How beautifully rendered Alexander! A blessing to have found this, and written so beautifully.
I've made peace, and found my POC experience of being gay so beautiful and powerful - I found myself not straight (or 'manly') enough to exist in Singapore (where I'm from), and also not fitting in gay subculture in New Zealand. A 'third space', an in-between swallowed me up and protected me instead. It gives me the lens to now practice compassion, to see things from the lens of the 'in-between'. Perhaps similarly, this 'in-between' is a way to interact and play with masculinity - in what ways do we embolden and weaken 'toxic masculinity' everyday?
My most recent interpretation of Queer is that it is an energy, and not who we bed with. It's an incredible energy to interrogate if what we do is in service of life. Because what is queer, if not to wild? And what is wild, if not the very essence of living? I have seen gay couples integrate so seamlessly into patriarchy; I have also seen cis, straight white men so clearly and beautifully live outside of binaries with such conviction - perhaps the latter experiments with Queer more potently.
So if we want to tap into the potentiality of masculinity (that might not be toxic), perhaps it's reflecting on a few factors: the intertwining of our cultural heritage (and indoctrination?), our personal environmental entanglement with masculinity, but also our aspirations towards living as queer beings. None of this is easy but all very exciting! The natural environment also hints at the symbiotic relationship of the masculine, feminine and beyond.
Would love to chat beyond and share space! I've started drafting up various scribbles in a series called "The Queer Manifesto" on my substack - just wrote a little intro if of interest :)
Thanks for this piece, Alexander! I really enjoyed it, and especially connected to the point about not fully expressing our pain or emotional needs for fear of not being fully understood, of not getting our needs met. While I do have gay male friends I have crossed this barrier with, the loneliness and forced emotional self-sufficiency that many of us experience as kids is a tough habit to break. A lot of practiced self-soothing. I’ve been toying with my own feelings around gay “community” and the ways it feels both safe and inadequate — this piece gave me some more insight into that feeling, so thank you.
Thank you for reading - I'm so interested in the tension between safety and inadequacy that you mentioned, I'm curious to do more reading on what a community actually "is" and how its defined.
In the last 15 years the curse of our community is the "Grindr culture".
The is no longer only the tool to hookup (and I don't have anything against hooking up with strangers, it is good and needed sometimes). Yet Grindr became the lens that we use to look each other in thousands of different contexts, well outside the app and our mobile.
With that lens we tend to sexualize bodies well before we socialize with the person owner of that body.
This is a patriarchal capitalist and consumerist practice that has poisoned our relationships and that leaves NO space for caring, no space for emotions, no space for mutual care.
Above all, we don't feel guilty when we do it since we say that it is " for sexual freedom and reject of hetero normativity". In my opinion we are deluding us when we say this.
Thanks for your comment Riccardo :-) I am working on a piece at the moment that speaks to this, the idea that many of our social spaces have become somewhat socio-sexual and how digital technology (Grindr, as you say) has contributed to this. That being said, I think it's about more than Grindr, I think it's about our political history as a community, and our sexuality being the thing that has united us, because it was also the thing that we were being discriminated for. We are brought together through our marginalised sexuality, and so sexuality is repeatedly brought to the fore in our social spaces, despite it being only one aspect of queerness... that's currently where my thinking is. Hopefully I'll publish the piece soon and will look forward to hearing your thoughts!
I’m yet to develop with gay and non-gay men the kind of friendship I have with women. What makes it so hard to get close to men and have the kind of openness and genuine intimacy that I can easily have with women?
We just aren't taught to have the range! That's why I think it's so important to keep trying to break through this barrier between us - we can only get there by trying.
You touch upon it a bit, but would you be able to elaborate on the results of when you opened up equally to your (gay) male friends and you customarily would to your female friends? I went through a similar emotional ordeal and I found huge comfort in knowing that my friends of all genders, including straight men, were so willingly to be there for me. It was nice to experience this sort of “alternative” to stereotypical masculinity in action and I do wish for it to be wider spread. Thanks for sharing!
The results have been mixed, and I'm far too early in the process to really share anything insightful. What I'll say is, everyone works at their own pace. Most of my gay male friends have responded to me opening up about as cautiously as I'd expect, but I'm seeing that we are slowly both inching towards a dynamic where there'll be reciprocity. I think if you decide to make this shift you have to be okay with it feeling a bit off balance at first, i.e. I am doing a lot of sharing about feelings but am not always experiencing said friends sharing back. But that's okay! I'm thinking of it as a kind of modelling. Slow and steady. Thanks for your curiosity, it gave me the chance to reflect on it a bit more :-)
This is so rich in yearning & faux accessibility vs having an authentic exchange. One is a cry for help and the other ushering that cry into the arms of vulnerability, being seen, heard, & held. Thank you so much for sharing this. It speaks to the depths of engaging w/ my male friends and walking through fire 🔥 together. 💜
Thank you, Alexander 🙏I stumbled upon your piece and will be sharing it with my 19 year old (straight) son, who has lamented this very thing for years now (he first sensed it moving into adolescence, this knowledge of something missing in male relationships) - that being authentic and vulnerable with other males when at your most desperate and abject was not safe, or even acceptable and how he envies the support he sees women offer each other in friendship. How to heal this? For all the young men like you and my son, gay and straight, and all the boys coming up, who deserve to be seen, and cared for and supported by other men. I do believe our future depends on it.
(i hope my English will have a meaning 😅) i have really enjoyed your article ❤️ i don't know if this is a problem only in Italy or everywhere in the western culture, but on the last two decades our activism here it's more "integration oriented" than a tool for deconstruction. And while feminist and trans and racialized spaces of activism are constantly trying to deconstruct all the patriarchy bullshit, we are loosing our revolutionary view and trying to become only a colorful version of the hegemonic masculinity.
I’m a couple months late but this just showed up in my feed and I’m so glad I read it. I really appreciate what you write here. I have numerous close and authentically intimate friendships with both straight men and women, but I’m only just now realizing that the only gay male friend that really had this kind of open, honest, and mutually supportive friendship with is probably my husband — and he had to learn it in therapy with me. So much of what you wrote hits home, and somehow I haven’t really seen that. I’ve had so many genuine and deep friendships that I guess I’d never realized that almost none of them are with gay men. I do have that kind of friendship with a few lesbians and even a few straight men, but you are absolutely spot on with your observations. This has given me a lot to think about. Thank you!
How beautifully rendered Alexander! A blessing to have found this, and written so beautifully.
I've made peace, and found my POC experience of being gay so beautiful and powerful - I found myself not straight (or 'manly') enough to exist in Singapore (where I'm from), and also not fitting in gay subculture in New Zealand. A 'third space', an in-between swallowed me up and protected me instead. It gives me the lens to now practice compassion, to see things from the lens of the 'in-between'. Perhaps similarly, this 'in-between' is a way to interact and play with masculinity - in what ways do we embolden and weaken 'toxic masculinity' everyday?
My most recent interpretation of Queer is that it is an energy, and not who we bed with. It's an incredible energy to interrogate if what we do is in service of life. Because what is queer, if not to wild? And what is wild, if not the very essence of living? I have seen gay couples integrate so seamlessly into patriarchy; I have also seen cis, straight white men so clearly and beautifully live outside of binaries with such conviction - perhaps the latter experiments with Queer more potently.
So if we want to tap into the potentiality of masculinity (that might not be toxic), perhaps it's reflecting on a few factors: the intertwining of our cultural heritage (and indoctrination?), our personal environmental entanglement with masculinity, but also our aspirations towards living as queer beings. None of this is easy but all very exciting! The natural environment also hints at the symbiotic relationship of the masculine, feminine and beyond.
Would love to chat beyond and share space! I've started drafting up various scribbles in a series called "The Queer Manifesto" on my substack - just wrote a little intro if of interest :)
Thanks for this piece, Alexander! I really enjoyed it, and especially connected to the point about not fully expressing our pain or emotional needs for fear of not being fully understood, of not getting our needs met. While I do have gay male friends I have crossed this barrier with, the loneliness and forced emotional self-sufficiency that many of us experience as kids is a tough habit to break. A lot of practiced self-soothing. I’ve been toying with my own feelings around gay “community” and the ways it feels both safe and inadequate — this piece gave me some more insight into that feeling, so thank you.
Thank you for reading - I'm so interested in the tension between safety and inadequacy that you mentioned, I'm curious to do more reading on what a community actually "is" and how its defined.
Thanks for this. I completely agree with it.
I have a theory for this.
In the last 15 years the curse of our community is the "Grindr culture".
The is no longer only the tool to hookup (and I don't have anything against hooking up with strangers, it is good and needed sometimes). Yet Grindr became the lens that we use to look each other in thousands of different contexts, well outside the app and our mobile.
With that lens we tend to sexualize bodies well before we socialize with the person owner of that body.
This is a patriarchal capitalist and consumerist practice that has poisoned our relationships and that leaves NO space for caring, no space for emotions, no space for mutual care.
Above all, we don't feel guilty when we do it since we say that it is " for sexual freedom and reject of hetero normativity". In my opinion we are deluding us when we say this.
I would like to know your view on this
Bests
Thanks for your comment Riccardo :-) I am working on a piece at the moment that speaks to this, the idea that many of our social spaces have become somewhat socio-sexual and how digital technology (Grindr, as you say) has contributed to this. That being said, I think it's about more than Grindr, I think it's about our political history as a community, and our sexuality being the thing that has united us, because it was also the thing that we were being discriminated for. We are brought together through our marginalised sexuality, and so sexuality is repeatedly brought to the fore in our social spaces, despite it being only one aspect of queerness... that's currently where my thinking is. Hopefully I'll publish the piece soon and will look forward to hearing your thoughts!
I’m yet to develop with gay and non-gay men the kind of friendship I have with women. What makes it so hard to get close to men and have the kind of openness and genuine intimacy that I can easily have with women?
We just aren't taught to have the range! That's why I think it's so important to keep trying to break through this barrier between us - we can only get there by trying.
You touch upon it a bit, but would you be able to elaborate on the results of when you opened up equally to your (gay) male friends and you customarily would to your female friends? I went through a similar emotional ordeal and I found huge comfort in knowing that my friends of all genders, including straight men, were so willingly to be there for me. It was nice to experience this sort of “alternative” to stereotypical masculinity in action and I do wish for it to be wider spread. Thanks for sharing!
The results have been mixed, and I'm far too early in the process to really share anything insightful. What I'll say is, everyone works at their own pace. Most of my gay male friends have responded to me opening up about as cautiously as I'd expect, but I'm seeing that we are slowly both inching towards a dynamic where there'll be reciprocity. I think if you decide to make this shift you have to be okay with it feeling a bit off balance at first, i.e. I am doing a lot of sharing about feelings but am not always experiencing said friends sharing back. But that's okay! I'm thinking of it as a kind of modelling. Slow and steady. Thanks for your curiosity, it gave me the chance to reflect on it a bit more :-)
This is so rich in yearning & faux accessibility vs having an authentic exchange. One is a cry for help and the other ushering that cry into the arms of vulnerability, being seen, heard, & held. Thank you so much for sharing this. It speaks to the depths of engaging w/ my male friends and walking through fire 🔥 together. 💜
Thank you for this beautifully rendered comment!
YAYYYYY - and omg not me *featuring* in this newsletter! J'adore. Excellent piece.
A deserved feature! Thanks for being my substack fairy godmother :)
Thank you, Alexander 🙏I stumbled upon your piece and will be sharing it with my 19 year old (straight) son, who has lamented this very thing for years now (he first sensed it moving into adolescence, this knowledge of something missing in male relationships) - that being authentic and vulnerable with other males when at your most desperate and abject was not safe, or even acceptable and how he envies the support he sees women offer each other in friendship. How to heal this? For all the young men like you and my son, gay and straight, and all the boys coming up, who deserve to be seen, and cared for and supported by other men. I do believe our future depends on it.
(i hope my English will have a meaning 😅) i have really enjoyed your article ❤️ i don't know if this is a problem only in Italy or everywhere in the western culture, but on the last two decades our activism here it's more "integration oriented" than a tool for deconstruction. And while feminist and trans and racialized spaces of activism are constantly trying to deconstruct all the patriarchy bullshit, we are loosing our revolutionary view and trying to become only a colorful version of the hegemonic masculinity.
I am also taken by surprise at the unexpected ways the patriarchy works its way into our lives. I do so appreciate your candidness. Thank you. ❤️
I’m a couple months late but this just showed up in my feed and I’m so glad I read it. I really appreciate what you write here. I have numerous close and authentically intimate friendships with both straight men and women, but I’m only just now realizing that the only gay male friend that really had this kind of open, honest, and mutually supportive friendship with is probably my husband — and he had to learn it in therapy with me. So much of what you wrote hits home, and somehow I haven’t really seen that. I’ve had so many genuine and deep friendships that I guess I’d never realized that almost none of them are with gay men. I do have that kind of friendship with a few lesbians and even a few straight men, but you are absolutely spot on with your observations. This has given me a lot to think about. Thank you!