Category Archives: Art

December 2, 2010

Calamus

By Joe

The “Calamus” poems are a cluster of poems in Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. These poems celebrate and promote “the manly love of comrades”. Many critics believe that these poems are Whitman’s clearest expressions in print of his ideas about homosexual love.

Arcadia

This cluster of poems contains a number of images and motifs that are repeated throughout. The most important is probably the Calamus root itself. Acorus calamus or Sweet Flag is a marsh-growing plant similar to a cat-tail. Whitman continues through this one of the central images of Leaves of Grass–Calamus is treated as a larger example of the grass that he writes of elsewhere. Some scholars have pointed out as reasons for Whitman’s choice the phallic shape of what Whitman calls, “pink-tinged roots” of Calamus, its mythological association with failed male same-sex love and with writing (see Kalamos), and the allegedly mind-altering effects of the root. The root was chiefly chewed at the time as a breath-freshener and to relieve stomach complaints.

Swimming

We two boys together clinging,
One the other never leaving,
Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions making,
Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching,
Arm’d and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving.
No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving,
      threatening,
Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drinking, on
      the turf or the sea-beach dancing,
Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness chasing,
Fulfilling our foray.

The-Wrestlers

The images in this post are paintings by Thomas Eakins.  Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was a realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important artists in American art history.

For the length of his professional career, from the early 1870s until his health began to fail some forty years later, Eakins worked exactingly from life, choosing as his subject the people of his hometown of Philadelphia. He painted several hundred portraits, usually of friends, family members, or prominent people in the arts, sciences, medicine, and clergy. Taken en masse, the portraits offer an overview of the intellectual life of Philadelphia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; individually, they are incisive depictions of thinking persons. As well, Eakins produced a number of large paintings which brought the portrait out of the drawing room and into the offices, streets, parks, rivers, arenas, and surgical amphitheaters of his city. These active outdoor venues allowed him to paint the subject which most inspired him: the nude or lightly clad figure in motion. In the process he could model the forms of the body in full sunlight, and create images of deep space utilizing his studies in perspective.

3 Comments | posted in Art, History, Poetry

November 26, 2010

Photos of gay service members make statement about policy

By Joe

 

6a00d8341c730253ef0133f5e141ae970b-800wi(CNN) — A soldier and his shadow sit alone on wrinkled sheets. With his knees pressed tightly up against his chest, he wraps his arms around his legs and bows his head.

In another photo, a soldier stands before a mirror. His raised hand covers just enough of his reflection to protect his anonymity.
But it’s not photographer Jeff Sheng from whom these men are hiding their identities.6_photo-2
It’s the military.
Sheng’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” exhibit, two years in the making, conveys the stories of the gay and bisexual men and women who serve in the U.S. military. And because his subjects are forced to keep their sexual orientations under wraps in order to serve, Shen’s photos are portraits without faces.
The Los Angeles, California-based artist said many of his subjects were grateful for the opportunity to make a statement “without fully revealing themselves and losing their jobs.”
“If this person got outed, they would lose their pension, their retirement benefits — their 20 years of service in the military would be gone,” he said.
6a00d8341c730253ef0133f1b8f56a970b-800wiSheng asked many of those he photographed why they continue to serve despite the inequality.
“I asked, ‘Why do you still serve with this policy in place? Why would you do it?’ ” Sheng said. “And they all looked at me and said, ‘Because it’s serving the country. It’s the most honorable thing that I can think of doing right now in my life.’ ”
20091220RicoSheng is also the creator of “Fearless,” photographs of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered high school and college athletes who are public about their sexual identities. He is working on a project focusing on undocumented Americans.
The “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” photos were exhibited last week in Washington at the Human Rights Campaign headquarters, and Sheng said he hopes to bring them next to Chicago, Illinois.
Bryan-finalThe exhibit couldn’t have been unveiled at a more relevant time.
On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to suspend enforcement temporarily of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Though a lower court has deemed the law unconstitutional, the controversial policy will remain in effect until the appeals process is complete.
President Obama is on record favoring abolition of the policy but has said he wants the issue to be decided by Congress, not in the courts.
Oliver-finalThe new commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James Amos, opposes repeal of the policy. “There is a risk involved,” Amos told reporters in San Diego, California. “I’m tring to determine how to measure that risk. This is not a social thing. This is combat effectiveness.”
Ryan Vincent Downing, a former Air Force captain and one of the 60 service members Sheng photographed, said he has confidence “that people in the military can handle change.” He is no longer in the service and said hiding his sexuality took a toll.
Tristan-and-Zeke-final“I found myself making up lies, and then making up more lies to cover the lies I had told before,” Downing said.
Sheng said he hopes his photographs open eyes to the way the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy affects closeted service members who are fighting and dying for their country.
“This idea that they’re hiding, in many ways … they can’t reveal who they are,” Sheng said. “[It] has a really profound effect on the way that people see these images and think about the issue.”
JEFF-SHENG-DADT-BOOK-COVER-289x300
This was originally published online by Chuck Conder of CNN on November 15, 2010.

Leave a comment | posted in Art, Book Review, Politics, Video

November 19, 2010

Homosexual Poetry from the Three Kingdoms and Six Dynasties Period

By Joe

image The complexity of homosexual relationships inevitably led to the creation of poetic works immortalizing conflicting sentiments. Ruan Ji (210- 263CE), lover of Xi Kang, was one of the most famous poets to apply his brush to a homosexual theme. This work, one of several dealing with homosexuality from the “Jade Terrace” collection of love poetry, beautifully illustrates the stock imagery on which men of his time could draw in conceptualizing and describing love for another man.

In days of old there were many blossom boys —
An Ling and Long Yang.
Young peach and plum blossoms,
Dazzling with glorious brightness.
Joyful as nine springtimes;
Pliant as if bowed by autumn frost.

Roving glances gave rise to beautiful seductions;
Speech and laughter expelled fragrance.
Hand in hand they shared love’s rapture,
Sharing coverlets and bedclothes.

Couples of birds in flight,
Paired wings soaring.
Cinnabar and green pigments record a vow:
“I’ll never forget you for all eternity. ”

Leave a comment | posted in Art, History, Poetry

October 13, 2010

Hyacinth: Lover of the God Apollo

By Joe

Hyacinth-Death-Jean Broc2 Hyacinth, the young son of the King of Sparta, beautiful like the very gods of Mount Olympus, was beloved of Apollo, shooter of arrows. The god often came down to the shores of the Eurotas River, leaving his shrine in Delphi unattended, to spend time with his young friend and delight in boyish pleasures. Tired of his music and his long bow, Apollo found relief in rustic pastimes. He would take Hyacinth hunting through the woods and glades on the mountain sides, or they would practice gymnastics, a skill which Hyacinth then taught to his friends, and for which later the Spartans would become renowned. The simple life awoke Apollo’s appetites, and made the curly-haired boy seem more charming than ever. Apollo gave him all his love, forgetting he was a mere mortal.
6a00e54f0a235a88340133f4d6193c970b-800wi Once, in the heat of a summer afternoon, the lovers stripped naked, sleeked themselves with olive oil, and tried their hand at discus throw, each vying to outdo the other. The bronze discus flew higher and higher. Finally, the powerful god gathered all his strength, and spun and wheeled and let fly the shiny disk which rose swift as a bird, cutting the clouds in two. Then, glittering like a star, it began to tumble down.
Hyacinth ran to meet it. He was hurrying to take his turn, to prove to Apollo that he, though young, was no less able than the god at this sport. The discus landed, but having fallen from such a great height it bounced and violently struck Hyacinth in the head. He let out a groan and crumpled to the ground. The blood spurted thickly from his wound, coloring crimson the black hair of the handsome youth.
antiquitys Horrified, Apollo raced over. He bent over his friend, raised him up, rested the boy’s head on his knees, trying desperately to staunch the blood flowing from the wound. But it was all in vain. Hyacinth grew paler and paler. His eyes, always so clear, lost their gleam and his head rolled to one side, just like a flower of the field wilting under the pitiless rays of the noonday sun. Heartbroken, Apollo cried out: “Death has taken you in his claws, beloved friend! Woe, for by my own hand you have died. And yet its crime was meeting yours at play. Was that a crime? Or was my love to blame – the guilt that follows love that loves too much? Oh, if only I could pay for my deed by joining you in your journey to the cheerless realms of the dead. Oh, why am I cursed to live forever? Why can’t I follow you?”
PITS-082310-005Apollo held his dying friend close to his breast, and his tears fell in a stream onto the boy’s bloody hair. Hyacinth died, and his soul flew to the kingdom of Hades. The god bent close to the dead boy’s ear, and softly whispered: “In my heart you will live forever, beautiful Hyacinth. May your memory live always among men as well.” And lo, at a word from Apollo, a fragrant red flower rose from Hyacinth’s blood. We call it hyacinth, and on its petals you can still read the letters “Ay,” the sigh of pain that rose from Apollo’s breast.
And the memory of Hyacinth lived on among the gentlemen of Sparta, who gave honors to their son, and celebrated him for three days in mid-summer at the Hyakinthaea festival. The first day they would mourn his death, and the last two they would celebrate his resurrection.

image The Death of Hyacinth by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo in 1752 – Oil on Canvas. It is in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid.

4 Comments | posted in Art, History, Nudity

October 1, 2010

Circumcision: Elements of meaning

By Joe

The Covenant
Jewish circumcision is justified by the Covenant. Genesis prescribes it image explicitly: “God said to Abraham: As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. Throughout your generations every male among you shall be circumcised when he is eight days old, including the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring … Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant”.
Thus the circumcision of Abraham expresses the divine will to conclude a permanent alliance; it is applied to the organ of procreation–a symbol of eternity.

Myth of androgyny
Under this interpretation, “man was created man and woman; he did not image become man until his feminine part was removed”. The extraction of Adam’s rib could also be symbolic of circumcision. Adam called the new creature “woman” and assumed his true identity by giving himself a new name: “man”. An original state of androgyny was also invoked by Plato. The incompatibility of androgyny with the development of a harmonious society could have made circumcision an indispensable tool for reconciling men and women. As a matter of fact, Zeus says in the “Banquet” that he has “a plan that will allow men to exist but will humble their pride. I will diminish their strength by cutting them in two … but if they continue insolent I will split them again. When man’s nature has been diluted in this way, each half will miss the other half and reunite with it”.

Mythologies of Africa
Circumcision in African societies is the object of various explanatory myths, image some of which are similar to the myth of androgyny. Of these myths, some say that the first male and female creatures were rough-hewn in a primordial egg. One of the males emerged prematurely from one half of the egg. In an attempt to take sole possession of the world, he tore out a piece of his placenta. One of his own sexual parts, the prepuce, was cut off by God as a punishment for stealing part of the divine placenta.
In other primitive societies, circumcision takes on a meaning akin to the Oedipus complex. Having been forbidden to approach their mother and sisters, the grown sons of the chief kill their father, then kill one another out of rivalry for the same women. When they become aware of their crimes, they cut off their penises in expiation. This practice is replaced by circumcision. In this interpretation, circumcision is indeed supposed to reduce sexual excitation, a reduction indispensable for subordinating individuals to social systems.
For some groups in West Africa, circumcision assumes a meaning similar to the explanation found in Plato. (Photo above: Mali, near Bandiagara, Dogon Country, Songho Dogon Village, ceremonial site for circumcision rituals, with cliff paintings.)  Every child is born surrounded by an evil force, more specifically an evil force attached to the prepuce (or the clitoris in the case of a girl). This force is capable of causing a disorder that makes it impossible for a man to live with anyone. It is necessary therefore to rid every boy of his prepuce and every girl of her clitoris. The maleficent force then falls on children who have not yet been circumcised.

Hygienic aspect of circumcision
Considerations of hygiene also form part of the significance of ritual circumcision, which may then assume value as a prophylactic. Besides alleviating balanitis, the first circumcisions may have been aimed at preventing sexually transmitted infections (STI). Thus Abraham, living in very precarious conditions of hygiene, may have imposed circumcision as an adjuvant for STI prevention. Later, circumcision was prohibited during the period of Egyptian bondage except among the Levites. After leading his people out of the desert, Moses noticed that only the Levites had increased in number. He concluded that circumcision had protected them from STI, and reinstated the practice. More recently, the anxiety about venereal disease in France at the end of the 19th century brought forth proposals to introduce circumcision as a public health measure: “Of all the surgical methods recommended to protect the public against venereal diseases, circumcision is the surest and least questionable”.

Other elements of meaning
Other interpretations include the role of the prepuce in fertility. African women who have had only girls are sometimes advised to eat a prepuce in order to have a boy. Elsewhere, circumcision may be practiced to increase sexual pleasure. It may also be considered a sign of captivity or a mark of bravery.

Leave a comment | posted in Art, History, Resources

September 11, 2010

The First Amendment and Book Burning

By Joe

They came first for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)

The above poem was featured on my friend crothdiver’s blog Anything Male, the other day in a post he wrote about the recent controversy surrounding a pastor in Florida who was planning on burning the Qur’an. The whole subject has had my riled up for days and has had me thinking of American’s First Amendment rights, censorship rights, and the ignorance of book burning. So I thought I would address these three ideas from my own perspective.

First of all, who was Martin Niemöller? German theologian and war hero as a submarine commander in World War I, he became a minister in 1924. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, he was originally a supporter of the Nazi party, but later he protested their interference in church affairs and helped combat discrimination against Christians of Jewish background. As founder of the anti-Nazi Confessing Church, he worked to oppose Adolf Hitler. Arrested in 1937, he was interned until 1945. After the war he helped rebuild the Evangelical Church. Increasingly disillusioned with prospects for demilitarization, he became a controversial pacifist; for his efforts to extend friendship ties to Soviet-bloc countries, he received the Lenin Peace Prize (1967) and West Germany’s Grand Cross of Merit (1971).

The First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

image

I agree with the President on this issue. Mr. Jones may have the right to speak out against Islam and may technically have the right to burn books. However, by burning the Qur’an, Mr. Jones has incited riots and hatred toward Americans around the world, when we are currently at war with religious extremists, he is attempting to burn their word of God. The Qur’an is literally the word of Allah, as spoken through his messenger, the Archangel Gabriel, and memorized and recited by the prophet Muhammad. Quite honestly, I can see 100 percent why this would upset even the most peaceful Muslims in the world. This act also puts our soldiers overseas at an even greater risk. In Afghanistan, we are dealing with people who need only the slightest provocation to seek retribution. The act of burning the Qur’an is more than just the slightest provocation. The Taliban used the natural disaster of the floods in Pakistan to attack innocent people, they have no morals. These are not true believers, if they were, they would honor Allah, not desecrate his name. Why fuel the fires of average Muslims with the burning of their holy book. By even the threat, Mr. Jones has aided Al Qaeda and the Taliban in their methods of recruitment. He has put the national security of America and the security of American citizens and soldiers abroad at risk. It has been a long standing tradition and backed by laws in America that using the excuse of freedom of speech is not legal if you are inciting danger. Just as you are not able to yell fire in a crowded building when there is not a fire, you also cannot incite world wide riots for your own publicity seeking exploits as Mr. Jones has done.

Book Burning

image First, let me say that I am a total and complete bibliophile. I love and cherish books. Some of my most prized possessions are books. I find the written and printed word to be sacred. To burn a book is one of the most destructive and horrific events that can one can do to an inanimate object.

Book burning, biblioclasm or libricide is the practice of destroying, often ceremoniously, books or other written material and media. In modern times, other forms of media, such as phonograph records, video tapes, and CDs have also been ceremoniously burned, torched, or shredded. The practice, usually carried out in public, is generally motivated by moral, religious, or political objections to the material.

Some particular cases of book burning are long and traumatically remembered – because the books destroyed were irreplaceable and their loss constituted a severe damage to cultural heritage, and/or because this instance of book burning has become emblematic of a harsh and oppressive regime. Such were the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, the obliteration of the Library of Baghdad, the burning of books and burying of scholars under China’s Qin Dynasty, the destruction of Mayan codices by Spanish conquistadors and priests, and some seem more for publicity for a cause such as Nazi book burnings, the burning of Beatles records after a remark by John Lennon concerning Jesus Christ, and the destruction of the Sarajevo National Library.

image There have been many religious leaders in history who have burned books that they found offensive. In 1497, followers of the Italian priest Girolamo Savonarola collected and publicly burned pornography, lewd pictures, pagan books, gaming tables, cosmetics, copies of Boccaccio’s Decameron, and all the works of Ovid which could be found in Florence. Savonarola’s dictatorship in Florence also led to the persecution of homosexuals, as did nearly every other existence of extreme dictatorships and book burnings. That is why I find the poem at the beginning of this post to be so poignant.

In my opinion, whether it is an off-the-wall extremist minister in Florida, a crazy monk in medieval Florence, or a ruthless anti-Semitic leader in 1930s and 1940s Germany, it is a very dangerous first step to the destruction of all that America holds sacred. Book burning is symbolic and pure censorship and only leads to extremism.

4 Comments | posted in Art, History, Poetry, Politics, Theory

August 28, 2010

Edward II, Queen of England?

By Joe

The stern but dead Edward IThe fourteenth-century English king, Edward I was “afflicted” with a son who did not live up to the manly expectations he had for him; his son, Edward, liked gardening and shoeing horses more than jousting. Modern sensibilities aside, in the world of medieval royalty, such unmanly pursuits were simply unworthy of a future king. To clear up the problem, Edward I (also known as Edward Longshanks, “The Hammer of the Scots”) appointed him a wildly charismatic squire named Piers Gaveston from Gascony. The hope was that this successful, talented young man might rub off on young Edward. The two got on famously. A bit too famously:

…and when the King’s son saw him he fell so much in love that he entered upon an enduring compact with him, and chose and determined to knit an indissoluble bond with him, before all other mortals.

Other chroniclers note that the King feared Gaveston “loved his son inordinately,” that the younger Edward “had an inordinate affection for a certain Gascon knight,” and that the Gascon might find himself in trouble “on account of the undue intimacy which the young Lord Edward had adopted towards him.”

Medieval boys huntingBefore long, the King was looking for excuses to keep the two apart. The youngsters had gotten into trouble by trespassing onto the Bishop of Coventry’s property and poaching the Bishop’s deer, and the King seized upon this incident as an opportunity to separate them for a few months. However, rather than send away the squire, Edward removed his own son (their relationship was, admittedly, chilly). Young Edward was absent from court for the summer of 1305, and Gaveston was left without a playmate.

G3VRD00Z The happy pair couldn’t be kept apart forever. Edward returned to court, and before long he was bestowing gifts, titles and land on Gaveston. In one particularly bold move in April of 1307 he asked his father Edward I to make Gaveston the Count of Ponthieu, which was a pretty modest title but did include a fair bit of land. King Edward, who’d spent a lot of his time battling the Scots (and would later leave his son in rather a poor position there), would have none of it:

You baseborn whoreson! Do you want to give lands away now, you who never gained any? As the Lord lives, if it were not for fear of breaking up the kingdom you should never enjoy your inheritance!

King Edward reached forward and grabbed a handful of his son’s hair, and yanked it clean out. Gaveston was banished from England entirely, but Prince Edward followed him out, showering him with tapestries, quilts, assorted other presents and easy money. This banishment only lasted about three months, because Edward I died on July 7. This left Prince Edward, now Edward II, free to indulge himself.

The Reign of Edward II

image As such, the first thing Edward II did was recall Gaveston and appoint the man earl of Cornwall and give him tons of money. Gaveston was also immediately slated to marry Edward’s niece, even though his taste in girls was, well, somewhat questionable. The new king also stripped the bishop of Coventry (he of the poached deer) of his title and imprisoned the bishop in the Tower of London. Things went downhill from there.

At Gaveston’s wedding, Edward called for games and jousting, at which the young groom and his coterie excelled. This tweaked the old baronial guard to no end. Those nobles who enjoyed power during Edward I’s reign were now second-fiddle to the dashing young king, and a newcomer at that. To make matters worse, when out making arrangements for his royal marriage, Edward made Gaveston regent rather than any of the other more experienced, highly-placed barons. Edward had also been efficiently depleting the crown’s coffers by bestowing outrageous gifts on his friend. As contemporary chroniclers wrote,

Our King… was incapable of moderate favor, and on account of [Gaveston] was said to forget himself, and so [Gaveston] was accounted a sorcerer.

When Edward returned with his new bride Isabella, Gaveston met them toting so much jewelry he “quite eclipsed the king.” The king ditched his bride and ran to Gaveston, embracing him tightly, crying, “Brother, brother!” Isabella’s father, King Philip IV of France, had given Edward some fancy jewelry which was found to be hanging on Gaveston’s neck the very next day. This angered many of the nobles, and it was simply bad form for someone else to shows up wearing your wedding presents a few days after the ceremony.

English Nobles and Their Hatred of Gaveston

Several contemporary sources criticized Edward’s seeming infatuation with image Piers Gaveston, to the extent that he ignored and humiliated his wife. Chroniclers called the relationship excessive, immoderate, beyond measure and reason and criticized his desire for wicked and forbidden sex. The Westminster chronicler claimed that Gaveston had led Edward to reject the sweet embraces of his wife; while the Meaux Chronicle (written several decades later) took concern further and complained that, Edward took too much delight in sodomy. While such sources do not, in themselves, prove that Edward and Gaveston were lovers, they at least show that some contemporaries and later writers thought strongly that this might be the case.

Gaveston was considered to be athletic and handsome; he was a few years older than Edward and had seen military service in Flanders before becoming Edward’s close companion. He was known to have a quick, biting wit, and his fortunes continued to ascend as Edward obtained more honors for him, including the Earldom of Cornwall. Earlier, Edward I had attempted to control the situation by exiling Gaveston from England. However, upon the elder king’s death in 1307, Edward II immediately recalled him. Isabella’s marriage to Edward subsequently took place in 1308. Almost immediately, she wrote to her father, Philip the Fair, complaining of Edward’s behavior.

Gaveston the upstart was proving to be such a pain that a group of nobles threatened to boycott the coronation unless he wasn’t allowed to be there. Diplomatic Edward assured them he wouldn’t. Of course, he showed up anyway. Not only did he show up, but he was in the processional line carrying the crown, dressed in royal purple sewn with pearls, “so decked out that he more resembled the god Mars than an ordinary mortal.” Barons scrambled to throw him out or kill him outright, but, with some effort, calmed themselves.

As it turned out, Gaveston had also insisted upon coordinating the entire event, and he flubbed it completely. The ceremony ran over by three full hours and was short of seats, forcing nobility to stand. Standing room in the back was so crowded that a knight was suffocated underfoot. Even with the extra time, the banquet wasn’t ready when it finished. Food was poorly cooked and service was reportedly very poor. The ceremony was a complete disaster, and only because a certain Gascon had worked his way deeply in the king’s favor. It wasn’t long before Queen Isabella, by all accounts a charming, beautiful person, was writing her father that “I am the most wretched of wives,” and that Edward was “an entire stranger in my bed.”

Earls to Swine

Clearly, this situation couldn’t last. An overwhelming majority of barons got together and announced that this had gone far enough, and that Gaveston had to go. To be sure, Edward would not be the first or last English king to whore around the kingdom but, medieval attitudes towards homosexuality being seen as sinful and blasphemous, something bad was eventually bound to happen. Edward, surrounded by powerful, strong-willed men, capitulated, stripped Gaveston of his titles and land, and sent him off to Ireland. To make sure he wasn’t coming back, the bishops announced that the Gaveston would be excommunicated if he ever set foot back in England. However, before long, he lobbied the pope strongly and got the excommunication threat removed. He returned, and Edward obligingly appointed him to be the earl of Cornwall again. Three years later, the barons again united in disgust and threw Gaveston out. To reign in the king’s expenses they also took over his finances, in his words, “as one would provide for an idiot.”

Gaveston was back before long, associating openly with Edward, who made him earl of Cornwall for the third time. The bishops excommunicated Gaveston; the lords prepared for civil war. The king and his favorite fled to Scotland, hoping to secure safety there, but to no avail. As armies commanded by the Ordainers approached the couple in Newcastle, they fled, leaving behind not only household servants, furniture, and treasure, but Edward’s long-suffering wife Isabella. She was three months pregnant. If nothing else, she enjoyed a modicum of popular support, having been yanked around the country by her husband and his lover and, heavy with child, abandoned to advancing armies.

As the forces got closer to the couple, Edward was forced to dump Gaveston off and tried to stir up support for himself in any number of English cities. It didn’t work; Gaveston was captured by the earl of Pembroke, who promised to deliver him to the king and barons for suitable punishment. However, on the way back, the good Pembroke passed within a few miles of his own castle. He had been away for some time, and took this opportunity to slip by and freshen up the wife. The one night he was gone a renegade group of disgruntled barons swept over Gaveston and ransacked his room. And if they weren’t pissed enough, they found him in possession of some of the crown jewels. Gaveston’s weakness for jewelry and baubles had proved urgent enough for him to convince King Edward to loan them out. While Gaveston’s motives for “borrowing” the crown jewels were probably vanity rather than theft, the presence of such sacred items on his person was more than enough to get him in trouble. He was marched some miles on bare feet and thrown into a nearby dungeon.

To his credit, Pembroke was upset. He didn’t harbor kinder feelings for Gaveston than anybody else, but he had given his word that the prancer would make it back to Edward. He asked a variety of barons and other officials to intervene on his behalf so as not to lose face, but nobody wanted to rescue Gaveston — in the hands of barons, he was truly friendless.

An Untidy End

Finally, one of them took some initiative. Gaveston was marched outside, up a hill, and forced to lie his head on a stump, whereupon it was neatly removed. There was then some consternation about who exactly ought to grab the head and take responsibility for the deed; once that was settled they were stuck with the headless body of Gaveston and had to do something with it. The corpse was carried to the castle of one of Gaveston’s enemies, the earl of Warwick, but he turned it away at the door. It was accepted by some nuns in Oxford, but they couldn’t bury it because Gaveston had died an excommunicate.

While Gavseton had riled up enough nobility to instigate a civil war, his sudden death split their union and the kingdom drifted back to internal squabbling rather than armed conflict. However, Edward was inconsolable: “By God’s Soul, he acted as a fool. If he had taken my advice he would never have fallen into the hands of the earls,” he wept. Fortunately for his troubled imagepsyche, Isabella gave birth to the future Edward III just in time to distract him. The king cooed over his child. Isabella had been patient with him during this dalliance, and their relationship improved. For a little while, anyway. And then, it soured. Precipitously.

Following Gaveston’s death, the king increased favor to his nephew-by-marriage (who was also Gaveston’s brother-in-law), Hugh Despenser the Younger. But, as with Gaveston, the barons were indignant at the privileges  Edward lavished upon the Despenser father and son, especially when the younger Despenser began in 1318 to strive to procure for himself the earldom of Gloucester and its associated lands.

image With Hugh Despenser, the situation grew worse.  Edward II made similar mistakes with Despenser and his reign was challenged by the pretender John Deydras.  Deydras was eventually executed but not before Edward II’s unpopularity for his actions became even more apparent.  Eventually, Despenser was banished, but unlike Gaveston, he was not to return.  Queen Isabella had enough, and left Edward II for another lover – Mortimer.  Despenser was eventually tracked down and executed – he had his genitals cut off and burnt in a fire before his eyes.

In 1327, Edward II was imprisoned, and Isabella and her lover, Mortimer seized control of the kingdom.  After trying to escape, Mortimer eventually ordered Edward’s death. 

The government of Isabella and Mortimer was so precarious that they dared not leave the deposed king in the hands of their political enemies. On 3 April, Edward II was removed from Kenilworth and entrusted to the custody of two subordinates of Mortimer, then later imprisoned at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire where, it was generally believed, he was murdered by an agent of Isabella and Mortimer on 11 October 1327.

On the night of 11 October while lying on a bed [the king] was suddenly seized and, while a great mattress… weighed him down and suffocated him, a plumber’s iron, heated intensely hot, was introduced through a tube into his anus so that it burned the inner portions beyond the intestines. — Thomas de la Moore.

It was said that the screams of the king were so loud that they could be heard miles away.

Edward III finally asserted his independence. In October 1330, a Parliament was called in Nottingham, just days before Edward’s eighteenth birthday, and Mortimer and Isabella were seized by Edward and his companions from inside Nottingham Castle. In spite of Isabella’s entreaty to her son, “Fair son, have pity on the gentle Mortimer,” Mortimer was conveyed to the Tower.

image Accused of assuming royal power and of various other high misdemeanors, he was condemned without trial and ignominiously hanged at Tyburn on 29 November 1330, his vast estates being forfeited to the crown. Mortimer’s widow, Joan, received a pardon in 1336 and survived till 1356. She was buried beside Mortimer at Wigmore, but the site was later destroyed.

Cultural depictions of Edward II of England

Edward II of England has been portrayed in popular culture a number of times. The most famous fictional account of Edward II’s reign is Christopher Marlowe’s play Edward II (c. 1592). It depicts Edward’s reign as a single narrative, and does not include Bannockburn.

In 1991 English filmmaker Derek Jarman adapted the Christopher Marlowe play into a film featuring Tilda Swinton, Steven Waddington, Andrew Tiernan, Nigel Terry, and Annie Lennox. The film specifically portrays a homosexual relationship between Edward II and Piers Gaveston.

Edward II was portrayed as an effeminate homosexual in Braveheart. Edward II’s death and sexuality are mentioned a number of times in Michael Crichton’s novel Timeline

A major new biography of Edward II by Seymour Phillips was published in 2010.

4 Comments | posted in Art, History

August 16, 2010

Ancient Sports

By Joe

Sports seem to have existed from the beginning of time. The original sports were established as a way to train soldiers. Some sports like bull jumping were purely for pleasure and the beauty and sensuality of the sport. Most of them served as entertainment. The winners basked in the glory of their victory. A great athlete was at the height of sexual desire from men and women.
Bull Jumping
imageBull-jumping is thought to have been a key ritual in the religion of the Minoan civilization on Bronze Age Crete. image As in the case of other Mediterranean civilizations, the bull was the subject of veneration and worship. Representation of the Bull at the palace of Knossos is a widespread symbol in the art and decoration of this archaeological site.
The assumption, widely debated by scholars, is that the iconography represents a ritual sport and/or performance in which human athletes literally vaulted over bulls as part of a ceremonial rite.
Gladiators
imageimage Gladiatorial combats usually took place in amphitheaters. They probably were introduced from Etruria and originally were funeral games. Gladitorial combats, which took place in the Colosseum and in hundreds of other amphitheaters throughout the Roman world, reached their height in the 1st and 2d cent. A.D.
image The gladiators were paired off to fight each other, usually to the number of about 100 couples, although in the imperial shows there were sometimes as many as 5,000 pairs. There were various types of gladiators, armed and armored differently. Thus a heavily armored man, a Mirmillo or Samnite, might be opposed to a Retiarius, who fought almost naked, with a net and a trident as his only weapons. He also image might be pitted against a Thracian, who fought with a dagger and a small round shield. Often gladiators were made to fight wild beasts. A defeated gladiator was usually killed by the victor unless the people expressed their desire that he be spared.
At first, gladiators were invariably slaves or prisoners, including Christians. They normally underwent rigid training, and some gained immense popularity. Later, impoverished freedmen also sought a living as gladiators, and finally even members of the ruling classes took part in gladiatorial combats on an amateur basis. Some gladiators, led by Spartacus, took part in the third of the Servile Wars (73 B.C.-71 B.C.). Constantine I forbade gladiatorial games, but they nonetheless continued until A.D. 405.
image
Olympic Sports
image
image Although records cannot verify games earlier than 776 B.C., the contests in Homer’s Iliad indicate a much earlier competitive tradition. Held in honor of Zeus in the city of Olympia for four days every fourth summer, the Olympic games were the oldest and most prestigious of four great ancient Greek athletic festivals, which also included the Pythian games at Delphi, the Isthmian at Corinth, and the Nemean at Argos (the Panathenaea at Athens was also important). image The Olympics reached their height in the 5th-4th cent. B.C.; thereafter they became more and more professionalized until, in the Roman period, they provoked much censure. They were eventually discontinued by Emperor Theodosius I of Rome, who condemned them as a pagan spectacle, at the end of the 4th cent. A.D.
Among the Greeks, the games were nationalistic in spirit; states were said to image have been prouder of Olympic victories than of battles won. Women, foreigners, slaves, and dishonored persons were forbidden to compete. Contestants were required to train faithfully for 10 months before the games, had to remain 30 days under the eyes of officials in Elis, who had charge of the games, and had to take an oath that they had fulfilled the training requirements before participating. At first, the Olympic games were confined to running, but over timimage e new events were added: the long run (720 B.C.), when the loincloth was abandoned and athletes began competing naked; the pentathlon, which combined running, the long jump, wrestling, and discus and spear throwing (708 B.C.); boxing (688 B.C.); chariot racing (680 B.C.); the pankration (648 B.C.), involving boxing and wrestling contests for boys (632 B.C.); and the foot race with armor (580 B.C.).
Greek women, forbidden not only to participate in but also to watch the Olympic games, held games of their own, called the Heraea. Those were also held every four years but had fewer events than the Olympics. image Known to have been conducted as early as the 6th cent. B.C., the Heraea games were discontinued about the time the Romans conquered Greece. Winning was of prime importance in both male and female festivals. The winners of the Olympics (and of the Heraea) were crowned with chaplets of wild olive, and in their home city-states male champions were also awarded numerous honors, valuable gifts, and privileges.

imageEach of these sports had an erotic element to them, whether it was the sensuality of the acrobatic movements of the bull-jumpers, the raw sexuality of the brutality and athleticism of the gladiator, or the nudity the ancient Olympians who competed for the glory of victory.
image In ancient times, it was believed that athletes literally exuded sexuality. image After sports, athletes would bathe in olive oil and then scrape that oil off their bodies to remove the sweat. As the oil and sweat was being scraped from their bodies, it would be collected in small bottles to be sold as a sexual enhancer. Now for some, this might sound utterly disgusting. I find it highly erotic. Mostly, it was used by women to enhance sexual pleasure, but could you imagine using it as a lube for masturbation. I mean, OMG, the smell of a musty athlete, mixed with the olive oil against your own skin, and then the ultimate smell once you cum and the sweat and oil is mixed with your cum. Now that would be an aphrodisiac.

Leave a comment | posted in Art, History, Sports

August 13, 2010

Naked Warriors in History

By Joe

angus-mcbride-celtic-warriors No, I am not talking about the movie Avatar. I am speaking of the Celtic warriors of ancient Scotland known as the Picts. From the accounts of Britain made by the classical authors, we know that by the fourth century AD, the predominant people in northern Scotland were referred to as “Picts”. Historians really don’t know what they called themselves, but Picts is the name that came down through history. The Latin word Picti first occurs in a panegyric written by Eumenius in AD 297 and is taken to mean “painted or tattooed people” (Latin pingo “to paint”; pictus, “painted”, cf. Greek “πυκτίς” – puktis, “picture”). Their Old English name gave the modern Scots form Pechts and the Welsh word Fichti.

1267 The Romans were only in Britain for a little over three centuries before their empire collapsed. Romanized Celtic culture survived in many places, particularly Wales, while a more purely Celtic tradition survived in Scotland. The Picts were MYTHS214gradually absorbed by their Celtic allies. The Romans never tried to conquer Scotland, a poor area which never supported more than 100,000 people during this period. A principal occupation of the “Scots” was raiding the wealthier Roman lands to the south and most Roman military activity in Britain was against the Pict and Celtic tribes in Scotland. The Romanized Celts in Britain sometimes rebelled, or at least a a few of them did. Until the Romans withdrew the last of their legions in the early 5th Century (to deal with the Germans, and civil war), the Romans always had the upper hand. This should come as no surprise. The Romans were supreme organizers and managed to keep up to 60,000 trained soldiers on duty in Britain. No one was able to repeat this feat until near the end of the Medieval period.

Throughout history, these Picts have been shadowy, enigmatic figures. From the outset, they were regarded as savage warriors The_True_Picture_of_One_Pict and by the time the Norsemen were compiling their sagas, and histories, the memory of the Picts had degenerated into a semi-mythical race of fairies.

Theories abound, although these days it is generally accepted that the Picts were not, as once believed, a new race, but were simply the descendants of the indigenous Iron Age people of northern Scotland.

The cloud of uncertainty that surrounds the Picts is simply because they left no written records. Because of this we have no clear insight into how they lived, their beliefs or society. All we know of them is second-hand anecdotal evidence, lifted from the various historical writers who recorded their own, possibly biased, impressions of the Pictish people.

The earliest surviving mention of the Picts dates from 297AD.picts

In a poem praising the Roman emperor Constantius Chlorus, the orator Eumenius wrote that the Britons were already accustomed to the semi-naked ‘Picti and Hiberni (Irish) as their enemies’.

From Emenius’ statement we can see that the Picts were already a major thorn in the side of the Roman Empire. And they continued to be a problem for their neighbours – continually harassing their neighbours for centuries after the Roman legions abandoned Britain. But who were they?

Pollaiuolo_nude_warriors_in_combat-1470-80- The term “Picti” was more than likely a Roman nickname used to describe the people north of Hadrian’s Wall. In much the same way as the term “European” is used today to describe people from a number of countries, Pict was a blanket term applied to an agglomeration of different people in the northern Scotland, probably with different cultures and, if the Life of St Columba is to believed, language.

If you know much about the Roman Empire, you know that its army was very effective and rarely broke ranks. The Roman military was comprised of legions of 5,000 men each. Each Roman_soldiers_with_aquilifer_signifer_centurio_70_aClegion consisted of 50 centuries,100 men each, led by a Centurion. Legions were accustomed to 20 mile marches. Courage was rewarded through promotion and honors. Cowardice was punished by stoning or flogging to death. If a century broke ranks, the punishment was decimation—every tenth soldier in the legion was executed. Because of the military structure of the Roman Empire, it was highly unlikely that they would break rank and run the other way. However, that was exactly what happened when they encountered the Picts.

The Picts fought completely naked, with their bodies either painted or tattooed blue (we really don’t know which, the Romans wouldn’t get close enough to find out). When an army of pictaumueboai9ep naked, blue men came running and screaming at the Roman army, the army broke ranks and ran away. They were scared to death of the Picts. What would you do if an army of naked men came running after you? (Well, I know some of you would just turn around and bend over, LOL, but that’s not what the Romans did.) The Romans were well-organized, well-armed, and disciplined; the Picts were not.

Other Celtic tribes the Romans had encountered were more organized (and civilized) than the Picts. The Germans and Gauls of continental Europe had armies that the Romans knew how to deal with. The Picts were not what the Romans expected, and thus, they didn’t know how to deal with them. They became such a problem, that the Romans under Emperor Hadrian decided that the best thing was to build a wall.

20090101220308!Hadrians_Wall_map hadrian's wall

Hadrian’s Wall is an ancient Roman wall, 118.3 km (73.5 mi) long, across northern England. Built by the emperor Hadrian c. A.D. 122-126 and extended by Severus a century later, the wall marked the northern defensive boundary of Roman Britain. Fragmentary ruins of the wall remain. The wall was primarily built to keep out the crazy blue men, who the Romans failed to ever conquer.

knightsgroup Later in the Middle Ages, the Vikings had an interesting counterpart to the Picts, called the Berserker. These warriors were the secret weapon of the Vikings. Berserkers (or Berserkers (or Berserks) are Norse warriors who are reported in the Old Norse literature to have fought in a nearly uncontrollable, trance-like fury, a characteristic which later gave rise to the English word berserk.

In old-Norse sagas, they were warriors who dressed themselves in bear skins or were bare-skinned, to make use of the fear bears common people had for wild animals. Many of the Vikings were very hairy, and thus even naked would look like bears (the original bear fetish, LOL). They whipped themselves up to a sort of battle frenzy, biting their shields and howling like animals. They were ferocious fighters and seemingly insensitive to pain while this madness lasted; berserks made formidable enemies. In their rage they even attacked the boulders and trees of the forest; it was not uncommon that they killed their own people. The belief in berserks can be compared with the belief in werewolves; both are magical transformations of humans who assume the shape of an kindred animal.

The name berserker arose from their reputed habit of wearing a kind of shirt or coat (Old Norse: serkr) made from the pelt of ahairy-men bear (Old Norse: ber-) during battle. In earlier studies, the element ber- was often misinterpreted as berr-, meaning “bare”, understood as indicating that the berserkers fought naked. It is unclear as to whether they dressed like bears or were bare, but either way, they came into battle without armor generally with a battle axe or spear and, in a frenzied drug-induced state, killed anyone and everything that came in their way, friend or foe alike.

A little note about historical interpretation. In a broad look at historians there are four types: traditionalists, revisionists, neo-030-05 traditionalists, and neo-revisionists. The traditionalist often used myths and legends to supplement the telling of history. Revisionists tried to prove traditionalists wrong by saying they found new source material that proves that the traditionalist historians are backwards looking. Neo-traditionalist tend to say, “wait a minute,” there may be flows in the traditionalist view, but there are also some hard facts behind what they wrote. Then you have the neo-revisionists, who say, maybe all three have some validity, but here is what the real history is. 87215_Cole_Ryder_25_U_Oct_06_123_526lo Then the cycle begins again. Case in point, the name berserker: originally it was interpreted as bare-skinned not bear-skinned. But a neo-traditionalist (like myself) would say that “Wait, you miss the point of the traditions of Celtic, German, and Scandinavian warriors were often naked in battle to show they had no fear. You also forget that the Scandinavians were hairier as most northern Europeans were because of the cold climate, and either naked or in bear skins would have looked like huge bears.” 575759 The neo-revisionist would totally contradict me and state (as in the Wikipedia article about Berserkers) “The name berserker arose from their reputed habit of wearing a kind of shirt or coat (Old Norse: serkr) made from the pelt of a bear (Old Norse: ber-) during battle. In earlier studies, the element ber- was often misinterpreted as berr-, meaning “bare”, understood as indicating that the berserkers fought naked. This view has since been abandoned.” They leave no room for other interpretations, but there is always room for interpretation.

So the last bit was my rant about historians, it is up to you how you interpret history. I tend to prefer the more salacious accounts of history, since Judeo-Christian morals have been placed on the writing of history since the Roman Empire converted to Christianity. Therefore, it is my opinion that the more salacious details are probably more accurate than myth. Men have always been horny beasts, and that will never change. If they could get away with it, they did. Plus, they liked to prove their masculinity through nudity. Fraternities didn’t get their pranks and love of nudity out of nowhere, it came down through the history of man.

2 Comments | posted in Art, History, Nudity, Theory

August 12, 2010

St. Sebastian

By Joe

self-portrait-as-saint-sebastian-john-douglas Saint Sebastian_k

To continue our look at art and history today, I wanted to discuss St. Sebastian. Can a Christian saint be a gay icon? Apparently he can. Sebastian was a Christian martyr who died during the persecutions of the Roman Emperor Diocletian in 288. According to legend, he was born in Gaul (present-day France) and went to Rome to serve in the army. When officials learned that he was a Christian seeking converts, they ordered his execution by archers. Left for dead, he was nursed back to health by a Christian widow. He presented himself before the emperor, who condemned him to death by beating. His body was thrown into a sewer but was afterward found and buried. In Renaissance art he was often depicted as a handsome youth pierced by arrows.

The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian 05_Saint_Sebastian_jpg 300px-Sodoma_Sebastian

In his novella Death in Venice, Thomas Mann hails the “Sebastian-Figure” as the supreme emblem of Apollonian beauty, that is, the artistry of differentiated forms, beauty as measured by discipline, proportion, and luminous distinctions. This allusion to Saint Sebastian’s suffering, associated with the writerly professionalism of the novella’s protagonist, Gustav Aschenbach, provides a model for the “heroism born of weakness”, which characterizes poise amidst agonizing torment and plain acceptance of one’s fate as, beyond mere patience and passivity, a stylized achievement and artistic triumph.

St_Sebastian_Saint titian1 Guido Reni Saint Sebastian _BOTTOM PIC#1#

In 1976, the British director Derek Jarman made a film, Sebastiane, which caused controversy in its treatment of the martyr as a homosexual icon. However, as several critics have noted, this has been a subtext of the imagery since the Renaissance.

saint-sebastian-22 454px-SaraceniSebastian

To show some of the modern interpretations of St. Sebastian, I decided to add both parts of the short film directed by Jose Ramon Samper Artegalia Bernad. Like Jarman’s film, which was done in Latin, this shows St. Sebastian as gay icon. This film is in Spanish, but it is still quite beautiful, even if you don’t speak Spanish.

Renaissance artists had access to history that we currently do not. There was obviously some reason why they chose to depict him as a beautiful young man. Since Sebastian was a Gaul, it could have been influenced by the beauty of The Dying Gaul, one of my all time favorite statues. The warrior is depicted as a beautiful man, but there is obviously love and lust for his beauty that the sculptor saw. It is also likely that Renaissance artists may have known some historical gossip about Sebastian, or the loving relationships that existed between the early brothers and sisters in Christ. Who knows why they depicted him as a beautiful young man, but they have left behind a question for history and the beauty of man.

dyinggaul

Leave a comment | posted in Art, Gay Icon, History, Video