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Affectations

  
  

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Foust is SO authentic
21:11 / 22.01.03
I've led an essentially middle class white boy life - raised a protestant in a small town. All my friends and aquaintances throughout my life have been of the same ilk.

University, of course, opened up my circle of friends. I met the first two openly gay males I've ever known - and I'm wondering about some of their tendencies. Both (outwardly at least) are fairly stereotypical gays; they lisp and toss limp wrists about.

Where does that come from? I'm assuming that lisps and limp wrists aren't genetic, and are affectations. But obviously not all gays have those traits; how are they picked up?

I've also been wondering if there are any uniquely heterosexual male affectations. I haven't been able to come up with any examples, except maybe crashing a beer can on one's own forehead.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
22:05 / 22.01.03
Well, the way that straight men insist on having sex with people whose genitalia are organised in a way totally unlike theirs always struck me as a bit weird. I mean, it must be so much easier to know what you're doing right, and to have a shared sensual language, if you both have basically the same equipment. This "woman-sex" is like trying to connect your PC to a hamster using the USB cable.

Or, to put it another way, heterosexual male culture doesn't have "affectations" becasue heterosexual male culture gets to define what constitutes an affectation and what is "normal". Which, in this case, is heterosexual male culture. Supporting the cinematic adventures of Steven Segal? Normal. Doing the same with Barbara Streisand? Affected. See? You wearing jeans isn't genetic. You not kissing your male friends hello and goodbye isn't genetic. You seeing limp wrists as an affectation denoting homosexuality isn't genetic. They are learned behaviours.

It might be said that butch lesbianism or "affected" gay manhood are forms of rejecting the rule that says that the people with the greatest cultural weight (straight men) get to define how people should look and act in order to appear "normal". The butch dyke does not care when a straight man opines that she would look so much nicer if she grew her hair and wore a dress once in a while, and the "affected" gay man is likewise rejecting the orthodoxy that real men don't express emotion volubly or air-kiss, because they are demonstrating that they have nothing invested in the approval of heterosexual manhood. Or they may just like the look.

(Note - a trope of cinema is to take the "tomboy", butch figure, and show them how nice they look in a proper dress. Immediate examples that spring to mind are Mary Stuart Masterson in Some Kind of Wonderful and Sandra Bullock in Miss congeniality. It's an interesting piece of probably unintentional foreshadowing that Buffy tries to persuade Willow to be more femmy, by actively seeking a relationship with Xander and in at least one instance by attempting to perusade her to dress in a way more obviously intended to appeal to straight men - Halloween. The "desissifying" scene in In and Out is, as far as I can tell, a well-intentioned but slightly clumsy satire on this trope)

This ties into an interesting conversation I was having the other day on The Wilde Century. Something peopel tend to forget is that Oscar Wilde's homosexuality was not public knowledge. It was not the case that it was a "don't ask don't tell" scenario, where his sexuality was commonly known but accepted tacitly until Queensbury pushed it; Queensbury himself at first did not belief that Wilde was gay at first. Nor was it the game of "is he or isn't he?" that we might associate with Michael Stipe, Kevin Spacey or Michael Barrymore; if there had been even a suspicion of his homosexuality there would have been scandal. It was a complete surprise.

There's a story of Wilde's lawyer delivering, upon his first meeting with Wilde, an impassioned sppech on how he would tear Queensbury to shreds in the court room and clear Wilde's name of any such aspersions. Wilde applauded his vigour and then asked if he realised that Queensbury was in fact correct. The lawyer denied having entertained the idea for a second.

Which suggests to me that perceptions of what constitutes homosexual "affectation" are themselves arguably affectatitons, used as a blazon to identify one's own heterosexuality and one's community with other heterosexuals; those guys over there with the affectations are other, we guys over here are united in identifying them as other and thus their behaviour as alien and unnatural (or "ungenetic", if you'd rather"). the lawyer didn't look at Wilde and interpret him as a gay man because there was nothing about him that suggested homosexuality. It's possible that the Wilde trial identified a specific set of behaviours as characeristic of homosexuality (unnecessary attention to one's appearance, green carnations, writing poetry) that have subsequently been taken up both as a means of identifying the "not-us" by heterosexual (or, more precisely, "straight") men and as a way of telling those straight men that the individual in question is not interested in living up to those standards of "unaffected" normality.
 
 
HCE
23:32 / 22.01.03
Hm. What sets off gaydar vs what sets off straightdar. Perhaps it'd be useful to look at false alarms?
 
 
Ganesh
00:31 / 23.01.03
Possibly related to Haus's 'who defines "affectation"' argument is my own experience of 'maleness' before and after living openly as a homosexual man. After 'coming out', I began to realise exactly how much energy I'd devoted to presenting myself to the world in a particular way, as a 'straight man': whether consciously or unconsciously, I'd been careful to walk in a certain way, talk in a certain way, avoid this or that gesture, this or that style of dress, etc., etc - largely because it was important for me to exist within certain parameters of perceived masculinity. As an analogy, it was akin to having a pot belly and spending much of one's time and energy holding it in.

When I've talked about this with other men - of all sexualities - the majority have recognised similar elements in their own behaviour. Who's to say the consciously/unconsciously/self-consciously 'straight' mannerisms aren't the affectations - and the looser, loucher 'gay' behaviour their absence?
 
 
Jack Fear
00:43 / 23.01.03
Re: the constricting behaviors of "acceptable" masculinity—God yes. There are folks I've met who, until learning otherwise, have proceeded from the assumption that I must be gay, and I've always found it absurdly flattering. I have no natural affinity for competition or sports, I don't swagger, I enjoy gossip, I'm a good listener: must be gay.

Well, no: it's just my nature, frankly, and I never thought the payoff of suppressing that nature was worth all the hard work. I enjoy the company of women far more than that of men—on a social level, not (just) a sexual leve: guys always seems to be trying too hard—put two straight guys in a room together and there's almost always an uncomfortable undercurrent as they jostle, unconsciously, for the position of Alpha Male.
 
 
Jack Fear
00:47 / 23.01.03
To sum up: agreeing with Ganesh. For me, anyway, "gayer" feels more natural.

One glaring exception: I have no patience for camp.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
09:28 / 23.01.03
put two straight guys in a room together and there's almost always an uncomfortable undercurrent as they jostle, unconsciously, for the position of Alpha Male.

Well, unless one or both of them is as liberated from the confines of acceptable het male behaviour as you are, Jack...

It might be worthwhile to bear in mind how the parameters of this behaviour might vary due to other factors such as class, national or regional culture and age/time period. This seems to be what Haus is hitting on with the example of Wilde.
 
 
Saveloy
09:59 / 23.01.03
put two straight guys in a room together and there's almost always an uncomfortable undercurrent as they jostle, unconsciously, for the position of Alpha Male.

Is it only straight males who do this?
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
10:19 / 23.01.03
Yes, I had something to say about this, but most of it seems to have gone... it was along the lines of... the size of the public on which the Wilde trial impacted, the period in which it happened causing that greenery-yallery aesthetic look to become the foundation of the 'not-heterosexual' indicator... hrm. Right. Yes.

So - the association of homosexuality with effeminacy (ie not-male-heterosexual) is not a modern one, c.f. molly houses. I think wrt this question, it's probably important to think about the association of effeminacy with luxury and moral enervation, which is itself increasingly bound up with fears about excessive consumption as the eighteenth century goes on (yes, we're back...). I think this is manifested in some ways in the idea of the macaroni and, later, the dandy. Those satirical prints - I'm sure you know the ones I mean, there was one at that Metamorphoses exhibition for those who went - showing the dandy meticulously preparing his toilette, being laced into his stays by his valet etc. present the dandy as an object of ridicule because he is associated with the feminine realm of the boudoir - and yet sometimes a dandy could be a figure of some social and cultural power as well (e.g. Beau Brummel, Beau Nash). So the dandy is a liminal figure, which is perhaps why people like Jarvis Cocker and Brett Anderson have referenced dandyish effeminacy as a means of locating themselves in a sexually ambiguous area.

I also think that knowledge of homosexuality was reasonably current during the eighteenth century - certainly among the educated - Pope's reference to Lord Hervey as 'Sporus' wasn't as obscure at the time as it is now; according to a recent (well-received) biography, the real reason Byron fled the country was not his incestuous relationship but his homosexual relationships.

This makes me think that what happened at the Wilde trial was a fusion of the idea of aesthetes as decadent, effeminate and luxurious figures - ambiguous and therefore slightly threatening - with the idea of homosexuality in the popular mind, through the agency of the popular press, at a time when the dominant culture was prurient in any case. And that, as Haus said, was the point at which 'affectation' of that sort became othered...

... make any sense, anyone?
 
 
Badbh Catha
13:51 / 23.01.03
Something people tend to forget is that Oscar Wilde's homosexuality was not public knowledge. It was not the case that it was a "don't ask don't tell" scenario, where his sexuality was commonly known but accepted tacitly until Queensbury pushed it; Queensbury himself at first did not believe that Wilde was gay at first. Nor was it the game of "is he or isn't he?" that we might associate with Michael Stipe, Kevin Spacey or Michael Barrymore; if there had been even a suspicion of his homosexuality there would have been scandal. It was a complete surprise. – Haus

People also forget that Oscar himself was a extremely tall, large man, more than capable of handling himself in a fight. He did not at all fit that period's physical stereotype of the dandy as a slight, reedy wisp of a thing.

There is a notorious story of Queensbury coming to 16 Tite Street with a boxer to intmidate Wilde, and he made it clear that he was quite willing to defend himself physically, if the need arose. They left without harming him. There were also incidents at Oxford where he physically ejected other students from his "aesthetic" rooms and they were shocked at his strength. His physicality was clearly "masculine", and even the way he dressed and carried himself was considered acceptable "masculine" behavior for the time, until his trial.

I do think that:

...the Wilde trial identified a specific set of behaviours as characeristic of homosexuality (unnecessary attention to one's appearance, green carnations, writing poetry) that have subsequently been taken up both as a means of identifying the "not-us" by heterosexual (or, more precisely, "straight") men and as a way of telling those straight men that the individual in question is not interested in living up to those standards of "unaffected" normality. – Haus

But how much of this comes from the male gay community itself and how much of this was/is created by a hetero-oriented media? (As per Kit-Kat's "fusion of the idea of aesthetes as decadent, effeminate and luxurious figures - ambiguous and therefore slightly threatening - with the idea of homosexuality *in the popular mind, through the agency of the popular press*, at a time when the dominant culture was prurient in any case.")

Who has had more of a say in defining "This is a gay male"?
 
 
Saveloy
15:38 / 23.01.03
KCC:

"This makes me think that what happened at the Wilde trial was a fusion of the idea of aesthetes as decadent, effeminate and luxurious figures - ambiguous and therefore slightly threatening - with the idea of homosexuality"


By strange coincidence I've just been reading a mailing list rant about camp and its prevalence in the media. The ranter, when asked what he meant by its "being everywhere", replied with:

"Children's TV, News anchorpeople. TV listings writers. Loaded, lifestyle stuff. And then people on the street going to noodle bars and... *shopping*. It's not interesting - why is there so much stuff about fashion, and what is the best water filter."

Most of which I would have described as decadent, rather than camp, so it's interesting that in this guy's mind they equal the same thing.
 
 
The Falcon
17:46 / 23.01.03
One glaring exception: I have no patience for camp.

I would've considered the 'affectations' (tossing limp wrists, lisping) that the initial poster describes as 'camp'. Or do you mean gay men referring to each other as 'she' and the like?

Camp = 'affectations' in excelsis?
 
 
Jack Fear
18:37 / 23.01.03
No, I meant camp culture—all the stuff that gay men are stereotypically supposed to dig: Streisand, drag shows, all those terrible old movies that are meant to be appreciated ironically... I have no more time for them than I do for most straight-male-targeted mass culture, e.g. football, NASCAR, Baywatch or Hollywood action movies.

So while bustling around the kitchen in an apron and giggling like a schoolgirl may be a fallback position for me (and it is), I'm far more likely to do it to a soundtrack of Miles Davis than, say, ABBA.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
18:40 / 23.01.03
Well, "camp" is here being used as another kind of othering process, yes? For Jack, "camp" covers a certain set of behaviours he wishes to dissociate himself from, as other behaviours are seen as admirable and possibly shut down by the affectations of heterosexuality. For Saveloy's example, "camp" had taken on the meaning of "anything I find effete or unbecoming". So, the water filter, not generally seen as "camp" but redolent of a prosperous urban lifestyle often presented as alternately gay or middle-class (those fucking Brita filter ads, but there's space in another thread for how evil they are). Talking about what the best socket wrench set might be would not be "camp" in this man's eyes, comaprign water filters woudl be, even though car repair and drinkign a glass of water are neither considered very "camp" activities.

On the subject, "and the like" is an interesting phrase here. It suspends categorization, acting as a kind of marker to keep the set of things, in this case the set of things that are camp, open. So the dialogue of othering also remains open. Hoom.

But, yes, perhaps "camp" is best seen as a matter of degree rather than distinctness - if you want to demonstrate your absolute lack of interestin what the dominant modes of heterosexual male society think of you, being constantly camp may be a very good way of doing it. Does that then create "good gay" (emotional, communicative, all that good stuff) and "bad gay" (camp, "affected", somehow "unnatural", that is not "genetically disposed" to their behavour - see above), or are good and bad not really functional narratives here; are there ethics among the aesthetics?

But then, of course there are men out there who are straight but challenge the standard affectations of straight manhood, like Jack, just as there are men who are straight but very camp indeed. Depending, of course, on your definition of "camp".
 
 
Ganesh
18:44 / 23.01.03
Mmm. I would describe many of the examples given as arch, an altogether less sophisticated beast than camp...
 
 
Jack Fear
18:51 / 23.01.03
Affectations can be useful, when one wishes to overtly identify oneself as part of, or as opposed to, a group. I have no real interest in identifying as anything other than myself, as being defined by any context other than my own.

And I certainly can't see the point of shaking off one set of affectations only to adopt another.

But then, I speak from a position of hetero privilege. I don't need numbers, because I do not feel a need for safety beyond that which I already have, and it's socially acceptable for me to pursue my goal of becoming only myself, and more fully myself, because part of what makes me myself is, whether I will it or not, smiled upon by the larger society: straight white American male.
 
 
Jack Fear
18:52 / 23.01.03
Arch, camp, whatever. I don't get it, and I'm not interested in putting in the necessary timne and effort to do so. Just as I'm not interested in putting the time and effort into following sports. What I am is a product of my giving in to apathy and laziness.
 
 
The Falcon
19:18 / 23.01.03
...but in a good way, presumably.

I used 'and the like' as a marker for other female terms: 'bitch', 'her', 'madam', etc. Haus.

I think I prefer arch to camp (behaviour and culture-wise,) but I don't associate it with homosexuality to the same degree, by any means.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
21:06 / 23.01.03
And then there's "kitsch", of course, which seems to cover much the same ground as "camp", but without the sexuality distinctor.
Hmm...maybe purporting not to understand why gay men behave the way "they" do is a heterosexual affectation. Particualrly when you get into bleedover cultural areas like, say, bodybuilding or The Sound of Music....
 
 
Mourne Kransky
00:31 / 24.01.03
I find that, with a partner whose name will inevitably crop up whenever I talk about anything personal, I seldom have to say anything as bald as "I'm gay" but when I've been living the single life, I have sometimes had to make my sexual orientation explicit to avoid misunderstanding or whatever. A common response has been "But you would never know" (which would please my mother who used to urge "Just don't be obvious, son").

This has always annoyed me. I presume it to mean I don't conform to whatever stereotype the other expects and their intent is to award me a coconut for "passing" which was never my conscious intention. I think my overt fondness for Bette Davis movies, 50's musicals and kitsch domestic interiors screams camp or arch and I have always assumed that welling up when I hear Judy Garland sing was some sort of coefficient of my homosexuality.

The thing is, that stuff is entirely unlearnt whereas being very self-conscious about how I walk, talk, sit, gesticulate, is ingrained into me now and I can clearly remember training myself to avoid any mannerisms I thought girly or effeminate in my youth for self protection. What is more puzzling to me is that some of my friends shared my fairly robust working class, council house in the country roots and yet did not consciously do this. They were far braver than me and truer to something within themselves.

This is not just a heterosexual male thing. Many gay people too pride themselves on how straight-acting they are and the classifieds in the gaypers are choked with the laudatory use of the phrase straight-acting. I have to confess too that in a long and fairly active romantic life, I have only once that I can recall had any sexual involvement with someone whose mannerisms would have put them in the "nelly" camp. In that way, I am still trapped by and directed by codes for masculine behaviour learnt in childhood.

I was an out gay man for years before I was able to be comfortable around overtly effeminate gay men. Until I was in my thirties, I can think of only two guys who were friends and yet were undeniably flamboyant queens. Fortunately that changed and I began to see beyond the front and to derive great pleasure from that particular gay subculture. I will never fit into it comfortably or convincingly but at least I no longer fear it because some societal conditioning forbade it me in my youth.

I have found this a very interesting thread, Foust, which has been very enlightening to follow. It has been useful to be reminded that you don't have to be a gay man to have concentrated so much time and effort on keeping your wrists erect.
 
 
pomegranate
14:21 / 12.03.03
But we still haven't made any stabs at Nine Fingered's question, really--why *do* gay males do the limp wrist/lisp thing? I mean of course not all of them do it, but *only* they do it, or at least it sure seems that way. Gay males are often more effeminate, yes, but I don't know any females who lisp like that. So what's up?

I liked thinking about this one--straight male affectations:
crossing legs by putting one ankle over the other knee
liking super fake looking breast implants
burping
adjusting balls
that gross snorting thing when they have a cold
 
 
Ganesh
15:00 / 12.03.03
Other than the breast implant thing (which I'm pretty neutral about, really) all of those supposed "affectations" apply equally to me. I'd say they carry about as much objective weight, evidence-wise, as the gay stereotype. T'would appear to be little more than a somewhat methodologically faulty attempt to define oneself in terms of what is perceived as Other. Examine your assumptions, hmm?
 
 
Babooshka
16:35 / 12.03.03
why *do* gay males do the limp wrist/lisp thing? I mean of course not all of them do it, but *only* they do it, or at least it sure seems that way. Gay males are often more effeminate, yes, but I don't know any females who lisp like that. So what's up?

Perhaps you should get out more?

By no means are homosexual males the *only* ones who "do the limp wrist/lisp thing". Just because you personally do not know any women who do it does not mean that these women do not exist. The same would go for (ooh, watch out!) bisexuals, celibates, or queer-identified straight people.

People act a certain way because they want to, and because they can. (To be fair, I live in a large city, where there is more freedom to be the %screamingest of the queeningest%.) A more interesting question, and I think the one that other folks on this thread are making good & interesting attempts to answer, is WHY do some people choose to express themselves in this particular manner?

A secondary (equally interesting, to me anyway) question is, why are these particular behaviors associated soley with male homosexuality, and as identifiers for male sexulaity, when anyone can utilize these behaviors no matter how they express their sexuality, and many exclusive male homosexuals choose NOT to utilize these behaviors?
 
 
pomegranate
21:19 / 12.03.03
I think the reason that those behaviors are associated w/gay men is because they are the people who utilize them the most. Yes, some women and straight men have lisps. But it's not the same as that stereotypical gay male sibilant 's'. I think I get out enough to see that there is an unequal distribution of that characteristic. I just don't have an answer as to why. Do people really try to lisp on purpose as part of their homosexual identity? Is it something they're born with?
 
 
Ganesh
21:49 / 12.03.03
Perhaps you'd like to evidence that observation in some way, Mantis?
 
 
Jackie Susann
01:18 / 13.03.03
Maybe you're just assuming people who lisp are gay - I suspect you don't attempt to ascertain the actual sexual practices of people you meet with lisps before classifying them nelly?
 
 
Spatula Clarke
01:28 / 13.03.03
I think the reason you're associating those behaviours with gay men is because you're living in a Carry On or Confessions Of movie. Or have you conducted a survey about the lisp thing?

In other words, the reason is quite simply because that's how gay men have been portrayed in the media for a long, long time. It's really not something that's terribly difficult to figure out - homosexuality has to be shown to be obviously 'other' and as far removed from traditional images of male behaviour as possible, so elements of an equally dubious vision of female behaviour are included into it.
 
 
gravitybitch
02:12 / 13.03.03
I need to do a quick check-in from one of the centers of queer culture...

San Francisco is one of those places where there is little to no penalty for displaying "faggy" behavior. So, the stereotypically homosexual "affectations" tend to get used as signalling devices - "Yeah, I might maybe look straight (if you need glasses), but I'm queer and available and looking for this particular subset of queer companionship for the next x number of time units..."

I suspect that this is a highly refined use of "affectations" that usually only convey "membership in the club" of queer; that in the general case, the penalty attached to being categorized as queer due to behavior is smaller than the positive points of demonstrating a facet of identity. (It doesn't apply in small towns in Montana and portions of the rural South in the US...)
 
 
pomegranate
14:13 / 13.03.03
I promise you I don't hear people lisp and assume they're gay. All I'm talking about is what has been my experience, based on people I know. I have known a fair amount of people, and I don't see many people with that sibilant 's' that aren't gay males. I've known my fair share of gay males (I run with a lot of actors--oops, stereotyping again), so I also know that of course not all of them lisp. Like I said, I can only speak from what I know. I'm interested to hear anyone's else's side, like if most people whom you have met that lisp in that way are straight, I want to hear it.
I hear what yr saying about affectations as a way of signaling, Iszabelle. But do you think that gay men cultivate lisps? Other affectations, maybe. But lisps, I don't know. I'm just interested in the nature/nurture aspect.
 
 
Ganesh
15:15 / 13.03.03
Ahhh, people you know. Not necessarily the most readily generalisable sample - and your 'heterosexual affectations' exemplify some of the problems with lazy generalisation.

As I said initially, I think we have to be careful about what we choose to regard as 'authentic' - the notional default setting for male behaviour - and what we see as 'affectation' deviating from that hypothetical norm. Because it is hypothetical: who's to say the 'faggy' behaviour isn't the default setting, and the straight male posturing the affectation?

I don't think I know anyone - gay, straight or otherwise - with the kind of lisp you mention. Could you give us a phonetic example?
 
 
pomegranate
17:26 / 13.03.03
Ganesh, you are so right, and I don't mean to be saying that x is the norm and thus y is an affectation. In this case, that'd be heterocentric of me. I guess I just said affectation as a kind of shorthand figuring everyone would know what I mean...my bad.
Uhh this lisp...it's just a sibilant 's' sound. Not like a 'normal' lisp, as in "yeth" for yes, more like..."yess," or maybe even "yesss." Hope that helps...
 
 
Jackie Susann
02:03 / 14.03.03
clearly the gay mania for affectation is a disavowal of actual human contact based on the anatomical impossibility of making eye contact during poo sex
 
 
Ganesh
08:08 / 14.03.03
Without a mirror...
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
08:37 / 14.03.03
Ah, so the lisp is the only way to tell that you are being sexed up by a bona fide gaysexual, rather than a cheap import?

I see.

Now, is there a topic to get back onto here, or do people think the thread could profitably be moved to the Conversation?
 
 
Ganesh
10:29 / 14.03.03
Well, I fear that what started as a moderately insightful discussion of cultural assumptions and heuristic stereotyping may now be veering into 'why are all my gay friends so good at choosing curtains' territory. I do think there're at least two separate threads to be dissected out from this one (the validity or otherwise of gay 'signifiers', say, or the origins of specific gender-role associated behaviours) before we chuck it into the Conversation.

Sorry, the Conversssssation.
 
  

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