Beware The Homosexual
Beware…beware…
Via Ex-Gay Watch…a 1950s educational film made to warn boys about the danger of lurking homosexuals. This is the sort of thing I was taught about homosexuals almost all through grade school.
This is the kind of thing I was taught about homosexuals nearly all through grade school. They taught me that homosexuals usually kill the people they have sex with. They taught me that homosexuals prey on young boys, but will sometimes lure an unsuspecting heterosexual man into the woods too. They told me that homosexuals almost never have sex with another homosexual because they know how dangerous it is. This was in the 1960s, in the school system of a well do do suburb of Washington D.C.
That film brings back memories all right. That is what I grew up knowing about homosexuals. I suppose a lot of people from my generation were taught those things. I suppose a lot of people from my generation still believe them. The only thing that saved me from a lifetime of fear of my sexual nature and self loathing was that it was so extreme I just knew it was not me, and the conclusion I drew throughout most of my school years, even while I was severely stressing out over a certain male classmate, was that I was not a homosexual. I just couldn’t be. I wasn’t anything like what they were telling me homosexuals were. Therefore I was not a homosexual.
They’re not teaching boys to be careful around strangers in that film. They’re teaching them to fear and loath homosexuals. They’re teaching the gay boys to fear and loath themselves. And they are taking from the gay boys, all the awe and wonder and joy of that first high school romance, and for many of us of my generation, the possibility of love altogether. What they took from us is incalculable, and unforgivable.
July 11th, 2006 at 9:47 am
Wow, Bruce…
That’s incredible that you were getting so much specific, not to mention specifically heinous, misinformation so early. I was 5 or so years behind you, and in small towns in Minnesota, and the topic was never raised.
The twisted message I took from tiny snippets of news about homosexuals in the 60s and early 70s was that they were a fringe group of sorts that seemed to congregate in larger cities, but maybe not so much in midwestern cities.
Good thing the world has made so much progress in the decades since, eh?
Take care…
July 12th, 2006 at 7:58 am
The sex education class I had in eighth or ninth grade was taught by our gym teachers. I have often wondered since then, if what they taught us about homosexuals and homosexuality was really supposed to be part of the course, or if it was just their own jackass beliefs. But what they said was reenforced to a large degree by the prevailing prejudices and beliefs of the culture at large. Vito Russo in his book “The Celluloid Closet” documents one twisted killer queer after another in the films of the 50s and early sixties. A lot of the attitudes of the adults back then trickled down to the school yard, and the stories and jokes I heard about homosexuals pretty much all made the point that they were sick, twisted and…ironically, both pathetic and dangerous at the same time.
There’s this one movie of the period which I specifically despise, “The Detective”. The plot is based around all the stereotypical views of homosexuals back then, and it’s all the more offensive for the pity the main character a hard boiled New York city detective (played by Frank Sinatra) has for the homosexuals he encounters during the course of a murder investigation. He frames one crazy psychotic homosexual for the murder and later discovers that it was a different crazy psychotic homosexual (played by William Windom) who actually committed the crime. At the end of the movie, in flashback, Windom’s character confesses to the crime in a speech that is just dazzling in the purity of his self loathing. “So I went to…where They were…everyone knows the place. I was raised in a family that couldn’t admit that homosexuals even existed. And there I was…and I couldn’t help myself. Just looking at them, their twisted faces, made me sick. Was this what I was? Oh my god. I thought if I just had one more experience, I could get it out of my system. Just…one more…time.”
I’m working on a Mark and Josh cartoon where Mark does his own version of that speech, while trying to talk his way out of something.
July 12th, 2006 at 6:13 pm
OK…. I need to get a better grasp on gay history. I wasn’t up on the twisted queer killer genre at all.
Golly…
July 13th, 2006 at 7:04 pm
ugh, ugh, ugh. The sick thing is that they still push the same lies today. Sure there are predators out there of every orientation, and kids need to be careful in parks at schools and even church. ugh.