Coming out as gay is often pictured as the ultimate act of queer defiance; but we cannot kid ourselves that it alone exempts us from the pressures of heteronormative society. As we watched on First Dates, the pressure to be perceived as “normal” by the standards of society makes many men unable to come out – and when they do, they replicate homophobic language towards other gay men who don’t “pass as straight”. Gay shame is a deeply systemic condition; it is ingrained into every fibre of our heteronormative culture, and it’s an impossible thing to shake yourself of entirely. [...]
White cisgender masculinity is celebrated as the ultimate triumph in many gay spaces, coming with it a rejection of non-conformism in our communities. It’s telling that possibly the most celebrated gay male couple mass-culturally is Tom Daley and Dustin Lance, a fairytale picture of gay men who have won by the sign posts of heteronormative idealism– one is an Olympian, the other a Hollywood veteran, both are white, cisgender, masculine, wealthy, they’re married and expecting children. Their conformism makes them palatable to the tastes of the masses. [...]
I have rarely seen femme gay men portrayed as sexually empowered subjects – when we see them in the media, they are often eunuchs, or serve as comic relief. Now I’m not saying that desiring a man who is masculine or who enjoys football is a problem. The issue at hand is the way representation has presented these “straight-acting” men as the zenith of success, which has resulted in internalised homophobia and damaging hierarchies within gay spaces. All forms of culture have an urgent responsibility to represent gay people in their spectrum of identities, so that white masculinity isn’t the ultimate goal.
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