Are Gay Men Better at the Arts and Fashion than Straight Men?
By Andy Heath
I was watching the Apprentice featuring Donald Trump one evening, which used to be one of my favorite shows. If you're not familiar with the Apprentice, Donald Trump gave would-be apprentices assignments every week to complete, and they contestants competed with each other on teams to do the best work. One of the members on the losing team would be asked to leave the show, and this continued until there was just one contestant left, who was declared the Apprentice of Donald Trump for one year to be paid a fat salary.
Although over the years there were occasionally gay people on this show, on one particular evening one of the assignments involved developing some outfits for the fashion industry, and there were only straight men on one of the teams.
I remember that one of the gay designers working with these men commented, much to the amusement of everyone around him, that he had never heard of any successful straight male fashion designers.
So that begs the question, why aren't there many? Is it because straight men are so afraid of going into a field that is typical of gay men because they're homophobic, or is there some merit to the argument that gay men are just naturally better in the arts and fashion than their straight counterparts?
I have argued before that gays and lesbians are no better than straight people, and that is true. There are plenty of straight male artists and writers in the world, so we gays do not hold a monopoly on the arts. Still the question that runs through my mind is, Why aren't there more straight men in the fashion industry, and in other industries typically associated with gay men.
I think the answer does, in fact, lie with homophobia. Straight men's family and friends would chastise them if they were ever to say that they wanted to be fashion designers, writers, artists, etc. So these straight men, beaten down because of their career interests, instead go into fields such as business, insurance, banking, medicine, and other fields where they feel more comfortable being what they perceive as "real men."
That's too bad. How many potentially great artists has the world lost simply because the artist was too afraid to go into the field due to homophobia? It's also too bad that gay men hold a monopoly on this area of the arts due to straight men's fears. I hope at some point straight men can be… well… man enough to pursue their interests without allowing society to intimidate them into being something that they are not - I hope straight men will eventually find the courage to be the artists they can be.
