Men all over the world sooner or later confront notions of what it means to be a ”real man” and inevitably compare themselves to some ideal(s) constructed by the societies in which they live. Although different societies sometimes hold up seemingly contradictory ideals of manhood, Mahatma Gandhi in India versus Rambo in the United States, to cite extreme examples, we tend to accept our own society's ideal as normal unless our understanding gets broadened by exposure to other ideals that seem to resonate better with our inner experience.

Gay men everywhere tend to find ourselves excluded to one degree or another from inclusion in the category of “real men” because of our same-sex attraction and because many societies view gay men as effeminate (like a woman).  For a man to be like a woman means he is not, in some sense, fully a real man.

The late Harry Hay, arguably the father of gay liberation, inspired by examples of “third-gender” or “two-spirit” concepts he encountered in some Native American cultures, developed a theory of gay identity apart from the prevailing notions of male versus female prevalent in non-gay society. Hay believed that most gay men learn to imitate gender-polarized, heterosexual norms of male/female as a way to survive in homophobic societies and that this imitation distorts their authentic gay identities. He theorized that if gay men could get away from heterosexuals completely, preferably in natural settings, their authentic gay natures would manifest with a little encouragement.  The Radical Faerie movement came into being to test and develop Hay's theories.

Hay broke down the different ways of being as “subject-object consciousness” (heterosexual) vs. “subject-subject consciousness,” (homosexual).

I was about 13 when I asked my parents if they could get me a subscription to Sports Illustrated. They were more than a little eager to accomodate, as they thought there might be some hope that their sensitive, shy, awkward teenager might actually turn out to be a sports-lovin', beer-drinkin' and (most importantly) pussy chasin' young man. Well I do drink beer sometimes (not exactly like a frat boy), and I do actually like sports, but I never got around to the other thing.  The reason I really wanted that subscription was not to keep up with sports, but to jerk off to those Jockey ads with Jim Palmer. His furry chest and well-formed basket certainly helped to ease the tension of my teenage years.

When I was 15 and flipping through the pages of SI, I stumbled upon the most unthinkable thing -- a tribute to the life of an openly gay man. This sports magazine, to my knowlege, had never shown gay men in a positive light, and here it was doing a feature on... someone like me.  For years I had used the magazine as a way to work out my teenage sexual angst, but I never imagined it would be the place that I'd find a role model who ultimately helped me accept my sexuality.

The July 27, 1987 issue had an article entitled "The Death of an Athlete". It was a tribute to Tom Waddell who had died of AIDS on July 11-- just 16 days before this issue was released. Tom Waddell was a college football player and gymnast who went on to become an olympic decathlete. At the age of 30, he finished 6th in the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games.  He was also paratrooper in the U.S. Army and an MD with a degree from Stanford Medical School specializing in infectious disease. Most notably, he started the Gay Olympics which later came to be called the Gay Games after the United States Olympic Committee sued Dr. Waddell for using the word "Olympics" so close to the word "Gay".The case went all the way to the Supreme Court before before it was decided that no gays were going to be putting on any kind of "Olympics".

her•ma [hur-muh] n. pl. herms also her•mai
A rectangular, often tapering stone post bearing a carved head or bust, used as a boundary marker or for decorative purposes. Male genitals may also be carved at the appropriate height. This form was originated in ancient Greece, was then adopted by the Romans and brought back into fashion in the Renaissance.

To put that in more simple terms, a herma is a statue that features just the head and the cock-- nothing else but a rectangular stone holding them up. You'll have to forgive my phallocentric appreciation of the antiquities, but there's just not enough phallic worship these days (at least publicly). Which is why I think we should start a movement to bring back the herma.

Hermai (plural of herma) are associated with the god Hermes:

"Hermes is the messenger of the gods in Greek mythology. An Olympian god, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of road travelers, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of athletics, of weights and measures, of invention, and of general commerce."

Sir Adrian Fulford, sometimes called The Honorable Mr Justice Fulford, has been an openly gay lawyer in England for 30 years. He's 55 years old, and if I might add, he's a sexy lookin' daddy. He's got that mischievous look in his eyes. Sir Adrian also has quite the impressive resume. He received a knighthood from the Queen in 2002. He has been a judge on the High Court of England and Wales, and currently he is serving as one of eighteen judges on the International Criminal Court.

Pink News UK reported that earlier this month on a speech that he gave at the opening of The Pink Law Legal Advice Centre, in which he made some interesting statements about being an older gay man. Here are some snippets from his speech:

"One of the advantages, and I assure you there aren't many of them, of what sometimes feels like extreme old age, is that you gain a perspective on events that you simply didn't have before. Particularly you get a historical focus through which a bright light shines on events taking place today. For me the past has been crucial in appreciating how vitally important this new venture within the Queen Mary legal advice center is. When I came of age in the law in the mid 1970's, nothing remotely resembled the Pink Law project's existed. Although even then was a time of seismic and exciting change as regards to the provision of free legal advice...

But the area of sexuality even in those times of radical change and progress, was a complete desert. A few enterprising lawyers set up the Gay legal advice on a voluntary basis providing evening telephone advice but it was wholly dependent of volunteers and I can find no trace of its existence now. The legal profession has always been conservative, although less so now than the days gone by. And back then for many who did not conform to the heterosexual standard, particularly if you were not from a privileged background, there was simply nowhere to go for advice and help.

The movie "MILK" uses the framing device of Harvey Milk making a tape to be played in the event of his death by assassination. The following short film is called "575 Castro St" directed by Jenni Olson. It has a series of static video shots of Harvey's old camera shop (as it was recreated for  "MILK") with an edited down version of the original 13 minute tape. I had heard of this tape on a few occasions, so I was intrigued when a friend sent me the link to this. You can see the director's notes here.

In celebration of the opening of the new movie "MILK", we are excited to share this amazing piece by Steve Beery. Steve was a writer and gay activist who died of AIDS in '93. He met Harvey Milk when he was 25 years old and Harvey was 48. Harvey was a daddy who definitely appreciated younger men. This piece was provided to us by Armistead Maupin (my wonderful husband), who met Steve at Harvey's memorial service and remained his closest friend until his death.

My Month with Harvey

by Steve Beery

I was suffering from a typical San Francisco ailment – costume claustrophobia. My tights were riding up, my fake-satin cape was itchy, and beads of sweat were rolling down behind my eye mask. I was dressed as Robin the Boy Wonder at the 1978 Beaux Arts Ball, and I was being unmistakably cruised by a man I knew but had never met.  The man was Harvey Milk, the first openly gay city supervisor – a man I respected and admired.

We’d smiled and nodded on Castro Street several times that year.  I like Harvey’s wide-open grin, and I’d wondered whether the attraction was mutual.  Now it looked like maybe it was. Nervously I straightened my cape, checked my trunks, adjusted my gloves. The supervisor, at ease in his rumpled grey suit, extended his hand and uttered the corniest pick-up line imaginable. “Hop on my back, Boy Wonder, and I’ll fly you to Gotham City,” he said, almost keeping a straight face.

The line was corny, but effective. Harvey had a gift for persuasion, a way of making you believe he could do anything. We swapped phone numbers and got together the next night.  The thing that impressed me most was his laugh, explosive and uninhibited; that, and the slightly daffy look in his eyes, like an overgrown kid’s. At 48 he was nearly twice my age, but full of boyish mischief.

It didn’t take me long to realize that Harvey was a nut, a screwball, a wild card. He was also a satyr, a gleeful disciple of Eros who’d found a way to marry his essential craziness to a set of well-ordered work habits. He insisted on being on call to his constituents 24 hours a day. No problem – from towed cars and trash pickup to tree pruning – was too small. Despite his hippie, flower-power, Summer of Love experience, there wasn’t an ounce of “California mellow” in Harvey. His native New York aggression, undiluted by the amiability of Castro Street, was always spoiling for a fight.

I was surprised, on our first date, to find out how strong he was.  He didn’t have a gym-toned body; he was built more like a big bull, rangy and muscular.  Within his first two minutes at my apartment he picked me up and dumped me unceremoniously on my bed.  He liked to do things fast, at double speed. He walked fast. He talked fast. He even ate fast.

In a word: WOW.  More than 100 retired generals and admirals called Monday for repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays so they can serve openly.

According to a statement obtained by The Associated Press, the generals reportedly said it was time for the United States to join other nations in allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. "Our service members are professionals who are able to work together effectively despite differences in race, gender, religion, and sexuality."

The Obama administration is not about to make the same mistake President Clinton made in 1993 and said that repealing "dont ask, don't tell" is not really on their immediate agenda. Aubrey Sarvis, of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, said that Obama sees 2009 as being about "foundation building and reaching consensus."  See more on the Obama team's response here.

Sure Obama's lack of drive to send the dinosaur of "don't ask, don't tell" into extinction might -- on the surface -- be a tad disappointing but remember this: is it better to have a President rush into something, even if it might be the right thing, or approach it with skill and intelligence? "Don't ask, don't tell" is definitely on the way out, it's just Obama's considerable challenge to make its passing smooth and, most of all, lasting.

In the meantime, let's celebrate this VERY impressive list of military leaders who have made it clear that discrimination does not belong in the military.

You can read more on this story here.

Just think, if you had been Antinous (pronounced an-tin-oh-us), you could have said, "my gay daddy is the most powerful man in the world"... and it would have been true. Many don't realize that one of the Roman Empire's greatest rulers was an openly gay man. The first time I heard about Hadrian and Antinous I was daydreaming in my Roman and Hellenistic Sculpture course in college. Professor Connelly brought up the bust of a Roman Emperor on the slide projector and I thought to myself, "hmm... he looks like a sexy bearded daddy".

Truth is, that's one of the reasons I took the course. I love all those sexy sculptures of the hot daddies. I used to drool over the Farnese Hercules and the Laocoon, and a host of other sculptures of gods, philosophers and emperors. Unlike our culture, the Greeks and Romans really celebrated an older ideal, not just youth.

The professor brought me out of my daze as she said, "Hadrian was gay and had a young lover named Antinous". Wow, a gay Roman Emperor. I knew that the Greeks and Romans were a little less uptight about gay sex, but I didn't know it was possible to have that much power as an openly gay man.

Hadrian was born on January 24 in 76 AD. After his parents died he was put under the care of Trajan who was a cousin of his father and happened to be Emperor at the time. In 117 AD he was named emperor and he ruled until his death in 138 AD.

Hadrian has been described as the most versatile of all Roman Emperors. Trajan was a warmonger, but Hadrian ushered in a time of peace. Hadrian was also an intellect, a patron of the arts, and quite a great architect himself. Among his accomplishments were building the Pantheon and Hadrian's Villa.

The Pantheon is my favorite piece of architecture anywhere. Hadrian built it as a temple to all the gods. It seems that his intention was to create a symbol of unity to bring different belief systems together. The dome is 43.3 meters in diameter and holds the record for the world's largest un-reinforced concrete dome. Modern architects and engineers are still baffled at how he achieved this feat nearly 2,000 years ago. Michelangelo designed the dome in St. Peter's to be 1 meter smaller than the dome in the Pantheon in deference to Hadrian. He didn't want to overshadow his hero's great architectural triumph.

My husband and I had the great luck to get tickets to the premiere of the film “MILK” at a packed Castro Theater last month. The film is directed by Gus Van Sant, stars Sean Penn (as Harvey Milk) and was produced by Focus Features (producers of “Brokeback Mountain”) so we went in thinking that it wasn’t going to be a waste of two hours… and we were right.

The film chronicles the story of Harvey Milk who was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977, becoming the first openly gay man elected to public office in America. Milk was murdered by Dan White in 1978.

The film focuses on the last eight years of Harvey’s life. It opens with with Milk picking up Scott Smith (James Franco), the man who would become his partner. It is the eve of Milk’s 40th birthday and he is living in New York. Shortly thereafter Milk and Smith relocate to San Francisco where Harvey begins his journey as a neighborhood activist and ultimately the first gay politician.

I felt like I went into the film knowing a lot about Harvey Milk. I had seen “The Times of Harvey Milk” and countless other documentaries about the gay movement that included his story, but I’ve never seen a movie with such an intimate and heartfelt look into his life.