[Note: I'm going to be doing some
criticizing of my own community in this piece. Some of you will be
glad for it. Some of you will be offended for various reasons and
accuse me of over-generalizing. Some of you will have the
overwhelming compulsion to offer a defense for poor behavior, your
own or others'. Some of you won't even finish reading before you
give up fighting the urge to weigh in on the subject. I encourage
you to stifle that urge and not merely read this, but absorb it and
engage it honestly in your own mind before you say something worthy
of ridicule. Also, yes, this is pretty long. Sorry/not sorry.]
Ask folks for their opinions on
someone's physical appearance and you will never be left wanting for
glowing adjectives and venomous epithets. We live in a
visually-oriented society, and appearances hold an awful lot of
meaning for an awful lot of people. The LGBT+ community is certainly
no exception to this rule and, in many ways, may be the very
embodiment of it.
Speaking as a white, gay, cisgender
male, I'm pretty sure that those who are most like me in those
regards are among the most egregious offenders where looksism is
concerned. Gay men as a community are, by and large, a bit of a hot
mess at times when it comes to courtesy and big picture thinking.
This certainly doesn't let the Ls, the Bs, and the Ts off the hook,
but by and large, yes, we're the worst. Whether it's personal ads
extolling the imagined virtues of people who aren't “fats, femmes, or
chocolate/rice/tacos/insert food-based ethnic slur here,” or a
political discussion which devolves into seeing who can crack the
best joke about Chris Christie's weight, anyone could be forgiven for
thinking that we gay men love to tear others, and one another, down
as a matter of course.
It would take a weighty tome to break
down the myriad reasons for this behavior, and though I'm admittedly
long-winded, I'm not going to write that book today. I will say that
I think the pecking order concept plays a huge role in this
phenomenon. If you are interested in a more thorough exploration of
this concept, Howard Bloom does an excellent job of breaking it down
in his book The Lucifer Principle,
which I highly recommend. In
essence, the idea is that everyone has an innate desire, if not an
outright need, to feel that they are better than someone, anyone,
else.
Traditionally
marginalized groups are often, seemingly paradoxically, the most
egregious offenders when it comes to establishing and enforcing
social hierarchies. One might think such people would and should
know better, considering their first-hand knowledge of the pain and
damage such marginalization causes. Yet, often, the justification
amounts to little more than “what goes around, comes around.”
After all, when you spend a large portion of your time under
someone's heel, sometimes it feels good to do a little stepping of
your own. We stratify our communities in order to more easily
discern our roles and positions, and we are always looking for ways
to ascend another rung on the ladder.
I believe there's
also more than a little “misery loves company” at play here. All
of us have moments (at the very least) of insecurity with our looks.
Maybe we wish we were a bit thinner, a bit more muscular, had better
bone structure, whatever. There isn't a person reading this who
hasn't engaged in some degree of fretting at their reflection at some
point. Some people are able to shrug off the doubts and get on with
living. Some people obsess over their perceived flaws and build
their entire image around downplaying them. And some, some strive to
inflate their own egos to serve as a protective buffer against these
insecurities, by attacking and belittling the imperfections of others
as a way to distract from their own.
We see
this attitude manifest in different ways, depending on the situation,
but it's a rare situation in which someone, somewhere, cannot
shoehorn it in. Of course, we see it in political discussions, when
someone dismisses Maggie Gallagher or Chris Christie for being
overweight, rather than attacking their bigoted and duplicitous
ideas. We certainly see it in many of our social circles, which are
often so closed-off that we label them by type, be they bears,
twinks, or what have you. We hear a lot of “How did he
land him?” We
certainly see it in our consumption and evaluation of celebrity,
judging imperfect “beach bodies” and conjecturing on which
starlets have eating disorders. We even see it in our interactions
with our trans brothers and sisters, as when some may lament that
so-and-so is “missing the right parts” but is otherwise
considered attractive. Within the gay male community, our attitudes
about appearances are a microcosmic reflection of society at large.
We may not have invented shade (debatable), but we certainly
perfected it.
All of this is not
to fault anyone for making such judgments. As we all have our
insecurities, so do we all partake of judgment on occasion. It's a
rare person, indeed, who gives no consideration to physical
attraction when evaluating a potential romantic partner, after all.
The problem arises when we see people as nothing more than a
collection of physical traits, though, and subsequently decide their
value to us on that basis, particularly outside the context of the
pursuit of romance. Anytime we dismiss another person outright due
to physical criteria, we are, in effect, denying their very humanity.
They cease to be a person in our eyes, and become a mere object,
worthy of praise or ridicule depending on what we value. This is
what the word “objectification” means, and considering the wide
range of tastes people have, such criteria are, essentially, wholly
arbitrary.
I'm not above using
myself as an illustration, literally, even if it means a certain
percentage of readers will subsequently stop reading and write me off
as a bitter queen with a chip on his shoulder. This is what I look
like, mostly unclothed:
I
choose to use my own picture here because I'm not willing to shine
this sort of spotlight on someone who may not want me to, and because
I can handle slurs and criticism better than many can. I'm not
fishing for compliments or scorn. I don't want or need pity, and no,
I don't think sharing this picture is particularly brave, or at least
it shouldn't be. This is merely for illustrative purposes. That's
out of the way now, so you don't need to speculate about any of that
in the comments. Let us continue.
Some people are
troubled by this picture. They find it aesthetically unpleasing for
various reasons. My stomach is too large, my pecs are too flabby,
my arms aren't muscular enough, my underwear is too tight, I have
stretch marks. I'm too fat and old to be a twink, not hairy enough
to be a bear, not cut enough for the gym crowd and its admirers, and,
interestingly enough, not fat enough for many chubby chasers.
Everyone, it seems, finds something to complain about. (Hint: That
doesn't just apply to me; you're not safe, either.)
This unretouched
picture may seem to tell you a lot about me: I like to eat, I don't
exercise a whole lot, and I'm a Captain America fan. It may well be
worth a thousand words, but what it doesn't tell you about me could
fill a book or ten. It doesn't tell you, for instance, that I have
health issues, unrelated to my weight, which have inhibited my
mobility since I was twelve years old. It doesn't tell you that I
skipped the second grade because I was academically advanced, or that
I repeated the fifth grade because my maturity had not caught up with
my intellect. It doesn't tell you that my signature colors are blue
and silver, or that I enjoy folk music and black metal. It doesn't
tell you that I'm an introvert who tends to enjoy the company of
animals more than people. It doesn't tell you that I've been with my
current boyfriend for over three years now, and that I love him with
every fiber of my being. Pictures can't tell the whole story, no
matter who you are. They cannot capture a person's internal life,
their feelings, their hopes, their history.
I've been called
every name in the book, withstood every slight and insult you could
think of, and been rejected more times than I could begin to recall.
I'm not the sort of guy who catches eyes when I go out, unless my
occasionally outlandish fashion sense counts. I've never had a drink
bought for me at a bar, much less been picked up. When I hit the
dance floor, it's not rare for guys to move away lest people think
they're dancing with me. I have been regarded as a de facto eunuch
by friends, frenemies, and strangers alike, completely non-sexual in
their eyes. I've dated guys who wouldn't even hold my hand in
public, and guys who would only call me their boyfriend when we were
alone.
These are the
things you get used to when you're not conventionally attractive.
Many people, in time, come to expect such treatment. Too few learn
not to. It took me over a decade to even begin my journey out of
resignation, and believe me, the gay community at large had no hand
in that. When you're chubby, or pimply, or very thin, or older, or
disabled, or a person of color, you tend to get pushed aside in favor
of “the pretty people,” white, athletic-to-muscular build, easy
on the eyes, fairly masculine in appearance and mannerism. It often
feels as if the gay community would prefer you simply weren't there
in the first place, a major blow to those of us who may have hoped
that coming out would grant us some form of unconditional acceptance
for the first time in our lives.
My boyfriend would
be considered conventionally attractive by most, well above average
by many (and no, I'm not putting a pic of him here). He's loathe to
admit it, but he's gorgeous, and not merely in my eyes. He's a
blond-haired and blue-eyed demi-twink, tattooed, and wouldn't look
out of place in a fashion ad or on the cover of a porno movie.
Hardly a day passes when he doesn't receive praise and attention for
his looks. He was recently invited to attend an LGBT+ charity event
solely because of his age (he's younger than me) and appearance. By
most anyone's estimation, he's a major prize and I got lucky when I
landed him. Most of the people who say that, though, don't truly
know either of us, and they surely don't know how much it bothers
him. He doesn't even like me to point out these things, and I'm sure
to get a wee scolding for doing so, but his experience in the gay
male community serves as the perfect counterpoint to my own.
Oh, you thought
this was all about how hard it is out there for guys like me? News
flash, kids: it's hard out there for everyone. You think it might be
nice to be seen as attractive, to get all kinds of attention from the
fellas? Try to imagine living in a world where you can never really
be sure if people genuinely like you as a person, or if they just
want to get into your pants. He's received messages online inviting
him to have an assortment of sex acts performed on him. He's been
hounded by men who want his sexual attentions, men who know he's in a
long-term, monogamous relationship and don't care. Generally, he's
pretty good at taking such incidents in stride, but sometimes, when
he declines someone's offer, they take offense. They look at people
who look like him as objects for their own sexual gratification, and
get upset when he asserts his personhood. The moment they can't get
what they want from him, they decide that he's just another arrogant,
self-involved twink. They cannot fathom that he loves me and is
loyal to me and our relationship. He isn't a person to them, he's an
image.
I share the two
sides of this coin because they underline my central point: we all
deal with our share of body policing, and though it may manifest in
different ways, it is always rooted in some sort of insecurity on the
part of the person doing it. Some people choose to be nasty and
judgmental because it's easier than allowing themselves to be open
and vulnerable. Sometimes, it's just intellectual laziness.
Sometimes they do it fit in with a crowd they may feel they don't
deserve to run with. Whatever form these attitudes take, whatever
the secondary motivation, I am convinced that the root lies in that
insecurity. I'm not blaming anyone for it. It's understandable,
living in a world that is often not incredibly welcoming to us. As
Whitney told us, it's not right, but it's okay.
So here's my call
to action, if you will: take a self-inventory. Look at your
reflection in the mirror, and make a list, mental, on paper, however,
of all the features you like. Then, throw it away, because none of
that actually matters. Take a second inventory, instead, listing
your positive traits which have nothing to do with what you look
like, because that is who you truly are. A body is a body, and
they'll all break down and sag and wrinkle sooner or later, if they
haven't already. You are not your body.
Repeat after me: I
am not my body. He is not his body. She is not her body. Ze is not
ze's body.
It took me many,
many years to get to the level of self-acceptance and self-love I
have now. My journey to this place could span several articles in
its own right, and perhaps one day it shall. I can say that the gay
community, as it were, played no role in it beyond hindering my
progress, and that I hope that will change one day. If it is to
change, though, let it start with you.
It may not take the
first time. It may not take the first dozen or hundred times, but
eventually, I hope you will come to love yourself on your own terms.
I also hope you will learn to be mindful in your interactions with
others, and strive to avoid language which belittles, shames, and
dehumanizes. You'll mess up; we all do sometimes. But just try, and
keep trying. Remember that we all share in the same humanity.
Remember that it takes more than a thousand words to sum up a person.
I'm not asking you to date anyone you're not attracted to. I'm not
even asking you to love, or even like, everyone in the LGBT+
community. But don't you think it would be nice if, in an often
hostile and unwelcoming world, we at least made some room at the
table for everyone? After all, we're a lot stronger together.
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