WHAT MAKES US DIFFERENT?

Some critics don’t agree with David M. Halperin’s theories about what it “really” means to be gay. David McGillivray read Halperin’s book, How to be Gay, and gave the author a chance to defend himself…

We’re told that in 2000 Americans conservative and liberal came down on Professor David M. Halperin because of “How to be Gay”, a course he was running at the University of Michigan. The right-wing thought he was trying to turn his students homosexual, and the left-wing accused him of promoting offensive gay stereotypes. But if it hadn’t been for this hoo-ha, Halperin wouldn’t have written his provocative book How to be Gay (Belknap Press, £24.95) and that would have been a pity. Unfortunately now  the British press are down on Halperin. They don’t have moral objections. They think he’s got the wrong end of the stick. “Pur-lease”, mocked Philip Hensher in The Guardian. Even the sole positive review in The Times concluded, “I doubt if he is right.”

In a nutshell Halperin believes that gay men (or, according to Hensher, “late-middle-aged white men in about four American cities”) are different from straight men because straight men tend not to like artifice, stylisation and melodrama. This, he reckons, is a distinctly gay culture. You’d have thought that this is what gay men might want to hear. Aren’t we always complaining that we shouldn’t be defined principally as a mistreated minority or labelled by what we do in bed? Well, yes, we are. But one of the problems with Halperin’s concept of gay culture is that it’s a bit old-fashioned. Aside from nods to Lady GaGa and Kylie, How to be Gay could have been written in the 1970s.

“The right-wing thought he was trying to turn his students homosexual, and the left-wing accused him of promoting offensive gay stereotypes”

Halperin points out that no one would protest if you implied “that a guy who worships divas, who loves torch songs or show tunes, who knows all of Bette Davis’s best lines by heart, or who attaches supreme importance to fine points of style or interior design” may not be completely straight. He sets out to prove his thesis with a somewhat obsessive analysis of a 1945 film called Mildred Pierce. It’s fair enough in its way. But you’d have a tough time down Vauxhall this weekend finding anyone who’s even heard of Mildred Pierce.

For me, Halperin gets away with a lot because he makes wild generalisations and controversial statements with his tongue in his cheek. The line most likely to be re-quoted is, “Sometimes I think homosexuality is wasted on gay people.” I put it to him that the very title of his book is designed to antagonise. “No”, he responded. “I’m just trying to avoid academic jargon.  I could have called it ‘Processes of Cultural Cross-Identification as Mechanisms of Sexual Sub-Cultural In-Group Community Formation in the United States’, but then we probably wouldn’t be having this interview.”    What about the accusation that he generalises?  Halperin isn’t having any truck with this either.  “Does your magazine look straight?”, he asks. “If I answer no, am I generalising?”

Halperin is more forthcoming on the subject of allegedly outmoded gay culture. “My book focuses on gay male culture in the United States, with occasional glances at Britain, France, and Australia”, he says.  “I don’t claim to be describing contemporary gay male culture, though I refer to it.  In order to understand how a liking for sex with men could possibly connect with cultural preference…I need to explain the logic of the relation between sexuality and cultural form.  And in order to do that, I have to pick some classic instances that everyone can agree on, even though they may not be terribly current.” Halperin calls the British coverage of his book “demented.” If I were you I wouldn’t let this response put you off. Halperin deserves credit for writing down things that many of us have said. How many times have we watched a TV reality show, filled with screaming, overdressed wannabes, and thought, “This is so gay”?

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