Pynch and homosexuals

[andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk]

Gershom Bazerman writes:
> PS If there are any other queer TRP  I'd like to know by private e-mail, 
> because it seems to me that gay Pynchon readers would be even more 
> scarce than female ones....

In case anyone is keeping count I'm one of those excluded middles.
Although of course I think of myself as neither one thing nor the
other since my `active' sexuality is determined by the gender of my
current sexual partner, chosen for reasons other than the details of
her external genitalia. I am always surprised at how readily and
happily most people jump into their chosen camp, as `twere. I prefer
the Groucho approach.

As far as Pynchon goes, on the basis of what is written in GR I have
always suspected he is, like me, a glozing neuter. I think the
sterility link is a red herring. One, these *are* sterile people in
sterile situations. Two, many gay (and bisexual) men have deeply
ambivalent feelings about their own sexuality (much more so 20-30
years ago than now) so the negative associations prove nothing. Three,
despite the overall proram of sterility some of his accounts of sex
between men allow for tenderness and compassion which in my experience
many heterosexual males find it hard to conceive of (excuse the
pun). Four, the sterility thing is not necessarily such a negative
thing in the context of Gravity's Rainbow. After all sterile is akin
to preterite and preterite stands opposed to those nasty, smug,
competitive, self-righteous elect. Not that I would raise any of this
above mere suspicion. After all he is a writer of fictions.


Andrew Dinn
-----------
We drank the blood of our enemies.
The blood of our friends, we cherished.