Love and it's conceptions

In the heterosexual world we've all grown up in, what is your concept of love (or an intimate interpersonal relationship), especially between two people of the same gender or as human beings in general? And how have you come to that idea or conception?

“Love is not in the stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves” William Shakespeare. I think that lesbian and gay relationships have the potential to rock our entire world and its hopeless romantic notions of love and commitments. I think our LGBT community offers a true test to the status quo of relationships and that is, what does it mean when two people who are completely equal in every way want to be together? What does that relationship look like? How is it conceived in a world where gender roles have played a huge part in the make up of relationships; where your gender is the impetus for a relationship and what you do? Everything from courting behaviors, to duties in marriage and the later years, gender has become a pivotal piece to the make up of a relationship. Have you ever been asked by someone about your gay or lesbian relationship, “Who’s the man, and who’s the woman?” Culturally we don’t seem to be able to get away from this idea of gendered roles within a relationship.
When as a community, we challenge those core beliefs and ideas about the make up of love, I can’t help but feel invigorated and overwhelmed with the outcomes of what our love may mean for the greater world. Just imagine what a relationship would look like if duties and responsibilities within a relationship weren’t dictated by a person’s genitalia, but by the individual desires of either person within that loving bond. In a same sex couple, who opens the door on a date? Who pays? Who pulls out the other’s chair? Who proposes to whom? Who raises the kids? Who goes to work? Who does the dishes or mows the lawn, and on and on and on? The greater question is do these responsibilities have to be dictated by ones gender and what are the implications of this fact?
For me, it means that within a heterosexual or homosexual relationship, the bond becomes not about what roles are fulfilled, but about something deeper and much more important, and that is the human spirit. The interconnection between two people where what draws you to someone isn’t all of these societal expectations placed on us from birth, but the raw and uncensored emotion that is created between two people within any relationship. It means that whoever we are, we take more time to understand one another, to communicate effectively and understand in-depthly the person that you love. Love in its ideal becomes about the soul, the most authentic part of a person and a relationship is born out of ones interconnection with someone, rather than ones place in society as male or female. Love transcends all obstacles of oppression, power, and dominance within our world when we pause to value one another for all that we may bring to the table as one human being to another.
I have come to this world view through my own personal relationships with people; from the love of my family and friends to the very deep and raw emotions of falling in love and falling out of love. It is the depth of my heart and soul for people I care about that has helped me to appreciate the full range of what love could mean. Love to me impacts every relationship from the random person you meet on the street to the deepest and most intimate interpersonal relationships you may have for the rest of your life. When one acts in love, when one treats others with love, is when you acknowledge another person’s humanity.
If as a community we come to embrace one another in a human way; one that is free from degradation, objectification, and discrimination, then we can begin to have meaningful, deep and spiritual connections with other people. Because of this, our movement has the opportunity to change the world. It is our destiny to make love something of our own, something beautiful and wise. The greatest thing about being a gay or lesbian person is that our love has not been defined; a definition that can be as grand and colossal as we want it to be, a love that is so deep and true that it can never be broken. “Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. They bless the one who receives them, and they bless you, the giver” Barbara De Angelis.

A Response to the question...should we kill those who kill, mame, rape and or murder?

Execute the deserving?
September 7, 2007


If a member of your family, be it your mother, sister or daughter was raped and you knew 100% who it was, and you were given the opportunity to act out your revenge, would you kill this person?

This is a moral question I ponder over at times, I personally think rapists should be tortured, then executed.

I hear too many stories about rapists being freed from prison only to strike again on innocent victims.

There was an incident that happened around 5 miles from where I live where a girl was raped, had her throat cut and was left for dead, she managed to crawl, naked, onto a main road where she flagged down a car and was taken to hospital. I cannot even begin to understand the mental trauma she must have gone through... and the worst thing about it is, the culprit was never caught.

Now imagine that girl was your daughter...

We'll see if people have it in themselves to be honest...

I'll totally understand anonymous replies.

Preach.


MY RESPONESE:

While I whole heartedly do not support or endorse any actioin against any person that is vile, corrupt, or unjust, I do not believe it is right to turn around and do the same in retaliation. Why? Because by our simple act of retaliation, we are making it acceptable in one way or another. For whatever reason, I do not beleive that any person has the right to take the life of another. And there is a greater issue here...what are the things that lead these common criminals to commit such hainus crimes? Through what justice system do we view these crimes? Is it possible that the greater issue is that we don't raise our men and women with enough awareness about their own sexuality? Is it that we teach men to objectify women, and more recently women to objectify men? Or men to objectify other men? Or women of women?
Maybe Rape is the extreme of this, but none the less just as violent. Lets tie rape to things like sex trafficking, where young women are abducted from all over the world and forced into prostitution. Lets look at the images displayed on our televisions and magazine that glorify this "ideal" body type that no man or woman can truly ever live up to? Do these things ultimately breed a rapist? Where along the way could we as a society ever help that young man to not commit such violent crimes. Is it not also important to note that rape most commonly occurs between two people who have actually known each other for awhile. Most of us assume that rape happens in dark ally ways with some strange foreing man, when in reality, it happens most often between two friends. Sadly, I do not believe our men and women understand clearly enough the lines of how far is too far.
And not to deminish the individual case in anyway shape or form, but what kind of crime effects more people? This instance of one on one, or the corprate scandals of ENRON and other major companies who ruin the lives of thousands of people.
Is a justice system just if is inherintly biased towards the lower class, people of color and people in general who don't conform to societal norms? And what are we doing along the way to prevent these things from happening, rather than blaming the individual who committed the crime, saying he should die and be tortured, rather than looking at how that individual got there in the first place.

Just a thought...

In the Eyes of the Beholder

You know I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what beauty is and what it is people see in each other when they think of beauty. For many in our society, mainly in the mainstream media, beauty comes in the form of 6 ft tall size 6 women that have large breasts and long legs. In regards to men, it is becoming the ideal to have a six pack, a nice set of pecs and a chiseled face. All Asthetic, all things based upon our physical traits as human beings. In the media, there seems to be a cookie cutter shape and form for what beauty is. However the more I think about it, the more I have come to realize that every person in this world has different things that are attractive to them. Not only that, but white, blonde and fit people are not the only form of beauty in this world. Our society has looked past the beauty of many other cultures, and sizes and shapes that create this universe. While it is striving to be better in all these areas, emphasis is still placed on the asthetic appearances, rather than the intrinsic qualities within a person. I’m sorry, but the last thing I want is a man who is all looks, but has no personality, no heart, and no intelligence. We treat beauty as if it is something we need to survive. The beauty of Youth is so valued in our culture, that when we get to our golden years we start to de-value ourselves because we are no longer considered beautiful in the same sense. Why is this? And how does this play out in our interpersonal relationships?

For me, and one of the saddest things about this, is the fact that I feel like what we have become is objects to each other. When we are out there searching for that special someone, what are we really looking for? What is it that draws us to one another and what traits are attractive to us. If all we can think about while we’re pursuing someone is how beautiful they are, what they look like, or what we will look like together, than how is that treating the other person with any kind of love or compassion or understanding. There is a little saying out there, and yes it comes from a religious text or two or eight, but that doesn’t mean it has no value. It is called “ do unto others as you would have done to you”. I think about this, and I ask myself, do I want to be viewed in that way. Do I want someone to only see what lies at the surface? Do I merely want to be some thing, as opposed to some one? Do I want to be objectified? Do I want to be treated as a scrap of meat? And in this thought process I also think of “Love thy neighbor” and I think, what if I met the next Albert Einstien, Rosa Parks, Elanoorre Roosevelt or Martin Luther King, and I never took the time to get to know them? Never took the time to understand the true beauty that lies within all of us?

I’ve been used before, and I’m not going to lie, I’ve used before as well. I cannot say I regret it, only because I would not have come to the understandings of life I now have because of those experiences. I’m not perfect by any means, but I do know how painful those times were for me. I do know what it was like to look into some ones eyes and only see my own reflection, to see no depth or life, but simply the here, now and present. I couldn’t see within them, the pain I carried deep within my own heart. The loneliness, the isolation and the confusion of who I was. I didn’t realize at the time, they they were in as much pain as I was, and that my treatment of them, their treatment of me was contributing to my hurt/ their hurt more so than it was helping. The temporary moments of holding someone, of being in the arms of another, were small breaks in a long road of hurt, and made the road even darker when upon reflection I would realize that they were nothing but the moment, nothing but meaningless and emotionless aspects of my life.

The tears that would later flow from my heart, became from my own self hatred my own self loathing. It was from my realization that the objectification of another, the objectification of myself, contributed no more to my happiness or my well being than all of the hurtful words others would use in my direction. I realized then that if I wanted to be okay, if I wanted others to see more than just WHAT I was, but who I was, I had to start seeing WHO other people were too. I couldn’t just see someone for what they were, but truly for WHO they were.

In this discovery I have finally understood the beauty of life, humanity. The understanding that there are so many different types of beauty in this world, so many different ways to interpret life and so many different ways to live. I realized that to see a person, to love a person, is to see within their soul. To know who they are completely and to love them anyway, unconditionally. With all of my heart and soul. I’ve learned that to fall in love with a person, is to see all of them, and to live life is to say that you know who you are, but also that you know who others are as well. To live life, is to love life and to love life, one needs only to look around them and see what is truly there. They need to look at the sky, the trees, the leaves, the roots, the trunk, the grass, your own hands, the lines on your hands, the finger tips, and then, the eyes of another.
I’ve learned that to know a person, you have to take the time to listen. And before we hate, before we objectify and abuse, we must understand the inner most depths of the human soul.

My Observations of Masculinity in Brazil

My time in Brazil was a very eye opening experience. It allowed me to see the world through a whole new set of lenses and impacted my perceptions of how gender is played throughout the world.
One of the burning questions for me had to deal with the countries treatment towards it’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and it’s relation to the general heterosexual population. I found it interesting that compared to the United States, many areas of Brazil seemed to be far ahead in its ability for compassion and even acceptance.
Many of my observations come from contrasting my experience in the more traditional carnival in the older part of Salvador and my experiences in the highly energized and packed experience of carnival Bahia style. Both were full of examples that helped me to gain a greater appreciation for the way that the Brazilian society looks at and engages concepts of gender.
My first brush of gender in Brazil actually came the moment I stepped off the elevators that took you from the lower part of the city to the top. The very first thing I saw was a very public and open drag show competition to raise awareness about AIDS. It had an incredible impact on me. For this particular event to take place in a public square in a plaza that was so heavily trafficked, I couldn’t help but observe that it was not only a part of their culture but something that was accepted as a part of the norm.
I did notice however, that at this LGBT movement spectacle there weren’t as many open displays of affection and even more so, very few women present in the crowd. This would go well with one of the informal interviews I conducted with one of our tour guides, Carlos, who expressed in his own way to me, that being gay or lesbian in Brazil is socially accepted, as long as it is out of sight and out of mind. In that, just like mainstream America, it’s something that everyone knows about, but prefers to be left in the closet. Men will have relations with each other, but at the end of the day they go back to their “ordinary” lives complete with wife and child.
Now of course, during carnival, I’m not sure if this is an example of the once a year type of treatment a gay or lesbian person gets to “fit” in, or maybe Carlos’ own homophobia that prevented him from feeling safe enough to attend such an event as the AIDs benefit in the older part of town. I also noted that with several people I spoke with who went to Rio De Janeiro and parts of Salvador, that there were gay areas in town much like Greenwich Village in NYC or the Castro in San Francisco. These parts of town were thriving gay communities and that they were in fact integrated into the society. Another interview conducted with another of our tour guides, Eddie, informed me that gays in Brazil were allowed to legally adopt and if they had been living in the same household for more than 5 years, they then became legally bound to one another.
Looking at these issues through the lens of an outsider, it’s hard to grasp exactly where everyone is at in regards to these issues, especially since it is one of those things that is generally under the table. I can only make informal conclusions about what the gay community must experience and to that extent I can conclude that there are many areas in which the gay and lesbian community is thriving and accepted in Brazil, where at the same time there are many strides to be made to understanding LGBT issues and seeing it as a gender issue. Not unlike the United States.
To tap more into the gender non-conformity aspect of Brazil, I would like to examine too the cross dressing that took place during carnival and its impact on the trans gender community as well as the general society. I found it to be quite enriching and amazing to see some of the most masculine men a society is supposed to have, the police officers, dressing in drag. What an awesome site to see and beyond that, what does that say about this countries views of gender, of gender conformity, etc, etc? Again I point back to the fact that we were there during carnival and wonder how these people would be treated on an average day? What I did notice is that most of these men were dressed in similar fashions, such as many of the police officers, and then I did notice several individuals who were cross dressed, but when I saw them I also noticed some awkward looks and glances of disapproval from people who seemed to be locals. This obviously is an assumption on my part, but I felt like these young men in drag that I saw were taking a greater risk than those police men who, while dressed in drag, were all still wearing the same uniform. I also had the opportunity to witness carnival in a very small town north of Salvador, and I noticed there several men dressed in drag, so it is my assumption as a young man coming from Greeley, CO, that through their acceptance in a small town, they were more accepted than a person doing the same thing in a small town in America. But for the most part, I assume that at least during carnival, a person can let their freak out on a leash and be whatever they want, which is pretty cool.
In regards to the difference between heterosexual men and women, I did notice some gender roles being exhibited that were both surprising and not so surprising. One of the main elements that stuck out to me was the concept of the Gandy’s, or men dressed in white garb who had beads on and would confront women in a very aggressive and open manner to place a kiss on them. Custom would dictate that if you want beads, you just go up to one of them and give them a kiss and they will give you their beads. What I noticed though, is that several of them felt free enough to throw their beads around someone’s head, as if catching them and then plant a big one on them. It reminded me of the scene in Borat where his traditional custom for marriage was to capture his wife in a potatoe sack. The treatment of women as property, the fluidity of sexuality was very apparent during carnival, and the Gandy’s were a prime example of how mostly heterosexual women can have an excuse to make out with as many men a they possible can.
Another component to carnival that I noticed was that there were more men participating in the streets than women, or so it seemed. I couldn’t actually take a poll, but from what I observed it seemed like most of the men were out in the streets, and a lot of the women that I did see were either foreigners or selling things on the side of the road working the event. Now, I did see a lot of women up in the Camorote where I was stationed at, which might have been a place where women might have felt safer away from the assaults in the streets, a place that allowed them to go back and forth between the activities of the street.
The place I did see a lot of women participating in carnival is up in the more traditional part of town where I saw women playing drums, and partaking in every aspect of carnival that the men were. Just as the Gandy’s were up there, I saw lots of women in their traditional garb with the hoops skirts and traditional dress. A lot of it had to do with the religion of Candomble, but I also believe that it was part of their views of women’s roles, which I must say was quite elegant.
Another area that I was able to observe men and women was at the luxurious beaches that we went to in Prior De Forte. What I observed was men’s comfort with the short shorts of the speedo. Now we can all laugh and poke fun at the fact that I of all people noticed such things, but what I also observed was that many women were wearing a wide variety of clothing that did not subscribe to weight, height or beauty. It seemed to me that many people in general in Brazil were not as concerned with their appearances, what people thought of them or the clothes they were, specifically the ones that outlined every inch of their bodies. What this says to me through my lens, is two things…one, that image is not as important to the people of this culture. I didn’t see a lot of overweight people, but also not many people gave a great deal of attention to the way the world perceived them, both men and women. And second, what this tells me is that while there are many images both in our media and in their media, that people of this country are not inundated with things telling them that they must look a certain way, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Images are a very important part of American society, and to be quite honest with you, it is not something I saw a whole lot of in Brazil while I was there. There were not very many billboards in Brazil, and the very few that I did see were not of women in skimpy uniforms and not all sexualizing every product that they sold, including toothpaste. On all of the beer advertisements it was more about the products. It was a great surprise to see, and something that was telling of the cultures’ attitudes towards marketing, how people are treated, etc, etc.
All in all I thought that Brazil was very fluid in it’s gender norms and sexuality. I recognize that my observations were from the perspective of a man in America as well as at a time that the society of Brazil was not at it’s every day pace. So ultimately, my observations are raw and generalized, but I hope that they were somewhat accurate to the actual culture there.