I don't have a "gathered" set of thoughts yet in
response to what I've read from everyone; but it's
been a wonderful, refreshing time today reading and
reflecting on it all. I'll just have to comment on
each one by one till something gels more..
For Jake: Is he suggesting a kind of universal
bisexuality? I can dimly recall finding other guys
attractive, maybe till I was 14 or 15..was it the
culture, or nature, or both, which caused this
atraction to diminish and disappear?
Yes, men who are willing to use violence, I
suppose, can have whatever they want, until they get
caught, and provided all they want is a submitted body
and not a relationship with a human being. Men
unwilling to use violence or its substitutes, like me,
are left out of the game, a game based on competition,
jealousy, and conflict.
Though I can work up some small compassion for
the gang-rapists, I'm never going to be among them. I
think I'd castrate myself first! Besides, they were
after a female body and not a relationship; and also
perhaps, as I think Jake was saying, they did it more
to show off to each other than for any pleasure in the
deed itself.
Yes, maybe I needed and deserved a good slap in
the face. Wake up! I might be lonesome due to this
messed-up culture, but other people are getting killed
because of it!
Heather: bids me listen. I've listened to so
many voices it's bewildering. The Christians tell me
some people are just plain called to celibacy-just
accept my fate. Maybe if I lived 500 years ago I'd
have become a monk- maybe hunting witches and blaming
the devil for the desire in my soul! The Pagans tell
me to let go, loosen up; and consult the stars, the
runes, the crystals or whatever to find my connection
in a basically free-for-all (as opposed to divinely
planned) universe. The feminists I've hitherto known
personally bid me (how?) get my eyes off the woman's
body and try to look into her soul; try to love her
for that; they remind me of how many women are left
out by the patriarchal ideal; and to be willing to
reach out to the conventionally 'unatractive'. Other
friends, of both genders, tell me that my radical
lifestyle commitments, inspired in part by feminism,
environmentalism, social justice, and other like
notions; have profoundly isolated me from meeting
people with any common ground.
Much research and reflection have further
disheartened me by informing me what most of the women
(and men for that matter)anywhere near my age (37) are
doing:they're busy making money and raising kids: the
very two things which I'm convinced on a profound
level have got to stop in order to save the planet!
Among the clamor and dispute of all these voices
is my own desire and fantasy, remaining; as I said
during my Christian years "like a belligerently
independent small country within the soul, pursuing
its own policy in spite of whatever philosophy might
have the current ascendancy over the rest of me".
Perhaps because of being much persecuted and submerged
in the past, it resists change even now- I'm still
attracted to 'conventionally attractive' women. I have
lots of friends, and many people love and admire me.
I even have the rare ability to keep former
girlfriends as good friends, along with their lovers;
since I believe in creating a world free of jealousy
and imagine fondly that rejoicing in the blessings of
others helps prepare me to receive my own...
Jake again: I do not blame my frustration on
women. Indeed, part of what I might be after some
help on is the suspicion that what I really need to
blame for it si the patriarchal culture; and my gut
feeling is that the problems are connected.
I don't think I demean my own sexuality or
anyone else's. I consider it an act of worship, a
participation in the ecstacy with which, by which, and
for which the world exists to begin with.
An aside: I loved the reference to 'faggot' and
it's new info to me. As I live in the bush, I'm
constantly gathering up "faggots" (bundles) of
firewood to cook over, warm myself by, heat water
with, and so on; blithely calling them that, thinking
it was a coincidental homonym..
Finbally; Deana and "Washer Zine": Again, maybe
it's back to elementary school for me on this one-
when I think I've so transformed my life in so many
other ways for the causes of people and the planet.
My life is now so 'alternative' (in the woods, in a
tent, off the grid, growing my own, dumpster-diving,
solar cooker, hunter-gatherer..what else?)that it's
just plain hard to meet people. I have to go out into
the world like an expedition into a foreign country.
If I did not have desire motivating me somewhere in
the bottom of the soul; giving every venture a hint of
an ulterior motive (which some friends warn me is
pretty transparent to women!), I'd probably just stay
out there in the bush with my garden!
It has been an interesting adventure to reflect
on. I have never before had to make a social life for
myself or engage in mainstream social activiies,
having hitherto lived in community of one sort or
another. One breakthrough has ben abandoning myself
to dancing at wild nightclubs! Interestingly, I've
discovered that I can be most abandoned at it when I
totally blot out any awareness of the people around
me: gawking at the women spoils the 'moves'
altogether! So 'clubbing' first engaged in as a
social and sexual outreach, has become a more or less
solitary ecstasy, worth doing for its own sake.
Then there's the Internet. Women are easy to
meet on the Web. But an absurd number of them turn
out to be deceptive, telling me they have husbands, or
boyfriends, or kids; after several rounds of
correspondence! Others lie about their age, weight,
or whatever. It's a good reminder that there are
people out there more desperate than I am!
In other settings: conferences, concerts,
workshops, worship settings, ans so on; I find I have
a knack for connecting with connected women! Those
that seem most willing to strike up a conversation, or
to respond to my attempts at doing so; often prove to
be in a relationship of one sort or another not long
into the interchange. One friend took it upon herself
to point out the obvious- it's because those women
feel self-confident around a strange man; they don't
have to watch their back about me coming on to them,
or feel objectified, since they're unavailable anyway.
They can relate to me as a person and not as a male.
So, the friendliest women are the least available
ones! What a loser's game! I get lots of new friends
and acquaintances, which are good, but have their
limitations.
I know I've gone on and on here, but there
seems to have been some interest and feeling generated
by what I wrote. I'm not necessarily asking for
advice (though this might be the best group to go to!)
I'm just interested in what other people believe
about all of this, and this is one of the few venues I
can be audacious enough to ask it in! Much of the
time (six days a week- I get to town one day-to surf
the web at the college library) I throw up my hands
and head back to the garden-sometimes with some
thankfulness for the messes I'm spared participating
in!
Bob Burns, in the Georgia bush..
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