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VoL f, No. 12
Quiet Fires Memoirs of Older Gay Men
by Keith Vacha
My writing of Quiet Fire! turned out to be
an adventure that surpassed my most hopeful
expectations. No camera was required on this
trip but the eye of the mind, no ticket needed
but the desire to listen and understand. The
journey led me to find friends and family
where I only vaguely suspected there were any.
It was learning, though not in the way one
learns the icy facts of a text — my learning
came through hours spent witnessing and
sharing experiences with older gay men. My
initial objectives were to gain insight into the
history of gay persons in the 20th centry from
a highly personal perspective, to unearth a
“sense” of role models from among those I
would meet and to break down the stereotype
of the sad and lonely older gay in America. I
accomplished all three goals.
The people I talked to were born near the
beginning of the 20th centry, a period that still
subscribed to notions of Victorian
sentimentality laid on top of a puritan ethic.
Regardless of the lack of sexual information
available at that time, most of these men knew
that they were “different” from an early age.
The luckier ones were able to find others like
themselves. Overall, it was a world of great
danger and secret liaisons. The short-lived
flamboyance and testing of restrictive norms
in the 20’s was followed by the great stock
market crash and depression. Radcliffe Hall’s
The Well of Loneliness, published in 1928,
remained for many gays the only clue that
there might be others of their kind. The years
leading up to World War II were, for most, a
time of charade and secrecy. Gay bars
developed primarily during wartime and the
first political organizations which were to
precede the present day liberation movement
came shortly thereafter.
Most of the participants of my book have
taken a backseat to the youth-oriented gay
culture that has become America’s visible
prototype of what gays are all about. But the
aging of the younger liberationists, recent
trends in the study of aging and the maturing
of the liberation movement have coalesced to
reverse this trend. Gay elders are slowly
stepping forward to add a sense of heritage
and vitality to one of the most diverse minority
groups.
Still the stereotype of the sad, lonely older
gay man who is forced to seek out young
children is a prevalent notion. One might even
go further and say that the stereotype is that
Keith Vacha is the author of a new book, Quiet Fire, a collection of 17 in-depth interviews
with older gay men from all walks of life and professions, recalling the days before Stonewall
and gay liberation. Vacha works as a social service administrator to the elderly on the West
Coast. He is also a writer and illustrator whose work has appeared in Fag Rag, Gay Sunshine,
Mouth of the Dragon, Vector and California Living, among others. His poetry was recently
published in the anthology, Son of the Male Muse.
older gay men don’t exist, they burn out like a
candle at both ends, they die, they vanish,
kaput! When I explained the purpose of my
book to people, a few honestly commented
that they did not know that there were older
gays. Unfortunately, a few older gay men buy
part of this package themselves, viewing
themselves as the fortunate exception to what
older gay men are like.
Through stereotyping we are led to believe
that the bulk of our lives beyond the few years
of youth are characterized by loneliness,
degeneracy, inactivity or general ennui. The
vast majority of gays who could disprove these
beliefs are not given media coverage. Instead,
as with all minorities, the media flourishes by
finding and focusing on the sensational rather
than the usual. Gay events are most often
symbolized by the “Amos and Andy” image of
the gay man in drag. The gay media itself often
'Silent Pioneers' To Air
Silent Pioneers, a half-hour documentary offering a portrait of the 3.5 million gay and
lesbian elders in the United States, will be shown on WUNC-TV on Friday, August 9 from
10:30 to 11:00pm. The eight women and men profiled represent a cross-section of regional,
ethnic, racial and professional backgrounds. They live in small towns and urban and rural
communities across America. In moving testiments, the men and women in the film share the
pain of self-discovery and the liberating joy of coming to terms with their sexuality in an era
when homosexuality was not tolerated at all. The generation portrayed in the film has battled
contstantly for self-esteem and survival in a “straight world.”
reinforces youth orientation in an effort to sell
their products or promote patronage.
A small but growing body of gerontological
research has been especially helpful in
exploding the stereotypes surrounding the
older homosexual. Contrary to prevalent
mythology, most older gays are found to have
a wide range of interests, incuding lovers, ex
lovers, friends of all ages and occasionally
children who compose the self-selected
“family network.” Researcher Deborah Wolf
notes that most gay people learn early in life
that they must be able to fend for themselves,
whereas many heterosexuals are not faced
with a massive dose of independence from the
support of blood family and society until old
age. Then their spouse and same-aged friends
may have died, their children moved away,
and they are left without the skills needed to
live by themselves. Often the widow is
unaccustomed to the ascribed “masculine”
chores of providing upkeep on the home while
the widower may be unaccustomed to
cooking, cleaning or shopping within a fixed
budget.
Quiet Fire is meant to complement
statistical research by presenting a personal,
easily readable approach to the subject, to
show the vast diversity among older gay men.
There is, of course, no such thing as a
“representative sampling” of older gay men.
To seek one would be as ridiculous an
ambition as to try to locate a representative
sampling of older heterosexual men in
America. At best, after examining all research
results we may come away with a better insight
into who these older men are. Adding to this
impossible task is the fact that persons grow
more individual with age and more unlike one
another as a result of their differing
experiences.
The subjects for my book were solicited by
way of advertisement (newspapers, fliers),
organizational contacts and, most
successfully, word of mouth. Ony a handful
responded directly to the cry for subjects. I
met a few at parties and even met one sitting at
a bus stop. In other words, the occasion of the
“professional respondent” was minimized.
I refrained from interviewing the leaders of
the first gay organizations because I wanted to
keep away from a political orientation. The
focus was on those unaccustomed to the
limelight, the unsung heroes of daily life, in
continued on page 11
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