SEX, SEX, AND MORE SEX!

Hello queer child! Now that I have your attention, read on and be afraid!

I am the accursed Troll of Queerdom. You should be pleased to be making my acquaintance and grateful for all I have done to make your queer youth more tolerable for you than mine was for me.

I have tasted of the Tree of Knowledge and my punishment is that I now know I am always right. Because I have wisdom to give in abundance you need to keep quiet and listen attentively. You will be helped by hearing about everything I have learned.

I have opinions about everything. Your opinion will inevitably be wrong because you are young and you do not have my wealth of experience. I am an intellectual and I have suffered. I am bitter with the truth that the world is intrinsically bad.

People in general- and you, in particular, my pupil- are not to be trusted. You have no self-awareness. Your understanding comes from your projections and the reflections of these, which, you see as mirages in the shadows. Nothing you believe to be so is true.

Know of me. Know of my name. See how clever I am! Show respect to me. Worship at my shrine! I am your master, your elder and your better.

I am old and disgusting. I am repulsive. I am grotesque. I am decaying. Death is ugly. And, as eternally youthful and immortal as you believe yourself to be, you are dying too- young one. Look at me now beautiful baby. I am your ancient, vile reflection from the future. Be very afraid!

I am righteously indignant that I am not fully appreciated. That I am not approved of after the pain of all my hard work. Why does no one pat me on the head?

I am angry that my looks no longer command attention. The easy access to erotic adventure- free to me when I was seen as sexy and alluring- is gone forever.

I am disappointed and sad that my trove of wisdom is way past its sell-by date. My grip on the modern world is tenuous so I continually hark back to how the world used to be. It gives me a sense of security.

Sometimes I regret the choices I have made. And I find ways to re-live my life through the advice I liberally dispense to today's youth.

I am scared about the degenerating state of my body. I am afraid of chronic illness and pain. I want to believe that death doesn't worry me. But I'm petrified!

Young One- do you love me?

If you do, then you have the wisdom of youth and I am ready to learn!

Contact me at gaysocrates@gmail.com

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Compassion Shines Through Shadow

Guanyin: Goddess of Compassion!
You have shown me the way
To love myself
And thereby to love all

Here are my demons ...
Of Not-Good-Enough-ness
Of Not-Man-Enough-ness
My exhausting perfectionism
My gasping for the oxygen of approval
My affirmation addiction
My outraged sense of entitlement
To be-at least- engaged with

My fury at the unquestionable assumption
That fathers 'ought to' respond

To a son's overtures for affection
With nurturing love

(My music longed to be heard by him)

Shadow Faeries have poked their healing wands
At these raw wounds
And shown me how
To nurture and heal myself

I have embraced those shadow-casters
I have cuddled warmth
Into their cold shoulders

I stand tall and true
A Mushroom thriving
In the shade
And finally I see...

My Faerie Nature

Was cast into the shadows
By father, by peers
By Church and by State

And the righteous indignation
I feel towards anyone
With the temerity
To portray me
In an unfavorable light
'After all the effort
I've made to be nice
To be acceptable
To assimilate'

IS THE SHADOW I CAST

I now release the pain….

The shadows are no longer mine
And no matter how black is the darkness
I burn with the Fire of Love in my heart

And I am Light

How I Align My Body-Mind-Life Force With Love To Make My World A Temple For Pagan Love Magic

I invoke and feel the Essence of Feminine Love

(For me this in the Shadows of my Self -cast in the depths of the Earth)

I move my attention from the Earth, through my feet and up my legs and I focus on my anal Base chakra

The centre of my Red Lustful Love

Located with the Essence of Earth to the North

I move my attention to my cock-and-balls Sacral chakra

The centre of my Orange Love Balance

Balancing Love Lust and Love Power

I move my attention to my Solar Plexus Power chakra

The centre of my Yellow Love Power

Located with the Essence of Fire to the South

I move my attention to my Heart chakra

The centre of my Green Loving Feelings

Located with the Essence of Water to the West

I move my attention to my Throat chakra

The centre of my Blue Verbal Expressions of Love

The arbiter of Loving Thoughts and Loving Feelings

I move my attention to my Third Eye chakra

The centre of my Purple Loving Thoughts

Located with the Essence of Air to the East

I then invoke and feel the Essence of Masculine Love

(For me this is a bright light shining down on me from above)

Does the Soul Have a Neuroanatomical Basis?

My soul is like a hidden orchestra; I do not know which instruments grind and play away inside of me, strings and harps, timbales and drums. I can only recognize myself as symphony

—FERNANDO PESSOA, The Book of Disquiet

This quote is from the front of a book I’m just about to read: ‘Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain: The Evolution of Consciousness’ by Antonio Damasio

The author is a neuroscientist who has been studying the neuroanotomical basis of emotion. I think he may have written the book which will provide some of our alexithymic brethren with the hard evidence they require that there is more to self than flesh, blood and cerebral cortex!

Do Not Read This Poem About Men-Loving-Men Spirituality!

Whoever you are holding me now in hand

Without one thing all will be useless,

I give you fair warning, before you attempt me further,

I am not what you supposed, but far different.

-

Who is he that would become my follower?

Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections? Are you he?

-

The way is suspicious -- the result slow, uncertain, may-be destructive;

You would have to give up all else -- I alone would expect to be your God, sole and exclusive,

Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting,

The whole past theory of your life, and all conformity to the lives around you, would have to be abandoned;

Therefore release me now, before troubling yourself any further -- Let go your hand from my shoulders,

Put me down, and depart on your way.

-

Or else, only by stealth, in some wood, for trial,

Or back of a rock, in open air,

(for in any roofed room of a house I emerge not -- nor in company,

And in the libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk, or unborn, or dead,)

But just possibly with you on a high hill -- first watching lest any person, for miles around, approach unawares,

Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea, or some quiet island,

Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you,

With the comrade's long-dwelling kiss, or the new husband's kiss,

For I am the new husband, and I am the comrade.

-

Or, if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing,

Where I may feel the throbs of your heart, or rest upon your hip,

Carry me when you go forth over land and sea;

For thus, merely touching you, is enough -- is best

And thus, touching you, would I silently sleep and be carried eternally.

-

But these leaves conning, you con at peril,

For these leaves, and me, you will not understand,

They will elude you at first, and still more afterward -- I will certainly elude you,

Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me, behold!

Already you see I have escaped from you.

-

For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written this book,

Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it,

Nor do those know me best who admire me, and vauntingly praise me,

Nor will the candidates for my love, (unless at most a very few,) prove victorious,

Nor will my poems do good only -- they will do just as much evil, perhaps more,

For all is useless without that which you may guess at many times and not hit -- that which I hinted at,

Therefore release me and depart on your way.

Walt Whitman

From the Calamus Poems

1860

You can read the full cycle of 45 short poems at http://gaymensvirtualbookgroup.blogspot.com

Spectral Love

Red Love Lust

Orange Love Balance

Yellow Love Power

Green Love Feelings

Blue Love Words

Purple Love Thoughts

Pure White Love

Purple Love Thoughts

Blue Love Words

Green Love Feelings

Yellow Love Power

Orange Love Balance

Red Love Lust

I Am The Whore Of Babylon And I Give You Pure White Love!

A Dream Queer Scene

I have a dream of a scene…..

The tarmac of St James’ Street is gone and in its place is luscious green grass, trickling fountains of crystal clear water, trees, shrubs and flowers. People come from afar to hang out here because this is the friendliest, quirkiest and most original scene in the land.

The Red Roaster Café spills its tables and chairs out onto the greenery. No longer a narrow space it has expanded into the adjacent buildings on either side and is open until the early hours of the morning. Gentle music tracks pulse into the air interspersed between the sound of recorded birdsong, random chapters of audio books and cult comedy show clips.

Opposite is the queer bookshop- Bent Books- a private library club (non-members pay a quid entry fee to peruse) where readers settle down to a good queer book with a nice cup of hot chocolate by a roaring open log fire. This is a book heaven with sections on queer studies, LGBT fiction, poetry, biography and spirituality. It’s a great place to drop by and just bump into friends or make random connections with fellow-readers. There’s a good-sized meeting room here for queer book groups to discuss their book of the month. Upstairs there’s a spacious air-conditioned lounging area and luscious roof garden. Clusters of people are drinking mint tea and exhaling green-blue smoke inhaled from communal hookahs- relaxing, giggling, enjoying the art of conversation. It’s early Saturday evening and this is where we come before the Club.

The club is called -not Envy or Revenge or Spite or Hatred- but ‘Club D.U.B. [Dressing Up Box]’. Here is a club where we play with cross-dressing and dance. Here the gender binary gets a chance to be deconstructed. As you go in there’s an enormous changing area. There are clothes rails creaking under the strain of hundreds of sequined dresses and fur coats. There are Tina Turner wigs and high heels for the blokes and false beards, tweed suits and hard hats for the women- all items for sale or hire. Once dragged up the music is pumping and the dancing’s grinding. Trans is the order of the night: men and FTMs meet men/ FTMs, women and MTFs meet women/ MTFs and all the combinations in between. Men and women are even getting it on! There’s ironic femme frolicking and butch posing. In this fabulous space people are drawn to each other by animal chemistry and not because they exist within a perceived gender/sexuality box.

After the club we head to the No Talent Cabaret Bar. A drink buys the obligation to put on a 3 minute turn. Some sing, some recite poetry, some dance, some sit surreal-ly and stare. All offerings are met with tumultuous applause.

Next day we head back to the street. Next to the cabaret bar there’s the Tantric Massage Temple with massage rooms where folk can spend time growing deeper in intimacy with each other. Throughout the day there are group Tantric massage classes and meditations. In one of the group rooms queer folk are holding hands and sharing what is in their hearts. These heart circles mean we can bravely grow in emotional strength by declaring our vulnerability. We are loved and accepted by the circle because of the strength of this vulnerability.

Here there is no attitude and no bitchy-queenery. People smile, are interested in each other, are prepared to give each other the time of day.

Hmm-well I did say it was a dream....

So until the Brighton scene gets a bit closer to this I’ll need to keep going to Faerie Gatherings. The next Albion Faerie Gathering will celebrate Imbolic at Featherstone Castle in Northumberland 27 January-6 February 2012

http://albionfaeries.co.uk/featherstone2012.htm

So skip Christmas this year, book your holidays for late January and turn some dreams into reality!

A Book that Changed My Life……

The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships and Other Adventures
Dossie Easton, Janet W. Hardy
Ten Speed Press, 2009 296 Pages

I've been practicing Ethical Sluttery for 18 months now and it's all been down to the September Edward Carpenter Community's Gay Men's Weeks

It all started in September 2009- “The Dance Between Power and Intimacy”-my first ECC experience and, there I was, all alone.

Back home I was in a long-term relationship. The erotic expression of our love for each other had stopped years before. We were maintaining a monogamous tradition fearing the potential destabilising consequences of messing with the arrangement. I had been interested in meditation as a homphobia-free means of satisfying my hunger for spiritual nourishment and, I suppose, at the time I was searching for a spiritual home.

The workshops during that week helped me to put my monogamous sexual barriers down. I explored how the experience of erotic sexual massage could combine with spiritual meditative practice and how loving intimacy was rapidly fostered between individuals who were prepared to engage in vulnerable-making self-exposure. I didn’t realise at the time that this would set a foundation for me to embark on a path of authentic personal growth and enable me to engage in loving encounters like never before. Wow!

When I returned from the week I was on fire! The stakes were high but I had to risk discussing with my partner making changes to the 12-year-old monogamous agreement we made when we’d first met. Being a naturally jealous bloke his reaction was to be cautiously OK about it. We agreed to me doing sexual things outside the relationship provided I would tell him what happened if he asked but not to tell him if he didn’t ask. I love him and I didn’t want to hurt him but I also sensed a chance to grow emotionally, spiritually and sexually. Here was a genie, which could not be popped back into its bottle.

A good friend made on this first Gay Men's Week introduced me to the Faeries and I went to three gatherings that year- Featherstone Castle, Folleterre and Wansee. As is often the case I came away from each of these gatherings with something important learned about myself. Featherstome held a mirror up to my life-long approval seeking programming. Folleterre helped me to reflect on how my father’s [patriarchy’s] disapproval of the feminine aspects of my nature set the scene for not only my internalised homophobia but also a kind of internalised misogyny of which I had been previously completely unaware. Wansee opened my eyes to how the way I presented myself to others was profoundly affected by fear of shame and social rejection.

So it was in the context of this roller coaster ride of personal growth and self-discovery that I was introduced to The Ethical Slut

I wasn’t sure if it was possible to be a Really Dirty Slut and to also be a Really Good Person at the same time. This book showed me how!

The authors reclaim the abusive term Slut in the same way that Queer has been reclaimed for marginal sexual orientation and gender identity and in the same way that Faerie is reclaimed to proudly assert our sissy natured-ness. ‘Sluts’ are those who dare to have sex more often, and in less conventional ways, than everyone else and, who refuse to be cowed into submitting to the social norms. ‘Ethical Sluts’ are those who do this openly, honestly, lovingly and caringly with the intention of harming no one.

I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who is stopping themselves from having, or openly admitting to having desired ethical sex out of fear that it would be immoral, socially disapproved of and because the consequences would mean guilt and social exclusion.

The authors convincingly argue that our society is geared towards regulating sexual relationships so they fit into monogamous, politically and economically acceptable hetero-imitative configurations, which provide ostensibly stable environments for habitat-living-style-consumerism and child rearing. They confront the idea that sexual relationships exist in a ‘starvation economy’-' i.e. that there aren’t enough sexual relationships to go around and so sexual relationships need to be jealously protected and safeguarded. They argue that there is an infinite potential for sexual relationships of all shapes and sizes and the key to accessing these in order to meet one’s many and varied sexual appetites is, firstly, honesty in communication with one’s partners and, secondly, negotiating clear unambiguous agreements which enable the involved partners to feel emotionally safe and secure.

Of course it isn’t all necessarily going to be a bed of roses and it would be surprising if jealousies didn’t arise in polyamorous arrangements. The authors present convincing arguments about how the working through of jealousies is a potentially very good thing both for the development of the affected individuals but also for the relevant relationships.

It could even be possible that ‘compersion’ –the emotion of joy at one’s partner’s happiness with another sexual partner might even prevail!

The interesting thing about becoming honestly polyamorous [as opposed to the conventional dishonest non-consensual non-monogamous pattern of polyamory-or ‘having an affair’- prevalent in western cultures] is that it allows you to enjoy a wide variety of sexual partners without having to lie or feel bad about it. And rather than distancing you from love and spirit it has the potential to deepen you spiritual growth too. If that isn’t enough to convince, you also get a chance to feel the full force of conventional societal disapproval and to work on your own issues of guilt shame and approval seeking!

Read the book and start to change the world!

The Faeries Taught Me How To Fly!

I was sitting by my fire last night watching the flames flickering around the burning logs remembering the tribal faerie camaraderie of a blazing Folleterre campfire from just a few days before.

Two years ago the Faeries were to me, a strange, esoteric bunch of folk on the margins, gathering together in weird and wonderful places and living basically without the necessities of standard creature comforts. I now see a Faerie Gathering as a rich source of spiritual nutrition and an opportunity for physical and psychological healing. The Faeries are my community group. Better than that-they are my family!

So how did I transition from Faerie-sceptic to Faerie-sister in a mere 24 months? I suppose any metamorphosis requires a pre-change period, a caterpillar phase. My caterpillar got tired of waiting for a spiritual home to present itself and decided that she would need to become the spiritual home she longed for. Reading books like ‘The Artist’s Way’ by Julia Cameron, 'The Power of Now' by Eckhart Tolle, and ‘Coming Out Spiritually’ by Christian de la Huerta helped to nourish and nurture my nascent yet deeply conflicted spiritual nature and my creative soul.

Then my personal life reached a crossroads. I was exhausting myself attempting to sustain my partner in a kind of co-dependent set-up. I felt damned if I did something about it and damned if I didn’t!

Enter Stage Right the Edward Carpenter Community. What a lovely bunch of guys. A virtual and episodically realised intentional set of communities. During the course of a September Gay Men’s Week at Laurieston Hall [a great rambling mansion in Dumfries] I was gently encouraged to put down my defences and to make myself sexually and emotionally vulnerable in the company of loving, caring strangers.

By sharing my deepest darkest dilemmas, I was coaxed into finding solutions and galvanized into overcoming my paralysis.

Friends made during that ECC week encouraged me to attend a Faerie Gathering. Featherstone 2010 introduced me to the magical world of Faeridom. Gifted Magical Boys, Shamans, Magicians Alchemists, Story Tellers, Androgynes, Dancers, Musicians and Poets drawn together to love, to laugh, to heal and to co-create. Through the patient love generated in Heart Circles there and at four subsequent gatherings and, through some deep authentic faerie friendships I’ve grown to understand some of the unhelpful, distorting drivers in my wounded self.

At the start of my second half-century I finally recognised how my child-like desire for, and righteously indignant sense of entitlement to, my fathers crippled love kept playing out as a recurring approval-seeking theme in most of my interpersonal transactions and how this interfered with my capacity for true love and deep intimacy.

Thankfully I can now let go of shame as a guiding influence in my decision-making. Instead I embrace ethical consensual non-monogamy as a way of enriching my loving relationships.

Faeries have emboldened me to experiment with tantric meditative sexual massage practice and thanks to Tantra for Gay Men, there is now a regular monthly meet-up here in Brighton.

I am now on a Buddhist-Tantric-Pagan Spiritual path, which affords me a sense of peace and tranquillity in the noise and the chaos of modern life

So thank-you ECC, thank-you Faeries, thank-you T4GM without your existence I would never have developed my Faerie Butterfly wings and learned how to fly!

Resources:

ECC

www.edwardcarpentercommunity.org.uk/

Albion Faeries

www.albionfaeries.co.uk/The Faeries.htm

Folleterre-Eurofaerie Sanctuary in the French Vosges Mountains

http://www.folleterre.org/home.htm

T4GM- Brighton Tantra Club

www.tantra4gaymen.co.uk/events-calendar

I’m not going to write about pride this year.
I’m sure we’ll all get through it in our own ways!
The day after pride I’ll be heading off to a faerie gathering to take in the sights, smells, sounds, flavours and sensations of the beautiful Folleterre Faerie Retreat in the Vosges Mountains of Eastern France
Faeries speak from the heart in Heart Circles passing a talisman, which gives the holder the fully concentrated attention of the group. This practice helps to develop a sense of authentic subject-subject relatedness to each other and to the world in general. Faeries will gently Hiss if they identify with, or wish to be supportive of, anything said or done in the Circle
This is what I will be saying.........