GAY PERCEPTIONS: ARE GAY PEOPLE MORE CREATIVE? Nishit Saran June 18, 2000 953 words We can take pride in the fact that much of what is called art and culture is the creation of people who led gay lives. Whether we look at painting or literature, film or fashion design, the contribution of gay men and women to the art world is undeniable. Indeed, there is a “suspiciously high proportion” of gay persons in artistic fields, and this fact can be interpreted in several ways. The most gratifying interpretation for many of us is, of course, that homosexuals are, by nature, more creative. But is this accurate? Does sleeping with people of the same sex have, as a natural corollary, the tendency towards artistic creation? Can we even say with confidence what artistic creation is? Why, after all, are so many artists thought of as mad during their own lifetime and only later recognized as great geniuses? Equally importantly, we can ask whether this kind of self-glorification is, to put it crudely, a good thing. It is certainly affirming that our community has produced so much great art – and this has great political value - but do we have to stretch this into a stereotype about ourselves? That we are thought of as ‘creative’ might earn us some brownie points if we have artistic ambitions but it can be quite irritating for gay people who might want to be, say, doctors or software professionals. Are these people somehow less gay simply because they don’t want to paint the Mona Lisa? Moreover, the idea that we are more creative can often be turned against us in homophobic contexts. American right-wingers often contend, for example, that gay (and Jewish) people control the art world. Plus, the word ‘creative’ can be – and often is – used to imply that gay persons are not capable of more ‘serious’ work: “Oh sure, let them make paintings or cut dresses, but design our bombs or lead our countries, no thank you!” Even if we conclude, then, that our idea – our stereotype - has a grain of truth, we should be careful how this conclusion is deployed. But let us get to the meat of the matter: are gay people indeed more creative? We could first turn towards biology, but we must do this with great caution since ‘scientific experts’ can be as homophobic as anyone else can. After all, one of the greatest fights of the gay movement was with the medical establishment – a fight to stop calling homosexuality a disease, and a fight that was met with great resistance. That said, science has not found any solid evidence of even a gene for ‘gay tendencies’ – whatever else you might have heard - much less a gene for artistic tendencies! Let us turn from nature, then, to nurture. Can one account for an artistic tendency in the environment a gay person grows up in? There exists at least a weak argument here that would go something like this: when one grows up realizing that one is, perhaps, deeply different from others, one gets a unique perspective on the world. One has to constantly imagine a different kind of existence; one has to constantly face social constructions that seem ridiculous; one has to be, in short, creative about one’s own life simply in order to survive. This might sound like an argument for why gay people are more creative. But notice how, in purely logical terms, one can flip this argument around. It can be claimed that when one is born with a creative disposition, one could become inclined to be gay. That is, one could equally argue: it is not that many gay people become artists, but that many artistic people become gay! This all gets very muddled when you start challenging the idea that there is such a thing as a fixed sexuality. What if, as many believe, that sexuality is a fluid and socially constructed thing? Add to that the fact that no one agrees on what precisely qualifies as art or as artistic creation or as creativity, and we are in big trouble. Maybe, then, the reason for the apparent high proportion of gay people in the arts has nothing to do with either being gay or the arts! I say ‘apparent’ because maybe the proportion of gay people in the arts is not so suspiciously high after all. Maybe it is equal to that in other professions, but we simply do not know about it – partly because one is unlikely to be famous if one is a milkman and partly because the arts allow one much more socio-economic freedom to express one’s sexuality. If you are a secretary, your boss could fire you for your sexuality, but if you are an artist, who cares? Moreover, insofar as art is about desire and about expression, one’s sexuality can be much more intimately expressed in one’s work. One can code one’s own desires in a novel, but how does one code them in calculus equations? Indeed, as gay historical studies are gaining momentum, one is discovering a ‘suspiciously high proportion’ of gay people in the sciences as well. It’s just that people in these professions could not, or would not, so easily come out. Maybe the right question to ask is whether gay people are, by nature, more intelligent! But let’s save that one for later… For now, and more seriously, let us simply take pride in how much we have contributed to the world without turning that same pride into some vanity about being a chosen and special people. We are, after all, not all poets in New Delhi or painters in New York, and we must not neglect to represent all the diverse voices that are a part of us.