Far too many
of us don’t see how encouraging gay boys to ignore their vulnerability
undergirds the most negative aspects of toxic hyper-masculinity. An
unacceptable number of us don’t realize how this behavior will affect their
future relationships, and the ill-fated men they come across.
But there’s
another side of the coin that we often don’t look at. When a gay boy who is
screamed at to “man up” by his mother or father, that boy is socialized to view
being vulnerable as abomination to strong Black manhood to everyone, boys and
girls included. Everyone is raised to believe that as well. While young women
may adopt a more evolved position on masculinity as they mature, those scars
never leave that gay boy, no matter how old he gets.
How a gay boy
is taught to handle his masculinity during his formative years will have a
lasting effect on how he envisions and defines manhood as an adult. Those boys
—like many before them—will define it as being guarded, impervious and
nonreactive. Now, imagine taking that mindset into a relationship with a man
eager to engage in a truly open and emotionally earnest manner. Hell, imagine
applying that mindset after an emotionally overwrought breakup, and trying to
move on to date again.
As black gay
men who subscribes to hyper-masculine ideologies with every fiber of their
being, who has been through many traumatic relationship events and a couple of
exhausting breakups, I realized there was nothing less sympathetic in our
society than a heartbroken black gay man. It’s an incredibly isolating
experience, but what makes it so scary is that we feel our intrinsic manhood is
being irreparably denigrated every second we allow ourselves to feel. If you
want to understand why many gay men deny their sensitivity, it’s because it
rests in the “no fly” zone of human emotions.
Until we show young black gay
men that their manhood can and should include organically navigating the range
of human emotions, we’re going to continue to cultivate black gay men who don’t
know the first thing about coping, managing, or even accepting their natural
feelings.
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