Audio Interview, Larry Fine, March 21, 1973

  • BRUCE JEWELL: Larry Fine, February 8, 1974.
  • Larry, I first met you when I joined the Gay Liberation Front
  • at the University of Rochester.
  • At that time, you had been with that organization
  • since, I believe, almost its founding.
  • And I'm wondering if you could tell me
  • something about the early days of the GLF.
  • LARRY FINE: Well, the first meeting
  • was the first week of October.
  • I think it was the second or third week of October, 1970.
  • And I had just come back from San Francisco
  • just after I had come out.
  • And I came back with the idea of starting a gay liberation
  • group.
  • I got back and I found that someone else
  • had had the same idea, Bob Osborne,
  • and had already done some organizing efforts
  • and had put a notice in The Campus Times
  • about a meeting, the first meeting.
  • So I went to the meeting wondering
  • if anyone would show up.
  • I had already contacted Bob to tell him that I was interested.
  • And there must have been about sixty people
  • there, mostly non-students.
  • I was very surprised to see so many people.
  • There were only I would imagine about five
  • at most U of R students there.
  • Well, in the succeeding weeks, most of the people
  • didn't show up.
  • Most of the original sixty had come out
  • of initial curiosity, the bar people, and didn't come back.
  • Some of them came back for a while, did a little work,
  • and then left.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: What happened to the group
  • after this initial meeting?
  • I know it grew in size.
  • What forms and shapes did it take?
  • How long did it take for it to become, well,
  • what was the largest, most active organization
  • on the U of R campus?
  • LARRY FINE: Well, I'd say it took about another six months
  • at least until it really started to grow.
  • The first few months, the first four or five months I'd say,
  • involved just a very few people planning the weekly meetings,
  • or they might have been every other week at that time,
  • I've forgotten.
  • Meetings about gay people in the draft, gay people in the law,
  • and all those various topics that are generally covered.
  • And there would be an attendance of maybe fifteen or twenty,
  • or maybe even thirty people at the meetings,
  • but only a very, very few people were really
  • involved in any kind of organizing efforts.
  • Around January or February and into the spring,
  • a few more people here and there started to get interested.
  • And by the late spring, it really
  • started growing a tremendous amount.
  • We had our first dance I remember in December,
  • which is a fantastic thrill.
  • We didn't know how many people would show up.
  • About 200 people showed up.
  • It was terrific.
  • But until the late spring, only a very few people really
  • did a great amount of work.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: I know that shortly after I
  • joined, actually, you left.
  • What events caused you to leave?
  • LARRY FINE: Well, I dropped out of the U of R in April,
  • and actually I had started to drop out long before that.
  • It was just finally in April I was fed up enough,
  • and got my official whatever it was.
  • I was a psychology major, and I was
  • taking courses in abnormal psychology and sociology
  • of deviant behavior and all these kinds of things.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: Trying to find out about yourself?
  • LARRY FINE: Well, not so much trying to find out.
  • More just trying to direct my academic experience
  • to have something to do with my working experience
  • in gay liberation, because by that time,
  • I was working full time on gay liberation.
  • Almost since the beginning of the movement here,
  • I just spent all my energies on that.
  • It was so much more meaningful to me than my academic work.
  • And I had a gradual realization that what
  • I was learning in courses was not really at all important
  • to me, that I was learning everything
  • I could have learned in courses, and learning it much
  • better with my actual work.
  • I was learning not only things about psychology and sociology,
  • but I was learning things about literature
  • in developing a library for the group.
  • I was learning things about bookkeeping and accounting
  • in being treasurer for the group.
  • And I was just learning so much of so many areas of life
  • that I couldn't possibly learn in college
  • that I decided the college was just a waste for me
  • at that point.
  • And that it was time for me to drop out.
  • I stayed on in Rochester through most of the summer working
  • full time.
  • One problem I have is that I'm not really a very good leader.
  • I work full time and I take on a huge amount of work,
  • and sometimes I have a feeling that I can do it better
  • than anyone else.
  • And the result is that I don't delegate responsibility well
  • and others don't learn how to do the work.
  • So by the middle of the summer, I
  • felt like I had practically created a monster corporation.
  • I don't mean to give the impression that other people
  • weren't involved too.
  • There were certainly other people.
  • I was just spending the most time on it.
  • So I had my hands in so many things.
  • At about that time, I felt that Rochester was not really
  • the place I wanted to live.
  • And I had ideas about traveling to other parts of the country.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: You took off for Lincoln, Nebraska.
  • LARRY FINE: Well actually, I didn't know I would end up
  • in Lincoln, Nebraska.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: At the time, I remember
  • thinking that you were practically exiling yourself.
  • LARRY FINE: I decided to go on a vacation
  • in the middle of August.
  • And I think I had thoughts only in the very back of my mind
  • that I might not return.
  • I got rid of as many responsibilities as I could,
  • and I was going to visit a friend in Denver.
  • I planned my stopover points at nights
  • to coincide with places where there were gay liberation
  • groups so I could find a place to stay at night.
  • One of the places was Lincoln, Nebraska.
  • The night that I got there, they happened
  • to have one of their biweekly coffee houses.
  • And I met a lot of really nice people
  • there and told them that I would return after I visited
  • my friend in Denver, and I did.
  • And I liked the place a lot, and I just
  • decided to do one of those spontaneous and ridiculously
  • unpredictable moves and move there.
  • And it was one of the best things I ever did.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: Well, now you're involved
  • in gay activities in Lincoln, the heartland
  • that you hardly ever hear about.
  • LARRY FINE: Lincoln is very much misunderstood in most places
  • in the country, especially in the metropolitan areas.
  • People think that it's just a small farm town
  • or they do nothing but grow corn there or whatever.
  • Lincoln is actually a fairly good sized town,
  • about close to half the size of Rochester I'd say.
  • About 150,000 people.
  • It's the state capital of Nebraska,
  • and it has a large university.
  • The University of Nebraska has about 20,000 students.
  • It's actually more liberal a place than Rochester.
  • For instance, it went very heavily
  • McGovern in the last election.
  • And a lot of alternative lifestyles,
  • long hair and all those kinds of things,
  • are more readily accepted there than they
  • were until fairly recently say, even in Rochester.
  • Now, the rest of Nebraska is very different, of course.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: Well, I have the impression
  • that the Middle West is perhaps more
  • liberal than given credit for.
  • It always has been liberal to a certain degree.
  • LARRY FINE: Well, parts of it have.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: There's a certain type of liberalism that
  • has come out of the Midwest.
  • I note, for example, that some states
  • are much closer in the Middle West
  • to legalizing marijuana use--
  • LARRY FINE: Well, you almost have to.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: --than liberal New York is here.
  • LARRY FINE: In Nebraska, it grows in your backyard.
  • There's a limit to how much they can do to you.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: I see.
  • LARRY FINE: They try, but--
  • BRUCE JEWELL: It's ecology.
  • LARRY FINE: Really.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: So what is happening
  • in the way of gay activities in Lincoln?
  • LARRY FINE: Well, the Gay Action group in Lincoln
  • began just around the time that the University of Rochester GLF
  • started, in October, November 1970.
  • And it started as a university organization.
  • Its first event, I guess, was to start a coffee house.
  • And it's still called the coffee house,
  • but really it's a dance that grew larger and larger.
  • And that's the main function of the group.
  • Well, I won't say the main purpose,
  • but the main function, continuing function
  • that's ongoing is the coffee house every other Sunday night.
  • And it draws anywhere between one and 200 people.
  • This is in Lincoln, Nebraska.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: That's better than we do here
  • in Rochester actually.
  • LARRY FINE: Really.
  • There are no gay bars in Lincoln,
  • so it serves a similar purpose to that.
  • But lately, there's been much more of a feeling of community
  • there, less of a cruising feeling.
  • There's some cruising for us, but--
  • BRUCE JEWELL: Well, I would hope so.
  • LARRY FINE: Yeah, there's no reason why it shouldn't be,
  • but there's also a feeling of people
  • wanting to go there to dance with their friends.
  • And it's a good feeling.
  • There have been a lot of complaints about it,
  • because the music is very loud and the lights
  • tend to be very dim.
  • But it certainly serves a purpose.
  • Since then, there have also been some discussion groups started
  • on various evenings, and here and there a little bit
  • of political activity and talking to some state senators
  • about repealing the sodomy law, things like that.
  • But political activities are not in the forefront.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: I understand you now have a bar as well.
  • LARRY FINE: Well, that's very, very recent in Lincoln.
  • There's always been a bar in Omaha, one gay bar in Omaha,
  • which everyone would go to.
  • But Omaha's fifty miles away.
  • Under the leadership of the women
  • who had separated themselves from the Gay Action Group,
  • and really gotten themselves together
  • much better than the men ever did,
  • it was announced that a particular bar--
  • which was a straight, redneck bar,
  • but was practically going into bankruptcy--
  • that this particular bar welcomed new patronage.
  • And one of the women happened to know
  • someone who worked at the bar and told the manager that well,
  • maybe we should make this into a gay bar
  • and the manager might make a little money.
  • Well one night, 100 of us--
  • actually, I shouldn't say us.
  • I wasn't there.
  • I was sick with a very bad chest cold and laryngitis.
  • But this happened about a month ago or three weeks ago.
  • 100 people went to the bar and started dancing.
  • And there was a little bit of hassle.
  • There was one fight that some straight guy picked,
  • but the manager clearly let him know
  • whose side he was on and bounced him out pretty quickly.
  • The band loved us.
  • We love to dance.
  • The straight people never danced very much, and when they did
  • it was kind of a very slow, stiff-legged kind of dance.
  • The band for once didn't just have
  • to play country music, country western music.
  • They could play some boogie stuff
  • and they really got off on us.
  • The problem, of course, will be to keep this going.
  • This particular bar is not very close to downtown.
  • It's a little bit on the outlying areas,
  • and it's not easy to get to if you don't have transportation.
  • So it'll be a problem keeping enough support
  • so that it can remain a place that we can go and dance and be
  • ourselves without having to worry about people kicking
  • us or shoving us around.
  • We don't necessarily want it to be
  • an exclusively homosexual bar.
  • We welcome heterosexuals who want to dance, you know,
  • if they can be with us there.
  • There's a lot of enthusiasm that's
  • been generated out of this, and there's
  • some people who want to liberate a bar a month in Lincoln,
  • but I'm not sure that'll happen.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: You periodically come back here to Rochester
  • as a student at the Empire State College.
  • You didn't entirely lose your interest
  • in academic activities.
  • LARRY FINE: That's true.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: What are you engaged in?
  • LARRY FINE: Well, under my parents influence especially
  • in urging me to get my BA, I've gone back to school
  • under a program with the State University of New York called
  • Empire State College.
  • If you're familiar at all with the concept called University
  • Without Walls that some colleges have, this is similar.
  • There's no set curriculum or course of study,
  • and you don't have to have a major,
  • declare a major, any particular major.
  • You can do almost anything, from reading ten books to meditating
  • in a cave, although they do like to have a program that's
  • somewhat cohesive and revolves around
  • some kind of central theme.
  • You can get a four year degree on this in this college,
  • or you can transfer credits from some other place.
  • You can do it in conjunction with a job
  • or some kind of interest that you have.
  • And I decided that if I was going to get my BA
  • I would do it in the area of gay liberation
  • or not get a degree at all.
  • And they were very receptive to this.
  • I wondered if they might question it a lot,
  • but they didn't.
  • And what I'm particularly involved in doing
  • is developing social services in the gay community-- counseling,
  • crisis lines, discussion groups, and other kinds
  • of social services, which I think are very much needed.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: Well, now it has sometimes bothered me that when
  • we think of social services, and we do think along the lines,
  • of course, counseling and crisis counseling, because those
  • meet very realistic needs.
  • Have you examined the possibility
  • for creating a more positive kind of social service
  • to the gay community?
  • I mean, currently the places where we can meet
  • are very limited within bars and at various functions sponsored
  • by gay liberation groups.
  • There are not enough gay people out to function as gay people
  • in their everyday lives.
  • So what kind of alternative institutions or--
  • LARRY FINE: Are you thinking in terms of community centers
  • and that kind of thing, or a--
  • BRUCE JEWELL: Not in particular.
  • LARRY FINE: Oh, I wasn't sure what you meant by creative--
  • BRUCE JEWELL: I'm just wondering what you're
  • thinking along those lines.
  • LARRY FINE: Well, I wasn't sure exactly what you
  • meant by creative forms of social services,
  • but there is a need for community centers.
  • And the best thing, of course, would
  • be to have gay people just interact
  • in the present kinds of institutions as people
  • and as gay people and not have to have separate institutions
  • for themselves.
  • But at least initially, it's an important thing
  • to have some separate kinds of institutions
  • to form a sense of community and to have people
  • develop a sense of identity.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: Well in doing so we're really following
  • a very time-honored tradition.
  • We're forming what amounts to the gay club, which
  • is equivalent, or we call it a community center,
  • and it's the same thing as the German club,
  • or the Italian club, or the Scandinavian club, or whatever.
  • LARRY FINE: In a sense that's true.
  • One of the--
  • BRUCE JEWELL: An attempt to form institutions
  • that for specialized minorities.
  • LARRY FINE: One of the things that troubles me about that
  • is that it may tend to limit people
  • into thinking that one's sexual identity, that one has to have
  • a sexual identity, either being homosexual or heterosexual,
  • and you have to align yourself with one or the other
  • and shut off anything else you might feel.
  • It tends to bother me that the gay movement may
  • be doing this, in a sense reinforcing the very norms,
  • stereotypes that straight society has already
  • placed on us.
  • That everyone is either homosexual or heterosexual,
  • supposedly.
  • It puts people in a box, you might say.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: Well, how do you see people
  • as actually functioning?
  • LARRY FINE: Well, people have a whole range
  • of feelings that are not easy to classify
  • as strictly sexual, emotional, social, et cetera.
  • Feelings may get themselves felt in many, many different ways.
  • Now in a sexually repressive society,
  • two things tend to happen.
  • Many things get felt in an exaggeratedly sexual kind
  • of way, without maybe having a sensual component to it.
  • Just very kind of a very gut level sexual thing
  • that might otherwise be felt on more emotional levels.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: For example?
  • LARRY FINE: Let me see if I can give an example.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: You mean just seeing somebody, liking
  • that person and going to bed with them is a kind of--
  • LARRY FINE: That may be.
  • The whole cruising thing--
  • people tend to, I think, change emotional needs
  • into sexual needs so that they often
  • don't realize the other kinds of needs that they have.
  • They think that just by getting a trick for the night
  • they're going to satisfy a lot of their other needs.
  • Or they may think that by doing that they'll be happy,
  • and they have one trick after another, and--
  • BRUCE JEWELL: That is your homosexual life, yeah.
  • LARRY FINE: Right.
  • Of course, with a repressive society
  • the opposite happens, that feelings
  • which may be very much sexual get felt other ways,
  • and the person doesn't realize that they
  • may be feeling sexual feelings for someone
  • of the same sex in this case.
  • In a less repressive society, there
  • would be a whole range of feelings
  • and there might not be the necessity
  • to classify them as being sexual, emotional, et cetera.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: Well, as you mentioned to me
  • in another conversation, the women's groups,
  • women are finding that they can relate to one another
  • in a manner for many of them apparently
  • that's quite unexpected.
  • LARRY FINE: Right, there are a lot of women who have always
  • defined themselves as heterosexuals,
  • and that their gut level feelings, sexual feelings,
  • have been toward someone of the opposite sex.
  • But they may be finding that they
  • can have a warmth and a quality relationship that
  • is more meaningful to them with another woman,
  • and which can be expressed sexually,
  • even though their original gut kind of sexual feelings
  • were not toward women.
  • This has happened with some men also,
  • but with men there's a much greater problem.
  • Men are much more constricted in the kinds of behaviors
  • and feelings they're allowed to feel in this society.
  • But there's a whole problem in defining sexual identity.
  • If someone who thought of themselves as heterosexual
  • and still feels gut level sexual feelings for someone
  • of the opposite sex now finds that they
  • have emotional kinds of feelings which can be expressed sexually
  • toward someone of the same sex, do they
  • think of themselves as a homosexual,
  • as a heterosexual or what?
  • There's a lot of ambiguity there.
  • And in counseling, this is a special problem.
  • People want to know where they stand
  • and what kind of lifestyle they're expected to live,
  • and it's not so easy to say.
  • And there are not very clear models or roles
  • in society for people who don't fit
  • into one or the other category.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: Well I think it was Saint Thomas Aquinas,
  • I'm not quite sure that it was he,
  • but it was one of the very famous medieval saints who
  • pointed out that sexuality had a definite function
  • in friendship.
  • He wasn't just talking about marriage, but about friendship.
  • And so I suppose for some people,
  • a friendship can become a sexual relationship
  • without putting the particular individuals
  • in a category of homosexual, or heterosexual for that matter.
  • Certainly homosexual people sometimes
  • have sexual relationships with members of the opposite sex
  • really based on friendship.
  • LARRY FINE: Sure.
  • I tend to think that probably the most lasting kinds
  • of relationships, sexual relationships,
  • are actually with friends.
  • People that you have already established a friendship
  • with, and sexuality is an extension of that friendship.
  • Traditionally in heterosexual tradition
  • it's not been especially important
  • whether you like the person you are marrying.
  • The parents would marry you off to somebody
  • and it was something you did as a duty and as a tradition.
  • And I think especially in the Western world
  • that that kind of tradition is waning.
  • I'm not sure whether it'll disappear completely.
  • But more and more people are expecting
  • to love the person they marry, something
  • that used to be unheard of.
  • And maybe we're gradually seeing a whole change
  • in the nature of the purpose of sex, which
  • used to be just as something for reproduction and to pass on,
  • you know, to pass on the heritage.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: Well, officially.
  • LARRY FINE: Officially, at least, yeah.
  • But, well, I've known many men, for instance,
  • who just felt that sex was--
  • well women, actually, more women who felt that sex
  • was a duty and something to be put up with because they
  • didn't really enjoy it.
  • And even men sometimes who really,
  • when they were able to be open about their feelings,
  • would say that sex was something they really
  • didn't enjoy all that much.
  • It was just the release, the tension release,
  • but they did it more as a duty.
  • But I think more and more, sex is becoming something which
  • can be for expression of friendship,
  • which can be just for the purpose of mutual pleasure,
  • taking on many different forms.
  • And the kinds of lifestyles which will develop out
  • of that may be very different from the traditional kinds
  • of monogamous relationships, so that's
  • of course already being felt. (Recording
  • ends and begins again)
  • BRUCE JEWELL: Larry, I know you have
  • some personal feelings about tradition and personal events
  • in your life which have changed your attitudes
  • towards traditions and so on.
  • Could you share those with us?
  • LARRY FINE: I think when I first came out
  • my tendency was to toss tradition to the wind,
  • to toss the idea of family to the wind.
  • And I guess I needed to do that at the time
  • in order to feel good about my being gay
  • and not be held down by those feelings of tradition.
  • And you know I'm Jewish, and in Jewish culture,
  • tradition and family are extremely important.
  • Well, now that being gay is not an issue with me
  • and I've accepted my gayness as a good and positive thing,
  • I can think more freely about tradition.
  • And some events in my life have made
  • me think about it much more quickly.
  • My mother is not well, and in fact I came back to New York
  • very quickly last week because it was a possibility
  • she might be dying.
  • She's a little better now.
  • But my sister and I talked a great deal
  • and we both have this realization
  • that our parents are in the process of disappearing,
  • and our neighborhood is changing,
  • and all our friends, or many of our friends
  • are getting married, getting established jobs, et cetera,
  • careers, and that it's kind of getting time
  • for us to carry on the responsibilities of our family,
  • you might say, and to carry on the tradition.
  • And I do have a feeling of needing
  • to carry on this tradition.
  • Now for a heterosexual, it presents a lot less problem.
  • You get married and have children,
  • and everyone says that's the right thing to do.
  • For someone who's gay, who knows that they're oriented
  • towards someone of the same sex, and that a heterosexual
  • marriage would not fulfill many of their very important needs,
  • this is really a much more serious kind
  • of decision of what kind of lifestyle to live.
  • And it weighs on my mind in a sense.
  • For instance, there are many gay people who
  • would like to have children.
  • And we have to ask the question, how much should a person be
  • limited by their biology?
  • Just like there are many women in the women's liberation
  • movement who are deciding that their biology,
  • their being female, should not determine the role they take
  • and prevent them from having a career,
  • should not determine that they must have a child.
  • I think that people who are homosexually oriented
  • would also have a reason to object
  • to their being limited biologically
  • from having children.
  • On the other hand--
  • BRUCE JEWELL: In other words, they should be able perhaps
  • to adopt children.
  • LARRY FINE: Well, perhaps to adopt,
  • but there are some people who would like to have children
  • naturally, and who know that the problem, of course,
  • is not whether or not they'd be able to have sex with a woman.
  • For instance, I'm sure I'd be able to perform
  • with a woman who I was comfortable with and liked.
  • That's not the question.
  • The question is that I would prefer being with a man,
  • much prefer.
  • So there's a conflict in many people's lives.
  • On one hand, they may want to follow a tradition that they
  • see many advantages to.
  • On the other hand, they feel that their nature leads them
  • in another way, and what kind of lifestyle to choose
  • is a difficult decision.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: Well I think being cut adrift
  • from traditions is something many,
  • if not most, if not all homosexuals experience.
  • LARRY FINE: As a matter of fact, I think in my counseling
  • that I've done, and even in my personal life,
  • I found that the times when one feels not very
  • good about being gay, if you analyze those feelings,
  • that you find that the major feeling is not
  • one of being sick or of being immoral or irreligious
  • or whatever.
  • Those can easily be refuted.
  • It's a feeling of being cut off from tradition,
  • a feeling of being cut off from a heritage.
  • And that is a serious problem with dealing with that.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: I wouldn't deny what
  • you're saying, that it's a serious problem, at least
  • for some people.
  • I would say, however, that I think
  • it can be a positive value.
  • Though it's not often discussed, I
  • don't know why at this point the homosexual movement,
  • the gay movement is loath to discuss history,
  • maybe because it's not been explored.
  • LARRY FINE: Well, I think there's a tendency
  • to put down people who discuss great figures in history who
  • were gay because they say that well, this will not
  • solve our political needs at the time and all that.
  • I used to say that too, but I am now changing my mind somewhat.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: My own feeling is that if we look at history,
  • we will encounter a number of men of outstanding abilities
  • at crucial points, crucial historical turning points, many
  • who were--
  • I'm just getting a clumsy sentence--
  • but who were homosexual.
  • And I think to a certain degree, this is not only true,
  • by the way, of the Western world.
  • You can also find the same parallels in the east.
  • And I think that part of this is because the homosexual being
  • cut adrift from tradition, being in so far
  • as so much tradition is based upon biological roles,
  • has been able to take a view point.
  • See things slightly differently.
  • LARRY FINE: From a wider perspective, you might say.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: From a wider perspective.
  • And for that reason, I think homosexuals,
  • at various times in history have been
  • able to offer necessary leadership.
  • LARRY FINE: I very much agree.
  • That's something I'm very interested in doing
  • some reading and maybe even some writing about it at some point,
  • especially in conjunction with my Empire State College
  • studies.
  • I think that what I was going to get into,
  • I actually left off at a very negative note,
  • and I'm glad that you continued on a more positive level.
  • I'm interested in finding what you might
  • call homosexual traditions.
  • Now we all know there are heterosexual traditions
  • of marriage and family, but homosexual traditions
  • are not as easy to find in literature unless you
  • look between the lines.
  • It's not something that's been written about all that much.