San Sargasso

The Joy of Gay Sex Rap, Or: Can Four Straight College Dudes Make Gay Sex Cool?

Browsing on Facebook one day, I noticed a bulletin saying “Gay Sex” was popular in San Diego. I did a double take and, echoing Kyle’s mom on South Park, said, “WHAT, WHAT, WHAATTT?”

There wasn’t much to go on in the Facebook profile, so I jumped to their myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/gaysexrap ). The group describe themselves as follows:

we be the realest gayest homies on the bl0ck of the 6*1*9. just four homies from the hood tryin to keep it real. gay.

And their motto is: Pink aint the new black——Gay Sex is.

Their stage names (or GAY.K.A.’s as they call them):

(_)_) Gay Oral lllllllllllllllllllllllD

(_)_) Anal Assassin llllllllllllllllD

(_)_) llD Cpt Cock Suck

(_)_) Head Pocket lllllllllllllllllD

I thought the names were pretty funny (especially the ninja-like “Anal Assassin”), and it took me a while to notice the typographical dicks and balls. Poor Captain Cock Suck appeared to be underendowed; however, when you listen to “Betta Watch Yo Man” you realize he has no shame about his size and in fact seems almost aggressive about it:

My noodle is standard size for a poodle
Toodles, bitch I’ll slap your dick up
Fucked up tango
My dick is called “Bojangles”

That “Bojangles” bit conjured up a miniature Sammy Davis Jr. flashing a goldtooth smile and doing a softshoe in someone's pants - brilliant!

As I listened to their music, I found myself laughing out loud at their raunchy, witty lyrics and admiring the raw and spirited quality of the music:

I’ll fuck you in yo butt
Until I bust that nut
I’ma jizz in yo eye
I fuckin hate pie ...

I love it in my hole
I’d be rich if my ass had a toll
I’m feeling like some sake
Just give me a bukkake
I’m gay, I’m really fuckin gay

Their myspace photos were amusing as well, and they reminded me of the intentionally goofy, madcap, carefree quality of the band in the 60s TV show, The Monkees.  But at the same time, I puzzled over whether they were in fact gay or just goofing in the way my straight friends at Dartmouth used to talk constantly about “bufu” (buttfucking) and rib each other about how so-and-so sucked so-and-so’s dick the night before.

So I sent a message to Gay Sex  Rap on myspace, and here’s what they had to say:

Hey thanks a lot man. To be honest we aren't really gay. We are as you said just goofing BUT we do it not just for the laughs. We don't like that homosexuality is such a taboo subject. We think homosexuals and heterosexuals are pretty much the same. They just have different sexual preferences sooo we are just trying to make it a little less taboo. And once again thanks for complementing us on the humor and we do all the music ourselves on our computer using garage band and a internal mic. We just started our video and hopefully it will be coming soon. Also we have 2 new songs we are working on. Thanks for the support.

LOVE,

GAY SEX

Now, how cool is that?

My theory on why most straight men get so freaked out by gays is that all of them have had "gay" thoughts flash through their minds - even if just for a millisecond, and they are afraid that if they don't act aggressively antigay they may be perceived as gay themselves. It seems to me that the upbeat energy and hip point of view of Gay Sex Rap is exactly the kind of thing that can defuse that uptightness. Gay Sex Rap's “so what” attitude is 100mph beyond that, and gives one hope for homophobia-free generations to come.

The songs of Gay Sex Rap are at once an in-your-face celebration of gay sex and an over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek lampoon of rapper attitudes and gay stereotypes. Paradoxically, the songs seem directed to a straight audience, as if to say, we’re not really gay, and you know we’re not really gay, but we’re going to throw gay sexuality in your face so aggressively that it’s going to shock you and ultimately make you laugh at the preposterousness and cleverness of what we’re doing. But at the same time I have a feeling it will be lapped up by the (probably younger) gays who "get it."

Time will tell. In the meantime, color me the number one Gay Sex Rap evangelist …

I, Neologista

Ever since reading Roland Barthes in college, I have wanted to be a logothete. That's someone who invents his own supercool idiosyncratic language (like the Marquis de Sade or the utopian socialist Charles Fourier). But I have to resign myself to being a neologista. That's a word I just made up that means: someone who makes up somewhat witty, yet inconsequential, neologisms. So, here we go:

antigargoyle: in the context of parties or in nightclubs, someone who's all about counteracting or neutralizing the scowling and posturing of the self-hating, attitude radiators (aka "gargoyles") who have absolutely nothing to add to the ambience and suck out all joy and liveliness within a 25-mile radius.

coñoscenti: mashup of "coño" (Castilian for "c|u|n|t" and used liberally in Spain as a pejorative, insult or expletive) plus "cognoscenti" (persons "having or claiming expert knowledge in one or more realms of the fine arts or of fashion" [Websters]). Can be used to flatter people who fancy themselves hip know-it-alls while actually calling them annoying c|u|n|t|s to their face. (singular coñoscente)

Faceborg: refers to the uneasy feeling of being assimilated into an android hive while browsing Facebook.

harem-go-round: a circle of semi-anonymous sex partners who disappear just long enough to seem fresh again before reappearing.

lonelihorny: two intermingled and confounded drives, one emotional and one sexual, source of many bad choices.

preposterific: magnificently preposterous. (Came to mind when thinking about the South Park episode, "Helen Keller, The Musical!")

lipsyncopation: portmanteau of "lipsync" and "syncopation." (Came to mind while watching Betty Butterfield lipsynching to "O Canada." This is a really cool word - I'm surprised it didn't show up in a google search.)

St. Bernard of the Dance Floor: at a rave or circuit party, a member of a group who is somewhat less cool or attractive than the others and feels so grateful for being included that he/she automatically becomes the person who goes to get bottled water for everybody. (St. Bernard dogs were originally bred for rescue by Swiss monks, and in popular mythology have been depicted with small casks of brandy under their necks to warm victims of hypothermia.)

St. Bernard of the Orgy: Florence-Henderson-like individual who runs around making sure everyone has fresh beverages, condoms, lubes, toys, paraphernalia, etc.

swaggot: a young, hippity-hoppity, trendy gay boy who fluffily attends publicity-driven parties and rejoices on snagging the obligatory swag bags.

How can you tell if you've created a neologism? Google it! And high-five if you come up with the message:

Your search - antigargoyle - did not match any documents.

Next step: register the domain name. Someday you'll thank yourself.

(You still get points if the word you invented already exists in cyberspace, but your usage is superior and has completely different connotations: e.g., in the case of "swaggot." But unfortunately "neologista" fails this test. I should have known - what with the Greek derivation and academic taste of it.)

The Sweetest Phallic Symbol Ever Made (of Spaghetti)

I first knew that I was gay when I was introduced to my sixth grade teacher, Mr. Leonard.

Haven't seen this new documentary from the folks at World of Wonder yet, but the previews look wonderful.

This Really Happened: Item No. 1

Sometime before I had come out as a gay man (circa 1976) I attended an amazing performance of Jean Genet's play, The Maids, at Incarnate Word College (now known as University of the Incarnate Word) in San Antonio, Texas.

I knew about the play and the notoriously homosexual author because of my furtive readings in the high school and public libraries (the cards in the card catalog dog-eared and stained by the oil of surreptitious fingers of closeted gay boys and men like me). As if it were not extraordinary enough for a play by a known homosexual (and aggressively "degenerate") author to be performed at a college founded by Catholic nuns in an arch-conservative and homophobic Texas city (and nonetheless perversely apt for the author of a novel called Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs), the play was performed by male actors in drag, which was in accordance with Genet's (generally ignored) stage directions.

I wonder where they are now, those actors who brought that play to life so vividly and profoundly for me? Petrified as I was then by the shocking nature of the performance, I nevertheless knew that the play was a work of genius, and it reinforced what became a lifelong fascination with literature and art:  my survival mechanism.

The incarnate, carnal, incarnadine Word ...

Sex-Rich

I made up this term, "sex-rich," to describe an amazing (to me) transformation that's happened in my life over the past couple of years. It means I have come to feel confident that I can have, if not any beautiful man I desire, then at least any type of beautiful man I desire. It's as though, instead of accumulating money or assets, I have accumulated some qualities or magic which attracts men whom I believe are far more attractive than I am (and often 10 to 20 years younger), and who in the past I looked upon as unattainable. And they keep coming, and it continues to astonish how one seems more beautiful than the next.

This is not exactly the equivalent of being asset-rich per se, since a wealthy person could in theory buy the company of any type of man; in my mind it beats being wealthy, because the attraction is based on me, my body, and not on money (since I don't possess any great wealth and don't pay for sex).

Being sex-rich doesn't make me feel superior or conceited; I am acutely aware that this phenomenon is only temporary and based on a number of conjunctions (shaving my head, being a top and therefore more in demand, getting a tan, staying in shape, two years of psychotherapy, taking Welbutrin, perfecting the art of hooking up online, looking younger than my actual age, etc.). However, it has profoundly changed my attitude toward life and my way of being. The crippling insecurity has been neutralized, and I feel like a different person.

Just a gigolo, everywhere I go ...

The Well-Bred Monster

There's a novel coming out in August 2007 that sounds fascinating. The narrator of First Person Plural, by Andrew Beierle, is one member of a set of conjoined twins, one of whom is gay and the other straight. Two heads, one body. I've read the first chapter (available on the author's website); the prose is well-written and the topic, which could easily slide into camp humor, instead appears to be considered humanely and with level insight. I'm looking forward to seeing where Mr. Beierle goes with the story.

I Can Has Fingerworm?

Glancing out the side window, I see a beautiful dog (a golden retriever, I think) rolling and burrowing luxuriantly and playfully on a slope of thick green lawn next door. His master pauses for a few moments to indulge this exuberance, then pulls firmly on a red cloth leash in order to resume the walk. The dog seems to want to stay and go at the same time, and playfully bites and worries the leash.

It strikes me that the line of the leash is a physical and, as it were, geometric, expression (transmitter) of the will of the master.

I try to imagine a love for myself in this mode: an adult slave-child who is allowed a certain degree of latitude: enough to be his doggy self and for me at the same time; who revels simultaneously in freedom and slavery. (I'll give him a very long leash, or better yet let him range freely, but I'll expect him to come when I call.)

"Dog people" are as curious and alien to me as dogs are to a cat. Although I enjoy the beauty and playfulness of certain dogs, there is almost no cat, no matter how ugly, to which I am not instantly drawn. Watching their movements and expressions gives me a mesmerized delight, and it's hard to resist stroking them and playing with them. (I can submit the anecdotal evidence that cat worship may be genetic:  I, my brother, and my mother are all cat people.)

Walking home from a bar in the wee hours, I'll catch sight of one slinking in some bushes, and I'll make a certain secret sound with my tongue and teeth which always arrests their attention as reliably as the chirp of a bird. Then I'll prostrate myself on the sidewalk (cat people know that this technique makes one's relative size less threatening) and make a worm of my finger or a scurrying animal of my hand - another tactic that attracts them involuntarily. (Of course they know it's a hand, but it still piques their desire to investigate more closely.)

Nearly always successful, I make of the little stranger an affectionate and flirtatious friend. (They are as capable of furtive seduction and desirous of pleasurable attentions as I am.) I get up and continue home without looking back, feeling the chagrin of a relationship that should begin and end so quickly, and wishing I carried with me a reward of some food for the exchange (solitary as I am, this may be one of the few chances I have to exchange pure physical affection with another creature).

Here's my biased take on dog people vs. cat people: the pleasure of the dog owner comes from a love that demands recognition as ultimate lord, master, parent (or that demands at least the dynamic between benevolent master and rebellious slave); whereas, with cats, it may appear as such on the surface, but if you know cats you know that any fawning behavior is performed with the ironic and manipulative intent of a courtier; that to the cat we are at best equals; and that any true love demonstrated to us is a love of equals.

This is not to say that cats are superior to dogs: I would sooner say that both are superior to us. This is simply by way of directing my stinger at the insufferable complacency of "dog people."

But of course the stinger stings both ways: one could just as easily propose that the pleasure of the cat person is still a master-slave dynamic, only with roles reversed.

And if you find offensive the thought that your cat may not truly love you in the same way you love it, consider this: if you were by some Disneyesque miracle suddenly shrunk to, say, an inch tall, do really think your cat would have any qualms about sporting cruelly with you before making a meal of you?

She'll know instinctively that, at that size, you'll never again be able to open a can.

[The title of this piece alludes to a disturbingly infantile and yet amusing site called I Can Has Cheezburger?]

The Subtle Whoring

Shawn left a drunken voicemail the other night, saying he was in a nightclub in Harlem (the Lenox something-or-other) and he grabbed the microphone on the little stage and sang some songs. He says people applauded, and a beautiful Spanish woman invited him to come to Monte Carlo with her and her husband.

I joked that it was just like that song by Charlene: "I've Never Been to Me." I knew there was a reference to "Monte Carlo" but couldn't remember the lyric:

I've moved like Harlow in Monte Carlo
And showed 'em what I got ...

I'm pretty sure I had absorbed the original layer of the song into my musical memory, with no irony, of course, during the 70s (first released in 1976 but only went to 97 on the charts).

After experiencing the "bohemian" life in New York, Barcelona, etc., along with divers personal triumphs and catastrophes, the "jading" of the jaded, the song has become enriched with irony, and connotations both personal (idiosyncratic) and communal (as a gay/drag queen national anthem).

I can remember a time when sentimentality made me feel almost physically ill. Hence, the little blissful inner explosion of irony and recognition when the song that I remembered as being almost nauseatingly sentimental becomes suddenly like a coruscating gem. Whenever I listen to it, something about it literally gives me chills; I guess it's her voice and the lyrics; perhaps because the song vibrates so deliciously between truth and irony (camp). Like a drag queen, I can wear, I can be, simultaneously, the horror of the sentimental and the spiritual truth that the song expresses.

That is what I was talking about when I wrote:

Camp is like a private garden where one may enter, without any vestige of leaden seriousness, and breathe the rejuvenating air of hilarity. Others may see us as merely laughing, but what we are really doing is surviving.

"The truth that the song expresses" is that "Paradise" - conceived of as an ideal, unattainable place that exists elsewhere - is indeed a lie and an illusion. And it is part of the human folly - and the cause of much suffering - to live one's life in pursuit of this mirage. Romantically, we persist in the pursuit even when we know that it is a lie.

If one is lucky, one comes to understand on a deep level that paradise is always right before us and with us in the Here and the Now. It is indeed the little baby in the mother's arms (Sofia in Sonia's arms) and the love that one feels in the heart in the present moment.

The state of being "jaded" is to live smugly inside the erroneous belief that one has experienced everything worth experiencing and that no experience can possibly offer anything "new." This is a complete and utter defense and resistance to reality. You have willfully shut down your senses and are living in a sad ashcan like a Beckett character.

The truth is that we don't know anything, we haven't experienced anything, we haven't seen anything. What I mean by that is that anything we think we have experienced in the past - any heights or highs we may have reached - are as nothing (since they exist only as memory traces) compared to what we are experiencing Right Now. Reality is always being created right before our eyes in this moment like a miraculous theatrical performance rising up out of nothingness or like a marvelous fountain (eau d'artifice). Camera obscura. It's only a paper moon ...

But I, I took the sweet life ...

That line evokes, and perhaps alludes to, Fellini's La Dolce Vita.

I've spent my life exploring
The subtle whoring
That costs too much to be free ...

I would like to use those lines as the (tongue-in-cheek) epigraph (or epitaph) to my memoir (if I ever finish it)

But, I wish someone had talked to me
Like I wanna talk to you

Sometimes I feel that way with some of the guys I've been seeing: like I want to impart to them such wisdom and worldliness as I may have for their edification. Although this feeling is also somewhat tongue-in-cheek, as I don't really believe I'm so wise as all that, and I'm aware that I'm playing a role - of "daddy," "grand dame," etc.

Oh, I've been to Nice
And the Isle of Greece
While I've sipped champagne on a yacht

"Neece" sounds glamorous in a 70s sort of way. I haven't been there, but I was invited to St. Tropez, which has the same sort of time-warp feeling of faded glamour (Mick and Bianca Jagger, Elton John, etc.), so I'll substitute that.

Shouldn't that be "isles" of Greece? Unless she's referring to the isle, meaning the most glamorous one, but I'm not sure which one that would be, they all sound so lovely.

Another layer of irony: the song evokes the glamorous life in such a way that it makes a young boy or girl yearn for it, so for someone like me back in those days, I would have been infused with a desire to see those evil places like New York and Paris. The idea of finding love in a marriage and family would have been unthinkable to me. The moral "message" of the song is at odds with itself: it's at once corrupting and soul-saving.

I've been undressed by kings

That makes me think of various wealthy men who courted me and whom I spurned, believing as I did then that I couldn't be content to simply be loved and taken care of, but I had to be in love.

And there was that guy at the Suzanne Bartsch Copa party (the chicest place to be in New York at that time) who claimed to be a "Persian prince." I had no reason to doubt his veracity. We were both very drunk/high, and I remember making out with him voraciously as his back was pressed against a mirror, with all the disco lights from the dance floor flashing. Afterwards, I had to go the doctor because I had contracted a variety of bugs simply from kissing him. God knows where his royal mouth had been.

I've seen some things that a woman ain't s'posed to see

Where do I start with that line! Picture me and Patrick at Jay's afterhours backroom bar in New York at 4 in the morning on Halloween night, 1980-something: Patrick is in drag, shooting pool (in high heels), drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. He looks wonderful and sort of lipstick-lesbianish, and I sit by watching adoringly, as men throng and grope in the stalls and go round and round in the dark backroom doing all sorts of nasty things to each other. That was paradise.

Took the hand of a preacher man and we made love in the sun ...

A few years ago, in Austin, I got picked up on a boat cruise by a Methodist pastor from a small town who was there with his lover. He was blonde and muscular with a great boyish smile. At Lake Travis we got drunk and floated together on blowup rafts among hordes of goodlooking gay men. I linked our rafts together by draping my leg across his beautiful smooth tanned thigh. It was paradise, indeed.

At one point, I had an evil idea and got the two of them to go back into the woodsy part with me to pee, and I convinced them that we should do it on each other! I had never really done that sort of thing before, and it was surprisingly exciting. Not to mention the danger of being caught and arrested by a park ranger and perhaps ending up as a sex offender in Texas.

But the icing on the cake was when it dawned on me that I had sodomized a pastor ... on Sunday morning!

Here's the entire lyric (taken from charlenesmusic.com, but with some corrections)

Hey lady, you, lady, cursing at your life
You're a discontented mother and a regimented wife
I've no doubt you dream about the things you'll never do
But, I wish someone had talked to me
Like I wanna talk to you

Ooh, I've been to Georgia and California and anywhere I could run
Took the hand of a preacher man and we made love in the sun
But I ran out of places and friendly faces because I had to be free
I've been to paradise but I've never been to me

Please lady, please lady, don't just walk away
'Cause I have this need to tell you why I'm all alone today
I can see so much of me still living in your eyes
Won't you share a part of a weary heart that has lived million lies

Oh, I've been to Nice and the Isle of Greece
While I've sipped champagne on a yacht
I've moved like Harlow in Monte Carlo
And showed 'em what I've got
I've been undressed by kings
And I've seen some things
That a woman ain't s'posed to see
I've been to paradise,
But I've never been to me

[spoken] Hey, you know what paradise is? It's a lie, a fantasy we create about people and places as we'd like them to be
But you know what truth is? It's that little baby you're holding, and it's that man you fought with this morning
The same one you're going to make love with tonight That's truth, that's love......

Sometimes I've been to crying
For unborn children
That might have made me complete
But I, I took the sweet life,
I never knew I'd be bitter from the sweet
I've spent my life exploring
The subtle whoring
That costs too much to be free
Hey lady, I've been to paradise,
But I've never been to me

"Black"

The ideological concept of "black":  on the one hand, it allows a group of heterogeneous people to bond and rally together against prejudice and injustice, but on the other hand it creates a pressure towards homogeneity which is a kind of violence against individuals in all their splendid uniqueness and difference.

In Defense of Shirley Q. Liquor

I'm so exasperated to find out that certain so-called activists are trying to shut down Chuck Knipp's upcoming Shirley Q. Liquor show in West Hollywood on February 11, 2007.  Here's a comment I posted to one of the inflammatory blogs I came across:

Holy crap, most of you are SO offbase about Chuck Knipp and his Shirley Q. Liquor character.  It blows my mind. One question, have any of you actually SEEN him perform? No, because he's never performed in L.A.

Well, I HAVE seen him perform, and I have sat down and had dinner with him, and I assure you, he is not a crazy-eyed, foaming-at-the-mouth bigot; he does not have a KKK robe hidden in his closet. Believe it or not, he is a very kind-hearted and generous person. He spent much of his childhood surrounded by black people and has many close black friends. Do you know many rabid racists who love to be around black people?

So, you come to this website, have a few clips of his work thrown in your face in an extremely strident and prejudiced way - yes, prejudiced because you haven't actually seen him perform, you don't know where he's coming from, you don't know what his intentions are - and you ASSUME that because he incorporates racial stereotypes in his comedy, that he is racist. Shame on you!

One of you said something like, that sort of thing may fly in the South, but this is L.A. Excuse me, but isn't that a bigoted remark in disrespect of people from the South? Aren't we being a little hypocritical and self-righteous here?

You know, it wasn't long ago that people picketed and ranted against films that portrayed gay characters. That was PREJUDICE. People ASSUMED that all gays were dangerous to society. The same principal is operating here.

You know, call me cynical, but I think this is really about the self-aggrandizement of a few so-called political activists who see easy prey.  Do you REALLY think organizing censorship and whipping up popular hatred against one guy - whose only true desire is to make people laugh and lighten up about themselves and their feelings - is a good use of your energy? It's so easy, isn't it, to rabble rouse against a sitting duck? But it's hard to actually get people together to talk about their fears and prejudices, and to acknowledge that we are all fundamentally and beautifully human.

Censoring Chuck Knipp will be a hollow victory that will only serve the cause of political correctness and reinforce the pretense that if we just censor everything that disturbs us and only allow the communally-approved images to see the light of day, that racism will just "go away." The good old ostrich approach.

What could be more counterproductive than protesting against someone who is not a racist? Don't censor! Get together with your friends and neighbors and talk about racism and whatever else is on your mind.

Did you ever stop to consider what might prompt someone to continue to perform a character even though misunderstood and vilified by so many people, even though he has had to endure the scorn and insult of having his performances picketed by people who have never seen him perform and are only doing so out of ignorance, prejudice and sheep-like willingness to follow the instructions of a bunch of politically correct rabble rousers?

It's because he has courage, and he knows that what he is doing is therapeutic. Trust me, Chuck is talented enough that he doesn't need to rely on whipping up racial prejudice to get people to watch him. But you all will get it sooner or later. I hope.