Straight Men and Normalcy
I was writing a diary entry on this, but then I thought what the hell, I’ll blog it instead.
One aspect of straight male sexuality that, personally, I find particularly boring is the desire to be normal. I hadn’t noticed this for a while because some of my friends are a little odd, but now that I think on it far more guys than girls that I’ve known have expressed concern about being normal. I was reading some advice from Dan Savage on how to get your boyfriend to go down on you (out of curiosity, not necessity) and he said you could use the straight man’s desire for normalcy against him. If you’re with a guy who refuses to eat you out, you just say “All my other boyfriends used to love eating me out – what are you a fag or something?” to shame him into oral sex.
When I first read this I was taken back a little. My personal conceptions, or perhaps idealizations, of masculinity ran sort of contrary to this. In my mind, a manly man was someone who was independent and resourceful, confident and outgoing, and physically or mentally strong. You know, someone sort of like Bear Grylls from Man vs. Wild. In my mind, this person seemed like the type of person who didn’t really care what other people thought about him. Worrying about being normal and fitting in – isn’t that the type of stuff bitchy little 8th grade girls care about?
But then I thought back to that time I stopped shaving, and I remembered the universal “straight male” response was that no “normal” guy would want to sleep with a girl who didn’t shave. When I pointed out that I had male friends from MIT who didn’t care, my “straight male” friends would always respond that that was because they were weird effeminate MIT kids, not normal men.
There were other incidents too, that stuck out in my mind. One was a drunken bet between a fairly manly “straight male” friend of mine and me that ended up with him having to give me a blowjob while I was wearing a strap on. Naturally, he was a little upset that I had won this bet (because, you know, he wasn’t a fucking fag) so I gave him a choice. I said he could either give me a strap on BJ and we could keep it secret, or we could tell everyone he had gone through with it but he wouldn’t actually have to do it. In my confusion about straight men, I assumed that he’d rather not do it but tell everyone that we had. I could see why he wouldn’t want to suck a fake dick, but why would he give a shit about what other people thought? I was completely wrong. He quickly said he’d rather do it and not tell anyone, but in the end we never actually went through with it (or do I just have to say that to keep my part of the bargain?)
While some aspects of this are sort of funny and manipulatable, (“all my other boyfriends used to carry my luggage for me, but I’ll just get it if it’s too heavy”) other aspects are annoying. Another trait several of my more “normal” boyfriends have had in common is the desire that their friends to approve of me physically. I must have spent ages 12-18 getting over the fact that I would never look like the girls on TV and in porn, but I eventually did grow up and get over it. As it turns out, a live imperfect girl in bed is 100 times better than the most beautiful girl in video. Most guys know this too, but they don’t express it openly (i.e. they are often willing to fool around with girls who are “less attractive” than they’d like to tell their friends about.) My boyfriends were usually happy when their friends said I was pretty, and my male friends will often gush about how attractive their girlfriends are. But, in my mind, who cares? If your girlfriend turns you on, who cares what your friends think? I have certainly weathered some mockery at times for a few of my boyfriends, but I could deal with it because I’m not a spineless fuck. Making a big deal about how your girlfriend looks (even if it’s positive) is just going to bring back those feelings she had when she was an insecure teenager, and why would you want to do that?
Anyway, I guess I’m calling all those “normal straight men” out. Having your own taste even when it’s controversial, or dating someone who your friends would tease you about, is a lot more difficult than benching 200 lbs (ok, that’s total conjecture as I’ve never benched anywhere near that.) Men often perform empty gestures of masculinity to make themselves feel better (I got news for you – any idiot can set up an IKEA desk) but shudder at the thought of doing something as simple as bringing a fatty to the office party. I mean, yeah, if you don’t get turned on by short women don’t date a 4′11″ girl just because she’s nice, but don’t be afraid to date one because people are going to think you’re weird. Caring about being normal is both boring and wimpy, and personally I can’t imagine myself ever bothering with someone who makes a big deal about stupid shit like that again. Well, unless I need tire changed that is.
Filed under: Masculinity | 8 Comments
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I think most of the instances you mention of using “normalicy” to provoke a reaction are really mean spirited. I think if you say “go down on me, all my other boyfriends did” to somebody who cares at all, what it signals is “here is my standard, it’s what makes me happy, don’t let me down”. I think most (mature) men (and women) worry more about how to make relationships work out and how to make somebody happy than they do about their normalicy.
My point about using “normalcy” to provoke reactions wasn’t supposed to be a serious suggestion about how to manipulate your boyfriends as much as it was supposed to be taken as an example of why trying to be “normal” is sort of dumb (people can manipulate you.)
You make a good point though, that I hadn’t really sensitively considered, which was that probably most guys try to be normal out of a deep sense of insecurity. To cruelly play on those insecurities is just as mean as playing on the physical insecurities or whatever that many girls have (which people will do, but they’re total assholes for doing it).
Still, part of growing up is getting over things. Hopefully most men grow out of trying to be “normal” and hopefully most women grow out of feeling ugly. I don’t know if this happens – it seems not to have happened to many people I know in their mid 20s – but perhaps in another ten years or so?
First, I wonder about what fucked up books recommend you calling your BF a fag to “shame him” in to oral sex. lol! First off, go back to your recent posts AND your BJ posts and we all know that if that succeeds, it’s probably not going to feel very good and someone is going to end up paying for it later. Besides, some dudes can deal with a completely unskilled and uninterested female blowing them and they’re just happy to be there, but unless you are one of the rare HYPER-clitorally sensitive females out there, going down on a girl is not something that can properly be done without enthusiasm. I’ve heard so many complaints from women and claims that they “don’t like oral sex” until their partners actually get it right. Guys will complain too sometimes but so long as there’s no teeth involved even the most disinterested and horrible beejer will pass with at least a D.
Anyway, beyond that… assigning this “normalcy” issue to just heterosexual men is a bit too narrow. It feels as if you are taking the idea of homosexuality and calling it abnormal by definition and therefore gay men get a free pass on this one. Now sure, society sort of makes that distinction for you, but let’s have a more broad-minded outlook for a second… homosexuals have their own forms of normalcy just as heterosexuals do. Just because you’re not straight doesn’t mean you’re not normal. Just because you’re not straight doesn’t mean you’re in to every whacky thing on the face of the earth. And we’re all people! For every group/culture/orientation/etc there are ideas of normalcy and I’d say that MOST people try to fit to those standards OR there were enough people in to the same things that the standards developed around them and became the norms. Humans are herd animals after all, and you can play on ANYONE’s insecurities so long as you know their background.
Everyone worries about being normal and fitting in, even Bear Grylls. We just get older and naturally (or with the help of the internet) gravitate toward the groups that we think we belong to, and once we find our strength in numbers we stop caring about not belonging to the other groups or being provoked by other people because we now have a home-base of sorts. But take that away, strip anyone of their group identity, and unless you had a stone-cold loner to begin with you’re not going to have a very confident person in front of you (and I’d have to question the composure of the loner too… even biker’s who have all your masculine pre-reqs and would kick Grylls’ ass travel in gangs). Yea we grow up and our skins get thicker but like I said, we find our groups (even if its just the family unit). But we don’t fully “get over it” because it’s in our nature.
Also don’t forget that in your shaving experiment we all said we wouldnt WANT to sleep with a hairy chick, IF GIVEN THE CHOICE. But most men, when it comes down to it, would probably go through with it anyway. It was a matter of preference in one of the two groups you surveyed (and I’d bet money that if the surveys were random and on the street they’d match group A more than B… we can do this for real at the bar next time if you want. It be fun).
Sucking a fake dick, held by woman, so long as its been recently sanitized, especially not in view of an audience, is really no big deal (and who’s to say it happened if no one was there?). Frat boy types and other males commonly jokingly felate inanimate objects all the time to get a laugh out of their friends. I mean in the end, it’s just a piece of plastic. We get drunk and literally put our balls on ppls faces and take pictures… fake stuff is nothing.
Everyone ideally wants their peer groups approval of the people they date. Again, that’s a human thing and I’m sure it applies to homosexuals as much as heteros. If all your closest friends think your partner is an ugly douchebag then you’re going to feel discouraged from bringing that person around your friends, there will be friction, stress, etc. Even if you maintain your stance and try to disregard their opinions it will still be more tiring than if you had their approval.
Granted, straight men commonly go towards the phyiscal appearence aspect as the first line of approval but the reality is, the hotter the girl the more your buddies are willing to tolerate a friend’s shitty GF-related behavior (ditching them on weekends) or hearing about GF-related issues (“ok so she sounds like Fran Drescher, but at least she’s super hot!”). Again, it makes life easier. A guy who knows his GF isnt so hot but doesnt care what his friends think about that topic is simply not going to ask his friend’s opinion on the matter… and if they are douchy enough to question him on it he’ll defend himself based on her other positive attributes… but I’m sure he’d like to not have to defend himself in the first place if he could help it, and that’s not saying he’d like to change her appearance, just that he’d like things to be smoother via more acceptance from his group.
So once again Emma, instead of calling out all MEN on things that all HUMANS do to some degree or another, STOP finding the inconsiderate, pussified, immature, bad example guys you like to blog about, and go the other direction! They do exist, they are out there, and some of the sappier emo “nice guy/woe is me” types just need to be directed to http://www.heartless-bitches.com/rants/niceguys/ng.shtml and shown the error of thier ways.
Or maybe you’re in the Super Mario 3 drama club. Why don’t you go comment on my blog for once jerk!
Your responses are so hard to respond to because they’re SO LONG.
I still stand by my original statement that on average more men care more about being “normal” than women, but I think women have other problems (more of them tend to be dependent, or are unwilling to do/deal with difficult things.)
But whatever. You’re right – I’m too hard on straight men in my blogs. I actually really like straight men – I mean, most of my friends are straight men, right? I suppose my problems with women/femininity are deeper and more personal, which is why I don’t blog about them. But maybe I should? I actually nearly wrote a post on that, but it seemed too long and too intimate so I don’t post it. But maybe I’ll go back to it.
Anyway, I’ll be sure to comment on your blog! I liked your first post, but totally forgot about it after a while – I should like figure out some RSS feed thing or something.
RSS is what I use to keep up on yours. I wish I could RSS the comments though, I hate always having to check back to yours and Doug’s posts to see if you responded.
I’m only responding to your posts point-for-point
hence the length. Plus I want to have some sort of discussion like we used to at work. If you still worked with me I’d not comment but instead just TELL you the shit. I never saw the point of comments like “nice post!” Well fuckin yay! what was so nice about it that it moved you to comment but not truly say anything? So I try to give a little more in the hopes that one day, I will get that in return.
J uses google reader to keep track of the online stuff he reads. I havent investigated it yet. I just use the RSS feeder in my browser. I can also see posts from all the stuff I subscribe to (and u did subscribe to mine it seems) when I sign in to my blog.
You liked the FIRST post? I really don’t. It’s a necessary evil, housekeeping and set up… but while my blog is basically only about immature shit humor I still find that first post to be the most childish. I keep debating deleting it.
Emma is right, your replies are way too long, Mike. They read like someone’s myspace blog. Ay yi yi.
And while’s its sweet of you to draw similarities between straight men and the rest of humankind, it can’t really be disputed that there many more parameters for determining normalcy for straights and especially straight men than sexual minorities. Off the top of my head I can think of ten variables that are just less of a deal for queers: race, fertility, class/cultural background, age disparity, light drug use, # of previous sexual partners, gender conformity, favored sexual activities, what the parents will think, and uhhh manner of meeting/hooking up. Now, that’s not to say that certain queers won’t make a big deal of these factors, or that all queers are crossing hella boundaries in their relationships, but they aren’t dealbreakers for queers like they are for straights and especially straight men. (Of course, queers have their own uniquely important factors: physique, politics, taste, fashion sense, etc.)
This is a function not only of having limited dating pools and relationships that aren’t taken seriously but also of privlege and power. The higher up a social hierarchy you are, the more attention placed on your choices and how it affects your status. Add a host of double standards that negatively affect women, the most obvious being physical apparance, and you’ve got some seriously uptight men.
But what Emma was hinting at and what you missed is that for even self-identified “normal” men, there are those who don’t not just mind hairiness or chubbiness or sluttiness or whatever, but actually prefer it. And instead of admitting their preferences, they hide it completely in fear of the opinions of their peers and/or end up considering women with whatever taboo desirable trait as a fetish, something freaky to get off on and then disregard. And then they go “hogging” or “fucking sluts” or whatever and potential relationships get flushed down the toilet and women, real live women get hurt and abused. It’s really fucking sad.
I mean, there are tens of thousands of self-identified straight men who go for trans women but won’t meet up with them in public or have them meet their parents or just treat them like the way you treat a lady. I’ve heard these stories ad nausuem.
I won’t blame straight men as individuals for having strict norms in their social groups or that they live in a culture saturated with body fascism. But apart from just denying yourself life’s rich tapestry of women (!!!!), lots of straight men will end up shooting themselves in the foot with their norms. One obvious example: sexually voracious men deriding sexually voracious women (slags, hoes, etc.) when they could be making whale music – that’s just ass-backwards!!
I dunno, I’m the daughter of parents who made their parents cry when they announced their marriage and furthermore I’m a despised minority within a despised minority within a despised minority – but my life’s fun and I really enjoy myself. Giving up privlege can be worth it. And if it alienates you from your peer group, that’s why God invented the Internet.
I do realize I am rather long-winded but Lina, seeing as Emma is constantly hidden on messenger, rarely replies to emails, and never hangs out anymore these comments are really my only Emma-access. So try to get it all out while the thoughts are fresh because by the time we get voice-to-voice or face-to-face I’ll have completely forgot what I wanted to say.
I enjoy reading your replies too though. And I saw that point and realize that more norms are applied to the larger group, I just don’t think anyone should get a free pass when it comes to being accussed of trying to be “normal”
The people that you describe are pussys (can’t think of a better term at the moment) and there are pussys in every demographic… some are just larger than others
In the middle searching old friends, found your website.Just passing by.By the way, your website have great content!
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