Fuck an A

[Arnold Zwicky]

i'm shifting the topic a bit here, away from the internal structure of
this expression (which i'll now refer to neutrally as "f-a") and
towards its social functions.  i take f-a to be part of what i think
of as a "man's man" repertoire of behaviors.  (at first, i used the
label "hypermasculine", but that suggests a more conscious display
than i think is going on here.)  it goes along with using "brew" to
refer to a beer, high frequencies of -in' for -ing, aggressive
kidding, other linguistic phenomena, and a variety of non-linguistic
behaviors (like leg-jiggling).  i've known a fair number of men with
this style (including a columbus neighbor who was a construction
worker).  it's not comfortable as a style for me, though; on me it
would seem like deliberate "butching it up" (or, perhaps, "butchin' it
up").

zak spears presents himself as a man's man (in all ways except his
sexuality, which is flagrantly and enthusiastically off the masculine
norm).  f-a is just part of that presentation.  actually, it might
well be that spears is not just acting the part of a man's man (except
for that sexuality thing) on screen, but that this is his everyday
presentation of self.  (i once had a boyfriend who was, with the
exception already noted, a man's man.)

gay personals ads frequently include codings - "straight-acting" and
"regular guy", especially - that refer to normative masculinity but
often point beyond it to a man's man style.  my partner jacques and i
both have enough masculinity points that we pretty much have to *tell*
people we're gay (a fact we both find astonishing), but we're pretty
sure we fail to count as straight-acting regular guys for the purposes
of these ads.

i have a friend who uses pieces of the man's man style - in
particular, f-a - to mock (a) gay men he thinks are inauthentically
butching it up, (b) gay men who've put down other gay men they find
"faggy" (that is, not sufficiently masculine), and (c) gay men
expressing misogynistic views.  Fear of Femininity is what unites
these guys, and charlie can make them surprisingly uncomfortable by
instantly turning into a tough-talkin' man's man.  (it's so not him.)

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu), noting that there are plenty
  of man's men (including my columbus neighbor and my old boyfriend)
  who are not pigs; The Man Show is not a documentary