Not that that matters here anymore. What about Warrick Brown and Nick Stokes? Or Opi and Jacks from Sons of Anarchy? Or Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman? Or Ryan Atwood and Seth Cohen?

 Reply

So I don't exactly know how to take your comment? Are you assuming that I'm supposed to be lampooning gay men? I know sarcasm is hard to get across on the internet, but even given that, I think the corpus of my comment is clear-- I am condemning the systematic reinforcement of homosexuality as Othered. We have in this post a litany of observations making fun of straight men for seeming "gay." That sort of thing, especially in a genre like science fiction that used to be known for embracing outsider groups, doesn't fly with me.

So yeah, I'm the one "queening out" (hey, lets also make a latent snub on women! classy!). & if this is "the slightest perceived offense" then you just aren't paying attention.

 Reply

I'm sorry, but if that's the sort of thing that amuses you, I don't think we can have this conversation.

 Reply

Will the culture wars never end?!?

 Reply

I get it now. Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar, Lost, Alien Nation, et al just aren't good enough for Mr. "I Read Literary Speculative Fiction."

 Reply

& I promise I'm not humorless; I've just apparently got a higher standard for jokes than a few Obama cracks & name calling.

 Reply

You want to equate the rise of jokey slang like "bromance" and "man date" with homophobia, but you are not just wrong about this—you are absolutely, diametrically opposed to right. The target audience of these terms, if you will—roughly, American guys in their 20s to 40s—grew up on a cusp: When we were kids, "fag" was generally an insult, and we were taught, directly or indirectly, that men showing overt affection for one another was indeed "faggy" and to be avoided.

But as we've gotten older, we've learned both that it's OK to be gay and that it's OK even for straight guys to be affectionate toward each other. That does not change the fact that it is something we're still instinctively a little uncomfortable with.

And how do we deal with things we are uncomfortable with? We make jokes about them. Humor is a tried and true coping mechanism in this regard, and jokey terms like bromance are not a way of saying "Guys being close to other guys is weird and bad" but rather a way of saying "Guys being close to other guys is weird, but it's just fine, and really, it's pretty cool."

Now, if you want to argue that it's not weird, hey, you've only got decades or centuries or millennia of Western civilization and an abundance of evidence therein to contend with. Or if you want to argue that the appropriate response is not to laugh at ourselves but to Take Everything Very Seriously, by all means do so—but with the caveat that, yeah, people who do that usually are referred to not as bastards but as douches. I, for one, will probably not have time to respond, because I will be hanging out with my straight bros and my gay bros and my straight ladyfriends and my gay ladyfriends, having a really good time with no sand in our vaginas.

 Reply

Actually, I would like to agree with your point, but I just can't. A lot of people, when called on privilege-- I know, you are zoning out at the term, I'm sure-- like to throw up the chaff of humor. Sometimes it works-- especially when it starts up a dialogue. Most of the time though it works as a smokescreen behind which the derogatory norms can be reinforced. "Bromance," "Man Date" et al as terms usually are used to code for "No homo!" Hey, these guys are close, but not...you know...ew-close.

But hey! Decades, hey, centuries & millenia are on your side. & if it was good enough for grand-dad, it is good enough for...oh wait, crapola, you're back to making logical fallacies.

To be fair, I'd probably be a lot more forgiving if this was funny, rather than a list? When Barney used the term "bromance," I laugh. On the other hand, Barney is a reprehensible piece of trash. A hilarious, charismatic one, but there you have it.

To recap: I ABSOLUTELY want to equate "jokey slang" with homophobia. Cryptohomophobia is not better than open hatin'. To whit: "ghey" isn't better than saying "gay" when describing something derogatorily. & saying that using humor to cope with homophobia gives it a pass? Nu-uh, I don't but it.

Now, I'll freely admit to making a mountain out of a molehill, but I've had a lazy weekend & debating over the internet is a fun time. I'd say you feel the same way, since you keep coming back to the same thread. Or maybe you'll be too busy hanging out with your "some of my best friends are gay!" friends.

Wait, also you resort to name calling? Awesome. I can only hope you'll Godwin on me soon.

 Reply

i don't agree, mordicai, that bromance necessarily dismisses gay romantic relationships. can gay men have a bromance? i believe so. the term is about male bffs, not about male romance, and thus it isn't meant as a stigmatization of gay men. there are certainly times when i have seen "man-date" or "bromance" used derogatorily (usually in the nytimes), but this is not one of them.

it's important for those of us who do think language bears watching for its potential political harm to not go overboard. language is much more complicated than one layer of political interpretation (as moff discusses). if we don't acknowledge that, we are very ineffectual watch-dogs.

 Reply

(1) It is fun to argue on the Internet. We're agreed on that.

(2) I'm not resorting to name-calling. I responded with a rational argument, which you may or may not agree with, and then I called you a name. It's like icing on the cake. Also, the fact that some people call other people douches because they can't make a real point does not in any way change the fact that some other people really are douches.

(3) I didn't say that because Grandpa thought and acted like male-male affection was weird, it's OK to think it's weird. I said that the reality was that Grandpa thought and acted like that, that the evidence was in my favor on that point, and that we've inherited some of Grandpa's tendencies and have to work those out. Don't misread what I say and then accuse me of fallacious reasoning. Or at least, don't misread what I say and then accuse me of fallacious reasoning and then claim you're not a douche. Step up your game, son.

(4) Maybe you're right. Maybe all of us who are out having a good time and enjoying each other's company while using terms like "bromance" and "man date" and "douche" are really just fooling ourselves and we're secretly homophobic. But if you want to send this comment thread out to a hundred strangers and see which of participants they think sounds like a douchey, stereotypical, humorless (even though he assures us he is not, although he has produced no evidence to that end) grad student who really wants people to treat each other right but doesn't see how adopting a snide, self-righteous tone from the outset is at all at odds with that end, BY ALL MEANS, FEEL FREE.

(5) You are a Nazi.

 Reply

2, including clutter in your argument, like name calling, just weakens it over-all. It is like icing, sure-- icing in your cement. We ain't gingerbread housing here, this is the INTERNET. Serious bussiness.

3, you are spinning your statements above (which were total bull) into a much more cogent piece of reasoning. I don't think it gets you off the hook. Words like instinctive & arguments against generations are loaded; you're unloading that stuff now, & good, you ought to, but you bandied them about with a sort of "the way things are" mojo that just doesn't cut it.

4, wait, DUDE are you seriously going to make your closing arguments an appeal to the populace! Oh man, I sure hope you did! Just when you start getting some credit, you go & blow it? Classic. I'm really liking the portrait you are painting of me though. I'm a grad student! I'm voting for Obama! &c, &c. I like hugs & puppies & all I really want if for people to hold hands. If ONLY I would prove how funny I am!

5, sir I accept your resignation.

 Reply

(Feel free, please, to substitute for the above the words "mordicai, I feel like you've focused entirely on knocking down straw men this whole time, at the expense of cogently supporting your own argument, to the extent that you've even created them by taking my own statements out of context; and also that, contrary to the philosophy you appear to espouse, your tone from the beginning has not invited the friendly and thoughtful discourse you claim to desire" if that makes you feel better, you delicate flower.)

 Reply

Now, if you want to magic that discomfort away and you have a way to do it, please share it. That was a rhetorical statement—you don't have a way. At best, you can gripe about how everyone is so much less intellectual evolved than you, which is an excellent way to convert people to your way of thinking.

So, the discomfort is a fact of life for now. It is not necessarily a desirable fact of life, but that is not really relevant to the point I am making. You want to equate the discomfort with outright homophobia. Maybe too, if a white kid from Iowa moves to Bushwick a month after finishing high school and feels a little uncomfortable about it, you think he's a racist.

But the reality is that the kid moved to Bushwick anyway. He might feel uncomfortable about it at first, but his actions show that he is getting over his discomfort and living with the cause of it, which is one way we get over our prejudices. Is his discomfort part of the same spectrum as racism? Yes. Is it anywhere near as vile? Absolutely not.

When you refer to the use of terms like "bromance" as homophobia, frankly, you minimize real homophobia. I'll tell you what: There are gay people who've gotten their teeth kicked in, who don't get to visit their partner in the hospital, who get the shit beaten out of them for fun, and who get killed, and if you had the chance to ask any one of them how a science-fiction blog using the word "bromance" in a headline compared to those experiences, I hope they'd muster the willpower to turn away without hurting you.

I will also say again: The fact that we have a word like "bromance" means one very significant thing: We may be joking about men being publicly affectionate with one another, but we are acknowledging that men can be publicly affectionate with one another. And somehow, in spite of my obvious homophobia, I think that's a step forward. I would imagine the next step will be not having to joke about it at all; in the meantime, I'm sorry reality moves too slowly for you.

 Reply