Faggots

by Larry Kramer

The success of any satire is gauged by the degree of offense it provokes at its initial appearance and by the durability of that offense.

male homosexual revolution

(the merely accurate and nonjudgmental word queer has always felt right to me, though the misleading and now appallingly ironic gay has triumphed).

And when orgasmic sex ceases to constitute emotional intensity for its participants, then what remains in

the realm of sensory possibility for the deadened veteran—

Beneath Kramer’s obvious denunciation of mindless male promiscuity, then, lies the seed of both his revulsion and his dread.

the sexual body is human, not immortal; and while it is only an appendage of an entire man, it is capable of destroying both itself and him.

barring further notice all unshielded sexual contact of whatever kind may rationally be assumed to be potentially lethal.

‘Alienation, however, does not lead our hero out of society, but deeper into it, for he is impelled by a curiosity to know, down to the smallest detail, the corrupt world that he wishes to escape.

Had he not decided, Yes!, that as a writer and citizen/person/liver-in-the-here-and-now he must experience, or at least witness, Everything to the fullest?

How could he not remember? How could he have made love with another human being and not remember?

“faggot,” which had punch, bite, a no-nonsense, chin-out assertiveness, and which, at present, was no more self-deprecatory than, say, “American.”

Robbie, a Mormon architect who had been expelled from Brigham Young for being caught jerking off in the middle of the night and refusing to name names of any fellow Unnatural Behavers

“He tortures himself with his sexual fantasies,” Laverne ventured.

“Scenes. They’re called scenes. He says he prefers an evening with three scenes. The first two are pretend and the third is for real.”

“He does it to avoid love,”

But when I look around me, all I see is fucking. All we do is fuck. With dildoes and gallows and in the bushes and on the streets. My sister-in-law doesn’t fuck on the streets.”

“What did Leather Louie give as the reason for the sadist pushing the masochist further than he’s ever been pushed before?” Now it was Patty’s turn to look across the river. “Pushed to a greater connection to the ultimate, and a search for identity on the part of both of them to find out who and what they truly are. Which brings them pleasure.”

Yes, sex and love were different items when he wanted them in one, and yes, having so much sex made having love impossible, and yes, sadism was only a way to keep people away from us and masochism only a way to clutch them close, and yes, we are sadists with some guys and masochists with other guys and sometimes both with both, and yes, we’re all out of the closet but we’re still in the ghetto and all I see is guys hurting each other and themselves.

If clothes make the man, what were they making?

And why did black boots on Christopher Street lure more fellows than brown?

Anything and this kerchief or keys on the Left Side means I Do It To You and on the Right Side means You Do It To Me and on certain streets on certain days at certain times the code might be slightly altered if you knew certain people, and though all of this told all, what did any of it mean?

“Fred, bite your tongue!” “No, Abe. I want somebody else to bite it.

Yes, seventy-two places I personally know about, which means there are many more that others know about but I yet don’t.

I have taken so much, what can I give back,

And then he thought, profoundly, how there was something grand about living in hope, but also something terribly unreal and incomplete about it, because when you were hoping, you were not doing or living or experiencing the Now, but deferring and not fulfilling,

For he knew there was a pit of sexuality out there and that he longed to throw himself into it.

all friends advised: Why tell? They cannot understand. It will make them unhappy. Why upset apple carts? But Fred would respond with: Why must I go on leading a secret life in the back streets? This only means I am ashamed of myself and this life and I would like to stop being ashamed of this life and me and who and what I am.

Well, the old lady looked sad. Yes, she did. And this made Fred, growing so fast his pants were getting shorter by the second, miffed. He wanted more courage and support from this woman of gargantuan strength. Madam, if you thus elect to choose weakness, hurt, injury, frosted with self-pity, then I, at this belated bar mitzvah of growth, do not approve, he thought, being careful not to consider that he’d been choosing similar weak-necked stratagems for years, like some overgrown pansy in the garden that can’t quite keep its head from bending low. No, he did not think this. But he did think: You can’t make the rules forever.

Lies on both sides were gratefully accepted.

“And what has been so awful in your life that you have to write about it?” Mrs.

why did you lie down and die, in so doing, almost, almost, bringing down your younger son, you idolized your elder, he played ball.

It was men and their insecurities that made him queer and bent and faggot

Lester Lemish, Fred thinks IT WAS YOU who drove him thusly, thus wishing your ending in hell, not for making him a cock sucker, because Fred has come, finally, to quite like that, but for thinking him a coward when in fact it was you who did not give him the image of a Man who could kiss and love and hold someone close, someone to look up to and emulate and be.

And could he now not find love at last? For had not one of his new clairvoyants prophesied that love would come “with the death of a white-haired man?” Lester had requested burial

Timmy was definitely not asleep. He was being devoured by ten men.

Timmy was being worshipped like a god. If this was New York, then he wished to live enthroned here forever.

… I’ve been looking, seeking, demanding, the love of Lester all my life. As if … as if … as if a dinky Lester’s love would make me whole and everything all right.

No wonder it’s been so hard for me to have just the one thing I’ve wanted the most. Love. And no wonder I’ve never had it.

I wanted a fantasy and that’s what I got. If I’d chosen a real person, I would have had to face up to a real relationship. Too scary. Too full of Mom and Pop.

A guy who wanted to love too much chose to fall in love with someone who didn’t want to love at all.

But thanks. I’ve learned a lot from you. You had to go through me before I could come out the other end. You taught me things I needed to know: Try to stop being naïve. Try to grow up. Try to make a commitment to adulthood. Yes, you were my dress rehearsal for the real thing.

Anger’s a prelude to courage?

It takes courage not to be a faggot just like all the others.

eyes. I’m here. I’m not gay. I’m not a fairy. I’m not a fruit. I’m not queer. A little crazy maybe. And I’m not a faggot. I’m a Homosexual Man. I’m Me. Pretty Classy.

What I want is better though! No. Just different.