Simon Edge: 'The Politics of Visibility: Hedonism in the Gay Nineties'
In: Annotations 1: Mixed Belongings and Unspecified Destinations. Edited by Nikos Papastergiadis. London: Institute of International Visual Arts, 1996,
pp. 42-51
If ever the creation of a community, and the development of a cultural iconography to identify the terrain of that community, has been important in forging a political response by a minority group to systematic oppression, then that community is the lesbian and gay community. I should like to consider what the lesbian and gay community consists of, and, having identified it as a tangible entity, try to establish its relationship to the extraordinary advances which have been made towards lesbian and gay social and political emancipation in the 1990s.
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At this point certainly from a London perspective, I want to stress that there are at least two communities, not one. There is a lesbian community and a gay community, which by and large exist in different places, i.e. in physically different locations, and which may have aspects in common but have very little contact. When I talk about the gay community from now on I mean 'gay' in the sense of 'gay men', simply because that is what I know about.
For gay men, the community - on that definition of people participating in some way in the collective gay scene - has acquired a tremendous importance. It is the hallmark of gay life in the 1990s that the number of gay venues has risen exponentially. In London, new venues open every month; some of them close again very shortly afterwards, but the net rise is considerable. The same is happening up and down the country and by and large, the number of venues is rising to meet the demand, as the confidence and ability of gay people is growing at a similar rate.
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The more people who come out, the more visible we become; this undermines prejudice, which in turn makes it more attractive for other people to come out, which in turn further undermines prejudice, and so on in a magnificent virtuous circle. Whereas this was a piece of untested theory back in the 1970s, when significant numbers of people first started talking about gay liberation in this country, it has now been tested in practice - and it is working.
One of the hallmarks of this growth has been an apparent decline in the level of overt political activity and consciousness on the part of gay people. For many people who have been politically active in the lesbian and gay movement, in activist organisations as campaigners, the new culture is alarming. A quarter of a million people may come to Pride nowadays, but the community can seem to have lost its sense of political awareness as it embarks on a spree of hedonism, lost in a haze of designer drugs and trivial cultural images of teen bands and tinny pop. Traditional activist organisations have dwindled, to the point where OutRage's most famous member is its only one.
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The mentality of group hedonism smothers diversity. It is less fun the less you conform: in looks, spending power or if you have a problem with the cultural trappings of disco and high camp. The 'dance-till-you-drop', 'gay-is-fun' culture is grotesque in the extreme if you happen to be on the downside of gay life and you are immersed in the indescribable horror of AIDS.
That is the critique, but I repeat, something seems to be working. The last six years have seen political and social gains scarcely imaginable a decade ago. Lesbian and gay rights are a centre-stage preoccupation of modern political life. Ten years ago, support for gay issues would guarantee a labour politician or local authority a 'loony left' tag, but the support of 40-odd Tory MPs for an equal age of consent for gay men two years ago shows we are no longer such a political hot potato. If Labour wins the next election the openly gay Chris Smith will take a senior cabinet post. Tony Blair attended the biggest gay rights gala of the year shortly after becoming Labour leader and no one batted an eyelid. The following year, the same gala was attended by the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party. The Archbishop of Canterbury says homosexuals are made in God's eyes and has appointed as Archbishop of York, the deputy head of the Church of England, a man who says his own sexuality is a grey area. The Lord Chancellor says being openly gay is no bar to becoming a judge and the Metropolitan Police in London, (once a major agent of gay oppression) has taken the lead on a range of pro-gay initiatives.
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Nevertheless, the world is a changing place. You can still be sacked for being gay, but it happens to fewer people because more people, gay and straight will make a fuss if it does. Many gay people still face intense prejudice from families, neighbours, colleagues or bigots in the street but more people are likely to come out because fewer people are likely to bat an eyelid when they do or because they can move to a part of the country where being gay is no big deal. Homophobia is undoubtedly alive and well in far too may walks of life; nevertheless gay people are much less vulnerable in the Britain of 1996 than we have been at any time in memory.