Growing Up Queer: Captain Kirk, Chuck Heston and Wonder Woman

When I was young, I knew that I was different from other boys my age.  I was not quite sure, however, of the meaning or nature of that difference, but clues began to emerge mainly through my relationship to images of the dominant culture.  I distinctly remember at the age of 5 or 6 watching an episode of Star Trek in which Captain Kirk is shirtless.  He displays the required smooth chest of the period.  The episode revolves around an angry teenage boy named Charlie who has the habit of hurting people.  No matter, the important point is not the episode’s particular narrative, but the scopophilic pleasure of a half-naked, young William Shatner.  When I saw this image, I felt warm and tingly.  Of course,  I did not know what this sensation and feeling exactly meant.  And even though I liked it, I did know that I should keep such an emotion secret and only relish it in private.

Captain Kirk was my first boy crush and my first queer experience that foreshadowed all the fabulousness that was yet to come.  Now, don’t think I did not experience difficulty in coming to terms with my sexuality, but it never truly daunted or worried me, nor did I truly pretend to be something I was not.  In many ways, I cherished my difference and queerness at first when it was just a private adventure and then after I came out at the age of 18. 

Planet of the Apes, 1968, trailer

In the summer of 1975, having just turned 8, my parents and I moved to suburban New Jersey from Brooklyn.  That last summer in Flatbush, I discovered my second boy crush when I saw the maverick Chuck Heston as Colonel Taylor in Planet of the Apes.  The film was playing at a revival house along with the last movie in the Ape series, Battle for the Planet of the Apes.  The first Ape film is an amazing science fiction story which holds up well even today.  But for me, beyond the narrative of Earth’s future, it was the spectacle of  Mr. Heston with his beard and hairy torso that engaged me.  He became my new object of desire- a desire that has continued until today despite Chuck’s unfortunate “From my cold dead hands” remark about guns and gun control soon after the Columbine tragedy.

Needless to say, my fixation on Captain Kirk/William Shatner waned when confronted by the awesome image of Chuck Heston in Planet of the Apes, sweaty and naked, jumping into a lake near Ape City.  Captain Kirk cannot top Chuck either physically or in terms of acting ability.  Heston’s other films like the historical epic Ben-Hur and the film noir Touch of Evil along with his other scifi masterpieces besides Planet of the Apes,  Soylent Green and The Omega Man are all intriguing, good films.  And lucky for me as a young, queer boy Chuck’s films usually featured him shirtless at one moment or another.  His rugged handsomeness continued throughout his life unlike Shatner who got a bit pudgy and had that unfortunate hairdo, perhaps real, perhaps not.  But I digress…

Besides fostering my lifelong love of Chuck Heston, Planet of the Apes became one of my favorite movies because of the narrative and the impeccable ape makeup.  I had all the Planet of the Apes dolls, I mean action figures, and play sets that were produced.  With the dolls Cornelius and Zira,  I could not only reenact the story of Earth’s future, but also play house because of their humanity and the fact that they were married.  Playing house with dolls is a decidedly non-boy thing to do, but I was able to do it with my non-human, scifi couple. 

To achieve this end I built a 5 room doll house out of old cardboard boxes and scraps of fabric, wood, linoleum, wallpaper and carpet in order to shelter my simian lovebirds.  My parents to their credit did nothing to dissuade me from constructing my chimpanzee love nest and even helped out.  My mother assisted with the decor providing scraps of fabric, wallpaper and so on from the  decorating of her own house.  My father who worked in office furnishing at the time brought home pieces of leather and commercial carpet samples.  Cornelius and Zira’s living room featured an L-shaped sofa in a tan leather with burgundy leather trim. While such a decorating aesthetic horrifies my current 19th century sensibilities, it was the late 70’s and I was only 9 or so and had not yet developed my own sense of style and taste.  There was also faux wood paneling in Cornelius and Zira’s bedroom, a linoleum floor in the kitchen and every room had paintings and a clock on the wall cut out from magazines and catalogs.  This doll house was a testament to my queer ingenuity and creating it was a symbol of my secret life where Chuck wandered around bare-chested.

Also in 1975, I experienced a pivotal TV moment of my young life:  the debut of Wonder Woman starring Lynda Carter.  It is fascinating to me now how I constructed my queer identity through the images of the dominant culture  such as Captain Kirk, Chuck Heston, Planet of the Apes and Wonder Woman.  But, I  also redeployed these representations, giving them new meanings that directly allowed me to form a positive relationship to my own same-sex desire. 

Of course, I was not conscious of this process at the time, but I now recognize that these ideological representations hailed me as a queer subject as did negative images of homosexuality.  But the images I felt connected to were redeployed and refashioned for my own use.  This redeployment enabled me to construct a positive queer identity.  In other words, my chimpanzee dollhouse was not a source of shame, but pride even while I was conscious of the fact that it should remain a private pleasure while I was young and vulnerable.

Wonder Woman

When I first watched Wonder Woman, I loved when Diana Prince (the superhero’s alter-ego) transformed into Wonder Woman by spinning around in the midst of a big explosion and then emerging in her sexy red, white and blue patriotic outfit.  I would spin around in the backyard of my parent’s house and become dizzy. 

On one level, my obsession with Wonder Woman could be understood as adhering me to the dominant model of homosexuality current at the time in terms of gender inversion. Yet, it also resonates with other social and cultural definitions of homosexuality, particularly the ideology of the closet. Wonder Woman had an alter-ego, Diana Prince, who is normal in terms of physical strength and power and who conforms to prescribed norms of gender. Her true identity of Wonder Woman is her most closely guarded secret just as my desire (my true identity) to have sex with men was the secret of my childhood and adolescence. In a sense, Wonder Woman and I were both in the closet.

However, this closet was not occupied by guilt and shame. My fascination with Wonder Woman did not suture me to the prevailing ideology of the closet. In choosing Wonder Woman as a role model, I picked a figure who disrupted traditional notions of gender and proudly, powerfully and spectacularly displayed her difference.

For me, the figure of Wonder Woman allowed me to participate in dominant definitions of homosexuality, yet simultaneously she provided a figure for the conceptualization of my own desire and identity which was indeed positive and disrupted the negative discourse of same-sex desire operating at the time. It became in the words of Foucault a “reverse discourse”.

In my obsession with Wonder Woman, I desperately wanted a  doll of the superhero.  When I was growing up, Christmas gifts revolved around the big Sears catalog which had a large toy section.  When it arrived, I would peruse it for hours, deciding on what I would like for the holiday.  I would mark off items and then give the catalog to my parents who would select my presents from the things that I noted.  That year I marked off the Wonder Woman doll.  It was a small step outside my spectacular closet, but I did not get the doll that holiday.  Either my parents missed it because it was in the girl’s section of the catalog or getting me a Wonder Woman doll was crossing a boundary they wanted to maintain.  I guess a doll house made out of old scraps was okay, but a brand new toy meant for little girls was too obvious, too telling, too much.

Disappointed, but not defeated I was determined to have my own Wonder Woman action figure.  And that is when it occurred to me- ZIRA!  She was the only female doll I had, so she would become my Wonder Woman.  It was not a difficult conversion.  My mother and I had previously made some outfits for Zira out of old pieces of fabric.  The mauve dress cut shorter with the wide blue belt tied at the waist would suffice for her costume even though it was not as fabulous or patriotic as the original.  A little tinfoil at the wrists became her bullet repelling bracelets.  Tinfoil also fashioned her headband and a piece of thin gold cording became her magic lasso.  And Zira already had knee high boots in tan which worked just fine. 

The transformation was complete.  Zira became Wonder Woman of the Planet of the Apes, a simian superhero fighting injustice with her strength and fabulousness.  Zira would spin around complete with explosion sound effects and emerge from her drab olive green outfit into her spectacular mauve and blue ensemble with bullet proof bracelets, headband and golden lasso.

My deployment of Zira in the Wonder Woman narrative rather than the original story of Earth’s future was an example of the strength and resilience of my own queer identity in the face of the dominant fiction.  The dominant fiction does not allow boys to play with girl dolls and I had found a way to transgress that law.  The Planet of the Apes figure was repurposed in order to fulfill my own desire and thereby contributed to my growing up queer.

Many Years Ago 2:30am Sunday

 René Lalique, Rooster Hood Ornament, Courtesy of Chris 73, Wikimedia Commons

It’s 2:30am on a Sunday morning in 2001 or maybe 2002.  (These memories are a conglomeration of many “nights out” and not just one.)  I’m standing in a bar subtly called The Cock then located on Avenue A in the East Village, New York City.  I am sipping a Maker’s Mark and soda, watching cute boys moving through the large crowd and listening to music being played by the expert DJ whose name now escapes me.  The music is amazing and partly why I come to this bar.  It is a mix of rock, punk, 80’s, old skool, New Wave and rap.  I also come to The Cock because it is a liminal space of desire, sexuality, sex, queerness and debauchery.

The bar is somewhat sleazy, but not too much and in a good way: trashy go-g0 boys, some groping as you attempt to move through the crowd, boys kissing and boys flirting both sweetly and aggressively.  At one time, there was a dark backroom at the bar which increased the sleaze factor, but that was never to my taste- too impersonal, too anonymous and a bit dangerous.  Flirting, meeting a handsome boy, having a chat with him, sharing a drink, followed by some old fashioned kissing was always my thing that could lead to time alone with him or not.  If it were up to me, I would bring back the dance cards and cards of introduction from the 19th century: “Kelly T. Keating QUEER”

Drinking my strong bourbon and soda, I am watching the go-go boy who is dancing on top of the bar.  I gaze at him with disinterest.  He is a prop to occupy my time between bouts of flirting and changing my location in the bar.  He’s cute, toned and punky, but he’s really just a mover, not a dancer.  Yet, there is always a throng of boys who seem enthralled by his performance, no matter his skill of movement or what he looks like.  I guess they are responding to the myth (and sometimes reality) of the go-go boy:  his apparent sexual rapaciousness, his seeming willingness to have sex with you for the right price or the right drug, his local celebrity status and the sheer spectacle of an almost nude guy dancing on a bar above your head, his crotch in your face, accepting your dollar bills in his sweaty jockstrap.

At some point in this bacchanal towards its inevitable end at 4am, the master DJ plays “Fuck the Pain Away” by Peaches.  It was one of my favorite songs then  and is now in its combination of dance, rock, rap, humor and brazen, raw sexuality.  There is a vulgarity to it that is delicious; it resonates perfectly with the sexual liminality of The Cock.

Fuck the Pain Away by Peaches

The song begins with a hard beat and a prominent, dominating, almost distorted bass line which  I feel in my body when the volume is turned up.  The song is both sparse and dense in both its music and lyrics.  But, it is its angry almost desperate refrain of “fuck the pain away” which kicks me every time.  It is repeated over and over again like a mantra (It becomes form and/over content) needed to survive modern life and its inevitable cruelty.

Looking back, I went to The Cock to escape the sado-masochism of everyday life, its petty cruelties, disappointments and loses that have always greatly troubled me.  And of course I went to this bar to have fun, get a little tipsy, hear great music, flirt with boys and kiss them.  Both reasons are not exclusive of one another; one folds into the other.  Going there, was to suspend my daily existence and revel in a space of desire and freedom, not available elsewhere.  Even when there was rejection and disappointment at The Cock, it existed alongside and was ultimately superseded by feelings of abandon.   I never wanted it to end at 4am.  For me, it is the closest I will ever come to heaven.  Many years ago, then, that bar was a moment of joy and a rejection of the pain and drudgery of my daily journey.

All of us there to some degree or another wanted to “fuck the pain away”, to experience what Freud called the “little death” of orgasm when one is momentarily free, released, completely embodied in pleasure, beyond language, society and culture, beyond pain.  It is an instance of ultimate bliss.

Now, in 2010, there does not seem anywhere to go for me to fuck the pain away.  The Cock now on Second Avenue near Houston Street is still in existence, but it’s not the same for me.  I went once maybe 2 or 3 years ago and the guy getting fucked bareback in the corner was disturbing, upsetting and rifled my 19th century sensibilities.  No one there was looking to bring back dance cards or cards of introduction.  For me, the space was no longer queer, just filthy and not in a playful or transgressive way.  As the cliché says, “You can never go home again” or apparently to that bar that used to be my weekly joy and my respite from the horror of daily life.

Notes on a Photograph: A Sailor Named L.H. in 1912

 Photo Postcard of a Sailor named L.H. dated September 19, 1912

L.H. stands awkwardly almost embarrassed aboard the ship on which he serves as he poses for this photo postcard in 1912.  (A handwritten note on the reverse of the card tells me his name and the relative date the image was produced.)   Behind him are his shipmates, the huge chains of the ship's anchors and the sizable double barrels of a large gun turret.  It is unknown which ship he is on, but judging from the details of the photograph, it is a large vessel, probably a battleship or a cruiser. 

On board this mighty warship, L.H, a cute, skinny seamen with prominent ears, is wearing  a white middy blouse with a black kerchief, white bell bottom pants and a sailor hat worn high on his head and pushed slightly off to the right side.   He looks incredibly young, 17 or 18 perhaps.  He seems unsure exactly how to pose for the photographer although his face seems relaxed with a warm, friendly smile.  It's his body that looks uncomfortable. 

What do I do with my arms?  I have never had my picture taken.  I wonder what I will look like.  Did he take the picture yet? 

And perhaps unconsciously or consciously feeling slightly ill at ease in front of the camera, he instinctively clasps his hands together in front of his genitals in order to protect them or hide them as if he were actually naked.  It is an appealing pose.  L.H. looks approachable, sweet and unthreatening in contrast to the deadly firepower that is located behind him.

As a sailor, he expresses and embodies all the myths and realities of the SAILOR:  his strong sexual appetite, his girl in every port, the homosocial and homoerotic nature of his life aboard ship, his position as an object of homosexual desire, the sexual and commercial fetishization of his uniform and not in contradiction to all of this sexiness, his friendly appeal and approachable nature.  Herman Melville states eloquently the nature of the sailor in his novel White Jacket from 1850:

Like pears closely packed, the crowded crew mutually decay through close contact…Still more, from this same close confinement- so far as it affects the common sailors- arise other evils, so direful that they will hardly bear even so much as an allusion.  What too many seamen are when ashore is very well known; but what some of them become when completely cut off from shore indulgences can hardly be imagined by landsmen.  The sins for which the cities of the plain were overthrown still linger in some of these wooden-walled Gomorrahs of the deep.

Melville condemns the sailor’s actions, but simultaneously he seems to  relish his nature, his sexual rapaciousness both on shore and at sea.  Though the sailors may “decay” according to Melville, the author wants to know what goes on in the “wooden walled Gomorrahs of the deep.”  He is intrigued.  The White Jacket passage expresses not only Melville’s personal feelings, but also completely indicates all the denotations and connotations of the SAILOR in the 19th century, in 1912 and even today.

Therefore, myth and history with a long past swirl around L.H. as he poses on the deck of a great warship for the camera.  Intriguing and lucky for me and you, he wrote a short, fascinating yet cryptic note on the back of the postcard of his own photographic  image: 

Dear friend, This is not a very good picture of myself but it is the best I have at present.  We have no expert photographer on the ship so that these are the only kind we get.  Hope that this wont scare you out of sending me one of yourself.  We expect to get to (unreadable) sometime next week.  Hope to hear from you before then.  Yours sincerely, L.H.

This note enhances the visual awkwardness of the sailor’s stance.  L.H. does not think this picture really represents him very well.  He is afraid that the photograph (and his appearance) will “scare” his friend and cause him not to reciprocate with a picture of his own.  L.H. also informs his friend that the photographer is no expert, so don’t expect much and this is the only photo of himself that he has available to send.

Who is L.H. writing to in his note?  Who is his “friend”?  Is it a man or a woman?  Is it another sailor, a lover whom he met on shore leave while wandering through Riverside Park in New York City? In the early 20th century American naval ships dropped anchor on the upper Hudson River and sailors would therefore frequent Riverside Park.  Simultaneously in the  park, homosexual men cruised for se(a)men who often prostituted themselves at this time in order to make extra money to supplement their dismal income.

Was L.H. rough trade?  Or was he young and inexperienced and amidst the trees of the park he discovered his true self, his true desire?  Is this just my fantasy?  Is the note on the back of the  photograph and attempt to develop a new relationship that began in the park?

The note is at once impersonal, “friend”, “yours sincerely” and apologetic, “Hope that this wont scare you”, but also intimate and full of desire, “Hope to here from you before then.”  It is not written to a family member or someone L.H. knows very well.  The note is tentative, yet hopeful and secretive.  He signs it only with his initials.

Even though this 1912 artifact is a photo postcard, L.H. wrote on the entire back of the image and must have mailed it in an envelope to his friend.  But why?  To hide the note?  To hide his feelings and true identity from himself and others?

I’ll keep the note short and formal and not show my desire, how much I want him, how I covet him and his touch on my body.  Does my picture look okay?  Will he still want me?  It’s not my fault if I don’t look good…that damn crap photographer…He’ll understand won’t he?  But, will he remember me?  Will he send me a photograph of himself?  I want him so badly, but no one can know…I’ll just use my initials, he’ll know it’s me…

This small, seemingly insignificant piece of 1912 ephemera arouses my desire, just as L.H. on some level desires his friend.  It speaks to my own love of soldiers-of-the-sea and the way they look, so handsome and dead sexy in their middy blouse, crotch tight bell bottom pants cramped together aboard ship, men all alone at sea.  It is both a fantasy and a reality for me and them.

When I look at this photograph of L.H. I wonder what became of him and his life.  Did he spend all of his working life in the US Navy?  Did his ship see action in The Great War?  Did his friend send him a photograph?  Did he find love with this friend or someone else or was his life a series of assignations in Riverside Park or a girl in every port?  Did he endure?  Did he survive?  The photograph is opaque on all of these questions.  Still, it gives me a small glimpse of L.H.’s life and in that instance I enjoy a moment of bliss.

All Male “Live” Nude Revue

 Cops Raid Ring Selling Lewd Male Photos, January 30, 1959, Courtesy of Vintage Male Physique

Recently on Tumblr, I came across a January 1959 newspaper article about a police raid on a “pornography ring that peddled photos and lewd sketches of nude men”.  The article is a fascinating artifact of (gay) history and indicates how a mere 50 years ago the state sought to control homosexuality in part by sanctioning and criminalizing its images of desire.  In the article seven suspects were “booked on pornography charges.”  I wonder whatever happened to these unjustly prosecuted men: John P. Palatinus, Leonard Dunn, Walter Lowenthal, Frank Lowell, Gerard Finberg, Harry Krebs and Sidney Corn.  Through an internet search, I was able to find out information about only John P. Palatinus who produced some wonderful photographs such as this depiction of Jimmy Hale.

Jimmy Hale by John Palatinus, Courtesy of Vintage Male Physique

The illegal status of photographs of nude men as well as their producers and distributors in 1959 stands in marked contrast to today.  With the advent of the internet there has been an infinite explosion of both amateur and professional pictures of naked men alone and engaged in sexual acts with other men.  This astounding proliferation demonstrates how pornography which is as old as picture making itself adapts with great ease to the rise of a new technology.  Even with the development of photography in the early 19th century pornographic images quickly appeared along side more staid subjects from the very beginning.

Squeezebox! invitation mid-1990’s, New York City

But, has this ubiquity of pictures of naked men on the internet and elsewhere done anything to disrupt the dominant fiction and its representational system?  Turning men into sexual objects for the visual pleasure of other men and women has, I believe, done virtually nothing to change or challenge the prevailing ideology.  We all still live under a system in which there is a rigid binary opposition of male and female which ensures a compulsory heterosexuality.  This binary and its concomitant sexuality is enacted in part through the representational system of the dominant ideology, its phallic images and sounds within which a traditional male subject can find himself and assert his authority.  The presence and nature of these images of naked men alone and together represent a symmetrical discourse in image making that upholds the laws of gender and its heterosexual norm.  So while these depictions are now completely legal, the prevailing ideology still seeks to contain and domesticate them by adhering them to the rule of male (hetero)sexuality.

In my last blog post, “Same-sex Desire in the New Millennium: Identity, Assimilation and Subversion, I argued against gay assimilation as the only or most productive strategy for the Gay Rights Movement because in the end it does nothing to subvert the dominant fiction and works as a symmetrical dynamic much like the images of nude men on the internet.  (There are of course photographs and pictures that challenge the dominant fiction.  See my post on  this photograph by Ben Bale.)  I had hoped that this recent post on integration and subversion would foster some greater discussion.  I think such a consideration is lacking today in the gay community- a community often fractured by gender, race, class and sometimes sexual practice.  I do believe in marriage equality and the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, but what troubles me is the presentation of the gay community and its goals as monolithic.  And often this presentation is carried out by rich white men.  We all need to ask ourselves what does assimilation mean?  What are its ramifications?  Who benefits from it?  Who does it leave out?  How does it work to continue the boundaries and rules of the dominant culture?

Unfortunately, my recent post on these questions did not cause an increase in my blog traffic which is disappointing not only to my vanity (I want more people to read my blog), but also because I wanted to spark some debate.  Furthermore, although I already knew this fact, I was disheartened that often images of naked men alone and together (and women and women as well as men and women) is the prevailing currency of the internet.  Sites such as www.seancody.com and www.corbinfisher.com are just 2 examples of a particular type, the hot college boy, of the myriad of sites available to the spectator no matter your taste.  If I wanted a ton of blog hits quickly and easily, my blog at the start could have been a spectacular display of pornographic and semi-pornographic images of hot men. 

But as with all pornographic depictions, interest in them (especially for me) lasts until the cumshot and then it is discarded and forgotten or if you are lucky it survives, is hot, for another round or two.  Hence, in part, the continual need for ever more, ever newer images that are in the end more of the same.  This guy is hot, has a big cock, a tight, round ass and a nice smile, but so does the next guy and so on and so on.  (This photograph is different.  It is erotic.  It endures beyond ejaculation.)  This almost desperate and infinite need to depict the body, male or otherwise (for example amateur sites like www.guyswithiphones.com) is on some level an attempt to concretize the body, to demonstrate its “realness” despite its continual effacement by the technology which proliferates it.  It is a strange dynamic, an endless stream of electronic phantoms.

Moreover, sites like www.queerty.com and www.kennethinthe212.com while provide interesting and necessary gay news, issues and commentary always include a regular feature of “pin-up” images of men.  On Queerty there is a section called “Morning Goods”  and on Kenneth in the 212 there is “Morning Wood”.  Even on www.towleroad.com, a site which I admire for its persistent and strong coverage of stories important to gays and lesbians as well as its other eclectic posts, has its “Male Model Fix”, “Sportrait”, and other beefcake shots.  News and commentary are offered on these sites, but there is always a side of hot meat.

I, of course, enjoy looking at pictures of naked men alone as well as men having sex with one another.  I had pornographic magazines in ages past and even porn on that ancient image artifact VHS.  I don’t think pornography should be limited or sanctioned, but simultaneously for me most porn is ultimately boring and is simply a means to an end.

What does annoy me is how pornographic, semi-pornographic and beefcake images as well as sexual objectification are at times the lowest common denominator on the internet, driving it, making it spin, even on such sites like Queerty and Towleroad which I like and read daily.  So when my recent post, Same-sex Desire in the New Millennium... did not get more than average traffic I was honestly irritated.  My pride suffered a bit.  I wanted to encourage discussion about assimilation, subversion and same-sex identity in the 21st century and perhaps that will occur in the future.  (The post will exist forever.)  In the meantime, I will not be adding an all male live nude revue to The Great Within anytime soon.

Same-sex Desire in the New Millennium: Identity, Subversion, Assimilation

Caravaggio, Narcissus.  1594-96, oil on canvas, 43”x36”, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica in Rome

Assimilation and Subversion

Recently, on Facebook a friend posted the following quote by Françoise d’Eaubonne (1920-2005), a French feminist who introduced the term ecofeminism in 1974.  d’Eaubonne states, “You say that our task is to integrate homosexuals into society, while I say it is to disintegrate society through homosexuality.” This statement is a profound and thought-provoking criticism of the current strategy of gay assimilation which seems to be the primary goal of the Gay Rights Movement at this historical moment.  First and foremost in this strategy is the fight for marriage equality.  And indeed, if 2 men or 2 women wish to get married, their union should be legally recognized by the state and afforded all the benefits inherent in such a union.  Moreover, the repeal of the United States military policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is also important within the equal rights agenda.  Again, if a gay man or lesbian wants to serve their country in the military it should be their choice without fear of expulsion or harassment and with an honesty and openness about their sexual identity.

But as d’Eaubonne statement implies, what does it mean for men and women who desire the same-sex to be assimilated within mainstream culture and society?  Should the goal of the Gay Rights movement be symmetry?  Or should same-sex desire strive to foster a new social dynamic that could be described as horizontal rather than hierarchical which characterizes the present dominant fiction* under which we all must live and endure?

*The construction of sexual difference and the Phallus/penis (mis)equation occurs in what film theorist Kaja Silverman designates as the dominant fiction in her 1992 book Male Subjectivity at the Margins.  The term “Phallus” is understood here in terms of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. The Phallus is not an actual or imagined organ, but rather an unobtainable signifier which generates meaning. Despite the continual imaging of the Phallus/penis equation within culture, no one can really possess the Phallus because the subject is never at one with language, but always symbolically castrated. Traditional masculinity is predicated on the denial of this symbolic castration and the equation of the Phallus with its lesser anatomical stand-in the penis. 

Therefore, the dominant fiction can be understood as a representational system which “functions to arouse in the subject the conventional Oedipal desires and identifications” and continually depicts the Phallus/penis recognition.   Thus, the conventional (or positive) Oedipal scenario of the male subject is structured in terms of identification with the father (with his penis as Phallus) and desire for the mother. Such a model of desire and identification serves to foreground the rigid binary opposition of male and female, to ensure compulsory heterosexuality and to oppress straight women, non-heterosexuals and transsexuals.

Should gays and lesbians, should I as a non-heterosexual, in the words of d’Eaubonne “disintegrate society”, a society defined by the dominant fiction rather than integrate and assimilate into the very society that has long oppressed them/me  with dire consequences both physical, emotional and psychological?

Symmetry, assimilation and integration is for me not the answer for those who practice same-sex desire.  My position in no way disagrees with those gays and lesbians who seek to get legally married, nor those who want to serve openly and with integrity in the United States military.  What troubles me about the goal of symmetry is that it does nothing to restructure or undermine the dominant fiction itself.  In other words, even with assimilation, the binary terms of male/female, masculine/feminine, heterosexual/homosexual, gay/straight will continue to be enforced in which the first term is continually privileged over the second term.

Writing in 1984 Kate Linker in her essay “Representation and Sexuality” states: 

The prevalence of these images (art, advertising etc), their power in prescribing subject positions and their use in constructing identity within the patriarchal order indicate that an exemplary political practice should take as its terrain representation, working to challenge its oppressive structures. However, these discoveries have also revealed the inadequacy of the equal rights or gender equity strategies that informed cultural politics of the seventies. These strategies, based in the elimination of discrimination and in equal access to institutional power, in no way account for the ideological structures of which discrimination is but a symptom…they aim to recover in the direction of complementarity and symmetry, the structured appropriation of women to the order of the same, to the standard of masculine sexuality.  They leave untouched, in this manner, the integrated value system through which female oppression is enacted.

In her essay, Linker is focusing on the struggle for gender equality, but her argument could similarly be applied to the movement for sexual equality.  Symmetry does not account for nor does it undermine the “ideological structures”  (the dominant fiction) which produces the discrimination and oppression of women, non-heterosexuals and transsexuals in the first place.  These are just byproducts of the those very ideological structures and simply solving them with complementarity does not produce real change.

For example, in recent years with the rise of the metrosexuality and the greater visibility of same-sex desire in popular culture, men have become desired objects of the gaze in advertising, art etc. and are no longer just the traditional bearers of the look.  Yet, is this equality?  Does a male pinup account for the centuries of female objecthood? One might look at the way in which advertising that depicts a male object simultaneously recoups this object as a  subject in the end, so that the Phallus/penis equation is resutured and unbroken.  Symmetry does not account for the very structure of representation itself which is based on a privileged male subjectivity that in turn denigrates the feminine, women, homosexuals, lesbians and transsexuals.

Some gay men and lesbians no matter what rights of equality will be gained will be defined by and will still define themselves by this “standard of masculine sexuality”.  For example, the need for many gay men to develop hypermasculine muscular bodies is  in one sense the result of an ideological system in which masculinity is already the favored term within society.   These men seek to transform themselves into a somatic Phallus.  Such a practice exhibits a degree of homophobia and misogyny that propagates a notion of masculinity as natural and biological instead of an authorized construction within the representational system of the dominant fiction.

Identities and Designations

Despite the radical nature of  d’Eaubonne’s position, she deploys an antiquated term, “homosexual”, in order to designate those individuals who practice same-sex desire.  Homosexual is a 19th century medical term that made its first appearance in 1869.  Within this medical model, homosexuality is understood as a disease, as a problem to be fixed and eliminated.  The use of this term also signals the binary heterosexual (which first appeared in 1892)/homosexual in which the first term is coded as normal, positive and phallic in the language of the dominant fiction against the second term which is constituted as abnormal, negative and feminine.

d’Eaubonne’s use of the word  “homosexual” signals how important it is to define ourselves against the definitions of the prevailing ideology.  Homosexual is a historical term/model which has nothing to do with my life or other men like me in the 21st century, although the word is continually used and interchanged with “gay”in the popular media and culture, but they are certainly not equivalent.

“Gay” belongs to another historical moment.  It was used for the first time in 1920 to refer to same-sex desire usually within a subculture context, but continued generally to mean “carefree” and “happy” until the mid-20th century.  At this time, it was also an antonym for “straight” meaning respectable and indicated unmarried or unattached individuals.  Other connotations of frivolousness and showiness in dress led to a connection with camp and effeminacy.  These connotations  served in part to redefine the term to indicate same-sex desire.  By the 1960’s and with the rise of the Gay Liberation Movement, gay definitively came to be understood as expressing same-sex desire by those individuals who enjoyed that desire and by the wider culture.  Gay came to mean more than just a male individual who has sex with other men, but constituted an entire (fictive) community with its mores and customs who were now beginning to demand their equality that symbolically began with the Stonewall Riots of 1969.

I am QUEER

How we name and define ourselves is vital in our relationship to the dominant fiction.  For me, gay now serves to designate a particular segment of our (fictive) community, namely rich white men who sometimes adhere to the specific corporeal paradigm of the muscle body.  They favor assimilation through marriage equality, the repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and so on.  I was never comfortable using this word to identify myself.  I always felt and still feel like the other’s other.  I would often call myself post-gay. 

When I first moved to New York City in 1990 after graduating from college, I felt alienated from the (gay) life I saw and experienced in the city.  It was not until the mid-1990’s that I discovered my own space of same-sex desire in the fin-de-siècle nightlife of clubs like Squeezebox! and Foxy.  These clubs were liminal spaces of rock and roll, punk and New Wave that sought to undermine and subvert the rules of gender and sexuality enacted by the dominant fiction.

At Squeezebox! queer bands and dazzling, awe inspiring drag performers like Mistress Formika, Sherry Vine, Justin Bond and Joey Arias rocked out in an end of the century eroticism, debauchery and revelry. 

Mistress Formika Squeezebox! 7th Anniversary 2001

 

Sherry Vine Squeezbox! Anniversary 2001

 

Justin Bond & Lily of the Valley Sing Bowie at Squeezebox

At this end of the millennium club all subjectivities were accepted and celebrated; you didn’t need to remove your shirt, display huge pecs and guns and dance to mindless, endless dance music to have fun, to belong or to be desired.  Squeezebox! was a collage of conversations (G___ and T___), gropes (as you moved through the crowd), sights (cute, punk go-go boys and girls), spectacles (the night Joey Arias embodied Klaus Nomi in tribute to the dead artist), alcohol (Maker’s Mark and club soda), desire, coveting, kissing (random boys) and sexual assignations (S___ with his entire back tattoo and a pierced cock) that will always remain meaningful to me because it was there that I for the first time embodied myself fully and had a fucking fantastic romp every Friday night.

So, in the end of the century malaise and decadence of Squeezebox! and Foxy where lewd abandonment and erotic merrymaking took place,  I favored the word “queer” to identify myself.  Culturally and personally,  it was an attempt and a fairly successful one to recoup a word of derision and negativity and instead transform it into one of empowerment and meaning.  But like gay, queer now seems to me to belong to a historical moment of the 1990’s, to my youth, to my graduate school studies, and  to the specific places where I once caroused.

I still from time to time find queer a useful and provocative way to define and describe myself as outside the mainstream.  (Or is that just nostalgia?)  It expresses a way of looking that is not conventional, a way of seeing beyond the surface, a certain critical consciousness in regard to life, society and culture.  My recent post about my tchotchkes of teenage boys on the telephone is a clear example of this understanding.  To most people, these figurines are nothing items: cheap kitsch, made in Japan and probably sold in Woolworth’s for 30 cents.  To me they are  perverse artifacts of the late 1950’s, early 1960’s, a queer item that does not correlate with the dominant fiction and in a small way challenges the definitions of masculine and feminine at a time when such terms were even more rigidly characterized than they are today.

Thus, queer, for me, extends  beyond just my sexual orientation, to a certain weltanschauung.  It enables me to be conscious of my other identities as well: white, male, raised in a upper middleclass suburb and overeducated.  This awareness I hope enables me to be respectful of other’s difference in that I never take for granted my whiteness, my class and my gender.

Barbara Kruger Untitled 1986

Vexed/Vext

Though I like queer, it still feels to me in the end to belong to an earlier historical point in my life.  In his former blog The Gay Recluse. the writer Matthew Gallaway (His intriguing, debut novel The Metropolis Case is coming out in January 2011.  Look for it!) sought to go beyond gay and queer and proposed rhetorically and polemically a new term for non-heterosexuals: vexed/vext.  He writes:

While many of you may or may not agree, in either case (0f gay and/or queer) we suspect you’d like to challenge us to come up with something better. After all, these terms have many decades of history/study behind them, and it’s possible to envision a day 100,000 years in the future when they might be entirely divorced from the superficial/derogatory meanings from which they originally arose.

Our solution is vexed.

1. irritated; annoyed: vexed at the slow salesclerks.
2. much discussed or disputed: a vexed question.
3. tossed about, as waves.
4 [Proposed as of 2k9]. non-heterosexual…

Seriously, how much more ‘empowering’ and — especially w/r/t definition number three — poetic is ‘vexed’ than any other alternative? It’s basically like saying: ‘Don’t fuck with me/us,’ while maintaining a certain and appropriate degree of intelligence and impatience (but not anger or violence, which we don’t support) for mainstream convention that frankly needs to be a hallmark going forward in any interaction with those str8s who don’t ‘get it.’

I think the meaning of vexed suits me at this particular instant.  There is a lot of shit to be bothered about right now.  In fact, I am beyond annoyed; I am angry.  The lack of health care reform, the continuing economic problems, the ongoing wars, no national marriage equality are all vexing me.

But beyond my anger, I definitely respond to the poetic and poignant definition of vexed as “tossed about, as waves.”  It engages my melancholic German nature.  It gives expression to how I and others under the terror of the dominant fiction are continually “tossed about” and must resist the ruling ideology’s attempts to deny me, to denigrate me, to silence me.  I am vext.

Additionally, “tossed about, as waves” implies a random fluidity of movement and an unfixed position.  To name oneself vexed/vext is to resist the strict categorizing  that is needed by mainstream culture  for it to function and to enact its laws.  This notion relates to the impossibility of the single self or identity no matter how much bourgeois ideology has tried historically and presently to place each of us in a particular category.  Just think of Richard von Krafft-Ebing’s Psychopathia Sexualis published in 1886.

In contrast, we all have many selves:  our identity with family, our identity at work, our identity with a lover, our identity with a stranger, our identity in the deepest, darkest night.  We are all fragmented, “tossed about, as waves” no matter how much the prevailing culture wishes to constrain us and even at times when it succeeds in this task.

I am vext.

Informe

This concept of fragmentation and fluidity could relate, I believe, to the French writer and philosopher Georges Bataille’s concept (0r more accurately anti-concept) of the informe, loosely translated as formlessness.  Bataille writes:

A dictionary begins when it no longer gives the meaning of words, but their tasks.  Thus, formless is not only an adjective having a given meaning, but a term that serves to bring things down in the world, generally requiring that each thing have its form.  What it designates has no rights in any sense and gets squashed everywhere, like a spider or an earthworm.  In fact, for academic men to be happy, the universe would have to take shape.  All of philosophy has no other goal:  it is a matter of giving a frock coat to what is, a mathematical frock coat.  On the other hand, affirming that the universe resembles nothing and is only formless amounts to saying that the universe is something like a spider or spit.

The informe is an anti-concept, a concept with no edge or circumference and thus, it does not purport nor does it have the ability to explain the world, the universe.  The universe as Bataille states does not take form/shape.  It is “nothing and is only formless…something like a spider or spit.”  The informe represents a horizontalization of categories, hierarchies and definitions and therefore, it is a challenge to the dominant fiction.  Formlessness is the “disintegration of society” that d’Eaubonne calls for as the role of same-sex desire rather than integration.  The informe is a revolution.

And how this is ultimately done I am not sure, but a critical and intelligent consciousness is  a good starting point.  But it does mean that while the goal of the mainstream Gay Rights Movement is assimilation, I as queer, as vext must be conscious of and resist (while still being under its control) the perverse system we are meant to  join.  The original pioneers of Gay Liberation, the drag queens, the trannies, the leathermen are being marginalized within the community at best or at worst they are being told to tone it down, so as not to ruin it for the rest of us.  Such actions are shameful.  What is truly needed is an embracing of the informe, of formlessness, in which categories, definitions and hierarchies of desire are shattered and “squashed…like a spider or an earthworm” so that many subjectivities and many desires can exist and live with peace, love, dignity and respect.

Peacocks on Ice

At the end of the 18th century an important event occurred in the history of men’s clothing.  Men changed their mode of dress from the sartorially splendid and elaborate to a more restrained sense of style which continues to this day with the dark suit, white shirt and subdued tie.  This change in the appearance of men’s clothing is called The Great Renunciation and historians believe that the origin and reason for this change is the French Revolution of 1789.  One of the functions of male sartorial display was to designate the wealth and social status of the nobility in the ancien régime.  With the Revolution and its slogan of Liberty, Equality Fraternity, these distinctions of privilege came to an end and a new mode of dress was required and thus, The Great Renunciation took place.

Comte d’Angiviller 1763, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

So, in contrast to the still ubiquitous dark suit which began with the French Revolution, in what context is it permissible for men to dress like peacocks and display an luxurious dress sense like Comte d’Angiviller as painted by Greuze.  Well, there are drag queens, but this choice is not quite right.  Perhaps, some rock stars would qualify, but maybe Ziggy Stardust was the last and greatest of that breed. There is still a great sartorial display in the military, particularly in dress uniforms and especially those uniforms worn by European soldiers.  Just think of the uniform of the Beefeaters in the Tower of London or the  Foot Guards that protect  Buckingham Palace. What man wouldn’t want to wear an 18 inch tall bearskin hat made from the real skins of Canadian Brown Bears with a striking scarlet tunic and a white buff leather belt?  Does the hat come in white?  I think that would be more slimming.

Apparently now, male figure skating is another modern arena in which men can wear lavish and elaborate outfits that are all about peacock display and over the top visual appeal.  Like the soldiers that guard Buckingham Palace these outfits are task oriented clothing.  One wouldn’t see these clothes on your average Wall Street executive donning the dark suit of The Great Renunciation.

It should be noted that I am not a die-hard fan of men’s figure skating.   I will watch it now that the Winter Olympics are on, but if there’s a Golden Girls rerun on another channel, there is no contest.  And for full disclosure, I have been to a few ice shows, but I’m not a fanatic nor was going to such a spectacle my idea.

I am, however, interested in the way in which same-sex desire is deployed within mass culture and the popular media.  A January 17th article in the New York Times on male figure skating costumes entitled “Birds of a Feather Wear Bad Costumes Together” not only deploys a fairly obvious undercurrent of homosexuality, but it also manages to register a trace of homophobia.  This homophobia is combined with the idea that same-sex desire is in a sense inimical to the United States and harkens from somewhere outside its borders.

The article uses several “code” words to imply homosexuality without ever naming it  (The love that dare not speak its name) through its descriptions of  the skater’s flamboyant costumes which the story concludes is bad for the sport.  First, the title “Birds of a Feather” immediately refers to the film La Cage aux Folles with its gay narrative and outrageous drag queen character and her equally fabulous outfits.  Other connotations of homosexuality appear throughout the article.  The Broadway musical “Gypsy” is referenced as if the costumes of male figure skaters belong more to the realm of the burlesque and its strippers rather than on the ice.  The costume department of The Metropolitan Opera House is also cited as a way of describing the relatively new showy costumes for male skaters and we all know how much certain ‘mos love opera and a good Broadway musical.

Old time skating veterans, Jef Billings, a costume designer for such skaters as Dorothy Hamill and Peggy Fleming, and Dick Buttons who won the gold medal in figure skating in the 1948 and 1952 Olympics wearing a “classic tuxedolike costume” comment on the new costume trend and they are not happy.  (There is certainly a generation gap operating here.)  Billings states, “I think it’s hurting the sport.  Sometimes you feel like you’ve gone to the circus instead of figure skating.”  Similarly Bottoms states, “Sometimes I feel caught in a wind tunnel in the costume department of The Metropolitan Opera House.”

Billings would like to see the skaters dressed in a “sports uniform, so the technical skill of a skater can be judged simply according to athleticism, line and technique.”  The implication of Billings’ statement is that the fussy, extravagant costumes seen today “feminize” the male skaters and their abilities.  The corporeal wholeness of the skater (masculinity within the dominant fiction) as well as what the article terms his line and his performance (athleticism and technique) are compromised or disrupted by the costume he chooses to wear.  And indeed, the question should be why do current male skaters adopt these type of costumes if they really take away from the skill of their performance?  Obviously, they have control over what outfit they wear on the ice and if they want to be a peacock on ice, why not?

The NY Times article answers this question as well.  “The current outlandish phase is an emulation of the Russians and their one-piece, rhinestone studded costumes.”  According to Billings, Aleksei Urmanov, the 1994 Olympic champion wore “more ruffles than a Marie Osmond Collector doll.”  So, this corruption and feminization of United States male figure skaters comes from outside the country.  This sentiment is not quite xenophobia, but it relates historically to how homosexuality/homophobia were deployed by the nation state as a way to promote its own nationalism and psychologically attack its enemies.  For example, in 19th century France male same-sex desire was referred to as “le vice allemand.”  This link between homosexuality and Germany intensified during the 1908 Eulenberg Affair when the court of Kaiser Wilhelm II was beset by a homosexual scandal.

Illustrated front cover of Armand Dubarry, Les Invertis (le vice allemand) (Paris: Chamuel, Editeur, 1898). The illustrator is uncredited.  Courtesy Gerard Koskovich.

What I am suggesting with this French/German historical example is that the NY Times article explains the ornate costumes now being worn by American male figure skaters as being precipitated by the Russians, by a foreign other.  In this explanation, there is a collapse in a sense between foreign and homosexuality in which same-sex desire is seen as something which comes from outside the United States to threaten or at least feminize and compromise American male figure skating, masking the line, athleticism and technique of the skaters because of their extravagant Russian inspired costumes.

The leading American proponent of this costume trend, the grand peacock of male figure skating, is of course Johnny Weir.  Weir says in regard to his outfits, “Too much is never enough.”  His Olympic short program costume was a dazzling mixture of black, pink, sheer fabric, ruffles and straps.  According to the NY Times article, “The skating world is of two minds about Weir; drawn to his singular personality and graceful style, concerned that his showiness will overwhelm the appeal of his performance.”  To me this statement sounds like straight people (and some gays) telling certain non-heterosexuals to tone it down and not be so flamboyant in order to gain equality or perhaps a gold medal.

In writing this post, I realize that some readers may think I have overanalyzed the Times article, that I am being too sensitive, too queer.  I would argue that as a queer/vext individual I am very attuned to the way in which homosexuality is portrayed and deployed within popular culture.  The article in the Times has a tinge of homophobia and it also plays on  an old strategy of finding a foreign other  (in this case our old enemies, the Russians) to blame for the changes in the costuming of male figure skaters and the dire consequences that holds for the (masculine) integrity of those skaters.  In the end, for me, the more peacocks on the ice, the better.

Maruyama Ōkyo, Peacock and Peahen, Hanging Scroll, Color on Silk 1781

My Cabinet of Curiosities: Teenage Boys on Telephones

I recently came across a wonderful blog called The Haunted Lamp which describes itself as “a collage about the unusual for the eccentric. It includes objects, design, art, ephemera and spaces -usually with a unique vintage twist. Expect to see the sculptural, eerie, humorous, magical, and the little bit queer.”  Well, being a bit eccentric myself and more than a little bit queer, it appealed to me immensely especially this post about a Russian figurine of sailors and this other post about sailor cocktail napkins from the 1940’s.  The one napkin depicts a sailor who rides a carousel horse with great enthusiasm.  It reminds me of how representations of sailors are given greater freedom in culture because of the long history of their sexual ambiguity.  I doubt one would see a napkin with a marine riding a carousel horse with such unbound joy.

The Haunted Lamp has inspired me to dig into my own cabinets and draws and reveal some of my curiosities that are also a little bit queer.  When I saw the Russian figurine of the two sailors on The Haunted Lamp, I was reminded of 3 porcelain figurines of teenage boys in my vitrine from Japan made by the J L Co. and  probably dating from the 1950’s or early 1960’s.  Items like these figurines were sold in store such as Woolworth’s for very little money.  What makes these small figurines ( 2.5”x3”) a little bit queer is the fact that the boys are all on the telephones.  Two are speaking on the phone and one is seemingly just picking up the receiver as if the phone has just rung.

In the mythology of the phone and the culture of the teenager which emerged after World War II, was it not teenage girls who were always on the telephone especially while they were babysitting?  These three figurines represent a minor disruption of the gender norms and rules of the dominant fiction.  Boys are not supposed to be obsessed with the phone.

 

All the boys have that 50’s/60’s clean cut collegiate look: with  crew cut hair, a sweater, loafers and white socks.  Their mainstream appearance makes their gender transgression all the more tantalizing and appealing as if we are witnessing a secret conversation.  Who are they talking to on the phone?  A girl or perhaps another boy? What are they talking about?

And what I also love about these little sculptures is the fact that all the boys are sitting on the floor while using the phone.  Sitting on the floor seems like such a teenage phenomenon, the space of the young.   The boy in the orange pants, for example, has his legs up at an angle as if propping them up on  the invisible wall or couch. 

 

I often wonder too who was the intended consumer for this small treasures.  Certainly not, teenage boys.  Perhaps teenage girls.  And I wonder when they looked at these figurines did they sense their difference, their queerness?  One can only imagine, but I am glad that these 3 boys now reside in my apartment.