Tue 14 Apr 2015 In: Our Communities View at Wayback View at NDHA
I was stunned to come across video with Mr Gay New Zealand Matt Fistonich on a popular (over 23,000 ‘likes’) Love Your Condom Facebook page where he is subjected to ‘mandatory hazing to join LYC family’ being bombarded by condoms filled with water. Matt Fistonich is running for Mr Gay World this month and LYC is sponsoring his trip to South Africa. LYC marketing incentives are usually punchy, bold and sexy, praised by advertising experts and effective in reaching LGBT community. Of a particular interest is ongoing ‘Gear up!’ campaign which smartly connects thrill seeking activities with safety gear, making wearing condoms look cool and sexy. But the latest promotion might be just off the mark. Using condoms for hazing, to humiliate, degrade and make fun of a gay man does not look like the smartest marketing idea. It is also questionable if the video sets the right tone in a campaign to bring Mr Gay World’s crown back to New Zealand and if it really portrays Matt Fistonich fit to represent Aotearoa ‘as the best spokesperson and embody the spirit of the nation', the true ‘ambassador that his nation and local community is proud of'. Hazing and bullying is typical in for all-male environments like fraternities, sports teams, army, prisons and gangs, some see it as the rite of passage into the elite group where individual experiences of humiliation bound members together. Gay men, who realise they are different from their peers at an early age, could feel excluded and even isolated from the rest of society, naturally longing for acceptance and belonging to a group. One would expect that catering for needs of disadvantaged minority organization would be welcoming members unconditionally while promoting acceptance, tolerance and diversity, making for gay men a safe haven free of humiliation and abuse. So it comes as a surprise that LYC not only takes hazing lightly but even considers it to be ‘mandatory’ to join ‘the family’. Hazing can be discounted as just a game but being by its nature as a form of bullying and abuse, it is capable of inflicting life-long psychological scars. And it is not funny that in the USA alone, several people die from hazing every year. Particularly disturbing is that hazing often targets sexuality, exposing underlining issues of gender inequality, discrimination and homophobia. Admittedly, hazing is a popular theme on gay porn sites, along with ‘broke straight guys’ and hardcore videos like ‘bukake boys’ and ‘Kink.com’ productions featuring public humiliation and gang rape. In these videos supposedly straight guys are forced to perform explicit sex acts in degrading context which probably taps into internal homophobia of the viewers, who subconsciously despise their homosexuality and feel better about themselves by watching straight guys ‘going gay’. Internalised homophobia could also be a reason behind obsession with terms like ‘straight looking/acting’, ‘no femme’, ‘masculine’ etc. in gay men community, as obvious innumerous gay men profiles on dating applications. This creates a certain unrealistic idea of straight gay man ideal, putting an enormous pressure on gay adolescents to look certain way. Many profile pictures are headless muscled torsos, gay men are easily objectifying themselves when objectification is prominent within the community. For Love Your Condom’s ‘Get it On’ campaign larger than life billboards were erected along K-road featuring various headless torsos covered with condom tattoos. The idea behind it was to make condoms look ‘tatoo worthy’ but presenting gay men as faceless pieces of meat, reducing them to objects, made them instead look interchangeable and disposable like condoms. Media objectification complimented by perfect body images of gay male pageant winners is spreading a dangerous message in our imperfect world. Gay men are already under immerse pressure from the media and community to be slim, toned and eternally young, having more body dissatisfactions than heterosexual women, expected to be both slim and buffed up at the same time. So gay men are 3 times more likely to have eating disorders while gay teens are 6 times more likely to take steroids. Chris Olwage, once bullied overweight teenager who went on to lose 40kg in six weeks to get a chiseled body and who become MR Gay World in 2013, commented to NZ Herald on narcissism and obsession with perfect body within gay community: 'A lot of it comes from the seeking of self-acceptance, I think and some people find it through their bodies, because that's one of the easiest things to change. The body is a bit of escapism… For some people it is about finding others - the better looking you are the more chances you have' Critics of beauty contests have been arguing that they are underlying gender inequality,reinforcing the idea that girls and women should be valued primarily for their physical appearance, and that this puts tremendous pressure on women to conform to conventional beauty standards by spending time and money on fashion, cosmetics, hair styling and even cosmetic surgery, encouraging dieting to the point of harming themselves. And while Mr Gay World 2012 winner Andreas Derleth claimed that he wanted to dispel the stereotype that gay men "run around with handbags", his indeed rare in the real life look was in fact neatly fitting expected from Mr Gay World standards. Like in a hetero contest world, gay beauty pageants appear to conform to set up stereotypes while on the surface battling for the 'world's piece'. When on the contrary in the UK public fell for personality and voted for a 30 stone man to represent the country in the Mr Gay World contest, he was subsequently humiliated by the organizers and disqualified. Mr Gay World likes to position itself no less as 'a mentor in grooming gay leaders that will advance gay human rights both locally and throughout the world' but reality contradicts it. Last year, both New Zealand and Australia’s representatives pulled out of the contest complaining about poor organization and bullying from organizers, claiming that instead of learning gay history and advancing human rights, contestants were encouraged to get intimate and grope each other. Mr Gay World 2010 winner Charl van den Berg from South Africa was in particular known for his proud contribution to porn industry with one of his biggest talents listed as '8 inch uncut cock'. He was however personally endorsed by the competition’s director who stated that contest embraced men from adult entertainment industry to 'escape exploitation in an effort to find a better life', which might have compromised some delegates with porn association and at the same time insulted adult industry workers implying that they are victims of exploitation. I wonder than if supporting personal aspiration of Fistonich to win a discredited contest with a dubious message is the money well spent for the government funded LYC, or if there are worthier projects inside NZ that queer community could actually benefit from. When would it be a good time to abandon outdated beauty pageant and run instead a Gay New Zealander of the Year campaign, where inspirational gay men could be voted in not for their looks and bodies but for their actual contribution to diversity and real change in the community? And could NZAF reconsider mandatory hazing requirement to join LYC? - Lars Larsson is a queer analyst and marketing enthusiast Joe Rich from LYC responds: LYC is excited to be working with Matt Fistonich. Matt applied for LYC sponsorship to attend the Mr Gay World competition through the LYC website, and after meeting with him to discuss how we could work together we agreed that a sponsorship would be mutually beneficial. Sponsoring community groups, events and people that can help endorse and support the LYC message is an important part of NZAF’s HIV prevention work. For context, LYC sponsorship applications are open to anyone and we sponsor a number or projects and events throughout the year including Pasifika, Mr. Gay Wellington and this weekend’s FAFSWAG Pre-Ball. The video featuring Matt Fistonich was created as a parody of this video featuring Justin Bieber, and plays on Matt’s uncanny resemblance to Justin. The intention of the video is to introduce Matt to one of LYC’s target audiences, young gay and bisexual men. The video has had more than 12,000 views, which is a fantastic result and will be followed by further videos that engage young gay and bisexual men to think more about HIV and condom use. The title “LYC Hazing” is a tongue-in-cheek reference to a genre of gay porn. (Fistonich has also taken part in a LYC balloon animal challenge, which you can check out here) GayNZ.com welcomes community comment. If you have something you want to get off your chest, just email it to news@gaynz.com Lars Larsson - 14th April 2015