Norton B. Knopf, Ph.D.
THE CHICAGO GROUP for Counseling and Psychotherapy
A Little on Carl Rogers
In two references to homosexuality (1951 and 1972) and in his statement indicating an apparent felt lack of understanding about why "...male homosexuality seems more threatening to many persons than female homosexual contact," (1972, p. 142) Rogers makes no judgment about this orientation.
In the first reference, a client is quoted in order to illustrate that client’s experience of the exploration of his self, and how the therapist's way of being can facilitate that exploration.
I remember a good deal of emotional tension in the second interview where I first mentioned homosexuality. I remember that I felt drawn down into myself, into places I didn't want to go ... I still remember the warm, acceptant voice of the counselor and my feeling that it was just a little more acceptant than I could be of the fears I was expressing but not enough different to be reassuring in a threatening way. ( 1951, p. 72)
In the second instance, a client speaks of a lesbian relationship, and of her feelings of jealousy at the thought that her female lover had had sexual contact with yet another woman. However, the context of this example has more to do with the impact a third party has on an involved couple than on the homosexuality, itself, Rogers says,
But all of this experimentation1 is not without cost. The senses of loss, of hurt, of jealousy, of self-pity, of anger, of desire for retaliation are experienced time and time again by those involved in the experimentation. No matter how ‘modern' the person's point of view, or his or her intellectual commitment, someone is hurt in one way or another, as Lois makes clear, every time partnerships shift. And jealousy does not necessarily relate simply to sexual behavior, but to such things as a loss of closeness... (1971, pp. 141-142)
Although it is not the sole purpose of this paper to discuss Rogers' relative silence on the topic of homosexuality, I would like to state my biases: 1) Rogers had no direct feel or understanding for the homosexual experience, as he admits (1972, p. 125) he has little direct understanding for communal living:
... I have not lived in a commune and hence lack the basic inner experience which I can bring to writing some of the other chapters. To offset this, I have been helped by two people ... who served as eyes and ears for me.;
or 2) Rogers spoke little about homosexuality because, for him, the quality of the relationship, committed vs. casual, was of more import than the gender of the two parties involved (in a footnote in 1972, Rogers states [ p. 157]:
The sexual experimentation in a commune is vastly different from that of a group of 'swingers.' Evidence shows that swingers try to avoid anything approaching deep involvement or more than casual relationships.
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1“Experimentation” is explained two sentences later as meaning a shift in partnerships.
A Little on me
I am motivated to write this paper for several reasons: 1) although it might be obvious to those who espouse person-centered values that there is nothing new in accepting a gay lifestyle in others (although any particular reader might not herself or himself by gay) there are many new to understanding the gay experience; 2) to be a spokesperson (I hope not arrogantly) espousing that Rogers made no distinction about, placed no judgments on the gay experience, reinforcing gay life as a potentially satisfactory and acceptable way of being; and 3) as a way to let others of different theoretical orientations (some of whom may be less empathic, more diagnostic) know where we stand.
I speak as one who has been a client-centered therapist for 28 years, and gay for 34. My counseling practice is probably disproportionately skewed in terms of the percentage of its gay clientele since I have been writing in local gay publications for almost 20 years, am known to be gay and am known to be a therapist. That has probably attracted some gay people to seek me out as a counselor (although it may also have dissuaded others.) I have been involved in two relationships, the first having lasted four years; the current one going into its 27th year. My mother lives a block away. The dog died one month shy of her 17th birthday, the cats lasted until almost 20, my godson is 15. 1 am an only child. My lover has a brother and sister and a half brother and a half-sister. This is G's third involved relationship. G has his own profession and career as a musician and artist. I have occasionally tried to act as G's agent and representative to art galleries and dealers, hoping to be able to promote the work of him whom I consider my spouse, and to promote him, as well.
A Little on Relatives
Who are a gay person's relatives? We all, gay and straight, have mothers and fathers. Most of us have brothers and sisters,
aunts and uncles, cousins and in-laws. The serious difference is that some relatives of gay people reject them simply because of their sexual orientation, and not for any reason other than that, For example, my mother refuses to acknowledge that my sexuality is different from the heterosexual majority. "I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to hear about it," she said to me many years ago when I attempted to discuss it with her. She sees G as a person who somehow has a magic hold over me, who takes advantage of me (in this she is like G's mother was in relationship to me), and who robs her of time with me. This in spite of the fact that there is no competition in my mind between G and my mother. It's like I was taught in high school: Don't compare an orange and an apple. They're both fruits -- you've got two fruits, but you've got one orange and one apple. My mother and my lover are both people, but one is one thing and the other is another. Does my mother, does society, force me to make a choice about who is family to me and who is not? Then, I wonder, is this realty so different from the parent who doesn't fully accept her daughter-in-law or son-in-law? Is anyone ever good enough to be the spouse for the child of any parent? When a sister gets married and wants her gay brother to bring a “date”, so that it will "look good", does he grit his teeth, does he pretend he is straight, does he bring along a “safe” date, a lesbian friend, perhaps, or an unsuspecting female? Does he have to fool his family into thinking that he has his own heterosexual family, or is pursuing it? Does the lesbian niece have to bring along a male escort to her aunt and uncle's 50th Wedding Anniversary celebration? Almost without exception, every gay male and lesbian I have met, whether as a friend, acquaintance, or client, has been repeatedly asked by his family of origin when he is going to get married, when he is going to produce grandchildren, whether he doesn't think it awful to grow old "alone", until such time as he comes out to them. At that time some families are accepting of the gay member, but many are not. Many families think it awkward to bring along a same gender partner. Better that Jane or Johnnie should come alone, rather than with his partner, with his own family.
But then I think, how about the child who is rejected because he is an alcoholic, has married four times, lives with an opposite sex partner but is not married, or is somehow different from the expectations of the rest of the family? Heterosexual people can suffer the same indignities from their families, but the slight is usually made against those who are considered negatively deviant. Since I have some knowledge about myself and know who and what I am, that I am not e.g., homicidal that I do not to care about others’ feelings, that I do not try to foster good communications between me and others, and between others, themselves, I don’t think of myself in much of a negative light. Neither, I believe, did Carl Rogers, consider gay people in a negative light. Neither, since 1973, does the American Psychiatric Association, which removed homosexuality from its official list of mental disorders, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Diseases (also see Bayer, 1987).
A Little on Money
Fair or not, when a man and a woman enter into a relationship, it is almost a given that the man will be earning more money than the woman. Often there is a bone of contention when the female partner feels cheated in the remuneration for her work, or when the male feels like less of a man when he is not earning so much as his female partner. When two men or two women first enter into a relationship, there seems to be a higher probability for rivalry between the two about who bought what, who owns what, and whether the partner with the higher income has more of a right to make decisions affecting both parties. If one person is paying for a new sofa, does she have the right to decide which one it will be? Until the two become a couple or, in my terms, become a family, this is often the way things go, sometimes to the peril of the relationship. Here is how two gay men talk about a situation:
C1: All the furniture in the house is yours, and you keep reminding me of it. It's like what you really care about are the possessions. You care more about the house than you do about us, goddamn it.
C2: Well, I did buy most of the furniture.
C3: And never asked me whether I liked a thing before you bought it. It's like, since you were paying for it, you got to choose whatever you wanted.
When G and I first became a couple, one of us was in debt beyond his means. We were both making payments on automobiles. There was a disparity in income. The one of us who was making more money was resentful of having to carry a disproportionate load of the household expenses. A decision was made to keep a running account of expenditures to be balanced at the end of each month. Grocery receipts were saved, electricity and phone bills were put aside, and there was an accounting of which of us owed the other money. Problems arose when it became apparent that one of us simply could not keep up with the other in terms of his expendable income, particularly in light of the fact that he owed money for debts incurred before the relationship even began.
Does might make right? Does a disparity in income levels make for difficulty in cementing relationships? Probably yes, until such time as people become aware that there is no possibility for fiscal equality when any two people are involved in different occupations. A psychologist and a musician are not usually on monetary parity; neither are any other two people with different occupations, perhaps even two people with the same occupations. There is little equity in the marketplace.
When G and I threw out the jar in which we accumulated our monthly charge slips (it did us little good since all that was happening was that one was getting further and further into debt with the other, anyhow) and decided that we were in this together, I believe we took a step of change from being a pair of individuals living together to becoming a relationship, to becoming a family. By "family", I mean a particular relationship in which any member is given support by any other member, regardless of the circumstances, whether that relationship is through genes and "blood", or not. When I am sick, G takes care of me; when G grieves over the loss of his mother, I am there to listen; when one of us succeeds, we both rejoice; when one of us fails, we both lament.
A Little on Everyday Life
Gay couples face the same humdrum activities as do we all. The laundry needs to be done, the house needs to be cleaned, the food needs to be cooked, the dog needs to be walked. In gay families, who does what is sometimes a cause for argumentation, especially when both parties work, just as it can be in straight relationships. Many gay couples, feeling some kind of need for equality (I believe) insist, at least at the beginning of their relationship, that both people not only share the chores, but even do them together. Mark & Phil find it palatable to share chores together. They make a social event out of doing their laundry by going to a local facility that doubles as a coffee shop and which has lights flashing when a washer or dryer is finished with its cycle. They clean the house together, cook and wash up together. Each feels that there must be total equality in all that they do. Others may have different solutions to these "problems" of everyday life. For another example, G and I get all the chores done, but we have decided that doing them together represents an inefficient use of our time. One of us does the laundry, but finds it such an odious task that we have made sure there is enough underwear to last for weeks. The other of us does the housecleaning, but finds it such an odious task that he has broken the chore down into little pieces: A fraction of the floor in each room is done one day, another fraction on another. Necessity has mothered invention for each of us to get through
these unpleasant tasks of our living together. Although it is conceivable (at least in our case) to hire others to do the work, we opt not to because we do not want our lives interrupted by outsiders. It feels like an imposition to each of us to have someone else in the house when it is time to sleep or work or study or play. Mark and Phil do it differently. Sue and John probably do, too.
A Little on Sex
When I first took on a relationship with another person, I took on the norms and values of the society which demanded sexual fidelity among committed couples. It didn't matter, to me, that my "spouse" was another man. The trouble for me, as it was for many others, was that my lover did not introject that same value. The trouble for him was that I did. When I was a young man, when gay men and women felt particularly oppressed by straight society and flocked to each other in the private places where we met, most particularly in the only place where gays could be ourselves with each other, viz., in bars which catered to gay patrons, we could be arrested if we danced with each other or even inadvertently touched each other. We could be arrested for indecent behavior; the owners and bartenders were sometimes arrested as keepers of disorderly houses. Our sexual contacts with each other were quick and furtive. Few dared risk public exposure and the humiliation it might bring down, or dared risk losing a job, because when the bar was raided, our names and addresses and places of employment were published in the local newspapers. Until the mid 1960's, for example, The Chicago Tribune did such.
There is a problem of sexual compatibility between the partners in some gay relationships. There are several ways to express love and caring through sexuality, and not everyone likes all of those ways. The question is not just who's on “top” but of who does what and when, and whether or not my desire is complementary with yours, at least for the moment. Many of us describe ourselves as "versatile," meaning, of course, that the whole variety of sexual experiences with a partner is enjoyable, or meaningful, at least, with that partner.
If it is true that some gay people look outside their relationships for sexual fulfillment, it is also true that most do not find it, even though they can and do find partners willing to have sex with them. Having sex and enjoying it, for the moment, is not the same as having lasting satisfaction, and gay people, through the ages, have found many casual sexual partners, at least in their young adulthood. Further, I believe that gay people may at some times in their lives, be more promiscuous than straights because they are seeking solace through pleasure, seeking acceptance by someone, rather than rejection by the majority. Being members of an ageist society, however, makes it more difficult to make such contacts as one grows older. And AIDS has changed things even more.
Could anything have changed the male homosexual community, and the straight community's perception of it more than the AIDS epidemic? How ironic, since it is almost a known fact that AIDS was part of a heterosexual community in Africa before it ever burst on the homosexual world, and since it appears likely to become much more rampant in the straight world in just a matter of time. Of course, it doesn't matter where or how it started, what matters is that in the West it is thought of as a homosexual disease, and indeed, so far, its victims are overwhelmingly gay men. So, our sexual practices have changed. We are not so promiscuous as we once were. Many of the places to which gay men went for a few moments of pleasure, e.g., our bathhouses, have closed. Fewer of us are willing to have unprotected anal intercourse (as fewer straight couples are willing to have unprotected vaginal intercourse), and the percentage of gays victimized by AIDS in relationship to the total number of the victims is declining. But the Western straight world sees AIDS as a gay disease, and blames gays for it, shuns gays, disapproves of gays, etc. The years after Stonewall,2 when gays were feeling more free to come out are over (temporarily, I hope). This result of gay people going back into the closet, i.e., not being open to others about our sexuality, has made establishing a "family" relationship with another individual more difficult. Two men or (although, perhaps, to a lesser extent) two women living together is a tip-off to others of a homosexual relationship. AIDS and the attitude towards it have closed doors which were opening to us. It is more difficult, once again, for municipal civil and human rights legislation guaranteeing equal access to housing, insurance benefits, rights to inheritance, etc. to be passed when it includes a reference to sexual orientation. Neighbors don't want gays around "bothering" their children, “polluting” the air with disease, etc. It has obviously become more difficult to enter into a live-in committed relationship with another human being, to establish
What Kind of Family?
My situation, and that of many other gay men and women I know, differs from that of the heterosexual population in that most of us have no children. Our lovers (and parents and siblings) are our families. The problems in establishing and maintaining a significant relationship are no less difficult, perhaps even more difficult, than in straight relationships because there is no societally condoned way of cementing that relationship into "permanence".
Cory was a man in his early thirties who worked as a night club entertainer, by choice, when he could get the work, and as an accountant by day, in order to support himself.
I feel so frustrated living the lie I've been living for so many years. I can't talk to anyone about it. My mother would shit a brick if she knew I were gay, I can't let anybody at work know, because I'd lose my job. I mean, like, what's a person to do? (Pause) What I want more than anything else is to be able to find a man and to live with him in peace. (Pause) Then, sometimes I wish I could be straight. Damn.
Cory was expressing the plight that many gays felt before Stonewall. That is, feeling the same need for bonding that heterosexuals feel, but anxiety about actualizing that need. Our families of origin often disapproved of us. We could not go to our mothers and fathers with our problems and worries. Our brothers and sisters shunned us. In essence, gay people had no family; maybe a dog here or a cat there, but no constant human being with whom they could relate. Gay people became accustomed to, but did not necessarily desire, casual connections. As fully conforming members of society in every way except one, we, for the most part, took on the same values as the rest of society, viz., that once bonded, infidelity to one's mate is not a good thing.
Another Example)
Gay people are often seen by their parents as continuing to be single people, who do not have quite the same responsibilities towards life with their lovers as do legally married spouses to each other. This is particularly true when one parent has died. Society still expects "single" women to have more time to care for an aged parent than a married daughter. It even does not look askance at the single daughter living with an elderly widowed parent, paying little or no attention to other needs and wishes of that younger individual.
Gays who have been rejected because of their sexual orientation by parents and other relatives often have more difficulties in accepting themselves than do those who are openly loved and unconditionally accepted for who they are. That is an obvious statement, but it is important to realize how difficult a time some people have in fitting in to the larger society, and it may help explain why gay neighborhoods grow in larger cities. If the family of origin is rejecting, then many will create a new family by surrounding themselves with others who are of a like orientation, where sexuality is not an issue in the acceptance or rejection of the individual. It is a pattern that has been repeated time and again in American society: Jews who formed their own neighborhoods and country clubs when rejected by Christians; Italians, Poles, Blacks, etc. who have formed their own clubs and associations when rebuffed by the mainstream of society.
So What?
That Rogers wrote with such paucity on the gay experience and of homosexual relationships, but then with some matter-of-factness, indicates that being gay, per se, was of little consequence to him or to the theories he developed. Probably, he was more interested in the quality of relationships and the impact that quality (or lack of it) had on the individuals involved. Experience tells me that many of the problem areas faced by gay couples are similar to those faced by straight couples (money issues, living issues, fidelity issues, even what colors to paint the walls). There is no reason to believe that Rogers, or any person-centered theorist or therapist would think otherwise. Yet, I have tried, in this personally written paper, to give an idea of what it is like to be gay in a predominantly straight society, to give some idea of the struggles and problems that gays have in establishing and maintaining a family.
Sometimes I think it is more difficult for gays than for straights. Sometimes I think that straights have their similar problems (and many do), but mostly I think that the experiences of gay people and our difficulties in making families and relationships are different, and usually more severe. The bonding that takes place between two individuals is more precarious, at first, because there is no societally approved way for cementing that bond -- there is no marriage, but for those couples who survive, the bond is no less strong, for it is a voluntary bond.
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2In June of 1969, the patrons of a gay bar in New York, The Stonewall Inn, rioted against the police who were raiding the place. Prior to that time, gay people were almost all in the closet, were afraid to let others know of their sexual orientation. Subsequent to that time (but before the onset of the AIDS pandemic) many gay people felt more free to openly state their sexuality.
References
Bayer, Ronald (1987). Homosexuality and American Psychiatry. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Rogers, Carl R. (1951). Client-Centered Therapy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Rogers, Carl R. (1972). Becoming Partners: Marriage and Its Alternatives. New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc.