Men kissing men.

Man In the Orange Shirt...

I watched the film on PBS last night.  I had some difficulty following it because I was doing something else while it was on.  I looked away at the sex scenes because they were soft porn.  I hate that.  But at least it shows that gay sex is not just kissing and hugging and ... it is what it is.

This isn't about the film however.  Oh - I didn't like the film, BTW.  Gay films are all over television on the re-run channels this month, because it's Pride month.  They are fairly superficial comedic-love-stories with sad parts - but wholesome gay stories.  Men kissing looks normal within that context.

However.

I have noticed over the past few years that men kissing and playing around with man-crush jokes is very common on television and in film.  What's up with that?  When I was little and one of my abusers tried to kiss me I pushed him away and said, 'Boys don't kiss!'  If I had been exposed to what kids are exposed to today, I probably wouldn't have said that.

Obviously I don't get out much, but it seems to me that this whole men-kissing stuff is an attempt to normalize sexual fluidity between same sex friends.

We claim to be a country concerned about the protection of children, and look at what we show them, look what we do to them.

Man In the Orange Shirt

soft porn scene.

Born that way ... redux.

Mr. Peabody here...

Or "Socially constructed"?

These discussions never seem to get old.

So anyway.  I'm against it - the idea that you are born that way - except in rare cases, I should probably add.  I've spent my entire life trying to figure out what went wrong - I'm still not sure - but I know without a doubt that I was born a male, and all my life I was very happy about it.  So happy I could almost chime in with Tevye singing, “Shelo Asani Isha”: “Blessed are you Lord… for not making me a woman”.  Although if I ran around singing that I would most assuredly be accused of being gynephobic - and maybe I was - but I wasn't born that way...  I definitely know that.

Which leads me to a very insightful essay by Anthony Esolen, titled- you guessed it!  Born That Way.  Citing anecdotal examples of a few famous men with same sex attraction, as well as their conflicted childhood experiences, Esolen makes a good argument against the born that way proponents.

Drunkenness, hatred, loneliness, missing fathers, rape, molestation, over-mothering, all these are inevitable when a certain kind of boy is born. - Anthony Esolen - read the rest here.

I know!  But how do you explain SSA in men who have solid families?  A loving mom and dad?  A well provided, integrated life?  I don't know.  Neither does the Church, the Catechism helps us understand that  its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained.  Catholics know that, yet trying to understand these inclinations is helpful - especially to those who go through periods of struggle; seeking to live chastely, making friends, career choices, family, and so on.  Striving for authentic self-knowledge in the way of perfection - or rather, becoming holy - the sanctification of one's life.

Such views are controversial today - but necessary.  I think many of the men Anthony Esolen cites, as well as other famous 'tragic figures' have had a host of other problems coping with real life and relationships as a result of their dysfunctional development.  Many behaviors may have been learned or acquired and forged into habits to such a degree their existence was defined by them.  Understanding how one turned out is one thing, allowing ourselves to be formed and guided is another.  The Church doesn't require more than repentance and conversion from sin and to live chastely.  The grace of God accomplishes the rest.

Looking over my life, I can see the effects of grace.  The forgiveness of sins, the healing of serious wounds.  "I run the way of your commands; you give freedom to my heart."  Ps. 119

You are what you are - as God made you - not what social constructs tell you you are.  Sounds a bit like an argument for 'genderlessness' huh?  It's not.  "God made them male and female" - Genesis.

That's all for today Sherman.

Portents of Woe

Flying Dragons. (A prophecy of the Wizard of Oz)

Renaissance Art of the End Times.

Stunning illustrations which appear almost modern, documenting cataclysmic events as indications of the End Times.  I've updated the captions to show how the images were in all probability prophecies for our times of tribulation and woe.

Smelly Beast of Gender-Queerness

All are made drunk from the cup of the whore of Babylon.

The Two Popes.

Winter in Minneapolis.

The Great Earthquakes to strike the U.S. any day now.

The Antichrist revealed:  Big Flamer

H/T to my friend Byron for the link.

The effete male.

Why do some men want to look like K.D. Lang or Ellen?

Tom Ford.

The designer doesn't want fat guys shopping his stores, buying his multi-thousand dollar suits, but he wants guys to wear his make-up. 

The male of almost every species is the most naturally good looking of the sexes.  Think about it - do male cardinals color their feathers?  No, poodle, they don't.

Years ago when my friends and I went camping, the women along for the trip used to complain about us guys.  We could eat 5 times the amount of food they did and we never got fat.  We could wake up in the wilderness, our hair totally freaked out, unshaven, unkempt and we still looked good.  On the other hand, they, without make-up, their hair completely flat to their heads looked like crap.  And that - by their own admission.

I have never ever understood why women wear what they wear - especially when it comes to lethal weapon high heels, skirts too short to sit in, or even skimpy tops which reveal every roll and defect - but I digress.  Suffice it to say some women need make-up and hair color.  Nothing wrong with that - I just would never want to have to live like that.

Metrosexual men.

Men have been feminized.  They've been brainwashed - early on - since pre-school.  It's very sad.  A kid can't even beat up another kid, much less draw a man with a gun, without getting kicked out of kindergarten, possibly arrested, and getting labeled a menace to society.

Now Tom Ford wants men to buy into the make-up mythology - as if a man needs eyeliner or mascara. 

Manscara and guyliner are usually the reserve of teens enjoying their experimental emo phase, not the seriously wealthy suited and booted customers of Tom Ford. But that’s all set to change when the designer launches cosmetics for men alongside the modern metrosexual grooming staples of cleanser, moisturiser and eye “treatment”. - Source

Men do not need cosmetics.  Men should not be skinny and effeminate.  Men are naturally good looking - women are too - but they believe what hairdressers, make-up artists, and designers tell them to believe.

Most of the gay men I've known were usually attracted to masculine, straight looking guys - or just straight guys.  Oddly enough, older, more affluent types who happened to find a type like that, would almost invariably attempt to refine him.  Gradually introducing him to designer clothes, fashionable hair cuts, piercing maybe, and to be sure - neatness.  The guys became very careful about their appearance, manners, posture, and so on.  In other words, they got a complete makeover.  The raw, masculine charm and honest handsomeness was hidden beneath a foppish veneer.

It sometimes gets worse as they age.  Remember Gustav von Aschenbach melting on the Lido?

"No, no, no, darling!  Take smaller, quicker steps!

And hold your left arm up with your hand out flat,

as if you are carrying a lovely silver tray!

Oh for heaven's sake -

right hand on your hip,

you twit!"