Androphilia by Jack Malebranche

[Jeff Wrangler]

I can see where he is coming from. There is that group (or groups) of gay men that are just not comfortable with the 'Will and Grace' lifestyle....and those are the men that need to be seen now...

Well, there is another book out there, about growing up gay in the small-town Midwest. Of course its title now escapes me  , but the author's name is Will Fellowes (sp?). I read or heard somewhere that Ang Lee gave it to Heath and Jake to read for "homework." I haven't read it--nor have I read Malebranche--but I'm sure people who grow up in that atmosphere can be very different from the Jack Macfarlane character on Will and Grace.

[loneleeb3]

Well, here is my feeling. I haven't read the book but I would like to.
What we see on TV is enough to keep people in the closet!
When I was old enough to know what gay was, the images i saw are not who i was or what i wanted to be.
I mean no offence to people who are like those depicted on TV. We are who we are and that is not who i am.
My image of a gay man was some guy in gold lame' short shorts dancing on a float during the gay pride parade or Jack on will and grace. Had I know that there were masculine gay men I probably would have been able to accept myself and my sexuality sooner. With the internet and BBM I am learning that there are as many types of gay men as there are straight men. Maybe growing up in a small rural town and in a fundementalist family kept me sheltered or just afraid to look. I don't know. But it's comforting to know that I can be gay and still be a man and that there are others out there like me. The effiminate gay men do nothing for me. Again, I mean no offence but thats who I am. If I liked that sort of thing I'd probably be straight. I mean I have been living a straigt life and it has left me empty and broken and soon will have hurt a lot of other people too.
We need more images of masculine gay men to show the world that we are all not drag queens or girly men and thats ok either way.

[injest]

I am at a point in the book where he is defining what he views as masculinity.

He makes the point that women don't have to 'prove' their femininity. That no matter what we do; we are always seen as women.

But that thru history the most common punishment given to homos (HIS word) has been castration. That the modern gay culture encourages men to castrate themselves...to be more like women.

That men in general have to PROVE their manhood...their masculinity..it is not enough to just be a male to be percieved as masculine. Men have to DO. To do something to be considered masculine.

I have been thinking about this. Do women agree with that statement?

that women are considered women no matter what they do?

in my experience this is true. Even the most macho woman is still a woman...but an effeminate man is not considered a man unless he has certain other characteristics...like a high powered job or they hunt or something...

[Jeff Wrangler]

That men in general have to PROVE their manhood...their masculinity..it is not enough to just be a male to be percieved as masculine. Men have to DO. To do something to be considered masculine.

But isn't that pretty much the way it is throughout the animal kingdom? The male has to prove his maleness? It's the bull elk who defeats all comers who gets to breed the cows. ...

[injest]

But isn't that pretty much the way it is throughout the animal kingdom? The male has to prove his maleness? It's the bull elk who defeats all comers who gets to breed the cows. ...

yes, but he is saying that the current 'gay culture' encourages men to be more 'in touch with their feelings' which to him is feminizing and doesn't encourage them to do that.

I am beginning to see his point (he doesn't carry thru on his points as much as I would like) but he was talking about the 50s and 60s; saying that homosexuals were fighting for civil rights using the arguement that Kinsey and others had made that homosexuality was only a variation....a matter of degree. But in the 80s and 90s the gay leadership joined with the feminists and started saying that being gay deserved minority status. Effectively turning them into 'victims' instead of just people.

[Jeff Wrangler]

yes, but he is saying that the current 'gay culture' encourages men to be more 'in touch with their feelings' which to him is feminizing and doesn't encourage them to do that.

Oh, boy, just what we need in this world, more insensitive male clods on the loose like bulls in a china shop. Don't we have more than enough of them already, straight and gay?

I am beginning to see his point (he doesn't carry thru on his points as much as I would like) but he was talking about the 50s and 60s; saying that homosexuals were fighting for civil rights using the arguement that Kinsey and others had made that homosexuality was only a variation....a matter of degree. But in the 80s and 90s the gay leadership joined with the feminists and started saying that being gay deserved minority status. Effectively turning them into 'victims' instead of just people.

Maybe so, but others have commented on the "cult of victimhood" that has developed in this nation since the 1960s. Everyone is a "victim."

This is beginning to sound like where he is going is that there should be no legal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation. ...

[injest]

well I am not thru it yet. But I do agree with him about this culture we ALL have these days of everyone being a victim.

and it is interesting Jeff that REAL VICTIMS of crimes are encouraged to call themselves 'survivors'. I believe words have power. I went to incest 'survivors' group a few years ago. Went for a while but I was not happy calling myself a 'survivor'; I hadn't been almost murdered...I had been raped. Why call me a survivor? You don't die from sex....

anyway, I would go and look at these women that had been coming for YEARS, telling the same stories and having the same trouble...and I didn't want to be that person. They got something from being a 'victim'. If they were victims they weren't responsible to change their own lifes. To take care of themselves.

I prefer to think of gay men as men. Just men that would rather have sex with other men. Some macho, some not so macho.

Malebranche is not against antidiscrimination....just against this culture that encourages people to be something they are not. That worships looks over character.

Or at least that is what I am getting from him...

[Jeff Wrangler]

and it is interesting Jeff that REAL VICTIMS of crimes are encouraged to call themselves 'survivors'.

That is a VERY good point! 

Malebranche is not against antidiscrimination....just against this culture that encourages people to be something they are not. That worships looks over character.

Can't disagree with that. But it's an up-hill if not a hopeless battle, I'm afraid.
 

[Shuggy]

Well I have't read the book but I did read the article at the top and his responses to gender studies man Cameron Le Vogt (sp?), and I'm a bit inclined to say a plague on both their houses. There should be room for wimps and flamers and big butch macho guys. I see leather men and bears who are camper and more pathetic than faeries and dragqueens, so I'm not very impressed with his "just guys" stance.

There is still discrimination against us and plenty of hatred, but not - thank the Great Teapot - much left here in NZ. We still have our mind-forged manacles, though, and the memory (and the memory of the memory) of when just admitting to yourself that you loved your own sex was an uphill job. They should both cut each other some slack. There is room for activism, and analysis (but Post-Modernism seems to be finally getting its comeuppance, thank TGT), and just getting on with life too.