Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Collective
As a group of gay men we believe it necessary to work
out a marxist theory of sexuality. As gays, we have each
been forced into examining why heterosexual society
abuses, reviles and persecutes us. Each of us has come to
realize that this oppression is linked with the role of the
family and the subjection of women. These in turn are,
we believe, related to the capitalist system of production.
By working . together, developing our understanding of
capitalism and sharing our experiences of intolerance, we
will attempt to draw the links between the family, the
oppression of women and gay people, and the class structure of society.
The present collective, which has for some time been
meeting regularly, decide for the time being at least, that
we could best explore our sexist attitudes most truthfully,
in an all-male group.
Where We Stand
The women's movement was the first, historically, to
pose the need to confront sexism. Sexism is the discrimination against people on the grounds of their gender or
sexual orientation ; it is the stereotype expectation of what
women and men should be or do. The anti-sexist struggle
was a major part of the early gay liberation movement.
This developed out of the contradictions of a society which
proclaimed the 'sexual revolution' but limited sexual freedom to the young, the pretty, the heterosexual. The early
Gay Liberation Front proclaimed that sexism and the
resulting oppression of women and gays was so endemic
to society that it could only be obliterated by a transformation of society. But this was a statement more on the level
of moral exhortation than of scientific analysis. As a group
we feel the need for a materialist analysis of sexual
oppression and hope that this journal will contribute to
that end.
It seems clear to us that sexism is generated and perpetuated in the family unit. In capitalist society the family
has a two-fold function: economic and ideological.
Firstly, the sharp polarization of male/female roles in
the family, with the male role dominant in production, the
female subordinate in the home or secondary labour
market, serves the economic needs of capitalism. The
system of domestic production, centred in the home, and
integrating all members of the family into it, was replaced
during the early part of the nineteenth century by the
growth of factory production which tore the worker from
the home.
The then existing role differentiation between men and
women sharpened during this early factory period as male
workers became the dominant wage earners and women,
being responsible for child-care in the home, and earning
only half the equivalent male wage when working, were
forced into the roles of housewife, mother and secondary
labourer. Because the factory system made families entirely dependent on wages, the work done by women in the
home, which didn't earn a wage, tended to be seen as
valueless. Similarly, the fact that women earned less as
workers, tended to reinforce their subservient economic
and social position relative to men.
The needs of the factory system were met by this subservient position of women because they provided a pool of
cheap labour that could be drawn on when needed, e.g.,
during periods of economic expansion and easily discarded
when employment shrank. The production of domestic
work, i.e. the raising and care of workers, was ensured
without being a drain on the profits of the workplace.
The present ideological framework of male and female
roles can therefore be seen as a manifestation of the
particular sexual division of labour which arose as a
consequence of the growing dominance of industrial
capital.
Secondly, the family has an ideological role, both in
perpetuating the class position of its members (the female's
class position is always defined by that of her husband) and
in defining the subordination of the woman, economically,
socially and emotionally, to the man. It claims as natural
what has been socially created and moulds the emotions to
serve the sexually created gender expectations. In the process it rejects homosexuals, transvestites, transexuals:
people who do not conform to the social expectations that
are needed to perpetuate the capitalist economy. Whatever
the ideological forms it takes (the religious one of 'sin', the
medical one of 'sickness') ultimately gay oppression is a
result of the demands made on the family by a capitalist
society.
Editorial Note
In the first issue of Gay Left members of the collective
have contributed nearly all the articles. We have attempted
to explore sexual politics from a revolutionary point of
view and hope that in future we will receive a response on
the part of the gay community and particularly from those
members who are socialists.
In one way we feel that this issue has not completely
fulfilled our aims. There are no articles on lesbianism or
female sexuality. We realize that the oppression of gay
people is intrinsically bound together with the oppression
of women, but this first issue inevitably relates to our own
experiences as gay men.
In future issues we would like women, either as individuals or in collectives, to contribute their own articles
to the magazine. Only by these sorts of exchanges can we
all work for an understanding of our position as gay men
and women who are socialists.
We ask for articles, reviews, letters, notes of meetings,
relevant press cuttings, etc. from all gay socialists, men or
women. The only proviso, which we as a collective have
hammered out, is that we will not publish any main articles which directly subvert the editorial policies. That is to
say, we will not publish articles which are anti-Marxist,
anti-socialist, anti-feminist or anti-gay.
Members of the Gay Left collective are:
Contents
Where Engels Feared to Tread. Jeffrey Weeks
Gays and the Trade Union Movement. Bob Cant
Gays in Cuba. Keith Birch
The Case of John Warburton. Nigel Young
Coming Out Politically. R. Kincaid
CHE in Close Up. Emmanuel Cooper
Gay Workers' Conference. Gregg Blachford
Document. David Widgery
Book Reviews
Guttersnips
3
6
8
9
10
12
12
14
14
16
Engels et al
The starting point for our exploration must lie in the
works of Marx and Engels, and Engel's Origin of the
Family is the locus classicus for the search. This work
begins with the absolutely essential precondition for a
Marxist analysis, the assumption that the sexual division
of labour, between men and women, and the historical
supremacy of men over women, has a material base, is
Homosexual Rights
However, although never integrated into Marxist theory,
demands for homosexual law reform were taken up by a
number of socialists in the period c1890 to 1930in
Germany, Britain and the USSR. We must be clear about
the basis on which this was done.
The last couple of decades of the nineteenth century saw
a tightening up on the restrictions against homosexuality
in many leading capitalist countries, and particularly in
Germany and Britain. The notorious Paragraph 175 of
the German penal code, and the 1885 Labouchere
amendment in England had the function of controlling
male homosexual behaviour and of more sharply defining
the acceptable heterosexual male role: as W. T. Stead
said in the wake of the Oscar Wilde trial 'the male is
sacrosanct ; the female is fair game'.(7) The result on the
part of liberal reformers, and increasingly on the part of
some homosexuals themselves, was a campaign to change
the law and public opinion. This had two overlapping
aspects: the political campaign to support change in the
penal codes ; and a theoretical attempt to conceptualise
homosexuality. In both respects, Germans were in the
vanguard, with Magnus Hirschfeld as the dominant figure ;
the German gay movement found a more muted response
in England, with individuals such as Edward Carpenter
and Havelock Ellis as the most prominent publicists.
Theoretically the aim was to prove that homosexuality was
not a sin, nor properly a sickness, and therefore ought not
to be a crime. It was seen, in Havelock Ellis's word, as
an anomoly, based on biological variation, while
Hirschfeld (and Carpenter) preferred to see homosexuals
as forming an 'intermediate sex'. The important point to
note is that except on the fringes of the movement no
attempt was made to question existing definitions of
gender roles. On the contrary, the existence of
homosexuals was not used to challenge gender concepts
but to confirm them. The political consequence of this
was to place the debate on the level of civil rights for a
sexual minority who could not help being what they were.
This in turn demanded an orientation to law reform, and
,gaining maximum support for pressure to be brought on
the appropriate legislating bodies. Oscar Wilde had
written:
' Nothing but the repeal of the Criminal Law Amendment
Act would do any good. That is the essential. It is not so
much public opinion as public officials that need
education'.(8)
This sort of approach led to a consistent attempt to
present an ultra-respectable image for gay people.
Hirschfeld admitted that he had played down pederasty
for fear of delaying law reform, and both he and Ellis
in Britain created in their studies a clear image of the
upright and moral character of their male homosexual
subjects. A consequence, of course was to a large extent
the ignoring of lesbianism, which was not subject to legal
penalties, although the subject did become a matter of
public controversy later (e.g. during The Well of
Loneliness case in Britain). Further, because of the
emphasis on law reform efforts had to be made to
maximise cross class support, and hence a real reluctance
to commit the campaign to a clear political position.
Hirschfeld himself was a supporter of the (then) Marxist
Social Democratic Party and his earliest political support
had come from this quarter. Edward Bernstein, before
his revisionist heresies, contributed an important analysis
of the material base of bourgeois sexual hypocrisy in the
wake of the Wilde trial ; and August Bebel, a founder of
the S.D.P., gave his support in the Reichstag to law
reform.(9) He seems to have found Hirschfeld's campaign
too apolitical, in fact, and urged him to go further in
mobilising support in the early 1900s. By 1912 Hirschfeld's
Scientific-Humanitarian Committee came out for a more
consistently political commitment. They issued an
advertisement just before the 1912 election as follows:
' Third Sex : Consider This! In the Reichstag, on May 31,
1905, members of the Centre, the Conservatives, and the
Economic Alliance spoke against you .. but for you
the orators of the Left! Agitate and vote accordingly!'
Gay Left 4
Reaction
The question was always seen as one of individual civil
rights, and the civil rights argument is the one that is most
consistently being taken up again in the modern socialist
tendencies as they find it necessary to respond to the gay
liberation movement. But the view that has dominated
Marxist orthodoxy since the 1930s is that of
homosexuality as a bourgeois deviation and decadence.
There are two overlapping sources for this. The first is the
Stalinist counter revolution in the Soviet Union in the
1930s, which subordinated all aspects of personal
freedom to the priorities of production as determined by
a parasitic bureaucracy. The strengthening of the family
was seen as a necessary part of this, and with it went the
revocation of most of the legal gains of the early
revolutionary period. In March 1934 homosexuality again
became a criminal offence in the U.S.S.R.(13) It was
specifically defined as a product of 'decadence in the
bourgeois sector of society' and a 'fascist perversion'.
The apparent rampant homosexuality of the upper
echelons of the Nazi party was used as one element in
justification. In fact, Hirschfeld's books had already been
burnt in Nazi Germany, and almost simultaneously with
Stalin's clamp down the Roehm purge (the 'night of the
long knives') inaugurated a new wave of terror against
German gays. The fascist counter-revolution of the 1930's
took homosexuals as one of its categories of scapegoats.
But because of the central role of Stalinism in the world
communist movement there was no challenge to this sexual
counter-revolution in the various C.P.'s. A belief in
homosexuality as a bourgeois decadence survives in many
of the Stalinist Parties to this day.
The second source is closely intertwined with the first
and stems from a particular interpretation of the psychoanalytical tradition. This sets up a norm of heterosexual
`genital sexuality' as the height of sexual relations, and
homosexuality is seen as a falling from this. The work of
Wilhelm Reich is the locus for much of this attitude.
Juliet Mitchell has shown the way in which his values were
a reaction against the decadence of pre-Nazi Berlin :
With chronic unemployment the mass of the people had
little left to sell but their bodies. It is against this
bourgeois decadence and working class wretchedness that
the moral tone of Reich's sexual theories must be set
his predilection for hetero and healthy sexuality, his wish
for men to be men and women, women.'(14)
Reich was clearly trapped within gender stereotypes, but
his view of heterosexual fucking as the height of sexual
health recurred again in the early counter culture of the
1960s, which, at first at least, was extremely hostile to
gay sexuality. In the case of Reich it came from an
inability to historicise the question of sexuality, which,
following nineteenth century convention he saw as a fixed
quantity of energy. However, in his attemptnot the last
by any meansto synthesise the works of Marx and
Freud he had little guidance in the classical Marxist texts.
Whither?
In the coming period of economic turmoil and class
conflict it is quite possible that Marxist tendencies will
again fail to respond to the questions of so called 'personal
politics' with the seriousness they demand. David
Thorstad's experiences in the American Socialist Workers'
Party (S.W.P.) has shown clearly the limits of even an
apparently 'sympathetic' Trotskyist group. Its policy, he
wrote :
`reduced the gay liberation struggle to a struggle for gay
rights ; it refused to see it as a struggle against the
exclusive heterosexual norm of capitalist society, as a
struggle for a society in which the suppressed homosexual
potential of everybody could be liberated.' (15)
Compared with the refusal of various British socialist
tendencies to contemplate even . a. gay rights position, this
might seem an advance. But a Marxist analysis of sexuality
cannot stand still on outmoded positions, which have
been superseded by the self activity of gay people
themselves. However understandable the narrowness of
Trotskyist groups in particular when seen in the historic
context of capitalist and Stalinist terror, they have a duty
Gay Left 5
4. Lack of self-confidence.
Anyone who raises the gay issue in a Trade Union can
expect to meet all these problems and, at least, two
others:
a Accusations of perversioneither jeers every time you
speak or more vicious slanders behind your back.
b Suggestion that one's gayness is not an issue at work.
Women and blacks are paid less because they are women
and blacks, but that is not true of gays. Gays can be found
in all grades of work.
The most important lesson that women and blacks have
learned from their recent struggles is about the nature
of trade unionism. If unions remain as they are, controlled
by a handful of overpaid, appointed bureaucratsthen
they will get nowhere. The workers will remain divided
among themselves and they will continue to be additionally
oppressed. Only where the union is its membership will
these divisions endall decisions must be democratic,
negotiators must be elected, recallable and paid the same
as the average member. Only such a union will fight for
its membershipand that will include its gay membership.
...and Gays?
So what demands do we raise in our
unions and how do we go about it? The National Union of
Journalists (N.U.J.) seems to have gone further than any
other union in that its annual conference at Swansea this
year passed a motion against discrimination on grounds of
sexual orientation. In view of the fact that most of the
country's newspapers are written by members of the N.U.J.
this should augur well for press treatment of stories
concerning homosexuals. Perhaps. The Gay Rights Media
Group points out that the T.U.C. circular no. 100 which is
concerned with equal opportunity in employment and
discrimination, mentions sex, marital status, creed, colour,
race and ethnic origin, but, not sexual orientation. It would
clearly be in the interests of gay trade unionists to
campaign for the inclusion of sexual orientation in this
circularas well as being very educative for their fellow
trade unionists.
However, even if it were included it doesn't mean the
end of problems for the gay trade unionists. In the
S.O.G.A.T. (Society of Graphical and Allied Trades)
Journal for September 1974, John McPhail of Glasgow
wrote of the need to support homosexual law reform in
Scotland where all male homosexual activity is still
criminal. He went on to say, `To my mind, the union has
an obligation for the welfare of its members not just in
their working lives but also in the social sphere. The
problems of the homosexual may not be your problems
but that does not mean they are unimportant. One of your
workmates may be homosexual ; if so, he or she will need
your understandingnot hostility.' A gay printworker is
unlikely to be paid less than other workers because he is
gay but he is entitled not to expect attacks from his fellow
workers. An active union would make sure such attacks
did not happenbecause it would realize the dangers of
dividing one worker from another and it would understand
the tragedy of worker oppressing worker.
Such hostility does exist as any gay worker knows but
this hostility was, for once, expressed in print in Public
Service, the N.A.L.G.O. (National and Local Government
Officers Association) Journal following a letter which gave
details of a self-help homosexual group in N.A.L,G.O.
One member felt that reading the letter was like being
importuned a public lavatory ; another seemed to think
that homosexuals should not be admitted to N.A.L.G.O. ;
and another said sodomy was indirectly responsible for
bombing of property, hi-jacking, murder, and various other
evils, right down to empty churches. If this is the response
that comes to the setting-up of a union gay group, there
can surely be little doubt of the atmosphere in which most
gay people have to work. Most of us don't expect to be
faced with the above kind of hostility but we all know the
hypocrisy and the condescending smiles and the
demoralizing effect they have.
Raising the matter openly in the context of a union is
really the only way to deal with this prejudice at work
but this can only be done if we have a support group
which understands the meaning of the phrase, 'Glad To
Be Gay'. If you have come out then this is the most
important thing to do for other gays in your union. Set
up a gay group which will act as a focus for them and
enable them to withstand the hostility and hypocrisy of
other trade unionists and draw on the support of those
who accept gayness.
Gay Left 7
Gays in Cuba
By Keith Birch
Gay people who support the cause of revolutionary
socialism are often confronted by other gays with the fact
that in all the countries that have achieved some form of
socialist system, homosexuals are still discriminated
against or even quite harshly persecuted. On the contrary,
I want to stress that socialism does offer a possible solution
to the sexism inherent in our present capitalist society as
well as involving an economic revolution. This is made
clear by the situation in Russia after the 1917 revolution.
Abortion and contraception were legalized and made
available to the masses. Anti-homosexual laws were
removed. The role of the family in a socialist society was
questioned. Both women and gays gained important
advances in these first few years but the growth of the
Stalinist bureaucracy brought all this to a close and in
1934 punitive laws were introduced against homosexuality,
shortly followed by measures against abortion and a
renewed stress on the family unit as the basis of society.
In order to see why the existing socialist(1) countries have
treated gay people so badly, let us take a closer look at one
of the more recent revolutions, that of Cuba, where there
has been rather more publicity about the position of gay
people in society. The Cuban revolution in 1959 was not
just a victory of socialist forces over the exploitation and
repression of the Batista regime but was also a strongly
nationalist reaction to the long period of domination by
the United States. The aim was to build a new society
based on socialist principles, not in the image of the
Soviet Union, but instead taking regard of Cuba's
individual situation and history. The ideal was the creation
of the 'New Socialist Man', free from the contamination
of capitalism and monetary incentives, a model for other
countries to follow.
What then has happened to the gay people of Cuba since
that time? All that the majority of people know are the
stories about work camps for male homosexuals that made
a few headlines in the late 1960s and little else. The two
main questions that concern us, therefore, are how gay
people have actually been treated in the sixteen years of
the revolution and what were the main causes of this state
of affairs.
First of all, an outline of the oppression of gays from the
sketchy information available to us. No actual laws against
homosexuality were enacted by the new Government under
Castro and no official statements were made at that time.
However, unofficially gays were treated as being sick or
criminal but were not thought a major problem as we
would soon disappear with the dawn of the new society.
One of the first acts after the revolution was the clean up
of the cities. This meant the closing down of the brothels
and clubs and the removal of the prostitutes and
homosexuals from the streets, especially in Havana, which
was little more than a playground for American tourists
and a centre for all kinds of crime.
The first hard news of systematic persecution of gay
people came in 1965 when the U.M.A.P. camps (Military
Units for the Aid of Production) were set up. These were
ostensibly places for young men who were not suitable for
the army because of their 'moral outlook' or lack of
commitment to the revolution. In practice they were little
better than concentration camps (a description which Castro
himself used after visiting one in late 1966) occupied by
anti-revolutionaries, thieves and a very large number of
homosexuals who were there for that 'crime' alone. In
1966 several prominent artists, writers and actors were
told to report to these camps and this brought official
protest from the Cuban Writers' and Artists' Union and the
round-up was called off on Castro's orders. The U.M.A.P.
camps were the cause of a very rare event, an international
outcry at the treatment of homosexuals, although it only
really gathered force when gay intellectuals started to be
persecuted, and then the protest largely came from other
artists and intellectuals. However, at the end of 1966
these camps were officially closed but work camps in
various forms continued, as shown by a quote from a
Minister, Risquet, in 1971 when he said that 'loafers
needing re-education should not be sent to institutions for
thieves and homosexuals'(2) . The general attitude was first
Gay Left 8
Gay Left 11
CHE in Close-up
By Emmanuel Cooper
Report
Gay Workers' Conference
Leeds Polytechnic
10 - 11 May 1975
By Gregg Blachford
After months of hopeful anticipation, I heard a rumour
that the Gay Workers' Conference was actually going to
take place. For details, I checked with Gay News and Gay
Switchboard asking them if they could verify this
information. No, they hadn't heard a word. That was the
first sign that things were going to be rather disorganized
at this Conference. I mean, really, if two of the most
i mportant avenues of gay communication don't know
about it, then who will? As it turned out, a small, very
unrepresentative sample turned up ; mostly from the local
area, mostly from white-collar trade unions, and, mostly
men.
Newsflash!
The first newsletter has been published! Information
regarding the conference, which is now going to be held in
Leeds, is available from: Gay Information Centre,
Gay Working Peoples Collective,
153a Woodhouse Lane,
Leeds 2
Tel 39071 X57
Those interested should also send financial contributions
to that address as money is desperately needed.
Gay Left 13
Document
David Widgery writes:
The following review was written, on request, for the
theoretical journal of the International Socialists'
International Socialism in Autumn 1973.. It was rejected by
Chris Harman, then editor, because 'he had not read the
pamphlet' and supposedly was not in a position to tell me
if I'd got the line wrong. He presumably never did because
the review 'got lost', a euphemism I have experienced
several times on socialist papers when the editor wants to
reject something but has not the courage to say so. At the
ti me the leadership of I.S. were conducting a political
campaign against Don Milligan and the I.S. Gay Group
which was by and large successful. For the record, one of
the leading lights in that campaign was responsible for
the classic line "I.S. does not have a line on what you call
sexism and has not found it a phenomenon which exists
in the working class."
I am glad of this chance to eventually publish the
article: not because of any grand idea of the review's
worth, but because of what the suppression of its fairly
tentative contents reveals about the political context in
which Don Milligan wrote his pamphlet.
Review
"Dangerous Deviants . . ."
Who Screws Who? by Frank Pearce and Andy Roberts
Funny Farm Publications 35p
This is an interesting and relevant pamphlet despite its
journalistic title and demands close examination. It has
been sown togetherwith stitches occasionally showing
from two previously published articles, one on the
regulation of sexuality under capitalism, the other on the
role of the media in creating images of homosexuals. Both
together form an attempt to locate attitudes to
homosexuality in the changing needs, economic and
ideological, of British capitalism. This present pamphlet
therefore sets out to demonstrate the social significance of
homosexual oppression.
Jeffrey Weeks
Book Review
Forward Steps
Homosexual Oppression and Liberation by
Dennis Altman
Allen Lane 1974 First Published 1971
Dennis Altman set out to identify the many strands of the
gay liberation movement and the success of his work can
be judged by its widespread approval and acceptance
since it was first published four years ago. To take such
a loosely woven movement and link historical and
contemporary threads with the work of gay writers and
activists into a unified and readable account is no mean
achievement. It says much for Altman's tenacity that he
searched out and examined gay liberation in his native
Australia, in the U.S.A. and in Britain.
It is also a book very much of its time, belonging firmly
to the gay liberation movement. Having argued the case
for gay liberation, Altman goes on to look at gay liberation
and the left--toward human liberation. The argument
that liberation from self-oppression must come before any
real political understanding is one which many of us
accept, as we do the argument that our ultimate aim is
human liberation. What is curious, however, is that Altman
gives no analysis of our present situation in society, nor
does he offer any way of achieving 'human liberation'.
He has little time for the traditional left, which has
either dismissed the gay movement, oppressed it or tried
to politicize it by infiltration. Altman goes on to resist
attempts to identify gay liberation with the left. 'Political
movements, all of them attract people who are insecure,
confused, sexually uncertain'. This is a fairly damning
dismissal and one which suggests that it is a convenient
rationale for his own apolitical feelings. If Altman is
referring to traditional party politics in this quote then
it may well he true, but it is a narrow view of politics
which have in any case offered nothing to the oppressed
gay.
Altman offers clearer and more positive aims in other
fields--the need to break down sexual types, for example.
Also, Altman does not accept the liberal view of merely
integrating gays as equal members of society, but rather
wants the full spectrum of sexual feelings to be recognized
and so avoid the polarization of gays and hets. High and
admirable ideals, but without any analysis of the economic
(capitalism) and social (family) basis of our present
society, they remain fairly romantic aims. The liberation
of sexual feelings will come from a change in society,
whose power and responsibility lies with the workers, who
control the means of production.
What is required is someone with the broad sweep
displayed by Altman to outline the methods by which the
liberation of gays and all oppressed peoples may be
achieved. Marxists have had little or nothing to say
directly about the oppression of gaysthey have only
written about the oppression of people in general, hence
the insistence by the traditional left that all will he cured
by the revolution. With our present state of liberation and
our basic mistrust of the bureaucracy the established left
seem to want to set up, we must ourselves examine the
total structure of society in order to understand our
position, and, as gays, work to ensure that the revolution
achieves the aims of sexual and human liberation.
Altman's book is a lucid and convincing account of our
first steps, but in 1975 we want the next steps to be given
equally serious thought.
Emmanuel Cooper
people feel intensely the fact that they are not white,
women feel intensely the fact that they are not men, gay
people feel intensely the fact that they are not heterosexual.
People react in many different ways to the lack of these
prized attributes by despair, by pretending they are
irrelevant, by defiance, by assertion of the qualities which
are not regarded as acceptable and eventually hopefully
by organising themselves.
Gay people until recently have felt their lives are divided
into the 'normal' part and the sexual part. Traditionally, the
sexual part has been hidden, secret. Gays, when they have
not repressed their sexuality altogether, have generally
sought one of these two solutions:1 Since sexuality in our society has been so closely bound
up with supposedly stable, emotional relationships leading
to marriage and family life, some gays have aped that and
tried to find a suitable partner for a pseudo-marriage. This
often turns into an endless search for an ideal person who
does not exist and even if he did exist, would be unlikely
to be recognised in the shadows of a cottage. Disappointment is the norm and is followed by an even more frenzied
search for this ideal partner;
2 Some gays realise the futility of such a search and,
apparently casting aside their emotional needs, exalt their
sexuality into a prime position. They have accepted
society's definition of them in sexual terms and glorify that
aspect of themselves which is socially repugnant. Since
there can be no link between this feature of their lives and
the rest of their lives they must give it some coherence by
perpetually repeating the whole process. The need to pick
up is no longer simply sexual but has become a major
feature of their whole emotional being. It both strengthens
by virtue of its frequency and weakens by virtue of the
fact that it reminds one constantly of one's position outside the norms of bourgeois society.
In both cases the result is a compulsive search which in
fact only accentuates the fragmentation which society
imposes. This does not mean we share the views of those
bourgeois moralists (doctors, psychiatrists, judges) who
attack homosexuals for their 'promiscuity'. There is
nothing 'immoral' in freely choosing and changing partners
for mutually satisfying sex. One of the greatest assets of
being homosexual is that we can more easily free ourselves
from moralistic labelling of sexual behaviour, and we can
begin to explore our sexuality in a way untrammelled by
stereotyped norms. But the point is that often 'promiscuity'
is not an act of liberating sexuality but of tying it to
unrealistic expectations and wants. We have to break away
from a 'compulsiveness' which is imprisoning, without
surrendering to rigid bourgeois norms. This is one of the
deep ambivalences of cottaging.
Cottaging
A recent piece on sexism in the CHE newsletter tartly
warned its male readers that cottaging was NOT an act of
liberation. Of course it is not. And yet it has a basic directness which often puts to shame the more salubrious parts
of the gay scene. It is basically about sex, and in its various
forms, its own intricate codes and uses, it reveals a lot
about gay oppression.
Almost certainly most gay men and quite a lot of others
use cottages (public lavatories) for making sexual contacts.
For many gays cottages are the first introduction to homosexual expression. This is especially so for young people
whose alternative outlets are few, e.g. in small towns.
Outside the cities and large towns, lavatories are often the
only places where gay encounters can be made. There is a
whole unwritten history of gay men's initiation to sex in
public places (perhaps this adds another dimension to W.H.
Auden's phrase about "private faces in public places") and
it will not do to moralistically condemn. Many people use
cottages because they have no choice in the matter as there
is no other available sexual outlet. Others find it difficult to
function in the more public gay scene. This is dictated in
large part by the sexism of the gay world, with its premium
on youth and good looks and money. The more direct
sexuality of the cottage sometimes (not always) transcends
age. For others, again, cottaging offers an alternative for
open avowal of their homosexuality you can have regular
sex with members of the same sex for years, and never
openly admit to yourself your sexual orientation. Here
casual sex of this sort merges into that described by Laud
Humphreys in Tearoom Trade speedy, anonymous sex,
perhaps between married men, who then return to the
Review
Gays In Films
by Richard Dyer
Since the gay movement began we have insisted on the
centrality of the media (understood in its widest sense) as a
carrier, reinforcer or shaper of our oppression. Sometimes
we have gone overboard in blaming the mass media they
are only one of the instruments of oppression. More
important, we have tended to condemn images of gayness
in the name of aesthetic concepts and values that are highly
problematic. We've tended to demand that gay characters
and themes be represented according to certain ideas and
ideals about what art is, without seeing that such ideas and
ideals are straight ones, not neutral or transparent but
imbued with a sexual ideology that has anti-gayness as one
of its cornerstones. I want in this article to look at some of
these notions as they apply to films, to argue that what
appear to be 'given' aesthetic principles are, in however
ambiguous a way, also principles of heterosexual hegemony.
1 "Gayness should express itself on film"
Many critics, especially in gay publications, are concerned
with how gayness expresses itself on film. I am thinking
particularly of Jack Babuscio's articles in Gay News (and
let me make it clear right now that what follows is not an
'attack'; Jack's articles raise central issues in the most
widely available non-pornographic forum there is for gays
in this country, and his articles have helped me enormously
in trying to think these issues). Running through all of
these articles is the notion of the 'gay sensibility', which
he defines as
'a creative energy reflecting a consciousness different
from the mainstream, a heightened awareness of certain
human complications of feeling that spring from the
fact of social oppression; in fact, a perception of the
world which is coloured, shaped, directed and defined
by the fact of one's homosexuality.' (GN 82; p.15).
Many of his articles are concerned with the way this
sensibility 'surfaces' in films for example, his pieces on
John Schlesinger (GN 74) and James Dean (GN 79).
8
A Commune Experience
By Keith Birch
The commune movement was an important aspect of the
alternative society in the early 1970s. Even though the
number of people who actually set up communes together
may have been quite small, the interest in the movement
and its underlying ideology was widespread, especially
amongst the young and middle class idealists.
The relevance of this movement to gay people now may
seem very slight, but in many ways it did question the
structure and functions of the family in modern society
as the women's movement and revolutionary gay people do
today. There were attempts to put into practice many of
the propositions for alternative living structures and
relationships. From analysing the practical failure of the
movement in general and from personal experience of living
in a commune, some of the contradictory aspects and the
incompleteness of the movement's ideological foundations
become apparent.
I was amongst a group of gay people who were all
members of the Gay Liberation Movement in 1971 who
wanted to form a commune. The attraction of living
together in this way for gays had several specific causes.
Gay people are excluded from the family unit or feel
alienated from it in many cases. The socially prescribed
roles of mother, father, etc., are not possible or are forced
onto us and so the nuclear family cannot fulfill our needs.
Therefore, the prospect of a loving extended 'family' is
particularly appealing. A communal situation had the
chance of serving the emotional needs of people who are
made to feel isolated by this society, as many gays are.
This feeling was probably true for most of the commune.
A communal situation encourages the questioning of the
roles that are allotted to us by this society. Ours was, of
11
Eros And
Civilisation
An Introduction to Marcuse's Essay on Freud
by Ronald L. Peck
the sons want the same thing as the father: they want
lasting satisfaction of their needs. They can obtain this
objective only by repeating, in a new form, the order of
domination which had controlled pleasure and thereby
preserved the group. The father survives as the god ..."
"The function of the father is gradually transferred from
his individual person to his social position, to his image in
the son (conscience), to God, to the various agencies and
agents which teach the son to become a mature and
restrained member of his society."
But there has been an important change in the "classic
form" of the id-ego-superego dynamic as a result of the
growth of paternal institutions. The reality principle used
to be tangibly embodied in individuals fathers, captains,
chiefs but "these personal father-images have gradually
disappeared behind the institutions. With the rationalisation
of the productive apparatus, with the multiplication of
functions, all domination assumes the form of administration. The pain, frustration, impotence of the individual
derive from a highly productive and efficiently functioning
system in which he makes a better living than ever before.
Responsibility for the organisation of his life lies with the
whole, the 'system', the sum total of the institutions that
determine, satisfy and control his needs. The aggressive
i mpulse plunges into a void ..." Increasingly, administration and the law appear as the ultimate guarantors of
liberty. Rebellion appears "as the crime against the whole
of human society and therefore as beyond reward and
beyond redemption", an omnipresent threat that the crime
against the father dare not be repeated. As the 'system'
enlarges its coherence, "the interactions between ego,
superego, and id congeal into automatic reactions" and
consciousness, "increasingly less burdened by autonomy,
tends to be reduced to the task of regulating the coordination of the individual with the whole". The aggressive
instincts are moved against those who do not belong to the
whole; the foe is characterised as omnipresent, justifying
the total mobilisation of society.
Pleasure principle
How shrunken, then, is the scope of the pleasure
principle? Where are the desires of the instincts safeguarded? According to Marcuse, in phantasy. Andre
Breton's Surrealist Manifesto is quoted: "in its refusal to
forget what can be, lies the critical function of phantasy".
Which becomes also, for Marcuse, the critical function of
art. At this point, one should break away from the delineation of Marcuse's model to return to the importance of the
"perversions" within it, and its relation to the gay left.
In upholding sexuality as an end in itself, the perversions
demonstrate an active opposition to the rule of the
performance principle. The opposition is represented in
mythological archetypes whose images recur through the
ages: Prometheus, the producer, as against Orpheus, the
singer. Orpheus, according to classical mythology, introduced homosexuality to the people of Thrace, rejecting the
"normal Eros" for a "fuller Eros". The age of the performance principle is the age of Prometheus; all evaluation is
in terms of production; all else is marginal. I don't think
that Marcuse is being fanciful when he writes of
"productivity", "The very word came to smack of
repression or its philistine glorification: it connotes the
resentful defamation of rest, indulgence, receptivity the
triumph over the 'lower depths' of the mind and body . . ."
It is not, therefore, the transfer of the productive apparatus
from the control of the ruling class to the control of the
working class at least, not that alone that Marcuse
looks to for a revolutionary 'solution', but a turning away
from the emphasis on production altogether. Through the
liberation of men's time might be created 'mental space'
necessary to reflect upon the necessity to work. The
centrifugal forces of the performance principle, re-enforced
from within and without, have to be loosened. Wherever
possible, space must be created. In fighting for his homosexual rights, the oppressed gay is grinding against the
norms that sustain the system and helping to wear them
down. The gay who parades his sexuality and publically
celebrates his enjoyment of it, who is able to reverse the
feelings of guilt that society plays upon to limit that
enjoyment, is doing much more than fighting the war of
gay liberation; he is upholding the enjoyment of sexuality
for its own sake. He provides a sharp focus. In itself it is not
enough. It's a starting point only. Marcuse's analysis
describes a world of toil being sold, and bought, as paradise
Sheffield
Incident
by John Lindsay
16
Ah,lesbianka!
Notes on a Russian Journey
by Sue Bruley
One measure of the degeneration of the Russian revolution
is the Communist Party's complete reversal on the question
of homosexuality. In 1917 it was abolished as a legal
offence, but by 1934 it had become punishable by up to
eight years in prison. The Bolsheviks renounced the right of
the state to interfere in sexual matters. They abolished all
laws with regard to sexual behaviour except in cases where
consent was absent or injury had occurred. But under
Stalinist dictatorship homosexuality came to be regarded
as a threat to the moral fabric of society. Homosexuals
were counter-revolutionaries, per se, because they
challenged that great institution, the 'Soviet family'. The
implication was even made that men who remained single
could not possibly be good workers and were not, therefore
doing their best to 'build communism'. (1)
When I visited the Soviet Union in August 1975 (2) I was
determined to find out what changes had been made, both
legally and in terms of social attitudes to homosexuality,
since the dark days of Stalinist repression. Fortunately my
task was made easier by the fact that another gay woman
(Gully) was in the same party. She was as inquisitive as I and
was quite willing to 'come out'. We decided to collaborate
and find out as much as we could, even if it meant
embarrassing the other members of the group by asking
very direct questions to the Russians.
Moscow
On one of our evenings in Moscow a visit to the local
'Cultural and Pleasure Centre' was arranged so that we
could meet some members of Kommsomol (Young
Communists). This turned out to be a joint meeting with
two other English speaking groups (one from NUS) of
thirty each. One hundred and twenty of us sat in neat rows
in the theatre part of the centre and were asked to pose
questions to the five members of Kommsomol who sat
facing us with very serious faces. In the S.U. it is a rare
privilege to be allowed to meet foreigners and obviously
only the most trustworthy of party hacks were permitted
to reply to our questions. We quickly became accustomed
to the dreary uniformity and predictability of their
statements.
We were encouraged to ask questions of an informative
nature rather than political questions. As a result our
meetings with Kommsomol members were very dull, with
people asking questions such as 'What is the price of a
haircut in Moscow?' The Russians delighted in answering
such mundane questions and made detailed and lengthy
replies. I tried to inject some debate into the proceedings
by asking for their views on such questions as: the
relationship between the working class, the party and the
state; internationalism etc ., but the only response was one
or two hack phrases such as, 'the people and the party live
in harmony'.
After about 40 minutes of this Gilly and I decided that
the time was right to attempt an intervention on the gay
question. I asked for the microphone, stood up and
announced that I was going to raise the subject of homosexuality. I stated that I was a homosexual and that the
woman sitting next to me was too. An embarrassed silence
suddenly fell on the hall. I took a deep breath and
continued. I described the gay scene in the UK and the
increasing tendency of homosexuals to refuse to hide their
sexual orientation as if it were something to be ashamed
of. I referred to the attitude of the leftgroups and told
them that even the British C.P. now had it's gay caucus
(gasps of horror from the Russians at this point). Finally I
asked them to describe to me the probable life style of a
homosexual in the S.U. and what the attitude of the
authorities would be.
Even after I had finished speaking the audience continued
to stare in my direction. The Russians too remained glazed
and seemed to have an air of disbelief. Eventually one of
them took the initiative and went to the microphone.
He said that no one had ever asked a question of this sort
and that they needed to talk amongst themselves before
replying. After a few minutes one of them pushed another
possible.
After an hour or so we were shown into another room
and records were played so that we could dance. Our three
Soviet sisters were keen to dance with us and showed no
signs of physical unease. Again, this contrasts strongly with
the behaviour of the other women in the British group who
by this time had become almost paranoid about Gully and
myself. We were amazed to learn from one of the
sympathetic men in our group that the women had been
sleeping with their clothes on and had come to an agreement to stay in pairs at all times. They were apparently
under the impression that one of us would leap on them at
the slightest opportunity!
The evening at the Locomotive Club was a very jovial
occasion. Although obviously the 'Soviet youth' we had
met had been a heavily scrutinized bunch, we still felt that
we had got much closer to the opinions of ordinary
Russians than we had in Moscow. As we were leaving we
noticed that the women had begun clearing the tables
whilst the men were just idly standing by.
Riga
Riga is the capital of Latvia, one of the three Baltic
Republics. As our guides were not familiar with the region
and the language (Latvian is similar to German) the group
was 'handed over' to a woman, Anita, who taught English
at the university. She was an extraordinary Anglophile,
seizing every opportunity to meet English people and talk
to them, as she had never been able to travel to the UK
herself (foreign travel for all citizens of the USSR is an
exceptionally rare privilege).
Anita's husband, Jarnis, who accompanied us on most of
the official programme, was a lawyer. Gilly and myself
jumped at the chance to find out more about the legal
codes concerning homosexuality. He looked it up specially
for us ... yes, the 1934 Act was still in use and homosexuals were regularly sentenced under it. In contrast to
what we had been told in Moscow, he stated that the usual
prison term was five years for adults and eight years if a
male under 18 was involved (this is the legal definition of
pederasty in the S.U.).
We asked why did the law ban male homosexuality and
not mention female homosexuality? He could not understand our question at first. It seemed that for him the very
term 'female homosexuality' was a contradiction. Finally,
he came up with, 'The state thinks that women can't do as
men do in bed, so there is no need for a law against it.'
As we talked to Anita and Jarnis it became clear that they
were in full agreement with these disgusting prison sentences
for homosexuals. They saw the state as having a right to
Rights submitted to the Civil and Public Servants Association (CPSA) Conference had not been discussed and a
leading official of the union had said that the draft Sexual
Offences Bill was not a trade union issue. Someone spoke
of several instances in the Transport and General Workers
Union (TGWU) where action had been taken or threatened
in support of victimized gay workers. A Scottish member of
the Society of Graphic and Allied Trades (SOGAT) had
written in his union's journal of the discrimination facing
all gay workers, even when they were not being victimized.
Branches of both the National Union of Teachers (NUT)
and the Association of Teachers in Technical Institutions
(ATTI) had passed motions calling for the reinstatement of
John Warburton. Although this had met with no positive
response from the leadership of either of these unions and
Warburton had not been reinstated, the debate over his
case had, at least, raised the consciousness of some sections
of these unions.
19
Lesbians
Another issue which arose in the afternoon session was
the domination of the conference by men. This had arisen
partly because the meeting had not been advertised in the
lesbian movement and partly through the organization of
the conference, which made no attempt to raise the issue of
lesbian workers as central to any struggle against sexism. A
decision was taken at the meeting to get in touch with the
organizing committee of the Working Women's Charter.
Although we realized that the conditions of lesbians at
work were not covered specifically by the charter, it was
the first time in post-war years that women had gathered
together to organize and politicize around a set of demands
worked out by them and specifically for women. We in the
GWM could only learn from those experiences and hopefully utilize them in organization around a Gay Workers
Charter.
Accordingly the second London meeting appeared to
have a unification which the previous meetings so obviously
lacked. Women spoke to us on the development of the
Charter: the organization around it and some of the
difficulties encountered with aspects of it. We were able to
look at the Gay Workers Charter within a new framework
and highlight some of its more obvious weaknesses.
With a refreshing rapidity the meeting centred around
three issues. First, would the Gay Workers Conference
benefit more from a Sexual Rights Charter instead of a Gay
Workers Charter. It could be seen as more closely relating
to gay women and men, or would this be taken as reformist
in relationship to the demands of the Gay Workers Charter,
a step away from the broader struggles of sexual oppression
in relation to work in a capitalist society?
Secondly, had the GWM looked closely enough at the
concept of sexism as it affects people in their families, with
their friends, and at the workplace? Often sexism has been
analysed as it affects us in the roles we play within our
relationships, but rarely is it talked about in a way which
unifies the separate elements of society which makes the
total sum of our lives.
Thirdly, we felt that too often assumptions were made
about working with the Trade Union Movement on the
basis of very little knowledge. What is the function of the
Trade Union Movement in relation to the struggle against
sexism? What is the best means of raising the issue within
our unions?
It became obvious that we would only be able to discuss
all of these issues in a third meeting where three papers
would be presented on sexism in its widest context, a sexual
rights charter and the Trade Union Movement. One felt a
quiet satisfaction that out of all the disorganization, and the
chat which many had put down as "emotional", "apolitical"
etc., we had arrived at a stage where a meeting would be
held to specifically discuss three papers.
20
21
FASSBINDER'S
A review by Bob Cant
"FOX"
LETTERS
Dear Gay Left, Dear Gay Left, Dear Gay Left, Dear
The Struggle
Number one excellent, I thought. But, my God, you do
have an uphill battle a task not only of political, but of
psychological education of highly recalcitrant potential
supporters.
Colin McInnes, Hythe, Kent.
Comment on G.L. No 1
I've sold 20 copies of G.L.; mainly to heterosexual politicos
in fact -- at Spare Rib and Hackney Abortion Campaign.
Some people have needed persuading; one woman saw the
price and said 'But it costs the same as Spare Rib and that's
a glossy magazine.' I explained about it being financed out
of your own pockets. No one seemed to mind it being
produced only by men I've sold it about equally to men
and women.
I thought it would have been useful to have carried a
review of Don Milligan's pamphlet that placed the piece in a
historical context; not so much of I.S. anti-gay politics but
of the women's movement and its development of politics
of the family and women's domestic labour. E.g. there's a
bit where Don says the family doesn't have an economic
role in capitalism, only an ideological one. That statement
could be a bit misleading given current socialist feminist
analysis.
Ann Scott, London N16.
Paedophile Politics
Paedophiles, as you briefly mentioned (in No 1), have
begun to organise. Inevitably the organisation at present has
no clear picture of itself or its objectives, and is not even
sufficiently together for the establishment to seek to divide
et imperat. Paedophile politics, such as they are, consist of
wagon-hitching to the mainstream gay movement a
strategy which may embarrass paedophiles as much as it has
already inconvenienced Peter Hain and some members of
C.H.E.
CONTENTS
EDITORIAL NOTE
1
Within These Walls ... Gay Left Collective
5
From Latent To Blatant Angus Suttie
7
Book Review Jeffrey Weeks
8
Gays In Films Richard Dyer
11
A Commune Experience Keith Birch
13
Eros and Civilisation Ronald L. Peck
15
Sheffield Incident John Lindsay
17
Ah, lesbianka! Sue Bruley
The Gay Workers Movement Bob Cant and Nigel Young 19
Review of 'Fox' Bob Cant
22
Letters
23
24
Editorial Note
Nighthawks
Between now and the end of May, Four Corner Films, a
film-making collective, will be drawing into its final stages
the shooting script for a narrative film about a gay teacher,
Nighthawks.
The film will describe, amongst other things, a teacher's
coming out at school, a process understood as political as
much as it is personal. It will be largely made with gay
people who will be playing themselves. A good deal of the
content of the film will be arrived at through a process of
discussion and through acting workshops with gays. Anyone
wanting to take part in these should contact me at Four
Corner Films, 113 Roman Road, Bethnal Green, London
E2. Suggestions are also welcome, particularly with regard
to locations. The film is scheduled to be shot through June
and July in the London area. Further details available from
the studio address.
Ronald L. Peck
24
Gay Left No 1
Gays in the Trade Unions, in Cuba, at Conference, at
politics and much more. Copies available: 30p, or 40p by
post from 36A Craven Road, London W2.
Typeset by Caroline MacKechnie.
Printed by SW Litho, London E2.
c Gay Left Collective 1976
Carrying on ...
Divided We Fail
by Nigel Young
The dawn of gay consciousness and the development of the
women's movement has made many of us realize how intricately sexism is in our personal lives and our work
situations. As gay men we have become aware of what are
sexist attitudes and roles, and in our political work we have
attempted to raise the issue of sexism as central to any revolutionary struggle. In this work, however, we are confronted by
a theory and practice which divides the struggle against
capitalism from the battle against sexism. The former is
obviously a priority, but sexism is regarded as a deviation
from the main struggle, a battle to be won after the revolution.
The highly impersonal structures in which we carry out our
political work militates against our raising either the political
or personal implications of sexism.
These two spheres are at the heart of the problem. We need
to analyse the oppressive nature of sexism as defined in our
personal relationships and secondly the relationship of this
type of sexism to exploitative/competitive work situations. We
have the unenviable task of fusing together two agents of
oppression: the controlling and defining nature of heterosexual
norms and values being highlighted in the gay liberation movement whilst conditions at work are of central importance to
unions.
This division was highlighted for me when I raised the gay
issue around the case of John Warburton (see Gay Left No.1)
in my own union. The left in my union branch a highly
politicized one -- were able to see the case as one of obvious
victimization but were unable to relate their analysis to a
broader discussion of gayness in which they might have
explored the relationship between the personal oppression of
a gay teacher and the ensuing political implications. What arose
was a situation in which I was constantly being asked to reaffirm the general nature of oppression in society and from
this commitment gay oppression could be added to the list.
This I feel is a dangerous divide and one which people who are
gay and Marxists working in unions will find it difficult to
avoid. The danger lies in the complete undervaluing of the role
of sexism in society as an oppressive force.
This situation applies equally to the women's issue as
raised by the straight left. It seems perfectly acceptable to
discuss the oppression of women in terms of maternity leave,
bad pay and conditions at work or lack of nursery facilities.
Or take up specific cases of the victimization of women
workers, but at the same time ignore the analysis of personal
relationships which the women's movement has put forward
as a prime agent in their oppression.
For gay men who are Marxists it is unavoidable that the
division between what is considered a personal situation as
opposed to a political one will arise both in their work in
unions and in their contact with the revolutionary left. It is a
tradition of the unions to raise political issues which highlight
exploitation as occurring solely at the point of production.
In these terms it is far easier to exemplify which class is most
oppressed. Consequently what has always been considered to
. be the most valuable work has been organisation in and
around factories. This attitude has spread through unions
regardless of the work situation, so we are constantly fighting
cases of wages, conditions at work and victimization of
workers. These issues are central but as we know through the
dissemination of literature from the women's movement, an
improvement in our material position bears little relationship
to the personal relationships we have and the ways in which
those relationships can be oppressive.
Also, for gay men the division is wider as we have no specific body of literature which analyses the way men oppress each
other and women. The nature of male oppression has been
clearly highlighted by the women's movement. We therefore
have no way inside or outside the traditional political structure within which we can operate to analyse the nature of
personal oppression. However we are able to draw upon the
2 Gay Left
accept him for what he was, I could not get out quickly
enough. Yet not for one moment did I question the validity
of wanting a monogamous relationship and neither did I see
that what was stifling and role playing for straights was
exactly what I was copying in my relationships. The end was
just seen as another personal failure.
My Role
At this time I very much played the role of being weak, passive
and coquettish. I always felt unequal to my friends whom I
considered my intellectual superiors, I was treated as the
bright butterfly which is turned to for amusement, but hardly
taken seriously. I played the game excellently of being a pretty
young thing and consequently met people who treated me as
a pretty ornament. This type of role playing in which I
assumed a stereotyped feminine attitude completely distorted
my relationships and my notion of gayness. There was no
sense of equality and the experience of liberation which can
come through an understanding of role playing was also lacking. What 1 had socially learnt I took for being natural and
consequently felt a bitterness about my own stereotype
femininity. I therefore always had to reject my relationships
and felt an increasing sadness as each one ended and another
took the familiar path.
Strangely it was not the advent of the Gay Liberation
Front which began to make me reappraise my attitude towards
the status of my relationships or the roles and temperament
which I expressed within them, but my involvement with
C.H.E. Here I felt I met the grassroots of gay people, a much
wider range than one saw in the gay clubs and pubs, some of
whom sought something in addition to sexual gratification.
Confronted by isolation and oppression far greater than mine,
I began to understand this was not a self-imposed individual
phenomenon, but a socially created situation which had its
roots in capitalist society. At the same time I was beginning
to have a relationship with someone with whom I felt a sense
of equality. I no longer seemed to be indulging myself in the
old roles, nor denigrating the relationship as being second
best. For the first time I was involved in a creative, expanding
relationship. It helped that we had similar political views
and a feeling that sexism represses gay people and makes
them try to ape heterosexual norms and values.
We tried to develop a relationship based upon no specified
roles and at last I found myself not playing any particular
part, and I was certainly not demeaning myself or the relationship. I was accepting all the facets of the relationship for what
4 Gay Left
A Grim Tale
The I.S. Gay Group 1972-75
by Bob Cant
But perhaps the most important thing about the article was
that it was written in the first person. Could there be a queer
in I.S.? Would the workers be scared off? They did not appear
to be scared off but the party hacks certainly were.
At the 1973 Annual Conference in March, Milligan proposed a motion on the gay question. It was opposed by the
Executive Committee. They assured the conference that they
were opposed to all homosexual oppression but they could
not accept the Lancaster motion something to do with the
ancient Greeks being homosexual. And so bedazzled by this
argument about a society 3000 years ago, the Conference
agreed to entrust the matter to the E.C. I had just recently
joined I.S. and this seemed to me to be a reasonable way of
handling the question.
Months passed however and the E.C. never seemed to find
the time to deal with the gay question. So in June of that
year a number of gay comrades met in Lancaster to decide
what to do. For two weeks an advertisement appeared in S.W.
for this meeting of the I.S. Gay Discussion Group. But then,
lo and behold, the National Secretary of the day decided it
was unconstitutional for us to advertise. In future, we had to
advertise on the Classified page as the Socialist Gay Group
thereby giving the impression that we had nothing to do with
I.S. Strangely enough, this constitutional rule did not seem
to apply to the I.S. History Group, the I.S. Science Group
and even the I.S. Brass Band.
Enter the Middle Class
There were over a dozen comrades, both women and men, at
the meeting from a wide variety of branches scattered all over
the country, some of whom felt unable to come out in their
branches. But it was a happy, constructive weekend and we
came away from it full of great hopes. Undeterred by the indifference shown by I.S., we laboriously and democratically
produced a document which we submitted to the Internal
Bulletin for publication, in the autumn of 1973. This document attempted to begin to discuss gay oppression in a
Marxist framework. It also raised a number of demands
concerned with discrimination, police harassment, custody of
children, medical treatment, sex education and age of consent.
It was a very modest beginning to a debate on sexual politics.
We waited and waited for it to appear or even for an acknowledgement but still we waited. Meanwhile Don Milligan
had moved to Bradford where he began to set up a G.L.F.
group. The I.S. branch committee there instructed him not
to. It was difficult for us in London to know what was really
going on but it became clear that there were some people in
I.S. who wanted to stamp out gay work altogether. This
should have come as no surprise to us, given I.S.'s then current
position on women which totally ignored questions relating
to the family, housework and sexuality and was only concerned with women at work. Nonetheless, we were surprised at the
underhand repressive way in which these people did act. The
E.C., having ignored our document on gay work, eventually
drew up a hasty, ill-informed statement on the gay question.
This document stated I.S.'s opposition to gay oppression but
made not even an attempt to analyse the politics of sexuality.
It fell into the old Stalinist trap of assuming that all gays are
middle-class, and, therefore, a bit perverted. It was based on
prejudice and gossip and, although it made an attack on
G.L.F. for its political mish-mash of ideas - it did not
mention the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, presumably
because it had never heard of it. It included statements such
as "Socialists who make 'gay work' the main arena of their
political activity tend quickly to exclude any other considerations and elevate the interests of the G.L.F. above that of the
political organisation of which they are nominal members."
What abusive rubbish.
This statement was presented to the October meeting of
the National Committee; one amendment was made; there was
no further discussion and the Document was approved. It
instructed I.S. members to withdraw from work in G.L.F . So
much for the open informed debate I had expected in I.S.
We were not consulted about this although we had submitted a document to the Internal Bulletin. We actually heard
Gay Left 7
about the decision at a meeting of the Women's Sub-Committee. Siri Lowe and Sue Bruley, who were both members , of the
I.S. Gay Group, had been asked by the convenor of the subcommittee to write an article on lesbianism for the I.S.
women's paper, Women's Voice. The three of us went with
copies of the article to the October meeting. It was, of course,
rejected -- too middle-class, although the writers were a
printworker and a student from a working-class family. This
was always to he a favourite line - attacking whatever disagreed with the hack line as being middle-class. The kind of
article they would have been prepared to accept would have
been about a victimized lesbian shop steward. The kind of
courage and support needed for a lesbian to become a shop
steward, let alone join a trade union, was not an issue that
interested these tough cadres.
Siri Lowe then arranged for some of us to meet the F.C.
on October 19 for them to clarity their position. It may seem
facetious to some, but I can still recall the feeling of walking
into that meeting and thinking I had walked into a Hollywood
set of a film about the Russian Revolution. A hunch of hardfaced men dressed in black, sitting round a table pretending to
be Bolsheviks while a woman took notes in shorthand. Or
perhaps I had entered a time-warp and found myself in 1917.
I did not feel as if I was in London in 1973. We got nowhere
at this meeting - one comrade accused us of wanting gay
branches and fractions, an absurd idea (given that gays, as gays,
have no social power) but one which was much used to discredit us. Another spoke of homosexuality as a 'cancerous
growth'.
The Queers Fight Back
So we organised our comrades throughout the country and
seven local branches submitted motions to the N.C. opposing
the document. At the Decemher meeting of the N.C. there was
no change in their position. However, Tony Cliff said that it
was alright for us to be in G.L.F. as long as it was not regarded
as political activity. Presumably, sex with someone of the
same sex was fine as long as you did not talk politics. For a
revolutionary, particularly one of Cliff's experience, to talk
as though one area of your life could be separated from
politics is a nonsense - and a dangerous, conservative nonsense
:it that.
It may surprise many people that we continued to work in
8 Gay Left
ance for the fact that most gay comrades were isolated and
could only meet each other through the agency of S.W. I
honestly believe they thought we could spot each other on
sight or by some secret sign. That they were not prepared to
consider the importance of gay comrades meeting together is
not surprising given the developments in their politics in the
early 1970s. In correctly putting the central emphasis of their
activity on the working class they often saw workers only as
workers and ignored other aspects of their lives. This is why
they ignored the oppression of women and the role of domestic labour and only struggled around their exploitation as
workers; it is also why for so long they failed to treat seriously
the racist oppression of black workers. Reality for them
seemed to have become contained on the shop-floor. The
ideological divisions within the working class were treated
as though they were so trivial as to be irrelevant. The refusal
to allow us to set up a gay group created difficulties of a kind
that did not exist for women and blacks - because no-one
could tell if a person was gay or not some gay comrades hid
their sexuality and added to their own oppression, courtesy
of I.S. They never recognised any of the problems that a gay
person might have in coming out at work, with his family
or in a political organization. They never recognized any of
the problems that this isolation might create in terms of
relating to people and becoming a socialist.
My second criticism of I.S. is for their failure to acknowledge the validity of sexual politics. Some people claimed that
Engels' Origin of the Family said all that needed to be said.
Apart from the fact that it treated homosexuality as a perversion, it had been written before most developments in
scientific birth control. Women now had, for the first time,
the possibility of a real choice about whether they became
pregnant, about when they became mothers, about whom
they related to. Although the State has denied this choice to
so many women, the possibilities now facing women can
totally transform all their expectations. The spin-off on men
has been enormous and many men, for the first time, are
faced with a whole series of problems about relationships,
housework and childcare that never existed while women
were dependent on them. Women of the Russian Revolution
such as Alexandra Kollantai could not begin to contemplate
the possibilities that face women, today. These technological
changes are given real political importance because of the
existence of a women's movement. One would have thought
that all this might have been worthy of some consideration
by I.S.
The whole concept of a private life has become very important in these hundred years since Engels wrote. This concept
has played an important part in the development of a whole
number of industries --- house-building, women's magazines,
fil ms, cosmetics, household goods and so on. But it seemed
that these links between ideology and developments in the
bourgeois economy were not that important as far as I.S. was
concerned. 'Come the revolution, it'll be alright on the night'
sums up the level of I.S.'s approach to sexual politics. The
strength of the National Abortion Campaign made I.S. alter
this position somewhat in 1975. Suddenly, Cliff was talking
about a woman's right to control her own body being analogous with the workers' right to control the means of production. This was, beyond doubt, a great leap forward but it was
not accompanied by any wider questioning of sexual politics.
However, had it come earlier some of us would still perhaps
be in I.S. By the time it came the weariness and isolation
was too far advanced.
The third criticism of I.S. is the one that has made me most
bitter - and that is the way our political arguments were
distorted. We were accused of being concerned only with
homosexuality -- but if that had been true why would we
have bothered to join a revolutionary working class organization? We demanded a gay group and the rumour went out
that we wanted branches and a fraction. We mentioned
housework and were said to support the reactionary 'Wages
for Housework' campaign. I could not have believed that such
ignorance, bigotry, prejudice and cowardice were possible in
a revolutionary organization.
I feel very sad to have to write these things about I.S.
Gay Left 9
because despite all this they are still the only group in this
country that is even beginning to organize the working class
on revolutionary lines. They revived the Marxist tradition in
this country at a time when Marxism seemed to he either
Stalinist manoeuvring or sectarian Trotskyist splitting. And
these factors are, of course, what make their treatment of
sexual politics so tragic. Were they a bunch of nut-cases or
Stalinist ogres it would matter less. The fact that they embody
much of the best of the working class tradition in this
country does not make one hopeful.
The dilemma I was faced with in 1972 still remains. How
does one raise sexual politics and take part in the organization of the working class along revolutionary lines? To my
knowledge, all the groups that I would regard as revolutionary have, at best, only taken up a civil rights approach to
sexuality. Membership of these groups for any gay person - particularly one without a gay support group - - becomes very
oppressive and warps all of one's political behaviour. On the
other hand, leaving these groups has enormous dangers. One
can develop one's sexual politics but the possibilities of
becoming isolated from the mainstream of left politics are
great. Where do we go from here, comrades?*
* This motion was passed, overwhelmingly, by North London
District.
Almost the very first words written in the first issue of Gay
was the statement that one of the aims of the collective
was to contribute towards 'a marxist analysis of homosexual
oppression'. This stand and the commitment to an analysis of
gay oppression and its relationship to other forms of oppression and exploitation has drawn comments and criticisms.
Some of these should he aired. In this way we can work
towards a further definition of our position at least as it
appears to Inc.
A Letter From California
Craig Hanson, writing to us from California, approved of our
analysis of the gay ghetto in Gay Left No.2, but he also saw an
inherent incompatibility in being both marxist and gay. In this
article I am going to take up his major points and explore
some of the issues he has raised.
In recent years, the letter suggests, there has been a certain
disillusionment among segments of American radical gays
with the idea of marxism being the only ideological framework
in which a person can develop a coherent opposition to the
present form of capitalism. The experiences of American gays
in Cuba and information on the situation of gays in other
'communist' countries have contributed to this but the letter
goes on to suggest that there is an anti-gay element that is
fundamental not only to traditional 'communism' but to
marxism itself. The letter concludes with the tentative suggestion that anarchism may provide a less constricting theoretical
framework for gay activists.
Points of Agreement
First of all it should be said that there are points of agreement
between us and areas of mutual concern. For instance, we both
agree that as gays we wish integration with the larger society,
but not on terms that would diminish our identity and freedom as gays. I particularly liked one part of the passage Craig
Hanson quoted from David Darby's article:"Until straight
men become aware of their own homoerotic selves (the
repression of which produced their present mangled personalities) then gay liberation will be at most a matter of pleading
for tolerance in a straight defined framework.' (1) So neither
of us are interested in a special pleading for gays as a particular minority group but for a wider understanding of the nature
of sexuality itself that encourages a development of homosexual as well as heterosexual feelings. Where we differ is in
our approach towards understanding our identity as gays and
in the nature of the political choices that are open to us.
'Communist' Governments
Much of Craig Hanson's letter was taken up in describing the
situation of gays in Cuba, China, Russia and other 'communist'
countries. Some of this information was new to me, but Gay
Left has already given space to instances of gay oppression in
Cuba (Gay Left No. 1), and in Russia (Gay Left No.2). In this
issue, there is 'A Grim Tale', which highlights the problems of
gay activists within International Socialists. As socialists and
gays we are aware of the attitudes towards us of many people
who call themselves marxists. But do these sexist attitudes,
which arc directed towards women as well as towards gays,
have anything to do with marxism? It seems more likely that
it has more to do with the colonial past of some of these
Left
10 Gay Left
"(2)
All Worked Up
by Gregg Blachford
12 Gay Left
East London Gay Centre, 19 Redmans Road, El. Tel: 01790 2454.
Edinburgh
S.M.G., 15 Broadley Terrace, Edinburgh
Most centres are for women and men, often local women's
centres have gay women's meetings. Check Switchboards or
Women's Workshop, 38 Earlham Street, London WCI. Tel:
01-836 6081 for details.
Centres in other towns and cities are hopefully being set up.
Phone Switchboards for details:
Bristol: 0272-712621 (8-10.30pm)
Manchester: 061-273 3725 (7-9.30pm)
Brighton: 0273 27878 (8-10pm)
West Midland: 021-449 8312 (7-10pm)
Oxford 0865-45301 (7-9 p.m.)
Glasgow: 041-204 1292 (7- 9pm)
Dublin: 0001-764240 (ThursFri 7.30-9.30pm, Sat 3-6pm)
One of the good things about the film 'Fox' is that it has
made people talk about the question of gays and class. But is
the film's basic point -- that gay subculture is a mirror of
straight culture, simply reproducing its class divisions and
exploitation really true? I would like to suggest and it
really can only be suggestion, because we simply do not know
enough in hard facts about the lives of most gay people - that
(i) the class cultures are to a certain extent reproduced in gay
subcultures; (ii) but the larger part of the gay culture is male
bourgeois; (iii) but that it is male and bourgeois in a far from
si mple way. Let me take each of these points in turn.
(i) The gay scene in Birmingham, where I live, can be broken
down in social class terms. The four pubs and two clubs can
be divided into the posh and the common, the smart and the
rough. The small towns of industrial Lancashire (e.g. Blackburn, Preston, Bolton, Wigan) where there is a small
bourgeoisie, have distinctively working class gay pubs, as have
parts of South London and the East End. Equally, there are
gay clubs in London and Manchester almost as exclusive as
the gentlemen's clubs of Pall Mall.
How far does this pattern, and its extremes, extend over
the country as a whole? I cannot say for sure, but my guess
is -- not very far. It seems to me that whilst there are
different class emphases from pub to pub, club to club, the
distinctions are far more blurred than has so far been
suggested. The actual class position of the clientele of a
particular place may not tally with the vague class tone of
that club -- you get for instance the middle class gay
'slumming' in 'rough' pubs, and the working class gay
escaping the 'masculinity' of his class background amidst the
chi-chi of a club.
The ritualised forms of promiscuity -- cottaging, baths,
trolling are of interest here, for they seem to be further
'outside' of class, participated in fairly equally by all classes
(and races). By reducing all interchange to the sexual,
promiscuity strips them of class connotations. If class does
operate here, it does so not in terms of differentiation of
locale (though there are opera-trolling and expensive Turkish
baths ...), but in terms of the sexual fantasies people from
one class (or race) have about people from the other.
(ii) There is then some class differentiation within gay culture
- yet I feel the tone that dominates is male and middle class.
Of course, gay activity is no less widespread in one class than
any other (as far as I can make out) but the way it is sociallyculturally patterned seems to show a greater influence of
male, middle class norms. (Especially where, as in the majority
of cases, there is only one pub.)
This becomes more evident if one goes beyond pubs and
clubs to include the gay movement (C.H.E., G.L.F., etc.) and
gay publications (Gay News, Sappho, Playguy ). It is interesting
to note how right from the start gay magazines aiming at
providing more than just porn (Timm, Spartacus, Jeremy) all
just took it for granted that the readership would be interested
in high fashion, the Arts, cookery and foreign travel. Now
obviously there are reasons in addition to class why these
magazines (and their successors) should have assumed that
these were the things to sandwich between the pix fashion
and cookery are 'feminine' and so fit many gay men's sense of
themselves as 'feminine'; the arts are supposedly traditionally
tolerant to gayness and besides provide (especially ballet and
Foxed
Gay Left 17
WORKING HARD
My feelings on reading the articles were mixed. The enterprise in itself is an essential one, and one in which Gay Left
has every sympathy: to explore the ways in which sexual and
cultural norms are internalised and perpetuated within a
particular form of society (social formation). One of the outstanding unexplored problems in Marxist theory is precisely
this one: of how the social relations of capitalist society are
reproduced and perpetuated. It is appropriate therefore that
-the first issue of the journal should concern itself with one of
the major modern texts in this field, Julet Mitchell's Psychoanalysis and Feminism. Mitchell's book is a courageous
attempt to recover Freud from his detractors, particularly
many feminists who see him as the arch male chauvinist and
to discover the core of his scientific effort, and his relevance
to a theory of female oppression in a capitalist and patriarchal
society. In the process she describes how the biological determinism, which is often seen as the heart of Freudianism, is
really a discardable husk. An interview with Mitchell in the
. Working Papers brings this out very well. As she says, Freud's
"work is just permeated with the sort of ideologies of the
A PERMANENT DIVORCE
A Lasting Relationship: Homosexuals and Society
by Jeremy Seabrook, Allen Lane, 1976, 4.50
Come Clean.
`Saturday Night at the Baths'
The final credit of this film is one of 'special thanks to Professor Gregory Batcock just because'. And this final note of
coyness is not untypical of a film which fails to come to grips
with its subject.
Doubtless, many readers are already well aware of the story
of the film given the massive coverage it has received in some
parts of the bourgeois press. A gay film must be news! A piano
player from Montana, Michael, comes to New York with his
girlfriend, Tracy, in search of work. He is employed at the
Continental Baths, a famous gay meeting place apparently
frequented largely by beautiful young men who do not work.
He is befriended by the manager of the baths, Scotti. As they
become closer, Michael finds Scotti's interest in him more than
he can handle. Despite a few setbacks, all ends well and the
two get off together. Tracy is rather upset but the film ends
with the two, apparently reconciled, going home together. And
this ending is, of course, a terrible cop-out. Do Michael and
Scotti continue to have an affair? Does Tracy leave Michael or
does she smile bravely through it all? Does Scotti get screwed
up by being 'the guy Michael once laid'? There are all kinds of
possible developments which the film never considers. It may
be valid to leave the subject in the air but these problems were
never even considered by the film. It's amazingly bland
approach so reminiscent of 'Love Story' and other sugary crap,
leaves one wondering what the problem is. If a guy can change
within a week from seeing homosexuality as 'abnormal' to
being a practising bisexual then really there's not much to
worry about.
The film has been said to be in praise of bisexuality but, if
that is so, it fails to present its case very clearly. The two love
scenes, both straight and gay, are filmed sympathetically
although only the gay one blacks out in the middle. But there
is only one real discussion which begins to consider the nature
of sexism and poses questions about the nature of normality.
Something as complex as bisexuality which terrifies so many
people, which is seen by some as a cop-out needs more subtle
handling than it receives in this film.
What this film is really in praise of is one section of male
gay life in Manhattan. Women only seem to appear in the film
for tokenistic reasons why any woman, gay or not, would
want to go to the Continental Baths is a mystery. Tracy, the
only woman with a major part in the film, is treated in much
the same way as Sidney Poitier was in his earlier films in the
1950s 'a bit different but really just like one of the boys'.
The fact, too, that most of the men in the film seemed not to
work or to work only very few hours may be an accurate
reflection of the social reality of Manhattan gays but is
certainly far from the reality of most gays who are caught in a
trap of a life divided between our work and our gayness.
There are some good scenes in this film such as the football match between hets and gays and the marvellously
decadent atmosphere of the Saturday night gig at the baths.
And Don Scotti, in the role of Scotti, is superb. And, on the
whole, I suppose one is glad that this film has been made at
all. But the fact that such a bland little film can be seen as a
breakthrough shows what a long way we still have to go.*
by Sue Bruley
bookshops
Gay Left 21
LETTERS
LESBIAN LEFT
LEFTovers
Contributions to Gay Left
Contents
Carrying On ...
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Divided We Fail
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Women in Gay Left ...
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A Grim Tale ...
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Was Marx Anti-Gay?
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All Worked Up
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Gay Community Centres ...
Notes on Gays and Class ...
Foxed A Critique of Fox
Reviews ...
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Letters ...
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ISSN: 0307-9813
success are also linked up with the fear that he may become
a homosexual. Parents often see the development of this in
their sons as a stigma that reflects back to them.
The heterosexual ideal is further reinforced by the boy's
peers. All of us are judged by friends according to how
neatly we fit into the gender stereotype of our sex. Even
adolescent boys who enter into homosexual behaviour will
be seen to reinforce ideals of proper male behaviour, for
example in mutual masturbation over the pictures in Play-
boy.
Sex Education
Men are often assumed to know instinctively about sex,
especially how to 'do it'. Not only is this an expectation we
have of ourselves and other men, but something women
expect of us as well. Sex education rarely discusses technique. If men are supposed to know it all then there is little
need for men to be taught. Contained in sex education
material is an assumption that the man must have an
orgasm. As a person whose role is defined in terms of
achievement and production, a man will look for achievement and production in his sex life. The ejaculate is a
product; it is a sign, like the experiencing of an orgasm,
that the man has achieved something. In the face of these
sorts of gratifications being sought by men from sex it is
little wonder that sex-education material limits itself to
describing sex acts that are male orgasmic and potentially
fertile.
Talking About Sex
As men our sexual prowess is an assumed part of our identity. In competing with other men we will use a form of
4 Gay Left
5 Gay Left
Outcome.
by Jeffrey Weeks
Two Worlds
Gay men and women have worked together throughout the
history of the homosexual movement. Radclyffe Hall and
Una Troubridge, the most famous lesbians of the inter-war
period, were in close touch with the (mainly homosexual)
sex reformers of the 1920s and 1930s; and during the
1950s and 1960s lesbians like Charlotte Wolff gave their
support to the Homosexual Law Reform Society and the
Albany Trust, whose main constituency was bound to be
male. Indeed, the Campaign of the HLRS and law change
of the 1960s probably gave as much stimulus to lesbian
self organisation as to male homosexuals. Lesbian groups
such as the Minorities Research Group, Arena Three, and
Kenric, developed in the 1960s partly out of the new
atmosphere created by the post-Wolfenden reform
activities. Similarly, in the early days of GLF, gay women
worked with gay men, though the women were invariably
in a minority of perhaps 1 to 5. A similar alliance can be
seen today in CHE.
But there were always acute tensions. When the women
walked out of the London GLF in 1972 to set up an
autonomous organisation, they gave three reasons: the
drain on their energy caused by the endless fight against the
men's sexism; the unradical nature of GLF politics
generally; and the need to provide a "viable alternative to
the exploitative 'straight' gay ghetto". These reasons
encapsulate the whole problem, and pinpoint the real
difficulties of collaboration. The male gay organisations
have been essentially instrumental in political thrust; the
HLRS of the 1960s was designed to change the law; the
Campaign for Homosexual Equality, despite the proliferation of other aims, intends to do the same. Most of the
lesbian organisations on the other hand have been primarily
explicitly social. Kenric was founded in the 1960s specifically because a group of lesbians were dissatisfied with the
abandonment by the Minorities Research Group of its
social meetings. And Sappho, the largest lesbian organisation
today, is primarily social in its impact, the magazine of
that name being chiefly a grassroots contact keeper rather
than a vehicle of political propaganda.
Boy meets Boy ...
There is an obvious and central reason for the difficulty
in forming a united gay movement. Gay men essentially
want to meet other gay men, gay women other gay
women. This is not a simple chauvinism but a basic
problem. Gay people, by definition, need emotional and
sexual contact with their own sex. This does not mean, as
the old theory that homosexual men are basically
misogynists would suggest, that cross-gender relationships
are difficult or impossible, but it does mean that they
cannot carry the same emotional current.
The reasons for this are not simply sexual. Beyond it is
the whole cultural weight and baggage which defines us
differently as men and women. The authors of the
important book, Sexual Conduct, John Gagnon and William
Simon remind us that
"the patterns of overt sexual behaviour on the part of
homosexual females tend to resemble closely those of
heterosexual females and to differ radically from the
sexual patterns of both heterosexual and homosexual
males".
This is not surprising given the massive socialisation process
we all undergo. Our sexuality revolves around our gender
identity. But it is more than just an individual socialisation
7 Gay Left
Communists Comment
In Autumn of 1976 the Communist Party of Great Britain
produced an important statement on the oppression of
homosexuals following a decision of their annual conference. Nigel Young of Gay Left interviews Sarah Benton
and Bea Campbell, both members of the CPGB on some
of the major related questions confronting the CP today.
The views expressed are, of course, the personal views of
the two women and not necessarily official party policy.
How did the Statement arise and what were the processes
involved in the Party which led to the formulation and
production of the Statement?
Bea: At the last Party Congress in the autumn of 1975,
there were several gay resolutions from branches up and
down the country and there were several attempts to get
these included in the main resolutions. The executive of
the Communist Party knew of the existence of the gay
movement and that's as far as it went. In fact, it was the
first attempt by gays in the Party, at that level, to commit
the Party to a positive position on homosexuality. There
was a real problem because it had never been aired -- it had
never been discussed, and communists were bound to have
fairly predictable sorts of attitudes, just like the left has got
its predictable attitudes to women unless feminism confronts it.
So there was this very formal reference to homosexuality
in the main resolution which completely dissatisfied the
gays who were there, who, in fact, were the only people
who voted against the main resolution. The resolutions
were not rejected but there was an acknowledgment that
it wouldn't have made any sense to say 'Oh, yes, we'll
support homosexuals', never having discussed the subject.
So those resolutions were referred back to the new executive which was going to have discussions and try to work
something out. The Party's national organiser worked
together with a group of gays in the Party to prepare a
possible policy statement.
Sarah: There was also a general sense among gays that being
a gay in the CP would involve some people having political
of being changed.
Sarah: I also think that it's not just that gay people's
political consciousness has changed as a result of their
experiences of the gay movement which leads them to
ask different questions about how you change things. It
is also, because the times have changed, because 1976/
1977 is the period of crisis, repression and depression, and
for anyone to operate politically is more difficult. There's
more fear and tension and conservatism around that
actually means that you have to think of different ways
of being political. Had anybody in 1970 believed, and I'm
not saying a lot of gay liberation people did, but had
people in 1970 believed that small groups and spontaneity
would effect a lot of changes, you certainly couldn't
believe that in 1976 because of things being much tighter
and much harder and demanding a different way of acting
politically for it to be effective.
Why did the Statement emphasise law reform and not deal
with the whole spectrum of sexuality?
Bea: There's no way that the statement could have been
representative of what it was known would be broadly
agreed in the Party if it would enter into arguments about
the politics of sexuality. That has to happen but I think
that can only happen by the issue being raised in a way
that makes it accessible to the majority of the Party members and actually makes them then feel 'yes, they're responsible' for supporting a positive policy for homosexuality and
affirming homosexual rights.
However the Statement did begin to talk about the
politics of sexism ... it tried to situate it in a sexual politics
so it's not as if the only thing people got delivered were
demands to change the law and give civil liberties ... the
point is the Statement is only the introduction to the argument; it's an entry into a whole new discussion about the
nature of sexual politics.
Sarah: Given that the existing Statement is already very
controversial then it wouldn't have helped us to have
something that would have been totally incomprehensible
for some of the members, who find it very difficult to get
their minds around the possibility that one can question the
naturalness and the rightness and the communist morality
of heterosexual intercourse.
There's a certain puritanism which is very strong on the
British left generally, which associates a strong family and
straightforward sex with a man and wife, with communist
morality. Bourgeois morality is seen as living in sin, promiscuity. Sexual athletics and bourgeois morality is not seen
as good family structure ... it isn't seen as a good solid
working class unit.
How compatible is the Statement with the CP line on the
family?
Bea: Up until contemporary feminism hit the CP its
attitude to the family was completely conventional. When
feminism engaged in the Party, that immediately began to
change. First of all the Party quite explicitly supported
women's liberation. Some branches again agreed on national
resolutions in the last London district congress last autumn.
What was actually written was by no means a conventional
attitude to the family ... it was based on the assumption
that the family is a political institution and serves political
purposes. It's not a natural law of human organisation. It
was seen as an institution which oppresses women and,
furthermore, it's something which is open to political
change.
I mean people are now being expected to change the
way they live in the family, so, I think that the kind of
conventional image of the cloth-capped Communist Party
which believes in defending the family and defending
bourgeois morality doesn't really stand up, given that the
CP has really been affected to its marrow by the new
sexual politics and has actually written that into its policy
statements -- that doesn't mean that it's not divided because it is.
10 Gay Left
12 Gay Left
and a duty to say something about it, but I think you can't
unless there is a reason foi passing public judgment.
I mean, at what point in time do you publish on the
front page of your newspaper a public criticism of another
CP. When it comes up and you have a policy on it you do,
but you don't put a statement on the front page of the
Morning Star saying the Soviet Union represses homosexuals
and we condemn them.
Bea: But it's worth saying that when and if the British
movement on homosexuals actually says 'look, we've got
case histories of', and that includes people in the CP
when they are able to say 'look, this person's actually been
put in camp because he or she is a homosexual and we want
to have a campaign about it', then there's an imperative for
revolutionary organisations to engage in that. But that's
never happened and I think an initiative like that could
only come from contingents that really feel deeply offended by it, and in the case of homosexuality it's going to be
homosexuals themselves.
Why do you feel the Statement is important and more than
just a Statement?
Bea: I think it's important because it will change the life
of homosexuals in the CP. It actually means that they're in
a situation in which their right to be homosexual is affirmed
by the Party. Now you might think that's not very important in terms of whether life as lived in Stockport in the CP
is going to get transformed or not. But I bet that it qualitatively alters life in the CP for a lot of homosexuals and
that's really important.
13 Gay Left
by Bob Cant
Coming out is probably the key unifying feature of the gay
movement. Everyone- from gay Trotskyists to gay
Conservatives-seems to be agreed on the point that all gays
should break out of the closet and declare themselves. The
last two issues of Gay Left have contained discussions of
coming out experiences by two members of the collective.
They wrote of the earlier oppression they suffered at home,
it school, in the ghetto and so on and explained the factors
which had led them to come out. But, of course, it doesn't end
there. The fairy story ending ('As our eyes met across
the crowded bar of the Boltons, we knew ... ') is as false
is any other fairy story ending. For the society that we live
in is still much as it was before-what was a revolutionary
upheaval for the gay who came out is of little or no importance to most of the other 50 million people on this
island.
Gayness is now talked about in intelligent ways but no
major inroads have been made into society's assumptions of
what is normal. We ourselves still struggle with these deeply
rooted assumptions. Society still seldom allows gay parents
to keep their children. Wearing a gay badge to work where
I might offend customers and therefore cause the collapse
of the pound is held by the law to be fair ground for dismissal. So how do we manage with the new more subtle
form of oppression-'Some of my best friends are gay but
the children/Arabs/appointment committee aren't so broadminded'- not forgetting 'I used to be bi myself but it freaked my girl out too much'- and then, of course, 'I met such a
lovely gay couple from Milton Keynes at the local church
and they've really got it together-perhaps you should meet
them.' All of which makes my wrist about as limp as a steel
girder.
I am a 32 year old teacher, a socialist, and not involved
in a relationship. What I intend to do is discuss how I've
handled the last five and a half years, some of my relationships and friendships, the problems of activity on the left
and also the constant strain of feeling yourself a political
message.
After New York
The thing that forced me into coming out was New York. I
was visiting a gay friend in the summer of 1971 and found
that I was taken for gay. Everyone I met regarded coming
out as so obviously right that discretion or pretence would
have been really stupid. None of them was particularly
political in a traditional sense but their gay identity was
something they were political about in a way I had never
encountered before. I was only there a few weeks but when
I returned to London I had no choice but to join the Gay
Liberation Front. There I met all kinds of women and men
engaged in a real debate about their liberation from sexual
stereotyping and committed to activity towards that end.
My personal problem disappeared and I saw that my sexual
identity was oppressed by the society I lived in. With the
support of this movement I began to feel I could make my
own decisions.
I had long had vague socialist sympathies which took the
14 Gay Left
16 Gay Left
family amongst others. For example, family law is committed to the maintenance of the heterosexual monogamous family unit as the basic unit within society. It
thus proclaims the normality and necessity of heterosexuality, preserves the subordination of women and
children within the family and helps to ensure that
those outside it shall suffer poverty, loneliness, insecurity,
social ostracisation (not only gay people, but single
parents, the elderly etc). Laws on pornography and
obscenity are used to define and re-define a repressive
sexual morality. Laws limiting access to abortion help
to maintain the 'moral' tie between sex and reproduction
and deny women's rights to control their own fertility
and sexuality.
Of course the law isn't oppressive by itself but because
it serves the economic-political system and as such helps
to keep us, more or less, in our oppressed places. Often we
may not notice how the law is operating against us until we
knock against the boundaries of its assumptions. Lesbian
mothers fighting for the custody of their children discover
that the 'welfare of the child' which is supposed to be the
paramount consideration in deciding custody is defined not
in terms of who will give the child the most love and support
but in terms of where s/he will be provided with the most
'normal' environment.
And yet the idea that lesbians aren't oppressed by the
law (because not defined as criminal) is widely accepted
in the gay movement. This seems to derive in part at least,
from the conservative view of law which reformist gay
organisations have adopted and the simplistic criticisms
which have been made of reformism from the left of the
gay movement. In effect, CHE seems to accept the reactionary 'commonsense' view of law which runs roughly as
follows: The law is a more or less neutral institution in
society which protects the honest and upright majority .
from the criminal and corrupt minority the national 'us'
from muggers and murderers, from bombers and bank
robbers, from shop lifters and sexual maniacs ... Of course
sometimes the law draws the line between the good `us'
and the bad 'them' in the wrong place. For example in the
past it hasn't always been very fair to women or to immigrants especially black people ... And the law still discriminated against homosexual men. But if we could shift
the line between criminal and non-criminal so that homosexual men had parity with heterosexual men then the main
barrier to homosexual equality would be removed.
Film Review
At last a film we can call our own?
SEBASTIANE
Directed by Derek Jarman
There's an ad on the Tube showing a chicly dressed woman
holding a Virginia Slim cigarette; the caption reads, "We've
come a long way, baby, at last a cigarette we can call our
own." The implicit message is that the women's movement
existed only to gain women the freedom to consume
another set of products; freedom is the power to exercise
choice as a consumer of commodities. As with women so
with gay men: our liberation is seen to consist in the power
to consume our own products. Sebastiane is just such a
commodity, on sale to the gay male public: if we are free
to go to our own films, discos, pubs, etc., what more do we
want?
But it is a measure of our continued exploitation and
oppression that such a bad film as Sebastiane should receive
adulatory reviews from the straight and gay press and should
be a huge box office success at the Gate Cinema, and it is
a measure too of the continuing ineffectiveness of the gay
movement that Jarman's banal analysis of the connections
between sexual repression, mysticism and violence should
be applauded as courageous.
The film opens in Diocletian's court where decadence
abounds in the shape of Lindsay Kemp and assorted
exotically dressed actors, and our first sight of Sebastian
is as he falls from favour for objecting to the death of a
slave (because he has become a Christian). Already two
pervasive faults of the movie are apparent: the Latin
dialogue, translated in subtitles, is intensely distracting and
intensely limiting in that it throws all the weight of
meaning on to the visual images, and those images are far
too weak to take it. Derivative from Fellili and gay porn
they lack authentic sensuality and become high kitsch.
The subsequent tale of Severus' unrequited passion for
Sebastian, and of the latter's masochistic relationship to his
god thus becomes an unfolding of cliche image after cliche
i mage.
Sebastian showers, adored both by Severus and the
camera; two lovers romp in slow motion in a rock pool;
Severus' spleen is expressed by him stabbing an apple or
petulantly smashing up his room, etc. Even the violence
is prettified: Julian's mutilation becomes a parody of the
Pieta, and Sebastian's murder is shot in slow motion with
all the langorous fascination with death that Peckinpah
has shown.
Throughout the film Jarman is hopelessly caught
between trying to evoke a fantasy of stereotypically good-
paign on legal issues in the context of challenging our oppression as women and as lesbians is a crucial one. The
more individual we get as feminists in campaigns such
as those on abortion, rape, lesbians' rights to custody,
battered women, equal pay, nurseries and many others, the
more sensitive we have to become to the need to combine
i mmediate help with long term aims, pressure for legal and
administrative reform with the development of our own
understanding and strength; we have to resist the pressures
to play down less 'popular' causes (such as abortion, lesbian
rights) in order to establish greater influence, and still trying to move outwards to reach more women. It all seems
i mmensely complicated. But for women, and above all for
lesbians, there isn't a simple path, there isn't a reformist
option, in the struggle for our liberation. But that in itself
won't protect us from the traps of reformism.
Reprinted with permission from Outcome.
Outcome is produced by Lancaster University GaySoc on
behalf of the Northwest Gay Liberation Campaign of
NUS.
looking men in exotic surrounds to titilate his audience,
and the attempting to give some intellectual body to his
meditation on sex and violence. He succeeds in doing
neither. We can neither wank successfully nor are we
provoked by his disarmingly trite conclusion that sexual
repression leads to violence. Yes, but how does repression
lead to violence? Without an examination of the mediations
of sexuality and power, without a sense of the reality of
the characters Jarman focuses on, we cannot make the
connection meaningful. Sebastian is a self-indulgent ascetic,
Severus a raging inferno of dammed passion, Max a sadistic
clown, Julian a sycophantic sidekick, all are two dimensional and ripped from context. Why Sebastian should become
a masochistic ascetic in search of mystical union, whilst
Julian, also a Christian, is a boring yes-man is unclear. Why
Antony and Adrian get it on, and what the implications
of their sexual relation are, all that is left unexplored.
The film purports to tackle avowedly difficult themes,
and does nothing of the sort; its maxim is that "to fuck is
good, and not to fuck makes you fucked up" but surely
more needs to be said than this vulgar Reichian homily.
The film is thus dishonest, and in so far as Jarman has not
reflected on the scarcity of movies that deal with gayness
and the whole problematic of sexual oppression and
liberation, other than to make a fast buck out of that
scarcity, he has made a reactionary movie contributing to
the absorption of the sexual liberation movement into
capitalism, contributing indeed to the continuing repressive
desublimation of sexuality under capitalism.
There is still a need for films that explore the area that
Jarman so resolutely skates round, as indeed there is still
a need for films that deal explicitly with the situation now
of gay men and women. Possibly the very success of
Sebastiane might make it easier for gay film-makers to
produce those films. My fear is that Sebastiane will serve as
a model for a whole train of gay exploitation movies that
will do nothing for the cause of sexual liberation. If that
were to be the case then Jarman would bear a great deal
of the responsibility.
Phil Derbyshire
19 Gay Left
Book Reviews
WE SPEAK FOR OURSELVES
by Jack Babuscio
2 ibid.
3 Marx, K. The German Ideology. Lawrence & Wishart. 1965. p60.
Nigel Young
23 Gay Left
WOMEN AWAKE
The Experience of Consciousness Raising
By Sue Bruley
Sue Bruley's pamphlet is a very interesting combination of
the 'personal' and 'political'. It is written as a personal
account of a woman's development out of the 'dogmatic'
politics of IS through the experience of a consciousnessraising group. The political issues raised by this experience
are arousing a great deal of interest not only in the women's
and gay movement, but throughout the left.
Sue Bruley's statement against "a dogmatic Leninist
position" should not, I think, be read as a rejection of
Leninism, of a democratic centralist form of organisation.
Many feminists who are committed to Leninism both
inside and outside left groups are also committed to
revolutionising our concept of what 'Leninism' has to
become to meet the new needs, experience and political
developments of the present period. The "basic inability of
the left to take sexism seriously" is a dangerous obstacle
to the whole movement, because it restricts our ability to
understand bourgeois ideology and to speak to the day-today experience of the oppressed. Consciousness-raising
itself provides an important model of politicisation of the
' personal' which none of the left can afford to ignore.
One of the most interesting issues raised by the group
described in this pamphlet is the following division: "The
group was basically split in its attitude towards men. On
one side their entire lives were directed by their involvement with men, on the other side, relationships with men
were not fundamental, had to be treated with great
suspicion, and were always of less importance than relationships with other women." This split is defined at an early
stage in the group's development, and seems to me to be
more than a question of sexual orientation. "Those in the
group who were gay thought that the basis for a distinction
between gay and straight women on the grounds of sexual
preference was wrong and that any woman who wanted to
relate to "other women in a serious way should be proud to
call herself a Lesbian." For women, the gay/straight
distinction is not definable in male terms. Many gay men
have made the mistake of thinking that it is. Female
sexuality has been so suppressed, repressed, abused and
denied for so long that the expression and liberation of our
sexuality is a more fundamental issue than 'gay or straight'.
Some of the group didn't think they had ever had an
orgasm. "Heterosexual sex is prick-centred and rarely takes
female needs into consideration . .." Few of us have found
it possible to regain control over our sexuality in relation
to men, for the simple reason that we are oppressed and
our sexuality-for-men is necessarily corrupted and distorted.
Is there a revolutionary feminist way of being heterosexual?
The discussion on 'love' and 'couples' is also interesting.
"This designation of some relationships as 'special'
necessarily subordinates all other relationships and therefore reinforces women's isolation and dependence (psychological as well as economic) on men." This problem of
exclusivity, whether in gay or 'straight' couples, is rooted
in the bourgeois institution of monogamy, which still
defines our practice in sexual relationships. Sex is a
commodity, and is split: either the 'real thing' or 'not' the
'real thing'. The double standard still imposes itself on all
kinds of relationships. Sue took the view "that the
women's movement would always be seriously handicapped
whilst women remained in couple relationships with men,
and therefore, one of the tasks of women's liberation must
be to make women both believe and feel that they can be
complete outside of a couple relationship". If we take this
statement as a practical proposal about what goes on in
left groups, for example, we get an idea of the extent of
the struggle this would involve, and its necessity. Women
cannot develop politically if they either remain psychologically dependent on men, or feel pressured into holding
up their development by forming the kind of relationships
they need not have chosen. The potential of gay relation24 Gay Left
ships is that, although many fall into the same trap, they
necessarily challenge conventional forms.
"CR can act as a bridge between the personal and the
political." The nature of women's politicisation is allimportant. Women who have not experienced "what sisterhood is all about ... putting women first" will learn the
type of 'political consciousness' which becomes a selfoppressive commitment to fighting others' oppression and
forgetting our own; a barrier not only to feminist awareness
but to the emergence of conscious, thinking, critical and
independent revolutionaries.
Celia Holt
THE RIGHTS AND WRONGS OF WOMEN
Edited and Introduced by Juliet Mitchell and Ann
Oakley
(Penguin 1.25)
Keith Birch
Ideologues of Sex
THE MODERNISATION OF SEX
by Paul A Robinson
overlap". Ellis was a socialist, but he was also an enthusiastic eugenecist, who believed that in motherhood, the woman
is
"lifted above the level of ordinary humanity to become
the casket of an inestimable jewel".
Ellis' career is very instructive on the evolution of British
socialism, and the limitations of sexual liberalism, but this
can only be brought out by locating him in a specific social
and cultural milieu. Robinson argues that Ellis, Kinsey and
Masters and Johnson have contributed to a recognisably
modern way of looking at sex, as in many ways they have.
But the crucial question of why their ideas and influence
should have taken root is left unexplored.
Robinson formally links them by his use of the term
' modernisation'. Their contribution is assessed against the
yardstick of a postulated modernising enterprise, whose
central characteristics are revolt against 'Victorianism' a
new 'enthusiasm' for sex; a willingness to broaden the
definition of sexuality, and to explore 'deviant' sex; a
greater stress on female sexuality; and a questioning of the
traditional institutional framework for sexuality, marriage
and the family. But the notion of 'modernisation' has
unfortunate connotations; it implies a process (with strong
analogies to economic modernisation) whereby attitudes
have moved from a state of primitive ignorance to shining
freshness. Robinson is himself well aware of the limitations
of the concept he employs, but the form of the essays
prevent him from theorising these. I think a more useful
concept would be that of 'liberalisation', a political not
a technological process, which implies a loosening of the
bonds rather than a climb from darkness into light. But
the fact is that the essays are only loosely bound together
by the concept; they are basically selfcontained examinations of three different moments in the development of
sexual liberalism.
Not surprisingly the differing concerns of the four
people reflect this. Ellis was anxious to establish that
certain categories existed in a culture which only vaguely
accepted them (e.g. 'female sexuality', 'homosexuality',
etc.). In a sense he did not so much challenge 'Victorianism'
as create it as a coherent coconut shy to attack. His work
gained clarity as it attacked a well-lit enemy. Kinsey was
concerned with documenting sexual behaviour; his early
career as a student of insects was reflected in his later
endeavour as a chronicler of sexual behaviour. By massively
detailed questionnaires distributed to thousands of men
and women he hoped to build up a consensus of how
people actually behaved sexually in bed (and out of it). His
detractors, not surprisingly, felt he was revealing a can of
worms. But his determined materialism and naturalism,
and his concentration on behaviour as it was, helped undermine the pieties of received ideologies. By the 1960s
Masters and Johnson could safely assume the merits of
sexuality; they sought to make it function better by
.
developing techniques of sexual therapy. But implicit in
their determined efforts to help couples to fuck better is
an implied theory: that sex far from being a massively
threatening force can be the essential glue in keeping a
marriage intact.
The interesting element that Robinson's work reveals
is the severe limitations on the radicalism of each of the
people he studies. Ellis was trapped within gender role
assumptions as clearly as any of the Victorians he attacked.
Nor could Kinsey, despite his documentation of the widespread incidence of homosexual behaviour, quite escape
defending the superiority of heterosexuality and the
'natural' basis of male and female differences. And Masters
and Johnson, with their clinical encouragement of sex
technique learning, only treated couples (and usually rich
middle class couples at that) and ended up themselves
marrying one another. Far from challenging marriage or
the family their work explicitly elevated their significance.
Despite this, these three moments in sexual liberalisation
have had important effects on the development of contemporary attitudes to homosexuality. Ellis was a prime
25 Gay Left
Jeffrey Weeks
Note
Derek J. Cohen
26 Gay Left
(Penguin 95p)
Bob Cant
ABORTION IN DEMAND
by Victoria Greenwood and Jock Young
Jeffrey Weeks
MOZAMBICAN WOMEN
The victory of Frelimo against the Portuguese in
Mozambique was welcomed by socialists all over the world.
To those of us who had supported the solidarity movements
such a victory had often seemed impossible and when it did
happen it was like a miracle. But it was no miracle it was
a victory based on over ten years' hard struggle and organisation. During the war of liberation, women and men had
played an equal part in the struggle to end Portuguese domination. But when the military struggle came to an end the
role of women was no longer so clear. Were they to go back
to their old roles? Was their revolutionary role to be the preparation of meals for male comrades? Were they to play an
equal and essential part with men in the creation of a new
society? Mozambican women were concerned about these
problems and called a conference in Maputo in November
1976 to discuss them and to plan how to combat them.
A report of the conference has recently been published
in English. Some sections of it deal with the problems
facing women still living a traditional life-style such as
initiation rites, bride price and polygamy. They recognise
that initation is designed to make girls submissive to men
and that education programmes are required to end it. The
relationship between this sexual submission and the general
passivity of women in Mozambican society is perceived, if
only on an elementary level. The problems of bride price
and polygamy, however, are much more rooted in the
poverty of the country. The involvement of women as
equals in the collective production of wealth will, hopefully,
play a great part in the abolition of these evils although
further education and consciousness raising are necessary.
Those who continue to practise these customs will be
denied access to positions of political responsibility.
The conference also recognised the way in which
bourgeois ideology, particularly in the form of liberalism,
affected the lives of many women in the cities. The structure of city life had been such that many women had been
abandoned with young children, had been unable to find
employment, had turned to prostitution, had become
alcoholics and so on. Once again the same kind of solutions
are proposed collective involvement in the process of
production, plus education.
Abortion is regarded as a 'grave social problem' and an
unwanted pregnancy as a sign that the woman has failed
to 'see the true meaning of love and the part played by
sexual relationship in love and life'. This is clearly different
from the attitude of the women's movement in industrialised countries but is hardly surprising in a society with
such a high incidence of infant mortality. Greater
emphasis is to be placed on spreading information about
family planning.
What is particularly impressive is the ideological perspective of the document on love. They believe that many
women are misled by ideas that they have found in 'rosycoloured films and literature such as magazines all spread
'by the colonial-bourgeois system'. They see that the privatisation and distortion of love and sexuality is a political
phenomenon which is not natural but a reflection of a particular society. They argue, therefore, that there must be a
spread of the concept of 'revolutionary and militant love'.
The whole document is fascinating, particularly in the
insight it provides into the attempt of a poor African
country to construct a socialist society. It raises many
important issues about the way sexual/emotional lives
would be changed in revolutionary situations. While they
hold with the traditional Marxist idea that the liberation
of women will come about through their involvement in the
economic process they go further and argue for more education to establish a new ideology of personal relationships.
It should be borne in mind too that these are formal conference decisions and the real practice may differ a great
deal from what was agreed in Maputo. But it is still much
too early to make any meaningful comment.
Bob Cant
Jeffrey Weeks
HOUSEWIFE
by Ann Oakley
Emmanuel Cooper
Letters
Gay Left c/o 36a Craven Road, London W2
AN OPEN LETTER TO SWP GAY GROUP
Dear Comrades,
I was rather disappointed that there has been no reply from
the Gay Group in SWP (formerly IS) to the article which I
wrote in Gay Left No 3 about my experiences in the IS
Gay Group between 1973 and 1975. It is true that an article
was received from an individual in the group but it was not
claimed that this was a reply and was, for other reasons,
withdrawn.
People in SWP constantly tell me that the attitude
towards sexual politics has changed and there is now much
more discussion on the issue. That may be the case internally but one would certainly never guess it from reading
Socialist Worker, Women's Voice or International Socialist
Journal. There have, it is true, been occasional articles
about victimised gay workers but this is actually nothing
new.
Paul Foot's book, Why You Should Be A Socialist,
makes several interesting points about women and the
family but nowhere does he call into question the roles
and heterosexual norms which are central to such oppression. There is not even a token line about sexism let
alone homosexuality.
I began to wonder what you were doing to change the
level of debate on sexism in SWP. I suspected, on the basis
of my own experience, that you were so eager to prove
yourselves good comrades that you only raised such questions in a way which would be acceptable to the existing
programme of the organisation.
When I saw a leaflet which you produced recently about
an anti-fascist demo in North London I felt I was correct.
You pointed out very clearly the links between gay oppression and fascism. But then, stuck on at the end of the
leaflet, without any explanation, there was the distinctive
SWP slogan 'Fight For The Right To Work'. This is not a
slogan with which I disagree, but given that you were
addressing yourselves to the gay community which often
has little knowledge of work-place politics it seems odd
that you did not clarify the links between this and the
rest of the leaflet.
There is no way that you can exist meaningfully in
the SWP without conflict. This is not because the leadership
of SWP is particularly sexist but because of the nature of
the demands that arise from sexual politics. Sexual politics
questions roles and the way people relate to each other.
These questions are threatening to everyone and Leninist parties (to my knowledge) have not yet found a way of
adequately dealing with them. They may deal with victimisations, police harassment and law reform but roles and
relationships are much, much harder. Taking them up
seriously will bring all sorts of accusations on you
'obsessed with sex', 'petit bourgeois wanker', 'unreliable'
to name but a few. Your past record and other revolutionary activity will be as nothing when you challenge such
deeply-rooted assumptions But if you are serious about
revolutionary sexual politics you must challenge these
assumptions now.
28 Gay Left
Bob Cant
German Friends
We are a group of left gays, who have read your journal
Gay Left no.1 with great interest. Especially your article
about Cuba was quite good, so that it was translated into
German. It then was printed in Rosa, that's a journal of the
"Homosexuelle Aktion Hamburg" (HAH) and a few months
later in a journal of the "Kommunistischer Bund" which
was entitled with "Kampf der Schwulenunterdruckung".
(In English: "Against the Oppression of Gays"!)
We also would like to have other papers of your group,
if available. We can send you on the other side, that
material you want, from West Germany. Can someone
understand German? That would be good, for it's quite
difficult to translate things - as you see, our English is also
not brilliant.
We think that it would be useful to come in contact
with other left gays therefore this short letter. Perhaps
we can exchange information about GB and FRG and
write in our journals about important things. As you will
know things in Germany are becoming more and more
difficult. The "Modell Deutschland" (no.IV) has brought
a Climate of oppression and "Hexenjagd". Political oppression spreads out more and more. Also gays are of course
not excluded. The last stroke: in March 1976 there has
been a decision of the "highest court" in "matters of
administration" that can forbid gay activity groups all over
West Germany to address people with gay political papers.
That means, that such activities can be stopped by the
administration at each time they want. On the other hand,
they have developed "new methods" in medicine, to make
gays 'straight': they simply kill some spots in the brain! It
is practiced already in some cities.
G. S.
Readers who would like to write can do so c/o Gay Left,
36a Craven Rd, London W2.
Gays and the CPGB
In the last issue of your paper (no.3) which was sent to me
as usual from a friend in London, I found (on page 1) the
sentence that "The Communist Party now has a special
commission preparing a report" on homosexuality. As I
read in Gay News no.108 (page 15) in an anti-communist
article under the title "A day of shame", the CPGB edited
on the 12th of September 1976 a policy statement supporting gay rights. I write to you because this matter is of much
interest for me and some gay socialists here in Berlin/West.
We are in permanent discussion with members of the CP
of West Berlin about the ability to change the up to now
more or less anti-gay policy and statements of their party.
FRIEDHELM KREY, Berlin
Too Complex, Too Jargonistic
The one criticism that I feel I must make about your
journal is that through its complex construction, and sheer
volume, it may well be ignored by those who, obviously,
it sets out to help in order that they may help themselves.
I am not implying that the working class people do not
wish to fight for what they rightly feel belongs to them
but sadly forms of suppression are often so effective that
they don't really grasp the seriousness of their situation.
If the various forms of abuse against the working class
people were presented to them in a strong, honest, perceptive way but in their own jargon then they may well see
What's Left....
THE GIRLS' GUIDE, Fourth Edition
now available from 1 North End Road, London W14.
Cost 2.00. This guide is the most widely distributed
lesbian publication in the world. It has over 3000
listings in 40 countries of gay organisations, bars, clubs
and restaurants.
LE GROUPE DE LIBERATION HOMOSEXUEL,
POLITIQUE ET QUOTIDIEN (GLH-PQ)
now has a new address -- GERS, B.P.11, 75022 PARIS.
CEDEX 01.
Their latest activity was 'la semaine homosexuelle' 2026 April 1977. Each day was organised around a separate
topic; transvestites, sexual and social roles, gay women,
homosexual struggles and the workers' movements, latent
homosexuality, the homosexual ghetto and pederasty and
children's sexuality. It included debates, films, theatre,
songs, exhibitions and books.
SOCIALIST HOMOSEXUALS
An Australian gay socialist contact. PO Box 153,
Broadway 2007, NSW.
FREEDOM SOCIALIST PARTY
3815 5th N.E., Seattle, WA 98105. Organised a 'Gays
At Work' conference early March 1977.
MAGNUS A Journal of Collective Faggotry
We have received issue No 1 of this new journal dated
Summer 1976. It is edited by a collective of 'six white
faggots' and published in San Francisco. The main article
asks what faggotry is and how does it fit into revolutionary
struggle. It is a 'beginning attempt to understand the relationship between gay people and imperialism'.
Further information from PO Box 40568, San Francisco,
California 94140, USA.
WORKING PAPERS IN SEX, SCIENCE AND CULTURE
The second issue of this journal (dated November 1976) is
now on sale in Britain. (Price 1.35 from Compendium,
234 Camden High Street, London NW 1). It continues its
amibition of critically examining the 'function of language,
ideology and scientificity in the construction of sex theories', with articles on the-group TEL QUEL, Lacan, Psychoanalysis and Marxist Feminism, Althusser's Epistemology,
and Consciousness-Raising as Self Pity. Available also from
Box 83 Wentworth Building, 174 City Road, Darlington
2008, Australia.
BIG RED DIARY The 1977 edition is concerned with Law
and Order. A bit late as a Christmas present but a good May
Day gift. From Pluto Press, Unit 10, Spencer Court,
7 Chalcot Road, London NW1 8LH.
50p each
Overseas Airmail
Overseas Surface
Bulk Rates:
Inland, over 9 copies, 30p each
Overseas rates on application
Copies 50p each by post from
36a Craven Road, London W2
BACK ISSUES
Gay Left No 1
Gays in the Trade Unions, in Cuba, at CHE Conference, in
politics.
Gay Left No 2
No longer available
Gay Left No ,3
Women in Gay Left, Gays and Class, IS Gay Group, Gay
Workers' Movement and much more.
Copies 40p each by post from 36A Craven Road,
London W2.
31 Gay Left
EDITORIAL NOTES
The fourth issue of Gay Left has taken longer in coming
out than the other three issues. This has been as a result of
a conscious decision on the part of the collective to spend
more time on group study, in meetings with other groups
and also in going to talk sessions with groups in different
parts of the country. We also decided that, despite the
problems involved, it was worth spending time in jointly
writing our third collective article. We feel generally that
our growth and development as a group takes priority over
producing the journal at strictly regular intervals.
It is not our aim to help gays to live more easily in the
society in which they find themselves. Nor is it to act as a
pressure group to further the sectional interests of gays,
although we do not necessarily see those activities as inappropriate. In the broadest terms we wish to explore the
implications of our identity as gays and its relationship to
the economic and political structures which dominate our
social life. In trying to understand this identity in its historical and cultural contexts we wish to link our situation
with gays elsewhere and with other oppressed groups. We
hope to join with those who wish social life to change so
that ways of relating become more honest, more enriching.
more satisfying not just for gays but for all people. Our perspective remains uncompromisingly marxist in so far as we
see consumerism and commodity dominated social life as
li miting factors in this development.
We are aware of the criticisms on the part of some of
our readers that we are an all male collective and in the last
issue we attempted to answer these criticisms. All of us as
individuals are involved in situations at work, in trade
unions or other political groups where, as gay men, we are
often in a minority of one, and the group that formed the
Gay Left collective arose originally from a need to be free
from the constraints of a straight dominated society to express ourselves and develop our thinking. In view of our
own experiences and given our commitment to the struggle
against sexism the suggestion that an all male editorial
collective implies a bias in favour of male gays cannot be
taken lightly. We must repeat that we do not claim to be
representative of all or indeed any sections that comprise
the gay left. Nevertheless, we realise that in order to
develop as a forum we must not only be open to contributions from all sections, but actively solicit such contributions and encourage those who are sympathetic to
become involved in the work of the collective.
An important part of this involvement so far has
been the readers' meetings (elsewhere we say how we want
to develop this next time). At the last readers' meeting we
had a discussion concerning women and Gay Left which
strongly influenced us. This is a continuing debate as letters
in this issue show. We are open to suggestions as to how we
might extend such forums of discussion.
Contributions to the journal can take the form of
illustrations as well as articles or letters. There is one
proviso. We do not publish articles which are antisocialist, anti-feminist or anti-gay. We would be grateful,
also, to those who would be prepared to undertake selling
Gay Left -- particularly in areas where there are no other
outlets.
PRICE RISE
This was a difficult decision. We tried to work out ways of
keeping the price of this much larger Gay Left at 30p, hut
the position seemed to be this: if the price remained unchanged we would need to sell every copy printed in order
to get near the projected cost of the next issue. 40p seemed
the realistic price, particularly as we do not carry paid advertisements. The point needs to be made, too, that every
penny we get from sales goes into basic costs and making
for a bigger and, hopefully, a better journal.
32 Gay Left
Contents
Love, Sex and Maleness ..........................................................
Come All You Gay Women,
Come All You Gay Men ..........................................................
Communists Comment ..........................................................
Five And A Half ......................................................................
Lesbians Aren't Oppressed By The Law? .....................
Film Review ...............................................................................
Movement In Straight Circles ..............................................
Book Reviews .........................................................................
Letters ........................................................................................
What's Left ...............................................................................
Editorial Note
2
7
9
14
17
19
20
23
28
31
32
THE COLLECTIVE
This issue was put together by Keith Birch, Gregg
Blachford, Bob Cant, Derek Cohen, Emmanuel Cooper,
Randal Kincaid, Jeffrey Weeks, Nigel Young.
In The Balance
by the Gay Left Collective
Oppression in Liberation
Despite the real advances of the gay movement since the late
1960s, most lesbians and gay men still experience difficulty
in being homosexual in this society. Although the gay world
is now bigger and more accessible than ever before, the problems confronting homosexuals in the rest of their lives
remain. Lesbians and gay men still face social ostracism,
harassment on the streets and the possibility of losing their
jobs. There is still a discriminatory legal situation in England
and Wales, and an even more oppressive one in Scotland and
Northern Ireland. Individuals are still harassed by police,
press and neighbours. And even when we manage to avoid the
excesses of law and prejudice, there is still the difficulty of
establishing an identity in a gay world riven by distrust and
anxiety.
At the same time there are now better social facilities than
ever before. There are organisations which are able to help
lesbians and gay men in trouble with the law. There are
various gay self-help groups like FRIEND and Icebreakers,
gay switchboards and local gay groups. We now have a
flourishing gay press and more media publicity than in the
past. Even the negative factors, like the trial of Gay News for
blasphemous libel, or the press vilification of lesbian mothers,
do also have the effect of publicising the subject and giving
isolated individuals the possibility of realising that they are
not the only homosexuals in the world.
Crises
Gays at Work
Since the early days of GLF there has been concern
expressed over the problems of being gay at work, and there
have been many attempts to set up gay groups in unions. The
aims of such groups are diverseproviding a social gathering
for gays in the same occupation; supporting the process of
coming out at work; educating the rest of the union membership. The bulk of such groups are in white collar unions
often in jobs such as teaching, child care, social work, which
are points of strong ideological sensitivity. Some groups have
been set up in manual unions but these have been exceptions.
II
Disunity in Unity
The gay movement today is composed of small self-help
groups, switchboards, political groups, action groups and
some centres. The only unifying factor of all these bodies is a
common gayness. A growing gay consciousness has enabled
us to develop a general organised response to the political
forces which are attempting to contain or push back the
social and sexual reforms of the 1960s.
It has only been with the setting up of specific defence
organisations around Gay News and the response to the
Evening News attacks on lesbian mothers that we have witnessed a coherent level of activity within the gay movement.
The problems of sustaining gay political activity are enormous and it is therefore much easier to organise defensive
campaigns around specific attacks. The Gay Activists'
Alliance, formed on the basis of the National Gay News
Defence Committee and relying on grassroots self-activity, is
an important new initiative which holds out the possibility of
for united action.
Gay groups within unions have been invaluable in promoting discussion of gay politics and beginning a shift among
other trade unionists. But many of those involved in gay
work in the trade unions are isolated and often find themselves lost in a bureaucratic morass. They are often prevented
by officialdom from contacting other gays. Gays and other
oppressed groups are particularly vulnerable in the face of an
economic policy that sees redundancies and cut-backs as a
solution to the crisis. It is important both that trades unions
recognise this vulnerability and that gays join the common
fight against the cuts.
wider gay community in order to make the relevance of gayness move beyond the sphere of leisure and culture to which
it is often confined, to inform how we live all aspects of our
lives.
Gay Times
The gay scene is attractive and fun, partly because it has the
resources to make it so. But there could be more to gay life
than that. The success of the recent Gay Times Festival in
London makes it clear that many gay men welcomed the
opportunity to talk to other gay men in an atmosphere where
they were free to meet whether or not they wanted to pick
each other up. Centres such as that in Birmingham provide a
continuing social and political focus, and are of special
importance when the only available facilities for homosexuality are cottages and pubs.
Once gay groups and centres have been established they
begin to widen their horizons. The activities of Gay Sweatshop and of the Tom Robinson Band are examples. Just as
with the dominant media, these have their own contradictions there is no way an oppressed group can suddenly start
expressing itself shed of the scars of its oppression. Sweatshop's ambiguous use of camp, the male identification of
rock music (even with right-on lyrics) these require further
discussion. Yet these groups' public and unremitting commitment to gay liberation offer an alternative cultural framework. They suggest the possibility of relationships and life
styles created on our own terms.
by Dennis Altman
Taboos
Basically this paper addresses itself to the general question of
how far sexual liberation necessarily implies far-reaching
social change, how far, that is, contemporary capitalist
societies depend upon a certain regulation of sexuality
according to what Marcuse has called 'the performance principle'. 1 It concentrates on the deregulation of the taboo on
homosexuality which is a central part of the overall prescription of 'normal' sexuality in western societies.
Why argue for the centrality of the taboo on homosexuality? One could, after all, argue that sexual repression in
western society has much more basic factors, such as the
emphasis on genital sexuality and the restriction of sexual
expression to certain fixed times and places. But while this is
theoretically persuasive I would argue that it is the failure to
fully repress homosexuality that makes it so significant.
Despite the existence of the most severe sanctions which
identified homosexuality as a crime of unique horror
(western sexual morality culminating in the Nazi internment
of homosexuals in concentration camps along with Jews,
gypsies and communists) homosexuals have never been fully
suppressed in western history, and homosexuality is thus
more of an apparent threat to the existing sexual order than
the much more successfully repressed (and vague) areas of
'polymorphous perversity'.
In the last ten years there has been a dramatic change in
the capitalist state's attitude to homosexuality. Because this
has occurred simultaneously with new measures of repression
in non-advanced capitalist societies (e.g. Cuba and some Arab
states) it becomes possible to suggest the historically specific
nature of the taboo on homosexuality.
Gay Left 4
Photograph by
Alan Bistry
Liberal advances
In the past ten years official prohibitions on homosexuality
have been drastically reduced in liberal capitalist societies. I
would argue that the change is in fact equivalent to the
triumph of the demands of a consumer-oriented capitalism
over one based on production and hence represents a more
efficient and modernbut not necessarily less repressiverole
for the state.
Obviously one of the key factors influencing changes in
sexual mores is the invention of adequate birth control
methods, which by breaking the link between sexuality and
procreation for women has, by extension, destroyed the basis
of the ideology that branded homosexuality as 'unnatural' by
virtue of its non-reproductive nature. Sex is now technologically 'freed' to become a commodity.
This thesis would suggest that the homosexual movement
can quite easily be contained within modern capitalist
society, and that those who argue it is no real threat to that
society are in fact accurate. Homophobia is undoubtedly a
dominant attitude in most western societies, 10 but changes
in the role of the state have come about remarkably fast in
the last twenty years. Just as the feminist struggle for abortion and adequate contraceptive services are likely to succeed
in capitalist countries, so is that for homosexual rights, and
for the same reason: the capitalist order no longer demands
that sexuality be bent to the needs of the reproduction of
labour power. Indeed the present requirements of capitalism
are for privatised hedonism to maintain the extensive consumerism on which the system rests, and here homosexuals
represent an attractive market rather than a social threat.
It is my guess that the stigma against homosexuals will
gradually decline, though upholders of the old ethos, will
still seek to enforce it. As part of the new permissiveness
Gay Left 5
The GayMovement
In discussing the changing role of the state in regulating
homosexuality one need consider the role of the gay movement, at one and the same time a product and a cause of
change. It could arise, of course, only under certain conditions, but to recognise this is not to deny its importance in
helping produce both attitudinal and behavioural change.
The gay movement, as we know it, is essentially a product
of the sixties, and with individual variations has gone through
a three-stage development in North America, Western
Europe and Australasia. The earliest groupse.g. the Mattachine Society (USA), Arcadie (France), COC (Holland) were
low-key and deferential in style, aiming at gradual amelioration of the quite savage persecution that was the norm almost
everywhere in the west until ten years ago.
In the upsurge of radical energy of the late sixties, the
second wave of the gay liberation movement emerged. Unlike
their precursors, Gay Liberation demanded not tolerance but
a radical change in society so as to attain full equality for
homosexuals and recognition of homosexuality as part of the
human potential.11
We are now in a third wave, one that combines the overall
social moderation of the first with the direct political activity
of the second, and is much more disparate. It includes both
church groups and radical collectives; it has increasing links
with the commercial gay world which is for economic
reasons ambivalent in its attitudes to homosexual liberation.
These moves are predicated on the assumption, which gay
liberation rejected, that homosexuals can achieve equality
within society as presently constituted. Homosexual activists,
in fighting for their rights, are also fighting for the triumph
of 'modern' values over traditional ones. But they are not in
any fundamental way undermining the liberal capitalist state.
Limitations
Only a small minority of homosexuals in any way become
involved in the gay movement. As the gay movement became
much more visible and aggressive in the late sixties/early
seventies there was considerable optimism about its ability to
expand and draw in the majority of homosexuals. Even the
great proliferation of organisations that went to make up the
movement could be seen as a sign of strength. The mid seventies have seen some consolidation of the movement, in particular the emergence of a few more structured and permanent
groups such as the American National Gay Task Force. By
and large, however, the gay movement has not become a
mass movement. In as far as one can disentangle the results
of movement activity from more general social change, the
gay movement has had some considerable successes. What it
has not succeeded in doing is involving in its activities the
majority of these people who identify themselves as homosexual.
Why this is so may throw light on something that we
know very little about, namely under what conditions people
come to perceive themselves as oppressed and to organise
against this oppression. The contemporary gay movement
began as part of a far wider socio-political movement. It was
the expression of homosexuals who felt both sufficiently
self-confident and sufficiently angry to make their sexuality
a basis for political action. That only a minority of homosexuals then and in the foreseeable future share these feelings
is a continuing problem for the gay movement.
It seemed self-evident to those homosexuals who became
involved that they were oppressed. It is not, however, selfevident to most homosexuals, many of whom, indeed, resist
this analysis very vigorously.
Two sorts of answer come to mind. The first is that homosexuals have been so badly oppressed, in particular have so
internalised the pejorative judgement of society, that they
Gay Left 6
Partial integration
What is apparent, nevertheless, is that only a certain form of
homosexuality is accepted by society, and in so far as the
gay movement works within this framework it will be both
successful and no real threat whatsoever. Even in cities like
New York or Sydney where homosexuality remains technically illegal, there are vast and overt opportunities for
homosexual activity, and the growing numbers of those prepared to 'come out' publicly find that public sanctions
against homosexuals are declining. (Though, one must note,
at a very uneven rate.) The new 'permissiveness' has
undoubtedly benefited homosexuals, though it is questionable how far this 'freedom' could be extendedwhether, in
particular, armies and police forces, not to mention car
assembly lines, could tolerate open expression of homosexuality. Fairly clearly sex is 'free' only in times and
circumstances that are intended for consumption, rather
than production and regulation of the society. In the case of
homosexuality, it is the burgeoning ghetto that offers such
opportunities, just as heterosexuals find an increasing range
of travel and entertainment industries to cater for their new
freedom. But within these limits all forms of sexual expression are increasingly seen as equally valid.
This is the new, open 'pan-sexuality' of the 'liberated'
seventies. It is expressed almost too well by Steve Ostrow,
entrepreneur of New York's Continental Baths,
'In 14 years of marriage I'd never been with another
woman. Have never, because I'm still happily married to
my wife. Sex with another woman would have caused me
deep remorse, but sex at a bath with boys, that was
simple release. And I knew the country was full of men
like me. Sex, after all, is the most intense form of
communication, and this is a technological society built
upon expanding communication, much as capitalism was
built on expanding money; I sensed we'd need to expand
a sexual communication by promiscuity without guilt,
and that if I could create a place in which the middle class
could create its own values, instead of living by values
imposed upon it by the church, the state, as it always
had ...'12
Note that homosexuality is not seen as a full and valid way
of relating to others, nor as a real alternative to the heterosexual family. Its whole role is to provide safe release for
genital urges. Guilt persistsnot now about homosexual
encounters, but about homosexual relations, as any observer
of the current gay scene will notice. There is, clearly, a
parallel with heterosexual 'swingers', who take pride in their
'non-involvements'.
The new freedom offers on one level considerable derepression, while on another promoting the continued
supremacy of the heterosexual norm which, it is now perceived, can tolerate far more 'deviance' than traditional
moralists argued. Indeed this example suggests that the contemporary tolerance of homosexuals can in some cases
extend to a tolerance of homosexuality among those otherwise seen as 'straight', and to this extent, as I shall argue, it
does contain a radical potential.
Radical potential
Where the de-repression of homosexuality does seem to me
to retain its radical potential is in terms of an argument
about the inter-relationship between sexual repression and
sex-roles. As David Fernbach has argued:
'The psychological production of masculinity and
femininity involves the repression of homosexual tendencies, but this process works differentially for each
sex. For the girl, it is not specifically lesbianism which
is repressed, but rather any claim to sexual autonomy
independent of the penis. For the boy, homosexuality
seems equivalent to castration, involving the loss of his
position as a sexual subject and becoming like women
the object of male sexual aggression . The famous "male
bond" serves to guard against this by harnessing male
penises in the parallel, so to speak, towards the penetration of female sexual objects.'13
Gay Left 7
If Freud is right then the full de-repression of homosexuality would seem to have very considerable consequences for social order. In a society which maintains
heterosexuality as the norm (even were it to grant full rights
to 'deviants'), the generalised de-repression of homosexuality
would, according to speculation of this sort, begin a process
of far more radical sexual release. Freed from guilt, the
discovery by men of sexual feelings for each other could
make it easier to break down hostility and aggression
between each otherand, by extension, make it easier for
them to relate as equals with women against whom
aggression is also often directedbut to do so homosexuality
would have to move beyond its current emphasis on genitality, often of an extremely aggressive sort, 17 to an
exploration of the tender dimensions of eroticism, the transformation, perhaps, of male bonding into a sisterhood of
men.
The search for full sexual liberation, then, may need to
move in a direction quite opposite to that of the gay movement which, having accepted the need to be integrated into
the dominant heterosexual order, comes to support and
indeed bolster its values. Often there is no alternative; in
practice co-option is better than persecution. But it is not
revolutionary, nor is it necessarily linked to any real change
towards a less aggressive and more loving society. 'Make love,
not war' is an appealing slogan, but it forgets that through
history men have done both.
Notes
1 See H. Marcuse: Eros and Civilisation, N.Y. Vintage, 1961, ch. 2.
2 M. ()raison: La Question Homosexuelle (Paris 75) p.96.
3 See C. Ford and F. Beach: Patterns of Sexual Behaviour (London
1952), pp.132-42.
4 This seems to be the case in the modern arab world. See Karlen:
Lesbians SplAID
by Sue Cartledge
I was on my way to a Lesbian Left meeting one January
evening when suddenly the word that dare not speak its name
confronted me on every news-stand: LONDON'S LESBIAN
BABIES! EVENING NEWS EXCLUSIVE! it screamed in
foot high letters.
Thus was the unsuspecting commuter introduced to a
story that seemed a winning gutter-press combination of perverted sex, shady medical ethics ("Dr. Strange Love"), and
innocent babies; with a dash of racism thrown in. In the
ensuing days the "extraordinary and disturbing case" of a
doctor (full name published to make sure everyone knew he
was Jewish), who had helped a handful of lesbians to have
children by artificial insemination, received extensive coverage in the press, on radio, and on television.
He Called Me Daddy
Few other papers descended to the level of the Evening News,
who not only engaged in extensive betrayals of confidence to
get the original story, but proceeded thereafter to adopt a
tone of high-minded self righteousness. They claimed they
had withheld the names and photographs of one household at
the request of the people concerned, but failed to mention
that the request had been backed up by the threat of a legal
injunction. There were, of course, the inevitable cartoons of
hefty tweed-suited ladies exclaiming "He called me Daddy!".
But the press generally chose to adopt the tone of reason
("cause for concern") rather than the original hysteria of the
Evening News ("BAN THESE BABIES"). However in many
ways the reasoned arguments of the liberal press are a clearer
reflection of the prevailing attitudes towards women, children, gays and the family, and a better guide to just what we
have to fight, than the prurient hypocrisy of the News.
Cornflakes
There was plenty of "concern" and "worry" about the
hostile attitudes the children could encounter at school and
in the outside world. But it didn't seem to occur to these
same concerned people that maybe they should be trying to
change these attitudes, rather than attempting the impossible
task of ensuring that no child ever grows up except in a
white, anglo-saxon, protestant, nuclear cornflakes packet
family. Likewise none of the experts thought to draw attention to society's signal failure to provide money and help for
children and their parents in the form of adequate child
benefits, nurseries etcetera, just so long as they grow up
"normal".
Gay Left 9
Making sense of it
This article has been highly personal and, at times, painful to
write because none of the issues it raises have been resolved.
But I think it is important to abstract from the personal and
see whether it has anything more general to say about both
the first phase of the gay liberation movement and directions
towards which we might be moving today.
Firstly it seems clear to me now that GLF ideology (I)
was rife with individualistic assumptions about the potential
of individuals to change by their own efforts. It assumed that
a lifetime of conditioning could be magically wisked away by
one simple act of coming out. While the analysis was of the
structural factors which generate oppression, the practice
was based on individual self-change as if this was boundless.
Changing our lifestyles and challenging ideologically the
gender role system is not going to make the revolution. This
is no reason not to attempt to make such changes and to
challenge sexist ideology, but it is reason to really take
account of the deep barriers both personal and social which
we have to confront and to examine ways of gradually
chipping down.
Gay Left 11
Julia
not of a closet homosexual, but of a proud woman defending herself from the pathetic sneers of a man who cannot
conceive of any integrity in relationships which are lacking
heterosexual intercourse. In this context, it is a surprising
omission of the film that we are never told that the theme
of the play we see her writing, The Children's Hour, is
lesbianism.
The rest of the film is pure Hollywood--the flashbacks to
to happy childhood memories, the first night success of the
new playwright, Americans in Paris, the Hitchcockian train
journey and the search for Julia's child around bakers'
shops of Alsace. All these are in the best entertainment
tradition of the Hollywood comedy/thriller--but really no
more. Hollywood has certainly not overturned its conventions in its acknowledgement of feminism.
Indeed, when we look at some of the other films
recently produced by Hollywood we see that its conventions as a whole remain unshaken. Bobby Deerfield is a
seductively made film about how a world famous racing
driver can only find himself through his love for a dying
heiress. Looking for Mr Goodbar relates how a teacher of
the deaf is killed by a bisexual hustler whom she meets in
a singles bar. Choirboys perpetuates the crude Hollywood
tradition of portraying women as either hysterical or
nymphomaniac, if they are portrayed at all; but then this
fil m also degrades gays, Vietnamese etc etc--something to
offend everyone.
Despite the fact that Julia is worth seeing it has to he
judged in the context of films produced by a profitoriented, long-established, patriarchally-dominated system.
That system is far from crumbling when it co-opts feminist
themes into its films. It is extending its terms of reference
and corrupting these themes in the process. Feminist films
can only be made by feminist teams of film makers.
Despite all this, I liked the film. It was good to leave the
the cinema with elderly women who, for once, were able
to see a screen representation of women of their generation
as something other than the butts of humour or pity.
The central relationship between Julia and Lilian
Hellman is depicted as a close, warm relationship between
two women who are attempting to have some control over
their own destinies. One is a doctor and the other a writer;
they are both involved with men without being dependent
on them. Their political involvement, and that of other
anti-fascist women, is a testimony to the activity of many
women against Hitler and Nazism. The images they project
of independence and creativity are powerful and welcome
despite their base in private incomes unavailable to most of
the population.
The two women work to develop their relationship on
their own terms away from traditional inhibiting stereotypes. The openness and warmth of their commitment to
each other is the single most validating feature of the film.
The attack which Hellman makes on the man who implies
that she has a lesbian relationship with Julia is the response
Gay Left 13
by Guy Hocquenghem
from Gaie Presse, numero 1, Paris, January 1978.
Edited, translated, and introduced by Simon Watney.
Guy Hocquenghem has been a leading member of the French
Gay Movement since the "events" of 1968. His first book,
Le Desir Homosexual, appears in an English translation later
this year. The present article, taken from the very welcome
new French radical gay paper, Gaie Presse, pursues some of
the themes dealt with in the book, namely, the sources of
anti-homosexual manifestations and the submission of gays
to dominant heterosexual models. He also examines some
aspects of gay politics in France in the context of the recent
elections, as well as the wider international situation, significantly, perhaps, ignoring the situation in the U.K.. I have
slightly shortened the original text and given it a title and
internal headings.
released.
LOOKING AT PORNOGRAPHY:
EROTICA & THE SOCIALIST MORALITY
by Gregg Blachford
One of the main contributions of feminism to socialist
political practice is its stress on the necessity of taking the
ideas of our political activity and theory into all aspects of
our private lives. Feminism has stressed the importance of
breaking down the artificial barrier between the personal and
the political. We, as gay male socialists, have accepted the
validity of this. For us, many areas of our personal lives have
changed greatly over the last few years because of our
involvement in socialist and feminist political activity, such as
as how we relate to the people we live with, to our lovers, to
those we work with, etc. But many areas of our personal lives
still remain unexplored in terms of connecting them to our
political practice. They are mainly connected with sexual
behaviour and include masturbation, cruising, cottaging, S/M
sex and pornography, not unimportant parts of many gay
men's, including gay socialist men's, lives. Much work still has
to be done to analyse these activities from a gay socialist
perspective, especially since many of them are certainly
sexist.
Looking At Pc
Definition
Writing about pornography is difficult because of its problematic nature, its emotive connotations and because of the
many forms that it takes. What is considered to be pornographic varies from culture to culture and from time to time.
It cannot be analysed as a concept or as a reality on its own.
It must be placed firmly within the structural and historical
network of the economic and social relationships from which
it springs.
The term pornography itself was first used in the 1860s,
meaning literally the photography of prostitutes, but it has
its present origins in the 17th century and has persisted,
developed and flourished throughout the 19th century to the
present. Steven Marcus claims that the growth of porn is
inseparable from and dependent on the growth of the novel.
Both depended on urbanisation and industrialisation which
provided an audience of literate people (while England's
population grew fourfold in the 19th century, its literate
population grew 32 fold) and a process for mass printing and
distribution. During these times of rapid change, there was
also the possibility of increased privacy and private experience
(an essential element of porn) in the urban areas especially.
Sexuality, at the same time, was being confined to a separate
and insulated sphere of one's life.
A large part of pornography has to do with fantasy. But
how are images of sexual fantasy constructed in our minds?
People's fantasies do not materialise randomly, although
Gay Left 16
Pornography
Attitudes to Pornography
Responses to porn vary considerably and are often related to
an individual's political perspective. The conservative, liberal
and libertarian arguments have been aired sufficiently and
don't need elaboration here. Suffice to say that, although
they may seem quite different, they all share the same notion
of a 'sex drive', of a biologically rooted 'sexual instinct'
which is fundamentally selfish, pleasure-seeking and anarchic.
Liberals think that only children and 'sick' individuals are apt
to give way to this 'beast' of anarchic selfishness, since
socialisation is usually a sufficient check. Therefore porn
should be available to those who have been insufficiently
socialised so as to provide a safe sexual outlet for them. Conservatives are less optimistic and see this beast lurking very
close to the surface in everyone and therefore it needs to be
kept closely and continually in check or the social order will
be threatened. Therefore porn must be carefully controlled
or eliminated if possible, or else it may act as a catalyst to
the release of the beast.
The libertarians see the sex drive riot as a beast but as a
means of creative self-fulfilment, if it was not twisted and
repressed by an oppressive state for its own ends. They
would advocate that porn should be published without
li mits, if there is a market for it, to allow the demand to be
satisfied. Whatever forms of sexual pleasure an individual
desires should be catered for.
The feminist attitude to pornography and sex is what I
want to investigate in most detail as I believe it raises issues
central to porn in particular and to "the socialist morality"
in general.
Dick held him firmly against the bed, removing his mouth
from the tender channel just long enough to answer.
'They all get fucked', he said simply. 'There hasn't been a
toy in this room that hasn't gotten this iron up his ass!' "
So, most porn, instead of challenging bourgeois notions of
sexuality, goes all the way in reinforcing the most traditional
views of sex and gender. 'Hard-core pornography is not a
celebration of sexual freedom; it is a cynical exploitation of
female sexual activity through the device of making all such
activity, and consequently all females, "dirty".' (p.393
Brownmiller)
2. Exploitative elements of pornography
The socialist feminists have not only argued against porn
from the sexist angle but have also been concerned with the
way in which porn exploits its consumers.
Porn has become a big, multi-million pound industry, It
has grown along with the development of capitalism. The
continual search goes on for higher profits. The method for
doing this has become quite sophisticated because what is
being sold, especially in soft-core, is more than sex as a
commodity itself, but sex as part of a whole lifestyle. A
world is conjured up in readers' minds that is slick, glamorous
and romantic. And that world is for sale. Sexual success is
linked with the professional or business success that is
necessary to finance a glamorous lifestyle that will attract the
beautiful people in these magazines to the bed of the reader.
America has seen a profusion of mags similar to Playboy
oriented to a gay market such as Blueboy, Mandate, In Touch
and Playguy. Homosexuals, feeling less self-oppressed than in
previous decades, have reached a point where they are 'open'
enough to purchase products that are being marketed exclusively for a gay market. As a result, 'Gay is Good' begins
to mean 'good for business'. The following are quotes from
advertising magazines:
"Gay money. Twenty-five thousand dollars. That's how
much your average gay worker earns in a year. Multiply
that by 20 million gay consumers, and you've got an
affluent and very powerful market. Gay dollars are just as
green as anyone else's. And West American Advertising
will help you make sure that they stack up in the right
place.
What to do
Unfortunately, knowing the problems with porn does not
automatically tell us how to go about solving them, in the
same way in which knowing that the image you are masturbating to is sexist, does not stop it from being sexually
exciting. The immediate reaction is to ban all forms of pornography by having stronger obscenity laws, a proposal
Gay Left 18
Gay Left 19
Good Looks
But this view of objectification, while admitting the power
differential between men and women, ignores another form
of power that enters into relationships with regards to
differential physical attractiveness. Human beings in the
sexual market place are evaluated according to their
'exchange value' in the market, some being systematically
denied opportunities for sexual behaviour because of the
unequal distribution of the socially defined marketable
Gay Left 20
by Kay Young,
Clienting
I NDIVIDUAL SOLUTIONS TO
COLLECTIVE PROBLEMS
by Derek Cohen
Every lesbian and gay man, practically, starts her/his life in
isolation. Most of us developed our (homo)sexual awareness
in a situation where we, ourselves, were the only gay person
we knew. In my teens I was fascinated by some of the other
boys at school. It started out as a jealousy of their "attractiveness" rather than an actual attraction, and there was
certainly little sexual about that attraction. Nonetheless
most of my sexual phantasies were about men. My only
contact with other gay men was through the mediacamp
queens on television, documentaries featuring anonymous
"unhappy" homosexuals interviewed in shadow. Homosexual men were rarely shown positively and never as a
movement or expressing collective strength. Though often
portrayed in a better light now, we are still shown largely as
individuals. Gay women were not shown at all. On the basis
of my isolation and the isolated lives homosexuals were
presented as having, I saw my own homosexual feelings as
some sinister base part of my individual nature that I had to
exorcise in order to be "normal". This is a very common
experience yet I, like very many gay people, thought I was
one of very few. I felt I "shared" my feelings only in the
sense that patients in a doctor's waiting room share their
suffering. I never knowingly met any other gay people until
I was about 19 or 20. I saw my homosexual feelings as an
individual problem, as something that was wrong with me,
and as fault of my personality. I now see that being "a
homosexual" is more than a personal characteristic. It is the
result of an attempt to polarise human sexuality into two
clearly separate (and mutually exclusive) areas, only one
of which is deemed "normal".
I am going to use the term clienting to denote the process
whereby members of disadvantaged or oppressed groups
come to accept the conflicts and tensions of being a minority
group as individual personal internal problems rather then
collective experiences. The term "clienting" is derived from
social work and other "helping" professions where people
experiencing certain problems are treated as clients, objects
to be "helped", "treated" and dealt with so as to bring them
as individuals back into line with the rest of the world.
Clienting is when I come to think homosexuality is my
problem rather than seeing the unhappiness as the consequence of certain prejudices, role expectations and dynamics
between groups of people. The conflicts between my own
desire to explore the potential of my sexual attractions and
the limited (heterosexual) role expectations of being a man
are experienced not as role conflicts, as experiences common
Gay Left 22
Our History
There are any number of processes that lead us, in different
parts of our lives, to take an individualistic, cliented view of
ourselves, both in terms of our inner emotions and personality, and terms of our external relationships. Generally we see
our inner worlds as being the essence of our individualityif
all else I know what I feel and what I think. Emotions are
somehow meant to be more "real", somehow underneath
our skin and bone there is meant to be something different
more fundamental and lastingwhen in fact there is just
more blood and guts. Beneath the layers of conflict and
turbulent emotion is, supposedly, and essential "natural"
state of beingyet there are merely different sets of socially
constructed feelings and attitudes. Childhood innocence
and "spontaneous natural ways of being" are as socially
created and culturally specific as adult roles and adult
conflicts, as that magical state of flux termed adolescence.
In contrast by looking at our relationships with other people,
whether at work, in the family, in sex or whatever, collectively we can see our inner worlds as shared experiences
social entities rather than individual personal private items,
and usually problematic ones at that. If I discover that my
experiences, whether of early self hatred and distancing from
my homosexuality, or of finding that such things as sexual
satisfaction and the making of satisfactory non-exploitative
relationships are really difficult, what becomes of my
individual "pathology"? The common experiences that are
propogated are of heterosexuality, happy family life and an
ambitious self generated road from birth to sucess. We do
not easily perceive the complement of thisan excluded nonheterosexual preferenceas being a shared experience in the
same way.
It isn't hard for me to see why I developed this way of
seeing myself. From an early age I learned to relate primarily
on hierarchical lines. There was little emphasis on relating
"horizontally" on a peer basis. My first relationships were
with my parents and my relationships with my sister and
other children were given a lower priority. At my primary,
and later, grammar schools I competed or was put in a
competitive situation with other children for teachers'
attention, status positions, marks. How rarely were we
taught to solve problems collectively! I was never encouraged
to take notes on what other children said as opposed to what
the teacher or the books said. The whole concept of learning
from other "learners" was rarely stressed and is often put
down as cheating. Feeling different from other children,
though as yet without any clear reason, it was even harder
to relate to my p eers and relationships at home and with
develop new forms of relationships,because those possibilities aren't created by my own act of will, but by a
continuing creative collective process.
At a meeting held as part of the recent Gay Times Festival
held in London a majority of the men expressed the need to
be part of a group; for the feeling of togetherness and solidarity experienced at the Festival to continue. They had, in
various groups, experienced new ways of relating that they
wished to develop. On their own, outside the Festival, they
would not have been able to create these opportunities, but
working within a group of other gay men made a creative
process possible.
I do not, though, want to give the impression that just by
meeting in groups we will necessarily develop greater options
or become more aware, or in achieving these things find the
going in any way easy and straight forward. Declienting
ourselves means not just sharing experiences but using those
insights to take action in our lives; to confront the group
pressures around us. Collective strength has enabled us to
walk, arm in arm, kissing and cuddling down Oxford Street
on a march; to join pickets at Grunwicks; to establish a gay
presence in many political settings. But it could easily lead
us to give better coffee mornings, perhaps set up more comfortable cruising areas and no more. Men's groups (whether gay
or non-gay or mixed) are particularly problematic
because they can so easily find themselves providing group
support to boulster male chauvinistic attitudes that are
under attack. We should be able to use collective strength, a
collective identity, to move out of rigid ways of relating
rather than to reinforce them.
Further dangers arise as self-defined groups get stronger.
Gay men can become more out of touch with lesbians and
other women, with racial minorities, with other classes, with
other age groups. I could extend my methods of relating
with other gay men and retain sexist racialist ageist and class
prejudices. These attitudes would inevitably produce limitations, and many gay groups have owed their demise or
disruption to conflicts over these issues.
Ghosts
by John Quinn
by Chris Jones
A New Understanding
Yet a newer and quite remarkable trend is a return to the
work of Freud himself and his own concept of 'psychoanalysis' with the claim that if the mistakes and misunderstandings of the past, and the growth of present psychiatric
theory and practice, with its emphasis of adaptions and
adjustment, were all stripped away, a reinterpretation of his
work would offer real hope for a clear analysis of the human
situation. All the more remarkable is that some of the
strongest support for this claim comes from within the
feminist circles which have always been closely associated
with the most vehement attacks on Freud.
Obviously at this stage it would be impossible to detail
the possibilities this viewpoint raises, let alone talk of its
implications for psychotherapeutic practice. However some
important points need to be borne in mind if one is going to
take this path. It is probably symptomatic of that permeation
of psychiatric ideology that I find it hard to dismiss the
Unconscious as a viable concept. It is when considering how
we carry around certain social relations within us, which
cannot be analysed and eradicated by a simple recall to
conscious attention, that the notion of the Unconscious
becomes a valuable tool in our understanding of how
ideology maintains its stronghold over and within people's
lives. It is with the possibility of a repression of ideas, ideas
with which we as conscious individuals cannot cope, that the
complexity of ideological structures can begin to be appreciated, and it is this repression which necessitates the existence
of an Unconscious. With this mode of explanation it becomes
clearer how people may internalise, and indeed be motivated
by, certain 'facts' about themselves, without being aware of
them, and quite possibly finding it necessary to deny their
very existence.
Necessary Perspectives
Finally there is a methodological point that must be considered. Your view may well be that psychiatric practice is a
total distortion of Freud's own work, indeed flatly contradicts what he had to say, and therefore can legitimately be
Motherhood
Of Woman Born
by Adrienne Rich
( Virago, Hardback 7.50, paperback 2.50)
seen as distinct from it. Yet one cannot examine the nature
of psychiatry's role today without accounting for its historical development, and that must include an honest analysis of
Freud's work, particularly his own very specific understanding of the Unconscious, and what links that may have with
present-day experience. Speaking of the "gross perversion for
primitive or ideological purposes" of psychoanalysis Mitchell
says,
"It is another question whether or not there is something
within Freud's work that leads to this ideological abuse.
In a sense it is obvious that there must be, but exactly
why or what it is, is a complex and interesting subject and
whatever it is, it would not, of course, invalidate what
surrounds it, though it should be extracted from it and
rejected."
That must be the main priority of those who wish to offer us
a reappraisal of Freud, for unless that is done, we may he
embarking on a course of action the results of which may
well be reflection of those 'facts' against which we are
presently struggling.
Books referred to in the writing of this article:
Thomas Szasz The Myth of Mental Illness - Ideology and Insanity.
Radical Therapist Collective The Radical Therapist.
Phil Brown (editor) Radical Psychology.
Juliet Mitchell Psychoanalysis and Feminism.
Karl Jaspers 'The Nature of Psychotherapy' from his General Psycho-
pathology.
Jubilee
Switchboard
Kollontai
LESBIAN LEFT
Lesbian Left hold an open meeting once a fortnight when we
talk about topics relevant to both the Women's Liberation
Movement and to Socialism. Some of these have included
pornography, the Socialist Feminist Conference in Manchester at the end of January, rape and violence against women,
the possible formulation of a seventh demand of the W.L.M.
on the latter at the National Conference after Easter, the
A.I.D. for lesbians issue, feminist avant-garde film and sexuality in China.
Also once a fortnight two smaller groups meet. One is
producing an entertainment for the National Conference. The
other is a history (herstory) study group which is discussing
several topics including theories of sexuality, the lack of
concurrence between the lesbian role in history and
of gay men, the new role of women in the W.L.M., stereotypes of lesbians, and possible connections between popular
images of gays and notions of decadence in art.
For further information about Lesbian Left meetings
telephone 01-836 6081 (A Woman's Place. 42 Earlham St,
London WC2.)
Jacky Plaster
Gay Left 29
Fighting Fascism
An Open Letter
by John Shiers
Dear Gay Left,
I was glad to see Bob Cant's article "Gays and Fascism" in
the last issue. However it worries me that despite all the talk
about the dangers of the rise of fascism and the need to
oppose organisations such as the National Front, the Left has
actually thought very little about how most effectively to
build a mass based anti-fascist movement and what tactics
are most appropriate to use in the current situation. If you
are serious in wanting to prevent the National Front growing,
so the argument runs, you have no alternative but to get out
there on the streets and stop them marching. After all, Hitler
himself said that the only thing which would have stopped
the Nazis gaining power would have been to crush them early
enough "with the utmost brutality". And we all know, don't
we. what an authority on correct socialist strategy Hitler is!
That is why most Leninists will disagree with what I've just
written; they have no analysis of the linkage between
violence, power and the male role. All too often they portray
women's liberation as women becoming liberated from
"femininity" (thus behaving like "Men") rather than the
ending of male power by the transformation of the male role
and of "masculinity" as the governing principle on which
society is based. A feminised socialism, which is presumably
what gay socialists alongside the women's movement are out
to achieve, surely needs to work out how to be militant and
assertive without falling into the male trap of defining victory
in terms of obliteration or domination of opponents.
Because offensive violence and male power seem to be so
interlinked, I cannot see how a feminist perspective can
possibly justify the use of physical violence except when it is
necessary for self-defence.
But, as Bob Cant rightly points out, the NF does use
offensive violence. They beat up isolated gay people, black
people and socialists. The point, however, is that this is part
of their private not their public face. Publicly they present
themselves as having total respect for "law and order",
merely demanding the right to walk the streets freelyrights
which they portray the Left as threatening. By attacking
them at the point they are publicly seen to be being "peaceful", the Left is playing into their hands. They can pose as
non-violent demonstrators; we as the violent attackers, the
people to be frightened of. We must expose the hypocrisy of
the NF in claiming to be a peaceful, law abiding political
party and we must defend ourselves from attack. None of
this, however, entails initiating violence towards them on
demonstrations.
All this may sound a bit utopianwe don't have that kind
of support. But surely if we really do believe we can defeat
the Right, and are not just trying to live out romanticised
versions of street battles of the past, we have to be getting
exactly "that kind" of support. For it is going to be the
actions of the mass of ordinary trade unionists and members
of the community: women and men; adults and children;
black and white; gay and straight; that will determine the
direction our society will take in the future. To believe that
"the Left" can, in itself, stem the growth of fascism and the
authoritarian Right is a false road to take. The use of offensive violence against the NF is doing nothing to encourage the
self-activity of the mass of people and their own, conscious.
participation in curbing the fascist cancer. On the contrary, it
only glorifies machismo.
With gay love and solidarity,
John
Shiers.
Gay Left 31
EDITORIAL NOTES
2
4
9
10
13
14
16
21
22
24
25
27
28
29
30
THE COLLECTIVE
This issue was put together by Keith Birch, Derek Cohen,
Emmanuel Cooper, Richard Dyer, Simon Watney, Jeffrey
Weeks, Nigel Young.
CONTRIBUTIONS
We always welcome contributions on any topic and of any
length. Articles, letters, reviews, cartoons etc. are all equally
welcome, and they do not have to be long or 'heavy'.
For our next issue we are particularly looking for contributions in three areasresponses to the issues raised by the
collective article on the current direction of the gay movement; contributions to our series 'Gays at Work'; and articles
on any aspect of gay culture, a topic we hope to feature in
Gay Left No. 7.
BACK ISSUES
Gay Left No .3
Women in Gay Left, Gays and Class, IS Gay Group, Gay
Workers' Movement and much more.
Gay Left No. 4
Love, Sex and Maleness, Communists Comment, Lesbians
and the law, Darwinism and sexuality, reviews etc.
Gay Left No 5
Why Marxism, Images of Homosexuality in Film, Lesbian
Invisibility, Gays & Fascism, Gay Theatre Past & Present,
Politics & Ideology, Gay History, Future of the Gay
Movement.
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Why Marxism?
AGAINST REFORMISM
Gay Left 2
ABSENCES
Marxism is a tradition of revolutionary political struggle by
the working class for socialism. As a corpus of theory it
embodies the tradition of struggle, the lessons of success
and failures; and as a theoretical expression of that
tradition is a guide to present and future action. It is in this
context that Marxism is also a theory of history, an analysis
of the workings of a capitalist economy, a science of
society. As a science of revolutionary politics, it has to
learn all the time from its testing in experience. But as a
wider science of society it is still greatly underdeveloped,
not only in crucial areas such as ideology and the state, but
also in specific areas such as psychology and sexuality. A
Marxist method, we believe, can contribute to an understanding of these areas. Hitherto it has been left to
bourgeois ideologies (biologisms, eugenics etc.) to fill the
gaps in Marxist theories. The whole area of sexuality is an
example of such an absence. This does not mean that
socialists generally have not been concerned with questions
of sex and gender roles. But there has not, we argue, been
a properly Marxist understanding of sexual oppression, nor
can we claim at this stage to have one ourselves. The
interactions of patriarchal structures and capitalist social
relations are so complex that we are only at the beginning
of understanding them. Such an understanding, we suggest,
lies in grasping the relationship between the economy,
ideology and culture, and the insights supplied by recent
developments in the study of sexuality.
This approach implies and demands a rejection of
economism, a deformation to which Marxism has been
particularly prone. Because Marxism is a materialist
theory of society it has been too easy to understand this
in purely economic terms. As a result, in some Marxist
texts, the economic has often appeared as a piece of
clockwork, inexorably and inevitably striking the death of
one mode of production and the appearance of the new,
with scarcely the appearance of human agency. Socialism
is seen as the inevitable product of a capitalism which must
perish by its own inherent contradictions. This makes for
passivity and reformism.
Even when activism is stressed it can still suffer from
economism; for if the stress is placed entirely on the
economic as the motor of historical change, then struggle
can be conceived entirely in economic terms. Workers'
struggle is not limited to a fight for better wages and work
conditions. A worker's position is also a result of a
structure of social relations which are initially inculcated
through the family and reinforced through bourgeois
ideology. Thus gender roles as defined in the family are
central to the male/female dichotomy of work relations.
Economism ignores this whole dynamic and suggests that
social relations will be naturally transformed in a postrevolutionary situation. The experiences of 'socialist'
regimes throughout the world suggest this is unlikely to
happen. Thus state ownership of the means of production
has been achieved, though without workers' democracy,
whilst the ideology of the family and the social relations
which stem from that ideology remain and these are
similar to those in Western capitalist countries.
THE FAMILY
In previous issues of Gay Left the heart of gay oppression
has been located in the family and we have attempted to
explain why this should be so. In retrospect we probably
overstressed the purely economic aspects of the family and
mechanically assimilated homosexual oppression to it. But
the stress on the family must still be central for it is here
that in each generation the boy-child and girl-child enter
into the rules of social life. Here also is where the
dominance of reproductive sexuality is maintained. In our
culture these rules closely relate gender-identity to a
particular form of sexual expression. Male homosexuality
has until recently been interpreted in terms of having
"undesirable" social characteristics such as effeminacy, or
in terms of a pervasive disease sickness model.
Lesbianism, scarcely defined at all, has suffered from the
general ideological stress which has equated female
sexuality as secondary, responsive and maternal. The ways
in which male and female children enter the social, with
all its attendant expectations, are not yet clear, though
psychoanalytic theory may be able to help our under-
Gay Left 4
and with other social movements. The two points are not
necessarily exclusive. The forces making for socialism in the
West are wider than any single political form at present
could embrace and, as we said above, any attempt to
incorporate all such forces into one party form will be
self-defeating.
The distinction between party and movement is one
issue; the other is the form of the party: is a Leninist
organisational form necessarily the correct one? Is a
vanguard party necessary in advanced bourgeois democratic
societies? Is the Bolshevik model of the "siezure of power"
the one we should work on here? There are other questions
that might be asked but it is clear from the disarray on the
left that the answers are not preordained.
Gay Left 5
Here We Stand
We're Here: Conversations with Lesbian Women
by Angela Stewart-Park and Jules Cassidy
( Quartet 1.95)
A Breathtaking Sweep
Femininity As Alienation
by Ann Foreman
(Pluto Press 2.40)
Beyond Privilege
The Limits of Masculinity
by Andrew Tolson
(Tavistock Publications, Hardback 5.50
Paperback 1.95)
The ideas of Gramsci, as interpreted by the EuroCommunists, and their concern with the struggle for
socialist hegemony by building 'broad democratic alliances'
around the working class has given greater stress to the role
of ideology and culture in the way bourgeois domination is
continued. Also central to the new thinking about
ideology has been the work of Althusser and his critique of
previous Marxist conceptions in this area.
At the same time, discussion in the Women's Movement
was facing similar problems. The economic analysis, though
of course basic to an understanding of women's oppression,
was not enough by itself. The knowledge gained by the
W.M. about women's subordination under patriarchy
showed that one's socialisation could not be overcome just
through an awareness of one's situation and the removal of
a 'false consciousness'. It was clear that formulations of
ideology which pose it as 'false consciousness' or as simply
the reflection of one's position within economic relations
were inadequate to explain the needs and desires that are
concrete forces in people's lives. They cannot be swept
away simply by consciousness raising groups however
valuable they may be at some levels. Within the G.M. the
vision of our self-oppression is very strong and exhortations
for everyone to come out and throw off this oppression
through efforts of self-will are, besides being idealist,
lacking an understanding of the real forces which lead to
our oppression and the much deeper foundation of the
socialisation process. The tendency is to see the individual
as an already constituted rational being who is filled with
the accepted social attitudes and knowledge through socialisation and so can be changed on being confronted with
'the truth' of her/his situation and the reality of their social
relations. However, the forces which mould our character
structures and our existence as sexed beings within the
social formation are much more strongly embedded in us
and in the ideological and economic relations in which we
live.
The discussion around ideology is of great importance to
the G.M. and should not be dismissed as idle talk amongst
left theoreticians. First of all it entails a critique of the way
the socialist movement has operated, and still largely does
so, similar to some of the criticisms that the W.M. and G.M.
have made of it. That is to say, against the left's reduction
of all analysis and struggle to the economic and the
concentration of activity at the point of production to the
detriment of any other area of life. Secondly, the
recognition of ideology as an area with a relative autonomy
from the economic opens up the possibility of it being an
area for struggle by the left as well as by the W.M.,
challenging and exploiting the contradictions that arise
there. Thirdly, it concerns the way in which the individual
enters and exists in social relations, the way in which we
become sexed subjects the subject being the term used to
describe the individual in its social relations as opposed to
the bourgeois notion of the individual as the centre of
purposive action. This includes how we learn our femininity
and masculinity and how we carry the ideology necessary
for the reproduction of social relations under capitalism.
These new conceptions that are being advanced and the
wider scope of activity that they envisage may help to move
us on from the 'personal is political' debate that we have
with the left.
An important aspect of this analysis of the role of
ideology is the renewed concern with Psychoanalysis and
the formation of the unconscious as the way in which a
human being enters the social order and takes her/his
determined position there.
The rest of this article is concerned with giving a brief
outline of some of the work being done in this area;
Althusser on ideology, Juliet Mitchell's Psychoanalysis and
Feminism and finally a discussion of work in progress by
marxist-feminists developing from this.
Althusser
The part of Althusser's work with which I am concerned is
his conception of ideology and the Ideological State
Gay Left 12
Another
Patriarchal
Irrelevance....
The Homosexual Matrix
by C.A. Tripp
( Quartet Books 5.95)
Gay Left 14
Gay Left 15
Ideological Work
The second area in which we need to reassess our position
relates to work on the ideological level. Gay community
centres, gay caucuses in unions, and gay groups generally
have an important role to play. They challenge bourgeois
norms and values about the way we live together and the
types of relationships we develop in the wider community.
At the same time such organisations bring to the fore
extremely important organisational criticisms of bourgeois
structures and in so doing encourage much wider rank and
file involvement in the development of these groups. These
developments need to go on side by side with our traditional
political activity. Otherwise we will find ourselves in the
dangerous position of having a lop-sided elitist movement
addressing all of its actions towards other radical gays and
committed socialists.
Work on the ideological level is also important because
it represents socialism as a qualitatively different experience
to capitalism whilst at the same time it enables us to view
our activities in these areas as legitimate fields for
revolutionary struggle. We are no longer being solely
confronted by the message that the only "good
revolutionary" is for example, a dock workers' shop
steward and male at that. Thus the success of any
revolutionary practice begins to be seen in the perspective
of gaining support through challenging all the bourgeois
capitalist dominated structures; in the ideological and
political as well as the economic spheres.
Lesbians and Gay Men
The relationships between lesbians and gay men, even
when we define ourselves as socialists too, have often been
an explosive issue. In the early G.L.M. lesbians and gay
men found it increasingly difficult to work together and
the need of the lesbians for a women-defined situation
took them out of the G.L.M. and into the women's movement. Today, though, even if some areas of our personal
lives remain separate our common areas of struggle as
socialists draw us together. There is a pressing need to
begin to share experiences of our oppression in relation to
dominant ideological areas, in relation to our work
situations, and finally in relation to our practice as rank
and file unionists. Out of these discussions it may even be
possible for lesbians and gay men to start to tread gingerly
into the explosive arena of discussions around sexual
practice and personal relationshiops.
Lesbians will continue to organise autonomously, but
I feel it is important that there be a working relationship in
limited areas as a means to unifying and strengthening the
gay movement in its struggle against sexism and for
socialism. However, to call at the present time for large
scale joint conferences and campaigns in the hope that a
basis will be laid for lesbians and gay men to work together
seems out of touch with current needs or possibilities. By
the end of all past conferences it became apparent that
lesbians would continue to work in the women's movement.
In reality we have never been able to define areas of
activity, on a large scale and in the long term, which were
relevant to all of us. Consequently these events have tended
to separate us the opposite of their intention.
Lesbians and gay men can work together in a practical
way. For instance both groups have been involved in Trico,
Grunwick and at Lewisham. In the latter case many gay
men took their lead from the women's group which was
well stewarded, highly disciplined and sang the best songs
throughout the march and demonstration. Through these
joint activities we are more likely to be able to explore
common areas of concern whilst at the same time
developing contacts between the two groups. It is
i mperative, therefore, that gay men should participate in
particular struggles of the trade union movement against
racism as well as carrying out their day to day union work.
Parties and Movements
The way in which we carry out our political activity leads
to all sorts of agonising questions about whether we can
best work in an autonomous group or whether we should
join a political party. Party activists often say that it is up
Gay Left 16
Homosexual Acts
The plays from the 1975 lunchtime season, together with
a longer evening production, have been reproduced in a
book called Homosexual Acts after the series. There are five
plays in the book One Person, Fred and Harold, and
The Haunted Host all by Robert Patrick, Thinking Straight
by Lawrence Collinson and Ships by Alan Wakeman.
because the men are gay that they fail, that tragedy is the
logical outcome of being outside the norm, and that if only
they were better at relating like heterosexuals they could be
happy. In order to be useful gay theatre must question, it
must show what is different about being gay; it must show
our difficulties and our joys in a context the context of a
heterosexually dominated society with heterosexual norms
about relationships. Where these norms and pressures go
unchallenged, maybe not even acknowledged, gay plays
like these become a series of heterosexual acts.
As Time Goes By
As Time Goes By, the latest Gay Sweatshop production is
an excellent play. Not only does it have a tight script
enacted with flair and inspiration but it also succeeds in
presenting some essential points about the political
situation of gay men, both in relation to each other, and to
'straight politics'.
The first section of the play centres around a male
brothel in 1896, the year after the Oscar Wilde trials. We
watch the tensions mount between the brothel keeper and
his 'boys' as they strain under the pressure firstly of their
aristocratic customers and secondly the Law. The
aristocrats too have to react to the increasing repression of
homosexual activity and the only characters who seem
unscathed are Edward Carpenter, sexual reformer and
Utopian Socialist, and his lover who lead an idyllic life in
the country. When the repression starts biting the brothel
inhabitants receive the full weight of the Law's retribution
while the rich customers have their wealth and power to
support their escape to less oppressive parts abroad, beyond
the Law's reach. In the face of oppression the gay men
divide along class lines fighting each other. Meanwhile,
outside the hurly burly of the city, Carpenter and lover
read about the events from afar, but are unaffected and so
can kiss and cuddle in the fields, tell the local cleric to
mind his own business and generally avoid the consequences of their homosexuality by isolating themselves.
Thirty five years later we see a different group of gay
men earning their daily bread in Berlin. The men are more
filled out as characters, two drag artists, a club owner and
Hans a communist from Bavaria who comes to Berlin to
find the bright lights and sets up home with one of the drag
queens. Their show business lives take place against a backdrop of ever nearing fascism in Germany and the return of
laws governing sexuality in the USSR. While presenting his
analysis of the rise of fascism (unemployment, inflation)
and the importance of the fascists own men (the stormtroopers) taking to the streets, Hans has to admit that
socialist practice does not seem to have the answer either.
The others put their faith in the number of homosexual
men among the fascists, believing that as long as the homosexual Roehm had control they would be safe. When he is
shot the repression increases and they all need to flee.
As in the earlier period wealth threatens to divide the
men, the moneyed club owner vs the poorer staff. Meanwhile Magnus Hirschfield, theoretician, founder of the
Institute for Sexual Science, and a direct influence on these
men is out of the country and we see him and his lover in
Paris reading about Roehm's death and the rising campaign
against homosexuals (see photo). Safe in Paris he fails to
grasp that his Institute and all his records have been looted
and burnt. Those records include some on Lenny, one of
the drag stars, and we leave the period as the Nazis roam
the streets looking for him. Theory and practice are
countries apart.
The third period is set in a gay bar on Christopher Street
in New York in 1969. We are shown how diverse the gay
men are, each soliloquising (in one case silently) about his
own experiences, for no-one is listening. Many stereotypes
are represented the drag queen, the leather man, the
college socialite, the liberal businessman. Yet in the face of
harassment these men do not become split, they transcend
their differences and achieve cohesion in action, changing
themselves in the process.
What is most beautiful about this play is the very many
parallels it draws. Sometimes these arise because past events
are described that are ever present to us now the
unemployment, inflation and it becoming 'almost respectable' to beat up Jews in the streets in the 1930's tallies
N.O.O.L.
The National Organisation Of Lesbians
250 women crammed into a hall in Nottingham on Nov 5
for the first conference of the National Organisation Of
Lesbians. We decided almost unanimously to use 'lesbians'
instead of 'gay women' in the title because 'lesbian'
is used to frighten and repress any woman who steps
out of line, and for us not to use it would be a collusion
in this repression and in our own invisibility.
In the first session our two aims became very clear: the
need to break down the isolation of women approaching
lesbianism, but also to go out and smash the negative image
of lesbians, through political action such as pressure groups,
public education etc. These two aims may appear separate,
but they 'are closely interlinked until we publicise and
take action against the very real discrimination against
lesbians eg. in child custody cases, in sackings and a forced
`closet' existence at work, in the lack of information on
homosexuality in sex education etc etc, isolated women
will continue to be forced to hide their lesbianism, someti mes even to themselves. During the conference we were
reminded of what we are up against: the London bus's
windows were broken, a brick landed on one woman's neck,
women wearing lesbian badges were insulted in a pub and
told they were not 'real women' and a crowd of kids and
youths hung round the doors all evening, pestering the
women going in and out. The only way we can say 'Yes I'm
a lesbian and proud of it' is to join together and support
each other in taking action against this and all the other
types of oppression.
We decided that NOOL will be an autonomous organisation and not affiliate to any other body. We agreed that we
do not want a hierarchical organisation but after much
discussion decided to have another conference at the end
of February in York to deal particularly with the issue of
structure. Until then we are concentrating on local
organisation: a telephone contact list is being drawn up and
existing switchboards asked to have women only services at
certain times (any woman interested, contact the newsletter
committee). A telephone tree for quick mobilisation on
national issues is being set up. A newsletter with reports on
this conference, a contact list, and material for the York
conference will come out in January. Anyone interested in
working on the following pressure groups, contact the
newsletter committee: lesbian custody cases, sex education
in schools, lesbians in the armed forces, aversion therapy
and discouragement of lesbianism in psychiatry,
discrimination at work.
Two treasurers have been appointed (we have 200 so
far) and until the next conference all donations etc should
be sent to the National Organisation Of Lesbians, c/o
Maureen Colquhoun, the House of Commons, London SW1.
The February conference organisers need help NOOL
conference, c/o York Women's Centre, 32A Parliament
Street, York, Yorks.
Newsletter committee (deadline: Jan 7th) c/o Su Allen,
38 The Chase, Clapham SW4.
Helen Bishop
Gay Left 19
worlds are increasingly clearly circumscribed, the homosexual world being seen as a threat and a danger 'out there'.
The central setting of the film is the family living-room,
dominated by the image of the father, who is often shown
sitting at his desk. A successful businessman, he dresses
with conventional respectability (a dreary suit linking him
with the business world at large) and speaks and moves with
an uncompromising stiffness. The image of Marlon Brando's
Major Penderton, in Reflections In A Golden Eye, whose
homosexual feelings are disguised by the clipped military
manner that serves as the norm in the stricter circumference
of a military base, is only an extension of the image of the
father. The mother, by contrast, is presented as the archetypal complement: softer, kinder, more relaxed, more loving,
connected with the 'outside' world only through her
husband, the home-maker, the refresher, the ultimate attractive decoration. In these two and the 'balance' between them,
the stable values of family and business life are embodied.
From the start, the son is shown to be 'divorced' from
the family, repudiating the authority of the father and
preferring art to business. He spends all of his free time
with a friend, who stimulates this preference for art with
readings from a novel that he is writing, with literary
discussion, and with listenings to recordings of `musique
concrete' ... The relationship is presented as lively,
physical, inquisitive and creative, but is referred to by the
parents as something unnatural and wrong. The friend is
seen as a bad influence and the son ordered not to see him,
even on one occasion being locked in his room.
Gay Left 21
Gay Left 22
Victim
Gay Left 23
cottage. The film does not explore these links, but merely
asserts that they exist ... somehow a construction worker
and a leading barrister knew each other as homosexuals and
met each other, whilst at the same time the barrister was
unaware that certain of his colleagues were homosexuals.
For all the 'ordinariness' of the gayworld of the film,
which is what the scenes from working and social life assert,
it is still shown as exploitative (the toughest blackmailer is
himself associated with gay iconography), violent, vagabond, inferior, unhappy, secretive and unconscious of
itself as a uniting factor. Even if we are to assume that
changes in the law would eliminate the nastier aspects of
it, there is nothing desirable about it, nothing to suggest
that gay relationships might be as valid as heterosexual
ones. In Victim, the gay world is marginal and unthreatening, irrelevant to the world of the family and the heterosexual relationship, but it is to be tolerated humanely and
sympathetically. The marriage of Farr and his wife will last
as long as further homosexual liaisons do not complicate it.
Farr does not stand on his homosexual feelings at the end
of the film, but he does, briefly, earlier, when he describes
the feelings he had for the construction worker to his wife.
"I wanted him!" he shouts. It is the film's most effective
moment and comes through with such conviction that the
reconciliation of husband and wife at the end seems completely false.
As if to clarify the lines of argument within the narrative
of the film, there are scenes throughout between the two
police officers conducting their own investigation of the
blackmailing ring. It is in these scenes where the intentions
of the film are least disguised: the older (and wiser?) officer
arguing that the laws against homosexuality must be
changed, that the old laws are charters for blackmail; the
younger (the one most afraid of the homosexual inside
him?) arguing against degeneracy, wondering where it will
all end if homosexuality is sanctioned. There is no doubt
that the film as a whole is to be taken as illustrating the
older officer's argument, the younger officer's fears being
sent up ludicrously (but frighteningly) in the shrill outburst
("Blasphemy!") of the woman blackmailer arrested at the
end of the film, sufficiently close to the initial response of
Farr's wife to be considered the 'normal' view.
to joke of the whole film. But both families are seen from
the vantage point of a different kind of relationship: that
of Alex (Glenda Jackson) and Bob (Murray Head) and of
Bob and Daniel. These are the 'mature' relationships of the
film and the drama is not in justifying them or in juxtaposing them against the images of family life, but in
exploring what 'sexual liberation' can actually mean to
adults involved in relationships, problems of jealousy and
possessiveness.
Gay Left 28
Gay Left 29
Various Routes
Approaches to Gay History
by Jeffrey Weeks
Works Reviewed:
A.L. Rowse, Homosexuals in History: A Study of
Ambivalence in Society, Literature and the Arts.
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1977. 7.95.
Christopher Isherwood, Christopher and His Kind
1929-1939. Eyre Methuen, London 1977. 4.95.
Jonathan Fryer, Isherwood: A Biography of Christopher
Isherwood. New English Library. London 1977. 7.50.
Tom Driberg, Ruling Passions. Jonathan Cape, London
1977. 5.95.
Arno Press Collection, Homosexuality: Lesbians and Gay
Men in Society, History and Literature. General Editor
Jonathan Katz, New York 1975.
Jonathan Katz, Gay American History. Thomas Crowell,
New York 1976.
1977 has been the year of the gay book in Britain. Partly
this is the result of an increasing social acceptability, on a
certain level, of homosexuality; partly too, deriving from
this, there is a new awareness by publishers of a gay market
to be tapped, an awareness already a topic of discussion in
the American publishing trade press.
It would be heartening to think that this publishing (and
preceding writing) activity was a direct result of the
political impact of the gay liberation movement, but this is
not unequivocally so. The gay movement has undoubtedly
been the stimulus and pre-condition for the present
developments but few of the books which have so far
appeared have been a direct product of activity in and
identification with gay liberation. Only three or four books
(as opposed to journalism and pamphlets) published in
Britain over the past half decade have come out of any
direct involvement with the gay movement. I can think of
Ken Plummer's Sexual Stigma, Jeremy Seabrook's A
Lasting Relationship, Jack Babuscio's We Speak for
Ourselves and We're Here by Angela Stewart-Park and Jules
Cassidy. Homosexuality has become a topic to be reviewed
in the book pages of the Sunday newspapers, but the
majority of the books on the subject are still very much
within a liberal conservative problematic.
This is especially true with regard to the historical
treatment of homosexuality, and the works under review
illustrate a number of the problems. If you believe, as I do,
that attitudes to homosexuality are culturally specific, that
very few societies have had the clear cut division between
"heterosexual" and "homosexual" that our Western society
has; that the emergence of a homosexual consciousness and
identity is a comparatively recent historical phenomenon;
and that attitudes to homosexuality can only be
understood within the framework of wider discourses on
sexuality, with their specific conditions of origin and
development, then it becomes very difficult to accept
(a) the traditional approach which sees homosexual history
as essentially a magnificent (or tawdry depending on your
position) parade of great kings and queens; or (b) the
emergent gay liberation approach which searches for a "gay
history" and identity back to the roots of time. One is in
fact the mirror image of the other. While the first sees
homosexuality as the manifestation of an inner, essential
self, product of an individual quirk, the other sees gays as
being a discrete group like a racial minority, with a long, if
hidden, history of its own. Both can produce a great deal of
fascinating detail and the second has the valuable function
of suggesting a continuity in "our" history, but I believe
both to be in the last resort ahistorical approaches, for they
ignore the very processes of historical change which have
produced modern notions of heterosexuality and homosexuality.
Gay Left 30
Raw Materials
Jonathan Katz's own magnificent book, Gay American
History is both a concentrate of the wider collection and
goes much further, in showing the vast complexity of
attitudes and responses. It also shows the way towards a
new approach towards homosexual history. Subtitled
Lesbians and Gay Men in the USA. A Documentary the
book is a collection of documents, with an Introduction,
linking commentary, and full array of notes. It covers
various themes from the sixteenth century to the present:
Trouble: 1566-1966, basically accounts of homosexual life;
Treatment: 1884-1974, dealing with the development of
the "medical model"; Passing Women: 1782-1920, about
female transvestism as a mode of gender revolt; Native
Americans/Gay Americans: 1528-1976, about homosexuality amongst American Indians; Resistance: 1859-1972,
detailing the various modes of personal revolt and public
reform activity; and Love: 1779-1932. The range of
documents reprinted is astonishing, and the notes to each
section are extremely rich in further references, details
and speculations. Although the work is a "Documentary"
and not a finished work of narrative and analytical history,
it goes further than any other work of homosexual history
I know in detailing the infinitely complex process of
definition and self-definition which has produced the
modern homosexual identity. It will be indispensable for
future workers in the field.
Gay Left 31
A second problem arises from this: attitudes to lesbianis m. Katz very commendably has attempted to give equal
space to both male and female homosexuality, and although
this is impossible in some sections, overall he succeeds. But
this again suggests a problematic of a constant racialsexual identity which Katz explicitly rejects theoretically.
Lesbianism and male homosexuality in fact have quite
different social histories, related to the social evolution of
distinct gender identities, and there is a danger that this
fundamental, if difficult, point will be obscured by
discussing them as if they were part of the same experience.
In the long term, as I have suggested, the study of
homosexuality in history poses questions of the dominant
modes of sexuality at any particular period, and any selfcontained search for our history will be self-defeating. But
the recovery by gay historians of a buried experience is a
vital transitional stage. Katz's work shows that the homosexual experience was much wider and richer than the
characters of Rowse's work would suggest. It is important
that work goes on in this way, because without it we can
hardly understand the present, let alone grasp the future.
The work of writers like James Steakley and Jonathan Katz
is an essential starting point.
"He loved all men, body, soul and spirit, even me."
After a rather coy moment of Fisher-King/Amfortas
symbolism we realise that the centurion is explaining,
pace Mr. Eliot 3 , how he fucked Christ's wounds, thereby
receiving consolation both physical and spiritual.
There is a play upon the notion of "kingdom come",
then, after a loosely sado-masochistic reference to
"... the passionate and blissful crucifixion
same sex lovers suffer, patiently and gladly."
the narrator is left to wait for three days outside the tomb
waiting for the resurrection and, dare one say, the second
coming.
It is a rather silly poem. It is at times an amusing poem.
It is from start to finish an extremely "literary" poem. In
fact it stands within a long tradition of Uranian 4 poetry
which turns divine imagery and language, not necessarily
Gay Left 34
A Unifying Experience
Coming Out
by Jeffrey Weeks
( Quartet Hardback 8.50, Paperback 3.95)
What Is To Be Done
A Conference for Gay Socialists July 2nd 1977
What's Left
NEW GAY SOCIALIST GROUP
Lesbian Line
Editorial Notes
Publication Dates: We hope from April 1978 to be
coming out more regularly, three times a year. Contributions, especially short articles, are always welcome.
Letters: Owing to pressure on space we have had to hold
back letters this time. But please keep sending them in.
Subscriptions: We are now opening a subscription department. Details will be found elsewhere in this issue. Donations will also be welcomed. Gay Left is a non-profit
making journal completely financed through sales and gifts.
Any contributions would therefore be appreciated.
Back Issues: Copies of issues 3 and 4 of Gay Left are still
available, price 50p each inland, 1.00 overseas.
Next Issue: Gay Left 6 will include articles by Dennis
Altman on "The State, Repression and Sexuality", Gregg
Blachford on "Socialism and Sexual Morality", Derek
Cohen on "Clienting Individual Solutions to Collective
Problems" and Randal Kincaid on "The Apoliticism of the
Gay Press".
Correction: The "Gays and Work Symposium" held in
Seattle last March, was organised by the Union of Sexual
Minorities and not by the F.S.P. as we stated in Gay Left 4.
THE COLLECTIVE
This issue was put together by Keith Birch, Gregg
Blachford, Derek Cohen, Emmanuel Cooper, Jeffrey
Weeks, Nigel Young.
Subscriptions
Contents
Why Marxism ...........................................................................
Here We Stand ........................................................................
A Breathtaking Sweep ...........................................................
Beyond Privilege .....................................................................
Politics and Ideology ..............................................................
Another Patriarchal Irrelevance .......................................
Crossroads Which Way Now ..........................................
How Time's Gone By ............................................................
National Organisation Of Lesbians .................................
I mages of Homosexuality ...................................................
Gays and Fascism ....................................................................
Various Routes .......................................................................
The Gay News Trial ..............................................................
A Unifying Experience .........................................................
Out of the Cess Pits ...............................................................
What Is To Be Done ..............................................................
What's Left ................................................................................
Editorial Notes ........................................................................
2
6
8
9
10
14
15
17
19
20
26
30
32
36
37
39
39
40
BACK ISSUES
Gay Left No ,3
Women in Gay Left, Gays and Class, IS Gay Group, Gay
Workers' Movement and much more.
Gay Left No. 4
Love, Sex and Maleness, Communists Comment, Lesbians
and the law, Darwinism and sexuality, reviews etc.
50p each
Overseas Airmail
Overseas Surface
Gay Left 40
Happy Families?
PAEDOPHILIA EXAMINED
By the Gay Left Collective
THE CHALLENGE
It is striking that over the past two or three years conservative moral anxiety throughout the advance capitalist
countries has switched from homosexuality in general to
sexual relationships between adults and young people. In
America Anita Bryant's anti-homosexual campaign began as
a crusade to 'Save Our Children'; the Body Politic in Canada
was raided following an issue on paedophilia; in France as in
this country a moral panic has been stirred up over the issue
of child pornography and "exploitation". And in Britain this
has lead to the rapid passage through Parliament of a restrictive Child Pornography Bill which received no proper
scrutiny and very little principled libertarian opposition from
MPs. Even the recent Gay News trial had as a significant
undercurrent the issue of paedophilia, a topic and stigma
with which the prosecution made strenuous efforts to tar
Gay News. The attacks on lesbian parenthood are obviously
related to similar questions, while those organisations which
counsel young homosexuals and help them to meet one
another seem to be coming under increased surveillance.
There has, it seems, been a clear extension of concern,
from adult male homosexual behaviour, which dominated
debates of the fifties and sixties following the Wolfenden
Report, to the question of paedophilia and childhood. In
1952 the Sunday Pictorial published a series of articles on
adult homosexuality called "Evil Men". By 1975 "The Vilest
Men in Britain" (Sunday People 25th May 1975) were
members of the Paedophile Action for Liberation (PAL) and
the News of the World in 1978 (11th June) enjoined the
members of PIE (Paedophile Information Exchange) to
"Keep Your Hands Off Our Children: We expose the truth
about this pack of perverts." "Child Molesters" and
"exploiters of children" are the new social monsters.
Why is this so? Firstly it seems clear enough that few
moral conservatives are prepared publicly to campaign for
making male homosexuality illegal again, or for that matter
proscribing lesbian relationships. There might be police raids
on clubs and saunas and harassment in pubs; chief constables
will campaign against pornography (and some weak-kneed
liberals might support , them); Ian Paisley might try to Save
Ulster from Sodomy; Mary Whitehouse might recommend us
to pray and exercise restraint; and Leo Abse might prefer us
to "come out but not freak out", but as this latter phrase
suggests it is not so much private, consensual adult homosexual behaviour which is of primary concern, but so-called
public decency, and the related question of "corruption of
minors".
Realistically, the moral right wing cannot get much
support out of campaigning against homosexuality as such.
But they can hope to build up a new moral consensus around
the issue of protecting childhood, particularly in the context
of the current political emphasis on the family. Adult homosexuals can be dismissed as unfortunate historical deviations
to be pittied, with all efforts being put into preventing any
more children 'falling' into such a way of life. Here they can
build out from their traditional evangelical core, which
rejects all sex outside marriage, building a coalition with
various people from disillusioned libertarians to confused
progressives.
Moral reactionaries can serve their cause better by
building alliances on easy issues such as the protection of
childhood. Their success in pushing through the Child Pornography Act is proof of this. At the same time gay opposition
is minimised because of the wish to dissociate ourselves from
the traditional public image of being "dirty old men". A
Gay Left 2
sexual development of the body it implies a growing awareness of the social world, particularly through greater contact
with peers and older children as sources of education and
experience. Most of the Gay Left Collective recognise that
puberty is a useful framework. For convenience we define
a paedophile as someone who is emotionally and sexually attracted towards children, that is towards pre-pubertal people.
In their pamphlet Paedophilia: Some Questions and
Answers PIE define it as "sexual love directed towards
CHILDHOODS
We must recognise that 'childhood' is itself a historical category, and like other cultural categories we have mentioned,
is a fairly recent one (its evolution is traced in Centuries of
Childhood by Philippe Aries, Peregrine Books). Only since
the 18th Century have we reified the position of young
people into our particular embodiements of 'innocence'. The
intervention by the State to 'protect' children often flowed
from economic and political pressures which led to Acts
controlling child labour and extending the period of
schooling for example. But it was also tied to concern with
the family and so laws controlling prostitution and homosexuality contained age of consent regulations. This all aided
the construction of the longer period of 'childhood' we know
today. Emotional relationships have been largely confined
within the family and the independence of the young has
been seen as a threat.
Only since the last century have we so paradoxically both
denied the existence of childhood sexuality and been preoccupied with curbing its manifestations, such as in childhood masturbation and sexual games. Even today, while our
moralists rush to protect children, the capitalist system they
support constantly incites sexuality, (including childhood
sexuality) at all levels to sell its wares. But people will say
that there is a difference between a child having sexual
experiences with someone of the same age and having them
with a more experienced, potentially exploitative adult.
There probably is, but how is this difference to be recognised.
Should a line be drawn and if it is how should it be enforced?
A legal age of consent is an arbitrary fiction. Emotional ages
vary and someone of 10 might be more able to 'consent' than
someone of 16. An age of consent in law does not prevent the
the sexual activity taking place and serves to perpetuate the
myth that most, if not all adults can and always do 'consent'.
Sexual expression between adults and children need not
harmful and so cannot be condemned just because it takes
place. But it is problematical because it raises issues of disparities of power. How can we safeguard the child's right to
consent? PIE answers this in four ways: (From Some
Questions and Answers pt 27)
a) by suggesting that we overdramatise the question of moral
choice involved in accepting a pleasurable act. "All that
matters is whether the act is pleasurable."
b) the child is quite capable, from infancy, of showing
reluctance. "If the child seems puzzles and hesitant, rather
than relaxed and cheerful, he (the adult) should assume that
d) if the adult persists and enforces his will on the child "The
adult should then be liable to legal action and social condemnation."
It seems to us that (a) and (b) are vague and circular.
Enjoyment is not necessarily a sign of having consented (an
arguement often used against raped women) and is not a
justification in itself for accepting a particular act. One may
be hesitant but consenting. An adult can manipulate consent
almost unconsciously.
Points (c) and (d) are the keys but they need to be closely
defined. This means two strategies which need to be
developed and discussed in the gay movement. Firstly we
need to be clearer about the implications of using legal
action. We need to find means of protecting young people's
rights which do not patronise, introduce the arbitrariness of
an age of consent, or destroy with a blunderbuss.
At present we have a situation where adults have supreme
power over children economic, physical, intellectual and
emotional. So it is at least problematical whether in this
situation relationships of some equality can be formed which
involve sexual expression. In an ideal situation where such
relationships took place in the context of mutual agreement
and without major social consequences for both parties this
may be possible. But some paedophiles stress that the sort of
relationships they want with children can take place in the
existing framework.
However, we have to take account of the real social
situation in which we live, with the vulnerability of children
and the relatively effortless way in which an adult could
manipulate the situation in pursuing their desires to the
point of ignoring the interests, wishes and feelings of the
child. Children may not be equipped, either experientally
or physically for adult-defined sexuality. Children are very
sensual and enjoy physical contact, but they may not have
the same conceptual categories as adults about sex. With such
a low level of children's autonomy and awareness, their inability to say no should not necessarily be taken for
agreement. For this reason it would seem that paedophile
relationships are likely to be unequal, though in this they
only parallel other adult/child relationships in our society.
To sum up this point, it would appear that the criteria
exist for recognising the validity of relationships when there
is some approximation of meaning. This does not imply
identity of age or interest, but it does imply an ability on the
part of the child to recognise some of the significance in
social and sexual terms of her/his actions. We are inclined to
believe that this does not usually happen before puberty. The
problem becomes, then, how do we socially recognise this?
GayArt
by Emmanuel Cooper
The emerging gay subculture and its clear identity is affecting, however slightly, gay artists. Art traditionally reflects
contemporary, mainstream ideas and only occasionally do
artists extend this to introduce different ideas. Since the war,
art has been primarily concerned with themes which refer
only to art itself to its conventions, to its highly developed
language and it ignores, for the most part, either political,
social or sexual statements which in any way question existing ideas. Gradually gay artists are beginning to introduce
evidence of their own sexuality and their relationship to the
world; this not only manifests their presence but also deals
with their emotions and feelings. This is important for two
reasons it provides gay people with positive affirming
images and in so doing it introduces into art ideas about
sexuality which the concentration on, and cultivation of,
`aesthetics' have largely precluded.
Homosexual artists are of course not new, nor are homosexual themes totally absent from history. It is worth while
looking at these aspects of art for they have much to say
about attitudes to homosexuality as they have developed in
western society over the last 150 years, for they are an
i mportant and positive affirmation that art and gay artists
have a useful contribution to make to the gay identity.
Gay History
In other cultural areas socialists have been able to use
writings and ideas from established theorists who have had
much to say about class, culture and society. However
neither Marx nor Engels had much to say about visual art,
but their remarks on literature seem equally relevant to the
visual arts. They pointed out that artists who were not
necessarily socialists could reveal truths about ourselves
which we can still accept. Equally painters and sculptors who
comment on human feelings and emotions provide us with
insights which cannot be dismissed merely because they do
not fall into today's socialist categories, or because they
worked in a bourgeois society. To benefit from these works
we need to look at them from a socialist perspective. For
example, argument over whether or not Courbet, Blake or
Goya were true 'socialists' pales into insignificance by the
side of the radical critique they made of society in their
pictures.
Classical studies and reference books mostly written in the
19th century, lay the basis for the established art history
approach to studying art; these sources rarely mention homosexuality. To all intents and purposes it did not exist.
Only one new study by Margaret Walters (The Male Nude)
deals with homosexuality in detail. She not only refers to
artists' sexuality but also refuses to separate the work from
the social and political conditions of the time. She rightly
points out though how when looking at art history, the use
of the term homosexuality is dangerous. As a term it has
Gay Left 6
Feminist Artists
Artists in the women's movement have been concerned with
establishing themselves and their presence as women, dealing
with the way they are ignored and slotted into convenient
stereotype roles. They have made statements about themselves and their lives which fall into no preconceived 'art'
mould and use art in its widest sense. Their work not only
challenges the concept of 'femininity' but also popular ideas
about art. The artists in the gay movement have a long way
to go before they make this sort of analysis yet there are
already moves in this direction.
Gay Art
The gay identity in art seems to be expressed in four major
ways, though many overlap. First, artists like David Hockney
convey it through a process of highly personal self discovery.
They pass on to us sensitive insights into their own feelings
and emotions which are quiet and thoughtful, and demonstrate the relationship between the artist and the world in
which they live. Other artists seek to demonstrate the gay
presence which identifies and legitimises, often through the
use of aggressive naturalism. Michael Leonard is such an
example . His super realistic paintings which almost have the
clarity of photographs, graphically testify to their homosexual themes. Third, is the protest and rebellious art, which
not only asserts the gay identity but shows it in all its aspects
sexual and political. Here the work of Denis O'Sullivan
shown at the Gay Times Festival is a good example. The
theme of the work 'Toilet Piece' was explicitly voyeuristic
and dealt with sex in a public lavatory, using photographs
and mock-ups of the lavatory walls.
Finally, the largest group of all, is the erotic and pornographic. With so many repressions on homosexuality in conventional painting, it is not surprising that it took flight
underground. As gays we are defined by our sexual acts by
what we do in bed and all too often gay art concentrates
only on this part of our lives. If Tom of Finland is popular,
he is not so because of his highly accomplished pencil drawings but because he reflects every prejudice in the book.
Real, super butch men having lusting, effortless proper sex!
Numerous imitations have produced even worse work and
many rely on the 'art' context to legitimise pornographic or
sexist imagery.
The new and emerging gay identity is one which challenges
and asserts. It rejects the traditional ambiguous role it usually
has thrust upon it but it can learn a little from the struggles
of earlier homosexual artists. Now, as never before, is there a
need for gay naturalism and it will produce work to which we
can all respond.
References
Margaret Walters, 'The Male Nude'.
David Hockney by David Hockney
Gay Left 8
Spotlight on Greece
SPOTLIGHT ON GREECE An Interview with a
member of the Greek Gay Movement AKOE.
The situation of gay people in countries like Greece, the
Soviet Union, Northern Ireland etc, where gays are not only
oppressed but also have very limited space to manoeuvre
politically, led to the recent formation of the International
Gay Association (IGA) as an expression of solidarity between
gays. An initial focus of concern and activity has been the
proposed legislation of the Greek Government.
In Greece homosexuals now face the prospect of a year's
imprisonment simply for cruising if the notoriously anti-gay
clauses of the draft-bill 'On the protection from Venereal
Disease and the Regulation of other relative matters' gets
passed by Parliament where discussion of the Bill is quoted
by Government sources as being 'imminent'. The law defines
prostitutes and homosexuals as 'indecent persons' and
recommends that women prostitutes register with the police
and undergo medical examinations twice weekly. Failure to
do this, soliciting or 'improper and provocative behaviour
offending public shame and decency' will be punished by up
to one year's imprisonment. Male homosexuals are subjected
to the same penalty, however, just for cruising 'in streets,
squares, public centres ... with the evident purpose of
attracting men to perform on them sexual activities lewd and
against nature' and for 'improper and provocative behaviour
etc ...' If the police have been informed in writing that a
male homosexual has indulged in a 'sexual activity' which
has caused the contagion of a venereal disease, then he has to
undergo the respective medical tests and therapy. We publish
here an interview with a member of the Greek Gay Liberation Movement AKOE.
What is the present situation regarding this Bill?
First, on behalf of everyone in AKOE, I want to express my
deepest thanks to all those who organised and demonstrated
in solidarity with Greek Gays in the face of this Bill. These
demonstrators showed representatives of the Karamanlis
regime that their resuscitation of a law concocted by the
fascist military Junta is equally unacceptable to people outside Greece.
The latest situation is that the Government is very
undecided about what to do. Last year's protest petition in
which 250 signatures of Greek personalities were collected
forced them to postpone the Bill's reading, but they never
expected a wave of international response like this, not for a
`few thousand queers'. I would say that it has thrown them
slightly off balance, but they still seem determined to get the
Bill passed, though with what they describe as 'radical amendments'.
What do they mean by 'radical amendments'?
As yet this is not clear but I imagine it might be a lessening
of the penalties or a change in the circumstances in which
homosexuals would be liable to imprisonment. At any rate
the responsibility for the Bill has been transferred from the
Ministry of Public Order to the Ministry of Social Services.
Did the international demonstrations get widespread press
coverage?
No, unfortunately. It was only a week later on October 7th
that Eleftheroypia, a non-aligned progressive daily, carried an
article which said that the demonstrations, as a culmination
of international protests (including the Dutch Parliament's
denunciation of the Bill and threats to bring the Greek
Government before the Council of Europe's Committee of
Human Rights) had been successful insofar as the Government had withdrawn the Bill for amendments.
Gay Left 10
FOR interpretation ~
Notes Against Camp
by Andrew Britton
ly to certain characteristic assumptions of bourgeois feminism. Juliet Mitchell has argued, for example, that the
`political' and 'ideological' struggles are conceptually and
practically distinct, the one to be fought by the working-class
and the other by the women's movement, and even goes so
far as to suggest, in Woman's Estate, that the revolution must
now come from within the bourgeoisie. Gene, while ostensibly working-class, is very much a mouthpiece for bourgeois
aspirations; and Men compounds Mitchell's fallacy in its
uncritical assimilation of camp to feminism, and its implicit
assertion that there is no conceivable form of organised
political activity which would not surreptitiously reiterate
patriarchal power-structures.
Two
Camp always connotes 'effeminacy', not 'femininity'. The
camp gay man declares " 'Masculinity' is an oppressive
convention to which I refuse to conform"; but his nonconformity depends at every point on the preservation of the
convention he ostensibly rejects in this case, a general
acceptance of what constitutes 'a man'. Camp behaviour is
only recognisable as a deviation from an implied norm, and
without that norm it would cease to exist, it would lack
definition. It does not, and cannot, propose for a moment a
radical critique of the norm itself. Being essentially a mere
play with given conventional signs, camp simply replaces the
signs of 'masculinity' with a parody of the signs of
`femininity' and reinforces existing social definitions of both
categories. The standard of 'the male' remains the fixed point,
in relation to which male gays and women emerge as 'that
which is not male'.
Three
Camp requires the frisson of transgression, the sense of perversity in relation to bourgeois norms which characterises the
degeneration of the Romantic impulse in the second half of
the nineteenth century, and which culminates in England
with Aestheticism and in France with the decadence. Camp is
a house-trained version of the aristocratic, anarchistic ethic of
transgression, a breach of decorum which no longer even
shocks, and which has gone to confirm the existence of a
special category of person the male homosexual. Camp
strives to give an objective presence to an imaginary construction of bourgeois psychology. The very term 'a homosexual' (of which, finally, the term 'a gay person' is only the
recuperation, albeit a progressive one) defines not an objectchoice of which any individual is capable, but a type with
characteristic modes of behaviour and response. Sartre has
analysed, in relation to Genet, the process by which a determinate social imperative ("I have been placed in such-andsuch a role") can be transformed into existential choice
("Therefore I will take the initiative of adopting it"); and
that process describes the fundamental complicity of what
may appear to be an act of self-determination. Camp is
collaborative in that sense.
Gay Left 11
Six
Four
'Subversiveness' needs to be assessed not in terms of a quality
which is supposedly proper to a phenomenon, but as a
relationship between a phenomenon and its context that is,
dynamically. To be Quentin Crisp in the 1930s is a very
different matter from being Quentin Crisp in 1978. What was
once an affront has now become part of life's rich pageant.
The threat has been defused and defused because it was
always superficial. Camp is individualistic and apolitical, and
even at its most disturbing asks for little more than livingroom. Susan Sontag's remark that "homosexuals have pinned
their integration into society on promoting" the camp sensibility seems to me exact, and in its exactitude quite damning. It is necessary, in making such a judgement, to dissociate
oneself from any simple form of moralism.
Clearly, until very recently the ways of being gay have
been so extraordinarily limited that the possibility of being
radically gay has simply not arisen in the majority of cases.
But in a contemporary context, gay camp seems little more
than a kind of anaesthetic, allowing one to remain inside
oppressive relations while enjoying the illusory confidence
that one is flouting them.
Five
The belief in some 'essential' homosexuality produces, logically, Jack Babuscio's concept of "the gay sensibility", of
which camp is supposed to be the expression. "I define the
gay sensibility as a creative energy reflecting a consciousness
that is different from the mainstream; a heightened awareness
of certain human complications of feeling that spring from
the fact of social oppression; in short, a perception of the
world which is coloured, shaped, directed and defined by the
fact of one's gayness". 2 This formulation contains two false
propositions: (a) that there exists some undifferentiated
"mainstream consciousness" from which gays, by the very
fact of being gay, are absolved; and (b) that "a perception of
the world which is ... defined by the fact of one's gayness"
necessarily involves a "heightened awareness" of anything
(except, of course, one's gayness). I would certainly accept
that oppression creates the potential for a critical distance
from (and action against) the oppressing society, but one has
only to consider the various forms of 'negative awareness' to
perceive that the realisation of that potential depends on
other elements of one's specific situation.
It is clearly not the case that the fact of oppression entails
a conceptual understanding of the basis of oppression, or that
the fact of belonging to an oppressed group entails ideological
awareness. 'Consciousness' (which is, in itself, an unhelpful
term) is not determined by sexual orientation, nor is there a
"gay sensibility". The ideological place of any individual at
any given time is the site of intersection of any number of
determining forces, and one's sense of oneself as 'gay' is a
determinate product of that intersection not a determinant
of it. It seems strange, in any case, to cite as exemplary of a
gay sensibility a phenomenon which is characteristically
male, and with which many gay men feel little sympathy.
Gay Left 12
Seven
Whatever differences they may have on other points, the
three most fully elaborated statements on camp to date 8 are
all agreed that camp taste is a matter of 'style' and 'content',
ignoring the fact that 'style' describes a process of meaning.
The camp attitude is a mode of perception whereby artifacts
become the object of an arrested, or fetishistic, scrutiny. It
does not so much "see everything in quotation marks" 9 as in
parentheses; it is a solvent of context. Far from being a
medium for the "demystification" of artifacts, as Richard
Dyer asserts, 10 , camp is a means by which that analysis is
perpetually postponed. The passage from 'determinate
object' to 'fetish' preserves the object safely and reassuringly
in a vacuum.
Eight
All analysts of camp arrive eventually at the same dilemma.
On the one hand, camp "describes those elements in a person,
situation or activity which express, or are created by, a gay
sensibility" 11 (i.e. camp is an attribute of something). On the
other hand, "camp resides largely in the eye of the
beholder" 12 (i.e. camp is attributed to something). The latter
seems to me in most cases correct, and the generalising tendency indicates very clearly camp's essential facility. Camp
attempts to assimilate everything as its object, and then
reduces all objects to one set of terms. It is a language of
impoverishment: it is both reductive and non-analytic, the
two going together and determining each other. As a gay
phenomenon, it is a means of bringing the world into one's
scope, of accommodating it not of changing it or conceptualising its relations. The objects, images, values, relations of
oppression can be recuperated by adopting the simple
expedient of redescribing them; and the language of camp
almost suggests, at times, a form of censorship in the Freudian sense. There is, of course, a certain mode of contemporary aestheticism which is aware of the concept of camp,
and whose objects are constructed from within that purview;
but as a rule the conception of camp as a property either begs
the question or produces those periodic insanities of Susan
Sontag's essay, whereby Pope and Mozart can be claimed for
the camp heritage as masters of rococco formalism.
Nine
According to Richard Dyer, John Wayne and Wagner can be
camp. To perceive Wayne as camp is, on one level, simply too
easy, and doesn't make any points about 'masculinity' which
would not instantly earn the concurrence of any self-
Eleven
Jack Babuscio quotes Oscar Wilde "It is through Art, and
through Art only, that we can shield ourselves from the
sordid perils of actual existence" and adds, approvingly:
"Wilde's epigram points to a crucial aspect of camp aestheticism: its opposition to puritan morality". 14 On the contrary,
the epigram is a supreme expression of puritan morality,
which can almost be defined by its revulsion from the danger
and squalor of the real. Puritanism finds its escape-clause in
the aspiration of the individual soul towards God, in a
relation to which the world is at best irrelevant and at worst
inimical; and Wilde simply redefines the emergency-exit in
aesthetic terms. Sartre remarks of Genet that "beauty is the
aesthete's dirty trick on virtue". I would rephrase him to
read "the isolation of style is the aesthete's dirty trick on
the concept of value, and the constant necessity to analyse
and reconstruct concepts of value".
Twelve
Ten
In his essay, Jack Babuscio attempts to construct a relationship between camp and irony which, it transpires, turns on
the same unresolved contradiction as that which afflicts the
definition of camp itself. "Irony is the subject matter of
camp, and refers here to any highly incongruous contrast
between an individual or thing and its context or
association". 13 By the end of the paragraph, the irony has
become a matter of the "perception of incongruity". One
should note, first, that irony is badly misdefined: it does not
involve incongruity, and it is not, and can never be, "subjectmatter". Irony is an operation of discourse which sets up a
complex of tensions between what is said and various qualifications or contradictions generated by the process of the
saying. Furthermore, it is difficult to see in what way any of
the "incongruous contrasts" offered as exemplary of camp
irony relate either to camp, irony, or "the gay sensibility".
Are we to assume that, because "sacred/profane" is an incongruous pair, a great deal of medieval literature is camp? Most
importantly, Jack Babuscio ignores the crucial distinction
between the kind of scrutiny which dissolves boundaries in
order to demonstrate their insubstantiality, or the valuesystems which enforce them, and the kind of scrutiny which
merely seeks to confirm that they are there. As a logic of
'transgression', camp belongs to the second class. If the transgression of boundaries ever threatened to produce the
redefinition of them, the frisson would be lost, the thrill of
"something wrong" would disappear.
Gay Left 13
Thirteen
Camp has a certain minimal value, in restricted contexts, as
a form of pater les bourgeois; but the pleasure (in itself
genuine and valid enough) of shocking solid citizens should
not be confused with radicalism. Still less should "the very
tight togetherness that makes it so good to be one of the
queens", in Richard Dyer's phrase, 18 be offered as a constructive model of 'community in oppression'. The positive
connotations an insistence on one's otherness, a refusal to
pass as straight are so irredeemably compromised by complicity in the traditional, oppressive formulations of that
otherness; and 'camping around' is so often little more than
being 'one of the boys' by pink limelight. We should not,
Notes
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Susan Sontag, 'Notes on "Camp" ' in Against Interpretation ( Dell Publishing Co. Inc., 1970, p.292).
Jack Babuscio, 'Camp and the Gay Sensibility' in Gays
and Film (BFI 1977, p.40).
Sontago; op.cit. p.278.
Babuscio; op.cit. p.44.
Ibid.
Sontag and Babuscio, ibid; and Richard Dyer, 'It's
Being So Camp As Keeps Us Going' in Body Politic
(September 1977).
Sontag; op.cit. p.289.
NEW GROUP
North London GAYS against the NAZIS, contact Box
GAN, Tottenham Community Project, 628 High Road,
London N17.
Gay Left 14
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
Dyer; op.cit.
Sontag; op.cit. p.281.
Dver; op.cit.
Babuscio; op.cit. p.40.
Ibid. p.41.
Ibid. p.41.
Ibid. p.42.
Ibid. p.43.
Ibid. p.51.
Ibid. p.45.
Dyer, op.cit.
Gay Lit
The Gay Journal a new gay literary/intellectual magazine
comes out in December 1978, founded by Anne Davison, Ian
David Baker and Roger Baker. The new journal will not be a
sex magazine. There will, for example, be no photographs
and the erotic content of any writing or illustration will be
part of the greater whole rather than there for its own sake.
Good writing, good design and good graphics are the aim. We
see no reason to be frightened of being intellectual, serious or
literary. We hope that the journal will reflect the experience
of gay people and our response to the world we live in. There
is scope for fiction, poetry, analytical articles, satire, humour
and autobiographical experience. We can cope with politics
and plays, tub-thumping and even music.
The journal will be quarterly and will have 64 pages in each
issue. Price 75p a single issue +20p post (students and OAPs
50p). Subscriptions 4 p.a. for 4 issues.
B.B.D. Publishing, Flat F, 23/24 Great James St,
London WC1N 3ES.
to the obvious approval of the judge and in the end with the
endorsement of the jury. Gay oppression became redefined
that summer with an almost medieval resonance. The concept
of Blasphemy, like the name Mary Whitehouse, was no longer
a joke. The anger it provoked united gays of different
political persuasions in the common view that we were all
under attack by the Gay News trial. The committee used the
trial as a focus for an increasing number of anti-gay attacks:
the murder of Peter Benyon, the attempt by her constituency Labour Party to sack Maureen Colquhoun MP, police
harassment, custody cases the same catalogue of oppression
as in Tom Robinson's Glad to be Gay. Affiliations to the
NGNDC were invited from a range of groups including CHE,
women's groups and trade unions. CHE co-operated fully'and
provided generous publicity in its broadsheet and even Gay
News welcomed and supported the new group. That broadbased support continues with the GAA and the resolution
passed at the CHE conference reflects this:
`That CHE become a sponsor of the Gay Activists' Alliance
and co-operate fully at national and local level in initiatives
taken by GAA in defence of gay people.'
The theme of 'defence' is expressed in the short policy
statement GAA adopted at its first meeting:
`to co-ordinate at a national level the fight against the
increasing number of attacks being made on homosexuals and
homosexuality. We see our struggle as part of that of other
oppressed people and therefore seek the active participation
of the maximum number of gay and non-gay organisations in
this aim.'
Some people thought this was too rhetorical and ambitious,
others thought a more explicitly socialist perspective should
be adopted. Clearer ideas of the direction of GAA have
emerged since the conference and there is continuing discussion at meetings and in the newsletter. The structure of
the GAA was and remains an important debate. The bureaucracy of CHE was as inappropriate as the inspired amorphousness of early GLF. So far it has been resolved that
`The GAA is not the whole of the gay movement: at a
national Ievel it brings together lesbians and gay men,
whether independent or as members of other gay groups .. .
to work on specific issues. All groups involved in GAA are
independent. National conferences, held every six weeks,
enable co-ordination and planning to take place, and give us
a chance to get to know one another. There is no formal
leadership or membership but a secretariat, based on a local
group, helps co-ordinate the spread of information by newsletter and telephone tree.'
Between February and September there have been four
national conferences in Manchester, Oxford, London and
Edinburgh, attended on average by 60 people. Ideas and proposals are generated in small workshops and a general plenary
makes decisions. Three main campaigns have emerged; a
campaign against police harassment, anti-fascist work and a
campaign against W.H. Smiths. In addition, local groups have
specific issues related to their area. This has put great
demands on the people involved. The stress on activism
threatens to exhaust some groups and leaves insufficient time
for theoretical reflection on our work. The activist emphasis
however began to involve new people. The Manchester group,
in particular, has been successful in involving people from the
gay clubs, which have been threatened with prosecution,
under an old bye law, for licentious dancing!
Personal As Political
Although ambitious, the GAA does recognise certain limitations 'the GAA is not the whole of the gay movement'. I
feel we will also need to look back however and reflect on
earlier groups, particularly GLF, if we are to achieve much.
For example, how does the concept of the personal is political, so central to GLF and the women's movement, operate
within GAA? It is instructive to look at an early GLF critique
of 'gay activists':
Gay Left 15
Keeping Together
Having laid the basis for an alliance we may be faced with
possible splits. We have to prevent this without at the same
time avoiding controversy. The newsletter has so far been a
good vehicle for conveying thoughts and ideas which help
define the alliance. On this particular question of political
divisions and possible splits the newsletter carried the following contribution: 'I think that splits sometimes happen (in
the old GLF again) because people are saying, in effect, "we
should use such and such a tactic and I won't work with you
if you don't agree".' We should try to avoid these kinds of
needless ultimatums. We must also guard against regarding
people you disagree with as the enemy. I think this was and
is very bound up with not understanding or trying to understand where people are coming from, the origin of people's
ideas. There are large numbers of political persuasions within
the GAA now, reflecting the diversity within society as a
whole. All the main positions have pretty deep roots in history and in the present. This means that, not only is GAA
going to have to deal with these ideas in one way or another
but also that each political group will contain well-meaning
and sincere people. This means a certain degree of respect
for people however objectively damaging one may think their
opinion. Our deepest differences don't originate in malice
and so we need not personalise them. We should keep the
real enemy in sight.' (Jamie Gough)
The alliance has so far allowed a fairly consistent policy
on anti-fascist tactics to emerge. A handbook which describes
how Nazi ideology dealt with homosexuals has been
produced. This has been taken up by Gay Sweatshop in its
recent anti-fascist production 'Iceberg', and so the discussion
about fascism can grow outside GAA groups.
The campaign against W.H. Smiths has been a long one
and has drawn in many new people. It is a clear cut issue and
is a useful campaign in that it brings people into contact with
the more complex issues.
The anti-police harassment campaign is proving to be the
most difficult. Assembling information and presenting a case
to groups in and outside of the gay movement on this issue is
the most important and long term issue facing us. Police
activity against us, as against blacks, is as threatening as the
NF. If we become demoralised by state harassment we will
have less strength to fight the fascists should they or their
ideas gain more ground.
GAA's continued effectiveness will be in its ability to
co-ordinate and initiate diverse campaigns within the gay
movement. It should promote a number of single issue but
linked campaigns as a united gay political organisation. This
includes people interested in law reform and those engaged,
for example, in anti-fascist work. The resulting federation of
campaigns could give gay politics the continuity and impact
it needs and has so far not achieved.
The phrase 'I thought so' when you come out to anyone
has always seemed to me more like an 'I'm just taking this in'
response rather than someone having any real idea. My boss
confirmed that this was the case later, but at the time I was
grateful that she had said it as I didn't really want to go into
an explanation about it. I stressed that I was quite happy
being gay and that that was not the problem. We talked for a
while about the relationship and although the conversation
didn't really provide any insights I felt relieved to be able to
discuss my personal life with someone I worked with. At the
end of our talk she asked me not to tell the girls in the office
as she didn't know how they would take it. I felt ambiguous
about this as I really wanted to tell the others after getting a
favourable response from my boss, but I didn't tell them
until about two months later.
Gay Left 17
for me. It's very hard to get away from the 'representative'
role. The women in the office view the two gay men very
differently from me. The men aren't political and I think
they see being gay as a slight handicap which with a bit of
luck people will accept enough to let them become managing
director. Both are always making remarks about other men's
physical appearance and constant sexual innuendoes. The
women are clear that I don't share their attitudes towards
things and talk to me about how pissed off with a lot of the
men's remarks they are. On these occasions they are not
thinking about my lesbianism and I feel that I have much
more in common with them as women than I do with the
men as homosexuals.
The main reason I have stayed in the job is the women
that I work with, the friendship and support we have for each
other and the fear that it won't be so easy starting from
scratch again. In retrospect I think that coming out after
having been at work a while gave me time to be known as a
woman as opposed to a lesbian first, person later. On the
other hand they did think I was rather an odd woman and I
spent the first year being depressed and isolated. The result
of coming out was to improve things socially to a great
extent, for this reason, if I moved to another job now I
wouldn't be prepared to keep quiet about my sexual identity.
Altogether I feel that coming out at work has been a very
positive experience.
Gay Left 18
Originally, Desire (metaphysically capitalised) was polyvocal and untied to objects but through the acquisition of the
Oedipal Complex, Desire succumbs to the rule of the Phallus,
and the unity of Desire is broken. For Hocquenghem, the
homosexual is as partial an identity as the heterosexual: an
identity of repression. Yet, though Hocquenghem wants to
maintain that there is no such thing as a homosexual desire,
he falters and certain homosexual desires and practices are
seen as 'the mode of existence of desire itself'. It is as though
Hocquenghem is torn between a despair at the total
repression accomplished through the family and Oedipus, and
a sincere belief that male homosexuals are already revolutionary: sodomy and cruising somehow prefigure the world
without Oedipus. This tension forces him into a frenzied
over-romanticisation of male homosexual practice whilst
ignoring the real world of homosexuals: closetry becomes a
mysterious but profoundly vocal moment of being of a hypostasised Homosexuality Desire, instead of a boring, deeply
miserable isolation. Similarly, cruising takes on the character
of a 'voyage of self discovery' akin to that of the schizophrenic; again real homosexuals, the reality of police
oppression, the often unhappy consequences of being
arrested for importuning, vanish in the glow of the idealising
metaphor.
This ambiguity of despair and frenetic optimism generates
some of the more peculiar stances of Hocquenghem's book:
the rigorous anti-humanism resulting from the description of
the ego and self as alien and repressive implantations, and the
utter distrust of organisation and explicitly of the Left. In
each case, authentic Desire bubbling away from the roots of
Being permits only spontaneous connection unmediated by
rationality, or interest or even language. All language is under
the rule of the Phallus and is suspect. All previous forms of
opposition are inevitably corrupt, tied to the evils of Oedipal
succession.
It is at these points that Hocquenghem becomes absurd
and utopic and psychologistic. It is as though the long 19th
century search for authenticity, always enmeshed in a
schismed vision of the individual and society (Rousseau onwards) finds its apogee in a grand conflict between Desire,
individually located, if not in the ego, and the social, the
realm of the Phallus, as demiurge and demon. History, as a
creation of the Phallus, vanishes and revolution is seen as
almost an instantaneous consequence of sodomy. Fourier and
Sade are quoted approvingly, yet it is hard to take seriously
A Saleable Product
If Tom Robinson is trying, through his music, to convey
certain political messages, then the process by which he does
this, involving the music business and the music promotion
world as well, must necessarily affect the content and the
context of that message. It is doubtful that Glad to be Gay
would have had as many plays as it did if Tom Robinson
hadn't personally talked to the EMI reps. But it is equally
Gay Left 20
"It's Sunday night at the Hammersmith Odeon and our brains are warm with Southern Comfort. When we ask the bouncer
where our seats are he gives us a long hard look and takes our tickets with a tattooed hand on which the veins stand out like
little streams. When we've found our seat and convinced the people sitting in them that the numbers on the chairs don't
correspond to those on their tickets, the curtain rises to reveal a large fist in yellow on black. We look around. These are diehard fans, they've dutifully taken the stencils from the album covers and emblazoned their old clothes with the symbol. The guy
behind me hits his friend with the same clenched fist."
co-operatively run, they work, the records are cheap, and the
small profits are equally shared.
So why not in Britain? TRB's music is not political in the
same way as the Scandinavian groups, but nevertheless it
could have been the starting point for a similar operation. If
radical publishers can set up their own distribution service
why not musicians? There would be no limousines at the airport, no gigs in 3,500 seaters, no letters from isolated lesbians
in Japan. And that is the paradox.
Tom Robinson wants to see change but in a very limited
way. To say that it was necessary to make those compromises in order to reach a wider audience, as if there were no
alternatives, as if there weren't numerous bands and artists
who were trying to make changes from the bottom up, is to
ignore the roots of political music, where commitment
weighs heavier than the front page of the New Musical
Express.
take back my 'depressing Leninist railings against 'opportunism', 'reformism', etc.' But from a gay Marxist perspective,
i.e. one that sees gay liberation as dependent on the
dissolution of gender roles and the reorganization of childrearing and domestic living to fit in with a reorganised
economy, there is a real problem of how to relate to the gay
rights movement, particularly for those of us who cannot
point to any existing Marxist grouping as the vanguard of
human liberation. Here I don't claim to have any answers;
this is what I've come in from the cold to look for.
Love and solidarity,
David Fernbach
Mary someone or other (Alan Pope) witn her American visitor, a Ms Bryant
(Drew Griffiths) in 'Manmad'
actors would run a mile before they'd made it; and that's
because, although the Theatre does have many 'out' or 'semiout' Gay men amongst its workers, it is a terribly Straight
industry. It's basically run by a team of men in suits; women
don't get a look in; it's presented as a respectable part of the
Economy, or the National Culture, or the Working Class
Struggle (depending if you're in Shaftesbury Avenue, the
South Bank, or a meeting hall). The notion that creative
activity is a means of personal fulfilment and enjoyment is
given a very low profile indeed. And it's very, very strict
about this. That's why all those Gays who are supposed to
infest the woodwork of every theatre (never statistically
proven in a comparison with other industries) do so at the
price of silence; the theatre may have provided some refuge
for us in a hostile world, but only at the cost of colluding in
Gay Left 25
Gay Left 26
Conventional theatre offers little in general, and practically nothing positive in terms of either a critical approach
to heterosexist behaviour, or the exploration of serious alternatives. Fringe theatre occasionally tries, but since even left
wing theatre companies still function under sexist ethics,
they have not come very far, and any involvement they may
have with a critique of sexism is usually only tokenistic.
The opportunity Sweatshop provides, is a context and
environment in which we (Gay people) can explore and
present our perceptions and philosophies of Gay politics, lifestyles and potentials, IN OUR OWN TERMS, and the
relationship between the politics of sexuality to existing
political ideologies, without the interference of those groups
who do not take our politics seriously.
My personal, primary concern, is towards the Gay community and those Gay people for whom coming to terms
with their sexuality is still a problem. I want to see Sweatshop performing, and holding discussions in secondary
schools, I want to see Gay teenagers working with Sweatshop
telling the Gay and non Gay community their stories ... why
are we not doing that? Ask Mary Whitehouse.
PHILIP L. TIMMINS
When I left drama school, eighteen months ago, my first concern was to find any job as an actor: to persuade someone,
anyone, actually to pay for dressing up and pretending to be
somebody else in front of lots of people. Gay Sweatshop was
the first company to make me such an offer an offer I
couldn't refuse. So for me a more pertinent question would
be "Why did I decide to stay with Gay Sweatshop?"
Prior to drama school I had spent three years in the balmy
quadrangles of Cambridge where theatre was a leisure
activity, chosen in preference to rowing or croquet on the
Fellows lawn. True, I had also joined the university Gaysoc,
but never in my most fitful dreams had it occurred to me to
incorporate these two areas of my life.
Drama school reinforced this separateness. At the WebberDouglas Academy the gospel of professional non-involvement
was preached. An actor should be a well-oiled machine
capable of miming all emotions, but of feeling none; acting as
a job of work. A season in local rep was our shared ambition
there, the first step towards shimmering stardom.
Ten weeks with the women's company of sweatshop
therefore sent me reeling. It was a baptism of fire. I was the
only man in a company of women whose feminism was not
only the keystone of day to day living, but also, more specifically, the avowed reason for their being in this production.
For a long time I could not reconcile myself to the separatism the women considered so fundamental to their continued
strength. At university and drama school this had not existed,
and I found it painful to be constantly reminded that my
masculinity, a concept I never felt I had represented, had
become a barrier between me and the other members of the
company.
However over this period I came to understand the importance of women establishing their own lives away from men,
CATHOLIC
95%
1%
4%
PROTESTANT
46%
18%
36%
TheMaking of 'Nighthawks'
by Bob Cant
Anyone who went to see the Images of Homosexuality season
at the National Film Theatre in 1977 hoping to see positive
gay-identified images would have come away disappointed.
The images were largely of isolation, despair, suicide and
various forms of homophobia. But even where the images
were more positive they still tended to be images which
objectified gays. The film makers had looked at gayness from
a straight point of view as something alien.
Although films made since the emergence of the gay
movement have often been more sympathetic to gays than
those made previously, mainstream films have never broken
with the heterosexist ideology which is implicit in the
traditions of both Hollywood and Soviet Mosfilm. We know
that the good guy will get the beautiful girl. There's never
any doubt that Humphrey Bogart will get Lauren Bacall; in
Casablanca when he gives up Ingrid Bergman he takes on
noble, tragic characteristics. Even in more modern films
which have been influenced by feminism such as Alice
Doesn't Live Here Anymore the woman still gives up her
hard-won independence for a man. Heterosexual monogamy
or its tragic absence is essential to the representation of
personal relationships in most mainstream films which are
around today.
The Context
The commercial films which have examined gay relationships
have not veered from acceptance of this particular tenet.
Boys in the Band encourages us to feel sorry for all those
gays who can't get it together in couples; The Killing of Sister
Gay Left 30
A Triangular Relationship
Once filming began, however, the problems did not come to
an end; they simply changed their form. Ron was the director
but he was committed to a style of film-making that precluded any traditional directional role. The uncertainty of his
role in relation to the collective activity does seem to have
heightened tensions between at least three interest groups
involved in the making of a film.
(1) Four Corner Films Ron had been one of the four
original founding members of this team along with Jo Davis
(camera), Wilfried Thust (lighting), and Mary Pat Leece
(editing). They had worked together for several years and
had made two documentaries, On Allotments and Railman,
together. Their approach had broken considerably with many
of the established traditions of film-making and they used,
for example, almost no cutting or close-ups. Although their
treatment of subjects appears simple, their planning of shots
is a highly complex process. Nevertheless, their films are free
of much of the heavy manipulation that one finds in mainstream cinema. In On Allotments, for example, the camera
spent a lot of time looking at the kind of vegetables that are
grown there. Afterwards I realised that my perception of
allotments had been totally altered. I began to notice them in
places where I had never previously registered their existence.
A similar approach was used in Nighthawks. There was no
cutting from one character to another and few close-ups. By
striving not to create dramatic effects by the use of these
techniques, they were attempting to let the audience participate in forming their perception of the image on the screen.
This approach caused real problems in the camerawork in
the disco scenes. Jo Davis's camerawork for the pilot which
had been made in 1976 had been much criticised by some
gay men because it failed to capture the selectivity of the
cruising eyes of the central character. Much of this was
attributed to the fact that she is a woman who identifies
herself as heterosexual. But in my opinion, the problem was
actually rooted in the practice of Four Corner Films rather
than in the socio-sexual identity of the camera operator. The
problem of the cruising eye had been overcome by the time
filming began and the way the camera was used in the disco
scenes was quite different from the other scenes. The cutting
technique used in these scenes enables the audience to feel
the erotic atmosphere of the club.
Gay Left 32
than pick-ups the film does fall into the trap of implying that
a gay life-style is sexual contact and no more. Given the
rarity of such gay films it will be difficult for it to avoid that
interpretation.
The scenes in the film, as it stands, which are unsatisfactory are those at the school dance and at the party afterwards. Apparently, the use of improvisation here did not
work at all, and once shot, it was impossible to shoot them
again. However this very brevity makes the impact of the
social alienation that Jim feels in these scenes difficult to
relate to. It is interesting, however, that a similar image of a
gay man alone at a straight party is also used in a film made
by Lewisham CHE David is a Homosexual!
But the most serious criticism, in my opinion, is in terms
of his relationship with Judy. Because she is the only developed woman character in the film she tends to be seen as
WOMAN. She comes over rather flatly (I don't mean the
acting) and the tension that she would have felt as she
learned about Jim's sexuality is hardly explored at all. It is
true that she escapes some of the female stereotypes inasmuch as she is not seen as an object, her face is not glamorous in any fashionable way and she does not use make-up.
This is further strengthened by the film's avoidance of the
close-up technique. But she does fulfil one female stereotypical role (not so unlike the roles of 40s Hollywood stars
like Barbara Stanwyck) in as much as she is the selfless being
who lets the man cry on her shoulder, regardless of her own
needs. She makes no attempt to relate her own trap (her
marriage) with the trap (the closet) that Jim increasingly perceives himself to be in.
These criticisms apart, the film is excellent. So many
scenes the coming out to a work colleague, the restlessness
of being alone in a gay pub, conversations the morning after,
phone calls in a staff room to gay friends have a strongly
identifiable authenticity about them.
Footnotes
Life Class
The coming out scene in the classroom is particularly moving
and much more moving than the motorway scene
because the kids are so much more positive about their own
identification than Judy is about herself. Improvisation
again was a problem here but in quite a fruitful way for the
shifting uncertain nature of much of what they said was a
reflection of their very real uncertainty about their own
developing sexuality. Although the teenage actors claimed to
be tolerant of homosexuality, the questions they asked
revealed all the prejudice and uncertainty that makes coming
out so difficult and yet so necessary. "What if everyone was
like you?" "Do you carry a handbag?" "Won't women have
you?" A real split also emerged among the school kids,
between the punks and teds. The punks who knew Jim and
were taught by him in several scenes defended his right to do
what he wanted against the more hostile teds who were not
familiar with him.
Left 5.
Gay Left 33
A Socialist Morality
'Having accepted the idea that "the personal is political" it
becomes necessary to evolve a socialist morality ... (or passing judgement on what should be considered as "proper" or
"improper" behaviour).' We have here a misconception as to
what morality is and what a communist attitude towards it
should be. Questions that remain unanswered are, 1. who
makes these 'moral judgements'? and 2. for whom and for
what purpose?
A Communist (or Socialist) morality like any other
morality is a question of class. The history of morality is the
outcome of class struggle. The morality of the bourgeoisie,
for instance, is the outcome of its class struggle, first with
the feudal nobility then with the proletariat; Proletarian
morality is the outcome of the class struggle between the
proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Stating that morality is just
the passing of 'judgements' on what is considered as 'proper'
or 'improper' behaviour, has the effect of putting morality
outside the class struggle and above classes. It implies that
morality 'evolves' out of the whims and fancies of certain
individuals, and does not explain how a morality comes
about. The thing to remember is that morality has been
moulded by the class struggle of the various class interests
throughout the whole history of class society, and that a
communist morality is made by the working class to serve
the interests of that class in its struggle for political power
and the construction of communism. Lenin made this point
clear, as follows: 'We say that our morality is entirely subordinated to the interests of the Proletariat's class struggle.
Our morality stems from the interests of the class struggle of
Gay Left 34
A Definition of Pornography
Here again the question of porn is dealt with from an
individualist approach, which probably stems from the
'secretive' nature of certain pornographic material.
Porn today manifests itself through the machinery of the
bourgeois mass media, e.g. newspapers, books, mags, records,
still photos, films, TV, theatre and the like, which are both
private ('secret') and public. But if the personal is the
political (which has been accepted) then porn must be
studied from a political standpoint, a class standpoint. Mistaken ideas like, 'the nature of pornography is inherently
secret, furtive, guilt ridden and essentially private' come
from an inadequate historical analysis.
It was said that 'What is considered to be pornographic
varies from culture to culture and from time to time. It
cannot be analysed as a concept or as a reality on its own. It
must be placed firmly within the structural and historical network of the economic and social relationships from which it
springs.' Here the basis of an historical analysis had been laid,
but this basis had been overlooked in Gregg's 'historical analysis' which only analysed the development of porn in just
one culture, that of the bourgeoisie. This poses the question
that porn is a relatively recent phenomenon and that there is
no need to look back any further than the last three hundred
years to understand its true nature.
To discover the origins of porn and its true nature, we
need to study the whole history of human society. For to
look for its origins and nature in just the cultural development of capitalism will not result in a concrete definition.
We must make an on-going scientific study of porn and find
out what role it has played, in its various forms, over the
whole history of human society, from its primitive state to
its most developed form. Only then will the true nature of
porn reveal itself, from which we can conclude a concrete
definition.
Notes
1. From The Tasks of the Youth Leagues. Foreign Languages
Press, Peking 1975.
2. From Lenin on the Woman Question, Conversation with
Clara Zetkin. As published by MLWA Women's Caucus.
Gay Left 35
Girlfriends
GIRLFRIENDS
Chemical Castration
by Tom O'Carroll
"I always ensured that I chose the hospital and the surgeon
who did the operation ... once I'd embarked on treating a
man, I undertook to follow him up and make sure that the
surgeon of my choice did the mastectomies."
In a discussion written up in the B.M.J. in 1973, Dr. Field
said of hormone treatment,
Gay Left 37
Letter
PARIS NOVEMBER 1978
The major event in the French gay scene since the beginning
of the social year, September in France, has been the denunciation in the courts of police raids on gay clubs. The
Manhattan, an inexpensive gay club by Parisian standards,
was raided by twenty or so cops dressed up in leather, who
arrested eleven gays for 'outrage of public morals'. When the
case came to court last month this rather banal affair was
turned into a political trial by the lawyers and defendants
who attacked the laws which double the penalties for gays
for this 'crime', and linked the police raid with a pay-off
system between the police and a mafia of the more expensive
gay clubs.
Using the testimony of Senator Caillavet, who recently
introduced a bill into the Senate to end the anti-gay legislation of Petain and De Gaulle, as well as a petition from such
intellectuals as Marguerite Duras, Michel Foucault, Jean Luis
Bory, and Guy Hocquenghem, six lawyers attacked the
judicial bias against homosexuals in France.
Those involved in the trial were found guilty but given
light fines and no convictions, which suggested that they
government may be ready to vote the abolition of the gay
laws, which was the programme of the homosexual candidates in the March general election.
Until now the French political parties and the trade
unions have been terrified of the gay debate. A glimmer of
light from through the closed door has come from the
attitude of some of the press: Le Monde, the establishment
paper, Liberation (extreme Left), and Rouge (Trotskyist).
Aragon's lover* stated recently in an interview with the
Socialist Le Matin, 'I am gay and communist'. L'Humanite,
the Communist daily, didn't comment on this.
GLH has broken up into local quartier committees, the
CHA's. In the provinces, which can be heavily anti-gay, some
twenty or so groups are active, something which neither the
FHAR nor Arcadie, the reformist gay organisation in existence for twenty years, was ever able to initiate. There was
also a national gay conference in Lyons earlier this month.
What's Left
Contents
2
6
9
11
15
17
18
19
20
23
25
28
30
34
36
36
37
38
39
THE COLLECTIVE
This issue was put together by Keith Birch, Derek Cohen,
Emmanuel Cooper, Phil Derbyshire, Simon Watney, Jeffrey
Weeks, Nigel Young.
BACK ISSUES
Gay Left No 3
Women in Gay Left, Gays and Class, IS Gay Group, Gay
Workers' Movement and usual reviews etc.
Gay Left No 5
Why Marxism, Images of Homosexuality in Film, Lesbian
Invisibility, Gays and Fascism, Gay Theatre Past and Present,
Politics & Ideology, Gay History, Future of the Gay Movement.
Gay Left No 6
(Gays) In The Balance, The State Repression and Sexuality,
Looking At Pornography, Working Class Lesbians, Gays at
Work, Motherhood, Fighting Fascism.
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Inland 1.50 for three issues. Overseas Airmail
3 or $6 for three issues. Longer subscriptions
pro rata. Subscriptions may include available
back issues. Donations always gratefully received.
Gay Left 40
Editorial
When we started putting together this issue of Gay Left noone knew that on May 3rd, this country would elect the most
right-wing Prime Minister, together with an equally
reactionary set of ministers, since the war. The issues and
tasks confronting us were never easy under Labour but
there did seem a chance, through resistance and organisation,
of defending attacks made on the Women's Movement, the
Gay Movement and civil liberties generally.
The availability of abortion came under attack through a
number of private member's Bills. There was pressure from
the police lobby and others to give the police extra powers
and to restrict the rights of those under suspicion or arrest
(the review group on criminal procedure is soon to report).
The Prevention of Terrorism Act seriously attacked civil
liberties with the freedom it gave the police to deal with
'the Irish question'. The Special Patrol Group made its
presence felt at gay meeting places as well as harassing the
black community, pickets and anti-fascist demonstrations.
Moral bigots such as James Anderton, head of Manchester
Police, and Mary Whitehouse have tried to restrict public
expressions of homosexuality.
Meanwhile, Parliament could sell out on extending the
li mited legality of male homosexuality to Scotland and
Northern Ireland with the same equanimity as they continue
to deny the Irish the right to self-determination. We had the
spectacle of the Labour Government selling out the rights
of Northern Irish gays at the European Court of Human
Rights for the tacit support of reactionary bigots like Paisley
in Parliament. A Bill introduced into the House of Lords
to reduce the age of consent for male homosexuals to 18
was treated with contempt and derision, whilst Mary
Whitehouse seemed to gain more of the ear of Merlyn Rees,
the Home Secretary, than we ever did.
As well as this we saw the Labour Government destroy
itself through taking up economic policies which attacked the
living standards of its own supporters and running an
economy where the dole queues grew longer while prices on
the stock exchange rose higher.
In response to the general ideological shift to the Right,
with the Tory talk of law and order, the need for a return to
the old moral values and the importance of the family,
sections of the Labour Party, and Callaghan in particular,
took up these themes in a number of speeches, thus
operating on terrain defined by the Right. In this climate a
dangerous situation develops in which traditional values
about family life and the correct roles that one should play
would make all our lives and work more difficult.
This is not of course to suggest that the Gay Movement
and the gay sub-culture is about to be swept away. In fact,
the sub-culture and the commercial facilities were and are
booming. This and the failure of the Gay Movement to make
any significant links with the wider gay scene, except
perhaps through the Gay News Defence campaign, means
that there is little collective awareness of the threats presented
by these wider social forces. Often aspects of oppression and
reaction are experienced solely as individual disasters an
arrest, the loss of custody, the loss of a job while the
closure of a nursery or club are still isolated and isolating
events. A central need is for the Gay Movement to build a
collective awareness of these issues and to provide greater
support and resistance.
International Experience
This is not just a British experience. In Canada, the gay
paper Body Politic, has been harassed by the police for
some time and this last year withstood a serious prosecution.
The election there has also seen the victory of the
Conservative Party. In the USA we have recently witnessed
attacks on the civil rights of homosexuals in a number of
States even though the Briggs initiative in California was
defeated. It is symbolic that on the 10th anniversary of
Gay Left 2
Our Response
At this time gay socialists need to get together and ask
ourselves what our tactics should be, and how we can support
each other. There is of course always the question of
political differences but it appears to us that most gay
socialists are not in parties and we should therefore resist
sectarianism. It is a luxury which at this period in our history
we cannot afford.
There are however two areas which need re-emphasising
strongly at this time. One is the importance of autonomous
movements and two is the continuing exploration of the
personal as a vital area of politics for all socialists. The
explosive growth of these areas occurred at a time of
relative economic prosperity and in a liberal social climate,
but they remain just as crucial in the present political
conjuncture. We need to argue vehemently against those who
produce a shopping list of political activities in which
questions relating to sexuality and personal politics come
very low. No doubt even more people now than in the past
will argue that it is a bourgeois indulgence to fight in these
areas while living standards are under attack, when unemployment is rising and when the power of the State is being
increased to deal with stroppy workers and the Left. But our
concerns are no less important under a Thatcher Government,
indeed they become more urgent. It is not only the economic
position of women and most gays which will decline under
the present Government but the quality of all of our lives
will be under attack. The family will be elevated as the
panacea for all our moral ills. The media will sustain
distorting images which reinforce alienation and sexism.
Without autonomous movements and without a continuing
exploration of personal politics -- the way we relate to each
other, the alternatives to traditional political structures, the
way we feel any alternatives to fighting solely around
economistic questions will fade away. We will be in danger
of yet again seeing the struggle for socialism as being
something outside of our lives.
Gay Left 3
The Personal is Political ... that principle, despite its problems, remains the enduring legacy of the
Women's and Gay Movements.
We discovered that what we were doing in our 'private' lives was not isolated from the wider structures
of society: we also discovered that the goals and aims of broad political action were not separable from
their impact on our own lives and concerns. The traditional models of the privatised individual and the
'selfless' militant both proved inadequate as ways of understanding and acting to change the oppression
of advanced capitalism.
That redescription of what constitutes politics needs re-emphasising in a political situation very
different from the early days of GLF. It would be too easy to forget, to fall back into an increasingly
strident Left orthodoxy which would make Women and Gays mere auxiliary troops in some romanticised attack on state power, or to try and escape into the dreamworld of 'individual solutions' The
dialectic has to be maintained, between the personal and political, between the struggle for new ways
of relating to each other now and the building of organisations that could effectively challenge and
change the whole oppressive order. The beginnings of socialism can't wait till after the revolution; they
have to happen now in our own immediate personal and political practice.
The following accounts by the members of the collective try and show how that dialectic has operated
in our own lives, and the changes that have resulted in how we see ourselves and how we see our
politics.
Ten years ago I was still at school, feeling isolated and persecuted for being 'queer' which the other kids seemed to be
able to identify though I could not understand why. I knew I
was gay but never had thoughts of meeting other gay people,
it just seemed impossible. I did not feel bad about being gay
although I felt unhappy at the rejection and insults that I
received.
I had developed a socialist attitude, partly perhaps
through a rejection of the people and society around me
which seemed to oppress other groups and me for no
apparent rational reason. I also felt very distant from my
family with their mixture of rural and working class conservatism. I could not speak with them or anyone else about the
things that I really felt. I became more withdrawn and
depressed and could cope with school less and less. I just
thought of getting away so that I did not have to have contact with anyone.
I left school at 18 and much to my own surprise and that
of my family, I arranged a job and moved to London in early
1971. For about three months I had no meaningful contact
with anyone, living in a hostel, going to work and loosely
working with the Young Socialists.
Then I saw news stories about GLF and somehow I
managed to arrive at a meeting in Covent Garden one evening
- - a new life exploded into being! Within the week my whole
life was based around GLF. I started to go to the Youth
Group, I joined the Commune Group and there were the
large weekly main meetings with hundreds of lesbians and
gay men. The excitement and optimism are hard to convey. I
still felt nervous and withdrawn as a person and yet I threw
myself into everything I could with a confidence my gay
identity gave me. The second week I met Kim. It was the first
gay sexual experience for both of us, though we both pretended to be terribly calm and experienced.
The people and activities of GLF became my whole life. I
remember going back to the Socialist group to proclaim my
gayness and the parting was mutually wished. I started to live
Gay Left 4
for a year and ran into very few difficulties about being very
openly gay. I then went to college and helped to start a gaysoc and worked with the revolutionary socialist groups whose
positions on sexual politics were opening up. In some ways
my coming out through GLF and being so involved in its lifestyle and politics has made it difficult for me to relate to the
commercial gay scene and it has taken some time to come to
terms with this reality. However, the experience of GLF and
the groups that now make up the gay movement are still the
focus for my self identity and gives me the personal and
political confidence to carry on my involvement with the
Trade Union and socialist movements.
Keith Birch
Derek Cohen
Ten years ago life seemed rosy. I had a lover, a small, if damp
basement flat in Notting Hill Gate, work I liked and two
circles of personal friends one gay, one straight. I enjoyed
exploring liberal ideas, supporting the Labour Party, marching for peace in Vietnam, and experimenting with dope. Neat,
ordered, separate compartments which appeared to fit
together.
Yet sometimes the pieces did not quite fit. When any gay
topic came up in conversation with non-gay friends all of
whom I assumed knew I was gay but never mentioned it (me
colluding in a conspiracy of silence) I blushed deep; my face
reddened, my heart leapt and panic rose. I could hardly
speak let alone imply that I was gay.
This awareness grew more acute when GLF started
meetings in Powis Church Hall just round the corner from
where I lived. My 'straight' gay friends looked faintly amused
and asked 'liberation from what?' then changed the subject,
but I was drawn like a reluctant magnet. I went to the door,
but it was only after several attempts that I felt able to go
inside to discover a room packed full of men. Some did strips
to obscure poetry, some milled about, but at the centre there
was much lively, sometimes angry discussion. A general smell
of dope pervaded the air of rebellion and anger. It was too
much for me. I felt remote and distant, yet disturbed. Life so
neat and ordered seemed to be threatened.
A friend sent me 'Psychiatry and the Homosexual' which
I judged critically - overstated I thought with some faked
facts. Its real message about gay oppression never got a look
in. I was as possessive and jealous in my love life as ever, yet
the contradiction between the ideal I had in my head i.e. a
loving totally satisfying physical and intellectual monogamous relationship seemed in total contradiction to what
happened and about which I felt unable to speak. The split
between reality and desire loomed even wider. After living
together for a year with my lover, our relationship broke in a
huge crest of silent, unspoken recrimination leaving me
deeply hurt and shaken. I withdrew, as I now see it, to try a
complete reassessment of my life. No more romantic,
assumed relationships. no more lies about monogamy and
pretensions at fidelity; no more apeing an ideal. Gay politics
Emmanuel Cooper
became embourgeoise, acquiring status, culture, the appropriate dreams and even the speech of an alien class, all these
transformations adding to the dislocation that I felt because I
was gay, and prone to fall madly and extendedly in love with
very beautiful and extremely fucked up straight men ...
erotic passion finding its legitimacy in the role of mentor/
martyr. The confusion was compounded by a fairly constant
drug and alcohol diet, in an atmosphere of aristo decadence,
a sort of haute-bourgeois appropriation of the counter culture. But that milieu provided a space to come out as gay, or
at least bisexual, just so long as you didn't take it too seriously, could be amusing and entertaining about it. So I posed, all
the while feeling utterly at sea. I also came across GLF for
the first time, but even though it appealed intellectually it
was too much at odds with the environment I depended on
for some sort of validation and sustenance, and the conflict
between the two quite often fused me out. I'd go to a CR
meeting with people from the GLF and then nip back to the
college for drinks and dope, and also to hang out with a man
who was trendily bi (gave me the first GLF badge I wore in
fact) but who was, as my pattern masochistically dictated,
monstrously screwed up and who didn't give a shit about me.
I teetered on the edge of that contradiction for the rest of
my time in Cambridge, and came close to, as the jargon has
it, freaking completely, especially as my consumption of acid
increased. It's always struck me as ironic that I tripped before
I had sex.
At the end of that time, I went, faute de mieux, to the
States to study for a Ph.D., and went back into the closet,
and closed the door firmly for two years. In retrospect that
seems completely insane, but the extreme disorientation I
felt in Cambridge, in America, the seeming impossibility of
getting any sort of relationship that I wanted with a man,
made me give up ... a sort of inner suicide. The nadir of that
experience was nine months in virtually perpetual anxiety,
occasionally blossoming in literal terror at being on my own,
walking down a street, taking tubes ... Getting out of that
was due to the ministrations of a very sympathetic therapist
who had the nous to recognise that it was the repression of
my homosexuality and not my being gay that was at the root
of my 'breakdown', and due too to growing close to another
straight man who though he didn't respond sexually at least
valued me and the friendship we had. That process of healing
had its consequence in my moving to London in '76, coming
out again only this time with a little more vigour, and with a
growing political awareness. The analyses of gay liberation
and later of marxism, or at least sophisticated versions thereof, actually made sense of the chaos I'd been through in a
way that the particular strand of GLF thinking that I'd
encountered in '73 had not. Over the next year or so there
was a slow resolution of the contradictions that I'd first
realised when I was seventeen, even if new problems and
conflicts flowered.
Philip Derbyshire
Simon Watney
35 west rd
lancaster
A Magazine of Sexual Politics produced by lesbians and gay men. 30p.
by
Kate Ingrey
Degree of Independence?
Anyway I was at college on a degree course, involved in an
on/off relationship of a couple of years standing with a man
called Andrew, who is now one of my best friends. At the
time things weren't so good between us, but we hung on to
the investment. Especially as we'd both lost a lot of 'friends'
in the process of setting it up.
Andrew first read me the SCUM manifesto in 1974, he
was well up on feminist theory, but if you are female it
I'd been spending a lot of time involved in various political activities, and had hung around on the fringes of SWP,
but had never joined, which was probably a good thing since
I don't think I could have handled the discipline of the party
system and investigated myself at the same time.
With hindsight I'm fairly sure that the college cell underestimated both my intelligence and my individualism. I think
they thought they had a 'pretty puppet' in the Publications
Editor elect.
I'd been to a few Gay Soc. discos, not because I wanted to
initiate a lesbian experiment, but because at the time I was
much into discos, drinking and having a good time. The fact
that I didn't/don't find political lesbians and Gays particularly predatory was an added bonus. I was mystified that a
lot of people at college shyed away from such events for fear
of being labelled 'queer'. Still that was, and is, very much
their problem not mine.
I met the woman I now live with at our college 'Women's
Day', but didn't get to know her until sometime later when
we managed to get ourselves, invited back to a mutual
friend's place for lunch. It later transpires that this friend was
in the market for a bit of sexual experimentation herself.
( A feeling very prevalent at that time within this particular
women's group. 'Glad to be gay' was getting a lot of air
time). However she never did manage to work out whether
she wanted to sleep with Kay or myself or both.
Kay was involved in a relationship with a woman and two
kids, I was living with Andrew. So our friendship didn't
become a sexual relationship until a couple of months later
when both of these relationships had fallen apart. I think
our mutual friends/acquaintances were convinced it wouldn't
last. They willed or hoped it wouldn't, however, it has.
The concensus is that having a lesbian affair is an OK
thing to do over the summer, but that one can't afford to
have a radical lesbian feminist running the college magazine
during the year.
Editorial Freedom?
College papers tend to deduce a lot of their adolescent
humour from thinly veiled sexism, I wasn't prepared to produce those goods. What were the poor swines going to laugh
at now. They certainly don't know how to laugh at themselves.
Nowadays most students aren't interested in their union
as such and many resent having to pay for something they
don't see the use of. Mass student militancy is a thing of the
past. Nearly all the gains made by student unions for their
members were made in the late 60's and early 70's. The
present officials just caretake a dying idea. Thus the reality is
one of mismanaged funds, forgotten meetings and stardom
for the few at the expense of services.
As the union becomes more intangible the membership
becomes more reactionary, voting into office anyone who
promises to keep a low profile and avoid confrontation.
Editors have found it hard to get student contributions
for the college paper. During my term of office this has been
further hindered by other union officers 'forgetting' to produce such things as President's reports etc. It means they
don't have to account for what they've been doing on behalf
Gay Left 9
GL: How did you come to stand as a Parliamentary candidate and why do you feel the Irish question to be of such
importance?
GL: Did you know any other lesbians, just circles of friends
or clubs?
PA: No. This was the middle of the 50s and one felt very
isolated. When I came down to London and started working
for CND and other progressive movements I started to meet
and have relationships with other lesbians. People ask when
did I first 'come out', but it never seemed an issue in the
environment I was working in. If one was living with another
woman it was just accepted that that was the situation and
nothing more was said; it was just taken for granted. I even
discovered it could have its advantageous side when I went
into Holloway on my prison sentences. Relationships were
very much on the Butch/Femme stereotype. I remember on
one sentence a group of women were discussing sexual
relationships and one women said very matter of factly, that
she was bisexual, and I was very impressed by her honesty.
At that time, because of my very public involvement with
CND, I felt that if I came out as a lesbian it might be used
against CND, and looking back at the public attitudes of the
time, I think that was right. I met Wendy in the early 60s
who was also involved in the movements and we lived
together for 14 years.
GL: How did you see this relationship and what contact did
you have with the lesbian scene and the Women's movement
from the late 60s?
PA: Wendy and I were fairly monogamous and we lived in a
quasi-childless marriage. I occasionally had other
relationships which caused difficulties and for which I felt
guilty. It depends on the individuals and the way that they
come together. It is natural for people to want to live
together whether they are heterosexual or homosexual.
Gay Left 11
matter.
A Response
by Jacky Plaster
Paedophilia ~A Response
In my preliminary reply to the Gay Left editorial on paedophilia, I promised a full response, and listed four points
which would be its essence. All of these points are implied in
what follows, but I do not propose to re-iterate them, since -and I hope I will be forgiven I have decided it might be
better to tackle the article in a slightly different way, taking
puberty as a point of departure:
People think of puberty in the way the history books talk
about the River Rhine: it is a "natural frontier". Just as the
state boundaries of France and Germany might shift back
and forth with the fortunes of war, so might ages of consent
go up and down by governmental decree; but both
phenomena have been thought to bear some loose relationship to important "natural" facts.
Puberty as a "natural frontier" is a concept which has
bedevilled the discussion of paedophilia, in the Gay Left
deliberations as much as elsewhere. The reason for this is
clear enough: it provides a seductively neat, clear mental
landmark for the mind to take bearings by only to point
our thinking in a completely inappropriate direction.
At one time, puberty was thought of as the great sexual
awakening, preceded by childhood innocence. People don't
make that mistake these days, least of all GL. As every
schoolchild knows (except those crippled by socially induced
shame), children are capable of orgasm from infancy onwards,' an ability which is not lost in the Freudian so-called
by Tom O'Carroll
Maturity
Let's try and dispose of the "maturity" red-herring once
and for all by a close examination of exactly why GL
appears to feel it is important. GL isolates two sets of issues:
1. More or less practical matters. GL mentions early prepregnancy and VD, though neither is a problem of paedophilia as such: a girl can become pregnant, or catch VD, from
a boyfriend of her own age. But, as GL says, this still leaves
the question "as to whether children have the emotional
resources to deal with paedophile relationships and the
emotional crises that can happen".
2. "Consent", which involves "issues of disparity of
experience, needs, desires, physical potentialities, emotional
resources, sense of responsibility, awareness of the consequences of one's actions, and above all power between
adults and children."
Now it makes no sense at all to analyse the above
propositions bit by bit, in a myopic, detailed way. To do so
would be to miss the wood for the trees -- the "answers"
would all be distorted by the obsessions and preconceptions
of our own, very particular, society. We need always to look
outward, to be aware of the insights we can derive from
history and anthropology, and to look forward, to have a
conception of the quality of human society we want to
build and the imagination to see what may be possible. These
Gay Left 14
Without Shame
So far, I daresay, I'm on common ground with GL readers.
Why then go over it'? Because I feel we need reminding that
most people in our culture reach their so-called maturity,
whether at puberty or some other time, in a state of total
mental muddle about sex. Adolescent boys (if they are
"straight") find a massive conflict between their guilt feelings
about sex on the one hand and the expectation that they
should behave in a "manly", sexually go-getting way on the
other -- a crisis which sometimes resolves itself disastrously
by a projection of their guilt onto "bad girls" who can be
degraded and humiliated at will. Girls, for their part,
frequently eschew "dirty" thoughts about sex, in favour of
an idealised world of romance. and the absurd search for a
"Mr Right", to whom they seek domestic enslavement.
Having said this, it is possible to return to the issues of
"maturity", as isolated by GL, with a fresh eye. Let's look
again at the question "as to whether children have the
emotional resources to deal with paedophile relationships
and the emotional crises that can happen". Bearing in mind
the points made above, it is possible to see that the question
is totally misconceived: people only need great "emotional
resources" to cope with "emotional crises" if their upbringing has taken them into adolescence saddled with the
sort of monumental sexual hangups that are likely to give
Problems
But some will contest my assertion of the "harmlessness"
to children of sex per se. Direct physical sources of harm
include pregnancy and VD, as already noted. One might ask
how far are adolescents in our society mature enough to cope
with these problems in a way which children are not? By and
large, adolescence is entered into with very little sexual
knowledge or experience. Indeed, pregnancy only becomes
a problem in the postpubertal years, not beforehand. What
we need to work towards is a society in which children arrive
at adolescence with plenty of sexual experience: it can only
be helpful to a girl newly capably of becoming pregnant if
she is not easily "swept off her feet" by the first youth or
man who comes along.
The "harmlessness" of sex also depends on what we are
talking about when we speak of "sex" itself. Obviously, it
would not be harmless for an adult to have anal intercourse
or coitus with a toddler, whether or not the infant showed an
initial willingness to let the adult attempt intromission. In
these circumstances, the argument that the child "doesn't
know what he/she is doing" has something to it: there can be
no valid consent to a potentially dangerous act in the absence
of a full understanding of what the act entails.
It is important to understand that although this issue
appears to play a prominent part in the minds of those who
are appalled by paedophilia, it is really an illusory problem,
arising -- significantly, in view of all that GL had to say about
a conflict in the "meaning" of sex, as between the child's
and the adult's understanding of it from a confusion as to
the "meaning" of sex for the paedophile. In the older
psychiatric texts, paedophiles used to be described as
"infantosexual"(12), meaning that as well as being deviant in
the preferred sex object, their sexual aim was deviant too,
being characterised by an "infantile" preoccupation with
foreplay with gently masturbatory and oral or caressing
techniques, rather than with an urge to penetration. It is a
pity in a sense that this deviancy of aim is less remarked upon
now.
However, the facts, so far as they are available, back up
the early clinical impressions. Gebhard et al, in their standard
work on male sex offenders(13), found that noncoital sexual
activity, mostly manual manipulation of the genitals,
accounted for no less than 94% of offences against girls under
under 12. In offences against boys under 12, an even higher
figure, 97%, did not involve anal intercourse, most of the
activity being manual-genital (45%) and oral-genital (38%).
Gebhard listed separately those offences in which there had
been aggression against girls. This was a smaller, but very
different group. In these cases, where a degree of violence
or intimidation had been used, coitus was attempted in 23%
of cases and actually achieved in a further 23%. Interestingly,
there were so few examples of aggression against young boys
that Gebhard did not feel justified in separating them out as
a category. It should also be pointed out that Gebhard's data
related to convicted offenders only, so that the cases involved
may have been biassed towards including a disproportionate
number of unsatisfactory ones, in which the child was the
Gay Left 15
Disparities
Consent
It is not necessary here to discuss specific legal proposals
any further. Instead, I want to consider the legitimacy of
"consent" to non-penetrative i.e. physically harmless sex, in
the light of what GL had to say about sexual "meanings" and
issues of relative power and equality between adults and
children. Perhaps the most crucial "meaning" of sex to
adults is that in our culture it is charged with a tremenddus
amount of importance: the decision to "consent" or not
"consent" is assumed to have enormous consequences and
ramifications a point which has some validity in the
context of an unwanted pregnancy or a forcible or damaging
penetration, but which extends far beyond this meaning.
The decision to "consent" has overtones in our culture of
accepting a commitment, or at least something which is
going to very radically and permanently affect one's future
life. At one time in "respectable" society the commitment
would only have occurred within marriage a lifelong pairbond which undoubtedly requires a mature appreciation by
both partners of what they are letting themselves in for (a
maturity which is often absent among adults even at the
highest levels of intelligence and sophistication, and which
really presupposes an impossible degree of prescience). Even
now, entering a sexual relationship implies for many young
people a commitment, if not to marriage, then at least to
engagement, or to "going steady". If one accepts the ability
to make mature commitments as a necessary basis for
consent to sex, then children (plus most adolescents and
many adults) have to be ruled out, just as these categories
of person cannot enter into financial contracts such as hirepurchase deals, unless their credit rating (reflecting their
known maturity in handling money) is good.
Gay Left 16
References
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
Gay Left 17
2. Puberty
In the context of sexual relations, the definition of 'child' is
usually now taken (at least among liberals and leftists) as
being those before puberty. What marks out puberty, in the,
first place, is the ability to participate in reproductive sex.
While this is a biological given, the importance attached to
puberty is socially constructed. The possibility of creating
and rearing children, and the social relations within which
this takes place, remain the core of the family structure and
the central sexual-political question. The 'problem' of
puberty, presenting itself as the difference of pre- and postpubertal sexuality, is in fact a political, not a natural one.
This point is missed in the editorial. It describes puberty as
"the entry into social and sexual maturity . . . Together with
the sexual development of the body, it implies a growing
awareness of the social world ... " This definition slides
blandly from biology to the social. On this basis, a natural
gulf between child and adult sexuality is constructed, one
3. Consent
The real problem is not one of puberty, or of meanings, but
of power to coerce. Here again, the editorial takes a rather
naturalistic view: " 'Consent' has different meanings for
children and adults." In the sense that children express
consent in different ways, and have different social
opportunities to consent, this is true. For instance, in some
situations children will be afraid to express disapproval of
what adults do; in others they will express disapproval
directly where an adult would be embarrassed to do so, or be
unable to conceal their feelings. But what appears to be
meant is that our (adult) conception of consenting simply
does not apply to children.
I think that this is simply the conventional view, which is
at the centre of the oppression of children, that children do
not and cannot know their own minds. The point here is not
at all to understate the social power of adults to manipulate
children. But precisely because that power is social, it has
cracks in it. Only the most oppressed children are really
unable to show to adults their consent for or against things
that they do with those adults, whether sexual or not.
Children can, and even now do, seek out and find things that
correspond partially to their needs. There are sexual relationships between adults and children to which the children
manifestly consent, for instance where they go to great
lengths to continue the relationship, or where they have
actually intiated it. In concrete instances, the question of
consent cannot be judged a priori. All forms of social power
contain contradictions; if they did not, there would not only
be no possibility of revolution, there would be no possibility
of even thinking of one's own oppression.
5. Conclusion
I have argued that it is vital to see this issue in its class
In Defence of Disco
by Richard Dyer
All my life I've liked the wrong music. I never liked Elvis and
rock 'n' roll; I always preferred Rosemary Clooney. And
since I became a socialist, I've often felt virtually terrorised
by the prestige of rock and folk on the left. How could I
admit to two Petula Clark L.P.s in the face of miners' songs
from the North East and the Rolling Stones? I recovered my
nerve partially when I came to see show biz type music as a
key part of gay culture, which, whatever its limitations, was
a culture to defend. And I thought I'd really made it when
turned on to Tamla Motown, sweet soul sounds, disco.
Chartbusters already, and I like them! Yet the prestige of
folk and rock, and now punk and (rather patronisingly, 1
think) reggae, still holds sway. It's not just that people whose
politics I broadly share don't like disco, they manage to
imply that it is politically beyond the pale to like it. It's
against this attitude that I want to defend disco (which
otherwise, of course, hardly needs any defence).
I'm going to talk mainly about disco music, but there
are two preliminary points I'd like to make. The first is that
disco is more than just a form of music, although certainly
the music is at the heart of it. Disco is also kinds of dancing,
club, fashion, film etc.; -- in a word, a certain sensibility,
manifest in music, clubs etc., historically and culturally
specific, economically, technologically, ideologically and
aesthetically determined -- and worth thinking about.
Secondly, as a sensibility in music it seems to me to
encompass more than what we would perhaps strictly call
disco music, to include a lot of soul, Tamla and even the
later work of mainstream and jazz artistes like Peggy Lee
and Johnny Mathis.
Gay Left 20
Eroticism
It can be argued that all popular music is erotic. What we
need to define is the specific way of thinking and feeling
erotically in disco. I'd like to call it 'whole body' eroticism,
and to define it by comparing it with the eroticism of the
two kinds of music to which disco is closest popular song
(i.e., the Gershwin, Cole Porter, Burt Bacharach type of song)
and rock.
Popular song's eroticism is 'disembodied': it succeeds in
expressing a sense of the erotic which yet denies eroticism's
physicality. This can be shown by the nature of tunes in
popular songs and the way they are handled.
Popular song's tunes are rounded off, closed, selfcontained. They achieve this by adopting a strict musical
structure (AABA) in which the opening melodic phrases are
returned to and, most importantly, the tonic note of the
whole song is also the last note of the tune. (The tonic note
is the note that forms the basis for the key in which the song
is written; it is therefore the harmonic 'anchor' of the tune
and closing on it gives precisely a feeling of 'anchoring',
coming to a settled stop.) Thus although popular songs
often depart especially in the middle section (B) from
their melodic and harmonic beginnings, they also always
return to them. This gives them even at their most
passionate, say, Porter's 'Night and Day' a sense of security
and containment. The tune is not allowed to invade the
whole of one's body. Compare the typical disco tune, which
is often little more than an endlessly repeated phrase which
drives beyond itself, is not 'closed off'. Even when disco
music uses a popular song standard, it often turns it into a
simple phrase. Gloria Gaynor's version of Porter's 'I've got
you under my skin', for instance, is in large part a chanted
repetition of 'I've got you'.
Popular song's lyrics place its tunes within a conceptualisation of love and passion as emanating from 'inside', the
heart or the soul. Thus the yearning cadences of popular
song express an erotic yearning of the inner person, not the
body. Once again, disco refuses this. Not only are the lyrics
often more directly physical and the delivery more raunchy
(e.g. Grace Jones' `I need a man'), but, most importantly,
disco is insistently rhythmic in a way that popular song is
not.
Romanticism
Not all disco music is romantic. The lyrics of many disco
hits are either straightforwardly sexual not to say sexist
or else broadly social (e.g. Detroit Spinners' `Ghetto Child',
Stevie Wonder's 'Living in the City'), and the hard drive of
Village People or Labelle is positively anti-romantic. Yet
there is nonetheless a strong strain of romanticism in disco.
This can be seen in the lyrics, which often differ little from
popular song standards, and indeed often are standards
(e.g. 'What a Difference a Day Made' Esther Phillips,
`la Vie en Rose' Grace Jones). More impressively, it is the
instrumentation and arrangements of disco music that are
so romantic.
The use of massed violins takes us straight back, via
Hollywood, to Tchaikovsky, to surging, outpouring emotions.
A brilliant example is Gloria Gaynor's 'I've got you under my
skin', where in the middle section the violins take a hint from
one of Porter's melodic phrases and develop it away from his
tune in an ecstatic, soaring movement. This 'escape' from
the confines of popular song into ecstacy is very characteristic of disco music, and nowhere more consistently than in
such Diana Ross classics as 'Reach Out' and 'Ain't No
Mountain High Enough'. This latter, with its lyrics total
surrender to love, its heavenly choir and sweeping violins, is
perhaps one of the most extravagant reaches of disco's
romanticism. But Ross is also a key figure in the gay
appropriation of disco.
What Ross' record do and I'm thinking basically of her
work up to Greatest Hits volume 1 and the Touch Me in the
Morning album is express the intensity of fleeting
emotional contacts. They are all-out expressions of adoration
which yet have built in to them the recognition of the
(inevitably) temporary quality of the experience. This can be
a straightforward lament for having been let down by a man,
but more often it is both a celebration of a relationship and
the almost willing recognition of its passing and the exquisite
pain of its passing 'Remember me/As a sunny day/That
you once had/Along the way', 'If I've got to be strong/Don't
you know I need to have tonight when you're gone/When
you go I'll lie here/And think about/the last time that you/
Touch me in the morning'. This last number, with Ross'
'unreally' sweet, porcelain fragile voice and the string
backing, concentrates that sense of celebrating the intensity
of the passing relationship that haunts so much of her work.
No wonder Ross is(was?) so important in gay male scene
culture, for she both reflects what that culture takes to be an
inevitable reality (that relationships don't last) and at the
same time celebrates it, validates it.
Not all disco music works in this vein, yet in both some
of the more sweetly melancholy orchestrations (even of
lively numbers, like 'You Should Be Dancing' in Saturday
Night Fever) and some of the lyrics and general tone (e.g.
Donna Summer's Four Seasons of Love album), there is a
carry over of this emotional timbre. At a minimum, the,
disco's romanticism provides an embodiment and validation
of an aspect of gay culture.
But romanticism is a particularly paradoxical quality of
art to come to terms with. Its passion and intensity embody
or create an experience that negates the dreariness of the
mundane and everyday. It gives us a glimpse of what it
means to live at the height of our emotional and experiental
capacities not dragged down by the banality of organised
routine life. Given that everyday banality, work, domesticity,
ordinary sexism and racism, are rooted in the structures of
class and gender of this society, the flight from that banality
can be seen as is a flight from capitalism and patriarchy
themselves as lived experiences.
What makes this more complicated is the actual situation
within which disco occurs. Disco is part of the wider to-andfro between work and leisure, alienation and escape,
boredom and enjoyment that we are so accustomed to (and
which Saturday Night Fever plugs into so effectively). Now
this to-and-fro is partly the mechanism by which we keep
going, at work, at home - the respite of leisure gives us the
energy for work, and anyway we are still largely brought up
to think of leisure as a 'reward' for work. The circle locks
us into it. But what happens in that space of leisure can be
profoundly significant it is there that we may learn about
an alternative to work and to society as it is. Romanticism
is one of the major modes of leisure in which this sense of an
alternative is kept alive. Romanticism asserts that the limits
of work and domesticity are not the limits of experience.
I don't say that the passion and intensity of romanticism
is a political ideal we could strive for I doubt that it is
humanly possible to live permanently at that pitch. What I
do believe is that the movement between banality and something 'other' than banality is an essential dialectic of society,
a constant keeping open of a gap between what is and what
could or should be. Herbert Marcuse in the currently
unfashionable OneDimensional Man argues that our society
tries to close that gap, to assert that what is all that there
could be, is what should be. For all its commercialism and
containment within the work:leisure to-and-fro, I think
disco romanticism is one of the things that can keep the
gap open, that can allow the experience of contradiction to
continue. Since I also believe that political struggle is rooted
in experience (though utterly doomed if left at it), I find
this dimension of disco potentially positive. (A further
romantic/utopian aspect of disco is realised in the noncommercial discos organised by gay and women's groups
Here a moment of community can be achieved, often in
circle dances or simply in the sense of knowing people as
people, not anonymous bodies. Fashion is less important,
and sociability correspondingly more so. This can be
achieved in smaller clubs, perhaps especially outside the
centre of London, which, when not just grotty monuments
to self-oppression, can function as supportive expressions of
something like a gay community.)
Materialism
by Bob Cant
Solidarity
I had to do something to relieve these tensions and so I took
up swimming and dancing. There's nothing to say about the
swimming except that I enjoyed it. But the dancing was
important for a number of reasons. It became a ritualised
way in which I could express the violence I felt about my
situation. But it also opened up to me a whole new world
the world of the gay ghetto. I had come out into the gay
movement and had never been part of or dependent on the
ghetto. I had really only used it when I wanted to pick up
someone. My expectations in that area had been confined
purely to casual sex since most of the men I had been
involved with on any other level I had met through the gay
movement. But now through going to a gay club and dancing
a lot (often on my own), I discovered features of the gay
ghetto previously unknown to me. The group of people I got
to know through dancing were warm and supportive and yet
unquestioning. The few glimpses I had of their often alien
political views did not prevent me from recognising their
warmth and responding in a similar vein. I discovered that
the ghetto/commercial scene was more than just a creation of
the breweries and other entrepreneurs. For some, it was the
gay community. It was the only place where they could begin
to be themselves. Outside its doors the world was cold and
oppressive. I do not in fact hold with this analysis but for the
first time I identified and understood what I had disparagingly seen as a closeted existence. The rest of the world was
unbearable, but for these few hours on a Friday or Saturday
night the world was ours. We were all in the same boat. At
such points I could have become a gay separatist. The way I
had tried to persuade others of the reasonableness of my
life-style now seemed an irrelevant gesture. The only thing
that mattered then was to build a way of living that was
acceptable to me along with people whose situation was
similar to my own.
This was not, of course, the only form of solidarity which
I experienced. The people I lived with and one other man
friend were remarkable in their patience and love. On some
occasions when I became really unbearable they told me so
and their criticism helped me to feel that I was still human.
The fact that I had responsibilities to others enabled me to
perceive of myself as more than just an object of pity. There
was, too, a strong clearly articulated sense of support from
the people I worked with, and when I couldn't cope they
coped for me. I also got a great deal of support from the gay
group in my union. A group of both women and men, they
allowed me to ramble on about some of my fears at their
meetings. That in its turn made me feel secure enough in that
group to participate in their other discussions and activities.
The precence of women in the group was probably important
inasmuch as their feminist politics may have made it more
acceptable that I should talk about my fears without threatening the function of the group.
The other gay group to which I belonged was Gay Left
and they responded rather differently. Apart from a six
month break prior to my arrest, I had been in this group for
nearly three years, since its foundation. It had been successful in what it had set out to do and it had enabled me to be
more creative than I have ever felt elsewhere. But, it seemed
to me, in my absence a definite political shift had taken place
and my activist style of politics had become rather less
acceptable in the group than once it had been. The very
success of the group had also made us more complacent. The
survival of the group had become an end in itself, more
important than the attempt to confront difficult areas of our
personal politics. There had been internal personal problems
within the group which had been neglected because they
were too awkward. I had felt unhappy about it but had done
nothing positive about it. I had given a kind of token support
to the idea that we should all share tasks but I still continued
to be one of the thinkers and someone else typed out my
thoughts. Given my failure and that of the group to resist
certain roles and situations it was not surprising that the
group found me very difficult to deal with at this period.
Everyone was very concerned about me, and individually
Gay Left 25
The Trial
After the torment of waiting the trial itself was almost a
relief when it came. I had a barrister who appreciated the
importance of sexual politics and we had prepared the case
carefully over the previous months. I had contacted Gay
Switchboard as soon as the police released me, five or six
hours after my arrest. They had been very helpful and had
put me in touch with a solicitor that very morning. After
speaking to him I realised that I should opt for a Crown
Court trial. I decided to make notes of every detail of what I
had been doing on the night of my arrest and also of the
police's treatment of me. I found these very useful in refreshing my memory before I went into the witness box. Despite
all my preparations, I still felt that my role was a highly contradictory one. A part of my case depended on the fact that I
was a nice, articulate, middle-class, white man with a wellpaid job. My witnesses were also nice articulate middle-class
white people; as indeed were the group of people who came
to court with me every day to give me moral support. People
like us are far more likely to be believed by judges than many
other members of the community. My gayness, instead of
coming over positively, might in fact appear to be a blemish
on an otherwise impeccable character. If I did want to be
positive about my gayness perhaps I should be prepared to
say that I thought cottaging was all right. Perhaps I should
say that, in my opinion, cottaging charges were one way in
which the gay community was oppressed in Britain today.
There would be little point in winning the case if it was by
suggesting that my form of gayness was socially more acceptable than that of men who do go cottaging. For many men,
and this is particularly true of married men, and men in
working class communities, it is their only gay outlet. It is
also the case that many men go cottaging simply because
they enjoy it. How could I possibly express disapproval of
that?
To a great extent the dilemma did not arise in court
because of the highly specific nature of the questioning.
There was no general discussion at all. I only had to talk
about what had happened on that particular Saturday
morning. I said what was required in my most authoritative
teacher's voice. My shirts were pressed; I wore my tie; the
henna had grown out of my hair; my appearance and bearing
certainly did not go against me.
The one factor which, undoubtedly, won the case for me,
however, was the evidence of an expert medical witness. The
police had alleged that when they arrested me my penis was
erect and remained so for some minutes (despite the fact that
I was looking 'sheepish'). They also said that I was not
circumcised. In fact, if I had had an erection it would have
been impossible for them to tell whether or not I was circumcised. Because I was out at work, I was able to discuss the
evidence there. A friend on the union branch committee
suggested that I should get a medical witness to discredit that
evidence. With his assistance, I found a consultant with
experience in medical jurisprudence who was prepared to
testify to this in court. But it was also necessary for him to
have a photograph of my erection to show the jury. They
were rather more embarrassed then I was by this badlycoloured instamatic representation of a penis trying to
remain erect. The picture would have aroused no interest in a
Gay Left 26
Reconstructing My Life
In a sense, I was sorry not to hear the jury's verdict, although
the judge's decision totally discredited the police case. But
after four days in the same court room I felt we had all
developed a kind of siege mentality. After all that time in the
windowless court room, in the same pub at lunchtime, in the
queue for the same gents toilet, perhaps some kind of silent
sympathy had been born. But perhaps I'm just kidding
myself.
A socialist feminist friend who attended part of the trial
expressed some feelings I shared in a poem.
There'd been hundreds who'd heard Tom say
"glad to be gay, glad I'm that way"
many who'd not known of the pain
of one gay on trial that day.
"Gross indecency, right hand or left
Stroking the hm hm of the other"
Legal inaccuracy, blatant prejudice
The cops were to blame for the bother.
Acquitted - - but after a week
Of the court's indecent exposure
either undermining male sexuality
or riling raped women's exposure.
"The penis" brought out on show
as another 'object' in evidence
Never seen in this light before
Sensed now by a feminist with lenience.
And as we go out of the court
He says sadly, as one been accused,
"the others would have lost their wives,
their jobs or been badly abused."
And indeed had I lost the case, I could well have lost my
job as well. I would certainly have been suspended from
teaching until such time as I could appear before a special
meeting of the governing body of my college. My union
would have argued for me to keep my job but it would have
been virtually another trial. Even if I had kept my job I
would then have had to face all the comments of less sympathetic colleagues and students.
But now it was over. I had expected a fantastic sense of
elation but that only lasted an hour or two. It was really all
very anti-climactic. Then I had to try to get back to some kind
of ordinary life. But while I live in the same house, read the
same papers, work in the same job (I got promoted after the
acquittal!) and am politically active in the same circles there
could be no return anywhere. Long after the main cause of
the anger and anxiety had gone, the anger and anxiety
remained. There was also a long struggle to regain control of
my own language and expression; I seemed to imagine that
there was a court of law in judgement on everything I said
and thought. Gradually I began to feel more together. I also
appreciate much more any real struggles however small
they seem. And so I have more respect for my own small
struggles. Yet again, the message seems to be the personal
is the political. It can't be bad to re-learn that.
Lost Freedoms
by Tom Woodhouse
LAMPIAO
In Mid-September 1978 members of the editorial collective
of the Brazilian Gay Liberation Magazine Lampiao were subpoenaed and questioned by the police on the direct instructions of the Minister of Justice Falca.o. It transpired that all
eleven members of the collective were to be charged with
` making propaganda for homosexuality' and 'acting against
public morality and good mores', violations of the Brazilian
Press Law.
So far, Lampiao has not been seized, but the editorial
collective has been subject to fairly continuous harassment
by the Brazilian police, and legal action for the above
violations is still pending.
Letters of condemnation of this action have already been
sent to the Brazilian Minister of Justice, but the campaign
should not stop now. Lampiao needs support, either in terms
of messages of good will, letters to the Minister of Justice, or
demonstrations organised outside Brazilian embassies.
Gay Left hopes to publish an article on the Lampiao
issue 9.
case in
Teachers Out
In the last issue of Gay Left we printed a review by
Margaret Jackson of the Gay Teachers' Group's
pamphlet Open and Positive. The following two
letters have resulted.
From John Warburton
I would like to make some comments on Margaret Jackson's
review of 'Open and Positive', in Gay Left No. 7, not because
the review is essentially critical and dismissive, that is a
reviewer's prerogative but because I feel the basis of the
criticism is, in terms of the advancement of the gay movement, counter productive.
First, I must question the opinion that there is a lack of 'a
deeper political analysis' behind 'Open and Positive',
Jackson's main criticism. Rather than expect every gay artefact to spell out such an analysis, it might be better to judge
such artefacts on whether or not they contradict that
analysis. From the little information Jackson gives of her
analysis, 'Open and Positive' does not seem to contradict it.
If Jackson pursues her argument with all elements of the
movement's culture, her perception of gayness must be bleak
indeed.
'Open and Positive' is essentially a fully documented
account of the correspondence between myself and the ILEA,
NUT and others involved in my dismissal from teaching, and
a careful reading of these letters should reveal that my arguments are purposefully restricted to the line of debate
adopted by my adversaries. I do not accept that any 'deeper
political analysis' in my letters would have achieved greater
success in terms of my reinstatement (the purpose for their
being written), and on reflection I certainly doubt if so much
of the Authority's and Union's attitudes would have been
exposed, if from the start I had argued my case in terms of
homosexual oppression having its 'roots in a social structure
which ... (is) ... organised around the principles of private
property and male supremacy' and sexism being 'a deeply
pervasive ideology which is both produced by and helps to
legitimate and reproduce patriarchal and capitalist relations'.
The contributions from the three other teachers involved
in 'Open and Positive', have a four-fold importance. Firstly,
they supply further factual information about my case;
secondly, they introduce new perspectives to the arguments,
where they exist, used against me by ILEA and NUT, still
using the terms of reference laid down by these bodies;
thirdly, they make it clear that the phenomenon of gay
teachers coming out at school does not start and finish with
John Warburton; and fourthly, they are public statements
that those teachers are as open, or more so about their gayness in school than I was, and thus they defy ILEA to deal
with them in the same way it dealt with me. Considering that
none of them nor, to my knowledge, none of the 2,000
teachers who signed the petitions supporting my case and
demanding the right to discuss homosexuality in the classroom, have been dismissed, I feel that Jackson's statement:
`It is a reminder to all gay teachers, if one were needed, that
our gayness will only be tolerated as long as we do not talk
about it to our pupils' shows more than a little paranoia.
Jackson claims that because there is 'no attempt at a
deeper political analysis of the issues ... the strategies proposed, such as more gay teachers coming out, building up
union support at grass roots level, and demanding a place for
homosexuality in the curriculum, have a naively optimistic
ring'. Yet despite her 'deeper political analysis' (which I
presume goes deeper than the cliches quoted above) she
offers no more useful strategy, much in the same way that
officials from ILEA insisted I handled the classroom
situations in the wrong way but provided no alternative
tactics.
The call for more gay teachers to come out is hardly naive
when in fact it is happening, without those teachers losing
Gay Left 32
HOMOSEXUALITIES
by Alan P. Bell & Martin Weinberg
Mitchell Beasley 7.95 hardback
Reviewed by Emmanuel Cooper
Sex, its practice, function and frequency has become, above
all other topics, a popular post-war obsession, and symptom
and fact of the liberal mind and the permissive society. In the
last 20 years Freud's revelations about the importance of the
sex drive have become much more well known, with such
concepts as 'blocked' projection and 'sublimation' becoming
a part of everyday language, helping to fuel the fire that
sexual excess was a feature of our society.
Past Present
With Downcast Gays
by David Hutter and Andrew Hodges
Published by Pink Triangle Press, 65p.
Psychiatry and the Homosexual
Published by Gay Liberation, 25p.
The Politics of Homosexuality
by Don Milligan
Published by Edinburgh SHRG, 25p.
Reviewed by Nigel Young
Apart from the fact that these three pamphlets speak
volumes of truths sometimes overstated, sometimes hard
and crude and sometimes just plain wrong, they are a timely
reminder of the anger, energy, directness and urgency of the
gay movement in its early days. We have not moved mountains since then or made our theory and practice perfect, but
we have become aware of more of the dilemmas and contradictions about oppression and self oppression, the development of and our relationship to, the sub-culture, and the
untidy relationship between gay liberation and socialism. It is
because we now have a more developed consciousness in all
of these areas that on re-reading these pamphlets I felt acutely aware of their shortcomings.
With Downcast Gays clearly documents the widespread
and overwhelming social basis of our oppression and rightly
states that self oppression which stems from the former is an
equal enemy. However in their anger about oppression the
authors appear unsympathetic about the ways it affects our
behaviour and unconcerned about the very real material constraints which stop people coming out. Coming out is seen as
an act of revolution in itself, a path to eternal liberation,
instead of being seen as a vital and difficult process in
relation to other factors. The authors talk of coming out
"being opposed to a life time's conditioning ... but coming
out is essential". This is obviously true, but it begs the
question of how and with what support. Later in the pamphlet we are told, "It is pointless to limit coming out to
those who will understand; only by public, indiscriminate,
indiscreet self disclosure can this shame be denied." Thus in
the process of castigating one moral framework the authors
erect an equally oppressive one. The arguments are not about
how to support every act of coming out, but about a moral
i mperative which few people then or now could deal with.
Perhaps the underlying flaw in the pamphlet is expressed in
the final sentence, "External oppression we can only fight
against: self oppression we can root out and destroy",
because it suggests a polarity between external factors and
the self. Certainly we need to be aware of self oppression, but
it is not, as the authors suggest, a self imposed factor to be
exorcised by our individual efforts. Damnation for being in
the closet doesn't help us, collective support does.
Psychiatry and the Homosexual was written a year earlier
and "deals with the treatment of homosexuality by mainstream psychiatry". The importance of the pamphlet is its
strident questioning of all those areas of psychiatry which
have defined us as an "abnormal statistic" or a "deviant
neurotic" or "sick" or any other pejorative term. It throws
them back at their originators and says plainly that being gay
is not a problem or a sickness. However the pamphlet's total
rejection of all mainstream psychiatry and psychiatrists
throws the baby out with the bath water. And some of the
bricks thrown at Freud would have been better directed at
the malpractices of neo-Freudians. Yes some psychiatric
practices and practitioners are horrific, these should obviously be fought against, and yes it is important to develop our
own counselling and therapy groups. But some fears, phobias
and repressions may be outside the scope of a self help group.
Outlawed
Gay Left 38
y
Left
LETTER ON CAMP
Dear Gay Left
In Notes Against Camp ( Gay Left No 7), Andrew Britton, for
an hors d'oeuvre, bitterly attacks Gene, a character in 'Men',
the play that Noel Greig and I wrote. Gene is an outrageously
camp man and clearly not everybody's cup of tea. But,
Andrew criticises Gene for saying "Socialism is about me",
and in another place in the article complains that Gene
asserts: "Men, like nature, abhor a vacuum".
By the same token Andrew would presumably attack
Hamlet simply for saying "To be or not to be". Alternatively,
he might haul Bette Lynch over the coals for chewing gum or
having bottle-blonde hair. But just as there's more to Bette
Lynch than meets the eye, so Gene says a little more than
Andrew has credited him with.
What Gene actually says about men is: "Men, like nature,
abhor a vacuum. They have to fuck all the holes. Fill all the
orifices. Plug all the gaps. Leave nothing to chance. Forewarned is forearmed." And about socialism he screams:
"Socialism is about me, not about your neurosis. Socialism is
the gift of the powerless. It's got nothing to do with powerful
men."
Gene is a man who is powerless in the socialist and labour
movement simply because he cannot and does not want to
bury his identity to satisfy the prejudices of the manly men
who, in his experience, are in sole charge of the Class
Struggle. If it comes to the 'crunch' Gene would rather polish
his nails than have to go all butch. And I can't blame him for
that.
Gene, like camp gay men generally, is not expressing
femininity by being camp. He is simply using irony to undermine the 'acceptable' stereotypes of masculinity on offer. Of
course he is trapped with in the confines of being a camp gay
man, but this is because Gene has not discovered an androgynous role. Have you Andrew? Because I certainly haven't.
The play may be, and has been, legitimately criticised at
many different levels, but to attack the work because it
celebrates openly gay effeminacy at the expense of butchness
is to completely miss the point. Because 'MEN' is, among
other things, an attempt to demonstrate the ways in which
those of us enmeshed in the masculine stereotype conspire in
the oppression of our effeminate brothers. It is about the
gender-trap, that labyrinth we all live in.
Don Milligan
What's Left
THE COLLECTIVE
This issue was put together by Keith Birch, Derek Cohen,
Emmanuel Cooper, Phil Derbyshire, Simon Watney, Jeffrey
Weeks, Nigel Young.
Gay Left 40
Contents
Editorial ...................................................................................................2
Personal Politics: Ten Years On ............................................ ....... 4
Gays at Work: Student Unions ............................................. ....... 9
Pat Arrowsmith -- Pacifist ...................................................... 11
Paedophilia -- A Response ...................................................... 13
Childhood Sexuality and Paedophilia ................................ 18
In Defence of Disco ................................................................... 20
Living With Indecency .............................................................. 24
Lost Freedoms ............................................................................ 27
The Regime of Sex .................................................................... 29
Picking up the Pieces ................................................................. 30
Edward and George ................................................................... 31
Teachers Out .................................................................................. 32
Reviews ........................................................................................... 34
Past Present ................................................................................... 35
Outlawed ........................................................................................ 36
Music to do the washing up to
37
Reviews ........................................................................................... 38
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Internalisation of Oppression
The ultimate success of all forms of oppression is our self
oppression. Self oppression is achieved when the gay person
has adopted and internalized straight people's definition of
what is good and bad. Self oppression is saying: "When you
come down to it, we are abnormal". Or doing what you
most need and want to do, but with a sense of shame and
loathing.
Gay Liberation Front Manifesto 1971
The concept of self-oppression emerged from the Gay
Liberation Front as a leading explanatory idea, carrying with
it a whole retinue of moral imperatives and distinctions. As
a first expression of an important insight it was very
influential, but in order to make use of it today, the baggage
of moralism and implicit assumptions has to be rejected. If
that can be achieved the concept is useful in describing a
constant feature of our lives. It may be that the gains of the
Gay movement and the liberalisation of the late sixties and
early seventies have reduced the stigma that attaches to a
self-identification as gay, but we still have to live our lives in
a society where the norms of masculinity, femininity and
heterosexuality are deeply ingrained and continue to affect
our feelings and actions.
"With straight men in many situations I can be 'gay' yes,
but not the same verging on camp queen that I am with gay
men or women. With straight men the tendency is to show
the side that fucks not the side that is fucked."
Self-oppression is the result of the negative images of
homosexuality available to us in our culture, encouraging us
to think of ourselves as failed heterosexuals. Ideologically
homosexuality is still usually defined as a psychological
category, at one level only to do with sexual aim and goal,
but at another level a general and determining feature of an
individual's being. So whilst at first it may only be our sexual
desires that are denied, that denial permeates our entire
existence, more or less consciously.
"I don't make many approaches to people because of a
general lack of confidence over my looks and sexual
performance."
"Though I feel attractive, fulfilling sexual stereotypes,
I still feel insecure. I deal with this insecurity by seeking and
POWER
"I like 'pretty' guys: I am put off by leather and uniforms".
" . .. by wearing a white T-shirt and a black motor-cycle
jacket, faded blue jeans and short cropped hair I know I
present a very 'masculine' image ... I want to attract men
who are not as powerful as me."
"Being a nice middle-class man, my relationships are
dominated by intellectual and emotional power struggles,
not by physical domination."
"I perhaps gain power from never expressing my emotions,
leaving them [lovers] to make decisions, being terribly nice
and supportive when they have their crises, while trying to
hide my own."
"I am attracted to men who seem in some way rugged or
strong . . . I feel that the way to attract such men is to be
like them."
These five voices begin to suggest the sheer complexity
involved in any attempt to confront the issue of gay male
sexuality and power. All historical concepts of masculinity
and femininity have been reflected in terms of personal
Gay Left 3
4 Gay Left
SEXUALISATION
The last two hundred years have seen what could be
described as the sexualisation of the individual identity in
the western world. Sexuality has become a central focus for
the individual's sense of self and the basis of that very
individuality.
The categorisation of homosexuality has been a central
feature of this process, basing a social identity on a sexual
orientation. The definition of the homosexual has been
constructed and shaped by a variety of forces and institutions
which have attempted to regulate its character and expression. But as 'homosexuals' were defined more and more on
the basis of sexuality, subcultures have slowly developed as
focuses for homosexual identities, both within the confines
of these definitions and in opposition to them.
A growing awareness of being homosexual in this society
can lead to many different subjective responses. They can be
the ground on which a whole notion of difference may be
experienced. The result is not just a sense of sexual difference
but one that concerns the whole range of assumptions and
values.
"It seems that I have always defined myself against the
norms of whichever group that I have attached myself to,
that difference, a self-definition that I am not such and such,
which I have imputed to be a general feature of my friends,
peer group and comrades."
This growing awareness can also lead to a denial of
difference, an assertion that it is only sex, only the gender of
the sexual partner, that is at odds with social norms. Some
people may lead lives of greater conformity as a proof of
their sameness. This degree of self-consciousness regarding
our sexuality can lead to a wider sexualisation of our social
activities and experiences.
"I often find myself looking round in all sorts of places to
see if there are other gay people there and perhaps make
signs of recognition to them. It often makes me feel better in
an 'alien', heterosexual environment to know there are other
gays around."
"I seek out men who are going to be good at sex. Sometimes at Bangs disco I stare at men who are classic stereotypes: tall, slim, moustaches, beards, check-shirts and keys,
because I know, or think, that they will be good at sex."
"I am still surprised by the fact that my image conveys my
interest in all sorts of sexual activity which I am not interested in."
"Having a beard or wearing a leather jacket has a notice
able effect on people's sexual responses that was both
exciting and worrying. Exciting because it's nice to feel
attractive, worrying because of perhaps getting into it too
much, using it all the time and being able to hide behind it."
This wider sexualisation can lead to stresses and conflicts
for us as individuals operating in such contexts. People who
do not fit into the dominant stereotypes can feel isolated
and anxious. Sometimes the importance of sex as a confirmation of ourselves can become obsessive and can lead to a
compulsive and consuming search for sexual partners. The
gay scene can exacerbate this search whilst discouraging
attempts to make wider contacts and build collective support.
Relationships
"We are obsessed by them when we do have them and
obsessed by not having them when we don't".
Relationship is a word used to describe all sorts of
connections between people, but within the last decade or
so, (perhaps mostly amongst the young professional middle
class), it has become a substitute for such words and
concepts as affair, marraige and partnership. As gay socialists
we use it to underline a sense of, or attempt at, equality
between lovers involved in a sexual and emotional
involvement.
In our discussion we talked about our own individual
needs and what we wanted out of our relationships. There
was a sense in which we viewed our relationships as somehow
a pool of emotional support, from which we can draw from
time to time.
Gay Left 5
that choice might have come from and the variety of choices
that can be made. Which brings us back to the opening quote.
"We are obsessed by them when we do have them, and
obsessed by not having them when we don't."
by Lindsay Turner
Cultural changes
The differences between New Zealand and Britain that I've
mentioned so far are essentially differences within a common
Anglo-Saxon culture. More significant are those attributable
to the non-European culture of the Maori minority, though
these differences are reflected in political theory rather than
everyday life for most European and many Maori gays. Like
the blacks in Britain and the US, the Maoris are victims of
racist economic exploitation. It has turned them in only a
couple of decades from an essentially communal rural people
into a typical urban working class. But, since they are the
original inhabitants of the country, and had a centuries-old
social system of their own before the whites arrived, their
cultural position is distinctly different from that of the
blacks in the UK.
The strong movement among both rural and urban Maoris
to preserve Maoritanga (traditional culture) has been one of
the most important political developments in NZ during the
last ten years. Maori culture was and to some extent still is
based on communal ownership of land and extended kinship, and not on private property and the nuclear family
unit. This has had a strong influence on the development of
socialist and feminist theory in NZ, for it means that there is
a living tradition of non-capitalist values that many countries
lack. As yet, these values get little more than lip-service from
the established political parties, but there's no doubt that
they will become more and more important to feminism in
particular as increasing numbers of Polynesian women
become involved in the women's movement.
There is still little available information about homosexuality in traditonal Maori society, though the evidence is
that it was tolerated if not entirely accepted. (The closelyrelated Samoans still sometimes practise an institutional form
of transvestism by bringing up a son as a daughter if there are
no female children in a family; and homosexuality, among
adolescents at least, is regarded as quite normal.) But more
and more Maoris live in nuclear, rather than extended,
families and, as is common in working-class communities,
acceptance of traditional gender roles is strong. Consequently
there are in Auckland and Wellington large numbers of
Polynesian transvestites of both sexes who live in a subculture
that is in many ways separate from that of white lesbians and
gay men. It does however, raise racial and class questions
about transvestism that the NZ movement is trying to deal
with both theoretically and practically though Polynesian
involvement in the gay movement itself has always been
minimal.
A national organisation
But Labour Party inadequacies were one thing; the election
of a consciously reactionary government dedicated to such
policies as the strengthening of the family unit and the protection of the unborn child was quite another. It was
apparent that gays would be under attack as they had not
been during the previous three years. During 1976, most of
.the lesbian and gay groups reformed or reorganised, and a
major Gay Liberation National Conference was planned for
October of that year. At this conference, a group of Christchurch activists suggested that a National Organisation be set
up. It was hoped that this would solve some of the problems
of communication , duplication of effort, and conflicting
tactics that had often weakened the effectiveness of action
on gay rights.
The idea of a national organisation had been proposed
several times before, but always as a centrally-run organisation with local branches along the lines of CHE in
England. This idea had been consistently rejected, partly
because it was feared that the city where the head office was
sited would dominate the organisation, and partly because
internal travel in NZ is often difficult, especially between the
two islands which would inevitably reduce efficiency. The
new proposal, however, was for a federal structure, in which
each group would be autonomous, subject only to the condition that it abide by the aims of the national organisation.
Representatives of most of the gay groups in NZ met in
Wellington in January 1977 to work out the structure of the
organisation, which came into being as the National Gay
Rights Coalition several months later.
This was the revitalising point of the NZ gay movement.
The NGRC now has 24 full members, all of which are lesbian
and gay men's political groups, social groups, or counselling
services, and 11 associate members, ranging from the Socialist Action League (the NZ section of the Fourth International) and the ecologically-based Values Party, to
Hedesthia, an organisation for transvestites and transsexuals.
The structure of the NGRC is relatively complex, but it is
designed to allow the maximum amount of participation by
member groups in both planning and action. All major
activities, such as Gay Pride Week, campaigns during parliamentary elections, and international solidarity campaigns
such as that on Iran, are now co-ordinated nationally. The
results have generally been successful, particularly in gaining
access to the news media: any important gay event is now
likely to get adeqaute coverage in the metropolitan newspapers and often on TV as well.
Of course, there are still many problems to be solved. The
most important of them, inevitably, is the participation of
women. Lesbian separatism has become a major current in
NZ feminism during the past four years, and the members of
several lesbian groups will have no contact with men or
organisations that include them. (The collective which produces the lesbian-feminist magazine, Circle, for example, asks
that women keep all copies of the magazine out of the hands
20 though another MP had guaranteed to move an amendment to reduce this to 18. The NGRC executive asked the
member groups which of three stances it should take:
supporting the bill, supporting it but pointing out its
inadequacies, or opposing it completely. A large majority of
the groups wanted the NGRC to have nothing to do with the
bill. They argued that the experience of England and Wales
showed that such a reform was likely to lead to more, rather
than less, police harassment, and that to support it would be
a sellout of gay men who were under the age of consent.
Such was the publicity given to the NGRC's objections to the
bill, that Warren Freer eventually withdrew it altogether.
Needless to say, the NGRC's action was extremely controversial. Most of the groups endorsed it, and the Executive
launched a campaign to ensure that all lesbians and gay men
understood the reasons for this stand. (In this it has generally
been successful. Even the usually conservative commercial
magazine Out! has publicly supported the NGRC policy.)
But some groups notably the Homosexual Law Reform
Society and the Auckland Gay Rights Activists have been
severely critical of the decision, to the point where there
were suggestions of a motion of no-confidence in the
executive.
Political confidence
But whatever the effect of the controversy on the Coalition,
the decision to oppose the reform bill shows an astonishing
growth in political confidence since 1975. Then, the movement was glad to accept whatever politicians were willing to
give it. But in 1979 the policy has been to reject reformist
window-dressing and concentrate on gaining mass public
support that will eventually result in real and significant
changes being made. This is perhaps where the real strength
of the NZ gay movement lies. Despite the many problems it
faces, it has not made the same mistakes as its North
American counterparts concentrating almost exclusively
Who Knows?' whilst less ambitious than Ophelia, nevertheless manages to make so many points about the difficulties of coming out, the problems of monogamy, the structuring of adolescent sexuality, 'the generation gap', racism,
how unemployment affects women etc etc, all in the space of
an hour, that one leaves breathless and astonished.
The play begins with the accidental coming out of a
former head girl of a typical secondary school. Her picture is
seen in a national paper, after she had been on a gay demonstration, and is shown with glee to a small group of friends
who all knew her to disastrous effect. Gathered together
after a disco, they hold a mock trial of Claire, brutally
i mpelled by the straight gay-baiting Colin. During this (and
it's a fine set piece allowing comment on roles, stereotyping
and differential gender expectations), one of the boys, Robin
comes out with dignity and courage, appalling Colin, but
bringing Robin much closer to his straight 'best friend'. The
rest of the play is really a series of confrontations between
gay life and the straight world and its restrictions and expectations, including a very funny scene when Den, Robin's mate,
meets Robin's lover, who also happens to be black. The
potential mawkishness and tokenism of that scene is
redeemed by a wry humour, and the excellent acting of the
protagonists. The play ends with a mixed straight and gay
group going off to see Tom Robinson, whilst the embittered
Colin who has been trashed physically by both Robin and
Claire prepares to redeem his masculinity with a flick-knife.
That threat hangs in the air, as 'Glad to be Gay' plays over
the sound system.
` Who Knows?' was presented at the Royal Court Youth
Theatre, for audiences of school pupils, who, at least whilst I
was there seemed to react with enthusiasm to the out and
sexually upfront content of the play. Sweatshop hope to
tour with the play, and it would be a shame if such a finely
honed production (directed by Philip Timmins, and whose
cast are 'unknowns' who no longer deserve anonymity) did
not play to larger audiences. In much the same way, one can
but hope that Ophelia does not sink into obscurity.
Right to Rebel
AMBER HOLLIBAUGH INTERVIEW
by Philip Derbyshire
Amber Hollibaugh is a socialist lesbian living and working in
San Francisco. At the demonstration on May 21 1979 she
gave a speech defending the rights of gay people to protest
at the lenient sentence (six years) given to Dan White, convicted murderer of the mayor of San Francisco and Harvey
Milk, the out gay supervisor of district 5 of the city. She is at
present being indicted for "incitement to riot" because of
this speech, and if guilty faces a longer prison sentence than
White.
The interview is in two parts, the first part dealing with her
own politicisation and coming out, and the second with the
development of gay San Francisco over the last five years and
the implications of the victory against the Briggs initiative to
bar all homosexuals (and anyone who tried to legitimate
homosexuality) from California schools.
PART ONE
I came from a small town in California (Carmichael). I hated
it and wanted out, but not into marriage. I heard about the
Civil Rights movement, was exhilarated by it and wanted to
get involved. This was 1964. I was naive in my outrage at the
Southern community's reaction to Civil Rights, but that
naive anger is as good a way into struggle as any. I felt that
we all had to do something otherwise nothing would change.
I discovered a real sense of community through that
involvement: people were trying to kill us, which brings you
together! The Black community in the South had already
built networks of care and concern, and by being involved on
the margins of that we whites learned that survival was a
matter of taking responsibility for each other.
We worked hard and organised, but there were problems,
especially for a white woman in a Black community. So
many racial myths centre on that and I began to feel that we
put the Black community in even more danger because of
that heterosexual racism. We brought down the wrath of god:
we were staying with Black families, frequently lovers of
Black men, and certainly their friends, which was horrific in
the eyes of the surrounding white community. The violence
was incredible, people trying to shoot you all the time,
houses you were staying in getting firebombed. The last straw
for me was that the man of the family I was staying with
refused to sit down to supper if I was there: he said that he
couldn't sit at the same table as white folks, it wasn't done.
I freaked: this man would come in from working fourteen
hours working on some white man's plantation, and he
couldn't eat his meal in peace. My being there was doing him
no good at all.
So I left Mississippi, went up to New York and worked
with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee there
until Whites were expelled as the Black Movement grew into
a consciousness of its own need for autonomy and the ideas
of Black Power began to grow. That was extremely painful, a
traumatic experience where I was forced to confront the fact
of being white. Up until then I'd sort of thought that if we
could just come to love each other it would be OK. But now
people that I loved were telling me to fuck off, that it was no
good me spending six months in the South they had to be
there all the time. I was white and could pull out of the
struggle at any time.
Most Blacks had started out as naive as me, but the toll of
the struggle was a growing cynicism, a defensiveness that
chimed with the growth of a new Black nationalism. I didn't
understand that, many of us failed to understand it at all and
grew embittered. Those who survived that experience
remained politicised, and I was hooked. In the society I'd
come from I'd been taught that nothing mattered, nothing
was worth fighting for, but through that struggle I'd come to
know people who believed in something, and who were prepared to act on that belief: the right of people to be equal
... which was an extraordinary thought in a racist society.
The struggle gave me so much, and even though I didn't
know where to go I couldn't give up political involvement.
12 Gay Left
A political lesbian
It was the pits. I'd left the Left for the Women's movement,
now I was leaving that for a Lesbian Movement that I wasn't
sure existed. I was back in the States, with the craziness of
the early seventies, Weathermen and so on. And I'd lost the
woman I still loved. Our relationship had been so important,
even if it wasn't gay. To be gay you have to be able to look
at your partner, know what you're doing and be glad. We
couldn't do that. We weren't proud enough to call ourselves
Lesbian.
I was confused, I had a political commitment before I had
a real understanding. I had to go through all the vulnerability
of discovering lesbianism whilst still being a politico. And I'd
lost the woman who'd been my political partner as well as
my lover. It was like being deaf and dumb.
I'd maintained some involvement with mainstream left
politics, working with the Black Panther Party and doing
draft-counselling, but it wasn't an easy glide back into the
US. I was a lesbian and I didn't want to face it: lesbianism
was harder for me to accept than anything in my life. There's
something very lonely about gay self-acceptance or leastwise there was in that period. Coming out we were defiant,
proud, angry we wore a lot of lavender, but the self-hate is
so deep that it takes you years to work through it and there's
no social movement that removes you from that pain. You
love the same sex which is horrible in heterosexual society.
No one can make that easier. For me it's taken years. I hated
being gay: I knew I couldn't change it. I knew I wasn't
straight, I was gay, but I didn't like it ... hell, I don't like
being oppressed. Being gay is not something that you learn.
At least if you're black you're raised in a culture that
explains to you what racism is and how to deal with it. If
you're gay first they try to tell you that it's really not true,
then they spend years trying to change you. You just have to
hate yourself more than straight folks do. Everything that
comes at you tells you it's sick, wrong, perverted, demented.
You never get reinforced. And what's this puny little movement. Circle-dancing deals with all this? That every straight
man wants to kill me cos I'm a dyke. Nothing deals with this.
I wasn't happy. I felt outside the Lesbian movement: I
was working class. I wasn't comfortable with middle class
assumptions that gay was good. I felt that gay was right, I
was defiant but I had an enormous amount of self-hate. I was
socially conscious, I felt I had a right to be gay, but in bed,
alone at night I did not like being a lesbian. I kept saying "I
can't help it", and felt that I was going to be alone, without
a stable relationship. Even being a communist you feel normal, being a lesbian though ... through and through you're
abnormal, or that's what they tell you and what you believe.
I left Boston, came to San Francisco. I knew if I was going
to find an answer it was going to be here. San Francisco has a
diversity: there are working class lesbian bars, something I'd
not known. There are so many different ways here to work
out who you are within the definition "gay". There are all
races, ages, types of lesbian, and there's a strong women's
movement here too. I was also coming home. And I've been
here seven years. San Francisco allows you to be a whole lot
of things without hating yourself. I feel that I've worked
through that self-hatred. I've accepted my lesbianism and
also feel that I have some control: my lesbianism isn't some
alien thing apart from me. I feel I've reconnected to who I
am as a marxist, a lesbian and a feminist. Ultimately, "the
revolution will have come when I can go to a party and be all
the things I am". Contradictions are there but I feel I am
more whole. San Francisco gives that to many gay people. It
gives you a community to work through who you are and
who you want to be.
Gay Left 13
PART TWO
When I came to San Francisco in 1972, the lesbian community was pretty submerged. It thrived in the space between the
gay male community and the Black community. But there
was a space: San Francisco has always had large communities
of Black, Chinese, and Latino peoples, a thriving women's
movement and a large Left focussed more around working
class struggles than around the War.
The gay male community centred on Polk Street was
seedy, flashy and almost a parody. The Castro was a quiet,
residential district. I was removed from it, having a more or
less separatist position, although feminism in that form was
beginning to fall apart from class contradictions, and I was
beginning to feel uncomfortable with that brand of feminism.
My lovers were coming out of the bars, not from the movement. There was a contradiction in that I hadn't come to
lesbianism as a political alternative. I feel my own history as
somewhere between old and new dyke lifestyles. Old dykes
were lesbian in isolation they figured out that they loved
women and that was that. New dykes came out on the upsurge of feminism. A third group to which I belong, connects
to both parts: we were dykes before the Lesbian movement,
but were political as well.
Working together
My political confusions began to resolve themselves when I
began to work in the gay caucus in the organising committee
for the July 4th Anti-Bicentennial in '75/'76. I chose to work
in the gay caucus as opposed to the women's caucus, a
moderately scandalous choice. I was the only woman with
eleven gay men, mostly political white gay men. My
experience with them was good. It gave me a sense that there
were men committed to struggles against sexism: men who
were as moved by feminism in their own way as I had been.
Not because they were guilty about being men, about being
14 Gay Left
Gay Left 15
The day after the riot was amazing. If you catch a bus,
normally you're nervous if you look gay, wondering who's
going to jump you, who's going to sneer. The first thing next
day I got on the bus, went to the back and there's these two
black kids, sitting there. One said "Are you a dyke?" I said
"Yeah, so what?" and this kid said "Hey you people are OK,
you know how to kick ass. I didn't know dykes and faggots
could do that." For a couple of weeks gay people knew each
other and just grinned at each other. And other people
responded.
Even people who felt unsure about the kind of violence,
somewhere they thought we were right, were proud we
hadn't taken it one more time. We had the right to be that
angry, we felt we had the right, and feeling that makes being
gay a whole different thing. We don't have to die to be gay,
they don't have the right to kill us. The gay community too
often doesn't resist, and doesn't respect the gay people who
do. Sometimes we are our own worse censors. But not this
ti me. 15,000 rioting queers at City Hall: we didn't burn
down our own ghetto, we went to where the power was and
we burned it. Which was why they were terrified and why we
weren't murdered. If we'd stayed in the Castro they'd have
machine-gunned us. But they didn't want a massacre on their
property, it's a different thing from killing people in their
own ghetto separate where no one sees it, and it can be forgotten. Gay people moved from the Castro and said "You
can't keep us home, just let us be gay there: we're coming
here because you're here straight San Francisco."
The violent reaction we had to that violence also changed the
community. People said "Fuck that! they can't do this ...
we're gay but we're not going back. We're going to be gayer
than ever before, we're going to be queerer, more militant,
we're going to take self-defence lessons. WE're gonna kick
ass! You can't push us anymore."
"We're going to be gay everywhere, we're not going back."
It was the first riot by white folks. It was a revolutionary act
by 15,000 gay people. It transformed the expectations externally about what the gay community is like, and it's transformed us: we have a different sense of how we're gay in this
town. Not only gayer in the Castro, but gayer everywhere.
And that's a nice place to start from.
Gay Left 17
18 Gay Left
NOTES
1. Hocquenghem is a lecturer in philosophy at the university
of Vincennes, near Paris. He is one of the founders of FHAR,
a leftist movement for the liberation of homosexuality,
founded in 1971. He has written, among other works: Le
desir homosexuel, 1972, Paris, Editions Universitaires, 125p.
(English translation, Homosexual Desire, London, Allison &
Busby, 1978); L'Apres-mai des faunes, 1974, Paris, Grasset,
204p. Co-ire. Album systematique de l'enfance, 1976,
Fontenayesous-Bois, Recherches N 22, 146p (in collaboration with Rene Scherer); La derive homosexuelle, 1977,
Paris, Editions Universitaires, 158p. Comment nous
appelez-vous deja? Ces hommes que l'on dit homosexuels, 1977,
Paris, Calmann-Levy, 237p (in collaboration with Jean-Louis
Bory).
Hocquenghem recently wrote: La beaute du metis, 1979,
Paris, Ramsay, 176p. Race d'Ep, 1979, Paris (in collaboration
with Lionel Soukaz). I don't deal with these two last works,
because I haven't received them yet. I will deal with them in
a follow-up to this article.
Gay Left 19
Lesbiansi n
by Alison
Support or attack
For men uncertain of their own heterosexuality, we are disquieting and to be attacked as Henry James attacks us in The
Bostonians (1886), heaping his ponderous doubts upon the
head of Verena Tarrant, a feminist and strong-minded. She
represents, for James, the dangerous ascendancy of the
feminine in public life, with its inalienable qualities of
"nervous, hysterical, chattering, canting", its "false delicacy
and exaggerated solicitudes and coddled sensibilities" leading
inevitably to "the reign of mediocrity". Condemned so
roundly, is it consolation to find that for those men who
welcomed the new feminism we were the vanguard heralding
the new age, our dilemmas and anguished battles watched
with sympathy. (I still find George Gissing's 1893 novel, The
Odd Women, remarkable for its support from an unexpected
quarter.)
Often where we might have looked for support we find
only attack. We learn the hard way that defenders of sexual
freedom are often only really interested in male freedoms.
We realize ruefully, for example, that to D.H. Lawrence we
are part of the spiritual corruption against which he inveighs.
Our lesbianism is an eternal affront to him and he can never
forgive it. With undisguised pleasure he kills one half of the
lesbian couple in The Fox to clear the male's path to the
woman who is 'rightfully' his and ends the novella in a swirl
of purple praise glorifying The Male Principle. (And somehow, even though I know, thanks to Emile Delavenay's 1971
D.H. Lawrence and Edward Carpenter and Paul Delaney's
1979 D.H. Lawrence's Nightmare, that Lawrence had his
own pressing difficulties with homosexuality, I find it
difficult to forgive him.) Mercifully he usually stops short at
murder, and is content with the jibes and sneers at lesbianism
which characterize The Rainbow (1915). (When, by the way,
will somebody tackle the fascinating subject of the love-hate
relationship between Lawrence and Katherine Mansfield,
recognizing that the major tensions sprang from the
unwillingness of each of them to recognize their homosexuality?)
Not everybody jibes and sneers. Many a heterosexual male
author looks with Tender Pity (or something like that) at
two victims of male lust briefly seeking peace and solace in
each other's arms. (Zola's numerous studies of lesbian
liaisons often came dangerously close to that Nana and
Pot-Bouille, for example.) And always there seems to be the
nLiterature
son Hennegan
Recognition?
Is there, indeed, any reason why we should expect that
women authors will have recognized lesbians more clearly,
depicted them more objectively than male writers have
done? Certainly we owe some of the most unpleasant lesbians
How do we know?
Yet even when we're not lying through our teeth nor being
wilfully stupid, we may often be excused for not realizing,
and as we go further back into literary history the excuses
grow. There are the women writing under men's names, the
women writing as male characters, the women living and
dressing as men. There are, too, good sound, common-sensical
reasons for all those things and those are the ones we usually
hear. In an age predisposed to dismiss women's writing it
makes sense to use a man's name and once you've done that
you might as well write of men's experiences. If you want to
see the world you're safer in men's clothes. But is that really
all there is to say of Emily Bronte's love poems addressed to
women? Is there really no more to Eliza Lynn Linton's
`fictional' Autobiography of Christopher Kirkland (1885)
with its careful analyses of love relationships with women
which bear a marked resemblance to her own experiences
with women? Does that explain the cross-dressing of George
Sand and of the animal painter and diarist, Rosa Bonheur?
Sometimes, as with Bonheur, our incredulity is justified
by secondary evidence. The official story says that she
needed to wear men's clothes to attend, without fear of
insult or assault, the sales of livestock and the assemblies of
horse-copers where she found her subjects. For that reason
and that reason alone the Paris Prefect's office gave her the
Permit she needed for male attire. As it happens, however,
we also know from another source that Bonheur submitted
an account of herself as "a contrasexual" (lesbian) to Magnus
Hirschfeld's Institute of Sexology in Berlin. Here hunch is
validated by fact. But so often hunches remain just that. And
indeed the camouflage is often excellent. George Sand, after
all, had two men to her credit: Alfred de Musset and Chopin.
The fact that both men were less than a hundred percent
heterosexual is neither here nor there. They were men and
she was a woman and, in theory at any rate, that means
heterosexuality. It was a relief, nevertheless, when recently
published researches showed us that what we had always
known by the pricking of our thumbs was true; that she had
had numerous sexual realtionships with women including the
Adah Isaacs Meneken whom Swinburne loved so hopelessly.
I say "it was a relief" to know because for many of us
there is a great need to establish a sense of continuity with
the past, to affirm for ourselves that we are part of it rather
than an aberration from it. The need for some sense of a
shared past is so great that some of the best modern writing
on lesbian themes has been devoted to recreating one. It may
come in the guise of non-fiction works such as Elizabeth
Ma y or's The Ladies of Llangollen (1971) which relives the
fifty year 'marriage' which united Lady Eleanor Butler and
Miss Sarah Ponsonby from the time of their elopement in
1778 until the death of Lady Eleanor in 1828. More often it
comes in the form of novels and short stories.
The theory
Few will take on as much as Radclyffe Hall attempted in her
short story, Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself (1926) which is
particularly interesting for its fictional use of contemporary
theories about the genesis of homosexuality. She wrote the
piece as a trial run for certain of the themes which she later
intended to expand in The Well of Loneliness (1928), defined
by her as "a serious study in congenital sexual inversion" and
the quasi-scientific language, familiar to us from Ulrichs,
Carpenter, Havelock Ellis and other predominantly nineteenth century sexual theorists, gives us the clue. Miss Ogilvy,
a misfit with no apportioned part to play in the modern,
ruthlessly heterosexual world, has had her one brief hour of
glory during the First World War. There her 'masculine'
Gay Left 23
Innocence or invisibility
Perhaps, you say, there was nothing to get away with?
Perhaps. When we are very young and gullible we believe
those critics and social historians who tell us breezily that
linguistic conventions change; that sentiments which seem to
us extravagant were once part of common currency; that
verbal and physical expressions of affection often intense
between people of the same sex were then freely given and
received. That, in short, we have suffered Freud and .thereby
24 Gay Left
Significant departures
It seems to me that both these books mark significant departures from 'traditional' gay male novels, whilst uneasily
maintaining continuities of theme and vantage point with
that tradition. A similar contradiction can be seen in Rubyfruit Jungle where lesbianism is affirmed, but within a
tradition of individual solution and victory. Molly has much
in common with Mark Twain's heroes, indeed with a whole
series of American archetypes, not least the loner cowboy.
And yet it is in that break that the importance of the novels
lies, and not in either their attempted typification of the 'gay'
experience, nor in their particular stylistic treatments.
On the first count they obviously are partial (but in this
sense all gay novels are partial, are genre fiction), and on the
second mostly they are uninventive. Faggots is written in a
style that owes much to Burroughs, Joyce and the structure
of film scripts, though it is possible that the style conveys the
fragmented, frenzied consciousness of poppers, angel dust,
dope, speed and the other psychic props of the milieu
described. Dancer moves easily within the tradition of romantic writing, the decadent prose of Huysman and the late nineteenth century: languorous and overwritten melancholy, a
pervasive odour of doom and decay. But again there may be a
unity of theme and style, of the inevitable tragedy of the protagonist and the prose of a declining class. What is more
important though is the pervasive element of pastiche in
those styles, the ambivalent reappropriation of other forms.
The signal difference within these texts, though, is the
presence of the gay world. In previous gay male novels, even
recent accounts as by Patricia Nell Warren, the gay male
world is peripheral, a place of sojourn until one finds a lover.
The social roots of our lifestyle are obscured and invalidated.
26 Gay Left
In Faggots and Dancer on the other hand the gay male world
is present, multifarious and a constant, constructing environment. Granted, the stances taken toward this world are
hardly uniform and rarely affirmative. But the move from
literary representations of homosexuality as a psychological
property with the thematic emphasis on coming to terms
(and possibly living happily ever after) with it, to one in
which gay men are plural, engaged with each other, creating,
choosing, changing partners, are social, seems to me to be of
emphatic importance, a measure of the shift that has been
achieved by the movement, and by the spontaneous actions
of gay people. It marks the entry of homosexuality into
society, and thereby creates the possibility of deprivatising
the experiences of homosexuals.
That break though cannot be explored fully within the
forms that Kramer and Halloran have chosen. In Faggots the
protagonist Fred Lemish (seemingly an authorial persona
who engages in a typically American autobiographical spiral:
Kramer is writing about the gay world, which includes
Lemish writing a filmscript around his own experience in the
gay world) grows sickened with the slick world of New York
discos, bars, baths, boutiques, beaches, and with his inability
to find love in that world. He undergoes a mystical affirmation of his own self and retreats, separates himself from
other gay men.
In Dancer Malone the paragon of beauty who is devoured
by his futile pursuit of love apparently commits suicide.
Whatever contradictions the gay world may contain are not
transcended, rather they are avoided by individual choices to
leave it. Here is the continuity with the self-oppressive novels
of the sixties and fifties. The homosexual is still individualised, cannot construct a common identity with other gays
and is sickened and appalled by the extravagances of the
Other.
The paths that lead to that renunciation of common
interest are etched across the novels. The gay world is
presented as cut off, spectacular, sexually obsessed and most
importantly monadic. It is as though there exist no other
connections between individual gay men than sex and the
quest for 'love'. No relations of friendship (though there is
praise of those you dance with, the companion in Dancer),
work, politics. No occupation other than dancing, cruising
and having sex. In such a world it is unsurprising that 'love'
becomes reified and fetishised: it has to make up for all other
absent relations. The place of 'love' is pivotal: it acts as a spur
to action, to involvement in the world, but its absence is used
to criticise that world. From the viewpoint of the novels, its
absence in an innate feature of gay male society, rather than
a product of the particular constraints under which that
world is constructed. Thus, contradictorily, the very judgement that the books would use in a reactionary way to
undermine the world that they maintain an ambivalence
towards, rounds on itself and begins to raise questions about
how that world is formed, by what interests, and how it can
be changed. The authors cannot take that route; rather it is
we as gay socialists who must supply the words to describe
the processes that Kramer and Holleran leave in silence.
That the world of Faggots exists is undeniable, as is the
possibility that a vision of that world may be one that
inspires gay men to come out and end their isolation. For,
above all, sex itself is explicit in both novels, out and obvious.
No hinting at what men do in bed together, no coy kisses and
then three dots. The ambivalence towards sex, alternately
glorified, then seen as an all-devouring monster, the anxieties
as the sex-love dyad fractures and the uncertain response to
the possibility of pleasure filled leisure, cannot disguise the
efflorescence of sexuality in the gay world nor exclude the
possibility of more affirmative responses to that efflorescence.
Faggots and Dancer are both products of the new subcultures of self-defined and self conscious homosexuals, are
certainly transitional and contradictory within the development of those subcultures, but yet merit attention as much
as for what they say as for their silences, for what they
obscure as well as reveal. Simple affirmation or repudiation
are worthless, betraying in the very ease of judgement an
undialectical view of the relations between literature and
sexual politics.
Midler to her pep and bezzazz. Yet his choice of stars elsewhere is revealing. His Barbara Streisand emphasises her
neurotic egocentricity, while his Bette Davis and Judy
Garland, key icons of male gay culture if ever there were any,
are significant for the precise reference they make. It is the
Bette Davis of All About Eve, not Now, Voyager or The
Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, and All About Eve is
the film in which she plays an aging, bitchy actress who
finally acknowledges her inner emptiness for lack of a man.
Again, it is not the Judy Garland of The Wizard of Oz and
Meet Me in St. Louis but of A Star is Born and the later
period of her career as a stage performer, in which her body
appeared, no doubt was, ravaged by pills, alcohol and
marriages and she seemed to perform with all her nerve ends
exposed. In other words, what Robin's/Russell's drag act
predominantly constructs is an image of woman as neurotic.
His women are resilient in their neurosis, and admirable for
that, but this is still a bleak view of the destiny of femininity.
If his women are 'wonderful', they are also a mess.
The final blow Outrageous! deals to femininity, and
especially to 'feminine' men, is sexual. In the male gay world
of the film, to be feminine is to be discounted sexually.
There is a small scene about a quarter of a way in, where
Robin has picked up a man after his first successful public
drag appearance. In terms of furthering the plot, the prime
i mperative of mainstream feature films, this scene is superfluous, but it has a crucial point to make. By revealing that
the (narcissistically butch) man is a hustler and in the
exchange between them, the scene implies that Robin could
not possibly get sex except by paying for it.
Later, it is made clear that the taxi driver who becomes
his agent spends his spare time scoring with other macho
guys. The visual presentation of Robin emphasises his lack of
sex appeal when not in drag, he's either shown in shapeless
old clothes (the resort of those who have been taught to hate
their bodies) or, in the party scene, in a white jump-suit that
is too tight for him and makes him look podgily unattractive.
In Outrageous!, to he sexually validated is to he macho, however much of a star you may be in other regards.
Changing attitudes
Outrageous! makes use of the traditional 'masculine':
'feminine' gender opposition but the kind of attitudes, values
28 Gay Left
Reflexive realism
There is a sense then in which Word is Out moves towards a
reflexive realism, an awareness of itself as a film, as partly
constructing rather than purely revealing the persons it offers
us. Yet discussions of the film clearly show that that is not
how the film works for audiences. Apart from more general
considerations it's too long, it makes things seem too rosy
etc. what most people comment upon is the people they
liked in the film and the people they didn't. In other words,
we tend in practice to treat the film as if utterly transparent
as if we make a direct contact with these people and respond
to them in the same conditions as we do to people in real life.
Paradoxically perhaps, the cinematic strategies outlined
above, which may be meant as reflexive devices, actually
encourage this response. Showing the camera in mirrors can
be taken as a further sign of authenticity i.e. "this is not
someone playing a part, but really the person talking about
her/him self"; delaying information about the person concentrates on the person in isolation from her/his embeddedness in social reality; the snapshots can be taken as
emphasising the unique personal history of the speaker
(though the shots of stars necessarily point outward to a
wider social reality); and even the two women who address
the way they are being used by the film emphasise a desire
not to be representative but simply to be 'themselves'.
What all of this points to is the ideology of individualism,
the notion of the individual as somehow outside of and even
predating society and history. We are enjoined not to see
these people as representative but rather as unique individuals,
and hence this is predominantly how people respond to the
fil m. If they are representative of anything, it is of uniqueness and individuality that is, they represent the degree to
which gays, like everyone else, represent nothing but themselves. Moreover, because the film remains predominantly
unreflexively realist, it suggests that individuality constitutes
reality.
Political practice
This is not necessarily how we use the film in (political)
practice. There must be a strong sense of shared experience,
of responding to various interviewees with "yes, that's how it
was for me, too" or "so I'm not the only one who felt it like
that", of feeling that for once part of oneself was up there on
the screen. In this way, the film is perhaps akin to consciousness raising and especially when it is used as a basis for group
discussion (whether formalised or simply in the way it gets
people talking together afterwards).
Yet the film never goes so far towards being like consciousness raising as similar films that have come out of the
women's movement. In an article on 'the Political Aesthetics
of the Feminist Documentary Film' ( Quarterly Review of
Film Studies, Fall 1978), Julia Lesage discusses these films
(which include Janie's Jane, The Woman's Film, Three Lives,
We're Alive, Self Health and Rape; British equivalents would
include Women of the Rhondda, Women Against the Bill,
An Egg is not a Chicken, and Women in Focus) and notes a
number of characteristics that make them the filmic equivalent of the political strategy of consciousness raising. Few of
these characteristics really seem to hold true for Word is Out.
The feminist documentaries are addressed to women
viewers, whereas it is unclear to whom Word is Out is
addressed. Secondly, in the feminist documentaries, there is a
clear identity between film-maker(s) and subject(s), the filmmaker's political point-of-view is identified with that of her
subjects. This is only partly so with Word is Out. The film
lacks what professional media ideologues call 'balance', in
that it unambiguously promotes the speakers' right to speak
for themselves about what it is to be gay no 'experts' are
wheeled on to 'explain' us (away); in the sequence in which
Elsa discusses the film with some of the women making the
fil m, she returns their questions to them, and this helps us to
place them as lesbian. Yet for the most part, in so far as the
Privatised experience
A final characteristic that I'd like to pick out from Lesage's
article is her reference to a common narrative structure to the
women's autobiographical accounts in the films, namely, 'a
women struggling to deal with the public world'. Word is Out
tends to cut across the unfolding of individual stories, and
one would think that its emphasis on coming out would be a
paradigm of 'struggling to deal with the public world'. Yet
w hat coming out means in this film is accepting one's gayness, meeting other gays and falling in love and/or living with
them.
In other words, coming out remains a privatised
experience. We do see marches and rallies, but the struggle to
achieve these is nowhere recounted or shown, they just take
off from the private self-acceptance of gayness the sexual
political equivalent of workerist spontaneism. Above all,
there is no acknowledgement of the struggle with non-gay
society once you're out, in the film's narrative, troubles
melt like lemon drops (as Judy said of Oz).
30 Gay Left
The view that gayness is purely private, that gays are just
like everyone else and everyone else is O.K. and that coming
out is just a matter of accepting yourself in a familiar enough
package, and one that is as entitled to a hearing as any other
within the spectrum of gay politics (though the conspiracy
theorist in me can't help feeling that this view is far more
likely to get air space, funding etc.). Yet, because of the
pleasurable realism with which it is presented, this particular
political position comes across as not just a position but
reality itself.
Of course, one can reject it even the most overwhelmingly realist film can be disbelieved, and in this respect we
live in an age of marked cinematic sophistication (or cynicism). But this is where Word is Out is even more of a problem
than Outrageous! The latter one can dismiss as 'only a story';
but Word is Out allows us to dismiss its position in its own
terms, as 'only about these twenty-six people'. But then that
is precisely what the film's position is, secured by its talking
heads realism a return of everything to the individual and
her/his experience as the fount of reality.
Outrageous! and Word is Out are enjoyable, warming films
that make you feel good about being gay. They are almost
certainly necessary at this point of (political) time. But they
are not models for where gay cinema needs to go, and not
only for their specific politics but for their form. This is not
a question as I am appear to have been saying, of pleasure
and realism always being inappropriate artistic strategies. On
the contrary, giving pleasure, addressing the real these are
the proper political aims of art. The question is how you do
it.
The danger, as far as realism is concerned, is to treat the
relation between film and reality as unmediated or direct.
GAY
MEN'S
PRESS_ -
For a long time we have felt that there was a need for a
publisher of books related to the gay men's movement. We
were also looking for some contribution to the movement
that we could make ourselves after a long spell of relative
inactivity, and this seemed a good way of using certain skills
and experience we happen to have between us. Last summer
we began seriously investigating the concrete problems
involved in starting a publishing house and by September we
had decided to take the plunge.
We intend to publish about four titles a year and hope to
bring out our first in May 1980. Those we are currently
working on include The Army of Lovers, the book of a
documentary film on the American gay movement by the
German film-maker Rosa von Praunheim; a theoretical work
by Mario Mieli, translated from the Italian; a collection of
articles from Come Together, the first British gay liberation
newspaper (1970-72); and a book of interviews with gay men
from different walks of life. As you can see, these all fall into
into the category of non-fiction, though we hope later to
broaden out into publishing fiction as well.
Our policy will not be only to publish books that we
completely agree with: we want to serve the gay movement
and provide an outlet, as far as our means permit, for all gay
men writers who have something to say. At the same time we
have no intention of publishing books that proclaim male
supermacy or promote pornography and exploitation. We
know we are bound to face problems in our editorial policy
as well as in other respects, but we can only do our best to
meet them honestly when they arise.
We hope to have our books on sale in all good bookshops
and will also have mail order facilities. We'll advertise further
information in the gay press as our first publication date
draws nearer.
We hope in particular that no one who has an idea for a
book will feel shy of getting in touch with us. Our address is
27 Priory Avenue, London N8 7RN, telephone 01-348 2669.
the play when he argued that it was his belief that our society
now treated gays like the Nazis treated their opponents and
those of whom they disapproved.
In his view criticism, for instance of the Jewish aspects of
the play, was basically irrelevant, since the central power of
the metaphor was alone able to bring home the issue to
audiences. For it was only such a stunning comparison that
could adequately convey the suffering of gay people in our
society, which still remained hidden from the consciousness
of most people. Thus any form of information was justified,
however much some might consider it as shocking and crude
propaganda. Ian McKellen, who was Max in the play,
appeared to go even further by suggesting that Britain, or
even more Northern Ireland, might be considered a "concentration camp for gays". These views found more or less
general endorsement in. an editorial published in Gay News
No. 167. The implication of all this seems to be that the continuing oppression of gays necessitates a 'political' rather
than an aesthetic view of the play. But any sensible criticism
must take into account both aspects, the method of presentation as well as the quality, consistency and clarity and
veracity of what is being said, since the play remains theatre
rather than reality.
Bent
A Play by Martin Sherman
standing by involving us in the metaphor of the Jewish identity. To take on such an identity voluntarily was unlikely in
any case, except of course in theatrical or literary contrivance
(as in Frisch's Andorra) or when it was clear that this was a
gesture and not reality (as when the King of Denmark and
many of his subjects donned the yellow star in defiance of
the German anti-Jewish measures in 1943). Moreover of all
prisoners in the camp 'hierarchy' it was the Jews rather than
homosexuals who generally occupied the lowest position,
though in some camps and for specific periods, such as
Buchenwald from 1938-1942, homosexuals were the lowest
"caste".
One of their greatest weaknesses was that unlike other
groups of prisoners they failed to organise to protect their
interests and status, where this might have helped their survival. They were more often picked upon for sadistic brutalities by the guards, and compared to other categories of
prisoners their survival rate was amongst the lowest, though
again with the Jews far lower. 1 Further, Sherman takes the
point of 'gay liberation', for such was the understanding of
Gay Left 31
Historical authenticity
Martin Sherman is naturally keen to demonstrate the historical authenticity of his play . Apart from what we are told
from the stage, much of it in the breathless history of the SA
and the SS provided by Greta, a transvestite nightclub owner,
32 Gay Left
The characterisation
So much of this play is presented in terms of cliche and
caricature. There is the shallow characterisation of the Nazis
(and some of the dialogue) that could have been taken from
the war films of the 'forties and 'fifties (or indeed the
'sixties and 'seventies), and a rather lame and all too familiar
pastiche of "decadent Berlin". There was a mannered though
compelling performance from Ian McKellen as Max, and a
moving performance from Tom Bell as Horst, the righteous
and right-on gay. Richard Gale gave us a masterful cameo of
Max's closetted uncle Freddie, still preoccupied with picking
up the odd "fluff" and displaying an obsessional triviality
in the face of mounting catastrophe.
Yet there was much stylistic confusion in the play. At
ti mes it was naturalistic, at times "epic" and at others
symbolic. There is of course nothing wrong with mixing
styles if it enhances and clarifies the basic message of the
play, but here it tends to stress the overburdening of the
play with its many different messages about gayness,
about love, about violence and about sacrifice as it hiccups
from one style to another. The abrupt change is meant to
shock, to open the audience to a new sort of awareness that
the author is trying to promote. But the feeling for me was
rather one of strain, never quite able to be released, and
which oscillated from melodrama to farce.
Whenever it is used the reiteration of the Nazi experience
produces a sort of Pavlovian horror response which can then
be harnessed to something the progenitor wishes, and in
this case it is gay suffering. An increasingly disturbing
response, however, is one of a certain intrigue and even
admiration, and this is something of which Sherman is well
aware, for particularly with regard to gay people there is
today a sort of mindless camperie associated with the Third
Reich. In some ways he tries to deal with all of this in his
play, for example in Rudi's remark "I know violence is
very chic, but it hurts". But again he only skims the surface.
Martin Sherman has tackled a large and an important
subject. Clearly there is much to be done to make people
FOOTNOTES
1. R. Lautmann et al, 'Der rosa Winkel in den nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslagern ', in R. Lautmann (ed),
Gesellschaft and Homosexualitat
(Frankfurt-am-Main 1977).
2. B. Bettelheim, Survival and Other Essays (London 1979),
pp. 98-9.
Gay Left 33
Gay Left 33
Celtic Twilight
Two issues ago we began a discussion around sexual politics
in Ireland. This is a further contribution to that debate
taking up some of the questions raised in Tom Woodhouse's
article Lost Freedoms in Gay Left 8.
Tom Woodhouse's article attempts to "clarify some points
about the history of Ireland which are rarely discussed and
little understood. " It does make some very interesting
comments on Gaelic Ireland, such as the homoerotic
elements in the Tain. At a more general level Tom Woodhouse attempts to depict Irish Celtic society as an almost
ideal society within mediaeval and later culture, with freedoms undreamt of in the rest of patriarchal Romanised
Europe. In particular, the position of women is his barometer. Tom Woodhouse also implies in the article, that his
vision of Irish history is linked to his nationalism.
Certainly Irish society presents features in this period
which are unique and fascinating, some of which are not
even found in other Celtic societies. In the article Tom Woodhouse appears to regard Irish society down to the 17th
century as one, static, solid unpolluted Celtic block. The nonChristian society of the Tain, which might well refer to a
period hundreds of years before the historical period, has
little to do with the operation of Irish society in the 16th
century. In the Tain a barbarous and militaristic society is
shown, interestingly with a very aggressive queen, Medb,
dominating the political situation. However, the society outlined in this epic is not corroborated by the evidence of other
early historical sources.
From the 5th century, Irish society became increasingly
Christianised. Tom Woodhouse attempts to devalue Irish
Celtic Christianity as proceeding along "very unRomish
lines". Irish Christianity was by no means cut off from the
rest of Europe. In the middle ages the extremely ascetic
Columbanus played a vital role in founding new monasteries
on the Continent. Irish society down to the 17th century was
open to many influences and changes. Muirchetach O'Brien
attempted to move toward a continental style centralised
kingship. More broadly, the Viking and 'Norman' onslaughts
had serious effects on Irish society.
Against Tom Woodhouse, it can be argued that there was
no straight conflict between Celtic and Anglo-Norman
values, rather a mutual interaction, with English conceptions
of lordship fusing with Irish conceptions of succession. To
Tom Woodhouse, nearly every aspect of Irish Celtic society
is acceptable, or rather ideal when compared with the results
of English influence on Ireland. Many features found in
English society at the time are to be found in Ireland. Both
countries had aristocracies both with a privileged place in
society. Celtic society was intensely aristocratic and conservative. In the Gill History of Ireland, O'Corrain noted that
"Irish literature ... (was) ... aristocratic to the core". There
was little interest in ordinary people in such literature.
Lineage was very important in such a patrilineal society.
Great care and effort was taken to preserve the genealogies of
all the leading families. Most offices and functions were
hereditary. One family tended to specialise in one field, for
example law or genealogy. Therefore no one, including
women, could select freely and 'art or science' to practice.
It was of great importance to this society for each family to
continue the line. In the early tract called the Timna
Chathair Mair, Cetach is given a secondary role in this
militaristic society even though he is a "warlike leader whose
deeds are mighty" and the King's eldest son because he
himself had no sons to carry on the glorious line.
In certain respects Irish society in the mediaeval period
did enjoy more 'sexual freedom' than the rest of Christian
Europe'. However this applied only in a superficial way to
34 Gay Left
by Glenn McKee
Gay Watching
HOMOSEXUALITY IN PERSPECTIVE
by William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson
Little Brown, 1979
Reviewed by Dennis Altman
36 Gay Left
Fighting Fascism
GAY ACTIVIST ALLIANCE PUBLICATIONS
Reviewed by Philip Derbyshire
Gay Activists Alliance have produced two publications, their
Anti Fascist Handbook and the submission they made to the
Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure. Both are available
from London Gay Activists Alliance, 5 Caledonian Road,
London N1 priced 70p and 30p respectively.
Much of left activity in recent years was centred around the
fight against fascism, and the Anti-Nazi League was one of
the most significant mass organisations of that period,
phenomenal in its growth, and in its loss of impetus. One of
the contributory factors to its decline was the lack of discussion of what fascism was, and its insistence on a strategy
of rationalistic revelation. The point consistently was to show
that the National Front (NF) were Nazis, an alien growth on
the body politic, who were duping the majority of their
members. That type of political tactic both mystified the
actual political form of contemporary fascism, and made the
appeal that fascism had inexplicable.
The contribution of feminists and radical gay men was to
argue against the simplicity of the dominant anti-fascist
strategy, and to demand a more rigorous analysis of how
fascism mobilised not only through economic resentments
but through the exploitation of unconscious anxieties.
The Anti-Fascist Handbook suffers from contradictions
engendered by its situation in those debates. On the one
hand it is an agitational pamphlet aimed at gay people in
order to get them involved in the struggle against the NF. On
the other it, is an attempt to make an intervention in the
discussion of what fascism is. So that the first section takes
up the revelatory line, exposes the NF policy on gays, and
links that with the NF's historical modelling on the Nazi
Party. There is also a discussion of the sexual politics of the
Nazis. The third section gives useful info on how to fight the
fascists and suggestions for propaganda and activist work.
Both sections are worthwhile, even if it is stretching the term
fascist to include organisations like the National Festival of
Light (NFOL) and Society for the Protection of the Unborn
Child (SPUC).
It is in the second section where the contradictions are
most acute, with several different accounts of what fascism is,
and how it organises the politics of sexuality. Dave Landau's
piece argues that the Nazis militarised society, smashed the
family and proscribed homosexuality because it threatened
the mystic 'fraternity' that was a fundamental mode of
emotional organisation of the Nazi state. His piece is next to
an article that argues that the fascists strengthened the family,
and which sees fascism as a timeless essence with no differences between contemporary Britain and '30s Germany.
Whilst it is not incumbent to produce a unified 'line' in
such a publication, it might be helpful to the reader, if
articles which have opposing theoretical positions do not just
flow into each other without some indication of their difference.
Gay Left 37
Co1m , with some justification, heavily criticises the discussion of how it is homosexual men are often mixed up
with fascist organisations. He is not happy with the analysis
that a trend amongst all men to see men as superior beings
and women as nothing (masculinism) fits neatly into the fast
fascist scheme of things, especially at a time when male gangs
try to conquer the streets to enable a fascist takeover. Nor is
he happy with the document's conviction that the saving
grace of today's male gay movement is its sensitivty to
feminism.
Well, neither am I, but it is a start, trying to face up to a
real problem. It's little wonder that this pamphlet should
immediately sell out and need to be reprinted.* At the
moment, the crisis in the National Front is taking a viciously
anti-gay form, attacking Martin Webster on the grounds of his
sexual orientation while attacking the failure of the NF's
election strategy, which he masterminded.
What should be the reaction of the Left to this? Let's be
honest, we are grossly unprepared. The Anti Nazi League's
propaganda, for example, was of the shock-horror variety,
casting gays in the role of victims. We need to be taking these
issues up in a positive way that affirms gay sexuality as good,
not as something which present society 'tolerates', arid,
fascist society wouldn't.
In solidarity,
Keith Venables
* Available from bookshops, 25p.
What's Left
GAY SOCIALIST CONFERENCE
Gay Left is planning a gay socialist conference hopefully in
the Spring of 1980. The purpose of the conference will be
for gay socialists to assess and respond to the situations we
find ourselves in under the new Thatcher regime. We would
welcome any papers, thoughts, ideas and suggestions for the
conference. Please write with s.a.e. to Gay Socialist Conference, c/o Gay Left, 38 Chalcot Road, London NW1.
GAY CALENDAR
Contents
2
7
10
11
16
20
25
27
30
31
35
37
38
THE COLLECTIVE
BACK ISSUES
Gay Left No 3
Women , in Gay Left, Gays and Class, IS Gay Group, Gay
Workers' Movement and usual reviews etc.
Gay Left No 5
Why Marxism, Images of Homosexuality in Film, Lesbian
Invisibility, Gays and Fascism, Gay Theatre Past and Present,
Politics & Ideology, Gay History, Future of the Gay Movement.
Gay Left No 6
( Gays) In the Balance, The State Repression and Sexuality,
Looking At Pornography, Working Class Lesbians, Gays at
Work, Motherhood, Fighting Fascism.
Gay Left No 7
Paedophilia Examined, Gay Art, Greece, Northern Ireland,
Camp, Tom Robinson, Gay Sweatshop, Nighthawks,
Chemical Castration, Reviews.
Gay Left No 8
Personal Politics, In Defence of Disco, Childhood Sexuality
and Paedophilia, and Living With Indecency.
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Inland 2, for three issues. Overseas Airmail 3 or $6 for
three issues. Longer subscriptions pro rata. Subscriptions ma
include available back issues. Donations always gratefully
received.
Make all cheques (Sterling or US or Canadian dollars only)
payable to Gay Left, 38 Chalcot Road, London NW1 Englan
Democracy,
Socialism &
Sexual Politics
Problems of socialism
The critisisms of Gay Left nevertheless highlight real
2 Gay Left
The failure of Social Democratic politics with this unappetising emphasis on bureaucratic efficiency and statism,
provided the base for the new Thatcherite bloc to seize the
initiative. Its selective call for individualism, its demagogic
attack on the Welfare State and Trade Unionism offered a
reactionary response to real problems. Not surprisingly it has
been all too easy to draw analogies between social democratic
paternalism and the bureaucratic formations of the Soviet
Union and Eastern Europe. The success of anti-socialist
propaganda is built on a real popular distrust of authoritarian
communism and its apparent parallels within Welfare
Statism.
The socialist alternative has to be built in opposition to
both the authoritarian populism of a precarious capitalism
and to the paternalistic state of social democracy. This has to
be done in a climate of increasing social anxiety which leads
to the closing of ideological space that space in which new
perspectives can be developed. It is harder now to rethink
political conceptions, harder to find points of access to the
political process. There is an entrenchment of old ideas and
an atrophy of innovative practice at all levels, as concerns
about employment, housing and education come to preoccupy most people in their daily lives. The stage management of this anxiety by the Right, its focussing on
'scroungers', 'reds', 'deviants', is one of the most frightening
achievements of Thatcherism, and the one the Left seems
least able to counter. The existing forms of socialism fail to
speak clearly to people's needs and in that failure abandon
the political and social terrain to domination by reactionary
i mages, models and philosophies. The continued repetition of
slogans calling for example for a general strike, is limited and
idealist in so far as it fails to connect to how people really
see their lives. It is true that the Thatcherite offensive will
create new points of resistance, new areas of struggle, as it
cuts back the material basis of people's lives but the coordination of these struggles and their conceptualising into a
new model of socialist politics requires strategies and tactics
which have yet to be agreed on and developed. Whether, and
how, people struggle is as much a question of how they see
themselves as of their being propelled into action simply by
their material circumstances.
Rethinking Socialism
Socialism is offered as an alternative to the capitalist organisation of social and economic life. In the classic Marxist
version it is the necessary, and in some variants, almost preordained antithesis of capitalism. But what it is more than
that is left vague. Marxism has been traditionally hostile to
Utopian system building. So when the self-described Marxist
regimes have captured state power with popular backing
(Russia, China, Yugoslavia) been elected to it (Chile) or
si mply been imposed on countries (Czechoslovakia etc) they
have faced the problem of what to do with it. Different and
often appalling results have followed, and socialists outside
those countries have often been unsure of their reactions: is
`defence of the revolution' more important than defence of
democracy? Is state planning to transform an undeveloped
economy more relevant than workers control? Is the control
of sexual relations in the interests of building socialism more
vital than the 'right to choose'? Such questions are to the
Gay Left 3
4 Gay Left
by Nigel Young
their job or in the region they work in to act upon them. The
union might be too weak, too oppressive or non-existent for
any of these questions to be relevant. Many lesbians and gay
men, in the home, the unemployed, young people and old
people have no rights as far as trade union organisations are
concerned; you only have rights in these terms as long as you
have labour which you sell and you can withdraw.
Conference debates
So when the Gay Rights at Work Conference was being
organised, I expected some of these difficult questions to be
raised and some attempts made to look at the central
problem of what the relationship between a gay movement
and a gay rights at work campaign and organisation should
be.
I went to that conference as a committed trade-unionist
and someone who has worked as a socialist/activist in the gay
movement for seven years, and as a militant trade unionist
for even longer. Therefore the question wasn't an academic
one for me; it is part of a very difficult problematic
because although I'm aware of the need and a believer in a
strong rank and file trade union movement, I'm also aware of
the importance of a strong women's and gay movements
which have quite rightly criticised the oppressive and sexist
structures of the trade union movement and the oppressive
and sexist nature of most work situations.
Unfortunately this central problematic was never
addressed. Actually that isn't quite true. It was addressed,
but with such a furious side swipe at the gay movement by
Difficult questions
Any gay rights at work campaign has to ask itself a whole set
of difficult questions: what are the different ways we
experience oppression in the work place? Where does that
oppression come from? Are there different categories of
oppression, for instance, between lesbians and gay men? Are
there class differences? Are there regional differences? In
response to these questions we are led to more general ones
like, what does this imply about the way we struggle? Is it
the same regardless of the situation?
At the same time as trying to answer these questions we
have to look at the structure and the nature of the work
place and the trade union movement. They cannot be
accepted as perfect as if in some magical way, during the
struggle for gay rights, lesbians and gay men will no longer
have to deal with sexist and oppressive work places and trade
unions. Nor if we go around as tireless gay activists supporting every trade union struggle will homophobia and sexism
be expunged from the labour movement. Without an overall
critique and a movement to support us we, as individuals,
can't hope to change people's sexist and homophobic
attitudes. Those attitudes are formed and supported by an
ideological system which goes far beyond the workplace and
far beyond what we can counter as individuals.
There are no easy answers to these questions or problems,
and it is certainly wrong to suggest that the answers lie solely
in work place and trade union struggles. For a start some
people might feel too isolated to ask any of these questions,
their needs may be best met through self-help groups. Others
may be aware of the questions but feel too unsupported in
Gay Left 5
Political positions
Earlier I stated that the line which dominated the Gay Rights
at Work Conference was no mere accident and of course
neither is this reply. These two political positions occur
within a political climate in which the spaces created by all
of us, the rights which have been hard won by various groups
since the advent of the welfare state, are under attack. What
we need to be clear about within this context, is that the
arguments here, reflected in the conference but obviously
going beyond them, are not about the need to defend those
space and rights. Nor are the arguments about the need to
create working relationships between different groups of
oppressed and exploited people. We, as gay socialists, are all
aware of that regardless of our disagreements. For instance,
as a teacher and a National Union of Teachers member, I am
no less aware than a miner or a woman in a factory, of
employers harassing and victimising workers; no less aware of
lousy wage negotiations which divide workforces or are
insufficient to live on; no less aware of infringements by
employers of agreed policies; no less aware that at all times,
but especially now, with cuts, rising unemployment and the
attack on all workers of the right to effective picketing and
striking that a strong union calling on all members to
organise against those attacks is essential.
But what I am arguing about is that however important an
understanding of and organised opposition to the above is, it
is not the source of all of our oppression. It has been this
latter message which has been at the forefront of the
struggles of all autonomous movements and those movements
have spoken in an urgent and creative way to the needs of
thousands of people who were and still aren't reached by
traditional left politics. The needs of people to understand
more about the ways society shapes our consciousness and at
the same time inhibits our ability to question, challenge,
organise and fight back, in every institution in society and in
all spheres of our life, is no less important now than it was in
the early seventies. The need to turn to other lesbians and
gay men when mechanistic, workerist politics either exhausts
us or doesn't appear relevant to our particular needs is no less
i mportant now either. The need to define for ourselves our
own areas of work and our different structures to deal with
that work is equally valid now. The need to assert that the
criticisms of the women's movement and the gay movement
about the sexism and heterosexism, which is oppressive, in
the workplace and the unions is needed more now than ever
before. Because if that oppressive power isn't eradicated
many struggles will be lost as people say, "why should I
bother? The people are cold, and oppressive, I don't understand the jargon, the struggle doesn't appear to connect to
my needs".
What I am arguing against is the politics reflected in the
motion passed at the Gay Rights at Work Conference which
elevates one type of crude workerist politics, within the context of the workplace, as the essential politics, indeed as the
only politics. What I am also arguing against, and which I
Gay Left 7
by Ros Coward
Introduction
That we need a "new perspective on socialist politics" has
almost become a commonplace on the left. That socialist
feminism might provide the solution, or at least the model,
for what this new perspective might be is no less common an
opinion. Witness the enthusiasm which greets the possibility
of a new alliance between libertarian leftists and socialist
feminists around the perspective suggested by Sheila Rowbotham in Beyond the Fragments.
But while many feminists themselves believe that socialist
feminism will be a necessary direction for any effective
socialist politics, the relish for this perspective from male
leftists seems to many like a strange state of affairs. It is
strange for two reasons. First of all, many feminists have
returned to mixed socialist groups and campaigns because of
the political climate, only to be confronted with the realisation that very little has changed in the years of our absence.
Not only do many left groups proceed in their old ways
often bureaucratic, always pleasureless but also we find
that the issues which have been so central to feminism,
questions of sexual relations and practices, contesting of
ideological forms are still not central to the projects of
many left groups. Not surprisingly women continue to find
these ways of working not only oppressive but offensive too.
In short, we are still angry.
Secondly, it is strange for socialist feminists to find themselves promoted to holding the potential solution by British
socialism at this moment. If we championed that confidently
before, it is quite clear that our own movement is now in
some kind of a crisis too. It's that sense of a crisis which I
want to consider because it can tell us what are the problems
confrontin g socialist feminism, what is distinctive about
socialist feminism and whether this distinctive path can at
this stage be compatible with left and libertarian groupings.
8 Gay Left
10 Gay Left
New Statesman
Conclusion
It would seem that the assumptions now current that the
ti me is ripe for a socialist feminist regeneration of the left
are perhaps problematic. For they seem to be based on a
playing down of those areas of enquiry which have given
feminism its specific colour, which have themselves arisen as
a response to social pressures. A regrouping of the left which
fails to take on board these areas of enquiry will only repeat
the mistakes of its predecessors.
Gay Left 11
Geoff Brighton:
Anatomy of a
Campaign
by Peter Bradley
On Friday December 7th 1979, as I was preparing to go out
for a bop, Geoff Brighton phoned and told me about his
medical examination the day before. When I put the phone
down, I had heard a clear, horrifying case of discrimination
against a gay person in education and one that needed fighting. As I write this (in May 1980) the campaign to defend
Geoff is to all intents over and won. I think it's worth examining this campaign, for I'm sure it will not be the last time
gays will need to organise to defend an individual.
Geoff Brighton is a final year student in agricultural
science at Leeds University, taking his finals in summer 1980.
Wishing to become a teacher, he applied to do a Postgraduate Certificate of Education, again at Leeds, starting in
autumn 1980. Leeds University Department of Education
accepted Geoff conditional upon his passing his finals and
the routine medical examination. On December 6th he was
examined by a Dr Ryan of Leeds University Student Health
(LUSH), who pronounced him medically fit to teach but sent
him for a routine blood test. Then Geoff was unexpectedly
asked to return to LUSH, where Dr Ryan said that he had in
the interim noticed on Geoff's medical record that Geoff was
a homosexual in 1978. When Geoff confirmed that he is still
homosexual, Dr Ryan said that this cast a different light
upon things and that Dr Ryan would not issue a medical
certificate until Geoff had been examined by a psychiatrist.
Geoff had long been openly gay, active in the University
Gaysoc and in the local gay community (he had casually
mentioned his gayness to a doctor at LUSH in 1978, which is
how it was on file) and argued at length with Dr Ryan. In the
end Dr Ryan delivered the ultimatum: no psychiatric examination no teaching career.
Isolated, Geoff gave in. However, going home, he talked it
over with Martin, with whom he lives, and decided to fight
(John Warburton went through a similar change of decision
the day his storm broke). Having decided to fight, Geoff
sought support from Leeds Law Centre, the NCCL, and
the London Gay Teachers' Group which is how I, as its
secretary, came in.
When such a blatant injustice occurs, there is a temptation
i mmediately to rush into campaigning; but I believe this
should be firmly resisted. Campaigns are important: won,
they build the strength of the gay community; even lost campaigns teach us things about our position in society that we
learn no other way. But a full-blown campaign lasting
months or years against an entrenched opposition can devastate the campaigners: 'too long a sacrifice can make a stone
of the heart'. The person around whom the campaign is being
fought particularly needs great strength to withstand the
pressure of meetings, demos, media coverage and the toll on
one's personal life.
So we didn't rush into a campaign. Instead Geoff went
back several times to reason with Dr Fraser (head of LUSH,
on whose orders Dr Ryan had been acting). If Dr Fraser had
reversed his decision then it would have been a mute,
inglorious end but it would have got Geoff on his chosen
course as an openly gay person, a not insignificant victory.
To rush into a campaign for battle-lust and without caring
for the needs of the individual for whom you claim to be
fighting is monstrously irresponsible.
Only when Dr Fraser confirmed as immutable his original
12 Gay Left
(ii) Students
I was dismayed that Geoff seriously doubted if he'd receive
the support of his own union. Yet with its Tory President
and a generally more conservative student mood, Leeds
Student Union did indeed threaten to leave Geoff isolated in
his own university. Fortunately, Dr Fraser came to the
rescue, saying in an interview with the Union President that
Geoff reminded the good doctor of ' homosexual tarts' he
had known in the forces and that he would 'probably' not
have referred Geoff to a psychiatrist if Geoff had been
heterosexual. From then on the Student Union played a
major part in the campaign on campus, publicising the story
indefatigably, organising meetings, pickets, lobbying, an
occupation, sometimes with more energy than gay political
awareness, but at least acting like a union should!
Outside the university, student unions throughout Leeds
area and over twenty unions in the UK passed the resolution.
NUS nationally? Sound and fury signifying nothing, and not
very much of that. With NUS on the verge of dropping its
gay liberation campaign, that is not surprising: it is nonetheless depressing that the next gay discriminated against can be
assured of a firm policy of no support from National NUS.
SEEKING SUPPORT
The union most work was done in was the NUT. The issue
was obviously relevant; most activist gay teachers are NUT
activists too, and, largely as a result of their work, the left in
the NUT (Rank & File, Socialist Teachers) has begun to take
up gay questions. Half a dozen Local Associations passed the
resolution. The National Executive, despite a vigorous lobby
at NUT Headquarters, washed their hands of it because Geoff
wasn't a member. Interestingly, the Leeds representative on
the NEC said he would have supported Geoff but no one had
asked him; what you learn in the course of a campaign! In
the London Committee, Dick North suggested asking local
NUT Associations to affiliate to the LCDGS, in return for a
newsletter, suggestions for action etc. Before this could be
put into effect, Geoff won his case. It's sobering to think
how much more would have been achieved had we done this
early on.
This was the area in which least was done, reflecting the fact
that the people most closely involved in the campaign are
not involved in conventional politics or are simply disillusioned with them. Knowing their record on the ground, Geoff
was slow to approach local MPs. Local Labour Parties in
Gay Left 13
(vi) Legal
This illustrates the proverb that where you leave no avenues
unexplored, one of them will turn out to be a cul-de-sac. We
wondered if Dr Fraser could be challenged legally: GLAD
and others quickly advised us that a doctor's clinical judgement cannot be. It was a relief not to have to add a lawsuit
to the other battles ...
APPLYING PRESSURE
(a) The Medical Profession
This section of the campaign began of course with Dr Fraser
and the not-so-luscious LUSH. We had formulated very clear
aims here, asking Fraser to drop the referral to the psychiatrist, and LUSH to adopt positive policies for dealing with
gay students. Despite enormous pressure, Fraser never conceded these demands and to this extent we failed. However
the extraordinary changes in attitudes to gayness in the
university have created a climate which will render virtually
i mpossible a repetition by Fraser of his treatment of Geoff,
and will I hope lead in time to changes even in LUSH.
Aside from LUSH, the main medical targets for campaigning were the General Medical Council and the British Medical
Association, both to be notified by every group passing the
resolution. Again, the short-term results were nugatory. The
GMC's position was that it could take no position. The BMA
upheld Fraser's clinical judgement. However, it also firmly
asserted that doctors should not hold anti-gay prejudices,
and this is a pointer to what may turn out to be the longterm results of the campaign. The medical and particularly
the psychiatric professions have long been used to oppress
gay people. This campaign, with openly gay doctors writing
to the BMA, and the CHE Discrimination Commission's
lobbying have deepened the debate on the role of medicine
and gays.
14 Gay Left
`GAY LIFE'`
DESIRE, DEMOGRAPHY AND DISAPPOINTMENT
by Mandy Merck
In February 1980, London Weekend Television debuted their much-anticipated current affairs series,
Life. It was to attract, in the words of one LWT executive, 'something no other British television teamGay
has
ever encountered a concerted boycott by a number of those who were supposed to be regular contributors to the programmes'. But ultimately many gay militants including members of the Gay Left
collective chose to lend the project a measure of critical support. In the aftermath, Mandy Merck considers the contradictions.
'Broadcaster should recognise that the whole audience is
made up of the sum of its parts.' -- John Birt, Controller of
Features and Current Affairs, London Weekend Television.
In early 1978, the Gays in Media group invited broadcasting
notables to a panel discussion at the Gay Times Festival in
London's Drill Hall. No one arrived from the BBC, and the
independent companies fielded a force of precisely two
Jeremy Isaacs, then Head of Programming at Thames, and
John Birt, Controller of Features and Current Affairs at
London Weekend 'men of liberal goodwill both', as Peter
Fiddick put it in his Guardian report.
The two execs faced a barrage of criticism about TV's
treatment of homosexuals, criticism which, to cite Fiddick
again, focused on two major concerns, the medium's antagonism to and neglect of homosexuals: 'the way homosexuals are portrayed on the box, (and) the attention that
television gives to the problems, interests, even let's face it,
the existence of the gays in our society.'
Neither programmer promised any improvements, but a
few weeks later Birt noted 'growing pressure from special
interest groups about the lack of attention they get from
television' when he announced a new Minorities Programmes
Unit within LWT's Current Affairs division. The programmes
were pegged for the Sunday lunchtime slot occupied by
Janet Street-Porter's much-praised series for teenagers, the
London Weekend Show, and were to include series on blacks,
teenagers, and gays. 'But I think,' Birt declared at the time,
`we shall be finding some other time for the gays' (11.3012.00 on Sunday night, as it turned out).
This fact was not noted when Gay Life praised the series'
anti-stereotypical attitudes in programme 8.)
Finally, in 1979, John Birt delivered an influential address
to the Edinburgh Television Festival propounding the doctrine of 'minority programming':
` Most television programmes made for the peak-time
viewer assume that there is a single and homogeneous
audience with a single cultural identity and with a single
set of values. In consequence, television fails to make
proper provision for the delicate interplay of tastes, ideologies and interests which constitute our variegated,
infinitely complex, rapidly changing and very interesting
society ... Broadcasters should recognise that the whole
audience is made up of the sum of its parts. They should
put aside the singular vision in favour of a pluralist one, in
which all significant voices are given a chance to be
heard ...'
(Left-wing exponents of this programming philosophy should.
take note of its efficiency in delivering target audiences to
the advertisers, and also the following caveat from Birt's own
lecture: )
Gay Left 15
will coexist with other programmes. Such new programmes, if they are convincing, will cause makers of
existing programmes to adapt, not only because their
appreciation will become more sophisticated, but also
because so will the appreciation of the audience, which
will cease to be amused by older fare. Crude stereotypes
and traditional views, if that is what they be, might thus
wither away.'
In pursuit of this pluralism, the London Minorities Unit
hung out its shingle, appointed 'out' LWT staffer Mike
Attwell producer of Gay Life and recruited three black and
two gay (but no lesbian) researchers. Such a laudable effort
to hire blacks and gays is virtually unknown in the media,
but LWT's career structure, in which researchers are the
`lowliest' (to quote Jane Hewland) of the professional
programme-makers, means that an important reportorial role
(it's not just research) is undertaken by young, inexperienced
journalists whose contacts with black and gay groups and
policies are often minimal. When I, as a lesbian journalist
with five years experience on Time Out and considerable
interest in the media's treatment of sexual politics,
approached LWT about working on the series, I was discouraged from applying as journalistically and politically
over-qualified!
Nonetheless, LWT's unusual efforts suggest that British
television is not the monolith it's often made out to be a
point made in slightly more plaintive tones by the Gay Life
staff, who really did sincerely attempt what? 'the most
exciting, rewarding and important television either of us has
ever made', 'the greatest service we could do gay people .. .
to begin dispelling the ignorance and prejudice against them
from the straight world' (Jane Hewland and Michael Attwell
in Gay News, April 3, '80).
In 1976, Thames Television (sophisticated, metropolitan
London's other independent company) pulled its seven-part
documentary Sex In Our Time out of its schedules, despite a
chorus of protest from its own employees, critics, gays and
feminists. Television documentaries have a generic licence to
be 'partial' which current affairs series like Gay Life lack (see
below), and Sex was only intermittently partial. Often, as in
its very selective choice of featured interviews (e.g. the
woman who'd apparently been rendered hysterically frigid
by supposed feminist injunctions to sleep around !!??) the
Thames series surveyed 'changing social mores' with the
chilly hauteur of Lady Bracknell considering the number of
engagements in Hertfordshire. (Co-compere Sarah Dickinson
to feminist therapist Elearnor Stephens: 'Do you all lie on
the floor and masturbate?')
Nonetheless, the very inclusion of matter such as feminists
viewing slides of female genitalia displeased the watchdogs of
the Independent Broadcasting Authority and the Thames
management. In the supposed interests of 'taste, decency and
public feeling' the shows were scrapped.
And as for the British Broadcasting Corporation, a body
which traditionally regards itself as the arbiter of the range of
debate appropriate to the general commonweal is hardly
likely to endorse Birt's proposals for the dissolution of its
audience into disparate, opposing, constituencies.
Differing corporate policies, differing conventions of
representation, differing practices of professional personnel,
create a space for intervention within television. It's a space
16 Gay Left
very Blow-Up style photo session: 'A little more to the left,
darling! (click) Swing your hair! (click) Yes! (click) Marvellous! (click) etc.' (A relatively expensive and elaborate
set-up to establish this young lesbian as feminine and to
make something happen on a talky programme.)
Meanwhile, 'experts', varying from barrister Sadie Roberts
(custody) to Susan Harris, writer of LWT's Soap (stereotyping) to Gay News staffer Alison Hennegan (several programmes) were shot in a quiet room, often near signs of
expertise like books, desks and typewriters. In the last programme Jeff Weeks was filmed against a window inside
LWT's Thames-side tower, his panorama of 11 years in gay
liberation majestically (but no doubt accidentally) reflected
in the lofty perspective behind him. Mary Whitehouse didn't
get quite so exalted a treatment on the gay teachers programme, but she certainly wasn't interviewed in a greasy
spoon. Her on-camera appearance in quiet surroundings
effectively legitimised her views far more than a simple
quotation of them might have done.
Broadcasters don't consciously inscribe such codings into
their programmes: factors like location are supposedly
chosen to inject 'colour' and 'authenticity' into the proceedings. Indeed the latter consideration is so important in
choosing interviewees if you don't get the major protagonists, you scrap the story that Gay Life changed their
lesbian custody programme into one about lesbian custody
and male gay adoption after they discovered that few lesbian
mothers would be filmed. When, at their March 10 meeting
with critical gay militants, someone suggested that they film
a friend of an embattled mother explaining why she couldn't
risk appearing (good telly, n'est-ce pas?) the team's look of
bewilderment was quite remarkable.
Nor is it likely that they deliberately included the series
sub-text of little dramas (the couple who lost custody pacing
the square outside their home; the young lesbian nervously
turning a lighter in her tatooed hand as the camera goes in
for a close-up). But in a genre based on filming the visible
event, it's not surprising that such moments creep in. This
penchant for the picturesque was further supported by the
Minorities Unit's effective definition of homosexuality as a
population rather than a practice. Non-whites and teenagers
may constitute numerical minorities in Britain; although, as
Gay Left 17
18 Gay Left
by David Fernbach
These gay transvestites are particularly prey to the everyday violence of macho society, and to the more specialized
violence of the police. Around 80 gay men are murdered per
year in Mexico City alone. Many transvestites get into prostitution (for 'straight' men, again) as the only way to make a
living. The police drag them off and rape them in their cars,
then demand a 500-peso (= 100) fine for soliciting, as the
alternative to fifteen days in jail. (The rape figure for women
in Mexico City is estimated at around 100,000 per year,
perhaps half the assaults being committed by policemen.)
Gay Left 19
FHAR, on the other hand, see LAMDA's politics as seeking to be 'right on' in formal terms, but lacking any mass line,
and possibly having a false conception of what being gay is
all about. LAMDA seem all too eager to denounce effeminate
men and butch women, and too anxious to promote a gay
image that is 'respectable' in straight terms. Like the early
GLF, the French FHAR and the Italian FUORI!, FHAR
very definitely do see gay-ness as subverting the categories of
gender, so that drag and make-up, properly used, can be
revolutionary weapons. They don't see the traditional gay
subculture as purely negative, or themselves as a vanguard
having all the 'correct' answers. They aim rather to develop
in an organic relationship with the gay population, and are
attempting to create a viable alternative subculture with their
own discos, dances and parties, also a bookshop and coffee
bar which they are in the process of setting up.
With both FHAR and LAMDA, though, the Mexican gay
movement is still decisively led by radicals, and, in conditions
where reformist integration would seem far more difficult, it
seems set to maintain its revolutionary course for a good
while. Both groups are very aware of the importance of international links. They took part in the Conference of Third
World Homosexuals and Lesbians in Washington, DC last
October, as part of the Latin American Homosexual Bloc
(BHOLA). But they found the context of the March on
Washington rather unhelpful, and hope to hold a specifically
gay-socialist international conference in Mexico some time in
1981. If this comes off, it should certainly be a stimulating
experience.
20 Gay Left
Nicaragua
What will happen to gays in Guatemala as the country lurches
towards revolution is impossible to predict. The example of
Nicaragua, however, is a favourable indication. Nicaraguan
gays exiled in the United States played a significant role in
mobilizing foreign support for the struggle against Somoza,
and their 'Gay People for Nicaragua' has been publicly
thanked by the new Nicaraguan consul in San Francisco.
Some of them are now returning to their country, hoping
both to join in the work of reconstruction and to advance
the position of Nicaraguan gays in the process. Thanks to the
international development of the gay movement, this time
gays have found themselves on the right side of the barricades, unlike the ambiguous position of the Cuban gay
community at the time of revolution there. Let us hope this
stands them in good stead in the storms that are still to come.
Guatemala
Cuba
The situation of gay people in Cuba continues to be extremely grim. True, it is not as bad as in the 1960s, when gay men
were simply rounded up and sent to punitive labour camps.
Yet under a regime structured almost completely along
Soviet lines, there is no possibility in the foreseeable future
for even a minimal emancipation. Anti-gay propaganda continues, one form now favoured being selective quotation
from the North American gay press, designed to confirm the
official view of homosexuality as a product of capitalist
decadence. Thus an article in the mass-circulation Cuban
magazine Opina ( November 1979) quotes small ads from the
New York After Dark, going on to claim that yanqui
monopoly capital is preparing to export homosexuality on
the world market, in the train of slavery, the arms race, chile
prostitution, etc.
The Mexican FHAR was hoping that its credentials as a
revolutionary gay movement in Latin America would make
some kind of dialogue with the Cuban authorities possible,
and sent a reply to this article. But how poor the prospects
for this really are has since been shown again by the Cuban
presentation of the recent mass refugee exodus. Castro himself set the tone by railing against the refugees as 'degenerates, drug addicts, criminals and homosexuals'. (By
definition, homosexuals are criminals and degenerates, so
why not throw in 'drug addict' as well?) It certainly seems
that both lesbians and gay men are making use of the
occasion to escape from the prison that Castro's Cuba
undoubtedly is for any homosexual. Once again, the Soviet
model of 'non-capitalist development' has shown that it
offers not the slightest space for gay people.
We tried both bars listed in Gay News the first was full
of stereotyped gay men; the second was also full of men, but
very heavy types. We went back to the first, Jeans Bar, and
met one woman: The men turned out to be very friendly and
more or less adopted us, but they had no awareness of
feminism, and we had no understanding of what it meant to
Early days
Gay Left 21
22 Gay Left
reason I always feel that there must be some hope left for
political/radical gay men. In Aberdeen there has never been a
similar group of radical men, although I've found one or two,
and I can work with other men on projects such as Gay
Switchboard. I think as time has passed I have become both
more critical of men and more tolerant of them critical
because I now have a group of women around me and I can
feel the difference between working with them and working
with men; tolerant because the things I believe to be important necessitate working with men and trying to educate
them.
Because of limitations in terms of time and energy, it
seems that lesbians have to choose between the Women's
Movement and the Gay Movement. Those who choose either
tend to choose the Women's Movement, but I haven't, and I
seem to have taken the women in Aberdeen with me. There
are problems in working with men, but I have a women's
support group in Aberdeen to help me cope with that; and I
think that while there are common features and common
causes to both women's oppression and gay oppression, there
is something different about lesbian oppression which my
heterosexual feminist sisters don't always understand.
Aberdeen has its own special problems. The Church still
seems to be quite influential; the city is fairly isolated in that
it is a long way North and all the decent roads in Scotland
end at Dundee this makes it quite parochial in its outlook
and slows down change. It is a small city, with two local
daily papers, which will pick up anything of note that a local
person might do, from winning a competition to appearing in
court. People do not, as a rule, move away from the city,
which means that those who were born and bred here are
always in danger of meeting old friends and neighbours. It is
also largely a working class city, and the oil boom has not
made it as prosperous as people may think it is certainly
not the Aberdonians who are benefiting from North Sea Oil,
unless a cost of living equivalent to that in London is considered a benefit! As I have become aware of all this, I have
changed my approach to politics. I have realised that it is no
good rushing in here full of Lancaster or London ideas and
expecting to be welcomed as a new messiah. Things happen
slowly here, and activists have to accept that. Aberdeen has
changed me, and I have been through personal changes since
I have lived here (my first relationship with a woman has
broken up after three years, with a lot of pain and guilt
involved; I have entered more than once on the shaky ground
of non-monogamy; I have also chosen to work amongst "the
working classes" and become a closet graduate) -- all these
things together have made me more understanding of a lot of
things. I believe that not only in Aberdeen, but everywhere,
Gay Left 23
Groping in the
dark
by Derek Cohen
can act them out when I want and not repress them, playing
them across the TV screen of my mind while I engage in
more socially acceptable sorts of gay sex.
Yet despite its flaws this book was far better than I
expected from a commercial, profit motivated publisher
though of course publishers make profits from producing
good books. It is mainly about sex which is what it aims to
do "An Intimate Guide for Gay Men to the Pleasures of a
Gay Lifestyle" is the subtitle but it places sex in the context of pleasure, pride and a wider gay politics.
Men Loving Men is arranged quite differently from The
Joy of Gay Sex, though it, too, is an attempt to correct the
omissions of Alex Comfort's original. It has a long historical
introduction, four long sections on 'Masturbation', 'Fellatio',
`Anal Intercourse' and 'Group Sex, S&M and Other Scenes',
followed by sections on 'Gay Health Problems' and 'Love
and Gay Consciousness'. The large amount of space dedicated
to each topic means that each is covered in considerable
depth, each section starting with more specific histories and
quotes from literature. But somehow the interrelatedness and
interchangeability of different sexual activities loses out in
this format, and the grouping of all non-conventional gay sex
into one section reinforces the idea that there is right-on and
not-right-on sex, even if the text doesn't say this. The
historical contexts came across to me rather as ways of
validating the present, while I believe that we have to validate ourselves in terms of our own current situation, not by
comparison with Greeks and Ancient Celts.
The section on 'Love and Gay Consciousness' provides a
wider political statement than appears in The Joy of Gay
Sex, but it delves rather deeply into the mystical for my
taste, seeming to rely upon a "secret gay love-source" and
ignoring the real divisions that society creates between gay
men.
Censored!
Getting hold of these books has been a difficult task. They
are both published in America. Mitchell Beazley, though
English publishers, took the advice of their solicitor who said
that they stood a risk of being prosecuted for obscenity if
they published The Joy of Gay Sex in the present moral
climate. We are in a situation where the "contamination"
theory of the cause of homosexuality is gaining ground, and
anything which is seen to promote, explain and demystify
homosexuality is likely to be given a hard time. A prosecution is possible, but the gay community could support its
challenge.
Even those mail order and bookshop services which have
tried to import the books have had copies confiscated by
H M Customs (who are not obliged to explain or defend their
actions). This has been particularly the case where that shop
is known to sell gay or other radical material. The Joy of
Lesbian Sex, a parallel volume, has not been seized, and the
arrival of ransacked packets with the gay men's books missing
and the lesbian ones remaining says more about the role of
lesbian sex as straight men's fantasy pornography than for
the custom men's support for lesbians. It is possible to appeal
26 Gay Left
cruise for half an hour and not meet anybody, or get turned
down by everybody you meet. That's rare though. People are
not so picky in parks. I've spent time with men whose glance
would have frozen the beer in my glass if I'd cruised them in
a bar."
Now the Body Politic article was written last year, and
most of the other articles I read and have quoted date from
the early days of gay liberation the 1970-74 period. This,
I think, is relevant. I'm not trying to claim that cruising was
once what the sociologists often said it was the resort of
lonely and desperate faggots in raincoats and is now the
pursuit of aware men who keep non-objectifying relationships uppermost in their minds even in a railway station
cottage. But I do believe that cruising, like everything else
about the gay world, has changed significantly in the last ten
years. In this article, I want to have a look at some of those
changes and at the reasons why much gay movement thinking about cruising isn't adequate to explain the realities of it.
I'm restricting my discussion to the kind of cruising that
occurs in public places such as parks and cottages, and not
that which occurs in pubs, discos and movement meetings. I
have two reasons for doing this. First, the motives and
actions of people are different in the two situations. If you
go out cruising in a park, then you go almost entirely for one
reason: to meet a sexual partner. It is possible and common
to have sex with him on the spot, and not to talk to him or
find out anything about him for him to be, in short,
nothing but a partner in a sexual act. In a pub or disco, it's
different. You're quite likely to want to talk with your
friends, drink and dance as well as cruise; and if you do meet
someone then you have to relate to him intellectually as well
as physically, even if it's only to decide whether you're going
to his place or yours. More importantly, the very act of going
to a pub or club implies being at least part of the way out of
the closet. Consequently, it's dangerous to make generalisations about gay men based on the behaviour of people in
these places. In a cottage, however, you'll find virtually every
type of gay man, from the most fearful and closeted to the
most public of activists men that is, who have nothing in
common apart from their sex and their sexuality.
Gay Left 27
sexuality, however, differs from straight men's in a fundamental way. It is socially repressed, and can be expressed
only under very limited conditions. For the very closeted
man, these conditions include complete anonymity and
secrecy at all times. Even very open gays are rarely able to
meet one another under normal circumstances: the romance
in the office or the darts team is usually not for us. In urban
areas with large and open gay populations, visibly gay men
can meet in such places as railway platforms, streets and
theatres. More often, however, we're restricted to the
commercial scene or parks and cottages.
Given these characteristics of gay men's sexuality, it's easy
to see how closely attuned to men's sexual needs cruising is,
and how it can be modified according to the degree to which
a man identifies himself as gay. The very closeted man,
usually married, can go to cottages for purely physical, wordless encounters that will not disturb the normal routine of his
life. Another type of closet gay, the one hung up about his
masculinity, can just "get his rocks off" without the selfidentification as homosexual that more emotional relationships would imply. And then there's the kind of macho oneupmanship that Perry Brass describes, often associated with
the pressure to prove one's desirability as a Hot Number by
getting laid as often as possible.
It's also apparent that cruising of this sort can easily lead
to objectification, power games, unwillingness to respond to
a partner's needs, and all the other less pleasant aspects of
casual sex. Ironically, since these are often the result of guilt
and furtiveness, they may also occur in sophisticated urban
gay society where everyone is well aware of the need to
project an "image". Where gay subcultures are absent or
undeveloped, gay men dress and act generally in accordance
with straight norms. The businessman and the labourer are
instantly recognisable as such, and even the raving queen is
partly acting out straight expectations of gay behaviour. But
This still does not mean, of course, that assumptions
in communities with large and visible gay subcultures this is
about gay male sexuality can be drawn from the actions of
not necessarily so. Many men dress to act out their fantasies,
those men who go cruising. But the fact that all types of gay
and to encourage others to do likewise hence the prolifermen do it, whereas lesbians don't, seems to be a useful
ation of hard hats, motorcycle gear, uniforms and so on.
starting point for a discussion. Indeed, most criticism of
When men dressed in this way meet, they may often have
cruising uses this very point as a basis for the argument that
exciting and satisfying sex as long as the encounter remains
with
all
male,
activity
but
is
specifically
it's not merely a gay
brief and impersonal. Once the partners get to know each
the destructive and oppressive hallmarks of male sexuality.
other better, even to the extent of going home together, the
The argument, briefly, is that gay men are men first and gay
illusion, and hence the excitement, is often destroyed. The
only second; and that their sexuality has common features
bedenimed hunk is revealed as an art director who collects
that transcend differences in politics and lifestyle. A gay
Dresden shepherdesses, and the cosmopolitan sophisticate as
male activist, for instance, shares many convictions with his
a British Rail clerk from Neasden. There is consequently a
lesbian counterpart; and yet his sexuality will have less in
very
strong incentive not to get to know partners too well.
common with hers than it does with that of a closeted and
The alternative, which is even less desirable but increasingly
politically conservative gay man, or with that of a heterocommon, is to create a whole new personality to go with
sexual man for that matter.
one's appearance. Instead of merely looking macho, some
It isn't necessary to get involved in the debate on the
gay men choose to act it as well, often in the crudest and
degree to which the differences between men's and women's
most stereotyped ways. Too often this means that by taking
sexuality are biologically inherent or socially conditioned.
their masculinity seriously they begin to play the same games
Whatever the truth, we can say there are general characterthat straight-identified gays have always done ("If you're a
istics that distinguish them. (Always bearing in mind that
good boy, I'll let you give me a blowjob"). Inevitably, this
direct comparisons are difficult because women are not
leads to further depersonalising and objectification of their
permitted to express their sexuality as freely as men are.)
sexual partners.
Men's sexuality is basically genitally oriented: when we say
Cruising, then, can often be what its critics claim it to be:
that we "need a fuck", then we mean that we want a genital
an expression of predatory or frustrated male sexuality.
orgasm. It's urgent and insistent we get erections in
Analysis of it only at this level is, however, dangerously
response to direct sexual stimulation, and the erection
incomplete. Although such an analysis shows what cruising
It
is
to
use
a
much-abused
word
now.
demands attention
has in common with other expressions of male sexuality, it
promiscuous. That is, it's directed not only at those whom
fails to explain what is specific and particular about it.
we know well emotionally and intellectually, but at anyone
Objectification, for example, is common to all types of male
who has whatever physical attributes sometimes only
sexuality. But objectification of one man by another is not
details like hair colour or dress that we find attractive.
the same as objectification of a woman by a man because
And, lastly, it's connected with aggression. Aggression is
power inequality is not inherent. Even when it exists, it may
most readily apparent in rape but is much commoner in more
be reversed: the most desirable of men can never be sure that
subtle ways: it can be expressed as hostility to our partners
he won't feel the desolation of being a rejected object, as
or as competition with other men to see who can be sexually
John Rechy eloquently attests in The Sexual Outlaw.
most successful.
Moreover, many of the assumptions made about
These characteristics are common to both gay and straight
objectification are misleadingly sweeping. It's generally taken
men, though perhaps the emphases are different (urban gay
for granted that because men cruising sum one another up
men often have more opportunity for sex with large numbers
largely on the basis of physical attractiveness, then the old,
of partners than straight men, for example). Gay men's
28 Gay Left
the ugly, and the socially awkward are liable always to lose
out. This simply isn't true; it may in fact be their only way
of making sexual contact. I'm thinking particularly of a
fiftyish man I used to know, who once explained to me that
Tuesday was his big night out. After going to a gay liberation
meeting early in the evening, he would pay a visit to his
favourite cottage. He never once met anyone in the gay
group who would go to be with him though he was wellknown and liked but rarely failed to make a pickup in the
toilets. As he put it (and who can blame him?): "I dearly
love all the guys in the group in a brotherly way, but somehow it just isn't enough to get a hug at the door from them
when things are over and I know that a lot of them will be
going home to bed together." Even for this man, who was far
more open about his sexuality than most of his generation,
and who mixed with people who were far more aware of
ageism than most, cruising was the only way of finding
sexual relationships. And until significant numbers of people
start to pay more than lip service to the problems of gay men
who aren't conventionally attractive, it's likely to remain so.
Equally importantly, conventional analyses of cruising are
inadequate precisely because they ignore the type of
response typified by the Body Politic article. During the last
ten years, thousands of gay men, including many who
consider themselves to be completely apolitical, have rejected
secrecy, furtiveness and role-playing. They're well aware that
the very act of going out specifically to look for sexual
partners is essentially sexist, and that in the liberated future
cruising will be a strange and unwanted anachronism. But to
accuse gay men who acknowledge this fact and yet still
cruise of hypocrisy is to be hopelessly liberal-minded. It's
strongly reminiscent of the argument that, because the
commercial gay scene is exploitative, it should be totally
rejected: theoretically true but, given the lack of alternatives,
not particularly helpful. I think the problem is that too many
theorists (and I'm not referring solely to gay liberationists
here) do not sufficiently realise that our needs and attitudes
are no less real for being conditioned into us. Perhaps, in
fact, our conditioned needs may be more real to us than
some of our "natural" ones, simply because we take the
latter for granted but are likely to feel that there's something
wrong with us if we don't feel the former. (Many men with
low sex drives, for example, are convinced that there must be
something wrong with their hormones.) This is particularly
true of sexual politics, where intellectual convictions are
often way ahead of emotions. We all know the contradictory
situations that can result: the gay activist men who are
appallingly ageist, or the feminists who are totally
masochistic in their personal relationships.
Most of the gay men I know who are aware of an
inconsistency between their anti-sexist beliefs and the
realities of their sex lives make the point that the attitudes
they bring to cruising make a difference that amounts to far
more than merely a reduction in guilt and furtiveness.
Openly gay men are often much more inclined than their
closeted brothers to see sex as play and recreation, as mutual
agreement with another person to share a good time. It's
often much easier to achieve this by wandering around a park
late at night than it is in ordinary situations where the
normal social rules of introducing yourself, making small
talk, and so on, apply. I think this "social" aspect of cruising
has been too little commented on, as most writers seem to
believe that the actual sex act is much the same for all men,
closeted or not.
Even an acute observer like Jack Babuscio (in his book,
We Speak for Ourselves) explains cruising as follows:
"Generally speaking, cottages are particularly well suited to
men whose immediate interest is focused upon genital contacts ... Of course, there are also gay men who, long after
they have rejected feelings of guilt and shame, will continue
to cottage, simply because they have learned, through conditioning and habit, to enjoy it. For such people, cottaging
has two important advantages: first, it can provide sexually
satisfying and emotionally non-involving encounters; second,
the risks involved, though potentially disastrous to one's
Gay Left 29
30 Gay Left
Eros Denied
EROS DENIED, OR THE REVOLUTION
BETRAYED
White Hero, Black Beast. Racism, Sexism, and the Mask of
Masculinity by Paul Hoch (Pluto Press 1979, 3.95)
Homosexuality and Liberation. Elements of a Gay Critique
by Mario Mieli (Gay Men's Press 1980, 3.95)
Army of Lovers by Rosa von Praunheim (Gay Men's Press
1980, 3.95)
Reviewed by Jeffrey Weeks
These books under review raise central questions about the
nature of sexual politics, particularly as all touch on the
relationship of sexuality to wider social forms. Their
appearance is therfore extremely welcome. Paul Hoch's book
is one of the very few which have directly confronted the
issue of the social construction of masculinity and its
political consequences, and will I hope stimulate a lively
debate. Even though I do not agree with much of its
theoretical underpinning, I found it lively and in many ways
enlightening. Coincidentally, its perspective is quite close to
Mieli's book, while many of the assumptions of both works
are also written into Rosa von Praunheim's collection of
interviews with American gay activists, and are apparent in
the book and in the film of the same title on which it is
based. The three books, I would suggest, have a common
project is a sort of resurrectionary politics, a surprising
revival of the often millenarian theories and utopian hopes of
the late 1960s and early 1970s. So rather than write a
straight forward review I want to offer a common critique,
taking up some of the themes rather than assessing each
book as a single unity.
Before doing this though I also want to say something
about the publishing politics these works represent. Those of
us involved in sexual politics have been indebted to Pluto for
some time for their publications in this area. Though their
list is rather eclectic, alone of the left publishers they have
sought to involve themselves in sexual politics, and they are
to be congratulated now on producing Hoch's book. The Gay
Men's Press represent a more specialist publishing inter- vention; it is also a major event in British gay politics. The
development of the gay movement depends on an extension
of debate and constant growth in our understanding of the
oppressive regulation of sexuality. This has always been
central to the project of Gay Left over the past five years
indeed the left elements in the gay movement have survived
only because small pockets of socialists throughout the
country have maintained an engagement with issues relating
to sexual oppression, often against the odds and in conditions of some isolation. If I criticise the current publications it is not because I do not welcome very warmly their
appearance. On the contrary, their publication has enabled
me to reconsider my own views and given me the opportunity to set out my political disagreements in I hope a
constructive way.
The three books have a common origin in a politics of
moral criticism which at times becomes a moralistic politics.
This may seem a strange thing to say about two books
(Hoch's and Mieli's) which are ostensibly materialist accounts
of gay oppression and masculinity respectively, and even
stranger about a collection of interviews. Indeed the moralismoralism is not overtly strong in Rosa von Praunheim's
book, though it comes over loud and heavy in the film. And
in the other two books the moral stance is clear but superficially at least subordinate to a theoretical perspective. But
I believe their real value comes from their moral critique of
existing relations rather than from any new theoretical
insights they offer. In fact their theory has a common root:
the radical attempts at a synthesis of Marx and Freud so
central to the 'liberation' movements of the late 60s and
Gay Left 31
32 Gay Left
3 Political Practice
This in turn has important implications for political practice.
A major theme of Mieli's book is the distinction he suggests
between the revolutionary gay, who refuses any accommodation with the existing society, and the reformist, who lies
back and thinks that all is for the best of all possible worlds
in our consumer paradise. We are sternly warned, however,
that 'Tolerance is repressive' and that 'the purpose of liberalisation, for the present system, is above all to prevent and
block any genuine liberation'. But the actual 'revolutionary
action proposed turns out in the end to be our old friend
epater le bourgeois: drag, street theatre, counter cultural
resistance and the schizophrenic trip; all no doubt important
for the individuals or groups involved, but leaving all the
power to define, to regulate, to oppress, unworried, untouched, supreme. In fact the real gains of the past ten years
have been achieved not by those who have simply done their
own thing, nor by those who retreated from the fray lamenting a revolution that failed. They have been won by those
despised so called 'reformists' who have battled on reshaping
our own self concepts, and bit by bit challenging the oppressive categorisations and practices which inhibit the play of
sexuality. Despised activities such as befriending, publishing,
cultural activities etc have actually begun to transform what
it means to be gay and sexual in our society. The interviews
in Army of Lovers amply illustrate the changes that have
taken place, in all their ambiguity.
This does not mean that all is well, that all that remains
to do is tidy up the edges. But it does mean that we must
move away from the all or nothing approach, the 'total
liberation of desire' or the 'sell out'. And that means moving
away from those comfortable categories which give us
comfort in the dark nights of the soul, but have little matching in the concrete world: the absolute split supposed, for
instance between 'reform' and 'revolution'. We must begin to
explore oppression and exploitation in their complexities,
and to develop strategies and tactics which are alert to the
mobility and elusiveness of power relations. We need to
understand gay oppression in its specific context, and be
aware of the inherent difficulties of a gay politics, as well as
the possibilities for radical transformation. Some of the
essays in the forthcoming book edited by the Gay Left
Collective, Homosexuality, Power and Politics, do this much
more subtly than Mieli precisely because they start from a
different theoretical and political base: no less committed to
changing the relations of sex, but aware that the choice is not
between total freedom or defeat, `transexual desire' or
commercial exploitation.
What I am trying to suggest is that a radical sexual politics
does not depend on an assumed automatic relationship
between one structure of oppression and another, nor on a
politics which believes there is a hidden nature that can be
beneficently released. It depends rather more mundanely on
continuing efforts to gain influence over those institutions
that have the power to define and regulate oppressively, and
on constant interventions to shift the locus of categorisation
in favour of our declared aims. That means recognising that
these institutions have their preconditions in wide social and
economic and political relations of power. It means constantly bringing home the moral critique that is at the heart
of the gay and women's movement. And above all it means
moving away from the politics of nostalgia, to seek a socialist
politics that is alive to people's aspirations and aware of the
possibilities for a renewed advance.
Gay Left 33
Economic competition
It is in the very nature of an economic crisis that the material
resources available to the oppressed is significantly decreased.
Throughout the history of capitalism this has been expressed
as cuts in the real value of wages and increased unemployment. In modern capitalism it involves considerably more
than that, because of the resources provided by the Welfare
State cuts in housing, social services, funding to help
organisations (including gay counselling bodies), increased
rents and rates, education cuts etc.
It follows inevitably that there is a tendency towards competition between sectors of the oppressed for a slice of the
considerably diminished cake. In the old days this competition was mainly around jobs and wage differentials. Today
there is far more to squabble over; which parts of public
expenditure should be cut the most, which geographical areas
34 Gay Left
need subsidising, rent increases, versus rate increases versus cuts etc.
Of course, this increased competition is a tendency. There
is no social law saying that it has to become the dominant
feature. It has, however, been very apparent over the last
year and I would suggest it is likely to become more apparent
over the coming years.
Hierarchy of power
One of the most important features of our society is that it is
not merely stratified in terms of class. This is too often forgotten by the left, particularly the parties of the left. There
are very definite hierarchies of relative power operating
within and between the oppressed. Some of these are constructed completely by the workings of Capital itself. For
example, the system of wage differentials, the formation of
an aristocracy of labour, the reserve pool of labour, the international division of labour by imperialism and its expression
in terms of immigrant and migrant labour within the
i mperialist heartlands.
There are other hierarchies which started their lives long
before capitalism. Most significant amongst these are those
associated with patriarchy. The power of men over women,
of adults over children, the divisions between intellectual and
manual labour, and the divisions between both of these and
domestic labour. Far from being atavistic hangovers from the
past, they are pre-capitalist foundations of capital and have
been developed and reconstructed by the development of
capitalism, institutionalised in the modern nuclear family,
legislation, and more recently in state education, health,
patterns of employment etc.
From these divisions are founded pernicious ideologies
and hence pernicious ideological practices which in turn
generate further hierarchies and divisions. The most significant of these are, of course, racism and sexism.
Gay Left 35
The material presence of the nuclear family, presents a readymade universe to replace the vacuum created by the crisis.
But perhaps the most significant point is that what we have
defined as two opposite responses to powerlessness have the
possibility of combining together into a new one situated
firmly on the right.
In identifying the source of powerlessness in the paternalistic state one may oppose it by affirming an extreme
individualism. This individualism, far from opposing the
hierarchical response, breaks the old opposition and fuses
with it, reinforcing the competitive tendency still more.
Thus, in summary, the present crisis brings forth three
rather than two kinds of responses, the radical, the familialhierarchical-competitive, and the individualist-hierarchicalcompetitive. This is what loads the dice in favour of reaction.
36 Gay Left
Fighting back
I have painted a bleak picture. But is there anything we can
do about it? I propose no strategy for the gay community
here. The purpose of this article is to define the problems
which any strategy must be designed to meet. However there
are certain things which any such strategy must include.
In the first place it is a paramount necessity for the gay
community to educate itself on the issues of child sexuality
and paedophilia and to initiate a debate in the sexual politics
movements, the left and ultimately the labour movement on
these questions in preparation for the PIE trial. Secondly it is
i mportant for the gay community to be on the offensive with
considerable outside support when that trial starts. If it is to
be isolated and passive it will simply run for cover. Thirdly it
is i mportant that a comprehensive legal and physical defence
apparatus is established within the gay community well
before the trial begins.
The Campaign Against Public Morals exists to win support
for the defendants in the trial and is very much concerned in
the first task. It is very important that more gay activists
involve themselves in the activities of this campaign.
Gay Left 37
Acting It Out
GAY COMMUNITY THEATRE
Emmanuel Cooper
No other area of gay culture has flourished quite so
dramatically as gay theatre, most of which is deeply rooted
in the gay community. It offers not only the collective
strength and support for the people (mostly men) working in
the theatre group, but also provides the opportunity for
sexual and political themes to be explored which relate
directly to the gay experience. In this article I want to look
at some recent productions in London, the ideas they put
forward and their contribution to our political consciousness.
That small scale, politically based fringe theatre should
flourish at all at the time of recession and cut-backs is a
further testament to the strength of the commitment. While
West End commercial theatres stand empty for lack of suitable shows and keen audiences, or managements turn to
small-scale cheap productions "Establishment Fringe"
the committed fringe continues to draw crowds: irony of
ironies Wyndhams Theatre is currently showing (May
1980) 'Accidental Death of an Anarchist', the 'Belt and
Braces' fringe production aimed originally at politicising
audiences anywhere except in London's West End. Whatever
its shortcomings as a play, it is a thousand times better than
most junk on offer.
Political fringe and commercial theatre whether on a large,
West End scale or on a low budget' have very little in
common. Unlike commercial productions, the actors, writers
and helpers in the fringe and community theatre thrive on
commitment rather than profit. Actors are rarely famous or
`stars', many have little or no professional training, but all
perform in parts in which they believe: it is the theatre of
life not of make-believe. In conventional theatre, fascists may
speak socialist lines, racists may declare their lack of prejudice, a homosexual may play a heterosexual (all too often),
but if such play-acting exists in the fringe it is done openly:
there is a very different relationship between actor and play.
To start with groups come together through a series of
shared beliefs even if these are not clearly stated. In Gay Left
No. 7, members of Gay Sweatshop described why they were
(or were not) members of the company. Though as
38 Gay Left
Gay Left 39
Making It Gay
Nocturnes for the King of Naples
by Edmund White
Andre Deutsch, 1980, 3.95
40 Gay Left
Across the text floats the unseen image of "you", endlessly regretted, alternately Tristan, Osiris, Sheherezade's Sultan
the absent King of Naples the embodiment of Desire.
Like the figure of Bernard in Virginia Woolf's The Waves, the
King dominates the life of the book. Yet at the end it is the
narrator, as the young Prince Ferdinand in The Tempest,
who will in fact be King of Naples, thanks to the not so
rough magic of the long departed Prospero figure, who is
seen to have controlled events all along. For art is not, after
all, above ethics. And perhaps that extreme aestheticism
which is such a mark of Edmund White's extraordinary book
has its own role, at least in the daemonology of contemporary American fiction.
Gay Left 41
2 Edmund White, The Political Vocabulary of Homosexuality, in The State of the Language, California, 1980.
3 Simon Watney, English Post Impressionism, Studio Vista/
Eastview, 1980.
4 Oscar Wilde, The Critic As Artist, London, 1891.
5 This is also reflected in the newly fashionable study of
Sociobiology, which purports to trace the "instinctive"
roots of such institutions as marriage, class, and so on. Not
surprisingly perhaps it has recently come up with the
obliging 'discovery' that homosexuality may not be
unnatural after all. There seems to me to be a significant
relation between this sociobiological picture of an instinctive homosexual human nature a souped up Eugenics
for the 1980's and the Gay Structuralist quest for a
"homosexual consciousness" with attendant 'discourses'.
42 Gay Left
Caged In
La Cage Aux Folles Edward Molinaro
Messidor Alain Tanner
Personal Politics
Dear Gay Left,
This letter has been provoked by 'Self and Self-Image'
( GL No 10) in particular, and the general development of
Gay Left over the past year. These comments are not a reply
to the collective statement as such but a response to the
trend away from 'politics' to moralistic individualism. The
article in question was the extreme of this development, a
development to the obsession of the individual to the
exclusion of any analysis of the out-side world or suggestions
of how we attempt to change society/our-selves.
44 Gay Left
What particularly irks me is that this seems to be happening at a time when it is most inappropriate. Here we are in
1980 with a Thatcher Government launching an attack on
the left, gays and the working class, and all GL can do is
ponder the contradiction of enjoying rough trade while being
an avid fan of Edward Carpenter's concept of comradely
love. I'm not saying that this sort of discussion is irrelevant
but I do feel that GL should have some form of priorities and
political perspective on what issues are vital at this point of
time.
The collective's statement's opening five paragraphs are
the only attempt to give any political reasoning for the need
for the article, when it moralistically tut-tuts at the organised
left
"adopting a narrow class line on Women's issues, for
example, restrictions on abortions are seen solely in terms
of their effects on working class women, and gay politics
are seen as no more than a matter of civil rights"
and righteously notes
"the first effects of Thatcherism have made themselves
felt, and the left has found itself disarmed in the face of
massive attacks ... There has been a tendency to turn
away from considerations of subjectivity of how we live
and experience our lives, and a reconstruction of traditional left campaigns that ignore whole realms of lived
experience".
When I read this I ask myself who it is that's avoiding 'whole
realms of lived experience' and who isn't. I would have
thought that the effects of Thatcher's Government was quite
effective in changing whole realms of lived experience.
To reduce the rise of Thatcherism and re-emergence of
the family ideology et al as only notable for making the left
less open to take up gay issues is to negate the responsibilities
of a socialist gay magazine. The need to appraise, analyse and
take part in a discussion on how we as gays are going to react
to the present political climate is ignored. With whom and in
what forms are we to fight back, GL, it seems, neither knows
nor cares. In other words a political analysis of what it will
mean for us and how we can best counter a right-wing backlash is totally lacking. I would have thought an appraisal of
the rise of the family as an ideological weapon in the manner
of Bob Cant's article in the latest issue of Outcome would be
more appropriate.
GL is after all supposed to be a socialist magazine where
the problems of linking the struggle for socialism and the
fight for gay liberation are discussed. Most importantly I feel
that GL have failed to understand that we are no longer living
in a period of expanding liberal tolerance; the out-side world
is becoming a lot colder and hostile both for us as socialists
and as gays. The left has responded to this by a defensive
stance as GL notes and by a debate among itself and with
other European groups (the 'Debate of the Decade' is the
most obvious of this, but also the latest issue of International
Socialism carried a debate between the SWP with Spanish
and French revolutionary groups). But this is not because the
left has "been disarmed", whatever that is supposed to mean,
but because they as a movement and as a part of the working
class are under attack. In this debate of how to fight back I
feel that gays give valuable and important insights and
critiques of Thatcher ideology. Instead I fear that GL will
Political Pertinence
Dear Gay Left,
I should like to take issue with you regarding what I see as a
shift in the political emphasis of GAY LEFT, particularly in
numbers eight and nine. In No 8 you said that "it would be
too easy to forget, to fall back into an increasingly strident
Left orthodoxy .which would make Women and Gays mere
auxiliary troops in some romanticised attack on state power,
or to try and escape into the dream world of individual
solutions. The dialectic has to be maintained, between the
personal and the political, between new ways of relating to
each other now and the building of organisations that could
effectively challenge and change the whole oppressive order.
The beginnings of socialism can't wait till after the
revolution; they have to happen now i i our own immediate
personal and political practice."
You found it necessary to repeat this patrician statement
in No 9 with the addition that "the Left has found itself disarmed in the face of massive attacks on the gains won by
working people over the last thirty years. There has been a
tendency to turn away from considerations of subjectivity,
of how we live and experience our lives, and a reconstitution
of traditional Left campaigns that ignore whole realms of
lived experience."
Gay Left 45
46 Gay Left
CHE
CHE invited contributions from individuals and
groups on the future of CHE. Gay Left Collective
submitted this report.
1. CHE in the eighties needs to alter both its form and its
perspectives to be an effective organisation, whatever aims it
sets itself, to answer the needs of the gay community,
whether social, legal reform and custody for example, in
employment and so on.
2. We feel the present Commission has to deal with the
innate contradiction within CHE. Namely, on the one hand
between a small group of people who understand and are
prepared to campaign for the broader politics involved in any
notion of homosexual equality in our society (equality with
whom and on what basis is another issue) and, on the other a
large percentage of members who need the support of an
organisation like CHE as a social lifeline, but resist or feel
unable to campaign. The importance of that social lifeline
should not be underestimated, as without it most members
of CHE would have very few social situations where they
could meet other gay people.
3. It can only be by asserting the best of the traditions of an
autonomous gay movement that CHE (or any other gay
organisation) will be able to tackle the demands placed upon
it in the eighties. Unfortunately, it is precisely in this area
(the best traditions of autonomy, i.e. flexibility, spontaneity,
urgency, anger, creativity and activity) that CHE has failed in
the past.
4. The organisation appears top heavy with bureaucratic
procedures and a constitution which in itself adds nothing to
local initiatives. Indeed, local activity amongst CHE groups
miraculously takes place despite an Executive which seems
unable to carry through any campaigns effectively or with
flair. Those campaigns and initiatives have nearly always
occurred outside the framework of CHE. It is a fact that
most activists, men and women, are not members of CHE
and in trying to represent everybody and everything, CHE's
resources are overstretched and eventually ineffective.
5. Because of the inherent contradictions which confront
CHE as presently organised, we feel it would be better if
CHE concentrated on what it has done best to date: provide
a framework in which local groups can continue to meet.
These groups should decide for themselves what campaigning
they wish to undertake and what kind of central organisation,
office and resources they need.
6. The question of what campaigns and what organisation
would best be suited to advancing and defending the limited
gains of the 70s requires a different organisation and structure to anything CHE could offer.
7. We feel that a federation of all campaigning and self-help
groups, one of which would be CHE, would produce a more
flexible and dynamic structure than exists within CHE.
Groups would be able to affiliate to the main body. Conferences to share experiences, give support and advance campaigns should be called at least twice a year. Criteria for
joining the new organisation could be worked out at a
founding conference.
8. Gay Left broadly agrees with the closing comments of
Jeffrey Weeks' "Come All You Gay Women, Come All You
Gay Men" Gay Left No 4. We believe that a national convention should be called to establish an organisation to
replace CHE as a real national federation of groups and
individuals. The new federation should be explicitly antisexist. It could invite the affiliation of women's groups and
of anti-sexist groups on the socialist left (who believe in
autonomous movements). But its prime function would be
to provide a focus for unity in thought and defence in a gay
movement based on creative diversity.
BACK ISSUES
Gay Left No 3
Women in Gay Left, Gays and Class, IS Gay Group, Gay
Workers' Movement and usual reviews etc.
Gay Left No 5
Why Marxism, Images of Homosexuality in Film, Lesbian
Invisibility, Gays and Fascism, Gay Theatre Past and Present,
Politics & Ideology, Gay History, Future of the Gay Movement.
Gay Left No 6
( Gays) In the Balance, The State Repression and Sexuality,
Looking At Pornography, Working Class Lesbians, Gays at
Work, Motherhood, Fighting Fascism.
Gay Left No 7
Paedophilia Examined, Gay Art, Greece, Northern Ireland,
Camp, Tom Robinson, Gay Sweatshop, Nighthawks,
Chemical Castration, Reviews.
Gay Left No 8
Personal Politics, In Defence of Disco, Childhood Sexuality
and Paedophilia, and Living With Indecency.
Gay Left No 9
Self & Self Image, New Zealand, Gay Activism in California,
Hocquenghem, Lesbians in Literature, Masters & Johnson,
Fighting Fascism, Gays in Ireland, Reviews of Faggots,
Dancer from the Dance, Outrageous, Word is Out, Bent.
1.00 each
1.50 or $3 (Sterling, US or
Canadian cheques only)
Gay Left 47
EDITORIAL
NOTE
Contents
Democracy, Socialism & Sexual Politics ...............................
Workplace politics: Gay politics .....................
Socialism, Feminism and Socialist Feminism. .....................
Geoff Brighton: Anatomy of a Campaign ............................
`Gay Life' ..........................................................
Gay Liberation in Central America ................
Dykes in the Granite City ................................
Groping in the Dark ..........................................
Against Public Morals .......................................
The Hunt, Hunter and Hunted ........................
35 into the 80's ..................................................
Eros Denied (or the revolution betrayed) ............................
Facing the Crisis ...............................................
Acting It Out .....................................................
Making It Gay ..................................................
Who Is Eddie Linden? .....................................
Caged In ............................................................
Letters ...............................................................
Heavy ...................................................................
CHE ....................................................................
2
5
8
12
15
19
21
24
26
27
30
31
34
38
40
42
43
44
46
47
THE COLLECTIVE
This issue was put together by Keith Birch, Derek
Cohen, Emmanuel Cooper, Philip Derbyshire, Simon
Watney, Jeffrey Weeks, Tom Woodhouse,
Nigel Young.
GAY LEFT 38 CHALCOT ROAD LONDON NW1
Gay Left Collective 1980
What's Left
New Attacks on Gay Rights in Greece
In December 1979 the Greek police seized the gay magazine
`AMPHI' because of a poem and drawing concerning the
oppression of gays. The prosecutor has sent the case to
court and the trial will be held on 14th July 1980. AKOE,
the Gay Liberation movement of Greece, is asking the international support and solidarity. The film 'Nighthawks' has
also been prohibited from being shown in Greece. It is
described as "a propaganda piece for the spread of homosexuality."
AKOE, c/o AMPHI, 6a Zalloggou St, Athens 142.
48 Gay Left