The stupendously ingenious premise here is that Giles loves Teh Chickz so gosh-darn much that he just can't relate to guys who love Teh Dudez—a framing reminiscent of that used by "white pride" groups, who will insist publicly, despite their histories, that they don't hate people of color; they just want to celebrate being white, is all. Similarly, it's not that Giles hates gays; he just really loves being straight! So much so that he's hopelessly Chick-O-Centric!
Sigh.
Anyway, his column opens with the fateful words, "I think I speak for most heterosexual males…" which is always bad news—and it only gets worse from there.
I think I speak for most heterosexual males when I say I'm not homophobic but chick-o-centric. Let's keep it positive, okay? It's not that we dislike you, the gay guy; it's just that we really like girls. It seems no matter how long we compliantly spend in rehab undergoing the most stringent psychotherapy to rid ourselves of our knee-jerk to your mate choice, the simple fact is . . . heterosexual guys don't "get" gays. Period.So much bullshit, so little time. Disregarding its patent falsity, the idea that gay men want to be women nonetheless implies that gay men thusly "other" themselves, and in such a way as to make them incomprehensible to straight men, to make them not real men at all anymore. As Jill notes, "a lot of the conservative hatred for gay men seems to come from the idea that gay men are lowering themselves to the status of 'female,' and that is entirely unacceptable." Absolutely right—and, as an added bonus, this thought reveals Giles' misogyny and belies his assertion that he just loves women too much to understand gay men. At least, he doesn't love them as equals. (Shocking.)
Heck, we don't understand women. What makes you think we'll ever understand a man who doesn't like women yet wants to be a woman? You just rifled right over our heads. In addition, not only are most men incapable of comprehending what a man sees in another man, we also don't care to try to because football is on—so can we all just shut the hell up with the gay stuff and watch the game?!?
Giles might insist that he views woman and gay men as his equals, just different from him. Separate but equal, perhaps, ahem. But if some level of loathing for women/gay men isn't informing his opinion, then a sort of Groucho Marxian "I wouldn't join a club that would have me as a member" self-loathing must be at work when Giles refers to his "knee-jerk to your mate choice," and, later in the piece, waxes confounded about enjoying his "fun, entertaining, and creative" gay friends as he enjoys dolphins, but being unable to understand "what they get out of eating mullet."
From the same seas as the Right Whale.
If Giles can't begin to comprehend what dolphins see in mullet, or—back in English—what gay men see in men, that seems to be a rather dire commentary on men, no? Then again, maybe Giles is just talking about being attracted to "men who want to be women," in which case, it's a rather dire commentary on the feminine. Either way, he needs a box of tissues for all those issues.
Past the illogical contortions he's making about loving women so much he can't understand men who want to be like them, or men who are attracted to men who want to be like them, or whatever lesson one is meant to extract from this mess of execrable swill, we arrive at Giles' real problem—it's still all about shoving Teh Gay in his face. But because he's a magnanimous sort of fella, he doesn't mind if you're a butch gay; it's only the girly men who get his
Now, let me help you, the gay constituency, to understand us girl lovers a tad. Most Chick-O-Centric males would not raise an unwaxed eye brow at a homosexual man if he would not shove his gayness in our faces. It's the flamers that freak out most heterosexuals. Case in point: Bobby Trendy and Jay Alexander. They seem like nice guys, but the pink hair, lip gloss, heavy eye liner, constant limp wrist and lisp is overkill. Why not, instead of emulating a TBN host, you follow Rob Halford's lead? That would make it much easier for us to have a beer with you. C'mon . . . work with us, we're trying to get along.What's that about loving women again? When the accoutrements of womanhood and the overt expression of femininity in men is what makes you despise them, there's just no way to argue that this is about loving women too much to understand gay men. Giles helpful "advice" is, essentially, to stop behaving like a woman; otherwise he can't be expected to tolerate you. You see, womanliness isn't to be respected; it's to be fucked. And if you queers were Chick-O-Centric like he is, you'd know that.
(Meanwhile, what self-respecting queer wants to have a beer with an asswipe like Doug Giles, anyway?!)
If it weren't clear before how commonsensical—and necessary—it is for straight feminists to be allied with the LGBT community before, this week has made it perfectly clear, from Medved's diatribe conflating gay men and fat chicks, to Glenn Beck's encapsulating use of "promiscuity"— which, as I mentioned, is a word that, for conservatives, draws a line straight from the genesis of women's lib through birth control, legal abortion, premarital sex, and casual sex, right on to sodomy and the Supreme Court, LGBT equality, and the catastrophic culmination of the hideous mess in same-sex marriage—to this idiocy from Giles. We are natural allies, because we are hated by the same people, for much the same reasons.
[H/T Jill.]
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