Editorial from The Guide	Editorials Archive

The chronicler of gay sex Boyd McDonald remarked, "Some people have gotten a lot out of their homosexuality, so they have a lot to give back." Though he was speaking about the letter-writing contributors to his series of true homosexual experiences, Boyd's observation also applies to the gay community's political leadership.

The initial message of the modern gay movement was "gay is good." Though simplistic, the slogan was an antidote to social condemnation of homosexuality. Instead of buying into prevailing morality, people were encouraged to trust their own experience over pieties about appropriate sexual conduct. The exuberance born of such sexual awakenings was the engine of a sexual "revolution." Gay people were at the vanguard, urging everyone to recognize that society's narrow definition of acceptable sexual expression was itself destructive. Having gotten much from their own homosexuality, early activists were eager to spread the good news about a new way of understanding gay sex.

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Few then could have imagined how dramatically the public discourse about homosexuality was to change. In just a quarter century, homosexuality went from an unspeakable perversion to a sexual option that only the most cloddish publicly ridiculed. Many lives have been enhanced by this reduction in anti-gay sentiment.

But as homosexuality became safer to embrace, our organizations and rhetoric changed. Ad hoc groups formed to challenge sex rules became institutionalized. No longer run by visionary volunteers, gay groups began cultivating a financial base to protect newly-paid salaries. The sexual liberation agenda was replaced with "capital campaigns." Our spokespeople, once de facto pariahs, came to fancy their new acceptability. People and causes that risked offending monied contributors have been disavowed. Proving that we can be loyal soldiers, responsible parents, and monogamous spouses-- traditional values upheld by rich potential donors-- has become the goal of our new institutions. Money and respectability, not good news about gay sex, motivate much of our modern, professionalized movement.

Though it would be easy to become cynical about the gay movement's devolution, we must recognize that all such institutions are vulnerable to their own success. Society routinely co-opts social movements by shifting rules; would-be revolutions are thwarted as just enough reformist pressure is bought off to forestall more radical change. Thus has the gay movement's initial energy been spent altering some of our culture's sexual attitudes.

Unfortunately, though, the re-drawing of sex rules has not been as profound as we might fool ourselves into thinking. Homosexuality is tolerated only in so far as it mimics heterosexual norms. Gay people who've gotten little from their homosexuality and thus aspire to become nothing more than "junior straight people" may now be deemed acceptable, but other forms of deviant sexuality remain taboo.

In fact, we now have record numbers of men imprisoned for consensual sexual activity. Most of these crimes involve statutory "rape" wherein one (or both!) participants are under an arbitrary age, but increasingly, more sexual behavior is being judged criminally pathological. S and M aficionados, t-room cruisers, and kinky fetishists face increased risk under new "sexual predator" laws. And new pornography statutes mete out long prison terms for materials that were legal just a few years ago.

If gay people are to remain leaders to a sexually uptight world, we must recognize that our goal is not to join the socially acceptable by aping straight values. Rather, we must transform our culture's sexual thinking. Instead of fearful messages about the cataclysmic dangers of sex outside narrowly proscribed boundaries, those of us who've gotten much from our homosexuality need to spread a different message: people are happier and more productive when allowed to express their true sexuality.