Dialectical therapy, solidarity, Silverstein memorial; Fruit Punch

And time once again for fruit punch. California's oldest and most widely heard gay man's radio show. Tonight. Fruit punch interviews two members of a gay man's therapy collective. We hope our short description in the Folio dialectical therapy the directions from the gay left didn't scare you off. The collective's ideas are still developing and while dialectics are incorporated in their work It also encompasses much more. Also tonight will include a report on gay participation in the American Indian Movement March in Sacramento last Friday and a memorial to a gay brother. Thank. You again a welcome to me. This phrase. We have. Already downsized. Each have their own special recognized theory of what causes homosexuality.

Fact number one what is your theory. Well it's glands the homosexual males it creates too many female hormones and the lesbian too many male whole very interesting OK audience let's hear it but there you know what. Let's hear from Zach has nothing to do I believe that homosexuality is caused by a dominant aggressive and a weak passive father during a child's crucial developing years as well audience what do you think if there are enough to know I'm. Popular one now let's give Number three a shot at it being a behaviorist I believe that homosexuality is just about how it all is just one condition I probably as many women early in life. However they can be reconditioned through the use of electric shock treatment. Well that's a new and let everybody have a out. You're going to do pretty well for if you want to. OK before I contend with sexuality it's a perfectly healthy

and variation of sexual expression. That is it was. Serious and that really was the only problem with this was beyond their will enjoy was the. I'm talking to Mary Edelman and Michael Ferrie two members of the gate there of the collective. We just heard some horrible piggy things traditional attitudes expressed towards being gay and also the last more liberal one is wondering how you felt about those four views expressed by no particularly strong reaction to the second you the one about oh was it a passive father. It reminded me of this book by Irving Bieber called homosexuality which I discovered about 1964 when I was just coming out.

And he did this study comparing heterosexuals and homosexuals and of course came to the really traditional psychoanalytic conclusion that homosexuality is caused by weak father. While at the time I was really excited just to read that book because that was like my first real contact with homosexuality. So I knew they existed which was to step forward I guess. And but then I started blaming my father which was just put a lot of energy into blaming him for being gay is really mystified by the whole thing. Now that you know I've been through graduate school and all that I can look back on that study and not only was it coming from a really bad theory but it was a really schlock study. He came to all these conclusions and the interviews were psychiatrists and psychologists psychoanalysts see things the way that to fit their theory. So he was really doing is he was asking analysts

to substantiate his theory. And of course because they're using his theory in their therapy they're going to substantiate it. The other reaction I got to the thing with the clapping is it's so much like academia and school. The difference is they don't like clap as much as it's more about fighting for government grants for for heads of department for things publishing. And these are really the things that determine what what theory wins out. Michael used. Well you know they the first three obviously just I just reacted very negatively. But the last one which was supposed to be a liberal positive sort of thing you know just really gave me the feeling that that doesn't really portray gay people either. You know that everything isn't a bed of roses in being gay that you know we live in a society that oppresses us for being gay and that people don't talk about that enough in those kind of things in the mass media. So we either get one extreme or the other

and you really know where can you really find a true example that goes out to the masses of people in the in this country about who we are and what we are and what we need. Well now that we've had reactions to that versatile piece maybe we can talk a little bit about how you two people became involved with the other members in your collective and your work is. First of all when did you first get together. That was the number of months ago and basically we were all working together in Beghal which is Bay Area gay liberation here in San Francisco and we'd all been doing therapy work and also other political work together and felt like we wanted to go further in that and put that together with stuff you have been learning recently things about how people's class background affects their therapy how their profession is gay people how things like that come into the situation. So we all got together and are trying to get a collective together right now probably a

more important question would be why you think therapy is important and what it personally means to you. It's a big question. Begin to think about it a lot of therapy for me was it was like really important in my development. Like it it just kind of like really opened me up to being gay. It helped me get out of a really bad relationship that opened me up to politics to I was like really turned off. And because I was able to get more into myself I was able to to get into the world and I think for me it was like being in therapy originally in a very traditional sense. And then in finding that that that really didn't answer my needs as as a homosexual as a faggot. And then getting in with people who were had a more of a radical therapy perspective that you know really

did a good thing for me and it really helped me face my homosexuality and taught me about where it all of my negative feelings about me being gay came from. So that that whole experience in my life has been a real incredible one and one that has enabled me to unloosen a lot of of energy and freeing me freeing me from a lot of oppression. Well what type of people are you trying to reach when you're there. Well we're trying to reach people. I guess people who are alienated people who are working people who don't get out anything don't get anything out of a traditional perhaps maybe a gay therapist. People who have been alienated from therapy and maybe have given up and feel like you know they have no other place to go. And just thinking you know there are a lot of gay therapists going around these days in the gay community and

the difference I think between them and us is that you know they're they're just sort of taking people into their offices very plush offices charging them a lot of money just sort of saying it's alright to be gay. You know teaching them how to go out and you know maybe how to make make more sexual contacts and things like that without really. Helping them face the issues of what it means to be really gay. And that's like a to understand the power relationship that gay people find themselves in and their society particularly like to reach people that maybe were had really bad experiences in their past with psychiatry a psychoanalyst from my experience there are lots of people that have had really bad experiences particularly people that have been like really turned off to the really heavy power relationship that goes on in therapy. And to some extent there has to be some kind of power relationship because one person is going to be

helped. But that doesn't mean that the person being helped has to give up all their power all their control and depend on the person who supposedly knows the answer. They can be a really mutual and sharing kind of thing. You know leading into another question I wanted to get to and that's how do you basically see orthe your type of therapy or brand of radical therapy differing from other therapies that are available in the Bay Area. You mean more traditional therapies both from more traditional therapies straight and gay and the sort of the the new hip therapies. However you would want to compare your type of therapy one with one way. Let's talk about traditional therapists for a second. And the thing I mention about the power relationship I think is a really really good example in traditional therapy if if someone were to say I would talk about I feeling like I don't have any power in this thing I feel like you have control over me. The

the traditional therapist might say oh you're feeling powerless. Or they might say Tell me about your relationship with your father or various other kinds of chips a real good analyst would just keep quiet and wait for more and sort of make you feel bad. In our case what I would do is. Talk to the person you know and say look there really is a difference in the power relationship and is there something I could do to change to make you feel more comfortable. Or is do you think it's more necessary for you to really get into this feeling that you're talking about and kind of make it a mutual thing as we go in as we explore what's going on. Another way is I think traditional therapists are like really trained to look at their clients as objects. If you've ever had a class in abnormal psychology the the all the words catatonics gets your frantic blah blah blah all these words like really put the this the client in this like real kind of object kind of case. I when I

was in graduate school. We're having discussions and they referred to homosexuality and at one point I got really furious with everybody because I thought I felt like people were taking this thing as though it's just really distant thing that they have to look at from a really professional point of view and all that month I've been wearing a gay liberation button and no one had talked to me about it. No one it acknowledges that I was gay but they just in the class would talk about homosexuality is this thing that's really something out there. Like you said before that you see your work as having a strong political base that everybody in your collective sees that. I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about that. OK I guess that comes from our understanding where our oppression comes some where our problems originate. We feel like people in therapy have to take responsibility to get help and also to change themselves. But there

comes a point when they also have to realize that we feel this has been our experience that people have to look to other people who are going through this through the same problems they did that it really it's good to change yourself and try to make your life better. But to get at the real causes of what's going on you have to look not not just to yourself which traditional Psychology says It's your problem you're fucked up it's all in your head. To looking beyond to see where those attitudes came from we've all internalized attitudes for years and what when we talk about political We're talking about taking power to change the place in the origin of those attitudes. So out of our experience in gay liberation fronts in other organizations. We've realized that it's political as well as personal. That makes If you understand what that means.

So you're saying that. Let me get this straight you're saying that it's basically a societal problem it's not an individual problem. The origin of the of the problems come from society right as we were growing up. We learned certain attitudes in our family in schools and we internalize them so that and added an attitude like homosexuality is is bad. You grow up thinking that it takes many of us years to get over that feeling to the point where we can come out so that you know that's the origin and it's our responsibility to deal with it and to seek help to deal with it. But the origin is outside you might say that we swallowed a bunch of lies when we were younger lies around male supremacy that we had to be men we had to be strong and that this was the way to be this was the strong way this was the right way to be. There was a young woman who's followed a law a.

I don't know why. She says while the law up here you know there was a young woman who swallowed a rule and lived to serve men and she learned that at school she swallowed the rule to prop up the law. She swallowed the lie. There was a young woman who swallowed some. Lipstick and powder and she swallowed the fly. The power of the rule live to serve men. She learned that in school she swallowed the rule to prop up the law. There was a young woman who swallowed my. Eye like I'm dumb. Maybe you

suit me fine. She swallowed the line she swallowed the palm of the rule live to serve men she learned that she swallowed the rule to prop up the law. It was a young woman who's followed up. I don't know but you haven't the will she swallow the pill. Oh my my to serve. She learned that if you swallow the room probably a light game. There was a young woman who.

Looked like a princess and felt like a thing she swallowed the ring the make up of the bill is just one of the things I swallowed my tongue. She learned that she swallowed the rule the problem. One day this young woman will go up and she said I've swallowed so much I wish I were dead. She ran to her sister. It wasn't too late to liberate her take her to Tate. She threw up the ring she threw up. If you look through the line to look like you truly truly deserve man.

She learned of the blast. All she threw up but now she knows she's following the law. And feeling. Well I think we just had an example in music of oh you were talking of the swelling things swelling lies in the turtle eyes depression than any other call on this one. You know that's really a powerful song. I mean that really says it in much better ways than than I can. And just one more I'd like to say that you know that's that that was the so a song about a woman and our struggle is very similar to that and what she finally realized by going to her sisters and getting support from other women was that that a lot I was not in her interest that it was for somebody else's power. And that's that's a vested interest that you know whatever I think in that case they were talking about white straight man or whatever you know

as the origin of the lie. And that case that all of the ideology that that is put out to keep women in their place and to keep them down keep them serving you know is not in their interest and she finally found out. Another thing we were talking about earlier things that are interesting you talk about incorporating class analysis into your work unlike traditional psychologist who don't seem to see this as being very important. How do you do that. Well I come from a working class background. I know attitudes that people from other classes from working from middle class and upper class what kind of attitudes they have toward me. And I know when I go to a therapist who comes in that class of people that I'm you know I'm going to be suspicious of how he views me. And I didn't learn. You know I wasn't born with this information I learned it the hard way by going to therapists who

look down on me who thought I was stupid or whatever and what they did is it was an insidious subtle thing and many times and it was a thing of where they were just sort of never validate the fact that they were in a power position over me that they had there was an attitude that that's where they were really coming from and they were very patronized thing. And any time I would have problems that were related to work and things like that. They never really help me to see that I was in a job where people supervisors were looking down on me and things like this. So I had to learn those things out and and for myself and. In doing that I realize that class attitudes have a lot to do like straight straight therapists straight male therapists as a class you know have attitudes about women that keep them in their place. And so you know that's what I mean. Maybe Marie has more things to say.

Well I can really validate what you said about therapists having like real clear biases. It was only in our collective with talking with the people around class that I really started realizing that the really kind of class attitudes I had that I put on myself and other people just the sense of being like really upwardly mobile they were real articulate and and kind of looking down in some ways like not wanting to look down but but looking down. Well the growth movement and therapy in general is always I think are traditionally appealed to people from middle class upper class backgrounds. How do you aim to reach people from working class backgrounds people who may not have that trust in therapy. And that's going to be really hard. Obviously people that we want to reach many people don't have any confidence and in therapy and even the word itself is is really has a lot of connotations of people avoid. We're going

to you know be talking to people we know people that we work with people that we come in contact with in the different groups of people we're talking to right now on the radio you know. And eventually we hope to make contacts and and people will spread things through word of mouth. OK I'd like to remind our listeners that we're going to be having call ins in just a few minutes. Right now we're going to listen to a really short interview that Philip did about a few months ago in San Francisco with a woman from Napa with her. Marie I'm speaking with you want to come out and fire. From the Napa network against psychiatric assault in San Francisco. Napa is an organization made up of former inmates of psychiatric institutions and other concerned people. I'd like to know what your attitude towards therapy is. Well first of all the word that implies. Even if the person is not it's not right. Strong medical doctor that applies that the

person receiving it is sick because therapy as is a medical term. It also sets the two persons involved in the relationship on a different level one knows more about the other person then that person supposedly knows about herself himself which I think is the basic way I object to Freud in that and he started this whole thing of I understand you better than you understand yourself than a few years you'll come to understand yourself as much as I understand you which is a crock of shit. My feeling about psychiatry and any kind of professional person who professes to know about human nature is that they are a a an outstanding part of what makes people so unhappy today. Everything in our society seems to be working towards cutting us off. From. Our own feelings from our own evaluation of things our own experience our own power. Everything seeks to take these

things away from us. And the most valuable thing to a person or to me is my feelings this is my belief to feel. And psychiatry in all its forms whether it's private therapy or institutional psychiatry is conducive to the split in an individual in institutional psychiatry it's pretty obvious they use physical means drugs electroshock and so forth to physically sever the seats of feeling to cut their feeling level. In the case of private therapy it's a lot more subtle. But I don't think any therapist specially a psychiatrist is exempt from doing this because in his case it's a matter of putting the intellect of the psychiatry first against the feelings of the patient subject and of course the intellect of the psychiatrist is always one up on the feelings of the person going to him or her for therapy.

Professionalism is and is is authoritarian. It just is. It means I'm better than you I know more than you. Plus it's a rip off you pay someone money to be better than you are no question. The whole movement that's taking place today the people's movements black liberation gay liberation. Liberation of mental patients women is all breaking out of the authoritarianism. What happens when you go to a therapist is you give up your power. You say I have to pay this person to no more than I do about myself. Whereas in reality the way to get your power back is to go to another individual like yourself and share yourself with that person and have that person share herself or himself with you. Therapists don't want us to know that they want to think that we're weak where we're helpless. We're sick we're whatever and in need of their expertise. But this is not this is not liberating and because it's not liberating it doesn't do what it says it's supposed to do.

Just thought of how well she did just gave us a lot to respond to. But I think probably the heaviest thing Yana cassette was a therapy implies a person receiving the therapy is sick and that puts the intellect with therapist against the clients feelings that you're paying in fact a therapist to know more about you than you know about yourself. How do you respond to things like this. When I. I think that's a real you know valid statement. That's been my experience in the therapy that I had when I was first coming out in 1969. And I know it's true you know and and I know what I am trying to talk counsil I mean even the words of what I'm doing I'm not even sure of anymore. Sometimes when I'm trying to do that it's like one thing I don't say is this you know and that I know what you're feeling. A lot of what I'm trying to do is to follow my own feelings in reacting to the other person's feelings. And I certainly do not have the feeling that I

understand better some of what I feel is that I have gone through certain things. I understand certain processes because of my own experience and I can share that knowledge and that support and strength with another person who doesn't feel it right at that time with the hope that that person eventually takes his or her power and goes with it. Before we go on in responding to like a statement I'd like you people out there to remember that we're having call in starting just about now the number is 8 4 8 4 4 2 5. That's area code 4 1 5 8 4 8 4 4 2 5. We'll start taking your calls now if you want to give us one. Murray you had a response ready I think I think. His experience has been with like really traditional psychiatrists sounded a lot like a psychoanalyst and I think they come from a really authoritarian tradition. I don't personally feel that I'm putting my intellect against a client's feelings. I usually don't use my intellect very much. I

like at least in therapy I like to be with a person like really hang out with the person hang out with their feelings let them know I'm there kind of help them with get to feelings that are maybe blocked make it a really safe place. Sometimes hold them cuddle ways ways like that I don't think this is like a real traditional distancing kind of thing. Many times I talk about problems I have that are real similar feelings that I'm having as a reaction to what's going on with him. Well one thing I should mention is that we edited the tape down and that Yanick has said that money should never change hands in a therapy transaction how can you answer that. Yeah I mean in a very ideal situation I think that's true it's like I know when I if I go to a doctor I don't like to pay him. I'm sick from breathing air from having a you know eating bad food that you know is lost all its nutrition everything and I don't like to pay pain for that.

So I mean I can really understand that. Hello. You're right you're right you're a good guy. Do you ever try to write what you really are though. Well that's what ya like I thought and she was speaking for Napa likely to let you know I said that too and I think eventually hopefully you know at one time when this society changes that therapy and medicine and things like that will not be on the commodity market people will not be making profits off other people's problems or their sickness or whatever. What in the situation is is today people are trained to do certain jobs. We live in a society where we have to pay money and we have to survive and we feel like we are. I know mental health workers whatever and that we also know that we're not charging exorbitant rates or anything like that. So it's it's a it's a real hard issue and I really feel you know a lot of the same things I

feel a lot of conflicts too. One thing I want to get back to were waiting for a call is what you and I said about therapy implying a power relationship between the professional and the client. I think you alluded to that earlier tonight. You're saying it's a all right thing and might even be a good thing whereas you are like a saying is real bad. I think that's right. I didn't say it was a good thing I said it was an unnecessary thing. If someone is coming to be helped that implies or giving up their power to some extent. The question is what you do with it. If you really abuse it. If you really abuse the power then it's really unfair it's really cruel but you can work with it and help the person. OK I think we have another caller hello. I could never get away with murder. OK I can give you an idea of that. We want to do individual counseling with people we want to do things with

people in relationships. We feel like giving individuals and relationships in a gay context is really important. We want to do group work really want to. We want to share our skills too it isn't just a matter of something we have that other people don't have which means like demystifying the skills that we have showing people that they have them too inherently and they just need to be developed and that they have they're probably doing them already anyway you know to just to support that feeling. So hopefully we'll be doing training and like workshops in the community. Those are the things right now one day we'd like to do mediations and workshops in general workshops and training and also workshops on specific topics like dealing with beauty chauvinism in the gay community things like that. And we've had we we had discussion of that a while ago and we're real amazed to see the the range of

experiences we all had the least experience was about five years. And the most was 12 years. The people we've worked at a real variety of situations from really professional places like North County Mental Health University Chicago counseling center to a lot more like gay men's collectives Morkel counseling kinds of therapy. Like I don't you know think about writing like you know what does that mean that you're not going to go you know. How do you work Sam. Some of it is that we're going to try a sliding scale basis with some people you know you basically try to work it out on individual basis. And their rates are going to be very low and nobody will be charging as little as we are. I mean I'm not saying that to get in. Well let's say the government grant we don't want to charge people to make profit.

So maybe we could go on a little bit about where different people are coming from in your collective. You say you've had at least five years of experience in most 12 years of experience. Has that been in traditional types of therapy or has it been an alternative types of therapy pro-coal counseling or real combination of includes like Berkeley radical psychiatry center training and Jerry and Carl Rogers therapy Gestalt Therapy assertiveness training. And we can go on there. There's a lot so some people had experience with behavior modification. Pastoral counseling even to you. OK I think we're going to go on to another musical example of what we've been talking about I'd like to thank you for both talking to me tonight. OK. Well we're big.

And you've got. To grow their own. Oh my. Whoa whoa. Whoa.

Whoa. Why be why. OK well. Oh oh oh oh. Last Friday the American Indian Movement AIM sponsored a demonstration in Sacramento

demanding the release of three jailed AIM leaders fruit punch was there and interview two men who were part of the gay contingent in the issues involved and the importance of solidarity work or the concrete showing of support to other struggles. Here's Kevin with that interview. I've talked into if even David here at the American Indian movement marched to Sacramento protesting the jailing of Leonard Peltier Skyhorse and Richard D I say real quickly why they have been jailed. Ralph guy has said no I've been in jail for two and a half years and they're charged with murder and they were set up by the FBI that three people who were caught right after the murder took place of blood on their clothing on a blood stained knife have been let loose and are now the main witnesses against Skyhorse and they've been framed up because they were the main aim organizers in California and it was part of the

FBI plan under the Cointelpro program to destroy aim. A leading force in the national liberation struggle of Indian people about Leonard Peltier he's charged with the murder of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation in Pine Ridge. The FBI is like an occupying army. They raid people's homes any time of the day or night and they've created a climate where violence is like an every day fact of life for the Indian people are during an early morning raid. Over a year ago. There was a shoot out and one Indian man and two FBI agents were killed and the investigation is focused totally on the Indian people and four men were charged with the deaths of the two FBI agents for the other three.

Two were acquitted by a jury and one had his charges dropped. You know there wasn't any evidence. And even if there was it would be self to found because the FBI has no right to be there. There's a small but vocal gay contingent today. Why do you think that it's important for gay men especially to think about doing solidarity work. Well Indian people are fighting for survival and they're fighting to preserve their culture and their land base. And the Indian way of life. David do you have anything to add why you think solidarity work most KP was important struggles like the Native American struggle with the find out. Freshness not necessarily something that people have posted the question of national ask and a lot of the reasons like that it was

passed as a gay person. I tried the same system. That's national. It's been a much more severe way. And that it's important for me to unite with those groups of people who are going to be an auntie to either question anything you do think that we as gay men can learn from Native American struggles how to fight how to fight back against the system of imperialism or their their struggle is that a much different stage than our struggle it's a struggle for their very survival as a people and a struggle for national liberation. And you know we've got a lot to learn from that. About how to organize our people and fight back. Game and do to support American struggles. I think it's really important first of all to do some investigation. Just try and read and find out what you can about the history of Indian people.

So we just need to understand what what their lives are like and. Make some comparisons with their own lives. Just trying to connect. And that's that's like the basis of solidarity understanding our own conditions and understanding their conditions and. Then understanding the connections. People representing all aspects of the political spectrum were also present at the rally giving their support to the Native American movement. Here's a sampling of that support. Dennis Banks of Ames ame introducing a speaker who didn't mince any words. I'd like at this time introduce and ask you to welcome a very good friend of mine Elaine Brown from the Black Panther Party. Power to the people. Might be hackneyed but it's still got to be done.

I'm here to talk about the freedom a poem Skyhorse of Brigid Mohan. I think that's what we need to concentrate our efforts on today. It's true that we're lucky to be here in the California sunshine. That we're not enclosed and incarcerated any of us right here right now for the moment anyway. Inside of a prison but we are in the prison of the United States of America and we can never forget that. Despite the sunshine. And I think that we have to recognize there for the common goal that we have. With whether Skyhorse the Mojave. And we have to realize that a lot of us have been watching a film and reading a book called Roots. And a lot of black people suffered on the cross in coming to this country but we never asked to come here. I've been suffering ever since. But the real roots of this country. Are full of blood and murder. The blood and murder and rape of the Indian people. And none of us can ever forget that. And until that until there

will never be a way. There will never be a way to forgive or understand the millions. Thousands and hundreds of thousands and literally millions of Indian people murdered by the government of this country. And so shouldn't come as any shock to us. That two more Indian brothers are now in jail on false charges. And that some of the people that ought to have been with us had to turn against us to justify the government's constant plot to get rid of any people who dis who stand up for what is rightfully theirs. I think that it's important that we get together that people Indian people. Poor people oppressed people throughout this country and then we concentrate issue by issue and never forget that there's a larger issue as the sister said before that the real enemy of all of us are the capitalists in a perilous in this country. But one of the things that we have to concentrate on is don't get so big that we forget every single person has to be set free. So for today we've got to make some serious moves. We can't allow racist Bar Association to depict the situation is such a way to

continue to be allowed to exist we have to fight those things we have to fight with every way that we have. And that is with the peace pipe or with a gun. We'll have to make some decisions on that. But we will have differing Mohawk and Skyhorse power to people. Like you avoid before going on I like to mention that if you want to learn more about Native American struggles you can contact the Native American Solidarity Committee at P.O. Box 4 0 5 3 8 in San Francisco 9 4 1 1 0. Again that's NASCAR P.O. Box 4 0 5 3 8. San Francisco 9 4 1 1 0 0 0. Now probably the saddest thing will have to report for a good while. The gay and progressive communities in the Bay Area were deeply saddened to learn of the death of a loved and respected brother Michael Silverstein killed himself Saturday night on a lonely beach outside of San Francisco and several notes that he left explaining his action. Michael asked his friends not to mourn his death or blame themselves.

He said he took full responsibility for his action but no blame. Earlier Michael spoken of suicide as a genocide of gay people. Michael lived in the Bay Area for many years. He was one of the founders of the East Bay gay rap's a member of the original fruit punch collective. And lately a member of June 28 Union. As a memorial to Michael a man who I personally had great respect for. I'd like to read some excerpts from an essay of his published five years ago called The Politics of my sex life. All my life the emotions that have controlled me have been feelings of isolation and loneliness fear and mistrust of others and the need for their love. Most of my life I was too scared to have any sex life at all except jacking off to pictures of pretty boys I saw on the television. And I went around feeling like shit all the time. Since that's the way you're taught to feel you don't have sex you don't have a sex life. It got so bad that I just wanted to die so bad that was even worse and my fear of associating with it with a bunch of filthy faggots and silly queen was even worse in my family and friends finding out what I really was. So I came out as

I got more into the gay liberation movement. I begin to unlearn the lies that I've been taught about filthy faggot some silly Queens and started seeing people the way they were. At first I was relieved they were just men like other men. Then I started to panic. My God they really were like men competitors rivals and not to be trusted. We could go to bed together. Sex between men works fine. But how can men make love to each other. How can we get to know each other when we always have to be on our guard. So after six months out of the closet and the reasonable success in the gay world that is having a fair amount of sex with relatively desirable guys. I discovered that I was as lonely and isolated as ever. And I started to freak out. My Cover started to fall off my game playing got ragged around the edges and finally when I was always afraid of happened people could see what I was really like. All my needs fears and weaknesses were out there for everybody to see. All my friends all the other men. They could all see that I needed them. I wanted them to love me. I wanted them to go to bed with me to

prove their love. I wanted them to do it even if I had nothing to offer them in return. So for a year I put all my life into gay liberation and at the end of that year I felt as bad as I had before. I had no lovers no friends I really trusted that I was being stripped of all the symbols of success that I had before as they are meaningless be meaninglessness became increasingly obvious. I couldn't be a teacher anymore because I could no longer pretend to be strong and self-sufficient. It was too late to put the mask back on. I couldn't pretend to be a man anymore. You can't do more than pretend to be a man if you're gay to be a real success you have to share in the fucking of women. That's how the straight men in charge define things and how they run the show. Of course we can pretend to be like the straight world. We can divide ourselves into imitation men who do all the fucking and imitation women who get fucked over and play all the games straight men play with their women. But even straight people and some straight men are beginning to realize these games are much good for even them even a real man isn't worth a shit. Every man in Capitalist America is lonely

isolated mistrustful and in desperate need of love. And everybody in America is taught to hide his or her own happiness at all cost. Unhappiness is a stigma personal inadequacy since if you're unhappy it's your own fault. So from grammar school we're taught to walk around with smiles on our faces all the time and every man seeing other men smiling hides a secret shame of his own happiness and his own inadequacy. Lately millions of people are wearing buttons with smiling faces. Perhaps it's too much for people to keep up the false smiles anymore. The best they can do is buy a painted on smile for a dime. I cannot and will not pretend to happiness any longer. I'm desperately unhappy and that's the source of the only strength I have. Revolution can only be made by desperate people who know the cause of their own happiness is an imperialist capitalist a racist and a human society. Desperation is necessary because we still desire and are taught to desire money power and sex even though we know they are useless. Well I know that all the remedies offered to me by society for

an end in happiness won't help. I want to live and I want to have a life worth living and the only way I'll ever achieve this is not by totally changing my own masculine personality my own patterns of behavior but by collectively struggling with others to create new ways of relating to each other and ultimately by creating a revolutionary community in which love is possible. Trust is possible. A community without winners or losers without successes without men. A community of people capable of joy and love. Such a thing isn't possible in America now. Capitalism imperialism and racism require predatory competitive emotionally armored men and submissive ornamental emotionally supportive women. The rulers of America understand this. They know we're dangerous and they won't let us alone. They won't let us go off to a farm somewhere and do our own thing. As soon as we start succeeding well enough to provide a visible alternative they'll destroy us and we must be prepared to survive their attacks. I'm fighting for my life because I know the society doesn't offer me a life worth living. If I fail I'll

die. So I've developed the politics of my sex life. First of all the whole idea of a sex life separated under different rules in real life has to go. My politics are to make a whole person of myself including sex to combine intellect and emotion. Weakness and strength masculine feminine and I don't know if I can do this just in my own head. The core of my humanity is found in my relationship with others and I can only recover that humanity in the context of loving human relationships. I can only struggle towards humanity if I can find other gay men with whom I want to create a new humanity. I think some of us have found each other and we've begun despite many mistakes failures and false starts but we must keep beginning again and trying again. There is no turning back because we're left with no alternatives no choices. Of course we never really had any choices in the first place. The only way we can go is forward pursued by the fire. We've leapt off the cliff. Michael will be missed by all of his friends.

I think. It's. Been such a big she never. Saw the sun. She didn't make friends but she's been in the Senate. And she's. Told over and not. Just.

This girl that I met a. Guy from NC. Yeah. Don't write us care of fruit punch care of KPFA Berkeley California 9 4 7 0 4. Now this is handy with Kevin Rowland and Guy and with Philip on the board. Wishing you good night. For sure.