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The Best Thing About Being A Gay Male Is ....

Gar1eth

By + Gar1eth
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longtime lurker Mentor

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The Best Thing About Being A Gay Male Is ....

 

Tapping into my feminine side, and not caring what anyone thinks. :D

 

Just the simple fact that you can be both masculine and feminine is a big deal. In the heterosexual way that is the only "acceptable" way with some narrow-focused folks, The Man must always be the giver and The Woman the receiver unless she is using some kind of toy. That HAS to get dull after the novelty of procreating babies is no longer important.

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Gar1eth Grand Master

+ Gar1eth

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Just the simple fact that you can be both masculine and feminine is a big deal. In the heterosexual way that is the only "acceptable" way with some narrow-focused folks, The Man must always be the giver and The Woman the receiver unless she is using some kind of toy. That HAS to get dull after the novelty of procreating babies is no longer important.

 

I hope this won't force me to give up my gay card and my decoder ring, but, as regards sex, I'm pretty sure I'm 99% masculine if I'm understanding your terms correctly.

 

Gman

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Edward Experienced

Edward

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The best two things about being gay: Holding a muscular body, caressing it and the man to man kiss with the all the hairy stable and man swells. Two: the dating aspect, not the sex. Going to dinner, movie, or just hanging out with someone that feels the same way as you do. I could never achieve this feeling with a woman.

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glennnn Mentor

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Consider karaoke as a "creative art" for creative people, who are quite often not "heteronormal".

 

Elizabeth Taylor said something interesting here at the 17 minute mark in this 2002 documentary.

 

"Do you realize that, if you counted all the people in this town (Tinsel Town), most of them are homosexual (or bisexual, as she probably intends to say)? Most of them in the creative arts for centuries have been homosexuals."

 

You know, she was the first Hollywood celebrity to fight for AIDS research at a time when so many including President Reagan were not budging an inch. I wonder if the world would be different today had she not been involved in that, telling politicians "One day, it is going to happen to you. If not to you directly but to somebody in your family or a friend of your family and it is going to break your heart."

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CspTBhAdIYQ

 

The word "legendary" is used often to describe people who don't deserve it. From beauty to talent to heart and joy of life, Elizabeth Taylor is truly a legend, but also a magnificent human being. I miss her.

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longtime lurker Mentor

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The word "legendary" is used often to describe people who don't deserve it. From beauty to talent to heart and joy of life, Elizabeth Taylor is truly a legend, but also a magnificent human being. I miss her.

 

I think her one "sin" was her extravagant taste in jewelry which made the whole Taylor-Burton marriage a symbol of Hollywood extravagance gone wild. That probably impacted her box office clout just as much appearing in some movie duds. However she used her taste in jewelry for a great cause later in life.

 

Looking back... I wonder if this woman, who was so blatantly heterosexual in her own personal life, might have had a far greater and more progressive impact on America's tolerance of all "orientations" than even Harvey Milk.

 

I re-watched Giant for the fifth or sixth time this past week. When I first watched in on TV in the late seventies or early eighties, I just thought it was a "good" movie. Now I think of it as a "great" movie despite some flaws typical of the era in which it was made.

 

Even though she and Rock Hudson were not married in real life for rather obvious reasons, they behave more like a married couple than even William Powell and Myrna Loy in all of their earlier films or contemporary Kate Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Part of it may be because the other pair-ups focused more on mental compatibility, while the George Stevens' Texas saga was quite blatant about Taylor and Hudson's characters being highly sexed. ("We Texans love to add vinegar to our salad.") Both actor and actress are completely "in sync" on screen at all times as if they genuinely feel they are married. When he died in real life, it seems that her own heart was "broken" despite mostly working together in just that one film. It was Hudson who was the "cause" for her new mission in life in the 1980s and 90s as if he was as much of a partner-in-life as any of her actual husbands.

 

Then again, I always thought of Giant as Taylor's biography film. It may not be her greatest performance and I can understand why some favor Cat On The Hot Tin Roof and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? over it. Yet there are so many parallels in that film that are not found in her other work.

1.) Her future husband first notices her on top of a horse. Although the real Taylor got some notice with Lassie, it was The Horse in National Velvet that pushed her towards national attention.

2.) Her sassy "We stole Texas from Mexico, didn't we?" attitude reflects the real actress' own sassiness

3.) She has no problem at all attending the sick mother and baby in the Mexican immigrant slum despite hubbie and James Dean's Jet's opinions. Ditto: her campaigning for those stricken with AIDS later in life despite so many being against it.

4.) Her way of negotiating with Mercedes McCambridge ("I don't want to take your place") is how she negotiated with those against her in real life.

5.) Her "man talk" battle with the guys because she is not allowed to discuss politics with them was a foreshadowing of her horrendous marriage with John Warner... and so many in Washington DC still not taking her seriously when she later campaigned for AIDS research.

6.) Of course, she supports her children unconditionally regardless of their career choices. Yet she needs a bit of influence from Chill Wills' Uncle Bawley ("I always had a strange power over your mother") to allow daughter Carroll Baker to go see Drunk Dean. She is not the perfect mommy.

7.) She is most proud in the finale of Hudson being knocked to the floor fighting against racial prejudice in Sarge's Diner, more so than any of his macho-ism as a rancher. She compliments him on "what a fight it was". In real life, Hudson had to stay closeted to maintain his own masculine movie image and ultimately lost the fight against a disease that SHE had to fight against after his passing.

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stevenkesslar Grand Master

+ stevenkesslar

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I think her one "sin" was her extravagant taste in jewelry which made the whole Taylor-Burton marriage a symbol of Hollywood extravagance

 

I just had dinner at Casa Kimberley, the house Burton bought for Taylor in Puerto Vallarta which is now a high end hotel and restaurant. It is extravagant.

 

Our waiter was a guy who grew up in Denver and has a Mexican Mom and a rubio Dad. He speaks English like Americans do, uses his waiter job to make the bucks, and is investing his dinero in his own little Mexican barber shops. He represents the best of America, Mexico, and the world. Since I don't shop for staples in Mexico, he explained how eggs really are cheaper in Mexico, and he can really save and invest more money living in Mexico than Denver, particularly considering he makes US wages on tips.

 

The dream lives on. God bless Hollywood. God bless Liz.

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quoththeraven Grand Master

+ quoththeraven

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Just the simple fact that you can be both masculine and feminine is a big deal. In the heterosexual way that is the only "acceptable" way with some narrow-focused folks, The Man must always be the giver and The Woman the receiver unless she is using some kind of toy. That HAS to get dull after the novelty of procreating babies is no longer important.

 

Wait, are we equating top and bottom with masculine and feminine, then? I have enough trouble with the gender role stereotypes baked into the concepts of masculinity and femininity.

 

Also, it's possible to use fingers as well as a toy.

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mike carey Grand Master

mike carey

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Wait, are we equating top and bottom with masculine and feminine, then?

I don't think that was what Lurker was saying. I took what he said to mean that we can escape the gender stereotypes. The role of women as subordinate, except when using a toy (or fingers) is something we as gays can escape.

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quoththeraven Grand Master

+ quoththeraven

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I don't think that was what Lurker was saying. I took what he said to mean that we can escape the gender stereotypes. The role of women as subordinate, except when using a toy (or fingers) is something we as gays can escape.

 

That's a concept I can get on board with. It's also why I started out reading m/m, not het, romance. But it's also my contention that stereotypical relationships between men and women wouldn't be inevitable if we started seeing people as individuals instead of using gender to limit and define them.

 

I also think there is a connection between the view of bottoming as less masculine and societal attitudes toward gay men.

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longtime lurker Mentor

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You have to make some distinctions here. All of us have a "masculine" and "feminine" side to us. Just that "heteronormal" society and its established "laws" try to keep everybody molded with a heavy emphasis on one or the other. Whether or not "topping" vs. "bottoming" relates to this can be debated. Keep in mind that probably only half of all gay males even do anything anal, so that logic doesn't apply in many cases.

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quoththeraven Grand Master

+ quoththeraven

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You have to make some distinctions here. All of us have a "masculine" and "feminine" side to us. Just that "heteronormal" society and its established "laws" try to keep everybody molded with a heavy emphasis on one or the other. Whether or not "topping" vs. "bottoming" relates to this can be debated. Keep in mind that probably only half of all gay males even do anything anal, so that logic doesn't apply in many cases.

 

I would really like to lose the terms "masculine" and "feminine," though, because they still associate certain traits and interests with men and others with women.

 

As for topping and bottoming, I'm aware that a significant number of gay men aren't interested in anal sex (one study says 25%), but my point wasn't whether it's fair or logical but whether it is a widely-held albeit mostly unconscious belief. There's still a lot of acceptance of heteronormative norms in the gay community. Look at the vehemence with which many gay men assert their attraction to uber-masculine men. It's not the attraction itself that's the issue but the way it's presented as almost morally superior and liking twinks or femme guys as unfathomable.

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