Transcription: It’s a gay life, even for straights
By Bill Wilson
Staff Writer
Jim is a gay homosexual. That is different from being a pure homosexual or a gay heterosexual. Jim (a pseudonym) says gayness is determined mostly by attitude.
“Gay is a culture that has close ties to and was developed and sustained by people of homosexual orientation,” Jim said. “But you don’t have to be homosexual to be gay. Gayness is a matter of degree. You can be extraordinarily straight or a flaming faggot from way back. The thing is that when you say to people that you are gay they immediately equate that with being homosexual. It shouldn’t be readily apparent.”
Jim says the current trends of music and fashion toward the 1930’s prove gayness is “becoming very much in vogue.”
Bette Midler is totally gay,” he said. “She is what a lot of gayness is all about, and she is completely straight. The resurgence of the ‘30’s is taking on all kind of gay aspects. People are doing it for the fun of it. It’s being crazy. You wear platform shoes and slinky clothes and say ‘Don’t I look crazy’ and then go out and have a good time and laugh at yourself.”
Learning how to treat women as individuals helped Jim arrive at a gay outlook. Gender roles are not gay. Jim was a homosexual for several years before becoming gay.
“Learning how to treat gays as people and learning to un-define gender role playing had to be pointed out to me,” he said.
“The thing is they are not chicks or women, but people. I had to force myself to constantly de-gender everything I did. Gay destroys sex role stereotyping and gives you a whole new consciousness. I began to be sensitized and treat people as human beings a lot more than ever before,” he said.
At least locally, lesbianism and gayness are not always compatible. “A lot of lesbians that are not gay live in this town,” Jim said. “Not because they are not heterosexual, but because they have gone all the way to separatism which is just as far from gay as male supremacy.”
Stereotyping is a problem for gays. Jim complained of “being pigeonholed” and not being taken for his personal worth. “I guess the hardest thing is being identified as anything but gay,” he said. People meet you and you say ‘You’re gay’ and automatically equate that with homosexuality. It is not always unreasonable, but it is perhaps inaccurate.”
“I get worried about telling people I know that I am gay until they know me very well,” he said. “False attitudes are hard to overcome and there is a lot more to a gay than his sexuality. You can sometimes feel people straining to accept you and that is no good. Being gay is not the weirdest thing about me. It is not the most important thing about me. My being a musician and an artist is. I would rather be identified as an artist than a gay, but I wouldn’t mind being identified as a gay artist if that didn’t include being stereotyped as a quote, gay person.
“Another problem is coping with the feeling of not being normal. You accept that you are not. There is nothing normal about homosexuality, but there is nothing unnatural about it. That is because there is a distinction between normal and unnatural which is very important. Homosexuality is a natural occurrence in all strata of animal life. You are a variation and a minority, but not unnatural if you are a homosexual.”
Jim said Alfred Kinsey’s research on homosexuality was helpful in dealing with gay awareness.
“Kinsey reported through his studies that basically everybody has some kind of homosexual experience,” Jim said. “It might be as mild as an erotic fantasy about someone of the same sex, or it might be as far reaching as a long term relation with someone of the same sex.”
Sexuality Variation.
“What I would like to see is straight people being able to enjoy all aspects of gay life,” Jim said. “I would like to see them be secure enough in their own sexuality so they don’t feel threatened by gayness.
