Rapt Genius

I need to throw a little more love to Rap Genius.  I understand I'm the first current release author to explain my stuff on the site.  I just thought their shit was good for thought experiments; I had no clue I was the first living writer to think that! 

I hope Frank Ocean explains my shit.

Props, Maboo and RapGenius.

Word to your Mother

So, lately, I've gotten a bit of hate(r) mail, and it wasn't what I expected.  I've spoken publicly now for about a month on what I'll shorthand as "the danger of the acronym."  Basically, my argument is that by creating separate labels that may or may not accurately describe differences, we're making equality harder vis a vis anyone who doesn't want a part of the acronym.  Apparently, this has really set off persons who identify with the "QGQIAA" (queer.genderqueer.intersex.asexual...) segment of the burgeoning "LGBTQGQIAA," which is damned ironic since, if I have to pick a letter to represent myself, I'm taking the "Q" over the "B" (this despite the fact that I enjoy both cock and pussy).  It's also ironic because I wrote years ago about how offensively our society treats intersex persons, and explained why that was probably a result of our attempts to frame sexuality with reference to gender where societies of the past (and some in the present) draw sexual distinctions in other ways (e.g., class, power relations, age, etc.).  So before you yell at me for excluding your category, please understand what I'm really saying about this:

Everything we think about who we are ultimately results in some part from the words we have at our disposal to describe ourselves (remember, no words for "heterosexual" or "homosexual" in any language we can find until 1869).  When we have inadequate words to describe what we feel, who we are, what we do, we have to sacrifice some parts of ourselves for existing words or amalgamate those inadequate words to try to make something more accurate.  I think this is what we're doing with the ever-expanding acronym, but it's counterproductive! By giving each part of the acronym a more and more specific meaning when we expand it, we ensure that it excludes more people who feel queer in one way or another because they don't feel they fit neatly into any of the extant categories.

I'm not the only person making this argument.  A recent TED talk by an economist dives into the problem too.  Watch, as I summarize:

Keith Chen grew up speaking Chinese and English and noted the different treatment of tense and the way the language he was speaking at the time forced him to think about himself, his family, and his surroundings in different ways.  He wonders how profound that effect is.  He applies this hypothesis to saving behaviors based on a language's portrayal of the coterminous or distant nature of the future.  He finds, even when controlling for factors like geography, class, etc., that people engage in notably different behaviors depending on how their language frames the future as distant (where one might favor present rewards) or equal to the present (where one might favor saving).  Lo and behold, people speaking futureless languages save more.

This same phenomenon is working on us when we say "gay" or "straight" or "bi" or "gender queer."  This is because, before we pick any of these labels to describe ourselves, we naturally consider whether we do or do not fit into the constraints of the word's definition.  We do not consider what else we may be without relation to the word.  We also instruct the public to consider us differently from the "masses" by virtue of our shiny new label.  But, we're not different.  Everybody's just a spot on the same spectrum.  By coining the words "heterosexual" and "homosexual," we formed personality categories that could be criminalized.  Only sexual behaviors had been criminalized before, not sexualities.  Behaviors are easier to keep private, at least, but, more importantly, they have to be discussed in context with specific human circumstances. 

Now, by expanding the acronym, we're demanding that people who don't feel queer think of themselves as even more different than those who identify as queer in some way, partly because now we give them even more specific things to think about not being (ex: "I'm not into men exclusively, ugh, I'm not queer"; "My sex organs are totally normal, I'm not intersex!").  But, then, what about the boy who likes to cross-dress but feels mostly attracted to women?  If he's willing to adopt the "GC" of the acronym, he must separate from heterosexual men; if he refuses to adopt, he loses the ability to identify with other men who like to dress as women, gay or not.  We fuck that kid over with the acronym.

So, before you yell at me in a bar, or send me some scathing email about being exclusionist, at least recognize that my argument is intended to help your ass out.

Too...many...acronyms...

After a poker table discussion of queer and trans identity issues, my beloved poker host sent along this NYT article to our group about a group of queer and/or trans students at Penn who find themselves not quite fitting into "LGBT."  My favorite part is that the article has identified a "post-gay" period in which these issues have risen to the forefront, presumably because the old "gay" issues are resolved...

Why? Well, in some cases it's because these kids have transitioned but don't feel at home in queer groups with people who have the same sexual tastes but different body identities.  And the article adds the wrinkle that not everyone feels the same every day.  I'm personally acquainted with some queer persons who deal with this: one morning she feels like a girl, the next he feels like a boy, and the rest of us want to be respectful but don't always know what pronouns to use.

So, here's another perspective.  We can spend the next 20 years trying to figure out if it should be "LGBTQIA" or "LGBTQQIAA" or some other unpronounceable moniker to use with very confused "straight" people, true.  But every new acronym is going to generate a new need for explanation.  Would it not be more effective to work on training the queer community and the outside world to start accepting people without labels?  After all, whether or not one is attracted to men there will surely be men one does not want to fuck, and vice versa.  So the label doesn't do all the social work for us; we'll have to explain what we want that day anyway, even if it's an asexual desire not to fuck at all.

An, yes, I rather fully voiced this position in the novel, but let's stop trying with the labels.  Labels give others a way to identify you but, in my experience, don't do you much good when it comes to understanding yourself.  So if the label is imperfect anyway, what good does it do us?

We've repurposed "queer," and its now the closest thing we have to a general term that indicates "my tastes aren't exactly 'straight.'"  What if the LGBTQI and A's just start identifying, across the board, as "queer."  Sure, at some point further explanation may be required.  But that would come with any real friendship or relationship anyway.  "Queer" would avoid the problem of misinterpreted LGBTQIAs as well, like old straight white guys thinking "bi" means "hypersexual" or "asexual" means "broken" or "intersex" means "freak."  Queer would make us an "other" too big to be much of an "other."  It would suggest less polarity for me as a bisexual, and it would not cabin a transgender person into yesterday's gender feelings when today's have changed.  At core, this article makes me fear that a youth doing something wholly acceptable will feel that they are not real in some way until they have their own label, and words in such circumstances are generally woefully inadequate, and more separation is the last thing the queer community needs.

Fascist Supes?

This week San Francisco had a bit of an identity crisis, I daresay.  The Board of Supervisors voted to ban public nudity (purportedly with carve-outs for festivals).  I suppose the one upside is that this is the first mention of the perineum in the codes of California.  And, admittedly, it's unclear how dedicated the police department will be to enforcing this, particularly in the days surrounding Folsom and the like, but, geez, supes, did you forget where you lived?

This is an atrocity.  I can see this sort of ban flying in St. Louis, but San Francisco is supposed to be the place where nudists and everyone else can come to fly the flag of whatever the fuck they are.  Why are we taking that away? Purportedly it's to draw "some line of decency," but that reasoning presumes that nudity is, by definition, indecent, including where the nudists does nothing but stand still.  Let me share an anecdote to display why that's insane:

A couple of months ago I was walking through the intersection of Castro and Market (I do this a lot).  It was a lovely day, and perhaps consequently three nudists were loitering in the sunlight near the concrete barricades.  Also standing nearby, consulting a map, was a young hetero couple with their three small kids, aged roughly 4-9.  I had a bit of hesitation at the thought of all that peen in such close proximity to children before I realized that the parents were not at all concerned by the presence of the nudists and their children hadn't even seemed to notice.  The kids weren't fixated on the swinging peens nearby in the least.  I realized that children have no concept of whether nudity is right, wrong, offensive, acceptable, grotesque, inappropriate, etc., until their parents or their community teaches them it is any of those things.  So why, after all this time, supes, have we decided that moral judgment is the city's to impose? It's pretty damn easy to avoid the two neighborhoods where the nudists play if you're one of our 75 year old citizens with some kind of Southern Baptist bent... so why can't the Castro continue to be a place that doesn't inflict moral judgements on personal expression?

This is a fail, supes.  A grotesque, small-minded fail.

At Last

The dearth of blogging over past months, surely a disappointment to both of my readers, can be attributed to my attempts to publish and distribute my novel, which has been described by my readers thus far with the following blurbs:

"A 200-page love letter to San Francisco"

"A raw coming of age tale set in a world of flexible sexuality"

"Voyeuristic"

"A modern Tales of the City" (my personal favorite).

Fortuitously, this publication celebrates the election of the very first openly bisexual Congresswoman.

Please check out the novel!  You can grab a Kindle version here or order a copy from Amazon.com here.

iBookstore coming soon.

Big Gay Animals

Spurred by a recent article unearthing an early 20th century study of debaucherous penguins, I feel compelled to reproduce a halfhearted survey of the gayness of animals documented in 450+ vertebrate species.

First, the penguins:  Adeile penguins, subject to the observation of a 1910 polar expedition, and very likely causing severe blushing in the ship full of horny explorers.  The explorers called them "hooligan" penguins.  I would die to get a hold of the 4 page pamphlet one of these guys wrote - about fucking Penguins - that was concealed for obscenity for a century.  In addition to "autoerotic tendencies," these little guys apparently occasionally engaged in "necrophilia, sexual coercion, sexual and physical abuse of chicks, non-procreative sex and homosexual behaviors."

(Note: the above penguins were deemed gay penguins circa 1910).

Then, the ducks. Homosexual Necrophilia in mallards.  Weird.  But the more I looked the more I found reports not only of some gay behavior in the animal kingdom (to which I'd say, "fucking duh"), but of predominately gay behavior in certain species, which blows my mind. Apparently 1500 species are known to practice some same sex sex, or at least coupling.  Highlights:

(1) Dolphins.  Dolphins are hoes, generally.  They behave homosexually and heterosexually in equal measures.  They regularly engage in gay oral sex and hump one another.  While most males are bisexual, they go through periods of exclusive homosexuality.

(2) Bonobos.   "Nearly all" bonobos "are bisexual," and "2/3 of the homosexual activities are amongst females."  Here is the highly amusing photo of the bonobos:

(Credit: Zanna Clay).

(3) Macaques.  Female macaques form serial monogamous relationships, of which they have several in a breeding season.  Males have homosexual one-night stands.

(4) Giraffes.  Frequent male courtships that include mounting.  Homosexual activity predominates in some cases.

(5) Bison.  Males mate with females only once a year and 55% of mounting males are mounting other males.

(6) Antelopes.  Females mount each other a couple times an hour during mating season and ~9% of sexual activity is homosexual.  One female "slides" up behind her partner, raises her foreleg to stroke the other female between the legs, and later they mount. 

(7) Swans.  This bit, I have to quote: "Homosexual couples account for up to 20 percent of all pairings annually. Almost a quarter of all families are parented by homosexual couples that remain together for years. At times, male couples use the services of a female by mating with her. Once she lays a clutch of eggs, the wanna-be fathers chase her away and hatch the eggs. Other times, they just drive away heterosexual couples from their nests and adopt their eggs."

(8) Walruses.  Males sleep cuddled up together, mate with males before maturity and after, year round, and only copulate with females during breeding season and after maturity.

(9) Gray Whales.  Regularly have up-to-five-male orgies, touching genitals with one another.

(10) Guinean Cocks. Almost 40% of the male population engages in some homosexual behavior and a "small percentage" don't ever copulate with females.

It sounds to me like this is saying that factors such as gestation period and time-to-maturity (in mammals at least) can lead to the practice of certain homosexual behaviors as more appropriate assuagers of sexual urges.  In all cases it seems that same-sex coupling is forming portion of their lifestyle.

Considering that there's also a suggestion that behavior of the X chromosome observing methylation dramatically correlates with the incidence of women with two gay sons, I'd say it's time for some comparative genetics.  Who's down for mapping the genome of the above animals and seeing what we have in common?

Threefail

When one builds an online dating profile identifying oneself as “bisexual,” the messages one gets are pretty remarkable.

Among the many requests for a booty call (which apparently assume “bisexual means” “will do anything”), I found that I also received multiple requests to date and/or screw couples.

Here’s the profile: happy (perhaps married) couple finds at some point in their life together that the woman is into women – though, of course, not to the exclusion of sexual attraction to her man – and they decide to seek out a third person for their couple, however fleetingly.  This prompted myriad curiosities for me: How do you “date” a third person?  Are there to be rules in bed?  What kind of strain does this put on a relationship?  How do people characterize this in their own heads?

Because of my love for both of my readers, I decided to investigate for, you know, journalistic ends, without really committing to the idea of following through all the way to the bedroom.

None of these couples is comfortable putting pictures up on a dating website, it seems.  They initiate the messaging, but upon response two different couples demanded additional photos of me.  It was actually rather laborious a pursuit to get pictures of them.  I selected the most attractive couple of research subjects and sent some public photos and a phone number.

The respondent to email claimed to be the female, and she told me about the illustrious service careers of herself (call her Betty) and her partner (call him Scott).  Yet the text messages I began receiving were from Scott alone.  The first round of requests were for more pictures, which I politely declined, giving the distinct impression, I fear, that I was the most uptight interested party they’d ever encountered.  Texting with Scott continued for about a week, me clarifying that our first meeting should be in a public place.

For public I chose a bar nearby, and discovered after a hefty delay and a late start to the meeting that Scott was actually unemployed, with designs on a more prestigious hourly labor that he sought with idle intensity.  He asked whether I’d been in threesome before, and I invented a couple.

“So…have you guys done this before?” I ask.

“Yeah.  We’ve had two ... no – wait – three girls before” Wow, dude, you can’t remember, really? “So two of them were really short, like, they were just weird.  And one we saw for a while and she was cool but then she had some family stuff go down and disappeared.”  Sounds like a bullshit story to get away from you, but okay.

“Ever with a guy?”

“No, I’m straight, I don’t wanna touch a dude. So tell me about your threesomes.”

I’d thrown in a standard two girls and a guy. I’d also invented a male-male threesome because it hadn’t occurred to me that I’d have to be more explicit.

“You were with two guys?  How did it start?”

“Well we were just hanging out drinking, and I don’t remember what one of them said – it was a long time ago – but it prompted me to tell them I wanted them to cooperate, not fight, sort of suggestively.  And then I kissed both of them and we started to remove clothing and made our way to the bedroom.”

Then a deluge began: “Wait, so you fucked both of them?” No, just one. “From what position?” He was behind me.  “What about the other one?” He was in front of me. “Did you blow him?” Um, sure. “Oh my god that’s so hot.”

And on and on he went, clamoring for details.  Not once did he ask about my (purported) threesome with a girl and a guy. He wanted to know every miniscule detail about our position, what I was touching, how the guy was fucking, what was simultaneous.  He appeared to be rather obsessed with the idea of two guys on me at once. Sure, dude, you’re TOTALLY straight.

Then he made me wonder if there was actually a girl involved here, or if he’d just used some old pics with his ex, when after an hour or so of conversation he revealed, “Yeah, I mean. I don’t know about me and Betty.  I mean, yeah, we live together and we’re still hanging out, but, I don’t know,” and slightly later, “would you have a problem seeing me alone sometimes, like, we could hang out with Betty too, but I think I’d like to see you alone sometimes, would that be okay?” Um, maybe?

I excused myself and delayed further substantive conversation for about a week.  Low and behold, when he reconnected, Betty and Scott were “on a break,” (for a whole week!) and he was hoping he could come over to my place.  I’d say there’s abut a 30% chance Betty is real.

'twas unfortunately not a Fluke

There is no absence of commentary on Limbaugh's ingraciously, hypocritically, and pigheadedly insulting Sarah Fluke. If somehow you missed the issue, check Jon Stewart.


I can but heartily agree with Mr. Stewart in each of his astute criticisms of the detractor(s) of Ms. Fluke. Yet something is strangely absent from her defense, whether by Stewart, Obama, or any other reasonable person:


Did I miss the part where we proved there was some fundamental problem with having sex? Sure, the logic behind arguments that more birth control is requested in order to have more sex are fundamentally flawed, but does no one see an issue with an argument against sex per se? Not the choice of timing or partner, but sex per se. Cause I do.


Let's recap how sex can be bad for people: (1) if done incorrectly, it can spread disease, (2) if done inopportunely, it can result in unwanted pregnancy, (3) if done indiscreetly, it can harm one's reputation. Contraception in some form fixes the former two harms, and the latter isn't an inherent problem with sex but rather a result of third parties' reactions to sex.


But, let's please attempt to list the benefits of sex: orgasms, stress release, happiness, orgasms, bonding, improved sleep, improved relationship dynamics (marital or extramarital) and capacity for intimacy, cardiovascular exercise, mental clarity, improved gluteal tone, improved abdominal strength, orgasms, calorie burn, (occasional) enhanced communication, the creation of offspring when desired, lower long term blood pressure, improved immunity, decreased risk of heart attack, decreased pain, reduced prostate cancer risk, decreased incontinence, better sleep, better skin and hair, improved sperm count, stronger nails, fewer zits, orgasms, improved circulation and hydration, fewer cavities (from semen absorption), improved self esteem, increased life span, stronger bones and overall muscle tone, looking younger, improved longevity, reduced breast cancer risk, improved pain tolerance, orgasms...to name but a few.


So, let me reiterate: right wing conservatives are worried that the availability of contraception will cause people to have more sex...and that will lead them to be healthier, better looking, happier people who are less likely to end up with at least three of the top ten causes of death in America?  It would be more logical to have government sponsored seminars to teach the game-disabled how to get out and get laid more often. 

Litquake and Crowdsourcing

Rolling to the Mission on a Monday, one can expect little but some urine on the sidewalk and a stiff drink that’s reasonably priced.  At Litquake I found more.  They prep for Valentine’s Day by reading a number of raunchy passages.  Their reading made me realize I probably only knew half the dirty words I need.  Danielle Steel, her predecessors, and her progeny came up with so many words for the sex organs, I feel compelled to produce a comprehensive list.  Yet I find myself in need of crowdsourcing assistance.  What have I missed?

The male organ may, form time to time, be referred to as a:

Penis, peen, cock, shaft, member, phallus, dick, prick, Johnson, anaconda, bone, boner, bratwurst, chub, choad, ding dong, one-eye, general, kielbasa, dipstick, hard-on, helmet, manhood, main vein, popsicle, peeter, salami, joystick, pecker, peter, pole, rod, schlong, stiffie, tentpole, third leg, throbber, tool, wang, wanker, weenie, wood.

The female organ, form time to time, may be referred to as a:

Clit, cunt, vag, pussy, clam, slip, pink velvet sausage wallet, lady boner, hoo-ha, twat, snatch, cooter, box, vulva, beaver, camel foot, chach, cha cha, cherry, gash, ham flap, kitty, meat wallet, pink canoe, muff, pink taco (why are these all pink instead of red?) poon, punani, slit, vajayjay

Please help.

Thanks,

Lost Bacchus.

Homo-homophobia

LGBT persons (hereinafter "gays") are no strangers to homophobia, of course, as its object, but I'll wager they rarely consider what strikes me as the most egregious and offensive homophobe on Earth: the "former" gay.

If you are not one of the two people who has been reading this blog thus far, you might ask "But Bacchus, as gay is an orientation, how could anyone be 'formerly' gay?!?!?!" I've said before that the idea of gay as an "orientation" was spawned less than 200 years ago and no one before that really categorized themselves as "heterosexual' or "homosexual." I'll say now that these bullshit categories also spawn a whole new reason for gays to feel they should hate themselves.

I don't blame the "formerly gay," necessarily, but I do think it miraculous that they so fully embrace the "formerly" that they seem to forget what it is to be marginalized. I don't blame the FGs because they have probably never heard anything but that gay is an inexorable orientation, so it is not surprising that upon feeling an opposite-sex attraction an FG feels compelled to switch "identities" as well, to get a grip on that attraction. "Oh," the FG says to himself/herself, "I find that vagina/penis suddenly seems less offensive. I might even want to fuck said vagina/penis. Oh my god, I want to fuck said vagina/penis! I must be straight!" Well, FG, I was almost with you. I totally understand your desire for the opposite sex; I have it too. That desire for the opposite sex is to be expected. But, you say, suddenly, in this moment where you have realized one attraction, you feel a simultaneous extinguishing of the same sex attraction?

I call bullshit. Of course, I recognize why you, FG, would be thrilled at the prospect of fitting into all the many stereotypical norms accessible only to the straight. But how has it happened that in the space of one week this lowly blogger has had multiple friends, formerly out as lesbians, tell her they refused to attend a lesbian event because they did not belong there in light of their respective desires for men? This all before these women have managed to be happy with a man. Let's be clear - I believe they could be. I know happily married, now straight FGs. I'm not upset that they chose to pursue their interest in men. I'm upset because I get the distinct impression the friends I chose partly for their open-mindedness now seem meaner than the most fundamentalist Christian in Mississippi.

Let's imagine, for a moment, that Gay A and Gay B have Straight Friend C and all are hanging out together. One day Gay A and B ask Straight C if he would like to accompany them to Trigger (Gay Bar T). Gay A and B know C is straight - this is no effort to turn him and they are all good friends. C would presumably have the same experience at Gay Bar T as Gay A and B have at all straight bars where they follow C: free to drink and socialize but not finding anyone to go home with. If C declines their one-time invitation to Gay Bar T because he doesn't feel comfortable amongst gays, C is a homophobe, at least on some level. Maybe he's selfish and won't bother dragging his ass to a bar where he can't get laid. But assuming he's not a nymphomaniac, not too tired to go out, just declining expressly because he's uncomfortable in a gay environment - well, then he's a homophobe, even if he has gay friends.

Now let's replace C with FG in this scenario. In my experience, FG ALWAYS declines this invitation. In fact, they go one step further than Straight C - they say expressly that they do not wish to visit Gay Bar T because "they no longer belong there" or something along those lines. Seriously, I've gotten two variations on this line in a week.

Tell me, FG, how is this not homophobia? We're talking about single-instance invites here, not consistent trips to only gay bars. Your gay friends are going to have a mirroring experience every single time they go to a straight bar with you. This diatribe is not about you wanting to visit more straight bars in your life, it's about how you respond to your still-gay friend's offer to socialize by saying "I want nothing to do with your type of people." Yet if the FG looks not-so-far back into her memory, she will likely find immense pain at some point when such words were spoken to her. Imagine if they were spoken by a close friend, what pain you might feel then. It is a curious sensation, to say the least.

May all the FGs out there consider more heavily the words they intend to speak. You're not absolved of the scarlet letter of "homophobe" forever just because you used to fuck gay. If you're going to continue along those lines, you're going to lose the right to use the words "fag" and "dyke" any minute now.

Fisting

I was hunting for porn for you, and this is what happened to me:

Sometimes a sex act that sort of scares you can motivate an entertaining discussion, one for which I am in fortunate possession of ancient lascivious images as context.  Thanks to Number 1, the 4, who I'll call "Jackson" (he's Southern), I have this delightful (albeit somewhat misguided) analysis of an "illegal" sex act: Fisting.  Assuredly some women like to fist.  Jackson pointed out immediately that the article doesn't even address the significant population of gay men who delight in fisting as well.

In Latin, the active lady in fisting, a fututor, engaged in futuere, and her female recipient was a puella engaged in futui or her male recipient was a cinaedus engaged in pedicari.  Get all that?  There are just as many for a man fisting another man or a woman.  If there was a word specific to penetrating with the hand as there is for penetrating with the mouth, perhaps historians have neglected to translate it because it was difficult for them to understand or they didn't think that was what the author was getting at. I feel fortunate to have copious words:  I once (accidentally) ran across a video of a white or olive skinned couple, with the man a cinaedus to the woman's futuere throughout.  At times she used a giant black dildo on him, at times her fist.  She penetrated him halfway to her elbow, no shit.  At first, I was so awed that I thought I'd watch it for the blog, but after a minute it made me uncomfortable.  It just looked painful, but clearly it was not painful to the parties involved.  I think I got the gist.

Then I dawdled, and lost the video, so I jumped on Xtube to find it again.  Man would my grandma not like to see the search results for the word "fisting" on Xtube!  Five thousand thirty nine videos.  That's not to mention the selection of Free HD anime fisting video offerings.  Sorry kids, no modern demonstrative today.

The point of the fisting article was that she makes lesbian porn and she can't film fisting because it's illegal in some states.  As a result, her contracts with her producers prohibit her from including it in movies.  She bemoans the "I know it when I see it" law of obscenity, particularly noting the role of a "community standard."  When this became the Supreme Court's controlling precedent, the intention was in fact to have those charged with obscenity to have the truth of that charge assessed by local peers, and even to have appeals courts apply that local community standard.

There was no Internet then. If porn is to be distributed on the Internet (and certainly by now the vast majority of it is), the community standard is "those who opt-into watching porn." Pretty sure that community's okay with fisting, at least if its presence is disclosed in advance. That's not to mention that someone out there has to want to spend their time charging you with obscenity.  The moral: if you want to make fisting porn, move out of Alabama and distribute it yourself on the Internet.  Apparently there are at least 5039 interested people.  I'm not that worried about it.

Geek out after the jump.

I'm more worried about the fact that humans have apparently been censoring lesbian sex for millennia:

This here is one of the original wall paintings of a room in the Terme Suburbane of Pompeii.  We know that it appeared in a bath with seven other images of sex acts, we don't know why it was made or really what purpose it served.  At one point, it was painted over with an image of a green curtain (I photoshop-dodged the figures).  All of this was before Vesuivius froze Pompeii in the first century AD.  The other images include male-female, male-male, and group sex.  Based on the skin color of the figures across images (long story), these are both women.  I can't see their hands, but they could be fisting.  They could also be fucking clit-to-clit.  Latin needs no word for this, in part because a formal writer wouldn't recognize its existence - no penetration.  But, I mean, there's some penetration.  And it's happening enough to paint it on the wall.

I can't figure out if the archaeologist just left this somewhat covered or the covering was oddly stronger at this point, but it makes for a fascinating image. Fist away, ladies.

Male Lesbians

Oh, Eddie.  What a classic.  Will you marry me?

I do believe I am a female fag (psst: you only get to use that word if you fuck people of the same gender) as Eddie is a male lesbian. I anticipate we spend equal amounts of time on our appearance. We could share makeup, even. But not the blue eyeshadow. I'd never worry about being taller in heels. It would be so glorious.

No Church in the Wild

    On Halloween, and for the week that precedes it, the streets of San Francisco fill with lunatics overjoyed to be free of their nine to five chains and bound by those they wear in the dark. A set of lovely skirted hips passing by sways to camouflage thick obliques consuming the uncurled waistline of an eighteen-year-old boy, but that’s normal for the Stro. Thirteen masked wrestlers in the space of a block and a half.  A cognizable portion of political statements. Body paint on men and women, cheeks and shoulders, asses and bellybuttons, nipples and cocks.  Feathers reaching to kiss upper-story windowsills, pink feathers, gold feathers, peacock feathers, actual peacocks. And, oh, the leather. You smell leather walking through the streets, laced with sweat and liquor and precum.  Some of the men shame New York’s best male models and Vegas’ best gigolos. In fact, it is a gathering of the largest proportion of good-looking, well-kept, in-shape, exposed beefcakes in such a small geographic area available anywhere in the world. But I see as many tits as cocks.  Women let their pussies hang out on days like this.
    This is now one of the City’s most covered parties, thanks to the costumes.  Furries. Soldiers. The obligatory cops (oddly hard to tell which are the real ones). Numerous people in boxes with various graphics, slogans strewn abreast. And boots! My see-through black boots with three-inch heels and laces look average. I look around expecting to see the aquarium-in-platform of I’m Gonna Git You Sucka.  There is no shortage of pimps. Purple pimps, mostly, though most of the cool colors make a pimpsuit appearance.  Eyes jump from the Obama mask on my right to the man’s ass in front of me, jump to the girl’s ass to his right, and catch the couple fucking in a fold of the building as I pass by.  Hundreds of people, every one in costume…or naked.  But that guy is always naked. I’m not yet stumbling into the friend in a cutoff pink tie-dyed and frayed t-shirt and covered by a denim vest that’s leading my way.  I do, however, have Jack Daniels in my Coke Zero bottle.

    Back in the day, this party was legendary even by City standards. Then someone got shot.  So, now Halloween in the Castro in one of the more muted festivals of the Season. One-thousandth of the size of Pride. One-hundredth the risqué of Folsom Street Fair.  The Gays of San Francisco made this, like all the others, into a day where everyone can walk outside and be proud of whatever it is they feel like looking like. And do drugs.

    I don’t want most of what some of these people want. I don’t want to be whipped, those lash marks look painful. I’m not turned on by fat ladies in leather corsets. I’m only tolerating checking out the chubby or deformed naked people because occasionally there’s a really hot naked guy.  And I do appreciate that.
    San Francisco did instinctively what the Internet had to be invented for Middle America to enjoy: the cloaked but exposed lagniappe you can’t whip out at work, whipped out, surrounded by folks who might enjoy it.  And oh, my, is this exposure. Because it feels good to just do what’s in your head.  And all the reasons they give us to forego that enjoyment are bullshit, thus we continue the bacchanalia. I’m thin on comforts at the moment, and looking around at all these people who seem fucking batshit makes me feel better about being crazy myself.  And it feels good to see other people who aren’t afraid of sex.   Can’t wait to see where this one leads.

Drama!

Summer in Shanghai boiled up a fever.

Two houses, alike in dignity, gathered to witness a union that would bind their great families together.  The bride prepared to step into the spotlight, stealing one last glance in the mirror to confirm her tiara sat upright on the crown of her head.  She breathed, once, twice, and began her journey down the aisle. But, as she stepped into the hallway, her maid of honor grabbed her hand, wide-eyed, and pulled her just outside.

She stood dumbstruck looking upon her betrothed, a male hand with a soft wrist stroking his jaw.

"What the fuck is this?" she said.

Two slim necks snap in her general direction.  No one speaks.

"What the fuck is this?" she repeats.

What is it?  It's the unintended consequence of endless hours packed into adjacent cubicles.  It's the lingering musk of boredom and longing. It's the giving in that happens when you just can't live the life everyone tells you you should anymore.  Then it's the late nights in dark bars chosen for remote locations.

It's the end of a conversation that started, what, a month ago?  A year ago? And it always went the same way:

Groom: "This can't be for real.  There are expectations.  I have to proceed as has been planned for me."
Dude: *Dissatisfied but still horny*

But this Dude ain't just dissatisfied no more.

What you see isn't so much what you get

British researchers with amusing accents recently suggested that your language not only effects how you express colors, but also how you perceive them. The best example: In Namibia they only have five color words.  There isn't a difference between the word for "green" and the word for "blue." So, when you show a Namibian a circle of blue dots with one green dot in it, it takes them a very long time to discover that there is one dot that is somehow different.  The words they had to use to describe color actually shaped how they physically saw that color, conceptualized it, applied it.

Imagine, then, the difference between growing up in a world (1) where you had and knew a word for each organ's insertion into each individual orifice that took into account the gender and active or passive status (check that Best Grid Ever post below) or (2) where you had the words "straight," "gay," "fuck," "cunnilingus," and "fellatio" to work with.  Obviously we grow up with a much smaller sexual lexicon than a Romans did, and as a consequence I think we fit the world we see into a much narrower descriptive framework, glossing over a shitload of details in the process.  We've lost/ignored the ability to conceptualize sex as neither "gay" nor "straight" because we don't have words for anything like that.  I shall now stick it to the rest of the English-speaking world by describing activities using the Latin words for them...

But, seriously - mind-boggling study.

Frenching

A friend of mine wrote an excellent book.  It's now a NY Times bestseller.  And that's encouraging for me, because its story is couched in the mentality that this little experiment espouses.

The book is French Lessons, and the friend is Ellen Sussman.  It follows three French language tutors and their students around Paris (literally, there are maps).  Perhaps because zey are French, or perhaps because Ellen and I have similar conceptions of the meaning of sex, everyone pretty much gets down with one or more of the other characters somewhere in the book. And this lady can write some sex.

Given that Ellen is the most happily married lady I know,  I am particularly impressed that she manages to wrap her head around the concept that some sex is just sex.  A few characters are married.  Sometimes married characters are devoutly faithful to their spouse.  Sometimes they are not.  And I love it.   Each sexual or near-sexual encounter is written to convey the purpose of that encounter.  Sex isn't always about love.  That's something the last 2000 years of Christianity have distorted.  Sometimes you just wanna get your freak on.  French Lessons gets that.  And Ellen was bitchin enough to keep a bit of this polyamority even when the man told her the public would be offended.

Here's to all the folks with the balls to say "I don't care if you're offended, this shit is good."

Priapus

My father bemoaned to me today the use of tax dollars to study behavioral correlation with penis size among gay men.  Not shockingly, men who have above-average cocks tend to identify as tops, while men with below-average penis size tend to identify as bottoms. While it's true that the organization that performed the study receives NIH grants, those grants are for tuition-like expenses related to AIDS research and weren't actually used to perform this study.

But, thank you, study, for noting oh-so-astutely the social pressures that can effect identification as top or bottom.  Priapus would be thrilled that you confirmed his status as sexual dominator (although I note that historians tend to assert that the classical world found smaller penises more attractive, if not more...er...pungent).  Permit me to submit a new query for your investigation.

I heard an amazing hook-up story from a female friend with what could only be termed a glorious ass.  I'll call her Pria for now.

Pria connects with a male friend of a friend at an event located in a hotel where she has a room, and she takes him upstairs.  As she shuts the door behind them he whips her around, lifts her dress, and starts tossing her salad. "I mean...if you wanna do that...that's fine with me...just don't kiss me after," she recounts, with more than a small smile on her face.  Fortunately no further kissing appears to have been requested.  He goes at the tossing for a while, and they continue removing clothing, engage in some more traditional petting, and make their way to the bed. To her surprise, as Pria begins to lay on her back, expecting to get penetrated, no doubt, she is AGAIN flipped over and tossing begins anew. This dude tossed twice.  That salad was hella dressed.

So I ask you, study authors, to analyze this man who flies in the face of every thought I've ever had about eating ass: (1) that it would never be totally voluntarily - at least some measure of situational coercion would have to take place and (2) that one would never toss the salad of a person whom they'd just met (honestly how would you know they weren't on the verge of an IBS flare-up?) Top or bottom?  Thx. Friends, tell me of the axis orientation of those who have tossed your salad, won't you?

Best Chart Ever

In his article The Teratogenic Grid, Holt Parker makes an excellent point. Perhaps it's an excellent point only if you are a nerd of ancient sexual cultures.

He makes he point that the Roman world did not base its "division of sexual categories on the axis of same versus other" as we do upon the axis of gender when we say "heterosexual" and "homosexual." Instead, they contemplated an axis of active and passive.

Our bifurcated categorization is "a rather parochial affair and a comparatively recent development even in the culture of the West." I love the word "parochial" here.

In other cultures (past and present) sexual categories are instead based on "age, social status, ritual category, or power relations and often cut across of simply ignore the biological classes of male and female." More than two genders are recognized in "various" cultures.  You can't make absolute choices about whether you like only boys or girls where some people are both, or decide to be "homosexual" or "heterosexual" if you are some measure of both.  But you can make choices about whether you're active or passive.

America ignores its intersex population in an offensive way. (My spell check just red-lined "intersex").  Estimates of the children born intersex range from .018-1.7% of live births, but it seems obvious that most intersex births are not reported and kids are often "corrected" at the discretion of some inhumane nongeneticist (Wikipedia agrees).  America has reached the point where it feels like it should tell ~576,000-5,440,000 of its citizens they aren't proper humans by not recognizing them as a natural part of our culture, and it's gross. And that's only the 576,000 to 5,440,000 Americans who outwardly exhibit both gender's organs, that's not even considering all the folks who have a little chromosomal swap going on.  But, I digress.

Holt Parker went on to build a grid to show how language worked when you had gender identifications (as male, female, or intersex) but where homosexual can only be an adjective that describes discrete and brief acts of one's life. And where homosexual and heterosexual acts can happen simultaneously or interchangeably, across and between class levels.  Different acts are taboo to Romans than to us. The lord, the lady, the soldier, the slave boy, or the other slave girls could fuck a slave girl and it was a-ok. No one thought anything of this because the slave girl's social status and gender computed to being passive - to being penetrated. The senator should never be penetrated, be passive.  Dirtying your mouth with a sex organ was not proper for anyone and would have been scandalous for the upper classes.    If some senator were found being passive at all, that would be an undue scandal.

The chart has two parts.  First, the active role:
------------------Vagina-----------------Anus---------------Mouth
Activity:         futuere                  pedicare                 irrumare
Person:           fututor              pedicator/pedico        irrumator

Notice the grammar depends upon the orifice, not the gender.  In a sense, this is because men are presumed to be active.  Male Roman writers were disincentivized from talking about active women. But I have seen almost all of these words applied to women's activity in primary sources.  When they are, the writer generally thinks something is awry. As Seneca said, women are pati natae - "born to be passive." Don't tell woman number 5 (I'm calling her "Sporty Spice" until she gives me a better nickname).

In the passive, gender categories return:

------------------Vagina-----------------Anus---------------Mouth

Activity:       futui                        pedicari             irrumari/fellari

Person:        

   male          cunnilictor      cinaedus/pathicus          fellator 

female          femina/puella       pathica                     fellatrix

     

They had one quick word for "one who [had/has/is having] cunnilingus performed on her by a mouth" to "one who [fucked/fucks/is fucking] a mouth" and another for "one who [sticks/stuck/is sticking] a cock into an ass." With those kind of words, an intersex person never has to search for how to describe herself/himself.

Early in my academic career I began to play in this space and it irrevocably destroyed my allegiance to the categories "homosexual" and "heterosexual."  This destruction was facilitated by the fact that I had entered my first relationship with a woman, during which I still fantasized about and hooked up with men.

I no longer believe in "gay" and "straight." As a consequence people often comment that I think everyone is "gay." More accurately, I think that most everyone might enjoy some measure of homosexual acts or relationships.  In a fraternity house, I think there's a lot of male-male love and sometimes some male-male blackout drunk sex to match.

If you made it all the way through that diatribe, email me at bacchus.paine@gmail.com so I can subscribe you to this blog.

Marlena's

At the corner of Hayes and Octavia, where the crack addicts of lower market clash with the hipsters of Hayes Valley, sits a very old bar run by an even older tranny named Marlena.

I would never profess to be recalcitrant about trannies - one of the funniest moments of my life was when one canoodled my little sister's boyfriend into rubbing his face against her thigh - but I was not prepared for Marlena's. Four magnificent transvestites, one a polynesian-themed glory who swung blue eyeshadow in a way I have seen no one else achieve, graced the bar, but they were the least remarkable of the clientele.  I was more taken aback by the presence of yuppy straight couples, or the "regulars" who spend every night at Marlena's but never remember that they have met my friend's dog (Marlena allows dogs) roughly twenty times. The berber carpet, the 80s music, the cutie bartender who looked like he might just be straight - the place looked at first glance like the perfect tranny dive bar.

That is, until I realized Marlena was a pedofile. Looking up at Marlena's this day in early July, we slowly noticed three separate alters to the Lord Harry Potter.  Marlena had every move poster ever printed pasted up on her grey concrete bar walls.  She also had a reproduction of the Elder Wand (yeah, I know what that is), a first edition of The Tales of Beedle and Bard (that I don't), little Harry Potter medals.  Most of her magazine cutouts featured the 11 year old Daniel Radcliffe, not his post-Equuis man-form.

A couple of the present trannies gave me eyes.  My Southern grandmother would never guess that some transvestites prefer fucking women.  Clearly Marlena is not one of them.  But they do.

The Second Axis

Kinsey missed something, I fear. For every analysis of persons 1 through 7 (one has already changed sexual course) there is an alternate consideration: Is she a top or a bottom? I'm purposefully abandoning the words "masculine" and "feminine" because they're about as helpful as "grey" and "pink" in actually conveying a concrete characteristic. As I know each of these persons quite well, I feel competent to make an initial assessment of where they sit on the second axis of an improved Kinsey scale. On the second axis, 0 is totally passive (bottomy) while 6 is totally active (toppy). I hope you all will correct me if I am wrong.

1. Man #1 is a 6 on the Kinsey scale, with no interest whatsoever in pussy (in fact, he harbors a bit of revulsion for pussy). Yet he is rather active, with some limited passive tendencies. I'm pegging him a 4.

2. Man #2 is a 5.5 on the Kinsey scale - he only likes black chicks, and otherwise is strictly dickly. He is rarely aggressive (which has the pleasant side effect of making him a very nice person). I'd guess he's around a 3, maybe 2. That's not to say he never tops, of course, this isn't about sex (I've never fucked him) but about how likely I imagine he is to throw the first punch at the bar.

3.Woman #3 is a 6 on the Kinsey scale. You would undoubtedly describe her to me as a universal top if you saw her in a bar, but honestly she's a mere kitten. I'm putting her at 2 despite her athletic ability.

4. Woman #4 is perhaps my greatest enigma. She's sitting squarely on Kinsey number 3 at the moment. Undoubtedly in bed she is topped often, but her personality strikes me more around a 4.

5. Woman #5 now sits pretty comfortably at 1 Kinsey-wise (at least she implied that when I tried to holla). But I challenge anyone to try to give her shit - she will school you. 6.

6. Woman #6 I'm putting at 4 Kinsey-wise, given her recent assertion that pussy is just SO much more compelling than cock. I wouldn't want to face her in battle, but her toppiness doesn't seem absolute. I'll put her right in the middle at 3.

Why do this? Other than making my friends hate me for their ranking, I'm hoping they'll correct me. When they do, I believe I can begin a graph I expect to take years to finish. Now to publicize. Anecdotes welcome.