Leaving Normal

door Fleur Pierets | sep 25, 2015 | Books

Leaving normal: Adventures in gender

Text JF. Pierets Photo Courtesy of Rea Theodore

Superheroes
I am, I am, I am superman
And I know what’s happening.
I am, I am, I am superman
And I can do anything.
— R.E.M., Superman

The boy glows as if he has swallowed a jar of lightning bugs or a fistful of sparklers.
At first, I think it’s the light bouncing off the stainless steel counters of the ice cream parlor.
Upon closer inspection, I see it’s him.
He looks to be about 8 or 9, stocky like a short stack of 2×2 Lego bricks, with freshly scrubbed pink cheeks and white-blonde hair.
The word “ethereal” gets stuck in my head, and I can almost feel it melt on my tongue slow and sweet like strands of strawberry cotton candy.
The boy is with an old woman, who I assume is his grandmother. There appears to be an invisible string linking them together that rests slack at most times but tightens when she asks him what flavor of ice cream he wants or taps him on the shoulder when it’s time to go.
After I purchase a half gallon of cherry vanilla, I follow them out of the store and wait as they make their way through the front doors.
She looks over her shoulder and sees she’s holding me up.
“Sorry,” she says.
“Not a problem,” I say.
“I didn’t see him,” she says to the boy.
“Her,” he corrects.
He’s like a mini superhero with the ability to see things as they are.
“Oh, whatever,” she says. She doesn’t give me a second glance.
Whatever, I repeat in my head.
Whatever.
Whatever.
Whatever.
Out in the parking lot, her gray hair sparkles in the sunlight like slivers of tinsel.
I think she’s a superhero, too.

Extract from Leaving Normal: Adventures in Gender by Rae Theodore.

Leaving Normal: Adventures in Gender is creative nonfiction that takes an unflinching but humorous look at living as a butch woman in a pink/blue, boy-girl, M/F world. A perfect read for anyone who has ever felt different, especially those who have found themselves living in the gender margins without a rule book.

This is your first book. Why did you start writing?
I’m the caretaker at home and I had to do something for myself. Something that had nothing to do with my wife, my three teenage kids and the cats. So I started to write stories, just one at the time but before I knew it turned into a book. I found out I like telling stories about my childhood.

It’s all autobiographical?
At first I labeled it creative non-fiction, but they are true stories with some artistic liberties taken here and there. For some reason I’m drawn to memoir. It resonates with me. It’s almost like a puzzle and I think of it as a little time capsule or a little time machine. You try to put yourself back there whether it was a year ago or twenty years ago and remember what it was like and what you felt, what you saw. That appeals to me very much, trying to recreate those moments.

It’s a very personal genre.
It is. And lot of these things I never told anyone about because I found them very shameful or painful. Having an opportunity to write them down and having people read them and validate the experiences really helped me. Even if people may not have gone through the same type of thing, everybody has felt different at times or felt shame. In the book I learned to accept myself. This is whom I am and I’m not going to change.

The book has been out for a month now. How are the reviews?
So far the reviews have been very good. There are not a lot of books out there about butch women. You don’t see them in mainstream literature, you don’t even see them in the LGBT literature that much. I heard from readers who have gone through similar things. They say it’s very powerful and affirming to see themselves in the book. For example; just going to the bathroom can be a challenge for butch women.

Is it a book for gay people?
Not necessarily. Even if you are not gay you can read this book and probably feel similar feelings. Everybody dealt with confusion at one point in their lives. People often see more similarities than differences and that can be something that unites.

What’s the main message you like to get out there?
The story references to superheroes in some small way, so I like that message of being your own superhero. Live your life however you see fit and whatever your definition of normal is. For me that’s the big message. Be yourself. And I found that most people don’t care. They don’t care if you are gay or butch or whatever. As long as you treat people with respect and kindness. I live in a very small and conservative town and people are very welcoming. I’m aware that other people can have different experiences but just be who you are and people will accept you for that.

‘When you’re in your 20’s your whole world is about whether people like you or not but a good thing about getting older is that you care less about that.’

Did it change you personally, writing this book?
Writing the book has given me a little more confidence but you have to keep in mind that I’m in my late ‘40’s so a lot of the things in the book happened 30-some years ago. I’ve gone through a lot of growth since then and I don’t care so much what people think. When you’re in your 20’s your whole world is about whether people like you or not but a good thing about getting older is that you care less about that.

So no insecurities anymore?
I still have them, to a degree. For me, getting dressed up is wearing a pair of men’s trousers, a button down shirt and a bow- or a necktie. Sometimes and in some situations I still can’t help but wonder if that’s ok. I’m a woman who wears men’s clothing and once in a while I still have to remind myself that it’s ok.

What’s next?
I look at this book as a stepping-stone to the next one. I have some sequel chapters that I’ve written out and are floating in my head somewhere but I’m going to do some public speaking as well. I’m going into the local highschool to talk to the gay-straight alliance there and I also got the opportunity to go into a local company and do a presentation for their gay and lesbian organization. I never did anything like that but I’m trying to keep myself open to all the possibilities and opportunities. Find out what resonates with me. Maybe I’m good at it and I will be able to spread my message a little further, who knows.

You’re speaking at a high school. Do you think it’s important to talk to kids?
Definitely. We didn’t have that kind of exposure when I was a teenager. I grew up in a town where people weren’t Out. I didn’t know any gay people, I didn’t have family members who were gay and there weren’t gays and lesbians on television. My life may have turned out differently if I had been around gay people. If the possibility existed. So it might be a powerful thing to go and speak at schools and meet young people.

What would you say to a 16 year old butch girl who reads this article?
I would say be true to yourself. Don’t change for somebody else and keep the swagger! That’s the best part of being butch. The swagger.

www.middleagebutch.wordpress.com
www.weaselpress.com
www.amazon.com/leavingnormal

This article is featured in Et Alors? Magazine 15.

Read the complete issue here.

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Amanda Filipacchi

door Fleur Pierets | mrt 25, 2015 | Books

Amanda Filipacchi

Text JF. Pierets

I was 20 when I read Nude Men and I instantly got hooked on the surreal imagination of this New York based writer. 21 years and 3 novels later there is The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty, and Filipacchi hasn’t lost an inch of her wit and dreamlike tale telling. On the contrary, her latest novel is a genuine work of originality and creativity. Needless to say I was thrilled to talk to her. A conversation about beauty, feminism and our shared fascination in the dictionary method.

Your readers are forced to be patient. It’s been 10 years between Love Creeps and your new book The Unfortunate Importance Of Beauty. Why did it take you so long?
It’s indeed a long time, but first of all, I take a long time with all my novels. Much longer than I would like to. Each time, I think it’s going to be faster next time, but then, well, it isn’t. Also, each novel is longer than the last. Not the finished product, but my first drafts, which this time around was almost twice as long as the final version. It’s like writing two novels. And the third thing is that I had some health problems I had to deal with. Life problems that got in the way.

The Unfortunate Importance Of Beauty wasn’t supposed to be a book about beauty?
I noticed a pattern in my life; things I wrote about, things that were completely invented, would sometimes come true. So I thought (but only half-seriously) that I’d better be careful and maybe only write about good things, in case they happen later. Turns out, I didn’t stick to that for long, luckily for the reader. In the beginning I thought it was going to be a book about a group of artistic friends. I intended to give each character a story of equal weight. But as I was creating my characters, there was one detail, one characteristic, I bestowed on my main character just for the fun of it: great beauty. I half-jokingly thought, “You never know, it might rub off on me a little.” Her great beauty was meant to be a small, unimportant detail, and I didn’t expect it to grow into one of the main themes of the novel. But it did. It wasn’t something I planned because in general I’m really not that interested in how people look.

“Maybe if I’m lucky it will rub off”. How important is beauty to you?
I meant that in a joking way because beauty is not that important to me. At all! And that’s one thing I find a little disturbing about some of the interviews and articles that have been published about me. Due to the fact that my novel is about beauty, that’s naturally the main thing I’m asked about in interviews. And when I read those interviews later, I feel that I come off as being really preoccupied by beauty, when the truth is actually the opposite. If you compare me to anyone you know, really anyone, you will notice that I seem to care less about how I look than almost anyone. I dress like a dork, I never shop for clothes, I wear sweatpants all the time and I haven’t worn make-up in two decades. But some of the readers of the media coverage have sent me e-mails saying things like, “You look fine! You’re quite pretty! So stop worrying about it, ok?!” It’s very nice of them, but I wish they realized that I probably give less thought to my appearance than they do to theirs.

Hearing you describe the way you look almost sounds like a statement.
It’s more laziness. I used to wear makeup in my 20’s and I couldn’t understand how a woman could not wear make-up because I thought women looked so much better with it. But then suddenly I had to start wearing glasses. And I thought; what’s the point? Glasses ruin the whole effect anyway. So at that point I stopped wearing makeup and that’s basically it. It wasn’t a statement. It was more like a giving up. And eventually my taste changed and I started thinking women looked better without makeup anyway. Despite not caring much about my own appearance, I am interested in the role beauty plays in our society and in human relationships—the unfortunate importance it has in those areas. But there are also plenty of other topics I’m interested in. In fact, there are topics in this book that I’m more interested in than the beauty aspect. For example the whole creativity topic. Trying to achieve excellence in your art, the feeling that you’re almost reaching something supernatural. I love that idea.

What do you do when you don’t write?
Usually I’m trying to get myself to write. I have trouble with discipline so I’m always trying to think of new ways to trick myself into doing more writing. But if you’re asking about other activities, then I must say that I love to ski, so usually in the winter we go skiing. I like to travel, I love interesting conversations with people. I take long walks every day while listening to audiobooks or just thinking about how to get myself to write more. Sometimes I do my daily walk with a friend and we catch up on each other’s lives. That’s about it.

You are using all different kinds of methods to get yourself to write. Do you start your imagination by putting limits on yourself?
I don’t know if it can be called a limit. It’s rather something that forces you to think in a different direction. When I wrote Love Creeps, I became really addicted to what I call “the dictionary method.” I was using it constantly. For every new twist in the story I got inspiration from random words in the dictionary. I actually became worried and was wondering if I was ever going to be able to write without using this dictionary method. So I decided not to allow myself to use it for my next novel. Just to see how it turned out. For The Unfortunate Importance Of Beauty, I didn’t use it once, and to my relief that was ok. I was less an addict than I thought I was. Even though I think my strong point as a writer is my imagination, I did notice that when I used the dictionary method, it seems to trigger new and sometimes even more unusual ideas. Even when I thought I had come up with every possible option for a certain scene, really gone over every possibility, still when I picked a word randomly out of the dictionary it generated new and interesting ideas I’m convinced I wouldn’t have thought of without that method.

You also had a method where you were only eating when writing?
Well, I used that method for only about a minute and then I gave it up, so it didn’t work out very well.

Does life influence your writing?
I think it does. When I wrote Love Creeps, I’d gone through some pretty bad relationships and hadn’t been very lucky in love, so I put all of that in the book. Not the specific experiences, because I almost never write anything autobiographical, but all my pessimism about love went into the book.

Why not write autobiographically? Is it too personal or are you afraid to jinx your life?
I think I don’t find it interesting enough. My recent New Yorker essay, ‘The Looks You’re Born With and the Looks You’re Given’, is the first really autobiographical thing I have ever written. I must say that I have discovered that it’s so much easier and faster to write nonfiction (or autobiographical fiction) because most of the material is already there and doesn’t need to be invented. But I think I will always prefer to make things up in my fiction because I enjoy inventing, creating something entirely new, from scratch, that did not already exist in some form in my life. I like startling myself by coming up with ideas I find original.

‘There are topics in this book that I’m more interested in than the beauty aspect. For example the whole creativity topic. Trying to achieve excellence in your art, the feeling that you’re almost reaching something supernatural.’

What’s your experience regarding being a woman in literature?
I don’t know if this is true, but I’ve heard it said by someone in the literary world that publishers are far less willing to publish long novels by women than long novels by men. Do you know the organization VIDA: Women in Literary Arts? Every year they count the numbers of men vs. women whose books were reviewed in various publications. The numbers are very depressing. Far more men get reviewed than women, and “the count” helps to bring attention to this unfairness which is based on sexism and subconscious gender-bias. It’s important that men and women get reviewed with equal frequency because when women don’t get reviewed as often or as prominently as men, it creates a whole chain reaction that results in far fewer women than men going down in history and being remembered for achievements that are actually of equal worth to men’s.
I recently read Siri Hustvedt’s novel, The Blazing World, in which she describes the Goldberg Study, which was a real study done in 1968: “Women students evaluated an identical essay more poorly when a female name was attached to it than when a male name was attached.” The same results were found when the study was repeated in 1983. When a female book reviewer compiles and publishes her list of her 10 favorite books of the year, and 9 out of 10 of the books on that list happen to be written by men, I hope she asks herself whether she might not be experiencing some degree of subconscious prejudice against female authors. (And this, of course, applies equally to male reviewers.)
We are all very sexist toward women, even those of us who think we’re not. We can’t help it, because we’ve been conditioned from our earliest days. I consider myself a feminist, and yet I see sexism in myself often. Sexism probably can’t ever be completely eradicated, due to biological factors such as differences in physical strength and temperament, but it can be lessened, starting, for example, with paying attention to what kinds of messages we send out in children’s books. Both men and women are prejudiced against women. And it’s essential that we fight it, not only in others but in ourselves.

So you’re a feminist?
Oh yes!

Have you ever done anything to help the feminist cause?
A little bit. Do you know about the Wikipedia thing I was involved in?

No, I guess I missed that.
In April 2013 I wrote an Op-Ed for The New York Times because I noticed that on Wikipedia, female novelists were being taken out of the category called ‘American Novelists’, and being put in a sub-category called ‘American Women Novelists’. So only the men were being left in the general category. I was really shocked, and felt this was a truly unacceptable situation that should not be tolerated for one second longer. So I decided to write about it even though I knew I’d be putting myself at risk. My Op-Ed, called ‘Wikipedia’s Sexism Toward Female Novelists’, caused a huge uproar. Wikipedia came under a lot of criticism, and not just from the U.S. media, but from media in other countries too. As a result, I experienced what is known as “revenge editing”: hostile Wikipedia editors pounced on the Wikipedia biography about me and started diminishing it and taking information out of it, until they were stopped by Wikipedia administrators. Thankfully, the page was not only restored but then also much improved by non-hostile Wikipedia editors. The most vicious of the attackers didn’t stop at ‘revenge editing’—he also spread horrific lies about me, until he was unmasked in the media and his lies were exposed. The whole experience was incredibly stressful and upsetting. That’s the kind of thing that can happen when you speak up against sexism.
This Wikipedia debacle drew more attention to the fact that female artists and writers have been neglected not only in the art and literary worlds, but also on Wikipedia. On average, the Wikipedia biographies of female artists and writers are less developed than those of their male counterparts, and also, a female artist or writer is less likely to have a Wikipedia biography than is a male artist/writer of equal accomplishment and notability. Several of the articles written about my Op-Ed stated that it increased awareness of the problem of sexism on Wikipedia. People started doing Edit-a-thons, which consist of a lot of women (and men who support them) getting together in various places, sitting with their laptops and editing Wikipedia together, improving the entries on women. One such edit-a-thon happened at The Museum of Modern Art recently. I stopped by to check it out and found it uplifting. Another little thing I do as a feminist is sometimes tweet about VIDA. I try to support and encourage them.

A lot of people are afraid of getting their careers damaged when they speak up.
Even though I believe that most female writers consider themselves feminists, they often feel they have to be careful about speaking up publicly because if they speak up too much, it can turn against them. And they are probably right, sadly. I know many successful female writers who are feminists and they privately rant and rave about the depressing VIDA numbers and other injustices such as the sexism on Wikipedia, and yet they don’t want to speak up or write about it publicly because they don’t want to be seen as complaining. They are afraid of the repercussions on their careers. I am not immune to those fears. I have spoken up a bit, now and then, but I too have my limits. I don’t say as much as I would like to, for fear of the repercussions. And I greatly admire female authors who do speak up more than I have, who do complain, because they are putting themselves and their careers at risk while helping all female authors.

Do you find it important what people think of you?
Yes, I care about what people think of me and of my work. I assume most writers do. I love it when people like my work, but then again, what writer doesn’t? I’m not one of those writers who can say they’ve always written, from their earliest days. I never had an urge to write stories until I was forced to do so at the age of 13. In school there was a class in which you had to write one short story every week. That’s when I discovered I had this talent, that I was better at this than at anything else I had done in my life—at least based on the reactions of teachers in school and of other adults who read my work. Their reactions gave me such a high, that’s when I decided to become a writer. Before that, starting at the age of eight, I loved reading novels and I greatly admired anyone who could write a whole novel because I thought that must be the most difficult thing in the world. I never thought I could, or would, do it myself, nor did I have any urge to even try. But nevertheless I was very imaginative. I made up a lot of stories for my brother. I just never wrote them down.

What’s your number one reason to write?
To be happy. Many things about it make me happy. When I come up with ideas I really like, I find that very exciting. And part of what makes it exciting is imagining how people will react to them, whether they will like them or not. I don’t write fiction only for myself. And if anyone claims that they are only writing for themselves, I suspect they are probably deluding themselves. So I’m writing to be happy. It gives me a sense of accomplishment and a sense of satisfaction, unmatched by anything else. And it makes me feel appreciated. I like the idea that people will enjoy my work and I always hope that I bring people pleasure.

The Unfortunate Importance Of Beauty is published by W. W. Norton & Company (February 16, 2015).

www.amandafilipacchi.com

This article is featured in Et Alors? Magazine 13.

Read the complete issue here.

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Dr.a.g.

door Fleur Pierets | dec 25, 2014 | Drag

Gay & Night

door Fleur Pierets | dec 25, 2014 | Books

Gay & Night

Text JF. Pierets Photos Johan van Walsem

Gay&Night Magazine started off in 1997 as a one-time special during Amsterdam Gay Pride. It soon however became so popular that it evolved into a monthly glossy. Distributed for free at almost all gay meeting spots in Belgium and the Netherlands, it serves as a light-hearted guide to the gay community. Editor-in-Chief Martijn Tulp and vice editor-in-chief Martijn Kamphorst took place on our Skype sofa and we promptly nominated them as funniest Dutchmen we know. Do we have to remind you that all good things come in twos?

You just celebrated your 200th issue. That’s quite an accomplishment nowadays.
MK Isn’t it?! Martijn [Tulp – ed.] joined the club when they where about to hit issue 100. My contribution came a bit later and asked for some shenanigans; when I applied for the position they told me they already had someone named Martijn and it would be too confusing to hire another one. The next day I wrote a letter signed Henk and got invited immediately.
MT Happy ever since.

What was it like, to start at issue 100?
MT It was a good thing because the magazine still had a lot of room for improvement. Still has, now I come to think about it, yet that’s called evolution. Needless to say we still have to keep our audience attentive and inspired. The magazine is a service to the gay community, so if we at some point start to notice that people are losing interest, we’ll have to close the shop. It’s great work but hard work, and still some people ask me what’s my job besides being involved in the magazine.

You feature articles from bisexuality and women with beards, to interviews with RuPaul’s drag queens and bears. Where do you keep your balance?
MK We try to maintain a balance by featuring topics that address a variety of readers. Having said that, it’s impossible to please everyone in one issue. Sometimes our focus will be on gender or bears, and in another issue you will find more content that’s interesting for lesbian readers or clubbers.
MT Not all issues are for everyone, but by offering a wide-ranging series of articles, we’re trying to make sure everyone feels tempted to pick it up at some point. We do focus on the entire LGBT scene, but most of our readers are gay males. Sometimes it’s quite hard to serve a shattered target group, but then again it teaches you how to make choices. An attitude that most of the time leads to quality.

Are we talking about an intuitive magazine?
MT For about 90%, yet we’re trying to cover all groups to the best of our abilities.
MK And that’s obviously not always in the same way. The great thing is that as a free magazine, we feel we have the opportunity to also cover niche subjects. Of course there will always be readers who aren’t happy with certain coverage, but then again, we luckily don’t rely on paying subscribers.
MT The magazine is distributed via the gay hotspots but is also available on mainstream locations, so we can afford to be a bit teasing, a bit more experimental towards a wider audience.

As a person, in what way are you both the ‘actual’ magazine?
MT Well, the fact that there isn’t much about sports and fitness probably says a great deal about the editors. On the other hand, however, there is plenty about music, which is my point of interest… and about food! I always want to publish something about how to bake a cake! You always color the things you write or feature and we do try to keep a certain amount of distance between our personal self and the magazine. That said, you can’t avoid being dragged into it with your own preferences, and many things we write about are things that catch our attention. I myself am single so I’m active on dating sites, especially on apps for bears. When I read about pandas, polar bears, etc., I was triggered to do some research on those different denominations within the gay scene, and it turned into an article.
MK I for example wrote a feature on how Asian boys are treated within the gay scene. I was out clubbing with a bunch of friends and overheard some rather hurtful remarks about those boys. That’s when the reporter in me awakens and starts asking questions. In the beginning it was merely out of personal interest, but after a while I realized that this topic might be more than suitable for an article in our magazine.
MT A quite hefty one if you ask me, on how Thai and Chinese boys are looking for each other’s company, because they can’t find any connection outside their circle.
MK And let me tell you, I didn’t have to beg for stories. A simple ‘how are you?’, and the words came running out.

Do you consider yourselves in an educational position?
MT We’re a magazine that’s not scared to face problems. So when we hear about a topic like those Thai kids, we feel obliged to write about it. To us, it’s important to keep on looking at the big picture to remain a very accessible magazine.
MK In a positive way!

MT Indeed, and that is something we actively work on. Even when a certain subject might be considered being too niche, there are still a large amount of people who would love the fact that you’re writing about that certain phenomenon, without considering it a sensational subject. We try to treat every topic as ‘mainstream’. Same with politics. We often write about changes in the LGBT legislation and focus on making the articles very accessible for those without any political background knowledge.
MK For us it’s very important to also cover the more or less ‘heavy’ subjects with a more social approach, for example by interviewing a couple of members from a movement. I think that’s our responsibility as a magazine, to feature the more committed content next to an article on, for example, gay tourism in Tel Aviv. By doing that, we aim for readers who normally won’t immerse into the subject matter. Not by simplifying, but by making it more accessible.

‘Not all issues are for everyone, but by offering a wide-ranging series of articles, we’re trying to make sure everyone feels tempted to pick it up at some point.’

Can you give an example?
MT The first thing we did when the shit hit the fan in Russia, was not making a list of what politically went wrong over there, but we looked for someone who lived there. Someone who experienced the terror by seeing his friends bashed for no particular reason. We wanted to hear the voices on the street. Sometimes – and I’m talking about the Netherlands and Flanders – we are quite easy-going about coming out of the closet or having the same human rights.
MK By telling the story of an actual person, you make the subject matter more real and in your face. Because these are the sort of things that can also happen to you.

How important is it to keep on printing a magazine like Gay&Night?
MT I’d like to keep on printing as long as possible. The way people react to printed media has gone through a lot of changes. Even newspapers experience a difficult time, because you can read everything right away on the Internet. Nevertheless it’s still very enjoyable to sit on the couch with a printed version of whatever you want to read.
MK And besides the fact that you can hold it and it ‘smells good’, you don’t have to stick to a limit of 500 words in order to not lose one’s attention.
MT Our magazine can be found in bars, clubs, saunas, restaurants and lunchrooms, so that’s a very interesting place to gain visibility. If we, as publishers, keep on succeeding in making the magazine interesting for our audience, I think we will be able to keep on printing!

I hear a lot of evolution since issue 100.
MK When you see our series of covers, you’ll notice that we started getting more and more experimental. It starts with a parade of men…
MT Cute men, if I may add.
MK …and all of a sudden we have a picture of an older lesbian woman [he’s referring to Glee-actress Jane Lynch – ed.]. In 2013 we expanded with a Flemish edition, so now we have two covers to think about. Or better yet; to play with.
MT And don’t forget that not only the tone, but also the lay-out of the magazine changed. In May 2011 we started working with our new art-director Jeroen de Rooij – we couldn’t find a third ‘Martijn’ suitable for the position. One of the compliments we hear most often is that the magazine looks too good to be free. Needless to say that makes us very proud, but credit where credit is due; design-wise, all praise goes to Jeroen.

And yet the magazine is still for free.
MK Always has, always will be. Well, I definitely hope so.
MT We know a lot of people who carry our magazine in their hearts. We work very closely with our advertisers and also the festivals and events featured in Gay&Night. They help us keep it vivid and alive. Not only gay magazines, but a lot of magazines in general recently ceased their printed editions. We are one of the few gay magazines left in the Netherlands and we try to handle that position with care. It’s what’s gained us a lot of trust from our audience throughout the years.
MK This for example entails treating our interviewees with the utmost respect and always letting them check our version of their words before we go to press.
MT We also offer cheap subscriptions for people who don’t visit gay places that often.

www.gay-night.nl

This article is featured in Et Alors? Magazine 12.

Read the complete issue here.

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Gay in America

door Fleur Pierets | mrt 25, 2014 | Portrait Series

Gay in America

Text JF. Pierets Photos Scott Pasfield

Scott Pasfield celebrates diversity in this first-ever photographic survey of gay men in America. Stereotypes are laid to rest and an intimate, honest picture of contemporary gay life is revealed through stunning personal portraits and narratives of 140 gay men in all 50 states. Joyful and somber, reflective and celebratory. A rare and honest book.

Name Michael & Allen
Location Delta Junction, Alaska

My partner and I have been in Alaska for ten years. We own an eighty-acre ex-dairy farm that we are trying to resurrect. Since 2006, we’ve been building a large (some would say huge) two-story house right in the middle of it. We’re finally getting siding on this month! We’ve begun collecting milk cows; two are currently being milked, and two heifers were born this year. We’re also raising hogs and one of our sows had her second litter two weeks ago. The goats kept eating my garden, so I insisted they had to go. The farm looks out on the glorious Alaska Range, as well as the White Mountains and the Granites. Living here brings us closer to our dream of self-sufficiency. I work as an environmental specialist for the Army. I am also chief of the Delta Junction Rescue Squad, an unpaid volunteer position that takes up many hours. Allen works for the state during the summer as a park ranger and is the true farmer between the two of us. We’re two Southerners who moved here for my job. We were curious how such a small town would greet us, and discovered that everyone knew pretty much everything before we even got here. Small towns have no secrets – even if you want to keep them, which we did not. There was a week of polite but curious gossip and questions, and then nothing. Our lives as gay men here have been completely uneventful. In fact, it’s more like the movie Big Eden, where good-hearted, loving people have pushed us to share our lives with them in a way that completely surprised and overwhelmed me. For this reason alone, we are home.

Name Jakoury
Location Chester, Virginia

I live in what I would call a “retirement” town. There are lots of elderly people, everyone here is pretty conservative, and there are very few activities for people to do. When I entered high school I had just moved here from Atlanta, and it was an extreme change of pace for me. Everyone was quiet and tightly compacted into the stereotype of what was acceptable. I always knew I was gay, and in Atlanta I was slowly beginning to show it. I told my mother before we moved away and she was fine with it, but I was afraid to tell my father. He was a military man straight out of the country; I doubt he had ever come into contact with a sexual minority, let alone spend time with one. When we moved, we left my mother behind. They weren’t quite divorced and they weren’t quite together. I guess they assumed that moving away from each other would help them realize what they really wanted. When we got to Virginia I was excited about the fresh start; I could just come into school gay, no need for a back-story, no need to make friends, I could just be myself. I quickly found that being out of the closet wasn’t going to go over easy. Everyone in town was a carbon copy of each other. All the kids wore the same clothes and looked exactly the same. I forced myself to fit in, even carrying on relationships with girls from time to time. I was upset I had to act this way, to put up a front. During a visit to my mother, I told her how unhappy I was. She explained to me that if the people at my school couldn’t accept me as gay then they really weren’t my friends at all, and that I wouldn’t know those people ten years from now. She said I shouldn’t be something I’m not just to impress people. On the way back to Virginia I decided I would be an out gay male, probably the first my town had ever seen. It was a long ride back, and I told my father everything. At first he was uneasy, but he told me he was going to love me regardless. When I returned I cut my hair into a mohawk, got rid of all my masculine, loose-fitting clothes, and became more fashion-forward. I was on a high; I loved being myself. Unfortunately, other people didn’t. I was ridiculed, mocked, bullied, and harassed. People called me a faggot, wrote “fudgepacker” on my locker, and even threw things at me. Every night I would cry. I was so miserable. I got into fights and was beat up a few times. Someone vandalized my house, writing “faggot” across my front door. My father had enough. He put me in boxing classes and told me to stop being so passive. I spent the whole summer learning to defend myself. On the first day of tenth grade I got in a fight and made an example of the kid. If anyone insulted me I would curse them out so bad that they’d never want to utter another word to me. I became a bit of a bad-ass, but I was happy because people stopped bullying me and started looking up to me. More and more, boys started coming out of the closet, and became examples of how happy gay teens could be. I started a small gay student association at my school and became actively involved in a youth group for teenagers in the city. I’m not worried about fitting in anymore.

Name Jacques & Abi
Location Sacramento, California

I live in Sacramento with Abi, my partner of more than thirty years. We recently married in front of twenty of our closest friends. Abi is very fond of telling me how he first observed me, long before we actually met, paddling my kayak upstream on the American River, which flows through the community where we currently reside. We have lived together since we met on the disco dance floor in 1976, where we were both inventing our own moves and steps. Abi moved to Sacramento from Detroit in 1973, and enjoys a semi-retirement as an antiques dealer. He collects antique miniatures and dollhouses and has an intense passion for finding and arranging furnishings for our home, which is dramatically filled with our shared interests. My hobby is riding and restoring antique bicycles. Using a bicycle built in 1886, I have set a two-hundred-mile distance and time record in Europe, and a one-hundred-mile distance and time record in Australia. When I can pull him away, Abi and I enjoy traveling together to warm, exotic places.

Name Brian
Location Austin, Texas

I’m a bit of a maverick, a roamer, and a wanderer. The most stable time in my life was my childhood. Growing up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the small California town of Twain Harte, I spent all my time playing in the forest. We had miles and miles of woodland around us. As an adolescent I resented where I lived—it was too remote, too far from my friends. Now, as an adult, I envy those who are able to live and thrive there. I left home at eighteen and spent a few months in southern Oregon before returning to California to attend college, where I came out. After I graduated, I moved to San Diego, and learned all about computers and corporate life. I was young and eager to conquer the world, but after five years of living the gay lifestyle I longed to be back in the country. I found that just because I was gay didn’t mean that I had to conform to the city culture of gay life. San Diego had become too big for me and was not fulfilling on a spiritual level. I met a couple while on vacation who were moving to Austin and they suggested I take a look as a possible place to live. Texas was hot, but there were rolling hills and the people were friendly. I was living on four acres outside of Austin with a couple of friends, enjoying both the country and the many comforts that come with city life. Ultimately we lost the ranch to foreclosure, but I was able to turn what some saw as a tragedy into a dream come true. A few weeks before losing the house I bought a fifth wheel RV. I moved myself, my three dogs, and my cat into my escape pod. It has been two years since I made that move, and I have never been happier. I am now free to roam the country, taking my family and my home with me where ever I go. Native Americans had the right idea keeping their lives so mobile. There is nothing more liberating than coming home one day, hitching up the house, and moving on to another town miles away. The scene outside my windows changes regularly and I love the mobility. There truly is a different way of life for each of us, and I have found mine.

Name Trace
Location Orlando, Florida

I’m from the Deep South. I always knew I was gay. It was never a big issue for me. It didn’t affect the way I thought about myself or make me feel like any less of a man than the other guys at my school or the friends I grew up with. It never occurred to me that I had some need or desire to come out. Over time my family and friends realized I was gay, but there was no need to talk about that, any more than who my brother was dating, or the private lives of other family members. If someone feels the need to ask me directly about my sexual preference, I have a few responses. If you’re an important person in my life, I’ll say yes of course I’m gay. If I’m asked in connection to a civil rights issue, I’m happy to stand up and be counted as gay and fight for our rights, as I do for all civil liberties. If you’re a relative stranger and are prying, I take the Southerner’s approach by politely saying that it’s my personal business and has nothing to do with you.

Scott, what triggered you to make this book?
I wanted to make a book that I wished existed when I was a kid. To show that as a gay man, you can go anywhere and do anything.

When I think about being gay in America, I think of only a few progressive countries. What did you experience?
I think the gay world in America is certainly as diverse and varied as the straight world is. Slowly we are assimilating into mainstream culture and healing from all the discrimination that has been thrown our way. How that compares to the rest of the world, including other progressive countries, is still something I would like to investigate.

You chose to put all stereotypes aside. Why did you make that choice?
I tried to vary the men and stories as much as possible when selecting who to include. I felt it was important to do so, to be true to all types of gay men. Often only the a-listers get all the attention.

Why only men?
I chose to do this for many reasons, including healing from my own past. I saw it as a way to learn from other men who had gone through similar things. They opened up to me and felt comfortable doing so because I was one of them.

You travelled 54,000 miles across fifty states over a three-year span. You listened to stories and documented the lives of 140 gay men. What’s the most beautiful story you heard?
That is a tough one. Many of these men had such wonderful stories. I love Stephens’ in Miami who talks about coming out to his parents at a young age. They dragged him off to a psychiatrist who ended up telling the parents that they were the ones who needed therapy. Such a simple and wonderful tale, if only all of our parents were told so.

Can you tell me your own story? Coming out?
I write a little about my coming out in the book’s introduction. My father was a born again and on his third marriage when I told him. His belief was that I was doomed to go to hell and I should pray to change. Religion is the root of so much hatred and making this book certainly allowed me to see that I was not alone.

Where did you find your models and how did you contact them?
I put ads out on social media and dating sites, looking for guys who might be interested. It was very easy to sort out those men that truly wanted to take part in this. They had to believe in me and my mission and had to send me their ‘story’ before I would commit to photographing them.

What would you like to achieve with these pictures? What do you want the spectator to see?
I want to help educate those that struggle with their own sexuality and perhaps those that struggle with accepting gay men, perhaps even their own family members. We are all God’s children, all created equally. We all face the same issues.

The pictures are accompanied by essays. Do you find it important for people to know the story behind the models?
Absolutely. To hear their own words adds incredible depth to the portraits. The stories are as important as the photos.

You featured 50 states. Was it important to cover the entire country?
It was a goal I set for myself from the beginning and one of the parameters of the project. To look at the life of gay men in every state. I felt it was socially important to view the country as a whole.

As an artist, are you most narrator or photographer?
I have always been more of a photographer than a narrator, but that is changing in time. This project has made me realize how important storytelling is to my job as a photographer.

Why is such a project important for you personally?
To make a difference is something we all aspire to do. I saw this project as a chance to do just that.

Future plans?
My partner and I renovated and opened an Inn and restaurant in Vermont last year and have been having fun getting it up and running. Getting out of the city and challenging ourselves with something new has been a wonderful change of pace. Yet my heart still longs for more photo projects like Gay in America. I’m heading to Los Angeles soon for more work and am looking forward to what that will bring. It’s all about balance.

www.scottpasfield.com
www.theinn.us