(une 21.2002 > J n t aaftj 17
L’m ¡li; ivi M m cw s
E
very year, large groups of men gather
in remote areas seeking to commune
with nature and explore the spiritual
significance of being gay. Many of
them dress in bizarre, fanciful drag—
frilly dresses and flowered bonnets contrasting
with beards and hairy chests— while others wear
nothing at all, as they dance around a bonfire,
invoking ancient g<xls and goddesses.
At first glance, the Radical Faeries seem to
be holdovers from the counterculture of the
’60s— although with a light-hearted camp sensi­
bility that is unmistakably queer. But their cen­
tral concern is serious: They believe gay people
are a special tribe with a unique role to play in
the evolution of human consciousness.
The roots of the movement date to the mid-
1970s, when a number of men became frustrated
with the urban gay community. They criticized
the banality of a culture based in bars and bath­
houses and saw the rise of the “clone” look—
mustache, flannel shirt and tight jeans— as pan­
dering to heterosexual ideas of masculinity.
Hoping to cultivate a community based on
“gay values,” some men left the cities to estab­
lish rural farming communes. In 1974, one of
these groups launched RFD: A Magazine for
Country Faggots, where readers could find ideal­
istic meditations about bonding with nature.
Meanwhile, back in San Francisco, gay mys­
tic Arthur Evans theorized in a series of 1976
lectures that the fairies of folklore were in fact
allusions to gay male goddess worshippers sup­
pressed by the new Christian authorities. “Their
greatest ‘crime’ was that they experienced the
highest manifestations of the divine in free prac­
tice of sexuality,” he wrote in 1978’s Witchcraft
and the Gay Counterculture.
Fairies were also on the mind of Harry Hay,
Portland Radical Faeries
float down Stark Street
during Portland Pride
2002
CUM MING
In 1978, Hay and Burnside
the pioneering activist who in
became friends with two other
1950 founded the first major U.S.
men who thought along similar
gay rights group. In 1970, he and
lines: Don Kilhefner, an activist
his partner, John Burnside, moved
from Los Angeles, and Mitch
from Los Angeles to northern
Walker, who was studying Jung-
New Mexico.
Spiritual movement ian psychology at Berkeley.
Around that time Hay began
using the word “fairy”— the slur believes gay people Together, the four men set about
planning the first “spiritual con­
bullies had used against him as a
are
essential
to
ference for Radical Faeries.”
child— to describe the peculiar
More than 200 men came to
“otherness” of gay men, the qual­ human evolution
that
gathering, which took
ity of being neither masculine nor
by
Rawley
Grau
place during Labor Day week­
feminine. He concluded gay men
end in 1979 at a Buddhist
were uniquely endowed with a
retreat center in the Arizona desert. As they
“subject-subject” mode of thinking, able to
grew comfortable with one another, they began
relate to both people and things not as objects
to be consumed or manipulated but rather as to shed their inhibitions, as well as their clothes,
donning feathers, bells, beads and body paint.
“another self to he respected.”
In one unplanned event, a group of about 50
Homosexuality, Hay argued, was a necessary
men began covering each other in mud, chant­
factor in human evolution, and gay people
ing and dancing. “It evoked a sense of timeless­
belonged to a special, separate “tribe.” Rather
than assimilate into heterosexual society, they ness that I sometimes feel during especially sat­
isfying lovemaking, that I am in touch with
were called to heal it.
T ales
something thousands and thousands of years
old,” one participant later recalled.
Inspired by the success of the gathering, a
second was held a year later in a mountain
meadow above Boulder, Colo. Here the culture
developed further, with men adopting new
Faerie names, such as Oak Leaf, Marvelous Per­
simmon and Ultra Violet Nova.
Since that time, several “sanctuaries” have
been established, from Oregon to Ontario, where
Faeries live off the land, play host to gatherings
and welcome visitors. Circles can be found
throughout the United States and Canada as
well as in Europe and Australia— even Estonia.
As with any loosely organized group, there
have been problems. In the early ’80s, for exam­
ple, Kilhefner and Walker left the Faeries
because of what they considered Hay’s domi­
neering leadership style. And on another level,
some complain gatherings have become more
about style— who is wearing the most stunning
outfit— than spiritual revelation.
Nevertheless, as gay men become more deeply
enmeshed in mainstream consumer culture, the
Faerie vision of an enlightened tribe, close to nature
and endowed with special gifts for humanity, con­
tinues to offer an intriguing alternative model. JH1
P ortland R adical F aeries welcome all men
seeking alternative spintual growth and community.
They meet twice a month with potlucks and circles
at the full moon and the new moon. Coffee hours
start 9:30 a.m . Saturdays at 3 Friends, 201 S.E .
12 th Ave. For more information call
503-235-0826 or e-mail ottehQpcez.com.
R awley G rau has won four Vice Versa Awards
for his writing on gay and lesbian culture. Fie can
be reached at gaynestor@aol.com.
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