Sean Avery and the gay press
A post on the gay blog Towleroad about Sean Avery, “the most hated figure in hockey,” has got me thinking. Avery is an obnoxious Rangers player (I gather) who has a strong interest in fashion — to such a degree that he’s secured a summer internship at Vogue. Not Men’s Vogue, not Vogue Living, but Vogue, fashion’s Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria all rolled into one.
So rich. It’s obvious why the story, reported in WWD and The New Yorker, would interest readers of Towleroad, a blog with “homosexual tendencies” whose readers, like Avery, are interested in that fusion of beauty and novelty we call fashion. Towleroad readers are of course also interested in athletic, masculine men, which Avery also is. So the story is, in some sense, a fit.
Yet the Towleroad post is problematic, in part because Andy Towle, the blog’s author, never acknowledges why he’s posting the item or what its relevance is to gay readers (as, for example, I attempted to do above). And so a rather nasty odor of insinuation, like opium smoke, clings to the post. Finally, Towle’s thrust is revealed in the final paragraph, with a particularly foul kicker:
According to this NYT piece from last October from which some of the info above was culled, Avery’s next big purchase was to be the entire Dior men’s collection for spring, he never uses a towel more than once, his washer-dryer is the one item he won’t part with, his favorite artwork is a photo of Andy Warhol, he is “defined” by his big and colorful Taschen art books.
Like this one?
The link goes to a Taschen book called The Big Penis Book.
And so we have an unsubtle and not very convincing attempt to out a prominent athlete, based solely on stereotypical “gay” behavior, namely, an interest in fashion.
Besides being totally inflammatory (is it possible to be libelous by means of a hyperlink?), Towle’s insinuation bolsters gay stereotypes and does nothing to help the gay cause. It hurts it. To me, there is little difference between the blogger who “outs” Avery and the schoolyard bully who calls the sensitive boy interested in fashion a “fag.” Except that this time it’s a gay journalist who has decided that feminine behavior — or in this case, an interest in the feminine realm — is gay.
Instead of trying to out someone like Avery I suggest looking at the way that Avery, and the media, spin what might be seen as stereotypical “gay” behavior. For example, take a look at this New York Times article, which is used as a source by both Towleroad and The New Yorker. After espousing to the Times reporter many attributes and interests that might read as gay (though they might also be read as merely grossly acquisitive), Avery then goes to great pains to appear straight by bragging to the reporter that beside his bed, there’s always “a beautiful woman.” (Avery has apparently been linked romantically to a number of starlets, including someone named Elisha Cuthbert, of whom I know only one thing; she’s blonde.) This “beautiful woman” line is in fact the article’s kicker. And so The New York Times editor who ended the article with this kicker is playing along with Avery’s unappealing “I may appear gay but I’m really, really not” press salvo. Indeed, the whole point of the article seems to be: here’s a really macho aggressive guy with all these feminine interests . . . who says he’s straight. (Pa-dum-bum.) It’s not that the phenomenon is uninteresting. Far from it. But what’s going unsaid in the transactions between Avery, the reporter, and the reader — that’s the issue. That we’re interested in it precisely because it upends our stereotypes about masculinity and heterosexuality.
Posted on April 22, 2008
Filed Under fashion, media, the spectacle | 6 Comments
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6 Responses to “Sean Avery and the gay press”
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A very cogent observation about this NY Times article and Towleroad’s response to it. I see you are trying to have an interesting blog – very brave of you. I gave up on attempting to write an interesting blog a few months ago. It was actually very liberating. I have sort of attempted to start a new one but can’t seem to delude myself further into believing blogs matter. You might well be part of a milieu likely to garner more readers than the typical (or perhaps I was atypical) person attempting to write an thoughtful blog…but be warned, it’s not easy. Really, would anybody pay any attention to Choire’s obtuse little ramblings if he were not who he is, or who he was?
But back to your post, it’s amusing how the Towleroad “demographic” just has a tin ear to any subtle analysis of their various consumptive habits, and perhaps by extension, to their whole habitus. I’m sure you have noticed your post on Towleroad didn’t ignite any further discussion. That’s my experience over the years of trying to say anything truly challenging at Towleroad. For example when I posted years ago at the height of Abercrombie-mania that their homoerotic imagery was paradoxically exploitative of middle America’s internalized fears and prejudices about male sexuality it just wafted over everyone’s head, apparently.
Thanks for the great comments, Inchoative. As hard as it is to be a thoughtful blogger, it may be harder to be a thoughtful reader.
I think it’s tricky with Towleroad because he’s trying to have his cake and eat it too. Towleroad is on some level a serious, credible endeavor, with posts about gay bashing and other community matters, so bravo to him for that. But his credibility seems undermined by posting about the status of Jake Gyllenhaal’s (sp?) chest hair. Of course that’s what pays the bills, and even I admit I find the titillation juicier and more clickable . . . .
So I don’t want to be in the position of scolding people for their desires, or for voicing those desires. (In other words, there’s nothing wrong with saying Avery is hot.) But when a blog takes on issues of social consequence — i.e., is not a porn blog or a gossip blog — I think it should be accountable for its spurious speculations on other people’s sexuality, whether they’re marginalized trans teens or putatively straight hockey players.
On the other hand, complete unaccountability (in the case of say, dlisted.com) is a whole other bag. There, something about this blog-writer’s — let’s call it — queer performativity that allows him to spew the meanest, most homophobic and misogynistic speculations on Tom Cruise, and not offend — because the offensiveness and self-loathing is so foregrounded. (Some similar effect occurs with Proust’s character Baron de Charlus — spectacular, performative meanness.) I’m still trying to figure out why the less politically correct writer somehow comes off better (perhaps because he’s self-aware and mining his own political incorrectness), but those are my INCHOATE thoughts at the moment.
[...] Re my last post: [...]
[...] WTF? Anyhow, one of the things that inspired me to keep blogging was C.S.’s thoughtful criticism of a common Towleroad trope: the possible gayness of some hot male celebrity. I had this feeling [...]
Thanks, for the interesting info. I am not gay, never have been nor will I ever be. I like all types of people, believe it or not. I could careless if you like D_ck or P_ssy. I like what I like, and I like the finer things in life. I am cool with anyone and if people want to believe crazy things about me, that is fine too. Again, I am not gay but if I were, I would not be afraid to say so.
Sean is Bi. It is that simple.