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Insult and Inclusion the Term Fag Hag and Gay Male "Community"*

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Insult and Inclusion the Term Fag Hag and Gay Male Insult and Inclusion The Term Fag Hag and Gay Male "Community"* DAWNE MOON, University of Chicago Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/sf/article/74/2/487/2233282 by guest on 27 September 2021 Abstract The term fag hag is normally used in gay male culture to describe a straight woman who associates with gay men. This article uses intensive interviews with gay and bisexual men to explore what the term indicates about contradictions emerging from dominant views of gender and sexual identity. Other sociological studies provide explanations for why women and gay men form relationships and how these relation- ships are negotiated. This article explores what the term, residing at the nexus of discourses of sexuality and gender, tells us about (1) how dominant, heterosexual culture's assumptions threaten gay identity and culture; (2) the tensions present within gay male culture's own dominant discourses, tensions which certain straight women create and/or highlight; and (3) the limitations imposed on political mobilization by a discourse that posits the existence of a coherent "gay community." fag-hag: heterosexual woman extensively in the company of gay men. Fag-hags fall into no single category: some are plain Janes who prefer the honest affection of homoerotic boy friends; others are on a determined crusade to show gay boys that normal coitus is not to be overlooked. A few are simply women in love with homosexual men; others determine to their chagrin that their male friends are charming but not interested sexually. No matter how you cut it, fag-hag has an ugly ring to it. Syn: faggot-chaser (pej). The Queen's Vernacular: A Gay Lexicon (Rodgers 1972). Interviewer: What are fag hags? Billy:i Women, straight women, that hang out and run around with gay men. Some of whom I've known to sexually seduce gay men. That "one-good-woman" concept. ... Also ... one of my sisters used to run around with us and hang out. 'Cause we were fun, we did good drugs, we always danced, you know, and, but I never considered her a fag hag. She was not interested in dating any of my friends, so that's why I make the distinction. * Special thanks are due to Andrew Abbott, Julie Brines, George Steinmetz, and the reviewers of this Journal, whose comments have been most helpful, and to the numerous friends and colleagues who assisted me with various versions of this article. Most importantly, I give thanks to the many respondents whose insights were both fascinating and crucial. Direct correspondence to Dawne Moon, the Department of Sociology,1126 East 59th St., University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637. ® The University of North Carolina Press Social Forces, December 1995, 74(2):487-510 488 / Social Forces 74:2,, December 1995 Interviewer: What do you think makes someone a fag hag? Henry: [They are] women who choose to participate with homosexual men, not lesbians so much, because they relate best to them, they don't relate well to other women maybe, and not to straight men either, it's just, that's the group they relate best to. Darren: "What makes them be that way?" this is a topic from, for you know, for the Montel Williams show, or ... "What makes women want to associate with gay men?" I think an open-minded liberal attitude, so not being hung up, on sexuality to begin with, Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/sf/article/74/2/487/2233282 by guest on 27 September 2021 urn, having met and had a positive relationship with someone who is gay or lesbian, so that you are not afraid that they're abnormal or perverse people and they're just normal people. Interviewer: What does it mean, to the person referred to, to be called a fag hag? Dean: It's a derogatory statement, in my experience, anyway. It means a masculine bitch, with a very big mouth, who will flaunt her relationships in public by acting like "one of the guys," making "cock-sucking" remarks or whatever — pardon the expression, and by bringing up your personal life whether you want her to or not. It connotes insincerity on their end of the friendship, and yours. The term fag hag comes from gay male culture in the U.S.; while participants in this culture differ in opinion on to whom exactly the term applies and when, if ever, it is appropriate, it clearly denotes a woman, usually a straight woman, who associates either exclusively or mostly with gay men.2 Gay men may use the term to refer to women who are friends and confidantes; they may see fag hags as "pathetic," as especially "together,' or simply as women who happen to have gay men as friends. Traditionally, the term is an insult, yet it may be used in such a way that no offense is meant or taken. Why does gay male culture include such a term for certain women? What does this term, residing at the nexus of gender and sexuality, tell us? I explore what leads some participants in gay male culture to use the term, and furthermore, why those who use it do so in such varied contexts. The term hints at how gay men, and other participants in their culture, perceive the women who enter gay "space," and how those perceptions change. 3 It calls attention to the strengths and limitations of "community" as a rhetorical strategy for a movement for gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender liberation. Furthermore, it highlights areas of conflict within popular gay male definitions of "who we are," conflicts that arise from the various ways people reconcile he contradictions inherited from dominant discourses of gender and sexuality. To learn about gay men's experiences with the term fag hag, I used a snowball sample and an intensive interview format covering 33 men who identified themselves as gay or bisexual and who were familiar with the term. Interviews took between a half hour and two and a half hours. Respondents ranged in age from 17 to 68, exhibiting a broad range of qualities within gay culture. They varied in the degree to which they considered themselves "out," or openly gay, and also in levels of involvement in gay cultural and political activities. Furthermore, they varied widely with regard to their opinions on the definition and propriety of the term fag hag, as well as in how often, if ever, they used the term. Insult and Inclusion in the Gay Community / 489 While it is a strength of the interview method of data collection that we can get at people's experiences and use them to test both theories and popular rhetoric, "experience" itself is shaped by rhetoric and ideology, as Scott (1992) so convincingly points out. As she asserts, what rhetoric and world views predominate will indeed affect how people experience gender, sexual identity, and relations among people in different categories along these axes. Thus, as people's experiences vary, so will their criteria for judging whom they consider to belong in gay space. Indeed, the boundaries of gay space are a site of constant Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/sf/article/74/2/487/2233282 by guest on 27 September 2021 redefinition, and these definitions are influenced by the various points of tension within gay male culture. The term fag hag resides at the boundary between who belongs in gay space and who does not, highlighting the tensions within a discourse of gay identity, tensions related to people's experiences of community, gender, and sexuality. By exploring these issues, we can further understand the dynamics of heterosexism and sexism and how these dynamics are supported or subverted. As I will discuss further, gay male culture consists of multiple discourses of gender and sexual identity. Participants in this culture create it in an ongoing process, and they do so coming from diverse places and eras, bringing with them a variety of experiences and understandings of their world. Thus, on different occasions different tensions emerge as salient and terms such as fag hag come to have a variety of meanings. It is important to set up some working definitions of terms. I use straight to refer to persons who identify themselves as heterosexual. What I call heterosexual culture dominates most U.S. cultures; it consists of the set of ways in which people's sexuality is limited by usually unquestioned assumptions (at times backed up by outright coercion) that sexual attraction is only "natural" if it occurs, along with other limitations, within certain social groups and across genders. Because heterosexuality structures the dominant culture, constantly being made to seem both natural and universal, it could be described as a hegemonic order, retaining a position of apparently total social authority in spite of everyday resistance.4 The term fag hag parodies that order, at times subverting and at times reproducing it 5 That "fag hags" exist suggests that even though most natives of the U.S. were and are raised in heterosexual culture, not everyone who is straight leaves all its fundamental assumptions unquestioned, and not everyone who is not straight questions all these assumptions. I use gay to describe men who identify themselves as such and who participate in "gay [male] culture." "Gay culture" refers to the common system of gay language, history, and pastimes shared by those who identify as such. These people may or may not consider themselves "homosexual," since bisexuals and others who do not conform to the dominant model of heterosexu- ality may also at times be seen as insiders.' As a subculture in U.S.
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