"Sex Panic" - Larry Kramer's Op-Ed Piece in NYTimes
Andrew Gerber
I was suprised not to see any discussion of the Op-Ed piece from last week's
NYTimes, written by Larry Kramer. I have my own thoughts on the matter,
but would like to hear what others think. Piece is attached below for
reference.
-------
(from 12/11 or 12/12 NYTimes op ed page, by Larry Kramer)
The facts: enough gay men are once again having enough unsafe sex that
the rates of H.I.V. infection, gonorrhea and syphilis are returning to
frightening heights.
The facts: a small and vocal gay group that calls itself Sex Panic has
taken it upon itself to demand "sexual freedom," which its members
define as allowing gay men to have sex when and where and how they
want to. In other words, this group is an advocate of unsafe sex, if
this is what is wanted, and of public sex, if this is what is
wanted. It advocates unconditional, unlimited promiscuity.
The facts: public sex means sex in parks, in public restrooms, in
bathhouses, in the back rooms of bars and discos, at weekend parties,
on beaches -- anywhere men can gather.
The facts: this is the very same debate that occurred in 1981 when the
first signs of the AIDS plague were appearing. Few wished to pay
attention to the dangers then, preferring to demand the right to
have sex in exactly the same ways that Sex Panic is demanding be
legitimized again.
The facts: once again, this has become a battle over civil rights
rather than an issue of public health.
(A question: why is public sex a civil right? I do not want to see
straight people copulating in the park or in public restrooms. And I
do not believe that heterosexuals view such acts as theirs by right.)
The facts: shamefully, not one AIDS organization or national gay and
lesbian group has been willing to speak out and condemn or even
criticize what Sex Panic is saying. There are only a few gay men
willing to take on the group -- and we have been vilified by the
pro-promiscuity forces for our views.
The truth is, most gay men live calm, orderly lives, often as couples,
and they are embarrassed by what Sex Panic espouses. They are
ashamed this issue has surfaced again. Many feel that to speak up
against Sex Panic only validates its existence, and that if they keep
their mouths shut the group will go away. And, as with smoking, they
feel that enough information about safe sex is out there -- if people
choose to ignore it, that's their business.
Criticism from lesbians, the other half of our movement, is
desperately needed as well. Promiscuous gay men must hear the
message, "Enough already! Haven't you learned anything from the last
17 years?" Yet lesbian activists, who alongside gay men have fought
against AIDS, crawl into shells rather than confront the idiocy of
what Sex Panic is demanding. Why are they refusing to speak out,
particularly when so many of them have confided that they agree with
me?
After all, AIDS has usurped the entire gay movement's agenda, at
great cost to lesbian issues. Just when it looked as if there was some
breathing space to pay more attention to these issues, AIDS
resurges. The message Sex Panic and its supporters are giving to women
is tantamount to: we'll come back to your issues some other time.
I cannot understand why lesbians are not furious with their gay male
friends.
Without a strong, vocal opposition, Sex Panic is on its way to
convincing much of America that all gay men are back to pre-AIDS
self-destructive behavior that will wind up costing the taxpayer a lot
of extra money. Indeed, what Sex Panic is demanding could easily allow
our enemies, as well as many of our straight friends, to deny all gay
people what rights we've won or are still fighting for.
Those who do speak out in protest are automatically accused of
assimilationist views: we want to be like straights; we want
marriage and monogamy and white picket fenced-in homes.
It is particularly moronic that Sex Panic considers these desires so
sweepingly offensive. But even gay people who don't want to be like
straights, don't want to be assimilated and don't even want to marry
or have a relationship still want to live their lives as social equals
and responsible citizens.
Fortunately, more and more gay people are beginning to realize that
it's time to redefine what it means to be gay. Allowing sex-centrism
to remain the sole definition of homosexuality is now coming to be
seen as the greatest act of self-destruction. There is a growing
understanding that we created a culture that in effect murdered us,
and that if we are to remain alive it's time to redefine homosexuality
as something far greater than what we do with our genitals. But
this redefinition will require nothing less than remaking our culture.
Sex Panic was formed in fury to defeat this call to change. But how
will gay men have any future if they continue to die from playing by
old rules instead of living by new ones?
---------
Andy
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| Andrew Gerber http://www.sni.net/~gerber |
| Denver, CO (303) 285-0194 x270 |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
Tim Fogarty
In <676rl5$31r$1...@news-2.csn.net> Andrew Gerber (ger...@sni.net) wrote:
> I was suprised not to see any discussion of the Op-Ed piece from last week's
> NYTimes, written by Larry Kramer. I have my own thoughts on the matter,
> but would like to hear what others think.
> (from 12/11 or 12/12 NYTimes op ed page, by Larry Kramer)
> The facts: public sex means sex in parks, in public restrooms, in
> bathhouses, in the back rooms of bars and discos, at weekend parties,
> on beaches -- anywhere men can gather.
Bathhouse sex or sex in any other gay space is not in the same category as
sex where straights may happen upon. Linking the two is guilt by forced
association.
The other issue about "barebacking" is what if both people know both are
positive ? Has there been any scientific evidence that shows that
reinfection has any effect on length of survival ?
--
Tim Fogarty (fog...@netcom.com)
http://musclememory.com/fogarty
Michael Thomas
The facts: Larry Kramer is a putz.
Maybe he can get one of Jesse Helms' leftover
heart valves; I sure it would fit like a glove.
--
Michael Thomas (mi...@mtcc.com http://www.mtcc.com/~mike/)
"I dunno, that's an awful lot of money."
Beavis
Arne Adolfsen
Andrew Gerber wrote:
> I was suprised not to see any discussion of the Op-Ed piece from last week's
> NYTimes, written by Larry Kramer. I have my own thoughts on the matter,
> but would like to hear what others think. Piece is attached below for
> reference.
I was going to bring it up at the time, but I figured why bother since
it's nothing but the same old anti-sex diatribe that Kramer's been
flogging since at least _Faggots_. He also buys into all sorts of
homophobic fantasies -- such as the one that HIV spontaneously
generated from gay male sex -- as Leo Bersani points out in a letter
to the editor in today's issue. Anonymous sex is not the same thing
as unsafe sex and Sex Panic most assuredly does not confuse the two.
In any case, you can be infected with HIV just as easily in the
comfort of your own home with someone you've known all of your life
as you can in the bushes with someone who's face you never even get
to see clearly.
Arne
jeremy griffin mallory
Tim Fogarty (fog...@netcom.com) wrote:
: The other issue about "barebacking" is what if both people know both are
: reinfection has any effect on length of survival ?
Paging Luke Adams!
Jeremy, knowing Luke has all sorts of citations on that issue
Brad Macdonald
On Tue, 16 Dec 1997, Arne Adolfsen wrote:
> Anonymous sex is not the same thing as unsafe sex...
...as Larry Kramer might have noted from his own exposure to HIV?
Brad
Arabian Mocha Sanani
Tim Fogarty wrote:
> In <676rl5$31r$1...@news-2.csn.net> Andrew Gerber (ger...@sni.net) wrote:
> > I was suprised not to see any discussion of the Op-Ed piece from last week's
> > NYTimes, written by Larry Kramer. I have my own thoughts on the matter,
> > but would like to hear what others think.
>
> > (from 12/11 or 12/12 NYTimes op ed page, by Larry Kramer)
>
> > The facts: public sex means sex in parks, in public restrooms, in
> > bathhouses, in the back rooms of bars and discos, at weekend parties,
> > on beaches -- anywhere men can gather.
>
> Bathhouse sex or sex in any other gay space is not in the same category as
> sex where straights may happen upon. Linking the two is guilt by forced
> association.
The whole article reaked of this kind of agenda-setting and lots of other tacky
rhetorical maneuvers out of a "Persuasive Communication 101" textbook section on
Goebbles' "hypodermic" model of propaganda. And the worst part of this is, it is
not beneath Larry. Larry has done some great things for the movement; this is not
one of them. This article, and his recent snarling remniscent of the days when he
was a third-rate author and wrote *Faggots*, are indication that he has mired
himself in the slime of self-loathing, and has utterly sacrificed himself to the
gods of '50s moralism, with all of its alienationg and detrimental impacts. It is
for this very reason that the *New York Times,* the standard bearer of the
establishment, gave him such a wide-open forum, as it has in the past several
months to several other writers who have parrotted the same line. It has given no
space to the liberationists. Larry should be ashamed of himself; he has set back
the queer movement with his kapo-like behavior and writing recently, and has lied
like the worst of the traitors in the McCarthy hearings to do it. I'm utterly
disgusted with him. Becasue of his efforts, it is likely that repression of queer
people, possible imprisonment or internment, violence against us, suicide among
us, and the terrible, crushing mental torment that stalked us before Stonewall
will be given a refreshed impetus. Larry is working here on gaining himself a
special place in Hell.
--Luke Adams a.k a. "the bean"
>
>
> The other issue about "barebacking" is what if both people know both are
> positive ? Has there been any scientific evidence that shows that
> reinfection has any effect on length of survival ?
>
NO. In fact, there is reported anecdotal evidence to the contrary.
--the bean.
Richard Millward
Maybe because he's just spewed this crap over and over and over... until no
one even bothers to HEAR him any more. There's not an original thought in
the entire piece and much of what IS there is either willful
misrepresentation or utter paranoid fantasy, both of which Kramer is
justifiably famous for...
=============================================================
Richard Millward
rmil...@earthlink.net
Andrew Gerber wrote in message <676rl5$31r$1...@news-2.csn.net>...
Daniel Chase Edmonds
Larry Dew (ez01...@dilbert.ucdavis.edu) wrote:
: I am beginning to lean toward the
: opinion that anyone who knows about the specifics of HIV transmission yet
: chooses unsafe sex ought to have the financial resources to pay for the
: resulting health care, and not expect society to cover them in their
: near-suicidal (and possibly homicidal) irresponsibility.
I'm far too nice to call you what you deserve to be called
for this garbage, so I'll settle for a 'get raped.'
Faaaaaaaaaar too nice.
Larry Dew
: the entire piece and much of what IS there is either willful
: misrepresentation or utter paranoid fantasy,
I HOPE it's either misrepresentation or paranoid fantasy when Kramer
states that Sexpanic's agenda is to legitimize unsafe sex and unlimited
promiscuity, but unfortunately from the Sexpanic announcements and
Wockner reports I have read, I am not sure that Kramer is far off the
mark. Putting aside the debatable issue of public sex, It seems very
important to me that the dangers of unsafe/inebriated sex be continually
emphasized to a new generation of gay men, if they are to live long and
well. Can anyone disagree with that? I am beginning to lean toward the
opinion that anyone who knows about the specifics of HIV transmission yet
chooses unsafe sex ought to have the financial resources to pay for the
resulting health care, and not expect society to cover them in their
near-suicidal (and possibly homicidal) irresponsibility. Larry Kramer
learned about AIDS the hard way and his wake-up call seems to be at least
partly a well-intentioned attempt to save lives. I would like to hear
more detail about what the Sexpanic organizers have to say about
combatting the AIDS epidemic that has taken so many gay lives already, and
which continues to make gay romantic interaction a deadly game. In my
humble opinion, the day they come out with a viable vaccine is the day I
can begin to consider promiscuous unsafe sex. And that has absolutely
nothing to do with my sexual orientation.
Steven Levine
Arne Adolfsen, on Larry Kramer's op-ed piece:
>I was going to bring it up at the time, but I figured why bother since
>it's nothing but the same old anti-sex diatribe that Kramer's been
>flogging since at least _Faggots_.
What bothered me -- as it does whenever I read it, whether
in the NYTimes or in soc.bi -- was its tired old repeating
of the myth that we create our identity and community around
sex, and we need to get past that. Since this is so evidently
untrue, so clearly untrue in so many visible ways, I always
wonder what's going on. I think, ultimately, that these are
self-exhortations. I also don't take well to public figures
proclaiming that my entire adult life, and most of what
I've done with it, never took place.
Kramer's piece appeared the week my lesbian/gay
band performed five night's running in the downtown
Minneapolis Holidazzle parade. One night about thirty
of us went out afterwards to a local Vietnamese restaurant.
I had one of those moments I have all the time when I'm
doing things with my band: I looked over these thirty people,
men and women in equal numbers, age ranges from 22 to 55,
long-term couples, single folk, laughing and smiling in that
post-performance way. I thought, once again, "Yes,
this is the lesbian and gay community. And it is nothing
at all what I thought it would be when I was first coming
to terms with being gay."
It's not as if the group of us are all close friends --
that sort of thing fluctuates with time and alliances.
But many of us have been playing together for a decade
or more. Many of us know each other well. We all
work together, on a weekly basis, to create something
that only can exist if a large enough number of people want
to work towards it, as a group.
In order for us to appear in the Holidazzle Parade (we
appear more than any other band, and are the favorite
band of the parade organizers), we had to have a structure
well in place. There had to be an existing group,
with the years of organizational and personal background
that requires, for us to show up every night with balanced
instrumentation and suitable music. If nothing else, there
needed to be enough percussionists who already knew our
cadences. The appearance in the Holidazzle Parade was just
the tip of an iceberg of background. That background
is, by my lights, one of community. It was a lesbian
and gay band that had this background. That is no
small thing, and it wholly contradicts so many hateful
and hurtful myths about how we define our community.
I absolutely cannot reconcile this -- which is pretty
well representative of my gay life, even in areas
that have nothing to do with community bands -- with
anything Larry Kramer claims about a community defined
by sex. Is my community really such a rare thing? Is
this really such a hard thing to incorporate into a
conception of what it means to be gay or lesbian, of
what it means to say there is a gay and lesbian community?
It is Larry Kramer who is guilty of his own charges.
-Steven Levine
ste...@cray.com
Arne Adolfsen
Larry Dew wrote:
> I am beginning to lean toward the
> opinion that anyone who knows about the specifics of HIV transmission yet
> chooses unsafe sex ought to have the financial resources to pay for the
> resulting health care, and not expect society to cover them in their
> near-suicidal (and possibly homicidal) irresponsibility. Larry Kramer
> learned about AIDS the hard way
Huh? A few of his friends died of what was then called GRID. He held
a meeting at his apartment which turned out to be the organizing meeting
for Gay Men's Health Crisis. He continued to lash out at people who
appeared to enjoy sex of any kind. He quit GMHC in a huff. Then, in
the mid to late 80s while busy screaming at people for enjoying sex and
while doing other stuff, he sero-converted. How *that* happened he has
yet to explain. (Unsafe sex, Larry?)
> and his wake-up call seems to be at least
> partly a well-intentioned attempt to save lives.
Yeah, yeah.
Arne
Joseph Canale
On 16 Dec 1997, Daniel Chase Edmonds wrote:
> Larry Dew (ez01...@dilbert.ucdavis.edu) wrote:
>
> : I am beginning to lean toward the
> : opinion that anyone who knows about the specifics of HIV transmission yet
> : chooses unsafe sex ought to have the financial resources to pay for the
> : resulting health care, and not expect society to cover them in their
> : near-suicidal (and possibly homicidal) irresponsibility.
>
> I'm far too nice to call you what you deserve to be called
> for this garbage, so I'll settle for a 'get raped.'
>
Really. What an idiot. What about a number of degenerative
diseases which are far more taxing on the healthcare system than AIDS/HIV?
Should suffers of lung cancer and heart disease be made to pay for their
care even though they disregard preventative measures?
Daniel Chase Edmonds
Joseph Canale (jc...@columbia.edu) wrote:
: Really. What an idiot. What about a number of degenerative
: diseases which are far more taxing on the healthcare system than AIDS/HIV?
: Should suffers of lung cancer and heart disease be made to pay for their
: care even though they disregard preventative measures?
But they don't do evil, nasty stuff like *have* *sex* *with* *lots*
*of* *people* in *dark* *rooms* to fulfill their 'suicidal' and
'homicidal' urges.
They just smoke tobacco, over-eat, and otherwise kill themselves
in much more socially acceptable ways.
Greg Havican
In message <678tgr$6rc$1...@walter.cray.com> - ste...@cray.com (Steven Levine)
writes:
:>
:>One night about thirty
:>of us went out afterwards to a local Vietnamese restaurant.
:>I had one of those moments I have all the time when I'm
:>doing things with my band: I looked over these thirty people,
:>men and women in equal numbers, age ranges from 22 to 55,
:>long-term couples, single folk, laughing and smiling in that
:>post-performance way. I thought, once again, "Yes,
:>this is the lesbian and gay community. And it is nothing
:>at all what I thought it would be when I was first coming
:>to terms with being gay."
As you pointed out, there are many things that help define the community
for many of us. The one memory from the March on Washington that has
always stuck in my mind was when a bunch of us went to the Vietnam
Memorial. Here were a lot of us standing around in silence, awed by the
power of the memorial, and out of respect for the thousands of names on the
wall, never forgetting that those names represent men and women who gave
their lives in service of this country, only to be interrupted by young
children running around yelling and screaming while their parents were
oblivious to what was going on around them because they were so caught up
in talking about the new lawnmower they had just bought.
I came away from that very proud of our community.
Greg
---------------------------------------------------
Greg Havican | <http://www.havican.com>
g...@havican.com |
---------------------------------------------------
Arabian Mocha Sanani
Larry Dew wrote:
> : the entire piece and much of what IS there is either willful
> : misrepresentation or utter paranoid fantasy,
>
> I HOPE it's either misrepresentation or paranoid fantasy when Kramer
> states that Sexpanic's agenda is to legitimize unsafe sex and unlimited
> promiscuity, but unfortunately from the Sexpanic announcements and
> Wockner reports I have read, I am not sure that Kramer is far off the
> mark.
He is, Larry. Please read the "RetroSpection" and other "SexPanic!" threads
that have been going on here in soc.motss, and please go out, if you can, to
your local gay bookstore and get them to order you a copy of the "SexPanic! -
New York" November 1997 digest. Or, you can order it from "SexPanic!" at
(212) 252-4925.
> Putting aside the debatable issue of public sex, It seems very
> important to me that the dangers of unsafe/inebriated sex be continually
> emphasized to a new generation of gay men, if they are to live long and
> well. Can anyone disagree with that?
No, but what prevention ediucators or SexPanic! members have de-emphasized it?
> I am beginning to lean toward the
> opinion that anyone who knows about the specifics of HIV transmission yet
> chooses unsafe sex ought to have the financial resources to pay for the
> resulting health care, and not expect society to cover them in their
> near-suicidal (and possibly homicidal) irresponsibility.
That may be pretty callous, becasue that is assuming that these people have
all the material, social, and psychological stability necessary to responsibly
make the choice. Wouldn't it be more prudent to redouble our efforts to build
these support systems for the uninfected, the way we built them (and lets not
forget we have to *maintain* them) for the infected? Wouldn't that be the
better goal, acknowledging that there is still unmet need rather than imposing
moralisms and repression, as the neocons wish, and as you suggest you are
sympathetic to?
> In my
> humble opinion, the day they come out with a viable vaccine is the day I
> can begin to consider promiscuous unsafe sex.
No, it isn't. And as A fellow-traveller of SexPanic! let me say that
emphatically. There will _never_ be a time again when anyone, especially
those of us who believe in gay liberation, will be able to condone high
STD-risk anonymous promiscuous sex, because that will, in all likelihood, lead
to the creation of another pandemic, or to STD's on which the treatments no
longer are effective, and the desperate hope for yet another vaccine.
That is _not_ to say that we can't condone anonymous sex. And that is _not_
to say that we can't condone promiscuity. One can quite readily be anonymous
and/or promiscuous while having sex and still not be at high risk for the
transmission or contraction of STDs.
Moreover, not all sex needs to be anonymous, but it should be an option for us
all. SexPanic! advocates rights _and_ responsibilities.
That _should_ lead us to greater emphasis on explicit sex education, increased
spaces and emphasis for real, serious communication in anything more than
anonymous sex about what is needed and wanted, what will happen physically,
what the ramifications are, what the emotional impications, if any, might be,
etc.
It should lead our "communities" to enhance programs and spaces for queer kids
to be kids, and for queer young adults and others to be able to focus on
complete lives, not just sex, and for housing and food and counselling for
those who need it.
What is _not_ needed is some sort of Queer Ten Commandments, sans the support
system I wrote of above, enforced by sex police, paid voyeurs, and moralists.
But that is exactly what Rotello and Signorille, Bawer and Larry Kramer and
the other neocons have called for, using every demagogic trick in the book.
--the bean
Nelson Minar
ger...@sni.net (Andrew Gerber) writes:
>I was suprised not to see any discussion of the Op-Ed piece from last
>week's NYTimes, written by Larry Kramer.
It was poorly written, I could barely understand what he was trying to say.
I do think this debate is crucial to the soul of gay men, and I wish
it could be carried out better. We seem to lack a forum for serious
national discussion of gay issues: the Advocate is useless and the
rest of the magazines are about as serious as GQ. Bay Windows has some
lively opinion columns from time to time, but that's local media.
I'd really rather not see all this hashed out in the New York Times.
Tim Wilson
g...@havican.com (Greg Havican) writes:
> In message <678tgr$6rc$1...@walter.cray.com> - ste...@cray.com (Steven Levine)
> writes:
> :>
> :>One night about thirty
> :>of us went out afterwards to a local Vietnamese restaurant.
> :>I had one of those moments I have all the time when I'm
> :>doing things with my band: I looked over these thirty people,
> :>men and women in equal numbers, age ranges from 22 to 55,
> :>long-term couples, single folk, laughing and smiling in that
> :>post-performance way. I thought, once again, "Yes,
> :>this is the lesbian and gay community. And it is nothing
> :>at all what I thought it would be when I was first coming
> :>to terms with being gay."
>
> As you pointed out, there are many things that help define the community
> for many of us. The one memory from the March on Washington that has
> always stuck in my mind was when a bunch of us went to the Vietnam
> Memorial. Here were a lot of us standing around in silence, awed by the
> power of the memorial, and out of respect for the thousands of names on the
> wall, never forgetting that those names represent men and women who gave
> their lives in service of this country, only to be interrupted by young
> children running around yelling and screaming while their parents were
> oblivious to what was going on around them because they were so caught up
> in talking about the new lawnmower they had just bought.
>
> I came away from that very proud of our community.
When I went to Vietnam Veteran's Memorial during the same 1993 March,
*everyone* there was behaving very respectfully, not chatting about
their new lawnmower or ignoring their children. I don't think you
should generalize from your observations in that instance to being
"very proud of our community", because it's almost certain that at
some point during the same day some idiot homosexual person was going
on about something while completely oblivious to where they were or
what where they were was an attempt to be all about.
--
Tim Wilson http://www.ee.memphis.edu/~tim/ mailto:tawi...@memphis.edu
Tom Desmond
Larry Dew wrote:
> ...I am beginning to lean toward the
> opinion that anyone who knows about the specifics of HIV transmission yet
> chooses unsafe sex ought to have the financial resources to pay for the
> resulting health care, and not expect society to cover them in their
> near-suicidal (and possibly homicidal) irresponsibility...
Well...
Do you also feel that way about smokers?
Folks with unhealthy diets or sedentary lifestyles?
Folks who engage in "reckless" behavior such as driving over the speed
limit or engaging in "high risk" recreation activities (e.g. scuba
diving, mountain climbing, hang gliding, etc)?
I'm sure this list could be extended to cover just about the entire
population of the U.S., but I think that list is long enough for the
next point:
If you answered yes to the above questions, are you a heartless enough
individual to sit back and watch individuals who engaged in any of the
above activities suffer and die without medical care? If you can answer
that question with a "yes" then I'd say that at least you're being
consistent. Can't say that I would want to be friends with anyone that
answered yes to any of these, though.
Tom Desmond
John Whiteside
ded...@curly.cc.emory.edu (Daniel Chase Edmonds) wrote:
>: I am beginning to lean toward the
>: opinion that anyone who knows about the specifics of HIV transmission yet
>: chooses unsafe sex ought to have the financial resources to pay for the
>: resulting health care, and not expect society to cover them in their
>: near-suicidal (and possibly homicidal) irresponsibility.
>
>I'm far too nice to call you what you deserve to be called
>for this garbage, so I'll settle for a 'get raped.'
I want to know what he thinks about paying for heart disease among
those who eat french fries.
---
John Whiteside
Washington, DC
whiteside at mindspring dot com
JTEM
Joseph Canale <jc...@columbia.edu> wrote:
> Really. What an idiot. What about a number of degenerative
>diseases which are far more taxing on the healthcare system than
>AIDS/HIV? Should suffers of lung cancer and heart disease be made to pay
>for their care even though they disregard preventative measures?
Seat belts.
John
Mike Silverman
In article <cpavhwn...@pinotnoir.media.mit.edu>, Nelson Minar
<nel...@media.mit.edu> wrote:
> ger...@sni.net (Andrew Gerber) writes:
> >I was suprised not to see any discussion of the Op-Ed piece from last
> >week's NYTimes, written by Larry Kramer.
>
> It was poorly written, I could barely understand what he was trying to say.
>
> I do think this debate is crucial to the soul of gay men, and I wish
> it could be carried out better. We seem to lack a forum for serious
> national discussion of gay issues: the Advocate is useless and the
> rest of the magazines are about as serious as GQ. Bay Windows has some
> lively opinion columns from time to time, but that's local media.
>
> I'd really rather not see all this hashed out in the New York Times.
I just finished a new book "Gay Men at the Millenium" or something like
that which seemed to be a very sober and respectful collection of opinions
from a wide variety of viewpoints.
It was just published, I forget the editor.
--
Mike Silverman -- cubsfan at turnleft.com -- Lawrence, KS
http://www.turnleft.com/personal
"If you don't know where you want to go, we'll make sure you get taken" --
Microsoft advertisement, translated from Japanese
Larry Dew
Daniel Chase Edmonds (ded...@curly.cc.emory.edu) wrote:
: Joseph Canale (jc...@columbia.edu) wrote:
: : Really. What an idiot. What about a number of degenerative
: : diseases which are far more taxing on the healthcare system than AIDS/HIV?
: : Should suffers of lung cancer and heart disease be made to pay for their
: : care even though they disregard preventative measures?
: *of* *people* in *dark* *rooms* to fulfill their 'suicidal' and
: 'homicidal' urges.
: They just smoke tobacco, over-eat, and otherwise kill themselves
: in much more socially acceptable ways.
First, Thanks bean for providing the kind of explanation, confirmation,
and dialogue I was hoping to engender with my comments. Creating a "sex
police" is the farthest from my mind, and if that's what the neocons are
really about, then they scare me too.
The above comments do have some merit for debate. Should smoking and
obesity be encouraged, discouraged, or just ignored? Do you really want
to pay higher insurance premiums to cover the heath costs of smokers when
you yourself do not smoke? Or would you rather choose a health plan that
charges smokers higher premiums and saves you money? I don't feel an
immediate obligation to monetarily support the irresponsible habits of
others, but if I hear good arguments, I'm still willing to listen. I
think these are interesting questions, doubly so since these analogies
were created by critics of my post, not by me.
The point upon which some folks have obviously gotten hung up are the
"evil, nasty stuff like sex."
Now, I consider myself to be a moral relativist. Unlike many in our
highly moralistic and religious society, I have no problem with human
sexual fulfillment in whatever form. However, call me crazy, but I have
to make some sort of judgement when we're talking about causing slow and
agonizing death. It seems to me that suicide is an awful thing to do to
your loved ones, and death by AIDS is an awful thing to witness and have
to deal with financially, emotionally, etc. Being the cause of the AIDS
deaths of others is even worse. That's why that guy in upstate New York
who knowingly had unprotected sex with and thus infected a number of women
is considered a monster. Had he done it by stabbing them with an infected
needle it would have been just as evil, in my mind. The fact that it
happened through sex is practically irrelevant. I can see why the guys
who posted the above comments might be afraid of why I was posting what I
did (considering what queers are up against in this society), but this
immediate vilification of "moralizers" frightens me. Are we to have no
moral code whatsoever? Why not go and shoot/rape everyone we see? I'm
talking about saving lives, not fucking. Like I said, were there no risks
involved, I'd love to be out there getting off any way I can with every
pretty thing I see, it's pure biology, but I do care for and respect
others and myself, and that will influence the way I have sex. Is it
wrong to hope for and maybe even encourage the same in others?
Take care, guys. I mean that.
Eric Siegel
> >week's NYTimes, written by Larry Kramer.
>
>
> I do think this debate is crucial to the soul of gay men, and I wish
> it could be carried out better. We seem to lack a forum for serious
> national discussion of gay issues: the Advocate is useless and the
> rest of the magazines are about as serious as GQ. Bay Windows has some
> lively opinion columns from time to time, but that's local media.
>
> I'd really rather not see all this hashed out in the New York Times.
Frankly, I'd *love to see it actually hashed out in the NY
Times; unfortunately, "all the news that's fit to print" is
apparently only Kramer and his ilk.
Eric Siegel ejsi...@ucdavis.edu |
Dept. of Political Science |
Univ. of California, Davis | That which does not kill me
One Shields Avenue | Probably still sucks.
Davis CA 95616 |
(530) 752-7106 |
Dan Lyons
On Wed, 17 Dec 1997 13:48:49 -0500, Joseph Canale <jc...@columbia.edu>
wrote:
>On 16 Dec 1997, Daniel Chase Edmonds wrote:
>
>> Larry Dew (ez01...@dilbert.ucdavis.edu) wrote:
>>
>> : I am beginning to lean toward the
>> : opinion that anyone who knows about the specifics of HIV transmission yet
>> : chooses unsafe sex ought to have the financial resources to pay for the
>> : resulting health care, and not expect society to cover them in their
>> : near-suicidal (and possibly homicidal) irresponsibility.
>>
>> I'm far too nice to call you what you deserve to be called
>> for this garbage, so I'll settle for a 'get raped.'
>>
> Really. What an idiot. What about a number of degenerative
>diseases which are far more taxing on the healthcare system than AIDS/HIV?
>Should suffers of lung cancer and heart disease be made to pay for their
>care even though they disregard preventative measures?
Umm, yes? Is that the answer you were looking for? :-) In fact, they
do. For instance, smoking (especially) and obesity can and will get
taken into account when computing health insurance premiums. Because
most North Americans are covered by group or government health
insurance, they may not be aware of this fact. Self-employed smokers
are painfully aware of it...
Dan
Tim Wilson
ly...@activerse.com (Dan Lyons) writes:
> On Wed, 17 Dec 1997 13:48:49 -0500, Joseph Canale <jc...@columbia.edu>
> wrote:
>
> >On 16 Dec 1997, Daniel Chase Edmonds wrote:
> >
> >> Larry Dew (ez01...@dilbert.ucdavis.edu) wrote:
> >>
> >> : I am beginning to lean toward the
> >> : opinion that anyone who knows about the specifics of HIV
> >> : transmission yet
> >> : chooses unsafe sex ought to have the financial resources to pay for the
> >> : resulting health care, and not expect society to cover them in their
> >> : near-suicidal (and possibly homicidal) irresponsibility.
That's a stupid opinion to lean toward.
> >> I'm far too nice to call you what you deserve to be called
> >> for this garbage, so I'll settle for a 'get raped.'
> >>
> > Really. What an idiot. What about a number of degenerative
> >diseases which are far more taxing on the healthcare system than AIDS/HIV?
> >Should suffers of lung cancer and heart disease be made to pay for their
> >care even though they disregard preventative measures?
>
> Umm, yes? Is that the answer you were looking for? :-) In fact, they
> do. For instance, smoking (especially) and obesity can and will get
> taken into account when computing health insurance premiums. Because
> most North Americans are covered by group or government health
> insurance, they may not be aware of this fact. Self-employed smokers
> are painfully aware of it...
I think there are a lot more sensible ways to address the issue that
there are numerous costs, not just dollar costs, associated with HIV+
status. If HIV+ didn't have a physical cost resulting, at least
historically and currently even under the supposedly best treatment
regime for certain people, in loss of life, then there wouldn't be a
single issue regarding HIV status. If the treatement of the diseases
that happen with AIDS and those better medical regimes to reduce the
amount of HIV didn't cost money, then there wouldn't be much of an
issue there, either.
But while you can't get around the fact that there are physical,
temporal, and monetary costs associated with HIV+ status, you
shouldn't use the reality of those costs and how allocating those
costs is decided in this current economy to disguise what seems to be
moralistic and judgemental attitudes towards people who become HIV+ or
HIV+ people who have less-than-absolutely-safe sex.
There's, one, the issue of whether the drug companies are price
gouging, because they know that in most cases of HIV infection
private or government insurance or government as a payer-of-last-
resort is going to be picking up the tab. So, it's not clear whether
the price-as-charge reflects the price-as-it-could-be-under-other-
conditions (say, universal health care). Secondly, there's the issue
of whether health-insurance premiums *should* be tailored to smaller
pools based on behavioral attributes, or whether, to honestly be
called insurance and not gouging, the ought to be spread over as large
of pools as possible, without regard to behavioral attributes.
Finally, while we have a model of individual responsibility in which
it certainly seems appropriate to regard behavior like intentionally
picking up a gun and shooting someone or intentionally running someone
over with a vehicle as homicide or manslaughter or the like, the
situation where a virus is transmitted *probabilistically* (and those
probabilities aren't like 99.4% or some other humongously high number
but more in the 1% to 10% range), then it's not clear that even taking
or giving a load up the butt ought to honestly be described as either
suicidal or homicidal. The right language to use is "didn't engage in
safer sex". Not suicidal. Not homicidal.
The idea that large numbers of people will just stop having sex, safer
or not, when sex seems to pose some kind of health risk is naive, and
the language you chose to use isn't conducive to a discussion of the
relationship between of individual or social health to behavior and
the associated individual and social costs, whether you're talking
eating, smoking, driving fast, scuba diving, snowboarding, or sex.
Mike Silverman
In article <349a99ff...@news.jump.net>, ly...@activerse.com (Dan
Lyons) wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Dec 1997 13:48:49 -0500, Joseph Canale <jc...@columbia.edu>
> wrote:
>
> >On 16 Dec 1997, Daniel Chase Edmonds wrote:
> >
> >> Larry Dew (ez01...@dilbert.ucdavis.edu) wrote:
> >>
> >> : I am beginning to lean toward the
> >> : opinion that anyone who knows about the specifics of HIV transmission yet
> >> : chooses unsafe sex ought to have the financial resources to pay for the
> >> : resulting health care, and not expect society to cover them in their
> >> : near-suicidal (and possibly homicidal) irresponsibility.
> >>
> >> I'm far too nice to call you what you deserve to be called
> >> for this garbage, so I'll settle for a 'get raped.'
> >>
> > Really. What an idiot. What about a number of degenerative
> >diseases which are far more taxing on the healthcare system than AIDS/HIV?
> >Should suffers of lung cancer and heart disease be made to pay for their
> >care even though they disregard preventative measures?
>
> Umm, yes? Is that the answer you were looking for? :-) In fact, they
> do. For instance, smoking (especially) and obesity can and will get
> taken into account when computing health insurance premiums. Because
> most North Americans are covered by group or government health
> insurance, they may not be aware of this fact. Self-employed smokers
> are painfully aware of it...
It is not unusual for a health insurance application to ask someone's
weight or whether they smoke.
How do you suggest they ask about AIDS risk factors? By asking if the
person is having lots of unprotected sex -- that seems a violation of
privacy.
Of course, what they might do is just ask if you are gay -- which is about
the *worst* possibly way this whole thing could turn out.
Spencer Cox
There's another factor worth figuring in when one is calculating the
benefits to society of paying for diagnosis and treatment of illnesses that
are linked in one way or another to behavior, and that is cost
effectiveness. The following data on the cost-effectiveness of particular
medical tests and interventions come from "The Hopkins Report: The Cost
Effectiveness of Anti-HIV Therapy," by Dr.s John Bartlett and Richard
Moore. The entire document is available on-line at
www.thebody.com/hivrept/nov96/procost.htm. I am reproducing an entire
chart from the document, and the appearance of an illness on this list does
not mean that the particular disease in question is related to behavior.
Intervention Cost/Life-Year
Gained
Triple therapy for HIV (AZT + 3TC + indinavir) $10,000-18,000
Screening mammography, age 40-79 yrs. $30,000
Renal hemodialysis $50,000
Prostate specific antigen screen, 50 yr. old men $113,000
Coronary bypass surgery, 50 yr. old men with
triple vessel disease $113,000
The authors conclude that "The conclusion from this analysis is that the
cost of the new regimens advocated for HIV infected persons appears to be
cost effective compared to other commonly accepted strategies in medical
care." Given the disparities in costs cited, it might be reasonable to
amend their conclusion to read "amazingly cost effective."
Spencer Cox
Daniel Chase Edmonds
Larry Dew (ez01...@dilbert.ucdavis.edu) wrote:
: I hope for a world in which being gay makes one no more likely to be HIV
: infected than anyone else, but unfortunately that's not the case now, and
: I have to say that part of the reason for that is a history among gay men
: of unprotected sex with multiple partners. That pattern needs to be
: broken if we are to survive and grow as a community.
You really, honestly don't see how this line of reasoning feeds
right into the neo-cons, homophobia and anti-sex rhetoric?
You're right on the edge of blaming the victim-- you're even closer
when you suggest that *anyone* who engages in unsafe sex and gets
infected ought to have to shoulder the whole financial burden of
the treatment (um, so, how do we tell which infections result from
unsafe sex and which happened despite following safe sex guidelines?
hmmmm? guess we'd just better make all the faggots pay)-- and it
frankly makes me shiver.
Larry Dew
: Lyons) wrote:
:
: Of course, what they might do is just ask if you are gay -- which is about
: the *worst* possibly way this whole thing could turn out.
I completely agree. I even worry that my "single" status as I age will
make me apt to be considered by my health insurer to be probablistically
more likely to be a gay man therefore at high risk of HIV infection. I
John Whiteside
cub...@cjnetworks.com.nospam (Mike Silverman) wrote:
>It is not unusual for a health insurance application to ask someone's
>weight or whether they smoke.
>
>How do you suggest they ask about AIDS risk factors? By asking if the
>person is having lots of unprotected sex -- that seems a violation of
>privacy.
Usually by requiring an HIV test. I know this is pretty standard for
life insurance.
The presumption is that if you are currently HIV-negative, you are
attempting to stay that way, and likely to succeed.
>Of course, what they might do is just ask if you are gay -- which is about
>the *worst* possibly way this whole thing could turn out.
Hello, American Red Cross!
John Whiteside
cub...@cjnetworks.com.nospam (Mike Silverman) wrote:
>How do you suggest they ask about AIDS risk factors? By asking if the
>person is having lots of unprotected sex -- that seems a violation of
>privacy.
While getting a car insurance quote, I was asked if I always wear my
seat belt. I said yes, because I do. I didn't ask what would happen if
I said no -- can they really charge more because you say that? -- but
I'm kind of curious.
This struck me as being an entirely different realm of questioning
than, say, asking if you've taken a defensive driving class, or asking
if you've passed an MSF course when you're getting motorcycle
insurance, which are easily verifiable things.
Daniel Chase Edmonds
Anthony J. Rzepela (rzep...@netaxs.com) wrote:
: Jeez, can't you just dismiss him on the basis of the
: "survive and grow as a community" bullshit? :)
Well, yeah, but that's just stupid-- the other stuff is offensive.
John Liesch
ly...@activerse.com (Dan Lyons) wrote:
>Umm, yes? Is that the answer you were looking for? :-) In fact, they
>do. For instance, smoking (especially) and obesity can and will get
>taken into account when computing health insurance premiums. Because
>most North Americans are covered by group or government health
>insurance, they may not be aware of this fact. Self-employed smokers
>are painfully aware of it...
My understanding is a little different. The cost of basic Canadian
health insurance takes into account only one's income and the number
of one's dependants. At most, a single person earning a net income of
$19,000 or more, will pay $36 a month for health insurance premiums in
BC, regardless of risk factors such as smoking or obesity. On the
other hand, we are taxed at a higher rate, particularly for tobacco
and alcohol.
John Liesch
Vancouver, BC
Daniel Chase Edmonds
Larry Dew (ez01...@dilbert.ucdavis.edu) wrote:
: Daniel Chase Edmonds (ded...@curly.cc.emory.edu) wrote:
: Just who is being offensive here? ":)" And who actually gives a shit
: about gay men's survival?
What, we're a species now? I'm not concerned about survival because
I *don't* think individuals unfortunate enough to contract HIV ought
to have to bear the entire financial burden of their treatment?
Yeah, that makes sense.
Maybe what I meant was that there is *no* *such* *thing* as a mono-
lithic gay community. Me, I care about individuals, not the survival
of some putative collective known as 'gay men.'
: If you really feel that surviving and growing
: as a community is stupid bullshit, then you are the kind of selfish
: predator that should be feared.
There's some solid logic. Here's the flaw-- I don't care about the
survival and growing of the gay community because I don't think
there's any such thing as a gay community.
HTH
: The bean, and apparently others involved
: with sexpanic care about gay men and the gay community, why not you?
Fuck off. I care plenty about gay men, but not in the bizarre, abstract
you're talking about when you say 'gay community.'
: Maybe you could be convinced to care about the gay community only because
: you will probably be sexually interacting with them and putting your own
: self at risk.
Maybe you could explain why you think this statement has anything to
do with me, or how you ever arrived at the conclusion I don't already
care about gay men. Oh wait. You said community. Whatever the hell
the gay community is supposed to be.
: It's unnerving to me that there appears to be a contingent of men out
: there (possibly the two above, but not including the sexpanic
: organizers if bean is right) who appear to be righteously demanding to be
: encouraged to act irresponsibly with their lives and the lives of others.
Uh huh. That's what I'm doing.
Let's see-- subsidizing the healthcare for AIDS is *encouriging* people
to have unsafe sex so they can contract a fatal disease and die slowly,
always with the vague hope of a cure being dangled in front of their
faces.
That makes a lot of fucking sense.
: If you don't feel
: that analogies to suicide or homicide are applicable, how about criminal
: negligence?
If someone who is HIV positive knowingly infected another person,
I think I would have some problems with that. But I don't see how
as that's what we're talking about. I'm not even saying unsafe sex
is 'good' or 'right' or 'wonderful.'
I'm just saying that people who are positive don't deserve to be
demonized for their behave, and don't deserve to be victims of all
the moralizing judgements implicit in your discourse and tone.
Of course we're not talking about all gay men or all HIV+
: people here, but about the ATTITUDES of some people.
: Kneejerk reactions against exhortations to have either protected
: sex or monogamous sex are silly.
Good thing that's not what I reacted against; as I recall, I reacted
to your allegation that anyone who gets infected with HIV and has
had unsafe sex ought to have to shoulder the entire financial burden
of the treatment. And I think that's a damned fine example of not
caring about gay men.
Larry Dew
Daniel Chase Edmonds (ded...@curly.cc.emory.edu) wrote:
: Anthony J. Rzepela (rzep...@netaxs.com) wrote:
:
: : Jeez, can't you just dismiss him on the basis of the
: : "survive and grow as a community" bullshit? :)
:
: Well, yeah, but that's just stupid-- the other stuff is offensive.
Just who is being offensive here? ":)" And who actually gives a shit
about gay men's survival? If you really feel that surviving and growing
as a community is stupid bullshit, then you are the kind of selfish
predator that should be feared. The bean, and apparently others involved
with sexpanic care about gay men and the gay community, why not you?
Maybe you could be convinced to care about the gay community only because
you will probably be sexually interacting with them and putting your own
self at risk.
We all ought to know that there is no universal health care in this
country, and that if you are HIV+ in the US and you cannot afford
the treatments than it is quite likely that the only way you will get your
protease inhibitors is from some else's charity. And hooray for charity.
It's unnerving to me that there appears to be a contingent of men out
there (possibly the two above, but not including the sexpanic
organizers if bean is right) who appear to be righteously demanding to be
encouraged to act irresponsibly with their lives and the lives of others.
If you knowingly act with little regard for your own or someone else's
safety, why do you get to be called "the victim?" If you don't feel
that analogies to suicide or homicide are applicable, how about criminal
negligence? Of course we're not talking about all gay men or all HIV+
people here, but about the ATTITUDES of some people.
Kneejerk reactions against exhortations to have either protected
sex or monogamous sex are silly. (I mean, we're not against SEX for
Chrissake.) Meanwhile, arguing the specifics of speculative
philosophizing bores me to tears. Try to think about the big
picture. I personally don't like having to join HIV issues with gay
issues all the time. I think moving towards a time when the two are no
longer correlated is a worthwhile goal. And the only way I can see that
we are going to get there is if gay men start caring about themselves and
their gay brothers enough to act responsibly; rather than just have us
all share the burden without trying to eliminate that burden. (But if the
guys above are any indication of the responsibility level of your typical
gay man, I may be too idealistic.) I suppose that means that with
regard to HIV transmission (and nothing else please) there perhaps ought
to be a (gay?) community standard for responsible behavior. Complicated, I
know, but I think that's an ideological concept worth discussing. Anyone
else have any ideas about how to protect us all?
Richard Millward
Daniel Chase Edmonds wrote in message <67f6ls$d...@curly.cc.emory.edu>...
>You're right on the edge of blaming the victim-- you're even closer
>when you suggest that *anyone* who engages in unsafe sex and gets
>infected ought to have to shoulder the whole financial burden of
>the treatment (um, so, how do we tell which infections result from
>unsafe sex and which happened despite following safe sex guidelines?
>hmmmm? guess we'd just better make all the faggots pay)-- and it
>frankly makes me shiver.
And consequently, because you and your SexPanic cronies want to continue to
behave immaturely and self-destructively, the *rest of us* have to assume
the responsibility for your long term health and survival? I hope you never
become HIV+ - I hope NOBODY ever becomes HIV+ again - but radically
increasing the chances that will happen by engaging in behaviours that are
known to cause that condition are simply stupidity. My tax dollars pay for
ENOUGH stupidity, without the added burden of bankrolling your inablity to
control your dick.
=============================================================
Richard Millward
rmil...@earthlink.net
Daniel Chase Edmonds
Richard Millward (rmil...@earthlink.net) wrote:
: Daniel Chase Edmonds wrote in message <67f6ls$d...@curly.cc.emory.edu>...
Excuse me, but allow me to introduce you to a new,
cutting edge concept. Here on soc.motss, we refer
to it most frequently as 'reading comprehension.'
Firstly, I have nowhere condoned SexPanic! I'm not
familiar enough with what they espouse to know whether
I'm in agreement, but a lot of what I've read about
them here I find highly problematic.
Secondly, you have no idea what my personal sexual
habits are. I assure you, they do not include, for
instance, unprotected anal intercourse.
I'd like to know how you managed to extrapolate from
my claim that we ought not force anyone who becomes
HIV+ to shoulder the entire financial burden that I
am a barebacking SexPanic! supporter.
I thought I was just demonstrating that I'm a
compassionate human being. My bad.
So, incidentally, what are the practical guidelines
for determining whether someone who contracted HIV
was following safer sex guidelines? Or are you suggesting
that *anyone* who becomes infected is at fault and
deserves to have to pay for all his/her treatment?
I certainly hope you aren't suggesting the latter,
and would be interested to know how you'd deal with
the former.
Leith Chu
John Liesch wrote:
> My understanding is a little different. The cost of basic Canadian
> health insurance takes into account only one's income and the number
> of one's dependants. At most, a single person earning a net income of
> $19,000 or more, will pay $36 a month for health insurance premiums in
> BC, regardless of risk factors such as smoking or obesity. On the
> other hand, we are taxed at a higher rate, particularly for tobacco
> and alcohol.
Most Canadian provinces provide *free* basic health care
via their provincial health insurance programs.
Private group health plans generally have the
same rates across a large pool of members.
Individual plans set rates according to sex, age, smoking, etc.
Leith Chu | Helpdesk tip #7:
panda cub (IslandCub on IRC) | Don't call the French language support
dizzy Chinese leather smurf | line because the English-language line
le...@queernet.org | is busy if you don't speak French
John Whiteside
ez01...@dilbert.ucdavis.edu (Larry Dew) wrote:
> If you really feel that surviving and growing
>as a community is stupid bullshit, then you are the kind of selfish
>predator that should be feared.
I think he meant that people who invoke "surviving and growing as a
community" so casually are full of shit. That was my interpretation,
anyhow.
John Whiteside
"Richard Millward" <rmil...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>And consequently, because you and your SexPanic cronies
Dan's part of SexPanic? I must have missed that post.
>want to continue to
>behave immaturely and self-destructively,
Dan wants to be self-destructive? I must have missed that post.
>... but radically
>increasing the chances that will happen by engaging in behaviours that are
>known to cause that condition are simply stupidity.
Dan's advocated unsafe sex? I must have missed that post.
> My tax dollars pay for
>ENOUGH stupidity, without the added burden of bankrolling your inablity to
>control your dick.
You never eat something that might increase your risk of a heart
attack? You never jaywalk (you could get hurt, and then WE have to pay
for it)?
You've never made a mistake?
Arabian Mocha Sanani
Larry Dew wrote:
> And who actually gives a shit
> about gay men's survival? If you really feel that surviving and growing
> as a community is stupid bullshit, then you are the kind of selfish
> predator that should be feared.
Okay, cool down. The point here is not that you give a damn and the others
don't; it is that (if I may guess at the point Whiteside and others would like
to make, but haven't in the midst of their grenade lobbing, at the risk of
being incorrect) your visiosn of the common good for queer people and their
vision of the common good for queer people may be entirely different, even
opposing. One person's Heaven may be another's Hell.
> The bean, and apparently others involved
> with sexpanic care about gay men and the gay community, why not you?
You've jumped the gun in assuming that they don't, Dew. Of course, they gave
you no good reason _not_ to jump the gun here, but you may be ahead of
yourself.
My read is that your prescription involves the kind of repressive measures
that I would fight against, because they directly contradict my vision of the
common good for _both_ queer people and the society at large. That may also
be the case for the others. The kinds of things you proposed and the way you
proposed them seem to lead right back to the blame-and-proscribe apparoach of
Rotello, et al., which is rather regressive. You're witnessing the reaction
to your proposals, not to the premise that there can be a common good
(although we are bound to see that from the libertarians any minute now.)
> We all ought to know that there is no universal health care in this
> country, and that if you are HIV+ in the US and you cannot afford
> the treatments than it is quite likely that the only way you will get your
> protease inhibitors is from some else's charity. And hooray for charity.
> It's unnerving to me that there appears to be a contingent of men out
> there (possibly the two above, but not including the sexpanic
> organizers if bean is right) who appear to be righteously demanding to be
> encouraged to act irresponsibly with their lives and the lives of others.
A teeny tiny group of irresponsibles which, though they have failed to show
you in the way they have responded to you, Dew, does not, I would wager,
include John, Daniel, etc. Irresponsibles come in many varieties, but we do
not reasonably make public policy for _everyone_ based on the beahvior of a
small group of sociopaths. Instead, we lock up the sociopaths, and there are
already existing laws with which to do that in this case.
> If you knowingly act with little regard for your own or someone else's
> safety, why do you get to be called "the victim?"
But you have made an enormous assumption here, Dew. You presume to know in
all cases the material and psychological state in which such a personal and
intimate decision such as a particular act involving a particular level of
risk is made. While that overarching generalization method may work for some
things, it does not work with something like the transmission of STDs, which
involves people's state of well being an a host of levels, some of them the
most intimate. Epidemiology shows that your presumptions -- that those who
get infected or infect at this stage of the game are doing so wantonly and/or
spitefully -- are unfounded. If you'll go back to the early parts of the
Retro Spection thread and read through, you'll see numerous arguments about
why your presumption is not the one that will, in the long term, aid the
common good.
> Kneejerk reactions against exhortations to have either protected
> sex or monogamous sex are silly. (I mean, we're not against SEX for
> Chrissake.)
Well, the Puritans would have argued that they were not against sex either.
And they weren't, from a literalist point of view. They were, however,
against so much of what made sex an enjoyable and mutually satisfying and/or
enriching experience, that they earned their reputation as prigs.
I'm not sure I've seen any kneejerk reactions against protected sex.
I have seen vehement reactions against those who insist (often inventing
so-far scientifically unsupportable concepts like "reinfection" and
"superinfection") that even the otherwise healthy HIV-infected have to keep
having protected sex _with each other_.
I have also seen both knee-jerk reactions and coherent responses to the idea
of enforced monogamy. Enforcing a code of monogamy (which we have seen
historically has rarely even been kept by its most vehement heterosexual
proponents) is a receipe for disaster. Serial monogamy in which risk
reductions were dropped has done much more to continue the spread of HIV
infection, I would wager, than sex clubs. Moreover, monogamy is no panacaea
except to those who absolutely keep the ideal. It is therefore critical that
HIV-negative persons seeking to dispense with risk reductions be given the
gravest counselling about what theat choice engendrs on them in terms of
responsibility and mutuality. An either/or presentation of protection v.
monogamy is a false choice, yet it is one Andrew Sullivan, for one, would like
us all to embrace.
Stating that we did not fight and are not fighting this struggle for
liberation only to have to be _forced_ to accept bourgeois moralism is not
knee-jerk. It is perfectly sound.
> Meanwhile, arguing the specifics of speculative
> philosophizing bores me to tears. Try to think about the big
> picture. I personally don't like having to join HIV issues with gay
> issues all the time. I think moving towards a time when the two are no
> longer correlated is a worthwhile goal. And the only way I can see that
> we are going to get there is if gay men start caring about themselves and
> their gay brothers enough to act responsibly; rather than just have us
> all share the burden without trying to eliminate that burden.
But, again, the devil is in the details.
What would you have us do to act responsibly? Here is where the repression,
which I believe is born from self-loathing ultimately, comes forth.
> Anyone
> else have any ideas about how to protect us all?
There have been quire a few discussed in this thread and in "Retro Spection."
Might you read those and then ask questions?
--the bean
Larry Dew
Distribution:
: I care plenty about gay men, but not in the bizarre, abstract
: you're talking about when you say 'gay community.'
:
Good. It looks like we actually agree on just about everything. Let me
say that I'm sorry if my talk of $$/HIV treatment offended, but really, I
meant it as a provocative way of starting a discussion about larger
issues. I'd appreciate it if we moved on from that.
I am very surprised to find that my use of the word "community" invoked
nearly as visceral a response. Some gay people appear to be
so immediately put off by the idea of shared values, and that's entirely
understandable given what they're up against in our society, that such
an idea is apparently immediately disregarded as impractical at best,
and somehow oppressive at worst. But is it at all possible to try to come
to something like consensus, if not among gays as a whole, among the
thoughtful gays here on an issue as critically important as personal
responsibility regarding safety and HIV? Or if that's too much to deal
with, how about just discussing whether it could possibly be a good thing
to value and maybe use consensus as a way of saving lives?
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I had a fear that there is a contingent of men
out there (I have no specific person whatsoever in mind, but I'm thinking
of the sexpanic participants who jeered at folks condoning safe sex
practices like monogamy) who appear to be righteously demanding
approval from other gay men and society at large for behaviors which put
their lives and the lives of others at serious risk.
:
: If someone who is HIV positive knowingly infected another person,
: I think I would have some problems with that.
Okay, good. You have just, like it or not, made a "moralizing judgement."
Let's acknowledge that we all make moralizing judgements and move on to
some more complicated issues.
: I'm not even saying unsafe sex is 'good' or 'right' or 'wonderful.'
I think that's what many many of us have been doing for a long time,
*not* saying anything at all about these things because it's complex and
ambiguous and puts us at risk for righteous attack from angry people.
: I'm just saying that people who are positive don't deserve
: to be demonized for their behave,
I could not agree more, forgive me for not writing an explicit preamble to
that effect. The people (possibly imaginary, but apparently real) who I
am considering we bring into judgement here have either HIV- or HIV+
status. What I want to know is, if one knows about the realities of HIV
transmission, yet one consciously engages in clearly risky behavior and
encourages such in others, regardless of HIV status, is it possible for us
to disapprove of his actions/ encourage different behaviors without being
labelled anything other than caring or interested in self-preservation?
My sense is that many gay men have such emotional reactions against
anything that appears like being told what to do with their dicks to the
point where everyone just throws up their hands at these topics and says
we just have to live with the lowest common denominator for fear of
offending or something. Thus, AIDS is just something we just have to
suffer, and fighting it through creating a shared sense of responsibility
is impossible/worse than the disease itself.
: Maybe what I meant was that there is *no* *such* *thing* as a mono-
: lithic gay community. Me, I care about individuals, not the survival
: of some putative collective known as 'gay men.'
: I don't care about the survival and growing of the gay community because
: I don't think there's any such thing as a gay community.
:
Ouch.
--
Steven Levine
In article <67hsd6$n...@larry.cc.emory.edu>,
Daniel Chase Edmonds <ded...@larry.cc.emory.edu> wrote:
>There's some solid logic. Here's the flaw-- I don't care about the
>survival and growing of the gay community because I don't think
>there's any such thing as a gay community.
If there's no such thing as a gay community, how can there
be a gay community band? Or a lesbian/gay community band?
Or a lesbian/gay community orchestra? Or a lesbian/gay
monthly contra dance?
Who does a lesbian and gay community center serve?
Am I fooling myself? Are my twenty years worth of national
connections and friendships founded in lesbian/gay community
insitutions not, in fact, based on anything you would call
"community"?
What *would* qualify as "community" in your eyes?
-Steven Levine
ste...@cray.com
Daniel Chase Edmonds
Steven Levine (ste...@cray.com) wrote:
: Daniel Chase Edmonds <ded...@larry.cc.emory.edu> wrote:
:
: >There's some solid logic. Here's the flaw-- I don't care about the
: >survival and growing of the gay community because I don't think
: >there's any such thing as a gay community.
:
: If there's no such thing as a gay community, how can there
: be a gay community band? Or a lesbian/gay community band?
: Or a lesbian/gay community orchestra? Or a lesbian/gay
: monthly contra dance?
You're kidding, right? There's a slippage of meaning here, and
I'd have thought you'd realize that; 'gay community,' as Mr. Dews
was using it, implies some sort of monolithic gay culture, is
a term that can lead to a near complete cultural homogenization,
a term that implies an ellision of difference. I have no idea
what the hell the gay community is, and I'm surprised that you
speak of it as if it were self-evident. Is it the sum total
of all homosexuals? Then that's a pretty meaningless term, to
my mind. There are precious few things that all homosexuals
have in common to such a degree that we can speak of a gay
community.
It's the same kind of reasoning that leads the well-meaning
but clueless liberal high school teacher to ask one of his/her
African American students to speak about the Black Experience.
As if there were only one.
It makes far more sense, to my mind, to speak of gay communities,
lots and lots of them. But even that has its problems; I would
prefer just to speak of communities, and not label them as
'belonging' to any one race or class or sexual orientation or
anything of the sort.
: Who does a lesbian and gay community center serve?
Again, a different meaning of community: here, it's an
adjective, not a noun, describing what sort of services
you can expect to find at the center, not insuring that
there's such a thing as a gay and lesbian community.
Besides, your logic here is awfully shakey: because there
are people out there who believe in a gay community, it
must exist? Sounds like St. Anselm's argument for the
existence of God.
: Am I fooling myself? Are my twenty years worth of national
: connections and friendships founded in lesbian/gay community
: insitutions not, in fact, based on anything you would call
: "community"?
Oh, they may well be. But that community, which would probably
try to pass itself off as the gay community, is not, in fact,
*the* *gay* *community*. It is an instance of *a* gay community.
(or perhaps several instances of gay communities)
: What *would* qualify as "community" in your eyes?
It's a very hard line to draw, but it has something to do with
having common concerns and interests. And I don't think that
being gay, in and of itself, constitutes a sufficient degree
of commonground that it makes much sense or is particularly
useful to speak of a singular, monolithic, representative
gay community.
Joseph Canale
On 18 Dec 1997, Larry Dew wrote:
> Daniel Chase Edmonds (ded...@curly.cc.emory.edu) wrote:
> : Joseph Canale (jc...@columbia.edu) wrote:
> : : Really. What an idiot. What about a number of degenerative
> : : diseases which are far more taxing on the healthcare system than AIDS/HIV?
> : : Should suffers of lung cancer and heart disease be made to pay for their
> : : care even though they disregard preventative measures?
> : But they don't do evil, nasty stuff like *have* *sex* *with* *lots*
> : *of* *people* in *dark* *rooms* to fulfill their 'suicidal' and
> : 'homicidal' urges.
> : They just smoke tobacco, over-eat, and otherwise kill themselves
> : in much more socially acceptable ways.
>
> First, Thanks bean for providing the kind of explanation, confirmation,
> and dialogue I was hoping to engender with my comments. Creating a "sex
> police" is the farthest from my mind, and if that's what the neocons are
> really about, then they scare me too.
>
> The above comments do have some merit for debate. Should smoking and
> obesity be encouraged, discouraged, or just ignored? Do you really want
> to pay higher insurance premiums to cover the heath costs of smokers when
> you yourself do not smoke?
Discouraged. But you were entertaining some rather draconian
*punitive* measures, which is quite a different thing. The whole point to
health schemes is that well people pay for a few sick people. But you want
to decide who's deserving and who is undeserving which is selfish because
at some point you expect the system to provide for you or loved ones,
even though the potential costs of a protracted illness or accident might
well exceed an individual's lifetime contribution. Why should I pay for
anybody constitutionally susceptible to illness or accident? Tough luck.
> sexual fulfillment in whatever form. However, call me crazy, but I have
> to make some sort of judgement when we're talking about causing slow and
> agonizing death. It seems to me that suicide is an awful thing to do to
> your loved ones, and death by AIDS is an awful thing to witness and have
> to deal with financially, emotionally, etc. Being the cause of the AIDS
> deaths of others is even worse. That's why that guy in upstate New York
> who knowingly had unprotected sex with and thus infected a number of women
> is considered a monster. Had he done it by stabbing them with an infected
> needle it would have been just as evil, in my mind. The fact that it
> happened through sex is practically irrelevant. I can see why the guys
> who posted the above comments might be afraid of why I was posting what I
> did (considering what queers are up against in this society), but this
> immediate vilification of "moralizers" frightens me. Are we to have no
> moral code whatsoever? Why not go and shoot/rape everyone we see? I'm
> talking about saving lives, not fucking. Like I said, were there no risks
> involved, I'd love to be out there getting off any way I can with every
> pretty thing I see, it's pure biology, but I do care for and respect
> others and myself, and that will influence the way I have sex. Is it
> wrong to hope for and maybe even encourage the same in others?
NuShawn Williams is not a monster. You probably do not know this
but he is a diagnosed schizophrenic with a documented history of mental
illness. When asked why he had unprotected sex with these women he
responded that he didn't believe that he was HIV+. In the rush to create
another black bogeyman, the mainstream media forgot the real story here:
widespread denial, on the part of the infected and those not yet infected.
What about those young women? What were they thinking? They too were in
denial about their own vulnerability.
The "moralizers" are contributing to a climate of hysteria which
is actually counter-productive. Your punitive approach to social and
public health problems might actually make the epidemic worse. You seem to
think that it will rationally deter people from enaging in undesirable
behavior, when there is abundant evidence to the contrary. Resources would
be better spent with education efforts that are more pervasive and attempt
to address the psycho-social aspects of the epidemic. There is denial and
there is self-destructive coping behavior. Punitive measures will not
change this aspect of the health crisis. What are you left with then?
Punitive measures for the sake of punitive measures? Seems like another
stratum of denial being heaped onto the problem. Some morality. It's just
another know-nothing reaction to the epidemic.
Joe
Daniel Chase Edmonds
Jess Anderson (ande...@facstaff.wisc.edu) wrote:
: It seems to me some of the problem lies in using the singular.
Bingo.
: As I see
: it, many if not most uses of this questionable phrase derive
: from either of two sources: (a) younger LGBTO people looking
: for membership in a group identity to assuage years of having
: felt isolated, beset, or alone; or (b) anti-LGBTO elements
: looking to obfuscate issues, submerging our individualism so
: as more easily to direct opposition toward us.
And it's the latter usage that makes me shiver whenever I hear
someone who *is* LGBTO use the term.
: I don't want to get dragged into the earlier debate, though I
: disagree with Dan and others who focus on that guy's last
: (and minor) point.
Whoa-- which last and minor point-- not to drag you in-- the
gay community, which I didn't really focus on originally,
or his belief that HIV+ people should shoulder the entire
financial burden of their treatment, the point I actually
did focus on?
: I think the "survival and growth" of gay
: communities (even in the singular, for all its deficiencies)
: is a great thing to be concerned with and to promote. As I
: see it, its existence is not seriously open to question.
I agree, so long as you acknowledge the plurality, and don't
believe anything I wrote ever implied I didn't agree; I do,
however, find the use of the gay community in a singular sense
to be disingeneous and usually tied to some political agenda
or another. In fact, I often find the term to be rather manipu-
lative.
And I do think the existence of a monolithic gay community
not only can be called into question, but ought to be. I
mean, what the hell is it?
Robert S. Coren
In article <67m26k$gsn$1...@walter.cray.com>,
Steven Levine <ste...@cray.com> wrote:
>In article <67hsd6$n...@larry.cc.emory.edu>,
>Daniel Chase Edmonds <ded...@larry.cc.emory.edu> wrote:
>
>>There's some solid logic. Here's the flaw-- I don't care about the
>>survival and growing of the gay community because I don't think
>>there's any such thing as a gay community.
>
>If there's no such thing as a gay community, how can there
>be a gay community band? Or a lesbian/gay community band?
>Or a lesbian/gay community orchestra? Or a lesbian/gay
>monthly contra dance?
I think the article may be key here. Does it make sense to say that
there is "gay community" but that there is not "a gay community"?
--Robert (who posted without thinking for very long)
--
-------Robert Coren (co...@spdcc.com)-------------------------
"My homosexuality is neither strange, surprising, unusual, or silly."
--FJ!! van Wingerde
Mike Silverman
> In article <67m26k$gsn$1...@walter.cray.com>,
> Steven Levine <ste...@cray.com> wrote:
> >In article <67hsd6$n...@larry.cc.emory.edu>,
> >Daniel Chase Edmonds <ded...@larry.cc.emory.edu> wrote:
> >
> >>There's some solid logic. Here's the flaw-- I don't care about the
> >>survival and growing of the gay community because I don't think
> >>there's any such thing as a gay community.
> >
> >If there's no such thing as a gay community, how can there
> >be a gay community band? Or a lesbian/gay community band?
> >Or a lesbian/gay community orchestra? Or a lesbian/gay
> >monthly contra dance?
>
> I think the article may be key here. Does it make sense to say that
> there is "gay community" but that there is not "a gay community"?
Or more accurately that there is a gay community, but that fact in and of
itself does not mean much.
Just because a community exists doesn't mean that it will agree on much.
Steven Levine
Daniel Chase Edmonds <ded...@larry.cc.emory.edu> wrote:
There's some solid logic. Here's the flaw-- I don't care about the
survival and growing of the gay community because I don't think
there's any such thing as a gay community.
Me:
If there's no such thing as a gay community, how can there
be a gay community band? Or a lesbian/gay community band?
Or a lesbian/gay community orchestra? Or a lesbian/gay
monthly contra dance?
>You're kidding, right?
Not in the teensiest tiniest little bit. You have, in essence,
claimed that I have spent countless hours and untold amounts
of energy in community activities for a community that doesn't
exist.
> There's a slippage of meaning here, and
>I'd have thought you'd realize that; 'gay community,' as Mr. Dews
>was using it, implies some sort of monolithic gay culture
Oh, I think Mr. Dews was off in some strange place, but you
added the "monolithic" in a way that made me think that you
were not so much responding to Mr. Dews as bringing up a
different issue that you long ago came to some sort of conclusion
about. And then you grew sloppy, going from this idea
that there is no "monolithic" community to the claim
contradicted by more than ample evidence, that there
is no gay community.
>[gay community], is
>a term that can lead to a near complete cultural homogenization,
>a term that implies an ellision of difference.
All that from speaking of a "gay community"? How is
saying that I play in a gay community band implying
an elision of differences? Certainly the band is a
very different social institution than, say, the bars
that cater to the gay community. I also play in the Minneapolis
Police Band, which considers itself a Minneapolis community
band. I live in various communities, in whose institutions
and activities I can choose to involve myself in, for
whatever periods of time I wish. The communities exist even
during those times when they are irrelevant to much
of my daily life. I'm glad for that; I think it's
a good thing.
>I have no idea
>what the hell the gay community is, and I'm surprised that you
>speak of it as if it were self-evident.
I speak of it as if there is lots of evidence for its existence.
If that's what you mean by "self-evident" then I don't
know why you are surprised. I think it's self-evident
to anybody who cares to look, although I recognize that many
people have an awful lot invested in not caring to look.
>Is it the sum total of all homosexuals?
No, it's not. Is the German community of Milwaukee the
sum total of all Germans who live there?
>Then that's a pretty meaningless term, to
>my mind. There are precious few things that all homosexuals
>have in common to such a degree that we can speak of a gay
>community.
And yet, somehow, despite these differences, there are hundreds
and hundreds and hundreds of gay and lesbian community institutions.
It's kind of nice that reality defies logic so spectacularly
here.
>It's the same kind of reasoning that leads the well-meaning
>but clueless liberal high school teacher to ask one of his/her
>African American students to speak about the Black Experience.
>As if there were only one.
We've gone from "gay community" to "the black experience".
And "liberals". Wow. All of this came right from the
posts you are responding to, right?
>It makes far more sense, to my mind, to speak of gay communities,
>lots and lots of them.
You said "I don't think there's any such thing as a gay community" --
which is not what you are saying here. Sure, there's
lots of gay communities, which intersect, overlap, and
combine in various ways. This comment of mine -- agreeing
with your comment here -- contradicts what you said in your
previous post.
>But even that has its problems; I would
>prefer just to speak of communities, and not label them as
>'belonging' to any one race or class or sexual orientation or
>anything of the sort.
You don't think it's legitimate, then, to speak of jazz
as having its origins in the black community, or of
businesses that cater to the black community, or
of churches that draw their membership from the black
community. Presumably you would prefer to speak of
jazz as having its origins among black musicians, or
of businesses that cater to blacks, or of churches
whose membership is predominantly black.
If I'm correct here -- and it seems to be what you are
saying -- then I think your worldview is attenuated,
and misses the complexity of group identity and tradition
and culture. For many of us, what gives meaning to
things is the human connection -- the history and
companionships and interrelationships and emotional
overlays that complicate every simple thing.
Those things are real, by any definition of real. Those
are the things that define community.
>: Who does a lesbian and gay community center serve?
>
>Again, a different meaning of community: here, it's an
>adjective, not a noun
...not in the literature that such centers produce.
They provide services for the gay and lesbian community
of their cities.
Besides, I have no idea what your point is in claiming
that "community" as an adjective refers to something different
than "community" as a noun.
>, describing what sort of services
>you can expect to find at the center, not insuring that
>there's such a thing as a gay and lesbian community.
First comes the community, then comes the center. It
reflects the existence of a community. And within this
community, as reflected in this center, are all manner
of activities and services, reflecting vast differences
among the members of the gay community.
>Besides, your logic here is awfully shakey: because there
>are people out there who believe in a gay community, it
>must exist? Sounds like St. Anselm's argument for the
>existence of God.
My argument is that there is evidence for the existence
of a community. This evidence does not reside in "belief"
but in institutions and magazines and commercial establishments
and newsgroups and social aggregates and social organizations
and religious organizations and social services (not as many
as some other communities support) and traditions and art
and complicated social structures, documented in books and
articles and oral histories. But I suppose all of that
falls under the category of "miracle", and thus indicates nothing.
>: Am I fooling myself? Are my twenty years worth of national
>: connections and friendships founded in lesbian/gay community
>: insitutions not, in fact, based on anything you would call
>: "community"?
>
>Oh, they may well be. But that community, which would probably
>try to pass itself off as the gay community is not, in fact,
>*the* *gay* *community*. It is an instance of *a* gay community.
>(or perhaps several instances of gay communities)
You have said there is no such thing as a gay community.
Here, let me quote you again:
I don't care about the
survival and growing of the gay community because I don't think
there's any such thing as a gay community.
[Oh, and your "probably" conjecture is ill-conceived.]
>: What *would* qualify as "community" in your eyes?
>
>It's a very hard line to draw, but it has something to do with
>having common concerns and interests.
So social structures and institutions and businesses and
traditions etc. etc. etc. have nothing to do with it, in
your eyes? That's not community you're talking about,
that's the Harvard Club.
>And I don't think that
>being gay, in and of itself, constitutes a sufficient degree
>of commonground that it makes much sense or is particularly
>useful to speak of a singular, monolithic, representative
>gay community
The miracle is that *despite* the fact that there is
no singular, monolithic, representative gay anything,
there is still a gay community. Being gay -- and yes,
being lesbian -- in and of itself constitutes a sufficient
degree of separateness from the majority culture that it
supports a community. This may not always be the case,
but it is absurd to claim that it is not the case right now,
in the world that contains all of the community institutions
I speak of.
-Steven Levine
ste...@cray.com
Spencer Cox
Joe wrote:
> NuShawn Williams is not a monster. You probably do not know this
> but he is a diagnosed schizophrenic with a documented history of mental
> illness. When asked why he had unprotected sex with these women he
> responded that he didn't believe that he was HIV+. In the rush to create
> another black bogeyman, the mainstream media forgot the real story here:
> widespread denial, on the part of the infected and those not yet
infected.
> What about those young women? What were they thinking? They too were in
> denial about their own vulnerability.
Well, without being able to comment on NuShawn Williams' mental state,
would you agree that the biggest problem with the public health system in
this case is that it wasn't able to act fast enough to stop his ongoing
sexual activity to prevent the number of infections that occurred? I mean,
I'm asking you to agree in principle that, in a case like this, public
health authorities do have a role in preventing infections?
Spencer Cox
Steven Levine
>> I think the article may be key here. Does it make sense to say that
>> there is "gay community" but that there is not "a gay community"?
Actually I think that depends on the specific usage, the specific
point being made.
Mike Silverman <cub...@cjnetworks.com> wrote:
>Or more accurately that there is a gay community, but that fact in and of
>itself does not mean much.
Oh, it means an enormous amount. It means that being gay or
lesbian is not just a description of who you want to have sex
with. It means you are part of something larger than yourself,
of something larger than your search for sex. It means that
what you may well have thought made you unique in fact
connects you with others.
>Just because a community exists doesn't mean that it will agree on much.
Just because it can't be summarized by sweeping statements
doesn't mean the construct doesn't have value.
-Steven Levine
ste...@cray.com
Daniel Chase Edmonds
Steven Levine (ste...@cray.com) wrote:
: > There's a slippage of meaning here, and
: >I'd have thought you'd realize that; 'gay community,' as Mr. Dews
: >was using it, implies some sort of monolithic gay culture
:
: Oh, I think Mr. Dews was off in some strange place, but you
: added the "monolithic" in a way that made me think that you
: were not so much responding to Mr. Dews as bringing up a
: different issue that you long ago came to some sort of conclusion
: about.
Speaking of *the* gay community brings in monolothic already.
I just took what is implicit in the definite article and made
it explicit.
: And then you grew sloppy, going from this idea
: that there is no "monolithic" community to the claim
: contradicted by more than ample evidence, that there
: is no gay community.
What's the difference between the two? What evidence
contradicts my claim that there is no gay community?
This is an argument of definition, but an important
argument of definition. I don't understand what you
are referring to when you speak of the gay community.
I'm not being intentionally obtuse; it's a term that
makes no sense to me. Am I a member of the gay community
just because I'm gay? Then why throw in this 'community'
part? Why not just speak of gays, or gays and lesbians
(surely different from speaking of gays)?
: >[gay community], is
: >a term that can lead to a near complete cultural homogenization,
: >a term that implies an ellision of difference.
:
: All that from speaking of a "gay community"? How is
: saying that I play in a gay community band implying
: an elision of differences?
Because, again, a gay community band is a different animal
altogether from the gay community.
: >I have no idea
: >what the hell the gay community is, and I'm surprised that you
: >speak of it as if it were self-evident.
:
: I speak of it as if there is lots of evidence for its existence.
: If that's what you mean by "self-evident" then I don't
: know why you are surprised. I think it's self-evident
: to anybody who cares to look, although I recognize that many
: people have an awful lot invested in not caring to look.
If the evidence is so ample, what is it? The fact that
there are organizations and groups and clubs and businesses
that target homosexuals? How does that constitute *a* community?
: >Then that's a pretty meaningless term, to
: >my mind. There are precious few things that all homosexuals
: >have in common to such a degree that we can speak of a gay
: >community.
:
: And yet, somehow, despite these differences, there are hundreds
: and hundreds and hundreds of gay and lesbian community institutions.
: It's kind of nice that reality defies logic so spectacularly
: here.
The existence of these institutions doesn't prove that there
is *a* gay community.
: >It's the same kind of reasoning that leads the well-meaning
: >but clueless liberal high school teacher to ask one of his/her
: >African American students to speak about the Black Experience.
: >As if there were only one.
:
: We've gone from "gay community" to "the black experience".
: And "liberals". Wow. All of this came right from the
: posts you are responding to, right?
Yup. Want me to draw the analogy more clearly? Speaking of *the*
gay community implies that there is some sort of common experience
to being gay, something, beyond sexual orientation, that everyone
who is gay shares. This 'something shared' is, after all, what is
implied by community.
So by positing *a* gay community, you are positing the condition
of possibility for a reduction of all of us, an elision of our
individuality. Suddenly, each of us becomes a spokesperson for
the gay community, a representative.
: >It makes far more sense, to my mind, to speak of gay communities,
: >lots and lots of them.
:
: You said "I don't think there's any such thing as a gay community" --
: which is not what you are saying here.
Yes, it is. I don't think there's any such thing as a gay community--
rather, I think that there are numerous gay communities. And I
think that that difference in articulation is not only important;
I think it's essential.
: Sure, there's
: lots of gay communities, which intersect, overlap, and
: combine in various ways. This comment of mine -- agreeing
: with your comment here -- contradicts what you said in your
: previous post.
How so?
: >But even that has its problems; I would
: >prefer just to speak of communities, and not label them as
: >'belonging' to any one race or class or sexual orientation or
: >anything of the sort.
:
: You don't think it's legitimate, then, to speak of jazz
: as having its origins in the black community, or of
: businesses that cater to the black community, or
: of churches that draw their membership from the black
: community.
I think it's very problematic. Legitimacy is another issue
altogether, and I wouldn't presume to tell anyone that
their perception of community isn't legitimate. Just that
I don't agree with it, and why.
: Presumably you would prefer to speak of
: jazz as having its origins among black musicians, or
: of businesses that cater to blacks, or of churches
: whose membership is predominantly black.
Yes.
: If I'm correct here -- and it seems to be what you are
: saying -- then I think your worldview is attenuated,
: and misses the complexity of group identity and tradition
: and culture.
Not at all. I just draw the lines of group identity
somewhere short of the global scale. I think it makes
much more sense to speak of Jazz as growing out of
some subsectors of the African American community of
musicians in Chicago, Saint Louis, Kansas City and
New Orleans, and to a lesser extent in other parts
of the U.S.
This is not the same as saying that it came out of
*the* *black* *community*, but it also isn't a failure
to recognize group identity. Just a recognition that
group identity does not tend to assume the gargantuan
proportions implied by claims to the existence of
*the* gay or black or asian or jewish or any other
sort of community.
: For many of us, what gives meaning to
: things is the human connection -- the history and
: companionships and interrelationships and emotional
: overlays that complicate every simple thing.
: Those things are real, by any definition of real.
I don't believe I've ever denied that.
: Those are the things that define community.
I don't deny that either.
You've written more I'd like to respond to, but I haven't
the time right now; I really think our greatest point of
disagreement, though, is over my grating at any claim for
*a* community.
Jess Anderson
ded...@curly.cc.emory.edu (Daniel Chase Edmonds) writes:
>Jess Anderson (ande...@facstaff.wisc.edu) wrote:
>>It seems to me some of the problem lies in using the singular.
>Bingo.
>>As I see
>>it, many if not most uses of this questionable phrase derive
>>from either of two sources: (a) younger LGBTO people looking
>>for membership in a group identity to assuage years of having
>>felt isolated, beset, or alone; or (b) anti-LGBTO elements
>>looking to obfuscate issues, submerging our individualism so
>>as more easily to direct opposition toward us.
>And it's the latter usage that makes me shiver whenever I hear
>someone who *is* LGBTO use the term.
I think Steven Levine is addressing your concern fairly
effectively. That issue turns, as I see it, on the fact that
we use "the gay community" in the noun sense as a correlate of
the attributive use: "gay community services", "the gay
community bands played their hearts out" or whatever.
Furthermore, people in my (a) category above probably should
not make you shudder, since what they are doing is as natural
as air: speaking from the only experience they have. Consider
a young person moving to a city where there are more LGBTO
people than they ever imagined before coming out. I can
imagine that for many, feeling included in something *big* for
the first time would be exciting stuff, even awe-inspiring, in
which frame of mind factional disputes and real differences
between some of our subcommunities would fail to manifest with
much conviction. And *belonging* is powerful to many, who in
that case might have a fairly strong vested interest in seeing
more unity than there actually is.
>>I don't want to get dragged into the earlier debate, though I
>>disagree with Dan and others who focus on that guy's last
>>(and minor) point.
>Whoa-- which last and minor point-- not to drag you in-- the
>gay community, which I didn't really focus on originally, or
>his belief that HIV+ people should shoulder the entire
>financial burden of their treatment, the point I actually did
>focus on?
The guy's views on who should bear what costs of which and why
are in my casual opinion a disgrace. But I don't have time to
argue the point. I was responding to Tony (who has since
clarified) as reflected in your comments about "gay
community."
>>I think the "survival and growth" of gay
>>communities (even in the singular, for all its deficiencies)
>>is a great thing to be concerned with and to promote. As I
>>see it, its existence is not seriously open to question.
>I agree, so long as you acknowledge the plurality, and don't
>believe anything I wrote ever implied I didn't agree; I do,
I didn't impugn you. I was adding my views.
>however, find the use of the gay community in a singular
>sense to be disingeneous
That seems an overreaction, to me. I took the phrase to be a
fairly minor (and not uncommon) distortion of the facts.
>and usually tied to some political agenda
>or another. In fact, I often find the term to be rather
>manipulative.
I hope you're not implying "tied to some political agenda"
perforce renders an idea suspicious?
>And I do think the existence of a monolithic gay community not
>only can be called into question, but ought to be. I mean,
>what the hell is it?
Brace yourself: I think it's a strawperson you're putting up.
No one I've ever run into thinks the gay community is anything
like monolithic. Even those starry youngsters are aware that
there *are* distinctions within the whole.
--
<> They kick you when you're down, but if you don't get down
<> they can't kick you.
<> -- Heidi Leiter
<> high-school student who took her girlfriend to the prom.
--
Copyright 1997 Jess Anderson. <> All rights reserved. <> Opinions
expressed herein are not connected in any way with the UW-Madison.
EMail: ande...@facstaff.wisc.edu <> Site: http://www.jesscc.com/
Ellen Evans
In article <67mqo6$seg$1...@walter.cray.com>,
Steven Levine <ste...@cray.com> wrote:
[]
>All that from speaking of a "gay community"? How is
>saying that I play in a gay community band implying
>an elision of differences?
If you say "a" gay community band, it doesn't. If you say "the," it
implies that the band "speaks" for the whole of the uniform "community"
which does.
>Certainly the band is a
>very different social institution than, say, the bars
>that cater to the gay community.
Indeed, some, possibly many people would say that the difference lies in
the "communities" served, and not simply the "instituions."
[]
>And yet, somehow, despite these differences, there are hundreds
>and hundreds and hundreds of gay and lesbian community institutions.
>It's kind of nice that reality defies logic so spectacularly
>here.
Uh, "reality" has very little to do with this argument over
nomenclature. I doubt anyone here would deny that there are a wide range
of social structures whose main participants are gay and lesbian. The
question is do those structures "represent" a single community, or a
variety of communities, who have this socially significant thing in
common. My guess is one's answer depends on the argument that one is in
the process of making.
--
Ellen Evans 17 Across: The "her" of "Leave Her to Heaven"
je...@netcom.com New York Times, 7/14/96
Kenji Andrew Matsuoka
Daniel Chase Edmonds <ded...@curly.cc.emory.edu> wrote:
: Speaking of *the* gay community brings in monolothic already.
So, according to you, a common statement like "the gay community is
extremely diverse" is oxymoronic.
: Am I a member of the gay community just because I'm gay?
I'd say you're a member just because you're gay and you know other
gay people. One definition of "community" is simply a group of
socially interacting people.
You may object: "But what that defines is *a* community, a *local*
one." True, but the various local communities overlap. So, you
probably have fewer degrees of separation from a randomly selected
gay man, anywhere, than from a randomly selected straight man.
If you don't know any other gay people, you're not a member of the
community. Well, maybe a token member. If you're a fag hag,
you're an honorary member.
: why throw in this 'community' part? Why not just speak of gays,
: or gays and lesbians
Because gay people tend to hang together. I don't know about you,
but this fact is quite important to my social life.
: by positing *a* gay community, you are positing the condition
: of possibility for a reduction of all of us, an elision of our
: individuality. [...]
: group identity does not tend to assume the gargantuan
: proportions implied by claims to the existence of
: *the* gay or black or asian or jewish or any other
: sort of community.
You're conflating "community" with "identity".
--
ke...@panix.com
"You should express yourself fully, without reservations. But you should
not go too far. If you say `I am feeling very angry', that is good. But
if you say `You made me so!', you are going too far." -- Shunryu Suzuki
Éamonn McManus
> are people out there who believe in a gay community, it
> must exist? Sounds like St. Anselm's argument for the
> existence of God.
I think you mean Bishop Berkeley's bogus argument for the existence of
God, the one that says that things don't exist unless they are perceived,
but they continue to exist even when no-one is perceiving them,
therefore God must be there to spend Its time perceiving things in order
to prevent them from popping out of existence.
St Anselm's bogus argument is the one that says that God is defined as
that entity than which nothing can be greater, but a non-existent God
would be a contradiction because an existent God would be greater than
It, so God must exist to protect our right to stick fiercely to
nonsensical definitions.
ObMotss: My first French (actually Spanish/French) boyfriend Anselmo,
who I am in touch with again after a five-year hiatus.
,
Eamonn http://www.mtcc.com/~eamonn/
"Then I realized I was in France and, in fact, the gibberish was French"
-- R Johnson
Mike Silverman
In article <67ms5u$t5v$1...@walter.cray.com>, ste...@cray.com (Steven Levine)
wrote:
> >Just because a community exists doesn't mean that it will agree on much.
>
> Just because it can't be summarized by sweeping statements
> doesn't mean the construct doesn't have value.
I agree with you. I was trying to point out a common fallacy of those who
argue that there is no gay community by asking what any of us really have
in common and can agree on.
I believe there *is* a gay community in the general sense.
Steven Levine
In article <67msu4$1...@curly.cc.emory.edu>,
Daniel Chase Edmonds <ded...@curly.cc.emory.edu> wrote:
>Speaking of *the* gay community brings in monolothic already.
Not always. Any sentence that begins "the gay community
believes..." is probably going to lead to something stupid,
just as any sentence that begins "gay people believe...".
It's not the "community" part per se that brings in the
monolithic thing. There is nothing in my understanding
of community -- and I'm not talking semantics here, I'm talking
about how people build their lives -- that implies that
the members of the community are monolithic in any way
but in the particular defining aspect of the community.
>This is an argument of definition, but an important
>argument of definition. I don't understand what you
>are referring to when you speak of the gay community.
>I'm not being intentionally obtuse; it's a term that
>makes no sense to me. Am I a member of the gay community
>just because I'm gay?
Of course. And when people speak of "the gay community"
in a way that excludes you, you are free to contradict
them. People speak of "the gay community" in ways that
exclude me all the time, and have been doing so since
the phrase gained currency. And then I raise a fuss and
then they say that they are making a *generalization*
and then I look down over my glasses in a supercilious manner.
It's common to the point of trite for people just coming
to terms with their homosexuality to speak of how they
just don't fit in to "the gay community" (or "the lesbian
community" -- I've seen that as well). I'm out to reclaim
the terms. Years ago there was a soc.motss yearbook, in which
we were asked to give advice to soc.motss freshmen. My
advice was "You define the gay community."
>Then why throw in this 'community'
>part? Why not just speak of gays, or gays and lesbians
>(surely different from speaking of gays)?
Because of the meaning we attach to that. Being gay
or lesbian is not the same thing, in terms of its cultural
meaning, as being, oh, somebody who likes okra.
When you speak of the gay community, you are speaking
of more than people of a particular sexual orientation.
You are speaking of the overlays I call community.
>: All that from speaking of a "gay community"? How is
>: saying that I play in a gay community band implying
>: an elision of differences?
>
>Because, again, a gay community band is a different animal
>altogether from the gay community.
A gay community band is not about just the members of
the band. Sure, it offers various satisfactions
to its members - it wouldn't exist otherwise - but its
stated purpose is to be the band of and for a gay
community. It provides music at community parades,
and other community events. It can even create a community
event -- a bandshell in the park concert, for example.
Almost every June I write an article in soc.motss about
the bandshell concert my band produces featuring the Twin
Cities Gay Men's chorus, the Calliope women's chorus,
the One Voice Mixed Chorus, and us. At these concerts,
you see perhaps two thousand gay men and lesbians
having picnics and running their dogs. You could
say these are a couple of thousand gay men and lesbians who
attend these concerts, all separate from each other with
no overriding connection, just concert attendees who
happen to be gay and lesbian. But you would be missing
something significant if you didn't recognize the existence
of a gay and lesbian community in the Twin Cities.
Why do they come to *this* concert and not any of the
hundreds of others throughout the park system in the
summer? What interests do these people share, and what
do they have in common? For that matter, why do the
members of the Minnesota Freedom Band play in *this*
band rather than any of the dozens of other musical
organizations? (This question was particularly significant
when the band would struggling musically and musicians of
professional calibre would join us.)
>: I speak of it as if there is lots of evidence for its existence.
>: If that's what you mean by "self-evident" then I don't
>: know why you are surprised. I think it's self-evident
>: to anybody who cares to look, although I recognize that many
>: people have an awful lot invested in not caring to look.
>
>If the evidence is so ample, what is it? The fact that
>there are organizations and groups and clubs and businesses
>that target homosexuals? How does that constitute *a* community?
The fact that you could take my list and summarize the
purpose and meaning of the organizations as "targeting"
homosexuals frustrates me. My band does not "target"
homosexuals. Groups that get together to form a gay
and lesbian church or coven or synogogue are not "targeting"
homosexuals.
This may seem like a condescending question, but I'm
starting to wonder: Are you aware of the grassroots
nature of most gay and lesbian organizations and institutions?
We create these insitutions ourselves, for ourselves.
Not everything is about a producer/consumer dynamic.
>: We've gone from "gay community" to "the black experience".
>: And "liberals". Wow. All of this came right from the
>: posts you are responding to, right?
>
>Yup.
Liberals? The black "experience"?
>So by positing *a* gay community, you are positing the condition
>of possibility for a reduction of all of us, an elision of our
>individuality. Suddenly, each of us becomes a spokesperson for
>the gay community, a representative.
Each of us *is* a spokesperson for the gay community. If
people want to generalize from that to make conclusions
about a monolithic gay community then they are being
idiotic.
>: Presumably you would prefer to speak of
>: jazz as having its origins among black musicians, or
>: of businesses that cater to blacks, or of churches
>: whose membership is predominantly black.
>
>Yes.
>
>: If I'm correct here -- and it seems to be what you are
>: saying -- then I think your worldview is attenuated,
>: and misses the complexity of group identity and tradition
>: and culture.
>
>Not at all. I just draw the lines of group identity
>somewhere short of the global scale.
You also explicitly deny that group identity makes
for community. Which is what I think is an attenuated
worldview. You miss out on so much richness and experience
when you insist that acknowledgement of commonality
elides differences.
>I think it makes
>much more sense to speak of Jazz as growing out of
>some subsectors of the African American community of
>musicians in Chicago, Saint Louis, Kansas City and
>New Orleans, and to a lesser extent in other parts
>of the U.S.
How can you call this a "community"? Doesn't that
elide the differences between all the African American
musicians in the subsector you speak of? How can you
say that these musicians are monolithic and representative?
But again, just as with the gay bands: You are ignoring
the participation of the individuals who were not themselves
musicians in the community that produced jazz. Why
would you want to separate like that? What is the music
without its history, without its audience, without its
cultural mythology, without its settings? You would never
come to a full understanding of jazz if you ignored these
things.
>This is not the same as saying that it came out of
>*the* *black* *community*, but it also isn't a failure
>to recognize group identity. Just a recognition that
>group identity does not tend to assume the gargantuan
>proportions implied by claims to the existence of
>*the* gay or black or asian or jewish or any other
>sort of community.
I think you incorrectly attribute your misreadings to
others. People make stupid statements all the time
about "the gay community". That doesn't mean the concept
of a community of gay men implies unanimity of ideas or
goals or pretty much anything except sexual orientation.
As I say, people will make those same stupid statements
without using the concept of community at all. It is
the stupid idea that the gay community, or that gay men,
or that gay men and lesbians, have (or ought to have) the
same ideas and concerns and outlooks and behaviors that
is the problem.
-Steven Levine
ste...@cray.com
Mike McManus
In article <ans...@kaa.gr.osf.org>, eam...@mtcc.com (Éamonn McManus) wrote:
>therefore God must be there to spend Its time perceiving things in order
>to prevent them from popping out of existence.
That last phrase reminds me of an old joke:
René Descartes walks into a bar. The bartender asks him if he would like a
beer. Descartes says, "I think not" -- and disappears. ;-)
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
_/ Mike McManus _/ home: mmcm...@frontiernet.net _/
_/ Rochester, NY _/ work: mcm...@kodak.com _/
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Steven Levine
In article <jeevELM...@netcom.com>, Ellen Evans <je...@netcom.com> wrote:
>Steven Levine <ste...@cray.com> wrote:
>>All that from speaking of a "gay community"? How is
>>saying that I play in a gay community band implying
>>an elision of differences?
>
>If you say "a" gay community band, it doesn't. If you say "the," it
>implies that the band "speaks" for the whole of the uniform "community"
>which does.
I often call the Minnesota Freedom Band the gay and lesbian community
band of the Twin Cities. I don't think that implies that we speak
for the whole of the uniform Twin Cities gay and lesbian community.
Mostly it implies that there's only one gay and lesbian community
band, at present, in the Twin Cities. There was a period when
there were two gay/lesbian bands in NYC, and a period when there
were two gay/lesbian bands in the Bay Area. At those times,
I wouldn't have called either of the bands "the" gay/lesbian
community band of those cities. (Maybe "the premier" gay/lesbian
community band.)
I played at the last two Inaugurals with the Lesbian and
Gay Bands of America, an organization of gay/lesbian community
bands. I don't know who we were speaking for, but I do
think we were making a symbolic gay and lesbian presence
in the Inaugural activities. Symbolic of a national
community? In some ways. Speaking for the whole of a
uniform national gay and lesbian community? I don't know
who thinks such a thing would even be possible. We
have to live with the limitations of community,
that a community of any size will never be monolithic --
or, more to the point, that every other individual
in the community will never agree with you in
at least three things that you think are really important
and beyond compromise.
>>Certainly the band is a
>>very different social institution than, say, the bars
>>that cater to the gay community.
>
>Indeed, some, possibly many people would say that the difference lies in
>the "communities" served, and not simply the "instituions."
I wouldn't be one of those people. My bands have always played
for and drawn from a community that includes people who
frequent gay bars. The community we play for and draw from
also includes people who do not.
>>And yet, somehow, despite these differences, there are hundreds
>>and hundreds and hundreds of gay and lesbian community institutions.
>>It's kind of nice that reality defies logic so spectacularly
>>here.
>
>Uh, "reality" has very little to do with this argument over
>nomenclature.
It's not an argument over nomenclature -- it's an argument over
connection and belonging and identity and resentment and all
sorts of fun stuff like that.
> I doubt anyone here would deny that there are a wide range
>of social structures whose main participants are gay and lesbian. The
>question is do those structures "represent" a single community, or a
>variety of communities, who have this socially significant thing in
>common.
I thought a big part of the question was whether these things
represent community at all. Dan sometimes says yes, but then
he says no, not unless you can make those community definitions
really really specific, so specific that there is no room
for conflict or disagreement within the group that you call
a community.
>My guess is one's answer depends on the argument that one is in
>the process of making.
It's a big word. It contains multitudes.
-Steven Levine
ste...@cray.com
Steven Levine
On "gay community" in the singular:
Jess Anderson <ande...@facstaff.wisc.edu> wrote:
As I see
it, many if not most uses of this questionable phrase derive
from either of two sources: (a) younger LGBTO people looking
for membership in a group identity to assuage years of having
felt isolated, beset, or alone; or (b) anti-LGBTO elements
looking to obfuscate issues, submerging our individualism so
as more easily to direct opposition toward us.
ded...@curly.cc.emory.edu (Daniel Chase Edmonds) writes:
And it's the latter usage that makes me shiver whenever I hear
someone who *is* LGBTO use the term.
Whoa, wait a minute here. I'm going to start to listen
for the use of the phrase "gay community" among anti-LGBTO
types, but that's not what I remember hearing most prominently.
I hear about the "gay agenda" and the "gay lifestyle", but
I don't recall much about the "gay community". Acknowledging
that there are elements that make for a community among
gay men and lesbians is something that I would think is counter
to the beliefs of these folks. I *want* these folks
to acknowledge that we have a community, a vast and complicated
and diverse one.
Mostly I hear "the gay community" among LGBTO folks themselves.
-Steven Levine
ste...@cray.com
XAOS
Steven Levine wrote:
>
> In article <jeevELM...@netcom.com>, Ellen Evans <je...@netcom.com> wrote:
> >Uh, "reality" has very little to do with this argument over
> >nomenclature.
>
> It's not an argument over nomenclature -- it's an argument over
> connection and belonging and identity and resentment and all
> sorts of fun stuff like that.
All of which are subjective "realities" which are expressed
through nomenclature, but have no objective meaning in
"Reality" (ie, an external, objectively quantifiable....
umm, thing)
- Steve
--
"I'm so happy. It's the first time I've seen them in real life.
I love them. They'll be number one for ever."
- 8 year-old Ana Maria, on seeing the Spice Girls in
concert
Ellen Evans
In article <67osi9$qh$1...@walter.cray.com>,
Steven Levine <ste...@cray.com> wrote:
[]
>A gay community band is not about just the members of
>the band. Sure, it offers various satisfactions
>to its members - it wouldn't exist otherwise - but its
>stated purpose is to be the band of and for a gay
>community.
But surely there are lots of people who belong to the mythic community who
don't care at all about band music, who would even cross the street to
avoid it. And there are lots of people from the hetero community who love
it and would come to those events even though they aren't gay. From this
point of view, a gay band is a subset of the band community, made up, as
many bands are (police bands spring to mind) of people who have band
music *and* something else in common.
None of these defintions exist outside some kind of context. To say that
there is a "gay community" band does not, in and of itself, prove that
there is a gay community. And, it seems to me, the question of whether
or not there is a gay community depends heavily on the context in which
the question is asked.
Ellen Evans
In article <67otqd$1fb$1...@walter.cray.com>,
Steven Levine <ste...@cray.com> wrote:
[]
>I played at the last two Inaugurals with the Lesbian and
>Gay Bands of America, an organization of gay/lesbian community
>bands. I don't know who we were speaking for, but I do
>think we were making a symbolic gay and lesbian presence
>in the Inaugural activities. Symbolic of a national
>community?
And why "symbolic"? Because there *is* a gay and lesbian community? Or
because the social structure in which this all took place marks as
specifically different and other people who happen to be gay and lesbian,
even gay and lesbian people who can't stand band music.
[]
>It's not an argument over nomenclature -- it's an argument over
>connection and belonging and identity and resentment and all
>sorts of fun stuff like that.
It is an argument over nomenclature - and all the things you list belong
to the purview of names. If "gay and lesbian" weren't marked as "other"
in the culture, would it even occur to people that there was a "community"
made up of gay and lesbian people? Some people would hang out together,
but then people who like bike racing hang out together. And a fair number
of people who share the characteristic of motss attachments might not
spend much time at all in motss-delineated activities.
[]
>I thought a big part of the question was whether these things
>represent community at all. Dan sometimes says yes, but then
>he says no, not unless you can make those community definitions
>really really specific, so specific that there is no room
>for conflict or disagreement within the group that you call
>a community.
I read Dan as saying that he was leary of claims that there was a single
"community" to be "represented," not that associations of gay and lesbian
people don't exist.
Steven Levine
Me:
>>A gay community band is not about just the members of
>>the band. Sure, it offers various satisfactions
>>to its members - it wouldn't exist otherwise - but its
>>stated purpose is to be the band of and for a gay
>>community.
>
>But surely there are lots of people who belong to the mythic community who
>don't care at all about band music, who would even cross the street to
>avoid it.
True, and they won't buy tickets to my concerts, either. Big
rasberry from me.
> And there are lots of people from the hetero community who love
>it and would come to those events even though they aren't gay.
Also true -- and they bring their children to my concerts
and everything. My parents donate money to the various
local and national band organizations I have been part of.
But they are like guests at somebody else's family reunion.
Welcome guests and happy guests (at our bandshell concerts
there are always gay men with dogs and they are always extraordinarily
kind to the children of my friends who want to pet and play
with their animals -- seems a trivial point, but I think
it's part of the general feel of these concerts, and its
something that gets told to me all the time). I don't
think their presence, or the lack of presence of gay men
and lesbians who have no interest in these concerts, changes
the nature of this being a gay and lesbian event. That is a result
of how its billed, and who predominates, and what is said
from the stage.
> From this
>point of view, a gay band is a subset of the band community, made up, as
>many bands are (police bands spring to mind) of people who have band
>music *and* something else in common.
Yes, but obviously I attribute great significant to this something
else in common that makes a gay/lesbian band. I base this significance
on my personal history (having gone from being the "band homosexual"
to being in a "homosexual band"), and the personal histories of the other
members of the band. And of the people who support the band,
and attend its concerts -- or even just clap and smile when they
watch us march down the street.
>None of these defintions exist outside some kind of context. To say that
>there is a "gay community" band does not, in and of itself, prove that
>there is a gay community. And, it seems to me, the question of whether
>or not there is a gay community depends heavily on the context in which
>the question is asked.
Ok, here's the context: The United States in 1997. Where the
members of the bands grew up at a time when their being gay
and lesbian was, for many of them, an alienating and isolating
thing. Where the surrounding cultural values were: You should
be ashamed. Where there was an idea that had great cultural
currency that there is no gay community, and there certainly
is no gay and lesbian community -- since being gay is about who
you want to sleep with and what does that have to do with anything
like who you want to play music with.
So you have all these individuals who had internalized these
things to a greater or lesser extent getting together and working
through the hell of establishing (and maintaining!) an organization
(particularly a performing organization) from nothing. You have
all these individuals whose response to a cultural attitude of
shame was to band together and play loudly and publicly in pride and
affirmation. Not just as isolated individuals, but as a group.
Developing a group history, and even a group identity. Extending
that history and identity across the US, and into Canada and
now Australia.
Given all this, what does the band's existence reflect? I
say a community, a community built over the last twenty years.
The individuals in the band couldn't have become a group without
some sort of contextual support, without living in a surrounding
culture that enabled them to build their group, or their sense
of being a group. Despite the differences in age, background,
gender, and sexual interest.
But I had thought that context was assumed.
-Steven Levine
ste...@cray.com
XAOS
Steven Levine wrote:
> since being gay is about who
> you want to sleep with and what does that have to do with anything
> like who you want to play music with.
I'm curious as to your answer to this. What does being gay have to
do with who you want to play music with? Maybe it's a matter
of being bi, or not having grown up in such an overtly
oppressive environment, but if I were to play in a band, I can't
imagine that I would care whether the other band members were
gay, straight or whatever.
I'm not trrying to be a pain in the ass here, but I don't
think that I'm grokking your POV (hi Éamonn!) and would like
to better understand your perspective.
Spencer Cox
I suspect the problem that some people are having with the notion of "the
gay community" (it's certainly one of the key problems I have with that
idea) is the concept that "we as a community..." need to do something or
other. As a single community, we basically don't do anything, and that is,
in my opinion, quite a good thing. People who identify themselves as gay
or lesbian live highly varied lives, and people who have sex with people of
the same gender but don't self-identify as gay live even more highly varied
lives. There are also profound disagreements over who is part of "the gay
community" -- bisexuals? transgendered people? Curious people? Chaste
people? And so the notion that Michaelangelo Signorile has proposed, for
example, that circuit parties affect the lives of all male members of "the
gay community," and that "we, as a community, need to change our culture"
assumes a sort of monolithic way of doing things the absence of which is
highly valued by some of us.
Spencer Cox
Michael Thomas
XAOS <xa...@mindspring.com> writes:
> Steven Levine wrote:
> > since being gay is about who
> > you want to sleep with and what does that have to do with anything
> > like who you want to play music with.
>
> I'm curious as to your answer to this. What does being gay have to
> do with who you want to play music with?
Well, I don't play in a band, and I certainly
don't speak for Steven, but I am sort of in the
middle of the "Old Guard" and the "New Guard", ie
the difference between just after Stonewall and
emergence of AIDS as the binding issues of the
times. AIDS, IMO, has had the odd effect of being
the Great Educator to the general populace -- and
young faglings in particular -- for better or
worse. Although it has been fertile fodder for the
haters, I think it's undeniable that AIDS has put
a face on GLB's like nothing else could have.
It's been a great equalizer in many ways in that
it has touched every segment of the gay/bi male
community, and has necessitated our being out to a
degree that the free-wheeling 70's could have
never hoped for. To not know that there aren't gay
you-name-it's is to admit that you've been living
under a rock for the last 20 years.
I hope you're asking what the fuck this means
wrt to LGB Bands, so here goes: in the early 70's
there was nothing. Literally. There were no
pervasive GLB structures, no visibility, no famous
out homos, no... nothing. Steven's generation had
to carve something from that nothing, and one of
the phenomena from that period were affinity
groups: bands, choruses, bowling leagues, etc,
etc. Part of this wasn't much more than a cover
for an increased dating pool, but there was a lot
more to it than that. It was a place where you
could feel comfortable, feel some sense of
community that you never felt before, take pride
in just the fact that you are who you are and fuck
the rest of the world.
By the time I came around in the late 70's,
there was already a *dramatically* different feel;
in suburbia, I knew that there was gay life in
WeHo and that that didn't necessarily mean going
out to bars and bathhouses every night. These
affinity groups helped to spread the notion that
homos could be just as mundane as the next Joe and
that was comforting in a lot of ways. By virtue of
so many options, I could happily not choose any of
the above and still retain my homo credentials.
AIDS, in some respects, was an extension of
this, but it was so powerful that it practically
eclipsed every other reason that we needed to pull
together. The side effect of this, I think, is
that the new generation is in such a different
world than Steven's generation that such social
structures seem quaint and outdated. Everybody
knows that there are homo this and that's these
days; why should I need to be around more of
them? Besides, there are bigger fish to fry.
I'm not entirely sure whether there's a good
answer to this. Indeed, this same phenomenon has
been acted out for every ethnic group that has
been tossed into the melting pot. Is it bad that
there is a Sons of Italy? Scandanavian Hall? I
don't think so. But then again, I certainly don't
grudge those who don't much want to affiliate with
them even if it is their right. Your choice, your
taste. Different time, different era.
--
Michael Thomas (mi...@mtcc.com http://www.mtcc.com/~mike/)
"I dunno, that's an awful lot of money."
Beavis
Steven Levine
[I'm only getting this discussion in pieces on my
News Server, which is frustrating]
Me:
since being gay is about who
you want to sleep with and what does that have to do with anything
like who you want to play music with.
XAOS <xa...@mindspring.com> writes:
I'm curious as to your answer to this. What does being gay have to
do with who you want to play music with?
Michael Thomas <mi...@fasolt.mtcc.com> wrote:
[An absolutely first-rate answer to the question. My area
of disagreement is that I am not convinced that the need
for the sort of affinity groups Michael describes has diminished
as much as Michael implies -- and a lot of this belief is because I live
in Minnesota, which is a very different place than San Francisco
or even the greater LA area.]
In 1987 I wrote a essay that was an answer of sorts to XAOS's
question, for the program of the "Let Freedom Ring" concert
that the Lesbian and Gay Bands of America performed in DAR
Hall the night before the second March on Washington. It's
always embarrassing to read things you wrote a long time ago,
but at this point the views I express here are ancient history
and perhaps of interest for that reason.
The one big thing that comes through for me when I reread this
now is how *very* big a deal it seemed at the time to be
out -- not just for me, but for nearly all of us in the
gay bands. A lot of friends of mine from other bands sent
copies of this article to friends of theirs as a way of coming
out. It's hard to remember *why* it seemed such a big teary
deal, but reading this article reminds me that it *did* seem
a big teary deal.
Also it's a strange thing to remember how very big a deal
it was to me at the time that my parents came to the concert.
But it was, a very big deal. It was actually a sort of
watershed event, the night that something clicked for them
regarding their support of gay issues.
Also you can see that I am still repeating the mantras of
this very article, ten years later.
Anyway, from 1987. Seriously, this is what I wrote
over ten years ago:
Why a Lesbian and Gay Band?
---------------------------
In 1985 we started a lesbian and gay band in Boston. I remember the
tentative excitement of our first rehearsal. We did not have any
brass players (a liability for a band that intends to march in a
parade). Our drummers had no drums and beat their rhythms on chairs,
making us sound like children pounding garbage can lids. Still, I was
awestruck as I thought, "Wow! A whole band of lesbians and gay men!"
But then I thought, "What's the point?"
I understood that for Boston's Gay Pride Parade a marching band would
add a celebratory assertion of visibility and self-worth. Beyond
that, music is its own pleasure, requiring no sociologic evaluation.
But to meet under the "lesbian and gay" rubric forced me to ask:
What could our sexual orientation have to do with playing music?
The answer is "community." We are a community band, part of a long
and active tradition of community bands, that serves a particular
community.
I was skeptical about the idea of a "gay community," and particularly
about my place in it. What do gay men and lesbians share with each
other, besides some occasional political goals? Does that make a
community?
Further, what do gay men share with other gay men, and lesbians
with other lesbians, besides certain sexual possibilities? Does that
make a community?
Yet here was a band -- from the beginning precisely one-half men and
one-half women -- identifying itself through sexual orientation in an
activity with no ostensible connection to sex. I had to think that
there was such a thing as a gay community, one that is large, diverse,
and self-defined enough to support a band. And, paradoxically,
our band helps to create the community from which it
draws.
We play outdoor concerts in the Boston Common, displaying our banner
that proclaims that we are a lesbian and gay band. Drawn by our
pleasant music and wholesome appearance, passers-by come closer to
listen; they then take note of who we are. Our performances are no
less performances for being demonstrations as well.
For many of us, it is important that our friends, neighbors, and
co-workers know that we are gay. But we struggle with ways to make
this evident and to show that being gay is part of the natural order
of our lives. When we play in a lesbian and gay band, we can invite
people to our concerts, or answer their questions when they see us
carrying our instruments. When I have solicited support for my band
from my non-gay friends, I have been overwhelmed by the positive
response I have received. Through the bands, we can invite people to
participate in this part of our lives.
Several months after joining our band, one of our members, at the age of
thirty, felt able to tell her parents that she was a lesbian. Three
weeks later her parents came to Boston to attend one of our concerts.
They were able to see their daughter as part of a varied,
community-minded group of friendly men and women.
My parents are here tonight, as patrons of the concert. They are here
because they enjoy and support musical organizations (particularly
ones their sons play in). I once would have thought it impossible to
ask my parents publicly to support me in a gay-related activity.
Because I am proud of my band, I was able to do this. And, of course,
I am proud of my parents as well.
When I visit another city with a lesbian/gay band, I feel more a part
of the gay community of that city than I would once have imagined I
would feel anywhere. I am at home across the United States, not in
spite of the fact that I am gay, but because I am gay.
The national gay band movement -- and the realization that there is a
national gay community -- is something that fills me with wonder. Two
years ago, in Denver, I played in a concert with 60 openly gay men and
women who had come together because they were active members of
lesbian/gay bands in their own cities. This group, small compared
with tonight's, far exceeded anything I had previously imagined when I
first confronted my own homosexuality. I thought that if I had seen
that band perform when I was twelve years old, the next six years of
my life would have been a lot easier.
We are all part of a national community -- performers, audiences, and
friends alike. We are here tonight to "Let Freedom Ring" for our
community, to proclaim through the joyous medium of music that we are
an integral part of this country. We hope that the spirit of
tonight's performance will carry through to tomorrow's march and rally
-- and to our lives beyond.
-----------------
-Steven Levine
ste...@cray.com
Ayana Craven
In article <v7hg7zh...@fasolt.mtcc.com>,
Michael Thomas <mi...@fasolt.mtcc.com> wrote:
>XAOS <xa...@mindspring.com> writes:
>> Steven Levine wrote:
>> > you want to sleep with and what does that have to do with anything
>> > like who you want to play music with.
>>
>> do with who you want to play music with?
[snip excellent description of how (at least some) "community
groups" fit into the larger scheme of things]
I'm in the middle of reading "Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold"
(Kennedy and Davis), which is an excellent and somewhat scholarly
book about being lesbian in the 30's, 40's and 50's in Buffalo,
NY. I keep getting caught by comparing my own thinking on how
being a lesbian is different now from when I came out, to the
things the women interviewed for the book said about the
differences between the 80's and the, say, 50's. Is there a
comparable (good) book that addresses the same time period for men
? And does anybody want to recommend anything that addresses the
60's and 70's ? I'm not looking for books about what happened
politically, but more for books that give a better sense of what it
was like to live as a gay man or lesbian then. I don't know if any
comparable work has been done for other populations. I highly
recommend this book for a look at where lesbian reality was not so
long ago.
I do agree with Michael that "the new generation is in such a
different world than Steven's generation that such social
structures seem quaint and outdated", and sometimes I feel like I'm
betwixt and between; rather like feminism, enough progress has been
made that many people coming up don't feel a pressing need to make
the world better, they can deal with it as it is, and take for
granted things that were unimaginable twenty years ago. It may be
that what I've regarded as "community" is a transient thing. And
while I'm glad to think there won't be such a need for a place where
gays can feel a sense of belonging, because being gay won't preclude
feeling that one belongs to other groups, I can't help but think
that in some ways the world will be a poorer place if that's so.
Ayana
--
"From the place where I stand watching
I swear my ship is coming in!"
-- Nanci Griffith
Spencer Cox
Ayana Craven <ay...@panix.com> wrote:
>And
> while I'm glad to think there won't be such a need for a place where
> gays can feel a sense of belonging, because being gay won't preclude
> feeling that one belongs to other groups, I can't help but think
> that in some ways the world will be a poorer place if that's so.
Early in 1997, Daniel Mendelsohn wrote a much-maligned article in New York
Magazine making exactly that point. You might want to look it up again.
It was also anthologized somewhere recently, but I can't remember exactly
where.
Spencer Cox
Andrew D. Simchik
In article <01bd0f2f$76211100$4e012399@scdell>,
Spencer Cox <TAG...@MSN.COM> wrote:
[snip]
>Well, without being able to comment on NuShawn Williams' mental state,
>would you agree that the biggest problem with the public health system in
>this case is that it wasn't able to act fast enough to stop his ongoing
>sexual activity to prevent the number of infections that occurred? I mean,
>I'm asking you to agree in principle that, in a case like this, public
>health authorities do have a role in preventing infections?
Through what means? Quarantine? Vigilantism, Atticus Finch-style?
--
Andrew D. Simchik: schn...@byz.org
http://www.byz.org/~schnopia/
"Oh *no*, I can't go *real* *fast* in my *big* *jeep*!"
David W. Fenton
Steven Levine (ste...@cray.com) wrote:
: In article <ELLzp...@spdcc.com>, co...@spdcc.com (Robert S. Coren) wrote:
:
: >> I think the article may be key here. Does it make sense to say that
: >> there is "gay community" but that there is not "a gay community"?
:
: Actually I think that depends on the specific usage, the specific
: point being made.
:
: Mike Silverman <cub...@cjnetworks.com> wrote:
: >itself does not mean much.
:
: lesbian is not just a description of who you want to have sex
: with. It means you are part of something larger than yourself,
: of something larger than your search for sex. It means that
: what you may well have thought made you unique in fact
: connects you with others.
I think it's a matter of which direction you go.
Steven describes a number of communities, all including gay people. For
me, "the gay community" is a result, an outgrowth, of _those_ communities.
I think Drew's problem is with those who might argue that Steven's
communities are the product of "the gay community," which has to exist for
those individual communities to exist.
I (and, I think, Drew) would argue (not at all in dispute of anything that
Steven has related) that the "gay community" is a product, a result, an
aggregation, of all those other communities.
I may be repeating myself, yes, but it's a major difference.
David W. Fenton |
New York University |
dfe...@bway.net | "Hitler was once a newbie."
http://www.bway.net/~dfenton | -- Jess Anderson
Ellen Evans
In article <67p26a$3i1$1...@walter.cray.com>,
Steven Levine <ste...@cray.com> wrote:
[question of context]
>Ok, here's the context: The United States in 1997. Where the
>members of the bands grew up at a time when their being gay
>and lesbian was, for many of them, an alienating and isolating
>thing. Where the surrounding cultural values were: You should
>be ashamed. Where there was an idea that had great cultural
>currency that there is no gay community, and there certainly
>you want to sleep with and what does that have to do with anything
>like who you want to play music with.
There's a whole bunch of stuff packed in here that, for the purposes of
this conversation, might be useful to unpack, to contextualize in the
framework of this conversation. You're coming at this from the point of
view of someone who is confronted by someone else who says that being gay
is just a question of who you have sex with (with the generally implied
concommitant that being gay = lots and lots and lots of - probably
anonymous and turpitudinous and overall icky - sex). To which you, quite
rightfully, point out that being gay means lots of different things to
different people and that the expression of that *social* grouping is not
limited to the sexual realm. And in this context, what you said would
make a *lot* of sense.
The usage that Dan was responding to, however, occurred in a very
different context, one in which someone was asserting some overarching
unity - the gay community - to which one could be a "traitor." The
phrase is no longer being used to indicate the extensiveness and variety
of the expressions of "gayness," but, on the contrary, is being used,
rhetorically, to *limit* those who can be considered appropriate members of
the community - in this case, the people who agree with the poster's
initial proposition. So, in context, this usage is exactly the opposite
of yours - its function is to exclude, not to include. Dan's response -
there is no single "gay community" - in such a context also makes (to me
at least) a *lot* of sense.
There are contexts and then there are contexts.
David W. Fenton
Steven Levine (ste...@cray.com) wrote:
: In article <ELLzp...@spdcc.com>, co...@spdcc.com (Robert S. Coren) wrote:
:
: >> I think the article may be key here. Does it make sense to say that
: >> there is "gay community" but that there is not "a gay community"?
:
: Actually I think that depends on the specific usage, the specific
: point being made.
:
: Mike Silverman <cub...@cjnetworks.com> wrote:
: >Or more accurately that there is a gay community, but that fact in and of
: >itself does not mean much.
:
: Oh, it means an enormous amount. It means that being gay or
: lesbian is not just a description of who you want to have sex
: with. It means you are part of something larger than yourself,
: of something larger than your search for sex. It means that
: what you may well have thought made you unique in fact
: connects you with others.
I think it's a matter of which direction you go.
Steven describes a number of communities, all including gay people. For
me, "the gay community" is a result, an outgrowth, of _those_ communities.
I think Dan's problem is with those who might argue that Steven's
communities are the product of "the gay community," which has to exist for
those individual communities to exist.
I (and, I think, Dan) would argue (not at all in dispute of anything that
Daniel Chase Edmonds
Steven Levine (ste...@cray.com) wrote:
: Ellen wrote:
[a brief aside-- I am home in sunny Indiana now, which, sadly, means
very limited computer time on a 2400 baud modem. this means I don't
have time to adequately deal with a lot of the very interesting issues
that have come up in this thread; OTOH, I don't know that I have all
that much to say other than to clarify what seem to be a few mis-
understandings about my position. So I figure I'll at least do that]
: >Uh, "reality" has very little to do with this argument over
: >nomenclature.
:
: It's not an argument over nomenclature -- it's an argument over
: connection and belonging and identity and resentment and all
: sorts of fun stuff like that.
Not to me; to me it's an argument over how nomenclature is related
to identity and connection and so on.
Kenji, in another post, accuses me of conflating identity and
community; in fact, I feel I'm doing just the opposite. Identity
politics bother me, and they bother me a lot.
Community is definitely about collective identity. It's about
feeling a sense of connection with other people. It's about
common experience. And that's precisely why speaking of the
gay community bothers me-- it's too large, too global. I don't
feel a sense of connection with that many people any more than
I feel a sense of connection with everyone who is an American.
It feels like some sort of identity jingoism to me.
: > I doubt anyone here would deny that there are a wide range
: >of social structures whose main participants are gay and lesbian. The
: >question is do those structures "represent" a single community, or a
: >variety of communities, who have this socially significant thing in
: >common.
:
: I thought a big part of the question was whether these things
: represent community at all.
No. Just whether they represent a single community. Have I said
otherwise?
: Dan sometimes says yes, but then
: he says no, not unless you can make those community definitions
: really really specific, so specific that there is no room
: for conflict or disagreement within the group that you call
: a community.
What? Then all I would have would be communities of one. I just
think you need more in common than 'hey, I'm gay and so are you'
to establish a sense of community.
Let me return to your example of the origins of Jazz. I would
say that Jazz arose from the community of Af-Am musicians [and
music fans-- you were certainly right that the audience plays
a role] in a very geographically specific region of the United
States. I don't think that's leaving no room for disagreement,
but I do think that it's a much more accurate description of
the origin of Jazz than to say it came from the black community.
Which one? The one in Uganda? Not that there's only one in Uganda,
mind you....
The term 'the gay community' grates me; it grates me because it
speaks of the exact kind of homogenization that stereotypes feed
on, and because it creates, not just a sense of community, but also
a sense of alienation, a sense of 'but I don't belong to this
community. I am not part of it. It does not speak to me.'
It grates me because I associate it with identity politics, which
again implies that because I am gay, I hold certain values. Perhaps
it's just the way that the term is often used to promote political
agendas that bothers me-- even when those agendas happen to be ones
that I agree with. It bothers me because so many different people
invoke it for so many different reasons.
I laugh and mock politicians from the right who try to lump
us all together and speak of the gay agenda. So I guess that
it's when it's used politically-- which is really, I think,
how Mr. Dews was using it-- and when it's used as a rhetorical
trope to advance a particular argument that I find it so
irksome. Maybe that has bled over into a reaction against the
term altogether. But I really don't think it insignificant to
insist on gay communities instead of a gay community. And
frankly I wonder why you're so resistent to this difference
in articulation.
Daniel Chase Edmonds
Ellen Evans (je...@netcom.com) wrote:
[wrt the gay community]
: The usage that Dan was responding to, however, occurred in a very
: different context, one in which someone was asserting some overarching
: unity - the gay community - to which one could be a "traitor." The
: phrase is no longer being used to indicate the extensiveness and variety
: of the expressions of "gayness," but, on the contrary, is being used,
: rhetorically, to *limit* those who can be considered appropriate members of
: the community - in this case, the people who agree with the poster's
: initial proposition. So, in context, this usage is exactly the opposite
: of yours - its function is to exclude, not to include. Dan's response -
: there is no single "gay community" - in such a context also makes (to me
: at least) a *lot* of sense.
Sometimes, Ellen understands me better than I do.
I think, in a sense, this is at the root of our disagreement,
Steven. I react so strongly to someone referring to 'the gay
community' because I've seen it used in this sort of us vs.
them way on so many occasions. I've seen it used as a politically
divisive tool. That's why I'm so insistent on seeing it as
a bunch of different communities.
Just say no to identity politics.
Ann Burlingham
In article <01bd102a$d5d63ca0$740a2399@scdell>,
Spencer Cox <TAG...@MSN.COM> wrote:
Aha! I've been wondering about that nagging response I've had to Spencer's
name: I think of Brownies. But that's Palmer Cox! you cry. Yes, to be
sure, but Palmer and Spencer are both handwriting styles. *Naturally* I
was confused.
-Ann, much relieved
--
if we only had a lousy little grand
we could be a millionaire
Steven Levine
In article <jeevELo...@netcom.com>, Ellen Evans <je...@netcom.com> wrote:
>... So, in context, this usage is exactly the opposite
>of yours - its function is to exclude, not to include. Dan's response -
>there is no single "gay community" - in such a context also makes (to me
>at least) a *lot* of sense.
In specific response to Mr. Dews's post, yes certainly, to
me too. But Dan took his comments beyond a specific
response to the post, and that is what I was responding to.
His subsequent posts reinforced my reading of some of the
things he originally said as being more than a response to
what you are calling the "context". He changed the
context -- or at least expanded it -- in the
sentence I called out. Dan's recent "identity politics"
comment was a sort of jest, but it was the context of his
comments all along. I also saw other things in Dan's post
that indicated a sort of resentment that went beyond the
post he was responding to (Tony mentioned this too), and I was
responding to that as well.
I changed the Subject line, to indicate the change
of subject, away from the issue of what the "gay community"
ought to be doing on some specific issue (or whether there is
a gay community to which you can direct such comments)
to whether there is such a thing as a gay community in
the first place. In any sense. In a larger, perhaps
different, context -- one that Dan himself invoked.
And I've enjoyed the subsequent discussion.
[None of this is retrospective. All of this was conscious
on my part.]
-Steven Levine
ste...@cray.com
Andrew D. Simchik
In article <67pms5$7k2$1...@news.nyu.edu>,
David W. Fenton <dwf...@is2.nyu.edu> wrote:
>I think Drew's problem is with those who might argue that Steven's
>communities are the product of "the gay community," which has to exist for
>those individual communities to exist.
>
>Steven has related) that the "gay community" is a product, a result, an
>aggregation, of all those other communities.
!
Did I post to this thread and then hypnotize myself into forgetting
all about it?
I do remember starting to type something about how I see this
as a conflict between two different but related senses of the
word "community," but I'm pretty sure I aborted the article,
since I knew I wouldn't be able to finish the discussion (I'll
be on vacation and away from the net for a coupla weeks).
Steven Levine
Ayana Craven <ay...@panix.com> wrote:
>I'm in the middle of reading "Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold"
>(Kennedy and Davis), which is an excellent and somewhat scholarly
>book about being lesbian in the 30's, 40's and 50's in Buffalo,
>NY.
I saw one of the authors of this book speak on a panel about
ten years ago, at one of the first gay/lesbian academic conferences,
if you don't count the GAA stuff in the mid-70s. (I honestly
don't remember if they called it "queer" at the time --
it was the second conference of this particular series, held
at Yale -- the first was at Brown). The book hadn't been
published yet (I think it was several years before publication).
I remember the presentation vividly, and I have several times,
in my posts, referred to some of the things I learned at that
presentation. The speaker discussed, through anecdote and
quotation, the issues of butch and femme and class and community
among the lesbians of Buffalo in the time period in question.
I know those sound like big portentous topics, but I don't
know how else to summarize. It was all new and eye-opening
to me.
> I keep getting caught by comparing my own thinking on how
>being a lesbian is different now from when I came out, to the
>things the women interviewed for the book said about the
>differences between the 80's and the, say, 50's. Is there a
>comparable (good) book that addresses the same time period for men
>?
George Chauncey was also on that panel. He wrote _Gay New
York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay
Male World, 1890 - 1940_. I think that's probably the closest
you'll come to the sort of book you are discussing. I know
that there is a second volume planned, for the time period
you speak of, but I don't know if it's been published yet.
> And does anybody want to recommend anything that addresses the
>60's and 70's ? I'm not looking for books about what happened
>politically, but more for books that give a better sense of what it
>was like to live as a gay man or lesbian then.
Well, there are primary sources -- that is, books written
during the 70s about the 70s -- but I don't think those
are comparable to the book you are discussing. There
are dreary, strange closety books like _Christopher and
Gay: A Partisan's View of the Greenwich Village Homosexual
Scene_ (Wallace Hamilton, 1973) which you would never know
was written about the same time as books like _Dancing
the Gay Lib Blues_ (Arthur Bell, 1971?).
There are Martin Duberman's books, which are relatively
recent: _Stonewall_ and _Cures_. They do give some
accounts of more than the politics, but are more
idiosyncratic than comprehensive.
Hmmm... thinking about this I am surprised to find myself
concluding that one of the more interesting books about
what it was like to be gay in an earlier era is Foreman
Brown's novel _Better Angel_, which was written in the
early-30s when Mr. Brown himself was only about 30.
He wrote the book under a pseudonym, but it's been republished
under his own name. I *think* he's still alive -- if not,
he died only recently. There was a documentaray film
on the Turnabout Theater that profiles Foreman Brown (and
the two men he lived with for 50 years). Better Angel
is likely the first novel about a gay man that does not have
a tragic ending. Yes, it's fiction, but only sortof.
>I do agree with Michael that "the new generation is in such a
>different world than Steven's generation that such social
>structures seem quaint and outdated"
Actually, they always seemed quaint and outdated. But
I consider that a positive.
[The first time I visited my parents after I transferred
to Brown I was babbling on and on and on in great excitement
about how very, very much I enjoyed Brown. I talked a lot
about the Brown Band -- to this day my closest friends
are Brown Band friends, a bunch of whom I'll be seeing on
Sunday when I am East for the weekend. My mother looked
at me and said, "You were looking for 1948. And
it's a good thing you found it."]
>..., and sometimes I feel like I'm
>betwixt and between; rather like feminism, enough progress has been
>made that many people coming up don't feel a pressing need to make
>the world better, they can deal with it as it is, and take for
>granted things that were unimaginable twenty years ago.
Yes, it's the taking for granted thing that I ponder a lot.
It's a decision on my part to try not to take things for granted
that once seemed miraculous to me. Several posts ago I
referred to gay and lesbian community organizations/affinity
groups (take your pick) as "miracles" and I wasn't being
snide.
> It may be
>that what I've regarded as "community" is a transient thing. And
>while I'm glad to think there won't be such a need for a place where
>gays can feel a sense of belonging, because being gay won't preclude
>feeling that one belongs to other groups, I can't help but think
>that in some ways the world will be a poorer place if that's so.
I think this is true -- both things you say: That there won't be
a need for such a place and that the world will be a poorer place
for it. I don't consider that tragic, just one of those
passage-of-time things. For my band's 10-year anniversary concert
I gave a speech about "the future of the band" in which I
talked about the time in the future when there would be no
need or niche for a lesbian/gay band (I posted that to soc.motss,
in fact).
But -- and this is a Big Butt -- I don't think we're anywhere near
that time yet, when there is no such need.
-Steven Levine
ste...@cray.com
Arne Adolfsen
In article <67rcio$6kf$1...@walter.cray.com>,
Steven Levine <ste...@cray.com> wrote:
[recommendation for a book on what it was like to be a gay man in
the '60s and '70s]
>Well, there are primary sources -- that is, books written
>during the 70s about the 70s -- but I don't think those
>are comparable to the book you are discussing. There
>are dreary, strange closety books like _Christopher and
>Gay: A Partisan's View of the Greenwich Village Homosexual
>Scene_ (Wallace Hamilton, 1973)
Ew, ick. I'd forgotten all about that one.
>which you would never know
>was written about the same time as books like _Dancing
>the Gay Lib Blues_ (Arthur Bell, 1971?).
He was the coiner of the phrase "in the closet", BTW.
>There are Martin Duberman's books, which are relatively
>recent: _Stonewall_ and _Cures_. They do give some
>accounts of more than the politics, but are more
>idiosyncratic than comprehensive.
I thought that Duberman's _Cures_ was thoroughly loathsome. He
conveys throughout that he thinks he's one prime piece o' meat --
having seen him in the flesh, I'd have to disagree with his
assessment of his own corporeal charms -- although his self-regard
is a tad less repulsive than Alan Helms's (in his thoroughly repulsive
autobiography _Young Man From the Provinces_).
>Hmmm... thinking about this I am surprised to find myself
>concluding that one of the more interesting books about
>what it was like to be gay in an earlier era is Foreman
>Brown's novel _Better Angel_, which was written in the
>early-30s when Mr. Brown himself was only about 30.
>He wrote the book under a pseudonym, but it's been republished
>under his own name. I *think* he's still alive -- if not,
>he died only recently. There was a documentaray film
>on the Turnabout Theater
A puppet theater he ran in LA (at the Coronet on La Cienega a
couple of blocks north of the Beverly Center; serendipitously,
the Coronet is where Brecht's _Galileo_ had its world premiere)
for years. Elsa Lanchester regularly performed her naughty
Victorian (and earlier) songs at the Turnabout with Foreman
Brown.
>that profiles Foreman Brown (and
>the two men he lived with for 50 years). Better Angel
>is likely the first novel about a gay man that does not have
>a tragic ending. Yes, it's fiction, but only sortof.
I like that novel a lot too. To get back to Ayana's question,
though, I'd have to say that the only book that describes what
my life was like as a gay teenager in the late 1960s/early 1970s
is the late John Fox's _The Boys on the Rock_. I will be forever
saddened that he never wrote another novel.
--
-- Arne Adolfsen ------------------------------------------- ar...@mtcc.com --
"No matter what happens in the kitchen, never apologize." -- Julia Child
Arne Adolfsen
In article <67rj0n$h...@netaxs.com>,
Anthony J. Rzepela <rzep...@netaxs.com> wrote:
>Going back in time, and switching media,
>have you seen/heard about "Ma Vie en Rose" yet? :)
Ever since I first read about it -- last spring, I think --
I've been straining at the bit. It opens Friday. I'll be
first in line.
Steven Levine
Me, on accounts of gay male life of earlier decades:
There are dreary, strange closety books like _Christopher and
Gay: A Partisan's View of the Greenwich Village Homosexual
Scene_ (Wallace Hamilton, 1973)
Arne Adolfsen:
Ew, ick. I'd forgotten all about that one.
From the bookflap of the dust jacket:
Wallace Hamilton is alive and gay and living
in the Village. At the age of fifty-two,
the author left his home in Baltimore and moved
to New York to become an overt homosexual.
That was 1973!!!
Still, it gives me hope that someday I, too, can leave
my home to become an overt homosexual.
On Foreman Brown and the Turnabout Theater, Arne (who
once sent me a xerox from LA Magazine of an article about
Foreman Brown) wrote:
>A puppet theater he ran in LA (at the Coronet on La Cienega a
>couple of blocks north of the Beverly Center; serendipitously,
>the Coronet is where Brecht's _Galileo_ had its world premiere)
>for years. Elsa Lanchester regularly performed her naughty
>Victorian (and earlier) songs at the Turnabout with Foreman
>Brown.
Elsa Lanchester writes about this in her autobiography.
She had been accumulating these naughty songs, and that's
what she started out performing at the Turnabout theater,
but eventually Foreman began writing songs for her
specifically to perform there (songs she later took on the
road, years after the theater closed). She says something
interesting in her autobiography about the characters she
would portray through Foreman's songs: "My ladies in our
songs all had to like their lives and be successful in the
end." That is pretty radical for the sorts of characters
she portrayed.
I am about to leave any minute for a little trip and
won't have Net access for a week, so I bid a brief adieu
with one of Foreman Brown's songs that Elsa Lanchester
performed at the Turnabout theater. I've never heard
the melody to this song, I just have the words. I once
posted a verse from this.
Lackadaisy Masie
----------------
The lady named Masie lived all alone
in a ramshackle house by the river.
She lived in a world that was all her own,
and the village could never forgive her.
If she wanted to sweep by the light of the moon
she took her broom and swept;
if she wanted to stay in her bed till noon
she lay in her bed and slept.
Her lamp would often burn till dawn,
as all her neighbors saw,
and if anybody wondered why her shades weren't drawn,
why there weren't any shades to draw.
Lackadaisy Masie everybody called her.
I guess she must have had another name,
but memories were hazy when it came to Masie,
so Lackadaisy Masie she became.
Masie, people said, had no friends at all --
a thing nobody could pardon --
except for the mice that scurried in her wall
and the squirrels in her tangled garden.
But every few weeks when the tinker came through
in his wagon of yellow and red
he would tether his horse to her chinaberry tree
and pull his cart in her shed.
And all through the night there would be no light
through Masie's windowpane,
but when it was dawn the van would be gone
and out on the roads again.
Lackadaisy Masie, she was like a creeper
that seem to blossom better in the shade.
If people called her crazy it didn't bother Masie,
so Lackadaisy Masie she stayed.
The tinker he was a dashing man,
flashing his smile so splendid,
The women would flock around his van
and buy what they'd never intended.
Yesterday the tinker arrived in a van
that was shiny and bright and new
and much too big for a single man,
though possibly right for two.
This morning her sagging doors gaped wide,
and when small boys tiptoed there
there was nothing but cobwebs left inside
and Masie's house was bare.
Lackadaisy Masie, she was like an Arab --
a house to her was just a place to stay.
She's found a new oasis, so Lackadaiy Masie's
folded up her tent and gone away.
But there's one thing you can swear to --
they may wander where they care to,
but she'll still be lackadaisy, lackaday!
Lackadaisy Masie -- women didn't trust her,
but sometimes when the tinker comes that way
they sigh -- and buy a garter
and wonder who was smarter --
Lackadaisy Masie -- or they?
-----------------------------------------
-Steven Levine
ste...@cray.com
Arabian Mocha Sanani
Andrew D. Simchik wrote:
> In article <01bd0f2f$76211100$4e012399@scdell>,
> Spencer Cox <TAG...@MSN.COM> wrote:
> [snip]
> >Well, without being able to comment on NuShawn Williams' mental state,
> >would you agree that the biggest problem with the public health system in
> >this case is that it wasn't able to act fast enough to stop his ongoing
> >sexual activity to prevent the number of infections that occurred? I mean,
> >I'm asking you to agree in principle that, in a case like this, public
> >health authorities do have a role in preventing infections?
>
> Through what means? Quarantine? Vigilantism, Atticus Finch-style?
Well, the public health authorities would not be acting in vigilante style, but
were I sitting on the jury for any one of those young women's parents who had
decided to shoot Williams for his crimes, I'd vote to acquit on the basis of a
reasonable crime of passion, which is not to say it would be the best road to
take, or even a just one, but it would be merciful..
(And I'm both a PWA and a a leftish AIDS activist, so don't chalk the above up
to my demonizing people with AIDS.)
I think what Spencer is postulating (correct me if I'm wrong), is that public
health authorities should (and do) have the power, as in many otehr cases, to
take preventive measures to ensure that a law to protect life will not be
broken, in this case:
to put into quaratine or protective custody _and_ mental health treatment
an individual_ who has a mental capacity diagnosis that clearly demonstrates
that he (or she) cannot make rational determinations _about ethics or law having
to do with enangering the life of another person_ (in this case paranoid
schizophrenia)
if the person is carrying a transmissible life-threatening pathogen and has
shown a propensity to be a danger to himself (or herself) and/or other
because, in such a case, a mere restraining order would not suffice.
IMO, at the same time, it is critical that risk reduction education be enhanced
and made universal, since even someone who is poz and has paranoid schizophrenia
can't infect you if you take the proper precautions.
Yes, there are a lot of tentative steps here, and yes, any one of them is open
for posible abuse. But, thanks to the work of AIDS activists in the '80s, there
are, at least at the moment, ways to redress grievances that may arise. Also,
as in other diminished capacity cases, there are many hoops to be jumped through
before someone's freedom can be restricted. This is not at all the same as
Lyndon LaRouche's plan to quarantine all HIV+ people (and those suspected of
being HIV+); it isn't even close.
But back to the vigilante thing:
I do not support capital punishement for many reasons. However, if I were to
find out, and be sure, that someone with undiminished capacity had, knowing what
we know now, intentionally infected one of my near and dear with HIV, I would
seriously consider my conducting a summary execution of the person as a viable
option, and I would be prepared to pay the legal consequences for it.
--the bean
Arabian Mocha Sanani
Ann Burlingham wrote:
> In article <01bd102a$d5d63ca0$740a2399@scdell>,
> Spencer Cox <TAG...@MSN.COM> wrote:
>
> Aha! I've been wondering about that nagging response I've had to Spencer's
> name: I think of Brownies.
hmmm.... Not at all what I think of when I think of Spencer Cox....
--the bean
David W. Fenton
Andrew D. Simchik (schn...@flesh.byz.org) wrote:
: In article <67pms5$7k2$1...@news.nyu.edu>,
: David W. Fenton <dwf...@is2.nyu.edu> wrote:
: >I think Drew's problem is with those who might argue that Steven's
: >communities are the product of "the gay community," which has to exist for
: >those individual communities to exist.
: >
: >I (and, I think, Drew) would argue (not at all in dispute of anything that
: >Steven has related) that the "gay community" is a product, a result, an
: >aggregation, of all those other communities.
:
: !
:
: Did I post to this thread and then hypnotize myself into forgetting
: all about it?
No, I just wasn't watching carefully. The article you responded to got
cancelled and replaced with one that correctly referred to Dan.
I think I was remembered "Dew," the idiot who made the stupid posts in the
first place, and my mind pulled you out of the hat as the one from the
group of 20-somethings who was responding to the stupidity.
Sorry about that. It does show that I don't pay as much attention as I
should sometimes.
: I do remember starting to type something about how I see this
: as a conflict between two different but related senses of the
: word "community," but I'm pretty sure I aborted the article,
: since I knew I wouldn't be able to finish the discussion (I'll
: be on vacation and away from the net for a coupla weeks).
Well, did I accurately describe what you think? ;)
Arabian Mocha Sanani
Daniel Chase Edmonds wrote:
> Just say no to identity politics.
There was a compelling set of articles several years ago in _Socialist Review_.
I think it was Winter '91. The theme of the issue was "Identities in Search of a
Strategy." I believe A Different Light bookstore in SF can give you the
whereabouts of the SR collective these days (it has moved about some in recent
years) in case anyone wants to read the issue, which I highly recommend.
I think identity politics ultimately can lead to a disintigration of a broader
progressive vision and objective and, in that sense, I agree with Daniel.
However, a movement has to begin someplace, and finding and honing identity is
important. But it is, as has been pointed out, a political exercise.
Often when folks speak of a "gay community" in the exclusionary sense pointed out
by Daniel and, better, by Ellen, they mean the political movement. Necessarily,
the political movement has to decide what it stands for (which will periodically
get challenged and perhaps changed or made to evolve) and, in so doing, must ask
people the age-old question: "Which side are you on?" It is "Organizing 101."
Polarization of issues is a necessary early step in advancing. So is
consolidation of forces.
It is why, though I believe they serve a purpose in showing that "queer" folks
are not a monolith, I regularly hound "Gay Republicans," because I want to point
out to them the dissonance between what the official Republican Party stands for,
and the goals of freedom and equality for us all that is purported to be the
objective of "gay liberation." And, having tweaked the Republican homosexuals, I
react with glee when someone like my friend David Catania, a reformer who deeply
and solidly believes in the idea of the common good, runs under the Republican
banner and wins in overwhelmingly Democratic DC, and wins as its _first openly
gay candidate_, when he didn't even make an issue of his sexual orientation, but
his Democratic opponent, with a host of homophobic slurs, did. David's victory
sends shock waves through _both_ parties, and I _love_ that. Yet, it is that
objective of the common advance toward freedom and equlaity that I seek to keep
in the forefront, which is why when I'm talking about these things, I most often
use the term "movement."
However, what concerns me, and what seems to concern other folks here, is when
things get stuck in the sifting-and-sorting-out steps, when polarization and
demarcation become ends in themselves, when seperatism becomes a goal rather than
a part in the growth curve. That is what leads to the conflation of "movement"
and "community." And I find it interesting that "community" in the exclusive
sense is often employed by those who are quick to criticize seperatism in its
more explicit forms.
I think we may be seeing that kind of conflation even among some of the
movement's best strategists, which has led to a watering down of the objectives,
I think, in some movement quarters. It also leads, I think, to a common usage of
"community" on the part of those who tune in to mass-mediated urban queer
culture.
Arguably, the HRC is the most successful queer political organization in the
USA. A careful read of its rhetoric, however, betrays the conflation of movement
and community, yet, in bending over backwards to make sure the community can
include the spectrum of acceptable _electoral_ politics, the objective of
liberation has been traded in for one of active and visible participation in the
electoral political process and in social laws.
Now, as a tactic, that is not in itself a bad thing. The First Lady, in the
midst of a similar discussion, told me: "You have to reach people where they
are." While that made me bristle at first, I think on the whole she's right.
When you are attempting to drive a wedge into an ossified, closed door, in order
to get it open, you have to start with the narrow end first.
But Antonio Gramsci used to talk of "non-reformist reforms," of making sure that,
in each tactical approach along the way, the strategy was maintained. Or, as
Jesse Jackson would say: keep your eyes on the prize. The strategy was to make
sure that each step forward led to some fundamental alteration in the
construction of power toward equality and freedom.
I'm not sure that HRC gives much thought to this, even in its moments of
self-analysis. They seem too quick to want to water down the call, for just one
example, that the legal benefits of marriage be available to all family partner
groupings, whatever their size or structure, into a call for "gay marriage" that
looks just like "straight marriage" (which fails for more than half of "straight"
couples) except with two members of the same sex instead of two members of
opposite sexes. Whom does that liberate? Maybe it will make us "equal," but
only by settling for the lowest common denominator.
As I've said, in this scenario, one person's Heaven is another's Hell.
The Bawers and Sullivans on one moralistic wing, and the Rotellos and the
Signoriles on the other (with Larry Kramer a feather off the moralistic anus, as
far as I can tell), take this conflation of movement and community to a worse
next step: forget something as wise and pragamatic as ethical standards for the
movement's leaders, executives, and opinion-leaders; they want the whole
movement/community, made in their own image, to conform to the new moral code and
list of the unclean that they have handed down. The queer ayatollahs will
explain it all for you.
This is their attempt to make the movement have a singular community moral law,
and it is a moral law that flies in the face of the movement's foundational
principles, IMO, which is why I fight so strongly against it.
--the bean
Darren Scott Cobb
In article <34A16E91...@ibm.net>,
Arabian Mocha Sanani <san...@ibm.net> wrote:
>[who cares?]
Do you eventually kill *all* topics? Zeke at least keeps
his ramblings to easily identifiable and killable threads.
Darren Scott Cobb __ . __ . _/|__ ,
Indiana University }<_;> . }<_;> . /`o _ `\_/
das...@indiana.edu __ . >,_____,/^\
http://php.indiana.edu/~dascobb/ }<_;> \| `
Arne Adolfsen
Arabian Mocha Sanani wrote:
> Daniel Chase Edmonds wrote:
> > Just say no to identity politics.
> There was a compelling set of articles several years ago in _Socialist Review_.
> I think it was Winter '91. The theme of the issue was "Identities in Search of a
> Strategy." I believe A Different Light bookstore in SF can give you the
> whereabouts of the SR collective these days (it has moved about some in recent
> years) in case anyone wants to read the issue, which I highly recommend.
May I recommend Steven Epstein's "Gay Politics, Ethnic Identity:
The Limits of Social Constructionism", which originally appeared in
_Socialist Review_ 93/94 (May-August 1987) and which is reprinted in
_Forms of Desire: Sexual Orientation and the Social Constructionist
Controversy_, edited by Edward Stein?
Arne
FJ!!
In article <34A15F68...@ibm.net>,
>decided to shoot Williams for his crimes,
After the incident, the town held a Q&A session where concerned
inhabitants could ask a panel of experts all the questions they were
worried about. Bits of that made the news. When the question about the
criminal prosecution of the HIV+ man came up, Jeffrey and I wondered if
anyone would have the guts to ask the obvious mirror-question about
whether blame needed to be put on pathetically bad health education or
whether latent suicidal tendencies were at play in the teenagers who
had engaged in unprotected sex with a known IV drug-abuser.
This wasn't rape, and, understandable and valid as the question is
about knowingly (or not) spreading HIV, two were tangoing there - and
it wasn't adressed in the media. The focus was interestingly
one-sided.
That was one hell of a known risk these girls were taking, and nobody
seemed to be asking why.
FJ!!
"Nothing is forbidden"
Robert S. Coren
In article <67rhte$5...@fasolt.mtcc.com>, Arne Adolfsen <ar...@mtcc.com> wrote:
>In article <67rcio$6kf$1...@walter.cray.com>,
>Steven Levine <ste...@cray.com> wrote:
>
>>was written about the same time as books like _Dancing
>>the Gay Lib Blues_ (Arthur Bell, 1971?).
>
Was he indeed? When? The phrase appears in _Boys in the Band_ (1969?).
--
-------Robert Coren (co...@spdcc.com)-------------------------
Baba ganoosh ganache Ganesh!
Baba ganoosh ganache!
--culinary cheer for the elephant god
FJ!!
In article <34A16E91...@ibm.net>,
Arabian Mocha Sanani <san...@ibm.net> wrote:
You know, most people still use 80 column windows when reading Usenet.
You may want to accomodate that if you want your articles not to appear
unreadable.
>When you are attempting to drive a wedge into an ossified, closed
>door, in order to get it open, you have to start with the narrow end
>first.
[...]
>self-analysis. They seem too quick to want to water down the call,
>for just one example, that the legal benefits of marriage be available
>to all family partner groupings, whatever their size or structure,
>into a call for "gay marriage" that looks just like "straight
>marriage" (which fails for more than half of "straight" couples)
>except with two members of the same sex instead of two members of
>opposite sexes. Whom does that liberate?
Me. Right now it would make the lives of my loved one and me easier,
more secure healthwise, immigration-wise, and legally, and cut down on
my expenses significantly.
>Maybe it will make us
>"equal," but only by settling for the lowest common denominator.
I think you can take "equal" out of quotes there. And I think you should
read your own advice in the first paragraph before you start ragging on
others for their choice of political strategies to achieve some sort of
relief for the problems that many same-sex relationships face in the
legal sense.
Same-sex marriage may be long-shot, but polyamory legal relationships
are even further, and I have very little respect for disparaging the
first while thinking the second is what political capital should be
spent on - especially when thinking about strategy.
FJ!!
"Oh, and the dishwasher only burned for a little while" - Jeffrey Sandris
Arne Adolfsen
Robert S. Coren wrote:
> In article <67rhte$5...@fasolt.mtcc.com>,
> Arne Adolfsen <ar...@mtcc.com> wrote:
> >In article <67rcio$6kf$1...@walter.cray.com>,
> >Steven Levine <ste...@cray.com> wrote:
> >>which you would never know
> >>was written about the same time as books like _Dancing
> >>the Gay Lib Blues_ (Arthur Bell, 1971?).
> >He was the coiner of the phrase "in the closet", BTW.
> Was he indeed? When?
I don't know. He bragged about it in one of his pieces in
the Village Voice around 15 years ago (when I was still
bothering to read the Voice, that is).
> The phrase appears in _Boys in the Band_ (1969?).
It does? Who says it? Where? I don't have any memory of
it there.
Arne
Spencer Cox
> Ann Burlingham wrote:
> > Aha! I've been wondering about that nagging response I've had to
Spencer's
> > name: I think of Brownies.
the bean wrote:
> hmmm.... Not at all what I think of when I think of Spencer Cox....
I'm trying desperately to think of a clever joke about eating, but it's
Christmas Eve, and I'm not thinking very clearly.
Happy holidays.
Spencer Cox
Sim Aberson
In article <67psgp$k...@panix3.panix.com>, Ayana Craven <ay...@panix.com> wrote:
>I'm in the middle of reading "Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold"
>(Kennedy and Davis), which is an excellent and somewhat scholarly
>book about being lesbian in the 30's, 40's and 50's in Buffalo,
>NY. I keep getting caught by comparing my own thinking on how
>being a lesbian is different now from when I came out, to the
>things the women interviewed for the book said about the
>differences between the 80's and the, say, 50's. Is there a
>comparable (good) book that addresses the same time period for men
>? And does anybody want to recommend anything that addresses the
>60's and 70's ? I'm not looking for books about what happened
>politically, but more for books that give a better sense of what it
>was like to live as a gay man or lesbian then. I don't know if any
>comparable work has been done for other populations. I highly
>recommend this book for a look at where lesbian reality was not so
>long ago.
Unfortunately, I have forgotten the man's name, and don't have my post
handy. A month ago I posted about the Miami Book Fair International,
and one of the authors who appeared is a professor in South Carolina who is
writing a series of books on gay life in the South over various time
periods. The first covers the first part of the period you mention, and it
covers gay men and lesbians. It's mainly an oral history of gay life
during the period.
I'm sure dejanews has my original posts.
--
"Attention! Everyone with children. Please bring them to the Kids Korner
for a demonstration of carnivorous plants."
--Loudspeaker announcement at the Fairchild Tropical Gardens Ramble 1997
Michael Thomas
"Spencer Cox" <TAG...@MSN.COM> writes:
> Happy holidays.
::shutter::
>>>bristle<<<
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH
"Wah-who-dore, Wah-who-dore..."
--
Michael Thomas (mi...@mtcc.com http://www.mtcc.com/~mike/)
"I dunno, that's an awful lot of money."
Beavis
Lars Eighner
In our last episode <67s735$n...@freenet-news.carleton.ca>,
the lovely and talented cz...@freenet5.carleton.ca (Sim Aberson)
broadcast on soc.motss:
|Unfortunately, I have forgotten the man's name, and don't have my post
|handy. A month ago I posted about the Miami Book Fair International,
|and one of the authors who appeared is a professor in South Carolina who is
|writing a series of books on gay life in the South over various time
|periods. The first covers the first part of the period you mention, and it
|covers gay men and lesbians. It's mainly an oral history of gay life
|during the period.
James Sears. Lonely Hunters. Outs Maupin as a racist bastard.
--
Lars Eighner= http://www.io.com/%7Eeighner === eig...@io.com ============
700 Hearn Street (at West 7th) #101 (512)474-1920 [FAX answers 6th ring] ==
Austin TX 78703-4501 == worldbuilder is an English word ==
Lars Eighner's Home Page Bookstore - http://www.io.com/%7Eeighner/bookstor.html
David W. Fenton
FJ!! (f...@spdcc.com) wrote:
: In article <34A16E91...@ibm.net>,[nothing quoted here]
: You know, most people still use 80 column windows when reading Usenet.
: You may want to accomodate that if you want your articles not to appear
: unreadable.
Actually, I think he would need to address a lot more than just his word
wrap to make his articles readable.