Hmm... I was 20, in 1972, when I admitted with great trepidation to my best friend at the time, who is a year younger than me, that I am gay. It turned out he is gay himself, though I didn't find that out until seven years later, and then only obliquely, when he alluded to being in a "bisexual phase".
"Please don't laugh," I said to my friend when I revealed to him that I had fallen painfully in love with a (straight) acquaintance at college. He only sniggered a bit.
He probably considered me a a fool to be publicly exposing myself, even if just to him, in such an unflattering light. He was always a canny politician when it came to constructing his own public image. To call that sort of manipulation "lying" he would have considered contemptibly naive. Which has something to do with why we're not friends anymore.
Those were the days in which romantic hero Ryan O'Neal, as a collegiate hockey player throwing a tantrum of poor sportsmanship in the movie _Love Story_, could yell "Montreal faggots!" on the big screen (to the visible disappointment of his father Ray Milland). But the public atmosphere surrounding homosexuality, at the tail-end of the counterculture, I recall as being much less polarized and venomous than it is today, despite (or probably because of) the vast progress that gay rights have made in this country since that time -- primarily two great leaps forward: that homosexuality was declassified as a mental illness by the psychiatric profession in 1973, and that same-sex consensual sex was finally across-the-board decriminalized by the Supreme Court in 2003.
There would be little likelihood of changing the rules to allow homosexuals to serve openly in the military, marry, adopt children, or have their jobs protected by a federal ENDA, if they could still be branded either as mentally ill (officially "crazy", in some sense of the word) or as presumptive criminals. There only remains the fact that homosexuality is considered a "sin" by many conservative religious groups (Christian and otherwise), and that it's considered by a substantial number of people to be "deesgoosting" (as Ayn Rand said in '73) -- or at least the male variety is, primarily by heterosexual men. Neither barrier is likely to hold up forever, as long as the the separation between church and state continues to hold any judicial weight, and as long as tests of rationality need to be applied to questions of benefit and harm to society.
> . . .the vast progress that gay rights have made in > this country since [the early 70s]. . . homosexuality > was declassified as a mental illness by the psychiatric > profession in 1973. . .
Not, let me make clear, that I had a frigging clue that debate was going on at the time. I've never been well-connected with current events, or with the "gay community" (let alone with the gay **activist** community). Even assuming I had been an assiduous reader of, say, the New York Times back in '73, I wonder how deeply that professional debate (over homosexuality in the DSM) was buried in the back pages, if it was mentioned at all in any mainstream newspaper.
It's all the more ironic because I was, that very year, taking psychology classes at college. 1973 was also, probably, the most miserable year of my life, as I was dragged into fully acknowledging my own homosexuality, as a result of falling hopelessly in love with that straight fellow-student.
Who was, let me say, **not** amused by the "compliment". The "friendship", such as it was, lingered for a year after my admitting my feelings to him. We were in a social psych class together in '73, the year the APA(s) (psychiatric and psychological) de-pathologized homosexuality all unbeknownst to either of us -- me certainly, him too most probably. Perhaps as a result of subject matter discussed in the social psych class, my "friend" shared with me, one day, his own "theory" of the etiology of homosexuality. It was, he said, most likely the result of the human population explosion (this was the era of Paul Erlich's _The Population Bomb_ after all) and, like rats in an overcrowded cage who are stressed to the point of viciousness, humans in overcrowded urban environments manifest the unhealthiness of their living conditions by, among other things, turning to homosexuality. Maybe he didn't intend this **quite** the way it sounded at the time -- maybe he was suggesting that non-reproductive sexuality was a species-level emergency response to the threat of extinction by overpopulation, or something like that.
So magisterially detached! So scientific. Well, I responded in kind, nodding sagely, and replying "you could be right about that".
> I wonder how deeply that professional debate (over > homosexuality in the DSM) was buried in the back > pages, if it was mentioned at all in any mainstream > newspaper.
Where **would** I have heard about that? Probably in C. A. Tripp's _The Homosexual Matrix_, whose first edition was published in 1975 and which I read in '76 or '77. http://www.amazon.com/Homosexual-Matrix-Second-C-Tripp/dp/0452008476
The author is now dead (2003), but it seems there is a "third edition", entitled _The Sexual Matrix_, published under the author's name in 2009, which is available in electronic form here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/6475
> Memories!
ReplyDeleteHmm... I was 20, in 1972, when I admitted with great
trepidation to my best friend at the time,
who is a year younger than me, that I am gay. It turned
out he is gay himself, though I didn't find that out until seven
years later, and then only obliquely, when he alluded
to being in a "bisexual phase".
"Please don't laugh," I said to my friend when I revealed
to him that I had fallen painfully in love with a (straight)
acquaintance at college. He only sniggered a bit.
He probably considered me a a fool to be publicly
exposing myself, even if just to him, in such an unflattering
light. He was always a canny politician when it came to
constructing his own public image. To call that sort of
manipulation "lying" he would have considered contemptibly naive.
Which has something to do with why we're not friends
anymore.
Those were the days in which romantic hero Ryan O'Neal, as
a collegiate hockey player throwing a tantrum of poor sportsmanship
in the movie _Love Story_, could yell "Montreal faggots!" on the
big screen (to the visible disappointment of his father
Ray Milland). But the public atmosphere surrounding
homosexuality, at the tail-end of the counterculture, I recall
as being much less polarized and venomous than it is today, despite
(or probably because of) the vast progress that gay rights have made
in this country since that time -- primarily two great leaps
forward: that homosexuality was declassified as a mental illness
by the psychiatric profession in 1973, and that same-sex consensual sex
was finally across-the-board decriminalized by the Supreme Court in 2003.
There would be little likelihood of changing the rules to allow homosexuals
to serve openly in the military, marry, adopt children, or have their
jobs protected by a federal ENDA, if they could still be branded either
as mentally ill (officially "crazy", in some sense of the word) or as
presumptive criminals. There only remains the fact that homosexuality
is considered a "sin" by many conservative religious groups
(Christian and otherwise), and that it's considered by a substantial
number of people to be "deesgoosting" (as Ayn Rand said in '73) --
or at least the male variety is, primarily by heterosexual men.
Neither barrier is likely to hold up forever, as long as the the
separation between church and state continues to hold any judicial
weight, and as long as tests of rationality need to be applied to
questions of benefit and harm to society.
> . . .the vast progress that gay rights have made in
ReplyDelete> this country since [the early 70s]. . . homosexuality
> was declassified as a mental illness by the psychiatric
> profession in 1973. . .
Not, let me make clear, that I had a frigging clue that
debate was going on at the time. I've never been well-connected
with current events, or with the "gay community" (let alone
with the gay **activist** community). Even assuming I had
been an assiduous reader of, say, the New York Times back in
'73, I wonder how deeply that professional debate (over
homosexuality in the DSM) was buried in the back
pages, if it was mentioned at all in any mainstream
newspaper.
It's all the more ironic because I was, that very year,
taking psychology classes at college. 1973 was also, probably,
the most miserable year of my life, as I was dragged into
fully acknowledging my own homosexuality, as a result of
falling hopelessly in love with that straight fellow-student.
Who was, let me say, **not** amused by the "compliment".
The "friendship", such as it was, lingered for a year after
my admitting my feelings to him. We were in a
social psych class together in '73, the year the APA(s) (psychiatric
and psychological) de-pathologized homosexuality all
unbeknownst to either of us -- me certainly, him too
most probably. Perhaps as a result of subject matter discussed
in the social psych class, my "friend" shared with me, one day,
his own "theory" of the etiology of homosexuality. It was, he said,
most likely the result of the human population explosion (this
was the era of Paul Erlich's _The Population Bomb_ after
all) and, like rats in an overcrowded cage who are stressed
to the point of viciousness, humans in overcrowded urban
environments manifest the unhealthiness of their
living conditions by, among other things, turning to homosexuality.
Maybe he didn't intend this **quite** the way it sounded
at the time -- maybe he was suggesting that non-reproductive
sexuality was a species-level emergency response to the
threat of extinction by overpopulation, or something like
that.
So magisterially detached! So scientific. Well, I responded
in kind, nodding sagely, and replying "you could be right
about that".
> I wonder how deeply that professional debate (over
ReplyDelete> homosexuality in the DSM) was buried in the back
> pages, if it was mentioned at all in any mainstream
> newspaper.
Where **would** I have heard about that? Probably in
C. A. Tripp's _The Homosexual Matrix_, whose first edition
was published in 1975 and which I read in '76 or '77.
http://www.amazon.com/Homosexual-Matrix-Second-C-Tripp/dp/0452008476
The author is now dead (2003), but it seems there is a "third edition",
entitled _The Sexual Matrix_, published under the author's name
in 2009, which is available in electronic form here:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/6475
What the hey, I just bought it for $6.95.