Misogyny is at heart of homophobia

  Illustration by ERICA PINTO/Daily Bruin  
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All of the psychobabble you may have heard in The Bruin over the
last few weeks about gays being abnormal amounts to dick.

Literally.

How else would you explain our culture’s double standard
for gay women?

For example: two years ago, some of my friends found out that my
male roommate was gay. Many of them were amazed that I didn’t
find the situation awkward.

But when they discovered that I was living with a bisexual
woman, they sidled up to me with a nudge and a wink:
“Whoooaaa, dude. Maybe you can talk her into a threesome with
your girlfriend.”

If you ask a straight man if he masturbates to gay porn, his
response would probably be something like: “Hell no,
that’s disgusting!” But I’d be willing to bet
that 8 in 10 of them like lesbian porn. Guess what guys, that
constitutes gay sex too, even if you don’t view it in those
terms.

What disgusts me most about the recent discussion in The Bruin
is the omission of women. Of the six letters printed in The Bruin
against homosexuality, four directly addressed columns written on
anal sex and fellatio by a male colleague of mine.

Those who read the paper regularly would know that The Bruin
currently has two sex columnists ““ one male, the other
female. Yet in the various anti-gay letters that I’ve seen
thus far, I’ve heard no complaints regarding the female
columnist’s assertion that going to female strip clubs can be
fun for women too. And it just so happens that all of those letters
were written by men.

All of the recent complaints have focused on the practices of
gay men, not women. You’d hope that, at the very least,
homophobes would discriminate consistently, since allowing people
to love whomever they choose seems out of the question.

The omission of women by men from the gay equation is disturbing
because beneath the anti-gay rhetoric is a large dose of misogyny
and male insecurity.

The problem lies with the anti-gay mind-set that uses the
physical act of love as a moral barometer for individuals. As a
result, men who have sex with men are placed in a different
category than straight males. They are gay, queer, and at the ugly
end, faggots.

In order to bridge this gap between straight men and
“other” gay men, our patriarchal society allows for a
middle ground with the homosocial relationship.

Homosociality is the idea that two men are close, even intimate,
but not engaged in a homosexual relationship. The term was
introduced in the 1980s with the publication of Eve
Sedgwick’s book “Between Men,” which examined
male-male relationships in literature.

Thus, men can be close and affectionate because the term spares
them from the stigma of being categorized as
“other.”

The term homosocial is rarely used to describe women ““
they’re always close, good or best friends. This leads me to
believe that the prefix “homo-“ in this case means man,
as in homo sapiens and not same, as in homosexual.

Gay women, on the other hand, are objectified by men. Sex
between two women is hot and erotic, not abnormal or deviant. Men
don’t categorize women as gay, but alluring, and thus women
are stripped of a queer identity and become objects of male
fantasies.

The problem is that this fantasy spills over into attitudes
about all women who have no choice but to fit the male ideal.

If a gay woman tries to sidestep the male ideal by declaring her
sexuality she is made a pariah, as was the case with Ellen
DeGeneres. When a woman asserts that she is gay, she creates an
identity for herself rather than adopts one prescribed by men. That
explains why gay woman are often portrayed as man-hating dykes in
our patriarchal society.

Gay men are shunned for being abnormal. After all, to the
homophobic male, men should give dick, not take it. Gay women,
however, make sense. They aren’t abnormal, just misguided.
All they need is dick to make ’em straight. (Think of
“Chasing Amy.”) But a woman’s declaration that
she’s gay dispels this fantasy and men can’t handle the
notion that gay women really don’t have an interest in men or
their penises.

The problem is that these assumptions silently pass under the
radar. Just look at our popular culture. There’s the cover of
Type-O Negative’s album, “Bloody Kisses.” Or what
about Hollywood: “Wild Things,” “American Pie 1
and 2″ and “Bound.” It is vital that we
acknowledge this double standard so that we can erase it. Only then
can women enjoy some semblance of sexual freedom in our
society.

That’s why the fight against homophobia isn’t just a
fight for the gay community. The pretense that heterosexuality is
right and homosexuality is wrong does nothing more than hide the
fact that men tend to objectify all women, no matter what their
sexual orientation.

So let’s begin by unmasking homophobes for what they truly
are: hypocritical misogynists.