“Not Hiding, Not Shouting, Just Me”: Gay Men Negotiate Their Visual Identities

Clarke, Victoria; Smith, Megan

Abstract

©, © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. This study explored how British gay men make sense of their appearance and clothing practices and the pressures and concerns they attend to in discursively negotiating their visual identities. A convenience sample of 20 mostly young, White, and middle-class self-identified gay men responded to a qualitative survey on dress and appearance. The participants clearly understood the rules of compulsory heterosexuality and the risks of looking “too gay.” In the data, there was both a strong resistance to the notion of gay as a “master status” and an orientation to the “coming out” imperative in gay communities. The analysis revealed the overriding importance of discourses of authentic individuality for making sense of visual identity and the reported cultivation of appearance and clothing practices that communicate the message that: “I’m not hiding (too closeted), I’m not shouting (too gay), I’m just me (an authentic individual who just happens to be gay).”.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2015
• Deposit Date: Sep 2, 2013
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 11, 2016
• Journal: Journal of Homosexuality
• Print ISSN: 0091-8369
• Electronic ISSN: 1540-3602
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 62
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 4-32
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2014.957119
• Keywords: adornment, appearance, clothing, dress, compulsory heterosexuality, metrosexuality, qualitative research, qualitative survey, sissyphobia, thematic analysis, body image
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/839937
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2014.957119
• Additional Information: Additional Information : This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Homosexuality on 8 October 2014, available online: http://wwww.tandfonline.com/10.1080/00918369.2014.957119
• Contract Date: Feb 11, 2016