Hi all!
In class this past Wednesday (1/30), research on the phenomenon of straight-identifying men having sex with each other and the language they use to describe these encounters was briefly mentioned. I thought I would share this article on the complexities of sex between "straight" men, drawing from the work of sexuality studies Professor Jane Ward (Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men) as doctoral student Tony Silva (research focus: sex between rural, straight, White men). This research and analysis is intriguing - especially Silva's use of the term "bud sex" - and hyper-relevant to class themes on the tensions between culture, identity, and sexual behavior.
https://www.thecut.com/2016/12/why-straight-rural-men-have-gay-bud-sex-with-each-other.html
I thought this was really interesting! Especially when thinking about Wednesday's reading by Rupp. When the Long Beach and Newport cases were discussed, the people who went undercover as decoys to draw out queer people didn't think that what they were doing was gay or classified them as queer. The men in this study also seem to perpetuate the idea that being gay corresponds to adopting feminine traits. As Rupp says, "for the queers, effeminacy in appearance and sexual behavior meant a positive identity; for the nay it marked men as deviant" (96). I thought it was also interesting that she mentions the receptive vs active roles which reminds me of ancient Athens... I just think it's cool to see all these concepts and ideas mixing with each other, whether purposeful or not.
ReplyDeleteI find it fascinating how closely tied this is to the idea of trades. There is the key difference that trades did not solicit these actions but were solicited and that they tended to have sex with gay men. I wonder how these changes might be tied to the boundaries the bartender in our reading described. Is this change an act of necessity? How does it square with our more rigid notions of sexuality and how are the "it's not gay if"s possible ways of coping with the stigmas Juzwiak points out?
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