The hunter hunted

A couple of months ago I mentioned that I had run into this insightful collection of essays on sexism and feminism which, even if they were first published in 1984, still represent the current beliefs with utter accuracy. I was reading other things, so the book sat on my waiting list for some weeks, but now I have finally started to read and, as it normally happens with most non-fiction reads, it kick-started my own thinking around the subject.

Discussing the essays with Karen, which is an unabashed feminist, we came to the question of why gay men put so much effort into their appearance (probably not on par with the most dedicated women, but certainly a lot more than most heterosexual men), but the only justification we could conjure was the fact that they had to appeal to men (albeit gay men) in the same way that heterosexual women have to appeal to men, and therefore were subject to the same kind of symbolic pressure to attain certain levels of external beauty.

Photo: Dave C

To try to answer this question I texted a friend of mine who is openly gay and invited him for a zoom "just to catch up" and the I ambushed him with the question. The first thing that he replied is that nowadays many men below age 40 are already very aware of their looks even if they are not gay, but he acknowledged that this trend started among the gays for the obvious reason that men are much more visually driven in their emotional and sexual endeavors than women. If you think about it, considering that most men are raised to be the "providers" of the family they have the freedom to mate only a person they like (including visually). In contrast, most women are educated to be "provided for" so they will look more into the sustenance capability of their mates than into their good looks; additionally, looking beautiful boosts their appeal in front of men, increasing the number of suitors and therefore improves the chances that they will live a comfortable life.

He also mentioned that the relationships between gay men are comparably more volatile than among heterosexual partners. When I later mentioned this point to Karen she pointed out that, whereas men in general are invited and even cheered into promiscuity, the same behavior is absolutely discouraged in women. This means that, in a less-than-comfortable situation with their male partner, a woman will feel compelled to "bite the bullet" and hope things eventually improve, while a gay man is free to decide that he does not have to put up with the situation and seek greener pastures with a different partner. This volatility mean, on the one hand, that gay men have to make their partners fall in love with them on a regular basis, but also that they cannot "let themselves go" too far in case their relationship breaks up and they find themselves "back in the market" and totally unprepared.

On a side bar, there are another two reasons for the volatility of gay relationships: the first one is that most gay couples do not have children, while many heterosexual couples do. This introduces new elements in the decision making process that calls for the continuity of the family in situations that a child-less couple would split. The absence of children also leads into the trend that in most gay couples both partners keep their respective jobs and careers, as opposed to heterosexual couples where wives will tend to work less hours, apply to positions of less responsibility or even stop working completely, either for the attention of the children or only of the household. This also introduces an economic dependency of the wife on the husband that does not see a correspondence among gay couples even if their income is unequal.

The third aspect that we discussed was the apparent correlation between being gay and an artistic or aesthetic sensitivity. My friend has the impression that this could be somehow genetically correlated, but he had no explanation as to why it is that way. Karen speculated that this could be just an expression of broken taboos: once a man is ready to admit his homosexuality he has no reason to hide his artistic inclinations as well, while many heterosexual men would tend to hide them under the threat of being labeled "effeminate". We did not reach any conclusion in this direction but my friend thanked me for the question because he had found it very interesting and engaging.

One way or another, the one explanation that we found is that indeed (at least some) gay men are, as in the old National Geographic series, "Hunted hunters" who do not get to pick a partner anymore, but instead have to look their best and wait to be picked. Go figure. I hope you have a nice week.