Page 139 - Some Dance to Remember

Some Dance to Remember 109

before “Great Men” hit the marquee of the Castro. He wondered why gay
men loved movie mad scenes written for ageing actresses. He questioned
the camp fascination with Mildred Pierce and Baby Jane. What strange
gay twist caused good-looking men to dress up in outrageous drag that
no tasteful woman would be caught dead in? He wondered why boys
like Kweenie’s twit-blond roommate, Evan-Eddie, preferred doing their
Mother’s Act rather than their father’s.
He was positive the essence of homosexuality was not a man’s wanting
to be a woman. Men, who wanted to be women, might bed men, but they
were something other than purely homosexual. He meant simply to undo
the popular stereotype that when two men are in bed, one of them plays
the woman; that when two women make love, one of them plays the man.
He wrote: “When a man and a woman are in bed, among other things
they’re doing, they’re celebrating their sexual otherness. When two men
make love, among other things they are doing, they celebrate their com-
mon masculinity in a union and bonding that only a same-sex couple can
do. Neither thinks of women or of women’s roles. That’s a straight myth.
The same goes for two women getting off together by celebrating every-
thing between them that is essentially female. Same-sex unitive sexuality
is as important as mixed-sex procreational sexuality. Besides that, there’s
more. Everyone should be able to have recreational sex without personal
involvement and without the purpose of conception. How outlaw can we
get?”
In a City with annual coronations of emperors and empresses, he
asked lesbians why they as women never ran for Empress leaving gay men
to run for Emperor. Royalty never likes revolution. The question seemed
like a stake driven in the heart of gay and lesbian sexual poses.
“You think,” Kweenie said, “you’re Tom Paine. But you’re not,
Blanche. You’re not. I know what movie you are.”
“I’m not playing our game. And don’t call me Blanche.”
“You think you’re a romantic radical like Streisand in The Way We
Were.”
“I suppose Kick is the golden Redford.”
“Ta-DA!” Kweenie spread her hands. “Be careful,” she warned.
“There’s always a last reel.”
Ryan, I think, genuinely empathized with the upward aspirations
of the oppressed. The priest in him genuinely tried to respect everyone.
He wanted them all to keep carefully their trips’ equality. He mistrusted
superficial coalitions of alienated movements that muddied one another’s
causes.

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