Carrie Barnett never met the person who first helped her accept her homosexuality. It wasnt a lover, or a friend. It was an author.
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Brett Shingledecker, growing up in Lima, Ohio, around the same time, had similar experiences. “The first gay book I ever read was Faggots [Larry Kramer’s novel about New York gay life], when it came out in the late 70s. I was 15. And of course there was John Knowles’s A Separate Peace and The Front Runner by Patricia Nell Warren–and After Dark magazine,” he smiles, recalling the now-defunct glossy entertainment publication that catered oh-so-discreetly to a gay male sensibility. “There was one newsstand in Lima that carried it, and it was such a big deal to go in and purchase it.”
The story’s the same for most gay men and lesbians: before they become sexually active or even just emotionally involved with boyfriends and girlfriends, their real–sometimes only–friends are books. So a safe place to find gay literature becomes not just a shopping stop but a haven.
Shingledecker believes that People Like Us will be valuable to heterosexuals as well. “I spent time in the gay bookstore Lambda Rising in Washington, D.C., just observing the business and the customers. One woman came in who was married to a bisexual man and was concerned about AIDS. Another customer was the mother of a young lesbian, and she wanted to know how to deal with it and help her daughter. A clerk in a store like this often functions as a counselor as well. It’s very important sometimes.”
“People ask me, ‘Are you going to be “PC”–politically correct?’” adds Shingledecker, referring to political debate over erotic literature within the community. “We want to be everything for everyone. Some people want to read [prominent antiporn activist] Andrea Dworkin and some other people want to read ‘Macho Sluts.’”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Bruce Powell.
