Track Mangoes

In ancient Greece small penises were coveted over large penises. This particular aesthetic preference, though strange to our modernized afro-fetishized culture, fit in perfectly with the characteristically Greek adoration of the beautiful boy.

Pretty boys (and their small penises) represented what could be beautiful about the more Apollonian side of human existence. The seething Dionysian, found in the expression of the Gods, ie nature, and the portrayal of animals, who, consequently had large penises, was something to be conquered. The calm, cool, collected Apollonianism of the Greeks sought, more than anything else, to subdue the Dionysian, but in a way that did not require brute force, the way Neanderthals subdued nature. Apolloniansim sought to, in effect, subdue Dionysianism with beauty, put it in a frame, to colonize nature with human brilliance.

The beautiful boy aesthetic carried on in western art for hundreds of years after. The want for big penises really emerged with the advent of pornography, which didn't exist (as we understand it today) until the Victorian Period. It is no accident that pornogprahy was created at the same time major archeological digs uncovered thousands of erotic artifacts from Rome to Pompeii. Up until that time a penis was simply enough to get you up and out. We weren't so blasé, not immured by sex as we are now. It was around this time, with the emergence of pornography, that the mode by which the western cultural apparatus viewed the beautiful boy shifted to something more sinister.

I used to date a man who's entire artistic oeuvre centered around the sinister aspects of the beautiful boy aesthetic, how it has hindered culture at least as much as it has helped it, how it has decimated as much emotional material as it had created. He thought he was cutting edge. But the main idea around which he centered his work, that being the "beautiful boy as destroyer" aesthetic, was entirely not his. Indeed this idea is quite old. It, in fact, was the precursor to European modernism. Case in point: Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray."

After the ACTUP riots (oh and they were riots) during the later part of the AIDS crisis, around 1987, the "beautiful boy as destroyer" aesthetic was no longer interesting as cultural material. The pearly faces of the Stonewall demonstrators showed a much more politically involved way of being and manner of expression. With the maundering of beautiful boys and politics came the idea of the sissy boy as badass, and, consequently, queer culture, for a short while, merged with punk culture, which, for all intents and purposes, was stolen from street culture, which had been there all along (punks just gave a name to it).

The Death of Matthew Shepherd complicated things. Here we had a beautiful boy who was the victim of homophobia, tied to a fence in a Jesus like pose...the story was ripe with meaning. In demonstrations queers held up his face on posterboards and demanded justice. His face became a symbol for all gay justice. And for awhile we used his image ethically. But as it happens with all images, people began to fetishize his position of martyrdom. Beautiful boys essentially reverted to the old Greek way of being: they represented something already dead, something temporal and delicate, like a wilting flower, ready to be plucked. In a way Matthew Shepherd holds a cultural place that is enviable. He, like a Lancelot, died in his prime and is remembered in state of perpetual youth. Lucky him.

Yet cultural consciousness never forgets. And we cannot forget the tenor of modernism, the sinister side of things, the multiplicity of consciousness that complicates any straightforward view of any one thing. (Damn you modernism, you make life so difficult.)

This is why Gay Martyrdom is about to end. Gay culture is, like western culture, is experiencing a postmodern renaissance thirty years late. And then, it's fitting. The cynicism and reductive attitude of Postmodernism was preceded by the eclectic sixties, in which academe and art tried to get back to its roots, sampling from all over the world, experiencing a kind of cultural nirvana, a connection that we find almost comical these days. Peace and love and vegetables. Et cetera.

The peace and love for Gays is over. The contemporary sincerity, think Cascade AIDS project, SMYRC, the "we are just like you!" rhetoric of the nineties, coupled with the radical sexual questioning on college campuses in the naughts, and now it follows of necessity that gay culture will begin to explore the ineffable sides of sexuality, the maddening emptiness of queer expression. Where is our nihilism, some ask. Don't worry your pretty little heads off, I say. It's coming. And when it does, when it does, I don't think you'll like it.

What I am saying is that Gay culture is on the verge of apocalypse. Gay will no longer mean gay. Straight will be a moniker of mundane inanity. Naming is violent, but we will, as postmodernism did for art, find that it poses a satisfying artistic paradigm.

Gay culture is becoming normalized. When it does, when gays become straights, are allowed to marry "just like everyone else" then a subculture will form. Nope, no Golden Era for the Fags. No time in which we will revel in the goal we have sought so long, equality; but when we finally get what we are looking for we will suddenly realize that it wasn't all it was cracked up to be and then we must ask the really hard question: if equality isn't really what I want, then what do I want. My answer to the question we as a queer culture have yet to ask is this: the point is to experience the existential pain of the question to which there is no answer.

To quote Plath, sometimes if we are wanting many things it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing at all.

"We have all of you courageous plaintiffs to thank: Go get married, live happily ever after, live the American dream."
--Des Moines attorney Dennis Johnson, who argued on behalf of the gay and lesbian couples

Maybe we weren't ready for Iowa to become what some conservatives have been calling "The New Gay Mecca." As Iowa joins the ranks of Connecticut and Massachusetts I can't help but wonder if it's all worth it. Is the "American Dream" really something we should want?

"It's a big win because, coming from Iowa, it represents the mainstreaming of gay marriage. And it shows that despite attempts to stop gay marriage through right wing ballot initiatives, like in California, the courts will continue to support the case for equal rights for gays. Once again, Iowa is leading when it comes to political dialogue in the country." --Richard Socarides, an attorney and former senior adviser on gay rights to President Clinton

It certainly does represent that.

"This is an unconstitutional ruling and another example of activist judges molding the Constitution to achieve their personal political ends. Iowa law says that marriage is between one man and one woman. If judges believe the Iowa legislature should grant same sex marriage, they should resign from their positions and run for office, not legislate from the bench ... Along with a constitutional amendment, the legislature must also enact marriage license residency requirements so that Iowa does not become the gay marriage Mecca due to the Supreme Court's latest experiment in social engineering." --U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa

The same thing recently happened in OR, where the judicial system decided to amend the law. It didn't last very long and, as I hear, there is already legislation moving to repeal the new marriage laws. How long will it last? How long can it go? And Must we follow Iowa? We're all very aware of Iowa's somewhat archaic relation to civilized depravity. We judge them for it. But the Iowa marriage law was simple and understandable, saccharine in its ability to provide a kind of eerie calm to the state. What is more, it was overwhelmingly supported by Iowans. Gay marriage will have to be a consensus. Despite what liberals tell you, gay marriage IS a threat to the institution of marriage, an institution that has been essentially monopolized by the Judeo-Christian establishment. Homosexual couples who want to be accepted into that kind of institution should consider the what it means for Conservatives to accept it. Right wigners think that homosexuality is an existential threat because it is an existential threat to society as they know it. We ought to be sensitive to the fears that we induce in conservatives. We are crushing their world, and in Iowa, we are doing it unfairly.