The Plight of Gay Men in Media and Masculinity

The representation of gays in the media has always been a less than
flattering portrayal, from the minimal focus of homosexuality during its phase of
being socially accepted as a mental illness, to it later developing into a
sensationalist media topic, gays have seem to be outcasted or typecasted by
mainstream media outlets. Some of the damage done by this discrimination is
evident; homophobic-fueled hate crimes, government granted inequality, etc, but
the internal damage of the targeted individual is what’s more open to
interpretation. How has it been detrimental within the gay community and how is it
altered this assumed ‘gay psychology’? Where these prejudices arise from originally
is certainly just as, if not more, debatable; rooted in religious tradition or a product
of societal norms, we all have our theories, but I believe the media’s to blame.

While I wouldn’t necessarily consider the mainstream media to be the

originators of gay discrimination, I do put them at fault for spreading it, by
characterizing and fueling a stereotype, rooted in prejudice, for entertainment
value. Exploiting one’s minority status is not at all uncommon in the hands of the
media, it’s so frequently a program or article’s subject matter that the minority
seems to be the privileged, heteronormative, Caucasian male. We’re presented this
person’s personal matter, whether fictitious or not, and their differences are so
foreign to us that we are intrigued and therefore drawn in. Stereotypes that may be
perceived are explored and visualized and it elicits a reaction from the onlooker,
which ultimately garners attention for the producer of the subject matter. When you
watch (or listen to) the old-time sketch program Amos ‘N’ Andy, it’s clear that a past
stereotype about the intelligence and manners of African Americans is being
exploited for comedic value and statistically, it appears that the program was fairly
popular during its run. However, now when watching an episode of the sitcom, the
racism is so uncomfortably evident, that if it were presented in modern context, I’d
believe it to spark more outrage than laughs. So, what gay stereotype is
perpetuated by entertainment programming? Effeminacy. Gay men are commonly
portrayed in such a flamboyant manner that the character appears to be more
relatable to woman than men, and when a character is presented as unambiguously
homosexual, it is visible. TV show ‘Will and Grace’ features a loud, hypomasculine
man who wears his sexuality on his sleeve and that alone provides comedic relief
for the viewer. Reality TV shows like The Real World have the tendency of casting a
‘token gay character’ with a ‘catty’ side to stir-up drama that would attract viewers.
Therefore, gay men are commonly construed as void of this masculinity that
straight men are purported to demonstrate, which is a threat to manhood.

In her literary piece ‘Homophobia as a Weapon’, author Suzanne Pharr

expresses her belief that we are a society of domination through sexism and for gay
men to have the same physical gender as straight men but not take part in the
same gender roles, it’s a threat to ‘male dominance and control’; ‘Visible gay men
are the objects of extreme hatred and fear by heterosexual men because their
breaking ranks with male heterosexual solidarity is seen as a damaging rent in the
very fabric of sexism. They are seen as betrayers, as traitors who must be punished
and eliminated.’ As a common defense to this sexual shame, gay men try to hide
any visible elements of their sexuality, by filing into masculine ideals, which can
range from carrying on a discreet sexual life to creating a more manly physical
appearance and the repression of sexuality is where conflict arises in the LGBT
community, a community where your sexuality is your entry and your definition.

To live a life with a sexuality that has such a powerful stigma attached to it is
bound to bring forth insecurities and according to Dr. Frank Spinelli of The
Advocate, a highly accepted way of combating, or hiding these insecurities, is to
change your outward appearance to one that is more physically intimidating.
Masculine became equal to muscular. ‘The perfect body’ has long been a desire for
many men within the gay community and this desire became more intense with the
emergence of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the early 80’s. Due to it being a completely
unknown health problem and its prevalence among gay men in the early spread of
the infection, AIDS, especially through sensationalist news outlets, quickly became
known as a gay disease. Gays, who were already societal outcasts, were now
deemed leprous on top of that. One of my greatest friends who is HIV-positive and
grew up during the outbreak, stated that to be diagnosed as HIV-positive was not
only an automatic quarantining, but a death sentence and within the gay
community, it was common to filter sexual partners by body type; “If you were slim,
you had AIDS, as far as other gay men were concerned.” Spinelli supports this
statement, saying it was common for gay men to bulk up to prevent physical
discrimination spawned from the HIV/AIDS outbreak. With the birth of a medical
pandemic came the birth to an unhealthy obsession of body image, casually known
as ‘gym culture’.

As the severity of the HIV infection lessened with the introduction of

“antiretrovirals” (drugs that maintained the disease), the severity of this ‘gym
culture’ grew. Gay men with HIV were no longer identifiable by skinny bodies, but
by the medicinal side-effects of the medications. Still to this day, a serodiscordant
HIV status can easily scare off a potential partner, most gay dating sites even have
a panel to fill in that ‘minor’ detail when creating an account, so with the hiding
tactic of ‘sexual shame’, HIV positive men work out to hide all physical deformities,
known as ‘lipodystrophy’, brought about by the ‘antiretrovirals’. Because of the
extreme side-effects that ‘antiretrovirals’ can cause on the body, strenuous physical
activity proves challenging for those under its effects, an illicit and unhealthy
method of gaining muscle mass was introduced as a solution, anabolic steroids. This
once unattainable ‘perfect body’ became the gay standard of beauty and the object
of desire, because it was hypermasculine, it was the manly image that had once
been the repressor and it was a turn-on, but the illusionary quality of that image
was kept secret and HIV being introduced as a ‘chronic but manageable’ disease
proved to cause trouble.

Queer theorist Michael Warner believes that pre-HIV/AIDS, ‘sexual freedom’ is

the one liberty that gay men had; as long as it was kept private, it can be
celebrated as raunchily and wildly as a couple wanted; unprotected sex was a
celebration of masculinity. So, when the HIV/AIDS pandemic stripped the gay
community of that freedom, it was displacing to those who coveted that right.
Homosexual sex became under heteronormative control, specifically with the
introduction of the condom as sexual protection. The reaction, thought of by Tim
Dean in ‘Unlimited Intimacy’, was that, “Condoms make a man and his masculinity
vulnerable to doubt or derision. It compromised not only sensation and intimacy but
also masculine identity.” Unprotected sex became unsafe sex and men were
resisting the condom in a refusal to be stripped of their masculine identity along
with their sexual freedom, especially since HIV became treatable. These men would
seek out sexual partners and see men, extravagantly sized and muscular, healthy
and desirable, not realizing that appearance didn’t necessarily show one’s health.
The risk was engaged in knowingly, but comfortably because masculine was
muscular and muscular was healthy and unprotected sex was masculine, so it was
assumed to be of no risk in certain conditions, and with that mistake, one became
seroconverted. HIV, though not an automatic death sentence, re-emerged as an
epidemic. Naturally, when reports of infection on the rise were released, it was
obtained through media outlets and broadcasted and distributed, this time with a
sensationalist angle; “Bug chasing”.

A ‘bug chaser’, according to queer theorist David M. Halperin, is the media-

created image of an HIV-negative man who desires the HIV infection and
romanticizes and fantasizes the disease. Stories were circulated profiling these
supposed bug chasers, most written in an exaggerated, almost comical narrative,
including one published in Rolling Stone Magazine, written in great detail about a
man who craves the HIV virus in an animalistic sort of way. It’s not only an
emasculating process, but a dehumanizing one. It was later when the article was
exposed as a fabricated tale that I realized the ‘bug chaser’ was a character created
for sensationalist purposes and for entertainment value. A group defined so much
by their sexuality and the stereotype already established and fueled by the media,
plus the sexual ambiguity of it all, gives leeway to exploit and stretch details.
Articles, like that of the ‘bug chaser’, create panic, but panic is what makes
headlines and panic is what sells stories, so it’s ultimately a clever, although clearly
damaging, business tactic.

This is why I believe it’s in the media’s hands to stop discrimination and
perhaps why I’m so hopeless about there being a realistic solution to prejudices. I
feel that gay men have been typecast to a role and that character is being
generated through many of media’s platforms, so much so, that fictional qualities of
it are being placed into a real-life setting and it creates oddities, which attracts the
viewer and also potentially creates prejudices out of its abnormality. The media is
presenting the stereotype, stripping away the target’s power, yet showcasing them
through a distorted lens, which depicts them as more of a “threat” to the
threatened.

I was inspired to do this research because, as a gay man and a member of gay
networking sites, I was absolutely tired of seeing the word ‘masculine’ in every
profile. I would see it in these profiles of people I knew personally and though they
had a manly appearance, I wouldn’t exactly call them ‘straight-acting’ (another
term that is commonly used with masculine). I wanted to see if masculinity was
more an image than personality and well, the question didn’t take long to answer. I
created a profile of a more butch looking man with more ‘feminine’ interests and a
more androgynous looking man with very ‘masculine’ interests and tried messaging
the same 20 people who listed masculinity as important. Not one of the twenty
people responded to the more feminine looking individual, whereas more than half
of the men responded to the more masculine looking guy. I attempted to talk to
people who listed masculinity in their profiles on my actual account and ask them
what’s so attractive about masculine men and I did not receive one response that I
would say would warrant the proposal of a theory. I thought it might be more
interesting to find out where this importance of masculinity came from, and with the
research from that, I discovered that mainstream media seemed to have a huge
influence on that desire. So, I finally came to the conclusion that it’s mostly in the
hands and mouths of the media.