Articles on men and manhood

Freud was the real villain of men -- the father of the modern anti-man

2011-03-10T23:35:00.000+05:30

Heterosexuality Is Unnatural, no matter what Sex Essentialists say

What follows is a book review from Achille's Heel: The Radical Men's Magazine

The Invention of Heterosexuality by Jonathan Ned Katz

Twelve years ago, Gore Vidal asserted that "there is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person. There are only homo- or hetero acts." He repeats this hypothesis in an argumentative foreword to Ned Katz's book. But Katz seeks to dig deeper than this and questions the assumptions that lead us to divide people, acts, relationships and feelings into binary opposites. Starting with the first appearance in the United States of the word hetero-sexual, in 1893, he shows how it has moved from its original medical definition to its use in describing "normal", different-sex eroticism.

The original definition is important in the argument that Katz develops. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, attempts were made to identify and name various deviations from the procreative norm. "Hetero-sexuality" described one type of non-procreative perversion involving different-sex desire. Erotic attraction was seen as a healthy sexual instinct when procreation was its aim, but not if it involved only the satisfaction of lustful impulses. It was these drives and impulses that were taken up by Freud, from 1905 onwards, in the development of his theories of sexuality.

It is difficult to imagine a time before knowledge of the powerful concepts and images that Freud put before us. Katz shows how the presumption of a predominantly male, heterosexual norm pervaded Freud's writing, creating an assumption of the biological and historical roots of the hetero/homo divide. In a similar way, Freud displaced the procreative norm and replaced it with the concept of sexual libido and its satisfaction.

In terms of individual development, the choice of sexual object (same- or opposite-sex) was not fixed or restricted, but Freud made it clear that a heterosexual outcome would be both normal and preferred. Homosexuality is seen as "fixated" and "immature" and an undesirable developmental outcome. This impression of an essential, historical and biological truth focussed negative attention on abnormal homosexuality. More importantly, it directed attention away from the heterosexual norm. Katz invites us to check the relative invisibility of discourse on heterosexuality by browsing the indices of relevant seminal texts. As an example, he cites the standard index to Freud's complete works. This contains only one reference to heterosexuality but more than a column of references to homosexuality. Katz goes on to show how heterosexuality grew rapidly from a preferred developmental outcome into a universal, cultural norm. He places Gore Vidal's distinction between persons and acts as post-Kinsey in that Alfred Kinsey's research, reported in "Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male" (1948), described a range of behaviour and practice that did not fit neatly into exclusively homo- or heterocategories.

In the same decade, the words "gay" and "straight" were being used as descriptions of sexual identity, with "straight" meaning "not homosexual". The concept of a gay or lesbian identity and the growth of identity politics have been instrumental in affirming the feelings and lifestyles of those who are glad to be gay. Ned Katz recognises the importance of this movement, but is pessimistic about its potential in the breaking down of the heterosexual norm.

Acceptance of genetically-determined sexual orientation is compared with similar biological "evidence" used to justify the practices of slavery, racism and sexism. Rather than argue on these grounds, he sees a way forward, through a focus on what is held in common and not through an emphasis on what makes us different from each other. His model for this is based on challenges to the dominant male, heterosexual culture posed by liberal, radical and lesbian feminists since the early 1960s. Katz draws together the strands of a feminist de-construction of heterosexuality, from Betty Friedan's dissatisfaction with arbitrary sexual designations, placing limits on women's potential, to Adrienne Rich's explicit criticism, in the early 1980s, of institutionalised heterosexuality.

Katz looks forward to a time when homo- and hetero- distinctions will become redundant. As Lisa Duggan points out in her afterword, this is bound to make some readers uncomfortable, if not downright hostile.

Conservative "essentialists" will perceive an attack against the institutions of marriage and the family. On the other hand, those working for lesbian and gay rights may feel that their position is undermined and that it is better to argue for equality on the basis of gains already made. Katz and Duggan both suggest that an acceptance of "difference" can lead, at best, to a state of tolerance, whereas true equality can only come if we "change the notion that heterosexuality is normal for the vast majority of people, and shift social, cultural and political practices based on that assumption".

Ned Katz's main aim in this book is to focus attention and to encourage debate on the problem of heterosexuality. In this respect, he has produced a valuable resource. "The Invention of Heterosexuality" distils almost fifteen years of discussion, research and writing. It contains a wealth of notes and references that will provide an excellent platform for further study. But, above all, this is an essential read and a fascinating journey through the sexual politics of the 20th century.

Andrew Martin

Copyright © Achilles Heel Collective

Male Take: When He Can't Get An Erection

2011-03-08T14:00:00.001+05:30

No erection? What to say when he can't get it up.

By Jack Murnighan

It happens to the best of men: arousal but no lift... interest but no erection. When a man can't get it up, the experience for him and his partner falls somewhere between awkward and utterly mortifying—I've even heard of men not calling women back because they were so ashamed of their inability to keep things on the up and up.
Because men are so sensitive about it, and because it's about as embarrassing a moment as he can experience, it puts the woman in a really tough spot. Of course you just want to say, "Honey, is there something I can do to help?" But in some cases, that's exactly what he doesn't want to hear. He's thinking, "No, I'm just dying from the pressure here, and the last thing I want you to do is even notice, much less try to help!"
Even worse is if you say, "Is there something wrong?" or "Are you okay?"—because, yes, there obviously is something wrong (you don't have to remind me!) and, no, I'm clearly not OK; I'm flaccid!
So what can a woman say or do when her man can't rev up the engines? Here are a few possibilities (but know that any one of these can backfire, too, depending on the circumstances). But, in order of most likely to go over well, here are five things you can say to help make the best of the situation:
1) Don't worry, honey. It happens to all guys.
Granted, he might wonder how much experience you have (some guys like to pretend it's your first time—I think they're silly), but at least he won't feel like he's the only loser on the planet. Misery sure does love company.
2) We'll just touch for now—I love that.
This way he can feel like he's still giving you a decent experience, and it's possible that gentle, relaxed, not-trying-to-start-anything touching will eventually bring him around. I'd advise steering clear of his penis, though, at least until it starts showing life on its own. If you touch it, he might think you're trying again, and his guilt and feelings of failure can get in the way.
3) You know what? It happens to me sometimes, too.
Guys might not realize that, sometimes, women don't get wet, even though they're aroused. Letting him know that it's a human thing, not just a flaw with his equipment, will help ease his mind.
Yes, this is pretty close to "Is there something I can do to help?" but the difference is in the approach. Asking what you can do implies there's a problem that needs fixing; asking if he wants something allows him to either articulate his needs or ignore your question. Still, this tactic is a bit risky, as he might feel as if you're disappointed with him. Sometimes, however, changing things up a little will put him in the right headspace and back on track. Just be careful when and how you ask.
Note that in all of these cases, the thing you need to make clear is that you're not mad at him, frustrated or mocking him for not being able to get an erection (or for having lost one).
And remember: You shouldn't take his present condition personally. Trust me, a guy can have performance anxiety simply because he likes you a ton and is trying too hard to make you happy! Or: he could have something else on his mind; some odd thing may have triggered his response; he may have had a lot to drink... any number of other things could be happening that have nothing to do with you or whether you're sexy. If it becomes chronic, there may be a more significant issue at work. But an isolated case or two—or jitters during the first few times you're together—is nothing to take as a bad sign. Male Take: How To Tell If A Guy Likes You
So once you have a handle on not taking it personally, help him realize that he shouldn't take it personally, either. He probably thinks his inability to maintain an erection reflects on his whole identity, so make sure he understands that you know it's a fluke, and no big deal.
Finally, keep in mind that men are a lot more complicated than they're given credit for. It might seem as if they're like light switches—easily turned on—but there's a brain involved, and that can be a wildcard. And when a man does have troubles, he really is at his most vulnerable. So careful what you say and do. He's ultra-exposed—in every way imaginable.

Greek studs: a Foucauldian sideways glance at Aristotle's package

2011-02-19T13:31:00.002+05:30

Ye of little sex rejoice: for at least some of the ancient Greeks, there wasn't anything less virile than screwing around.

Michel Foucault's History of Sexuality spans a wide variety of topics, examining ancient to contemporary Western discourse on the sexual act. Specifically, it examines the origin of what we know today as "sexuality": a biological, psychological, and historical area of study that has been delineated as somehow above or apart from the rest of human activity. How and why did the canon of "proper behavior" in Western society place not only the sexual act, but constant discussion and definition of the sexual act, at the core of its being? Volume 2: The Use of Pleasure reviews ancient Greek texts on the erotic, dietetics, and other subjects to give perspective on the origins of "sexuality" by examining aphrodisia - the latter not particularly synonymous with the former, as difference in respective ideas of "virility" show.

Anyone with a passing knowledge of Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics digs his focus on virtue through "moderation". (That's sōphrosynē to you classicists.) In between two given behavioral extremes, there's always a mean in between that the virtuous man follows (although it usually ain't the median between the two). So what quality did the virtuous man have that allowed him to more-or-less tread the moderate path?

"Mastery" (enkrateia), in short. In order for a man to be virtuous, his rational faculties had to hold sway over his sensual inclinations: he had to be a "ruler" (archontas) and not "ruled" (archomenous) in relation to himself, just like Plato's hierarchy. Now, the blatant sexism in that last sentence is intentional - in fact, it's key to the whole process here. When we're talking virtue in ancient Greece, we're talking about men. Whether that's being a good citizen of the polis, a kick-ass Athenian general, or even a wise slave of the Stoic sort, it means being manly. Enkrateia was (in addition to being the power of a king over a subject or a lord over a slave) the same sort of "mastery" that a man had over his wife and household, and that the "top" in a sexual encounter had over the "bottom".

This isn't to say that virtue wasn't expected of women or that they couldn't have enkrateia or sōphrosynē, but that "this virtue was always referred in some way to virility. . .there was also a structural reference, since in order for a woman to be moderate, she had to establish a relationship of superiority and domination over herself that was virile by definition." (Foucault, p. 83) A virtuous woman was a manly woman, in the womanly fashion of being manly. (That make sense? Good.) The way Greek morality seems to be ordered, no matter whether one was "ruler" or "ruled" in relation to Athens, one was obligated to set up the same hierarchy inside oneself with one's rationality at the top. You had to kick your own inner ass - and make all those worrisome inclinations towards the extreme (quite literally) your bitch.

Now, aphrodisia (remember Aphrodite?) was subject to one of these dichotomies and had a moderate mean to follow. (It must be stressed that this wasn't particularly parallel to sexual virtue as a later, Christian concept: the exercise of all virtue was dependent on individual situations, and whether it was virtuous to freak nasty or not could even depend on whether you planned on taking your supper late that evening.) The mean in question was between being completely desensitized to erotic and sensory pleasure (something that Aristotle admitted to be extremely rare) and its opposite: chasing every tail that wagged your way, and sometimes a few that didn't.

That means that if you were prone (like a great many of the contemporaries of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle) to all sorts of wacky sexual adventures, even with women, you weren't particularly virile. In fact, you vere a vussy girly man, ja! Of course many folks would have the inclination to stick it in wherever they saw an opening; what made you a virile master of yourself, and thus a virtuous person, was to know when to go at it and when to let it be. What this meant for ancient Greek sexual ethics was manifest in its differences with modern ideas about being masculine or effeminate.

The dividing line between a virile man and an effeminate man did not coincide with our opposition between hetero- and homosexuality; nor was it confined to the opposition between active and passive homosexuality. It marked the difference in people's attitudes toward the pleasures, and the traditional signs of effeminacy. . .were not necessarily associated with the individual who in the nineteenth century would be called an "invert", but with the one who yielded to the pleasures that enticed him: he was under the power of his own appetites and those of others." (Foucault, p. 85)
If you were a pretty boy favoring ostentatious dress and perfumery, if you didn't like to participate in suitably manly sports, if you were prone to malakia ("softness" in the sense of being unmanly, but also associated with disease and sickness), then it was just as likely that you were hounding the ladies as it was that you were hyperactively homosexual. What you were doing was failing to be a man to yourself by not standing up to the ways your body was likely to lead you astray, and that tended, in the Greek mind, to manifest itself in the way you talked, how healthy you were, how successful you were at raising children, and so on. If your inner hierarchy was a shambles, it was likely to show in how well you acted out your role in the hierarchy of Athens and the rest of the external world.

These ideas led to a lot of conclusions that were seemingly alien, and yet very related, to later Christian ways of looking at sex and society. Medieval thinkers often looked to the pure and innocent virgin young woman as the epitome of sexual morality. Such a person without sin would have nothing to confess, and was thus free of taint in the Church's eyes. There's a reason why Sir Galahad was raised by women into a virginal lifestyle and thus was able to get his hands around the Holy Grail, while Dear Daddy, the ultra-masculine womanizer and beloved friend to the rough-and-tumble Knights of the Round Table, had to kneel at the entrance to that sacred Mass. Yet Christianity's association of constant sexual self-control with power above that of one's fellow man is at least akin to enkrateia, if far more demanding of restraint. Its means of dealing with sex as a discourse of guilt and confession to God through the Church is also heavily related to the medical and social dedication of Greek texts to aphrodisia as at least one physical aspect of his life where a man could display virtue.

And, of course, to the Greeks, practice made perfect (hence some Athenian philosophers' admiration of brutal Spartan child-rearing practices designed to make young men into young soldiers). Mastering the genitalia was a lot like mastering an instrument, or rhetoric, or a certain sport: that is, you pursued virtue in that field as a unique individual, making some mistakes and trying your best while (if you were wise) learning as you went. The right amount, method, and partner(s) in one's sexual life had to be gauged independently through "growing experiences", as we say nowadays. So while Aristotle might not think that all those letters to Penthouse about how you slept with four Roller Derby sex goddesses at once made you a big virile hunk o' man, he could at least be content that you'd gained some valuable insight into who'd be in your motel room the next time around.

Brim job, Bro job

2010-12-10T13:59:00.000+05:30

Source: Urbandictionary.com

6.
brimjob
8 up, 1 down
buy brimjob mugs, tshirts and magnets
An accidental situation in which the tongue of one completely heterosexual male encounters directly and/or indirectly with an anus of another completely heterosexual male. Drinking heavily may increase the odds that this freak occurrence may take place. A derivative of the word brojob, this is also an action associated with all male activities to include feats of strength, masculinity, intelligence, and male dominance.
Dan: Chris,... dude, look up the definition of brimjob,... heterosexual males...we're in the clear. Chris: Oh, dodged that bullet, we're good. But what if I liked it?...
brojob rimjob accident heterosexual blowjob anal masculinity bro dominance alpha male by P4PerTh1N, StrahbrryShake Dec 8, 2008 share this

2010-12-10T13:56:00.000+05:30

Source: Urbandictionary.com

heterosexual i.d.

buy heterosexual i.d. mugs, tshirts and magnets
A theoretical form of identification issued to heterosexuals (mostly males) which can be revoked if the person acts sufficiently "gay". This doesnt really apply to people who know they're gay, because they wouldnt want the ID.
"Dude if you touch his balls one more time i'm gonna have to revoke your heterosexual i.d. card.
gaydar heterosexual gay homosexual poop by Notorious R.E.D. Feb 4, 2007 share this

Heterosexual man barrier

2010-12-10T13:53:00.001+05:30

Source: urbandictionary.com

3.
heterosexual man barrier
16 up, 18 down
buy heterosexual man barrier mugs, tshirts and magnets
A long pillow used to lay over and weigh down the sheets between two straight males sharing a double bed. A heterosexual man barrier is set up to help prevent accidental contact during sleep. comonly used in combination with the stager sheet sleep method.
The two boys were afraid to sleep in the same double bed without the aid of a heterosexual man barrier.
heterosexual man barrier sleep bed by Action Steve May 23, 2006 share this

Favor Exchange

2010-12-10T13:45:00.003+05:30

Source: Urbandictionary.com
1.
Favor Exchange
30 up, 21 down
buy favor exchange mugs, tshirts and magnets
A Favor Exhange occurs when two or more heterosexual males exchange sexual favors. A Sexual Favor could include, but not limited too: handjob, blowjob, or anal sex. This is completely Not romantic in anyway and is Not considered to be homosexual. This term is what many men want to ask for in other men, but are too ashamed to ask due to the fear of bieng labeled a homosexual. Most men have performed a Favor Exhange in one form or anouther at some point in there lives, but are too ashamed to admit it.
Dude1: "Hay Dude, you want to Exhange Favors?" Dude2: "You mean a Favor Exchange?" Dude1: "Yea" Dude2: "Well, since niether one of us are gay, I guess we can, what did you have in mind?" Dude1: "Well, If I suck you, will you suck me?" Dude2: "Sure, lets do it."
favor exchange favor heterosexual males sexual favor sexual favors handjob blowjob anal sex not gay not romantic not homosexual guys guys night in suck mutual masturbation circle jerk masterbation hand sex sexual two guys 2 guys group sex guys night out faver exchange beating the monkey faver spanking the monkey jacking off jerking off by David Baldwin Feb 14, 2006 share this
2.
Favor Exchange
1 up, 8 down
buy favor exchange mugs, tshirts and magnets
n. A Favor Exhange occurs when two or more heterosexual males exchange sexual favors. A Sexual Favor could include, but not limited too: handjob, blowjob, or anal sex. This is completely Not romantic in anyway and is Not considered to be homosexual. This term is what many men want to ask for in other men, but are too ashamed to ask due to the fear of bieng labeled a homosexual. Most men have performed a Favor Exhange in one form or anouther at some point in there lives, but are too ashamed to admit it.
Dude1: "Hay Dude, you want to Exhange Favors?" Dude2: "You mean a Favor Exchange?" Dude1: "Yea" Dude2: "Well, since niether one of us are gay, I guess we can, what did you have in mind?" Dude1: "Well, If I suck you, will you suck me?" Dude2: "Sure, lets do it."
favor exchange heterosexual males sexual faver favors handjob blowjob anal guys suck mutual masturbation circle jerk hand sex group jacking jerking by David Baldwin Feb 17, 2006 share this

Homosexuality and the Ancient Greeks

2010-11-09T03:05:00.003+05:30

Note: Reclaiming Natural Masculinity is strictly against the use of the term 'homosexual' to describe sexual or romantic relationships between masculine gendered males, whether in the past or present, because of the 'third gender' origin and association of this term.

"The noble lover of beauty engages in love wherever he sees excellence and splendid natural endowment without regard for any difference in physiological detail." - Plutarch {1}

The ancient Greeks are widely known for their homosexual exploits. Many ordinary people are aware of Greek homosexual love poetry, the same-sex relations of Greek gods and heroes, and the homosexual relationship between Alexander the Great and Hephaestion.

This is only a recent development. Until the second half of the 20th century, historians avoided saying much about the sexuality of the ancient Greeks out of sense of propriety. In 1901, an English classicist named John Addington Symonds published A Problem in Greek Ethics addressing homosexuality in Ancient Greece, but it was provided only to "medical psychologists and jurists" and the number of copies was intended to remain under 100. {2}

The first major treatment of ancient Greek homosexuality in English was Greek Homosexuality by K.J. Dover, published in 1978.

By contrast, ancient Greek homosexuality is now a popular topic, and those who argue for full acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle regularly appeal to these practices and attitudes of the widely-respected ancient Greeks.

However, the practices of the ancient Greeks differ significantly from those generally advocated by moderns. Greek homosexual practices involved beautiful expressions of love and devotion, but were also firmly embedded in their culture of social status and therefore had distinct limitations.

Forms and Prevalence of Homosexuality in Ancient Greece

Homosexual relationships seem to have been prevalent in ancient Greece. It is possible Achilles and Patroclus of Homer's Iliad were icons of male homosexuality. Aristotle stated that the Cretans encouraged homosexuality as a population controller on the island community in his Politics. {3}

Greek poets wrote of same-sex love and notable philosophers and writers such as Plato, Xenophon, Plutarch, and pseudo-Lucian discussed the topic. Plato is quoted as commenting:

Homosexuality is regarded as shameful by barbarians and by those who live under despotic governments just as philosophy is regarded as shameful by them, because it is apparently not in the interest of such rulers to have great ideas engendered in their subjects, or powerful friendships or passionate love-all of which homosexuality is particularly apt to produce. {4}
Tragedies on the theme became popular, and Aristophanes made comical theater about sexual relationships between males. Vases portray numerous homoerotic relationships and hundreds of inscriptions celebrate the love of youths. Famous politicians, warriors, artists, and writers are believed to have had homosexual relationships. {5}

Diogenes Laeurtius wrote of Alcibiades, the Athenian general and politician of the 5th century BC, "in his adolescence he drew away the husbands from their wives, and as a young man the wives from their husbands." {6}

Similarly, a character in Plutarch's Erotikos (Dialogue on Love) proclaims, "the noble lover of beauty engages in love wherever he sees excellence and splendid natural endowment without regard for any difference in physiological detail." {7}

Physicians casually commented that pleasure between men was more tiring. {8} Only a few examples of apparent same-sex exclusivity are known in ancient Greece, among which are Alexander the Great and Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism.

The form of homosexuality that was most common in ancient Greece was pederasty, meaning a relationship between an adult man and a male youth. For the Greeks, pederasty was more than a sexual pasttime or preference - it was nearly a social institution. A same-sex relationship between an older man, probably in his 20s or 30s, known as the erastes, and a beardless boy, the eromenos or paidika, became a cultural ideal. The relationship was regarded as mutually beneficial, as the older man would educate, protect, love, and provide a role model for his lover, while the eromenos offered his partner with beauty, youth, admiration, and love. {9}

The relationship began with a courtship ritual, involving gifts and other norms, and the erastes was to demonstrate that he had nobler interests in the boy rather than a purely sexual concern. The boy was not to submit too easily, and if pursued by more than one man, was to show discretion and pick the more noble one.

There is evidence that penetration was often avoided by having the erastes face his beloved and place his penis between the thighs of the eromenos, which is known as intercrural sex. The relationship was to be temporary and should end upon the boy reaching adulthood. {10}

Another common form of homosexuality in classical Greece originated in the symposion, an aristocratic male drinking group. Guests reclined on couches in front of low tables laid with light snacks and a mildly alcoholic water-wine mixture.

The wine was poured by young male or female slaves, often chosen for their beauty. There were games, entertainments performed by the slaves, speeches, and conversations. The evening often ended with a drunken riot through the streets.

According to the Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World, the symposion was the main reason for the importance of homosexuality in ancient Greece, as it became the focus of expressions of love, sex, and liaisons both physical and spiritual.

Homosexual liaisons occured both between drinkers and with slave boys, and the "idealization of these emotions inspired some of the highest expressions of love in European literature." {11}

Views of Homosexuality in Ancient Greece

In ancient Greece, same-sex romantic and sexual attractions were often regarded as a matter of taste or preferance rather than a moral issue. However, social status was of utmost importance, as was the differentiation between the active and passive roles in male homosexuality.

Given that only free adult men had full social status, women and male slaves were not problematic sexual partners. Sex between freemen, however, was problematic for status. The central distinction in ancient Greek sexual relations was between taking an active or insertive role, versus a passive or penetrated one. The passive role was acceptable only for inferiors, such as women, slaves, or male youths who were not yet citizens. Terms for the passive role were muliebria pati, "to submit to what is done to women" and aselgainein, "to defile oneself." The active role in Greek was hubrizein, "to exert force upon another." {12}

For these reasons, the pederasty described above became the ideal form of homosexual relationships. A free male youth was a more noble partner than a male slave (and perhaps more than a woman as well) because he could be from a noble family and would eventually become a free citizen.

But it also avoided homosexual sex between equals, which was problematic for reasons of status: if two adult citizens were to engage in homosexual activity, the one who played the passive role would lose respect. Women and slaves had no respect to worry about losing, and it appears that a male citzen who had been an eromenos in his youth lost no respect for it - in fact a history with a noble partner could be an honor - but he was expected to take the active role (whether with a women or a man) now that he had become an adult.

One important passage from ancient Greece that speaks against homosexuality is Plato's Laws 636c. Here the character of the Athenian stranger rejects homosexual behavior as "unnatural" (para physin), describes it as an "enormity" or "crime" (tolmema), and attributes it to "unbridled lust." Opinions are divided as to whether this is Plato's own belief, and whether it applies to homosexuality between equals, pederasty, or both. {13}

In contrast, attraction to males and homosexual relationships in the active role with one's social inferiors was common, approved by society, and could even be regarded as a sign of masculinity. There were stories of same-sex exploits associated with Greek gods including Zeus, and other key figures in Greek myth and literature, perhaps including Achilles and Hercules. Plato, in the Symposium, argues for an army to be comprised of same-sex lovers. Thebes did form such a regiment, the Sacred Band of Thebes, formed of 500 soldiers and renowned in the ancient world for their valor in battle. {14}

References
Plutarch, Dialogue on Love, 146.
Introduction to the online text by Sacred Texts Internet Archive.
According to "Homosexuality in ancient Greece," Wikipedia, as accessed October 2005.
Quoted by John Boswell in "The Church and the Homosexual: An Historical Perspective" (1979).
"Homosexuality in ancient Greece," Wikipedia, as accessed October 2005.
Quoted in Greenberg, David F., The Construction of Homosexuality (University of Chicago Press, 1988), p. 144.
Dialogue on Love 146, quoted in "Homosexuality," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, August 2002.
Bowersock, Brown and Grabar, eds., Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World (Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 496.
Dover, K.J., Greek Homosexuality (Harvard University Press, 1989, as summarized in "Homosexuality," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, August 2002).
Ibid.
John Boardman et al, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World, 1986, pp. 225-226.
Bowersock, Brown and Grabar, eds., Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World (Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 496.
See for instance "In the Case of Martha Nussbaum."
"Homosexuality," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, August 2002.
Further Reading
A Problem in Greek Ethics - Full online text of 1901 book by by John Addington Symonds on Greek homosexuality, at the Sacred Texts Internet Archive.
Foucault, Michel, The History of Sexuality. Volume One: An Introduction. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books, 1980.
Halperin, David M., One Hundred Years of Homosexuality: and Other Essays on Greek Love. New York: Routledge, 1990.
Plato, The Symposium.
Plato, The Laws
Eva Cantarella, trans. Cormac O'Cuilleanain, Bisexuality in the Ancient World (Yale University Press, 1992).

2010-11-09T00:07:00.001+05:30

xxxxx

Men in westernized societies far too likely to commit suicide

2010-09-18T17:04:00.001+05:30

Suicide: Top 10 Cause of Death in U.S Men

Posted Jun 04 2009 10:33pm 1 Comment

The news of David Carradine’s death ( David Carradine Dead From Apparent Suicide ) might have not registered with me had I not read of his cause of death, reportedly by hanging. That’s how my brother took his life four years ago.

Did you know that suicide is the number 8 cause in the United States for death among men? They make up 80% of total suicide deaths. For women, it’s the 17th most common reason for death. Women do make more attempts (60%), but men use more violent and “sure” ways of dying, which makes them more likely to die from their attempt.

For men, using a gun is the most common method of suicide - 11.2 out of 100,000, while it only happens in 1.5/100,000 women. The second most common in men is suffocation (including hanging), followed by poisoning. For women, the most common cause is poisoning. These statistics were taken from the Suicide Prevention Resource Center.

Questions

While we don’t know the circumstances around Mr. Carradine’s death, if you’ve ever known someone who has committed suicide, you know that their death leaves behind many questions. Did anyone notice anything? Could I have done something? Should I have done something? Why didn’t he say something?

If I learned anything through my experience it’s that asking these questions don’t do anything because the one person who could answer them is no longer with us.

Going through with it

A social worker told me something interesting after JP died. She said that for most, the actual suicide isn’t the first time he or she wanted to do it. She explained that JP probably had planned this before but got interrupted or something stopped him from following through. Who knows? Maybe he got a phone call, thought of something, and then didn’t go through it that particular day - only to do it another one, the day he did die.

Is is surprising that so many men successfully end their lives? I don’t think so. I don’t think it’s surprising at all. Even in today’s society, where men are given more freedom to be who they want to be, there’s still a huge stigma attached to mental illness, including depression and anxiety. It’s much harder for a man, in general, to admit he needs help than a woman to do so. Men are expected to suck it up, hide their feelings, move on. A woman can cry all weekend after a break up, for example, but a man is expected to go out on the town, find a new partner maybe.

And sometimes, it just happens because even if the man reaches out, the system fails him. That’s what happened with my brother. He had reached out, he needed help, but the mental health system failed him. Instead, he self-medicated his pain and, given the outcome, not very successfully.

Help yourself

With Father’s day coming up, one of the best things for yourself, your own gift if you’re a father and a gift to yourself just because if you’re not, is to take care of your own mental health. Don’t let despair take over. Don’t let anxiety eat away at you. Don’t self medicate with alcohol and drugs. It doesn’t work.

If you break a leg, you get it casted. If your appendix bursts, you get it removed. If your brain is making you sick, that can be looked at and helped. Do it for you. Do it for those who love you. Do it for people like Mr. Carradine and my brother (and the 2 sons he left behind) who didn’t get the help they needed. Please.

~~~~

Importance of manhood for males: evidences from a tribal society

2010-09-04T23:26:00.002+05:30

Tribal rite robs youths of manhood

Robert Block - East London
The Sunday Times (London), p. 18, 29 December 1996

NOTE: Links with a right-facing blue arrow will take you off this site.

Sitting in loose hospital gowns, the youths looked sorry for themselves. They had reason to be. They had fallen into the hands of 'bush surgeons' who subjected them to crude circumcisions to mark their coming of age.

"...the quest for manhood has left more than 50 young Xhosa men
suffering infections and severe blood loss.
At least two have had to have their penises amputated.
Every year a number of boys dies from their injuries."

"All I wanted was to be a man," said one of the teenagers, on the verge of tears. "I'm not going to see that dream come true."

Each year doctors at Greys hospital in the Eastern Cape treat dozens of boys for horrific disfigurements inflicted during tribal circumcision ceremonies. These are usually carried out over Christmas when the youths return home on holiday from jobs in the cities.

In recent weeks the quest for manhood has left more than 50 young Xhosa men suffering infections and severe blood loss. At least two have had to have their penises amputated. Every year a number of boys dies from their injuries.

The mutilations and deaths have prompted calls for the closure of many 'initiation schools' and next month the Eastern Cape is planning to introduce the first legislation to regulate the circumcision ceremonies. The move has been attacked by traditionalists who see circumcision as an inalienable African rite of passage.

The initiation is supposed to be a joyous affair for Xhosa families and a crowning achievement in every Xhosa boy's life. President Nelson Mandela, the son of a Xhosa chief and himself the proud graduate of an initiation school, said in his autobiography: "I count my days as a man from the date of my circumcision."

Inrecent years, however, circumcisions that were once carried out by skilled elders have been performed by unscrupulous tribal practitioners for profit. Some of the victims report being operated on by men wearing balaclavas to hide their identity.

According to one study, 34 initiates died in the Eastern Cape, the poorest part of South Africa, after the operation last year. Another 13 suffered irreparable organ mutilation and 743 needed treatment of some kind for their injuries. In August, 26 boys from the region had their penises reconstructed by plastic surgeons as part of a project funded by the South African Red Cross.

"Refusal to undergo the process can result in
forfeiting the right to inherit property.
Youths who balk at the initiation are often scorned
and prevented from marrying in their area."

Traditional circumcision has always been treated as a secret part of African culture and discussion of the methods used is taboo. The ceremony is a solemn ritual supposed to make men of boys and women of girls - female circumcision is also rife in South Africa.

Refusal to undergo the process can result in forfeiting the right to inherit property. Youths who balk at the initiation are often scorned and prevented from marrying in their area.

Trudie Thomas, the Eastern Cape health and welfare officer, said the local government was not pushing for the practice to be outlawed but for traditional surgeons to be licensed.

Traditionalists reject charges that many of the bush schools' patients are doomed to abnormal sex lives or no sex lives at all. They accuse those who call for regulation of seeking to wipe out black culture. The teenagers at Greys hospital might not agree.

A more realistic categorization of male sexuality

2010-06-12T16:38:00.000+05:30

The males are not divided between 'males who like men' and 'males who like women.'

Neither is male sexuality divided between 'male sexuality for men' and 'male sexuality for women.'

If at all 'sexual orientation' needs to be configured, male sexuality is divided between:

-masculine male sexuality for men
-feminine male sexuality for men
-masculine male sexuality for women
-feminine male sexuality for women

masculine male sexuality for men and feminine male sexuality don't come into the same category. They are essentially different in nature. The masculine male meets another male as a man. The feminine male meets another male as a woman (in different degrees). When a masculine male is approached by another male, he is approached as a man. When a feminine male is approached by another male, he is approached as someone who is half-male/half-female. Only the feminine male sexuality for men calls for a separate category.

The western world knows that masculine male sexuality for women does not come into the same category as feminine male sexuality for women. So, while the former are part of the straight category, the latter are a part of the LGBT category.

The masculine male sexuality for men and the masculine male sexuality for women come into the same category of men. Instead of being divided over people, these two different forms of sexuality, in nature, form part of the same man, but during different stages. While youth is for sexual bonding between males, reproductive sex is indulged in by many mammalian males in the latter part of adulthood, often without forgoing male bonds. They are both phases a man goes through. Of course, many males do not go through the second phase, but they intensify the first one. That doesn't make these males a part of the feminine males who have the same outer sex of sexual partners.

Likewise, feminine male sexuality for women and feminine male sexuality for men forms part of the same category. In nature, only the feminine gendered male has any long term or emotional 'sexual orientation' for women. With humans, of course, there are other factors than biology that comes into play, in order to heterosexualise the non-feminine males. Feminine male sexuality for men that is exclusive is an exception rather than the rule.

It should also be noted that while masculine male sexuality for men is more oriented towards emotional and social bonding (apart from a deep sexual bonding) and so is much more monogamous and long lasting, even lifelong ... the feminine male sexuality for men (gay) is often promiscuous by nature, limited only to the physical part of it. The feminine male is more geared to form emotional and social bonds with women.

An interesting article about how manhood works

2010-06-04T18:52:00.004+05:30

Here's an interesting article on manhood:
Growth into manhood -- by Alan Medinger

The author has captured the essence of manhood on the dot, as well as the process. However, he uses it to attack what he calls 'homosexuality,' but what apparently is the third gender attraction for males.

It is exactly by driving out sexual bonding and its desire from amongst manhood spaces and male peer spaces (which otherwise thrive on strong male sexual bonds), into a separate category of 'homosexual' which is nothing but the erstwhile category of 'third genders' (not men), that the western world stigmatizes sexuality between men, and pscyho-socially forces men to train themselves to be heterosexual.

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Copyright 2000 by Alan Medinger
Excerpted by permission of the author

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Chapter One Excerpt: The Journey
Homosexuality is at its core an identity problem. Such a man does not feel like a man, at least as he perceives the way other men feel about themselves. Dr. Bill Consiglio referred to this as "gender emptiness." He doesn't feel like a woman, and he may not yet have taken on a gay or homosexual identity, but he feels empty in some place where he senses he should feel solid….In terms of having gone through all the stages of growth that take most little boys from childhood to full manhood, he found the process too difficult or too painful, so he took his leave and skipped out of a part of it….

Now, 15 , 20 or 40 years later, if you want to resume your growth, you will have to venture back out into the world of men and boys. Essentially, you are going to have to develop your manhood in the same way that young boys do, through a process of learning, testing, failing, getting back up and testing again, and finally succeeding. We grow into the fullness of manhood by doing the things that men do.

Chapter Two Excerpt: Growth Into Manhood: Essential for Healing
(The homosexual man) will not recover until behavior, attractions and identity have all been dealt with and to some extent transformed. Although his natural inclination may be to focus on behavior and attractions -- because this is where he feels the most distress -- I believe that the richest fruit will be borne in his life if he focuses most strongly (and early on) in the area of identity.

This is true for two reasons: First, identity is more amenable to direct attack than behavior or attractions….(It) can be changed significantly through a program of conscious choices and specific actions…. Second, a man's incomplete male identity is what drives and directs homosexual behavior and attractions….

With respect to attractions, the essence of sexual attraction seems to be "differences" or "otherness"… What if a man does not have the inner sense that he is a man? Will he experience attraction to a woman? Will she be his "other"? No, and this is critical. If he feels that he is not complete as a man, his first longing will be not for women but for complete manhood; he will be drawn to the masculine in other males. This will be his "other." This will be his missing rib… It follows, then, that the development of our manhood - finding completion in ourselves -- will do great things both to decrease our same-sex attractions and to start drawing us sexually to women.

Chapter Three Excerpt: The Way a Man Develops
Growth encompasses the following steps:

1. Physiological…

2. Separating from the mother: This occurs…psychologically in the boy's taking on an identity separate from his mother.

3. Identifying with the father or "the man"…

4. Modeling after or imitating the father…

5. Testing his manhood: He wants to prove that he is like his father, so he tests himself to be affirmed that he is a man like his father, seeking affirmation first from his father and then from his peers.

6. Getting affirmed: He gets feedback from his father or peers that tells him he is indeed a man.

7. Accepting his manhood: Affirmation has been sufficient for him to accept internally that he is a man.

…Identification is a far less mysterious thing than bonding, and it is something that could occur at any time, even in adulthood. Hopefully, as you are reading this book, if you have never done so before, you will come to the point at which you will say, "Aha! I am not that different from other men. I am a man, and there is no reason why I can't grow into a full sense of my manhood."

…The primary affirmer in the early years usually is Dad…In early adolescence the search for affirmation is broadened. It focuses on peers. The process is competitive and has the potential to produce some losses and some pain. For this reason many boys will seek an environment where their successes will outnumber their failures. This process almost always takes place in a group environment, and the boy will start fulfilling that strange, almost universal male longing to belong to a group of men. The combination of achieving, being affirmed, and belonging can make this a wonderful experience for a young boy.

Chapter Five Excerpt: Is It Possible for Us Now?
If the steps outlined in chapter 3 are truly necessary for growth into manhood and you skipped some of them or went through them only partially, then at some point you still have to go through them if you are ever to experience full manhood. God heals our physical, emotional, and even our spiritual brokenness, but it is safe to say, God does not heal our immaturity. He wants us to grow out of it….In one way or another, you will have to go through all of the steps that lead to full, mature manhood - separating from the mother, identifying with the father or the "man," modeling, testing my manhood, getting affirmed, accepting my manhood.

…Like a boy, we must be affirmed by men; they are the ones we still see as having the authority to affirm manhood. And like it or not, like a boy, affirmation must come from what we do.

…Manhood is formed in the company of men, and so affirmation must be sought on their terms. This clearly presents a dilemma. You may not like watching football and you may have no ability to fix cars. But a broader understanding of masculinity will expand the areas in which you can recognize and receive affirmation from men. For example, if three men in your church have decided to rebuild the fence around the church playground and they decide to ask you to join them, the very asking will be affirming. Implicit in their asking is the statement that you are one of the men.

…The primary principle of the program is also the basis of this book: We grow into manhood by doing the things that men do.

Chapter Seven Excerpt: Understanding the Masculine
The problem in the homosexual man is not that he has too much of the feminine but too little of the masculine. Can there also be too much of the feminine? Could we have too great a capacity to nurture, to communicate, to understand, too great an ability to respond and help? No, any man who has a surplus of these things is blessed and is likely to be a blessing to others. Maybe in your homosexual struggles you have thought that you are too sensitive, too verbal, too intuitive. I don't think you can be. Look at yourself again. Do these qualities make your life difficult? Are they what hold you back from getting on with your life? I doubt it. Isn't it your inability to initiate, to exercise authority, to function as you are expected to do in the physical world of men that give you such distress?

…This is not the only problem at the root of male homosexuality, and I am not saying that it is present in every struggler, but it has been in most of the men whom I have encountered in this ministry over the last 20 years.

The good news -- the really great news -- is that it is not too late to develop the masculine part of you….

2010-06-04T18:52:00.001+05:30

.....

Evidence that manhood equals heterosexual sex in the west, even today

2010-06-04T13:32:00.001+05:30

By: Matthew Bruner

As a child of the '70's now with three young sons of my own, I have been asking this question……"when does a boy cross that line and become a man"? I find myself thinking often about my own sons and the men they will someday be. I think about my influence on them as a father, and then compare their lives to my own childhood. I look back through my history and think about the men who were coaches, mentors, and fathers in my life that helped push me across that line into manhood.

Boys need men in their lives. Women obviously play a role that is irreplaceable in a boy's adolescent experience. However, there is something that can only be imparted from another man….something that despite all of men's weaknesses and flaws can only come through a male figure. It is for that reason that I look at our culture and challenge the parameters of responsible adulthood and the definition we have given for maturity and manhood. I suggest that we have lost our definition of manhood and thus lost the pathway to manhood. Young men need older men in their lives to establish various 'rite of passage' opportunities that would mark the defining moments of coming into manhood.

In America we tend to look at age for the most part as the indicator for "maturity." At 13 the boy is now at least kind of a "little man", busting out of the kid years and into the teens, which in our culture means finding independence (i.e., giving your parents hell for the next 4+ years). Teens seem to view this span of 13-18 as a small stint in the teenage phase with 18 as the release into true adulthood. This is because our culture has a whole set of laws for 18 year olds and crossing this line marks some significant things.....voting, buying smokes (legally), and joining the military, to name a few. Then, there is that magic 21. Yes, this is the age when you are now not only mature enough to vote, smoke, and fight for your country but you can consume alcohol at a plethora of establishments one had to formerly sneak into. In most states 21 is that magical time when the young man should be able to drink responsibly. Oh, I almost forgot, another "man establishing" moment culturally…the loss of virginity (at an ever decreasing age I might add!).

After turning 21 there are no other big steps of maturation associated with age, with the exception of the 65 mark. This is the age when we as a culture have said, "You deserve to retire; you're old." (I am a little biased against this age defined marker as I am personally surrounded by "old" family members that do not believe in retirement.)

Age happens. We can't stop it and every year we are a year older--no matter how mature or immature we may be. We all know 14 year olds that are more mature than 16 year olds and 16 year olds that should not be behind the wheel of any type of vehicle. I realize I have taken a broad sweep of American culture in relation to age and that in fact there are very mature teenagers out there...somewhere. There are also very mature 21 year olds that have successfully crossed through these age defining moments.

What if we are looking at it all wrong? What if we broaden our definition of manhood and maturity to include concepts like bravery, responsibility, self control, meekness (power under control), discipline, empathy toward others, self sacrificing, etc? Then, what if we set up specific opportunities that would challenge and test boys and qualify them for manhood?

Author Robert Bly reminds us, "The ancient societies believed that a boy becomes a man only through ritual and effort--only through the 'active intervention' of the older men." He tells of such a ritual in Africa where the boy has to take a sort of pilgrimage before he can be called a man. He first has to go out and find a wild bee hive, collect the honey in it and bring it back to the elders. He endures the stings and pain of this event, but that is only the beginning. While mom takes the honey he gathered and makes a honey beer, he goes off for a couple of nights alone in the wilderness (a quest if you will). He returns then to the elders where he is circumcised. If he cries or screams, he has failed his test. If he endures, he celebrates as a man with the elders, has his honey drink, and later that day is introduced to his mother as though it is the first time he has ever met her.

I realize that this is a radical example, but it is black and white. After reading this short explanation, we know now what it takes to be a man in this ancient culture. It is definable and can be measured. It is a "pass / no pass" test!

Young men that have failed to cross that line into responsible adulthood desperately need men in their lives to call them into manhood and acknowledge their bravery, responsibility, sacrifice…whatever! I am thankful for the men, fathers, coaches, and mentors that have set up definable and achievable rites of passage for my life….to push me out of immaturity and into manhood!

(Robert Bly, "Iron John")

About the Author:
Matthew Bruner is the Director of Men of Valor Ranch in Northport, WA. Prior to founding Men of Valor Ranch, Matthew worked for Straight Arrow. For more information, contact him at 509-732-8936 or matthew@menofvalorranch.com, or visit his website, www.menofvalorranch.com

What makes the concept of 'homosexuality' valid in the West

2010-05-21T13:00:00.004+05:30

This article analyses how the western religious, cultural and scientific obsession with reproduction, mistaking it as the primary purpose of life (an obsession that is truly pathological), has created the myth of 'homosexuality,' i.e., of 'male's desire for men' as a distinct human trait (considered an abnormality for all practical purposes!) that deserves a separate terminology, and category. And the lack of this attitude towards reproduction is one of the primary reasons why none of the non-western or indigenous societies have anything even close to the concept of homosexuality or homosexuals, even when the incidence of sexual intimacy between males is far larger in these societies.

'Homosexuality' is NOT just a term to denote 'sexuality between males.' It's an entire concept, with a whole set of baggages, which is unique to the west. This concept cannot exist without the 'unnatural' assumptions that pre-empt it and surround it, and that is rendered invalid under more natural circumstances, including in non-western and indigenous cultures. It's a term made possible by a particular set of social/ political developments in the west, triggered by immense social engineering, often through violence and bloodshed, by Christianity. Its this base of conditions and attitudes created by Christianity, over two milleniums -- and then pursued vigorously and built upon by science (which has developed them beyond recognition), by employing/ abusing highly scientific tools.

It is not that the non-Western societies have not been obsessed with reproduction. But, they only forced it upon men as an important social role of manhood, never gave it a 'scientific' or biological facade like they did in the West, where everything, especially concerning males, is expected to compulsorily revolve around reproduction, or it is held to be there by mistake. Christianity has created a mindset, inherited today by western science, where they artificially create non-existing notions about nature, start believing in them zealously, and then expect nature to fit into it. When it doesn't, as is bound to happen, then they browbeat nature to fit into their preconceived notions. No method is held unfair in order to achieve this -- and both, the Christians as well as the scientists feel they're actually doing god/ nature a favour when they employ these unfair means. They ignore nature, suppress nature, even destroy nature -- without as much as a tinge of guilt -- so that it fits their pre-conceived notions. Whatever of nature remains after this strong persecution, they isolate, marginalize, penalize and stigmatize. When the enemy is male's sexual need for men, then its especially a "no-holds barred" war for the western society -- and after all, as westerners believe, everything is fair in love and war. While religion made man's need for sexual intimacy with a man into a sin, and succeeded to remove it from the formal, dignified scene, science, with its highly sophisticated tools, has converted it into an 'anomaly' and quarrantined it into the 'gay' pocket, together with the third genders. With its advanced technology, science has been able to achieve in this war against men, what religion could never achieve.

No wonder, western science is obsessed with finding out the 'cause' of homosexuality. This obssession quite clearly reflects the western cultural attitude towards male sexuality mentioned above, that treats sexual desire between men as something that got there by mistake. And, what can be described as the typical western attitude, when science starts to research male sexuality on this, it starts with this assumption that such a desire is an anomaly (esp. if its exclusive) and occurs only in individuals in whom some part of biology goes awry. So, it takes for given that there is a separate biological category of individuals and so it uses, without any qualms, the third genders who constitute the homosexual category, as its samples to study male sexuality for men. With this kind of predetermined research, when they already know what they want to find, the results will be predetermined as well. You find what you seek.

People in non-Judeo/ Christian/Islamic societies just don't have this concept of god wanting to run our lives through diktats that go against our natural needs and desires. For those who are in-charge of these medival religions, human beings are just slaves to fulfill the whims and fancies of what they hold to be the 'god.' The non-Judeo/Christian/Islamic cultures also don't understand the immense zealousness of the Jews, Christians and Muslims -- as a people -- to go to any extreme, unfair violent including that which is most obviously inhuman (like terrorism) to force human nature to fit into how their 'god' (who is the one and only 'one') wants nature to be.

One of the wrong assumptions that the western concept of "Homosexuality" is based upon is that the "normal," natural or biological sexuality of males is towards women, and furthermore, exclusively so, (the reason given being, that only male-female sex leads to reproduction and reproduction is pre-determined by the western culture to be the primary and only purpose of sex -- indeed, of life itself) and for male sexual desire to be towards men is an anomaly, and occurs only when something doesn't go in the natural direction, where it should, especially, if there is a lack of desire to copulate with women.

Along with the sexual desires, then every other male desire for men that usually accompanies sexuality --including social, physical and emotional desires -- also become unnatural, abnormal or simply an anomaly (a more politically correct term for 'abnormality'), even when they're purely non-sexual.

A lack of such an attitude towards male sexual needs and desires is one of the primary reasons, why the concept of 'homosexuality' becomes invalid in the non-West, or in the pre-modern west and in indigenous societies. In all these cultures, even though, men are expected to reproduce as well as to perform sexually with women, they are not really expected to have a desire for women -- its the performance that is important, not desire. Having sex with women is rightfully seen, just as the most important gender-sexual role of men, not something that is necessarily their desire. In fact, in a way, men are only expected to have only reasonable amounts of this desire for women, and excessive desire, whether it is sexual, social or emotional, is seen as problematic. (In the west, the more the desire the more powerful the man is made in the race for manhood, the more his social status amongst his peers improves -- and this strengthens men's heterosexual identities).

At the sametime, unlike in the Christian west, in the non-West, a desire for sexual and social intimacy, even emotional intimacy with men is seen as a universal male trait, something that is an integral part of manhood. It is the desire to be penetrated which is heavily stigmatised for men in the non-west, especially, if it is exclusive (as only those with a female soul are beleived to have such exclusive desires). It is not that a sexual desire for men is not stigmatized per se, BUT, it is not seen as 'unnatural,' or an 'anomaly' like in the West. It is just seen as something that although all men have, men ought to fight against and not give in to, for upholding social mores. Therefore, it gives a lot of psychological space to men to desire other men, which the west denies to men, by making men feel that desiring men biologically makes them inferior. Thus, in the non-west, 'straight' males routinely have not only sex, but also long term secretive romantic liasions with other men, especially in their youth, till they're not married. It's only that, they don't talk about it or acknowledge it openly or in formal spheres.

What also gives them a strong social space to develop such romantic liasions with each other is the immense social freedom to be 'socially' and physically intimate with other men that they enjoy -- because the men's spaces are pretty strong. Strong and committed sexual liasions between males flourish unspoken, behind this socially allowed intimacy between men. It is no wonder that the anti-man forces in the west, that want to use 'scientific' tools to make men heterosexual by denying them any social or pscychological space to be sexual with men, target specifically, the social and physical intimacy between them as well.

Although, western scientific institution restricts itself largely to rendering 'abnormal' or 'below normal' the sexual part of male to male intimacy, this groundwork created by it (as its contribution to the conspiracy to break men from men) is stretched far beyond by other western social institutions and psycho-social mechanisms (which all contribute to this anti-man conspiracy), including the powerful media and male 'peer-pressure.' This marginalization (in the form of 'homosexualization) of sexual intimacy between men is then further, aggressively built upon to marginalize the social and physical intimacy between men (as 'gay' too). A strongly Christian cultural background has given the western society a kind of zeal to work against male to male intimacy that is unimaginable under normal circumstances.

Thus, the western society conspires to create psycho-social mechanisms where men are afraid to hold each other's hands, when this comes naturally to men who live under more natural circumstances. Men feel insecure in westernized spaces, unless if they're all by themselves, unless, they're accompanied by women. As long as they are without female company, they become much more guarded about their behaviour towards each other -- due to extreme fearful environment created by the western culture.

Another world: Shivananda Khan is a Real Man

2010-03-01T14:58:00.002+05:30

September 2004

There we were, more than a hundred gay* men from across the world at the International AIDS Conference in Bangkok in July. It was the middle of the afternoon and we were commenting on a statement of principles for HIV interventions for men who have sex with men. Many of us knew each other from years of such conferences and working together and the atmosphere was relaxed. In the chair, mediating between the floor and the panel who had drafted the statement, was Shivananda Khan, once London-based and (think Shakti) the doyen of HIV activism in South Asia. Shiv is one of nature's aristocrats; in a previous life he was surely a princess, both decorative and functional, the power behind the throne as her maharajah dallied in the harem.

At some point - don't ask me how we got there; it seemed logical at the time - Shiv asked rhetorically, "are there any real men in this room"? I stuck up my hand and looked round. Only one other hand was raised. Perhaps a few others were too shy to assert themselves in public, but the point had been made: most of those in the room, who shaved regularly or let their beards grow, whose chests were flat or muscular and who were endowed with male rather than female genitalia, because they were gay, they did not consider themselves "real men".

Shivananda, of course, had kept his hands firmly by his side. Shiv is tall and handsome and of decidedly masculine appearance, with no more feminine traits than several of my heterosexual friends. When I had earlier accused him of being a "real man", he had mock-frowned and said "hush! You'll ruin my reputation." As discussion moved back to the statement of principles, I pondered the implications of this impromptu vote. If the majority was right, then I was at best confused, or at worst lying. Because I was gay I couldn't be a "real man", or if I insisted on being a "real man" I couldn't be "gay".

I remembered a conversation last year at a ceremony in Bangkok when an elderly senator was given an award for services to the gay community. "Is he gay?" I asked Nick, a local activist. "Of course not," said Nick, "he has children". From a Western perspective, that did not answer my question, but for Thais it was perfectly acceptable. Men who are known to have sex with women - as proven by the offspring - are "real men", even if they have sex with men. Which means that men who only have sex with men are not real men.

The same point was made by Aditya Bondyopadhyay, another Indian activist, responding to a column where I criticised the phrase "males who have sex with males". (read here) Aditya argued that in South Asia "males" was preferable to "men" because "feminised males who adopt many indigenous identities [kothi, dhurrani, murat, zennana, Aqwa Hijra, Kathoy, Bacqla, Waria, Faffafini, et al], do not consider themselves as 'Men'. They just possess the physical body of a 'male' individual. Their self definition, more often than not, is that they are 'women' or 'women like'."

Of course underlying this discussion is different understanding of the word "man". In South Asia, Thailand and many other cultures, manhood is determined by not by appearance, but by behaviour, particularly sexual behaviour. Those who are penetrated defer to those who penetrate; real men penetrate and everyone else is a woman, or woman-like. They may look like men, but they are not real men.

In anglophone societies - and, I suspect, in any culture where men who have sex with men do not define themselves by who penetrates whom - most gay men consider themselves "real men". They insist on complete legal and social equality with other men and many sculpt their bodies to be decidedly masculine in appearance and wear clothing that emphasises their maleness. Indeed, given that so much of men's fashion in the west originates in gay men and is copied by other men, it is arguable that it is gay men who are the real men and other men who are continually trying - and often failing - to imitate them.

We could stop at this point and accept that the meaning of the phrase "real men" differs in different parts of world, just as "thong" has different meanings for Brits and Australians, and "fanny" has different meanings for Brits and North Americans. It sometimes leads to confusion, but there is no harm done.

Except there is an inherent bias in the term "real". "Real" implies authentic, correct, good, valuable. A "real man" is a man who has all the qualities of men. A "real man" is something to admire, to aspire to. If I deny that I am a "real man" I am automatically denigrating myself. You are real; I am fake. You have qualities which I lack. You are admirable, I am shameful. You are valued by society; I have no value. I may be intelligent, physically and emotionally strong, brave, virtuous, kind, while you are a coward, inconsiderate, violent and dishonest, but because you penetrate me, you are superior to me because you are a "real man".

Furthermore, men who deny that they are real men and who call themselves effeminate, feminine, women or woman-like, reinforce not only their own secondary status in society, but that of women. If I am inferior to "real men" because I am womanly, then all women are inferior.

Ultimately, therefore, no matter how vociferously I argue for the rights of men who have sex with men in society, as long as I deny being a real man and as long as I accept this division between "real" and other men, I implicitly recognise my secondary status in society. I want to be tolerated, not accepted as an equal. I accept that where a man puts his penis is more important than whether he is honest or capable.

I'm exaggerating, but not much. I'm fully aware of the years of work that activists around the world have put into improving the lives of men who have sex with men - activists who have put their own comfort and health and sometimes even lives on the line, while I have pontificated from the comfort of a London house or Bangkok apartment. Nonetheless, I believe that activists who accept the terminology of "real men" and who therefore accept that men who penetrate are of greater value than those who are penetrated, they are reinforcing rather than combating the stigmatisation of both effeminate men and of women.

There are two ways of overcoming this. One is to extend the definition of "real" to include all men. You are a man of masculine gestures, a man who is the penetrating partner in sex; I am a man whose mannerisms are effeminate and exaggerated and I prefer to be the penetrated partner in sex. But we should both be of equal value in this society; if you are real, then so am I; if your identity is real, then so is mine; if you have society's full respect, then, dammit, I insist on equal respect too. In short, if you are a real man, then so am I.

However, to insist that all men are "real" in this way is to shift the meaning of "man" from behaviour to physical appearance, in other words towards a more anglophone use of the term, as discussed earlier, which may not be appropriate in many cultures. An alternative approach is to abolish use of the word real in these circumstances. You are a man - or a male - who prefers to penetrate; I am a man - or a male - who prefers to be penetrated; they are men - or males - who take pleasure in both activities. We are of equal value and words such as real are at best meaningless and at worst demeaning and stigmatising.

So what it is going to be? That all men - and women - are real and worthy of respect, or that "real" is an irrelevant word that should never be uttered. Personally, I choose the former option. Which means that as far as I am concerned - irrespective of their behaviour between the sheets or on the streets - like me, Shivananda Khan and every other beard-shaving, testosterone-producing, penis-endowed man across the world always have been and always will be real men.

* I know, I know... Not every man who has sex with men identifies as gay, but whatever individual men call themselves in whatever language they speak and wherever they live, in this column I'm using gay as shorthand for "I am a man who enjoys sex with men and I am happy to tell the world - or at least my hundred closest friends- that I do".

2010-03-01T14:58:00.001+05:30

.....

The journey from "namard" (non-man) to "homosexual" and how it disempowered men

2010-01-28T15:32:00.001+05:30

The entire world has a concept of a category of males who are males, yet not men. They're known as non-males in different ways, e.g. Namard in India. Originally, they were known as males who were females from inside, or males who had a female soul. However, the politics of male gender and sexuality redefined them and stigmatized them as "non-men males." The male gender and politics, by the start of the middle ages, had already been misdefining the non-males as "males who cannot penetrate" and hence "get penetrated by men." Mind you, this is not the same as the today's identity of 'men who like men.' (1) They were not men, but non-men males, and (2) What defined them was their act of indulging in receptive anal sex, not their attraction to or sexual desire for men, which was rightly seen to be present in all males.

This definition of manhood, needless to say, acted as an absolute pressure on men to have sex with women to be qualified as one of the men. And it took away their space to say that they don't like to have sex with women, because, although, desire was not part of the now formal definition of manhood, the anti-man forces, informally, widely enforced the rule that not wanting to penetrate was the same as not being able to penetrate (which was seen as being because of impotency, which was propagated to be the same as being a 'non-man' male, something which lead to many of them want to be penetrated by men. It's the myth created by the politics of medieval male gender and sexuality, which the modern anti-man forces, when they defeated the men's spaces, further distorted to create the concept of 'homosexuals' and later, their opposites, 'heterosexuals.')

The non-males were formally exempt from this pressure to have sex with women, but then they never really wanted to be part of the men's identity, group or space. They wanted to be 'diferent.' They were NOT one of the men. They did not want manhood. They wanted 'womanhood.' In fact, some of them actually wanted to get rid of the outer signs of it (penis) and many went to great lengths to appear 'women' from the outside. They were already women from the inside.

It were the lesser feminine of these males, who were not outright transgendered, yet were still non-men males, who thought of the idea of defining themselves as 'men who like men,' when the new human institution of science, building upon mores and beliefs that Christianity created, demolished the gender differences between the 'men' males, and the 'non-men' males, and said, anyone born with a penis is a 'man.' The non-man males had heen looking for a new identity in this new scheme of things. Till now they'd survived underground in the Christian society as 'third genders,' as 'non-men' males.

One of them (Karl Ulrichs), a self-professed 'female inside male body' -- sincerely believing in the outer appearance of men created by the politics of gender and sexuality -- started to see the difference between the 'men' and the 'non-men' males in terms of sexual preferences. The men were outwardly only having sex with women (The fact however, was, that almost 100% of them were having sex with males, mostly other 'normative' males (men), and many were into deep emotional bonds with them, that were for all practical purposes romantic bonds ... even in a highly hostile Christian society, that considered sodomy a sin. In fact, the men openly acknowledged their interest in each other within men's spaces. But outside of the men's spaces: In formal spaces, in front of women, and in front of 'non-men' males, they always displayed an exclusive interest in women. Thus for these spaces, men were already seen as basically 'heterosexual' -- but it was never their identity. Of course, women and men had no way of seeing the pressures that were working on men, because these pressures exploited the need for 'manhood' that men had, and women and non-men had no way of understanding 'manhood' or this need. Indeed, it was also because, men could not talk about this pressure or acknowledge that they feel it, because, just doing it would put a question mark on their manhood -- not by men themselves, but by the formal society, controlled by vested anti-man interests.

So, Mr/Ms Karl Ulrichs, 1869, started a new concept, a social category which he called 'males who wanted to have sex with males', which later Westphal, a crooked scientist, further developed into the clinical concept of 'homosexuality.' Of course, the entire Western world, heavily influenced by the Christian need to keep men off from each other, immediately saw in this theiri perfect saviour in the present scientific world, which needed a 'Scientific' flog to beat men's bonds.

Meanwhile, the entire non-man community of the time (which did not include most non-males who wanted women) eagerly lapped up the new concept and the new social space/ category/ identity that the modern world was happily giving over to them. The modern West was only too happy to let the non-men define themselves as 'men who like men,' because, they knew, this would mean, that the men would disown it like fleas. But, in those early years of so-called 'homosexual movement' (which is actually a modern non-man movement), the protagonists openly defined themselves as a 'third sex' or an 'intermediate sex.' Later on, it was decided to drop the reference to gender, as almost as part of another conspiracy, the emerging queer throught process was: Gender is trash, the real difference is who you want to have sex with. And the non-men became so powerful with the modern world giving them more and more social power and space, in order to use them as pawns in their game to control men's gender and sexuality, that the modern non-men aggressively started to impose their concepts on the real, normative men, who broke the formal, modern men's code and acknoweledged liking men. They defined them as 'closet cases' and denigrated them as 'one of them' but "who cannot come to terms with their sexuality." For these 'gay chauvinists' anyone who wants to love another man without accepting their categorization is someone who is "unable to accept his sexuality" thereby passing the root of the problem from the conspiracy against men onto the victims of it.

Not that the men did not protest. A number of men have continuously protested and warned against the invalid concept of 'sexual orientation' and its dangers. I

Indeed, the concept of 'homosexuality' and 'sexual orientation' proved lethal for men's bonds in men's spaces. They wiped it out from the 'straight' spaces and made them totally, well, near totally 'heterosexuals.' This is the power of modern Science to work against and destory nature.

Meanwhile, as Science becomes more and more powerful to effectively kill men's ability to love another man, Christianity continues to wield immense influence in the highly fundamentalist US, as the basic driving force, to use any available means -- whether by hook or crook (and Christianity is infamous for its blatant use of unfair meanas to get its ways, like when it pursues religious conversions) -- to keep up the intense hostility against male need for affection and intimacy from men.

The anti-men forces.

Originally, they were the rulers who just wanted to employ men like livestocks to given them more and more children to become their 'subjects.' These rulers, reserved the right to love and have sex with men to themselves, so much so that it came to be seen as a luxury that only noblemen could indulge in freely.

But, as time passed by, and rulers changed, and power went from the kings to 'religion' especially in the West, the conspiracy against men that disempowered men a great deal, created artificial sources of power, using the power wrested from this disempowerment. And vested interests grew around these unnatural, artificial power sources, that sustained their power from it. These power sources were based on the continuous disempowerment of men for their sustencance, and thus these anti-man vested interests, not from the rulers, but from within the subjects, had an immense vested interest in keeping men enslaved and disempowered. These vested interests who were already very powerful, would invade and capture every new, promising human institution that the real men created, that had the power to liberate them -- starting with 'religion' (the anti-man forces controlled religion, and abused its power to make sex between men a sin against god ... and to force men to be married, procreate and even to 'love' their women) ... and then going over to Science in the modern world (and science created the system of 'sexual orientation' with which men could be forced to be heterosexual with the threat of being isolated as one of the non-males (now wrongly known as 'homosexuals', and all those studies on 'homosexuality' and 'homosexuals' that validate the unnatural concepts), and yes, of course, the Media.

Creating pressures on men to be openly heterosexual in order to avoid losing manhood

2009-12-13T13:09:00.000+05:30

What they (the anti-man forces who control various traditional and modern human institutions like science and media) do, is to create extreme expectations on men to be heterosexual, if they're straight, mainstream, regular guys. And since 'heterosexuality' is seen as synonymous with manhood, men have this extreme pressure to oblige. They have no space to say they don't want to date women. Because it means you're not a man and you lose your position in the race for manhood as well as your public following if you're a celebrity.

This pressure that media keeps creating in a yet non-heterosexualized society like India seems extremely contrasting, when many macho male superheroes find it difficult to answer questions about who they're dating and what they like to date. Because they don't date. In fact, it is a serious affront to Indian culture which has no space for dating between unmarried males and females to be asked such a question. Men in most cases just keep quiet or fib.

But, then there are some who run away with it, and exploit this new criteria of manhood being enforced by the media and give it power.

The westernized media needs celebrities to be heterosexual in order to support its heterosexualization agenda.

A similar pressure is being build up on young males through Peer-pressure and through social networking internet channels like Orkut, that ask your sexual orientation as well as whether or not you're interested in dating. Now, with dating being increasingly being enforced as the new proof of manhood for the youth, as part of building up a previously unexisting 'heterosexual' identity, it is impossible for men to live their life according to their natural instincts and needs. I know innumerable common straight males who don't do dating (or are only forced to do it), but they keep on their profile accounts stuff like, "looking for dating women" and sexual orientation 'straight' (which is wrongly defined as being heterosexual).

The various levels of diffference between 'Gay' and 'Straight'

2009-12-10T14:44:00.002+05:30

Because of the intense politicisation of manhood and men's spaces, and the intense fight between the men's spaces and the anti-man forces that control the larger society, in which the men's spaces have finally lost in the Western society, defeated first by the Judeo/Christian religion and then by Western science -- the difference between 'gay' and 'straight' exists in the society at several levels.

1. On the one extreme end is the invalid definition of the 'gay'-'straight' divide forwarded by the anti-man forces, and validated by (psuedo)-science ... even if authorized by the Western scientific institution ... that represents the formal definition accepted and enforced in the West, that says "Straight" means exclusively heterosexual, which it claims is the vast majority of masculine gendered males, who were erstwhile known as 'men'. And "Gay" means any male who is exclusively into another male.
This formal definition of "Gay" and "Straight" is totally based on the claimed or practices sexuality of males and has no element of 'Gender' in it, at least, at the outset.

2. On the other end is the original difference between 'gay' and 'straight', which existed in every human society of the past, and is still the very basis of the 'gay' and 'straight' divide even in the modern WEst (although this basis is not formally acknowledged) and which is also based on the actual biological differences between "Gay" and "Straight." This definition is totally about "Gender" and has no element of sexuality in it, at least at the outset.

3. In-between these two extreme positions taken by the anti=man forces and the men's spaces respectively -- that represents politicization of manhood and male identity on one hand and the male biology on the other == are numerous other definitions of 'gay' and 'straight' divide that still operate in the society, simultaneously, albeit in different situations and levels of the same society.

(i) Closer to the biological definition of 'straight' and 'gay' is the more medieval distinction of straight and gay, that although hinges basically on 'Gender' and thus doesn't negate the gender angle like the modern West's definition, yet defines Gender not in terms of masculinity and femininity itself, but rather, who does the penetration and who is penetrated. The penetrator is the 'masculine' gender, and thus 'man', while the penetrated is the feminine gender, and thus 'gay' according to this definition.

This definition is still practised in the entire non-Westernized world, although, Western Science is destroying this definition claiming to represent the truth itself.

This definition still exists in the modern Western 'Gay' and 'STraight' spaces as well, and lots of 'straight' males still have sex with other men, but claim only to penetrate and thus retain their straighthood, and lots of 'gays' have sex with straight males but since they get penetrated see the penetrators as straights (as long as the penetrator doesn't acknowledge his interest in men.

(ii) ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF SEXUAL INTEREST: Closer to the modern western definition of 'gay' and 'straight' is the distinction that is widely practised, though not acknowledged as such, by both 'gay' and 'straight' identified males, and is the definition that really rules the roost in the straight spaces, as well as the larger society.

As per this definition, the one who acknowledges his sexual interest in men is 'gay', while the one who doesn't accept this interest, although, he may have sex with males, even exclusively, (as long as he keeps displaying or proving that he actually has a sexual interest in women, and has no sexual interest in men).

Therefore, men never acknowledge their sexual interest in men in WEstern societies, and the trait of liking the male gender is restricted only to the population identified as 'gay' -- i.e. those who acknowledge their sexual interest in men (who're mostly the third genders).

Thus, the formal Western definitions, when enforced upon the male population boils down to this acknowledgement of sexual interest in men, with those who acknowledge it becoming 'gay' and those who don't acknowledge it become 'straight' == thus strengthening the myth that the majority of men are exclusively heterosexual.

(iii) There are also several auxilliary definitions of 'gay' and 'straight' that function within the Westernized 'gay' and 'straight' set ups, characterized by the formal definitions.

E.g.:

(a) The Gay world is divided between the gay 'gays' (denoting the third genders) and the 'straight-acting' gays (that represent the supposedly masculine gendered males).

(b) The Straight world is divided between the 'real men' and the 'lesser men' often derogatorily reffered to as 'gay.' E.g. accusing someone of being gay for not eating meat or for holding another male's hands even as friends. Here too, the real men are used for more masculine males, while 'gay' is used for males who are seen as less masculine or effeminate (as defined by the Western social roles of manhood/ straighthood).

ARTIFICIALLY "MASCULINIZNG" THE FEMININE TRAIT OF "HETEROSEXUALITY" -- PART OF POLITICS OF MALE GENDER AND SEXUALITY

2009-11-13T01:33:00.004+05:30

Before the West invented the concept of "Heterosexuality" few males, if ever cared for relationships with women. The roles of social manhood were still much closer to the natural phenomenon of manhood, except for the fact that "social manhood" was attached to the act of penetrating (whether it was a man or a woman was immaterial) and marriage and reproduction were seen as a compulsory proofs of this capability to 'penetrate.' Therefore, that is what men competed to achieve. Desire was not important, performance was important. So, men thought and behaved very differently from modern western males, back then.

Afterall, its 'social manhood' that men really, really care for, more than anything else in life. And they're willing to change the course of their life wherever "social manhood" lies.

Thus, in the past, only the act of occasional vaginal intercourse was considered manly. Any other intimacy with women -- whether sexual, social or emotional was considered effeminizing (and hence queer), even in the West. There were even derogatory terms for males who were addicted to vagina -- terms that are similar to "faggot," in that they refer to the unmanliness of the male (e.g. "Chutiya" in Hindi).

In any male dominated society, where men's spaces are strong, men have a lot of power to define manhood, except for the fact that they are still compulsorily tied to marriage, penetrative sex and reproduction through the "social manhood" route. But, after bowing down to this social demand -- (and the one that renders the act of being penetrated as unmanly and hence 'third gender' and hence something that liables a man to be isolated and banished into a 'different' zone from 'normal' men) -- men are pretty much free to be themselves and to define "social manhood" in a way that corresponds with their "natural manhood." Therefore, women have little sexual value in macho societies. Most of the sexual value that women have is limited to the formal space, particularly marriage.

However, the Western society, triggered by its Christian past that wanted to see "men having relationships with women" and to be broken from other men, first developed the concept of homosexuality -- in order to isolate the very desire between men, (much like isolating the HIV virus) especially if it was exclusive or prominent or acknoweldged -- and then developed the concept of heterosexuality and thus of heterosexuals. While "homosexuality' was artificially built on the earlier group of 'third genders' that was basically for feminine males who got penetrated, the concept of 'heterosexual' was artificially built upon the erstwhile, proud, "Men" identity -- that made up the mainstream men's spaces.

This gave a totally new dimension to the age old politics of male gender and sexuality and a great filip to the anti-man forces. Suddenly, everything that involved a desire for or a sexual/ social or emotional act with women, no matter how feminine it was in nature, or in past societies, suddenly came into the purview of 'manliness'. Indeed, manliness was now itself defined as 'heterosexuality' and started to be confused with it.

Thus, today, men compete to indulge in things and to acquire or show desires, even when they don't have it -- that involve more and more proximity with women, as signs of supposed manhood -- when these desires and acts are decidedly unmanly (e.g. "licking vaginas" or being "subdued by women" or even "deep kissing" or "hand holding" with women and so on). Indeed, a desire for women is an absolutely must to get a membership of any western(ized) men's space (gay spaces are not men's spaces, they're third gender spaces, devoid of manhood and disempowered). Furthermore, western(ized) men's spaces, controlled by anti-man forces, presume a universal, constant and exclusive male desire for women, and forbid any positive portrayal or display of affectional needs between men ... which must only be allowed by the anti-man forces, in the unmanly 'gay' ghettos.

At the sametime, any desire or sexual act between men (and not necessarily the act of being penetrated) was artificially associated with 'unmanliness" or feminine by the western anti-male politics of manhood; as 'queer' became defined as "desire between men" (homosexuality) itself, and "liking men" became synonymous with being 'unmanly'. And, so men (non-feminine males) don't have the space to acknowledge their desire for men, leave alone form meaningful bonds with other men. If you want to do that, you must leave the men's space and idenitity, leave manhood and power, and agree to join the disempowered and unmanly 'different', marginalized and disempowered, third gender male space by taking on the 'gay'/ 'homosexual' label.

This is what the anti-man forces had always wanted to do, eversince, they were first created by injunctions on men, that gave power to the act of penetrating women for reproduction as a basic criteria for granting 'social manhood', and bonds between men started losing their importance because they don't bring babies (population) to those who rule the society. This is how the politics of male gender and sexuality was started in the first place.

2009-11-13T01:33:00.001+05:30

......

"Men", "Third Gender" division is an inevitable reality

2009-11-03T11:28:00.002+05:30

AS LONG AS MANHOOD IS CHERISHED AMONGST MALES, THE MALE SPECIES WILL CONTINUE TO BE DIVIDED INTO TWO GROUPS -- one for those who want manhood. One for those who just don't fit into manhood.

The entire world (except the modern west) has known these two groups of males as "men" and the "third gender."

There cannot be a human society where this is not applicable.

It's no different in the west. You too have two groups. But the conspiracy against men just misdefines the two gender male groups in terms of sexuality rather than gender.

Also, the break off point for the feminine males is much earlier in the modern west than the rest of the world.

However, slowly, the truth finds its way, and queer heterosexuals are already part of the gay community as the 'T' in LGBT.

The anti man forces allow this because this fits in with their agenda of promoting m-f desire as manly and m-m desire as third gender.

Unfortunately, the masculine gendered males that (want to) acknowledge liking men are not that lucky, as the anti-man forces in the West make sure that they are not given any space in the straight (manhood) space or identity.

The making of heterosexuals

2009-10-24T11:09:00.000+05:30

The way the western society inculcates a strong hatred for one's own sexuality for men, which is a universal and constant male quality, is by basing one's personal sense of manhood on 'heterosexuality,' rather exclusive heterosexuality, through a complex set of visible and invisible psycho-social mechanisms that condition, train and pressurise males right from their forming years of manhood and sexuality. Once, one's personal sense of manhood is firmly based on being free of sexual need for men, it makes sure that the man would himself, even when no one else is looking, fight till death his own sexuality for men. Condemning those in others is only a way to reinforce this fight, which tends to weaken by those who openly accept it.

The more the desire for men, the greater the need to fight and reinforcements through public condemnations.

... and the invention of the concept of 'homosexuality' (that actually is about a third gender's sexuality for men) and creation of the separate category of 'homosexuals' based on the erstwhile third genders, serves perfectly well to reinforce the lie that desiring men is an unmanly trait. That is what the politics of male gender and sexuality is all about.

And that is what is the essence of conspiracy against men. Deep rooted behind this conspiracy is the age-old greed for more and more population, in order to compete with the other 'tribes' and the fear -- not totally baseless --that if men are allowed to be sexual with other men, few would like to go to women so regularly. And if they start forming committed bonds, it would be impossible to sustain the 'marriage' institution.

What we need to do as a society is to come out of this fear psychosis, because, we don't need all that population anymore, and its time to liberate men from the burden of compulsory procreation in order to prove they're men, because it doesn't prove anything.

As long as men are bound in the heterosexual identity, where manhood is defined as 'heterosexuality' itself, and the third genders keep defining themselves as 'men who like men' this seems impossible to attain.

Sexual identities misrepresent the true sexual needs of men

2009-10-23T11:23:00.004+05:30

Sexual identities represented by the concept of 'sexual orientation' or the 'homo-hetero' divide represent only the acknowledged sexual behaviour of males. And men will acknowledge only those sexual behaviours that fall inside the society's purview of manhood, especially taking care to disown sexual behaviours or desires that are distinctly labelled as queer/ effeminate/ third gender, the experiences of 'gay' identitied males notwithstanding.

There are a number of extremely complex pscycho-social mechanisms that are part of a complex, yet invisible politics of male gender and sexuality, that create a wide gap between the deepest sexual desires and needs of males and the final sexual behaviour that is acknowledged socially, again, the experiences of 'gay' identified males (who're actually third gender males, not 'men', the latter being masculine gendered males), notwithstanding.

There are several gaps and steps between the deepest, orignal sexual needs of men and the final sexual behaviour they acknowledge socially, and there is intense, hidden but complex politics, manipulation and oppression of male gender and sexuality at each step. There are the "deepest sexual needs", many parts of which otten lie latent due to social politics, then the sexual needs which find space in the subconscious mind, then there are those that find space to grow in the conscious mind, then tthere are those that find the space to grow in the 'personal' social space, and finally, there is the acknowledged sexual behaviour. Because of the presence of politics of male gender and sexuality, none of these steps may tally with each other. E.g. most men do not even allow the sexual needs that exist at the conscious level to find expression even in there private, personal social behaviour, let alone being acknowledged. Others may give them expression but not acknowledge them.

For Western science, to conveniently assume that the sexual categories defined by the West represent the deepest sexual needs of males, and to study these sexual identities for their biological connections is too simplistic, not to be a part of science's way to contribute the age-old conspiracy against men.

The truth is that these sexual categories suit only the 'gay' identified males, whose deepest sexual thoughts tally with their chosen identities. And it is so for a reason. Because, these identities have been tailor made for them, although, they're a gross misrepresentation of the male gender and sexuality as a whole. It's like groping the tail of the elephant and then defining the entire elephant as a rope.

What is so different about the 'gay' identified males that makes their case special. You will not understand the real difference unless you acknowledge human gender (masculine vs feminine identity) as a real, valid phenomenon. Unfortunately, western society makes it very difficult if not impossible for people, esp. gays, to acknowledge human gender. Gays also have a personal stake in not recognizing gender, since their binary sexual identity depends on the negation of gender and its confusion with sexuality.

Gays are third genders, not men, if we define 'men' as masculine gendered males (not necessarily macho), and 'third genders' as transgendered males. And the truth is that the sexual identities defined by the West have been rooted in politics of gender and sexuality, and there basis is strongly gender rather than sexuality. Thus, the 'homosexual' identity is actually, the original and biological third gender/ transgendered male identity redefined as 'men who like men'. This gender factor is however hidden and westerners are incapable of seeing it due to their cultural disability. But, this is the only reason that some males fit in so nicely in this 'sexual categorization' with hidden gender baggage and others struggle or prefer to hide or suppress their sexual feelings for men, rather than take on the 'gay' identity. For the gays they're just people incapable with dealing with their sexuality. But in reality, they are reacting to the hidden feminine gender attached with the 'homosexual' identity, that is inimical to their masculine gender.

And this is the reason, why, for gays their deepest sexual desires matches their sexual identity, but for straights it often mismatches, in different degrees. To built the scientific theories of human male sexuality, especially of man's sexuality for men, on the basis of the experiences or the biology of 'gay' identified males is a gross abuse of the scientific process and the spirit of science.

Human gender plays such a strong part in the entire social-sexualization of men, and in their final choice of sexual behaviours and even conscious desires, that for science to understand the truth about human sexuality without acknowledging human gender is suicidal for the truth.

The problem is, this is what the western scientific institution really wants. To muddle the truth. But westerners will never accept that. Because, they worship the scientific institution like it were god. Like their ancestors worshipped the Church, and believed everything the church said about god.

2009-10-23T11:23:00.001+05:30

.....

The oddities of Western manhood

2009-10-09T12:29:00.001+05:30

After having fraudulently established Heterosexuality as the new definition of Manhood, the Western society propagates male softeness -- in fact, male servility to women in sexual contexts (the only context in which men are expected to see women) as 'masculine' and 'manly'. This servility is easily carried forward in all interactions of men with women, since, in any case, sexuality is the only context in which manly men are expected to see women in the West.

At the sametime, manly, masculine males are expected not to be soft, and certainly never servile towards another man in a sexual context. That is propagated as the queerest of things to do. Men are expected to become hard like rock, indifferent and antagonistic to other men, in the sexual context. The anti-man forces, then easily carry forward this expectation from men into all interactions between men, and even non-sexual softness of a man for another is tagged as effeminate (i.e. 'gay').

This is only a small part of the politics of gender and sexuality which is part of the anti-man conspiracy, used by the Western society to manipulate not only the social and sexual behaviour or men, but even their very thoughts.

However, in reality, or, in nature, softness and servility towards a man who loves you, only enhances your manhood. This softness allows your masculinity to merge with the masculinity of another man, and this combination does wonders to the masculinity and manhood of each man.

In western, heterosexualized contexts, where each man is out to prove is repulsion for guys, and those who show softness towards other guys are disempowered artificially, if a man does show softness to another guy he loves, the other man, even if he loves the man too, will respond with rudeness, as he becomes extremely insecure about his own love for another man. This situation then harms the manhood of the man who shows softness towards the other. If he continues to show this softness/ servility to another man who continues to show rudeness to him, even while they share a 'relationship' of some sort, it makes the first male emasculated, and thus 'gay' or 'homosexual' while the other man keeps his manhood and remains 'straight'. But this is brought about through an unnatural, social engineering and doesn't reflect the reality.

In nature, softness and servility towards women, especially in sexual contexts severely depletes a man's masculinity and manhood, in a way, no other activity can. Softness and servility towards women tends to transfer the man's masculinity on to the woman and transfer her femininity on to the man. In the end, both are queered. Masculinity and femininity don't naturally merge. They negate each other.

However, in western, heterosexualized spaces, this natural process is reverted through artificial social engineering. When a man shows servility towards another female, his membership of the straight (manhood) is strengthened, which increases his manhood and power. His sense of manhood is artificially augmented and he is looked at as an ideal by his peers, who are all competing to achieve heterosexuality as the new 'manhood'. This of course, queers the men's gender as a whole. This manhood of a 'heterosexual' male servile to women, that makes him do extremely feminine stuff such as performing oral sex on women, or be emotionally bonding with the woman, may be a reality, but it has been brought about by an unnatural process, by reverting the process of nature through 'science.'

This is how modern science adds to the ancient politics of male gender and sexuality.

In every male dominated, macho, warrior cultures of the past or even the present, male servility to another man in a love bond was considered highly masculinizing for both the men. The most prominent example is the servility of Hanuman to Ram. Hanuman is THE deity of macho males in India. He is manhood deitified. He grants manhood to his worshippers. But, ancient societies are full of such examples. Indeed, the every warrior culture promoted such male romantic bonds where each man was servile to the other, but was disastrous for the enemy. Whether it was the sacred bond of Thebes or the mighty warriors of Samurais, male servility in a love bond with another man was rightly considered the ultimate act of manhood. And, unlike the manhood of modern west's heterosexuals, there was nothing unnatural about this. This happened naturally, through a natural process of development of manhood.

At the sametime, servility or softness to a woman, and thus a contact with a woman has been considered the ultimate queering or feminizing act or trait by a man. All these warrior cultures thrived by avoiding any contact with women, except for procreation. Any further contact apart from vaginal sex for procreation was avoided like plague by these warrior cultures, even within marriage, which had become a social duty of men in the societies by now. Eg. Hanuman stayed away from women, even their shadows. And his macho warrior followers called Pehelwans, to this day avoid even the shadow of women, and remain unmarried for their entire life. Even the married devout followers of Hanuman have only procreative sex with their wifes, while others stay away from sex with their wives/ girlfriends on Tuesdays. This is to please a god who grants manhood. Similarly, amongst the Greeks, it was believed that too much sex with women, even vaginal intercourse is a sign of femininity. In India, even today, a man who is servile to women is called "Joru ka ghulaam" a negative term that points to the lack of manhood in the male. Men in such societies will never even dream about performing oral sex on their women. And certainly will baulk at the idea of holding their hands, especially in public.

The Samurai warriors, although married, had romantic bonds only with another male, and had a very social, superficial relationship with their wives. It is said that Samurai warriors slept with their wives with a dagger below their pillows, because they did not trust their wives at all.

Indeed, there was also a time, at the very beginning of human civilization, when adolesent males were sown with the seeds of male sperm through anal sex in order to masculinize them and to remove the femininity that had accumulated in them through living with the females all these years, as can still be witnessed in the far off, Samoan warrior tribes of Papa New Guinea. These warrior cultures looked down upon 'whores' so much, that they were thought to be witches out to rob men of their manhood.

This hatred of 'whores' or sexually promiscuous or 'heterosexual' women is still rampant in male dominated, machoistic societies of the world. INterestingly, the Western feminine society glorifies the whores and their queered males bow before them.

An analysis of the actual differences between 'Straight' and 'gay'

2009-10-04T10:58:00.000+05:30

AT THE BROADER, societal level, the actual difference between 'straight' and 'gay' is not of sexuality, but that of 'normal'/ masculine/ regular/ mainstream/ majority guys vs the 'third gender' or 'males with a female identity'. And so, even if, one rejects the notion of dividing males on the basis of their sexual attraction, the differences of gender, and hence two different identities will always be there. Those who have been identifying themselves as 'homosexuals' will then just start calling themselves 'third gender', but they will still be different. The 'heterosexual' (sic) third genders will also be merged with this category (who actually are already merged with the gays as the "T" in LGBT).

But within the 'normal'/ masculine/ regular/ mainstream/ majority guys, at the practical level, the actual difference between 'straight' and 'gay' becomes not that of having sexual feelings for men or of acting on them (of course, 100% of this population has a strong sexual need for men which may be suppressed), but that of acknowledging these feelings.

So, straight males give vent to their sexual feelings for men all the time, at least in their youth or when they're in an all-male company, albeit, superficially, without acknowledging these, and it doesn't make them 'gay'. This is why, finding an excuse for vending their attraction for men, is so important for straight males, even if these excuses may be flimsy.

This applies even when a straight male is actually in a 'relationship' with another straight male, where fidelity is expected of each other. But, nothing is ever acknowledged. Everything is done quietly, and it doesn't affect their 'straight' identity.

However, the moment, these feelings, or the secondary feelings or acts that emanates from them -- of jealousy, possessiveness, hurt, cajoling each other, being angry at each other, missing each other, or any of the relationship issues, however slight or intense, are even slightly acknowledged, the straight identity is threatened.

And this is why, within the straight/ normal/ masculine/ mainstream/ majority male population, the difference between 'straight' and 'gay' is extremely superficial.

Historical evidence of "pressures on men to be heterosexual"

2009-09-01T16:03:00.003+05:30

SEX & CHARACTER
by Otto Weinenger
Selected by Kevin Solway
from the 1906 English Edition

excerpts from the section "Women and Mankind" dealing with sexual mores
(complaining about the morals of the early 1900s in Germany/England etc.):

Masculine chastity is laughed at, and the feeling that woman is the evil influence in man’s life is no longer understood, and men are not ashamed of their own lust.

It is now apparent from where this demand for “seeing life,” the Dionysian view of the music-hall, the cult of Goethe in so far as he follows Ovid, and this quite modern “coitus-cult” comes. There is no doubt that the movement is so widespread that very few men have the courage to acknowledge their chastity, preferring to pretend that they are regular Don Juans. Sexual excess is held to be the most desirable characteristic of a man of the world, and sexuality has attained such pre-eminence that a man is doubted unless he can, as it were, show proofs of his prowess. Chastity, on the other hand, is so despised that many a really pure lad attempts to appear blas, rou,. It is even true that those who are modest are ashamed of the feeling; but there is another, the modern form of shame – not the eroticist’s shame, but the shame of the woman who has no lover, who has not received appraisement from the opposite sex. Hence it comes that men make it their business to tell each other what a right and proper pleasure they take in “doing their duty” by the opposite sex. And women are careful to let it be known that only what is “manly” in man can appeal to them: and man takes their measure of his manliness and makes it his own. Man’s qualification as a male have, in fact, become identical with his value with women, in women’s eyes.

But God forbid that it should be so; that would mean that there are no longer any men.

(Submitted by vbk)

The story of man's enslavement

2009-09-01T10:29:00.003+05:30

Stage 1: The beginning of human civilization

Marriage, sex, bonding happens only between two men

Reproductive sex with women at the proper time. No marriage, romance or bonding with women.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Stage II: After that, till the times of the ancient Greeks:

Marriage with women enforced on men.

Marriage with men continues and preferred by men.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stage III: Just before the birth of Christianity:

Marriage between men abolished

Men can only marry women

Sex, bonding and friendship between men continue and preferred by men.
------------------------------------------------------------

Stage IV: Christianity

Sex between men abolished.

Men can only have sex with women, formally. Men also must 'love' and bond with women, but only in marriage.

Men continue to have sex secretly in men's spaces. They continue to have strong platonic bonds formally, and openly.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Stage V: Modern Heterosexualized west

Men's spaces destroyed through heterosexualization. Sex and intimacy between males confined to the stigmatized, third gender 'homosexual' space. 'Sraight' males must constantly prove a repulsion for such intimacy in order to qualify for manhood.

Men must form romantic, emotional and social bonds with women, with or without marriage.

Deep bonds and even friendships between men informally abolished and discouraged too. Now men can have friendships too, only with women. Unless they want to be called 'gays.'

2009-09-01T10:29:00.001+05:30

.....

Turkey full circle

2009-08-31T20:21:00.000+05:30

Turkey is truly a curious land with an interesting mix of East and West. Straight men hold hands and the custom of the cheek kiss is all the norm while men still do not sit with women on buses if it can be helped. Segregation in mosques remains, women praying in secluded areas usually tucked away from the ‘front’. Entering a mosque requires men to cover at least their legs (and the usual shirt shoes etc) and women their head (amongst seemingly everything else). Prayer time can’t be missed as all cities small and large erupt in blaring words of praise. There is still a barter, and word of mouth commission like system in place. This explains why the prices are never the same and always negotiable. Honking at people to let them oHthemthemfjksfdlksfdlsfdf know they’re coming, or about to run them over, is also as customary as chai and carpet salesmen. There seems to be a big influx of money into the country via tourism. Luckily the turks understand how to treat the tourist always looking to help. Needless to say this does take a while to get used to as there is no such thing as a quiet walk. Foreign investment seems abound especially along the Mediterranean coast where there is no such thing as a cheap ‘anything’. Farming has evolved to use tractors though sheep still run unfenced over the landscape. Amazingly everyone seems to speak English to some degree and those that haven’t learned just jet try their hardest to help in any way possible. People are warm and appear to be used to foreigners. The land is diverse and has lots to offer especially historically. These include Byzantine, Ottoman, Anatolian, Roman, and Greek cultural remnants. The East of the country is mostly unexplored by tourists and still has some Kurdish conflicts which are also felt in the West via the PPK bombings and other unrest. All in all, Turkey has to date been one of the most amazing, ‘funnest’, culturally rich, cheapest, and friendliest countries to visit and I can’t wait to return one day.

October 29th, 2008 | Category: Michael, Travel, Turkey | One comment

Michael Panzeca: The Quest for Manhood

2009-08-19T05:24:00.000+05:30

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." - From Walden by Henry David Thoreau

A Friday. A moonless night. A dome of stars above. A light wind blows off the lake through the pines. A gathering of men is about to begin.

I'm late leaving my cabin. I walk briskly toward a dark building in the middle of the clearing. The other men are inside the building. I can hear them.

They're drumming.

The sound is loud, primal, frightening. I peek cautiously through the archway. Candles flicker from the middle of the floor. Fifty men are sitting, in a circle, around the candles.

Drumming.

Some of these men, these strangers drumming in front of other strangers, look as disconcerted as I know I must. Yet some look ecstatic. I find a place on the floor and try to pick up the beat. I lack a drum, but I have a tambourine, and I slap it across my thigh with false gusto.

A large, burly man - he must be 50 - howls at the ceiling like a Hollywood version of an Apache. Stands. Starts dancing. Hops around by himself, pounding his drum, grunting, whooping, screaming. A wild man in Rockports. He puts down his drum. Hugs the man to his right.

It cost $200 to be here, yet I want to run from the room.

I don't run, of course. I'm here to write about what happens during the next three days. Gatherings such as this, sponsored by the Orlando Men's Council, are taking place all over the country. Under the direction of psychotherapists and experts in American Indian rituals, men get together in the woods, commune with nature, beat drums, share their deepest feelings, dance with abandon, meditate, hug each other, read poetry, even purify themselves by sitting in 150-degree sweat lodges. What they are supposed to get out of this, I have read, is a spiritual reawakening and a new sense of what it means to be a man.

Participating in the shared emotion of such a gathering, for me, is a frightening prospect.

I was raised like most men. Be strong. Be the best athlete. Get the best grades. Whatever you do, don't cry. Feelings? Hell, real men hide them. Even as my father lay dying, we talked about baseball and fishing instead of our fierce love for each other. We kept secret our deepest emotions. As men do.

This is just one of my sorrows. Other sorrows are harder to articulate because they lurk in the subconscious. But I'll tell you what I think I think: In some regards, men have been as damaged as women by the way society has conditioned us.

The sorrow of women is that they have been devalued into sex objects and treated as second-class citizens. But during the last two decades women have taken action. They have faced their pain, shown righteous anger and are stronger for it. Men, meanwhile, have been socialized for centuries to be the great providers, to be stoic, to be soldiers, to kick ass. We've been conditioned to dominate women and our children, the workplace, other countries and the natural world. In the name of profit we are willing to poison the air and the water our grandchildren need for survival. Disconnected from nature, we have lost our ancient sense of wonder.

The modern work world has similarly taken us away from our families, as Robert Bly points out in his book about masculinity's mythic dimensions, Iron John. Our children are strangers to many of us. We work late, and on weekends, and seldom see them. Some of us, divorced, see our kids even less. Many of us never knew our own dads.

Bly has been talking to men, and writing poetry about men's lives, for more than a decade. But it was about two years ago that he shoved the men's movement into the mainstream. Public television's Bill Moyers filmed a Bly-led men's gathering in Texas that was seen by millions of viewers. Iron John, the book that followed, has been on the best-seller list for 43 weeks. Sam Keen's Fire in the Belly - on Being a Man also has outsold the usual diet books and celebrity biographies. Men's groups are meeting all over the country. Florida has a half dozen, including one in St. Petersburg.

Men clearly want to know more about being a man.

So what is a man? Hell, most of us don't know. A man has to do what a man has to do, we have heard, but we don't know what and why that is. And if we do, for the most part we're incapable of talking about it, much less changing our ways. That's our sorrow and our confusion.

Men have shorter lifespans than women. We are four times more likely to take our own lives. We are three times more likely to be addicted to alcohol and drugs. More men than women are homeless. More men than women are in prison.

"I think we're at the end of an era," says Michael Panzeca, one of three South Florida therapists running this gathering. "Men have achieved as much success as we can with progress and technology. We've got jobs, and cars, and wives and kids. We've got VCRs and stereos. Yet we're empty inside."

So we drum. Who are these men?

The guy on my left has a large drum. He is the dominant drummer. We play his beat, which is loud, slow, primal. The guy on my right has a large drum, too. His beat is slightly faster, and gradually we all join him. It's not a competition. It's a stream that has met a boulder and changed course. After 10 minutes, I feel like a molecule in that stream, carried along for an exhilarating ride.

Panzeca, 29, introduces himself and his assistants, Mark Purcell, 30, and Joe Milisitz, 36. I'm a beginner when it comes to psychotherapy, which may be true of most men, who try to handle their own problems, but I'll say this: These guys don't look like Freud. They wear jeans and T-shirts. They wear their hair in pony tails. They wear fedoras and earrings. Milisitz, with his Jersey accent, sounds like Bruce Springsteen. Purcell, of American Indian ancestry, writes poetry. Panzeca, stalking the room like a caged wolf, shares his background: He's a former alcoholic and drug addict who went sober nine years ago in prison and studied psychology.

He tells us to introduce ourselves, one at a time, and looks at me. I give my first name, where I was born, where I grew up, and where I live now. Most of the men follow my boring example. But halfway through the introductions, halfway around the room, the atmosphere changes.

"I'm from nowhere," says an angry looking man named Roman.

The guy behind him, a man with long blond hair, says: "I'm from the void."

I feel the need to pick up my notebook, my shield against raw emotion. Instead, I wait for a pause and add a personal detail: I'm a reporter. The organizers know, but the participants don't, and they should if I'm going to write about them. Nobody objects. When I tell them I am also a participant in this adventure, some of them, men who have done gatherings before, yell out.

"Ho!"

It's a Native American expression. It means "I agree." There will be a lot of hoing this weekend.

So who are these men? Most of us could be your neighbor. Most of us are well-groomed. All of us are white. I'd say our average age i between 35 and 45, in our mid-life crisis primes. Most of us, I'll learn throughout the weekend, are professionals. At least five participants are psychotherapists themselves. There is one medical doctor and one psychiatrist. There are several stock brokers and real estate salesmen. There are men who work with their hands.

Several men have physical handicaps. One man is unnaturally small. One is blind. One has a lazy eye. One has twisted legs and limps. But most of our problems, our sorrows, our hopes, are hidden in our hearts. And the purpose of the weekend is to help get them out and become better men - for ourselves, our women, our children, our planet.

Panzeca tells us to pick out a walking stick from the corner. He says the sticks will represent our male power. The newspaper reporter in me listens cynically. The man in me listens with an open mind.

Panzeca invites any man 50 or older to stand. He says the older men will serve this weekend as our elders, our mentors, our initiators into manhood. Why not? He sends them into the woods to build a campfire. He next invites us to share our fears. The room explodes with so much emotion I almost jump.

"I fear being insignificant!"

"I fear responsibility!"

"I fear my father!"

"I fear women!"

"I fear death!"

"I fear fear!" Returning to Mother Earth

Saturday. Dawn. A stiff breeze.

I'm exhausted from a sleepless night. I couldn't get the drumming out of my ahead, and my fears about today out of my heart. Today's schedule includes something called "ceremony of the wounds," a "power dance" and a "sweat lodge."

We're going to be using a lot of rituals to help us overcome our inbred white man's reluctance to talk and to feel. Some are Native American in origin; some are staples in psychotherapy. All will be new to me.

"A lot of psychotherapy with men is about their lack of being grounded," says Mark Purcell, who has practiced psychotherapy in Fort Lauderdale for six years, as we drink coffee at breakfast. "They don't connect with people, especially with other men. What we do at these gatherings is help them get grounded."

A drum is grounded in the earth. It's made from wood and animal skin. Beating it is primal. The raw ingredients of a sweat lodge ceremony are earth, air, water and fire. "A lot of what happens here is about nature," says Purcell, of Creek and Cherokee ancestry. So-called primitive men once drew upon Mother Earth for material and spiritual sustenance. They honored the Earth. Modern men fear it and exploit it. On this weekend, we will return to roots that some of us have forgotten.

We will hear much about "Wild Men" and "Warriors." These terms are sprinkled through Bly's Iron John. As Bly sees it, the wild man part of a man's personality is the spontaneous part, the funny part, the vulgar part, the sexual part, the passionate part, the part that feels comfortable in nature. A man needs some wild man in him to be whole. But the wild man part of personality, if taken to extremes, is also dangerous. It can be self destructive and violent, a drug addict or an alcoholic, a game of Russian roulette.

"Jack Kerouac's mistake was trying to become the wild man," Bly says. "He ended up vomiting his liver."

Some men fear even the good qualities of their wild man, or had it beaten or socialized out of them when they were boys, and they are passive, predictable, soft adults. They're sensitive, all right, but they lack energy. Their warrior is undeveloped.

The warrior is the competent part of a man, the part that gets things done, the determined part, the part that makes decisions. The warrior in a man loves himself and his family. The warrior in a man has the courage of his convictions. The warrior is willing to defend both his physical and emotional boundaries.

A warrior has another important component: the so-called nurturing side. This is the ability to teach. To listen. To feel empathy. To be interested in another man's soul. To be so secure in manhood that he can touch another man. Into the woods

Michael Panzeca sends us into the woods. Our mission is to confront our demons, the things that have wounded the wild man and the warrior in us, things that we are afraid even to think about, much less discuss with a stranger. Panzeca has even given us rags to represent our wounds. We tie them where we hurt.

I walk through the palmettos and look for a place to confront - what? I'm unsure. I squat at a fallen pine. In the distance I hear a shriek. Someone else yells, "No! No! No!" This is heavy stuff. Somebody curses with all his might. I look through dead branches across a field and see a man writhing in the sand. I hear someone battering a tree with his walking stick and condemning a father who is not there, who was never there. I think of events of my own childhood.

Tears fill my eyes. Their stories

We return to the fire. Some men are sobbing. Others are taking deep breaths and looking around with wild eyes. I sit on a bale of hay and finger my notebook and try to control my emotions. I'm afraid of letting go.

Panzeca tells us to separate into small groups and to talk, if we want to, about what happened in the woods. Joe Milisitz, the therapist we all call Joey, will lead my group.

So.

What are things that have kept some of us from realizing our potential as men?

One man says he never had a relationship with his dad. He loved his dad, wanted to learn from his dad, but his dad seemed to be dead inside. His dad never had a moment for his son. His dad loved television more than his own flesh and blood.

He stands among us and sobs. That may seem shameful to some of you reading this, a grown man weeping about an absent dad after so many years. But it is among the bravest, most moving things I've ever heard.

The rest of us stand and embrace him. We take the role of his father. "I love you just the way you are," Joey, the therapist, says gently. Someone says, "I'm turning off the television, Andy. Let's talk."

What else?

One man says he was raped by his father. He says he hates to be touched by men. He even hates when a man stands behind him. Sobbing, he asks for help. We stand behind him and embrace him. We honor his pain by sharing his tears.

One man, choking with emotion, says he has never been able to tell anybody, until now, just how angry he is with his domineering mother, who made him feel inadequate when he was a boy. Another man says he was regularly disciplined by his mother - with enemas.

One man was abused by a teacher. Another, by a nurse. One man weeps because he can have nothing but sexual relationships with women. He says he feels only emptiness. Another man calls his wife "that bitch." He's so tired of trying to make her happy.

Back at the fire, we pick up our drums and our percussion instruments. We beat them. We chant. We howl. Then, at Michael Panzeca's invitation, we leap, one by one, into the campfire circle and dance our pain away. We jump, we beat our sticks against the ground in rage, we swing them over our heads in triumph.

The power dance feels as natural as brushing my teeth. In the sweat lodge

Saturday night. Breezeless. Hot and sticky.

I have been drinking water continuously for three hours at the suggestion of Kirk Fenner, who is serving as a medicine man of sorts for the sweat lodge. Kirk, 43, is a South Florida electrician who has studied the traditions of American Indians for decades. He's also a former Vietnam veteran who has wrestled his own demons for his warrior soul.

"The sweat lodge is a Native American ritual," he says. "It's a purification rite that represents cleansing and rebirth."

There will be two lodges tonight, each lasting 90 minutes. I'm scheduled for the second. The lodge, built from pine saplings, is covered by blankets, tarps and a sheet of thick black plastic. A dome about 15 feet across and 5 feet high, the lodge resembles an igloo. About 25 of us will be stuffed into it at a time.

We're going to pray, according to Lakota Sioux traditions, and we're going to sing. We're going to talk, if we want to talk, and we're going to moan, if we want to moan. Some of us may be blessed with visions. All of us will sweat more than we've ever sweated before.

"Some people won't go into the lodge," Fenner says. "And that's good. You don't want to do this until you're ready. Some people come in and leave early. That's fine, too. You do what you need to do. That's one of the things about the lodge: It gives you exactly what you need. The lodge tells you to look at something, to look into your heart . . ."

My heart is pounding. I want to do this, but I'm also terrified. I'm slightly claustrophobic, and my lungs are scarred from an old illness. I'm one of those people who gets a flu shot every fall. A doctor here told me he did a sweat lodge last spring and got a lung infection.

We shed shirts and shoes. We remove rings and other jewelry. In the heat of the lodge, metal can burn skin. We line up single file. At the lodge door, we fall to our knees, bow to the earth, and say: Mitakuye oyasin. It's Lakota for "All my relatives" or "All my relations." All of us, men and women, animals, plants and rocks, living and dead, are related and watched over by Wanka Tanka, the Great Mystery, or what white people would call the Great Spirit.

It's warm in the lodge, but not stifling.

Kirk explains what we'll do. There will be four ceremonies, or endurances, honoring the west, north, east and south. We will invite in the spirits and ask them for courage, knowledge and healing. Each endurance will last a little more than 20 minutes.

A boulder, glowing red, is hauled in on a pitchfork and dropped into the pit in the center of the lodge. The temperature leaps by at least 10 degrees. Some of us giggle. Six more boulders, and almost unbearable heat, follow. Giggling stops.

Kirk closes the door flap.

It's as black in here as oblivion.

He ladles water onto the boulders. I hear the hiss before the suffocating steam covers me.

Kirk sings in Lakota. We do our best to follow along. I'm so anxious I have a hard time. I press my face to the earth in hopes of finding cooler air. My lungs feel like they're cooking.

Now Kirk begins a long prayer in English. He's inviting the spirit world into our lodge to help us.

A few of us try praying along. Others moan. My mind is centered on my fear. I want to leave, but I'm afraid to admit it. I don't want to wimp out. Kirk finishes the prayer.

I say: "I have to leave now."

Kirk says, "That's good, brother." Someone else says "Ho!" I crawl, clockwise, among my brothers toward the door. Touching me, they offer unspoken support. Kirk says, "The biggest lesson is knowing when to leave."

I stand outside the lodge and fill my lungs with cool air.

I feel only shame. Courage was all around

Sunday. Dawn. Sandhill cranes, squawking like rusty gates, fly in front of me as I meditate at the lake. What went wrong last night?

I seek out Joey Milisitz, the therapist, who was the hero of last night's ceremony. Joey did both lodges.

I tell him I lost my courage after 10 minutes. How did he last three hours?

Joey says, "I tried to do a sweat lodge last spring. After 10 minutes I had a panic attack. I had to get out of there! This time I was determined. So when I went into the first lodge, I announced my great fear to everybody. I told them I needed their support and their courage."

Joey's wisdom hits me like a thunderbolt. There I had been, sitting in a sweat lodge with 25 of the most supportive people I'd ever met. Yet I had been unable to express a simple, human emotion that surely is shared by all men: fear.

I felt alone in a roomful of friends.

The lesson of the sweat lodge. Harnessing the power

The rest of the morning goes too fast. We gather in the parking lot and line up. One by one, we're going to hike through the woods to the campfire circle, where the elders await to initiate us as men. If you had told me last week I was going to be "initiated" as a man, I would have laughed at you. But now I have to keep wiping my eyes. It's real.

So I walk into the woods. Alone. Someone lunges from behind a bush and blocks my path. He says he is my fear. Am I ready to accept him? I am. We embrace. I walk on, and meet my grief, and my anger, and, finally, my power.

At the campfire circle I step through a doorway constructed of saplings. Six elders welcome me. One ties a chain of beads around my neck. The beads represent earth, fire, wind and sun, components that celebrate the wild man and warrior in men. Kirk Fenner, medicine man, breaks out a ceremonial pipe.

We smoke and we pray.

"How do we translate what we have learned this weekend into the real world?" Michael Panzeca, the head therapist, had asked us earlier. "That's the important thing. Once we are in touch with our power, where do we go from here?" Home again

Three hours later, I pull into the driveway of my St. Petersburg home. Eager to begin my work, I feel like Scrooge on Christmas morning. I almost run into the house, where I gather into my arms my wonderful wife, Suzanne, and my precious children, Kristin, Peter and Katie. I hold them and tell them how much I love them, and how hard it is for me to even say those words, but how I'm going to try and say them a whole lot more from now on.

I'm not ashamed of my tears.

I feel their power. Do you understand me? I feel their power.

St. Petersburg Times - St. Petersburg, Fla.
Author: JEFF KLINKENBERG
Date: Sep 22, 1991
Start Page: 1.F
Section: FLORIDIAN
Text Word Count: 3838

Gay by choice? If science proves sexual orientation is more fluid than we've been led to believe, can homosexuality still be a protected right?

2009-06-22T18:47:00.001+05:30

Mother Jones , Sept-Oct, 2007 by Gary Greenberg

Excerpts from the article:

... That's the usual interpretation of reparative therapy--that to the extent that it does anything, it leads people to repress rather than change their natural inclinations, that its claims to change sexual orientation are an outright fraud perpetrated by the religious fight on people who have internalized the homophobia of American society, personalized the political in such a way as to reject their own sexuality and stunt their love lives. But Aaron scoffs at these notions, insisting that his wish to go straight had nothing to do with right-wing religion or politics--he's a nonobservant Jew and a lifelong Democrat who volunteered for George McGovern, has a career in public service, and thinks George Bush is a war criminal. It wasn't a matter of ignorance--he has an advanced degree--and it really wasn't a psychopathological thing--he rejects the idea that he's ever suffered from internalized homophobia. He just didn't want to be gay, and, like millions of Americans dissatisfied with their lives, he sought professional help and reinvented himself.

Self-reconstruction is what people in my profession (I am a practicing psychotherapist) specialize in, but when it comes to someone like Aaron, most of us draw the line. All the major psychotherapy guilds have barred their members from researching or practicing reparative therapy on the grounds that it is inherently unethical to treat something that is not a disease, that it contributes to oppression by pathologizing homosexuality, and that it is dangerous to patients whose self-esteem can only suffer when they try to change something about themselves that they can't (and shouldn't have to) change. Aaron knows this, of course, which is why he's at great pains to prove he's not pulling a Ted Haggard. For if he's not a poseur, then he is a walking challenge to the political and scientific consensus that has emerged over the last century and a half: that sexual orientation is inborn and immutable, that efforts to change it are bound to fail, and that discrimination against gay people is therefore unjust.

2009-06-22T18:46:00.000+05:30

.....

Disentangling Heterosexuality from Masculinity

2009-03-03T15:33:00.001+05:30

In traditional North American society, being "masculine" is often defined as (1) the opposite of being "feminine" and (2) avoiding sexual contact with other men. Recent trends in attitudes toward homophobia and masculinity, however, suggest that these traditional orientations may have begun to change in North American society. Drawing from a multiyear ethnographic study of heterosexual male college cheerleaders, I argue that associated with these changing attitudes and practices, many men are beginning to disentangle heterosexuality from masculinity. In this context, I demonstrate how avowedly "straight" men, in some instances, engage in gay sex and openly view such encounters as non-threatening to their own personal identities and public status as heterosexuals. The study carries theoretical implications for the conditions under which heterosexuality and masculinity do not imply each other and, most speculatively, when and how gay men are considered masculine.

Note from Reclaiming Natural Manhood site:

This article tries to disentangle heterosexuality from masculinity by showing that heterosexual males too have sex with men...

What is this weird western mindset... how can you prove that heterosexuals are being feminine by proving that they have sex with men?

Gays are 3rd Gender, and Western straights were bisexuals before the concept of sexual orientation

2009-03-01T18:23:00.001+05:30

Sex and the Gender Revolution. Volume 1: Heterosexuality and the 'Third Gender' in Enlightenment London, By Randolph Trumbach. Chicago Series on Sexuality, History and Society. Edited by John C. Fout.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 998. Pp. xiv+509. $35.00

Excerpts from the JSTOR Book Review:

"Trumbach's argument, reiterated throughout the volume, is this: by the very early eighteenth century in London, a "third sex" of effeminate sodomites emerged as a specific and unique sexual identity. Before this period, Trumbach argues, most men had sexual relations with both women and boys, the latter relations occurring before marriage or occasionally on the side. By 1700, however, a man's having sex with another male was seen as aberrant and incorrigible, in fundamental contrast to the sexual behaviour and identity of other men who were now "brought... into more intimate relations with women" (p. 9)

This thesis is not new -- Trumbach has made these points in earlier articles, plus other scholars of sexuality, namely, Michel Foucault, have also claimed that (homo)sexual identity was constructed at a particular moment."

The Western politics of Sexual identity

2009-01-18T14:28:00.002+05:30

Sexuality is naturally fluid for most most men, only for a small minority is it fixed and concretized.

The concept of sexual orientation forces men to choose a sexual identity which involves sacrificing an important part of themselves, to fit into one of the boxes provided by the society. It takes away their natural freedom to have a fluid sexuality.

Each box, but especially, the main box meant for 'normal' men has built-in mechanisms, and what guys consider 'support systems' to help men kill that part of themselves which doesn't fit into that box (We're talking about the 'heterosexual box').

The society has prescribed only three boxes into which men can mould their sexualities during their formative years. And the concept of sexual orientation enforces that men must choose between one of the boxes. The three boxes are:

'heterosexual', 'homosexual' and 'bisexual'

However, 'homosexual' and 'bisexual' are combined together into a common box alongwith the transgendered.

So, there are practically two boxes:

'straight' and 'queer'

Now, the Straight box is marked heterosexual, but alongwith the package is tied masculinity, however it is not mentioned in the label. So when guys want to choose masculinity, they can only choose the 'heterosexual' box, and develop their sexuality along heterosexual lines, by suppressing their sexual need for men. The society uses this choice of the 'heterosexual box' as proof that the majority desire the 'heterosexual box' (without mentioning the 'masculinity' aspect, which is truly the deciding factor).

The 'gay' or 'homosexual'/ 'bisexual' or 'queer' box is labelled 'man to man sexuality', however, the package is ties with feminine gender/ transgender and passive sex. Now, when masculine males refuse the 'gay' box, or choose the 'heterosexual' box it is seen as a sign that they don't need men sexually, when in reality they are rejecting the box for its feminine gender (which is not even acknowleged on the label, but widely propagated by the society to discourage men from choosing it.).

At the sametime, most of the males that do choose the 'gay' or 'homosexual' box are males who are primarily third gender or feminine males who happen to like men. Now, these males confuse their preference of the feminine gender with their sexual need for men, influenced by social propaganda and so when they're choosing the 'gay' identity, the major determinant of their choice is their feminine gender, and not a sexual need for men per se, since most masculine males who also feel that attraction do sacrifice it because it is not available in a box with manhood.

This is how the Western politics of male Gender and Sexuality, enforced through the oppressive concept of Sexual Orientation works to make the majority heterosexual and the minority homosexual.

The third gender in twentieth-century America

2009-01-16T20:49:00.001+05:30

George Chauncey's brilliant and often persuasive study of male homosexual relations in early twentieth-century New York was published two years ago on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Stonewall riot that inaugurated the recent gay liberation movement. The world that he describes was the product of a major shift in western sexual behavior that had begun two hundred years before, around 1700. And his book is in dialogue with the scholars who over the past twenty-five years have tried to analyze that shift. The nature of the problem to be discussed can be indicated by asking whether homosexuality and heterosexuality are biological categories that divide the world into a majority and a minority that can be found in all times and places. To such a question most western people today would reply yes. And while they would probably wonder why a minority should be homosexual, they would simply accept without question that most people are heterosexual. Since the 1970s, however, the work of some historians and sociologists has radically challenged these presumptions. Mary McIntosh in a classic article in 1968 began the discussion by proposing that homosexuality in modern society was a deviant role into which some men were socialized beginning around 1700. Nine years later in 1977 Jeffrey Weeks and myself, under McIntosh's influence but independently of each other, rephrased McIntosh's proposal. Weeks maintained that the modern homosexual role emerged in the late nineteenth century when the concepts of homosexuality and heterosexuality were invented.(1)..... click here to read more.

2009-01-16T20:48:00.000+05:30

......

Who is a Real Man

2009-01-15T12:56:00.001+05:30

Masculinity and Femininity are real natural, biological things... they're not just a matter of social roles... although, its true that by defining them in their own artificial terms, the society has muddled the concept of manhood.

Thus masculinity (that makes real men) is biological and so is the third gender (queer/feminine/transgendered males).

Natural Masculinity is something the seed of which men are born with. However, this seed needs to be developed into manhood, which is where the role of the society comes in. The society can either provide the required environment for this seed to grow to its full potential or deprive it of this environment, making men into lesser males.

Natural masculinity needs men's spaces and male bonds to develop into full manhood. It is when one's masculinity is given place in the men's spaces and combines together with the masulinity of other men, the resultant masculinity generated is multiplied several folds and each member can partake in this immense power generated. This enhanced masculinity when acknowledged by the men's spaces is called "Manhood". This is Natural Manhood. Some of the characteristics of natural manhood are, courage, bravery, honor, etc.

But, the society has politicized Manhood for thousands of years now, progressively, in order to control man's behavior, especially his sexual behavior, originally, in order to bind him into endless reproduction and rearing of children. This was done by making granting of 'manhood' dependent upon the man fulfilling certain criteria fixed by the society -- which came to be known as "male roles". This 'artificial' manhood created by the society is known as 'social manhood' (as against the manhood that is naturally generated). If the man failed to fulfill these roles he was denied manhood, and either became a lesser male or was banished into the queer (i.e. third gender) zone.

However, social manhood has mostly been based on traits and acts that force men to go against the requirements of their natural masculinity, i.e. they are contrary to natural manhood. So, in effect, men are then queered in order to gain artificially generated social power and 'manhood'. Reproduction and serving the female sexually is an artificially fixed role of Social manhood.

The Westernized roles of social manhood are far removed from man's nature and act as extreme pressures and stresses on men, that make a mockery of the entire manhood thing. And this, when the society does not need to make men into reproduction machines anymore, with a population boom and advancement in medicines. This is an oppression of men, but these very social roles of men prevent men from raising a voice against it, ironically by threatening to make him a lesser man socially, when his natural manhood demands that he speaks up.

Thus you can see, that in this set up, the Naturally real man, becomes socially a lesser man, and the naturally lesser man becomes real men.

If we really want to go for the real thing, we need to show a lot of courage, organize and fight the society to change the anti-man rules of manhood and take the control of men's spaces and the power to define manhood away from the anti-man forces, into our own hands. It's a woman dominated society that has succeeded in breaking men from men, and uniting again is the only thing that can liberate us.

Excerpts from the book: Queering India: Same-sex Love and Eroticism in Indian Culture and Society

2009-01-09T23:49:00.002+05:30

By Ruth Vanita

Published by Routledge, 2002
ISBN 0415929504, 9780415929509
252 pages

In these three films Mohanlal portrays a single unattached man, without a wife or even a girlfriend. At the outset he is located outside normative heterosexual bonding. He is initially defined by a male bond, a close friendship with another man who either desires or is desired by him. All three films subsequently explore the taming of this man within the heterosexual matrix.

Dr. Sunny, the psychiatrist in Manichitrathazhu, makes his initial appearance in the film as the best friend of Nakulan, whose wife Ganga requires psychiatric help. Verghese, the protagonist in Thacholi Verghese Chekavar, is also defined in terms of his close friendship with Shyam, his young male protege. Jagan the protagonist in Aram Thampuran, is introduced as the best friend and muscleman of Nandakumar, a wealthy businessman. Dr. Sunny is an eccentric globe-trotter who, in the episode that introduces him, provides a detailed description of his journeys in the episode that introduces him, provides a detailed description of his journeys during the previous few months, which include brief stays in several all-male spaces. He recounts his travels from the United States to Bangalore and then to Sabarimalai in Kerala, focus of an all-male pilgrimage, and mentions having stayed wiht various male friends. Verghese is a martial arts expert who is frequently seen in the all-male space of a traditional gym, the Kalari. Besides, he is indifferent to his mother's constant appeal to get married. jagan, a muscleman hired by business magnates, is a loner without a family who constantly inhabits sites frequented by the city mafia that are marked as masculine. The introductory episode presents him sharing a drink with a male rickshaw puller on the roadside. In a subsequent telephone conversation with his patron Nandakumar, he describes his activities during the previous few days, all of which are connected with male friends.

Apart from being confined to "masculine" locations and male bonds, these men are also presented as indifferent or even hostile to women. Verghese violently rejects the advances of an attractive young girl. Annie, who relentlessly pursues him through the first half of the film. Later, when he kidnaps the heroine, Maya, mistaking her for Shyam's truant girlfriend, he repeatedly makes it clear that he has absolutely no personal interest in her. it is his emotional commitment to Shyam that persuades him to be rude and violent to Maya. Dr. Sunny's initial reaction to the women he meets in Nakulan's house is marked by humorous sarcasm. He playfully harasses most of the women there till he embarks on the serious mission of curin. g Ganga, Nakulan's wife, of her mental illness. Jagan is not enthusiasti when his patron Nandakumar offers him a "few expensive blankets" (slang for expensive female sex workers) in return for his services. After relocating to the village, jagan initially reacts with sarcasm to the heroine Unnimaya's confident defiance. Later when his female friend, a city girl named Nayantara, proposes to him, Jagan rejects her without hesitation.

It is also interesting to examine the contradictions between visual and oral narratives in the film. jagan describes Nayantara as a good friend but the sequences in which they appear together present him as stiff and uneasy in her company. While Nayantara's words and body language clearly denore her warmth toward jagan, his response is cold and remote -- preoccupied as he is with several other issues that constitute the main concern of the narrative. yet Jagan is the only character among these three who shows any heterosexual inclinations. A subsequent song sequence in the film suggests an earlier heterosexual affair he had -- perhaps a brief relationship with a northern Indian girl that ended tragically.

The weariness or hostility that these men exhibit toward women directly contrasts with the warmth, affection, and commitment they show toward women directly contrasts with the warmth, affection, and commitment they show toward male friends. The Mohanlal character in all the films discussed here is either desiring or desired by a male friend. Verghese, the martial arts expert, is clearly depicted as desiring his young male disciple and friend, Shyam, and the entire film is about his struggle to win him back after a brief estrangement. When Annie's desperate attempts to seduce Verhese fail, she taunts Verghese by telling him that when she last met Shyam he looked "so cute and sexy". Instead of being worried about the possible alienation of Annie's affections, Verghese's anxieties about Shyam are heightened, since Shyam has been avoiding him for the past few days.

Dr. Sunny and Jagan do not express such overt desire for their male friends. Yet these friendships are the most important commitments in their lives. Though he is a busy psychiatrist, Dr. Sunny puts off all other engagements to be with his friend in his hour of need. Jagan's commitment to business magnate Nandakumar is similar; he violently assaults and almost kills a rival businessman for his friend's sake and later refuses to accept the monetary reward offered by Nandakumar.

Negotiating the Physical

Male bonding has been a prominent trope in mainstream cinema all over the world ever since the film industry was established. Patterns of male bonding and structures of same-sex friendships have changed overtime. Commercial concerns make it mandatory for mainstream cinema to engage in dialectic with changing attitudes and realignments of desire in hegemonic social discourses. Thus, the solidarity of two white males that appeared in early Hollywood Westerns is replaced in more recent films by an interracial friendship between white and black men. The function of the female vis-a-vis male bonding has also been changing. Conventionally, it was the destiny of one of the two men to die so as to faciliate his friend's union with the woman. But in some recent films it is the woman who dies while the male buddies survive the final catastrophe (for example, in The Deep Blue Sea, 1999). In this context I am interested in the evolving structure of male bonds in Malyalam cinema, particularly its negotations with the physical.

Most striking in these male solidarities is the recognition and definition of the male body's organic existence as both desiring and desired. For example, jagan's stiff response to Nayantara stands in contrast to his response to similar overtures from Nandakumar. In an earlier scene we see a jubilant Nandakumar celebrating the achievement of a sought-after business deal that Jagan had earned for him. Nandakumar expresses his joy by repeatedly uttering phrases like "ever since I got you," and "since you became mine," while holding jagan by his shoulders and caressing his hair. He also offers him a few curious rewards; prominent among these is a joint trip to Europe. Throughout the scene, Jagan is more composed than Nandakumar, yet warm and willing. The scene ends with Nandakumar declaring that they are going to forget everything that night and "sleep together." Thus, Jagan is more desired by than desiring Nandakumar.

Hegemonic Masculinity

2009-01-04T17:15:00.000+05:30

"Mr. Jones" by Amy Winehouse

...nobody stands in between me and my man / it's me and Mr. Jones / what kind of fuckery is this?...

So following reading Betty Friedan's genius, I read another article by Michael Messner called "Sexuality and Sexual Identity".

I liked it. I learned a little bit about the dynamic of male bonding and male relationships and how they strongly influence how a man relates to a woman.

I will admit something right now. I'm a man hater. Yes. Me. I love and I cannot stand them. Yes. I am damaged. But I don't care. And neither do they. Which is why I hate them. The only man I love unconditionally is my Dad. I do not have Daddy issues. My Dad is an incredibly intelligent and charismatic man who was and is very involved in my siblings' and my life. He always told me I was smart, funny, beautiful and all the other things I haughtily advertise about myself. He started it. He told me I could change the world and I believe him

So Daddy is not the issue. Men have just been disappointing. Yes. Because I am damaged.

But I started to feel bad for men a little bit after reading this article. Being a man, socially, can be terrifying and limits the expression of the whole person that every person is. Women still have it harder. I'll tell you why later but read my jawn about the article. My empathy does not shine through very well, but trust me, I see that it is hard to be a guy:

The male version of the problem with no name has been erroneously categorized as having no name. The problem is actually called hegemonic masculinity, a function of patriarchy. Hegemonic masculinity requires a man to demonstrate certain characteristics and behaviors that will socially qualify him as a "masculine man". Failure to do so subjects a man to being called such things as a "fag" or a "sissy" or a "girl", qualifying the aforementioned concepts as negative epithets that are contra-masculine.

The other phenomenon of hegemonic masculinity involves the manner in which men bond. The second article, "Sexuality and Sexual Identity" by Michael Messner, addresses the detrimental affect male bonding and competition has on the intimacy between men and women and the self-image problems it causes for men.

As specifically discussed in the article, sports are an important social tool in portraying masculinity and being accepted as a "man". The aggression, physical prowess, discipline, etc. that organized sports requires and produces identifies athletes as the uber-man. His masculinity is not questioned but he is under more pressure to exert his masculinity. He must be well versed in the language of "getting women" and sexually potent and experienced (or promiscuous even).

The "locker room" culture is a breeding ground for the expectations about sexual behavior and interactions with the opposite sex. Messner poignantly points out that men bond under the condition of "[separating] intimacy from sex (homosocial)" and define their "relationships with women as sexual but not intimate (heterosexual)". This distinction does much to damage potential intimate relationships between men and women. Simultaneously, homosexuality is strictly banned. Homophobia serves as a motivator to more actively demonstrate one's "maleness" by objectifying and hypersexualizing relationships with women.

POSTED BY KARMA, INC. AT 2:09 PM

LABELS: ANSWERS, MR. JONES

An analysis of the origins of Homosexuality as an anti-man conspiracy

2008-12-27T01:34:00.000+05:30

The history of the origins of the concept of 'homosexuality' shouts out loud that 'homosexuality' refers to queer's sexuality for men, not men's sexuality for men. And that the entire concept is a conspiracy against men.

The people upon whom the concept of 'homosexuality' was first coined were the mollies -- those who were known by the then Western society, not as men, but as members of the third sex -- like anywhere in the world. But their femininity was still misdefined as "males who get anally/ orally penetrated".

Those who invented the concept of 'homosexuality', sought to study these people clinically, under science, and it did not any special talents to see these flamboyant, effeminate, gaudy, individuals as being 'different'. However, the 'scientists' defined their difference in terms of their sexual preferences. So far so good.

The conspiracy angle comes in in the fact, that they defined their sexual preferences, and thus their femininity not in terms of their desire to receive anal/ oral sex from men, but as "male sexual desire for men". This one sweeping act of generalization brought the entire gamut of men's desire for men' into the stigmatized 'queer' category.

What followed was what the conspirators had wanted to do... the media widely popularized the queer sexuality for men, as 'men's sexuality for men', They would deride queers and make fun of them as 'homosexuals', i.e. men who liked men. And the real men (i.e. masculine males), who were almost 100 percent into sex with other men, albeit secretly, started disowning their sexual interest in men, in order to avoid being counted as 'queer'. However, they still had not taken upon the heterosexual identity -- they would never do that -- because it would be a further burden on them.

It was the conspirators, who, along with the new category of 'homosexuals' they had invented and empowered, invented the term 'heterosexual' and later 'straight' to describe those who were trying hard to disown their sexual interest in men, and to divert all their sexual needs towards women, in order to avoid a fate they consider worse than death. To be counted as one of the queers. And indeed, if you look at the stigma attached with the word 'homosexual' or 'gay', you know that it is the same thing as the 'mollies' or the 'third gender' of the early modern era.

No wonder, the 'heterosexual' or 'straight' identity became the most sought after thing for normal, masculine, non-queer males. The conspirators had succeeded. They had finally achieved what their forefathers had desired, but could never hope to succeed in doing. To wipe out men's sexual need for men from the mainstream altogether, and to break men completely from other men. Indeed, in the hysteria the conspirators have later created using the threat of being labelled 'gay', western men today are scared to hold each other's hands in public, when their forefathers kissed each other as social greeting. The media, as usual, is in the forefront of this heterosexualization/ homosexualization, followed by peer-pressure, through which a competition to prove one's heterosexuality and repulsion towards 'homosexuality' (sic) is enforced upon young men.

Today the conspirators, whom we call the Forces of Heterosexualization, and that includes 'homosexuals', can easily sit back and, as far as they are concerned, honestly claim, that 'straight' is about being naturally 'heterosexual' and that they don't have any sexual interest in men. And that anyone, who has a sexual interest in men is necessarily 'gay'.

The contemporary versions of these conspirators are the likes of Bailey, who are bent upon further concretizing this final defeat of men's social/physical/emotional need for men by 'proving' scientifically, using the effeminate 'gays' and the masculine 'straights' as their study base, that 'men who like men' have biological traits of women, including their brain structures, their gait, etc. And that the Queer heterosexuals who are now emerging and who are challenging the conspirator's claim that heterosexualty = straightness, are being scientifically 'proven' to not be really queers. They are also bent upon defeating the 'bisexual' brigade that is also threatening the stigma imposed upon the 'straight' population, by claiming that there is no real 'bisexuality' and bisexuals are merely 'gay' males.

There are hordes of other myths being promoted in the name of science, using this wrong and invalid foundation of sexual orientation, upon the politics of which, the entire western population is structured. E.g., it is women, they claim, who are more commonly 'bisexual', than men. Men are, as a majority, constantly and exclusively heterosexual, as per their claims. Of course, this serves to add to the pressures upon men to be exclusively heterosexual, if they want to be counted as men and not queers.

All in all, the entire social set up, led by the institutions of Science, Media and Peer-pressure are making sure that straight men grow up to be heterosexuals, while the minority who doesn't are marginalized as 'gays', and nobody suspects a thing. Of course, they close their eyes completely to all the biological, historical, contemporary cultural, etc. evidences that shouts in their face that they are wrong. They not only ignore these evidences, but they also seek to destroy them, to misinterpret them, redefine them and to ascribe false 'causes' to them, in order to protect them from challenging their lies. Isn't this how most oppressive systems in the world function? -- heterosexuality, Judio/Christian/Islamic religions, Caste system, apartheid, Communism, and so on -- they all work in similar fashions, by not allowing anyone or anything to challenge their lies.

Their are immense documentations of the institution of Science destroying the evidences of widespread male sexuality for other males in biology (wildlife science), history and culture. Innumerable western 'experts' seek to write off the widespread male intimacies in the non-western world as "inability to find female partners due to social restrictions". They even go so far as to paint the non-western males as 'effeminate' (e.g. one ridiculous claim that Muslim males wear eye-liners, and this makes them effeminate, and then relating this to the widespread male intimacy in Islamic cultures... eye-liners are not inherently feminine, they are not held to be such in the Islamic world, and macho males wear them too. When the society acknowledges the real differences between men and women, men do not have to resort to such artificial differences to maintain their sense of manhood. And is it very scientific for these 'experts' to judge non-western cultures of manhood through the artificial social roles prevalent in the West?). All in all, its a deep, deep rooted conspiracy against men, and one that is the most difficult to fight against, if only because, the west and these forces of heterosexualization, are extremely powerful today, due to vast industrialization -- economically, technologically and politically. They are busy denouncing the values prevalent in the rest of the world as 'backward' and thrusting their conspiracies upon them in the name of more civlised way of living.

The concept of 'homosexuality' as it is defined on the facade, is invalid too. There is no justification for considering man's sexuality for men as separate because all men have a sexual need for men. Today, the western society has suppressed this biological fact so deep, and covered the rest in the straight community, that it is difficult for a non-straight male (which means non-masculine males and women) especially, gays to believe this to be true.

It's like inventing a concept called "two earsnality", the trait of having two ears... Why, because everyone has two ears, except a rare few. The basic assumptions behind the concept of 'homosexuality' are wrong. And upon that, if you see the lies built later on this foundation, to build this concept of 'homosexuality' on the 'third sex' space to further stigmatize it as 'queer', then the entire thing becomes a HUGE conspiracy to break men from men.

The heterosexualization of (straight) men

2008-12-27T01:29:00.003+05:30

Young men know that they are supposed to develop a strong enough sexual need, a sexual comfort, a sexual space for women in their hearts/ minds and that time is running out. The bigger sexual need they are able to develop for women, the easier their life is going to be.

No one talks about it, but almost all straight men (except those to whom it comes more naturally) struggle quietly, without letting anyone know of this struggle, to develop a place for women in their life, because unless they do it, they're going to be queers not men. Mere talking about girls can only take them so far. When men's spaces are strong you can get away with just talking about girls till you get married. And you don't really need a sexuality for women to get married, you only need to do the needful. Marriage is more of a social responsibility. No one cares or knows whether you really enjoy the sexual company of a woman. However, the more heterosexualized the society is, the more you're under pressure to develop a sexuality for women, because they want action, not mere talking.

Its the social mechanisms of man's oppression that have generated this need in men to develop a sexuality for women (or face the consequences), and it is the same mechanisms which help the men to do it, for one thing, by placing such huge social value for men in girls. This social value keeps men inspired to run after the girls. In other words, men run after the girls for the social value attached to them, and the social power attached to heterosexuality than for their intrinsic sexual value. The pleasure, and everything else is secondary, which may or may not happen. Sex is a pleasurable sensual activity in itself, and if all the other avenues of releasing sexuality are physically or psychologically closed for men, then the only avenue available automatically becomes pleasurable for you. Technically, you can also develop a sexuality for animals, if they're the only beings you can actually have sex with. It is the same principle that the Forces of Heterosexualization use to explain so-called 'homosexuality' in prisons.

The heterosexual society has created a huge socio-psychological prison for men, where sexuality between men is marginalised into a queer ghetto, severely stigmatized and kept away from the mainstream men's spaces (straight spaces). Thus a sexuality for men becomes inaccessible for normal, regular, masculine guys who are known as 'straights' (in traditional societies, they're just known as 'men' and gays are known as 'third gender'), who are conditioned to fight off and hate any such sexual feelings within them. They are trained to see their sexual need for men (which is biologically a part of being a masculine gendered male), as a burden that they must get rid of, if they want an easy life. Taking on the queer 'gay' identity is out of the question for masculine gendered males, who'd rather die than have to take it -- So, classifying sexual need for men as 'gay' is practically creating a huge wall between men and their sexual need for men, a wall that men can never break. Its a straight line that men will never dare to cross.

Straight men don't care for sexual pleasure or any pleasure

That sexual pleasure in itself means little to men over their manhood, is clear from the fact that in case study after case study, where typical young straight men became intensely but unwittingly, sexually and emotionally involved with another man, short of falling in love, they still fought off these feelings and either avoided having real sex (which in any case often doesn't involve anal/ oral sex) with their lovers (which were acknowledged as just friends) or allowed themselves to have unacknowledged sex with them, but broke off the relationship which was at its zenith, when they were faced with the pressure from the 'lover friends' to acknowledge these feelings. The avoidance of sex as well as breaking off the bond was extremely painful for them, and had it been towards a girl, they would have made quite a show of their distress, and even have contemplated suicide. However, here they just internalize their pain, move ahead and then try to seek the company of a girl to transfer all that heightened but unfulfilled sexual need. So, although, straight men make a huge show of their sexual interest in girl and the pleasure they derive from it, in reality, pleasure means little to straight men. What means is their straight identity, because the straight identity is related with manhood. And the Queer identity is related with a loss of manhood.

Also, in all of these case studies, straight men although became intensely emotionally involved, they did not fall in love with their male lover friends, some of whom were non-heterosexual straights (in non-heterosexulaized societies, masculine males who exclusively desire men are counted as striaghts) or were 'gay', fell in love (which means they were not so inhibited about a relationship with a guy). Some of these straight men went on to fall in love with girls. While some of this love was a put on, others were more genuine. But whether they were fake or genuine, one thing was for sure, they were all, especially flamboyant about their love for the girls and made a great pommp and show of it. They also seemed to be unusually involved with the girls, with unusually heightened feelings and unusual care they showed towards their female partners -- something that they constantly withheld from their male partners. However, even in the genuine cases of these male-female love, men were able to fall in love with girls because they value their relationships with girls, while they did not value their relationships with a man, and you can't fall in love unless you value something. Their lover friends, on the other hand greatly valued these relationships and had a place for it in their hearts as well as their life. Thus they allowed themselves to fall in love, while the straight men did not allow themselves to do that.

Acknowledging their sexual need for or interest in another male may have more than just the social connotations for straight men. They may actually also render the inbuilt socio-psycho mechanisms inside them useless, if they only acknowledged this sexual need even in private (like in a private survey). This is why they NEVER acknowledge their need even with the partners they're having an intense sexual relationship with, or if they, in the heat of the moment, acknowlege it, they make sure to go back on it and deny it later, when they remember to fight with the intimacy. Because, not acknowledging something that exists has tremendous implications. If you consider an existing trait as non-existing it practically ceases to exist, even when it does so. And then it ceases to affect your personal sense of identity as a 'straight' male.

Another thing that is evidenced from the case studies is that, men who naturally develop enough sexual feelings for girls, that is, they did not have to struggle a lot to achieve this, they are less macho, often softer, than those who struggle a lot to develop these feelings. But they also tend to be more open about relating sexually with other men, especially once they 'prove' their heterosexuality, and have lesser hassles in doing so than men who have had to struggle a lot, and especially those, who're still struggling.

This struggle to be heterosexual tends to take a lot of toll on the health of straight men, who tend to age much faster than males who don't have to struggle so much. This is one reason why gays tend to look younger than straight males of similar age. But, straight men are willing to pay any price to be heterosexual, as long as it is required for 'manhood'.

Sexuality for men a great threat to straight men

In inumerable case studies, where young straight men in their late teens or early twenties, with yet undeveloped heterosexuality, fell unwittingly into relationships with men -- (and this happened not only in cases where men's spaces were strong, but also in heterosexualized spaces, and even in the former cases, there was enough opportunity for young men to court women in private, although, there were lots of opportunities for close intimacies to develop between men) -- men saw their increasing involvement with a male lover, a big threat to their heterosexualization process. They realised, without anyone having to tell them that, if they allowed their sexual feelings for men to develop and gave it a 'valued' place in their lives, (a place they want to reserve for girls, because of the social pressures, even if the sexuality for girls is not fully developed yet), they may never be able to develop an adequate sexuality for girls. Because, in order to develop this sexuality your 'sexual' zone should be vacant. If it is filled up with need for a man, it would be almost impossible to change this in the future, if the sexuality for men takes root. Therefore, in 100% of these cases, men fought with their desire for their male lovers and tried to kill their growing emotional and social intimacy with them. It was an extremely painful process in all of these cases as these men really cared for their lovers at the sametime. So, it was a unique struggle where they were torn apart between a hatred of their sexual feelings for men and a very strong desire for their male lovers. Of course, in the end the social mechanisms won, and the bonds, all of which were extremely intense broke, sometimes without being 'consumated' at other times after a long sexual involvement.

Straight stated definition of 'gay' is different from straight 'practised' definition of 'gay'.

Straight men are forced to acknowledge the defintion of 'gay' given by the Forces of Heterosexualization. But for all practical purposes, they have their own functional definition of what comprises 'gay' and what comprises 'man' or 'straight' male.

When asked straight men will use the definition of 'gay' given by the formal society -- those who like men are 'gay'. However, in practise, it is not the liking of men that makes you gay. It is acknowledging that liking that does. And each straight society has different levels of freedom it allows to unacknowledged sexual acts between men. For example, in buses in Delhi, India, men can feel up other men, even masturbate them using their elbows, while making it seem casual, but using your hands is 'gay'. As 'wierd' as it may sound to western gays, no one will think of you as 'gay' if you quietly felt up another man using your elbow or any body part, except your hands. It is something straight males do to each other quietly. You will be thought of as 'gay' if you acknowledge your interest or cross the straight codes of sexual conduct with men, or showed a sexual disinterest in girls.

Spaces for straight men to give vent to some of their suppressed sexual need for men:

But men do create silent, unspoken and unacknowledged, fearful spaces within the heterosexualized spaces, where whenever they get a chance (which is rare) they give vent to some of their suppressed sexuality for men, but always taking care to camouflage their sexual acts by hiding behind socially acceptable excuses like non-presence of girls, losing inhibition after drinking, watching girl porn with guys, or just doing it because they're getting bored (always letting it be known that they have no real interest in men). These acts of giving vent to their sexual feelings for men often doesn't include things like oral/ anal sex, but rather stuff like seeing naked, feeling up or masturbation. It most certainly never involves more mushy things like kissing or embracing -- which are held decidedly 'queer' (Its clear that what the men want to do with other men sexually is determined by what is allowed within the straight identity/ manhood roles, rather than what they really desire deep within). Also, men never cease to take advantage of socially approved occasions like hazing (ragging) or handling of prisoner of wars in army, etc. to give vent to their sexual feelings for men. These excuses provide men a space where they can indulge in sexuality for men without being threatened to be burdened with the 'gay' identity. Even within the heterosexualised straight spaces, men sometimes are able to find or make for themselves pockets of men's spaces... and whenever they do, their sexual interactions with other men become more open and blatant. This is why the Forces of Heterosexualization are too keen to put girls in every personal space of men, (i.e. heterosexualize their spaces) so that they don't get any excuse or opportunity to give vent to their sexual need for men. The more they are able to suppress this sexuality for men, the more it becomes possible to channel this sexual need into 'heterosexuality'. When they attempt to 'cure' homosexuality, this is actually what they seek to do, to suppress a man's sexual feelings for men and to channelize it into women, although in most cases it is too late. You have to do it before the sexual feelings for men get too developed. Doing it after these feelings become developed is almost impossible.

Men often feel freer to indulge in their sexuality for men when they are in a position of power over other men who are in a vulnerable position. This is one situation where they would not be afraid of being 'queers' simply because they have social excuse, plus they are in a position of power over the men they are sexually exploiting, and thus more 'manly'. Queers can only be powerless, unmanly, sissies. Also, straight men have usually mutilated most of the softer, positive sides of their sexuality for men, and in any case, what they allow themselves to enjoy in these situations are hardened, negative, exploitative aspects of their sexuality for men, that has survived. The negative things often survive, when the positive aspects of a human trait have been killed by the society.

We all have images of how the Western armymen behaved with Iraqi men they captured in war. The first thing they'd do would be to strip them, to feel them up, to make them masturbate, to make them indulge in sexual acts with other men (or even with the armymen). And indeed to watch them being sexually humiliated by women, that has a special sexual value for straight men. The armymen had a perfect excuse, and they never failed to take pictures and videos of their sexual exploitation of prisoners to keep with them forever.

Stripping and sexually humiliating men before others, especially in front of girls, has immense sexual value for straight men. There are various reasons for this, which would be a topic for another analysis. Those in power in the Western society, have kept enough spaces and excuses for them to indulge in this fetish, and when it is so given sanction by the mainstream society, it ceases to be 'queer'. Therefore, in western culture, men are often made to strip down for medicals, often in public situations like army recruitments etc. when there is no apparent need for this humiliation. Women, on the other hand are not required to go through such humiliation.

Seen in this light, the stripping of four youths in full public view by the US army takes on another dimension, that the society will never want to acknowledge. Straight male sexuality for men often finds quiet, unacknowledged vent in social, non-sexual situations like stripping or feeling during medicals, in search operations, etc. There is a cover for men in such situations and the society considers only acts or men that involve anal/ oral sex to be 'queer' -- or at least an open acknowledgement of an interest in men. The social cover provided by these situations mean that men can indulge in sexuality for men without acknowledging their needs. Many of us are aware of this, but we aren't really able to conceptualize it, because it is not recognized in the society as such, and social acknowledgement/ non-acknowledgement makes a lot of difference in our ability to comprehend the reality.

Since there is no social space for normal, regular guys to talk about or acknowledge the pain that straight men go through while mutilating their sexual need for men, men too don't really lament over what they've lost or what they've suffered. There is no scope for complaining. Indeed, they don't see it as loss, they're socially conditioned to see it as a gain and a big relief from having to be queers.

Another aspect of straight male sexuality for men, is that although they feel freer to give vent to their hardened sexuality for men when in a position of power over vulnerable men, they tend to give vent to the softer side of whatever has remained of their sexuality for men, when in sexual situations with men who are more powerful, manly or macho than them. Of course, to be powerful and macho implies in heterosexual societies that neither of the two sides ever acknowledge their interest in each other. They indulge in the acts, often in the dead of night or behind an excuse, and pretend as if nothing ever happened.

PROBLEMS IN AWAKENING STRAIGHT MEN ABOUT THE ISSUE OF THEIR OWN OPPRESSION

Even when straight men are so oppressed by the mechanisms of social oppression, many of them, like a typical victim, are allegiant to these mechanisms and directly and indirectly support and strengthen them. This is ironical, yet true, and one of the biggest impediments in doing any work around this issue.

Men feel grateful to these oppressive mechanisms for being helpful to them in fighting with their own sexual needs when they are the most vulnerable against these needs. Ironically, men tend to see their own sexual feelings aS their enemy and the mechanisms that help them fight themselvs as their 'friend'. This is because, they see, the manhood = heterosexual connection as inevitable and biological -- something which is inalterable, as if they owe their manhood to these social mechanisms without which they just cannot be 'heterosexuals'.

What they don't realise is that if there were no anti-man social mechanisms, there would be no connection between manhood and heterosexuality and no need for men to fight with their real sexual needs as it is their real selves that can procure them their much needed manhood. When straight would mean not heterosexual but a male who is simply masculine gendered, although loving another male would be acknowledged as an integral part of this manhood, as it is in nature.

But most of all, men are scared to be labelled as 'gay' to associate with this sort of work/ campaign.

ENDNOTE
Its true that most men eventually develop a working heterosexuality, but even if they don't, they get the manhood status, embedded in the straight identity and that is the only thing they really care about (it would be just easier on men if they can develop a working heterosexuality, because it would be less stressful for them then). However, this is not a need that was provided by the nature, neither is this connection between heterosexuality and 'manhood' or 'sexual interest between men' and queerhood real. These connections as well as the need for being heterosexual is created by the society.

Therefore, if we can do away with the social need to be heterosexual, men will not have to feel happy about killing an important part of their own selves.

"THOSE FANTASIES": WHY STRAIGHT MEN SOMETIMES FANTASIZE ABOUT OTHER MALES

2008-12-12T22:14:00.002+05:30

This article is bad, except that it at least acknowledges the fact that straight men are not exclusively heterosexual in their thoughts. The reasons it ascribes are only partially valid.

By A. Patcher

[A. Patcher is a JackinWorld reader and freelance writer.]

This topic is not normally discussed in sex-education literature or in health classes, and probably not among most heterosexual male friends. However, in reality, it's more common than most straight guys care to admit. Straight men's fantasies about other males can be attributed to several factors; some of these are normal and very common, while others are more profound and signal a deeper sexual issue or unfulfilled social need. Note: While reading this article, keep in mind thatfantasies are very different from actions. Straight men may think of other male bodies or even sexual contact with other males while masturbating, but most are not willing or able to perform sexually with another man in real life. Usually, the fantasies remain fantasies and do not predict future actions.

Adolescent events. First are the factors that arise from events during adolescence — the period beginning at the onset of puberty, through the growing years into young adulthood, until total independence from the parents. When the body and mind are growing and developing during this period, it is very common to have fantasies about the same gender during masturbation sessions. Young men frequently wonder if their friends are developing as fast as they are. They may question whether their friends masturbate as well, or if they have had sexual intercourse. New feelings and changes in the body can create quite a bit of curiosity. This is sexually arousing to many people simply because the thoughts revolve around sexuality and sex organs. At the same time, adolescence is a time for the development of a person's identity. When developing an identity, we tend to take a very close look at those around us of the same gender. In doing so, certain males will be more appealing to us than others. The males we would like to be similar to will appear more attractive. Although we may not want to actually have sex with them, at a time in life when just about anything can be erotic, this emotion can manifest itself as sexual arousal.

Male pride. The second factor simpler: Most males really enjoy being male. Let's face it — having a penis is awesome! We all have certain physical features in common with other males. Depending on the individual, this pride of masculinity may cause a varying degree of arousal when a guy looks at another male. Even though we may have no desire for actual romantic or intimate contact with another male, it can still be an erotic image. We may wonder how a fellow male masturbates or how he has sex, because we find these things enjoyable when we do them ourselves. We may think about masturbating while looking at another guy who is doing it at the same time. However, basic admiration or "looking at another guy" can be very far from a desire to live a gay lifestyle with him. Nearly all gay men would agree there is more to homosexuality than that. When considering sexual preference one has to take into account the balance of desire for physical intimacy with the two genders, also taking into consideration the desire for emotional intimacy — love from companion-like relationships. It's important to mention, too, that many people do not develop a strong desire for opposite-sex intimacy (or same-sex intimacy, for that matter) until late in adolescence or even afterward. Overall, predictions cannot be made, because we all have individual perceptions and different feelings that contribute to our thoughts and actions.

The sexual spectrum. Sexuality is not confined to just three little categories of homosexual, bisexual, and heterosexual. The "Kinsey Scale," developed by Alfred Kinsey, has been used by sex researchers since the 1950s. The scale ranges from 0 to 6, with a person who is 100% heterosexual being 0 to a person who is 100% homosexual being 6. The original scale took into account only actual physical contact with partners — but updated versions include fantasy, love, and self-identification. This scale is necessary for scientific research, but even a 7-point scale seems a bit too rigid and defined to apply to an individual's complex personal life. (Reinisch, Kinsey Institute New Report on Sex, 1990.)

Preference vs. orientation. To better explain our own personal feelings, we should distinguish between "sexual preference" and "sexual orientation." Sexual preference considers desired sexual actions with a partner, while sexual orientation encompasses all the thoughts, feelings, fantasies, and emotions that cause us to become aroused. Although the population is about 90% exclusively heterosexual in their preference, on the spectrum of orientation most of these people fall somewhere other than entirely heterosexual. Therefore, many of us are bisexual in orientation but not in preference. To complicate matters, according to several findings (including JackinWorld Surveys) close to half of all adult males have had some kind of sexual experience with another male at some point in their life — yet most remain heterosexual in their overall lifetime preference.

Other factors. In some cases strong, recurring same-sex fantasies can indicate a deeper social or sexual need. For example, loneliness and lack of identity can cause an erotic reaction to thoughts of other men. If we are not satisfied with who we are, how we present ourselves, how we look, our degree of masculinity, or even the appearance of our genitals, it is very possible that we can develop same-sex erotic reactions.

Problems can occur when there is a lack of male friends. There's a reason why we normally have platonic male friends: They help us develop and maintain our identity. If they aren't there, a craving can develop. Everyone needs a different amount of this type of friendship and a different level of acceptance from it, and we can never say how much is enough for any particular person, because everyone is different. This is certainly not to say that if you are lonely, unhappy with your identity, or worried about the appearance of your genitals that you are going to end up gay — almost everyone has gone through these feelings at one time or another. Nor is it at all accurate to say that all gay men are gay because they were somehow deprived during adolescence. However, it's never unhealthy to get involved in activities, sports, or hobbies. Unfortunately, many males frequently seek their identity through friends in gangs or drug subcultures because there's a lack of opportunity to be involved in more socially acceptible activities.

Sometimes a "jealous passion" can develop for other males. This is when we desire to actually become another guy. The obsession can then carry over into our sexual fantasy life. Lack of acceptance of ourselves is the issue here. If this is a concern for you, it may help to fantasize about yourself or imaginary people rather than fixating on peers, celebrities, or porn stars.

An unfulfilled adolescent need in adult men can be a factor. Issues such as chemical dependency and alcoholism (either in the individual or the family) can also inhibit some individuals. Nobody has a "perfect" adolescence, and most people can deal with unfulfilled needs in their adulthood. However, these issues affect some more than others. If there is an overwhelming problem with any of these issues, consider seeking out professional therapy.

Sexuality can be thought of as a complex "spectrum of fingerprints." Every individual has a unique sexuality that's different from those of his peers. Sometimes there are things we can do to change our feelings, and sometimes we just have to learn to accept ourselves as the way we are.

Fantasies Of Straight Men: Some Thoughts about Gays in the Military

2008-12-12T21:16:00.005+05:30

Warning:

This article uses 'invalid Western terms and concepts', including the following:

1. 'Homosexuality' for sexual desire between men

After decades of bloody battles for the fair and equal treatment of African-Americans, women and other "minorities," how can we still be so obtuse about the basic underlying principles?

Joe Sartelle

Issue #5, March/April 1993

(AUTHOR'S NOTE: The public debate over gays in the military has mainly focused on the tensions between gay men and straight men, despite the fact that the issue is at least as important, if not more so, for lesbians in military service. The following article reflects that bias. While much of what I have to say applies to women as well as men, our cultural attitudes about women's sexuality and homosexuality are significantly different from our attitudes about men's. Detailing these differences would require making an already lengthy essay even longer. Also, I am here discussing American notions of sexual identity; obviously things are different elsewhere in time, space, and culture.)

Perhaps the most appalling thing about the deluge of hysterical fear and outright bigotry triggered by Clinton's proposal to revoke the law banning openly homosexual men and women from military service is the simple fact thatwe have been through all this before and by now we should know better. After decades of bloody battles for the fair and equal treatment of African-Americans, women and other "minorities," how can we still be so obtuse about the basic underlying principles?

Yet it seems that no matter how many times someone points out that the arguments against allowing open homosexuals in the armed services are virtually identical to the arguments used in the 1940s against racial integration of these same armed services, you still have people irrationally insisting that "this is completely different." And actually, despite the fact that the most vocal supporters of the ban on homosexuals are usually reactionary conservatives, I think they've got a point here: the gay issue is a little different. After all, extended intimate contact with black people isn't going to make a white person black; however, the same sort of extended intimacy with gay people just might make a few "straight" people into bisexuals. Maybe more than a few...

Of course, in making a statement like that I realize that I am flying in the face of the orthodox dogma that holds that homosexuality is not a choice, that we can't help feeling these desires, it's out of our control, and so on. Interestingly enough, though, it is generally homosexuals and sympathetic heterosexuals who most strenuously assert this position; the right wing, on the other hand, often displays a more generous evaluation of the fluidity of human sexual desire, as well as an unfortunately much more openly repressive response to that fluidity. Paradoxically (although somewhat predictably), we find "progressives" arguing that individuals are essentially powerless victims of their sexual orientations (the "no choice" position), while the "conservatives" recognize that under the right circumstances, anyone might be seduced into practicing the love that dare not speak its name.

So, for example, we find the Republican Senator from Indiana, Dan Coats, writing an editorial in the San Francisco Examiner against lifting the ban on homosexuals and quoting David Hackworth, "America's most decorated living veteran," who tells us why open homosexuality is such a threat to military discipline. Hackworth says, "During my Army career I saw countless officers and NCOs who couldn't stop themselves from hitting on soldiers. ...The objects of their affection were impressionable lads who, searching for a caring role model, sometimes ended up in gay relationships they might not have sought." While Hackworth is ostensibly talking about sexual harassment here, he also confesses, no doubt unwittingly, that sometimes what can make the difference between a "straight" man and a "gay" man is nothing more than the right circumstances at the right time.

Hackworth's comment also serves as an example of the extremely active imaginations of the opponents of ending the ban on homosexuals in the military. Indeed, a pattern quickly emerged in the public debate on the issue: those who favored lifting the ban supported their position with arguments rooted in the established American tradition of civil rights and equal opportunity (individuals should be judged according to their performance and abilities), while those who favored continuing the ban based their arguments in fantasies of predatory gays menacing innocent young straights. The comments of Specialist Fourth Class Jared Hopkins, quoted in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, are typical of the paranoid scenarios conjured by supporters of the ban. "Out on the battlefield," said Hopkins, "I'm going to have enough to worry about without thinking about the guy next to me. If you're out there a long time, you worry the guy might have sexual feelings toward you, might come on to you."

Now who exactly is it, we might want to ask, who's preoccupied with thinking about the guy next to him? As others have pointed out before me, there's at least one thing that both homosexuals and homophobes have in common, which is an intense preoccupation with homosexual desires. The comments of Specialist Hopkins and others like him assume as a kind of unconscious given that gay men will find the (straight) speaker so irresistible that they will ignore the mortal dangers of battle in order to come on to him. In other words, this particular soldier has evidently already constructed a whole imaginary scenario of attempted homosexual seduction with himself at the center of attention. Perhaps he is just assuming, as so many straight men do, that gay men look at other men the same way that straight men look at women, in which case we can read the hysteria among straight men about serving with gays as a kind of confession of the disrespectful, predatory (hetero)sexuality traditionally encouraged by military culture. On the other hand — and without invalidating or replacing that possibility — perhaps we are dealing with unconscious homosexual desire, conveniently projected onto a fantasized gay man and thus disavowed.

Consider, for example, the approach to the issue taken by Angelo Codevilla, a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution who also served in the U.S. Navy. In his editorial in the San Francisco Examiner, Codevilla argues against lifting the ban by reminding us of just how much intimacy with his comrades the average serviceman is already forced to experience: "Moving fast and tired in every state of undress and sometimes full of bloody bruises, he bumps and rubs up against his fellows innumerable times." The homoeroticism of this observation is so transparent that if we didn't have a context for it, we might think we were reading the outline of a scene from a gay porn flick (an impression that is reinforced near the end of the editorial when Codevilla speciously raises the possibility of "the use of taxpayer funds for military hospitals to treat oral gonorrhea or the consequences of such practices as 'fisting' and 'rimming' "). Codevilla goes on to tell us, "Sex is an explosive part of military life. Young men are at the peak of desire. ...To say that the atmosphere aboard ship is sexually charged is an understatement." Since these young men are presumably heterosexual, one has to wonder where so much sexual tension is coming from — of course it couldn't be from all that running around naked and rubbing up against each other, could it?

It seems to me an obvious point to make, that the vicious homophobia typical of military culture must be directly related to the fact that military life is by its very nature incredibly homoerotic. What I am referring to with the term "homoerotic" is the simple fact that, as Eve Sedgwick puts it in her book Between Men, "what goes on at football games, in fraternities, at the Bohemian Grove, and at climactic moments in war novels can look, with only a slight shift of optic, quite startlingly 'homosexual'..." The imaginations, at least, of both Codevilla and Specialist Hopkins seem to recognize this fact, and both are thus concerned with seeing to it that Sedgwick's "slight shift of optic" is suppressed as a possibility. Both men's comments are representative of the conservative fear — also seen in the nervously energetic homoerotics of buddy movies like Lethal Weapon — that the good, clean, sexless and often brutal "normal" homoeroticism of straight male culture might at any moment cross over into the forbidden zone of actual homosexuality. Instead of sexual tension and "accidental" half-dressed bumping and rubbing, guys might decide to simply have sex; as in the case of conservative fears about the pleasures of casual drug use, one thing might lead to another... This is the premise, of course, of an awful lot of gay sexual fantasies. Locker rooms, fraternities and military life are staples of gay pornography because these places are already in some basic sense "homosexual": everyone is the same sex, and there's a great deal of physical intimacy.

So what is quite striking about the debate over gays in the military is that the stereotypical imaginary scenarios of gay fantasy are appearing with such regularity in the paranoid fantasies of straight men who oppose lifting the ban, such as the two men I've already quoted. Opposition to the open presence of homosexuals in the military (or anywhere, for that matter) is grounded in the wish to prevent these scenarios from becoming realities to the fullest extent possible. In other words, in much of the support for maintaining the ban on gays in the military we find straight men defending themselves against their own anxious homoerotic fantasies through the active repression and suppression of actual gay men, who are blamed for their intrinsically disruptive presence, in exactly the same way many straight men blame attractive women. The current controversy about gays in the military has more than a little in common with the ongoing controversy about the sexual harassment of women in the military. For example, both the gay man in military service and the sexy woman in the presence of a group of military men are perceived as "asking for it," the difference being that sexy women are supposedly invitations to Getting Laid, while sexy gay men are invitations to that other time-honored ritual proof of manhood, Beating Someone Up. Fag-bashing, like the sexual violation of women, should be recognized as a form of rape: both are violent physical attacks directed intentionally at someone's sexuality.

However, fag-bashing, despite being an intimately physical experience of sexual humiliation, is not commonly perceived as a sex crime in the same sense as rape, presumably because the fag-bashers are "straight," and "straight" men don't feel sexual desire for other men (that's what makes them different from gays, right?). So fag-bashing, according to this reasoning, is essentially different from woman-raping because there can be no sexual motivation to the attack on a gay man. But at the same time that we as a culture strive to maintain this useful fiction as a kind of "official" ideology about the fundamental difference between hetero and homo sexualities, we also routinely confess to the strong suspicion that fag-bashers are "really" gay themselves, or maybe they're "confused, " and are just, as the saying goes, not dealing with it very well.

Given how often we hear of or know people who have experienced at least some degree of "confusion" about their sexual orientations before settling into their "true" identities, it's amazing that we are still in so much denial — culturally, socially, individually — about the implications of that common confusion. "Confusion" about one's sexual identity can only come from conflicting desires, from feeling varying degrees of attraction to both sexes. What I know of my own experience and others' suggests that such "confusion" is in fact so common as to be a normal aspect of human development, particularly during adolescence.

However, because we live in a culture that teaches us that heterosexual desire is not just natural, desirable, and normal but also completely incompatible with homosexual desire, we are encouraged to regard our bisexual potential as "confusion" rather than a normal human sexual response. Our current "common sense" about sexual identity tells us that a certain degree of homosexual attraction is normal, but that sexual identity is a matter of being eitherstraight or gay, and in either case it's just the way you are, not something you "choose" — so anything else is just "confusion." In my experience, some version of this understanding is shared by most gays and straights alike.

It should be easy to see, then, how an integral part of our "sexual identities," whether straight or gay, is a kind of search-and-destroy program that continually scans for signs of the "opposite" orientation so that these "confusing" impulses can be neutralized through the usual array of psychological defense mechanisms. The "success" of the program is measured by how effectively it blocks conscious recognition of any attraction to the "wrong" sex, attractions that "confuse" our sexual identities. The search-and-destroy mission is especially important, of course, in the construction of "normal" heterosexual masculinity; seen in this light, fag-bashing is merely the outward and visible expression of an interior psychological conflict.

Returning to the specific issue of the debate over gays in the military, we can see now why, in Angelo Codevilla's editorial, an emphasis on the sexually tense and homoerotic atmosphere of military service would quickly yield to warnings about the inevitability of violent attacks against openly gay servicemen. Indeed, this movement has characterized the shifts in emphasis of the larger public debate: first the paranoid fantasies of predatory gays and the "discomfort" of straights at the idea of having openly gay men around them, and then the threats of violent harassment of gay servicemen. Since the fears about how gays will actually behave if they were allowed to come out about their sexuality are easily answered by already-existing codes of conduct that will work equally well — if enforced — for gays as well as straights, the opposition to lifting the ban seems to be left with basing its case on assurances of morale problems (again, no matter that this is exactly what the opponents of racial integration of the military said, too). Straight servicemen will be offended and uncomfortable, and gay servicemen will get beat up.

So we are left with only one meaningful question, which is, what are these guys so afraid of? After all, we're talking about military personnel — rough, tough super-macho guys, men intimate with guns, trained killers. Yet these are the people whose sensibilities are so sensitive that the possibility that they are merely being looked at with sexual interest by another man is supposedly intolerable to them. But why? If a gay soldier, say, were to make an unwanted pass at a straight comrade, why can't the straight man politely and firmly refuse, the way one refuses any unwanted friendly advances? A refusal to take "no" for an answer would constitute sexual harassment, and could be dealt with accordingly. But all that changes, of course, if what is truly intolerable in this situation is the straight man's unthinkable and unspeakable interest in saying "yes."

As I have tried to suggest, the open presence of homosexuals is considered intolerable within the already extremely homoerotic context of military life because it undermines what we might call the "heterosexual alibi," the security "straight" men can feel despite the constant homoeroticism of their lives because of the belief that gay men arefundamentally and identifiably different from themselves. Without that alibi to protect them, the obvious pleasure many straight men get from homoerotic situations (if you doubt this, spend some time in a gym) begins to look too much like what it actually is, a covert and sublimated way of gratifying forbidden "homosexual" desires. Straight men spend so much time nervously identifying and parodying "gay" mannerisms (as in the case of Ollie North's much-publicized recent "joke") in order to reassure themselves and others that they couldn't possibly be gay themselves, since they don't act like that. The heterosexual alibi is perpetuated by any and every insistence that there is an objectively measurable difference between "heterosexuals" and "homosexuals" that goes beyond the specifics of their genital relations — which also means, as I shall discuss shortly, that it's not just straight people who buy into the heterosexual alibi.

Without the heterosexual alibi of the essential difference between straight and gay, heterosexuals are faced with the reality that there are people who seem just like themselves, but who not only openly admit to forbidden homosexual attractions, but even go so far as to act on them with pleasure and satisfaction! If you were someone who had invested a lot of energy in the psychological work of repressing and denying your own homosexual attractions — and in the case of military service, this work would be a full-time job — with all the necessary frustration and unpleasure that entails, you'd probably find the presence of open homosexuals intolerable, too. Who wants to find out that all that hard work wasn't necessary? And if you couldn't get rid of them, you might find a safe outlet for your own frustration — sorry, I mean confusion — in tormenting them, "proving" your own essential difference even as you unconsciously mirror their interest in homosexual arousal.

So finally my point is simply that the opposition to gays in the military is really about trying to preserve the heterosexual alibi. When there are gay men in the locker rooms, so to speak, behaving pretty much just like the straight men do, then suddenly all that innocent, playful homoeroticism — that "typical guy behavior" — might not look so innocent any more, simply because we can recognize its erotic dimensions. And now it's time to confront the fact that the only reason there is any problem here at all is because of the entrenched belief that homosexual desires are unnatural and bad (the more liberal version being that the desires are bad but OK, so long as you don't act on them, but it amounts to the same thing). If we accepted homosexual desire as a normal component of human sexuality that varies in strength in each individual — which is what experience as opposed to ideology tells us — then same-sex attractions wouldn't be a problem, and neither would gays in the military.

Unfortunately, it is not just homophobic straights who seek to preserve and strengthen the heterosexual alibi. The ways in which gay people commonly understand and define our own "sexual identities" are also often deeply complicit with the heterosexual alibi. Partly the insistence upon the essential difference of gay identity has been useful for both our political and psychological survival. If gays are indistinguishable from straights in everything but our sexual practices, then we are invisible, and invisibility leads to isolation, fear and weakness. Adoption of a number of common "markers" of gayness — in the ways we dress, talk, consume, etc. — helps us find each other and thus support each other. However, in my experience gay people are perhaps even more likely than straights to forget that these markers have been attached to our sexual orientation and are not, therefore, necessary functions of our homosexuality. In other words, we tend to act as though we believe, in accord with the heterosexual alibi, that there is an essential and thus absolute difference between gay and straight, which manifests itself in more than just our choice of sexual partners.

If such a constitutional difference exists, it must exist across the board; it must be something common to all gays but absent from all straights if it's going to serve as a reliable indicator of sexual preference. Obviously, this is going to be hard to establish as long as we're dealing with things like a taste for leather or Julie Andrews records, or a knack for interior decorating. What we need, according to the dominant thinking on the subject, is something more scientific, so that we can finally prove the difference! As many of you know, the other big news about gays in the mainstream media recently has been a series of reports about medical research into the question of whether homosexuality is biologically or socially produced.

The most widely-publicized study has been the "gay brain" research conducted by Simon LeVay at the Salk Institute. LeVay claims to have found a meaningful difference in the size of the hypothalamus in gay men and straight men. I am not going to go into the details of his work, or the numerous objections that have been raised about his very questionable methodology — all that has been detailed elsewhere. What I am interested in here are the underlying motivations for his research, which are shared by others seeking to prove that homosexuality is biologically-determined. LeVay, like many others who are committed to this theory, is himself a gay man. The interest in establishing a biological basis for homosexuality, according to public statements from LeVay and his supporters, comes from the wish to help gay people by showing the world that we can't help being gay, that it's part of our biological make-up and thus "out of our control."

While I am sympathetic to the idea that if the straight world would just accept that we do not "choose" to be attracted strongly and primarily to individuals of our own sex, then we stand a better chance of gaining acceptance and toleration, I find the implications of this reasoning to be dangerously self-defeating. For in defending our sexuality by saying that "we have no choice," aren't we implying that if we did have a choice, we both shouldn't and wouldn't choose to be gay? That therefore, in some deep sense, it really is "better" to be straight, and abnormal to be gay? I think that gay people would better serve their interests by insisting, firmly and unequivocally, that there issimply nothing wrong with homosexuality and that therefore all questions of where it comes from are irrelevant.

As I observed near the beginning of this essay, the position that we have "no choice" about our sexual desires is objectionable not least because it is an extension of the victim-oriented logic that currently dominates "progressive" or "liberal" thinking. To say that gay people do not choose their sexual preferences is to make them into victims of their desires; and however titillating it may be to think of ourselves as thralls to our passions, it is hardly a responsible position to take. As victims of repression and oppression, gay people have an obvious stake in expanding our human sexual freedom, not further restricting it by building limitations into our biology.

And it is also the case that arguments which seek to establish a biological basis for sexual preference are fully complicit with the heterosexual alibi, since both are efforts to establish some absolute difference between gay and straight. The theory that one is biologically constituted as either heterosexual or homosexual — that the two are mutually exclusive rather than complementary — is just as likely in practical terms to make it easier for straight people to dismiss their "confusions" and to consolidate their homoerotic-homophobic identities as it is likely to make them more sympathetic to gays. Since the basis of sympathy is some sort of identification, a recognition of one's self in another, I have to say that I think the cause of liberating ourselves as gay people would be better served by liberating the gay potential in everyone (as well as the straight potential in ourselves). Only then would "straight" people come to realize that in attacking us they are attacking something within themselves.

Finally, I do not wish to be understood as arguing that we are all "really" bisexuals. Rather, more precisely I am arguing that we are all, as human beings, potential bisexuals who have been taught, through an elaborate system of social rewards and punishments, to see ourselves as "heterosexuals" and "homosexuals." The fact that bisexuals are in a very real sense the most invisible "sexual identity" makes perfect sense in these terms: the existence of functionally bisexual individuals radically undermines any belief in the exclusivity of heterosexual and homosexual attractions. And as I have also tried to point out, what we know about how human beings actually experience their sexual desires supports the position that bisexuality is the norm, while both hetero- and homosexuality are learned restrictions of that potential.

This does not mean that when either gay or straight people say that they feel like they are "really" heterosexual or homosexual that they are being untruthful. It just means that they have so successfully conformed to dominant ideas of sexual identity that whatever bisexual potential they once had has atrophied, even to the point of its effective extinction. In other words, just because our identities are socially constructed doesn't mean that they aren't, in a very real way, "authentic." However, just because my own sexuality has been crippled by my socialization doesn't mean I want to promote my limitations as the "natural" standard for others, such as the future generations of humanity. I know that it feels like I have no choice in my sexual orientation toward men; but I also know that I am capable of attractions to women that, if they had been handled differently earlier in my development, might have led to my being bisexual rather than homosexual (I doubt I could ever have been "straight").

What I am talking about is a fully human sexuality, rather than the pre-human "sexual identities" that now afflict us. The people we now call "homosexuals" are most likely, seen in this light, that relatively small minority of individuals whose homosexual attractions are so much stronger than our heterosexual attractions as to render those latter feelings almost invisible. In that sense we "have no choice." Similarly, we would expect to find a comparable minority of people for whom the opposite is true, who "have no choice" but to be heterosexual. But I think that in a fully human society, the overwhelming majority of people would fall somewhere in the middle, more or less indifferent to the biological sex of their partners, attracted instead to the qualities of individuals as humans and not as sexes. Of course there would be varying degrees of bisexuality, with some people tending to choose one sex rather than the other. But the important point here is that it would be a choice, and thus an affirmation of our freedom — and freedom to choose is what makes us human.

We are a very long way from such a world, but even if it's a fantasy, at least it's a compelling one, certainly more worth believing in than the ideology of the heterosexual alibi that dominates both gay and straight thinking about sexual identity. For despite everything we know about the complexities of human sexuality, the debate over gays in the military shows us how much we persist in denying that complexity, invested as we all are in fantasies of straight men, perfect heterosexuals uncontaminated by any sexual interest in their fellow men. It may be that the hysteria over gays in the military is really only the last gasp of the old conceptions and attitudes; certainly today's young people are growing up in a sexual landscape very different from what has come before. The ongoing hype surrounding The Crying Game is one sign of this, like the popularity of androgynous styles and the omnipresence of sexually objectified male bodies. Perhaps what we are witnessing, as others have suggested, is the liberation of sexuality from reproduction and thus from "nature" — and along with it the nervous and tentative recognition that once sexual pleasure doesn't have to be tied to making babies, there's no longer any pressing reason to enforce heterosexuality, or to suppress homosexuality. As Marx observes in the third volume of Capital, the realm of freedom begins only where the realm of necessity ends. So long as we insist that we have no choice about our sexuality, whether we define it as gay or straight, we cannot be free, and we will remain something less than fully human.

Joe Sartelle is a graduate student at UC Berkeley and Co-Editor of Bad Subjects.

Male-Male Intimacy in Early America: Beyond Romantic Friendships

2008-10-30T02:10:00.000+05:30

By William Benemann

New York: Harrington Park Press, 2006. 322 pp. ISBN: 1-56023-345-1

Reviewed by Edward J. Tejirian, Ph.D.

In Male-Male Intimacy in Early America William Benemann has woven a complex tapestry of male-male bonding in colonial America and the early days of the republic. The result is a book that is comprehensive without being pedantic. In fact, it ranges beyond the strict boundaries of its title to consider male to male sexuality in Enlightenment Europe, especially England, Prussia under Frederick the Great, and post-revolutionary France. Meanwhile, back on American soil, it encompasses such home-grown sexual eccentrics as the Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida community.

In his preface, Benemann cites several factors that have impeded understanding of the place of sexuality in American history. Among these are the reluctance to abandon restrictive labels such as “homosexuality” and “heterosexuality” and an inability to move beyond negative preconceptions about the “gay lifestyle.” Even while accepting that men formed passionate attachments (the “romantic friendships” of the sub-title of the book) he says that there has been a resistance among historians to drawing the not unreasonable conclusion that these might have included an erotic component, sometimes latent but not infrequently manifest.

Perhaps a contributing factor to this confusion are a number of paradoxes evident in colonial and Enlightenment America with regard to sex between men. So-called “sodomy,” which appeared to apply to anal intercourse was never referred to except in the most sanctimonious terms of horror—“detestable” almost invariably turns up, while the more genteel reference to “the Grecian vice” also occasionally makes an appearance. Nevertheless, while sodomy was illegal and thoroughly condemned, it seems that punishment for it was relatively rare. Not only was punishment for it rare, even naming it was so offensive to the delicate sensibilities of the general public that it seems the authorities much preferred to turn a blind eye to it.

This reader was interested to learn that Philadelphia was not only the premier American city of the 18th century but also a pretty wide-open town , with plenty of brothels and street walkers as well as one tavern per 140 residents. However, prosecution for sexual offenses of any kind was also rare. Meanwhile, among sailors whose tours aboard ship were usually three years in length, sex aboard ship was tacitly understood to be routinely prevalent. However, the form it usually seems to have taken was mutual masturbation, which was not considered sodomy. Furthermore, if anyone should have the poor judgment to complain about it, he would be far more likely to incur the wrath of the captain than would the person or persons he was complaining about. It seems the motto was, “We won’t ask, and you’d better not tell.”

But in contrast to present day conventions—and this fact has been well known—men in early America could express their feelings of affection for each other in the most explicit terms of love and even longing. Here is an excerpt of a letter by Alexander Hamilton to John Laurens—both had been aides-de-camp to Washington and at one point on the staff of Baron Friedrich von Steuben, a Prussian officer with the rank of general in the Continental Army. Hamilton wrote: “Cold in my professions, warm in [my] friendships, I wish, Dear Laurens, it [might] be in my power, by action, rather than words, [to] convince you that I love you” (p. 99). Two young officers, William North and Benjamin Walker, also on the staff of Von Steuben formed with him a tightly bonded group in which each felt deep ties of affection to the other two. The younger men married—as all men were expected to do (though the older Von Steuben was without a wife.) It was after they married but still young, when North wrote to Walker, “...I have known you, Ben for twelve years-—When I began to love you, I know not…but ‘tis no matter—I love you.”(p.116).

In contemporary America, such declarations of love between men would imply an overtly sexual relationship. But it appears that such an inference was not drawn in early America. Rather, there was a space between two men in a committed friendship that seemed to remain private and out of bounds for public speculation. Declaring one’s love for another man was not necessarily seen as a declaration of sexual intent and certainly not of sexual identity.

Consider the following excerpt from what Benneman describes as a “fictionalized” encounter with Indians of the West on the part of writer Theodore Winthrop, a descendent of Puritan governor John Winthrop: “The Adonis of the copper-skins!” I said to myself. “This is the ‘Young Eagle,’ or the ‘Sucking Dove,’ or the ‘Maiden’s Bane,’ or some other great chief of the cleanest Indian tribe on the continent. O Fenimore, why are you dead? ….What a poem the fellow is! I wish I was an Indian myself for such a companion; or better a squaw, to be made love to by him.” (pp.174-175).

This excerpt is from a book published in 1862, somewhat beyond the boundaries of “early America” as loosely defined by author Benemann. But it seems noteworthy that the open envy of the woman to whom the copper-skinned Adonis might make love appeared to carry with it no stigma of sodomy or, of course, no implication of “identity.”

Were early American men more comfortable with the erotic component in their feelings about each other than are contemporary men? It would seem so. However, my guess is that, the awareness of such an erotic component is nevertheless just as prevalent among contemporary American men. My own research (Tejirian, 2000) with men in their early twenties to early thirties has led me to infer that some degree of conscious erotic feeling toward their own sex probably characterizes a substantial percentage of American men (42% in my sample.) But the men who disclosed their feelings to me almost never discussed them openly with others because, as men who did not consider themselves to be gay, they had powerful social incentives to present a “pure” heterosexual persona to the external world. Nevertheless, when these feelings were directed towards a particular man, he was almost always a very good or best friend. This fact harks back to the romantic friendships or “passionate attachments” of which Bennemann speaks, while the continuity of these feelings across a span of two hundred years points to it as a fundamental aspect of male psychology.

Brokeback Mountain,” is a wonderful and accurate portrayal of a contemporary “passionate attachment” between men . Its tragic denouement, however, reflects contemporary sensibilities. In contrast, in early America as Benneman describes it, a romantic friendship between two young sheepherders that included an erotic component would have been neither the cause for personal anguish nor the object of social scrutiny.

Benneman says that he chose the phrase “male intimacy” for the title of his book because, not only can it imply both a psychological and physical closeness, but also an intense affectional bonding that includes sexual attraction, whether acknowledged or not. I think, in fact, that his choice of title is a good one. Yet, one wonders if it is really possible for us today to grasp how the relation between the erotic and the affectionate was experienced by the men of early America. Martin Duberman (1989) cites, in an essay on the youthful friendship between James H. Hammond and Thomas J. Withers—described by him as two “great men” of the antebellum South—a letter dated 1826 attesting to a playful sexual intimacy between them. The twenty year-old Withers wrote to Hammond, “I feel some inclination to learn whether you yet sleep in your Shirt-tail, and whether you yet have the extravagant delight of poking and punching a writhing Bedfellow with your long fleshen pole—the exquisite touches of which I have often had the honor of feeling?” (p. 155). I think the ease with which their nocturnal frolics are referred to and the apparent lack of conflict about them would be harder to come by in a contemporary setting.

Benneman points out that, although terminology such as “homosexual”—not to mention “gay”—were not in use in early America, there were unquestionably men whose erotic orientation was primarily or exclusively toward their own sex. But my reading of his excellent book indicates that in early America, as in Europe, Enlightenment attitudes toward sexuality had for a time shouldered aside the strictures of medieval and Puritan religious doctrines with respect to sexuality. In America, vestiges of those strictures remained in the law, but were rarely enforced. The late 18th century in Europe was a time that saw the publication of racy novels such as “Tom Jones” in England, and the rollicking infidelities in Mozart’s operas. The late 19th century, on the other hand, saw the persecution of Oscar Wilde in England and the early 20th century saw the official criminalization of homosexuality in a recently unified Germany. After two world wars that fell just short of destroying its civilization, a united Europe is trying to re-incorporate the Enlightement values that the “isms” of the 20th century had trampled on. Contemporary America, where religious zealots and cynical politicians have entered into an unholy pact, might do well to look back to its own early past and find there a basis on which to build a more realistic and enlightened sexual future.

References

Duberman, Martin A. (1989) “Writhing Bedfellows in Antebellum South Carolina: Historical Interpretation and the Politics of Evidence. In: Duberman, M., Vicinus, Martha & Chauncey, G., Jr., Eds. Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past. New York, Meridan,

Tejirian, Edward J. (2000) Male to Male: Sexual Feelings Across the Boundaries of Identity. New York: Harrington Park Press.

2008-10-30T02:05:00.000+05:30

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Men Holding Hands, and Other Macho Sightings in South India

2008-10-19T12:48:00.004+05:30

Men holding hands, and other macho sightings in Southern India
The first time, you are shocked. Eventually, you get used to it. In between, you go through various stages of reaction—puzzlement, wonder, curiosity, disgust, grudging acceptance, repulsion, etc. The sight is a common enough one in these parts--- grown men and teenaged boys holding hands in public like lovers that cannot bear physical separation from each other. This, in the same society where even incidental contact between the opposite sexes is still taboo. But men cannot stop pawing each other. The way they carry on is enough to unleash the latent homophobe in most of us. Do they kiss when we are not watching?

Yet, I suppose I grew up in the same society, and even perhaps held hands with a male cousin or two when crossing a street. I suppose I never gave it a second thought until my overseas sojourn gave me a different perspective on such matters (although I know it shouldn’t, given that some of my adoring public believe that any new perspective gained during nor-residency renders me a traitor to my place of birth). Now, if I were to see a boyfriend grasp my son’s hand, I’m likely to rush out there and break it up before it got too intimate. On the other hand, I find the sight of boys holding girls’ hands, and vice versa, very wholesome, very non-threatening to a traditional way of life. On college campuses, you see these “macchans”, clearly the leaders of the pack, holding their dearest lieutenant in an arm-lock that would not be out of place on a Lovers’ Lane. On the streets, you see these “goondas” engaging in passionate arm-holding and palm-squeezing, even as they prepare to launch a major offensive against the neighborhood tea-shop that refuses to serve them free chai. You see auto rickshaw drivers walking hand-in-hand, comparing notes on 10 best ways to fleece customers. You see professional colleagues clasping hands with a fervor that borders on the obsessive. Once, I saw a guest speaker at a conventions held in a death-grip by the organizer for nearly thirty minutes; he escaped by severing his hand at the elbow. On the beach, it appears as if every male stroller is linked to another by the arm. Why is this male physical intimacy considered natural in a society where pre-marital male/female contact is still stigmatized? It is amazing what men can get away with in India without having their masculinity questioned. And yet, you accompany your wife to one Bharatanatyam recital, and it’s open season on your manhood.

Females, of course, are touchy-feely in all societies, Western or Eastern. I recall reading somewhere that all women are lesbians at heart. I believe that is true at least to some extent. Women are constantly obsessing over other women’s physical attributes. I asked a few female acquaintances of mine the following question: “If a naked man and a naked woman were to appear in front of you, whom would you look at first?” The unanimous answer was that they would examine the woman first, from head to toe, with a few lingering stops in-between. They may spare the man a glance or two, but almost as an after-thought. This may explain why a naked woman, in any form of art, is sexy, whereas a naked man is… comic. Women can spend hours comparing their looks with those of, say, supermodels. You cannot do that unless the interest spills over from the cosmetic to the prurient regime.

Friendship in India takes other strange forms, such as eating off one plate. Heart-warming display of closeness & togetherness, but has anyone considered the hygienic aspects? Friends drink from the same glass of juice, or same bottle of a soft-drink, sipping away with their straws. They take bites off the same fruit. They borrow each other’s hankies. They play kabaddi. They go to movies. For all I know, they probably hold hands there also. I’m not saying that males should not engage in any activities where females are excluded. My point is, why is male bonding appropriate, whereas male/female bonding is not? Because the latter would lead to premarital sex? If that’s the sole reason, why do people gawk at a wife and husband smooching or holding hands? In India, we actively suppress all outward signs of hetero-sexuality, thereby limiting displays of camaraderie to same-sex encounters only. I guess this is less evil than the Western suppression of homo-sexual acts in public, but not by much. Many newly-weds experience needless anxiety and angst because they are not used to being friendly with the opposite sex. They seek out their own sex for friendship and company, to the extent that the holy institution of marriage is reduced to a seal of approval on sex and reproduction. No wonder that in India, after work and on weekends, the hubby goes to play with his male buddies , and the wifey goes shopping with her female cronies. And the children are left to torment Grandma and Grandpa….

Confessions of an American - My Life in a New Delhi Gym

2008-10-06T17:36:00.001+05:30

Cultural confusions of a desi gym having non-desi aspirations.

“What’s different about living in Delhi compared to America?” friends back home keep on asking me. It’s one of those questions that leave one unsure where to begin, and even after a year of living here, I’m still not certain how best to respond. The main reason is that a list of differences can quickly devolve into a catalog of gripes and frustrations, as the mention of the USA reminds me of the ways in which, by comparison, Delhi is still very much the capital of a developing country. Yet I find myself increasingly reluctant to reduce my India experience to a list of complaints, because my initial culture shock has given way to a more relaxed curiosity about what is different here. As much as possible, I try to feel amusement rather than annoyance when things don’t go quite as I might wish or expect.

Saying that India is irreducible to a series of neat observations is as obvious to those of us who live here as it is unsatisfying to my American questioners, but another way in might be to give them one snapshot, describing an activity here that they are familiar with at home. And what could be easier for many of my friends to grasp than that favorite Californian urban-suburban pursuit - going to the gym?

Yes, there are gyms in Delhi, I tell them, even though the work-out culture here isn’t as widespread as it is on the coasts of the U.S. I’ve no doubt that Delhi gyms, like their LA counterparts, range from the grungy to the glitzy. LA’s gym culture is well enough developed that there is a healthy competition for members, and while you can pay a lot there to join a more exclusive joint, a membership at a mid-range gym needn’t cost more than the equivalent of about Rs. 20,000 a year. Or you can join a gym in Delhi that is one-eighth the size of my old LA club, and often much more crowded – and for nearly two and a half times the price. I could probably have found somewhere cheaper than my current gym, but I chose it simply because it’s close to where I live. Ease of access is half the battle for those whose motivation is as underdeveloped as their stamina. But more interesting than the painful price differential are the cultural differences that I noticed – some immediately, some gradually – when I started my thrice-weekly regimen.

First, it has to be said that the clientele at my gym does not represent a cross-section of Delhi society. Gym-goers in Los Angeles by definition must have some disposable income, but the steep membership fees at my Delhi club mean that it caters basically to well-off locals, with a smattering of ex-pats like myself. So the people I chat with briefly on the floor or in the locker room are kids whose parents have money, or young professionals, and very occasionally someone (like me) almost old enough to be one of their parents. Everyone seems to be studying finance, aiming for an MBA, or working in the family business. The crowd is not just young but often conspicuously well dressed, whether in their work-out clothes or in the street clothes they change into afterwards. No old shorts, ratty t-shirts and beat up tennis shoes here. This is also the only gym where I’ve ever seen someone working out in cargo pants and a designer tee-shirt and shoes: even the most stylish work-out clothes seem too infra dig for some people.

The class difference extends to locker room etiquette, in a way that was initially rather disconcerting. Many a gym member hands his clothes wordlessly to the locker room attendant, who hangs them up or folds and puts them away in their bag; or the member just casts his clothes onto the bench with the assumption that they will be dealt with. Pleases and thank-yous are clearly not required. Some people do chat cordially with the attendant, but it’s the frequent master-servant attitude that is striking, all the more so because it seems to be accepted by both parties as a given. On my way out of the locker room I usually say “Thank you” to the attendant, regardless of whether or not he’s helped me directly that day. In return, I get a smile that’s hard to interpret: is it friendliness, appreciation – or just a certain amusement that I should cluelessly waste my time and his on a superfluous pleasantry?

Of course, the gym should ultimately not be about what you wear or how you behave, but about what you do, and there’s no disputing that everyone seems pretty intent on having a proper work-out. They’re not there just to show off, and from my position at the upper end of the client age scale, I can’t criticize their energy levels. Perhaps they are inspired by the music, which is usually so loud as to make idle conversation impossible. Or maybe it’s the lyrics being pounded into their brains that energize them: the compilations chosen by my gym include a considerable number of rap and other songs with graphic and vulgar descriptions of sex. I haven’t yet figured out whether multiply-repeated lines like “You already know I wanna fuck you” have the advantageous aerobic effect of making the heart beat faster, or whether to those gym members who are also dance club denizens they’re simply too familiar to be noticed.

The impression I have is that elements like those songs are part of a blasé-seeming attitude towards sex cultivated by the gym to appeal to the majority of its clients: we’re hip, westernized and contemporary, it tries to say. Unfortunately, the façade begins to crack when exposed to a native western pair of eyes. Look at the buff trainers, their biceps and pecs nicely outlined by their tight t-shirts. In their masculinity they’re identical to their American counterparts – until you notice that they can’t seem to keep their hands off each other. The easy physical contact which many Indian males have with their friends reaches its apogee at the gym, whose raison d’être is after all the body beautiful. As they pass each other, the trainers touch each other’s hands or chests, or they walk through the workout area together with their arms slung round each other’s shoulders. By contrast, in the men’s locker room there reigns an almost universal painful modesty about nudity, which leads to much contorted divesting and vesting of underwear from beneath towels wrapped tightly around the waist.

All of these goings-on are gazed upon by ultra-defined muscular males in photos that grace the walls of the establishment, including in the locker room a large poster of a male nude, who is presumably meant to rouse us to greater heights of disciplined exercise. All perfectly normal, one might think, and impeccably heterosexual – except that the pictures are predominantly by Herb Ritts, one of the most prominent gay American photographers. Ritts is known for works that slyly subvert heterosexual conventions by depicting hyper-masculine men in a way that is particularly appealing to gay viewers. In other words, his photos are homoerotic, and several of the ones at my gym are prime examples. It’s probably the case that a lot of Americans don’t quite cotton on to this – Ritts shoots models for the Abercrombie and Fitch clothing catalogs, after all – but I’m pretty sure that an American gym would steer nervously clear of displaying his photographs on their walls.

It seems to me that my gym has adapted some of the trappings of American gym culture without completely understanding the subtle, often blurred lines that define heterosexual and homosexual male identities in the west. Transposed to India, these western traits and affectations mix haphazardly with the very different ways in which Indian men relate to one another in terms of physical appearance and contact. The result is that notwithstanding the pounding macho music, the muscular trainers and the atmosphere of serious intent to exercise, through my western eyes my gym seems very gay!

Male sexual anxiety in the USA still often revolves around wanting to have a good-looking body while simultaneously not being mistaken for being gay. In Delhi, it seems to me that appearing gay is literally inconceivable to most men, who focus on a good physique because it is a component of the social, professional and romantic success that, to judge by their behavior, they feel they’re entitled to. “You already know I wanna fuck you,” they may be singing along in their heads – but only to the woman of their dreams. To my western eyes, however, it doesn’t always look that way. It’s just one small example of how life in Delhi is often confusing – but equally amusing.

The Conspiracy against men

2008-09-19T18:58:00.003+05:30

This is a post that one of our members made at a discussion net forum:

IT IS NOT not man-woman sexual interest that defines men, rather its a sexual inclination towards men. It is only too evident in nature, where (in mammals: read Bruce bagemihl, Johann Roughgarden, etc.) from 90% to 100% of males have been found to indulge in sexual relations with other males, while male-female sex happens only during the breeding season, and only a handful of males indulge in it at any given time. In other mammalian species, a handful of males control big harems of females, while most males live in male only groups and have sex largely with other males. Also, there is hardly any sexual/ emotional and romantic bonds between male-female, and any committed, lifelong sexual-romantic bonds exist only between males.

That is how humans lived at the beginning of the human civilisation, as is evident from several initial tribes that survived till the beginning of the modern era (e.g. the Melanisian tribes). In their society, males and females live in separate spaces, and meet only for reproductive sex, once a year... while 'marriage' happens only between men. In such societies, the reproduction is quite less -- but as per the rules of nature, but not to supply for human greed.

In nature, only a small portion of males ever breed, and even a smaller fraction does so with any regularity (i.e. in every reproductive season).

Long ago, societies decided to force its men (And it were the rulers, both men and of the third sex, who did that in what they thought was in the interest of the society) into reproductive sex with women, in order to increase their population -- It was necessitated because humans had started to migrate to far off, uninhabited lands, and they wanted people to inhabit their emerging civilisations. It soon evolved into a competitive situation where societies had to keep up their population levels to much more than what nature had intended, in order to survive the rivals.

In the beginning they invented the man-woman marriage, but male-bonds were so strong that they wouldn't leave them to live with women. Eversince, there has been a struggle by those who control the society (the rulers) and men's spaces. The rulers have been conspiring to:

a) break men from men
b) force them into sex with women

Men will not be forced into sex with women, unless they are broken from each other. The concept of 'homosexuality' is only the latest addition to theh conspiracy to break men from men. And if you look at how Western men are even afraid to hold each other's hands, and how they're scared of uniting on men's issues, for the fear of thought of as 'gay', you will understand that the conspirators have been really successful.

The rulers, iniitally, while they forced the common men into sex with women, kept themselves free from this pressure. So, for a large part of the history, man to man relations was thought to be fit only for the nobility but not for the common man, who had to be forced into reproductive sex, especially in a time when both child and adult mortality was high.

In any case... till the times of the Greeks, man to man sexual/ romantic bonds continued paralled to man-woman marriage, and while the first half of a man's life was devoted to bonds with men, the second half was for the society, to breed for it and to form a family. In the entire world, marriage is seen by men as a social duty, rather than something they really want to do. And men have been traditionally running away from marriage, as can be seen by innumerous marriage jokes, men have made to deal with this pressure.

Now, were all these men 'gay' -- certainly not... gay means queer, out of the ordinary, while straight means something that is normal, done by the majority. And, thus it was male-male sexual bonds that were straight, while it was male-female romantic bonds (that was indulged in by less than 3% of males, who were also effeminate) was 'gay'.

In any case... this fight against men's spaces, to break them from men, especially sexually, and to force them with women... is a contnuous fight, because nature exerts itself, the moment the rulers (that I call, the forces of heterosexualisation (FOH)) get lax. So, inspite of the fact that the FOH have heavily invested into building huge 'fixed' infrastructures, in the form of mechanisms, and into making these infrastructure 'invisible', especially by denying a space to talk about them,... they have to build new infrastructures in each age... as men's spaces find ways to fight the old ones.

Thus, by the time of the greeks, the man to man bonds were again resurfacing and had become strong. So, the FOH developed the concept of Religion by organising faith into an institution... and pronounced Sex between men as a Sin against God. And then, that gave them the authority and the power to persecute men (and not just gays), to keep them from forming relations with other men.

In fact, more than religion, the most important tool for the FOH to control men's sexuality was to manipulate and politicise 'manhood'. Because, manhood signified men's spaces -- the most important thing for men, biologically as well as socially. So, first they changed the definition of 'manhood' to say only those who reproduce are 'men'. In fact, they associated 'manhood' with penetration, which meant men could penetrate women, men as well as members of the third sex without losing their manhood.

Side by side, they also changed the definition of 'third sex', which originally was an identity for feminine gendered males without any consideration to their sexuality -- which was, unlike men, largely towards women. Third sex used to be a respectable group, but after politicisation, became a punishment space for outcaste men, who rebelled against social manhood... of course no one did.

Thus, while straight men loved other men, they disowned receptive anal sex, which the third sex took up as an identity.

After they brought in god, all kinds of sex with men became bad, it still remained 'masculine' although, only anal sex was a sin.

However, feminine gendered males, the third sex, was now heavily organised around receptive anal sex, and the FOH, to serve their nefarious designs allowed them space. Naturally, the third sex combined the desire for anal sex with their femininity and feminine lifestyles, and the two became synonymous. Of course, the majority of third gender who liked women, went underground, just like straight male sexual desire for men.

The sexual bonds between men however flourished underground. That means that although they could not accept indulging in such relations or to have the desire (not because it was feminine but because it was BAD and a sin) in formal spaces, in men's spaces, they openly talked about it and indulged in it.

When the modern times came, the power of religion started to vain, and Science started gaining power. The FOH, quickly gained control of the institution of science, and through it, invented the concept of Homosexuality (originally a disease) a term which was used for the feminine gendered males who indulged in receptive anal sex. They ignorend their feminine gender (also because Christianity had wiped out the concept of third sex from its society, at least formally) and their third sex status and defined them as 'men'. And that too 'men' who had sexual interest in men.

It was common knowledge that all men have a strong sexual interest in men. However, because of the immense religious and social hostility, men could not come up and say, hey, its not only these third sex people who like men, we like men too. They just couldn't. Soon, they were afraid to say this also because, they would be thought of as femininie or third sex themselves.

And the FOH, side by side, also started to destroy the men's spaces by bringing women into it, and increasing to the extremes, the pressure on men to bond sexually and socially with women. It was these men's spaces that were the power of men, and the FOH wanted to destroy them long ago, but it was only through science that they could finally do it.

They threatened any stragiht man who resisted this destruction as being outcasted as 'gay'. Some men were better 'heterosexualised' and fitted better in the new heteroseuxal set ups than the others and these men became the vested interests. But these men were not really the masculine ones, but rather the 'meterosexual' ones. The masculine ones became truly disempowered and to this day strive to fit into heterosexual roles with all sincerity.

The 'homosexual' or 'gay' space became strong as a lot of meterosexual guys, apart from the extremely transgendered guys who originally made up the gay space, took to it, and what helped them was the fact that formally, the concept of 'homosexuality' did not acknowledge the femininity of its members, and defined them only in terms of their sexual need for men. It also helped remove the stigma around receptive anal sex, by bringing all kinds of sexual interest under the stigma, and making it much wider. So, now the burden was equally shared, at least formally, by those who penetrated and those who did not indulge in anal sex at all. Any kind of sexual or emotional or romantic interest in men now became 'gay' or indirectly became 'feminine' or 'third sex'.

Because, these meterosexual 'gays' have a strong femininity in them, and because the society also acknowlegdes 'sexual interest between men' as feminine, the gays strongly feel that liking men and femininity are synonymous. And, they fuel the stereotypes.

While, all through the middle ages, and in contemporary non-westernised societies, manhood is still dependant on reproduction, and if you have a baby, you're straight... actually, you don't even need to actually have a baby, if you can prove that you are physically capable of having a child, you're straight. The Western societies have renamed 'manhood' as 'straight', and defined it in terms of exclusive sexual interest in women, which is not only illogical, its anti-man, anti-nature and without any precedence in history. Third sex, too was renamed as 'gay' and redefined in terms of a male sexual interest in men.

The third sex space for long has been a place for males who have been debarred from manhood, and 'gay' is the modern West's version of that space. That is why men are so scared of it.

So, straight men are continually pitted against their own nature, to love men... and to develop or pretend a sexual interest in women, so that they are not thrown into the third sex 'gay' group. And the society makes this pressure really strong. Most gays do not understand the straight male fear or phobia against 'gays'... They think its because of the religious or social stigma... well, its not... its a very personal thing... and this has to do with the 'third sex' angle, the politics of misdefining manhood and third sex.

So, straight men still indulge in sex with men ... but those who really do and talk about it, even secretly, are a miniscule. The majority of straight men never get down to actually doing it. But, their continuous struggle with a deep rooted sexual need for men, that they don't allow to grow and keep cutting off psychologically, manifests itself indirectly, in small spaces that they can still find to give vent to some of that need -- e.g. in hazing practices or in jokingly stripping each other... or doing masti (sexual fun) with each other. In India, before its extreme heterosexualisation recently, it was accepted as an integral part of manhood for men to like doing masti with other men. But now, men don't acknowledge that because of fear of being labelled gay.

In fact, I'm observing two college friends of mine closely who are straight and who are trying their best to fit into the new heterosexual roles by forcing themselves to be with girls and to cut off themselves from guys sexually and emotionally. Its a pressure we did not have to feel about seven years ago.

I am observing them closely, and seeing how they don't have much interest in women, and how uncomfortable they feel in the company of girls, yet they make all kinds of webs in order to have a straight image (there's no concept of straight as yet... but all they want is to avoid being 'gay'), and that they'd really like to be involved with a man.

Is There Anything Good About Men?

2008-09-19T18:49:00.003+05:30

American Psychological Association, Invited Address, 2007

Roy F. Baumeister

Contact: R. Baumeister, Eppes Eminent Professor of Psychology & Head of Social Psychology Area, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, Baumeister@psy.fsu.edu, phone 850-264-8792. Note, I will be out of the country July 3-31 except for the night of July 17-18.

YOU'RE probably thinking that a talk called “Is there anything good about men” will be a short talk! Recent writings have not had much good to say about men. Titles like “Men Are Not Cost Effective” speak for themselves. Maureen Dowd’s book was called “Are Men Necessary?” and although she never gave an explicit answer, anyone reading the book knows her answer was no. Brizendine’s book “The Female Brain” introduces itself by saying, “Men, get ready to experience brain envy.” Imagine a book advertising itself by saying that women will soon be envying the superior male brain!

Nor are these isolated examples. Eagly’s research has compiled mountains of data on the stereotypes people have about men and women, which the researchers summarized as “The WAW effect.” WAW stands for “Women Are Wonderful.” Both men and women hold much more favorable views of women than of men. Almost everybody likes women better than men. I certainly do.

My purpose in this talk is not to try to balance this out by praising men, though along the way I will have various positive things to say about both genders. The question of whether there’s anything good about men is only my point of departure. The tentative title of the book I’m writing is “How culture exploits men,” but even that for me is the lead-in to grand questions about how culture shapes action. In that context, what’s good about men means what men are good for, from the perspective of the system.

Hence this is not about the “battle of the sexes,” and in fact I think one unfortunate legacy of feminism has been the idea that men and women are basically enemies. I shall suggest, instead, that most often men and women have been partners, supporting each other rather than exploiting or manipulating each other.

Nor is this about trying to argue that men should be regarded as victims. I detest the whole idea of competing to be victims. And I’m certainly not denying that culture has exploited women. But rather than seeing culture as patriarchy, which is to say a conspiracy by men to exploit women, I think it’s more accurate to understand culture (e.g., a country, a religion) as an abstract system that competes against rival systems — and that uses both men and women, often in different ways, to advance its cause.

Also I think it’s best to avoid value judgments as much as possible. They have made discussion of gender politics very difficult and sensitive, thereby warping the play of ideas. I have no conclusions to present about what’s good or bad or how the world should change. In fact my own theory is built around tradeoffs, so that whenever there is something good it is tied to something else that is bad, and they balance out.

I don’t want to be on anybody’s side. Gender warriors please go home.

Men on Top
When I say I am researching how culture exploits men, the first reaction is usually “How can you say culture exploits men, when men are in charge of everything?” This is a fair objection and needs to be taken seriously. It invokes the feminist critique of society. This critique started when some women systematically looked up at the top of society and saw men everywhere: most world rulers, presidents, prime ministers, most members of Congress and parliaments, most CEOs of major corporations, and so forth — these are mostly men.

Seeing all this, the feminists thought, wow, men dominate everything, so society is set up to favor men. It must be great to be a man.

The mistake in that way of thinking is to look only at the top. If one were to look downward to the bottom of society instead, one finds mostly men there too. Who’s in prison, all over the world, as criminals or political prisoners? The population on Death Row has never approached 51% female. Who’s homeless? Again, mostly men. Whom does society use for bad or dangerous jobs? US Department of Labor statistics report that 93% of the people killed on the job are men. Likewise, who gets killed in battle? Even in today’s American army, which has made much of integrating the sexes and putting women into combat, the risks aren’t equal. This year we passed the milestone of 3,000 deaths in Iraq, and of those, 2,938 were men, 62 were women.

One can imagine an ancient battle in which the enemy was driven off and the city saved, and the returning soldiers are showered with gold coins. An early feminist might protest that hey, all those men are getting gold coins, half of those coins should go to women. In principle, I agree. But remember, while the men you see are getting gold coins, there are other men you don’t see, who are still bleeding to death on the battlefield from spear wounds.

That’s an important first clue to how culture uses men. Culture has plenty of tradeoffs, in which it needs people to do dangerous or risky things, and so it offers big rewards to motivate people to take those risks. Most cultures have tended to use men for these high-risk, high-payoff slots much more than women. I shall propose there are important pragmatic reasons for this. The result is that some men reap big rewards while others have their lives ruined or even cut short. Most cultures shield their women from the risk and therefore also don’t give them the big rewards. I’m not saying this is what cultures ought to do, morally, but cultures aren’t moral beings. They do what they do for pragmatic reasons driven by competition against other systems and other groups.

Stereotypes at Harvard

I said that today most people hold more favorable stereotypes of women than men. It was not always thus. Up until about the 1960s, psychology (like society) tended to see men as the norm and women as the slightly inferior version. During the 1970s, there was a brief period of saying there were no real differences, just stereotypes. Only since about 1980 has the dominant view been that women are better and men are the inferior version.

The surprising thing to me is that it took little more than a decade to go from one view to its opposite, that is, from thinking men are better than women to thinking women are better than men. How is this possible?

I’m sure you’re expecting me to talk about Larry Summers at some point, so let’s get it over with! You recall, he was the president of Harvard. As summarized in The Economist, “Mr Summers infuriated the feminist establishment by wondering out loud whether the prejudice alone could explain the shortage of women at the top of science.” After initially saying, it’s possible that maybe there aren’t as many women physics professors at Harvard because there aren’t as many women as men with that high innate ability, just one possible explanation among others, he had to apologize, retract, promise huge sums of money, and not long afterward he resigned.

What was his crime? Nobody accused him of actually discriminating against women. His misdeed was to think thoughts that are not allowed to be thought, namely that there might be more men with high ability. The only permissible explanation for the lack of top women scientists is patriarchy — that men are conspiring to keep women down. It can’t be ability. Actually, there is some evidence that men on average are a little better at math, but let’s assume Summers was talking about general intelligence. People can point to plenty of data that the average IQ of adult men is about the same as the average for women. So to suggest that men are smarter than women is wrong. No wonder some women were offended.

But that’s not what he said. He said there were more men at the top levels of ability. That could still be true despite the average being the same — if there are also more men at the bottom of the distribution, more really stupid men than women. During the controversy about his remarks, I didn’t see anybody raise this question, but the data are there, indeed abundant, and they are indisputable. There are more males than females with really low IQs. Indeed, the pattern with mental retardation is the same as with genius, namely that as you go from mild to medium to extreme, the preponderance of males gets bigger.

All those retarded boys are not the handiwork of patriarchy. Men are not conspiring together to make each other’s sons mentally retarded.

Almost certainly, it is something biological and genetic. And my guess is that the greater proportion of men at both extremes of the IQ distribution is part of the same pattern. Nature rolls the dice with men more than women. Men go to extremes more than women. It’s true not just with IQ but also with other things, even height: The male distribution of height is flatter, with more really tall and really short men.

Again, there is a reason for this, to which I shall return.

For now, the point is that it explains how we can have opposite stereotypes. Men go to extremes more than women. Stereotypes are sustained by confirmation bias. Want to think men are better than women? Then look at the top, the heroes, the inventors, the philanthropists, and so on. Want to think women are better than men? Then look at the bottom, the criminals, the junkies, the losers.

In an important sense, men really are better AND worse than women.

A pattern of more men at both extremes can create all sorts of misleading conclusions and other statistical mischief. To illustrate, let’s assume that men and women are on average exactly equal in every relevant respect, but more men at both extremes. If you then measure things that are bounded at one end, it screws up the data to make men and women seem significantly different.

Consider grade point average in college. Thanks to grade inflation, most students now get A’s and B’s, but a few range all the way down to F. With that kind of low ceiling, the high-achieving males cannot pull up the male average, but the loser males will pull it down. The result will be that women will get higher average grades than men — again despite no difference in average quality of work.

The opposite result comes with salaries. There is a minimum wage but no maximum. Hence the high-achieving men can pull the male average up while the low-achieving ones can’t pull it down. The result? Men will get higher average salaries than women, even if there is no average difference on any relevant input.

Today, sure enough, women get higher college grades but lower salaries than men. There is much discussion about what all this means and what should be done about it. But as you see, both facts could be just a statistical quirk stemming from male extremity.

Trading Off
When you think about it, the idea that one gender is all-around better than the other is not very plausible. Why would nature make one gender better than the other? Evolution selects for good, favorable traits, and if there’s one good way to be, after a few generations everyone will be that way.

But evolution will preserve differences when there is a tradeoff: when one trait is good for one thing, while the opposite is good for something else.

Let’s return to the three main theories we’ve had about gender: Men are better, no difference, and women are better. What’s missing from that list? Different but equal. Let me propose that as a rival theory that deserves to be considered. I think it’s actually the most plausible one. Natural selection will preserve innate differences between men and women as long as the different traits are beneficial in different circumstances or for different tasks.

Tradeoff example: African-Americans suffer from sickle cell anemia more than white people. This appears to be due to a genetic vulnerability. That gene, however, promotes resistance to malaria. Black people evolved in regions where malaria was a major killer, so it was worth having this gene despite the increased risk of sickle cell anemia. White people evolved in colder regions, where there was less malaria, and so the tradeoff was resolved differently, more avoiding the gene that prevented malaria while risking sickle cell anemia.

The tradeoff approach yields a radical theory of gender equality. Men and women may be different, but each advantage may be linked to a disadvantage.

Hence whenever you hear a report that one gender is better at something, stop and consider why this is likely true — and what the opposite trait might be good for.

Can’t Vs. Won’t
Before we go too far down that path, though, let me raise another radical idea. Maybe the differences between the genders are more about motivation than ability. This is the difference between can’t and won’t.

Return for a moment to the Larry Summers issue about why there aren’t more female physics professors at Harvard. Maybe women can do math and science perfectly well but they just don’t like to. After all, most men don’t like math either! Of the small minority of people who do like math, there are probably more men than women. Research by Eccles has repeatedly concluded that the shortage of females in math and science reflects motivation more than ability. And by the same logic, I suspect most men could learn to change diapers and vacuum under the sofa perfectly well too, and if men don’t do those things, it’s because they don’t want to or don’t like to, not because they are constitutionally unable (much as they may occasionally pretend otherwise!).

Several recent works have questioned the whole idea of gender differences in abilities: Even when average differences are found, they tend to be extremely small. In contrast, when you look at what men and women want, what they like, there are genuine differences. Look at research on the sex drive: Men and women may have about equal “ability” in sex, whatever that means, but there are big differences as to motivation: which gender thinks about sex all the time, wants it more often, wants more different partners, risks more for sex, masturbates more, leaps at every opportunity, and so on. Our survey of published research found that pretty much every measure and every study showed higher sex drive in men. It’s official: men are hornier than women. This is a difference in motivation.

Likewise, I mentioned the salary difference, but it may have less to do with ability than motivation. High salaries come from working super-long hours. Workaholics are mostly men. (There are some women, just not as many as men.) One study counted that over 80% of the people who work 50-hour weeks are men.

That means that if we want to achieve our ideal of equal salaries for men and women, we may need to legislate the principle of equal pay for less work. Personally, I support that principle. But I recognize it’s a hard sell.

Creativity may be another example of gender difference in motivation rather than ability. The evidence presents a seeming paradox, because the tests of creativity generally show men and women scoring about the same, yet through history some men have been much more creative than women. An explanation that fits this pattern is that men and women have the same creative ability but different motivations.

I am a musician, and I’ve long wondered about this difference. We know from the classical music scene that women can play instruments beautifully, superbly, proficiently — essentially just as well as men. They can and many do. Yet in jazz, where the performer has to be creative while playing, there is a stunning imbalance: hardly any women improvise. Why? The ability is there but perhaps the motivation is less. They don’t feel driven to do it.

I suppose the stock explanation for any such difference is that women were not encouraged, or were not appreciated, or were discouraged from being creative. But I don’t think this stock explanation fits the facts very well. In the 19th century in America, middle-class girls and women played piano far more than men. Yet all that piano playing failed to result in any creative output. There were no great women composers, no new directions in style of music or how to play, or anything like that. All those female pianists entertained their families and their dinner guests but did not seem motivated to create anything new.

Meanwhile, at about the same time, black men in America created blues and then jazz, both of which changed the way the world experiences music. By any measure, those black men, mostly just emerging from slavery, were far more disadvantaged than the middle-class white women. Even getting their hands on a musical instrument must have been considerably harder. And remember, I’m saying that the creative abilities are probably about equal. But somehow the men were driven to create something new, more than the women.

One test of what’s meaningfully real is the marketplace. It’s hard to find anybody making money out of gender differences in abilities. But in motivation, there are plenty. Look at the magazine industry: men’s magazines cover different stuff from women’s magazines, because men and women like and enjoy and are interested in different things. Look at the difference in films between the men’s and women’s cable channels. Look at the difference in commercials for men or for women.

This brings us to an important part of the argument. I’m suggesting the important differences between men and women are to be found in motivation rather than ability. What, then, are these differences? I want to emphasize two.

The Most Underappreciated Fact
The first big, basic difference has to do with what I consider to be the most underappreciated fact about gender. Consider this question: What percent of our ancestors were women?

It’s not a trick question, and it’s not 50%. True, about half the people who ever lived were women, but that’s not the question. We’re asking about all the people who ever lived who have a descendant living today. Or, put another way, yes, every baby has both a mother and a father, but some of those parents had multiple children.

Recent research using DNA analysis answered this question about two years ago. Today’s human population is descended from twice as many women as men.

I think this difference is the single most underappreciated fact about gender. To get that kind of difference, you had to have something like, throughout the entire history of the human race, maybe 80% of women but only 40% of men reproduced.

Right now our field is having a lively debate about how much behavior can be explained by evolutionary theory. But if evolution explains anything at all, it explains things related to reproduction, because reproduction is at the heart of natural selection. Basically, the traits that were most effective for reproduction would be at the center of evolutionary psychology. It would be shocking if these vastly different reproductive odds for men and women failed to produce some personality differences.

For women throughout history (and prehistory), the odds of reproducing have been pretty good. Later in this talk we will ponder things like, why was it so rare for a hundred women to get together and build a ship and sail off to explore unknown regions, whereas men have fairly regularly done such things? But taking chances like that would be stupid, from the perspective of a biological organism seeking to reproduce. They might drown or be killed by savages or catch a disease. For women, the optimal thing to do is go along with the crowd, be nice, play it safe. The odds are good that men will come along and offer sex and you’ll be able to have babies. All that matters is choosing the best offer. We’re descended from women who played it safe.

For men, the outlook was radically different. If you go along with the crowd and play it safe, the odds are you won’t have children. Most men who ever lived did not have descendants who are alive today. Their lines were dead ends. Hence it was necessary to take chances, try new things, be creative, explore other possibilities. Sailing off into the unknown may be risky, and you might drown or be killed or whatever, but then again if you stay home you won’t reproduce anyway. We’re most descended from the type of men who made the risky voyage and managed to come back rich. In that case he would finally get a good chance to pass on his genes. We’re descended from men who took chances (and were lucky).

The huge difference in reproductive success very likely contributed to some personality differences, because different traits pointed the way to success. Women did best by minimizing risks, whereas the successful men were the ones who took chances. Ambition and competitive striving probably mattered more to male success (measured in offspring) than female. Creativity was probably more necessary, to help the individual man stand out in some way. Even the sex drive difference was relevant: For many men, there would be few chances to reproduce and so they had to be ready for every sexual opportunity. If a man said “not today, I have a headache,” he might miss his only chance.

Another crucial point. The danger of having no children is only one side of the male coin. Every child has a biological mother and father, and so if there were only half as many fathers as mothers among our ancestors, then some of those fathers had lots of children.

Look at it this way. Most women have only a few children, and hardly any have more than a dozen — but many fathers have had more than a few, and some men have actually had several dozen, even hundreds of kids.

In terms of the biological competition to produce offspring, then, men outnumbered women both among the losers and among the biggest winners.

To put this in more subjective terms: When I walk around and try to look at men and women as if seeing them for the first time, it’s hard to escape the impression (sorry, guys!) that women are simply more likeable and lovable than men. (This I think explains the “WAW effect” mentioned earlier.) Men might wish to be lovable, and men can and do manage to get women to love them (so the ability is there), but men have other priorities, other motivations. For women, being lovable was the key to attracting the best mate. For men, however, it was more a matter of beating out lots of other men even to have a chance for a mate.

Tradeoffs again: perhaps nature designed women to seek to be lovable, whereas men were designed to strive, mostly unsuccessfully, for greatness.

And it was worth it, even despite the “mostly unsuccessfully” part. Experts estimate Genghis Khan had several hundred and perhaps more than a thousand children. He took big risks and eventually conquered most of the known world. For him, the big risks led to huge payoffs in offspring. My point is that no woman, even if she conquered twice as much territory as Genghis Khan, could have had a thousand children. Striving for greatness in that sense offered the human female no such biological payoff. For the man, the possibility was there, and so the blood of Genghis Khan runs through a large segment of today’s human population. By definition, only a few men can achieve greatness, but for the few men who do, the gains have been real. And we are descended from those great men much more than from other men. Remember, most of the mediocre men left no descendants at all.

Are Women More Social?
Let me turn now to the second big motivational difference. This has its roots in an exchange in the Psychological Bulletin about ten years ago, but the issue is still fresh and relevant today. It concerns the question of whether women are more social than men.

The idea that women are more social was raised by Cross and Madsen in a manuscript submitted to that journal. I was sent it to review, and although I disagreed with their conclusion, I felt they had made their case well, so I advocated publishing their paper. They provided plenty of evidence. They said things like, look, men are more aggressive than women. Aggression could damage a relationship because if you hurt someone then that person might not want to be with you. Women refrain from aggression because they want relationships, but men don’t care about relationships and so are willing to be aggressive. Thus, the difference in aggression shows that women are more social than men.

But I had just published my early work on “the need to belong,” which concluded that both men and women had that need, and so I was worried to hear that men don’t care about social connection. I wrote a reply that said there was another way to look at all the evidence Cross and Madsen covered.

The gist of our view was that there are two different ways of being social. In social psychology we tend to emphasize close, intimate relationships, and yes, perhaps women specialize in those and are better at them than men. But one can also look at being social in terms of having larger networks of shallower relationships, and on these, perhaps, men are more social than women.

It’s like the common question, what’s more important to you, having a few close friendships or having lots of people who know you? Most people say the former is more important. But the large network of shallow relationships might be important too. We shouldn’t automatically see men as second-class human beings simply because they specialize in the less important, less satisfying kind of relationship. Men are social too — just in a different way.

So we reexamined the evidence Cross and Madsen had provided. Consider aggression. True, women are less aggressive than men, no argument there. But is it really because women don’t want to jeopardize a close relationship? It turns out that in close relationships, women are plenty aggressive. Women are if anything more likely than men to perpetrate domestic violence against romantic partners, everything from a slap in the face to assault with a deadly weapon. Women also do more child abuse than men, though that’s hard to untangle from the higher amount of time they spend with children. Still, you can’t say that women avoid violence toward intimate partners.

Instead, the difference is found in the broader social sphere. Women don’t hit strangers. The chances that a woman will, say, go to the mall and end up in a knife fight with another woman are vanishingly small, but there is more such risk for men. The gender difference in aggression is mainly found there, in the broader network of relationships. Because men care more about that network.

Now consider helping. Most research finds that men help more than women. Cross and Madsen struggled with that and eventually just fell back on the tired cliché that maybe women don’t help because they aren’t brought up to help or aren’t socialized to help. But I think the pattern is the same as with aggression. Most research looks at helping between strangers, in the larger social sphere, and so it finds men helping more. Inside the family, though, women are plenty helpful, if anything more than men.

Aggression and helping are in some ways opposites, so the converging pattern is quite meaningful. Women both help and aggress in the intimate sphere of close relationships, because that’s what they care about. In contrast, men care (also) about the broader network of shallower relationships, and so they are plenty helpful and aggressive there.

The same two-spheres conclusion is supported in plenty of other places. Playground observation studies find that girls pair off and play one-on-one with the same playmate for the full hour. Boys will either play one-on-one with a series of different playmates or with a larger group. Girls want the one-to-one relationship, whereas boys are drawn to bigger groups or networks.

When two girls are playing together and the researchers bring in a third one, the two girls resist letting her join. But two boys will let a third boy join their game. My point is that girls want the one-on-one connection, so adding a third person spoils the time for them, but it doesn’t spoil it for the boys.

The conclusion is that men and women are both social but in different ways. Women specialize in the narrow sphere of intimate relationships. Men specialize in the larger group. If you make a list of activities that are done in large groups, you are likely to have a list of things that men do and enjoy more than women: team sports, politics, large corporations, economic networks, and so forth.

Traded-Off Traits
Again, important personality differences probably follow from the basic motivational difference in the kind of social relationship that interests men and women.

Consider the common finding that women are more emotionally expressive than men. For an intimate relationship, good communication is helpful. It enables the two people to understand each other, appreciate each other’s feelings, and so forth. The more the two intimate partners know about each other, the better they can care for and support each other. But in a large group, where you have rivals and maybe enemies, it’s risky to let all your feelings show. The same goes for economic transactions. When you are negotiating the price of something, it’s best to keep your feelings a bit to yourself. And so men hold back more.

Fairness is another example. Research by Major and others back in the 1970s used procedures like this. A group of subjects would perform a task, and the experimenter would then say that the group had earned a certain amount of money, and it was up to one member to divide it up however he or she wanted. The person could keep all the money, but that wasn’t usually what happened. Women would divide the money equally, with an equal share for everybody. Men, in contrast, would divide it unequally, giving the biggest share of reward to whoever had done the most work.

Which is better? Neither. Both equality and equity are valid versions of fairness. But they show the different social sphere orientation. Equality is better for close relationships, when people take care of each other and reciprocate things and divide resources and opportunities equally. In contrast, equity — giving bigger rewards for bigger contributions — is more effective in large groups. I haven’t actually checked, but I’m willing to bet that if you surveyed the Fortune 500 large and successful corporations in America, you wouldn’t find a single one out of 500 that pays every employee the same salary. The more valuable workers who contribute more generally get paid more. It simply is a more effective system in large groups. The male pattern is suited for the large groups, the female pattern is best suited to intimate pairs.

Ditto for the communal-exchange difference Women have more communal orientation, men more exchange. In psychology we tend to think of communal as a more advanced form of relationship than exchange. For example, we’d be suspicious of a couple who after ten years of marriage are still saying, “I paid the electric bill last month, now it’s your turn.” But the supposed superiority of communal relationships applies mainly to intimate relationships. At the level of large social systems, it’s the other way around. Communal (including communist) countries remain primitive and poor, whereas the rich, advanced nations have gotten where they are by means of economic exchange.

There’s also the point about men being more competitive, women more cooperative. Again, though, cooperation is much more useful than competition for close relationships. What use is there in competing against your spouse? But in large groups, getting to the top can be crucial. The male preference for dominance hierarchies, and the ambitious striving to get to the top, likewise reflect an orientation toward the large group, not a dislike of intimacy. And remember, most men didn’t reproduce, and we’re mainly descended from the men who did fight their way to the top. Not so for women.

One more thing. Cross and Madsen covered plenty of research showing that men think of themselves based on their unusual traits that set them apart from others, while women’s self-concepts feature things that connect them to others. Cross and Madsen thought that this was because men wanted to be apart from others. But in fact being different is vital strategy for belonging to a large group. If you’re the only group member who can kill an antelope or find water or talk to the gods or kick a field goal, the group can’t afford to get rid of you.

It’s different in a one-to-one relationship. A woman’s husband, and her baby, will love her even if she doesn’t play the trombone. So cultivating a unique skill isn’t essential for her. But playing the trombone is a way to get into some groups, especially brass bands. This is another reason that men go to extremes more than women. Large groups foster the need to establish something different and special about yourself.

Benefits of Cultural Systems
Let’s turn now to culture. Culture is relatively new in evolution. It continues the line of evolution that made animals social. I understand culture as a kind of system that enables the human group to work together effectively, using information. Culture is a new, improved way of being social.

Feminism has taught us to see culture as men against women. Instead, I think the evidence indicates that culture emerged mainly with men and women working together, but working against other groups of men and women. Often the most intense and productive competitions were groups of men against other groups of men, though both groups depended on support from women.

Culture enables the group to be more than the sum of its parts (its members). Culture can be seen as a biological strategy. Twenty people who work together, in a cultural system, sharing information and dividing up tasks and so forth, will all live better — survive and reproduce better — than if those same twenty people lived in the same forest but did everything individually.

Culture thus provides some benefit from having a system. Let’s call this “system gain,” which means how much better the group does because of the system. Think of two soccer teams. Both sets of players know the rules and have the same individual skills. One group has only that, and they go out to play as individuals trying to do their best. The other works as a team, complementing each other, playing with a system. The system will likely enable them to do better than the group playing as separate individuals. That’s system gain.

And one vital fact is that the scope of system gain increases with the size of the system. This is essentially what’s happening in the world right now, globalization in the world economy. Bigger systems provide more benefits, so as we expand and merge more units into bigger systems, overall there is more gain.

There is one crucial implication from all this. Culture depends on system gain, and bigger systems provide more of this. Therefore, you’ll get more of the benefit of culture from large groups than from small ones. A one-on-one close relationship can do a little in terms of division of labor and sharing information, but a 20-person group can do much more.

As a result, culture mainly arose in the types of social relationships favored by men. Women favor close, intimate relationships. These are if anything more important for the survival of the species. That’s why human women evolved first. We need those close relationships to survive. The large networks of shallower relationships aren’t as vital for survival — but they are good for something else, namely the development of larger social systems and ultimately for culture.

Men and Culture
This provides a new basis for understanding gender politics and inequality.

The generally accepted view is that back in early human society, men and women were close to equal. Men and women had separate spheres and did different things, but both were respected. Often, women were gatherers and men were hunters. The total contribution to the group’s food was about the same, even though there were some complementary differences. For example, the gatherers’ food was reliably there most days, while the hunters brought home great food once in a while but nothing on other days.

Gender inequality seems to have increased with early civilization, including agriculture. Why? The feminist explanation has been that the men banded together to create patriarchy. This is essentially a conspiracy theory, and there is little or no evidence that it is true. Some argue that the men erased it from the history books in order to safeguard their newly won power. Still, the lack of evidence should be worrisome, especially since this same kind of conspiracy would have had to happen over and over, in group after group, all over the world.

Let me offer a different explanation. It’s not that the men pushed the women down. Rather, it’s just that the women’s sphere remained about where it was, while the men’s sphere, with its big and shallow social networks, slowly benefited from the progress of culture. By accumulating knowledge and improving the gains from division of labor, the men’s sphere gradually made progress.

Hence religion, literature, art, science, technology, military action, trade and economic marketplaces, political organization, medicine — these all mainly emerged from the men’s sphere. The women’s sphere did not produce such things, though it did other valuable things, like take care of the next generation so the species would continue to exist.

Why? It has nothing to do with men having better abilities or talents or anything like that. It comes mainly from the different kinds of social relationships. The women’s sphere consisted of women and therefore was organized on the basis of the kind of close, intimate, supportive one-on-one relationships that women favor. These are vital, satisfying relationships that contribute vitally to health and survival. Meanwhile the men favored the larger networks of shallower relationships. These are less satisfying and nurturing and so forth, but they do form a more fertile basis for the emergence of culture.

Note that all those things I listed — literature, art, science, etc — are optional. Women were doing what was vital for the survival of the species. Without intimate care and nurturance, children won’t survive, and the group will die out. Women contributed the necessities of life. Men’s contributions were more optional, luxuries perhaps. But culture is a powerful engine of making life better. Across many generations, culture can create large amounts of wealth, knowledge, and power. Culture did this — but mainly in the men’s sphere.

Thus, the reason for the emergence of gender inequality may have little to do with men pushing women down in some dubious patriarchal conspiracy. Rather, it came from the fact that wealth, knowledge, and power were created in the men’s sphere. This is what pushed the men’s sphere ahead. Not oppression.

Giving birth is a revealing example. What could be more feminine than giving birth? Throughout most of history and prehistory, giving birth was at the center of the women’s sphere, and men were totally excluded. Men were rarely or never present at childbirth, nor was the knowledge about birthing even shared with them. But not very long ago, men were finally allowed to get involved, and the men were able to figure out ways to make childbirth safer for both mother and baby. Think of it: the most quintessentially female activity, and yet the men were able to improve on it in ways the women had not discovered for thousands and thousands of years.

Let’s not overstate. The women had after all managed childbirth pretty well for all those centuries. The species had survived, which is the bottom line. The women had managed to get the essential job done. What the men added was, from the perspective of the group or species at least, optional, a bonus: some mothers and babies survived who would otherwise have died. Still, the improvements show some value coming from the male way of being social. Large networks can collect and accumulate information better than small ones, and so in a relatively short time the men were able to discover improvements that the women hadn’t been able to find. Again, it’s not that the men were smarter or more capable. It’s just that the women shared their knowledge individually, from mother to daughter, or from one midwife to another, and in the long run this could not accumulate and progress as effectively as in the larger groups of shallower relationships favored by men.

What Men Are Good For
With that, we can now return to the question of what men are good for, from the perspective of a cultural system. The context is these systems competing against other systems, group against group. The group systems that used their men and women most effectively would enable their groups to outperform their rivals and enemies.

I want to emphasize three main answers for how culture uses men.

First, culture relies on men to create the large social structures that comprise it. Our society is made up of institutions such as universities, governments, corporations. Most of these were founded and built up by men. Again, this probably had less to do with women being oppressed or whatever and more to do with men being motivated to form large networks of shallow relationships. Men are much more interested than women in forming large groups and working in them and rising to the top in them.

This still seems to be true today. Several recent news articles have called attention to the fact that women now start more small businesses then men. This is usually covered in the media as a positive sign about women, which it is. But women predominate only if you count all businesses. If you restrict the criteria to businesses that employ more than one person, or ones that make enough money to live off of, then men create more. I suspect that the bigger the group you look at, the more they are male-created.

Certainly today anybody of any gender can start a business, and if anything there are some set-asides and advantages to help women do so. There are no hidden obstacles or blocks, and that’s shown by the fact that women start more businesses than men. But the women are content to stay small, such as operating a part-time business out of the spare bedroom, making a little extra money for the family. They don’t seem driven to build these up into giant corporations. There are some exceptions, of course, but there is a big difference on average.

Hence both men and women rely on men to create the giant social structures that offer opportunities to both. And it is clear men and women can both perform quite well in these organizations. But culture still relies mainly on men to make them in the first place.

The Disposable Male
A second thing that makes men useful to culture is what I call male expendability. This goes back to what I said at the outset, that cultures tend to use men for the high-risk, high-payoff undertakings, where a significant portion of those will suffer bad outcomes ranging from having their time wasted, all the way to being killed.

Any man who reads the newspapers will encounter the phrase “even women and children” a couple times a month, usually about being killed. The literal meaning of this phrase is that men’s lives have less value than other people’s lives. The idea is usually “It’s bad if people are killed, but it’s especially bad if women and children are killed.” And I think most men know that in an emergency, if there are women and children present, he will be expected to lay down his life without argument or complaint so that the others can survive. On the Titanic, the richest men had a lower survival rate (34%) than the poorest women (46%) (though that’s not how it looked in the movie). That in itself is remarkable. The rich, powerful, and successful men, the movers and shakers, supposedly the ones that the culture is all set up to favor — in a pinch, their lives were valued less than those of women with hardly any money or power or status. The too-few seats in the lifeboats went to the women who weren’t even ladies, instead of to those patriarchs.

Most cultures have had the same attitude. Why? There are pragmatic reasons. When a cultural group competes against other groups, in general, the larger group tends to win out in the long run. Hence most cultures have promoted population growth. And that depends on women. To maximize reproduction, a culture needs all the wombs it can get, but a few penises can do the job. There is usually a penile surplus. If a group loses half its men, the next generation can still be full-sized. But if it loses half its women, the size of the next generation will be severely curtailed. Hence most cultures keep their women out of harm’s way while using men for risky jobs.

These risky jobs extend beyond the battlefield. Many lines of endeavor require some lives to be wasted. Exploration, for example: a culture may send out dozens of parties, and some will get lost or be killed, while others bring back riches and opportunities. Research is somewhat the same way: There may be a dozen possible theories about some problem, only one of which is correct, so the people testing the eleven wrong theories will end up wasting their time and ruining their careers, in contrast to the lucky one who gets the Nobel prize. And of course the dangerous jobs. When the scandals broke about the dangers of the mining industry in Britain, Parliament passed the mining laws that prohibited children under the age of 10 and women of all ages from being sent into the mines. Women and children were too precious to be exposed to death in the mines: so only men. As I said earlier, the gender gap in dangerous work persists today, with men accounting for the vast majority of deaths on the job.

Another basis of male expendability is built into the different ways of being social. Expendability comes with the large groups that male sociality creates. In an intimate, one-to-one relationship, neither person can really be replaced. You can remarry if your spouse dies, but it isn’t really the same marriage or relationship. And of course nobody can ever really replace a child’s mother or father.

In contrast, large groups can and do replace just about everybody. Take any large organization — the Ford Motor Company, the U.S. Army, the Green Bay Packers — and you’ll find that the organization goes on despite having replaced every single person in it. Moreover, every member off those groups knows he or she can be replaced and probably will be replaced some day.

Thus, men create the kind of social networks where individuals are replaceable and expendable. Women favor the kind of relationships in which each person is precious and cannot truly be replaced.

Earning Manhood
The phrase “Be a man” is not as common as it once was, but there is still some sense that manhood must be earned. Every adult female is a woman and is entitled to respect as such, but many cultures withhold respect from the males until and unless the lads prove themselves. This is of course tremendously useful for the culture, because it can set the terms by which males earn respect as men, and in that way it can motivate the men to do things that the culture finds productive.

Some sociological writings about the male role have emphasized that to be a man, you have to produce more than you consume. That is, men are expected, first, to provide for themselves: If somebody else provides for you, you’re less than a man. Second, the man should create some additional wealth or surplus value so that it can provide for others in addition to himself. These can be his wife and children, or others who depend on him, or his subordinates, or even perhaps just paying taxes that the government can use. Regardless, you’re not a man unless you produce at that level.

Again, I’m not saying men have it worse than women. There are plenty of problems and disadvantages that cultures put on women. My point is just that cultures find men useful in these very specific ways. Requiring the man to earn respect by producing wealth and value that can support himself and others is one of these. Women do not face this particular challenge or requirement.

These demands also contribute to various male behavior patterns. The ambition, competition, and striving for greatness may well be linked to this requirement to fight for respect. All-male groups tend to be marked by putdowns and other practices that remind everybody that there is NOT enough respect to go around, because this awareness motivates each man to try harder to earn respect. This, incidentally, has probably been a major source of friction as women have moved into the workplace, and organizations have had to shift toward policies that everyone is entitled to respect. The men hadn’t originally built them to respect everybody.

One of the basic, most widely accepted gender differences is agency versus communion. Male agency may be partly an adaptation to this kind of social life based on larger groups, where people aren’t necessarily valued and one has to strive for respect. To succeed in the male social sphere of large groups, you need an active, agentic self to fight for your place, because it isn’t given to you and only a few will be successful. Even the male ego, with its concern with proving oneself and competing against others, seems likely to be designed to cope with systems where there is a shortage of respect and you have to work hard to get some — or else you’ll be exposed to humiliation.

Is That All?
I have not exhausted all the ways that culture exploits men. Certainly there are others. The male sex drive can be harnessed to motivate all sorts of behaviors and put to work in a kind of economic marketplace in which men give women other resources (love, money, commitment) in exchange for sex.

Cultures also use individual men for symbolic purposes more than women. This can be in a positive way, such as the fact that cultures give elaborate funerals and other memorials to men who seem to embody its favorite values. It can also be negative, such as when cultures ruin a man’s career, shame him publicly, or even execute him for a single act that violates one of its values. From Martin Luther King to Don Imus, our culture uses men as symbols for expressing its values. (Note neither of those two came out the better for it.)

Conclusion
To summarize my main points: A few lucky men are at the top of society and enjoy the culture’s best rewards. Others, less fortunate, have their lives chewed up by it. Culture uses both men and women, but most cultures use them in somewhat different ways. Most cultures see individual men as more expendable than individual women, and this difference is probably based on nature, in whose reproductive competition some men are the big losers and other men are the biggest winners. Hence it uses men for the many risky jobs it has.

Men go to extremes more than women, and this fits in well with culture using them to try out lots of different things, rewarding the winners and crushing the losers.

Culture is not about men against women. By and large, cultural progress emerged from groups of men working with and against other men. While women concentrated on the close relationships that enabled the species to survive, men created the bigger networks of shallow relationships, less necessary for survival but eventually enabling culture to flourish. The gradual creation of wealth, knowledge, and power in the men’s sphere was the source of gender inequality. Men created the big social structures that comprise society, and men still are mainly responsible for this, even though we now see that women can perform perfectly well in these large systems.

What seems to have worked best for cultures is to play off the men against each other, competing for respect and other rewards that end up distributed very unequally. Men have to prove themselves by producing things the society values. They have to prevail over rivals and enemies in cultural competitions, which is probably why they aren’t as lovable as women.

The essence of how culture uses men depends on a basic social insecurity. This insecurity is in fact social, existential, and biological. Built into the male role is the danger of not being good enough to be accepted and respected and even the danger of not being able to do well enough to create offspring.

The basic social insecurity of manhood is stressful for the men, and it is hardly surprising that so many men crack up or do evil or heroic things or die younger than women. But that insecurity is useful and productive for the culture, the system.

Again, I’m not saying it’s right, or fair, or proper. But it has worked. The cultures that have succeeded have used this formula, and that is one reason that they have succeeded instead of their rivals.

Seeing Males Together: Brokeback Mountain and Picturing Men

2008-08-18T17:02:00.003+05:30

The Chicago Blog
Publicity news from the University of Chicago Press including news tips, press releases, reviews, and intelligent commentary.

History's fundamental lesson warns those who are comfortable with contemporary social arrangements, as it reassures those who are oppressed by current practices: It hasn't always been like this, and isn't likely to stay this way forever. This lesson is certainly true when it comes to the way that American men today are inclined and allowed to express their affection for each other—whether that affection involves romance, sexual longing, or just profound fondness.
from the book cover

Ang Lee's magnificent film Brokeback Mountain is the sad story of two Wyoming ranch hands whose society severely inhibits their twenty-year-long affectionate and sexual relationship. They express their mutual attraction only when utterly alone in the wilderness, at huge expense to their emotional lives and also their relationships with women. Yet Brokeback Mountain may also be instructively seen as a movie that raises disturbing issues about the ways that all American men feel about the appropriate ways to express their fondness for each other, whether or not that fondness is accompanied by sexual desire. Our culture still so scorns sexual desire between two men that there is a common fear that such desire just might accompany any fondness, as well as a fear that other people might jump to conclusions about the implications of two men's attraction to each other.

Homophobia afflicts all males in our society, both those who genuinely are sexually attracted to each other, like Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist in Brokeback Mountain, as well as those whose love or simple affection for each other has no sexual dimension to it. For one man to tell another he loves him, some joking around often trivializes the expression, with all the depth of a commercial for Bud Light; if two men embrace, a reassuring punch is often part of the action. Simply because they are men, gay men—in spite of being sexually drawn to each other—may often be no less free of inhibition in expressing affection than are their straight brothers.

As a historian who has studied the shifting history of American men's various sorts of relationships with each other, I think it is critical to note that Brokeback Mountain's Ennis and Jack were nineteen in 1963, the year they met. (So was I coincidentally.) They were shaped by the culture of 1950s America, a culture that was unusually hostile to male intimacy, as I argue in Picturing Men.

When most American boys learned to fear and despise any suggestion of queerness in themselves, Ennis received a peculiarly graphic lesson: His father made it a point to show his nine-year-old son the sexually mutilated corpse of a rancher whose relationship with the man with whom he shared a home had bothered his neighbors. Jack's dream for himself and Ennis—simply to live together in peace—was a modest one, in contrast to the reasonable dreams of men today who want to marry each other. Yet, living when they did, Ennis could only warn Jack that if their feelings for each other were ever to "grab on to us again in the wrong place, wrong time, we'll be dead." Their intimacy had to remain in the shadows, making Brokeback Mountain a tragic tale of unrealized potential.

Picturing Men shows a different world. The lost world of American men that I depict in my work was a time when men clearly were comfortable with each other, feeling free to physically express mutual affection for all to witness—not hidden away on a Brokeback Mountain, but in front of a camera, wholly without the coldness or the reassuringly exaggerated gestures that would come to mark photographs from a later time. Picturing Men does not argue that the lost world was in every way better than the world of men today, but does surely maintain that the earlier world was different, and that our understanding it, and the reasons for its demise, might improve men's relationships nowadays, with each other and with the women in their lives.

Picturing Men is based on my systematic scrutiny of thousands of everyday photographs of two or more American men together, from the dawn of photography before the Civil War until the early 1950s—both studio portraits as well as the snapshots that became common after the invention of roll film in 1888. The book displays well over a hundred representative images, showing men indoors and out, in homes, dorm rooms, and bunk houses, at the beach and in the work place, soldiers, sailors, and civilians, camping, hunting, and posing for athletic team portraits. The ways men posed with each other changed markedly over the time my book surveys, and my interpretation of those changes leads me to an interpretation of drastic changes in the quality of men's various relationships with each other over a century of American history.

ibson_fig_xiiAs cultural evidence, photographs document certain things, yet are wholly silent about others. In looking at this photograph taken around 1915, we see two men doing something we rarely observe nowadays. I refer not simply to their pose, but to the fact that they had their portrait taken together in a photographer's studio, a ritual once widespread among American men but extremely rare today. Many observers may confidently think they see evidence of romance and a likely sexual relationship in this photograph, but that judgment reveals something only about the observer, not the subjects. Without an inscription, we can actually discern nothing from this image regarding a matter that has come to obsess us about relationships: whether the parties are having sex with each other.

What we do observe in this photograph—and in countless others—is male intimacy, two men who were clearly so comfortable with each other that they felt no need to clown around, to reassure themselves and anyone who would see their photograph that nothing culturally scorned was being displayed. Another of history's critical lessons is that change always brings both gain and loss. Picturing Men maintains that certain losses that American men have experienced in their relationships with each other have been severe. It is not simply fictional ranch hands, and not just men sexually drawn to each other, whose lives today are full of unrealized potential.
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Wow thanks for writing this book. This is an issue that so needs to be talked about. I've noticed this also how men are so afraid of each other. It's cultural so we see every one else acting in the same way and we think it's a normal thing but it's actualy not a normal thing. It's extremely abnormal and disfunctional.

Posted by: God loves you [TypeKey Profile Page] | August 29, 2007 05:11 PM

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John Ibson,

It's a wonderful book no doubt, but at the same time a reminder of the unfortunate state in which men are today, that this book has been featured and reviewed under the gay and lesbian section -- the very concept that has been the greatest tool in wiping off all kinds of open, proud affection for each other from the Western men.

It is primarily because of the concept of sexual orientation, which portrays man's sexual desire for men as straight mainstream, while clubs masculine male desire for men together with those of the feminine/ transgendered/ queer / third sex through ill-conceived and oppressive definitions. It can be easily shown through a study of men and manhood through the history, that men will avoid like hell what is socially ascribed to the third sex. In the beginning before the concept of 'sexual orientation' came, only receptive anal sex was seen as 'unmanly' thing of the third sex. A masculine male's affection for another man was seen as perfectly normal, and sexual affection was seen as a macho vice. After this concept (of 'homosexuality' )was fully established now showing bodily or sexual affection towards men implied that you're not on e of the 'real' (read straight) men but one of them -- the queers/ third gender/mollies/ effeminate/ gays. And this is why men have disowned their sexual need for men. And they'll never accept it again, till the concept of gay/homosexuality/sexual orientation that seeks to isolate them from the men's community into what is clearly the third sex community (even if its not officially defined so) is done away with.

Unfortunately, now this concept is being thrust upon societies like India, where men's spaces and men's affinity is very strong. Soon it will be history when the gay movement is given power and place in the society, with its misleading classification of the society. Unless, we decide to expose what is wrong with sexual orientation.

regards,

Please see:

http://sexual-orientation-is-oppressive.blogspot.com/

http://heterosexualisationofsociety.blogspot.com/

Homosexuality is an invalid concept

2008-08-03T19:44:00.002+05:30

Not only is the word 'homosexuality' not found in any of the pre-modern civilisations even in the west, there has not been even a concept anywhere near it. There are several flaws not only in the concept of 'homosexuality' but in that of 'sexual orientation' itself. In this article we try to pinpoint the exact reasons why the concept of homosexuality is invalid.

The objection to the word and concept of 'homosexuality' is not only about its definition. There are at least the following 7 serious drawbacks with the concept of 'homosexuality':

1. DEFINITION:

Incomplete definition:

(i) It does not take into account the important human facet of 'gender'. 'Gender' is defined as the inner male or female, irrespective of one's outer sex.

(ii) This silence on gender leaves enough room for its underhand manipulation and further distortion of meaning during usage. (e.g. gay = feminine, thus liking men = feminine).

(iii) It does not make any difference between 'sexual behavior' and 'actual sexual needs'. The two can be quite different in case of men.

(iv) People and their feelings/ needs need to be defined and classified on the basis of their nature, not on the whims and fancies of a few with vested interests.

(v) The term is supposed to define a man's sexuality/ sexual preferences, in terms of what is the (outer) sex of his sexual partner.

The politics of who is the same-sex and who is opposite:

To an individual, what would suffice would be to say that he is a man attracted to another man. Thus I'm a 'mansexual' ought to make sense.

As an individual, a man's sexuality is not figured to judge who is the 'same' as him and then respond sexually to him. And individual responds to the masculine gendered man or feminine gendered male or a woman or both/ all.

But to use the word 'homo' or 'hetero' brings in the judgement of the society as to who it considers to be the same as me and who it doesn't. That is problematic and it reveals the real motives of the society. And this is another place where gender is manipulated at the back.

The society does not really want to help me by defining my sexuality but rather it is defining it to see whether I'm liking the same or the opposite, so they can isolate me.

In fact the basic purpose is to see who is not liking women. Therefore, whereas they make a distinction between masculine men who like women and feminine males who like women, they don't make a distinction between masculine men who like men and feminine males who like men because the society is not bothered about our differences.

For the isolation purpose it suffices it to say that these males are not interested in women. They are given a common label and shoved in a common space. As long as you don't like the opposite sex, you're all the 'same'.

(vi) And the idea of defining my sexuality in terms of whether the outer sex of the partner I desire is the same as my outer sex is rather far fetched. What difference should it make to the society? There are enough babies even if I don't make one, and if I must make babies, I can make it whether or not I desire women.

2. MOTIVES:

A study of manhood from its historical perspective makes it clear that the vested interests have, ever since they became powerful, tried to isolate men's sexual need for men from the men's community as a disqualification for manhood, and into the denigrated 'third sex' group.

They were only partly successful, as male-only groups were very strong and they held on to male-male sexual bonds amongst masculine gendered men. Therefore, the vested interests could only isolate receptive anal/ oral sex

It is not difficult to see that the concept of 'homosexuality' is an extension of the same age-old conspiracy, which the vested interests could finally succeed in implementing, with the powers they obtained from industrialization and the institution of science.

Otherwise, when every man has a sexual need for men, there is no sense in segregating some men in another category, based on their openness about same-sex needs.

3. ORIGIN/ HISTORY:

(a) The term 'homosexuality' was coined for a medical/ clinical condition, on the assumption that liking a man by a male was a pathological condition. Of course the underlying idea was that almost all men have exclusive feelings for women, which is just not true.

(b) There were many factors that this concept of 'disease' was associated with….. they were the symptoms of this disease so to speak. E.g. it was associated with cross-dressing, transgenderism, desire for receptive anal/oral sex, psychological disorder, etc.

This served as the basis for the proposition that males who like men are different from males who like women, which is the basic presumption behind the term 'homosexuality' (or 'sexual orientation).

(c) Therefore, the term was originally coined for the half-males/half-females of the western world which were known as mollies and gays. (gay was earlier used for a person of loose moral character). How can you build a positive identity/ concept on such negativity?

(d) Thus the concept of sexual desire between men, in the heterosexual society was built upon the earlier extremely denigrated (especially for men) 'third sex' identity which had been there since time immemorial --- however never representing sexual desire between men as such (but only feminine male's sexual desire for men ----- which was considered 'heterosexual', i.e. between opposites, and not the 'same' as the western definition claims ------ and it specifically included only receptive anal/ oral sex particularly of the promiscuous and exclusive kind).

Earlier, sexuality between men had survived behind the scenes for two thousand years, under men's solidarity (inspite of being persecuted by society/ religion in the formal space), before the usage of the term 'homosexual' became popular, and used along with the heterosexualisation to isolate it and drive it out from men's spaces. The very use of the term 'homosexuality suggests that such an attraction is 'different' and so is the person having it ------ and thus paves the way for the man's exclusion from the mainstream men's world. When all that a straight (masculine) man really cares for is to be the 'same' as other straight (masculine) men.

Straight men are not individualistic. They are extremely community oriented (primarily towards the masculine male community)......(although, they may become individualistic if broken from the masculine male community, like many masculine men burdened with the homosexual identity do). Straight men just detest to be singled out. They go to great lengths to 'prove' that they are just like the other straight men. That is another reason why 'peer pressure' plays such an important role in a man's life.

The concept of 'homosexuality' insinuates that liking men will make them 'different' and isolate them from their commnity.

4. ASSUMPTION / FOUNDATION

The term and the concept of 'homosexuality' is based upon several wrong and misleading concepts, e.g.:

(1) that the majority of men have no sexual need for men.

(2) That it is possible to differentiate between those who have a sexual need for men from those who have a sexual need for women.

(3) That male sexual need for women is the same as 'masculinity' while male sexual need for men is the same as 'femininity' in males. This is the premise for terming the heterosexual identity as 'straight' and the 'homosexual' identity as 'queer' or 'gay'.

(4) That the 'claimed' sexual behavior of men represents their true sexual needs, when men do hide their sexual behavior behind masks.

(5) That even the 'actual' sexual behavior of men represents their true sexual needs, when men do behave contrary to their real feelings and needs. (because the need for social manhood is far greater than their sexual needs, which are already weakened by social conditioning).

(6) That there are no social pressures that work on men to condition and force them to like women and hate male-eroticism.

5. USAGE

Because the very concept of 'homosexuality' is impractical, and based on mischievous motives, its usage is quite contrary to how the word is defined ----- for people who define themselves as 'homosexuals', for the straights and for the society at large. Even those who have coined the definitions (the institution of science) use the term quite differently than the actual definition.

The actual usage has several hidden and obvious baggages which are clearly not mentioned in the stated dictionary definition. This hiding of important factors associated with the concept of homosexuality, is crucial for the forces of heterosexualisation to maintain their conspiracies.

(1) Homosexuality is in practical sense used (because of its history, origin, practicality and motives) only for anal/ oral sex between men which is considered to be the same as male transvestitism.

To take 2 examples, in India the law against anal/ oral intercourse (which is equally applicable to male-female couples) is known as the "law against homosexuality", when most people who like men do not have to do anything with anal/oral sex.

The second example is that the religious injunction against anal sex between men is known as the injunction against 'homosexuality' even by the academic/ scientific world (when there was no such concept as sexual desire for men existing as a separate entity in those days), and neither Christianity nor Islam talk about love or sex between men per se.

It is ironic that the academic world gets away with this blatant misuse of terms and their stated definitions that they themselves have created. That they can get away with such fallacies says a lot about the credibility of these institutions.

(2) If we look at it practically, even in the heterosexual society, most males who relate with the homosexual identity are feminine gendered or fixated on receptive anal/ oral sex and most often both. Most men on the other hand prefer to stay with the 'straight' label, while many others who join the 'gay' identity are fooled by the definitions.

Thus the usage in this regard is not really incorrect, except that the definition claims to represent all male sexuality for men.

(3) While the definition doesn't talk anything about the gender angle, in usage 'homosexuality' is widely associated with male femininity. So much so that the equivalent terms for 'homosexual' are faggot, pansy, queer, gay, fruit, and so on.

Like someone discussing this issue on a 'straight-acting', 'gay' site once said, "the feminine gays are those who flaunt their sexuality on their sleeves."

Many Indian men have no idea before they come to the gay community that there is a strong feminine aspect to it. They are shocked to find that 'gay' parties and events are populated by Hijras and cross-dressers.

The definitions are quiet on this gender connection and thus they are built to mislead. What good are definitions that don't reflect the reality!

(4) While the definition only says "homosexual is a man attracted to a man", the actual usage goes more like: "a man who openly likes men", since secretly (almost) all men like men. And this further highlights the conspiracy. That the society wants to punish those who dare to be open about their same-sex needs.

(6) Because of the faults in definition, history, origin, assumptions and usage, sexuality between men and transgenderism are discussed ----- both at the scholarly/ scientific level and at the layman level ----- at the same breadth as if the two issues are one and the same.

e.g., consider this scholarly statement: "homosexuality was accepted in the Indian tribes of America. They had berdaches who were men who openly lived as women".

6. ABUSE AND MANIPULATION

This playing on the side with the all important human trait of gender makes way for large scale manipulation by various social institutions serving the forces of heterosexualisation.

1.) e.g. While both masculine gendered and feminine gendered males who like men are considered the "same", for the 'homosexual' label, .......... ........feminine gendered males who like women are not included in the 'heterosexual' label. They are shunted together with the gays as 'transsexuals'/ transgendered. Only masculine gendered guys who like women can be 'straight'. Thus there is both double standards, and an underhand play on 'gender' even when it is not formally recognized.

This leads to a lot of manipulation of facts. E.g. Science compares the feminine gendered 'homosexuals' with the masculine gendered 'heterosexuals' but on paper they are only acknowledged as 'homosexuals' and 'heterosexuals' with no reference to their gender. Any difference in their biology that should actually be because of the gender, is easily ascribed to 'sexuality'. This also exposes another angle of the conspiracy ----- which is also age-old: To represent men's need for men as feminine, so that men are denied manhood on its basis, and the majority of men (straights) continue to suppress their own sexual need for men. Thus science is abused to give its stamp to the propaganda that 'men who like men are a different species of men and are feminine".

7. RESULT/ CONSEQUENCES:

Thousands of years of persecution of male sexual need for men (which eventually led to the emergence of 'sexual attraction towards men' becoming a distinct concept) ----- by the end of middle ages made men indulge in such bonds only within the safety of men's spaces. The men's spaces have to be very strong for this purpose, which ensures that heterosexual vested interests don't get strong in it.

Like mentioned before, social manhood is the most important factor that decides the life course of a man. And men will only indulge in that much of their sexual need for men and only in that manner as will not harm their social manhood or make them weak in the race for manhood, which is basically a survival issue for men. They want to play absolutely safe.

In the men's spaces, men can become quite open about their same sex needs without their manhood being threatened at all. But in formal spaces and where there are women/ third sex, men must put on their masks of 'heterosexuality' (sic). It was the same in middle ages, as it is now in a heterosexual society.

The forces of heterosexualisation could figure out the weakness of men's bonds flourishing secretly in men only spaces. These prime weaknesses were:

1. The key is to destroy men's spaces: You induce even one woman in the male space, and suddenly all that male-sexual bonding or that open acceptance/ indulgence of male-male desire evaporates into thin air. Suddenly, everyone puts on a mask, as if there never was such a need amongst men at all.

Case Study:

In a pond in Delhi crowded by young men, they used to go wild with male eroticism ----- both subdued and open kind. But enter homosexuals (Hijras) and suddenly a lot of that masculine male eroticism fades, because the Hijras think that only fellow Hijras who want to be fucked anally or suck dicks have a sexual interest in masculine (straight) men.
But lately, women have intruded the space, emboldened by a changing society. They just sit on the edge and watch the half-naked men or sometimes they also enter the water. And I observe how quickly the male eroticism evaporates into thin air. Boys who used to get naked for each other's benefit, suddenly become conscious, and all sexual games with each other stop. It may happen that someone may make a sexual gesture aimed at the woman to score a point over others, but most men would just avoid and just bathe and leave being very shy/ cautious of their (semi) nakedness.

This is why the forces of heterosexualisation are so keen on destroying every bit of male-only spaces ----- by heterosexualising them. It is only by inducing women into every male space that they can ensure the death of same-sex feelings in that space. If you do it from the beginning (schools) the male will never get a chance to develop or explore those feelings.

2. label male-male sexual bonds and the desire itself: The vested interests could see that although men form deep and long lasting sexual and emotional bonds that last for years, but their weak point is that they are never acknowledged as such. There would always be a disguise of a sexual need for women. The most important thing was that the moment someone broke this secrecy and acknowledged the relationship or sexual interest, the other party will deny ever having such an interest. What helped these bonds ironically was that there was a taboo on the discussion of men's sexuality for each other, and as far as the formal society was concerned it did not exist. Only the third-sex did that kind of thing, formally speaking. And this non-talking provided a cover.

This is why the vested interests instinctively knew that they needed a mechanism whereby they can acknowledge, identify and label male to male feelings in such a way that they are denied this secrecy. That would expose them instantly.

So the vested interests responded in ways:

a). they opened up the society heterosexually. This meant that everything was forced out in the open. But while male-female sex was encouraged and given social space even without marriage, male-male sexuality was condemned. Male-male sexuality dies as soon as it comes out in the open because it is weak. It needs the protection of male only spaces (not gay spaces though).

b). they developed the concept of 'homosexuality' through which they could label anyone who displayed even the slightest same-sex feelings. All you had to do to avoid this labelling was to hide your same-sex feelings, and hide it for good. Now, since there were no hidden spaces, as they had all been heterosexualised and opened up, the heterosexual vested interests had become extremely powerful in these and they would shout 'homo' the moment they see trace of male-male sexuality, as if they have done a brave and socially productive deed. This would jeopardize the 'manhood' of the victim man instantly, and threaten his survival in the men's race for manhood.

c) the vested interests have propagated using every social institution from media to science to portray man's sexual need for men as 'feminine', 'minority' and 'different'. Of course since the spaces are defined in such a way, it surely looks that way from the outside. And 'homosexuals' who fit in the space allocated for male-male sexual need are just as benefited by this process. So they support it full fledged.

d) The forces of heterosexualisation keep up the hostility in the men's space (now called straight) on male-male sexual desire or bonds. Thus the media would encourage and inculcate such hype where men are even scared to hold each other's hands in public.

e) any discussion of male-male sexuality takes place only in the homosexual space or context. Which means that it will be talked about as a freaky, abnormal thing or a 'different, 'feminine', 'minority' thing at best.

all this makes sure that straight men disown their same-sex feelings while homosexuals (half-males/ half-females and sexual freaks) claim all of it aggressively.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION ITSELF IS AN INVALID CONCEPT!

The problem with the definitions provided by the heterosexual society and its science is that........

...... they create definitions based on how they would want the society to look, without any consideration for how people really are.......

...... and then force people to fit into them by bending and breaking them.

People are simple. They will believe in the definitions that come from a position of authority without challenging them. In any case as individuals they don't have the power to challenge them, and the definitions make sure that they remain powerless and isolated to do so.

And the thing about the concept of sexual orientation is that western(ized) people don't have the knowledge to challenge these definitions, because the western culture just does not recognize gender as a valid and distinct human trait, so westerners lack the ability to consciously consider it as a key player in the whole issue of sexuality.

And then what happens is a great distortion of natural traits and needs of people, of the kind that happens in the west (in India too, but only to a lesser extent). Thus e.g., when 'straight' (whose real meaning is masculine gendered males who are socially accepted as 'men') is defined as 'heterosexual', then the majority of men will bend and break themselves to be heterosexual. The fault lies totally with the definitions which are invented and forced from the top.

And likewise, since (male) homosexuality is defined as the sexual attraction of a male for another male, cleverly ignoring the important differences of gender (----- on the assumption that it is the desire itself which forms feminine) gender in males, and this definition is primarily built on the Hijra/eunuch/ faggot space/ trait, then straight identified men will shirk their sexual need for men like anything......... because although the formal definitions just talk about 'male sexual desire for men', in reality it is actually used for the 'third sex' which has (apart from being a denigrated feminine gendered male space) been the space for men banished from the men's community, since the ancient times.

____________________________________________________

While at the practical level feminine gender and receptive anal/ oral sex is the deciding factor between who will fit into 'homosexuality' and who 'into' straight......

..... at the formal level the difference is "exclusive sexual interest in men".

Do you know what that means? It exposes the motives of the vested interest group in devising the concept of homosexuality. It exposes their conspiracy very clearly.

It is not really "liking men" which is the problem here. The deciding factor is ------ WHETHER OR NOT YOU DO IT TO A WOMAN?

It is not liking men which makes you different from straight men (because most straight men like men) and force you in the homosexual space. It is not doing it with women that does.

And once you understand that you will also begin to see how this exactly tallies with the mechanisms of male oppression built thousands of years ago. There is a clear-cut non-breaking pattern in this conspiracy running during all these ages ----- it says:

Isolate the man who refuses to have sex with a woman (initially in order to reproduce) and debar him from manhood. Banish him into the fringes of the society.

Societies have sought to do this in order to force men with women, ever since these mechanisms were developed in order make the marriage institution viable. Because like in (mammalian) nature very few men had sex willingly with women in any reproductive season, unless forced, because they were too busy with their male bonds.

This is what created a strong vested interest over the ages, which have time and time again sought to consolidate their powers by seeking to isolate any kind of male-to-male bonds from the mainstream. They were unsuccessful because male spaces were very strong in the past. Religion was the first major defeat that men suffered at the hands of these vested interests. The other major and probably the final defeat came with industrialization, which gave these vested interests the power to destroy completely the male-spaces and heterosexualise them.

Science was abused (like religion) to give the vested interest group a tool to isolate male-male sexuality in a banished and denigrated third-sex space. This tool was called 'homosexuality'. This is the first time that the straight population was totally forced to give up male-male sexuality. Before that male-male sexuality had thrived for 2000 years quietly in mainstream (straight) male spaces, under the disguise and protection of male solidarity. And this is the story IN the west.

The vested interest group also finally managed to make male-female sexual desire itself the criteria for new manhood and converted this privilege into a powerful 'heterosexual' identity. Indeed they defined straight (or the status of being 'real regular/ mainstream/ masculine gendered men) itself as "heterosexuality'. Whereas earlier it was male-female sex and not sexual desire which made men eligible for social manhood. So you could absolutely disdain women, but if you married and just had enough sex to reproduce, you were then a 'man'. Today you're a man only if you have a sexual desire for women.

And because sexual desire was never a criteria for granting or denying manhood there was never ever a concept of 'sexuality'.

On Salman Rushdies criticism of Marriage: No Salman shall put asunder

2008-05-03T13:14:00.000+05:30

Hindustan Times
May 02, 2008

Appeared on Hindustan Times, New Delhi on 3rd May, 2008

Veteran matrimonialist Salman Rushdie has a fresh take on marriage. It’s really all about ‘till dress do us apart’ says the celebrated author who has waltzed up the aisle four times. Will there be a fifth time? No, says Uncle Sal, marriage is not necessary. Yes, the grand institution of matrimony is all about women wanting to slip into a wedding gown but not the onerous duties of marriage. Now Salman may have hung up his tuxedo but that does not mean that he is past a bit of slap and tickle judging by the various lovelies on his arm. After all, as Groucho Marx said, “A man is only as old as the woman he feels.” And judging by the author’s record, neither age not custom has stalled his infinite variety.
Do we detect a slightly bitter note in his aversion to nuptials? We know that the beauteous Padma Lakshmi, Biwi No 4, left him mid-way while writing The Enchantress of Florence. A novel experience for a man who is known to love ’em and leave ’em. His proposition that weddings without marriages is a better option may find takers. For many women, this could be a winning proposition. First some poor klutz hands over a nifty engagement ring, then comes a wedding ring and gifts galore from all and sundry. So you corner that washing machine you have always wanted and that nice Wedgewood dinner set and maybe a ticket to the Caribbean for a honeymoon that you have no intention of taking in the company of your dearly beloved. Then come the day, there you are, your diet-diminished figure in a ravishing and expensive sari, salwar kameez or gown. If it can be a destination wedding in, say, Puerto Rico or Barcelona, nothing like it. You go through all that death do us part thing and then cast off the groom and move onto new pastures. Sal may not know it, but he has echoed what Mae West had maintained many years ago, “Marriage is a great institution but I’m not ready for an institution.” Yes, indeed. Salman is the new Gloria Steinem of literature. On a more devious note, it is possible that this is not really the boor’s last sigh but Sal’s way of ensuring that his millions are not frittered away in further pay-offs to future wives.
Will he stick to his resolve? Well, his track record is not too encouraging — a bit like Elizabeth Taylor who said she never slept with a man she had not married, which explains her multitude of husbands, Sal too seems a commitment junkie. Unlike his compatriot Vidya Naipaul, whose disdain for both marriage and women is well known, Salman seems to be quite sure of the ground beneath his feats. But clearly for moment, it’s four times bitten, fifth time shy for the man. With a new book for children on the way, Sal seems to have opted for the permanence of the written word a la Omar Khayyam. “The moving finger writes and having writ moves on/ nor thy piety nor wit shall… cancel… a word of it.” Quite a difference from the ‘I dos’ and don’ts of matrimony.

WHY VALENTINE DAY SHOULD BE OPPOSED BY MEN, ESPECIALLY IN NON-WESTERN COUNTRIES LIKE INDIA:

2007-10-03T17:34:00.001+05:30

When the society decided to force men into 'compulsory' sex with women through marriage, and as a major corollary, decided to ban male-male sexuality entirely from the formal space, it made men and men's spaces extremely vulnerable in front of the vested interest groups, including women. However, the deal was that the society will keep enough tabs on male-female sex/ intimacy, including prohibiting its public display and restricting all powers and benefits granted to it within the institution of marriage, and in fact penalising male-female sex outside of marriage much more than male-male sex — which the society tended to ignore when it occured behind the scenes. This deal was the main pillar of the entire 'plan' as it created a kind of 'balance'. Especially important was the reigning in of female sexuality because of the immense power that was otherwise placed into females, as 'manhood' became dependant upon serving women sexually. Without this 'balance', men and men's spaces would have become totally vulnerable to being persecuted and exploited by the vested interest groups, that tended to gain by the restraining of men.

With this deal the following was ensured:

- The only motive for the society to invest so heavily into the persecution of men, was reproduction and (secondarily) marriage; so, while other forms of sexual needs —— primarily man-man sexuality —— were persecuted, man-to-woman sexuality, too, was not unfairly benefitted —— at least, not beyond what was necessary. And, extremely important was the fact that women's capability to harm men through the artificial 'sexual power' granted to them through the route of manhood, was also heavily reigned in. In a way, everyone —— including the vested interest groups —— sacrificed for the sake of reproduction. Some more, some less. All of this at least had a purpose. The society as a whole was being 'benefitted' —— at least, that is what was believed.

- Other forms of sexual intimacy, again, primarily male-male sexual bonds, thrived behind the scenes —— even if superficially (i.e., their intensity was controlled) —— in the men's spaces, which were very strong and served as breathing spaces for men, for periodic respites from social persectuion. The society was o.k. with it as long as it was not acknowledged and it didn't come in the way of marriage or reproduction. This provided a great behind-the-scene-vent to men, to air their same-sex sexual and bonding needs, even if it meant that the society was intentionally promoting 'hypocrisy'. Leading 'double lives' was extremely important in order to maintain 'unnatural' social structures without making life unbearable.

But today, it amounts to a gross injustice, when, riding on the back of westernisation, the society is being forcefully heterosexualised, whereby the human needs long forced underground are being buried further into the ground and then it is claimed that male-female bonding is the only sexual need present in humans (especially men) —— and goes ahead to remove tabs from it, including tabs that were placed on female sexuality —— all in the name of openness, fairness and freedom. The result is that the anti-men forces gain complete control of the formal, mainstream social spaces. Then, they start persecuting men to the extreme by weeding out man-to-man sexuality even from the secret underground hideouts that they'd built in the mainstream —— and throwing them into the 'third gender' fringes through the invalid western concept of 'homosexuality'. Indeed, in heterosexual societies like the US, two men cannot even hold hands on the street without being thought of, or even abused as, third gender/ gay/ effeminate.

These forces also bring upon men, especially the youth, immense pressure to, not only have sex with, but even to bond emotionally and socially with women.

The irony is that this new brand of male-female sex is non-reproductive (casual) and is termed as 'heterosexuality'. For all the social investment that goes into reigning in men to the extreme, and forcing them into 'heterosexuality', the society does not gain anything in return. The only people to gain are the vested interest groups —— which include some men, women and members of the third sex (gay) — who are immensely empowered (and the irony is that they believe this is all 'naturally' predestined). These vested interest forces are actually a minority, which is only made extremely powerful after men have been chained in through the age-old conspiracy against them.

And this is why the introduction of western 'heterosexual' celebrations like the "Valentine Day" should be opposed in India, alongwith other facets of heterosexualisation.