Okay, let's have a little fun and take it out before the weekend arrives.
I found this article on Salon.com this AM. It was mainly about homophobia and how it connects to the resistance in most men of being "penetrated," a subject which I touched on in my screenplay, "THE FILE," about an undercover FBI guy in therapy who secretly liked to be dominated by women. The article on Salon is called : "Kiss My Ass," by Louis Bayard.
Bayard starts out with this:
"For years America has desperately tried to outlaw sodomy. What are we so scared of?"
Good question. I'll skip the history lesson that the author gives for the moment, although it is interesting, on how anal sex ultimately became solely associated with male homosexuality in the legal code and the religious zealot's mind, and get right to the punch.
Bayard:
"Anal sex is a reminder to every man, gay and straight, of the chink in his masculine armor." Watching men "pleasure each other" anally leads any man to understand that "at some level they, too, could be entered and dominated. And if they weren't careful, they might enjoy it."
Now, interestingly enough, I know a lot of women who enjoy anal sex - and I mean enjoy, not just tolerate - and do so without the anxiety that men have about it. Perhaps that is because women are accustomed to being penetrated during sex vaginally already, and the anus is just a matter of inches away, so why not? I think it's more than that, of course, although anatomy is definitely part of it. As I've said in other postings, women are designed to be the portals to spiritual bliss and any man wise enough to surrender to "the feminine" is opening himself up to that bliss.
"Anatomy is destiny," Freud once said about a century ago. He also boldly declared that the anus was an erogenous zone. Like our genitals and tongues, lips and fingertips, the anus has a concentration of nerve endings that make contact and stimulation there pleasurable.
Why would this be so? Why all the erogenous zones?
Well, as I often say, nature never fucks up. Only people's minds and egos do. Nature made sure that the essential things we need to do in life in order to survive - eat, eliminate and procreate - are compelling. So, we experience intense pleasure, if we're not otherwise blocked up, when we eat, shit and fuck, which is what all higher animals do regularly, with great gusto.
The difference between most animals and humans, however, is that we have a reflective consciousness and an advanced capacity for imagination, so we can seek pleasure for reasons other than basic survival, beyond simple instinct. A human being can put two and two together and conclude that since genital to genital contact feels good, and mouth to mouth contact feels good, maybe mouth to genital contact might feel good, too, and hey! - maybe, if something going out of the anus feels good, why not try something going in (with the proper lubrication, of course.).
The problem surfaces, however, when religious and autocratic doctrine - predominantly written by repressed men, whose main goal is always to control its constituents, attempts to control sex and pleasure-seeking by mandating that sex may only be engaged in for the purpose of procreation. Ah, but like all laws against desirable things, there has to be a loophole, right?
Here's Bayard again:
"The notion of punishing homosexuals as a class was literally inconceivable before the late Eighteenth Century, for the word "homosexual" had not yet entered the English language and the implicit aim of sodomy laws was to punish all non-procreative sexual acts, regardless of who performed them. But then straight people began to realize just how much fun non-procreative sexual acts could be. The first third of the 20th century, says Eskridge, saw an explosion of oral sex among heterosexual couples, and although sodomy laws scrambled to keep up -- outlawing fellatio and cunnilingus -- the pendulum of morality gradually swung against homosexuals, who, alone among America's sodomites, could not justify their pleasures as a prelude to procreation."
Right.
Anyway, why is this important? Well, again back to Freud, our psychological Sherlock Holmes, who brilliantly concluded that the cause of severe paranoid disturbances in men was primarily rooted in intense homosexual anxiety, said anxiety being caused by a powerful desire, subconsciously, to be penetrated. The resulting reaction formations against this desire - machismo, misogyny, and homophobia - have, needless to say, done a great deal of harm to our world's population.
So, guys... give it up. Open up. Try it, you'll like it. We not only know you want it, but it would be good for everyone else, too.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query homosexual anxiety. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query homosexual anxiety. Sort by date Show all posts
REPOST: “IT’S A THIN LINE BETWEEN LOVE AND HATE?”
Not exactly, Annie Lennox, or whoever wrote that song. But hate is a reaction to an aspect of love, specifically the “feminine” expression of it.
Let me be as direct and hard-hitting as I can about this, because we are seeing a destructive and dangerous rash of hatred coming out of the lower-functioning end of the far right since Barack Obama has become president.
There is no rational explanation related to policy positions or political philosophy for the vile and vicious tenor of the attacks by what’s left of the right wing in this country. This is way beyond debate or heated discourse. This is becoming violently moronic and desperately out of control. Now that every thinking conservative has either outright declared support for President Obama, or at the least, decried the current Orwellian screeds of Dick Cheney and the regressive crop of prehistoric primates like Sarah “Wilma Flintstone” Palin as beyond the pale, only a bestial group of paranoid, hate-mongers remains.
But what is fueling their terror and hatred really? Since this is clearly not about politics, and it certainly isn’t about “love of country” or patriotism, what is it about?
Folks, here I go again - it’s about love and sex, and sexual identity.
Over a hundred years ago, Freud postulated that the root cause of paranoia in men was extreme “homosexual anxiety.” So fearful are some men about the feminine side of their emotional/sexual life, so tortured are they by their identifications with their mothers, rather than their fathers, that these men adopt a hyper-masculine (macho) persona to disguise the deeper tendencies which they fear would destroy their fragile egos and gutted sense of self (The childrearing causes of this dysfunction are a discussion for another day.). The terror in response to their own “softer” feelings in this extreme male personality is inevitably projected outwards, so any other men who show signs of the feminine – cooperativeness instead of competitiveness, receptiveness instead of aggressiveness, openness and communicativeness, instead of bullishness and power-grabbing control – threaten to upset the house of cards of their own sexual identity. Other men who are comfortable with both their masculine and feminine sides, like Barack Obama, must, therefore, be destroyed at all costs.
Okay. And what about the women? Well, just take a look at the nearly psychotic Republican congresswoman, Michelle Bachman, who called all liberals traitors, or the already psychotic Ann Coulter, who called John Edwards a “fagot” during the campaign last year. With bone-hard features on their chiseled faces, and blazing, penetrating eyes, these women have thoroughly eradicated their feminine sides. It has long been understood that while the women of the far right are so opposed to abortion and birth control, women like Bachman, Coulter and Sarah Palin, they are not in practice “pro-life.” In fact, these hyper-masculine women are as gleeful about executions and war (and killing doctors who respect a woman’s right to choose) as any of the craven neo-con men. These women, overly identified with their fathers, and in deep conflict about it, are in the same paranoid quandary as their homophobic male counterparts. (Oh, and why doesn't anyone find it surprising anymore when yet another right wing politician or religious fundamentalist is discovered having closeted gay sex?)
But this is not about being gay. This is about sexuality. And love. And sex. Real sex. Loving, soul-quenching, gut-wrenching, bliss-inducing sex (Not sex as conquest or sex for ego inflation.) As I’ve said and written many times before, nobody who is having mind-blowing orgasms with someone they love ever feels inspired to go out and kill someone or throw toxic waste into a river or steal someone’s life savings... or call another person a traitor or a fagot. Only sexually dysfunctional, homophobic, emotionally distorted rage-aholics do those things.
This is a potentially wondrous time we are living in. The shift in consciousness that Barack Obama represents can be a real pendulum swing towards a cooperative, inclusive, open society, the kind once envisioned by the founders of our country.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident...”
Remember?
Let me be as direct and hard-hitting as I can about this, because we are seeing a destructive and dangerous rash of hatred coming out of the lower-functioning end of the far right since Barack Obama has become president.
There is no rational explanation related to policy positions or political philosophy for the vile and vicious tenor of the attacks by what’s left of the right wing in this country. This is way beyond debate or heated discourse. This is becoming violently moronic and desperately out of control. Now that every thinking conservative has either outright declared support for President Obama, or at the least, decried the current Orwellian screeds of Dick Cheney and the regressive crop of prehistoric primates like Sarah “Wilma Flintstone” Palin as beyond the pale, only a bestial group of paranoid, hate-mongers remains.
But what is fueling their terror and hatred really? Since this is clearly not about politics, and it certainly isn’t about “love of country” or patriotism, what is it about?
Folks, here I go again - it’s about love and sex, and sexual identity.
Over a hundred years ago, Freud postulated that the root cause of paranoia in men was extreme “homosexual anxiety.” So fearful are some men about the feminine side of their emotional/sexual life, so tortured are they by their identifications with their mothers, rather than their fathers, that these men adopt a hyper-masculine (macho) persona to disguise the deeper tendencies which they fear would destroy their fragile egos and gutted sense of self (The childrearing causes of this dysfunction are a discussion for another day.). The terror in response to their own “softer” feelings in this extreme male personality is inevitably projected outwards, so any other men who show signs of the feminine – cooperativeness instead of competitiveness, receptiveness instead of aggressiveness, openness and communicativeness, instead of bullishness and power-grabbing control – threaten to upset the house of cards of their own sexual identity. Other men who are comfortable with both their masculine and feminine sides, like Barack Obama, must, therefore, be destroyed at all costs.
Okay. And what about the women? Well, just take a look at the nearly psychotic Republican congresswoman, Michelle Bachman, who called all liberals traitors, or the already psychotic Ann Coulter, who called John Edwards a “fagot” during the campaign last year. With bone-hard features on their chiseled faces, and blazing, penetrating eyes, these women have thoroughly eradicated their feminine sides. It has long been understood that while the women of the far right are so opposed to abortion and birth control, women like Bachman, Coulter and Sarah Palin, they are not in practice “pro-life.” In fact, these hyper-masculine women are as gleeful about executions and war (and killing doctors who respect a woman’s right to choose) as any of the craven neo-con men. These women, overly identified with their fathers, and in deep conflict about it, are in the same paranoid quandary as their homophobic male counterparts. (Oh, and why doesn't anyone find it surprising anymore when yet another right wing politician or religious fundamentalist is discovered having closeted gay sex?)
But this is not about being gay. This is about sexuality. And love. And sex. Real sex. Loving, soul-quenching, gut-wrenching, bliss-inducing sex (Not sex as conquest or sex for ego inflation.) As I’ve said and written many times before, nobody who is having mind-blowing orgasms with someone they love ever feels inspired to go out and kill someone or throw toxic waste into a river or steal someone’s life savings... or call another person a traitor or a fagot. Only sexually dysfunctional, homophobic, emotionally distorted rage-aholics do those things.
This is a potentially wondrous time we are living in. The shift in consciousness that Barack Obama represents can be a real pendulum swing towards a cooperative, inclusive, open society, the kind once envisioned by the founders of our country.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident...”
Remember?
“IT’S A THIN LINE BETWEEN LOVE AND HATE?”
Not exactly, Annie Lennox. But hate is a reaction to an aspect of love, specifically the “feminine” expression of it.
Let me be as direct and hard-hitting as I can about this, because we are seeing a destructive and dangerous rash of hatred coming out of the lower-functioning end of the far right since it has become apparent that Barack Obama is heading towards a landslide victory two weeks from now.
There is no rational explanation related to policy positions or political philosophy for the vile and vicious tenor of the attacks by what’s left of the right wing in this country. This is way beyond debate or heated discourse. This is becoming violent and out of control. Now that every thinking conservative has either outright declared support for Senator Obama, or at the least, decried the current crop of prehistoric primates being led by Sarah “Wilma Flintstone” Palin as moronic and beyond the pale, only a bestial group of paranoid, hate-mongers remains.
But what is fueling their terror and hatred really? Since this is clearly not about politics, and it certainly isn’t about “love of country” or patriotism, what is it about?
Folks, here I go again - it’s about love and sex, and sexual identity.
Over a hundred years ago, Freud postulated that the root cause of paranoia in men was extreme “homosexual anxiety.” So fearful are some men about the feminine side of their emotional/sexual life, so tortured are they by their identifications with their mothers, rather than their fathers, that these men adopt a hyper-masculine (macho) persona to disguise the deeper tendencies which they fear would destroy their fragile egos and gutted sense of self (The childrearing causes of this dysfunction are a discussion for another day.). The terror in response to their own “softer” feelings in this extreme male personality is inevitably projected outwards, so any other men who show signs of the feminine – cooperativeness instead of competitiveness, receptiveness instead of aggressiveness, openness and communicativeness instead of bullishness and control – threaten to upset the house of cards of their own sexual identity. Other men who are comfortable with both their masculine and feminine sides, like Barack Obama, must, therefore, be destroyed at all costs.
Okay. And what about the women? Well, just take a look at the nearly psychotic Republican congresswoman, Michelle Bachman, who called all liberals traitors yesterday, or the already psychotic Ann Coulter, who called John Edwards a “faggot.” With bone-hard features on their chiseled faces, and blazing, penetrating eyes, these women have thoroughly eradicated their feminine sides. It has long been understood that while the women of the far right are so opposed to abortion and birth control, women like Michelle, Ann and Sarah Palin, they are not in practice “pro-life.” In fact, these hyper-masculine women are as gleeful about executions and war (and killing doctors who respect a woman’s right to choose) as any crazed neo-con men. These women, overly identified with their fathers, and in deep conflict about it, are in the same paranoid quandary as their homophobic male counterparts. (Oh, and why doesn't anyone find it surprising anymore when yet another right wing politician or religious fundamentalist is discovered having closeted gay sex?)
But this is not about being gay. This is about sexuality. And love. And sex. Real sex. Loving, soul-quenching, gut-wrenching, bliss-inducing sex (Not sex as conquest or sex for ego inflation.) As I’ve said and written many times before, nobody who is having mind-blowing orgasms with someone they love ever feels inspired to go out and kill someone or throw toxic waste into a river or steal someone’s life savings... or call another person a traitor or a faggot. Only sexually dysfunctional, homophobic, emotionally distorted rage-aholics do those things.
This is a potentially wondrous time we are living in. The shift in consciousness that Barack Obama represents can be a real pendulum swing towards a cooperative, inclusive, open society, the kind once envisioned by the founders of our country.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident...”
Remember?
Let me be as direct and hard-hitting as I can about this, because we are seeing a destructive and dangerous rash of hatred coming out of the lower-functioning end of the far right since it has become apparent that Barack Obama is heading towards a landslide victory two weeks from now.
There is no rational explanation related to policy positions or political philosophy for the vile and vicious tenor of the attacks by what’s left of the right wing in this country. This is way beyond debate or heated discourse. This is becoming violent and out of control. Now that every thinking conservative has either outright declared support for Senator Obama, or at the least, decried the current crop of prehistoric primates being led by Sarah “Wilma Flintstone” Palin as moronic and beyond the pale, only a bestial group of paranoid, hate-mongers remains.
But what is fueling their terror and hatred really? Since this is clearly not about politics, and it certainly isn’t about “love of country” or patriotism, what is it about?
Folks, here I go again - it’s about love and sex, and sexual identity.
Over a hundred years ago, Freud postulated that the root cause of paranoia in men was extreme “homosexual anxiety.” So fearful are some men about the feminine side of their emotional/sexual life, so tortured are they by their identifications with their mothers, rather than their fathers, that these men adopt a hyper-masculine (macho) persona to disguise the deeper tendencies which they fear would destroy their fragile egos and gutted sense of self (The childrearing causes of this dysfunction are a discussion for another day.). The terror in response to their own “softer” feelings in this extreme male personality is inevitably projected outwards, so any other men who show signs of the feminine – cooperativeness instead of competitiveness, receptiveness instead of aggressiveness, openness and communicativeness instead of bullishness and control – threaten to upset the house of cards of their own sexual identity. Other men who are comfortable with both their masculine and feminine sides, like Barack Obama, must, therefore, be destroyed at all costs.
Okay. And what about the women? Well, just take a look at the nearly psychotic Republican congresswoman, Michelle Bachman, who called all liberals traitors yesterday, or the already psychotic Ann Coulter, who called John Edwards a “faggot.” With bone-hard features on their chiseled faces, and blazing, penetrating eyes, these women have thoroughly eradicated their feminine sides. It has long been understood that while the women of the far right are so opposed to abortion and birth control, women like Michelle, Ann and Sarah Palin, they are not in practice “pro-life.” In fact, these hyper-masculine women are as gleeful about executions and war (and killing doctors who respect a woman’s right to choose) as any crazed neo-con men. These women, overly identified with their fathers, and in deep conflict about it, are in the same paranoid quandary as their homophobic male counterparts. (Oh, and why doesn't anyone find it surprising anymore when yet another right wing politician or religious fundamentalist is discovered having closeted gay sex?)
But this is not about being gay. This is about sexuality. And love. And sex. Real sex. Loving, soul-quenching, gut-wrenching, bliss-inducing sex (Not sex as conquest or sex for ego inflation.) As I’ve said and written many times before, nobody who is having mind-blowing orgasms with someone they love ever feels inspired to go out and kill someone or throw toxic waste into a river or steal someone’s life savings... or call another person a traitor or a faggot. Only sexually dysfunctional, homophobic, emotionally distorted rage-aholics do those things.
This is a potentially wondrous time we are living in. The shift in consciousness that Barack Obama represents can be a real pendulum swing towards a cooperative, inclusive, open society, the kind once envisioned by the founders of our country.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident...”
Remember?
SCENE FROM EPISODE THREE - "RIDIN' THAT TRAIN" - OF PL'S TV SERIES: "CITY ROCK!"
This is one of my favorite scenes from my series for television, "CITY ROCK." Marva is a pregnant teen in a group home in which the heroine of City Rock, Jennie Silverman, a high-energy, Janis Joplin throw-back type, is the social worker. Darryl is a street-tough teen who thinks Marva is pregnant with his child and wants her out of the group home so he can control her. Jennie dices Darryl up here quite nicely in Episode 3: "Ridin' That Train."
INT. ST. THERESA’S GROUP HOME - DAY
The front door bell rings. A heavy-set, middle-aged woman, ANNIE, goes to answer it. She is a house mother at the group home. She opens the door and there stands a very hostile-looking Darryl.
ANNIE
Can I help you?
DARRYL
I come to pick up Marva.
ANNIE
Oh? Pick her up for what?
DARRYL
Just get her, okay?
MARVA (O.S.)
It’s okay, Annie.
Annie turns around to see Marva. Darryl slips inside.
MARVA
Darryl, I can’t leave. You got to go. Don’t make trouble for yourself.
DARRYL
Trouble for my-self?! I don’t think so. But there’s gonna be trouble for you and this... this damn lesbo hotel if you don’t get your stuff.
JENNIE (O.S.)
Sounds like we have a closet case of severe homosexual anxiety here, ladies.
Everyone turns to look at Jennie, who moves into the fray with an easy authority.
DARRYL
What’d she say?
JENNIE
I said, it sounds like your having a problem with your sexuality, Cool.
Darryl’s nostrils flare as he glares at Jennie, still not totally sure what she’s saying. Before he can speak, she keeps going.
JENNIE
Dig. I’m just playing with you.
(sidling up close to him)
Listen, Darryl... can I call you “D?” D, Marva has to stay here until we say she can go. That’s the deal, and the law. But I hear that you’re really into claiming your parental rights - very righteous of you. That’s the kind of brother I like! So, I just put in a call to the Bureau of Child Welfare and they insisted on having you pay for part of Marva’s room and board and expenses while she’s here - and check it out, we could really use the bread! And of course, they’ll want to fingerprint you so they can keep track of you down the road, you know, make sure you keep up those child support payments and all. You’re a real man to step up like this, Darryl. You don’t have a criminal record, by the way, do you? I mean, nothing that would show up from the fingerprints?
Darryl’s jaw is flapping up and down without words as he looks back and forth incredulously from Jennie to Marva.
JENNIE
Cool! So, you want to come in for a cup of joe or something and we’ll talk about signing you up to take birthing classes with Marva? I could tell you’re the kind of dude that would definitely want to be there when that beautiful, bloody little mess of a child comes poppin’ out of your honey's honey pot! Dig. It’s a sight!
Darryl, still flapping, confused as hell, looks at Annie, who is containing a smile, once more at Jennie, like she’s the devil, and then, he points his finger at Marva.
DARRYL
Later!
He leaves in a hurry. The women wait, then laugh together.
JENNIE
Dig!
INT. ST. THERESA’S GROUP HOME - DAY
The front door bell rings. A heavy-set, middle-aged woman, ANNIE, goes to answer it. She is a house mother at the group home. She opens the door and there stands a very hostile-looking Darryl.
ANNIE
Can I help you?
DARRYL
I come to pick up Marva.
ANNIE
Oh? Pick her up for what?
DARRYL
Just get her, okay?
MARVA (O.S.)
It’s okay, Annie.
Annie turns around to see Marva. Darryl slips inside.
MARVA
Darryl, I can’t leave. You got to go. Don’t make trouble for yourself.
DARRYL
Trouble for my-self?! I don’t think so. But there’s gonna be trouble for you and this... this damn lesbo hotel if you don’t get your stuff.
JENNIE (O.S.)
Sounds like we have a closet case of severe homosexual anxiety here, ladies.
Everyone turns to look at Jennie, who moves into the fray with an easy authority.
DARRYL
What’d she say?
JENNIE
I said, it sounds like your having a problem with your sexuality, Cool.
Darryl’s nostrils flare as he glares at Jennie, still not totally sure what she’s saying. Before he can speak, she keeps going.
JENNIE
Dig. I’m just playing with you.
(sidling up close to him)
Listen, Darryl... can I call you “D?” D, Marva has to stay here until we say she can go. That’s the deal, and the law. But I hear that you’re really into claiming your parental rights - very righteous of you. That’s the kind of brother I like! So, I just put in a call to the Bureau of Child Welfare and they insisted on having you pay for part of Marva’s room and board and expenses while she’s here - and check it out, we could really use the bread! And of course, they’ll want to fingerprint you so they can keep track of you down the road, you know, make sure you keep up those child support payments and all. You’re a real man to step up like this, Darryl. You don’t have a criminal record, by the way, do you? I mean, nothing that would show up from the fingerprints?
Darryl’s jaw is flapping up and down without words as he looks back and forth incredulously from Jennie to Marva.
JENNIE
Cool! So, you want to come in for a cup of joe or something and we’ll talk about signing you up to take birthing classes with Marva? I could tell you’re the kind of dude that would definitely want to be there when that beautiful, bloody little mess of a child comes poppin’ out of your honey's honey pot! Dig. It’s a sight!
Darryl, still flapping, confused as hell, looks at Annie, who is containing a smile, once more at Jennie, like she’s the devil, and then, he points his finger at Marva.
DARRYL
Later!
He leaves in a hurry. The women wait, then laugh together.
JENNIE
Dig!
ALL THAT REMAINS ON THE FAR RIGHT? YOU GUESSED IT!
There's a spot-on essay by Frank Rich in the NY Times this morning about the dawning realities since election day. It speaks to something I wrote last month called, "IT'S A THIN LINE BETWEEN LOVE AND HATE?," which, among other things, spoke to the connection between paranoia and homosexual anxiety on the far right.
Rich nails it:
"The post-Bush-Rove Republican Party is in the minority because it has driven away women, the young, suburbanites, black Americans, Latino-Americans, Asian-Americans, educated Americans, gay Americans and, increasingly, working-class Americans. Who’s left? Though Rove’s promised 'permanent Republican majority' lies in humiliating ruins, his and Bush’s one secure legacy will be their demagogic exploitation of homophobia."
Exactly. It ain't much to base a party on, boys!
Rich nails it:
"The post-Bush-Rove Republican Party is in the minority because it has driven away women, the young, suburbanites, black Americans, Latino-Americans, Asian-Americans, educated Americans, gay Americans and, increasingly, working-class Americans. Who’s left? Though Rove’s promised 'permanent Republican majority' lies in humiliating ruins, his and Bush’s one secure legacy will be their demagogic exploitation of homophobia."
Exactly. It ain't much to base a party on, boys!
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