When I first viewed the photo, the portrait of the two young men struck me. Initially, I could not quite place why, but then it dawned on me. In the summer of 1980, I was a reservist in the Canadian Army. I served in the 30th Field Artillery Regiment based in Ottawa. It was the summer following my graduation from high school and before my enrollment at Queen’s University in Kingston. I went to Canadian Forces Base Petawawa to work as a driver in a transportation company through July and August. I worked with young men from other regiments who were posted there, too–we were in our late teens and early twenties.
This self-portrait, taken in Havelock, New Brunswick, shows the simplicity of the intimacy shared by Leonard Olive Keith (1891-1950) and Joseph Austin “Cub” Coates (1899-1965), who lived and loved in the first half of the 20th century. They were two men in love in Canada when male homosexuality was a crime in Canadian law, and public prejudice against male homosexuality was openly expressed. It was as simple as it is in the present. Some men are romantically and sexually attracted to men. It is a natural expression of human sexual attraction and behaviour. To those who knew and loved them, they were Len and Cub, a homosexual couple. To those who reviled male homosexuals, they were beneath contempt. They were what we call normal gays in the 21st century. Len was a harness racing driver who opened a garage after serving as an engineer in the Canadian Army in World War I. Cub was a mechanic who served as an engineer in the Canadian Army in World War I and volunteered for service in the Canadian Army in World War II. They were ordinary men who had a sense of duty, served their King and country as volunteers in the Great War, and found love and companionship in each other’s company. Despite their discretion, suspicion over their relationship in Havelock drove them apart in the 1920s. Len moved to the United States, where he lived out his days. Cub married in 1940. That fate was not unusual for gay men in Canada in the 20th century.
Life for gay youth in the Heartstopper universe is generally reasonable. The protagonists, Nick Nelson and Charlie Spring—Nick is bisexual, and Charlie is gay—find each other and become boyfriends despite elements of antigay prejudice that linger. They initially feel the need for discretion in their relationship. Naturally, they yearn for privacy also. The scene where Nick’s mum walked in on them as they got close and personal in Nick’s room illustrated the point. It made me think of what life was like for me as a young gay man in the 1980s. I was a student at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, in the first half of the 1980s. It was the height of the AIDS crisis, and gay men were the most affected. There was a moral panic; people did not know for sure how HIV was transmitted and feared exposure to the virus. It was seen as a gay plague, something that gay men brought on themselves for their unprincipled ways. Trust me, it was not a good time to be a gay man. Discretion was necessary because the consequences would be dire if you were outed.
I recall when I was in university in 1982. I enrolled in a film studies class, and one of the films we watched was Pagan Rhapsody. There is a scene in the film where two men play a sex scene. Though the scene was as vanilla as possible–there was kissing and a little friendly groping (nothing graphic)–the student audience’s vocal expressions of disgust were notable. In 2024, male homosexuality was generally accepted as a natural expression of human intimacy and treated with sensitivity in film and television. Netflix series such as Young Royals and Heartstopper feature a gay romance and intimacy between high school boys in a way that leaves something to the viewers’ imagination. Both series are immensely popular with younger viewers. Things have changed since the screening of Pagan Rhapsody in 1982. Still, when it comes to public perceptions of intimacy between gay men, there are a lot of people who have an unsavoury fixation on what they imagine goes on when two men are intimate. I get expressions of disgust in the comments on blog posts I write on gay rights advocacy, where people say things like, “There’s nothing more disgusting than two men fucking each other in the ass,” and “Cocksucking is not a men’s issue.” I mean, that is beyond the pale.
I am watching a Spanish Netflix series called Merli: Sapere Aude, and it is excellent. It is a dramedy, and the plot revolves around the protagonist, a young man named Pol Rubio, played by a fine young Spanish actor named Carlos Cuevas. Pol is a young man in his first year of studies in philosophy at a university in Barcelona. He has a bisexual orientation, and though he favours men, he does have dalliances with women occasionally. Pol is an anti-hero; while he generally strives to do good, he betrays a friend and his father when it serves his interests. He learns in the first episode of season two that he is HIV+. Pol is devastated by the news, despite the doctor’s assurance that the virus can be managed with treatment. He starts the regimen of taking the medication and tries to carry on. In a subsequent episode, Pol converses with a former co-worker who likely exposed him to the virus. His friend lost his job when the employer learned he was HIV+. The friend reminds Pol that people will feel sorry for you when you get cancer, but when you get HIV, you are viewed as a “dirty faggot.” Pol also converses with his employer, a mature gay man living with HIV. The employer lived through the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s and saw many gay men succumb to the disease. He recounted an incident where a friend was beaten to death for being queer. I bristled when I heard “queer” used to refer to a gay man, but I realized in the context of the anecdote that it was the attackers who called him a queer as they beat him to death. Queer is a slur, the last thing many gay men heard as they were beaten to death by gangs of thugs.
For years, I have tried to comprehend the feminist claim that gender identity and expression are a men’s rights issue. Finally, I got a little clarity listening to a radical feminist, a former member of the British Labour Party, discuss the issue of trans-identified men’s participation in women’s sports. She said something to the effect that “women’s sports matter more than men’s feelings.” I get it. Radical feminists made trans-identified men’s participation in women’s sports the focal point of their opposition to gender ideology. In doing so, they overlook the fact that it was pro-feminist governments, the Obama Administration in the United States, and the Liberal Government in Canada led by Justin Trudeau, that made gender identity and expression prohibited grounds of discrimination. It was based on Titles VII and IX in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in the United States–provisions in the legislation that addressed women’s equality. In Canada, Trudeau openly and proudly proclaimed that he was a feminist and wanted everyone to convert. The Trudeau government amended the Canadian Human Rights Act with the passage of Bill C-16 to include gender identity and expression as prohibited grounds of discrimination.Continue reading →
In the summer of 1987, I lived with my boyfriend Fabio in a two-bedroom apartment in Kingston, Ontario. We met as students at Queen’s University and secretly carried on our love affair before moving in together. We became boyfriends during the burgeoning AIDS crisis. One evening, we sat in bed and watched a panel discussion held by one of the American News Networks–I cannot remember which one. What struck me was the inflammatory opening remark made by a conservative Congressman, whose name I do not remember, who asserted that “perversion and promiscuity” were to blame for the AIDS crisis. That sentiment was shared through the 1980s. I remember the stand-up comic Sam Kinison, who screamed in one of his routines that AIDS became an epidemic “because a few fags fuck some monkeys; they got tired of their own assholes.” Jerry Falwell claimed it was God’s judgement on homosexuals and blamed the spread of the disease into the innocent heterosexual population on bisexual men. Yes, AIDS was seen as a gay plague. Fabio and I, like countless gay men in the 1980s, were concerned. There was uncertainty about how easily the virus was transmitted. Before the dawn of the AIDS crisis, our biggest concern as students in the 1980s was the risk of an unwanted pregnancy or getting herpes.
I like reminiscing, looking back on my life, and thinking of the people I knew as a boy and from my younger days in adolescence and manhood. Sadly, some of them have departed. Still, I think about those still alive and hope they are happy. I served as a reservist in the Canadian Army from 1978 to 1982, when I was in high school and university. I joined the 30th Field Artillery Regiment based in Ottawa. I trained in a group of private recruits under the supervision of a Bombardier who was a Carleton student. We had our differences and misunderstandings during my basic training. I spent almost every night and weekend on the defaulter’s parade. I served three years in the 30th Field and one year as an attached posting to the Princess of Wales Own Regiment (an infantry regiment) in Kingston, where I attended university. I transferred to the PWOR in 1982 and was promptly mustered out when the unit was downsized. I had a brief, undistinguished stint of military service in the Canadian Army, but I am proud that I served my Queen and country.
I hesitated on whether I was a homosexual or not through the 1980s. I experienced same-sex attraction, but the pressure to conform, to be heterosexual was pronounced. I was in university from the early to mid-1980s, and plenty of young women were around me. I dated a few and had sex with two, but nothing developed between us. Eventually, I had a short-lived love affair with another man, Mike, a fellow student. It ended badly, but undaunted, I continued dating men until I met a man, Fabio, and we moved into a two-bedroom apartment together. Yes, we had to keep up appearances to rent an apartment. As far as our landlords knew, we were two students sharing a flat. We lived together for a year and parted following our graduation. He became a flight attendant with Air Canada, and I went to graduate school. We maintained our relationship for several months this way until he left me for another man. The breakup was hard for me, and I decided that I would try to be heterosexual.
I met and befriended a handsome young man my age at work. Pierre and I spent a lot of time together. We went to nightclubs looking to meet women. One night, we met two young women, one of whom was quite drunk. Pierre and the drunken young lady hit it off. Her friend and chaperone and I had a pleasant conversation. At the night’s end, I offered the ladies a ride home with Pierre and me. They accepted. On the drive to their apartment building, Pierre and his date made out in the back seat. It made me jealous, and I drew her friend’s attention out of pettiness. She put a stop to it. Later, at Pierre’s flat, I stayed at his place often after these late nights out; as I settled into bed in his spare room, I reached out impulsively and touched his hand. He was startled and sat up abruptly and then retired to his room. I got the message, and we never mentioned the incident.
Still, I remember the morning we went for breakfast when he grinned shyly and told me he had something to say. My heart leapt as I imagined he would confess that he was gay and had feelings for me. Instead, he told me that he had his first sex with a woman the night before–oh, the disappointment. Thus, the moral of this anecdote is that whether you are a homosexual or heterosexual man, you can expect a bumpy ride in your affairs of the heart. But above all else, you should remain true to yourself. Deception is never the best policy, least of all in matters of the heart.
I lurk on the Facebook page of a Canadian queer activist. I never knew he existed until he appeared unexpectedly on my news feed. I am a liberal-minded man; I believe in liberalism, pluralism, and equality in law and opportunity instead of collectivism and diversity, equity and inclusion. I don’t like what he says, and I find his attitude and behaviour contemptible. He makes me think of my fieldwork when I studied the sociology of religion and religious studies at Queen’s University in the 1980s. I interacted with various Christian faith communities, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestants. I met many people, some of whom were the worst hypocrites. The man in question is the archetypal example of a religious hypocrite. His smug self-righteousness is insufferable. He reminds me of Jerry Falwell’s unctuous self-righteousness; he is unbearable. What is worse is his bigotry. He does not listen to his critics. He dismisses them as anti-queer chauvinists and haters, promptly blocking them. If push came to shove, he would happily try to cancel them.
Geoffrey & Mika 