The Diary of a Debut | 6th January 2011
Watching David Hoyle, and pondering the anti-gay movement.
Hopes and Doubts — The Diary of a Debut
My first book, Before I Go to Sleep, first came out in April 2011. Until this week, I’d completely forgotten that in the January of that year I’d decided to start keeping a journal to chronicle things as they happened.
My entries were sporadic, and some intensely personal.
This one, in particular, I hesitated before sharing. It may very well need a content warning, and very much reflects the time it was written (2011). I’ve softened my stance on some of the things I talk about, or at least accepted a more nuanced view.
Anyway, here it is…
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6th January 2011
Spent the morning at [the new flat] awaiting delivery of the new television, and the afternoon looking at websites to try and get some ideas for the content and feel I’d like to go with for mine. In the evening I met S and P ar the Royal Vauxhall Tavern for ‘David Hoyle’s Lives’.
I’ve never seen Hoyle perform before, though his reputation is legendary.
As The Divine David he developed a following by performing edgy, avant garde shows, dressed in a wig and bizarre make-up, in which (and of course I’m both over simplifying here and also, arguably, talking about something of which i know nothing, having never seen The Divine David perform other than in short video-skits available on YouTube) he sought to undermine, or at least expose, the body fascism of gay (male) culture, its pull towards heteronormativity, and so on. I recall the ‘Anti-Gay’ movement (if it was indeed a movement, rather than just a book) as being somehow entwined with his work, though I don’t remember if he was directly involved in the book, or even mentioned. In any case, he always seemed to be an artist who had something to say, and an interesting way of saying it. That, coupled with his reputation for hedonism and dangerous excess (numerous times I’ve heard that the most shocking thing about him is not the fact that his performances embrace danger and unpredictability (films in which he fellates a power drill for example), but the fact he’s still alive. [My brother in law], who used to know him indirectly from his time at Leeds, reports that he was ‘terrified’ of him) has always made him an interesting figure in the Gay/Queer/LGBT scene.
So I was looking forward to seeing him live. He’s doing a run of six shows, each with special guests (this week it was Al Pillay and Jonny Woo, who arguably, is the spiritual heir to Hoyles hedonistic crown). Hoyle is certainly an engaging, captivating performer. Though funny, his work is intelligent and has a real substance - tonight his messages included ‘We are all beautiful human beings’, ‘there is no such thing as gender’ and ‘the insistence of clinging to the outmoded concept of masculinity has lead too many gay men to claim that they are ‘real’ men who ‘just happen to be gay’ and who placate their mothers by insisting that while they dish it out, they would never take it (‘it’ being anal sex),’ The latter he expressed particularly emphatically (and often) by suggesting that those men who are prepared to do unto others an act that they wouldn’t have done unto them should either kill themselves, kill their mothers, or ‘go home and lick out the cancerous c**t of the mother who raised them.’
That last piece of advice was delivered many times over the course of the show, and that, along with numerous references to the rotting corpses of toddlers, actually seemed to make the punters slightly uncomfortable. But leaving aside how he makes it, his point is a good one, I think. I’ve never felt particularly masculine, nor feminine. I’m not even sure what those terms mean, as applied to me. Though I dress conservatively and am comfortable (unlike Justin Bond, say, or Hoyle himself I suspect) in thinking of, and describing, myself as ‘male’, I feel much more comfortable with the ‘queer’ identity than the ‘gay’ one. I bristle a little at having to describe myself as ‘gay’ because I just know what that means to most people. I don’t believe in sexual rules, I think the hetero paradigm is there to be transcended. I am having a civil partnership, yes, but I resist all efforts (and there have been some, albeit minor) to force us into aping a wedding. We’re not getting married. I won’t call him my husband. I’m not even particularly comfortable with the word ‘partner’, though it does the job. I don’t believe that sexuality is fixed, unchanging, or that people fit into one of three categories (gay, straight, bi). Sexuality is complex, fascinating, and deserves more than that.
But these opinions and beliefs are normal, for me, and rarely do I question them, or even examine them that closely. And that’s what I enjoyed about seeing Hoyle tonight. it was fun, but also thought provoking. I did examine my own beliefs. Hoyle is an artist who is prepared to take risks to say the things he feels he wants to say. I’m a fan.
