For Colored Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Still Not Enough: Coming of Age, Coming Out, and Coming Home
Edited by Keith Boykin
Magnus Books, 334 pp.
Despite the social and political progress made by gay men in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, some things--like bullying, bigotry, suicide (attempted and successful), and self-loathing--are constant reminders that there is a need for further change.
For Colored Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Still Not Enough addresses these and other thorny issues through essays and poetry by more than 40 contributors, who represent a diverse cross-section of gay men of color, both ethnically and occupationally.
With the exception of Keith Boykin, the collection's editor, James Earl Hardy, and two or three others, most of the contributors are not yet household names. But that in no way diminishes the power or importance of their words and life experiences, which are presented as tragic or funny or defiant or scary or inspirational.
"[W]e must tell our own stories," declares Boykin, in the introduction, "in a way that represents us as full human beings." These 40 plus stories attempt to achieve that goal by peeling back the years to reveal the physical and psychic pain meted out to them by peers, family members, pastors, teachers, and others. The pain expressed in these essays is so palpable, so intense I sometimes wondered how they were able to overcome their experiences without losing their minds.
Boykin groups the essays and poems into ten categories such as "Growing Pains," "Faith Under Fire," "Love Is a Battlefield," and "In Sickness and Health," thus giving the reader a broad range of experience.
One essay that particularly stood out for me is Phill Branch's serio-comic "Chicago," which had me on the edge of my chair, as he recalls the time when he was a naive college kid newly arrived in Los Angeles to become "the next Spike Lee." Being "bored, unhappy, and horny," he answers a personal ad in a magazine placed by a black man who says he hails from Chicago and is into "ff" (fisting), "ws" (water sports), and "k" (kink). When Branch arrives at the man's house in a L.A. suburb, he soon regrets answering the ad. "I'd imagined that being gay would come with some obstacles, but I'd never imagined being trapped in a townhouse, in Norwalk, by a man with a plate in his head would be one of them."
Another essay that moved me is Keith Boykin's eloquent, almost cinematic "When I Dare to Be Powerful," a retelling of the "historic but controversial all-male event" called the Million Man March, which took place in Washington, D.C. in 1995. Boykin and his cohorts in a moment of courage and determination, "[f]ists punching against the air" while chanting a pro-gay slogan, cut a path through the masses of straight black men with surprisingly "no homophobia, no insults, no violence, or conflict."
The one drawback of For Colored Boys is the absence of any essays from gay men who came of age in the 1940s, '50s, and '60s. This would have given the anthology an historical context with which to compare and contrast gay men of today and in the past.
Otherwise, For Colored Boys is a worthy addition to one's library if for no other reason than the fact that it bears witness to the persecution of gay men and lets readers know that there are others who not only have shared their pain but have found a way to survive and thrive.
This article was originally published online by the Lambda Literary Review (October 6, 2012).
Showing posts with label Gay Nonfiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gay Nonfiction. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
The Cult of Masculinity Unmasked
Life Outside: The Signorile Report on Gay Men: Sex, Drugs, Muscles, and the Passages of Life
By Michelangelo Signorile
HarperCollins, 312 pp.
In a 1991 issue of the now defunct gay-oriented New York-based weekly NYQ magazine, writer Avram Finkelstein advocated for gay separation as a way to escape "the din and indoctrination of a missionary, heterosexist world." According to him, "Queer willingness to confront diversity makes us the hope for future humankind."
This rosy, utopian view of the gay male world is refuted in Michelangelo Signorile's latest book Life Outside, the culmination of two years of interviewing hundreds of gay men "of varying ages, races, classes, geographic locales, occupations, religions, and political affiliations" about what he calls the "cult of masculinity."
Signorile points out in the introduction that his study is not meant to "encompass all of urban gay life." The world he describes in the first half of the book and that goes by nicknames like "the scene" and "the hot boy party life" represents "one predominantly white, middle-class and often upper-middle-class segment of urban gay life" whose inhabitants, despite that demographic, have "a significant cultural influence on much of the gay population throughout its various racial, social, and sexual subcultures."
Divided into two sections--"Life Inside" and "Life Outside"--the book offers us a disturbing and more honest portrait of a community populated by many men enslaved to the notion of masculine beauty and its attainment. Life Outside also introduces us to gay men who have found alternative ways of living their lives, far from the gyms and circuit party venues where the repressive doctrine of the "body thing" rules.
If gay people ever decided to follow Finkelstein's advice and "separate from straights," this new society would no doubt resemble the urban gay ghettos of today, a place where a premium is placed on those who conform to "an idealized version of physical manhood--muscles, mustaches, and tight jeans" and where "white, upper-middle-class (gay) men" are the primary movers and shakers. And despite the fact that this image is "an idealized, fragile, ephemeral form of beauty that few men can attain and none can retain," many gay men through steroid use and extensive (and expensive) plastic surgery opt for the type of body that will make them and keep them desirable in the highly competitive fast lane of the gay world.
At the root of this need to be desirable, this need to conform is low self-esteem. "I think I use my body a lot as a way of feeling good about myself," says 32-year-old Alex, a New York consultant. "I go out, I think, sometimes to feel desired and wanted and that makes me feel superior, and then it offsets my feeling bad."
The cult of masculinity isn't anything new, except in name only. It has persisted for decades. In the 1930s and 1940s, for example, Beat Generation novelist/poet Harold Norse has written in his memoir that gay men like himself "cherished and idealized" masculinity. Those who didn't pass muster--"youth, virility, and athletic good looks"--were classified as "hideolas," a word Norse coined to describe anyone he and his friends thought were hideous.
In the 1990s that attitude survives, however, it has intensified and become commodified via the mass media (e.g. Calvin Klein underwear ads). This "highly commercialized gay sexual culture," writes Signorile, a columnist for the upscale gay magazine Out (itself a part of the commodification of masculinity), "sells a particular physical aesthetic to us and demands that men conform to it."
In an attempt to undermine the cult of masculinity which threatens to further marginalize and stigmatize gay men already suffering from heterosexist repression and persecution, Signorile found men living in small towns and in rural and suburban communities whose "simple and traditional" lifestyles mirrored their heterosexual counterparts and whose goals were to "meet someone, fall in love, and settle down." These are the men Signorile holds up as examples for the gay community to emulate.
This "deurbanization of homosexuality," as Signorile terms it, to some extent is "influenced by the overall greater acceptance of homosexuality in America." However, he points out, "the greatest influence on the deurbanization of homosexuality is the many gay men of younger generations," who prefer remaining in "the places they grew up in and want very much to live close to their families but out of the closet."
Although the first half of Life Outside (dealing with the sex, drugs, and hedonism of the fast lane) is the most riveting part of the book, Signorile's efforts have produced a work of journalism that is highly informative, cautionary, and encouraging. With its "Six Ways to Deprogram from the Cult" as a parting message, Life Outside is an important blueprint for any gay man who wants to "find another way" to live his life.
This article was submitted to the Oakland, California-based, African-American-oriented magazine Whazzup! It was not published. What appears here is a slightly edited version of the original article which was written in November of 1997.
By Michelangelo Signorile
HarperCollins, 312 pp.
In a 1991 issue of the now defunct gay-oriented New York-based weekly NYQ magazine, writer Avram Finkelstein advocated for gay separation as a way to escape "the din and indoctrination of a missionary, heterosexist world." According to him, "Queer willingness to confront diversity makes us the hope for future humankind."
This rosy, utopian view of the gay male world is refuted in Michelangelo Signorile's latest book Life Outside, the culmination of two years of interviewing hundreds of gay men "of varying ages, races, classes, geographic locales, occupations, religions, and political affiliations" about what he calls the "cult of masculinity."
Signorile points out in the introduction that his study is not meant to "encompass all of urban gay life." The world he describes in the first half of the book and that goes by nicknames like "the scene" and "the hot boy party life" represents "one predominantly white, middle-class and often upper-middle-class segment of urban gay life" whose inhabitants, despite that demographic, have "a significant cultural influence on much of the gay population throughout its various racial, social, and sexual subcultures."
Divided into two sections--"Life Inside" and "Life Outside"--the book offers us a disturbing and more honest portrait of a community populated by many men enslaved to the notion of masculine beauty and its attainment. Life Outside also introduces us to gay men who have found alternative ways of living their lives, far from the gyms and circuit party venues where the repressive doctrine of the "body thing" rules.
If gay people ever decided to follow Finkelstein's advice and "separate from straights," this new society would no doubt resemble the urban gay ghettos of today, a place where a premium is placed on those who conform to "an idealized version of physical manhood--muscles, mustaches, and tight jeans" and where "white, upper-middle-class (gay) men" are the primary movers and shakers. And despite the fact that this image is "an idealized, fragile, ephemeral form of beauty that few men can attain and none can retain," many gay men through steroid use and extensive (and expensive) plastic surgery opt for the type of body that will make them and keep them desirable in the highly competitive fast lane of the gay world.
At the root of this need to be desirable, this need to conform is low self-esteem. "I think I use my body a lot as a way of feeling good about myself," says 32-year-old Alex, a New York consultant. "I go out, I think, sometimes to feel desired and wanted and that makes me feel superior, and then it offsets my feeling bad."
The cult of masculinity isn't anything new, except in name only. It has persisted for decades. In the 1930s and 1940s, for example, Beat Generation novelist/poet Harold Norse has written in his memoir that gay men like himself "cherished and idealized" masculinity. Those who didn't pass muster--"youth, virility, and athletic good looks"--were classified as "hideolas," a word Norse coined to describe anyone he and his friends thought were hideous.
In the 1990s that attitude survives, however, it has intensified and become commodified via the mass media (e.g. Calvin Klein underwear ads). This "highly commercialized gay sexual culture," writes Signorile, a columnist for the upscale gay magazine Out (itself a part of the commodification of masculinity), "sells a particular physical aesthetic to us and demands that men conform to it."
In an attempt to undermine the cult of masculinity which threatens to further marginalize and stigmatize gay men already suffering from heterosexist repression and persecution, Signorile found men living in small towns and in rural and suburban communities whose "simple and traditional" lifestyles mirrored their heterosexual counterparts and whose goals were to "meet someone, fall in love, and settle down." These are the men Signorile holds up as examples for the gay community to emulate.
This "deurbanization of homosexuality," as Signorile terms it, to some extent is "influenced by the overall greater acceptance of homosexuality in America." However, he points out, "the greatest influence on the deurbanization of homosexuality is the many gay men of younger generations," who prefer remaining in "the places they grew up in and want very much to live close to their families but out of the closet."
Although the first half of Life Outside (dealing with the sex, drugs, and hedonism of the fast lane) is the most riveting part of the book, Signorile's efforts have produced a work of journalism that is highly informative, cautionary, and encouraging. With its "Six Ways to Deprogram from the Cult" as a parting message, Life Outside is an important blueprint for any gay man who wants to "find another way" to live his life.
This article was submitted to the Oakland, California-based, African-American-oriented magazine Whazzup! It was not published. What appears here is a slightly edited version of the original article which was written in November of 1997.
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