As a Man, and a Gay Man, what am I Supposed to Like?

Believe it or not, this show has been described as both the manliest AND the gayest cartoon out there. (S)

Being a gay man who doesn't always conform to his society's concepts of 'masculinity' OR 'homosexuality', something of a feminist, and the brother of an academic who's finishing up her master's degree in gender studies, I'd say I'm slightly more sensitive to stereotypes of gender and sexual orientation than the average person (you might have noticed this if you've read my other articles on the blog).  And for quite a while, this combination actually had me quite worried about who I was and what I liked. See, when I'm aware of certain stereotypes or expectations that society has of me, I feel a kind of... compulsion to defy them. For quite a while I allowed that to influence how I saw myself, and it left me pretty conflicted.

I haven't always been so aware, or at least so critical, of gender norms. When I was a little younger than I am now, I certainly knew that, as a boy, there were things I wasn't 'supposed' to like. Things like watching The Powerpuff Girls, or listening to ABBA. Oh, I certainly enjoyed them, but I didn't talk about them to my peers. Basically, I was ashamed. They were what some might call 'guilty pleasures'.

This continued into my teens. When my older sisters and mother would watch something decidedly 'feminine', like Gilmore Girls, or Pride and Prejudice (the far superior 1995 BBC version, of course), I would watch too. I'd feel obligated to complain about how stupid it was, because, you know, I'm a guy and that's what I'm supposed to think. But I watched. Because deep down, I really liked it. I watched Friends, too, which I at first didn't think to be that odd. I mean, the cast is 50/50 gender split, that should be fine, right? But when one of my friends referred to it as "a chick show", I stopped talking about it in favour of more acceptable shows like The Simpsons and Seinfeld.

But eventually I came to realise that, you know what, screw it. Some of the stuff I like might be considered girly. Why should it be acceptable for my sisters to like this stuff, but not me? So i stopped shaming myself for liking things just because most other guys my age didn't.

Around that time, one of my sisters (I'll call her Jay) sort of introduced me to feminism. Not actively or anything. But when I'd borrow her computer, I'd notice feminist blogs in her news feed, which I would take a peek at. And it pretty much opened my eyes to a whole bunch of stuff, as well as articulating a bunch of stuff I already felt. It actually made me feel more empowered about liking 'chick stuff'. But around that time was also when I finally started personally identifying as a gay man, which opened up a whole new can of worms for me.

There's still a lot of 'guy stuff' I like and do - I dress in a pretty masculine manner, play video games, and watch plenty of 'male-appropriate' shows - and I'd say I fall more on the masculine side than the feminine. But part of what felt so good about liking 'chick stuff' was that, as a man, it was a means for me to reject gender norms. The thing was, now that I realised I was gay, that kind of... made it somehow cheaper, in my poor little naive head. "Well I'm not deconstructing these norms at all," I thought. "In fact, I'm just reinforcing them!" So I felt like I was stuck for quite a while, until very recently in fact. See, I figured that whenever I acted 'masculine' people would chalk it up to me being a guy, but when I acted 'feminine' they'd think it was because I'm gay. I felt that no matter what I did or liked, I would always be reinforcing some kind of stereotype, and that made me feel pretty bad. "Oh, he's been playing those video games all day... boys will be boys!" or "Dude, you like romantic comedies? That's so gay!" I'm sure I didn't hear comments like this nearly as often as I thought I did, but every time I would I felt like a traitor to either my gender or my sexual orientation.

But recently, I've realised something else. I was thinking about Jay, whom I look up to. As a feminist, and a student of gender, I know she is very aware and critical of the stereotypes and expectations our society has of men and women. But that doesn't stop her from enjoying the things she likes, even if they're in line with stereotypes of femininity, like watching Gilmore Girls or reading Jane Austen. Liking something because you're expected to is a pretty ridiculous notion, but so is refusing to like something for that very reason. As long as you realise why you like something, and that it's for some reason other than "because I'm [male/female/gay/lesbian]", then you're not letting yourself fall prey to stereotypes.

I like musical theatre. For quite a while, I tried to play down that fact. It just felt like such a cliche. But I came to realise that it really has nothing to do with my sexual orientation. As an amateur musician, and a fan of all kinds of storytelling, it's a natural thing for me to like. I actually became involved with a few of my high school's musical productions (as a member of the pit band). Because I'm gay? Of course not. I mean, just by sheer statistics it's fairly improbable that such a high percentage of my school's population was actually gay (although it would have made my high school experience a lot more interesting...). We did it, regardless of whether we were gay or straight, simply because we like participating in the arts. Likewise, I don't play video games because I'm a guy. My sisters play Skyrim just as much as me and my brother (or at least they might, if they weren't so busy with their graduate degrees). Our parents were a couple of sci-fi and fantasy geeks, and all four of us grew up playing things like King's Quest and Ultima, so it should really come as no surprise that both the guys and the gals among us continue to be interested in similar pursuits.

Basically, the conclusion I've come to is this: while it's certainly good to be aware of stereotypes and gender norms, you shouldn't be afraid if you happen to fall into some. Like what you like. People may judge you for it, or they may think it's completely natural; either way, it doesn't really matter, as long as - and yes, despite being repeatedly told this by TV and movies for my entire life, it still took me 19 years to realise it - you just be yourself.

It's cheesy. It's corny. Embrace it. (S)