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3 It’s a White Man’s World Race in the Gay Marketplace of Desire These bodies [gay male gym bodies] outwardly represent a kind of wealth, a fullness in which a person has the means, discipline, the work ethic—and the leisure time—to perfect his body. It is a clean-cut, middle class body, symbolizing the final embourgeoisement of the gay community and its related aspirations. The values of the marketplace rule the central circles of gay life, perhaps to a disturbing degree, where the body is advertising and “knowing the price of everything” is a main principle of doing business. —John DiCarlo, “The Gym Body and Heroic Myth” In many ways this is the most difficult chapter of this book to write. It means having to be honest about and to face some of the private demons that gay men of color (and others on the periphery of the gay marketplace of desire) confront on a regular basis. It means articulating painful lessons learned about your value—or lack thereof—in the dominant logics that fuel that same marketplace. It means speaking about the ways in which the variables that constitute value in this marketplace—those variables of race, gender affect (“butch”/”femme”), body type (muscle queen, gym bunny, swimmer’s build, fat, slim), age, penis size, style (leather, preppy, corporate, pseudo alternative , A&F all-American, boy, bear, homo thug)—all work to construct and constitute what we come to accept, and in some cases to celebrate, as our value. To speak about the gay marketplace of desire and the terms under which it produces value means having to speak about related issues around which we are taught to observe and endure a code of silence or shame. For to get to the bottom of such variables and how they work means visiting the places of fetish, pornography, gay personals ads, bath houses and sex clubs, 88 the circuit scene, and, perhaps most frightening of all, the recesses of our own minds where we conceal some of the most passionate, important, and vulnerable parts of our humanity: the various expressions of our sexuality. Such work is not easy. There is no road map, no on-board navigation system directing us when to make the next turn, or saying, “no, not that way but this.” And whenever we enter uncharted territory, our first inclination is either to turn back from embarking upon such a journey in frustrated resignation , or to forge ahead, running the risk of getting lost. While working on a final draft of this chapter, I had a dream that, as will be readily apparent, was clearly related to my work and thinking here. I was lost in D.C., the nation ’s capital, trying desperately to get home to Chicago. My mode of transportation was a motorcycle. For anyone who knows me, this detail would immediately strike them as decidedly out of character. I was circling in one of the countless traffic rotaries in the city, trying to decide, with great difficulty , which road to take, when I noticed a very attractive, young African American man standing on the edge of the circle between two of my possible destinations. He was smiling. I stopped to ask directions on how to get to the freeway that would take me home to Chicago. My reasons for stopping were not entirely pragmatic. I stopped in part because he was attractive, in part because I was lost and needed help, and in part because his smile seemed more than friendly—it felt solicitous. He greeted me warmly and with great care gave me the following directions, as he pointed to the road to his immediate right: Take this road. You will travel on it across a bridge that will carry you over a body of water. Above you will be another road that will eventually turn off in a different direction. When you reach the other side of the bridge, continue on this road until you come to a point where the road will become smaller, dirt covered, and will appear to end where it meets the edge of a small mountain on the left and the body of water on your right. Don’t be alarmed. You should get off the motorcycle at this point and walk it around the mountain along a path between the mountain’s edge IT’S A WHITE MAN’S WORLD 89 [3.14.142.115] Project MUSE (2024-04-18 13...

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