Got a comment on my blog from SilverRRCloud

He's concerned about my use of narcissistic defense as a way of describing what might otherwise be seen as healthy male sexuality. Check out my entry and his comment. What do you think?

17 We cannot live the afternoon of life according to the programme of life's morning.....

Funny because when you start to do some writing thinking that that you might have something new to say, once you start to do a bit of research it’s not long before you discover that a lot of it has been said before!

Just googling ‘Gay Wisdom Blog’ today threw up about 20 or so sites.

The most interesting one was Gay Banker. I’ve set up a link to his blog on the top right of this page. There was also an interesting article in the Gay Sydney Star Observer about gay mentorship. So I’m not the only one thinking what I’m thinking about gay youth cut adrift and captain-less!

I also came across the quote, which forms the title of this week’s blog

This was quoted in a blog of an elder woman who was reflecting on her horror at being exposed to an aspect of mainstream culture whilst staying with friends. They were watching a TV program at breakfast featuring a faded model who had decided to go for a facelift because she craved what she had lost.

We cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life's morning, for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.

I liked the quote

What wise words!

I also came across a book on Gay Witchcraft that had a spell to honor elder hood. The ritual involved rubbing oil into the skin of the naked body and thanking it; loving every aspect of it, visualizing it’s use into the future and the pleasure it will be capable of giving. Such an unusual thing to contemplate doing when the usual routine is to scan my body for the bits that have started to remind me of my dad!

The skin over my calves has started to loose it’s masculine curly hairs. And fine blue veins have started to spring up along my shins. There’s a catalogue of aches and pains which never used to be there but are now a regular accompaniment to my perception of the world-aches in the joints of my hands, a pain on the outside of my right knee, spasm and pain in the muscle going from the outside of my knee to my hip, tension in the muscle between my right shoulder blade and my spine. Receding hairline, grey hair, bags starting to appear under my eyes, receding gums. The idea of swapping things around and doing a daily review of what’s working. Being amazed at this wonderful body that’s survived getting on for 50 years. Akin to the majesty of great Oak-well not that old-maybe a splendid horse chestnut tree. Just there, alive and likely to be around for much longer. Yes I shall start to do a positive body stock take from now on rather than focusing on what’s old and worn out !!

16 Life is like a gay sauna......

I'm back in Spain again. This time Barcelona and here for 10 days. Got myself a room in a nice discrete Hotel in the gay quarter of the city Eixample [pronounced ey-eecham-pley] also known jocularly as Gaixample [ga-ee-sham-pley]. I'm about 5 minutes walk from the main cluster of pubs and clubs which are peppered around the street on the grid just one block north and two blocks east of where I'm based. Not that I've done that much since I've arrived but it's good to feel ensconced in a gay-friendly world. It's now day 3 of the holiday and really I've just been getting some sleep and rest and taking it nice and easy. Had a quick foray onto the scene on Saturday night when I arrived but I just don't think I was in the mood for it.

Started at Punto BCN bar which, has a great mix of people and always seems to be reasonably attitude free. Moved on to Dietrich’s, which was an interesting mix of younger guys and older guys, all dancing to house music [or whatever you call that uh-uh-ur-ur-uh-uh-uh-ur-ur-ur type music]. Didn't really do it for me and kinda just felt like a bit of a spectator. Still only drinking tonic water. And being charged the same price as for a G&T or a V&T rankles a bit. But I'm still happy to be hangover free the next day making me able to stay chilled and be capable of doing something more creative than just padding around nursing a sore head. Anyhoo- from there felt like I ought to check out a club and had always wanted to see the Arenas- 4 clubs on 2 sites separated by a 3 minute walk. My guidebook said pay for one get into all 4, so I rushed off to what seemed would offer the best entertainment for th evening, Paid my €12 [almost £12 at the current dreadful exchange rate] and started my wander around. Sadly I think I made a bad choice, or arrived there too early because I had gained access to two vast areas, one above the other, peopled by what seemed to be a handful of children. The music was playing, a few of the kids were dancing, most were standing around like me waiting for something to happen. Granted it was only 2 am, and in Spain you don't expect things to get started until 3-4am but I just couldn't hack it. To make matters worse, when I checked to see how I could explore the other two clubs I was told I could only get a stamp if I waited until 3.30am. Hmm!

Took myself off in disgust to Martin's bar a good 10 minutes walk away on the bear circuit. Had to queue for a while, paid my €12 and this time I accessed 3 floors-each the size of a reasonably proportioned living room- no maybe 2-3 living rooms- packed with bears and cubs in leather or close fitting T-shirts designed to emphasize deltoids, biceps and pecs. I was way out of place in my Hawaiian shirt! On the top floor is a porn cinema with a large dark room behind. Wandered in there and once again spectated as a zombified procession of expressionless men filed by. There were a few skirmishes of sex breaking out but for the most part it just seemed like everyone was locked into an attitude which had them wanting to approach but stopping themselves out of fear of rejection or shame at being seen as approaching someone unworthy.

It's the kind of process you sometimes get in a busy sauna. Everyone's looking for someone that little bit better who is maybe just around the corner...... bit like life and relationships really. Maybe the more choice you have the pickier you get and the greater the chance to develop 'choice anxiety'. The fewer the choices the easier it is to commit and make an effort investing in the choice you've made!

15 Gay Adults! Gay Adults! Where are you?

Check out this article from White Crane

Gay Adults! Gay Adults! Where are you?

It says what I've been thinking for years about the generation gap between elders and youth and asks Gay Adults to 'step up to the plate' to fulfill their duties as guides and examples to the younger generations of our Great Gay Tribe.

I had initially posted the whole article here but, on checking with White Crane-the magazine which published the article- that it was OK to do so, was politely asked to take it down because I was infringing copyright!

OOps!!

14 The 'Up Side' of Illness on a Relationship and on Friendships

For some reason this week I’ve been reflecting on the nature of true friendship. And on the way in which illness, [which, at it’s onset may be seen as an affliction] can ultimately act as a blessing, illuminating those people you know who have the capacity to rise to the challenge of supporting you in difficult times and pushing the fair-weather friends into the realms of acquaintanceship.

For that reason, I suppose, my partner and I have been lucky. His fight against Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and my support for him have been flies in the ointment of a selfish hedonistic network of good-time party boys. One by one- [well actually more like a swathe followed by a steady trickle] -friends have rapidly then gradually disappeared leaving the old friends we had before we moved to Brighton and one or two who have stuck with us through these difficult times.

The whole experience burst the bubble of a fantasy that there was a ‘gay community’ around us and illustrated that folk, masquerading as wannabe friends, didn’t have the endurance we might have expected of them. It’s hard to know if, when we first made friends with people when we first arrived 10 years ago, we pinned our colours to the wrong masts and gathered a superficial, youth-loving, negativity averse crowd around us and so as a result we are reaping the misfortunes of that folly. Or maybe it was just bad timing and friendships need a good few years to take root before they can be expected to sustain themselves through the years of relative social privation associated with poor health. Or it’s maybe a combination of the two. Because of illness and the effect it has on social opportunities, having to cancel, being unable to plan, not coming up with ideas and generally being miserable and poor company; the net effect is that illness acts as a friendship crucible, burning off the impurities and leaving behind the pure gold of genuine friendship. People who are happy for you to be you even though you’re under the weather.

My other big theme for this week –maybe triggered by having seen Milk- the movie biopic about the political career of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to a mainstream political office in 1970’s California who was ultimately shot by a political colleague – is how Pride festivals have evolved into an irrelevant froth from their origins in a protest movement. Pride marches aimed to protest against the oppression of gay people and the human rights injustices they endured in the face of inequalities in the law. Now these laws have been changed and repealed in the UK so that gay and straight people have equal[ish] rights and the struggle for equality in that sense is now over.

I was discussing this with a friend I bumped into last week and he saw some parallels with the Feminist movement, which required women to identify themselves as feminist in order to fight the inequalities women faced in the eyes of the law. As these fights were won, the need for women to identify as feminist has diminished and now we have women who are able to take advantage of equal[ish] treatment without having to don battle gear and war paint!

Maybe this will apply to gay and lesbian people as acceptance and equality begin to bed in. Maybe ordinary people will be able to take advantage of the chance to express their sexuality without it being skewed by fear of the implications. And maybe we won’t need to be radically queer any more. And maybe, in years to come, Pride Festivals will be seen as a rather strange twisted quirk of the times!