The Gay and Lesbian Community Did Not Help Here

Go Ahead, Now Tell Me How Homophobic I Am.

Published on September 27, 2004 By greywar In Personal Relationships

In my day I have had a fair amount of interaction with the gay community (for a straight guy in the military anyway) and I have several observations. Before I make them however you should know that I do not base these observations from any sort of moral judgment. What you do behind closed doors with another adult is your own damn business as far as I am concerned. Additionally it has been suggested that I turn in my membership card for the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy because I support both gay marriage and openly gay service members. That being said here we go…

When I was dating Strappy (a man hating lesbian for those who won’t bother to read the article) many of our mutual friends were gay, lesbian, or somewhere in between (Nancy I am looking at you!). As with any other group of folks there were some who were nice folks, some who were total assholes, and others who I didn’t have much of an opinion on. One thing they all seemed to have in common though was that their entire personality was built around their sexuality. Many (not all) of these kids when asked, “What are you?” As in what do you do in the Army or in life would respond (or wish they could respond they would say to me) “I’m gay/lesbian.”

It was very much as though their sexual preference substituted for the things that “normal” people define themselves with like: personality traits “I’m a nice guy”, a profession “I’m a soldier.”, or a life goal “I’m studying to be a priest”.

To be fair I believe (unscientifically) that a contributing factor to this was that most if not all were closeted for most of their lives. This intense sexual repression led to a bizarre backlash of overcompensation when they were in situations that allowed them to be whatever they wanted. They were not just a girl who liked girls or a guy who liked guy… they seemed to feel the need to be flagrant with their sexuality in ways that heterosexual folks tend to shy away from. Sure everyone has seen the hetero couple or three in the club who are way too touchy feely after a couple dozen beers but go into a gay club and it is rampant.

This tended to feed into a vicious cycle or pattern of behaviour among many of the gay/les folks I have known. For the most part they have been serial cheaters, very indiscreet about the former, and tend to participate in an odd form of sexual one-upsmanship (no I will not go into details here) that I have yet to see among even the most aggressive of hetero guys. (SFC Calangelo I am looking at you now…well ok maybe from The Evil Sangus). Some of this of course can be readily explained that in a gay male relationship there are two raging sex drives in play and no braking feminine force to slow it down. This is in part true but the repression of desire feeds into it heavily as well methinks as you see the same sort of thing on the distaff side of alternative lifestyles.

The upshot of all this is that many of my gay/les friends have been a very unhappy lot. They have lacked much in the way of stability (no support from home, maybe even hate from home, a lack of long term loving relationships (not all of them of course (don’t write letters please)), and of course the pressures of an unaccepting society) and this has lopsided many of their personalities. Most of my gay friends have never had a stable and lasting relationship (a few of the women have managed and even those suffered through more infidelity than I have ever seen in a hetero coupling), have not even managed to avoid alienating many of their gay friends (usually through serial infidelity as aforementioned), and of course still have issues dealing with the rest of the planet socially.

Does this mean the lifestyle is wrong? Not to my mind (your mileage may vary), but it does speak to how many contributing factors can produce a synergy that is capable of defeating something as basic to humanity as the pair-bond.

Long ago when my close friend SGT Smacker decided that he was gay (he was married at the time) I urged him quietly to simply “be gay on his own” for a while first. I urged this because the local gay community had no interest in seeing him deal with new feelings in this area or to help him seek some stability. No, the overwhelming interest was to push him into serial sex partners who had some very odd fetishes. The idea seemed to be that if they could really make him not only gay but perverse as well then their own self guilt (even undeserved) would be somehow lessened by comparison. This is a pattern I have seen perpetrated time and time again against my friends.

Is the gay community broken? Yes. Is it because they are gay? No. (If you think that is what I am arguing you should read this article again) Frankly I think applying the word “community” here is a misnomer. A community tries to buoy and support it’s members, not to push them too far and too fast for their mental health. There is a shortage of gay relationship counselors out there but if you are looking for a job out of psych school I think it will be a growth industry.

Comments (Page 1)

chiprj

on Sep 27, 2004

I can honestly say I've never given this nearly so much thought. But, I have to say this is a very interesting read and it's obvious that you've given it some thought. Very nice post.

Phoenixboi

on Sep 27, 2004

Hey Greywar.. this is a really good post and I think very insightful for someone who is not gay or lesbian. The gay community is mostly a broken community and this is from an insider perspective. I say mostly because there are some of us out there that do look out for each other and have close friends who arent just rooting around. I guess there is mini communities. The only explanation I have for this is that Gay and lesbian people have had a hard life. Most are rejected by their families and most have had it tough coming out, so in some way the extremes come out in regards to sexuality.
What I think is truely missing in the gay and lesbian community is intimacy, and talking to people it is being longed for.
Thanks for this post Greywar.

greywar

on Sep 27, 2004

Thanks Phoenixboi, I had actually wondered if you would comment on this one....

What I think is truely missing in the gay and lesbian community is intimacy, and talking to people it is being longed for.

Possibly, but I think a sense of "normalcy" may be even more lacking. This is one of the reasons I support gay marriage and full gay rights. Demonizing some things just compunds behaviours related to the original thing. Of course by proxy you could extend this argument to many things, but I think that most (sane) folks are able to see the difference between legal gay marriage and say legalizing NAMBLA's agenda.

Phoenixboi

on Sep 27, 2004

Possibly, but I think a sense of "normalcy" may be even more lacking

Yeah i agree with you there too... but what we see as normal is different to what you see as normal. Is normal for you what a heterosexual would consider normal? Im not really into gay marriage or marriage for anyone. I think if people love each other they love each other they dont need a piece of paper, (just my opinion) unless its got to do with something legal to do with rights.

My ex was married before I met him. We were together for just over a year. I helped him through a divorce and coming to terms with his sexuality. He has experienced the worst of the gay community. We are best mates now and we constantly have this sort of discussion on what the hell is happening to the gay community. They all seem to be screwed up. Im sure there are the sane ones out there but they dont seem to get out there. I guess they are happy in their own little world.

Sex does seem to be a big part of the community. With guys can u imagine.. in the straight world guys are into it so put two guys together and you got a whole lot of sexual energy. Alot of people can see that as disgusting and immoral but its fact. Alot of guys think with their dicks. But saying that it isnt what life is about. And there are guys out there who arent only into the sex.

greywar

on Sep 27, 2004

I mean normalcy as a sense of not doing anything that other folks are not doing too. Sure marriage is basically a piece of paper that is expensive to shred but it is a trapping of the "rest" of society. Humans can not help but have mental issues when separated from their social groups. This is one exclusion that is easily fixable.

Myrrander

on Sep 28, 2004

excellent post, you've done the issue a good turn here

Bungy32

on Sep 28, 2004

This is a very interesting article, all the more so for being written with some sensitivity from outside GLBT identity. I am not sure I agree that the gay community is "broken" since I don't think it ever actually "worked." Part of the problem may come from an implicit assumption in your opening caveat:

What you do behind closed doors with another adult is your own damn business as far as I am concerned.

Thank you for that...and I agree. But I think this points to a common misperception that sexuality is only about what happens in the bedroom. If GLBT folks feel "broken," it may be that we are constantly confronting our difference in the face of "heteronormativity" (a.k.a. "normal"). Heterosexual people (alone or in couples) perform their sexuality constantly outside of the bedroom (or, dropping the euphemism, outside of sexual acts). Gay people may have one or two bars or a coffee shop in a community of any size where they can be open about their sexuality, but contrast that to straight folks who are fairly open about their straight sexuality in a plethora of bars, restaurants, the grocery store, the drug store, city hall, on the street, etc. Straight sexuality is represented ubiquitously on billboards, in magazines, on TV, in advertisements, etc. Representations of gays in our media, despite all the hype and furor, are still relatively minor and small in number, all things considered.

When I say sexuality includes more than the sex act, I am refering to how people interact in public, gesture styles, manner of dress, ways of speaking, topics of socially appropriate conversation, and so forth. We tend to dismiss, for example, gay male "performance" as affectation (i.e. "an act") that can and should be turned off -- but this is to ignore all the ways we are taught to behave in appropriatly straight masculine ways from birth. (The same can be applied to femininity, of course.) That is, straight male performances are equally "affected" but the dominance of heteronormativity makes the performance affectations of straight masculinity kinda hard to see as affectations. Certainly, many gay men can pass for straight or reject stereotypically queer "affectations" -- but they don't make this "choice" in a vacuum. In fact, they often (but not always) make these choices openly by disavowing such queer affectations -- a process some refer to as "internalized homophobia."

Two points, then, follow from this conclusion. First, being gay in this culture is harder than most people (including many gay people) realize. You are constantly confronted with your difference, sometimes in very uncomfortable and potentially violent ways. You learn early on how to be secretive, how to "pass," and when to stay in the closet. I submit that there are damaging consequences to living this life, and that those consequences manifest in many of the ways you have discussed. Like straight people, GLBT folks are neither saints nor sinners by virtue of their sexuality. We all develop coping mecahnisms for dealing with life's inequities -- some more successful than others, some healthier than others.

Second, it is probably a mistake to talk about the gay community as if it is one coherent group. There are multiple, overlapping and yet distinct gay communities -- just as there is a similar diversity of straight communities. I've been out of the circuit party and club community for a while and am only tangentially involved with local activist communities. My partner and I have been together for 10+ years and we tend to spend our time with other couples, both gay and straight-but-not-narrow. We have a social network -- a community of sorts -- that is fairly supportive and open. Nor are we demographically "odd" -- we're just not quite as visible in popular representations of gays in the media. (Why is that, I wonder.) But even the more popularized and visible communities, despite being just as flawed as every other community, provide important and useful resources of support.

That said, thanks for this article. I take great comfort from hearing straight people make sense in sensitive ways of their encounters with gays, lesbians, and GLBT communities.

greywar

on Sep 28, 2004

Bungy32 - You make some interesting and valid points. I do think that "normal" public displays of affection in public should fine at least insofar as they are fine for us breeders as well. The thing many of the more homophobic in our society recoils from is the over the top displays. The one that are performances. Hell take the entire gay pride parade/fest phenomenon. This is not a "normal" display... it is about as far from normal as it gets. (in addition to being a bit silly, you are proud of things you accomplish, not the things you are (anologous to the ridiculous concept behind "race" pride rallies and suchlike) )

That being said I think that these overcompensations are driven by the non-acceptance of the rest of society coupled with the impulse to hedonism that that societal rejection tends to engender. The same thing applies to any community that either exists outside the law or conceives out itself as being out of the norm. Drug addicts push each other to new heights of depravity beyond simple recreational intoxication, (on a personal note here) alcoholics push the social drinking companions beyond their tolerance limits to feel more normal, and criminals push their associates to greater evils for the same reasons. Does being gay rank up with these groups? Not liekly but the behavioural patters remain applicable. The entire thing is a circular feedback cycle in which the straight community pushes the gay community's buttons and the gay community pushes back ad nauseaum.

Bungy32

on Sep 28, 2004

I agree that this is sort of a cycle or feedback loop. And I appreciate that you call into question straight communities' participation in that "push." I guess I just worry that your other two examples of so-called overcompensation are about addiction. Implicitly, I worry that you are alligning GLBT identity with physical or mental incapacity or dependency. And that is not how I experience my queer identity, even at its most sex-positive extremes. I don't simply conceive or perceive my sexuality as against the law or out of the "norm" -- in this culture, it is! And there are far too many people who want to keep it that way or make it more so. I am grateful beyond words that people like you express the need for equal (or "normal") social standards about public displays of affection, but that world just isn't here yet. And isn't that a problem for all of us to face and not just the "broken" gay communities?

Even if we take the entire gay pride parade/festival as a representative example, I still have to take some exceptions. Seems like the media (with their liberal slant?) likes to focus on the leather men, circuit bois, and drag queens on the parade floats. The dowdy PFLAG moms or the Gay Families baby buggy rallies never seem to get as much attention. And no one gives the Gay Trekies any air time at all. Personally, I think the greatest threat the gay marriages of earlier this year posed to our culture is that the people lined up at those court houses were remarkably devoid of the usual stereotypes that dominate representations of gay cultures (especially in coverage of Pride events). They were pretty much frumpy, middle class Americans -- so dang "normal" looking.

Meanwhile, on the flip side, nubile females in mini skirts and pompoms is "normal" for a "normal" parade or sporting event, even if they are underage and grinding their hips provocatively to sexually explicit music. We may, in fact, live in an oversexualized culture, but that oversexulaization is hardly driven by gay "overcompensation." Anyway you cut it, there is a double standard where public display is concerned -- but it may be hard to see it from a position of normalized privilege.

I will grant, however, that confronting sexuality difference on a daily basis can lead one to question the dominant culture's values about sexuality. I don't think that's necessarily about pushing or being in a straight community's face; it's more a reaction that goes something like, "if they were wrong about me being straight, what else were they wrong about?" Quite a few straight folks rebel against dominant culture's attitudes about sexuality as well; not all (or even most) S&M/leather fetishists are gay, afterall. But then, maybe you already knew that.

greywar

on Sep 28, 2004

are about addiction.

Less addiction than obsession. There lots of examples but those were handy.

Bungy32

on Sep 28, 2004

(in addition to being a bit silly, you are proud of things you accomplish, not the things you are (anologous to the ridiculous concept behind "race" pride rallies and suchlike) )

BTW, being open about your sexuality when it goes against what the bulk of your culture says is "right" is an accomplishment. Standing up and saying "this is who I am" to a culture that tells you what you are is a sin/crime/disease is an accomplishment. Celebrating the fact that we can celebrate because many others before us stood up in even more oppressive times is celebrating accomplishments and it is a continuation of those accomplishments. And that is what we celebrate -- what we take pride in -- at Pride festivals. I am not proud because I am gay. I am proud because I am out, and that is not just a condition of my being -- it is a moral/political/social effort. And it aint easy.

greywar

on Sep 28, 2004

I would be behgind that sentiment if it was "I am gay and a sucess despite the fact that you hate me" celebration, but the lunatic fringe of the gay movement want none of that. They prefer the "This is just how gay I can be publicly!" meme which does them no good. Same goes for the recent anti-war protests, check out Evan Coyne Maloney's site for good examples of good intentions taken down the river by extremists.

Bungy32

on Sep 28, 2004

but the lunatic fringe of the gay movement want none of that. They prefer the "This is just how gay I can be publicly!" meme

Okay, but see that's the fringe. EVERY group has them. And if you judge the whole group by the behaviors or rhetoric of the fringe, then we're all screwed.

Also, "This is just how gay I can be publicly" kind of serves the usual function of radicals in a social movement -- it makes the rest of the movement seem reasonable by comparison.

Finally, depending on the "how gay" part, I worry that some respond negatively even when the behavior is consistent with norms for straight culture. Public nude spankings at the Fulsom Street Fair are probably over the top. But many would say a "kiss in" is similarly "too gay in public" -- and I think a kiss in is one of the best strategies of queer protest. What better way than to confront a reluctant public (or public official) with our love, and in a way that all too many straight couples take for granted? One of the biggest issues in queer identity is "visibility." In celebrating visibility, some cross over into spectacles of excess. In the extreme, I grant that is problematic. But where you draw the line that marks "reasonable" from "excessive" seems to change depending on your level of acceptance or homophobia. Because there really is no cultural norm that defines that line, it is inevitable that it will be crossed and (as you said earlier) "pushed." You gotta figure folks who have suffered from homophobia (in many case violently) aren't necessarily gonna be the most rational in choosing where to draw that line. Personally, I look back on my more activist days with a mixture of horror and pride -- "I can't believe I did that, I was so young...ah, those were the days."

(I checked out the link but couldn't find the article you were talking about. )

greywar

on Sep 29, 2004

When the lunatic fringe gets to do the event organizing though the "silent majority" gets fucked. I have given many examples of this (the dems are suffering it's effects now)

Bungy32

on Sep 29, 2004

Arguably, the GOP are suffering similar effects as well. But that only proves your point.

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