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Leading with Empathy featuring Gabriel Novo
1.5k Plays4 years ago
Follow our guest Gabriel Novo on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bisexualnomad/
Follow Gabriel on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BisexualNomad
Gabriel's writing at Unicornzine: https://unicornzine.com/author/gabriel-novo/
Gabriel's Patreon (with photography and more): https://www.patreon.com/bisexualnomad
More links to follow and support Gabriel: https://beacons.page/bisexualnomad
Get ready for a hopeful, optimistic episodes about the casual cruelty of our heteronormative society!
I spoke to my friend Gabriel Novo, aka the "Bisexual Nomad", a Bi+ writer, artist and activist currently living in the UK (and another Birequest alum!). We spoke about bisexual communities we've found (or struggled to find...), how those personal connections helped us go from knowing we "like everyone" to fully embracing a "bisexual" identity, Gabriel's previous marriage to a woman and the difficulties of not being fully out, the "life-changing" mental health benefits of coming out (and the privilege of being able to), the struggle of remaining in the closet at work to protect your livelihood, Gabriel's experience with a cancer diagnosis and treatment and how it related to his queer journey, how to navigate poly relationships and communicate clearly, and the importance of mutual aid and being there to support our chosen queer families.
We also dove into the "casual cruelty of heteronormativity", the harmful constraints of masculinity, the violence resulting from conformity and repression, the difficulty of shaking off expectations (and self-criticism when we play into them), detoxing from being in the closet and from het-masculinity as we become "more" queer, and most importantly the positive benefits of interrogating all those issues, both for ourselves and for our community, as part of a commitment to dismantling patriarchy and white supremacy. It's all possible if we lead with empathy.
Then we answered some listener-submitted questions about masculinity, fear of rejection, being open about our feelings, and media we're consuming with bi themes. So this episode covers... a lot!
AND -- we have a sponsor now! Thank you to MANSCAPED for their support, and check out the episode to hear about our groin-trimming experiences. (Spoiler: smooth balls are actually pretty nice!) Plus get 20% OFF + Free Shipping with promo code TWOBIGUYS at MANSCAPED.com! #ad #manscapedpod
Gabriel will be back next week as a guest-host, so stay tuned!
Two Bi Guys is produced and edited by Rob Cohen
Created by Rob Cohen and Alex Boyd
Logo art by Kaitlin Weinman
Music by Ross Mintzer
We are supported by The Gotham (formerly IFP)
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Transcript
Introduction to Gabriel Novo
00:00:11
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Two Bye Guys. I'm here today with a special guest, Gabriel Novo, aka the Bisexual Nomad. Welcome to Two Bye Guys, Gabriel.
00:00:23
Speaker
Thank you for having me. So Gabriel is a bisexual activist, as is everyone who comes on this show. He is, though, literally doing a lot of great stuff on his social medias as bisexual nomad. You can find him on Twitter and Instagram at bisexualnomad.
00:00:40
Speaker
He's also writing for Unicorn Zine, which is a project of BiPride UK to help build queer community and represent bi experiences. He's in the UK at the moment. Hello from across the, well, way across the pond, not even.
00:00:55
Speaker
And Gabriel also runs a small indie publishing company called Caffeine and Ink.
Significance of Buy Request and Bisexual Identity
00:01:02
Speaker
He's also a photographer and is working on some very cool stuff online that I've been watching come to fruition with his photography. So welcome again, Gabriel, to Two Bye Guys.
00:01:14
Speaker
Thank you. I'm really excited to be here. I remember when you were first talking about this project. So from all the way back then in New York to now actually be on it with you is fantastic.
00:01:27
Speaker
It's very cool. And it's been a while since I've seen you in person, obviously, before you moved to the UK, before the pandemic. But we met at Buy Request, like Alex and I met. And so you have known about this project since pretty much from when we started talking about it and thinking of it. So it is really nice to have you on here. A lot of this stuff we've talked about with you at Buy Request and outside.
00:01:54
Speaker
Yeah, it feels like a couple of lifetimes ago. Before we get into you, have you had much by community since by request or was that a pinnacle? Because for me, there's nothing quite like it. It's been going through the pandemic, but I'm excited for things to return in person.
00:02:15
Speaker
Buy request has been a sort of, yeah, pinnacle would be a good way of putting it. I've kind of unfairly compared everything to buy request. And I keep searching for that level of community and support and discussion. And it's tough. It's tough because whenever I speak to anybody here about buy request, they're like, oh, God, we wish there was something like this in London. And I'm like, yeah, I would love it too.
00:02:44
Speaker
Yeah, Buy Request continues online. On a good day, we get a dozen people there. And I think in many other parts of the country and the world probably, even in person, a handful of people at a buy group is a success. And what was so amazing about Buy Request is there would consistently be 30 to 40 people in a room. And that was one of the things that broke me free from
00:03:10
Speaker
being so scared to identify that way was not just seeing like a couple people comfortable with it and talking about it, but like a room full of people that like so full some people had to sit on the floor that, that, oh, this is like a big real thing. It's not just a handful of us. So that, you know, that was really special and I hope that can be replicated elsewhere moving forward after this pandemic is fully behind us.
00:03:37
Speaker
I would love to be able to find that or maybe rebuild that because you're right. There's something life changing about being in a room of people and we're all trying to figure it out. Nobody's got an answer and there is no one size fits all for being bisexual. It's all these amazing people coming from completely different directions and angles and life experiences and just hearing that and being
00:04:07
Speaker
part of that and just knowing that you're like, oh, I'm not alone. Like I'm not alone in being confused or being afraid to come out or in still trying to figure it out, even if I am okay with the label. It was so supportive in ways that I'm still trying to pick apart now.
Gabriel's Journey to Self-acceptance
00:04:29
Speaker
And I haven't been to a by request since about 2019. So it's been a while.
00:04:34
Speaker
Right, probably me either. I totally agree. It was such a diverse room with people of diverse experiences. And I didn't always agree with everything I heard, but even with so many different types of people, everyone had this thing at their core that was like,
00:04:54
Speaker
we get this. We understand you and why you're here and what, even if you're confused, we've been there too. And so there's this core similarity and then all these very different ways of expressing it and viewing
00:05:09
Speaker
fluid sexuality. So that brings us to you, Gabriel. How do you identify both on sexuality spectrums or any other spectrums you want to identify on? And let's start with that and take it from there. I'm curious what your identity means to you. Well, I am cisgender. So I am a man. I'm okay with that.
00:05:36
Speaker
I'm just okay with it. We'll talk. We'll dig more into that later. There's some drawbacks to being a guy. So yeah, we could definitely chat about that later. But I'm bisexual. And what's funny is, I'm a little older. So some of the terms I grew up with were older, lesbian, gay, bisexual,
00:05:58
Speaker
I mean, that was about it, you know, growing up in the 80s and such. And it was in the by request room where bisexuality really for me began to settle and fit, not just from a personal attraction and romantic attraction way, but also from a political standpoint.
00:06:20
Speaker
I felt the need to say I was bisexual, even though technically I'm pansexual too, like that could fit. But bisexuality, especially from a political standpoint, from a rights standpoint, from a community standpoint, became a very important label for me. And that's where I am now. But again, I'm always interrogating that. I've met some really interesting people that have
00:06:47
Speaker
made me look at labels in general and say like, okay, do we really need them? And so I'm trying to continue to grow. Anytime you stop growing is, you know, when you die. So I want to still stay fluid. But yeah, all that to say is I am cis bisexual.
00:07:07
Speaker
very cool. So you really came to embrace it as this full identity in by request, but that was only a couple of years ago. Actually, it seemed like you had a lot figured out as soon as you walked in that room, but maybe that room does something like that. It just gives people this confidence to really access stuff they've been thinking about.
00:07:30
Speaker
So I don't know. Walk us up to that point. Start earlier. When did you start to realize you might be something other than straight? I assume you identified a straight first or maybe not. Maybe I shouldn't assume. When did you start to realize stuff and what was that like and how did you get to this point? So I've always known that I've liked
00:07:56
Speaker
everyone from a young age. During that time in elementary school, when you realize that you want to start smooching people, I found out that I wanted to smooch the girls as much as I wanted to smooch the boys. It was just like, come on, everybody, let's smooch. I've always had that. I've always had that. I've talked with you, Rob, about this before, but for viewers at home,
00:08:26
Speaker
I was married for a long time, but in that relationship, I was still queer, though the term I used was heteroflexible. I have issues with myself about that. If people want to use it, that's great, but just for me, looking backwards, it was a bit of a cop-out.
00:08:47
Speaker
I always liked multiple genders and expressions of gender. And it's always been with me, but I never had the courage or the confidence to come out fully
00:09:03
Speaker
until I met someone actually, my current partner who's trans non-binary. And in being with them, I realized that they were living authentically and that I needed to bring just that same level of authenticity to the relationship. And it really kind of cracked me open. And once I had those beginning conversations, I realized like,
00:09:27
Speaker
Holy crap. Can we curse on this? I don't know. No. Okay. Never. We never fucking curse on this. Damn it, Gabriel. The fuck are you doing trying to ruin me? Okay.
00:09:44
Speaker
So this is a kid, this is a kid friendly. That's right. They're playing this on PBS now. I forgot, you know, all the little kids listening to how I love getting rimmed and stuff like that. Okay.
00:09:59
Speaker
Okay, so I realized holy shit. This is something that has held me back for so many years. This is why I felt uncomfortable in rooms. This is with other guys. This is why
00:10:16
Speaker
I found myself wondering why certain gender roles were set up in certain ways, or why couldn't I do this being the guy? What is the problem with this? Or what's the problem with me interacting with women in a certain way? What is wrong with that? Like all of this comes back to my queerness. And being able to crack it open, being able to not have that secret really has changed my life. And it's
00:10:47
Speaker
I understand the privilege in being able to come out. I understand that not everybody can, due to safety, due to location. I get that. But if you can...
00:11:00
Speaker
it has been, and it's not hyperbole, it has been life-changing. Even creatively, just not having that barrier, not having that self-censorship has allowed me to open up what I talk about, what I photograph, what I write, how I interact with people, how I present myself.
Past Relationships and Current Family Dynamics
00:11:19
Speaker
It has just freed me, and I feel lighter and different. It's kind of funny, I had to renew my passport recently,
00:11:28
Speaker
And the photo was from me 10 years ago. And that I don't recognize that person anymore. I saw you posted that I almost didn't recognize that person either. There's there's like a like a I see pain, I see a pain and I see this like,
00:11:45
Speaker
tightness this closed off way of being and then I look at the photo which I just took for the replacement and like holy crap first my hair looks amazing so like your hair does look amazing okay
00:12:01
Speaker
I agree. I'm happy I went that direction. But I just felt I felt lighter. I saw it in my face. And it's a way that I like to put it is sometimes you don't know how fucked up a situation is until you leave it and look back.
00:12:16
Speaker
And that's what happened to me. That's what happened to my whole looking at heteronormativity in the rearview mirror was like, it was really fucked up. And I didn't realize how fucked up it was because I was just surviving. I was just trying to make it through, play the game and the way that it's meant to be played so that I can win, have a job, have a career. Because if you're outwardly queer, these things are not guaranteed.
00:12:46
Speaker
So yeah, it's been a lot. That was a great intro. That sparked so many things as you're talking. So you really ran the gamut. Okay, let me see if I can try to remember, and then I have more questions. But I do want to say, I completely identify with what you're saying about coming out and like, yes, personal decision, not everyone is in a position to do it, especially, and I do want to dig into this in a minute, about like, if you're already married, and then that's when you realize or like,
00:13:15
Speaker
how to come out then. Okay, but pin in that because I agree that I didn't realize how hard it was to not be out until I was out. I thought it was fine and I would just take this thing to the grave and it wasn't that big of a deal. It didn't affect all these other areas of my life. It didn't affect my work, my art, my writing. But you're completely right that of course it does. And of course,
00:13:43
Speaker
once I was free of that mental gymnastics you have to do every day to make the thoughts in your head acceptable to the society we're in, that's really difficult. And once I was free of that, it was the only time I realized it.
00:14:02
Speaker
how difficult it was. And it's not just about sex. That's where it starts for a lot of people because it's like, hey, why are these the rules? Why can I only have sex with this type of person? But it's also about our gender roles. And then it's about so many other things and monogamy and heteronormativity and
00:14:25
Speaker
rules of society in general and accessing yourself versus fitting in in society. So I completely understand that. Thank you. I mean, it's it's been bubbling for a while now. Yeah, I think I don't know about you, Rob, but I've had a lot of time on my hands recently, you know. Oh, yeah. Why is that? Yeah, like you haven't been busy taking a sabbatical, you know, just.
00:14:50
Speaker
Yeah, pandemic time gives you time to think. And it's really made me go through, again, decisions that I've done and how my life feels now. And it's really interesting picking this apart. Gender roles, especially, how you show yourself as a man is so
00:15:18
Speaker
It's like filled with trip wires and booby traps, and you never know what's going to set one off. And of course, not the side effect, but the consequence of tripping a landmine can be violence.
00:15:33
Speaker
Like it could be literal violence and you don't know what will set it off. And the threat of things becoming violent for everyone who's around toxic masculinity is kind of violent in itself because just like imagining what could turn
00:15:54
Speaker
bad and how the ways it could go is like oppressive to Again, and I have to say I have it easy Like I'm Cuban American, but if you look at me, I look like a white dude I can't get away from that. I just look like a white dude. I'm in a male body and That has the highest level of privilege and I'm worried about violence I can't imagine what it's like for anyone else working at a more heightened level where
00:16:20
Speaker
It's like I'm working on easy mode and it was still such an oppressive thing to deal with. Do you find there's any relationship between like the white passing privilege you may have felt and also like the straight passing privilege that people think by people have? Like what is that experience like? Has it ever felt similar or do you feel either of those? Yes, I felt both of those. And
00:16:49
Speaker
I don't like calling it straight passing, I think more of it is by erasure, like you're not allowed to be anything. Straight passing in quotes because that's what people who aren't bi think. Straight passing privilege is what non-bi people think being bi gets you.
00:17:08
Speaker
Well, okay, so not to detract too much or to detour too much. In a previous life, I was an IT consultant. And so I traveled all over the United States doing computer work. IT, for being technologically advanced, is very socially conservative.
Navigating Racism and Straight-Passing Privilege
00:17:29
Speaker
It is not a very progressive industry, at least in my personal opinion from what I've encountered.
00:17:36
Speaker
So being anything other than straight male. And you've got to think about it. There's this level on top of it. You have a bunch of nerds, right? So nerds, and I'm a nerd too, we're all working at a deficit in the masculine games, right? We're not off. We're not manly. We don't drive the fast car. Well, maybe some drive fast cars. But in the masculinity game, the nerds are the bottom rung.
00:18:04
Speaker
So you have this kind of flip side where you have people that have some money now, because IT pays well, are now going into the hyper-masculine. They're really amping it up. They're buying the fast cars, the fancy stuff, the house, the big house, the hobbies, which are from gun collecting to God knows what else.
00:18:27
Speaker
it's hard to be anything other than very, very masculine. And it's a very white world, at least, again, in my experience. So the privilege, quote, unquote, that I had looking white, being white, I am white. Like, you look at me, I'm white. The privilege I have in that is that people end up being racist around me because they think, oh, I'm just like them.
00:18:52
Speaker
And you have to politely remind people like, no, I'm Cuban American. I grew up very differently than you did. Not to mention my partner at the time was Jewish. So like, hey, let's not use those slurs, please, be nice. So that was the experience of the passing privilege, right? I felt trapped
00:19:16
Speaker
I felt I was surrounded by people that may or may not think I was human or worth interacting with. And I had to keep pretending in order to keep working and feeling safe. Interesting.
00:19:38
Speaker
I want to ask about your relationships a little more because I also identify with your current partnership with a trans non-binary person. My partner is also trans non-binary. And I think that there's been interesting, as we've talked about,
00:19:54
Speaker
ways that that opens up space for each other, like people exploring gender fluidity and sexual fluidity. So we can talk about that in a minute, but jump back to your first relationship if you don't mind telling us a little more. How old were you and long were you married? And
00:20:13
Speaker
Did you identify to, it's your wife, right? It was this woman. Did you identify as bi to her or hetero flexible or like, did you have guys ever talk about that, you know, within the relationship, however much you are comfortable sharing? Ah, how much time we get on this podcast. I met my ex.
00:20:36
Speaker
When I was very young, probably 19, we got married very young. How much later? I was probably 22, 23. So we spent a couple of years together before getting married and we were together for 15 years. It's a chunk of time. It's definitely a chunk of time. But I was always
00:21:03
Speaker
myself as much as I could be as much as I allowed myself to be back then. My ex and I would go to gay clubs. We together we would go to we had Oh God, we had some great drag friends, drag queen friends down in Miami. It was a blast. You have never partied harder than if you've partied with drag queens. Oh, my God. Very great. It's difficult to keep up. Yeah. So I was we were both
00:21:31
Speaker
I don't know what my partner would officially label themselves as now, my ex, sorry, ex partner. But the actions were very much queer, bisexual. So we were a couple of bi folks having a good old time. And so were you were you not monogamous? We occasionally enjoyed a special guest star would be the way I would put it.
00:21:56
Speaker
OK, but I didn't have the language back then or the maturity to say something like now I am polyamorous, you know, ethically monogamous. And I also understand how much work goes into that. It's not just an open relationship where, you know, don't tell a situation. But no, we were open in that regards. We would have fun with somebody else together.
00:22:24
Speaker
It wasn't, thankfully, it wasn't like a possession thing. It wasn't like you can't, it's just we never developed it past that. And yeah, so I was hetero flexible for the entire time. There were many times when I was dating my ex where
00:22:42
Speaker
They would see me making out with a dude and it was hilarious because we were all friends. When you're young, all your friends are all the same people that you're probably banging and everyone's getting drunk together and it's all fun and games and it's good times. It can be like that forever.
00:23:03
Speaker
That's what I'm working for. When we're young. When we're young. And now, hopefully now, also. Be friends and fuck everyone. So now contrast that if you're willing to talk about your current relationship or just your current polyamorousness. How does that work? You said it's a lot of work. What is the work?
00:23:26
Speaker
any differences, similarities between your monogamish relationship and what you're in now as a fully out by queer pan person? The difference in the relationship is huge. One, because of me, what I'm bringing to the relationship.
00:23:44
Speaker
I'm not gonna lie, like back then, I probably wasn't my best. No, I'm not even gonna say probably. I was not my best self. There was a lot of things that I didn't realize were coping mechanisms at the time. And I, you know, coping mechanisms, along with socialized behaviors that were part and parcel of like the job or being a dude living in the South, which is a lot of excessive drinking, a lot of bullshit like that. And so
00:24:12
Speaker
I was not my best self. And it was good until it wasn't. And that's a different story and a much longer tangent. I won't go into that. But my relationship now is one built on openness and communication and honesty.
00:24:29
Speaker
Like that's been the biggest difference, this kind of raw honesty where you can just admit to your feelings. You could admit that you fancy someone. Your partner could admit that they fancy someone. They could go on a date and he'd be like, oh, I hope they have a good time. I hope they have fun. I hope they meet someone interesting. It's very supportive.
00:24:55
Speaker
That's the thing, like it's so supportive. I have a beautiful little polyamorous family right now. So it's me, my partner and my partner's partner. And we all live together and it's great. And we take care of each other and we support each other. And we're allowed to ask for help and be helped. We're allowed to be vulnerable. Actually, that might be the key. Being allowed to be vulnerable has been
00:25:23
Speaker
incredible. It's I can't even describe it. Like life changing is too trite of a phrase for it. Like to be able to be open and say, I'm struggling, I need help. Or I'm going through this stuff, I would like to talk to you about it and to have that be have that space held for you in a way that doesn't feel judgmental in a way that is supportive.
00:25:47
Speaker
My god, like really I have no words for that I know exactly what you mean because it just reminds me of something that happened like a couple weeks ago where I went and met someone on Grindr and went over there and It was like not great It wasn't like anything bad happened or anything that I like was uncomfortable with but it also just like I had an expectation of what was gonna happen and it wasn't really that I wasn't very turned on and it was just like kind of a bust and
00:26:14
Speaker
And I got home and was able to talk to my partner about it, and they had supported me. And it turned what, when I was single, might have been just really annoying and frustrating and demoralizing into actually a nice bonding moment for my partner and I. And on the flip side, that's more rare. On the flip side is what you're talking about, which is compunction, I guess, which we've talked about here. Do you know compunction?
00:26:42
Speaker
What? Compersion. Compersion. What's compunction? I don't even know what compunction is. It's just another word that sounds similar. Compersion is the thing where, you know, the opposite of jealousy, taking pleasure in your in your partner's joy. And that's what we have most of all, like if my partner goes and has a date or has sex with someone and has a good time or get especially especially if they get something out of it that isn't what I normally provide.
00:27:12
Speaker
right? I love that. I'm like, that's great. That's awesome for you. And it's really nice to have that radical honesty and just be open about everything. It makes me think of people who cheat in heteronormative monogamous marriages. I'm like, I will never cheat on anyone again because not that I ever did. I just can't
00:27:36
Speaker
imagine not talking about that and keeping that secret. It reminds me of being closeted and the mental gymnastics it would take to do it. Just once you've been so honest and broken through the barrier of talking about these taboo things like polyamory or non-monogamy, it's very difficult to go back.
00:27:57
Speaker
It really is. I also really identify with what you're talking about about how the relationships were different, not necessarily because of your partners, although that may affect it, but because of you and who you were and where you were. I think that's so common and not a lot of people talk about that. But my relationships before I came out were so different than after, even the ones after with women. So
00:28:25
Speaker
I was a different person and I was more open and comfortable and confident. And I know we're always looking for... I mean, not we, but you read online a lot about especially straight people looking for a checklist or like, these are disqualifiers or this is what I want in a partner. And
00:28:45
Speaker
It's so much more important like who you are when you're in a relationship and what you're bringing into it and and all that is like Not just half the battle. It's like more than I mean, it's not a hundred percent because you also need a supportive and partner who clicks with you, but it's so It's it's so important like where you are when you enter a relationship very true and how you grow together and
00:29:12
Speaker
And to kind of jump off that checklist, the one thing that has been, and I want to be clear, like there's room for monogamy. There's room for polyamorous relationship styles. Like one is not better than the other. It's not. I'm just saying that I have found joy in this, but.
00:29:32
Speaker
The one thing that has been incredible is being told, one person does not have to meet all your needs. And when I realized that that also applied to myself, that I did not need to meet all of someone's needs, it took this incredible pressure.
00:29:52
Speaker
because I know a lot of the difficulties I had during my marriage is that we were put into situations where all our needs had to be met by the other on top of like the world of being on fire a little bit. And so it's impossible. We were putting each other into an impossible situation. So of course, things were going to go sideways because it's not fair.
00:30:16
Speaker
It wasn't fair to her. It wasn't fair to me. So now that I'm free of that, now that I don't have that in my head where like, you're going to be with this person for 40 years, and if they don't like the kind of movies that you watch, then fuck it. You never watch those movies again. Or I mean, how many times have you heard like,
00:30:37
Speaker
Oh, the old lady doesn't let me do so and so, so I got to go out with the guys to do it. Instead of becoming people that are supporting each other, it's more like opponents that fight and that are antagonists instead of joining together. Again, the vulnerability and being able to support each other has been such a huge difference for me.
00:31:00
Speaker
And honestly, you can get that in monogamy as well. I think the biggest part has been the queerness and the authenticity. Being open has made all of that kind of possible. I wouldn't be here right now if I hadn't... I mean, honestly, yeah, if I hadn't accepted myself, I wouldn't be in London. It's really weird to say it that way, but yeah, if I had not accepted
00:31:24
Speaker
that I was bisexual. I know that the series of events that came after that, I would not have ended up where I am now.
00:31:32
Speaker
Interesting. Because you went there because you're following just what feels right for you at each turn and not following some prescribed path. Is that sort of how that happened? Also, in being authentic and open, I was able to meet a person who accepted that. And then that has led my life in so many beautiful new directions that I would not have had access to if I couldn't just be
00:31:59
Speaker
Like on top of that, I know you said that I was very confident when I walked in to buy request and that is...
00:32:07
Speaker
That's actually a dirty little secret of being an IT consultant or a consultant in general, right? You never let them see you sweat. You always have that confidence, that fake it till you make it. So I'm used to turning that on. And so I'm like, yeah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, and just really leading into it, even though inside I was still detoxing from being in the closet.
00:32:30
Speaker
There's a lot of stuff that I'm still working through now. There's a lot of negative things that are tied to being in the closet, pretending to be straight, masculine roles from that time. But I hid that. I hid all of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting. Yeah. So that's kind of why I was able to pull it off. But having a partner like I have now who has supported me as I work through my shit has been amazing.
00:32:58
Speaker
That's awesome. It's interesting because I think if you probably met me a few months into my time at Buy Request and I was probably getting more confident by then, but I have had people from Buy Request tell me who were there when I first started going, Rob, you seem so different now. When you first came in, you were closed up. Literally, my body language was
00:33:21
Speaker
closed off, hunched, nervous, making myself small. I remember walking in wanting to sit in the corner of the room and not talk like the back corner. And then it's a circle. Yeah, and it's a circle of chairs. And so I couldn't. And so I ended up talking. But the transformation was something I didn't even realize for myself, how different I was. And then I really opened up
00:33:48
Speaker
metaphorically and literally my body language, I just became more comfortable. I was going to say, when I met you, you were super chill, displayed out on the floor, just like, yeah, come on in. My request is great. You're so welcoming and comfortable. And that's so hard to find someone who feels comfortable in their queerness for people that have been in that straight world for so long.
00:34:15
Speaker
Right, right. It took me a few months. I was not there at the beginning, but I guess by the time you walked in, I was. Last question on this stuff, but we get so many listeners to the podcast who are married, and like you, many of them got married young to assist women and maybe only fully began to explore, or in some cases explored at all, their bisexuality after
00:34:43
Speaker
they got married. Your story alone is helpful for people, but do you have any thoughts or advice for what it means to be married and figuring this stuff out for people in those situations? I've actually seen some of these relationships. I've bumped into people who have been queer and
00:35:08
Speaker
Typically, just it's been the guy. The guy has been queer and exploring and the wife is kind of like along for the ride. The one thing I could say is being honest and having real vulnerable communication before you do anything would be your best chance of success because I've encountered so many people who just feel like you could see the hurt
00:35:35
Speaker
on the partner's face because they had someone in their lives who kept a secret. Now, granted, I understand that. I understand the keeping of the secret, but the way that they revealed it is by cheating on them. And that is
00:35:51
Speaker
It's like stabbing someone and twisting the knife. It is this betrayal and this pain. And it doesn't have to be that way. It's scary. It is so fucking scary to come out to someone who you love, who doesn't know that you are. It may be a family member or a partner or friend. If you love them, you care for them. It's still scary because you don't know if they're going to accept you.
00:36:16
Speaker
But you have to start there. You have to start from that moment of vulnerability and honesty, because you can build some amazing stuff from that point. But if you start from another point, if you start from a point of deceit, if you start from a point of pain and betrayal, it's, it's going to be much harder to recover from that or to maintain what you have.
00:36:39
Speaker
That makes so much sense, it's good advice. I also think it's like a little bit of a catch-22 and it can be hard for people because I don't know how to, if there's a solution to this or it depends on the person, but it's like, I think many people, even if there's no cheating with someone else, just the fact of keeping this information from a partner can feel deceitful or can feel like cheating in a way.
00:37:05
Speaker
I totally understand why it happens and for many men or women who are exploring sexuality also or gender identity, it's all the same. You have to explore it yourself and figure it out yourself and you don't necessarily want to come out to a partner and threaten a relationship if you're not sure about something. You want to know first.
00:37:26
Speaker
But then the longer you wait and figure it out and you're not telling your partner, they may feel a certain way about not knowing all this about their partner. So it's like a heart. It's like you kind of have to take that leap, but at the same time, that can make it harder to really fully explore yourself if your partner isn't going to be supportive. I don't know if you ever thought about that. It's very hard.
00:37:54
Speaker
Yeah, I did think about that. And my luck was that I was in between relationships. So I started from the on-buy upfront, and that helped.
00:38:11
Speaker
But every time that I kind of kept it secret when I was dating between relationships and then revealed that later, it never really went well. It was just better to be upfront because if some people reject you, great, they weren't meant for you. If they can't accept you was if they can't accept in your worst day, they don't get you on your best day. So if this part was a red flag for them, great, go somewhere else. I'm gonna be with people who like me for me, not like a version of me.
00:38:39
Speaker
right? Right, exactly. It can be so hard because you might be threatening a relationship, right? But at the same time, if who you are threatens a relationship, it may not be a good relationship for you because it's very important to like being who you are is just as important or probably more so than any relationship you're in.
Manscaped Sponsorship and Product Impressions
00:39:03
Speaker
Exactly.
00:39:12
Speaker
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00:39:41
Speaker
Manscaped offers precision engineered tools for your family jewels. That rhymes. I like that. Manscaped just launched their fourth generation trimmer, the Lawn Mower 4.0. You heard that right. The 4.0. Wow. I have never even heard about the 1, 2, and 3.0, but that is impressive. 4.0.
00:40:03
Speaker
Join over 2 million men worldwide who trust Manscaped with this exclusive offer for you. 20% off and free worldwide shipping with the code tobuyguys at manscaped.com. T-W-O-B-I-G-U-I-S. So, Gabriel, as funny as that little intro is, I mean, I like the jewels part. I actually really like this product. They sent me one. They sent me the Lawn Mower 4.0, not 3.0. They sent you something, I think. They sent you something, yeah.
00:40:34
Speaker
So, I actually really liked it. I'll talk about why in a moment, but what was your experience with this product? I mean, first of all, the shipping was quick because I think I got mine before you even got yours. You got it before me and you're in the UK. Yeah. It was like, come on. When you get something like this, you think, okay, is this going to be gimmicky? What is this going to be?
00:40:56
Speaker
And I am a hairy person, you know, beard, long hair. So you're thinking like, okay, what's this going to do? It was fantastic. I really enjoyed it. I found it to be more of a deforestation tool as opposed to like a styling tool. Like if you got some lines and if you want to keep something real trim, it was great for that. I was surprised by the flashlight.
00:41:21
Speaker
I did not know there was going to be a flashlight on it. Which is very helpful and nice, right? You need to see where the little hairs. You can't always see them. Where to go, especially if you're in the shower. It's not like you have amazing lighting in there to begin with. Did you use it in the shower? Yes, I used it in the shower. I got to try that.
00:41:41
Speaker
It was really good. Granted, there was parts of me that I hadn't seen under direct lighting like that before, so that takes a moment. But I found it to be easy to use, easy to hold, surprisingly light. And the grip was great. I was not worried about slipping and then nicking things or any of that. I mean, you still have to be careful, but I loved it. It was a smooth experience.
00:42:08
Speaker
Literally, smooth. Yeah, no. So I also, I too, am a hairy person. I once shaved my chest hair in like college or something. And then when it grew back, it was really like itchy. And so I've never done it since, because I hated how itchy it was. And so I was a little nervous to do this because of that. But that wasn't a problem. I didn't have any itchiness during or after.
00:42:34
Speaker
I didn't use it in the shower. I should, but I agree with you. It was nice. It was easy to use. I didn't really worry about cutting myself and it didn't happen. I just trusted the product completely as they told me to and it worked out fine. No nicks or anything.
00:42:53
Speaker
Uh, and so, okay, I didn't shave everything. I'm doing it in stages because I like, well, I want to test it out a little. And I will say that I would not have bought something like this. Like I wouldn't have thought, oh, I'm gonna shave down there. I would just continue my life as it was and never realize what I was missing out on. But I was missing out on something because I shaved my balls. Like that was the thing they talk about a lot. And so I did that and like,
00:43:20
Speaker
It was easy to do and I really like it. Like this week I've had very smooth shaved balls and like surprisingly nice. Like I really just like it. I don't know if I'm gonna go back to not doing this. Like it's surprisingly shockingly good. Now I have a podcast where I'm talking about shaving my balls. Isn't this what I always wanted?
00:43:44
Speaker
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Toxic Masculinity and Gender Expectations
00:44:05
Speaker
Unlock your confidence and always use the right tools for the job with Manscaped.
00:44:16
Speaker
Okay, new topic. I asked you what you wanted to talk about today and you had a very interesting topic. I'm just going to read some keywords that we were talking about and then have you explain what you were thinking and we'll get into it. But we wanted to talk today about toxic masculinity.
00:44:33
Speaker
podcast about masculinity. We're wanting to talk about gender and gender roles a lot more this season. You brought up the casual cruelty of heteronormativity, being a man as inherently cruel, toxic, or violent, or all three. The idea of shaking off expectations or self-criticism when we play into those expectations.
00:44:56
Speaker
and also the struggles of detoxing from het masculinity as you become more queer. I mean, this could be hours and hours discussing all those points, but tell us what you're thinking about that. What did you mean by some of those things? It's something that, again, I had a lot of time on my hands. It was also something that I was noticing in my relationship, in the way that I interacted with other people.
00:45:23
Speaker
I am normally I try to be a friendly, supportive, nice person, right? It's not I'm not it's not positive to be fake. It's just just me. I try to be a nice guy. I like people. I like being supportive. I enjoy that. And I found myself
00:45:41
Speaker
being mean or being cruel or just not giving people the benefit of the doubt as a reflex, like not giving them space just to be human, like keeping them to this weird standard that I didn't even understand why I was holding anybody to. And it took me a while to realize that I was detoxing from being in the closet for so long.
00:46:06
Speaker
Hannah Gadsby talks about it in the net where she was saying that being in the closet for all those years, you're like saturated in like shame and all these emotions. For me, it was being saturated in what it meant to be a man, a straight white man.
00:46:25
Speaker
And there is a lot of casual cruelty. There is a lot of this fake meritocracy where everyone's in it for themselves and you only get stuff because you're the best, quote unquote, because you worked harder, completely erasing any privilege idea of privilege or luck or anything else.
00:46:47
Speaker
It was this doggy dog version of being a man, and it allowed no room for empathy. It allowed no room for weakness or vulnerability. It left very little room for honesty. You had to play a part. You couldn't be as honest as you would want to be because that was frowned upon.
00:47:08
Speaker
and it sounds it sounds like the sorry to interrupt it just it sounds like the group thread I have with my straight white male college friends where it's like there's no vulnerability on the group thread except maybe for me and like anything is like it's all this like capitalistic achievement based stuff and like
00:47:29
Speaker
and everything is logical and market-based and we're proving points and stuff and anything that gets viewers a little bit into vulnerability or opening up to people, then somebody will make a joke and we won't go down that road. Yeah, exactly. You're not allowed to be human. You're not allowed to have feelings.
00:47:50
Speaker
And I encounter that so often with the people I worked with or just the people I met on the road. When you're traveling, if you're...
00:48:02
Speaker
I like to say that I have the face of a priest. People love to confess things to me. So whenever I was at bars, or airports, or airport bars, and just traveling through the world, people would open up to me in ways that I just, I guess they felt comfortable. But it was always lubricated with alcohol. And I encountered so many men
00:48:26
Speaker
who were hurting so bad. They were in real pain.
Cancer Experience and Emotional Vulnerability
00:48:31
Speaker
It was either from loneliness or from trauma or from just this kind of emotional black hole that they were living in. And they would try to connect with me. And I felt the fear in them that they would lubricate to try to get around. I would feel the
00:48:52
Speaker
the anger sometimes at themselves for having these feelings in the first place. And I know I'm talking about this as an external, but I had those same issues too. I had this fear of being vulnerable with the people, this fear of allowing myself to want and need things and vocalize that need to others.
00:49:14
Speaker
There's something that I experienced that I guess started me on this track before I fully embraced being bisexual, and that was going through stage four cancer. And there is nothing that will make you more vulnerable than having your body betray you in a very, very severe way.
00:49:30
Speaker
And I had my entire support system disappear overnight. Because you can't be vulnerable. You can't remind people of death. You can't be struggling. No, you're supposed to be a fighter, which I hate. I've always hated the cancer fighter mythos.
00:49:50
Speaker
I did not fight cancer. I did not throw a punch. I did not succeed because I trained harder or visualized stronger. I survived because of science and luck. That's how I made it through. And there's a lot of people that haven't survived. And it wasn't because they didn't fight hard enough. It's because they didn't catch it in time or other reasons, not tied again to that meritocracy. Like the people that win are always the best. No,
00:50:19
Speaker
You know, sometimes it's just dumb luck. Yeah. But being vulnerable like that, having everything taken away from me, even my mental faculties, because a side effect of chemotherapy is chemo brain, like you lose your ability to be sharp or to be on top of things. And when you work in an industry that is all thought based,
00:50:43
Speaker
You drop down the ranks real fast. So having that moment made me reexamine everything. It made me reexamine my relationships, how I interacted with people. And it really made me see that this vulnerability was verboten. It was just not allowed in this world. And I've always had that, like that thought, that seed in me.
00:51:05
Speaker
And when I watered it with queerness, it has blossomed into something else amazing. But that was the catalyst for me. Having cancer and seeing my world disappear, my whole world crumbled in an instant, and it's never really fully recovered, at least not that part of my life, really changed the way I look at empathy and emotion and vulnerability.
00:51:28
Speaker
That's so interesting because as you're talking, it's like before I came out, I didn't quite realize how much these expectations of masculinity and like relationships are baked in everywhere in society and baked into people's consciousness, even some queer people, but like for sure, straight people, you almost don't realize it walking through the world as a straight person. And then like suddenly everything changed and I saw it differently.
00:51:56
Speaker
And it is really about this vulnerability that something about coming out and telling people this thing I never was going to then affected my ability to be vulnerable in many other arenas and in many other ways. I forced myself to do it with my sexuality because I felt at the time like I had to. I couldn't keep the secret any longer. But now then there's little things where I'm like,
00:52:25
Speaker
why should I keep that to myself? It's not a big deal, but why keep it to myself? If it's any deal at all. Let me just talk about it and be open with people that I trust. I'm curious, did the coming out or realizing stuff coincide with your cancer diagnosis and getting better? Were they tied in any way?
00:52:45
Speaker
No, there were many years after the fact. I got cancer when I was 31. And I didn't come out until I was 38. So it took a while. But that definitely started the journey. Again, once you've lost everything and you start from scratch, you start looking at the building materials and like, why am I using this? Why is this the foundation I'm working on?
00:53:12
Speaker
Yeah. Interesting. I noticed it in some of the reactions that I've had from like the past of where you give no space to another human being to be human. They fuck up in some way or they lost out or you dismiss other people.
00:53:32
Speaker
Like, that's the other thing, too. Again, when when your whole identity is tied around this alpha male lone wolf bullshit, and you only think of yourself as a singular unit, then you only interact with people based on whether or not they will help you achieve your goals. There's very little sense of community. There is camaraderie, but there's no community. There's no real support. And the moment that something happens to you, that
00:54:02
Speaker
challenges your ability to maintain that kind of like, masculine virileness, you notice people disappear, people leave, they're not there to help you. And so like with the cruelty is the whole like, if someone is emotionally struggling, like I found myself
00:54:21
Speaker
doing this and I really hated myself for it. Like if somebody is emotionally struggling, it's like, just suck it up. Like that thought in my head, just suck it up. Where the fuck does that come from? Why aren't people allowed to process their emotions and show the vulnerability? Why am I so uncomfortable sitting here with someone and not trying to fix it?
00:54:43
Speaker
not trying to give them advice, just trying to be here with them in the moment and support them. Why can't I do that? Why is that against the reflexes that I've had for the past 30 plus years? Right. And it's totally counterproductive to keep that stuff bottled up, like to conform to those masculine expectations.
00:55:02
Speaker
doesn't help anyone. It might make it nicer to be in public because you don't have to talk about hard shit, but bottling it up just makes it worse. And that's when masculinity becomes really toxic and potentially violent. When people have bottled it up and they can't express it, it's going to turn into something. It's going to come out some way.
00:55:26
Speaker
I have worked with people that, again, in my consulting days. My consulting days, I had a lot of exposure to masculinity across the spectrum, from the viril masculine to the disabled to the queer to the people on the edges of it. And I've seen people in tears, in tears, because it's finally coming out.
00:55:52
Speaker
Right? So it's also probably because they're blackout drunk at that time. Like it's it's sad that it gets to that point. But you can see this pain. And then what's even worse is after it's released, after they've had that moment, they just bottle it up twice as hard and berate themselves. So like, well, fuck me, I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have slipped. I should have stayed strong, been stoic. And then they I mean,
00:56:18
Speaker
the number of people that that i've encountered that drink to self-medicate because of the reason that they don't know how to cope they don't know how to deal with their emotions they're not allowed to be vulnerable so they press it down or they numb themselves to it and i'm not talking just externally i numbed myself to a lot of it and only looking back again only being outside of a fucked up situation did i realize how fucked up it was
00:56:45
Speaker
only in looking back that I realized what I was doing to myself in order to just make it through this version of the world. Right. I think there's some interesting similarities between 12-step programs and detoxing from an actual substance and also detoxing from heteronormativity, which is the way you put it. It's a great way to put it because I think it's so
00:57:07
Speaker
related and probably the thing that comes up for me first of like the parallel is this vulnerability. And is this like being okay with not being okay and sharing that and asking for support and giving support to other people. It's something that I've encountered in both worlds. Like I've been to Al-Anon because I have a family member in AA. And it really felt very similar sometimes to going to a by request meeting.
00:57:35
Speaker
because you're getting support from each other and it also kind of I think shows you how baked in like capitalism and patriarchy is with heteronormativity that it's all this like hierarchical system of achievement and of rankings and of like if you're more successful you must have done better things and and then you get to these communities that are
00:57:59
Speaker
more socialist. And it's coincided in me with a drive toward my politics being more socialist. And I think that, what do you call it? Mutual aid. I think it's mutual aid. It's like this concept that I didn't really have access to before
00:58:21
Speaker
and so many of my straight white male friends still kind of don't can't wrap their heads around because capitalism is so baked in um and that's the system exactly you know if you have more than you must have done more retroactively to earn it but that's not always the case no and what's so wrong with helping people what's so wrong with caring for the people around you like why are we all trying to silo ourselves off into these little
00:58:51
Speaker
spaces where nothing gets in but nothing gets out. How do you live that way? It's so isolating. And so painful. Like Bill Burr makes a joke about it, you know, guys having a heart attack at 40, because they can't admit a puppy's cute for like 30 years and been pressing it down and it just pops. Yeah, you know, it's like, why? Why do you have to live that way? Yeah.
00:59:16
Speaker
Okay, so I also want to talk about this idea of masculinity as cruel, toxic, these things that we don't like, and yet we are masculine. You and I are cis men. I talked about this with Alex last week. I'm comfortable identifying as a man
00:59:38
Speaker
although I'm starting to be a little uncomfortable by it, but because I don't want to be associated with this violence and cruelty. And yet, I also have gotten the privileges from this identity. So it's like a tension in me of like,
00:59:54
Speaker
how to identify and how to, you know, not just take more privilege by dissociating with the bad parts, but associating with the parts that I'm fine with. It makes me think of a tweet that I saw this week. Somebody called transsexual Joseph Stalin tweeted this last week. Last week, I also read a tweet by somebody who called themselves transsexual, something I forget. I guess that's it. That's like a thing going around Twitter right now. OK, so transsexual Joseph Stalin tweeted
01:00:23
Speaker
People are like, quote, gender is a spectrum. And then this is meant to be sarcastic. I don't know if you're not reading it. But it says, assigned male at birth is very bad. Non-binary is good if no penis. Assigned female at birth is good. So the spectrum, gender is a spectrum. Yeah, and like, masculine is bad, feminine is good. Non-binary is okay.
01:00:49
Speaker
if you don't have a penis. So it's like this joke I mean this person was making of how do we escape this or you know like we look at it as a spectrum and yet it's a spectrum of good to bad in many ways but should it be okay and then the point is somebody responded to that tweet with a actual vulnerable genuine
01:01:10
Speaker
Message as opposed to a joke and this person said Genuinely the reason it took me so long to fully accept that I was non-binary Was because I was paranoid that I was just trying to separate myself from being a man and this is actually pretty validating So it's like I guess my question is You know, I've been flirting with the idea of a non-binary identity, but I also don't feel Comfortable claiming that because I am comfortable as a man as a cis man
01:01:39
Speaker
But how do you view that struggle to detach from the violent parts and the toxic parts of masculinity while also recognizing that you own it? I don't know. It's something I'm struggling with. I guess to take a page from the wonderful folks who are working towards racial equality and things like that, you need to dismantle it. You need to dismantle it from the inside.
01:02:09
Speaker
Kind of like, in a weird, tangential way, kind of like me accepting that I am a white Hispanic. I'm not white passing. I'm not white adjacent. I'm white. Because I wanted to separate myself from whiteness, but that's not fair and that's not correct. I am white. If a cop comes up in a car and I'm sitting there, he sees white guy. He doesn't see a Hispanic guy.
01:02:32
Speaker
So I need to dismantle that from within. The way that I'm doing it is by trying to be kind, by showing empathy, by calling out cruelty when I see it. Like, why? Why can't you hug your friend? Why can't you be someone who takes care of somebody else? Why is it gay to have feelings?
01:02:56
Speaker
That's the only way that I can think of being successful. We all have to kind of remove the toxicity from inside. We have to scrub it clean. We can't go outside of it and then like sandblasted from the outside. That just makes it look pretty on the outside, but it doesn't do anything about the inside. It doesn't do anything about the foundation.
01:03:15
Speaker
And by showing people, by showing straight, regular, everyday men, like there's men who are kind and who are straight and that take offense to what I'm saying because they don't consider themselves cruel. And they're not. They're not cruel people. But there's so much cruelty inherent in the gender role of being a man, and especially when tied to capitalism.
01:03:37
Speaker
So how do we do that? We show kindness. We show the other way of being. We lead with the empathy. We lead by holding the space and by having those conversations and not dismissing people in the same way that they dismiss us.
Bridging Understanding in Marginalized Communities
01:03:52
Speaker
You know, you got to build a bridge.
01:03:56
Speaker
and try and not everyone's going to cross that bridge and not everybody even wants to look at the bridge. But at least in trying, you know that you're making a real concerted effort to dismantle that because we can't, I'm Sis, I'm a guy. I don't want to identify as anything else as a man. So I need to fix the house that I live in is the way I look at it.
01:04:22
Speaker
That's a great way to put it. It reminds me of this class I took last year on dismantling white supremacy, and it's like, right, we can't really escape it. Like, we're in this system for the foreseeable future and doesn't do anyone any good to pretend like we're not and like we're not getting some privileges from it.
01:04:40
Speaker
And people might be afraid of us because of that and because of toxic masculinity and what we could become if they don't know us. And so we have to live within that. And at the same time, we also have to work to dismantle it. I agree with you completely that
01:05:01
Speaker
we have to bridge that gap. I think when I'm struggling with it, I'm just looking at myself and my own life and how people relate to me. But you're right, it's so tied to our politics and our activism, and it's why that is so inherently tied to queer identities.
01:05:19
Speaker
we have to be advocating for an agenda and pushing for equal rights and believing people like we want to be believed about our sexuality, believing people about their gender identity, believing people about the experiences they've had with racism. All of these different forms of oppression, we have to unite and work to dismantle them. And that's the only way I think I can live with myself as who I am. It's like,
01:05:49
Speaker
to be doing both of those things. Yeah, totally. Exactly.
01:06:00
Speaker
going to do a little bit of Q&A, and some of them are a little related to what we're talking about. So let's jump right into that. Somebody wrote in, I'd say an episode on masculinity would be a great topic. This is exactly what we're talking about. This person wrote, in particular, a lot of masculine stereotypes kept me acting like someone else for a long time and prevented me from accepting myself and coming out.
01:06:24
Speaker
There could be some great stories about how some of us who identify as male have had to navigate the standards of toxic masculinity while living out a lifestyle that goes against a lot of what society expects of men. I mean, we've basically touched on this, but does that bring up anything else for you about preventing you from accepting yourself by conforming to stereotypes?
01:06:47
Speaker
I mean, yeah, every day that I was still in the closet, I was, you're not going to have a conversation with guys and be like, hey, I really like this musical that came out. Or, you know, like, oh, I saw this chick flick, you know, air quotes. And I thought it was really well made. It was really emotional. Like, you can't have that. You're not allowed to. So you can't, it shuts you down. It's right. You have to navigate it.
01:07:17
Speaker
It is restrictive and weird. And it does prevent you from realizing because then you have that self talk like, why do I like this stupid shit? Why do I like this? You know, this is girl stuff or this is stuff, you know, and you you end up like whipping yourself with the same thing that's whipping you from the outside. You keep yourself trapped in that cycle. Right.
01:07:40
Speaker
on that topic exactly, like I loved musicals growing up. I mean, I still do. I think it's my favorite thing in the world, a good musical. And I grew up in New York and my parents took me to stuff, thankfully, like they were into it too.
01:07:53
Speaker
And it was this weird thing that I hid from my friends and didn't really talk about, even though once I had a car and I could drive around in a car myself, I had all these show tunes in my car and I knew all the words and I would literally drive around town and be singing the songs. Then if a friend got in the car with me,
01:08:11
Speaker
that CD came out before they got in the car and went back in the CD folder. This is before MP3. And I did not listen to musicals with friends because it was non-masculine or I was afraid it would be seen as gay. It was seen as gay if people
01:08:31
Speaker
heard. And in my head, I was like, why are these things conflated? I have relationships with girls. I like girls. I was still kind of repressing my thoughts toward men. But I was like, why is this related at all? And it is because this idea of masculinity and sexuality are very tied together. And we don't let feminine men be straight or be bi. It's all tied together. There's another question on the same topic. Let me read it.
01:08:58
Speaker
Somebody said, I think acting romantic and presenting as male are pretty conflicted in Euro-based societies. Boys don't cry, boys don't hug, boys don't show feelings. That sort of guidance messes people up to the point where I feel if someone's seeking out a male companion, they feel kind of obligated to keep it friends with benefits only, sex only, no feelings, just feeling each other up.
01:09:22
Speaker
So like, how can we remove the effects of toxic masculinity from the by guy experience, blah, blah, blah. What do you want? What if you do want romance or a male romantic partner? I mean, we don't have to get into that so much, but it's this idea of like being romantic isn't so masculine or like it's very, it's only masculine if it's in a certain constrained, like heteronormative way of like buying someone flowers and chocolates and like,
01:09:48
Speaker
It's still very dominant in a way, I don't know. Yeah, more that the only form of romance that's allowed is sexual conquest. If you're a guy, then you just sleep with a lot of people and that's romantic or whatever.
01:10:05
Speaker
It's also strange that I don't know if Eurocentric would be the term I would use. I feel like that's more like maybe American because growing up in a Hispanic culture down in Miami, there was a lot of hugging and touching and kissing on cheeks and stuff like that. So it is interesting how toxic masculinity or these rigid forms of masculinity are a little different as you go between cultures.
01:10:29
Speaker
But yeah, romance is frowned upon. Having emotions is frowned upon. If you like somebody too much, you're a simp. If you... A simp? What? What's a simp? I don't... Let me not... Let's retract that one. You don't have the time to get into that.
01:10:47
Speaker
If you have emotions, you're gay. If you like someone and tell them, like that whole concept of being into somebody and not just being honest and saying, hey, I like you. I think you're cool.
01:11:02
Speaker
You play these bullshit games where you're aloof or you don't want to be honest and you give that hard to get or whatever shit, as opposed to just being like, hey, we only have one life to live, so I might as well use the time well and admit that, hey, I think you're pretty cool and I would like to spend some of my life with you.
01:11:21
Speaker
Right. Why is that so verboten? Why is that so valuable? Right. It's so simple when you say it like that. And yet I know that I was so locked into this extreme fear of rejection. I think so many men, especially straight men, have this intense fear of rejection, whether they realize it or address it or not. And that causes so much violence too, because like you're going to be rejected. Sometimes not everyone is going to like you and like,
01:11:49
Speaker
it's good to put yourself like and that fear gets people so worked up and yeah why can't it just be like that I remember I I would like what growing up the thing I looked for was someone who was into me not like who am I into and then how am I gonna talk to them about it it was like oh that person likes me
01:12:11
Speaker
then okay, that's good. I like them now because that solves the rejection problem. I know I won't be rejected. And that was how I had a lot of early relationships. So just going along with it to avoid rejection.
01:12:24
Speaker
And what like a weird kind of domino effect, you don't have the ability to deal with your emotions and you don't have the ability to deal with rejection. So when you are rejected, you know, they just hit each other and it causes a series of events that, yeah, sometimes leads in violence or anger or other sorts of depression and anxiety and other, or like other coping mechanisms that only make it worse. When if you just started from the, Hey, I can deal with my feelings because I've learned how to process them because I could admit to having them.
01:12:54
Speaker
Right. No dominos, you know?
Queer Media Recommendations and Episode Conclusion
01:12:56
Speaker
Right. Now I can go to a sex party and walk up to someone and if I get rejected, that's fine. Okay, move on. Move on. Go back to the bar, have a drink, find someone else. Be friends with the person. Okay. Be friendly, yeah. Okay, last question. Any books or TV shows or films or stuff with bisexuality or queerness in it that you've been enjoying lately?
01:13:22
Speaker
I have been comfort watching a show and comfort watching is something new for me. I tend to watch a show and that's it. I don't go back to it. I move on to the next thing, but I've been watching a Greg Iraqis now. It's the only TV series he's done.
01:13:38
Speaker
He's known for doing Doom Generation and Nowhere. And I think Living at the End is one of the other ones. And he was part of the 90s queer cinema, Wave, that came out. I love his stuff. It's really great. And the show...
01:13:54
Speaker
Actually, it's co written by Carly shortino Carly shortino season two guest. Yes, exactly. Like she and Greg and her, they both came together and wrote this, this version of the world where being queer
01:14:11
Speaker
And being vulnerable and just being yourself is like celebrated. Yes, everyone is gorgeous. So that really helps. But the bisexuality is like, it's there. Or you have a character who identifies as gay, but has a moment with a female partner. But then it's not like a moment of self hate. It's just like, hey, this was fun. I wanted to do it. It was so casual and so accepted.
01:14:37
Speaker
And it was really beautiful just seeing that kind of relaxed people being themselves and not judging each other about it and being hot and being in LA and having lots of sex. Yeah, it's been a great watch.
01:14:53
Speaker
I love that. I've only seen the pilot. I guess I should keep going and watch the whole thing because I just love the idea of like we talk a lot about a bi character. Somebody comes out on a show as bi or like a bi storyline. Great, fine. But like that seems like it's an entire queer universe. Like the expectation is queerness among the characters. Like the world is fluid and open. That was how the pilot felt at least. So it's like such a different feeling than just having a character to latch onto.
01:15:23
Speaker
And that's the world we want. That's the world I see in the future and want to create. So let's show people that whole world. Yeah, go ahead. It was great. And it was very inclusive, too. That was the thing that I liked. The bodies weren't all the same thin white bodies. They were people from all over.
01:15:42
Speaker
It's a great watch. It's a little dumb and it's a little out there and it's very, very sexy. Don't watch it with your parents. But it's great. It's really been comforting. It's made the queerness inside me go, this is nice. Lovely. I love it. Cool.
01:16:02
Speaker
Well, we could go on and on. There are always a million questions and you'll have to come back sometime and answer some more. But thank you so much for doing this. And also, Gabriel is coming back next week. Gabriel is my first guest host. This season, we're going to have a few guest hosts so that I can take a little breather and keep the podcast going and also get some new voices in here and some new people asking the questions, which may lead us to some new things instead of the same shit I always talk about.
01:16:28
Speaker
But Gabriel, tell us a little bit about what we can expect to hear next week. I know you haven't done the interviews yet, but tell us what's going to happen. So I'm currently living in London. And if you've looked at the news, there's a lot of issues going on with trans rights here. And there's also a lot of transphobia and misinformation in the media when discussing this very important topic.
01:16:55
Speaker
So I will be interviewing three bi-trans mask people about their day-to-day lives, what it's like to live in the UK. They don't all live in London. And they'll be sharing what it's like to be a bi-trans mask in here. And I feel that them telling their own stories is what's important. Like you said, voices are like, I should be saying it. We should take it directly from the source.
01:17:24
Speaker
I'm very excited. Awesome. They're very cool people. Me too. And I'm looking forward to the interviews. Me too. That's awesome. It was such a great idea you had because there's so much overlap between the bi and the trans and non-binary community. And we've been wanting to dig into that. So until then, thank you, Gabriel, for being here on Two Bi Guys. Thank you for having me. This has been incredible. Yeah. Looking forward to having you back soon. Yes.
01:17:56
Speaker
Two Bye Guys is edited and produced by me, Rob Cohen, and it was created by me and Alex Boyd. Our music is by Ross Mincer, our logo art is by Caitlin Weinman, and we are supported by The Gotham, formerly IFP. Thanks for listening to Two Bye Guys.