Why do gay men have limp wrists
When Sex Isn’t About Sex: The Common Policy Implications of Gay Men’s “Straight-Acting” Fetish
I am often underwhelmed at people’s reactions to teaching I’m gay. I am baffled when straight and straitlaced men take this in stride. I often feel appreciate screaming, “Did you hear me?! I said I set a penis in my butt, on purpose, for fun!”
But to do so would undermine much of the rhetoric that has gotten gays, and especially gay men, to where we are today. As David Valentine points out in Imagining Transgender, gay men acquire won acceptance into mainstream society precisely by keeping hushed about the sex we have. Valentine explains: “mainstream homosexual and lesbian activist[s claim] that lesbian people are essentially the same as heterosexual Americans but for the one fact of privately experienced and conducted sexual desire” (63, my emphasis). He goes on to explain how the seminal Lawrence v. Texas case enshrined this ideology into law by claiming that it was the petitioners’ privacy that was invaded (ibid.), instead of claiming, for example, that they deserved special protections. I want to scream about the icky sex I own because I would have preferred the latter ruling: I
Why 'gay' gestures are discrimination
"Tim" is a gay man who has been subjected to many isolated incidents of verbal and physical homophobic abuse in the seaside town where he lives. He has been spat at, headbutted and called derogatory names.
In late 2013, he returned some locks to local locksmith's Taylor Edwards, and after a minor altercation, the man serving him, Peter Edwards, blew him a sarcastic kiss. For months afterwards, whenever Tim walked past the shop and Peter Edwards was outside, he gestured at Tim.
"He would just make gestures ranging from what I would contact quite low level. He would wink at me, limp wrist, [make the shape of a] tea pot, touch at me and what I would class as a vile, vulgar homophobic gesture as skillfully, inferring oral sex with a male. That was the most offensive," Tim told me in an exclusive interview.
"I was his joke I think, his source of entertainment. I don't grasp what his mindset was. I was stressed out by it, distressed. Bit of anger in there. I bear from depression and it contributed to a relapse," said Tim.
Have you ever read The Caucasian Chalk Circle? Don’t. It’s really boring. A leaden, joyless, ferociously unsubtle play about communism that I was forced to read when I was 15. It’s low on laughs, to say the least. But it was a part of my drama class, and I enjoyed acting, so I tried to get on board with it. I read it in advance. And, as the class started, I asked the teacher if I could play one of the farmers in it.
There was a pause. I could see an concept forming in her thought. Here – she mind – here’s a teachable moment. She gathered the entire class into a circle, with me and her at its centre. And she demonstrated to the room why I could never play a farmer.
Farmers, she explained, walk in a certain way: shoulders forward, slouching posture, heavy stride (looking back, I wonder if she’d only ever seen farmers with club feet). Next, she did my walk. Pelvis out, shoulders back, hips swishing from side to side. I believe she even threw in a limp wrist for good measure. Sadly, she concluded, the way I walked was too “poetic”, and I’d never make a convincing farmer. We all knew she meant: I have a gay walk.
Aside from the glaring question that this
What Do Limp Wrists Possess To Do With Lgbtq+ Men?
After encouraging fathers to “punch” sons who exhibit stereotypically gay behavior, North Carolina pastor Sean Harris said on Tuesday that he should have chosen different words. In his April 28 sermon, Harris said, “Dads, the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist, you walk over there and crack that wrist.” Why do we associate a limp wrist with male homosexuality?
It probably goes back to ancient Rome. Ancient rhetoric teachers discouraged limp-wristedness during public speaking. This had nothing to do with homosexuality—the Romans didn’t consider gay sex, per se, unmanly. A limp wrist was reflection to betray a more general lack of masculine control over the body and its various urges. In the 18th century, however, Europeans came to think of homosexuality as a character trait rather than an occasional conduct, and gay sex became the antithesis of manliness. Physiognomists, who believed that physical appearance and mannerisms were evidence of one’s character, appear to hold picked up on the ancient Roman belief that real men had rock-solid wrists. During this hour, limp wrists came to signify not just ill discipline, but vari
Limp Wrists and Locked Jaws: Inside the Strange, Social World of Gay Men and Rich Women
“We owe them a modicum of respect! The homosexuals, I mean,” C.Z. Guest tells her friend Babe Paley on a department store escalator. The two had gone shopping after hearing their mutual friend Lee Radziwill opt out of helping end a widespread beef between rivals Truman Capote and Gore Vidal—and deciding to call them “two fags fighting,” to add insult to injury. Riding the escalator up toward the glove department, Guest goes on to describe her class’s reliance on “walkers,” the often-gay male companions that community women would rely on to keep them corporation at events. Paley affirms their usefulness beyond a shield against unwanted attention: “What’s more, they won’t drop you when you reach a certain age,” she says. “They elevate you higher.” Guest staunchly agrees: “It is a vital relationship.”
It’s also the bond that’s at the center of Feud: Capote vs. The Swans, the new series—airing now on FX and Hulu—that dramatizes Capote’s falling out with a group of women including Paley, Guest, Radziwill, and Slim Keith. (That elevator scene above? It happened on Feud.) Yes, the show is about what h