Patrick

Re: Live for Honor...Fight for Honor...and for Victory...

1-5-2005

Dear Joel

Please excuse me for putting my oar in here, but I see a theme running through your thoughts, and I think I may have a suggestion or two.

I agree with many of the things you've said, and I believe as Scripture instructs, that there's a time for every purpose under Heaven.

I would suggest that you read the writings of Randall Wallace, in which speaking of his forefather, William Wallace, the real one, not the actor, he referred to the theme of the warrior-poet.

What's a warrior-poet?

A warrior-poet, be it a man or woman (the Celts believed in having both), is a warrior of great skill and courage. What makes him a poet is that he only fights when the circumstances won't allow any other solution.

You might say that it's a form of warrior maturity.

I always felt the same fire that you speak of.

When this was coupled with a fierce Irish temper, I frequently got myself in trouble.

The two things which have liberated me from this problem are my Faith in God and 20 years or so in the martial arts.

I don't fly off the handle now and break people's arms with little or no justifiable provocation.

My Faith gives me my morality and my priorities, my priorities being exchanged for those of God.

The martial arts merely formed a framework of discipline to keep my temper under control -- more or less.

As much as I love these arts, they are just a discipline and they are in fact completely amoral.

The fact that I can break someone's arm doesn't tell me whether it's appropriate to do so.

For that I needed the learning I've received over the years from Scriptures and my Faith in God.

Patrick is often wrong.

God never is.

I have a rather diverse religious background: My father was Catholic, and was, by great measure the best man I have ever known. My mother on the other hand was rather quiet and saintly. She was a Protestant of high church origin who started attending a much more basic evangelical type Protestant church.

Coming from these roots, I found myself free to put my own spin on my Faith. I even strayed for awhile, indulging in Wicca and certain eastern religions ... but I found these to be empty. Why were they empty? Because they were religions, and had little or nothing to do with Faith.

God isn't really in religion. In our religion, we seek to do something properly because of our belief in God and any errors are our own fault.

Not until I came to know Grace did I find peace with myself and the world.

We find God's Grace through Christ, when we have a personal relationship with Him ... My religion, if you can call it that, are the things that I do relating to God.

Without this relationship, my temperment and my modest skill with the martial arts and firearms would have long since served me ill.

Warriors sometimes find that they have to do violent things but rarely does a person who simply feels violent actually know the warrior's mind.

Violence, in the words of George Lucas, does not make one great.

But restraint in the warrior, until those rare circumstances in which violence is justified arise, does.

Anybody can become embroiled in a conflict, but only a warrior knows whether he's justified or not. My one example of the warrior spirit being shown in proper context was my father's service to his country. He was a conscientious objector, but he saw the threat of Nazi Germany as a threat to the Faith and the freedom of humanity.

And so he chose to serve in a combat role and served with great distinction.

Whereas the petty scraps that I have been involved in, though sometimes understandable, really served little good purpose.

The difference in me now is simple: it is agape -- Christian love.

I don't fight any more because of it, and I wouldn't have it without my personal relationship with God. Gone now are my fiery outbursts of violence, which showed my immaturity and lack of control and in fact were proofs positive that I was no warrior.

If I may humbly suggest, cultivate a personal relationship with God through Christ without religion of any kind. When you feel agape, God's light will illuminate your path. You can still be a warrior, and I hope you are ... but then you will know in no uncertain terms when to be a warrior.

After you do this, I would further recommend a calm and thorough study of a martial art. When your self-confidence level goes up, you will find that you are much more peaceful.

Peace

Patrick

Bill Weintraub

1-5-2005

Re: Live for Honor...Fight for Honor...and for Victory...

Thank you Joel and Sensei.

Joel, you wrote that the warrior ethic is part of our heritage and of our birthright:

..I make a call to my brothers...my warrior brothers...who feel deeply...in their hearts...what I feel...to walk together...and to honor our brothers from the past...those who were great warriors in physical combat and those who were great warriors in more subtle ways...to walk with them...and to rally around this very important revival of an old ethic...that was lost...that was stolen from us...it is our heritage...it is our birthright...

That's right.

It is part of our genetic code and it is our birthright.

Sociobiologists have established that the ability and inclination of men to bond into warrior bands is instinctive and genetic, a special case of reciprocal altruism, and without question, part of our birthright as men.

Today, that daily experience of the warrior bond has been lost, though by no means forgotten, because the material conditions of life which sustained it have changed.

Prior to the 20th century, most men in most parts of the world had some experience of warrior culture.

Even in Europe and America, the two most materially advanced areas of the world, throughout the 19th century and into the 20th, most men still served as soldiers.

Since 1945, however, although there have been terrible regional conflicts, most of the world, and most particularly Europe and the Americas, has been on the whole at peace.

In part because human beings have gotten better at exploiting the natural world and have fewer reasons to fight over natural resources.

Nevertheless, you're correct that the human male evolved -- or was designed -- to be a warrior.

One of our tasks then is to renew both the idea and the ideal of the warrior and make both relevant again.

By showing guys that rather than lives consumed by meaningless, compulsive promiscuity, effeminacy, and anal penetration -- what Patrick aptly calls "pansyism" -- there's a warrior model of men loving men *as men,* phallically and faithfully.

And that too is part of your birthright as a man -- the ability to bond fiercely, exclusively, and phallically to another man.

Those are the components of an erotically-expressed bond between warriors.

And between men.

So while the outward conditions of human life have changed -- to repeat, we don't at present have the same constant fighting over scarce resources which characterized so much of human pre-history and history -- we still have the need to be warriors.

And those who are able to relate that need to be a warrior to their need to connect sexually with another man can begin to understand one of our central tenets:

Because that warrior model is not some romantic notion, but rather something which is rooted in our deepest consciousness.

That's why so much of what passes for "gay" life rings hollow to us.

Instead of men loving men, we see men using men -- as objects, toys, meat.

Instead of men honoring each other phallically, we see men degrading each other anally.

And instead of men celebrating their masculinity, we see men acting like pseudo-females, an effeminacy which insults both men and women.

Although the majority cultures, both gay and straight, mandate these behaviors, this is not how it was for men who loved men, and this is not how it will always be.

If, Joel, you can harness your energies to the goal of freeing both your gay-identified and straight-identified brothers from the cultural tyranny of their respective majorities, you will have put your warrior identification to good use.

But this will be the most difficult fight of your life.

I've been in it for five years and I can tell you that you'll have the whole weight of two cultures against you:

Gay male culture.

Straight culture.

Yet if you can bring your warrior energies to this task, you'll go beyond simply being a warrior, and become a hero fighting the good fight.

Working to overthrow the analist and hetero tyrannies, and freeing men to be their authentic sexual, warrior, selves.

I encourage you also once in that fight to begin the search for your own hero.

This too is not an easy task.

It's one on which you may well expect to spend years.

But that's a warrior's life -- it's arduous, but the rewards are great.

Once again, both cultures, gay and straight, will belittle your quest.

Those cultures are dead wrong.

Our task is to oppose them.

To say no to them.

To challenge them at every turn by living our own, true, warrior lives.

Joel

Re: Live for Honor...Fight for Honor...and for Victory...

1-7-2005

...i have been waiting a long time to correspond with individuals who understand what is going on inside my head...it is my sincere wish and hope...God willing...that other brothers out there in the community...who are keeping silent...will come forth and add to these ideas...

...as Bill says this is the beginning...the embryo...and all embryos need nutrition to survive that phase of development...to grow...form...and mature to a point where it is able to exist as an independent entity...a lot of us are still in the proverbial closet and not just regarding our sexuality...but also regarding the way we perceive life...our weltanschauung...as the germans call it...is still hidden from the mainstream...

...men today...whether straight or bi or gay...from my experience...are no more willing to express their emotional and romantic feelings for each other than they are willing to discuss and understand the ideas that Bill, Sensei Patrick and other Brothers on this site are putting forth...there is an intimate connection between the two...

...my experience is this...and it is mostly with men who identify as straight...that any conversation that goes beyond last night's ball game isnt worth having...i think that this comes from the same mentality that traps gay identified men into thinking that only anal is 'gay' sex...both streams of thought are degrading...both oppress the ones who employ them...

...all revolutions start as ideas...not just of one man...but of many...those ideas come together...test each other and cause the formation of other ideas...eventually those ideas become principles by which a certain group of people decide to live...that group then...in the practice of those principles...becomes a target and a threat to the status quo...the establishment wages a war of destruction on the group...who may be called upon to defend their principles...with perseverence...trust in each other and trust in God...God as the Source of Love...the group overcomes the tyrannical establishment and establishes a society based on their principles...

...the last great revolution...which took this exact pattern of development...was the War for American Independence...

...today...Bill, Patrick and others are standing up as founding philosophers of this new revolution in thinking...they may not be the George Washingtons or the Patrick Henrys of our time...but they are the John Lockes and the Voltaires...who lay the foundation for those individuals who will be our Thomas Jeffersons and Benjamin Franklins...

...this is why i urge all the brothers out there...to add to these discussions...something you say today...may be the key to success tomorrow...

Si Deus Vult...

Live for Honor...Fight for Honor and For Victory

Joel

Bill Weintraub

Re: Live for Honor...Fight for Honor...and for Victory...

1-10-2005

Thank you Joel.

Joel is reaching out to other men here, he's been very open about what he feels and believes, and I hope that some of you will respond.

Joel is right that many of you are still closeted not just about sex but about your world view -- specifically, how you feel about masculinity and promiscuity and men loving men.

You need to address those issues not only on this board, but also with your friends and family and colleagues where appropriate and absolutely with your spiritual adviser, your pastor or priest or rabbi.

It's very important that you begin to come out in all those regards.

I also appreciate Joel's kind words about myself and Patrick.

Fact is, by virtue of both experience and ability, I'm more than capable of being the George Washington of this movement.

And Patrick is more than capable of being not only its Patrick Henry but its Tom Jefferson as well -- he's a polymath and exceptionally able.

And there are other guys -- Chuck Tarver and Mart Finn first and foremost -- who too are extremely intelligent, capable, and committed.

So there's no dearth of leadership.

The problem is MONEY.

MONEY.

We don't have any MONEY with which to advance.

And the source of that problem is YOU.

Not Joel, who has donated handsomely to the site.

But the vast majority of the rest of YOU -- who have not.

YOU want miracles -- apparently something akin to the loaves and the fishes.

Because you write me day after day after day whining about the absence of partners and how isolated and LONELY you are.

But when I tell you that with a relatively small amount of MONEY we could change that -- YOU DO NOTHING.

Obviously you prefer to complain and be alone than part with some cash and take the chance that you'll have a real life.

YOU DON'T CONTRIBUTE.

You don't give us the MONEY we need to get our message out and inform and attract all those men to this site and our work who are ready and eager to come and hear.

As it is, and not to be blasphemous, I am pulling off a sort of miracle, month after month after month, by keeping the sites not just online but fresh and invigorated -- creating something quite literally out of nothing.

But that's NOT ENOUGH.

We cannot advance without MONEY.

George Washington had money -- he, like most of his fellows, was landed gentry, and they raised money from among the gentry and from among those colonists who were less well off.

We don't have those resources.

Further, while it's flattering to be compared to Locke and Voltaire, anal penetration, unlike the belief systems and institutions against which they labored, has not had a thousand-year run.

It's been at the center of *gay male* sexual practice for a mere 30 years.

It's NEVER been the majority practice of all men who have sex with men.

NEVER.

NOT EVER.

The dominance of anal penetration among that tiny minority known as gay men is the result of an unusual and indeed historically unique confluence of circumstances.

Guys, it's really important -- it's *vital* -- that you understand that.

The first lie of the analist oppressor is that the lives of men who love men have always been about anal penetration and promiscuity.

That's completely and utterly untrue.

You have to rid yourselves of that lie.

Because it's imprisoning -- to the extent that you accept it, it freezes you and robs you of your ability to act.

It leads you to believe that nothing can be done to change your situation.

That's not true.

But to the extent you believe that lie, you do nothing, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Furthermore, the straight lie which accompanies that analist lie -- the idea that real men don't love other men -- so often expressed in contemporary culture -- is just that -- contemporary.

For millenia, homosexuality and the military -- homosex and the warrior -- have been seen as inextricably intertwined.

That's why you can see on this site -- for example at the end of Why Be Faithful -- 19th century photos of soldiers with their arms around each other.

The men in those photos are clearly very relaxed and comfortable with their public display of affection.

That's because there was NO STIGMA attached to what Whitman so famously called "the dear love of comrades."

NONE.

As apparently was true for the first millienium of the Christian era, when, according to Yale classicist and openly gay Catholic John Boswell in his very erudite book, Same-sex Unions in Premodern Europe, it was common for the Church to celebrate and solemnize loving same-sex unions.

Holy unions.

Indeed, in an amicus curiae brief filed with the Supreme Court during the Lawrence v Texas sodomy decriminalization debate, a number of scholars asserted that persecution and prosecution of "homosexuals" in the Western world had been, prior to the 20th century, *sporadic*.

That far from being an integral part of Western culture, such persecution might better be seen as an aberration.

That brief was cited by the Court in the majority decision.

Because if the persecution of homosexuals does not have millienia of tradition behind it, but is rather, historically, occasional and indeed primarily contemporary, one of the most important arguments of the religious right is shown to be completely fallacious.

So: the idea that real men don't have love other men, like the idea that all sex between men is anal and promiscuous, is completely and utterly false.

Which means that to think that with a little effort anal and effeminacy and promiscuity cannot be displaced and replaced is silliness.

The problem is you want NO effort.

You want it to happen by magic.

You want to sit around drinking your $5 lattes at Starbuck's and live as parasites on this site, contributing nothing while expecting your dreamboy to leap out of your computer screen in the next five minutes.

That's not realistic.

To do this will require work, and as I've explained to you repeatedly, given the opposition of the gay male media and the religious right, that will require MONEY.

I don't have enough money to do it by myself, and even if I did, it wouldn't be fair to demand -- as you do -- that all the effort come from me and the relative handful of brave, decent, and generous souls who do contribute to the site, and whom you're also leeching off of.

So: I don't have money.

YOU have MONEY.

There's not one of you who couldn't spare five dollars a month.

But you won't part with it.

Too bad.

Until you start contributing on a regular, monthly, basis --

NOTHING WILL CHANGE.

UNTIL YOU START TO DONATE -- NOTHING WILL CHANGE.

This is not a question now of anything other than MONEY.

DONATE.

Or die.

Die the miserable, lonely, misunderstood "men" you think yourselves to be.

Also: Don't post on the board saying you're going to donate unless you actually intend to.

In the last big appeal, this autumn, some of the guys who responded to the "We need donations" message thread said they were going to donate.

And never did.

It's truly pathetic.

My patience with you is just about gone.

DONATE NOW, or the sites will go too.

And with them, what hope you have of happiness.

Finally, to come back to Joel's original point:

This weekend I got a large number of emails from both gay and straight-identified Frot guys, thanking me for the site and talking about their lives.

I asked each of those guys for permission to post their email.

NOT ONE has responded.

Again, the posts you see on this board and that are archived in Warriors Speak didn't get here through magic.

Some were just submitted as posts.

But most came to me originally as emails, and I had to beg and plead and cajole their authors into posting them.

That's extremely time-consuming, and it burns me out.

Even worse, it exposes the essentially selfish and therefore inevitably self-defeating nature of what most of you are after here.

You come to the site, you read accounts from other men, accounts from which you benefit because they affirm your own story, you write to me seeking more affirmation and my help -- but then you don't want to contribute to the process.

You want to take and take and take and give nothing in return.

That's parasitic.

And not at all attractive.

You'll never find what you want living lives that are so cowardly and selfish.

Before you can receive you have to give.

That's basic to our human experience of life.

Cockrub Warriors Rule.

Frot Men Rock.

Warriors are bonded altruistically with their fellows.

You guys are not.

Men act to improve their world.

You guys don't.

Before you can hope to change this world which so oppresses you -- you yourselves have to change.