Dark Entries: Hal, first of all it's a distinct honor and privilege to be talking to you. How have you been?

Hal Bodner: How have I been? Well, I’m getting OLDER! Everything sags now. I mean, s’riously? No one ever never warned us about the way your nipples continue creeping ever closer to a liaison with your kneecaps! As I’m fond of saying, I sit down on the john in the morning and I can’t help wondering, “Why the hell do they have to make the water level so high?” 

Okay, all kidding aside... 

For many gay men of my generation, the concept of “getting old” is difficult to wrap our minds around. We honestly never thought it would happen. AIDS became so much a part of our cultural and individual fiber that, for some of us, the idea of hitting our forties -- much less social security age! – was inconceivable. So, for me, though I bitch and complain about not being able to do four sets of 50 push-ups any more – or bend down to tie my shoes for that matter! – I’m grateful every day that I’m around.

So many of my friends, boyfriends, and colleagues are gone. When it comes to that kind of loss, most straight people, and many younger gay people, have no frame of reference. My husband, who is twenty-one years younger than I am, and I went to see the play The Inheritance when it came to LA.  At one point, I felt his whole body stiffen in the seat beside me. During the interval, he said, “Oh my God. I think I finally understand what happened. It was like –“ And here, he started mentioning the names of all his closest friends. “– all just died! Like, every week, someone else you knew was gone.” 

So, I think that, for some of us, if we hear the question “How have you been?” we immediately channel Yvonne de Carlo’s eleven o’clock number  from Follies (or Shirley MacLaine from Postcards From the Edge, if you’re not a total purist) and answer, “I’m still here!” 

DE: We've discussed your novel Bite Club via Facebook dm's. Could you tell me a bit about Bite Club and its genesis?

HB: I had written non-fiction before I did Bite Club – a lot of non-fiction, actually. 

When I first came out to Los Angeles, I had a law degree – and zero job prospects. It took me several years to find my first job as a lawyer, and even then it paid barely enough to make my rent. In the interim, I did whatever I needed to in order to survive. I worked free-lance for awhile for an established Trusts and Estates lawyer. This was in the late 1980s or early 1990s. My job was to go into the homes of gay men who had died – usually of AIDS – and, as the attorney I worked for phrased it, “hide the drag” – meaning that I would have to de-gay the homes so that the surviving relatives wouldn’t be offended by anything. As a practical matter, it meant removing any drag, any leather, any gay books or magazines, any personal photographs of the dead man and his lover or boyfriend – pretty much getting rid of anything that would make the straights uncomfortable. 

You have to remember that this was during an era where a long-estranged family could – and usually would! – swoop in to take whatever they could, and leave the surviving partner literally out in the street with nothing. At one point, I was de-gaying a house and I asked the lawyer I worked for, “What about the Matisse?” He was baffled until I pointed out that there was a small, but authentic, original Matisse painting on the wall. The family of the dead man had been particularly brutal to his lover, so we grabbed the painting to make sure the lover got it. When the attorney realized that I had an eye for such things, and a flair for knowing what was authentic, part of my job became to scope out anything valuable. In situations where the greedy relatives tried to cut-out the surviving “spouse”, we made sure he got the painting or whatever.

In any case, I did what I had to in order to survive – and yes, that included hustling sometimes. (I could tell you stories about that!) At one point, I even signed on as a stevedore unloading cargo ships down in Long Beach – during a union work stoppage, no less. There I was, a pretty-boy homo, lugging sacks and crates past lines of teamsters who were shouting and hurling things at us. But, I was getting paid twenty-something an hour, which was a small fortune back then, and I desperately needed the money.  

One of the things I did was to write non-fiction. The public library – because this was before the internet – had these volumes of Writers’ Markets that came out every year. I would go in with a legal pad and come out with dozens of places that were looking for non-fiction work – and would pay for it. I wrote articles on everything from cow breeds (for a Dairy Farmers’ trade magazine), to Italian glass beads (a crafts magazine), to a bunch of ghost-written stuff for those oversized Time/Life-type books. I’m talking about the ones with titles like Pirates! The Scavengers of the Seven Seas or Daily Life in Ancient Greece, and in one memorable instance, Cunning Craft Projects from Dryer Lint. Of course that wasn’t the actual title. In effect, though, that was what the book was about!

Anyway, the point of this digression was to illustrate two things: 

First, AIDS had cost the gay community more than just lives, it had robbed us not only of our innocence, but of our sense of humor.  For me, camp was always a very important part of gay culture – I still feel that way – and it was slowly being eroded by the horrors of the plague. And, second, I was so depressed, and so terribly stressed, that I found my own sense of humor fading. As another gay author once said – it was either Andrew Holleran or Paul Monette, I think (and I’m paraphrasing) – once you come up positive, you can never really be carefree again. 

I’m lucky in that, not only am I still negative, but I apparently have what they call the “immunity” gene. I truly believe that’s partly while I’m still alive as, when I was younger, I was virtually a West Hollywood Public Utility. Or, to paraphrase what Chris says about Troy in Bite Club: My knees practically had different ZIP codes. In any case, the quote about not ever being carefree nonetheless resonated with me. So I wrote Bite Club, in part, to try and restore a sense of “high” camp humor or, if not to restore it, to at least celebrate it. 

I was absolutely gob-smacked by the positive response it got, and by how widely it was read. At that time, unless you were Gore Vidal or Armistead Maupin, gay authors simply did not sell huge numbers. Yet Bite Club sold something like 30,000 copies within the first several months, got picked up by Insight Out Book Club in hardcover, (and later by Doubleday’s book club  – though I never got a copy of that version), and according to my old agent, was Alyson Books’ all-time best selling novel. In fact, more than a decade later, something came up where I had to get in touch with the warehouse guy for the by-then-defunct Alyson Books. When I got him on the phone, I opened with “You probably don’t remember me but...” He got very solemn and said, “I absolutely remember you. Thanks to Bite Club, when Alyson was folding, I was able to keep paying my rent.” 

The secret of Bite Club’s popularity was twofold, I think. For older gay readers, it did exactly what I intended it to. It hearkened back to a time when we could be relatively carefree, at least where some things were concerned. What surprised me, though, was how younger gay readers latched on to the campiness of the book as if they had discovered something brand new.

DE: You've talked in interviews about the relationship between your works, such as A Study in Spandex, "Funeral Games," Fabulous in Tights, etc. and the pain and grief you experienced at the loss of your first husband. Could you talk about how your loss led to these unusual works of horror fiction?

HB: Oddly, I wrote Bite Club well before my first husband, Jimmy, and I got together. The reason I say it’s odd is because virtually everyone who knew us simply assumed that I had based the character of “Troy Raleigh” in Jimmy. Yet, obviously, I hadn’t. Still, if anyone who didn;t know him asked what he was like, I used to joke that I married “Troy.”

So, to answer your question, I’ve never considered myself a Horror writer, per se – in spite of the Stoker nominations. LOL! And I’ve never been much of a fan of Horror either. When I was younger, I’d read some Stephen King, some Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, and some Anne Rice– and that was about it. But when Bite Club came out, since it had vampires in it, I got tagged as a gay Horror writer, and it stuck. 

But my roots, for lack of a better word, are not in the Horror genre. So when it came time to write “horror”, the typical monsters and such held no interest for me. True horror, I’ve always felt, originates from loss. For one thing, it’s irrevocable. Yet, at times, it seems like reaching across the span of a few milliseconds to prevent or recover that loss ought to be possible. There’s only an instant between someone being alive, and then irrevocably dead, just as there’s only a fraction of a second between reaching for a piece of china you’ve dropped, and it shattering on the floor. That moment is so brief, so infinitesimal, that it shouldn’t be difficult at all to bridge it and undo what’s been done. 

But, of course, we can’t. And every second that it takes while we filter through that knowledge seems like another instant that, if we could just get it back, would bring us closer to an unbroken plate or a person who is still alive. I sometimes think that a substantial part of my career has been trying to come to terms with that horrible, horrible feeling of the past becoming inevitable and fixed. Certainly that theme pervades my short fiction. In some ways, that’s what “A Rift in Reflection” is sub-textually about, and it shows up strongly in “The Baker of Millepois” and “The Collar” as well.  Perhaps a better way to describe it is when you’re about to put a beloved pet to sleep. You know that you have to do it, and that it’s the kindest thing to do. Yet, when the vet starts the final injection, there’s this moment where every fiber of your being wants to scream “No! Stop! Take it back!” 

Of course, by the time you’ve even thought it, the powerlessness has won, and it’s already too late. I often think that I’ve spent a lot of the last thirty years trying to capture the emotional impact of that moment in prose form. Because, to me, it is the most horrifying feeling anyone can experience. 

On the other hand, I think a lot of Alec Archer’s journey in the Whirlwind books (Fabulous in Tights and A Study in Spandex) is one of coping with loss, and getting past that awful moment.  If you haven’t yet read In Flesh and Stone , that is exactly what that book is about, albeit within the framework of an erotic, paranormal “romance” – which is what the publisher wanted. I wrote that book, cover to cover, in about four days, and it was published virtually unchanged from the first draft other than some spelling and typo corrections. If you strip out the very graphic eroticism, I think you get a very powerful novel of grief and loss. 

DE: Has anybody ever called you "Hot Bodner," and if not, why?

HB: I’m not entirely sure where this question is coming from! LOL

But, no. I cannot even imagine being dubbed with a nickname like that. It’s so “not me”. 

On the other hand, about thirty years ago, when I was still practicing Entertainment Law, a certain studio head/producer (who is also gay) dubbed me “the Pink Scorpion”. 

We were negotiating a deal at the time and, though I’m paraphrasing, of course, he said, “You’re like a little pink scorpion. You’re cute, and you seem so fluffy. And then, when we pick you up to get a better look, or give you a cuddle, you STING!” 

DE: You mentioned in our dm's exchanges your friendship with literary icon Truman Capote. Could you tell me how that friendship came about, your thoughts on his troubled life and literary legacy, and why your primary goal was to get access to Studio 54?

HB: Memory is a strange thing. It plays tricks on us all. I thought I distinctly recalled when I met Truman. The images are so clear in my mind. It was at a party on the upper east side of Manhattan, and I can visualize the decor – pumpkins and construction paper leaves, and very autumnal floral arrangements. I even remember one of those decorative bales of hay next to a grand piano. And I know I had an apartment with a boyfriend in Hell’s Kitchen at the time.

And that’s the problem. In 1980, when my memory tells me that Truman and I first met, my first boyfriend – who I was absolutely crazy about – was still around. I would never have gotten involved with another guy! Yet, the time-line in my mind suggests that was the case. So, while I can remember the details of many events with stark clarity, the “when” of things is all screwed up! To make all this work out with some semblance of sense, I’ll guess that I met Truman in late fall of 1980. 

I was in college at the time, and ostensibly at least, I “lived” in the dorm. But I was up in Manhattan every chance I got, and pretty much living there for half the week. I had no idea who Truman was at the time. None. Zero. Zilch. I had heard his name before, but only in connection with an Alan Sherman “rhyming” song called “Oh, Boy”– and only because a friend had the album. One of the things about Truman that often goes unmentioned was his intense fascination with people, and with what made them tick. While he certainly loved being the center of attention himself, he was also capable focusing with incredible intensity on whoever he was talking with. In those moments, you were the only person in the room as far as Truman was concerned. No one and nothing else existed for him. 

Of course, the instant the conversation was finished, and his interest lapsed, he also had a tendency to do the whole out-of-sight, out-of-mind thing. It wasn’t that he didn’t remember  – in fact, he could repeat entire conversations, close to verbatim. It had simply ceased being of primary importance to him. 

Anyway, we met at that party, and the thing I remember most is how charming he was – especially because he was also very odd looking! That week, back in college, I happened to spy a copy of Breakfast at Tiffany’s on the remainder table at the student bookstore. Apparently, some professor had ordered too many copies for a literature course, and rather than send them back, the store took them and put them on sale. I think I paid fifty or seventy-five cents for it. Purely by coincidence, I ran into Truman again a couple of weeks later. I sheepishly confessed that though I hadn’t known who he was when we met, I had bought the book – and gushed about how much I loved it. 

Flattery was practically his middle name; he ate it up. But he never liked to show people that he was flattered. He tended to pooh-pooh compliments, but not in a false modesty way. It’s hard to describe. Anyway, while I was gushing, I remember he said, “They made a motion picture out of it you know. But if it comes onto the television, you needn’t watch it. It’s terrible. Just terrible.” 

Truman took me under his wing. In spite of what Susan Sontag called me (“Capote’s Catamite”), Truman’s relationship with me was purely an avuncular one. I’d meet him in Manhattan, or sometimes I’d just run into him, and we’d hang out.  I knew he lived somewhere in Brooklyn, but I never saw his house. I also knew about Jack, his long term partner, but I never met him. 

Truman spent a fair amount of time at Studio 54. In retrospect, I wish I had been less callow. He introduced me to everyone who was “anyone” but, at the time, I had no idea who most of those people were. For me, the attraction of Studio 54 was that I was able to drink – even though I was underage. I mean, no one was going to turn me away, or card me, if I walked into the club with Truman Capote, right? Of course the other attraction was that some of the most stunning young men in the world were there – and believe me, I went home with my fair share of them! 

Speaking of that, Truman’s avuncularity (avucularness? LOL!) Sometimes manifested oddly.  He didn’t mind my drinking  – particularly when he realized that I rarely drank more than three or four cocktails in an entire evening – but he was staunchly opposed to my being anywhere near the drugs that permeated the place. He did drugs himself, but was adamant that I have nothing to do with them. I was totally fine with that as drugs never interested me; I don’t even smoke pot. It makes me ill. 

He insisted on meeting, at least briefly, any guy I left the bar with. I think it was half curiosity on his part, and half wanting to make sure I wasn’t going home with an axe murderer. He also took a great deal of interest in what he called my “school work”, and whenever he treated me as a “young person”, as opposed to just a person, he was always a little unsure and awkward. For example, he’d very brightly ask, “So what did we learn in school this week, Hally?” – and it was clear that he was asking because he thought it was the kind of thing he was supposed to ask someone my age.

Perhaps the most infamous story I’ve told about my relationship with Truman was when I was taking some kind of literature course. He’d asked to see the reading list, and he went over it, making comments about almost every title. He finally got to one book and crossed it out and said, “Oh no. You needn’t read this one. It’s not very good.” 

For this course, we had to read a novel each week, and then write a 2-3 page paper on it. About a month or so later, the professor asked me to stay behind because I hadn’t turned in a paper, and he wondered if something was wrong. I told him I hadn’t read the book. Puzzled, because I was a pretty good student, he asked me why, so I handed him a paper place mat (from Elaine’s, I think).  On the back, Truman had written: Please excuse my friend Hally from reading To Kill A Mockingbird. In my opinion, it’s not very good.  (Apparently, Truman and Harper Lee had had some kind of falling out, and he wasn’t above that kind of pettiness.)

The professor stared at me and said,”You have a doctor’s note? From Truman Capote?” 

(He gave me an A on the non-existent paper – probably for sheer ballsiness on my part – but warned me that, even if Truman hated another book, he expected me to turn in my papers for the rest of the semester.) 

DE: Tell me about Studio 54. Was it fabulous? The tea por favor.

HB: I wish to high heaven that I could remember more about it. But I don’t. I met Andy Warhol – he was there a lot. But Warhol didn’t care for “children”, and his crowd did a lot of drugs, so Truman didn’t want me hanging around them.  I remember something about someone riding a horse in the place. But I honestly don’t recall if I was actually there when it happened, or if it was just something people talked about. I do remember meeting Christopher Reeve – he was on Broadway at the time. He was soooo hot! But, alas, he was also straight. (I don’t care what anyone tries to tell you – he was straight. Trust me. I was no slouch in the looks department myself back then, and I pretty much threw myself at him. Zip. Nada. Nothing.)

To be honest, I was focused mostly on the men. Some of the most spectacular looking men in the world showed up at Studio 54. Of course, the preferred “Look” in the early 1980s was very different than it is now, and it wasn’t one that I was particularly partial too. A lot of guys were sporting the San Francisco Clone look – very slim with “porn staches.” I preferred more muscular, athletic, GQ model types – guys who looked like slightly older versions of me, in fact. Studio had plenty of those too. But you have to remember that I was still jail-bait at the time, which severely limited my proverbial “dance card.” So while I was certainly sexually active, it didn’t quite rise to the level of posting a sign over my apartment door reading “Over Six Billion Served”.  That didn’t happen until after I moved to Los Angeles! LOL. 

DE: What are your feelings about the Orange One?

HB: Trump? I dislike the man intensely. I met him several times in Manhattan back in the early 80s. The only way I can describe him is that he was the equivalent of the “Club Bore” you read about in 19th and 20th Century English novels. He’d walk up to a group of people – it didn’t matter who they were – interrupt, and immediately begin talking about himself, or something wonderful he’d done, or what great things someone had said about him. Once, I was with Truman –who could not stand Donald Trump – and I remember him saying, “God spare us. Here comes that wretched, yellow-haired Roy Boy again.”  

I had no idea what he meant until, years later, I found out that Trump was one of Roy Cohn’s hangers-on. By the way, contrary to the way he’s almost always portrayed, Roy Cohn was one of the most charming men I’ve ever met. He wasn’t in the least unctuous or slimy, and I never saw him use his wealth or position as a tool of seduction (or, if he did, he wasn’t obvious about it). Roy was a truly delightful, really likeable guy, and it was easy to see how he’d gotten where he was. Unlike, say, someone like Harvey Weinstein, people actually enjoyed hanging around with Cohn. 

DE: You're a Republican yet not MAGA. How would you characterize your relationship to the Republican Party, and what led to that?

HB: I’ve always been conflicted because of the GOP’s attitudes and policies toward gay people and Gay Rights. But, when you think about it, until fairly recently, the Democrats really weren’t much different. People forget – or ignore – that all of the major anti-gay pieces of Federal legislation were passed by Democrats. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the Defense of Marriage Act were both passed on Bill Clinton’s watch. Moreover, the Biden administration’s Respect for Marriage Act, while it is touted as pro-gay, actually presupposes and acknowledges that some states will outlaw same sex marriage – even though the Supreme Court has already decreed that to deny same sex marriage is unconstitutional! In Biden’s case, I don’t think the effect was deliberate. In Clinton’s, I think it was intentional – it shut us up, but really gave us nothing. 

To my mind the only difference between the two parties insofar as Gay Rights were concerned was that the Democrats gave us lip service, and the Republicans ignored us and wished we’d disappear. On issues other than Gay rights however, it just seemed that my views were better aligned with the GOP. That’s why I became a Republican. Unfortunately, the modern Republican Party is much different than it used to be. Still, I can’t help feeling that if we could get the crazies and the extremists OUT, maybe we could steer the party back towards more traditional Republicanism. My issue with the Democrats, on the other hand, is that the party seems to be progressively taking more extreme positions on issues that, in a more moderate form, I might be inclined to agree with. Sadly, I find that many on the modern Left demand all-or-nothing support; I haven’t found that they take well to someone who agrees with them only part way. 

The sad thing is that, because of the way we’re currently so polarized in this country, the moment I disagree with virtually anything my Democrat friends say, there’s usually at least a few who  start screaming accusations of “Trump Lover!” – and nothing could be further from the truth. That said, I’m not quite willing to brand Donald Trump as Satan Incarnate. First of all, that’s way too easy and, secondly, Trump isn’t really intelligent enough to be Satan. At best, he’s a Satan-Lite. I mean, when you think about it, his Evil Master Plan was to illegally market golf tees with the Presidential Seal on them. I have no doubt that he knew he’d taken those Classified documents, but I strongly suspect he was motivated by a desire to frame and autograph them, and sell them to collectors.

So we’re actually talking about things like golf tees and selling autographs. When you look at Donald Trump that way, I find it hard to picture him as much of an arch villain.  

Before you ask – no, I won’t vote for him. I don’t mind Biden at all, frankly. On the other hand, I’m devastated that Lindsey Graham isn’t running.  I’d vote for him in a heartbeat. It has nothing to do with his politics. It’s because I’m dying to see how he’d redecorate the Lincoln Bedroom! And as VP – there’s no question in my mind -- Aaron Schock. I confess to more than one fantasy involving Vice President Schock presiding over Congress while wearing only a Speedo. 

DE: Tell me about your gay activism.

HB: AIDS. 

That’s it in a nutshell. 

I was always pretty much openly gay, but I didn’t get political about it until AIDS appeared. (Or, as it was called then, GRID.) 

I also spent about a decade working with the City of West Hollywood.  For example, I was the secretary of the Gay & Lesbian Sheriff’s Conference Committee. It was formed after the whole mess with the LAPD’s Rampart Division to address similar issues within the county Sheriff’s Department. There were five members of the gay and lesbian community, five straight sheriff’s deputies, the Captain of the Sheriff’s Station, and the head of the West Hollywood Public Safety department. We’d meet once a month and deal with various issues, and figure out how to develop programs to improve relations between the community and law enforcement. Part of what we did was an Awareness Training program at the academy. Unlike modern activism, which is very confrontational, we made no demands for equality, or any particular treatment. Our theory was that much of the prejudices and hatred was fear-based, and that through familiarity, we could alleviate it and increase “awareness.” 

It worked. In fact, it worked surprisingly well. The Kolts Commission report singled us out for high praise. Unfortunately, a certain influential lesbian politician felt that she could “do better”, and used her pull to replace us with her own team. Their approach was very in-your-face and confrontational – some might even call it accusatory.  Within a year or so, they completely destroyed the whole program.  

My strongest activism, however, was always in the AIDS arena. While I’ve not actually been arrested for protests or civil disobedience, I’ve been “detained” multiple times – often forcibly.  I suspect the only reason I wasn’t arrested was because I’m an attorney – so the authorities hesitated for fear of subsequent lawsuits. They didn’t stop them from being euphemistically “rough” – which, to be blunt, translates into beatings.Very discreet beatings so as not to provide evidence for those potential lawsuits. But, trust me, it’s just as painful. 

Here’s the thing, though – and it’s what made me different from many of the other activists working at the time – I was far more hands-on than I was political. I never had much patience for the politicking that went on, and to be honest, it didn;t seem to me like it was accomplishing much. So I spent the majority of my time “in the trenches”, as it were. Though LA was arguably way ahead of Manhattan in terms of AIDS advocacy and assistance programs, there were still roadblocks. I remember driving from Los Angeles out to Riverside County with two bodies wrapped in garbage bags in the back seat of my Volkswagen Bug, because the dead men were of a particular religious denomination, and the only funeral home of that denomination that would accept “diseased” AIDS victims was in Riverside County. 

Back then, insurance policies would “cap out” at $1 million over a lifetime.  If you had AIDS, you’d go through that amount of medical care within a year or two. There were several so-called “hospices” around West Hollywood and Hollywood, supposedly providing palliative and end-of-life care to people with AIDS. In spite of their professed altruistic and humanitarian motives they were operating for profit. The minute the insurance policies were capped, they would literally dump patients by the curb! There was a group of us who would drive around, every week, and pick up these men – sometimes they were wearing hospital gowns with the IV ports still in them! We had an extensive phone tree – this was before the internet – and we’d call around to all of the guys who had spare bedrooms to find out which ones had space open up because a previous “roommate” had died. 

That was a lot of the kind of stuff I was involved with. I was young, and physically strong, and those were attributes that we desperately needed back then – even if it was to do things like transport food donations, or bodies. 

DE: From what I recall, you were an officer with HWA. What were your duties with them?

Oh, gods. Don’t get me wrong – there are/were a lot of good things about HWA. But it was a not a great experience for me. The two things I managed to do during the brief time I was on the Board – I left before my first term was complete – was to revitalize the Grievance Committee and, hopefully, give it some teeth, and to re-work the criteria and processes of the Stoker Awards. 

I have been involved behind the scenes in quite a few creative award systems, most extensively with the Ovation Awards (they were the West Coast version of the Tonys).  My goal with the Stokers was to try and bring some level of objectivity to the system, and to lessen the crony-ism and “popularity contest” elements. I contributed to the process twice – once by serving on the initial revisions committee (which was ably headed by Nancy Kilpatrick, who I adore!), and then as a Board member. Unfortunately, one of the issues with the Board at that time, I felt, was that they were resistant to change. So, in the end, a lot of the work we did was undone to some degree before the “new” rules went into play. 

DE: Could you talk a bit about the extraordinary profusion of new LGBTQIA+ horror authors making waves these days, such as Eric LaRocca, Paula D. Ashe, et al,?  

HB: Here’s where I’ll get myself into trouble. LOL!

As a preliminary matter, I intensely dislike the whole “LGBT-etc” acronym, and I disagree with a great deal of what the various “letter” movements and groups profess to stand for. To me, “LGBT” is tantamount to lumping together Salvadorans, Cubans, Spaniards, Chileans, Puerto Ricans, and other Spanish speaking people, and called them all “Mexicans”.  Lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transsexuals share neither a common culture, nor a common history. 

When someone refers to me as “LGBTQ” I generally reply with, “Excuse me? Do I look like a lesbian to you?”  I also dislike the fluidity of the term “queer” nowadays. “Queer” means something to me, and to many men of my generation. It was a term of both derision and empowerment.  I have a hard time accepting that some male celebrity who has never sucked a dick in his life, and who probably never will, can arbitrarily identify as “queer” and be praised for it. 

That said, if the entertainment and publishing industries, and our culture at large, persists in its use of LGBT to lump us all together, then I see a desperate need for a distinct gay male literary, creative voice that is entirely separate from other groups. What troubles me deeply is that few, if any, of those distinct voices have emerged, and the current environment discourages them from coming forward. We are in desperate need of new, fresh Gay male voices that resist assimilation and forced/shamed inclusionism, and which distinguish us from the other groups. We also need to defend older, existing Gay male voices – which, mind you, may not always be as PC or as inclusive as the modern social justice movement would like – because those voices are also a part of Gay history and culture, and they need to be preserved, flaws and all.