The Great Joy of Living Gay
by Daniel R. Hirtler on 08/27/10
I was asked by a friend to participate in a conversation about "living gay". The question was what I found to be my biggest joy of living gay. I tend not to think in those terms, since I live "out" in all that I do, but not just in terms of sexual identification. I don't have a community of other gay men around me to live out my intentions, so living "joyfully gay" is not exactly what I do. I am joyful about the gay construction with which I surround myself (mostly in my mind). This was my response:
The biggest joy for me of living gay would have to be the challenge to the outer world of exposing what I want in life; demanding acceptance for it.
Not having a cohesive gay male community around me, the joys I imagine about a particular lifestyle, and a particular floating closeness with men are hopes, as yet, only realized for moments. It is work yet to be done, and since it is not just my work, if it is ever to be realized, sadly it is likely not to become real during my time here now.
The assertion that I want a community of men who feel comfortable with their own sexuality that they can offer it freely without feeling that it will be compromised is primarily what living gay would be for me; to be a man among men being men.
Smaller joys for me of living gay include the looks and mannerisms that queer men have developed to reinterpret and parody the ordinary world around us. These are available, and can be had (and lived if desired). I don't live them, and I have a feeling that they would be less joy-filled if I did.
Another joy (I am not sure of its magnitude but I think it is great) is the possibility of multiple relationships, each non-competing, based on a different quality of engagement. The possibility, in gay life, of having a constellation of romantic, sexualized understandings of different qualities over a range of men, some earthy, some spiritual, some practical some whimsical is what I imagine polyamory to be. Each connection is special; none negate any of the others; and the constellation of all the relationships allows each to benefit the others.
In light of this hope, the terms for marriage become odd. The one or more persons with whom one shares the stuff of home and stability is/are the person(s) one is bound to whether there is a state sanctioned bondage in place. Such a bond lasts just as long as the conditions are cultivated which serve its purpose, whether the state recognizes it or not. Most are lucky enough to find a single person with whom to develop that bond, but in those conditions where that stability is afforded by more persons who develop those bonds among them, why should that condition be rejected?
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