187. extol

Quick-ish thought for this afternoon.

I was reading an article in the New York Times this afternoon about the 25th annual NewFest (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender film festival) in New York City this weekend. The article’s author, Stephen Holden, had this to say about it:

The face of gay liberation in 2013 is a sanitized image of polite, smiling gay and lesbian couples parading hand in hand and exchanging chaste kisses at city halls in states where gay marriage has been legalized.

But if there’s a theme to the 25th annual NewFest … it is that gay liberation is fundamentally about sex.

At first, I inwardly cringed at these sentences, and then immediately did a mental self-check for any signs of lingering, internalized homophobia. There may be some of that left over from my Protestant days, but the main thought was one of dread. I thought:

Oh shit, now some conservative Christian bigot will get up and point to this as “conclusive” proof that gay and lesbian relationships are just about promiscuity and sex…

Then I stopped myself. Turn on the television or go to any movie these days, and you’ll see some hot, hunky guy getting it on with some voluptuous, burgeoning girl. There’s no talk of fidelity, or marriage, or children. They want to fuck. Like the animals they are.

The prudish Christians who object to sensuality in film and media today do so under the notion that humans are these exalted, divine beings who should rise above their physical needs and desires to something purer. (Never mind that this is a tenet of Gnosticism.)

Biology, however, tells a different story.

Taxonomically, we are animals. Primates, technically. But we share the same primal desire to mate and reproduce as any other life form on this planet. In fact, the only thing that seems to set us aside from our closest relatives on Earth is (1) our ability to use tools with a frightening efficacy, and (2) the awareness of our physical instincts and desires, and the ability to choose to not be dominated by them. This doesn’t make us better than other beings. Just different.

When humans experience romantic attraction, we desire to express that attractive (i.e., love) via physical means. Our genes have programmed us to respond with our genitals at the moment of sexual arousal. This is completely natural. It’s only because of the teachings of the church that we’ve come to think of this as dirty or sinful. Our ancient ancestors would have considered such a view bizarre, and unhealthy.

So why shouldn’t we have a film festival that celebrates sexual attraction between two men, or two women? Well, because it’s icky, many people (who shall remain Brian Brown) might say.

It’s true that we’ve sanitized the gay liberation movement in order to appeal to our heterosexual neighbors who would otherwise support marriage equality and LGBT rights, but find the actual reality of two men or two women expressing physical love (let alone — gasp — being sexual) towards each other (in the same way that heterosexuals express physical love) off-putting.

In doing that, however, we’ve conveniently allowed them to put away the reality that we are sexual beings, just like heterosexual couples. Yes, when we’re horny, we want to fuck. We also want to just hold each other and bask in the oxytocin-induced glow of mammalian physical intimacy. Because that’s how we’re wired.

So does that mean that we should ignore the fact that in the early days of gay liberation there was a lot of indulging in kink and promiscuity? Only if we ignore the fact of the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 70s; of key parties, wife-swapping, and “free love.” Like a dam bursting, we threw off the moral bonds that had kept us in a perpetual state of sexual tension for centuries. However, the pendulum seems to be swinging back towards the center, as it usually does.

As Holden writes in his Times article, the early days of the gay movement “were gripped by a kind of erotic delirium in which men pursued a hypermasculine ideal and promiscuity was rampant.” We were creating new boundaries, new norms, and new paradigms to make sense of the sexual chaos that had been unleashed. Now, as we’re seeing increasing acceptance of LGBT people in mainstream American society, and coming closer to full equality, that iconoclastic boundary-pushing is being replaced by a more mature desire for emotional belonging and intimacy.

One of the final boundaries we have to overcome in achieving full acceptance for LGBT people is the depiction of physical intimacy in media — where nobody bats an eye when two men kiss (or bloody just hold hands) in a movie (and it isn’t a joke), or where there can be a sex scene on TV between two women and they aren’t trying to get male attention.

It created a stir in the 1950s when Lucy and Ricky were shown sharing a bed on I Love Lucy. We’ve been pushing those limits ever since; to moving from some whitewashed notion of a “moral ideal” to depicting reality as it is lived by actual, living-and-breathing human beings. Because it’s ridiculous that we same-sex couples have to keep pretending that we aren’t sleeping together or having sex; that our expression of physical love for each other never moves beyond meaningful eye contact, holding hands, or a quick peck on the lips.

That’s not real life.

Reality is that we do have hot, sweaty, messy sex. We also make dinner together. Go on trips. Have fights. Tolerate in-laws. Argue about money. And if any of that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s what all human couples do. And as soon as everyone else gets on board with accepting that, we’ll be that much closer to having a more sane country.

And a saner world.

52. the locus of language in sexuality

I was just asked about this tonight, and thought I’d write a quick post about it:

“Are you a top or a bottom?”

This is probably the most frequent question that comes up amongst gay men when entering into a sexual relationship. It helps to define sexual roles and lay out expectations about who will be, for lack of a better word, fucking who; who will be “dominant” and “submissive.”

For me though, this type of language and labelling isn’t very helpful, and is more indicative of the hetero-proxy sexuality that has permeated the gay community since it came into the mainstream back in the 1960s. Without going into a lengthy discussion of Eva Sedgwick or Judith Butler, I posit that this sort of boxing of gay sexuality into “top” and “bottom” is a mere co-opting of existing and established heterosexual roles rather than the fostering of a true and authentic expression of the Mars/Mars interaction that takes place between men in a sexual relationship. It assumes that one partner will play the part of the “man,” and the other, by extension, the part of the “woman”, which by inference presumes that “gay sex” = “anal sex”, when there are far more expressions of eros than the few we make do with. Many gay men have no interest in that at all.

Furthermore, such language limits and suppresses exploration between partners, and locks them into predefined roles such as “dominant” or “submissive,” bolstering the idea that a “bottom” is naturally the passive partner in the relationship, and that such a pairing is one of domination and  subjugation rather than an egalitarian one built on mutual love and respect.

This is not to say that we can’t or shouldn’t have preferences for one thing or another, sexually speaking. There are some guys who truly enjoy being “tops” or “bottoms.” What I’m saying is that we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be defined and labelled by those preferences, just as I personally don’t think that I should automatically be labelled “gay” for having a preference for men, and more than mixed gender persons should be labelled “straight.”

Language like this has only served to divide us and promote stereotypes and misunderstanding. As Martin Luther King, Jr said, “Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated.”

015. pov

This past weekend I played for the wedding of a friend of mine. It was pretty conventional, albeit a tad too casual for me. The bride, my friend, looked lovely. Brides usually do. The guys, on the other hand, looked like they just sort of rolled out of bed, threw on quasi-matching polo shirts, and showed up. The bridesmaids, of course, were lovely. Women usually manage to look smashing, regardless. There are some exceptions, of course (the Jerry Springer Show comes to mind), but girls typically look so put-together. Guys today instead generally come out looking like teenage boys who still need mom to take care of them.

The straight ones anyway.

But the twist came when the pastor commented on how the groom should really be the best man at his wedding, because Christ is the only perfect husband who will love perfectly, never fail, and gave himself sacrificially for both the bride and the Bride. She should grow to love Him more every day, just as the husband too should be loving Christ more, and that bringing them closer and together in their mutual love for each other and for G-d.

Of all the weddings I’ve done, that was a first. My sister’s wedding was fairly Christ-centred, and the wedding of another friend of mine blew me away theologically and emotionally.

It made me think though. Traditional marriages are supposed to point us to the relationship between Christ and the Church, and are even to be living parables of that divine marriage. They aren’t perfect, by any means, and that’s the point. G-d doesn’t expect perfection. He expects us to be open-handed with him, acknowledging our creaturely need for him, and to admit that don’t have it all together. Even the ladies who look like they do, and especially the guys who don’t.

But marriage, especially the Biblical model, is supposed to be an example of women displaying the submissiveness to their husbands that the Church is to show to Christ (Ephesians 5:22-33). Men fail miserably here, in not being the shining examples of masculinity that a woman would want to submit to. And amidst the resurgence of goddess worship our culture encourages women to assert their feminine dominance, usually over men, taking back the power that for so many centuries was denied them by the patriarchal status quo.

However, if we look at the Biblical model, that is not what is even marginally hinted at:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. (Ephesians 5:25-29, ESV)

Guys have it much harder in marriage if they are to follow this model. They are to follow Christ’s example of living sacrificially, even if that calling leads to death. This isn’t Fiddler on the Roof, where the man claps his hands and his wife falls into line. He is to look out for her needs first.

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. (Ephesians 5:22-24, ESV)

A woman then, in response to this sacrificial lifestyle that her husband is presumably displaying, acknowledges his leadership through submission. So what happens is hopefully this mutual submission, where each partner is putting the other first in the relationship and each is likewise submitting to the ultimate authority of Christ.

So.

How does that look in a homosexual relationship, where it’s two men or two women who are partnered and are equals (egalitarian versus gender-structured pairing)? Because this is not the same relationship that Paul was talking about in Ephesians; and regardless of what you may think of the Apostle (e.g., that he was a chauvinistic misogynist), he drew some marvellous paralells between earthly and divine marriage.

Men were not designed physically, psychologically or emotionally to submit in the same way to other men that a woman was designed for a man, and likewise women for other women. However, as Virginia Mollenkott said on Speaking of Faith in 2006, “Apparently the Creator likes diversity a lot more than we human beings do.” So I believe the relationship can still thrive and that it can teach us something about G-d and about faith.

So what can we learn from same-sex relationships from a Biblical or theological perspective?

The floor is open.

Shalom to you.

006b. story part iii

So apparently a few people were concerned about my state of mind after reading the McDonagh story. Rest assured, I am not depressed or suicidal or anything. I chose to begin with that because of the overall theme of The Pillowman—if, knowing what pain and heartache we will go through in the journey to growing into adults, we would choose that path anyway; if the pain now is part of the happiness then.

If I shared with my happy seven-year-old self that one day he would grow up to be a gay man and all that means; experience the confusion and anguish of disappointing your parents, your friends, your church and G-d; and spend many dark years feeling like a freak, not knowing who or where you are as an individual—would he still go through with it? Is the pain now part of the happiness to come?

Picking up where I left off—college. This’ll go a bit faster.

Going to a conservative Christian college poses its own unique challenges. It has its own culture, just like any place. At a secular university, I probably would have been spotted right away by the GLBT crowd, thrown out of the closet and begun my college life as a gay student. And gotten into a lot of trouble that would have probably led to me losing my faith entirely through essentially sinful living.

Instead, though unsaid, the pressure is to hook up with someone of the opposite sex as quickly as possible. “Ring by spring” as the saying goes. I discovered a bevy of distractions though—working as an accompanist and piano teacher; taking as many credits as possible each semestre; and joining too many music ensembles (which made for some interesting Christmas concerts logistically).

The hardest thing about that college was how many attractive guys there were. In fact, most of them were. Walk into a classroom and there’s eye candy everywhere. Not that there weren’t plenty of attractive women as well, and that should have been a dead give-away—that it was the guys that my eyes were drawn to instantly. One summer I took tennis and spent most of it outside with several very muscular (and incredibly sexy) guys who, naturally, had to lose their shirts. I won’t tell you how I managed to deal with all that pent up sexual frustration.

By my sophomore year, I had a clue what was going on. I wanted desperately to tell someone, to find out if this was normal, if I could be “fixed.” But I also knew that I rant he risk of being kicked out if they found out that I was gay. So I did what any conscientious Christian guy with same-sex feelings would do. I hid. I tried hard to be attracted to women; tried fantasising about girls in an attempt to force myself straight. But invariably a guy would enter the mental picture and it was all over.

The next two years were a blur of activity and productivity. I wrote two full-length operas in that time span, and scores of other pieces for my musical friends. Self-medicating with busyness works well until you have to stop. By the end of my college career I was so burnt out that I couldn’t stand music any more and had resolved that my educational stint was done.

In 2005 I visited a friend in England who I had a bit of a crush on as an undergrad. She was doing post-grad work there, and of anyone I could see myself possibly marrying her and white-knuckling it. However, upon spending time with her I realised that it was the idea of her that I loved—the intellectual artist-philosopher that I idealised. But I wasn’t attracted to her.

By this time most of my friends were married or on their way. I lost my job in April of 2005 and about the same time was involved in a major accident (that wasn’t my fault), so much of my energies were directed toward survival and making ends meet. G-d provided both a job and a new car, and for a few months saw a shrink to deal with my anger. Surprise, surprise, my parents were at the centre of a lot of it, but there was also the issue of unvalidated feelings. You’d think that there, in the confidentiality of that setting, I could feel comfortable telling my therapist that I was having feelings for men. It wasn’t until journaling one day that I really grasped the idea that I could be gay. And that scared me so much that I quickly shut the door and never went back. Probably a big mistake, but I picked up a lot of valuable tools, such as cognitive therapy and metacognition.

Got back into theatre with a friend of mine who I’d done some work with in 2004. With a few of his friends we founded a theatre company and put up a couple of productions that weren’t the greatest, but it led to some more work with the same director. That all eventually led to the work that I’m doing now, writing for companies and theaters throughout the Twin Cities.

Fast forward a couple of years to February of 2008. I got laid off again due to budget cut-backs and was once again jobless. That previous summer I’d come out to a girl friend of mine who expressed her own feelings for me, and in that moment I knew that I couldn’t lead her on any more. It was hard because several weeks earlier I’d attended a session on spiritual healing with another friend of mine and was actually prayed over by a husband and wife. That was the first time I’d told anyone that I struggled with same-sex attraction, and I thought it was over. But the feelings were still there, and I was just as attracted to guys as ever. So, at 25, I told my friend that I was gay.

At that point I still held out hope that I might just be bisexual. I had feelings for another friend of mine, and one night after a rehearsal actually told her so. She confessed that she too had feelings for me, and like a complete dolt left it at that. So she was probably very confused—but then, so was I! I had a major crush on one of the guys in the cast. Then she started dating a mutual friend of ours, and I was super busy stage managing so again I let it go.

So back to the summer of 2008. I’d just moved into the apartment I’m at now, and had been job searching and applying anywhere there were openings. A lot of friends were kind enough to help financially and I never would have survived without that. I’d come out to a few more friends, at least telling them that I was 99.9% sure that I was gay. But it wasn’t until working overnight at Target, when I had scads of time alone, to think, and surrounded by some very attractive males, that it really sank in—I’m gay.

It wasn’t until that point that I even considered some of the theological ramifications of this realisation. The Bible condemned homosexuality. I’d been taught that my entire life, so therefore the Bible was now condemning me and my feelings. I didn’t choose to be gay. I’d fought it for years, and couldn’t anymore. The Bible condemns sin, and I am definitely a sinner; but there was no way out of this. Was G-d testing me to see how much He actually mattered to me—whether I could be willing to live a celibate life to His glory, alone? But then why allow me to have these desires in the first place? From the first post, I think I’ve made it clear that it wasn’t like I woke up one day and said, “I think I’ll try being gay.” I’ve always had feelings for men. It wasn’t until adolescence that they became sexual.

So I set out to try and figure it out. I knew that I didn’t fit the stereotype of a gay male, and had no desire to either. Culturally, I identified as a straight man. (From my very first post, I now identify as “mainstream gay,” practically indistinguishable from straights.) I wasn’t promiscuous and had no desire to be. But I wanted to be with men, physically.

That’s been the past few months. I’ve been having a conversation with a now good friend from another blogging site. His insights have been invaluable in accepting and learning to love myself again, and gaining right perspective on my own orientation. I made the decision early on that I wasn’t going to let the gay culture define me. It was the subculture-orientated gays who ran contrary to the Bible—sex addictions, multiple partners, drugs, alcohol, cross-dressing.

G-d made me a man (and not a woman) was my reasoning. I’m male, and am going to embrace everything about that. So apart from the Biblical condemnation of homosexuality there seemed to be no reason why I couldn’t be attracted to other men and still be masculine, provided that I follow the same guidelines that straight Christian guys do—don’t lust after another man, treat guys with respect as brothers in Christ. The only difference is that the Bible advises men and women to marry rather than “burn with passion” (1 Cor 7:9). There is no such provision outlined in Scripture for gays.

When it came to getting a handle on this theologically though, there was absolutely no consensus among scholars. The conservative Christians sounded too dogmatic, and the liberals seemed too open-minded. There had to be a balance somewhere because I was stuck in the middle wanting to not be condemned to hell for liking guys and also not wanting to live the life of a celibate monk. Because let’s face it: I was not granted that gift.

One of things I addressed was my frustration with masculinity as it is currently expressed by most western males. It seemed equally fragmented and distorted as the campy subculture-oriented drag queens; so I started researching the history of masculinity as traced by sociologists and anthropologists. That will be another post.

One final thing I’ll add is that it’s incredibly lonely being a Christian who is gay, and that’s one of the most crippling things of all—not being able to tell your Christian straight friends that you’re not like them after all. So several weeks ago I joined what is known as the Gay Christian Network. Its mission is to “serve Christians who happen to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender and those who care about them.” I’ve found that a lot of guys have a similar story to mine in terms of a conservative religious upbringing and then coming later to realise their same-sex feelings and the confusion that arises from that. So it’s been incredibly helpful. Still haven’t found much in the way of off-line community here though.

One guy on there pointed me to a ministry called Inclusive Orthodoxy, founded by a fellow by the name of Justin Cannon. There’s a booklet on there titled The Bible, Christianity, and Homosexuality. It’s an in-depth study of all the famous references to homosexuality in the Bible, going back to the original texts and looking at them in the context of word usage and the culture in which the documents were written. It helped me come closer to terms with who I am right now and the possibility of being in a committed relationship with a Christian guy.

I haven’t looked, but I’d be curious to read a response to Cannon’s study from the reformed theological community: D.A. Carson, Os Guinness, R.C. Sproul, John Piper and the like—all theologians I admire and respect.

If you have questions about any of this, please feel free to ask. There are probably many holes in this story, things I’ve left out or unaddressed.

One more thing. Unlike many gay Christians, this issue does not define me. I’m not looking to identify with the gay community, even the LGBT Christian community. This is a very private thing for me, so don’t expect to see me in gay documentaries or publishing gay literature. It doesn’t interest me and there are more important things to spend time on or campaign for.

Shalom aleichem,
Muirnin

003. first time

So after a visit to the library on Sunday I decided that it was time to have my first gay experience.

At Barnes & Noble.

In the gay & lesbian section.

That was lame. Sorry.

But in a way, it probably one of my first steps in coming out publically, if only in a small way. I started reading Bruce Bawer’s “A Place at the Table” and was absolutely floored by how he managed to pinpoint every issue I have with the gay community (and some I wasn’t even able to fully articulate).

In any case, I located the book in the store and my mind briefly shorted—not like I didn’t have a clue where it would probably be found, but the part of me that is still afraid of being outed, or of people thinking that I’m not straight. So I did what I usually do.

I walked straight into the lion’s mouth.

Turned right around, walked over to the business section and located the shelves. There it was, like a big, gay neon sign. In signage hunter green and white. So after sifting through copies of The Joy of Gay Sex, The Velvet Rage and copious amounts of erotica, I saw the “Arranged by author” label and went “Oh.”

My inner librarian looked down at me over his horn-rimmed glasses and poked me.

There it was. In paperback, even!

Here’s an excerpt from the author’s note:

If to many gays “homosexual” sounds like a clinical diagnosis, to many heterosexuals “gay” sounds like a political statement . . . I tend to favor “gay” when discussing subculture-oriented individuals and “homosexual” when discussing individuals who are more mainstream-oriented. I’ve chosen not to use the word “queer” which is favored by some gay activists and academics but turns off almost everybody else, gay and straight (13-14).

The book begins with an account of the author observing a “lean and handsome” teenager standing at a wall of magazines, anxiously working up the courage to pick up a copy of a gay weekly.

The image of gay life promulgated in these publications did not reflect actual gay life in America; rather, they presented a picture of gay identity as defined by a small but highly visible minority of the gay population . . . What was wrong was the image that they projected had, for decades, strongly influenced the general public’s ideas about homosexuality. Thanks to their extraordinary visibility . . . many heterosexuals tended to equate homosexuality with the most irresponsible and sex-obsessed elements of the gay population. That image had provided ammunition to gay-bashers, had helped to bolster the widely held view of gays as a mysteriously threatening Other, and had exacerbated the confusion of generations of young men who, attempting to come to terms with their homosexuality, had stared bemusedly at the pictures in magazines like the Native and said to themselves: “But this isn’t me.” (19)

This has been one of my primary hang-ups with coming to terms with my homosexuality—the fact that I’m not like them. I don’t fit the “profile” (whatever that means). Bawer goes on to write what he wanted to say to that kid at the magazine wall, and presumably what he wants to say to every young man who feels the same way (including himself at one point):

“Being gay doesn’t oblige you to be anything—except yourself . . . You’re you. You’re the boy you’ve always been, the boy you see when you look in the mirror. Yes, you’ve always felt there was something different about you, something you couldn’t quite put a name to, and in the past few months or years you’ve come to understand and to struggle with the truth about that difference. You’re beginning to realize that the rest of your life is not going to play out quite the way you or your parents have envisioned it. You didn’t want to accept this at first, but now you know you have no alternative. And you want to be honest with yourself and your parents about this; more than anything else, you want to talk to them about this momentous truth you’re discovering about yourself. But you can’t bring yourself to do so, since you’re pretty sure they’d be angry. You resent them for this. And on top of that you despise yourself, because even though you’ve always talked to them about everything, you’re hiding from them a very important part of who you are, and because—even though you didn’t choose to be gay (who, after all, would choose to experience the fear and loneliness and bewilderment you’ve known?)—you feel as if you’ve done something awful to them by being this way. (20-21)

That’s pretty much it in a nutshell. As a Christian, add to that the fact that I felt that I’d betrayed my faith, G-d, my family, my church, and damned myself to an eternity with the other sodomites, empire-builders, autocides, gluttons, and highwaymen of the seventh circle of hell. So to read those words actually brought tears to my eyes. I’d known that there were others who’d shared my experience, but to hear it stated to succinctly and accurately was rather disarming. And heartening.

One of the things that characterize us silent gays is that, unlike the more visible minority of gays, we tend not to consider ourselves “members” of anything . . . Yet as the debate over homosexuality has escalated, some of us have grown increasingly impatient—impatient with the lies that are being told about us by anti-gay crusaders; impatient with the way in which TV news shows routinely illustrate gay rights stories by showing videotape of leathermen and drag queens at Gay Pride Date marches; and impatient with the way in which many self-appointed spokespeople for the gay population talk about the subject. (26)

He uses the phrase “professional gays” to describe these activists, and that’s a pretty good way of putting it.

The loudest voices on both sides rely in their arguments not upon common sense, reason, and democratic principle but upon the exploitation of negative emotions, chiefly fear and anger. Radical gay activists trade on the antagonism of many homosexuals toward the parents who rejected them, toward the bigots who insult them on the street, and toward the men of power who treat them as second-class citizens; professional gay-bashers, for their part, trade on the ill-informed fears and suspicions that haunt the minds of millions of otherwise decent heterosexuals. (28)

[The presence of visible, rancorous homosexuals has] helped to spread among heterosexuals an appalling, and profoundly distorted, image of homosexuality—and, indeed, to yoke the very idea of homosexuality, in the minds of many, with the most far-out images of the 1960s counterculture. Radical gay activists’ advancement of the notion that homosexuals are a socially, culturally, and politically homogenous group, furthermore, has made it harder to for many heterosexuals to see gays as individuals, and in particular to make distinctions between the largely invisible millions of gays who lead more or less conventional lives and the conspicuous few who don’t. (32)

The central irony of gay history is that laws and social conventions regarding homosexuality have long had the effect of discouraging monogamous relationships and of encouraging covert one-night stands . . . Indeed, far from helping to foster among young people who discovered themselves to be gay the self-knowledge, self-respect, and sexual self-discipline that would make possible meaningful, enduring relationships, the mentally cultivated by the Gay Liberation movement tended to induce young people to throw self-discipline to the winds; self-knowledge, they were led to believe, mattered less than self-expression, self-respect less than self-indulgence. (33)

There is no one “gay lifestyle,” any more than there is a single monolithic heterosexual lifestyle. There is in fact a spectrum of “gay lifestyles.” Near one extreme one might imagine a gay man whose sense of identity is centered upon the fact of his sexual orientation, and whose tastes, opinions, and modes of behavior conform almost perfectly to every stereotype . . . Toward the other end of the spectrum one might image a gay couple that most heterosexuals would not even recognize as gay. They live not in a predominantly gay community but in an ordinary neighborhood in a big or small city, town or suburb . . . In its essentials, their “lifestyle” is indistinguishable from that of most heterosexual couples in similar professional and economic circumstances. (33-34)

This is one of the big reasons why I was hesitant to come out in the first place, and why I’m still careful about broadcasting the fact that I’m gay—I don’t want to be lumped in with that lot. I don’t go to gay restaurants or clubs. I shop at Target. I often dress like a lumberjack. I’m politically and morally conservative. I have no desire to be promiscuous, consider myself a one-man guy, and have no affiliation with Gay Men’s Health Crisis, Queen Nation, or any AIDS-related organisation.

Like most adult heterosexuals, most adult homosexuals simply don’t want such a life [in a “gay ghetto” like Greenwich Village]. They were raised in conventional middle-class homes in conventional middle-class neighborhoods, and they want to spend their lives in similar homes and neighborhoods, and they don’t see why being gay should prevent them from doing so. Nor do they like the idea of inhabiting an exclusively, or even mostly, gay world: such a world feels artificial to them, feels like an escape from reality.

There is a broad cultural divide, and often considerable hostility, between gays who tend toward the two extremes of the spectrum. We might call them, at the risk of dramatic oversimplification, “subculture-oriented gays” and “mainstream gays.” Some subculture-oriented gays accuse mainstream gays of “acting straight,” the assumption here being that in comes naturally to all gays to speak and walk and act in a certain way, and that if you do otherwise you are suppressing your natural self; some mainstream gays, for their part, shake their heads at the stereotypical gestures and mannerisms of some subculture-oriented gays, which they see as a pathetic manifestation of the gay subculture’s lock-step mentality . . . Subculture-oriented gays often blame anti-gay prejudice on mainstream gays who refuse to put themselves on the line for gay rights and to make their sexual orientation known to their neighbours and co-workers; mainstream gays often blame anti-gay prejudice on subculture-oriented gays who way of life only confirms heterosexuals’ sense that homosexual men are a bunch of silly, effeminate, and irresponsible nonconformists. (35)

I don’t have much more to add since he pretty much said it all. My reading time will be a bit limited over the next few days so I’ll be posting fewer excerpts.