4 minute read
TOXIC MASCULINITY, WHO ARE YOU? By Jack Groves
Toxic masculinity preconditioned my idea of normative sexuality.
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The hegemonic, male, dominating themes have always been clear in my life. Toxic masculinity is interchangeable, but it seems to cement in my memories. It’s glorified to some in the gay community and has become accustomed in everyone’s lives. Yet somehow we allow this metaphysical trait to affect our mental health.
As a young gay boy, year-7 at an all-boys state school in London, masculinity was what gave you ratings. Being anything other allowed reservation for bullying. Bullying made me question my identity; who was I? Who did I want to be? My identity was something they could never take away from me. My diverse heritage and culture further made things confusing for me. Fabulously ironic – I now cherish every unique extremity of my identity, yet it was toxic masculinity that wanted me to change.
Many notions of masculinity start from culture. There always seem to be block structures on how to embody culture. Gender roles are essentially composed through society and masculinity standards vary cross-culturally. We’ve all heard the absolutely nonsense phrases: ‘boys don’t cry’, ‘man up’, ‘be a real man’ etc. Men should not feel pressured to be physically and mentally strong. These phrases advocate for men to not express their feelings, in fear of being anti-masculine or ‘girly’. As a young boy, I didn’t want to be masculine. Playing football or WWE wrestling with my brother, ew… (unless I played the sexy, empowered female characters of course). I wanted dresses, dolls, curtains for wigs and P!NK. However, this soon led to feeling lost.
Feeling trapped in a conundrum wanting me to falsify my identity. As an adolescent, expressing myself in school was shunned upon and there began the conditioned silencing preempted by toxic masculinity.
Aforementioned, there are many subsets of culture. We are all becoming more conscious to modernise outdated binary identities. A big misconception, which still lingers today, is that queer boys are not masculine. Having said that, I’ve found that there aren’t any deciphering measures to illustrate identity. Heterosexuality dominates the mood of toxic masculinity. I am a 22-year-old gay man; heteronormativity was prevalent during my education. A default standard of masculinity becomes problematic when that doesn’t align with your identity. Especially with young people, the abnormality is seen as taboo. I remember the years I didn’t have time for anxieties and wore all the wrong shades of foundation on my face – signifying big F You. Make-up generally had connotations of femininity, which I identified with then, so by wearing it, I was challenging toxic masculinity.
Hypermasculinity’s polar opposite is hyperfemininity, yet the two are conceptually bound. So, would it be the macho insecurity and fragility against femininity that has caused this hostile division? Masculinity wouldn’t make sense without femininity. Therefore the couple is paired unitedly in a conceptual entanglement. In school, I knew that expressing myself meant that I wouldn’t fit in. Masculinity was new to me, but I knew it would ‘reward’ with friends. Additionally, it would protect me. I think many young queer boys sadly mitigate their sense of masculinity: I remember the sense of failure when trying to conform to the obligatory heterosexuality that is seen throughout society.
Straight men are at the forefront of scrutiny; there are elements of gay culture that seem to be infatuated by masculinity and toxicity. I’ve always been attracted to masculine men and I wanted to avoid being feminine. This glorified masculinity for me; it was a goal, it was sexy, it was attainable. This pressure to have a binary ‘straight’ character creates an abundance of toxic pressure and glorifies heterosexuality over homosexuality. I soon realised it was mostly fabrication and I stopped caring to be anything other than myself. I watched masculinity adhering to social imperatives, but when this masculine effect becomes affected, it crumbles – terminating its masculinity and thus a facade. Many supersede the testimonial understanding of masculinity, which is favoured in gay culture, as an identity purpose. Besides, this judgement negatively influences our mental health. Gender nonconforming individuals are affected regularly with self-esteem issues and experience higher levels of depression and anxiety, which suggests the stereotypes we attach to masculinity habitually affect our self-identity.
Being somewhat outcast by society and then further marginalised by your community will cause a detrimental attack on your selfesteem. These boundaries enforce division and hierarchy. However, some queer men continue to strive to embody cultural notions of idealised masculinity – #masc4masc. Gloating about their physique, demeanour, or their place in a queer hegemonic hierarchy will only further ostracise other personalities/identities within queer communities. This is highly prevalent in dating apps, which divides our communities. Homosexual is now recognised with more attributes than just ‘feminised men’. Queer masculinity has been westernised and is mainstream cross-culturally.
There is a sense of premium with queer masculinity. “Feminine-acting men are seen as less desirable sexual partners”, says Justin Lehmiller, a psychologist at the Kinsey Institute who studies human sexuality. Although masculinity can be toxic, queer culture has made an innovative change to masculinity. Masculinity is now pluralised, malleable, a style and queer – denaturalising the idea of masculinity and thrown to the discursive. It is no longer exclusive and has fluctuated through cultures and compounds inside what has been traditionally feminine.
Demonising masculinity is wrong and this is not an attempt to. For queer people, ‘traditional masculinity’ had been the oppressor. However, there are brilliant aspects of traditional and contemporary masculinity which accommodates us all… fiercely. Homophobia is not a form of masculinity! Fluidity in masculinity is becoming psychologically accepted and pressures have been relaxed. Given this spectrum, then perhaps the ‘desirable’ man should not be confined to #MascOnly.
