Searching for others similar to you is fundamentally human.
It’s how we make friends. It’s how countries are created. It’s how entire cultures are formed.
One of these specific groups recently grabbed my attention. And, unfortunately, it’s for all the wrong reasons.
So called “gay bros” or “bromos” are becoming a thing in the gay community.
These self-identifying “bros” — who are into other “bros” and “bro” things — say the purpose of the subgroup is to provide a forum for gay men who feel excluded by the “mainstream” gay community.
The group exists on Reddit and has been gaining significant traction online, to the point that BroBible recently ran a column titled “Why I’m A Gay Bro, And Why You Should Be Friends With One.”
To be clear, I’m not saying there aren’t people out there who call themselves “bromos,” because clearly there are.
But let’s take a serious look at it.
“Bros,” in the first place, are an exaggeration of masculinity.
In popular culture, your average bro is only into drinking beer, watching sports, hanging out with the guys and, of course, talking about how much they’re getting it in left and right.
They’re the wannabe alpha males of society.
“Gay bros” would like to think of themselves as special, ripped-tank-wearing snowflakes in a community that has historically been labeled effeminate and weak.
In reality, the movement is nothing more than a sign of how we, even in 2014, cannot cope with the idea that being gay and an average male is possible.
The gay community is obsessed with masculinity, because to a group systematically told that its existence was inherently unnatural, masculinity is a marker of how men “are supposed to act” or even a sign of “being normal.”
But by reinforcing this idea that masculinity is the end all, be all it implies that anything different is wrong or undesirable.
This seems to be why “bromos” feel the need to differentiate themselves from other gay men to avoid being seen as weak simply for, well, being gay.
The gay rights movement has been fighting for decades so LGBT people of all walks can live open lives without the fear of being shamed for who they love and who they are.
Yet the “bromo” movement contradicts that progress by feeling the need to associate itself with the alpha male masculinity and straightness of “bros.”
At the end of the day, there is no such a thing as a “gay bro” — only gay men willing to go to embarrassing lengths to deflect the reality of who they are.
It’s how we make friends. It’s how countries are created. It’s how entire cultures are formed.
One of these specific groups recently grabbed my attention. And, unfortunately, it’s for all the wrong reasons.
So called “gay bros” or “bromos” are becoming a thing in the gay community.
These self-identifying “bros” — who are into other “bros” and “bro” things — say the purpose of the subgroup is to provide a forum for gay men who feel excluded by the “mainstream” gay community.
The group exists on Reddit and has been gaining significant traction online, to the point that BroBible recently ran a column titled “Why I’m A Gay Bro, And Why You Should Be Friends With One.”
To be clear, I’m not saying there aren’t people out there who call themselves “bromos,” because clearly there are.
But let’s take a serious look at it.
“Bros,” in the first place, are an exaggeration of masculinity.
In popular culture, your average bro is only into drinking beer, watching sports, hanging out with the guys and, of course, talking about how much they’re getting it in left and right.
They’re the wannabe alpha males of society.
“Gay bros” would like to think of themselves as special, ripped-tank-wearing snowflakes in a community that has historically been labeled effeminate and weak.
In reality, the movement is nothing more than a sign of how we, even in 2014, cannot cope with the idea that being gay and an average male is possible.
The gay community is obsessed with masculinity, because to a group systematically told that its existence was inherently unnatural, masculinity is a marker of how men “are supposed to act” or even a sign of “being normal.”
But by reinforcing this idea that masculinity is the end all, be all it implies that anything different is wrong or undesirable.
This seems to be why “bromos” feel the need to differentiate themselves from other gay men to avoid being seen as weak simply for, well, being gay.
The gay rights movement has been fighting for decades so LGBT people of all walks can live open lives without the fear of being shamed for who they love and who they are.
Yet the “bromo” movement contradicts that progress by feeling the need to associate itself with the alpha male masculinity and straightness of “bros.”
At the end of the day, there is no such a thing as a “gay bro” — only gay men willing to go to embarrassing lengths to deflect the reality of who they are.
— edsalas@indiana.edu
Follow columnist Eduardo Salas
on Twitter @esalpe
