Effeminacy

Effeminacy is the embodiment of traits and/or expressions in those who are not of the female sex (e.g. boys and men) that are often associated with what is generally perceived to be feminine behaviours, mannerisms, styles, or gender roles, rather than with traditionally masculine behaviours, mannerisms, styles or roles. Effeminacy and other gender expressions are independent of a person's sexuality or sexual identity and are displayed by people of all sexualities and none. However, effeminacy is seen in some societies as something embodied by some in the homosexual male community. The embodiment of effeminacy by people in some societies has resulted in prejudice, discrimination, antagonism and insults towards those who display it.

History

Terminology

''Effeminate'' comes from Latin '' effeminātus'', from the factitive prefix ''ex-'' (from ''ex'' 'out') and ''femina'' 'woman'; it means 'made feminine, emasculated, weakened'. Another Latin term is ''mollities'', meaning 'softness'.

In ancient Koine Greek, the word for effeminate is κίναιδος ''kinaidos'' (''cinaedus'' in its Latinized form), or μαλακοί '' malakoi'': a man "whose most salient feature was a supposedly 'feminine' love of being sexually penetrated by other men".

"A ''cinaedus'' is a man who cross-dresses or flirts like a girl. Indeed, the word's etymology suggests an indirect sexual act emulating a promiscuous woman. This term has been borrowed from the Greek ''kinaidos'' (which may itself have come from a language of Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor, primarily signifying a purely effeminate dancer who entertained his audiences with a ''tympanum'' or tambourine in his hand, and adopted a lascivious style, often suggestively wiggling his buttocks in such a way as to suggest anal intercourse....The primary meaning of ''cinaedus'' never died out; the term never became a dead metaphor."

Other vernacular words for effeminacy include: ''pansy'', ''nelly'', ''pretty boy'', ''nancy boy'', ''girly boy'', ''molly'', ''sissy'', '' pussy'', ''tomgirl'', ''femboy'', ''roseboy'', ''baby'', and ''girl'' (when applied to a boy or, especially, adult man). The word ''effete'' similarly means effeminacy or over-refinement, but comes from the Latin term ''effetus'' meaning 'having given birth; exhausted', from ''ex-'' and ''fetus'' 'offspring'. The term ''tomgirl'', meaning a girlish boy, comes from an inversion of ''tomboy'', meaning a boyish girl. The term ''girly boy'' comes from a gender-inversion of '' girly girl''.

Ancient Greece and Rome

Greece

Greek historian Plutarch recounts that Periander, the tyrant of Ambracia, asked his "boy", "Aren't you pregnant yet?" in the presence of other people, causing the boy to kill him in revenge for being treated as if effeminate or a woman (''Amatorius'' 768F).

When Aeschines was accused of treason by Athenians Timarchus and Demosthenes in 346 BC; he brought a counter suit claiming Timarchus had prostituted himself to (or been "kept" by) other men (Against Timarchus, and also attributed also Demosthenes' nickname Batalos ("arse") to his "unmanliness and ''kinaidiā''" and frequently commented on his "unmanly and womanish temper", even criticising his clothing: "If anyone took those dainty little coats and soft shirts off you... and took them round for the jurors to handle, I think they'd be quite unable to say, if they hadn't been told in advance, whether they had hold of a man's clothing or a woman's."Dover, 1989

Demosthenes is also implicated in passive homosexuality and the prostitution of youth: "There is a certain Aristion, a Plataean..., who as a youth was outstandingly good-looking and lived for a long time in Demosthenes' house. Allegations about the part he was playing it., 'undergoing or doing what'there vary, and it would be most unseemly for me to talk about it."

The late Greek '' Erôtes'' ("Loves", "Forms of Desire", "Affairs of the Heart"), preserved with manuscripts by Lucian, contains a debate "between two men, Charicles and Callicratidas, over the relative merits of women and boys as vehicles of male sexual pleasure." Callicratidas, "far from being effeminised by his sexual predilection for boys... Callicratidas's inclination renders him hypervirile... Callicratidas's sexual desire for boys, then, makes him more of a man; it does not weaken or subvert his male gender identity but rather consolidates it." In contrast, "Charicles' erotic preference for women seems to have had the corresponding effect of effeminising him: when the reader first encounters him, for example, Charicles is described as exhibiting 'a skillful use of cosmetics, so as to be attractive to women.'"

Rome

Over-refinement, fine clothes and other possessions, the company of women, certain trades, and too much fondness with women were all deemed effeminate traits in Roman society. Taking an inappropriate sexual position, passive or "bottom", in same-gender sex was considered effeminate and unnatural. Touching the head with a finger and wearing a goatee were also considered effeminate.

Roman consul Scipio Aemilianus questioned one of his opponents, P. Sulpicius Galus: "For the kind of man who adorns himself daily in front of a mirror, wearing perfume; whose eyebrows are shaved off; who walks around with plucked beard and thighs; who when he was a young man reclined at banquets next to his lover, wearing a long-sleeved tunic; who is fond of men as he is of wine: can anyone doubt that he has done what ''cinaedi'' are in the habit of doing?"

Roman orator Quintilian described, "The plucked body, the broken walk, the female attire," as "signs of one who is soft ollisand not a real man."

For Roman men masculinity also meant self-control, even in the face of painful emotions, illnesses, or death. Cicero says, "There exist certain precepts, even laws, that prohibit a man from being effeminate in pain," and Seneca adds, "If I must suffer illness, it will be my wish to do nothing out of control, nothing effeminately."

Emperor/philosopher Julian the Apostate, in his ''Against the Galileans'', wrote: ''Why the Egyptians are more intelligent and more given to crafts, and the Syrians unwarlike and effeminate, but at the same time intelligent, hot-tempered, vain and quick to learn?''

In his '' Commentaries on the Gallic Wars'', Julius Caesar wrote that the Belgians were the bravest of all Gauls because "merchants least frequently resort to them, and import those things which tend to effeminate the mind".

Emperor Marcus Aurelius evidently considered effeminacy an undesirable trait, but it is unclear as to what or who was being referred.

The Bible

'' Malakos'' is listed among other vices in the New Testament book of I Corinthians 6:9. Translations use different terms to express this. The online Greek Interlinear Bible uses Strongs concordance (last corrected in 2008) translates ''Malakoi'' as "Catamites", and ''Arsenokoitia'' as "sodomites". The word ''malakos'', #3120 in the Greek Dictionary of The New Testament of James Strong's Exhaustive Concordance to The Bible states: "of uncertain affinity".

Gay men

China

The Chinese term for ‘girlie men’ is ''niang pao''.

In September 2021, the Associated Press reported that the mainland Chinese government has banned effeminate men from appearing in television commercials. The Chinese government instructed broadcasters to stop showing "sissy men."

United States

In the United States, boys are often homosocial, and gender role performance determines social rank. While gay boys receive the same enculturation, they are less compliant. Martin Levine summarizes: "Harry (1982, 51–52), for example, found that 42 percent of his gay respondents were ' sissies' during childhood. Only 11 percent of his heterosexual samples were gender-role nonconformists. Bell, Weinberg, and Hammersmith (1981, 188) reported that half of their male homosexual subjects practised gender-inappropriate behaviour in childhood. Among their heterosexual men, the rate of noncompliance was 25 percent. Saghir and Robins (1973, 18) found that one-third of their gay man respondents conformed to gender role dictates. Only 3 percent of their heterosexual men deviated from the norm." Thus effeminate boys, or sissies, are physically and verbally harassed (Saghir and Robins, 1973, 17–18; Bell, Weinberg, and Hammersmith 1981, 74–84), causing them to feel worthlessHarry 1982, 20 and "de-feminise".

Prior to the Stonewall riots, inconsistent gender role performance had been noticed among gay men:Cory and LeRoy, 1963 "They have a different face for different occasions. In conversations with each other, they often undergo a subtle change. I have seen men who appeared to be normal suddenly smile roguishly, soften their voices, and simper as they greeted homosexual friends ..Many times I saw these changes occur after I had gained a homosexual's confidence and he could safely risk my disapproval. Once as I watched a luncheon companion become an effeminate caricature of himself, he apologized, 'It is hard to always remember that one is a man.'" Pre-Stonewall "closet" culture accepted homosexuality as effeminate behaviour, and thus emphasized camp, drag, and swish including an interest in fashionHenry, 1955West, 1977 and decorating. Masculine gay men were marginalised and formed their own communities, such as the leather subculture, and/or wore clothes that were commonly associated with working-class individuals, such as sailor uniforms.

Post-Stonewall, " clone culture" became dominant and effeminacy is now marginalised. One indicator of this is a definite preference shown in personal ads for masculine-behaving men. The avoidance of effeminacy by men, including gay ones, has been linked to possible impedance of personal and public health. Regarding HIV/AIDS, masculine behaviour was stereotyped as being unconcerned about safe sex practices while engaging in promiscuous sexual behaviour. Early reports from New York City indicated that more women had themselves tested for HIV/AIDS than men. David Halperin compares "universalising" and "minoritising" notions of gender deviance: "'Softness' either may represent the specter of potential gender failure that haunts all normative masculinity, an ever-present threat to the masculinity of every man, or it may represent the disfiguring peculiarity of a small class of deviant individuals."

The term ''effeminiphobia'' (sometimes ''effemiphobic'', as used by Randy P. Conner) was coined by Will Fellows to describe strong anti-effeminacy. Michael Bailey coined the similar term ''femiphobia'' to describe the ambivalence gay men and culture have about effeminate behaviour in 1995. Gay author Tim Bergling popularized the term ''sissyphobia'' in '' Sissyphobia: Gay Men and Effeminate Behavior'', although it was used before. Transgender writer and biologist Julia Serano has coined the similar term ''effemimania''. Feminist Sociologist Rhea Ashley Hoskin suggests that these terms can be understood as relating to a larger construct of '' femmephobia'', or "prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone who is ''perceived'' to identify, embody, or express femininely and toward people and objects gendered femininely." Since the 2000s, Peter Hennen's cultural analysis of gay masculinities has found effeminacy to be a “historically varying concept deployed primarily as a means of stabilising a given society’s concept of masculinity and controlling the conduct of its men based upon the repudiation of the feminine”.

Modern context

''Femboy'' (alternatively spelled ''femboi'') is a modern slang term used to refer to a young person who identifies as male and who displays traditionally feminine characteristics, such as wearing dresses and skirts. (Fem/Femme instead of Femboy for trans women/non-binary gender individuals). It is a portmanteau

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