VOICESOF THE NEW MASCULINITY
VOICES OF THE NEW MASCULINITY
VOICES OF THE NEW MASCULINITY
I think is noble and good and doesn’t need
to only be practiced by men. There are
aspects of masculinity that we all exhibit.
It almost feels strange to say that,
because masculinity has been so
demonized. It almost feels like you
have to come up with a different word
or rebrand it.
Are there advantages in the comedy
world to being perceived as masculine?
Are there disadvantages?
There are pros and cons. Audiences
will let me talk about things other than
my sexuality.
On the flip side, when I do start talking
about gay stuff, sometimes I think people
want more of an explanation. I did one
super-small house show in St. Louis back
in 2016, and I mentioned I had a boyfriend.
Afterward, one person in the audience was
like, “Look, man, a little advice: That really
caught me off guard.” As much as people
complain about identitarian comedy,
it’s necessary up until people stop having
normative views of everything.
Much of your comedy touches on
aspects of identity that are charged.
Does humor change how people
hear these things?
A lot of the things I joke about are things
that at one moment really felt like
existential questions I was grappling
with. I started doing comedy when I was
- I was coming into who I was as a human
being, just figuring out all these different
aspects of me. And every time I would write
a joke and it would hit, it would feel like
a lock had turned. All of these disparate
or chaotic or brooding thoughts had all
just coalesced into a really tight joke. Into
something that I could show to people and
then hear laughter and be like, “Okay, I’m
not crazy to be thinking these things.” Not
to say that the shit I was doing when I was
19 was cutting-edge. [laughs] But to me,
those realizations meant a lot.
97 %
of those surveyed say
expectations for male
behavior have changed
in the past 10 years.
38 %
of those surveyed
say they’ve changed
drastically.
27 %
of men who’ve noticed
changes say they’re
uncomfortable or very
uncomfortable with them.
100%
A. Vulnerable
B. Dominant
7% 7%
0%
Which of the following
words do you associate
with “masculinity”?
The State of
Masculinity Now:
A GQ Survey
To find out how
perceptions and behaviors
are shifting, we polled
1,005 Americans who
identify as male, female,
or gender nonbinary,
asking them some pretty
wide-ranging questions
about what they see and
how they feel.
38%
52%
M W
A AB B
Photograph by Matt Martin
Styled by Taryn Bensky
of men have had a
sexual encounter
with a person of the
same gender.
of men have seen
their fathers cry.
12%
54%
NOVEMBER 2019 GQ.COM 85
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