The blah blah blah blurb about Corvino at the end of this article is kinda pretentious and reinforces the fact that he’s not that talented an editorialist.

As we are about the same age and have trolled the same bars (in Detroit and NY), I think you will make a great mentor.

While gay bars make for a good start – From Pronto, the Gas Station, the Woodward, Menjos and Gigi’s in Detroit – to the heights of gaybardom in NYC: these are the places to show your mentee.

But also show your mentee all those things we didn’t have: gay bowling, school groups, hiking, camping, political centers, etc.

I have long been haunted by the fact that when I was a teen, gay 40somethings were dying left and right. Our only chance at finding a mentor was in bars or nightclubs – and I needed no mentoring in how to end up drunk by last call. Nor did I want an older man as a lover, but as an older brother who could show me how to be gay and survive the homophobia of the early AIDS years. Again, bars were not the place to find what I was looking for.

May I also suggest that you expose your mentee to a city that has made tremendous progress in making our community feel like we are absolutely equal to all other members of society. That city is Montreal. While the rest of Canada eventually catches up with Quebec on gay rights, it is this city that pushes the envelope. As I write, there are massive posters all over town decrying homophobia: it is part of the provincial education system’s current mandate. Posters of 2 male hockey players kissing are found near school playgrounds, blatantly exclaiming ‘This is not weird’. A vast majority of people here simply do not care about your sex life. They take your right to privacy, freedom, and self-expression VERY seriously. There are far more social clubs than bars for gays here; bathhouses are as sleazy or spa-like as you want them to be; and the city is on a rampage, yanking out the last roots of homophobia with a passion that lifts the heart.

I was someone who sorely needed a mentor. I moved to Detroit from Belgium as a teen: having never experienced homophobia, I was terrified by the “faggots: hate ‘em, shoot ‘em” mentality of the Detroit area. As an American, I was supposed to be able to fit in – which is impossible if you didn’t grow up there. Before being known as the Murder Capital, Detroit was known as ‘The Unfriendliest City in America’.

Things aren’t the same anymore, thank goodness. Even Michigan, while very very chilly toward its GLBT community, is getting better. In NYC, it seems that St. Vincent’s hospital has finally found some respect for gay patients (as opposed to the Reagan era hostility visited upon gays who had the misfortune of ending up in the West Village’s major hospital).

But please, Dr. C, bring your mentee to see a place that treats our community with all the dignity afforded to all groups. Show your mentee that North America can be different in his or her lifetime. Montreal is a town that knocks chips off shoulders.

I say all of this because I think your idea is a great one, and because I would have loved to have had a mentor in the dark years. Imagine this, however: ideally, here in Quebec, REGULAR SCHOOL TEACHERS are expected to serve as mentors to their gay students – as well as their straight students. They are trying to create a society in which mentors are not needed for “lost” GLBT citizens, as gay life is carried out in the open, in schools and non-nightlife activity. Show your mentee that gay ghettos exist, but are not necessary. Show your mentee a society that has simply decided we are not abnormal in any way. Nor, of course, are we “special” – we are Montrealers.

You will find nowhere on the continent that is so rabidly anti-homophobic, yet so rabidly “normal”. Your mentee needs to know that such hope exists and is being lived by thousands of foreign gays who are very grateful for the opportunity to live in such a place. Only an 8 hour drive from Wayne State.

Your mentee is truly blessed; as we might have been were our elders not dying when our generation needed them most.

Thanks for walking the walk.

While I don’t know John well, we’ve met and I run into him around town once in a while. That is what he looks like. Definitely looks at least ten years younger than his age. bastard.

Now, at near-30 (and loving it), being gay has become less a defining thing. I’ve since stopped drinking and going to the bars, really. Looking back, I was never really mentored by anyone and I am always somewhat envious of those who are newly-out and find someone to show them the ins-and-outs of their respective gay scene.

At the same time, I’m thankful that I didn’t have anyone to do that. Being told what is “REAL” has almost always lead to disappointment in any instance. Thanks for the thoughts!