A Mouth to Own

And ye Megarians, at Nesaea dwelling,
Expert at rowing, mariners excelling,
Be happy ever! for with honors due
Th’ Athenian Diocles, to friendship true
Ye celebrate. With the first blush of spring
The youth surround his tomb: there who shall bring
The sweetest kiss. whose lip is Purest found,

Back to his mother goes with garlands crowned.
Nice touch the arbiter must have indeed,
And must, methinks, the blue-eyed Ganymede
Invoke with many prayers—a mouth to own
True to the touch of lips, as Lydian stone
To proof of gold—which test will instant show
The pure or base, as money changers know.

Theocritus

[describing a local kissing contest for boys]

“Out” of Community

Moby

Moby says he’d “much rather align myself with the gay community than the straight community” and says that he still stands by statements he made some time ago that gays are “superior to straight people.” He explains: “I also said that if and when I ever have children, I want gay children, which didn’t really endear me to the Christian right wing of America. There are a lot of people in the world who are virulently homophobic or misogynistic or anti-Semitic, and what baffles me is that if you just look at it empirically, gays, women, and Jews are certainly responsible for far fewer violent crimes than straight white guys.”

ambiguity/hypocrisy

Roy Cohen [By Robert Mapplethorpe, 1981.]

Because of his quintessential ambiguity, Roy Cohn was one of the gayest icons in the US political history. He was a lifelong Republican who in the 1950s worked on the red-baiting McCarthy Hearings, using economic and even sexual blackmail to coerce testimony. As a lawyer he later represented mobsters such as Fat Tony Salerno and members of the Gambino crime family. He was eventually disbarred for unethical and unprofessional conduct. Although he had been “outed” decades before and made little effort to hide his lifestyle, he continued to officially deny his homosexuality until his death from AIDS in 1986. Far far beyond throwing judgment, is hypocrisy a gay thing?

Erastes/Eromenos

 

The Warren Cup, mid-1st century AD. British Museum

The scenes on each side shows two pairs of male lovers. On one side the erastes (older, active lover) is bearded and wears a wreath while the eromenos (younger ‘beloved’, passive) is a beardless youth. A servant tentatively comes through a door. In the background is a draped textile, and a kithara (lyre) resting on a chest. In the scene on the other side the erastes is beardless, while the eromenos is just a boy. Auloi (pipes) are suspended over the background textile, and folded textiles are lying on a chest. The surroundings suggest a cultured, Hellenized setting with music and entertainment. (From the British Museum’s Website)

Their Beginning

Their Beginning

Their illicit pleasure has been fulfilled.
They get up and dress quickly, without a word.
They come out of the house separately, furtively;
and as they move off down the street a bit unsettled,
it seems they sense that something about them betrays
what kind of bed they’ve just been lying on.
But what profit for the life of the artist:
tomorrow, the day after, or years later, he’ll give voice
to the strong lines that had their beginning here.

Constantine P. Cavafy

Bergen-Belsen

Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1980. In a Year with 13 Moons

“Every seventh year is a lunar year. Those people whose lives are essentially dominated by their emotions suffer particularly strongly from depressions in these lunar years. The same is also true of years with 13 new moons, albeit not quite so strongly. And if a lunar year also happens to be a year with 13 new moons, the result is often a personal catastrophe.”

Sense and Sensibility

2008 Democratic Primary Election: Hillary vs. Obam

This primary election is really exciting and educating because the identity politics of the 1960s, and its ensuing challenges, has reached its peak. Oprah, an African American woman, backs an African American, not a woman; and Marianne Williamson has just made this facile argument that she was not going to vote for Hillary Clinton because: “I’m not going to vote with my vagina.” Williamson must bear this in her mind that women did NOT have the right to vote for over 120 after the declaration of “human” rights exactly and merely because of their vaginae i.e. solely because they were women. To a libertarian mind like mine it seems now, Clinton is the obvious best option not because of (nor in spite of) her gender but more importantly because of her credence. Let’s not down play the importance of identity politics.

Southpaw

Does left-handedness need to be celebrated?

I am in doubt again. Do we really need these advocacy and agitation anymore? It sounds like I am asking whether or not snow is white. “We” are still different, and “we” are still treated differently. But now I’m thinking isn’t this, this different stuff, just part of the game …and, for ever? So why should we defend it, why should we celebrate it? I have always thought of being queer something like being left-handed? – And of course much less dichotomous than that. Thus as it is funny or just for fun to have the left-handed festival, or union or magazine, it must be nothing more than fun to do collective gay things. It must be. It is not, however. Doubts fade. We should go on, because “to see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” (George Orwell)

Happens to Be

Mark Tewksbury

 Winner of the gold medal in the 100 m backstroke at the 1992 Olympics

Mark Tewksbury’s story of hurt, outrage and frustration, as a world class swimmer who happens to be gay, is also a story of strength, boldness and human rights. His journey from shame and fear to pride and courage as a gay man is especially inspiring because he is one of only a handful of world class gay athletes who have publicly embraced their gay identity.

Streets of Heaven

 

Tom Hanks

“Here’s what I know… I would not be standing here if it weren’t for two very important men in my life, two I haven’t spoken with in a while but I had the pleasure of just the other evening – Mr Rawley Farnsworth, who was my high school drama teacher, who taught me ‘Act well the part, there all the glory lies’, and one of my classmates under Mr Farnsworth, Mr John Gilkerson.

I mention their names because they are two of the finest gay Americans, two wonderful men that I had the good fortune to be associated with, to fall under their inspiration at such a young age. I wish my babies could have the same sort of teacher, the same sort of friends.

And there lies my dilemma here tonight. I know my work in this case is magnified by the fact that the streets of heaven are too crowded with angels.

We know their names – they number a thousand for each one of the red ribbons that we wear here tonight. They finally rest in the warm embrace of the gracious creator of us all – a healing embrace that cools their fevers, that clears their skin, and allows their eyes to see the simple, self-evident, common-sense truth that is made manifest by the benevolent creator of us all and was written down on paper by wise men, tolerant men, in the city of Philadelphia 200 years ago.

God bless you all, God have mercy on us all, and God bless America”

 

Accepting the award for best actor for Philadelphia in 1994