Live from Acapulco! Well, not quite live - but we did film this past weekend on our beautiful balcony during our Spring Break vacation in Mexico. Me and Maxime have quite a great episode in store for you, complete with frank discussions on being a femme bottom, having sex without fear of HIV, cruising, vacationing with straight friends, and having straight friends in general. Fasten your seatbelts, girls, it's gonna be a bumpy ride!
Got something to say about gay sex, but don't want your name attached? Every Wednesday starting next week, we'll be posting anonymous columns from gay/bi/queer men just like you! Anything goes: Best sex you ever had, tips and tricks you've learned along the way, and reflections on the trials and tribulations you've encountered in your sexual escapades are all welcome.
Submissions should be at least 500 words with a rough maximum around 1000 words. They will be posted in the order received, with editing only for grammar. Send your submissions by e-mail to . Include a title and I'll publish them here under an anonymous user account. Once published, the e-mail will be destroyed. Your identity will never be revealed!
Looking forward to reading and sharing your dirty thoughts!
It's time for another installment of The View from the Bottom, the vlog about gay male health and sexuality as told from the perspective of three bottomless bottoms. This week, Trevor, Rostom, and Maxime discuss what they got for Christmas, how to deal with online harassment, what condoms are best for bottoms, and Pat Robertson' repugnant comments about Haiti.
For the unfamiliar, GRINDR has quickly emerged as one of the hottest apps for any gay with an iPhone in North America. It's GPS-based hooking up. Basically, it displays men in your area in order of geographic proximity. He looks hot, and he's only 1048 feet away from you! Holy cow! As soon as this app burst into our sexual psyches, it quickly initiated a confusing debate: How accurate is this damn location feature? This led to amusing conversations like these recently had with my friends in Boston over New Year's:
Me: Um... it says this guy is 0 feet away! He's in my apartment!
Friend (in creepy voice): The call is coming from inside YOUR ASSHOLE!
Thankfully, my asshole was trade-free upon closer inspection. But I remained haunted by the vision for weeks -- until GRINDR released their latest update last night clarifying just how far potential trade is from one's asshole. It's nifty. When you log on, you see this screen. Note the new "finding location" icon at the bottom left corner of the screen (click to enlarge):
And once you're all logged in and comfortable, magically GRINDR now will tell you just how precise it's location estimates are, quelling any future fears of messages coming from inside one's rectum:
So late last night I got an entirely predictabe, grumpy and sissyphobic message on Manhunt. It happens, whatever. But I thought I would share the exchange here to help illustrate the kinds of battles femme queers like me and countless others are forced to engage in regularly on these sites and of course offline. Here's his first shot:
Congrats! You Def lived up to your Stereotype---Good for You!
1. Amazibg profile ---
A. Almost thought you were a thoughtful--insig sightl-intelligen t guy,
B. than the "USUAL Low Life GAY Persoanlty" shows it self
C. What all GAY GUYS LIVE FOR "A thick-dicked, confident & caring top is my ideal"
2. My study of you guys is SHALLOW---SUPERFICIAL- --LOOSE---RISKY----SEL F INVOLVED--IMMATURE---CARES ABOUT NOTHING---NO ONE-- BUT YOURSELVES AND GETTING
YOUR ROCKS OFF!
3. EVERY Wonder Why You ASSHOLES get STEREOTYPED---"YOU STEREOTYPE--YOURSELVES!
4. IF you guys ACTED LIKE A NORMAL GUY-------I MIGHT ACTUALLY FUCK ONE OF YOU FUCKWADS!
I've heard this tripe before. His profile describes him as a "divorced bi" guy into "normal guys." I long ago decided not to engage with these kinds of creeps, but I was feeling a bit fiesty, so I wrote back:
My dear, you sound a bit bitter!
xoxo
Trevor
I thought a simple parting shot like that would illustrate that I was not perturbed and that he was pathetic. Whatever, bad idea I know -- so bad in fact that this morning I woke up to this message from him. Item #1 is, I think, unintentionally one of the funniest things I've read in months.
"My Dear" See again there you Prove the GAY STEREOTYPE!
1. My names Trevor, I'm Gay, Fuckin Femm-Limp Wristed Fag, Lost my Balls!!
3. See whats HOT is SEX with a MASCULINE GUY!
4. WHY Would I FUCK Some FAG WHO ACTS LIKE A WOMAN, I'D RATHER FUCK A WOMAN.
5.SO WHAT HAPPENS TREV?? WHEN YOU TURN GAY:-Do YOU "LOSE YOUR BALLS!!!!!
6. BTW---DEAR-----IF YOU WANNA ACT LIKE A WOMAN OR LIMP WRISTED FAG--GET A SEX CHANGE!
I don't usually "out" people like this. But this is just so many levels of wrong. His screenname on Manhunt is BIJOCK09. If you think he's a jerk as I do, tell him so!
Manhunt's blog, "Manhunt Daily," was kind enough to post the latest "View From the Bottom" and one of the tips that came out of that episode: Listerine Strips are wonderful accessories to a good rimjob. There's a new marketing strategy, guys! LOL.
And just quickly, to pretend for a moment to be serious, there was an interesting comment in the comments on that entry that I wanted to highlight. Criticizing any attempt to "cover up" the "real" taste of ass, Gary says:
So come on guys pony up...you all say you want to be with and fuck men...then fuck men, not trimmed, shaved, waxed, perfumed, pepperminted versions of a man...
I get the desire to attach value to bodies that aren't conforming to certain standards of mordern hygiene. I think that's A-okay! The problem for me comes in the second half of that statement, in which he DEvalues guys who are shaven, perfurmed, etc. This is precisely the kind of tendency I notice in bear culture and other gay men's subcultures that fantasize about some kind of "naturalized" masculinity. Rather than simply saying, "Hey we have a different version of hot," they have to tack on "And your version of hot is feminine, pathetic, and fake." Basically on their way to creating new forms of hotness they reinscribe stigma against femme guys (and other men who value being clean-shaven, etc). Do what you want, guys -- but c'mon, your version of hot is not somehow better than my version of hot.
After a long separation, Scott and I are finally back together for a new episode of "The View From the Bottom"! We filmed this gem in Central Park, whilst visiting the Big Apple last weekend. We talk about sex in nature, food in bed, "straight acting," and other annoying online profile habits. Enjoy!!!!
Back in August, I presented a monologue I wrote for a workshop on "The Bottom Monologues." It was a strange experience to work on the piece -- which is clearly informed by my experiences as a bottom, but inflected by the narratives we collected for the project. It needs some work, but I think it's pretty sassy so far!
Anyhow, Fernando from Latino Men in Action was kind enough to share the video he shot of the performance. He uploaded it a few weeks ago, but I just finally got the link! Would LOVE to hear your feedback! It's tenatively titled "Masc4Masc: No Fats, Fems or Blacks":
All Hail to the Queen
The fags bash the bulbs to make the starts brighter
All peace to the Earth
As orbs of white light moat Emerald Island
2,000 years ago a young woman appeared in the shape of a white buffalo and gave a family a sacred pipe and made them guardians of the Black Hills. Before leaving, she prophesized that one day she would return to purify the world, bringing back spiritual balance and harmony. The birth of a white buffalo calf would be a sign that her return was at hand.
In 1994 a white buffalo was born in Wisconsin. In many communities there is an aboriginal renaissance occurring, a return to the land is manifesting.
In 1998 Dry Bones Breathe: Gay Men Creating Post AIDS Identities and Cultures was published. Writer Eric Rofes put forward the idea that the AIDS-As-Crisis-Model was long outdated and a new era of focusing on gay men's wellness had arrived.
Its now 2009, 200and mine and I wander the urban Canadian terrain for white buffalo tracks and modern gay male culture.
A pull back-A pull forward,
A pull within-A look outside.
Dry Bones Breathe
Gay men break backs
First Nation women get ignored
The land heaves and sighs.
PAUSE.
I got my panties in a knot a few months ago when I started visiting gay guy social networking sites like MANHUNT and DUDESNUDE. At first I was just jealous of all the lovely bodies that will never be mine, that I will never have.
Here they all are,
stretched,
flexed
out
aching to be clicked,
hooked,
favorited,
chatted and
poked.
I found myself heavy and full with minor outrage.
THE GAUL- WHERE DO THESE GUYS GET OFF?
But then I got over myself and I meant it...
Where do these boys get off?
Where is public sex?
Do these dudes nude know that their flesh is for the viral masses (if so GREAT)
Or do websites create a sense of enclosed space so they think that they are in some version of inside?
I had up into that point never seen a cock just hanging out for all to see
so sexually,
so publicly,
so in the realm for of all.
But there one was, attached to a barista I kind of knew, but now knew better. Tomorrow when I order my coffee I wondered, Would I feel a new intimacy with him? I kept clicking- there was his cock rock hard, there was him smiling with his arm draped around a friend (did she know that she was on this website?), there was his cock again.
With every image I saw I was getting to now him better. I knew what his bedroom looked like, that he had gone to Paris (and taken a dirty photo in the Louvre's washroom) and that he was uncut. Is this now how gay community is formed? Is this the new 70's? (if so great [?])
Last summer I was accepted to do a video curatorial residency in which I would use the moving image to explore how sites like MANHUNT and DUDES NUDE were changing the sexual landscape for gay men.
I had it on my mind that in the face of AIDS, in the face of the internet
sex had not only gone underground, it had gone post-ground and now cruising existed only in the ether.
I was wrong.
The beauty of me is my ability to be wrong, my ability as a vegetarian to eat bacon and crow.
Sitting after dark in Toronto's Queen Park I befriended a man who had been cruising this park all his life. The year that Rock Hudson died of AIDS, he decided to come out. It has made him, if he does say so himself, an expert at giving blowjobs.
He tells me how he calls this park Emerald Island- cause it is- basically we are sitting in a large traffic circle in the middle of a city, permitered by trees, our feet thick in luscious grass and roots aching to come up.
Every few years he tells me the city tries to make the park less welcoming by taking down trees or adding more lights. He laughs and says it doesn't matter- the fags just bash the bulbs to make the starts brighter.
Sitting there frustrated by the lack of play, the willy-nilly fear of men to man up and hook up we start talking. Darting hungry eyes shoot us dirty looks. "WHAT?" I say with my mouth and shoulder, its not like you are doing anything.
We watch for a while as the little guy who wants to be the big guy circles the big guy who wants to get with the little guy.
It is as boring as shit but counts for action tonight.
Finally against a tree, the big guy lets go (did I mention he is on roller blades), the little guy wins and a crowd gathers to watch, stare and play.
The beauty of dry bones breathing is tempered only by the fact that parks such as this still echo all that is hurt inside of gay bones.
Not only is this place a hunt for the great white cock, leaving brown, yellow red cocks dangling in the wind- there is no room for dudes without cocks or cocks without dudes.
Desires are still so repressed that getting laid under the stars, white buffalos winking from the road, is still a revolutionary act. And there is no room for openness, no room for further transgression. We have done our part by coming out they seem to say.
Before I ever went to cruising park I romanced the idea that in such places you fucked what was there. That beauty became relative and a bell curve of hotness was recreated every time someone came or left.
And this is true.
And this is not true.
Our culturally informed idea of beauty still permeates past the trees.
Old guys walk around with nary a wink,
Fat guys sit dejected, staying in the background instead of being rejected.
White buffalo breath revives dry bones.
But animals we are not.
But just spirits we are not.
But online profiles we are not.
But post-AIDS we are not.
Take off your shoes, your socks, your shirt and your pants.
Walk barefoot on the land. Naked.
Find a place to lie down in the grass.
Press your sex to the ground and feel the flex flux of 6 billion souls.
Get off
Get up
Keep going.
White buffalo breath revives dry bones.
Fucking strangers revives faith in humanity.
Being outside reminds you that you are human.
Take off your shoes, your socks, your shirt and your pants.
Walk barefoot on the land. Naked.
Find a place to lie down in the grass.
Press your sex to the ground and feel the flex flux of 6 billion souls.
Get off
Get up
Keep going.
Take off your shoes, your socks, your shirt and your pants.
Walk barefoot on the land. Naked.
Find a place to lie down in the grass.
Press your sex to the ground and feel the flex flux of 6 billion souls.
Get off
Get up
Keep going.
Sept 2009 Ted Kerr
Ted Kerr is a Canadian based writer, artist and actionist whose work primarily focuses on queerness, HIV / AIDS and expression. Find more about him on his website.
Oh the many ways gay men have devised to say "no fats!" The latest phrase to rise to prominence is "height / weight proportionate" (or "hwp" as its abbreviated -- see above) -- which is a curious expression indeed. What exactly does it mean to be height / weight proportionate? And why has it quickly become the preferred alternative to "in shape"; "fit"; "active"; etc? A few thoughts.
Describing the kind of bodies that turn you on is not always such an easy task. Our language is somewhat imprecise. Anyone who's ever queried the meaning of a "swimmers build" is bound to see the vagaries that riddle online profiles. Indeed, we are tasked as gay men to choose a simple phrase to describe our body type from a list of options. For instance, Manhunt's options:
This list of options clearly does not come with a codebook. Deciding which to pick is in part about defining the way you identify and want others to identify you -- and not necessarily about attempting to accurately portray your body's shape / size / etc. Indeed, we see here that identity categories have woven their way into this set of options: Bear, Twink, and Cub are all suspicious here. They refer more to a cultural identity than they do to a particular body type (albeit, the two are closely related). For instance, Twink implies Slim -- yet the two are offered as separate categories. But perhaps it also implies hairless or smooth -- adding yet another layer of description implied here. It also implies young, which seems to be further off the mark in terms of what this drop-down menu is allegedly intended to describe. In any case, you can see the complexities and problems that arise here.
Since the advent of gay personals, gay men have come up with all sorts of ways to describe their own selves -- and the kind of men that they find hot. "No fats, no fems" was and still is a relatively common phrase found in profiles and ads looking for sex. But recently there has been a turn towards this curious phrase that is the subject of this blog post: Height / weight proportionate.
Let's presume that this means -- at least -- that there is a range of proportions between a person's height and weight, and that there is a subset of these ranges that is desirable. That seems clear. But isn't this a peculiar way to phrase this? I mean, anyone can be said to have a proportion between their height and weight. Are some of those proportions wrong?
Let's try this out. I am 69 inches tall, and weight 180 pounds. In other words, my height-to-weight ratio is about 0.38. I would consider myself in the "Average" body type range, whatever that means. Let's take another case -- a self-described "Body Builder" who looks damn stacked in his Manhunt pictures. Muscles on top of muscles. Presuming his reporting is accurate, he is 68 inches tall and weighs 185 pounds. His height-to-weight ratio is about 0.37. Does that somehow make his proportion worse? Better? You can see how silly this all becomes.
In the end, I think hwp rose to fame because of a combination of the exponentially escalating use of statistics when it comes to describe our bodies and our health (BMIs, etc). It connotes a kind of numerical preciseness that "Physically Fit" seems to lack. But as I hope I've made clear, it is no more precise. It's just as vague and nebulous a term as those that preceded it.
What's a more precise way to say what turns you on? If you're into lean guys, just say lean. It's very clear. If you're into guys with a lot of muscle, just say that. It may always be helpful to give examples, too. "Looking for guys built like David Beckham." Okay, so maybe that's a bit outrageous. But it's worth giving it a try. Because the problem with vague terms is not just that it makes it hard to read what you're into, but it makes the person considering responding to your ad double-guess whether or not he meets your requirements. Using more clear language helps entice those who fit your guidelines, and weed out those who don't. And -- for better or worse -- that's what profile-based hookup sites are all about.
A few months ago, on the recommendation of a friend, I created an account on the dating website okcupid. It offers some cool features not available on other social networking and hookup websites. For example, in addition to writing an autobiographical profile, okcupid users also answer an array of multiple choice personality questions. The cupid "robot" in turn suggests possible matches based on these responses.
The website has, on the whole, been unfulfilling for me since I created my profile in July. I think this is because okcupid's personality test questions don't care enough about my sex life. What I like about Manhunt is that it lets users advertise nearly any erotic proclivity through a list of check boxes (my favorites, of course, being "dad/son" and "nipple play"). These preferences then become search terms through which users can find each other.
It's difficult to overstate how nice it is to have a space online in which I can connect with people who want the same things as me. Because my sexual desires tend to be marginalized in most other social spaces, when I go online, I want to be able to include these as a primary component of my self-presentation. And okcupid just isn't reactive enough to this part of my personality. If it were, it would stop trying to make me a match with twinks in their twenties.
The website is probably a great resource for people to find each other in non-sexual ways. But at bottom (haha), it's a dating website! Okcupid needs to develop a greater sensitivity to erotic diversity, and incorporate this into its quiz questions, in order to serve in a meaningful way users who are interested in sexual pleasure.
Thoroughly enjoying this Craigslist ad before bed:
Ahoy, Maties
I'm looking for a pirate who's ass I can plunder hard. If your a deck hand in need of a dick in hand, I'm your Captain, matey. I except hard, grunting work, good hand to hoist my jolly roger and a good tongue to mop my deck with.
Argh, if you think you're good enough for me to pillage, then come aboard my ship
or walk the plank
Argh! I except all hands on deck to dress and act like a pirate, Captain will ignore posts not speaking like a pirate, understand mates?!
For many years now, Manhunt has been one of the fastest growing and most widely used gay hookup sites. It's relatively easy to use interface and profile-based cruising system appealed to folks tired of the endless chit-chat offered by the former giant Gay.com. Manhunt's profiles allowed users to instantly search based on any number of profile attributes to whittle down a huge city of gays like San Francisco to a pool of 21-to-23 year old white bottoms who are into Pig Play. Database magic.
But the Manhunt system hasn't kept up with the times. For years its interface remained the same, while the Internet around it zoomed into the 21st century. Adam4Adam appeared a few years ago as a free alternative to Manhunt, which costs upwards of $10 / month. It was an easy, aging target. Users immediately began to be siphoned off to the economically sound A4A, while Manhunt continued to rely on elderly technology.
But yesterday Manhunt stepped up to the plate -- finally -- and overhauled their web interface. Size queens, come hither: I bring tidings of great news! With Manhunt's overhaul came the ability for users to add to their profile dick size -- which will allow queens everywhere to instantly pull up a list of the most well endowed users in a given area. But MH has one-upped A4A by not just adding length to their profiles, but also GIRTH! And as so many bottoms know, girth is what *really* matters in the end. Thank you, Manhunt. The back of gay throats across the Globe will surely be grateful!
As a follow up to Trevor's post on the exciting new study about MSM and barebacking, I'd like to call attention to two less exciting publications about gay male sexual health released on the American front. On June 8, the CDC published a new fact sheet on oral sex and HIV risk. Unsurprisingly, it emphasizes the risks of oral sex without exploring the social meanings that lead us to practice it in the first place. The jist of the fact sheet is summarized in this quote:
Even though the risk of transmitting HIV through oral sex is much lower than that of anal or vaginal sex, numerous studies have demonstrated that oral sex can result in the transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Abstaining from oral, anal, and vaginal sex altogether or having sex only with a mutually monogamous, uninfected partner are the only ways that individuals can be completely protected from the sexual transmission of HIV.
Just as positing abstinence and monogamy as the only safe sex practices is unhelpful advice for the gay community, so too is the fact sheet's recommendation that participants use condoms to reduce the risk of HIV transmission through oral sex. Nobody uses condoms for oral sex except that married guy I met at a bar last year in Paris. In the real world, both these strategies are often unrealistic in developing a culture of safer sex. Ultimately, they function merely as a punitive criticism of the sex practices in which many gay men engage. The development of a gay male culture that values safe sex requires us to explore how gay men associate their sex practices with the experience of pleasure, love, self-affirmation, joy, fulfillment, and other feelings that lead many of us to "irrationally" throw caution to the wind when we're having sex. Whether or not one feels comfortable with the culture of hooking up, it is irresponsible to discuss any sex practice without considering the social values of which it has been made expressive.
In a similar vein, the Chi-Town Daily News recently ran an article on a study showing half of HIV+ gay men in Chicago were unaware of being infected. Although the article emphasizes the need to develop a holistic approach to gay men's health that considers more factors than just serostatus, it also comes down hard on online hookup websites, quoting one man as saying, "'We need to know who makes up these social networks,' which include men who meet other men over the Internet or through phone networks,' [...] 'You're kind of playing Russian roulette.'"
The metaphor of Russian roulette suggests the possibility of a 1/6 chance of sudden death by having unsafe sex. This statement is unproductive fearmongering. It is true that hookup websites like manhunt.net and gay.com are one conduit through which some gay men have unsafe sex and contract HIV. But the gay male sexual universe would not be made any safer if these websites were to be eradicated, as the speaker seems to imply. We would do well to remember the lessons learned by earlier generations with the closure of the bathhouses in San Francisco after the outbreak of HIV/AIDS. As Gayle Rubin wrote in her 1990 essay, "The Catacombs: A temple of the butthole,"
The closure efforts set dangerous precedents for state harassment of gay businesses and gay behavior. Wholesale closure eliminated opportunities for sex education along with opportunities for sex. Closure drove men to the streets and alleys and parks, which were arguably less safe and clean than the clubs they lost.
In the last decade or so, hookup websites have become a major site of gay sexual activity and community life. These websites are often considered a realm of disease and lack of intimacy. While the dangers of hookup websites are real, they also serve as one of the only places in which the many varieties of sexual expression that have been rejected by society can exist. The discourses on safe sex would do well to consider the unique value of sexual and social network sites before condemning them wholesale.
I've begun work on my guide to hooking up online. Over the next few days, I'll be posting drafts of the various sections for feedback. Let me know what you think! Below is the first section, an introduction of sorts:
OPENINGS
Congratulations! If you've made it this far, it seems that you're interested in hooking up online. That's a wonderful thing. In this booklet, you'll find an overview of some tips and tricks and strategies I've learned over the years -- both from my own experience and from conversations with countless queer men about their experiences online. Let me take a moment here to lay out what I think you can realistically expect to get out of this booklet, and a bit about what you'll have to learn by... practicing.
Gay men have used the Internet to find sex partners since the first dial-up services began to emerge in the early 1990s. While it may seem to be a terrifying idea to meet someone you have never met before and then on top of that to have sex with them -- don't fret! Hooking up online can be intimidating for even the most experienced of us, but over time I think you'll find that many of your fears and anxieties will diminish.
The Internet put millions of men in touch with a 24/7 sexual culture previously reserved for those in major urban centers like New York and San Francisco. While public health officials and the media have tended to view hooking up and the Internet as impediments to our health as queer men, I would argue that we can use both to expand our possibilites for intimacy, pleasure, community building, and bonding. This booklet is aimed at promoting those goals.
Hey everyone! So I've been thinking a lot lately about compiling a kind of handbook for hooking up online, with tips and strategies for success and a bit of wisdom from my rather robust experience in the matter. Obviously this would include much more than just tips about safer sex practices, but a whole range of issues from whether or not to respond to someone you're not interested in, to how to create a profile that sizzles.
I've dreamed up a few key sections for this mini-handbook:
I. What to Expect
II. Choosing Your Site(s)
III. Creating Your Profile / Ad
IV. Making Contact
V. The Hook Up
VI. Following Up
Sound useful? What kinds of things would you like to see included here?
If you've every spent any significant amount of time on gay hookup websites, you've by now become accustomed to seeing every other profile professing a desire to meet "other masculine men" (which of course presumes their own masculinity). This of course often takes the form of the "looking for straightacting guys." But whatever the verbage, it translates into a systematic valuation of masculinity at a presumed gay femininity's expense. The message is clear: I want you to act like men are supposed to act, not like gay men are supposed to act.
As a bit of a mockery and as a direct challenge to this kind of entrenched sissyphobia, a few years ago I added to my profile the simply sarcastic statement: "Oh, and I'm totally gay acting". This is my way of warding off guys who might contact me and ask that I play into their masculinity game. I got sick of that game a long time ago, mostly because I always tend to lose. Many words could be used to describe me, but I can't imagine "masculine" to ever be on such a list.
But occasionally I get contacted by someone whose profile reads "Looking for masculine guys" or something to that effect. How to explain this? Today was a perfect example. I got a message from someone whose profile said just that, and we had a rather humorous (for me, I doubt he found it similarly amusing) exchange. I thought I would republish it here for dissection, but sadly he deleted his sent message before I could get around to it (I didn't even realize you could do that after someone had read it -- but clearly he could and suspected me, see the exchange below). But here's the basic tenor:
Him: So if we hook up, do I get inside information about your sex studies?
Me: lol. Well I doubt I qualify under your stated requirements for hooking up. But you can get access to my findings whether or not we have sex. Check out my blog: www.trevorhoppe.com [Note: I'm a shameless publicity whore]
Him: lol well I read the "gay acting" thing and I contacted you anyways ;)
Me: Well I can't help but ask why you contact me if you read that part of my profile?
Him: omg I'm going to be next blog entry aren't I? [Note: yes, you are] Maybe you should have asked about my ideas about masculinity, rather than going straight to the stereotype.
Me: I disidentify with the category of masculinity, mostly because it tends to exclude and do violence against me. In other words, I have no interest in being included under your expanded masculine umbrella.
Him: It's no longer about being included.
Me: Clearly.
Okay, so maybe I was a little too sassy. But I really get tired of seeing all this masculinity-loving crap in people's profiles when their actions demonstrate that it isn't true at all. Clearly, his profile's stated interest in masculine guys wasn't actually an empirical reflection for his exclusive desire for masculine gay men.
I won't speculate about this individual's true intentions, but I have some theories about how these things function generally. I tend to think that -- rather than related to what they desire in others -- stating that you are into masculine men is a way to shore up your own desirability vis-a-vis claiming an ability to exclude feminine men from your sex pool. It is an effort to shore up your own normalcy by saying that you are into masculine (read: normal) men. I can count on one hand the number of profiles I have seen expressing a desire for feminine men, in part I think because declaring such a desire would in fact be claiming a kind of queer desire that is not valued and actively discouraged.
This is my theory: By claiming a desire for (or aversion to) ___________ men, you are not just making a claim about the people you're interested in meeting -- you are making a claim about what kind of person you are to desire such things. I think that this is true not just for masculine/feminine, but also other politicized categories like race, age, etc. I'm reminded here of friends whose profiles say "not into Black men" -- but who in public express how attracted they are to, gosh!, a Black man standing across the room. Saying you don't have sex with Black men, I believe, is about more than just race: it is saying that you are able to make such an exclusion and still get laid; it is saying that you don't have sex with the group of queer men at highest risk for HIV; and it is saying that you wouldn't dirty yourself by sleeping with a denigrated group of people.
This may all be a bit dramatic, but I think these are the undercurrents of online profiles that we need to be exploring hypercritically -- because beneath the surface, there is a rich depth of meaning and politics operating that does not readily meet the eye.
Time and time again I find myself having the same conversation online with gay men -- particularly, it seems, younger and/or newly out men. They don't hook up, they say, because hooking up is one of any number of unappealing things: immature, slutty, disgusting, pathetic, a sign of self-loathing and/or desperation. But the most common accusation of them all has to the often usage of the adjective meaningless in describing sex with strangers or people you're not formally dating. I want to take a moment here to defend hooking up, and to argue in fact that sex with strangers can be just as intimate, emotionally connected, transformative, and moving as sex with someone you love can be. And just like sex with someone you love, it can also be disastrous.
Let's first begin with a story from my own life. Travel back with me a few years to 2006, when I was visiting Ann Arbor for the "Against Health" conference here at the University of Michigan (see my post from way back then). It was a wonderful experience -- my very first academic conference! But the conference isn't what I'm here to talk about today. Instead, I want to relate an experience I had during my stay in Ann Arbor that Fall that continues to live with me today: quite simply, the most mindblowing, intimate, and transformative sexual connection I've ever experienced... (continue reading after the jump)
The Sword has conducted a quasi-scientific study of Craigslist ads to determine the perecentage of "top/bottom" (problematic language -- see comments later) advertisements in various cities' M4M sections. Obviously of interest is the variation from city to city, with Houston home to the highest perecentage of ads from guys looking to get fucked; and NYC home to the highest % of guys looking to fuck.
Now, this study is all sorts of FAIL. For one, the methodology is wholly unclear. Were they picking ads from guys who identified as bottoms? Or ads from guys who were just looking to get fucked? Or did that all get lumped into the same category? Obviously, versatile ads and ads not seeking anal sex are totally thrown out of the picture. But most importantly for me is that Craigslist advertisements are not the same as, say, Manhunt profiles. Sampling Craigslist ads tells you something about the sexual culture of those cities, but its problematic for a number of reasons: 1) Repeated posters (and you know if you use Craigslist that there are a few dozen people in each city who post multiple times a day, seven days a week); 2) The relationship between people who post and people who do NOT post is wholly unclear. For every ad you seen on Craigslist, there are at least a dozen people looking (and maaaaybe replying) but never posting themselves. So the lurkers will never get sampled in this kind of analysis.
Let's compare this data to the data I collected last year from Adam4Adam and Manhunt in San Francisco and New York City. In a sample of ALL Manhunt and Adam4Adam profiles in both cities, I found that NYC had slightly more tops than bottoms (on both sites, about 35% tops and 28% bottoms) while San Francisco's numbers were comparable but skewed a bit more towards bottoms (33% tops and 28% bottoms -- with many more vers guys). Compare here the charts for just Manhunt for both cities:
Sure, my data from MH and A4A has its own set of problems (see original posts linked above for more on that), but I think it's MUCH less susceptible to the kinds of gross errors / data biases that come with sampling Craigslist. In short, don't get your puds in a wad over this info. Take with a big, fat grain of salt!
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Pam's House Blend
She's a fabulous North Carolinian blogging about politics, LGBT and women's rights, the influence of the far Right, and race relations. What more can I say?
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