Gay Pride

I remember how I turned gay.

It was back around 1979. I had always been attracted to men and by that time had had the experience of sex, and of lovemaking, with a man. But I didn't think of myself as gay because, to me, that meant effeminacy. I was not John Wayne. After all, I was a tall skinny intellectual and no athlete. But I was a guy and had no wish to lose that sense of myself in order to enter some gender limbo with limp-wristed hairdressers or birdlike prissy old queens who called each other "Mary". It never made sense to me. If men are what you love and admire, why turn yourself into a sloppy imitation of a neurotic woman?

Anyhoo. I watched a TV drama mini-series ---remember when the "mini-series" was something of an event?-- set in the days of Germany's becoming Nazi. The fate of the Jews figured prominently, including a major character who was a totally assimilated German Jew. As the story progressed, or degenerated, I realized that this man had made himself as like unto his Teutonic neighbors as possible, but in the end, they carted him off to the camps with the dirty shtetl-dwelling peasants and shopkeepers who kept to the old halakic ways. Dress 'em up, dress 'em down, they were still kikes.

So it came to me in a moment of strange insight that whether I was a masculine guy who just happened to be attracted to members of my own gender, or a nelly queen...dress us up, dress us down....as far as the world was concerned, we were still all faggots. I may as well get used to it. That's when my homosexual desire became the basis for a social identity. I turned gay.

I have gone through a lot since then. My homosexuality has massively restructured my life. It has caused me significant suffering and it has been the occasion for some of the most blazingly beautiful moments of my existence. And as I get older, my desire for and attraction to and...this is crucial...my appreciation for men has seemed to me even more deeply a pillar of who I am. I am unthinkable to myself, unrecognizable, without that. It is as fundamental to me as my gender.

Yet, in the last several years I have felt more distant from...well, let's say more "loosely attached to".... the visible gay community than I have at any time since 1979. My review of and reactions to Jack Malebranche's Androphilia, as well as my earlier postings on "What's Wrong With Homosexuality" detail why. A deeply-thankful-to-God-for-it homo I am. But a member of the "LGBT etc." community?....nah. I'll pass.

For fifteen years plus, I have lived smack dab (what the hell, btw, is a "smack dab"?) in the middle of the most famous gay ghetto in the world, the Castro in San Francisco. Last night and today, the place will be hopping...and skipping and jumping. The huge rainbow flag at the Harvey Milk Plaza is visible almost as soon as I leave my front door.

Regardless of my shifting opinions about gay politics and about the deep ambivalence over masculinity among gays, I still look at this sea of fellow-perverts with affection.

I remember the years in which I lived in a state of almost constant anxiety and fear, where a sense of self-loathing, self-disgust and horror could be provoked inside me...and I see this place where I now live. For all its craziness....I am deeply grateful for it. Had I been born in a different place and time...I shudder at the thought.

As they say now among the post-gay androphiles, there's no sense in being proud about being gay. It's just a form of desire and no accomplishment. Well, yes and no. Having the passion for your own gender is surely no accomplishment. It's a gift ;-). But overcoming the shame and fear that usually accompanies it....that is an accomplishment. It saved my soul.

So...Happy Gay Pride Day!