Category Archives: Gay

C2E2: Love In Color / LGBTQ+ Romance in Comics and YA Literature

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Next panel, the LGBTQ+ panel. The culture appears to be open and very accepting of any sort of topic exploration, nobody seems to be declining or saying no or setting artificial limits or out-of-bounds work.

People should start writing works that start exploring more about gay life beyond the dramatic parts surrounding coming out. That there is more to tell, more to explore.

Authors respond about teen readers responding to their work, that folks are surprisingly accepting. That the fans are the source of a lot of the pleasure and reasons why some of these authors keep on writing. That the fan responses are treasured. There are other experiences of youth being given the books to read to possibly start a conversation for the kids and their parents. That’s really quite a novel reaction that I wasn’t expecting.

There is a curiosity and almost a pressure to steer away from Romance and towards the more mundane and simpler explorations of relationships without love, sex, or romance. Stories that feature more about friendships and living beyond the, cliche(?) of stories about sex and lust.

This panel is full, which is both surprising and very gratifying. These sorts of panels in the past have not had such populations in a room like this one. It’s nice to see that it filled up enough to earn a “panel full” alert on the con app.

Writing these books not only cement the culture into history and through time, but also raise the opportunity for people to experience the diversity of stories in our world that may not have been available for different groups, about other groups so they can see life from expanded perspectives. These YA books are increasing the exposure and availability of these kinds of new ideas in segments of the population that otherwise would never have access to them, either from the prevailing culture that surrounds them or limits from their circumstances or family.

People who write books should embrace their courage and publish what they want to say. It’s important to not get convinced that your book won’t sell, publish anyways, and the results will likely shock you at how much of a market exists for what you are trying to sell. In ways, you will always miss the shots you don’t take.

Cosmetics

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I was browsing through my Feedly app this morning looking at all the feeds I am tracking with the site and I ran across a site which displayed what it would look like if a woman applied 365 days worth of makeup in one day. It was gruesome. She looked, at the end, as if her face was melting. It was downright ghastly.

Which got me thinking about cosmetics. All the things that women do to make themselves “look beautiful” and that of course started me thinking about a chain of thoughts all linked one to another and the further I went the more silly it got. Now, none of this is actually honestly an argument, but it is a inside look as to one way I carry on with coming up with these ideas.

There is a constellation of things that some women do to themselves in order to make themselves look beautiful. Now I would posit that this is a fallacy right from the get go, why can’t a person who is hygenic and unadorned not be considered honestly beautiful? Eh. So let’s carry on with all the playing blocks to this chain of thought. Women adorn themselves with various bits and pieces. High heels, shoulder pads, brightly (sometimes colored) skin applications to the face, lipstick, eye shadow, eyebrow shadow, lip gloss, mascara, and of course, all the shaving. Shave the arms, the legs, the face. Pluck pluck pluck, wax wax wax.

What have women done? They have changed their shape and their form, at least when it comes to high heels and shoulder pads they have elected to become taller and more masculine, especially with the shoulder pads. The accidental overloading of shoulder pads is where the real comedy gold lies, women can sometimes accidentally have too much shoulder and look foolish because they stop looking like women and more like… linebackers.

Oh god, is this where it’s going? Bright colors, ruddy cheeks, colorful lips, tall, pronounced shoulders, it really argubly starts to feel like a relatively unfocused gender warp. Women are attempting to become beautiful by emulating men? Does the application of cosmetics and all the other bullshit that men expect women to go through masculinize them? When you get dressed up, are you on your way to becoming a drag king?

But then there is all that shaving. Denial of body hair. Which creates a very specific condition of masculinized pre-pubescent adrogyny. Male-boy-male. That’s really troubling to think about. At the end, could it be that the entire cosmetic industry, the entire cultural structure that women have been sold, about how they should look, be thin, be hairless, be tall, have pronounced shoulders, look aggressive, look excited… where do you go when you play all this out? Where do you end up?

Do you end up with straight men fetishizing women through the lens of unfocused pedophilic homosexuality? You turn your women into lithe young men who just ran 5 miles. The sheen of sweat (shiny), the red lips, the shoulders, the hairlessness, the ruddy cheeks, the tallness…

Boys who do Girls like their Boys… Ahem.

Not that it actually is this way, but what if it was?

Blazing Bright

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Does the collision of beauty, attention, drugs and promiscuity always lead to suicide?

This was a question that came to me after reading a few reports in the news about adult entertainers who were committing suicide. I’m not sure if it is that their suicides are remarkable or rather that sensationalist reporting is to blame for concentrating the reports in the popular media. It seems to be a common thread in the adult entertainment industry. That people who appear to have everything have personal wreckage that they are carrying around and eventually they just can’t cope with what is unfolding in their lives and they shoot or hang themselves.

If its a natural extension of their lifestyles, an extension of the Hollywood dysfunction, where fame, power, money, attractiveness, and drugs collide in ruined lives then this post is just a subset of that, but to me it seems that this sort of thing appears to happen to adult entertainers with remarkable regularity.

I suppose the adage of the candle that burns twice as brightly lasts half as long. In it may be a lesson against the Adonis complex. Working so very hard to look like the people you see in the movies or on TV (or in more prurient forms of entertainment) is actually one more thing that is, in the end, bad for you. The best way to be is to be who you are. Don’t try to be like anyone else, just be the best you that you can be. If that best you carries around weight, or some other not-in-the-ideal characteristic it is likely best to celebrate that feature of yourself. If the Hollywood “clone machine” is any lesson, when you get what you think it is that you want, you find that it’s actually nothing and eventually that makes you sad. Does it lead to suicide? Probably not, but it probably isn’t good for you either.

This gets me thinking that fame should be listed as a negative life event, kind of like a self-defeating Trojan Horse. It looks good on the outside, but it’s jammed with disaster on the inside. Perhaps the feelings of “not being enough” is a healthy warning against the false gold of the object of your pursuit.

SmashBurger Bigotry

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Back in 2010 there was a new hamburger shop opening up to much fanfare. The place was called SmashBurger and I wrote a review of the establishment. I didn’t like their food and now I have reason to not like them for anything else. According to this article the owners of our local SmashBurger are homophobic bigots.

So, wretched food and hate?! Golly, missing that will be a joy! If you like this place, I seriously ask you to think about where you buy things, and who you support with your money. Culvers is just a few miles down the road, you can get better food, cheaper, without the hate.

The Troll Takes The Toll

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I’ve held true to the concept that all outsider groups need to pay an admission in order to enter mainstream society. Germans, Japanese, the worthless Irish… They all needed to pay to play. From “No *** need apply” to forced internment camps all the way to dying of malaria while building a canal. Each group gets the short end of the pointy stick before they are admitted. A group that doesn’t pay never really earns it. Sometimes the payment is made in lives, sometimes it’s violent and is paid with blood, but always it is paid.

What about gay equality? Not just marriage, but that is a part of it. All are equal under the law. At least that’s the goal. But what I want to know is what is the price for this goal? I mean, did we bleed enough in the Halocaust (gays got it just like the Jews), how about the Stonewall Riots? We have adorable parades where we dress up and entertain everybody with our harmless antics, but is that payment enough? How much to be taken seriously. How much is that respect, in the window, the one with the consequential tail?

Perhaps this is the first time when we can pay using a more refined and evolved currency. Not being segregated, special bus seats, separate but equal *amenities*… Something classier, more stylish, more bitchy? Here’s a capital idea, come out of the closet. Announce your true self to everyone and damn the torpedoes of bigotry and ignorance, full speed ahead! If everyone came out who was gay, gay wouldn’t be so much of a big deal. Perhaps we could be as plain and uninteresting as to lose the word gay altogether and we can hand it back to Christmas where it belongs. There is nothing special about us, were plain folk who do plain things. We’re just picky about dangly bits.

These red equality symbols have a great meaning and I’m plugging in more meaning than probably was intended, so, deal with it. The extended meaning is this, once you pull the skin off anyone, no matter if they are a man, a woman, an Asian, a black, or a gay man or lesbian you have the exact same thing each and every time. A bloody screaming mess that looks indistinguishable from any other bloody screaming mess. Deep down, skinless, aren’t we all the same? Aren’t we all bloody screaming messes? So with that inspiration, what is different about getting any service rendered that other people can take advantage of? Think of it this way, with our skins on we don’t make such a mess, we don’t scream in agony, and we’re just like everyone else. Its better if you just let us lead our lives — skin-on.

This comparison is at the heart of the sadness and ineffable ignorance that is bigotry. Why does it bother bigots so much? It bothers bigots because they are in a fight-to-the-death battle with their mirrors. What is gay marriage to you? Why is it so important that we have to fight over it, that we have to have the highest court in the land decide on it? Look in the mirror and see your enemy. That which you hate you see when you look in the mirror. Once the bigots understand their fight is with a mirror, everything else becomes thoughtlessly simple, obvious in fact. Embarrassingly so.

Definitely the Moon…

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As I was tending to dinner I started just mumbling stock tunes and plugging in random lyrics as I often times do. Then it hit me.

A tasteless gay porn video with a retro 70’s outfitted cast, bell bottoms, powder-blue frilly pirate shirts, the cheesiest period-Muzak available and the plot is during the civil war, with a poorly-done knockoff of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” as a shamefully plugged plot device… Then the title, which caps it all off: “Dougie does Daguerreotypes”!

LULZ!

That’s what idleness, a full moon, and a touch of Gemini Rising can do for ya! Hah! 🙂

Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond Of Each Other

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I saw this news item from thinkprogress.org:

 

“Republican House Leader Vows To Use ‘Power Of Humiliation’ To Undermine LGBT Program”

My first reaction was a knee-jerk one of course. “What is it to you?” What is it about gay people that gets these particular people all worked up? I’ve always wanted to know that. My curiosity of course is somewhat rhetorical as it’s pretty much obvious that much of this comes straight (ouch, pun) out of the pulpit and is certainly reinforced by the mirror maze of political self-convincing talk.

What would these people do if they were faced with the reality of what they say? The subject of their ire is the Mental Health Services Administration’s book titled “Provider’s Introduction to Substance Abuse Treatment for Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and Transgender Individuals.” So, what about this document? The title is really quite plain and explanatory and being a gay man, and knowing my particular niche culture gives me a unique viewpoint on this particular issue. Is it important? Do you think that people who are sick should be cared for, that people who are despondent and without hope should be helped? What are your thoughts on suicide? This gets right to the heart of it. I bet a lot of these people are upright god-fearing Christian types, they hail from Oklahoma and there is a stereotype, lets face it, about that region being rather salt-to-the-earth and quite red when it comes to politics. Sit back and let’s think for a moment about what your self-professed lord and savior, Jesus Christ, would think about “Provider’s Introduction to Substance Abuse Treatment for Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and Transgender Individuals.” Your lord and savior wandered around healing the sick, he never asked anyone if they were gay, lesbian, or transgendered. It just didn’t matter to him. People who cared for the sick like he did, he said, would be favored in God’s sight because they cared. Care. That’s what it really gets down to, who cares and who does not? Who hides behind a carapace of bigoted ignorance and who really cares? For these people in this meeting, all of them who didn’t stand up, who didn’t stomp their foot on the ground and argue against this – all of them – how can you face your self-professed lord and savior who you see every Sunday, nailed to a crucifix? Yes, he died to absolve you on sin, but when he was alive, when he was teaching – what was that part? Did you all miss that part? In your haste to be absolved of your sins, perhaps you missed everything up until the climax and after it was all over, you just rolled over and fell asleep?

These are valid questions that I would love answers to. I would dearly enjoy facing these people after we all march through the stations of the cross together. Jesus healing the lepers, Jesus bringing Lazarus back to life, Jesus and the children. Then turn to me, turn to a younger me, turn to any gay man, lesbian, or transgendered person and spit out that vitriol about the “Gay Agenda”.

Ma’am, yes, we do have a Gay Agenda. You caught us red-handed. Our agenda is simple. We are in pursuit of ending suffering of the people who are like us. The kids who grow up bullied and turn to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain of being mocked for being different. Not the color of our skin, not anything patently obvious like that, but mocked for who we love. You mock us over love. How can you face Jesus Christ when you mock people for loving? Wasn’t Jesus all about Love? Isn’t that what he preached? Love each other, be good to each other, and for the love of god, stop killing each other! So, where’s the love? That’s what the agenda is. We want to save ourselves and people like us. We want to reduce the suffering, we want to catch the sad and hold them tight and tell them that they are not alone. We want to rescue people who are so alone and unhappy that all they want to do is hang, shoot themselves, or drink or take drugs until they die.

So, is this document that the Mental Health Services Administration is providing a good thing or a bad thing? What are your feelings on dead children? How about young men and women dying at their own hands? What about that? How does that stand up to your fear of some undefined pink menace coming for you and yours?

Jesus Christ My Ass.

 

We’re Lousy With Superheroes

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I wrote this post of Facebook just now and sometimes when I get to writing something that I really find appealing comes out while I write and it surprises me. This was a comment about Katie Couric interviewing Matthew Shepard’s mother:

 I hate that helpless feeling. Knowing that there are these crimes and that kids are killing themselves because they feel so alone and without hope. It’s the agony that sits at the center of things like the Trevor Project and “It Gets Better” project. If more people were honest about themselves and gays were more visible then maybe these kids in crisis would notice us and reach out and we could catch them and prove to them that life does get better. 

There are more people that love you and those people may not be your family, or they may be. But there are people out there who do care, all that keeps them quiet is that they don’t know they are needed. The country is full of superheroes, but they are all saddled with one tragic flaw, that they aren’t clairvoyant.

I thought it was so neat that it should go in my blog…

Ugly, but hey, the hats kind of neat…

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The Catholic Church opens its mouth and they say the darnedest things. They live in an uniquely distorted world: People aren’t exactly flocking to churches, the Pope himself is deeply implicated with shielding pedophiles in the Church ranks and then they say this out loud. How exactly are you spreading the word of Jesus Christ? Is it by preaching hate and sexually abusing children that you think is the path to salvation?

Much like the conservatives, it seems that the Church has drifted so far off its axis that they no longer seem to have any grip on reality.

But hey, who am I? Hah! Have you looked in a mirror lately?

How Lovely

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I just got an email from my blog about a comment that was posted about my earlier post regarding controlling ammunition. There is no hidden agenda on my blog, I am a liberal and I proudly defend my opinions and thoughts and when it comes to weapons, what I write comes from the heart.

So, on with the comment from a user by the name of Joe Joe, email address bgyiu@gmail.com from IP address 166.152.62.75:

Move to chicago or new york ass munch. They have almost completely dis-armed their citizens, and now they are at the mercy of thugs who don’t follow the law anyway, dick mouth!! It’s candy ass turds like you who are the first to be raped and killed. Just because you don’t mind being defenseless, don’t expect the rest of us to be so anxious. Cowardly turds like you are precisely why this country has become a joke. Even if the criminals didn’t have guns, then we are at the mercy of an out of control, authoritative government. NO THANKS!!! Just move somewhere where they have disarmed everyone and allow YOUR family to be raped, pillaged, and plundered!!!! Keep your warped agenda to yourself, butt munch.

So that comment of course is certainly provocative. I find the actual word selection to be most interesting to me. Let’s set some assumptive defaults regarding the poster of the comment – first, I think it’s safe to say that anyone who reacts this way is likely a conservative and if so, we have to have pity for them because they are political lepers. Nobody wants to engage with them because all they have is vitriol, anger, and reactivity. This particular fellow also has a uniquely bent vocabulary.

Let’s move beyond the fear of control from the government and get at the core pillars of the comments contents. The first one is fear. This comment reeks of fear. Fear of criminals, fear of the government, and fear of what I said in my blog. I don’t feel anxious or attacked by the commenter, I feel sad for him – as I would anyone who lives in that much fear eventually would de-evolve into nothing more than a gross sort of pavlovian kicks and jerks. Now on to what really is entertaining about this comment, and these words are at the core of it: “ass munch”, “dick mouth”, “candy ass”, and of course, “rape”. Now my higher education is in psychology and english and I can’t help but feel excited at these very colorful phrases. The writer reveals more to me in his word selection than the actual content of what he is trying to convey. As I have said time and time again when it comes to conservatives who are so angry and upset with homosexuals, it has more to do with them fighting their reflections than it does anything else. This fellows comment is a perfect example of this. A rational argument could have been made without all these colorful epithets however this fellow spent time typing these in. I think this commenter has a deep psychosexual issue that he has not dealt with yet. He is typing “ass munch” and he is thinking about analingus. He writes “dick mouth” so obviously fellatio is foremost on his mind, “candy ass” has a rather well-known connotation to cowardice however when this phrase is in the same statement with the others, it’s not cowardice but rather a begging for anal sex. In the end we get to “rape”, and that imagery comes up quite a lot. I am unsure as to whether the commenter is fearful of being raped, anxious about having rape ideations or what, but he spends a rather long time thinking about it. I’d have to say that the phrasing is homosexually receptive, as it’s something that bottoms are fond of in general. So the commenter is probably a closet homosexual with ideations of being overwhelmed by a more masculine partner and likely fantasizes about having his will dominated by another man. The popular image of this is the ultra-butch muscle mary who at the drop of a hat drops their shorts for a righteous pounding. I would say that in the extremis, this fellow, if he wasn’t ruled by fear, would probably enjoy anal sex and from the sheer massive content of homosexual phrasing in such a short comment,  how could anyone see it any other way?

So, I feel more pity for him than anything else. Joe Joe, I hope you stop trying to troll blogs like these because your deeper psychology is leaking out in your vocabulary and I suspect that you really would prefer people to not know of how much homosexual ideation goes on between your ears.

As for the message you tried to convey? It is lost on me. I know what you wanted to say and stripping off your homosexual panic and the fear, I do get you, however I still do not agree with you. I still believe that controlling ammunition is the best way to control guns. Obviously it isn’t a topic that a liberal or a conservative is willing to budge on so perhaps leaving the comment was a faux-pas on your behalf. In any case, you did entertain me and for that, I am thankful.

You should  do something about all that homosexual panic though, it’s not good for you. Really.