style leaders: blacks and gays

Dad in Best Little Boy 36 “There couldn’t be that many people with homosexual tendencies . . . .”

Question re convergence of gay identity & artistic / intellectual identity?

1st answer:

higher tolerance in literary / artistic circles +- professional world

meritocracy vs. moralism

2nd answer:

gays as automatic outsiders, numerical minority

If love is prohibited, then love is refocused

3rd answer

frequent absence of children may enable continued artistic productivity 

American literature: Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, Langston Hughes--

contrast domestic heterosexuals with stressed-out, abbreviated careers: Sylvia Plath, Poe, Hawthorne, Melville

art careers as forms of priesthood

issue of artist's identity + gay identity won't go away

some male artists over-compensate

men often establish masculine identity by distancing from gay identity

how develop voice? (unnatural, unspeakable)

Cf. Harriet Jacobs: name changes to protect

Memoir as genre

Class as length of childhood

Technique of repression, displacement, delay ["make them wait"]

last week's class, introduced idea of homosexuality as potential minority or identity category

gay identity always numerical minority, but persistent minority factor or faction in human populations of all races, classes

gay identity always eventually repressed in some ways or others, but not always in same ways

not a single, predictable, uniform identity

no single explanation for gay identity (genetically predestined or choice?)

numbers or percentages range from as low as 3% to as high as 20%, depending on how counted

Dad in Best Little Boy 36 “There couldn’t be that many people with homosexual tendencies . . . .”

religious / moral interpretation + evolutionary / genetic model

churches, other religious institutions as proponents of heterosexual procreation

but also shelters for difference (not just gay but also celibate)

Attitude toward homosexuality as subject?

for some, an identity issue either through their own experience or that of a sibling, even a parent--emotionally compelling

intellectual approach: opportunity to learn about a subject that is forbidden, repressed, but finds expression through diverse means--perpetually eludes normal categories

premise: while homosexuality will be an everyday reality for some fraction of any population, for most it will be something "other"

as "other," homosexuality is usually denied choice and voice

alternative strategy: regard homosexuality as "mystery"

rationale:

homosexuality is repressed in so many ways, that it will express itself in many different ways

avoid reductive thinking, even if sympathetic

Question: gains/pains in teaching gay lit?

gain: silence becomes voice, dark becomes light, unknown > known; demystification of entire range of human experience; dispels fear

Pain: don’t like women; comparable to lesbian / feminist lit?  less oppression than taste

51 mean to girl (chin)

128 [woman] fag hag

148 thirty-yard layer of women tossing around footballs and cursing each other out.

140 x-femininity

167 one of my closest friends is a straight woman

132 homophobia + sexism against women

pain: reason for being (sexual difference & expression) is off-limits for many readers

how make acceptable?

119 hadn’t been doing anything (comic relief)

134 I am by no means going to describe

165 having sex with loads of different people

alternate community / culture

191 [gay community] compare / contrast marriage, family

192 family of sorts

238 group being broken up geographically

+ Afterword

Difficulty of respecting voice while respecting those who don’t want to hear it

None of us can read everything; all of us put up some walls.  Me: Holocaust.

Identification with dominant culture

83 Puerto Rican > white

gender > race / class

135 SAT scores (i. e., how invested in dominant culture)

152 rather independent, private person who is not awfully good at sharing things

153 mechanical, analytical

163 so human

163 thought I had somehow been born without feelings

164 neutral, feelingless, cold, coldly analytical, calculatingly self-centered

Best Little Boy in the World

Author’s Note to the Original Edition

owning up to one’s true identity x protect their privacy

ideally . . . no reason to write a book like this at all

3 write a disgusting thing; cf. P. 13 (fart, masturbate)

4 in the hall closet

4 hide and seek

5 metaphor of mattress tag [displacement]

5 the Law

6 [class] early American house in Brewster, NY [weekend house]

7 decision tree

7 absolute sense of right and wrong

8 lying to your parents

9 elderly black maid, tickles feet

11 West Side > East Side

11 gifted children, you know

12 religion?

12 way to play the game, very Establishment

12 superpolite

13 evil lurking within me

13 don't let on

14 been to Europe twice

14-15 don't do it, never speak of it

15 fart > sealed anus [displacement, repression > return of repressed]

16 [class] sleep-away camp

16 I suppose I learned what it meant

18 things we never talked about

19 Hiding something? . . . I will get to that

19 [delay / promise]

21 prescribed text

23 sex education program in school

23 [class] doormen

26 good build

27 snatches of conversation

28 repressed

28 comedy of rejection / sympathy

29 [computer metaphor]

31 bursting to tell someone [voice as sex metaphor]

32 What are you hiding?

33 wet dream: Tommy [x-conscious choice; dreams x-repression]

34 a lot of experimenting going on 

35 two cowboys . . . nothing unmentionable [platonic love? Cf. Red River]

36 eleven, knew: snake eyes

36 “There couldn’t be that many people with homosexual tendencies . . . .”

37 so that’s the word

37 self-awareness: wonder why I liked it

37 a secret

37 defense = ignorance

38 x-homo > cowboy  (cf. Mean sisters)

38 dad’s story (of father beating)

38 Hoover and Tolson: lifelong friend

39 chains self-imposed

40 just can’t tell you

41 takes one to know one

41 Secret City

44 told the story (established identity) 

50 cover would be blown

51 science x girl

51 mean to girl (chin)

51 wonder what made me different—upside-down chromosome?

54 knowing > world would know

56 stories impossible to check

57 open up 

59 problem of communication: he too would be pretending

61 [to reader] Presumably it rubs you wrong to read about guys loving other guys

62 If only I could have told him

65 Can you imagine sleeping like that—with Ali MacGraw, if you prefer—and not being able to touch?

67 my pretend-normal vocabulary

68 "using" her as a cover, but I needed a cover

69 just a few years ago

72 If only I had someone to talk with

73 denial

74 liberated gay x Uncle Tom [ethnic to gender]

74 closet cases, closet queens 

75 identify with Tommy (compare patriarchy)

75 logical impossibility to find them

76 stories . . . ruin their lives

78 military

79 now I know

81 no > yes > no

83 Puerto Rican > white

gender > race / class

84 computers (major)

85 sublimate sex > work

87-88 perfect alibi (story)

89 all-male camps, schools

91 lead discussion around to . . . homosexuality

91 I just might find out who else besides Jon was gay.  And that someone else just might be straight-looking, straight-acting, and straight-talking, like me.

93 x-gays that look gay

94 excuse

95 eleven years' worth of defenses keeping my mouth shut

97 I told him I liked boys instead of girls

99 I had someone to talk with

101 One thing I knew for sure was that I was not changeable

102 Hypnosis, Freudian psychoanalysis, shock treatment, or just “the right girl”

102 “Do you think a psychiatrist could make you gay?” [choice?]

103 my masculinity remained

103 talk > action

I’ve been talking a lot about it . . . Isn’t it time for a little action.

104 I could speak the words with some fluency

105 coming out > getting stoned

106 movie > gay life, gay lingo

107 “Personals” in The Other

111 a story like mine

111 the real world

115 homosexual-sounding (“Don’t I please you?”)

116 story sounded kind of strange

119 hadn’t been doing anything (comic relief)

121 on my way

122-123 parents

123 what makes people gay? Patterns, probability

124 hours telling me all about Boston’s gay scene

124 Oscar might have told me all kinds of stories about how hard it is for everyone at first

125 marks: x-glasses; body shirt x sweater (class): genuinely collegiate

125 Having never before walked through a door like that, I would now walk through them on and off for the rest of my life

126 lateness of gay life—not likely to be discovered by decent friends

128 [woman] fag hag

129 little neighborhoods [gay bar] [from outside, monolithic; inside, diverse] 

130 question of attractiveness 

130 subculture: fashions, mannerisms, codes of behavior

131 intolerance > stereotypes > intolerance 

131 intolerance for two reasons: propagation of species & “masculinity”

132 homophobia + sexism against women

134 Lone Ranger and Tonto

134 I am by no means going to describe

134 [dodges, represses, happens off-page]

135 SAT scores (i. e., how invested in dominant culture)

137 coming out with a vengeance

137 Why so promiscuous?

138 [pre-AIDS]

139 telling him these things helped relax me

139 Eric first one who made me formulate verbal expressions for what I had always felt

140 subculture habit [that] helps avoid being found out

140 x-femininity

141 [60s-70s] not inhibited by traditional social taboos 

143 [Sporters unmarked] kind of people you wouldn’t be likely to notice 

144 x-cowboys?

145 gay parlance

148 gay tax base, Provincetown

148 thirty-yard layer of women tossing around footballs and cursing each other out.

149 less obvious signs

149 looked anything but gay and all the more attractive for that

151 “Lover” only word available > “best friend” [cf. Monette, “friend”]

152 rather independent, private person who is not awfully good at sharing things

153 mechanical, analytical 

163 so human

163 thought I had somehow been born without feelings

164 neutral, feelingless, cold, coldly analytical, calculatingly self-centered

165 having sex with loads of different people

166 homosexual self-hate

167 one of my closest friends is a straight woman

167 problem of roles; cf. Heterosexuals

169 Men find male homosexuality harder to accept than women, more threatening, trained to find it repulsive

169 cf. Discrimination with black resumes and women’s resumes

171 parental denial

173 not to be talked about

174 writing book because want to, something meaningful, understand

179 telling fantasies > closest friend

181 more combinations and permutations in gay life

181 already outside moral code, so forget about appearance’s sake

189 cf. Sickle Cell Anemia—surely not the kind of disease that would strike anyone he knew

190 can’t name names

190 ZPG

190 stereotypes: hairdressers, interior designers, sadistic concentration camp managers

191 [gay community] compare / contrast marriage, family

192 family of sorts 

193 sum of hundreds of different factors, all interrelated; nothing random

194 parents may as well give up

197 good-natured discussion [between gay and straight]

202 We could speak the same language

203 the real world

205 Sophistication Gap

210 Af Am gay but class [father doctor, suburban high school]

211 straight blacks and gay whites have much in common

212 color / sexuality

212 can hardly argue that blackness is immoral

214 inattention to sex = appealing

221 most gays call each other by their formal first names [cf. Blacks?]

224 family of sorts

225 financial independence, potential

232 I still felt an unhealthy measure of superiority

233 cf. Unhappily married straights (cf. Bastard out of Carolina)

238 group being broken up geographically

244 silent minority

247 1993 (post-AIDS)  I’m fine—a lot of my friends are not.

k d lang (right) & unidentified person