exhale Britney: Queer Icon

[Guest]

Britney Spears and the Complex Art of being a Gay Icon

Spoiler

Britney Spears and the Complex Art of being a Gay Icon

Lizzi Sandell  |  August 28, 2018

What makes a gay icon? Following a religious experience at a Britney Spears concert this summer, Lizzi Sandell explores the complicated relationship between queer fans and the celebrities they choose to adore.

Britney Spears is a gay icon. Everyone knows this. Britney knows this; that’s why she’s been throwing our community softball straight-to-gay-club bangers like “Womanizer” and capitalist treatise “Work *****” for at least the last ten years. That’s why she just won the 2018 Vanguard Award at GLAAD, which could basically be considered a prize for being a gay icon considering other awardees include Liza Minnelli, Elizabeth Taylor, and Cher. And that’s also why she decided to launch her 2018 world tour at a vast gathering of British gays—with around 50,000 people at the concert, and a further 300,000 traveling to the city for the weekend—Brighton Pride.

 

I was lucky enough to be one of those British gays, and luckier still to be near the front in a cosy Gold Circle spot with its own toilets, meaning that our environ didn’t smell like hot garbage until around 9pm. By that point, I was too drunk on warm festival wine to mind anyway, and busy feeling actual chills at seeing Britney onstage and living her best life—or at least, a pretty good life, certainly better than lives she’s lived previously, but one that still seems palpably tenuous. When you’re defined by fame, youth, beauty, an era, what happens when those things, catalyzed by scandal and poor mental health, start to feel like a thing of the past—a thing we’re reminiscing about rather than actually living?

 

Watching Britney perform was bittersweet, existing somewhere between elation at seeing a familiar performer and the eeriness of finding her somehow changed beyond her years. It felt like experiencing the gay icon phenomenon writ large, and I thought about the complex honor of being considered one. The overwhelming sense among my friends and in the crowd was one of identification with Britney’s emotional journey, and a genuine desire for her to do well. But, looking at her, I also saw her celebrity wearing on her; gun-shy, grabbed at and hounded for too long, Britney obviously no longer felt comfortable hugging the fan she brought up on stage to dance with her, but was able to theatrically spank him with a leather whip in a strange estimation of intimacy.

 

 

The first thing my (gay, male) friend commented when she walked on—3 minutes early, I hasten to add—was, “She looks good!” with more than a hint of surprise in his voice. This shouldn’t be surprising; Britney is only 36 years old, with a net worth of over $200 million, and we only have to look at Susan Sarandon, JK Rowling, or Jane Fonda to know that money has the ability to freeze the hands of time if not actively reverse them. But, of course, we are surprised. We know the many lives Britney has lived to be here, and we have lived them with her, with the kind of intimacy that only comes from watching someone bust a car window with an umbrella.

 

She does look good. She’s in great shape, and performed for an hour and a half of high-energy dance routines during which she barely stopped moving (except for between every three songs when she momentarily left the stage, when we cruelly joked she was being defibrillated). The gig was brimming with nostalgia; listening to early hits like “…Baby One More Time,” which she mashed up with the similarly oddly-punctuated classic “Oops!…I Did It Again” (the 90s were full of weird ellipses) brought me back to seeing the video on The Box for the very first time and having the earliest of many confusing sapphic admiration/female emulation moments. That song turns 20 this year.

 

It’s not as though I haven’t been to other nostalgia-heavy gigs since becoming old enough to revel in nostalgia. I saw Blink-182 headline a festival in 2010 (who, in case you’re wondering, still think it’s funny to replace any lyric with the word “butt”), and I saw 5ive (Britain’s answer to the Backstreet Boys) at a weirdly ***** middle-aged reunion gig a few years back. But one question lingered during Britney’s gig, this decidedly more feminine experience, one that didn’t cross my mind during other trips down musical memory lane: is she happy?

 

Why does this question plague me? Why does her success seem precarious? Is it because we all know she still doesn’t control her own money, living under the “conservatorship” of her parents? Is it because she seems to have given up touching her fans, and singing live? Is it because she seems just a little, tiny bit spaced out, and her smile just a little bit tight?

 

 

Besides, why do I care so much? I’m not a Britney stan—or part of the “Britney Army” as it’s known on the Internet—I’m just a #90skid who was regularly woken up by her Furby screaming and loudly moving its mechanical beak or whatever. I was actually too tomboyish as a child to earnestly buy in to Spearsdom, and as early as 2002, I can remember kids at my school changing the lyrics to her ill-fated single “I Love Rock ’n’ Roll” to “I hate Britney Spears” at a school disco. I’m not sure that it was every really cool to like Britney, except to a certain sort of girl at school who didn’t like me because I insisted on wearing the same pair of orange Umbro shorts to school every day. But as we (me and Britney) have aged, she has taken on new meaning to me.

 

A week before Pride, I was having dinner with my wife, mum, grandma, and two close friends who also happen to be a lesbian couple. Miraculously, we were all getting on very well; I’m finally at that age when mixing friends with family (i.e. proper adults) is actually a viable thing to do, but it still can be excruciating and there are still huge generational gaps to fill. But nan was telling us charming non-sequitur stories and everyone was having a nice time and I felt sincerely lucky—and not in a “This is a story about a girl named Lucky” sort of way—that I was able to introduce my family to not just my life but my gay life, especially as my wife and I had recently been snubbed by my other grandmother at a wedding.

 

I like to think occasions like this are a good learning experience for my family, who are entirely accepting of the gay thing but occasionally miss the mark. In light of the upcoming Britney gig, we got to discussing what makes a gay icon. I’m not sure that my family understood why we were so excited to see this not-quite-relevant pop star. “Do you actually like her music?” my mum asked incredulously (she also hates Madonna.) “Is Britney gay?” said my grandma. Obviously no, but it did get me thinking about why our icons are who they are—why they are usually female, and usually violently straight.

 

Historically, we’ve chosen Bette Midler, Barbra Streisand, and Judy Garland over people who were actually gay (who were then mostly men and mostly conspicuously out or only rumored to be) or people who explicitly played with gender roles. More recently, in these tolerant times, we’ve given queer musician and notorious girlfriend-swapper St. Vincent the title of “celesbian” rather than gay icon, and lesbian pop star (a previously unknown entity) Hayley Kiyoko a new moniker entirely: lesbian jesus. Singer Miley Cyrus, pansexual and non-binary, complicates the narrative; she probably is a gay icon in the making, but I can’t help but think that it has more to do with the very public disaster of growing up Disney, having weird daddy issues, and that “Blurred Lines” moment, than the time she fingered Stella Maxwell after a Victoria’s Secret show (which was awesome, by the way).

 

I’ve always thought that being a gay icon had something to do with tragedy and perseverance.

 

It also seems to encompass a certain relationship to femininity: overt, often exaggerated, somehow flawed. It plays into other concepts like drag culture, camp, gender identity, performing sexuality… I suppose the LGBTQ community sees itself reflected in these complex, glamorous, imperfect, and very public female experiences, and that we recognize the double-bind of being a woman in the public eye. Queer sexuality can make us conspicuous, trapped between satisfying people’s expectations of queerdom while avoiding limiting stereotypes, navigating our own desires around those of society at large. Being the gay kid at school can be a little like being a starlet, noticed and notorious. That’s why we are drawn to the most fabulous but also the most conflicted figures.

 

Joan Crawford and Bette Davis

 

This could be considered the “Mommie Dearest” effect. The release of Joan Crawford’s daughter’s 1978 “tell-all” memoir, which alleged that the Hollywood star was an alcoholic and abusive parent, did little to diminish her popularity as a gay figure; indeed, I would go as far as to say that it improved it. Joan Crawford is a mainstay of drag act emulation and camp movie events, and unflattering portrayals by Faye Dunaway, and more sympathetically, Jessica Lange have only secured her place in the gay pantheon. Spun a certain way, this can seem sinister. Could it be that Britney’s substance abuse problems, and legal trouble over her own children (she lost custody in 2007 and, over a decade later, it’s still only partially restored) actually endeared us to her more? Does that mean that we wanted her to fail?

 

I’ve struggled with this—the idea that the gay community, so readily dominated culturally by white, gay men, somehow thrives on sacrificial womanhood. But identification with failure and will for failure are not the same thing. The resonance of these negative aspects of our icons derives, surely, from a sense of collective societal exclusion and emotional damage, rather than a vulturous lust for tragedy. As things improve for us culturally (in some parts of the world), imperfectly and haphazardly, perhaps our attitudes towards gay icons will change and broaden too; while we will continue to hold up troubled stars like Demi Lovato, there is perhaps now room for more untroubled allies like Ariana Grande to exist and be celebrated as gay icons on a less complicated platform.

 

Over time, the relationship between Britney and her gay fans has become reciprocally loving and supportive in a way that is moving; Britney shed a tear during curtain-call in Brighton, and she wasn’t the only one. Nostalgia is frowned upon in these politically fraught times, but if we can begin to heal our collective trauma through music and the personal triumphs of our gay icons, lifting up those who champion us, we can all be stronger (than yesterday).

 

Lizzi Sandell is a British writer and an editor at powerHouse Books in New York.

Spoiler

 

 

 

Quote

BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour Podcast: What makes Britney Spears so iconic?

4 minutes  |  To listen click on the link above)  |  August 20, 2018 

 

This autumn will mark the 20th anniversary of Britney Spears' first single, "...Baby One More Time". It was the track that turned the then-teenage singer into a star. She's had numerous pop hits, and a very public meltdown, but she's still hailed as the Princess of Pop. Music journalist Sarah Carson and journalist Owen Myers tell us what makes her so special and how she's become a gay icon.

 

It’s Still Britney, *****: Growing Up and Getting Old With Britney Spears

Spoiler

It’s Still Britney, *****: Growing Up and Getting Old With Britney Spears

Kevin Fallon  |  July 24, 2018

A fan reflects on watching Britney Spears perform her greatest hits in Atlantic City two decades into her career—on age, legacy, divadom, and angst in a casino near the boardwalk.

I was quite hungover when I ran into Britney Spears’ manager in line for an Auntie Anne’s pretzel at a rest stop in New Jersey.

I couldn’t tell if he, Larry Rudolph, her manager through most of her career, was as well. Or if he could tell that I was staring, following him to his car, and peering in the window to see if Ms. Spears was there, too. After all, we were traveling from and to the same places: from the Borgata Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, where the pop star just performed three shows in her Piece of Me tour, to New York City, where she is performing two nights at Radio City Music Hall.

I am sure she will be great there, but not as great as she was in Atlantic City. Because, you see, I have come to the decision that the perfect place to see Britney Spears in the year 2018 is Atlantic City.

It’s a perfect match of aesthetics, of place, of star, and of fans. Silly and kitsch, but impassioned and joyous. Once regal, but still a gem of a good time. **** and risqué, but performatively so. An ambitious night out, but on a manageable scale. Not so glam as Las Vegas, but still glitzy. And, most importantly, close to me but without the outrageous ticket prices of Radio City. Plus, more alcohol.

I deeply feel much of what the Piece of Me Tour is and represents: a survey of one’s greatest hits, a celebration of the highs and lows of a life, performed while both clinging to that youth and relishing that those days are behind you—the world is gonna get and have to love the version of you that you give them. With Spears, that version is still pretty great! That body! That smile! That endearing goofiness!

This was my second time seeing Spears perform Piece of Me, having seen her do it near the end of her four-year Las Vegas residency. Before that, I had last seen her in 2001 as a 14-year-old at the Dream Within a Dream tour—her best, according to Spears scholars (and my friend Joe).

I was there with my twin brother, who was the appropriate amount of embarrassed to be at a Britney Spears concert as a straight teenage boy, but also excited because it was a freaking Britney Spears concert. We sat behind two “really old men” and thought it was “so weird” that they were at a Britney Spears show. In hindsight, I realize that they were about the same age I am now and a gay couple, thus it was totally understandable that they were at a concert for a pop star on the cusp of becoming a gay icon.

At the Borgata on Saturday night, Joe and I sat behind a mom and her two middle school-aged girls. She said “it was a hoot” to be near us during the show while her daughters looked on and giggled. We were those really old men. I became an Old Gay at the Britney Spears concert in Atlantic City. It couldn’t have happened in a better place.

Spears seemed to love being in Atlantic City. She pushed through a 102-degree fever on her opening night. (I hear it didn’t affect her voice much, wink, wink.) She posted a video on Instagram go-karting with her sons, and one concert-goer said she saw Spears on the boardwalk, where she was more than happy to stop and chat.

There was a Britney Spears lookalike contest at Borgata’s Gypsy Bar—one woman flew in from New Orleans to compete; she did not win—and go-go dancers dressed in indelible Spears looks (the “Toxic” bodysuit, the red “Oops!... I Did It Again” catsuit) showed up in the roughly 400 photos I took whilst too drunk at the Premier Nightclub. Shows for performers with massive fan bases are always more fun at destination casinos because the entire night doubles as a fan convention.

In a video that went viral from Instagram user @zacharygordon95, the Britney fan screamed “WHO IS IT!??” right before Spears recited her iconic “It’s Britney, *****” line. She visibly laughed and nodded at him, before delivering the line to the raucous screams of the crowd.

The question I get asked most after I see any concert is, “Did they talk to the audience at all?” which is in itself an indictment of how overly produced concert tours have become. Britney Spears did, once.

“What’s up, Atlantic City?!” she said. “This place reminds me of Louisiana. Are you ready to break the ice?”

I now know what it sounds like to hear 2,000 gays say “Huh?” at the exact same time.

Does it make any sense? No! Was it iconic? Yes! Did we all forget about it and start screaming again in support of our queen right away? I will never forget, but I did start dancing again immediately.   

The show itself was a breezy, occasionally chaotic 100 minutes. It’s basically a dance show—are you really going to ask if she lip-synched?—and Spears energetically makes her way through relentless choreography that is at once needlessly busy and yet pales in comparison to the moves she used to churn out.

It’s a lot of raising of the arms and lowering of the arms and then snapping and maybe a half-spin to be fancy. She did this thing where her background dancers lift her in the air while she lays like Jesus on the cross approximately 13 times. At one point she literally did a box step.

On the rare occasions when she performed original choreography, like in “Slave 4 U,” she kind of marked it, as if every gay in the audience didn’t know every move by heart and wouldn’t be able to tell. In “Boys” she mimed a choo-choo train and then did jumping jacks.

Still, it’s heartening to see how, well, lucid she is, making each number, particularly “Gimme More,”11 years later, a triumph. While in recent years she’s tended toward over-earnestness in selling a number, here she was cheeky, sassy, and even had a sense of humor, as evidenced in that “Britney, *****” video.

There were certain numbers she was clearly more confident in than others—which is confusing, considering how long she’s been doing this tour—and really came alive, breaking out her best dance moves in “Breathe on Me” and “Make Me (Ooh)” and having the most fun in “Clumsy.” There was a weird Missy Elliott dance party before the final act which, aside from being entirely random, showed off Spears, for all her barely there costumes and the incessant innuendo of her songs, to be a big ole goofball.

“Stronger” into “Crazy” at the end of the show was, for a Spears fan, a religious experience.

It’s all robotic, but in the Westworld-era definition of the word. Every nano-second of the show is orchestrated, down to even when Spears tilts her head to the side, glances at a background dancer, or winks at the audience. She put her hair up in a ponytail early in the show and fiddled with it so often, we felt shades of Bernard glitching. And, with all of the legal drama surrounding her life and autonomy, who knows how much a career decision like a national tour is made of her own free will.

But Spears isn’t just going through the motions; she seems to be genuinely enjoying herself. Sure, the blinding star-power that made Spears such a captivating, often surprising entertainer a decade or so ago has dimmed into a sort of workmanlike execution of a nightly greatest hits medley. Considering how things were going for Spears for a while, it could be a lot worse, and, as we experienced watching Piece of Me at the Borgata, a lot less fun.

More, the show is far better suited to these smaller casino venues, which foster an intimacy on the scale of Spears’s late-career potential, than the massive stadiums she once played in her heyday and which other pop stars are filling now. (Taylor Swift, for what it’s worth, played three nights at MetLife Stadium an hour or two up the road at the same time Spears was in Atlantic City.)

Spears fans don’t have the vocal strength of pre-teen shrieks needed to keep the energy of an arena alive. But what our thirty-something selves lack in that department, we make up for in encyclopedic knowledge of a career and a person whom we have followed obsessively for more than 20 years. We’ve seen her break down and rebuild herself, retreating back to her hits to re-establish a foundation. And foundations don’t come more solid than those hits.

It’s that shared history that Spears and the Piece of Me Tour honor as her career ages alongside her fans, serving as a pop culture class reunion, of sorts, with fans reminiscing about the role Spears’ music played at a formative time in their lives. You feel old, but you also never felt younger. And, in the case of at least one rest stop encounter, you run into people you never imagined you’d see.

Quote

“I deeply feel much of what the Piece of Me Tour is and represents: a survey of one’s greatest hits, a celebration of the highs and lows of a life, performed while both clinging to that youth and relishing that those days are behind you.”

 

Why Lesbians And Bi Women Love Britney Spears

Spoiler

Why Lesbians And Bi Women Love Britney Spears

Jill Gutowitz  |  February 13, 2018

For many ’90s and 2000s women, Britney Spears’ mere existence defined an era in our lives. But for queer women, Britney meant so much more. She sparked a ****** awakening and shaped our adolescence, nudging us toward the ultimate and inevitable conclusion as to why we loved her so much. I’m not saying Britney Spears made an entire generation of women gay (am I?), but I am saying she unmasked our women-loving-women desire.

As a queer woman, I’ve been seeking Amy for years. I was an early stan, from the “Baby One More Time” days of 1998. Her debut album of the same name was the first album I ever badgered my parents to buy for me. I remember bothering my dad to pull over and purchase the influential breakout album at a local Sam Goody, before embarking on our family vacation. We listened to it for the duration of the road tripor at least until my dad’s sanity split in two. For him, it was a long ride. For me, it was just the beginning.

Britney held many firsts for me. When her third studio album, the eponymous Britney, came out in 2001, my parents put a moratorium on the singer. They insisted she had become too promiscuous for my adolescent eyes and ears. Of course, that just made me want her more. In 2003, Britney released her fourth studio album In The Zone, which many laud as her best album musically. With songs like “Toxic” and “Me Against The Music,” Britney-mania eclipsed and swallowed the fandom whole. Of course, 2003 was home to the now-legendary VMA performance where Britney kissed Madonna on live TV (Madonna kissed Christina Aguilera, too, but we as a nation have decided not to care).

Spears, who was 22 at the time, sparked controversy with the on-screen kiss. Everyone had something to sayeven Stevie Nicks said of the performance, “Britney should be smarter than that. Hopefully, she will figure a way out of this hole she has dug for herself.”

But queer women were elated. In 2003, it was rare to see a lesbian kiss on TV, let alone live TV. The performance was an important moment for queer women to witness. The kiss pre-dated The L Word by a year, and before that, on-screen shows of female queerness were limited to PG Willow and Tara kisses on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Rachel’s surprise kiss with a college gal pal on Friends which portrayed lesbianism as a caustic joke. Though obviously exploitative and reliant on the “shock factor” of lesbianism, the Britney and Madonna (and Christina) kiss was no joke: It was ****, and we noticed.

I have a once-buried memory from high school which I recently dusted off and allowed to resurface, years after coming out. As a freshman, I remember watching music videos with my high school tennis team (gay). When “I’m A Slave 4 U” danced across the VH1 countdown, I remember one of my teammates boldly declaring that this music video served as her own ****** awakening. The older girls laughed, but I didn’t get it. That declaration was so shocking to me, because until that moment, I had never heard a girl proudly express ****** desire toward another girl, joking or not.

From that moment on, I thought of Britney, and my female teammate, as the coolest girls in the world (gay). Her declaration haunted me for years until I came out and realized whybecause “I’m A Slave 4 U” was probably my ****** awakening, too. I was just too timid and mired in internalized homophobia to recognize it. From watching Britney and Madonna caress each other in the “Me Against The Music” music video, to experiencing the “Toxic” nude bodysuit for the first time, to witnessing Britney stand up for LGBTQ people over and over again, the pop star has provided me with a series of moments that aided in my development as a queer woman.

Today, the 36-year old mother of two is still an influential LGBTQ ally and activist. GLAAD recently announced Britney as the 2018 recipient of the GLAAD Vanguard Award (her second “Vanguard” award, after receiving the same honor at the VMAs). In April, the pop star will be honored at the 29th annual GLAAD Media Awards. The Vanguard award is presented to “media professionals who have made a significant difference in promoting equality and acceptance of LGBTQ people,” according to EW.

“An irrefutable icon, Britney Spears has entertained the world while also embodying the spirit of GLAAD’s Vanguard Award by speaking out on significant issues that face her fans–from the Dream Act to anti-transgender bills in Texas,” says Sarah Kate Ellis, the out lesbian President and CEO of GLAAD said. “She is a force in the music world who has used her global platform to share messages of love and acceptance, something that the world needs today more than ever.”

Spears’ breadth of work for the LGBTQ community is vast, including organizing a meet and greet for LGBTQ fans to promote Spirit Day, appearing with 20 other artists on GLAAD’s song “Hands,” which honored the 49 lives lost in the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting, and speaking out against two anti-LGBTQ bills last year. And during Pride month in 2017, the iconic performer penned a love letter to the LGBTQ community, in which she gushed about the community’s unwavering acceptance, lack of judgement, and ability to embrace their truth.

And there’s the “Slumber Party” video with Tinashe, too.

Obviously, Britney Spears has a giant heart, one that’s full of love and acceptance. Gay men have historically worshipped at the pop star’s feet, but we never talk about the queer women she’s inspired, too.

So thank you Britney, for providing us with more than just lesbian fodder to stan and GIF and fangirl over with your help, I’ve morphed into a raging level of queerness I never thought possible. I couldn’t have asked for a better root than Britney, *****.

 

Quote

“For me, the saying 'work, *****' has been a term of endearment among my gay friends. Plus, it's what we say in clubs and in the dancing world all the time. My choreographers are gay and they inspire me so much. Plus I just love my gay fans, so it's something I really wanted to use.”(Britney Spears: A (Queer) Piece of Me)

 

Britney Spears Is Not Exploiting Gays By Calling Them "Adorable"

Spoiler

Britney Spears Is Not Exploiting Gays By Calling Them "Adorable"

By J. Bryan Lowder  |  October 7, 2013

One of the more interesting internal divisions within the gay community has to do with how gays feel about celebrity engagement with the group. Some revel in the deep connections that figures like Madonna or Joan Rivers have fostered with the community, while others decry any overture from pop stars as an opportunistic marketing ploy disconnected from real support. I fall somewhere in the middle, not necessarily minding the obvious calculations involved but also being curious about and sometimes wary of their impact on gay culture. This is especially true when these relationships go unexamined (which is why I spent a great deal of time back in school analyzing Lady Gaga’s then-unfolding campaign to transform herself from square Upper West Side school girl to downtown, queer-like-you diva). In other words, I’m all for raising questions about the exploitation of gay audiences and culture—but what I can’t handle is hypocrisy about those issues from within the community.

Earlier today, Britney Spears, one of the more troubled icons in the gay pantheon, went on a radio show to talk about her highly popular and very gay new single, “Work *****,” and to promote her upcoming residency in Las Vegas. The hosts asked her if she drew on gays when crafting her music, and she answered with the following:

A lot of my hairstylists and my beauty team that I work with are gay so I hang out with gays a lot and I just think they’re adorable and hilarious.

While that statement could have contained stronger compliments like “brilliant” and “creative,” it really is perfectly nice. Yet mainstream, corporate-cozy gay-interest blogs like HuffPo Gay Voices and Queerty are acting like they're protectors against “gay exploitation” by framing the quote as some kind of condescending gaffe. In fact, considering the silliness of the question, it was a fairly polite way of changing the subject. The hosts had not asked Spears probing queries about her artistic mentors in the gay community or how discussions of trans identity had challenged her thinking on gender; rather, they offered the impressive insight that she uses the word “*****” in a lot of her songs, which must in turn mean that the gays “are a big influence” on her. Who’s the offensive party in this exchange again?

Let’s do interrogate the gay community’s tendency to get attached to certain celebrities, but let’s don’t act like we haven’t been complicit in the formation of those relationships—even if we don’t like how stereotypically “adorable and hilarious” we’ve made ourselves seem in the process.

 

J. Bryan Lowder is a Slate associate editor and the editor of Outward. He covers life, culture, and LGBTQ issues.

 

We stan a queen of the queers!  I'd love to hear from Exhalers, why Britney is an LGBTQ icon to you?  And this is something that everyone (LGBTQ or straight) can speak to!  

[kasavas]

 

 

 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, kasavas said:

 

Ok can you imagine if one of her sons turned out gay? It would only make sense for Britney Spears to have a gay son! 

[kasavas]

42 minutes ago, Khoazie said:

Ok can you imagine if one of her sons turned out gay? It would only make sense for Britney Spears to have a gay son! 

Imagine being gay and having Britney as a mother though, every single bf you'll ever have won't stop fangirling over your mum

[Guest]

37 minutes ago, kasavas said:

Imagine being gay and having Britney as a mother though, every single bf you'll ever have won't stop fangirling over your mum

[Brat]

we really love her,  she’s bad *** 

[WilderWein]

what is it what makes gay men love these beautiful female popstars?

[BritneysBitch82]

2 hours ago, WilderWein said:

what is it what makes gay men love these beautiful female popstars?

****** envy

[OopsOverprotected]

4 hours ago, WilderWein said:

what is it what makes gay men love these beautiful female popstars?

fierceness, power, owning yourself, confidence.

[ralphcornio]

4 hours ago, WilderWein said:

what is it what makes gay men love these beautiful female popstars?

 

2 hours ago, BritneysBitch82 said:

****** envy

I think it's it a bit, actually. Deep inside, gay man want to have all the characteristics of powerful women.

[rawbrit]

44 minutes ago, OopsOverprotected said:

fierceness, power, owning yourself, confidence.

 

[Guest]

5 hours ago, WilderWein said:

what is it what makes gay men love these beautiful female popstars?

I think it goes a further than female beauty though. There’s plenty of beautiful female icons but only particular ones get taken up by queer people that way. Britney has an undeniably cemented place within the LGBTQ community. For many queer people, she’s become part of that league of “Gay Icons” that’s reserved for the likes of Judy Garland, Janet Jackson, Marilyn Monroe, etc. Britney’s extensive career, her vulnerability, her narrative, personal struggles, and triumphant survival has made her an inspiration to many gays and lesbians; for so many queers who grew up with Britney, she is a beacon of inner strength. Flaws and all. There’s a real beauty to the unique Britney narrative. When she’s suffering or under attack, it causes distress for a lot of queers (LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!) Ultimately, queer fans gain a lot of life from seeing Britney thriving and doing well. 

Plenty of female popstars have significant LGBTQ followings, but only a select few become true “Queer Icons.”

Put it this way: It’s Britney *****!

[Guest]

Quote

“I suppose the LGBTQ community sees itself reflected in these complex, glamorous, imperfect, and very public female experiences, and that we recognize the double-bind of being a woman in the public eye. Queer sexuality can make us conspicuous, trapped between satisfying people’s expectations of queerdom while avoiding limiting stereotypes, navigating our own desires around those of society at large.”

 

[BritneysBitch82]

14 hours ago, ralphcornio said:

 

I think it's it a bit, actually. Deep inside, gay man want to have all the characteristics of powerful women.

Yep. Theres nothing in this world more powerful than a woman.  Straight men are either obsessed with that power or they fear it, or both. Gay men either worship it or envy it. But its all about that pu$$y. Nothing can defeat the pu$$y lol. And i think gays respond strongly to a female that reflects or resembles the kind of power they wish they had over men

[Guest]

13 hours ago, BritneysBitch82 said:

Yep. Theres nothing in this world more powerful than a woman.  Straight men are either obsessed with that power or they fear it, or both. Gay men either worship it or envy it. But its all about that pu$$y. Nothing can defeat the pu$$y lol. And i think gays respond strongly to a female that reflects or resembles the kind of power they wish they had over men

I read somewhere once that studies show similarities between the female brain and gay male brain? I think gay men also relate to a lot of the way straight women struggle with in society 

[pieceofphilipp]

She has never really spoken out for gays or doing speeches waving flags etc.

And yeah people saying she didn't exploit the gays like maybe Gaga forget that Gaga really did things for gays. Speaking in front of Obama for gay rights, and other occasions. It's a give and take. 

I really don't see her as an icon for gays, just because her fanbase back then and maybe still today is rather gay and she's adored by them. 

[redacted statement]

8 minutes ago, pieceof15yearold*loveyall said:

She has never really spoken out for gays or doing speeches waving flags etc.

And yeah people saying she didn't exploit the gays like maybe Gaga forget that Gaga really did things for gays. Speaking in front of Obama for gay rights, and other occasions. It's a give and take. 

I really don't see her as an icon for gays, just because her fanbase back then and maybe still today is rather gay and she's adored by them. 

yeah, I don't see her as a gay icon either.. I honestly think she couldn't care less and that the whole "gay icon" thing was totally pushed onto her, she never asked for it.. while I do think she should be thankful to the fans, the majority of whom are gay men, that stuck by her side through everything, I do not think she owes it to anyone to be a gay icon, let alone an activist of some sort.. 

[pieceofphilipp]

5 minutes ago, I Always Sing Live said:

 I do not think she owes it to anyone to be a gay icon, let alone an activist of some sort.. 

 I wished it would be her own wish to stand up for it as I wish she would give us fans anything because she wants to and not has to

[Guest]

16 minutes ago, pieceof15yearold*loveyall said:

She has never really spoken out for gays or doing speeches waving flags etc.

And yeah people saying she didn't exploit the gays like maybe Gaga forget that Gaga really did things for gays. Speaking in front of Obama for gay rights, and other occasions. It's a give and take. 

I really don't see her as an icon for gays, just because her fanbase back then and maybe still today is rather gay and she's adored by them. 

 

7 minutes ago, I Always Sing Live said:

yeah, I don't see her as a gay icon either.. I honestly think she couldn't care less and that the whole "gay icon" thing was totally pushed onto her, she never asked for it.. while I do think she should be thankful to the fans, the majority of whom are gay men, that stuck by her side through everything, I do not think she owes it to anyone to be a gay icon, let alone an activist of some sort.. 

Guys, I realize she may not be a gay icon to all gays. But the fact remains, Britney is undoubtedly a gay icon to the overwhelming majority of lgbtq people. And it’s not always about someone who has been politically active either.  Plenty of political activists for queer rights do not always get taken up by the queer community as a gay icon. 

[pieceofphilipp]

6 minutes ago, Khoazie said:

 

Guys, I realize she may not be a gay icon to all gays. But the fact remains, Britney is undoubtedly a gay icon to the overwhelming majority of lgbtq people. And it’s not always about someone who has been politically active either.  Plenty of political activists for queer rights do not always get taken up by the queer community as a gay icon. 

What does that prove? We are dumb.

Why call someone who does not give us recognition publicly as others a gay icon?

For me she isn't because of that and I can't wrap my head around why everyone just goes with the flow instead of questioning her legitimacy as a gay icon.