Newspaper Page Text
A Publication of The Atlanta Gay Center
May 28,1985
Vol. 1, No. 13
Gay Male Youth In
Popularized 1970s Fiction
The Issue Is
Being Young and Gay
More articles this issue on being Young
and Gay include some thoughts about
role models, campus organizations for
gays, and some more books for those
either young or interested in that subject.
We have now published half a year's
issues of this paper. As publications go,
that is pretty young.. .we like to think of it
as graduating from grammar school.
Your response to THE NEWS has been
gratifying. Readers, advertisers, and con
tributors stop for just a second and ac
cept THE NEWS staff's and vour com
munity's Thank You for helping us make
it happen. Enjov THE NEWS.,
ooopsin
As you caft see you are receiving two
issues of THE NEWS at the same time.
One dated May 9, 1985 and the other
May 28, 1985JTiis is because a series of
breakdowns in both typesetting and
printing machinery delayed the publica
tion. As you have read indhe past we
have had some trouble finding a printer
and as a result of the small number of
printers who will do Our work, we are on
a very tight schedule and one delay in
the process can mean the paper comes
out a week late: We are working very
hard to work out the kinks of the process
to insure that we continue to produce a
timely and accurate news publication for
the gay and lesbian community and ap
preciate your patience- and support. In
addition, we had two typographical er
rors in the May 9 issue of THE. NEWS
that we feel we must bring to vour atten
tion. The first is on, page two in a letter
from Gene Loring. The last sentence in
the third paragraph should read, "After
each arrest, bond was set at the max
imum allowable amount—S3000 per
magazine for what was, in most cases,
photographs of men with flaccid
penises!" The second typo is in the letter
from Gary Kaupman. The last paragraph
should read, "Activists who develop
cvnical attitudes and behaviors need to
deal with the issues in themselves that
allow their cynicism to flourish and give
up their public activities until they feel
better. Bitching about what other people
don't or won't do isn't going to make the
people who don't like us think more of
us and it isn't going to attract gay people
to join the parade. I want to march with
people who love me not with those who
call me a wimp and say. that there is
something wrong .with me because 1
won't buy a photograph or hire a
promoter."
Hardwick
Decision
Announced
In a 2-1 decision, the 11th Circuit Court of
Appeals remanded the case of Hardwick
vs Bowers back to the district court, say
ing in part that the Georgia sodomy law
"infringes upon the fundamental con
stitutional rights of Michael Hardwick."
The court said, in the May 21 decision,
that "the state must prove that it has a
compelling interest in regulating this
behavior."More on this story will appear
in the next issue of THE NEWS.
Media in Atlanta
Talking To
Or At Us?
The Media—Past, Present and Future
was the main topic at the 7 May meeting
of the Atlanta Business and Professional
Guild. Ron Sailor (News
Correspondent—Channel 2), Jack Frazier
(Director of News—Channel 5) and Paul
Crawlev (News Reporter—Channel 11)
represented the media with short .
presentations and a question and answer
session. Sailor's comment that resident
homophobe Dick Williams, who he calls
"the last bastion of die-hard resistance"
should have been there, drew a loud
chuckle. The remarks made by these
men and recent media coverage of the
gav community's role in the firing of
Anita.Bryant pose important questions
about how we are seen by the media—
and thus bv the general community—
and how we can affect that vision. Sailor,
Crowlev and Frazier were generally com
plimentary of both the gay community
and themselves for improving relations
over the past couple of years. Sailor
claims that coverage given gays in Atlanta
is "some of the best in the country."
Crawlev, who did a series on the gay
community a couple of years ago, feels
that the quality of reporting has improv
ed greatly in the past years. He mention
ed irrelevant reporting of a. person's
gayness has almost ceased and credits
the Police Department's policy of not
disclosing that information unless it is -
really
(continued, page 3)
Insofar as fiction both reflects and in
forms socio-cultural reality, a dialectic of
experience and early-popularized, post-
Stonewall gay fiction provides a non-
dinical, phenomenological means for
penetrating and understanding thhe
processes of (white) gay male develop
ment. John Reid's pseudonymous "The
Best Little Boy in the World" (Ballatine,
1976), Patricia Nell Warren's
pseudonymous "The Front Runner"
(Bantam, 1975) and "The Fancy Dancer"
(Bantam, 1977), and Sandra Scoppet-
tone's "Trying Hard to Hear You" (Ban
tam, 1976) thus provide a sampling of gay
youth and development in fiction typical
of the first decade of gay liberation..
These authors' searches for- com
monalities in the childhood experiences
of youngsters who will become gay un
cover few things which can be labelled
gay per se. Mothers and fathers may
(Scoppettone) or may not (Warren) fulfill
stereotypical, oedipal roles. Being overly
protected (Reid) is important although
not unique to gay experience. The single,
We have a long way to go before AIDS is
preventable or treatable, but we have
begun." With those words Martin
Hinsert, AIDS researcher at Boston's
Massachusetts General Hospital, provid
ed the consensus statement for the par
ticipants at the largest AIDS conference
ever held. More than 2000 international
scientists, physicians, health workers and
educators met in Atlanta in mid-April for
the International Conference on AIDS.
Scientists from 30 countries representing
the best research laboratories in the
world also attended the three-day con
ference., During official presentations and
casual conversations a great many of the
conference participants concluded that
the situation with the epidemic disease
will get worse before it gets better. The
immune disorder has now commanded
the attention of public health officials and
politicians in countries on every conti
nent, and fear remains that the spread of
AIDS into heterosexual populations has
just begup. While several researchers
speculative generalization which can be
made is that, in the fiction, the male child
who emerges from the familial context of
childhood has learned to play down self
to an unusual degree as he moves into
the peer context of adolescence. A sense
of isolation increasingly distinguishes the
fictional adolescents who will later iden
tify themselves as gay. They may eschew
team sports and risk peer approval to
seek individualized goals, whether in
athletics, academics or the arts. These
youths are also highly motivated, chan
nelling their ambiguous sexual energies
into a "prodigious list of activities" (Reid)
which enable them to avoid the
pressures of heterosexual social situa
tions. This Sense of isolation is further
deepened by an apparent absence of
unstereotypical alternatives. This double
bind engenders a sense of guilt and nur
tures the skills of self-oppression in these
young gay males. The fictional youths
feel guilty not only about being "dif
ferent," but also for not fulfilling parental
(continued, page 5)
reported that populations at risk for
AIDS have undertaken AIDS prevention
measures that amount to "a sexual
revolution," the number of Americans
exposed to the AIDS virus may be near
ly one million. And while a half a dozen
new drugs offer some promise of
benefiting people diagnosed with the
disease, there still is no breakthrough
treatment. In addition, the development
of a vaccine - if possible—remains for
some distant time in the future. Officials
from the Center for Disease Control
(CDC) reported that the United States
can expect to see a steep increase in the
number of AIDS cases. Dr. Jim Curran,
coordinator of the CDC's AIDS Activity
Office, said that on year from now there
will be 18,000 to 19,000 cases of AIDS in
the United States. There are currently
10,000 reported diagnoses of AIDS.
"There will be as many people diagnos
ed with AIDS in the next year as the total
number diagnoses since 1981 when
.(continued, page 8)
Advances In Science
But No End In Sight
For AIDS