Well the New York Times says, you can’t tell. Thanks for the newsflash, guys.
The article is kind of silly, but the basic theme — that cultural definitions of masculinity are shifting, so that being less stereotypically blue-collar “masucline” isn’t necessarily bad — is interesting. It’s unfortunate, of course, that masculinity is broken down into categories of “gay” or “straight,” but I think it’s positive that the more historically negative of those categories is becoming less and less stigmatized.
“Have I been called gay a gazillion times?” said Robert Vonderheide, a straight man who is a sales representative for a several clothing lines in New York. “Yes. Do I give a damn? No.” He added, though, that it does not happen as much lately, as he sees less difference between gay and straight men in terms of how they express masculinity outside the bedroom.
There are many people who will argue that there are certain things that are unique to gay culture, and that allowing those things to be co-opted by mass “straight” culture is bad. But I’m not so sure. I don’t subscribe to the belief that culture is static in the first place; culture is constantly co-opted and split and borrowed and regenerated. It creates itself. What irritated me more about this article was the idea that masculinity is defined by consumerism. How were you able tell, back in the day, if someone is gay? Well, if he wore Marc Jacobs capris, carried a Prada messenger bag and was spotted at an upscale home furnishings boutique, he was definitely homo. But now, the article says, straight men are shopping like gay men — and so you can’t tell them apart! There are problems, of course, in the assumption that you could ever tell them apart in the first place, or that there is a single version of Chelsea-boy “gay culture” that relies on buying a lot of expensive shit and working out every day. But I think those critiques are obvious enough that I’m not going to level them here. So I’d rather ask, what does it mean that we as a society (or at least our paper of record) is defining perceived sexuality by what we buy? Feminism has long taken issue with the way that women are marketed at, and are used as marketing tools to sell things. So now that the “average” straight guy is being seen as just as much of a consumer as women — a role that before was set aside for the feminized (i.e., not really a “man” anyway) gay man — are we nearing equality? Is this the kind of equality we want?
I don’t think so. The solution to the problems of beauty pornography and a culture that sees women as tools of buying and selling for someone else’s benefit is not to drag men down into the same pit. Of course, they aren’t quite there yet:
“It’s easier for gay men to come out of the closet as slobs, just as it’s easier for straight men to be dandies,” said Brendan Lemon, the editor of Out, the gay men’s magazine. “One of the things that’s breaking down how gay guys are seen is that people know more kinds of men who are gay, nonstereotypical ones like soldiers and athletes rather than stylists and fashion designers and decorators.” The lack of any one gay sensibility has meant that Out and other gay publications have struggled to reconcile a host of identities, while gay-vague magazines like Details and Cargo, aimed squarely at savvy, fashion-conscious men, are having a heyday.
So yes, it’s good that this trend is breaking down stereotypes of what “gay” looks like. It’s good that it’s breaking down stereotypes of what “straight” looks like, and what masculinity is. I’m glad that gay boys feel more free to be slobs, and straight boys can go shopping without shame. Hell, I love boys who wear Le Tigre. So thank you, New York Times, for alerting me to the fact that some of them might be willing to make out with me. But it has to be asked, is this trend breaking these stereotypes down in any real way? Is the culture of masculinity really changing? Or is it just better dressed?