On Torchwood, he rules the roost and loves women and men with equal masculine passion and dignity. He was rejected for the role of Will in Will & Grace because he wasn't gay enough. :)
_____________________________
Saturday, May 30, 2009
I like Captain Jack
On Torchwood, he rules the roost and loves women and men with equal masculine passion and dignity. He was rejected for the role of Will in Will & Grace because he wasn't gay enough. :)
_____________________________
Friday, May 29, 2009
1453
Today marks the anniversary of the fall of Constantinople to the Turks. The
great church of Holy Wisdom, built by Justinian in the 6th century, became
a mosque.
___________________________
Contrasts
Patriot though I be, there are some things about America that I hate. The kind of sensationalizing soap opera lives represented by Jerry Springer and Maury Whateverthehellheis: a sleazy and mock moralistic parading the human trash from the ghettoes and trailer parks. How many times can you sit on the edge of your seat wondering if Laquitha's latest baby belongs to her husband, his brother, his best friend or her cousin?
On the other hand, the kinds of lives that are sung about in country music, for all its sentimentality, are often honorable and worthy of respect.
__________________
On the other hand, the kinds of lives that are sung about in country music, for all its sentimentality, are often honorable and worthy of respect.
__________________
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Empathetic judge
Ms. Sotomayor can make better decisions than a white male because she is a wise Latina woman. I am glad to hear it. This is a real step forward from the days when white males were thought to make better decisions than Hispanic women. I am glad that racism has been replaced by empathy.
I only hope we can get a Black-Asian transgender Muslim on the court soon, so s/he can make even better decisions.
Thanks, Obama, for your brilliant legal choices. One more leg-thrilling example of hope and change.
Pardon me while I go off in a corner and lose my breakfast.
_________________________
I only hope we can get a Black-Asian transgender Muslim on the court soon, so s/he can make even better decisions.
Thanks, Obama, for your brilliant legal choices. One more leg-thrilling example of hope and change.
Pardon me while I go off in a corner and lose my breakfast.
_________________________
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Submission and men
Two things. This piece needs editing. It's long and it rambles. And there's an explicit-ish pic at the..sic, as you'll see..bottom.
Admit it or not, the Alpha Male is the classic male. But manhood is in reality a communal enterprise. Individual men become men. QED. But only in relation to other men (and women). So there are different kinds of classic males in the constellation. This does not dissolve the hierarchial nature of masculinity; on the contrary, it is the hierarchy which guarantees...diversity! Guys have to find their place...but there are a variety of places within it to find.
The Alpha Male is the dominant male, the pack leader, etc. But he has to have guys to dominate and guys to form the pack for him to lead. It's a group effort and most men...most men...are not Alphas. How could we be? So...submission to a stronger male is essential to the masculinity of most, almost all, real men. Submission is a classical masculine value.
My usual example: those paragons of masculinity, the Marines. Whoever they are commanding or leading, they are all, all, submitting to a higher Alpha Male. Even the Commandant of the Corps reports to higher-ups. So although exercising hierarchical power is classically masculine, included in it is submitting...within the hierarchy...to stronger power is also classically masculine.
(There is a commonplace that if you have sex with a Marine, he will want to bottom. The only two Marines I know both top most of the time, but they do not disagree with the rep. I do not see this anecdotal opinion as a disconfirmation of their masculinity. If my thesis has merit, for them, submission is their normal masculine enactment!)
And for most it is on a spectrum. The sergeant demands obedience from the PFCs but must in turn obey the lieutenant, etc. A constantly moving combination of domination and submission skills and attitudes is involved. This is the nature of hierarchy.
Dominance can be easy or it can be rough. Submission smooth or bumpy. But often there is a distinct element of dignity involved in the act of submitting with the hierarchy. Anecdotally, the dignity of a young man who leaves home and then returns to his town as a soldier, but with a new style of giving respect to others, an increased use of "sir" and "ma'am" is definitely not the result of enslavement or humiliation, but of a submission-purchased inclusion in a male hiearchy.
An Alpha commanding a Beta is one thing. An Alpha or Beta commanding an Omega, the lowest guy on the totem pole, is another. And then dealing with males outside the pack...that is another story altogether.
The Un PC archetypal truth, though, is that in relation to women...mothers and other reigning monarchs aside...all males seek to be Alpha, regardless of their intra-hierarchical role. Hence, the too-quick assumption that enacting submission to another male instantly unmans you and puts you in the woman's role. Possible, but not required.
Behind this set of thoughts is my previous post about total tops, guys who never take the receptive role in male-male sex. Which led me to think about bottoms, guys who do. As I think I have mentioned before, I have never personally met a top who did not happily engage in oral sex from both positions, though they certainly exist. But I do know guys who never get fucked. And guys who rarely or never do anything but.
What about them? What about the manhood of the bottom man?
Here's a fragment of a thought. If the connection is an Alpha-Omega one, then the sexual act could be a (consensual or not) enactment of sheer dominance and submission, with only the thinnest energy of affiliation, of common belonging to a group, even a group of two. Beyond that boundary, it can be the most violent form of dominance behavior, feminization through rape.
But if the connection is an Alpha-Beta one, then the nature of their relationship already includes a great deal of affiliation and sense of belonging to a group, even, or especially, their group of two. Two men I know who are lifelong tops have spoken to me of how "honored" they are, that's the word, "honored"...one even said "awed"..by the experience of having a man they respect, a desirable Beta male, allow them to top him.
When that kind of submission is freely given in an underlying relationship of male respect, the top experiences both his own phallic power and the offered-up power of the bottom. For the articulate tops I've discussed this with, that merging is at the heart of the erotic magic of male/male sex. For the bottom, either in regular or temporary Beta-mode, it is a kind of service, for some an almost religious service, a kind of sacrifice happily given to a man who represents something in himself but more strongly.
The submission is not a humiliation. Not at all. And it is not painful (if consented to and done right) but excruciatingly pleasurable, both physically and psychologically. (The placement of the prostate is one of Nature's master strokes.) It contains both release from self and intimacy with another that celebrates the self.
And that sacrifice makes for communion...for both...just as most male hierarchical submission of the non-sexual kind achieves affiliation with and within the masculine group. The love that commanders have for their men, both the subordinate officers and the "grunts"...a love which can be returned in kind by the very act of obedience, submission...is legendary. I would add, it is archetypal.
Male/male sexual intercourse of this type is not the operation of oppressive power on a humiliated man without power. It is the exchange of two forms of masculine power and both parties give and receive in powerful measure.
[There is something here related to the fragment or idea of alchemy that I mentioned recently in trying to think through the goal of male/male sex in a sort of theological context.]
Call this projection if you want, but think I see in the picture below something of the Alpha-Beta relationship I have been talking about. The bottom, physically, lacks no masculine power, either in animal beauty or agility. To put it mildly. But the look on his face is what is telling. Calm, very calm, but full of anticipation. And focussed on the other man, who could even be "his" man. The dynamic of free sacrifice and grateful honor, of exchange of powers, of dominance and submission within the goal of pleasurable, even ecstatic, communion...I detect it here.
This kind of sexual connection, anal intercourse, can be nothing more than the connection of body parts. A cock and a butt. That is plenty attractive enough. It can, in its shadow mode, be the shattering of one male by another. Or...common enough in all of sex...if can be the satisfaction of a desire using another body. Hey, it beats doing your taxes. But it can be something much more. It can be a powerfully magical and deeply masculine exchange of power and identity that serves and deepens the Alpha-Beta bond between men, one of the strongest forces on earth.
Perhaps I am being obtuse or mystical or reactionary...or all three...but when I lament the lack of love for manhood among gay men, part of what I feel is lost is the alchemy of masculine love in this most intimate form of sex. For actual men who understand what they are doing, the Alpha-Beta energy serves and intensifies the dignity of both in the very ritual of submission and domination. Both offer, both are honored, both receive, both give, one by entering, the other by welcoming.
But if you don't love and honor the man in yourself, how do you give or receive the physical offering of self of another man?
___________________________
Admit it or not, the Alpha Male is the classic male. But manhood is in reality a communal enterprise. Individual men become men. QED. But only in relation to other men (and women). So there are different kinds of classic males in the constellation. This does not dissolve the hierarchial nature of masculinity; on the contrary, it is the hierarchy which guarantees...diversity! Guys have to find their place...but there are a variety of places within it to find.
The Alpha Male is the dominant male, the pack leader, etc. But he has to have guys to dominate and guys to form the pack for him to lead. It's a group effort and most men...most men...are not Alphas. How could we be? So...submission to a stronger male is essential to the masculinity of most, almost all, real men. Submission is a classical masculine value.
My usual example: those paragons of masculinity, the Marines. Whoever they are commanding or leading, they are all, all, submitting to a higher Alpha Male. Even the Commandant of the Corps reports to higher-ups. So although exercising hierarchical power is classically masculine, included in it is submitting...within the hierarchy...to stronger power is also classically masculine.
(There is a commonplace that if you have sex with a Marine, he will want to bottom. The only two Marines I know both top most of the time, but they do not disagree with the rep. I do not see this anecdotal opinion as a disconfirmation of their masculinity. If my thesis has merit, for them, submission is their normal masculine enactment!)
And for most it is on a spectrum. The sergeant demands obedience from the PFCs but must in turn obey the lieutenant, etc. A constantly moving combination of domination and submission skills and attitudes is involved. This is the nature of hierarchy.
Dominance can be easy or it can be rough. Submission smooth or bumpy. But often there is a distinct element of dignity involved in the act of submitting with the hierarchy. Anecdotally, the dignity of a young man who leaves home and then returns to his town as a soldier, but with a new style of giving respect to others, an increased use of "sir" and "ma'am" is definitely not the result of enslavement or humiliation, but of a submission-purchased inclusion in a male hiearchy.
An Alpha commanding a Beta is one thing. An Alpha or Beta commanding an Omega, the lowest guy on the totem pole, is another. And then dealing with males outside the pack...that is another story altogether.
The Un PC archetypal truth, though, is that in relation to women...mothers and other reigning monarchs aside...all males seek to be Alpha, regardless of their intra-hierarchical role. Hence, the too-quick assumption that enacting submission to another male instantly unmans you and puts you in the woman's role. Possible, but not required.
Behind this set of thoughts is my previous post about total tops, guys who never take the receptive role in male-male sex. Which led me to think about bottoms, guys who do. As I think I have mentioned before, I have never personally met a top who did not happily engage in oral sex from both positions, though they certainly exist. But I do know guys who never get fucked. And guys who rarely or never do anything but.
What about them? What about the manhood of the bottom man?
Here's a fragment of a thought. If the connection is an Alpha-Omega one, then the sexual act could be a (consensual or not) enactment of sheer dominance and submission, with only the thinnest energy of affiliation, of common belonging to a group, even a group of two. Beyond that boundary, it can be the most violent form of dominance behavior, feminization through rape.
But if the connection is an Alpha-Beta one, then the nature of their relationship already includes a great deal of affiliation and sense of belonging to a group, even, or especially, their group of two. Two men I know who are lifelong tops have spoken to me of how "honored" they are, that's the word, "honored"...one even said "awed"..by the experience of having a man they respect, a desirable Beta male, allow them to top him.
When that kind of submission is freely given in an underlying relationship of male respect, the top experiences both his own phallic power and the offered-up power of the bottom. For the articulate tops I've discussed this with, that merging is at the heart of the erotic magic of male/male sex. For the bottom, either in regular or temporary Beta-mode, it is a kind of service, for some an almost religious service, a kind of sacrifice happily given to a man who represents something in himself but more strongly.
The submission is not a humiliation. Not at all. And it is not painful (if consented to and done right) but excruciatingly pleasurable, both physically and psychologically. (The placement of the prostate is one of Nature's master strokes.) It contains both release from self and intimacy with another that celebrates the self.
And that sacrifice makes for communion...for both...just as most male hierarchical submission of the non-sexual kind achieves affiliation with and within the masculine group. The love that commanders have for their men, both the subordinate officers and the "grunts"...a love which can be returned in kind by the very act of obedience, submission...is legendary. I would add, it is archetypal.
Male/male sexual intercourse of this type is not the operation of oppressive power on a humiliated man without power. It is the exchange of two forms of masculine power and both parties give and receive in powerful measure.
[There is something here related to the fragment or idea of alchemy that I mentioned recently in trying to think through the goal of male/male sex in a sort of theological context.]
Call this projection if you want, but think I see in the picture below something of the Alpha-Beta relationship I have been talking about. The bottom, physically, lacks no masculine power, either in animal beauty or agility. To put it mildly. But the look on his face is what is telling. Calm, very calm, but full of anticipation. And focussed on the other man, who could even be "his" man. The dynamic of free sacrifice and grateful honor, of exchange of powers, of dominance and submission within the goal of pleasurable, even ecstatic, communion...I detect it here.
This kind of sexual connection, anal intercourse, can be nothing more than the connection of body parts. A cock and a butt. That is plenty attractive enough. It can, in its shadow mode, be the shattering of one male by another. Or...common enough in all of sex...if can be the satisfaction of a desire using another body. Hey, it beats doing your taxes. But it can be something much more. It can be a powerfully magical and deeply masculine exchange of power and identity that serves and deepens the Alpha-Beta bond between men, one of the strongest forces on earth.
Perhaps I am being obtuse or mystical or reactionary...or all three...but when I lament the lack of love for manhood among gay men, part of what I feel is lost is the alchemy of masculine love in this most intimate form of sex. For actual men who understand what they are doing, the Alpha-Beta energy serves and intensifies the dignity of both in the very ritual of submission and domination. Both offer, both are honored, both receive, both give, one by entering, the other by welcoming.
But if you don't love and honor the man in yourself, how do you give or receive the physical offering of self of another man?
___________________________
Gay/men
More evidence that gay culture does not actually like men. Liking a big dick and muscles and liking men are not the same at all.*
An opinion piece on one of the meet-up sites I visit lamented and lampooned the "false" masculinity of men who are total tops, that is, who are always in the active roles in sex with other men. (Hey, what happened to diversity?)
The gay rule is that if you have too much classic masculinity in role or attitude or values or presentation or interests, etc, you must be invited/hectored/shamed into exploring your feminine side. In the case above, you should learn to get fucked and like it, Mary.
But never, and I mean never...correct me if I'm wrong...does the public conventional wisdom or the voice of our enlightened LGBT rulers invite/hector/shame any gay man with a paucity of masculinity and a plethora of femininity to explore his masculine side.
(This despite the not uncommon phenomenon of a fag dissing another fag for being a fag. Sorta like the in-house-only business of a nigger dissing another nigger for being a nigger.)
Suggests to me again the unfortunate likelihood that "gay" does not mean "sexually attracted to the same sex" but actually means "an effeminate man who likes sex with men." Effeminacy is the default and classic position which is always to be protected and celebrated, never critiqued. Masculinity, however, is always to be held in suspicion, contempt or ridicule.
In gaydom, you can't have too much feminine but you can easily have too much masculine.
In this world, drag queens are the real men, being their ballsy true selves. Let us applaud them as our true hero...ines. Whatever. Ru rules. Muscular leather daddies, on the other hand, (though they are damn hot, aren't they?) are enacting a compensatory, self-hating and dangerously fascist fantasy of pathetically overdone maleness. Get over it, girlfriend.
What a mess.
*[A lot of straight culture does not like women...is there something here that transcends sexual orientation, that it's easy to dislike the object of your erotic drive? Does some of the natural aggression in sex always morph into hatred? But in the case of gay males, that becomes hatred of yourself.]
________________________
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
OMG! I've turned gay!
Visiting my lil bro & fam in NY. They live in Chelsea, the Castro of the East. He and his wife have a new pug, a gift for my niece. I am no fan of little dogs, but the puppy is pretty irresistible. I get regular puppy-spit facials.
I took her out for a walk yesterday, just trying to be a helpful guest, and today. Saw other men like me (6', 200 lbs) similarly walking small yappy dogs.
I thought," OMG, I've turned gay." (Sorry, Mom.)
Reminds me of a definition of gay I once heard: a grown man with a small dog and an unnaturally neat apartment.
Well, half-right.
________________________
I took her out for a walk yesterday, just trying to be a helpful guest, and today. Saw other men like me (6', 200 lbs) similarly walking small yappy dogs.
I thought," OMG, I've turned gay." (Sorry, Mom.)
Reminds me of a definition of gay I once heard: a grown man with a small dog and an unnaturally neat apartment.
Well, half-right.
________________________
Stealth jihad
As individuals, Muslims might be your nice neighbors,
but in groups...Allahu akbar.
This reminds me of the various kinds of American shorthand we use to dismiss ideas we don't like. I probably do it myself; after all, the idea that anyone is or should be completely "open-minded" --another shorthand-- is ridiculous. An open-minded man of deep conviction....
Anyway, if you think, for instance, that boys and girls could benefit from being educated in same-sex classes for part of their schooling, all someone has to say is, "Yeah, separate but equal."
This evokes the (officially, as opposed to unofficially) segregated education system of the South before the Supreme Court famously dismantled it. The shorthand tars you with the burden of proving that you are not a segregationist. Apples and oranges, but it usually brings the discussion to a halt. As it should. Because anyone who uses these phrases has zero interest in discuussion.
Another one, connected to my theme here, workplace jihad, is the old line, "Some of my best friends are..." Here again, we are supposed to understand immediately that it is rank hypocrisy to befriend individuals of a group that you may not have, as a group, a high or even friendly opinion of.
Dopey.
Individuals and friends ought not be treated or thought of in the same way as groups or strangers. I know this is heresy to the (talk about hypocritical) high-minded assumptions of our cultural betters, but it is a simply human truth.
An idiosyncratic friend who is an armchair Marxist is one thing; Marxists in groups and therefore able to exercise power...another thing entirely. A Muslim colleague or associate here or there is one thing. But Muslims in groups...
-------------------------
Monday, May 18, 2009
Angels in America
Despite its occasional flashes of brilliance, one of the many reasons I have come to deeply dislike gay comrade Tony Kushner's play is that its central character is a man with AIDS who has been abandoned by his cowardly lover. I lived through those years, awful years, and far far more often I saw men standing by their partners til death parted them.
I have spent a week at my parents house, watching my mother care for my father, who is dying slowly of dementia. Both in their mid-80's, they require and have a lot of help, but after her initial shock and anger and resentment over how was disappearing right in front of her, she has become a constant and compassionate and untiring mate to the man she married almost six decades ago. He is mostly gone already, a shadow of his former self in a shell of his former self. And she is still there. When I told her how much I admired her for all this, she simply said, "What else can I do?"
My favorite uncle died a few weeks ago. And again, his wife nursed him through his slow decline, keeping her promise that he would die at home in his own bed. Now she is alone in their big house. What must that be like?
These are the angels in America.
_____________________
I have spent a week at my parents house, watching my mother care for my father, who is dying slowly of dementia. Both in their mid-80's, they require and have a lot of help, but after her initial shock and anger and resentment over how was disappearing right in front of her, she has become a constant and compassionate and untiring mate to the man she married almost six decades ago. He is mostly gone already, a shadow of his former self in a shell of his former self. And she is still there. When I told her how much I admired her for all this, she simply said, "What else can I do?"
My favorite uncle died a few weeks ago. And again, his wife nursed him through his slow decline, keeping her promise that he would die at home in his own bed. Now she is alone in their big house. What must that be like?
These are the angels in America.
_____________________
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