| Straight and Narrow Or Else
by Gavin Donaldson
October 18, 2005
"Yeah! And so what if at the end of a hard day I like to kick on some Kenny G and have a bath?
"Ross, we're 29, we're not women."
--Ross Geller and Joey Tribbiani, Friends (episode 409)
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Recently, I was looking through some magazines for pictures for my Spanish 101 students to use, when I came across this article in the perennial Pulitzer pretensor, Maxim magazine. As part of their "Body Shop" section, the article details the poignant struggle of a man in the throes of an identity crisis, and offers ways to resolve the crisis.
Q: The other day I was in a store with my girlfriend when I inadvertently picked up a teak-scented candle and an Enya CD. Do you think I have a brain tumor?
A: Get yourself to a doctor! Stat! (You don't mind if I call you Stat, do you?) You may or may not have a brain tumor, Stat, but it certainly sounds as if your testicles have shrunk to an alarming degree. That would explain not only the scented candle and Enya CD but also the Hello Kitty stationery you wrote us on, the tiny hearts with which you dot your i's, and the even tinier xo's you used to form the hearts themselves.
The first step in your long road to recovery is to stop listening to Enya immediately and switch to something ballsier. Over-the-counter music, such as AC/DC or DMX, may help stop the shrinkage, but in order to reverse the damage your physician may opt to prescribe something strong, such as electroshock therapy or a Metallica bootleg. Be sure to apply the music directly to your scrotum, in a firm, circular motion.
P.S. If tests do suggest the presence of a brain tumor, your doctor will likely recommend a series of expensive "treatments." [. . .] My advice? Tell him, "no thanks, quackenheimer," get in your car, and crank the Metallica way up. Then lay rubber! (1)
Granted, I also doubt the veracity of this excerpt, especially since the next question is "I recently yanked out a nose hair that was six inches long and braided, in three colors. It smells like beeswax. Is that normal?" but even if we analyze it as a purely humorous piece within the context of the magazine, we can see that its concepts are grounded in reality to make the joke work. The article must have had appeal to Maxim's intended audience, or it would not have been included. Since the intended audience is apparently men aged eighteen to thirty-five who enjoy sports, cool cars, cool gadgets, movies with abundant sex and destruction, beer and other fine spirits, and of course, the barely-clad women who grace the front covers, Maxim calls itself a "men's magazine," and thus the humor of this Q&A article derives from the deviance that "Stat" shows from the norms of masculinity.
While there is no need to debate the feminine nature of Stat's actions, the language of the article deserves more attention. It is couched in medical terms; that is, these acts are believed by Stat and the responder to be indicative of major physical malfunctions (like a brain tumor) as well as defects in the areas fundamentally considered to be part of "being a man." But why must it be this way? Surely Enya's music has some appeal, having gained so much fame, and surely teak has a scent pleasing enough to be packaged into a candle. Why can't buying these things be a conscious choice? The article's message is that doing these things is like having some debilitating physical condition, from which only the hard-driving music of Kirk, James, Lars, and Rob can save you from a fate worse than death: feminization.
At the most basic level, this type of humor relies on the psychological and social conditioning that we have that causes us to place certain things and actions within the "masculine" sphere and other things within the "feminine" sphere. The world of work has long grappled with these problems, as even now certain figures are often seen as outside their sphere, such as male nurses or female engineers. However, this essay is about the world of entertainment and "lifestyle choices," and the evidence therein showing that our society is not as gender-equitable as we'd like to believe. In fact, it is the idea that females are the weaker, inferior sex that underlies many of our reactions to men crossing the fine line into the feminine sphere. For an obvious example of this, look no further than the fashion world: it's quite acceptable for women to wear most kinds of men's clothing, but the reverse provokes cries of "Is he gay?" "What a pervert "or" He's weird." Though it is no longer fashionable for men to say that women are inherently inferior, this reaction to cross-dressing is based on the unconscious premise that women and things associated with them are inferior.
Not surprisingly, in the world of entertainment and leisure activities, the same dynamic holds true. Guys showing an interest in things perceived to be "feminine" receive explicit or implicit social sanctioning from friends, peers, and even parents--one letter in a nationally-syndicated parenting advice column was from a mother whose husband was worried about their young son playing "imaginative games" with some girls from the neighborhood; apparently this father believed that acting out "Star Wars" scenes would make his son homosexual. And I'd wager that everyone can think of some instance where some guy has been called something fag, sissy, queer, or some related insult for crossing the line.
I will admit that certain personal experiences have led to this essay topic. For whatever reason, I've long held interest in music, movies, and TV shows that are considered feminine, and yes, I played with dolls with my younger sister and her friends when I was fourteen. I don't have any AC/DC music (and in fact I had to check on line for the names of two of the members of Metallica), I have some Dawson's Creek and Ally McBeal on VHS taped off TV, and the list of "chick flick" movies that I've seen alone is too long to enumerate here. (The Notebook, Steel Magnolias, Where the Heart Is, Bridget Jones' Diary, et a heap of cetera.) And, I can testify to seeing my manliness questioned over these things, along with my sexuality on some occasions when other guys learned of some Ally McBeal soundtrack CDs and some Mandy Moore songs on my iTunes.
I again ask, why must it be so? One answer lies in a comparison to the fashion issue--a male partaking in something from the feminine sphere is seen as descending in status. And just as there is little social stigma towards women wearing men's clothes, there are usually not social consequences for a woman who likes male-oriented mainstream entertainment (movies like Lord of the Rings, Jurassic Park, or Independence Day, for example). But even though a guy owning a few Britney Spears albums isn't as obviously deviant as one who cross-dresses, the same kind of stigma is applied to him for straying from of masculinity.
Virtually every culture has their notion of what constitutes being "masculine" and "feminine," and these notions come from every possible source, such as family, friends, peers, mass media, popular culture, and even oneself, in the form of natural instincts to behave a certain way. Thus, as children we are told, "Boys don't cry" or "You don't want that doll, how about this truck?" and from then on we form a concept of masculinity that comes to include certain pastimes and entertainment while excluding others.
However, one question remains in the end: if guys who choose "feminine" entertainment are voluntarily lowering their status, why do other guys feel the need to go out of their way to call them gay, sissy, or other derogatory terms? Wouldn't it be enough to look at them and think, "Well, if that guy wants to make himself look girly by buying that copy of 'Ever After,' it's his funeral, and I don't need to worry, because I look better (i.e. more manly) by comparison"?
Unfortunately, I can't speak directly for the mindset of this type of guy, but one possibility is that the adverse reaction to guys making "feminine" choice comes from a background of insecurity in their own supposedly strong masculinity. I've heard various reports of guys saying "I'd have to have a girl with me to watch 'You've Got Mail'" or "No babe, I don't wanna watch that, it's a total chick-flick, let's get something else." It's a common phenomenon among human and animal social groups to encourage conformity by penalizing the "outliers," and the modern heterosexual male is no exception. So perhaps, the real reaction is something like:
1) I am a heterosexual male.
2) This guy is also a heterosexual male.
3) This guy is committing a deviant act. (Let's say it's renting "Moulin Rouge")
4) He commits this act despite being a straight male.
5) This is incongruous to my reality - either he is comfortable enough to do what he is doing, or there is something wrong with him.
6) I cannot accept that any straight male would be comfortable with this, since I am uncomfortable with this.
7) Therefore, something is wrong with him, and I must make this known.
8) "Hey, pencil-dick, Nicole Kidman isn't that hot in that movie! Or do you just like show tunes!"
Of course, these social sanctions are not limited to men--women maintain certain rules of femininity, but it seems like it takes a lot more straying into the male world of fashion or entertainment to draw criticism, depending on the types of women involved, to be sure. Still, I've never heard of this kind of exchange happening between women:
Woman A: What're you doing tonight?
Woman B: Well, I think I'll go buy the new Eminem CD, pick up some Bud Lite, then watch "Face/Off." Wanna watch it with me?
Woman A: Girl, I want you to put your hands on your chest, and make sure your breasts are still there. And maybe get down to the gyno to get your ovaries checked out, cuz it sounds like they ain't working right.
Now, imagine that it's two men talking, replace the entertainment elements with Sheryl Crow, Smirnoff Twists, and "When Harry Met Sally...," and replace the female body part references with male body parts, and the conversation becomes perfectly plausible.
Finally, I should add that women and the biological dynamics of attraction share some of the blame for the restrictive culture of masculinity that I've outlined; despite women's common complaints about being "sports widows" or otherwise negatively affected by men's hobbies, they show a marked preference for the men who display the overt signs of masculinity, thus encouraging men to continue being that way.
At any rate, I hope this randomly ordered collection of anecdotes, musings, and supposition will make you think a little differently about some of the things we take for granted as part of our gender roles, and maybe that when people do things that seem "outside the lines," it's might be just a personal choice of what they find appealing or entertaining. From my perspective, many guys are missing out on good storytelling and emotional richness by avoiding "chick" entertainment, so their loss is my gain. Tonight, I'll be sitting in my cave, watching a few episodes of the anime "Cardcaptor Sakura," (2) completely secure in my own version of masculinity--regardless of what "they" may think. But all is not lost: as I finish this, "Down with the Sickness," by System of a Down, is piping over the iTunes, so maybe there's "hope" for me yet.
Notes:
1) Maxim Magazine, July 2004, page 52. Used without any permission whatsoever, so if the powers that be want it removed, it will be so.
2) A very cute Japanese animated show aimed at elementary/junior high school girls.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=126
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