More from _Not Gay_
Dec. 7th, 2021 01:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutThis is just _wild_.
Under the heading, “Three Very Special Reasons That Straight Men Have Sex with Men”, Ward “takes a close look at the three broad explanatory theories” that “circulate through popular culture… becoming rhetorical resources … used to recuperate heterosexuality when it has been rendered suspect by homosexual contact.”
Did ya get get some gay on ya? Here’s some ideas on how to straighten it up. I’m laughing so hard I’m snorting.
Ward is hilarious and awesome and I’m loving this book, even tho the whole thing feels, at times, overly convoluted, I can’t really blame _her_ because the convolution is not of her making.
Increasingly, tho, I feel like a deal got made. Bi-erasure isn’t a bug ; it’s The Feature. Not Ward’s fault. This book goes a long way to shaping a path out, in fact, by depicting the gyrations and gymnastics of reifying the binaries.
ETA:
I am laughing _so hard_ now. NOT at Ward — at the craziness of what she is describing.
“The scripting of necessity is particularly salient for straight men who are unhindered by institutional isolation or heterosexual deprivation and who, nonetheless, seek male sexual partners.”
I mean, that is one of the _funniest_ sentences ever. And _yes_, the next part _is_ about slash, and starts with Kirk/Spock pon farr stories. After that, “cuckold” films, which are described. I have to say, reading the core elements there, I am forcibly reminded of the weird shit “Walter” described getting into (in _My Secret Life_) during his middle-aged years (minus the racial aspects).
Anyway. Next up: 2007 Bob Allen’s conviction. I don’t know how I didn’t notice this one go by, because I _definitely_ noticed Larry Craig and that was the same year.
ETAYA:
Lots more interesting stuff, but here’s another Golden Sentence on the topic of weird justifications for men touching each other inappropriately because they have to for Reasons.
“And yet a third approach, and the one I emphasize in this book, is to consider their erotic underpinnings, or to pay attention to the creative ways straight [sic] men find to touch each other’s bodies while working within the constraints of heteromasculinity, itself a construction arguably inseparable from dominance, violence and grossness.” Too true!
Shortly thereafter, this absolute _gem_!
“The long history of straight [sic] men’s sex with men, and the varied places where it occurs and the varied forms it takes, requires an expansive view, one that illuminates the all-too-often ignored probability that straight men, as a rule, want to have sex with men. And they want to live heterosexual lives.”
R. and I have been tossing back and forth where we think the numbers are on this. It is super clear from a variety of sources that there are way, way more men having sex with men while identifying as straight than there are identify-as-gay-or-bi men. Operating from a 10% are gay or bi perspective (I know, there’s no certainty surrounding that) rule of thumb, that would seem to imply a minimum of 20% of men are in this larger category. I’m thinking Kinsey would put it over 30%. I don’t know if that supports Ward’s “as a rule”, but it’s a long way in that direction for sure.
Lest you think I’m picking on men here, Ward goes on to note that if you said the same thing about women, it wouldn’t have a lot of impact, and I entirely agree.
ETA screaming with laughter:
Under the heading “The Bonds of Men: The Performance of Homosocial Homosexuality”
“…one organized around the belief that hand jobs are sometimes a “less gay” way to be close to men than the more intimate and feminized realm of friendship.”
!!!
You know, if, when people were trying to convince me that Men and Women Really Think Differently, they used _this_ as an example, I might actually be willing to entertain the idea of actual gender difference. Not for very long mind you — I’ve met some screwy women and girls over the last 50 years — but I would at least pause, for a while, and ask some questions about this belief.
Joe Kort is mentioned in this context, with a quote attributed to him: “deep longing to experience the physical intimacy with other men that they are denied in a sexist and homphobic world.” Then, in Ward’s summation, “In Kort’s view, if straight men can feel secure in the knowledge that they are innately heterosexual, and if they can understand that the craving for sexual contact with men is not only natural but “manly,” they can embrace their sexual fluidity without a sense of discordance.”
Next bit is about men seeking men ads on craigslist: “Some ads ask explicitly and longingly, “what ever happend to the circle jerk?””
Indeed.
Ward apparently interviewed Kort, and she summarizes from that: “Straight men have a need for access to quick and emotionless sex and a longing for physical intimacy with other men. Such desires do not make men gay, Kort explains, but simply struggling to get off and achieve closeness with men in a world that makes both difficult.”
Under the heading, “Three Very Special Reasons That Straight Men Have Sex with Men”, Ward “takes a close look at the three broad explanatory theories” that “circulate through popular culture… becoming rhetorical resources … used to recuperate heterosexuality when it has been rendered suspect by homosexual contact.”
Did ya get get some gay on ya? Here’s some ideas on how to straighten it up. I’m laughing so hard I’m snorting.
Ward is hilarious and awesome and I’m loving this book, even tho the whole thing feels, at times, overly convoluted, I can’t really blame _her_ because the convolution is not of her making.
Increasingly, tho, I feel like a deal got made. Bi-erasure isn’t a bug ; it’s The Feature. Not Ward’s fault. This book goes a long way to shaping a path out, in fact, by depicting the gyrations and gymnastics of reifying the binaries.
ETA:
I am laughing _so hard_ now. NOT at Ward — at the craziness of what she is describing.
“The scripting of necessity is particularly salient for straight men who are unhindered by institutional isolation or heterosexual deprivation and who, nonetheless, seek male sexual partners.”
I mean, that is one of the _funniest_ sentences ever. And _yes_, the next part _is_ about slash, and starts with Kirk/Spock pon farr stories. After that, “cuckold” films, which are described. I have to say, reading the core elements there, I am forcibly reminded of the weird shit “Walter” described getting into (in _My Secret Life_) during his middle-aged years (minus the racial aspects).
Anyway. Next up: 2007 Bob Allen’s conviction. I don’t know how I didn’t notice this one go by, because I _definitely_ noticed Larry Craig and that was the same year.
ETAYA:
Lots more interesting stuff, but here’s another Golden Sentence on the topic of weird justifications for men touching each other inappropriately because they have to for Reasons.
“And yet a third approach, and the one I emphasize in this book, is to consider their erotic underpinnings, or to pay attention to the creative ways straight [sic] men find to touch each other’s bodies while working within the constraints of heteromasculinity, itself a construction arguably inseparable from dominance, violence and grossness.” Too true!
Shortly thereafter, this absolute _gem_!
“The long history of straight [sic] men’s sex with men, and the varied places where it occurs and the varied forms it takes, requires an expansive view, one that illuminates the all-too-often ignored probability that straight men, as a rule, want to have sex with men. And they want to live heterosexual lives.”
R. and I have been tossing back and forth where we think the numbers are on this. It is super clear from a variety of sources that there are way, way more men having sex with men while identifying as straight than there are identify-as-gay-or-bi men. Operating from a 10% are gay or bi perspective (I know, there’s no certainty surrounding that) rule of thumb, that would seem to imply a minimum of 20% of men are in this larger category. I’m thinking Kinsey would put it over 30%. I don’t know if that supports Ward’s “as a rule”, but it’s a long way in that direction for sure.
Lest you think I’m picking on men here, Ward goes on to note that if you said the same thing about women, it wouldn’t have a lot of impact, and I entirely agree.
ETA screaming with laughter:
Under the heading “The Bonds of Men: The Performance of Homosocial Homosexuality”
“…one organized around the belief that hand jobs are sometimes a “less gay” way to be close to men than the more intimate and feminized realm of friendship.”
!!!
You know, if, when people were trying to convince me that Men and Women Really Think Differently, they used _this_ as an example, I might actually be willing to entertain the idea of actual gender difference. Not for very long mind you — I’ve met some screwy women and girls over the last 50 years — but I would at least pause, for a while, and ask some questions about this belief.
Joe Kort is mentioned in this context, with a quote attributed to him: “deep longing to experience the physical intimacy with other men that they are denied in a sexist and homphobic world.” Then, in Ward’s summation, “In Kort’s view, if straight men can feel secure in the knowledge that they are innately heterosexual, and if they can understand that the craving for sexual contact with men is not only natural but “manly,” they can embrace their sexual fluidity without a sense of discordance.”
Next bit is about men seeking men ads on craigslist: “Some ads ask explicitly and longingly, “what ever happend to the circle jerk?””
Indeed.
Ward apparently interviewed Kort, and she summarizes from that: “Straight men have a need for access to quick and emotionless sex and a longing for physical intimacy with other men. Such desires do not make men gay, Kort explains, but simply struggling to get off and achieve closeness with men in a world that makes both difficult.”