Newspapers / Lambda (Carolina Gay and … / Oct. 1, 1980, edition 1 / Page 10
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(rushes, cont. from p. 9) But there is a nagging under current: the sado-masochistic subculture... the aachanistic quality of promiscuous/public sex,.. "the ’sabateur" in Rechy who battles against the '‘sexual revolutionary” ... the spectra of suicide... . While the triumph of liberation despite oppression and repression are the main themes of the novel, they are very nearly eclipsed by doubt and by the realities of life in the subculture. Now, in his latest novel. Rushes (1979)» Rechy deals directly with those doubts, those conflicts that have run throughout his novels, never completely surfacing, never befo2?e finding complete airticulation, and therefore always previously outside the realm of analysis. Having survived years of self- alienation, having finally come out, he is now able to squarely face "the sabateur, ' finally able to understand the topic of gay self-oppression, as it is object ively, in an intellectual, analytic way. The essential question of the novel is this; How much of the gay subculture is our chosen ex pression of rebellion and tariumph, and how much of it is a garbage heap that we've been .forced into? Rechy emphasises the latter. The subculture is, after all, part of the larger culture; it, too, is ,homophobic. The role-playing of the 50s and 60s, the sado-masochism of the 70s, are essentially expressions of homophobic morality. As such, . they represent internalized oppression. The self-hatred that we learned from the homophic environment is transferred into the,gay subculture. In a Greenwich Village leather bar, the Rushes, we see gays trapped in double binds and self-defeating contradictions. ‘*One longs for the good old days of Judy Garland and closet parties, before the complications of public, politically conscious gays.’’ One gets up in leather and demands relationships of dominance and humiliation. Rechy himself is unable to love or be loved, committed to a life of casual sex in bars and docks and backstreets. Rechy views all these manifes tations of self-oppression. Exalting power and violence, uri nating on your lover, pretend-beat ing and verbal abuse in the language of homphobia, affecting machismo do not represent liberation any more than did the suicide-worship-,, ing cults of Garland and Monroe in an earlier period. ' ■ The commoditization of sex in •bar life is not liberation. Out side in the streets, gangs beat, maim sind kill gays. Inside the bar, gays reproduce the violence in the ritual of S & M and egotis tical sexhunt. Queer-bashing, S & M, the inability to love are all the same thing, all expressions of homophobia. R lushes is perhaps Rechy's best novel yet, certainly the best since City of Night. All his previous works point towaid the conclusions he draws. More than any of his other works, Rushes, shows an understanding of social forces and individual psychologies. Rechy is able to positively overcome his alienation through understanding. Having transcended his self-estrangement, he now stands over and above not only himself, but his society an well. Rushes provides an introspec tive, critical perspective now badly, even desparately, needed in the subculture. At this time the gay subculture and gay politicos are self-assured and self-satisfied with gay ghettoes and the middle- class politics of "gay rights", rather than gay liberation. The perspective offered by Rechy isn't likely to be greeted by praise and accolades by the people who have always dismissed him as a pornographic pulp novelist; Nonetheless, progress toward liberation demands honesty about gay self-oppression. It demands especially that we not mistake internalizations of homophobia for liberation. Ultimately, universal gay liberation must mean more than ghettoes and individiial comings-out. Rechy shows how repression and homophobia lead directly to gay self-hatred, and self-hatred leads directly to self-oppression. Gay liberation cannot occur as specialized cases within heterosex ist society. It must involve basic changes in social relation ships and culture. These are the conclusions to which Rechy*s works point, giving directions for the gay movement.
Lambda (Carolina Gay and Lesbian Association, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
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Oct. 1, 1980, edition 1
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