Tag: sodomy

American Life

Friday Eve! Or Thursday, in actuality. But we’ve made it this far, with just today and tomorrow to get through before sleeping in on the weekend! Huzzah! I slept decently last night–not deeply, not that wonderful “I’ve turned into a log” coma-type sleep, but it was good enough that I don’t feel tired this morning, and I actually was awake before the alarm. It’s ridiculous how much more awake I feel when I don’t get up to an alarm–and how much less resentful I feel.

I also woke up to an email that the Nancy Drew action figure I pledged to support through Kickstarter reached it’s funding goal. I got the one from the cover of The Secret of the Old Clock, where she is wearing a green outfit, is holding a screwdriver, and looks (according to That Bitch Ford) about forty years old. Given that Nancy will be a hundred this decade, forty’s not a bad look on her.

Yesterday was a pretty good day. I got home, worked for a few hours, and then repaired to the chair to rewatch this week’s Ted Lasso (which was marvelous) and then we finished off Shrinking, which is one of the funniest shows to come along in a long while. I talked about this the other day, and the quality and high level of writing and acting continue through the final episode, which was also one of the greatest (and most unexpected) literal cliff-hangers I’ve seen in a long while.

I have been watching, with growing alarm and disgust, the recent right-wing war on anything non-Christian (which is hysterical, because nothing they believe is Christianity: you shall know them by their acts) and especially everything not straight and not white. Who knew straight white people were so fucking fragile? (Everyone non-white and non-straight) They also have incredibly weak faith in their Lord and Savior; because anything that might challenge that belief has to be eradicated, made not available, and swept under the rug and hidden from view because it makes them uncomfortable. What I would like to say to all of these people is mind your own fucking business. The hypocrisy of beating the drums and warning people about how they’re aren’t haters “just worried about the children! Won’t someone think of the children?” (Yet they are also the same people who believe everyone should be armed to the teeth and that school shootings are A-Okay with them because you know, ‘slippery slope’ and all that. Of course, they use the First Amendment for toilet paper but hey, newsflash! The Founding Fathers considered everything in the first more important than the second, otherwise GUNS would have been the First Fucking Amendment, wouldn’t it? No, they deliberately made it the second because the rights and privileges granted in the first were more important.)

The other day, a friend in the Queer Crime Writers’ group I belong to posted a screenshot of the age restriction requirement on the home page of a small but highly regarded lesbian press, where you actually had to plug in your birthdate in order to gain access. This was done to reduce potential liability in such states as Texas and Florida that have been passing unconstitutional, flagrantly Fascistic laws–laws that are deeply unpopular, but merely designed to advance the presidential aspirations of their deeply unlikable governor, who has the charisma of Ted Cruz and the charm of Matt Gaetz; nothing turns out the bigots like a fear that other people might be as equal in the eyes of the law as they are. This was horrific–but small queer presses don’t have the money or resources to fight these draconian, restrictive laws; one complaint from some skeevy parent in Florida whose pastor is probably molesting their children but oh no queer books! is what they see as the real problem. The demonization of trans people–directly tied into their stupid notion that transwomen and drag queens are the same thing (repeat after me: not all transwomen do drag–is the exact same thing as the crusades against gays and lesbians (not that far back), and is the same song, different verse. And why not go back to the scare tactics that have always worked? The piece of shit “libs of TikTok” woman is nothing more than a more modern, less talented Anita Bryant (she was a bigoted bitch, but I will give her credit for her singing talent; she actually had a successful career as a singer and spokesperson for the Florida Orange Growers–Florida again; it’s always Florida–until her bigotry destroyed her career. I have no sympathy for her, so don’t even try it. She deserved worse than divorce, bankruptcy, and public scorn.); the insidiousness of straight white women leading homophobic movements (see Maggie Gallagher) is predicated on motherhood; they are just mothers worried for their children! Won’t someone think of the children? (Unless it’s school shootings and legislation that might make a difference–doing nothing clearly isn’t working–in which case, who fucking cares about the kids? GUNS! MAH FREEDUM!)

These are indeed scary times, in which the complacent Left has allowed the rise of Fascism on the right, and even now isn’t doing enough to fight back against it; when small presses that have been doing the heavy lifting for queer books when we are not in fashion at the big houses could be fined and/or punished by a state for the crime of selling books on their website. (The irony of this happening to Bywater Books–who later took it down–whose DNA goes back to Naiad Press which was based in fucking Florida, is something you couldn’t put into a book. (In times like these, I miss Barbara Grier. Barbara would have ripped off deSantis’ head and shit down his neck.) This brings up several legal questions–which should be left to the lawyers–but it seems to me these laws and restrictions are not only censorship but also violate interstate commerce laws as well as the full faith and credit article in the Constitution.

It’s so tiring to be constantly having to explain to people why you deserve to be treated like a human being.

It occurred to me last night before I went to bed that I need to use this little platform better than I have been. I am sure anyone who reads my blog probably is on the same page as me politically; I can’t imagine this being a safe space for a bigot. But I’ve not been talking much about politics here, not in a long time at any rate, because I’ve always been of the mindset that it would just be preaching to the choir. Anyone who knows anything about me, or has read my books, should know where I stand politically. That I oppose bigotry and prejudice of any kind. That I believe that all Americans should be equal in the eyes of the law; that it’s the government’s job to intervene when something in the public sphere reaches crisis stage–whether it’s recovery from a weather event, health care, or violence. In a capitalist system, the government has to step in when the system fails to correct it.

But now we have a Supreme Court that seems determined to roll back the clock to the “good ole days” when non-white non-straight non-cisgender people were invisible–and it was socially acceptable to mistreat them if they weren’t.

For the record, your freedom ends before it infringes on mine.

Age restrictions and requiring adult permission to check out books dealing with queer or racial issues in this country essentially renders all that work–regardless of its intended audience–as pornography.

Queer characters are automatically pornography, because that’s all the “christians” think about when they think about queer people–dicks in asses, tongues in vaginas–which is frankly kind of creepy and revolting. I don’t look at straight people and wonder, does she like to do reverse cowgirl? Does he like it when she pegs him? because it’s none of my fucking business. I’m sorry you people are so frightened by sexuality and the mere thought of sex–but maybe try not thinking about it for a minute or two? My sex life is none of your business just as yours is none of mine. There is nothing more invasive that government intervention into your sex life.

Talk about slippery slopes*! Straight people also do oral and anal. Straight people are also into kink, threeways, orgies, leather, BDSM, you name it. And if we the people allow the government to legislate our sex lives…don’t you think it’s entirely possible they’ll come for yours someday? Why not outlaw oral and anal sex (sodomy laws are still on the books in some states, including Louisiana…those laws are never enforced on straight people, quelle surprise). Why not virginity laws? Or a virginity tax you only have to pay once you’ve had sex? If this sounds insane or crazy to you, please bear in mind that this is precisely what Florida, Texas, and Tennessee, among umpteen others, are trying to do.

It was nice, though, actually feeling like a full-fledged American citizen there for a few years. I should have known it would be a fleeting feeling.

*Of course, the only slippery slope the right cares about has to do with the Second Amendment, or as I like to call it, the Eleventh Commandment.

I Sing the Body Electric

I’ve been reading a lot of history lately (nothing new there, really; my favorite non-fiction generally tends to be history), focusing primarily on New Orleans and Louisiana for the most part. As I read histories of New Orleans, here and there I find little bits, here and there, about the queer subculture in the long years and decades before Stonewall; little bits, here and there, more of asides in longer narratives than anything else. There were, of course, male prostitutes in Storyville back in the day–generally not housed or regularly employed in the houses, but should a customer be desirous of, shall we say, male companionship, the madams would send a runner down to a gay watering hole a few blocks away in the Quarter and find someone looking to make some quick cash…and they never failed to find someone willing to satisfy the “peculiar tastes” of the john.

Finding this, and other references to bordello activity by reformers protesting their existence and wanting them shut down, as “sodomy” quite naturally piqued my interest. As a port city that was, at one time, the largest port and largest city in the southern United States, a city that was also a blend of many different cultures and so forth, New Orleans clearly had always had havens for homosexuals in those dark times when we were outlaws. As I read other New Orleans histories, I do keep an eye out for these references, and mark the pages in order to find them easily again.

There’s a lot of stories untold there in the past, and I’ve been considering the possibilities of writing more historical-based fiction in New Orleans. I’ve already started a short story about a young gay man who occasionally picks up extra cash by working in one of the brothels at night “on demand,” and I think it has some terrific potential.

Queer people have often been erased by history, just as people of color and women have been, and while I will most likely never write non-fiction (you can’t make things up, which is the primary drawback for me), I do enjoy reading histories that focus on the gay community.

For example, David K. Johnson’s award-winning The Lavender Scare, about the purge of gay employees from the federal government in the 1950’s as intelligence risks (their sexuality left them open to blackmail from foreign spies; at least this was the fear) eventually led to my short story “The Weight of a Feather” (which I am still not convinced shouldn’t have been a novel); and as such, was quite delighted when Johnson released another scholarly look at queer American history this year, Buying Gay: How Physique Entrepreneurs Sparked a Movement.

I had, of course, known that “physique pictorial” magazines essentially were the original gay porn magazines; those images still can be found on the Internet.

buying gay

Johnson’s thesis holds that the mailing lists, and sales, of these magazines early on developed a cohesive gay market, and the recognition of said market gradually led to activism and wholesale societal change; that the magazines themselves created a sense of community by letting deeply closeted and frightened gay men know they weren’t alone; there were others like them, and helped them feel seen.

This further extrapolated into films and books, and gradually a gay rights movement.

The book is well written and deeply researched, as was The Lavender Scare (recently filmed as a documentary I am looking forward to seeing), and shed a light on a time I don’t know much about; few people know much about that time. One of the greatest tragedies of the community is how it was ravaged by HIV/AIDS in the 1980’s and 1990’s, until the development of the drug cocktails that first extended life, and eventually managed to make HIV a manageable infection rather than a fatal one; a lot of oral histories were lost as a result, and an entire generation of gay men was not only lost, but deprived the next generation of community elders and mentors.

I’ve been toying, over the last few years, with several ideas for noir novels with gay themes and characters set in the decades before Stonewall, and Buying Gay will, should I ever decide to do so, prove to be an invaluable source of material.

Well done, Dr. Johnson.