October 12, 2011

Gay posthumous Thought Police out to get John Updike

This piece in Slate gives a sense of what the gay marriage whoop-tee-doo was really all about:
John Updike's Homophobic Book Review 
This one, from 1999 (subscription required; you can also read much of it on Google Books), was Updike’s take on The Spell, a novel by Alan Hollinghurst about four gay men in England in the mid-’90s. Here is the very first sentence of Updike’s review:
The novels of the English writer Alan Hollinghurst take some getting used to; they are relentlessly gay in their personnel, and after a while you begin to long for the chirp and swing and civilizing animation of a female character. 
It doesn’t get better from there. ... And Updike didn’t just express discomfort at the Hollinghurst’s precise, physically detailed observations about gay sex: He actually wrote a kind of brief against gay love as a compelling novelistic subject. “Boredom swoops in without heterosexual clutter to obstruct its advent,” he wrote; “nothing is at stake but self-gratification.” He went on:
Novels about heterosexual partnering, however frivolous and reducible to increments of selfishness, social accident, foolish overestimations, and inflamed phsyical detail, do involve the perpetuation of the species and the ancient, sacralized structures of the family. 
In other words, I guess, if God wanted there to be great gay novels, he wouldn’t have made us this way. 
Updike’s review did cause at least some stir at the time. The writer and activist Larry Kramer “circulated an e-mail alert among gay writers” after the review was published, as the New York Observer reported. “It really feels like an attack,” Tony Kushner said to the Observer of the review; Sarah Schulman called it “outrageous,” and wrote a letter to The New Yorker (which was not, so far as I can tell, ever published). 
The Observer also spoke to Updike, and he proceeded to dig himself sadly deeper: 
I’d be happy not to discuss [homosexuality]. Hollinghurst made it kind of tough. It makes it the unavoidable topic of discussion. It’s all about it. And for me to avoid his own emphasis would certainly be not doing my reviewer’s job. 
Updike makes it sound as though the controversy was that he referred to gay sex at all, not that he spoke about it in a bigoted manner. (That he would have been “happy not to discuss it” appears to indicate his fundamental discomfort with the subject.) 
And yet the incident seems to have been largely forgotten. ... I’d have to read further in Updike’s work, or at least reread what fiction of his I have read, before I could say whether I agree with Toíbín that Updike’s apparent prejudice damaged his fiction. But it certainly resulted in at least one rather terrible review.

Well, that's big of you.

Here's a more general question about trends in American culture. In the 20th Century, African-Americans were clearly a rising group in terms of cultural contributions. But, that doesn't seem to be obviously true anymore. Instead, as blacks lost the urge to impress whites that they could live up to white standards in culture, they've settled down to certain cultural ghettos they can dominate (basketball, rap, unfortunate baby names, etc.) and don't seem to be contributing as much anymore. Over the last couple of years, as the national spell of silliness in making a non-entity like Barack Obama president has become more obvious, we've started to see hints that blacks are losing their Most Favored Group status.

The whip hand in American life seems to be shifting toward gays, as their punishing of various black basketballers and comedians over the last couple of years demonstrates. But here's the question: are gays, in their moment of political triumphalism, doing all that much culturally that's interesting right now? Or are they sidetracking their energies into petty political vendettas like this hissy fit over the late John Updike?

I mean, 50 years ago, a bunch of gays and bis who wanted to put on a show would get together and make, say, West Side Story, which is really, really good. It's also not directly about Being Gay, which has to sneak in via metaphor and art. Since then, eh... The irony is that right now, the most talked about musical on Broadway (a term that has become almost oxymoronic as Broadway became an out of the closet gay ghetto) is by the South Park guys.

170 comments:

  1. ... or at least reread what fiction of his I have read

    I can't spool up any snark for this. It is like an alien species that blows up entire planets.

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  2. Funny... liberals bitch about a movie, music, or book being TOO WHITE, but if one says it's too gay, that's not okay.

    Homogeneous is bad but
    homo-geneous is good.

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  3. Well, he is officially a dead white male. I hear both his daughters married Africans.

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  4. Updike's complaint that gay sex doesn't make good literature is a corollary to the reason for my opposition to gay marriage: Male-female relationships are difficult and fraught with problems because the sexes are so different. A marriage between them is truly an achievement, not anything "natural" to their nature at all. There is a vast gap between the sexes, and marriage was a bridge to make a better world in future generations.

    Hence marriage should be rewarded with some sort of special honors and perks.

    And the difference of the sexes = drama. What is difficult about people attracted to people who are like themselves, or maybe idealized versions of themselves?

    Besides the disapproval of *society* and all that.

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  5. "And the difference of the sexes = drama. What is difficult about people attracted to people who are like themselves, or maybe idealized versions of themselves?"

    Do you really think gay relationships are any easier or more drama-free than straight relationships? I'll pass this one on to my partner; we'll both get a good laugh about it.

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  6. Maybe if he spelled his name Updyke he'd get more respect...

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  7. "The queer is the artistic arbiter of our age." -- Roger Wade in The Long Goodbye, 1953

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  8. Seems to me that as you "rebel" against popular culture, your ideas and influence tend to grow. Eventually, you get accepted - become mainstream - and then get marginalized and eventually fade back to your own "tribe". The shock is gone & it takes more to move the meter of the popular culture. Think Marilyn Manson.

    Perhaps conservatives have been fighting everything social change the wrong way!

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  9. I suspect Updike himself would have been a better writer if he had been born fifty years earlier in a climate less encouraging to writing explicitly about suburban adultery.

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  10. You're on to something. As black culture has become more about being black it has become inward-focused and directionless. As black political attitudes have hardened, it's become a crab bucket.

    As gay political identity comes into terrifying focus, the gay aesthetes devote more and more energy to this awful gay solidarity kitsch.* Instead of telling great heterosexual love stories (Updike is right about the distinction!) they are now contriving trite propaganda with great production values (think of that spawn of Up With People and National Socialism, Glee).

    *we keep acquiring new sub categories: gay, female, black, Hispanic--even the Irish with their pitiful Boston townie schtick.

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  11. >Updike himself would have been a better writer if he had been born fifty years earlier<

    H.L. Mencken, who liked Henry Miller, probably would have reviewed Updike's works positively in his and George Jean Nathan's magazine "Smart Set" circa 1922. (Updike, unfortunately, reviewed Mencken rather negatively on p.c. grounds in the early 1990s.)

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  12. The only gay novel I've read is Steven Fry's Making History, which is actually very good. The homosexual part isn't central at all, though.

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  13. smarter than mitch10/12/11, 4:15 PM

    "Perhaps conservatives have been fighting everything social change the wrong way!"

    Yes, if you're thinking along the lines of reverse psychology, i.e. if my child dates a person I can't stand pretend to like him/her and strongly approve of the relationship.

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  14. Sailer always makes me nervous with posts like this; he obviously likes musicals.

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  15. Well in James Buchanan we've already had our first clearly gay President, also an incompetent nonenity, so that's one less thing to worry about.

    Come to think of it, wasn't Buchanan a major figure in Updike's 'Memories of the Ford Administration'?

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  16. Carol, have you ever seen a gay relationship? They are just as messy and dramatic (if not more) than straight ones.

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  17. "he obviously likes musicals."

    Musicals were obviously good. Sinatra did them for Christ's sake. Do you think Sinatra was femme?

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  18. The whip hand in American life seems to be shifting toward gays


    Which is weird. Blacks at least make up a sizable chunk of the American population. Gays? Not so much.

    But it was never blacks who made bending over backwards to make blacks happy a national priority, it was rich white liberals. And now the rich white liberal "elite" has decided that sucking up (pun intended) to gays is to be our new national priority.

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  19. think of that spawn of Up With People and National Socialism, Glee



    Just as movies and television in the 80's and 90's were required to include blacks in positive roles, modern media demands gay characters. It's difficult to imagine a show aimed at young people not having some gay characters.

    None of which is a reflection of what the audience wants to see.

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  20. Updike dared to speak the most obvious single truth about homosexuals: that they are futureless. And that's bigoted?!

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  21. That was a good drum break10/12/11, 5:03 PM

    Yah sure, Buchanan and all the other gay-till-proven-straight presidents. The upcoming gay rumor mill about 44 (I predict ca. 2025) will be enjoyable.

    Though gay men sit at many culture chokepoints they'll never match the Saudi-like dominance of blacks. Too much "creative destruction" and their natural base of support--liminal white straight college women--is perpetually aging out of it. As the "famous" Teen Vogue headline said: "Your Must-Have Fall Accessory: Gay Friend!"

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  22. Stephen Metcalf mentions a controversial book review by John Updike.


    Note the modern use of the word "controversial". It now apparently means "anything the political left dislikes".

    The Iraq was was controversial. Rove v Wade was controversial. Some pissy lefty writers bitching that somebody wrote a book review which offended their delicate sensibilities does not rise to the level of controversy.

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  23. we keep acquiring new sub categories: gay, female, black, Hispanic


    Black, female and Hispanic have been sub-categories for quite a while now.


    even the Irish with their pitiful Boston townie schtick.


    I have no idea what that's even supposed to mean, unless it's the mandatory once-a-week anti-Irish crack which some commenters here feel the need to make. I'm pretty sure that most Irish in America are not Bostonians.

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  24. @Dennis: actually, the idea of gay political identity/gay solidarity was at its height in the 80s. It's come down significantly since then. The two big recent battles in the gay movement have been about assimilation -- marriage and serving in the military. The brief era of gay institutions -- gay bookstores, gay social clubs, gay religious institutions -- is ending as gay people become increasingly welcome in the regular ones. I know gay people in their 50s whose social circles are primarily and even solely made up of other gay people. For gay people in their 20s, it's not like that.

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  25. That review caused me to mint a new word: "Homofrenetic."

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  26. Steve Sailer--

    The whip hand in American life seems to be shifting toward gays, as their punishing of various black basketballers and comedians over the last couple of years demonstrates.

    No it's Jews. And who Jews support in their instinct to keep gentile white majorities either (in elite part) allied, or intellectually and culturally suppressed.

    Having said this I tend to like and always have secular Jews who weren't too extremely leftist. Been friends with many and still am. But I greatly dislike their immunity from group criticism for group networked action, which is certainly not something enjoyed by the religious (white Christian) right, not me, or white gentiles in general in this country.

    Their immunity from group criticism under the banner of shaming anti-semitism should end. Now.

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  27. I know that the push for "equal rights" and "gay marriage" is really just because gays want to be able to adopt kids. Then, they will parade their gay families everywhere. This will also give these gay guys an easy way to become Little League coaches, Cub Scout leaders, etc. It's about mainstreaming the act of being a Perv. Nothing more, nothing less.

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  28. helene edwards10/12/11, 5:42 PM

    are gays ... doing all that much culturally that's interesting right now?

    I recall a cover story in The New Republic from around 1994 which more or less posed just this question. Andrew Sullivan was EIC at the time, and the idea was that gays had become boringly burgeois. Maybe you could call it up.

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  29. "...50 years ago,a bunch of gays...would get together and make,say,West Side Story.(Being gay)has to sneak in via metaphor and art." So the lyric,"got a rocket in your pocket" should indeed inspire giggles? PS:Re Dennis Dale: "pitiful townie shtick". Pitiful is a good word to describe your stupid non-sequitur attempt to bash the Irish.Damn you! PPS: This reminds me of the John Cheever Seinfeld episode.I have always maintained,as in Steve's past article on defining what is funny,that homosexuality is one of the most innately funny things in this world,and played a role in making us one of the funniest species on the planet. The 'George fear of being gay' theme underpins that show's humor.Not that theres anything wrong with that.

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  30. Irish townie schtick; the exemplar of this trope is probably Goodwill Hunting. I don't know; I've never seen Goodwill Hunting, and I sure don't want to associate with anyone who would.
    Another film, The Town, plays on it; it's the image of the Irish as the blacks of white America, soulful, suffering, deprived. And firemen! Enough with the g--damned Irish firemen! You know why people become firemen? Because they aren't interesting!

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  31. Probably a good point to remind everyone of the greatest media quote ever, from the director of NYC's GMHC, in the Village Voice around 1996:

    We're never going to end this epidemic until people understand how important it is for me to have a cock in my ass and another one in my mouth.

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  32. "Do you really think gay relationships are any easier or more drama-free than straight relationships?"

    No of course not. But the whole enterprise of man + woman is more of a challenge. Just read some of the pissing and moaning about women not putting out, men looking at porn etc. Men are from Mars, and all that.

    Or do you think there is no real difference between the sexes?

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  33. Harry Baldwin10/12/11, 7:07 PM

    Good for Updike, expressing an honest opinion with which I can relate. I was listening to an audiobook of David Sedaris' short stories, and when I got to one where he described his homosexual awakening in the junior high school boy's locker room, I had to shut it off. Who wants to hear that stuff?

    At the same time, I also find Updike's descriptions of sex fairly off-putting. He was a great writer, but there's something disturbing about his character that comes through in his work. . . negative, or amoral, or just depressed. I never felt uplifted by anything he wrote.

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  34. Josh scoffed at Sinatra being femme.

    Frankie became macho because the record buying public suddenly wasn't all bobby-soxers.

    If as many men came home from Vietnam at once, Bobby Sherman would have re-tooled to be a tough guy.

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  35. Irish townie schtick: Matt Damon's The Fighter, Scorsese's The Departed. I like those films because I like films about white people but let's be honest: poor, white trash existence in Boston is rather prosaic until you populate it with high-paid actors and slick camera work.

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  36. That article is so gay.

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  37. No it's Jews. And who Jews support in their instinct to keep gentile white majorities either (in elite part) allied, or intellectually and culturally suppressed.

    I agree with Doug1. The Jewish 'flavor' in so much media is really laid on thick. Listen to NPR for example. It's also striking to see the periodic desperate pushes to get an idiosyncratically Jewish actor up on the A-list, like Seth Rogen in The Green Hornet. Pudgy, sloppy Jewish guy/superhero. Yeah, that'll work.

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  38. Steve,

    The line about the market for 'basketball, rap, and unfortunate babies names' being cornered by Black people is a reminder of your fantastic sardonic wit that you need to employ more often.

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  39. "Here's a more general question about trends in American culture. In the 20th Century, African-Americans were clearly a rising group in terms of cultural contributions. But, that doesn't seem to be obviously true anymore. Instead, as blacks lost the urge to impress whites that they could live up to white standards in culture, they've settled down to certain cultural ghettos they can dominate (basketball, rap, unfortunate baby names, etc.) and don't seem to be contributing as much anymore."

    We may not think much of rap, but it's a huge influence worldwide. Good or bad, it's bigger than coca-cola culturally on all five continents. Rap is arguably, in that sense, more important than rap and soul. It has also become the political voice of people all over. There is Zionist rap, Palestinian rap, Chinese rap, French rap, etc. It may not be Beethoven or Beatles, but it has a way of saying stuff which can be infectious and cool and badass to a lot of people.

    But the most alarming cultural decline is among wasps(and waspized Catholics and ethnics). I mean what the hell happened? This is a group that once gave us Hemingway, Fitzgerald, John Ford(who imbibed Wasp western myth), Howard Hawks, Raoul Walsh, Bogart, John Huston, Faulkner, James Stewart, and many more. There are wasps working in culture today but who really matters like giants of the past?
    And think of past Italian-Americans like Capra, Sinatra, Scorsese, Coppola, etc. What happened? Lately, we got SOPRANOS which sucked in my opinion.

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  40. But ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES was a genuine work of art.

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  41. Culturally the least interesting in America are the conservatives. I mean what is it? Nascar, Talk Radio, country music, and watching reruns of SOUND OF MUSIC?

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  42. Larry Kramer

    Dog whistle #1

    Tony Kushner

    Dog whistle #2

    Sarah Schulman

    Dog whistle #3

    David Haglund

    (Probably) Dog Whistle #4...

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  43. This is indeed an eye-rolling hissyfit, which would be fun to attack from a number of Camille Paglia-inspired angles. I'm not a great Updike fan myself-- I think he should've sat fallow for at least a few of the seasons when he didn't-- but this is awful, Stalinist stuff.

    Certainly Updike, or anybody else, should be free to express boredom with gay relationships. Whatever the dramas of gay couplings (and while some gays may indeed pursue monogamous relationships with all the fervor of some heteros, lets not be too coy here), they don't involve the same cosmic friction of heterosexuality. I can see that some gays think that's just a tedious old metaphor. Well, they're free to think that, but they're wrong.

    Let's not forget, too, that many gays, like Savage, openly find monogamous hetero marriage cringe-making and want to enroll them in polyamoury, to what effect who can know? Why people are titillated by the debauching of people they're not debauching personally is one of life's great mysteries, but anecdotally it seems gay men kinda love that stuff.

    The troubling possibility is that too many gays live in a house of mirrors, all surfaces, a shallow aestheticism where physical pleasure is too easy and too addictive, and attitude suffices in place of spiritual depth. A monastic-tending homosexual aesthete is probably under more social strain in today's gay world than they would've been in 1327, in at least a number of ways.

    Though certainly it's a great advance, in the West, not to live in fear of the stake.

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  44. Darwin's Sh*tlist10/12/11, 8:13 PM

    [blacks have] settled down to certain cultural ghettos they can dominate (basketball, rap, unfortunate baby names, etc.) and don't seem to be contributing as much anymore.

    When I peruse the local indie free paper, which has the most exhaustive music & restaurant listings, I'm struck by how eclectic everything is. Bands routinely advertise themselves as a blends of disparate genres and it seems half the restaurants are some type of "fusion" or another. And, obviously, all of this is very SWPL-friendly.

    Black culture exhibits little of this (well, aside from rappers sampling white rock songs). Despite all the talk about blacks having been victimized by "cultural imperialism" or "Eurocentrism," as a group most of them remain blissfully uninterested in anything that is not predominantly black. And the further you move down the socio-economic ladder towards the underclass, the more exclusively black the culture becomes.

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  45. Steve:

    I see that a commenter already mentioned Fran Lebowitz, whose remarks on this subject are incisive. Let me echo that and suggest that you check out the documentary, "Public Speaking."

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  46. The brief era of gay institutions -- gay bookstores, gay social clubs, gay religious institutions -- is ending as gay people become increasingly welcome in the regular ones.

    You are deluded.

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  47. Irish townie schtick; the exemplar of this trope is probably Goodwill Hunting. I don't know; I've never seen Goodwill Hunting, and I sure don't want to associate with anyone who would.


    Uh huh.

    You don't come across as a rocket scientist, Dale. The name "William Hunting" does not conjure up images of the Emerald Isle. In any case, it might be a good idea to talk about movies you have actually seen if you are going to base your social theories on them.


    You know why people become firemen? Because they aren't interesting!

    I see. Then why do people become CPA's? Because they are interesting?

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  48. John Updike was a Pennsylvania Lutheran. He is buried in the cemetery of an ELCA church.

    The ELCA is the largest Lutheran body in the USA, but has been hijacked, beginning in earnest around 20 years ago, by a cadre of fanatics, who have driven it relentlessly towards a far-left social-gospel. (And which has, naturally, atrophied members...people who want that message don't go to church).

    ELCA is in the news every so often for their latest "pro-gay" initiative. ('Practicing' homosexuals can serve as pastors asof 2010, after the first hundred or so votes the fanatics had agitated for in the past two decades had failed).

    In 1999, when Updike wrote his "bigoted" review, the Gay Controversy was already in full-swing in the ELCA. Although the pro-Heterosexual camp still easily dominated the church assembly in 1999, it would have been clear to keen minds like Updike's that this church was on such a trajectory that the kind of graphic g*y s*x he criticizes would, not inconceivably, be sermon material in the ELCA circa 2050 AD; sunday school material circa 2100.

    Let it be noted that there are other significant Lutheran bodies in the USA, which are not on this trajectory, at least not very quickly. Michelle Bachmann is part of one.

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  49. have you ever seen a gay relationship? They are just as messy and dramatic (if not more) than straight ones.


    They tend to be messy and brief. The stereotype of the "gay relationship" as involving two guys blowing each other in the park exists because it's so often true.

    No always true - I know gays in long term relationships. But it's true far more often than is the case for heterosexuals.

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  50. "that spawn of Up With People and National Socialism, Glee."

    Possibly the single greatest phrase by a commenter on Isteve.

    Gays have the whip hand culturally and politically and socially because ... White women like them. Simple as that. Gays are what, 5% at most of the population? That's not a demographic force. White women, beloved of advertisers, are. And mostly if you look at: TLC, Discovery, OWN, Lifetime, E!, Oxygen, all those tabloids at the Supermarket checkout lane, and (here's a new category for the bookstores "Teen Paranormal Romance") what your White female media consumer wants is one giant freakshow. Which gays provide reliably. Plus of course status mongering.

    HOWEVER ... the Irish are among the greatest of America's emigrants. When you look at the Brooklyn bridge, the Irish built it. As they did nearly all the railroads outside California. Most of the guys who fought in the Marines in WWII were Irish. The Irish are over-represented today in the military. Yes Whitey Bulger and all that. The Irish are very interesting, not the least of which is that they are NOT and never were, sainted oppressed and saintly victims. The Irish hung Blacks in NYC in the Civil War draft riots. Fought turf wars in New Orleans with Blacks. At the same time finding discrimination themselves.

    That makes them interesting.

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  51. "@Dennis: actually, the idea of gay political identity/gay solidarity was at its height in the 80s. It's come down significantly since then. The two big recent battles in the gay movement have been about assimilation -- marriage and serving in the military."

    They are to do with assimilation, allright, but whose? It seems to me that the gay activists are demanding that the institutions of marriage and the military assimilate to them.

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  52. No one wants to hear about it any more. The pandering to homosexuals is one of the reasons we moved out of the bay area. And re the intro to your article: Is that why no one cares about the NBA lockout? A league of thugs.

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  53. Part I

    "Sublimation of instinct is an especially conspicuous feature of cultural development; it is what makes it possible for higher psychical activities, scientific, artistic or ideological, to play such an important part in civilized life."

    I'm not particularly a Freudian, but I think he's onto something here. Up until around 1970, gay artists were under some pressure, no doubt internalized, to sublimate their particular take on sexuality, romantic relationships, childhood, and so forth, into more conventional patterns. The artistic output may have reflected in part the pain of sublimating these instincts and insights, but the "tortured artist" is more than just a cliche. Happy, well-adjusted people, at ease with themselves and the world, tend to go into medicine or marketing, not staring down a keyboard day after day, wondering if they're getting anywhere at all.

    In the 1970s, gay identity became more explicitly politcal, and then in the 80s, with AIDS, this process went into hyperdrive. Gay activists made the never-very-plausible case that AIDs was somehow the consequence of "homophobia," or at least, that if the larger society were more accepting of homosexuals, it would then be more compassionate toward AIDS vicitims, which would lead to more funding . . . etc. The people who took this line of argument seriously were probably not terribly disposed to see the humor in their own sexual folly, which means they weren't particularly apt to dramatize anyone else's.

    The impulse, indeed, the imperative, to drag gay sexuality out of the closet and into the public forum may have made a lot of gay people feel marginally more comfortable about their position in society (or maybe a lot more comfortable; I don't really know), but the diminishment of sublimation and transformation didn't do much for art produced by gay men.

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  54. You're not supposed to think "ick." It used to be you weren't supposed to say "Ick" out loud and that is reasonable expectation for humane reasons, but gays have become the thought police. Heterosexuals are not even supposed to THINK "ick." They are homophobes should they even have a silent conversation with themselves that goes something like this: "Something went awry in that person's biological sexual development. Something in the brain didn't develop right." (One is supposed to say, "Didn't develop 'typically,'" not "Didn't develop 'right' or 'normally.'"

    Thinking anything biological went awry in development, thinking it's a natural condition of the species for a male to desire a fertile and productive mate rather than one assured of being sterile and unproductive is a no-no.

    You are supposed to think that homosexuality is a "normal variation." The researchers studying the possible etiology of homosexuality, many of them gay men themselves, have termed it that and the heterosexual researchers, always aware that grant monies will not be forthcoming should they use impolitic language, are mindful of how they use language when they write up their studies.

    In defensive anticipation, I suppose, I've even seen it argued that if a germ theory such as Cochran's is one day found to be on the mark, that since pathogens are a part of nature (duh, yes), it would still be "correct" to argue that homosexuality is still nothing more than "natural variation." Those who argue this happily point to the symbiotic relationship of bacteria in our gut and to our evolutionary adaptation to such pathogens, but they never mention that any organism/pathogen relationship(s) that makes difficult or impossible the passing on of one's genes is a maladaptive relationship, not a "natural" one.

    But then again, to control thought, one must control language and the gay writers have been working very hard at that for some time now.

    I suspect that what Steve says is true. There will be a kind of regression to the mean, of sorts, in how the majority comes to view gays--just don't know how long it will take. The only thing that will cause that not to occur will be the actual discovery of what causes it and the eventual medical ability to prevent it from developing in the first place.

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  55. Carol's right, Mark.

    It's about brains being so different that cognitive or empathetic understanding is impossible... so the best that can be done is to achieve acceptance. On the topic of sex alone that is one hard thing to achieve.


    Two men will understand one another, no matter how different they may be, more than a man and a woman will ever understand one another.

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  56. Part II

    Finally, there is the issue of sterile repetition. One of the limiting factors of gay sexuality is that is doesn't eventuate in anything other than fleeting sexual pleasure, at best, or a now apparently controlable malady, at worst. For awhile, AIDS, awful though it is or was, did lend a tragic dimension to the gay experience, but that moment seems to have waned, and most of the rest of the world just isn't all that interested in what it's like to be gay (particularly when the bulletins from the front lines are so tedious and self-referential.)

    The reality of heterosexual sex -- though this also seems to be fading -- is that despite all of its attendant foolishness, it is arguably the most consequential thing that most people will ever do, because every once in a while, it results in a new human being. This is one of those deep-dwelling themes that most people don't think much about; they don't really have to. It's like the proverbial water in which the fish swims; art taps into these sub-conscious levels of human awareness in a way that a thousand political manifestos or Pride parades simply never will.

    I sense the same, or at least a similar, seterility when I look at the comments of some of the more enthusiastic "game" bloggers. "So, let me get this straight, you're going to screw this woman, then that woman, then the other woman, then the woman sitting next to her,then the as-of-yet-unmet woman, then you're going to dip into the Viagra stockpile, then cosmetic surgery, then hit the cougar circuit . . . and you're going to keep this up until you find yourself under an oxygen tent, and in what sense is this not sad, or funny, or both?"

    Of course, you could spin out an equally sad or funny sceanrio about getting married and having four kids, but in the latter case, life, however ridiculous, does go on.

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  57. It's a conundrum. The pressure of being in the closet and/or of having to dress up everything you had to contribute in heterosexual drag was agony on a personal level for many gays. But, occasionally, the pressures and talents resulted in culture-work that was amazingly good, and that could be enjoyed by all kinds of different people. Being out of the closet and free to discuss things in their own way seems to result in less inspired culture-work, and in work that often doesn't even try to reach far beyond a gay audience. But it also results in far more in the way of personal happiness for many gays. I miss the crazy highs the in-the-closet gayguys often delivered. But I'm glad my younger gay friends are better adjusted and happier. The old-style gay life was a pretty tough one.

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  58. "...they've[blacks] settled down to certain cultural ghettos they can dominate (basketball, rap, unfortunate baby names, etc.) and don't seem to be contributing as much anymore..."

    Love it, especially the "unfortunate baby names".

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  59. "But it was never blacks who made bending over backwards to make blacks happy a national priority, it was rich white liberals. And now the rich white liberal "elite" has decided that sucking up (pun intended) to gays is to be our new national priority."

    It (the bending over backwards) always starts with Hollywood and the NYC entertainment industry. Then, the lib elites of Manhattan follow their lead. Manhattanites want to prove to the Saturday Night Live crowd that they are hip. Gay Jews were very powerful people in the old studio system but they were in the closet then. Not so now.

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  60. "I miss the crazy highs the in-the-closet gayguys often delivered."

    Ray,

    I know you are very well versed in the arts in NYC. Can you give an example of what you mean by the above statement. By "crazy highs"? I am supposing you mean by this phrase something creative and original and stimulating that was created, at least in part, because the gay creator was closeted. An example?

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  61. "Carol, have you ever seen a gay relationship? They are just as messy and dramatic (if not more) than straight ones."

    I'm not Carol, Anonymous, and no offense, but I've been around enough gays to know that a substantial percentage of them have histrionic proclivities. Wouldn't you agree a large number of gay men not only exhibit this behavior but also seem to enjoy the exaggerated emotional displays? I don't believe this is an inaccurate stereotype. I've spent time around a lot of gay men who never display this side of themselves when around straight colleagues at work but who display what we straights would term emotional hypersensitivity or dramatic behavior when among mostly gay people.

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  62. "@Dennis: actually, the idea of gay political identity/gay solidarity was at its height in the 80s. It's come down significantly since then. The two big recent battles in the gay movement have been about assimilation -- marriage and serving in the military."

    C'mon. The political power and recognition of gays as a class has never been greater. And what is "assimilation" in this context? We're bringing gays out of the ghetto, is that it? Doesn't feel that way to me. Feels like the gays are creating their own gilded ghetto, and relishing the idea of being a discrete elite class--with a permanent grievance! Oh wait, do you mean it's us being assimilated?

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  63. "Love it, especially the 'unfortunate baby names.'"

    I agree. Sometimes Steve just cracks me up. This was a grand slam.

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  64. Carol is right, men will never really understand women and vice-versa.

    Also, Re: gay writers, Proust wrote mostly about heterosexual love (although there's plenty of homosexuals too); also Oscar Wilde and most other homosexual writers of previous ages would not write about gay relationships, but about male-female love. Reading about men buggering each other is just not that interesting for people who are not gay. It's just boring.

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  65. Bobby Sherman, the teen idol singer of about 1969, saved his money, and then when he went out of fashion, did what he'd always really wanted to do: became a cop. I read an article about him in the 1990s. He did a lot of EMT training and was assigned sometimes to do crowd control at stuff like big summertime picnics in the 'hood because he was still extremely likable and charming and could get belligerent people who had never heard of him to calm down.

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  66. "Musicals were obviously good. Sinatra did them for Christ's sake. Do you think Sinatra was femme?"


    I don't even like it when the words to the music in the soundtrack are too overtly related to the action/emotion in the movie I'm watching.

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  67. Freud's concept of sublimination: you never hear about that anymore but it has always made a lot of sense to me.

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  68. "Is that why no one cares about the NBA lockout? A league of thugs."

    Speaking of which, on the radio today I heard one NBA player say, "We should start our own league." (Sorry, didn't catch his name.)

    Yeah, right. How likely is that? They'd need the equivalent of a shrewd, driven man like Al Davis to ever accomplish that, and of course, if they had someone like that, whatever was created wouldn't be their "own league." now would it?

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  69. "Create their own league" -- Around 1970, tour pro golfers rebelled against the Professional Golfers Association (PGA), which is dominated numerically by teaching pros. They ended up keeping some links with the PGA while setting up the Tournament Players association, which now controls the tour through the Tour Commissioner. I think something like that happened in tennis around the same time too.

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  70. From one of the Bech books: "The Negro lives deprived and naked among us as the embodiment of truth, and … when the castle of credit cards collapses a black god will redeem us"

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  71. I am reminded of something Pat Buchanan wrote when Broke Back Mountain came out, "'The love that dare not speak its name' has become 'the love that won't shut the hell up.'".

    Relating to this bit about Updike's church:

    "The ELCA is the largest Lutheran body in the USA, but has been hijacked, beginning in earnest around 20 years ago, by a cadre of fanatics, who have driven it relentlessly towards a far-left social-gospel. (And which has, naturally, atrophied members...people who want that message don't go to church).

    ELCA is in the news every so often for their latest "pro-gay" initiative. ('Practicing' homosexuals can serve as pastors asof 2010, after the first hundred or so votes the fanatics had agitated for in the past two decades had failed)."


    Ashkenazis sometimes seem like cheap imitations of WASPs.

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  72. Reading about men buggering each other is just not that interesting for people who are not gay. It's just boring.

    History suggests it was more morally outrageous than "boring".

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  73. Steve Johnson10/13/11, 1:14 AM

    Whiskey said...

    " 'that spawn of Up With People and National Socialism, Glee.'

    Possibly the single greatest phrase by a commenter on Isteve."

    C'mon don't sell yourself short.

    The time Greg Cochran called you a pinhead is still #1.

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  74. It's actually sad. Growing up and maturing, knowing in your heart of hearts that you're not normal, but wanting so desperately in your heart of hearts to be normal. I mean that sincerely, it is sad, and I do sympathize.

    But, what to do, what do do? The only thing you can do: change the dictionary definition of normal. Now if only G_d (or Mother Nature, take your choice) would read it, and allow the product of homosexual love be new life, everything would be right in the world.

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  75. "basketball, rap, unfortunate baby names" that's funny but you did forget flash mobbing

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  76. Steve, isn't Matt Stone of South Park a flamer? I think Gavin Mcinness or some such just wrote an article about that (no link provided- look it up yourself, lazyass)

    Dan in DC

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  77. Anonymous wrote "Good or bad (rap), it's bigger than coca-cola culturally on all five continents"

    Link please..... I heard it was bigger than Sprite and Yoo-Hoo but no coca-cola

    Dan in DC

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  78. A few more thoughts:

    Anonymous at 8:54 pm is a funny guy- well done. Dennis Dale probably needs to respond to that. lt would be helpful to have some kind of moniker so I wouldn't have to call you anonymous guy at 8:54 pm

    Dan Savage is vile- he needs an asskicking.....no, settle down Dan, I didn't say ass-pounding

    The Assasinstion of Jesse James is s phenomenal movie- gets better the more you watch it.....although still pales to MacGruber which is the funniest movie ever made. The writers of MacGruber also got into some trouble for a homophobic scene in the movie. I remember how ridiculous the criticism was and it is reminiscent of Steve's post on Updike.


    Dan in DC

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  79. "after a while you begin to long for the chirp and swing and civilizing animation of a female character."

    Updike must have hated "The Lord of the Rings", "Catch-22", "Lord of the Flies", etc. Actually there is lot of great male-centric writing. The problem is that the characters are gay, not that there is no female presence. Updike probably couldn't bring himself to be that honest.

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  80. Culturally the least interesting in America are the conservatives. I mean what is it? Nascar, Talk Radio, country music, and watching reruns of SOUND OF MUSIC?

    What do you expect when Frankfurt School-style neo-Marxism is culturally hegemonic and the entire West is ruled by the neo-Bolshevik American Empire? E-mail Tom Sunic, he's always happy to explain these things.

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  81. watching reruns of SOUND OF MUSIC?
    Ok I just watched this last night.. damn the one plays the eldest daughter is so hot. (i can say that she was 22 or something when it was filmed)

    But not true, conservatives are far more exciting. liberals don't deal with truth, they like to mask truth.. that's why you read this blog which is more interesting than fluff/avoid reality pieces in Wapo etc.

    btw I was reading "natasha's dance" (cultural history of russia) and the author of lolita was conserative, staunch anti-communist *as was stravinsky and nearly every other russian artist who fled 1917 russia - they detested the left's love affair with communism (which is jewish in its roots, which leads us back to this discussion about the whip hand)

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  82. Peter Hitchens had a post a few weeks about Wadpole, who was a homo, but interesting novelist.

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  83. "posthumous"
    reminds me, though it's happened 'virtually' - in print ect.. when does the revolution really show its succeeded and start desecrating the tombs and memorials of dead white males and exhuming bodies for trial and destruction of the bodies.

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  84. The reviewer was just pissed that Updike said what every male thinks. Man on man sex is gross, repugnant, and wrong.

    Homophobia? No one I know is personally afraid of homosexuals. However, many fear for their children due to homosexual culture's acceptance of pedophilia. Watching a homosexual relationship is like watching a one note play. And since we are programed by several hundred thousand years of evolution to recognize just how boring those relationships are, we know what is happening before it happens.

    Western society had relegated homosexuality to its proper place, a closet where two men had to sneak around. Good. Now we just need to figure out how to get back their.

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  85. Steve,

    Do an article about Bobby Sherman. That sounds different and interesting. Unlike 90% of celebrity stories where the celeb goes through the equivalent of the national budget of Argentina every year until they are broke and doing specials on the 'God' channel.

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  86. "Do you really think gay relationships are any easier or more drama-free than straight relationships?"

    The friction that happens in hetero relationships is real and stems from fundamental differences, whereas homos simply act out.

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  87. Agree with many above who say that the contribution of gay male artists has declined since the gay rights movement. But there are a number of really good explicitly gay novels (as opposed to the numerous great closet gay artists who wrote on heterosexual themes). Andrew Holleran, "Dancer From the Dance" and Edmund White, "A Boy's Own Story" come to mind. Both of these are from the 70s/early 80s I think, by writers who grew up closeted but then came out in the mass orgy of gay 1970s New York. A dramatic time, that short window between the emergence of homosexuality into the open and the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.

    It's weird to say that male/female relationships are inherently more dramatic or conflict-ridden than gay relationships. Men and women are complementary in many ways. Our differences complement each other. Men and men seem to have more capacity to butt heads.

    I know Steve has written on this before, but it's weird that gay male artists are so much better than gay female artists. Willa Cather is the only great lesbian writer I can think of.

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  88. Georgia Resident10/13/11, 8:24 AM

    Steve, I'm going to have to disagree with your assessment that blacks have lost the whip hand to gays. I don't think a homosexual could murder 13 coworkers in cold blood and have the media blame it on homophobia. I could be wrong, of course, since such an event hasn't happened (to my knowledge).

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  89. Freud's concept of sublimination


    He got it from Nietzsche, who he was a big fan of.

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  90. have you ever seen a gay relationship? They are just as messy and dramatic (if not more) than straight ones.

    Cop friend of mine says the bloodiest domestic violence calls involve homosexual men.

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  91. I have also noted the re-emergence of Irish "identity" in movies of late, starting with the wince-inducing "Good Will Hunting" of several years ago.

    I am a white ethnic of a different sort, and I take a real interest in my ancestry (even learned the language as an adult), but I don't take offense when I hear criticism of my tribe. The thin-skin of some Irish-Americans (evident in the comments here) really puzzles me. Is this part of the re-emergence of their identity, or have the Irish always been so touchy?

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  92. What has happened to the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America)--nothing "evangelical" about it anymore--has been really tragic.

    It stands as proof that a small minority can hijack an institution against the will of those who care most deeply about it and have the most invested in it.

    In that sense, the homosexualization of the ELCA is not unlike the transformation that the United States is undergoing as a result of the mass-immigration policies imposed by a minority upon the majority.

    In both cases, the institutions are being destroyed.

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  93. "Reading about men buggering each other is just not that interesting for people who are not gay. It's just boring."

    It's gross. If it's well-written and insightful, it should be praised as literature, but it's still gross.
    It's like everyone has a right to be morally offended or physically disgusted by what happens in LOLITA while praising it as great literature.
    Or imagine a movie like MURMUR OF THE HEART, which is about incest(though, to be sure, it's about a kid and his stepmother). Many critics were turned off by that aspect of it while still praising its humor and wit. I think it may be Malle's best.

    Personally, I can take gay stuff as subject matter but not as propaganda. Gay stuff is just too ewwww for me.
    It's like I can read a book about a culture that tortures and eats animals, but I don't want pro-animal torture books or movies. It's one thing to read in a book that Chinese eat dogs or Spanish torture bulls. It's another thing for me to have to see those as good things.
    This is why I avoid stuff like PHILADELPHIA and BROKEBACK MOUNTING. I don't need to be told that stuff is fine behavior. It aint. I mean the idea of two guys kissing and acting sissy like girls. Or a guy sticking his reproductive organ into the fecal hole of another man. I mean gimme a break. Peeeeeuuuuuuu.

    But I loved the film C.R.A.Z.Y. which I take to be a semi-autobiographical work by some guy who grew up with identity crisis of being gay. That was fun and deeply moving. Very truthful. A work of great empathy.

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  94. "Love it, especially the 'unfortunate baby names.'"


    One good thing about this is the media cannot cover up black crime. Even if the story doesn't mention race or show a photo, you know some guy named Taqueel Jackson gonna be black.

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  95. The thing about gays... it goes back to highschool..

    cuz they're gay... they're not cut out for stuff that's really cool... like sports... or being a jock... or greaser... or rapper... etc. There's geeky stuff like science, but many gays are too flamboyant and too frustrated to focus on such stuff....


    and so... they go into school theatre, literary clubs, and newspapers... the sort of stuff that may not get much respect in school... but they are stepping stones to... journalism, arts, cultures, theatre, screen writing, music, etc....

    which means gays, like Jews, become way overrepresented in fields that control culture, media, and entertainment.

    What we need is conservative theatre groups all across this country, especially in small town local communities. This will inspire more conservatives to be creative. They can put on classic plays, write conservative plays, do plays on recent history, etc.

    Politics is a form of theater. We need more Charlton Hestons.

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  96. Even if people no longer need to stay in the closet(if anything, people who oppose the gay agenda seems to be in the closet), I think lots of gays in pop culture remain in the closet. Why? What is a major selling point in pop culture? Sex appeal. If a good looking gay says he's gay, he may still be liked by many females on a cultural or moral level, but he loses his sex appeal to them.

    Liberal women may still like or approve of Tom Cruise out of the closet, but he will no longer be their hearthrob.

    I think this is less a problem with lesbians with men, as long as the women are really good looking.

    I also think some gays stay in the closet cuz they wanna be taken seriously as something than as 'gay something'. They don't wanna be pigeonholed as a 'gay writer' or 'gay artist' or 'gay thinker'. They just wanna be appreciated as a 'great writer', 'great artist', or 'great thinker'. They don't wanna be ghettoized.

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  97. People don't want to read about Gay sex because its disgusting. I think our culture, such as it is, has been hurt by Gays coming out of the closet. As stated, previously Gays like T. Williams, Wilde, T. Wilder, Inge, et al had to write about Hetro love. Sometimes it was just Gays in drag, but they still reached out to the wider world. Now they write about their real concern, other Gays.

    Its probably healthier that way. Gays can be Gay, Jews jewish, Blacks black, and the rest of us can just turn it off and watch normal people.

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  98. "You're on to something. As black culture has become more about being black it has become inward-focused and directionless. As black political attitudes have hardened, it's become a crab bucket."

    yes, black culture is getting more black, but that's winning more non-blacks to black culture. Perhaps Rap is more black than soul and jazz, but it has won more cross-over fans among non-blacks. 80% of all rap cds are bought by white kids. Rap is huge all over as music, style, manners, lingo, dress, etc.

    since blacks-being-more-black is so lucrative financially and culturally, why should blacks dispense with this?

    I mean most white kids don't wanna listen to Nat King Cole... or even Marvin Gaye. They want rap.

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  99. Maybe WEST SIDE STORY should be redone a boy-boy thing.

    Mario, I just met a boy named Mario

    Btw, do you suppose JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR also has a gay subtext? I don't even wanna think about it.

    I don't know how to love him...


    no no no.

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  100. There are prolly gays all over culture, but we don't know they're gay.

    I thought TRON LEGACY was like a gay fascist fantasy.

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  101. A revealing sentence in the quoted article: "Updike makes it sound as though the controversy was that he referred to gay sex at all, not that he spoke about it in a bigoted manner."

    Well, yes! Most people who are not homosexual would not regard descriptions (quoted in the linked article) of the hairs surrounding a man's anus, or his "rectal scent," as erotic - they would be disgusted. Is registering this disgust "speak[ing] about it in a bigoted manner"?

    The propaganda of homosexual activists for the past several decades has been carefully designed to describe homosexuality as a state of being, rather than a propensity to engage in certain kinds of sex acts. It is hard to feel sympathy for people who face social disapprobation because they habitually behave in ways most people find grossly disgusting. It is easier to feel sympathy for them if they are described as suffering persecution for an innate condition for which they can no more be held responsible than someone could for having green eyes or being left-handed.

    A similar sort of calculated propaganda is seen in the public presentation of that other hot-button social issue, abortion. Abortion advocates are careful to couch their arguments in terms of a woman's choice. They object like hell to graphic descriptions of the process, which may involve sticking a cannula into the head of the unborn child and sucking out its brains, or chopping up the child's body inside its mother's womb and removing it in pieces.

    Such revolting anatomical detail makes it graphically clear what "pro-choice" activists are defending - just as Updike's drawing unsympathetic attention in his review to Hollinghurst's graphic description of hairy anuses and rectal scents does in the case of "gay liberation." Both the apologists for abortion and the apologists for buggery really dislike it when someone turns over their smooth, clean-looking rock and exposes the verminous decay beneath it.

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  102. "I know Steve has written on this before, but it's weird that gay male artists are so much better than gay female artists. Willa Cather is the only great lesbian writer I can think of.":

    I don't know that they are better but there are probably many more gay males in the arts than lesbians. This is probably so because women who are essentially lesbians have traditionally still gotten married and still borne children. The devotion to children and family doesn't leave time for the pursuit of a career in the arts, which often leads hunger, uncertain futures.

    Gay men probably find themselves turning to the arts because they are already gay populated and because, not expecting marriage and kids, they have nothing to lose.

    It remains to be established if there is any truth to the claim of some that gay males are more creative than straight men because of brain differences or if they are more creative than lesbians. I tend to think not, that the reason we find so many gay men in the arts is because historically they have been accepted there more than they have been in other circles.

    Until the biology of same sex attraction is figured out, we'll have to wait for an answer.

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  103. "Cop friend of mine says the bloodiest domestic violence calls involve homosexual men."


    Depression and mental illness rates along with substance abuse is higher among gays than straights, both here and in places like Denmark. Studies are on-going to see if such problems are related to societal attitudes or if it's more likely there is something in the brain chemistry that accounts for the differences in mental health.

    Last I saw, the biggest study (Denmark, I think) suggested the problems were not of a societal nature.

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  104. "I also think some gays stay in the closet cuz they wanna be taken seriously as something than as 'gay something'. They don't wanna be pigeonholed as a 'gay writer' or 'gay artist' or 'gay thinker'. They just wanna be appreciated as a 'great writer', 'great artist', or 'great thinker'. They don't wanna be ghettoized."

    Kevin Spacey, for one. He still wants leading roles, and why not, he's a great actor, but coming out publicly would change the kind of roles he could get. He's not what is called a romantic lead, but he's had success as a dramatic lead actor, and all that would change if he or the press made a big deal about his sexuality.

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  105. It seems it's a bad bad thing to use 'gay' in a pejorative way, and indeed not all gays are gayish in a caricature-ish way. But some gays are, and that stuff is pretty funny. And in that sense, it's fair enough to use 'gay' to mean something ridiculous.

    But same is true of overly masculine guys. 'Macho' often means exaggerated masculinity that borders on the silly and laughable.
    And exaggerated female sex appeal is also made fun of as 'slutty' or 'bimbo-ish'.
    So, if we can laugh at exaggerated forms of straight sexuality, what is wrong with laughing at exaggerated gayness--when there is so much of it?

    Also, the term 'geek' refers to extreme cerebrality, and that too is ridiculed and mocked for merriment. I'll bet some geeks felt bullied emotionally and committed suicide, but I don't hear about geekophobia or need for geek pride parades--though I'd prefer that to gay pride parades. I see more pride in being good at computers and chess than in doing buggery.

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  106. One thing that the Left covers up is how much the liberal/left folks used to equate homosexuality with evil and degeneracy.

    Left often mocked Hitler as a closet-gay, which could have been one reason why Hitler got so angry with the whole gay business.

    Take a movie like OPEN CITY. There is the sinister lesbian Nazi bitch.
    In Costa Gavras's Z, one of the thugghish henchmen is gay. In one scene, he looks up some young dude and makes a horny remark.

    There are so many example like this. So, the whole narrative of "liberal tolerance that was pro-gay versus conservative intolerance that was anti-gay" really ignores much of the history.

    Liberals controlled popular culture for a long time, and they often used gayness to mean evil and perversion.

    Even gay artists did this. In Pasolini's SALO, the fascist thugs are a bunch of sodomizing gays.
    The movie CONFORMIST says a man turned into a fascist because he was molested by a gay man in his youth.

    DAMNED by Visconti has a gay guy who becomes a Nazi. Visconti was gay.

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  107. "I know Steve has written on this before, but it's weird that gay male artists are so much better than gay female artists. Willa Cather is the only great lesbian writer I can think of.":

    Susan Sontag and Camille Paglia.

    I guess Sappho.

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  108. What about the media saying Chris Christie is too much of a fatty fatkins to run for president? What if some people were born with the natural orientation to eat a lot... just like gays are born with the natural orientation for gay sex? If we shouldn't expect gays to abstain from gay sex, why should we expect jollies(those predisposed to eating a lot)to abstain from 'over-eating'? If the argument is over-eating is bad for one 's health, so is anal intercourse between men; it's a good way to spread disease, and the money our society as a whole had to spend on HIV has been astronomical.

    And consider all the great fatsos throughout history. Winston Churchill, John Adams, Balzac, Orson Welles, Hitchcock, Dick Butkus, Santa, Socrates(he looks fat from the bust of his)etc. I mean we should be calling for fat or jolly pride parades.
    End to fatophobia, I say. And no more fatophobic fat jokes.

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  109. And consider all the fat kids who've been bullied and committed suicide.

    Michelle Obama is a fatophobic and hateful and killing the fatty kids.

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  110. "But the most alarming cultural decline is among wasps (and waspized Catholics and ethnics). I mean what the hell happened? There are wasps working in culture today but who really matters like giants of the past?"

    there are so many of them doing so much stuff it's impossible to keep track of it all or identify them specifically every single time as representatives of their group.

    i've discussed this before in my various ramblings about "Where does stuff come from?" it would just be stupid to pause every time and be like "Oh yeah, another english/german/french thing which is a cultural backbone in global society". that would slow things down so much it would be silly.

    Randolph Severn Parker III, as english a name as you can possibly get, is the real name of trey parker, the main force behind south park, and the guy who wrote this musical, the book of mormon, which steve mentioned as the most talked about thing on broadway.

    in fact i think the "not part of dominant group" effect is what happens here - people are eager to notice when something important doesn't come from the ultra dominant european core groups, so they go into this routine about how group x, who created all of 2 or 3 whole notable things, actually created anything worth a damn, while deliberately ignoring the 978 interesting, important things which those dreaded boring northwestern europeans came up with.

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  111. Which is weird. Blacks at least make up a sizable chunk of the American population. Gays? Not so much.

    Number is nothing, it's about who can commandeer the lenses and microphones.

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  112. as i wrote before, there used to a be a few important and good gay musicians. rob halford, freddy mercury, and elton john for instance. guys like that are gone today however. no flamboyant gays (who we know are gay, at least) bringing their showmanship to the field. although, this may be part of broader, general exodus of white men from popular music. other stuff is more interesting to lots of them now, and they're less concerned with creating popular music than they were in the past.

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  113. MQ:
    "I know Steve has written on this before, but it's weird that gay male artists are so much better than gay female artists. Willa Cather is the only great lesbian writer I can think of."

    It's true, and I think for the most sexist reason: men are more creative than women.

    Indeed, despite the natural political pairing, lesbians and gay men exist at the opposite ends of sexual (and related) behavior--gay male promiscuity (the predictable result of a sexual realm entirely of men on the make, with no one playing the traditional female role of demurring restraint) contrasted with lesbians' legendary domesticity (they even love dogs more that most!).
    I'm sure Camille Paglia has some entertaining things to say about it all.

    In certain aspects of behavior, gay men are the most masculine and lesbians the most feminine among us. Crazy world.

    I think it's also notable that gay men still seek out the company of women, and even establish cults around powerful celebrity women like Elizabeth Taylor, Madonna, etc (even gays chase and objectify women!).
    While lesbians retreat further into their own homes, some even establishing segregated communities barred to men. It's understandale; male attention and energy just wears women out.

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  114. What we need is conservative theatre groups all across this country, especially in small town local communities. This will inspire more conservatives to be creative.

    What we need is for conservatives to be more tolerant of creativity.

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  115. The whole gay agenda business is about morality vs moral supremacism.

    Those who call for marriage to stay as it is and for gays to be tolerated are being moral. They wanna be fair and decent but they also wanna uphold certain standards cuz morality is hierarchical. Not all things are equally good. Even so, it's not like everything is Good vs Evil. Gays can be decent folks and can be tolerated in what they do.

    But for Moral Supremacists, there is a constant need to feel holier-than-thou, higher-than-thou, mightier-than-thou, and etc.
    On the Right, the 'God Hates Fags' crowd are moral supremacists. On the Left, the radical gay agenda-ists are moral supremacists. They are not merely calling for tolerance for gays. They are calling for gayness to be recognized as a symbol of moral purity. And since they themselves hold onto such position, they are supposed to be sooooooo much better than the rest of us. They feel this need for moral supremacism. It's not enough for them to feel moral. They are addicted to the need to feel morally superior.

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  116. So often, when the gay agenda people talk about gay issues, it's not really about gays, gayness, or gay issues but really about themselves: about how they are BETTER than the rest of society--especially them evil conservatives--cuz they are sooooooo caring about all things gay and holey. Paradoxically, moral supremacists are morally bankrupt people who need to compensate for the lack of true morality by embracing some highfalutin moral cause. Commies were like this.

    It's like religious right loonies who talk about God all the time are not really talking about God but how THEY THEMSELVES are better than others cuz they're soooo into God.
    And it's like how neo-nazi scum and Nation of Islam scum--racial supremacists--need to go on and on about their racial greatness cuz they lack genuine self-respect as individuals.

    Racial, spiritual, or moral supremacism, it's the last refuge of scoundrels.

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  117. Politics is a form of theater. We need more Charlton Hestons.

    Will a Rock Hudson do?

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  118. alonzo portfolio10/13/11, 4:29 PM

    ... punishing of various black basketballers and comedians over the last couple of years ...

    I used to love watching Tim Hardaway play. I'd sit behind the basket just to watch this amazingly tough guy weave between and bounce off players twice his size. Unfortunately, he's now "grown," appearing at a pro-gay partner benefits rally.

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  119. alonzo portfolio10/13/11, 4:29 PM

    ... punishing of various black basketballers and comedians over the last couple of years ...

    I used to love watching Tim Hardaway play. I'd sit behind the basket just to watch this amazingly tough guy weave between and bounce off players twice his size. Unfortunately, he's now "grown," appearing at a pro-gay partner benefits rally.

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  120. "People don't want to read about Gay sex because it's disgusting."

    Stop being so obvious.

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  121. "Willa Cather is the only great lesbian writer I can think of." Hmm. Well, I suppose it depends what you mean by lesbian, MQ, but I'm rather surprised at you for that, er, somewhat culturally illiterate comment.

    Sappho fell in love with women. Was she a lesbian? Well, enough so that both her name and the name of her island have been used as synonyms for "homosexual woman". Does that let her count as lesbian, in spite of her having been married? And she was only one of the most original poets in history. Anyway, there's Virginia Woolf, further down the greatness scale and most probably asexual, but she definitely had one sexual relationship with a woman, Vita Sackville-West, a woman who was one of the great gardeners of the 20th century and *definitely* a lesbian. Then there was Ethel Smyth, the composer - not really great, but not insignificant. Others? I don't know, and I suspect there aren't that many since most women through history, straight or lesbian, haven't had the leisure to produce works of art because they were married and had children. But there are more than just Willa Cather.

    Alias Clio

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  122. No great lesbian writers besides Willa Cather? What about Sappho (whose name and dwelling place are almost synonymous with female homosexuality)? Really, MQ, I hadn't expected you, of all people, to be so culturally illiterate. (Tease - but true.)

    Alias Clio

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  123. Re "Will Rock Hudson do?" Well,Jim Nabors would say yeah. A bit OT but re the gay subtext of pop culture where innocent things can be seen as maybe not so innocent,it seems the pedophile community has adopted a kids Disney show as a cult favorite. "Lazytown" features an adorable little girl as the mainstay among a bunch of wacky (adult) men and puppets.No women. Hmmm. The pedo's have posted numerous videos on Youtube,and they have fought to keep them up as they seem to border on child porn. I heard about this from "xsplat" a poster on Roissy who lives in Asia with his (much) younger girls. Its a lot like gay stuff,its very sick but,allowing for that,sometimes funny.Pedos and gays seem to be of a similar type to me.

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  124. smarter than mitch10/13/11, 6:46 PM

    Oh wow, you guys get your anal sex jokes from the likes of Anderson Cooper?

    Let's go down the list of how it's obvious no literary greats are contributing to iSteve:

    no wit
    unimpressive snark
    jr high level humor
    thinking you're clever using a reference to a meaningless review of a worthless novel as an excuse to discuss anal sex graphically

    Did I mention no one cares? Jeez how upset you are that heterosexuals are heterocentric. I thought the whole point of iSteve was helping people deal with the reality of other people's ego/ethno centrism and stop denying their own.

    Frumpy little gay guy throws a tantrum. What else is new?

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  125. On a recent travel, I picked up a copy of CHANGING PLACES by David Lodge. Only got through a few chapters but it's one of the funniest things I've ever read.

    Changing Places

    David Lodge interview

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  126. since u brought it up10/13/11, 8:19 PM

    On an earlier thread, gays were cited as having had the courage (or something) to gentrify blighted inner city neighborhoods. We owe them. Some inner cities are looking vastly better with a more diverse population now that whites are back, and gays paved that yellow brick road.

    So while I cringe when women go on about gay men -- and then wonder why they can't attract guys.

    and since u brought it up:

    "Abortion advocates are careful to couch their arguments in terms of a woman's choice. They object like hell to graphic descriptions of the process,"
    uh, OK. But they are thinking more of graphic examples of girls' supperated innards and often death from botched abortions and the eternal desperation that has driven girls and women from time immemorial. Someone told me that in Italy--Italy--that you could hear women in the streets banging on anything that would make a joyful noise they were so happy when the anti-abortion laws were changed. What they must have gone through to feel that way...

    "My Body Myself" has described various abortion procedures pretty accurately. They object to you shouting them down with gory pictures of later-term procedures rarely done.
    If these sign carriers were half as worried about already born people, maybe war & mayhem would cease. Most are the biggest blankety-blanks I've ever met; make me think that if they were women they'd be the first in line for their D&C or suctioning or whatever.



    I remember a smart black lady I worked with, mother of 2, very well adjusted, sociable, etc. She'd get absolutely livid at debates about abortion--no bunch of white men sitting in a courtroom should have any power to force her to carry a pregnancy, blah blah blah. She also saw nothing wrong with homosexuality.
    So maybe she needs to be enlightened; but after what she's described of sexual assault victims in the hospital where she was a dialysis patient, I don't think so.

    Gay sex and abortion don't really have the same raison d'etre.

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  127. Arno wrote: "What has happened to the ELCA...has been really tragic. It stands as proof that a small minority can hijack an institution against the will of those who care most deeply about it and have the most invested in it."

    Have a look at what this ELCA pastor, of Updike's generation, has to say of the leftward push. He describes a cadre of hardcore radicals who never kept quiet, always agitated, were always on the attack, never on the retreat. At every churchwide assembly, he relates (from personal experience), these fanatics would essentially disrupt the proceedings by bringing up the Gay Question. Even by the mid-1980s, in some quarters, the radicals had infiltrated and were worming their way towards hijacking the group. The great majority of American Lutherans -- by nature polite, non-confrontational, non-radical -- disagreed with the Gay Insurgents, but being too polite to respond to radicalism with even more radicalism (e.g. by voting to expel the radicals from the church, or something) eventually they lost control.

    The video is very intriguing as "the other side of the story". The pastor has been in the ELCA and its antecedent churches for 60+ years now, and has a good perspective on the decline. I imagine Updike must have felt the same way, having been born into a Lutheran church (which I presume was an ELCA forerunner) and being buried at one when he died.

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  128. Sorry. Didn't mean to post twice. My first comment seemed to have disappeared - thought the e-ether had eaten it.

    Clio

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  129. "But they are thinking more of graphic examples of girls' supperated innards and often death from botched abortions and the eternal desperation that has driven girls and women from time immemorial."

    In today's America, by the time most women actually know they are pregnant, they only have to complete about 7 more months to bring the baby to term, and they can get all the neonatal care they need if they happen not to have insurance. We live in a welfare society that provides for their care and in a society that rarely judges them anymore for that pregnancy (if they are unwed).

    They can be assured that an adoption will be set up with their not having to lift a finger if keeping that baby is out of the question for them.

    Face it--most women today who get pregnant just don't want the bother of the pregnancy and they certainly don't want the child...so instead of bringing it to term, they insure it simply ceases to exist. Out of sight, out of mind.

    The people who argue most stridently about protecting choice are being dishonest about why *most* Western women abort rather than carrying the child and putting it up for adoption.

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  130. "Willa Cather is the only great lesbian writer I can think of."

    Willa Cather was not a great lesbian writer. She was a great writer who was a lesbian.

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  131. Alias Clio prowls the internet again -- good to see.

    "Ray,

    I know you are very well versed in the arts in NYC. Can you give an example of what you mean by the above statement. By "crazy highs"? I am supposing you mean by this phrase something creative and original and stimulating that was created, at least in part, because the gay creator was closeted. An example?"

    Thanks for asking. But, gosh, I think a lot of commenters volunteered a lot of high class gay-made art. Nearly all gay-made art prior to the '60s was made by gays who had to pretend publicly to be straight, and who aimed their work at largely-straight audiences.

    An interesting case is Cole Porter. As brilliant as can be and as gay as can be, he married a woman partly for companionship, partly for the sake of appearance. In his work he supplied some of the most dazzling celebrations of love and fun that America's ever come up with. Hetero couples adored him and his musicals.

    It's fun to compare two biopics made about him. "Night and Day" features Cary Grant as a very hetero Porter, and it's jolly, hearty, and confident. The 2004 "De-Lovely" is intelligent and pretty true to the actual gay facts of Porter's life. It's also pretty dull.

    Anyway: if Porter had felt he could be out about his sexuality -- if he'd been able to be more relaxed -- would he have been able to reach the kinds of dizzy peaks that he did? Gotta wonder. Yet he'd almost certainly have been a happier person.

    For anyone who doubts Cole Porter's stature and genius, check out the Wikipedia entry on him. He was a true titan.

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  132. Speaking of lesbian writers, I'm a huge fan of Patricia Highsmith, the author of "Strangers on a Train." "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and much else. There's a lot of creepy genius in those books, IMHO.

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  133. Gays are gaining power because men are becoming feminized while women are becoming masculinized. This doesn't necessarily make people gay, but as with nerds it does tend to make them extremely homophilic. It's an ugly, broken future, I'm afraid.

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  134. All right, all right, I missed Sappho! Very embarassing. I even translated her in college. Although I would note that we don't really *know* Sappho was lesbian. She just wrote poems that are extremely admiring of youthful female beauty.

    Susan Sontag and Camille Paglia are not great writers.

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  135. Willa Cather was not a great lesbian writer. She was a great writer who was a lesbian.

    Lesbian or no, her stuff sucks. BORING!!!!!!

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  136. He was a great writer, maybe our best, ever. Fearless (like Steve!), extraordinary powers of description, a surfeit of literary talent -- and absolutely great on the subject of sex. He will live forever.

    This is where Steve's referenced thought experiment comes in: when some one suggests that Author X or Musician X will be read/listened to in 2111, ask them only half-rhetorically: "Seriously?"

    Updike won't even last that long--heck, in half that time, by 2061, his name will be known by approximately a dozen grad students in American literature and by no one else. By 2111, maybe one or two professors. Maybe.

    He was virtually unread even at the end of his life: Tom Wolfe did his jornalist's homework when Updike dismissed his novelist work and revealed that his (Updike's)last 3-4 books each sold only a few hundred copies...and 90% of those were to libraries.

    Most of the supposed Giants of Post-war American Lit (Mailer, Updike, Irving) will not stand the test of time, however much we've enjoyed them. Who the heck reads Mailer today? So who will read him in generations yet unborn?

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  137. Ray, thanks.

    Yes, Porter, I suppose, is a great example.

    I started thinking, has Elton John's music or live performances been hurt by his coming out? (Not to equate him with Porter, but he certainly has enjoyed popularity for a long time and ranks high in the world of pop music.)

    I do like Elton's earlier work more than anything he has done the last 15 years or so, but don't know if that is at all related to his coming out. He was always a flamboyant performer, but he got away with avoiding people thinking he was gay simply because at the time, the 70s, it was not unusual for bands and lead performers to don strange clothes and behave outlandishly (as the very hetero Gene Simmons,' marketer extrodanaire, very well knew.)

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  138. She was a great writer who was a lesbian.

    I doubt she was even a 'lesbian' in the sense of physical intmacy - many of these 'victorian' and post victorian female 'romances' did not involve erotica which would have disgusted many of them.

    Cather, was ultimately, quite conservative.

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  139. Cecelia Beaux had a love affair with a beautiful 17 year old girl when she was 40 or so (she's the subject of her paintings ) but she was not a lesbian and was attracted to men most all her life and disgusted and shocked when she learned what homosexuals were and did...
    The love affair was passionate but it seems platonic hand holding...

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  140. If these sign carriers were half as worried about already born people, maybe war & mayhem would cease. Most are the biggest blankety-blanks I've ever met; make me think that if they were women they'd be the first in line for their D&C or suctioning or whatever.


    If they were women? Lie much? I notice that many of the "sign carriers" are women. Among them is "Roe" herself - Norma McCorvey.

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  141. The only reason John Updike's comments may seem noteworthy is because there is now a presumption of Modern Cosmopolitanism projected onto nearly anybody related to literature and the arts. James Elroy deflated some of his SWPL fan base with this quote from an Onion AV interview in 2004:

    "I like wholesome, homogenous, peaceful surroundings and amenable people. In that case, L.A. is out, Chicago would be out, New York would be out."

    http://www.avclub.com/articles/james-ellroy,13905/

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  142. Kevin Spacey, for one. He still wants leading roles, and why not, he's a great actor, but coming out publicly would change the kind of roles he could get. He's not what is called a romantic lead, but he's had success as a dramatic lead actor, and all that would change if he or the press made a big deal about his sexuality.




    Not a word of that makes any sense. Let's assume that Spacey is in fact gay, though that's uncertain. You really want to argue that he would not have been cast in the lead role in K-PAX or as the voice of the computer in Moon if he said "I'm queer"?

    Really?

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  143. "Let's assume that Spacey is in fact gay, though that's uncertain. You really want to argue that he would not have been cast in the lead role in K-PAX or as the voice of the computer in Moon if he said 'I'm queer'?

    1. You don't know me, of course, so all you can do is assume it for the sake of discussing what I said. However, I can and have concluded it.

    2. I am saying no way he gets the role of the leering neighbor in mid-life crisis who lusts for the hot teen next door in "American Beauty" if he had done an Elton.

    Out-of-the-closet Hollywood actors can succeed in roles as heteros, even as sex-starved heteros, only if the role is comedic as what's his name--the guy who used to play Doogie Howser--can't think of his name, has red hair.

    Old Hollywood saying about male romantic leads: Women want to be with them and men want to BE them.

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  144. Are gays good at managing stuff? Maybe cuz gay men cannot have kids, their maternal instincts can turn to 'nurturing' organizations.

    Brian Epstein with the Beatles.

    Recently, some Bush aide came out of the closet.

    And there was a very possessive gay administrator in the movie NO WAY OUT. He was oh so loyal, like a mother that doesn't wanna let her son go.

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  145. Famous gay cons:

    Roy Cohn

    Whittaker Chambers

    One of the funniest things I seen: Morton Downey Jr show. Buchanan vs some gay leftist(who compares Buchanan to Goebbels).

    At one point, some liberal dweeb sticks it to Buchanan, that the anti-gay Pat was connected to the gay Roy Cohn.
    Buchanan says, 'Roy Cohn was a friend of mine.'

    Then the gay leftist thinks for awhile and says in all earnestness, 'I think that's nice. Pat being friends with a gay guy.'

    And then Mort cuts in... 'The problem with gays is they confuse what is an exit for an entrance'.

    The gay guy is trying not to laugh.

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  146. Gosh, MQ, did I say anything about Camille Paglia or Susan Sontag? Did anyone, or did you toss them in because they are both lesbians?

    For the record, I agree with you - neither is a great writer. Susan Sontag was not much more than a kind of belle-lettriste. Camille Paglia is a clumsy writer and thinker but nevertheless an original one (if repetitive). Oh, I know she's derived much of her work from reflections on Nietzsche, and that it is difficult to derive a coherent theory from her work or even, at times, to make out what she was trying to say. And yet, and yet there is more to her than that. I did feel as if I were seeing with new eyes after reading her, especially her commentaries on popular culture and her ability to link its forms and "memes" with ancient archetypes.

    Plus she stood up and bellowed in the face of academia/media/artists who had been cowed by p.c. feminism, and succeeded in changing the conversation to such a degree that it's never been quite the same since. Not dead yet - but I notice fewer young women all the time are willing to call themselves "feminists" unless they were Ivy-Leagued to death.

    Of course, I rather wish Paglia hadn't been so successful in spreading the pro-porn message, but you can't have everything.

    Clio

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  147. Are people really giving credit to Elton John for songs a straight guy wrote?

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  148. "Are people really giving credit to Elton John for songs a straight guy wrote?"

    He did the music.

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  149. "Susan Sontag was not much more than a kind of belle-lettriste."

    At her best, she was a great writer. Her piece on Bresson is near the top of the heap in writing about film.

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  150. RE: lesbian writers.

    They're not in the same artistic, humanistic level as Willa Cather, but the following three writers I put on the same tier as writers like Ezra Pound and W.S. Burroughs; they're still in print and of interest to those who like to read early 20th century modernist lit: Djuna Barnes, Jane Bowles and Gertrude Stein.

    Also, there's Marguerite Yourcenar whose cerebral novels I must read someday.

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  151. "I doubt she was even a 'lesbian' in the sense of physical intmacy - many of these 'victorian' and post victorian female 'romances' did not involve erotica which would have disgusted many of them."

    Agreed, I think Cather was a lesbian in the sense that her primary emotional and psychological orientation was to the women in her life whom she apparently loved (e.g., Edith Lewis, Isabel McClung). I neither know nor care but I doubt she ever consummated any relationship.

    "Cather, was ultimately, quite conservative."

    Yes, I like that about her.

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  152. who's afraid of Emily Dickinson10/14/11, 7:36 PM

    Along with not liking ANYTHING by Woody Allen, I read the first couple of pages of My Antonia then put it down never to attempt reading it again.

    I guess I wasn't destined to be an intellectual, a Marxist, a lesbian nor even a reasonably consistent voter.

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  153. The only gay novel I've read is Steven Fry's Making History, which is actually very good. --Baloo

    And this is the same Stephen Fry who supplies the disembodied voice in the Pocoyo videos my kid likes to watch. I enjoy them too, as I try to get the words "90%-homo atheist" out of my head. (Come to think of it, there's something vaguely Balooish about Pocoyo and his gang...)

    The Irish hung Blacks in NYC in the Civil War draft riots. --Whiskey (or is it 'Uisce'?)

    That should be "hanged", but anyway, do you know who was mayor during those riots? An Updike! Look it up.

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  154. Gays are so big now that many conservatives are trying to win them over.

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  155. I don't think Kael was lesbian but I think she has a child with a gay guy.

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  156. "Gays are gaining power because men are becoming feminized while women are becoming masculinized."

    Yes and no.

    Male culture seems to be going in two directions at once. On the one hand, there is SWPL dweebery. But there's also WWE, rap music, metal music, mixed martial arts, sports worship, and big black dick porn culture.
    So, even as gayness is more accepted, machismo too is growing out of control. So much so that many male heroes of Old Hollywood would be considered 'faggoty' by many of today's badass mofo types.
    Can you imagine today's thugs getting into Randolph Scott westerns by Boetticher or Jimmy Stewart westerns by Mann?
    Compare the original 310 to Yuma to the remake which is far bloodier.
    Compare Sean Connery's 007 to Daniel Craig's.

    Also, look at the model white male in 50s TV show. Apple cheeks, good manners, saying 'uh geez' all the time, and etc. They were not macho. In fact, most of that stuff would be called 'gay' by today's badass hunk mofos.

    As for women, most SWPL girls are rather tame. Rap ho's are bitchy and wild, but not as badass as the big mamma in RAISIN IN THE SUN who done knocked some sense into her daughter when she said there's no God in the house.

    Also, Katharine Hepburn and Barbara Stanwyck in old Hollywood movies were more dynamic than today's actresses.

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  157. Didn't Hemingway's mother try to raise her son in a girlish way, even putting him in a dress?

    If you look at old photos of wasp elites, they raised their sons all faggoty and shit. Sons would be put in these whoopsy children's clothes, and they would be difficult to tell from the girls.
    Ironically, though nobility was a military caste, the effeminate maledom started there, especially the French with their wigs, powdered faces, and stockings. I guess with all that power and privilege, they were into the finer things in life.

    But in terms of lingo, the Brits took the cake. British upper crust accent is so gay-izing.

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  158. If in the future, two clones fall in love with eachother, is that incest or homosexuality?

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  159. Didn't Hemingway's mother try to raise her son in a girlish way, even putting him in a dress?

    I don't know, but that supposedly happened to MacArthur.

    Yes "hanged" and "hung" are two vastly different circumstances in terms of desirability. You think we'd have gotten those two straightened out by now.

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  160. Well, he is officially a dead white male. I hear both his daughters married Africans.

    Doesn't help us here. He's gone way too far anyhow; he'd have to blow a guy in a public restroom at this point to make contrition. Lucky for him he's dead.

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  161. "He's gone way too far anyhow; he'd have to blow a guy in a public restroom at this point to make contrition. Lucky for him he's dead."

    Painting heterosexuality into a bathroom stall? Stand fast, man! Once you start defending that's all you'll ever do. The other side isn't big enough or strong enough to prevail, however, it will nag you till the end of your days if you don't confidently assert for a heterosexual dominant world.

    Don't worry about the other guys. They already have their fair share and are more than capable of taking what's rightfully yours so don't let them.

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  162. "Anonymous said...

    ""She was a great writer who was a lesbian.""

    I doubt she was even a 'lesbian' in the sense of physical intmacy - many of these 'victorian' and post victorian female 'romances' did not involve erotica which would have disgusted many of them."

    Cather, was ultimately, quite conservative."

    Patricia Highsmith, another lesbian writer of note, also held some views which would now be considered decidedly un-PC.

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  163. If you look at old photos of wasp elites, they raised their sons all faggoty and shit. Sons would be put in these whoopsy children's clothes, and they would be difficult to tell from the girls.

    Their sons were allowed to wear comfortable clothes rather than chafing ill-fitting slave uniforms?

    That means the old wasp elites trusted their sons would not turn into screaming faggots unless "made into men" by torturous child-rearing practices.

    Mind you, the paranoia about boys being naturally effeminate unless brutally "toughened up" is Lower Middle Class. The nobles were for the most part easygoing nice people that genuinely loved their children - and were surpringly friendly to their social inferiors when it was clear that the latter was not after their money. Some of the best friendships were between nob dilettantes and lower-class nerds - having more in common than anyone suspected.

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  164. "We're never going to end this epidemic until people understand how important it is for me to have a cock in my ass and another one in my mouth"

    @NotAHacker: Nice one - I would really like the Village Voice issue date if you know it.

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  165. The foot notes on Sailer's argument:

    "We should keep oppressing and torturing gays so that they will continue to awe us with with great cultural contributions."

    Which is, of course, nothing more than an argument for conservative society. Never mind that there is no evidence besides completely circumstantial and coincidental that gays produce more culturally when they're being oppressed. And even if they did, this would be an extremely callous and cynical argument for continuing to oppress them. I would much rather have gays be happy and live their lives as they want rather than torture them with discrimination so they can produce greater musicals. And it is cynical, because what bSailer really cares about is not the supposed cultural contriutions of gays, but the preservation of conservative values. Sailer should just flat out state that what he wants is to live in the U.S of the year 1960 and get it over with. Using proxy arguments for justifying the return of an ultra-conservative society like he alaways does is absurd. It'sb like when he tries to justify stopping Mexican immigration on the grounds that Mexicans are not cultural contributors. As if the Irish who came to America during the potato famine were a bunch of geniuses!!!!!

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  166. "If they were women? Lie much? I notice that many of the "sign carriers" are women. Among them is "Roe" herself - Norma McCorvey."

    Yeah, I know. But the women actually have the possibility of facing the question.

    I'm sure there are analagous situations involving men who don't want women involved in decision making. Until they draft women, should women be making any decisions about that?

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  167. So many people so full of hate

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