: should the State be in our bedrooms?] somewhat disappointing. I seldom have high hopes for Q&A sessions as Singaporeans tend to prefer to keep to themselves, so this was really quite par for the course.

 

It was disappointing in that the one person who seemed ready to stand up to ask something got off onto the wrong track and thereafter, the Q&A never quite dealt with the subject at hand. 

His main point was that there were good reasons for keeping the sodomy law, and chief among these reasons was this (and I shall paraphrase his points here): 

That one of the most painful things that can happen to a man is if something went up his anus. The excruciating pain deserves the highest penalties the justice system can mete out.  

He can understand if it is between consenting adults, but what if someone forced himself on you? 

As a father, he wouldn't want his son to be a victim should he be walking down the street in a gay district, such as they have in the West, and some stranger did "it" to him. 

Therefore, it is important to keep such a law on the books. 

His point was rebutted by both Michael Hor and myself. It was easy to do so, for what he was describing was really rape, not homosexuality, nor even the essential purpose of the sodomy law as it was first construed, which was in defence of Christian morality. 

Then he stood up again and said, in response to our point about the distinction between rape (which was outside the scope of the forum) and consensual homosex, that sometimes it is difficult to know whether the act was consensual or not, so it's better to keep the law on the books to cover all instances of the act. 

I really don't have to elaborate on what would be the reply to that. I'm sure my readers are more than able to see the absurdity and injustice of taking such a position. 

But the point of this essay is: don't get sucked into this kind of minutiae. Stand back and look at what was happening, and you'll notice something interesting.  

* * * * *

After two speakers had dealt with the legal and intellectual arguments concerning the appropriateness or not of the State trying to regulate private consensual behaviour, which was the subject of the forum, this Q&A question was really from a different universe. 

He was enunciating a private nightmare - that someone would do "it" to him.  

The fact that he opened by saying it is one of the most painful things that can happen to a man was equally revealing. Of course it isn't, and you don't have to experience anal sex to know that. A bit of cool-headed reflection will lead you to any number of more painful scenarios, e.g. a bullet wound, an amputated arm, cancer of the bone. Furthermore, doctors sometimes have to palpate the rectum when looking for signs of disease - they stick their fingers in. Has anybody heard of giving the patient anaesthesia when palpation is needed? 

He might not have realized it, but he was really transferring psychological pain into this remark about physical pain. He was unknowingly referring to the psychological pain of emasculation.  

Likewise, the reference to a "son" was also a transfer. He was subconsciously referring to himself as potential victim. 

You would also have noticed how narrow was the example he used to represent his argument that the State should continue to prohibit certain kinds of sexual behaviour. He was referring only 

  • to anal sex (not any other kind of outlawed non-normative sex), 

  • to being the penetratee (not the penetrator), 

  • to men (leaving out women from his scenario), and 

  • to non-consensual situations. 

It's as if the horror of it was so great, there was neither need nor mental capacity to consider the broader issue of homosexuality, oral sex, etc. 

The reality of course is vastly different. The scenario he painted -- male rape -- is rare, unless we're talking about lawless countries, in which case rape of women would also be out of control. And many gay men, and most gay women, do not fancy anal sex. Despite the nightmares of fear-struck straight males, anal sex is not a representative icon of homosexuality. 

But it is an icon of straight males' fear of losing their dominance. What we are seeing is an example of the crisis of masculinity. Straight men have lost legal and customary control of their womenfolk; they've lost the right to reserve priviledges to themselves at the expense of women. It's not even legitimate anymore to blame women for the men's loss of status. So the sense of threat is transferred instead onto the next blame-able group: gay men. And what is more graphic than to picture yourself as a victim of male rape, where your very masculinity is humiliatingly screwed to submission?

It is important to know this aspect of the threatened male psyche. Seeing it, we realize that intellectual arguments make little headway against irrational fear. Only coming out does. When straight males find themselves living, working and socializing amid gay males and being none the worse for it, that is when the fear finally subsides.

© Yawning Bread 

 

2 April 2004
The Age (Melbourne, Australia)

Here is the real masculinity crisis 

Behind the arguments of Latham and Howard lie sexism and homophobia, writes Brian Greig.

What is this "crisis of masculinity" we keep hearing so much about, and where do we locate it? 

Mark Latham says it's about single-parent families, and you find it where boys grow up without dads. John Howard says it's about same-sex couples adopting children, and you find it with lesbians raising sons. The Catholic Church says it's about an abundance of women teachers, and you find it in classrooms without male role models. 

Scratch the surface of these arguments, and what you really find is good old-fashioned sexism and homophobia. 

The unstated concern about boys being raised by single mums, living in lesbian households and taught by female teachers, is the notion that this produces an "effeminisation" of males, and the fear it may lead to homosexuality itself. The myth of the "overbearing mother and distant father" as the cause of male homosexuality is alive and well. 

Thus, the "crisis in masculinity" is little more than a diversionary debate that hides what more properly might be regarded as the real crisis of masculinity. That is, many men's general anxiety about homosexuality and discomfort with female authority. 

Neither Howard nor Latham have expressed any concern about girls being raised by dads or girls not having a balance of male teachers in the classroom. Neither Howard nor Latham has expressed any concern about the glass ceiling for women in the workplace, nor the low numbers of women found in areas such as science, engineering or politics. The Catholic Church sees no hypocrisy in having only male popes and refusing women into the priesthood. 

Role models, it seems, are only important for males.

[the article continues...]

 

Footnotes

  1. See also Russell Heng's Notes on the NUSS forum, and a report by the Associated Press.

 

Addenda

None