Read Online Farm Boys: Lives of Gay Men from the Rural Midwest by Unknown - Free Book Online Page A

street so everybody knows, or saying in your face, “I’m gay, like it or leave it.”
    In their approaches to socializing, these men tended to favor get-to-gethers among relatively small groups of friends rather than the more public and densely populated socializing that prevails in bars and clubs. Similarly, many of these men believed that they needed more solitary time than gay men from urban backgrounds required. Considering that many men seem to have a “loner” tendency—regardless of their sexual orientation and whether their upbringing was rural or urban—it is not surprising that a number of these men felt they lived on the fringes of their gay communities. It is likely, however, that the origin of these feelings goes beyond the typical male loner impulse. Most gay communities are urban phenomena, and although many of these men lived in or near relatively large cities, they were not of the city, as many of their gay peers were. Wayne Belden, who has lived in Chicago for about twenty years, said, “Here in the city I’m kind of out of my element. I just have to get on as best I can, gaining some things and losing some.” Larry Ebmeier had a similar reaction to getting acquainted with the gay community in Lincoln, Nebraska, once he started to come out in his late twenties.
    It seemed like I was the peg that didn’t fit—I wasn’t a queen, I didn’t like to dish. I always tended to feel more at home with some of my nongay friends. I still feel that way, but less so. It was somewhat of a dilemma, because I knew I was gay but I didn’t enjoy the banter, I wasn’t into the style, I wasn’t into the things they did. People that I’ve come into contact with in the gay community tend to be more outgoing, more talkative, less introverted than I am. I wonder if there aren’t other people out there who are like me, more quiet and more private, not like the gay mafia that you see so much of—the outgoing, outspoken, socialistic, activist, flamboyant and fast-paced, dishing, camping-it-up type of people who seem to dominate when gays come together in urban areas.
    Allen Victor, who has been with his partner Jeff since 1979, ruminated on their efforts to create and sustain gay as well as mainstream community connections in a small city in southern Minnesota.
    Jeff and I live in his hometown, so we’re very involved with his family The house we bought was a block away from his grandmother’s, an old Norwegian lady who lived to be eighty-five. She and I got along very well, always teasing each other. Once, when she thought I was putting Jeff up to doing something she didn’t quite approve of, she told him, “I don’t know if you should hang around with Allen—I think he’s a homosexual. But he is a. good cook.”
    When she passed away, we inherited her best friend from across the street, and her next-door-neighbor friend. It’s an old, established neighborhood, but through living here and doing things for his grandmother and her friends, we’ve gotten to know our neighbors. We feel a little bit more support from some of them than from the other gay people in town—just because our values are more in tune with those of our neighbors, I guess. It seems like people here can handle gay and lesbian couples who’ve been here a long time and live openly but quietly. There’s one couple that’s been together here for close to forty years.
    It’s hard to be closeted in this town, because word gets around. When we first moved here, a lesbian came to us and said, “All right, we’re here—we have to organize a little bit.” So we got a post office box and got a group of eight or ten people together. It started out to be a real positive experience, but we ended up burning out on personality conflicts and bad feelings because of different outlooks on how to live in this small town. Jeff and I felt like we were being pushed to the foreground. Since we lived together, we could be the visible ones and take the