01/08/2008
University of Michigan Offers Course on How to be Gay
A course taught by professor David Halperin at the University of Michigan has been getting some attention recently. "How to be Gay: Male Homosexuality and Initiation" examines "the general topic of the role that initiation plays in the formation of gay male identity" via writing, studying it as a "sub-cultural practice", and conducting some sort of self-reflective class experiment.
It's actually a class that has been taught, and has inspired controversy and discussion, for a few years.
"In particular, we will examine a number of cultural artifacts and activities that seem to play a prominent role in learning how to be gay: Hollywood movies, grand opera, Broadway musicals, and other works of classical and popular music, as well as camp, diva-worship, drag, muscle culture, taste, style, and political activism. Are there a number of classically 'gay' works such that, despite changing tastes and generations, all gay men, of whatever class, race, or ethnicity, need to know them, in order to be gay? What is there about gay identity that explains the gay appropriation of these works? What do we learn about gay male identity by asking not who gay men are but what it is that gay men do or like? One aim of exploring these questions is to approach gay identity from the perspective of social practices and cultural identifications rather than from the perspective of gay sexuality itself. What can such an approach tell us about the sentimental, affective, or subjective dimensions of gay identity, including gay sexuality, that an exclusive focus on gay sexuality cannot? At the core of gay experience there is not only identification but disidentification. Almost as soon as I learn how to be gay, or perhaps even before, I also learn how not to be gay. I say to myself, 'Well, I may be gay, but at least I'm not like that!' Rather than attempting to promote one version of gay identity at the expense of others, this course will investigate the stakes in gay identifications and disidentifications, seeking ultimately to create the basis for a wider acceptance of the plurality of ways in which people determine how to be gay."
Then there's the alternative method: six beers, an off-campus party, and that hot freshman from down the hall you've been studying from afar.
How to be Gay: Male Homosexuality and Initiation. [university of michigan]
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Idiotic at best, the entire concept makes a joke out of a standard sexual identification and it seems like the instructor "invented" a course to keep his tenure. Tragic waste of time and student's money.
Posted by: johnny | Jan 8, 2008 9:28:53 AM
FABULOUS! This course is absolutely essential -- especially for the likes of you "Johnny."
Posted by: David Ehrenstein | Jan 8, 2008 9:34:23 AM
This draws the distinction between homosexual activity outside a gay context (MSM or "men who have sex with men", be it 'on the down-low', in exclusively male environments and in certain otherwise homophobic cultures) and the elements that define gay culture and gay identity for those who identify as gay themselves, and also for those in the larger world. I don't know if I would say that it's an essential course, but it certainly is valid.
Posted by: David D. | Jan 8, 2008 10:07:34 AM
Halperin is also the writer of "What Do Gay Men Want?: An Essay on Sex, Risk and Subjectivity. I am reading it now. Its a fascinating re-thinking of gay men, our relationships to sex and what motivates us.
Posted by: Bloggernista | Jan 8, 2008 10:19:22 AM
Halperin's gay course does sound fabulous and very valid. I can tell you that Hollywood movies, grand opera, and Broadway musicals did it for me. As for books, "Auntie Mame" was my first "gay" book and while perhaps it's not overtly gay it certainly stimulated my gay sensibilities. Also meeting up with some wonderful, flamboyant personalities who were my inspiration.
Posted by: the queen | Jan 8, 2008 10:29:54 AM
Imagaine a course on "Being a Straight Man"....Yuck,no thanks....what would it be like:
1)How to trick your GF into giving you head
2)Bargaining for head/sex
3)Do you feel like a Boob when it comes to Tits?
4)Pretending to listen to what she says,just to get in her pants
5)Famous Pick-up lines thru the 20/21st centurys
6)If she says she has kids,RUN don't walk!
7)Pretending to like her friends
8)How to have fun (on the side)while keeping her "Under your Thumb"
Posted by: Disgusted American | Jan 8, 2008 10:36:16 AM
I would love to take -- or teach -- such a course, and there are unfortunately more and more students out there who need it, who think they don't have anything to learn just because they're gay and out and everything's just peachy. They think there's nothing to analyze or discuss. No culture, no history, nothing. "It's just a small part of who I am."
Halperin, for those who don't know, is one of the top queer scholars alive today, author of "One Hundred Years of Homosexuality" and "Saint Foucault" and longtime editor of GLQ. He really is quite brilliant.
A previous iteration of this course led legislators to introduce a bill to scrutinize university courses that might be promoting homosexuality.
Posted by: KevinVT | Jan 8, 2008 10:37:18 AM
Ok, I didn't understand hardly anything in the post above (way too many big words). I thought it was gonna give advice like stuff I did in during my brief stint in school...like drinking, drugs, sleeping with your professors for better grades, cheating (since you're either just too dumb or out partying all the time to study), being a campus slut, having to go to rehab, having your grandmother offer to donate a building to keep you in school, but eventually getting kicked anyway.
God I miss school...the boys mostly. fun times.
Posted by: Jordan | Jan 8, 2008 11:58:43 AM
Daid Halperin? David Halperin? I couldn't figure out where I had heard the name, and then I remembered...It is was in an essay called 'Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders' by Camille Paglia where she absolutely trashes him to bits.
I can't believe he is still teaching.
Posted by: Paul | Jan 8, 2008 12:24:35 PM
Camille Paglia trashes anyone who writes about theory to bits. She's much more popular in the popular press than in more rigorously academic circles.
Posted by: KevinVT | Jan 8, 2008 12:40:59 PM
Sorry if it comes off like ageism, but this course couldn't seem any less relevant to gay men under 40, maybe 35.
"In particular, we will examine a number of cultural artifacts and activities that seem to play a prominent role in learning how to be gay: Hollywood movies, grand opera, Broadway musicals, and other works of classical and popular music, as well as camp, diva-worship, drag, muscle culture, taste, style, and political activism."
Umm, no. Camp, taste, style, and political activism will always be a part of many gay men's lives. The other things, no (maybe drag, maybe not). I don't even know what "muscle culture" is, unless that just means body worshop.
"Are there a number of classically 'gay' works such that, despite changing tastes and generations, all gay men, of whatever class, race, or ethnicity, need to know them, in order to be gay?"
Absolutely not. I'd like anyone hear to name five such items, because I can't think of one that would cross such borders (unless you're talking about pictures of naked men---and tastes in those would vary widely as well).
Posted by: Paul | Jan 8, 2008 12:45:43 PM
There are several "gay identities" and "homosexual identities", and those who engage in homo sex but don't want to be labled gay or homosexual. I am mostly interested in "gay" people socially and culturally. That causes some black folks to accuse homos like me of being "white gay oriented". At my age, I don't give a fuck about that accusation.
For me this course at Michigan is valuable. I believe in the gay subcultures that existed/exist in the West, Africa, Asia, the Americas & the Pacific Islands. I believe that Western Gay (white gay) Culture does not have to dominate all others. I want to know the history of these subcultures, and I know that one day they will all fall under the title of "GAY Cultures/GAY Studies" and be taught/studied/researched at universities all over the world.
The fact that I prefer "trade" sexually is beside the point. When a man sees that poster of Marlene Dietrich in my bedroom, I want him to say, "who dat white lady?"
Posted by: Derrick from Philly | Jan 8, 2008 1:15:27 PM
A few years ago my parents were visiting me. We were in a music store when my mom noticed they had a lot of DVDs on sale. She offered to buy me any movies I might want. As I perused the shelf, about the only thing that caught my eye was a box cover with Rosalind Russell on the front. "I'll take Auntie Mame", I said. "Why do you want that?," my mom asked in a surprised tone. I explained to her that before being allowed to join the tribe every gay man must prove that he holds Auntie Mame in higher regard than any other film ever made...to which my mom said, "Oh, c'mon. That can't be true." And at just about that moment two fairly queeny guys walked up and immediately began cooing over the Auntie Mame DVD. Some things just can't be denied.
Posted by: peterparker | Jan 8, 2008 1:46:22 PM
My point exactly, Derrick. There are thousands of "gay" identities, and I fear this course is pigeon-holing them into a general Western stereotype.
Posted by: Paul | Jan 8, 2008 1:46:53 PM
as a friend of David's and an alumnus of the class, I can confidently say that it is a worthwhile area of study, and the fact that much of the material may be dated does not make it irrelevant. Those who don't know theo history and all that jazz, you know? Much of this criticism strikes me as crass and self-loathing.
Posted by: gander | Jan 8, 2008 2:00:02 PM
i don't think there's anything illegitimate about studying the history of western gay cultural appropriations. but neither is there anything illegitimate about not participating in those appropriations. i think both the "everyone should take this class!" and the "this class is worthless!" responses are ludicrously reactionary.
it's not at all self-loathing if a person doesn't learn who Judy Garland is. and there's nothing wrong with being curious about the history of how gay men have defined their affiliations.
the material sure does seem dated, but that--if anything--just suggests that the title of the course should have a more historical slant. i would be interested to see a more modern take, looking especially at the way modern "Gay Culture" has gotten conflated with things like materialism, body image issues, and particular genres in the arts.
Posted by: le_sacre | Jan 8, 2008 2:22:39 PM
Ohhh, Gay Ghetto 101...
Ridiculous. This is pop sociology, not an academic exercise. Intellectually lazy if nothing else--he must have tenure.
Posted by: anon (gmail.com) | Jan 8, 2008 3:00:49 PM
PAUL and LE-SACRE,
y'all are voicing a point of view that is not only prevalent among younger gay men, but also older gay men who've NEVER wanted to be associated with the "gay stereotypes." What I've argued for years (lost some friends over it too) is that the "gay stereotypes" used to be all there was that was GAY. Homosexual men who were masculine had no reason to call themselves anything "different"--later, if they could "pass" for straight, they did so. I usually don't get along with gay men who take some sort of pride in being "indisguishable" from their straight brothers. Actually, we tend to have absolute contempt for each other. These homosexual men often have the same misogynistic hatred for "noticeably gay" men as do straight men . I call it "misogynistic" because the animosity revolves around the issue of whether openly gay men behave in an effeminate manner.
I was attracted to stereotypical gay behavior, artifacts, interests long before I ever came in contact with another gay person. By the age of four, I was infatuated with Judy Garland. By the age of twelve, I already knew the works of Tennessee Williams had special meaning for me. His name (and work)began to have significance for me--even though he was a white man from Mississippi who never wrote about black people. Still, I knew he and his characters had special meaning for me.
The definition of "gay" has changed over the years without many of us being aware of it. Masculine homosexuals (or wannabe masculine homos) now dominate the gay world. The last 50 years or so, gay men have been determined to create a more masculine image for themselves; but y'all are never going to get rid of the foundations of Gay Culture. Foundations that began NOT in the hyper-masculine setting of the Greek Olympic Games; but in the theaters, religious ceremonies, and beauty salons of the ancient world where catamites, eunuchs & sissies were allowed to do their thing.
And I will never learn when and when not to use capital letters for gay, black, white, etc.
Posted by: Derrick from Philly | Jan 8, 2008 3:16:31 PM
"There are thousands of "gay" identities, and I fear this course is pigeon-holing them into a general Western stereotype."
I don't think this class is saying "This is gay, and this is not." This class looks at specific subcultures and also questions whether there is a way to define gay culture, with the intent of demonstrating that you cannot.
Posted by: Matt | Jan 8, 2008 5:46:23 PM
I'd like to just point out that two Pauls have posted on this, and the first one wasn't me. Guess I need to start using an initial.
Anyway, I'm never surprised or even derisive of anything being taught/studied at universities, and if people want to pursue gay studies I have no problem with it---I took several women's studies classes.
Derrick, I don't care about being associated with gay stereotypes. I really don't care what most anyone thinks of me. My point is simply that, worldwide, the gay (or even men having sex with men) experience is extremely varied, and many of them are foreign to me and to gay foreigners. My point is not that I'm trying to run from or tarnish other people's interests, it's that I don't think you can categorize or stereotype an entire class of people---especially one, like gays, that cuts across social, cultural, geographic, political, religious, and myriad other lines.
Posted by: Paul | Jan 8, 2008 7:16:54 PM
To teach this course on "how to be gay" is to do exactly what Paul states: Pidgeonhole an otherwise standard sexual identification into some "role" with "identifiers" that it would otherwise not have a need of.
Being gay is not that really that special or new.
In my opinion, the short history of the cliché gay man of the twentieth century does not deserve such indepth examination because there is no "there" there. Call it self-loathing if you want, I just don't see a need to study the idiotic affectations, hobbies and habits learned in gay bars in the 70's. It's like learning how to be a circus clown. Sadly, there's probably a college course for that too.
Posted by: johnny | Jan 9, 2008 8:28:05 AM
Sometimes I wonder if the people commenting here actually read the course description or have any idea about the course or Halperin's work. He was in fact one of the first scholars to write almost 20 years ago about the varieties of gay identity historically and in different cultures.
And in fact I would argue, based on my own experience, that there are more surprising similarities among modern identities than you might expect, and it's not always about appropriation. Derrick's right, too. Among many Slavic cultures, for example, there is a lot of play among men with feminine gender. Russian gay men adore opera (or those of a certain generation did). Many cultures have their own diva equivalent of Judy Garland.
As an example of a non-borrowed expression, I was shocked to learn that Hungarian gay slang of the 60s included an expression that means "dropping hairpins" for coming out to other gay men. There was not nearly enough contact with US gay culture for that expression to be borrowed, imho.
Posted by: KevinVT | Jan 9, 2008 10:34:17 AM
I think he is teaching what things there are out there that make up gay culture, not how to be a male who is sexually attracted to other men. No one needs a course in that. A lot of men attracted to other men shun this media made up gay culture. A lot of straight people love it.
Posted by: Vi Agara | Jan 9, 2008 3:23:34 PM