You Should read Larry Kramer's Faggots
Published in 1978, Larry Kramer's "Faggots" is still one of the Great Gay Books, and every young homo should read it. As we are so often reminded, how can we know where we are going if we don't know where we're coming from?
The book outraged so many when it was published, gay and straight, but it continues to tell a story that resonates. It's outrageous in so many ways, hilarious, edgy still, and has a lot to say to the world of gay men today I reckon.
One of my oldest friends gave it to me in 1979, when I was 18, and I still have that copy. At 18, I was too young to understand what he was saying, and I was bewildered by it then. Now I think it's a masterpiece.
Kramer today can't be spoken of without thinking of his AIDS activism. He drove the founding of both the Gay Mens' Health Crisis, and ACT UP, and was always outspoken and unafraid. Good qualities I think.
Faggots captures the world before AIDS, and to read it now is to have another layer of feeling that he could not have anticipated when he penned it.
Of the 2,639,857 faggots in the New York City area, 2,639, 857 of them think primarily with their cocks.
A quest for true love by one man, set over four days in pre-AIDS late 70s New York, it is a riotous taboo-breaking explosion of what a certain part of the gay world was like then. And mistake not, aspects of this culture are still very much with us today. Bathhouses (what we call saunas) discos, sex clubs, drugs, all the key points of any gay scene of its time are central.
Some things are probably more shocking today, such as the inadvertent incest, and the mixture of ages enjoying sex, and the drugs - probably other things are less shocking, such as the BDSM stuff, and the sexual descriptions in general. What was once hidden is now all over the internet.
I remember stories of accidental incest, because dark-rooms and saunas were very carefully designed so you didn't have to know who you were having sex with unless you really wanted to. There were occasional horrified whispers of fathers and sons, or brothers and brothers, coming out of the gloom and realising with shock just who they'd been with.
And the drug use. Well, it does seem that most of the characters are on something for most of the length of the novel. Uppers, downers, psychedelics, and of course everyone smokes. That has toned down a bit now. Or maybe it's just that I have.
The book is alive with characters I think nearly every gay man has met or will do over a lifetime. Yeah they're stereotypes, but they have roots in reality. From the drop-dead gorgeous (but totally insecure) Greek god types, to the weirdos, the ones who live for drag, the ones who are super-confident for no obvious reason that anyone else can make out, the ones who really really like you a lot but don't want to ruin things by committing to anything, so many, so acutely observed and drawn, and still running around any city large enough to have a worthwhile gay scene. So if you're in New Zealand you'd need to live overseas somewhere for a while to truly get it maybe. Most of the New Yorkers in this have moved there from somewhere else, migrating to big cities is still one of the things we do to find ourselves, or did, before Covid came along.
The first time I read it, I was actually shocked and a little dismayed. It is just so in your face, the fucking, the desperate hope for true love, the humiliations, the excess.
Why do faggots have to fuck so fucking much... it's as if we don't have anything else to do?
The underlying theme is actually love, the pursuit of love, one man looking for marriage really, and the failure of the gay scene to provide it. The hero seeks a true and lasting relationship with one guy. And the contrast lies in the background of mainstream gay culture of the time, that focuses on shallow physical perfection, empty emotionless sex, money , and drugs. And all the beautiful men are insecure about their looks and whether they're hot enough.
Have things changed that much? Look at any of the dating apps and I don't think so. Listen to friends talking of their search for love, and their sorrow and puzzlement at being alone. It's all here, but in a wildly highlighted and extreme portrayal.
We gay men seem adept at creating a culture that limits us in so many ways. On the one hand, it's an awful lot of fun. Sex with a group of strangers you'll never see again, can be pretty phenomenal, especially if you throw in the right drugs. It is more than just fun. when it all works it's intensely liberating and joyful. But not every encounter is like that. After a while it gets harder to find that thrill. And is it wise to pursue that as an end in itself? One of the main criticisms Kramer faced from the gay world was that he seemed judgemental and negative about all the sex that gay men were having.
I think he was pointing out a fairly old philosophical problem: what does it mean to live a really good life? His conclusion is living for transient sensory pleasure isn't the best thing we can do.
Summer after summer. Another repetition of a repetition. Weekends without number. All the same thing.
I've done my time on the scene, here and in big cities around the world. I've been to great clubs, to amazing sex-venues, taken lots of drugs. I've felt the highs of being out with your chosen group of friends, all having the best time, and the unbearable loneliness of wondering why it's so easy to get a cock but not a heart. And that feeling of "Why am I here again?" The hunger to be loved and seen is real. The scene offers much, but it doesn't fulfil those deep needs, because it can't.
We so often get trapped in mistaking those shiny baubles for gold and diamonds. The muscles, the perfect hair and skin, the beautiful cock or arse, but those things all fade in time.
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 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.
Finding love, living a good life, I believe that these are things that do matter and do make us happy and whole on a deep level.
Go out and dance. Fuck with strangers. Take drugs. But it's just as true today as it was in 1978, that mistaking fun for love only leaves you feeling empty and wondering why.
Read Faggots - it's great, it's fun, it's shocking, and it's still real.
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