Some people say a generation of gay men were lost to HIV. I don’t know your status, but I will say that many gay men born in the 1950s are not here with us today. How did you avoid succumbing to the virus back in the 1980s and such?
I have always been pretty fat, and thus shy. I was never one for the bar/club scene. I had a steady boyfriend when I lived in the Bronx (for most of the time) and mostly didn’t do much on the scene. I may be lucky, for which I am thankful, but I’m also painfully aware that about forty men I knew in the 1970’s through the 1990’s succumbed to HIV, many of them men of colour. James Toms, my co-chair when I was co-chair of Men of All Colours Together/New York, is one whom I miss daily. I am also thankful for the medical advances that have meant that many of my friends who are now positive are still healthy and still with us on this side of eternity.
Would you ever post a butt-booty naked photo of yourself on LJ?
I would never say never, but I don’t see that in my future at the moment. I might trade one privately…
I don’t have anything against bald men. To me, that would be like straight men not liking women who menstruate. It happens, a whole bunch of men bald and I wouldn’t want to exclude them. HOWEVER, American gay male culture can be very snobby and exclusive. Was it tough for you when you started balding? How did you decide against toupees and such? I notice you don’t shave it all off in a Capt. Picard/Michel Foucault type of way either. tell me about that too.
When I was 16, I looked old enough (as my hairline was already beginning to recede) to buy liquor. That was the only time in my adolescence where I was truly popular with my peers. To be honest, I never considered toupees (they all look like drowned rats or raccoons perched on people’s heads unless they cost thousands of pounds/dollars). So I just paid it no attention (I couldn’t see it anyway unless I was in front of a mirror) and let it fall out. If it affected my success in attracting men, it was probably outweighed (pun intended) by my fat as a factor in the husband sweepstakes. I have shaved my head occasionally, but that strategy is very high maintenance, and I often end up with a slashed-up scalp, which isn’t particularly nice. So I just accept it and go to HWMBO’s Barbershop (sic) when I get a bit too shaggy on the sides.