I shop, therefore I'm queer

>> Author Steven Kates tests the theory that gay men are great consumers

by JOHN CUSTODIO

Is it just a stereotype, or is it true that gay men love to shop? And why, with almost every aspect of gay life being written about--sex, relationships, health, even how gays relate to architecture and urban planning--has there been no investigation of gay men as consumers in late capitalist society?

These questions, and others, are finally attempting to be answered. Steven Kates' Twenty Million New Customers! Understanding Gay Men's Consumer Behavior (Harrington Park Press, 235 pp., $28.95) is pioneering work, but it almost didn't see the light of day. The project started out as a doctoral dissertation for York University's Faculty of Business Administration, but they tried to stonewall it, and Kates had to fight for the right to see it through. He eventually won, but not before firing his research supervisors and filing a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

His battle neatly illustrates a point Kates makes in his preface, that "gay issues [are] effectively marginalized in the marketing and consumer research literatures." Hopefully, though, his book will go a long way towards bringing those issues out of the closet.

The Mirror spoke with Kates about some of his findings.

Mirror: Off the bat, the title of your book invites the question about the power of the gay dollar. How great a force is it? Can it be mobilized as political clout?

Steven Kates: In certain cases, the gay buck could have some political leverage, obviously. But just about any information about gays and lesbians can be twisted to suit a homophobic agenda. Rush Limbaugh, for example, has stated that gays are particularly dangerous and undeserving of political protection or rights, because of their high incomes and collective market power.

Remember the Holocaust? One of the most potent and dangerous claims made by Nazi propagandists was that Jews were dangerous because they had so much economic clout. I think we can draw an analogy here. Economic enfranchisement is not the same as political rights and freedoms, nor does it necessarily lead to them.

M: What about your methods? Your study involved interviewing 44 gay men. Did you follow them around on shopping sprees?

SK: I conducted long, semi-directed interviews with those 44 men. But I didn't follow them around shopping, because the idea was to be as non-intrusive as possible. I also engaged in a great deal of participant observation--at gay bars, parties, retail venues, pride marches, et cetera--all of which I recorded in my journals.

M: Was there any single product, for example, whose purchase had especially strong symbolic power?

SK: Absolut Vodka and Doc Marten boots were popular products, as was Calvin Klein underwear. But what I found particularly interesting was that all of the participants would, at some point or another, frame this or that purchase in terms of "supporting the community." Their consumption had a certain social utility: it was a means of displaying and negotiating community membership.

M: Is this a case of "I shop, therefore I am (queer)"? How true was this of the participants in your study?

SK: It was more true for some than for others, obviously. Some participants in the study were very invested in the idea of cultivating a 'queer appearance,' and they did this through products like pride rings and Doc Marten boots. Others told me that they couldn't have cared less about such things, even resented them. And so they would actively resist the pressures of conformity in the gay community.

M: On the one hand, people often say that gay men are the savviest of consumers: their outsider status allows them to see through consumerism--their awareness of marketing and of consumer symbolism is especially acute. On the other hand, others say that because gay male identity is so bound up in what and how they consume, they are in fact the quintessential dupes of marketing.

SK: The truth lies somewhere between the two claims, or in some combination of them. Some of the study participants were dupes: guys who thought that gay consumption and gay-targeted marketing was all wonderful and they were all for it, completely uncritical. On the other hand, I had others who ranted on for 10 pages about how dysfunctional we are because we consume too much and marketers are taking advantage of us.

I will say, though, that there is some truth in the idea that gay men assume a kind of alternative, interpretive stance towards certain products--perspectives that might not be obvious to other consumers. That was reflected in participants' responses, whether or not they were duped into actually buying those products.

M: How stable is the notion of the gay consumer? Did race or class make a difference? Is the gay consumer a reliable category for market research?

SK: Frankly, I'm still working on that. I haven't come to any definitive answers yet. For practical purposes, though, I do believe that gay men who are out and who spend time in gay communities or with gay friends do share some common understanding of gay consumer culture, which they then use to interpret their purchases and uses of products.

M: How do you mean for this study to be used? Are you worried about cynical entrepreneurs using it to tap into gay markets?

SK: That's already happening anyway. For better or worse, we have to deal with market capitalism in its current advanced stage. Marketers' efforts can be beneficial in providing much-needed visibility, and in promoting the gay and lesbian agenda of coming out of the closet, but we have to make sure that political initiatives do not get sacrificed to the market.

I think the best target marketing will acknowledge the wide diversity of our communities, and will not impose any sort of standard for us. The message should never be, "Buy our product. It's the right way to be gay." It should be about providing quality ads, goods and services which individual gay consumers can use as meaningful resources that enrich their lives.

M: Political humourist Kate Clinton recently remarked about gays and lesbians: "We used to be a movement. Now we're a market." Is it as bad as all that?

SK: We're both. Maybe Clinton and every other critic should try not to consume goods and services just for one single day and see how far they get. I'm not saying that these critics are wrong. In fact, I do believe that many of us should try to consume less for the sake of long-term human survival, and that companies have to invent environmentally friendly alternatives to the way we consume. But we have to work with the market system and make it accountable to shared human interests.

John Custodio is the host of Queercorps, which airs Mondays at 6pm on CKUT 90.3 FM