In Pursuit of Soft Masculinity: A He/They’s Tell-All
I grew up homeschooled in an Evangelical household — a notoriously supportive environment for a deeply queer future-artist. While my parents were and continue to be very supportive, the ideology I was exposed to was less so. I also grew up in the mid-’90s, and this meant my understanding of binary gender was dictated by the McDonald’s drive-through: Hot Wheels for boys, Barbie for girls. As a child, having two very powerful deities (Jesus and Ronald McDonald), ascribe to rigid pink-and-blue gender divisions was a major source of stress. This stress wasn’t as much due to my desire to transgress these boundaries, but a frustration that they existed at all.
I was never comfortable being categorized, but there was something particularly inescapable about the labels “boy” and “man.” From bathrooms, to department stores, to toys, games, and cartoons, everything seemed to have a binary spin to it. As a kid, I always felt confronted by the color blue, as if it were always saying “this is for you, you should like this!” It rarely was, and I rarely did. Instead, the kinds of toys and media I genuinely enjoyed were often locked behind what I felt was a pink-hued electric fence. As I got older, this division widened to include not only media, but creative interests, sports, and community.
I have a vivid memory of asking my mother if I could start gymnastics classes when we lived in South Florida, and her response was “that’s a girl’s sport.” This response was informed by her own experience as a moderately-ok young gymnast, surrounded by hyperactive girls in lycra handled by strong and supportive male coaches. But when I eventually watched the Olympics for the first time and saw that team of muscled short kings winning gold for their floor routines, I felt a bit betrayed. My fear was never being the only boy in a group of girls; it was always being one boy in a sea of others.
Whether I was being shunted into gendered Bible study groups, mocked for enjoying Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura, or given different chores than my sister, I always felt indignant when someone used gender as justification for curating my behavior. Even small comments like “men stand up straight and tall” or “boys are stronger” would spark my fury. My most egregious faux pas happened when I joined a Lego robotics group at age ten. All the boys went around and introduced themselves with their name and favorite superhero, and I, in a dazzling show of social candor, said “my name is Josh Brown, and I hate them all.”
All of this to say, I was not only resistant to traditional masculinity;, I was terrible at it. So terrible, in fact, that by the time I was a sophomore in high school with a real-life girlfriend, these tensions that had been bubbling would quickly boil over.
At 15-years-old, deviations from the gender binary would amount less to silly social faux pas and more to fundamental questions of identity. Rather than the simple answer that I was a flaming homosexual, my logic held that I was still straight, just sensitive. In some ways, this was a positive delusion. I convinced myself that straight men could resist the stereotypes foisted on them and be complex individuals — and I was one of them. I was “straight,” yet I had meaningful friendships with women; I loved poetry and theatre; I didn’t care about sports or superheroes or cars; I loved ’80s pop divas, etc. This sensitive heterosexuality was comfortable for my indoctrinated mind for the dual purposes of staving off the certain damnation I would suffer as a homo and allowing me to express my genuine interests free of judgment. After all, the more traditionally masculine one appears and acts, the more endearing transgressions of the gender binary become.
As my girlfriend and I shared our signature single, closed-lip kiss for the tenth time with no risk of going further, I was proud of my sensitive masculinity. I was kind and cute and silly and loved playing the oboe, and that felt transgressive in its own special way. Even as that relationship fell apart and I embraced my sexuality in college, the allure of a softer masculinity never left me. Queer men, shockingly, are still men, and deal with the same hefty gender baggage as their straight counterparts. Masculine men, regardless of their sexuality, have the necessary cultural capital to experiment more publically and performatively with their gender. The rise of ostensibly straight actors and musicians — Jacob Elordi, Pedro Pascal, Harry Styles and the like — rocking a genderfuck garment on the red carpet or playing out queer (or aesthetically queer) relationships onstage and screen is evidence of this. For someone whose primary issue with the dogma of binary gender is its rigidity, I am excited at this new paragon of softer, experimental, whimsical masculinity: the babygirl.
The “babygirl” is a rare, feminine term of endearment applied to men — often actors — who are largely traditionally masculine, yet strike a more whimsical pose in a photo, for example. In stark contrast to “sissy,” “priss,” or any number of other feminine terms derogatorily applied to men, “babygirl” is always a compliment. While the term’s good-natured humor comes from the incongruity between the masculine-presenting subject and the hyper-feminine combo of “baby” and “girl,” its connotation is always positive. Calling Pedro Pascal “babygirl” means he is endearing, warm, and isn’t afraid to do what he wants. In other words, he isn’t constrained by the straightjacket of traditional heteromasculinity.
In much the same way as the contemporary babygirl, I have found my soft masculinity in the cracks and stretch-marks that form between my true self and the societally imposed mold of what a man is supposed to be. Those incongruities create interest and individuality. Stereotypically speaking, masculine traits are fundamental to my identity. I am ambitious, pragmatic, take-charge, and ultimately uncompromising in my pursuit of the things I want. But I will never sit through an entire sports game; I will never understand how a car works; I will never punch a wall, or master the art of the handshake-into-a-one-armed-hug, or even get really into fitness. These facts aren’t compromising my sense of masculinity, but integral to redefining it. A babygirl need not know how to change a tire; they must simply be silly and cute while figuring it out.
