Masculine

It’s a well-worn trope, an ancient meme: masculine guys are a problem for us sissies. They bully us, they oppress us, they’re hateful to us, and so forth.

I said “masculine guys” rather than “cis het males” because I’m not really focusing on how they identify but rather how they come across. I’m talking about masculinity as that set of personality and behavioral traits that are historically and conventionally associated with males; they’re presumed heterosexual and most of them probably are, although some are not.

Certainly some of the problem is homophobia – or, more precisely, sissyphobia – on their part. But even when you bracket that off, there is a tension there.

I know because I feel it. They set my teeth on edge sometimes. It can be like chewing on a strip of aluminum foil even when they aren’t bigoted sissyphobic assholes. And I suspect I have the same effect on them.

I don’t personally happen to be sexually attracted to the male morphology – it’s just not a set of shapes and contours that does anything for me. As for them, the masculine guys, some of them find males sexy but it isn’t the norm. But I exhibit characteristics of personality and behavior that are more commonly present in the people they are attracted to – female people – which is why those characteristics are called “feminine”. And for me? Well, it’s an oversimplification to describe the women I’m attracted to as being the same people as these masculine guys except expressed in female form, but yeah, they’re usually women who have been told over and over that they behave like guys, so it’s an oversimplification that works here.

I find it jarring to be around the masculine guys. The tension is sexual whether either of us experience it as sexy or not. Have you ever heard women complaining about feeling groped or undressed just from the speech and look of guys they encounter, of being leered at, spoken to in a jocular familiar tone with a wink in the voice and face even when it’s not a literal overt wink, something that’s subtle enough that nothing has been said or done that one can really object to. I’ve heard those descriptions, and along with them the assessment that sometimes it’s like swimming in sewage whenever you’re out and about. And I’ve nodded because I know the feeling.

Meanwhile, the masculine guys apparently find it jarring to be around people like me. I can’t say for sure what they’re feeling because I haven’t been directly inside their brains, but they often complain that sissy guys, by resembling women in various little unsettling ways, are teasing or provoking them, and it tends to make them angry.

Neither one of us may actually be doing anything to cause this feeling in the other. I didn’t start off with that charitable attitude though. I totally thought it was them and that they were being contemptuous and amused and invasively disrespectful of my dignity, broadcasting it as a threat. I disapproved of them and broadcasted back my resentment. If they weren’t actually doing anything, aside from simply being who they are, you could say I was bigoted and biased against them for being different. I definitely felt like I was “doing it right” and they were not being the way people are supposed to be. If this is true, then the only sense in which I can say they oppress me is that they significantly outnumber people like me, so their disapproval becomes a surrounding environment.

Interestingly, I became a lot more tolerant of people with masculine characteristics when I became aware that a lot of the women I found fascinating were expressing those traits. Doesn’t make sense to only hate them in guys. Especially while complaining that I’m being put down for exhibiting the same traits that are celebrated in female folks, does it?

None of this excuses hostile homophobia / sissyphobia, etc. But I don't think I'm an inherently better person than they are.


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