Straights misled by old gay stereotypes

Jon Stewart gave a sarcastic introduction to the Oscar montage of gay suggestive cowboy film clips, saying that he felt the old western macho ideal was tarnished by Brokeback Mountain. However, many may have agreed with his comments -- and thought they were not sarcastic (until the montage started). Even people I've talked to say that there probably aren't gay cowboys and the movie is just a fictional tale which has nothing to do with real life. They also say that there aren't gay baseball players or football players.

I'm not sure what is the best way to dispel this myth. Also, let's consider what is gained by doing so.

To address the second question, many straights feel that gays cannot truly be masculine. And despite the gains by feminists in saying that women can be as strong, smart, or powerful as men; this can lead to the assumption that gay males are not men and are inferior to them. What can be gained by dispelling this myth is remaking of the gay image away from the effete New York intellectual to encompass all sorts of people -- a more accurate image, and perhaps one less prone to damaging stereotypes. This may be a marginal improvement in the gay image, but anyway.

But how to dispel the myth... One could cite gay porn (what little I've seen of it, tee hee). Most of the guys in those masterpieces of filmmaking are physically impressive, muscular and often very masculine, and pointedly not straight. But no straights have seen the stuff. Perhaps, the few out ex-professional players could be cited: Billy Bean, Esera Tuaolo and Roy Simmons. You could say these are the brave ones who have come out, surely there are others who haven't bothered or are too scared. Perhaps I could cite a list of masculine gay people. Hmmm. I could include myself. I was MVP on the cross country team. Still, I guess cross country isn't the most masculine of sports. There's Rock Hudson who was physically big, but he was an actor not a football player.

Based on my social interactions with various activist and social groups, I would say gay guys are about average in masculinity. Perhaps their lack of visibility or participation in predominantly male activities such as baseball is due to two factors: (1) these activities require an extra heavy duty closet (term: "passing as straight") because of the locker room access and the not-so-real privacy threat it poses [it's not like we haven't see it before], and (2) the actor effect -- the perceived or real greater acceptance of gay persons in drama or music classes in school. I really sort of doubt the 2nd factor is really very strong at all, but the first one is a real killer. Take, for example, the military. The US military has basically 'legalized'/required a closet. One can not openly acknowledge that one is gay in the macho military or one's career there is toast. Sure, they'll send you into battle now because they're just so short on soldiers, but you'll get a nice discharge after they don't need you for the dirty work (and if you don't die first). There have been a large number of discharges of translators because of don't ask, don't tell. I have heard it has been the same for regular troops as well. Maybe the troops are better at hiding out in the closet than the translators.

-- added 3/19

Now, many folks will object that all the gay men they know on tv (e.g. Jack McFarland on Will & Grace) are actually stereotypically feminine or display some feminine behaviors. I guess there are some number of gays who are most comfortable with displaying this sort of 'fabulous' feminine behavior. But I think some of it is displayed because it is useful to distinguish them from straight males. Gays would want to do this because if they acted stereotypically masculine, it would be more difficult for other gays to find them. Obviously, such feminine acting gays are not in the closet. In addition, straights who might act in this manner normally, are strongly discouraged from doing so because of the prejudice against gays and being identified as one, and also the annoyance of being mistaken for gay by other gays. Now, I must admit that some gay men seem unusually feminine. I think a lot of this is particular to the gay culture; it's not an instinctual behavior. But I might be wrong about this. Sounds like an area worth studying...

-- added 3/20

Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys doesn't see the gay 'feminine/camp' stereotype applying to him as written at this link.