Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940
Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940
#1Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940
Posted: 6/7/08 at 3:17am
This is a really fascinating book. I highly recommend it.
I would like to discuss something that's stayed with me while I've been reading it. You do not have to have read the book to respond to this.
Chauncey writes,
"In a culture in which becoming a fairy meant assuming the status of a woman or even a prostitute, many men...simply refused to do so. Some of them restricted themselves to the role of "trade," becoming the nominally "normal" partners of "queers" (although this did not account for such men). Many others simply "did it," without naming it, freed from having to label themselves by the certainty that, at least, they were not fairies." (pp. 100)
What Chauncey states, more or less, is that the visibility of effeminate gay men is what stigmatized homosexual relations. The fear of being labeled as a fairy or less manly is what drove most men away from their homosexual desires. While the fairy was considered a "third sex" and his gender expression linked to his sexuality, men who were not effeminate and had homosexual relations were still considered normal men.
What I want to discuss is, do you believe the labels associated with homosexuality are why it remains taboo?
If we did not limit ourselves to the homosexual/heterosexual binarism, would we live in a less sexist and homophobic society?
#2re: Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male Wor
Posted: 6/7/08 at 10:44amI hardly think George Chauncey had that interpretation in mind. If anything, the book details the bravery of the men who challenged society.
#2re: Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male Wor
Posted: 6/7/08 at 10:58amI bought this book a while ago for a big paper I was writing, and also highly recommend it.
#3re: Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male Wor
Posted: 6/8/08 at 3:13pm
OK. Getting back to the questions I purposed rather than an argument over my interpretation of the above excerpt.
Do you believe the labels associated with homosexuality are why it remains taboo?
If we did not limit ourselves to the homosexual/heterosexual binarism, would we live in a less sexist and homophobic society?
Phyllis Rogers Stone
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/16/07
#4re: Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male Wor
Posted: 6/8/08 at 3:29pm
Do you believe the labels associated with homosexuality are why it remains taboo?
No, I believe centuries of sexual shame (most of the judeo-christian variety) are why it remains taboo. I think labels are irrelevant. I tend to be one of those people who doesn't believe "labels are for cans." Labels keep you from drinking poison.
If we did not limit ourselves to the homosexual/heterosexual binarism, would we live in a less sexist and homophobic society?
You'd have less homophobia if you eradicated gay identity, yes, but I don't think that would do anything about sexism.
And I kind of agree with PalJoey. Even what you quoted shows it didn't drive them from their homosexual desires. And I don't know that they were considered "normal."
Updated On: 6/8/08 at 03:29 PM
#5re: Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male Wor
Posted: 6/8/08 at 11:26pmI bought this book for a US Gay/Lesbian History class I took last fall...I also definitely recommend it.
There is only one you for all time. Fearlessly be yourself.
roquat
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/25/05
#6re: Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male Wor
Posted: 6/8/08 at 11:45pmThe stigmatization of "effeminate" homosexual men is a definite factor in society's rejection of homosexuality, and it survives to this day within the homosexual community. How many gay men have comforted themselves with "OK, I may sleep with men, but at least I'm not a drag queen/interior decorator/lisping, limp-wristed fairy"--forgetting that it was the effeminate drag queens, not the middle-class assimilationist gays, who stood up for themselves at Stonewall, starting the modern gay liberation movement. This attitude is also reflected today in such pop-culture hits as the sitcom "Will and Grace", which succeeded by giving the audience "normal", reasonably manly Will (whose sex life remained comfortably offscreen) as their stand-in. Will made constant jokes at the expense of prancing, lisping Jack, the "real gay" (who inexplicably stayed friends with him). Audiences could laugh at the most ancient, stereotypical gay jokes and still feel politically correct and "tolerant."
I ask in all honesty/What would life be?/Without a song and a dance, what are we?/So I say "Thank you for the music/For giving it to me."
#7re: Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male Wor
Posted: 6/9/08 at 7:15amThank you roquat.
Phyllis Rogers Stone
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/16/07
#8re: Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male Wor
Posted: 6/9/08 at 9:52amBut does that really mean that the non-lispy, non-flaming gays are at their core any more accepted than their more visible counterparts? Not to the Jesus people, which is where 90% of all homophobia stems.
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