Stonewall is just a creation myth

Martha's Quest for the Gold Lamé Fleece

 [NB: I use "gay" as the catchall because I really hate the word queer. Sew me]

The more I've looked at gay history the more that I've come to the conclusion that Stonewall the event was really pretty irrelevant. That goes counter to the popular narrative that it was an inflection point in gay history and that we really need to know about the exact history of the drag queens and transsexuals that spearheaded it, and who threw the first brick is super-duper important. It isn't. Stonewall was one of many uprisings that happened in the 60's across the country like Compton's Cafeteria in San Francisco and the Black Cat protests in LA. And let's not forget that whatever happened at Stonewall had very little relevance outside of America in the western world at the time. A short NY Times blurb about a riot in New York did not ignite an international movement in London, Paris, Amsterdam or Berlin. Yet.

A net.acquaintance by the name of Jack Carroll wrote a  fascinating diary of gay life in New York City  in the 60's through the 90's. He was actually in the West Village during one of the nights (first?) of the Stonewall riots but didn't witness it firsthand (he had a dinner reservation). It didn't even make much buzz at the time. He lived on the Upper West Side which had its own gay scene far removed from the Village. It's easy to forget in the age of the internet that information traveled really slowly even in a metropolis like NYC and a smallish community like gay people.

Stonewall itself as described by Jack was a complete shithole run by the mob with disgusting toilets, watered down booze and generally awful ambiance. It seemed to have a good jukebox which was something of the currency of the realm in those days. It wasn't some haven of drag queens, transsexuals, people of color and was instead mostly white bridge and tunnel gay men from like New Jersey and Long Island slumming and locals looking to score on them. Ironically Stonewall didn't even need to exist because of the Sip-In at Julius's lawsuit made it legal for gay people to gather and carouse. The lawsuit was brought by the Mattachine Society and was pivotal for NYC gay life. The thing that Jack points out is that gay life was getting much better under Mayor Lindsey so there wasn't some sort of then-and-now inflection point. It was just a progression of things getting better for gay people incrementally. But nobody really knows what happened at Stonewall those nights because it was... a riot and chaotic and over several days. Nobody's iPhone was slipped out to record it.

But it wasn't just in NYC and Stonewall. Change was happening in many cities with large gay populations like LA, San Francisco, Chicago and more. More important is that we were starting to organize behind the scenes. Harry Hay lived in Los Angeles and was part of the Mattachine. The Mattachine itself was very much a Good Cop organization in that if they asked nicely they thought they could get their rights. There was almost certainly internal division on the good cop bad cop tension and Stonewall may have been a symbol that some amount of bad cop was good too. Harry Hay went on to be one of the founders of the Radical Faeries so he was clearly open to evolving away from the Good Cop strategy eventually. A lot of these organizations had a shelf life anyway and the Mattachine's was due to expire.

The Mattachine Society had an annual protest in Philadelphia called the Annual Reminder where they all silently in their Sunday best marched up and down protesting the lack of gay rights. It was conformist to a fault with all kinds of rules of what gays and lesbians were allowed to wear and how to behave. They predictably didn't achieve much. But one thing happened after Stonewall that did change things pretty much forever: the Annual Reminder was transmogrified into a march commemorating the Stonewall riots in late June the next year. The march started as a smallish number of people marching down from Sheridan Square in the West Village but gathered steam as people joined in along the way to Central Park. Similar marches happened simultaneously in LA, San Francisco and Chicago of various sizes and coordination. Stonewall would have been a historical footnote too were it not for the Pride that followed.

Pride parades are what actually changed everything in several ways. The first and foremost was giving the middle finger to erasure. Coming out has always been by far our most potent weapon. When people are given a concrete that their son or their loved uncle or their granddaughter is gay, it's much, much more difficult to reject than from the abstract. Yes, of course that rejection happened in droves and drove generations of gay people to gay friendly neighborhoods, but it also put a fine point on it: I will not hide for your sake. It's not surprising that other cities and countries picked up on this. Pride was a potent expression of that openness to show that we are people too. The second is that Pride is extremely important for gay people for our own reasons. I like to say that Pride is actually for young gay people to show them how very much they are not alone. That their alienation has an exit. That a better life is possible. Maybe not easy, but yes the Emerald City exists. The third is that it gives frothers something to froth about. We seriously don't give a fuck about how hard you clutch your pearls. We're just having fun and you're scandalized. By what? Anything you'd see at any beach? Let them froth: it's keeps us in the news and makes them look silly.

But Pride parades were really part of a larger phenomenon of coming out in general. Pride just memorializes why we need to. They are the beautiful amalgam of us being out and having fun to celebrate that we aren't just freaks, but living and breathing beings that deserve to be happy just like anybody else does. Part of happiness is having sex with our loved ones -- just like everybody else. Fuck your heterosexual norms being forced on us -- especially the part about having to be heterosexual. We can figure things out for ourselves, thankyouverymuch including wanting those same heterosexual norms if we choose. Or not. And neither is wrong. But the openness of the 70's is what really changed and made the gay rights movement look much more like what we know today. By the time I came around in 1978 gay culture and the way we live and find each other was already fully formed. Pride was an annual -- and very visible -- marker of that progress. But was it Stonewall itself that affected our general openness and coming out? Color me dubious. I am very certain that it didn't color anything at all for me and I really don't recall when I first even heard about it. I doubt it colored many other young gay people either.

But back to Stonewall itself. It's just a totem. A MacGuffin used to move the plot along. And just like Hitchcock's famous use of his Maltese Falcon MacGuffin it doesn't actually matter what the dreams were made of, or that our actual MacGuffin is largely ethereal. And that's OK. We need our creation myths even if they are vague and probably inaccurate as passed down over the ages and glorify their actual importance. The scholarly accounts trying to tease out the angels on a pinhead are charmingly funny if not rather pointless (or self-serving as is supposed to be the case with Martin Duberman's account). Let's have Martha P Washington and her quest for the Gold Lamé Fleece as part of our lore. Let's have the gay Trojan Horse filled with condoms and gay glam twinks storming the West Village overrunning the NYPD. Let's have José Sarria's The Widow Norton calling on her inherited empire's gay militia to muster and put on their feather boa'd tricorns and repulsing the homophobe army. Let's have the Daughters of Bilitis as a lesbian Spartan Army of Lovers. We're fabulous and we are allowed to make up our own myths and fudged history and we shouldn't care about whether it's literally true. The proof is in the pudding: Stonewall itself didn't change much itself, but it gave an entire movement something to hang its hat on: a shared myth. Something that the rest of the world embraced as a convenient myth too. Pride and the general "not taking it" feeling that was in the air gave us the courage to come out and change our world in unimaginable ways that even in the 10 short years later when I came onto the scene, that things were very different. Myths serve purposes. The stuff of dreams, indeed. Symbolism matters but we should also keep in mind what our actual history is too and not get too worked up over the literal truth that we'll never really know.

RWRB: What the movie gets right and wrong

The pivotal scene that Henry accepts Alex's love

 

There is a perpetual debate about books vs movies. People who read the book first invariable are incensed that the movie doesn't have every last bit of the book in it which they never do and never can. This is especially true of the adaptation of Red White and Royal Blue as the director Matthew Lopez apparently had to fight to make the film as long as it is, let alone how long it actually needed to be. Ideally it would have been a series, but I think even 15 more minutes and certainly 30 minutes would have helped.

That said, book-first people usually miss that the movie gets some things right and are actually much better than the book. This can be for a variety of reasons, but the visual media has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Just to be clear I saw the movie first before reading the book for which I'm glad because it makes me more objective (if I do say so myself).

The Movie vs the Book 

The book and the movie are different. It's fair to criticize things that the movie got wrong, but it's unfair to criticize the cuts that needed to be made that is the studio's fault.

Movie Gets Right

1. Nicholas Galitzine is beautiful. That is all. Taylor's eyelashes slay
2. Matthew Lopez's use of Stephen Fry and Thomas Flynn as the homophobic King and Crown Prince is hilarious since they're both out in real life. I can only imagine the convo he and Stephen had about him taking the part. They were probably laughing their asses off
3. The use of The Blue Danube in the cake scene is inspired
   
4. The cake scene in the movie is really hard to beat. I mean, it begs to be seen not described. The cut to the White House with Bad Reputation is brilliant in my mind
5. Zarah is everything you wanted in Zarah and more 
6. For such a smallish part, Aneesh Sheth does a really good job as Amy. That she is trans in real life like Amy is very fucking cool
7. I kinda like that Henry drives rather than arrives in polo gear. The car plays on his father's being a Bond
8. Henry's cheeky use of sweetheart in handshake scene is a nice bit of foreshadowing (not that anybody doesn't know where this is heading)
9. The foreshadowing of being wrong in the interview scene to the love making scene is nice and really ties Alex's journey to the most intimate part of the movie
10. Sental 33 -- the company that makes it must be thanking their lucky stars. I don't think this is in the book
11. The line of Henry saying the palace insisting on parading him around I don't think was in the book, but really helps Alex start to understand Henry
12. The text flirting is just brilliant with its use of visuals and Henry being there virtually
13. Even though I wish it were longer, the scene of the two of them in Alex's bed talking turkey is a great use of the visual medium and shows that Alex is really warming to Henry even though he's clueless about the true nature of it
14. I believe the movie was the one where Henry called Alex a bellend which is really hilarious given Alex's contact name for Henry
15. At the NYE party Henry is very visually jealous which is pretty impossible to convey in the book since it's from Alex's POV 
16. The visual in the Get Low scene is great and is a good metaphor for Alex really seeing Henry and the tension between them (and boy does it get tenser in a few moments)
    
17. The dialog of the first kiss scene is better in my opinion. And of course the visuals trump the descriptions from the book. Alex's expression of amazement and shock is perfect. It really conveys that he just had a major life altering event
18. The movie captures Alex's doe eyes for Henry at the state dinner -- use again of visual
19. The movie played up Henry's boner perfectly in a hilarious way
20. I like how the movie has quotes from the book scattered around in different places. The gay as a maypole line was originally with Henry hissing at Phillip in the Queen scene
21. Moving the polo match back to England makes much more sense. It's the middle of winter and Connecticut is frozen solid by then. Update: ah, they meant Windsor Ct so we're back to it making no sense.
    
22. I love the visuals of Henry bouncing around on his horse because we know he's going to be bouncing around on something else soon enough
23. The "was a mouthful" scene was perfect with their continued flirtation
24. I've said on more than one occasion that the Paris making love scene was one of the best depictions of gay love making I've ever seen, but now I think it is the best depiction. It is so beautiful and romantic and captures perfectly as Alex enters Henry which I'm not sure I've ever seen before. Most gay sex scenes are outright awful -- you can't just shove it in -- but that they taught Nick how to play his facial expressions is perfect. It's also obvious that Alex is falling hard for Henry
    
25. The condoms and lube being visible is again great
    
26. Henry kissing Alex on his arm several times is a nice touch. It's not just about sex, it's about intimacy too
27. The morning after the DNC scene is way better than the book in my opinion. Again, they take advantage of the visuals and Zarah's meltdown is precious. Zarah reading Henry the riot act is better in the movie
    
28. Considering that Nick is a really good singer in real life, it must have been unbearable butchering Don't Stop Me Now
29. Alex's expression of being completely in love with Henry at the Texas karaoke conveys in an instant which took pages and pages in the book. You can see that he can't contain his love for Henry anymore
30. I agree with Matthew's decision to cut the prince and his amour scene. It's a beautiful one-off but it really doesn't make sense the way he was trying to incorporate the email source. In the book, Henry's just trying to tell Alex who he is and why he is the way he is. In the movie Alex is asking permission to love him. Henry's story was easily taken as "yes" by Alex even though it was ambiguous -- probably to Henry too. If Alex interpreted it that way -- which is clear he did given the next day -- he would have told him that night which would have caused the flow to not work. I can't imagine Alex after hearing his story wouldn't have been overwhelmed in emotion and would be unable to contain himself: "Henry, I am so in love with you."
    
31. The platform in the lake scene is both beautiful and heartbreaking. The visual metaphor for Henry drowning because of his closet is spot on. The overhead filming of them on the platform was really good too. The movie is much more succinct though it does leave you wondering what happened after before Henry leaves. In the book it was at night and he was gone in the morning, so it doesn't make much sense that he waited till the next morning in the movie?
    
32. The V&A scene is beautiful and amazing as it's the real V&A museum. The book is more drawn out about Henry's accepting Alex's love but this works for the movie. Although the book is more realistic in that Henry is the one that puts on Your Song, the movie is more poetic that Alex gives Henry his daft pubescent fantasy. The natural lighting pretty accidentally worked perfectly in this scene too
33. Alex giving Henry his key is better. In the book he puts it on his key chain but that would have clanged around. But Alex wearing the signet ring would have been hella sus though since Alex clearly doesn't start with H. Who is this H, hmm?
34. Alex's speech is better in the movie, in my opinion. It's both more compact, but gets to the matter at hand that Alex is in love with Henry and why in fuck is it a scandal just because Henry is a he?
    
35. The scene with the lead up to Alex and Henry finally being able to talk again after the email was made public was pretty much the same. It was on the plane in the book and in the White House in the movie, but the net effect was the same. However, the tenderness of Alex and Henry meeting on the stairs comforting each other was visually perfect
36. I prefer the movie not bringing in Catherine who we've never even met. It's really Henry's place to stick up for himself. I like that this snapped Catherine out of her funk in the book, but it's really not necessary. We never do find out if Catherine made good on her threat to the queen, so that's a little unsatisfying. But beyond throwing Henry in the Tower of London, what exactly could they do to prevent him telling the truth anyway? He has plenty of money from his dad, after all. The king does rollover too easily though
    

Tossup 

1. Nora and June being compressed into Nora. June really never moves the plot forward, but Nora does -- on several occasions in the book so she's the obvious choice
2. I think that Alex in the movie comes across as more of a douchy frat boy than in the book
3. The cut hookup scenes are fine -- we get the picture that they are horny and falling in love 
4. The hospital scene is obviously really condensed. A lot of people were butthurt that the Star Wars refs were omitted but I don't really miss them. If they were willing to put in the Han and Leia mural from the book it would have been worth it, but beyond that no big deal  
5. The great turkey calamity would have been nice to be, er, fleshed out more. I really miss the "buy the turkey a vacation home in Mallorca" gag
6. The Texas strategy memo part of the movie I'm a little meh about. The way it played out in the book is a lot different than in the movie. I get that it's a device to introduce their email back and forth, but it was a little hokey
7. Pez is a great character and he's sort of a straight version of Alex in that he knows how to talk to Henry. It's really too bad we don't see more of Auntie Pez
8. I don't think it really is explained in the book, but there is no way that people wouldn't know who Henry was especially at an event like NYE
9. The Nora confession scene pretty much is the book, just trimmed down. Both work
10. Both the book and the movie fail on whether Henry does indeed dick Alex down which is a bummer. It's hard to imagine that Alex wouldn't want to find out what it's all about since it clearly blows Henry's mind too
11. Once it's obvious they've fallen in love it's too bad that we don't see how fiercely protective Alex is of Henry (which I clock as around Paris for Alex). We get it in glimpses after the email hack, but it started much earlier than that
    
12. Ellen is much more chill in the movie about Henry being his boyfriend when he comes out, while she's much more "I'm president" in the book. Both work. But props for the shout out to safe sex and PrEP in the movie
13. The storming the castle scene is good in both. We miss where Henry hisses that he's been in love with Alex the whole time and "nothing gets by you, does it Alex", but we do see the raw emotion on Taylor and Nick's faces which is powerful
14. When the news broke about their email it was told from Henry's POV which is different than the book which is always (?) from Alex's POV. It's a weird difference because this is a classic October Surprise with American politics so you'd think that would be more pertinent 
    

Movie Gets Wrong

1. The height comparison thing is tedious. Taylor is clearly taller than Nick though in the book Alex was 3-4 inches shorter which I like. Alex is Henry's little snuggle toy and Alex melts in Henry's arms
   
2. Uma Thurmond's Texas drawl is a bit much. And Alex has neither a Texas drawl or a Mexican accent -- just sort of a standard American accent which I'm sure is not what you'd get when you combine the two of his parents' accents
   
3. Ok, we get it -- it's an international incident -- but no government is going change its course on policy based on a cake going overboard
4. The real life reporters on cakegate are so cringe. Stop pimping yourselves out, girls
5. Ok, Miguel is by far the biggest miss in the movie. I get that the whole Raf subplot had no chance of making it into the movie, but a reporter at a two bit magazine is not going to be able to hack Alex's account. They should have just reworked the republican campaign being the perps but slimmed it down to fit the time given
6. Soliloquy is such the wrong word 
7. The chick at the party is basically sexually assaulting Alex. I want to throttle her
   
8. I really don't like that Henry was so completely buttoned up in the bedroom scene in the movie. Alex was not passive in the book and I find it hard to imagine him being so considering how obsessed with Henry he is and now sexually. This wasn't just a bro gives another bro a blowjob, it was Alex's awakening that he is fully into Henry
9. Ok, it's a nit but Henry has a car so it's implausible that he doesn't "own" a key for it
10. I know this is totally unfair but the movie doesn't capture their love letters which are integral to the plot. The Texas campaign with Alex is to give them some vehicle to show them but given email's long format the movie is doomed to not be as good
11. The cut from the DNC back to the White House was really confusing at first. The movie suffers from this in several places including the cut from the polo match to Paris -- how did we get to Paris?
12. They need the scene with Alex watching with glee Henry eating with his fingers. I know not enough time budget, but it was a cute scene in the book and one of Alex's pranks on Henry
    
13. The scene with Alex and Oscar at the lake was better in the book. In the movie Alex basically comes out to his dad, where in the book Oscar figures it out and teases Alex. But the movie doesn't have the setup with talking about Raf so it might have been awkward without it
14. David clearly doesn't like Nick very much or at least isn't excited to see him
15. Again, Miguel Ramos is so cringe in the interview. This is just not good
16. Alex holding a press conference without straightening things out with Henry and the palace is out of order. It would be really disrespectful of Alex to do that without Henry's permission. This just seems like a goof to me
17. The Sheep May Safely Graze has been a godawful earworm for months now after Alex flies in to London. Groan
18. The cut to election night from the palace is way too abrupt. The entire last few chapters in the book are anticlimactic too, but the movie is worse. There really does need to be something to set up election night
19. Where the hell did they get those bikes? In the book it was Liam and his boyfriend's. Small, sure but did they get out the bolt cutters to steal them? "Hey Amy, I need some bolt cutters!"
    

Cut from the Book and Notable Changes

1. June is combined into Nora
2. Cash is combined into Amy
   
3. Oscar is not divorced and is not a senator from California
   
4. The Raf arc gets morphed into the Miguel arc
5. The White House Trio is not a thing 
6. Liam is gone
   
7. Alex's inner life of his goals is pretty much gone
8. The entire line of Henry's pic in a tabloid that Alex has been obsessing over for nearly a decade
9. Rio Olympics became Melbourne Climate Conference 
   
10. "I'd rather be waterboarded" -- Henry meeting Alex
    
11. The Cornettos scene was cut (though filmed)
12. Alex's arc of denial of his bisexuality and Henry in particular
13. The entire Star Wars arc is gone
    
14. "Can you get rid of him" at the Olympics vs "I need to get out of here"
    
15. The dialog about Henry's prank on Alex about the turkey needing a vacation home
16. The Xmas scene was cut along with June finding out that Alex has a friend (soon to be with hella benefits)
17. A small difference is that it was June who invited Henry to NYE. It shows that the two obviously have a back channel and are plotting in their own ways and that they adore each other
18. In the book Alex and Henry are both naked in bed and both get off rather than just Alex and neither are naked for their first sexual escapade
    
19. The polo match was in Connecticut vs England in the movie giving the ability for it to be a day trip for Alex
20. Henry and Alex fuck for the first time in Paris in the movie; there is no equivalent to "he is" about Alex's name in the book either
    
21. The NYC birthday scene is cut
    
22. Pez is mostly cut out
23. Alex gets a hickey in Berlin
24. The family names conversation is over the phone in the book along with Bea's backstory cut
25. The road trip with Auntie Peza is cut
    
26. The LA scene is completely cut -- karaoke is moved to the lake scene
27. Wimbledon scene is completely cut
28. Alex can cook! (at the lake)
    
29. The lake abandoned scene is at night vs in the day on the platform
30. The storm the castle scene deleted the makeup/breakup sex and the next morning how Henry finally decided to fight for them
31. All of chapter 11's email is deleted
32. The entire prequel of being caught in the elevator is deleted
33. Alex and Bea's dialog of loving Henry for all of him when the news breaks is cut
34. Catherine doesn't exist in the movie, the queen is a king
    
35. Chapter 14 doesn't exist except for Alex's speech
    
36. The courtship photos were cut
37. Alex's Big Plan getting tossed in favor of taking it slower is cut
     

The Book

I'm not comparing it to the movie, per se and I'm not saying that it should necessarily be in the movie. This is much less comprehensive than the movie section so I'm mostly picking out things that I thought were either wrong in the book, or a lot better in the book that probably wasn't in the movie.

Book Gets Right

1. The backstory of Alex's obsession with Henry and the centerfold pic of him almost 10 years ago is helpful in knowing that Alex has it bad for Henry. It's sort of the counterpoint of Henry loving Alex all along from when they first met
2. I'm totally on Team Alex with respect to Star Wars. Ewoks are a big fat NOPE
3. I like the Xmas Eve dinner call with Henry. It reinforces that Alex can talk to Henry and that Henry understands him in a way that nobody else does. Alex is finally opening himself up to somebody other than Nora and June. They are both very closed off but in very different ways. The book also has Zarah in a red turtleneck which is echoed in the movie when Alex confronts her about his binder
4. For NYE is June conspiring with Henry? We know later that they have their own side channel but after she finds out that Alex likes Henry (as, a "friend", lol), is she trying to egg that on?
5. I love after Henry kisses him that Alex is ridiculously jealous of Henry kissing somebody else. D00d, you have it bad
6. In the scene at Kensington after Wimbledon when Alex fucks Henry again, the description sounds suspiciously like Alex gave Henry a prostate orgasm. Well done, Alex!
7. I love how Zarah at the DNC probably got a look at some royal D
8. In the Hamilton series of email, Alex muses that Hamilton could be bi. I like that it is brought up, but I'm ultimately skeptical as I think that the manifestation of what was masculine and acceptable was pretty different back then. Lincoln gets brought up in the gay/bi context quite a lot too but barring more concrete evidence I don't think we'll ever know
9. I like the touch of how Oscar segues from Raf to Henry at the lake after telling Alex that he and Raf have a lot in common. Like, oh say, liking dick too?
10. "The face you made when you read the last one". Lol 
11. "Seria una mentira porque no seria el" "it would be a lie because it wouldn't be him"
    

Book Gets Wrong

1. Tech stuff really needed somebody to review it before publishing. It's really grating at times. You'd never say "write a code", for example. The email is dangerous trope is really just flat out wrong 
2. The book spends entirely too much time describing the same features of Henry over and over. Yes we get it, Alex thinks he's hot
3. The first time that Alex fucks Henry in LA they're both still pretty drunk. The Porter at Hell's Gate might like to have words about "nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes"
4. The scene with Waspy Hunter fighting with Alex about Texas is super cringe. It's so typical and basically Stockholm Syndrome that people from red states -- Casey is from Texas -- like to trot out to try to justify their state's shitty politics. No, it is not Democrats' fault for not paying attention to them, it's their people's fault for putting fear and resentment ahead of their economic interest. People don't just vote for their wallet's sake. Bigotry and tribalism are a thing too
5. Casey forgot about the War of 1812, so it would be the third English-American war 
6. Nora should be smart enough to know an NP problem when she sees one (ie, the calculate out the future comment)
7. I'm pretty sure that Alex's use of filibuster is either wrong, or archaic
8. It's not so much wrong, but how can both Ellen and Oscar be in congress together when they were still married? Was one of them a carpetbagger in another district?
9. All of the allusions to fighting and punching is a little much. Yes, we know you're from Texas and you stand your ground by blasting first, asking question later but seriously stop it
   
10. Small nit: in SoCal you'd never say "the 101". It's either the Ventura Fwy or the Hollywood Fwy
11. Are there white chalk cliffs in Wales? They're from the Appalachian Orogeny so it wouldn't be sea floor like Dover
12. In the book, the revelation that it was the Richard's campaign that outed Alex and Henry never really gets resolved. Given the lengths they went to to drive that sub plot, it's unsatisfying that the only thing you can tell is that Ellen won. You kind of want to know if it hurt him
13. One nit: if they are going to prosecute Richards and his campaign, I'm pretty sure that the fruit of a poisoned tree doctrine would apply to the stash of email that Raf nabbed
    
14. I don't think there is poison oak in the UK
    
15. I wish the bonus chapter would make clear whether Catherine deposed Mary or not. Apparently Catherine has a guest room at their place in Brooklyn, but that would be probably a logistical nightmare for security. Or would it be Phillip that takes Mary's place?  
16. In general once Alex and Henry are open, I'd really like to see Alex parading his boyfriend around a bit in the book like to Raf and Liam and even Ellen for that matter. Or when Alex gives the speech on election night dragging Henry back out onto stage to introduce to the crowd. Alex is immensely proud of Henry and not because he bagged a prince, but because of Henry the person that he wants people to know how he sees him, not Henry's stiff royal veneer
    

 

 

 

 

 

Husband Material: grrrr

At least the pic is cute

 

 [Boyfriend Material and Husband Material are written by Alexis Hall]

So i just binged through the Boyfriend Material and then Husband Material books. Boyfriend Material was OK though rather plodding. Oliver in it has almost no character development and frankly his character is boring which was the overall premise for why he was a safe choice for Luc, but we get nothing more. His main attribute is seemingly being able to deal with Luc's neuroses and that's about it. Who is this guy? Yes, he's neurotic too but not in a lovable way. Does he have any passions and things he likes to do outside of work? It's all so robotic and while that's the actuality of a lot of life it's not a good formula for a book character. At least with Red White and Royal Blue Henry's facade is defensive and he's revealed to have a rich inner life when he lets it down. With Oliver? Not much there other that his weird neuroses. Luc seems to love him only because Oliver loves him back -- not a good formula for a relationship.

 

So now to Husband Material. I had heard it was a bad sequel and it didn't disappoint. I've read that the author's name is a pen name which is fine, but the reason he gives is that his writing is not compatible with his day job. Hmm. There may be perfect legit reasons to separate the two, but it could be from a closety point of view too. Given the rest of the book and the hints of internalized homophobia in Boyfriend Material I'm leaning on the more uncharitable take.

 

So anyway, here we find out that not only is Oliver boring, he treads dangerously close to the Unlike the Other Gurls style of internalized homophobia*. It's OK not to care about Drag Race or rainbow flags, etc, etc, but when you feel oppressed by it that's a red flag. They go on and on about a fucking balloon rainbow arch at their wedding. I mean, wtf? Your bf wants it and it freaks you out? Another red flag. That's the hill you'll die on? The proper response is to roll your eyes and let your boyfriend make it his wedding too. Having rainbow whatever at your wedding doesn't define you, after all. After the wedding you can go back to not giving a shit about all of the gay trappings.

 

The entire premise is pretty lame of Luc offhanded musing that they should get married was an actual marriage proposal. I mean, who does that? It's certainly not uncommon for couples to discuss marriage ahead of time before one of them proposes. In fact, I think lack of discussion is pretty much a red flag in and of itself. Marriage does bring responsibilities along with its yummy rights and shouldn't be entered lightly. If nothing else, you'd want to figure out what it means for finances. It's just not believable that an offhand remark should be binding. So the entire premise is flawed.

 

There is also Oliver's switch from vegetarian to vegan now and apparently it's messing with his physique. Previously he went on about Uber and its unsustainability. I certainly agree that Uber is a piece of shit company but that doesn't seem to the entire point. There may be other neuroses that I'm forgetting, but it seems to me that what the author is really doing is making a point: Virtue Signaling bad. Virtual Signaling harmful. The entire bit with rainbowphobia may well be in the same vein: that Luc is virtue signaling his gayness or something weird like that. His internalized homophobia might rationalize his internalize homophobia  into a stand against virtue signaling. I won't say with certainty that's what's going on, but given the rest is sure seems like it is possible.

The book itself is basically a bunch of weddings. There really doesn't seem to be much point to them other than setting up the strawman argument that marriage requires heteronormativity. I couldn't even finish the Alex wedding chapter because it was just so awful in both is glacial pace, and its silly premises. Brig's wedding seems to be about the  Best Day of Her Life  and setting up other heteronormative strawmen. But going to his ex's wedding who shit on him to the tabloids? Why on earth would anybody do that? In my humble opinion weddings are perfect for finding a reason to get out of them, and that is such a trivial Nope. But that's just me, I suppose. But it still remains absurd, and I really don't get what the entire message is supposed to be. That Luc is an abuse bottom? The only part that had any redeeming value was the part where Oliver gave his speech at his father's funeral.  So we're going for Three Weddings and Funeral, but we really aren't because it wasn't romantic and it wasn't funny.

 

The final part is so messed up and contradictory that it makes me want to strangle Oliver. First of all as a barrister if he doesn't understand the vast legal infrastructure that marriage provides he should be disbarred. He has a homophobic mother who would absolutely disinherit Luc were something to happen to Oliver. They both seem to buy into the bs that marriage changes everything and the Special Day and that marriage is special and that marriage is showing love. What twaddle. My husband and I had been together for 14 years before we got legally married and 15 years later You know what's changed? The legal stuff and that's it. It was a great party with friends and not much more. Then the complete idiocy of calling it off because Oliver didn't want to be thought of as wanting white picket fences. Well then fucking don't have them and who cares if people think you do? He doesn't want to be heteronormative when that's literally how he's been the entire time? What the actual fuck? I mean, not wanting to kiss until you like/love somebody is as heteronormative as it gets (and even then most actual heterosexuals find that sort of normativity to be no barrier to, er,  entry). Is this the author saying that gay marriage: bad because it might make you look gay? Or straight? Or something else? We're left to speculate because it's never resolved. I kept getting more and more worried as the number of pages dwindled with absolutely no resolution in sight. And then, nothing. We're left wondering what the fuck just happened. 

Luc's part of not wanting to get married at least makes a little more sense in that it seems to relate to commitment issues. The last little bit about they shouldn't work but do is a commitment issue. But then there is the weird take that the limerence period isn't permanent in a relationship about their date night.Yet that is true regardless if you have a marriage license or not. The only way to feel that way again is to find somebody new. And it's not like you can't have nice romantic date nights just because you're married. But the whole thing is rather silly as they should have had conversations about all of this, so maybe a valid reason to not get married is that they are too immature. Regardless, this is deeply unsatisfying in that we really have to guess why he really doesn't want to get married.

 

This is just infuriating to me who has done my part in the journey for marriage equality including being the face of gay marriage for a time on NBC. Lots of people in the day had a lot of issues with gay marriage and its implications about patriarchy. Fine. But then AIDS happened and showed that those legal protections were really fucking important and that the heteronormativity was optional all along. Nobody is forcing you to get married any more than they are forcing you to like rainbow balloon arches. This is clearly written by somebody who has no fucking clue what marriage is actually about for gay people, or chooses to ignore that vital part. All I have to say is if the supposed premise of the next book is about getting kids and they don't consider the legal implications the answer is: no, don't. That's especially true with homophobic relatives who could make life a living hell. 

If you want to have a conversation about the merits and demerits of marriage, fine. But pulling the rug out at the last possible moment with basically zero discussion? That's one giant NOPE. The only thing that makes any sense to me about the whole thing is that the author has some real issues that he very likely doesn't realize he has. That he's hoping for affirmation for his internalized homophobia which is definitely a thing with disaffected gays, especially men in my experience. But straight acting Oliver not wanting to get gay married? Quelle surprise. Bletch.

 

1/10

 

[*] Unlike the Other Gurls is a manifestation of internalized homophobia where the person tries to claim that they are not like the flamboyant gays and why do they have to be that way? Never mind that actual flamboyant gays are a minority. Typically the reason is that they are afraid that their gay fabulosity will reflect poorly on them somehow. This can range from disgust at drag queens all the way to the most insignificant indicator like a rainbow bracelet or some other thing that might tip another person off that they are either gay or gay friendly.

Why I think Red White and Royal Blue succeded

One of the most realistic gay sex scenes I've seen

Romcoms are pretty much a dime a dozen and mostly just like a quick fix of sugar and gone in 5 minutes. The premise of RWRB is pretty silly in many ways -- a Prince of England and the First Son of the US--  like that's terribly likely. Throw in gay and it's getting even more tenuous on the reality front. But romcoms are supposed to be silly, so it's just hewing to the the genre. RWRB is more than that though.

First off there is Henry, the closeted prince. The intersection of celebrity and the closet has got to be a terrible place to live. Given the internet -- and its forever nature -- I think things are probably even worse than the bad old days. I like to use the analogy of Hollywood. In the old days you could be a gay celeb and the studios would run deflection for you. Hollywood was and is homophobic, but stars make them money and money > homophobia. So back then you could be more or less discreet and live a pretty gay life. Everybody around town knew so and so was gay, but the studios controlled the narrative and could take channel locks to the balls of the press if need be. With the internet -- "you're on your own, son". 

I think a lot of gay people really relate to Henry's predicament even if they haven't been in the closet forever or were never in it in the first place. The closet is a near universal experience for gay people and it can be soul crushing. The most typical reason is religion, but it can be for almost any reason where it's dangerous to come out. In Henry's case it's the shitty expectations of family. Even for those of us who had it pretty easy, we've all witnessed people and their closets and the stories about it and it is truly heartbreaking. While Nick Nelson in Heartstopper was also closeted, it was largely a closet of his own making. Maybe that's not quite fair, but his stakes were pretty low. Henry on the other hand is truly fucked. I think that kind of closet is much less common in gay movies, especially when you throw in how hard it is to be private. It makes you ache for him.

For Alex it's another angle that you don't really see. Alex isn't closeted because he doesn't understand his feelings. We know that he's obsessed with Henry, but he doesn't understand the real reason. He tries to rationalize that Henry is awful and entitled, but the book makes it much more clear that Alex finds other guys attractive and he definitely finds Henry very attractive, but he thinks it's normal for straight guys to be able find other guys attractive. That's certainly true -- I can find women to be beautiful but that doesn't mean I want to fuck them. But Alex always has doubt  as to which is which.

So I like the latent bisexual arc and it's pretty unusual. Unlike Nick Nelson from Heartstopper who is quite young and still in the phase where you're usually figuring things out, Alex is older and almost certainly dabbling in the hot chick circuit. His dalliance with Liam was in high school, so that too is easy to blow off since that's pretty common. We never know if Alex has had girlfriends before -- seemingly not -- but he's almost certainly had a fair amount of sex. Zarah more or less confirms that when she tells Alex "and no hookups" for his trip to make Henry his new bud.

Then comes the caketastrophy and the subsequent need to be buds. And then they start flirting. Henry is overtly and not so discreetly flirting with Alex, and Alex the great emotional intellect remains clueless. I'm not sure I've seen that done, like anywhere? Then comes the New Years Eve party and Alex is still clueless about his real feelings for Henry. Then Henry kisses him which is like a bolt of lightning out of the blue. Alex finally understands what this has meant. It's just that it took a clue-by-four to get him to realize it. Even his confession to Nora is weak: he's looking for an out and she reads him to filth. I really like this as it completely changed everything in his life and his understanding of himself. It doesn't really need to be a prince to have that sort of awakening, but it helps because you're probably not going to have a decade long obsession with the schlub across the street. 

So that's very unusual to the point of I don't think I've ever seen that kind of bisexual representation, especially male bisexuals representation. Male bisexuals are still pretty invisible and often find themselves in a weird no-man's land where gay men don't trust them not to run off to a little missus, and women are worried that they are really gay and just using them as a beard. The reality is there are probably tons of male bisexuals who just label themselves as gay or straight because a) it's easier especially if they are more attracted to one than the other and b) if the issue isn't forced. But Alex has definitely been forced and big time. He now knows that he's extremely sexually attracted to Henry and it was sexual tension all along. That's fun for a big old homo like me who's known he was from puberty on. True lots of people don't get it till much later, but it's usually repression. Alex just never makes the connection until Henry kisses him. 

The Red Room seals that they are now lovers. And boy can they not get enough of each other. The other thing that is sort of unusual is the banter both in and out of bed. Sex is not just animalistic or sensual, though it can be. Sex is fun and can be silly and playful too. That you definitely don't see often. The scene in New York where they are racing to get their clothes off laughing the entire way captures that playfulness. Matthew Lopez and his intimacy coordinator who are both gay really did a good job of capturing some of the dimensions of how gay men actual experience sex rather than the one dimensional crap that is all too common. Nick Galitzine is almost certainly straight, but my god did he get the making love scene right. Hats off.

The other part that works is that it really pulls on your heartstrings. Henry is perfectly happy with Alex as his plaything figuring Alex will get bored of him eventually. But that is incredibly sad because Henry has been in love with Alex all along. Even though the deleted fireside scene doesn't entirely make sense, you feel for Henry. He's trying to escape and let Alex love him, but he panics. That was just so horrible for both of them. Henry hurt Alex in the worst possible way. I read that in the KP bedroom scene where Alex gives Henry his ultimatum that Taylor started crying and then Nick heard him and started crying too completely unscripted -- that is very special. I figured it was scripted but to find out that the actors were so invested in that scene -- wow.  Bet that doesn't happen often in Hollywood. Then there's where Alex flies to London after the scandal and they meet on the stairs. When do you see with gay flicks two lovers who are in complete despair trying to comfort one another? Holding the Man maybe? That and it's it's almost impossible for me to not speculate when Alex is really in love with Henry. My feeling is that it was when they made love that Alex knew that he was falling.

From the comedy part of romcom, Zarah is just wonderful. Her mental breakdown finding Henry in the closet is beautifully acted. And of course there is the obvious irony of closeted Henry being in a real life closet.  But Henry and Alex both provide plenty too with their constant banter even when it's very obvious they are in love. My prediction is that Alex goes to his grave with Henry's contact as HRH Prince Dickhead 💩. From the very first time they really meet there is tension especially with Henry calling Alex sweetheart in a teasing way. In the book the scene with the turkeys Alex is trying to get the turkey to gobble for Henry and Henry tries to guide him "look the turkey in the eye..." and eventually "buy the turkey a vacation house in Mallorca". I think this is really a guy thing as guys are supposed to be competitive with one another. Too often that goes missing. The scene in the book with Henry after Alex fucks him and can't get any words out he thinks something to the effect of "if I had known that's what it takes to shut him up, I'd have done it months ago". Beautiful.

One last thing that may be a bit underrated was the cinematography. It was beautifully shot. The stairs scene. The overhead raft at the lake scene. The drowning scene. The shots with Bea in that beautiful garden. The first kiss scene. The deleted fireside chat scene. And my goodness the absolute beauty of the scene at the V & A. And of course the cake scene. I heard that they had a really famous cinematographer who also shot Angels in America. Now that had to have been a challenge at every level with Angels coming out of ceilings fergawdsakes so his pedigree is real. The sets were really well done too. They must have cost a pretty penny. The costuming is pretty ok too, though it's fairly easy because they are dressed in boring suits for the most part. And the infernal use of The Sheep May Safely Graze earworm that has burrowed into the center nucleus of my brain. The sound track was really good. Except for that. God damn you to hell.

It's not to say that the movie (and the book) don't have flaws. For the movie the near fatal flaw is that the  time budget of two hours was way too short. That's the studio's decision though. I really don't have a problem with a lot of what was cut -- Wimbledon was just another excuse to fuck and LA didn't work as well as the movie IMO (I mean, both drunk and Henry having just eaten an In-N-Out double double before getting porked?). But the cut from the polo scene to Paris was way too abrupt and lacked any context. Same with the DNC speech and the coming out scene. It took me a while to figure out that they were two different scenes since they were in the Oval Office but seemed like they were still in New York. And the entire last several scenes went by way too fast. The Miguel Ramos plot device was not great either. The book is flawed there too (er, what happened?), but a scorned journalist queen? Feh. 

So overall these are the reasons I tell myself why I'm not insane to be obsessed. The book and the movie had real innovations and things that you don't often see. I keep telling myself that I'm retired and it's not embarrassing to have something to obsess about since I'm kind of bored. It is, of course, but this is my defense. I may be convicted and sent to 6 years of hard labor at loser reform camp, but I'm at peace with that. My husband Aric even bought me a History Huh? mug and shirts. I was mortified. But popcorn. I need more popcorn. And a fucking sequel.

A rant on people's constant whining about gay movies that involve AIDS or have sad endings

Yes, everybody knows about the Hollywood trope of dandy gays or dead gays which was starting to change by the 80's. There were starting to be more movies and series that didn't involve gay men dying and even if it were a sad ending, you can chock a lot of it up to recognizing society's homophobia which was definitely not the same as the dead gays trope which was that we had it coming. Movies like Maurice and Another Country can't have happy endings because the times didn't allow that. That doesn't make them bad for being sad, it means that homophobia sucks. It still sucks; it's still relevant. In the 80's that was something that needed to be shouted out at the top of our lungs. If that offends people's tender sensibilities today, well, fuck off. It's bad enough to have so much gay history erased at the hands of homophobes, but to consciously self-censor what things were like 100 years ago and other historical dramas is to erase our history willingly and I call bullshit on that. We need to constantly be reminded that we now are the historical oddity and how fragile that actually is.

The other thing is that historical fiction is usually done from the point of view of the victor. Well guess who the victor was back then? And the victor's literal goal was to not speak its name. Sure you can pull the Hollywood series's stunt of rewriting Hollywood's history in a farcical and completely unrealistic way but while I get what they're trying to do -- being aspirational -- it's annoying as well because it is so false. I mean, if they did a movie about Oscar Wilde, are they supposed to omit the fact that he was thrown in jail for being gay? Or maybe we shouldn't see anything about it all because it has that inconvenient sad fact. Or maybe Alan Turing to whom we owe a great deal of having this conversation at all, and omit that he was driven to suicide by the homophobic state just so it isn't sad?

Now onto AIDS. There seems to be this notion that in the 80's all movies that dealt with gay content were AIDS related. That is utter and frankly offensive bullshit. I don't think the first film that dealt with AIDS came out until around 1985 and it was a low budget affair (Buddies?) without much reach. So half the decade down without a single mention. The other thing to realize is... there was no public internet. Information moved at a glacial pace compared to today. Gay men were dying because we didn't know what was going on. So something like An Early Frost which also came out in 1985 was extremely needed just to get the word out. That's true from a health standpoint, but also from a political standpoint since nobody gave a shit because it was "killing all the right people". Oh but that was then you say. But that's true of anything that involves history which these films have become.

By the late 80's more AIDS related movies were available but they were far from common. Heck just about any gay content was hard to find. By the early 90's it was a little more common but again we are talking about a very tiny universe. We are now swimming in a sea of gay content and there's maybe a dozen or two movies that dealt with AIDS. What's the fucking problem? Some of them were even funny like The Living End. Not every movie has to be happy. Like it or not, it's part of our gay past and it's maddening that people want to erase it as if it never happened -- because it's sad. Yes, Holding the Man is extremely hard to watch but it's our history too: that gay men of my generation were practically wiped out from a disease that nobody knew about. That it was a historical accident that it embedded in the gay community in the West unlike the rest of the world where it's primarily a straight disease. That it informed a lot of the politics of the day. Everybody should watch BPM just to get a sense of how desperate it was and frankly the heroes most of whom are now dead who transformed not only their times, but generations to come. Oh, you say, I just don't want to watch it now. Ok if not now, when?

I wonder if the same people who hate sad gay content avoid movies like Schindler's List and the like that deal with the Holocaust. Or heck, even Fiddler on the Roof for that matter. Or movies that deal with Black slavery in the Americas. What, no Kunta Kinte in Roots because: sad? I'd much rather people not watch ahistoric pieces of revisionist history like Gone with the Wind that erase Black history instead. I'm neither Black nor Jewish, but I am gay and movies about our pasts need to be made and watched because god fucking damn it: NEVER FORGET.

My Tawdry Youth

Me helping build my bf's house

Ok, this is very frank and doesn't hold back. If you're prone to clutching your pearls, you might consider closing this tab. Coming of age in the 70's during the sexual revolution and gay liberation was an experience that not many people had. But for me it was just the way it was. Put together with my living in conservative Orange County but close to the gay haven of Hollywood and its bizarre reality gives a view of the complexities of the time. But the fact of the matter is that Orange County was also crawling with gay boys, me being one of them. And boy oh boy did I take full advantage of that.

First not quite an inkling

 

I sucked at playing, but love to watch

When I was probably 7 or 8 I would have recurring dreams. There was one dream that a volcano would open up right under my bed which was clearly a reaction to the Parícutin volcano in Mexico that popped up out of a corn field at the time. At the time I was, I guess, starting to understand about relationships and dating most likely from TV shows and the like. This dream always involve me sitting dressed up at a restaurant and was either from the other side of the table or from standing next to the table. I guess I figured it was just how you'd film such a thing. I never saw who was on the other side of the table. It was years and years later when I remembered that dream I realized that I wasn't looking at myself, I was looking at my date. I guess my subconscious was already figuring out what was going on, but I was clueless about it. I never had any feelings for girls -- or boys for that matter -- back then. I didn't have a lot of friends and never hung out with girls which is a stereotypical gay trait. Girls sort of didn't interest me and very much intimidated me. 

One of our friends when I guess we were probably about 10 whipped out his dick to show us his boner. I'm not sure why he did that and it seemed rather weird, but it stuck with me. Nobody else did so it wasn't some sort of dare that kids do. But I still remember it pretty vividly so it obviously meant something. But of course his mom used a ping pong paddle with holes drilled into it to spank them (less air resistance) and I remember that too, so maybe it was nothing after all.

Why am I not feeling it for girls?

When I was about in 6th grade I noticed that the boys were starting to get interested in girls. They did nothing for me, but there were plenty of boys who were indifferent to them too so I didn't think too much about it. I had found a porn magazine which was definitely straight that I'd jerk off to. I never recall being especially attracted to the models, just attracted to naked bodies I guess. I did have sort of a crush on two different guys who I was in class with and one of them and I would hang out. Nothing ever happened but it was pretty clear I was a little infatuated with both of them. I had a friend from the apartment complex I lived in and he asked me to look at my fingernails. I looked at them in full Judy Jetson style (hands out) and he made fun of me for not looking at them with your fingers curled into your palm, which was supposedly the straight thing to do. Hmm.

When I got into 7th grade, however, it was the first time with gym class and locker rooms. Boom. There was definitely something going on and it was not very straight. I never really had a crush on somebody at that school that I recall but I was in the choir which was pretty gay including one guy who was definitely gay. I, of course, didn't want to be associated with him. Imagine that. But I guess he also sowed the seeds for actually being really attracted to very gay guys. Too bad I wasn't attracted to him personally or I may have gone for it because horny > shame for me.

I was friends with my neighbors' kids across the street when we lived in Huntington Beach and when we moved because my parents divorced, I'd take the bus there once in a while to see them. I sort of had a crush on one of them who was my age and honestly he was really good looking but I was confused and not confused at the same time. I absolutely let none of this show because I didn't know how to approach such things. Of course I had no idea that it isn't uncommon for randy teenagers to experiment with whatever they can find at that time but that was that.

My first time

I was living in an apartment building in Garden Grove when I was about 14. There was a bowling alley called Garden Square Bowl and I became addicted to bowling. I would keep score (they didn't have the automatic ones back then) and that would give me the money to do things.  One of those things was seeing Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Grove Theater with some friends. When we got done we were all like "what in the fucking fuck was that?" I don't recall anybody being homophobic but that's probably not very surprising because it was in the middle of Glam Rock and celebrities and especially pop singers were allowed to be over the top. But my oh my was that movie crazy for a young budding gay boy.

I had one friend from the apartment complex who was about 2 years older than me, so about 16. His parents were what we called Jesus Freaks presaging the religious right movement later in the decade. But he wasn't religious that I could tell and seemed mostly beyond it which suited me as somebody who grew up (thankfully) without any religion at all. We would hang out in his bedroom listening to pop albums all afternoon and we especially loved Elton John. He actually turned me on to quite a few bands and ironically The Tubes and their What Do You Want From Life -- it was decades later when i figured out what a baby's arm holding an apple meant. 

So like I said, I bowled a lot and it was basically my life. Being a geek I was rather obsessed with the pin setter machines. I made friends with some of the mechanics who were always there as there were breakdowns all the time. It was my first introduction to electronics too and how they could control things. My friend ended up getting a job there filling in as needed as a mechanic. I would go back there and hang out with him. One day he went to the little bathroom stall at the back of the room and he was gone for longer than he should have been. I went back there and he had his pants to the floor and was sporting a very nice boner that he was playing with. I had a lot of trepidation but this wasn't a "go away, I'm jerking off" pose, it was "come and get it." So I did. 

When we'd hang out either in the back of the bowling alley or at his place we'd go at it, randy teens that we were. I don't think that we ever kissed and I'm not sure he ever reciprocated but he did make a half assed attempt to fuck me, probably just as clueless as I was that you can't just stick things in. This went on for probably at least a year and I'd remember the taste of his cum while I was keeping score and being both "gross" and "yum" at the same time. We never really had a break it off kind of moment because I think we just drifted apart. I want to think he joined the military which very much ended the possibility. I didn't think of it in terms of a relationship or anything romantic at all, I just like sucking his dick very much and he was a friend.

Finally, a car

When I turned 16, I did what every other kid did in those days and got my license. I was living in Huntington Beach again at the time so there weren't a lot of opportunities for anything naughty -- or so I thought. The following summer I stayed up at my dad's place in West LA for the summer. I think that Star Wars had just come out and I had a major boner for Mark Hamill. My dad's girlfriend really liked me so I guess I had a "girl friend" after all. I suspect she knew that I was gay and liked to get me clothes and dress me up. I happened onto one of those alterna rags at the time and it had an actual dick pic in it. I kept that thing well hidden and well used. 

My dad let me use his Chevy Vega so I'd toodle around. One day I decided to go to the beach in Malibu. I'm not sure how I knew this -- maybe one of those rags -- but there was a nude beach next to Zuma (or maybe it was just part of it) called Pirate's Cove. I timidly made my way over but didn't get naked. There were quite a few people there but what caught my eye was this beautiful blond guy, naked as I recall with a big old schlong. I was absolutely smitten. How I manged to get the courage I'll never know, but I hit on him. Not directly, but in a way that any gay guy would know what's going on. I asked him if he'd like to smoke a joint which he agreed to and we went back to my car to smoke it. The next part is so stereotypical that he grabbed my thigh and of course he didn't need to ask if it was ok because I had a raging boner. 

We went back to his place in West Hollywood and had sex. I think he tried to fuck me too, but I was not comfortable getting fucked (as in we tried and I failed) and I was perfectly happy sucking dick anyway. It was electric for me and I'm sure that's the first time that I had kissed a guy. He was so fucking hot: smooth, tanned, big juicy lips and very, very blond. One life long obsession discovered. He was also 28 so the second lifelong obsession discovered too. Yes, I know 16 and 28... yeah. But it was me who initiated all of this and while it's definitely sketch what he was doing with me, I was totally into it and was exactly what I wanted.

We boinked a time or two more with me just showing up at his place, but eventually he wasn't into it and made excuses. I on the other hand was a perpetual boner machine for the rest of summer. He told me two interesting things. One was that he had spent time at Spahn Ranch -- you know, the one that Charles Manson and his cult lived at. He never told me what his involvement was and I had no reason to believe that he had anything to do with anything. So just a weird connection for me. The second is that he told me there was a gay under 21 dance club in Hollywood called the Odyssey which I'll get to.

Well, um, yeah I was 16 and stupid...

So that wasn't the only thing that happened after I had access to cars. You see, in Hollywood runs Santa Monica Blvd and in one part of it there were... street hustlers. So I did what any other sensible 16 year old would do and... cruised them. And picked some of them up. I never had to pay or anything but it was definitely not the brightest idea I ever had. Some of them were trouble, some of them told me I shouldn't be doing this. I did meet this one who was blond with curly hair and a perfect surfer boy body. While with most of the others we just fooled around in the car, he actually took me back to his place in La Mirada I think -- sort of a schlep from Hollywood. I'm pretty sure he was the first guy I ever fucked and boy did I like it. We fucked several other times and he seemed like a genuinely nice guy but it was purely physical. I never considered it as anything but that, not that I had anything against him unlike a lot of guys who have contempt for the hustlers they pick up. I still wonder what led him there and what happened to him, though I'm sure I know what happened in a few short years later. He was about 18 so it's quite possible he was one of the many kids who were kicked out by homophobic parents just trying to get by.

Michael (not Mikie!) goes to Hollywood

Me around this time

 

So as I said previously, the summer hookup I had told me about this gay club The Odyssey so when I turned 18 I made a mad dash for it. I don't think it was literally on my birthday but it was not very long after. I was of course terrified but if nothing else, I always had my horniness to overcome that. The first night I went there I met -- get this -- a cute wavy haired blond boy. We actually hung out a few times and the sex was good, but he lived in Downey which was not geographically desirable. I started having a lot of sex at that time and found out that Garden Grove in Orange County where I lived actually was crawling with gay bars so I didn't have to go all the way up to Hollywood all of the time.

I met this one guy in Hollywood and started hanging out with him and staying over. I was going to UC Irvine at this point, but I decided that being a full time homosexual was more important so I dropped out for the time being. He was -- you guessed it -- in his mid to late 20's. He introduced me to his friends and we'd sometimes hang out with his friend who lived in Laguna Beach. Laguna Beach for those who don't know was an art colony and had a very large gay population, along with lots of gay Hollywood types that would slum there in the summer. His friend had this beautiful boy toy that I lusted after but never went after. The one memorable thing we did is that we went to this restaurant there in Laguna Beach and there was this cute blond curly haired busboy. He came over and leered "hot buttered buns?" at me. I was so flustered that I didn't get that he wanted me to take him into the bathroom and fuck his brains out. I'm 99% certain that he became a famous porn star named Jeremy Scott. Everything fits both with looks, timing and location. 

They also pretty much forced me to go to this infamous hustler bar called The Numbers. I was petrified as I was not 21 so they told me to button down my shirt a bit to show my chest hair. I got in which was no surprise as nobody cared. It was an interesting place, to say the least. There was this dramatic stairway down with mirrored walls so that you had to make An Entrance. It was full of pretty boys and studio execs of a certain age. John Waters has written that he loved the place because it was so out there -- a parody of itself. Nothing happened because it was mainly for shock value to me that they were after. Achievement unlocked for them. I was more or less living at that guy's house in Hollywood and he was a carpenter. So he made me schlep along with him being a grunt and gopher. Mostly a grunt. My running away from college days were numbered after that. 

Another strange coincidence happened around this time. My step father and I had gone down to San Diego to go albacore fishing. There was this cute boy on board with the crew and we kind of eyed each other. Later he was at a gay bar in Garden Grove and he remembered me. It turns out that he was 16 at the time of the fishing trip and I may have been a year older. We ended up being buds and though I was attracted to him and wanted to have sex with him, he was mostly interested in being a friend but that was cool with me. It was a strange friendship as I was a geeky smart boy and he wasn't the smartest or more driven, but we liked each other and I've never been snobby about such things. In fact it makes me really angry when people are like that.

I also met another boy at a gay roller rink night. I was really attracted to him and liked his kinda really gay pretty boy style. I took him skiing up at Big Bear and we fooled around in the middle of the desert after. Somehow on another date we ended up at West Street Beach in Laguna which is the gay beach. I fucked him there and found out unlike From Here Too Eternity that a beach is not an ideal place to have butt sex. Nothing romantic came of it as I don't think he was into that way and I had lots going on anyway. We were always friendly to each other when we bumped into each though.

One last memorable tidbit around this time is that I hooked up with this -- get this again -- hot blond boy. We dated for a little bit but again, he lived in Downey so wasn't geographically desirable. He mentioned to me that he was a male model and that he had a spread in Playgirl Magazine. It was nominally for straight women, but their audience was clearly and maybe mostly oriented at gay men. He also told me that he was their first model to sport a full boner. It was a very nice one even if he tried to stick it in me -- I was never good at getting fucked. I laughed out loud at the article's backstory about the women he liked after my dick was just in his mouth. I found out through Facebook that he's still around, happily married for decades. Thank god he made it through. So many didn't.

Suffice it to say I was having lots of sex. I found out that Quaaludes aka Disco Biscuits were sort of the perfect going out drug (I never tried MDMA, though it was around). You'd take it, bounce around the club for a while, find somebody to fuck around with and by the time it was time to go it had mostly worn off. The next morning you'd check for bruises you didn't remember getting. I had stopped drinking at that point so it was sort of the perfect setup.

When Michael met Bobby

Bobby Pyron, aka Lee Ryder

During one of my many trips up to Hollywood to the Odyssey one night this guy picked me up. He was conventionally attractive though not exactly the type that I would predictably like. But he had this charisma that was undeniable and he didn't even need to be blond to get me going. We ended up back at his place in Laguna (this is a very long schlep from Hollywood).  I was completely charmed by Bobby even though That Thing tried to have its way with me. It was also my the first time really hanging out in Laguna as I stayed there a few days. He was so comfortable in his skin being gay and was sort of like a mentor to me getting me used to being gay even though he was less than a year older than me. Everybody has internalized homophobia when they start figuring things out. Even though Bobby did not look stereotypically gay he definitely had gay sass. He would go on about the tacky A-gay queens of Laguna, etc. I loved it. When we walked around town with his Levi cuffs rolled up, I was completely scandalized. But I was also realizing that I really liked guys who were really gay and not hung up on being super butch, etc. He really helped me and I've always been thankful for that.

Unbeknownst to me, Bobby was orbiting the nascent gay porn industry. Catalina Video was based out of Laguna: he was always really protective of me and didn't want me to get involved. Later I found out that he used to live in Huntington Beach and would scout the hot surfer boy types. But he did introduce me to a bunch of my high schoolmates who I had no clue were gay. One of them was this absolutely beautiful -- I know I'm being repetitious -- blond boy. God was he so my type. Like a lot of gay boys in the area, he became a creature of Hollywood and it swallowed him up. We went out several times and the sex was great, but our lives were taking us in very different directions. I really disliked the Hollywood scene and he was busy climbing it so it wasn't to be. He was I think the first person that I knew directly that had died. Bobby told me.

He also introduced me to another classmate and though I was rather attracted to him we were really just friends. And more to the point, partners in crime. We were always skulking around trying to find coke which was a big part of the Hollywood life back then. We even managed to go to Alan Carr's Malibu beach house, though he wasn't home. Probably for the best. See: tacky A-gay queens. This was right after Grease came out. I lost contact with him so I never knew what happened to him. I think he was a classic gay-for-pay kind of guy. I'm sure he was really bisexual, but I think he mostly preferred girls. So maybe he got married and had 2.5 kids. One of the problems of living in the burbs is that there were so many people you just didn't know what happened.

As for Bobby himself, we were never best pals or anything like that and it could go years between when we'd bump into each other. But we were always very friendly and genuinely happy to see each other. When Bobby told me about that classmate dying it was obvious that he had The Look. He had become a rather famous porn star -- with That Thing it was inevitable I guess. He too would die in the early 90's. There was a pronounced pattern of hit the scene at 20, dead by 30 that wiped out my generation. It's really weird seeing him in the old porn vids obliterating this bottom boy or that knowing they all probably died. But for me, he was just Bobby Pyron.

First boyfriend

So while all of these things were going on above, I also managed to meet this hot guy at some club. He was an ag teacher down in northern San Diego county staying up in Laguna Beach for the summer. I need not tell you what color his hair was or how old he was because, me. He was a late bloomer so I'm pretty sure I was the first guy who ever fucked him. It was a complete revelation for him -- he was one of those natural bottoms and boy was he good. I totally fell for him over that summer in a way I hadn't with other guys I liked. But he was fully formed and out of the closet even though it was all pretty recent for him. Of course I was the one who pursued it because nobody in their right mind would pursue an 18 year old.

When summer ended we decided to keep it up as a long distance relationship. He was a couple of hours away so I'd only go down there like once every week or two. He lived in this old adobe cottage on the school farm which I loved. It was very grounding. He scrimped and saved to be able to build his own house a mile or two away. He had a jeep -- the stereotypical gay kind -- that we'd toodle around having fun. He had a Great Dane named Beau who was the lord of his land on the farm. When he was up in Laguna the owner of the place he stayed at had this yappy mutt who would nip at Beau's heels until he finally got fed up and launched it across the room. Oi.

He finally managed to scrape the money together to build his house. And I helped. Unlike my previous foray into construction, I loved this. I was helping to build my boyfriend's house and how cool was that? I still remember hoisting a 6x10 beam for a deck with just him and me. How the fuck we did that I don't know because that fucking thing was heavy.  

Alas, I was young and stupid. I for really stupid reasons decided to break up with him after a couple of years. As it turns out it was the right move just for the wrong reasons. We had super different life trajectories with me in tech and him as a property developer so it couldn't have worked out long term, but he was my first boyfriend and I'm better for it.

An open relationship is normal, right?

So all of the above is more or less happening simultaneously. Which means that a lot of it was happening while I had a boyfriend. We never had any talk or anything like that about being open or what the boundaries might be. Part of this is that we were long distance so it didn't make much sense to be all blue balls while we weren't together. Plus this was during the sexual revolution and being gay meant not having to conform to picket fences. I mean we are guys. Guys like to play the field and can separate sex from romance. We can even separate feelings for romance. It was sort of natural that you weren't going to be monogamous. In one super cringe conversation with my dad he confided that he was jealous of me because getting with guys was so much easier. Yes, I thought, but I was still mortified.

When I was with him he was very like minded. I don't know exactly how much he took advantage of it on his side, but we were not hung up about it. We would have three ways -- one in particular was this very cute boy we picked up at Black's Beach in La Jolla which was a nude beach with a gay section. We took him back to the bf's farm and I gave the boy a tour of it... and fucked his brains out. My bf was pissed, but mainly because I got it first. We all had sex again and we made good. The very first time I went to a bathhouse was with the bf. The night we went was completely dead so not much happened other than me surreally watching Alien in the TV room. Um, ok? 

At the time I was working as a busboy/waiter at a country club in Huntington Beach while I was in school. Yes, I finally got my shit back together with school. They had this stupid tournament called the Steak and Beans tournament where the winners got steak and the losers got beans. I decided to get dressed up as a waitress to serve the losers' beans in combat boots and total scag drag. The senile old coots thought I was real though which I thought was hilarious. 

One summer this boy came out for the summer and was hired as a busboy. He was um, $haircolor that I like. He was also studly as fuck as he was a dancer and I was completely smitten. I didn't know if he was gay or not, but I decided to take him to the Odyssey to dance. He was down but at the last minute I chickened out and went to Westwood instead which was intensely boring. We decided to drive back to his place in Long Beach and hang out. We smoked a joint and laid on the floor a foot or so apart. Then our fingers touched. Electricity. Like San Onofre nuclear power plant electricity. We made mad passionate love that night and was probably the most intense sex I've ever had before because it was so unexpected. I think we hooked up a time or two more before we were at my parents home in bed having sex in my parents' bed. Then there was a knock at the door. It was the bf with a big box of avocados from the farm. Oh shit. Awkward. It's not that I was cheating, but getting caught in the act was really weird. The boy was non-plussed -- for all I know he was into me and didn't like this turn of events. But even though there was clear chemistry between us I didn't feel the need to tell him before especially since he was only out for the summer from the east coast. I knew this was just a fling. He should have too, but love and passion can be like that. He was so fucking beautiful. It's not like I have low standards.  I've always punched way above my weight.

I've always wanted to know what happened to him. He had a fairly unique name but I've been able to find out nothing about him. He, I fear, was one of the unlucky ones. It was his demographic: young, beautiful, in the arts, that got completely wiped out. Fuck. Fuck that fucking disease, god fucking dammit.

Moving out

So I started working as a software engineer after dropping out of school again -- ironically over a tech writing requirement since I now like to write and am pretty good at it I think. I was 21at the time and still living at home. I was sort of sneak dating this guy who was tall and slim but with just enough body fat to be really snuggly. When we had sex it was incredible. He was nominally partnered but I think it was mostly a convenience thing. He was from Flagstaff which I thought was pretty cool. I had a big fight with my step dad and we both I think decided it was time for me to move out.

I'm not sure how it came to be, but I ended up moving with him down in Dana Point. He really liked to cook and even though I did too, he had a lot more time on his hands. To this day, I still use his simple recipe for croutons of good bread cubed up and a little stale, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with garlic powder and paprika. So simple and so good that you'll never get shitty ass store bought ones again. He was pretty promiscuous and I was pretty busy, so he was definitely getting more on the side than me. I was mostly OK with that though I wished that he had better taste.

The apartment was small, but nice and we started getting the implements of living alone. This was obviously the first time I had lived with a boyfriend so it was definitely a new experience. The one thing I can say is that you can be madly in love with somebody but still be terrible as partners. I wasn't madly in love with him, but he was fun and especially in bed. To this day we really should have been friends with benefits because I really liked him as a friend and he was very fun both in and out of the sack. And boy did he have a personality. I loved that. I can still hear him in my head with his deep sonorous voice.

The apartment's manager was this mad queen who would get drunk and start screaming "NO WIRE HANGERS!" at the top of his lungs at 2am. He was quite a character. He also had an altercation with a springing palm in Palm Springs. Eventually I think after we moved out, we found out that he had died on a beach. I never found out whether it was foul play or not. Probably he was just drunk and drowned.

After a while, we decided to move into this house in Laguna Canyon in this place that flooded from the creek to fix it up for cheaper rent. This wasn't the greatest idea as I was always busy and neither of us knew what the fuck we were doing. I really don't know why we ended up breaking up, but it wasn't anything dramatic. I really did like him and his personality but we really weren't intended to be boyfriends in the end. That's probably the outcome of lots of people who move in together for the first time and especially when there is some sort of forcing function like I had. 

When we broke up, I ended up moving to this guy's house in Laguna Niguel. He was this pissy southern queen who really grated on me. I like really gay guys, but not this one. See: pissy. After I had had enough, I moved out unbeknownst to him and moved in with my manager and a coworker's house. Imagine my surprise and horror when my next boyfriend (see below) had rented the same room when he took me home. Awkward. It turned out that the coworker had a crush on me and I wasn't into it too. More awkward. 

When I got together with my next boyfriend we even visited him in Flagstaff where he had moved back. My then boyfriend and I even went skiing there and on the top of San Francisco peak where you can actually see the Grand Canyon. We even had snow thunder which is pretty rare while he was cooking. I really liked him and like a lot of people I have no idea what happened to him. I fear the worst because, of course, he was a total bottom and this was the early 80's. I still remember going to the Boom Boom Room -- a gay bar in Laguna Beach -- and seeing this thing on a bulletin board about something really fucked going on in West Hollywood. AIDS completely wiped out Laguna's substantial gay population. It never recovered. 

Michael, if you're still out there I miss you. If you are not, you are remembered.

Single basically for the first time

After breaking up with my previous boyfriend, I was single for basically the first time in my adult life. It was probably for about 3 years. I was working in tech at a startup in Irvine and very busy. Through this I still would have various flings but nothing very serious. I was perfectly happy with this and not in any hurry to be in a relationship again. I've always been rather passionate when having sex. A guy I met once told me that he was the author of the book Confessions of a Rock Lobster. I never knew whether my memory was apocryphal or not, but I managed to find him on Facebook and my memory was correct. As it turns out, he kept a diary of all of his hookups and he found me. Apparently I was doing "boyfriend sex". Is that really unusual? 

Since I was working, I had a project that I wrote the software for which was point of sale terminal and a PC which drove them and collected the transactions which were sent to a central office. A couple of things came out of this. They did a commercial which sent me to Hollywood to babysit my box. I learned being on a set is boring as fuck. It also sent me to Chicago for a convention for which allowed me to check out Boy's Town. I went to some dance club and cruised this really hot guy (yes, it was) and he took me home. We fucked that night and I spent the night with him. In the morning we were chatting and he was going on about this diva and that for which I had no clue. Disgusted he said "I'm taking your queer card!" I had to fuck him again to get it back.

I had several recurring fuck buddies including one that cut my hair. I didn't have a place to drag him back to and he was partnered so he couldn't always host, so I'd key into my office and we'd have sex in the computer machine room on the floor. He told me that those VAX's imprinted on him. I had many more friends with benefits at that time but though I liked them, they didn't click as boyfriend material. Others were just situationally not available even if I'd consider being boyfriends with them. I just wasn't in a hurry to find a new boyfriend and had enough sex so that it wasn't a priority. Work was my priority as I was at the beginning of my career and starting to stack up some really nice achievements. Plus I was getting a lot of sailing and skiing in, so it wasn't like I didn't have a life.

My first really long time relationship

So in 1985 my life was going to change drastically. My ex-manager got a contract with a company in San Diego to build a laser printer controller. There were nominally four of us, but one was mainly absent so the reality is that I was the only software guy and had to support dozens of engineers at their company along with all of the code I was writing. To say that I was busy was an understatement. Month after month of 100 hour weeks kind of busy. A little after we created the company I was going out with a couple of guys, one of which was my now ex. Guess what color his hair was. He was a couple of years older than me and... 28. So it was fate. I had to choose between the two and then told the other one and he cried. I always hated that for the other boy because he was so sweet and so fucking beautiful. But my ex was an IT guy so we had that as a connection. I taught him how to ski and sail so we'd go on races and up to the mountains for the weekends. I bought a condo on Lake Mission Viejo and we settled in while I was working so much. After the initial burst of work, a few years later we had more employees so I wasn't quite as frantic. It gave me time on weekends and we'd often go camping with my folks up on the east side of the Sierra. This was like a 5 hour drive so it was a little insane. But it was a lot of fun where I'd fish with my step dad and he'd hike and hang out with my mom who would sketch and paint. Often me and my mom would sheepishly call each other after a trip to see if we wanted to go the next weekend. Meal planning would promptly ensue. 

 

Painting by Ramon while in Santa Fe

One aspect of being with him was that I was out but not "out". I mean it was obvious we were boyfriends but I really never talked about it with my parents. On one of our camping trips my mother and I were drunk and I finally asked her what she thought about having gay son. She then proceeded to tell me that her brother Ramon was gay and in some fashion came out in the 40's. He had lived in Hollywood and Laguna Beach (which was an art colony and very gay) and was an amazing artist before moving to Santa Fe. I never knew him in an adult context and by the time my mother told me this he had already died. I have a million questions that I would have loved to ask him. Did he have boyfriends? Twinks or Bears? Did he get outed? What did he think about me who had it so comparatively easy? Alas, I'll never know. Gay history is pretty much erased history. We too need to never forget.

Our relationship went on for about 9 years. It was mostly good but given how busy I was it was easy to mask the things that weren't. I know that I'm not the easiest person to live with so that was taking a toll on him. I being much less busy at the end gave me time to evaluate how I actually felt. I was starting to feel sort of... nothing. A year before we broke up I was having serious problems with my business partner and wanted out. I even ran away from home and went to San Francisco telling nobody. It was really magical even at the height of the AIDS crisis before effective retrovirals. I really liked that there were more guys that were more sort of grunge alterna boys which really got me going. That was different than in LA for the most part and I liked it. There was one guy that I hooked up with who was just that type and he was adorable in his grunge way. He was the first guy I had ever fucked who told me beforehand that he was poz. It was a little weird, but as I said I've most likely have been with tons of poz guys who just didn't know.

After a year, I got bought out. I was feeling rather flush and silly so I decided to go to... The Numbers just for shits and giggles. I chose this hot Hollywood pretty boy type and he took me back to his place. As I said, I have absolutely nothing against sex workers but still it was really a weird experience but I just felt like doing it. I had decided that I wanted to move to San Francisco so in January 1994 we moved up there, a few blocks from Castro St. The stress of the previous year and moving caused my relationship to completely fall apart. I was absolutely not even thinking about a new relationship as we hadn't officially even broke up but fuck if it didn't happen anyway. I met Aric. I was beyond smitten and he was the hookup that never left. Oh and his hair wasn't blond. It was mousy. But he just turned 29. Oh well.

Conclusion

As with a lot of people who survived the AIDS crisis, I've had a fair amount of survivor's guilt. Why not me? I was fucking around like crazy. Even though it was the dumbest of dumb luck, I think that some of my behaviors back then had an influence on it. First of all, I was never really focused on anal sex early on and especially just with hookups. For one, for a long time I thought that it hurt them because it sure hurt for me. So I rarely asked. I was perfectly happy with oral and the rest. The second is as I said that I was never good at bottoming. Some people are naturally good bottoms and I was definitely not one of those. It's not to say that I never got fucked, it's just that it wasn't my thing. I wasn't against it and the thought of it was a turn on, but I guess I wasn't built for it. Topping is about 10x less risky though so there's also that. So even though I probably fucked plenty of poz guys and just didn't know it -- heck the first guy I fucked from Santa Monica Blvd could have had it -- for the most part I only fucked my boyfriends mainly because it was more convenient than with some random hookup. So life is strange. And very unfair. Some guys got it who hardly ever hooked up. I was just lucky. 

I had a crazy youth. It shows that if you put yourself out there, a sorta-good-looking(?) guy like me can have a lot of fun. There is so much more I could write, but this thing is entirely too long as it is. I can't figure out how all of this happened in that amount of time.  And all of this beginning just after Stonewall. We need more representation of all aspects of the gay experience. We need to make sure we aren't erased like my uncle was. The good the bad and the tawdry. With PrEP I hope that other gay boys can have the same chaotic and wonderful time again I had. I am genuinely happy for you. Love out xoxo, Mike