From "That's So Gay" to "No Homo": A Small Sign of Progress

Ask any teenager in America what is the most common put down in middle school or high school? The answer: "That's so gay." It's said about anything and everything -- their clothes, their books, the music or TV shows they like, the sports figures they admire. "That's so gay" has become a free-floating put-down meaning bad, dumb, stupid, wrong. It's the generic bad thing.

"That's so gay" is what my friend and sociologist colleague CJ Pascoe calls "the fag discourse" in her marvelous ethnography, Dude, You're a Fag. Calling someone gay or a fag is how our peers police our behavior. They're the "gender police," always waiting for us to screw up so they can give us a ticket for crossing the well-drawn boundaries of manhood. As young men, we become relentless cowboys, riding the fences, checking the boundary line between masculinity and femininity -- which is equated with effeminacy, homosexuality, failed masculinity -- making sure that nothing slips over. The possibilities of being unmasked are everywhere. Even the most seemingly insignificant misstep can pose a threat or activate that haunting terror that we will be found out.

Our efforts to maintain a manly front cover everything we do. What we wear. How we talk. How we walk. What we eat (like the recent flap over "manwiches" -- those artery-clogging massive burgers, dripping with extras). The cars we drive. Every mannerism, every movement contains a coded gender language.

So it strikes me as a moment of great cultural progress on the gender front to report to you that a new expression is now vying with "that's so gay" as the expression du jour in suburbia. That expression is "no homo."

"No homo" is usually applied after the fact -- after one guy hugs another, compliments his clothes or something he says, or even immediately following the actual expression of an actual emotion (except, of course, anger). Have a look.

I should point out that the phrase is already a couple of years old in the hip hop community. But in America, cultural impulses generally move from the margins to the center, so the expressions, affective styles, clothing types and musical tastes that are evident among urban minorities -- and to a lesser extent among urban gay men -- are the cultural styles that suburban white kids will be embracing in five years. And I should also point out that for gay men, "no homo" is still a pretty insultingly homophobic association of homosexuality with failed masculinity.

Okay, it's a small move, but a move nonetheless. Why?

"No homo" is always said after the fact, an acknowledgment, by the person doing the action, that the action in question may possibly be perceived as unmanly, even homoerotic. Saying that something or other is "so gay," by contrast, is often said as a preventive measure to make sure one does not cross the boundary in the first place. Calling something "gay" requires that you retreat from that netherworld between masculine and not-masculine; "no homo" enables you to remain on the other side of the divide. Calling something "gay" forces a step back from the precipice; "no homo" gives you a parachute as you jump, a statement of plausible deniability.

"That's so gay" is far less self-mocking, far less ironic, far less "nudge-nudge, wink-wink, I know that what I did was so gay, so now I'll declare it not gay and see if I can get away with it." That is, "no homo" is an expression that actually gives one permission to do "gay" things, give a little ironic disclaimer, and not have to change your behavior one bit.

In that sense "No homo" reflects the significant decline in homophobia among straight men in the United States today. (Homophobia still remains higher in the U.S. than in any other G8 country, and homophobia is higher among men than among women.) It's an acknowledgment that no one can possibly steer clear of all the traits and behaviors that have been ruled out of bounds for "real men." It's an acknowledgment that real men want and need a larger repertoire of emotional expression, let alone like to dress nice -- and notice when others do. In that sense, it's a teeny tiny baby step away from the relentless gender police. To be sure, it attempts to restore with a wink what has been taken away with a smile. But once you let it out, it might not so easily fit back in. The next time, who knows, he might just express his feelings, hug his friend, or say something caring -- and not say anything after it to qualify or disown it. Can the disbanding of the gender police into an illegitimate ad hoc vigilante squad be far behind?

 

Comments

[BlackJAC]

Ever since the teenager was invented, there have been slang terms for both sides of the divide of fashionability and social acceptablility that don't conform to their original meanings without any Académie Française-esque proclamations or even etymological explanation. If there had been any complaints from the physically disabled about people saying unfashionable things were "lame," I legitimately don't remember them.

[carsntrucks]

"Ask any teenager in America what is the most common put down in middle school or high school? The answer: "That's so gay.""

LOL, no they wouldn't.

[Ourrias]

It's just so gosh darned reassuring to know that the youth of America are concerned with such weighty, global matters!