Reinventing Our Icons

Sinclair Sexsmith — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:27:39 +0000

“Have you seen the Dockers ads?” someone asked me recently at a conference, after I told them I write about masculinity. "A friend told me he liked those ads, because he is so unsure of what it means to 'be a man' right now. Everything has changed. There are no icons pointing men where to go, what to be like."

When Men Wear Skirts

Sinclair Sexsmith — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 20:36:38 +0000

How to Make Masculinity Stop Hurting

Sinclair Sexsmith — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:07:59 +0000

My dad's best friend died last week. Heart attack. He was 60, barely older than my dad, not old enough for his heart to give way. They've been friends for 35 years, longer than I've been alive. I got a heartbreaking email from my father about how they met, where they'd traveled together, and his favorite joke (What did the Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor? Make me one with everything).

In his eulogy, his son wrote that he was "a devoted family man, one who extended the term to cover a great many individuals, supporting and caring for those who needed him."

And I thought, that's radical masculinity.

A Manifesto for Radical Masculinity

Sinclair Sexsmith — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:16:05 +0000

Remember back in the Spring of 2009 when two young boys committed suicide within a week of each other, both eleven years old? Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover of Massachusetts and Jaheem Herrera of Georgia were both being subjected to unbearable anti-gay bullying at school. Whether or not these boys were actually gay, using homophobia to police masculinity is practically the oldest trick in the book. In the aftermath of these suicides, and in the discussions that ensued on the Web and in print, there was extensive lip service given to gender and the inevitable complaint that boys have it so hard, that feminism has stripped men of their manliness, that men don't know how to be men anymore, that we've got a Crisis In Masculinity.

That might seem like anti-feminist rhetoric, but I agree with it—at least in part. I agree that masculinity is changing, for some in dramatic, drastic ways. I have witnessed and observed cultural changes around the masculine and male gender roles which are shifting, yes, as a direct result of the recent feminist and other gendered social change movements.

Queer Books Saved My Life

Sinclair Sexsmith — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 22:11:43 +0000

I have always been a reader. I don’t remember learning to read: I was three, my mother says Sesame Street taught me. Books have always been my go-to when I don’t understand something. Even now, in this digital age, though I do utilize Google faster than you can say "you should Google that," my second go-to is nypl.org/books and finding a title to put on hold, to pick up at my nearby Mid-Manhattan library.

I don’t remember a time when that wasn’t my answer to any given question plaguing me.

Before I was out, and before I was an "adult" with one of those "real" jobs, I worked in independent bookstores. My specialty and sections were always social sciences. When the shelving had been done, when the desks were tidy and the isles were mostly empty of customers, I would sneak into the slightly secluded corner with psychology, eastern religion, relationships, sex, and gay & lesbian studies, and pull the queer books off the shelves.

Pioneers, Visionaries, Safe Havens, and Glitter: The 2009 Lambda Literary Awards

Sinclair Sexsmith — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:00:00 +0000

The 21st annual Lambda Literary Awards returned to New York City for the 2009 ceremony at the New School for Graduate Studies in midtown Manhattan, after presenting last year’s awards in Los Angeles. It seems appropriate that the awards would come of legal drinking age in Gotham, amidst solid grey skies and a drizzle, where writers stoop over bourbon in dark East Village bars. Writerly brooding just isn’t the same on the beach with bikinis and sunshine.

The Awards began in 1988, and though the specific categories have evolved since then, with the addition of bisexual and transgender categories and, eventually, the fizzling of the AIDS-related category, the Awards reflect the movements of the queer community for the past twenty years, and the best of the best new and seasoned authors are recognized and awarded. It is one of my life-goals to read all the winners—at least for the lesbian fiction category, if not all the others.