I’ve been reading a book of essays about the supposed decline and fall of gay culture, and there was an interesting discussion about how retailers like International Male “de-gayed” their catalogs as they attempted to broaden their market to adventurous hetro men.For example, the language used to describe their thong underwear was no longer about being sexy—something women’s retailers like Victoria’s Secret never have been shy about—instead the new language played up how sensuous the clothing was supposed to be for the wearer. The author argues (rightly) that these retailers were trying to remove the specter of admiring male gazes. But (being a gay man) I think he missed that there’s still an overall societal discomfort with “pretty men.” As someone who perused International Male because I wanted to be able to wear sexy underwear too (back when I was actually young enough and in shape enough to look decent in it)—I sadly knew that it wasn’t likely I’d find a woman who’d appreciate it.As I said at the last outreach panel I did, I grew up in an era where male beauty wasn’t discussed let alone valued. (Which is good in some ways, because I didn’t end up with the body issues that most women have.) But it does hurt to have something you care about not being valued—a bit like women who want to be valued for their intellect and find people only care about their beauty. Sabara Star put it nicely, folks like me feel we were starved of something many women feel they were force-fed an overdose of. So it’s not surprising that MTF trans people and feminists are often on totally different wave-lengths when it comes to the issue of “looking pretty.”Admittedly, the issue of appreciation of male beauty is changing these days, but still there’s the whole “look handsome, but don’t look too pretty” dynamic that men face. (At least those who care about their appearance.)