Extract from ‘Notes on Masc’ by Shaun Lavelle

1.
If you Google ‘masc’, as I’ve done a lot over the years, the search results vary depending on your location. Right now I’m in Amsterdam, and the first result is a Dutch IT company. Masc geeft je voorsprong – ‘Masc gives you a headstart’. But no matter where you are in the world, the second page of results usually shows an article titled ‘Are You Masc or Fem? The Ultimate Debate in Gay Culture’. The article is confusing because it never really defines what ‘masc’ is, yet it advises readers to just ‘be real’ and not fake it. Fake what? If you read a few more articles, you’ll see that ‘masc’ means masculine, straight-acting, manly, male. It means not camp, not feminine, not womanly.

From issue #5: autumn/winter 2017

About the Author
Shaun Lavelle is a lecturer in English at the University of Amsterdam.