Each week, Benjamin Law asks public figures to discuss the subjects we’re told to keep private by getting them to roll a die. The numbers they land on are the topics they’re given. This week, he talks to Dennis Altman. The author, activist and academic, 82, has been a key figure in Australia’s gay liberation movement and is a Member of the Order of Australia. His new book is Righting My World: Essays from the Last Half-Century.

SEX

You grew up gay in the 1940s and ’50s, and came of age in the ’60s. What was the sexual landscape of Australia like back then? There was, essentially, a dead silence around sex. I don’t remember any sex education. I have no memory of even being aware of homosexuality until the ’60s, when I was an undergraduate in Tasmania. Even though I became aware that I possibly was [homosexual], I didn’t know what to do about it. It wasn’t until I went to the US as a grad student in ’64 that I really came across other “homosexuals”. And when I spent more time in New York City, I first came across what we’d now call the gay world.

Cut to the present day. Are you astonished by how much has changed or frustrated by how far we’ve yet to go? There are certain things that I don’t think any of us would’ve predicted, such as the enormous upsurge of trans visibility, identity and affirmation. We might have fantasised about same-sex marriage, but the idea that it might actually be real? I don’t think it would’ve entered our heads. But this is only true for those of us who live in rich Western countries. For the majority of people in the world, things haven’t necessarily changed for the better. And, in some parts, things have changed for the worse.

Has your taste in men changed over the years? Probably not. Which is a problem because I’ve never been attracted to older men! Of course, that was fine when I was younger. It’s more problematic now.

Does it have to be? I was in a very long-term relationship, but my partner [public health researcher Professor Anthony Smith] died after 21 years together [in 2012, two months after being diagnosed with lung cancer]. At this stage of my life, it doesn’t seem conceivable that I would have another relationship of that sort.

So what are you looking for? Anything more specific? [Laughs] This is beginning to sound as if you’re giving me a free lonely hearts …

We need to put the word out! I suppose if I were to sum it up, I like smart guys who’ve got things to say. I’ve never thought that stupidity was sexually attractive.

MONEY

Are you good with money? I’m actually very good with money. I’ve also been lucky at various points, and am a beneficiary of the extraordinarily unfair Australian taxation system.
I worked in the university system for a very long time, pay very little tax and have a good superannuation. I’m very conscious of this. The nice side of this is that I can afford to give money away, supporting refugees and asylum seekers – particularly queer refugees and asylum seekers, because they’re doubly disadvantaged.

What do you like spending your money on? Where I’m extravagant is, if I fly internationally, I want to fly business class. But I’d claim that’s partly due to my age. I don’t think I could survive an economy flight from Melbourne to London at this age.

If I gave you a hundred dollars to spend on yourself in the next hour, what would you buy? I’d go over to Carlton, have coffee and cake at Brunetti [Classico, on Lygon Street], then spend the remainder at Readings bookshop.

DEATH

You’ve already mentioned your late partner, Anthony. What are your fondest memories of him? Basically, domestic. Anthony became a very good cook, liked having people come to dinner and would spend most of the day cooking. I was basically banned from the kitchen – except when I was allowed, every now and then, to wash a dish, perhaps. And when we’d go overseas together. We went on a couple of cruises and I’m terribly pleased that we did this. I have very warm memories of the boat coming into Istanbul and how amazing it was to see a city like that from the sea – together. Those are the sorts of things that I think you remember from 20 years of living with someone.

How has the shape of your grief changed? I know exactly when the grief changed: I can pinpoint it. Anthony died in November 2012 and I cried every day for a year or so after that. Then, in the middle of 2014, the International AIDS Conference was on in Melbourne and I was involved because I knew all the players, locally and internationally. I saw a lot of people. And that week, the grief went away.

What’s your theory as to why? Grief over time becomes something else: it becomes memory. Therapists will tell you that, after a certain period of time, if your grief doesn’t change, there’s a real problem. But I also have a great advantage in that I’ve become very much part of Anthony’s family. Even this morning, I was texting with one of his nephews.

You’re now in your 80s. Is death on your mind more? I’m at an age now where, every week, somebody who was in my life for a very long time dies. Of course you think about it. The biggest concern is you don’t want to die after a long and painful illness, or demented. But, also, you don’t want to live too long. One essay in my book is about how one of my cats, at the end of her life, went next door – which she very rarely did – to lie in the sun.

Is that your ideal way to go? Well, I guess if I were about to die, I would cease hearing my dermatologist warn me about the dangers of being in the sun.

diceytopics@goodweekend.com.au

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