The Meang of Gay Life: Part One • GCN

Contents:

• WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE A GAY MAN?
• WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE GAY? DEFN AND MEANG OF GAY
• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• THE MEANG OF GAY LIFE: PART ONE
• GAY
• MEANG OF GAY ENGLISH

WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE A GAY MAN?

So many gay men grow up believg there is somethg “wrong” wh bee we are different om other supposedly “normal” mal. It’s not surprisg that a term like “straight-actg” shows up so often gay men’s onle personal ads. It prumably means the advertiser nsirs himself a “real” man—real, that is, acrdg to a standard of masculy he don’t attribute to other gay men.

So many gay men learn we are different om other boys by havg the fact poted out and ridiculed by bulli durg our young, most imprsnable, years. As every gay man knows who has been sulted or asslted for his actual or perceived sexual orientatn, there are steep penalti for vlatg the Boy Co as there are for anyone who is “different” om the prumed (typilly whe, heterosexual, middle-class) standard.

WHAT DO IT MEAN TO BE GAY? DEFN AND MEANG OF GAY

How do a gay kid survive the trma he suffers for beg different a culture that still nmns his difference as somethg bad or “ls-than” and wants to mold him to the same shape tri to mold every boy? Robert Pollack says the most important thg a fay n do to support their gay son is to keep lovg him, “to nvey to him, as soon as he shar his feelgs, that he is still loved through and through, that his sexual orientatn will not any way dimish how much he is admired and rpected. He needs to know that ’s okay not only to be gay if that's what he is, but to be a man who choos what beg a man means for himself.

Fortunately there is a long history of gay men who bucked the accepted fns of masculy and created liv that exprsed their unrstandg of themselv and how they choose to exprs their inty as men who don’t necsarily f tradnal molds. The late Harry Hay often lled "the father of the morn gay movement, " found the Mattache Society Los Angel the fall of 1950 for gay men to gather and ponr the qutns Hay had long been askg: Who are gay people? Hay didn’t tend the Mattach to be a polil anizatn per se, but a group that would e together to enhance their self-unrstandg and explore the ntributns gay people had ma to the human race through the ag.

WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?

In a 1987 say tled “A Separate People Whose Time Has Come, ” Hay scribed homosexuals as “spir people, ” who, throughout the ag, had served society their rol as “msengers and tercers, shamans of both genrs, prits and prits, imagemakers and prophets, mim and rhapsos, poets and playwrights, healers and nurturers, teachers and preachers, tkers and tkerers, searchers and rearchers. Hay believed that gay people had somethg special to teach nongay people about human life, and for that reason should be nurtured, rather than reviled, by society.

He postulated that “gay people reprent a geic mutatn of nscns whose active fosterg is now required for human survival. Hay believed that gay men are different om heterosexuals and that those differenc go much eper than mere sexual attractn to other men. He said gay men look at the world differently, are uniquely nonaggrsive, nonpetive, oriented toward sharg and cled to velop what Hay lled “subject-subject” love relatnships of equals.

THE MEANG OF GAY LIFE: PART ONE

In a 1990 terview for the Washgton Bla, Harry Hay told me our llg as gay men “is not only to accept our uniquens, but to affirm , make joyo.

GAY

For gay men, learng to accept our “different” sexual orientatn as a posive aspect of ourselv is only part of our “g out. While "gay" n be thought of as a synonym to "homosexual, " there is more to the meang of gay than that. Homosexualy is nsired to be same-sex sexual attractn and behavr and "gay" is a synonym of homosexualy.

MEANG OF GAY ENGLISH

The term "homosexualy"1 was first ed by Victorian scientists who nsired same-sex sexual attractn and behavr a "moral ficiency. Homosexualy is still the rrect term clilly, but even though homosexualy is no longer nsired immoral, some people feel there are still negative overton to the word given s orig.