Roles in a relationship~?

I'm not feminine at all, but I'm definitely not attracted to feminine gay guys either. I really don't believe in gender roles personally for any relationship I would have. It's a bit different to straight relationships, but I'd hate having the "husband" and "wife" style of relationship with 2 guys...

 

lol yeah thats disrespect

 

Well, there are roles sometimes but I don't think of them as "husband" and "wife" roles. Lately I've been leaning towards dominant, but when I'm depressed I want to be protected and to feel safe... so... I change.

 

That's the same with me. Think about it heaps of straight guys are attracted to masculine girls so It doesn't really mean that you have to be in a specific role (or stay that way if you are)

 

I think you've fused two separate "identities" together - Gender Roles and Masculinity/Femininity gay males.

In a lot of relationships, there generally are "gender roles" played out by different people - tho "gender role" is probably a bit politically incorrect as a title, since the role doesn't have much to do with gender these days. For example, there is usually the dominant, more commanding role, and the contrastingly passive role.

The dominant role (or the one who "wears the pants" figuratively) is generally associated with the male, while the passive role is generally associated with the female. Of course in modern day society, even in heterosexual relationships it is not uncommon for these roles to be reversed (female is more dominant) or non existent (female and male are equally dominant). It seems that as women have gained more social power in the past 50 or so years, this "power" has also enabled them to more comfortably and noticeably take a dominant position in a relationship.

The same applies for homosexual relationships. While one person may be more "dominant" and the other "passive", it still not uncommon for both to be equal in terms of dominance, power and choices made.

Now - when you factor in the gay male and acting masculine or feminine, you would generally assume that the masculine male would be more dominant, while the effeminate male would be more passive, as this is the way that it generally works in heterosexual couples. However, with the many different homosexual relationships I've seen, this is rarely the case. My own opinion is that the way you act (masculine or feminine) does not really influence your 'gender role' in a relationship at all.

 

This song clears it up a bit.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qf0puHJ-KM[/youtube]

I love that song.

 

Hmm, not exactly sure. Myself, I'm not really that feminine acting. I hang out with guys a ton more than girls, and I have no sense of style. I think I'm looking for a bf who is similar. That being said, I'm very passive, so I'm looking for someone who is a bit more dominate. I think I'd prefer the roles to be a bit equal, as I'm a bit to independent to want someone to just take care of me. However, I don't like making tons of decisions, so I'd like someone who would make a lot of those for me.

 

I think Im the more submissive type. I think I'd get tired of being teh big boss! Ofcourse I could be more dominant if the other guy wanted me to, its just i wouldn't like it 'as much'


/Ty

 

These are great points Micah! I totally agree with you!

 

I don't really beleive in the whole girl and boi role in a gay relationship and sometimes find it really offensive when someone asks me 'whos the girl?' when i have a bf because it kinda makes me think they are just stariotyping gays or whatever and saying there like HAS to be a girl and shit and it annoys me, cuz personally i'm not much of a girly gay and find it hard to communicate and relate to girly guys.

- Alyx

 

I would want everything to be equal in the relationship. No i'm in charge or your in charge if i buy a dog i buy a dog i don't want to ask for permission


I see some straight couples and the guy is in charge and the girl is quiet. And those type of relationships are so boring.

But in most cases the guy would look at me for everything.

 

i think people should be free to take on whatever "masculine" and "feminine" characteristics or roles they feel suit them, so long as they're not bad, like violence or whatever so i think if people want to take on fem/masc, fine, if not, don't. so long as they are both seen as equals are free to be themselves. personally, i don't have a clear idea yet. often i take on femine roles, often masculine. and i'm attracted to both. so idk. lol. but the only type of person i could probabaly not consider is one who had a really strict idea of the gender role they wanted to occupy and the one they wanted me to be, because as i say, i vary a lot, and i would find that constrictive.

 

I just want to make sure he's enjoying being with me, so it's not me who'll ask him or tell him which side to be but it's super akward that there are fermine and masculine roles in a same sex relationship.

As being gay, I odnt like girls and Im more attracted to musculine guys, so I odnt want no gorl acting, as for me, I dont wanna be an attress either, so both have to be equal. And dominant or resecive, it dosnt tell who is masculine or ferminine, it's just the way you feel

 

i really like to be in flow with every thing... to be such u have to take a more passive stance and "make u about the world... not the world about u." this is why i take a less dominant role, not because i like being considered a "wife. woman... yada yada". its in my personality and feels natural to me. ^^

 

Wooow, thread starter, you're cute !

Aaaand. Uh. I think in all relationships, gay and straight, there's a dominant and a submissive. I'm attracted to manlier guys too! It's probably based on your emotional status and what you like feeling. I always feel fragile and I like having someone to feel secure with, and I've met people who like being the big tough person and having someone more submissive makes them happy. Gives them a purpose so to speak. :/

Idk that's just how I see it.

 

I'm definitely attracted to more masculine guys.. And I think I would be the more submissive one, but by choice (it's just how I am). I usually like other people to take control and be more aggresive, but it's more of a feeling of security with me, too. I like to feel protected and know someone's there to take care of me. =P

 

I think people in a relationship sort of settle into roles that suit the individuals, their workloads and interests etc.

With me and Markie, I work longer hours so he generally does most of the housework. He tends to me more organised and less tolerant of clutter and mess anyway, so that seems to suit him. I tend to do most of the DIY and maintenance around the house because I enjoy it and have always been good at the practical stuff. Markie does all the gardening because he enjoys it and I hate it. He also does most of the cooking because he is good at it and enjoys it, whereas I am useless (instructions on the packets are my limit). I deal with all the financial and legal stuff because Markie finds it too confusing. Things like holidays are planned between us. So between us it works out well. In bed things are equal, with no passive and active roles.

One of the gay guys I work with is having a civil partnership with his partner next year. He is naturally fairly camp and his partner isn't so the assumption might be that he has the passive role in the relationship. In fact it seems that he is the decision maker and the one who gets things sorted out (for example he is making all the wedding arrangements). They both work full time so he tends to do the house cleaning and tidying in the evenings (with his Kylie CDs on loud) while his partner is cooking dinner and watching a DVD. In bed he is the bottom, which is where he wants to be.

So both me and Markie, and my colleague and his partner have simply worked things out between themselves. Not by a specific discussion, just by things working out over time.

 

I think the notion that there has to be a dominant partner and a passive partner in a relationship (or that there naturally ends up being one) is... well, the kindest way I could put it would be "old-fashioned." I think we're all dominant in some areas and passive in others, and as people in the thread have mentioned, it's really important to uncouple that from notions of femininity and masculinity. It's worth noting that the things we see as "masculine" are just that--things we SEE as masculine. Because we've been brought up to believe those things are masculine when really there's no reason from women not to share any of those traits. And of course, vice versa. Thinking in binary terms (that everything is either masculine or feminine, dominant/passive, male/female) totally constrains your worldview and it doesn't really allow for truly egalitarian relationships. It needs to be dumped.

If someone I was involved with thought I should do the housecleaning because he happened to be the one more frequently "on top" during sex, I would show just how "passive" I was and tear him a new one.

Arranging your relationship based on how other people have decided women and men act is stupid. And lazy. And worst of all, it's incredibly limiting, because it means locking one partner into the "emotionally shut-off" role and another into the "weak and incompetent, needs to be looked after" role. And really human beings are a lot more complex than some stereotype of how women are or how men are. The world would be a much better place if everyone were just allowed to be themselves, irrespective of sexuality AND gender. But instead we get value judgments all over the place, so you have innumerable guys saying they're gay, so they're attracted to men, so why would they want to be with a femmy guy? That is, implicitly, saying that a femmy guy isn't actually a guy. Let's think about that for a sec. So what then defines a "guy?" How they act? But then that would mean that if a woman acted all masculine, these gay guys would be all over her.

And that's not even getting into the fact that the one most masculine-identity obliterating thing you can do in our society is have sex with another guy, so really no gay guy is actually a "guy" in the traditional sense. THAT'S what really gets me about the super-entrenched "no femmy guys" gays... how they don't see that by every standard of traditional masculinity there is, they are the ultimate "non-men" because they want men, not women, and because they let themselves be "made" into women, so what do they do? They take that judgment and pretend it's not applied to them by applying it lower down the gender role totem pole. They can still be men as long as they can make other gay men into "women" because of how they act. They can reclaim their masculinity by taking it away from someone else. And THAT'S binary thinking in a nutshell and its dirty little secret, this notion that it's a zero-sum game, that you are defined by the negative traits you have thrown off.

I could go on, and likely will somewhere else at some point, but yeah, traditional gender roles in relationships, gay ones in particular, are pretty ridiculous.