The Hon. Dr :: essays research papers

Among the gay presss responses to my 1993 book A Place at the Table was the charge by approximately critics that Im "sex-negative." Frank browning griped that I inadequacy to "to have everyone put on 30 pounds, buy a Brooks Brothers suit, and wander off on the golf links, becoming an quality version of Ozzie and Harry. Those who dont want to take risks should join Mr. Bawer on the golf course. Those who want to feel alive will benefit from the exploration of our bodies and what our bodies drive out grant." golf? Ozzie and Harry? Brooks Brothers? What, I wondered, does any of this have to do with what Ive written? Ive never been on a golf course. Or worn a Brooks Brothers suit. And when did I join the upper class? Of course I want gay people to enjoy what their bodies can grant. I similarly want them to have equal rights under the law, the love and respect of their friends and families, and a meaningful life beyond their orgasms. I want gay kids to work up kno wing that, as wonderful as sex can be, gay identity amounts to more than belonging to a "culture of desire."Browning and others mocked me for being "serious." Well, isnt discovering oneself as a gay individual in this ordination a serious challenge? Isnt gay rights a serious eff? Being serious slightly gay rights in public talk over doesnt preclude being able to have fun in ones individualised life. Yet if some right-wing critics cant write about homosexuality without smirking, some gay writers seem unable to address the subject without prattling frivolously about their own sex lives and longings.Which is a shame, because its vitally important for us to discover that at the heart of homophobia lies an inability to see that gays can love all(prenominal) other as deeply and as seriously as straights can. Explaining wherefore hed refused to print my review of the film Longtime Companion, an American Spectator editor in chief told a New York Observer reporter, & quotBawer was striking a total equating between a heterosexual couple in love and a homosexual couple in love. To me, that wasnt convincing." That editor isnt alone in rejecting the intellect of the moral equivalence of gays and straights.Its not only heterosexuals who draw these sex-related distinctions. "The defining affair about being gay," a gay man tells Susan Bergman in her raw memoir, Anonymity, "is that you like to have sex a lot.