What do gay men look like?

Its been a while since i dusted off my keyboard or remembered my password for this blog, but hey look,... here i am.

I sat in front of this keyboard on multiple times during the last few days thinking on how i am going to word this. Eventually i decided, screw it i will say whats on my mind, I know i WILL piss off many people with this and to be honest at this point in my mind set i don care anymore so here goes...

Well do you know the answer to the question "What do gay men look like?"

If social media, Television and movies are anything to go by then you might be surprised if this is what you had in mind.

Gay men do not look rugged, butch and like men, instead we are supposed to look like this, we are required to be fem, prance around in tight clothing, maybe with makeup and just one bad vodka away from heels. Chances are that if you walked up to a stranger and ask him what the first image is that comes to mind when he hears the word "gay", then this is what he will be imagining...

You see we as gay men are not allowed to identify as being gay unless we are fem. No? Oh well that's what it comes down to if you read the tabloids...i apologize, i meant news papers lately. A man is no longer allowed to be proud that he is gay and butch because in doing that the little sissy boys out there will label you as "The worst Gay EVER" and god forbid that we get another fucking label added to the already long list we come up with one a daily basis, if we don't watch out we will go from LGBTQ to LGBTQWGEABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ community soon.

You might ask yourself what got me to do this post?, and the answer is easy, its the gravy train people are getting on when it comes to what Russell Tovey said during an interview recently.

Russell Tovey, one of the stars of HBO's "Looking," recent found himself at the center of a controversy after he made the following comments in a Guardian profile:

I feel like I could have been really effeminate, if I hadn't gone to the school I went to. Where I felt like I had to toughen up. If I'd have been able to relax, prance around, sing in the street, I might be a different person now. I thank my dad for that, for not allowing me to go down that path. Because it's probably given me the unique quality that people think I have.

and naturally we as the gay community jumped on the first available appropriately decorated and effeminate gay wagon we could find, calling him the "Worst gay ever" and even much worse.

Why?

Because he dared thanking his dad for raising him to be butch and not effeminate?

Russel, like myself grew up in a time when being gay was not really a thing to celebrate unless you were into getting beaten up or even worse getting killed for just being who you were. I am a few years older than him but i do remember very clearly what happened to queer people back then, it was no cakewalk like today and trust me, try and compare growing up in the 70s to today, go on i dare you! . And just like him, my dad is also the reason why i am the way i am.

I have been told i am not gay enough on more that one occasion, not that i knew there were a "how to be gay" handbook or anything, i was just the way my dad and my mom raised me. I just happened to be a man that was attracted to other men instead of men that acted and wanted to look like women.

People are saying fair enough, yes i see you nodding, but...there is always a but..

"if you're a public figure and you make public comments in a public outlet that are problematic, then i think you should be judged by them. no?"

That is now what the majority of people are saying, because he is a celebrity it is somehow wrong of him to say such a thing? Bullshit, we as a gay "community" need to drop the act and stop taking down our own people. Homophobia, the lack of equality is not our greatest threat, its is in fact us, we are our greatest enemy. Gay people will be the downfall of gay people.

We cant wait for a openly gay celebrity to screw up and say one word out of place so we can throw our tiaras into the ring and get all the attention back that that bitch Kim Kardashian with her freak family stole from us, we are Gay, we should be in the headlines all the time and every time!

Instead of bashing someone for being out and proud, why not celebrate the we live in an era where he can openly say and be who he is. Why do we always have to be pulled down into a scandal by a minority group in our own community. If you are fem, or choose to be fem then that is your prerogative, but don't force it on everyone else.

In my eyes a man looks a certain way and i am not ashamed to say that they way you look is not my cuppa tea. but that's just it, that's my choice. We should be happy, look how far we have come in the last few years, same sex marriage is legal in many countries and yes i know there is even more where it is not legal, but crucifying someone for being proud that he grew up the way he did is not progress, this undoes all the progress that so many activists fraught for or even died for.

individuality

ˌɪndɪvɪdjʊˈalɪti/

noun

1. 1.

   the quality or character of a particular person or thing that distinguishes them from others of the same kind, especially when strongly marked.

There is no gay handbook, no cookie cutter mold that defines how you should act or look. That is what makes us so unique, or at least what used to. Let people be who they are without every second gay in the line telling them how they should act or look. God knows the heterosexuals have been doing that for long enough without us helping them.

Think about your life, the freedom you have and don't make everyone else miserable because you grew up differently or had a different experience...

Embrace the rainbow and all under it guys!

MG