Tag Archives: pictures of gay men

Blake, Film Maker, New York City

photo by Kevin Truong

Blake, in his own words: “I’ve lived in New York City for two and a half years and been gay for just a little longer. Living in the city hasn’t changed how I view or deal with my sexuality; if anything, there’s just a greater fear of missing out when I choose to stay home and watch Netflix (a frequent occurrence). What has changed is my perception of other queer men. About a year ago, I directed a short documentary called 20MALEGAYNYCthat featured young gay men living in New York talking about their relationships with other gay men, their own sexuality, and attempting to define the gay community (or lack thereof). The impetus for the project was one simple question: Why have all of my gay male friends said, “I hate gay guys?”

It’s easy to generalize anyone, not just gay men, but this internalized homophobia is a way of thinking that I had noticed in my friends and myself. It felt cool to be accepted by straight guys, to not seem as “gay” or “flamboyant” as someone else, to be able to say, “Well at least I’m not that obvious.” For many, it’s a good feeling when someone is surprised to learn you’re gay (that’s never really happened in my experience, but I can understand the feeling).

Through talking to other queer men my age for this documentary, and my current web series Male Gays , I became more aware of my own homophobic thoughts and behaviors and learned to be more accepting of other gay men. All the criticisms I had internalized about myself were expressed in my jokes or dismissive comments about someone liking Glee or dressing a certain way, when those have absolutely nothing to do with sexuality. It’s easy to attach a lot of baggage to one’s gay identity, but it’s healthier to accept that behavior and interests have nothing to do with who a person sleeps with, and even if they did, the person has every right to express these behaviors and interests. I still may not agree with fans of Glee, but detaching that from a gay stereotype has been important and healthy for me.”

Quentin, Editor-in-Chief, New York City

photo by Kevin Truong

Quentin, in his own words: “Being Gay for me means something special. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s more than physical characteristics like being 5’11 and 175lbs, more than liking chocolate or my dislike for cilantro. It’s similar to- but not quite the same- as being African American. It is something that is very close to me, but still not my defining characteristic. Being gay for me is not just about sexuality even though it’s related. It’s more than being apart of a community. It is something that I am proud of now, but when I was younger it was a struggle. I created Fop Magazine (a Gay-Centric Fashion & Lifestyle Magazine, fopmag.com) in part to establish a venue for gay people to share in lifestyle and fashion but to use gayness as a launch point not a limitation.

I think the biggest challenge- and triumph! – that I’ve have had with being gay are my own feelings. People can think or say whatever they want, but what is most important is how I feel. Of course I feel that I have been liked or disliked because of it, but who hasn’t felt that way. My biggest triumph is over coming self-doubt and loving myself.

I was fortunate enough to grow up in a community where I felt loved so coming out wasn’t that hard. But that didn’t make it easy. I never really felt like I had to hide it, but sometimes felt like it may have been ignored. I remember feeling awkward when family members would ask me if I had a girlfriend. I would always say no and change the topic. One time my stepmother asked me if I had a girlfriend and I said no, then she asked me if I had a boyfriend and I said no. I guess that was her way of asking me if I were gay. My dad that same summer asked why I went to Dupont Circle so often, and I just said it was apart of my commute to work at Abercrombie, which was in Georgetown.

Growing up in North Carolina when I was in High School I would go to these meetings called G.L.A.S.S. (Gay and Lesbian Adolescent Support System). I would tell my mother that I was going to student council meetings. I remember having such a fear of going at first, but once I started I felt more and more like I had found my place. I remember thinking, “These people are normal and I am one of them”. I guess I was looking for a place to belong. Later in high school I met my first boyfriend at Governor’s School. I was totally in love with him. He was a year older, Filipino, and was going to be a doctor. We had big plans to go to prom together and later to attend the same college. I thought, “This is the man I am going to marry in our backyard,” like Pedro Zamora of The Real World. I was wrong. Later that year he dumped me for a girl. I was devastated. So I wore my powder blue tux with the ruffles down the front of the shirt and my Adidas with the same color stripes to the prom with my best girlfriend at the time.

I finally came out to my mother when I was a freshman in college. I drove home and told her I was gay. She said, “I know”. We both started crying. She told me she worried about my future because of it- like getting a job, HIV, and hemorrhoids. Looking back it was a pretty hilarious conversation. I never really told my dad, but never felt I had to. He knows and he sometimes asks if I have a partner, and I tell him I’m still single. He gives me advice like having separate bank accounts and to always use condoms. Dad stuff. “

Check out Quentin’s Magazine, FOP

Lamar, Audio Engineer, New York City

photo by Kevin Truong

Lamar, in his own words: “Being gay doesn’t mean much of anything to me, other than the fact that I date men. I think the most important thing about being gay is to be aware of what people may think of you. When I introduce myself to people for the first time, I give them everything without announcing my sexuality, because I believe it’s irrelevant at that point. This is why I’m often assumed straight – because I don’t lay out that one label setting up a list of presumptions about me. I am no different from the straight guy next to me, and I find it incredibly rewarding when I realize I’ve shut down someone’s assumptions about gay people based off stereotypes. Nobody is one-dimensional, and that’s another reason why this project is so awesome. It’s showing the world that gay men come in infinite forms.

I face a challenge dealing with my sexuality quite often, whether it’s at work or socially. The biggest challenges I’ve had all come from the pressure of my family’s harshly negative beliefs about homosexuality. I think my family’s beliefs created 10 times more pressure on me than society’s pressure overall. Homosexuality in the black community is strongly unacceptable, it seems to me like they view it more as a cultural deviance than religious. I was told that homosexuality is “wrong”, “a sickness’, and a “mental disorder”. My family made it very clear – through jokes and serious talk – that anyone who identified as or “behaved” gay was to be unaccepted, disowned. With that knowledge, and having never met a gay person, my biggest fear was to indeed be gay. I honestly thought it was the worst thing anyone could be. Overcoming this challenge took going away to college, breaking away from my family for a while, and learning the truth about human sexuality.

Granted, I haven’t been a New Yorker for very long, but I have a pretty good understanding of the gay community here. One thing is for sure, the gay community here today is not what it was in the 80s or 90s. New York City is known to be a gay capital, so being gay in a city like this is, without a doubt, easier than being gay elsewhere. As the growing acceptance of New York City as a gay territory continues, more gay communities are forming to create not only one gay community, but many. New York City in particular houses gay sub-cultures drawn on commonalities of things other than sexuality like “gaymers”, “people of color”, “hipsters”, “Chelsea gays”, etc. This, in one way, makes being gay in New York seem way easier as there are more forms of expression existent. On the other hand, the sense of “community” here has been broken to very small alliances – and with smartphone apps and social media – there isn’t much need to go out and build queer communities, as more inclusive communities have been set.

I actually don’t have a coming-out story. I had kept my sexuality to myself for a long time until finally publicly dating guys. I’m lucky enough to have friends who required no explanation at all and continued to accept me after learning about my sexuality. They probably always knew, or had an idea, because I tried to hide it. Oftentimes, the things that people try to hide are the most obvious to see.

If I could give myself advice before coming out, I would say, simply “everything will be okay” and that “being hated for who you truly are is far better than being loved for who you’re pretending to be”.

THE GAY MEN PROJECT

The visual catalog of gay and queer men around the world.

Tag Archives: pictures of gay men

Blake, Film Maker, New York City

Quentin, Editor-in-Chief, New York City

Lamar, Audio Engineer, New York City