Every day over at str8bro.net, a few new photos are posted that feature meathead bros doing what meathead bros do best—drinking cheap beer, excessively exercising, reveling in how sculpted their abs are, and engaging in subtly homoerotic exchanges with other meathead bros. There are also short blog posts, like one on “9 Normal Things You Did as a Kid That Are Actually Kind of Gay,” that maintain the voice of a hyper-masculine bro who fears having his masculinity challenged.
The man behind the posts is Kevin Arnold, a Dartmouth College graduate who studied “critical theory and cultural studies” and is currently wrapping up his Ph.d. in English at SUNY Buffalo. He’s a complicated guy, and his site, despite the largely bro-tastic subject matter, is complicated, too. He sprinkles the site with some posts written in his own voice—a member of the LGBT community who’s critical of mainstream gay rights organizations and likes to think beyond the classifications of homo and hetero. The str8bro brand has gone through several different incarnations over the last three years, including a few separate Facebook pages and a Yahoo! Group, but now, Arnold says he’s happy with it.
It’s an interesting mix, seeing a clearly academic writer apply his studies and philosophy to a blog that’s largely parody, but it’s an entertaining read, and it’s definitely helped Arnold spin off into other roles, including a weekly writing stint at Guyism.com. Here, I caught up with Kevin to talk about contradictions inherent in his material, his dissertation on masculinity in literature, and the difficulties of balancing satire and serious criticisms of masculinity.
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AP: What’s the purpose of “str8bro”? Why start writing as this character and continue it through so many different incarnations?
KA: The goal has been the same all the way through: To try and conceptualize, then elaborate, forms of male desire (or, more neutrally, “bonding,”) that are not reducible to homosexual ways of desiring, being, representation. I think the need for that is just as urgent today as it was then. The “trial and error” has been about finding the best way to capture that, to “pitch it,” to reach various audiences. I want to foster modes of expression [about complicated topics]. Humor is one way of “getting away with it.” It allows the complexity of the feeling to be expressed while still reassuring us that it’s “just a joke.” You can speak to multiple audiences in this way.
AP: To be clear, who are you satirizing?
KA: I think I’m satirizing both straight and gay culture. The straight aspect is tricky, because my objective is not to say, “Look, this is gay, and these guys won’t admit it.” In fact, countering that way of thinking is perhaps my main objective. I take these “modes of desire” very seriously, as something else or as something more than “mere homosexuality.” It’s a kind of complexity, ambiguity, and nuance I want to be attentive to, rather than lumping it in the box of so-called repressed homosexuality. I want to awaken—you might even say “arouse”—erotic feelings in straight men when they look at the pictures.
AP: And with regard to gay culture?
KA: For the gay activist consciousness, [the bros] are the “oppressors,” or at least these are the men who need to be “brought into the fold.” When a gay man looks at my pictures, I don’t want him to do so lustfully. [I mean to say,] “You’re a man, just as he is. You have more in common than you have differences.” I want him to experience that and to respond in that way.
AP: Is there an inspiration for str8bro?
KA: I try to be as “honest” in writing str8bro as I can be. Certainly, it is fantasy, but fantasy is something I take very seriously. Str8bro is not reducible to one “type”—it resists that, and that’s sort of the point. I draw on multiple, even contradictory aspects of myself and my experience with others.
AP: So would you describe yourself as a gay rights advocate? And how do you balance the activist in you with the satirical aspects of str8bro?
KA: I would absolutely describe myself as in support of gay rights. I think of what I do as a kind of politics, and that politics includes being critical of the gay rights movement. I see the two identities as inextricably related. Satire is a form of political critique I work with often—in addition to the more straight-forward, direct arguments.
AP: So, do you stand any risk of being offensive? Or do you ever fear that readers won’t understand your satire, since there is so much crossing over and balancing of personas?
KA: Do I fear being offensive? No. I think people, especially the mainstream gay rights movement, needs some rattling, and I’m more than happy to be the one to do that. I would say that I do fear being misunderstood. That was the source of a lot of problems in the early iterations of str8bro. I would get drawn into very long, circular debates with more moderate gays. But where I’m at now, I try and let it go. I don’t think str8bro’s effectiveness is predicated on a simple, pithy “thesis statement.” Str8bro does not lend itself well to simple sloganeering. Rather than trying to (re)solve the contradictions, I want to proliferate them—as an experience, as an experience of desire. Homosexuality is becoming much too simple nowadays. We take it as a simple facticity, as an ontology, as an “I was born this way.” I think the vitality of homosexuality depends on its continuing to be complicated or problematic. What I fear is this mortification of homosexuality into an “identity.” There’s nothing sexy about that.
AP: Have you come under fire from people who don’t understand, or who vehemently disagree—For example, with your piece in Guyism that sort of defended Kobe Bryant’s use of the word “faggot”?
KA: The only real arguments in favor of me have been coming from people saying, “It’s just a word.” And that is not at all my position. Words matter, which is precisely the point. What I wanted to do with that piece was to demonstrate the way that words are complex and polyvocal—resisting that sort of simple sloganizing of gay activism as “don’t say that.” For me, there is something very complicated about that word and how it’s used that I want to be attentive to. What I want to do is go to these problems and sit with them for a while, see what they can do for us, rather than faciley trying to “solve” them, dismiss them, do away with them.
AP: Let’s talk about your dissertation. “Pitch” it to me.
KA: The dissertation is on 50s and 60s American literature. Something very interesting was happening at that moment, before the advent of gay “liberation” and this consolidation of homosexuality as an identity category. In the absence of those modes of understanding and politics, these writers had to think about same-sex desire very differently, as a problem in relations between men, all men. For these writers, homosexuality was a question and a problem, not an answer. I very much like that idea—it keeps things open-ended. I sort of envision this idea of all men during that period as just men, plain and simple, and the alternate vicissitudes in their desire (homosexual, heterosexual, etc.) as a product of a problem in masculinity itself. Rather than a primary, essential difference between gay and straight men from the start, you just have “men,” and coming out of that category, you have various, differential forms of desire.
AP: OK, last question. What would str8bro say about the Good Men Project’s mission—to have a discussion about what it means to be a man?
KA: [He’d say:] “I’m more interested in bad boys than I am good men.”
We say, “Yes, homo!”
Masculine Gay Guys is for real men who love the same:
http://masculinegayguys.blogspot.com/
(Note: The blog is for adults aged 18 or older.)
Haha Kevin A (Str8bro) is the man! Keep up the great work!! 😀
Hi all I am new to str8bro I found the site via this article. But so far I think it is great. I really think women miss (but also probably get and are actually just feeling left out so they claim ‘misogyny’) the point of homo-erotic/homo-social bonding between men a lot of the time. Yes it doesn’t include women, yes, sometimes it involves things you could interpret as offensive, as sexist, as even ‘homophobic’, but it is men being together and often being physically close, in ways that are often frowned upon in our ‘feminist’ culture. From what I have… Read more »
Good comment. Isolating behavior – trying to disrupt outside relationships – downplaying, smearing, diplays of jealousy – is a classic symptom of an abuser. Gay-shaming and homphobic taunts are ever-present in the culture and a ready weapon for anyone wanting to divide a man from his male friends.
Well, he is not really ‘shedding light’ on it. I mean, he just posted in his blog that he is not really being satirical but that he is really just being ‘himself’ he is str8 bro… str8 bro is him. It seems to me, he is just putting up a slightly more homoerotic version of all the other bro sites like Bros Like This Site and others which are just all about overprivilege douche bags being racist, homophobic, sexist, and classist. See #94 Token Black Bro. I have no issue with male bonding. Bond all you want. But if you… Read more »
It should be noted that featuring an interview with someone does not mean that The Good Men Project supports their politics or ideology. Kevin has distinct opinions about masculinity, and those opinions should be discussed. My article does not condone misogyny, it merely takes a look at this man’s take on masculinity.
“Also, this is The Good Men Project” And of course your opinion of what a Good Man is outweighs Kevin Arnold’s. What a presumptuous princess you are, Sara. You are right about one thing, Sara. the site is called the “Good Man Project. So why don’t you trot your presumptuous, privielged butt off to Feministing or Shakesville where your femsplaining will be welcome? “But if you think calling women “bitches, slam pieces”, etc. is ok… No. Those are fighting words.” Well then fight. Whining and fuming are not fighting. Brave, empty words and belligerent posturing are not fighting, they are… Read more »
You’re a hoot. “Buffycide”? LOL.
So let us know when and where the fight will be. I’ll sell tickets.
http://www.brotipshq.com/post/4294312229/26
Gay Douchebro is still a Douchebro. I thought he was edgy until I saw the outright anti-woman streak running throughout. Ex. Where he tries to defend the ‘No means yes, yes means anal’ chant of the recently suspended Yale fraternity. That whole incident is indefensible. Annnnnddd…. I’m not sure what it had to do with the quasi-bisexual space between no homo and homo. All the article that referenced women were absurdly based on disgusting stereotypes or overt sexualization. It really hearkens back to ancient Greece where women weren’t even seen as humans therefore ‘love’ could only be between men. Bonding… Read more »
Way to miss the point, Sara, Check your privilege. You don’t get to be the center of men’s world anymore.
So you think the Yale incident was indefensible, but not the legal and policy atmosphere it protests? That’s quite telling, sara.
I really don’t think DKE was protesting a legal and policy atmosphere. I mean, we are a very political undergraduate body, but probably not in this instance…
No, you miss the point… he is writing this ‘satire’ that doesn’t really come off as very satrical claiming he is seeking liberation from the dichotomies of various version of masculinity. I am with him there. I would agree with him that sexuality is hard pressed to be compartmentalized. Men should have intimacy with each other with prefacing every ‘no homo’… Where he loses me is that while advancing his form of liberation he throws women under the bus. It wasn’t just that article but the rest of the douchey articles he links from the Guyism site he also writes… Read more »
Also, I think you have no clue what you’re talking about re; the Yale incident. The guys who were chanting ‘No means yes, yes means anal” were not ‘protesters’ they were frat pledges marching in a line doing this as part of hazing/initiation. In front of women’s dorms for the ‘lulz’ of it.
Don’t presume to lecture me on what I do or don’t have a clue about, especially when you are so ready to lie. Doing it for the “lulz” of it is no part of hazing, so you fail right there. You’re the one who is clueless. DKE was protesting this kind of atmosphere http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2011/05/by-balls-thats-where-your-sons-college.html and years of bigoted Take Back The Night mass accusation and mandatroy freshmen indoctrination classes about rape. Denying that reality just discredits you out of the discussion. “Where he loses me is that while advancing his form of liberation he throws women under the bus.” Oh… Read more »
Nothing in your article even remotely links that incident with some sort of ‘political’ agenda’ on the part of DKE. It’s just a screed about someone’s hypothetical son getting caught up in the university honor code system, Title X, and people who don’t know what ‘preponderance of the evidence’ means. It doesn’t even mention the Yale incident. You discredit yourself by *still* not having a clue. Hazing is for the lulz, of the older bros who make the pledges do humiliating, daring, or downright stupid things like drink to excess, streak around, or chant derogatory things in unison while marching… Read more »
“Nothing in your article even remotely links that incident with some sort of ‘political’ agenda’ on the part of DKE.” In that article? Oh please – here you are crossing from clueless to disingenuous. “Hazing is for the lulz, of the older bros who make the pledges do humiliating, daring, or downright stupid things like drink to excess, streak around, or chant derogatory things in unison while marching around campus.” Oh do tell us, Sara, you woman, what is really in the minds of “the older bros” since your insight is so superior to any of the rest of us.… Read more »
“Breeders” Really Jim? You just canceled your entire argument.
There’s always a White Knight waiting in the wings, isn’t there, Osvaldo? What a great big strong man you are, Osvaldo.