Giorgio Armani and the gay community’s ‘masc’ preoccupation
In an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine, fashion designer Giorgio Armani courted controversy (or crashed into a language barrier) by suggesting that ‘A homosexual man is a man 100 per cent. He does not need to dress homosexual…When homosexuality is exhibited to the extreme – to say: “Ah, you know I’m homosexual,” – that has nothing to do with me. A man has to be a man.’ Here, writer James Dawson looks at the reaction to Armani’s comments – and what they say about the gay community’s obsession with ‘masc’ characteristics…
Armani’s statement prompted an angry response on social media as well as humorous, if cutting, reminders that his own fashion line is hardly designed with lumberjacks in mind.
This storm in a Twitter cup comes about a month after actor Russell Tovey landed himself in the very same hot water after telling The Observer ‘I feel like I could have been really effeminate, if I hadn’t gone to the school I went to. Where I felt like I had to toughen up. If I’d have been able to relax, prance around, sing in the street, I might be a different person now.’
Here we seemingly have two men, both gay, both at odds with the very separate notions of sexuality and gender. Both apparently content enough with being gay, but neither willing to appear, heaven forbid, ‘girly’.
Hardly fair, I think, to demonise Armani and Tovey when so many of us are guilty of the same crime. Exhibit A? The reaction to Armani’s gaffe: ‘Ha ha!’ we decreed on our Facebook walls and Twitter feeds, ‘He’s the biggest woofter of us all! Look at his tan! Look at his bonkers peek-a-boo nipple fashions! No-one is gayer than he is!’
There’s an oft-cited opinion that homophobia is inextricably linked to misogyny, or the hatred of women. Think about it. When people attack gay men it’s often for ‘sissy’ behaviour: eschewing traditionally male traits in favour of archetypally female ones. The reverse is true for gay women.
Depressing enough from people outside the LGBT community, but doubly so when you hear the same sentiment from within. It reeks of self-loathing. Perhaps it’s understandable. Young gay men grow up with PE teachers telling them not to ‘throw like a girl’; peers telling them to ‘man up’; a mass-media whispering in their ears that heterosexuality is the norm. How can this not impact on our self-esteem? Far easier to turn these feelings outward towards other gay men than it is to resolve the hatred we may harbour towards ourselves.
And this is where Armani, Tovey and any self-loathing gay man is going wrong. While we obviously have to address homophobia wherever it may occur, perhaps it’s time to pull the weed out by the roots and address the misogyny at its core.
The problem is in ‘traditional’ concepts of masculine and feminine behaviour and attire. As long as we continue to propagate these myths, we are inadvertently fuelling homophobia (and transphobia). If your Grindr profile says ‘looking for masc’, what is it you actually want? Is it a beard? Then write that. Is it someone who looks a bit like a Tom of Finland CARTOON? Write that instead. Is it someone willing to slip into a pair of trackies, pretend to talk like Danny Dyer and spit at you a bit? Seek therapy, and then write that.
Going for a dictionary definition, masculine is ‘of or relating to boys or men’ or ‘qualities attributed to men, such as aggression.’ Firstly, women have all the same ‘qualities’ as men. Glad we cleared that up. Presumably, when dating, we would want men to be good-humoured, kind and empathetic although that dictionary would no doubt label these qualities traditionally female.
Looking at the former definition, anything male is masculine. Anyone identifying as male is automatically masculine. We have to move away from the notion that there are right and wrong ways to be a man. Mr Armani must understand there is no right or wrong way to dress as a man.
It’s fine to have a ‘type’ and few of us can do anything about it, but I think if you really broke it down, what you’re looking for isn’t a nebulous ‘masc’ state. I’m appealing to everyone reading this to delete that harmful phrase from every app you subscribe to. While you’re at it, get rid of ‘no camp’ statements too – another signifier of internalised homophobia. You’ll either fancy a guy or you won’t, so I see little point in such ugly disclaimers.
At the end of the day, there are enough people in the world who consider our community to be ‘less than men’ simply because of our sexual preference. Do we really want to add to that? It’s heartening that Armani’s words were so rapidly shot down as homophobic, but we are complicit in the culture he’s talking about.
Also by James: Why do we sneer and snicker when some celebs come out?