The Black community never ceases
to amaze me with the lengths they will go to in order to perpetuate
homophobia. Black men have to be
masculine. Not just masculine, they have
to be hyper-masculine, a warped manifestation of part criminal, part abuser,
part dictator in order to be considered a real man. They have to control and command and lead the
household and make all the decisions and make all the money and they have to
have big dicks or the Black sexuality police will deem them gay and less than a
real man. They have to wear the right
sneakers and their jeans have to be saggin’ or they will be considered girly
and undeserving of the title of Black man.
Wait, their jeans can’t sag too much or that will mean that it’s some
sort of secret prison sign of being gay, a homosexual beacon calling out to
find those other disgusting gays. OK, so
there’s a fine line of how much your jeans can sag but you can rest assured
that Black people will be able to tell you where that line is and anyone who
doesn’t have the appropriate amount of heterosexual jean sag is a fag.
The only problem is that the tightness
of one’s jeans doesn’t indicate a person’s sexual preference. The color of a man’s shirt doesn’t indicate
his sexual preference. The timber and
bass of his voice doesn’t indicate his sexual preference either. How articulate a brotha is or isn’t has nothing
whatsoever to do with his sexuality. I
hate to break it to you but none of the absurd and asinine gay indicators that
Black people (and Black women are the worst with your supposed gaydar so I’m
calling you out specifically) use to identify gay men are valid and all they do
is perpetuate a bigoted and uninformed mentality that perpetuates misogyny,
sexism, and men hiding their sexual preferences, desires, and curiosities in
further continuance of lying, denying, and stupidity.
You want to know what does
indicate a man’s sexual preference?
Nothing. Not a damn thing. Because we are so sexually immature, we don’t
understand the difference between gender identity and gender roles. But we have swallowed, hook, line, and sinker
that men are supposed to be aggressive and violent and sexually promiscuous and
that women are supposed to be submissive and genetically predisposed to cooking
and cleaning and satisfying a man’s lusts.
There are real differences in gender but they don’t have a damn thing to
do with masculinity and femininity. They
aren’t even all genetic. And just as in
nature, right is not better than left, night is not better than day, up is not
better than down, male is not better than female. And masculine is certainly not better than
feminine.
Masculinity and femininity are
concepts not found in nature. Masculinity
and femininity are SOCIAL constructs, not biologic or genetic. A female lion doesn’t say, “Oh, look at that juicy
gazelle over there. I would love to fix
him for dinner tonight but I have to wait for my big, strong husband to do it
because I’m too demure and girly and only males do that sort of yucky stuff.” Elephant herds are led by the females, not
the males. Female elephants are not
relegated to be inferior to the males, their contribution to the herd is not
diminished because they bear the children.
Male penguins are the primary care-givers of their offspring. They feed, shelter, protect, teach, guide and
love their babies while the mothers are off frolicking in the semi-frozen surf. But one thing you won’t see on Penguin Twitter
is the entire penguin community in an outrage, demeaning the male penguins for
being sissies. But women will tell you
with a quickness that they don’t want to get the oil changed in their car because
only men are supposed to do those sorts of things. They have been socialized to believe that “car
stuff” is manly, as if, if you are forced to do the horrid job of taking your
car to the mechanic you are going to grow hair on your chest and wear
flannel. Be believe that men have
certain roles and women have certain roles and we don’t question where those
rules originated or the significance of what it means to us as
individuals.
The concepts of masculinity and
femininity are man-made, literally and figuratively. It was men, very insecure and immature ancient
men in fact, who deemed what role women were to have in society and what role
men were to have and any deviation from those made up rules meant that that
person was some sort of social leper. It’s
no accident that men decided that they were supposed control and rule over
women.
Black folk LOVE to falsely claim
that homosexuality doesn’t exist in nature.
Except . . . it does. In almost
every single species known to man homosexual acts are commonplace. What doesn’t exist in nature is
homophobia. That is a social construct
as well. Hating someone because they
experience pleasure with the same gender is as illogical as hating someone just
because they have a different skin color.
Homosexuality is not the going to end human population. Loving someone, even having sex with someone
for nothing more than pleasure isn’t bad or dirty or wrong. It’s simply a different form of sexual
expression from what is come to be accepted as the norm. Your male
dog isn’t going to start barking with a lisp and wearing a skinny collar if
they have sex with another dog but my people, my poor, misguided, gullible
people think that if a man has sex with another man, even if he is “the top”,
that he is going to start singing Lady Gaga songs and going around saying, “Two
snaps and a twist, gurl.”
If I hear one more time, “I don’t
want no man crying more than me,(sic) I need a real man,” I’m going to lose
it. Right, you don’t want a man to use
his tear ducts because you have deemed you know more than perfect and divine
Mother Nature that men aren’t supposed to use them. If men weren’t supposed to cry, they wouldn’t
have tear ducts. No one wants a partner
who is overly emotional, male or female, but crying is essential, we are human
beings and we are supposed to process and release our emotions, penis
notwithstanding. The fact that men don’t
cry, don’t express their emotions is the reason they are holding so much rage
and frustration in and acting out in unhealthy ways. Women are promoting it with their backwards
thinking. I’ve heard women say, “I knew
he was gay because he liked his nipples stimulated and only women supposed to
like that.(sic)” That level of stupidity
is astounding. What biology class did
you take that told you that men’s nipples aren’t supposed to provide them
pleasure because you need to demand your money back?
Let’s dispel some myths right
now, shall we?
1. First and foremost, Bisexuality is an actual
thing. Yes, it’s very real. Black people love to say that Black men can’t
be bisexual, that if they have ever been with or thought about another man
sexually then he is gay. Bisexuality means
that you enjoy, appreciate, and are aroused by sex with both genders. It does not mean that you prefer both genders
equally, in the same proportions and ways, but this whole concept that a Black
man can only be straight or gay is really, really . . . not intelligent. We don’t have a problem (behind closed doors)
with female bisexuality but we are the original kings and queens of double
standards when it comes to men being bisexual.
2.
I know
this is going to offend many a person but it has to be said. EVERY male, every single solitary one, has
the potential to experience pleasure when anally stimulated. The nerve endings in the anus are the exact
same as in the female and women have the potential to experience explosive
pleasure, even orgasms when stimulated anally and women don’t have a
prostate. Men have a prostate, a gland
located within the anus, that when stimulated not only provides pleasure, but it
is healthy for them. It’s not just some
men, it’s not just gay men. EVERY male
has the potential to experience pleasure when stimulated anally. Nature, biology itself, has set the stage for
men to experience sexual pleasure when stimulated anally so let’s stop
relegating it to only something only gay men like and let’s collectively mature
to the point of understanding that a man experiencing sexual arousal and/or
pleasure when he is anally stimulated has anything whatsoever to do with his
sexual orientation.
3. The
color, tightness, style, or cost of a man’s clothing does not indicate his
sexual preferences. It does indicate his
style and his willingness to either conform or rebel against who and what
society tells him he has to be. It’s
clothing, not a genetic marker. Wearing
a skirt does not make a man gay. It does
not make him feminine. What men and
women wear is nothing more than an evolution of Victorian and puritanical
belief systems that have dictated that women were bras, makeup, heels, pantyhose,
and dresses while men wear pants.
Indigenous men all over the planet, for millennia, have worn skirts and
the population didn’t cease to exist because they were all in the closet gays. Recognize your own level of brainwashing
within the matrix and understand that clothing is nothing more than a
socially-acceptable way to cover our naked bodies that we have been taught to
be ashamed of.
4. Ladies,
the more you make up these ridiculous rules about what makes a man masculine,
about who is and isn’t gay, about what makes a man a “real nigga” you are going
to force men to lie about their sexuality.
It’s no wonder so many men are in such denial about their real sexuality
because Black women are quick to demonize anyone who isn’t a thug as less than
a man. And ladies, if you are
continually measuring masculinity by how tight a man’s jeans are you are surely
going to bed down with a man who is hiding his sexuality because you’ve already
let him know that you won’t respect him if he admits to having same sex
desires.
5. Black
men are NOT responsible for the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Black women want to demonize bisexual men,
point the finger of sanctimonious indignation at bisexual brothas for being
down low and for spreading the disease. Check
it out, sista. If you spread your legs
and don’t care to get your partners tested first, you are a hypocrite and you
need to take a long, hard look in the mirror because your HIV status is your responsibility,
no one else’s.
6. The
only way to truly ascertain a man’s sexuality is to be non-judgmental, open,
honest, mature, and to effectively communicate.
The vast majority of young boys experiment with other young boys when
they are young. That does not make them gay
or bisexual. Lots of boys are molested by
older males when they are young and many experience that molestation as
pleasurable physical sensations. That
does not mean that they are gay or bisexual.
The problem lies in ridiculing, shaming, and shaming men when they tell
the secrets of their past that haunt them.
We have to redefine what we want in a man and what it means to be a man. If you want a man who is hard, aggressive,
who is masculine, be prepared to accept him when he is abusive, distant, and
emotionally immature and unavailable. Just
as a bisexual woman’s identity doesn’t change or become less desirable as they
explore their sexuality with another woman, a bisexual man’s identity doesn’t
make him an untouchable and disgusting. Manhood
should be defined by honesty, integrity, emotional maturity, and commitment,
not some biblical edict that says that men are supposed to be aggressive and
violent and women are supposed to be demure and submissive and can only be
between men and women to be viable.
There was a time in the past when
I belonged to the “Black gay/bisexual men are yucky,” club. As I evolved, I realized that sexuality has
nothing whatsoever to do with who and what a person is. I realized that I was wrong for my
position. There was also a time when I
was asked if I thought everyone had the potential to be bisexual. I rejected that argument summarily because I
believed, or more accurately, I had been socialized to believe that
heterosexuality was the norm against which all other sexuality should be judged
and that bisexuality and homosexuality were abnormalities. Today, I am of the mindset that bisexuality should
be the normal, natural state for all human beings and that it is only our
socialization, our conformity to repressive rules, rules that dictate that an
individual should be repulsed by the very same sexual organs they have between
their legs when viewed on another person.
I now believe that bisexuality
represents true enlightenment. The ability
to see the value and worth of a person, their essence as a human, the ability
to acknowledge chemistry, both physical and spiritual, in another person
regardless of their genitalia, in my opinion, is how we are supposed to be as
humans. I reject the idea that a person’s
gender should dictate whom they love or with whom they seek pleasure. I reject that men should screw any woman they
can because it’s in their nature. I
reject that casual sex is no big deal and I believe that the energy exchanged
when we have sex with another human being should be based on true connection
and chemistry, not just recreation and certainly not manipulation. We should be attracted to a person’s heart,
their energy, their talents, their spirit, and their sensuality, not solely the
bits between their legs. That, to me, is
the ultimate form of enlightenment.
I do not think that all bisexuals
are enlightened. Not even close. I think that our collective sexuality is so
backwards, so distorted, so unhealthy that I believe that most bisexual people
are in denial, they hate the part of themselves that is seeking pleasure with
someone of their own gender and thus they are far from enlightened or
evolved. One thing I know for sure is
that bisexuality is far more common than anyone wants to acknowledge. It pains me to think of how many Black sons
have been degraded and humiliated for their sexual experimentation by fathers
who have engaged in all sorts of same-sex proclivities themselves all because
the Black community wants to make manhood about being hyper masculine,
one-dimensional, stereotypes of what manhood is supposed to be.
Scottie Lowe
