Radical Faerie Gatherings: The Cultivation of Queerness

Radical Faeries have been gathering together and creating transient pop-up queer community for more than 40 years-ever since the very first call to gather in early September 1979. 

These pre-Covid19 Gatherings (which until recently had become a regular global phenomenon) would often be held on the occasion of pagan earth-appreciating festivals as a way of tuning into natural seasonal rhythms. Some Faeries might say that the fundamental purpose of these gatherings was to enable an energy (which could be named as 'The Queer') to heal itself from the destructive attacks of those who felt threatened by it and who, for many and varied reasons, would wish to establish themselves as 'Non-Queer'

By creating community-encouraging-of-Queerness, Faeries have been able to develop their consciousness around power dynamics and the mechanisms of persecution, seeing their positioning and roles in the complex intersectionality of oppression as it manifests in the various -isms (sexism/misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism). And to also appreciate the potential world-healing value of this natural-Faerie-propensity to engage in this particular kind of work!

I've been attending gatherings for over 10 years now, and during this time I've been able to acknowledge the homophobic inflicted pain and suffering I've had to endure as a same-sex-loving Human Being. However I also see that this horribleness of experience is just a 'drop in the ocean' of what it might have been had I not been identifiable as a member of the most privileged classes (i.e. white, educated, middle class, cis-seeming-male, and able-bodied/ able-minded).

This realisation hasn't made my own pain and suffering any less and it hasn't meant I've been able to avoid a whole lot of work to understand its far reaching effects on my personality (particularly the extent to which I'm hampered in my ability to engage in intimacy with others).

But I'm now tuned into the way homophobia is just one facet of the many-faced invisible oppressive forces constantly directed towards women, towards the undereducated, towards the non-white, towards the colonised, towards the differently abled and towards my dear queer trans siblings.

It's interesting to see how, within our various Faerie communities, once the intention of creating a queer-nurturing environment and ethos is set, the forces which seem to oppose this intention begin to assemble. The microcosm begins to manifest elements of those oppressive forces from the macrocosm. Shock! Horror! A group of predominantly able-middle-class-cis-white-gay-men unintentionally/unthinkingly behave in ways which are uncomfortable for women, non-white, poor, disabled, trans etc. folk!

Thankfully Faerie Gatherings are becoming increasingly more inclusive and this has meant more work to do in understanding our relative privileges and the ways in which these might be contributing to the ongoing oppression of others, or alternatively, how they might be engaged with constructively to raise awareness and to work towards the redressing of unfairnesses and inequities.

The Story of an Oppressed Gay Child Who Abolished Their Feminine for Over 40 Years

Nascent sexuality and its ‘correction’….

When I was a child I hung out a lot with my sister. I liked the company of girls. Boys were strange aggressive creatures who obsessed over cars and football. Together with my sister and her friends I found men to be mysteriously attractive. 

The boys no doubt saw me as a lisping sissy who played with the girls, cried easily, danced, skipped, skated, couldn't kick a football and threw like a girl!

In primary school all the boys wore shorts and one day a sexually precocious girl taught us how to play a secret game called ‘nervous’ which started with the girls touching the boys on the inside of the knee and then slowly inching it up their inner thighs asking all the time ‘Are you nervous yet?’ The boldest among us would allow the finger to pass under the hem of our shorts, pass inside our underpants, move onto our scrotum and then finally allow a whole hand to grasp our little prepubescent willies. It felt amaaazing! I quickly adapted the game so I could play it with my classmate Michael, under the desk during maths lessons, and with my friend Benny, in the shallow end of the swimming pool.

My dad was a Scout leader and this meant, as a family, we’d go on camping holidays with scores of horny adolescent lads. I remember, at the tender age of 9 being adopted by Kestrel patrol - a gang of 7 teenagers who, upon realising I didn't actually know the answer to the question ‘Do you know how you were born?’ took it upon themselves to educate me into all the elaborate ins and outs of sex as they understood it. This included stories of boys wanking behind their desk at the back of the classroom and being able to ejaculate ‘spunk’ more than six desks in front of them. Someone they knew had been born as a result of ruptured Durex or ‘Johnny Bag’ which was known as ‘Being born on a bursted Johnny’. There was also talk of ‘Homos’ and ‘Lesbos’ and a clear message that none of this was acceptable. Nevertheless all this talk from man-boys with deep voices, prominent Adams apples, hairy armpits and athletic physiques firmly cemented my erotic curiosity in the direction of male secondary sexual characteristics and made it all a deliciously irresistible forbidden bowl of fruit.

As I hit my teens the boys in secondary school started to violently police the behaviour of the boys they identified as different. This involved constant name calling, pushing, shoving, kicking and shaming. Making sure they knew they had been clocked and excluded from the possibility of any sort of social connection.

Once this started my preservation instinct kicked in and I rapidly learned to perform the correct code of conduct. Not backing down from a fight instigated by the accusation of being 'a puff’ saved me from closer scrutiny. Then, to further develop my laddish credentials I would hang out with the smokers by the bike sheds pretending to be interested in their sex talk of  fondling, fingering and shagging. I even started dating girls with the sole purpose of making conquests I could subsequently brag about. 

There were some boys who were very gentle and softly spoken. They seemed unwilling or unable to behave in acceptably masculine ways. They were mercilessly punished on a daily basis. I didn't bully them myself but watched on as it happened, fearing that defending them would blow my cover and I'd end up having to suffer the same fate.

Nascent gender performativity and its ‘correction’…

In 1960, the working class world I was born into knew nothing beyond a very strictly policed gender binary. I had a penis so I was a boy-simples! But I was a girly boy. I wished I could be a mother and become a housewife. It made me sad that this option wasn’t open to me. I envied girls and their ability to attract sexy men. I wanted to wear makeup and once dusted my face with some foundation powder from a discarded compact of my mothers. My dad noticed immediately “Wash that muck off your face!’ A few months later I patted a bit of talcum powder on my cheeks then forgot about it. Again my dad spotted it and with disgust said ‘What have you done to your face? Wash it off and don’t let me ever see you do that kind of thing again!”

So I was efficiently detected as a potential gender transgressor and rapidly knocked back into line. I quickly learned that some of my speech patterns, mannerisms and gestures could be identified by others as ‘girly’ and were therefore potentially dangerous signifiers of differentness. I felt this girlishness was somehow related to my secret attraction towards men and so for the sake of my social survival it needed to be eradicated from how I presented myself to the world.

Thus began the extended performance of a macho-ish false self. The voice had to be lower and gruff with no squeals or screeches. Hands had to be anchored in pockets. The walk became a cocky lolling swagger with a man-spreading gait suggestive of a need to avoid scissoring an imaginary pair of big balls between upper thighs. I was pretty convincing to the point that I almost believed it myself! Even beyond the age of 20 when I came out as gay, the straight-acting-ness was firmly ingrained and would remain so until met the Faeries.

Then, at the age of 49 I put on a wig, a dress and some make-up. It was such a transformation that no-one seemed to recognise me. A part of me that had been frozen began to thaw out. This presentation of me wasn’t seen by the Faeries as disgusting but was celebrated and appreciated. What a relief it was to no longer be policing myself, to be allowing free reign to any whim or style of being without fear of reprimand.

But then it got complicated, some of the presentations of my repressed femininity could seem like a caricature or a parody of womanly behaviour and thus I noticed a potential to cause offence to female and trans faeries. The enjoyment I experienced in allowing my cis-male programmed behaviours to recede led me to wonder about my gender identity. Sadly when I dared to consider that I might be trans*, the young trans Faeries shook their heads seeing me as too cis-seeming. 

So, now at the grand old age of 60 I know I’m not a conventional gay-cis-male. Within a cis/trans spectrum I tend to get pushed away from the trans end. And within a Gay/Bi/Straight spectrum I’m experientially fairly gay even though in my youth I did engage in faux-straight sexual activities.

There’s certainly something odd about my gender so I tend to describe it as ‘cissish’ and when it comes to pronouns, I do tend to be referred to as ‘he’ but generally I prefer to be seen in all my plurality as ‘they’! 

I reckon that the oppressive policing of my gender and sexuality has wounded me pretty deeply. I've had to work hard to find at least a degree of healing from all of this. 

I’m wondering if, for some who have experienced a similar kind of wounding, when it doesn't, for whatever reason, get fully processed can it kind of manifest itself as an ‘identification with the aggressor’ and does it then present itself as misogyny and transphobia?

I know that whenever I detect misogyny or transphobia directed towards others it presses on the memory of my own oppression and I feel a twinge of pain from those suffocating 40 years of self policing

My Qu-heroes

What is this process of Gay Iconic veneration? 

Looking back on the iconography of my earlier life, (Kenneth Williams, Quentin Crisp, Judy Garland, Barbara Streisand, Freddy Mercury, Will Young), I see how, with each figure, I managed to create an image-construct. Its value, for me, being that of knowing there was a story of a real person, like my own queer struggling self, who was capable of transcending adversity (or if not, was at least enduring its suffering in a truly fabulous way!) These Gay Icons gave me the courage to come out of my closet. They were individuals who dared to express their forbidden amazingness and desires shamelessly.

More recently however, I’ve had little spells of hero worship for gay men who are remembered for their role as visionaries, political activists and fighters for queer social justice. Here are my top 3…

Walt Whitman: 19th Century American poet who dared to openly publish poems about “the manly love of comrades” at a time when celebrating a reality which included sex would have him branded as an obscene writer throughout his lifetime. His poetry strongly influenced…

Edward Carpenter: Early 20th Century British writer and socialist poet who became a hero to the first generation of Labour politicians. At a time of Victorian homophobia (his contemporary Oscar Wilde was imprisoned for 2 years with hard labour for the crime of “gross indecency with sodomy”) he managed to live in an openly gay relationship and publish books allowing folk to discuss the possibility that sexual orientation was natural and biologically determined rather than being something to be morally condemned or criminalised. His books were read by…

Harry Hay: (1912-2002) American communist who was able to see the link between queer and black oppression and had the vision and courage to establish the first, pre-Stonewall gay rights movement called the Mattachine Society. Doing this meant risking his life, his job and his liberty. 

The Society became a victim of its own success, got a sudden influx of conservative members who saw Hay’s communism, at a time of McCarthy’s witch-hunt trials, as a liability, ousted him and established itself as an assimilationist lobby. 

Undaunted Hay then went on to argue for a different kind of liberation. For queers to ‘cast off the ugly frog-skin of hetero-conformity’ and for them to discover their queer purpose through the realisation of their true faerie nature in community at Faerie Gatherings.

I suppose I’ve been following Harry’s lead in this respect for the past 10 years or so. For me he’s not so much an Icon or Hero-to-worship. In fact the more I’ve learned about his egocentricity, intellectual bullying, and temper tantrums, the less I feel I would have liked him as a person!

He’s more of a flawed fore-father-figure…a guiding queer ancestor…a giant who stood on giant’s shoulders. 

His own shoulders now invite us all to step up and see the amazing view!

Full Spectrum Faerie Sex Magick

The Faeries are a fairly diverse bunch of queers.

However, in the early days, 40 years or so ago, at the very first gatherings of Faeries, the vast majority of attendees were gay men who were drawn to the idea of meeting together as faggots in nature to celebrate their sissy selves and explore their spiritual consciousness, asking the questions: 'Who are we, where are going, and what are we for?'

From the exploration of these questions, (and from a growing awareness that, although a lot of gay men seemed to be having a lot of sex, they were often craving an intimacy with each other which seemed forever-out-of-reach), there emerged an intensive workshop aimed at helping those who felt the call, to delve into the personal and interpersonal reasons for the many obstacles to intimacy encountered by gay men. These healing workshops, facilitated by volunteer Faeries, for the benefit of Faeries, have been running for the past 30 years and are known as Faerie Sex Magick (FSM) Workshops.

These days Faerie-space is now a much more diverse and inclusive network where those from across the full range of the LGBTQIA+ spectrum are invited to enrich the exploration in community of the questions: 'How does it feel when a) I dare to stand in the full power of my sexual orientation b) the expression of my gender identity is not only unrestrained but is completely appreciated and celebrated?'

Until now the FSM workshops have been confined to fagot identified men. The logic for this being that there is a real kind of hurt experienced by faggots growing up in a homophobic social environment, and that faggots are best able to develop an understanding of this. Fags are uniquely able to sooth and heal each other's wounds around blocks to intimacy related to this kind of trauma.

However in recent years trans* men have been invited to attend the workshop and during this time there has also been a growing momentum of enthusiasm to have FSM workshop participants reflecting the full diversity of identities and sexualities present at modern Faerie Gatherings.

So very soon there will be the pilot of a workshop which will be open to the full spectrum of queer sexualities and genders. What will happen when a fully inclusive group sits in heart circle to explore the obstacles to emotional and physical intimacy that exist between them? 

The intention of the heart circling within the traditional workshop is to reach a state of community trust to the extent that co-created rituals, involving permitted group erotic touch, are able to be devised and consensually enacted.

How might this look between individuals not accustomed to considering erotic touch with genders and sexualities beyond their habitual erotic arousal patterns?

Nobody knows but it’s the beginning of a radical adventure into a better understanding of how faerie queers, with a range of sexuality and gender expression, might more freely express the erotic together in community…

Watch this space!

Heart Circling for Mental Health

I used to be a Psychiatrist. Yes- I spent most of my adult life studying and helping to alleviate the pain and distress of major mental illness. Now in the 5th year of my retirement I find myself writing a column on the subject for an LGBT+ community listings magazine. So what to say?

20 odd years ago, when I first arrived in Brighton, excited by the prospect of living and working in our very own fabulous Gay-playground-by-the-sea, and keen to make lots of new friends and acquaintances, it was this very GScene magazine I turned to as a resource. Maybe, I thought, I could find a group of like minded free-thinking queer folk I'd be able to join forces with to change the world and make it a better place- I was in my late 30s so the naïvety and idealism of my 20s were still very much a part of my world outlook! 

Scanning the community self help resources, all I could find were groups to support those who were HIV+, those who were drug and alcohol addicted, in physically abusive relationships, etc, etc. 
Sadly I found myself, as an adjusted, though not well adjusted homosexual, not quite unadjusted enough to qualify for entry to the available supportive peer groups on offer…

So I joined in with the throngs of  pubbers and clubbers, made some friends via the Rainbow Chorus and gradually became disenchanted with the idea that my sexuality could possibly constitute the basis of some form of common denominator for my social networks.

I realise now that I was searching for others who recognised that their early developmental experiences of being an unsupported queer in a hostile world had left us all with a malaise, a wounded-ness, to which we had uncomfortably adjusted and which had left us limping along to a greater or lesser extent. 

We weren't mentally ill yet, but our wounds opened us up to a greater chance of developing addictions and mental health problems when exposed to the standard stresses and strains of daily living.

Thankfully, after years of searching, I stumbled across the Faeries who celebrate and endeavour to heal our very own brand of wounded-ness through the creation of pop-up, time limited, residential intentional communities (or Faerie Gatherings), where radical inclusivity, compassion, and self-acceptance can be practiced in varying degrees of safety.

Central to these practices is the Heart Circle. What happens when you are given the space to articulate what you are feeling whilst engaged in queer community building. Sitting in circle with 15-20 pairs of ears, listening, without judgement, and without fear of interruption, as you hold a talisman, speak with radical honesty, locating and bearing witness to your authentic, unedited self…

I've been attending Faerie Heart Circles for over 10 years now, and although I wouldn't quite say that I'm now ‘fully adjusted’, I'm certainly majorly less unadjusted than I was before. Faeries call it casting off the ugly frog skin of hetero-conformity. 

It's a great feeling!

Is “Fitting In” Making You Sick?

The Brighton Faeries are officially marching in this year’s Pride Parade.

Yep- we booked ourselves a ‘walking float’ slot for up to 30 marching Faeries!

This is a controversial move because- as everyone knows- the Faeries are very elusive creatures. You might catch a glimpse of one and then, Pouff, gone, never to be seen again…

The Faerie ‘development of consciousness’ grew from the U.S. counterculture and gay civil rights movements of the late 60’s. Within 10 years of the Stonewall riots, a call went out to convene “gay brothers” to a Spiritual Conference of Radical Faeries. Those interested in ‘re-establishing a communication with Nature and the Great Mother and, in feeling the essential link between sex and the forces that hold the universe together’ were invited to come together (kinda literally) for a long weekend in early September 1979.

Since then Queer Folk from across the spectra of gender and sexuality have been hearing the call to convene in Nature and to celebrate the awesome naturalness of their sexual and gender queerness.

Faerie Gatherings are about queers co-creating foundational intentional community- nurturing and celebrating our ancient historical roles as medicine people, healers, prophets, shamans, witches and sorcerers. We encourage ourselves to engage with that endless and fathomless process of coming out as Queer, as animals, as humans AND as mysterious and powerful spirits that move through the life cycle of the cosmos…

The tradition of Faerie-ness has been counter to the cultural pressure from the mainstream to assimilate; to resist the lure of acceptance ‘as long as you can just stop being THAT WAY’. Faeries drill down into what it feels like (and what it means) to be ‘THAT WAY’. As Faeries we endeavour to be more ‘THAT WAY’ than ever we were before!

Faerie-ness resists ‘fitting in’. It proudly and queerly presents itself as a challenge to the status quo; as an opportunity to bring to consciousness those forces which endeavour to obliterate different-ness.

So, what are the Faeries doing in a Pride Parade with its corporate drive to have the queers put on a show, draw the crowds and bring millions in capital to boost the Brighton business economy. The irony of a non-political parade celebrating 50 years of queer civil rights activism would be funny if it weren’t so creepy.

Well, Faerie-ness has been a little known and barely recognised force empowering queers, over the years to refuse to fit into an inauthenticity-glorifying world.

If you’re reading this before the Parade, look out for us. We’ll simply be turning up in all our non-corporate weird uniqueness and representing that awkward voice asking: 'Is this all there is?’

If any of all this chimes with you then find the Faerie Camp @ Queer Spirit Summer Festival in Northamptonshire August 14-18 or just google Albion Faeries and see what its like to co-create spiritually nurturing community together at a Gathering.

“Please Don’t be Creepy!”

“Please Don’t be Creepy!”

This request, together with a profile pic of an attractive young man, was all there was to the Grindr profile... 

It got me thinking about all the things that I might say or do to others that could creep them out. 

The #MeToo campaign has highlighted the shocking extent of unacknowledged sexual abuse in the form of implicit casting couch imperatives for career advancement in the entertainment industry. There is also, now, an ever growing recognition of the high prevalence of workplace based sexual harassment in general. 

Since sexual creepiness has been an integrally endemic background feature of my culture, the chances are, I’ve got some blind spots and it therefore behoves me to examine the extent to which creepiness has crept into me!

With this in mind I took the question “How might I be creepy?” to a week-long Faerie retreat. One of the glorious aspects of Faerie community is its queer diversity in terms of shapes, sizes, ages, genders, races, and sexualities. So I began to explore, privileged as I am, with elder, white, middle class, apparently-cis-male, predominantly homophilic status, how that capital might possibly be being unconsciously exploited in the pursuit of my erotic interests.

Faeries often tend to be seekers from a broad set of spiritual backgrounds. Newcomers to Faerie-space are particularly vulnerable, often, having rejected a rejecting and sex-negative Abrahamic belief system- possibly exploring for the first time a more earth-based and sex-positive framework.

So here’s what I came up with after a week of enquiry and meditation…

• The essence of creepiness is a mismatch between professed and actual intention. If I were to present myself as someone who is available to give help, advice, and guidance on how best to negotiate Faerie-space whilst secretly lusting after, and planning on the sexual conquest of a newfound ‘apostle’ then I’m being as creepy as a creepy fingered masseur who has offered the service of a massage but who is, instead, covertly taking sexual pleasure from the tactile sensation from his wandering hands!
• Emotional authenticity with full transparency of intention is key to establishing creepy-free relationships.
• When there exists some kind of power gradient across a relationship regarding e.g. youthfulness, attractiveness, maturity, experience, wealth, etc., I need to give voice to what is there, and explicitly acknowledge the real possibility that this differential of capital may be open to emotional or sexual exploitation.
• Super-creepiness happens when sexual overtures are made and continue to be made in the absence of a receptive audience. It becomes abusive if it continues after it has been made clear that the sexual attention is unwanted.
• Once intentions have been made clear, and the potential for abuse across power gradients has been explored then clarity of consent is paramount. “How would you like me to enter into intimacy with you? How would you like to enter into intimacy with me?” If these questions can be answered with clarity and if the answers can be honoured fully then we’re likely to have moved into a creepy-free zone!

To Other or not to Other?: That is the Question!

A very creative performer friend of mine recently posted on Facebook just how much he HATED the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. And then a few days later in a different post, a disabled friend proclaimed how disappointed he was that he had finally sunk to a new low in that he had just had sex with a guy who wore Crocs (by the way that guy was me!). Both posts released a torrent of seemingly harmless, supportive hatred from friends and followers. All were in agreement that these subjects were quite legitimate targets for their light-hearted communal disapprobation. Who could get hurt? After all the RHCP are just a bunch of over rated, over-played recording artists! And aren't Croc wearers just seriously fashion challenged idiots? Right?

I wondered just how my sensitive, performer friend would have felt if someone had lanced a 'social media anger abscess' in his direction with the purulent exudate engulfing him and his vulnerable creative offerings. I certainly didn't feel unscathed by the wave of Croc-hatred unleashed by my disabled friend. I ended up pondering just how many times he might have had to endure the discomfort of witnessing 'harmless' disablist sentiments.

It seems like the public articulation of ‘dislikes’ is becoming something of an international pastime, opening up widening chasms between diametrically opposed echo chambers which themselves splinter and fragment!

Essentially, there’s a whole lot of ‘othering’ going on. 

Othering is the process of casting a person (or group) in the role of ‘the other’ and establishing one’s own identity through opposition to and, frequently vilification of this ‘other’

In my experience of facilitating Faerie Sex Magick Workshops, I have found it to be the single most common source of blocks between workshop participants, creating what, at times, seem to be insurmountable barriers to the potential that intimacy might be possible between certain individuals within the group. What’s magickal about the workshop, though, is that the other-ers are meeting together day after day in an emotionally intimate group setting where compassion and empathy has space to grow. And in this context the ‘other’ can be viewed as a potential source of learning; this ‘other’ can begin to be seen as a diverse and complex entity worthy of love and desire, even!

So how might this burgeoning social media-amplified other-ing compulsion be countered? 

First of all, to recognise that it is happening. Secondly to register when it is happening. And finally to decide NOT to define oneself through opposition to any individual or group.

It’s really up to you!

To Other:Verb transitive. The act of holding intransigent exclusionary values as a means of creating blocks which become insurmountable barriers to the potential for an intimacy to develop between the 'othering' human being and 'othered' human being....

If another others you, well, it just feels like poo!

Other another: Judge the book by its cover...

Don't other that other-er!

One way or the other, that other-er's your brother-er

Could you make 'em your lover-er?

It's all down to you!

Btw: No Femmes! No Smokers! No H&H! No Twinks! No Partnered! No Tories! No Trump Supporters! No Brexiteers!

In Quest of the Paternal Nurturing Phallus....

My dad was a physically and emotionally unavailable, aggressive bully who's patriarchal reign tolerated no male ego expression within its dominion other than his very own vicious brand of toxic masculinity!

Little surprise, then, that his sissy-faggot son would be irresistibly drawn to exist in a world where men might instead be gentle, loving and caring towards each other....

As soon as I was able to thrust myself away from his oppressive gravitational field, I was on a quest to find an affirming relationship with an older man. Could this, at last become, for me, a source of nurturing father-son intimacy?

At the tender age of 20, I finally summoned up the courage to acknowledge my queerness, which took the form of a brief relationship with Jimmy. He was an economist, in his 40s who was established in a proper job (a board member at British Rail). An out-and-out-gay-man, he also owned a gay bookshop and ran a support group for gay men who were too scared to come out of their closets- you can probably guess how we met!

His amazingly proportioned phallus launched me into a size-queen career on the glittery 1980s gay club scene in London where I was able to repetitively and compulsively (if only transiently) satisfy my craving for nurturing daddy masculinity by introjecting it- in the form of a regular helping of big fat dick!

It took me decades of repeating this compulsion to realise how ultimately emotionally unsustainable it felt. This pattern of behaviour was failing to meet my desire for real intimacy.

One day I read somewhere that the most successful and effective men consistently reported close and happy relationships with their fathers. Not having had this, I felt lacking, deficient and somehow irreparably broken. Then, in my 40s, as a counsellor, I learned that messy grief reactions were most likely to occur, not in those with fabulous relationships with their parents but rather, in individuals who had been in conflict with them.

It occurred to me that my tyrannical father had already messed me up once in his lifetime- I was buggered if he was going to mess me up again as a consequence of his death!

The question was, could I take my anger and resentment at his inadequacy as a nurturing man and apply some compassion instead?

Thankfully the answer was yes! In the ten years or so before he died, I was able to visit and revisit the complexity of why he was how he was and, eventually, found a way to forgive him. Now, at the grand age of 58, 4 years after his passing, I'm just starting to locate and dismantle my internalised misandry... to recognise that I've been uncomfortable with my own masculinity simply because I've always identified it with its ubiquitous toxic forms. So my latest self-improvement project is to celebrate my internal paternal nurturing phallus. 

Long and proudly may it stand erect!

Joyfully may it ejaculate its nourishing seed!

We are STARDUST!

A friend just recently back from a meditation retreat in India was reflecting with me on the meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything….

We got to talking about death and suffering and the extent to which the unarticulated fear of death and chronic, painful terminal illness can loom over us, limiting how we might live our lives in the fullest possible way.

My friend asked me ‘Do you believe that all that you are disappears when you die?’

My answer: ’I don’t know-nobody knows!’

That, for me is what makes it such an interesting journey to be on. It’s a journey I’ve been on from the moment my germinal ovum kissed one microscopically small tadpole of a sperm cell. Death and dying are the YIN to the YANG of life and living.

I told my friend I was ready for death. Cultivating a fascination for my creeping decrepitude and decay was becoming my Next Big Project. He wondered how I had reached this contented level of equanimity towards a subject that most are programmed to avoid like the plague.

On reflection it’s probably something to do with how I have come to feel about the questions ‘Who am I?’ and ‘What happens to ‘who I am’ in death?’

So who am I? Apart from being a big old queer!

My presence is indisputably in existence on a number of parallel levels:

The scientist/materialist would say I am the sum total of all the atoms and molecules which make up the compounds, water, salts, proteins, fats, carbohydrates, cell walls and DNA of my body and all the electrostatic and electromagnetic forces around and between them. In death every atom of this aspect of my presence is available for re-purposing elsewhere: Stardust to Stardust!

The zoologist would say that I am a mammalian creature who has a survival instinct; hardwired to breathe, keep warm, drink, piss, eat, shit and f*ck.

The magician would say that I am a magickal creature, invested with my very own sovereign power to purposefully manifest. To energise thoughts and ideas, to authentically articulate and express emotions and to cultivate nature in all its aspects.

As a Faerie, my presence is about acknowledging the full spectrum of my emotional life and giving this permission to take up space. I’m acknowledging my fears and developing a fierceness in my determination to become who I am purposed to be. Feeling relief as I connect to nature. Allowing myself to feel anger, awe, joy, love compassion and intuition.

As a thinker, I have a presence which shows up as my thoughts, ideas, values and beliefs. Some believe this presence is who they are!

I’m certain that all of these aspects of who I am will have an impact beyond the date of my death. Just as the presences of all my queer ancestors have impacted on my own sense of purpose.

Beyond this, who knows what lives on. Soul? Nature Spirit? …..Back to the Garden?

I’ll know when it happens!

Hope Along the Wind: A Film About the Sussex Man who Started Two Queer Revolutions in the USA!

Gay Socrates talks to Harry Hay's friend and carer Joey Cain about Hay, the man, and the movie made about his life, coming to the Brighton Fringe next month.

Harry Hay (1912-2002) was born in Worthing. As an adult he became a gay activist in the US and founded the first Gay Liberation movement (The Mattachine Society) in 1950. He then went on to co-found the Radical Faeries.

'Hope Along the Wind...' is a lovely movie which sets this unlikely story in its historic context and captures rare interview footage of this iconic character in his later years.

Joey Cain knew Harry in person and was one of the devoted band of 'Loving Companions' who tended to the care of Harry and his partner in their closing years. For the 100th anniversary of Harry’s birth in 2012, he curated a major exhibition about his life and times in San Francisco and co-organized a conference about Harry in New York City.

Joey is flying from his home in San Francisco to present a screening of this movie as part of the Brighton Fringe Festival next month. 

GS: Who was Harry Hay to you?

JC: Harry was a dear friend, political comrade and gay visionary the likes of which we probably won’t see again. Without his tenacity, deep thinking and integrity, the LGBT revolution, at least as far as the USA goes, would have been a much longer time coming. He traversed many worlds, as Gay people often do.

A Communist activist and great music lover who was a trained baritone, he read long and deep in history and anthropology to find the hidden history of our People.

GS: Why are you bringing Harry Hay's story to the Brighton Fringe?

JC: Harry was born in Worthing, his birth house still stands, and we thought it would be a lovely idea to “bring Harry back” to this part of England, where he started out. This whole area is so rich in Queer history what with Edward Carpenter being born in Brighton, Oscar Wilde writing “The Importance of being Ernest” practically around the corner from where Harry was born. And that’s just scratching the surface.

GS: Why do you think conceiving of the Radical Faeries was important to Harry?

JC: Harry always said that the Radical Fairies was the realization of the dream he had when he started The Mattachine Society in 1950. The essence lies in the 3 questions he posed to be answered by both groups: Who are we? Where do we come from? Why are we here? For Harry, the Fairies were about answering those questions and acting on the answers.

'Hope Along the Wind: The Life of Harry Hay' is showing at the Fabrica Gallery, Tuesday May 8 7.30pm 

Tickets: https://www.brightonfringe.org/whats-on/harry-hay-founder-of-the-radical-faeries-124999/

The Epiphany as Magical Radical Politico-Spiritual Direct Action

I’ve had a few major Epiphanies during my life so far.

That dawning realisation at a time of crisis. The seeing of the truth of something unproven. That sudden recognition of purpose…

There’s always a numinous sense of ‘Higher Power’. An alliance of self with ethereal.

My first Epiphany was when I could see no other way than to be true to myself and my sexuality when I (finally) came out at the age of 20. I was depressed, hopeless and in despair at the time, and, 'coming out' was this profoundly religious resolution for what had become a totally fucked up unhappy life. And thus was created a reality receptive to my starved appetite for sexual encounters with men.

Subsequently, taking ‘coming-out’ to it’s logical political conclusion I became one of the Stonewall supporters pushing for assimilation (accept us please because we’re just the same as you apart from our sexuality) and basic equality rights. At the time I never imagined that there would ever be rights for LGBTQ+ers to adopt children or to marry in my lifetime. The very fact of this immense socio-political shift in the course of just a few years, for me, is testament to the existence of Magick: the art of changing consciousness at will by the setting of intention (against all odds!)

I’ve had other sizeable Epiphanies but my most recent one- around 10 years ago- happened after I had cornered myself into a heteronormative assimilationist lifestyle. Ostensibly monogamous and middle class, locked into a busy professional career, partnered to a lover who had become asexual and was suffering from chronic fatigue. I was thoroughly miserable! Once again the Epiphany came to the rescue. 

Thankfully my openness to that leap of imagination, into something unestablished, unproven, messy and chaotic- my spirituality- allowed The Faerie Tribe to enter into my life and in this way I entered into the Faerie Tribe.

On reflection, whenever the chips have been down and there has been nowhere else to turn, suddenly from out of the blue comes this unfolding of what hadn’t been there before: the offering of a future “Warp” to what is seemingly the meaningless ‘Weft’ of my life until now. And there it is again: the glimmering promise of future purpose!

As an Intersectional Radical Faerie I’m beginning to realise that my queer politico-spiritual purpose is to remain as open as I can be to this very act of Epiphanizing: to keep re-imagining an inclusive future. It isn’t present just yet, but it will become that future allowing our uniquenesses to keep eroding at the intersectionalities of heterosexism, gender binary-ism, ageism, classism, racism and ableism.

Faeries can find the ways for our diverse tribe to keep growing, flourishing and thriving together in harmonious and mutually supportive ways! So Mote It Be!