Be yourself

Reading Between the Lines yesterday, beyond the article about the United Methodist Church and a discussion with the bishop of Michigan, I came across a little blurb about the documentary Making Masculine. Knowing that a great deal of what is wrong in the world is a result of toxic masculinity I thought this would be a good one to see.

But there was a problem – it was being shown on the Oakland University campus at noon on Saturday. It takes me 45 minutes to get there. Now, I would go that far for an interesting reason, but alternatives should be explored.

I found the alternative. The movie is online on the streaming service Vimeo. Paying $3 to watch it at home (where I could take notes) was better than driving all that way. I didn’t get the panel discussion with the filmmaker, but I did get to see the short “making of” video.

The movie is a discussion with three people. We see Nicholas Swatz, the filmmaker who turns the camera on himself. He is a gay man. Justin is also gay. The third one is Dakota, a drag queen. We see her only in drag. There are a few occasions where psychologist Farah Ali has a few words.

Swatz made the film to start a discussion about masculinity in the gay world. Towards the end he says the same issue plays out in the straight world. So the discussion isn’t as broad as I had hoped. Even so, it is important.

The film begins with little text blocks supposedly from gay dating apps. Barely into a conversation and one of the men says “no fems.” The movie will delve into that later.

But on the surface: There is fear among gay men about appearing too feminine because of the culture’s emphasis on masculinity. So we’ll start the exploration there.

And we start with some examples. A man complementing another man is seen as a threat to masculinity. But a woman can complement another woman. Men are insulted by being compared to a girl. Parents interact differently with male and female children. Boys don’t have flexibility with what toys they play with. When a boy plays with feminine stuff dad and mom will yell at him.

Our country is rooted in religion. Many religion have prohibitions on homosexuality. The movie included excerpts of sermons in which pastors urged parents to come down hard on any hint of femininity in their boys.

Dakota said she grew up religious. I think I remember Nicholas saying the same. Both of them prayed hard not to be gay. It didn’t work.

Justin tried not to act gay. He didn’t want people to immediately see him as gay.

Nicholas doesn’t like a lot of things about himself – his voice is to high, he’s too skinny and too small. He doesn’t like those things because lots of people would say they don’t like those things about him. He doesn’t have to come come out – he looks gay. It took him a while to see that as an advantage.

Dakota said that coming out is an obnoxious thing LGBT people have to do – they have to declare themselves not to be normal.

Dakota also said that gay men do something called splitting. They show three different people to the world – one for the gay bar, one for the family, and one for work. They learn how to be chameleons. In the gay man’s mind there’s nothing wrong with that, they’re not lying. For example, Dakota has a corporate job and wears suits at work. No one at his office would know he does drag. But it takes effort to be three different people.

Justin doesn’t want to be associated with the word effeminate. He has a masculine body and wants to be seen as that. Yet he has an effeminate manner. So people know he’s gay. And when people are surprised he’s gay he is pleased. But that pleasure is troubling. He doesn’t want to care that people see him as effeminate.

Nicholas says he pulls back his feminine side when with other men so they don’t feel comfortable. But why should he care? He’s being himself.

The psychologist says it is exhausting to try to fit in. A person who is outside what is considered normal gets a lot of feedback from others about not fitting in or fitting the norm. That feedback can lead to anxiety and depression.

A quote from the movie: “Femmephobia is rife within the LGBT community, usually as a form of respectability politics in which effeminate, twink, camp, etc., men are held as responsible for the ‘bad’ image of the gay rights movement.” We masculine gay men would fit into the wider world much better if it wasn’t for these feminine gay men.

Back to those dating apps. Dakota says declaring “no fems” is writing off people before meeting them. That is marginalizing them. It can mean missing out on a partner who matches all other traits you might be looking for.

Nicholas adds that a person who says “no fems” can justify it by saying it’s called as a preference – I’m gay… I’m attracted to men. But that can be taken to an extreme. It is also meaningless because everyone has their own definition of masculine. This comes from not being comfortable in your sexuality. You don’t want to be the token gay best friend. Or it makes our community look bad. Or it is the idea the feminine equals bad or weak.

Justin wants a partner that embraces both sides of his personality. The emphasis on masculinity doesn’t make sense because all men have a sensitive side. They’re hiding behind a word. He doesn’t like to choose between feminine and masculine. He’s just being himself.

Masculinity is a construct we’ve created. It has attracted all these other describing words around it and all those words really point to macho or manly. But men have more to them than just being masculine. We’re much more complex than that.

Justin likes to challenge the boundary between masculine and feminine. A big way he does that is to wear boots with heels. It’s just a touch of drag. Once he put them on he realized how good he felt, though he wonders whether he is wearing them for the attention they bring or because they fit his personality.

Nicholas says people are still crying when they’re alone because they want to fix themselves, and that is because the world keeps telling them they need to be fixed. But they don’t realize they’re not broken.

Justin is now thankful he is gay. He says gay people bring back as sense of balance to straight people. It shows them another way of being.

Dakota says being gay (being yourself) is the hardest thing to go through. But it’s not a curse. Nicholas quotes Judy Garland: Be a first rate version of yourself, not a second rate version of someone else.

Nowadays people don’t want labels. They just want to be themselves.