“You can tell…”
These words are typically accompanied by an expression the perfect hybrid of scoffing and unbridled amusement – momentarily morphing the speaker into a doppelgänger of offenders before them. The context in which these words are whittled off also makes me cringe in an almost alarming reflex.
“I mean – no offense! You can just tell you’re gay.”
Of course you can bloody well tell. People look at me with avid interest when I’m standing silent and expressionless as death itself on the tube; largely because of my androgynous features – minus the Johnny Bravo jaw line – and long hair. Should I open my mouth in excitement, however, interest gives way to wide-eyed, ‘knowing’ smiles and incessant nudging of the friend next to them. Visualize a skinny jeans and printed shirts enthusiast – with an eccentric disposition to boat shoes, and it all comes together. Despite all the above – and being an out and self-proclaimed ‘proud’ gay – the ‘You Can Tell’ testimonial only ever agitates me…
Why? Because keeping straight society’s gaydars in check aside, it’s my gay brethren who really take exception. The bemused once-over from the muscular 6 footers, like a hormonal rugby team holding fort on the dance floor, should I rock up in my favourite skin-tight denims. Rueful gazes at my shoulder length locks from the barbered boys-next-door as I step out into the smoking area. Clearly ‘they can tell’ too, and it pleases them not.
Of course, they can tell, you exclaim to yourself – you’re all gay boys barricaded outside the gay boys’ honky-tonk together! The trick, however, us homos know, is not to really ‘look it’. That’s how we get 49 men in a stretch of club, pub or bar space, wearing the same understated t-shirt and jeans combo, coupled with the same brand of shoe, over the same stocky to rock-firm frame. This, it would appear, is the aspirational, inconspicuous gay ‘masculine’. I say ‘gay masculine’, because I doubt you’ll ever see a straight man swing his chiselled hips quite so conspicuously up Greek Street, regardless of whether he’s a dead ringer in that chequered shirt, goatee and gilet. Irrespective, it’s the only thing that passes muster for many of us.
“ If it isn’t broken – don’t try and fix, force, or de-fem it.”
This gay masculine is king next to my unashamedly slim-fit day-wear and long tresses. As far as a good few are concerned, the aforementioned wouldn’t even get me an offer of a milkshake when I bring myself to The Yard – and I can expect the boys to grimace, or assume a distant, glazed expression should I cross their path otherwise. It can get awkward.
What proved to be really awkward however, were my futile attempts to mould myself recently to the gay masculine ideal (well, a slightly dilute version – Action Man fresh out of the solarium in Air Forces was maybe too much of an extreme turnaround). The tight jeans were out, shirts went un-tucked over loose trousers – with Clarkes shoes completing the look.
It’s not as Tory-politician-on-a-bender as it sounds, and my Mum and Great Aunt certainly took to it; as did the markedly more approving guys in the clubs I stomped into – feet apart, less Geisha like, shoulders squared. While I relished being one of the lads for a little bit – there did seem to be a sort of vacuous gulf forming at the rate of knots between the Hetero-fraudulent face I saw in the mirror and the more quirky, nuanced and expressive, ‘gay boy’ personality inside.
Eventually every movement I made in my masculine get-up underwent mental vetting as to whether it tied into the image. I didn’t dance; I head nodded, hands in pockets – eyebrows furrowed in masculine fervour, pacing the floor. I didn’t sweep my hair back over my shoulder – way too fem – I let it hang in a rugged, ‘whichever way the wind takes it kind’ of thing, which was usually over my forehead and poking up around the ears.
I started to shuffle from A to B slightly like I imagine the Tin Man had he soiled himself. I channelled Barry White when I opened my mouth. Overall, it may have won me a conceding look from a chap now and then, but trying to work out how to be a good manly gay quickly blurred the lines with how much I had to let myself go to be a supposed example of ‘ordinary’ and ‘acceptable’. There’s being masculine, and then there’s missing the trick and just being an uncomfortable mess – even if it is more inside than out.
So, in light of experience, the conclusion this noticeably gay boy has come to now is, if it isn’t broken – don’t try and fix, force, or de-fem it. I may not fit the bill for the masculine conscious men of our community, but that’s cool; because now I know I’m not (and nor is anybody else) buying it anyway. I don’t care who can tell, as long as they can tell that this is the best way for me to roll – the real deal, in all my glory. As for me personally, I can tell you that pitching myself against the masculine ideal is going to be much less of an issue.
