The Problem With Gay Men Today

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/24/11 at 11:14am

Screenwriter, playwright and gay activist Larry Kramer wants to know why this generation is so apathetic while he's still so angry.
Larry Kramer : The Problem With Gay Men Today

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 4/24/11 at 11:48am

"I don't have much sympathy for people who seroconvert now, who know about AIDS." -- Larry Kramer.

Please keep in mind that Larry Kramer had been public about knowing exactly what he was doing and in exactly what sort of messed up emotional state he was in when he seroconverted. He had unprotected passive anal sex as a symbolic "f-you" to somebody. He was public about this in an interview after he had all his issues with needing a liver transplant. I can't find that interview now, but I am looking for it.

And this is The Problem with Larry Kramer Today. And The Problem There Has ALWAYS Been With Larry Kramer. He has zero empathy for people whose life experiences and personal situations are in any way different from his. He doesn't grasp that not everybody has the same resources, emotional, financial or physical, that he does.

His utter lack of patience may make, in his mind, for good theatrical drama, but it's not really a way to be an adult. He has to be dragged kicking and screaming to broaden his world view to make it more inclusive, and then once he does, he never acknowledges that it was something he had to be shown, to learn. And why doesn't he do this? Because he doesn't actually believe people can change.

That's why in his mid-2000s diatribe he foolishly addressed "young gay men" and told them they must never take a non-condom-clad penis in their mouths for the rest of their lives. Well, that's bad prevention advice. It's simply not true. And he's equating any physical contact with an HIV transmission route, not much different from a Robert Dornan. All of this is bound up in his own body terrors and the projection of his own self-loathing onto a broader community that's just wants to, as he used to always say it, be left alone.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/24/11 at 11:58am

I hope you come across that interview FindingNamo. I would love to read it.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/24/11 at 12:22pm

I joined Daddyhunt or Manhunt and all those things, and posted my pictures, and filled out my questionnaire. And I got absolutely no response from anyone...

Oh, Larry.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 4/24/11 at 12:29pm

Exactly, PJ.

From Larry's "Tragedy of Today's Gays" jeremiad at Cooper Union, 2004:

The man I let f--k me because I was trying to make my then boyfriend, now lover, jealous. I know, by the way, that that other one is the one who infected me. You know how you sometime know things? I know he infected me. I tried to murder myself on that one.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/24/11 at 12:34pm

^ Wow! That statement (and the act it is revealing) is telling and disturbing.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 4/24/11 at 12:41pm

Actually, I think that revelation is profoundly human and complicated. It illustrates everything that is missing when Kramer goes on a tirade and points fingers at everybody else. He'd be a hypocrite if he were telling that story for sympathy, which he wasn't, but I am sure he would accept it if sympathy were offered. The problem is that he doesn't see the larger complicated issues of human sexuality, even though his own behavior falls directly outside of the boundaries of the either/or, right or wrong world he creates for others in his diatribe. He doesn't understand what the sex drive is. And even though he says it again and again, he does NOT love gay people, because he hates himself.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/24/11 at 1:06pm

I completely agree with you that the revelation is profoundly human and complicated. Human sexuality *is* complex.

I found the speech, it is a long one and a very interesting one...and a scary one.

I grew up closeted. I am Latino, I grew up in a Catholic household. I was surrounded by strong, Latin male figures, the essence of what that culture considered "being a man": machismo.

Yet here I was struggling with these inner feelings that terrified me and haunted me because I didn't want to shame my family, my culture or my religion.

In the middle of this struggle the AIDS epidemic rears it's ugly head. I was 13 years old. That alone sent me further and further into denial and further and further back into the closet. You mean I could die if I act upon what I feel?, I thought to myself. No way, I'm not going out like that. This is a phase, this will pass. I'm not gay.

And so I lived a lie until I came to peace with myself and who I was and knew I didn't have to die. I had choices I needed to make.

But reading this speech and the reality of what was going on back in 1981 brought back all of those feelings.

I do agree with Mr. Kramer that a lot of the newer generation have no idea about what it was like to live in that time and the severity of the disease in general.

EDIT: It's almost looked upon as a treatable disease (e.g.: diabetes). Updated On: 4/24/11 at 01:06 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/24/11 at 1:11pm

I agree that Larry hates himself, but I disagree that he hates gay people. I think you draw a false conclusion there.

I think he loves "gay people" as he wishes he could love himself.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/24/11 at 1:14pm

I don't think he hates gay people either. Sure Larry is conflicted and in a very real sense I think we all are but I don't think he entirely hates himself either.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/24/11 at 3:00pm

I don't have anything to add (learning the place our old buddy Steven Stanley once tried to put me in?), but just wanted to say that this thread has been an interesting read. I think Kramer is brilliant but disturbed, and I always find reading his work and interviews fascinating in their complexity.

[Kristie-K2]

Posted: 4/24/11 at 3:05pm

Larry Kramer is a genius and I am so happy that his play will finally make it to Broadway...Young gay men need to know their history.

I had alot of gay friends who remind me of Larry...but in a different way...

John, my best friend from third grade, wanted to please his family so he married a woman which ended in a year...turned to alcohol and ended killing himself.

Sammy, a friend since the 8th grade was an ugly duckling until he was 18...very loving and sensitive, he then f**ked everyone he could and ended up dying of Aids,

Tommy, a friend from college was very Catholic and got married, had two kids and had sex with men on the downlow...died of skin cancer.

All actors and I loved them more then I can say...but this was the eighties and it was hard for them to be Gay

People used to call me a "Fag Hag"(I hate that label) but I was just very lucky to have these beautiful boys in my life...

I often wonder how they would of turned out if they would of lived as long as Larry Kramer...

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/24/11 at 4:02pm

Wow Kristie K-2. Thanks for sharing your story. It's heartbreaking and I can relate. It takes me back to 1991. There I was in love with a beautiful girl, engaged and ready to get married. Yes, I did love her...I loved her enough not to start a life with her and have children because deep down inside I needed to deal with my truth and live it and not live a lie.

I kept thinking to myself: I do this, get married, have children and everything is alright...for now. What happens 2, 5, 10 years down the road? I decide to come out and destroy a marriage and a family? I couldn't live with that. It wouldn't be fair.

So I broke of the engagement. I didn't cite the real reason. I simply told her I thought I was too young to make that kind of a commitment. It hurt me, It hurt her but marrying her, living lie and deceiving her and have it come out later would have been a whole helluva lot worse.

I loved her and I love myself too much to have ever put us through any of that and that whole situation was the catalyst for me to re-discover myself, accept myself and make peace with myself.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/24/11 at 4:02pm

Double Post :) Updated On: 4/24/11 at 04:02 PM

[Kristie-K2]

Posted: 4/24/11 at 4:44pm

Oh Carlos...you are making me cry...I wish Johnny and Tommy could of been like you...but it was family and religion that
made them both get married...I miss them soooo much. They felt so guilty for being Gay

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/24/11 at 6:07pm

Sometimes family, friends and even religion and the need to please any one of these three factors push someone to do what they think is the "right" thing.

I inadvertently felt guilty for feeling what I was feeling. It was a combination of the environment I grew up in as well as religion.

I'm sorry about Johnny and Tommy. I feel you loved them very much, they were lucky to have someone like you in their lives.
Updated On: 4/24/11 at 06:07 PM

[canmark]

Posted: 4/24/11 at 9:23pm

I agree that Larry Kramer needs to realize that not everybody is like him, and that young people today were born after the '70's, after the '80's. How can they know what went down then? Their lives are a million times better and we should be glad for it. (This is not to dismiss Kramer's importance or his work as a writer, just to question his seemingly unceasing cantakerousness.)

That said, I can understand his disappointment in the young for not being as angry as his generation. But I think these things go in waves. A hundred years ago women were suffragettes, militantly fighting for the right to vote. During the first and second World Wars they entered the work force in huge numbers, often doing traditionally male jobs (ie. Rosie the Riveter). But then in the '50's it was back to Father Knows Best and traditional female roles. Then in the 60's and 70's we have women's liberation, bra burning, the sexual revolution. And now we have young women rejecting the term "feminist" like it some sort-of bad thing, and the older generation feminists frowning upon them for not continuing to carry the banner.

These things change. You can't be in a state of war forever.

There are some parts of the world where gay people are struggling for equality--and paying with their lives. And there are some people here and now who are fighting battles--perhaps not as life-and-death, but important just the same (such as the right to marry, to adopt, to not be discriminated in your job, etc.). So, I don't think it's fair to scoff at this generation, because many are contributing in their ways. But there are also many who are (thankfully) living in a better world thanks to people like Kramer's generation (many of whom have died, sadly), and don't they have a right to live happily? Not everyone wants to be a radical, an activist, a sh*t disturber.

There will be a time when the gay community gets radical again, but I think it will likely be in other parts of the world (such as the Middle East, which is currently going tremendous change)... or, if there was a change in gov't in the US to the far right. If people were to lose some of the rights they have now, then they might wake up and put down the appletinis.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 4/25/11 at 12:09am

I honestly don't think anybody who hates himself as much as Larry could possibly "love" an entire community. I think Larry's one of the most dangerous pathology combos of all, a narcissist who is self-loathing.

It's all in this paragraph from the Cooper Union speech and I will bold the part that is particularly egregious:

And by the way, when are you going to realize that for the rest of your lives, probably for the rest of life on earth, you are never going to be able to have sex with another person without a condom! Never! Every time you even so much as consider this I want you to hear my voice screaming like crazy in your ears. STOP! DON’T! NEVER! NO WAY, JOSE! Canadian scientists now warn that even partners who are both un-infected should practice safe sex. As I understand it, more and more new viruses and mutant viruses and partial viruses that are not understood are floating around. Are you ready for that one?

Do you see this? Do you see what he does? He is so repulsed by sexuality that he imagines that somehow, by the very act of two monogamous uninfected partners making love they are going to spontaneously create another plague JUST BY HAVING SEX. You know, because they're two gay men. That is absolutely insane. Larry Kramer is a person with extreme post traumatic stress disorder whom people trot out every now and again and somehow think he's a goddam oracle. (Incidentally, it's all in the dreadful novel Faggots too, which with this show revival is being called "prescient." Sure, prescient in its utter disdain for its subject matter, the community Kramer "loves.")

No community in the history of mankind ever undertook such radical changes in their sexual behaviors as the gay male community after the advent of HIV. Never. Kramer has never acknowledged this because all he cares about is immediacy and absolutes. All gay men didn't stop having sex they day he said they should and so it's been one big long series of tut tut tuts from the man ever since.

But somehow, Kramer's a HERO because he screamed his head off and yelled that gay men had to stop having sex? And you know what, fine. For him. I mean, I am left wondering if he puts anywhere near as much energy into the risk assessments he needs to make to get out of bed every morning, get in the shower, get out of the shower ... to cross the GD street? How does the man make it through the DAY?

The heroes were the Michael Callens and the Joe Sonnabends who sat down and tried to figure out a way to help guys navigate through those awful waters of the early epidemic. THEY helped invent safer sex. Kramer was screaming NEVER HAVE SEX. And he's still screaming it.

And yes, it's important for people to learn their history, but The Normal Heart really ought not to be their only source. In fact, I think in many ways this revival is being set up by the people working on it to make it seem like after people see this, they'll really be up to speed. In much the same ways disinterested Broadway audiences went to see Falsettos and came away feeling they had done their bit for AIDS. They won't be. They'll see a romanticized fantasy of the work of one man, written by that man.

Of all the things I hate Larry Kramer for, however, it's the fact that he is one of the chief offenders who just keeps repeating all the same negative BS about the gay community that has become the received wisdom over the years. Gay men don't care about each other, gay men have attitude, all gay men care about is sex. He knows nothing. He really knows nothing about what happens on a community level and he never has. He knows his rarified world, he thinks using his dog as a way to get a dig at Koch is an important bit of political activism.

In my book it's not heroic to repeat these negative bromides over and over. In fact, I think it's rather villainous.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 4/25/11 at 12:43am

Oh my god. Does anybody have a Xanax? Seriously. I blame this ALL on David Drake.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/25/11 at 11:19am

I also think Larry's wrong about the younger generation. There are still plenty of angry young men (and women) (and trans people).

But they are more angry about things like the legal delays in gay marriage and military sevrice than about HIV treatment and research. And they display their anger in much less melodramatic ways than Larry does.

Some, including BWW's very own EugLov, take part in Act-Up like demonstrations that are coordinated within hours through social media. Larry misses that entirely, because that contradicts his narrative. But he started saying the "younger generation doesn't get it" back in the late nineties. It's getting a little old.

Just this morning, it was announced that King and Spalding, the law firm hired by Congressional Republicans to defend DOMA, was withdrawing from the case, saying the the decision to take it on had not been "properly vetted." The contract apparently had a possibly illegal clause barring the firm's employees from engaging in any advocacy to "alter or amend" DOMA.

On Friday, Georgia Equality had formed a coalition of groups to protest at King and Spalding's offices today. Lambda Legal and HRC had said they would stop cooperating with the firm, and the firm was about to lose its ability to recruit and hire the best lawyers.

Larry doesn't realize that the new anger may be white-hot instead of red-hot and the activism may even more effective than his.

I still love him though.

[South Fl Marc]

Posted: 4/25/11 at 12:05pm

While I admire Larry Kramer, I find him a hateful, evil man. I equate him to Arthur Laurents. Except with Larry's case with the exception of "The Normal Heart" which I think is brilliant, the rest of his writings are pure garbage.

I will never forget the letter he handed out during a memorial for one of the higher ups in GMHC in which he personally attacked every single member of the Board of Directors of GMHC because they dared diagree with him. He even said that one member was on the board for the sole reason to watch gay people die. Hate, nothing but hate.

It has been my displeasure to meet him several times over the years, starting at way before the AIDS crisis. When I first met him I walked away thinking "What a twit" , my impressions after that have not changed much.

His anger was needed but it is interesting that every organazation that he founded to deal with HIV/AIDS quickly disassociated themselves with him.

He has no empathy, all he has is hate.



Updated On: 4/25/11 at 12:05 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 4/25/11 at 12:13pm

I thought I might have learned to love him after David Drake's "The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me." Kramer had been quiet for a little while and then that play came along and used him as an important touchstone in a show that looked at exactly where we were at that exact moment. Then Stonewall 25 happened and we all marched past Larry's "Evita" moment, waving grandly from his West Village balcony and smiling beatifically down upon the multitudes. I think my personal level of forgiveness was strongly influenced by Drake's prediction that Kramer only had a couple of years left to live.

And here we are, with Kramer's final act as endless as Arthur Laurents's. Which is fine. It is a good thing. The drugs have really helped people. Life is not the same now for many people with AIDS in the US as it was during the crisis years.

Then of course, Kramer kept opening his mouth again. Spreading the same bile he always did about "the gay community" as if there is one giant entity that thinks alike and behaves alike and is in total agreement.

I didn't realize that Kramer has been standing outside the Golden after some performances, in his Andrea Dworkin overalls, handing out fliers. I think it was a deft touch of George Wolfe to suggest it, mirroring as it does the HAIR hippies passing out fliers for nostalgia's sake.

But of course the text is the problem. In the flier, Kramer asks playgoers to "Please Know..." that it all happened. He then goes on, as he is wont to do, to list nothing but what he considers to be the failures of attempting to deal with the epidemic over the last 30 years. Among them:

Please know that all efforts at prevention and education continue their unending record of abject failure.

I can't love a man who is a self-appointed spokesman who spreads such malicious misinformation. Every person I know who was sexually active before 1980 and who is still sexually active and remains HIV negative, myself included, is a prevention and education success story. Every HIV positive person who is sexually active and takes steps to make sure he does not put his partners at risk is a prevention and education success story.

I know we are meant to say "Oh that's just Larry. Hyperbole is his metier."

The problem is, it's a lie. It's another lie in a series of lies about failure that hinges on ignoring successes. It also sets up people for failure, to not even try, which is borderline criminal when it comes to this issue, in my opinion.

[SouthFlMarc: I was writing this post when you made yours.]

A Letter From Larry Kramer: Please Know

Updated On: 4/25/11 at 12:13 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/25/11 at 12:35pm

I equate him to Arthur Laurents.

They were longtime friends until, as Arthur always ends up saying about his friends, "He said something unforgivable about me, and I will never speak to him again."

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 4/25/11 at 1:02pm

Notice how Arthur never says "he said something untrue about me"? It's only ever "unforgivable."

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/25/11 at 1:28pm

This is all very new to me. I never associated Larry Kramer the playwright/screenwriter as the same Larry Kramer from GMHC and ACTUP.

Edit: That is until I read that article from salon.com and posted it here.



Updated On: 4/25/11 at 01:28 PM