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Loading ...Corvino: Growing older, gratefully
This column hits the internet around my fortieth birthday. Forgive a middle-aged columnist for indulging in some reminiscing.
Little reminders of my age keep creeping up, like the fact that I had to re-word the last sentence after initially writing “This column hits the newsstands…” My column used to appear in print (and still does, in some markets). At least I’ve learned to say “music store” instead of “record store,” though I don’t think I’ve purchased a record since 6th grade. (It was Billy Joel’s Glass Houses.) And even saying “music store” probably dates me.When I came out at 19, there was no internet. Usually, we met other gays by going to gay bars—when we could find them. When traveling, I’d grab the local phone book (remember those?) and hope to locate something under “Gay,” “Lambda” or “Rainbow.” Then I’d look for a pay phone.
If the telephone search didn’t work, I had an alternate method. I’d go to the nearest mall and find a Gap, where nine times out of ten I could spot a gay salesclerk. (Yes it’s a stereotype, but it was a useful one at the time.) I would chat him up so he would fill me in on the local scene—no joking. Who needs gaydar.com when you have plain old-fashioned gaydar?
Reflecting on ways the world has changed during my life, I feel a bit like my grandfather when he talks about when gas was 20 cents a gallon. (Did I mention that, after locating the gay bar, I would walk 10 miles to get there, uphill, both ways?)
Like my grandfather, I do find myself occasionally referring to “these kids today.”
As a college professor, I know many of these “kids” as students. When I started teaching, I wasn’t much older than they. Blessed with a youthful countenance, I could easily be mistaken for their peer. (And yes, the photo accompanying this column is recent.) Now I’m old enough to be their dad—something I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around.
I am both awed and pleased by some of the ways in which their lives will differ from mine. Mainly, I’m filled with gratitude.
Most of these kids don’t know what it’s like to start a gay and lesbian group at schools that don’t have one, and then watch as all of their flyers get either torn down or scribbled with words like “faggot.” I’m grateful that such frequent ugliness has become the exception rather than the rule in America.
Most of these kids don’t know what it’s like to live in a world where, in most people’s minds, gay=AIDS=death. I came out in 1988. AZT was just becoming available, and protease inhibitors were some time off. I watched friends and acquaintances die with alarming speed. I’m grateful that most of today’s youth don’t know that horror—although I wish they would take more care with their sexual choices.
These kids live in a world where, in a handful of places, they can marry whom they love. Seeing this as possible, those in the other places can hope for, and work for, change. I’m grateful for that progress.
I’m grateful that gay sex is no longer criminal in any U.S. state—though grieved that it still warrants the death penalty in parts of the world. For seven years of my adult life I lived in a state where homosexual sodomy was criminal. I cried tears of gratitude when that changed, thanks to the Supreme Court’s Lawrence v. Texas decision in 2003.
I know that there’s much work left to be done, and I’m grateful to be a part of that work.
I’m grateful for readers from around the world who send me words of encouragement. I’m grateful for family and friends who have supported me. And I’m grateful for my partner Mark, who has been the love of my life for the last seven-and-a-half years. He, more than anyone else, makes me look forward to the next forty.
All in all, it’s a good world out there, which makes growing older something to embrace.
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John Corvino, Ph.D. is an author, speaker, and philosophy professor at Wayne State University in Detroit. His column “The Gay Moralist” appears Fridays on 365gay.com.
For more about John Corvino, or to see clips from his “What’s Morally Wrong with Homosexuality?” DVD, visit www.johncorvino.com.
John,
I’d forgotten about my early days of for-work-travel and out-of-town gay bars. I did exactly as you had, which was grab the phone book and search those very words; “gay”, “lambda” and “rainbow”. I’d also scan the names of bars listed under “Taverns” and one got good at trying to find the nuances in the names. Almost every town had a bar named “Back Street” – and indeed, most often, it was on some back street.
The idea of asking a Gap employee never entered my mind. However, a friend of mine used to call the police department and ask about the local gay bars. His thought was that the police would at least steer him clear of the less desirable places.
Its much easier these days – especially with the Internet, but even without, most city guides and the local alternative press readily list gay venues.
Now, as I’m in my forties, I have yard work and enough work around the house that an occasional beer on the front porch will suffice. When one of the gay neighbors walks past with his or her dog, we’ll chat for a bit, ask one another, “have you been out lately?” to which the answer is usually “no, you?”
Thanks for pointing out your old habits. I’d forgotten that they were mine as well.
Happy Birthday! As a forty-something, I remember going to Laughlin, NV with my family. After two days of family “bliss”, I was ready for something racier, so I got a haircut, chatted the stylist, and figured out where the one and only local gay bar was. Although I did not have to WALK uphill 10 miles, I did have to drive what felt like 100 miles, past two coyotes and a zillion cactuses to find the isolated house with the dimly lit parking lot that was the gay bar. Thank God for the Internet and progress! Nowadays, probably most of the main bars on the Laughlin strip have a gay night.
At the risk of more self-indulgent drivel, by a 53-year-old, I really appreciate your words, and the progress that has been made since you were born… just weeks before Stonewall, eh? And Michael might just want to notice that as a college prof you ARE engaging in intergenerational dialogue!
Dear John:
I’m about your age and greatly appreciate your column.
I wish you a happy birthday, and hope you have many more.
If you weren’t married, I’d stalk you. But fear not, I’m no home wrecker. I’m happy for you, even if I want to boink you.
Back to topic:
After experiencing Detroit’s unbelievable homophobia as a teen, I’ve come to hate Michigan and the Midwest, though I’ll admit that attitudes have changed. I think that gays are now tolerated in Michigan, but just barely. The demographics of the state are ideal for homophobia, now more than ever.
I grew up in the UK and Belgium, where even in the 70s, no one cared about who was gay. The only thing aside from good looks that stood a chance of bolstering one’s popularity was intelligence: that’s right, smart people were cool. Kids are all kinda mean, but none as mean as Midwestern kids. Not even French kids. If you want to experience what I’m talking about, eavesdrop on a bunch of highschool kids in suburban Detroit and compare with the chatter of kids in Montreal. It’s a slap in the face. Sure there are cultural differences, but nothing that justifies the downright nastiness of American youts.
Returning to the US as a gay teen at the outset of AIDS, I was shocked to learn that the country I had always admired from afar, my homeland, was home to so much blind hatred. It existed in the lily white suburbs, and was worse below 8 Mile Road. I had no choice but to stay closeted. Even teachers used the words “fag” and “homo” in the classroom without consequence – and this at one of the state’s best high schools (thanks for that, Detroit Country Day School: I’ll never forget it! Talk about mens sana in corpore sano…). Radio stations (that’s you, WRIF) fanned the flames of homophobia with glee.
Only the worst of Detroit’s ghettos had gay bars, which were a lifeline to 14 year olds (with fake IDs) who naturally turned to hedonism as a way to deal with the hatred we encountered the minute we left our homes (luckily, there was no homophobia in my home).
I can’t help but think that if Detroit Country Day had a Gay-Straight Alliance club, I’d have been spared a lot of misery. If they had told us that our (obviously gay) favorite art teacher had died of AIDS (”kidney disease” they said…), perhaps teachers would have found better words than “fag” or “homo” to inculcate us with upstanding morality. Hopefully, it’s easier to be a gay student in Michigan.
As the suburbs have become more gay-tolerant, the city of Detroit has remained stubbornly anti-gay. As has the State legislature in Lansing – perhaps the only common ground between the two.
While I credit MTV and activists and scholars for the very real advances made, the Detroit area is not a fun place to be gay. or LBTQAI. In fact, it sucks.
You’ve got your work cut out for you. Good luck. You’re in one of homophobia’s last Northern bastions.
What whiny, self-indulgent drivel. The real story here is the lack of an inter-generational dialogue to move these issues forward. Gays and lesbians in their 70’s, 50’s 30’s etc all have different experiences that rarely, if ever get shared in an interactive way. At best we have this kind of ‘back in my day’ non-sense that is meant to chastise the younger folk for how easy they have. More passive aggressive than anything…
And it’s true. You don’t look 40. Midwest 40 is like coastal 60.
Marvellous column!
I started secondary school in 1958 (outside of U.S.A.)
We did not even hear the words, homosexual, fag, queer, etc. Occasionally, someone said something about “fruits”, but even that went unnoticed. Gay students “may” have been referred to as being “strange”, or “different”.
Now, for the shocker; I never heard the word “homosexual” until I was 23 and came across it in a magazine I’d picked up in a pharmacy; I immediately looked it up in the dictionary!!
I guess I’m the first one to read the first paragraph — Happy Birthday.
When I turned 50 I received cards and phone calls from my children and our “adopted”
kids. Some came to visit for the weekend and it was great to see how life at their age is so different. I had no one to talk to in Jr. and Sr. high when I knew I was “different” I did not even know the word Lesbian at the time. I came out in 1981. No Internet, no organizations, nothing but a local rag you could only get in one of the 2 bars in town.
Today my partner and I see to it that our kids and younger friends know their history. They understand why we cried when we got their Prom pictures in the mail or when they announce their engagements. While they have many freedoms and understand how lucky we are to live in the USA, they are very aware of their limitations. One couple is having a hard time going from being out almost all their lives to hiding everything because one is in the National Guard. They understand the government does not recognize their love and commitment. But they have hope. There are changes every day and they know they are our future and are willing to fight for changes to make life better for the next generation.
What a great article.
I’m 23.
When I went to high school, there was already a Gay-Straight alliance. It was a very inactive alliance, but one none-the-less.
I didn’t witness the “Gay disease” and its turn from a gay plague to a “world-wide, no body is safe” disease. Unfortunately, I think many of my peers don’t realize the consequences of their choices in sexual habits and many of them end up becoming HIV+ because they don’t know and are not concerned. Trust me. Browse Manhunt…cruise Manhunt. You’ll find many young men who are more then willing to have unprotected sex. What’s scarry is that many of them want to have unprotected sex with men who are already HIV+. It’s a scarry fact.
No, there are more that understand the ramifications of unsafe sex and practice safely…but the flip-side is alarming.
Schools don’t teach a whole lot about the 80’s and the spread of HIV.
I would have to say that that is one of America’s short-comings. I didn’t learn about the horrors of my Gay generations past until I read about it.
I once saw a column in Metroline (the local Gay rag) about a book review. The book is titled “The Cronicle of a Plague”. It’s the authors account of the gay scene in NYC and other big cities he lived during the onset of the disease, and through to the early to mid nineties. The discriptions of the death alone is enough to scare the living be-jesus out of you.
Why did I read it? Because I was interested. I was born in 1985…I didn’t and still don’t know anyone who’s died from AIDS. Believe me…it’s not that I want to…but on some level, I feel that it is my responsability to understand my generations past and how our community has eveolved into what and who we are today. Understanding and having emotions over the deaths of sooo many men is just a stepping stone into my own eveolvement.
In my next 20 years, I hope I get to witness such milestones and achievements as my older friends have. Maybe I’ll witness a cure for AIDS, a cure for cancer, and a cure for widespread hatred.
Progress is slow, but sure enough, it’s happening all around us.
Doesn’t the old saying go…”Slow and steady wins the race”?
John: This is one of your best. You have become like a fine wine; one to be admired; one to be honored; one to be shared; and one to be confident of, to have an ability to be relevant long into the future. Enjoy these days, and continue to strengthen yourself, there will be many battles ahead; but let me tell you, I read the last page, and we win.
I am 57 and remember an odd mix of bi-sexuality and getting it on and being a target of verbal homophobia where ever I went.It truly was a decade of extremes.The 1970’s were wonderful and scary.
I am 62 and it is wonderful to see the progress that gay people have made in my lifetime. Where I grew up, admitting you were homosexual (The term Gay was to come later.) was akin to commiting suicide. The very idea of Gay clubs at school would have been laughable. People who killed Gay men were routinly found not guily simply by claiming that the victim, “made a pass.” We’ve come a long way baby, but there is still a long way to go. One only has to look at the teenage suicide rate among gay teens and the increase in hate crimes to see that. But yes, things are much better now than then.
Back in my day if wanted a drink of orange juice, I couldn’t just get it out of a carton. I had to spend 5 hours milking the orange tree!
On a more serious note, I’m glad that (in a lot of Western society) things have gotten easier for the GLBT crowd over the years. Reading about how it was back before I was born makes me unhappy. And lucky.
You forgot to mention that when you were walking that ten miles up hill in both directions that the snow was 6 feet deep and the wind was blowing at 40 miles per hour. Please don’t leave out essential details in the future.
You’re forty?!!! You don’t even remotely look it. Anyway, nope, our fliers still get scribbled on. Except now its mostly by just a few assholes and not the entire school.