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The Sexual Outlaw
to Stop Promiscuity is to Allow It
by Steve Warren
Author John Rechy
has laid himself wide open
to criticism for b go an-
d his controvei sal at
titudes, most recently
expressed in “The Sexual
Outlaw” and promotional
interviews therefore.
Both came through
loud and clear in a
lengthy, cross-country
telephone conversation,
along with a certain
sadness - at least partially
from bruised ego - that
some of his own people
have responded
negatively to him while
reviews in the straight
press “have been, without
exception, from postitve
to rave...It really hurts
me when the gay people I
feel so much empathy for,
being gay myself, are so
critical of me. ”
The dispute boils down
to a question- of what
we’re fighting for and as
fragmented as the gay
movement is already,
why should one more
splinter surprise anyone?
Rechy feels that the
movement is headed into
a trap, trying to be
“ straighter than
straight” to win ac
ceptance: “We deny by
implication that we have
any specialness to us.”
Our leaders are trying to
have us absorbed into
straight society, he says;
“but we’re not being
absorbed, we’re being
erased.”
For Rechy, our
specialness is expressed
through “abundant
sexuality,” which he
considers “the positive
side of gay life.’’“The
Sexual Outlaw” covers a
weekend in the life of
“Jim”, a sometimes-
hustler, engaged in “the
hunt,” a balletic floating
from cock to cock and
asshole to asshole in the
streets, parks, bars,
baths, beaches, movies,
tearooms and anyplace
else that two or more
people who can’t have sex
legally, can have it
illegally.
The word commomly
used for this lifestyle is
‘promiscuity, ’which
Rechy calls “a
judgmental term that I
don’tlike.”
The “hunters” he
describes, the author
says, represent a very
small percentage of the
gay community: “I try to
stress this -1 point it out
at least twice in every one
of my books.”
Rechy considers this
small group to be the
vanguard of gay
liberation. He compares
them to the radicals of the
sixties who, shunned by
the liberals, managed to
bring the Vietnam war
into the public con
sciousness.
Our movement, he
Says,, is A‘a revolution of
cbhkiiddSri^SS. We are not
Author John Rechy considers “abundant
sexuality” the positive side of gay life.
trying to be
straight... One has to
deal with what is truly
revolutionary and
therefore purging, and
what is reactionary. ’ ’
He puts S&M into the
latter category. Although
he was once very much
into that scene and still
adi&Sts to being attracted
by it and participating in
it “occasionally,” he calls
it “the core of the reac
tionary” in the gay ex
perience.
S&M, Rechy says, is
“a ritual of straight
imitation. We take the
hostility we should feel
toward oppressive society
and turn it inward, ab
sorbing that hatred so it
becomes self-hatred. ”
The sadomasochistic
ritual, as he describes it,
consists of one person
taking the role of the
straight oppressor and
abusing his . partner
physically while reviling
him verbally with words
like “fag,” ‘.‘queer” and
“cocksucker.” This, he
says, is what we should be
fighting against instead of
imitating.
“I don’t condemn it
from a moralistic stan
dpoint,” Rechy says, “but
from my own experience
and realization of what it
means..I’m not saying to
anyone, ‘Don’t do it,’ and
I’m most emphatically
not saying that we should
legislate against it.
“The message of my
book,” the author con
tinues, “is that we are the
most despised minority in
the country, possibly the
world. We have to realize
that we can’t be accepted
as - straighter than
straight, and learn to
accept ourselves as we
are.”
Another “straight
ritual” he doesn’t care to
imitate is marriage: “I
see no reason to marry,
although we should be
alio wed to if we want. ’ ’
Rechy makes it clear
that his books are not
trying to describe the full
range of gay experience,
just one aspect of 4tf‘*
Likewise, he’s expressing
only his own views, not
trying to speak for all
gays: “I’m not a gay
spokesman, I resent that
term...A writer’s function
is to present his truth and
to try to alter conditions
through it."
Much has been made
of the author’s putdown of
gay organizations. “I do
not criticize their
existence,” he responds;
“I simply point out that
they can be cop-
outs... Groups can. bring
about a lot of good when
they don’t become womby
places where people
gather to stroke each
other and hide from the
harsh realities of the
world out side.”
On a hypothetical note,
I ask whether his “sexual
underground” will still
exist, once we’ve won our
right to do as we please.
“Probably not,”
Rechy says. “When a
revolution is won, the
activity stops. Our
o pponents would freak out
if they knew that the way
to stop the promiscuity is
to allow it! ”
It strikes me as odd
that a communicator
should write about an
uncommunicative sector
of society. At about 4 in
the afternoon, after his
umpteenth sexual en
counter, it’s pointed out
that “Jim has spoken not
a word to anyone today.
Notone.”
Limiting com
munication is through
sex.”
Does he consider Jim
a positive role model for
young gays who might
read the book? “Jim is a
positive role model for
some gays,” he replies,
going on to explain that
Jim’s lifestyle is “not for
everybody; but for some,
by all means...
“He’s a product of
very much that is
negative in the gay world.
I point that out, and I also
warn against the dangers
of extreme promiscuity. ”
Ego notwithstanding,
- the' '' v rea c tran * of the -
straight world to “The
Sexual Outlaw” has
surprised Rechy. The
majority of his mail, he
says, has been from
straights; and “I have not
had one negative letter...
Straight women and
unthreatened males find
it a very sexy book. ’ ’
If that’s the case, why
do straight porno film
makers avoid scenes of
male-male contact? “It’s
the difference,” Rechy
says with no pretnese of
modesty, “between
something crude and
unerotic and something
very well written like the
erotic passages of my
book.” ( The man could
challenge Norman Mailer
to a humble pie-eating
contest!)
While he’s bragging,
he goes on to praise his
structure which, he says,
makes the book im
possible to read out of
context, whether by
straights seeking fuel to
attack us with or gays
looking for jackoff
material.
Because of the
autobiographical nature
of the book - Rechy claims
that everything Jim goes
through actually hap
pened to him, but over a 4-
year period rather than a
single weekend - it can
easily be seen as a nar
cissistic fantasy. But at
least the author doesn’t;
appear to be in it for the
money.
1 was surprised to
learn that he’s not eager
to sell this or any of his
books to the movies. I
assume, from his general
candor, that he’s telling
the truth when he says,
“That was the farthest
thing from my
imagination in writing
The Sexual Outlaw. ”
At one point, he says,
he was dealing with a
television producer who
wanted him to write a
drama about a hustler:
“We’d have these story
conferences each week
and each time I could see
what his current fantasy
was. One week he’d want
to turn the character into
a prizefighter. Finally, I
just gave up and said, No
more meetings. But it was
funny.”
TV, he says, presents a
distorted vision of the
hustling scene in shows
like “Alexander: the
Other Side of Dawn”; and
the sad thing is that not
just straights, but gays
believe it to be accurate.
Rechy is thinking
about his next book, to be
called “ Autobiogaphy - A
Novel,” but he plans to
write a play, J ‘In the
Beginning,” first.
Meanwhile, his
message to his fellow
gays is: “I deny em
phatically that ‘The
Sexual Outlaw’ presents
the negative side of gay
life.”
And he’s right--at least
from his own perspective.
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