When deciding to write this series, I first had to establish two very important points, what my concept and understanding of masculinity is, and how I measure up to my own definition.
As a gay man living in the Midwest who slowly began to come out and understand who he actually is, my answer has slowly developed alongside my understanding of both the world and myself.
My concept of masculinity was defined largely by religious indoctrination. I was supposed to be level headed. I could show emotion, but not in the same way as a woman. I was expected to be the head of the household and family. As a man, I was supposed to make the ultimate decision for the family at the end of the day. These were things I learned to follow like an act. I played the role and hated every moment of it, though I could not understand why, or rather, I did not want to admit why.
Looking back, my attempt to understand where the lines of sexuality and gender trait expression intersect and diverge helped me see why I rejected the idea of embracing masculinity at a younger age. I was disgusted with the men around me. I found them hypocritical, unethical, lacking values, and lazy. I wanted nothing to do with them. I refused to resemble them in any way. I had identified toxic masculinity without even being aware of what it was and understood it to be masculinity in general.
The Male Body
I simultaneously found the male form attractive and arousing while I also hated many aspects of my own body. I can even say that masturbating and watching porn hurt my conscience, not because of my religious upbringing, but because I was attracted to what disgusted me. It symbolized power and dominance, control within a hierarchy, and all the negative qualities I had come to despise. I was attached to that which I could not reconcile with who I was being told to be. The male form had been incorrectly defined for me as something beyond strength and athleticism. It meant dominance, and belonging to a club I was not interested in or supposed to be invited to. My inner self did not match my exterior’s potential. I felt counterfeit.
Beginning in my late teens, I spent a considerable amount of time researching and understanding my spiritual and emotional state, fine tuning who I was inside, while just as faithfully neglecting understanding and knowing my body’s potential. I worked hard to keep my body slim, but not muscular. I eventually became skinny fat and depressed in my twenties and early thirties. In many ways, I hated my body. It reminded me of the struggles around my sexuality and attraction that I was so strongly resisting.
Though not muscular, I was often referred to as a beautiful man, a handsome man in my youth. I was very aware of how much influence my looks could have on the circumstances I found myself in. Yet I hated feeling weak. I hated being out of shape. I also hated the idea that straight men had something over me, as if they were blessed with a special strength that I lacked. I knew in my heart that was not true and I refused to feel inferior, and with my mind and wit, I learned to put those who intimidated me in their place within the scope of power that I possessed and had honed; tactics, logic, strategy and diplomacy.
Yet this has not been enough for me as I have continued to grow into myself. Refusing inferiority meant charging toward something I not only hated, but had never embraced: my body and its potential. I have already engaged my fears and inner demons. So I became determined to engage the demons that spill over into the physical and embrace becoming muscular and embody my own concept of masculinity, while remaining congruent with that vision in mind, body, and spirit.
I have noticed that as I have grown more comfortable with my sexuality and who I sleep with, I have also grown more comfortable with my gender expression and masculinity. I am no longer resisting my masculinity and displaying it externally the way I once did, but I’m learning where the boundaries of toxicity live. In order to accomplish this I also no longer resist appreciating my feminine qualities. In the present, I am discovering who I am in full, and for me, that has meant understanding and knowing the entirety of my mind, body and soul’s potential.
What I later came to realize is that the men I respected and truly knew as good men did not share the qualities I hated so much. I learned that I was attracted to them not because I was broken, but because they did not display the toxic qualities that I found repugnant, and this realization helped me separate my attraction between my sexuality and their gender traits and expression even more. My masculinity as I am continuing to discover and understand is my self acceptance of my entire being and self, my desires, my actions, my mannerisms, my beliefs and my body.
My masculine and feminine traits are not different aspects of me; I simply am, and it is with that acceptance that I continue this journey of discovery and learn to love all of myself.
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In my next article, I’ll continue to explore masculinity and further questions. Since it was once something imposed, policed, and resented by me, what does it mean that I now want it in another man?
This is great
This got me to thinking about how I responded to some of the pressures you describe in my own life. I think I ended up... well, dissociating isn't quite the right word. I simply find that I don't think about my own body at all. It's never occurred to me to be proud of it or ashamed of it or try to change it. I don't spend a lot of time looking in mirrors, and I don't know if I could draw a self-portrait. My poor husband often wishes I'd spend more time and effort attending to my own appearance, but that's always just seemed to me like a strange thing to do. My body is just... a car that my brain drives around in. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, I spend very little time thinking about my cars either.) I suppose none of this sounds particularly healthy, but then again I've been spared the body dysmorphia issues that a lot of gay men struggle with, so maybe it's a blessing in disguise.