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Tim Bergling
discarded
Sissyphobia
Gay Men and Effeminate Behavior
Pre-publication
REVIEWS,
COMMENTARIES,
EVALUATIONS . . .
// M ost people are familiar with
'isms' such as classisnr, sex¬
ism, and racism. However, in Sissy-
phobia: Gay Men and Effeminate Behavior,
Tim Bergling unflinchingly looks at
the lightning rod that is 'nellyism.'
This book asks several questions about
the divisive issue, such as why some
men are fey and why some 'masculine'
men prefer others who are similar to
them. In attempting to answer these
inquiries, Bergling interviews several
professionals, ranging from geneticists
to queer theorists.
However, it is talking with everyday
folks and reading about tire author's
own experiences that personalizes tire
discussion and provides tire spark. For
iirstairce, many will relate to tire parents
who suspected their sons of being gay
based solely on their 'unmanly7 behavior.
Others will empathize with men who
contend that they felt compelled to sup¬
press their femininity while growing up
NOV 1 9 2BM
in ultra-masculine families. In another
example, a (straight) friend of the au¬
thor contends how, even after all these
years, effeminate men 'still give [him]
the willies'—and that comment is one
of the more harmless. On tire other side,
there are also candid individuals who
embrace their femininity and condemn
those who have problems with them.
To be honest, though, one should ex¬
pect hard-hitting statements when cov¬
ering such a controversial topic. (To the
author's credit, he does not attempt to
offer one pat answer for tire loathing.)
Although the title implies that it is only
for gay men, Sissyphobia is for everyone
who has experienced this phenome¬
non—on one side or tire other."
Andrew Davis, BS, JD
Columnist,
Lambda Publications/
Windy City Times,
Chicago
More pre-publication
REVIEWS, COMMENTARIES, EVAEUATIONS . ..
//T1 im Bergling imearths surprising
JL amounts of the gay commu¬
nity's own homophobia in Sissyphobia:
Gay Mm ami Effeminate Behavior. This
book should serve as a wake-up call for
the new century: if intolerance against
obviously gay men is widespread even
iii the ranks of other gay men, we must
find a way to stem the tide. As the say¬
ing goes, if we don't hang together,
they're likely to hang us separately.
Continued violence against queers
makes such a statement scarily rele¬
vant. Bergling leads us into a difficult
and vital conversation."

Carol Queen, EdD

Author of Real Live Nude Girl:
Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture;
PoMoSexuals: Challenging Assumptions
About Gender and Sexuality; and
The Leather Daddy and the Femme
 NOTES FOR PROFESSIONAL LIBRARIANS
AND LIBRARY USERS
This is an original book title published by Southern Tier Editions,
Harrington Park Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc. Unless
otherwise noted in specific chapters with attribution, materials in this
book have not been previously published elsewhere in any format or
language.

CONSERVATION AND PRESERVATION NOTES

All books published by The Haworth Press, Inc. and its imprints are
printed on certified pH neutral, acid free book grade paper. Tliis paper
meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for
Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Material, ANSI
Z39.48-1984.
 Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2017

https://archive.org/details/sissyphobiagaymeOOberg
 Sissyphobia
Gay Men
and Effeminate Behavior
 HARRINGTON PARK PRESS
New, Recent, and Forthcoming Titles
of Related Interest

The Bear Book: Readings in the History and Evolution of a Gay Male
Subculture edited by Les Wright

The Bear Book II: Further Readings in the History and Evolution of a Gay Male
Subculture edited by Les Wright

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and Street-Corner Punks, 1950-1965 by Samuel M. Steward

Barrack Buddies and Soldier Lovers: Dialogues with Gay Young Men in the
Military by Steven Zeeland

Sailors and Sexual IdentityCrossing the Line Between “Straight" and “Gay "
in the U.S. Navy by Steven Zeeland

Rarely Pure and Never Simple: Selected Essays of Scott O'Hara by Scott O’Hara

It's a Queer World: Deviant Adventures in Pop Culture by Mark Simpson

Military Trade by Steven Zeeland

When It's Time to Leave Your Lover: A Guide for Gay Men by Neil Kaminsky

Male Lust: Pleasure, Power; and Transformation edited by Kerwin Kay, Jill Nagle,
and Baruch Gould

Tricks and Treats: Sex Workers Write About Their Clients edited by Matt
Bernstein Sycamore

The Mentor: A Memoir of Friendship and Gay Identity by Jay Quinn

Infidelity/ by William Rooney

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Love, the Magiciarr by Brian Bouldrey

Rebel Yell: Stories by Contemporary Southern Gay Authors edited by Jay Quinn

Growing Up Gay in the South: Race, Gender; and Journeys of the Spirit, Tenth
Anniversary Edition by James T. Sears
 Sissyphobia
Gay Men
and Effeminate Behavior

Tim Bergling

Illustrations by Joe Phillips

HPP
Southern Tier Editions
Harrington Park Press®
An Imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc.
New York • London • Oxford
Published by

Southern Tier Editions, Harrington Park Press®, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc., 10 Alice
Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580

© 2001 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilm,
and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America.

Cover design by Jennifer M. Gaska.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bergling, Tim.
Sissyphobia : gay men and effeminate behavior / Tim Bergling.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 1-56023-989-1 (hard)—ISBN 1-56023-990-5 (soft)
1. Gay men—United States—Identity. 2. Femininity—United States. 3. Masculinity in popular
culture—United States. 4. Identity (Psychology)—United States. 5. Gender identity—United
States. 6. Homophobia—United States. I. Title.

HQ76.3.U5 B465 2001

305.38'9664—dc21 00-063285
For Christopher, who taught me more
about my own mind and heart
than I ever thought possible . . .
 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tim Bergling is a television news producer who lives and works in

the Washington, DC, area. His work has been published in Genre, Out,
Instinct, Joey, and HERO magazines. Bergling, who served as a United
States Marine from 1982-1990, is also featured among the contributors
to the military anthology, A Night in the Barracks (Haworth/Harring¬
ton Park Press). He is currently working on his second book for
Haworth, Reeling in the Years: Gay Men’s Perspectives on Age and
Aging. Visit Tim's Web site at http://www.sissyphobia.com.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Joe Phillips? The less said about this character the better. As far as
we can tell, he lives in San Diego with his cat and his boyfriend. His
art has been seen in DC Comics, 10% Production, and XYMagazine,
and we've heard he's the head designer for Xodus USA. He paints,
sculpts, and, luckily for us, draws cute boys all day long. That's pretty
much the extent of our knowledge of the man. We just keep throwing
money at him and that seems to keep him quiet. For more information
about Joe, you might want to check out his Web site at http://www.
joephillips.com.
 CONTENTS

Foreword ix
Mark Simpson
••♦
Acknowledgments Xlll

Introduction 1

Chapter 1. “No Femmes Need Apply” 7

An Author’s Angst 10
Getting Personal 12
The Net Difference 13
Get Over It, Honey! 19

Chapter 2. Origin of the “Species” 23

Queer Theories 24
Nellie Queens and Butch Boys 29
A Sexual “Brain Tree” 32
The Silent Majority? 33

Chapter 3. Growing Pains 37

School Daze 38
A Boy’s Life 39
A Boy’s Life, Too 42
The Way We Were 44
Changes 46
Johnny, Are You Queer? 49

Chapter 4. Fear and Loathing 53

Wilde Boys 54
Female Trouble? 56
Survey Says . . . 58
The Straight Story 61

Chapter 5. The Enemy Within 65

I’ve Got a Secret 66
The Tale of the Tapes 70
Chapter 6. Dude Looks Like a Lady 77
I Love the Nightlife 78
Girls Just Want to Have Fun 79
Hot Stuff, Coming Through 81
Violent Femmes 83
Trick or Treat 85
Leather, Not Lace 90
The Femme Police 91

Chapter 7. Be All You Can Be 95

A Few Good Men 97
Duty Calls 98
Mary, Get Your Gun 101
Targets of Opportunity 103
True Deceivers 105

Chapter 8. The Next Generation 109

Holding Back the Queers 111
Discriminating Behavior 114
Back to the Future 116
Changing Stations 118

Afterword 123

Resources 131
Works Cited 131
General Resources 132
 Foreword

“If there's one thing I can’t stand,” almost every camp queen I've
met has solemnly informed me, “it's camp queens!”
And, indeed, who can? A hatred of effeminate men is a perfectly
understandable and, in fact, entirely natural antipathy—even, and es¬
pecially, in those who are camp themselves. After all, what's the
point in being camp if everyone else is?
It almost goes without saying that from a straight-arrow, utilitarian
point of view, fern boys are worse than useless in the manly scheme of
things. Unable to throw, wrestle, whistle, climb trees, or chew tobacco,
they are not the sort any self-respecting jock would want on his team,
let alone invite to a circle jerk (though, of course, in the days before
women's magazines were full of articles on how to suppress the gag re¬
flex, the sissy might have made a good cocksucker).
Fern boys are simply bad news. And bad luck. They may not be
able to catch, but their sissiness is something that other boys might.
They represent the most fundamental failure of masculinity—an in¬
ability to separate from Mom. A sissy is, by definition, a momma’s
boy. And, when all is said and done, becoming a man is such an un¬
pleasant business—and these days being a man of such uncertain
worth—it is a wonder that any boys ever give up being momma’s boy.
Hence, the persecution of sissies is a necessary inducement to other
boys not to give up their own struggle toward manhood by showing
them what happens to those who fail. That growing up might be aw¬
ful, but there is always something worse—like those fellas wearing
knuckle-dusters waiting for you behind the drugstore on your way
home from piano practice.
You don’t need to conduct any scientific surveys or read Norman
Mailer to discover that in such a culture, regardless of their actual
sexual preference, all sissies are de facto “faggots.” And all faggots,
regardless of their actual level of masculinization, are de facto sissies.
After all, a sissy is a man who surrenders and “lies down” in the uni-

/.V
X SISSY PHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

versal, friendly war of men against men—and deserts the ranks in the
unfriendly sex war against women by failing to impregnate them.
Faggots are just (un)grown-up sissies—hence the peculiar problem
of “faggots in the military.” If a faggot-sissy can be a frontline sol¬
dier, what, pray tell, is the point of being a soldier? The hours? The
food? The stock options? One of the few, great, priceless intangibles
the military offers young men who sign away their lives is a sense of
manhood: the military (along with prison) is the last rite of passage
for boys, one that takes them away from Mom and introduces them
into the world of Men. (And, undoubtedly, the preoccupation with
this issue of many gay activists who would rather die than join the
military is down to their hope that allowing faggots to serve openly
will mean that they will be masculinized by proxy.)
Alas, however, these reassuring certainties have become less clear
of late. Nowadays, sissies aren't quite so universally despised. In fact,
they're positively encouraged and applauded—at least by those as¬
pects of our culture which are in the ascendant: the media, the corpo¬
rations, career women, and pop culture. Sissies are well adapted to a
postindustrial, post-cold war, postpatemal, postfeminist, integrated,

ci ivv
androgynous service economy. As old models of masculinity have
become more and more redundant, and more and more likely to be re¬
garded as a social problem, so sissies have become more and more
popular with those allied with change. Moreover, in a mediatized cul¬
ture where expressivity is your only chance for recognition, or even

b
of earning a buck these days, the masculine, antisissy virtues of repres¬
sion and reserve have become almost extinct (hence the massive popu¬
larity of certain theatrically expressive, “in-yer-face,” yet “street” kinds
of masculine “blackness” with white American boys).
Even the highest office in the world now opens its doors for sissies:
single-mom-dominated President Clinton was a (straight) “sissy.”
Confusingly perhaps, intolerance of sissies has apparently increased in
some parts of the culture too. In fact, what is happening is a kind of
disavowal. All men are sissies now, so, just like the pubescent boy
who wants to be taken seriously, all men are protesting too much
about their Guyhood. Big Gay Al, the sissy-faggot in South Park with
the neat side-parted short hair and fey ways, is one of the most impor¬
tant icons of this culture. Fie is a lightning rod for the anxieties of a
generation of young men growing up single-mommed and feminist
 Foreword xi

girlfriend pussy-whipped in a world that is no longer interested in

masculinizing. So long as you don’t turn out like Big Gay Al, everything
is okay. Meanwhile, women, as in rap, are continually bad-mouthed in a
comical attempt at asserting one’s independence that is instead just ad¬
vertising one's immaturity—Kyle’s bruising mom stands tapping her
foot behind every boy talking about bitches and “hos.”
Gay culture, meanwhile, has become much less tolerant of sissies
than mainstream culture. This might have something to do with the fact
that modem gay culture is actually built upon the disavowal of sissiness.
Gay liberation in the 1970s was about the masculinization of the faggot
body, so that gay men could find one another—and themselves—desk-
able. Once they would have shrieked, “I'm not a lesbian!” when it was
suggested they sleep with a “sister”; now they were expected as a
matter of politics and fashion to give up the pursuit of straight trade,
join the gym, stiffen their wrists, and sleep with their brothers. The
Clone image was an attempt to turn the sissy faggot into a mucho-
macho Marlboro Man.
However, gay culture has not masculinized homosexuals at all but,
like Ren, the cowardly cartoon chihuahua in Ren and Stimpy, merely
given them unfeasibly large pectoral muscles. Gay culture is still
overwhelmingly “sissy” in that it is dominated by mother-identified
men (e.g., the hysterical diva worship that is still endemic in gay cul¬
ture). Masculinity has been aestheticized by gay culture but not inter¬
nalized, which is, increasingly, the condition of mainstream culture
too—hence the “crossover” of gayness in recent years. In the gay
world, and beyond, masculinity is worn but not felt. For all the 1970s’
politics and the Village People records and the AIDS rhetoric, gay
men never became brothers, after all, just lesbians.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? This is difficult to say. What is
clear is that the delusion of the gay world on this point is bad news for
sissies. The gay ayatollahs decree that gay men must not pursue straight
men and that any attraction they feel to men outside the gay sisterhood is
a manifestation of “self-loathing.” In other words, gay men are required
to reject “authentic” masculinity and instead only desire the skin-deep
performance' or simulacrum of it in other gay men. Straight cops and
truckers and Marines are to be eschewed in favor of buying gay pom fea¬
turing models pretending to be straight cops and truckers and Marines.
Within this hermetically sealed gay world, effeminate men are an em-
xii SISSY PHOBIA: GA Y MEN AND EFFEMINA TE BEHA VI OR

barrassment, not because they are what all gay men really are beneath
their carapace of muscles (though often this is the case), but because
the resentment and ridicule of masculinity that their effeminacy usu¬
ally represents is a reminder of the irreconcilable problem at the heart
of the gay identity: that the real “self-loathing” of gays is constitu¬
tional, not optional.
Male homosexuality seems to be inextricably linked to an exagger¬
ated respect and contempt for masculinity—rather like male hetero¬
sexuality toward femininity. Of course, the unique problem presented
by this attitude for modern gay men is that they themselves are sup¬
posed to embody masculinity.
The title of Tim Bergling's timely inquiry into the dislike so many
people have for ferns—Sissyphobia—might suggest that a hatred or
even dislike of sissies is at least irrational and probably pathological—a
sign of weakness, of unmanliness, a subjection to fear. Rather in the
same way that a hatred or even mild dislike of homosexuals has been
successfully pathologized by the word “homophobia”—so that “homo¬
phobes,” in liberal circles at least, become as undesirable, sick, and
pathetic as homosexuals used to be. Perhaps it's necessary. Perhaps
it's what the times call for. But I must say that I think it's unfortunate.
“There is no Great Dark Man,” pronounced Quentin Crisp, a Great
Pink Man who was not very fond of camp queens himself. I don't
want to, but I'm increasingly inclined to think he was right. Now,
where did I put that henna?

Mark Simpson
Author, It's a Queer World
www. marksi mps on. c om
 Acknowledgments

No author ever completes a book without help from others, and no

author ever finishes his very first book without a hell of a lot of help
from others. I’d like to thank Peter McQuaid, late of Genre magazine,
for helping me to get this ball rolling in the summer of 1997, along
with Bill Cohen, Bill Palmer, Steven Zeeland, and the rest of the folks
at The Haworth Press for having enough confidence in me to get the
job done in longer form, and for giving me constant encouragement
and help along the way.
I also need to send a serious “shout out” to my research assistant
David Corbin, for his tireless efforts in helping me locate and retrieve
scores of books and papers: David, you are truly priceless. For all the
other friends and colleagues who lent me some much-needed assis¬
tance (that’s you, Marlon!), a sincere gracias is definitely in order; I'd
likewise be remiss if I didn't thank the artist known as Joe Phillips for
all of his wonderful work and patience, and writer extraordinaire
Mark Simpson for his provocative foreword that helps frame the pur¬
pose and plan of this book.
And there would of course be no book at all, not without the doz¬
ens and dozens of folks who submitted to my interviews, in the pro¬
cess opening themselves up to some serious self-examination of their
own attitudes and prejudices. Thanks one and all. I hope you'll find
this effort worthy of your invaluable assistance.

xiii
 / yl |7 j/
v. 44
/ i/i V I

V' ^ 7 M Vi
 Introduction

Originally, this book wasn’t a book at all; it began as an article I

wrote for Genre magazine in the summer of 1997, which was pub¬
lished in the September 1997 issue. And long before it took shape in
words on a page, it was a frequent topic of conversations I'd been
party to for years, in just about any place you can imagine—parties
and nightclubs, downtown coffee shops and late-night gab fests at
kitchen tables. Sometimes it’s been an all-gay crowd, “just us” queer
boys chewing over the proposition the way family members will go
on about this crazy uncle or that eccentric aunt. Other times the sub¬
ject just sort of popped out of nowhere, right in the middle of a bunch
of straight boys, totally clueless that when they were talking about
“those fags,” they were talking about yours truly, too. Whatever the
crowd, there were always lots of opinions, but never a satisfying an¬
swer to what’s become, for me at least, one of life’s little mysteries.
Why is it that some gay men behave in what’s often called an “ef¬
feminate” manner, while other gay men are more masculine? Why is
an otherwise attractive man sometimes less desirable to us if he be¬
gins to exhibit certain characteristics that make him appear less
manly, and more like the classical “gay” stereotype? And when we
see an effeminate-behaving man, why do so many of us simply as¬
sume he’s likely gay, even if he’s out with a girlfriend or shopping at
Wal-Mart with a wife and three kids in tow?
All of those questions are pretty thorny, but they’re still only half of
what this book is all about. It’s probably more important to ask, What
is it exactly about effeminate men that annoys or disgusts so many
people? Or a better way to put it, What is it about society—and I'm
absolutely talking about gay society as well as the outside straight
world—that makes effeminate behavior in men so objectionable?
I did a lot of research for that original article—and a hell of a lot
more when I tackled this book—as I tried to find some answers. I
talked with geneticists and biologists, queer theorists, counselors,

1
2 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

and psychotherapists, all of them experts in their disciplines. As

much as possible I made room for their opinions. But the real stars
here are the hundreds of “regular” folks I talked with—male and fe¬
male, gay and straight, young and old, parents of now-grown chil¬
dren, and parents of young boys already showing fairly distinctive
effeminate characteristics—from all over the country. What I found
were some pretty strong opinions about effeminate men, and as we go
along here, you'll see just how deeply embedded and unapologetic
some of those beliefs are. For some, effeminate men are nothing less
than heroic: they're admired for the sheer bravery of being true to
themselves. Others take severe issue with their “gentle” brothers and
unload a lot of hostility in their direction, blasting them for being a
throwback to the past, and a drag on the future.
I've been out now for more than twenty years, and throughout that
time I've listened to plenty of bitching about the “flamers” who've
become the overriding symbol of what being gay means. I've known
and interviewed scores of men who’ve stayed in the closet just to
keep from being linked to guys like that. Many of them believe that
men who behave in an effeminate manner do so intentionally, even
maliciously, and, in so doing, hold the “rest of us” back from ever
reaching the Promised Land, a world that accepts men who just hap¬
pen to love and desire other men.
But, you know what, Butch? Bitching turns out to be a two-way
street, and there's a lot of traffic on the other side of the highway—a
large number of men who don't give a rat's ass about society's toler¬
ance or acceptance. They’ve already scratched and clawed their way
out from under some pretty smothering expectations, societywise;
they're not buying anyone’s prescription for conformity, especially
not from anyone they dismiss as mere “hetero-wannabes.” The pos¬
tures they adopt are strongly individualistic, and whether they're a
conscious choice isn't something they care about. If it pisses anyone
off, so much the better. Do you think phrases such as “Deal with it” or
“Get over it” just coined themselves? They're not just words; they’re
a worldview.
All of this backbiting isn't just for party chatter, though I'll admit it
certainly has made a party or two more lively in my time. It actually cuts
to a rather crucial aspect of human existence and coexistence— how we
view ourselves and how we view others. Many of us have long wondered
 Introduction 3

what makes us gay: Just how much is nature and how much is nurture? A
logical follow-up to that question is to consider why some men behave
in effeminate, even flamboyant ways, and why others do not. What
we are talking about here is the single characteristic that makes us
stand out, a “fag tag” if you will, that sets many of us—possibly most
of us—apart from an overwhelmingly hetero world.
Whether the assessment is accurate doesn’t really matter all that
much—outside the comfy confines of a gay ghetto or the halls of aca¬
demia, any man who walks with a discernible “swish” can be, and of¬
ten is, a magnet for trouble, be it simple discrimination, school yard
hazing, or life-threatening violence. And that's what takes this debate
out of the context of a simple family feud. After a year of interviews,
e-mails, and phone calls, everything I’ve learned about the attitudes
of our somewhat fractious gay “community” makes me want to pose
the question: If we ourselves can’t embrace, even celebrate, the dif¬
ferences we find within our own family, how can we expect an often
mystified, and sometimes hostile, straight world to ever fully wel¬
come us into its fold or, conversely, to just leave us the hell alone?
Before we go on, let me address some of the terms you’re going to en¬
counter in this book. Let’s start with the title itself, Sissyphobia. It’s not
some clever marketing ploy, a device aimed at making this book jump
off the shelf and into your shopping cart (though I certainly won’t mind
if that’s what happens). I wanted to use a word almost every gay man
has heaid directed at him—or someone he cared about—at some point
in his life. “Sissy” is a word with sharp edges, a word that cuts deeply,
especially when you’re young. Remember the playgrounds of your
youth? Maybe someone called you a sissy when you lost a race or
backed down from a fight; maybe your father used it when you cried a
little too much or too easily, when you didn’t act manly enough for
his liking. Maybe you’ve heard it walking down the street, or may¬
be you have used it yourself—if only in a joshing, kidding way—
unaware of how you’ve hurt someone's feelings or disturbed a sleep¬
ing ghost. In any case, to use the word “sissy” in the title is to recall,
for some, the stinging shame of not measuring up to another’s expec¬
tations, either as a child or an adult. It is not used here to denigrate
anyone; combined with “phobia,” it is intended simply to describe a
phenomenon whose existence is undeniable: a fear and loathing of
men who behave in a “less manly than desired,” or effeminate, man-
4 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

ner. Just how widespread is that feeling? That’s what this book is
about, too.
And there are undeniably—judging from my e-mail, at least—those
who find the term “effeminate” offensive. I submit that it is probably
the least objectionable word out there, and by using it, one at least
brings to mind a familiar—though admittedly stereotyped and utterly
sexist—image. What do I mean by effeminate? For the record, my
Webster's New World Dictionary defines the word as “having the qual¬
ities historically attributed to women ... weakness, timidity, delicacy
. . . unmanly, unvirile.” That pretty much nails the image I’m trying to
explore here, the stereotype that's such an easy target for straights and
gays alike. (I've had more suggestions than I can count that I shouldn't
use effeminate at all, that I should substitute another word, perhaps the
words elegant or graceful... even fabulous. Sony, boys. None of those
terms paints quite the same picture. Effeminate I will use—though I
may sometimes substitute “femme” to avoid repetition.)
You're also going to find in these pages some other tenns and
phrases to describe effeminate-behaving men, many of them supplied
by such men themselves, some from the self-styled “butch” commu¬
nity, and some from the straight side of the fence. Be warned: they are
not always kind. So be it. 1 don't associate myself with those opinions
and attitudes—at least not all of them—and I do want to present an ac¬
curate picture. There will be no airbrushing—the thin-skinned and eas¬
ily offended are forewarned. (And out of respect for the privacy of
many of those interviewed, names and locations have been changed to
conceal identities. All of the stories included herein, however, are true.)
Now a word about what you won't find here, namely, any lengthy
discussion of the gender benders on the other side of our same-sex
spectrum, i.e., masculine-behaving women. Neither will I speak
much to the multilayered complexities of those in the transgendered
community. For the sake of focus—not to mention keeping this book
within some kind of manageable limits—I'm going to concentrate on
self-identified, mainly gay men. You will also note that Sissyphobia
concentrates principally on life in these United States, and that most
of the stories, ideas, and opinions come from American men. This re¬
sults not so much from any intent to exclude the rest of the world as from
the desire to take a snapshot of attitudes in this country, at this time. No
offense is intended, and hopefully none will be taken.
 Introduction 5

Speaking of those whotake offense, after the original article was pub¬
lished, I was amused to receive a number of e-mails and letters from
folks who were totally convinced I’d somehow belittled them, a fairly
equal amount from guys in the butch and femme camps. That's a
pretty cool outcome, when you piss off each side equally; it’s that elu¬
sive little vein of gold that we in the journalist community like to call
“balance.” And in recent months, as word of this project got out, I be¬
gan to receive messages again, this time a handful of notes criticizing
me for “stilling up trouble,” for not letting sleeping dogs lie. “Why
are you even doing this book at all?” one fellow wrote. “All you’re
doing is perpetuating the notion that gay guys are different from
straight guys.” Hmmm... the last time I looked, we were different, in
some cases quite extravagantly and flamboyantly so. That’s what is so
fascinating. Another worried soul wrote: “You’re just going to go and
write a bunch of nasty stuff about gay people,” apparently unaware that
I’m a “Club Member Since 1977.” Still another wrote that “it’s about
time somebody slammed all those girly fags.” He doesn't realize that
some of my closest friends are “girly fags” and pretty damn happy
about it, and happy I’m writing this book to tell their stories.
To one and all, I offer a simple invitation: read the book, then we’ll
chat. Researching and writing Sissyphobia was very much a journey
for me, and I hope you’ll experience something similar as you read
on. If I succeed in shattering even one illusion you hold, if I make you
think a little bit, or perhaps simply confirm any of your long-held be¬
liefs, it’s just possible that I may have done my job.
 Chapter 1

“No Femmes Need Apply”

To be homosexual is to like the ideal of sex.

Homosexual men love very masculine men,
and I am not a masculine person.

Jaye Davidson, actor

It is a sparkling springtime afternoon in the heart of Gaytown,

USA, that tony little section of your city where—by some marvelous
and terribly convenient confluence of geography, affluence, urbanity,
or simple safety—gay men come out to play, to see and be seen. It's a
special, all-too-brief season, a time of year when winter’s chill is not
yet a distant memory and warm sunshine feels like a novelty, some¬
thing to be savored before summer wears out its welcome.
Strolling into the park that serves as an ad hoc gathering place on days
such as this, you spy men of all shapes, sizes, and ages “out” and about,
the more confident among them doffing their shirts to show off the re¬
sults of all those hard months working out since last summer; now it’s
time to soak up those first good rays from above—UV index be damned.
That's when you spot him. He’s a tall, well-muscled Adonis posed
up on the lip of a marble fountain, wearing shorts, sunglasses, and not
much else. You can’t really believe your eyes; he looks for all the
world like one of those young men you find only in the pages of an
underwear catalog, or sitting high up on a billboard above Times
Square. They don’t really make guys like this in the real world, do
they? But here he is, in the flesh. And what flesh it is . . .
You circle over so as not to appear too anxious, all the while giving your
best introductory phrases a mental once-over. Beautifiil day, isn V it? Or
maybe, Wow, have you been working out a long time? I'd love to have a
body like that. Well, you’ll surely think of something.
8 SISSYPH0B1A: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

Soon you're within striking range and gathering up your courage, and
just when you're this close to pouncing, his friends appear, Starbucks
Frappucinos in hand. And that's when your intended suddenly jumps up
and fairly screams with delight. You stop in your tracks and stand there,
off to the side, unnoticed, taking in the scene. The lean body is still there;
in fact, he looks even better now that he's standing fully upright and you
see the shadows cast by ample pecs and a midsection so rippled that it
doesn't suggest a six pack so much as a whole freakin' case of sun-
splashed delight. There’s even the flash of a gorgeous smile, and a
glimpse of bright, wide-set eyes behind those Ray*Bans. But now
you're seeing other things, like the fluid, theatrical motions of his
hands as he talks, the toss of his head that can only be described as
girlish. And the voice. It calls to mind that old expression, “He opened
his mouth, and a string of pearls hit the floor.”
You are somewhat dumbstruck by the transformation, wondering
just how it is that your Rhett Butler became Scarlett O'Hara in the
space of a second. And you are also struck by the fact that your men¬
tal woody has pretty much gone with the wind. Make no mistake,
your boy is still a vision, but that’s all he is now—lovely scenery, like
the green trees and the bright white fountain shimmering in the sun
on a Saturday afternoon.
Is that an unrealistic scenario? Not really, judging from the conver¬
sations I've had with scores of gay men for the better part of the past
several years. When presented with the tableau above, the majority of
those I've talked with say they'd probably take a pass, rather than make
a pass. “I'd like to think I'm a little better than that, but if I'm going to
be honest, I'd probably walk away and keep looking,” admited one
young man, who told me he had in fact experienced a similar scene in
an Atlanta nightclub not two days prior to our conversation. “I just like
masculine guys, and guys like the one you describe totally turn me off.”
“I know it sounds shallow,” said another, who described himself as
a little “queeny” sometimes, usually when he's out with friends in
West Hollywood. “And I know it sounds bad, especially coming from
me. But I like my men to be more masculine than that. I simply refuse
to date anyone more glam than I am.”
If you're nodding your head at this admittedly frivolous, yet unde¬
niably commonplace illustration of the phenomenon I've dubbed
sissyphobia, you're not alone. Conversely, if you find yourself shak-
 “/Vo Femmes Need Apply” 9

ing your head in disgust at the sheer narrow-mindedness of someone

who would dismiss you simply because of the way you speak or
move, you are not alone either. We are talking about a peculiar rift
that runs through the gay male community, a divide between men
who might be deemed “straight acting” and those whose style and
mannerisms run more toward what could be termed the “Quentin
Crisp School of Homosexuality.” Although the two tribes are not ex¬
actly ready to go to war, it would be wrong to assume that there's any¬
thing more than an uneasy peace in the valley.
Now certainly, in my interviews, I have run across those who
maintain neutrality; they don't seem to care much how stiff the wrists
around them are. I've also encountered a handful of guys who tell me
they find effeminate-behaving men comforting to be around. “Effem¬
inate guys can be quiet, nurturing, often kind, and rarely mean,” said
Russ, a thirty-six-year-old marketing executive in Manassas, Vir¬
ginia. “They can be shy, very polite and easygoing. What's so bad
about that?” Others tell me that they find effeminate guys downright
attractive and seek them out whenever possible. One older gentleman
suggested that in place of this project, I should instead be writing a
book with the Oprah-esque title Sissyphilia: Femme Boys and the
Butch Men Who Love Them.
Still others are intrigued by the opportunity an effeminate man
seems to present when few other opportunities exist. “I'm from a very
small town,” said John, a twenty-year-old student in western Mary¬
land. “There are, like, no gay people around here. If I see somebody
I'm pretty sure is gay from the way he acts, well, I figure, finally!
Someone to hang out with.”
But those examples are by far the exceptions. The loudest voices I
hear come mainly from inside two opposing camps, the first com¬
prised of gay men, some of them quite closeted, who identify them¬
selves as “straight acting” or “straight looking.” The second includes
gay men long out of hiding—if ever they hid at all—who not only
wonder what the fuss is all about, but also resent the implication that
anyone might tell them the “proper” way to behave. Skirmishes be¬
tween the two groups flare up all the time, and not just in pickup bars
or parks, though they are common enough battlegrounds. This con¬
flict reflects and parallels the ongoing strife within society as a
whole, daily dramas that play out in homes, high school halls, college
10 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

dorms, the workplace, on the Internet, even in military barracks—

anyplace where men find themselves criticized, even brutalized, by
those who don't consider them “manly” enough. It takes place wher¬
ever some gay man finds himself turned off, intimidated, or embar¬
rassed by the sometimes merely effeminate, sometimes loud and
flamboyant, behavior of another.

AN A UTHOR ’S ANGST

I could sit outside the discussion like a good little journalist, but
that's not what I'm here for. I'm here to tell you I know exactly what
many of my subjects are talking about. I grew up in the suburbs of
Washington, DC, and though my childhood did in fact include some
manifestations of “gender atypical'’ behavior—a topic I'll revisit a bit
later on—I emerged from adolescence with a bearing most would de¬
scribe as masculine, with few outward-appearing feminine traits, and a
strong attraction for heterosexual and heterosexual-appearing men. A
seven-year stint in the U.S. Marine Coips only served to further instill
in me an appreciation for most things masculine, along with a gener¬
ally dim view of men who move with a definite “swish”
One example. A few years back I went out on a date with a
great-looking, successful guy whom I'll call “Charlie.” Everything
was going well as we met downtown, had a few drinks, then decided
on a spot for dinner; I thought I might have a keeper, until the moment
we had to race to cross a busy street against the light. Suddenly Char¬
lie's arms went up at the elbows, his wrists loosened, and he did not
run so much as prance his way along the crosswalk, hands flapping
alternately all the way to the curb.
I stopped and laughed, thinking he was doing his best “fag” imita¬
tion just to make me laugh. But Charlie looked at me blankly, hands
planted on his hips, wondering just what I'd found so damn funny in
the oncoming headlights. That's when I realized he wasn't joking,
that that was actually how he ran. We continued on with our date, had
dinner and coffee afterward, but now I was noticing things I hadn't
seen before, the same sort of mannerisms I described in my hypothet¬
ical park scene. I knew Charlie was a nice guy, quite thoughtful and
sweet. I even knew he had a good, solid build—we'd met first at the
 “/Vo Femmes Need Apply'" 11

gym, casting coy glances at each other in the locker room—but none
of that mattered. What did matter to me was that he didn't pass muster
in the masculinity department. We had our date, but I did not call him
back. (I'm sure, to this day, he’s certain I’m a dick.)
Now it's an open question, really, whether one guy should ever
have to apologize for what makes him attracted to another. We make
value judgments all the time, often subconsciously, accepting or re¬
jecting potential romances based on extremely arbitrary parameters
such as hair color, physical size and shape, even economic status or
ethnic heritage. Fair or unfair, that’s just human nature. But suppose
I'd suddenly discovered that Charlie possessed some habit I found
annoying, such as incessantly tapping on things or humming tune¬
lessly to himself? What if he smoked, and I abhorred smokers? Or
what if he liked to indulge in a little recreational drug use? Would I be
within my rights to reject him for any of those, even if the rest of the
package was nominal? Many would likely agree that, yes, I would.
But a gay man rejecting another simply because he acts or looks like a
stereotypical gay man? To some, that’s tantamount to treason; to oth¬
ers, it’s simply another solid value judgment which requires no de¬
fense at all.
“I can totally understand how a masculine gay guy feels if he's at¬
tracted to other masculine guys,” said Ryan, a twenty-two-year-old col¬
lege student in Houston. “When you’re growing up gay, you face a lot of
criticism just for liking men at all... then you get a load of crap from gay
men if you also admit you happen to like straight-acting guys.” Ryan ad¬
mitted that he’s the furthest tiling from straight acting, but he does like a
guy who has “that rugby/soccer/tough-guy thing going on.” He said he's
been fortunate to find men just like that who can appreciate the “gentler
side” of being a guy that he has to offer. “But I have other friends who
treat me like I'm a traitor.... I don't think anyone should have to make
excuses for whatever gets him hot down there.”
Such “excuses” probably wouldn't be an issue, if we all saw ef¬
feminate traits as having no more or less significance than hair color.
But clearly that's not the case. “When you’re dating someone who is
stereotypically gay, it draws a lot more attention in public,” said
Wayne, a twenty-nine-year-old Washington, DC, resident. “Every¬
one knows you're a gay couple, rather than just friends. If someone's
not used to the scrutiny—and sometimes scorn—it can be an uncom-
12 S1SSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

fortable experience. Even if the masculine guy is out, it's different

from the experience of the femme guy—a masculine guy has the op¬
tion of telling whomever he wants that he’s gay. When you date an ef¬
feminate guy, you lose that, and suddenly you're out all the time.
Some guys just don't like the added pressure, and they end up feeling
like it's not worth the effort.”

GETTING PERSONAL

As frequent victims of intolerance—from subtle homophobia to

outright gaybashing—we know all too well the price we sometimes
pay when we make no secret of our same-sex orientation. Most gay
men like to believe they're all for equality; we expect our community
activists to demand exactly that from government agencies, law en¬
forcement, social services, even employers. In our private lives, how¬
ever, it seems that old adage holds true: some are more equal than
others.
If you doubt that, or the premise upon which this book is based, I
invite you to check out the personal ads in your local gay newspaper;
give them a close read, though I do not recommend you do this very
often, since it's a truly distressing enterprise. In the space of a mere
twenty or thirty column inches, personal ads so often exhibit such a
wide range of bitter, alienated loneliness, relationship dependency,
and overweening narcissism, one begins to wonder whether someone
shouldn't just throw a net over the whole lot of us. But if you can
stomach the project, you'll find ads like these: one from a gentleman
who lists himself as a thirty-something “Sexy Bear” explains how
he's looking for a “stable, in shape, young GWM . . . and real men
only need respond.” Another who posts his name as “Keeps Them
Guessing,” proudly announces the fact that no one would believe he's
gay and suggests that's exactly the sort of guy he’s looking for. A
“Boy Next Door,” who says he, too, is looking for a “real man,” and
“Attractive Straight-Appearing Man” who allows how he is “looking
for same.”
How representative are these examples? I went through dozens of
back issues of a number of papers from around the country, randomly
spaced out over a two-year period; I counted the total number of
 “No Femmes Need Apply"' 13

men-seeking-men ads, then tracked the number of times the word

“masculine” appeared as either a self-describer or as an example of
what the advertiser was seeking. I also took care to note how often
what I came to call masculine “code words” were used, phrases such
as the venerable “straight acting/straight looking,” as well as “mili¬
tary,” “frat boy,” “blue jeans and sweatshirt,” and the like.
Then I did the opposite: I went through the same papers looking for
anything that spoke of an effeminate or feminine nature. The results
were intriguing: masculine-theme ads accounted for nearly 40 percent
of the total, while feminine-themed ads, though present, barely regis¬
tered at 1 or 2 percent. The numbers held fairly steady no matter how
many new entries I added to the mix; if I searched more for neu¬
tral-sounding code words such as “normal guy” or “regular, main¬
stream guy,” the percentage grew even more lopsided. And although
the feminine-themed ads were usually affirmative, upbeat, and hope¬
ful in tone, many of the masculine-themed ads were often dismissive
of, or showed outright hostility toward, effeminate men.
My research—admittedly an amateur survey without strict, scientific
controls—tracks fairly well with a much more formal study that served
as the basis for a 1997 paper published by the American Psychological
Association titled “Butch, Femme, or Straight Acting? Partner Prefer¬
ences of Gay Men and Lesbians.” Four Northwestern University psy¬
chology professors—Michael Bailey, Peggy Kim, Alex Hills, and
Joan Linsenmeier—focused on ads from the greater Chicago area
over a two-year period. Their conclusions reveal a definite preference
for masculine-behaving men—especially from men who describe
themselves in the same way—and paint a picture of a large segment
of gay men in the market only for those who walk their walk and talk
their talk. No “femmes” need apply.

THE NET DIFFERENCE

The situation isn't much different within communities on the Internet,

where those gay men seeking companionship don't have to go through
all the rigmarole attached to placing or answering a personal ad. In ef¬
fect, users on the Net are placing an ad virtually every moment they're
online, particularly when they're cruising through chat rooms, like
14 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

those on America Online, by far the largest such community, and one
that's extremely welcoming to gays and lesbians. On AOL—I've heard
it called “Gay-O-L" more times than I can count—literally thousands
of users create names and member profiles specifically aimed at mak¬
ing a romantic or sexual connection, if only for a single night. With
such immediacy at hand, these profiles are even more aggressively
themed than those found in the personals. If you're looking for an un¬
dertaking that will both enlighten and appall you for a couple of hours,
log on and go to Member Search; enter keywords such as “sissy,"
“homo," “femme," “fag," or “swish." Once you sift out the straight
guys who like to gay-bash with wild abandon—some of them probably
not so straight and possessed of a plethora of identity issues they
clearly have to work through—you'll find self-identified gay men who
make it very clear they're not at all interested in anyone who exhibits
the slightest degree of effeminate behavior.
I won't reveal their screen names, but here's a small sampling from
just one night's surf on AOL. One young man, a student at Southern
Methodist University, sings the praises of “burly men, construction
types," and advises in his member quote that “if I wanted a woman, I'd
be straight. So all you flamers/effeminate guys, don't bother, I'm not
interested." A fellow in Washington, DC, who lists his occupation as
“you don't ask, and I won't tell" implores of his potential respondents
“please do not be effeminate." A self-described “Latin boy in LA" says
he's into camping, fishing, backpacking, and so on, and he invites all
the “hand-waving, neck-snapping, loud and swishy queens" to look
elsewhere.
Even those with neutral profiles frequently make their feelings ob¬
vious once you engage them in active conversation and show a little
leg. Several times over the course of the past year, I created online
personas with a definite femme bent and signed into various chat
rooms where the boys come to play. (I’ll admit I feel a little guilty
about that; I happen to love online chat rooms—especially on some
cold rainy night when you just don't feel like leaving the house—and
I have long despised folks who cannot be honest about themselves.
But how else was I going to walk a mile in those pumps?) The experi¬
ence was nearly always an eye-opener; all it takes is a few airy
phrases, a handful of “What's up with you, Mary?" or “Hey, girls"
dropped into the chat, and the fur takes flight. You can feel the tension
 “No. Femmes Need Apply" 15

in the chat rooms where straight-identifying gay men like to gather,

rooms with oxymoronic names such as “Straight M4M” or “Straight
Men Look Too.” My faux persona was just about as welcome there as
the proverbial turd in the punch bowl. I’d be asked to “get outta the
room, faggot,” or variations thereof, fairly often on such occasions.
And you really come to see sissyphobia’s cutting edges when you
talk to gay men who like to communicate via online Web cams. Here,
a man can scan a directory of members, select someone who appears
promising from his profile, then send him an instant photo message
or connect one-on-one. “I only choose the guys who seem like they’ll
be masculine,” said one Web cam enthusiast named Brad. “One time I
was talking to this really hot guy with a great body, and that was cool;
he was totally getting me excited. But I could tell he was probably a
little femme. He wanted to know if we could talk on the phone while
we watched each other on the camera. I lied and told him I didn't have
another phone line—even though I have rtro other lines. I just didn’t
want to hear a faggy voice and ruin the hot fantasy.”
My good friend Derek Hartley once worked with Planet Out, one
of the largest gay and lesbian-themed communities on the Web; he
created and managed an engaging subsite called “Fantasy Man Is¬
land,” an area where visitors can view and post online pictures and
leave messages for one another. Derek got more e-mail than many of
us could ever tolerate, from all manner of folks seeking to meet other
men, making comments about the ones they have met, or comment¬
ing on issues Derek used to address in his weekly online column. Not
long ago he sent me a copy of a message e-mailed to the FMI message
board by one particular young man; considering its content and
knowing about my book, he thought it might interest me. I include it
here in unedited form, except for correcting any spelling errors and
explaining the AOL acronyms:

I am trying to organize a group of STRAIGHT ACTING [his

emphasis] gay guys so we can all get to know each other, maybe
hook up, make friends, and find out that there are cool, str8 [a
common online abbreviation for straight] acting, good-looking
guys around here! I will eventually create a chat room for all of
us and other straight acting guys who hear about this to go into
and chat, instead of those stupid rooms that are titled “straight
16 SISSY PHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

acting’’ but are full of a bunch of ugly, old, fat, femmes. I don't
know about you, but I think that the whole point of being gay
like us is to be attracted to males, which means they are mascu¬
line, athletic, active, and do the kinds of things that guys do, like
workin' out, sports, partying, you know, str8 stuff. I wish there
was a club for str8 acting guys to go to; that would be the shit...
then we wouldn't have to wonder: “Damn, that dude looks
good, but he's so str8 acting, is he gay?!!'’ So if you think you're
interested in getting to know other guys like us, put all of us on
your buddy list, and IM [instant message] us, or at least look up
our profiles, and if you like what u[sic] see, contact us. [Here he
included a list of apparently like-minded guys.] If you think you
know other guys who are like us, let them know too. I hope to
eventually organize a party or something for all of us to meet,
depending on the response.

He then concluded his message with the following disclaimer:

I apologize if this has offended anyone.

But Derek was offended, so much so that he refused to post the

message, instead addressing the issue in his column. He wrote:

Apology not accepted. My message boards are for contacting

Fantasy Men, not for subtle gay bashing. I have repeated many
times how I feel about the term “straight acting.” I don't care if
you only like gay men who are masculine, can rebuild a car en¬
gine, and can't find socks that match, “straight acting” is noth¬
ing more than a term that says that straight men are better than
gay men, and that is just plain wrong. “Straight acting” is a term
demeaning to all gay people, masculine or otherwise, and I am
not interested in continuing to see it in my area. If you don't like
it, go somewhere else. Maybe they like self-loathing gay people
at [another gay site] or somewhere else online. But your pathetic
attempts at feeling “normal” won't be tolerated here ... ageism,
sizephobias, and name-calling also have no place on Fantasy
Man Island. Someone who is part of a disenfranchised minority
that is repeatedly shunned and called names, who then turns
around and does the same thing to another person in their group
 “No.Femmes Need Apply ” 17

is, in my opinion, the lowest form of life. Shame on you. Shame.

Shame. Shame.

Derek may find the term “straight acting” demeaning, and he may
condemn the idea that anyone would cater to those who hold on to that
ideal, but little did he know when he forwarded me this e-mail that his
erstwhile correspondent's wish was about to be answered. Less than
two months before this book was completed, a Web designer named
Tom Hartley—no relation to Derek, but isn't that ironic, as they
say—created just such a site for gay men who prize that straight-acting
vibe. It's called, appropriately enough, stmightacting.com.
“Just as people have preferences for the sex of the person they
sleep with, or a preference for tall men, some people have a prefer¬
ence for straight acting men . . . men who have very few effeminate
traits but still like to get down with other men,” reads the site’s home
page. “This site was created to help people find each other.”
As Tom told me, the site came about by accident. “I was just play¬
ing around one day . . . since my quest has always been for straight
acting guys, I typed in straightacting.com . . . there wasn't anything
there. After some research, I registered the name and began develop¬
ing a politically incorrect online community for men who prefer the
same sort of guys.”
The site's main attraction is its “Official Masculinity Quiz.” Re¬
spondents answer a variety of questions aimed at nailing down their
masculinity/femininity level on a scale of zero to ten; the questions
cover a lot of ground: the number of times you’ve taken a bubble or a
mud bath in the past two years; the kind of movies you prefer;
whether you’ve ever had a pedicure/manicure/facial; questions about
home decor; the kind of televised sports you watch (football versus
figure skating, etc.); favorite breed of dog (poodle/beagle/Dober¬
man); and the like. The result is tabulated and the respondent gets his
score, from level zero (“Not one person on the planet would suspect
you sleep with men ... you are the ultimate in masculinity and acting
in a manner which most heterosexual men don't even achieve”) to
level ten (“You're simply a woman trapped in a man’s body”).
Tom admits that the site has its problematic aspects. “I've read lots
of personal ads that say ‘no fats/femmes/druggies.' In the past I used
to see ads that stated ‘no blacks.’ That’s very bothersome to me. There
are certainly ways to approach this without offending anyone.” And
the site’s welcome screen does take pains to point out that the Website
18 SISSYPH0B1A: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

is meant to be fun, that “regardless of sexual orientation, age, race, re¬

ligion, or the level you score on the quiz, we are all equal.”
Right now, about a thousand people a day are checking out the site,
and more than twenty thousand people have taken the quiz; there's also
an area where visitors can take part in instant polls. (Sample ballot: Of
more than two thousand votes cast, 61 percent said that being “straight
acting” is either “extremely” or “somewhat” important in their choice of
dates. Only 8 percent said it was “extremely unimportant.” And when
asked if they found the site itself offensive, a full 87 percent of more than
two thousand visitors answered “no.” Only 5 percent said “yes”)
Plans for the site include a personal ads section where anyone,
masculine or effeminate, can post ads and look for friends. There’s
also a “Butch Board” where Web cruisers can post their thoughts—
and what thoughts they are. “Nellie men make gay people look bad,”
writes one visitor. “People should start acting like a true man and not
like a woman.” Another wrote, “If I can’t take a boy out without
someone questioning his sexuality, then he is not for me. Sony, but
being straight acting is very important if you don't want to look
‘queenie’ or ‘faggy.’ ” And yet another posted this message: “I think
effeminate guys are okay, and I have some friends that are like that, but
I wouldn’t want to date one ’cause everytime they open their mouths in
intimate conversation I just wanna beat their faces in ... gay society has
been stereotyped by this type of behavior, which makes me sick. ... I
just wish some people wouldn't stereotype my lifestyle off of some
faggoty-ass queen in a pink jumpsuit on rollerblades blowing bubbles
at gay pride.”
That let loose a torrent of commentary from folks on the other side
of the issue. “To say ‘nellie queens’ suck or give gay people a bad
name is just plain ignorant, mean, and wrong,” wrote one young man
from Texas. “The wonderful part about being homosexual is that you
are free to be who you are ... we shouldn't look down on or demean
our gay brothers and sisters just because they don't lead the same life¬
style we do.” Another defender of the flames wrote, “You know, it’s
pretty sad when a group of people who all strive for equality start
judging each other on the fact that they are more or less masculine
than each other. Can't we all just get along?”
 “/Vo Femmes Need Apply'”' 19

GET OVER IT, HONEY!

Long before straightacting.com was up and operating, I posted a

similar set of questions on the local AOL message boards, asking
people what they thought of the term “straight acting.” The response
was strong. “I find that term really, really insulting,” wrote Nate, a
nineteen-year-old college student in Minneapolis. “The men I date
tend to be pretty masculine, but that doesn’t mean I’m turned off by
effeminate guys. To me, straight acting implies it’s better to seem
straight even if you're gay. Imagine if a black or an Asian guy de¬
scribed himself as white acting. How ridiculous is that?”
The outrage isn't confined to the online world. In the October/No¬
vember 1999 issue of the national gay youth magazine XY, publisher
Peter Cummings also railed against what he sees as a disturbing
trend.

Gays used to say they wanted a boy who was sexy. Now sexy is
considered a sleazy concept. Instead we want someone “straight
acting.” All we say by that is we want to be just like the people
who oppress us ... to me, “straight acting” is a boy who buys
into the shame about being gay. Otherwise he would be gay act¬
ing. “Straight acting” is pure oppression; it means “we want to
join you in your shame.” I don’t want a straight acting boy. I
want a sexy boy. (p. 35)

Consider also the letters to the editor that appealed after my article
was published in Genre in 1997. A self-identified “drag princess” wrote
to send a message to those he called “big-macho-butch-straight-acting-
big-dicked studs out there who can’t handle a dose of feminine wiles.
Get over yourselves. There's a little girl in all of us, even you leather men
with your goddamned moisturizer and little soap shaped like fish.” An¬
other letter suggested that “one fabulous pail of being gay is blurring so¬
cial norms of gender-specific behavior. Adhering to a strict ideal of
‘straight’ misses the point of coming out in the fust place. Put on some
mascara and live a little, boys!”
A longtime feature on the Washington, DC area drag scene put it
even more succinctly. “These are boys who like to play with boys,
right?” asked Chris Dyer, aka “Cookie Buffet.” He laughs at what he
20 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

sees as utter hypocrisy. “How straight acting exactly are you being,
when you've got some guy's dick in your mouth?”
Clearly the battle has been joined, and even men who consider
themselves more enlightened and tolerant than others sometimes find
themselves in the midst of the fray. Eric, a twenty-two-year-old col¬
lege student in Pomona, California, admitted that the gay community
would be “pretty boring” without “effeminate men, queens, what
have you.” But he also admitted that he still likes to “taunt the femme
boys occasionally,” and sometimes his words take on a meanness that
surprises even him.
“Being gay can be hard, and maybe it's just my insecurities talk¬
ing, but sometimes I feel like effeminate men make it harder for me,”
he said. “I guess I just wonder why it is they have to act like that.”
 Chapter 2

Origin of the “Species”

Where do effeminate gay men come from?

I have no idea, sweetie . . .
but it's got to be someplace fabulous!
“Honey,” female impersonator

Doug and Peter are brothers separated in age by little more than a
year. Obviously they’re not twins, but they wouldn't exactly blame
you for making the assumption.
“Almost everyone thinks that,” said Doug. He’s twenty-eight and the
older of the two. “We refer to ourselves as the pseudotwins.” When
they were growing up, Doug said, they had some of the same experi¬
ences actual twins go through: sometimes their mother would dress
them alike, and sometimes their teachers, even their friends, couldn't
tell them apart easily. They have about the same build, the same hair,
the same bright blue Nordic eyes. And, oh yeah, they're both gay.
“We always knew there was something different about us,” said
Peter. “For awhile I guess we just thought it was because we were,
like, connected. We could always talk to each other, and we got along
a lot better than other friends we had whose brothers were close in
age like us. When I was fourteen or so I started realizing I might be
into guys, and I was getting ready to tell Doug the news when he sat
me down to tell me he was into guys.”
“That was pretty cool, to find out I had a gay brother,” recalled
Doug, who smiled and quickly added, “But we've never had sex with
each other. People always ask us that, for some reason.” (Just for the
record, I wasn’t going to. Okay, yes, I was. Sue me.)
Sitting there listening to their story I was struck by how lucky they
were to have such a built-in support system so close at hand while

23
24 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

growing up. How many gay boys are that fortunate? But as we chatted
there in the comer booth of an East Coast diner, sipping coffee in the
middle of the afternoon, I also detected what I'd call a fairly obvious dif¬
ference between them. For, although it's true they are physically close to
being near carbon copies of each other, their behaviors are veiy much
different. Peter sits upright, leaning forward slightly with his hands on
this thighs, very much the ex-frat boy. But Doug is much more in mo¬
tion, hands busy as he talks—one moment he's making large gestures in
the air in front of him, and the next, holding his arms in a self-hug.
“You want to talk about the femme thing, right?” Doug asked me,
apparently reading my thoughts as easily as he takes conversational
cues from his brother. (They have a tendency to finish each other's
sentences, and a simple look or expression from one seems to carry a
volume of information for the other.)
“Doug is such a girl? said Peter, laughing and ducking to avoid a
good-natured tap from his brother. “It's the only thing that's ever really
given us away—made people realize which one was which sometimes.”
Doug shrugged. “So I'm a little femme, and Pete is just this little
butch boy. When I want to I can turn it off."
“As if,” interrupted Peter, getting another love tap from his brother.
“Oh, whatever,” Doug said. “I tell Petey all the time he needs to let
his feminine side come out more. I can butch it up if I want to, and
there was a time, back in junior high or in high school, when I did that
on a daily basis. It just takes too much effort now, so why bother?
Who really gives a shit?"
I told them plenty of people do, which is the reason we were talk¬
ing in the first place. I asked Peter if Doug's mannerisms have ever
bothered him, or maybe even embarrassed him a little. Doug turned
with eyes wide, head cocked, waiting to hear his brother's response.
“I'm sure it would be a lot more interesting for your book if I said
yes,” said Peter. “But no, not really. He's always just been my brother.
Just Doug. We have talked about it, though. It's sort of funny that
we'd look so much alike, both be gay, but act so different.”

QUEER THEORIES

I've discovered that almost any discussion of human sexuality—whether

over a table in a diner, between office cubicles, or in a locker room—can
get fairly complicated, even hazardous, depending on the company
 Origin of the “Species” 25

you're keeping. It's a lot like wading into a swamp where the water is
deeper than it looks, with all sorts of nasty, tangled plants and critters
lurking right beneath the surface, hidden from view and ready to pull
you under.
Just asking some gay men why they behave in an effeminate manner
can get you into trouble. “You think I’m effeminate?” some gasp, ut¬
terly oblivious to the fact that everyone in their office, dorm, or gym
has already got them pegged. There’s an amazing lack of self-aware¬
ness out there, and very few ever take the question well or offer to an¬
swer it as readily as Doug did previously.
And trying to nail down the answer to the question “Why do ef¬
feminate guys act like that?” may seem pretty straightforward, but
trust me, it's not. I wish I could say there is a consensus of opinion,
but the answer you get really depends on who you ask. It also hinges
pretty heavily on the answer you get to an entirely different, but intri¬
cately related question: What makes us gay in the first place?
There’s certainly no shortage of theories, everything from demonic
possession to a visitation from God Himself. I should tell you at the
outset that I don't believe the Devil makes us “do it,” though a handful
of my interviewees actually begged to differ. One middle-aged gent
told me that he's totally convinced he's halfway down the Highway to
Hell—he told me this while we were both in one of those local online
chat rooms called “m4m now,” right before he propositioned me. (I
don't know about you, but, personally, I'd have trouble pursuing my
love life with the thought of eternal damnation parked somewhere in
my mind, engine running. And no, I did not take him up on his offer.)
By the same token, I do not believe we are God's Chosen People,
touched by some magnificent angel with this gift of gayness. It’s a charm¬
ing idea—and almost believable, if you’ve ever scoped the heavenly beau¬
ties strolling up and down the white sands at South Beach—but it's
hardly persuasive. Like most reasonable people, I believe the answer
is a little more down to earth, a little less fantastic. Still, even in the
midrange between Heaven and Hell there’s a lot of disagreement; I
came across one sweet-natured soul who sincerely believes he's gay
because he was molested by an older boy at a young age, and that the
vast majority of gay men are likely the victims of similar attacks.
(When I pointed out that I hadn’t been accosted in such a way, he just
smiled sweetly and shook his head. “That's because you're probably
26 SISSYPH0B1A: GA Y MEN AND EFFEMINA TE BEHA VIOR

blocking out the memories, dear.”) Another man told me about his
dominating mother and absent father; he's certain that situation is re¬
sponsible, above all else, for making him the man-loving man he is to¬
day. Obviously, when it comes to the question of what makes us gay,
the gay community is a long way from standing on common ground.
That’s not to say that accepted scientific or psychological theories
do not exist; in fact, three main schools of thought have emerged over
the past several years, each with passionate adherents and critics. I'll
sketch them out for you just in case you’ve never heard the arguments,
and I'll beg your indulgence for merely scratching the surface of a
rather complex and sometimes quite heated debate. This stuff has filled
libraries, and we really don't want to steer too far off our main course.
(For a list of books that do provide an in-depth discussion of the wide
range of topics you'll find in these pages, see “Resources” at the back
of this book.)
The first school tells us that we're bom this way, a product of genetic
and other biological forces at work, possibly hormones produced in
our mothers' wombs during pregnancy. This scientific view, some¬
times called an “essentialist” theory, since it holds that we're essen¬
tially bom gay, doesn't put much stock in the idea that our upbringing
or outside forces help to shape our sexual orientation; those factors
may influence how we deal with our unique desires, but, in this view,
our orientation is pretty much set, like hair color, or whether we're
right- or left-handed. The rest are just details.
It's a simple and elegant idea, with a lot of scientific data to back it up,
along with some pretty compelling statistics culled from twins studies.
(New research even shows measurable differences between gay men's
and lesbians' fingers and those of their straight counterparts—as I was
writing this chapter, a report from the University of California at Berkeley,
published in the journal Nature, suggested that the differences could be at¬
tributed to increased exposure to male hormones in the womb, tagging
those hormones as a critical factor in sexual orientation (Williams et al.,
2000). The study was brand-new as of this writing and has yet to be du¬
plicated. It points, however, to some fascinating possibilities.)
Certainly we don't lack for anecdotal evidence: just about every gay
man alive will tell you that, similar to Doug and Peter mentioned earlier,
he always somehow knew deep inside that he was “different” from his sib¬
lings or friends. An overwhelming number of men I interviewed spoke of
 Origin of the “Species” 27

just such an intuition, a curious, if hazy, self-knowledge that only became

clear once puberty began, and their orientation became plain. (Many also
spoke of a companion feeling, an ingrained caution they developed about
sharing that intuition with family members or friends.)
Some folks maintain that the very structure of gay men's brains is
different from that of our brothers on the straight side of the fence, just
as many people believe that over millions of years of evolution, male
and female brains have gotten hardwired a little bit differently. It’s a
controversial theory, but, again, there’s some solid science behind it.
Many gay rights activists point to the biological research with enthusi¬
asm because it reinforces their position that homosexuality is nothing
more than a natural variation of human sexuality, so any discrimina¬
tion against gays is morally repugnant.
“Not so fast,” says the student body in the second school of thought.
They’re called social constructionists, and they’ll tell you that the very
terms “homosexual” and “heterosexual” are simply modem inventions
—convenient cubbyholes created in an attempt to bring order to a cha¬
otic sexual reality that is far less black and white than it is a continuum
painted in shades of gray. As the noted author, actor, and some-
times-politician Gore Vidal (1995) once remarked, “There is no such
thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person. There are only homo-
or heterosexual acts. Most people are a mixture of impulses if not
practices, and what anyone does with a willing partner is of no social
or cosmic significance” (p. x).
From a constructionist viewpoint, just about every assumption we
make about sexuality is based on a lifetime of cultural programming,
much of it gained subconsciously. We've learned that a man is sup¬
posed to be this and act this way; a woman is that and behaves in that
fashion. And we get the same kind of programming about gay men
and lesbians, with more assumptions made, judgments reached, a
sexual identity created. Human sexuality from the constructionists’
viewpoint is anything but hardwired; they suggest it’s more like a
computer than can be booted up with any and every kind of software
imaginable, running programs that occasionally shift and change
over periods of time.
When scientists point to research, statistics, and basic anatomy, con¬
structionists hold up their history books and travelogues. If same-sex
orientation is an inborn characteristic in a small percentage of human
28 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

males—usually estimated at anywhere from 3 to 10 percent of the

overall population—why is it that, at various points in time in numer¬
ous cultures, male-on-male sexual contact was (or is) an integrated
facet of social life, with a much larger percentage of males taking
part? Constructionists point to practices in ancient Greece, within
some Native American tribes, and among warrior-tribes men in New
Guinea, just to name a few. Even if a genetic or biological case for
same-sex orientation is finally and firmly made, they say that far too
many open questions are left for science alone to answer.
That leaves us with the third school of thought, which happens to
stand about midway between the first two. That's the school where I
take my classes; I happen to believe there’s a bit of both going on here.
It just stands to reason that some kind of biological predisposition sets
us up for being gay, waiting for the right kind of social circumstances
to send us off on our little same-sex adventures. How else can you re¬
ally explain how our basic instinct to bed boys manages to stand up
against all the external and internal homophobic crap we experience in
a typical childhood and adolescence? Wouldn’t it be easier to bend to
the will of an overwhelmingly straight society? From all I’ve seen and
heard, it seems like common sense to believe that, besides the social
choices we make and actions we take, some undeniable internal force
is pushing us down our yellow brick road, out of Kansas, toward points
beyond—if we have the courage to make the trip.
The great thing about this school of thought is that it makes room
for everyone, from those like myself who are “all the way’’ gay with
nary a heterosexual thought ever troubling our brains, to those who
are totally straight, and everyone in between, including those “curi¬
ous” types, guys who are definitely not gay but not quite truly bisex¬
ual: they may be teenagers fooling around in the basement, college
kids away from home, or adults looking for something entirely differ¬
ent from the known and familiar; whether they're boys or men, they
find themselves a little intrigued by the idea of having sex with an¬
other guy, even if they manage to keep their hearts largely discon¬
nected from their hard-ons.
Russell is a thirty-year-old former soldier from Upstate New York,
who told me the story of his best friend from his Army days. “He was
gay, but you'd never know it to look at him or talk to him. One night in
the barracks we got totally shit-faced, and he blurted out that he was
 Origin of the “Species” 29

gay, and that he'd always been sort of attracted to me. It was one of
those holiday weekends where there was nobody around but us and
[a] couple of other sad sacks who couldn’t get home. I don't know
why it turned me on, because as far as I can recall I'd never had a ho¬
mosexual thought in my life up until then, and I can't say I've had one
since. But we were sitting there on our bunks, just wearing those
butt-ugly running shorts, and he could see I was getting aroused, so
he got aroused, too. One thing sort of led to another, and we sucked
each other off. Honestly I really enjoyed it, probably because the idea
that he was so into it made me get into it. Hey, he was my best bud,
and I'd have taken a bullet for him any day. So sucking his dick didn't
seem like a big deal, at least not when we were drunk like that.
The next day we sobered up, and he stayed away from me, mainly I
think because he was afraid I was going to turn him in or hate him for
what had happened. Sol tracked him down and explained that every¬
thing was cool—it wasn't going to happen again—but that I didn't
have any regrets. We stayed close right up to the time we posted out.
I'm married now, I have a few kids, and as far as I know, I'm totally
straight.”
It's hard to know for sure if any of the theories are right, or if there's
yet some other explanation that makes more sense. But I can tell you
one thing. Russell’s story called to mind a saying we used to have back
in the days when I wore a uniform: “Sometimes the only difference be¬
tween a straight guy and a gay guy is a six-pack of beer.”

NELLIE QUEENS AND BUTCH BOYS

Collin, a twenty-five-year-old journalist in Washington, DC, re¬

called wanting to paint his nails, play with dolls, and “generally flame
out as a youngster.” He said his main influences as he grew up were his
mother, grandmother, maternal aunt, and sister. He assumes he just imi¬
tated their mannerisms and made them his own. Though his behavior
these days doesn’t quite approach flamboyant, Collin is aware that he
still has some mannerisms that make him obvious, at least to other gay
men.
Christopher, a nineteen-year-old college student in the Chicago
area, grew up as the prototypical high school jock; he met his future
30 SISSY PHOBIA: GA Y MEN AND EFFEMINA TE BEHA VIOR

boyfriend at a gay youth group. He recalled their first kiss: “He

stopped me after a second and looked at me, asking ‘Are you sure
you're not straight?' I thought that was hilarious. I assured him that,
no, I wasn't even close to straight, and if I had been, my tongue more
than likely would not have found its way into his mouth.” Chris said
he has no idea where effeminate behavior comes from. “I think peo¬
ple are just the way they are. Society has just made it so we insist on
categorizing people. I try not to assume anything about anyone,
though I have to admit my interest about whether someone is gay or
not does get sparked if he acts or looks feminine.”
Trebor, a thirty-seven-year-old writer in Los Angeles, talked about
a difficult youth growing up as the son of a basketball coach. “I had
three jock brothers, and being called a fag was a constant, since I was
a definite ‘nonjock' as well as somewhat intelligent and sensitive. I
tried to fake acting boyish as well as I could_I didn't come out un¬
til I was twenty-six, and part of the delay was the fear I'd somehow
turn supereffeminate in the act of coming out.”
Mack is a forty-year-old truck driver who told me there is no one
“on this earth'’ who would identify him as gay, even in the gayest of
surroundings. “The first few times I went into a gay bar everybody
froze. I just went up to the bar each time, slammed a few drinks, then
took off 'cause nobody seemed friendly. It wasn’t until the third or
fourth time that the bartender told me what was up. Seems everyone
thought I was some irate father out looking for his kid to drag him
back home away from all those fags.” Everyone in the bar had made
their assumptions about him, simply by the way he moved.
“I'm the one your parents warned you about,” said Michael, a
“thirty-something” self-described “full-on” queen. “I wear the tight
pants, the snug shirts—all label, of course. It takes me an hour and a
half to get dressed just to go to the movies, where I'm going to sit in
the dark anyway, but one never knows who’s watching, does one?”
Michael said he's always on the lookout for a “husband” who'll set
him up with a nice apartment and generally keep him “in the circum¬
stances to which I've become accustomed.” He rarely, if ever, ven¬
tures outside of his neighborhood in Chicago's Lincoln Park. “Really,
why would I want to? I have everything I need and want here.” Asked
how straight people react to his sometimes flamboyant displays and
 Origin of the Species
“ ” 31

manner of speech, he laughed. “I’m not sure I even know any straight
people.”
Those stories illustrate just a tiny part of the wide range of attitudes
and behavior types you find within the gay community, and they lead
us back to the question we're trying to answer: Why are some gay
men effeminate, and some not? For some folks, the question is flawed
on its face because it carries with it certain preconceptions about how
any one individual is supposed to behave in his culturally assigned
role. A gay man behaves as he’s learned to behave, just as a straight
man or woman does. As Christopher suggested earlier, we are what
we are, and that's it. How one behaves has nothing to do with one's
orientation, which is a lifelong construction in progress.
But that theory has some holes in it. If you've been paying atten¬
tion, you've seen that effeminate behavior isn't exactly something
that’s held in high regard, even inside the gay community; for a lot of
guys, it’s tantamount to walking around with great big “kick me”
signs tacked on their asses. Considering how, for most folks, it's eas¬
ier to get along if they go along, is it so far out to believe that some
guys are naturally effeminate, and as with Doug at the start of the
chapter, only able to squash it with a great deal of effort?
Indeed, some researchers will tell you that there may be sound
physiological reasons why some gay men “swish” while others
“swagger”; just as many scientists have come to believe in a biologi¬
cal basis for same-sex orientation itself, some researchers have also
determined that effeminate behavior is, in many cases, part of a pack¬
age deal. In their view, being a gay man often carries with it certain
behavioral “luggage” that tends toward designer sets more than a
beat-up duffel bag. They suggest that being gay isn't simply about
men who want to have sex with other men; that’s just part of a whole
constellation of traits that tend toward the “gender atypical.” So
although you can't predict that a man who's sexually attracted to men
is going to show other feminine characteristics, you can be relatively
certain that a gay man is more likely to behave that way than someone
who’s straight. (I should point out that some academics vehemently
dispute the notion that gay men are any more or less effeminate than
their straight counterparts; one suggested to me that he “couldn't
think of anyone” who would assume someone was gay because he
32 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

was effeminate. For what it’s worth, more than 95 percent of the folks
I interviewed said exactly the opposite.)
Researchers approach the subject in a few different ways. In some
cases, they study boys identified as effeminate at a fairly early age,
following them as they grow into adults. (Richard Green provides an
exhaustive and comprehensive review of that body of research in his
groundbreaking 1986 work, The “Sissy Boy Syndrome:') In other
cases, they sit gay and straight men down and talk to them about their
childhoods, comparing those experiences to their present-day situa¬
tions. Both methods have turned up similar findings: more than
three-quarters of the effeminate children became gay adults. For
many researchers, that seems to indicate a strong correlation between
childhood behavior and adult sexual orientation.
This brings to mind, however, the classic “chicken or the egg”
quandary: Does being a “sissy” make some men gay? (“Everyone
thinks I'm a fag so I might as well be one!”) Does being gay make
some men more effeminate? (“I act like a fag because I am a fag, dar¬
ling.”) Or does something make some men both?
One body of research on identical twins suggests that, in many cases,
effeminate behavior and same-sex orientation do go hand in hand, which
in turn suggests to some that the same set of genes or biological influ¬
ences may be at work. But what about the gay men who aren't effemi¬
nate, or those who are only slightly femme? Reexamine the chapter's
anecdotes. What possible scientific explanation could take into account
everyone from Mack to Michael and still make sense?

A SEXUAL “BRAIN TREE”

Any researcher will tell you that orientation is only one small part
of the brain's sexual development. Dozens and dozens of other as¬
pects make males different from females; it all has to do with sexual
hormones and sexual hormone receptors as a brain matures from the
fetal stage to infancy.
Here’s a convenient analogy for you. Think of the developing sex¬
ual parts of the brain as a tree, with numerous branches that form all
the differences between males and females. One branch might repre¬
sent the typical, physical aggressiveness of males; another could rep-
 Origin of the “Species" 33

resent the emotional depth and intuitiveness of females. (Yes, I know

there are aggressive women and deeply emotional, passive men; I am
speaking in generalities to make a point.) Now, think of sexual orien¬
tation—whether you’re going to dig chicks or lust after guys—as just
another branch on the tree.
Still with me? Okay. Let’s suppose that whatever change needed to
make you want to swing with the boys (or chase after girls) suddenly
appeal's deep in the roots of that tree. It then follows that the individual
involved is going to have all of his sexual characteristics colored and
influenced by that change. If your orientation is gay, and deep-seated
enough in your being, you’ll likely pick up the gamut of characteris¬
tics usually considered feminine. But should that change not take
place until the uppermost branches are sprouting, you'll likely pos¬
sess all the traditional attributes of a heterosexual male, and differ
from straight guys in just that one way. (Mind you, even if this partic¬
ular view of psychosexuality is correct, the patterns described here
merely set up a baseline of any one individual's behavior, any facet of
which is subject to editing as soon as the boy in question begins to en¬
counter social forces within the family, with his playmates, or at
school. This is covered in more detail in the next chapter.)

THE SILENT MAJORITY?

It’s key to remember that, as with sexual orientation, effeminate

behavior isn't black and white. People score all over the spectrum.
It’s not as if you’re either a “sissy boy” or you're not. Quite a few gay
men fall midway between the poles, leaning one way or another. Yet
persisting within straight society is the idea that the vast majority of
gay men display effeminate characteristics. That’s where the stereo¬
type of your average gay Bob comes from, and why the conversa¬
tional shorthand for gay is often a wrist flicked limply.
While I conducted my interviews, my subjects sometimes posed a
question to me: Do effeminate men constitute a majority of the gay
community, or are they simply the most visible segment? I’m not sure
what value the question has, but I have to confess I’ve always been
curious about it myself. Take in the scene at your local Gay and Les¬
bian Pride Day, or even the typical gay watering hole on a Saturday
34 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

night, and you might be persuaded that the fair and fabulous set does
dominate. But how accurate is that impression?
Admittedly, trying to get a handle on the percentage of effeminate
gay men is a lot like asking about the number of “tair people; whether
one is tall or not depends on who's doing the asking, and that person's
particular definition of tall. Where do you set the bar for effeminate be¬
havior? And how would you categorize those who behave one way in a
generally straight environment and another in a gay-friendly realm? I
spoke with one researcher looking into those childhood surveys men¬
tioned earlier, for which straight and gay men were asked to think
about past and present occurrences of effeminate behavior. Just over a
quarter of his gay respondents scored in the “identifiably effeminate"
category, compared with less than 2 percent of the straight men. Could
it be true that only 25 percent of gay men are effeminate, and a full
three-quarters much less so? Any survey or poll is subject to severe
margins of error, so I turned that question back at my interviewees.
“Twenty-five percent sounds kind of low to me," said John, a
thirty-year-old banker in Fresno, California. “Whenever I'm on the
Castro it always feels and looks like Pride Day—the girls are out, and
they're everywhere—and you can hear all the ‘s’ sounds in people's
words a lot clearer there than anywhere else." (When he's out and
about in such an environment, John said that he always finds himself
letting his hair down a bit. “Oh, the people at work would be scandal¬
ized if they saw how I acted and dressed. I mean, have you been to
Fresno?")
Tom Hartley of stmightacting.com noted that sometimes it “seems"
as if there are more gay men who are effeminate than otherwise. “Of
course, it’s possible that the more straight-acting or masculine men are
not the type of men that typical gay guys meet out at a local club or vol¬
unteering at the Gay and Lesbian Center."
“I’ve never believed that all gay men were swishy, or even most
gay men," said Fred, a thirty-two-year-old personal trainer in Boston.
“The guys I see at my gym are extremely butch, and the only time
they act like a stereotypical gay guy is when they're making fun of
someone."
Mark, a twenty-year-old college student in Austin, Texas, said he's
not sure what to think when it comes to how many gay men are obvi¬
ous and how many slip by unnoticed. He does believe that lots of gay
 Origin of the Species
“ ” 35

men tend to turn up the flame when they’re out among their own. “I
guess it helps them feel connected to gay culture, the same way I see
African-American guys talk sort of urban when they get together.
Yeah, it’s a stereotype, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true sometimes. I
don't think I do that, but probably no one really thinks he does. It's
kind of unconscious.”
Unconscious or not, it’s just that sort of group dynamic that turns
so many gay men off, and away from any sense of commonality with
the greater body of men with whom they share one key, and some¬
times defining, characteristic. A self-described “military brat” named
Scott told me how he avoids any and all contact with “professional
fags, the guys who have gay jobs, live in gay buildings, go to gay res¬
taurants and gay movies, read gay books, you name it. I grew up on
military bases before I joined up myself. Besides the fact that it’s not
safe for me to associate with guys like that, I have no desire to.”
I asked him where he thinks his gayness comes from—whether it's
natural, a “construct,” or some combination. A long pause preceded
his answer. “I guess I do have to say I’m gay, ’cause I like to have sex
with guys and all,” he said finally. “But I don’t act like it. As for
whether it’s natural or not, of course it is! Being who I am, coming
from where I come from, just who was it who taught me to be this
way again? ’Cause I don’t remember the lessons.”
 Chapter 3

Growing Pains

They 7/ hurt me bad but I don 7 mind,

✓

they'll hurt me bad, they do it all the time.

The Violent Femmes
“Kiss Off’

A number of the men I’ve interviewed have few memories—at

least few they’ll admit to—of anything but a “normal” childhood.
They talk fondly about Boy’s Club baseball and high school football,
reminisce about hanging out, getting wasted, even chasing girls with
“the guys.” Some went on to college, some entered the military, some
just graduated high school and started punching a time clock, but
wherever they went, they rarely, if ever, disclosed their secret to any¬
one but the most trusted friends—or anonymous sex partners. Virtu¬
ally all of these men describe themselves as “straight acting/straight
looking,” “very masculine,” or “totally undetectable.” (Some of the
military guys even use terms that sound positively Clancy-esque; one
told me he has complete “stealth capability” when it comes to fend¬
ing off “gaydar,” and that he only indulges his same-sex desires when
“confidence is high” that he’s acquired a “target of opportunity”
among one of his “butch” buddies.) I have to tell you, there’s a cer¬
tain wistfulness to their stories; though none said it plainly, it’s clear
from the tenor and the tone of their words that were they able to mi¬
raculously change their orientation, many might consider it.
“When I’m around my straight friends I just feel like I’m one of the
guys,” said Ned, who graduated from West Virginia University five
years ago and is now working as a software designer in eastern Ohio.
“I’ve gone to a handful of bars where some gay guys go, and from

37
38 SISSY PHOBIA: GA Y MEN AND EFFEMINA TE BEHA VIOR

time to time, I've hooked up just to get my rocks off. But it never
works out that I end up dating anyone because I don't go in for all the
gay lib stuff. I don't want to be out, or whatever the fuck you call it. If
there was some world where I could have sex with guys and still be
called straight, that's where I'd want to be.”
You might say men such as Ned, and others, indulge themselves in
a sort of “antigay” pride; they largely keep their distance from the gay
community and brag about being unidentifiable as gay. Most are dis¬
missive of effeminate men as potential sex objects, or even friends.
“All of my friends are jocks,” said Jay, a twenty-one-year-old student
at the University of Virginia. “If you want to have a man, you should
act like a man. If I wanted a pussy, I'd just ball a chick. I wouldn't
even hang with a femme dude.”
Jay seems to be part of a group of guys completely convinced that,
for whatever reason, effeminate guys choose to act the way they do.
“I'm sure how you're built and what your voice sounds like, yeah,
that's probably genetic. But all that limp-wristed girly-girl stuff,
those guys can help that.” It’s apparently never occurred to him or
other like-minded guys that the vast majority of effeminate gay men
may have no more choice in their mannerisms than they do in their
sexual orientation; they grew up in a world the so-called butch boys
would not recognize, and probably couldn't imagine.

SCHOOL DAZE

“I went through a period early in life when I was very effeminate,”

said Gary, a forty-nine-year-old teacher in Portland, Oregon. “Around
the age of ten or eleven I became obsessed with feminine things, and
imagined I was a female myself. I'd even pull my penis and testicles
back as far as I could between my legs, and it looked a little like a va¬
gina. This fascinated me.”
Gary said he suffered a lot at the hands of peers who “bashed and
humiliated” him because of the way he behaved. At eighteen, he felt
the need to “reclaim” his masculine side, and he joined the military to
complete the process. Although it's rare now that anyone ever consid¬
ers him effeminate, he said he hasn't forgotten those childhood mem¬
ories, which he called “painful, disturbing, and confusing. I could
never figure out why they hated me so much.”
 Growing Pains 39

Other men told similar tales. Nearly all of them included a horror
story or two from elementary school or junior high, usually from gym
class. “I wasn't the only guy left out when they picked sides for bas¬
ketball or touch football,” said Ken, a thirty-year-old salesman in
Kansas City. “I had friends, most of them straight, as far as I know,
who were just as uncoordinated out there as I was. But it was the way
they didn't pick me that probably bothered me the most. Maybe I’m
just projecting, but it was like they just knew I was different, the way
they'd roll their eyes when they finally had to take me, the way they'd
tackle me harder and try to make me cry. Which I did sometimes. I
just hope they're all fat and bald now, with delinquent kids and lots of
ex-wives bleeding them dry.”
Those episodes are positively benign compared with the hellish
tales some guys told me about being beat up in locker rooms, stripped
naked of their clothes, and pushed out of the showers onto the open
gym floor. One man told me how, almost half a century later, he still re¬
members clearly the day his classmates made a circle around him on
the playground and took turns punching him in the stomach. “I was
crying and asking them why they were doing this to me,” he said.
“They said, ‘Because you're a sissy, and this is what we do to sissies.’ ”
It would be ludicrous to claim that only gay kids are targeted by your
average schoolyard bully, for whom almost any easy prey will do, es¬
pecially if he’s weak or nonathletic, or even just shy. Trouble is, those
are often—not always, but often—apt descriptions of your average gay
kid. The casual cruelty of children is a frightening thing, something all
too reminiscent of Lord of the Flies. But children really aren't doing
anything more than expressing an all too common adult idea: that any¬
one who's different should be regarded with suspicion, if not outright
hostility. Children just take the cues that society whispers to them from
the wings and act them out on a captive audience—the nail that sticks
out must be hammered down as thoroughly as possible.

A BOY’S LIFE

Consider the tale of a man, now in his thirties, who I will call Ja¬
son. The man himself did not want to speak to me. The story comes
from his mother, who’s still trying to come to terms, nearly three de¬
cades later, with how she treated him.
40 SISSY PHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

Ruth was overjoyed when she gave birth to a son in the late 1960s. As
a nurse who taught nursery school, she was ready and eager to be a mom.
“I knew a lot about kids, and I’d read all the books.” She said, however,
that it was clear from the beginning that Jason would defy all of what she
thought she knew. “Jason was a very anxious baby,” she recalled. “I used
to take him out to the park with my friends, all of them new moms with
babies they were always running after. Not Jason. He was afraid to crawl
off the blanket.” Tilings didn't get much better as he grew; Jason was
“very passive, always the last one to go down the sliding board, the last
one on the swing” And it wasn't just his lack of interest in the regular
rough-and-tumble that worried Ruth and her husband, a psychiatrist-
in-training; Jason was taking to playing house, putting scarves on his
head to simulate the long hair of a young girl. Ruth recollected how
Jason couldn't have cared less about toy trucks or balls to throw and
catch, but preferred dolls and jewelry. He also chose girls as play¬
mates, rather than other boys.
“I thought I was doing something wrong,” she remembered. “This
was an age when we all believed that parenting was everything, that
your kids were a blank slate, a piece of clay that you molded.” But Ja¬
son wasn't molding, despite all of his parents' best efforts. When Ja¬
son was six, Ruth was called in by his nursery school teacher and
questioned about Jason's curious “lack of aggression'’ when com¬
pared with the other boys his age. Ruth said that was the first time she
and her husband got really nervous, because an “outsider” had picked
up on his “peculiar” nature.
The teacher suggested that perhaps there was “too much Mom and
not enough Dad” in Jason's life. “That didn't make much sense to me,
since I wasn't any more involved with him than any of my friends were
with their kids. But who was I to have an opinion?” She began to be¬
lieve she was severely wanting in the “mom department.”
You can likely guess what happened next. There followed years dur¬
ing which Jason was shuffled in and out of various competitive sports,
mentored by his father in how “not to throw the ball like a girl.” Ruth
said that Jason wasn't actually a bad athlete; in fact, he was fairly
graceful with a soccer ball and good at karate—until it came time for
actual play against other boys. “We'd be there cheering him on, but he
hated being there. It was just sick. We never told him he was doing any¬
thing wrong, never told him he was acting like a sissy or acting like a
 Growing Pains 41

girl, but the message was clearly there: whatever you are, you aren't
right.”
When Jason was eight, Ruth and her husband decided to take a firm
step toward "helping” their child; Jason entered psychoanalysis that
would last for four years. "Four days a week, instead of going to play
after school, this poor child had to go to a psychoanalyst by himself,
and then I'd pick him up. The ‘H’ word was never mentioned, but it was
thick in the air—it was too horrible for us to mention that we were do¬
ing all this because we were afraid he’d be gay, but that’s what every¬
one knew we were trying to avoid. And the psychologist said he was
certain if we could work out Jason's ‘conflicts,’ he'd be okay.”
Ruth was by now studying to be a nurse psychotherapist herself;
when she talks with gay men these days and shares her story, she
warns them in advance that they may hate her before the story’s done.
"I can see them getting madder and madder as I talk about these
things we did. One guy walked up to me and said, ‘You seem like a
smart person. How could you have been so stupid?' I try and explain
that this was what all these people were telling us—these people were
all teachers or the best doctors. I told myself I was just doing every¬
thing I could to help my child be happy.”
Jason wasn't happy, though. Ruth said that several years later he
showed his parents diary entries from that period, some put down on
paper before he was even ten years old. "There was one place where
he’d written down this one line: ‘I hate myself. I think I'm a fag.’ ”
Though she’s told the story hundreds of times, still her voice broke a
little at the recollection.
When Jason was in his fourth year of analysis, Ruth had an epiph¬
any of sorts; a co-worker she was confiding in told her about a doctor
at Johns Hopkins who believed that kids were most likely bom gay.
His name was John Money, and he'd coined the term "sissy boy” to
describe youngsters similar to Jason. (Money’s research is detailed in
The 44Sissy Boy Syndrome ” [Green, 1986]. A few days later, Ruth and
her husband were sitting in his office, listening to one of Money's as¬
sociates accurately describing her son, sight unseen. "On the one
hand, I was relieved, because now I knew I wasn't crazy. But then she
told us that 80 percent of these boys turn out to be gay. And one thing
I have to tell you, not one of these so-called professionals ever, ever,
42 SISSYPHOBIA: CAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

ever told me it would be okay for Jason to be gay. It was always talked
about as if it was the worst thing that could ever happen to a boy.”
It was at that point that Ruth and her husband put a stop to Jason's
“treatment.” They enrolled him in a private school where they felt he
might fit in better; as Ruth recalled, he was “growing up to be very
handsome,” had a lot of girlfriends, and his parents allowed themselves
to believe that maybe he was one of the 20 percent of the “sissy boys”
that end up straight. “We were in total denial,” Ruth said.
All that came to an end several years later, during the summer Jason
was getting ready to enter his senior year of college, when he finally
came out to his parents. “The worst night of my life,” Ruth said. “I felt
like I'd lost my son. I didn't get out of my pajamas for days.” I can't
help but comment on her reaction; one would think after all she'd been
through, she might have been just a little bit braced for the news when
it came. “You'd be surprised how typical that reaction is,” she an¬
swered. “There are very few parents who react in any other way.”
She probably knows what she's talking about. After a rough year,
Ruth and her husband pulled themselves together and joined PFLAG
(Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). Once a fearful mom,
Ruth became a PFLAG chapter president, and a fierce activist who
now works as a counselor with couples dealing with the same issues
that nearly tore her apart so many years ago. Ruth said that she and Ja¬
son have long since come to terms with all that transpired, that he's
got a happy life with a loving partner. But although she may have let
go of her guilt, she still holds on to her sense of responsibility.
“I promised myself I'd never let another parent go through the ag¬
ony that my family had gone through, and what we put our child
through. We were abusive to this poor gay child, and everything that
was out there supported it. You think it's different these days? You're
wrong. It still goes on.”

A BOY’S LIFE TOO ,

If Ruth's story works as a cautionary tale—and a good example of
the bad old days—another mother told me quite a different story that
shows some hope for the future. Similar to Ruth, Maryanne is raising
a child who started showing effeminate qualities very early on. As of
 Growing Pains 43

this writing, Sam is just twelve years old; Maryanne told me that she
realized he was dancing to his own disco drummer by the age of
three. “He had an incredible eye for beautiful things. He would talk to
the lady ahead of us in line at the grocery store and say things like, ‘I
like your dress' or ‘I like your shoes,’ and he loved to play dress up
with our daughter’s old clothes. One Halloween he dug out an old
prom dress and shoes. No big deal, it’s Halloween, right? But Sam
didn't want to take them off.”
Similar to the young Jason, Sam had no interest in the toys that
boys were supposed to like. “He didn’t want the Power Rangers or
Ninja Turtles. He wanted a Barbie.” When he was six, Maryanne no¬
ticed that Sam was starting to affect a high voice when he was at
home, as if he was trying to be “girlish,” a tone so unnatural that
Maryanne was worried he might be straining his vocal chords. And as
with Jason, Sam was growing up to be naturally athletic and graceful,
but he tended to shy away from any sort of contact sports, preferring
gymnastics instead.
“When we first started realizing he had such a strong interest in
feminine things, we started reading a lot,” said Maryanne. “After
awhile we said to ourselves there was a strong possibility that Sam
was going to turn out to be gay, and that terrified us. Not that we had
any problem if he was gay—we were just worried about all the ha¬
rassment he might go through. We just want him to be happy and feel
safe in the world. He’s such a sweet, lovable kid.”
Similar to Ruth, Maryanne and her husband opted to take Sam to
therapy, but she said that was part of an effort to make sure his self¬
esteem wasn’t threatened, not to try to change him in any way. “As
therapy goes, it was very benign, with lots of play and drawing—we
were very careful to make sure the psychologist wasn’t using any of
that subversive antigay stuff, all that brainwashing you hear about in
the ex-gay movement. And it’s turned out pretty well. He ended up
drawing hundreds and hundreds of pictures, and now we’re excited
because he's talking about being an artist one day.”
Maryanne said that, when it came down to it, she and her husband
decided it was much more important to them that Sam feel good
about himself, rather than worry about his choice of toys. But it hasn't
been easy. “I used to cry when we went shopping and he’d make a
beeline for the girl's section, and I’d have to explain that we don't live in
44 SISS YPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

a world where boys can wear those kind of clothes. It was so sad. I'd
show him pictures of the way men used to dress in silks, ribbons, and
bows. I tell him I'm sure there are men who would love to go around in
beautiful shirts and flowing robes, but that's not the way the world is
now.”
It's come down to what Maryanne calls the “inside/outside the
house” conversation. “We tell him it's fine if he wants to play dress up
when he's home, but that he might want to think about other people's
reactions if he decides to leave the house wearing tight shorts instead
of the baggy pants that other kids his age prefer. We never tell him
what to do; it’s always his choice.”
Maryanne said that Sam has in fact been teased and harassed by
kids at school, and that it bothered him enough for him to change the
way he walks and talks in public. “He's a big kid, very broad shoul¬
dered. When he goes out now, he adopts this urban, macho demeanor,
sort of a swagger, so he doesn't look like anyone's victim. But I don't
know if he'd know what to do if anyone ever actually hit him, though
his father has tried to talk to him about how to defend himself.”
I asked Maryanne pointedly if she puts her convictions where her
good intentions are, how she thinks she’ll react if young Sam does turn
out to be gay. “Oh, we're totally ready to support him whatever happens.
We bought Daddy’s Roommate [a book by Michael Willhoite] a long
time ago, and I've recommended it to some of my friends who worry
about their sons. We say things like, ‘Did you know Greg Louganis is
gay?' without making a big deal about it, just to send him some positive
signals. We tell him not to use negative words about gay people, just
like you don't use negative words about black or Asian people.
“The other day he asked me if it was normal to be attracted to another
boy, and I said, ‘Sure it is.' We just want him to know he can always talk
to us.” She paused. “I suppose it's going to make things interesting when
he's fifteen and he wants to have a male friend sleep over. If your kid is
straight, that's something you don't really think about.”

THE WAY WE WERE

I'm certainly glad my parents didn't think about such things. Some
of the fondest memories I have of being a teenager—maybe the only
fond memories, come to think of it—were all those hot summer nights
 Growing Pains 45

when various friends would show up for dinner and to hang out, and in¬
variably someone would suggest a sleepover. Then later on, when the
lights went out and we were lying there—me in my bed, him on the an¬
cient “roll away” that we kept moldering in the basement—we’d get to
talking about all sorts of things—homy gay boy that I was, I’d usually
try to work in a game of “truth or dare,” which usually ended up with
someone getting naked. (I had the good fortune of growing up in the
1970s, when “streaking” became a national pastime on college cam¬
puses. That provided a wonderful excuse to sneak outside and run
around in the “altogether”) Even after we got back inside, things
rarely moved past the point of “You show me yours, I'll show you
mine,” but more than enough went on to keep my right hand happily
occupied long after my buddy found his way home the next day.
(Maybe that's why, to this day, when I hear the phrase “safe sex,” I
don't think about condoms so much as about locking my bedroom
door. God bless poor Mom and Pop. They never had a clue.)
Talking with Ruth and Maryanne made me think about my own
teenage and preteen years. I suddenly recovered some childhood mem¬
ories of what might be called sissylike behavior, or at least “sissylite,”
things I hadn't really thought about for ages. I was anything but ath¬
letic, for one; I used to spend hours and hours making big, shiny Christ¬
mas decorations—in the middle of summer! I was even a big Barbra
Streisand fan, for Christ's sake, and I loved The Wizard of Oz, espe¬
cially the part where Dorothy—yes, Judy Garland—sings “Some¬
where Over the Rainbow.” And all of this was taking place years before
I had any knowledge whatsoever that Babs and Judy were already gay
cultural touchstones—why do we love our divas so?—and long before
I knew what gay meant, or had even heard the word used to describe
guys who dig guys. (In my little comer of suburbia, not many folks
subscribed to The Advocate.)
Then something kicked in when I was about fourteen or so. I became
somewhat fixated on sex—what teenage boy doesn't as soon as he real¬
izes what a cool new toy he has between his legs?—but I was also sud¬
denly fascinated with science fiction, for example, Star Trek and 2001:
A Space Odyssey. I started locking myself away for hours, reading
book after book by Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and Ray Bradbury,
coming out only long enough to build and launch model rockets. (Very
phallic, I know.) I somehow made a rather seamless transition from
46 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

sissy-in-training to full-on nerd, which actually turned out to be wonder¬

ful and effective camouflage for being gay as I made my way through
school. Then more transitions; around nineteen I stalled lifting weights,
mainly in imitation of my straight best friend Billy, who had one of those
“bodies by God” physiques that would drive any healthy gay boy mad
with desire. (It sure worked me into a sweat during a half dozen or so
sleepovers.) Within a few years, I was utterly unrecognizable from the
nerdy high school kid I'd been, and the near sissy who preceded him.

CHANGES

As it turns out, a metamorphosis such as mine isn't all that uncom¬

mon, even for boys who had me beat hands-down in the dainty de¬
partment. Jeff, a twenty-year-old college student in Atlanta, said that
while growing up, he was often told that he was “too soft and pretty”
to be a boy. When he was six, his aunt and uncle took him to a toy
store for his birthday and told him to pick out anything he wanted.
“Of course 1 headed straight for this giant pink Barbie display, picked
out a doll, and took it back to my uncle. He just looked at me and
asked me if I was sure I wanted it. I said yes. I can still remember the
cashier snickering at me when they paid for it.” (Until I wrote this
book, 1 never realized what a killing Mattel must be making off of all
those gay boys and their bewildered families.)
Jeff described elementary and junior high school as filled with ver¬
bal and physical assaults. “I got whistled at walking down the halls,
heard ‘Faggot' and ‘Sissy' so many times that I seemed to hear it even
when it wasn't said. When I got through puberty, though, I miracu¬
lously butched up. All that hazing started to die down in high school
and ceased completely by college. Now most people assume if they
see me hanging out with a girl that I must be dating her”
“I was a little wuss, if you want to know the truth,” remembered
Charlie, a thirty-nine-year-old insurance salesman in Florida. “And I
have to say I truly sucked at anything athletic for the longest time.
People made fun of my walk, the way I talked. I'd always dealt with
so much teasing for so long that I hardly even noticed it anymore. I re¬
member being home Friday nights, just waiting for The Brady Bunch
and The Partridge Family to come on TV, and hearing my sister be¬
hind me saying something like, ‘That's my brother Charlie; he wants
 Qrowing Pa ins 47

to be Marcia Brady and date Keith Partridge.' Thing is, she was ex¬
actly right!
“We moved to a new town when I started ninth grade, and for some
reason I decided to join the swim team at this all-boys school my par¬
ents enrolled me in. It was pretty common for everyone to run around
naked at practice since there were no girls around. Maybe that was
my motivation to join, at least at first. But then it turned out I was
pretty good at swimming, and I started winning all these races. I got
bigger and stronger, and my voice got deeper, and that little swish in
my walk disappeared. I turned into this jock, which is how everyone
at college thought of me from day one. When I think back now to
those early days, I'm sort of embarrassed. I don't even recognize that
kid anymore.”
The sudden transformations that Jeff and Charlie described—quite
similar to my own experience, and the experiences of a number of
other men I talked with—cry out for an explanation. Could it be that,
like young Sam, who’s learned to change the way he dresses and walks
when he leaves the house, we were all just responding subconsciously
to the subtle and not-so-subtle clues that society was sending our way?
Perhaps, in part. Certainly, our good friends the social construction¬
ists would have us believe that’s the case. It might also be possible,
however, that something else was at work, some sort of biological
agent that helped the transformation take place.
Scientists say a number of forces come into play once we hit pu¬
berty; all sorts of raging hormones bathe and batter our adolescent
brains, trying to kick start our manhood into high gear. With social in¬
fluences that demand more masculine behavior in males working in
tandem with biological forces based on a million-odd years of human
evolution—never forget under all that label clothing we're just cave-
men/hunter-gatherers in heart, mind, and body—for many kids, the
end result appears to be a gradual moving away from that little boy
who once acted like a little girl.
But no two human beings are built exactly alike. For some boys,
that raging rush of hormones is barely a trickle, at least when it comes
to altering behavior patterns in place since near infancy; thus, the
“switch” that opens up vistas of a “whole new masculine you” never
gets tripped. Also, the social environment of any given gay boy's
home is a complicated thing. Remember the tales of distant fathers
48 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

and smothering mothers? Conventional wisdom has sometimes held

that such families are a fertile breeding ground for nonbreeders. It
may be just as likely, however, that a mother may sense in her son
what already exists—see Ruth’s story earlier—and that a father con¬
fronted with an effeminate son keeps himself distant for precisely
that reason—which only increases the son’s isolation and the dis¬
tance between them both.
Kevin is a sixty-year-old retiree living in Baltimore. “My poor par¬
ents were always so exasperated with me,” he recalled. “I was never
any good at sports, and the boys in the neighborhood teased me so
much about my high voice and gentle mannerisms that I mainly just
kept to myself. I give my father credit that, even in those unenlight¬
ened times, he never called me a sissy or compared me out loud to my
brother, who was very masculine and outgoing. But I could feel his
disappointment all the same, as the years went by and I never quite
changed into what he wanted. I often wished I could change, but it
just wasn't in me. After I got out on my own, I left that boring little
Midwest burg as fast as I could manage it. I had to find a place where I
could feel comfortable just being myself, with no judgments about
the way I talked or laughed or cried, what clothes I wished to wear,
and, of course, who I was going to love.”
Clearly there’s something working against some gay boys even when
they want to change their behavior. “Years ago I had friends who tried to
remind me ‘how to be a man,’ ” said Eric, a twenty-seven-year-old retail
manager in Rockville, Maryland. “They wanted to change these little
characteristics of mine, saying it was in my best interest. And I tried,
and failed. 1 am well aware of how I can act, but having it called to my
attention that way hurt a lot. I know that wasn't their intention, but it
made me feel like I wasn’t good enough.”
Other individuals may find themselves in opposition to the prevailing
social climate simply because it’s their nature to be more individualistic,
more lone wolves than pail of a pack—even if that individualism sets
them up to be singled out for hazing, or ostracized as the resident “fag
boy.” Larry, twenty-two, is an “aging rave kid” who prowls the night¬
life in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and, as he put it, “anywhere
else they throw a party.” He told me that he started life as a “fairy,”
and only got “fairier” as he got older. “As far back as I can remember I
was always on the outside, and I actually liked being there. In elemen-
 Growing Pains 49

tary school, I just hung outwith the girls, and I had to put up with all
sorts of teasing and ridicule from boys my age. My family treated me
okay. In fact, my brothers were pretty cool about putting the word out
that if you messed with me, you'd have to take them on, too, and they
were a couple of the meanest dudes you'd never want to fuck with.
But even if they hadn't protected me, I don't think I'd have changed
the way I acted.”
Larry said he found his “true niche” in life the first night he went to
a rave. “It was always the most accepting, nonjudgmental kind of
place, everybody just doing their thing. Not like those gay clubs
where so many guys are trying to outbutch each other. I was always
sort of femme, and I'm still sort of femme, and that's just who I am. If
someone doesn't like it, they can go fuck themselves.”

JOHNNY, ARE YOU QUEER?

Larry’s attitude reminds me how mistaken it is to think of all ef¬

feminate guys as victims, though many have been victimized by
straight or gay society simply for the way they behave. There’s an un¬
deniable power in accepting yourself for who you are without apol¬
ogy. And while growing up with effeminate tendencies can clearly
make one a target, in some cases, I discovered that it was more like a
flare that brought help, not harm.
Rhea, a middle-aged mother, was once desperately concerned
about her thirteen-year-old son Bruce. “I'd watched him growing
more and more depressed,” she remembered. “He was being ostra¬
cized from the other kids in his class. The boys had stopped having
anything to do with him in third and fourth grade; now the girls in
middle school were interested in dating, and Bruce wasn't. He was
just getting lonelier all the time.”
Rhea suspected her son might be gay—he'd always had “gentle,”
nonaggressive mannerisms—but homosexuality was a foreign, virtu¬
ally taboo topic in the small, southeastern Indiana town where they
lived. “I thought all the gay people lived in San Francisco. I didn’t
have any experience with it at all.” Then, one day, Rhea was surprised
to find an article in the newspaper about a support group for gay
teens. “I cut it out and handed it to Bruce. I told him I thought it was a
50 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

great idea, and told him he should share it with any friends who might
be interested. He was so shocked. I thought he would suck all the air
out of the room.”
It took Bruce about two days to approach his mother. “He told me
he was going to write me a letter, but I came right out and asked him
‘Are you gay?' And he said, ‘Yes, Mommy,’ and collapsed right there
in my arms and cried for a good hour.” Only later did Rhea discover
that Bruce had been contemplating taking his own life. “He said he
thought it would be easier for us to accept his suicide than deal with
the fact that he was gay.”
Johnny, a nineteen-year-old student at Florida State University, de¬
scribes himself as “more than a little effeminate.” He said his mother
popped the same question to him after a friend of his had actually
killed himself. “She asked me, ‘Do you think that he killed himself
because he was gay and his parents couldn't deal with it?' I told her,
‘No, he wasn't gay.' She wanted to know how I knew that. I told her I'd
asked him myself. I was getting flustered by all the questioning. My
palms were sweating and I could feel her probing for an answer I wasn't
sure she was ready for. Then she said, ‘Why would you ask him unless
you're gay yourself?' and I cracked and said, ‘I am.' It felt like such a
release. She said, ‘Thank God!' It turned out she'd been wondering
since middle school whether I was gay or straight, and she was glad
that now she could completely be a part of my life. I'm very lucky.”
 Chapter 4

Fear and Loathing

I am the love that dare not speak its name.

Lord Alfred Douglas

Five years ago, I had a conversation with my straight buddy Chris. We

were sitting in his kitchen, just shooting the breeze on a cool April night,
when the subject of effeminate men came up. Chris made a face, an
expression of real disgust. “Guys like that just make me cringe,” he
said. I asked him why; at the time, my own attitude wasn’t all that
much different, but I was curious to hear his reasoning. “I don't
know,” he said, growing thoughtful. “They just do.”
Now, understand that Chris isn't exactly your average redneck
type. He was a law student at that time, and he's still one of the smart¬
est guys I've ever met. Half Asian and half American, he'd experi¬
enced a lot of racial prejudice at law school in Texas—seems some
folks down yonder just didn't cotton to his type—and he doesn't con¬
done bigotry of any kind. He was probably as comfortable with my
being gay as any other straight guy I’ve ever known; he even got in a
fistfight once with a guy who called me a “faggot” behind my back. (I
have no problem being a faggot, but it was nice for him to stand up for
me all the same.) Now here he was telling me he had a problem with
effeminate gay guys, and despite some fairly impressive analytical
skills, he was unable to articulate exactly why.
At that moment, I had the idea that eventually led to the Genre mag¬
azine article, and later, this book. Where exactly does that “cringe”
come from? I’m not claiming it's a universal reaction. We've already
heard from plenty of people who are completely neutral to effeminate
men, and I’ve encountered a sizable number who find effeminate be-

53
54 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

havior to be an admirable trait. Still, many, many more find it

off-putting, at best, and disgusting and loathsome at worst.
“I try to accept anyone, and try not to prejudge,” said Mike, a com¬
puter engineer and college professor in Boston. “Unfortunately, all of
the effeminate men I've known fall into the stereotype of being self-
centered, gossipy, malcontent, too focused on hair, clothes, age, etc.
Straight society views effeminate men as silly, dumb, flighty, unsta¬
ble, and mentally unbalanced. Most gay people seem to hold the
same view—a lot of guys resent being lumped into the same category,
like all gay people are like that.”
“I've often wondered myself why so many people have such a
problem with effeminate guys,” said Rick, a twenty-eight-year-old
bodybuilder in Boulder, Colorado. “It's like it doesn't matter how big
you get, or how masculine you look. If you speak with just that little
extra inflection in your voice, or you dress a certain way, people will
talk. I guess that’s just the way it is.”
That may be true, but it's not exactly a satisfying answer. This may
strike you as a facile question, but I'll ask it anyway: Why should it be
so downright objectionable for a group of people to behave in any man¬
ner they wish—dumb, flighty, or otherwise—as long as it doesn't hurt
or inconvenience anyone else? What is it about effeminate men that
makes them such a target of unbridled contempt?

WILDE BOYS

Jess, a seventeen-year-old “surfer kid” from Los Angeles, said that

he's probably more in touch with what he calls his “feminine side”
than most guys his age—it's reflected in the clothes he wears, the
school activities he chooses, the friends he hangs out with—and he's
also encountered more than his fair share of hostility growing up. He
admitted always being mystified by people who “just can't deal” with
someone simply being himself. “It's like, ‘Get a fucking life, okay?' I
am so sick of all the comments, like people think they know what I'm
all about because of the way I look.” I asked him where he thinks
those comments come from, why people feel the need to make them
at all. “I think it’s all just a fear of the unknown; people just aren't
used to guys who behave so different from what they're used to,” he
 Fear and Loathing oo

says. “It's probably been around forever; people have probably al¬
ways had problems when guys acted girlish. For simple minds, it just
isn't normal enough.”
I think Jess is onto something when he suggests that a fear of the
unknown may have something to do with sissyphobia, at least in the
straight community that links effeminate behavior so closely with
gay men. But hostility aimed at effeminate men hasn 7 been around
forever. Some historians suggest that it began around the time of the
notorious Oscar Wilde trials in the late 1800s. The world-famous
playwright and all-around wit had been accused of carrying on with
his “good friend” Lord Alfred Douglas by Douglas's father, the Mar¬
quess of Queensbury. Wilde sued for libel, lost badly, and was subse¬
quently convicted of crimes against morality. He served a two-year
prison sentence and died bankrupt and broken soon after. (If you've
never seen the excellent movie Wilde, which dramatizes the whole
sad affair, I’d advise you to rent it. But stock up on tissues first.)
In his book The Wilde Century, author Alan Sinfeld (1994) contends
that before those trials, effeminate men were pretty much dismissed by
society at large as fellows who just hung out with the ladies too much,
giving them all sorts of unseemly time and attention. As Sinfeld puts it,
“Wilde and his dandy characters were perceived as ‘effeminate,’ but
not as queer. They passed, we might say now, not by playing down
what we call camp behavior, but by manifesting it exuberantly” (p. 3).
Yet as Sinfeld explains, Oscar himself wryly forecast his own down¬
fall: “If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found
out.” Sinfeld and others propose that Wilde’s highly publicized trials
proved to be a watershed event in the way Western society regarded
such behavior; they put an effeminate face on a brand of sexual activ¬
ity that society was beginning to talk about for the first time, although
it “dared not speak its name.” And what had been a rather benign dis¬
interest quickly evolved into contempt or outright hostility.
Wilde's death in 1900 served as a terribly symbolic introduction to
a century that would see gay men face their greatest challenges as
they gradually stepped from obscurity into the spotlight. There's
been a hell of a lot of gay life squeezed into the past hundred years,
with hardly room enough in a thousand books to tell all the stories,
especially those of the past forty years or so since activists started
fighting for civil rights.
56 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

Because of activists’ efforts, and the efforts of those who’ve fought

countless battles on a smaller scale, we are unquestionably better off
now than we were in poor Oscar’s time—so much so that thousands of
gutsy younger guys, such as Jess, have few qualms about being visible,
even in the halls of a high school. That visibility, however, still comes
with a price, everything from snide catcalls to unchecked hatred or vio¬
lence. And it's the effeminate gay man who bears the brunt of that hos¬
tility because he's the most visible of all.
“Straight society these days labels effeminate men as gay almost
without question,” said Shawn, a twenty-nine-year-old data analyst in
Alexandria, Virginia. “I think people in general are just so quick to
judge, and they often base these judgments on behaviors and beliefs
they've absorbed from the adults they grew up around. Sometimes
the dislike borders on rage. These people have a lot of hate in their
hearts ”

FEMALE TROUBLE?

In Chapter 1,1 mentioned a study by Northwestern University psy¬

chology professors who looked at personal ads and the overwhelming
preference in them for straight-acting/straight-looking men. One of the
authors, Michael Bailey (1995), later coined the term “femiphobia”:
the deep ambivalence that gay men have about effeminate behavior.
(It's pretty much synonymous with my own term, sissyphobia.)
Bailey suggests some reasons for the hostility, such as a general aver¬
sion gay men have to being linked to stereotypes, just as Mike from
Boston suggested earlier. Johnny from Florida State said he thinks
that “gay men who purposely shove their gayness into the faces of
heterosexuals for the purpose of obtaining a negative reaction” are
one of the driving forces of that “stereotyping.” If a negative reaction
is what they're looking for, they're terribly successful. “Stereotypes
of gay men, like all stereotypes, create a separation that takes us fur¬
ther away from the norm that is society,” Johnny said. “Anything that
is different or not understood is shunned, or at least causes a general
edginess when confronted. Remember what Yoda said: ‘Fear leads to
anger; anger leads to hatred; hatred leads to suffering.' ”
 Fear and Loathing 57

In Bailey's view, many gay men want the world to believe they're
no different from straight guys in their behavior, and they resent the
effeminate men who contradict that assertion. He also proposes that
while some men are trying to break free of negative perceptions, oth¬
ers are trying to put some distance between their macho presents and
their feminine pasts. That also strikes a chord of agreement. “I am to¬
tally embarrassed by the little pussy I used to be,” said David, a
twenty-nine-year-old lawyer in Atlanta. “I left all that feminine stuff
behind me a long time ago and really butched up once I got to college
and law school. I don’t care to be reminded how femmy I was by
looking at some guy who never got his act together.”
For some, the unpleasant linkage with their pasts may not even be
conscious. “I think many young boys are punished or warned away
from effeminate behavior and probably can’t even remember that
they ever acted that way,” suggested Scott, a forty-six-year-old com¬
puter programmer in Connecticut. “All they feel is the residual fear
and shame, and that makes them lash out at other guys who still be¬
have that way.”
Collin from Washington believes that sort of sentiment leaches
into the gay community from the straight world outside. “Gay men
are conditioned to hate what the rest of the world hates. We don't
grow up in a purple vacuum filled with open-mindedness. We often
hate the thing that makes people hate us, and effeminate behavior is
like a huge neon sign that says, ‘I'm Gay! Go ahead, hit me with your
best shot!' ”
It’s a sad fact that since gay men are often held in low regard, then
anyone who “acts” like a gay man may find himself scorned as well.
But at the risk of talking in circles here, that line of reasoning really
just takes us back to the beginning. (One starts to feel like those poor
doomed film students in The Blair Witch Project, wandering the
woods without a map, night coming on fast.) Acting like a gay man
means conforming to the stereotype of gay, which is effeminate,
which many, if not most, people see as a bad thing.
But why must this be so? Clearly, something rather fundamental is at
work, a visceral dislike of effeminate men that seems to defy reason, a
“cringe” that’s largely escaped any serious examination. Michael
Bailey admits he was somewhat surprised by the lack of discussion in
academic circles of this fear and loathing of effeminate behavior; it
58 SISSY PHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

appears to be such a widespread phenomenon that one might think it

would already be the subject of dozens of books a lot more learned
than this one could ever hope to be. Since no one's been asking the
question, Bailey suggests that maybe “no one knows the answers.'’
He hints, however, at one explanation that seems to make more sense
than any other I’ve heard. And in all honesty, it’s the same answer that
occurred to me a few days after I talked with my buddy Chris.
We dislike effeminate men first and foremost because they are be¬
having like women. In a male-dominated society that places men way
up here, and women way down there, any man who would surrender
his God-given place of superiority in our social hierarchy just isn't
worth a damn. It's a worldview that's embedded deep within the so¬
cial psyche, one that affects every man to some extent, whether he's
straight or gay.
One certainly cannot minimize the current linkage of effeminate be¬
havior and male homosexuality; if one is hostile to the latter, he will al¬
most surely be hostile to the former. Neither can one discount the basic
fear of “the other,” an almost instinctual distrust some people have of
anyone who's different and operating from a set of rules wholly sepa¬
rate from their own; as Johnny suggested, anything or anyone who fails
to conform to expectations often causes “edginess.” That may well be
part of the “cringe” factor whose cause eluded Chris. I'm also con¬
vinced, however, that when you dig down to the root of sissyphobia,
you will probably find it growing in some fairly misogynistic soil.

SURVEY SAYS...

Many of the viewpoints and opinions I'm relaying in Sissyphobia

come from surveys I created and sent out to hundreds of men I've en¬
countered while traveling around the country or surfing the Internet. I
asked folks to recall their life experiences and answer questions, both
general and specific, concerning their attitudes about effeminate and
masculine men, and how they view themselves in those terms. I also
wove in various questions that might give me an idea how gay and
straight men feel about women; I asked them to tell me how they've
been treated by the women in then' lives, what relevance women play
now in their social or professional circles, and where they place women
 Fear and Loathing 59

among their closest friends and confidants. I also asked them to explain
where they believe society’s hostility for effeminate men originates.
As it turns out, the misogyny theory was frequently suggested by
the majority of those who describe themselves as effeminate; it's a
common conjecture as well among men who think of themselves as
masculine but are also completely at ease with men who are not. “The
problems with effeminacy, I think, derive less from the fear and con¬
tempt of homosexuality than from a deep hatred of women created to
sustain a patriarchal culture,” said Mark, a writer/editor in Los An¬
geles. “The crime of effeminacy is, it’s like a woman behavior. It’s
just another way to devalue women. The sources of misogyny are
many, but any discussion of effeminiphobia without a discussion of
misogyny will definitely be missing the point.”
The misogyny theory also strikes a resounding chord with men
who describe themselves as strong supporters of women’s rights.
Jonathan is a twenty-nine-year-old college professor in Washington,
DC. “In the patriarchal mind-set, to be a woman is a bad thing, or at
least a lesser thing, than to be a man. We have an elaborate sexual my¬
thology that assigns specific traits to masculinity and to femininity.
Anger and disgust directed at effeminate men is based upon horror at
the idea that someone is challenging the rules.”
“Men are supposed to be the stronghold of the human race,” said
Jaye, a twenty-one-year-old communications worker in Portland, Or¬
egon. “Women are seen as mothers and wives and are promoted to act
more submissively.” Jaye believes most cultures in the world use gen¬
der to define roles for people and look down on anyone who thinks
outside that narrow worldview. “I have sensitivity, creativity, and I'm
deeply sympathetic in emotional situations. I know those aren't con¬
sidered masculine traits. But I feel more evolved than straight guys
for having them. I think both straight and gay men have that visceral
dislike for effeminate men because of the conditioning society gives
them to promote gender stereotypes.”
Not everyone agrees, of course. You may have heard the old saying
“Ask three gay men a question, hear four opinions.” “Oh, that’s just
bullshit,” said Steve, a thirty-year-old book shop worker in Tampa,
Florida. “I don’t think it's anywhere near as deep as all that. Gay men
don't dislike effeminate guys because they're acting like women, be¬
cause no real woman acts like that unless they’re Bette Davis or Joan
60 SISSYPHOBIA: GA Y MEN AND EFFEMINA TE BEHA VIOR

Crawford. We love real women. I think we just like our men to act like
real men.” (Steve calls to mind an important distinction that has to
made between behavior that is simply effeminate and behaviors and
mannerisms that are more studied, theatrical, and flamboyant. Gay
and straight men have very different opinions on each, which we’ll
consider in more depth a bit later on.)
Harry, a middle-aged college professor in Texas, also disagrees.
“I’ve had it up to here with the feminist propaganda that all of our so¬
cial problems are somehow based on how we demean or fail to value
femininity. I think it's probably just a matter of what we happen to
find attractive in this society, at this time. And times change.”
Although these comments do represent a small fraction of men
with whom I spoke, most concurred that where sissyphobia looms,
garden variety sexism likely isn’t far behind. “I stopped worrying
about how society looked at me a long time ago,” said Joe, an assem¬
bly line worker in Detroit who said that on an effeminate scale of one
to ten, he'd give himself “a seven, maybe an eight.” Still, Joe admitted
he gets his share of catty comments from some of his male co-work¬
ers, and they tend to come from the same sort of guys who don't think
women have a place on the factory floor. “I guess they just lump me in
with the rest of the girls. They're all just a bunch of sexist assholes.”
I am not a professional pollster, and I do not claim that my results re¬
flect anything more than a snapshot taken at a point and place in time;
some might read the data and make quite different conclusions or dis¬
count their validity altogether. From what I've gathered so far, how¬
ever, I've come to believe there’s a strong correlation between negative
feelings about women and negative feelings about effeminate men, es¬
pecially among those who identify themselves as “straight acting.”
Remember the earlier comment by Jay from the University of Vir¬
ginia, who said he “wouldn't even hang with a femme dude”; when
the “homo mood” strikes, he said he will have sex only with mascu¬
line guys and added that he despises effeminate men simply “because
they act all prissy and shit.” Jay said he also loves to have sex with
women but admits that they “piss me off in a relationship. They're too
demanding and always want to know how I'm feeling all the time.
And usually I feel like I don't want to ever hear that question again!”
Frank is a twenty-four-year-old construction worker in Upstate
New York. “Brick layer by day, boy banger by night,” he described
 Fear and Loathing 61

himself. Except for when the “boy” in question is in any way effemi¬
nate. “That's just so gross to me,” he said. “It just turns me off. Why, I
can't say.” As far as women go, Frank loves his mother and his sister.
“And that's it. I used to pretend I had a girlfriend to keep the other
guys from asking me too many questions about where I went at night,
or trying to get me to come along when they were out on the town,
looking for a lay. But trust me, I’m glad I'm gay. I wouldn't want to
have anything to do with chicks. They’re too much trouble.”
Don't be lulled into thinking such beliefs are simply the product of
closeted minds, or even minds that are simply young and foolish. Ches¬
ter, a sixty-two-year-old medical researcher from Bethesda, Maryland,
said he was “hurt as a child by growing up in a household where men
didn't set boundaries and let women have anything they asked for.” He
referred to women as “unimportant, and added that he “can do without
them.” Chester said that society doesn’t consider effeminate guys to be
“real men” and doesn't really hate them so much as view them with
“pity or disdain.” He said he prefers to seek out “more masculine com¬
pany.”
The correlation still holds pretty firm, even among those whose
feelings about women/effeminate men might be best described as
lukewarm. “I do not dislike women, but I do not find them very inter¬
esting generally,” said Darrell, a retired bureaucrat in Washington,
DC. “I would rather interact with men.” And what kind of men? “I am
somewhat put off by those who are too effeminate. I don't know that I
avoid them exactly, but I do not seek them out.”

THE STRAIGHT STORY

When I tried to engage self-described homophobic men in conver¬

sation on the topic of sissyphobia, I was usually faced with responses
along the lines of “I hate all faggots” or “Just die, you queer,” which
wasn't exactly helpful. I just moved along until I found straight men
with a little more going on upstairs. That’s where I discovered that the
viewpoints in the gay community often find their mirror images on
the heterosexual side of the fence.
“Homo-friendly” straight men who had a positive view of women
usually didn’t care how “swishy” a gay man was. “I love women, the
62 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

way they think and talk, as well as their voices and their ‘curves,’ ” said
Matt, a twenty-eight-year-old audiovideo specialist in Washington,
DC. “As far as effeminate gay guys go, I only know one who acts like
that, and I actually find it pretty funny. He’s a good friend, and to be
honest, I can’t imagine him not acting that way. But I know his gay
friends really seem to get annoyed by it.”
“People used to think / was gay because I was such a flaming femi¬
nist,” said Greg, a thirty-eight-year-old social worker in San Diego. “It
makes me sick to see anyone victimized, whether it's some poor gay
kid at the youth shelter who got kicked out of his house, or a woman
who's abused by a spouse or a boyfriend. I’m a total sixties type of guy,
in that I believe our greatest strength comes from diversity. I find it odd
that even in the gay community I hear about people who can't accept
their own. Who the fuck cares if someone shimmies when he walks?
If he's a good guy, he's okay with me.”
Those who viewed women with some reservations, however, usu¬
ally had similar problems with nonmasculine-appearing men. Nick, a
twenty-two-year-old waiter in Miami, said he has a “handful” of gay
friends, except “they’re the kind of guys you'd never know were gay
just to look at them.” Effeminate men make him “pretty uncomfort¬
able,” he admitted. “It's kind of stupid, I know. I just feel like they're
checking me out, mentally undressing me or something. I do get hit on
all the time—gay dudes are everywhere down here—but it's like if the
guy is acting straight, it doesn't bother me all that much.” He described
his feelings about women as almost exclusively sexual. “I like to play
around, sure. I don't have any female friends that I hang out with just to
hang out with. If I’m with a girl, I'm probably looking to score.”
“I'm the farthest thing from a politically correct guy,” said Brad, a
twenty-nine-year-old “corporate climber” in San Francisco. “But I
don't have any specific problems with gay dudes. Look at where I
live; it’s the gay capital, right? To each his own.” Brad explained his
opinions about women in this fashion: “I love dating women (sex is a
good thing!), and one day I'll settle down and get married, have kids
and such. I can't say I care much for working with women, though,
because I frequently find them to be extremely unprofessional in the
way they rip into each other, all that bitchy ‘I'm going to stab you in
the back but smile to your face’ kind of stuff. Some of the effeminate
 Fear and Loathing 63

gay guys I know do exactly the same kind of thing. Who the hell
needs that?”
As I was writing this chapter, it struck me that catching up with my
or buddy Chris might be appropriate, just to see how much his opin¬
ions might have evolved since that April night five years ago. He's
now a government lawyer working in a southern U.S. city I'm forbid¬
den to disclose, living with his wife of three years.
He recovered quickly from his suiprise at my call late on a Satur¬
day night—I was pretty pleased he recognized my voice immedi¬
ately—and we started chatting. I reminded him of our long-ago
conversation, told him about the book I was writing, and asked him if
his feelings on effeminate men had changed.
“Not really,” he told me. “They still kind of give me the willies. But
you want to know why. I guess it’s just easier for a straight guy to deal
with a guy who seems straight, even if he's gay. I think straight guys
like feminine behavior in women, and to see those qualities in a guy
seems confusing, really disturbing. It’s just weird to see a guy act like
that.”
We chatted some more, and then I asked him how he felt about wo¬
men. “You really want to get me in trouble, don't you?” he said, laugh¬
ing. “Fust, let me say I am totally in love with my wife, and my marriage
is absolutely the best part of my life. But, if I’m going to be totally hon¬
est with you, I’d have to say that sometimes I wonder if women belong in
the workplace. The God’s honest truth is that most women just bug the
shit out of me.”
 Chapter 5

The Enemy Within

Cultural prejudice has not only succeeded

in making most heterosexuals hate gays;
it has succeeded in making most gay
people hate themselves.

Randy Shilts, journalist

“I was thirteen or fourteen years old when my best friend turned on

me,” recalled David, now a thirty-six-year-old Web designer in Hous¬
ton. “We'd been real close before that, almost like two brothers.
You'd have thought we were joined at the hip the way you could al¬
ways find one of us by looking for the other. We did Little League,
camping trips, all those sleepovers kids have at that age, and, yes, we
even fooled around a little bit in the basement sometimes when no
one else was around.”
As David recalls it, neither he nor John, his best friend, ever talked
much about their mutual curiosity. “We were probably too young at
the time to know there were other guys who liked guys that way. We
just knew it felt good to touch each other. But we were smart enough
not to talk about it with anyone else.”
David said that everything changed once the two left elementary
school behind for junior high school. “I’m not sure what caused it. I
just know John started hanging out with different people, guys from
other neighborhoods I didn’t know. One time I saw him standing with
some of those guys after school, hanging out across the street where
the kids used to go and smoke. Before I could say anything, one of
them called out to me, ‘Hey faggot,’ and they all laughed, and John
laughed right along with them. I felt like he’d punched me right in the
stomach. Later on, they started picking on me a lot, calling me

65
66 SISSYPHOBIA: GA Y MEN AND EFFEM1NA TE BEHA VIOR

cocksucker and stuff like that, and generally making my life hell. I used
to wonder if he'd told the other guys things about me based on the
stuff we used to do with each other. I remember thinking how unfair
that was, since John was the one who'd usually got things going.”
As he got older, David came to realize that he was gay, and though he
and John were never close again, he said he’s often wondered if his for¬
mer best friend was also a member of the club. “I know they say lots of
straight guys fool around with each other, but I think John was more than
just a little curious. One way or another though, I’m sure all those times
in the basement had a lot to do with him picking on me later. Either he’d
come to believe that faggots are the guys you’re supposed to hate, or he
hated the fact that he was a faggot himself. And he took it out on me.”

IyVE GOT A SECRET

Even for the most fortunate among us, adolescence is a pretty

tough passage to navigate. It doesn’t matter whether you're gay or
straight; just about all of us carry those memories of rejection, awk¬
wardness, failing to measure up, or fearing whatever the hell was
waiting for us down the long road to adulthood. I think most gay men
would suggest that road was often tougher for them than for most
anybody else. As kids, we not only experienced the usual growing
pains of your average teenager; we also had to cany with us the pecu¬
liar weight of confusing desires that frequently left us feeling isolated
and alone, fearful that someone might discover our “secret.”
And if, as teenagers, we also happened to possess effeminate man¬
nerisms, whatever refuge secrecy might provide was no longer avail¬
able to us; we pretty much outed ourselves every time we mingled
with our peers. We’ve already read the sad stories of so many men
who were victimized because of the way they walked, talked, or
dressed. In Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys, au¬
thors Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson (1999) contend that ado¬
lescent boys are particularly apt to strike out at those they see as gay
because of their own vulnerabilities regarding sexuality. Such boys,
the authors suggest, fear homosexuality “like the plague,” not under¬
standing its origin, but fully aware of its negative perception among
society. “Homosexuals are male, but not manly . . . ‘gay’ or ‘fag’ is a
 The Enemy Within 67

constant taunt, whether a boy’s ‘crime’ is his hairstyle, his accent, his
clothes, a good grade, or a bad pitch” (p. 81).
Kindlon and Thompson (1999) suggest that all male teens are
walking a precarious ledge; they’re learning to assert their burgeon¬
ing masculinity and independence, yet they’re still very much in need
of the emotional comfort of their family and friends. That apparent
contradiction often makes the teen years profoundly lonely for most
any boy—the authors propose that gay teens find it a time of denial
and fear as well. “It’s humiliating for a heterosexual boy to be called a
‘faggot’; how much worse might it be if a boy is secretly having those
thoughts?” (p. 81).
That emotional turbulence becomes for some a kind of pressure
cooker, and the only way to blow off steam is to play the role of vic-
timizer, rather than victim. James is a middle-aged man who told me
only that he lives near Chicago and grew up there in the surrounding
suburbs. ‘‘There was this one kid that everybody picked on,” he re¬
called. ‘‘He was just too delicate for words, a total flame already
when we were in the seventh grade. I was really confused at the time
about how I felt when it came to other guys. When I was jerking off in
my bedroom at night, all I could think about was my best friends. I
don’t know how I kept that separate from the way I acted at school,
like I was this big tough guy. But I did. Part of being the big tough guy
was picking on this poor kid. We really made his life hell for him, and
it makes me sick to this day when I think about it. His family finally
moved, and I’ve always wondered if how we treated him had any¬
thing to do with it. I also wonder what happened to him, if he made it
through being a teen okay.”
Jake is a nineteen-year-old ‘‘restaurant slave” who lives near Akron,
Ohio. He told me how, as a little kid, most of his playmates were girls,
and, therefore, most of his toys were of the sort that most little girls like:
My Little Pony, Strawberry Shortcake, and, of course, the ubiquitous
Barbie. ‘‘I also collected G.I. Joes, but that was a normal thing for a
boy to do,” he said. ‘‘As for the Barbies, they were carefully hidden
from my brother’s friends and my guy friends. But I still have tons of
Christmas pictures of me and my dolls.”
Jake called the period from grade school to high school a time of in¬
credible ‘‘inner struggle,” as he tried to come to terms with who he was;
sometimes that inner struggle made him strike outward. ‘‘My friends
68 SISSYPHOBIA: GA Y MEN AND EFFEMINA TE BEHA VIOR

and I would ruthlessly pick on other students because they were differ¬
ent. They didn't like sports, or they enjoyed choir. Of course we used
words like faggot and queer to hurt them. I was always taught that be¬
ing gay was something that you didn't want to be, and if you really
wanted to bruise another guy's ego, you called him a queer. It was a di¬
rect assault on their masculinity. There were a lot of times in high
school when I'd call someone a fag or queer in response to what they
called me, even though at the time I knew I was gay. That was a pretty
hateful and horrible thing to do. I really never wanted to be like this.”
Clay, a twenty-two-year-old college student at the University of
Washington, has a different perspective. “I played on both sides of the
fence, on both sides of the country” A military brat—his father was in
the U.S. Navy—he spent the first half of his school days on the East
Coast. “Most of the time I was running home from school before the
bullies could find me; otherwise they’d beat me up,” he recalled. “They
had me figured for a little fag from day one, mainly I guess because of
the way I talked and walked. These guys came from that macho mili¬
tary tradition that sees being gay as the worst thing in the world. Not
only did they beat me up all the time; their parents didn't seem to want
to do anything about it. And my dad wasn’t about to make much of an
issue about it. Who wants to raise a stink about all the guys picking on
his little homo boy? He'd just yell at me to stand up for myself.”
After several years in Norfolk, Virginia, Clay’s father was transferred
to Bremerton Naval Station in Washington State. Clay took the opportu¬
nity to make some changes. “My first year in school there I worked my
way into the cliques with the jocks,” he said. “I worked hard at acting a
lot more butch, and when they started picking on the pansies, I was the
first one to jump in. I was tired of being the low man on the totem pole,
so I made my deal with the Devil. I made a lot of other guys suffer for the
shit I'd been through. And I'm not proud of it at all ”
A lot of youthful “sissy bashes” are pretty tough on themselves,
and most are clearly regretful these days about the way they treated
others in their youth; the “inner struggle,” as Jake called it, makes
some kids do some pretty stupid stuff. I myself have been both a vic¬
tim and a perpetrator of the same kind of stupidity, though thankfully
I was not involved in anything as traumatizing as many of the stories
I've heard.
 The Enem y Within 69

Similar to David, whose story began this chapter, I had a best

friend who went from faithful companion to merciless tormentor.
Scott and I were just like brothers; “Best friends for life,” we used to
say. Though we never did more than take an occasional innocent peek
at each other's privates, we were just about as intimate as one boy can
be with another at the tender age of twelve; we were inseparable bud¬
dies who tore up the neighborhood on our bikes, hung out watching
the tube, and lip-synched along to our favorite pop songs. Looking
back now, I realize I probably had quite the crush on him. But within
a few years, Scott started hanging with the rough crowd, and I be¬
came his favorite punching bag, sometimes literally so.
Unlike David, I don't have to wonder if Scott was gay or not; I ran
into him in a bar in Washington, DC, a few years after we graduated
from high school. I wanted to take him to task for all he'd put me
through, but by that time, my own hands weren’t particularly clean in
the sissy phobia department. In tenth grade, I’d started freezing my
best friend Kent out of my life; at sixteen, we hadn’t yet come out to
each other, but it was clear we were walking parallel paths. At least it
was clear to me. Kent seemed to be growing more effeminate by the
day, and his public displays were growing ever more embarrassing.
Mind you, I never bashed him, never made fun of him in front of any¬
one else or behind his back. But I didn’t return his phone calls as often
as I once had, I didn't sit with him at lunch, and I even went the other
way when I saw him coming. I'd known him since the second grade,
and suddenly I found myself treating him the way some men treat last
week’s trick. I’m fortunate our relationship survived high school.
Clearly, you can chalk up a lot of that sort of behavior to the callow
and shallow nature of youth and inexperience, which does not ex¬
cuse, but can sometimes explain, why we do the things we do. But
striking out at the sissies among us isn’t just limited to the gay teen¬
age set; we’ve already heard from several deeply closeted men who
make little secret of their dislike of those they see as effeminate.
“From my experience, gay men who are comfortable with their
masculinity usually don't have any issues with queeny gay guys,”
said Wayne from Washington, DC. “It’s the guy who thinks no one
knows he’s gay—yet everyone does—that’s most likely to be ob¬
sessed with his dislike for the less butch amongst us.”
70 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

Even the act of coming out, for most of us a singularly liberating

experience, isn't a passport to enlightenment. “I can't stand those
femme guys, and I'm not ashamed about it in the slightest," said
Barry, a twenty-eight-year-old warehouse worker in Austin, Texas.
“This is a pretty tolerant town by Texas standards, but personally I'm
sick of all that flamey shit." Barry said he has no problem with being
gay, and he’s out to most of his friends, even some of his co-workers,
none of whom have trouble with his sexuality. Apparently, however,
his own tolerance has limitations.
“The other day a group of us went out to grab some lunch, and a
couple of really femme guys were standing there in line ahead of us,
all rainbow this and pink triangle that. I just muttered, ‘Fucking fags,'
or something like that. I don't know if they heard me or not, but one of
the straight guys I work with looked kind of surprised and said some¬
thing like, ‘Those are your people, right?' And I just stared him down.
I told him they may be gay, but they’re not my people. I may like to
suck dick, but I don't want to be part of whatever it is they're about."
“I wish I\I been the one standing in that line," said Patrick, a self-
described “gym queen" who stands about six-foot-two and weighs in
at about two-twenty. “I'm the guy you will see wearing all the rain¬
bows and triangles, just because I'm pretty sure all the 'phobes are
going to be totally intimidated by my size, and I enjoy mind-fucking
them." I asked Patrick what he thinks about guys like Barry who feel
embarrassed enough about effeminate guys to make a point of saying
so in public, even in front of their straight friends. “Well, I doubt he'd
say it to me, but even if he did, I wouldn't mess him up. I might want
to, but I wouldn't. I'd probably just embarrass him right back, blow
him a kiss or something." He paused and shook his head. “I just can't
figure out how these guys can call themselves gay, when the reality is
they're just sad—they can't accept the fact that God made us all dif¬
ferent. They play right into the hands of all the homophobes out there
who'd be happier if we all went away."

THE TALE OF THE TAPES

Even in its mildest forms—the personal ads that tell effeminate

men to keep their distance, or nasty comments made in a fast-food
line—sissyphobia is a figurative club that bludgeons the self-esteem
 The Enemy Within 71

of a fair-sized chunk of the gay community. Sissyphobes themselves

likewise become victims of their own internalized fears, since they al¬
low their perceptions of mainstream society's hostility against effemi¬
nate men to shape their own feelings, and sometimes their actions.
We all know what the word for that hostility is; researchers coined
the term homophobia three decades ago, signaling a shift away from
attempts to modify untraditional sexual orientations, toward a view
that focused instead on the hatred aimed at gays and lesbians. Homo¬
phobia was originally defined as the dread of being in close quarters
with gay men and women, along with irrational fear, hatred, and in¬
tolerance of homosexuality, attitudes that sometimes lead to violence.
Later, many researchers came to believe that term was far too broad;
they coined another term, homonegativism, to include those people
who simply harbor dislike for gays based on their individual cultural,
religious, or moral perspectives. It’s more than just a difference of de¬
gree, and gay people do themselves a disservice when they fail to per¬
ceive the distinction; a homonegative individual, for instance, may
work very hard to keep you off the school board, and he may even
shout you down at the PTA meeting, but he most likely won’t contem¬
plate physical violence. A true homophobe might be waiting for you
in the parking lot, long after the meeting is over.
The reasons behind that kind of malevolence are still shrouded in
mystery, notwithstanding generations of researchers looking for its
origins. It’s long been a popular, if unproven, theory that many people
who exhibit classic homophobic impulses may have serious internal
conflicts brewing, principally repressed homosexual urges and an ex¬
treme self-loathing that comes along for the ride. Until recently, few
had ever tried to nail down that theory in any kind of concrete way.
Then came the late Henry Adams and his 1996 laboratory study at the
University of Georgia, the results of which were published in the
Journal ofAbnormal Psychology. Adams, who was a research profes¬
sor of clinical psychology, set about to put some proof to the postu¬
late, employing a rather unique methodology.
“We told our subjects we were conducting a study of sexuality
among college age males,” Adams said. “We only used men who iden¬
tified themselves as heterosexual, or at least claimed they’d never had a
homosexual experience.” The group, which numbered sixty-four vol¬
unteers ages eighteen to thirty-one, were then given a battery of tests
72 SISSYPHOBIA: CAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

to measure their levels of homophobia or homonegativity, inquiries

that included asking whether they'd move out if they were assigned a
gay roommate, whether they ever used derogatory terms for gays,
whether they would ever consider physical violence toward a gay man
or his property, and the like. The tests also sought to gauge any posi¬
tive feelings for gay men; the respondents were divided into sub¬
groups according to how they scored.
What happened next is a little bizarre to describe, and I'll forgive
you a nasty giggle as you read it; I was smiling a bit myself when I
first heard of it, despite the seriousness of its intent. Each man was
taken to a private viewing room, instructed how to place a measuring
device on his penis—Adams said the formal name of the device is a
penile plethysmograph, but he refers to it irreverently as a “peter me¬
ter”—then the subject was left alone to view explicit videotapes
showing men having sex with women, women getting it on with other
women, and men with men. “Nothing too exotic about the tapes,”
Adams told me. “They were just the kind you can rent at any dirty
book store, lots of intercourse and fellatio and such.” Levels of
arousal were gauged electronically, with the data fed directly into a
computer. After the viewing period was over, the subjects were also
questioned verbally about their feelings during the presentation.
You've heairi the saying that a stiff dick has no conscience and no
memory. Well, apparently they don't lie very well, either. Although the
measurements of physical arousal upon viewing the man-woman and
woman-woman tapes was consistent across both groups, a full 80 per¬
cent of the men with the highest ratings for homophobia also displayed
definite signs of arousal while watching gay pom, compared with less
than one-fourth of the men who'd registered as nonhomophobic. When
Adams and his team matched the subjects' comments about the ses¬
sions with the actual measurements taken during the tapes, the homo-
phobic men's responses ran counter to the evidence, a finding Adams
referred to as “response discord.” (The nonhomophobic subjects’
comments about their own state of arousal hewed closer to the actual
measurements.)
Adams stopped short of calling the study's results a “slam dunk”;
as he put it, “You get into a lot of trouble scientifically when you pose
a single hypothesis to any question.” Still, for whatever reason, most
of the homophobes got hard watching naked gay men having sex with
 The Enemy Within 73

each other. Further, they either denied or weren’t even aware that they
had. Adams readily admitted that the physical arousal could have had
something to do with simple anxiety about gays; It was his hope that
other researchers will duplicate his study, and get either the same re¬
sult or something altogether different. “It’s the nature of science to
replicate a study and say, ‘Hey, I got the same thing!’ or say, ‘Hey,
you're full of shit!' ” he said. “But so far I’m not aware that anyone
has. It’s not exactly a popular field of inquiry. This study was very dif¬
ferent from anything anyone had tried before; previous studies had
used questionnaires, but they didn’t go to the heart of the issue, which
is simple: Are these guys turned on by homosexually oriented mate¬
rial? And from what we’ve determined, it looks like the answer is
yes.”
More recently, Adams and his team (1999) launched another
study, one that looked at aggressiveness in homophobic types, the re¬
sults of which were also published in the Journal of Abnormal Psy¬
chology. Using a screening questionnaire similar to that of his previous
study, he established a group of twenty-six heterosexual subjects with
a high level of hostility toward gays, along with a control group of
twenty-six heterosexual men who tested as nonhomophobic. Each sub¬
ject was then informed that he was going to participate in a “reaction
time test” with another subject, and the winner would administer an
electric shock to the loser, a shock that varied in intensity from mild to
moderate to severe.
Before the competition, each subject was told he was going to view
a brief videotape of his adversary, as well as make a brief tape of his
own for his opponent to view. The questions were simple: they asked
the subject his name, what year of college he was in, and whether he
was in a relationship. Each man was then placed in a small room, fit¬
ted with an electrode, and told his opponent was similarly situated in
an adjacent room, ready to rock ’n' roll. Just prior to the test, the men
were told they were going to view a pornographic tape that might in¬
clude gay or straight sex acts, to determine what effect viewing por¬
nography has on their reaction times.
This is what the subjects didn ’t know; the whole thing was bogus.
There was no other opponent; the tapes they viewed came courtesy of
the University Drama Department. Half of the time, the mythical op¬
ponent was portrayed as straight; the rest of the time, he was por-
74 SISSYPHOBIA: CAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

trayed as gay, an orientation clear from his answers and mannerisms

supposedly documented on the videotape. (Adams' study notes how
the actors on the tapes purposefully exhibited “gay affectations'’ to
increase the believability of the ruse.) In addition, all of the subjects
would be shown a tape of men having sex with men; none of the sub¬
jects would ever view heterosexually oriented material.
Finally, the reaction time test itself was rigged. Each subject would
lose half of the so-called competitions by design and receive a shock;
they would also win half of the time, but when they won, any shock
they administered wasn't going anywhere save a computer database.
The researchers stacked the deck further by running yet another test
before the competition, administering a shock to the subject to gauge
his pain threshold levels; the subject could listen in as his fictional op¬
ponent underwent a supposedly similar test over the intercom and
hear his well-acted expressions of pain—these were, in actuality, re¬
cited from a script, the vocal qualities of which were concurrent with
the opponent's status as either gay or straight.
The “contest,” such as it was, saw each subject win ten time trials,
and lose ten time trials. The only thing the researchers monitored was
the shock intensity delivered by each subject to his “opponent.” After
the test, the subjects were questioned innocuously to determine if
they'd bought the whole exercise—all did—then released. “Half of our
subjects thought they were competing against a gay guy; the other
thought their opponent was straight,” Adams said. “The data show that
thirty-eight percent of the homophobes selected the maximum shock
when they were competing against what they thought was a gay guy;
only three percent of the nonhomophobes used the maximum setting
on the gay opponent. If anything, the nonhomophobes shocked the gay
competitor less than they did their straight competition.”
That result was consistent, Adams said, with his predictions that
homophobes would become more physically aggressive with a gay
opponent than a straight one, especially after viewing gay erotica.
(That tape, Adams suggested, helped prime the pump of a hostility
that homophobic men already possess, increasing their propensity for
aggression.) “The first study seems to confirm suspicions that when
most homophobes are presented with either the concept or reality of
homosexuality they get turned on by it; the second study then estab-
 The Enemy Within 75

lishes how ready many homophobes are to strike out at someone they
think is gay.”
In his discussion notes, Adams and his team offered the suggestion
that positive exposure to gay people and a deconstruction of negative
stereotypes—at as early an age as possible—might serve to reduce ho¬
mophobic violence. And, once again, Adams expressed the hope that
someone would pick up the torch and cany it farther to increase the
body of knowledge. I asked Adams how his research might apply to
some of the more heinous examples of attacks on gays, specifically the
murders of Matthew Shepard and Billy Jack Gaither. He was quick to
answer. “I’d bet you money if we took some of these guys involved in
the Gaither or Shepard murders and gave them the ‘peter meter' test,
they'd show some arousal—you hate in others what you hate most in
yourself. That’s not surprising.”
One thing Adams did find surprising, and more than a little dis¬
turbing, was just how easy it was to find so many homo-hostile men
among a relatively well-educated and affluent student body. “I guess
you figure well-educated people will be at least a little more liberal or
open-minded.” He also stressed the importance of abandoning the
broad-brush approach when it comes to people who possess those at¬
titudes. “There are people out there who are homonegative, but
they’re not the ones who are going to go find a homosexual person
and beat the hell out of him. But then you have people out there who
might just do that, and they’re the true homophobes.” Additional re¬
search into how those attitudes form might go a long way toward un¬
derstanding, and eventually squashing, such negative states of mind.
“We have this macho image of males, that males hold all the
power. That kind of machoism isn’t just a factor in homophobia, ei¬
ther; it’s also a factor in rape. The crucial variable is callousness; if
someone has a callous attitude about women or gays, they're apt to
behave in a violent way toward both or either group. It’s my guess
that people who are homophobic are the same guys that engage in
date rape. There’s no clinical definition, but I happen to believe that
homophobia seems to indicate these guys are a little crazy, and they
need help.”
 Chapter 6

Dude Looks Like a Lady

I like my beer cold, my TV loud,

and my homosexuals fuh-laming!

Homer Simpson

“I wish someone, anyone, could have taken a picture of my face the

first time I walked into a gay bar,” said Mike, a forty-three-year-old
investment counselor now living in New York. “I was this kid from
the sticks, and my only gay experience of any kind was pretty sleazy,
truck stop rest rooms and adult book stores. Where I came from that’s
all there was.
“But as bad as it was, most of the guys coming in and out, looking
for a little action, were pretty masculine, or at least seminormal look¬
ing. That's not at all what I found my first night in the big city bars—
those guys were hootin and hollerin,' as we used to say back home, just
sort of prancing when they walked, and they moved like women, or this
exaggerated version of women. It was not what I was expecting, and it
took a lot of getting used to. There was this great line from an Elvis
Costello song—T used to be disgusted, now I'm just amused'—that
describes me to a T.”
Mike’s tale recalls a common rite of passage in gay life, the mo¬
ment a young man's fantasies about what he’ll find when he steps out
into the broader gay community are replaced by reality. “You grow
up alone; you deal with the fact you're different from everybody
else,” he said. “I watched my buddies and their girlfriends, and I was
jealous because I wanted to have someone of my own. In my mind he
was sort of just like me, not necessarily a big macho stud, but a regu¬
lar Joe. And it really opens your eyes to find out there's a lot more
Janes out there than Joes.”

77
78 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

I LOVE THE NIGHTLIFE

I had a similar bias toward masculinity, one that seemed set in

stone by the time I was eighteen—that’s when I fell in love with Billy,
my straight best friend. I don't know how true it is, but many of us
have heard the old saying that something like 90 percent or more of
heterosexual men “experiment” with another guy at least once in
their lives; I was fortunate (or so I actually believed at the time) that at
sixteen Billy hadn't yet “experimented” before I came out to him. He
was the definition of the beautiful high school jock—he worked sum¬
mers as a lifeguard—and he had a lot of curiosities about what it was
that gay guys actually did together. I was only too happy to be his lab
rat for one glorious summer, even if the research was heavily tilted in
one direction, and I was pretty much making it up as I went along.
It's no particular surprise that your first love can cast a shadow
over the folks you meet up with later on. How can anyone ever meet
that standard? Sure enough, with his curiosities satisfied, Billy soon
grew bored with my attentions and returned to the straight and narrow
world of high school cheerleaders and the like; that left me to gather
up my courage and start venturing out to my first gay nightclubs. But
after so many intimacies shared on hot and humid suburban nights
with my masculine man-child, it was pretty hard for anyone else to
measure up, especially the majority of the gay men I found waiting
for me downtown.
I was a lot like Mike the first night I walked into a gay bar in Sep¬
tember of 1978.1 was still a nerdy little guy, but any “chicken” could
draw attention back then, however slight his build and thick his
glasses; I was immediately surrounded by men that at first blush
struck me not so much as men as they did women who just happened
to have hairy chests. (I don't know exactly what I'd been expecting,
but I hadn't been expecting that.) Admittedly, a few butch guys here
and there piqued my interest, but they were very much in the minor¬
ity; the predominant crowd on that night embodied every negative
usage of the word “queer” that I’d ever heard. I beat feet back home as
fast as I could and did not venture out again for months.
“That sounds like my story,” said George, a thirty-nine-year-old
graphic artist in Philadelphia. “I'd grown up always knowing I was
gay, never telling anyone but my closest friends, and really only a few
 Dude-Looks Like a Lady 79

of them. I couldn't wait to get out there into this gay scene I kept hear¬
ing rumors about. On paper, it sounded pretty good. You'd hear about
the dance clubs and the music, and the wild things that were supposed
to happen. I was this horny teenager who wanted to go find himself an
actual boyfriend. The only place I was going to do that was in a gay
bar, right? But when I got there, it was wall-to-wall femme. It totally
turned me off. I left but eventually came back; it took awhile, but I got
used to the atmosphere, and I got comfortable enough to hang out and
have a few beers. I learned how to look past the girly guys long
enough to see the normal guys standing in the shadows. They were
the ones who were just like me.”

GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN

A distinction has to be observed between simple effeminate be¬

havior, which can often be rather subtle, and actual flamboyant behav¬
ior, to which the word subtlety rarely applies. Some of the synonyms my
dictionary supplies—“extravagant, showy, ostentatious, eccentric"—
are pretty apt descriptions of the way some men behave when they
gather in any group of fellow gay men.
“I definitely see a difference between the two,” said Michael, a
twenty-two-year-old data entry operator in Manassas, Virginia. “Flam-
boyancy brings to mind the term ‘big of flaming queen.' To simply be
effeminate is to have certain nonmasculine features or traits, but flam-
boyancy is flaunting those traits, things like intentionally swishing
your hips and the excessive use of words like girl, girlfriend, or Mary.”
“Flamboyant is something that's high energy, some kind of deliber¬
ately confrontational gender performance or genderfuckf said Jonathan
from Washington, DC. “It's like high drag or some other hyperinflated,
theatrical self-presentation.” Derek, a twenty-eight-year-old “new me¬
dia” specialist in Los Angeles, agrees. “Flamboyant behavior is like
the party version of effeminate behavior. It's a show."
And where better to stage that show than smack dab in the nominal
epicenter of gay life, the cruise bar or nightclub? “When I go out to a
club, that’s when the explosions really start going off," said Johnny
from Florida State. “As a dancer, I’m comfortable with tight clothes. I
like bright colors that grab the eye, which makes it easier to stand out
80 SISS YPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

ill a crowd. I find people view me as being a more effeminate person

in a club than anywhere else. And I agree.”
Just why do so many men let their “flames” bum brighter? As
we've already discovered, many believe it's just one way for some
people to feel like they “belong ” a way to feel part of the larger
group. “I think a lot of gay men become more effeminate once they
come out because they feel it's a way of becoming accepted into gay
society,” said Jake from Akron. “Straight society has, at least as long
as I can remember, always portrayed gay men as effeminate and not
as masculine at all, so if you don't fit in with the straight crowd, just
turn up the flame and perhaps you will be accepted. But it's all
twisted. Even in gay society a lot of guys think queen is the worst
thing you can be called.”
“I think flamboyant gay people are just femme guys who are theat¬
rical,” suggested Wayne from Washington. “It's not much different
than straight guys at a frat party who are flamboyant in their hetero¬
sexuality. Some people, gay or straight, are expressive and have a
need to emote in public. The only difference is the hetero stereo¬
type—beer drinking, promiscuous, fighting—is sort of celebrated.
The gay stereotype is one that our culture despises.”
Some certainly do see flamboyant tendencies as the worst image that
gay men can possibly project. “I’ve never thought it was the quiet effem¬
inate guys that hold us back,” said Michael, a twenty-nine-year-old retail
manager in Oakland, California. “But I think the flamboyant guys do.
They really add to the stereotype that gay equals queer equals sissy,
when the truth is all sorts of people are gay, not just the flamboyant
ones. I tried going to gay clubs for awhile, but I soon realized it just
wasn't for me. I'm just a normal, regular-looking guy, and it wasn't
for me.”
“I just don't like it when a man wears very womany clothes and
scarves,” said Russ from Virginia. “I’ve seen a lot of older gay men
dressed like that. They all tend to look like the Mike Myers' Linda
Richman character on Saturday Night Live. All that gay lingo crammed
into every sentence, calling people bitch and twirling around a room—
it's like they're trying so hard to attract attention.” Russ is quite criti¬
cal of the way society ridicules effeminate men, but he has little pa¬
tience with men who seem to draw that very fire with their in-your-
face “flaminess.”
 Dude-Looks Like a Lady- Si

"I really try to avoid those people,” Russ said. “Some of those
queeny guys just play into straight people’s stereotypes, whether
they're trying to or not.”
Some, however, see flamboyance as an extremely effective de¬
fense mechanism against exactly that kind of prejudice. “I think ef¬
feminate behavior is natural, whereas flamboyancy is the playing up
of that effeminacy,” said Daved from Los Angeles. “I've always
viewed flamboyant men as those who can't help seeming girlish and
probably have always been teased or picked on because of it. At some
point, playing up that aspect of themselves is a sort of shield. It takes
away the power of those taunts. If someone announces, ‘I'm a big old
queen!' and twirls that boa, then what can really be said after that by
someone who looks down on them?”

HOT STUFF, COMING THROUGH

The performance art that we call flamboyancy probably has less to

do with true effeminate behavior than it does with history. If you
think that men dressing in over-the-top costumes or behaving in wild
imitation of female behavior is a new idea, or that heading out for
a night of lascivious carousing at the local drinking establishment
is a modern invention, think again—the “mollies” of Merry Olde
England have you beat by about 300 years. Such behavior has been a
staple of gay nightlife since the eighteenth century, when for the first
time gay men began to gather in the great metropolitan cities of Lon¬
don, Paris, and Amsterdam.
Gay men dressing as women, or behaving in wildly flamboyant
ways, wasn’t just for “show.” It also had the practical effect of making
certain sexual liaisons possible; it was much more palatable for ear¬
lier generations of men who did not think of themselves as homosex¬
ual—no one had even invented that term yet—to have sex with a
“fairy,” as long as the fairy in question played up the feminine role,
usually including that of being the “receiver.” The active partner
could then depart the encounter with his sense of masculinity intact,
the entire episode dismissed as a mere dalliance with someone who
had just about the same social status as a common whore. (In fact, the
regal epithet “queen” most likely dates back at least a century, when it
82 SISS YPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

was transferred from its English application to loose women and

prostitutes to wildly effeminate men and call boys, who were largely
seen as moving in the same circles. Some have even suggested the
word “camp” comes from an abbreviation of the term “camp fol¬
lower,” a nineteenth-century synonym for a prostitute.)
For all its unsavory associations, flamboyant behavior did at least
have the positive effect of helping our gay forefathers establish some
kind of group identity; psychotherapist Betty Berzon, author of The
Intimacy Dance and Setting Them Straight, likens it to an ironic joke
thrown back in the face of a mainstream society that pushes gay men
to its farthest margins. Over the years since, that joke evolved into a
recurrent campiness that probably reached its peak in the 1970s,
when closet doors started to fly open and gay men of all stripes began
pouring into clubs that seemed to fill up as soon as their “open for
business” sign lit up.
“I’ve been out since the late 1960s,” said Terry, a fifty-three-year-old
teacher in Washington, DC. “When I first came out, it was an in thing
to be campy, for us to make fun of the stereotypes by using phrases like
‘Mary this' and ‘Mary that.' ”
“Those were definitely the days, no doubt about it,” remembered
Rick, a forty-four-year-old interior designer in Chicago. “It's hard to
even conceive of that time, before the Moral Majority, before AIDS—
it was all lights and music and dancing, and, yes, a hell of a lot of sex.
All the campy queeniness was sort of like our common language, like
a secret handshake that made you part of the club. I wasn't really all
that effeminate to begin with, but I played along, like so many others,
because it just made you feel like you were part of this big, growing
scene.”
“I tend to think of flamboyant behavior as the unfortunate gift my
generation bequeathed to all subsequent generations of young queer-
boys [sic],” said Jim, a photographer in San Francisco who admits
only to being “more than fifty” years old. “Now having created this
great, pastel-pink-colored beast, it lives on, like a tradition that's
passed on in bars, at festivals, and other large gatherings of gay men. I
doubt many or most queers ever really behave that way naturally, but
what can you do? It's etched in stone.”
It's etched as well in celluloid, from films such as the early 1970s,
The Boys in the Band, all the way to To Wong Too, Thanks for Every-
 Dude.Looks Like a Lady 83

thing, Julie Nexvmcir, and The Birdcage, in the mid-1990s, on to any

number of campy characters that have peopled the small screen; the
“hostile joke” has turned into a popular, if not exactly accurate, im¬
age. Now some worry that the “joke” may well be on us because
straight people don't really “get it” Especially when those images
aren't the product of some screenwriter's imagination.
“I was so psyched to come out—in every way—for my very first
Pride Day last year,” said Bob, a nineteen-year-old college student in
New Jersey. “I'd told my parents I was gay and told them to look for
me at the parade when they showed it on the news—hey, there’s al¬
ways a chance, right? I got home and my Dad was looking pissed.
‘That's what you want to be?’ he asked me—I didn't know what he
was talking about until I saw the late news—all you saw was half-
naked guys jumping around and acting like stupid girls. It was really
embarrassing.”
“As gay men we squander whatever political leverage we may have
if we insist on considering ourselves a lobby for the right to behave
publicly in manners that society at large plainly deems offensive,” con¬
tended Eric, a fifty-three-year-old college professor in Athens, Ohio.
“We may as well belong to the Right to Pick Your Nose in Public
Lobby, or the Free Farts Society.” Eric concedes that anyone's right to
express themselves, but that doesn't mean he's happy about being
linked so closely with such a flamboyant image. “I strongly object to
having any group of people expropriate my identity as a gay man by
mere dint of their greater visibility.”

VIOLENT FEMMES

The award-winning playwright and actor Harvey Fierstein once

remarked that “heterosexuals are the ungrateful children of gay cul¬
ture.” If that’s true, what can one say about many modem gay men
when it comes to their attitudes about the effeminate and, yes, flam¬
boyant men who’ve gone before?
It was, after all, a ragtag group of men—many of them in drag—
who faced down New York City's finest in June 1969 outside the
Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. Like the first shots fired by the
Minutemen at Lexington and Concord, the story as passed down has
84 SISSYPHOBIA: GA Y MEN AND EFFEMINA TE BEHA VIOR

gained the power of myth, but the facts are pretty simple to recount: a
typical police raid on a gay bar, a common practice in the days when
homosexuality was still regarded as a vice, was met with uncommon
resistance from the folks inside. What made that night so different
from the countless nights that had preceded it? No one can really be
completely sure; some wags suggest that the recent death of Judy
Garland had the patrons in a foul mood, and few are less willing to be
fucked with than a drag queen in high dudgeon. Others suggest that
the pot had been simmering for a lot longer; the late 1960s being a
time of revolutionary thought and civil rights fever, they suggest it
should come as no surprise that the kettle finally boiled over.
In any case, the confrontation lasted several nights. Large gather¬
ings of gays and lesbians were staged in Sheridan Square, a park
across the street from the bar. That led New York police to come call¬
ing on the leaders of what passed for the gay rights movement in
those days, asking them to try to cool things down. That, in turn, led
those leaders to win some concessions from city officials—order was
eventually restored, but now the genie was out of the bottle. And not
just in the Big Apple; as Bruce Bawer (1996) contends in “Notes on
Stonewall,” there was something wondrous in the events of those
June nights, where the “rioting marked a pivotal moment because news
of it spread in every direction and sparked the imaginations of count¬
less gay men and lesbians around the world. It made them examine,
and reject, the silence, shame, and reflexive compliance with prejudice
to which most of them had never conceived a realistic alternative”
(p. 4). As Bawer puts it, “a mere handful of late-night bar patrons,
many of them confused, lonely individuals living at the margins of
society, started something that made a lot of lesbians and gay men do
some very serious thinking of a sort they had never done before—
thinking that led to action and to a movement” (p. 5). Bawer calls
Stonewall an event that deserves to be commemorated, as it is each
June with Gay Pride Day parades and festivals all over the world.
However, it's the manner of those commemorations and the behav¬
ior of many of those involved that draw fire toward the flamboyant.
When Pride Day marchers don their outrageous costumes and per¬
form for the cameras, when they drop their pants or strip off their bras
on that “gay high holy day,” Bawer (1996) suggests that, although
they may think of themselves as reliving the defiance of their Stone-
 Dude,Looks Like a Lady 85

wall heroes, they are instead merely taking the “easy” way out, since
dropping your pants is a lot easier than “devoting 365 days per year to
a somewhat more disciplined and strategically sensible demonstra¬
tion designed to advance the causes or respect, dignity, and equality”
(P* 10).
In much the same way, men who object to the ongoing association
between gay men and wildly flamboyant displays say they long to see
the day when the face of gay America isn't presumed to be wearing
lipstick. A political operative I spoke with put it this way: “It's all
about appealing to the Great American Middle, those folks who haven't
really made up their minds about issues like gay marriage, or gays in
the military. It even affects how and when some guys choose to come
out, or whether to come out at all. I know a lot of the flamey guys
don't think twice about how people see them, or would even give a
shit if they did think about it. When they go out to have fun, they want
to have fun on their terms. It all comes down to a public relations
problem when we're trying to get these issues on the table. Frankly,
effeminate or campy-acting men are part of the problem.”

TRICK OR TREAT

A cool October night on Washington, DC's 17th Street Northwest,

and hundreds of men are milling about, dressed in the most outra¬
geous costumes that ever crossed a cross-dresser’s mind. Streets are
shut down, and police are out in force—but this is anything but a riot.
This is DC’s annual Drag Race, where the contestants will make a
mad dash for a few blocks—some in very high and quite lethal-look¬
ing heels—all in the name of charity and a hell of a lot of fun.
Scheduled to coincide with Halloween, the Drag Race on the east¬
ern edges of DC's Dupont Circle neighborhood has become the event
of the season for the thousands who come to watch from the side¬
walks. (It's also a great place for late-year political campaigning.
DC’s gay population is a much sought-after voting bloc, and in 1998,
mayoral candidates and several candidates for the city council were
spotted working the crowd, bobbing and weaving amid the taffeta.)
That would seem to belie the concerns of those who look on flam-
boyancy as the “third rail” of gay life. But DC isn't Middle America.
86 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

Laws here address and protect the concerns of the gay community as
effectively as just about anywhere else. Where once it was a city
whose police officers routinely entrapped men seeking male compan¬
ionship, setting up sting operations in Lafayette Park across from the
White House—with the names of those arrested dutifully published
in the next day's editions of The Washington Post—on this night, po¬
lice just smile as they move a barricade to make way for a troupe
dressed up as characters from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace; one
tall man dressed as Queen Amidala looks into a TV camera, poses,
and delivers the line “May the Fierce be with you” with notable
aplomb.
Walking through the crowd along the sidewalk, I spotted a trio of youn¬
ger guys taking in the scene with a little alcohol-induced bemusement.
They were students from Georgetown University, all of them straight,
they assured me, just out to have some fun and “see what all this
ruckus was about.” One walked off in a huff when I told him why I
was here; I heard him mutter something about not being part of “any
fag book” before one of his friends apologized then went after him.
That left me with the one I'll call Bob, who agreed to speak with me
confidentially.
“It's kind of funny that I'm here because I don't really hang out
with gay people, and as far as I know, none of my friends is gay,” he
told me. “When I am around gay guys, I usually get kind of nervous,
but not here.” He gestured to the wildly colorful crowd still walking
the streets and sidewalks. “This is just funny.”
I asked Bob to consider how strange that sounds because most gay
guys assume it’s the drag queens and flamey types that really set off
straight society. “Well, I can only speak for me, but at least when a
guy is all flamey, I can figure him out, and if I feel like dealing with
him, it's all good. For me, it's like not knowing is worse. If I think a
guy is checking me out, but I’m not sure, well, I get uncomfortable.
Before you came over though, there were these two guys who were
actually kind of pretty all done up like that. They whistled at the three
of us. And we just laughed and whistled back.”
By far, the majority of the men who parade out for the Drag Race in
female dress aren't the sort who do it very often (though they'll likely
resurrect the outfits for Halloween night itself). I spotted a few guys I
know, guys I'd never pictured taking part in such an event—some I
 Dude.Looks Like a Lady 87

barely recognized, weighted down as they were by Reba-esque wigs,

their five o'clock shadows concealed under layers of makeup that
would make Tammy Faye tremble. (Some didn’t bother to shave off
their beards, which was probably the most disconcerting of all.)
My friend Jeff does drag on occasion; it’s odd how a handsome kid
who looks like he could have just fallen out of the pages of an Aber¬
crombie & Fitch catalog can also muster up a quite convincing Cher,
ready to burst into a rendition of “Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves.”
Jeff doesn't necessarily need to do drag, he said. He simply enjoys the
attention his costume brings. “It’s just fun sometimes to see how peo¬
ple react.”
“When I do drag I’m like a sexual outlaw,” said twenty-six-year-old
Chris Dyer, aka “Cookie Buffet.” As Cookie, Chris doesn’t resemble
anyone's favorite diva, unless you have an affinity for Mimi from The
Drew Carey Show; Cookie is all about making a statement. “My out¬
fit said first that I’m a gay man, and that, second, I'm dressing as a
woman and I’m pretty okay with that. I’m expressing my own brand
of masculinity by using a feminine form, and it really throws people.”
(Throw people it does. One time back in my Marine Corps days, I
convinced Tom, this cool straight buddy of mine, to go with me to a
gay club for Halloween. Just inside the door, we ran into my friend
Danny, who, on this particular night, was decked out in a black cocktail
dress, sporting a platinum blonde wig, and answering to “Danielle.”
My buddy Tom was instantly smitten, and who could blame him?
Danny was a knockout as a man or a woman. Poor Tom was heart¬
broken when he found out the news.)
As many issues as some men, gay or straight, have with the effemi¬
nate or flamboyant, drag queens often get a pass for the sheer outra¬
geousness of the performance. Ru Paul has made a career of it in
music, television, and advertising; movies such as the aforemen¬
tioned To Wong Too and The Birdcage were huge hits, as was The Ad¬
ventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Still, lots of gay men aren't
laughing. “Like any of those movies had anything real to say about
gay people,” said Steve, a thirty-four-year-old lawyer in Dallas.
“They were cartoons, devoid of any relationship to the real world.
That pretty much sums up my attitude about any man who puts on a
dress.”
88 SISSYPUOBIA: GA Y MEN AND EFFEMINA TE BE HA VIOR

“I don't like drag queens at all,” said David, a twenty-year-old stu¬

dent in Springfield, Virginia. “I think they give us a bad name.
Whenever I see one, I turn my head and refuse to notice them. What
can I say? I just think they’re ugly and ridiculous.”
“I was dating this one guy who got kicked out of his house,” said
J. R., a twenty-one-year-old graphic design student in Houston. “I
didn't notice how effeminate he really was until I let him move in
with me. Then I came home one night and there were wigs and tits all
over my living room floor. I was shocked to find out he was a drag
performer. That was pretty much the end of him living with me.”
As part of their shtick, drag performers often use humor based on
those very sorts of reactions; they take on every negative image ap¬
plied to gay men, especially effeminate gay men, then turn those in¬
sults around into something empowering. (“I'm more man than
you'll ever be and more woman than you'll ever get!”) And those
caustic lines and attitudes don't remain captive to stage and spotlight.
“Honey” is a tall young man who likes to “put on a face” for the folks in
his rural Midwestern town. “We don't really have gay bar here, but we
have a place where gay folks hang out—no one really fucks with me, be¬
cause they know I'll put them in their place. But one night, a group of
rough-looking boys—I guess they thought they were straight—were
hanging around outside. I was just about to get in my car when one of
them yelled something nasty at me. I just stood up and yelled back,
‘Bitch, what got up in your pussy and died?’ He stood there, totally
speechless, while his friends fell out laughing. I smiled and drove
away, but I kept checking the rearview mirror to make sure he didn't
follow me. A girl has to be careful.”
Aping the patter of drag queens has become, for some gay men, a
manner of everyday speech, just as catch phrases from Seinfeld or the
old Saturday Night Live reruns are recited so often they become part
of our common cultural language. Some take to calling their dates
“tricks” and referring to each other as “bitch” or “slut,” and they seem
to be ready with a cruel put-down or comeback at a moment's notice.
Some of that attitude can surely be traced to a lifetime spent enduring
the attacks and insults of classmates, co-workers, even family; it's a
defense mechanism bom of hard experience, and seen in that context,
it's not so easy to criticize. But the upshot is that what comes off as
self-deprecating and frequently hilarious from the rouged mouth of a
 Dud? Looks Like a Lady 89

drag queen takes on a hard and often self-loathing character when it’s
repeated by the common folk.
“I love men, and I love having sex with men,” said Ricky, a
thirty-two-year-old marketing specialist in Atlanta. “What I don't
like is men who act like women sometimes do, the way they rip into
each other whenever one leaves to find the ladies' room. If I hear one
guy call another guy ‘bitch,' Fm walking away fast. I have no idea
why anyone would ever want to talk like that, or be talked to like
that.”
“I talk like that because that’s how I am,” answered one self-identi¬
fied “princess” named Monty, who would not tell me his age—he
called me rude for even asking—and would only tell me his job
“helps make people feel beautiful.” I related to him how some gay
men feel about the more flamboyant members of the gay community,
along with some of their criticisms.
“So, what? Am I supposed to feel guilty now, just because the
straight-boy-wanna-bes have their panties all in a bunch? I don’t
think so, Miss Thing. I’m not going to let other people’s hang-ups
about sex rule my life. Isn’t gay supposed to be about freedom from
all that shit? Shouldn’t we all just live and let live?”
Yet Ricky’s is a rather common complaint I hear, even from men
completely comfortable about their sexual orientation, and who have no
qualms about being out or going to gay nightclubs. “You won’t find me
anywhere else on a Saturday night,” said Josh, a twenty-one-year-old
student in Columbus. “You can probably throw in Thursday and Friday
nights, too. But I sometimes wish the flamey guys would just give it a
rest and stay home, or maybe just tone it down a little. I mean, do we
have to act that way just because we’re gay?”
Some of the older guys I talked with said that “toning down” is ac¬
tually a work in progress, that the campiness long associated with gay
life is slowly going the way of the dinosaurs. Terry from Washington,
DC, thinks so. “I hardly ever hear it anymore myself, certainly not as
much as I did back in the 1970s. I still hear some people lapsing into
bar speak—you, know, all that ‘Hey, girl’ stuff—but it just sounds a
lot different to me now. It’s not really required as a defense mecha¬
nism anymore.”
If the flamey camp of days gone by is on its way out, some will
clearly mourn its passing. “I happen to like flamboyant guys,” said
90 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

Derek from LA. “I like anyone with a lot of personality, and the more
flamboyant they are, the more fun they are. If you remove the ele¬
ments of ridicule and punishment, then gay and straight people will
feel more comfortable to express their natural personality, which I
think is more on the flamboyant side anyway.”

LEA THERy NOT LACE

A freelance writer in Los Angeles who is quite masculine in ap¬

pearance said he's much more comfortable with his feminine side
than many gay men will allow themselves to be. He suggested that the
antipathy some men feel for the flamboyant or effeminate, whether
conscious or not, leads some to overcompensate in the opposite di¬
rection. “I find most men like that are usually unsure about their own
masculinity . . . they overcompensate for it in flamboyantly mascu¬
line ways, like huge muscles, big trucks, and lots of body hair and
blue-collar affectations. They ape straight mannerisms to a ludicrous
degree or spend their days bending over backwards to prove to them¬
selves and the straight world that they are the exception to every neg¬
ative stereotype ever promoted about gay men.”
Peter's comments call to mind what some still call the “clone”
look: leather jacket and/or chaps, thick mustache or full beard, work
boots, chains, you name it. (Picture Tom of Finland or the late
Freddie Mercury.) That was an image one saw a lot of when I first
came out, and it still exists in some quarters; it's a look sometimes
adopted by those large, hirsute men who dub themselves “Bears,”
who scoff at the smaller, leaner guys who tweeze, wax, or shave
themselves smooth.
I talked to Lonny, a forty-three-year-old Bear who lives in southern
Pennsylvania. “I'm not afraid of my feminine side at all. I just like
masculinity, lots of body hair, some meat on the bones. I look at some
of those circuit ‘twinkies' I see in the ads on the Internet and I wonder
how they ever have sex. Honestly, they just look like they'd break if I
ever got my hands on them.” Thirty-six-year-old Max isn't a Bear, but
he said he does love to troll the leather scene in any East Coast city his
travels take him to. “I hate that disco dance crap—country is more my
style—and I just find the guys who like the leather or military look a
 Dude Looks Like a Lady 91

lot more down to earth, more real than your average club kid with
God-knows-what drugs running through his veins. They look like
silly little girls to me, the way they giggle and scream. I'm a man, and
I want a man.”
Of course, the mere fact that one is decked out in cow's hide isn't a
surefire guarantee of masculinity. Russ from Virginia called flamboy-
ancy any behavior “characterized by excess,” whether it’s “nellie-like”
overindulgence in hair products and makeup, or a fondness for “leather
and chains, police or military uniforms.” To his mind, such outfits are
simply drag by another name.
“My friends took me out to a leather bar once,” said Shane, a
twenty-five-year-old office worker in New York. “They said I'd spent
so much time in the dance clubs that I had no idea what other different
gay scenes there were. But I have to tell you, those boys were bigger
queens than I ever see out on the circuit. They think a little leather and
cheap aftershave is going to butch them up? Please. You can say what
you want about a dance club diva, but I can tell you one thing. She
knows who she is, and she's not afraid to show it.”

THE FEMME POLICE

“I had this friend once named Paul,” said Mark, a twenty-three-

year-old student in northern California. “He was a real quiet kid, shy
and polite, and pretty masculine in the way he talked. It took me a
long time to bring him out, even though I suspected he was gay from
just about the second I met him. Finally I talked him into going to the
bars with me. He started changing almost right away—he went from
shy and polite to a total club-kid flame-boy. With the way he styles
his hair and the femmy-looking clothes he wears, I don't even recog¬
nize him now, and it's sort of hard to be around him and all his girly
friends. Sometimes I wonder if I did him a favor or fucked up his
life.”
I ran across dozens of stories just like that once I started talking with
gay men about their feelings toward their effeminate and flamboyant
brothers. Many are left scratching their heads at the phenomenon, won¬
dering if, for some, coming out simply lets slip a pent-up “inner flame,”
or whether there’s something strangely contagious in gay culture. Writer
92 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

Michael Alvear (2000) calls it “The Pansy Vortex.” In a Genre magazine

essay by that title—one I dearly wish I could republish completely
here—he suggests that flamboyant behavior is a product of a gay culture
that “force-feeds” it, thanks to a pervasive contempt for masculinity.
“Every group requires conformity,” Alvear writes. “Straight soci¬
ety expects you to act like a man; gay society expects you to act like a
woman. Not every gay man has a vagina hiding in his boxers. But ip
gay culture, you're supposed to act like you do” (p. 66).
As Alvear sees it, much of gay society's contempt for all things
butch mirrors straight society's fear and loathing of effeminacy. “In
gay life there's a sense that anybody who isn't a screaming queen is
just pretending not to be” (p. 66). His thoughts would likely rankle a
good chunk of a community that at least gives lip service to the idea
that people should be allowed to be whoever they are, or think they
are, but I found some voices of agreement.
“It seems like I spent the first half of my life trying to win some kind
of acceptance from straight people,” said Ken, a twenty-eight-year-old
teacher in Michigan. “Now when I go out, I'm accused of being
too-butch just because I happen to like to wear loose jeans and flannel
shirts. Damn! Is there any place in the world for a regular guy who
just happens to be gay?”
“There is a segment of the gay community that accepts the effemi¬
nate man as the homosexual ideal,” notes Betty Berzon. “There are
members of the gay community who look at masculine guys and say,
‘No, you're just not gay enough.' ” And whatever one believes about
the origin of flamboyant behavior—whether it's endemic or a torch
that's passed to every new generation of gay men—it's clearly a
source of bitterness and resentment.
Some of that bitterness leeches into Alvear’s (2000) essay, and he
admits there may be some truth to the accusations he's encountered,
that he's “too uptight, too afraid to enjoy my feminine side, too
tightly-wound to have a little gender-bending fun” (p. 66). His essay
certainly fired up the passions of several readers—one letter to the editor
accused him of trafficking in the same intolerance that gay men have ex¬
perienced since the beginning of time: “Princess macho wannabe—stop
beating your manly breast and get a grip . . . you sound like a scaled
straight boy who is unsure of himself. A fashionable dress, a great
string of pearls (even if faux) and some vagina monologue might do
 Dude Looks Like a Lady 93

you some good.” Another wrote, “The point is there's a big difference
between being naturally masculine and being ‘straight acting’ . . .
when a masculine man falls into the ‘pansy vortex’ it has nothing to
do with gay society’s supposed pressures to do so; it’s more likely he
was never naturally masculine to begin with.”
“No one learns how to be more gay in the gay scene,” contended
Wayne from Washington. “What the gay scene does is give people
the complete, unadulterated freedom to discover who they truly are.
When some people encounter this freedom, the inner queen that may
have been repressed for decades comes screaming out of the closet.
We should be happy that these folks can finally be what God made
them, instead of castigating them for refusing to continue to pretend
to be who they are not.”
Still, it's clear that Alvear’s (2000) words do give voice to the feel¬
ings of countless, less-articulate men, those whose own lack of flam-
boyancy—and lack of desire to play along—makes them feel like
outsiders looking in: “If you don't camp it up, you'll be attacked for
being uptight; if you don’t swish ’n’ dish, you’ll be considered a bore;
if you don’t try on the dress, you won’t be invited back” (p. 66).
 Chapter 7

Be All You Can Be

Some of the toughest sons of bitches I ever met were guys you
might call sissies . . . you might call 'em that once . . .
then they'd have your ass in a headlock.

Anonymous Army Sergeant

Andy is a twenty-four-year-old Marine Corps corporal stationed

on a base “somewhere on the East Coast.” He told me the story of a
fellow Marine named Scott, “a super-slim, wispy kid who hardly
looked like the type to take out a machine gun nest.” As Andy told it,
Scott had a very feminine gait to him, a soft, almost girlish-sounding
voice, baby-fine blond hair, and these “big luminous eyes that any
supermodel would die for.”
Andy's first thought when he met Scott a few years back at NCO
School—that's noncommissioned officer to you nonmilitary types
—was something like, Oh, no . . . this kicl is so gay . . . he's going to
get eaten alive here. “But stupid me,” said Andy. “It turned out Scott
was an expert marksman who could outshoot me on his worst day,
and he didn’t have too many of those. He could also run incredibly
fast—many a time I dragged my sorry ass in from a five-mile run and
Scott was already there, waiting for me at the finish line, hardly even
sweating or breathing hard. This kid was a Marine to the bone.” Andy
paused a second, remembering. “He was fucking cute, too.”
After they’d been friends for awhile, Andy said he began to believe
Scott must be one of those rare guys you meet from time to time, a
fellow who's truly straight despite all outward appearances. “He was
kind of girlish, but I never really got a gay vibe from him,” Andy said.
That impression was only reinforced once Andy found out Scott was
married with a brand-new baby boy. “He came to me all overjoyed
96 SISSY PHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

one day after his family got clearance to move into base housing,”
Andy recalled. “He said they were moving in that weekend, then hav¬
ing a big party to celebrate, and I had to be there.”
It was a party, all right; Andy said there were two dozen jarheads,
assorted spouses and girlfriends, loud music, and booze and beer
as far as the eye could see. “I got totally sloshed right away. But it's
funny about drinking—I'm not sure if it's just me, or whether it's some¬
thing a lot of other gay guys have, but even when I'm totally shit¬
faced, I always remember who and what I am—I may be drunk off
my ass, but I never do or say anything gay that I'm going to have to
explain later.”
Scott, it seems, did not share that trait. “I don't think anyone else no¬
ticed, but as the party went along he began to, well, flirt with me pretty
heavy— he’d sit next to me on the couch, making full body contact
along one side, leaning in and talking real close to my face. Straight
boys do not generally do that, and they usually don't feel your ass in the
kitchen when you get up for another drink. Marines do that grab-ass
stuff in the barracks a lot, stuff that has a certain homoerotic feel to
it—which sort of turns me on—but it doesn't go any further.”
Andy said this went a lot further—all the way down the hall from
Scott's kitchen into his bedroom, where Scott locked the door behind
them and pulled Andy down on the bed. “I was so surprised that, for
once, my little safety voice shut up, and things got pretty hot and heavy
for a few moments—right up until his wife started banging on the bed¬
room door. That woke up his kid, who started bawling from his crib at
the foot of the bed. So much for that blow job he was giving me. We got
out of that bedroom fast, and I hightailed it home to the barracks.”
That Monday, Andy said he heard whispers here and there about
the party; the military rumor mill is quite an awesome machine,
though its reach often extends beyond its accuracy. Word had spread
about Scott's little indiscretion—apparently there'd been quite a
scene between husband and wife once Andy left—but the facts of the
argument were somewhat garbled, something about Scott's wife
catching him fooling around with some “chick.” Not a word was
mentioned about any boy-on-boy action, and Andy said his name
never came up.
“I was fucking relieved about that, sure,” he says. “But Scott kept
his distance from me from that point on. I was never invited back for
 Be.All You Can Be 97

any more parties, which really sucks, because I have to say that boy
gave some primo head.”

A FEW GOOD MEN

A lot of folks have asked me over the years why on earth I (or any
other gay man, for that matter) would ever enlist in the Marine Corps.
I tell them that, as with anyone else who opts for a military hitch, I
had a number of motives: job training, money for school, travel, and
breaking out of my suburban rut among them. The military promised
to open up some doors for me, and if I was going to make the jump, I
intended to make it a dramatic one, hence the Marines. All my friends
were aghast at the time; none seemed able to understand why anyone
who's already “come out” would voluntarily go back “in” to become
part of such a famously gay-unfriendly organization.
Much more mystifying to some, however, is why any gay man who
exhibits even the slightest amount of effeminate behavior would ever
venture into such a hothouse of heterosexuality. My good friend Steven
Zeeland is the author of several books about gay life in the U.S. military,
among them Sailors and Sexuality and TJje Masculine Marine: Homo-
eroticism in the U.S. Marine Corps. He suggests that gay men do in
fact join up for many of the same reasons as their straight counterparts,
but some are hoping for more than job training or educational opportu¬
nity. “Some are definitely seeking the company of men, while others, es¬
pecially those that join the Marines, are often hoping their experience
will masculinize them, or even heterosexualize them,” he says. “It does
seem like the military man is the masculine ideal, and I find in many a
gay civilian a yearning for the sort of camaraderie—a sort of gay
‘brother love'—that they imagine must exist among military men.”
Although I don’t think I made my decision in a bid for greater
“butchness”—at least not in any conscious way—it's clear many do ex¬
actly that; in all the armed forces, but especially in the Army and Marine
Coips, young men learn to handle intense physical stress and psycholog¬
ical pressure, to accept, even revel in, adversity to prove their worth to
their superiors and comrades. It truly is a warrior mind-set, with all
the attendant customs and rituals that often look appallingly barbaric
98 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

to outsiders—and terribly alluring to those who look to military life

as a way of awakening the slumbering butch boy within.
But as Andy's tale of his erstwhile buddy Scott illustrates, some¬
times the butch boy is slow to wake up, or he never wakes up at all.
And that's when issues of effeminate behavior in the most masculine
of environments come to a head. Now it might seem to some rather
bizarre—or somehow inappropriate—to examine sissyphobia as it
exists inside the military in an era when incidents of gay bashing or
harassment perpetrated on service members seem to make headlines
weekly, and when the military's “don't ask, don't tell'' policy itself is
under heavy fire. Many of the service members investigated or dis¬
charged for homosexuality wouldn’t fall into anyone's category of
“identifiably gay,” or even slightly effeminate; they come under scru¬
tiny mainly because of minor, innuendo, or their choice of off-base
companions. Only occasionally does their sexuality become an issue
because of their outward behavior, or incidents such as that which oc¬
curred between Andy and Scott. Whatever the reason, once “flagged
as fags,” they frequently fall victim to the powers-that-be, who hand
them their walking papers and show them the door.
It would be all too easy for me—a victim of a rumor, I was myself
discharged under the old “no tolerance” policy in 1990—to stray off
the main course I've outlined for this book and rail against the injus¬
tice of it all. But that's not why I'm here. Of course, I think the ban on
gays is unjust, as do I think most gay men, and any sort of harassment
of gay service members is equally (if not more) abhorrent. You don't
need to hear me run on about it. Far more intriguing, and more on
point for our purposes, are the stories of men who felt they had to
change the way they behaved as best they could to survive their tours
of duty, those whose effeminate behavior collided head-on with their
closeted comrades or the military establishment—even those whose
behavior was accepted or somehow overlooked.

DUTY CALLS

Consider John, a twenty-three-year-old sailor who's been enlisted

now for more than four years. “Four years done, two left,” John said
about his current hitch. “And I won't be reenlisting.” John grew up in
 Be All You Can Be 99

“your typical small southern town, and I wanted to get as far away as
fast as I could. You can say what you want about the Navy—God
knows I do—but when the recruiter said Fd get to see the world, he
wasn't lying.”
Still, John said he’s seen a lot more of the world than he wanted to,
at least when it comes to some of the attitudes displayed among his
fellow sailors. “I wasn't kidding myself when I joined—Fd been
what my father used to call delicate for most of my life—I knew Fd
have to try and act a little straighter if I was going to make it. My gay
friends said Fd have one of two things happen: either they’d throw me
overboard if they found out I was gay, or else Fd get real popular once
the lights went out.”
Neither happened, as it turns out. John said no one ever suspected
he was gay, “just quiet or reserved is how they'd probably describe
me—trust me, no one knows the real me.” His ruse was so successful,
in fact, that when an effeminate young man came on board a few
years back, John was invited to join in on hazing him with the rest of
crew. “I never did anything to the poor guy, and my heart really went
out to him the way the other guys would make these aide comments
and just pick on him mercilessly. He put up with a lot of shit, and I
mean that literally; one time one of the guys actually took a crap in his
rack. He never told anyone what was happening, never reported it to
the watch, just put up with the abuse.
“I wanted to take the kid aside—Fm guessing he was gay—but I
just couldn't risk getting close enough to him to find out. Pretty gut¬
less, I know—he was still on that ship when I got transferred to shore
duty, and still putting up with a lot of shit.”
Brian has a different take. He told me little else other than the fact
that he's an Air Force officer: “That’s because Fm probably risking a
lot just talking with you at all.” I told Brian that I understood his cau¬
tion in this time of service-sponsored witch hunts. “Man, you don't
even know the half of it,” he said. “There's lots of scared people in
uniform right now. Sometimes I feel like we have to act like monks if
we're going to have any kind of military career.”
Then Brian told me about a young airman in his command who
bucked that monastic attitude from the first day he arrived on base. “I
don't know who this guy thinks he’s fooling. We’re not Marines or
soldiers, and we tend to be pretty casual compared to the ground
100 SISSYPHOBIA: GA Y MEN AND EFFEM1NA TE BEHA VIOR

pounders. But this kid—he comes strutting in every morning to the

office like he's on the catwalk. I hear the way the gay kids talk these
days, and he's always talking the talk, laughing it up with the female
airmen like he's just one of the girls. At first I thought he was actually
Dying to get kicked out for being gay, but then I had a heart-to-heart
with him, and he said he wanted to do his four years and save up some
money for school. He's good at his job, believe me, and there's a part
of me that sort of admires the way he doesn't give a fuck—but I just
want to scream at him, kButch up!' It's only a matter of time before
someone else puts two and two together and gets queer.”
“When I joined the Army, I was sure no one would be able to tell I
was gay,” said Brandon. “I must have been on drugs. The drill ser¬
geant had me figured out in about a week, and the rest of the recruits
not long after that. I didn't even make it through basic before I was
discharged, and that's just fine with me. I have to tell you I don't think
I'm that obvious, but my secret was out in no time.”
There certainly are those whose “secret” isn't much of a secret at all,
but in some cases, no one seems to care. Steven is a twenty-nine-year-old
Navy corpsman stationed at a hospital that serves a nearby Marine Coips
base. “I've been in now for more than ten years, and at first I did the
‘butch' thing—as well as I could do it, anyway. I'd have to say my tine
nature is pretty obvious, and it was just too much of a chore to watch
every little gesture I made, or every word I said.”
Steven said he “got a lot happier” once he dropped the facade sev¬
eral years ago. “I fully expected people would talk, and they do make
their little comments. I never confirm anything; I just laugh it off.”
That's especially true with the Marines who find their way to sick bay
when he’s on duty. “I do love the jarheads; that's a fact. Honestly, the
guys who come in out of the field with their little bumps and bruises
seem to be glad it's me that's taking care of them—I guess they know
I'll treat 'em right. Do they make the occasional homo joke? Sure
they do, and I make some dumb jarhead joke right back to them. It
may sound like I'm some sort of queer Uncle Tom, but I sort of like it,
because I don't think they'd never tease me so if they weren't com¬
fortable with me.”
Still, Steven said the recent winds stirred up by “don't ask, don't
tell” may be signaling a sea of change. “That stupid policy really has
a lot of guys on edge. It's like, ‘Now we know that some queers man-
 Be All You Can Be 101

aged to sneak in, we'll look harder for them.' The last few years, peo¬
ple don't make as many jokes about it as they used to. I'd love to do
my twenty and retire—I'd hate to have to do that butch thing again. I
don't know if I can remember how.”

MARY, GET YOUR GUN

The masculine image of the military man has become a staple of

our popular culture, most notably in movies. From 1941's Sergeant
York to 1998's Saving Private Ryan, it’s a nearly unbroken succession
of stoic heroism and all-American sacrifice, and many civilians, gay
and straight, have asked me over the years if the hype is in fact
grounded in reality. They're clearly fascinated by the stories they hear
of basic training and the relationship between drill instructor and raw
recruit, the tight camaraderie of the barracks, and the apparent will¬
ingness of fresh-scrubbed lads to follow orders without question and lay
then* lives on the line. I tell them the truth as I see it, based on my
seven and a half years of active duty: although the masculine military
man is overblown at times by Hollywood script writers, or lam¬
pooned by gay comedians who maintain every Marine or soldier is a
fey homo just waiting to be set free and throw his boots up in the air,
the apparent image is pretty much an accurate one.
As you might imagine, it doesn't take much in the way of effemi¬
nate behavior to stand out in such a macho environment. Mannerisms
and vocal inflections that wouldn’t be worth a second glance in civil¬
ian society are rainbow-colored flares that draw attention here, espe¬
cially when so many are “on edge” when it comes to homosexuality.
As one straight soldier stationed in the Midwest told me, “I don't
have any problem with gay people doing their thing; I just don't want
them living with me in the barracks.” I pointed out to him that many
people see that as a backward, somewhat unenlightened viewpoint.
“Whatever, man. Let those people pick up an M16 and put their packs
on, come out with us on a twenty-five-miler in the rain. Let's see if
they've got what it takes do some hand-to-hand or take some enemy
fire. We’ve got to be tight; we've got to trust each other. If some guy
wants to be gay and he keeps it quiet, I guess that's cool, if I don't
102 SISSY PHOBIA: GAY MEN AMD EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

know about it. But if I see some guy acting faggy, I’m going to say
something. We don't need that here.”
It may surprise you to find that this straight soldier’s opinion is one
that's shared by a number of gay service members. “It's one thing for
a guy to be obvious if he's out in town,” one gay Marine from San
Diego told me. “I don't act much differently when I'm in a club—
most guys who cruise Marines are hoping they'll be just what's
advertised—but if someone wants to go all crazy femme off base,
that's his business. The problem is, some guys don't seem to realize
you can't bring that through the gate with you.” Another Marine in
North Carolina told me about an effeminate buddy of his who came
under investigation, and how he was worried he might suffer a similar
fate simply because the two were known to hang out from time to
time. “There's this old grunt saying about not drawing fire because it
pisses off the people around you,” he said. “You have to keep that ob¬
viously gay shit on the ‘down low' if you want to wear the uniform.”
I talked with an Army sergeant just back from an overseas tour.
“I've known maybe a handful of guys in the last ten years or so who
you might call effeminate, but whatever they lacked in masculinity,
they made up in toughness. I guess they figured they had to be that
way to take care of themselves.” The sergeant said they reminded him
most of women who also felt they had to prove themselves. “And it's
funny, most of the time it worked. But there was this one kid who got
a perfect score on the physical fitness tests and aced all the combat
tactics courses—they wanted to make him Soldier of the Month, right
up until the time he opened his mouth in the interview. I think that's
when command realized he was probably a fruit. I guess there's such
a thing as drawing too much attention to yourself. You never know
who's watching.”
Don is a forty-year-old former Air Force sergeant whose career
was cut short by a military “sting” operation. “I got caught after I
gave my number to an undercover narc at a bar in DC almost twenty
years ago.” Don told me he was part of a whole group of airmen who
were busted and tossed out of the USAF for their sexual orientation.
“I'm not sure what tipped them off to send agents into that place—it
might have been a random thing, or they might have tailed us.” I
asked Don if any of his crew were “obvious,” and he paused for a mo¬
ment. “I don't think / was, but some of the guys—yeah, they were a
 Be All You Can Be 103

little light in the flight boots. I can tell you the guy who set me up was
really playing up the femme thing. The shitty thing is, I really didn't
go in for effeminate guys. I was just drunk and horny and this guy was
really coming on to me—he asked for my number, and I gave it to
him. They were waiting for me at work on Monday. I was discharged
a few weeks later.”
“You could say I'm really conflicted about this,” said one Navy of¬
ficer in Virginia. “I don't like to see anyone kicked out for being gay,
or harassed because he's ‘acting gay.’ If I catch anyone doing that on
my ship, his ass is on report, no question. But at the same time, I can't
say I like to be in the presence of effeminate men, either. I am a fairly
masculine guy, and I like to be with other masculine guys. My brain
told me that swishy guys probably can't help being swishy; my heart
said they probably don't belong in the Navy if that's how they're go¬
ing to act.”

TARGETS OF OPPORTUNITY

Back in Chapter 1, we heard from one small-town gay man who

suggested that effeminate behavior, at least for him, was a welcome
sign that offered the possibility of companionship. Although most
gay service members I interviewed said they’ve often tried hard to
avoid anyone who might make them appear “guilty by association,” a
few have found a “gentler” comrade very much to their liking, even if
the attraction or the circumstances sometimes took them by surprise.
Dave was stationed at an Army base in Indiana in the late 1980s. “I
was a sergeant then, in charge of forty-odd junior enlisted guys dur¬
ing the week. On weekends in the summer I'd hang out at the pool,
just chilling, and I'd tell them all to just stay the hell away from me
unless there's a war or something. Anyway, I started seeing this
young guy come in, all ‘swishy' like—he’d saunter over to one of the
deck chairs and make a big deal about spreading his towel out, then
sitting his dainty little ass down. I figured he had to be a civilian, no
way he could be military acting like that.
“He caught me looking at him one time, and he smiled kind of
slyly—understand here, he may have been swishy, but the boy had a
nice body on him, and a real cute face. I told myself to get the hell out
104 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

of there, but damn—I'd been so busy for so long I hadn't been ‘out'
anywhere for a month of Sundays. Now here’s this cute guy cruising
me. We made a game of it for a few weeks; he even upped the ante a
little bit, started turning his deck chair and adjusting himself so I
could see up his baggy shorts just enough to make me crazy. I finally
said fuck it and followed him inside to the hot tub, where we fooled
around for a little bit, sitting across from each other with our toes do¬
ing the talking underwater. I know this sounds sort of seedy, but we
hadn't even said a word to each other yet.
“I got dressed and left, and he caught up to me outside. That's
when I found out he was a private first class going to a base training
school, and shipping out to Panama in a week or so. I was taking all
sorts of chances—he was still acting really feminine, and I'd never
been with a feminine guy in my life—but that didn't stop me from
sneaking him back to my room and ‘doing the do’ with him for the
rest of the afternoon. I don't think a week goes by when I don’t re¬
member that day and smile.”
“In my time in the Coips, I knew exactly two effeminate guys, and I
ended up having a thing with both of them,” said former Marine Pete,
now a civilian newspaper reporter. “They were two of the ‘swishiesf
guys you'd ever probably see, but no one had a problem with it.” I
asked him how. “It's easy—they were both foreigners. I came across a
saying once—I don't know where it comes from—‘He's not gay; he's
European.' That's how these guys survived; they just sort of hid their
gayness behind their accents. I never really went in for effeminate
guys—if I'd met either one of those guys in a bar I probably wouldn't
have looked twice—but each one lived in my barracks at various
times. Having them so close at hand turned out to be more temptation
then I could handle. And like we used to say, sometimes shit just hap¬
pens.”
Bill is a thirty-year-old former Marine who served in Desert
Storm. “I was a supply guy, which means I pretty much stayed far be¬
hind the lines—I didn't see any action, not up close anyway. Just a lot
of flashes of light in the sky and the occasional Scud or Patriot missile
flyover.” Bill said he was a reservist lance corporal getting close to
figuring out “which way my dick was swinging, you know, whether I
was gay, bi, whatever,” when duty landed him in the Saudi desert. “I'd
 Be All You Can Be 105

had some girlfriends back home in Texas, and we’d had sex, but I was
thinking about guys more and more all the time.”
Suddenly, 10,000 miles from home, living and working in the sand
with 500,000 U.S. troops, Bill said sex was the furthest thing from his
mind, except for relieving some “stress” the old-fashioned, one-handed
way. “I used to sneak off before taps and find some quality time in one of
the supply tents between the crates. I was on my way there one night,
homy and already half hard, and I ran into this guy coming the other way
wearing all this running gear, a sweatshirt and srtiff. We started shooting
the shit; he said he was from another platoon, just out for a run.
“He was older than me, good-looking, and just a little bit femme,
just a little bit, you know, different. For some reason, that kind of ex¬
cited me—that, and the fact that he seemed to keep looking down at my
crotch.” Before too long, Bill said he and his new buddy, Matt, were re¬
lieving stress together inside the tent. “My first time with a guy, and it
was awesome. I'd never liked femmy guys before at all, but with Matt
it was cool. We started meeting there a few times a week, never any
kind of prearrangement, and if anyone else was around, we'd just keep
walking past each other and wait for the next night.”
Then Matt vanished. “This was just about the time the ground war
started, and I figured he must have gotten transferred. It really sucked be¬
cause I think I was falling in love with him. I didn't even know his last
name, or really anything about him.” A week or so later, with the ground
war over, Bill was loading supplies when a platoon of Marines from the
front rolled in. “I looked up, and there was Matt, sitting in the front of [a]
Humvee. He was just a completely different guy. I'd never seen him in
uniform before—I had no idea he was a freakin’ officer—but he was
looking lwd, like some guy from a war movie who’s just kicked some
major ass. He saw me, I saluted him, he saluted back, and there was just
this little smile on his face. I thought about tracking him down, espe¬
cially after I got out, but for all I know, he’s got a wife and kids. And he's
probably a general by now. He sure made me see some stars.”

TRUE DECEIVERS

Chet is a twenty-five-year-old Marine sergeant currently serving

overseas. He told me about Roger, with whom he was stationed at one
106 SISSYPH0B1A: GA Y MEN AND EFFEM1NA TE BE HA V10R

of my old commands, Quantico Marine Coips Base in Virginia.

“Most gay Marines I know are pretty undetectable,” said Chet. “If we
happen to run into each other in a gay bar, there’s this real awkward
moment, like we're scared somebody’s about to get busted for being
in a fag bar. When we realize that we’re both there for the same rea¬
son, it's kind of like finding your long-lost brother.”
But, as Chet explained it, his pal Roger was more like a long-lost
sister. “Dude, this guy was flaming. The second he opened his mouth
I'd just try to get real small and disappear 'cause it was so embarrass¬
ing how gay he sounded. I wasn't embarrassed for me—no one had a
clue I was gay, and they still don't. I was worried people might start to
wonder about him.”
So how did Roger keep suspicion at bay? “Easy,” Chet told me.
“He was married to another Marine. Her name is Marie, and she
worked across the base. People would see them together at the Ex¬
change or out in town, and that kept them from talking so much. It
was like all he had to do was flash that wedding ring. Marines are like
a lot of straight people; they’re kind of blinded to the obvious if a guy
has a chick in his life.”
And Chet said the deception worked, even though the “chick” in
question had some secrets of her own. “Marie is a total lesbo,” he
said. “Quantico used to have a separate barracks for women, and the
story is most of the lesbians ended up on the third floor, what they
called the ‘dyke deck.' She'd have been right at home up there.”
Getting married made it possible for the two to get allowances that
let them live off base, where they shared an apartment, one with two
bedrooms. “I know they're actually pretty good friends, but he's got
his life, and she’s got hers. They're just roomies with a marriage li¬
cense who got hitched to keep people from talking, and fuck me if it
hasn't worked out for 'em.”
I know of other gay service members who've used marriage simi¬
lar to Roger and Marie, but that's a fairly drastic step; most have em¬
ployed tamer tactics, such as the young soldier named Ron who told
me that he keeps a picture of his high school sweetheart pinned up in
his wall locker “just in case” anyone ever gets suspicious about him.
“She actually was my girlfriend, but that was before I realized I was
gay. When I'm back home now, we go out clubbing and pick up boys
 Be All You Can Be 107

together.” Ron said he’s “pretty sure” no one's got him tagged, but he
isn't taking any chances—sometimes things slip out by accident.
“I was in the chowhall with a buddy of mine—he's gay too—and
we were kidding around with each other. Neither one of us is ‘obvi¬
ous,’ not while we’re on post anyway, but when we go out sometimes,
I think we let our hair down some to fit in with other gay guys. I guess
he forgot where we were, and he called me ‘girl’ by accident. Under¬
stand, there were like five other guys sitting nearby, and I think every
one of them heard it. Their faces went all blank, then they busted out
laughing; they thought it was really funny, that he was just making
fun of Tags' who talk like that. I played it off, too, but you should've
seen the way I was sweating under my uniform. That was just too
close for comfort.”
 Chapter 8

The Next Generation

I celebrate myself.

Walt Whitman

It is a sparkling springtime afternoon in the heart of the nation's capital,

which, for one weekend at least, has become Gaytown, USA. Hundreds of
thousands of gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered folks have
made their way here for the Millennium March on Washington. On this
fine day, the Mall serves as much more than any “ad hoc gathering
place." The air is filled with music and the sound of speeches and
chants calling for equality; tasty smells waft over from the food stands
along Pennsylvania Avenue; and the rainbow-colored signs are simply
everywhere amid a throng bookended by the U.S. Capitol on one side
and the Washington Monument on the other.
Those aren't the only sights to see, of course, especially for the
male-oriented eye; though the gathering is thick with families, and
females of all sexual persuasions crowd the landscape, thousands of
men are here, many of them proudly shirtless in the warm April sun.
Certainly, there's a seriousness to the event, the first national march
since 1993; the ralliers are here to press for a dozen social causes—
passage of hate crimes legislation, support for gay marriage, ending
the ban on gays in the military, just to name a few. But it's also un¬
deniably a party, and for some here, it's the first such “great gather¬
ing" of gay men they’ve ever attended—the temptation to get lost in
some healthy boy watching is just too strong to resist.
Josh is a twenty-year-old college student who drove down from Long
Island with a carload of friends. “I'd heard New York Pride was big, but
wow ..." he says, his words trailing off as a whole coterie of well-mus¬
cled types ambles by, and a big smile crosses his face. “This is wild,
man."

109
110 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

His friends agree. They confess that it's hard to listen to the speeches
and calls to arms for more than a few minutes before their attentions are
drawn away by more handsome lads than they can count. What's more,
they refuse to apologize for it. “Don't forget the middle part of homosex¬
ual is sex? says Adam, also twenty. “The whole reason some people hate
us is because we like to have sex with other guys. What better way to
show we're not afraid or ashamed than to show some appreciation for
our sexuality?” A tall, athletically endowed man chooses that moment to
walk by us and shoot a glance in Adam's direction. “And I appreciate
that',' Adam says, finishing his thought with a grin.
Explaining my book and my mission here to find out how gay men
regard their effeminate brothers—and take part in some boy watching
myself—I spend a few moments with the group. They turn out to be
an interesting cross-section of young gay America: Josh and Adam
are the very model of the average college student, up to and including
a strong, underlying interest in getting laid; eighteen-year-old Davey
is a fair-haired, self-described “candy raver” who’s graduating from
high school in a few months, and beyond that has no plan; and Chris,
nineteen, is a former high school jock who's putting off college until
he decides whether or not to enlist in the Army. (He told me his par¬
ents have no idea where he is right now: “I told them I was spending
the weekend with some friends.” He looks around the Mall at the
crowd. “Which I guess I sort of am.”)
“I never really think about whether a guy is effeminate, ” said Adam,
who along with his three friends was up late the night before club hop¬
ping through the city's crowded bars. “The only thing I care about is
whether he's cute—last night I must've danced with twenty guys in three
different clubs, and I'd say maybe half of them were ‘obvious,' though
it's hard to say who was really obvious, and who was just flaming out for
the crowd.”
“We were all flamers last night,” chimes in Josh. “This is the weekend
you're supposed to let it all hang out, right?” Josh said he's the only one
of the four who's fully out to his family, though Adam told me he's get¬
ting close. (“Just waiting for the right moment,” he assures me.) I turn to
Davey, who's done up in over-the-top baggy pants, boots, form-fitting
tank top and choker chain, with various rainbow-colored bracelets and
accessories. “Like I keep it a secret,” he says. “This is actually dress¬
ing down for me. Trust me, everyone knows.” That leaves Chris, who
 The Next Generation 111

shakes his head. “No way, man. Too much to lose right now. But that
doesn't mean I wasn’t curious to see what was going on down here.”
“Don't worry,” Josh says. “We’ll have him up there making speeches in
no time, just like the gay football player.” Josh's reference to the “football
player”—a young Massachusetts man who spoke a few minutes before
about how he came out to his team and his high school, apparently
without serious incident—gets a visible rise out of Chris. Noticing that,
I take him aside quietly.
“Look, don't get me wrong, I really love these guys, and whatever
happens, I hope we stay friends forever,” he confides. “But I'm just not
that casual about coming out, especially if I decide to join the Army.
They’re trying to talk me out of that, by the way,” he says, pointing
back at his three friends.
Chris and I speak for a few moments while his friends go back to
scanning the crowd. I ask him if the popular association between effemi¬
nate guys and being gay is influencing his decision. “I never really
thought about it like that, but, yeah, that’s probably got something to do
with it. I love Davey like he’s my brother, even if he is into all the club
stuff, but I’m not, like, attracted to him. I like guys who are jocks, or mil¬
itary guys, you know, the whole ‘butch' thing. And when it comes to
coming out, I guess I don’t want people to think of me like that, you
know, have my family think that I'm going to be ‘faggy'just because I'm
gay. I probably shouldn’t care, but [he pauses] I guess I’m just your typi¬
cal confused gay kid.”

HOLDING BACK THE QUEERS

There was a time in America when we all spoke about the “melting
pot,” that historic process by which millions of folks who came here
from distant shores found a way to blend in with the prevailing cul¬
ture—itself an amalgam of dozens of other culhires already here—until
we were all presumed to be part of the same great red, white, and blue
soup. Such complete assimilation is little more than a popular conceit; at
best, we’re something resembling a salad, where ideally each ingredi¬
ent retains its own individual flavor while complementing the rest.
Most American gay men didn't travel here from some exotic for¬
eign land; they emerged as something “alien” from within the bos¬
oms of their own homes and families. Many times I've tried to make
112 S1SSYPH0BIA: GA Y MEN AND EFFEM1NA TE BEHA VIOR

my straight friends understand just how strange it can be to grow up

that way, to hear your very parents and friends talk about gays as
“those people” and shake their heads, all the while wondering to
yourself just how it was you came to be an outsider simply because of
certain desires you felt rumbling through your soul.
Small wonder then that so many who grew up in that fashion—most
of us “typical confused gay kids” like Chris—now feel a yearning for
acceptance and recognition. But as I review the hundreds of com¬
ments and opinions I've gathered over the course of year, it becomes
increasingly clear to me that there's a number of gay men who see
their effeminate counterparts—especially those with publicly flam¬
boyant personalities—as a major stumbling block toward that end.
As we've seen throughout this book, effeminate behavior has a way
of punching buttons that fire up deep-seated phobias and resentments
in thousands of gay men who might not consider themselves preju¬
diced in any other way. “If I see a personal ad that said ‘no femmes,' I
don't even notice it,” said Chuck, who works as a personal trainer in
West Hollywood. “I see that all the time. I’ve also hung out with guys
who whistle and make comments if a real flamey guys goes by. But if
that ad said ‘no blacks' [Chuck is black, by the way] I'd get real
pissed. And if I heard some white gay guys saying shit about black
gay guys, I'd be ready to ‘throw down.' I might get just as pissed if the
same thing was going on with Latinos, since I have a lot of Latino
buds, but I've never got all hot and bothered about defending effemi¬
nate guys, even though I have some friends who act that way. Funny
how this is a prejudice we've all sort of just accepted, isn't it?”
“I think the vast majority of men view effeminate guys as throw¬
backs, or worse,” said Peter from Los Angeles. “I think many gay men
would like to see effeminate men kept out of sight of the straight world,
feeling that femmes are a liability in the quest for equal rights ”
“I think the gay movement now is moving toward assimilation, a
desire to be accepted by straight society,” said Bill Brownell of the
online publication Max4Men. He believes there’s a lot of “pressure”
to hide the effeminate stereotype, for various reasons. “Society is
willing to accept gay people only to a certain extent, and the openly
femme type need not apply. I think that position is encouraged by our
gay leaders who want to be accepted by political and social institu¬
tions.” The Human Rights Campaign's Wayne Besen disputes that.
 The Next Generation 113

"There are several spokespeople of major gay and lesbian groups

who fit their respective stereotypes,” he said, though he made it clear
his opinions are personal observations, not any kind of official posi¬
tion. “There are also major gay stars out there that no one would con¬
fuse with Mister T. With modem media, it would be impossible to
keep anybody off the airwaves who wants to be heard.”
If that's true, many gay men don't like much what they’re hearing—
or whom they're hearing it from. “I want to say, ‘Live and let live,’ ” said
Rob, a thirty-year-old library worker in Saint Paul, Minnesota. “But I
feel like the flame boys aren’t willing to let me live like I’d like to. As
long as they remain the first, middle and last image of what being gay is
all about, no one is going to stand up and speak for us where it counts.
And why should they? They're an embarrassment.”
I told Rob that sounds a little harsh, and he scoffed. “What’s harsh
is that we're not going to go anywhere very fast because of effeminate
guys who control the gay movement. I know all about Stonewall—I
have books to read here, remember—but that was thirty years ago.
Let's forget about the revolution and start writing our constitution.
It’s time we all grew up and joined the real world.”
“I think certain gay men do look at effeminate men as the reason
we’re not accepted by straight society,” said Daved from LA. “It's
complete crap, but people like their scapegoats. Straight men hate ef¬
feminate men because they betray the masculine facade and perhaps
represent what straight men hate about women; gay men think straight
people think we're all sissies, so being a swishy fag brings out that vis¬
ceral dislike. The truth is, unless we’re all fucking women, we'll proba¬
bly never be fully accepted.”
Some men suggest that it’s not so much the reality of effeminate or
flamboyant men that's a problem, as much as it is the perception of
such men that's spread by popular media. “Why is it that after every
Gay Pride parade you see Time or Newsweek with pictures of some
guy on a float wearing a huge feather headdress and pink boa, while
the fleets of marchers in T-shirts and jeans get ignored?” asked
Danny, a thirty-six-year-old actor/writer in New York. “If the entirety
of gay men were as unrecognizable as Everyman, borders would blur
and the categorization of society would be impossible. There's an un¬
fortunate power in segregating the world into us versus them. I be-
114 SISSYPH0B1A: GA Y MEN AND EFFEMINA TE BE11A V10R

lieve acceptance into the broader world we live in is extremely

important, for minorities especially.”
Others couldn't disagree more. “Nothing is more dangerous to the
queer liberation movement than the idea that we have to repackage
ourselves for straight approval, to become uniformly sanitied, con¬
ventional, nice, safe gay people,” said Jonathan, the college professor
from Washington, DC. “No group in history has ever overcome op¬
pression by being charming and persuading the dominant groups to
be tolerant. They overcome by building their own power to be able to
defend themselves . . . those who are most challenging of our ideas
about gender are also most important in order to push out the enve¬
lope of what's permissible in our culture.”
“Acceptance in the broader world doesn't mean shit to me,” said
Jaye from Portland, Oregon. “It's not like straight people can get rid of
us—we're everywhere! I don't feel that gay people will ever fully as¬
similate, and we don’t have to; we're strong enough. What's more im¬
portant is why we're not as unified as we should be as a community.”
“Let's face it, our community consists of millions of different indi¬
viduals who are bound together because of who we love,” said Wayne
Besen. “When you're dealing with human beings, there is no way to
completely eradicate prejudice. All you can do is try, just as you try
with mainstream society. We can never forget that gays are humans,
too, with the same failings and gravitation toward embracing hypoc¬
risy as any other group.”

DISCRIMINATING BEHAVIOR

When you think back over all the stories of criticism, hazing, and
outright abuse relayed in this book, you might begin to believe that of
all the groups and subgroups that comprise our “fractious” gay com¬
munity, it's the effeminate or flamboyant men who most often get the
short end of the stick. Certainly, that case can be made from a histori¬
cal perspective, but many who look at modern gay life suggest that
the worm is turning. “I see as much, or more, bashing of so-called
gym rats and circuit party boys as I do of effeminate men,” said Bill
Brownell. “They're constantly being told that they're psychologi-
 The Next Generation 115

cally impaired in one way or another for their desire for a good body,
or for hanging out at a gym rather than a bar.”
Others feel isolated from a gay social scene that's dominated by men
who worship at that altar of physical perfection. “I’m the ‘fat' you see in the
‘no fats' section of the personal ads,” said Stephen, a thirty-eight-year-old
Internet consultant in Boston. “It's all about how pretty you are, and
most people don't find large men like myself to be very attractive. I'm
also pushing forty, which for a lot of gay guys out there means I’m a
pariah-times-two. At least a young and pretty effeminate guy has an
accepted place in the gay world. I don't.”
The Log Cabin Republicans are a group that takes heavy fire from
all across the gay community for seeking membership in a larger GOP
that doesn't seem to want them as members. (“That makes about as
much sense as Blacks for the KKK or Jewish Nazis,” was how one gay
Democrat put it.) Still they fight the fight, and one official travels all
over the country making countless appearances for the conservative
cause. “Effeminate men often come up to me after I speak and praise
me in a feminine voice for being a good masculine role model—go fig¬
ure.” He said his own coming out was delayed in part because of effem¬
inate stereotypes; gay conservatives have to go through it all over again
and “come out ideologically,” often to the derision of the larger gay com¬
munity, many of whom, he suggested, are stereotypically effeminate.
“Effeminate men have been persecuted and identify better with the
loving therapeutic rhetoric of the Democratic party,” he contended.
“They see themselves as victims, which is also a trademark of liberal
thinking. Gay conservatives are more thoughtful in their politics—being
a gay conservative ensures hassle and conflict, which the gay effemi¬
nate has little stomach for. They want a hug.”
The infighting continues elsewhere as well. In my travels, I’ve also
come across gay men of faith who feel persecuted by a culture that they
see as more likely to worship the almighty dollar than the Almighty
Himself. “I hate to have to tell you all this, but Madonna really isn't
God,” said Evan, a thirty-year-old Arlington, Virginia, resident. “I don't
think even half of the people I know ever think about their spiriaiality.
But they sure don't mind criticizing me for mine.” Jeff, a forty-year-old
New Jersey man, said he and his churchgoing partner are considering
adopting a child, and that decision is causing waves of resentment
among the members of their social circle. “They say we're just caving
116 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

into the idea of aping straight people, that we're selling out. Sometimes I
feel like we're only welcome at parades and political fund-raisers, where
all the groups point to us as the new image of gay people. We don't feel
like the real gay community—whatever that means—supports us at all.
The single boys sure aren’t getting off their asses and voting for our is¬
sues like they probably should be.”
Even that hard-core party crowd of “single boys” feels put upon at
times. “Everywhere I look now it's all about family and responsibility,”
said George, a thirty-five-year-old financial analyst in New York. “And
I say fuck that! I had older friends when I was a teenager first coming
out, and I really envied them for the freedom they had. I don't want to
be responsible for anyone but me—this new gay culture makes me feel
like some kind of dinosaur, like I'm not fit for this new millennium
filled with churches, gay families, and kids.”
If the gay community is a family, it's a family that certainly has its ups
and downs. One's left to wonder what the cost of all this internal sniping
might be. “If general society sees us attacking each other every day, then
of course that just gives them backing and affirmation in their attacks on
gay society,” said Jake from Akron. “I really don't think we can expect
other people to accept us unless we learn to accept each other first. That's
just common sense, in my opinion.”
At face value, it does sound like a reasonable proposition, but
Wayne Besen bristles at its implications. “I think it's silly and defeat¬
ist for anyone to suggest that we be denied our basic rights until all
gay people treat everyone with dignity and respect. Thank God we
didn't use that criteria for other civil rights movements. Imagine if it
were suggested that African Americans were hypocrites to fight for
equal rights because all blacks did not live their lives according to
Martin Luther King’s dream. We, as a minority who is discriminated
against, should know better. And I believe most of us do, but, unfortu¬
nately, some people don't get it, and never will.”

BACK TO THE FUTURE

Before I leave my four Long Island boys to the tender mercies of the
Millennium March, I wish them all good luck, especially young Chris,
who gives me a quick hug, takes a long look around, and tells me he's
glad he's made the trip. “It's really given me lots to think about.”
 The Next Generation 117

That’s exactly what the organizers here have in mind, even if the
voices of those up on the podium sometimes pass the level of shrill
and brush up against excruciating; they want the thousands of folks
who’ve journeyed here to take back home with them some of the en¬
ergy and inspiration forged at this gathering. And despite words that
threaten to run together at times and lose all coherence of message,
there are undeniably moments, however brief, when a soaring phrase
or two summons forth ghosts from other great civil rights movements
that brought their thousands to this very space. On a day with so many
sincere and plaintive cries for acceptance of our diversity, it's not all
that hard to believe that many of the femme-hostile attitudes relayed
in this book may one day fall by the wayside. Isn’t sissyphobia just
one more prejudice that, one day, we shall all overcome?
Indeed, most of the younger folks I encounter in my travels—not
all, surely, but most—are much more accepting of the fluidity of gen¬
der roles than men just a few years older than they. The national gay
youth magazines XY and Joey tout a youth culture seemingly ready to
throw its arms around everyone. The youthful rave scene is another
area where those gender roles almost seem to be checked at the door.
“I'm probably as straight as they come when I'm with my nonrave
friends,” said Sammy, a nineteen-year-old college student in Georgia.
“But when I'm out on the floor under the lights I don't care who has
his or her arms around me, or even who I'm kissing. Rave is all about
being free, and it's just total freedom to forget whether you’re a het-
ero or a homo or whatever—just be whatever, man. If only for that
night.”
That’s an attitude that’s nearly unimaginable to folks who came of
age just ten or fifteen years ago. Could it be there really is a genera¬
tional change in the making?
“Oh, hell yes,” said Louie, an eighteen-year-old high school stu¬
dent in Oklahoma. “Sure we have our rednecks, and probably always
will. They’re always pissed off at someone, 'cause it’s easier to blame
someone else for your problems. But I have a lot of straight friends
who know I'm gay and don't give a shit about it, and I have some really
feminine male friends that I’d die for if I had to. That sissyphobia thing
is for your generation, not mine.”
Christopher, the nineteen-year-old college student in the Chicago
area who we heard from back in Chapter 2, believes gay people will
118 SISSY PHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

only be accepted on the day “when straight people stop fearing the
idea of same-sex love, not when gay guys start acting more mascu¬
line.” The “former high school jock” said he doesn't even notice if
people around him behave effeminately. “Why should I care? They're
people just like me. And I genuinely love all people. I always have,
and I always will.”
But how likely are those attitudes to stick? “It's a generational
change, but it's not a dramatic one,” said Bill Brownell. “Younger
gays often don't want to be categorized as gay or straight; they're
more accepting of sexual differences. But I think as they get out into
the straight world, they may well be forced to make a choice between
being gay or straight.” And that might mean acting one way or an¬
other. “In fifty years, I would hope that gay men would be more ac¬
cepting of less-masculine gays as well as other types, but I don't see a
quick, complete change. There will always be differences, and people
who make judgments based on those differences. That's just human
nature, not gay nature ”

CHANGING STATIONS

How we come to see those differences is largely dependent, as

Danny suggested earlier, on popular media. When I was growing up
as the unknown “alien” in my family's midst, it was a rare occurrence
to turn on the television and find a program that spoke to the peculiar
emotions and desires stirring in my soul, except to condemn them as
deviant or bizarre. It was easy to feel excluded from the world at large
when every movie, popular song, or even magazine ad campaign por¬
trayed that world as a place where men who loved (or just lusted af¬
ter) men were nearly invisible.
Now, in the past decade and a half or so, we've seen a sea change in
just about all of those attitudes. Handsome “boy bands” routinely ac¬
knowledge their gay fan base, as their tunes sit side by side on the pop
charts next to those of Melissa Etheridge or Elton John. Clothing
lines from Abercrombie & Fitch to Dolce & Gabana use clearly
homoerotic imagery to woo gay dollars into their stores. And what¬
ever you happen to think of the tme-to-lifeness of movies such as The
Birdcage or In & Out, you cannot deny then* mainstream appeal—the
 The Next Generation 119

box office and Academy Award successes of Philadelphia, American

Beauty; and Boys Don Y Cry speak for themselves. (There’s also been a
virtual deluge of successful small-scale movies that find their niche
among gay men and adventurous straight audiences alike, from
Beautiful Thing and Get Real to Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss, The
Object of My Affection, and Trick.)
And television? That’s probably the most dramatic change of all.
Whereas once gay characters would either behave indistinguishably
from straights (ABC’s Soap) or be portrayed as over-the-top flamers
(Barney Miller, also on ABC), these days the tube features all shad¬
ings of gay personality, from the femmy Jack (and not so straight¬
acting Will) on NBC’s Will & Grace to the shy and just-coming-out
Jack on the WB’s Dawson's Creek. MTV gets into the act with recur¬
ring gay characters on its dramatic programming, and the network usu¬
ally includes a gay cast member on its long-running The Real World.
The network also goes above and beyond in including young gay peo¬
ple’s perspectives in its coverage of political news.
And those are just a few examples. If you own a television set, you’ve
likely seen actor Bill Brochtrup; since 1995, the thirty-seven-year-old
Midwest native has played the part of John Irvin, the openly gay recep¬
tionist in the hard-boiled 15th Precinct Detective Squad of ABC’s
Emmy Award-winning NYPD Blue. As “gay John,” Bill has become a
regular visitor to millions of homes each week; his character exhibits
many of the effeminate stereotypes so many masculine gay men de¬
spise—somewhat “swishy” in his motions and manner of speech, he
stands out all the more against the grim and emotionally stunted de¬
tectives played by the rest of the cast.
Said Bill, “I don’t know if I'd call John swishy exactly, but, then
again, I slip into the character now without even thinking about it. I
guess I'd say John is rather graceful, a lovely person; he’s very child¬
like in some ways, more in touch with his emotions.”
For some gay men, it’s been a bit of a revelation to see such a char¬
acter appear in the macho cast of a top-rated show, and not be played
for laughs. “I hate cop shows, but when he joined the cast I started
watching,” one viewer told me. “Now I watch all the time.” But,
somewhat predictably, many aren’t pleased with the inclusion of
what they see as a stereotype. One longtime fan expressed his dis-
120 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

pleasure that his favorite cop show would add a gay character, only to
make him “a real faggy guy.”
“I think there are a lot of gay men who'd prefer that all gay men on
television be hunky football player types, but that's not reality, is it?'’
Bill replied. “We all know lots of guys like John; he's representative
of the way a lot of gay men behave. That masculine image some gay
men would like to see . . . well, there's a lot of prejudice inherent in
that, and that's a prejudice we all have to confront in ourselves. I'm
openly gay, but when you say John is swishy, I sort of catch myself
and think, ‘Uh oh.' There’s just such an onus on the feminine in the
gay community. It truly is misogyny on some levels—little boys and
girls are brought up thinking there's only one proper way to act.
That's the bottom line of homophobia, whether it's the phobia we feel
ourselves, or the homophobia straight people have.”
Bill told me he's gotten lots of letters from fans who cheer his work
on. “I got one from an older man who talked about how life was so
hard for him, how tough it was dealing with the stigma of being gay.
I'm an actor, not an activist, but I'm happy to see where things are
now, with positive gay characters on other shows. I feel that young
people who grow up in a world where gay people are a given will just
learn to take it for granted that we're here, and it won't matter so
much. As that happens, maybe some people in the gay community
will begin to look at effeminate men and realize that image doesn't
reflect badly on them.
“I know there are gay men out there who think of themselves as
‘normal,' and they're not attracted to screaming queens, or they don't
want to associate with effeminate men. That's an understandable po¬
sition, but not a very noble one. They're just afraid that straight peo¬
ple will judge them, that straight people will look at them and the guy
in drag and say, ‘You're all the same.' They fear society's finger shak¬
ing more than anything. But once that finger shaking is gone, maybe
they’ll be more ready to embrace each other—even the guy who's in
drag.”
Wayne Besen agrees wholeheartedly with that sentiment. “Gay
people hating other gay people simply because they're effeminate is
based on shame and fear of being like the one they despise.” He also
agrees with Bill Brochtrup that as external social pressures ease up on
 The Next Generation 121

gay men in general, so too will the pressure placed on effeminate men
from inside the gay community.
Some say that pressure is already easing. “I don’t have to go to some
march or show up on Pride Day to see the progress we're making,” said
Jeff, a twenty-five-year-old waiter who lives in Hagerstown, Mary¬
land, a small town about an hour and half from the metropolitan area
of the nation's capital. “Believe it or not, there’s gay life here— when
the clubs let out late Friday or Saturday, this whole troupe of guys just
lands at Denny’s, right there with the high school kids who are hang¬
ing out, and truckers come in off the highway. It’s kind of wild to see
that mix, and the cool thing is, it’s almost more of a party than the
club was, with the lights up bright and the coffee and pancakes every¬
where. We get some curious looks sometimes, but mostly it's very
chilled out, just this big group of people eating and chatting over ta¬
bles.
“Sometimes you end up talking with people who didn't look twice
at you in the bar; sometimes you’re talking with some guy whose rig
is out there in the parking lot; sometimes the straight girls and boys
kind of tease you, and you tease ’em right back, and everybody
laughs. If some of those straight-acting guys could see how much
better it is to just be yourself and not give a shit what anybody else
thinks, they might think twice about those attitudes they have.”
As they say on television, stay tuned.
 Afterword

In what had to be one of the more surreal experiences of my life, in

June 1999,1 found myself sitting beside living history, in the person of
convicted Watergate burglar-turned-author-tumed-actor, now syndi¬
cated radio talk show personality G. Gordon Liddy. Considering the
diametrically opposed nature of our politics, just sitting there would
have been bizarre enough, but we weren’t just sitting. We were chat¬
ting about gay men who look at other gay men and say, “Hey! You're
a bigger sissy than I am!” All for the edification and entertainment of
a national audience.
How I came to be on that show is a story in and of itself. As prepara¬
tions for this book got underway, I was cruising the Internet late one
Sunday evening, bombed out of my skull on cheap bourbon after a
long day spent composing the questions whose answers would later
form the backbone of Sissyphobici. That’s when it occurred to me how
entertaining it might be to tweak someone on the far, far right about
homosexuality, simply as a way of getting some good, red-meat com¬
mentary by which I might define the lunatic fringe that despises us all
so much.
Liddy certainly seemed to qualify. Under the theory that it's al¬
ways a good idea to know your enemy, I listened to his program con¬
stantly, considering what I'd always gleaned to be his long-held
position of “homo-hostility,” and his stands that border on sheer stu¬
pidity (“AIDS is not an epidemic!”). Due to the helpful fact that his
e-mail address is regularly trumpeted on the show in that high, nasal
voice of his, I dashed off a few lines; I told him what the book was
about and expressed an interest in his input. I also made fun of his
shaved head and large, bushy mustache (the “clone look” again), the
fact that he'd been in prison (we all know what goes on in there,
right?), even his often-stated fondness for ABBA (goes without say¬
ing). I had no idea as I hit “send,” giggling like an idiot, that the re¬
sponse would be swift. His producer called me the next morning and

123
124 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

invited me to come on the program and interview the “G Man” live.

(Note to self: Never drink and e-mail. God knows where you'll end
up.)
Most of the actual show is a blur. Thank God my then-boyfriend
Christopher taped it for me at home so I could create a transcript. I do
recall driving to the studio and punching up his station on my car ste¬
reo, just to hear what they were saying about this gay guy about to
venture into the lion's den; 1 was treated to the strains of Dancing
Queen, courtesy of the aforementioned ABBA. (They swore later that
was just coincidental. Uh huh.) They promoted the interview several
times while I sat cooling my heels in the green room; then finally I
was led into the studio.
Initially cool, Liddy warmed up and eventually became quite
courtly, as I peppered him with various questions about how his gen¬
eration of straight men treated those they saw as sissies. He's a racon¬
teur of the first class, even when he's spouting commentary I couldn't
agree with in a thousand years—though he actually won me over
somewhat with a brief, but affecting story about a “sissy boy” he
knew growing up who the other kids ostracized and laughed at.
He kept steering the interview back to his prison days (Liddy's orig¬
inal thirty-year sentence was commuted to time served by then-Presi-
dent Carter in 1977), telling strange and rambling stories about the
effeminate gay men who made up what the other prisoners called “the
homo range.” What was supposed to be a simple twenty-minute seg¬
ment ended up lasting over an hour. (In commercial breaks, Liddy told
me about his gay book editor; during one memorable part of the pro¬
gram, he related the story of how that editor once tricked him into
meeting at a popular gay restaurant.) I realized as the show went on
that Liddy's often hostile comments about gays—a term he rarely
uses, by the way; he prefers “homosexual”—are spouted for an audi¬
ence much more bigoted and small-minded than he is.
In the end, the “G Man” didn't give me much of anything I could
use for this book, but that's not to say the experience wasn't an eye-
opener. For most of the show, the switchboard was lit up with calls; it
turns out Liddy has a number of conservative gay men in his audi¬
ence, most of whom do not, in any way, identify with the effeminate
stereotype, and who are, in fact, quite critical of effeminate men. We
got to only a handful of listeners, but it was clear from the calls—and
 Afterword 125

the dozens of calls and e-mails I received after the show—that the sub¬
ject of sissyphobia had struck a raw nerve that’s rarely, if ever, ex¬
posed in such a public forum.
Much of the subject matter contained in this book did keep pop¬
ping up, however, right into the public eye, throughout the better part
of the past year. News items about the possibility of a biological basis
for same-sex orientation—the UCB “finger” study merely being the
latest—were almost commonplace. The plight of gays in the military
was headline stuff, as were the trials of men charged in the homopho¬
bic murders of several gay men, or men thought to be gay, along with
speculation about the motives behind those murders. (Dr. Henry
Adams, whose studies were discussed in Chapter 5, appeared on
ABC's 20/20, talking about homophobically motivated violence.
Sadly, Dr. Adams died shortly before this book went to press.)
One of the strangest intervals occurred just prior to the New
Hampshire presidential primary, when then-GOP candidate John
McCain got himself into hot water during one of his many rambling
discussions with reporters on board his campaign bus, the “Straight
Talk Express.” Reminiscing about his days in the Navy, the Arizona
senator suggested that one can sometimes identify gay people by their
“behavior and attitudes.” That somewhat tame observation, pretty ob¬
viously true to every gay man I know—we call it “gaydar”—was
roundly condemned by several gay rights organizations in a flurry of
press releases and editorials that did no one any great credit.
I'm not here to say that you can always tell, with 100 percent certainty,
that someone is gay by the way he talks or moves. There are certainly ef¬
feminate straight men out there, and it’s one of my real regrets that I was
unable to get any of them to open up and talk to me for this book. (Trust
me, it wasn’t for lack of trying.) But let’s be real, here; sometimes you can
tell, without asking. That's veiy much what Sissyphobia is about. For
whatever reason that gay men behave effeminately or flamboyantly—
whether it’s biologically or culturally based—it's a behavior so to¬
tally linked with male same-sex orientation that to deny its obvious im¬
plications is to sacrifice common sense on the altar of political
correctness. Not all gay men act that way. Maybe most don't. But to
act as if none do or to suggest that many, or even most, of us don't
make that assumption when we encounter an effeminate or flamboy¬
ant man is just plain silly.
126 SISSYPHOBIA: GAY MEN AND EFFEMINATE BEHAVIOR

Much the same sort of silliness can be found in the ongoing and
sometimes quite nasty debate taking place in the gay press between
essentialists and social constructionists. Any scientist—and they're out
there—who would deny the influence that culture or society has on gen¬
der (or occasional gender “experimentation”) doesn't deserve the ti¬
tle. Likewise, any queer theorist who condemns the research into a
biological basis for same-sex orientation as some kind of fool's er¬
rand is just a little too queer for my tastes—there's ample evidence
that biology does matter. (When the two sides start arguing with each
other they begin to resemble geeky mathematicians with dueling cal¬
culators, hurling figures at each other and leaving the rest of us
blinded by science. That's one reason why I mainly opted out of the
debate, deciding instead to simply report the stories that people re¬
lated to me. There's an innate truth to what people feel, even if those
feelings sometimes run counter to academic theory.)
In the search for answers behind same-sex orientation, most of us
believe there's room for science, and the soul. So give it a rest, al¬
ready. I don't happen to agree that people create their own genders
out of pure social programming, but it's an opinion that deserves re¬
spect, one that likely contains at least a kernel of truth. The idea that
we're bom predisposed to be gay doesn’t seem so far-fetched either.
Those who hold to the idea of a natural, biological difference be¬
tween gay and straight men—and the concomitant idea that any such
natural orientation deserves legal protection—are not necessarily
pandering to the politics of pity.
On the topic of pity—I have to admit that when I started on this
project I felt a certain condescending sympathy for the poor “femme”
boys. Though I was only able to speak with but a tiny fraction of the
millions of men who grew up with effeminate tendencies, it quickly
became clear to me how many lived through truly hellish childhoods,
and that cannot be minimized. But as I listened to their stories, and
the stories and opinions of men who fancy themselves as “straight
acting,” a curious thing happened. For all they've been through, quite
a few of those “poor femme boys” turned out okay, at least in their at¬
titudes about one another and their genuine joy for life. Many are, as
William Ernest Henley said, “bloody but unbowed.” I don't know if I
can say the same for those men who so desperately want to pass for
straight. It makes me wonder who the real victims of sissyphobia are.
 Afterword 127

I didn't really sit down to write this book to debunk anyone’s pre¬
conceptions, or even to modify their prejudices. I just wanted to take
a snapshot of some of the prevailing attitudes and opinions out there
about gay men and effeminate behavior, then share that picture with
you and perhaps start a conversation. As with any snapshot, however,
once the camera flashes, the drama plays on. Many of the men I spoke
or corresponded with have kept in contact with me, some merely curi¬
ous about the book’s progress, others confiding in me that simply an¬
swering my questions had caused them to reexamine their entire
concept of effeminate men, or the concept of what masculinity
means. Chester from Bethesda wrote to me several weeks after filling
out my survey to tell me that reviewing his answers moved him to
seek counseling for his ongoing negative feelings about women and
effeminate men; another young man wrote to tell me that, in looking
back over his answers, he realized he was going to come off “sound¬
ing like a real asshole.” I wrote him back and told him not to worry;
lots of other men were coming off the same way, and many of their
long-held prejudices were troubling them to no small degree.
And that includes yours truly. As I said at the outset, researching and
writing Sissyphobia was very much a personal journey. I realize now
that I embarked on that journey quite unconsciously, long before this
book was even a concept; all my “set in stone” attitudes about mascu¬
linity were put to the test when I fell in love with Christopher. On paper
we might seem an unlikely match; I’m the self-styled butch ex-Marine,
and he's a somewhat effeminate makeup artist who goes through five
outfits before he deigns to leave the house. We share the same Zodiac
sign—but it’s Aides. (Sample Aides conversation: “Shut up!” “No, you
shut up!”) It took us two years to realize that our relationship would
never quite gel into that picture-postcard, two-boys-with-a-Labrador,
hey-we're-buying-a-condo sort of thing. Still, we have built a rather
deep emotional bond that seems likely to last a lifetime, whatever
other love or lovers come our way.
Last summer, before our relationship had matured beyond the
throwing-things stage—we went through a lot of wall putty in our
apartment—we got into yet another fight that sent me storming out of
the house. As always, I took the cell phone with me, ready for the mo¬
ment when one or the other of us would make the first move and apol¬
ogize. Walking along the road about a half mile from our place, I was
128 SISSYPHOBIA: GA Y MEN AND EFFEMINA TE BEHA VIOR

suddenly confronted by a carload of rough-looking boys with shaved

heads; they sat there idling at the light as I walked by, and I could feel
their stares on my skin.
For all I know, they may have been high school kids coming back
from a late football practice; they could have been a carload of homy
boys out cruising for some serious group action, and weighing the
possibility I might be interested in playing through. But to me, they
looked like skinheads on the prowl. I took out the phone and made a
show of it, just to let them know I could reach out and summon help if
need be.
And I dialed up Christopher.
Fd gotten only a sentence or two out—where I was and what was hap¬
pening—when the line went dead. Meanwhile the light had changed,
and the carload of apparent skinheads had vanished for points un¬
known. Not thirty seconds later, I saw Chris speed by in my car, then
hang a U-tum in the middle of the street, before roaring to a stop be¬
side me. “Where are they?” he demanded, and I told him they'd
driven off, that I was fine. I climbed in, and that's when I saw that
Chris had run out of the apartment wearing only boxer shorts. On the
gearshift he'd balanced my Marine Coips sword, the only weapon
he'd managed to find with which to do battle. As Chuck put it in
Chapter 8, my boy was ready to “throw down” and kick some skin¬
head ass.
There are several lessons here. Carrying a cell phone is always a
good idea; never fuck with an Aries, or an Aries's boyfriend, because
there may be hell to pay; and never assume just because someone is
effeminate that he won't stand up and fight for what he wants, or for
who he loves.
There’s one more thing I have to tell you before I let you go. I have
to confess that just a few days before completing this project, I caved
in to curiosity and took Tom Hartley’s stmightacting.com masculin¬
ity quiz. I answered all the questions as honestly as I could, fully ex¬
pecting to be rewarded for my efforts with a very butch score. I was
wrong. According to straightacting.com, I’m a five on a scale of zero
to ten, “somewhat feminine” with “straight-acting traits that are few
and far between.”
Now, say what you want about the sheer arbitrary nature of the ques¬
tions on the test; there may be very good reasons to tweeze one’s eye-
 Afterword 129

brows (if I don't I look like a caveman, or Henry Rollins, which is

roughly the same thing).-1 also happen to like candles and incense
(maybe it's the last part of me that's still Catholic). I’m sure plenty of
other men aren’t happy about how they scored. What's far more inter¬
esting was my instant, visceral reaction that some anonymous comput¬
erized test had weighed the facts, deliberated for a few milliseconds,
then handed down a verdict of feminine. Despite everything I've
learned while researching this book, I was utterly aghast.
So for me at least, the journey goes on, and likely will for some
time. Thanks for keeping me company this far along the way.

Tim Bergling
 Resources

In the course of my research for this book, I was aided and informed by the
works of dozens of other authors from the worlds of science and academia,
politics and punditry, Internet sites, and everyday journalism. Although I have
not quoted directly from all of the titles listed here, all of them were invalu¬
able in one way or another by providing factual information, social context, or
simple inspiration.
May you find them so as well.

WORKS CITED

Adams, Henry, Jeffrey A. Bemat, Karen S. Calhoun, and Amos Zeichner (1999).
“Sexually Aggressive and Nonaggressive Men: Sexual Arousal and Judgments in
Response to Acquaintance Rape and Consensual Analogues.” Journal of Abnor¬
mal Psychology, 108(4), pp. 662-673.
Adams, Henry, Lester W. Wright, and Bethany A. Lohr (1996). “Is Homosexuality
Associated with Homosexual Arousal?” Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 105(3),
pp. 440-445.
Alvear, Michael (2000). “The Pansy Vortex.” Genre, February, p. 66.
Bailey, Michael (1995). “Gender Identity.” In The Lives of Lesbians, Gays, and Bi¬
sexuals. New York: Harcourt Brace, pp. 71-93.
Bailey, Michael, Peggy Kim, Alex Hills, and Joan Linsenmeier (1997). “Butch,
Femme, or Straight Acting? Partner Preferences of Gay Men and Lesbians.”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73(5), pp. 960-973.
Bawer, Bruce (1996). “Notes on Stonewall.” In Beyond Queer: Challenging Gay
Left Orthodoxy. New York: The Free Press, pp. 4-15.
Bergling, Tim (1997). “Sissyphobia.” Genre, September, p. 53.
Cummings, Peter (1999). “Why Do They Hate Us?” XY, October/November, p. 35.
Green, Richard (1986). The “Sissy Boy Syndrome." New Haven, CT: Yale Univer¬
sity Press.
Kindlon, Dan and Michael Thompson (1999). Raising Cain: Protecting the Emo¬
tional Live of Boys. New York: Ballantine.
Sinfeld, Alan (1994). The Wilde Century: Effeminacy, Oscar Wilde and the Queer
Movement. New York: Columbia University Press.
Vidal, Gore (1995). Foreword. In Jonathan Ned Katz, The Invention of Heterosexu¬
ality. New York: Dutton, p. x.

131
132 SISS Y PHOBIA: GA Y MEN AND EFFEMINA TE BE HA VI OR

Williams, Terrence J., Michelle E. Pepitone, Scott E. Christensen, Bradley M.

Cooke, Andrew D. Huberman, Nicholas J. Breedlove, Tessa J. Breedlove,
Cynthia L. Jordan, and S. Marc Breedlove (2000). “Fingerlength Ratios and Sex¬
ual Orientation.” Nature, 404 (March), pp. 455-456

GENERAL RESOURCES

Books

Blanton, David, Ed. (1996). Queer Notions: A Fabulous Collection of Gay and Les¬
bian Wit and Wisdom. Philadelphia: Running Press.
Butler, Judith (1999). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity.
New York: Routledge.
Clendinen, Dudley and Adam Nagourny (1999). Out for Good: The Struggle to
Build a Gay Rights Movement in America. New York: Simon & Schuster.
De Cecco, John P. and David Allen Parker, Eds. (1995). Sex, Cells, and Same-Sex
Desire: The Biology of Sexual Preference. Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park
Press.
Gilmore, David (1990). Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Halperin, David (1990). One Hundred Years of Homosexuality and Other Essays on
Greek Love. New York: Routledge.
Hamer, Dean and Peter Copeland (1998). Living with Our Genes: Why They Matter
More Than You Think. New York: Doubleday.
Isay, Richard A. (1996). Becoming Gay: The Journey to Self-Acceptance. New
York: Pantheon Books.
LeVay, Simon (1996). Queer Science: The Use and Abuse of Research into Homo¬
sexuality. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Maas, Lawrence D. (1990). Homosexuality and Sexuality. Binghamton, NY: The
Haworth Press.
Maas, Lawrence D. (1990). Homosexuality Behavior Identity\ Binghamton, NY:
The Haworth Press.
Savin-Williams, Ritch C. (1998)_And Then 1 Became Gay: Young Men's Stories.
New York: Routledge.
Simpson, Mark (1999). It's a Queer World: Deviant Adventures in Pop Culture.
Binghamton, NY: The Haworth Press.
Tafel, Rich (1999). Party Crasher: A Gay Republican Challenges Politics As Usual.
New York: Simon & Schuster.
Zeeland, Steven (1995). Sailors and Sexual Identity: Crossing the Line Between
“Straight" and “Gay” in the U.S. Navy. Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park
Press.
Zeeland, Steven (1996). The Masculine Marine: Homoeroticism in the U.S. Marine
Corps. Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press.
 Resources 133

Magazines

The Advocate
Genre
HERO
Instinct
Joeu
Out Magazine
XY

Web Sites

Gay History <www.gayhistory.com>, Andrew “Wik” Wikholm, Site Administrator

Gay.com <www.gay.com>
www.gaymilitary.org
Maxdmen,<www.max4men.com>
Out of the Past <www/pbs.org/outofthepast.html>, PBS
People with a History: An Online Guide to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans*
History <www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwli/index.html>, Paul Halsall, Site Ad¬
minister
Planet Out <www.PlanetOut.com>
Straightacting.com
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and family.The rotting plantations of Faulkner and Williams
have long been bulldozed to accommodate the spread of
tract housing and shopping malls, but the tales of the South,
now told by a current generation, still spring from the
hearts, groins, and minds of its sons.
$34.95 hard. ISBN: 1-56023-160-2.
$14.95 soft. ISBN: 1-56023-161-0.
2001. Available now. 168 pp.
Southern Tier Editions
W
Published by Harrington Park Press®
An Imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc.
10 Alice Street, Binghamton, New York 13904-1580 USA
I
Become immersed in the captivating and sensual
short stories found in Rooney’s Shorts!
ROONEY’S SHORTS
Short stories by William Rooney
(4With equal dexterity in meditative and slapstick
modes, Rooney takes readers to various eras from the
late 60s to the fantasy future.... THOUGHTFUL,
ENTERTAINING, AND ORIGINAL”
—Publisher’s Weekly
In Rooney's Shorts you will discover tales of moonstruck
love, drunkenness, lunacy, and despair, brilliantly painted
across wild stretches of coastal landscape.These stories
will take you on a solid series of sensual, surprising and
suspenseful journeys.
Rooney’s Shorts constantly motivates you to turn the
page with its predominantly Floridian and Provincetown
settings, taking you on a personal excursion full of sexual
tension, suspense, and satisfying experiences!
$39.95 hard. ISBN: 1-56023-954-9.
$14.95 soft. ISBN: 1-56023-150-5. 2000. 137 pp.
A sizzling, sexy exploration of the passionate
relationship between two handsome young men!
INFIDELITY
A novel by William Rooney
"An engaging book.... Part confessional memoir, part
letter, part pillow book, this novel takes us back to the
swinging Sixties, just before Stonewall.... Rooney
succeeds in evoking this particular confluence of time
and place.”
—Lambda Book Review
Can a relationship based on incredibly passionate and raw
sexual fulfillment disguise itself as true love? Or is true love
just a name given to mammoth sexual fulfillment?
This is the story of two handsome young men who try
to build a relationship during the sexually explosive and
carefree years of the late 60s.The tale of their love unfolds,
revealing the challenges of the ever-growing temptations
of INFIDELITY.
$39.95 hard. ISBN: 0-7890-0621-9.
$17.95 soft. ISBN: 1-56023-946-8. 1998. 218 pp.
AVAILABLE FROM YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE
If unavailable at your local bookstore,
contact: Harrington Park Press,
10 Alice Street, Binghamton, New York 13904-1580 USA
Phone: 1-800-429-6784
(outside US/Canada + 607-722-5857)
Fax: l-800-895-0582(outside US/Canada + 607-771-0012)
E-Mail: getinfo@haworthpressinc.com
Web: http://www.haworthpressinc.com
 VISIT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE TODAY
for the FOLLOWING FORTHCOMING AND NEW
FICTION AND NONFICTION BOOKS
FROM SOUTHERN TIER EDITIONS!

Naked Lunch meets The Naked Civil Servant

in Stephen Beachy’s boldly disturbing new novel!
DISTORTION Over
A novel by Stephen Beachy 300
Pages!
"Beachy’s haunting imagery illuminates the dignity
and tenderness of a generation disenfranchised from love,
from healing, and from hope. His empathic, but
unsparing vision of the inhabitants of a littered landscape
where race, religion, and identity are connected by lust is
an artistic and literary achievement”
—Jay Quinn, Author of The Mentor: A Memoir of Friendship
and Gay Identity
After exchanging his least favorite sexual act for ticket money,
a young hustler named Reggie (gay, mulatto, and currently flat
broke) finds himself crossing the desert on a Greyhound bus.
Unfortunately, Reggie is on speed and believes that sinister
cosmic forces are in play and that they’re focused on him. Even
worse, he may be right. Distortion follows Reggie’s travels
from indigent street whore to MTV rap star and back, across
the country and through the twists of his own mind and the
minds of the equally dysfunctional people who know him.
NONFICTION BOOKS
FROM SOUTHERN TIER EDITIONS!
Why are some gay men effeminate, and some not?
Why are effeminate men despised?
SISSYPHOBIA IfSSft
Gay Men and Effeminate Behavior
by Tim Bergling
Here is a revealing look into male effeminacy: why some
gay men are swishy, why other gay men are more
masculine, and why effeminate men arouse anger, disgust,
and disdain in both gay and straight men.This book
explores those negative feelings that are aimed at people
termed fairies, faggots, flamers, and queens; men who,“run
more toward what we could term the ‘Quentin Crisp
school of homosexuality.’” The focus of Sissyphobia is
the author’s search for the roots of the rage toward
effeminate or flanrftoyant men that is experienced by men
of every sexual persuasion, even themselves.

$49.95 hard. ISBN: 1-56023-998-0. $29.95 hard. ISBN: 1-56023-989-1.

$22.95 soft. ISBN: 1-56023-999-9. 2001.334 pp.
A mysterious and suspenseful tale of hidden secrets,
emotional survival, and deceit!
LOVE, THE MAGICIAN
A novel by Brian Bouldrey '
"Works on many levels.... LIVELY, HUMOROUS, EVEN
IRREVERENT. Bouldrey has a way of humanizing his
characters, even if they lie far afield of the circumscribed
world of most gay fiction. MAKES MUCH OF WHAT
PASSES FOR GAY FICTION TODAY SEEM HOPELESSLY
SOLIPSISTIC AND SELF-INVOLVED.”
—Lambda Book Report
In April of 1997,Tristan Broder, gay, widowed, and balding,
makes a pilgrimage of sorts from San Francisco to the prickly
desert and scalped mountains around Tucson, Arizona, the
place where he helped bury his partner Joe five years before.
Guided by a comet that crosses the spring sky that year, he
wanders toward renewal and resurrection, memory and
mystery, deadly secrets and dark intentions.
$14.95 soft. ISBN: 1-56023-990-5.
Available Spring 2001. Approx. 153 pp. with Index.
The first AUTHENTIC non-fiction military
"erotica”anthology in the era of "IDon’t Ask,
Don’t Tell”!
A NIGHT IN THE BARRACKS
Authentic Accounts of Sex in the Armed Forces
Edited by Alex Buchman
Tantalizing, explicit, sometimes disturbing, and
always genuine, A Night in the Barracks delivers the
goods. Here are the personal stories of soldiers, sailors,
airmen, marines, and their admirers, who have slipped past
the guards at the gate to explore their erotic desires on
post. Former Marine Alex Buchman lays it on the line in
this steamy collection of real-life sexual adventures related
by the men, including the author himself, who lived them.
$39.95 hard. ISBN: 1-56023-987-5.
$12.95 soft. ISBN: 1-56023-988-3.
2000.192 pp. with Index

$49.95 hard. ISBN: 1-56023-993-X.

$19.95 soft. ISBN: 1-56023-994-8. 2000. 190 pp.

AVAILABLE FROM YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE

If unavailable at your local bookstore, contact: Harrington Park Press,
10 Alice Street, Binghamton, New York 13904-1580 USA
Phone: 1-800-429-6784 (outside US/Canada + 607-722-5857)
Fax: l-800-895-0582(outside US/Canada + 607-771-0012)
E-Mail: getinto@haworthpressinc.com • Web: http://www.haworthpressinc.com BIC
Gay & Lesbian Studies; Human Sexuality & Gender Studies

Why are some gay men effeminate, and some not?

Why are effeminate men despised?

"Most people are familiar with Isms' such as dassism, sexism, and racism. In this
book, Tim Bergling UNFLINCHINGLY LOOKS AT THE LIGHTNING ROD THAT IS
'NELLYISM/... Sissyphobia is for everyone who has experienced this phenomenon—on
one side or the other/'
—Andrew Davis, BS, JD, Columnist, Lambda Publications/Windy City Times, Chicago

Here is a revealing look into male effeminacy: why some gay men are swishy, why other gay men are
more masculine, and why effeminate men arouse anger, disgust, and disdain in both gay and straight
men. Sissyphobia explores those negative feelings that are aimed at people termed fairies, faggots,
flamers, and queens; men who, as author Tim Bergling puts it, "run more toward what we could term
the 'Quentin Crisp school of homosexuality/"

Sissyphobia looks closely at:

• the reasons straight-acting gay men give for their negative
feelings about effeminate or flamboyant men
• why straight men typically resent "nellie gays" and "panty-
waists" while having much more ambivalent feelings toward
straight-acting gays
• the links between misogyny and sissyphobia
• why more gay men look for masculine traits than feminine ones
in a partner
• what happens to effeminate boys when they grow up

Tim Bergling ISBN l-5bD23-™-5

900 00
Southern Tier Editions
HARRINGTON PARK PRESS®
An Imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc.
10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580 9 781560 239901