Stranger Among Friends - Hardcover

Mixner, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0553100734 ISBN 13: 9780553100730

Verlag: Bantam, 1996

Inhaltsangabe

"From my fear of coming out to coming on strong in the struggle for human rights, this is my American journey, the story of an outsider on the inside, a gay man proudly committed to a life of standing up for freedom.

"President Clinton and I were born three days apart.  We had both dreamed of serving our country.  There was one difference:  He could pursue his dream, while I felt I could not.  The President was born straight and I was born gay."

In this stirring personal history, one of America's most influential gay rights advocates recounts his extraordinary career as a policy maker and adviser to the major political leaders of our time, and his own often anguishing, ultimately triumphant life as a gay man.  A longtime personal friend of Bill Clinton, in Stranger Among Friends David Mixner offers an insider's look at the power struggles that occur every day in our nation's capital and candid insights on the Clinton administration's successes and failures.  Spanning three decades of human rights activism--from the behind-the-scenes negotiations to the painful betrayals to the hard-won victories--his forthright story unflinchingly explores what it means to be an outsider on the inside, and sends a message of hope to all who have ever stood up for what they believe.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

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Aus dem Klappentext

y fear of coming out to coming on strong in the struggle for human rights, this is my American journey, the story of an outsider on the inside, a gay man proudly committed to a life of standing up for freedom.

"President Clinton and I were born three days apart. We had both dreamed of serving our country. There was one difference: He could pursue his dream, while I felt I could not. The President was born straight and I was born gay."

In this stirring personal history, one of America's most influential gay rights advocates recounts his extraordinary career as a policy maker and adviser to the major political leaders of our time, and his own often anguishing, ultimately triumphant life as a gay man. A longtime personal friend of Bill Clinton, in Stranger Among Friends David Mixner offers an insider's look at the power struggles that occur every day in our nation's capital and candid insights on the C

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The sense of triumph and the exhilarating bonding that comes of shared commitment to a deeply felt cause--nothing takes the place of the human need for intimacy, for love.  I saw those around me have the gift of that closeness. Sam was dating and Hawk was in a relationship.  This was the year I grew bolder in my hunger to fight my own deep loneliness.

During the summer before the Moratorium I had realized I could no longer deny my homosexuality--the self-imposed celibacy of the last couple of years was taking too great a toll.  Increasingly, I found myself having to come to terms with powerful sexual urges.  I would do my best to contain them, live in denial, then abruptly seek an outlet when I couldn't stand it any longer. Rather than planning how to meet my needs safely, without any risk of disclosure, I would wait until the frustrations had reached fever pitch and then carelessly seek anonymous sex.  I would go to dark parks or walk around gay areas of Washington hoping to meet someone who would give me release.  I'd make up a name and background in the hope this would conceal my real identity. Eventually, I found the courage to go out to bars.  I learned which ones were straight and which were "mixed" and which were gay, and I sought out dark, out-of-the-way retreats where it seemed less likely I'd encounter anyone familiar.  I discovered that as long as I was able to express myself sexually, my anger and tension eased.  Even though my human contact was always in a stranger's arms, it was at least some form of intimacy.  I needed and wanted that contact.

Shirley MacLaine had also helped me to be more adventurous.  She was having an affair with national news reporter Sander Vanocur, and when I was in New York the three of us often had dinner in her apartment and amid a lot of laughter swapped the latest political gossip.  Shirley was committed to sexual liberation.  She was blunt about her distaste for what she regarded as puritan morality.  She did not know I was gay and I longed to tell her.  I knew in my heart that she would receive it with love, but I still couldn't bring myself to utter that word--not to Shirley, who increasingly cared about me, or to anyone else.

She also introduced me to her good friends Phyllis and Eb Kronhausen, who were noted advocates of sexual freedom and liberation.  They were no more aware of my gayness than she was, but they were eager to open up a whole world of sexual freedom to me.  When I was on a trip to California, Shirley had them take me to Sandstone, in the Santa Monica mountains, a swinger retreat where heterosexual nudity and sexuality were expressed openly and with abandon.  I kept my clothes on as I explored this sexual playground, walking about in disbelief at what I was seeing.  My puritanical upbringing warred with my yearnings--it intimidated me to see conventional boundaries ignored and with such apparent joy, yet I resented not being able to have the same freedom for myself.  But most of all I was overwhelmed by the way sex for the revelers at Sandstone was truly a form of connectedness, communication, expression--even a work of art--and never something to be practiced in shame.

I was enriched that day.  I learned for the first time that sex could be an occasion of celebration.  I began at last to examine my own sexuality with less fear.

But that did not mean the world would accept me for who and what I was.  I knew that my political career and my family would be destroyed if my gayness became known.  So I went on frequenting obscure little joints and assuming a variety of false identities.  A small bar near Thomas Circle became a favorite.  It was a classic setting for the time: a narrow entranceway, a dim, windowless room with a long wood bar and shabby booths along the wall, the smell of beer permeating the air.  You could sit there quietly nursing a glass and then another one, getting just drunk enough to find someone with whom to have sex but hopefully not so drunk that you could not remember having it.  The jukebox played favorite gay melodies like "Over the Rainbow" and "I've Gotta Be Me." Everything about it--the bar, the music, our conduct--reflected the closeted reality of homosexuality in the 1960s.

It was here that I met "Frank." Earlier in the evening I had smoked a joint to garner the courage to go there one more time, afraid as always I might run into someone who knew me.  I sat at my usual place at the darkest end of the bar, sipping my Miller's and feeling very down.  Then I sensed a presence next to me.  At my left was the handsomest man I had ever seen.  He had jet-black hair, brilliant green eyes, and a smile that seduced me instantly.  He was wearing tight blue jeans and a light blue work shirt, and gave off an air of confidence you almost never encountered in a place like this.

He gave a slight nod when he saw me snatching glances at him.  I averted my eyes.  I heard his laugh.  It was a gentle one.  "I don't bite," he said softly.

I looked at him, mute.

"My name is Frank.  What's yours?"

A harmless question but one that I rarely answered truthfully.  Before I could think I found myself saying "David."

Frank ignored my obvious nervousness and took charge of the conversation.  In quick succession he volunteered that he worked for the government, was looking for a relationship, and was tired of the bar scene.  My tension eased without my even realizing it and I joined in.  We were elated to find that we enjoyed the same poets, couldn't get enough of Janis Joplin, loved long walks in the woods.  He confessed to being a candles and wine man who thrived on romance.  I already was imagining us walking along an empty beach, hand in hand.

As we talked his muscular thigh was rubbing gently against mine in a clear signal that he wanted to go home together.  This wasn't like all those nameless encounters since Kit's death.  His spirited confidence made me feel safe.  His smile reassured me I could trust him.  But I was still afraid, for to go with him would open up all those feelings I had suppressed successfully for the last five years.  I sat paralyzed by indecision.  Frank took me by my elbow, lifted me from the stool, and said, "Come on.  You are coming with me."

I followed him in a daze.  I walked through the door into the classic small apartment of a midlevel Washington federal worker, but this one was different. The walls were covered with shelves of books and records.  I kept frantically busy examining his bookcases--there were Neruda, Yeats, and Tennyson, and I knew he had told me the truth about his love for my favorite poets.  Then I felt his arms wrap around me and once again his laughter filled the room.

"I have to be the luckiest man in the world tonight," he said.  I thought that should have been my line.  The evening proceeded like a first-rate romance novel.  Frank lit candles and incense.  He put on Mahler's Fifth.  He opened a bottle of excellent wine and filled my glass, then for the longest time just held me close.  Again I realized I felt safe.  Slowly, gently at first, we made passionate love.  Eventually I sat up to leave and he pulled me back into bed. "You're...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Bantam
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1996
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0553100734
• ISBN 13: 9780553100730
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 369
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar