Audio Interview, Larry Fine, March 21, 1973

  • LARRY FINE: I think there are homosexual traditions
  • of the type that you mentioned, of having a wider perspective
  • and maybe feeling more sympathy for minorities,
  • having a greater impetus for social change,
  • even if just unconsciously you are aware of your homosexuality
  • as being that impetus.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: Well, I would say there are probably
  • certain historical and social conditions that this occurs in.
  • Otherwise, I think there's a good deal of evidence
  • that homosexuals tend to be quite conservative.
  • LARRY FINE: That's true also, being
  • afraid of having that known, and even
  • being conservative to make up for what
  • they see as something immoral.
  • That's been documented recently too
  • in studies that have been done.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: Yeah, I wouldn't doubt it.
  • LARRY FINE: But there are also, I think, homosexual traditions
  • in the types of lifestyles that gay people have adopted coping
  • with being homosexual in a heterosexual society,
  • lifestyles that have included a lot of different kinds of what
  • you might call family arrangements,
  • including living with one other person of the same sex,
  • or maybe not living with them, but having
  • an ongoing relationship.
  • For instance, there's been a lot of talk about the fact
  • that J. Edgar Hoover may have been gay
  • and had a relationship with someone
  • who was a close aide of his.
  • And apparently, they were seen together constantly,
  • every day for forty years, or something of this.
  • And there's a lot of speculation that they might be gay.
  • That's one way of coping with it.
  • Hopefully--
  • BRUCE JEWELL: He would be a more conservative--
  • LARRY FINE: Yes, (Chuckles) definitely.
  • There are other types of living arrangements
  • that there may have been.
  • For instance, somebody attaching themselves
  • to a heterosexual couple with children
  • and helping to raise those children.
  • Or a number of men or women living together
  • in some kind of communal arrangement.
  • I think, for many, the celibate life, or the supposedly
  • celibate life, of the priest--
  • there are many gay men I know who
  • have gone into the priesthood, because this
  • is one way of coping with their being gay.
  • From what I've heard, the priesthood
  • is not all that celibate, but a matter for speculation.
  • But there are many different kinds of lifestyles
  • that people have adopted.
  • Some of them were ones that were maybe very oppressive
  • and maybe are not lifestyles that
  • would have to be adopted now or in the future.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: Of course, I can think
  • of some heterosexual bachelors I know whose roommates are males.
  • And this seems to be an appropriate living
  • standard-- an appropriate way for them to live.
  • But they are heterosexual.
  • LARRY FINE: Sure.
  • That's not generally considered part
  • of the heterosexual tradition, because it's much rarer.
  • But that's true.
  • There are all these other types of traditions that people
  • don't talk about all that much.
  • What I'm concerned most with is that, as a counselor,
  • people are not aware of the different options that
  • are open to them, as far as lifestyles.
  • And there aren't very good models, adequate models,
  • that are written about and seen openly.
  • Homosexual couples are not generally
  • seen openly around town, say, holding hands,
  • or it's known that they're gay and living together,
  • or just all the various kinds of things
  • that go into a relationship and things
  • that are very visible in the heterosexual world and not
  • in the homosexual world.
  • So there's a lack of models to pattern
  • or to give oneself ideas about how it's possible to live.
  • And I think it's very important to unearth
  • a lot of the traditions and a lot of the positive kinds
  • of lifestyles and positive aspects
  • about being gay that can give people models to follow.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: Well, I think without question,
  • this is a field not only of great value,
  • but one which is virtually unexplored.
  • It was not permissible to consider
  • positive aspects of the gay life on a public level
  • until very recently.
  • Well, it would've been considered
  • absolutely outrageous.
  • In fact, even now, to say anything positive
  • about homosexuality can often lead one
  • to be accused of proselytizing--
  • LARRY FINE: Exactly.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: --or something.
  • And it's completely overlooked that, for a lifetime,
  • one has heterosexual models, mores, standards, beliefs--
  • LARRY FINE: We've been proselytized by heterosexuals
  • for many years.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: And more to the point, it didn't change us.
  • So it's dubious that some positive things
  • said about homosexuality are really
  • going to create homosexuals.
  • LARRY FINE: That's true.
  • It was a very valid point in a recent court trial.
  • There were some positive things about having homosexual models
  • brought up by a psychologist who testified in that trial.
  • A teacher who was openly gay in a school was fired.
  • And it was brought up that the class he was teaching
  • was not entirely heterosexual.
  • There were some homosexual students in there
  • who needed models, and that the presence of this teacher
  • would actually help them better adjust and probably wouldn't
  • have much effect on anybody else,
  • except to increase their tolerance.
  • So it's true that we need to have many more positive things
  • about gay lifestyle brought up.
  • It is a very scary thing for a lot of conservative people
  • to hear the positive aspects of it.
  • Like you said, they say you're proselytizing, and all that.
  • But we need to go ahead and do it anyway.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: What kind of counseling
  • are you doing right now?
  • LARRY FINE: Most of the counseling
  • I do is through the gay rap line at the University of Nebraska
  • at Lincoln.
  • It's a student organization funded crisis line,
  • you might say.
  • And we get a lot of calls.
  • I'd say, seventy-five to a hundred calls a month.
  • A lot of them are pranks and hang-up calls.
  • But a lot of them are very serious.
  • And sometimes after speaking for a while on the phone,
  • we might make an appointment to meet the person in person
  • at some kind of a neutral spot to talk further.
  • Sometimes a face-to-face meeting can be really a very valuable
  • thing.
  • There are a lot of different types of people that call.
  • Some are just--
  • BRUCE JEWELL: What kinds of problems
  • do you most frequently meet?
  • LARRY FINE: I'd say, one of the most common ones
  • is a married man who's in his forties--
  • just to give an example.
  • It might be thirties, forties, fifties--
  • who has recently-- or maybe even long ago,
  • but has just recently gotten up the guts to call--
  • has discovered or admitted to himself that he's gay,
  • or has a certain amount of homosexual feelings
  • or bisexual, whatever, and doesn't quite
  • know what to do with it, whether this means
  • he should divorce his wife and find someone of the same sex,
  • or stay with his wife and have encounters on the side,
  • or whatever.
  • Now the people who are this--
  • BRUCE JEWELL: I've run across that.
  • It's a very sad problem.
  • And there isn't a great deal you can offer sometimes.
  • LARRY FINE: Really, and so much depends
  • on the particular circumstances.
  • These people, they call up and they want advice.
  • They want us to tell them what they should do.
  • And that's not the role of a counselor
  • If a person is happily married, enjoys their family life,
  • it may not be a practical thing to change
  • the lifestyle at this point.
  • And I remember one time when I tried
  • to put the person's situation in the perspective of,
  • what if the person was heterosexually oriented
  • and was interested in other women?
  • Would he give up his happy home, his good marriage,
  • to go running after other women?
  • I think in that particular circumstance,
  • that analogy was valid and helped the person a lot.
  • In other circumstances, it's not so clear.
  • The person may not have a very happy marriage.
  • The person may very much want to change the lifestyle.
  • There's maybe the problem of the person's job at that point.
  • If a person is in his 40s, say, or 50s, and has a valid--
  • not a valid-- has an important job,
  • they may not want to change their lifestyle
  • or be openly gay or be seen with any gay people for fear
  • of losing their job.
  • So there's so many things to consider.
  • And like you said, in many cases, it's just very sad.
  • And the best the person can do is to develop a few friendships
  • so that they can at least talk about their feelings
  • and have some people they can talk openly with.
  • And that will often relieve enough of the frustration
  • and the tension and the loneliness,
  • that they can continue on their heterosexual lifestyle.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: I find it very difficult,
  • when I run into that situation, to encourage people
  • in furtive sexual encounters.
  • As a homosexual, I am angered by people who drop out--
  • who come out at midnight to get their thrills and do
  • their dirty little thing--
  • (Both laugh)
  • --and then return home.
  • LARRY FINE: Unfortunately, with some people,
  • there's no alternative but that, that they simply are not
  • willing to risk a career.
  • And that's about all that they can have.
  • But I sometimes feel angry about it too.
  • For one thing, the fear of coming out publicly,
  • or even semi-publicly, is much greater than the actual danger.
  • There certainly are dangers.
  • But in most cases, it's not really very likely
  • that the employer is the next day going
  • to find out that the person is gay and fire them on the spot.
  • Especially if the person's been a good worker
  • and done their job well and in a good position,
  • then chances of their being fired
  • are not all that great, actually.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: What other kinds of problems
  • do you run across, particularly among younger people?
  • LARRY FINE: We have a lot of calls from high school
  • students.
  • We run the ad for the gay rap line
  • in The Lincoln Gazette, which is a local alternative,
  • or underground paper.
  • And several thousand copies are distributed
  • at the high schools in Lincoln.
  • So we get a lot of calls from high school students.
  • And there's an added problem of the legal problems of dealing
  • with people under eighteen.
  • You have to be especially careful.
  • If you meet them to talk with them, and the parents find out,
  • they could accuse you of all sorts of things, whatever the--
  • I've forgotten the legal terminology--
  • but seducing a minor, or something
  • of that kind of thing.
  • And we've wanted to set up discussion groups
  • for high school students.
  • But again, there's this problem that if you don't
  • have the parents' permission--
  • and, of course, they're not going
  • to go running to the parents for permission--
  • it's a very great problem.
  • The university counseling center,
  • it has a community counseling center,
  • it will not see anyone under eighteen.
  • So we can't rely on them.
  • Many groups have gotten around this
  • by having a minister, for instance, have a discussion
  • group in the context of a church.
  • And the parents are not quite as angered by this
  • if they find out.
  • They feel that they're in better hands, at least.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: It's very difficult
  • to do anything about the isolation
  • that high school students suffer.
  • And most of them do.
  • Most of the students I've met feel very isolated.
  • LARRY FINE: High school is an isolating
  • place, even for heterosexuals, I think, in many cases.
  • They're just not places where you
  • can explore different kinds of friendships,
  • lifestyles, et cetera.
  • There's so much peer pressure.
  • It's terrible.
  • And if all there is is a gay bar in the city--
  • and there isn't even one in Lincoln,
  • but there is one in Omaha--
  • in Nebraska, if you're under eighteen,
  • you can't go into the bar.
  • The gay coffeehouse in Lincoln, we
  • do let people down to the age of sixteen
  • in, sometimes even under that if we know them.
  • But there is a legal hassle.
  • We don't want to put the age up to eighteen,
  • because we know that the high school students have
  • no other place to go.
  • On the other hand, we're in a very sticky position
  • if we're busted for having underage people in,
  • or something happens and parents find out.
  • You're right, there's very little
  • that can be done, except to let the high school students find
  • other high school students that they can associate with.
  • A discussion group would be a very good thing
  • where they could meet other high school students.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: Larry, do you plan or foresee
  • being able to use your degree in social services--
  • gay social services-- and your experience
  • in counseling for some years to come?
  • Do you see it perhaps as a full-time occupation?
  • LARRY FINE: I've thought of that.
  • I thought that if I planned to go on with my education,
  • I might get a masters in social work.
  • I'm not sure about this because partly the financing
  • of my education.
  • And partly, I just don't like formal academic schooling
  • very much.
  • But I've had thoughts of starting, with other people
  • in Lincoln, a gay community center or a social service
  • center, as has been started in other places in the country.
  • For instance, Los Angeles has a very big and active one
  • and gets government grants.
  • Now it may sound like a very romantic idea
  • to decide to get one's masters and start a gay social service
  • center.
  • And I have to keep reminding myself that that will also
  • involve writing proposals and hassling over money,
  • and all that kind of stuff.
  • It might be better for me just to start
  • with an existing social service agency, having
  • a specialized field of gay counseling, and after that,
  • try to branch out, after I have more experience.
  • I'm not really sure.
  • BRUCE JEWELL: Well, you're certainly
  • in a field that's wide open for innovation,
  • and I wish you luck.
  • LARRY FINE: Thank you very much, Bruce.