Cher David
Subtitle: Les nuits de Citizen Gay
By: David Girard, [avec la collaboration de Philippe Granger].
Contributors: Granger, Philippe, Marie-Line, Louabe and her sister Nadia.
Edition: Ramsay
Publisher: Ramsay
Published: 1986
Place of publication: Paris
Language: fre
Format: US Comic
Number of pages: 197
Subjects: Girard, David, 1959; Gay men -- France -- Biography.; Sex-oriented businesses -- France -- Paris.
Genres: Biography
Other titles: Nuits de Citizen Gay.
First sentence: • David vu par Marie-Line


Excepté Nadia (qui est sa sœur), vous êtes en fait la seule femme dans la vie de David ?
Je suis même «la femme de sa vie», comme il est « l'homme de ma vie», même si nos relations ne sont pas physiques.
Description: From the back cover :
"Je ne sais pas si c'est vraiment le plus vieux métier du monde, en tout cas, c'est celui que faisait ma mère."
Ainsi commence le saisissant témoignage de David, ce gamin que son destin aurait dû conduire de la zone à la médiocrité résignée, ou, plus sûrement, à la délinquance. David refuse son sort de zonard, mais affronte son homosexualité. C'est sa banlieue qui le rejette. Mais il rompt les amarres, et se retrouve à Paris sur les trottoirs de la rue Sainte-Anne. Il a décidé de vendre la seule chose qui lui appartienne : son corps.
Et il va gagner. De l'argent, mais aussi, et surtout, son pari contre la fatalité. Il monte un institut de "massages" où défilent des milliers de clients (David en cite d'incroyables témoignages). L'argent venant à l'argent, il crée un, deux saunas pour garçons, puis la plus célèbre boîte de nuit "gay". Il lance deux journaux, ouvre un restaurant où se presse le tout-Paris. L'ex-petit zonard se retrouve à la tête du "gay business" en France.
Une autobiographie amorale dont la stupéfiante sincérité étonnera les plus blasés...
Notes: This book is not longer available on publishing and won't be in the futur.
The cover photo is from J. Chatin.


From the book Who's who in contemporary gay and lesbian history, found on google book.

Girard, David (1959-23 August 1990), French businessman. 

Girard was born in Saint-Ouen, a working-class suburb of Paris, where his mother was a prostitute. His autobiography claims that as a young teenager, Girard's empire grew rapidly in the early 1980s to include (among other businesses) two bath-houses, a nightclub (Haute Tension), several gay magazines and a line of poppers (amyl nitrate). 
Handsome, young, brash and ambitions, Girard seemed to dominate the Parisian gay milieu of the 1980s, even taking virtual control of the annual Gay Pride parade every June. Gay political militants attacked him for promoting commercialism and sexual hedonism, but Girard replied that by creating so many openly gay establishments, 'I think that I have done more for gays than they ever have'.
Girard also earned criticism for his attitude toward AIDS, which was nonetheless typical of how many french gay men initially reacted to the disease. He refused to put up posters on AIDS or to distribute condoms in his bath-houses, because 'people come to saunas to relax, and not to worry'. An infamous editorial in his magazine, G.I., entitled 'Merde au Sida' ('Shit on AIDS'), advised readers to take precautions, but also accused doctors of reviving Judeo-Christian strictutes against homosexuals, who happily 'have rediscovered the pleasure of their bodies'. 
His autobiography declared that "while awaiting a decisive cure (for AIDS), each person has to make his own decision. Do nothing [sexual] at all. . ., keep to a single "safe" partner (how sad), or pretend that nothing is happening, by saving that Russian Roulette must be a very exciting game'.
Girard died of AIDS. In the words of one obituary: 'Too young, too rich, too famous to die, David streaked like a comet in the gay night.' His life and career were emblematic of the French gay world of the 1980s, a period characterised by an unprecedented expansion or gay commercial venues, fast living and sometimes reckless disregard of the AIDS crisis.

David Girard, Cher David, Les units de Citizen Gay (Paris, 1986)
Frederic Martel, Le rose et le noir (Paris, 1995)
Gai-Pied Hebdo, 30 August and 6 September 1990.

Michael Sibalis
Table of contents: label: ●
title: David vu par Marie-Line
pagenum: 7; label: 1
title: Saint-Ouent-sur-Zone
pagenum: 13; label: 2
title: Charmes du commerce et commerce des charmes
pagenum: 33; label: 3
title: Un zonard pas comme il faut
pagenum: 53; label: 4
title: Scène de vie, rue Saint-Anne
pagenum: 71; label: 5
title: La clinique du fantasme
pagenum: 81; label: ●
title: David vue par Louad
pagenum: 121; label: 6
title: l'Angoisse du créateur de fonds (de commerce)
pagenum: 129; label: 7
title: Homo politicus (malgré tout)
pagenum: 145; label: 8
title: Si on restait simples ?
pagenum: 163; label: 9
title: Des médias aux médiums
pagenum: 171; label: 10
title: A quoi tu penses ?
pagenum: 185; label: ●
title: David vu par Nadia
pagenum: 193