It is often hard to sustain meaningful dialogue between members of heterogeneous Black communities – that is, heterogeneous in terms of family histories, classes, and sexual orientations. Even in the absence of overt heteronormativity, men who engage in same-sex practices are overlooked or forced into the homogeneity of the Black nation, the Black family and the Black communal structure; this leaves no room for difference or visibility. Hence the reference to ʹhidden menʹ in the title of this chapter. Giving these men a voice might help make Black communities more positively aware and accepting of buller menʹs and batty bwoysʹ...

The stories you are about to read – mine in this chapter, and those of the interviewees in chapters 3 to 6 – are not exclusively stories of oppression. They do, however, express a considerable amount of pain and humiliation. This process of articulating my own story and asking other bullers to make public their stories is an attempt to assert and broaden the reality of Black male same-sex existence, which too many people for far too long have tried to erase. If we are to facilitate more humane social relationships, it is essential that we begin to assert and...

The interviews I conducted in Toronto and Halifax form the basis of the next four chapters, in which we look at these menʹs connections with family (chapter 3) and with community (chapter 4), at the fear, violence, and hypermasculinity that so threaten them (chapter 5), and at their search for pleasure, love, and identity (chapter 6). We learn how Black nationalism and its ideological constructs seek to regulate Black male same-sex bodily practices. I examine how Black men negotiate their everyday lives in Black community settings, and I look at the techniques they employ to be Black, to have sex...

The complex phenomenon known as ʹthe Black communityʹ is often put forward as a homogeneous space with a common culture, language, and history. For many members of the African diaspora, ʹthe Black communityʹ signifies home – a space where they feel they belong and where they can be themselves. But in my interviews, I found the opposite to be true for many Black men engaging in same-sex relationships. In their community involvement, these men have witnessed and experienced the tensions of heterosexism and homophobia. As a result, they vary in their commitment to and identification with Black communal life.

Same-sex...

In this chapter I examine Black heterosexism and its three wicked progeny – violence, fear, and hypermasculinity. As articulated by Black nationalists – and I look at a number of often highly regarded figures – these forces inform, express, and enforce the heterosexual structure of dominance within Black communities. I elaborate on the commitments and investments this discourse mobilizes, and I link them to the experiences of the Black men in my study. I hope to show why same-sex practices remain outside the normative framework of Black identity and Black nationalism. Black intellectual discourse has helped generate a Black consciousness...

Buller menʹs lives are not simply about oppression, pain, and suffering. Despite the oppressiveness of mainstream white society and the threatening aspects of heterosexist Black communities, bullers enjoy connections filled with passion, joy, and intimacy. Many of the respondents spoke about the things they like to do for pleasure and the satisfaction they derive from loving relationships. To present an adequately textured portrait of their lives, we must consider this. Yet as we shall see, the possibilities and opportunities for pleasure – both interpersonal and aesthetic – are constrained by the structures of dominance I have explored in this study....