7
There is increased acceptance of gay men in most Western societies. Nevertheless, evidence suggests that feminine-presenting gay men are still disadvantaged compared to gay men who present in a more traditionally masculine way. Though gay men themselves may be complicit in perpetuating this bias, studies that demonstrate this possibility are scant. Whereas most studies on perceptions of feminine-presenting gay men have manipulated gender nonconformity via written descriptions, research suggests that behavioural cues such as voice and body-language can mitigate or exacerbate prejudice toward a stereotyped individual. In the current study, audio-visual stimuli were created to investigate how masculine versus feminine behaviour would impact status endowment from other gay and heterosexual men. In total, 256 men (Mage = 42.73, SD = 14.48: half gay; half heterosexual) cast, from a selection of six video-taped candidates, one gay man to play a lead role in a purported ad for a tourism campaign. In the videos, the actors delivered a script related to the tourism campaign in a manner where their voice and body-language was manipulated to come across as either masculine or feminine-presenting. Findings indicated that gay and heterosexual participants showed a significant preference for the masculine videoclips. For heterosexual men, the preference for masculine-presenting actors was predicted by greater anti-gay sentiment, whereas internalised anti-gay prejudice did not predict a preference for masculine-presentation among gay men. Implications of the findings for discourse and education on intraminority prejudice and suggestions for future research are offered.
When I see a gay men acting up like the stereotypical gay, I feel like they are acting it up in the same way when I see a very macho hetero man, or a very stereotypical feminine women. I don’t feel like they are genuine, it almost feel scripted to me. Could it be that it feels more genuine to them ? I’m projecting my bias here obviously.
To whatever degree stereotypically gay or macho affects are performative, they are so because they can help an individual feel safe within and a part of their communities and general surroundings. Acting in these ways can be but certainly is not always in conflict with their own individual notions of self.
Good insight, I never thought of this and it make sense.