{"id":1424,"date":"2017-04-13T10:09:46","date_gmt":"2017-04-13T15:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/?p=1424"},"modified":"2017-04-13T10:09:46","modified_gmt":"2017-04-13T15:09:46","slug":"moonlight-masculinity-and-black-male-sexualities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/2017\/04\/13\/moonlight-masculinity-and-black-male-sexualities\/","title":{"rendered":"Moonlight, Masculinity, and Black Male Sexualities"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_1426\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1426\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/centoequatro\/33140064742\/in\/photostream\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-1426\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/files\/2017\/04\/33140064742_82152f4d67_z-600x338.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/files\/2017\/04\/33140064742_82152f4d67_z-600x338.jpg 600w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/files\/2017\/04\/33140064742_82152f4d67_z-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/files\/2017\/04\/33140064742_82152f4d67_z.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1426\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by Cento Quatro, Flickr CC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Black men are often depicted as hypersexual, aggressive, and criminal in the media, which perpetuates long-standing racial and gender stereotypes and inequalities. Director Barry Jenkins attempts to deconstruct these\u00a0stereotypes of\u00a0Black masculinity in\u00a0the award-winning\u00a0<\/span><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/entry\/why-every-black-man-should-see-moonlight_us_5807c262e4b0b994d4c36aca\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Moonlight<\/span><\/a><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The movie tells the story of Chiron, a young, Black, queer man, on a quest for self-acceptance amidst the homophobia of his peers and socioeconomic circumstances of his Atlanta neighborhood. Social science research sheds light on the origins of these stereotypes\u00a0and how they influence Black men\u2019s gender and sexual identity performances.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While virtually all men are subjected to the pressures of acting like a \u201creal man,\u201d Black men experience additional strain due to racialized stereotypes that depict them as inherently dangerous and hypersexual. Due to the socioeconomic disadvantages that plague many Black communities, Black men develop alternative constructions of masculinity that emphasize moral and masculine superiority over white men. For example, they may view whiteness as feminine and homosexual, and thus position themselves as the heterosexual man whose masculinity is reaffirmed through sex with women. The result is that\u00a0some Black men label those who behave in traditionally feminine ways as \u201csissies\u201d or \u201cpunks\u201d and justify violence perpetuated against them.<\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/socy.umd.edu\/facultyprofile\/Collins\/Patricia%20Hill\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Patricia Hill Collins<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. 2004. <\/span><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Black-Sexual-Politics-African-Americans\/dp\/041595150X\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Black Sexual Politics<\/span><\/a><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. New York: Routledge.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.uh.edu\/class\/aas\/faculty\/scholars\/slatton-b\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Brittany C. Slatton<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kent.edu\/sociology\/profile\/kamesha-spates\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kamesha Spates<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. 2014. <\/span><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.routledge.com\/Hyper-Sexual-Hyper-Masculine-Gender-Race-and-Sexuality-in-the-Identities\/Slatton-Spates\/p\/book\/9781472425126\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hyper Sexual, Hyper Masculine? Gender, Race and Sexuality in the Identities of Contemporary Black Men<\/span><\/a><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. New York: Routledge.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Due to the stigmas described above, many queer Black men attempt to remain &#8220;in the closet&#8221; to avoid harassment and violence. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Other Black men only engage in homosexual activity on the \u201cdown low\u201d (DL). And others navigate stigma by exploring queer experiences without distancing themselves from their straight public identity. For example, some Black men frequent gay hip hop clubs where they do not need to &#8220;come out&#8221;; they can enjoy a\u00a0space where they can explore their sexuality with other men while simultaneously performing heterosexuality by\u00a0acting &#8220;hard&#8221; with hip-hop music.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yet, being &#8220;in the closet&#8221; or &#8220;on the down low&#8221; may further stigmatize Black queer men as sexually deviant. <\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/wgss.artsci.wustl.edu\/people\/jeffrey-mccune\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jeffrey McCune<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. 2008. \u201c&#8217;<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/law.wustl.edu\/centeris\/BlackSexualEconomiesProject\/docs\/McCune_outindaclub.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Out&#8217; in the Club: The Down Low, Hip-Hop, and the Architexture of Black Masculinity<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u201d <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Text and Performance Quarterly<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> 28(3): 298-314.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/africana.cornell.edu\/c-riley-snorton\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Riley Snorton<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. 2014. <\/span><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.upress.umn.edu\/book-division\/books\/nobody-is-supposed-to-know\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nobody is Supposed to Know: Black Sexuality on the Down Low<\/span><\/a><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Messages regarding the need to act \u201ctough\u201d also affect sexually abused Black male children. McGuffey interviewed 62 parents of Black and Puerto Rican sexually abused boys. He found that fathers believed male-perpetrated sexual abuse threatened their son\u2019s masculinity. Many were afraid that the abuse made their sons act \u201ctoo emotional\u201d and that they would become homosexual. As such, they encouraged heterosexual behavior by telling them not to touch other boys, asking them if they had a girlfriend, and telling them to look at girls\u2019 physical characteristics. <\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bc.edu\/schools\/cas\/sociology\/faculty\/profiles\/c-shawn-mcguffey.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Shawn McGuffey<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. 2008. \u201c\u2018<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/10.1525\/sp.2008.55.2.216\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Saving Masculinity:\u2019 Gender Reaffirmation, Sexuality, Race, and Parental Responses to Male Child Sexual Abuse<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u201d <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Social Problems <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">55(2): 216-237.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Black men are often depicted as hypersexual, aggressive, and criminal in the media, which perpetuates long-standing racial and gender stereotypes and inequalities. Director Barry Jenkins attempts to deconstruct these\u00a0stereotypes of\u00a0Black masculinity in\u00a0the award-winning\u00a0Moonlight. The movie tells the story of Chiron, a young, Black, queer man, on a quest for self-acceptance amidst the homophobia of his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1957,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,13,14],"tags":[96422,38545,96425,38541,1976,779,38542,176,407,96424],"class_list":["post-1424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gender","category-inequality","category-race","tag-black-men","tag-gender","tag-in-the-closet","tag-inequality","tag-masculinity","tag-queer","tag-race","tag-sexuality","tag-stereotypes","tag-the-down-low"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1957"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1424"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1427,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1424\/revisions\/1427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}