Homo-Masculinity

For quite a while now, I have been a big fan of Tim at the blog Naked Came I. In addition to consistently posting plenty of hot pictures, he is an excellent writer who can identify and address problems concisely and compellingly. I thought his post yesterday to be particularly notable, so with his permission, I reproduce it here in its entirety (though I added the pictures myself as examples of beautiful guys who may not have the "perfect" muscular body. But their beauty should be obvious). You can see Tim's post in its original context here. Though it is somewhat lengthy, it is well worth your time to read.

What's the deal with requiring Asian men to be muscular?

I've been perusing some gay photo sites, nude sites, film sites, Usenet groups, etc. And everywhere I turn, Asian men are muscled out, butched up, steroided, pumped.

Now, there's nothing wrong with muscle. Muscle can be beautiful. Muscle can be aesthetically pleasing. Muscle is (sometimes) a sign of dedication and willpower, and that, too, can be attractive.

But invariably, sites which feature naked gay Asian men show muscle. Every single time (well, almost).

Why?

Is it that Asian men aren't considered masculine until they are so muscled up that they are uniform slabs of meat? Or is it that Asian men feel inferior due to height or racism, and so feel the need to "compensate" through adding muscle?



I know it's not a syndrome which affects just Asian men. The whole world seems consumed with muscle. You can't get away from it. Just 15 years ago, the term "bear" meant a man who was not only hairy, but a man who was heavy as well. But like some sort of cancer, "muscle" has invaded the domain of the bear...so that today, the term "bear" means anyone with a hairy body. Usually someone muscular and ripped and toned and gym-built. Just 15 years ago, "twink" meant someone without body hair, slender and unmuscled. But now, the cancer has invaded here as well. You can't open a magazine like "In Touch" or "Playguy" without every single model having toned pecs, six-pack abs and biceps.



The more people complain about it, the more the muscle-addicts whine that "you can't find any muscle" these days. Of course, you can find muscle. Plenty of it. But like a junkie, the muscle-addicts have lost perspective on what constitutes muscle. It's not enough to have pecs, abs and biceps. No, now a model has to be able to bench 250 lbs. and do 75 preacher-curls with 65lb weights in a row. It's not enough to have 24" biceps. Your biceps have to be 28", 32", 36". A man's cock size, his facial characteristics -- even whether he's gay or not -- are irrelevant. So long as he's got muscle on top of muscle, he's worth masturbating over.

It didn't used to be this way.

In the 1970s, gay porn stars came in all shapes and sizes. Tall, average, short height. Muscular, toned and twinky. Hairy and smooth. Clean-shaven, mustachioed, bearded. Long-haired, crew-cut, in-between. Cut and uncut. Tops, bottoms, versatile.



But then the gay community got psychological cancer. I have no idea what caused it. It seems to me to be a sort of self-loathing: It's not enough to be the best little boy in the world any more. Now you have to be the butchest as well. Hate-filled heterosexual society had saddled gays with a stereotype as a limp-wristed, lisping, mincing interior decorator. Gays in the early 1970s had rejected this stereotype; they sought their own path, with the infinite variety and variability that entailed. You couldn't say what "gay" was. It certainly wasn't the stereotype. Yet, "gay" wasn't something you could put your finger on.

Not any more.




It's almost as if certain gay men couldn't handle that variability. Self-loathing, nervous, worried, desperate for something solid -- a stereotype -- they could cling to, these men created the "homo-masculine" ideal. It was a form of false consciousness, unfortunately. These gay men bought unconditionally into straight society's preferred image of homosexuality (the lisping, mincing, artsy fag). Engaging in the worst form of reactionary thinking, they adopted straight society's concept of what it mean to be "a man." Hairiness, massive muscles, facial hair: These became not just an ideal masculinity. They became the only masculinity. Everything else was "faggy." Everything else was sneered at and looked down upon as "not manly." It was outright body fascism (another kind of reactionary thinking). These men ignored the fact that genetics simply don't permit a large number of men to meet this ideal. They cannot and never will be hairy, muscular, bearded. Instead of acknowledging this and working it into their concept of the "manly man," these gay men rejected their fellow travelers. They ostracized them. Such men were no longer worthy of having sex, being portrayed in adult film, being shown in magazines, being seen in advertisements.



Now, perhaps if things had stopped there, everything would have been somewhat okay. After all, this group was small. It had no power over others. Let them isolate themselves. Let them be exclusionist.

But it didn't stop there. The cancerous idea spread.

It spread because it touched a nerve in gay men. After all, when society is telling you a thousand times a day that you aren't acceptable, aren't moral, aren't "right", then it becomes hard to forge a unique, true, real identity. It's so much easier to just buy into society's hate, make it your own, and "beat them at their own game." It's so much easier to say, "Yes, gays are pansies. But look! I'm not a pansy! I'm not a fruit! I'm just like you -- only I sleep with men. Why, we are the same! We have the same values. We have the same hates, loves, morals. See, I reject faggots just like you!"




But gay men in America aren't just like everyone else. They stand outside the predominant Western Judeo-Christian tradition.

The philospher Plato used the story of the cave to illustrate the nature of truth, and the concept of false consciousness. He told the story of three men chained to the wall of a cave. The men could not see out of the cave, but they could see the back wall of the cave. Outside the cave, a fire was kept constantly lit. As people, animals, carts and other things passed in front of the fire, their shadows were projected onto the back wall. The men came to believe that these shadows were reality. One of the men eventually freed himself. He ran outside the cave, and saw the truth of reality. Yet, when he returned to the cave and told his compatriots, they refused to believe him.

Rejected by society -- ejected from Plato's cave -- gay men have the opportunity to explore the real world. To discover truth.



Gay men aren't nearly as socialized (some might use the word brainwashed) into the "traditional" values of Western culture. That's a culture which worships aggression and misogyny, a culture which represses minorities and hyper-values materialism. It's a culture which represses all value-systems other than its own, refusing pluralism.

So why do some gay men buy back into that very value system? It's rarely a conscious decision, well-thought-out and considered. Instead, it is almost always an unconscious decision. It is a decision often made out of fear ("I couldn't handle anyone else knowing!" "I couldn't handle being rejected by my friends and family!"), even terror. It is a decision often made as a safety-blanket; staying within one's homomasculine belief-system allows the individual to retain some "safe ground" on to which to retreat, while experimenting at the fringes with one's life.



No, not all men. Not all men who stay within that belief-system are doing so out of false consiousness or a fear of the unknown.

But my sense is that many do.

And notice that what goes around, comes around? The "homomasculine" belief-system is also one built on the same shifting sand of racism. It is a belief system that is exclusionary, hierarchical, condemnatory. Anyone "not like us" is ridiculed, attacked, demonized, spit upon....feminized.

See how that fits in with the racist attitudes toward Asian men? "Not like us." "The inscrutable Asian." "Too female-looking." "Like a little boy, not a man." "They all look alike."



The homomasculine belief-system has no way of acknowledging the masculinity, adulthood, strength, power, sexuality or sensuality of the adult Asian male. The genes and environment of the most adult Asian males favor less height, less body hair, and certain facial and physical features. Although clearly masculine to other Asian men and women, these same men are considered feminine, boyish, unmasculine and powerless to the homomasculine believer.

That's sick.

Sadly, it is a belief system too often adopted out of low self-esteem, self-loathing, fear and lack of education and awareness of its implications.




Sadly, too, it is a belief system often foisted on Asian men. "The only Asian man worth photographing is the ultra-muscular one." A concept of beauty or masculinity which could accept and appreciate the slender or "average" Asian man's body is never considered, never adopted.

There are men who have through through these issues, and still find only muscular Asian men appealing. That's terrific! That's wonderful! That's great! No one can deny that preference. IF it is thought through, well-considered, informed and weighed.



Too often, though, such an opinion is simply the opinion of a body-fascist and racist.

That does not reflect well on the gay community, nor on humanity as a whole.