LGBTQ+ CHRONICLES

Clean Anus = Gayness? Getting to the Bottom of Fragile Masculinity

Internalised Homophobia, aka Externalised Hygiene-phobia? Let’s talk about it.

“I have had boyfriends that think it’s gay to wipe their arse because what if their finger touches it through the paper. Thank god I’m with a hygienic bi man now”

Folks, you know when you see memes on the internet asking: “Are the straights ok?”

You chuckle. You might Like or Repost it. If you’re feeling particularly playful, you might share it with a friend in jest.

But what I have witnessed this past twenty-four hours has me posing the question from a place of genuine concern.

STRAIGHTS, ARE YE WELL?

Now, it’s not like me to plug my own work straight out of the trap, however, for the purposes of context, you need to know this sliver of backstory. I recently wrote an article exploring the topic of personal hygiene in the Black community. It was merely intended to open up a discussion about the unfair perception of people of color in relation to personal hygiene. However, it ended up opening something else. Namely a direct portal to hell itself.

Ok, fine. Let me chill with the theatrics. It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever discovered online but, friends, I happened upon something truly gnarly and we really need to discuss it.

As I was replying to some of the comments on my hygiene article, I noticed something that was brought up repeatedly, and that was far too shocking to ignore:

The reason why a lot of men don’t wash their butts is not that they don’t have money, mobility, or a butt to wash in the first place. It’s got nothing to do with mental or physical illness or restrictions. It’s not even attributed to a lack of access to soap and water.

It’s because they’re scared of being considered gay.

Yes, I’ll let you process that for a second. Apparently letting your fingers go anywhere near your own back passage is somehow equivalent to two men fucking each other.

Now, before I get into the nitty-gritty of this article, I must say a couple of things:

1. We’re about to get into some faecal-related subject matter. If you’re squeamish, currently eating, or dating a heterosexual man, you may want to give this article a wide berth. If all three apply, then just go ahead and log off entirely. I will use a scientific register where possible to minimise vulgarity, but some of it is horrific no matter how you slice it. You’ve been warned.
2. Generalisations will be made. Please don’t “not all men” me here. If it doesn’t apply, let it fly. Although, in this case, it ought to be:

if it doesn’t apply, thank your lucky stars because some people are in deep shit (excuse the pun) so just be grateful that you’re not one of them.

This topic is nothing new — people, in this case, men, have been unpleasantly fragrant since the dawn of time. Anyone who’s ever come within ten yards of a pubescent boy can attest to that. So, while I find the concept of questionable male hygiene uncomfortable and familiar, I don’t find it altogether surprising, if you catch my drift. But my focus here actually isn’t hygiene — there’s a much wider narrative that needs unpacking.

The part that really got my goat and inspired me to sit down and contemplate life was its strangely negative association with homosexuality. The gay part. The fact that some men legitimately believe that having a clean anus makes them… gay.

Fuelled by disgust, disbelief and morbid curiosity, I took to social media to further investigate this topic. I needed word from the masses. And what I discovered is nothing short of deplorable.

TikToker Julia Fox stitched a video originally made by Kateao4 where she recalls once dating a man who confessed to not washing his… intergluteal region, stating: “Nobody does that.” He should know, I mean he even conducted a case study. (Read: he asked his two roommates and they both said the same.)

Julia posits that the reason why men don’t wash their backsides is because of internalised homophobia; the fear that enjoying a little “tickle tickle” would reveal their homosexual inclination. Because, you know, that’s what being gay is — just enjoying a sudsy perineal tickle every now and again.

Unsatisfied with this fairly marginal insight, I continued my explorations, desperately hoping to be proven wrong. Maybe Kate’s ex didn’t have hands-on caregivers in his infancy or maybe she just had the misfortune of meeting a trio of equally-dirty men who only knew each other…

Any justification to counter: “Because it’s so gay lolz”, please.

But alas, my hopes were dashed as I took to Instagram.

“Why do females expect us to wash our arse? Real men don’t touch their arsehole. I had gf try to shame me because she said she could smell shit when we were in bed and I explained why. I don’t even wipe my arse with tp because I’m not gay and know a lot of people who don’t. Real men have skid marks and it’s nothing to be embarrassed of.”

I’m sorry, there was really no way to ease you into this topic gently.

Now, it doesn’t take Stephen-Hawking-level intellect to understand that cleaning your arse doesn’t make you a homosexual. If that were the case, the whole world would be teeming with gays, not just the VIP section of a Lady Gaga concert.

But the belief that it does is:

1. hilarious
2. an indication that sex ed in both schools and at home is clearly lacking.

Homosexuality, according to the Oxford Dictionary’s definition, is the quality or characteristic of being sexually or romantically attracted to people of one’s own sex.

There is absolutely no mention of fingers, butts, or 3-in-1 body wash.

So why are straight men up in arms about being seen as gay?

Presenting: Toxic Masculinity, and its cousin Fragile Masculinity.

In a society with very rigid parameters around manhood and strict guidelines on how to correctly exhibit it, it’s no wonder that men’s heads are scrambled in the pursuit of becoming a paradigm of manliness. Toxic masculinity is the idea that men are told to “man up” so much that they become sort of shitty people (again, excuse the pun.)

Fragile masculinity is a term used to describe the anxiety men feel when they do certain things that cause them to fall short of the societal ideal of manhood — the fear of appearing too feminine or weak. Femininity and homosexuality are, oftentimes, synonymous with one another, further perpetuating the fear of being effeminate and the consequent fear of (potentially) being gay at the same time.

This is giving flashbacks from the “manly men don’t drink cocktails” fiasco that we’ve still not recovered from.

So, why the fear of being gay?

Our chances of understanding this phenomenon are increased exponentially when we choose to see homophobia as the inevitable and deliberate result of cultural influence, rather than a personal choice.

As I mentioned before, society has a massive role to play in the projected image of what the archetypal man should be.

And since society is, to put it inelegantly, fucked up in every conceivable way, it’s no wonder that homophobia is so rife. Of course, this is in no way a justification for it, however, I think that it helps us connect the dots between heterosexual men and their acceptance of dirty rectums… should that have ever been on our list of desires.

Heterosexuality is so incredibly fragile. We’ve all heard of men who identify as straight for the majority of their lives, experiment once with another man and are labelled gay thereafter. It’s very hard for men to shake off the gay no matter how brief their foray into it was, and let’s not even get into bisexual erasure in this essay. So, I believe that in a desperate attempt to cling to their heterosexual identity, men are willing to go to unspeakable lengths to prevent even the slightest suggestion that they may be queer in some form.

Do I believe that dingleberries are permissible, in that case? Absolutely not.

I think the crude association of the anus with gayness is rudimentary and ignorant, given that not all homosexual men enjoy ass play and some heterosexual men do (hey, Kanye). But also, the logistics are undoubtedly flawed — maintaining a clean rear end involves you touching your own, not anyone else’s. If anything, it makes you self-centred.

Granted I’m not a gay man, but I think you’d at least have to touch another man’s backside to even be considered a possible homosexual, right? So those men whose poor girlfriends are lamenting the sorry state of their undies on social media have nothing to fear — they’re most probably not gay and should adopt a much-improved hygiene routine at their earliest convenience. In other words, like yesterday.

Society has really done a number on us. It has created unrealistic expectations for men, and these unfair, impossible-to-achieve ideas about sexual orientation and manhood. It has also made a mockery of good, old-fashioned logic.

If touching your own butt makes you gay then why does touching your penis not? We certainly never hear about straight men avoiding masturbation. Heck, find yourself in a traditional frat house, male boarding school or correctional facility and you’re almost guaranteed to discover that they satisfy themselves with others in the room. In my opinion, that’s a lot gayer than a bar of soap and a vigorous scrub.

But what do I know, I’m just a lesbian who’s been scarred by what she’s seen online — sigh — yet again.

Before I depart in search of a vat of eye bleach and a glass of brandy, I humbly urge the members of the Mudbutt Club to take a leaf out of Jihoon Lee’s book:

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