The myth of gay macho...

New this that and the other answers...

I always thought gay meant " When you want to do the same sex as you instead of the other sex". I mean gay men range from macho to girly, like straight men. I actually heard one of the reasons gay men have been characterised in this century as really feminine is because in old movies when they wanted to show someone was gay they couldnt come right out and say it so they had to imply it somehow- so they made the gay guy act really feminine.

mike do you like calum roberts?

Richard Goldstein writes a lot of lefty queer jive for the Village Voice. That's one thing, but what really renders him embarrassing is the grasping trendspotter tendencies. He's the kind of cat who never felt hip enough in the sixties and has always, always overcompensated for it, whether he's editing the infamous Poetry of Rock ref book back in '69, writing a toe-sucking ecomium to DJ Spooky, or complaining that some part of the gay community was heedlesly tearing off the little butterfly wings of another's "radical" enterprise.

He's also done a recent piece in The Nation about the gayocons that would have been salient in, like, '93 but is now a bunch of sowhatwhocares. (Andrew Sullivan? What a disaster. He went from being pretty reasonable to suffering from Camille Paglia envy.)

who's calum roberts?

I actually heard one of the reasons gay men have been characterised in this century as really feminine is because in old movies when they wanted to show someone was gay they couldnt come right out and say it so they had to imply it somehow- so they made the gay guy act really feminine.

Not at all. The “fairy” (the feminized sodomite, if you will) has been a recognizable subcultural character for...well, I’m not really up on my gay history past the late 19th century, but it’s been a long while. To take one example, the beginning of George Chauncey’s Gay New York (highly recommended for anyone and everyone) reprints an illustration from a Spanish-language guide to NY published in the 1880’s, I believe. It details all the recognizable Lower East Side types: the bowery boy, the prostitute, the cop, the kid hawking the newspaper and the effete Wildean fop. I THINK Simon Schama relays something roughly similar with some court records in the beginning of The Embarrassment of Riches, which is about 17th-century Dutch culture.

If he Googles this we will be invaded by the first-rate humourist himself...

You mean they didn't have movies in the 17th century? Shit, that damn DVD retailer I spoke to is a lying bastard!

George Chauncey’s Gay New York (highly recommended for anyone and everyone)

Seconded. Really great book, need to get my own copy one of these days...

"If he Googles this we will be invaded by the first-rate humourist himself..."

Meaning the comedy Sleeper fan on ILM, not anyone Mr Daddino posted about. (sorry)

Not every homo wants to recover his right to be a man.

Meaning apparently that if you are homosexual, that you lost the right to manhood to begin with. In my head, being a man has nothing to do with sexual preference. (Yeah, sure, in my ideal world. However, a gal can dream.)

For all the speeches I've heard about how much society has become more accepting of gay folks, little has changed: the Armed Forces still have their "Don't tell" policy; depending on the sector the person works for, I'm sure they don't feel free to discuss their lovers (or live-in partners) at the boss' cocktail parties.

Somehow, my vision of a gay man was never the Cowboy or Indian from the Village People.

Straight men fled from the attire gay men had borrowed from them in order to look manly

This is a different world from the one I have lived in. In mine, loads of gay fashions have crossed over into the wider world and been adopted by straight men. The first example I recall was the lumberjack shirt plus moustache look - a macho gay look that became immensely popular with straights who would hate to think they looked gay.

Many straight men don't know what gay fashion is. Chris O'Donnell, it was reported, was worried about having his sexuality questioned or mocked when he played Robin. To make sure everyone knew how manly and het he was, he took to wearing lots of leather and riding a motorbike. I find that kind of heroic stupidity highly endearing, personally.

Flexibility is the heart of gayness and the basis of our difference from straights

Obv all such generalisations are dumb, but this one particularly irks this bi man who has had gay friends struggle with the concept of an out bi man, because bi men are gay men pretending to be straight. Fucking men instead of women is not evidence of flexibility.

See i am a faggot because i suck cock not because i look good in violet.

That's a good sentence.

See anthony suck. Suck, anthony, suck.

Ahhh so much confusion I am a woman who likes women and I always get the reply *but you don't look like a dyke* sexuality and personality are separate issues