Resisting The Heteronormative Blueprint: A Gay Man (NSFW)

Hello Readers,

The time is now for me to be speak about a topic that I ignored for a long time. It took me quite some time to get to this point, accepting all of myself; I never thought I would be here. I want to say New York City is truly a place for reinvention. Before I moved to NYC I would look at other gay men and cast judgement upon them for being themselves, in such an open manner. I later realized it had nothing to do with them and everything to do with my fear and insecurities. Time, growth, exposure and a diverse environment are all cures for such feelings. Although I am about to open up I am still a huge believer in what you give to the world you cannot take back so forgive me if my method of approach to this blog post is a bit calculated. I write this blog post for my family with prying eyes, anyone who is misinformed or anyone who is simply curious.

So what was the setback for me refusing to address issues of being gay? Of all the cures I mentioned in the previous paragraph, a diverse environment is the most powerful cure; it is the foundation of cures. If you do not know by now, I was born and raised in The Bahamas and what a beautiful country it is. The only thing is The Bahamas is a “Christian nation” which means the Christian council has enough power to override the government and censor certain matters they deem out of line with their “perfect” values. So there is a mindset conditioning and conservative way of life that people follow and anything outside of that will not be tolerated. So at the end of the day, The Bahamas in all its beauty is another country where your son can be a rapist, a murderer, a thief, even a louse but the absolute worst is being gay. You can be great, as a gay man, back home but just turn a blind eye to the one part about yourself.

With that being stated, let us take a quick look at how gays are perceived. In 2016 there is still a need for people to understand that being gay is not a lifestyle. There are several lifestyles within being a gay person, you know, very similar to a straight person who chooses to be married and have a nuclear family, be straight and have children for five different people or even be straight and share a spouse with someone else. Also, for as much social justice as gay activists have acquired for the entire community there is still a percentage of the “normal” community who think all gay people are a bunch of “sissies who juice in the bush.” Translated for my non-Bahamian dialect speakers, “sissies who juice…” means gay men who have sex in a literal bush or secret outdoor spots because being gay is still taboo. Although society sees men as hypersexualized beings there truly is the emotion of romantic love involved between same sex couples.

Then there are heterosexual women who feel like gay men have come to compete with them as I will mention later, in most cases, is not the issue. This is a heterosexual world we live in and by that I mean this is what is instilled in us from a very young age as natural and normal. I believe that sexuality is fluid, very grey. Have any of you ever heard of the Kinsey scale? Well it is a sexuality rating scale which ranges from zero, meaning exclusively heterosexual, to six, meaning exclusively homosexual; all human beings fall someplace in between zero to six, in my opinion.

As the old adage goes, “Image is everything.” Personally, I always choose to speak through visuals rather than words, especially in this age of photo and video driven social media. A perfect example of this was me dying my hair blonde last summer; that was my little nod of confirmation. Let us be honest, no black male or any other male of color truly gets away with blonde hair without raising an eyebrow or two about his sexuality. In most cases, gay males are not seen as alpha males. Based on the social conditioning of the general public’s mindsets, a man and woman is viewed through the heteronormative standards so above, I am presenting a visual of a photo of myself wearing a red power tie and a suit to pull you in.

What do we see as “MAN,” a heterosexual man? Tall, muscular build, stiff motions, etcetera are all visual signals that we take in and process as “man.” Anything outside of this is less-than and frowned upon. Now, I consider myself to be a creative spirit so I like to be a little left-field for fun when it comes to my appearance but at my core my appearance is very conservative. My father was disciplined in the Air Force; he shaved his face every day whether he needed to or not, combed his hair, wore his shirts tucked in his trousers, with a belt. That is what I saw as “man.” Heck, I did not stop wearing my hair with a combed part until I was 13. No matter what my sexuality is, because of seeing the way my father presented himself, I became acclimated to a way of presenting myself that is more accepted than rejected by “normal” society.

Now, let us focus on the idea of most people that gay is a behavior. “Stop being gay,” or “stop likin’ man” are phrases said when a male is effeminate or even if a person is just being annoying or idiotic. The heteronormative structure that is ingrained in us from birth dictates that there is a masculine and feminine dynamic in a romantic relationship. When I came out to a family member I was asked, “Who is the girl and who is the boy in the relationship?” Excuse me, the last time I checked we are both men. What people need to realize is that although masculine/male and feminine/female is ingrained in our every thought it does not automatically dictate what a person’s sexuality is. Listen, I have seen some soft behaving and feminine looking guys here in NYC who are only attracted to cisgender females and know of some muscular and strapping men who would be quick to lay down and flip his legs back for another man. I know we are taught to have a very black and white perspective on gender and sexuality but it is not reality.

All gay men are assumed to be flamboyant fairies, it is a stereotype, it is what it is. I do not like to paint a community of people with one brush but without proper research I will take a guess and say about 90 percent of gay men have feminine tendencies, even if they only do it in private. It is safe to say the other ten percent of gay men are 100 percent masculine but as I just said before, one’s level of masculinity or femininity does not dictate his or her sexuality. Within the gay community, there is a great deal of prejudice by masculine behaving men against effeminate behaving men. There are men who use all of their energy to be seen, keyword seen, as masculine who end up looking down on men who are unapologetically themselves in public. They feel that those men who stand in their truths are making their effort to fit into “normal” society that much harder. Honestly, I fall in the middle because I was raised with a certain level of pride where I want to be seen by most people in a “positive” light: I want respect and admiration. At the same time, it is a terrible thing to try and shame someone for having a level of confidence for which you lack, just saying.

I mentioned in the beginning of this blog post about some heterosexual women having a great distaste for gay men. Here is where, I feel, the issue comes in with straight women. How many of you know a hetero female who is quick to go out and party with a gay man, “spill tea” with him, get her “face beat” by him or get her “hair did” by a gay man but the minute something serious comes up such as civil rights they are quick to be like well you know the bible says… Well I certainly have seen many hetero females like this and know a few. There are gay men who do lean heavily towards the feminine behaving side. Sometimes it even gets to the point where the gay man refers to himself in strong feminine terms. Forgive my vulgarity but I have heard gay men refer to their anus as a pussy(cringes as I type). Oh yes, “I’ll take your man, your pussy can’t compete with mine,” said a gay man to a hetero female. Now here is where I might ruffle the feathers of a few people, first and foremost men and women are not the same. So how on earth does a man try to compete with a woman in such a way. So for only that particular reason I can understand where heterosexual females are coming from when it comes to their prejudice. Just to be clear about two things, I did not say men and women are not equal because I definitely believe in equal civil rights. Also, as I stated before, this is not the case for most gay men, referring to their anatomy as that of a female. You know, just to make it crystal clear for those that are extremely thin skinned.

Labels, labels, labels you just do not exist in this world unless someone can place a label on you. What I have just given to the world I cannot take back but I feel by presenting this particular blog post on such a public platform(s) this is more of a gain than a loss. I am not trying to change the world or convert anyone but what I do hope to do is make someone see things from a different perspective than they did before. Before I exit, I just want to state a few personal facts about myself as it pertains to my sexuality. I am a very private person and if you were to ask me about what I do in my personal life, unless I am close to you I will kindly redirect the conversation in another direction. Oh, and speaking of personal and social media, you will never see me post a photo of myself and my guy on social media, we will have to be together for quite some time before I decide to put anything of the sort on public display. More power to those of you who like to let the public know that you can hop and skip to a new person every few months. At the end of the day I refer to myself as a man, who just happens to be gay.

Take Care,

Chet Alexander Kincaid.