But 30 years ago? It was a cultural norm. All of them – ALL OF THEM – rationalized their interest in me as not just lust for a hot, barely-of-age twink, but as passing their hard-earned carnal wisdom on to the next generation.Īlmost nobody defends those types of practices today. I helped pay for my college expenses (at considerable higher rates than Murray’s more desperate teens supposedly got) catering to the edgier desires of older men like Murray – horny or lonely or predatory or all three. There were no positive role models on TV, or anywhere else, for young gay men.Īnd, so, a common feature of gay male culture of the era was the notion that young men needed to be “initiated” into their gayness by older, usually middle-aged men. The very first national gay/lesbian march was held in 1979 the gay rights movement was still a fringe cause in its infancy, and gay male culture was still in thrall to the sexual promiscuity of the ’70s and the reflexive secrecy of since forever. To understand why, you have to appreciate two critical bits of context that won’t be included in most news accounts, because those accounts are being written by people who weren’t young gay men in the ’80s. The court of public opinion can do that if the allegations are bad enough, and the details here sound really, really bad.Īnd yet there are plenty of people, especially gay men of A Certain Age, who are defending Murray. The civil suit doesn’t even need to go anywhere for Murray’s career to be over. There’s a lot I don’t like about Murray’s record as mayor, starting especially with how he exploits our most vulnerable residents for political points while doing far less than you’d think to help them. No doubt would-be mayoral candidates, scared off this year by Murray’s formidable war chest, are looking anew at their contact lists. These sort of allegations, when credible, can abruptly end political careers. Money for sex, which was then used to feed drug habits. The men – two of whom met Murray beginning in 1980 when he lived in Portland, and the third, a man who filed a civil suit alleging Murray did the same to him beginning in 1986, after Murray had moved to Seattle – gave similar stories. The Seattle Times dropped a bombshell on the local political scene last week, publishing a lengthy account of interviews with three separate men who claim that Mayor Ed Murray paid them for sex while they were underage gay drug abusers in the 1980s.