Love Uncontestable: Notes on Friendship, Sex, and Survival.(Review)

Journal of Men's Studies, The, March, 1999 by BUTTERS, GERALD, R., JR.

Love Uncontestable: Notes on Friendship, Sex, and Survival by Andrew Sullivan, New York: Knopf, 1998, 256 pp.

The divide between the homosexual and the heterosexual is as narrow as it is wide. In Love Uncontestable, former New Republic editor Andrew Sullivan considers "friendship, sex, and survival" among gay men in the late nineties. But this volume, which will be read predominantly by a gay population, is significant for any individual currently working in men's studies. Sullivan's reflections on normality, friendship, love, and religious faith are as applicable to heterosexual men and women as they are to homosexual men. The moral and ethical issues he considers narrow the supposed extensive divide between gay and straight, reflecting the universal concerns of all men, regardless of sexual orientation.

Love Uncontestable consists of three lengthy essays, "When Plagues End," a consideration of life after the age of AIDS; "Virtually Normal," a philosophical examination of reparative therapy (making a gay person straight) and its relationship to Freudian analysis; and "If Love Were All," a lengthy contemplation on the nature and meaning of friendship. Each of the essays is distinct, but common themes glide through the volume, softly weaving a web of intellectual discovery. What stands out in Love Undetectable is the brilliance of Sullivan's mind; his ability to consider the complexity and substance of an issue; his gift of being able to fairly examine theories that are counter to his own, which he aptly demonstrated in his first book Virtually Normal; and his ability to add the personal to the philosophical. This is a daring work, because Sullivan sets himself up for religious, political, and ethical ridicule as he lays out each essay with a seriousness of purpose.

Sullivan's third essay, an intellectual and personal reflection on the meaning of friendship, is the strongest and perhaps most pertinent to the men's studies researcher. The theme of friendship is not limited to this essay, though; it is a constant through the entire volume. The author introduces the reader to Scott, Trey, and Patrick, three of Sullivan's friends who have died of AIDS. It is perhaps the tremendous loss of life (and friends) in the gay community that reflects the importance of the institution to human existence. His writing, therefore, is strong, because he has experienced, and continues to experience, such loss and treasures departed friends. He argues that friendship is integral to the gay experience, because "the first true friendship for the homosexual child is often a revelation" (p. 232). This is because it is often with another gay child. Friendship, according to Sullivan, is therefore "simultaneous with the establishment of identity" (p. 232).

The author believes that the straight community places too much emphasis on family, while the gay community relies too heavily on friendship. Homophobia, he claims "too often (denies) straight men the bonds they need to sustain them through life's difficult experiences" (p. 234). Thus, the gay liberation movement will create powerfully positive results for straight men, too. Sullivan envisions a post-homophobic world in which straight men could "experience a more fluid and satisfying and intimate range of nonsexual relations without the fear of stigma or moral panic" (p. 235). This "movement for human liberation" has brought many gay men closer to the institution of the family and will hopefully allow straight men to rediscover friendship.

It is this search for "normality" that has obsessed Sullivan in Virtually Normal and Love Uncontestable. He has referred the world of the unspoken or unrepresented gay male who does not advocate the radical activist positions of Larry Kramer or Michelangelo Signorile. Sullivan has exposed "the physical shallowness and emotional cowardice" of the gay circuit party crowd. What Sullivan calls for is not a segregationist world of hedonistic gay pleasure or a ghetto of rainbow flags and leather but for the integration of homosexuals into the larger American society, thus, becoming part of the "normal." In his first chapter, which focuses on the post-AIDS world, he argues gay men and lesbians must consider what type of world they want to create. Sullivan has long argued for same-sex marriage as an entree into the larger heterosexual world and has been attacked by both conservative and gay activists for taking this position. But he falls short on criticizing promiscuity, claiming that he has not condemned nor endorsed it. An underlying question is whether sexual promiscuity is part of the "normal" in traditional American society. Perhaps Sullivan's strongest political statement argues that marriage will provide homosexuals "with the only avenue for sexual and emotional development that can integrate them as equal human beings and remove them from the hideous historical option of choosing between their job and their dignity" (p. 67). He does allude to a post-AIDS, post-bathhouse/circuit party utopia of heterosexual/homosexual equality but is fearful to present us with his complete vision. Sullivan is one of the sharpest social critics out there, but he appears apprehensive about taking the next step into visionary leadership.