The QLP Questionnaire: Luis Illades
"I was downright antagonistic that queer people wanted to get married. However, we got married. We wanted to solidify something in this political and cultural climate that is always pending."
Did you struggle to find love? Or maybe you had a difficult time making it work in a same-sex relationship or outside the typical heteronormative parameters that dominate our culture and have lessons to share? Since most LGBTQ+ people don't have many role models to help us learn what it means to put ourselves together, we invite you to take “The Queer Love Project Questionnaire” and share your distinctive experiences so that others might learn from them. Email us at QueerLoveProjectSub@gmail.com to find out how you can participate.
My name is Luis Gabriel Illades. I live back-and-forth between New York in the U.S. and Tijuana in Mexico. For the last 30 years, I have been a touring and recording musician with multiple acts across the U.S. and Europe. Most notably, I have spent time in the queer-punk band Pansy Division and toured for years with the iconic art punk band Avengers. Through this I travelled much of the world discovering my queer underground family.
I am currently the songwriter and composer of Vida Vella (follow us on Instagram), and have produced a bilingual album between the United States and Mexico titled Panorama, which is due out March 21. This is the stepping out from being a background player to front and center. Watch the videos for Vida Vella’s singles “Being Born” and “Nacemos” off of Panorama, which you can pre-order from my Beso y Abrazo label.
What is your age, where in the world do you primarily live, where did you grow up?
I am 50 years old, and it is the manifestation of a beautiful experience of living. I grew up in Tijuana and moved to the United States at approximately 11 years old.
How do you define yourself on the LGBTQ+ spectrum?
I adore the concept of “queer.” I came of age at the height of the AIDS crisis and naming ourselves “gay men” was very powerful in creating a shared and unified self concept at the time in the face of being minimized or de-sexualized.
However, I have always felt a conflict between a sense of joining in the power of community and always feeling like an outsider—even in a room full of people. “Queer” speaks to me deeply as someone who finds solace and room in discovery outside of expectations and heteronormative or binary structures. I also am a curious wanderer, and the sense of wonder and discovery involved in developing a sexual self in the development of gender and sexual fluidity concept always presents new ideas, desires, fantasy and room for autonomy in self concept. I love my queer family (and have joined in all aspects of sexual expression and discovery).
What is your relationship status?
I am married to my partner of many years, Benjamin Reyneart. I still have a hard time saying “husband.” Is it internalized homophobia? HELL NO! But it is a lingering disdain for heteronormativity that hasn’t worn off.
Do you have an “ideal” relationship status?
That it is one thing. A relationship is so many things! And our concept can be self-punishing. In a relationship, you can at times be passionate lovers or buddies or an effective LLC that knows how to execute things like bills and chores, or sanctuary in times of deep hurt or need for solace. When not all of those things are intact simultaneously, we sense something is amiss. But that’s quite an unreasonable expectation. To embrace what is can be a place or arrival.
When was your first intimate moment? Was it with someone you liked? Did you feel pressured into it?
I had a girlfriend in high school. We were goth. Ha ha. I remember holding hands with her at a Jane’s Addiction concert as they sang “Classic Girl” at sunset in an outdoor concert. It was very romantic. At that stage of development, it was very sweet to feel a camaraderie and companionship that was tender.
Of course, as we develop in our needs for companionship and tenderness to things that fit more appropriately with other forms of desire, more becomes known. But I have never lost the connection to tenderness as a destination. My sexual development was much more awkward and damaging after that, so perhaps I held on to sweetness and tenderness as guiding principles.
How would you define love? Is it the thing you work at for a long period of time? Or is it the strong feeling you feel for someone right from the beginning for no reason?
I don’t know that I can define love. There are so many variations on the endless ways in which people experience love. The best I can do is to name the love that I best interact with. To me it is a desire to interact with a person and develop with them over time. To grow with people, to inspire and be inspired by, for and with them. This can come with the early stages of development with a person you crush on and grow into something with, or it can be as a result of having survived something together.
The want or need to be engaged with that person because, for whatever reason, you have grown into them somehow. I don’t mean this in a codependent way—although codependency is a form of love—rather in a way that the other person and yourself nourish each other. It cannot be a one-way street. We can also make room for the fact that there is room for imperfection as well as a purity or honesty of love.
Does the relationship fill your deepest needs for closeness with a person? Or do you prefer not to share every part of yourself?
I have many lovers—as alluded to in the fact that there are many manifestations of love. One person (in my experience) cannot fulfill every aspect of love. There is the love that I have with my husband and a life we build together. One of my greatest loves is a dear girlfriend of mine who I have survived much of life with (and mutual trauma bonding) in a history that I do not have with my husband. Our mutually experienced frame of reference is something that is different than what we have with our romantic partners and therefore a different bond.
I also have a professional colleague who I love deeply and commune with in a different frame of reference and vernacular than in my romantic relationships. I have a straight male artistic collaborator who I am simply wild about and we say, “I love you,” to each other because we discuss concept, experience, strength and hope with each other in a way that is incredibly intimate. I know that one would call these relationships a form of camaraderie, but I truly love them and experience them through the lens of loving someone.
When did you come out to family, friends and others for the first time?
It was in various stages around the age of 18 to 20. I wouldn’t recommend coming out to your parents the way that I did: drunk on a payphone on a city street. But there you have it! Clumsy and regrettable, but the cat was out of the bag and the work of understanding followed over years.
We also come out constantly again and again to neighbors, plumbers doing house calls, new medical providers, deciding to kiss your husband goodbye at the airport. The list of examples are endless. I am proud of who I am and yet always braced for impact. I am so sick and tired of the weight coming out over and over again. I don’t necessarily have a fear of judgement about it, but the specter is there.
Did you have any LGBTQ+ role models as a child or teenager? What do you remember about images of same-sex or queer relationships or messages you gleaned?
Growing up in Mexico, LGBTQ+ concepts were treated as the butt of a cartoonish joke or something detestable to be avoided at all cost. Funny enough, Mexico legalized same-sex marriage before the U.S. did—which I find satisfying.
You really had to be attuned to subtext. Obviously, many of our artists and images were heavily gay-coded, but the message received was that it was to remain obscured and that your talent and essence was only valued if you could be of service to the heterosexual society, like a jester or craftsperson.
Through absorbing Northern culture, I sought out books on Warhol at the library as he was the most known flamboyant icon of the time. I was obsessed with the idea of the Factory and the place of sanctuary in which all beautiful, dramatic, striking personalities played. It was a sense of “laughter through the tears” that I hoped I would someday find.
I also remember in the early ’90s reading an interview with Chris Xefos of the New York indie band King Missile in which he openly discussed being a gay man. There seemed something accessible about this being a very pedestrian-seeming person in contrast with the bombast of something like a Warhol scene that was larger than life and unattainable. I was an aspiring punk in development because it was something tactile and available to me but my general scene in Southern California was remarkably heterosexual which was discouraging. I remember making a mental note of how he spoke very easily about his experience and kept it in my pocket as I moved onward.
Do you have a Chosen Family?
YES! Our mutually experienced frame of reference is something that is different than what we have with our romantic partners and therefore a different bond.
For example, I have a professional colleague who I love deeply and commune with in a different frame of reference and vernacular than in my romantic relationships. I have a straight male artistic collaborator who I am simply wild about and we say, “I love you,” to each other because we discuss concept, experience, strength and hope with each other in a way that is incredibly intimate. I know that one would call these relationships a form of camaraderie, but I truly love them and experience them through the lens of loving someone.
What is your relationship with your biological family (if any)?
I am close with my family, yes. My father has passed and, interestingly enough, after he passed I had many “coulda, shoulda woulda” moments about our relationship. There were things that I thought I should have said.
When I was sorting through my dad’s belongings, I found a letter that I wrote to him explaining a bit about who I was and how I hoped that, if he understood me, we could develop a relationship of our own. I honestly had forgotten about it and was relieved that he had read and kept the letter in with his things. My younger self didn’t write it out as eloquently as my present-self would have, but I am thankful to my younger self for having written it.
I do spend part of the year in Tijuana to be of service to my mother and help organize things and support her. I visit with cousins and extended family. I never thought as a child that I could exist as an out queer person in Tijuana and with those family members, but it is a credit to much of Mexican society in general that people have changed and love, joy and tenderness (to me) appear more forceful and strong in Latin American family systems.
What do you (did you) like about dating as a LGBTQ person? What do/did you dislike?
I am forced to generalize….. But starting with disliking. Dating was always difficult for me in the cis-gay male world, which appears different than the “queer” world perhaps. There was a depersonalization that I couldn’t get on board with. Almost like trying to jump onto a treadmill moving at top speed. It just isn’t a cadence that I could ever fall in line with.
Don’t get me wrong, I have been a ho in my life, but the culture of dating and sex in this realm just seemed punishing and joyless to me. I may not be right, but I sensed a lot of compartmentalization of shame and lack of room to flourish in my essence. I felt a lot of compulsion and optimization that often robbed the experience of joy. However, regardless of gender, the “queer” world that I found in San Francisco or Brooklyn seemed to me more open to expression, individualism, tenderness, creative discussion—even in transient encounters—than the mainstream gay collective did not.
Has race, ethnicity or cultural differences been a factor in who you seek out?
I'm not sure that it has in the sense that I am in search of something in particular. I have been involved with people across the spectrum of cultures and presentations. My husband and I come from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. I guess, generally speaking, I’d say no.
Have you had any difficulties dating or finding/keeping a relationship?
I have had two long term partners in my life. One through my twenties and one through my forties and beyond. My teens were a mess and my thirties were a time to find myself on my own and be single, monastic, wild and curious and in a stage of self actualization.
I think that I am OK in relationships. Frustrating, imperfect, a contradiction—but present and true.
What’s the most surprising thing you have learned about relationships from your perspective?
I don’t want to sound a certain way when I say this, but…. I don’t know that I have been very surprised in relationships only because I haven't entered from a place of intention. In romantic relationships and platonic friendships I try to be open and curious and reboot to acceptance as things appear.
I remember in the early stages of dating, my partner and I we were having that conversation—“What are we? Are we dating? What is happening here?”—and I distinctly remember us saying, “We may be together for six days, six weeks, six months or six years and this is what we are going to find out along the way.” Honestly, we still have that spirit. Even though we have made concrete plans, like wills and power of attorneys, and all of that—which assumes an ongoing future.
Have you experienced heartbreak?
Yes. Romantically it has been fleeting, impactful, but I dust myself off quickly and don’t dwell. But my heart breaks over and over with fresh sorrow in regard to friends who have passed, remembering the loss of a creative project that never manifested, in thinking about age and decline and the end of the world in its beauty.
Do you have any moments of joy, happiness or pleasure that you can share about being in a same-sex or queer relationship?
Earlier this year, we ran a half marathon in Philadelphia and literally crossed the finish line together at the same moment amid confetti and streamers and cheers. It was cinematic. It was pure joy and pride.
Are there any things that standard heterosexual relationships have that you feel are out of reach or that you wish you had or could achieve?
Monogamy and children, ha ha! No, not really… I guess the ability to kiss your partner in public without being in a hyper-vigilant, fight-or-flight stance. That’s not nothing, right?
Have you ever been in a polyamorous relationship or would you like to be in a situation that doesn’t involve just two people?
Friend, I’ve been everywhere… I have experienced some triangulation in sexual groupings, sure. I wouldn't say that I have been in an ongoing polyamorous relationship. Wait, are you referring to being in a multiple partner relationship or just being poly or open?
I just caught up with an old friend from London and he said, “I just got back from a vacation with my husband, my boyfriend and his wife.” While that sounds fun for a vacation, it sounds like a lot of work for an ongoing relationship. Who knows? He seems really happy and fulfilled. In this time in our sexual cultural history there is a lot more room for expression of polyamorous or open relationships and I am all for it. Let the soul and sexual self thrive, you know? If the participants can be mature, honest and open.
Are you married? Have you ever wanted to be? Whatever the response, explain why and what your hopes, dreams and journey has been like.
I am married. I never had it as a goal of mine specifically. I didn’t grow up dreaming of that as a possibility, so it was truly out of mind. In fact, I often was downright disdainful and antagonistic at the idea of marriage or queer people wanting to get married. However, we did get married. We wanted to solidify something in this political and cultural climate that is always pending. Contradiction is a part of honest development and growth. And guess what? It was romantic, sweet, profound and meaningful! Who knew?
Have you had a difficult time navigating the “roles” you should play in a relationship?
When we first met, I was doing well in a business, and he was a starving student. Our fates turned and then he was doing well in his career and I became the starving student. In one aspect, it can be humbling to experience role reversal, but it also really strengthened the bond that we have. But we fall into our habits more than roles. The second that we walk in the door (without fail or discussion), he walks through the house and starts rearranging, and I walk directly into the kitchen and start cooking.
What is your philosophy about relationships?
They are not obligatory. You can always leave. But if you choose to stay, then give, listen and learn.
Any good/bad advice you received from a friend or queer elder?
When I first came out, I moved into a gay neighborhood in San Diego, California, and I was working in a restaurant that was at the center of gay life. I was working through finding meaning as I had not had much gay reference or context and I was trying to understand and form concepts. I was a little “punk,” and the gay elders, being well-meaning in trying to educate or support this “baby gay” would comment: “Don’t wear that, wear this. Do your hair like this. Your music is bad, listen to this.”
They wanted to mold me into what they were doing under a well-meaning assumption that it would speak to me or liberate my frustrated gay inner self. Rayon shirts and house music? I tried it for a few weeks, but it was so wrong for me. It's like you mustered all of your courage and self-will to reject the ideas and programming of what being a man is expected to be that you were raised with and found an opportunity for liberation only to be given another rulebook? NO!
My queer self-development became longer and more isolated and yet truer. I learned to honor my voice and that meant that it would be a more difficult journey. But so much more satisfying in the long run. I can’t imagine what my life would have been like if I were more moldable.
Any advice you’d give to someone younger than you who thinks it’s impossible to find love?
Volumes and volumes…..it's hard to be succinct in this. I would start with abandoning all expectations. That doesn’t mean boundaries or hopes and dreams. To be curious. To see the love you have in your friendships. To practice mending, understanding, forgiving and trusting, celebrating, being celebrated. If that is the case, you’ll be fulfilled by this form of love so that you’ll be less in a perpetual state of “longing and wait,” so that, when a romantic love does cross your path, you’ll be able to receive it gracefully.
BONUS:
We all need more inspiration. Recommend something that influenced or helped shape you significantly that you’d recommend to someone else.
Books:
Giovanni’s Room, by James Baldwin (a classic for good reason)
The Velvet Rage, by Alan Downs
The Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salinger
The Naked Civil Servant, by Quentin Crisp
A Boy's Own Story, by Edmund White
Movies: These are not my top films necessarily but within the context of this discussion…
Longtime Companion (René) heartbreak, devastation and loss in the AIDS epidemic. Not sure how well it has aged, but it was important to me.
20th Century Women (Mills) biological and chosen family
A Woman Under the Influence (Cassavettes) love, frustration and endurance through mental health crisis
Boys in the Band (Friedkin) the 1970 version
Todo Sobre Mi Madre / All About My Mother (Almodovar) family, resentment, forgiveness, queer secrets
Au Revoir Les Enfants (Malle) adolescent male bonding and longing
My Beautiful Laundrette (Frears) queer contradictions and joy
Songs: Plus: Please check out my Vida Vella album, Panorama, out March 21, as an expression of queer introspection, romance, fatalism and liberation!
“Uncle Phranc,” Team Dresch (queer family)
“So Into You,” Shudder to Think (queer longing)
“Butterfly,” Sarah Jane Morris (adoration)
“You’re the Best Thing,” The Style Council (love joy)
“Kiosko,” Porter (adolescent queer love)
“Communication,” The Cardigans (fear of intimacy)
“No Me Importa Nada,” Luz Casal (rejection and independence)
“I Hate My School,” Redd Kross (intolerance of squares)
“How Can the Knower Be Known?” Perry Blake