Masc 4 Masc: The Epidemic of the Gay Community — Transcript

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1. 0:12Okay, it's somewhere around like maybe
2. 0:15100 a.m. in the morning here in Atlanta.
3. 0:18I'm up and this is heavy on my chest,
4. 0:21heavy on my heart, heavy on my head,
5. 0:24and I need to talk [music] about it.
6. 0:28And I'm just gonna go ahead and say what
7. 0:30I got to say. [laughter]
8. 0:32It's probably gonna ruffle a few
9. 0:34feathers, but that's fine because you
10. 0:36ain't a bird if your feathers ain't
11. 0:38never been ruffled anyway. So,
12. 0:41let me just put it out there. I don't
13. 0:43know what the hell this obsession is.
14. 0:47This I don't even know if you call it an
15. 0:49obsession. Maybe a phenomenon, an
16. 0:51epidemic, if you will, with this mask
17. 0:55for mask.
18. 0:56this I only date masculine men. This I
19. 1:01want only want trade or I don't want a
20. 1:04man that's too feminine or I don't want
21. 1:06a girl or I don't want to see or I don't
22. 1:09want to f a like I don't know what all
23. 1:12of that's about.
24. 1:14And I feel like in a lot of ways when a
25. 1:17man says that what he's really saying is
26. 1:21I still haven't healed from the pain of
27. 1:23my childhood
28. 1:25for being teased or being, you know,
29. 1:28perceived as a gay boy. I associate
30. 1:32femininity
31. 1:34in myself or others
32. 1:36with some type of threat and that scares
33. 1:40me
34. 1:42or just
35. 1:45in order to maintain a certain level of
36. 1:47safety, I want to align myself with as
37. 1:51many heteronormative, heterosexual,
38. 1:54straight presenting things as possible
39. 1:57so that I don't have to fall into the
40. 1:59wayside of
41. 2:02being perceived as this like quote
42. 2:04unquote stereotypical gay.
43. 2:07And people
44. 2:09mask this as a preference. But what I
45. 2:12think people don't really understand
46. 2:14about preferences is that preferences of
47. 2:16oftentimes are influenced by the things
48. 2:20that you've seen or have been around in
49. 2:23your childhood. Good or bad. Good or
50. 2:26bad.
51. 2:28For example, I find myself to be
52. 2:31attracted to men who are a little bit
53. 2:34more reserved, who are more
54. 2:36solutionoriented,
55. 2:38who tend to be, you know, more
56. 2:40structured, more disciplined
57. 2:43type of guys. But the reason why I'm
58. 2:46like that is because my dad was that
59. 2:48way. My dad's ex-military. And so that's
60. 2:52what I grew up seeing. That's how I was
61. 2:54raised. And so those types of things
62. 2:56appealed to me.
63. 2:58So,
64. 2:59I get it and I relate to it, but I feel
65. 3:03like in a lot of ways it's
66. 3:06it's this internalized homophobia
67. 3:09that
68. 3:12we just address but never really fully
69. 3:17move into an accountable conversation
70. 3:20situation with. meaning there are people
71. 3:22out here doing this, saying this in the
72. 3:25gay community. Other gay men,
73. 3:28[clears throat] you know, ostracizing,
74. 3:29antagonizing, discriminating against, or
75. 3:32just, you know, ridiculing more
76. 3:35affeminite gay men because
77. 3:38they don't fit their preference of being
78. 3:45straight presenting.
79. 3:47And I really feel like the gag
80. 3:52is
81. 3:56masculinity is not a personality trait.
82. 4:01It's not
83. 4:03in this regard. It's a performance. And
84. 4:06the reason why I say it's not a
85. 4:07personality trait and it's a performance
86. 4:09is because
87. 4:11I have been around
88. 4:14masculine presenting gay men.
89. 4:17>> [clears throat]
90. 4:17>> meaning they dress like a straight man.
91. 4:21They do all the things that you think a
92. 4:23straight man would do
93. 4:25in public, but when they are in safe
94. 4:28spaces,
95. 4:30they're acting just as effeminite as
96. 4:32their highly flamboyant, expressive,
97. 4:36affeminite gay bestie.
98. 4:39And I feel like it's a copout.
99. 4:41And I don't want to be insensitive to
100. 4:43the fact that, you know, there are we
101. 4:47live in a world where there are a lot of
102. 4:48people who still are not comfortable
103. 4:50with
104. 4:52homosexuality.
105. 4:55You know, we live in the south. Although
106. 4:57we live in Atlanta, we live in the
107. 4:59south. And
108. 5:02many of my peers and many of the gay men
109. 5:06in our communities when they go back
110. 5:09home to their small rural towns or their
111. 5:11religious families or you know whatever
112. 5:14like they have to show up a certain way
113. 5:18so that it isn't perceived that you know
114. 5:21they've changed or transitioned or you
115. 5:25know become too comfortable with being
116. 5:26gay. I understand the unspoken
117. 5:29expectations and status quo that are
118. 5:32placed on us, you know, as men who are
119. 5:35gay and as men who live in the south and
120. 5:37as men who come from religious
121. 5:39backgrounds and so on and so forth,
122. 5:40right? I get that and I'm not trying to
123. 5:43be
124. 5:45I'm not trying to be dismissive of that.
125. 5:50But
126. 5:52the same men, my issue is that the same
127. 5:54men who say they don't like femininity
128. 5:58are the same men who embody that when
129. 6:01they are hurt, when they are
130. 6:03heartbroken, when they're going through
131. 6:05pain.
132. 6:08And I just want us to sit and ponder on
133. 6:10what that means. You know what I mean?
134. 6:13Because when you're when you're hurt,
135. 6:15when you're heartbroken, when you're
136. 6:16going through pain, when you're going
137. 6:18through difficult seasons in life, you
138. 6:21you embody very feminine traits.
139. 6:26You don't handle it like a man.
140. 6:29And don't get upset with me cuz the girl
141. 6:31the the straight girlies on TikTok are
142. 6:32saying it about the straight men, too,
143. 6:37that everybody's just a little bit too
144. 6:39sassy these days.
145. 6:43So, if that's going to be the case, what
146. 6:47I'm trying to say is that femininity is
147. 6:50nothing to shy away from. It's nothing
148. 6:52to
149. 6:54it's nothing to shun people about,
150. 6:58especially if you're gay.
151. 7:00I always say, I don't know why we try to
152. 7:03walk around here and act like straight
153. 7:04men anyway because the whole point of
154. 7:07being gay is that you get to have a
155. 7:09little sugar, that you get to be a
156. 7:11little sweet, spice, and everything
157. 7:12nice. I don't get it. I don't get it.
158. 7:17And it frustrates me because
159. 7:21I think that there are a lot of gay men
160. 7:24who are living in bondage because they
161. 7:26are cosplaying as straight men.
162. 7:30and leave it to the straight women. The
163. 7:32straight men don't even act like they
164. 7:33straight men no more, but that's another
165. 7:34conversation for another day. But
166. 7:36they're cosplaying as these straight men
167. 7:39to be
168. 7:42to be tolerated
169. 7:44by people in their own community.
170. 7:48So it's like we're already an oppressed
171. 7:51group of people,
172. 7:54right? And so we form a community as
173. 7:57this oppressed group of people. And not
174. 7:59all of us are oppressed, right? Because
175. 8:01some of us have very loving and
176. 8:03accepting families. But for the
177. 8:05majority, right, we can say most, it's
178. 8:07safe to say that most of us have
179. 8:09received some type of rejection, push
180. 8:13back, criticism about being gay. So,
181. 8:16we're this oppressed group of people
182. 8:18coming together in this space
183. 8:20and then we now create our own systems,
184. 8:23our own social statuses and cues and
185. 8:26hierarchies. And we then begin to
186. 8:29oppress these other people who don't fit
187. 8:32into the mold of what we think they
188. 8:34should be.
189. 8:39I understand that people are going to
190. 8:41have preferences. I don't have an issue
191. 8:42with that at all. I think I've seen, you
192. 8:46know, two masculine men who just so
193. 8:48happen to be beautiful couples and
194. 8:51they're together. I don't think there's
195. 8:53an issue with that at all. I think you
196. 8:54love who you love. But I do think that
197. 8:56when you are
198. 9:00selecting people
199. 9:02romantically and sexually solely on the
200. 9:06basis of masculinity
201. 9:12and completely
202. 9:15revoking yourself from any other idea of
203. 9:18that with someone who may exude a
204. 9:20certain level of femininity. And it may
205. 9:22not even be a lot, right? But like some
206. 9:25of y'all go so far as to say if they
207. 9:27carry a bag or if they wear a Chelsea
208. 9:29boot or if they like I mean I mean I
209. 9:32mean the rules are ridiculous.
210. 9:36If that's gonna be the case,
211. 9:40then we're we're a lot we're we're we're
212. 9:42behind.
213. 9:45We're behind.
214. 9:47We need to call Miss Frizzle in the
215. 9:48Magic School Bus cuz we are [ __ ]
216. 9:51behind and we've lost our minds.
217. 9:55It doesn't make any sense.
218. 10:00I just feel like
219. 10:05nothing is more masculine than a man
220. 10:08being unafraid of telling his real
221. 10:11truth.
222. 10:13And if you can't live out who you really
223. 10:18are, and this is for the men who can't
224. 10:20live out who they really are, I'm not
225. 10:23talking about DL men. I'm talking about
226. 10:25openly gay men who make a who make a
227. 10:28decision to go against what feels
228. 10:31natural to them to cosplay as a straight
229. 10:34man so that they can be accepted,
230. 10:37tolerated, and deemed attractive.
231. 10:41So that if you as an openly gay man make
232. 10:45the choice
233. 10:47to do that,
234. 10:50that means you're not living your truth.
235. 10:52You're still in bondage.
236. 10:54I just think that what we have to ask
237. 10:57ourselves is
238. 11:00if this is a preference, where does it
239. 11:02come from? Is it true desire?
240. 11:06Is it conditioning?
241. 11:08Is it out of fear?
242. 11:12because
243. 11:15we're getting too comfortable
244. 11:18with being
245. 11:22prejudiced against each other based on
246. 11:24[ __ ] that just don't really make sense.
247. 11:32And we find enough out in the world.
248. 11:36So I don't understand why we got to be
249. 11:37on Twitter talk to fighting about mask
250. 11:39and mask. That's stupid to me. It's It
251. 11:42to me is beneath us.
252. 11:46I I like to hold us up to a high
253. 11:48standard and I want us to live up to
254. 11:51that standard, but I think it is
255. 11:54extremely juvenile and elementary for us
256. 11:57to be in full-on dialogues about mass
257. 12:00for mask.
258. 12:04I just feel like and nobody people
259. 12:07aren't going to like when I say this,
260. 12:08but let me lean in when I say it.
261. 12:14And I'm not being insensitive. I'm being
262. 12:16real.
263. 12:18There are too many goddamn resources in
264. 12:21this world today.
265. 12:24There's an entire artificial
266. 12:26intelligence system in the palm of your
267. 12:28hands that can help you work through
268. 12:31everything from the most complex of
269. 12:33technical problems all the way down to
270. 12:36the simplest what should I eat today
271. 12:39for any mother trucker to be out here
272. 12:44using
273. 12:46oh well that's how I grew up and oh I
274. 12:48don't there are resources to support you
275. 12:52in becoming who you fully are. And my
276. 12:55frustration with a lot of us,
277. 12:58with a lot of people in the gay
278. 12:59community, a lot of people in the black
279. 13:01community, a lot of people in the world
280. 13:02in general, is that we don't utilize our
281. 13:05[ __ ] resources. But we love to trauma
282. 13:07dump and we love to trauma bond and we
283. 13:10love to talk about what what was what
284. 13:12was done to us and how we couldn't get
285. 13:14through it and how it messed us up. But
286. 13:16none of us are none of us are digging
287. 13:17back into our toolbox to use our
288. 13:19resources.
289. 13:22So, we want to be hyper aware of the
290. 13:24things that we know are dysfunctional,
291. 13:25but we don't want to do anything about
292. 13:27them.
293. 13:29And I feel like when it comes to the gay
294. 13:31community, we lean in so much on our
295. 13:34trauma, but we refuse to address it
296. 13:37because we allow pride, ego, alcoholism,
297. 13:40sex addiction,
298. 13:42so social media trends,
299. 13:46materialistic items, stuff to get in the
300. 13:49way of really doing the the real work
301. 13:50and the healing and having real and
302. 13:52honest conversations with each other.
303. 13:54That [ __ ] is tired. It's whack. It's
304. 13:57old. We all need to grow up.
305. 14:01We all need to grow up. Somebody cut the
306. 14:05[ __ ] program. Bang on the system.
307. 14:08It's stupid. We need to grow up. We need
308. 14:11to grow up. There's a difference between
309. 14:13a a preference and a personality trait.
310. 14:16I understand that people are attracted
311. 14:18to certain things. If that's your if
312. 14:20that's your ammo, go off. Like I said,
313. 14:22I'm talking to the openly gay men who
314. 14:24are out here navigating the world as
315. 14:27something that they're not.
316. 14:30Ostracizing, antagonizing,
317. 14:32discriminating against their more
318. 14:33affeminite gay brothers and sisters.
319. 14:37trying to make them feel as if they're
320. 14:38not enough because they're more
321. 14:40expressive about who they are in a
322. 14:42feminine way, but then getting behind
323. 14:44the closed doors and doing the same damn
324. 14:47thing that their brother and sister has
325. 14:51the courage to do and bravery to do out
326. 14:53in public. That's whack. That's lame.
327. 14:55And that's some [ __ ] So, if that's
328. 14:58you and you're watching this, I hope
329. 14:59your heart is heavy.
330. 15:03I hope your chest feels hit.
331. 15:06I hope you cussing me out right now cuz
332. 15:10you're lame.
333. 15:12It's time for that [ __ ] to change.
334. 15:15It's time for that [ __ ] to change. And
335. 15:20if y'all ain't going to change it, then
336. 15:21I'mma keep [ __ ] talking about
337. 15:22it until y'all do. Boom. Bam. Got to go
338. 15:25to bed. Y'all have a great night. Bye.