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icon5.gif Small communities  [message #71528] Sun, 08 May 2016 20:39 Go to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739



Do you ever look at documentaries about small, old communities and wonder how the homosexual kid fared?



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: Small communities  [message #71529 is a reply to message #71528] Sun, 08 May 2016 21:29 Go to previous messageGo to next message
NW is currently offline  NW

On fire!
Location: Worcester, England
Registered: January 2005
Messages: 1558



Not terribly much.

I grew up in what was in many ways a small community - a hamlet in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds. The kind of place where our next door neighbour was born in the house we lived in, and moved next door with  husband when she got married. She'd never been more than fifteen miles from home. Oh, it was different for my generation, of course, but enough of the old ways survived for me to understand a bit about them. And, however much there may have been vocal condemnation of "queers", the two old men living together were totally accepted ... It was just one of those things, as they'd been in the army together.

I think a lot of the apparent homophobia of small and inward-looking communities was probably tempered by knowing (and having grown up with) the individuals concerned, and the community as a collective acknowledging a relationship while closing its eyes to any sexual element. In small communities, everyone is to some extent reliant on everyone else, after all.



"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
Re: Small communities  [message #71536 is a reply to message #71529] Mon, 09 May 2016 13:21 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13739



I accept that, and the two old men, bit how does the 16 year old gay boy or girl find a soulmate in that community in that rea?



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: Small communities  [message #71540 is a reply to message #71536] Mon, 09 May 2016 21:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ChrisR is currently offline  ChrisR

Likes it here
Location: Western US
Registered: October 2014
Messages: 136



Perhaps it is best captured by Thoreau's oft-misquoted line from Walden: The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

In small, tight-knit, often rumor-millish communities there is little enough likelihood of safely encountering another gay male of one's own age, let alone a number of candidates from whom one might select and then build a long-term relationship. This fact, as well as outright ostracism for many young people, drives the exodus to big cities in search of something simply un-findable at home. Even in the best and most accepting home and community it is going to be challenging.
Re: Small communities  [message #71543 is a reply to message #71528] Tue, 10 May 2016 17:09 Go to previous messageGo to next message
solsticeman is currently offline  solsticeman

Likes it here

Registered: November 2012
Messages: 109



This is almost the theme of my story, Shades of Gray, or at least the underlying theme.

http://iomfats.org/storyshelf/hosted/solsticeman/shades-of-g ray/01.html

The basic thought was that in those days, late 1950s, there were no gays in the village. Not a single one.

Obviously they were there somewhere, but nowhere a 15yo boy, aware of what clues he was looking for would have seen.

At one point in the story, the two lovebirds spy on a pair of elderly men trysting on the moors, and the more sensitive boy runs off crying and asking "Is this all there is?" His friend sums their situation up as "better this than nothing at all"

So as I have said a few times, gay marriage still feels odd to me, but I support it whole heartedly because I can remember when a gay man's lot was a life of unending loneliness

Every now and then I see a pair of boys holding hands and it gives me such a warm fuzzy feeling
Re: Small communities  [message #71549 is a reply to message #71536] Thu, 12 May 2016 10:22 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Ray is currently offline  Ray

Getting started
Location: Sydney, Australia
Registered: July 2014
Messages: 26



Well, in the small community I grew up in (1970s) the answer was no.

There was the boy the others thought (pretended?) was gay, but there was no joy to be had there. He was just a good mimic of camp TV personalities. Serious error - cost me a lot of emotional grief.
I ended up frustrated in my search - thwarted by non-gay boys who were prepared to give it a go, chewed me up and spat me out. They called gays "one in a million", which was not very encouraging to a young boy on the search. I wasn't stupid - that was 60 in the UK - or was I? No, just blisslessly ignorant.

I was glad I was out of there, but it was poor preparation for the city, where I was chewed up again by real gay boys (city boys), whose interest was in green country boys with little experience (yum yum), who they could trick into things he didn't want (and didn't expect). Fuck it - I am best out of there.

Things could only get better, else I wouldn't  be here to report it - I almost wasn't.
Re: Small communities  [message #71606 is a reply to message #71549] Sun, 22 May 2016 03:05 Go to previous message
The Gay Deceiver is currently offline  The Gay Deceiver

Really getting into it
Location: Canada
Registered: December 2003
Messages: 869




I Ray, for one of many I'm sure, am simply glad that you are.




"... comme recherché qu'un délice callipygian"
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