The lively town of Whitstable is protected from the shallow Swale by two 17th Century Dutch built dykes on the North Kent Coast, England. The town is primarily known for the large, flat native oysters growing wild and prolifically in the shallow estuary waters close to the caramel shingle beach.
The British film star Peter Cushing, famous for Hammer Horror films, lived there with his wife Helen. Once, getting off a bus, my mother accidentally knocked him off his bicycle. Years later I bought Peter Cushing’s beachside house.
When I was a little boy I sang in the choir at St Alphage, Anglican Church. My mother told me she thought I would make a very good vicar. Not because I was particularly pious but she knew how much I loved dressing up in my cassock and ruff. Sometimes I would steal the cassock out of the church and wear it around the house… much to the consternation of my family.
I loved singing carols, hymns and psalms. I particularly loved singing psalms. The low growl the organ made when we sang those difficult psalms. I loved evensong when the church was candle lit and half empty. I loved singing at weddings because we got paid.
During the day the large organist worked in Tattersalls the butchers. She wore floral dresses and flat black plastic slippers. She looked funny in the mortarboard the ladies wore in the church. She always smiled. I think she may be still alive. That’s what my hometown is like. We knew each and every one. The men who worked the harbour, the women who worked in the supermarket and the schools.
The antique shops on Harbour St. attracted unusual and eccentric men and women trawling for treasures driving expensive and exotic cars. That’s where I met my first, fabulous gay men.
In the early morning I worked a paper round. Waking at 5 in all weathers delivering papers. I loved the smell of newsprint in the newsagent, the smell of burning paraffin.
Inquisitive little boy that I was I wanted to be involved in everything. I explored the graveyards, the football pitches, the cricket ground. I walked the golf course; I explored the beach huts and knew every inch of the beach from Seasalter to Swalecliff. I joined any club/organization that would have me: the drama club, the Anglican choir, and the barley cup drinking Mormons, the silent Quakers, and the theatrical Catholics. I knew every shop and every shopkeeper. I wanted to know about furniture and the names of flowers and trees. I would wait on the quay for the fishing boats to dock and watch the men sort the fish for Billingsgate market. If a particular house looked interesting I would knock on the door and ask to be let inside. I was rarely turned away. The only building I couldn’t get into was the Masonic temple.
I was there when the oysters landed, mixed with hundreds of orange starfish. I was there when the vicar blessed the catch. When the yawls raced on the Swale with their great umber sails, when the sea flooded the town, when the bonfires burned on November 5th I was always there.
In fact, I would do anything I could NOT to be at home. You know why. All of you.
I am no stranger to organised religion and village life. For the longest time I really thought that I might want to sign up and wear the cassock and the mitre and preach the gospels until… until I realised that whilst my church tolerated a boy gay they didn’t want anything to do with a man gay. In fact, apart from the drama club and the Quakers, none of the clubs/churches were very happy to include me or men like me. You see, I made no secret of my gayness. Never. EVER.
Recently I got to thinking about why that would be so. Why didn’t they want shameless gays in their churches? I thought about a thousand years of Christianity. I can’t imagine some gays weren’t then exactly like we are now: a bunch of cynical iconoclasts. I mean, a couple of queens squealing in the back of a medieval church kind of destroys the control the clergy expect to exert over it’s congregation. Do you know what I mean?
Certainly, where I come from, the gays can’t keep their mouths shut… they have opinions about everything. It wasn’t always so bad for gays in the community, we weren’t always burned at the stake. Not until Queen Victoria and the new Puritanism. Just look at our rich tranny history. Check out Fanny and Stella a couple of fabulous 17th century drag queen who trolled up Burlington Arcade in their bustles and feathered hats. They were always in court but always got away with it. Can you imagine those girls in Westminster Abbey being FIERCE with the ushers?
This is my problem with gay marriage and organized religion. We are better than that! We know it’s a corrupt institution. Don’t we? When did we start straying away from our own rich culture? The language and locations of our gay lives? When did we stop being so brave? Brave enough to defend what we have rather than assume that what they have is better?
Why are we fighting for marriage in a church? You know, I’d be happy just to be protected. That I can walk on the street where I live holding my lovers hand. Call me old fashioned but all this gay marriage stuff is just nonsense.
As much as I believe in God, I want to do it my way and the Bishops and the Deacons knew that. The funny thing is, most of them were gay but they weren’t like ‘us’. They knew we weren’t the kind of folk (us vulgar gay boys) who were going to buckle down and not raise the occasional plucked eye brow at the badly written sermon, make inappropriate, ribald remarks about the cute new pastor.
We just couldn’t be controlled because that’s the way we are. Our culture, up until now, has been about innuendo and barbed truths. You see, darling, my relationship with God was forged through adversity. I needed God in my life because he gave me solace, fortitude and hope. My relationship with God means that I am never alone.
When I was drinking I would listen to torch songs and pray that he would come, that’s the kind of God I have-one who listens to Judy and Barbra.
I’m just trying to understand who I am in relation to the church. There’s an imagined homo history that we have to explore-read between the lines. I don’t think the church (a thousand years ago) gave two hoots about what men did in bed but was terribly threatened by our candour, fearlessness and what made us the ‘other’. I’m not talking about those men who are silenced by fear I’m talking about those of us who live out and proud.. The two tribes of gay: the trannies and the down low.
“At Marlborough Street Court, when the assistant gaoler Scott called out “Ernest Cole,” a person looking like a well-dressed woman stepped into the dock and gravely faced Mr. Denman, the presiding magistrate. No one would have imagined that the prisoner, who was attired in a black fur-trimmed winter mantle, large black feathered hat and veil, and carried a muff and neat hang-bag was a man. It was alleged that the prisoner was a suspected person loitering in Oxford-street presumably for the purpose of committing a felony. Detective Gittens, D Division, deposed that, while in company with Detective Dyer, he saw the prisoner in Oxford-street on Monday evening. The prisoner was behaving like a disorderly female. He went up to the prisoner, and told him that he believed him to be a man. The prisoner endeavoured to escape by jumping on to an omnibus.”
The Times, January 2, 1901
The stereotypical effeminate gay, is the most obvious to ridicule, their sexuality being the most apparent. What about the average typical male, who hides his sexuality for fear of retrebution? He acts & appears totally “normal”, just another male who secretly craves acceptance. You just can’t make people care, life is cruel.
Remember A Texas, anti-gay hate also impacts the str8.
The stereotypical, effeminate gay, as you say, just may
be heterosexual.
That is why GLBTQ is my/our community, but CIVIL RIGHTS
is a GLBTQ(S) issue.
Warmly,
Paulie
Another wonderful voyage for the mind. Love reading your blogs, I always try to imagine your voice reading them to get the full effect. I attend a school of “higher learning” and in our class the instructor and other students were bashing on gays/trannys and everybody that was different. How horrible I felt as I belong in that club and I said nothing not in defense or contempt. My fear of being labeled, judged and hated kept my mouth closed and my heart racing. I came home and cried; i cried because I am so scared, cried because there is so much hate and cried because I did nothing. If I was faced with the lions would I renounce everything or would I keep my mouth shut. I am ashamed of myself, sickened that these soon to be healthcare professionals would speak about “us” in that way. I remain in the closet, locking the door and sitting in the corner acting like I don’t exist.
When I first saw the title all I could think about was Eddie Izzard. It’s terrible that people feel they have to hide who they are and even more terrible that others encourage it.
Duncan, I will have to read every word again.
For now I merely must say you’re (were) such
a cute little one. A cherub.
Awwwww…
I have no read every word 🙂
Your blog is like a 12-step meeting
This blog works, because YOU WORK IT BOY!
I’ll sure keep coming back.
Cheers mate,
Paulie
Not all Christian churches are anti-gay(though admittedly most..) check out website for DFW area of Texas “would jesus descriminate? why would we?” campaign… link…
http://www.whywouldwe.net/site/?page_id=2
Heather
Our problem is that in the beginning there is no “us”, just individuals growing up alone in a family and culture who find them repulsive, and who make it known in subtle-to-blatant ways that being this way is worse, in essence, than being a violent criminal or abusive thug. We don’t have solidarity until we’re adults, and by then it’s often too late. Too late for our own proper emotional development and too late for the fractured solidarity that we finally can embrace to make up for it. I’m never going to forgive the people who stole my adolescence, I don’t feel the desire for forgiveness because I want nothing to do with those people. What’s important to me is carving out my own happiness with people of my own choosing for my own future. I know this future will end when I die but there’s nothing I can do about that. All I can do now, all I should care to do now, is be happy while I can and try to make life less painful for future generations. I’m happy that gays just ten years younger than I am can be out with other gays in the highschool I attended, when before it was almost unheard of. But in many parts of the world, enslaved by poverty and religion, they might never have a chance.
Duncan,
You would have made a good vicar…not because you enjoyed the wardrobe…but because you are intelligent and you are empathic.
You are a wonderfully good human being…despite the fact that you don’t want to admit it.
I’m keeping good thoughts for You and Jen…and Phil and the rest of the group.
God Bless,
Andy
Hi Duncan,
I love what you wrote, “My relationship with God means that I am never alone.” NO ONE can disprove that although the religious may take you to task doing what they do best…arguing that God is only unconditionally loving to ones like them. Our God makes us a great offer. Either have a relationship with THE RULES or with ME. I choose Him. The world confuses God with the institutional churches all the time. Continue on dear friend with the Real God. You’re right, you need not cater to look for a church to get a blessing on what you choose to do with your life.
The way I was raised in the Catholic faith was that God is here for all, whether we like it or not and would always be our comfort. I beg you not get offended by this..but why do you, who is confused where you fit in with the/a church, able to feel the comfort and solace that I never could? I was devout, I mean my uncle is a priest and a few relatives are nuns…there was no choice..but I longed for comfort for a long time and then got angry with God and gave up. I was an alter server, a choir girl, and even a Eucharistic Minister…but nothing made it feel any better. So, why do you, who seems like today you could be apathetic to organized religion, get to? I don’t envy you, or what you have been through. I am just frustrated that not only do I have the past…but at times, I feel I have no comfort..and at 19…there’s not many people you can go to..what the hell
Loved your blog again today, it really made me think. I was raised Catholic. I went to Catholic school where I was made to kneel on broomsticks for a designated amount of time, in front of my classmates, for being a naughty girl. I was smacked with pointers and rulers countless times, for something as simple as wearing my plaid skirt too high I suffered for my religion, yet in my religion, women are not allowed to be priests. I wonder why not? The Episcopalians allow it, the Lutherans allow it, and so do countless others. It seems rather discriminatory. Perhaps when the ‘old guard’ starts to die off, there will be a revolution of sorts where gays and women are welcomed, and begin to play a large role in their churches and militaries.
The church generally looks down on homosexuals because they don’t further the goal of procreation….archaic and lame by today’s standards. Trying to interpret ‘God’s word’ into their own tidy idea of what is moral. The good news is that God is in the details, and you are one of them.
Now if that theory only explained why they’re so anti sex too.
Paulie
PS Of course we know the answer is they see women as property.
Hey Duncan,
Ah wrestling with God; good luck with that.
What i really wanted to say was just how much i enjoy watching you on Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew! I wish they would show more of you instead of those odious girls.
Either way, i wish you all the luck & i hope you find peace within.
new fan,
~Raisin
I enjoyed your blog today. My church, in its social gospel, affirms homosexuals as “persons of sacred worth.”
I thought Episode 5 was great. Take care and God bless you. I’m continuing to pray for your peace, health, happiness and recovery and for that of all those on the show.
Hello Duncan!
I just wanted to tell you how much I am enjoyng reading your blog. I can’t wait to get home from work each evening to catch up on your latest musings and reminiscings about Whitstable as well as your descriptions of your Rehab experiences…..I’m hooked!
As a fellow Whitstable expat (I now live in Somerset) it’s great to hear about your experiences of growing up there and what you did when you left. (I do get to go back regularly….my dad and stepmum own the health food shop).
Please carry on writing….it’s like a really fabulous book….I don’t want it to end!
Love and best wishes
Michelle
I wasn’t raised with a particular religion but being “raised”, adopted at age 5, by a Lesbian couple, religion wasn’t really big in our house. One mom was Jewish and the other Christian. We celebrated Hanukkah as well as Christmas. Passover as well as Easter. Personally, I’m Buddhist and got into that by way of my Martial Arts training. I’ve gone to Church with my friends a few times as well as the Church that’s on campus. The one on campus has been super judgemental, while the ones that I went to with my friends outside of school has been pretty accepting.
I love reading about (and wrestling with) these kinds of “big questions”, Duncan. Thank you so much for writing about it.
The reason the gay marriage thing isn’t nonsense is that marriage itself is a legal contract. Church marriages do not have the force of law unless the state also grants license. States can enact laws creating equivalence for domestic partnerships, but in practice these experiments are as unsuccessful as other attempts at “separate but equal”. Legally, it’s so much simpler to just say marriage between two consenting adults is marriage, and all rights pertaining to it must be respected reciprocally across state lines. That change will take the time it takes, perhaps requiring the demise of the resistant. It’s certainly much less of an issue to the young.
You are right in pointing out the corruptions, but after all what institution is free from rot? You’re an artist, so you’ll always be ahead of the curve on societal constraints. The tethers WILL cut into your neck as you try to pull against them. But even artists need to be ethical. And the process of recovery has surely made you more aware of ethical responsibilities (amends and all that).
Finally, your relationship with God is between the two of you. Your context within a church is separate. Faith and religion aren’t the same thing. I know those two get commingled and confused, but the rites you prefer to perform don’t determine the relationship any more than saying “I do” defines what a marriage is or will be. Relationships are made and kept by the daily actions of the participants toward each other. That applies to being a church member (or not) also. You join a church to enter relationship with the other church members.
It’s necessary to rehearse if you are a chorister, and it’s fun to sing in a group. You have to admit, some of the music is challenging to learn, and fulfilling to perform. It makes little difference whether or not you believe the text. You just try to do it well. You’ll get out of it what you put into it. The same goes for music, film making or recovery.
i just wanted to emphasize that catholicism has no problem with a person feeling same-sex attractions, the problem comes when there is an action. i can’t imagine what it’s like to have those feelings, but i deeply respect those who view it as a cross to bear.
that is very reassuring. i do not consider having same sex feelings a ‘cross to bear’ rather as a wonderful gift. you are only young, the joy of same sex feeling may come to you later in life. i am rooting for you.
yeah, i’m rooting for you also. i should have said this in the beginning, but thank you for sharing your story and having the courage to go on vh1.