Ask Men About Gays!

It was a pleasant surprise this morning when I came across AskMen.com’s article “Top 10 Toughest Gay Men“. Generally one would consider AskMen to be a site devoted to straight men (or men-who-have-sex-with-women at least), so the inclusiveness here is nice to see. The article has a very LGBT friendly attitude in the intro.

However, their praise of modern, manly portrayals of “gay” characters, highlights effeminate portrayals as a negative attribute of the past. What’s so great about these manly gays? These “manly gays” are primarily made up of drug dealers and/or criminals (with the notable exception of a certain cowboy and a cop). So what are we celebrating exactly? Certainly not the gender-bending quality of these characters. Perhaps its that they can take it up the arse and still manage to behave like a real man – like the idealized, romanticized idea of what a real man is.

So what kind of acceptance are we seeing here? Acceptance at a compromise? Perhaps a step forward. But are we facing the right direction?