Dear Toddy English,
I was tempted to leave a long winded comment, before I realized I had my own soapbox I could stand on and address the world. I must say, you are causing me to think quite deeply as of late. I tip my hat off to the excellence of your writing, especially the latest post commenting on “Facing my Obsession in the Flesh” by Benoit Denizet-Lewis.
One of the points that stuck out to me was the comment you made:
As we all know the gay ’scene’ is extremely sexually oriented. In many circles promiscuous behavior runs rampant (as a matter of fact you are viewed as abnormal or a prude if you aren’t shaggin off tons of guys).
Sexual Addiction or Liberation
Dear god yes, is the gay scene extremely sexually oriented. I never really think of myself as a prude, but even given my own personal history sometimes I feel a bit like Charlotte or Carrie from Sex and the City. For some reason, the Moon likes to think I’m more like a combination of Samantha and Carrie, but I’m admittedly a bit more prurient in my beliefs. I compare myself to Charlotte and Carrie because I’m a hopeless romantic. No matter how much I try and be a cynic like Miranda or have affair after affair like Samantha, for me it simply isn’t possible. I’ll tip my scale more towards the Carrie side; I’m not expecting a ring from Harry, Tiffany or Cartier after hooking up, but I will say there’s a bit of expectation that if I’m sleeping with someone, I want the relationship to go somewhere, even if it’s just friendship. Sex isn’t anything special, especially considering some people have sex with animals. And in the case of sex among The Gays, it definitely doesn’t lead to procreation. That only brings to mind the question I ask myself : what is the point of sex, especially when a hand job will acheive the same result. As Stacie Orrico said, there’s gotta be more.
I guess that train of thought really struck a vein in that I consider myself on a sexual sabbatical of sorts. I believe they call it celibacy. 2006-2008 was filled with too many ups and downs. And celibacy is nothing new; I went for a year and a half when I first went to college way back in 2003.
At any rate, and digression, I guess I believe the essence of being gay deals with amor platonicus (platonic love) : a sort of brotherhood, if you will. Not to say that sex isn’t involved, but that the love developed between two men transcend a sexual nature and can be expressed in multiple forms. Sex is a natural, biological function. If one wanted sexual gratification, there’s no need to be gay. One can fulfill that need with both boys and girls, or a hand and some lotion if you please. If one chooses to be gay, then I work under the assumption that in the relationship that inevitably develops, there is something more. The platonic ideal of love, I view, as the essence of being gay. The Gays manifest in a multitude of forms: we are renowned for our appreciation of beauty.
Also touching on the idea of amor platonicus , I’ve been fortunate enough to experience, and share, with my closest friends. I can honestly say that what started out as crushes on straight guys evolved and sublimated into respecting sexual preference, and loving in a respectful manner. I’ll readily admit, I’ve had torrid crushes on some, if not all, of my straight friends. Were the nature of those friendships ever to take a turn for sexual, I don’t know if the friendship would be as deep. Qui a été dit que “Necessity is the mother of all invention.”
I respect monks, priests et al who practice a complete vow of celibacy, and devote themselves to brotherhood. Are they gay? Perhaps.
What we all love, according to Diotima, is the good — that is to say, we want good things to be ours forever. But because we are mortal, the closest we can come to satisfying this desire is to initiate an endless cycle of reproduction in which each new generation has good things. We achieve this, in a famous phrase, by “giving birth in beauty (tokos en kalô)” (206b7-8, e5). What does this mean? Like Athenian paiderasteia, Diotima recognizes two fundamentally different kinds of love, two fundamentally different varieties of the desire to give birth in beauty. In the case of heterosexual lovers, who are “pregnant in body,” such giving birth consists in producing children who resemble, and so share in the beauty of their parents (209a3-4). Homosexual lovers, however, are a different story. What they give birth to is “wisdom and the rest of virtue” (209b8). When a man who is pregnant in soul finds a beautiful boy, Diotima says, it “makes him instantly teem with accounts of virtue” (209b8), or “beautiful accounts” (210a8).
Plato on Friendship and Eros
To go on another digression, when I think about my own membership in The Gays, I inevitably think of my own mortality. What shall happen when I am old. And of course that line causes me to refer to Ezra Pound, who worded it so eloquently in “In Tempore Seneticus“:
When I am old
I will not have you look apart
From me, into the cold,
Friend of my heart,
Nor be sad in your remembrance
Of the careless, mad-heart semblance
That the wind hath blown away
When I am old.
When I am old
And the white hot wonder-fire
Unto the world seem cold,
My soul’s desire
Know you then that all life’s shower,
The rain of the years, that hour
Shall make blow for us one flower,
Including all, when we are old.
When I am old
If you remember
Any love save what is then
Hearth light unto life’s December
Be your joy of past sweet chalices
To know then naught but this
“How many wonders are less sweet
Than love I bear to thee
When I am old.”
Unfortunately, M. Pound was not a member of The Gays, although he did give us the phrase “Make it new.” And unfortunately, I’ve digressed so far off track any point I’ve attempted to make may be hard to follow. When I am old, I want to revel in my oldness, wag my cane at young whippersnappers. When I am an older member of The Gays, and “the white hot wonder-fire” (whether creativity, sexual expression, amazement and fascination with learning, etc) that abounded in my youth seems cold, well I do not want to be old in that sense. I never want the white hot wonder-fire to extinguish, but flame eternally. I don’t want to be chasing younger boys at the local watering hole hoping I can find the fountain of youth between his thighs. I promise this will all make sense somehow.
Believing more in l’amour platonique for my straight friends (both male and female), et l’amour platonicien for eventual lovers (as I have found thus far in the Moon) I’m comforted and confident in the fact that I will never have to grow old. I will always see beauty, and I know that I’m deeply in love with several of my friends we will surely all grow old together; after we have individually conquered the world (I proclaim myself Crown Prince of the Americas; Beggs you may be King-President.) This friendship that has been forged, is “a good thing to be ours forever.” I’m not always there when they call, nor do I answer my phone nearly enough, but I like to think I am always on time.
At the cast house, there was a dialogue between two of The Gays on sexual attraction. I was confronted as soon as I came through the door on whether or not I found a certain someone sexually attracted. It took the love of the Moon, and learning how to love in return, to realize that objectifying someone isn’t love. The objectification only serves as a validation of worth, and a faulty validation at that. As females are well aware of, time goes on and youth is gone; when you can’t straighten up when you bend, beauty will always keep one company. A kiss on the hand may be quite contintental, and grand indeed but won’t pay the rental. Nay, I say, to validating one’s self worth through sex. I’m quite apprehensive about getting personal, but I remember how my relationship with The Moon began. There was never any pressure for sex, though it was present on both our minds. Rather, the subject of sex has always boiled down to choice; of making a deliberate action based on what I and he wanted to do instead of me feeling the need to validate my worth through sex. I like to think The Moon and I share a type of platonic love that, even if the sex ceased, there would always be friendship. I think I recognize love when I know someone respects my decisions, and looks out for my interests as much as I look out for theirs.
And so, as members of The Gays are forced to recognize their own mortality, and barring procreation, the only other way to bring beauty into this world is to create beauty with our bare hands. By creating works of art that will hopefully last well after we’re gone. Straight people have it easy: they bang and 9 months later a baby pops out. Instant beauty. But to be a member of The Gays, or any artist really, is hopefully to bring another form of beauty into this world.
At any rate, somehow this letter got dreadfully long, and I still have yet to post the data from my ‘research’ from three months ago. Tomorrow is another day…
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