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Jesse's Journal
"People are less aware of that 'buy gay' concept now," Brinster said. "Young members of the community tend to take things for granted. They forget the origins that now allow us to walk down the streets of many neighborhoods in New York, hold hands and not necessarily get the crap beaten out of us." The Oscar Wilde Bookshop is more than a bookstore, of course. It is a historical monument. It opened as the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop on Thanksgiving Day, 1967, in a small storefront on 291 Mercer Street. Craig Rodwell (1940-1993), the activist who founded Oscar Wilde, wanted a store that would be devoted to serious and positive gay literature: "I wanted to have literature that presented homosexuality in a good light," Rodwell told Kay Tobin in The Gay Crusaders (1972). "My general policy was to have a shop where gay people didn't feel they were being exploited either sexually or economically." Because of Rodwell's personal prejudices, books that were "pornographic", offensive to women or minorities, or otherwise objectionable were kept off the shelves as long as he owned the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop. Under his watch Oscar Wilde also served "as a clearing house for individuals and organizations supporting homosexual law reform in New York State" and as the headquarters for a short-lived group that he started called the Homophile Youth Movement in Neighborhoods (HYMN). Now located at 15 Christopher Street, the Oscar Wilde Bookshop has served (in pre-community center days), as "the town crier, filled up with literature for activists' meetings, and housing the meetings themselves. Young and old alike have used the store not only to find a great read, but to explore themselves."
Author Christopher Bram, writing for the Oscar Wilde Bookstore's Web site,
(www.oscarwildebooks.com),
called it a "celebration of literature as well as a very fine store [and]
one of the best bookstores anywhere, gay or straight." Oscar Wilde also
paved the way for other GLBT bookstores, including A Different Light in
West Hollywood and San Francisco, Calamus in Boston, Giovanni's Room in
Philadelphia, Glad Day in Toronto, Lambda Passages in Miami, Lambda Rising
in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, and Little Sister's in Vancouver.
The existence of a GLBT book section in a major chain store is a step forward for our community, and a recognition of the fact that, as consumers, we are a force to reckon with. And life is much easier now that Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Borders allow us to have good gay books at the touch of a keyboard. Still, we should not forsake our small, independently-owned, GLBT bookstores. Long before B&N and Borders took notice, our community bookstores were making GLBT books available, supporting GLBT authors and fostering good GLBT literature. Deacon Maccubin, founder of Lambda Rising, had more than his personal interest at heart when he criticized queer writers who put a link to Amazon and other online sellers on their Web sites: "I wonder if they really think they would have been published at all if not for the gay bookstores that sprang up around the country in the 1980s and 1990s. . . . In the 1970s, that literature barely existed." But gay bookshops do more than sell books. According to Completely Queer: The Gay and Lesbian Encyclopedia, "gay and lesbian - and feminist/women's - bookstores have traditionally served as informal community centers, offering everything from space for bulletin boards to tourist information to legal and medical referrals. Many also provide space for meetings, performances, and readings." The late John Preston, writing in The Big Gay Book (1991) called gay bookstores "the one single most consequential element in the development of gay culture. These stores have been willing to stock our books when others wouldn't have them. They represent a distribution system for our journals and newspapers. They are often the first stop that isolated gay men [and lesbians] make when they get to a major city, desperate for a gay cultural fix."
Unfortunately, the rise of Amazon and other gay-friendly chain stores and online sellers has been detrimental to the future of all GLBT bookshops, not just Oscar Wilde. Many gay stores have had to diversify in order to survive, by selling or renting videos, t-shirts, greeting cards and jewelry along with books and magazines. Independent gay bookshops, like other "Mom and Mom" or "Pop and Pop" businesses, can only thrive by providing their customers with products and services that the major chains can't or won't provide -- such as adult videos or DVDs that are not available at Blockbuster. Only that - and a loyal customer base - will allow our community bookshops to live long and prosper. I hope that Oscar Wilde and the other GLBT bookstores will survive this current slump and continue to serve our community. Like other openly gay businesses, their contributions to our community are invaluable and cannot be duplicated by the "majors". The next time you go shopping, pick a gay business. It deserves our support. Jesse Monteagudo is a freelance writer and gay book lover who lives in South Florida with his boy friend. You may reach him at jessemonteagudo@aol.com. |
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Recently Kim Brinster, manager of the Oscar Wilde Bookshop in Greenwich Village, announced that the world's oldest lesbian and gay bookstore is facing foreclosure. Though changing demographics might have something to do with it - the current center of gay life in New York City is Chelsea - competition on the part of online marketers and major bookstore chains is the main reason for Oscar Wilde's possible demise.
Preston's statement holds true more than a decade later. Stores like Outwrite Books in Atlanta (especially those that have coffee shops) provide a social outlet for our community members, especially queer and questioning youth. Unlike bars, bookstores are alcohol- and stress-free and are accessible to all segments of our community. They provide us with hard-to-find items produced by gay-owned, small book, audio and video publishers. In lesbian and gay bookstores we get personalized service from knowledgeable, gay or gay-friendly staff members who know their merchandise and who are part of our community. Many of these shops have Web sites and/or catalog services that makes it is as easy for us to buy from them as it is to buy from Amazon.com.