Leddick - How to Be Gay in the 21st Century

To the memory of Quentin Crisp.

I can only hope he would like this book: He probably wouldnt.

Theres nothing wrong with being gay but a lot of people do it wrong.

WHITE LAKE PRESS

ISBN: 978-0-615-39354-4

Copyright 2010 White Lake Press

120 Venetian Way, Miami Beach FL

33139, U.S.A.

305-532-5134

Email: info@DavidLeddick.net

www.DavidLeddick.net

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, Stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, without
the prior consent of the publisher.

All characters portrayed are 18 years of age or older.

All photographs by David Vance

2009 David Vance, U.S.A.

www.DavidVance.com

www.DavidVancePrints.com

Book design by Joris Buiks

www.DutchdesignBerlin.com

Printed in USA

There is nothing wrong with being gay. Its like being Swedish. A little different but in no important way.

But theres plenty wrong with the way a lot of people are gay. Theyre gay in ways that dont make them happy. This book has the nerve to suggest that maybe theyre doing gay wrong. And that there are ways to do it right. Many readers will disagree and hurl this book into a corner. But others will find that in this new century there are new ways to do everything, and being gay is among those things.

This book is going to leave women aside. That is another subject for another kind of writer. This book is for gay men. And lets face it, many men are gay in ways that dont work for them in achieving the results they want. I believe that part of the problem is how they go about it. And part of it is in the results they want.

This book will try to rectify the situation. At least it will make some suggestions as to how one can go be gay and make it work for your happiness, rather than against it. Of course there is always the possibility that your unhappiness is your happiness, but you will have to mull that over with your analyst.

Dear Gay (or non-Gay) Reader,

We lie there accusing ourselves of all sorts of fears and guilts and general inadequacies. Yet in the broad light of day when we consider how we would have dealt with a problem at seventeen and how we would deal with it today, it is quite obvious that we have matured and grown a great deal.

We are in the 21st century. We must grow and mature even more. The world we will be living in will be quite different and all our repressions, hesitations, feelings of not being good enough, fears of being rejected will not be appropriate in this new environment.

Already it is quite clear that the gay world has become very American Butch with all its hockey and volleyball tournaments. I myself will miss all those long and languid lovelies who never played sports. And certainly there are plenty of men still interested in them. The gay image has transmuted from Rita Hayworth through Billie Jean King and now is hovering around Adam Lambert. And so the world changes. Kismet, as they say, It is written in the stars.

Dont get locked into your problems so they become the way you live. You will have new problems. So be ready to change and live in terms of them. You dont want to be an old fuddy-duddy. And remember:

Its just a situation. This is what being gay is all about. Its not a problem, its just a situation called being alive. Here are some things I want you to remember before you continue with this guidebook:

Some of the big names in history were gay and liked it fine. Alexander the Great. And so beautiful, too. King Ludwig of Bavaria. Mad as a hatter, but the country is living on the tourist income from his crazy palaces. Frederick the Great. Frederick was great, they say. Richard the Lionhearted. His ex became the King of France. George Washington. Married late to a widow who already had two children. Never had children of his own. Was crazy about young General Lafayette. President Buchanan. His boyfriend lived with him in the White House Bet you didnt know that. Even Abraham Lincoln. Who had a great body and was suspected of lurking in the park in front of the White House. More power to him.

If you dont already know this, you should. The Kinsey Report, published more than half a century ago, stated that 37 per cent of the male white population of the United States had at least some overt homosexual experience to the point of orgasm between adolescence and old age; 23 per cent of the male population had some kind of homosexual experience for at least three years between the ages of 16 and 55. This is a lot of people and this was in the far more repressive American world of over fifty years ago. Just to point out that you are hardly in this gay thing by yourself. Kinseys figures for exclusively homosexual males were 4 per cent, which were about four million men then. And would be over ten million guys today. Just to give you some facts so you dont feel lonely.

It is very important not to feel guilty. How? Dont do things that make you feel guilty. If you feel guilty about doing certain things (blowjobs behind garbage cans for example), either face the fact that you actually enjoy suffering the guilt, or just quit doing it. Feeling that you are a bad person is so 20th century. Get over it. The 21st century has a whole new set of definitions of being bad: like bombing people, destroying the environment, neglecting the poor and underprivileged. That is being bad. You arent.

So heres the story. In the century ahead its going be all about tailoring a life for yourself that suits you and makes you feel fulfilled, and that comes pretty close to being happy. Its not about doing what is expected of you by others or trying to look good in the eyes of others at the expense of your own happiness. That is all over.

And to do this, you have to know who you are. That is the reason for doing this book. Find out who you are and get on with it. With all best wishes for your success,

David Leddick

If you are not willing to get out of the closet you might as well close this book right now and read no further. You can not be a successful gay person and be in the closet. You are creating a life for a non-person; the person you would be if you were straight. None of these roles have anything to do with you. And when you lay down to die you will realize that you never really lived. And you will just have to do it all over again. And surely it will be as a gay person. So you might just as well deal with it now.

You cant tell your parents? Then dont. Just move to Seattle or as far away as you can and dont write. And get on with it. Any man over thirty who is not trying to fuck women should think a bit, Who do I want to fuck?. If you dont date girls and you think most people dont think youre gay, youre kidding yourself. This is the communication age. Everybody knows everything. Everyone is smarter than you think they are.

The trouble with a secret life is that the only person who thinks its a secret is the person living it. Everyone else knows. So if you think the shock of your coming out will alienate your friends and family, forget it.