page 25
The
only straight cis man
in the gay club
Clodagh Chapman investigates the plight of the everyman. Illustration by AMY VAN ZYL. CW: homophobia, misogyny, biphobia, sex We live in times rife with injustice. Throughout the world, oppressed groups find themselves continually marginalised and their voices increasingly silenced. But there is one group who, above all others, suffer despicable acts of persecution. Yet their struggle goes unrecognised and even belittled by people who claim to be feminists. Truly, they are the real victims of the 21st Century. Let us take a moment to consider the plight of the straight cis man in a gay club.
“women do not by default find them attractive” In one example of such heinous acts of discrimination, some straight cis men find that they approach gay women only to have their advances dismissed. Having never considered that the world might not revolve around their penises, you can only imagine what a blow this must be to their self-esteem. Coming face-to-face with a real-life lesbian for the first time is a traumatic experience and many men express confusion that they look remarkably like their straight counterparts. Some men report a sense of paranoia in the days following the incident, stemming from the startling realisation that women do not by default find them attractive and that in fact any given woman – regardless of sexual orientation – may not wish to sleep with them. Understandably confused, many straight cis men ask for proof that the woman in front of them is indeed a real lesbian. Despite being wholly well-intentioned and sensitivelyphrased in their interrogation of lesbians about their sexual history, the mechanics of lesbian sex, and their pornography of choice, many lesbians still label these men misogynistic and homophobic. Words hurt. Many find that this disorientation and distress is amplified by the existence of bisexual women. Lesbians are tragically incapable of sleeping with men and must suffer the consequences. But bisexual women offer a
whole new challenge to straight cis male comprehension, posing the prospect of a woman being attracted to multiple genders yet at times choosing to sleep with someone who is not a man. Moreover, learning that bisexual women do indeed sleep with women outside threesomes (2 women, 1 man, of course) often comes as a shock. This is not helped by the tendency of bisexual women to – in the absence of their own valid, standalone sexuality – rapidly oscillate between straight and gay anywhere up to 1000 times per second, rendering them invisible to the naked eye. Straight cis men report a lack of support networks in place to deal with the emotional stress that comes with the continued existence of bisexual women. Clearly this is because government funding is always spent on supporting LGBT+ people.
“LGBT+ customers do not exist as a sort of live-action exhibition” Straight cis men, as well as facing unwarranted verbal abuse from queer women, also often find on arrival that gay clubs are in fact geared around LGBT+ customers and do not exist as a sort of live-action exhibition for straight cisgender people. Yet, in the face of their night out with the lads being ruined, they bravely struggle through. In fact, during attempts to show their support for the LGBT+ community, straight cis men can often be heard shouting words of encouragement towards samegender couples, often misreported as jeering and abuse. Likewise, ever-aware of their straight privilege and the fact that they are essentially guests in a queer space, straight cis men will typically assert that they are not gay at regular intervals throughout the night. Despite all this, they face grave violations of their human rights, in being told that they are perhaps not entirely welcome in gay clubs. Some straight cis men even have it suggested that they instead go to one of the other dozen clubs in which they, unlike LGBT+ people, could safely have a night out in – an absolute travesty of justice.