Author: By John D'Emilio

Date: SUNDAY, August 30, 1998

Page: F1

Section: Books

The gay community, too, has had its share of conflict over whether sexual identity is a major marker of difference or an inconsequential aspect of a person's life. But, like much of gay life and culture, these controversies remained mostly submerged, hidden from the eyes of outsiders. As things gay have moved from margin to mainstream in the 1990s the internal community debate over assimilation has become slowly accessible to a larger public. These two books are the most recent entries in the sparring contest.

Best Little Boy in the World Grows Up

Andrew Tobias is a well-known financial writer who, for a generation, has been producing investment advice for Americans. A quarter of a century ago he also wrote, under a pseudonym, one of the earliest post-Stonewall gay memoirs, ``The Best Little Boy in the World.'' Now he has returned with a sequel.

The interval proved to be a momentous 25 years for gay Americans and for Tobias, and the purpose of the book is to map the changes. In his professional life he moved from an eager young writer breaking into print to a respected counselor on savings and investments whose simple homespun advice merited appearances on Johnny Carson and Oprah Winfrey. He made auto insurance reform his specialty and harassing the tobacco lobby his mischievous pastime. Along the way were business trips around the world and invitations to Renaissance Weekend, where corporate moguls and political families like the Clintons share their feelings.

His private life during these decades also became more densely gay. His circle of friends grew wider. He had a succession of intimate relationships. He summered on Fire Island. As gay life grew more visible in the '80s, especially through the tragedy of AIDS, Tobias inched out of the closet, coming out to family, work associates, and, even, to Oprah and Al Gore. Always he was several hundred paces behind the troops of gay liberation, those courageous activists of modest background and career attainment whose sacrifice smoothed the way for Tobias and the privileged men of his social circle. To his credit, Tobias is quick to admit that he was not among the brave pioneers.

But now that he is out, Tobias writes with a mission. Every page seems intent on demonstrating what he calls ``the ho-hum-ization'' of homosexuality. Gay, in other words, is no big deal. It is a simple fact of life. Assimilation as a goal barely requires effort. I can hear Tobias using one of his favorite phrases: ``For crying out loud,'' there are no differences!

But the problem with the ``ho-hum'' approach to a life story is that it makes for a tiresome read. ``The Best Little Boy In The World Grows Up'' is tedious, trite, gutless. A decade that has produced compelling gay autobiographies from writers like Paul Monette, Martin Duberman, Reinaldo Arenas, and Alan Helms sets a high standard for future ones. In the service of his message, Tobias has composed a book drained of emotion and as boring as he wants us to believe gay life is. It is unfortunate because one senses that his life must have more passion and interest than he ever lets on.

The Pleasure Principle

No one would ever accuse Michael Bronski of being boring. A Boston-based writer, he has been producing incisive essays on sex, politics, and culture for over two decades. ``The Pleasure Principle'' is his attempt to make sense of the roilsome debates about homosexuality that have polarized American society in the 1990s. He has the chutzpah to tell us on the first page that his book will be ``bold and intentionally provocative,'' and he has the skill to deliver on his promise.

To Tobias, Bronski might say: Society makes a big deal about homosexuality because it is a big deal. Locating the problem in the conflicted relationship of Western societies to pleasure, Bronski sees the nonreproductive nature of gay sexuality as the crux of the issue. With heterosexuality defined as procreative and family-based, homosexuality becomes emblematic of the carefree pursuit of pleasure. Alternately fascinated and repulsed, the heterosexual majority moves back and forth between attraction and persecution. Gays cannot assimilate, despite the rhetoric of a moderate gay political leadership, because society cannot be fooled. It knows the difference between a sober sexuality based on duty and one that celebrates the erotic for its own sake.

The argument seems simple, but the fun is in getting there. Bronski has read widely and thought deeply. He moves comfortably across the Western historical landscape to make his points -- from the Jewish ghetto of Renaissance Venice to pop-culture figures like Pee Wee Herman, with lots of detours along the way.

Sometimes, he moves too quickly and ranges too widely, and one wishes he would stop to play out fully the implications of his latest provocation. For instance, after saying repeatedly that gays cannot assimilate because their sexuality forces them intractably apart, he then offers the surprising observation that gay people need not bother because, for a century, heterosexual culture has been steadily assimilating into gay culture. Say what? Or if, as he insists, society keeps its gay citizens second-class by demonizing them as sex-obsessed, maybe the fight for the right to marry and raise children is not a sign of self-deluded assimilationist tendencies but the most radical stance someone gay could take.

In the end, I left these books thinking that Bronski and Tobias together still do not tell the whole complex story of sexual identity and society. We need an outlook big enough to include both Tobias the conformist and Bronski the rebel. We need something that takes into account the boring lives of many gay men and the frontiers of pleasure and freedom that others pursue. In the meantime, however, Tobias the author will put you to sleep. Bronski will keep you up at night, chewing over the important question of what a society that valued pleasure and welcomed difference might look like.