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From: dyer@wivax.UUCP (Stephen Dyer)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: What About Culture, Politics, Unity?
Message-ID: <19905@wivax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Sep-84 02:31:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: wivax.19905
Posted: Tue Sep 11 02:31:22 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 16-Sep-84 10:29:46 EDT
References: <4061@fortune.UUCP>, <2113@hplabsc.UUCP> <1015@ucla-cs.ARPA>, <930@bbncca.ARPA>
Organization: Wang Institute, Tyngsboro, Ma.  01879
Lines: 53

Hmnnn.  About West Coast/East Coast dichotomies:

Just having spent a week each in both San Francisco and Los Angeles, and
having lived on the East Coast (namely Boston) all my life, I have formed a
few opinions, probably overgeneralized and unfair, but all my own, nonetheless.

For me, visiting San Francisco (NOT Berkeley or the greater Bay Area) is like
living in a gay bar, 24 hours a day.  Gay men are everywhere, and an innocent
appreciative glance is as likely to be returned here as it would be unnoticed
elsewhere.  Wonderful if you like that, but tiring to always be "on".  I'm sure
long-time residents are so used to this that they no longer notice it.
Also, sexuality, even in this post-AIDS era, is MUCH more open, and 
more integrated into what it means to a San Francisco Urban Gay Man.
My first evening there, my host and I were walking up Market towards Castro,
when he met an acquaintance, they exchanged pleasantries, and started talking
genteely about the "San Francisco Jacks".  I thought this was the a capella
schola of the Gay Men's Chorus for a while, until I made a remark to that 
effect--turns out it's a "jack off" club for the carefully promiscuous.
I felt a bit like a hayseed (though there's no hay in Boston.)  It's not,
of course, that there aren't such fraternal associations in New York or
Boston, it's just that they aren't discussed in such an off-hand manner.

Yet, one of the nicest, unaffected times I had there in SF was in a
country-western bar in the Folsom district called "Rawhide."  This is
Urban Cowboy country, not limited to SF for sure, and oriented towards
dancing: the Texas two-step (and three-step), the waltz, lindy, line dances
and square dancing.  Men danced with men, women with women, women with men.
IT DIDN'T MATTER AT ALL: people were dancing just for the enjoyment of
it.  People were matched up pretty well, too.  The virtuoso couples were
truly fantastic, but they didn't diminish the enjoyment of us beginners.
Sexuality seemed to take a back seat on the dance floor.  (Was that a
mixed metaphor?)

LA is hard to categorize, simply because it's so spread out, and I saw
so little of it.  My lover and I were staying with a couple who had met
back in Cambridge, and who were living in the Long Beach area.  Their
social life is more "married", and they prefer to associate with other
couples, through Dignity, the gay Catholic organization--they weren't
much into bars.  Regardless of whether I was in Disneyland or in Santa
Monica, I felt very much a member of a minority, much like a Democrat in
Orange County.  One saw other gay men, but I didn't get much of a feeling
of a community.  I'd like to ascribe this to my particular circumstances,
but I suspect the geographic isolation of communities in LA plays a part
as well.

Naturally, I've only given impressions of two West Coast cities, and
not of the areas in general.  Too, anything I say is open to be knocked down.
IS there a real difference between coasts (as opposed to individual opinions
and impressions?)
-- 
/Steve Dyer
decvax!bbncca!sdyer
sdyer@bbncca.ARPA