Homosexual Bodies

 A Taxonomy of Gay Men: 

Gay Body Types

Type	Build	Hair	Age	Example Celebrity	Notes
Otter	Thin or athletic	Lots	Any age	Scott Caan	Part of the extended bear community
Wolf	Lean, muscular	Semi-Hairy	Any age	Joe Manganiello	Sexually aggressive; Silver or grey wolf is an older wolf
Bear	Big, often with a belly	Lots	Any	John Travolta	Very masculine
Cub	Husky	Lots	Young or younger-looking	Jack Black	Sugar cubs and muscle cubs are sub-types
Chub	Real big	Maybe	Any	John Goodman	Distinct from bears
Pup	Slender	No	Young	Joe Jonas	Energetic, cute, and naive
Bull	Super-built	Maybe	Any	Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson
Twink	Slender	No	Young	Justin Beiber	Self-centered, usually between 18 and the mid-20’s
Twunk	Muscular but slender	No	Young	The muscular version of Beiber	A more muscular Twink
Gym Bunny	Sculpted	Maybe	Under 50	Shemar Moore	Fitness associated with gym, not sports
Jock	Muscular and athletic	Maybe	Any	David Beckham	Fitness is associated with sports
Gym Rat	Very lean and well-built	Maybe	Any		Addicted to working out

Gay Men and the struggle for the ideal body-combating strict body image requirements

LESBIAN TYPES

1. The activist lesbian 

The activist lesbian is characterized by her passion for social justice especially as it pertains to being a lesbian. Butch, femme, young, and old, the activist lesbian can look like any other type of lesbian you might meet. She's inspirational, passionate, and a lover of justice. 

2. The lipstick lesbian 

A lipstick lesbian, or femme lesbian, loves to dress in a highly feminized or "girly" manner. Skirts, dresses, jewelry, lipstock, elaborate blowouts, these ladies go all out. You can find them lurking in Sephora or shopping up at a store. 

3. The chapstick lesbian 

The chapstick lesbian is the dividing line between a lipstick lesbian and a butch lesbian. While butch lesbians revel in looking masculine and lipstick lesbians like looking ultra girly, a chapstick lesbian can go either way. She likes dressing up, but she's equally happy in jeans and button down. 

4. The butch lesbian 

The butch lesbian presents herself as tough, make-up free and masculine to one degree or another. This doesn't mean she's trying to look like a man, she's just subverting your idea of what a woman should look like and looking hot as hell in the process. 

5. The stone butch lesbian 

A stone butch lesbian is a butch lesbian (see above) who derives sexual pleasure from giving other women pleasure. She is a giver and not a receiver, so do not under any circumstances get that noise twisted, my friends. 

6. The boi lesbian 

There are bois in the gay community and the lesbian community. In the lesbian community the boi lesbian is biologically female but presents as looking boyish. Bois tend to date older partners. 

7. The power lesbian 

The power lesbian is a lesbian with her shit together! She's the leader in her field, the top of the tops. She's the best surgeon, the best lawyer, the most influential policy maker. She's all about taking on that head honcho role and crushing it. Think Tabitha Coffey. 

8. The hasbian lesbian 

A "hasbian" is a woman who once identified as a lesbian but now dates men and doesn't identify themselves as being straight OR bi. They were a lesbian, now they are dating a man, and who knows what the future might hold. 

9. The LUG lesbian 

LUG stands for "lesbian until graduation." This is the undergraduate lesbian-curious girl, who is finally exploring her sexuality and discovering that she is attracted to women. It could be a phase, but that's up to them. 

10. The sport dyke lesbian 

The sport dyke isn't characterized so much as being attracted to other women as much as she is obsessed with her sport of choice. Not all lesbians are sport dykes, but all sport dykes are definitely lesbians. 

11. The baby dyke lesbian 

The baby dyke lesbian is a fond title given to a woman who has just come out of the closet and started becoming a part of the lesbian community. She could be femme, butch, chapstick, or anything else, but for now she is characterized by her newness to the scene. 

Lesbians and Heterosexual women in media advertising

• whether messages about the body from lesbian media deviate from mainstream, heterosexually focused media. 
• how to “do gender,” which for women means being thin and sexy
• Specifically, advertisements from popular (heterosexually focused) magazines have long been shown to perpetuate an unattainable norm of beauty, body size, and gender appearance
• Popular women's magazines, such as Mademoiselle and Glamour, educate women on how to perform a more feminine look, by shaving, applying makeup, and shopping for clothes and shoes. Essentially, ads call for women to utilize their energy inward to enhance their own body.
• send subtle messages about dominance and subordination by the placement of those bodies in a given context. 
• For example, in a classic study of magazine photos, Goffman (1978) argued that women's bodies were typically seen in more subservient positions compared to men's bodies. 
• Women were more often shown as smaller or lower than men, holding a withdrawn gaze away from the scene, and expressing a soft and delicate touch (Goffman, 1978). 
• Increasingly, we see images of women's bodies objectified and portrayed as merely pieces, such as legs or torsos, rather than a whole being (Fredrickson and Roberts, 1997). 
• Taken together, mainstream advertisements prescribe strong gender role messages about women's self-absorption with appearance, passivity, and docility.
• Lesbians often hold larger body ideals than heterosexual women, and tend to be heavier themselves. 
• Many lesbians also value fit and strong bodies. 
• many lesbians opt for a more androgynous physical appearance after coming out, which functions as a signal of group membership. 
• markers of dress, make-up, and hair help facilitate lesbians to feel that they are part of a larger community and in tune to the norms of lesbian identity (Krakauer and Rose, 2002). 
• Appearance has also been a socially and politically charged statement. Especially during the 1960s and 1970s, many lesbians adopted a detectable look, functioning as a rejection of patriarchal beauty and dress standards and as a challenge to contemporary notions of femininity. 
• This evolved into a breadth of styles, accepting the notion that lesbians can remain on the outskirts of mainstream patriarchal society and at the same time indulge in their sexual expressiveness and femininity.
• Lesbians are happier with their bodies
• lesbians internalized mainstream sociocultural norms less than heterosexual women
•  lesbian and bisexual women who self-identified as being androgynous and masculine in gender appearance had higher body satisfaction than feminine women. This research argues that lesbian sub-culture is separate from mainstream America, and emits its own norms, ideals, and patterns of behavior
• Opposing research argues that lesbians, as all women, are exposed to the widespread efforts of the media, and therefore are as equally subject to stereotypic gender role internalization and body dissatisfaction as heterosexual women
• This study's results suggest body image and appearance are indeed targeted to audiences in markedly different ways. 
• There appear to be significant differences in both the appearance of the model and the type and context of the advertisement.
• heterosexual women's ads depicted a thin, passive female model,
• lesbian bodies were more fluid in terms of physical appearance and positioned in more active ways.
• In heterosexual magazines, the typical model is young, very feminine, and very thin. 
• This model is often packaged in relatively skimpy, mobility-limiting clothing. 
• Contrasted with the often expensive and airbrushed image in heterosexual magazines, a typical model in a lesbian magazine generally appears more “real life like.” 
• On average, lesbian models were heavier, and ranged more in terms of body size, gender appearance, and dress. 
• A lesbian model was often portrayed in androgynous clothing and with a short haircut.
• Lesbian models also ranged more in age than models in heterosexual advertisements; ads in lesbian magazines occasionally feature models in their fifties or sixties. 
• Additionally, the type and context of the advertisements varied widely between the two types of magazines. 
• Lesbian magazines carried a majority of travel, erotica, book, and website advertisements. 
• No beauty advertisements were found in lesbian magazines, yet this type of ad dominated heterosexual magazines, along with clothing and shoe ads. 
• Lesbian ads were also much more likely to be set outdoors, such as on a ski slope or at a pool, than heterosexual ads. 
• Often in heterosexual ads, a non-defined or plain backdrop was set behind the model, offering no indication of where the model may wear her new dress or shade of lipstick.
• lesbian advertisements exert a greater presence of control over one's body and self than heterosexual advertisements. 
• Given the prevalence of lesbian models holding their gaze at the camera, physically touching other women, and displayed in travel advertisements, lesbians are shown in activities external to their physical bodies. 
• Likewise, the number of erotica ads in lesbian magazines signals acceptance of female sexuality and agency in actively pursuing gratification of one's desire.
• heterosexual ads seem to place all prospects of gratification on the consumption of products that aim to enhance women's outward appearance. 
• prevalence of women in undefined settings supports suggests that there is no practical place for heterosexual women to utilize the products being sold.

The differences in the types of advertisements suggest another interesting theme.

• the lesbian ads were built on themes of community and connectedness to other women. 
• From vacation spots to lesbian book clubs, these ads all feature vehicles by which a woman can feel a sense of belonging to a community of lesbians. 
• hand placement showed that instead of touching themselves they were more likely seen touching another person, almost always a woman. 
• heterosexual advertisements evoke no sense of connectedness among either the women featured or the audience-the advertisements promote a sense of individualism and competition between women. 
• Women are encouraged to look and dress better than the next in order to have a chance at obtaining a reward (e.g., a man, attention).

Tribades, Tombois and Tarts

• Fashion photography which displays the look-alike bodies of female models, often in an embrace, draws on the notion of the narcissistic female double to sell clothes and titillate the spectator with suggestions of auto-erotic, anorexic lesbian desire. 
• Much pornography, intended for heterosexual male consumption
• displays an obligatory scenario of nubile female bodies engaged in sexual acts. 
• the body of the lesbian is constructed as insatiable – a monstrous quicksand of desire. 
• Myths of the warrior amazons depict these women as heavily muscled and single-breasted – no comforting maternal milk on offer here. 
• The popular press still depicts lesbians as man-hating, knife-wielding bra-burning amazons – more a creation of masochistic male fantasies than a depiction of lesbians from the real world.
• In painting, Women were frequently depicted as if mirror-images of each other: identical faces, hair, clothes. 
• They were usually shown as locked in a close embrace (Fernand Khnopff’s The Kiss (1887), Edmond Aman-Jean’s In The Theater Box (1898) and Pablo Picasso’s The Friends (1903)). 
• Fin-de-siècle culture represented the lesbian in more perverse roles: she was a depraved masturbator, sometimes endowed with a large clitoris that looked like a penis
• Felicien Rops’s Hermaphroditic Joy; while at other times she was seen as bestial, prone to engaging in cunnilinctus with the household dog, also presumably a lesbian