Andrew J. Feraios’s article details
his experience in the gay male community and comments on how appearance is such
a paramount factor in social and sexual interactions. Feraios uses his life as
a case study, drawing on differences in his social life from times when he was
overweight and times when he was in “cute mode” (what he describes as when
individuals behaviors and appearance are manipulated and designed to seem more
sexually attractive). He noticed that he was treated with more attention when
he was thin and, but also that the attention was highly sexual. When he was
heavier, he found it easier to form real connections based on personality
rather than appearance. Faraios uses his experience to comment on lookism and
internalized homophobia in the gay community. He demonstrates that obsession
with appearance and qualities of sexual desirability could stem from poor
self-esteem and internalized homophobia. The judgment of fat, feminine, and
older members of the gay community is a result of societal stereotypes being
perpetuated due to “young gay men [having] little support to unlearn all of the
vile things they were raised to believe about gay men” (427). This is
manifested both in “less cute” gay men acting subordinate to “cutest”
individuals and a general fear of not fitting into the gay community.
This article relates directly to
what we just discussed in class about sexual fields. Feraios’s term “cute mode”
can be seen as an accruement of erotic capital. Faraios talks about how his own
erotic capital was increased through weight loss, contact lenses, and different
clothing. These specific qualities that Faraios talks about in his own life
seem to be the standard for garnering attention within the gay community. To
me, this goes along with the idea that even after coming out of the closet, one
is confined into a box of strict expectations and norms.
I thought one of the most
interesting points in the article was the idea that lookism and gay male sexual
and social hierarchies are directly related to substance abuse and HIV
transmission. The fact that the top reason for having unprotected sex for gay
men is that “he was really hot” is an unfortunate concept and hard to wrap my
head around.
QUESTIONS:
1)
Do you agree with the idea that lookism and
internalized homophobia are possible causes of HIV/AIDS transmission?
2)
The article discusses how lookism and
internalized homophobia affect the cis gender gay male community. How do these
factors create hierarchies in other sectors of the queer community?
What was the most interesting to me about this article was that quote you selected: “young gay men [having] little support to unlearn all of the vile things they were raised to believe about gay men” (427). This speaks directly to the ways in which queer hierarchies are often influenced by the white heteropatriarchy. So many of the structures of lookism are dictated by the heteropatriarchy's ideas of what is "beautiful" or "manly"-- being thin or muscular, having "appropriate" amounts of body hair, wearing the right clothes, etc. And these ideas of what is "beautiful" or "manly" can be traced right back to heteronormative ideas of gender and sexuality. Adhering to these ideals in the gay community thus ends up perpetuating harmful stereotypes and homophobia both internal and external. It's such a vicious cycle and it was very interesting to read Feraios’s account of his experience.
ReplyDeleteI agree with how looksism can be traced back to heteronormative ideas of gender and sexuality, especially with what we talked about before with femme erasure in the lesbian community. The stereotypical lesbian is the thin, white, butch lesbian, and something we should ask ourselves is why? Why not the fat, femme, lesbian of color? Perhaps the cause is a self-perpetuating cycle of external, heteronormative forces and internalized misogyny and homophobia. First, there is the consistent push from the media and general society towards the straight, white, thin, cis man. Then, there is a constant need to push homosexual individuals into heterosexual roles, even in the labels used in queer culture (butch, femme, top, bottom, etc.). Lastly, the exists a hierarchy of masculinity and femininity; that is, masculinity is considered greater, better than hierarchy. As a result, the thin, butch, white lesbian is the "best" lesbian.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think there is much of a difference between queer hierarchies and non-queer hierarchies in terms of lookism or desired erotic capital for male- or female-identified people. There seems to be a lookism hierarchy that directly feeds off of the typical power-dynamic hierarchy we’ve been discussing lately. It feels like there are two general desired looks: the thin/slimmer woman with slight curves (but not too pronounced!) ideal, and the athletic muscular man ideal as the two dominating looks for any race or class. I agree with Moira and Kaite here - this is definitely influenced by the white heteropatriarchy and heteronormative physical standards. If someone doesn’t fit into these two general categories, it can be discouraging on a number of levels - if you identify as a queer woman and are white, but don’t fit that physical ideal, are you “good enough” or “desirable enough” compared to other queer women? If you are a queer woman and not white, does that lookism hierarchy apply to you at all?
ReplyDeleteIn reference to question 1, I don't believe that lookism and internalized homophobia are possible causes of HIV/AIDS transmission. I agree ,however, with your reaction that the number one reason for having unprotected sex was "he was really hot".
ReplyDeleteAs the author points out historically the number one social venue for gay men to meet other gay men was a bar or dance club, it is probably drugs and alcohol fueling HIV/AIDS transmission.
I believe he was not speaking about the gay male community as a whole. It appeared to me early on he wanted to be part of the gay community that specializes in lookism and hierarchical society. The gay male community is made up of all sorts of subcultures where the "hot guy" or the "cute guy mode" would not get much attention outside of their "specialized clubs". It is of my opinion this author had enough self-esteem to do well in school, make friends, have a long-term relationship with his partner, and prosper in life in many avenues. He did not like himself as a person. He didn't like himself as a fat person or as a "hot person".
I think that certainly we can say sexual practices (for homoromantic people who practice sex) can be linked to feelings of self, and intern lookism and internalized homophobia. These sexual practices in turn can definitely change the spread of STIs (while pressure to have less safe sex certainly doesn't get rid of culpability from the individuals involved I think to not understand systems at play is dangerous).
DeleteAlso why is it that unlike other communities a predominate place of togetherness are clubs? Why are the places of substance use (which I'd rather be value neutral on, I think the attitude here is a bit victim blaming).
If he was speaking to any community as a whole it seems to be that of masculine values at large (and while we can speak to non normative ones i.e. bears, gainers, etc.) I don't think pathologizing the relation to self esteem and AIDS is useful on a single individual, but at the same time I think understanding how sexual practice and internalized values of self might influence those practices is important.
Even if in this view condomless sex comes from a place of lower self esteem, where are those values of self being generated? Sure they're internal but they're definitely being reinforced somewhere and I think in the moment picking between validation and safety can be a strange choice that in hindsight is easier to make.
In response to 2: Lookism and internalized homophobia affect every queer community. No matter how accepting and body positive a community attempts to be, rejecting societal beauty standards often results in instituting a different rigid standard of attractiveness.
ReplyDeleteIt was interesting, and somewhat painful, to read this article as a fat, masculine-spectrum queer person. I have no plans to integrate myself into the mainstream gay male community, because it's kind of awful so much of the time, but I wonder how I would be received in, say, a bear bar. The gay bear community holds up fat, hairy, masculine white men as a beauty ideal. How would my dfab-ness reduce my erotic capital?
While reading this piece I was also thinking about the Bear community. Personally, I am someone who isn't at all into the whole classic "Adonis" look that Ferious describes as the ultimate ideal in gay male circles. I’ve never really been a part of the Bear scene, but the heavyset, hairy man is the body type that I’m attracted to.
DeleteIn many ways, even though superficially, the Bear scene may look the exact opposite from the Cute Mode guys Ferious talks about, I think they function in the same ways. There are certain types of faces, certain shapes of body, certain clothes, certain ways of talking that are all deemed desirable and attractive. Where the Cute Mode people has model-like, thin-nosed “Hellenistic” faces to be the ideal, the Bear community has thick, wide-nosed, broad-foreheaded, large-jawed faces to be the ideal. While the Cute Mode people has defined muscles, thick biceps, and little to no body fat, the Bear community has fat muscles, prominent stomach, and moderate amount of body hair. Basically it’s the same thing but with different types of body image.
I do think though that the Bear community might be slightly more accepting of different types of bodies and standards of beauty because the bear itself is a non-normative ideal of beauty, but it still is a set of standards by which to judge people on. It’s the same logic.
I find it really intriguing that the guys that were in Cute Mode often were in the closet. In the beginning of the paper, Feraios describes his college years and how the queers that went to the political meetings and the queers that went to the Boy Parties were very different, most prominently how the ones that went to the Boy Parties were usually in the closet. It reminds me of gay hook-up culture. If you look through any hook-up sites like Grindr or Craigslist Casual Encounters, there is a huge demand for “masc” or “straight-acting” men. Some men go even further and post ads (that are kind of hilarious) along the lines of ‘straight bro for other straight guys ONLY’. This kind of delusional self-denial are extremely clear examples of internalized homophobia.
ReplyDeleteI think the fact that straight men are defined as masculine and that desiring women is something that is seen as inherently masculine automatically defines men that desire men (and especially men that *solely* desire men) as feminine and thus abnormal. For a guy to be masculine means he is successfully fulfilling his role as a man and that he is a ‘normal’ man. For a guy to be feminine means he is NOT masculine, in other words not normal, and he has failed to be a man. Most men are extremely afraid of failing their roles as men so they go through great lengths (and often hilarious lengths) to cover it up, or compensate for it somehow.
I realized after a while that it would make sense for guys that were in the closet to also be in "cute mode". The obsession with looking chiseled, tan, etc. to be prime for often random hook-ups definitely seems a valid attempt at entering the gay community without outing oneself to the general public. The most attractive men, Feraios observed, had other men offering themselves to them, even in not necessarily gay and/or sexual settings. "Cute mode" seems to be prime for straight-acting, closeted men - not only do they continue to uphold what is expected for a straight man, they are also able to find prospects within the gay community without having to out themselves to anyone, especially people they are intentionally closeted to.
DeleteI think looksism and internalized homophobia definitely affect most queer communites besides the mainstream "Cute Mode" community centering on the athletic white male. I actually found it kind of difficult to appreciate the article because I found that the author's conclusion, that people are more than their bodies, is a conclusion that doesn't only apply to gay males, and something that people in all communities, especially women, have to face. One can make the argument that looksism takes on different forms in the queer community than it does in the straight community, but I think most people raised female can confirm that there is a constant policing of what women should look like and what they should wear. It's no secret that this causes insecurity. Commercials for make up, plastic surgery, and skin creams feed off of this insecurity. Feraios mentions a similar situation in the gay male community he was a part of, with twenty-five-year-old men "already using products to prevent hair loss and lines on their faces" (427). I agree with his conclusion that the queer community and the gay male community should be more supportive of its members, and that perhaps an internalized homophobia adds even more looksism to the gale may community than it may to other communities, but I still think that the issue arises from a general looksist society and the fact that many companies and groups in power benefit from looksism and the policing of bodies.
ReplyDeleteI have been thinking about this concept of looksism and the Feraios's use of analysis that it is internalized homophobia that causes it within queer male culture and how this concept is seen across all kinds of demographics, too. In reading the piece I felt a bit uninspired because, to me, his entire arguments seems like it should be a criticism of PATRIARCHY, not just of internalized homophobia. It is patriarchy that dictates standards of beauty. It is patriarchy that normalizes male dominance and empowers the male gaze. Homophobia is also a function of patriarchy, but I found his argument to be incomplete through his failure to analyze it in a larger context.
ReplyDeleteFeraios's experiences with lookism closely reflect the constant policing of looks that women experience. Control of women's looks primarily comes from other women and a lot of that has to do with internalized sexism. Feraios says that the "fear of being homosexual" is exchanged with a "fear of not fitting into their new community of acceptance". The hierarchy that women create based on looks is also fear based, rooted in a need to appear socially acceptable and desirable.
ReplyDeleteThis spam post is vastly ironic given the discussion we're having here.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting part of this article to me was the emphasis on regionalism. His comparison between his experiences in the Bay and the way the two men (who turned out to be straight) from Boston acted and looked hones in on what I believe to be a real regional difference that occurs in queer communities. The qualities of "Cute-mode", or erotic capital as discussed in the Sexual Fields piece, are different based on different areas of the country. Coming from California, I agree that an emphasis on body type, facial features, and clothes to be the pivotal in the queer community. People in the Castro definitely make split second decisions based on what you look like, and even more so in West Hollywood. I can agree that there is a clear hierarchy defined almost exclusively by pectoral muscles. However, coming to Boston for school I was surprised that these things matter significantly less here. In New England, education and intelligence also play a pivotal roll in one's erotic capital, I think. I am definitely not saying that physical appearance does not matter, but it is drastically different from the extreme "lookist" hierarchy that Feraios and I have experienced. I think much of this is dependent on what is upheld in West and East Coast culture. Regional differences play a key role to the extent these lookist hierarchies exist as well as in the qualities that make up one's erotic capital.
ReplyDeleteWhile I can appreciate that this piece is the author’s own personal experience, I agree with a few others in that I think it’s important to note that looksism is far from exclusive to the queer community. Society is what dictates standards of beauty, and the queer community is only one small subset of that population.
ReplyDeleteOn an entirely different note, what I found most interesting about this piece was the way the author’s body changed throughout – not physically, but within a societal context. As he became more conventionally attractive, it was almost as though his body became public property. People didn’t think about the implications of touching him or discussing his transformation aloud; they felt entitled to it. While that doesn’t surprise me, it does shed some light on the way society views and objectifies the human body, extracting it from the human experience.
I totally agree, Rebecca and I also think that it's interesting to note how this happens to women's bodies that are not in the physically "average" sized or looking spectrum. If a woman does not look "enough like a woman" or is "too thin" or "too fat" it only exacerbates the way that people tend to feel they have a right to know what is best for someone. Being a woman in itself makes you often feel like you can't control what happens to your own body, but when that intersects with looking unlike the sexist ideal appearance for a woman, that body is even more devalued and the person in that body is made to feel like it belongs to society's standards.
DeleteOne element I loved about this article is how Feraios linked low self esteem to a jacked body. We usually associate low self esteem with bad body image, meaning that it is assumed that overweight people have the lowest self esteem. Feraios' dispute of this fascinated me. He proposed the idea that even the most physically attractive people may dislike their bodies as well, which is why they feel the need to have buff muscles and look "cute." If this is true, it means our society has even greater self esteem problems than I originally thought.
ReplyDeleteFeraios does make a convincing argument to explain how lookism could be a possible cause for HIV/AIDS transmission. But reading the article, what I found more interesting was the correlation of the fear for HIV/AIDS and lookism. HIV/AIDS was a horrifying disease that gained the most publicity and incited the most fear during the 80's and 90's, especially with the highly publicized protests like ACTUP in 1988. During that time, people were afraid to appear "weak", as an act of rejection to the HIV/AIDS disease. Gay men wanted to advocate their healthiness through physical expression. The more masculine a man appears, the less likely they will 'appear' to be contracted with HIV/AIDS. Therefore, to advertise their healthiness, many gay men began to gym, lift weights, to look physically strong. These healthy gay men are seen as more desirable compared to the weak, sick HIV gay man, and this thought has perpetuated into today's gay culture. Cute men are manifested as the more attractive, desirable gay men, and so lookism has become a huge factor within gay culture.
ReplyDeleteTo answer your second question, yes I agree that lookism and internalized homophobia does create hierarchies within the political sector of the queer community. Lookism, to some extent, results to the invisibility and visibility of a certain group within the queer community. Because of lookism and societal's racist construct, the white, socioeconomically privileged, class have thus, a greater visibility and a greater political pull within the politics of LGBTQ social movements. That is why marriage equality is the leading LGBTQ movement of today. Those who do not fit the criteria, such as say trans community of colored people, will not have this political pull and their need to have basic rights will gain less support as compared to the movement for marriage equality.