Jotos: masculinity, erotic practices, and working class imagery

I was raised in milieu where joto was synonymous with effeminacy, and masculinity with heterosexuality. Only when I entered teenage-hood, when I became increasingly aware that I was what adults referred to as curioso, did I notice that joto-ness could take many forms. And that just like heterosexual men, jotos could construct their masculinity in opposition to femininity and the specter of a fagness—failed masculinity embodied in an effeminate man. (See Dude You’re a Fag) But jotos’ relationship to masculinity is complicated by their object of desire, which is often masculine men.

In our hypersexualized culture, jotos are intimately familiar with one pernicious rule of thumb: jotos desire masculine men, not fags. This generalization pervades queer spaces as "gay culture morphs into ‘straight-acting dudes hangin’ out," and the categories "Masc only, no femmes or fatties. Straight acting, straight appearing" signal the sorts of intimacies that gay men crave. (See Introduction to Why are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?) Thus, it’s unsurprising that one of Pornhub’s “most viewed gay categories” is “straight guys,” and that popular gay searches include “straight first time,” “straight,” and “straight friend.” What is surprising, however, is that some popular gay searches include descriptors that are linked to the working class, including “redneck” and “cowboy.”

Moreover, data for gay searches in the United Kingdom track America’s. In the UK, popular gay searches include “straight first time,” “straight,” and “straight friend,” plus “british chav.” The latter word, "chav," connotes a person “of a low social status.” And some find the word to be “a nasty, coded attack on the working class.” One has to wonder why these erotic trends/desires persists despite recent cultural progress on gender and sexuality issues.

So while “redneck” and “cowboy” may be erotically fashionable in joto circles today, in the past other class-based, hyper-masculine imagery filled queer landscapes. In 1970s San Francisco, for example, the “clone” was front-and-center. In Gay Macho, Martin Levine, describes the gay clone as an “articulation of gay masculinity... that used sexual activity as a major vehicle of gender confirmation” and that relied on the performance of intelligible sexual scripts that openly and visibly embraced “masculine definitions of masculinity” through working class attire. (p2, 12, & 29) That helps explain, in part, why the dynamic membership of the Village People included a cowboy, a construction worker, an officer/sailor, a GI soldier, a leather-daddy/biker, and a Native American. Racial undercurrents aside, one wonders why the group didn’t include a doctor, lawyer, or businessman—I guess the imagery those professions evoke wasn’t masculine enough! Still, in parodying the hyper-masculine working-class imagery that was commonplace at gay clubs, the Village People managed to expose the fragile nature of masculinity. It seems the more aggressively or blatantly one performs masculinity, the queerer one's performance becomes. That's why the group is often regarded as campy.

South of the border, in México, jotos also have an erotic fondness for masculinities linked to working-class imagery, especially the chacal. In Cinemachismo, De La Mora describes chacales as men who have sex with men, and who are “specially linked to the working class.” (p189) Another writer characterized the chacal as a “macho, rude, tanned, beefy, man from a barrio.” In other words, a chacal is an emerging iteration of a queer masculinity that is strictly linked to class. After all, a well-off person wouldn’t live in a barrio, though he could go there for sexual escape. It remains to be seen whether the chacal will become a fixture of México’s “gay animal kingdom” that jotos use to navigate sexual landscapes. For now, the chacal resides in a sexual limbo, where he “is the image of the macho and the joto a feminine fantasy... [and] his resistance to expressing desire toward his male sexual partners reinstalls [him] in a doubtful heterosexuality.” (Modernity and the Nation in Mexican Representations of Masculinity, p136-37)

Personally, it troubles me that even when I attempt to subvert gender norms or queer spaces, I remain attracted to iterations of working class masculinities that seem inextricably linked to heterosexuality—ever hear of lumbersexuality! It seems that so long as jotos construct their masculinity, erotic practices, or desires in relation to a triad that fastens working class imagery, masculinity, and heterosexuality together, the emotional pain that some of them endured when they realized they were “different” will continue tormenting future generations of jotos. That is why jotos must be critical of the ways in which culture sutures insidious heteronormative desires in their psyches. And that jotos learn “to desire from within the heterosexual norms and gendered structures” that replicate the status quo shouldn't excuse our inaction. (Homos, p7) After all, historically, the status quo hasn’t been kind to jotos.

What can we learn about class from the “Real Housewives”?

I confess: I am addicted to the various Real Housewives (RH) series that air on Bravo. Indeed, I have watched the majority of the series over the last ten-plus years. Each series follows five to six wealthy “real housewives” as they live out their lives, mingle with each other, and deal with “real world” problems that afflict the rich—including upgrading from one mansion to another. For this reason, some writers refer to the series as “Rich Women Doing Things.”

Currently, I enjoy watching the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills (RHOBH), of New York (RHONY), and of Atlanta (RHOA). RHOA is the only RH franchise series featuring an all black female ensemble; both BH and NY feature white women only. The RH franchise has been a great success. The first series, the Real Housewives of Orange County, premiered in 2006, and has been renewed each year since then. Further, RHONY and RHOA are each on their tenth season, and the RHOBH is on its eight season.

Despite the misnomer Real Housewives getting lost on the wealthy women featured in each series--their rich people problems don’t affect the vast majority of (working class) housewives--the series offers an unwitting social commentary on class (gender, and race). By class I mean the je ne sais quoi attributes of class that belong in the nebulous discourse of culture, and include the social scripts and habitus that signal a person has class. Think of the characters in the Beverly Hillbillies—another great social commentary on class—whose pairing of material wealth with lack of class, is precisely what elicited laughs.

Unlike the characters in the Beverly Hillbillies, however, the women in the Real Housewives seemingly have an abundance of wealth and class. Here are a few tropes that cut across the RHOBH, RHONY, and RHOA series, and provide insight on what it takes to be a woman of a certain class these days, i.e., to be a classy woman.

First, having a group of gay male friends that you refer to as “the gays,” and can summon to provide you comedic relief, beauty and fashion advice, or raise your mood is part-and-parcel of being a woman of a certain class. In the current season of RHOA, for example, NeNe Leakes, a former stripper turned Broadway star, hosted a “girls and gays” soiree in which her female guests were supposed to bring along their gay friends to “drink and kiki.” But as one of “the gays” pointed out to NeNe’s guests, “it’s kinda like your white friend sayin’ bring your best black friend.” Hmm! (Season 10, episode 4) Further north, in RHONY, Sonja, who was once married to one of Morgan Stanley’s co-founder's son, threw a house party for her gays, because she “love[s] spending time with [her] gays.” And “when they come, [she’s] more vulgar, more ridiculous than them.” Who knew that gay men were ridiculous to begin with! According to Sonja, her gays are all about “living in the moment, let’s have fun, let’s laugh, and let’s get laid.” This in sharp contrast to her female co-starts, whom she describes as judgmental. (Season 10, episode 2) In short, being a woman of a certain class entails having your very own coterie of “gays” whom (wait, they’re objects!) that you can play with to feel better.

Second, owning and running a business for which you do practically nothing but pretend to be incredibly busy is part of being a classy woman. In RHOBH, Dorit launched a swimwear line named "Beverly Beach." In the show, Dorit tells others that she’s incredibly busy, and we get glimpses of her making slight adjustments to her designers’ sketches—crossing out what she doesn’t like, critiquing samples on live models, and profusely worrying about meeting the deadline for the premier fashion show. But since other people complete the majority of the design and administrative work, we see that Dorit has enough time for a girls trip to Germany with her costars. (Season 8, episode 15) Personally, I can’t recall the last time I took an oversees vacation right before a pressing deadline. Meanwhile, in the South, Porsha Williams, the former wife of a NFL player, continues “running” her hair extensions business, and contemplates opening a hair salon. Although she has “never ran a salon before, never had one, just visited one as a patron,” she’s hoping to open a hair salon in three months. She doesn't care about the minutia of business, like whether it’s “better to have [stylists] do the booth rent, or is it better to have them on commission.” After all, that’s what your “team” will figure out. (RHOA Season 10, episode 3) Thus, being a woman of a certain class means running and managing a business where your greatest contribution is lending your name, and where you're able to take credit for work of others.

Third, setting aside professionalism when engaging with one’s employees goes hand-in-hand with being a classy woman. For example, Lisa Vanderpump, a restaurateur with an estimated net worth of $75 million, likes reminding her employees who’s boss in the RHOBH cross-over series Vanderpump Rules. Has your boss ever described you as a “lost puppy,” or made sexual innuendos at your expense after agreeing to give you a second shot? Lisa has. Being a classy women also entails reminding your employees that you write their paychecks and referring to them as "bitches" when appropriate. Well, at least that’s what we can learn about class from Grammy Award winner Kandi Burruss of RHOA.

Admittedly, I can’t afford to engage in conspicuous leisure or consumption like the RH women can. But in my milieu referring to gay men as “the gays,” taking credit for others’ work, and mistreating employees hardly signals having class. And while there are other examples of recurring themes in the RH series that provide insight into what it means to have class today, these three examples help elucidate one point: but for being wealthy, individuals wouldn't be regarded as classy.

Thank you "Real Housewives" for shedding light on the illusion of high class performance.

Immigration as a wedge issue

With the 2018 midterms approaching, Trump is doubling down on one of his key campaign issues: immigration.

Last week, President Trump tweeted almost every day about immigration. He tweeted about Democrats being weak on borders and thus weak on "drugs and crime," about a rumored "caravan" of migrants heading toward the southern US border, and renewed criticisms of DACA.

Trump's remarks about immigration weren't confined to Twitter. On Thursday, Trump visited West Virginia to meet with 200 of his supporters. The original plan was for him to deliver a speech on the Republican party's recent tax reform bill. Instead, Trump threw away his "boring" prepared remarks and delivered a rambling speech focused on U.S. immigration policies, while also referencing a purported Democratic conspiracy to secure immigrant votes. Within the past month, Trump and his administration have also sharply criticized sanctuary cities (going as far as filing a lawsuit against California for its sanctuary city policies), authorized the deployment of 4,000 National Guard troops to the U.S./Mexico border, and re-added a citizenship question to the 2020 census (a move critics fear will result in diminished federal funding for needy communities).

This is nothing new for Trump. His 2016 presidential campaign capitalized on anti-immigrant rhetoric. However, it's interesting that instead of focusing on the biggest legislative "success" of his presidency (the tax bill), or speaking to kitchen-table economic issues central to his working-class base, he remains focused on the wedge issue of immigration. Why?

Philip Bump of the Washington Post has a hypothesis - this is Trump's tactic to further alienate white working-class voters from the Democratic party. First, Bump points to various polls showing that a majority of Americans  have positive or neutral views about immigrants. Most Americans are anti border wall, and support DACA. Bump then points to one group with higher-than-average negative views on immigration: the white working-class. Noting that a third of Democrats are working-class whites Bump goes on to say:

Maybe this is the intended goal: further drive a wedge between working-class white Democrats and the party’s advocacy of immigrant issues. Seek to build his base by reinforcing the issue central to his appeal at the beginning of his campaign.

William A. Galston, writing for the Wall Street Journal, agrees that Trump is using immigration to galvanize the white working-class. He argues that to court these voters, many of whom have fallen victim to Trump's brand of anti-immigrant populism, Democrats should back away from more liberal immigration policies and instead embrace moderate (or even conservative) immigration reforms.

Defenders of liberal democracy should acknowledge that controlling borders is a legitimate exercise of sovereignty, and that the appropriate number and type of immigrants is a legitimate subject for debate. Denouncing citizens concerned about immigration as bigots ameliorates neither the substance nor the politics of the problem. There’s nothing illiberal about the view that too many immigrants stress a country’s capacity to absorb them, so that a reduction or even a pause may be in order.

While I agree with Galston that calling people bigots is not an effective or persuasive tactic to woo working-class whites, I don't agree that reducing or pausing immigration is a valid alternative. While I believe it's worthwhile to reach out to white working-class voters, I can't support immigration policies that are illogical at best and harmful at worst.

Immigrants do not steal American jobs. There is evidence that America's economy actually benefits from immigrant workers and entrepreneurs. In fact, many economists believe that the country will need immigrant workers to make up a labor shortage as the baby boomer population ages.  While some argue that immigrant labor reduces the wages of blue collar workers, research suggests that automation, globalization, the death of unions, and bad government policies have played a much greater role. Where crime is concerned, research shows that "immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than the native-born and that overall crimes rates decline in areas where immigrants settle." Finally, and perhaps most importantly, immigration policy implicates a number of human rights issues.  For some, immigration is more than an economic decision - it is a life or death decision.

The Democrats' approach to immigration must be rooted in facts. Furthermore, immigration policy should uphold our traditional American values. As Professor Gabriel Chin stated in a recent talk at King Hall:

"[E]xtreme proposals for immigration restriction are as un-American as they are unwise. . . . this country is, as it should be, a nation of immigrants, a nation of nations [and] the first universal nation. Immigration has always been the goose that has laid the golden eggs for the United States. It’s also served as a moral model for the rest of the world.”

So what immigration policies should Democrats propose to assuage working-class whites' economic (and perhaps cultural) anxieties while still staying true to our American ideals of multiculturalism and strength rooted in diversity?

If I had my way we would modernize and expand our visa system to reflect the realities of a 21st century economy; support smart border policies (hint: "the wall" is not one of them); strengthen penalties for those employers who hire illegal workers and, arguably, depress blue collar wages; and create a path to citizenship for those immigrants already within the United States. However, the answer may lie, not in bickering over the nuances of our immigration message, but in highlighting other more salient economic issues. As Ruy Teixeira suggests in a recent Vox piece, Democrats will never be able to win over die-hard, anti-immigration Trump voters with detailed immigration policy proposals. Instead, Teixeira advocates for courting working-class whites on the political/ideological margins with a simple counter-message that will override the salience of immigration altogether: jobs, jobs, jobs.

Teixeira advocates for a "bold" public jobs initiative, reminiscent of the New Deal, that will help to rebuild infrastructure and staff community institutions like schools and childcare centers - "a signature offering" that would reflect the well-documented reality that "infrastructure and community investments are popular across the lines of party and class."

Not only would a major jobs program appeal to the white working-class, it would likely appeal to Latinx voters who rated the economy as the most important issue of the 2016 election. It would also serve as a strong contrast to Trump, whose immigration proposals focus on fear-mongering and nationalist grandstanding rather than actual solutions. That is the type of platform that help unite the white working-class and other traditional liberal voters behind the Democrats in 2020.

Self-care as a privilege

I struggled to decide on a topic for my last blog of the White Working Class and Law semester.   I expressed my troubles to Professor Pruitt and she suggested this article as a possible place to start. The article is the story of the author’s trip to

the most stereotypical bastions of coastal liberal elitism, [to] ask the people... whether they still support Hillary Clinton.  An innocent abroad, I would leave Hamilton County, Indiana, a deep-red suburb north of Indianapolis that Trump won by nearly 20 points... Once on the decadent East Coast, I would luxuriate in its undiluted upscale liberal consensus at bookstores, wine bars, cafes and other Blue State institutions peopled by NPR tote-bagging sophisticates...in counties Hillary won by at least 60 percent or more of the vote.

The author interviewed people who voted for Hillary and discovered that almost all of them still support her (and still really hate Trump).   The author also observed that “Clinton Country” had almost nothing in common with “Trump Country”, and does not really care to change that.   There are many possible interesting topics Professor Pruitt had in mind when she suggested I use this article for my final blog post.   The thing that stood out to me in the article, though, was the privilege of the people the author talks about.   The author makes sure you cannot miss it.   He portrayed people in Hillary Country as being obsessed with SoulCycle, Kombucha, farm-to-table restaurants, and curating healthy energy and spirituality.   Arguably, the article is about the privilege of self-care.

Acknowledging that I may be stepping into over-generalizations of both groups, I started to think about what seems to be a current cultural obsession with self-care.  People on social media love to brag about what they are doing (and buying) to care for themselves (going to SoulCycle classes, downing glasses of Kombucha, eating only organic farm-to table food, and doing whatever it takes to maintain a positive energy??).  Apparently there are at least 1.4 million photos hashtagged #selfcare on Instagram. 

A study by the Pew Research Center found that “millennials” 

spend twice as much as boomers on self-care essentials such as workout regimens, diet plans, life coaching, therapy, and apps to improve their personal well-being.

Self-care is now a $10 billion industry.  The notion of self care has a long history in our nation - which may be tied to our ideas of individuality - but today, 

the irony of the grand online #selfcare-as-politics movement of 2016 is that it was powered by straight, affluent white women, who, although apparently feeling a new vulnerability in the wake of the election, are not traditionally the segment of American society in the greatest need of affirmation.

Perhaps those in greatest need of self-care are those for whom it seems the most unattainable and those who feel the most alienated by its commercialization. 

In reading the article about liberal coastal elites in Hillary Country, I noticed how differently they are portrayed than the white working class Trump Country we have spent so much time discussing.   I thought about the story of the young man in Virginia who had to beg on the street because, 

five days earlier, his mother had spent the last of her disability check on bologna, cheese, bread, and Pepsi. 

I thought about how so many of the white working class struggle just to afford health and dental care, and about the growing numbers of deaths of despair.   Unlike people in the regions hardest hit by the deaths of despair – deaths from suicide, drug overdoses, and alcohol related deaths – coastal liberal elites have the privilege to take (and afford) a mental health day to sit in a bubble bath and sip on a glass of wine.  On his the 72-hour journey through Hillary Country, the author observed that everyone he 

met seemed to be financially well off, a sign of just how much money is still sloshing into the pockets of Blue America.

All if this is not to say that self-care is unimportant and, there are many ways to care for oneself that cost little to nothing: 

drink water, eat something, work out, go outside, take a shower. 

Yet, at a minimum, any type of self care requires resources that are hard to come by due to the demands of the working class lifestyle: spare time and human capital. 

Perhaps self-care just looks different for those in the white working class, and they are criticized for it.   The mother of the young man in Virginia, mentioned above, does not work and receives disability for anxiety and depression. She imagines what people must say about her: 

Why couldn’t she work? Why did she buy soda and cigarettes when they needed food? How could she afford the Internet and cable TV bills on a $500 monthly disability check? She would sometimes consider how she would answer. She would say that cigarettes and soda make hard days a little easier. That television is just about her only connection to a world that hasn’t seemed to want her anymore.   

Whatever happened to, "Treat Yo' Self"?   Maybe what criticizers really mean is, "Treat Yo' Self and practice self-care, as long as its not on the government's dime! And don't expect us to feel sorry for you in the meantime."

"Queering" the white working class

This week we took time to read and discuss pieces about white working-class women. The rumination on gender in relation to class made me pause and consider another facet of the white working-class: its LGBT members.

Thus far this semester, discussion of how the LGBT community and the white working-class community intersect has been limited. For the most part, in class and in the media, LGBT issues are treated as unimportant (or, at best, peripheral) to the white working-class. They are seen as distractions from key economic concerns, or as wedge issues that alienate homophobic/transphobic (or, to be more charitable, religious conservative) white working-class individuals from a Democratic Party that has, at least traditionally, better represented its economic interests. Pundit Mark Lilla has called Hillary Clinton's explicit LGBT outreach a "strategic mistake." Professor Joan Williams referred to "sexualities" as an elite interest. Lilla and Williams, like many other commentators, seem to agree that to focus on LGBT issues such as gay marriage and transgender bathroom access is to engage in "identity politics" - a tenuous strategy that led to Democratic electoral defeat among white working-class voters in 2016.

I concede that perceived "niche" LGBT issues are unlikely to garner overwhelming support from working-class whites. However, as a member of the LGBT community, I am not about to ask my queer peers to take a backseat in the political dialogue. Perhaps one way working-class whites and the LGBT community can find common ground is through renewed focus on their shared economic concerns. In particular, I think it worthwhile to highlight that a large number of LGBT people are  working-class (and white!) and struggling for economic survival.

Popular culture paints gays and lesbians - and even certain transgender people like Caitlyn Jenner- as well-off, financially secure, and politically powerful. Some academics and journalists have referred to this stereotype as the "myth of gay affluence;" and even well-educated Supreme Court Justices aren't immune to the stereotype. In Romer v. Evans, an important Supreme Court gay rights case, Justice Antonin Scalia commented that “[t]hose who engage in homosexual conduct tend to reside in disproportionate numbers in certain communities" (read: urban elite enclaves) and that gays and lesbians have "high disposable income." He went on to say that gays and lesbians "possess political power much greater than their numbers" and that they use this power to advocate for "not merely a grudging social toleration, but full social acceptance, of homosexuality."

The misconception that LGBT people are riding high on the hog obscures a less fabulous reality. As a 2016 piece in The Advocate succinctly states: "poverty is an LGBT issue." Due to a number of factors - including employment/housing discrimination, school harassment, lack of family support, and insufficient/inconsistent legal protection for LGBT individuals and families - LGBT men and women have lower average incomes and suffer from disproportionately high poverty rates when compared to their straight counterparts. For LGBT men and women who are employed, the jobs are often "working class." For example, gay men are more likely than straight men to be pushed into working class jobs like teaching, secretarial work, and nursing. Additionally, there is a long history of working-class lesbians and transmen engaging in traditionally "masculine" blue-collar professions like industrial/factory labor and construction work (For a seminal semi-autobiographical LGBT novel on the intersection of blue collar work and lesbians/transmen, I strongly recommend reading Leslie Feinberg's Stone Butch Blues. Feinberg defined hirself as "an anti-racist white, working-class, secular Jewish, transgender, lesbian, female, revolutionary communist," and her work reflects all of these identities. The entire book is available free online and it's excellent!).

The white working-class might be forgiven for not realizing that LGBT folks can be working-class and have working-class economic concerns. Many young and/or "elite" LGBT people might not even realize it themselves. LGBT interest groups and figureheads do not frequently focus on class and economic issues in their high-profile fundraising campaigns and press releases. Some have even argued that in recent years, the LGBT community has "turned its head and looked the other way" in regards to the working-class and labor rights. However, this perceived gap between the interests of the white working-class and the LGBT community hasn't always existed. Historically (since at least the 1930's) the LGBT and working-class communities have been strong allies. One of the first gay rights organizations in the U.S., the Mattachine Society, was founded by a longshoreman and union member. Gay icon Harvey Milk allied with Teamsters to successfully organize a national boycott of Coors, a partnership that aided Milk's election as San Francisco Supervisor. Labor unions and the LGBT community worked together to defeat the Briggs Initiative (meant to bar gay teachers from public schools) in California. Finally, many union contracts with anti-discrimination provisions have historically protected gay, lesbian, and trans workers where federal and state laws have not.

If Step #1 of reconciling the white working class and the LGBT community is demonstrating their history of collaboration and common cause, then Step #2 is finding a practical and actionable way to bridge the cultural gap that has grown between the two groups in recent years. Luckily, this is already being done by LGBT organizers and politicians in working-class communities around the country, not just in urban elite ones!

Danica Roem is one such example. In 2017, Roem became the first openly transgender person elected to serve as a state legislator. She was elected to represent Virginia's 13th House of Delegates District, which consists largely of Manassas Park, a "working-class commuter city" where many of the city's 16,000 residents are service workers who "juggle long work hours and lengthy commutes." She defeated a 13-term Republican incumbent, self-proclaimed "homophobe in chief" Bob Marshall. While Roem didn't shy away from her transgender identity, she focused her campaign primarily on local issues like traffic, jobs, and schools. She was also endorsed by working-class darling Joe Biden. By comparison, her opponent Marshall was accused of focusing more on divisive identity politics and conservative "values" than local issues that truly affected working voters in the district.

Roem illustrates that when LGBT politicians highlight commonalities, rather than differences, inroads can be made. Her campaign also suggests that LGBT individuals can appeal to working-class communities without sacrificing or hiding their sexual orientation or gender identity. Finally, her campaign shows that identity politics aren't just a Democrat failing, but can backfire for Republicans courting the white working-class as well.