Tuesday, January 06, 2004
http://queerconstruction.typepad.com/queerconstruction/
I've moved my blog to typepad. Come and visit!
I've moved my blog to typepad. Come and visit!
Thursday, December 11, 2003
Butch gotta penthouse
Karl Jung believed one marker of successful therapy is the uniting and acceptance of male and female identities within the patient. Something tells me he would not go the site BigMuscleBears. He wouldn’t buy it at all.
I’ve always had trouble with very effeminate men. They threaten me. I’m embarrassed to be around them. I worry that their lisps and flouncy walks will rub off on me. I have witnessed friends, over many years , transform themselves from beret- and jewelry-wearing fags to tough musclebound men who happen to be gay. I’ve also hated that part of myself – the part that hates and fears the effeminate-fag stereotype.
Then there are the guys who have no idea how “nelly” they really are. We look at them and wince. “If they don’t realize how outwardly gay they appear, how self-aware can I be?”
Well, the best defense against appearing gay is to do manly things. Have manly hobbies. Live in a manly shack. Speak in grunts and monosyllables and, for Chrissakes, keep your feelings to yourselves. Be cool and together. Hysteria is the mark of the evil she-beast.
I think it’s great that, on the surface, we 21st-century homos come in so many forms. Drag queens to leathermen to... what does one call this new breed of macho-obsessed blockheads?
Take a look at BigMuscleBears. Notice how proud so many members are that they drink beer and watch football (almost always both activities are listed together). Notice the grease-covered overalls, the retro cars with hoods popped. Not into cars or football? How about extreme hiking or hunting? Maybe you’re into construction, but you rarely find anyone describing themselves as a renovator, or, heaven forbid, a decorator! Expressiveness is seen as “drama” and intelligence is seen as “game-playing.” (The feeling, dramatic, expressive, articulate sorts – they’re shunned more than anyone.) “No GAMES and no DRAMA” the new butches insist. This sort of thing frightens them terribly.
Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is actually behind the times. Straight men should be hiring fags to dig ditches and tune up their hot rods.
Monday, November 24, 2003
BECOMING DAVID
This is Michelangelo’s most famous sculpture, The David. It’s important to us gay fellas because this piece, more than any other in the public’s consciousness, marks a return to the ideals of absolute beauty of Antiquity. David is an icon of the male form. He is what a man should look like. He is what the men in our culture strive to become.
We gay fellas know what a monumental task becoming David really is. Maybe because we’re vain, or maybe we figure the only way we can have a David of our own is if we look like one ourselves. From steroids to second careers at the gym and starvation, it’s clear that we will do whatever it takes to become David.
Straight men seem only slightly less enthralled with the cult of David because they believe (erroneously?) that women find them irresistible in their natural, flabby form. Less and less, however, is it considered feminine to be body-conscious. Even straight men are now shaving their bodies and vanquishing all forms of fat from the face of the earth.
Here’s the problem. David is not a man, he’s a BOY. Look carefully at him. True, David has the requisite near-zero-percent body fat, but he is also totally lacking in secondary gender characteristics. He has no body hair (even his pubic hair is quaffed and insubstantial). His genitals are small and underdeveloped. He has no beard or hint of facial hair. His shoulders and hips are oddly narrow, his chest almost sunken.
Note the oversized hands and feet. His body looks not quite comfortable with its own limbs.
This is not an accident of the sculptor’s. Michelangelo was no chickenhawk; he knew how to do men in stone. There are countless depictions of brawny men in his repertoire of sculptures – big, broad-shouldered men with long scruffy beards and massive muscled torsos. David was meant to be seen as a boy barely postpubescent. Maybe he’s 13 or 14 years old, If that.
When one sees his face it’s shocking. He looks troubled, confused, even worried. He is, after all, just a boy who is either about to slay or has very recently slain a giant. He’s unaware of his body’s strength and the depth and fortitude of his spirit. This is his test, his rite of passage. A bar mitzvah of mythic proportions. In slaying the giant, David becomes a man, but he’s not quite there yet. It’s a timeless, compelling myth. But it’s a myth about a boy.
The only real and fully developed man in this story is offstage. Perhaps we should all be trying to look like Goliath.
This is Michelangelo’s most famous sculpture, The David. It’s important to us gay fellas because this piece, more than any other in the public’s consciousness, marks a return to the ideals of absolute beauty of Antiquity. David is an icon of the male form. He is what a man should look like. He is what the men in our culture strive to become.
We gay fellas know what a monumental task becoming David really is. Maybe because we’re vain, or maybe we figure the only way we can have a David of our own is if we look like one ourselves. From steroids to second careers at the gym and starvation, it’s clear that we will do whatever it takes to become David.
Straight men seem only slightly less enthralled with the cult of David because they believe (erroneously?) that women find them irresistible in their natural, flabby form. Less and less, however, is it considered feminine to be body-conscious. Even straight men are now shaving their bodies and vanquishing all forms of fat from the face of the earth.
Here’s the problem. David is not a man, he’s a BOY. Look carefully at him. True, David has the requisite near-zero-percent body fat, but he is also totally lacking in secondary gender characteristics. He has no body hair (even his pubic hair is quaffed and insubstantial). His genitals are small and underdeveloped. He has no beard or hint of facial hair. His shoulders and hips are oddly narrow, his chest almost sunken.
Note the oversized hands and feet. His body looks not quite comfortable with its own limbs.
This is not an accident of the sculptor’s. Michelangelo was no chickenhawk; he knew how to do men in stone. There are countless depictions of brawny men in his repertoire of sculptures – big, broad-shouldered men with long scruffy beards and massive muscled torsos. David was meant to be seen as a boy barely postpubescent. Maybe he’s 13 or 14 years old, If that.
When one sees his face it’s shocking. He looks troubled, confused, even worried. He is, after all, just a boy who is either about to slay or has very recently slain a giant. He’s unaware of his body’s strength and the depth and fortitude of his spirit. This is his test, his rite of passage. A bar mitzvah of mythic proportions. In slaying the giant, David becomes a man, but he’s not quite there yet. It’s a timeless, compelling myth. But it’s a myth about a boy.
The only real and fully developed man in this story is offstage. Perhaps we should all be trying to look like Goliath.
Sunday, July 20, 2003
It’s A Ghetto Thang
Its a struggle to provide magical places for people to live without having Toronto sprawl all the way to the Yukon Territory. Everyone should have a magical place to live though. A home unique to each unit of persons; reflecting light, space, greenery and movement more than prestige or money.
Homes these days are built as products for sale, just like running shoes or bubble gum. The so called features of a new home are a reflection of market research and demographics. In this way we create ghettos. A ghetto for the old with Bungalofts and golf coarse views. A ghetto of mean narrow Semis hiding behind garages for the our young families. For the young hipsters there are whole colonies of condominiums and lofts with extra high ceilings and seldom more than one window for the entire home.
Perhaps the worst example of product building is the so called Master Suite. The name comes form pre-civil war days. The master of the house not only had slaves he had a suite of rooms within his mansion. Today the Master suite is a home within itself with massive sleeping rooms, huge closets and of coarse the bathroom ensuite. Entire homes are designed around these massive spaces. One seldom sees a shower and tub combined to save space. Instead each feature is given it very own space. Even the toilette has its own room nowadays.Its baffling that no one has considered how unsanitary these little rooms are. There are never sinks to wash hands in toilette rooms. One has to exit the room, contaminating the door handle and everything else on the way to sink which could well be many yards away.
Typically, the Master suit is equal to the square footage of 31/2 secondary bedrooms. Here is a ghetto within a home already in a ghetto. The master and spouse (its never called a Mistress's suit) are isolated form the other persons in their home. Huge rooms are filled with entertainment centers, computer stations and exercise machines, solely for the Master's use. Some suits include a study accessible only from the bedroom suite. A newer trend even has kitchenette's in the Master suit. This way the master needn't share any activities with his minions, not even breakfast.
Make no mistake; these homes have a clear hierarchy. There are features for the whole group to share ( usually one of each). One Bathroom, one media room, one kitchen and one dining space. But these rooms seldom allow for the same square footage per person as is available to the Master And NO spaces, save tiny bedrooms, are designated as off bounds to the Master.
Parents are separated form their families as if by quarantine. Children grow up with a fractured and elitist views of their homes. It is noteworthy that in an era when our definition of family is more inclusive then ever ,we have homes designed like slave plantations.
Its a struggle to provide magical places for people to live without having Toronto sprawl all the way to the Yukon Territory. Everyone should have a magical place to live though. A home unique to each unit of persons; reflecting light, space, greenery and movement more than prestige or money.
Homes these days are built as products for sale, just like running shoes or bubble gum. The so called features of a new home are a reflection of market research and demographics. In this way we create ghettos. A ghetto for the old with Bungalofts and golf coarse views. A ghetto of mean narrow Semis hiding behind garages for the our young families. For the young hipsters there are whole colonies of condominiums and lofts with extra high ceilings and seldom more than one window for the entire home.
Perhaps the worst example of product building is the so called Master Suite. The name comes form pre-civil war days. The master of the house not only had slaves he had a suite of rooms within his mansion. Today the Master suite is a home within itself with massive sleeping rooms, huge closets and of coarse the bathroom ensuite. Entire homes are designed around these massive spaces. One seldom sees a shower and tub combined to save space. Instead each feature is given it very own space. Even the toilette has its own room nowadays.Its baffling that no one has considered how unsanitary these little rooms are. There are never sinks to wash hands in toilette rooms. One has to exit the room, contaminating the door handle and everything else on the way to sink which could well be many yards away.
Typically, the Master suit is equal to the square footage of 31/2 secondary bedrooms. Here is a ghetto within a home already in a ghetto. The master and spouse (its never called a Mistress's suit) are isolated form the other persons in their home. Huge rooms are filled with entertainment centers, computer stations and exercise machines, solely for the Master's use. Some suits include a study accessible only from the bedroom suite. A newer trend even has kitchenette's in the Master suit. This way the master needn't share any activities with his minions, not even breakfast.
Make no mistake; these homes have a clear hierarchy. There are features for the whole group to share ( usually one of each). One Bathroom, one media room, one kitchen and one dining space. But these rooms seldom allow for the same square footage per person as is available to the Master And NO spaces, save tiny bedrooms, are designated as off bounds to the Master.
Parents are separated form their families as if by quarantine. Children grow up with a fractured and elitist views of their homes. It is noteworthy that in an era when our definition of family is more inclusive then ever ,we have homes designed like slave plantations.
Friday, July 18, 2003
It’s A Ghetto Thang
Its a struggle to provide magical places for people to live without having Toronto sprawl all the way to the Yukon Territory. Everyone should have a magical place to live though. A home unique to each unit of persons; reflecting light, space, greenery and movement more than prestige or money.
Homes these days are built as products for sale, just like running shoes or bubble gum. The so called features of a new home are a reflection of market research and demographics. In this way we create ghettos. A ghetto for the old with Bungalofts and golf coarse views. A ghetto of mean narrow Semis hiding behind garages for the our young families. For the young hipsters there are whole colonies of condominiums and lofts with extra high ceilings and seldom more than one window for the entire home.
Perhaps the worst example of product building is the so called Master Suite. The name comes form pre-civil war days. The master of the house not only had slaves he had a suite of rooms within his mansion. Today the Master suite is a home within itself with massive sleeping rooms, huge closets and of coarse the bathroom ensuite. Entire homes are designed around these massive spaces. One seldom sees a shower and tub combined to save space. Instead each feature is given it very own space. Even the toilette has its own room nowadays.Its baffling that no one has considered how unsanitary these little rooms are. There are never sinks to wash hands in toilette rooms. One has to exit the room, contaminating the door handle and everything else on the way to sink which could well be many yards away.
Typically, the Master suit is equal to the square footage of 31/2 secondary bedrooms. Here is a ghetto within a home already in a ghetto. The master and spouse (its never called a Mistress's suit) are isolated form the other persons in their home. Huge rooms are filled with entertainment centers, computer stations and exercise machines, solely for the Master's use. Some suits include a study accessible only from the bedroom suite. A newer trend even has kitchenette's in the Master suit. This way the master needn't share any activities with his minions, not even breakfast.
Make no mistake; these homes have a clear hierarchy. There are features for the whole group to share ( usually one of each). One Bathroom, one media room, one kitchen and one dining space. But these rooms seldom allow for the same square footage per person as is available to the Master And NO spaces, save tiny bedrooms, are designated as off bounds to the Master.
Parents are separated form their families as if by quarantine. Children grow up with a fractured and elitist views of their homes. It is noteworthy that in an era when our definition of family is more inclusive then ever ,we have homes designed like slave plantations.
Its a struggle to provide magical places for people to live without having Toronto sprawl all the way to the Yukon Territory. Everyone should have a magical place to live though. A home unique to each unit of persons; reflecting light, space, greenery and movement more than prestige or money.
Homes these days are built as products for sale, just like running shoes or bubble gum. The so called features of a new home are a reflection of market research and demographics. In this way we create ghettos. A ghetto for the old with Bungalofts and golf coarse views. A ghetto of mean narrow Semis hiding behind garages for the our young families. For the young hipsters there are whole colonies of condominiums and lofts with extra high ceilings and seldom more than one window for the entire home.
Perhaps the worst example of product building is the so called Master Suite. The name comes form pre-civil war days. The master of the house not only had slaves he had a suite of rooms within his mansion. Today the Master suite is a home within itself with massive sleeping rooms, huge closets and of coarse the bathroom ensuite. Entire homes are designed around these massive spaces. One seldom sees a shower and tub combined to save space. Instead each feature is given it very own space. Even the toilette has its own room nowadays.Its baffling that no one has considered how unsanitary these little rooms are. There are never sinks to wash hands in toilette rooms. One has to exit the room, contaminating the door handle and everything else on the way to sink which could well be many yards away.
Typically, the Master suit is equal to the square footage of 31/2 secondary bedrooms. Here is a ghetto within a home already in a ghetto. The master and spouse (its never called a Mistress's suit) are isolated form the other persons in their home. Huge rooms are filled with entertainment centers, computer stations and exercise machines, solely for the Master's use. Some suits include a study accessible only from the bedroom suite. A newer trend even has kitchenette's in the Master suit. This way the master needn't share any activities with his minions, not even breakfast.
Make no mistake; these homes have a clear hierarchy. There are features for the whole group to share ( usually one of each). One Bathroom, one media room, one kitchen and one dining space. But these rooms seldom allow for the same square footage per person as is available to the Master And NO spaces, save tiny bedrooms, are designated as off bounds to the Master.
Parents are separated form their families as if by quarantine. Children grow up with a fractured and elitist views of their homes. It is noteworthy that in an era when our definition of family is more inclusive then ever ,we have homes designed like slave plantations.
Thursday, June 26, 2003
Nally-nally gazump-gazunder.
I have this esteemed colleague see. He’s pretty smart, even just maybe smarter than me. Maybe, and only just. One thing he has is an astronomically huge vocabulary. This guy can spew out 10 or 15 words in the coarse of a conversation you’d swear you’d never heard before, and they’d all be English words!
I love words and my colleague’s very good about telling me what these mystery words mean and correcting me when I use the wrong word or pronunciation.
I don’t like to gloat. I’d rather sit quietly at home knowing I’m correct about something or jealously holding onto information. That’s not true either, I love to share but this is different. This time I believe I may have a word my esteemed colleague doesn’t know! If he (or any other friend who knows my e-mail) can give me a good approximate meaning of the following word without googling or dictionarying I will remove my shirt at the Gay Pride Parade this weekend .(Trying to watch my calories so I wont be eating that shirt) .
I know my colleague will not deceive me and run to his reference books. He is not a lair. None of my friends are. So I’m lucky in a couple ways today. I know two new words and I know my friends don’t lie.
The words:
GAZUMP past tense GAZUMPED also as a verb GAZUMPING.
Think you know that word? Try GAZUNDER.
I have this esteemed colleague see. He’s pretty smart, even just maybe smarter than me. Maybe, and only just. One thing he has is an astronomically huge vocabulary. This guy can spew out 10 or 15 words in the coarse of a conversation you’d swear you’d never heard before, and they’d all be English words!
I love words and my colleague’s very good about telling me what these mystery words mean and correcting me when I use the wrong word or pronunciation.
I don’t like to gloat. I’d rather sit quietly at home knowing I’m correct about something or jealously holding onto information. That’s not true either, I love to share but this is different. This time I believe I may have a word my esteemed colleague doesn’t know! If he (or any other friend who knows my e-mail) can give me a good approximate meaning of the following word without googling or dictionarying I will remove my shirt at the Gay Pride Parade this weekend .(Trying to watch my calories so I wont be eating that shirt) .
I know my colleague will not deceive me and run to his reference books. He is not a lair. None of my friends are. So I’m lucky in a couple ways today. I know two new words and I know my friends don’t lie.
The words:
GAZUMP past tense GAZUMPED also as a verb GAZUMPING.
Think you know that word? Try GAZUNDER.
Saturday, June 21, 2003
Broken Myths
A perfectly lovely Saturday night at the Black Eagle for my esteemed colleague and me . There may have been fog that night, there has been so much fog lately. There was definitely a full moon casting a cool glow on the warm smile of a very big fella. We dubbed this big sexy man ‘220’ guessing he was something over 200 pounds.
Upstairs, outside on the portion of the patio not covered by a smelly canvas tent, while causally tracking ‘220‘ we were approached by an Eagle staffer with a clipboard in hand (a pretty good indication we were about to be enlisted in some special event or other).
“Its Crisco arm-wrestling tonight. Interested?” The Eagler asks.
I had to tell him. No choice in the matter.
I have a friend who, while arm-wrestling with work buddies, snapped his upper arm (humorous) pretty much in half. This was a serious injury requiring surgery, steel pins and months of recuperation and therapy. It seemed such a freakish accident. How could one not sense that his arm was about to snap?. Was he drunk at the time? No. Was there some kind of underlying bone condition? Nothing there either. Have you ever heard of an innocent arm wrestling contest resulting in broken bones? Me either. But it did happen.
So I told the guy with the clipboard the story of my friend. He may have thought I was telling tales. I even quipped that I hopped the bar had good insurance. I wish I had made a bigger fuss. I wish my friend’s story was believed.
My esteemed colleague and I didn’t bother watching the Crisco Arm Wrestling event. I couldn’t bare the anxiety: waiting to hear the loud ’crack’, yelling out something dramatic like “ Oh no! Not again, not AGAIN!” before any bones actually broke. I’m so glad we didn’t watch. I’m SO glad we didn’t watch.
Nonchalantly searching for ‘220’ brought the two of us downstairs to scene of the event.
There sprawled on some kind of chair was a large, young, well built lad with ice packs on his arm. I paused. My mouth, I’m sure, was agape. I was so angry and felt so awful for this brave lad who would soon being enduring pain and terrible discomfort. He had not heard the broken arm story . At that moment he appeared to be in shock. He barley moved except to painfully stretch a half smile across his washed out face. Clearly some bone in his arm had broken.
Some terd kept offering the guy a beer. After ensuring an ambulance was on the way my colleague and went back upstairs to the Eagle’s fabulous open window overlooking Gay Street where we had a too-good view of the ambulance when it arrived. As our brave victim was being carried to the wagon, cringing at every bump along the way, another onlooker commented on the freakishness of this sort of accident.
I had to tell him. No choice in the matter.
So I recounted my friend’s sad tale yet again. This time, however, the response was
“That’s just an urban myth.”
Terd # 2. Why do gay men always need to engage in pissing contests with each other? Didn’t the fact that some OTHER poor sod had just broken HIS arm make my friend’s story more credible? I realized as the ambulance drove away that all major events in our gay lives become first dramas, then myths. We convey our myths to one another as a form of entertainment, which makes each telling of each myth less and less credible.
I realize the risk in writing down this broken arm within a broken arm tale. I realize it may not be believed. I realize it may be entertaining or be catapulted even farther into the domain of myth. But I had to tell you. No choice in the matter.
A perfectly lovely Saturday night at the Black Eagle for my esteemed colleague and me . There may have been fog that night, there has been so much fog lately. There was definitely a full moon casting a cool glow on the warm smile of a very big fella. We dubbed this big sexy man ‘220’ guessing he was something over 200 pounds.
Upstairs, outside on the portion of the patio not covered by a smelly canvas tent, while causally tracking ‘220‘ we were approached by an Eagle staffer with a clipboard in hand (a pretty good indication we were about to be enlisted in some special event or other).
“Its Crisco arm-wrestling tonight. Interested?” The Eagler asks.
I had to tell him. No choice in the matter.
I have a friend who, while arm-wrestling with work buddies, snapped his upper arm (humorous) pretty much in half. This was a serious injury requiring surgery, steel pins and months of recuperation and therapy. It seemed such a freakish accident. How could one not sense that his arm was about to snap?. Was he drunk at the time? No. Was there some kind of underlying bone condition? Nothing there either. Have you ever heard of an innocent arm wrestling contest resulting in broken bones? Me either. But it did happen.
So I told the guy with the clipboard the story of my friend. He may have thought I was telling tales. I even quipped that I hopped the bar had good insurance. I wish I had made a bigger fuss. I wish my friend’s story was believed.
My esteemed colleague and I didn’t bother watching the Crisco Arm Wrestling event. I couldn’t bare the anxiety: waiting to hear the loud ’crack’, yelling out something dramatic like “ Oh no! Not again, not AGAIN!” before any bones actually broke. I’m so glad we didn’t watch. I’m SO glad we didn’t watch.
Nonchalantly searching for ‘220’ brought the two of us downstairs to scene of the event.
There sprawled on some kind of chair was a large, young, well built lad with ice packs on his arm. I paused. My mouth, I’m sure, was agape. I was so angry and felt so awful for this brave lad who would soon being enduring pain and terrible discomfort. He had not heard the broken arm story . At that moment he appeared to be in shock. He barley moved except to painfully stretch a half smile across his washed out face. Clearly some bone in his arm had broken.
Some terd kept offering the guy a beer. After ensuring an ambulance was on the way my colleague and went back upstairs to the Eagle’s fabulous open window overlooking Gay Street where we had a too-good view of the ambulance when it arrived. As our brave victim was being carried to the wagon, cringing at every bump along the way, another onlooker commented on the freakishness of this sort of accident.
I had to tell him. No choice in the matter.
So I recounted my friend’s sad tale yet again. This time, however, the response was
“That’s just an urban myth.”
Terd # 2. Why do gay men always need to engage in pissing contests with each other? Didn’t the fact that some OTHER poor sod had just broken HIS arm make my friend’s story more credible? I realized as the ambulance drove away that all major events in our gay lives become first dramas, then myths. We convey our myths to one another as a form of entertainment, which makes each telling of each myth less and less credible.
I realize the risk in writing down this broken arm within a broken arm tale. I realize it may not be believed. I realize it may be entertaining or be catapulted even farther into the domain of myth. But I had to tell you. No choice in the matter.
