Spiritual Kinship & Intentional Family
One of the special advantages a gay identity confers is kinship with other gay-identified persons all over the world. I consider ours a spiritual kinship because it transcends biological, national, ethnic, and socio-economic boundaries. As Homo sapiens we are all distantly related, of course, but we normally trace our biological kinship only as far back as familial memory or historical records permit. While some of us may lament the lack of biological offspring as a common consequence of choosing to honor our same-sex attractions, many more may celebrate our freedom from the financial and emotional costs of rearing children. Not only can we choose to remain free from the burdens of biological family, but we are also free to form our own intentional families, including sons or dads, if desired, by choosing relationships with individuals based on genuinely shared values, interests, and aspirations.
Any gay man who has traveled to other countries, even to those that may seem utterly remote culturally and geographically, will quickly discover with minimal effort members of our far-flung gay family eager to welcome foreign brothers into their world. I lived for two-and-a-half years in India in my late teens and early twenties, and I remember being surprised and amused to find gay men in parks from Banaras to New Delhi easy to detect using my American gaydar. Although gay men in traditional cultures such as in South Asia or in the Middle East typically experience irresistible pressure from their parents to marry, and therefore conduct their same-sex relationships discretely, at the same time the societal denial of the existence of homosexuality in these cultures is often so extreme, closeted gay men can easily hide in plain sight, as long as their appearance and public behavior is not flagrantly stereotypical. Add to this the normalcy in these cultures of kissing, hugging, hand holding, and other forms of public male affection, and a masculine-identified gay man in India or Syria could well experience more practical freedom in his day-to-day life than those of us who live in a country where the fear of being perceived as homosexual is so extreme it sometimes prevents fathers from hugging their sons, as happened to me when I turned twelve or so.
I think I cannot be alone among gay men in having often felt as a child that I must have been adopted because I seemed to have so little in common with my biological family. I couldn’t wait to move out when it was time for college, and except for one brief, miserable period when I moved back in with my parents while I was between jobs, I have not lived with them ever since. I rarely attend family events, such as holiday dinners, unless I can take gay “allies,” a lover or friend, with me. It’s not that my family has been hostile toward me as a gay man—indeed, even my sister’s family, the Mormons, are completely nonchalant when I appear with a boyfriend at family gatherings—but I often have little to talk with them about, our interests being so divergent, there seems little point to the visit.
I consider family important to me, nevertheless, but I experience my intentional family, my close friends and roommate of nine years, as more truly my loving support system than my biological family. This fact first became starkly obvious to me in the 90s when I was suffering AIDS-related illnesses that occasionally lead to hospitalization. My parents came to visit once or twice, but my lover at the time was there in the hospital every day without fail, and he always brought something to cheer me up—a stuffed animal or favorite food. He alone wiped my butt when I was too sick to do it for myself, and my gay friends were the only ones who rallied around to support me through those difficult years. Each new relationship potentially adds to the family, and I can envision one day sharing a large residence with some or all of them, if that seems like a step we want to take at some point. I have long believed that being gay is more about expanded awareness and opportunities than about being denied or incapable of anything, except legal marriage for some of us for now. As we gain that important right, our intentional families will finally have some of the same recognition and protection that het families have long enjoyed. Until then we can enjoy our worldwide gay family and appreciate one of the special advantages of being gay.
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Comments
Good article...although my experience has been slightly different. I've aways had supportive straight friends and the majority of my friends still is straight - and we have so much in common, be it certain music, freestyle sports, offbeat humor...I did and do not always feel welcome in some gay crowds because of a lack of shared interests and hobbies. Nevertheless, I'm proud of who I am and will continue to fight for gay acceptance - but also for acceptance within the community.
Great stuff William...again.
From a spiritual perspective (which doesn't acknowledge sexuality or gender), there are infinite possibilities for familial connections with our gay brothers as well as our straight brothers. Whether or not we're able to acknowledge it and act on it, we are gifted with healthy and/or unhealthy "gaydar". The former being about unconditional loving and strength - the latter being about projection, fear, shame, guilt, denial etc.
The great gay journalist Kurt Wolfe can always leave any mouthy "gay community" luminary stuck for words by asking one simple question: "Is there more to being gay than sex?" But to be able to recognize a brother-in-spirit - and share apparently superficial "gay zeigeist" stuff like Judy Garland - is central to our real spiritual purpose inasmuch as "our own kind" is often more obviously real than the circumstances of our birth or upbringing. It is as much a fact as anything else we hold to be real in our lives.
At the onset of AIDS I said: "There will be fewer gay men, but better gay men". And for a while it appeared to be so - as the men who attended William in his darker days attest. Men who loved and served without an agenda, and more importantly with no fear of the consequences. But that correctly-working familial "gaydar" was soon overshadowed by the darker (and more fearful) other side of the coin: "Put a condom on - the next brother you sleep with is your potential killer!" And thirty years on we can see what a massive flop THAT "education" response and philosophy has been because our "sons" are having their lives artificially extended (while their teeth fall out) by drugs which are barely able to manage the disease, let alone cure it. It's time to move on from all that bullshit thinking, and look at things from a saner perspective which may create outcomes which actually work.
Only a fool would say we're currently on the right track, and that we're part of a strong, healthy and functional family. Each of us however has the capacity to grasp kinship and apply it specifically to our gay brothers, and then generally to the world around us. Each of us has the ability to say "I love him and it doesn't matter whether I find him sexually attractive or not". Each of us has a vision of how truly better our lives and the lives of others can be. Herein lies our real power: it's not egotistic to imagine yourself and your gay brothers leading the world with strength to a better place - it could very well be the dream job that the universe has already assigned to you. More power to you - accept it with humility and you will have great success.
What William calls "expanded awareness" is indeed more important and infinitely more powerful than the perceived lacks we experience in our lives, and claim to see all around us. If we imagine being gay to be a curse then that's exactly what it will be. But if we simply change our collective mind and tap into the idea that being part of the gay family is a spectacular opportunity to shift the world on its axis then we may find ourselves rightfully at the top of the heap, rather than the bottom.
Spiritual Kinship & Intentional Family (community) has been a focus of my life for the past several years. Both William and Rick make very good points. I, too, believe that we as gay men have something unique and important to share with the rest of humanity, and considering the severity of current global issues, it's time we show the world a different standard of living for the 21st century.
Humans are social animals. Our history comprises thousands of years of living in small groups - families, clans, tribes, etc. One-hundred and fifty years ago that began to change. The Industrial Revolution encouraged folks to leave the family farm for the factory, the introduction of the telephone and the automobile encouraged greater distance between family members, and the myth of the "rugged individualist" encouraged further erosion of our communal ties. These are relatively recent developments and I don't think we're handling them well. Our social evolution has not kept pace with our technological advances, and we continue to separate ourselves from the natural environment with disastrous results.
It's time for social evolution. If we want to survive successfully in the future, we must embrace our animal nature, our re-integration with the physical world and our communal past. I believe we can lead the way.
I dig it, but I think it's a step backwards to portray having a biological family of our own in such a dour manner. I'm only 24, but a part of me believes I'll never actually be truly complete until I've had to pass through those burdens. It's hard to see building a family mostly portrayed as a weight, neglecting to mention the joy that can come of it.
I'm also not sure I buy this "gay brotherhood" stuff. Like an earlier poster, I have a ton of straight friends who are my brothers and sisters as well. We all live, love, bleed, gasp, and die. We are the human condition. Who cares what side of the road our dick flops?
Dear Monkey Mantra:
Bravo. I'm 58, and I'm not sure I guy this "gay brotherhood" stuff, either. Some of my keenest wounds have been from other gay men. The "unity" that comes from having a common enemy, which is what so much of gay activism and its consequent "gay solidarity" seem derived from, is for me no unity at all, because it's rooted in fear. Thanks for your courageous share.
Rand
Great article and interesting website.
Great article!!
Family is for some of us, sometimes where you find them, they come into your life for a reason, then gone too... however it happens, a couple of years or even decades if you are so blessed to have each other that long and I have; but they're dead now, mostly. The friends I have now are straight black females. One gay friend left he's my oldest living friend of 28yrs.
Now, the Floridian way of making gay friends is to have sex with them first, lol, I find that too juvenile, so needless to say, in the 6yrs I've been here, I'v made no new gay friends, there more like vampires here, don't know about any place else. But largely I don't find as much of the family thing in the gay community, we don't embrace lesbians either as sista's and we really should...but I realize that goes back to the gender issues mostly.
Then there's the colour issues, lol, too many white gay folks don't see themselves as minorities because that would put you on par with us folks of deeper hues, lol, and you most certainly are like it or not and you mostly don't (denial) on the other hand, if I were brainwashed with the "Pathology of White," I wouldn't either. We stand too far apart from each other to be part of one another, I found this to be true in Minnesota, my home State, NYC of 4yrs, and now Ft. Laud/Miami. Just like the rest of Amer., we're not really all that united in our States now are we? I think the last decade prooved that point...Oh, then there's the "class issues too.
I'm sure you meant disfunctional family though, right?
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