Daddies Posts

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.

Edwin Cameron, openly gay and HIV positive, has been appointed as a judge to the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the highest court in that Nation.   Judge Cameron becomes the first openly gay man or woman ever appointed to any nation's highest court.  The appointment came from South African President Mothlanthe on Wednesday.

A former Rhodes Scholar and human rights lawyer, Judge Cameron is the co-author of several books, including Witness to AIDS, a memoir on his experiences as a person living with AIDS.

Last summer, Judge Cameron addressed the International AIDS Conference in Mexico, arguing that homosexual sexual conduct should be decriminalized throughout the world, as a necessary step in fighting AIDS.  He elaborated the argument in a scholarly paper co-authored withwith Scott Burris.

We're always thrilled here at DaddyHunt when another mature gay man opens a new door for the rest of us.  Let's hope we see more gay men and women leading our world courts (and legistures and countries) soon.

You know what’s great about Sean Connery … aside from everything, I mean? He’s got that unbearably smooth cool thing, that burly roughness thing, and that seething ferocity thing going for him and they’re all good. Incredibly good, I grant you, but that's not what’s truly great about the Scottish actor who's been on stage and screen since the 50s.

What’s great about Connery, Sean Connery, is that no matter his age, he projects a wonderful daddy-thing.  Even when he was clumsy and gawky in (shudder) Darby O'Gill and the Little People, he had this smoky primal thing going on.  Yeah he looked like his voice might have just broken but even then you knew that he’d be the one slapping you on the back while you sipped a pint at the bar, or the one playfully wrestling you for the check when it was time to drunkenly stumble home.

Even during the years he was shaking-not-stirring his martinis, he had a dark edge, an almost brutal dynamism. You could still see that there was a playfulness there, though; a rough and tumble kind of fun streak. You could see him horsing around with the stunt guys, trading rude jokes with the extras, and leading the bit players in drinking games. 

Mr. Connery exudes class and a kind of burly elegance, but more than that there’s a realism he always brings to whatever he does.  It’s there in The Man Who Would Be King, there in Murder on The Orient Express, there in The Molly Maguires, and even in the surreal weirdness of Zardoz (where he spent most of the film in a very weird, and hot, outfit): a presence that’s fifty percent brilliant actor and fifty percent Sean Connery just being his usual down-to-earth, just-one-of-the-guys, self.

And he’s gotten better as he’s gotten older.  He still has that rough edge, that punch-you-in-the-shoulder manliness but he’s also developed an even more (if that’s possible) fatherly aspect.  Yeah, you could see the 60s and 70s Connery as the perfect daddy but also one that might be as much a competitor as a kind hand and a sweet touch. But the 80s, 90s and current Sean has become a real dad, a true father figure.

Just look at him in The Hunt for Red October. Here's a Soviet sub captain with a thick Scottish accent, acting like a mighty king and a powerful leader, but there’s also a tenderness as well, a caring for the men under his command.  Watching him, you also want to follow him wherever he goes because you know he won’t just get you there – he'll care that he got you there safe and sound.

It’s no surprise Mr. Connery has become a fantasy for so many. I hear even the ladies like him...  Seeing him on the screen, or even just a casual snapshot, you can too easily see him as the daddy you’ve always wanted: a firm but lovable, rough but caring, down-to-earth but carefully sensitive guy you could turn to for a good time or just be with and know – like with all good fathers – that you’re loved and cared for.