"The Gay Mystique" revisited
AIDS has a background of social events rooted in thousands
of years of gay oppression and represssion that caused
deep psychological harm
B Y
I A N
Y
O
U
N
G
Fisher does not condemn promiscuity in The
s the patterns of illness and healing
Gay Mystique, recognizing that monogamous
within the AIDS crisis emerge, it
union is not for everyone. But he seems secure
becomes more and more apparent that those and happy in such a union for himself and his
who contract the syndrome, are people whose
partner. “ A dear friend, and certainly one of the
immune systems have already been damaged.
keenest minds in the movement, strongly dis
There are Africans whose health was impaired
approves of the relationship Marc and I share.
by a smallpox vaccination campaign that had
He views what once was the ideal, as the ulti
catastrophic side-effects; Haitians living in con
mate sell-out to the straight establishment.
ditions of extreme poverty and malnutrition;
Marc and I do not love as we do because it is
and urban North Americans with a history of
more ‘respectable,’ but because it is what
poor nutrition, high stress, depression and
makes us happy.”
frequent use of antibiotics and/or recreational
Eight years later, in 1980, Fisher published
drugs. In this last category, are the many gay
his autobiographical novel. Dreamlovers, a
men living what writer John Lauritsen has
painfully honest, engaging, idiosyncrtic look at
called “ the immuno-suppressive lifestyle.” In
gay life and fantasy. By now the gay world was
this lifestyle, chemical and psychological
in flux. “ Gay people were questioning the
factors combine to cause chronic weakening of
nature of all their relationships.” The gay
the metabolism, laying the individual open to
liberation movement, new in 1972, had now
destructive infection by parasites and viruses —
been around long enough to have been largely
including HIV.
co-opted by commercialism, “ gay rights”
AIDS did not drop from outer space. It was
liberalism and the Mafia. Dreamlovers was not
not sent by God as a punishment for sexual
widely reviewed.
nonconformity. It is not “ caused” by a vims.
By 1975, Fisher’s lover is urging him to be
AIDS has a background of social events rooted
free. “ Enjoy yourself as much as possible. Get
in thousands of years of gay oppression and
into pleasure." and pleasure for gay men was
repression that caused deep psychological
now defined as the pom-and-poppers lifestyle
harm, to Western society as a whole, and
promoted in the Mafia mags. Fisher, whose two
especially to the many gay men whose sense of
great joys in life are his writing and his lover, is
balance and self-worth was irreparably
confused, but not wanting to be possessive or
damaged.
rigid, he goes along. He and Marc soon find
Only with the emergence of AIDS can the
themselves in the dark, orgy room of a bar with
seriousness and tragedy of that damage be seen
the uncannily appropriate name Folsom Prison,
clearly. But some of the best of our artists have
where “ poppers perfumed the thick, smoky
offered us a picture of ourselves that many of us
air.”
have not wanted to see — a true likeness. One
By 1976. Fisher is writing in his diary, “ My
of these artists is novelist and movement
fantasies are becoming realities. . . . My type
activist, Peter Fisher.
writer keeps breaking down. Obsessive depres
In his 1972 book The Gay Mystique, still one
sions come on me in waves. All I can think
of the most intelligent and readable of the early
about is what a failure l a m . . . Marc is my only
gay liberationist tracts, Fisher describes his
reason for not killing myself. . . ” And Marc is
entry into the gay world as it was in the days
urging him to go to the orgy bars alone. By
before Stonewall:
1977, seven years after their exchange of rings,
“ When I first came out into the gay world, I
only eleven years after the beginning of gay
hoped that I would find someone to love who
liberation, Pete and Marc are staggering, drunk
loved me and settle down together.” What he
and drugged, through a frantic, confused tangle
found was that “ no affair seemed to last more
of emotions, and crowding, ejaculating bodies.
than a week or two . . . I remember waiting for
Things have reverted, apparently, to the in
phone calls that never came and the agony of
stability, hurt and self-hatred the author had cast
hearing rumors or finding last week’s lover in
the bar with someone new. It wasn’t long before
I became cynical about the gay world and
Parents Matter: Parents’ Relationships with
cynical about m yself.. . . I heard myself repeat
Lesbian Daughters and Gay Sons, by Ann
ing and believing things I had heard others say
Muller (Naiad Press, 1987, 218 pages $9.95).
and had refused to believe. It was better not to
become too deeply involved, because you
would only get hurt in the end. You should
never really open yourself up to another person
nn Muller’s intentions are in the right
— you were too vulnerable if you did. Sex was
perfectly satisfying, anyway, and there was no
place.
^
As the mother of a gay son, she wrote
need to waste your time looking for love. . . . 1
Parents
Matter to see more clearly the layered
felt enormously guilty and cruel.” The period
reactions in her own family and others like it.
whose frantic slogan was “ so many men, so
As an author, she tried to correct the imbalance
little time” had begun.
in many books about homosexuality, which
Fisher recounts his moving away from these
contain a primary discussion of gay male issues
negative attitudes as he came to a greater under
with lesbian concerns tacked on like a post
standing of himself and discovered his capacity
script. And as an amateur sociologist. Muller
for love at the same time as the movement for
worked to make sense of a pattern yielded from
gay liberation was unfolding. In a moving
71 questionnaires: that lesbian daughters had
passage, he describes how he met his lover-
bumpier relationships with their parents than
Marc . through the Gay Activists Alliance, how
gay sons.
as they sat on a loading dock in the mist of a
But clear intentions don’t necessarily make
rainy evening, Marc gave him a ring. Later,
for eye-opening conclusions — or for a com
they exchanged simple vows in a chapel of the
pelling read. Parents Matter raises some pro
Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
vocative, even radical notions. Unfortunately,
“ This was a place where many other people
they drop between the cracks in Muller’s
had come in the past to join their lives, and
simplistic analyses, lists of anonymous quotes
although we had no service, no family, no
and loose framework built on the results of a
friends, no blessing but our own. we were part
o f that spirit.”
small, unscientific study.
A
The gay movement wantedfreedom and acceptance from North
American society. It was cheaply bought off with the glittering
scraps of a Mafia-controlled, commercial ‘gay lifestyle that
proved ruinous to psychological and physical health.
‘
aside only a few years before. Only now, drugs
and a multiplicity of sex partners give an addi
tional intensity to the fragmentation, anguish,
and loneliness. In an interview he gave after
Dreamlovers was published, Fisher said,
* ‘Nowadays I wonder if by participating in such
frequent visits to the sex bars, I was acting out
the verdict that society had delivered.”
Dreamlovers is a poignant portrait of a
people in transition — newly recognized,
confused, still very off-balance, with an
overpowering urge to celebrate being thwarted
and repressed.
The philosopher Herbert Marcuse warned of
“ repressive tolerance,” and how right he was.
The two young men who pledged themselves to
one another in the Cathedral chapel, now in
Dreamlovers, find themselves still not accepted
into the congregation as they wished to be, but
instead consigned to a Prison that they have
been told is freedom. There, they are being
driven mad. The novel ends with Pete in the
arms of a phantasm.
At this point, the first appearance of AIDS in
the gay community is less than a year away.
As homosexual men of this century’s fin-de-
siecle live and die in the wake of the drugged
A
Ann Muller
To her credit, Muller avoids repeating what’s
already on the shelves. She cites books such as
Now That You Know, which walks parents
slowly through myths about homosexuality,
popping stereotypes like soap bubbles. She also
refers to Coming Out to Parents: A Two-Way
Survival Guide fo r Lesbians and Gay Men and
Their Parents, which offers concrete help for
’ ’
promiscuity of the gay I ib decade, we begin to
see the insidious pattern of social forces and
mental states that led so many of our brothers to
the slaughter. The gay movement wanted free
dom and acceptance from North American
society. It was cheaply and easily bought off
with the glittering scraps of a Mafia-controlled,
commercial “ gay lifestyle” that proved
ruinous to psychological and physical health.
When the gruesome fact is fully grasped, we
may see another wave o f gay anger that will
make Stonewall and the Dan White protests
look like the street skirmishes they were. For
now, the gay movement, such as it is, remains
for the most part in the hands of the 40-year old
yuppie survivors, shellshocked and battle
fatigued, very few of whom are ready to take a
good hard look at their recent past (and
present!) with even a fraction of Pete Fisher’s
honesty.
But when the history of gay liberation is
eventually written, whoever writes it will find
books like A Day and a Night at the Baths,
Faggots, Numbers, The Rushes, and
Dreamlovrs to be documents of immense
sadness, value, and truth.
•
sons and daughters deciding whether, when and
how to come out to parents. The section in this
book on parent-child separation issues is
especially insightful and applies to all
families, not just those with a gay or lesbian
child. Muller does not mention Different
Daughters, an anthology of personal stories by
mothers of lesbians.
Muller’s discussion of sex roles — in fact,
her discussion throughout the book — fails to
recognize cultural differences that might influ
ence parents’ relationships with their children.
This gap becomes obvious when she examines
her statistics on the basis of other variables,
including religion, education, geography,
parents’ ages, politics and number of siblings.
Even with these breakdowns, the size and scope
of her sample — all respondents were from the
Chicago area — curtail the force of her
conclusions.
Parents Matter does succeed in giving
lesbians and gay men equal representation. It
does broach some potentially fascinating
thoughts about relationships between lesbian
daughters and their parents. But after the back
cover is closed, it is up to readers to take those
ideas and pursue them in other books, in discus
sions or in their own lives.
— Anndee Hochman
lust out « 1 4 * January 198»)