Mourning and Militancy

Author(s): Douglas Crimp

Source: October, Vol. 51 (Winter, 1989), pp. 3-18
Published by: The MIT Press
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 Mourning and Militancy

DOUGLAS CRIMP

For Gregg Bordowitz,

my AIDS activistmentor

In a contributionto a special issue of the SouthAtlanticQuarterlyon "Dis-

placing Homophobia," Lee Edelman applies the lessonsof Derridiandeconstruc-
tion to the AIDS activistmovement slogan Silence=Death. Claiming that our
slogan calls for a discourse of factsmarshalled against a demagogic rhetoric,
Edelman concludes that the equation unknowinglyproduces the literal as a
figure,and therebybetraysits ideological entanglementin the binarylogic of
Westerndiscourse.
Precisely because the defensive appeal to literalityin a slogan like
Silence=Death must produce the literal as a figureof the need and
desire forthe shelterof certainknowledge,such a discourse is always
necessarilya dangerouslycontaminateddefense- contaminatedby
the Derridianlogic of metaphorso thatitsattemptto achieve a natural
or literal discourse beyond rhetoricitymust reproduce the suspect
ideology of reified(and threatened)identitymarkingthe reactionary
medical and political discourse it would counteract. The discursive
logic of Silence=Death thuscontributesto the ideologicallymotivated
confusionof the literaland the figural,the proper and the improper,
the inside and the outside,and in the process it recalls the biologyof
the human immunodeficiencyvirus as it attacks the mechanism
whereby the body is able . . . to distinguishbetween "Self and
Not-Self."'
I do not think Edelman's deconstructionof the "text" of Silence=Death is
necessarilywrong, but he seems to have very littlesense of how the emblem
functionsforthe movement.First,it is preciselyas a figurethatit does itswork:
1. Lee Edelman, "The Plague of Discourse: Politics,LiteraryTheory, and AIDS," SouthAtlantic
Quarterly,vol. 88, no. 1 (Winter 1989), pp. 313-314.

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4 OCTOBER

as a strikingimage appearingon posters,placards,buttons,stickers,and T-shirts,

its appeal is primarilygraphic, and hardly thereforeto be assimilated to a
privilegingof the logos. Second, it desires not a discourse of factsbut direct
action, the organized, militantenunciationof demands withina discursivefield
of contested facts.And finally,a question of address: forwhom is thisapplication
of literarytheoryintendedother than those withinthe academy who willfindit,
simply,interesting?2 Silence=Death was produced and is employedforcollective
politicalstruggle, and it entailsaltogetherdifferentproblemsforthe community
of AIDS activists.Taking our symbolliterallyholds for us a danger that goes
unnoticed in Edelman's textualanalysis:we ourselvesare silentpreciselyon the
subject of death, on how deeply it affectsus.
I, too, will have somethingto say about the distinctionbetween self and
not-self,about the confusionof the inside and the outside,but I am impelledto
do thisforus, formycommunityof AIDS activists.Writingabout mourningand
militancyis for me both necessaryand difficult, for I have seen that mourning
troubles us; by "us" I mean gay men confrontingAIDS. It should go without
saying that it is not only gay men who confrontAIDS, but because we face
specificand often unique difficulties, and because I have some familiaritywith
them, I address them here exclusively.This paper is writtenfor my fellow
activistsand friends,who have also informedit withtheiractions,theirsugges-
tions and encouragement-and in this I include many women as well." The
conflictsI address are also my own, which might account for certain of the
paper's shortcomings.
I will begin then with an anecdote about my own ambivalentmourning,
though not of an AIDS death. In 1977, while I was visitingmy familyin Idaho,
my fatherdied unexpectedly.He and I had had a strained and increasingly
distantrelationship,and I was unable to feel or express mygriefover his death.
Afterthe funeralI returnedto New York for the opening of an exhibitionI'd
organized and resumedmyusual life.But withina fewweeksa symptomerupted
which to this day leaves a scar near my nose: my lefttear duct became badly
infected,and the resultingabscess grew to a golf-ballsized swellingthat closed
my lefteye and completelydisfiguredmy face. When the abscess finallyburst,
the foul-smelling pus oozed down mycheek like poison tears. I have never since

2. For other analyses of the slogan Silence=Death, writtenfrom the perspective of people
directlyengaged in AIDS activistand servicework,see Stuart Marshall,"The ContemporaryUse of
Gay History:The Third Reich," forthcomingin October;and Cindy Patton, "Power and the Condi-
tions of Silence," CriticalQuarterly,vol. 31, no. 3 (Fall 1989). See also Douglas Crimp and Adam
Rolston,AIDS Demo Graphics,forthcomingfromBay Press, Spring 1990.
3. I want to thank those people who discussed this subject with me, including their personal
experiences,and helped me throughthe taskof writingthepaper: in addition to Gregg Bordowitz-
David Barr, Peter Bowen, Rosalyn Deutsche, Mitchell Karp, Don Moss, and Laura Pinsky.This
paper was initiallygiven at the 1989 English Instituteat Harvard in the "Gay Men in Criticism"
session organized by D. A. Miller. My thanksto David for resistingthe "policing functionof the
literary"to invitean AIDS activistworkingoutside the disciplineto thisforum.

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Mourningand Militancy 5

doubted the forceof the unconscious.Nor can I doubt thatmourningis a psychic

process that mustbe honored. For many AIDS activists,however,mourningis
not respected; it is suspect:
I look at facesat countlessmemorialservicesand cannot comprehend
whythe connectionisn'tmade between these deaths and going out to
fightso thatmore of thesedeaths,includingpossiblyone's own, can be
staved off.Huge numbersregularlyshow up in citiesfor Candlelight
Marches, all duly recorded for the television cameras. Where are
these same numbers when it comes to joining political organiza-
tions . .. or plugging in to the incipientcivil disobedience move-
ment representedin ACT UP?
These sentencesare taken froma recentessay by LarryKramer,4againstwhose
sense of the quietismrepresentedby AIDS candlelightmarchesI want to juxta-
pose the words of the organizer of this year's candlelightvigil on Christopher
Street,addressed fromthe speaker'splatformto the assembledmourners:"Look
around!" he said, "This is the gay community,not ACT UP!"5
The presumptionin thisexhortationthatno AIDS activistswould be found
among the mourners- whose ritualexpressionof griefis at the same timetaken
to be truer to the needs of the gay community - confidentlyinvertsKramer's
rhetoricalincomprehension,an incomprehensionalso expressedas antipathy:"I
do not mean to diminishthese sad rituals," Kramer writes,"though indeed I
personallyfindthem slightlyghoulish."6
Public mourningritualsmay of course have theirown politicalforce,but
they nevertheless oftenseem, froman activistperspective,indulgent,sentimen-
tal, defeatist-a perspectiveonly reinforced,as Kramer implies,by media con-
structionsof us as hapless victims."Don't mourn,organize!"-the lastwordsof
labor movementmartyrJoe Hill -is stilla rallyingcry,at least in its New Age
variant,"Turn your griefto anger," whichassumes not so much thatmourning
can be foregoneas thatthe psychicprocess can simplybe converted.7This move
fromprohibitionto transformation only appears, however,to include a psychic
componentin activism'sresponse,forultimatelyboth rallyingcries depend on a

4. Larry Kramer,"Report fromthe Holocaust," in ReportsfromtheHolocaust:TheMakingofan

AIDS Activist, New York, St. Martin's Press, 1989, pp. 264-265.
5. The remarkof Red Maloney was the subject of a letterwrittenby Naphtali Offento Outweek,
no. 4 (July 17, 1989), p. 6.
6. Kramer,p. 264.
7. Joe Hill's statementis also quoted by Michael Bronski in an essay that takes up some of the
issuesdiscussedhere; see his "Death and the EroticImagination,"in Erica Carterand Simon
Watney,
eds., TakingLiberties:AIDS and CulturalPolitics,London, Serpent's Tail in associationwiththe ICA,
1989, pp. 219- 228. The pop psychological/metaphysical notionsof New Age "healers"-such as
the particularlyrepulsiveidea thatpeople choose illnessto give
meaning to theirlives-are consid-
ered by Allan B&rubein "Caught in the Storm:AIDS and the
Meaning of Natural Disaster,"Outlook,
vol. 1, no. 3 (Fall 1988), pp. 8-19.

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6 OCTOBER

definiteanswerto the questionposed by Reich to Freud: "Where does the misery

come from?"Activistantagonismto mourninghinges,in part, on how AIDS is
interpreted,or rather,where the emphasisis laid, on whetherthe crisisis seen to
be a natural,accidental catastrophe--a disease syndromethathas simplystruck
at this time and in this place--or as the resultof gross political negligence or
mendacity-an epidemic that was allowed to happen.
But leavingaside, onlyforthe moment,the largerpoliticalquestion,I want
to attend to the internaloppositionof activismand mourning.That the two are
incompatibleis clear enough in Freud's descriptionof the work of mourning,
whichhe calls "absorbing." "Profound mourning,"Freud writesin "Mourning
and Melancholia," involves a "turningawayfromeveryactiveeffort that is not
connected with thoughtsof the dead. It is easy to see that this inhibitionand
circumscription in the ego is the expressionof an exclusivedevotionto itsmourn-
ing, whichleaves nothingoverfor otherpurposesor otherinterests.'"8Although
Freud's account of thisprocess is well-known,I wantto repeat it here in order to
underscoreits exclusive character:
The testingof reality,having shown that the loved object no longer
exists,requiresforthwith thatall the libido shallbe withdrawnfromits
attachmentsto thisobject. Against this demand a struggleof course
arises- it maybe universallyobserved thatman never willinglyaban-
dons a libido-position,not even when a substituteis alreadybeckoning
to him. This strugglecan be so intense that a turningaway from
realityensues, the object being clung to through the medium of a
hallucinatorywish-psychosis. The normal outcome is that deference
for realitygains the day. Neverthelessits behest cannot be at once
obeyed. The task is now carried through bit by bit, under great
expense of timeand cathecticenergy,whileall the time the existence
of the lost object is continued in the mind. Each single one of the
memoriesand hopes whichbound the libido to the object is brought
up and hyper-cathected,and the detachmentof the libido from it
accomplished.9
In an importantpaper about mourningin the timeof AIDS, whichturnson
a readingof Whitman's"Drum-Taps" poems, Michael Moon argues thatFreud's
view of mourningpresentsa difficulty for gay people, insofaras it promisesa
returnto a normalcythatwe were never grantedin the firstplace: "As lesbians
and gay men," Moon writes,
most of us are familiarwiththe experience of havingbeen categori-

8. Sigmund Freud, "Mourning and Melancholia," inJohn Rickman,ed., A GeneralSelection

from
theWorksofSigmundFreud, New York, Anchor Books, 1989, pp. 125-126 (emphasisadded).
9. Ibid., p. 126.

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Mourningand Militancy 7

cally excluded from "normalcy" at criticaljunctures in our lives.

Having been throughas much as mostof us have in both our personal
and collective strugglesto get our own needs recognized, acknowl-
edged, accepted, sometimesfulfilled,the Freudian model of mourn-
ing may well look fundamentally normalizingand consequentlypriva-
tive, diminishingthe process and foreclosingits possible meaning
rather than enriching it or making it more accessible to under-
standing.'0
Probablyno gay man or lesbian can have an untroubledresponseto Freud,
but we mustneverthelesstake care to maintaina crucialdistinction:the ambition
to normalize, to adapt, belongs not to Freud but to his later "egocentric"
revisionists,to whom gay people owe a good portionof our oppression.This is
not to say thatthereis no visionof normalcyin Freud, only thatthereis also no
such thingas ever fullyachievingit,foranyone.Freud doesreferto mourningas a
"grave departure from the normal attitude to life,"" but what that normal
attitudeis in thiscontextcan be learned easilyenough by reading his character-
ization of the state to which we returnafter the work of mourningis accom-
plished:verysimply,"deferenceforrealitygainsthe day," and "the ego becomes
free and uninhibitedagain."'2
So rather than looking beyond "Mourning and Melancholia" for other
possibilities- Moon proposes fetishism,but a fetishismrescued from Freud's
1927 account by making it a consciousmeans of extending our homoerotic
relations,even withthe dead--I wantto staywithFreud's earliertext,to read it
in relation to the conflictsmany of us now experience. First,two preliminary
caveats: "Mourningand Melancholia" is not a theoryof mourningas such,but of
pathologicalmourning,thatis, of melancholia.Moon is thereforerightwhen he
saysthatFreud's viewof mourningonlyrepeatsconventionalwisdom;itpurports
to do no more than describe mourning'sdynamicprocess. Secondly,Freud can
tellus verylittleabout our grievingrituals,our memorialservicesand candlelight
marches. Of our communal mourning,perhaps only the Names Project quilt
displayssomethingof the psychicwork of mourning,insofaras each individual
panel symbolizes- throughits incorporationof mementosassociated with the
lostobject- the activityof hypercathecting and detachingthe hopes and memo-
ries associated with the loved one. But as against this often shared activity,
mourning,forFreud, is a solitaryundertaking.And our troublebeginshere, for,
fromthe outset,thereis alreadya social interdictionof our privateefforts.In the
opening pages of PolicingDesire,Simon Watneyrecountsa funeralservicesimilar

10. Michael Moon, "Memorial Rags," paper presentedin a session titled"AIDS and Our Profes-
sion" at the 1988 MLA convention,manuscript.I wishto thankMichael Moon for
makingthispaper
available to me.
11. Freud, p. 125.
12. Ibid., pp. 126, 127.

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8 OCTOBER

to those manyof us have experienced,an event thatmade himdecide "then and

there" that he would writehis book on AIDS.
[Bruno's] funeral took place in an ancient Norman church on the
outskirtsof London. No mentionwas made of AIDS. Bruno had died,
bravely,of an unspecifieddisease. In the congregationof some forty
people there were two other gay men besides myself,both of whom
had been his lover. They had been far closer to Bruno than anyone
else present,except his parents. Yet their griefhad to be contained
withinthe confinesof manlyacceptability.The ironyof the difference
betweenthe suffocating lifeof the suburbswhere we foundourselves,
and the knowledgeof the world in whichBruno had actuallylived,as
a magnificently affirmative and life-enhancinggay man, was all but
unbearable. s
Because Watney's anecdote is meant to explain his determinationto write a
polemic,italso suggestswhathas happened to mourning.It is not onlythatat this
momentof society'sdemand forhypocrisythe threegaymen had to conceal their
grief,but also that their fond memories of Bruno as a gay man are thereby
associated withthe social opprobriumthatattachesto them.When these memo-
ries are then recalled, hypercathexismay well be met witha defense,a need to
preserveBruno's worldintactagainstthe contemptin whichit is commonlyheld.
"My friendwas not called Bruno," Watneyadds.
His fatherasked me not to use his real name. And so the anonymityis
complete. The garrulousbabble of commentaryon AIDS constructs
yetanother "victim." It is thisbabble whichis mysubject matter,the
cacophony of voices which sounds throughevery institutionof our
societyon the subject of AIDS.'4
Thus one of our foremostinternationalAIDS activistsbecame engaged in the
struggle;no furthermemoriesof Bruno are invoked.It is probablyno exaggera-
tionto say thateach of us has a storylike this,thatduringthe AIDS crisisthereis
an all but inevitableconnectionbetweenthe memoriesand hopes associatedwith
our lost friendsand the dailyassaultson our consciousness.Seldom has a society
so savaged people duringtheirhour of loss. "We look upon any interference with
[mourning]as inadvisable or even harmful," warns Freud.'5 But for anyone
livingdailywiththe AIDS crisis,ruthlessinterferencewithour bereavementis as
ordinaryan occurrence as reading the New YorkTimes.16 The violence we en-

13. Simon Watney,PolicingDesire:Pornography,AIDS, and theMedia, Minneapolis,Universityof

Minnesota Press, 1987, p. 7.
14. Ibid., p. 8.
15. Freud, p. 125.
16. The New YorkTimesreportingof AIDS issues-or ratheritsfailureto reportthemaccurately

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Mourningand Militancy 9

counteris relentless,the violence of silence and omissionalmostas impossibleto

endure as the violence of unleashed hatred and outrightmurder. Because this
violence also desecratesthe memoriesof our dead, we rise in anger to vindicate
them. For many of us, mourning becomesmilitancy.Freud does not say what
mighthappen if mourningis interferedwith,but insofaras our conscious de-
fensesdirect us toward social action, theyalready show the deferenceto reality
that Freud attributesto mourning'saccomplishment.Nevertheless,we have to
ask just how, against whatodds, and withwhat unconsciouseffectsthishas been
achieved.
The activistimpulse may be reinforcedby a second conflictwithinthe
process of mourning. "Reality," Freud explains, "passes its verdict--that the
object no longer exists--upon each single one of the memories and hopes
throughwhichthe libido was attachedto the lostobject,and the ego, confronted
as it were withthe decisionwhetherit willshare thisfate,is persuaded bythe sum
of its narcissisticsatisfactionsin being alive to sever its attachmentto the non-
existentobject."" But thisconfrontationwithrealityis especiallyfraughtforgay
men mourning now, since our decision whether we will share this fate is so
unsure. For people with AIDS, the HIV-infected,and those at significantrisk
whose sero-statusis unknownto them,narcissisticsatisfactionsin stillbeing alive
todaycan persuade us, will undoubtedly persuade us in our unconscious, to
relinquishour attachments.But how are we to dissociateour narcissisticsatisfac-
tions in being alive fromour fightto stayalive? And, insofaras we identify with
those who have died, how can our satisfactionsin being alive escape guilt at
having survived?18

or at all -is one of the mostpersistentscandalsof the AIDS epidemic. LarryKramergave a detailed,
damningaccount of the scandal on a panel discussionof AIDS in the printmedia organized by the
PEN AmericanCenter in New York Cityon May 11, 1989. In the summerof 1989, the Timesran an
editorial that both typifiedits position throughoutthe historyof the epidemic and reached new
heightsof callousness. Implicitlyclaimingonce again that its presumed readers had littleto worry
about, since "the disease is stillverylargelyconfinedto specificriskgroups," the writerwent on to
say, cheerily,"Once all susceptiblemembers [of these groups] are infected,the numbers of new
victimswilldecline." The newspaper'ssimplewritingoffof the livesof gay men, IV drug users,their
sex partnersand children-a mere 200,000-400,000 people alreadyestimatedto be HIV-infected
in New York Cityalone-triggered offan ACT UP demonstration,whichwas in turnthwartedby
perhaps the largestpolice presence at any AIDS activistdemonstrationto date. ACT UP stickers
saying "Buy Your Lies Here. The New YorkTimesReports Half the Truth about AIDS" stilladorn
newsstandsin New York City, while the coin slots of Timesvending machines are covered with
stickersthatread "The New YorkTimesAIDS Reportingis OUT OF ORDER." The Timeseditorialis
reproduced as part of a Gran Fury project titled "Control" in Artforum, vol. xxvii,no. 2 (October
1989), p. 167.
17. Freud, pp. 136-137.
18. The decision not to share the fate of the lost object, as well as guilt at having survived,are
certainlyproblemsof mourningforeveryone.Clearlyinsofaras any death bringsus face to face with
our own mortality,identificationwiththe lost object is somethingwe all feel. Thus, thisdifficulty
of
mourningis certainlynot gay men's alone. I only wishto emphasize itsexacerbationfor gay men to
the extentthatwe are directlyand immediatelyimplicatedin the particularcause of thesedeaths,and
implicated,as well, throughthe specificnature of our deepest pleasures in life--our gay sexuality.

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10 OCTOBER

Upholding the memoriesof our lost friendsand lovers and resolvingthat

we ourselvesshall live would seem to impose the same demand: resist!Mourning
feels too much like capitulation.But we mustrecognize thatour memoriesand
our resolvealso entail the more painfulfeelingsof survivor'sguilt,oftenexacer-
bated by our secret wishes,during our lovers' and friends'protractedillnesses,
that theywould just die and let us get on withour lives.
We can thenpartiallyreviseour sense- and Freud's- of the incompatibil-
ity between mourningand activismand say that,formanygay men dealing with
AIDS deaths, militancymightarise from conscious conflictswithinmourning
itself,the consequence, on the one hand, of "inadvisable and even harmful
interference"with grief and, on the other, of the impossibilityof deciding
whetherthe mournerwillshare the fateof the mourned. But because mourning
is a psychicprocess,conscious reactionsto external interferencecannot tell the
whole story.What is far more difficultto determineis how these reactionsare
influencedbyalready-existing unconsciousstrife.Only byrecognizingthe role of
the unconscious,however,willwe be able to understandthe relationshipbetween
the externalobstacles to our griefand our own antagonismto mourning.But I
want to be clear: It is because our impatiencewithmourningis burdensomefor
the movementthatI am seekingto understandit. I have no interestin proposing
a "psychogenesis"of AIDS activism.The social and politicalbarbarismwe daily
encounter requires no explanation whatsoeverfor our militancy.On the con-
trary,what may require an explanation,as Larry Kramer's plaint suggested,is
the quietism.
At the weeklyACT UP meetingsin New York, regularlyattendedbyabout
400 people, I am struckby the factthatonlya handfulare of mygeneration,the
Stonewall generation.The vast majorityare post-Stonewall,born hardlyearlier
than the gay liberationmovementitself,and theirlosses differin one significant
respectfromours. Last year one of these young men said somethingto me that
said it all. A group of us had seen an early '70s filmat the Gay and Lesbian
ExperimentalFilm Festivaland wentout fordrinksafterwards.The young man
was veryexcitedabout whatseemed to me a prettyordinarysex scene in the film;
but then he said, "I'd give anythingto know what cum tastes like, somebody

Simon Watney has urged that this very implicationbe taken as the reason for formingconsensus
among gay men about AIDS activism:"I believe thatthe single,centralfactorof greatestsignificance
forall gay men should be the recognitionthatthe currentHIV antibodystatusof everyonewho had
unprotectedsex in the long yearsbeforethe viruswas discoveredis a matterof sheercoincidence
.
Every gay man who had the good fortuneto remain uninfectedin the decade or so before the
emergence of safersex should meditatemost profoundlyon the whimof fate that spared him, but
not others.Those of us who chance to be seronegativehave an absoluteand unconditionalresponsibil-
ityfor the welfareof seropositivegay men" (Simon Watney, "'The Possibilitiesof Permutation':
Pleasure, Proliferation,and the Politicsof Gay Identityin the Age of AIDS," in James Miller,ed.,
AIDS: Crisisand Criticism,Toronto, Universityof Toronto Press, forthcoming1990.

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Mourningand Militancy 11

else's thatis." That broke myheart,fortwodifferent reasons:forhimbecause he

didn't know, for me because I do.
Freud tellsus thatmourningis the reactionnot onlyto the death of a loved
person,but also "to the loss of some abstractionwhichhas takenthe place of one,
such as fatherland,liberty,an ideal. .. ."19 Can we be allowed to include,in this
"civilized" list,the ideal of perversesexual pleasure itselfratherthan one stem-
ming fromits sublimation?Alongside the dismal toll of death, what manyof us
have lost is a culture of sexual possibility:back rooms, tea rooms, bookstores,
movie houses, and baths; the trucks,the pier, the ramble, the dunes. Sex was
everywherefor us, and everythingwe wanted to venture: golden showersand
water sports, cocksucking and rimming,fuckingand fist fucking. Now our
untamedimpulsesare eitherproscribedonce again or shielded fromus by latex.
Even Crisco, the lube we used because it was edible, is now forbiddenbecause it
breaks down the rubber. Sex toysare no longer added enhancements;they're
safersubstitutes.
For those who have obeyed civilization'slaw of compulsorygenitalhetero-
sexuality,the options we've lost might seem abstract enough. Not widelyac-
knowledged until the advent of the AIDS crisis,our sex lives are now publicly
scrutinizedwithfascinationand envy,only partiallymasked by feignedincredu-
lity(WilliamDannemeyer,forexample, entered into the Congressional Recordof
June 26, 1989 the list of pleasures I just enumerated). To say that we miss
uninhibitedand unprotectedsex as we miss our lovers and friendswill hardly
solicitsolidarity,even tolerance. But tolerance is, as Pasolini said, "always and
purelynominal," merely"a more refinedformof condemnation."20AIDS has
furtherproved his point. Our pleasures were never toleratedanyway;we took
them. And now we must mourn them too.
When, in mourningour ideal, we meet withthe same opprobriumas when
mourningour dead, we incur a differentorder of psychicdistress,since the
memories of our pleasures are already fraughtwith ambivalence. The abject
repudiationof theirsexual pasts by manygay men testifiesto thatambivalence,
even as the widespreadadoption of safe sex practicesvouches for our abilityto
work throughit. Perhaps we may even thinkof safe sex as the substitutelibido-
position that beckoned to us as we mourned our lost sexual ideal. But here, I
think,the differencebetween generations of gay men makes itselffelt most
sharply.For men now in theirtwenties,our sexual ideal is mostlyjust that--an
ideal, the cum never swallowed. Embracing safe sex is for them an act of de-
fiance,and itspromotionis perhaps the AIDS activistmovement'sleast inhibited
stance. But, formanymen of the Stonewall generation,who have also been the
gay populationthusfarhardesthitby AIDS, safe sex mayseem less like defiance

19. Ibid., p. 125.

20. Pier Paolo Pasolini, "Gennariello," in Lutheran Letters,trans. Stuart Hood, Manchester,
Carcanet New Press, 1983, pp. 21-22.

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12 OCTOBER

than resignation,less likeaccomplishedmourningthanmelancholia.I don't want

to suggestthat there is anythingpathologicalabout thisdisposition,but it does
comprisemanyfeaturesof melancholiaas Freud describesit,especiallyifconsid-
ered in the contextof its causes.
"The occasions giving rise to melancholia," Freud writes,"for the most
part extend beyond the clear case of a loss by death, and include all those
situationsof being wounded, hurt, neglected, out of favor, or disappointed,
whichcan . . . reinforcean already existingambivalence."2' AlthoughFreud's
theoryconcerns an object relationship,if we transpose these situationsto the
social sphere, theydescribe veryperfectlythe conditionof gay men during the
AIDS crisis,as regardsboth our rejectionand our self-doubt.In Freud's analysis,
melancholiadiffersfrommourningin a single feature:"a fall in self-esteem":22
"In griefthe world becomes poor and empty;in melancholia it is the ego itself
[which becomes poor and empty]."23And this loweringof self-esteem,Freud
insists,is "predominantlymoral";24it is a "dissatisfactionwiththe selfon moral
grounds."25"The patientrepresentshis ego to us as worthless,incapable of any
effort,and morallydespicable; he reproaches himself,vilifieshimself,and ex-
pects to be cast out and chastised."'26 "In his exacerbation of self-criticism
he
describes himselfas petty,egoistic, dishonest, lacking in independence, one
whose sole aim has been to hide the weaknesses of his own nature. .. ."27
Moreover,the melancholiac"does not realize thatany change has takenplace in
him, but extends his self-criticismback over the past and declares that he was
never any better.'"28
This moralizingself-abasementis only too familiarto us in the responseof
certaingay men to AIDS - toofamiliarespeciallybecause themedia have been so
happyto give themvoice as our spokesmen.Randy Shiltscomes readilyto mind,
and thoughI've done withhimelsewhere,29it is worthmentioningin thiscontext
thathe was chosen as our representativeto address the closingceremoniesof the
FifthInternationalAIDS Conference in Montreal, where he obliged his hosts
with an attack on the militancyof internationalAIDS activistsattending the
conference.But thereis a recentexample thatis even more groveling:the book
AftertheBall, an aptly titledsequel to Shilts'sAnd theBand Played On, whose
authorityit cites approvingly,and whose "Patient Zero" continueshere to play

21. Freud, p. 132.

22. Ibid., p. 125.
23. Ibid., p. 127.
24. Ibid., p. 128.
25. Ibid., p. 129.
26. Ibid., p. 127.
27. Ibid., p. 128.
28. Ibid., pp. 127-128.
29. Douglas Crimp, "How to Have Promiscuityin an Epidemic," October,no. 43 (Winter 1987)
(reissued as Douglas Crimp, ed., AIDS: Cultural Analysis/
Cultural Activism,
Cambridge, Massachu-
setts,MIT Press, 1988), esp. pp. 238-246.

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Mourningand Militancy 13

his unhappy role. This flyleaf-described "gay manifestofor the nineties,"pub-

lished by Doubleday, is the dirtywork of two Harvard-trainedsocial scientists,
one of whomnow designsaptitudetestsforpeople withhighIQs, whilethe other
is a Madison Avenue PR consultantwhose specialtyis creating"positiveimages"
for what the two of them call "'silent majority'gays." Informedby the latest
trends in sociobiology,Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen have devised a pro-
gram to eradicate homophobia- whichtheypreferto call homo-hatredso as to
deny its unconsciousforce. Their proposal centerson a media campaign whose
basis is the denial of the difference."A good beginningwould be to take a long
look at Coors beer . . . commercials," they suggest.30But copying Coors ads
does not stop withcreating "positive" images. We have to "clean up our act,"
theysay, and live up to those images.3' This means purgingour communityof
"'fringe' gay groups"-drag queens, radical fairies,pederasts,bull dykes,and
other assorted scum.
Clearlywe can take thisbook seriouslyonlyas a symptomof malaise- in its
excoriationof gay culture,it bears everydistinguishingcharacteristicof melan-
cholia Freud specifies.Moreover, its accusations are also self-accusations:"We,
the authors,are every bit as guiltyof a lot of the nastinesswe describe as are
other gays," the Harvard boys confess. "This makes us not less qualified to
inveighagainstsuch evils but, ifanything,even more so."32 The authors' indict-
ments of gay men are utterlypredictable: we lie, deny reality,have no moral
standards;we are narcissistic,self-indulgent, unable to love or
self-destructive,
even formlastingfriendships;we flauntit in public,abuse alcohol and drugs;and
our communityleaders and intellectualsare fascists.33Here are a few sample
statements:

-When we firstdelved into the gay urban demimonde, we assumed

that theyheld, if not our values, at least somevalues. We were quickly
disabused of this notion.

-As the worksof manystudentsof sociopathicpersonalityassert,a

surprisinglyhigh percentage of pathological liars are, in fact,gay.
- The gay bar is the arena of sexual competition,and it
bringsout all
thatis most loathsomein human nature. Here, strippedof the facade

30. Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, AftertheBall: How AmericaWill Conquer Its Fear and
Hatred ofGaysin the'90s, New York, Doubleday, 1989, p. 154.
31. "Cleaning Up Our Act" is actuallya subheadingof the book's finalchapter,whichconcludes
with "A Self-PolicingCode."
32. Kirk and Madsen, p. 278.
33. These accusations appear in Chapter 6: "The State of Our Community:Gay Pride Goeth
before a Fall."

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14 OCTOBER

of witand cheer, gaysstand nakedlyrevealed as single-minded,selfish

sexual predators.34

Therefore,"straightshate gaysnotjust forwhat theirmythsand lies saywe are,

but also for what we reallyare."35 This is the only line in the book withwhichI
agree; and it is a statementwhich,if taken seriously,means that no sociological
account of homophobia willexplain or counteractit. Kirkand Madsen's reliance
on homophobicmythsto describe what we reallyare demonstrates,in any case,
not theirunderstandingof homophobia,but theircompleteidentification withit.
Although melancholia,too, depends on the psychicprocess of identification
and introjection,I will not press the point. No matterhow extreme the self-
hatred, I am loath for obvious reasons to accuse gay men of any pathological
condition. I only want to draw an analogy between pathological mourningand
the sorryneed of some gay men to look upon our imperfectly liberatedpast as
immatureand immoral.But I will not resista finalword fromFreud on melan-
cholia, takenthistimefrom"The Ego and the Id": "What is now holdingswayin
the super-egois, as it were, a pure culture of the death-instinct."36
ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, was founded in March of
1987 in responseto a speech at New York's Gay and Lesbian CommunityCenter
by Larry Kramer. In his inimitablemannerof combiningincomprehensionand
harangue, Kramer chided:
I sometimesthinkwe have a death wish.I thinkwe mustwantto die. I
have never been able to understandwhyforsix long yearswe have sat
back and let ourselvesliterallybe knockedoffman by man- without
fightingback. I have heard of denial, but thisis more thandenial; this
is a death wish.37

Nearly two years later, in a mean-spirited,divisive attack on AIDS activism

published by the Nation, Darrell Yates Rist accused ACT UP-entirely falsely
-of ignoringany gay issue but AIDS. Afterrecallinga visitto San Francisco's
Tenderloin district,in which he encountered teen-age gay runaways and
hustlers,Rist continued:
I hadjust spenta nightamong thoseabandoned adolescentswhen,at a
dinnerin the Castro, I listenedto the other gueststalkabout nothing
but AIDS, the dead, the dying- whichto theirmindsincluded every
gay man in the city:fashionablehysteria."This," one of themactually
said, "is the onlythingworthfightingfor." Not long before,I'd heard
Larry Kramer, playwrightand AIDS activist,say somethinglike that

34. Kirk and Madsen, pp. 292, 283, 313.

35. Ibid., p. 276.
36. Sigmund Freud, The Ego and theId, New York, W. W. Norton, 1962, p. 43.
37. Kramer,p. 128.

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Mourningand Militancy 15

too, and had felt,in thatsuffocatingmoment,thatfinallywe'd all gone

suicidal, that we'd die of our own death wish.38
It is between these two allegationsof a death-wish--one because we were
not yetAIDS activists,the other because we now are- that I want to framethe
remainderof my discussion.
It mightappear fromwhat I've outlined so farthatgay men's responsesto
the enormous losses sufferedin the AIDS epidemic are predictable.This is far
fromthe case, and is only the resultof myschematicreading of "Mourning and
Melancholia" against what I know of our experiences. I have accounted for
neitherthe full depth and varietyof our conflictsnor the multiplicity of their
possible outcomes. What I offerto this is
rectify inadequacy simply a list,to which
anyone might add, of the problems we face.
Most people dyingof AIDS are veryyoung, and those of us coping with
these deaths, ourselves also young, have confrontedgreat loss entirelyunpre-
pared. The numbersof deaths are unthinkable:lovers,friends,acquaintances,
and communitymembershave fallenill and died. Many have lost upwards of a
hundred people. Apart fromthe deaths, we contend withthe gruesome illness
itself,actingas caretakers,oftenforveryextended periods,makinginnumerable
hospitalvisits,providingemotional support,negotiatingour whollyinadequate
and inhumanhealth care and social welfaresystems,keeping abreast of experi-
mentaltreatmenttherapies.Some of us have learned as much or more thanmost
doctors about the complex medicineof AIDS. Added to the caretakingand loss
of othersis oftenthe need to monitorand make treatmentdecisions about our
own HIV illness,or face anxietyabout our own health status.39
Through the turmoilimposed by illnessand death, the restof societyoffers
littlesupportor even acknowledgment.On the contrary,we are blamed, belit-
tled,excluded, derided. We are discriminatedagainst,lose our housingand jobs,
and are denied medical and lifeinsurance.Everypublic agency whosejob it is to
combat the epidemic has been slow to act, failed entirely,or been deliberately
counterproductive.We have thereforehad to provide our own centers for
support,care, and education and even to fund and conduct our own treatment
research.We have had to rebuildour devastatedcommunityand culture,recon-
struct our sexual relationships,reinvent our sexual pleasure. Despite great

38. Darrell Yates Rist, "The Deadly Costs of an Obsession," Nation, February 13, 1989,
p. 181. For the responseof ACT UP, among others,see the issuesof March 20 and May 1, 1989. For
an impassioned discussion of the entire debate, see Simon Watney, "'The Possibilities of
Permutation.'"
39. It seems to me particularlytelling that throughoutthe epidemic the dominant media has
routinelyfeaturedstoriesabout anxietiesprovoked by AIDS- the anxietiesof health care workers
and cops exposed to needle sticks,of parents whose childrenattend school with an HIV-infected
child,of straightwomen who once upon a timehad a bisexual lover . . . But I have neveronce seen
a storyabout the millionsof gay men who have lived withthese anxietiesconstantlysince 1981.

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16 OCTOBER

achievementsin so shorta time and under such adversity,the dominantmedia

stillpicturesus onlyas wastingdeathbed victims;we have thereforehad to wage a
war of representation,too.
Frustration,anger, rage, and outrage,anxiety,fear,and terror,shame and
guilt,sadness and despair- it is not surprisingthatwe feel these things;what is
surprisingis thatwe oftendon't. For those who feel onlya deadening numbness
or constantdepression,militantrage maywell be unimaginable,as again it might
be forthose who are paralyzedwithfear,filledwithremorse,or overcome with
guilt. To decry these responses- our own formof moralism-is to deny the
extentof the violencewe have all endured; even more importantly, it is to denya
fundamentalfactof psychiclife: violence is also self-inflicted.
The most contested theoreticalconcept in the later work of Freud is the
drive to death, the drive thatcompeteswiththe lifeinstinctsand comprisesboth
aggressionand self-aggression.It was over this concept that Reich broke with
Freud, insistingthat with the death drive Freud definitivelyside-steppedthe
social causes of human misery.But, against Reich's objection,and thatof other
early proponentsof a political psychoanalysis,Jacqueline Rose argues that it is
onlythroughthe concept of the death drive thatwe can understandthe relation-
ship betweenpsychicand social life,as we seek to determine"where to locate the
violence."'40 As opposed to Darrell Yates Rist's pop-psychologyassertion that
activistshave a death wish, I want to suggest on the contrarythat we do not
acknowledgethe death drive. That is, we disavowthe knowledgethatour misery
comes fromwithinas well as without,thatit is the resultof psychicas well as of
social conflict-or rather,as Rose writes,our misery"is not somethingthatcan
be located on the inside or the outside, in the psychicor the social . . , but
rathersomethingthatappears as the effectof the dichotomyitself."41By making
all violence external,pushing it to the outside and objectifyingit in "enemy"
institutionsand individuals,we deny its psychicarticulation,deny that we are
effected,as well as affected,by it.
Perhaps an example willclarifymypoint.The issue of HIV antibodytesting
has been a centralconcern for AIDS activistsfromthe momentthe movement
was formed.We have insisted,againsteveryattemptto implementmandatoryor
confidentialtesting,on the absolute rightof voluntaryanonymous testing.At the
InternationalAIDS Conference in Montreal lastJune, StephenJoseph, health
commissionerof New York City,called for confidentialtestingwithmandatory
contact tracing,based on the fact that immune-systemmonitoringand early
treatmentinterventionfor those who are HIV-positive could now prolong and
perhaps save theirlives. We immediatelyraised all the proper objections to his
cynicalproposal: thatonlyifanonymityis guaranteedwillpeople get tested,that

40. Jacqueline Rose, "Where Does the MiseryCome From?" in Richard Feldstein and Judith
Roof, Feminismand Psychoanalysis,
Ithaca, Cornell UniversityPress,p. 28.
41. Ibid.

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Mourningand Militancy 17

New York has too few testingsites to accommodate the people wishingto be
testedas it is, and thatthe servicesnecessaryto care forpeople who testpositive
cannot even accommodate the currentcaseload. Agreeing that testing,counsel-
ling, monitoring,and early treatmentinterventionare indeed crucial, we de-
manded instead an increase in the number of anonymous testingsites and a
systemof neighborhoodwalk-inHIV clinicsfor monitoringand treatment.We
were entirelyconfidentof the validityour protestsand demands. We know the
historyof StephenJoseph's provocations,we know the citygovernment'sabys-
mal failureto provide healthcare foritshuge infectedpopulation,and we know
not onlythe advantagesof earlyinterventionbut also exactlywhat the treatment
options are. But withall this secure knowledge,we forgetone thing:our own
ambivalenceabout being tested,or, ifseropositive,about makingdifficult treat-
ment decisions. For all the hours of floor discussion about demanding wide
availabilityof testingand treatment,we do not alwaysavail ourselvesof them,and
we seldom discuss our anxiety and indecision.42Very shortlyafterJoseph's
announcementin Montreal and our successfulmobilizationagainst his plan,4s
Mark Harrington,a member of ACT UP's Treatment and Data Committee,
made an announcementat a Monday-nightmeeting: "I personallyknow three
people in thisgroup who recentlycame down withPCP," he said. "We have to
realize thatactivismis not a prophylaxisagainstopportunisticinfections;it may
be synergisticwithaerosolized pentamidine,but it won't on itsown preventyou
fromgettingAIDS."
By referringto Freud's conceptof the death drive,I am not sayinganything
so simpleas thata drive to death directlypreventsus fromprotectingourselves
against illness. Rather I am sayingthat by ignoringthe death drive, that is, by
makingall violence external,we fail to confrontourselves,to acknowledge our
ambivalence,to comprehend that our miseryis also self-inflicted. To returnto
myexample: it is not only New York City'scollapsinghealth care systemand its
sinisterhealthcommissionerthataffectour fate. Unconscious conflictcan mean

42. I do not wish to claim that the "right" decision is to be tested. AIDS activistsinsistquite
properlyonlyon choice, and on makingthatchoice viable throughuniversallyavailable health care.
But problemsof HIV testingare not onlysociopolitical,theyare also psychic.In "AIDS and Needless
Deaths: How Early Treatment Is Ignored," Paul Harding Douglas and Laura Pinskyenumeratea
number of barriersto early interventionin HIV disease, includinglack of advocacy, lack of media
coverage, lack of services,and, crucially,"The Symbolic Meaning of Early Interventionfor the
Individual." This finalsectionof theirpaper providesa much-neededanalysisof psychicresistanceto
takingthe HIV antibodytest.I wishto thankPaul Douglas and Laura Pinskyformakingtheirpaper
available to me.
43. The successesof the AIDS activistmovementare, unfortunately, never secure. In the late fall
of 1989, during the transitionfromEd Koch's mayoraltyto that of David Dinkins,StephenJoseph
resignedhis positionas healthcommissioner.But not withouta partinginsultto those of us who had
opposed his policies all along: once again, and now supposedlywiththe consensusof the New York
City Board of Health,Josephasked the state health departmentto collect the names of people who
test HIV antibodypositiveand to trace and contact their sex partnersand those with whom they
shared needles.

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18 OCTOBER

that we may make decisions- or fail to make them-whose results may be

deadly too. And the rage we directagainstStephenJoseph,justifiedas it is, may
functionas the verymechanismof our disavowal,wherebywe convinceourselves
that we are makingall the decisions we need to make.
Again I wantto be veryclear: The factthatour militancymaybe a meansof
dangerous denial in no way suggeststhat activismis unwarranted.There is no
question but that we must fightthe unspeakable violence we incur from the
societyin whichwe findourselves.But if we understandthatviolence is able to
reap itshorriblerewardsthroughthe verypsychicmechanismsthatmake us part
of thissociety,then we may also be able to recognize-along withour rage-
our terror,our guilt,and our profoundsadness. Militancy,of course, then,but
mourningtoo: mourningand militancy.

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