Capricorn
This is a subject that has been on my minds practically since forever.
Recap: I grew up in rural Indiana (1950s/60s) and didn't even know there was anything even remotely like "a gay community," until I was 16 years old. I just thought I was a pervert and although I knew there were others like me, I had *no idea* they were out there in the big cities en mass. I met my first openly gay man, a 28yo with whom I became friends, at age 18/19 when I went to college in Chicago. At that time I was still too young to go to bars but he introduced me to many of his friends and it was at this point I began to experience some of this inter-gay hostility. My friend wasn't like that. He was smart, witty, helpful but never cruel. He could be 'catty' at times but for him it was always just kidding around making fun of himself as much as anyone else, and I got that. But I was a very insecure kid in a lot of ways (still am even at this advanced age) and just didn't know how to 'hold my own' in cat fights.
Time passed, I moved from Chicago and lived back home in Indiana for a couple years and then moved to Milwaukee to live with a bisexual lover I'd met in college and his woman friend in an open ménage àtrios. (It was the early 70s, we did that sort of thing.) That was fine but going out to bars was always a very displeasing experience for me. It just felt "gamey," like everyone (or most everyone) was playing some sort of "I'm superior and you're fucked" self-justification game. I didn't like it so just stayed home most of the time.
A couple years later and the bi man and his lady got married, which was fine (they're still good friends) and I moved to California.
I agree with East's description of the Castro, that's how it felt to me. The bitchy gay clones were everywhere. I didn't 'fit in' because a) I wasn't super hot (nice but 'average' looking), b) wasn't interested in playing all the one-up, catty games and c) wasn't interested in having as much sex as I possibly could with every Tom, Dick and Mary that crossed my path. On top of this, like East says, I just wasn't interested in "conforming." Basically I felt ostracized by most gay men I met who felt they had a right to tell me how and who I ought to be in my life.
Subsequently I avoided the 'gay scene' and, in fact, ended up in a 10 year heterosexual relationship. All during this time I still self-identified as "gay" (not bi).
It wasn't until 1986, after the AIDS crisis, that I began to get more involved with the gay community. And why then? Because the AIDS crisis had put a damper on a lot of crazy shit that had been going on. For the first time in my experience gay men actually wanted to *talk* about what was going on in their lives, get to know one another, and so on. Up to this time almost all my friends had been straight. Straight people play games, too, but it was *nothing* compared to what I experienced in the gay scene.
I don't really know, I'm not even remotely in the 'scene' and haven't been for a very long time (decades), but from what I gather from my on-line experience, in many ways the clock has turned backwards. It's mixed. I do meet some good gay men online who are open, interesting, caring and etc. But I also run into a lot of this inter-gay hostility, too. It ranges from the catty through the jaded to the down right mean, hostile and sinister. I've seen it go off-line, outside a forum, into people's real lives.
What is all this nastiness and aggression about? As I say, this is a question I've been trying to understand forever.
I don't have it all worked out but (in no particular order) some obvious clues are:
1: Growing up gay in a hetero-normative society. This is essentially crazy making. If we're aware of our sexual feelings, we're also aware that (in most instances) they need to not only be suppressed but kept hidden out of fear, guilt and shame. This is, perhaps, a bit less so now than it was when I was growing up, but it remains true for the vast majority of gay youth. One has to decide whether or not to "come out" (for example), when and to whom, and whatever one decides has consequences that heterosexuals never have to even consider let alone face. Where it is expected they will begin dating (and probably become sexually active) in adolescence, for us this is often a time of fear, confusion, hiding, not to mention experiencing crushes and lusts that we can't even express let alone act on.
2: Internalized homophobia. To the extent that our hetero-normative society fears homosexuality, we internalize this fear. We're 'taught' to fear our own nature, our own sexual impulses. This fear twists our fundamental desires (which are as much for "union" as they are for "sex") and this, in turn, becomes suppressed. Even if at some point we consciously "accept" that we are gay (and all the uncertainty about what that "means" when we're young) and choose to "come out," there often remains within us a huge pool of repressed inner conflict and fear. Fear of reaction from others, fear of rejection, fear of what will happen if we let ourselves have what we desire, fear of intimacy and so on. Much of this internalized homophobia then gets projected on other gay men around us.
3: The absence of adult gay social role modeling. Even though "gay" is more acknowledged as something that exists now than it ever has been, the images our society presents to us about what "being gay" means, is usually tied up with stereotypes that are often less than positive. Our culture (TV, film, etc.), when it presents "gay culture" at all, is more apt to show us the dysfunctional side of it all, implying that this dysfunction *is* what "being gay" means.
4: Dysfunctional role modeling within the 'gay community' itself. After having experienced an adolescence that is often fraught with fear, guilt, shame and inner contradiction, even if we "come out" and find ourselves in the midst of the "gay scene," what we often find is a kind of "hen pecking" hierarchy that is superficially based on looks, youth, sex appeal, and an array of 'attitudes' that one is peer-pressured into accepting as "what it means to be gay," -- "this is how you do it." On one hand, perhaps for the first time in one's life, one finds a "tribe" of others like one's self. But what are these others doing, how are they behaving, don't I have to do and behave the way they are to "fit in"? Refusal to conform to a 'clique' or 'scene' can mean yet a further and far more prolonged sense of alienation, having no place of belonging. This, in turn, can lead not only to alienation but even more overt and covert hostility such as the "jaded queen" syndrome.
Just off the top of my head, these are four overlapping areas of 'pressure' that gay youth (and adults) have to deal with that heterosexuals don't. Yes, even within straight society there is peer pressure to conform to some 'role' or other, depending on your age, gender, social class, etc. But it's different for us because it involves our core sexual identity. For us, this identity has to be "constructed" from the ground up, where for most heterosexuals, it is just a "given."
All this, to my way of thinking, represents inner, psychological stress dynamics that are, for the most part, suppressed. And this very suppression itself is, I believe, the source of much of this inter-gay hostility. We take it out on one another because, well, who else are we going to 'take it out' on? But, of course, we don't think of it that way, if, indeed, we think of it at all.
I sincerely believe that within every gay guy is a pool of resentment and rage that goes way, way back and is extremely deeply seated -- and which often gets entangled with our sexual impulses themselves. This may be covered over by all sorts of "adjustments," including "self acceptance" of one's "sexual identity" on a social level. But this gloss of self-acceptance seldom deals effectively with the underlying psychological conflicts and inner stress dynamics. Consequently those dynamics are still operating unconsciously, and get acted out in a variety of ways including: Sexual promiscuity and avoidance of genuine intimacy, drug and alcohol abuse, the tendency to conform to and reinforce 'clique hierarchy', judgement and criticism, even open hostility toward other gay men, the formation of (often furtive) sexual obsessions, lack of compassion and tolerance for "difference," and a whole host of dysfunctional self/other abuses.
The bottom line for me is none of this is "our fault." We didn't "choose" to be gay and suffer the consequences of having a sexual orientation that is at odds with the norm. Moreover, since we live in a society that is largely dysfunctional itself, where practically no one has dealt effectively with their own repressed psychological dynamics (whatever they may be, and we all have them), why should we be any different?
It isn't our "fault," but it *is* our responsibility.
This is where we are. We have to be willing to look inside ourselves and ask, what do we really want? How can we even begin to recognize and reconcile the damage done if we're not aware of it? I don't think we can even begin to become responsible for emotional dynamics that are outside our conscious awareness.
I don't have the answers to these (and many other related) questions, even though I've pondered them off and on my whole life. Each of us, I believe, is doing the best he knows how with what he has, at least most of the time. Could we do better? Yeah, I think so. But the first step is always self-awareness and, for me at least, that means a willingness to go beneath the surface of myself and come into direct contact with my own (often painful) inner knots and contradictions. Without this I have no choice but to remain "on the surface," constantly *reacting* to a world of dysfunctional people and dynamics over which I have no control.
I can only be as responsible as I am conscious.
Recap: I grew up in rural Indiana (1950s/60s) and didn't even know there was anything even remotely like "a gay community," until I was 16 years old. I just thought I was a pervert and although I knew there were others like me, I had *no idea* they were out there in the big cities en mass. I met my first openly gay man, a 28yo with whom I became friends, at age 18/19 when I went to college in Chicago. At that time I was still too young to go to bars but he introduced me to many of his friends and it was at this point I began to experience some of this inter-gay hostility. My friend wasn't like that. He was smart, witty, helpful but never cruel. He could be 'catty' at times but for him it was always just kidding around making fun of himself as much as anyone else, and I got that. But I was a very insecure kid in a lot of ways (still am even at this advanced age) and just didn't know how to 'hold my own' in cat fights.
Time passed, I moved from Chicago and lived back home in Indiana for a couple years and then moved to Milwaukee to live with a bisexual lover I'd met in college and his woman friend in an open ménage àtrios. (It was the early 70s, we did that sort of thing.) That was fine but going out to bars was always a very displeasing experience for me. It just felt "gamey," like everyone (or most everyone) was playing some sort of "I'm superior and you're fucked" self-justification game. I didn't like it so just stayed home most of the time.
A couple years later and the bi man and his lady got married, which was fine (they're still good friends) and I moved to California.
I agree with East's description of the Castro, that's how it felt to me. The bitchy gay clones were everywhere. I didn't 'fit in' because a) I wasn't super hot (nice but 'average' looking), b) wasn't interested in playing all the one-up, catty games and c) wasn't interested in having as much sex as I possibly could with every Tom, Dick and Mary that crossed my path. On top of this, like East says, I just wasn't interested in "conforming." Basically I felt ostracized by most gay men I met who felt they had a right to tell me how and who I ought to be in my life.
Subsequently I avoided the 'gay scene' and, in fact, ended up in a 10 year heterosexual relationship. All during this time I still self-identified as "gay" (not bi).
It wasn't until 1986, after the AIDS crisis, that I began to get more involved with the gay community. And why then? Because the AIDS crisis had put a damper on a lot of crazy shit that had been going on. For the first time in my experience gay men actually wanted to *talk* about what was going on in their lives, get to know one another, and so on. Up to this time almost all my friends had been straight. Straight people play games, too, but it was *nothing* compared to what I experienced in the gay scene.
I don't really know, I'm not even remotely in the 'scene' and haven't been for a very long time (decades), but from what I gather from my on-line experience, in many ways the clock has turned backwards. It's mixed. I do meet some good gay men online who are open, interesting, caring and etc. But I also run into a lot of this inter-gay hostility, too. It ranges from the catty through the jaded to the down right mean, hostile and sinister. I've seen it go off-line, outside a forum, into people's real lives.
What is all this nastiness and aggression about? As I say, this is a question I've been trying to understand forever.
I don't have it all worked out but (in no particular order) some obvious clues are:
1: Growing up gay in a hetero-normative society. This is essentially crazy making. If we're aware of our sexual feelings, we're also aware that (in most instances) they need to not only be suppressed but kept hidden out of fear, guilt and shame. This is, perhaps, a bit less so now than it was when I was growing up, but it remains true for the vast majority of gay youth. One has to decide whether or not to "come out" (for example), when and to whom, and whatever one decides has consequences that heterosexuals never have to even consider let alone face. Where it is expected they will begin dating (and probably become sexually active) in adolescence, for us this is often a time of fear, confusion, hiding, not to mention experiencing crushes and lusts that we can't even express let alone act on.
2: Internalized homophobia. To the extent that our hetero-normative society fears homosexuality, we internalize this fear. We're 'taught' to fear our own nature, our own sexual impulses. This fear twists our fundamental desires (which are as much for "union" as they are for "sex") and this, in turn, becomes suppressed. Even if at some point we consciously "accept" that we are gay (and all the uncertainty about what that "means" when we're young) and choose to "come out," there often remains within us a huge pool of repressed inner conflict and fear. Fear of reaction from others, fear of rejection, fear of what will happen if we let ourselves have what we desire, fear of intimacy and so on. Much of this internalized homophobia then gets projected on other gay men around us.
3: The absence of adult gay social role modeling. Even though "gay" is more acknowledged as something that exists now than it ever has been, the images our society presents to us about what "being gay" means, is usually tied up with stereotypes that are often less than positive. Our culture (TV, film, etc.), when it presents "gay culture" at all, is more apt to show us the dysfunctional side of it all, implying that this dysfunction *is* what "being gay" means.
4: Dysfunctional role modeling within the 'gay community' itself. After having experienced an adolescence that is often fraught with fear, guilt, shame and inner contradiction, even if we "come out" and find ourselves in the midst of the "gay scene," what we often find is a kind of "hen pecking" hierarchy that is superficially based on looks, youth, sex appeal, and an array of 'attitudes' that one is peer-pressured into accepting as "what it means to be gay," -- "this is how you do it." On one hand, perhaps for the first time in one's life, one finds a "tribe" of others like one's self. But what are these others doing, how are they behaving, don't I have to do and behave the way they are to "fit in"? Refusal to conform to a 'clique' or 'scene' can mean yet a further and far more prolonged sense of alienation, having no place of belonging. This, in turn, can lead not only to alienation but even more overt and covert hostility such as the "jaded queen" syndrome.
Just off the top of my head, these are four overlapping areas of 'pressure' that gay youth (and adults) have to deal with that heterosexuals don't. Yes, even within straight society there is peer pressure to conform to some 'role' or other, depending on your age, gender, social class, etc. But it's different for us because it involves our core sexual identity. For us, this identity has to be "constructed" from the ground up, where for most heterosexuals, it is just a "given."
All this, to my way of thinking, represents inner, psychological stress dynamics that are, for the most part, suppressed. And this very suppression itself is, I believe, the source of much of this inter-gay hostility. We take it out on one another because, well, who else are we going to 'take it out' on? But, of course, we don't think of it that way, if, indeed, we think of it at all.
I sincerely believe that within every gay guy is a pool of resentment and rage that goes way, way back and is extremely deeply seated -- and which often gets entangled with our sexual impulses themselves. This may be covered over by all sorts of "adjustments," including "self acceptance" of one's "sexual identity" on a social level. But this gloss of self-acceptance seldom deals effectively with the underlying psychological conflicts and inner stress dynamics. Consequently those dynamics are still operating unconsciously, and get acted out in a variety of ways including: Sexual promiscuity and avoidance of genuine intimacy, drug and alcohol abuse, the tendency to conform to and reinforce 'clique hierarchy', judgement and criticism, even open hostility toward other gay men, the formation of (often furtive) sexual obsessions, lack of compassion and tolerance for "difference," and a whole host of dysfunctional self/other abuses.
The bottom line for me is none of this is "our fault." We didn't "choose" to be gay and suffer the consequences of having a sexual orientation that is at odds with the norm. Moreover, since we live in a society that is largely dysfunctional itself, where practically no one has dealt effectively with their own repressed psychological dynamics (whatever they may be, and we all have them), why should we be any different?
It isn't our "fault," but it *is* our responsibility.
This is where we are. We have to be willing to look inside ourselves and ask, what do we really want? How can we even begin to recognize and reconcile the damage done if we're not aware of it? I don't think we can even begin to become responsible for emotional dynamics that are outside our conscious awareness.
I don't have the answers to these (and many other related) questions, even though I've pondered them off and on my whole life. Each of us, I believe, is doing the best he knows how with what he has, at least most of the time. Could we do better? Yeah, I think so. But the first step is always self-awareness and, for me at least, that means a willingness to go beneath the surface of myself and come into direct contact with my own (often painful) inner knots and contradictions. Without this I have no choice but to remain "on the surface," constantly *reacting* to a world of dysfunctional people and dynamics over which I have no control.
I can only be as responsible as I am conscious.
.
![[-]](https://gayspeak.com/images/duende_v3_local/collapse.png)
Virgo
Gemini
