Men in the valley: gay male life on the suburban-rural fringe

Abstract

This study examines the geography of the population of gay men located in the Connecticut River Valley area of Massachusetts where, by the 1990s, a significant minority lived on the metropolitan edge and in rural towns. Previous research has focused on the rich social life of urban gay men or on the isolation of those in rural areas. In contrast, in this study, interview data indicated that many gay men have created a way of life that was gay, non-urban and home centered, with gay men integrated into the larger community. Interviewees described their lives in the region as being positively affected by a level of tolerance, if not complete acceptance, more often associated with large urban centers. Gay men's attitudes toward the relatively large and public lesbian population in the region were complicated. The legacy of lesbian separatism from the 1970s and early 1980s caused some division, and there had been some resentment on the part of gay men in being the less visible and powerful part of the gay and lesbian population. However, in the Valley lesbians had done much of the hard work of increasing acceptance of lesbian and gay people, and recently gay men and lesbians have collaborated on significant projects. Overall, a gay male culture has formed at relatively low densities indicating both the diversity of rural areas and the de-linking of gay social networks from urban cores and the presence of self-conscious diversity in rural areas. We don’t have a neighborhood we all live in and one or two bars that we all go to, or everybody flocks to a certain bar on Sundays at 3 o’clock, or another bar on Saturdays at 11 o’clock, or you’ll find us at this restaurant and that restaurant and this restaurant, only. But because we’re everywhere in the area, we sit in parking commission, we haul garbage, and we treat the sick and we teach schools, and we are police officers, and we are administrators, and we are clerical staff, and whatever. … I think we’re ahead of the curve in that way in that we’re very strong and … for the most part we are so comfortable with it that we don’t need to ghettoize ourselves. And yet we want to be around each other, and so volleyball's very popular. Potlucks are very popular. You know there's still a need for an opportunity for us to meet each other, but our day to day lives are lived in the larger community, and are involved in the larger running of our towns, and I think that's ahead of the curve for the larger general gay population. (Paul, age 35, human resources specialist, partnered, white, non-native, upper Valley resident, homeowner)