Pontifical Droppings : The Essence of Being Gay …

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…

On life and living…

Dear Ars Moriendi

Pierre Subleyras - Caron passant les ombres

Back in high school, our English teacher Mrs. Grundle gave us the assignment of writing our obituary, whether present, past or future. The purpose wasn’t to depress us or even to really contemplate our mortality but rather as a way of thinking about who we were and what we’d like to accomplish. It was one of my favorite assignments, besides designing a flag that represented ourselves, and something I’ve been meaning to update for a long time.

Last summer, or rather the winter of ’06 I set a list of goals that I wanted to accomplish in case I died the following year. It served as a great motivator to go out and live life how I wanted to live. I based those motivations on life experiences I would want to reflect if I were infirmed and in the hospital. One of them was to relive my high school prom as I envisioned. To throw wild and ridiculous parties, not just because I could but to serve as events where I could bond and share with my friends as I reflected. Another goal was the pursuit of love, in as many forms as possible; whether platonic, Socratic, fraternal, amorous, but most importantly unconditional. No matter who they were or where they had been, last year with everyone I met I tried to love them unconditionally, the only demand was that they were themselves or on the way to being comfortable with themselves.

I guess I was lying when I said it wasn’t to think about our mortality. Anytime one contemplates the goals one would like to do or things one would like to accomplish, you contemplate what happens after you are gone and forgotten. The monuments of Rome, pyramids of Giza, palaces of Europe, and the towering skyscrapers of today are nothing more than people wanting to be remembered after death. Writing, especially, serves as a form of memory and hoping to be one step above the animals, making a life count for something.

When I wrote my first obituary, it included winning a Pulitzer, Nobel Prize in Literature, an Academy Award and a Grammy. I also included a list of books I would like to publish, a list of homes I would own in France, Georgia, England and Virginia. However, on the first one I did lie in saying I would marry. A woman, that is. I wish I could find the original, but even still I know there are events I would change and different life goals I would add. I still would like to go for the Big 4, but I wouldn’t be remiss if they didn’t happen. Time to write out an obit for the future:

Columnist. Pulitzer. Nobel Prize in Literature. Academy Award (any will do). Husband. Two kids. Humanitarian work/fundraising for children, AIDS/HIV research. L’infant terible, bon vivant et garçon fatal. Last words : “It’s about damn time St. Michael. Tell me the secrets of the universe.”

Signed,

Patrique

Listen To The Voice That Speaks Inside…

Dear “Uncle Shelby”

In the same manner that ‘Gabo’ gives me inspiration on how to write surrealistically, you manage to give me inspiration on mindset. More specifically, the mindset of a child. Maclean always talks about how little kids are a lot like drunk adults and crochety old people: both know exactly what they want and when (usually now), sometimes mess their clothes, and have a different way of viewing the world. I view your poems in this same light. As though they tell me ‘It’s perfectly fine to pretend one is grown up and adult, but the truth is no one ever really grows up.’

I’m prone to neuroticism, and sometimes the antidote lies in simplicity. Like the British Romantics wishing for a simpler time, songs of innocence and experience. Your poetry is written from the vein of experience to the innocent. Maybe innocent is the wrong word, but the Peter Pans and Marie Antoinettes of the world. There’s nothing wrong with growing up, but you can turn back at any point. Your poems remind me of really old people, like your one about the little boy and old man. Those silent type of old people who watch the world, being passed by busy people with their places to go, people to see and things to know. The old people sit and watch, taking in everything. When someone finally stops to take notice they end up passing on words of wisdom, generally without meaning to.

 

I think dreamers, children, college children drunk and high, and old people all share similarities in that they have a different way of looking at the world. They happen to enjoy each moment.

 

 

 

 

Signed,

Patrique

These are a few of my favorite poems :

Whatif

The Little Boy and the Old Man

Where the Sidewalk Ends

 

Love is All You Need…

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person

- W. Somerset Maugham

Dear Helter Skelter Sgt. Pepper

I’ve spent today holed up inside, listening to way too much of the Across the Universe soundtrack. I forget the effects The Beatles have had on pop culture, and culture in general. I wonder if this is how Shakespeare was in his time? Dare I even say Jesus?

Either way, today has felt very inspired. It could be the two pots of coffee I made for just myself, in hopes I’d fly into a caffeine-induced creative frenzy. Stimulants usually have that effect on me. Sometimes when I think about myself and creativity, I’m reminded of that scene from Elizabeth, towards the end when she dedicates herself to the state. I don’t see my muses marrying me anytime soon.

I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends

So, I admittedly spend a lot of time thinking about love, being gay, and what to do with my life. All three somehow revolve around each other in ways I’m not sure I want to begin to understand. Today’s grab from the hat is brought to you by thoughts on: gay.

I’ve wondered this for at least half a year now, but why does it seem so many of The Gays are vindictive, petty, and self-absorbed. By no means all, but it gives the rest of the lot a bad name. I guess I’m inspired by the quote – Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds events. Small minds, people. – Where are the great minds amongst The Gays. I’m by no means a snob, nor consider myself a great mind; none of my grandparents completed high school. Well, my maternal grandmother completed her degree when she was 50^ish (dedication to education.) The only reason I bring up that is I’m comfortable talking on all levels. I prefer to discuss ideas (I’m striving to be a great mind, not in the mindset that I am one), and events are easier for most people to discuss. While every now and then I do divulge in discussing people, I feel karmicly dirty and gross, as though I had been playing in the mud and slinging it on someone’s name. Afterwards, I feel disgusted with myself.

And yet, with quite a bit of the gays I know conversations inevitably center on “—- is a slut, a big cock lovin bottom” or “Well, he does x,y,and z not to mention snorted q so hah! I’m better” (No one should feel flattered, I’m not mocking anyone. Well, I take that back and use Perez Hilton as prime example.) On another note of self reference, this in itself is talking about people, but I’m trying to get at the idea behind this, and I’ll take feeling a bit dirty karma wise. The idea being why? I can understand it’s in human nature to talk about people. We’re social creatures, and it helps to share information, especially information on people.

There’s talking about people, whether positive or negative, with no malicious intentions, and then there’s talking about people, slander intended consciousl or subconsciously. To slander someone’s name, with only hearsay and rumors, is in a reprehensible realm and always makes me feel nauseous whenever I partake or am around others who do partake. Of course, there are different levels of these discussions, but assume one isn’t talking about friends. Someone who is but an acquaintance. Someone brings up Gay Dickler, and everybody dishes on all the rumors heard about Dicklerlovin Mc Gay.

This is but a rant, and isn’t really going anywhere, but I do wonder. Also, I think that inspires me for a short story: