Re: Gay bros are a myth

Identity is everything.

How people define each other and, more importantly, how they define themselves is all we have when we strip away the superfluous junk we use day in and day out.
That is why it’s dismaying to see a fellow columnist reducing “gay bros” — “bromos,” if you will — to a so-called myth.

To get this point out of the way, I claimed bisexuality didn’t exist in a column published a year ago.

But before you cry hypocrisy, let me say this. Publishing “Bisexual bias” was eye-opening for me.

In the last year, my views on bisexuality, and fluid sexuality in general, have greatly expanded.

Having faced the backlash that came with my column, the last thing I want to do is bash Eduardo Salas in any way.

To be frank, I’d never heard of gay bros until I read the column. I don’t know if this is because I don’t keep up with labels in gay culture or because I’m horribly behind the times. Or maybe it’s because gay men can categorize themselves as feminine, masculine, twinks, bears, otters or whatever the latest word is.

 At the end of the day, they’re simply men attracted to other men.

We subcategorize with more minimized identifiers because we want to find a niche.
We want to find a more finely-tuned form of individualization. The issue with calling gay bros a myth is because you’re telling somebody the way they’re acting isn’t alright.

All you’re really proving is your views on how gay men should act don’t line up with somebody else’s.

If a man wants to drink beer, wear fratty tank tops, play “Call of Duty,” tune into a football game every Sunday and date dudes, then more power to him.

If he wants to call himself a bromo, then that’s fine, too.

The only issue here is when gay men of different subgroups criticize and distance themselves from other gay men. If, indeed, these gay bros are identifying as such because they don’t want to fit under that stereotypical gay umbrella, then that would be cause for alarm.

Call me optimistic, but I don’t believe that’s the case.

It would seem to me gay bros just happen to like the same things straight bros like, minus the boobs and female genitalia.

And it’s reductive to tell gay men they aren’t allowed to like certain things, lest their gay identities be curtailed.

­— wdmcdona@umail.iu.edu