No doubt we are in what we could call the "Post-AIDS Era." Not that AIDS is over by any means--people are still contracting HIV and being diagnosed with AIDS--but gay men are no longer obsessed with the disease as they once were and are moving on to ... what?
At one time AIDS was an overwhelming threat to our community and ourselves. Many people spent a great deal of time and energy working singly and with others to respond to and survive the epidemic. That effort provided a focus, a strong sense of community purpose and a source of meaning in many people's lives.
And so what for many gay men feels like the end of a threat also feels like the loss of a sense of mission or purpose and the loss of a common bond with other gay men.
A January 8 article in the San Francisco Chronicle reported that many gay men were now facing the challenge of defining new goals for themselves and, as they saw it, for the community.
The newspaper quoted one Doug Sebesta of a group called the San Francisco Gay Men's Community Initiative that many men said it was hard to meet other gay men outside of sexual encounters and to connect on an emotional or friendship basis.
"People were saying they really have this longing for a sense of community ... that they feel everything is fractured, that everybody is paranoid, and nobody is having any fun."
In the absence of a common threat it is not clear whether it is possible any longer to have a sense of community with the "gay community" After all, being gay in a gay community is no longer the fascinating new experience that it seemed in the 1970s, nor is there the same level of external hostility that produced a kind of community centripetal force. And the community is much larger and more diverse than it was in the 1970s, making it harder to feel confident about what one is relating to.
Instead, what people seem to be wishing for is something more personal, more about friendship with specific people or groups of people.
The traditional advice is to get out and meet people. What is more difficult is getting to know people and having a sense that they know you. More practical advice is to join a community group. To be sure, there are people who go from group to group, "cruising for friends." But the point is to find a group the person is really interested in so he has a reason to keep going back. Getting well acquainted with people over time is key for forming friendships.
The problem is that many cities lack a wide variety of interest groups to choose from. There are religious, political, and recovery groups, but those aren't quite the same thing. AIDS activism, necessary at the time, sucked up a great deal of energy that could have gone into creating other community activities. If it has not dissipated, that energy is currently undirected.
Instead of one new focus for the entire community, what we need is the creation of an array of smaller groups focused on the members' interests in any of a variety of topics. Finding a sense of community with a smaller, identifiable group of people who have a common interest is easier than feeling a sense of community with unknown thousands of gays.
I have written recently of helping start a gay artists network and I will not repeat that story here. But its rapid growth (more than 50 members) suggests a previously unmet interest and offers an successful example of creating a new interest group. Participants are already getting to know one another, discuss common concerns and form friendships.
There must be a vast number of other interests out there that are not being tapped into. A friend has spoken of wanting to start a group of gay actors and theater people. What about amateur musicians? Or jazz fans? Or a literature discussion group?
The point is that with the decline of a common threat our energies can be directed to more personal interests. The organized "gay community" then consists of the aggregate of all these smaller groups. Their overlapping memberships can help knit the community together.
That variety of community group is what we mean when we speak of a "dynamic community"--a community that elicits the energies of its members by providing them with a way to pursue their heterogeneous interests and goals while still rooted in our community. These energies have in large measure been untapped in the last few years, but we have the opportunity to draw on them to build our community anew.
21 Comments for “After AIDS…What?”
posted by Randy on
Agree 100%. In Washington, I started up a gay lit series, and have been active in more gay organizations that I can keep tract of. I have tons of gay friends, and I strated out totally from scratch, because at the time I came out I had zero openly gay friends.
Life is what you make of it. If you sit home watching American Idol all the time, then don’t complain about not making friends! There is no lack of needs, interests or desires within the community, and a little time on your part will help others, and more importantly, help yourself.
posted by James on
Here’s an idea–why not get rid of the idea that gay makes you special? Gay doesn’t make you wise or fabulous or victimized or hated more than anyone else (I mean, be thankful you don’t get the hatred directed at undocumented workers). Why not use something else as the source of your identity–like “teacher” or “Presbyterian” or “NASCAR fan” or something? Why not forget about being gay and just hang out with everyone else?
Let being gay be one of the things people discover about you as they get to know you–not the first thing you shove in front of their face. Hang out with people you like and don’t worry about your sexuality–just be yourself, and no one will care.
I think the gay community should simply dissolve. Being gay should be no more a reason for separating from other people than liking classical music. Maybe you’ll have one or two friends that you can go to concerts with, but classical music doesn’t have to be the litmus test for friendship. In the same way, you might need one or two people who really understand the gay part of you, but fill your life with other people who understand all those other parts. You don’t really need a gay community. So maybe it’s time to let go.
posted by Brian Miller on
I happen to believe that a great deal of the so-called “community spirit” was more exclusionary than inclusionary — in fact, I’d argue it excluded the majority of gay men and women in this country.
Take, for example, the activist core of the “professional gay organizations” — the Paula Ettelbricks, Scott Longs and Elizabeth Birches of the world. All of them insisted throughout the 1990s that gay marriage equality was a “bourgeois concept” and that most gay people wanted a life of queer separatism and sexual libertinism. While that was a popular choice with a subsection of the urban gay demographic, a massive (and heretofore unseen) group of gay people rose up and made gay marriage equality a central issue.
It was stunning to behold and shocked many of the self-appointed leaders to see their supposed command of gay people and gay issues so decisively repudiated — that there was diversity beyond the cookie-cutter caricature of gayness that was propogated.
I think that gay people have outgrown the old urban gay ghetto and its attendant baggage (leftist politics, “coalitions” with various groups/parties that campaign on gay rights as a political strategy and not a real commitment, hold-nose-and-vote-for-stuff-to-get-your-rights politics, etc.) Gay people are part of their community now more than ever — locally in small towns, suburban streets and big cities alike.
Being out is no longer a revolutionary political act — with the implications of that. It’s now a demographic fact. Kids are coming out at age 14, and are living happy and productive lives in school — decreasing the relevance of the gay ghetto where unhappy late-teens and twenty-somethings fled 10 or 20 years ago. Gay people are thinking more independently — they’re entrepreneurs, professionals in every line of work, stay-at-home moms (and dads), and every other type of person. . . often in the mainstream jobs, companies and communities that the old “revolutionary left” used to rail against. And they’re now disagreeing with the revolutionaries on every issue — from marriage equality (they favor it) to economics.
The brittleness of the old gay urban subculture has thus assured its own destruction. It’s so exclusionary and demanding of such conformity to its ideals that it cannot absorb the vast diversity that the real gay community nationwide represents. It’s urban and an enclave in the city, so it has no relevance to suburbanites and rural people. It’s a culture of body fascism and excessive focus on rigid adherence to ideals of beauty — a culture the vast majority of gay people don’t buy into. It’s loudly insistent that 100% belief in all associated left-wing causes is required — and moderates, conservatives, libertarians, liberals and others are rejecting that. It’s a culture that roots itself geographically and politically — inner city and political causes — rather than through kinship, family, professional and greater community bonds (which are arguably more important to most gay people these days).
But the killer thing about it is that it’s not so welcoming. Don’t believe me? Just be 15 pounds “overweight” and go in a tee shirt and jeans to your local gayborhood. You might as well be an invisible ghost. Go to “community group” meetings at HRC or NGLTF and make suggestions that go against the party line — you’ll be ridiculed. Go to local activist groups that have been dominated by the same personalities for 20+ years and call for some modernization and change — and watch yourself be mercilessly attacked.
In short, the community hasn’t disappeared. It’s just changed. It’s now more democratic, diverse, broad-based and grass-roots than it was in the past. And the old urban gay culture, which had its use in the 1970s and 1980s, is a relic of a pre-internet, pre-gay-family, pre-outness-is-normal era which, just like speakeasies, is fading into history.
posted by James on
I think it is essential we develop a new paradigm for “coming out.” Rather than the “Hey, World, I’m gay!” model, I think we need a model that balances a legitimate need for personal privacy with a need for living an honest life, out of the closet.
I think that the process of coming out begins with self-honesty, living your life as you are (and getting rid of all those girlfriends in Canada no one ever sees). Having done that, though, on a day-to-day basis, my life looks like anyone else’s life.
I’m not trying to hide anything. My decision is to give honest answers to all appropriate questions, without changing pronouns. People can discern I’m gay by slowly getting to know me and discovering who I am, and if we’ve reached a level of intimacy, they can ask me directly about my sexual orientation. At work, I can display pictures of my (future) partner and bring him to social functions, without asking for a fanfare as we enter. This also allows people who don’t want to know the freedom not to have to deal with aspects of me they really don’t want to deal with–and I don’t have to deal with the fact they are James Blunt fans, either. A zone of privacy is not a closet.
The gay community, described by Brian above, won’t accept anything less than a public announcement. If you’re not “out ‘n proud,” you’re in the closet. Most people, particularly here in the Midwest, don’t really want to know your business. This new paradigm I’m describing takes into account the needs of gays outside of urban areas who are honest but also value their and other’s privacy.
posted by James on
To continue after some thought–
I don’t have to honest and open about my orientation if straights don’t have to be honest about theirs. Simply calling oneself “straight” is not a full disclosure. Straight can mean many things–
I’ve only had sex with and fantasized about women and can’t imagine anything else–
I like women, but there was that one guy in college–
I have decided to sublimate all my feelings about men and marry a woman to satisfy my family–
I don’t really like sex, and I’ve found a woman just like me who also likes the same TV shows–
I only molest little girls–
Simply coming out as “straight” or “gay” is a waste of time since you haven’t really said anything. And “straight” is no longer the privilaged default assumption. I am a 40+ single male who doesn’t date women–can you guess what the default assumption about me is?
I don’t care what other people choose as their default assumption about other men. The point is, coming out is not about applying a meaningless label to yourself when no one has asked. Coming out means getting to know people and letting them get to know you, and when the time is right, and you are both at the same level of intimacy, telling the truth about who you are.
posted by Carl on
”
The gay community, described by Brian above, won’t accept anything less than a public announcement. If you’re not “out ‘n proud,” you’re in the closet. Most people, particularly here in the Midwest, don’t really want to know your business.”
The problem with this is that the lives of gay people are often exploited and demonized and persecuted in many areas, whether gays are publicly out or not. In Kansas over the past few years, many, many gays and lesbians have come out, because they know that all their years of secrecy got them nothing but restrictive anti-gay legislation.
Anyway, if people want something to focus on, then stopping the crystal meth epidemic would be a good start.
posted by James on
I’m not talking about “secrecy.” I’m talking about revealing as much about yourself as straights reveal about themselves. I, as a 40+ single guy, am not keeping secrets from anyone. But neither do I have to explain myself to people who aren’t asking–any more than a straight has to explain his sexual interests to me.
I think the persecutions and victimization began with Stonewall. Continuing to use Stonewall tactics when they have become self-defeating is like continuing chemotherapy after the cancer is gone. At some point, you have to return to a normal life, eat right, and get exercise as a way of staying healthy, and that’s what the gay community needs to do now.
posted by ColoradoPatriot on
James: “I think the persecutions and victimization began with Stonewall.”
You might want to think about that one a little harder.
posted by James on
There is nothing in the “gay gene” which requires that I admire or respect Stonewall. In the first place, it cemented the idea that “gay” means “drag queen” in the public’s mind. Also, that sort of confrontative approach based on gender-bending and shock tactics has created a backlash against any form of marriage or legal partnership. By creating an image of gay as “exotic” and “queer,” Stonewall created a subculture which limits the visibility of normal, average gays, thus making it difficult for us to make our case for marriage and adoption rights. Frankly, I wouldn’t want the Stonewall crowd raising children, either, so I’m not surprised when laws are passed against gay adoption–but what makes those laws unfair is that the voters are responding to a stereotype promulgated by Stonewall and those who continue to support those tactics. Gays who want to get married and settle down and have kids are not represented by Stonewall and are frequently mocked and marginalized by Stonewall supporters.
There. I’ve thought about that a little harder. Happy?
posted by ColoradoPatriot on
James: “There. I’ve thought about that a little harder. Happy?”
Not happy…just so-so (with kind regards to Krzysztof Kie?lowski). My point of contention with your statement is when you said “I think the persecutions and victimization began with Stonewall.” That statement is mind-numbingly short-sighted and confusing. Please research gay history a little deeper. I whole-heartedly recommend Graham Robb’s STRANGERS: HOMOSEXUAL LOVE IN THE 19TH CENTURY for further study on pre-Stonewall gay liberation and identity.
You seem to operate under the delusion that Stonewall represented the absolute beginning of gay-rights (a laughable position to take). While Stonewall WAS an important event in the chronology of American gay rights (and, as a touchstone, world-wide gay rights) it is hardly the be-all and end-all of gay history. I find it hard to believe that you could actually think that Stonewall is to blame for gays being viewed as “exotic” by the general public. Surely they weren’t looked upon kindly before Stonewall…if they were how do you account for the heavy-handed tactics towards gays by the police and local governments leading up to the riot? Did you mean to state that in your above post? Likewise, it is QUITE a philosophical stretch to try to apply the events of Stonewall with current gay rights legistlation…why focus on such an obscure event (and by obscure I don’t mean to diminish the legacy of Stonewall, just to state that it is too far in the past to even register with most people today) to foster your hate-filled meanderings? To take Stonewall out of its historical frame of reference and try to apply it to today is a foolish endeavor. “Gays who want to get married and settle down and have kids are not represented by Stonewall and are frequently mocked and marginalized by Stonewall supporters.” What is that supposed to mean? Who are these “Stonewall supporters” that mock and marginalize gays? Are they simply delusions produced by your sick mind? If not, Omaha must be one screwed up place to play host to such anti-social gays that would seek to “mock and marginalize” their gay brothers and sisters just for leading productive and happy lives.
posted by James on
You don’t really have to go further than this board for examples of the mocking and marginalization–read any of the threads in which I’m involved.
Stonewall was not about gay rights, it was about drag/fem rights, which is not the same thing–but it has been co-opted as a symbolic event by the gay community. Many still believe that these kind of shock tactics are effective–go to any Pride parade.
I don’t read gay history as a history of victims. I don’t really see any history of violence in the lives of Cole Porter, Walt Whitman, Lorenz Hart, Richard III, Michelangelo, Henry James, Willa Cather, Gertrude Stein, Henry David Thoreau, Tennessee Williams. etc., etc. Where is the victimization you think is such a central part of the gay experience? These people were all openly gay (given the meaning of that in their time and place). If these prominent people weren’t victims of hate crimes, where are the gays that were? This history of violence and victimization is just gay mythology. I’m not saying there was none, but there was less violence against gays than, say, Mormons or Native Americans. Most gays lived reasonably open lives among their friends. (You could cite Oscar Wilde, but there were a lot of other things going on.)
After Stonewall, though, there has been a backlash leading to laws against marriage, civil unions, adoptions, etc. None of these were spelled out. My “maiden aunt” adopted 2 children–she wouldn’t be allowed now, thanks to Stonewall and the type of confrontative protest it inspired.
posted by Tim on
“This history of violence and victimization is just gay mythology.”
Really ? So the Nazis didn’t put gay people in concentration camps ?
And James you can’t the lives of famous people with money to ordinary people. Money trumps everything in our culture.
posted by ColoradoPatriot on
James: “If these prominent people weren’t victims of hate crimes, where are the gays that were?” Ask Matt Shephard or Harvey Milk or Scott Amedure or Kevin Aviance or Bertrand Delanoe or Charlie Howard or Brandon Teena or Jody Dobrowski or Sakia Gunn or Ayaz Marhoni or Paul Broussard or Aaron Webster or Barry Winchell or Tegan Rinke or Allen Schindler Jr. Don’t be an asshole James.
posted by James on
Umm–look at Joseph Smith, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph, the Trail of Tears, the Southern lynchings, etc., etc. Don’t be an asshole Colorado Patriot.
I didn’t say there was no victimization–I said that the gay community isn’t specially chosen to suffer, and other minorities have suffered more. At the moment, undocumented workers are suffering more violence than gays–when was the last time you stood up for them?
Matthew Shepard was certainly a tragedy, but not any more tragic than any woman who picks up the wrong guy and is raped and murdered.
While gays were a group targeted by the Nazis, they weren’t the only group, or the most important group. Again, this is certainly a tragedy, but there were bigger tragedies going on.
The fact that there has been violence against gays in the past doesn’t mean that gay history is a history of violence. 19th century culture was largely accepting of gays, as long as all the social niceties were observed. There was a place at the table for confirmed bachelors and their friends. “Boston marriages” were common and accepted. Look at the play Pygmalion–those kinds of male relationships were as accepted as any other.
There was some violence against gays–there has been some violence against every group, everywhere. Gays are not any more victims than anyone else.
posted by ColoradoPatriot on
James: “Stonewall was not about gay rights, it was about drag/fem rights, which is not the same thing–but it has been co-opted as a symbolic event by the gay community. Many still believe that these kind of shock tactics are effective–go to any Pride parade.”
What a ridiculously stupid thing to say. The Stonewall Inn was a GAY establishment frequented by Black and Latino gay AND transgendered people. The Stonewall Inn was an unlicensed bar that was targeted by the police because it had links to GAY CRIMINALS operating blackmail and extortion attempts on GAY workers on the Stock Market. The Stonewall Inn was a rough place and the police sparked a riot when the community of whores, junkies and other assorted lowlifes turned the tables on their tormentors. The riot police that were called in were trained to take out VIETNAM PROTESTORS…the riot police themselves were turned back by the rioters. Are you honestly trying to compare this melee of criminality and over-reaching police authority to a Gay Pride Parade? What kind of Pride Parades do you sickos have up there in Omaha…sounds like quite a trip…it is a wonder you violent Nebraskan queers don’t make headline news around the world if that is what your parades are like.
posted by ColoradoPatriot on
James: “While gays were a group targeted by the Nazis, they weren’t the only group, or the most important group.” So tell us James, who was the most important group? LOL
“I didn’t say there was no victimization–I said that the gay community isn’t specially chosen to suffer, and other minorities have suffered more. At the moment, undocumented workers are suffering more violence than gays–when was the last time you stood up for them?” The only problem James is that you DIDN’T say that, you listed gay celebrities and tried to make an assumption based on there lives that gays don’t suffer abuse. YOU ASKED THE QUESTION JAMES, I ANSWERED IT. Your list of other people who have been victimized is nice but completely off topic. When was the last time I stood up for illegal immigrants? Ummm…is that sort of like asking when was the last time I beat my wife? I have never stood up for illegal immigrants. I don’t know why you would even ask such a silly question.
posted by James on
Here’s what I said about victimization:
“I’m not saying there was none, but there was less violence against gays than, say, Mormons or Native Americans. Most gays lived reasonably open lives among their friends. (You could cite Oscar Wilde, but there were a lot of other things going on.)”
I don’t consider drag/fem as gay or even a subset of gay. Some men–gay and straight–like to express themselves in effeminate ways. Which is all fine, but it’s not gay. Gay is men being attracted to other men. Consequently, Stonewall like protests or Pride parades which conflate drag/fem with gay do a great disservice to those of us who are gay and don’t wish to be associated with the drag/fem world. Other articles on this board complain about the assumption that gay means liberal–in the same way that gay is not liberal, gay is not drag/fem. I don’t know why that’s not clear.
Sodomy used to be illegal–a lot of guys still did it because they knew the law was wrong. In the same way, undocumented workers might be doing something technically illegal, but I think the law is wrong, like I think the old sodomy laws are wrong. So I see the plight of undocumented workers as similar to the plight of gays under sodomy laws–the laws are unfair and don’t take reality into account. I think that the selective use of an unfair law to persecute a minority is always wrong, whether your name is Pedro Martinez or Oscar Wilde.
posted by ColoradoPatriot on
Clear as mud, as usual. You fight so hard to seperate your preferred “type” of gay from all those other undesirables but then try to lump us in together with illegal immigrants. Did you get dropped on your head as a child?
posted by Tim on
What about the gay, illegal immigrants. They have no voice !
I guess James wants to deport the fem illegals.
posted by ed on
After AIDS, huh? I don’t agree with that premise, but I do think that you raise interesting questions about: What do we as a community stand for without the lightning rod of young men dying frequently?
When my friends & acquaintences stop dying, stop being sick, or stop contracting HIV then it will be after. When new HIV infection rates drop among young men of all colors, then it will be after. When big pharma no longer sees the need to market anti-HIV drugs with hunky, healthy, pretty men in the ads, then it will be after.
Since the only thing that all of us gay guys have in common is that we’re gay, that doesn’t leave a lot of common ground, other than the obvious. We come from such diverse walks of life.
One thing that we could focus on as a community is kindness to our brothers/sister and ourselves. Wouldn’t that be refreshing? How about we start here in these comments?
posted by Brian Miller on
I don’t feel a lot of kinship over Stonewall, beyond a recognition of common oppression, but the truth about Stonewall is somewhere between the “heroic queers fight police oppression” and “den of criminals reacts violently to police attempts to cease extortion of Wall Street workers.”
The victors write the history books. Had General Cornwallis been a bit wiser and had a few more men and guns, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson would be forgotten (or epithets akin to Benedict Arnold).