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OREGON'S LG8TO NEWSMAGAZINE
AUGUST 5. 2011
Burning Down The Candy Shop
Summertime, finally! Karen and I recline la
zily against our inner tubes, the Clackamas River
full of drunken young people and radios blasting
Top 40 radio. Over the din of the fellow river-
floaters, we talk about an all-too-familiar story:
Her childhood friend moved from their re
pressed hometown to the Rose City, and has
proceeded to go as wild as could be expected.
“Hearing his stories,” she says, running her
fingers through the cold water, “it sounds like
when gay people move to cities, they’re mov
ing into a candy shop.”
“O h my gosh, yes,” I reply, wiping my sun
glasses on my bathing suit. “Absolutely. I can’t
think of any queer person for whom this hasn’t
been the case.”
“But why? I mean, straight people don’t re
ally have a real equivalent. W hy does this hap
pen for gay people?”
“Well, lack and repression, o f course. H ow
ever, you feel justified to do it because, unlike
most straight people, most gay people start
out their lives in the gay community believing
on some level that other gay people are their
friends. You assume that because you have a
shared experience and a shared interest, you
also have a shared allegiance to one another,
and a shared sense o f ethics.”
“Um, yeah,” Karen smirks. “Because that’s to
tally how societies form their sense of ethics—
It?
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rem em ber to breathe
B Y N IC K M A T T O S |
The city seems like a candy shop,
if only because you’re used to the
gum-and-Snickers aisle at your
small-town 7-Eleven.
on everyone agreeing that they’re into Robyn.”
“I’m impressed by your awareness o f the gay
Zeitgeist, sweetie,” I reply. “Anyway, I’m not
saying it’s a reasonable thing to believe— but
when you first see a real gay community, it’s
hard to believe that such a thing exists, too. I
remember having my mind just blown by the
city having more than one gay bar. O r logging
into M anhunt and seeing that there were over
300 guys online!”
“Overshare.”
“I’m just getting started. The city seems like
a candy shop, if only because you’re used to
the gum-and-Snickers aisle at your small
town 7-Eleven. In comparison, if you’re any
thing like me, you think the community’s big
enough that you can do whatever and whom
ever you want— and proceed to do so. Myself,
I slept around and partied up a storm and in
general behaved like I was a college freshman.
I also behaved terribly and hurt a lot o f people,
35
excited and idealistic. Past that, I don’t really
think idealism, or being batted around by the
world for it, is a bad thing!”
“You think freshman gays should suffer for
their naïveté?”
“Well, not exactly.” I pause. “Think o f it this
way: You aren’t given a permanent place in a
community without earning it, and earning it
often involves a degree o f sacrifice and hard
ship. I mean, most any society you enter has a
trial, an ordeal— a hazing, even, if you’re not
lucky. W hy shouldn’t gay society?
“I t’s an initiation. You move into your own
personal candy shop, and then go so crazy in
side it that you unintentionally burn it down.
The good thing about it, though, is that with
the candy shop gone you have to make your
self a home in the city, amongst everyone else.
You perhaps need to make some amends to
the people you screwed over, o f course, but you
get to start figuring out who you are beyond
the confines o f the candy shop. At that point,
you’re really part o f the community.”
In the heat o f the sun, I marvel at everything
that conspired to get me here on the river, at
how strange and wonderfully the world works
itself out. “May your friend enjoy the candy
shop fully,” I tell Karen, smiling, “and, when
he’s ready, burn it down completely.”
many of them in ways that I’m only starting to
understand and without realizing at the time
that I was doing anything wrong. I was simply
so naive that I expected everyone to lovingly
support me, even when I was doing very little
to lovingly support anyone else...”
“...A nd whatever mythology you have about
gay community shatters,” Karen observes.
“Exactly. The really sad part o f this is how
quickly this sense o f community and promise
goes away—how rapidly and thoroughly most
gay people become jaded, stop trusting each
other, project their self-loathing onto the com
munity around them. I reached a point where I
had pretty much scorched myself. If I was go
ing to be any place where there’d be other gay
people, I’d be overwhelmed with anxiety and
barely talk to anyone because I’d be so paranoid
that I’d run into someone I had burnt.”
“Do you wish you hadn’t done what you did?”
Karen asks over the splash of boys flying off
rope swings into the river. “Is it better if gay
people never move into the candy shop at all?
“Well, here’s the thing: I definitely did
things I shouldn’t have done. However, I rather N ick M attos pretty much lives fo r Portland
doubt that in general this is an effect that is summers. Send invitations to float down rivers
stoppable— it seems like human nature to be to nickmattos@justout.com.
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