Human Sexuality
Essay Preview: Human Sexuality
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“Brokeback Mountain” illustrates how homosexual people fight their homosexual feelings to avoid social judgment and suffer from social judgment. Ultimately, Brokeback Mountains real tragedy may not even be the fact that Jack dies, or that both mens families end up in shambles, but that they are disgusted with themselves for feeling the way they do. The fear of being turned out of our comforting, validating social groups is more than terrifying for them. Although understanding sexual identity is the main idea, representation of masculinity of homosexual man is what caught me eye. Homosexuality is an obvious issue in the movie, while gender roles is in the background. Masculinity of homosexual man represented very clear, which confronts most of the people believes and stereotypes. Our society, through the use of ubiquitous stereotypes and attempts at humor, depicts the homosexual man as completely lacking masculine characteristics.
The sexual aspect of masculinity depicts manhood as sexually dominant, active, controlling, and above all, as penetration. The fact that masculinity is rooted in the institution of heterosexuality leads to specific meanings of gender. Within this heterosexual matrix, gender must take a specific path; that is, a male must be masculine and therefore attracted to the feminine (female); a female must be feminine and therefore attracted to the masculine (male). In other words, opposites attract. When a person is assigned a specific biological sex at birth, they are not only given a certain gender role; they are also prescribed a particular sexual script. Not only does this gender script place on the gender roles of heterosexuals; it also creates quite a paradox for homosexuals. This paradox is as follows; if masculinity is based on the act of penetration, then gay men (those who are perceived as penetratrated) are inherently not masculine. However, if gay men are attracted to each other, then there must be a gay-masculine and a gay-feminine, a duality of oppositional gender that results in this attraction. In other words, one aspect of the matrix defines homosexuals as non-masculine, whereas another aspect points directly to masculinity. The big misconception is that people imagine gay men to be weak. Physically he is unable to lift heavy objects or defend himself. Emotionally, hes wrought with self-esteem issues about his body or his relationship with his family. Morally, the gay man in our mind is often promiscuous and constantly battling some addiction. The movie shows how masculine both of men are. Being a cowboy demands strong physical capability; the guy wrestling, sleeping and living in a place with no comfort illustrates the masculinity of gay people in this case. Before the movie I had a gay image as a heterosexual, polished, feminine men, which I can recognize on the street. However, there are gay people who as masculine