Radical Faeries

Is it a group for transgender people?

I know tons, all run around int eh city parks without their shirts on.

A couple of my guy friends in college were semi-jokingly obsessed with them. If memory serves, they're basically male MichFesters?

R-3: they're not MichyFishy at all, and while mostly male, they are about the most inclusive (and crunchy) people you will ever meet.

I fondly remember a Beltane gathering I attended after one of those Marches on Washington, at SHort Mountain.

It really helped me step away from my first-world me-me-me self and see how interdependence can be a strength and not a weakness. Women were in attendance, as was Harry Hay.

I live in San Francisco and there are two Faerie Houses that I know of, worth the effort to seek out a faerie and get yourself invited to a simple potluck or one of their bigger scale parties.

being the Equinox, there are probably Faerie parties blooming right now

I've vomited at one of the faerie houses in San Francisco. Good times.

I live in Ithaca. They can be tedious and annoying or sweet and funny.

I'm fascinated with them. Any websites to learn more?

[quote]They can be tedious and annoying or sweet and funny.

That's been my experience. Some are obnoxiously Pagan, some find spiritual beliefs beside the point, some are old hippies, some are bear types, some are sweet young guys. They're very accepting but it just doesn't interest me.

Around here they tend to have potlucks. A lot.

"some are bear types, some are sweet young guys"

I've never seen any of the former, but plenty of the latter.

"Around here they tend to have potlucks. A lot."

I find it cute how they have their "faerie names" and come up with their own terms, such as soupluck for a potluck where one brings soup.

I had a client who was one. He was definately a bear (am too by the way). He is one of the sweetest, most genuine men on the planet. If they are anything like him, they are good people.

Thanks for the answers. Please more about the faeries you know personally.

The few I've known looked and sounded just like Simon Callow in "A Room With A View".

This being the Midwest, I decided they were burn-out D&D players who had finally found their Middle Earth.

"The few I've known looked and sounded just like Simon Callow in 'A Room With A View'".

Simon Callow is a very good actor but ewwww.

I know one, but not that well. He seems perfectly nice. It's a group I associate with older gay men...are there any younger guys in it? By younger, I mean under 40.

[quote]They can be tedious and annoying or sweet and funny

Yes - in fact they can sometimes be all of this at the same time. For me, a little bit goes a long way, but for those who are part of it, it seems like a very supportive environment.

And in my experience they span all ages - from 20s to 60s.

They are usually hygiene challenged.

R16, but they often give great head, and swallow.

R14, while the more prominent ones I know are older than 40, most are under 40 as young as their early 20s.

I had a friend who was involved with them in Vermont. I found nothing interesting about them but he loved it. He even brought me to the land they had acquired and showed me their makeup "altar" and I wasn't all that impressed.

They were 'radical' around 1979.

R16, I think they would say they smell of the earth or nature. They smell as if they haven't showered in months.

I knew a girl who was a radical faerie.

But then she died.

I was just reading that the grandson of President Chester Arthur was one of the first "Radical Faeries."

I thought that was James Buchanan, R23.

Well, I just read that it was Chester Arthur III (also known as Gavin Arthur). I don't know about James Buchanan's grandson.

Sweet guys, a little smelly.

Burning man

Tinker Bell is a cunt.

A James Buchanan grandson?

Don't think so...

Some of them are fine - sweet and living the lyfe trulie.

Others are fakes, into the free sex, greedy and demanding. Judgmental about conventional-appearing lifestyles. And I've met a few who were among the biggest assholes I've ever met. Which made sense, since that's exactly how they smelled.

People who are competitive about being noncompetitive and who sit around saying, "What would be the spontaneous thing to do" typifies the downside. The upside - actually free spirits!

Showtime's Queer as Folk did an episode about them with Michael and Emmett going to one of their get-togethers in the woods.

It's a finding yourself spiritual journey where you learn to love and accept yourself as the gay fag or fairy you are. I'd say it's a gay centric Burning Man hipster convention (and I don't mean that in a negative way).

The Gay Community would have a lot less self loathing Log Cabin Republicans and GoProuders if it was mandatory or a common rite of passage for every gay to go to at least one radical fairy weekend meeting.

There's a local group and I'm thinking about checking it out? Should I do it?

It sounds exhausting.

[quote]Women were in attendance,

Yet more proof of matriarchal society's oppression of men and how men are not allowed even small, intimate groups where a female must wedge herself into.

They seem to be sweet, nice guys, but it's sad to me that even among these groups, a fucking woman must insist on taking part. You know, because she's just "one of the fags".

Don't say 'fag' R34. That word wounds. I have stated my boundaries. Do not make me state them again!

I have met many of them throughout my life and thought they were very nice, but at the same time for trying to be so 'different' and 'evolved' than their gay peers, they are as dramatic and sex crazed as any other gay man. Their earthy/crunchy way of life isn't for everyone, and yes many of them do smell. I have yet to meet one of them who were in monogamous relationships and knew several who were prostitutes..oh excuse me 'healers' as they wanted to be called. Either way if you get someone off and take the cash, no matter how much Kali and mother earth bullshit you attach to it, you're still a sex worker.

If you REALLY want some fun, party with the dudes in the Minoan Brotherhood.

So is being very crunchy and hippy-dippy a requirement? I am very suburban. Would they hate me?

The crunchiness and laid-back schtick can be a huge turn-off, largely because people with real issues fly under the radar and will gladly fuck any situation, event or plan over. Most do stink, anyway.

I've known pleasant people who were into the life, who'd hang out in the summers in the camps for weeks and weeks and do all the silly-fun things. I also knew a few who were more seriously into it who would stay year-round. The communal life settles into the hard work of growing food and the rest.

BUT very often the people who get into it are also the judgmental hippy-dips who are as rigid as any freeper and who hide their phony, lazy loser-ness behind a stone smile and a muu-muu.

It's not a pot luck; it's a soup luck.

The only Radical Faery I have ever known so far was a rather dicey sort. I say that for the following reasons:

1)"Randy" was generously (without pay) the advocate for gay teens in hostile environments. He would make calls to principals where gay/lesbian students had complained to him about homophobia. He would never reveal the names of the students in question, but would ask the principals/school administrators to consider having a panel of gay/lesbian/bisexual speakers to educate the student body as a whole.

2)"Randy" had sex with my very boyish, 19 year-old college chum (twelve years younger than he) and supposedly told him, after the sex, "I wish you were five years younger. I could prove to the world that sex between males should have no age restrictions." My friend ran away from him without looking back.

Randy, the faery in question, also led a contingent at the local pride parade ( in a university town) with much older men wearing make-up as if they were an endless line of Baby Janes.

I felt very torn about my local branch of the Radical Faeries. Nauseated, actually.

Yet, I don't want to imply that they were representative of the national Radical Faerie community.

I knew there was a (largely gay) communune in SF in the 60s called Kaliflower, that produced "The Cockettes". Were they the same thing as the Radical Faeries?

Have you seen the documentary, "The Cockettes", R42 ?

It's a great doc. Definitely see it.

They were not the same as the Radical Faeries.

Watch the doc just for the short films they made, from which snippets are included. Hilarious.

Here's the link, R43 :

I find them go be mildly charming but mostly annoying. Like the poster said above about how so many of them are sex workers under the guise of "healing", which is annoying as fuck. It is almost like they go out of their way to say they're not like anyone else in the gay community yet are a shining example of how much they really are. Their appropriation of other cultures' dogma and wrapping it up in glitter is sometimes borderline offensive.

I too find them mildly charming and I have to laugh at then too for seriously being full of shit.

I've met several "healers" in my lifetime and I've had no problem mentioning that they are practicing the world's oldest prifession and you sexually interact with people for money. Seriously, such affected horseshit.

I also agree that the appropriation of other cultures, wrapping it in glitter before they have their orgies is offensive in many ways because it's something they discovered on a peyote trip at a sanctuary.

They cannot get over or stop bickering over trans men and their place in the community and the cis women who follow them can't seem to understand when they want a men's only event that it is just that: no women. The older Faeries and the younger ones fight about both issues. No matter how much sparkle they slap on to their community, and their stance on being evolved, they're just like all other gay men wether they believe it or not.

They need an all gay Burning Man)'(

But in a more cooperative month weather wise

A friend just mentioned one of these sanctuaries in Tennessee. I want to go out and visit him but this sanctuary thing scares me as I'm very selective about who I want to hand around.

*hang