Gay male misogyny goes viral: College humor and the war on women’s bodies
By Nico LangGay male misogyny goes viral: College humor and the war on women’s bodies
By Nico Lang“I was at a gay club in Atlanta with a good friend of mine who is a heterosexual black woman. While dancing in the club, a white gay male reached out and grabbed both her breasts aggressively. Shocked, she pushed him away immediately. When we both confronted him he told us: ‘It’s no big deal, I’m gay, I don’t want her–I was just having fun.’ We expressed our frustrations to him and demanded he apologize, but he simply refused. He clearly felt entitled to touch her body and could not even acknowledge the fact that he had assaulted her.”
After the Mizrahi incident, Gawker’s Maureen O’Connor responded from her own experiences on the issue:
“Gay guys…You may not think of my body parts sexually, but I do, and as long as they are attached to my body, nobody touches them but me, my doctor, and straight guys I want to f—k. Even if you work in the fashion industry and are giving me advice about the bias cut of my dress, you may not touch my butt, stroke my thigh, or pinch the fat on my hip… gay or straight, if you grab a lady’s boob without permission—or an underage girl’s butt on the dance floor—you’re a perv.”
Although men like the one that Akili describes might not realize O’Connor’s hesitancy to have her body treated like a life-size Barbie doll, this lack of awareness only proves Akili’s point. The abuse is rendered invisible when gay men don’t perceive it as such. Acts such as these not only serve to perpetuate a rape culture that silences assault but also a society that tells women that they do not own themselves. We see the latter in a number of aspects of the complicated relationship between gay men and straight women—from a gay-male-dominated fashion industry predicated on critiquing female imperfection to a gay culture in which casual misogyny is too often ignored. (For a telling example of the latter, check out Vice Magazine’s “An Etiquette Guide for Straight People in Gay Bars.”)
As Akili notes, not all queer men are like this, and I was glad to see my Facebook friends rip that Vice article a new one. And most who behave that way aren’t bad people and don’t see their behavior as sexist. They simply rationalize it as “celebrating women” or “diva worship.” But if queer men truly want to celebrate women’s bodies and love women in the right way, we must hold ourselves accountable to dismantling a system that marginalizes and abuses them. Being oppressed ourselves, we must recognize our everyday roles in perpetuating the oppression of others—whether it’s watching a funny video or copping a feel—and work to create a culture that affirms women’s rights to their bodies. As our straight allies stand by us to make marriage equality a reality here in Illinois, we must also ask how we can stand by them.
Nico Lang blogs about LGBTQ life in Chicago for WBEZ.org. Follow Nico on Twitter @Nico_Lang or on Facebook.