Choosing to be Happy
“If I could give you a pill that would make you a heterosexual, would you choose to take it?”
The syndicated television talk show host was not being hostile. He was genuinely interested in better understanding the lives of gay people in his 1974 interview of me. The underlying question is “Do you like being gay, or would you choose to be straight?” Even more precisely, the question is, “Are you happy?”
When I told my parents that I was gay, my mother cried and said in great pain, “Brian, the world is going to be awful to you and there’s nothing I can do to protect you.”
She was right. Some people in the world would choose to be truly awful to me – death threats, harassing phone calls, obscene mail, open hostility during my college and corporate presentations, cruel comments in the press, icy silence from some formerly-close family members and friends – and there was nothing she could do to protect me, other than to remind me from time to time that she loved me, and be angered by how others, both straight and gay, responded so meanly to her sensitive middle child. But since coming out publicly at the age of 26 in 1974, I’ve never wanted, no matter how bad it got, to take a pill that would make me a heterosexual, if such a pill existed.
Ray and I have absolutely no regrets. We’re gay men who truly and fully celebrate being who and what we are. We see being gay as a special gift to us, and we feel that we’ve had incredibly joyful, satisfying, and meaningful lives. We’re very, very happy being gay and we wholeheartedly wish that were true for all gay men and women in the world. But we sadly acknowledge that it isn’t.
On the Fourth of July each year in Provincetown, the magical spit of sand at the tip of Cape Cod on which we have the privilege of living during the summer, head-turning muscular young gay men from throughout the country promenade shirtless down Commercial Street, showing off their hard work at the gym, but doing so, in most instances, without a single smile. If Ray and I try to make eye contact with, and smile at them, most of them will disdainfully look away, as if we were foolishly coming on to them sexually. Yet, we’re only trying to say, “Welcome to Provincetown.”
I have often wondered why so many of them, from our perspective, look to be so unhappy, these formerly scrawny “sissies” who have pumped themselves up with weights and steroids. Perhaps they are happy and don’t want to show it. Ray and I have speculated that maybe there’s a secret “tribal” understanding that happy faces, except when induced by recreational drugs, are not considered masculine and sexually provocative.
We’ve had a similarly sad and lonely experience with some gay men dressed in leather and with many college-age lesbians, both groups of which also have a designated week in this spectacularly beautiful “safe harbor” of humanity. The young women excitedly arrive for Memorial Day weekend, several with cases of beer and a visibly surly attitude toward men, gay or straight, even those of us who smile and say “hello.” Many of the older lesbians in town lay low during this spring “invasion” too. I’ve been told by some that they feel invisible or dismissed by the boisterous, partying younger women and feel, as we do, that it’s just not much fun to be around these particular gay people.
The men in leather land in Provincetown in September, strutting half-naked down Commercial Street in the evening, despite the cool temperatures, in their elaborate, studded ensembles. It looks like fun, but despite what I have been told about the gay leather community being warm and welcoming, one wouldn’t guess that from looking at their faces. There frequently appears to be a conscious disregard for anyone not in their group’s costume, even for those of us who, once again, are smiling and just saying “hello.” Maybe looking angry is considered “sexy.”
These experiences make Ray and me feel badly and a little disappointed. We feel badly for gay people who can’t smile with joy at other gay people, and we feel disappointed that after all of the years we all have worked to create a world where gay people could easily find emotional health and happiness, significant numbers of our community appear to have missed the opportunity or have rejected the choice to be happy.
Ray and I are particularly heartsick when we see the impact that crystal meth and other “recreational” drugs have had on the lives of so many gay men, some of whom we know and love but can’t spend time with any more. We’re losing some of our best and brightest souls to this highly-addictive, destructive substance. Why do we have this epidemic of debilitating chemical abuse? It feels like mass suicide to us. Some friends claim that such drugs make it possible for them to feel an intense sense of brotherhood with other gay men. It seems to us though that the drugs they’re taking serve the sole purpose of helping them escape their very unhappy gay lives. How many of them would choose to take a pill that would make them straight, if such a pill existed?
