'Gay' is a sexuality not a culture...

[Sasha Distan]

Discuss.

 

so i want to give a nod back to crazyfish's topic on What young gay men think of other gay men which started my line of thinking on this as well as Asamvav11's status which questioned if gay culture was sexualised at the outset.

When i replied to his status, i said that i thought there was more to 'gay culture' than just sexual desire, but I've been thinking about this lately in conjunction with what i once had one of my characters say. Bay from Bad Stereotypes says that he has no desire to be friends with people with whom he only has his sexuality in common, because the sort of person who he fancies doesn't dictate his personality. it made me think.

 

Is there really such a thing as 'gay' culture and does in fact have anything to do with homosexuality? can the two things be mutually exclusive (because there are certainly enough guys out there who are butch enough and disinterested in fashion enough to make me think it might be)? what is currently seen as 'culturally' gay is so close to what is defined as 'metrosexuality' that they might be the same thing, and since when did the gender of the person you want to have sex with dictate your music choices?

 

OK, that's long enough. Discuss!

[Aditus]

Yes Sir!

On the same status I asked 'What's gay culture?' IMO it's an artificial concept based on stereotypes and disregarding the diversity of people.

[asamvav111]

I think the fallacy in both your statements lie in the fact that you are taking "Gay Culture" as a homogeneous entity. And a culture is as diverse as the people practicing it. 

[TetRefine]

I used to think gay culture really only consisted of gay bars, gay clubs, or bathhouses. So basically anything centered around hooking up and getting laid. But then after moving to a big city, it definitely consists of much more than just places that will get you laid. For example, there is a restaurant here in Philly called Tavern on Comac, that caters almost exclusively to gay people/couples. It was nice to know that my boyfriend and I were not the only gay couple there (as it usually is when we go out to dinner), and we didn't have to worry about getting glances from everyone else. Theres also entire sports leagues here in the city that are catered toward gay men that foster a sense of community and friendship that don't involve banging each other. Theres an entire neighborhood here called the 'Gayborhood' that has a wide variety of shops and restaurants, many of which don't involve hooking up but are still populated by mostly gay people. Even if you have nothing in common with the other people around you, its still nice to get that feeling of normalcy and inclusion that I often feel partly left out of in a heterosexual-dominated society. Its one of the reasons I try to avoid straight bars/clubs despite the fact that I have more in common with the people who populate those places as opposed to gay ones. I'll always feel somewhat left on the fringes in places like that. 

[JamesSavik]

My sexuality and culture are two completely different things. As a Southern person, those two independent things are often at odds.

 

Southern culture is not exactly gay-friendly. It's usually centered around large families, hunting, fishing and testosterone.

 

Anything that doesn't fit that mold is actively discouraged. Early marriages are the norm, as are early divorces, and I often think that alcoholism and spousal abuse are the only thing our "cultures" have in common.

[Graeme]

There is a gay sub-culture which is along the lines of what TetRefine indicated -- bars, parties, hooking up. But as he also mentioned, there are other not-as-obvious gay sub-cultures, such as gay sporting clubs. There's a gay rugby team in Sydney that plays in the normal competition -- their "culture" is the club, which is part of a wider "straight" cultural group (rugby players).

 

When people talk about a "gay culture" they are usually thinking of one of two things -- the bars/parties/hook-up sub-culture, or the arty/creative/effeminate sub-culture. The first is largely defined by the sexuality of the people involved, the second is not. The second also contains straight people -- it just has a higher-than-typical percentage of out gay people and that's why people tend to identify it as a "gay" sub-culture.

 

But there are other cultures that are partially defined by sexuality, but more by other things. The gay sporting clubs are a good example. They're defined by the love of the sport of the participants, and the sexuality is more a sub-grouping within the larger culture.

 

In short, some gay sub-cultures are defined by sexuality, but many merely have sexuality as an additional "trait" of the sub-culture and even that trait may not be true for all members of that culture. Using an analogy, wheel-chair basketball is played by people in wheel-chairs However, not all wheel-chair basketball players are disabled -- some only get into a chair to play the game. It's the same with many "gay" sub-cultures -- the arty/creative sub-culture I mentioned above being a good example.

[Ron]

I had an interesting conversation with a couple of young gay men in their early twenties a few weeks ago. They both work in a local coffee shop a short distance from where I live, in what has now essentially become an ex-gayborhood known as the Southend. First a little general background notes on my neighborhood.

 

The Southend was once upon a time, not such a nice place to live in. In fact the city of Boston once tore down a huge swath of it in the name of urban renewal and yet it remains the largest extent area of Victorian architecture in the US today. During the 60's it began it's journey into gentrification and gay men and women were among the first to set the pace. It became a draw for other gay folks and soon enough it was a neighborhood very similar to any large gay population in other cities of it's time if smaller than some. Sex was easy and there were so many men and yet even with different tastes, they managed to create a community and a culture that was theirs. They knew that it was us against them and they stuck together and stuck out because of it.

 

Of course AIDS came along and cut down another huge swath of Boston, only this time it was in lives. This began a change in the human architecture of the Southend. With the loss of so many and gentrification already well on its way, more straight people began buying up properties and prices began to rise even more and more quickly. Young gay people and those less educated with the jobs to match could less and less afford to live here and moved away. One could say that the downward spiral was well on its way for the gay community, but also the old culture.

 

By the time that me and my partner moved to the Southend at the end of 1999, prices for condos were outrages and for what we had to pay then, you could have bought 5 or 6 entire townhouses in the 60's and early 70's. Just a few short months prior to our move the last bathhouse in Boston had closed and the new Southend gay culture was becoming one of wealth and internet hookups.

 

Which brings me back to the two fellas in the coffee shop. In the course of our conversation, they lamented the fact that the gay men that lived in the Southend all dressed well and behaved a certain way. I can see how they might come to that conclusion, that somehow the gay culture has become somewhat exclusive. That you have to dress a certain way or behave a certain way in order to fit in where as before that wasn't the case and from the outside it may look like just that. It is true that guys tend to dress well in my Southend but it is also a reflection of their socioeconomic status, you can't have a bad job or be poor and live here well. The gay men that live in the Southend can afford to live here and they are often well educated and not necessarily super young. Those young gay men are just starting out and for them the future of gaydom, at least when exemplified by those in the Southend, doesn't look very bright. While that may be the case, it is also a reflection of what it takes to live nowadays in a city.

 

Gay culture has changed, there is no doubt about it. There isn't the need for community that there used to be. You no longer need to go out and meet new people to get laid even if you have the time to do it. If you do go out it's probably to network job opportunities or socialize with friends. Feeling sexually frustrated?, hop on the internet and you've just ordered home delivery of whatever flavor you like. Another way our culture has changed is that we no longer see ourselves the way we used to. People can poo poo gay pride all they want but it has made a difference. We very well may not need a gay culture anymore, but I for one will lament its loss and the community that it provided.

 

 

edited to correct a spelling mistake.

Edited November 16, 2013 by Ron

[Zombie]

For me "gay culture" only exists as an umbrella term that embraces all the gay sub-cultures. Graeme mentioned some but there are many more sub-cultures, much more diverse than just sports, rugby etc. [which really are little different from mainstream sports culture]. These multifarious sub-cultures would include things like gay transvestism, leather, fitness / body image and so on - I'm sure someone can come up with some more - and these sub-cultures may or may not have counterparts in het world, like str8 transvestism, BDSM, gym bunnies etc etc. I wouldn't call "arts" a gay sub-culture. It's both a cliche and a truism that arts do attract gays but I think an interest in arts is more to do with temperament than sexuality.

To sum up, then, you can be gay without belonging to or self-identifying with any of those sub-cultures, but to belong to a gay sub-culture I think you have to be gay, or at least a bit queer
 

[Y_B]

Culture is just a collective of what a group of people do, like, how they behave, etc. Every company has their own corporate culture, every church has their own culture, every city has their own culture, every sports team has their own culture...now just because you're gay doesn't mean you'll be practicing gay culture, but the phenomenon of gay people generally sticking together in a camaraderie of sorts creates gay culture. 

[Sasha Distan]

i ran out of likes for all the cool stuff being discussed in this thread.

[asamvav111]

Ron makes a very interesting point on the demise of Gay culture in a portion of North America. Albeit North America is a modern age gay mecca, it still is not all this blend has to offer. The rest of the world should weigh in with their own specific regional flavors and outlooks. 

 

And I would like to know your views on the misogyny of Gay Culture. Notice how it is Gay not LGBT as it should be. Even a community which in its most essential point is a conglomeration of the oppressed, perpetuates oppression and discrimination on its own. The so called culture of homosexuals and prostitutes and other lowlifes, that was marginalized by the social masters of the day and tolerated only on the basis of the various carnal services these sectors provided, has now evolved to a high-spending-creative-well-educated-charade of society sanctioned debauchery. And it is male dominated to its core, much like its heterosexual cousin. 

[Cia]

Humans ARE herd animals. We do not live in microcosms based on singular aspects of who we are but like DOES tend to gravitate to like, in many ways. As Tetrefine basically pointed out, we like to feel like we are accepted and 'part' of those around us. Color, creed, socio-economic status, regionality, and yes sexuality, DO play parts in how we define ourselves and those we commonly interact or 'relate' to. Is this a hard and fast rule? No. Is any one of those factors, specifically sexuality in this discussion, HAVE to be that defining element of our personality and/or dictate our behavior or peers? Of course not. That would make for some very one dimensional people. Just as our personality is built upon many layers of who we are as individuals, so are our 'cultures'. There are many, many areas of overlap. Trying to box people in like that just isn't logical.

 

Look at me. I am a woman who had a strong Southern upbringing (read: homophobe Southern parent) in the very liberal Pacific NW who happens to be bi but married to a man. I am a stay at home mom and interact with other typically hetero parents, but I also write man on man fiction and have a very wide circle of gay friends, though mostly online.  I am Mom and wife. I am erotica author and school volunteer. I am a general acceptor of anyone who is accepting of me... be they the local 30 something Catholic mom married to her high school boyfriend who accepts I am *coughs* quirky or the single gay 20 something who can't imagine the boring hetero-normative, white picket family thing as they enjoy their gay hook up bar crawling. I have so many toes dipped into so many scenes....

 

But that just means my life is fun. Sometimes conflicting, and often strange, but I like it weird.

[MikeL]

Margaret Mead described "culture" as "an abstraction of the body of learned behavior which a group of people who share the same tradition transmit entire to their children, and, in part, to adult immigrants who become members of the society."  See Wikiversity article.

 

This emphasis on culture being a learned behavior works well for those who believe that homosexuality is a choice or that gays who become parents are training their children to be gay or that all gays are pedophiles.  The term "gay culture" often serves as a pejorative when used by members of the homophobic culture.  James Savick has described the homophobic culture quite succinctly in his comments.

 

I remember the hippie culture being disparaged in the 1950s and 1960s as long-haired, unwashed nonconformists.  The homophobe sees gays as something worse than nonconformist.  Being considered a culture is a compliment for gays compared with other terms homphobes frequently use.

 

I agree with earlier comments about the multiple cultures to which we all belong and the term "gay culture" being a totally incomplete description of who we are.  But then I wonder about my own cultural assignment.  I am a straight, southern, Christian father and grandfather who has many gay friends and who speaks up in forums such as this.  Am I a member of the gay culture?  If I am, how does that affect the definition of "gay culture"?

Edited November 18, 2013 by MikeL

[joann414]

I think I'm what James and Cia said combined.  I'm from the homophobic south, and I think they would shut down Louisiana and Mississippi if some dignitary ever said that they had a gay culture.  The closest thing they would think was gay culture would be New Orleans, and they call it a "City of Sin".   The sad thing that my best friend throughout my teens was gay, and I mean obviously gay, but her parents, and citizens of the small homophobic place we lived refused to acknowledge it.  She is still in the closet, though she's been with her partner thirty years.  So nope, I feel most of the South Central US is without much gay culture.

 

Like Cia, my dad had an inkling about my sexuality because of my best friend.  We never discussed it, though I would've told him.  When I came out  after joining GA, my oldest brother informed me he already knew.  "oops".  So, gay culture doesn't exist in every environment. But, it does exist.

[knotme]

I'm kinda with Bay (from Bad Stereotypes): my reluctance to let gayness define me leads me to avoid this whole question most of the time. Fortunately (for me), I live where cultures of all stripes are all mashed up, and therefore less defining and limiting. 

[Sasha Distan]

i agree with so much of what has been said.

 

The problem i find is that the bit of my universe where i'm from, just outside of the middle-of-nowhere i choose to live is Brighton, arguably one of the biggest gay-mecca's in england. In Brighton, we seem to have come full circle, through openess and acceptance and gone back to putting people into shoe boxes. in Brighton, if you are gay this means particular certain things. if you don't do those certain things (like madonna, drink cheap flavoured vodka shots, go to Revenge (it's a bar) every week and shop on St Charles Street) then you get very quickly sidelined. especially as a student, which is what i was when i was in brighton as an adult.

 

it's a very strange situation to find ourselves in in the modern day where people intentionally define themselves as one or another. i understand what Cia says about the herd mentality. i was once asked at a job interview for my hobbies and interest and about four items into this list, the interviewer stopped me and went "pick one". i told him i didn't want the job there and then.

 

Why do we (as humans rather than we as individuals) choose to pigeon hole ourselves? the obsession with defining and labeling everything seems to be modern, and has not been helped by the advent of social networks such as FaceBook which actively encourage people to define their relationships, friendships and everything else in their lives.

[TetRefine]

Why do we (as humans rather than we as individuals) choose to pigeon hole ourselves? the obsession with defining and labeling everything seems to be modern, and has not been helped by the advent of social networks such as FaceBook which actively encourage people to define their relationships, friendships and everything else in their lives.

 

I think because finding like-minded and similar looking people increases our chances for survival because you have a chance of fitting in, and therefor, surviving and thriving. Its an internal instinct that social liberalism can break only so much. Think about why for the most part, white people marry white people, black people marry black people, etc. Most likely they share similar cultures, similar upbringings, and similar values. 

Edited November 17, 2013 by TetRefine

[W_L]

I think because finding like-minded and similar looking people increases our chances for survival because you have a chance of fitting in, and therefor, surviving and thriving. Its an internal instinct that social liberalism can break only so much. Think about why for the most part, white people marry white people, black people marry black people, etc. Most likely they share similar cultures, similar upbringings, and similar values. 

 

I agree, we cling to what we know and fear to what we do not know.

 

Social structure is filled with different cultures, because we try to place a set of identities on people, in order to define their behaviors. For people who live near the edge of this framework or outside of it, we consider it an alien culture. Human beings are extremely caught up in our own identity crisis; not just based on sexuality, but on everything from skin tone to use of either right/left hand.

 

Social liberalism cannot eliminate this trait; it is innate and imbedded in how our minds function and how perceptions actually work.

[Aditus]

I should have been clearer: What is usually understood as gay culture is an artificial concept based on stereotypes and disregarding the diversity of people.
 

 

Culture is a term interpreted in many different ways and is often misused when we only want to to describe a part of society. As some already said here, culture is so much more. It always annoys me when it's used to separate a group of people from the rest based on one or a few things they have in common.

We tend to surround us with others who are like us, that's natural, it means protection, we feel safe. That's what the early humans did, what animals do, instinct, nature.  I understand culture in contrast to nature and I want the big picture, I want to be part of culture, not of xxx-culture or yyy-culture. I am shaped by my surroundings, by my upbringing, by my sexuality and much more, yes, but I will not let myself be boxed in one of these.

Sorry about the rant it has been a sore point for me lately.

[Thorn Wilde]

And I would like to know your views on the misogyny of Gay Culture. Notice how it is Gay not LGBT as it should be. Even a community which in its most essential point is a conglomeration of the oppressed, perpetuates oppression and discrimination on its own. The so called culture of homosexuals and prostitutes and other lowlifes, that was marginalized by the social masters of the day and tolerated only on the basis of the various carnal services these sectors provided, has now evolved to a high-spending-creative-well-educated-charade of society sanctioned debauchery. And it is male dominated to its core, much like its heterosexual cousin. 

 

The misogyny of gay culture has always bothered me greatly. Whenever I discuss these kinds of topics I tend to specify LGBT or even LGBTQ (I think queer is such a wonderful all-encompassing word, and I like queer culture much better than gay culture). I've never been one for the club scene, I've always preferred a quiet drink in a pub with my friends. Now, the vast majority of my friends self-identify as bisexual, even if most of them are in straight relationships. I was accepted into a very open and accepting circle back when I was 15. It's grown and shrunk again many times since then, but the core members mostly remain, and it's always been okay to be who you are and love whom you want, and as such I never really needed any other culture, as that's not really my scene anyway. Outside of Pride, which I attend every year, I don't really deal much with gay culture.

 

But when I do, I notice. First the T is dropped, then the B and then the L. In that order. I mentioned in another thread that there's a lot of prejudice against bisexual people in the so-called LGBT community. We're just being greedy, or we need to make up our minds, or we're cowards, just trying to hold onto some sense of normalcy and belonging in mainstream society by not identifying as gay. I think this leads a lot of people to identify as gay even though they're actually bisexual, because then at least you belong. And then there's women. 'Don't be such a lesbian.' 'Oh, never mind her, she's just my hag.' In my experience, there are few groups quite as judgmental as certain groups of gay men. 

 

I realise that I'm lucky. I live in an extremely socially liberal country, I became comfortable with my sexuality early on (I think I must have been about 7 or 8 the first time I had a crush on someone of the same sex), and I found a group of friends that's quirky, open-minded, diverse and largely queer in one way or another. But I cannot understand people who, because they have been marginalised, feel that they have the right to marginalise others. I recently read an article in a Norwegian newspaper that cited a study claiming that bisexual women have the highest rate of suicide, depression, and general difficulty finding a sense of belonging. It's not really difficult to see why.

Edited November 19, 2013 by Thorn Wilde

[TetRefine]

I am really uncomfortable with the term "queer". To me it has such a negative and 'outsider status' connotation to it, and has a history of being used pejoratively toward LGBT people. Somehow though gay people have tried to re-empower the word by turning it into a socially acceptable bit of language that is only acceptable for LGBT people to use. Its like how black people call each other "nigga", and to them its perfectly socially acceptable despite it's very negative history. But if a white person were to use the word, he'd be crucified for it. The same goes for "queer". How would you react if, say, some straight, white frat boy called you queer. You'd probably be offended, regardless of the context. But somehow its perfectly acceptable for gay people to call and refer to each other with the word. If it isn't acceptable for all, it shouldn't be acceptable at all. Besides, haven't we come up with more educated, non-offensive, neutral terms to use instead of outdated hate words? 

 

As for bisexuality, I find that among straight people, its easier for them to accept you as that than if you came out as 100% gay. In my experience, they can still view you as like them, and you retain your masculinity in their minds because you still have some interest in wanting to get with other women. When I first came out to my friends, I told them I was bisexual because I knew it would make it easier for them to accept, even though I have almost no sexual interest in women. As time went on and they had time to think it over and get to know me better, I told them that I pretty much identified as gay if I had to choose a label. By then, they had known me long enough for it not to matter, but I think waiting and doing it in increments, so to speak, made them view me in a more positive light then if I had come out as gay right off the bat. 

Edited November 19, 2013 by TetRefine

[Thorn Wilde]

I guess there's a cultural difference there... Where I'm from and in the lingo I'm used to, queer is a perfectly acceptable term for both LGBT and straight people to use, and it's the intent behind it that matters rather than the word itself. But I guess it's different in different places. In Norwegian, the equivalent word, 'skeiv' (which means 'bent', technically), has been so successfully re-empowered that it's the primary word used for the LGBT movement. The Oslo pride festival is called 'Skeive dager' or 'Queer days'. I much prefer to think of myself as queer rather than any other, more narrow label I can place on myself, and I think the more we use it the less people can use it against us. I completely understand where you're coming from, though. I've never had the word directed at me as a slur, and if I have I probably didn't notice.

[TetRefine]

I guess there's a cultural difference there... Where I'm from and in the lingo I'm used to, queer is a perfectly acceptable term for both LGBT and straight people to use, and it's the intent behind it that matters rather than the word itself. But I guess it's different in different places. In Norwegian, the equivalent word, 'skeiv' (which means 'bent', technically), has been so successfully re-empowered that it's the primary word used for the LGBT movement. The Oslo pride festival is called 'Skeive dager' or 'Queer days'. I much prefer to think of myself as queer rather than any other, more narrow label I can place on myself, and I think the more we use it the less people can use it against us. I completely understand where you're coming from, though. I've never had the word directed at me as a slur, and if I have I probably didn't notice.

 

Yeah, I think its safe to assume LGBT culture in Norway has a much different way of relating to the larger overall culture than the way it happens here in the United States, even in the liberal Northeast.

[Thorn Wilde]

Yeah, I think its safe to assume LGBT culture in Norway has a much different way of relating to the larger overall culture than the way it happens here in the United States, even in the liberal Northeast.

 

I am not ignorant of my privilege. But the way I see it, any word can be used to be insulting, or it can be used in a neutral or positive way. It's like when you call your friend a bitch, or you admiringly call someone a clever bastard (or, if you're Scottish, a clever c**t; this word can be a term of endearment in certain contexts). Likewise, an utterly benign word can be uttered in the most hateful way. One that comes to mind is 'Arab'. Just the name of an ethnic group, but the way some people are spitting it out these days you'd think it was some kind of curse. Or, a bit closer to home, 'That's so gay!'. We don't abandon these words just because some people use them negatively. Just my opinion, of course.

[W_L]

Language is different with different regions and people. Queer is used for a all encompassing title, but it is also in certain context just a word for strange/not ordinary. Nothing wrong with Queer.

 

Another more interesting derogatory word that I personally find the most fun is Fag.

 

For the UK members, I wonder if "Fag" is derogatory or just a cigarette in majority context (that divided meaning in UK English and American English is weird). Still, it would be fun for a while to hear more people say, "can I bum a fag?" and the reply is, "Yes, you can."