Gay Spirit: Myth and Meaning

by Mark Thompson

Gay Spirit , the psychic and creative energies generated by people we now call gay, has always existed on the outer shores of our culture's collective consciousness. In the past, gay people were labeled heretics, perversions of nature, or categorized pseudo-scientifically. Gay people lived on the edge of the global village or worked within its mainstream in denial and disguise. But today that spirit has re-emerged and lives among us.

This book of essays explores the possibilities of that spirit--suggesting ways in which gay people might find a place and purpose in human culture unique to themselves, departing with the questions asked nearly forty years ago by the Mattachine Who are we? Where have we come from? Why are we here?

Genres: Nonfiction, LGBT, Gay, Sexuality, Religion, Queer, Spirituality

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads data base.

Mark Thompson is an American writer, editor and activist. His work centers around gay issues, particularly spirituality.

Reviews

[Eliot Fiend · Rating 5 out of 5]

oh my goodness this book is great. one of the best books i've read on gay stuff in many years. varingly and broadly accessible to a wide readership, a mixup of gay "theorists" (i hesitate to call them that because none of the essay authors seem to call themselves "theorists" in an academic sense....they are visionaries, artists, casual writers, authors, friends, lovers, etc.) that traces the roots of homos who wondered about the broader "reason" or purpose of homosexuality back to the 1920's and 30's (in terms of writers) and across cultures and times. i discovered so many new words for and ways of thinking about queerness! "adhesive" sexuality, "Uranian/Urning," "isophyl" among others. the work of this book digs up the revolutionary-yet-entrenched ideas about sexuality that we have and throws them back with the force of history in the interest of liberating us all, not just particular kinds of desires. i have to say, it helps me think about the place of "straight"/"hetero" folx in the queer movement too. also amazing that some folx have been making certain predictions and manifesto-claims since way long before i was born--the need for culturemaking (and how?), questions of the importance/uselessness of "identity politix," what the broader implications of sexuality are. and although the authors' stated focus is on gay male sexuality, authors do an excellent job of broadening their readings and interest to apply to broadly people who are gender-nonconforming, folks whose choice of sexual partner is "nonnormative," folx who feel a sense of difference, and people who apply their lives to social and ideological work other than reproduction (while validating that work too.)

a real valuable read for radicals, queer separatists and queers and their allies, to all those claiming to be culture/paradigm-shifters, particularly those of any kind of spiritual or religious leanings, those seeking ancestors or precedent, but also everyone.

i'm looking forward to sharing malcolm boyd's essay with my mum. mains', a biochemist's, essay on leathermen as "urban aboriginals," while maybe making some hasty parallels with indigenous ritual practices, is phenomenal. i expected to be much more bored by the work on walt whitman--but i found myself glued to the page. carpenter and the essay on drag queens were really important additions to my knowledge about my queer and creative ancestors.

so grateful for this book. and i have to admit, i had to leave the book behind before i even got to part III on the radical faeries & myth-making! can't wait to pick it up again. i love that the essays are so short and readable that i read half the book in 36 hours. do it!

[W. Stephen Breedlove · Rating 5 out of 5]

SUBJECT-SUBJECT CONSCIOUSNESS

Mark Thompson’s Gay Spirit: Myth and Meaning is the first book in his trilogy on gay spirituality. The second and third books are Gay Soul and Gay Body, respectively. All three books have a common theme: Gay people are special and have unique ways of looking at the world that heterosexuals do not.

In the introduction to Gay Spirit, Thompson defines gay spirit as “the psychic and creative energies generated by people we now call gay, has always existed on the outer shores of our culture’s creative consciousness.” The twenty-four essays and interviews included in Gay Spirit explore how gay spirit can contribute to the enrichment of the world.

In his essay, “Gay People at a Critical Crossroad: Assimilation or Affirmation?” Don Kilhefer makes the first reference in the book to a fascinating concept with which I was unfamiliar: subject-subject consciousness. He writes that gay people possess a subject-subject consciousness, as opposed to the subject-object consciousness of heterosexuals. In his superb essay on Walt Whitman, “Seven Glimpses of Walt Whitman,” William Moritz uses the concept of subject-subject consciousness, which he attributes to Harry Hay, to help describe Whitman’s “ability to see into the souls of others, to identify and communicate with them.” In Mark Thompson’s delightful interview with Harry Hay, “Harry Hay: A Voice from the Past, a Vision for the Future,” Hay tells gay people to cast off “the ugly green frog skin of heterosexual conformity” and open the “gay window” to “our own way of seeing, our own vision.” Of course, Hay emphasizes the subject-subject consciousness that gay people possess. In “This Gay Tribe: A Brief History of Fairies,” Thompson writes, “We must transform the experience of people viewing others as objects to be manipulated, mastered, and consumed, to subjects like him/herself, to be respected and cherished.”

Mark Thompson’s interview with James Broughton, “In the Service of Ecstasy,” is one of my favorite pieces in Gay Spirit, mainly because of Broughton’s joyful and mischievous ways of looking at the world. For example, Broughton observes, “God was certainly merry when he played around making giraffes and volcanoes and octopi and comets and toucans. The cosmos is full of great silliness.” Broughton says that instead of gay people wanting acceptance and “to be absorbed into the social fabric of the heterosexual mainstream . . . We should be considering what we can do for them.”

In the last essay in Gay Spirit, “The Evolution of a Fairie: Notes toward a New Definition of Gay,” Mark Thompson sums up: “Thinking we have gained so much, we have been led to settle for less than we can be.” This statement is as true today as it was when Gay Spirit was published in 1987. Many in the gay community settled for gay marriage. Does gay marriage fulfill the promise of gay spirit?

Mark Thompson’s Gay Spirit, Gay Soul, and Gay Body are important and enlightening contributions to GLBTQ+ culture. These books are more relevant today than when they were originally published. Mark Thompson died in 2016 of AIDS at the age of 63. He left an invaluable legacy to us. It should not be ignored or forgotten.

[Jordan Kinsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some incredible passages, but poorly edited so as to be rambling and repetitive.

[Thom]

important read for those who struggling with spirituality and sexuality