Jane Ward’s _Not Gay_
Dec. 6th, 2021 02:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutSo, I finally got this. I ran across it as the most obviously relevant work when trying to make sense of the Men Who Identify As Straight While Having Sex More Or Less Only With Other Men discovery. But I also ran across Ward’s _The Tragedy of Heterosexuality_ at the same time, and given the choice of figuring out what the hell is wrong with someone else, vs. a juicy analysis like that, well, guess which one won. OK, no guessing involved.
Anyway.
There will be enthusiastic liveblogging!
“Commentary on heteroflexibility suggests that sexual fluidity is not only a youth trend, but a female one as well. . . [they] are also influenced by a culture that both celebrates the sexual fluidity of female celebrities … and depicts lesbianism as an effective means of seducing men. Conversely, boys and men suffer greater gender regulation, have fewer models of male sexual fluidity, and are presumably unrewarded by women for any sexual fluidity they may express. As Rupp and Taylor explain, “men do not, at least in contemporary American culture … may identify as straight and have sex with other men, they certainly don’t make out at parties for the pleasure of women.”
OK, this is NOT a criticism of any of that! But I think what we have here is an opportunity to think a lot about M/M romances directed at an audience made up mostly, if not exclusively, of middle aged women. Which is another thing I’ve been wondering about! I made the mistake of bringing this subgenre of book up with a gay friend (a man) (a married man) (who I generally don’t ever feel any concerns about bringing up anything at all with) and after, I sorta wished I hadn’t, because I felt like I’d Done a Bad! To the extent that gay men are aware of these books, it seems that they are viewed as a Negative, which of course is often how women feel about women being sexual with each other for the benefit of the Male Gaze. Seems like a possible parallel?
Anyway. As she notes a few paragraphs on, young men do engage in the same kind of same-sex interactions for show that young women do.
Next bit is about how heteroflexibility as a term is already a bit outdated, with reference to work by Ritch Savin-Williams about ““securely” (quotes in Ward) heterosexual young men who report that they occasionally experience attraction to other men”. Honestly, the whole thing feels a lot like successive efforts to evade stigma from oppressors by renaming something iteratively. Sometimes it kind of works, and in general, it is part of the process of attracting a large enough group to successfully beat back the oppression. Once again, the part that just kills me about this is that _more_ young men identify as these “sorta straight” new categories, than as bi or gay.
I swear, heterosexuality / straightness as a concept is starting to _feel_ super kinky / queer to me. Not sure, but that might be the entire point of this book! I cherish it so much.
Moving on!
“What are the differences between the women whom Diamond offers up as examples of female sexual fluidity and men like Haggard, Craig, and Allen? For one, these women pursued long-term, romantic, loving, presumably monogamous, public relationships with other women, while the men’s sexual relationships with men involved sex for money and were kept hidden from wives and the public.”
That is a truly, truly amazing question and answer.
Anyway.
There will be enthusiastic liveblogging!
“Commentary on heteroflexibility suggests that sexual fluidity is not only a youth trend, but a female one as well. . . [they] are also influenced by a culture that both celebrates the sexual fluidity of female celebrities … and depicts lesbianism as an effective means of seducing men. Conversely, boys and men suffer greater gender regulation, have fewer models of male sexual fluidity, and are presumably unrewarded by women for any sexual fluidity they may express. As Rupp and Taylor explain, “men do not, at least in contemporary American culture … may identify as straight and have sex with other men, they certainly don’t make out at parties for the pleasure of women.”
OK, this is NOT a criticism of any of that! But I think what we have here is an opportunity to think a lot about M/M romances directed at an audience made up mostly, if not exclusively, of middle aged women. Which is another thing I’ve been wondering about! I made the mistake of bringing this subgenre of book up with a gay friend (a man) (a married man) (who I generally don’t ever feel any concerns about bringing up anything at all with) and after, I sorta wished I hadn’t, because I felt like I’d Done a Bad! To the extent that gay men are aware of these books, it seems that they are viewed as a Negative, which of course is often how women feel about women being sexual with each other for the benefit of the Male Gaze. Seems like a possible parallel?
Anyway. As she notes a few paragraphs on, young men do engage in the same kind of same-sex interactions for show that young women do.
Next bit is about how heteroflexibility as a term is already a bit outdated, with reference to work by Ritch Savin-Williams about ““securely” (quotes in Ward) heterosexual young men who report that they occasionally experience attraction to other men”. Honestly, the whole thing feels a lot like successive efforts to evade stigma from oppressors by renaming something iteratively. Sometimes it kind of works, and in general, it is part of the process of attracting a large enough group to successfully beat back the oppression. Once again, the part that just kills me about this is that _more_ young men identify as these “sorta straight” new categories, than as bi or gay.
I swear, heterosexuality / straightness as a concept is starting to _feel_ super kinky / queer to me. Not sure, but that might be the entire point of this book! I cherish it so much.
Moving on!
“What are the differences between the women whom Diamond offers up as examples of female sexual fluidity and men like Haggard, Craig, and Allen? For one, these women pursued long-term, romantic, loving, presumably monogamous, public relationships with other women, while the men’s sexual relationships with men involved sex for money and were kept hidden from wives and the public.”
That is a truly, truly amazing question and answer.