Are Gay men innately feminine/lesbians inately masculine or is it a social construct?

Freiheit

The Garda who got the prison sentence (later suspended) was responding to the jibe that 'his shirt was very gay'. What this really meant was that his shirt was very feminine and in popular culture feminine expression in a man is conflated with being gay. The reverse is also true with women who exhibit stereotypicaly masculine traits or expression. I know it's just a stereotype that is only a partial truth, but it's amazingly how strong it is in our culture.

Do others here feel though that there is much innate femininity amongst gay men or masculinity amongst gay women? any more than is the case in heterosexual people? or is it just more acceptable as a part of a gay identity? does it even help to fit in as a gay man to be a bit feminine or artistic?....

I'm not in any way critical of the above and look I know there's no definitive answer, but I'm just interested in probing feelings.

Femininity in men = gay, Masculinity in women=lesbian in popular perception.

I was always assumed to be a gay man because of my partially feminine expression,but those tendencies don't neccesarily mean I've any sexual attraction to men......

AndrewJD

I dunno, I'm definitely the most feminine out of my (uniformly straight) friends. Nothing major, perhaps not noticeable, but there. Equally I know more effeminate straight dudes. There's an obvious correlation going on [at least in my experience] so there must be some link somewhere. I wonder if it's more of an openness to feminine things and not feeling so hemmed in with being required to appear masculine. I say this because any femininity only showed up in the last 3-4 years, really after I'd realised I was gay.

Aishae

im very butch myself - i look well hard in sparkly dresses and so forth. whilst sporting a studded collar.

im messing - but - apart from the collar - the sparkly dress bit is true. im so not butch. i must say i know a lot of butch straight girls though.
but with lads it seems to be 50/50 for feminine straight and feminine gay.
straightest lad i know - very happy to be a straight lad - is the biggest jessie over his cats. they have their own picture blog. he does call them his girls though, im pretty sure samantha is a bloke...

doesnt seem to be any link between butch / feminine and gay to me but that just means i havent seen one. there could very well BE a link, or maybe a notion that - being gay - you should take on the stererotypical gay persona. much in the same way if you say youre goth then you have to be goth. the whole kit and caboodle. including goth interests and sun dodging

Aard

It's a defense mechanism. "The guys won't accept me, so I'll fit in better with the girls."

SugarHigh

Aard wrote: »

It's a defense mechanism. "The guys won't accept me, so I'll fit in better with the girls."

I don't know about that. I think it's just more acceptable for gay men to be feminine. A gay guy might not feel the need to hide the fact he watches desperate housewives but I bet a straight guy would.

The girls who play hockey are lesbians sterotype has proven mostly true ime but I think it's the same thing. Straight girls might avoid it because they don't want too look lesbian even though they might want to play.

Aoifums

I don't think so. I'm an unbelievable girly girl. And most other gay girls I know aren't butch. Not that I know a lot, but most aren't butch in my experience.
Most gay guys that I know personally aren't feminine or even that camp. Again, I don't know enough gay people to make a call so I can only speak from my own experience.

I'm wondering do we just notice masculinity/femininity in gay people more? Like if a straight girl is into football it's fine, if a lesbian is into football then it's considered masculine. I guess the same applies for guys but with stuff like cooking or something traditionally more feminine.
That is really stereotypical! Sorry.

hare05

Blurring the gender norms is more acceptable in same sex relationships as many of the social cues required for a successful relationship are perceived as gendered, and as such, someone in a gay relationship will inevitably play those parts.

As for whether gay men are naturally more feminine... bears exist. The point is moot.

And for women naturally being more masculine... I'm not sure of the label, but there are many who fall under it. Point = moot.

Aishae

there is another thought. men and women had very traditional and set roles in history. while weve grown past the 'women in the kitchen' thing (for the most part) society does still act on values it has long held on to. girl being girly and men being macho. to deviate from this is perceived as gay. im not even sure if they really mean its GAY or if to be different (a girl doing something unfeminine for example) is called gay, because gay is different to the norm.

G.K.

I know one gay guy. He's as masculine as anyone else in our posse. True in some cases, a sterotype in others.

AndrewJD

I'd agree with most of the things people have said (sorry Aard not the defence mechanism bit, I can think of plenty of effeminate guys at least [including myself] with overwhelmingly male social circles ), like most things about our personality there's probably several contributing factors and reasons. I couldn't find any when I searched quickly just there, but does anyone know of any studies into this sort of thing? It seems the sort of thing behavioural psychologists would go wild over...

Killer_banana

I haven't met enough lesbians to comment on whether or not there's more butch ones than girly ones but any bisexual girls I know aren't any butcher than my straight friends. I'm a bit of a tomboy myself but that's more to do with growing up with two older brothers than my sexuality. And i've et some straight girls who could be classified as quite butch.

As for gay guys,it does seem to be kinda 50/50. After seeing a pretty masculine friend start acting more effeminate to fit in with his boyfriend's group of friends though I'm not completely sure if they're all that way naturally or if it's to fit in with the scene. My friend could be a unique case though, I don't really know.

Also SugarHigh, quite a few of my straight guy friends love Desperate Housewives and talk about it non-stop. I get the point you're making; it just made me giggle when I read your post.

Dun

From my own experience, most gay men I know are not camp or effeminate - what would be badly described as straight-acting. I say badly described because it kind of insinuates that they're trying to act straight. What most are doing is being themselves. They don't stand out from the crowd. So my point is that if people are able to identify some gay people because they stand out by being effeminate, it's understandable that they think most gay men are like that if they don't know many gay people.

Freiheit

Think that's a very good answer Dun.

Annasopra

AndrewJD wrote: »

I'd agree with most of the things people have said (sorry Aard not the defence mechanism bit, I can think of plenty of effeminate guys at least [including myself] with overwhelmingly male social circles ), like most things about our personality there's probably several contributing factors and reasons. I couldn't find any when I searched quickly just there, but does anyone know of any studies into this sort of thing? It seems the sort of thing behavioural psychologists would go wild over...

Michael Barron wrote a journal article on how the gay scene constructs gay male identities

Rw Connell has wrote loads of books about the theory of hegemonic masculinity


Sociologists really love this stuff

DevL

An observation from my own experience is that the gay guys that fit the feminine / "camp" mould tend to come out earlier and naturally have more female / less masculine guy friends. The more masculine gay guys tend to mix in more masculine circles and come out later. I would suggest that these guys are subject to more homophobic comments said by their masculine friends (mostly in gest) or simply are more likely to try the whole straight guy / girlfriend act to fit in. This makes them slower / less likely to come out. The result is the feminine guys are more visible than the masculine guys from an earlier age which compounds general perceptions and the more masculine guys are less visible and so an imbalanced general perception of gay guys emerges, emphasising the feminine guys.