#I also think there’s a distinct acceptance of gay men’s affection now within liberal culture

[likealittleheartbeat]

“Sexual desire is not the only dimension of the homosexual experience, but it is the core of that experience. It is sexual desire and acting upon that desire that puts the homosexual into conflict with dominant power structures. It is where we must begin. How does one dramatize homosexual desire? Can one represent desire without words? One can ‘force on’ the audience sexual acts, kissing, embracing, looking. Or one can enact those opposites which have also been central to the experience of many homosexuals: not looking, not kissing, not embracing. Or one can enact the cause of these negations: heterosexism, which can be dramatized by acts of brutality, acts that sometimes result from the negation of one’s homosexual desire.

One of the more interesting aspects of homophobia is, as Richard Mohr points out: “People in general find gay love—kisses of parting at the train station and the like—sicker even than gay sex.” The sight of two men kissing on the lips can evoke enormous fear and hostility in some audience members. Anyone who sat in a movie theater when Peter Finch and Murray Head kissed in Sunday, Bloody Sunday (1971), or Michael Cane and Christopher Reeve kissed on Deathtrap (1982), or when Harry Hamlin and Michael Ontkean kissed in Making Love (1982), will remember the audible, hostile response such images provoked. Everyone knows that sex between men happens, but the sight of two men kissing is often seen as a transgression of the gender order, taken by many to be ‘natural.’ A kiss is a sign of affection, of love, not merely of lust. A kiss, to paraphrase the old song, isn’t just a kiss. Hence it’s theatrical power.”

—John M. Chum, Still Acting Gay