Bill Weintraub

Re: Wonderful Site

1-14-2008

Thank you Ed.

I just want to comment on a few things Ed said.

It is such a mitzvah you are doing.

Thank you Ed.

I suppose nowadays, in the age of google, it's not necessary to explain words like mitzvah -- but mitzvah is a Hebrew word meaning commandment -- and with the connotation of a good deed or a blessing.

So we can think of a mitzvah as something we should do because it's good to do;

and because doing it is a blessing.

In Judaism we also have a concept of "tikkun olam" -- which means "healing the world."

And I say unashamedly that that's what I'm trying to do -- in my little -- or not so little -- corner of the world, which is the intersection of Men and Sex.

The truth about Men and Sex -- or more properly, Men and Love -- has been dreadfully distorted.

And the result has been suffering, disease, and death.

And when I say "distorted" -- I mean just that.

I realized just how greatly Men and Love have been distorted when, in the course of researching my reply to Redd's most recent post in the Agoge thread, I came across a poem by Pindar -- a 5th century BC Greek -- which referred to "exclusive heterosexuality" as "service to a cold path."

That's what he says.

That Men who won't respond to other males erotically -- are "carried in service to an utterly cold path."

I have more to say about this in Agoge Reply III: The Longing for Masculinity.

Let's get back to Ed.

The gay establishment seems to have a lock on everyone's thinking. I know it will be broken, though.

Right.

I speak of a dominant culture or cultural tyranny of anal, promiscuity, and effeminacy.

The idea of a dominant culture aka dominant paradigm is taken from the work of an historian of science named Tom Kuhn.

Kuhn is the person who coined the term "paradigm shift," and inevitably in this area of culture, as in others, there'll be a paradigm shift.

It'll happen far more quickly however, if we work to make it happen.

I chose to live a very healthy way of life, yet I was very isolated because I thought all guys into guys wanted the stereotyped gay sex that is presented everywhere as the norm.

Right -- and that's true of a great many guys -- literally millions of Men.

Yet we have it in our power to end that misconception.

If we will only do so.

Luckily, a few months ago I met a guy who felt the way I do. He became a friend and we had a great sexual experience together.

He lives a few hours away, but we chat and talk often, and will be meeting again before long. So, you're right; it is possible to meet another warrior dude, and I'm feeling good about that.

Yes, of course it's possible to meet someone, and what we encourage Men to do is think in terms of a Warrior model of relationship -- Phallic, Masculine, Faithful -- which we term Heroic Love.

Because historically that's what Men have had.

Ed, it sounds too as though you and your buddy were friends before you had your sexual experience.

Which is the way it should be.

By the way, since you are probably Jewish (like me) I want to add that the Talmud prohibits anal sex.

That famous passage in Leviticus is interpreted by the rabbis to refer to anal sex. The other things that men do together are not outlawed by the Talmud.

That's right, which is why when the Conservative Movement voted recently to lift fhe ban on "gay" rabbis, they kept the ban on anal penetration.

Because Leviticus is so clear.

And you know guys, when Ed wrote back to me to give me permission to post his words =- for which I am very grateful, particularly since so many guys will NOT do that, and I no longer have time to send out email after email begging for permission --

when Ed wrote back, he said that he hadn't known that Conservative Judaism had voted to MAINTAIN the ban on anal.

And he said,

I never saw that mentioned in any of the newspaper articles on their new ruling. That omission can only add to the confusion that's out there among men.

And that's exactly right.

Anal penetration is a complete and utter sacred cow.

If it were a person, we'd say it leads a charmed life, because it creates devastation wherever it goes -- and remains untouched.

That must change.

YOU -- the guys reading this post -- have it in your power to change that.

But you won't exercise that power.

Here's the truth:

Your failure to act simply prolongs YOUR misery.

The analists don't care.

The guys who are suffering due to YOUR failure to DONATE and otherwise act -- are YOU.

Thank you Ed.

A beautiful post.

Bill Weintraub

January 14, 2008

© All material Copyright 2008 by Bill Weintraub. All rights reserved.

Justin Zderad

Re: Wonderful Site

1-17-2008

Thanks a million Ed for your input on this delicate matter of man2man sex. Bill, indeed, is doing us all a mitzvah by clearly pointing out the values of true authentic man2man relationships, and the wrongs of anal penetration. I am not Jewish, but rather a Christian. The Jewish scriptures (the Torah, prophets, and wisdom), nontheless, are a central part of the Christian faith. I have always wrestled with the passages in Leviticus, because the Christian church seems, at least this is the impression that I get, to interpret Leviticus chapter 18 verse 22 as ANY form of sexual relations between men. Furthermore, the punishment for such actions, in the context of scripture, is death; Lev. 20:13. How can a man like myself, a man whose stance is that of the Alliance, in this case, claim to be a Christian? What you say, that your teachers interpret their scripture to mean anal intercourse only, is a ground-shaking statement to me. I have always considered anal penetration to be taboo, while other sexual relations between men (frot, in particular) to be honoring and uplifting. Thank you again, Ed, for pointing this out to your fellow Frot Warriors. If a Christian is allowed to say this to you - "Shalom."

Justin

Bill Weintraub

Re: Wonderful Site

1-18-2008

Thank you Justin.

When I read a post like Justin's I'm reminded of just how destructive, churchly Christianity can be.

I said "churchly Christianity."

I didn't say "the Christian Faith."

There's a difference.

My husband is a Christian.

An evangelical Christian.

And the Christian Faith without question has been a great force for good in his life.

But then he's an *inclusive* Christian -- an *inclusive* evangelical.

His Faith does not exclude -- it includes.

Everyone.

And he's been that way all his life.

And he's paid a price for it.

His marriage, which was also his ministry, was racially-mixed.

There were deacons and other churchly muckety-mucks who welcomed him to their church as a preacher, and then when they saw his wife, were upset -- and wanted to exclude her.

Which he did not permit.

As a consequence, because he was inclusive, and because he was in a racially-mixed marriage, he was denied a congregation of his own.

He was forced to be an itinerant preacher.

And eventually, that life on the road cost the lives of his wife and children.

Yet there's nothing in the Gospels which condemns racially-mixed marriages -- is there?

Just as there's nothing which condemns sex and love between Men.

Jesus never mentions that topic.

Never.

In the nineteenth century, as I pointed out in my reply to Robert Loring's She Didn't Understand, everyone was evangelical.

Yet when we look at photographs from that era, as presented by Ibson and others, we see no condemnation of intimacy and affection between Men.

No doubt there was the occasional sermon about Sodom and Gomorrah -- but basically, what is today called "homsexuality" wasn't on the radar.

If very prominent Men like Admiral Mahon or Abraham Lincoln wanted to have a Warrior Brother -- they did.

And no one said a word.

Yet Justin, in his young life, and living less than 100 years after Mahon, who died in 1914, has been forced to wrestle, as he says, "with the passages in Leviticus, because the Christian church seems, at least this is the impression that I get, to interpret Leviticus chapter 18 verse 22 as ANY form of sexual relations between men. Furthermore, the punishment for such actions, in the context of scripture, is death; Lev. 20:13."

And that's right.

The Christian church, which was by and large silent on the issue one hundred years ago, does very little else nowadays except to beat the drum about Leviticus and homosexuality.

And MONEY.

They -- that is the Churches, led by such stalwarts of the Faith as Ted Haggard and Rick Warren and Pope Benedict -- want your MONEY.

Preferably one-tenth of every penny you earn.

So that they can go on beating that particular drum, and thus scaring MEN -- who should know better -- out of their wits, and turning them into effeminized fools -- who in turn give the churches their money.

Now, let's not put too fine a point on it.

The money is a bribe.

It's what used to be called an indulgence.

You give them money and you get to go to heaven.

Of course they never say that because of course -- Jesus never said it.

He never said it costs money to get into heaven.

He never said God charges admission.

He said the opposite -- that folks with too much money would have a very hard time of it.

But he never said that to get into heaven, you had to give him money.

Why not?

He after all started it.

It was HIS ministry.

If giving money to a ministry is so important, why didn't JESUS demand money?

Why didn't he?

Justin, the whole thing is a sham.

Not the Faith, which is clear and clean and pure.

But the religion -- which is not of Jesus, but which is purely of this world.

And as a worldly force, it's been enormously destructive, and continues to be.

I describe some of that destruction in AGOGE Reply III: The Longing for Masculinity, where I talk about how ruthlessly the Church destroyed the various pagan cults and rites and philosophies; plus the athletic events and complexes which had characterized the lives of ancient Men for more than a thousand years.

In doing that, in describing that destruction, I knew I might offend some people, who would see it as an attack on the Christian Faith.

It is not.

It's merely a discussion of historical fact, and of what happened when men, not saints, of very worldly mind, seized the immense power of the Roman state, and turned it against their perceived enemies, the "gentiles" -- those who were not Christian.

They used that power to threaten, kill, and destroy -- and thus to put an end to what they called "paganism," but which in reality was an aggregation of by-and-large unrelated cults, rites, mystery religions, and philosophies, which had served the spiritual needs of the peoples of the Mediterranean world for more than a thousand years -- PEACEFULLY.

There were NO "religious wars" -- which disfigured Europe and Europeans as well as the peoples of the Middle East and Asia for centuries thereafter.

And which continue to this day.

And other than brief and intermittent persecutions of the Christians, on the grounds of their failure to honor various emperors, there were no religious persecutions.

All the cults and philosophies and rites -- including Christianity -- co-existed, on the whole, peacefully.

That changed, as I describe, and as have so many before me, once Christianity was able to seize control of the Roman state and use the power of that state to ban dissent.

What gives Christianity -- or any other religion -- its power?

Well, the great American writer Flannery O' Connor, who was a Christian and a devout Catholic, said this:

Children are cursed with believing.

And she was right.

What the various churches seek to do, of course, is get hold of children when they're very young, and "educate" them into the particulars of their belief systems.

Whatever those particulars may be.

This whole issue came up under the reign of the emperor known to history as Julian the Apostate, whom I also discuss in AGOGE Reply III: The Longing for Masculinity, in Section III, which is titled "In Service to a Cold Path."

Julian was the nephew of Constantine the Great, who had legitimized Christianity in the empire.

But Julian's father, who was a half-brother to Constantine, was murdered by Constantius -- a son of Constantine's -- who was engaged, after Constantine's death, in securing the empire for himself.

Translation: Constantius, that good Christian, murdered his uncle -- and a number of other male members of the family -- to ensure that he, Constantius, became emperor.

So Julian early on in life saw that Christians may say one thing -- yet do another.

Quietly, and indeed secretly, Julian turned away from Christianity and became a neo-Platonist.

He was initiated into the rites of Mithras and Eleusis, and worshipped his own trinity of Hermes, Helios, and Cybele.

Julian's wish was to be a philosopher.

But that was not an option, given the family of his birth.

Rather, he was appointed Caesar -- a sort of sub-emperor -- in 355, and became Augustus on the death of Constantius in 361.

As Caesar, he'd had a truly brilliant military career in Gaul, protecting that province from the Germans.

His success was unexpected, because, unlike most men of his social class, he'd had no military training.

Yet he proved to be a genius both at war and in peace -- he lowered taxes in Gaul and set the province on a sound financial basis for many decades.

Once he'd become emperor, he was determined to stop the Christian seizure of power.

So he issued an edict of toleration for ALL religions, including all the various Christian heresies, one of which by the way, is the one most people follow today -- the Athanasian, which became known simply as the Catholic Church.

His idea was to level the playing field.

And his pagan friends applauded him for doing so.

But then he did something of which many didn't approve.

He decreed that only "pagans" could teach the Greek and Roman classics -- what was generally called "rhetoric."

A knowledge of "rhetoric" was crucial for any person who wanted a job in the vast Roman bureaucracy -- you had to be educated, and educated in those days meant -- educated in Homer and Plato and Aesychlus and Pindar and Virgil and Livy and so forth.

Julian's ban, therefore, was a problem, and even many pagans criticized the decree.

Why did Julian do it?

Because, as O'Connor has said, children are cursed with believing.

Julian understood that what the Christian rhetoriticians were doing -- was teaching the style of the classics -- without the substance.

They were telling their pupils to know Homer and imitate Plato or Plotinus -- all the while insisting that the *ideas* of Homer and Plato were FALSE.

And that the only true doctrine -- was Christian doctrine.

Julian thought that was both unfair and unwise.

That if children were to be taught the classics, they should be taught the classics by those who believed in not just the style, but the substance -- what we would call the world-view -- of the classics.

As I said, opinion among the so-called pagans was divided.

Ammianus Marcellinus, a Greco-Roman historian of the age, who knew Julian, and made him the hero of his history, disagreed with the decree.

The philosopher and educator Libanius, who also knew Julian, supported it.

Reading Justin's post suggested to me that Julian, who was without question one of the great minds of his or any other age, was correct.

"Children are cursed with believing."

Not that Justin is a child -- I don't mean that -- he's a man.

But what he was told as a child continues to plague his thoughts.

If instead he'd been taught that Zeus loved Ganymedes and Poseidon Pelops and Apollo Hyacinth and Herakles Iolaos; if he'd gone as a youth to the great Olympic complex at Olympia, and wandered, as I describe in AGOGE Reply III: The Longing for Masculinity, among statues and reliefs and paintings of Zeus and Ganymedes and Pelops and Poseidon and Herakles and Iolaus; if he'd been taught the Iliad, and that Achilles loved Patroclus and had traded a long life for the right to avenge Patroclus' death;

if he'd learned about Harmodius and Aristogeiton; and Alexander and Hephaistion; and the Sacred Band of Thebes;

if he'd been taught about Kings Agis and Cleomenes of Sparta, and the great mutual devotion of Pelopidas and Epaminondas;

if he'd learned, via Pindar, the story of Kastor and Polydeuxes, and learned why Men so often swear "by the Twin Gods";

if he'd read deeply in the Lysis, Phaedrus, and Symposium;

if he'd been trained as a Warrior and taught to pray to Achilles before fighting and Eros before battle --

would his outlook on the Love of Man for Man be different?

Yes.

And suppose he'd been taught that there are many paths to salvation, that one lies through Jesus and another through Mithras and another through Eleusis and another through Isis and another through Serapis and another through Antinous --

might he be less concerned about what some Christian preachers, so many of whom have been caught in hypocrisy, say?

Yes.

What I encourage people to do is get a copy of Ammianus Marcellinus' "History" -- there's an inexpensive and serviceable Penguin edition, under the title "The Later Roman Empire," translated by Walter Hamilton, which your local library should be able to order for you.

Ammianus is a very easy read -- and exciting in places too.

He was a well-educated Greek from Antioch who became a Roman military man and was present at many of the major battles of his era.

From which, and given that the Romans lost more than a few, he very narrowly escaped with his life.

So there are some pulse-quickening episodes of real-life derring-do --

plus *very* intelligent analysis of the personalities and politics of his day.

Ammianus was a pagan, and as you'll see, he considered Julian to be a hero -- but his treatment of Christianity is very even-handed -- he basically calls it like he sees it.

There's also a novel by Gore Vidal called "Julian" -- and it's fine, but in my view you're always better off just reading the ancient sources themselves.

That's what Vidal did, and you can do it too.

So -- Ed is correct that Leviticus refers to anal penetration.

But Leviticus is -- Leviticus.

There's lots of stuff in Leviticus that nobody, other than ultra-Orthodox Jews, pays any attention to any longer.

In an email to me, Lawrence said, "God condemns sodomy."

My response is Leviticus condemns sodomy.

And, while it's to my purpose certainly for you to believe that God, via Leviticus, condemns sodomy --

the Greeks condemned sodomy.

As does anyone with half a brain.

Truth is, you don't need Leviticus.

You just need your common sense, and what your Manly body and your own Masculine instincts tell you about sex and about Men.

Because every one of you has always known that sex between Men is about phallus -- not anus.

You know that.

You get Hard.

And you want to feel the Hardness of another Man against your own.

You want to communicate with that Man -- Phallically.

And bond with him Phallically.

Through the essence of that which makes both you and him a MAN -- your Mutual MANHOOD.

YOU KNOW THAT.

You don't need Leviticus and you don't need the rabbis either.

You just need YOURSELF.

At the end of AGOGE Reply III: The Longing for Masculinity, I quoted Redd, who said that the ancients affirmed masculinity; and that our culture condemns masculinity.

BUT YOU HAVE IT IN YOUR POWER TO CHANGE THAT.

BY AFFIRMING YOUR OWN MASCULINITY and condemning all the heterosexualized analist and Christian and effeminized bullshit which has been thrown at you for so many years.

It's WRONG.

In your heart, your own private inmost place, you've ALWAYS known it's wrong.

Now you have, thanks to this ALLIANCE, your Warrior brothers to tell you so.

To say: You're RIGHT.

And YOU are.

Man calls out for Man.

Cock calls out for Cock.

And you don't need any more affirmation of that fact than your own feelings -- the burning in your chest and cock when you read the words or look at the images on this page.

You know that burning in your chest and your cock when you want to unite with another MAN.

You know it.

So Ed's right -- and I'm glad he brought this up, and I'm also glad that the Conservative branch of Judaism has preserved the ban on anal.

Because Biblically that's correct.

And Moses, as it happens, got it right:

Don't do anal, don't be promiscuous, get circumcised.

Most of the MSM HIV and virtually all the HIV infection in Africa would have been prevented -- if folks had listened to Moses.

But -- you don't need Moses and you don't need Leviticus.

Because your brain tells you that anal is a bad idea.

And your heart tells you that cock2cock is what you want.

And your heart and your brain together tell you that Fidelity is the path to follow.

That's it.

Fidelity and Frot.

You know you're a Man, you know what you want is to be Masculine and Naturally Masculine.

So go for it.

Don't listen to the churches -- throughout history, they've been wrong time and time again and have brought misery and death to millions.

Listen to yourself.

Listen to your heart.

Your Manly Heart.

Bill Weintraub

January 18, 2008

© All material Copyright 2008 by Bill Weintraub. All rights reserved.