I recently viewed Christopher Hines’s documentary The Butch Factor, described

Director Christopher Hines paints an intimate portrait of contemporary gay culture by asking pointed questions and studying the diverse lifestyles of its members, with the resulting film offering a fresh look at masculinity and homosexuality. Interviewing gay men ranging from rugby players to rodeo stars, Hines also talks to historians, psychologists and sociologists to help identify the similarities in the way gay men view themselves.

I didn’t perceive much balance between different sorts of gay men in this film. My hope was that it would be an exploration of what homomasculinity means personally for a variety of gay men, but comes off as more a defense of gay culture. “See, we’re not all limp-wristed, screaming queens! We play football, we’re cops, we ride bulls!” (Excuse the hyperbole.) The viewer is presented with personal statements from a coterie of very “butch,” athletic gay men that would fit into masculine stereotypes in both the straight and gay cultures, presented as to seem so masculine that their sexuality is surprising.

These profiles are contrasted with three “femmie” gay men. Their personal statements revolve around struggles they’ve had being perceived as un-masculine, but only perceived as such by straight men applying homosexual stereotypes. How have other gay men perceived them? With the same stereotypes? Do other gay men always assume them to be gay? And what does masculinity mean to them since they aren’t perceived as masculine? They don’t even seem to label themselves as masculine, and why not? What meaning does that have? Is the fascination with masculinity limited to only a few gay subcultures?

The closest the film seems to get in exploring homomasculinity is a brief look at bear culture, which, according to the film, centers around celebration and obsession of masculine stereotypes. I would have liked to see at least one profile of leather culture. (There are a few tantalizing images of leathermen celebrating at, what appears to be, the Folsom Street Fair, but none of them talk.) This is the subculture which seems to have the most focus on defining what homomasculinity is, including its extension to Dominant/submissive relationships. (The film claims to explore what it means to be “butch” or “masculine” in gay culture, but what it’s really trying to explore has more to do with homomasculinity, cf. Jack Fritscher.) Questions of what masculinity means in terms of top/bottom roles in gay culture can well be informed by investigating D/s roles, both of which are perceived as highly masculine.