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| At the Blue Whale for Low Tea, a nightly cocktail event. |
I didn't expect the
community of Fire Island to hit me that way. When a timeshare there fell
into my lap (a few friends and I hopped on last-minute to fill a
house), I thought it was just going to be a vacation version of hanging
out in Brooklyn. But there's something different about Fire Island. All
across the community there's a feeling of: "We are gay, and we are all
gay together. This is our space, these are our homes, and no one can
take that from us."
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Making a Home
Every
Friday night there's an underwear party at the Ice Palace in Cherry
Grove. I don't really go to those kinds of gay bars back home, so
walking into this space full of nearly naked men was overwhelming—not
because I felt attracted to a lot of them, but because I felt so much
love being around all these queens whowere celebrating their bodies.
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On a more intimate
level, when my friends and I are hanging out on our deck, we feel free
to prance around and be impulsive. The first weekend we were there, my
friend Eric and I arrived first, and when the other members of the house
got there, we greeted them with a spontaneous lip-syncing performance
of "Mysterious Ways" from The Color Purple. When it was over, I was like, "We're so gay. It's unbelievable."
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It's not that we
wouldn't be able to sing and dance back home, but on the island, there's
this additional layer of unconditional safety. This island culture was
even more important in the '60s and '70s when gay culture
was extremely restricted. Fire Island was really a safe haven where
people could come to be themselves for the weekend. It still retains
that feeling today.
Celebrating Individuality
Of
course, there's still a big community of peacocking and showing off
your amazing body. Everywhere you look there are these Adonises
strolling around with their shirts off. On one hand, it's a feast for
the eyes, but on the other, it's intimidating. I wonder whether or not
it's perpetuating the idea of vapid gay men who spend all their time in
the gym, but don't really have much substance otherwise. There is a
little bit of a sassy edge to the culture—it's easy to feel
self-conscious around that.
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But I've also realized
recently that I care less about that than I used to. Fire Island is also
my space, just as much as it's a space for sex and showing off your
body. It's a space for being yourself, so if I want to go to a pool
party wearing a T-shirt and backwards baseball cap, I'm going to do
that.
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I do still have to
check my self-consciousness, though. It's very internal—I see all these
good-looking people and think, How does that make me look?
But then I see someone walking into the bar wearing a 1950s swimming
cap with embroidered flowers and think, OK, I'm fine, because he's being
his truest self, and he's a star.
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A New World
Fire
Island is not for everyone, but, for me, having this experience has
shaped a greater self-confidence in my day-to-day life. I now feel more
comfortable striking up a conversation with someone new or looking
people in the eye when I first meet them. Being exposed to a place where
I feel completely at home has led to a process of self-discovery that
translates beyond the Island, because I always know I have this place to
go back to. I don't think that there's anywhere else like it on Earth.
