Breaking down the boxes

I’d like to think that the human race has come a long way since the days of fast judgment and groundless prejudice, but sadly, I’m here to report that we have not. We only fool ourselves into thinking we’ve made leaps and bounds in social mentality. Doing so makes us feel better about ourselves. After all, we are in the 21st century. We’ve built cities, paved roads and eradicated almost all barriers in communication between peoples of the world. We’ve abolished slavery and lived through events that affected the most sensitive facets of society such as suffrage and the civil rights movement. It appalls us to even think that some portion of us might not be as evolved as history demands. None of us want to be “that person”—the one who can’t accept a new social norm and move forward. So, in this age of political correctness, we wear masks and pretend to be as modern as we think we should seem. This facade fails us, however, when it comes to the question of overcoming the gay stereotype.

Privy to the bad, uncivilized nature of mankind, we categorize and label people upon our first introduction. Research indicates that this first impression, made in mere minutes, stays with us. Accurate or not, it is extremely difficult to change. And so, we immediately place our new acquaintances into “boxes” that have been pre-labeled and defined for us by society. We store these away in our minds and place people into the appropriate boxes as we move through life. For men, flamboyancy and effeminate tendencies, such as specific interests or mannerisms, define the box labeled “gay.” Conversely, gay women are boxed in by the athletic, masculine, “butch” stereotype. As soon as we encounter someone who shows any semblance of these characteristics, (though this happens more frequently with men), we automatically ask ourselves, and usually those around us, “Is he/she gay?” One short meeting is all we need to put someone in a box.

In the recent past on a crowded C-1, I overheard a girl debating with her friend as she tried to determine the sexual orientation of a new acquaintance, “Oh, you don’t think he’s gay? It’s not like he makes it easy on people. He’s just so flamboyant.”

I take issue with many of the things this girl said, so let’s dissect this piece by piece, shall we? For one, the man in question has absolutely no obligation to make it “easy” for people to know whether he’s gay or straight. His personality is his personality. So what if he’s flamboyant? She’s essentially saying that he should suppress his personality if he’s straight or play it up even more if he’s gay just so she can fit him more comfortably in one of her pre-designed boxes. Furthermore, I don’t understand why she feels compelled to determine his sexual orientation. I highly doubt she does this for every man she meets. Rather, this in-depth analysis is only for those who don’t fit in a box.

Would his being gay or straight change her perception of him? I can’t say if it would, but I don’t believe sexual orientation should function as a defining factor.

I wanted so badly to understand why she said what she said, but it wasn’t until I came across a scholarly analysis of a similarly-themed “Sex and the City” episode that I did. In the second season episode “Evolution,” the character Charlotte York dates a man named Stephen who works as a pastry chef and knows more about fashion and cooking than she does. His interests, mannerisms and way of speaking make her wonder whether he is gay or straight. The episode makes it clear that Charlotte is not unwilling to accept that Stephen is straight; rather, she is trying to make sense of Stephen and his gender presentation within the narrow constraints of a patriarchal society. She doesn’t understand the concept of the effeminate male—the straight man who embodies certain effeminate characteristics.

The problem doesn’t lie with the girl on the bus but with the masculine nature of our society as a whole. It is ingrained in us to think of men in one way and women in another. When either sex refutes his or her mandated characteristics, we almost robotically assume that he or she must be gay. We fail to understand that an individual deviation from accepted gender norms does not automatically imply homosexuality.

There is no box for the effeminate straight man just yet. And though it’s becoming more widely recognized, the box for the non-stereotypical gay man or woman is still obscure. Society is currently trapped in the clutches of a masculinity complex. And until we allow ourselves the freedom to break apart the boxes that keep us there, we will continue to needlessly and adversely wonder, “Gay or straight?”