\input zine.sty

\font\dec=cmssq8
\def\decl{\vskip\parskip
    \parindent10pt\narrower\obeylines
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\def\header#1{\bigskip\lline{\bf#1}\vskip\parskip}

\lline{\hl DON'T BE GAY, OR,}
\lline{\hl HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND FUCK PUNK UP THE
ASS}
\vskip\parskip

\lline{by G.B. Jones (dyke division) and Bruce LaBruce (fag
division)}
\lline{for the New Lavender Panthers}
\vskip\parskip

\begindoublecolumns

{\it [This article appeared in MAXIMUMROCKNROLL Feb. 89, for the
sexuality issue (the best ever MRR issue). The response was\dots
underwhelming. It ain't a problem with the article. You figure it
out. Reprinted without permission. -- tj]}

\header{HAS PUNK FAILED?}

As part of our preparation for this article, and included in the
latest issue of JD's {[\it \#4? \#3? -- tj]}, our homocore
fanzine, we devised a questionnaire on the subject of gays and
punks. Question number six implored you to go to the dictionary
and look up ``punk'' too see if you'd feel any different
afterwards.

{\decl
\item{Q:} Go to the dictionary. Look up "punk". Did you do it?
Honest? Did you feel any different?

\vskip4pt
\item{A:} No, I don't feel any different, just smarter.
\indent -- Jane Guskin / YEASTIE GIRLZ
\vskip4pt

\indent I don't own a dictionary.
\indent -- Gerard "Conflict" Cosloy
\vskip4pt

\indent What was the purpose of that?
\indent -- Marc Rentzer / LETCH PATROL
\vskip4pt

\indent No, I didn't do it, because I don't have a dictionary
"handy".
\indent -- anonymous wimp
}

\vskip\parskip

If you weren't too busy, and you managed to find it, here's the
definition of punk that might have confronted you:

{\decl
punk (pungk) slang. noun. 1. An inexperienced or 
callow youth. 2. A young tough. 3. A passive homo-
sexual, or catamite.
}

(If you {\it really} did your homework, you would've discovered
that punk is also an archaic word for dried wood used for tinder,
the original meaning of the word ``faggot'' as well. Homosexuals,
witches, criminals, all denounced as enemies of the state, were
once burned at the stake. The word for the material used to set
them on fire became another name for the victims themselves. It's
no accident that ``punk'' and ``faggot'' have a similar root.)


Whaddyaknow. Punks are fags, too. Better start worrying now. Long
before `punk' meant mohawks and MAXIMUMROCKNROLL, young boys were
being `turned out' in jail (recruited to serve other prisoners'
sexual desires) and labeled `punks' (``I punked the kid'').
Displaying homemade tattoos and a distaste for authority, these
original punks, many of them delinquent minors imprisoned for
breaking society's rules, became, on the inside, {\it sexual}
outlaws as well. This was {\it the} point of identification for
the early `punk rockers' who emerged in the mid-seventies,
explicitly playing out the role of `the punk' in dress, attitude,
and the rejection of social norms. This stance {\it obviously}
included sexual delinquency -- looking for {\it bad} trouble by,
for example, acting like 42nd Street hustlers (Dee Dee Ramone,
Patti Smith, among others, in the U.S.) or wearing a t-shirt with
two guys fucking on it (Sid and Johnny in the U.K.).

{\decl

\item{Q:} Has anybody ever called you a fag or dyke because you
are a punk?

\vskip4pt
\item{A:} Yes! Yeastie Girls get called dykes all the time.
\indent -- Jane Guskin
\vskip4pt

\indent Yes, but because I was a \underbar{real} punk.
\indent -- anonymous wimp
\vskip4pt

\indent Yeah, and then she asked me for some lipstick.
\indent -- Jim
\vskip4pt

\indent Yes.
\indent -- Lawrence Livermore / LOOKOUT
\vskip4pt
}
\vskip\parskip

The phenomenon of a highly visible and disruptive subculture
looking sexually deviant and seeming to behave that way has
proven an effective weapon against institutions that attempt to
control and contain personal identity and sexual freedom. So what
does it mean when someone calls you a fag or dyke? Society
considers you as outside of its restraints and controls, and that
your protest must extend to sexual behavior as well. The next
time someone calls you queer, consider the implications. Maybe
you've got them right where you want them.

Early punks, and, judging from our questionnaire, some punks
still today, fuck around with people's conservative notions about
sex roles. But as a `movement', it doesn't seem like punk has
clued in to the idea of using sex as a strategy for promoting
change. So the obvious question {\it we're} asking is:

\header{What is the Failure of Punk?}

Let's face it. Going to most punk shows today is lot like going
to the average fag bar (MIGHTY SPHINCTER notwithstanding): all
you see is big macho `dudes' in leather jackets and jeans
parading around the dance floor/pit, manhandling each other's
sweaty bodies in proud display. The only difference is that at
the fag bar, females have been almost completely banished, while
at the punk club, they've just been relegated to the periphery,
but allowed a pretense of participation (ie. girlfriend, groupie,
go-fer, or post-show pussy). In this highly masculinized world,
the focus is doubly male, the boys on stage controlling the
`meaning' of the event (the style of music, political message,
etc), and the boys in the pit determining the extent of the
exchange between audience and performer. And where does this
leave the rest? `Wimpy' boys, with glasses, maybe, who can't
compete, or girls who aren't exactly encouraged to participate?
Unless, of course, they're willing to take a stand against `all
that macho crap'. (There are of course exceptions to the male
rule: girl bands or bands that include women as equal
participants, or bands like the CRUCIFUCKS and the RYTHYM PIGS
who pointedly criticize macho behavior during shows.)

The gay `movement' as it exists now is a big farce, and we have
nothing else to say about it, so we won't say anything at all,
except that, ironically, it fails most miserably where it should
be the most progressive -- in its sexual politics. Specifically,
there is a segregation of the sexes where unity should exist, a
veiled misogyny which privileges fag culture over dyke, and a
fear of the expression of femininity which has lead to the
gruesome phenomenon of the ``straight-acting'' gay male. But
subversive gay boys and girls who expected to find in punk an
alternative to a stagnant culture find themselves largely
disappointed and unwelcome. So our next question is:

\header{Have Gays and Punks Been Coopted?}

Gay youths are abandoning the gay establishment because it's been
`co-opted'. Threatened by subcultures that challenge and question
its basic principles, the dominant ideology, comprised of those
ideals and values we are expected to follow and accept as natural
and inevitable, allows these miscontents to present their protest
well within its boundaries. Under the headings of ``democracy'',
``pluralism'', and ``liberalism'', society presents each `radical
subculture' as one of several alternatives, albeit more
`theatrical', in an array of `lifestyles' to choose from.
Accepting this illusion of freedom the subculture lapses into
complacency and loses impetus, becoming increasingly
indistinguishable from that which it originally stood in
opposition to. The homosexual subculture provides a perfect
example of cooption. Presented with a facile freedom that offers
gay bars, discos, and fashion within a `gay ghetto', a radical
option sanctioned by and contained within normalcy becomes the
only concession to liberation.

Society has long recognized `punk'' as a viable commodity to be
copied, incorporated, and sensationalized. Although not yet
`ghettoized' to the extent of gay culture (maintaining a more
nomadic edge), punks must constantly be wary of society's
attempts to reduce their protest merely to fashion, the
representation of the `radical' as `hip' new product to be
consumed. One way to avoid such cooption is to present a movement
that refuses to conform to the standards of sexual decency and
moral conduct expected of even the most rebellious of youths,
while avoiding the mistakes of the gay movement: ghettoization,
liberal reform, class capitulation. And that's what homocore,
coming out of the pages of a gay softcore pornography fanzine for
punks, is all about.

\header{Androgyny vs. the King and Queen of Punk}

If the early punk movement sought to break down sex/gender
restrictions, its more exciting performers were the best
examples. Patti Smith's initial image, decked out in leather
jacket, man's shirt and tie, jeans, and wrestling boots, set the
standard. NERVOUS GENDER, CATHOLIC DISCIPLINE, and THE DICKS
consciously played out gender-fuck; Siouxie Sioux included love
songs to women in the BANSHEE's sets (``Christine'', ``Dear
Prudence''). Women were talking to other women via songs, not
mediated by their relationship to men, but directed against
society, and their position within it. As the BUZZCOCKS and X-RAY
SPECS protested rigid roles in relationship to sex, the style of
the day attempted the same critique, with couples on the end of
each others' dog leashes, bondage clothes -- fetish items that
were eventually absorbed by the fashion industry as ``new wave''
and made ``marketable''. Hardcore, more conscious of the power of
cooption, has limited itself to a kind of unisex uniform -- band
t-shirt, motorcycle or army boots, jeans (braces optional) -- in
its attempt to avoid this trap, but in so doing, have
`deradicalized' the earlier overtures towards sexual revolution.
A common complaint today is that most punk boys date girls who
are more rigidly sex-role-defined as sexy or girlish. For those
girls who refuse to define themselves that way, the message
behind their image, more often than not, is one of aping their
boyfriends in the limited vocabulary of hardcore `style'. Or the
girl is dismissed as not `valuable' to men as sex object, fetish
object, or participant in their `scene'. Either way she loses.

\header{Lydia for Lunch}

Lydia Lunch is a prime example of this phenomenon (or worst). The
queen of transgression herself cannot seem to grasp how miserably
her entire project has failed. 

(Open footnote to L. Lunch: Dear Lydia; we all have fond memories
of those TEENAGE JESUS days, but of course we couldn't expect you
to stand in one spot and yell ``Orphans In The Storm'' forever.
Perhaps it's the people around you, the inevitable hangers-on.
Lydia, please, take a long hard look at what's happened. It's
never too late. We know you don't really want to be a public
joke. Act now.)

A devotee of the `fuck-pig' school of punk, Lunch, dressed like a
Penthouse punk fantasy, squeals, moans, and whines abusively on
the various records produced by her various boyfriends. Real
protest is replaced by petty diatribes against her latest
paramour, playing into the male desire to confront an aggressive,
enraged woman, and conquer her, as she has been so often in the
past (ie.~``Right Side of My Brain''). Like a used Kleenex, Lunch
discards one image of the damaged woman to move on to the next.
Her ``pro-sex'' (read ``pro-abuse'') anti-censorship stance is
easily canceled out by her image of powerlessness and
ineffectuality. As with the PANDORAS, `men' line the stage to
ogle her breasts and buttocks while Lunch protests about the
same. Attempting to present abusive male power over women as
spectacle, she creates no distance between a woman being abused
and the representation of this. While the male performer's
sexuality is allowed to remain implicit, the female performer's
must be explicit, typified by Lunch, who consistently plays into
this unspoken but widely accepted prerequisite.

But wait! Lydia's scruntiness doesn't stop there? She also
legitimizes the boys' outdated position as male spectator by
bestowing on them the luxury of using political rhetoric to
uphold the correctness of her `pro-sex' position. Defending her
on `political' grounds, the boys relish the opportunity to
sustain the tired positions of voyeur and female sex object,
allowing them to have their Lunch and eat it, too.

Hiding behind the sanctified purity of `art' or `performance art'
lends Lydia's act a touch of class, which is somehow supposed to
raise her above the sex-trade worker of 42nd Street. Why she
feels it necessary to elevate herself above prostitution, which
is, at least, an honest profession, especially when compared to
that of the artist, remains a mystery. Naturally, we couldn't
care in the least if people are involved in explicit sexual
representation (after all, we're pornographers ourselves), as
long as it doesn't mirror the oppressive and entrenched value
system of culture at large.

\header{Gee, that G.G.'s Such a Punk!}

\lline{``Smart money says he won't live past 1987.''}
\lline{Gerard Cosloy}
\vskip\parskip

Well, it looks like Mr. Cosloy's big money loss is everyone's
loss, as G.G. Allin `limps' through another year. The male Lydia
Lunch in the fuck-pig tradition has become the newest punk rock
star, but when you're number two, you have to try harder. You
have to go a little bit further. Assuming that the most radical
position is the most excessive, Allin masturbates, gets blown,
and attacks women during his show, the act as proof of his
virility -- he'll fuck anything. Homosexual behavior becomes one
in an array of disgusting acts intended to reinforce his stature
as king of the slag heap. As in biker culture, when two men deep
tongue kiss to demonstrate how fearless and macho they are, G.G.
Allin presents this abnormality as one of a continuing series of
abuses to be endured, proving that real men must get their rocks
off at all costs -- any hole will do. What Mr. Allin doesn't
realize is that showing affection to the same sex is a much more
alarming and revolutionary gesture. If two same-sex couples were
to kiss in the pit, believe you me, the reaction to the crowd
would be much more violent and intense than the spectacle of G.G.
Allin allowing some poor sap to give him a blow-job on stage.
G.G.'s such a punk.

\header{The Royal Scam}

If Lydia would be queen and G.G. king, then these two extremes,
symbolizing male/female sex roles within hardcore, pathetically
mirror straight society's options. This reactionary response
signals a further cooption of punk. As a movement, it begins to
imitate a repressive society, one that abhors homosexuality and
insists on heterosexual coupling, an entrenched institution, as
it exists, that empowers the male, as hypermasculine aggressor,
while debilitating the female, as victim.

\vskip\parskip
\centerline{* * * * *}

\header{A Riddle}

{\decl
\item{Q:} How do you tell if your roommate is gay?
\item{A:} His cock tastes like shit.
}
\vskip\parskip

In a recent letter to MAXIMUMROCKNROLL (\#64), a punk/homo wrote
in a minor diatribe about the virtues of being a 
straight-looking, straight-acting gay male seeking same. This
apologist for the ``mundane'' moralizes against the unsavory
practices of male homosexuals, preferring to remain invisible and
inoffensive to straight society. The male fear of femininity
rears its ugly head once more as the writer expresses disgust at
the ``flexed wrist'' and ``pouting lips'' of the ``disgusting
homo routine some fags like to play'', finding it ``disgusting as
most straights do''. ``Most gays'', he concludes, ``aren't the
raging butt-rangers you think they are''. Oh no? The New Lavender
Panthers (male contingent) would like it to be known that not
only do they consider themselves butt-rangers, but also 
bum-chums, turd-burglars, knob-gobblers, cocksuckers, and
gaylords, while the girls are well-known diesel-dykes, baby
butches, and lezbo killer whores. In other words, fuck sexual
conformity. The writer complains about fag-bashing, forgetting
that the victims are usually the kind of people that he himself
describes as loathsome. In another gay letter in issue \#64 the
(non-gay) writer realizes that it's the most visible and vocal
members of marginalized society that bear the brunt of the
attacks of the moral majority: ``Ain't life hell when those
oppressed minorities start acting sassy'' he writes.

If apologist fags choose to live drab, uneventful, 
straight-looking lives, that's their choice, BUT! assuming a
disapproving position towards sodomy (with condoms, of course),
promiscuous activity (safe sex rules!), and non-straight-acting
behavior plays right into the tactic of mainstream culture
promoting division within insurrectionary movements. So we'll
leave you with these thoughts on the matter:

{\decl
There's a faggot in the family
I don't know what to do
There's a faggot in the family
He's not like me and you
There's a faggot in the family
If Grandma only knew
(Wow man, how embarrassing,
what would my friends say.)
\vskip4pt
\indent -- from ``Faggot In The Family'' / ARYAN DISGRACE
}
\dots and\dots 

{\decl
I love him, I love him, I love him
And when he comes I'll swallow, I'll swallow, I'll swallow
And that's because I love him, I love him, I love him
And when he comes I'll swallow, I'll swallow, I'll swallow
And that's because I love him
\vskip4pt
\indent -- from ``Nips Get Pissed'' / NIP DRIVERS
}


\header{H*O*M*O*P*H*O*B*I*A}

{\decl
\item{Q:} Have you ever participated in a queer-bashing incident?

\vskip4pt
\item{A:} I tried to foment lynch mobs to take vengeance for 
fag-bashing.
\indent -- Brosquin Rewde
\vskip4pt

\indent The other day I hit myself in the face with my yo-yo.
\indent -- Donna Dresch
\vskip4pt

\indent When I was 16, my gang went downtown to beat up
queers but we never found any and I was just as glad 
of it.
\indent -- Lawrence Livermore
\vskip4pt
}
\vskip\parskip

There's a lot to say on the subject of homophobia, but why not
just listen to the J.D.s Top Twenty Hit Parade song by UGLY
AMERICANS:

{\decl
Let's beat up some faggots
'Cause they really make me sick
We all know it's a mans's world
And real men don't eat dick
No way!
\vskip\baselineskip
I know some funny AIDS jokes
They make me laugh like hell!
And if you don't like niggers too
I'll tell you a few about Sickle Cell
\vskip\baselineskip
Homophobia -- homophobia
Up my ass
H-O-M-O-P-H-O-B-I-A
}
\vskip\parskip

(In case you didn't detect the sarcasm and think this song is
pro-homophobia, consider that UGLY AMERICAN's drummer is black,
and they have another song on the same album (Who's been
Sleeping\dots) called ``I Love My Mom''. And don't forget
``Weenie Man''\dots)


{\decl
\item{Q:} Have you ever been beaten up because someone thought
you were a faggot or dyke?

\vskip4pt
\item{A:} Yes, but it's not because they thought I was a faggot,
it's because I am a faggot.
\indent -- anonymous wimp
\vskip4pt

\indent Not yet, but I always feel like I have to have eyes in
the back of my head.
\indent -- Donna Dresch
\vskip4pt

\indent Not so much for being a faggot as for being a punk/wussy.
\indent -- Marc Rentzer
\vskip4pt
}
\vskip\parskip

And here's another song called ``Homophobia'', by VICTIMS FAMILY:

{\decl
`I just heard this song, caught the last few words
It's all about hating fags, man it was fuckin' rad!'
What did it mean?
Why did you agree?
You're just a closet-queen
And you're not impressing me.
"No, I'm fucking serious, it was really cool!
I think I can remember and now I'm gonna 
sing it for you.'
No, I don't want to hear it.
Your head is up your ass
You must be insane,
Why don't you tell me about your past?
}
\vskip\parskip

\header{J.D.s Sex-Gang Wants You!}

{\decl
\item{Q:} Do you read J.D.s?
\vskip4pt
\item{A:} No, I just jerk off to the pictures.
\indent -- Donny The Punk
\vskip4pt

\indent Before the pages got stuck together.
\indent -- Mykel Board
\vskip4pt

\indent Fuck no! That rag?!!
\indent -- Tom Jennings / HOMOCORE zine
\vskip4pt
}

\bigskip
Oi! readers:

This is the end of our show. Some may be shocked, others
offended, but none untouched. What can we tell you about J.D.s
that hasn't already been said in the dozens of reviews, articles
and interviews, some even published, over the past two years.
Maybe just this. J.D.s is one of a number of projects instigated
by the New Lavender Panthers, a collective of fags, dykes and
other fuck-ups dedicated to the task of putting the `gay' back in
`punk' and the `punk' back in `gay'. Recent attempts in the media
to coopt J.D.s by singling out individuals to be humored as token
fag-punks cannot be conscienced by the collective.

The homocore movement is a spontaneous insurrection provoked by
specific incidents of discrimination and, yes, even violence,
directed against us queers. The compilation of the Top Twenty
Homocore Hits in J.D.s points to widespread and increasing
instances of the inevitable rebellion against conservatism within
the punk movement. Many of the songs we've chosen to represent
the roots of homocore have been unconscious in their motivation.
Now we are in the process of making a compilation tape of gay
punk bands/performers whose contributions are not only openly gay
in content, but also confrontational and direct in their
political themes, critical of both the apathy of the gay
community and the limitations of punk. If any groups or
individuals are interested in contributing to this tape, write us
at this address:

{\bf JDs / Box 1110 / Adelaide St. Station / Toronto Ontario M5C
2K5 / CANADA}

Hate mail should include SASE and recent photo. Thanx.

\bigskip
\centerline{* * * * *}

At the end of the questionnaire, we added the following
invitation: ``We are writing an article for an international
fanzine on the subject of Gays and Punks. If you have any
comments, queries, or quotable quotes to offer (or anecdotes,
dirty stories, true-to-life tales, compromising photos, etc)
please include. Thanx.''

Here are some of the responses we got:

\header{Tom Jennings}

When I tell people that I'm a homo-punk I get all kinds of
interesting reactions, almost none of the ones you'd expect.
Never have I gotten (to my face anyways) anything like the nasty
``fucking fag'' type shit you might imagine. Mostly I get no
reaction at all. (This is most disappointing, as it deprives me
of the chance to get righteous and angry!)

Why would I tell anyone that I'm queer, and just not leave it
unsaid, of to be mentioned discretely when the time comes?
There's lots of reasons, but mainly: maybe I'll meet someone I'd
like to be boyfriends with. What the hell did you expect, some
sort of selfless higher purpose? First things first, I say.

Now most of my friends and acquaintances are considered pretty
intelligent and worldly, and are pretty cool about complex
subjects like sex and love and all that. Therefore they have to
use more refined methods of containment and harassment than
ordinary folks.

I'm not going to dwell on obvious oppressive shit like violence
-- that's easy, or at least straightforward. No one I know would
tolerate that kind of stuff anyway. There are things far more
insidious than that! You'll find all sorts of help if you get
assaulted (well, sometimes); the quiet friendly shit that 
well-meaning people do is much worse, and harder to sort out.

One such ``intelligent'' response to my telling friends about my
sexual desires is: ``There's no need to make a big deal of your
sexuality, why do you need to tell people that?'' I used to take
this to heart and wonder if I was making a big deal out of
nothing, but that's not it at all: the real question is why does
it bother THEM? What they mean is that they can't deal with it,
but since they are so smart and broad-minded, if it makes them
uncomfortable then it must be YOU that's at fault. Why don't you
just make it easier and shut up?

The very fact that NO ONE KNOWS is why I and so many others are
so fucking isolated, in the middle of a room filled with friends.
That's a big part of the reason why I tell people. I am not the
one that makes a big deal out of my sexuality. Everyone else
does. Before I went to first grade I especially liked certain
guys, and before I reached puberty I also knew it was something
that was not real cool, and that to survive (for me) meant hiding
most of it.

Another really intelligent-sounding reaction is: ``Labels are so
awful and limiting, how can you limit yourself like that?'' (As
in `labeling' myself homo, etc.) Well, labels and categories may
be limiting, but this isn't a label or category, it's a
preference. Read my lips: PREFERENCE. It don't care why I like
guys sexually more than girls, it doesn't matter if it's genetic
or I sent away for it mail order.


As far as labels go, I'm not a homo/\hskip0pt gay/\hskip0pt
faggot/\hskip0pt queer/\hskip0pt etc, it's just that I like boys
for sexy purposes much more than girls. I didn't make up the
label(s). Now if yo like 'em short and dark, you don't get called
a short-and-dark-liker, or a queer, or get beat up, you don't get
called anything, that's just something you like. I like guys, I
get called a queer and maybe get beat up. I'm guilty of using the
labels for conversational convenience, homo/faggot/queer, since
everyone's making such a big deal of it, but other than that, I'm
not applying labels to myself, so get over it, OK?


The assumption for all these so-called intelligent responses is
that I am somehow limiting myself by not wanting girls for lovers
or for sex or whatever, and that the reasons for it are somehow
suspect; in other words, just like the overt homophobes maintain,
there's something wrong with me. I must hate girls, I just
haven't found the right one(s), I had a traumatic experience, etc
etc. Don't bother arguing with them. Ask them: why does it bother
you that I like what I like? (Is this the flip side to
accusations of some people that will ``fuck anything with a
cunt/dick''?)

(As a small aside, there's that clich\'e ``man-hating dyke'' and
``woman-hating faggot thing that's so stupid: how many straight
guys have you met that have no use for women except for fucking?
How many close opposite-sex non-sexual friends do YOU have? The
clich\'e itself is illuminating, especially when you think about
who says it the most.)

What is really going on is that most people are so uncomfortable
with sex, or closeness to others or even their own fucking
bodies, and that they've barely figured others' or even their own
heads to just barely cope with the few things that THEY do, that
when you do something else, they just can't handle it. No one
really talks about human sexuality, except when absolutely
necessary, and so never get rid of all those old cobwebby ideas.

I'm the first to admit I'm far from perfect regarding my own
sexuality, never mind yours. Shit, it's taken me all this time
just to figure this much out, and I still haven't had a boyfriend
in three years of looking. It's just that to be an outlaw in this
world, and to survive (never mind thrive), you have to work
harder and be more perfect than non-outlaws.

Everything we've been taught (or not taught) about sexuality, our
bodies, and our relationships to others is pure shit. Just like
everything we've been taught about what this country's government
does and stands for ain't necessarily so. You think lies and
self-deceit are limited to political subjects? I was forced to go
through a process that made me doubt a lot of things about sex,
and so it's not surprising I thought a lot about other things
too, and started to doubt all sorts of assumptions about how the
world supposedly works. Lots of people have gone through a
similar process, usually after suffering some injustice, like
you're a girls and everyone ignores what you say, or you're black
and you get shunned or worse at a show. Frequently when it
happens in one aspect of like, you go through a similar thing in
others; women dealing with the horror of trying to get a humane
abortion find out how bad the medical industry is, how poorly
governmental bureaucracies treat people, how families can be
oppressive, etc.

I went to the anarchist gathering in Toronto, and for the first
time in my life met a lot of people with the same dilemma as me.
It goes like this: ``I go to `gay' places, and that's all it is;
same old shit except the yuppie consumers are gay, and just as
narrow-minded. I go to punk things that are my life, that I feel
art of, and I have to hide away my sexuality.'' This is
incredibly common. Not every homo is an ``assimilationist'', ie.
someone who is gay but wants to be part of mainstream culture,
thinks ``equal rights'' means women and homos in the Army, the
right to a shitty job for life, and thinks that ``freedom of
choice'' means Coke, Pepsi or SevenUp.

Much of the social system we live in is meant to keep us apart,
to draw lines between us, keep us in our separate little
categories, make us hate each other and do their work for them.
``Unity'' is bullshit. I'm not and don't wanna be the same as
you; let's `cooperate'' as unique individuals, or for shit's
sake, at least stop hating each other. You'd be surprised who
your friends really are\dots

\header{Radikal Ray}

I dated a skinhead once and we we're screwin' around one day,
drinking, smoking dope, etc. I (for some godforsaken reason)
could not get my peter to stand up; of course the guy found it
amusing and bet me he could get it hard. So he started sucking me
off, prodding my ass with his fingers while he did it (his way of
letting me know that he was going to fuck my brains out as soon
as he sucked me off) and as I'm (finally) reaching total climax,
he pukes vodka all over the wall. Needless to say, I went soft
again\dots

\header{Jeffery Kennedy / BOYSVILLE USA}

Let me be perfectly honest. When I was younger, I turned to punk
because I thought it would welcome me. I mean, I liked the music
and I was what I would call an outcast, although that sounds way
clich\'e. Like, the boys liked me until they found out I was a
fag. Then they ran. So much for anarchy and brotherhood. It
wasn't til I removed myself and confronted that whole scene on my
own terms that I could really have fun. It was a learning
experience, let me tell you.

\header{Anonymous Boy}

There are lots and lots of gay punks! I used to think that there
were very few but I keep finding out there are more and more! I
think that's great!

One of the problems is that where it used to be OK to be gay in
the punk scene a long time ago, something happened when a lot of
bands in the hardcore movement started using the words ``gay''
and ``homo'' and ``fag'' as insults and put-downs. I don't know
why straight punks feel threatened or whatever but I really want
to see it swing back in the other direction. I am a 23 year old
guy and I've been into punk music since I was 16 and I always
felt like I had to hide being gay. But now I want to break out
more and more. I have to get a permanent job so I can get the
money to get my own apartment away from parents and their hate
views.

\header{Donny The Punk}

Throughout the formative period of punk (75 -- 79) I think the
emphasis was on being free of society's concepts and limitations,
being experimental, rather than on expressing a ghettoizing
identity as ``Gay''. Punx were more able to do or try anything
without accepting such labels. Patti Smith and the Ramones, who
between them founded punk rock, both had songs relating to
homosexuality on their initial LPs (Patti's ``Horses/Land'' which
is about a boy who gets raped and ``Redondo Beach'', a dirge for
a female lover by a singer who also sang of male lovers; the
Ramones' ``53rd and Third'' about male prostitution) but in none
of these songs was the main character ``gay''. On the British
side a year later the Buzzcock's first single was a big hit (by
punk standards) about a boy who didn't seem to care whether his
partner was male or female: ``Orgasm Addict''. One could make a
long list of famous punx who were known to have involved in 
same-gender sex, from both sides of the Atlantic, starting with
Johnny and Sid (before Nancy came along).

Then came Tom Robinson, who used to work for London's Gay
Switchboard, and whose ``Glad to Be Gay'' was very popular among
punx in general; I think he was the first well-known punk to
identify himself as ``gay''. Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks
followed with ``Homo Sapien'' after the `cocks split up. On the
American side, Lance Loud, the teenager who ``came out'' to his
family on national television (``An American Family'') fronted a
punk band in New York.

When punk made the transition from the classic style to hardcore,
there started a new emphasis, not part of the original idea of
punk, of being ``hard'', and this was identified with being
`macho''. Given the popular image of homosexual activities (among
guys) as ``unmanly'', it is not surprising that homophobia soon
became a part -- fortunately, a very controversial part -- of the
punk scene. With homophobic violence on the scene, it became
risky to be perceived as willing to experiment with same-gender
sexuality; at the same time fewer punx were willing to take risks
in order to assert their independence of peer pressure from other
punx. The net result was a heavy repression of homoeroticism. The
AIDS panic, fed by government propaganda which did not
distinguish between risky behavior like ass-fucking and safe
behavior like cock-sucking, has certainly contributed to this
repression. The punx most willing to combat this atmosphere were
those who identified themselves as ``gay'', so the emphasis in
the open discussion has shifted in the 1980's from being free of
boundaries on sexual expression to the problems of an oppressed
minority group, ``gays''. Personally, I find this to be one of
the most significant areas or regression in punk.

As a footnote, it is worth noting that a 1978 issue of PUNK
Magazine, then the only punkzine on the East Coast, carried a
discussion with the manager of Max' Kansas City (at the time in
the process replacing CBGB's as New York's main punk club) on the
word ``punk'' in which he clearly stated that the term was used
in jail for younger prisoners who got raped and sexually
enslaved, so the awareness of those connotations was widespread.

I think also that the intensity of male-male physical contact on
slam-dancing has contributed to homophobia because it brings out
fears of homo-sexuality (confused with homo-sensuality) to the
surface in insecure teenagers who would otherwise not be dealing
with the issue, or not with so much emotion.

\bigskip

{\decl
\item{Q:} Does slamming give you a hard-on?

\vskip4pt
\item{A:} No.
\indent -- Lawrence Livermore
\vskip4pt

\indent These days everything makes me horny.
\indent -- Jane Guskin
\vskip4pt

\indent No, you fucking idiot, slamming does give me a hard-on.
However, whilst dancing with Annabella Lwin (BOW 
WOW WOW) at my prom, I came in my pants. I don't slamdance 
anyway. Faggot.
\indent -- Marc Rentzer
\vskip4pt

\indent Slamming into what?
\indent -- Mykel Board
\vskip4pt

\indent Slamming doors always gets me off.
\indent -- anonymous wimp
\vskip4pt

\indent Slamming has never given me a hard-on. Neither has
watching other slam.
\indent -- anonymous boy
\vskip4pt

\indent 
Well, um, gee, urk, yeah. Like three weeks ago I went 
to this show in Seattle and GIRL TROUBLE was 
playing, a really great band from Tacoma, and it was 
in this boxing club which used to be an S\&M places. 
Anyway, it had been a hot day and there were 200 
people there crammed into this little room with no 
ventilation. It was STEAMING. You could not breathe! 
Of course, every boy in the room had taken their shirt 
off and I jumped in the middle of 'em when GIRL 
TROUBLE starting playing  ``Little Sister'' (Elvis). I 
was faint. Dancing, slamming, dizzy, sweaty, panting, 
scratching\dots yeah, slamming does give me a hard-on.

\indent -- Jeffery Kennedy
\vskip4pt

\indent If you want you can make up an equivalent question for 
girls, but it's stupid anyways.
\indent -- G.B. Jones
\vskip4pt
}

\enddoublecolumns

\bye
