Gay men of MensRights. What specific issues matter mostly to you in the area of Men's Rights and how do they link (if at all) to you being a gay person.

DoctorOsmium · 2016-03-21T22:31:58+00:00

I'm not gay, however, I am bisexual which is close enough.

1: Misandric speech in my presence One of my biggest issues is that I find women seem to think that by exempting gay/bi/transexual men from misandric hate speech means that I have no right to dispute them, as if somehow non-straight men do not identify with their own sex and gender. Saying that they "really just meant straight men" when spewing hateful bullshit isn't going to make me turn a blind eye. I'm a fucking man and I have as much a right to identify with my gender as straight men do, fuck you. It's incredible how much man hating they think they can get away with in front of me on account of me liking dick.

2: The increased burden of masculinity The idea that to be masculine as a gay or bisexual man, I can't simply be a normal dude, I have to be some super jacked, hairy parody of masculinity, as if somehow there was something for me to compensate for. I have nothing to compensate for. I was born a man and I don't have to playact a fucking lumberjack to be treated like a man.

3: Fag hags Women who suddenly give a special value to my friendship or my opinions when they find out I'm not straight. No, I don't want to go shopping with you for purses and high heels. No I'm not your fabulous bff. You can go ahead and talk to me about hot guys all you want, and that's cool, but don't treat me like some kind of status symbol for how tolerant and cool you are. I'm just a regular guy.

Shironekosama404 · 2016-03-21T22:41:57+00:00

Suicide; It is bad enough among just men in general, but throw in the troubles of being gay into the mix as well.

rg57 · 2016-03-22T08:09:35+00:00

As a gay man, some of the issues do not affect me at all, but I am aghast at what happens to straight men, who are treated terribly by the laws. The same US case that validated my right to marry also exposed the misandric reason for governmental meddling in (rather than recognizing and protecting) people's marriages -- to rope men into being financial fathers for kids that either are the result of the wife's cheating, the result of his being raped, or that he never wanted. It demeans me as a gay person when I hear "my" organizations trumpet that we're the last minority, the last civil rights movement, when there is so much blatant sexism going on toward men.

But there are of course issues that directly affect me.

Certainly anything having to do with life as a boy affected me growing up. It's a strange feeling to realize that someone can just cut a piece off you, because some crazy man a few thousand years ago made a deal with the voices in his head. How come my genitals never counted? You can't even make a notch in a girl's genitals (not that I would want to anyway.) But feminists have turned GM into FGM, and I'm defined right out of the discussion. My cutting wasn't unusual, but it is nevertheless an amputation that didn't need to happen, and put me at real risk, as the deaths of others show. I happen to think a natural penis looks beautiful and fun, and what was done to mine (despite some people's fetish) has made it uglier and boring. I'll never know what any of it felt like. I'm also aware that others under the "LGBT" banner (which ought to include "S"traight) are affected in worse ways by this, because for MTF transsexuals, the foreskin is necessary for the optimal sex-change surgery options.

Having been a legal temporary worker in the US during a time of war, it was very very clear to me that I might be drafted into the war effort, against my will (for some reason being gay didn't affect "unit cohesion" so much during actual wars). It was also clear to me that no woman in my position would be required to do the same, even if she was significantly more physically fit than I was. I could be separated from my then-partner (who wouldn't be recognized as such) and sent who knows where, to kill or be killed, for her. You know, I don't like that deal!

I look at the tech industry I inhabit, and I see demands for preferential treatment for women, or demands for quotas, or even total exclusion of men. I see the spreading of this idea that female employees have to fear male employees because we have to be told not to rape them. You can't even make a dongle joke any more! And I don't see anyone interested in retraining me to be a hairdresser, and topping up that hairdressing wage to match a tech salary.

If you examine homophobia, as it manifested in the last century, and in this one, it's overwhelmingly the idea that men are having sex that people do not like. Not only are we having sex, but we're having it without a woman to regulate (slow, make costly, stop) the whole thing. We're having lots of unregulated, loud, thrusting man sex. At least that's their fear. And people hate the idea that men have sex at all. Men are supposed want sex, but not actually get it. That's why gay men are so dangerous to feminism. So, homophobia boils down to misandry. We violate the rule, and they can't stop us without severe laws. Lesbians are certainly caught in the crossfire some times, but the primary targets, by far, have always been gay men. So I can't simply stop at a sort of equality that protects orientation, and protects women, but doesn't equally protect men -- that's the source of the whole problem.

Those are the top reasons I personally am or have been affected by men's issues. But I have an additional reason to be anti-feminist:

Back before Glee, there were no role models for gay kids. Nobody was gay. We had one hour of sex ed in gym class, and most of us were too busy being uncomfortable to absorb any of it, but I can guarantee none of it was gay. What was a gay kid supposed to do, to learn about gay men and gay sex? The only option I saw available to me (and in retrospect, I was correct) was gay porn. But at the same time feminists were all over gay porn, calling it a threat to women (you know feminist logic). Since most gay porn came from the US, that meant it could be stopped and destroyed at the border (pre-Internet days). In fact, it meant that everything ELSE you ordered in the same order, maybe a novel or history text, could also be stopped, and maybe destroyed. Fortunately for me, not too much was lost, but the laws and rules pushed by feminists helped make that time in my life just a little extra shitty, knowing that each order could possibly bring an officer to my parents' door.

StartTheRuckus · 2016-03-22T04:52:16+00:00

As a gay man, I think it's difficult for me to point to any particular men's rights issue as one that affects me more than it does a straight person. This is because, in my opinion, most issues that affect me more than they would a straight man fall under the umbrella of LGBT rights, and not men's rights. This is not a hard rule though, and the idea of certain groups of rights is purely an abstract one, developed mainly for practical reasons. As such, I would listen to anyone who does believe certain men's rights issues disproportionately affect gay men. I think any concerns should be addressed properly, instead of brushed away as 'not a men's rights issue', as I have sometimes witnessed on this sub. That is not to say that, on the whole, I have not found this subreddit more than welcoming.

I would like to note, though, that I feel being a gay man has made me more credible in asserting the need for men's rights. I am also a white man. Let me explain:

Gays are oppressed and I am one: My lived experience of being gay has given me an example of what it is like to live at the bottom of an uneven slope in society. I'm sure I don't need to go into detail. But I am aware of inequalities I face, and acknowledge that their is a need to challenge those inequalities specifically.

Non-whites are oppressed and I am not one: I also know what it is like to exist at the opposite end of the scale. I do not face the same kind of racism that non-whites do. I'm not going to say that non-whites cannot be racist because of a lack of power etc., but generally white guys in Britain have an easier time. I acknowledge this, and I accept this: we do not need to target 'reverse racism', we do not need 'white history month'.

I feel that this, in effect, makes me more qualified to say that a men's rights movements is justified in existing. I'm not going to argue that straight white men don't know what inequality is, as some more militant feminists might. I just use my experience and apply it to the situation, and my experience with a form of inequality accepted as legitimate helps to legitimise my support of a men's rights movement. While gender inequality is far more complex, as there is not one clearly more powerful group to do the oppressing, I can see issues that predominantly affect men and acknowledge that they must be addressed. At the same time, my acceptance of my own privilege (a useful concept, if not used to immediately dismiss anybody's point of view) with regards to my race is a kind of reference that I won't just complain about anything, and would accept being a part of the group that has no reason to complain if that really were the case.

I know I've rambled and not quite stayed on topic, but it's something I've been considering for quite some time. Given this is a thread for gay men to voice their opinions, I thought I should take the chance to make mine heard.

2016-03-22T04:56:01+00:00

I'm not gay, I swing both ways.

I fucking hate it when i'm a fashion accessory to these fucking women. I'm not their friend i'm their "gay" friend, and they use that as an excuse to flaunt me around, its the most annoying thing ever. They don't know how to keep their mouth closed and everyone ends up knowing all because a bitch couldn't keep her mouth closed.

MalusMalorum · 2016-03-22T10:04:17+00:00

I honestly find the intellectual dishinesty of feminist discourse the greatest problem that affects me personally as a gay man.

More often than encountering bad attitudes (I just am lucky enough that I mostly have friends and associates who are decent people who do not subscribe to the typical anti male idiocies - and I am generally introvert enough to mostly ignore other types of people), I come across the influence of certain types of thinking in bith media in general and journalism and scientific literature.

I find MRAs important to counteract that ideological bias and twisting of facts alone, and I also do not like bigots throwing around hateful fabrications.

And yes, even as a gay man, or as a perceived unmasculine man, you will be lunper together into broad and intellectually lazy generalizations.

There is so much ignorance floating around, so much stupidity in all forms and so much willingness to ignore reality or twist facts. Whether it is opposing creationists and other religious fundamentalists (like those who try to argue for discrimination of homosexuals), the type of green movements which do not understand nor try to understand the facts of what they are protesting, hypocritical types of socialists who make lots of money for themselves while decrying the evils of capitalism, economists trying to convince people why the only good way to do business is exactly the one which will make them or their employers richer or, as demonstrated here, feminists.

And one of the big problems is that feminists have been particularly good at demonising their opposition. Nobody will publically ostracize people or accuse them of being a hate group for opposing creationists, but people will use rxactly those tactics against prople opposing feminism.

That is the big problem and I think gay men are desperately in need of a society that tolerates dissent since homosexual people are a minority by default.

Kestyr · 2016-03-22T04:20:10+00:00

More an issue with progressives and intersectionalism, the willingness of the left to pander to and welcome Islam. They talk shit and throw off one group of religious extremists, but are open armed to another that is more hostile, and more of a threat to our existence than someone who simply is a cunt when it comes to granting marriage.

Dnavich · 2016-03-22T03:44:47+00:00

I want to turn gay so I don't have to fuck or ever again touch a women to feel connected.

sillymod · 2016-03-22T13:10:23+00:00

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double-happiness · 2016-03-22T16:22:21+00:00

Related:
http://paganpressbooks.com/jpl/DTF.HTM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/glamour-magazine-sexuality-survey_us_56bcad12e4b0b40245c57d6a
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/13/passport-official-suspended-gay-man-interrogation

dontpet · 2016-03-23T18:30:23+00:00

I've known a number of guys that went gay later in adult hood leaving their female partner to do so. Their female partners were on a number of those occasions deeply upset, more so than if they had left her for another woman.

Have any of you gay guys experienced this? How do you explain it?

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