Gay is an Ability!
Marc Stauffer
being different. Gay is a characteristic - unchangeable and immutable as
being of a particular race. Gay is being a two spirit - both male and
female. Homophobes are those who most violently deny their feminine side.
I think the same can be said of certain list members who claim there is no
difference between Gays and Non-Gays.
The first major sin of Judaism, Christianity and Islam is the separation of
humanity into two separate forms. These forms are incomplete unless united
by some sacred ceremony that binds them together - having sex and producing
children makes them one. Christianity in particular holds onto this view
while insisting that humankind is made in God's image. If humankind is
indeed in the image of God - then God must be both male and female as we
define those qualities. Gays are threatening because of their very
embracement of both their feminine and masculine qualities thus being whole
unto themselves. It is even more threatening when two Gays or two-spirits
are joined as a couple - for two unities create a whole larger than each of
them separately. Think of fusion and the energy given off. Gay fusion
leads to creativity, art, history, medicine - that is the energy we give
off. Sometimes the union of unities works and sometimes not for gays can
be tricksters - Queer Faeries and Drag Queens, or they can be the strong
and beautiful to behold - athletes and leathermen. (That is purely my way
of framing it.)
I'd like to suggest several myths that can be read to gain insight to our
gay natures. They come from a variety of cultures.
Little Boy Blue - the gay child having daydreams - tending sheep and cows
being to mundane.
The Ugly duckling - horrible trials and mistreatment until he discovers his
true beauty.
A:yahkwew - the creator of medicine - a two spirit among the Cree Tribe.
Mahu - Hawaii and Tahiti - the go between - can help a woman knit, help a
man pick a tie - the confidant of both men and women.
Waltscrat - Germanic - spirit of the woods, fields, household, domestic
spirit, and was considered two spirited - both male and female.
Read Plato's Symposium - Aristophanes' playful insight into the androgyne.
Kepakailiula and Kaunalewa - Hawaiian - gay lovers myth
Gilgamesh and Enkidu - Sumerian circa 2800 - 2500 B.C.E.
Baldr and Loki - a pretty man and a trickster - Icelandic - appears in the
Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson 1178 - 1241 C.E.
P'ei K'ai and Wang Meng - The Linked Jade Disks - Chin Dynasty 265 - 420
C.E.
I've culled these stories from "Queer Spirits - A Gay Men's Myth Book by
Will Roscoe - a very good and interesting read. I would also suggest the
two books by Peter Cashorali - Gay Fairy Tales. Both authors give pause of
thought and personal insight.
Personally I wonder about my love of spring and fall - the season of the
sun's arrival, fertility and bringing forth and the other the season of the
Hunter's Moon a time for man to be forth in the woods day and night. My
two-spirits - if I sin in this it is because I rarely allow myself to be
wholly masculine or wholly feminine at one point in time.
Marc
M. G. Stauffer
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or
anything. If you're a man, you take it. When we lose the right to be
different, we lose the right to be free. For firm as a rock thy truth must
stand when the rolling years shall cease to move.
--
This is message #78.
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Chief Thracian
<stau...@washpost.com> wrote:
>Queer Faeries and Drag Queens, or they can be the strong
>and beautiful to behold - athletes and leathermen. (That is purely my way
>of framing it.)
Thanks for all those multi-cultural gay references, Marc. Greatly
appreciated by at least ONE "queerwolf" here!
---
Hail Athenia, brave new gay nation!
Zeke Krahlin, Chief Thracian
http://surf.to/gaybible
--
This is message #147.
D Stephen Heersink
gay is different, and how this came to be. I don't understand why
being gay requires a justification, any more than being gay needs
special handling. Some things simply are.
I don't know how or why I came to be gay, and I really don't care. All
I know for certain is that I am gay, and glad to be so. Whether there
is a mutant gene, or a hemispheric brain function, or an absent
father/dotting mother syndrome, or the feminine-masculine dichotomy
looking for completion (e.g., Plato's "Symposium"), or take your pick
from any of two dozen theories, or a little from each, does it really
matter HOW we got to where we are? We're simply here.
Of course, in some grand scheme of things, it might be nice to know
the aetiology of the of gender preference, but with caveats. Whatever
the "cause," whether in nature or nurture or both, it needs no
defense, it requires no apologia. Still, curious minds like to know,
and if science can inform of us of such things, great. But, until
then, and apart from then, from a practical point of view, all I know
and consider important are that my sexual affinities are for other
men, not for women. I accept this fact and act accordingly. I rejoice
in being WHO I am, rather than try to pigeonhole WHY I am. Anything
else is a metaphysic without answer.
The question, Why? is at present unanswerable. We simply do not know.
Even Marc's attempt at a raison d'etre is clouded in a muddle, novelty
and eloquence aside. Embarking on the search for THIS answer seems to
me a futile exercise, a speculative endeavor with a hypothetical
defensive proffered as opposed to the acceptance of being secure and
comfortable with what otherwise simply is. Is or does being gay a
"special" ability? I suppose it takes special abilities that others
choose not to develop, so okay, what does that prove? I'm quite
confident that straights have "special" abilities that I haven't
cultivated or mastered. I haven't had a reason to, and vice versa.
Is it being so immutable and unchangeable, as Marc asserts? Of course
not. Many straights claim to change and become gay, and even a few
gays claim to change and become straight. I don't know what motivates
such malleability. But I'll accept as a valid premise that people are
part of a large spectrum of sexual "abilities" that includes being gay
and straight and everything in between. So a change orientation seems
pretty obvious to me along such a spectrum. Asking, Why? again only
begs the question. There's probably a different reason for every
change, and all of them are equally valid. Whatever the motivation,
the changes are real. I am happy that those who want to change, can. I
don't see the point, myself.
I have to admit I am disheartened to learn of people changing
orientation because of fear, especially religious fear, but it happens
lamentably. The degree, extent, and amount of fear that would be
required to change my orientation is beyond my comprehension, but that
doesn't invalidate those who do, or at least try, to change for
religious and other reasons. Religious fear is obviously a pretty
strong narcotic, as Marx and Freud took note. Yet, I know a great many
gay Christians and Jews who happily manage to fit their religion into
their lives while remaining ostensively gay. Being gay and religious
can be a challenge, and I admire those who have successfully
synthesized the two.
While Marc and others are always encouraged to seek their "roots," the
only science on the horizon likely to inform us of our gay "roots" is
evolutionary psychology. This new development in sociobiology and
paleoanthropology holds out the possibility of providing a scientific
answer as to some of our Why? questions: Why some men and women prefer
their same gender sexually and socially. When this horizon will
appear, no one knows. Until then, I only hope that whatever the
outcome of this cutting edge of science, it will let gays be gay.
________________________
D. Stephen Heersink
San Francisco
dsh...@worldnet.att.net
--
This is message #164.
Chief Thracian
<dsh...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Until then, I only hope that whatever the
>outcome of this cutting edge of science,
>it will let gays be gay.
It won't, I assure you. As long as heteros rule as an overwhelming
majority, science will be bent to satisfy their dogmatic ideas. They
will eliminate us, if this can be done by selective
breeding...especially if it can be done so EASILY.
---
Hail Athenia, brave new gay nation!
Zeke Krahlin, Chief Thracian
http://surf.to/gaybible
--
This is message #166.
D Stephen Heersink
>On Thu, 30 Aug 2001 11:10:29 -0700, D Stephen Heersink
><dsh...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
>>Until then, I only hope that whatever the
>>outcome of this cutting edge of science,
>>it will let gays be gay.
>
>It won't, I assure you. As long as heteros rule as an overwhelming
>majority, science will be bent to satisfy their dogmatic ideas. They
>will eliminate us, if this can be done by selective
>breeding...especially if it can be done so EASILY.
Thracian's cynicism borders on paranoia, which may or may not be
justified. There are many endeavors and fields of enquiry where
ideology can unduly influence the outcome of differences. But science,
that is, hard science, is not so influenced. That's one reason we can
all be comfortable with the ascendency of sociobiology and
evolutionary psychology.
I know too many hard scientists to believe that an agenda other than
knowledge is theirs for the gain. Their focus is on genes and the
genome primarily, and on behavior only incidental to genetic factors.
Moreover, from my early readings in evolutionary biology and
evolutionary psychology, I think gays have much to expect in the way
of genetic basis for a certain proportion of the population being
consistently gay. Robert Wright and E. O. Wilson have already written
as much.
One of the feats already tackled by these new endeavors is the defeat
of what was once called "human nature" that many philosophers,
psychologists, and anthropologists have used to attack gays and
lesbians as being "against" some apriori human nature. As the new
science shows, with hard evidence, not pye-eyed speculation, that the
so-called "human nature" that has so preoccupied the perpetration of
anti-gay sentiment is way off base. Indeed, it appears that natural
selection has chosen a certain segment of the population to act upon
same-gendered impulses for the last three thousand years (only a drop
in the ocean, but still a drop, in the course of human history). To be
gay, then, is indeed part of what being human is, and thus, an
intrinsic variant and a natural part of the science of "human nature."
Hard science is NOT our enemy, it is our benefactor. What the soft
sciences of psychology, anthropology, history, philosophy, and similar
endeavors have done in the Name of Science is anything but. It has
been pseudo-science at best, mere speculation by and large. With the
advent of the human genome project we now have a unified basis for the
knowledge of human nature that includes gays as a consistent, natural
variant. It's simply a part of our make-up. This is the proposition
that has so far been the consensus of evolutionary biology and
sociopsychology.
Whatever the outcome of any science, I still remain indifferent to its
impact of how or why I am gay and intend to remain so. But, we needn't
fear knowledge that is based on scientific fact rather than idle
speculation. The two can coexist in harmony.
________________________
D. Stephen Heersink
San Francisco
dsh...@worldnet.att.net
--
This is message #182.
Chief Thracian
<dsh...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>With the advent of the human genome project
>we now have a unified basis for the knowledge
>of human nature that includes gays as a consistent,
>natural variant.
Not as defined by "God", no matter what hard science proves. Once hard
science discovers the particular code for gayness in our DNA, it will
be a simple and inexpensive process for any potential parent to
COMPLETELY SPLICE OUT homosexuality.
>Hard science is NOT our enemy, it is our benefactor.
>What the soft sciences of psychology, anthropology,
>history, philosophy, and similar endeavors have done
>in the Name of Science is anything but.
Thank you, Hard Science, for being so totally amoral as to hand over
the keys to our destruction, to the Religious Reich. After all, you
were only doing your job, eh, Heil Hitler?
You are a perfect example of how many scientists and their adulators
have made even hard science into a religion: bolstered by the
idealistic belief that hard science can never be anything but 100%
objective...no matter what you or I conclude, by any evidence staring
us right in our faces. Ahhh, for you hard scientists are a "pure
race", is that it? And we non-scientists are ignorant outsiders gaping
at you from our caves.
---
Hail Athenia, brave new gay nation!
Zeke Krahlin, Chief Thracian
http://surf.to/gaybible
--
This is message #202.