Reply #13: That's something I've never understood... [View All]

[Sapphocrat]

...telling a man to "get in touch with his feminine side." I'd like to see the reaction if the "men's movement" told women they need to "get in touch with their masculine side." ("Quit your whining, Linda Evangelista! You're such a girl!")

Perhaps the intention was sincere, but the marketing was all wrong. Instead of telling men to get in touch with their feminine side, they should have been told that getting comfortable with whoever and whatever they are would make them happier, healthier, sexier, and less prone to heart attacks or kicking the dog. Which is all true. (Not, of course, to imply that all men kick dogs.)

As much as I regret the current anti-gay backlash, I understand it; it's human nature to rebel when you feel forced into a package that isn't you. Pressure me to put on a dress and act like Audrey Hepburn because that's what females are "supposed" to do, and I turn into the most rebellious butch you've ever seen.

What's sad is that's not my true nature (over-the-top butch-ness, I mean). And I expect ultra-machismo is not the true nature of men who feel most threatened by the latest queer phenom, either.

But just as I spent my youth railing against being told I wasn't feminine enough, I suppose most straight men are hypersensitive to anything that stings of being called "a little faggot."

You want to know what's funny? When I came out in the 1970s, there was a very strict set of expectations for lesbians; anything else was suspect. My girlfriend, for instead, was an extremely feminine "lipstick lesbian" before there was such a term -- and that was simply not acceptable at the time. (Good for her -- she was the rebel!)

Lesbians like me, who are neither femmey-femme nor terribly butch felt a lot of pressure to be butch-er than we actually were. (And bear in mind that this was in and around San Francisco; you couldn't ask for a more liberal place in the country -- but the dyke scene certainly wasn't very liberal in its own social norms.)

It's changed. Thank God (or Goddess). And we have to thank the young queers -- the ones who refused to be defined by their sexuality -- of the 1990s for that. What's really funny, to me at least, is that I felt almost as threatened by these kids as I suppose straight men do by the whole "feminine side" thing -- even though I was indescribably relieved that the pointless, restrictive "norms" were being shattered.

So, there was something of a backlash within the lesbian community, because the idea of being who you were really were was just "different." But because of those young queers, I'm finally comfortable in my own skin; I don't feel pressured to be or do anything I'm not. And I feel much happier, healthier, sexier, and less prone to heart attacks or yelling at the cat. (Not, of course, to imply that all lesbians own cats. :D)

I'd like to think that sort of evolution is possible in straight society. And maybe it is -- although, by virtue of the sheer volume of straight folks (and the dire warnings of doom from Limbaugh and Savage about the left-wing conspiracy to "feminize" straight men), the change will be much, much slower.