(Note: contributing writer Tony Peregrin conducted the below interview)
The subtitle of Jesse Archer's new travel memoir You Can Run: Gay, Glam and Gritty Travels in South America, seems to say it all — but what it doesn't tell you is that bubbling beneath the surface of Archer's witty-gritty prose are poignant, unflinching observations of himself and the strange, exotic world around him. Fans of Archer's monthly column in Out magazine are familiar with the 33-year-old's uncanny ability to mine his personal life for experiences that everyone can relate to, and You Can Run delivers the same soulful, hilarious writing, but with a dash of good old fashioned gay-boy wanderlust. Archer, a multi-hyphenate talent (author/actor/blogger/model), discusses the column, the new book, and how he ended his longest sexual drought while in South America. (Hint: a banana is involved).
AfterElton.com: Do the columnists for Out magazine ever hang out and get drunk together and flirt with porn stars?
Jesse Archer: Ha! No—but I have hung out with Josh Kilmer-Purcell (author of I Am Not Myself These Days). He's really cool. We'll be out at a bar and he'll admit he has an alcohol problem and then I admit I have an alcohol problem and then we say cheers and drink up!
AE: Jesse—why is your column for Out magazine untitled?
JA: We couldn't come up with one! For a while we thought about using "Gay in the Life," but in the end we thought it would be better PR for me to use my name. (Laughs.) And also people would then know who to slap!
AE: You've mentioned on your blog, Jesse On The Brink, that you receive a wide range of responses to your column for Out magazine. As a relatively new columnist for a national magazine, do you find your self thinking more and more about how your readers will react to your columns?
JA: I would be paralyzed if I did that! I just write for myself. If the editors want to discuss something before it goes to print, I am open to that and I am amendable to new ideas, but I hate being censored. Aaron [Hicklin, Editor in Chief of Out magazine] knows that and he does a good job of giving me creative freedom.
AE: One of your more memorable — and controversial — columns is from December of last year when you wrote about the hyper-masculinization of gay men. You posed the simple, but powerful question: "Why are so many of us becoming the bullies we ran from yesterday?"
JA: I got some flack for that one. People would write things like that, ' I'm not attracted to feminine guys just like I'm not attracted to women.' I wasn't saying that you should be attracted to feminine guys. I just think people should be comfortable enough to be who they are — I'm not advocating being femmy — unless that is who you are!
AE: Have people made fun of you for being effeminate?
JA: Growing up, I was harassed for being flamboyant and I was called all the names, 'sissy.' 'fruit,' 'femme.' Today, I go on line and look at the profiles and it's the same thing all over again: 'No femmes, no feminine men.' There have been times where someone will read my profile and they like my pictures and I will respond back and say, 'Sorry, I'm not your type — I'm effeminate.' And they'll respond back with something like 'I should really take that off my profile.'
AE: Being comfortable with yourself — is that what you had in mind when you titled your travel memoir, You Can Run?
JA: Yep. You Can Run refers to the fact that you can't hide from self. No matter where I go, I can't ever hide from myself. By the way, the subtitle Gay, Glam and Gritty Travels in South America? That was NOT my idea. That was my publisher's idea. I fought it, but as you can see they prevailed in the end. Also, I didn't want the my nipple or even my face on the cover of the book—this isn't some vanity project for me, it's what I hope is an important piece of literature, but as you can see I lost out on that one too.
AE: "Banana F**k"— a story where you are in Bolivia, in the middle of your longest sexual drought, and you end up having sex with a particularly phallic-looking green banana — is absolutely hysterical!
JA: When they read it, I think some of my friends thought it was too vulgar, but I thought I might as well go for broke! I'm not a phony. In the end, I ended up putting back in my torrid, brief affair with a banana.
AE: Speaking of 'going for broke' how did you finance your adventures in South America?
JA:: I went with $4K and it was my goal to stay as long as I could, as far as that money would get me. I was forced to be a creative adventurer, sleeping in ditches and cutting worms out of my foot. I also worked as a waiter in Buenos Aires for a while and once I taught English to a bunch of old gay men. I write about that in a chapter called "A Gay Old Time." I taught those old gay men some great gay vocab, words like 'horsecock,' 'pearl necklace' and 'twinkie!'
AE: Did you keep a journal during your travels in South America?
JA: I kept several journals. I was always super-paranoid about losing them or my photos. Every time I checked into a new hotel I made sure to hide them under my bed. I was like 'steal my bags, but not my journals!'
AE: What are your favorite stories in the book? Which stories would you select for a reading?
JA: I haven't done any reading yet. Readings bore me to tears. I think people should read at their own place! However if I were to do a reading, I'd probably pick "A Stick in the Mud" which is about me on Valium racing through Bolivia. I wasn't sure how to approach that chapter at first, and then I thought I'll just write it from the point of view of someone that is out of their mind, loopy, as if they were on Valium…racing through Bolivia!
AE: So where are you running to next, Jesse?
JA: A film I co-wrote and star in, A Four-Letter Word, is currently making the rounds on the gay and lesbian film circuit. It's a sort-of sequel to Slutty Summer and the character of Luke (which I play) is front and center as the "party boy looking for love." I'd also like to write another book, sort of like You Can Run, but on the salacious side of that, I'm thinking of calling it The Whore Wide World.
Social Impact
Normally I would tear the "straight acting" gay men thing to bits as some of you know. Today I won't because I'm exhausted. Lucky for Jesse. :)
Gay men are being more themselves today than they ever were and that's being masculine, some hyper-masculine. It's not a facade. You have to look at it from where gay people have been. Gay people have been denied and continue to be denied a vital part of their life; loving someone of the same sex. As you see more and more gay people come out and live THEIR life you will see that they become more comfortable with themselves. You also have to look at how being oppressed for such a long time affects gay people and how gays have been defined by society. In ancient Greece it was illegal for two men to be in a relationship yet not illegal for a boy and a man to be in a relationship. It was thought that a man should not "submit" to another man. Since a boy is not a man and is lower in social standing it was ok for a boy and a man to have a relationship. They also felt that the boy could learn from the adult. Opposite sex couples were allowed if they were adults or children. Thousands of years later gay people still have to deal with those policies because anti-gay people have used them to label gay people pedophiles and a threat to children. The thinking that went into making those policies are still around. That in a gay relationship one must take the female role while the other take the male role in a manner like straight relationships. That obviously is not how gay relationships work because you have two people of the same sex together. So when you look at gay people's behavior you have to see the personal impact as well as the long-term social impact oppression has played. Slowly gay people in the US and around the world are defining themselves and living their lives.
I respect gay men that take care of themselves. Jesse obviously takes care of himself. I wish him well.