Also by Brian Hulme:

One Christian's Journey

values and morals and honour

The credit crunch will NOT crunch my Manhood my Masculinity or my Warriorhood

CAN MY MAN TO MAN RELATIONSHIP DRAW ME CLOSER TO GOD?

Adam and Jesus the first M2M

Warrior Love True Love

Fight Back

God's stubborn warrior

Warrior Equations

Amor Masculus Masculine Love

Tales of Nova Sparta

Time to be a WARRIOR +2

Bill Weintraub

Re: About Tithing

11-19-09

Thank you Warrior Brian.

Guys, Brian says that we of the Alliance "do God's work saving Men from the evils of heterosexualization and analism and the suffering that comes with those."

You may or may not agree that we're doing God's work.

But Brian's correct that our purpose in doing this work is "to save Men from the evils of heterosexualization and analism and the suffering that comes with those."

Many of you relate to my present husband Patrick -- because you know him.

But this work actually stems from my relationship with and loss of Brett Averill, my first lover.

This is Brett's obit on the NY Times -- it's short and to the point.

As the Times says, he died at 37.

But he was forced to stop working -- and he was very devoted to his career in journalism -- when he was only 32.

Yet his infection, disability, suffering -- and his suffering was immense -- and subsequent death were totally unnecessary.

And that's what we need to understand.

As the years have passed, I've noticed, there's a tendency among our opponents to try to ignore what happened to Brett.

Indeed, they'd like to ignore what happened to all the more than 550,000 Americans who've died of AIDS, at least three-quarters of whom were "men who had sex with men."

They're wrong.

Brian's right.

In his short story, The Memorial, Brian has placed this dedication on the Phallic Memorial in his imagined Nova Sparta:

Was Brett infected due to "the selfish lustful indulgence of another"?

Yes -- absolutely.

As were hundreds of thousands of other Men.

Here's the amazing part:

That selfish lustful indulgence was fully supported and completely endorsed by their culture -- analism.

Let's repeat that, just for emphasis, with caps:

That selfish lustful indulgence was FULLY SUPPORTED AND COMPLETELY ENDORSED BY THEIR CULTURE -- ANALISM.

That's the TRUTH.

A TRUTH that the so-called gay community has never acknowledged.

Yet what brought about the HIV epidemic among gay-identified men?

The FACTS are plain:

The epidemic was caused by a culture of anal penetration and promiscuity which emerged among gay-identified men in 1975.

Yes, HIV was and is the pathogen.

But absent anal penetration, that pathogen would have been unable to spread.

Do you understand?

Without the culture of analism, HIV would have been helpless.

It's a virus, it is, as it happens, a very frail and fragile virus, it needs very specific conditions to propagate -- and the gay community provided those.

Not Ronald Reagan or any of the other people blamed by the gay community for the epidemic.

Yes, Reagan could have and should have done more to further research into causes and treatments.

And to speak out against discrimination.

But Ronald Reagan didn't cause AIDS.

The "gay community," in the form of analism, did.

And analism in turn is an artifact of heterosexualization.

We say, "Anal kills" -- but, and again, anal is just an artifact of heterosexualization, and in particular heterosexualization's inherent and vicious anti-masculinism.

It was the rejection of the Masculine principle -- the Warrior principle -- which killed all those guys.

And which goes on killing.

And that's what Brian understands.

He says, very clearly, that the Alliance works "to save Men from the evils of heterosexualization and analism and the suffering that comes with those."

And because Brian sees this work as God's work -- as does Patrick -- in donating he follows the religious principle known as the tithe:

He gives one-tenth of his income to the Alliance.

But -- you know what?

Even if you see our work as totally secular -- you should be tithing too.

Once again, it's Warrior Brian who explains why:

We share a new type of love and belief that involves total Manly love, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

The credit crunch can crunch away, but it will NOT crunch my Manhood my Masculinity or my Warriorhood and it will not stop me sending my donations to the Alliance, because I hunger for the establishment of (through setting up of Regional Chapters by Warrior couples) a Warrior Community and that can only happen if we are committed to the cause of Warriorhood in every way we can be, and this includes sending as much in donations as often as we can.

Let's parse that out.

I said that analism is an artifact of heterosexualization, and in particular of heterosexualization's inherent and vicious anti-Masculine and anti-Man bias.

And that's the truth.

Analism teaches that Masculinity is bad, that emasculation is good, and that males can rid themselves of their masculinity by being anally penetrated multiple times by multiple partners.

There's a vast cultural apparatus, both on the net and in the real world, supporting that ideology, and working, through various forms of pressure and coercion, to make it the sole "sexual" reality in the lives of millions of males who self-identify as either "gay" or "bi."

We, and we alone, in the M2M world, stand in opposition to this deadly anti-Man bias.

We state clearly and without reservation that we're Men.

Not "gay" men, not "straight" men, and not something in-between, but MEN.

And we say it's GOOD to be a MAN.

Not only that, but we also say it's good to be a Warrior -- to have Fighting Spirit -- to be a Fighter.

We say that Masculinity equals Life.

We even speak of God as Warrior -- The Warrior God.

And if our God is a Warrior God -- then for us, Warrior must equal Life:

And Brian understands that.

He says that "we share a new type of love and belief that involves total Manly love, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual."

TOTAL Manly Love -- physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

As I explain in Two Spearmen, that's what the Greeks had.

The Thebans had it.

That's why their Armed Force of Warrior Lovers was called The SACRED Band.

Those MEN were Lovers physically, mentally, emotionally, and SPIRITUALLY.

Their Band was Sacred because their Bonds were Sacred.

A Male Lover was a Friend Inspired by God -- he was in-Godded.

The Spartans too had TOTAL Manly Love.

I'm going to talk more about that in Part II of Two Spearmen, but you already saw, in Part I, the huge and elaborate temple complex and shrine to Hyakinthos, the Spartan prince beloved of the God Apollo, at Amyklai, a suburb of Sparta -- which featured an enormous statue of the God, at the base of which Hyakinthos himself had been buried;

and into which, each year, at the Hyakinthia, the Festival celebrating the Love of Apollo and Hyankinthos, sacrifices were introduced as they would be to any Hero.

The Hyakinthia was one of the three most important Spartan Holidays -- and it celebrated the Love of Man for Man.

Or in this case, God for Man.

Just as at Thebes, the Iolaia celebrated the Love of Herakles for Iolaos.

The God Eros unites Iolaos and Herakles
The Men are in-Godded by Eros

These were *religious* festivals.

Once again, Brian speaks of "total Manly love, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual."

At Sparta, boys grew up together in the Agogé.

They were nude most of the time, and they wrestled and fought daily -- which means they were physically present to each other -- daily.

Plutarch tells us that male love affairs began at the age of twelve.

And that youths were courted not on the basis of looks, but on that of character -- specifically, Fighting Spirit.

Warrior Spirit.

And I'll be saying more about that in Part II of Two Spearmen.

But I have no question that this aspect of our work is the one that's most disturbing and indeed frightening to our opponents:

That we combine the Love of Man with the Love of Fighting Spirit.

Warrior Spirit.

And once again, I'm going to repeat this -- because it's important:

This aspect of our work is the one that's most disturbing and indeed frightening to our opponents:

That we combine the Love of Man with the Love of Fighting Spirit.

Which is Warrior Spirit.

Remember that under heterosexualization, men and masculinity are seen, as my foreign friend says, as problematic and suspect, as getting in the way of women's rights;

and that male-male "love" is allowed expression only in the effeminized analist ghettoes, where what survives is a mutilated and negativised remnant of what once was:

The heterosexual society cares only for women. It sees men only as a problematic group that comes in the way of what is called women's rights.

Gay men are one of the most ardent supporters of heterosexualisation. They represent the dust bin created by the heterosexualised society to contain the mutilated / negativised remnants of male-male sex that survives after the intense oppression of them in the mainstream...

Gay men derive immense power from the heterosexual society. In fact they owe the heterosexual society their existence.

"the mutilated / negativised remnants of male-male sex"

That's anal and analism.

Anal mutilates and negates -- it brings disease and death -- first to the spirit -- and then to the body.

Anal kills.

But again, anal is just an artifact of heterosexualization.

My foreign friend:

If there were no heterosexualized society there would be no homosexuals. And no heterosexuals either. Male-male sex is isolated only because in the western society, its spaces and its customs are completely heterosexualised (i.e. made mixed gender with pressures to be heterosexual). But heterosexual spaces are themselves unnatural --- and it was only through financial and technological power brought by industrialisation that the western society could create such an artificial unnatural heterosexual environment.

Anal exists because of heterosexualization.

"Homosexuals" exist because of heterosexualization.

Because of, as my friend says, "heterosexualized society."

And that's not all.

My friend speaks of "financial and technological power."

That power is what's made possible the worldwide cult of economic growth and consumerism.

And analism is consumerist to the core.

Which means it's tied in to the cult of economic growth.

A cult which is aggressively secular -- and aggressively selfish.

As John Cobb, professor of theology at Claremont School of Theology, explains in this article, economic growth has, throughout the world, become its own religion and taken the place of God, while "popular participation in this religion is called 'consumerism'."

Cobb:

the traditional religions have regarded greed as a major sin.

Economism [Cobb's term for the cult of economic growth] in its currently dominant form teaches instead that rational self-interest oriented to unlimited gain characterizes, and should characterize, everyone.

What is "rational self-interest oriented to unlimited gain"?

Greed.

SELF-interest.

With no room or thought for the common good.

This is something we discussed in The Strife of Valour: Austerity and Equality at Sparta.

The cult, or, if you prefer, religion, of economic growth places both Markets and Greed on pedestals, even though, as we've seen during this "Great Recession," they're far from infallible.

In the past, as Prof Cobb points out, both society and religion denigrated Greed.

And, as we saw in Austerity and Equality at Sparta, the Spartans went so far as to totally eliminate greed from their society, replacing it with communal values which gave them great stability and the freedom to be fully human:

there was no longer greed or want among them, but instead equal enjoyment of plenty, and the sense of ease which comes from simple living. Except when they went on campaign, all their time was taken up by choral dances, festivals, feasts, hunting expeditions, physical exercise and conversation.

~Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus

Does that mean that the average Spartan was happier than the average American?

Yes, it does.

Prof Cobb:

we know also that prosperity as measured by the quantity of consumption has very little to do with happiness or wellbeing.

What then does contribute to wellbeing and happiness? Certainly there are basic physical needs to be met by the economy. But beyond that, the quality of community appears to be vastly more important than the quantity of goods. Feeling secure in the esteem of one's fellows, having a respected role to play in one's community, loving and being loved -- these are the major contributors to human wellbeing. Having interesting work that is a little challenging through which one can express one's creativity is also important. Probably the relationship to a beloved and healthy natural context also contributes more than worldly goods that are not really needed. A society could provide all these contributions to human wellbeing at very little cost to the natural environment. Regeneration of a healthy biosphere would be both possible for its own sake and for the sake of its human inhabitants. A truly good society could be a sustainable one.

"The quality of community," he says, "appears to be vastly more important than the quantity of goods."

"Feeling secure in the esteem of one's fellows, having a respected role to play in one's community, loving and being loved - these are the major contributors to human wellbeing."

That's the same point made by Harvard professor Daniel Gilbert, who studies happiness at that prestigious university, and who was interviewed by the New York Times:

Q. As the author of a best seller about happiness, do you have any advice on how people can achieve it?

A. ...

We know that the best predictor of human happiness is human relationships and the amount of time that people spend with family and friends.

We know that it's significantly more important than money and somewhat more important than health. That's what the data shows. ...

[emphases mine]

"the best predictor of human happiness is human relationships and the amount of time that people spend with family and friends"

Every Spartan lived in a web of Warriorhood.

And spent most of his or her time with family -- which included same-sex lovers -- and friends:

there was no longer greed or want among them, but instead equal enjoyment of plenty, and the sense of ease which comes from simple living. Except when they went on campaign, all their time was taken up by choral dances, festivals, feasts, hunting expeditions, physical exercise and conversation.

~Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus

"choral dances, festivals, feasts, hunting expeditions, physical exercise and conversation"

Those are all communal activities -- activities done in groups, and mostly related to the commune itself.

For example, when a Spartan exercised, he didn't go off to the gym by himself and stare dopily at his reflection in a mirror.

He worked out by training in Fight Sport WITH other Spartans -- youths and adult Warriors.

This was a communal activity:

From childhood on, the Spartan spent his time in a Warriordom and in WARRIORHOOD.

Training with his fellow Warriors, eating with his fellow Warriors, celebrating festivals and competitions with his fellow Warriors, hunting with his fellow Warriors.

Cobb also cites a "relationship to a beloved and healthy natural context."

Every Spartan lived in a beloved, healthy, and natural setting -- in the shadow of Mt Taygetos, and next to the Eurotas River.

View of Mt Taygetos and "modern Sparta" ca 1935

Mt Taygetos today -- up-close and personal

What's that have to do with Brian?

A lot, actually.

Because he says,

The credit crunch can crunch away, but it will NOT crunch my Manhood my Masculinity or my Warriorhood and it will not stop me sending my donations to the Alliance, because I hunger for the establishment of (through setting up of Regional Chapters by Warrior couples) a Warrior Community and that can only happen if we are committed to the cause of Warriorhood in every way we can be, and this includes sending as much in donations as often as we can.

Brian too has eliminated greed -- and fear -- from his value system.

There is something he wants, and he pursues it in a rational fashion:

I hunger for the establishment of (through setting up of Regional Chapters by Warrior couples) a Warrior Community and that can only happen if we are committed to the cause of Warriorhood in every way we can be, and this includes sending as much in donations as often as we can.

Right.

A Warrior Community "can only happen if we are committed to the cause of Warriorhood in every way we can be, and this includes sending as much in donations as often as we can."

That's correct.

Brian's right.

Notice that he says this "can only happen if WE are committed to the cause of Warriorhood in every way WE can be, and this includes sending as much in donations as often as WE can."

A COMMON cause and shared battle requires a COMMUNAL effort.

It wasn't the Sacred One or even Two of Thebes, it was the Sacred BAND -- which means Company -- of Thebes.

If there'd just been one or two guys in that Company -- it and they would have been crushed by their enemies.

That's the fallacy of the "private solution" -- finding your Frot bud and living happily ever after.

As I said in my last Donations post, in this situation, there's no such thing as a private solution:

Most of you want what I call a private solution.

That's a mirage.

Human beings live in their culture the way fish live in the sea.

You cannot escape your culture -- whether it's economic or sexual.

I had a private solution with Brett.

Yet Brett was ripped from me.

By our culture -- the culture we both lived in.

That's a lesson you need to learn -- before you suffer the sort of loss I and so many literally millions of others -- did.

I repeat what I said to you.

You want a private solution.

You won't find one.

It's a snare and a delusion.

Your problems can only be solved through cultural change and communal action.

Your problems can only be solved through cultural change and communal action.

CULTURAL change and COMMUNAL action

We've had ten years of trying it your way:

Don't donate;

Don't get involved;

Don't come out;

Just hope that things get better and whine to Mr Weintraub when they don't.

Quite a strategy.

And you know what?

Under that strategy, things have gotten a lot worse.

Steadily worse.

Analism is more entrenched now than ever.

Maybe it's TIME you tried it Brian's way -- as I described in my reply to his Time to be a WARRIOR +2:

• He posts -- at least twelve original posts, plus replies to the posts of other Warriors.

• He tithes -- faithfully and regularly.

• He stays in tight communication with me.

Brian has WORKED to make the Alliance his community.

And, he says, he's succeeded:

I have developed a real sense of belonging, I really feel like I have come home, I have arrived, I belong, with you and all the other Warriors of the Alliance, THIS IS MY COMMUNITY.

It could be your community too dude.

If you'd make the effort.

I said that the Spartans eliminated greed from their social system.

While ours puts it front and center.

Let's repeat this quote from Prof Cobb:

the traditional religions have regarded greed as a major sin.

Economism [Cobb's term for the cult of economic growth] in its currently dominant form teaches instead that rational self-interest oriented to unlimited gain characterizes, and should characterize, everyone.

The growthers speak of "SELF-interest oriented to unlimited gain."

Brian speaks of "SELFish lustful indulgence."

Are they the same thing?

In many areas of life yes -- and certainly sexually.

That's analism -- it's a "sexual" part of the consumerism of the cult of economic growth.

And it's worldwide.

Remember what I said before:

Was Brett infected due to "the selfish lustful indulgence of another"?

Yes -- absolutely.

As were hundreds of thousands of other Men in the US -- and millions worldwide.

Here's the amazing part:

That selfish lustful indulgence was FULLY SUPPORTED AND COMPLETELY ENDORSED BY THEIR CULTURE -- ANALISM.

And analism in turn was and is supported by a worldwide culture of Greed -- of SELF-interest.

The analists believe that one should have an unlimited number of sexual partners.

Without any responsibility to those partners -- or the community.

Instead, there's the analist version of "rational self-interest" -- and that's the condom code.

You protect yourself and I'll protect myself because we can't trust each other -- to protect each other.

And what a lovely world that is.

And you can see how successful it's been just by the numbers.

Each and every day at least seventy-seven -- 77-- gay-identified males get infected in the US alone.

And that's the conservative figure.

Which is why there's now more than a million people "living" with HIV In the US alone.

HIV being a totally preventable infection remember.

The idea that "rational self-interest oriented to unlimited gain" will suffice in the sexual sphere is as nonsensical as it is in the economic sphere.

You cannot have a world, whether it's sexual or economic, run soley on greed and self-interest.

You have to have morality, and a committment, inculcated from childhood forward, to the well-being of the total community -- what I call the commune, and what the Spartans called their Sacred Sparta.

Which brings up the question of -- YOU.

Yes, that's right, YOU -- the YOU who doesn't donate.

Are you motivated by "SELF-interest oriented to unlimited gain?"

Of course you are -- or at least think you are.

That's the dominant economic culture, and though your faith in it may or may not have been shaken by the current "recession," you're still following its dictates.

What's in it for ME, you ask.

And if you don't see an immediate pay-back -- you won't do it.

You have no thought for the community of Men -- of which, like it or not, you are inexorably a part -- and no thought for the future either.

You don't like the present, indeed you complain about it 24/7, but you can't be persuaded to make any effort to improve the future.

I think that many of you -- most -- are actually afraid to make that effort.

You like the idea -- dare I say, fantasy -- of being a Man and a Warrior -- but the reality scares you.

You've spent so many years living in those heterosexualized aka "straight" and effeminized analist prisons, and you're so used to them -- that the thought of freedom is frightening.

Suppose you had to actually be a Man.

Not just talk about it -- but live it.

Wouldn't that scare you?

I think it would.

But the rewards would be so great.

We say, without reservation, that Men and Masculinity, Manliness and Manhood are of great worth -- and are to be honored.

And celebrated.

Think about it.

If you could live your life over again --

if at the age of seven, you could join the Agogé --

wouldn't you do it?

To be raised with other boys -- freely and in nature -- by Warriors.

To know that every Spartan Warrior -- every Spartiate -- was your friend, your guide, there to lead you to Manliness and Manhood.

To instill you with Courage and Temperance and Righteousness.

And Wisdom and Piety too.

To teach you to be Brave.

Self-controlled.

Just.

To teach you to reason.

And to honor the Gods.

To teach you how to Fight -- and Live -- as a Man.

To know that your family was the Spartan people.

And that those Pindar calls "the holy race of the Spartoi" were your spiritual ancestors -- and your guides.

Not to have to search for Love -- honorable love, worthy love -- for ten or twenty or thirty years --

but to have Love given you as a gift from another Warrior --

by decree of your people's Lawgiver --

the Lawgiver -- Lycurgus -- who decreed that men should love one another.

Wouldn't that beat -- by at least a million miles -- what you have now?

Of course, you're not a child anymore.

But -- being determines consciousness.

Translation: it matters where and how you live.

And living in a Warrior Community would transform your life.

Brian understands that.

And so he tithes.

What about you?

You can keep on keepin' on just the way you are now, guarding those precious dollars.

Your particular tragedy, you know, is that there's no one who can stop you doing that.

Except yourself of course.

So you'll keep on just the way you are now.

And eventually you'll die.

Without ever having lived.

Thank you Warrior Brian Hulme.

You're a true Warrior.

Bill Weintraub

November 19, 2009

© All material Copyright 2009 by Bill Weintraub. All rights reserved.