EDITORIALS

Notes on ‘Attitude’
It’s the 500-pound gorilla in every gay man’s psychic living room: We might ignore it, but it’s wherever we turn.
Friday, January 07, 2005

In memory of Susan Sontag.

A sensibility (as distinct from an idea) is one of the hardest things to talk about; but there are special reasons why Attitude, in particular, has never been discussed. It is not a natural mode of sensibility, if there be any such. Indeed the essence of Attitude is its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration. And Attitude is esoteric — something of a private code, a badge of identity even, among small urban cliques.

OK, so that was lifted whole cloth from Sontag’s seminal (appropriate word!) essay “Notes on Camp.” It’s difficult in 2005 to fathom how revolutionary the impact Sontag’s essay made when it first appeared in 1964.

This was a time when “gay culture” would have been considered an oxymoron, if it would have been considered at all. In fact, there was no “gay culture,” at least in the sense of anyone knowing about it, even gay men themselves.

Sontag could truly be said, in fact, to have been instrumental in taking urban homosexuals and “inventing” gay men — that is, in the sense of a sensibility, a self-definition, what we would today call a “lifestyle” of celebration, as opposed to a mere reaction to oppression.

I doubt if Sontag, who lived in London Terrace — in the belly of the beast, as it were — could have been insensate to the phenomenon that gay men call “Attitude.”

But in the contemporary world, gay men frown on campy behavior. Today, it’s all about Attitude and flaunting it.

Michelangelo Signorile’s “Life Outside” pretty well defined the terms of debate. Even if you don’t agree with the book’s premise, that gay men who reject the urban high-flying “circuit” lifestyle in favor of marriage, family and the wood-paneled station wagon, he did codify the inside/outside dichotomy of modern gay life.

Attitude was certainly present under the surface of the repressed pre-Stonewall years. There was certainly an “A list,” as so well depicted in Alan Helms’ “Young Man from the Provinces.”

But Attitude, as we know it today, really got going in the mid-1970s, mostly in those two crucibles of modern gay life, West Side dance clubs like Flamingo and 12 West, and in Fire Island Pines. (The third nexus, San Francisco’s Castro, certainly contributed as well.)

Men dressed a certain way (mustaches, work boots, jeans), they conformed to a certain body type (muscular, but far from the walking refrigerators we see on Eighth Avenue), had good-paying jobs (you didn’t get into the Pines or the clubs just on your good looks — or at least not on average good looks). And they were nearly all white; several blacks in “Love Saves the Day” describe the discomfort they were made to feel in the “membership” clubs at the time.

Today, the clothes, facial hair and body type may have changed. But there’s still a very “us and them” mentality in the gay world. As Signorile pointed out, for better or worse, a certain segment of gay society — called circuit boys, for lack of a better term — have pretty well defined gay life.

These guys — and their Attitude (or at least some of their Attitude) — set the tone of our lives. Whether by accepting it, coveting it, rejecting it or even pointedly ignoring it, it’s something that we are forced to confront every time we are in our own environment.

At its most basic (and base), Attitude is looking down on someone — or, more pointedly, ignoring him — because he’s poor, unattractive, old, thin, fat, unfashionable or (in some cases) nonwhite.

There are two reactions to these guys. One is to press your nose against the glass and imagine that they live glamorous lives, have incredible sex with each other and go to fabulous parties that you weren’t invited to. The other reaction is to dismiss them as a bunch of shallow, miserable assholes. The truth, I think, lies somewhere in between.

I’ve known a lot of these guys. Many of them are every bit as vapid as they first appear. A lot of them are smart, accomplished and funny.

That’s what’s so exasperating.

I often like to say that the only people I give Attitude to are people with Attitude. It’s a nice philosophy, but soon enough, you become known as someone with Attitude. It’s a lose-lose situation.

So why is this of any importance at all? Because we don’t need anyone else to make us feel bad about ourselves. We don’t need Fred Phelps or Pat Robertson or George W. Bush. We do a good enough job on each other. And when we feel bad, we do dumb things.

We don’t use a condom when someone cute asks us not to. We smoke crystal because it makes us feel 10 feet tall. We waste time mooning after guys who aren’t worth it in the first place.

What can we do about it? I guess we can all love each other a lot more. But let’s face it: That’s simplistic, and it ain’t gonna happen anytime soon.

People have been subdividing themselves into elites and nonelites ever since the first Mesopotamians cultivated crops and built towns. It’s human nature, no matter how much we rail against it. And when we’re packed in as closely as a city like New York, the herd instinct is ever more forceful.

The only real antidote is a healthy dose of self-respect, which is not as easy as it seems. Whether it’s the gym floor, the dance floor or the trading floor, there’s always going to be someone who’s handsomer, buffer, younger, richer — do you really want me to go on? — than you are. But if you accept yourself, you project self-confidence.

The other solution is laughter. The tragic man, when he sees the ultimate absurdity of the world around him, is to put out his eyes. The comic man, when he sees the same thing, is to open up his arms wide and laugh.

If you can do that, you can conquer that world. Hey, some may even mistake your attitude for Attitude. But it’s better than the alternative.

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