The formation of the Mary Renault Society
Wooten describes his role in the founding of the Mary Renault Society during the early 1980s in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Wooten explains how despite the fact that Chapel Hill was relatively tolerant of gays and lesbians, there were few outlets outside of gay bars available for gay people to meet and socialize with one another. The Mary Renault Society, a group devoted to reading and discussion, emerged to fill this void.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Cecil W. Wooten, July 16, 2001. Interview K-0849. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
So we were talking about the Mary Renault Society.
- CECIL W. WOOTEN:
-
Yeah, so, he asked me if, this was the first year that I was in Chapel
Hill and he asked me in 1980, I guess that it was in 81 because I was in
the humanity center the first year, so it was the first year that I as
teaching, and he asked me if I would be the sort of front man to
organize a group like this and he said that he would write the letter,
explaining the concept if I would sign it and
distribute it to gay people that I knew, and so I did, and Hoagie
Gaskins was one of the people that I distributed it to.
- CHRIS MCGINNIS:
-
Did he live in the castle at that time?
- CECIL W. WOOTEN:
-
I don't remember. I gave it to himߞhe ran a
bookstore at University Mallߞ
- CHRIS MCGINNIS:
-
Was it Little Professor Books?
- CECIL W. WOOTEN:
-
Yeah, Little Professor, and I gave it to him down there, and I must say,
his initial response was, "Oh, this is silly, you know, this
sounds 'pissie' and pretentious."
- CECIL W. WOOTEN:
-
He was blonde, he was nice looking, he was very nice, very dynamic and
energetic. He had somewhat of an edge to him. But, I like himߞ
- CHRIS MCGINNIS:
-
He had sarcasm?
- CECIL W. WOOTEN:
-
He was sarcastic, for example, I remember when I took him this notice
about this book club meeting, he sort pruned the whole thing and made
some sort of sarcastic comment about 'pissie'
queens talking about Oscar Wilde Plays and
[Laughter] But I distributed this to about thirty or forty
people and we had the first meeting at my apartment, which was at Sharon
Heights.
- CHRIS MCGINNIS:
-
Oh
- CECIL W. WOOTEN:
-
There were about twenty people there, and some of them I knew and some
of them I didn't know, because people I had given this notice
too had told other people about it, and everybody sort of agreed that it
was a good idea, it was a good opportunity for gay people to meet other
people outside of bars and tea rooms and other highly
sexually charged environments, but it was more welcoming for
older people and people who didn't feel comfortable being
very out.
- CHRIS MCGINNIS:
-
Which in Chapel Hill meant that you were over twenty-one.
- CECIL W. WOOTEN:
-
That's right, exactly, it had the possibility of being
educational and so we agreed to do it, and then of course, we needed a
name and we talked about various things, and I think most of the people
there said that the first gay novel they had ever read was by Mary
Renault, so we decided that we would call it the Mary Renault Society.
- CHRIS MCGINNIS:
-
And what did she write?
- CECIL W. WOOTEN:
-
The one that I read was called "The Persian Boy" about
the King of Persia and his boyfriend whose name was Bogerass I still
remember that. [Laughter] But plenty of her
novels, "The Charioteer" was a gay theme, many of her
novels had gay themes, and she is one of these interesting lesbian women
who writes about gay men.
- CHRIS MCGINNIS:
-
That is kind of unusual.
- CECIL W. WOOTEN:
-
So, we formed a group and we met once a month and the way we did it, was
like many book clubs, somebody would agree to lead a discussion on a
book and we would all read it, and I remember the first one that we did
was "The Best Little Boy in the World" and the
discussion was lead by a therapist by the name of Bill Sims in Durham
and it was wonderful, it was very interesting. I mean, it just went
beautifully. We got together, and we had drinks, sort of cocktails and
food and we all sat around Don Stanford's living room and
talked about "The Best Little Boy in the World" and we
met for about two years and then it seemed to me to have sort have run
it's course. I mean, we were not getting any new people, we
had read all of the sort of standard gay books and we had all met a lot
of nice people and it did not seem to be of much interest
anymore, so I quit going and my colleague who had been
responsible for it had quit going and I assumed that it would sort of
die eventually, but I think that it may be still going.