Bully, Bully

Like many people, I have been haunted by the recent revelations of bullying of GLBTQ youth in schools and universities. These tragedies have shocked people, I think, because there has been a presumption that somehow homophobia had been “solved” in our society. Indeed, before these news stories broke, both hetero and queer friends commented to me that they had faith in the future because the younger generation was immune from the hangups of the bad ol’ days. “It’s not like when we were kids” was a common refrain. Having spent several years in TexAss and hearing from students there, I knew that the picture was not quite as rosy as everybody hoped.

Having previously blatantly plagiarized borrowed liberally been inspired by Dan Savage’s humor, I was drawn to his “It Gets Better Campaign.” This project collects videos from queer people across the world who want to offer words of hope to young people. If you haven’t done so, spend some time watching these stories and learn about how they lived through the bullying and found a better life.



It probably won’t surprise anybody, but my gravitas found shape in some pretty grim experiences as a young person. Growing up in a Latino/Irish Catholic family during the 1980s meant that I heard clearly and frequently that being gay was not an acceptable option. Compounding that was my father’s alcoholism and abusive tendencies, which were themselves compounded by his irregular income. Having enjoyed a pretty solid middle class existence through elementary school, my entrance into middle school coincided with my family becoming broke, erratic, and unpredictable. For the next ten years we would be perpetually wondering if our utilities would be shut off again or how ends would be met. We walked on eggshells in the hopes that my father wouldn't have an outburst. To say that my home life was not a supportive and safe environment is a bit like saying the Titanic had some minor design flaws.

I can’t pinpoint one particular incident when the school bullying started, but it is worth noting that we are not talking about an occasional scuffle or a few harsh words from time to time. It was a daily eight-hour marathon of intense harassment starting in the seventh grade. I became a master of time management having been able to pace my walk to the bus stop so that it was only a minute or two from the time that the bus would arrive (as I was certainly going to be tormented, probably beat up, if I dared to show up too early). For those who have never been fortunate enough to take a school bus, let me tell you how lucky you are. They are basically rolling sardine cans of torture. The bus driver is usually too focused on keeping the thing on the road (and probably nursing a hangover) to intervene in what is transpiring in the rear of the bus.



At one point, a new driver did try to impose order on the bus by instituting a seating chart. The “cool” kids (and being “cool” and being a bully often went hand and hand in middle school) protested against such an arrangement. “There is a fag on this bus,” one of them told the bus driver, “and we shouldn’t be forced to sit with him.” My face flushed as I tried to meld with my current seat. “Well,” the bus driver said, “what you will learn when you get older is that the fags are the ones driving the fancy sports cars while you are driving a bunch of brats around in a bus.” As empty as that sounds in retrospect, that was the closest thing to a defense that any adult offered me during the entire time that I was in middle school.



Not soon after the seat reassignments, I remember exiting the school bus one day and suddenly feeling something damp hit my cheek. Then something else wet hit my face immediately after. The intense New Mexico sun was already burning holes in the asphalt, even at 8 in the morning, so it couldn’t be rain. As I looked around quickly, I realized what was happening. The other boys in the school were spitting on me. The door to the bus closed and it drove away as I was surrounded by hacking and spewing. I pushed my way through the crowd and went to the restroom to try and washout the gobs of phlegm that were enmeshed in my hair. I considered myself lucky that none of them followed me to the boy’s room, as it was a place where I was usually guaranteed a beating and therefore avoided it at all costs during other circumstances. That pretty much sums up my middle school life: literally spat upon. Friends became a concept totally alien to me as I had zero (not a single one).



At home, I learned to avoid my father until he was safely passed out for the night. During the day, I avoided anywhere that was public, including the lunch room. To be honest, I didn’t really have money for lunch anyway. The library became a refuge where I read silently. Most of the rest of the students, it seems, had no interest in books. Reading offered not only an immediate escape, but I also had sense enough to know that education might just be a long-term salvation and perhaps the key to that promised sports car.



The library seemed like an ideal hideout until the school librarian asked me not to return anymore because my silent reading bothered her. With such an astounding adult staff, it’s a real mystery why my middle school continues to be considered one of the worst in Albuquerque to this day. After being booted from my haven, I spent my lunch time roaming the school grounds with my eyes firmly fixed on my shoes and not speaking to anybody.

High school promised a change. Well, it seemed like it might offer a change at least. The school was extremely large (my graduating class had 1,200 people) and there were assurances/expectations that I would find my niche. . . or at least one friend. Those hopes were quickly dashed on day one. Things couldn’t have been worse as I had the very bad luck to be assigned P.E. as my first class of the day. Without skipping a beat from middle school, I was instantly surrounded by another group of bullies (or occasional bullies) who asked me on that first day, “Are you a faggot, Faggot?” It made me wonder what it was about me that they had so quickly noticed. It was the first moment that they had ever laid eyes on me and yet they were already singling me out as the target of ridicule and harassment. It would be years before I was willing to really admit my sexuality to myself, but these folks were dead certain of it. When the first day ended, I remember going immediately to my room and crying. My mother diagnosed my tears as a product of being overwhelmed by the change. I knew, though, that I was more overwhelmed by the lack of change.



The bulling continued for all of that year, especially in P.E. No matter the sport we were supposed to play, my tormentors found unique and novel ways to use the equipment against me. Field hockey, which we played on a freezing patch of mud, became a venue where they would intentionally send the ball my way so that they could “legitimately” smack me around with their sticks. Volleyball, which I had until that point always imagined as a nonviolent and potentially fun sport, offered opportunities for them to spike the roughly covered ball directly into my face at full force. And those were my “teammates.” Tennis left me covered with welts from being pummeled with a barrage of yellow balls. “Dodge Ball” could only have been invented by a sadistic, homophobic jerk.




Some of you might be asking, wasn’t there a teacher assigned to this class? Were you just a bunch of little animal things let out without any supervision? Of course, the class did have a teacher of record: a relatively young man named Coach Sánchez who also happened to be in charge of the football team. Let me tell you, he either ignored the abuse I faced or tacitly approved of it. In that entire year, I remember him intervening just once. A group had clustered around me and had forgone any pretense that impending injury was just a result of athletic mishap. He disbanded the group and then roughly pushed me to a corner and asked, “Why do I have to defend you? It’s not my job. I have forty other students in this class. They're picking on you because it’s your own fault.” He was actually angry that I was “allowing” myself to become the subject of torment. I had heard of blaming the victim, but this gave me a new vantage point into that sociological concept.

It was at that precise moment that Coach Sánchez mysteriously burst into flames and melted into a bizarre waxy spot on the basketball court. Well, that’s what would have happened if I had strange mental powers at the time. Perhaps it is a good thing that I hadn’t developed those . . . yet.

Since Coach Sánchez apparently took the film Tea and Sympathy as the basis for his pedagogy, the rest of the year progressed with me living in constant fear and dread. Needless to say, his singular intervention only increased the torment. “Hey, fag” one of my tormentors told me as he pushed me against the gym lockers (the locker rooms were rarely supervised by teachers of coaches. Wasn’t that nice?), “Do you want Sánchez to take care of you? Does he know that you want to stare at his dick? Fag.” That showed how ignorant the bully really was. If I wasn’t clear in my own my mind about my sexual desires, I knew for sure that I had absolutely no attraction to Coach Sánchez (And, in retrospect, is that really what he imagined two gay people did together? Just stared at each other’s penis? Idiot.).

My freshman year continued to be painful and intensely lonely. During health class that year, my teacher informed us that having gay sex was a one-way ticket to death by AIDS. Listening to him made one think that a date with another man would start with dinner and a show and end in bodybags and morticians. I delved deeper into reading and was grateful that at least the highschool library stayed open during lunch.

My story didn’t include the nice ways that the media presents stories of queer youth on television. No open-minded and understanding adult appeared to save me from the bullies or offer much assurance at all that being queer was actually a good thing. No peer reached out a helping hand or words of kindness. Nor did my hidden fantasies, informed heavily by the media, come true with a white knight appearing on the horizon to rescue me. In the end, there was only me left to figure out what to do. I know that I would have been so relieved and comforted had the "It Gets Better" campaign existed when I was young. Even the assurances of strangers would have made a big difference.

True to the current campaign’s name, things did get better for me. Much better. Thank the goddess, New Mexico only required one year of P.E. I also slowly and consciously began to work on my own social skills and to actively learn how to make friends. It might seem strange, but after many years of being almost mute in public, it was tough to figure out how to hold basic conversations. Rightly or wrongly (Healthily or unhealthily?), I also learned to totally compartmentalized the chaos at home as well. I also started working which brought me into contact with people who were already in college. My real path to queer salvation didn’t occur until I entered university too, but I did manage to find a place for myself by the end of highschool.

Today, I might still be waiting on that sports car, but I have a pretty darn good life. My job is cushy and rewarding. I have lots of friends who adore me. Plus, I can be as out as I possibly can be, including in the classroom.

I am angry that my young GLBTQ brothers and sisters continue to suffer the same types of harassment that I endured. The bullying, isolation, and despair that GLBTQ teenagers experience in this country is tied directly to the ways that our lives are discounted in our larger society. It is a discounting that starts right at the top. President Barack Obama says that he thinks queer people should have some rights, but not equal rights and that heterosexual institutions need to be “protected” [apparently from us].
Keep in mind we are supposed to consider him our ally. What else can young people conclude but that queer people are less valuable? It seems to me that school grounds are simply enacting the inequalities that exist throughout our society. Indeed, recent news stories reveal that young immigrant youths are also being tormented and tortured on their school grounds. I would argue that it is a similar symptom of the way this country has demonized others and sent the message that certain people in our society are open targets.

I suppose the traditional ending to these types of recollections should include a wise and informed gesture to the idea that these are the things that made me who I am. Or, for those of us who were raised Catholic, we are to marvel that the challenges which did not kill us actually made us stronger. Well, if that were true, shouldn’t I have developed those strange mental powers by now? With all the shit that I went through, I should at least be able to levitate a table or something.

Gay in the Academy

With the summer upon us, it is just about time for the academic job search process to start spooling up again. Inside Higher Ed asked me to think about any advice that I might have for queer folk who will be entering the market for the first time. My usual advice is not to use anything from my career as a model. Other than that, here is what I came up with for them:

***

We can be truly astounded by how rapidly general attitudes have shifted toward GLBTQ people over the past decade. As conditions have improved in the nation, so too has the academic world become a bit better for scholars who identify as G ,L, and sometimes Q (Though still has a long way to go for B and especially T ). Because things have generally become better, some might imagine that GLBTQ scholars who enter the job market don’t have significantly different concerns than any other candidate scrambling to assemble a dossier. Alas, we must remember that a transition from overt hostility to disinterested apathy isn’t exactly a triumph of social justice.

Don’t tell Larry Kramer, but I am going to use “queer” as a convenient umbrella term for the rest of this post. After a certain point, it’s just easier.

Certainly queer scholars share the major concerns of every person on the academic market, primarily, “Will I actually get a job?” Yet, being queer in the academy also carries its own set of challenges (and rewards – But why focus on the positive?).

Unlike racial minorities or women, [white] queer [male] scholars have not necessarily been absent from the academy in relation to their percentage of the overall population. Historically, people of color (hetero or otherwise) and women (of color or otherwise, hetero or otherwise) have historically been (and in many cases continue to be) woefully under-represented in the academic ranks. In contrast, [white] queer [male] scholars have been employed as professors. The key difference was that most of those [white male] queer scholars had to stay in the closet to keep, much less obtain, that job. Most of them feared that public exposure would end their careers. In some cases, they were right. It goes without saying that their research rarely focused on queer topics. Silence was their shield.



Given this history, it is not surprising that I found little published advice for queer scholars when I first started thinking about the job search process while still a graduate student a decade ago. What I did find tended to be fairly bleak. More or less, the available advice proposed the academic equivalent of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Since much of my youthful consciousness raising had emphasized the need of being out for political and social gains, that hardly felt like very nice advice. Getting a job was more important, the argument went, than principles or politics.

Fortunately for me, I had a more sensible adviser who rightfully suggested that such strategies wouldn’t yield the best of results in the long run. You might obtain a job, but could end up working for a legion of homophobic colleagues who would ultimately deny you tenure anyway. Since then, I’ve combined her ideas, my own experiences, and the stories I have heard from my queer friends and students who have gone through the process. Rather than advice, here are some of the things that tend to come up over and over again.



Let me, though, start with a few caveats. No short entry can fully cover the experiences or desires of all queer scholars looking for a job. Our diversity and various intersecting identities inform our choices about what is the best “fit.” A single-lesbian-Chicana with a child will likely have significantly different concerns than a partnered Africa-American man without children who, in turn, will have different concerns from a white transgendered woman with grandchildren.

Second, recognize that no job is perfect. As a child, I believed television. It promised my work day would be filled with hilarious hijinks, comedic colleagues, and lots of coffee. Of course, I also imagined that at some point in the middle of the day I would fight crime after dashing off to a broom closet to change into Wonder Woman. None those things has come true -- so far. Every job requires compromises and, for many, simply having a job really is the most important factor. Nonetheless, there are some things that we should all think about as we make career choices.



Consider Being Out During the Search Process

Through all stages of interviewing, it is not appropriate (and in 20 states and the District of Columbia, actually illegal) to consider the sexual orientation of a candidate. Job candidates are under no obligation to reveal their sexual orientation or marital status. So, if you are on the market and aren’t comfortable being out, you are under no duty to do so.

Nonetheless, I actually recommend being out in the later stages of the process. To my way of thinking, being out is one of the only ways to determine whether you will find the campus climate, benefits, and life in the town acceptable.

It is a myth that you must conform to obtain a job in the academy. You should appear professional and serious during the interview. Feel under no obligation, though, to dress or act differently than you would in your day-to-day life. If you identify as a woman, but don’t like to wear skirts in daily life, there is no need to suddenly put one on for an interview. Likewise for those who identify as a man but disdain ties. So too there are good reasons not to conceal your sexuality.

Many, I know, will take exception to the notion of being out during the process because it goes against common wisdom on such matters. They will suggest that it blurs professional and personal matters. Or they will argue that it can cost a candidate a job. For the latter, I suggest that if a department won’t hire you because you are queer, then they will certainly make your life a living hell if they did hire you without knowing. Ask yourself if staying closeted is really worth obtaining a job at a university like Brigham Young.



For the first concern, I would say that the academic world already blurs personal and professional life. Most academics socialize considerably with those with whom they work, especially in small towns. Plus, in a nation that still lacks universal healthcare, your job and its benefits have real consequences for your personal life.

It is important therefore to know how the department and administration responds to an out candidate to know how they will respond to an out employee. During your campus visit, you will likely meet with the Dean (or a Deanlet) and the Department Chair. It is completely reasonable to ask them about how junior queer faculty fair on the campus or in the department. Consider it a bad omen if their response is something along the lines of, “I’ve never really thought about it.” Be equally leery of an administrator who evades a discussion of homophobia on campus or in the community with superficial platitudes. Things like, “Our university doesn’t offer same-sex spousal benefits, but we have an excellent Trader Joe’s in town!” or “There’s an Ikea within driving distance! Don’t your people shop there?” are a far cry from knowing that your potential employer has thought seriously about the actual needs of queer faculty.



When going on a campus visit, I have also usually asked to meet with other gay faculty. They are more likely to give you a sense of their own experiences and sense of the town (though this doesn’t always work out, as I’ll mention in a minute).

Unfortunately, the story that you are likely to be told is a bleak one. According to the best numbers that I could find, only about 40 percent of universities in the United States offer equal benefits to same-sex and opposite sex employees. That is about the same percentage as private companies (larger than 500 employees) that offer equal benefits. Many public universities, moreover, are explicitly forbidden from extending benefits due to discriminatory state constitutions or hateful legislatures. Private universities or those in New England are your best option right now. So, if you aren’t interviewing in Massachusetts, be prepared that your benefits package will likely be less than they would offer a straight professor. The Dean (or Deanlet) doesn’t have much control over those matters.

Nonetheless, the administration should be able to discuss how the university is combating those inequities (law suits, local activism, spousal hires). They should also be aware of how queer faculty, students, and staff are treated and perceived. If they can’t speak intelligently about these matters, bad times are likely in store for a queer employee.

Don’t Fear Asking Key Questions During Your On-Campus Visit

Aside from the administration, you probably also want to ask questions of the regular faculty that you meet through the day. Yet, campus interviews can involve a tricky balance. If the only questions that you ask are about whether or not the town is liveable for queer people, you might inadvertently send the message that your are turned off by the location. The established faculty of a small town might be sensitive about their location and imagine that you are unwilling to live there. So, make conscious decisions to spread out a variety of questions to different faculty that you meet. Also arrange your questions so that they are not accusatory. Try asking, “Can you tell me a bit about the queer community in this lovely town?” instead of, “Can a gay man possibly survive in this backwater Texas hell hole?”



I would ask a couple of different people, but not every person, about what they perceive as the major issues for queer folk on campus. If you are in the humanities or social sciences, you might also ask if any of the existing faculty currently teach on queer topics and how that has been received by students. If you are a queer parent, it seems important to know whether the school system has experience with non-hetero families. It would be a drag to have to spend your time educating the town’s educators.


Expect the Bizarre

The interview process is a grueling gauntlet. Making it worse is the fact that you are sometimes going to encounter looney situations (or people) while a guest of a particular department. You might encounter faculty who have no idea about what is appropriate conduct for an on-campus interview. As a cherished former colleague of mine always recommended, “Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.” Indeed, most of the usual interviewing gaffs (but not all) are committed by those who are poorly informed about their professional responsibilities. Nonetheless, it can take you off guard. Let me mention some examples that I have encountered.


Though I have usually made it clear to the search chair before I arrive that I am gay, and my c.v. suggests strongly that I am gay, I have nonetheless been asked if I was [heterosexually] married on every single on-campus interview that I have ever had. Every. Single. One.

Responding to such questions is tricky. Though illegal, are you supposed to call the police? Is there a special “campus interview” division assigned to crack down on such violations? Nope.

It’s not that I care whether the faculty know that I am gay. Rather, it puts me in an uncomfortable situation where I have the choice of either pointing out their erroneous (read: heterocentric) assumptions and, thus, embarrassing them (which, even when I am not interviewing, isn’t exactly my favorite thing to do). Or, I have to evade the question (which makes me feel bad and closeted, too). The best you can do is come up with a plan before you arrive on campus about how to respond in a gracious manner.

Those questions, though, are nothing compared to other awkward moments that I have encountered. During one memorable campus interview (that didn’t go great all the way around), my request to meet with other queer faculty brought me to a nice, but misguided, lesbian. While she intended to be helpful, the sum of her advice for a young gay interviewee was peculiar. Noting that the small town lacked a gay bar, she offered up the various campus bathrooms that were known for their gay male cruising as an alternative. There was no good way to mention that I am not that type of gay. In that instance, I would have preferred she talked up the local Trader Joe’s.

It made me wonder if she actually considered that stating that the only viable option for gay men in the town was anonymous sex near dirty urinals was “selling her university.” It also goes to prove that lesbians and gay men don’t always have insight into the best needs of the other group.



Location, Location, Location

Taking a job as a queer scholar frequently involves moving to a state or location where the majority of voters have declared that we are not eligible for equal rights or protection under the law. Forget questions about a hostile work environment, some queer scholars have to contend with a hostile living environment. From more than one of my friends I have heard stories about their first job’s stress being compounded by harassing phone calls or other threatening behavior because they were one of the few out scholars on campus. While those were extreme instances, decide ahead of time what level of homophobic climate you are willing to tolerate. Only you can decide if any job is worth it.



Even in small towns where homophobia is relatively mild, queer scholars often feel isolated. Indeed, most of my queer friends and colleagues across the nation complain to me about the actual location of their job more than any other factor (Including the rigors of getting tenure). How often have I heard, “I love my colleagues. My students are great. This job would be simply perfect – if it was in Chicago.”?

Most of these complaints have to do with a perceived lack of “community.” It’s a word that really signifies different things for different people. Some are not happy unless there are several gay bars within walking distance (Let me tell you, if a town has only one gay bar, you do get tired of it mighty quick). Others, though, are content to know that there is one other gay person within 50 miles. Still others want to know that there are active community centers or professional organizations. Some want a specific community of queer parents.



Whatever the case, most queer folk prefer to be in an area that can provide at least a reasonable circle of queer friends. If one is single, the need for a larger queer community becomes all the more urgent. Urban centers like New York, Chicago, Boston, and others more than meet that requirement for most people.

Unfortunately, you might have noticed that most of the nation’s universities are located far from urban centers like New York, Chicago, Boston, and others. This was no accident. Most of the nation’s universities opened in the nineteenth century. Their founders imagined that universities had to be isolated from the illicit temptations of city life that would corrupt impressionable students. Queer men were one of the most illicit of those temptations. If you imagine that you can only live in an urban setting, I am here to tell you that the academic deck is stacked against you.

Because queer people are such a tiny minority of the entire population, being in a small town necessarily means that the options for a single queer person seeking a romantic attachment, or even a means to pass the time, is going to be limited. Indeed, many queer people who are not in academia actively choose to move away from those very same towns to reach an urban setting.

Alas, I have no solution to this problem. If I did, my friends would worship me. Or, I should say worship me more than they already do. I am pretty worshipable.

My best recommendation would be to expand your imagination and expect to do a lot of driving. Some opt to live in the closest city-sized place they can find. This, though, usually means a significant commute (which can interfere with your progress towards tenure). Others actively decide to live a life of the mind. Either way, remember that obtaining tenure is your primary goal.


In the end, many queer scholars feel that they don’t have a choice in terms of employment. Assuming that you are going to insist upon living indoors, any job offer is going to seem preferable than nothing at all. We all have to earn those coins. If that is the case, remember that nothing has to be forever. The most important thing to do is to make the best informed choices that one can make, work hard at getting tenure, and always keep an eye on those job postings in New England.

Sexism in the City

One of the constant themes of this blog is that GayProf is absolutely no fun as a movie companion. My gravitas will largely overshadow any enjoyment of a film, especially if it involves a post-viewing critique. One shouldn’t be surprised, therefore, that I have some tart words for the Sex in the City film.

Let me be up front with the fact that I never actually watched the show when it was on the air. HBO wasn’t in my budget, so I missed its six-year run. It got to be so crazy popular among certain sectors of the straight-woman/gay man world, however, that I started to feel the need to feign interest in it. Even without premium cable, one couldn’t escape the show’s icons: cosmo cocktails, “Mr. Big,” and glossy scenes that are more about showing pretty, pretty dresses than actual plot or character development.

So when some gay friends suggested that we see the film this past weekend, I agreed. Heck, it was better than working on the Never Ending Research Project of Doom. Actually, having a catheter inserted would be better than working on the Never Ending Research Project of Doom.

For those (like me) who only had a vague sense of its composition, Sex and the City centered on four thirty-something (four forty-somethings in the film) white, straight women, each with their own personality quirks, seeking love and romance in New York.

I understand (or at least think that I understand) the appeal of the show/film for its target audiences of straight women/gay men. First and foremost, it is escapist fluff. The show/film is a consumer fantasy where money falls from the sky, fashion is everything, and the most complicated problem in your life is how to have a three-way without the nanny hearing or smudging your makeup. Given the crippling economic depression that is appearing in this nation, I am not surprised that many people want vicarious, carefree adventures involving the wealthy.

Like most HBO productions, it also relied on sexual titillation (heavy on the “tit”), but without the creepy violence of Oz. The show’s title was not a shy reference nor did it depend on mere sexual innuendo. From what I understand, many of the episodes would have made Helen Gurley Brown blush.

Sex and capitalism, despite what Fox executives might think, aren’t enough to make a show a hit (even in the U.S). So, why did so many women viewers become cult followers of Carrie, et al’s fictional love lives?



Unlike most representations of single women on television to that point, these women characters had active sex lives that they enjoyed without apology. Against gender stereotypes, the show said that women could be just as sexually adventurous, daring, and even raunchy as men (The show was often written by gay men – which is something for somebody else to explore).

It also showed a type of sisterly bond among the protagonists that had been one of the lost promises of second-wave feminism. They created their own support networks that were outside the scope of the men in their lives. Every week (day?), they met over drinks to discuss their latest romps or heartbreaks and shared their lives. It’s small wonder, therefore, that the show filled a much desired gap for its viewer ship. Many women were probably tired of characters like Ally McBeal, who seemingly only wanted to have sex and a relationship as means to end her spinsterhood and finally have a baby.

That’s all to the good, I suppose. Still, the Sex-in-the-City franchise is a poor substitute for actual sexual liberation or gender equality. The film more often reenforced the gender and sexual (and racial) status quo than challenged it (and I can only really talk about the film since, despite that exposition, I have never really seen the show (and I am willing to concede that the show might be substantively different than the film (but that would require me watching the six seasons of it, which I don’t want to do after watching the film))). I know, there will be immediate naysayers and scoffers. Heck, one of my film companions complained that “GayProf just didn’t get it.” A true statement.

Why didn’t I “get it?” Well, firstly there were the huge racist presumptions that went into the film. For a more careful reading, see Diary of an Anxious Black Woman (found via HistoriAnn). She succinctly explains the “Mammy 2.0" that appears midway through the film as “Louise,” Carrie’s assistant/wet nurse. That alone made my flesh crawl in the film. I am tired of the mainstream media serving up the same-old racist shit and having to pretend like it isn’t that big of a deal.



Before going to the big screen, the producers of Sex in the City recognized that their show had long been criticized for its lack of racial diversity (despite being set in one of the most diverse cities on the planet). One can imagine that somewhere in a board meeting, a [white] writer proposed the character of Louise as a solution to this quandary. “We need a woman of color to shut them up,” the producer exclaimed, “What do women of color like to do?” “Don’t they like to serve white people?” this writer offered, “At least until they get married and have babies?” “That’s brilliant! Write it up.”

My other major problem with this film is the way that it conformed to narrow views of sexuality, relationships, and marriage. Maybe I am jaded (What am I saying? “Maybe????”), but we don’t need another candy-coated celebration of heterosexual, monogamous marriage.

The heterosexual bit came in the total absence of lesbian characters (despite one of the main actors being a real-life lesbian) and the only cursory inclusion of gay men. If Louise was Mammy 2.0, then white gay men were Mammy 3.0. [white] Gay men existed flatly in this film to happily serve straight women in planning their wedding, giving advice, and offering snappy fashion quips. In an opening scene, they also offered a passing joke/titillation (low on the “tit.”). For a show written by gay men, it’s pretty homophobic.

More than that, though, the film played into some durable, sexist assumptions about heterosexual relationships. At its core, the film argued that, even when they are wrong, straight men are always right.

If we eliminated the fashion shows and extended shots of footwear, the film’s plot centered on three of the main characters facing problems in their relationships. Carrie wants to marry “Mr. Big;” Miranda discovers that her husband had a one-night stand; and Samantha feels unfulfilled in her monogamous prison relationship.

Let’s start with the last. On the surface, Samantha should be the critique of monogamy and traditional conceptions of marriage. Indeed, her character unmasks the tedium that is associated with monogamy (which she compares to chemotherapy). She faces daily temptation from a hot Los-Angeles neighbor, whose shower is apparently located outdoors. Ultimately, Samantha realizes that monogamy is not for her.



Potentially that decision could have been a bold statement in the film. Its execution, however, suggests otherwise. Samantha does not renegotiate her relationship with her current partner to something more open (Sex is sex, love is love -- Relationships don't have to be based on society's expectations of monogamy). That is ruled out even before it's mentioned. In Sex in the City, relationships are apparently all or nothing.

Instead, Samantha packs her bags and heads back to New York. We are never shown that she has a better life single and non-monogamous (or non-single and non-monogamous). We don’t even know if she lost all her frustration-weight! In the end, she is alone with her girlfriends celebrating her fiftieth birthday.

If Samantha’s resolution is, at best, ambiguous, the other dilemmas are much more clear cut. We are led to believe that it is entirely Miranda’s “fault” that her husband cheated on her. After all, she cared much more about her career and her child than satisfying him sexually. Plus, she stopped waxing her vagina! What was Miranda expecting? Even the best man is going to cheat under those circumstances.

The film never offered that the problem is bigger than Miranda or her slutty husband (who was presented as a saint). Maybe the problem is the expectation of monogamy? Maybe the problem is the way that marriage, in our society, presumes that one person belongs to another?

Nope, says Sex in the City, the problem is frigid, career-oriented women. These poor, delusional women think they can do it all: marriage, job, children. They are really nuts and selfish. Sadly, it’s their innocent men who suffer because of them.

After Miranda goes to therapy (not to deal with the obvious betrayal, but instead to figure out why she is so wrong in not forgiving her cheating dog of a husband), she reveals that she is afraid that she will be left by him. Being alone is a fate worse than death in Sex in the City. What is a woman without her man? Nothing -- That's what. Their reunion on the Brooklyn Bridge is the triumph of the heterosexual family.



Finally, Carrie’s storyline is all about conforming to gender expectations. Carrie and “Mr. Big” decide to get married early in the movie (maybe around the third catwalk of dresses). Mr. Big buys Carrie her dream apartment, complete with a walk-in closet bigger than my studio in Boston.

Carrie, though, has at least heard the word “feminism.” She begins to wonder if she would have any legal recourse should Mr. Big dump her and take away that fabulous prewar abode. They both come to the legalistic conclusion that marriage is really about property. So far, so good as far as GayProf is concerned.

Then things kinda go off track. Carrie starts trying on wedding dresses, hires a gay wedding planner (Mammy 3.0), and poses for Vogue magazine. Before you know it, her wedding plans make Princess Di’s look like the christening of a Greyhound bus. All the pomp and circumstance results in Mr. Big standing her up at the altar.

For the next hour and a half, we watch as Carrie puts her life back together (thanks, in part, to Mammy 2.0). When she finally is independent, however, Carrie returns to the house that Mr. Big built and realizes that she was the one who was truly in the wrong. Sure, he jilted her – but he was forced to do so by her greedy self-interest. Had she just recognized what a good provider he was, Mr. Big would never have left her.

While I am definitely on-board with the film’s message that people are spending too much on their wedding(s), I am not at all on-board with the film’s message that marriage is a necessity (unless you want to end up fat and alone like Samantha). I would have been much more satisfied if the film argued that sex and love don’t require a binding contract.



Sex and the City pulled off a neat masquerade. Nice clothes and great hair cloaked a retrograde message that happy relationships necessarily require women’s sublimation.

Change, Not Demise

Over the past couple of weeks, two different theories emerged that predicted the future end of “gay culture.” In the first, a Baptist minister speculated that babies would eventually be chemically altered invitro if scientists discovered a “gay gene.” This, he argued, would prevent gay men and lesbians from ever being born. The second, seemingly less sinister prediction, involved an Associated Press story that noted that “gay villages” are disappearing from urban landscapes. As urban demographics change, major cities’ explicit or implicit gay neighborhoods, like the West Village and Chelsea in New York City, Washington's Dupont Circle, or Boston's South End, have become diluted with (mostly white) heterosexual couples. Some argue that queer folk have become so accepted by mainstream society that such neighborhoods are no longer viable as queer-only spaces.

To my mind, there are many things wrong with each of these arguments. Both presume that there is an essentialized gay identity. One bases gay identity in biology. The other bases it in geography. Neither, though, pays attention to the complexity of sexuality.

There is not much to say about the Baptist minister’s desire to wipe queer people out of existence. Of course, it warms my heart to be construed as a “biological error” or some type of evolutionary dead-end. These types of arguments suggest nothing about actual biology. Rather, they speak to the tremendous emphasis this society still places on sexual practice to structure social relationships. Some have suggested that the minister’s acknowledgment of the possibility of a genetic “cause” of homosexuality is a step-forward by itself. In the immortal words of Shania, that don’t impress me much.

On the contrary, the history of twentieth-century homophobia is a story of science looking for same-sex desire to be rooted in some type of somatic pathology. Looking for the “cause” of homosexuality in order to “treat it” is not novel, even among radical Christians. We can find plenty of evidence of gay men and women who suffered horrific medical experiments to end their same-sex desires. Perhaps the only change here is that the minister is proposing that those experiments take place on embryos rather than actual adult individuals.

These “scientific” efforts are never accompanied by studies seeking to find the “cause” of heterosexuality. If we find the heterosexual gene, would the good Baptist consider it my right, as a parent, to ensure that my children came out gay? I am going to guess no.

The argument about geography, however, is also alarmist about the demise of “gay culture” as well. This vantage point, however, undermines queers’ agency just as equally.



An argument exists that queer folk have wider social networks than previous generations. Because of this larger network, they continue, there is not a need to have as much invested in a “queer community.” This, I think, is a dubious argument. Queers, as a minority, have always had to grapple with the larger population. Our social networks have always extended beyond bedrooms and bars. Perhaps what has changed is that those networks overlap more than they did in the past as the need for secrecy has been reduced for most people.

There are also branches of the queer community that hold divisive perspectives that celebrate these changes in urban life. One group advocates for total queer assimilation, exclusive monogamous marriage, and middle-class values as the only “legitimate” way to express one’s queerness. This group implicitly or explicitly argues that the more queers “act like” their hetero counterparts the more we will be “accepted” by general society. To them, “gay ghettos” are frustrating reminders of that difference.

In a similar tone, there are a few advocates for the intellectually hollow “post-gay” identity. This group claims to have “evolved” beyond what they imagine as urban-gay life. They have decided that they way they live their identity and express themselves is more “authentic” than other queer people. Both of these positions are self-serving as a means to claim a smug superiority over their queer brothers and sisters. They also naïvely believe that sexual difference no longer matters in this nation (even as they are perfectly willing to deploy their sexuality in social and economic situations where it will benefit them (such as working for a queer-oriented company)).

Just because we are no longer arrested for our sexual practices does not mean that we have achieved sexual freedom. Ignoring that a difference exists between queers and heteros is not helpful. Even worse is naming those differences as being the “fault” of stubborn urban queers who refuse to assimilate.

To be honest, I neither celebrate nor mourn the changing geographic organization of this nation’s cities in relation to sexuality. Rather, I think that we need to be more cognizant, as a group, about why these changes occur and how we interpret them. Moreover, we also need an awareness about the historical circumstances that resulted in the creation of the these neighborhoods in the first place.



I don’t believe that we are on the verge of an era of sexual ambiguity or that gay identity is about to disappear. First, people with desires for same-sex sex are always going to be inclined to congregate with each other. The mere desire to have sex, especially a desire for efficiently finding a sex partner, is going to prompt people to find predominately queer establishments.

While the urban landscape might be changing, I find that the number of queer-only venues to be on the rise. Gay and lesbian cruises, for instance, have become a tremendous cash boon for the tourist industry. Likewise, internet services exist that specialize in everything from random hook-ups to long-term marriages. This has provided new means to increase the level of contact among the queer population. We also live in an era with countless magazines and a television network that market exclusively to the queer community.

Changes in the urban geography, I believe, are not necessarily rooted in a decreased desire among queers to associate together. Rather, I think that commercialism has temporarily usurped those spaces. Instead of clamming that queer identity is fading, I believe we need to be more aware of who is controlling the image of that identity. In a trend appearing across the urban and suburban landscape, major corporations are seeking to create a “sameness” of experience in order to peddle their wares. Pottery Barn might have replaced a local gay bar, but that does not necessarily mean that there was a lack of interest in the that bar. Rather, any locally owned establishment simply can’t compete with economic power of such enterprises.

Moreover, my anecdotal encounters with various gay men in Boston suggests a dissatisfaction with this trend. Most gay men that I have met express a desire for more queer establishments and neighborhoods. It’s just a matter of time before entrepreneurial individuals meet this demand. Probably these new centers will be located in different areas, but they will still serve community needs.

We can’t ignore that changes in information technology, social concepts of sexuality, or economic shifts that have opened the possibilities for greater queer mobility and interaction. What this means to me, though, is that a sense of queer community has become increasingly diverse. We need to resist the notion of queer identity as waning or the idea that society is becoming more homogenous.

Both the Baptist minister and arguments about the “loss of gay culture” presume that we, as a group, are powerless to define our own identities. Notions of a shared identity do not emerge from biology or by simply living in the same neighborhoods. Searching for a single source or meaning for queer identity collapses the diversity of our community. Rather, community and shared identity emerge from our interactions. It is the acknowledgment of shared experiences and a shared position within the larger society that has the potential to unite us queer folk.

Beware of Strawmen

Bloggers and the news media are buzzing and fretting about Ann Coulter [indirectly] calling John Edwards a faggot at a prominent right-wing political gathering. To me, this is actually a distracting ploy that dangerously obscures the right’s greater insidiousness.

True, Coulter’s popularity baffles me. I always suspected that she suffered from undiagnosed Tourett’s syndrome. Whatever hateful thing enters her mind, she says freely. Concern for other humans does not register in her mind. This suggests to me that she needs serious medical treatment.

Whatever the case, Ann Coulter just isn’t smart. Her writings, instead, appeal to people’s worst elements. These types of slurs, which are common for Coulter, show her intellectual poverty. She gets attention more for her bizarre irrationality than any type of reasoned argument. Indeed, Coulter never puts forward interesting or insightful plans for government, whatever her political agenda.

All of that means it’s better to simply ignore her. If people read her or don’t read her, I don’t really care – She just isn’t that important. People in power (on either side of the political spectrum) seemingly consider her an irrelevant side-show.

What I find dishonest is that she becomes a means for the other right-wing extremists to make themselves seem more palatable. Every single Republican (and most Democrats) who have declared their intention to run for president have stated that they think queer relationships are less valuable than hetero relationships. Most Republicans, moreover, explicitly argue that queer people are less worthy citizens than their hetero counterparts.



Mitt Romney, for instance, is building his presidential campaign around the unusual strategy of disparaging the state and people whom he governed. In particular, Romney disdains the “radical” idea that equality should exist under the law. This has recently won him the top-spot in a poll among conservative activists. To get that honor, Romney has firmly come-out against sexual freedom. Indeed, he has ignored the social (and even religious) complexity of the nation and created his own fantasy vision of the United States.

Romney outright rejects queer relationships and parenting. "Today, same-sex couples are marrying under the law in Massachusetts. Some are actually having children born to them,'' he told a mindless crowd of fanatical conservatives, "It's not right on paper. It's not right in fact. Every child has the right to have a mother and a father." It's funny, I always thought that children had a right to a safe and loving home, access to medical care, and a free education. Apparently, though, I was just way off base. All of those things are much less important than making sure that every household has a little penis-vagina sex going on inside.

Romney argues that even being friendly with gay folk disqualifies you as president. He has attempted to discredit his political rival Rudy Giuliani by calling him “pro-gay” (an appraisal of Giuliani that I, as a gay man, would not share). In Romney’s mind, being “pro-gay” and Republican don’t mix.



Don’t think, though, that Romney only hates the queers. He has plenty of hate to go around, including single hetero parents. "The family structure is critical to our society,” Romney recently stated, “We will not succeed if 60 percent of our children are born out of wedlock," he said.” For this candidate, they only possibility of success is if the nation conforms to a narrow model of “family” based on heterosexual marriage. Romney, I can only guess, must watch a lot of Donna Reed reruns.

Even as he takes stabs at single hetero parents, Romney knows that [verbal] gay-bashing will bring in the most votes and cash. He can predict doom and chaos if queers form families or are too visible in society. Romney has basically argued that God granted the hating of queer people as the special privilege and duty of fanatical Christians.

Like any good Republican, Giuliani quickly responded to being wrongly labeled “pro-gay.” The former New-York mayor assured the nation that he believes that gays and lesbians should always be treated as second-class citizens. "Marriage should be between a man and a woman," Giuliani told the conservative talk show host Sean Hanity, "Here's exactly the position I've always had. And it's the same — and I feel the same way about it today that I did eight, ten years ago when I signed the domestic partnership legislation: marriage should be between a man and a woman. It should remain that way."



Now we all know that I don’t think gay marriage should be the number one issue for queer activists. Like it or not, though, gay marriage has become the means through which the right-wing can mobilize the existing hatred and fear of queer people in this country for their own political purposes. Let’s not forget that Bush’s 2004 election victory was built, in part, on the backs of gay-men. All of these Republican candidates figure they can do likewise.

Yet, at the news of Coulter’s remark, these same Republican candidates made it an opportunity to present themselves as not at all hateful. Romney’s spokesman Kevin Madden said, "It was an offensive remark. Political discourse ought to be more substantive and thoughtful." McCain and Giuliani called Coulter's words “inappropriate,” according to the New York Times. These carefully crafted responses did not actually make any reference to the real violence and harassment that queer people face at the hands of people like Coulter. Instead, the best they could come up with was that such words just weren’t nice.

Much of the attention on this issue has been focused on how unfair it was that John Edwards, a straight man, should be subjected to such torment. The fact that gays and lesbians face this type of harassment on an almost daily basis in some parts of this nation gets little mention.

These Republican candidates get to play it both ways. They can appear magnanimous by condemning a hateful epithet, but promote policies that guarantee that heterosexuals have special rights and privileges denied to queer people. These campaigns tacitly make us the objects of both verbal and physical assaults even as they claim such things are "unfortunate."

Romney, Giuliani, and McCain might say that it’s not right to call us faggots, but they make it clear that it’s just fine to treat us like faggots.

They Don't Know Me

Christian fanatics have a lot of time and money on their hands. Maybe all that self-denial and repression frees up your schedule. Every time I turn around some hateful Christian is running off to court to try and eliminate other people’s rights (Yet, they are also the first ones to claim that they hate “activist judges” and courts that decide social issues).

Where do they find the time? I don’t have a spare moment to contest a parking ticket. Yet these folk spend all day long in court. Don't they have jobs? Who is taking care of that gaggle of kids they keep churning out irresponsibly?

Most recently, a federal judged dismissed a case brought by the mean-spirited David and Tonia Parker and Joseph and Robin Wirthlin. These “parents” sued a Lexington, Massachusetts school because the teacher had the nerve to tell second-grade students that (*gasp*) gay people exist in the world and (horrors!) they have the right to marry in this state. These Christian parents argued that the school infringed on their right to force their children to be hateful monsters. The core of their argument suggests that their children have no rights and must unthinkingly adopt a religious doctrine like their parents. From this Christian perspective, children are their property and should not be allowed exposure to any other viewpoints – or the reality of human diversity.

In particular, the parents got all tied-up over the children’s story King and King. In this fairy-tale, a young prince, under orders to marry, interviews a number of princesses. Ultimately, though, he finds that the person that he loves is another prince.

Well, there was the problem right there. Love? We know how much Christian fanatics hate love. Nothing makes them more angry. Marriage isn't supposed to be about love. Marriage should be as God intended it: unhappy, filled with remorse, and about one person owning another.

It did get me to thinking. Fanatical Christians like the Parkers and Wirthlins must have very little idea about what my personal life is like as a gay man. Gay men and lesbians are just abstractions that they use to avoid thinking about how empty and wasted their own lives are.

They must conjure a very peculiar view of what daily life is like for us queer folk. Here is what I imagine they think that gay men do with our days:

9:00-10:00 am: Wake up, Urinate on New Testament

10:00-10:45 am: Seduce unsuspecting heterosexual Christian preachers. That’s what keeps us gay men looking so youthful.

10:45-11:15 am: Burn down a children’s hospital.

11:15-11:45 am: Undermine a heterosexual marriage. Our goal is to end civilization as we know it, but we can only do that by undermining one hetero marriage at a time. Eyes on the prize.

11:45 am-12:45pm: Lunch, consisting of Cottage Cheese and pineapple.

12:45-1:15 pm: Dress as Cher

1:15 – 1:30 pm: Infiltrate public schools – Arrange a curriculum that contains almost no information about heterosexuality. Teach children that the only authentic expression of love occurs while wearing a leather mask.



1:30 – 2:00 pm: Orgy with a Roman theme – Precipitate the collapse of the U.S. Empire

2:00-2:30 pm: Take a person-to-person call from Satan.

2:30- 3:30 pm: Compete in the regional softball tournament that pits gay men against lesbians.

3:30 – 4:00 pm: Go to a local church and replace the holy water with sulfuric acid.

4:00 - 4:30 pm: Write and produce all of the news and entertainment currently available in the United States – ‘cuz we are so well represented in the mainstream media.

4:30 – 5:00 pm: Show up in Tim Hardaway’s locker room and just, you know, linger.

5:00 – 5:30 pm: Canvass the neighborhood passing out informational literature in efforts to recruit people to be gay. Borrow strategies from both Christian missionaries and Avon. Have you heard the word? The good word of man-on-man sweaty action? Now in shimmering Sunset Rose!

5:30 – 6:00 pm: Break into heterosexuals’ houses in order to redecorate them.

6:00-6:45pm: Sensible dinner.

6:45 – 7:15 pm: Go to a local bar and just arm wrestle for half an hour.



7:15 – 7:30 pm: Style somebody's hair.

7:30 – 8:15 pm: Sing karaoke.

8:15 – 9:30 pm: Organize and star in a Broadway Musical

9:30 – 10:45 pm: Sex with random strangers. I mean, come on, we don’t bother to look at the guy’s face.

10:45 –12:00 am: Hide under Christians’ beds until they fall asleep.

This must be what the bizarre Christian folk think of my days. That is just so unfair. Really, I can only accomplish 30 or 40 percent of this on any given day. Plus, have you seen the price of sulfuric acid these days? And those Roman orgies don’t just spontaneously happen. There’s a lot of planning that goes into one of those. A Roman orgy isn't a daily event with that level of work. You need to block out a whole weekend for that. Renting that donkey can be a hassle.

Of course, the big thing that separates fanatical Christians from me is that I mostly don’t care about this list. Even the things that the Christians fear most seem like pretty small potatoes. Well, except maybe the hospital thing. Probably burning them with acid would be extreme too – probably.