Jose: Here this kind of androgyne or quasi androgyne “bad boys” maybe exist in some little circles, like between goths or something like these. Because there is no place for them being seen as “bad boys” if are quite feminine. Real “bad boys” will kick their asses. A punk, skater, hip hopper, etc., can be accepted as bad boys (according to their behavior obviously). But not effeminate men. They will be mocked, and common “quiet” men will not take them as “bad”.
If a quite effeminate men have wild behavior, at some point, they moment will have to change their feminine side or hide it because he will have problems every day if he deals with “bad boys”. He will be mocked and attacked.
For being a thug you have to act like if you were in jail or something like this. Dress is not so important, as long as you don’t dress effeminate (this can carry many problems).
In other Latin American countries probably this goes much deeper. Something dressed like Marylin Manson or David Bowie pretending being bad (even if is bad) can’t walk quiet in the street with that attitude. It have to “accept” the mocking and be taken as a “faggot”. I think in Paraguay or even little cities of my region of Argentina if someone is like this, people will not be quiet even in a normal neighborhood. Normal people will mock someone like this, not only “bad boys”. Not to mention in working-class places or some towns that are quasi-rural and people that live there are entirely from working-class and lower-class.
In big cities it’s different because people are accustomed to see “rare” persons like that.
Effeminate and feminine are not the same thing. Effeminate means acting like a woman. Here in the US, mostly only homosexual men act truly effeminate. This is the sort of “faggoty” behavior seen in ~75% of gay men. But effeminate straight men are quite rare. I would be surprised in 1% of straight men are effeminate.
These guys were not really feminine at all, but they do have a soft side. The guys I knew were pretty bad. They were juvenile delinquents, drug dealers, surfers and they stole things like ten speeds and marijuana plants. They were almost like gang or street kids. But they were masculine enough that no one would ever want to fight them. It’s just that you could see a feminine side going in a lot of them. In the US we have quite a few men who have a very strong masculine side and then they have a pretty strong feminine side going too. As long as they have that good strong masculine side going, no will fight them or even mess with them. I knew some guys like this who were criminals! One guy was a huge drug dealer in San Fransisco. He kept his cocaine in one house, lived in another house, and I forget what the 3rd house was for.
You are confusing effeminate and feminine. Effeminate means acting like a woman. Feminine is just a soft sort of guy. But a lot of White men have hard and soft going at the same time because you can do that in our culture. As long as people can see that masculine side, no one cares about the soft stuff. It sort of becomes invisible. Plus if you have a strong enough masculine side going, most men just leave you alone, don’t challenge you, don’t mock you or make fun of you, and don’t start fights with you.
I live in what is almost a ghetto. It’s a barrio. But no one ever starts one single thing with me here. No one bugs me, starts fights with me, or even insults me. But I have a strong masculine side, and I get into it in this hood, and a lot of people have told me I look scary. One advantage to looking scary is that most people pretty much leave you alone and don’t fuck with you.
This why I doubt Trash’s comments that a White man will get his ass kicked or robbed for sure in this type of neighborhood.
But in US White society, you do not have to be macho or hypermasculine like in Latin American society. Here in the US a soft man can be a bad boy or even a criminal. For instance, I get called bad boy quite a bit. People see me in a store or something, and they start laughing and say, “Hey there, bad boy!” Or I will be talking to a woman and I give her one of my million dollar smiles and she starts laughing and says, “Ohhhh, you’re a bad boy!” And I am a pretty damn soft guy. But somehow I give off a bad boy vibe somehow.
Here in US White society, a bad boy is any sort of rebel who looks like he doesn’t play by the rules and has a sort of devilish air about him. Macho or hypermasculine behavior is not necessary anymore.
I used to wear men’s kimonos! I wore these things called short kimonos. It is actually Japanese men’s wear. You wear it over a shirt and pants. A lot of guys did hate it when I wore that. I would see guys who looked like they wanted to beat me up when they saw me wear that. But nothing ever happened. Plus women loved it when I wore that kimono. They went nuts over that thing, while the guys acted like I was wearing a dress and they wanted to beat me up.
But at that time, I was also a punk rocker with a permanent scowl who wore lots of leather and spikes. A lot of people acted like they were afraid of me, and usually nobody started anything.
