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I
know this is a little late, but I want to complain about watching
Brokeback Mountain in a theater full of gay people.
My wife and I went to a screening in Los Angeles. The place
was packed. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of the other
people there were gay men. They laughed throughout the whole
movie! The more poignant parts of the movie brought the house
down. Especially the scene where Jack and Ennis first reunite
and are caught kissing by Michelle Williams. The whole theater
just thought that was fucking hilarious. They couldn’t stop
laughing as Ennis rushed around gathering up clothes and his
wife choked back tears.
As you know, the movie is about two repressed homosexuals.
Every time one of the actors allowed that tension to show
on his face, the queers in the audience found it hysterical.
My hypothesis is that these incidents remind gay people of
their own coming out process, and therefore struck them as
ridiculous, since they themselves had gotten over those hang-ups
long ago. Nevertheless, they seemed to display a real lack
of empathy.
Or maybe it was nervous laughter, because the effect of the
movie was more pronounced on the gay audience members than
it likely was on me.
—Anonymous
Straight Into Film
Or maybe, ASIF, Jack and Ennis’s predicament seems faintly
ridiculous to liberated gay men who, naturally enough, regard
the Tortured Homo Routine—from Giovanni’s Room to Fame
to Brokeback Mountain—as more laughable than tragic.
Or maybe you had the misfortune of seeing Brokeback
in a room full of vapid L.A. faggots who wouldn’t know an
honest emotion if it blew a three-day load down their throats.
Oh, and speaking of tortured homos . . .
I’ve been getting a lot of mail about a news story out of
the American South. Three men were arrested last week in rural
North Carolina and charged with castrating willing victims
in their dungeon. “Richard Sciara, 61, Danny Reeves, 49, and
Michael Mendez, 60,” according to one report, “admitted performing
at least eight surgeries, including castrations and testicle
replacements, on six consenting clients over the past year.
None of the three is licensed to practice medicine. . . .
Each man faces 10 felony counts—five each of castration without
malice and conspiracy to commit castration without malice—as
well as eight misdemeanor counts of performing medical acts
without a license.”
Yeesh. While I’m constantly coming to the defense of BDSMers
in Savage Love—“so long everything’s safe, sane, and consensual,
it’s nobody’s business,” “they’re not hurting anyone that
doesn’t want to be hurt,” and, um, “some of my best friends
are . . . ” —I can’t defend castration, whether it’s malicious
or, you know, festive.
For the record: There are some men out there who want to have
their balls cut off. Some are into BDSM, some are not. For
a guy turned on by castration, offering up his nuts is the
ultimate act of sexual surrender. The vast majority of men
turned on by castration don’t go through with it, as they
get their kicks by anticipating and fearing castration. They
may act out castration scenarios with partners who threaten
to cut their balls off, but these men are aware that they
have to keep their balls if they want to continuing enjoying
their extreme fantasies—and keep having erections, orgasms,
children, male hormones, etc.
There are also men who want to be castrated because they are
tormented by sexual desires that repulse them. Men who are
pedophiles or rapists, for instance, have opted for surgical
castration. These men are not castration fetishists but castration
realists who have taken radical steps to “solve” their sexual
problems.
But some castration fetishists, as we’ve seen in North Carolina,
actually do have their balls cut off. While I believe that
folks have a right to do what they like with their own bodies,
I don’t think a castration fetish is a desire that should
be indulged—and certainly not by old, creepy, non-medical
professionals winging it in a dungeon in Bumfuck, N.C. Castration
cannot be regarded as safe or sane, and even if someone consents
to it—heck, even if they beg for it—castration is so extreme
that consent has to be regarded as evidence of a man being
of unsound mind, and therefore incapable of giving his consent,
at least until a qualified shrink and a licensed doc determine
otherwise. (Dr. Phil doesn’t count—he’s never met an American
male that he didn’t want to see castrated.)
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I have a hard time believing that a cynical guy like
you doesn’t occasionally see some actor on TV yammering about
his politics and think “Stick to what you’re good at and shut
the fuck up about politics.” You’re becoming that actor. I
don’t give a fuck about your politics, and I don’t want to
read about them every time I look at Savage Love.
—Keep
It To Yourself
You
can’t write about sex and avoid politics—not in America, at
any rate, and now, thanks to Stephen Harper’s minority government,
not in Canada either. Believe me, KITY, I would love to see
sex and politics decoupled, but your fellow conservatives—actually,
wait. Why should I come to my own defense when a genuine New
York Jew wants to do the job?
I have a comment for these people who write in to tell
you to keep out of politics and “stick with dicks”: Basically,
fuck them. How can one possibly separate politics from sexuality
today? There is a battle being waged for the heart and soul
of this country and this conflict involves issues on which
you are something of an expert: young people and safer sex;
the prevention of disease; homosexuality; and the incredibly
important question of reproductive rights. So, keep up the
good work, Dan. And let me say once again: Fuck them!
—New
York Jew Commie Bastard
Thank
you, NYJCB. And to close this week’s column, a little bidness
to attend to . . .
Some trannies, she-males, lady-boys, X-Men, and the men who
love them were upset about last week’s column. You can read
their thoughts by going to http://www.metroland.net/savageextra.html.
Straight Rights Update: Black Jack, Mo., is currently deciding
whether or not it will issue an occupancy permit to an unmarried
straight couple with three kids. (Occupancy permit? Who’d
guess you need one to move to Black Jack, Mo.? Black Jack
should be begging people to move there.) Currently the couple
does not meet Black Jack’s definition of “family,” and they’ve
already been denied their occupancy permit once. If the city
decides to deny them an occupancy permit, the couple will
have to move or marry under duress. So let’s just add forced
marriages to that long list of right-wing assaults on heterosexual
freedom, shall we?
And to Mike C., who wrote in a few weeks ago to tell me that
he was glad that conservatives he voted for were running the
world and not perverts like me: Brian J. Doyle, Deputy Press
Secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, was
arrested last week for soliciting sex from someone he believed
to be a 14-year-old girl. Hmm . . . is a malicious castration
in order?
And, finally: Over at www.ITMFA.com
(a Web site I created specifically to keep my latest political
obsession from taking over Savage Love, KITY), we’ve sold
over $8,000 worth of ITMFA buttons and lapel pins in the last
week and a half. I’d like to break $10,000 (all profits go
to the ACLU), and I can do it with your help—and with the
help of President Bush who, as it turns out, “authorized the
leak of sensitive intelligence information about Iraq,” according
to the AP. To which I say, ITMFA!
mail@savagelove.net
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