Chapter 6: Gaydar, Gender Performance, Toxic Masculinity vs. Divine Masculinity

"The union of feminine and masculine energies within the individual is the basis of all creation" - Shakti Gawain

When I was an undergrad at UC Irvine, I made the subject of my Sociology Majors Seminar paper on "gaydar" and gender stereotypes. For those unfamiliar with the term, gaydar is the intuitive ability to assess a person's sexual orientation as gay, bi, or straight. The premise of my paper was that our gaydar was calibrated by our proximity to the LGBTQ community; do you have any gay friends or know any openly gay people? I surveyed a few dozen of my Bible Study high school students and college peers and many of them didn't know any gay people; their gaydars were solely based on gender cues. 

How do you tell if someone is gay? If they cross their legs when they sit. How skinny their jeans are (this was in the mid 2000's so we were transitioning from the baggy jeans to skinny jeans era). If they carry their books in front of their chests instead of down at their side. If their voices have a high pitch. If they speak with a lisp. If their nails are manicured. If they have a limp wrist. If they hug with their bodies pressed together instead of the "bro hug" (handshake with their right hands, tap one another in the back with your left arm, but whatever you do, do NOT under any circumstance make contact with each other's crotches). Every gender cue they provided was highly subjective, cultural specific, and fluid. Straight European men will hold hands and kiss one another on the cheek. Bell bottom pants in the 70's were very tight (i.e. John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever) and shorts in the 80's were so short it left nothing to the imagination (i.e. John Travolta in Staying Alive, the sequel to Saturday Night Fever). Mike Tyson spoke with lisp and you must have a death wish if you wanted to call him gay.

The reason I analyzed gaydar and gender cues was that I have been mistaken for gay several times in my life. When I was a tutor at an after-school center, one of my middle school students asked me if I was gay.  One eHarmony date concluded with my date assuring me that she would support me whenever I came out to my parents Apparently kissing me was like kissing her brother, or sister?Apparently I set off their gaydars. I sat with my legs fully crossed because it was more comfortable than sitting with my ankle over knee. Although I would have loved to have Michael McCary's voice from Boyz II Men, my voice was much closer to Shawn Stockman's. I watched Queer Eye for the Straight Guy in the early 2000's and enjoyed tweezing my eyebrows, trimming my fingernails, and expanding my fashion color palette beyond black, white, gray, and blue. The Fab Five and Cam'Ron told me it was okay to wear pink. I used to have a "limp" hand shake because I never understood the purpose of squeezing another person's hand in a greeting. High, my name is Daniel and I will now try to break your fingers.

I never bothered to correct people who mistook me for gay, nor did I feel the need to correct them. Part of why I love the LGBTQ community so much is that they embrace self-expression and not living in a binary. Once women no longer regarded me as a threat, they let down some of their walls and felt safe with me. When I used to roadie at feature dance performances at strip clubs, the house dancers didn't bat an eye when I walked into their dressing room while they were in varying degrees of undress (I was a roadie/personal assistant for over 10 years; my nonprofit job at KAFE couldn't pay an actual salary so I was constantly freelancing). I wasn't trying to ogle or hit on them, I was there to work and hang out with my friend. And why shouldn't I make them feel safe? I was a guest in their workplace and the last thing they needed was another creep. Within an hour they would drop their guard and their stage persona. Many of the girls addressed one another by their stage names, others introduced themselves by their government name. They would dish and talk about how slow or busy the night was going, which guys were cheapskates, which guys smelled bad, ask if I had a cigarette or smuggled any booze. In between feature performances, we would go back out on the floor to watch the house girls dance and tip the stage as a gesture of solidarity and mutual support. Some of the dancers I got to know over the years would engage in conversations about their civilian lives outside of the club, whether they were working a day-time job, going to school, their significant others and/or baby daddy drama. I miss the camaraderie I got to share with those house dancers; what I don't miss are the late nights that ended at 3am and bruises on my knees from crawling around the stage picking up dollar bills. 

Gay or Asian? Because of the sexual stereotypes about Asian men as sexually deviant and impotent, I saw many of my Asian peers overcompensate their sexual insecurities with various hyper masculine gender cues. The "Valley Koreans" I went to church and high school with were heavily influenced by our Chicano neighbors with the "Korean Cholo" style of baggy jeans, white t-shirts, gold chains, with shaved heads and heavily gelled hair on top. The Chicanos had their lowriders with hydraulics; the "Korean Cholos" had Honda Civics and Acura Integras with oversized spoilers and inexplicably lowered their cars so that they scraped over the tiniest of speed bumps. "Korean Cholos" projected a hyper masculinity with their brash talk, calling one another the N- word ("What's up my N*gga?"), and bad boy image pulling out their fancy zippo lighters whenever they lit up their cigarettes. While they talked tough amongst each other, their "machismo" was all performative because they cowered whenever any Black or Brown men tested their manhood. The "OC (Orange County) Koreans" from the Campus Ministry at UCI weren't any better. When you combine Evangelical Christianity with Confucian values, you get a religious misogyny that reinforced the idea that men should be the spiritual leaders and women who must be led. But when the "OC Koreans" are a bunch of spineless beta males with zero leadership qualities, the group of badass Korean sisters stepped up and assumed all the leadership positions. During one staff meeting, I heard the adult spiritual leaders openly discuss how laughably insecure the UCI brethren were compared to the UCLA, UCSD, and Berkeley chapters. And how did they respond? By whining about it during one of our weekly bible studies and asking the sisters to intercede and pray for their guidance and strength. At that point I was already "blackballed" for being a bad influence, so I sat back and watched this pathetic display of male fragility.

I'm clearly not a hyper-masculine "Korean Cholo" nor am I whatever the hell those specific "OC Korean" were. Nor did I feel the need to conform to a specific gender performance. I believe masculinity and femininity exist on a spectrum and all of us exist on that spectrum, fluidly moving navigating along that spectrum based on circumstance. While our birth charts may suggest we are predisposed to certain masculine or feminine traits, I believe that our behaviors and cues are taught. Think about it the next time you go to Target and look at baby clothes and baby toys. From birth we message that Blue is for boys, Pink is for girls; boys have toys that encourage them to be active while girls have toys that encourage them to be creative. And that gendering continues throughout our lives, when we go through school and when we enter adulthood. Think of all the academic majors and careers that are dominated by men and which ones are dominated by women. And we all know which careers pay more! And if women choose to enter a male dominated workspace, they are expected to work twice as hard for less pay than their male counterparts. Plus, many have to adopt "masculine" qualities in order to assert themselves and risk being called a bitch because they violated their gender cues. Working in the non-profit sector for much of my adult life, careers that do NOT pay more, I've worked in female dominated spaces. However, I was never required to play "feminine" in order to succeed at my job. That's the privilege of being male.

Toxic masculinity is a concept that has been recently in vogue, especially in light of the #MeToo movement. For those who've been living under a misogynistic rock, toxic masculinity refer to certain cultural norms of "manliness" that cause harm to society and men themselves. It's a masculinity that perpetuates hyper-competitiveness, homophobia, and aggression. It suppresses emotion and encourages sexual aggression against women. It can't admit when they make a mistake but doing so is a sign of weakness. We can all think of examples of toxic males, from our everyday narcissists, sociopaths, and douchebags to the cult of personality our society has regarding "great men" in politics, sports, business, and entertainment.

One response to the toxic male has been the Divine Masculine. Rather than gender specific, the concepts of Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine are archetypes that represent a Yin/Yang balance that we are all encouraged to wield. Balancing our internal and reflective "Feminine" with assertive, confident, and asserting our "Masculine". It's a term I first encountered when I enrolled in life transformation courses and met those in tune with energy work and healing. Sounds great right? Not so fast.

The distinctions between toxic masculinity and divine masculine seem simple enough. The un-evolved man is toxic; the evolved, woke man is divine. But I would argue that these are just fancy words for the same gender cues. The toxic man is a brute who don't know how to express themselves; the divine masculine is articulate and in touch with his feelings. I saw a Social media post recently from a Life Coach who had "done the work". But content of his post was textbook gaslighting, rejection of cancel culture and plea that any critique should be discussed privately rather than be available for public discourse. For someone who had supposedly awakened his Divine Masculine, all I saw was an eloquent defense of his White Fragility. I saw someone who did not wish to be held accountable and knew the pretentious language of sounding insightful. Remember toxic masculinity can never admit any wrong doing. 

Textbook White Fragility from Dee-Bag Chop-BRO

Disrespectfully, go f*ck yourself 

As long as we continue to live in a patriarchal society, I believe all masculinity, whether the Tr*mp/K*nye obvious kind or Kevin Samuels/Dee-Bag Chop-BRO pretentious kind, is inherently toxic. And a truly awakened Divine Masculine will actively work to smash the patriarchy and every other system of oppression, because that's the only measure of masculinity that counts. 

Everything else is performative; who gives a f*ck if the gender performance is black, white, or a shade of gay? Do you as long as you perform the real work.  

Photography by: https://www.zacharyleeportrait.com