So here is raised again the question about why there's no gay sex in the movies, the main answer being "haha studios, obviously, they're total wusses." But the call is also coming from inside the big, dumb, gay house: in particular, the big dumb gay house named Dustin Lance Black, who is the writer, most recently, of the abominable and terribly, ridiculously bad J. Edgar.
Black, who won an Oscar for his Milk screenplay, says that a love scene would have been too revisionist historically. “I certainly didn’t want to see J. Edgar doing it,” says Black, who is gay. “In the 1930s, oftentimes, a loving relationship with gay men was never consummated.”It... I'm sorry? Say what? I think I'm trying to understand his point but all I can hear is every gay studies professor crapping his pants with laughter. Yes but wait, etc., there's more.
“Here’s my thing with gay sex,” Dustin Lance Black says. “In terms of sex, we get plenty of that every day in our own lives and thrown on the Internet. I feel like what I’m really interested in is gay romance.”So at least we know who the dumbest Oscar winner since Charlton Heston is. We hereby sentence old DLB to read Love Stories: Sex Between Men Before Homosexuality, for starters.
or the gay metropolis. or this new book, eminent outlaws, thats otherwise clunky and boring but at least has a few good stories, like that time gore vidal took truman capote to the everard baths. in 1945.
Remember when those sex tape photos of his were released and everyone was all upset about it? Oh well.
@LolCait Aroused, upset ..
@LolCait Yay!
You really couldn't get more Victorian backwards bullshit hetero than referring to fucking as "consummating" a relationship.
@lempha Is that better or worse than "fornicating"?
@boyofdestiny 'fornicate' is at least funny
@lempha I'll still take that over "making love."
@Mr. B Eh, but 'making love' doesn't come with a built-in virgin/procreation-fetish! It's just kinda gross?
@lempha Huh. And all this time I thought consummation was just a handy word for two horny people doing it for the first time.
@lempha I like "fornicate." I would take a funicular to fornicate face-to-face with a falconet.
Yeah, because romance and bonetown are two separate lands we must choose between.
Every generation thinks they are the first to discover sex. I'm sure there are some Greek philosophers willing to refute his thesis.
@Pop Socket Seriously, I've seen the potsherds to prove it!
No where in the article does Black say that gay sex was invented in the 40s. Hes just saying gay men (& straight people for that matter) conducted themselves differently before then.
@Lo Haze@twitter Which is not true. So!
@deepomega True or not, it is his opinion, which the media of that time reflects and doesnt change the FACT that the headline is an outright lie.
@Lo Haze@twitter: Haha. OK.
@Lo Haze@twitter Just FYI, since you're new: When you +1 your own comments ... we know.
Best book I read in college!
So Oscar Wilde was on trial for just being a creeper.
"Ugh, he was just...looking at me, and I was just trying to have a drink. Can't you put him in jail or something?"
@HiredGoons Oscar Wilde was in prison for being a lousy lay. He just laid there like a starfish bottom.
@Lo Haze@twitter The Impotence Of Being Earnest
@HiredGoons : Obligatory link to Hark, a Vagrant.
THANK YOU.
This post is ridiculous. With respect to J. Edgar Hoover, Black is likely correct. J. Edgar Hoover was an EXTREMELY sexually repressed, paranoid, homophobic individual who was obsessed with his public image. The guy was a fascist nutcase who likely never had sex with his lifelong gay partner. This is what in part makes him fascinating. It also is what made him susceptible to blackmail by La Cosa Nostra.
Black never claims gay sex did not exist in the 1930's, but says "oftentimes" male partners, especially repressed paranoids such as J.Edgar, never consummated their relationships.
The historic revisionism that Black refers to is with respect to J. Edgar Hoover's particular sexual behavior, not gays in general. The Drudge siren histrionics are completely off base here.
@Lockheed Ventura Thank you
@Lo Haze@twitter How is it possibly arguable that "oftentimes" men will not have sex as opposed to having sex? Men will always - not often, not usually, certainly not rarely to never - have sex.
@Brian
The course of true love ever did run smooth?
George Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 (New York, 1994).
http://www.amazon.com/Gay-New-York-Culture-1890-1940/dp/0465026214
His remark is ignorant. Bizarre, even. He'd have been better off saying that J. Edgar wasn't gay in the normal sense of the word.
The word that upsets me most is "oftentimes." Is that wrong?
@C_Webb
No, you are so right! And the "oftentimes" is particularly offensive, unnecessary and weird with a negative (shudder!).
How does one "oftentimes never" do something?
@Tulletilsynet It probably happens irregardless of being nonsense, I imagine.
These words are right up there with "societal" for me. But then, I'm counting the Oscars on my mantel, and I've got ... wait a minute ... none. No mantel, either. Sigh.
@C_Webb
You've always got Hilary Mantel.
But is J. Edgar really that terrible? I haven't seen it yet, but I'm still guessing that as a Leo vehicle it's got to be way better than Gatsby. No?
He's awfully handsome, though.
@barnhouse Right? I wonder if he has a girlfriend!
@barnhouse If I were a lesbian I'd do Dustin Lance Black.
I assume you use the phrase "screenwriter" to describe DLB only in the loosest of ways: Ron Nyswaner is widely credited with the "rewrite" that won DLB his Oscar. The fact that J. Edgar is so so dreadful, might have something more to do with the fact that DLB's "triumph" was something of a strawman's.
Also, DLB's "romance" can really be read as code for more gay marriage propaganda - nothing against gay marriage ie., b.c. of "morality" - but as conceived of by rich, white bois like DLB, its basis in elitism is what's more offensive. The value of "marriage" for people like DLB is that married people get privileges like health insurance whereas the rest of us can go fuck ourselves - romantically, that is
@gloriawondrous I like you.
@gloriawondrous Please don’t play the rich-white-boy card. Nonwhites and poors can avail themselves of what you Americans insist on calling gay marriage.
@ Chiore: He said "oftentimes" or did you miss that? And it's very true! He never said gay sex was invented any time and that's a ridiculous position to take. The nearly unimaginable repression somebody like Hoover must have engaged in, the self-denial & self-deception, it's entirely believable actually. If you read enough memoirs of gay life in the early 20th century you find a lot of references to unconsummated love. Even the uber-flaming Kenneth Williams of Carry On fame was so disgusted by his own homosexuality that he was a life-long celibate. And I don't know what your orientation is, but his line about gays being innundated with sex at the expense of romance is very true. In other words, lighten up and leave the snark for people who are more worth it, and for whom you have something to back it up.
@ joeclark: Thank you.