Something a little different for today's Out Spotlight.
It being Father's Day here in the U.S. today's spotlight is not about a gay father, but gay men and their fathers. The book, The Man I Might Become by Out Editor at Large, Bruce Shenitz is a series of contributions of out gay men writing about their relationships with their fathers. The 28 essays in the anthology come from relationships that range from close and loving to remote and hostile and represent every corner of society. Frank with some painful and some funny, the stories talk of estrangements and reconciliations and show that the complexities of parent-child relations are universal.
"Few men, straight or gay, find the father-son relationship easy, which explains why mens groups overflow with stories of fathers who ignored, brutalized, or otherwise wounded their sons. But gay men find the subject particularly problematic: When they come out to their families, they enter emotional territory their straight counterparts often avoid their entire... More lives. For many fathers and sons, the deepest feelings often remain unexpressed; if a son is gay, the very act of coming out virtually ensures that silence will be broken."
It is expected that there are themes of conflict and acceptance, shame and forgiveness. The book can be broken up into three categories: fathers have passed on whose sons never came out to their dads; fathers who never forgave their sons for being gay, and fathers who have been marvelously accepting. How some were embraced, while others struggled, and how some had to come to terms with their life and rise above, forgive, and move on. Each essay shows how the relationship between father and son plays a part in shaping the men they became.
Some of the writers, like syndicated sex/relationship columnist Dan Savage, author Jesse Green have become fathers themselves.
A Lambda Award Winner in 2003 for Best Non-Fiction , The Man I Might Become has been called by many "essential reading for every gay man coming to terms with his past, his family and his own future."
who love cherish and support their children
for who they are
and the gift that they are as well.
Happy Father's Day!
Happy Summer Solstice
20 comments:
Sounds like a great book Spesh. I need to buy it. I never had the opportunity or even the thoughtof telling my father befire he died. I did not even think about coming out to anyone until he had died. Knowing my Dad I doubt he would have cared.
My dad was an easy going funny guy who everyone loved. He certainly loves all his kids. He worked hard all his life to provide for us. I have no clue how my father put up with my mother for 51 years. I hope he is getting his reward in heaven.
I think if I was born in the years when my parents had their other kids I may have been able to come out to them. My father was 54 when I was born and my mother was 43. Remembering back my parents certainly never showed or spoke of hatred about any race or religion and refered to my sister in laws brother as a little funny which I gather meant he was gay. They knew him though and they liked him.
I would love to hear from the regulars who are gay about their experiences with Dad and this topic. Those who were out to their Dads and those who werent. I think it would be an awesome way for us to get to know each other and to understand each other a bit more.
Actually the spotlight has made me a little melancholy today and a little intimacy would be sweet.
My best dad story today for Father's Day.
My dad was a chaplain for the police department part of the time growing up. When he was on call he had a police car. Well I was out past curfew on a Sunday night, and my dad was on call. I wasn't doing anything that horrible just hanging out driving up the drag everyone did with a bunch of friends.
You can imagine what happened. Nothing like your dad showing up in a cop car, shining the spotlight in your car and saying ...you need to get home now. I was mortified.
I pushed my luck and asked if my friend could drive me home instead of having to get in the car with him. He said ok, but he trailed us all the way. I don't know which was worse.
He still keeps tabs on me and my brothers,(all the time!)and we are all definitely grown up. Can drive you a little crazy but we still love him.
Stabs, that's quite a Freudian slip Special. :-D
This book sounds fascinating. I usually don't read things like this, but I may have to check this one out. I'm especially curious to read the one by Dan Savage.
My dad died while I was in college. I went to school in a different state, and I had been with my girlfriend less than a year and had not yet told anyone in my family, nor had she come home with me at that point. I suspect it would not have gone over well with him. Despite being a successful businessman, he was, I realized years later, very insecure, and he took it out on people in my family by picking on them for things he though would reflect badly on him, like being overweight, not wearing the right clothes, etc, so I suspect being gay would fall in that category.
with her
In the lobby, I saw a young woman who looked like Reese Witherspoon holding hands with a guy who looked like Jake Gyllenhaal. The goofy grin of a hotel bellhop bragging about the photo he took confirmed it.
In case you don't want to click the link.
yawn
If Jake is reeking in DC, I'm sure PR will provide pictures. As always.
Fred Phelps and his Westboro hate group has been targeting synagogues in NYC this week. This morning he was at CBST, the gay synagogue in Greenwich Village. Me, my girlfriend and another friend joined about 200 other people in a peaceful protest. We stood on the other side of a police barrier from them and sang psalms and other songs from the Jewish prayer book. There were only maybe 6 of them, but boy was it scary to see these people up close. The men were bulked up, sunglasses, short hair, paramilitary types, and several women with long hair in braids. I could not hear what they were actually saying as we were all singing too loud for their message to get through.
But the ugly signs were out.
They were there only about an hour, apparently they schedule a number of stops over the day. Other synagogues were going to ignore them, but the gay synagogue felt--and I think rightly so--that you should get people out there to counter them.
And then after the Phelps people were gone, and a final prayer had been said, we all sang Over the Rainbow. :-D
Dest, that is awesome.
That is great Dest and what a way to face down Phelps and his group and their bigotry.
Just finished watching Chris & Don on Sundance. It was so good. Their relationship while unconventional to some was truly a love story. If you get a chance to watch it, do.
Sounds awesome Destiny. I saw people from that group in the Ybor section of Tampa one time. I was so tempted to make out with the friend I was with. Ybor is is a mixed section but mostly str8 so I thought it might be a little dangerous. If there had been more gay people around that night I would have. I was so tempted.
I got a feeling that Jake is at a different location each week so that he can't be placed in any city where it is pride weekend. Wouldn't surprise me.
That's so cool Destiny. Good counter attack. I know that must have taken a lot of guts.
My father passed away when I was 15 so I don't know what he would have thought about my lifestyle but I'm sure he would have been ok as long as my mom was ok. My mom was super cool and knew I was gay before she passed away. She was very accepting considering her southern upbringing. Just worried about me getting hurt as parents do I guess. They were both beautiful and open people thank goodness.
James Franco continues to get in touch with his gay side said...
James Franco has more going for him than his status as one of Hollywood's leading heartthrobs. He's currently enrolled at two of the country's most prestigious graduate schools -- NYU and Columbia -- where he's getting his MFAs in filmmaking and creative writing. The actor recently combined his two artistic loves when he wrote and directed his first student film, The Feast Of Stephen, which screened at CineVegaas 2009. An adaptation of the poem of the same name by queer poet Anthony Hecht, the movie finds Franco, once again, tackling queer subject matter.
The short film stars Remy Germinario, in his screen debut, as Stephen, a teenager watching a pick-up basketball game in New York City. According to Movieline.com,
"The only score Stephen is keeping is the number of shirtless hunks dribbling, sweating and writhing on the court. One mop-topped stud in particular has all the moves, nudging Stephen’s daydream into the more erotic realm of naked boys playing hoops -- in slow-motion, natch, and suddenly transported to a wooded glen where society’s referees won’t blow a whistle on their hard fouls."
From there, Stephen finds himself in a park where the basketball players are engaged in pummeling him and he meets "the sustained brutality of fists, elbows, knees and blood." Franco pulls this off "with chests, thighs and asses pressed tight in various permutations, infusing the violence with the poem’s more visceral sense of ecstasy." The film ends with Stephen's face smeared with feces and Movieline.com claims "however demeaning and/or gang-rapey it might be ... the literally shit-eating grin he shares with the audience at the end suggests that even the most horrendous intimacy is better than none at all." Having done Milk, this film, and gearing up to star as queer poet Allan Ginsberg in the near future, if we didn't know better we'd say Franco is trying to tell us something.
Franco is trying to tell us something?
June 20, 2009 3:30 PM
Destiny, that sounds like a great action for you all to have taken, a peaceful one. And you know what, you never know. There could be just one person in Phelps' group who had just a little doubt planted in their head about what they were doing. May not have stopped what he/she was doing that day, but maybe a seed was planted. You never know. I believe that God works in quiet ways sometimes and no good, honest, loving act goes for nothing. Great for you guys - out there doing something!
I was doing some reading up on Phelps, I knew his church/group was fairly small, about 70 members, but around 60 of them are members of his family! It's kind of odd to realize you're basically up against one family. And they really do hate just about everybody.
That sounds like one very strange movie Franco has made. Nice to see he's not afraid to do something that's not only gay, but very edgy.
Special K, I watched Chris and Don today as well. Much thanks to Prairie Girl for the tip that it was on Sundance. What a beautiful story and to see real home movies of them vs a "movie" really made it special. Don is a very talented painter. His devotion to Chris at the end was incredible. It would make a good movie for future discussion.
The book sounds interesting, even for those of us who are straight. Fathers can really screw people up. I had an absentee father. Divorced parents. It really impacted both my half-sister and I. When he was married to her mother, he was always off visiting my mother, ignoring her. Once I was born, he moved onto yet another woman, ignoring all of us. A real jerk.
Why there is no gay Martin Luther King, and why the gay community may not need one.
NYT
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