Binaries and the Problem of the Gay Best Friend

Recently an acquaintance of mine linked an article on the Bad Catholic blog at Patheos discussing how the media and culture objectifies gay men--what we might call homophilia, as it is a kind of inversion of homophobia. It's worth a read, despite the fact that there's a lot of really problematic stuff here. For instance, the author tediously embraces the "Hate the sin, love the sinner" brand of homophobia-lite, writing, e.g., "To be clear, and as you’ve probably guessed, I don’t think the ultimate good of a man with same-sex attraction can be achieved by the normalization of the actively homoerotic lifestyle via redefined civil marriage." Yes, because how could allowing someone to marry the person they love possibly contribute to their ultimate good?

If you can get past the many blood-pressure-elevating statements in his writing, however, however, the author's main point is very, very important. Essentially, his argument is that the "Media Portrayal", as he phrases it, "is that our super-cool-culture, in its drive to be accepting, tolerant and all the rest, has decided to defend the Gay Man and largely ignore that beautiful, noble piece of work — the actual man."* This is most apparent, he argues, in the Gay Friend:

This Media Portrayal seems to influence the intensely creepy, “I wish I had a gay best friend,” mentality so many girls display. Again, it’s total objectification. The Gay Best Friend Abstraction isn’t just a false category in which to place a person — it is an amputation of the person. When girls want a “gay best friend” they certainly aren’t asking for a unique human being, with all aching, terrifying desires human beings contain, who will work for their ultimate good to the point of death. They want an accessory. The “Gay Best Friend” must — above all things — be safe. He must have all the emotional benefits of being a male, without the emotional threats. He must be supportive, without reminding her of the father-figures in her life. He must provide the emotional affirmation of male, physical touch, without touch ever meaning anything. He must be a girl, provide fashion advice, and — in general — have all the characteristics of a puppy on happy pills.

But he is made for more. He is made for infinite love.**

The point is clear: the Gay Friend and the Media Portrayal ultimately dehumanize gays just as much, though infinitely more subtly and insidiously, than the naked bigotry of a Fred Phelps. That is not to say that bigotry isn't a problem; it needs to be fought tooth and nail. But the way to do so is most certainly not to replace one stereotype with another, and it certainly is not to reduce complex human beings to their sexuality.† It's not enough to talk about how much you love Gay People; you have to actually love gay persons, as multidimensional human beings, warts and all, a task which requires considerably more work, and might not carry quite the same social cachet.‡

However, the author makes one very, very incorrect claim: that "no one demands heterosexuals to 'accept their identity' and define themselves as Straight Men." In fact, in much if not most of the country, men face tremendous pressure to define themselves as Straight Men, to the extent that straightness and masculinity or manhood are treated as not merely inseparable but synonymous--though this may perhaps be harder to see from the rarefied air of our upper-middle class coastal enclaves. In much of the country, to be a man is to be straight; to be other than straight is to not be a man.

In these places, to be a straight man, one must generally be rough, strong, and, well, masculine. One must not show certain emotions, wear certain colors, or be interested in certain topics or professions. The kinds of affection which one can express towards both men and women are extremely limited. The punishment for transgressing this code is severe, entailing ostracism and quite often physical violence. And one must be prepared to personally punish any such transgressions one observes oneself, lest one's own masculinity and heterosexuality be called into question.

The heteronormativity of traditional masculinity is the flipside the negative objectification of gays. Gays are not just punished for their homosexuality, but for transgressing against the code of the Straight Man--which is of course why so many straight kids are themselves bullied for being gay. In fact, the categories are virtually inseparable, hence the effeminacy inherent in both homophilic and homophobic stereotypes.

There exist negative objectifications of male heterosexuality, too: the increasingly common trope of the straight man as a boor, a promiscuous incompetent, an immature slob who refuses to grow up, in some cases as a criminal, and an endless source of straight female frustration. You can see this in the wave of articles since the recession began bemoaning the supposed immaturity of the current generation, especially men who are portrayed as living in their parents' basement, playing XBox and eating potato chips in their underwear. Never mind the economic devastation caused by their parents; it's far easier to blame this supposed extension of adolescence on generational laziness.

The positive objectifications of the gay man as elegant, refined, well-dressed, purposeful, successful, the perfect yet sexless friend stands in direct contradistinction to the stereotype of the straight manchild. Dig deep enough, and you'll find the subtle twist of the knife buried in this inversion of heteronormative, patriarchic masculinity: "Forget the women, even the fags are doing better than you are."

Homophilia thus transforms the gay man from the cudgeled to the cudgel, but it does not grant him any agency in the process. Rather than an object of hatred, he becomes a tool to be wielded by, for, and against others; if anything, this is even more dehumanizing than homophobia's more direct assault on his humanity.

The positive and negative objectifications of gay men do form a binary with each other, but even more, they form binaries with the negative and positive objectifications, respectively, of straight men. Gays thus become the inverse of straights, an Other to be either lionized or denigrated but never humanized. They exist not to be loved as unique children of God but as walking validations or castigations of the heterosexual male, who even when mocked retains his primacy within the discourse. These binaries, then, do not just degrade, dehumanize, and oppress gays; they also do the same to straights, while rendering invisible those who are neither gay nor straight.

If we ever hope to topple Foucault's "austere monarchy of sex", we must resist easy categories and stereotypes, both old and new. We must resist the temptation to treat people as unidimensional reifications of their sexualities. We must not attempt to hammer them into the facile molds society and the media have provided, lest in the process we crack or shatter them. And we must attack the false binaries which oppress and dehumanize all of us.

Delenda dichotomia est.

* This phenomenon is not limited to gays, either. Consider the stereotype of Asians as the model minority, or that of African-American hipness and musical/athletic prowess, or Native Americans as guardians of Mother Nature. While superficially positive, these stereotypes also dehumanize their subjects, and in fact are based on and thus reinforce negative stereotypes: Asians as worker bees stealing white jobs; blacks as muscular, violent and libidinal; Native Americans as hopeless primitives.

**Again, compare with the Black Friend, who exists to be a source of coolness and validation for white people.

† The definitive book on this is Foucault's History of Sexuality, Vol. 1. Foucault explains the shift produced by the rise of psychology in the 19th century from "sodomite"--a juridical category based on a person's actions--to "homosexual"--a category which requires no particular action, merely attraction, and is used to define someone's very soul. He goes on to argue that the discourse of sexuality--which is held to be buried within a person's soul and thus only accessible through constant exploration and exegesis, with the psychologist now playing the role of Father Confessor--was elevated to primacy: "the austere monarchy of sex," as he describes it. Thus there was tremendous irony in the sexual revolution, which promised to finally free everyone from the chains of sexual repression by... talking even more obsessively about sex.

‡ His criticism of activists, on the other hand, is less valid: the pressure on gay men to come out is fundamentally about achieving political and social goals which are furthered by having as many people as possible out. It's not about propagating the kind of one-dimensional stereotype that the media does, and while the elevation of sexuality to primacy is inherently problematic and reductive any pride parade will show incredible diversity.