Fellas , is it Gay to Wipe Your Ass?
Fellas is it gay to wipe your ass? Is it gay to use lotion? Is it gay to get your nails cleaned at the nail salon? Is it gay to have hot steamy butt sex with your girlfriend? How did we get here? How did we get to the point where anything can be labeled gay as an insult to a man’s masculinity while also degrading a whole oppressed community. Why are these issues more amplified in black men as opposed to other races of men?
Well Sunny thinks , it’s based on the idea that black men are expected to exude 99% masculinity, 99% of the time. It is impossible to discuss this without the stereotypes that exist within all of our subconscious minds. That darker-skinned people are more masculine than lighter skin people, therefore they can do more work, feel less pain, and are more prone to violent acts. All these being pseudo-scientific facts based on colorism. Unfortunately, this negatively affects my dark skin sisters as much as it fetishes my darker-skinned brothers, but this is a topic for another time.
Black men are expected to use their masculinity as a navigator in society because critically that is all that’s expected of black boys. The room for nurturing, emotional intelligence and artistic pursuits are all backseat for what we as a community perceive masculinity should be for boys and it is sometimes women’s misconceived ideas on what masculinity is that haunts the minds of manhood.
Masculinity isn’t fragile because men are, it is fragile because it is easily taken away when a man steps out of a woman’s idea of masculinity. Unfortunately, it is my experience that some men are often imitating what they were taught was masculinity, and as the majority of our schools and homes are woman led. Men are losing the idea of masculinity more and more. Women are oftentimes the first teacher of a boy and they have such a large role in what lives in a man’s mind rent-free.
The larger issue however becomes when one bases all their ideas and personality on what it means to be masculine. Masculinity is a forever shifting concept, it gives and takes from Femininity. These are not separate concepts in the Eastern world, ideas of Yin and Yang and Maui and Lisa forever intertwined are as old as antiquity. It is unfortunately the Western World that has prided itself in the forever separation of these two lovers. In Ghana, the traditional men wear wrappers “a cloth around the waist “ that is similar to the Western Skirt. Scottish men wear kilts, Polynesian men wore lavalava. Victorian European men wore makeup and heels. Masculinity isn’t based on clothes and to think so is superficial.
My answer is simple. It is impossible to do something gay unless one is gay. The obsession in not wanting to be perceived as gay is what holds all men back. It is baseless insecurity that is rooted in societal prejudice. We know from social experiments kids as early as Five are taught racism. Now, what exactly are kids being taught about misogyny and femininity. My goal isn’t to make any of my Brothers throw away their masculinity, not should that be possible if one was truly masculine, to begin with, but it is to give autonomy back to all masculine men.
