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The Politics of Loneliness
Posts
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The Politics of Loneliness
The Politics of Loneliness
12-29-2006
Last week I posted a message titled The Politics of MC.
Which looked at the politics behind the recent announcement that male circumcision is a partial solution to AIDS in Africa.
There's another politics at work -- a politics which, as it happens, is related to the politics of MC.
I call it the politics of loneliness.
It's December.
It's dark.
It's depressing.
Weeks are spent in the great orgasmic rush towards Christmas; and then there are the post-Christmas blues.
And as happens every December, I've been getting emails and posts from guys -- MEN, really -- who are lonely.
They're lonely all the year through, but for them December, not April, is the cruelest month.
It's the holidays.
When they're supposed to be with someone.
And they're not.
Every December, it seems, there's one guy who stands out.
In December 2002, it was Luke Shelton.
Who even though he was happily married, couldn't escape the memory of his boyhood love;
nor could he escape the terrible hole the wresting of that love from him had left in his life.
In December 2003, it was a guy calling himself Tank.
Who was miserable in his solitary, he thought, brand of masculinity.
In December 2004, it was a man named Joel -- for whom being a warrior had always been paramount -- and who had been celibate all his life.
In December 2005, it was a man who called himself gymnoid -- who again had issues about his needs for men and masculinity.
And in December 2006, it's been a guy calling himself "TC."
TC posted a number of times and I've tried to communicate with him.
To no avail.
He's gone and he doesn't respond.
That's too bad.
Most of these guys have much in common.
For example, they've felt isolated since they were teenagers.
And we know why that is.
It's because they've SELF-isolated.
As Joel said, he was "always looking at guys but being afraid to be ostracised."
Tank put it this way:
I get a buzz from just being around other males, roughhousing, wrestling, playing sports, sweating, and doing guy stuff in a close environment. Testosterone calls out to testosterone. At 15, I had a best friend who was into sports and weightlifting. We would give each other backrubs, wrestle around and get occasional erections in our underwear. Nothing more happened, but it was a beginning. By 16-17, I would find myself alone comparing what I had in common with other guys.
Tank found himself alone.
Drenched in testosterone, thinking constantly about masculinity and other guys, but alone.
And one of his responders, who I'll call Spike and who's into combat sports, agreed:
The truth is that masculinity is the best thing in the world. Whenever I wrestle another guy, or we put our arms around each other after a hard round of sparring, it feels like some spiritual mission has been fulfilled -- in those moments I always feel so complete, like I'm accepted in a brotherhood of kings. It's like the trust you've just built together will let you conquer the world. it's incredible.
That's beautifully said.
It's a sort of Warrior Credo.
Yet, this same guy, Spike, later left the site he said -- he may still be lurking -- because in a fund-raising post I'd called the males on this site who don't donate "fags."
Spike got on his moral high horse about that one.
Well, I explained to him, I'm not breaking any new ground; Larry Kramer did that in 1979 -- wrote a whole novel titled Faggots about the selfishness and callous disregard for each other among gay men.
Spike didn't care -- he had his excuse.
He wanted a reason and he found it:
Bad Bill.
Then just last week, the NY Times ran an article on openly gay playwrights who use anti-gay slurs to get laughs:
In "The Little Dog Laughed," Douglas Carter Beane's Hollywood satire at the Cort Theater, the central character, a ruthless female agent played with verve by Julie White, uses the following terms, among others, to refer to her client, a closeted gay movie actor: "that pansy," "Mary" and "Miss Nancy," "little fairy Tinkerbell" and "little fruit." Coining her own variation on derogation, she calls another character "St. Francis of the Sissies."
Hmmmm.
When I call some males "fags" it's to try to get them to help us and thus themselves, so that we can eliminate faggy, self-loathing behavior among ALL men who love men.
When Mr. Beane does it, it's to get laughs -- and thus advance his career.
That's the truth.
When I do it I'm bad.
When Mr. Beane does it he's rewarded with a Broadway hit.
The Times reporter pointed out that most of the audience laughing at those epithets are either gay themselves or gay-friendly.
That too, guys, is part of the politics of loneliness.
Mr. Beane is rewarded -- by a group of self-loathing -- oh, I'd better not say it -- we'll call them "gay men"; while I'm punished.
Except the people most punished -- are you.
Here's a little message for Spike:
Hard-core "gay" males -- true analists -- have nothing but disdain and contempt for men like yourself.
They are not your friends.
And defending them is a waste of time.
You need to defend yourself.
And guys, try to understand this:
Everything we do on this site and in the Alliance has as its purpose improving the lives of MEN.
ALL MEN.
That's not true in most other areas of life -- such as the Broadway stage.
That's not the goal.
But it IS our goal.
Now, I have to say of the men who wait till December for their misery to be exposed by the "Holidays" -- that none of them show any true staying power.
Luke was on the site for a few months and disappeared.
Tank was on the site for about a year and then he too disappeared.
Joel is gone.
Gymnoid re-appeared under yet another internet pseudonym -- and then he too disappeared.
And TC is gone too.
Like I say that's too bad, because as it happens we understand something which these guys don't.
We understand why they're lonely.
Why are these men lonely?
Politics.
Cultural politics.
Sexual politics.
The politics of sexuality.
What I call the governance of desire.
Our current governance of desire -- or government of desire if you will - is at odds with what these men want and need.
They're all Men who Love Men.
They love Masculinity.
They love Manliness.
Here's Tank again:
I would remember what friends looked like in their jocks, sports uniforms and athletic socks. I noted how sweating made my athletic gear and socks smell, and wondered if anybody else ever took pride in their own manly scent. I was dating a girl, and told myself all this was probably a secret guy thing, as it served to heighten my sense of maleness. I would become erect thinking about it and hump the mattress or a pillow, while imagining I had to wrestle or subdue a guy for the attention of a pretty girl. I had a hang-up about masturbation, but considered thrusting and grinding to be more acceptable than jerking off by hand. I was curious if other guys might be sitting around in their jocks feeling horny and aggressive like I was. I told myself it was like being a buck in rutting season wanting to challenge, charge and mount another male to impress the females and vent built-up frustration.
Throughout my 20s, I continued dating girls, but when alone watching football or wrestling, etc., I would think about all the cocks clashing against each other through hard cups, trunks or singlets. I heard that some athletes practiced the theory of total abstinence before a big game, and wondered if some of them were straining to get hard in their uniforms while engaged in heated competition. Many times I lay down watching with my lonely stiff cock pressed into the couch cushion. I also imagined what it's like in the army or navy with no privacy or time to jerk off. Every night before lights out, all the guys would lie in their bunks with the stink of testosterone thick in the air and erections rising like steel rods. I even ended up buying stuff at the army surplus store to feed my secret boner for grinding crotches and creaming in military gear.
Tank is not unusual.
Though he thinks he is.
He's a normal MAN.
A MAN who loves other MEN.
But, like I just said, our current governance of desire is at odds with what these men want and need.
They're all Men who Love Men.
They love Masculinity.
They love Manliness.
They love the Warrior Idea and Ideal:
The Warrior Ethos, The Warrior Realm, Warriordom.
Yet they've lived all their lives in a society which teaches that real men don't love other men.
That's the essential sexual-political truth -- or actually, lie -- of their lives.
It plays out in different ways in different parts of the society.
If they're gay-identified, they're taught that to be "gay" is to be into anal and effeminate.
If they're straight-identified, they're taught that "straight" guys don't do things like that -- things like feel desire for and love other guys.
And if they're betwixt and between -- as many of our guys are -- they can't find a home for themselves anywhere.
This website is meant to be a sort of home.
But it's just a website after all.
It's not a real home.
I've proposed ways that men could begin establishing true homes for themselves and their fellow men.
But no one's interested in that.
No one wants to do the donkey work.
It's okay, by their lights, if I do it for them.
But if I ask them to share in the fun -- they decline.
Demurely, usually.
But they do decline.
Yet there are limits on what I alone can do -- to put it mildly.
Whereas there are virtually NO limits on what all of us working together could do.
But again, that would involve work.
Or at least the expenditure of some funds.
And no one wants that.
So, I think it's safe to say, the government of desire will remain the same.
Just as the political forces which govern AIDS denied the importance of male circumcision for 18 years and then suddenly decided that MC was important -- when it's actually a lot less important than plain old-fashioned Fidelity;
so will the political forces which govern the lives of Men who Love Men continue to behave capriciously and in ways which are completely beside the point.
Not to mention hostile to the well-being of the men they rule.
Those forces will continue to divide men -- carve them up would be a better way of putting it -- into the categories "gay" and "straight."
When the only categories which actually matter are -- Masculine / Feminine.
And what makes you Masculine isn't being insertive -- whether it's vaginally or anally.
What makes you Masculine is your fighting spirit -- your willingness to fight.
Of course it helps to have a penis and testicles and all those secondary sexual characteristics we to a man know and love;
but those are useless without the willingness to fight.
And most of you aren't willing to fight.
Which is why you're LONELY.
What you don't recognize is that you've had your willingess to fight -- indeed not simply willingness but your natural male eagerness to fight -- stripped from you by the politics of loneliness.
Let's repeat that because it's important:
Your willingess to fight -- indeed not simply willingness but your natural male eagerness to fight -- has been stripped from you by the politics of loneliness.
So you'll go on being lonely.
And every December I'll get more of your letters.
Whining and opining, as Redd says, with all your pent-up would-be masculine might and main -- but ultimately, signifying nothing.
Tank's post was full of testosterone.
But after about a year he picked up his balls and went home.
Fat lot of good they'll do him there.
Guys, you have to fight.
In your situation, you have NO other choice.
Because the powers which govern your lives don't want you and don't intend for you to ever have what you want and need.
Those are the politics of loneliness.
You will fight those politics.
Or you will die.
I know, that's not a very cheery holiday message.
But unlike some trendy New York playwrights, I'm not in the cheer business.
I'm here to tell the TRUTH:
You will FIGHT the forces which are making you miserable.
Or you will die as you've "lived" -- alone.
MEN need the company of other MEN.
That's the Truth.
MAN SPACE
MAN HUG
MAN FIGHT
MAN LOVE
That's what you need.
Is that what you want?
Is that what YOU want?
If so, we have the solution.
And no one else does.
Have you been putting money in those cheerful Salvation Army kettles?
The Salvation Army hates you.
Have you been donating to the Catholic Church?
The Church hates you.
How bout your local evangelical congregations?
They say you're dark and repulsive.
Okay -- what about your town's AIDS Service Organization?
It supports anal, promiscuity, and effeminacy.
Those are the politics of loneliness.
The politics of loneliness.
The politics of mistrust.
Which so easily becomes the politics of death.
And you need to fight them.
As the world has long recognized.
Here are some lines from the dark closing moments of the second part of Lord of the Rings -- which of course is based on myth.
Sam and Frodo are faced with the seemingly hopeless task of reaching Mt Doom and destroying the Ring of Power.
A seemingly hopeless task which they didn't choose.
Which simply fell upon them:
Sam: It's all wrong.
By rights we shouldn't even be here.
But we are.
It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?
But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.
Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding on to, Sam?
Sam: There's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it's worth fighting for.
So: Sam says, "It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here."
That's correct.
As Robert Loring has stated over and over again, our present society and the present situation of Men is abnormal and UNnatural.
Sam: "But we are."
That's the central truth of your and all our lives.
We shouldn't be here, but we are.
And then Sam talks about the great stories, the great myths of his boyhood, and says how terrifying they were: "Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?"
Our world is dark and dangerous too.
Some men -- more than a few -- die.
Other Men are denied their Natural Masculinity and the Natural Love of Man for Man which is the birthright of every Man.
And are miserable.
That's gone on for many, many years.
And we have to wonder, as Sam does, "How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?"
Nevertheless, and as Sam understands, things change: "But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."
How does that happen?
Sam: "Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something."
It happens because the people afflicted by the shadow and its evil DON'T TURN BACK.
THEY KEEP GOING BECAUSE THEY'RE HOLDING ONTO SOMETHING.
Something which really matters.
Frodo: What are we holding on to, Sam?
Sam: There's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it's worth fighting for.
That's right.
I would say there's more than some good.
There's a lot of good.
AND IT'S WORTH FIGHTING FOR.
But you do have to fight.
That's just the way it is.
As a movie, Lord of the Rings, like Star Wars, was very successful.
Because it built upon myth -- upon basic truths shared by all human beings -- to tell its story.
So:
We shouldn't be where we are.
But we are.
You can't turn back.
You need to FIGHT.
Bill Weintraub
December 29, 2006
© All material Copyright 2006 by Bill Weintraub. All rights reserved.
Re: The Politics of Loneliness
12-30-2006
Beautiful post Bill!!!!!
Re: The Politics of Loneliness
1-3-2007
Thank you Bill G.
I got an email from Frances, who said said she liked the piece too, and then added,
So many men are so damaged by living in this culture by the time they get to you.
Boys are thrown into this culture that more or less mangles them. They learn not to trust their own bodies.
And as usual, those are very good points.
"So many men are so damaged by living in this culture by the time they get to you."
That's true of Luke and Tank and TC etc -- but I think it's true of virtually all of us.
We've all been damaged by living in this culture.
That's why I often refer to this letter which was published in the Native when Brett was editor there, twenty-five years ago:
The Sacred Band of Thebes was not known for casseroles and folded napkins nor did the priests of Apollo create a leper colony of sexually transmitted diseases... It is difficult to know at this time what it might mean to be gay. We have been bent out of shape by centuries of persecution and our true profile is only beginning to re-emerge. This process is one of the great adventures of our time and we are all invited to participate in it - to be responsible to it and to each other.
The writer was a guy named David Winnie Hayes.
And he said "It is difficult to know at this time what it might mean to be gay."
I would now change "gay" to "a Man who Loves Men."
"It is difficult to know at this time what it might mean to be a Man who Loves Men."
But that's what we're about here on this site and in the Alliance:
Re-discovering what it means to be a MAN who Loves MEN.
And we've come VERY FAR in that process.
We know now and are clear now that being a Man means being a MAN:
being Masculine;
being Faithful; and
being Phallic in one's love.
What's really needed now is for us to get the word out -- and for you guys to start living that reality, which is both very old and very new.
In order for that to happen, however, you'll have to stick with the process.
You can't go running off the first time things don't go your way or the way you fantasize they should.
This will be a lot of work.
But for those who are true to the process and to themselves, there will be rewards.
Those are the people who, as Samwise says in Lord of the Rings, don't turn back.
The people who don't turn back will reap the rewards.
The rest of you will go on being lonely and unhappy.
And when I say rewards, let me make clear I'm not talking pie-in-the-sky.
True story:
For the first couple years, we had a guy on the site who had a strong masculine ID and was into fighting and Frot.
He'd done the conventional gay=anal scene, and hated it.
So he came to us.
But after about two years, he lost patience with the process, and, apparently needing an excuse, got up on his moral high horse, which in his case was a right-wing high horse -- actually more like a hobby horse -- and left.
And when next I checked one of his online profiles, he was presenting himself as heterosexual and looking for a wife.
That's okay, I guess, but this was a man who was *very* into other men -- particularly straight-identified/bisexual men.
And sure enough, just two months after he'd left, Patrick came to the site.
And in some ways, I thought at the time, Patrick and our quitter would have been a good match.
But our quitter was no longer here.
So while I don't know whether our quitter married a woman, I do know that I married Patrick.
Well, you may say, Patrick and Bill was destiny.
That may be, but around the same time that Patrick showed up, a bunch of other straight-identified / bi guys showed up too.
One of whom would certainly have been right for our quitter.
So: the race is not to the swift, it is to he who endures.
That is a truth which the human race has long recognized and which is incorporated into fable and myth.
You may ignore that truth, but, like I said:
The people who don't turn back will reap the rewards.
The rest of you will go on being lonely and unhappy.
You can look at that as good news or bad news.
To me it's good news:
If you hang in, and if YOU'RE TRUE TO YOURSELF, which is really what this is about, good things will come your way.
Thank you Bill G and Frances.
You're both true Warriors.
Bill Weintraub
© All material Copyright 2007 by Bill Weintraub. All rights reserved.
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