Putting Porn Into Perspective

Sorry about the alliteration there in the title. Ah, the poetics of porn.

I guess I said a lot--perhaps too much--on the subject of gay porn in my last post. I'd like to break it down and come to a conclusion on the subject.

We're a group that is defined by sex. But what happens when the group is broken down into categories of sexual taste? I mean, twink, bear, and "straight-acting" gays now have their own culture. They are gay plus. What happens if these categories become something more? Could we see a new language form to separate the bears from not only the mainstream straight culture, but from the other types of gays?

One final thought: I just looked back at what I'd written and I'd like to revisit what I'd said about barebacking porn. It made me uncomfortable to read what I'd written because the truth of it is unsettling. I am in no way supporting it. I know there are people out there who get off on barebacking and the danger of possibly getting infected during unprotected sex. There are also infected men out there who get off on infecting non-infected men. I'm not about that at all. To me, those homosexuals hate themselves. They hate being gay so they get infected and infect other self-hating homosexuals.

All of you smart homosexuals out there know that sex can't be had without protection.

Porn is fantasy. But is it something more? If I watch porn that has a lot of kissing and "loving", I think to myself, this is important to see. Kissing, especially. Kissing is a form of affection. It represents a natural sort of love and tenderness. Fucking is lust. It puts homosexual desire into action. So gay porn with kissing and fucking becomes something more to me. It becomes a weapon. A freedom. The act of fucking may be absent of love, but the expression is not. Does that make sense? I don't know. It's fucking, right? People getting paid to fuck. It's prostitution, right? Or is it something more?

My NSFW Post

Today's topic: Porn. That's right, folks. Gonna get down and dirty on the down and dirty. Say what.

So, I look at porn. (Shrugs, turns bright red.) I hate to admit it, honestly. But M.T. lives in California now. I see him every 4-6 weeks. What am I to do? I needs to see naked mens from time to time. Cut me some slack.

Finding good porn is quite the search. It takes time. First, you have all the websites or blogs to sift through and then it's onto trolling the categories to find the type of man or situation you want to see. It's quite an exhausting process. For all you unfamiliar, here is a break down of the categories of gay porn:

Twinks

If I were in my twenties, or barely legals, and if I were needing money for my heroin/cocaine addiction and were molested as a child, I probably would have ended up in someone's basement to make this sort of porn. Fortunately, I never had an addiction I couldn't afford and I never was molested, so I wound up not in the porn biz. Any way. Twink as we know is a fit, slim/slender young man with little to no body hair. Usually, 18-22 in age, but really, some of these kids look barely legal. It's a bit disturbing. Side note: I hope that M writes a post one of these days on X/Y Magazine. That magazine is geared towards educated, old men. Have you read the articles?

Mature

Sadly, this means 30 plus. Yep. The porn category I'd be in today. Depressing.

Bears

OK. I have a secret. I look at bear porn. For the most part, I look at it because it fascinates me. And I really want to see men. Twinks and athletic men bore me to tears. Seriously, if you want to kill my boner give me a man with a shiny face, shaved chest, and over-pruned eyebrows. If I wanted a girl, I'd be straight. Back to bears. These fellas are masculine and celebrate their masculinity. Good for them. Let the hair grow, in every and all places and not be ashamed. Well done. The problem I have with the bears besides the hair growing in every and all places would be the grunting. Even the grunting is over-exaggerated. I watch these men fuck and I do feel like I'm at Lincoln Park Zoo watching the real bears fuck. It's quite comical. If you need a good laugh, find yourself some bear porn.

Jocks/Studs/Hunks/Muscles

What is up with the "straight"-acting gays? Or the straight man being turned gay fantasy? This is the most popular category of gay porn out there. These men. All they do is fuck and go to the gym. I hate them. I also hate their dumb ass tattoos.

Another thing I've noticed in the "straight"-acting gay/straight boy turns fag fantasy: Blindfolds. Usually, the men fucking or being sucked wears a blindfold so he doesn't have to look at man sucking or asshole he is fucking because if he were to see what he was doing that would validate his homosexuality. What doesn't make sense to me is the man that wears a blindfold to suck a dick. Hm. Uh, you don't see the dick in your mouth, so that's okay?

Also, one last thing on this porn. It is my least favorite, yet there are so many awful elements I must share. Men will flip a coin or draw a card from a pack of playing cards--so if one man gets a Queen and the other man pulls a 5, the man with the Queen (higher card) is the penetrator. And the man who has to get fucked always looks or acts disappointed. Bizarre.

Bareback

Very controversial. I mean, this is quite frightening. Yet, I'll be honest, and I'm very very ashamed to it admit to this: It's a turn-on. And I'm sure it's the element of danger that's the turn-on here. The fantasy is to be able to because in reality you can't.

Thugs and Gangstas

Black gay men are referred to as 'gangstas' and 'thugs' in gay porn. I may have to write a separate post on gay black representation anywheres because it's really fascinating to me. And it needs to be addressed.

Orgy

Never look at this porn. One cock is plenty. I would have an anxiety attack if there were more than one.

OK. I could go on, but I won't. I'll not even touch fisting, facials, gloryholes, pissing, scat play, and all other weird crazy shit. Won't go there.

There you have it. The ins and out of the ol'in and out. Perhaps I'll write a follow-up/or part two to this post with a proper conclusion.

I'll be seeing M.T. in two or three weeks. Till then. Keep jerking, bitches!

Howdy, Partner

So, I've been with M.T. for more than two years now, and we're at the stage where I find it odd to refer to him as a boyfriend. We're not boys. We're both in our thirties. We're men. We're two men who are in love and who have been together in a committed relationship for more than two years now--so what are we to refer to each other as?

There are a few options and I hate them all:

Partner

It feels strange saying it out loud. I used it once for the first time a week or two ago and I thought to myself: Do they know what I mean by that? Or do they think of M.T. as a business partner? Or maybe they think we moonlight as detectives? Or perhaps they'll think about our collection of Country-Western shirts and assume we're cowboys. I don't know. I don't like it. It doesn't mean love to me. It's partnership. It feels cold and business-like.

Life Partner

Don't like it at all. It's very science fiction. In robot voice: He. Is. My. Life. Partner. Or maybe it's too lesbian. Not sure. It doesn't work. It sounds like robot and smells like granola. Next--

Significant Other

Yeah, let's emphasize other, shall we? No thanks.

Husband

Well, gay marriage is illegal and all, but we could have a commitment ceremony or whatever gays do and pretend marriage and then what are we? I refuse husband because husband is what straight people use. Can't do it.

Any ideas? I guess we'll have to create something. We need a gay language. That's what we need. There has to be some level of separation from the straight world.

That's a whole other blog.

What we need is a leader

Is it not being educated? Is it self-hatred? Why is this happening?

There was a time that I had referred to myself as a homophobic homosexual. Some people may still claim that I am. I'm not a homophobic homosexual. I don't hate my people. I just wish my people would stop doing stupid shit. Stop doing what is expected of you. Yeah, most people want to see us die. I remember my uncle (who was 18 at the time, I was 9 or 10) saying to me, God made AIDS to kill fags because they're sinners. He wrote an article about it in the school newspaper. This must have been 1986 or 1987. I will never forget him saying that to me. How can I forget? It wasn't just my uncle. We've all heard hateful things being said from ignorant people.

My advice to the gay community: Live. Be here. Speak your mind. We can't be dying off. We need to take over. Be seen as much as possible. Anywhere. Everywhere. The more we're seen, the more normal it becomes.

We need leaders. We need another Harvey Milk. We need someone to take charge of the community. To speak up and bring us together. We're not together. We can care less about each other. This is why we infect each other. Killing each other off. It's what they want. It's what they expect.

Sorry, I got a little angry there at the end. I'm just exhausted.

Maybe I do like football

Cruising for a Bruising

First, we get this piece of shit and now this.
I'm thinking we should go back to the golden age of film and bring back the catty sissy character who is often found backstage hemming some actress' dress (and secretly wanting to be that actresses, so that he can wear the dress). Or maybe we should go back to gays being represented as sick, demented, cross-dressing serial killers.

Faggots are taking whatever they can get these days and calling it progress. I thought Brokeback was a step forward. Here was a film that showed dudes in love. It was okay. Getting there. Better than Broken Hearts Club.

Chuck and Larry pissed me off. And GLAAD supports it. My favorite quote from the interview: Through the disarming use of comedy, there is an exploration of homophobia, which often involves stereotypes and slurs, and it holds a mirror up to that and asks people to consider where it comes from. This is a film that has twenty something tiring jokes about "who's the woman" in the relationship. Or this(???):

Chuck Levine: What do you got?
Larry Valentine: Maxi Pads.
Chuck Levine: What, do we have vaginas now? Put it back!

Is this what GLAAD considers to be an 'exploration of homophobia'? This film isn't clever or smart or subversive or anything. It's fucking idiotic.

Now Cruising is back. In the theater? People are seeing it? I recently watched Cruising with M.T. and we cringed. It's campy, yeah. I laughed at Pacino high on Amyl Nitrate, dancing in his leather pants, pumping the air with his hairy knuckled fist. But I couldn't laugh at the representations of gays. I mean, every gay in that film is into S and M or fisting or into weird shit (one of the murdered gays carries with him a suitcase full of dildos, hand cuffs, and other instruments I couldn't figure out). Yeah, people are into all kinds of shit. I'm cool with that. But not one homosexual is represented in a positive light in this film. The world is dark and dirty and naughty and wrong. I can't believe Friedkin is out there talking about it. It's not a film to talk about.

Oops. And here I done talked about it.

Scare Tactics

I have to say I am very glad to see ads like the one above.

Takes me back. Remember this one:



Scared the shit out of me. Never wanted to have sex after seeing that one. And when it did finally come down to finally doing it, well, I had to put on a condom, cuz I was afraid of the consequences.

A few months back I bought an Advocate. Not one ad for condoms. Yet, I found two in a Maxim. Hm.

40,000 people are infected a year. That's a lot of people.

I wonder if young gays who see the ads put out by the drug companies promoting HIV/AIDS medications are getting the wrong idea. They may see these ads and think, oh it's manageable now. All I have to do is take a pill. Good for the drug companies, right. Put up some ads showing hot, young gay men sailing or mountain climbing. I mean, sure HIV/AIDS infected men are living longer and healthier lives, but what else is an ad like this showing the young people--and what's with all the side effects/warnings in very tiny print on the bottom of the ad (sometimes even continuing onto the next page) all about.

I don't know. I just want people to stop dying from this disease. It's preventable. I know it comes down to people not being educated or people being misinformed or people just not giving a shit. I want people to give a shit. Especially gay men. Look at our past. So many died. So many died because at that time nobody knew what the fuck it was. And even when we found out, nobody would do anything. President Reagan didn't even say the word AIDS publicly until 1987 and by that time 41,000 people were dead and 90 something thousand were infected.

I think I'm alive and well because of those ads in the 90's. It seems so stupid now thinking about Salt-N-Pepa rapping about wearing rubbers. But it worked. It may have been preachy. It may have been shameless at times. But it worked.

What will put the fear into youth today?

40,000 infected every year.

Makes me sad.