Pop quiz: Law enforcement officials, health researchers and demographers poring over census data have identified a distinct subgroup of the general male population. These men have remarkably low rates of public violence -- by some estimates as low as one-10th the level of their counterparts. They engage in volunteer activities at much higher rates than other men do; to the extent that altruism can be measured, they are far more altruistic. They are more tolerant than other men, and are much more likely to have friends of a different race, class and gender. Most strikingly, in less than a decade they overwhelmingly altered their most private and intimate behavior in response to a clear health threat.
Now for the question: The response to this discovery has been: a) a spate of newspaper and magazine articles on "the new male"; b) congressional calls for research into the sources of these men's remarkable behavior and into ways to encourage similar behavior in other men; or c) U.S. Supreme Court decisions confirming these men as second-class citizens and legislation denying them the right to marry the partner of their choice.
If you selected answer c, then you are ready for the basic premise of David Nimmons's provocative and sure to be controversial The Soul Beneath the Skin. For the past 30 years, the main platform of the gay rights movement has been to emphasize how gays and lesbians are similar to their non-gay brothers and sisters in everything but sexual orientation. Nimmons stands that argument on its head by marshaling an impressive body of evidence to suggest that gay men behave very differently from straight men. If he is careful not to say that gay is better, he is unabashed in claiming that gay is very good indeed. For Nimmons, the glass is two-thirds full.
Perhaps the smartest decision Nimmons made in writing this book was in his choice of audience. The book is directed to other gay men, with a wry wink over his shoulder at any heterosexuals who might be interested. Because the conversation is entre nous, Nimmons has been able to free up his style. This is as unstuffy a book as you are likely to read. Nimmons's jokey, breezy style happily employs the most blatant of popular metaphors: "If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, we're the ones who hold dual passports."
This style is saved from being cloying because Nimmons uses it to convey an impressive body of information; at one point he lists the results of 32 studies of gay men's condom use. Like as not, he will crack a joke and then go on to quote philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre or sociologist Emile Durkheim (in both cases, on the spiritual implications of dance).
Another, unexpected consequence of his rhetorical stance is that it frees Nimmons from an adversarial relationship to mainstream culture. He is well aware of the injustices visited upon gay men, but that is not his subject, and he has no interest in arguing with someone he is not addressing. Gay politics has been so long frozen in the voice of the oppressed that this change in emphasis is most refreshing. It allows Nimmons to acknowledge that gay people have made enormous strides over the past 30 years, and lets him move on to the question of what these changes mean. This could not be more clear than in his discussion of popular culture. He has no illusions about the subtlety of, say, television's "Will and Grace" ("a pageant of stereotype," he calls it), but he delights in the show and is fascinated with what it tells us: "America is apparently curious enough [about the relationship of women and gay men] that for thirty minutes every week, tens of millions of us tune in to watch this social experiment being undertaken across gender almost as if we cared how it turns out."
Perhaps the most interesting -- certainly the most attention-getting -- chapter concerns the development of contemporary gay male sexual culture, "Alive and Well in Sexual Madagascar." As Nimmons points out, over the past 30 years gay liberation has led to a gay male culture that is sex- positive and outspoken in discussing sex. He contrasts this with a mainstream culture that has moved from sexual liberation to a sex-negative, "just say no" attitude, where frank discussion of sexuality is so frowned upon that a surgeon general can lose her job for talking about masturbation. Not only does Nimmons refrain from tut-tutting over gay male promiscuity, he is also fascinated with the myriad forms of sexual intimacy and practice that have evolved in the social ecology of this isolated "Madagascar."
He goes on to credit sexual openness for gay males' relative success in changing their behavior to take into account the AIDS epidemic (studies consistently indicate that gay men practice safe sex at rates between 66 percent and 75 percent, while heterosexual men with multiple partners do so far less often). More important, Nimmons claims, openness to sexual experimentation has meant that gay men are forging new forms of intimacy -- examples that Nimmons says may prove useful for a society in which "the U.S. census reports fewer than one quarter -- 24 percent -- of our households consist of Dad, Mom and kids."
The last two, quite brief chapters are not as satisfying as the first eight. Despite his glowing field report from the "province of play," Nimmons identifies serious problems besetting contemporary gay males. While the empirical evidence would suggest that gay men are more caring and tolerant, Nimmons reports that all too frequently they find their personal experience of gay life alienating and emotionally deadening: They seek love but find attitude.
Here Nimmons unveils an agenda, a new-agey self-help "project" called Manifest Love, aimed at reducing alienation among gay men and effectuated via traveling workshops. The tenor of the book changes at this point. We move from analysis to certainty; the terms are stacked against the nonbeliever, and lively debate gives way to earnest indoctrination. But if skeptics might prefer to get off before the final stop, they will still have had an exhilarating ride. •
Jim Marks is director of publications for the Lambda Literary Foundation.