Gay Fairi: When and Why - Beachbg's Bizarre History Blog

Contents:

• WHAT THEY MEAN WHEN THEY SAY ‘GAY PAREE’

WHAT THEY MEAN WHEN THEY SAY ‘GAY PAREE’

WHEN FUTURE GENERATIONS look back on gay liberatn’s role the greater creatn of human nscns, and what ias helped shepherd civilizatn om s most primive tennci to more noble evolutnary possibili, they will, my opn, have to spend substantial time studyg the Radil Faerie movement, which was lnched 1979. They will fd particularly rmative, I image, to see how two petg historil acunts would emerge about who the Faeri were and what beme of them: one gay-centered and psychologil, the other seemgly gay-centered but vertly anti-psychologil, foced on a sentimental and revanchist portrayal of how the Faeri were formed.

The Radil Faerie movement is historilly important bee was the first large-sle effort to anize gay-intified men on an digenoly homosexual spirual basis, unlike gay synagogu, church, and so on, which rely on heterosexist mythologi and dogmas. At early Faerie gathergs, gay men me together as never before, as Harry Hay put , “to throw off the ugly green ogsk of hetero-imatn to fd the shg Faerie prce beneath. ” This unique cultural effort cultivated a profound gay-centerg tert—the notn of an endogeno Gay Spir—wh our overall eedom movement.

This has crystallized over the last thirty years to an ongog tradn of homosexually-foced spirual activi and lerature (e. The Faerie movement was anized prcipally by three dividuals: Harry Hay (-founr of the Mattache Society 1950), Don Kilhefner (-founr of the Los Angel Gay and Lbian Center 1971), and Mch Walker (the first “out” gay thor to be published a Jungian journal 1976). This foundg quartet issued “A Call to Gay Brothers” the Sprg of 1979 for “A Spirual Conference for Radil Faeri” that Labor Day weekend, which was attend by an overflow crowd of 220 enthiastic men, leadg to the birth of a h cultural phenomenon that has sce spread worldwi.

” A gay-centered psychoanalytic movement or revolutn based on transformg unfished fay bs, unexamed motiv, and ternalized homophobia to genue gay self-realizatn, spearhead by Mch Walker, emerged om wh the Faerie enavor at s begngs, fed through nontatn wh psychologil dysfunctn among s re learship, pecially regardg Harry Hay, who was rabidly anti-psychologil and who attempted at every turn to block any ser efforts an analytic directn. Don Kilhefner eventually realized the profoundly healg value of Mch’s novel perspective, beg nvced that the Faeri need to take up gay-centered psychologil activism.

Don and Mch, bandg together and seeg no alternative reurse, rigned om the anizg circle durg a climactic meetg 1981, gog on the next year to form Treeroots, a nonprof rporatn dited to psychologilly-oriented homosexual self-realizatn. I speak here not entirely as an nocent bystanr, as I have personally known all of the dividuals volved, first meetg each of them the late 1980’s, some years after most events scribed here, and am prently Mch’s lleague at the Instute for Contemporary Uranian Psychoanalysis, the world’s first gay psychoanalytic anizatn. Further, Timmons rms that by the time Mch first met Harry, he was already an advanced thker the area of gay-centered psychology, havg wrten the early manual, Men Lovg Men: A Gay Sex Gui and Conscns Book (1977), and a master’s this, “Gay Depth Psychology, ” om which was distilled “The Double: An Archetypal Configuratn, ” published Sprg 1976, a groundbreakg paper that put homosexual love on an equal symbolic footg wh heterosexual love ( terms of Jungian theory).

While Harry cultivated his important ias about the Two Spir person and the Feast of Fools, Mch had been penntly iated through his own scent to the gay subjective unrworld where he disvered a superhuman prence of phallic homosexual divy. He subsequently fathomed how applyg a gay liberatn sensibily to Jungian analysis uld better advance this profound experience of archetypal love.

Here we learn ( Timmons’ book) that Mch, at a lecture by Arthur Evans early 1976, beme so effive his gay-centered exprsns of homosexual tth that a stranger spontaneoly mentned to him how he should track down Harry Hay: “You sound jt as kooky as someone else I know. Wr Timmons: “Meetg Walker was a cril lk Harry’s velopment of a new kd of gay movement, ” as “the mythic, hidn aspects of gay inty that [he and Mch]had studied separately sudnly nverged, wh a greatly creased current. The sheer excisg of such a major part of his own story, which also distracts the potentially cur away om those revolutnary novatns gay psychologil activism he once was strongly mted to, ethilly nnot a bracg object lson about the pernic problem of the disptive gay shadow movement anizg.

As turned out historilly, Don eventually also broke wh Mch to tablish the 1990’s his own rival, supposedly psychologil anizatns, Tumcence and then the Gay Men’s Medice Circle, and now equently wr articl dog his bt to erase important historil and iologil dynamics. If you look over Don’s Gay & Lbian Review piece, you’ll see how he, a self-profsed “Jungian psychologist, ” says absolutely nothg about ias like “psychology, ” the “ner life, ” or the “gay shadow” that he once promoted. Near the end of his Review statement, Don propos answerg “a cril need for a natnal, if not ternatnal, gatherg of Radil Faeri, ” but this strik me as a uls prospect bee would take sentimentally backward three s to a whewashed Faerie orig, thereby settg thgs up to repeat the same psychologil mistake that has, I believe, severely limed the Faeri’ abily to help gay men to achieve thentic self-actualizatn.

Contrast Don’s sterile revanchist sentiments wh the much more lively, progrsive approach posed by Mch’s work the last three s, as seen his recent Gay Liberatn at a Psychologil Crossroads (2009), which explor how and why gay activism mt systematilly embrace psychologil self-velopment to addrs homophobic trma more effectively. Don’s article is notable not only for s erasure of important aspects of gay history, but also for s rejectn of a psychologil approach to gay-centered dividuatn and muny buildg regard to humany’s future. I would argue that Don is lludg wh the gay muny’s—all of humany’s—prent llective dissociatn, which regrsively blocks the key importance of personal psychologil rponsibily, that is, the fundamental problem (and potential) of the gay shadow, om mastream movement disurse.

I suggt that all of , myself clud, posss a fiercely anti-gay and anti-psychologil “plex” that grievoly evas nsc tectn, mouflaged unr rampant addictns, pulsive extroversn, assiatnism, and so on. Instead, what’s need is Faerie support for those who urageoly face the darkns their own personal psychology to better expede Gay Spir.

Mch Walker has suggted for 35 years that homosexual folks have a special pacy for psychologil rponsibily if ternalized homophobia n be untered.

The issue at heart this entire matter of Radil Faerie history and meang throws a big existential qutn: will gay people and gay liberatn slouch backwards to sterile nostalgia, or stead strive bravely toward an ennobled gay future that volv tacklg more efficly what is still terribly stctive ourselv so we n ascend to a regenerated, better-enlightened gay life that’s most relevant to humany’s prsg climacteric challenge? Wilson, who argued On Human Nature (1978) that gay people may be “the geic rriers of some of mankd’s most altistic impuls. ” Stanford universy’s evolutnary blogist Joan Roughgarn Evolutn’s Rabow: Diversy, Genr, and Sexualy  Nature and People (2004) lked homosexuals wh the prciple of operative “teamwork” that’s need for group survival.