IGF CultureWatch

My Grandma Rose stood at just under 5 feet--in recent years, even less than that, as osteoporosis took its toll on her small frame. But she will always be a towering figure in my mind.

She was born on May 8, 1921, in the town of Licodia Eubea, in the Sicilian province of Catania. A few years later her father immigrated to the United States, and he would not see her again until she was twelve, when he finally sent for her and the rest of the family. I often wonder what it must have been like for her, to meet this virtual stranger who was her father. He was a harsh man, even violent, but she loved him nevertheless.

Her family embodied the "American dream," coming to the new world, trying to take advantage of a land of opportunity. When she was nineteen her parents introduced her to my grandfather, Joseph, in what today would be called an arranged marriage. Joseph was born in the same town as Rose, and like her he immigrated as a child. Eventually he became a successful carpenter. Their marriage lasted for sixty-five years, "till death do us part" indeed.

Together Rose and Joseph had two children, my Uncle Tom and my mother Annette. (Their real names: Gaitano and Antoinette. Don't ask me how "Gaitano" became "Tom": somehow it makes sense to our Italian-American ears.) But they also presided over a large extended family. While the terms "matriarch" and "patriarch" seem old-fashioned, my grandparents epitomized the best aspects of those roles: commitment, dependability, generosity, dignity.

To them, family was paramount. It shaped their identity, it guided their choices, it gave them their purpose. The result was that those of us who were part of their family had a strong sense of place: we belonged and we mattered. "Nobody's better than you," my grandmother would tell us grandchildren, and when she said it, she meant it, and we felt it. She didn't mean that other people were bad--indeed, despite her provincial background, she had a deep respect for other cultures--she meant that we were good. And in that way she taught us not only to respect, but also to be respected, and to carry ourselves with dignity.

That strong sense of family could be comforting--indeed, invaluably so--but it could also be intimidating. To screw up was not merely to disgrace yourself, it was to disgrace the Family. Capital F. Whenever my grandmother would talk about her family, she would punctuate her sentences with "Right or wrong?" You knew that it wasn't really a multiple-choice question.

It was against that background that, when I was about 25 years old, I decided to come out to my grandparents. I had been building a wall between us for years, trying to hide an important aspect of myself, and that felt wrong. (I can hear my grandmother now saying, "If you don't trust your family, who can you trust? You gotta trust your family. Right or wrong?")

So I went to their house and…I couldn't do it. I hemmed and hawed and skated around the issue and finally went home. Discouraged but not deterred, I went back the next day. Finally I looked at my grandmother (my conversations were always primarily with her; my grandfather taking a largely silent but crucial background role) and I said, trembling, "Grandma, I'm gay."

"Yes, we know," she replied, with a loving look that I'll never forget. "You're our grandson, and we love you, and we're proud of you." Then she hit my taciturn grandfather in the arm and said, "Joe, say something," and he repeated the same sentiment. And that was that.

When people ask me how my family took my coming out, I often quip that they handled it the way Italian-Americans handle anything perceived to be a crisis: we yell, we scream, we cry--and then we all sit down and eat. At the end of the day, we're family. In the case of my grandparents, there was no yelling, screaming and crying. There was just the powerful sense that I was family, and that was all that mattered. That sense eventually extended to my partner, whom they immediately embraced as one of their own.

Grandma Rose died peacefully on April 23, 2006. I was at her side, along with my parents, my uncle, my grandfather, and some cousins.

In a world of so-called "culture wars," there are those who talk about family values and there are those who live them. Grandma Rose lived them, and for that, I will forever be grateful. Rest in peace, Grandma.

Former neuroscientist Simon LeVay made a brief splash 15 years ago with research purporting to show that a part of gay men's brains he claimed was associated with sexual attraction in animals was slightly more like the brains of women than were the brains of ostensibly heterosexual men.

The study had a number of problems. The gay men all died of AIDS but the effect of the disease and antiviral drugs on the brain was left unexplored. The orientation of the supposedly non-gay men was actually unknown. The role of the studied brain segment in humans is uncertain. And some gay men's brain segments were more "male" than some of the heterosexual men's. The study has not been replicated and LeVay soon retired from neuroscience research.

Now LeVay is back with a long, meandering and confusing think piece once again arguing that there is something female about gay men. But then he seems to back off his claim as if aware that this outdated stereotype just won't sell any more. It is an odd performance.

Writing in the British magazine New Scientist, LeVay starts with the claim that gay men have difficulty falling in love and forming lasting relationships. Heterosexual partners, he says, are drawn to each other primarily because of their differences as male and female. But same-sex partners, "may sometimes be too similar to each other for their relationships to be stable."

They lack the complementarity that can solidify a relationship, he says, so "it may be difficult for a person to see their partner as sufficiently 'other' or 'exotic' for romantic passion to persist." In other words, gays do not fit LeVay's procrustean, heterosexual model of sexual bonding.

One successful gay relationship, LeVay says, "was portrayed by Robin Williams and Nathan Lane in the 1996 movie 'The Birdcage.' Although grossly stereotyped for humorous effect, it may have been more culturally authentic than the relationship between two similar, conventionally masculine men that was the focus of last year's Brokeback Mountain."

Well, hardly! In one sense LeVay is only stating the familiar point that differences can be attractive because they are mysterious. But he gets the rest all wrong. There are certainly differences between same-sex partners. As psychologist C. A. Tripp pointed out in "The Homosexual Matrix," the basis of erotic attraction is that each partner wishes to experience or take "symbolic possession" of some desirable quality present in the other partner.

But as Tripp makes clear, "Homosexuality in all its variations always means that same-sex attributes ... have taken on erotic significance." So it is the most simple-minded stereotype to think of partner differences as significantly related to the expression of gender polarity.

For one thing, as LeVay belatedly acknowledges in his final three paragraphs, there can be many differences between same-sex partners not related to gender polarity. The best known are age-differentiated relationships as in ancient Greece where--contrary to LeVay--it was the masculinity and prowess not the femininity of the younger partner that was valued.

Other familiar differences between partners can and do include things such as ethnicity, social level, race, body type, temperament, experiential background or personality type.

It is also important to realize that there is a variety of different ways of expressing or embodying masculinity that have nothing to do with femininity--although people who believe the stereotype usually try to represent them that way. Men who embody different modes of masculinity can readily be attracted to each other because none of us can embody them all fully--an emphasis on some involves a de-emphasis of others.

Tripp points out that the differences between partners are often small, almost invisible to outsiders, but exist nevertheless. LeVay, for instance misses the differences between the two "conventionally masculine" men in "Brokeback Mountain" because his procrustean gender dichotomy model of sexual attraction prevents him from seeing them.

As Virginia blogger Tim Hulsey writes, "The film's central point in depicting the relationship of Jack and Ennis is that their various masculine traits are different and complementary. To oversimplify, Jack Twist has the social skills, self-assertiveness and personal ambition that Ennis Del Mar lacks. Ennis has the internal moral fiber, survival instinct, and sense of personal responsibility to others that Jack lacks. Jack knows how to act like a man; Ennis knows how to be a man. Each needs the other to complete his masculinity."

Finally, even men who seem similarly masculine can be attracted to each other because, however masculine each partner may be, since he has eroticized same-sex attributes--the definition of being gay--each may be seeking yet more of an attribute he already has in abundance. We have all seen well-built men and bodybuilders attracted to each other as partners.

LeVay should read more about the psychology of sexual atraction before he writes about it again.

The headline of the lead story in the Bay Area Reporter, San Francisco's gay newspaper of record, said it all: "Gay Families Join Easter Egg Roll."

We've come a long way from the Stonewall riot, the sexual liberationism of the 1970s, and "We're Here, We're Queer, Get Used to It." There are unmistakable signs that the emphasis on relationships and families in gay life, politics, and media is having traditionalizing effects on gay culture.

This is evident in the causes and trends that have dominated the gay movement for the past 15 years or so: serving in the military, joining the Boy Scouts, attending services at large gay-friendly churches, and above all, gay marriage.

This development can even be seen in America's capital of gay sexual liberation, San Francisco. Recent stories in the B.A.R. and the Los Angeles Times document the beginnings of a change in attitudes toward open and explicit displays of sexuality in the Castro. The change is being spurred especially by gay families with children, who want a more family-friendly environment and are chafing at a culture they see as saturated with sex.

According to a recent report in the L.A. Times:

In the Castro, restaurants oriented toward gay singles now offer child-size portions and even highchairs. One coffee shop features a hot chocolate "Castro Kids Special," a popular item during the morning rush that the owners call the "stroller hour."

At Cliff's Variety store, children shop for toy unicorns and jasmine-scented clay putty alongside cross-dressers perusing feather boas and rhinestone tiaras....

Last year, a lesbian mother of two, now 6 and 2, complained about a sadomasochistic tableau in a clothing shop window that featured a male mannequin chained to a toilet. "As an adult I find this disgusting," she wrote in an e-mail to city officials. "As a parent I find it unconscionable."

Just a couple of months ago, the B.A.R. ran several stories about a life-sized wooden statue of an aroused naked man that was displayed in a Castro storefront. Parents in the neighborhood objected that it should not be visible to children who pass by on their way to and from school. After police got involved, the owner reluctantly covered the statue's private parts.

Some business owners are sensitive to families' concerns. A lesbian mother reported to the Times that a clothing store manager helpfully warned her about taking her 12-year-old daughter into a back room where "suggestive leather outfits were displayed." With more children in the neighborhood, she predicted, "businesses that accommodate the sensibilities of families will survive, while those that are less child-friendly will not."

"Our kids need a place in the community," said July Appel, executive director of an organization for gay families and a lesbian mother of two. "The Castro is big enough for everyone. Gay cruising has its place. But so do playgrounds."

The trend is being felt beyond commercial venues, reaching into the heart of gay organizations and events. The annual gay pride parade in San Francisco, by far the largest in the country, now provides a children's area with licensed day care. This year's parade will include a float celebrating gay families, complete with children singing Village People songs.

At the gay community center, nudity is now forbidden in the hallways-requiring bondage classes to stay behind closed doors. "Twenty years ago we couldn't have had such a rule," the center's director, Thom Lynch, told the Times. "People would have fought it."

These changes in San Francisco reflect larger national trends in gay life. According to the 2000 Census, there are about 594,000 same-sex "unmarried partner" households, almost evenly split between gay male and lesbian couples. The Census figure is almost certainly an undercount since many gay couples probably reported their status as "boarders" or "roommates" rather than as "unmarried partners."

Lots of children are being raised by these gay couples. Of the reported female partners, more than a third are raising children. Of the reported male partners, more than a fifth are raising children. That's about 162,000 same-sex households in the U.S. raising children. This number, too, is almost certainly an undercount.

Once we include single gay people raising children, reasonable estimates of the total number of children in the U.S. being raised by gay parents (singles and couples) range from one million to two million kids. By all accounts, the number of gay families is growing.

The effect of all this on gay culture is inescapable. Stable relationships have a settling effect on people. Saturday nights become an opportunity to stay home with your partner watching DVD's instead of another chance for a furtive sexual encounter.

Children encourage yet more domestication. Aside from the practical and time-consuming work that goes into raising kids, which reduces one's energy and opportunities for libertinism, parents tend to be more concerned than single people about a community's moral environment. It's turning out that gay parents can be just as concerned about these matters as straight parents.

"Many gay people once referred to couples with children as 'breeders,' a term with considerable bite to it," the director of the city's gay community center observed. "It's rarely used anymore. Now many gays are breeders as well."

We're here, we're families, let the Easter Egg Roll begin.