Monday, January 15, 2007
Girl Bars
My first gay bar was in London, in the late 60s. You had to like do the little dance they made you do back then at the door, you had to "join" as if it were a private club. Which it was. Legally it made things easier. Thank God I walked in with another American girl from the youth hostal. A straight girl, but she was there in London studying at RADA. An actress, ergo, an adventuress. Gay bar? No problem for her, off we went.
It helps when you go there with someone. Otherwise I found hardly any of the women ever talked to me. This set me to wondering all sorts of strange ideas, ranging from my mouthwash isn't working tonight to maybe I am not defined enough, not butch or femme looking enough. But that has nothing to do with it. It's just the nature of the beast.
Of course I thought the problem was with me, until I started reading Camille Paglia, the social critic and literary maven. And self-identified lesbian. She writes about exactly the same thing - of walking into dyke bars and being pretty much ignored. Other than the one or two gay boys hanging around, because they WILL talk to you. What's that all about?
Camille was not a bad-looking woman, and neither am I. It's just women can be so...quaint with other women. Again, I am left marvelling that women meet up at all with each other. And again, I find myself saying, no wonder monogamy is such a crucial thing in lesbian life, because you realize how hard it is for ANYONE to hook up. When they do, they want it to be like Leavenworth. Lock and key and forever and ever till death do us part. Actual death or lesbian bed death. Whichever comes first one supposes.
On the other hand, I met one of my best female friends ever in a dyke bar in San Francisco around 1969. This was at Maud's, which was a classic hang-out for dykes. PBS even did a show on Maud's when it finally closed down. It was a fairly roomy place, with a nice pool table where I learned basically to play a mean game of pool. I did this when I discovered few women would talk to me.
The bars can differ depending whether they are in L.A. or San Francisco. I have only seen one in New York City, and that was mid afternoon on a Saturday, so probably not the best time to get a gander of what it's like. The bars in L.A. maybe have women who are a little more dressed, and they may be more into the beautiful look ticket. But not by much. The attitudes are still pretty clique-driven.
Boy bars were a lot more fun. I visited a few of those too with various friends over the years. The energy level seems higher, the dancing more animated. More people actually talk to you.
But try as I will, I can never remember picking anyone up in a bar. I met people there and we might meet later, but nothing ever panned out.
And that is probably why dyke bars can seem pretty forlorn places. I don't know if I would even want to walk into one, just to play pool. This past year I have met two women in bars. One was a fellow writer, the other was coming out of a long relationship. Neither one went anywhere.
The first bar was the Lexington in the Mission District of San Francisco, the only full-time dyke bar left in the city. The other was at Mecca, a more upscale dining place with an elegant circular bar.
Funny how the women don't seem any more secure from one place to the other. No wonder they make me so uncomfortable.
- - - - -
It helps when you go there with someone. Otherwise I found hardly any of the women ever talked to me. This set me to wondering all sorts of strange ideas, ranging from my mouthwash isn't working tonight to maybe I am not defined enough, not butch or femme looking enough. But that has nothing to do with it. It's just the nature of the beast.
Of course I thought the problem was with me, until I started reading Camille Paglia, the social critic and literary maven. And self-identified lesbian. She writes about exactly the same thing - of walking into dyke bars and being pretty much ignored. Other than the one or two gay boys hanging around, because they WILL talk to you. What's that all about?
Camille was not a bad-looking woman, and neither am I. It's just women can be so...quaint with other women. Again, I am left marvelling that women meet up at all with each other. And again, I find myself saying, no wonder monogamy is such a crucial thing in lesbian life, because you realize how hard it is for ANYONE to hook up. When they do, they want it to be like Leavenworth. Lock and key and forever and ever till death do us part. Actual death or lesbian bed death. Whichever comes first one supposes.
On the other hand, I met one of my best female friends ever in a dyke bar in San Francisco around 1969. This was at Maud's, which was a classic hang-out for dykes. PBS even did a show on Maud's when it finally closed down. It was a fairly roomy place, with a nice pool table where I learned basically to play a mean game of pool. I did this when I discovered few women would talk to me.
The bars can differ depending whether they are in L.A. or San Francisco. I have only seen one in New York City, and that was mid afternoon on a Saturday, so probably not the best time to get a gander of what it's like. The bars in L.A. maybe have women who are a little more dressed, and they may be more into the beautiful look ticket. But not by much. The attitudes are still pretty clique-driven.
Boy bars were a lot more fun. I visited a few of those too with various friends over the years. The energy level seems higher, the dancing more animated. More people actually talk to you.
But try as I will, I can never remember picking anyone up in a bar. I met people there and we might meet later, but nothing ever panned out.
And that is probably why dyke bars can seem pretty forlorn places. I don't know if I would even want to walk into one, just to play pool. This past year I have met two women in bars. One was a fellow writer, the other was coming out of a long relationship. Neither one went anywhere.
The first bar was the Lexington in the Mission District of San Francisco, the only full-time dyke bar left in the city. The other was at Mecca, a more upscale dining place with an elegant circular bar.
Funny how the women don't seem any more secure from one place to the other. No wonder they make me so uncomfortable.
- - - - -
Friday, January 05, 2007
Manly Men And Their Manly Protuberances
Guys may not always have it so lucky when the conversation turns to sex. Even though they probably want that to happen. It may not always reflect honor upon them. Their manliness more often than not ends up being examined under a high-powered magnifying glass.
Take for instance the public talk that goes on about condoms. We like to poke fun at the need for such contraptions, but in the end we are all probably using them. But the humor can fade from racy talk like this, particularly when we get a news story out of India that might make a guy - or two or three - think twice before making jokes about condoms. Not that Indian guys do that a lot. They are actually pretty inhibited in a country where sex is a rather conservative topic.
One night recently on the MSNBC ticker tape, I saw a caption of a story out of India, about how the men there were not buying American-made condoms after all. Not because they were inferior, or over-priced. But because the average sized American condom is too big for most Indian males.
Ooohh, I thought. I wonder if this story made headlines back in India. Probably not. Not the sort of story you want bandied about.
Did this apply to Pakistan too? After all, they are right next door, and they are all of the same historical family tree. But you probably couldn't report a story like this out of Pakistan. If they hate us now, just wait until word of their puny private endowments gets out. Al-Qaeda and the rest of the Muslims there won't leave us alone. Talk about your run-up to World War III! Southpark can make fun of the tiny pee-pees of Japanese men, and their skit one month after 9/11 about Osama and his small privates was one of the most hysterically funny and biting pieces ever to hit the airwaves, but this is getting serious now.
So this is why I think the reporting powers that be chose to focus the story on India. They are more likely to have a bit of a sense of humor about such things.
Sort of.
Men in our country would not be amused one whit if they were subjected to similar scrutiny. But it's ok to pick on the Indians I guess. After all, they're the ones now with the jobs. Our jobs, that is. Is this how we get our own back on them?
Men are sensitive about size. Many aren't, fed no doubt on hope generated from hearing women say, since time immemorial, "Well size really doesn't matter that much."
I'd like to find the woman spreading those rumors and give her a good smack to the side of the head! Actually, maybe it was a man who started that rumor, but he attributed it to a woman. I would not be surprised. Because most women I remember ever talking with about this subject felt like I did.
You may not need a salami as large as the Eiffel Tower, but you certainly won't ask it to leave the bedroom.
I must have more of a gay boy's head than I could ever realize. And one of the ways this is true is when it comes to sizes. I love big. It is part of what I like to look at in penises. Along with shape, thickness, curvature. General loveliness. I have been fascinated about male members since before I left the womb.
The horrible thought occurs to me: my childhood fantasy of becoming a man someday was really about my wanting to get close to more penises. If I were a man, I realize now, I wouldn't be boffing women. I would be chasing men like a flea chases the fur of a cat, looking for a place to land.
- - - - -
Take for instance the public talk that goes on about condoms. We like to poke fun at the need for such contraptions, but in the end we are all probably using them. But the humor can fade from racy talk like this, particularly when we get a news story out of India that might make a guy - or two or three - think twice before making jokes about condoms. Not that Indian guys do that a lot. They are actually pretty inhibited in a country where sex is a rather conservative topic.
One night recently on the MSNBC ticker tape, I saw a caption of a story out of India, about how the men there were not buying American-made condoms after all. Not because they were inferior, or over-priced. But because the average sized American condom is too big for most Indian males.
Ooohh, I thought. I wonder if this story made headlines back in India. Probably not. Not the sort of story you want bandied about.
Did this apply to Pakistan too? After all, they are right next door, and they are all of the same historical family tree. But you probably couldn't report a story like this out of Pakistan. If they hate us now, just wait until word of their puny private endowments gets out. Al-Qaeda and the rest of the Muslims there won't leave us alone. Talk about your run-up to World War III! Southpark can make fun of the tiny pee-pees of Japanese men, and their skit one month after 9/11 about Osama and his small privates was one of the most hysterically funny and biting pieces ever to hit the airwaves, but this is getting serious now.
So this is why I think the reporting powers that be chose to focus the story on India. They are more likely to have a bit of a sense of humor about such things.
Sort of.
Men in our country would not be amused one whit if they were subjected to similar scrutiny. But it's ok to pick on the Indians I guess. After all, they're the ones now with the jobs. Our jobs, that is. Is this how we get our own back on them?
Men are sensitive about size. Many aren't, fed no doubt on hope generated from hearing women say, since time immemorial, "Well size really doesn't matter that much."
I'd like to find the woman spreading those rumors and give her a good smack to the side of the head! Actually, maybe it was a man who started that rumor, but he attributed it to a woman. I would not be surprised. Because most women I remember ever talking with about this subject felt like I did.
You may not need a salami as large as the Eiffel Tower, but you certainly won't ask it to leave the bedroom.
I must have more of a gay boy's head than I could ever realize. And one of the ways this is true is when it comes to sizes. I love big. It is part of what I like to look at in penises. Along with shape, thickness, curvature. General loveliness. I have been fascinated about male members since before I left the womb.
The horrible thought occurs to me: my childhood fantasy of becoming a man someday was really about my wanting to get close to more penises. If I were a man, I realize now, I wouldn't be boffing women. I would be chasing men like a flea chases the fur of a cat, looking for a place to land.
- - - - -
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Death Fucks
Years ago when I first read James M. Cain's classic noir potboiler, The Postman Always Rings Twice, I remember hearing shocked reactions, and feeling some myself, over the scene where the anti-hero, our insurance salesman hero, fucks the heroine in the car right after they've beaten in the brains of her husband.
Eeewww, I thought, is this possible? Is it right that people could do this? More to the point, is this NATURAL for people to do this?
Well, one thing about growing older is that your mind expands to allow for many more possibilities than when you are younger. Those possibilities extend to peoples' sex lives and practices.
Now I am of the opinion that these so-called "death fucks" are indeed the natural route for humans to wander down. Before the question I phrased in my mind was, "How could ANYONE remotely think of sex when you've just basically beaten the brains out of a guy and now they're all over we presume the front seat of the car?"
Now the question gets answered, "Oh, of course they would have sex, what else?" Because the intensity of the first act brings into being the possibility of the second occurring now. That is just the nature of the beast. When death is at hand, nature, human nature, has to step in and counter that wave. Getting a hard-on is a way of doing that in the face of people getting hammered right and left.
If you don't want to trust literature to see this effect, you can go look at the news stories that came out of New York City after 9/11. Statistics show that the birth rate shot up nine months later. Why? Because the night after the attacks people apparently went home or somewhere and fucked like rabbits.
We could say, well they should have been comforting their kids, or their friends, or they should have been doing a, b and c. But in the end, they were fucking.
The deepest parts of peoples' psyches cracked open, their survival mechanisms were nukked in some critical way, they responded in utterly logical, perfect unison.
In the face of overwhelming, vast numbers of dead, the only way forward is essentially by harnessing the urge to create more life.
Go Team Humanity!
- - - - -
Eeewww, I thought, is this possible? Is it right that people could do this? More to the point, is this NATURAL for people to do this?
Well, one thing about growing older is that your mind expands to allow for many more possibilities than when you are younger. Those possibilities extend to peoples' sex lives and practices.
Now I am of the opinion that these so-called "death fucks" are indeed the natural route for humans to wander down. Before the question I phrased in my mind was, "How could ANYONE remotely think of sex when you've just basically beaten the brains out of a guy and now they're all over we presume the front seat of the car?"
Now the question gets answered, "Oh, of course they would have sex, what else?" Because the intensity of the first act brings into being the possibility of the second occurring now. That is just the nature of the beast. When death is at hand, nature, human nature, has to step in and counter that wave. Getting a hard-on is a way of doing that in the face of people getting hammered right and left.
If you don't want to trust literature to see this effect, you can go look at the news stories that came out of New York City after 9/11. Statistics show that the birth rate shot up nine months later. Why? Because the night after the attacks people apparently went home or somewhere and fucked like rabbits.
We could say, well they should have been comforting their kids, or their friends, or they should have been doing a, b and c. But in the end, they were fucking.
The deepest parts of peoples' psyches cracked open, their survival mechanisms were nukked in some critical way, they responded in utterly logical, perfect unison.
In the face of overwhelming, vast numbers of dead, the only way forward is essentially by harnessing the urge to create more life.
Go Team Humanity!
- - - - -
