Saturday, March 7, 2015

The Turkish Bodybuilder

Ankara, Turkey, January 1989

In September 1988, everything was going wrong.  I passed my qualifying exams for my Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, but my first committee nixed my dissertation topic, and my second committee was insisting that I llearn a new modern language.

My car was starting to fall apart from driving 100 miles per week in L.A. traffic.

Even with 3 jobs, I didn't make enough for USC tuition.  I owed $20,000 in student loans and my credit cards were maxed out.  I was thinking of bankrupcy.

Living in a gay ghetto, surrounded by 30,000 gay men, I hadn't had a relationship in months (Richard Dreyfuss  and the ex-boyfriend of President Reagan don't count.)

It was time for a change.



The Chronicle of Higher Education listed several job openings for the spring semester, including Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey.

The Middle East!  I remembered my long-ago plan to "escape to Arabia" with my junior high boyfriend Dan, and Todd, the Lebanese boy who was my "first time."

And it would be a good base for trips to Greece, Egypt, Israel, and the Balkans.

They wanted a specialist in Victorian literature.  I hated Victorian literature.  No matter -- I said I was writing my dissertation on Dickens and Balzac, and got the job.

On January 16th, 1989, I flew with two suitcases and a box of books from Los Angeles to Washington DC, then to Munich, then to Ankara, where a dozen college boys were waiting for me.  They asked about my trip, grabbed my luggage, drove me to my tiny furnished apartment on the campus, and though I was jetlagged, made sure I got a tour of the city and a refrigerator-full of groceries.

What I liked about Turkey:

1. Turkish is not an Indo-European language, so there are few cognates, not even for common words like "car" and "restaurant."  How much of this menu can you figure out?  It was a lot of fun to study.


2. Visiting the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, followed by iskender (lamb with tomato sauce and butter on pita) at the Uludag Kebabcisi

3. Whenever I needed anything, or even if I didn't, a dozen university students were eager to help.

4. Men and women were socially segregated, so it was not at all uncommon for a heterosexual man to spend all of his leisure hours with men
5. The Remzi Kitabevi (bookstore) had a huge English section.

6. Turkish homoerotic oil wrestling.

7. You could see Columbo, Star Trek, Head of the Class, and Perfect Strangers dubbed in Turkish.

8. There were lots of muscular, hirsute men who were not the least bit shy about physical contact.


9. Everyone was technically homophobic, but the homophobia was aimed at feminine or passive men, not same-sex activity itself.

Just as I noticed in India, cruising was everywhere: in the metro station, in the park, in the hamam (bathhouse).  Same-sex activity was an ordinary part of life for most men, their main sexual outlet before marriage, and often after.

10. Turkey invented bodybuilding, and nearly everyone I met competed in the Young Bodybuilders Clubs, the Gymnastics Association, or the Heavy Weight Lifting Association.  Like Halil, who had a girlfriend but still invited me to share his bed at a competition in Istanbul.

By the way, Kielbasa+

My Terrible Dissertation Committee Forbids Me from Saying Gay


Los Angeles, May 1988

When I moved to West Hollywood in 1985, I enrolled in the doctoral program in Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California.  We had to select two historical periods to concentrate on, so I chose the Renaissance and the 19th century symbolist movement.

I was also teaching at Loyola Marymount University, editing for Joe Weider's Muscle and Fitness, and living in West Hollywood (which takes a lot of time), so it took three years to finish my coursework, language exams, and comprehensive exams.  But in May of 1988, I was ready to write my prospectus, a 30-page paper that would be developed into my doctoral dissertation.



In May 1988, I gave my committee a prospectus on "Same-Sex Desire in Renaissance Drama." I concentrated on Il Marescalco, by Pietro Aretino, about a gay man who is required to get married, but finds that his friends have arranged for the "bride" to be a boy (it was not included in the 1972 Italian film I Raconti Romani di Pietro Aretino). 

No, no, no!  They cried.  You must not write about "homosexuals"!  Too controversial!  No one will hire you!

Back to the drawing board.  Maybe if I "hid" the gay people among other outsiders, such as Jews, Turks, and witches.







Whenever I was upset, I watched television.  It brought back soothing memories of my childhood, when I went to bed but my parents were still watching tv in the next room, and I felt warm and safe knowing that they were nearby.  So in between analyzing Renaissance plays, I watched The Simpsons, Married with Children, It's Gary Shandling's Show, 21 Jump Street, Alien Nation, Designing Women, Newhart, Who's the Boss, Roseanne, Head of the Class, Night Court, Wiseguy (with Ken Wahl, left), Twin Peaks, and The Golden Girls.

Juvenile programs were especially good at evoking that warm, safe feeling, so I watched  The Adventures of Pete and Pete, Hey Dude (with David Lascher, top photo), Pee Wee's Playhouse, Saved by the Bell, You Can't Do That on Television, Degrassi High, Out of this World,  Katts and Dog, and Tiny Toon Adventures, thus beginning a life-long interest in heterosexism and same-sex bonds in children's media. 

In September 1988, I gave my committee a new prospectus on "The Image of the Other in Renaissance Drama," comparing the image of the Jew, the Turk, the witch, and the "homosexual" in Aretino, Christopher Marlowe, and Calderon de la Barca.

No, no, no!  They cried. You compare the image of the Jew with the image of the "homosexual'!  Too controversial! No one will hire you!


 I was sick to death of my dissertation committee -- and the Renaissance.  So I got a new committee, and changed to the Symbolist Movement.  I had to "pick up a new language," so I  went to Turkey and Israel for six months, and returned in May 1989 with a prospectus for a new dissertation, "The Pastoral Ideal in Late 19th Century Fiction."  I compared The Wind in the Willows, Death in Venice, and Andre Gide's Pastoral Symphony, with a little Wilhelm von Gloeden thrown in.

No, no, no! They cried.  You claim that Thomas Mann, Andre Gide, and  Kenneth Grahame were gay!  Too controversial!  No one will hire you!

Without another word, I walked out of the committee chambers, got into my car, and drove away from USC.  I never went back. (Instead I got the Worst Job in the World.)

In 1997, I tried again, enrolling in a doctoral program in sociology at SUNY Long Island.  This time my committee let me write on a gay topic, as long as the word "gay" wasn't in the title of my dissertation.


Friday, March 6, 2015

Fall 1987: My Boyfriend Gets a BFF

Heinz flexes and cooks weiners
In West Hollywood in the 1980s, the boundary between friend and lover was fluid. A friend might invite you into his bed; a lover might cruise someone else. You might have a regular Saturday night date with a friend; you might not see a lover for weeks at a time.

So I'm not sure exactly when Raul and I broke up.

1. Maybe in August 1987, when my roommate Alan moved to Thailand to start a gay Pentecostal church.    I asked Raul to move in to help with the rent, but he refused: "too far from work" (he was now in customer service at a company on Wilshire). So I had to hustle to find a new place, with Derek on Sunset Boulevard.

2. Or in October 1987, when Raul's lease expired, and he moved into an ugly house with a German flight attendant or something named Heinz -- in West Hollywood, only two miles from my old apartment.




Heinz's Horrible House
3. Maybe when Heinz got to be really, really annoying.  He wouldn't let anyone walk in shoes or socks on his white shag rug -- we had to go barefoot.

He listened incessantly to a terrible German pop group -- "Come away wiz me tyu Molly-Byu, tyu Molly-Byu, tyu Molly-Byu."

He forced us to watch the Miss America pageant.  Why would a group of gay men want to watch the Miss America pageant?  "For the outfits!"



And he hung out with women.

In tv and movies, gay guys always have hetero girl bffs.  The writers think they're all feminine, so of course they want to hang out with girls.

But in West Hollywood in the 1980s, most gay men weren't feminine, and -- news flash -- preferred the company of men.  (Besides, a female friend would confound the fluid boundary between friend and lover).  So when Heinz started coming around with female friends, tongues started to wag:

He was trying to pass (Passing, pretending to be straight, was an unpardonable sin.)
He suffered from internalized homophobia.
He had been brainwashed to believe that men were incomplete without women.
He was secretly straight.

4. But most likely when Raul, following Heinz's example, got a female bff.  Gina from work, a secretary-aspiring actress who did two commercials and guest starred on a sitcom.

He brought Gina to Heinz's house several times, then to my house, to the bars, and to the French Quarter Restaurant, where the waiter asked if they were a couple (come on, this was West Hollywood!).

My other friends stopped inviting me places -- guilt by association.

But the last straw came in December, when their office had a Christmas banquet. Gina invited Raul. To be her date.

I was furious.  "Doesn't she know that we're a couple?  Or does she not care?  Gay relationships are meaningless, right?"

"You know I'm not out at work," Raul said.  "Going with Gina would be better than going alone."

"Surely you're not considering it?" I asked, aghast.

He was considering it.

I hate the holidays.

The story of Raul continues here, when my ex-boyfriend Fred visits West Hollywood with a Cute Young Thing.



Thursday, March 5, 2015

Alan and I Cruise in Japan

Osaka, Japan, July 1986

In March 1986, my ex-boyfriend Alan, the former porn star and current student clergy, suddenly announced that he was leaving the MCC: God had called him to start his own gay Pentecostal church.

In Japan.

Ok, there were 100,000,000 people in Japan, 3% Christian, maybe 1% of that Pentecostal, and 10% of that gay.  A target market of 3,000 people.

"Oh, no, there will be a massive revival.  Thousands of Japanese gay men and lesbians will be won to the Lord.  In a few years, there will be gay Pentecostal churches all over Japan."

He invited me to come along and become his co-minister.  I should have remembered moving to Omaha with Fred.  But...

Alan quickly landed a job teaching at an English language school in Osaka, and moved in April 1986, just as the new semester was beginning.   I applied for and received a scholarship to spend the summer at Kansai University.  On May 27th, I flew to Australia to visit a friend, and then joined Alan in Japan.

He lived on a very noisy, crowded street in the Kita Ward of Osaka, in a tiny apartment -- about 216 square feet, the size of an average bedroom in the U.S.

Every day between 8:00 am and 2:00 pm, Alan met with his students -- 8 to 10 per hour, talking about current events and writing essays.  I went to Gold's Gym, then to my class in Japanese Literature or to the Joto Library to study Japanese.

After dinner we cruised. I got the gay bars, restaurants, and discos, and Alan got the bath houses, bookstores, movie theaters, and Sakuranomiya Park. We were ostensibly looking for new converts for Alan's Gay Pentecostal Church, but Alan seems to have been mostly cruising.  Every night he brought a new potential convert back to our apartment: students, salary men, tourists.  For some reason, Asian men found him infinitely attractive (later, when we were roommates, he used this remarkable ability to steal my dates).

But none of the guys he brought him converted.

The Gay Pentecostal Church -- Kamisama no kyokai gei -- met every Sunday morning at 10:30 for Sunday school and 11:30 for the morning service.  With Alan and me, and sometimes whoever stayed over last night.

No one else.

We put up fliers in gay bars, restaurants, discos.  Alan announced the church at a meeting of Kansai Pride.

No one came.

In July we went to a Hadaka Matsuri, a Naked Man Festival.  It was the highpoint of the trip. Unfortunately, we missed the Penis Festival of Kawasaki.

At the end of July, when Alan's school closed for summer break, we returned to Los Angeles.  I knew he wasn't going to go back to Japan, and sure enough, in August he returned to his old job as a middle-school social studies teacher.  But soon he was talking about starting a gay Pentecostal church in Thailand.

"There will be a massive revival.  Thousands of Thai gay men and lesbians will be won to the Lord.  In a few years, there were be gay Pentecostal churches all over Thailand.  You should come...."

I said no to that one.

See also: The Day I Turned Japanese; Bed-Hopping in Japan

Sunday, March 1, 2015

The Night I Became a Creepy Old Guy

Albany, New York, January 2012

When I was living in the gay neighborhoods of California, New York, and Florida, cruising occurred in three distinct life stages, each with its own bars, cruising sites, protocols, and expectations.

1. Twink/Cute Young Thing

 From coming out to age 30, though some guys who came out later became honorary twinks.

After growing up in a constant hum of heterosexist brainwashing, being told over and over that same-sex desire does not exist, the twink went crazy, trying to cram as many masculine experiences as possible into his schedule.  He cruised constantly, in bars, on the street, on Grindr.

His mantra was: So many men, so little time!


2. Regular Guy

30s to mid-40s, though some guys graduated from Twinkdom early, and some stayed late.

Most Regular Guys had permanent partners, with shared apartments and dinners with their parents.  They might still cruise, but only to find someone to share.








3. Daddy/Bear

Mid-40s up, though guys with the right physique might come directly from Twink the moment they reached age 30 (or admitted to it.)

The Daddy or Bear was usually partnered, but cruised extensively anyway, with or without his partner (usually without).   Increasingly aware of his mortality, he wanted to cram as many masculine experiences as possible into his life, repeating the mantra of his youth: so many men, so little time!

While cruising, you were allowed to approach guys in your age group or higher. If you liked someone of a lower age group, you had to wait for him to approach you.

If you approached a younger guy, or even tried to make eye contact first, you were placed in Category 4:

4. Creepy Old Guy

The Creepy Old Guy was unaware of the protocols, or didn't care.  He approached anyone, from Twinks to Daddies, but concentrated on Twinks, as if he was living a second childhood.  He groped without checking for the appropriate body language, made obnoxiously sexual come-ons, and refused to be dissuaded by either Attitude or a firm "no."









I became a Creepy Old Guy quite suddenly, one night in 2012, at the River Street Club in Albany, New York. It was occupied primarily by guys in the Daddy/Bear category, with a sprinkling of Regular Guys but no Twinks.

Until Peter came in (I never got his real name): a twink, short, muscular, with a slightly hairy chest and a Bratwurst+ beneath the belt.  Later I discovered that he was 23 years old, a student at Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute, a few blocks away.

He came into the gym as I was working out.  You were supposed to pretend not to look, but I couldn't help sneaking a peak as I waited for him to finish with the bench press.

Maybe too long a peak.  He finished his set and rushed away.

I ran into him a bit later in the sauna.  There were protocols in place about who wanted to be touched; Peter wanted to be touched. But when I tried, he roughly pushed me away and left.

Everyone stared; I had forgotten that I was two age categories older than Peter!  I had committed a major faux pas.

My friend chuckled.  "Congratulations -- you just became a Creepy Old Guy!"

Later, I saw Peter in the maze, in a clench with another guy.  Surely he wouldn't mind if I just stood there and watched!  But when he looked up and saw me, he said something -- too low for me to hear -- then grabbed his partner's hand and rushed away.

Burning with embarrassment over being a Creepy Old Guy, I hung out in the shadows for awhile, and then decided to go to the hot tub, where people chatted without any sexual expectation.  Peter was there!

I had had enough. I jumped into the hot tub and sat next to him.  "I'm a member of this club, and I'm going to use the hot tub," I announced.

He pretended not to see me.

"You don't need to rush rudely away. I promise I won't commit the horrible sin of looking at you."

He stared. "What's your problem, man?"

"Well, I was a little offended when you cut your workout short just because I happened to be in the room."

"I was done, man!  I just wanted to pump up a little, to show off my pecs!"

Hot with rage, I continued. "And what about in the sauna.  You gave every sign of being open, but not when I got there!  No, don't let the Creepy Old Guy near you!"

"I was trying to relax!" Peter exclaimed.  "Any law that says you have to do things whenever some guy wants you to?"

"Well -- what about when you were in the maze, and I wasn't even good enough to watch you and the love of your life?"

"I don't like guys watching me!  Neither of us had a room, and I thought we could get some privacy in the maze.  Anything wrong with that?"

"Um..well...sorry.  My mistake."  I was mortified.  I pulled myself up out of the hot tub to slink away.  Then Peter stood, too.

"Look -- I've never been to this sort of place before.  Sorry if I didn't play by the rules."  He reached out and touched my chest.  "You seem like a nice guy.  Do you have a room?"

See also: 10 Easy Steps to Hooking Up with twinks; and My First Creepy Old Guy

Summer 1983: Viju and Cousin Joe Hit It Off

(Cousin  Joe asked me to delete this post.)

L

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