Estudio De Estilo De Vida Gay (Cultura De Consumo)

The gay lifestyle – spaces for a subculture of
consumption
Craig Haslop
Marketing Executive, Wyvern Direct Response, Cambridge, UK
Helene Hill
Lecturer, Department of Retailing and Marketing, The Manchester Metropolitan
University, Manchester, UK
Ruth A. Schmidt
Acting Head of Department, Department of Retailing and Marketing,
The Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UKPresents a study of designated
gay service environments.
Conceptually, the study draws
together ideas and frameworks from the consumption
literature and from the study
of service environments.
Analyses issues surrounding
gay cultural socialization and
its effect on consumption
patterns and expression
through service environments.
The study of the interplay
between gay subculture andservicescapes is grounded in
qualitative and observational
data through field work conducted in the Manchester
“gay village”. Findings indicate that communitas, individualism and diversity are key
facets of the subculture, with
bars being used as individual
expressions of identity, moods
and emotions. Other influences on consumption patterns include interpersonal
interaction with friends, thehetero- and homosexual
cultural interface, and the
ambience of the service environment. Discusses implications for the service marketer,
such as the application of
marketing models to the
creation of servicescapes
which reflect and suit the
subcultures they are designed
for; and raises issues for
marketing methodology by
noting the value of consumption-based research in creating a picture ofthe “gay”
lifestyle.

Marketing Intelligence &
Planning
16/5 [1998] 318–326
© MCB University Press
[ISSN 0263-4503]

[ 318 ]

Gay identity, culture and
consumption
Designated a “dream market” (Penaloza,
1996), the “gay” market offers considerable
potential to marketers, as reflected in Allied
Domecq’s recent development of a “gay consumer” Internet site called Planet Patrol(Summers, 1995). While UK studies are
sparse, much of current research is
conducted in the USA where the gay market
segment has been estimated as encompassing
between 14 and 25 million men and women
(Rudd, 1996) or 5 per cent of the population
(Fugate, 1993) and is seen as endowed with
significantly above average discretionary
spending power (Cyr, 1993).
As a result, sexual identity and itscorrelates have been studied in detail. This goes far
beyond the simple matter of a – virtually
dichotomous – choice relating to one variable,
i.e. the preferred gender of a potential sexual
partner. From the moment of birth human
beings are subject to cultural socialization
and the direction this takes is influenced by
the emerging sexual preferences of the individual and society’s perceptionsthereof.
Eliason (1996) reviews a number of authors
concerned with the way in which the study of
homosexuality and coming out processes is
based on models of identity formation. While
there is some support for a genetic basis,
overall a social constructionist framework
assumes importance in tracing how homosexual identities are developed and expressed in
a social and cultural context.Wilkinson and Kitzinger (1994) analyse the
way in which both heterosexuality and homosexuality are socially constructed forms of
sexual identity In this, heterosexual identity,
.
because of its place in mainstream culture, is
often taken as a given which does not require
conscious allegiance in the same way as
homosexual identity, which is much more
politicized:
Safe and uncontestedidentities and dominant group membership can readily be
shrugged off as unimportant; membership
of an oppressed group has to be claimed,
tenaciously, despite the contradictions
(Wilkinson and Kitzinger, 1994, p. 313).

Gay and lesbian identities do not fit mainstream modernist ideas of normality, and
until very recently their expression has been
oppressed and marginalized rather than
encouraged...