User:Tornado66/sandbox/Gay Men

A gay man is a male homosexual: a male who experiences romantic love or sexual attraction to other males. The term gay is also used to express sexual identity or sexual behavior regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with homosexuality or same-sex attraction. Since the 1950s, the word "gay" has overtaken "homosexual" as the main adjective to refer to both male homosexual identity and culture, during which time the "new gay culture increasingly marks a full spectrum of social life: not only same-sex desires but gay selves, gay neighbors, and gay social practices that are distinctive of our affluent, postindustrial society." Gay male culture is the diverse and sometimes shared set of customs, traditions, and values of members of the gay male community, which is often indistinguishable from the greater LGBT Community.

While gay as a word refers to both men and women, it is often assumed to be about gay men at the exclusion of gay women.

History of Gay Men

During the 19th and early 20th centuries gay culture was covert, relying on secret symbols and codes woven into an overall straight context. Gay influence in early America was primarily limited to high culture. The association of gay men with opera, ballet, couture, fine cuisine, musical theater, the Golden Age of Hollywood and interior design began with wealthy homosexual men using the straight themes of these media to send their own signals. In the heterocentric Marilyn Monroe film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, a musical number features Jane Russell singing "Anyone Here for Love" in a gym while muscled men dance around her. The men's costumes were designed by a man, the dance was choreographed by a man and the dancers (as gay screenwriter Paul Rudnick points out) "seem more interested in each other than in Russell"; however, her presence gets the sequence past the censors and works it into an overall heterocentric theme.

After the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City, gay male culture was publicly acknowledged for the first time. A group of seven gay men formed The Violet Quill in 1980 in New York City, a literary club focused on writing about the gay experience as a normal plotline instead of a "naughty" sideline in a mostly straight story. An example is the novel A Boy's Own Story by Edmund White. In this first volume of a trilogy, White writes as a young homophilic narrator growing up with a corrupt and remote father. The young man learns bad habits from his straight father, applying them to his gay existence.

Female celebrities such as Liza Minnelli, Jane Fonda and Bette Midler spent a significant amount of their social time with urban gay men (who were now popularly viewed as sophisticated and stylish by the jet set), and more male celebrities (such as Andy Warhol) were open about their relationships. Such openness was still limited to the largest and most progressive urban areas (such as New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Miami, Boston, Washington DC, New Orleans, and Philadelphia), however, until AIDS forced several popular celebrities out of the closet due to their illness with what was known at first as the "gay cancer".[5]

Gay Male Popular Culture

Elements identified more closely with gay men than with other groups include: Pop-culture gay icons who have had a traditionally gay-male following (for example, disco, Britney Spears, Madonna, Judy Garland, Cher, Lady Gaga, Kesha, Kylie Minogue and Diana Ross). Familiarity with aspects of romantic, sexual and social life common among gay men (for example, Polari, poppers, camp, fag hags and—in South Asian LGBTQIA culture—"evening people")[6]

Gay Male Subcultures

There are a number of subcultures within gay male culture, such as bears and chubbies. There are also subcultures with an historically large gay-male population, such as leather and SM. Gay critic Michael Musto opined, "I am a harsh critic of the gay community because I feel that when I first came out I thought I would be entering a world of nonconformity and individuality and, au contraire, it turned out to be a world of clones in a certain way. I also hated the whole body fascism thing that took over the gays for a long time."

Relationships See also: Same-sex relationship

A monogamous homosexual couple kissing. Some U.S. studies have found that the majority of gay male couples are in monogamous relationships. Research by Colleen Hoffon of 566 gay male couples from the San Francisco Bay Area funded by the National Institute of Mental Health found that 45 percent were in monogamous relationships. Gay actor Neil Patrick Harris has remarked, "I'm a big proponent of monogamous relationships regardless of sexuality, and I'm proud of how the nation is steering toward that."

During the 1980s and 1990s, Sean Martin drew a comic strip (Doc and Raider) which featured a gay couple living in (or near) Toronto's Gay Village. His characters have recently been updated and moved to the Web. Although primarily humorous, the comic sometimes addressed issues such as gay-bashing, HIV and spousal abuse.

An Australian study conducted by Roffee and Waling in 2016 discovered how some gay men felt like they were expected to be hyper-sexual. Participants reported how other gay men would automatically assume that any interaction had sexual motivations. Furthermore, if it was then clarified that this is not the case then these gay men would suddenly feel excluded and ignored by the other gay men with which they had been interacting with. They felt that they could not obtain purely platonic friendships with other gay men. One participant reported feeling alienated and disregarded as a person if they were not deemed by other gay men as sexually attractive. This presumption and attitude of hypersexuality is damaging, for it enforces preconceived ideals upon people, who are then ostracised if they do not meet these ideals.

Online culture and communities A number of online social websites for gay men have been established. Initially, these concentrated on sexual contact or titillation; typically, users were afforded a profile page, access to other members' pages, member-to-member messaging and instant-message chat. Smaller, more densely connected websites concentrating on social networking without a focus on sexual contact have been established. Some forbid all explicit sexual content; others do not. A gay-oriented retail online couponing site has also been established.

Recent research suggests that gay men primarily make sense of familial and religious challenges by developing online peer supports (i.e., families of choice) in contrast to their family allies' focus on strengthening existing family of origin relationships via online information exchanges. Participants' reported online sociorelational benefits largely contradict recent research indicating that online use may lead to negative mental health outcomes.

Homonormativity and Critique of Unified Culture

Use of Term in Non-Western Cultures

The Western "homosexual" category has been related to the non-Western "third gender" category, being cast as a redefinition and expansion of the latter category to include all biological males who acknowledge having same-sex attractions (instead of only effeminate males). This extension of "third gender" is due to various factors that were unique to the Western world, including the widespread influence of Christianity and the resultant encouragement of opposite-sex relationships.[citation needed] Before the concept of sexual orientation was developed in the modern West, only effeminate males who sought to be anally penetrated by men (oral sex was far less common than today) were seen as a belonging to a different gender category. The Western equivalent of the third-genders (and not all men with same-sex attractions) were the ones who started and propagated the Western concept of a homosexual identity.

Many non-Western societies show hostility towards the concept of homosexuality, which they view as a pernicious Western practice and a legacy of colonialism and (Western) sexual tourism. However, and strangely to Western eyes, such societies do accept both men who have sex with men and third-genders who have sex with men as an unremarkable part of society, so long as they're not called "homosexuals".

In the West, a man often cannot acknowledge or display sexual attraction for another man without the homosexual or bisexual label being attached to him. The same pattern of shunning the homosexual identity, while still having sex with men, is prevalent in the non-West,[48][49] where sexual attraction between men is often seen as a universal male phenomenon—and practiced, either quietly or openly—even if held morally wrong in the larger society, sexual attraction between men being seen as a universal male quality, not something limited to a minority.