Hate crimes come in all different shapes and sizes, but when it comes to anti-gay crimes, there seems to be one common size: young, white and male. In light of the recent attacks in Canada, The Chronicle Herald sat down with criminology professor Michael Boudreau to get inside the mind of a homo-hater.
In addition to being white, male and between the ages of 16-30, most anti-gay perpetrators are looking for power:
They tend to be homophobic or feel threatened by gay men generally. It’s often meant as a way to exert their own power within society. One way to exert that authority is to turn to violence.
And, as we suggested in yesterday’s unnecessarily controversial post, Boudreau claims that homophobic attackers may be attacking their own nebulous sexuality:
It could have been someone who was cruising for sex themselves and are outraged at their own behaviour and then lashed out at that as well. In this case, rather than lashing out at themselves, they’ve lashed out at these two individuals.
Perhaps its this internal rage that led someone to murder Michael Paul Knott and Trevor Charles Brewster?
While these recent crimes may fit the bill on some levels, hate crime writer Douglas Janoff points out that most anti-gay crimes start at a bar. He also mentions, however, that conservative environments, such as Halifax, where Knott and Brewster were murdered, may push men into dangerous situations:
How about we take this to the next level?
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In the Halifax-area murders, “it seems like there could be a clear intent to target vulnerable victims in a place where they may not receive assistance.”
He said Halifax’s conservative nature could force some men into dangerous situations, such as going to dark parks at night, so they don’t expose themselves as gay.
“There may be less opportunity for gay men to express their sexual identity within the broader Nova Scotia society,” Mr. Janoff said. “One place they feel safe to do that is in a very unsafe place.”
Moral of the story: don’t go cruising at night. There are people who want you dead. Or, if you do go cruising at night, tell a friend what you’re doing. Or, at the very least, bring a “crazy homophobe maniac” whistle.
aaron jason silver
The masculinity obsession
Growing up as a gay man in American society, a male child learns early on the obvious superior position the more masculine the male the higher social standing he will likely attain by it’s sheer virtue. It is very clear that the masculine male athlete is considered of the highest social standing. How Americans worship their male athletes is the prime example of this hyper-masculine obsession within American culture. I believe this obsession with masculinity is one of the major issues behind homophobia. People need to understand that there is a wide range of behaviors ranging from very masculine to very effeminate. This range is not only found in homosexuals, but heterosexuals as well.
Having spent much of my life traveling all over the world because of my interest in cultures, I have however particularly noticed that in most of the European countries there isn’t quite the masculine obsession we Americans have. Being a gay man, we all know what gaydar means. Some heterosexual people may even have heard this term but don’t understand quite what it means. It means having almost a sixth sense about which men are gay and which aren’t. It’s an interesting phenomenon that needs greater study in its own right. Gay men tend to have pretty good gaydar which is clearly a learned behavior that can be quite accurate. This learned trait I believe is based on the phenomenon of the American masculine obsession and how gay men unconsciously during their lives observe what it is to be masculine in America. This obsession actually causes men that are not masculine by nature to become masculine acting by practice. You see it in our own president who has obviously bought into this role and is clearly acting out a hyper masculine image. He walks and talks like an American cowboy hero that just got off from his horse which is clearly evident in his stance and gate. He even feels the need to hold is arms further away from his body than need be to give the impression of his arms being to muscular to be able to hold them closer. This learned behavior stems I believe from hyper insecurity. However, conversely one does not often see this behavior within most European cultures because they don’t seem to have the hyper-masculine worship that we Americans have. Perhaps we have it because of the history of how our country was founded. The reason why I mentioned gaydar is because in Europe my gaydar does not work well because many of the European men by American standards act effeminate. It is not that they are effeminate, that is once again only relative to American cultural standards by how we were taught to measure masculinity. European men just walk, talk and act much more naturally and without giving thought to whether they are perceived as being masculine or feminine. This then translates into the fear of being considered gay.
The issue of masculine/feminine ought to be considered a neutral issue within a healthy culture that is not fraught with fear about being considered gay or straight.
Gay men I have observed over my many years of being an out gay man have even bought into this American hyper-masculine worship. They will often try and act masculine, and will on chat lines make certain that the gay man they are talking to knows that they are the masculine type. Most of us, whether gay or straight are somewhere in the middle. However, many men will practice trying to be, on the masculine scale from 1 to 10, will try to act and be perceived closer to a 10. It is truly an interesting phenomenon. This is likely partly the reason why athletes have trouble coming out of the closet because they will lose much of their social standing and adoration. We as Americans need to be more concerned about our ethics, morals and social decay rather than being so concerned about the way we were born to behave and what actually comes naturally to us. This obsession I believe is behind much of the emotional damage done to gay men in particular which manifests in a variety of ways even in adulthood. The emotional damage is done early on in a gay child’s development. This belief is what inspired me to author the book;†why gay men do what they do, inside look at gay culture. In this book I explain in detail what this obsession has done to the gay psyche. Thank you, Aaron Jason Silver http://www.aaronjasonsilver.com