Questions Gay Men Have About Lesbians
One of the aims of TNG is to connect the gay and lesbian communities and give them a forum to learn about one another. You make this happen with your posts, your comments, and your attendance at our monthly party. Recently, I read an article online that aimed to answer questions that gay men have about lesbians. Two of them bear implications that I can’t answer, so I’m hoping you send us your feedback.
The first question seems to imply that lesbians are better at making and keeping friends than men. Is this true? If so, why? The second question implies that gay men might be too self-centered to care about anything other than their own lives. It also implies that we don’t really want to see each other at our respective clubs.
I have a feeling we will have a lot of anonymous commenters on this one.
From about.com: Gay Life:
Q: What can gay men learn from lesbians?
A: Lesbians really know how to make and keep friends. Many lesbians remain best friends with their ex-lovers!
Q: For the most part, gay men and lesbians get along. But, there are some that refuse to mingle. What's the deal?
Personally, I have many gay male friends. One of the things I've heard lesbians complain about gay men is that while lesbians will fight and stick up for gay men, gay men don't reciprocate. For example, there's many, many lesbians involved in the fight against AIDS, but you rarely see gay men involved in lesbian breast cancer support. That's just one example. Overall, I think lesbians and gay men do tend to get along, but I also think we like our separate space. I love to hang out with the boys in mixed clubs or at mixed events, but when I go to a lesbian club, I just want to hang with my sisters. Could this be the same for gay men?
11 comments:
Part of it might be due to a lack of exposure. There was a study done a few years back which (not surprisingly) showed that gay men and lesbians live in different parts of the city. I don't have time to dig this up right now, but I will try to do so later. It was pretty interesting. Also, when at bars, which are common meeting and socializing spaces, I think people have two general motives in mind: (1) to catch up with friends; and (2) to meet potential dating partners. The former leads to socializing with those with whom you already, know while the latter precludes social cross-pollination.
1. Ridiculously untrue, for me at least.
2. I have many gay male friends and love them all. I don't go to lesbian clubs very often, but when I do there are no men, so I never invite gay boys, lest they feel out of place. And I feel out of place at gay clubs, when I'm almost the only woman.
I second the comment that the first Q is absurd. Lesbians can be just as superficial as gay men and gay men can bond with their ex's as much as lesbians. My husband is still very close to his ex (thank Jeebus he lives in another state. :P )
Gay men and lesbians hang out at rather different venues and socialize in entirely different settings, hence the lack of exposure. Pretty much the only time we mingle is during pride events and the like. Is that bad? No. Should it change? I don't know. It is what it is. It would necessitate conscious interaction, which would be forced.
I actually get really frustrated about how hard it is to find spaces where I can go out with my lesbian friends and have both of us feel comfortable. Someplace like Phase or Cobalt isnt going to work, because its specifically designed for members of one sex to hook up with one another. However, even someplace like Taint, that should be safe for both sexes, gets tainted (no pun intended) by the general perception that most DC gay events are just for men. So I think we get stuck in that catch 22 of "women won't come because its only going to be men there, but its an all male event because women wont come." TNG parties are a good start, but I really do wish there were more gender-neutral gay bars and nights.
That's a problem that I run into a lot with my male gay friends. They never want to come out with me, but I also prefer not to go to Cobalt with them anymore (the no high heel rule is ridiculous, btw-- they let their drag performers wear them, just not women!).
What it means is that while I have great gay male friends, we tend only to socialize in small, already established groups. There's little mixing and meeting of new people...
last year at the visions in feminism conference, this question was discussed in a panel and one of the points discussed was the relative size of men compared to women. queer men in dc seem to be extraordinarily tall on average, so a lot of queer women complain of feeling "heighted" out of space that gets busy because they have trouble muscleing up to the bar, or can't see the band, have to "converse upwards" and generally get bumped into (unintentionally hopefully) more than they would at a space where they were closer in height to the other attendees.
I don't know if it's something endemic to DC or specific regions/cities, but I think that Washington, DC has an acute problem with self-segration in general beyond just the lesbian & gay communities. I've lived in other places where the tendency of gay men and lesbians to segregate themselves is less acute, so I found it kind of curious to go out in DC when I first moved here and find no lesbians at gay clubs. This sort of begs the question of whether or not the issue is a broader issue or one specific to the culture of this city.
The questions referenced above are a bit too general, especially question 2- Stating that gay men do not take an active role in supporting breast cancer groups, while gay women actively support finding a cure for AIDS is a bit of a ridiculous parallel. It implies that AIDS is a "gay male disease," rather than the true epidemic it is, and that gay men "neglecting" to rally for a breast cancer cure means that gay men don't support gay women? ALSO, the Breast Cancer epidemic has been publicized as part of a larger women's movement as well as women collating to find a cure. You can't just say AIDS=Gay Men and Breast Cancer=Gay Women. come on! I digress...
Maybe things like Breast Cancer awareness are similar to the "Lesbian Movement"-Being a lesbian is usually associated with being a feminist, or being part of a larger women's initiative. Thus, lesbian events/clubs could be seen as more exclusionary to the larger gay population.
Hokay...lotsa possible comments/criticisms. We all recognize that these questions are very general, right? Not all individuals are like this, and not all cities/communities are like this. I mean, we're Queer, following a perfect crossstitch pattern ain't what we do; that's what makes us so good looking.
That caveat being emptored, there is an itty bitty smidge of truthinesses in both contentions. BUT I think a lot of the les/gay relations are built on paradigms established in the 60s & 70s; paradigms which hold less and less sway with each sucessive generation. Translation: for baby queers, these dynamics are not so much the true.
Might I add, lesbians HAVE to remain friends with their ex-lovers--it's the only way to keep peace in a very small kingdom. Seriously, why are my ex-girlfriends EVERYWHERE? MOVE TO NEW ZEALAND ALREADY! AND STOP JUSTIFYING WHY YOUR CURRENT GIRLFRIEND KEEPS GETTING FIRED! SHE KEEPS GETTING FIRED BECAUSE SHE'S A CHILDISH BITCH! AND NO, THERE IS NOT NOW NOR WILL THERE EVER BE A JOB FOR HER AT MY PLACE OF BUSINESS!
Thank you.
Definitely an interesting question... one that I never thought about before living in DC. Back in Richmond, the bars we went to were an even mix of gays and lesbians with a few BTQs mixed in too. Several of my best friends were girls who I met out at the bars. We all danced, talked about our exes, drank heavily and went to concerts together, never noticing any inherent differences between the gays and the lesbians.
Moving here, I was surprised by how few queer women there were at the "gay bars". It could have just been that Richmond is a smaller city with fewer options. Regardless, I have great memories looking back on those days and I've often wondered why the DC bar scene just isn't as much fun. Maybe everyone at Halo and Cobalt just need a little dose of Lesbian drama to keep them grounded...
I think that people often fail to consider the disparity between gay men and lesbians along gender lines. Women still make less money than men and it would make sense that women didn't attend events, live in places, or mingle with people who were in vastly different socio-economic groups than themselves. Couple that with the, what I perceive to be, male-stipulated gender line in DC and there you have it...a whole bunch of queers living separate lives.
I also think it's the tool of the privileged to discuss topics like these so generally. You're only really speaking to a small group of people when you ask questions like this. And you're only getting a small, heavily biased, group of answers.
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