Pt. 2 Against His Will - Notes on the New Gay Predator (1 Viewer)

[stunning]

Please see Part 1 of this thread as this is simply the conclusion.
__________________________________

Certainly there are limits on how nasty straight men can get, but many
options open to them are closed to gays. When a rogue rapper vents his
sadistic fury, it's often received as righteous rage. There will always be a place
in the human heart for the angry young man. But God help the angry gay man:
He's well advised to take a Xanax – or take up a fetish.
Many gay men – like many women – are drawn to the straight-male
aggressor. It certainly makes for a hot fantasy life. But why assume that the
fantasies we have are the only ones we are capable of? What would the libido be
like in a world where women and gays were encouraged to think of themselves as
potential predators? Would our reveries, and more importantly our
self-image, change if we were regularly treated to the spectacle of straight men being
entered against their will?
Life might be better if rape fantasies didn't stand for power and
agency – but they do. Those who get to imagine themselves as sexual predators
also think of themselves as entitled to rule. Indeed, the act of rape is, often
enough, a sadistic response to the gap between real life and the presumed
prerogatives of masculinity. In fantasy, if not in fact, the roles of the
violator and the violated correspond to the traditional sexual order: playas on top,
bitches beneath them, and fags at the bottom. No wonder images of rape that
bolster this hierarchy are so cherished now that women and homosexuals are on
the rise.
As gay men break free of our subordinate status, it shouldn't be
surprising to see our position in the rape fantasy change. Instead of repressing
aggression – or shifting it to worship of the belligerent straight stud –
we're more likely now to conceive of ourselves as acting out. You can see the
same change in images of women, along with the same payback strategy to justify
violence. It may be harder for most women (at least straight women) to think
of themselves wielding a dick than it is for gay men, who actually do. But
this is not about raping someone; it's about allowing yourself to have one of the
culture's most gripping fantasies of potency, for better or worse.
Many men who would recoil from the image of a beaten dog are drawn to
rape imagery. That's a fact, and it's unlikely to change as long as there are
issues of power to be mediated by the psyche. But we are crawling toward a
time when the sexual order is as flexible as the human imagination. A moment
may come when everyone can imagine both ravishing and being ravished – or, just
maybe, neither.

 

[Burgerbarbaby]

Fair fucks Thomas.

Homosexuality was only decriminalised in this country 10 years ago.
It's a brilliant article all right. Personal freedom and freedom of expression are benefits we have thoughtlessly taken for granted here for so long, and yet we use them so seldom and so lazily.
More of this kind of thing, it's good to see someone putting a marker down to show that some things are changing for the better - even if it isn't here.

 

[egg_]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this article appears to be viewing the appearance of a gay rapist in a movie as a good thing, and seems to say it would also be a good thing if women and gay men fantasised about raping people. Is that right? Is that not, well, a bit nuts? I don't understand. Explain this shit to me please

 

[stunning]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this article appears to be viewing the appearance of a gay rapist in a movie as a good thing, and seems to say it would also be a good thing if women and gay men fantasised about raping people. Is that right? Is that not, well, a bit nuts? I don't understand. Explain this shit to me please

Cormac, as they say here in Dublin, I have a lot of time for you. I'm happy to explain all this in a few little nutshells.

See, its not about behaviors, its about desire. Desire is yours. There is nothing wrong with your desires. Feel no guilt in your desire. You don't need to explain or justify your desires...

The author of the article is illuminating the mere fact that with freedom from oppression based on sexuality comes freedom of desire. As women, with their all their infinitely various sexualities, and gay men, with all of their infinitely various sexualities, continue to move into the driver's seat of society...we no longer have to tolerate messages that tell us our beautiful range of human sexuality is bad, wrong, perverted and worthy of violence as a way to suppress it. Now, you're saying...you never had to tolerate those messages, you could always have chosen not to tolerate those messages.
I trust if you've gotten this far you probably know enough about social control and the marginalization of minority populations.

In the movie Braveheart, the comic relief came when the gay man was flung to his death out the tower window. The theatre erupted in laughter while his lover cowerd in fear like a dog. Look, violence is a part of entertainment in our culture. If a gay man threw a straight guy out a window, you can bet he'd be punished for it in someway. Straight's murdering gays in movies like Braveheart are heroes. Murder is bad. This doesn't even need to be about rape. It's about claiming power in society.

Does that help at all?

Coffee?

Thomas

 

[stunning]

So the question isn't about encouraging gay men and women to fantasize about rape...

It's about challenging the rigid norm in a patriarchal (or is it patriachical?) society that the value placed on the desires of heterosexual males has a greater value than the desires of those not in that privleged group.

Does that make sense?

Freedom to fantasize about whatever you want is a good thing. When people are oppressed, even their dreams can be stifled. Fear of feeling. That's a bad thing. Ya' know?

(I don't have a problem with anyone's fantasy's...again, its ones behaviors that can be potentially harmful to our fellows.)



Thomas

 

[stunning]

Fair fucks Thomas.

Homosexuality was only decriminalised in this country 10 years ago.
It's a brilliant article all right.
More of this kind of thing, it's good to see someone putting a marker down to show that some things are changing for the better - even if it isn't here.

Thanks BB.

Things ARE changing for the better here! You've got 10 years on the USA. As recently as 1960, every state in the USA had an anti-sodomy law. In 37
states, the statutes have been repealed by lawmakers or blocked by state courts.
Of the 13 states with sodomy laws, four – Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and
Missouri – prohibit oral and anal sex between same-sex couples. The other
nine ban consensual sodomy for everyone: Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia.

Plan your holiday's accordingly!

This week the US Supreme Court ruled on a case which *may* have an impact on these laws...If anyone's interested I'll report back with the details as they come in to me.

Cheers,

Thomas

 

[stunning]

This just in!

The New York Times
June 27, 2003
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/27/opinion/27FRI1.html?tntemail0

A Gay Rights Landmark

Gay Americans won a historic victory yesterday when the Supreme Court struck
down Texas' sodomy law. The sweeping 6-to-3 decision made a point of
overturning a 17-year-old precedent that was curtly dismissive of gay rights.
Yesterday's ruling has implications that reach beyond sodomy, and is an important step
toward winning gay men and women full equality under the law.

The challenge to Texas' "Homosexual Conduct" law was brought by two men who
were convicted of engaging in "deviate sexual intercourse" in a private home.
John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner argued that the law denied them equal
protection by criminalizing sexual acts of same-sex couples that were legal for
different-sex couples. More broadly, they argued that criminalizing their
private sexual acts deprived them of their liberty and privacy rights.

The Supreme Court could have ruled on relatively narrow equal protection
grounds, and affected only states with laws singling out gays. But five justices
went further, holding that any anti-sodomy law violates gay people's liberty
rights. Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion noted that the case is really
about gay people's ability to maintain personal relationships. It demeans
gays, he wrote, to see it as a dispute about sexual conduct, "just as it would
demean a married couple were it to be said marriage is simply about the right to
have sexual intercourse."

The court took direct aim at Bowers v. Hardwick, the notorious 1986 ruling
that rejected claims similar to the ones that prevailed yesterday. Declaring
that Bowers "was not correct when it was decided, and is not correct today," the
court overruled it. It is a testament to how much has changed that even
today's conservative Supreme Court could see that Bowers belongs in history's
dustbin.

The three dissenters accused the majority of advancing a "homosexual agenda."
But their legal analysis relied on the same tired arguments conservatives
have long used to deny minority rights. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the
three, called the ruling "the invention of a brand-new `constitutional right'
by a Court that is impatient of democratic change." It is the same argument
made in 1967 for upholding a Virginia law banning marriage between blacks and
whites. The idea that minorities must wait for the majority to recognize their
basic rights is as wrong today as it was then.

It is too early to say how profound an impact yesterday's decision will have.
Gay-rights advocates will no doubt cite it in employment discrimination and
gay adoption cases. And no less an authority than Justice Scalia, in his
dissent, suggested it may provide a basis for upholding gay marriage. The majority
opinion ended by noting the genius of our Constitution: that "persons in every
generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom."

!baggyyyy

 

[stunning]

CNN Analysis

CNN, June 26, 2003
http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/06/26/toobin.otsc/
Toobin: Regulating sex acts and marriage
(CNN) – The U.S. Supreme Court Thursday struck down a Texas law that
criminalizes homosexual sodomy, a ruling considered to be a major victory for
gay rights in the United States.
CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin talked to CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer
about the implications of the decision.
BLITZER: Jeffrey, give us the broad stroke, the perspective – how big
a deal is this decision by the Supreme Court today?
TOOBIN: It really is an enormous decision in the history of the
Supreme Court, because the right to privacy is something that really has been very
much up in the air about whether it even exists. It's been a constant source
of questioning at confirmation hearings; it started in the Supreme Court with
decisions allowing married couples to buy birth control in Connecticut –
that's really where the case began in the 1960s. The right of privacy was then
extended, most famously, to abortion in Roe v. Wade.
In 1986, the Supreme Court in ... Bowers v. Hardwick said no, the
right to privacy does not include the right to have sexual relations in the
privacy of your own home. That was a 5-4 decision, bitterly contested at the time.
It has now been overruled by this decision. The right to privacy marches on,
even though, ironically, interestingly, this Supreme Court is in many
respects more conservative than the one in 1986.
Homosexuality, private sexual conduct, has changed in its perception
so much in these 17 years, that it is something that is simply accepted by this
court as something the government can't regulate. It's a big, big decision
in the history of the court.
BLITZER: And what about the opponents of this decision who fear that
this is going to create a slippery slope? If you allow sodomy right now among
consenting adults, what about adultery, what about bestiality, what about
these other forms of sex that are out there? Is it going to open up the door to
polygamy, for example?
TOOBIN: Well, I think the opinion and the supporters of the right to
privacy have always sort of walled off the question of marriage. Marriage has
always been regulated by the state. Marriage is something that the
government has plenty of control over, whether it's divorce laws, bigamy laws, but, you
know, in Justice Scalia's dissent, he said this decision calls into question
whether the government could regulate, say, masturbation. Well, you know
what, I think he's right.
I think a decision like this means the government couldn't regulate
masturbation. I think it does call into question any sort of law that regulates
what goes on between adults, and I think it's important to emphasize adults,
in private and in a noncoercive relationship, in a consensual relationship. I
think any law that regulates that kind of conduct is in jeopardy today.
BLITZER: All right, Jeffrey Toobin, our legal analyst, thanks very
much for that.

!baggyyyy

 

[herv]

"we no longer have to tolerate messages that tell us our beautiful range of human sexuality is bad, wrong, perverted and worthy of violence as a way to suppress it. Now, you're saying...you never had to tolerate those messages, you could always have chosen not to tolerate those messages. "

hi thomas.

indeed an interesting article.

i think i can see what you're getting at here, but i think the author's idea of using an act of rape as a springboard to further the freedom of expression of gay culture is, as egg sees it, slightly skewed.

ok, so, we haven't had to 'tolerate' (your words) images of gay empowerment before, but to be perfectly honest, do you really think a gay rapist is an empowering image? i would think it damages gay expression more than anything. regardless of a culture's orientation, rapists are to be feared; yes they do conjure up ideas of power and empowerment, but it is a brutal power, an angry power, a power to be fearful of.

that said, i don't believe in censorship in this regard: rape happens, so let it be portrayed. and of course, your mind is your own, it is a private recess to do what you like, with who you like.

and i can kinda see what you're getting at with respect to the portrayal of a male rapist: that "the value placed on the desires of heterosexual males has a greater value than the desires of those not in that privleged group" and the act (and indeed the debate brought about by its portrayal) will hopefully readdress some of the imbalance.

i just think its an awful shame that a rape is needed to win ground and to remind people that there are no restrictions on fantasy.

my 2c.

h

 

[kstop]

"Emancipation means being as much of an asshole as everyone else"

Wasn't yer man who threw yer other man out the window in Braveheart the bad guy? The corrupt old English king bad guy? what happens to him a\t the end? Doesn't he go to his grave effectively emasculated, thinking his line has been terminated and in fact usurped by his enemy?

Isn't revelling in a supposedly new-found fear of gay rape just acceptance of another dehumanising stereotype, oddly reminiscent of the stereotype of the white-woman-raping reefer-mad black man of the 20s? (30s? I can't remember exactly when it started.) Do you seriously believe that this stereotype would be good for gay rights in general?

The marriage thing and the anti-sodomy laws being overturned are good news, this article is self-hating bollix. The images of the simpering queen and the sex-crazed psychopath ultimately serve the same purpose, to evoke negative feelings in the general community towards gay people. To accept them even (especially) ironically is to accept the inferior status offered by society. (Cf. Judith Butler's take on feminism, which effectively abandons any effort towards social change and loses itself in scoring points through irony.)

 

[spiritualtramp]

The marriage thing and the anti-sodomy laws being overturned are good news, this article is self-hating bollix.

agreed .

 

[herv]

Isn't revelling in a supposedly new-found fear of gay rape just acceptance of another dehumanising stereotype, oddly reminiscent of the stereotype of the white-woman-raping reefer-mad black man of the 20s?

thats very true.

i also find it rather strange that the act of a gay rapist can be seen to have an emancipating effect in society, what with the bullshit stereotypes of the "indiscrimately buggering damn homo"/"asses to the wall" etc stereotype still in peoples heads.

however, i guess it might be argued that in including a scene such as this, what this particular playwright is trying to do is subvert the aforementioned stereotype; turn it on its head in the way that gay rights activists in the past captured and adopted the term 'queer' as their own.

any thoughts? of course i haven't seen the play myself so i may be talking shite.

 

[silo]

wait a minute! so thomas is gay?

 

[Ed]

wait a minute! so thomas is gay?

but.........but............ i spoke to him, and i think i even shook his hand, does that mean i might have *gulp* caught "gay"?

 

[stunning]

but.........but............ i spoke to him, and i think i even shook his hand, does that mean i might have *gulp* caught "gay"?

Ed, you prolly caught a really bad case of gay. Cuz, you know, I got it bad.

Feel free to fantasize about you know what now.

Thomas

 

[egg_]

Does that help at all?

Yep
The 'message' of the article is that the appearance of a gay rapist main character in a movie is an indicator of increasing gay empowerment, which is a good thing - is that right?

Everyone seems normal until you know what they think about when they jerk off

 

[#10-7]

i have fantasies.
i am wearing noting but a towel, my face is still covered in cake from the wedding, and all the cast from the cosby show are playing kerplunk.
suddenly all the lights go off, but we can see each others eyes cos they're illuminated like in cartoons, and then the lights come back on and the towel is gone, and there is cake on the picture of halle berry on the tv.

mmmmmmnnn...

sorry what were we saying?

 

[Juno]

Please see Part 1 of this thread as this is simply the conclusion.
__________________________________
What would the libido be
like in a world where women and gays were encouraged to think of themselves as
potential predators? Would our reveries, and more importantly our
self-image, change if we were regularly treated to the spectacle of straight men being
entered against their will?...

.....Those who get to imagine themselves as sexual predators
also think of themselves as entitled to rule. Indeed, the act of rape is, often
enough, a sadistic response to the gap between real life and the presumed
prerogatives of masculinity...

....But this is not about raping someone; it's about allowing yourself to have one of the
culture's most gripping fantasies of potency, for better or worse.

Given what I see and hear every day this is extremely depressing even though I understand that he's referring to the thought rather than the action.

I don’t see anything to be proud of in seeking equality in savagery. How does it further a minority’s cause (be they gay, female, whatever) to see themselves as protagonists of some of society’s worst crimes of dominance? This isn’t challenging stereotypes – it’s just sinking to their level. Of course the free expression of sexuality should be every person’s right but the ability to be seen to force their will upon someone else is just mimicking the very worse aspects of patriarchal society. Basically instead of saying “we should try to change things by not acting in this way” it’s a case of “we’ll show them we’re as bad as they are”. I can see that having a gay male rapist in a play would be a threat to comfortable liberal stereotypes (the same as having serial killing women in Baise Moi) but it’s still just perpetrating ideas of fear, control and supremacy. Why does anyone need permission to think a certain way (and if he's taking the time to write an article about it then he's looking for permission from someone other than himself)? That's just buying in to the whole 'superior/inferior' mentality again.

 

[egg_]

Hmm
Having read Juno's comment I'm inclined to change my view.
If 'gay empowerment' means that gay guys stop being oppressed, then that's only good if they don't themselves become oppressors, surely? It's oppression in general that we're against, is it not, not just oppression of a specific section of society? Gay guys doing all the shit things straight guys used to do isn't progress, is it? Unless 'equality' in the abstract is deemed more important than real people's real quality of life

 

[stunning]

I just want to say that I really appreciate this discussion.

It's really cool.

Thomas