story of a hustler who developed an opinion? I believe you wear those dark glasses so we can’t see you weeping at the pathos of a loveless world.”
“Never!”
“Look! Down there. Look at them all, the strangers! As if callous, impenetrable beauty were more attractive than feeling intimacy. As if no one dared face himself. I tell you, all gays are liars.”
“I haven’t wept since I was a child!”
“And that,” he said, “is the most stupid lie of all.”
The Case of the Dangerous Man
I hate to give Dennis Savage credit for anything—he’d only get pompous—but his concept of the Imaginary Lover is all-basic to gay culture. It is everyone’s direst secret. Few men will as much as breathe his imaginary name to their best friend, much less provide a physical description or character sketch. “This,” as Mac McNally once said, “I must not share.”
Yet one notes references to the Imaginary Lover everywhere. You are conversing to the dim accompaniment of some dreary television show, a nameless hunk appears, and your comrade discreetly stiffens: this is a clue. You are strolling along the street, something elegant strides by, and your companion murmurs, “I want to bear his child”: this is annotation. The unique charm of the Imaginary Lover is that he can never lose his appeal as real humans do, invariably, eventually, for he is a fantasy—plausible but a dream. You may spot someone who looks like him, or cracks his jokes, or lives where he ought to live. You even seem to know what it’s like to climb his stairs, and press his buzzer. But to run across the man who accommodates your precise measurements of the romantic utopia is unlikely.
This is just as well, I think, for keeping the fantasy fantastical allows everyone to play. In a culture run by the fascism of looks, the Imaginary Lover is a democratic exercise. A beauty knows he might well land something comparable to supreme, even be one. A nice-looking fellow has a shot at it. A homely-but-hot man is ever loveable. And certain objets trouvés may win out through force of personality; unthinkable but true, my favorite combination. Below a certain level of appearance, however, a gay man is in big trouble; yet everyone can dream. And, though no one likes to hear about this, I know that the ugliest man in town visualizes himself being fondled, or toughed up, or tucked in by some divo just as easily as the handsomest man can. But why does no one like to hear about this?
Carlo shook his finger at me when I spoke of the matter late one night. And when I went on undeterred, he held his hand over my mouth and said, “I want you to please stop. I don’t want to know about morals, or politics, or death, or feelings, or any of the other things that ruin everybody’s fun.”
“What morals?” I asked.
“Trolls,” he said. “Talking about trolls is talking morals. Or politics.”
We were confessing our episodes to each other—My First Time in Bed, My Worst Time in Bed, My Sleaziest Pickup (Carlo had about twenty-five possibilities to choose from; I had none), My Most Daring Pickup (mine was my neighbor Alex: after watching him for a year, I held up a sign in my window asking to come over and watch the Oscars). Suddenly it struck me that all over New York gays were exchanging these stories, and the stories were all the same but the storytellers all different. I wondered how it felt to hear smoking-car braggadocio from a troll, and I verbalized it, and Carlo got upset. But why?
“You always want to make a case out of everything,” he said.
This is highest offense to Carlo, the paragon of the carefree gay. There are no cases in Carlo’s life. Everything just happens; nothing is questioned, challenged, repudiated. Naturally, he is one of those typeless beauties whom everyone craves, dark but smooth, bright but uneducated, solid but slim: nice and hot. Naturally—you’ve got to be super cute to enjoy a heedless life. Carlo has more best friends
“Never!”
“Look! Down there. Look at them all, the strangers! As if callous, impenetrable beauty were more attractive than feeling intimacy. As if no one dared face himself. I tell you, all gays are liars.”
“I haven’t wept since I was a child!”
“And that,” he said, “is the most stupid lie of all.”
The Case of the Dangerous Man
I hate to give Dennis Savage credit for anything—he’d only get pompous—but his concept of the Imaginary Lover is all-basic to gay culture. It is everyone’s direst secret. Few men will as much as breathe his imaginary name to their best friend, much less provide a physical description or character sketch. “This,” as Mac McNally once said, “I must not share.”
Yet one notes references to the Imaginary Lover everywhere. You are conversing to the dim accompaniment of some dreary television show, a nameless hunk appears, and your comrade discreetly stiffens: this is a clue. You are strolling along the street, something elegant strides by, and your companion murmurs, “I want to bear his child”: this is annotation. The unique charm of the Imaginary Lover is that he can never lose his appeal as real humans do, invariably, eventually, for he is a fantasy—plausible but a dream. You may spot someone who looks like him, or cracks his jokes, or lives where he ought to live. You even seem to know what it’s like to climb his stairs, and press his buzzer. But to run across the man who accommodates your precise measurements of the romantic utopia is unlikely.
This is just as well, I think, for keeping the fantasy fantastical allows everyone to play. In a culture run by the fascism of looks, the Imaginary Lover is a democratic exercise. A beauty knows he might well land something comparable to supreme, even be one. A nice-looking fellow has a shot at it. A homely-but-hot man is ever loveable. And certain objets trouvés may win out through force of personality; unthinkable but true, my favorite combination. Below a certain level of appearance, however, a gay man is in big trouble; yet everyone can dream. And, though no one likes to hear about this, I know that the ugliest man in town visualizes himself being fondled, or toughed up, or tucked in by some divo just as easily as the handsomest man can. But why does no one like to hear about this?
Carlo shook his finger at me when I spoke of the matter late one night. And when I went on undeterred, he held his hand over my mouth and said, “I want you to please stop. I don’t want to know about morals, or politics, or death, or feelings, or any of the other things that ruin everybody’s fun.”
“What morals?” I asked.
“Trolls,” he said. “Talking about trolls is talking morals. Or politics.”
We were confessing our episodes to each other—My First Time in Bed, My Worst Time in Bed, My Sleaziest Pickup (Carlo had about twenty-five possibilities to choose from; I had none), My Most Daring Pickup (mine was my neighbor Alex: after watching him for a year, I held up a sign in my window asking to come over and watch the Oscars). Suddenly it struck me that all over New York gays were exchanging these stories, and the stories were all the same but the storytellers all different. I wondered how it felt to hear smoking-car braggadocio from a troll, and I verbalized it, and Carlo got upset. But why?
“You always want to make a case out of everything,” he said.
This is highest offense to Carlo, the paragon of the carefree gay. There are no cases in Carlo’s life. Everything just happens; nothing is questioned, challenged, repudiated. Naturally, he is one of those typeless beauties whom everyone craves, dark but smooth, bright but uneducated, solid but slim: nice and hot. Naturally—you’ve got to be super cute to enjoy a heedless life. Carlo has more best friends
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