In preparation for winter camping our Boy Scout Troop would do cold weather first aid training. This included the treatment for hypothermia, the condition that occurs when core body temperature becomes dangerously low due to exposure to cold. For Scouts on winter encampment, treatment meant warming the afflicted scout by stripping down naked with the victim in his sleeping bag. In the late 70s, when I was a Scout, boys reacted to this proposal with exaggerated horror, loud protestations of disgust and outbreaks of gay-baiting and homophobic slurs directed at the most vulnerable male in the group.<\/p>\n
The mere mention of male to male physical intimacy ignited intense anxiety. The reaction said everything you needed to know about deeply socialized notions of \u201cnormal\u201d intimacy and the coincident impulse to force \u201cabnormal\u201d or \u201cuncomfortable\u201d forms of relationship to the margins. As a Scout who did not share the dominant reaction, the message to me was clear; bury those feelings or risk physical and emotional violence.<\/p>\n
Homophobia is basic training for many American men. My best friends \u2014 brothers who lived next door \u2014 could think of no more cutting insult than to refer to each other as \u201cmy sister.\u201d I was raised next door in an explicitly feminist household so I found this \u201cinsult\u201d odd and confusing. I did not yet realize that it is common for heterosexual boys to conflate gender identity and sexual orientation, but I did wonder whether it was bad for a man to be like a woman? In retrospect, I realized, male identity depends on clear differentiation from anything feminine. To be a \u201csissy\u201d is to blur culturally defined roles by being a receptive, sensitive or vulnerable male. Such blurring causes anxiety and forceful attempts to return to the assumed status quo.<\/p>\n