Paul Flynn: Good As You

Frankly, a disappointment. The author does warn the reader in the Prologue that he can only tell the story of gay liberation in Britain as he subjectively saw it unfold and I don’t blame him, but his likes and experiences are too different from mine. His is the world of clubbing, pop, big dreams, soap opera and so on; mine is the one of loneliness, depression, defiance, books and so forth. Suffice it to say that Peter Tatchell is mentioned nine times, while one of the ten chapters is basically all about Kylie Minogue.

Still, I did learn a lot: for instance the importance of Manchester in British GLBT history, and the fact that characters in soap operas can be as influential for the mindset of a TV-watchers as those in books for the mindset of a book-reader. And of course, it would be strange if there were no passages I could absolutely relate to, like:


Part of coming to terms with being gay is accepting that all your previous belief systems collapse.

(Greek Pete) 

Absolutely. Some say that a man’s mentality is basically completely formed by the beginning of adolescence, but I’m sure my frames of reference have changed almost beyond recognition during the years I was coming to terms with my sexuality.

[….] that subtle new ways of recalibrating the phrase ‘I am gay’ would have to be found in the perpetual motion of identification that accompanies coming out. Nobody tells you that you’ll have to do it over and over again, boring yourself with answers to a carousel of the same questions asked over and over for the first five years, before you’ve worked out subtler ways of short-circuiting this ritualistic moment in which your sexual fancy becomes other people’s property.

Quite so. You think you’ll tell a friend and the next day everybody’ll know, but no, you have to come out again and again … and again … and only gradually you learn how to do it right.

[….] the terror that sits at the heart of some homophobia – that we are only here to steal your brothers, husbands, cousins, sons [….].

I wouldn’t know about blood relatives, but I was always well liked by women who knew I was gay, probably because they felt they could be relaxed and open with me – with the exception of wifes and girlfriends of my (straight) male friends, the majority of whom were quite obviously jealous of every minute these friends might have spent with me without being ‘watched’ by them.

Programmed in my subconscious from very early on was the idea that I’m not safe.

(David Furnish)

But then this goes almost without saying for us gays of a certain generation.



(originally posted probably on WordPress)