okay but dwarves put SO much effort into their tombs already, carving perfect stone and inscriptions and making records to bury kin with kin and everything, let alone for Gimli son of Gloin Lord of the Glittering Caves.
The years of planning and amounts of paperwork and arrangements for the tomb of Gimli son of Gloin Lord of the Glittering Caves one of the Nine of the Fellowship one of the Heroes of Arda the Elf-friend and sturdy and possessor of the three hairs of Galadriel would be IMMENSE
and then Legolas rocks up in Gimli’s final days of life like: ok so I built this boat
thinking about how Gimli says that he respects the trees for their worth but doesn’t love them but he started off respecting Legolas for his worth and now he loves him and that’s not the same because the love Gimli feels for Legolas is REAL love and Tolkien knew that when he wrote the parallels god
mark thompson, gay body: a journey through shadow to self, 1997
[“To be wounded is not enough. We can claim our shame, count off each infraction against the Self as we would list souvenirs from a once-in-a-lifetime trip around the world. We can exalt that martyrdom, to, festooning the flesh with new wounds to better declare the one festering inside. But it is not enough only to see and then say what happened. There comes a time in every man’s life when he must ask: What is to be done about it? The hurt and betrayal, the feelings which exist as facts, those time-blasted pinnacles of memory as real as any monumental rock.
Our wound is not the soul’s germinal seed, but merely the gateway to that which grows beyond its other side. It is a point of entry, a way through to where that plant of eternal life we know as gay love takes root and prospers. Our gay wound is the gods’ gift to us surely, but in itself is nothing to either celebrate or covet. It is the means toward the creation of a Self rather than its meaning.
Creation requires sacrifice, and what is gained stands in proportion to what of oneself is given up. Certainly, one must relinquish past insult and injury in order to spiritually grow. That is the hero’s way. But we gay men have to sacrifice our attachment to the wound as well. What, at birth, seems inevitably fated, cannot alone be our destiny.
For, at some point on the journey, the hero’s work is done. The heroic myth itself must be sacrificed before self-creation can continue. From Gilgamesh to the Grail knight, to the gay shaman-warrior of today, each must finally put down the sword and let that part of himself which clings to the wound die. In other words, we must die before death itself, sacrifice what is most prized in order to truly live.
The choice is ours to make, and I look in wonderment at when and how it is made by some and avoided by others. Often it is the circumstances of literal dying that determines the question of how we gay men die inside. Whatever the case may be for each individual, there is no denying the wholesale fact of our physical leave-taking. Stories about final moments abound, with dizzying proximity, in my life and the lives of those close around me. On either one level or the other, sometimes both, we gay men have become pros in the necessary act of dying.”]
mark thompson, gay body: a journey through shadow to self, 1997
“Disregard for the self, an almost overwhelming sense of being less than fully human, is a condition endemic to gay lives. It is the price we pay for being "other” in a society of calculated sameness. “It is virtually impossible to be different, particularly in this culture, and not feel deficient for the difference, because any awareness of difference inevitably translates into a devalued comparison,” state Gershen Kaufman and Lev Raphael, life partners who have written extensively about the crippling effects of shame in gay people. “First we are devalued by others, then we devalue ourselves.”
Sociologist Carlton Cornett observes that because we are continually bombarded by negative evaluations, “many gay men internalize representations of themselves as inadequate or morally bad. However, there is also a realization that there is no other way to be. The only compromise available in many cases is to maintain an alienation from the self.”
Once this damaged self is set in place, the tragedy is compounded by its projection onto similar others. We are destined to fall short in one another’s eyes because the deficiencies seen in friends and lovers are usually our own. The disagreeable aspects of one’s negated self is time and again cast onto these convenient living screens. This is why the theater of all possibility I thought I had moved to soon regressed to the haunted house of my youth. Rather than remain a land of milk and honey, mecca began to sour.“
-Mark Thompson, ‘Gay Body: a Journey Through Shadow to Self,’ 1997
[ In cleaning their own spiritual houses, however, gay men need to understand not only the reasons for their shame but where to find it. By its very nature, shame is elusive and hard to see. For this stagnant complex of unctuous feeling thrives in the most impenetrable archetype of our soul: shadow. The notion of shadow is used here in its most profound, psychological sense: to define the unconscious, split-off, and disavowed parts of a collective or individual mind.
As the poet Robert Bly reminds us, the shadow is “the long bag we drag behind us,” and different cultures fill the bag with different contents. Because queer people seem to emerge from - indeed inhabit - the realm of the shadow we personify for others the hidden ingredients of that bag, usually in its most threatening form: The shadow is unconsciously projected and queer folk become its screen.
We exist as an unfortunate mirror for those things left unseen, or wished not to be seen. Rather than deal with an inclusive reflection of itself, society reacts to us with hostility and rage. We live in a culture of extreme denial, and nowhere is this better evidenced than in the lives of those it has attempted to purge. The violence, the rejection, the sorrow, that pierce to the center of our hearts are the result of society grappling in fear of itself.
“In a society where the good is defined in terms of profit rather than in terms of human need, there must always be some group of people who, through systematized oppression, can be made to feel surplus, to occupy the place of the dehumanized inferior,” says Audre Lorde, a black lesbian feminist poet. “We do not speak of human difference, but of human deviance.”
Therefore, in a patriarchal society, women and those qualities deemed feminine - like open emotionalism - are oppressed. In a racist society, people of color or of “otherness” are viewed as “lesser than.” In an erotophobic society, individuals living out their spontaneous ecstatic feelings are censored. Men who are unable to integrate these alienated aspects of themselves express their repression through violent means, their bloody subjugation of women, queer people, and the disadvantaged being the signal act of our age.
That gay people display a primal link with eros threatens those who have deeply repressed their own sexuality. They project distant, twisted instincts elsewhere; the homo of their sexual prejudice is merely a pretext for unrecognized private distress. Every day in America, gay women and men are demeaned, abused, and even killed because they carry with them society’s projection of its darkest, most despised, and least integrated aspects of Self.
I have no doubt that the archetypes which speak most directly to gay men -those we tend to gravitate around - are the very ones most deeply repressed in our larger culture. Thus we are made to appear as a people without honor, and certainly as a people without a basis for being. For the soulful ground in which we find nourishment, self-creation itself, has been devalued and buried deep in icy shadow.
When we claim the shadow, integrating what society cannot tolerate, a distanced part of our self is brought near. I understood this when I was able to shed the miserable onus of being a faggot. To be a faggot, I had learned, is to be shunned. By being removed from the trust of others, I was kept distrustful of myself
Years of inner work were required before I could heal this wound, for I had internalized society’s damning views of differentness. The reclaiming of my shame taught me that there was nothing flawed in my own being. On the contrary, the problem originated with the heterosexual majority’s destructive effort to control is homosexual minority.
Jung says that archetypes are psychological mechanisms for transforming energy within us. With this insight in mind, I could now see the symbol of the faggot as an apparition of society’s collective shadow. Being perceived as this shadowy figure, and having that projection reinforced in tragic ways, even by my parents, had kept me emotionally laden. By owning the symbol of the faggot on my own terms, I could begin to release the transformative energy buried beneath.
What had been suppressed was the archetype of the Trickster,a fount of aliveness, curiosity, and risk. The Trickster became an important ally once I had rescued him from my shadow bag. Today, he enables me to find ways around obstacles - like someone’s rejection or hate - that would have previously stopped me cold.
My friend, the passionate player - he got it right, too. Barry figured his salvation as a gay man lived in the dark as much as what cursed him. In our crude and fumbling way, we played in the the dark together, even with darkness itself, in our search for light. Barry, the Trickster, at loose in two houses of many black rooms. Opening doors in one helped him find a way into the other. That, and a little luck, meant a damaged life was healed.
How I wish I’d known years ago, as a boy adrift in his own dark house, what Barry finally discovered: That the name of the thing rising up to haunt me was shame. ]
Okay, but like - I was reading the final draft of my English coursework through before submission and Jesus Christ the conclusion is so confident, like it feels like all the gayness inside me was poured into that single paragraph
Itliterally radiates gayness
Hold up let me quote an excerpt:
‘When given the benefit of hindsight, it can be said that the attitudes Wilde presents in his letters are unique in his time. Victorian attitudes are known to be harsh and strict towards homosexuality, and Wilde was one of the few, perhaps the only, high society character of the time who was so outspoken about his sexuality. Certainly, this may be expected because of his flamboyance, but it should be noted that the association of flamboyance with homosexuality has only emerged in recent times. If anything, the irony lies in the fact that Wilde’s knowledge of fashion trends at the time made him exceedingly popular among women. Nonetheless, the bold and direct language that Wilde uses in his letters is certainly suggestive and specific enough to cast off any doubts about his sexuality. Though his letters are arguably private correspondence, and subsequently the perfect place for hiding any secret desires he may have had, few men of his time likely dared to be as bold and direct as Wilde was, instead opting to carry such a secret to their graves. It can further be argued that, even in his private correspondence, Wilde as a first-person narrator made poor or no efforts at concealing his feelings, and paints a reality in which any subsequent readers (aside from his obvious audience of Alfred Douglas) would assume homosexuality is widely accepted - indeed, even more so than the present day. While his choice of language could arguably be explained by his flamboyant nature, wherein language is exaggerated and highly dramatized, perhaps closer scrutiny can point to the actual passion exhibited by Wilde towards Douglas. Instead of excusing his language as mere flamboyance, in the more liberal society of today, we may actually embrace his language for his intended purpose - to pour out feelings of passionate and intense love to his lover.’
(Yes this is super long I’m so sorry)
But the minute I re-read this I was like well.I was on a rollthat day.
But then again this wasa love letter to Wilde so honestly, what did I expect -
I was really torn on what to score this one, somewhere between 7 and 8 but I settled on 8/10 when I remembered how much this book touched me and left me feeling even weeks after I’d finished
For those that haven’t read the book or seen the movie, this novel is a beautiful story about a summer romance between two men that touches both of their lives so deeply and how they developed such a strong love for each other. This book came to me at a time in my life where I had recently ended a relationship and it was such a great book to help with the healing and emotional process that I was going through. The story follows the life of Elio, a young boy who’s parents host an academic each year at their summer home in Italy to stay with them and work on their work, and along comes Oliver. The relationship between Oliver and Elio is one built on stolen glances and rooted in suppressed desire; reading the way in which these two characters interact with one another, as well as how they struggle to come to terms with both their feelings and denial is one that is not only gripping, but beautiful.
The way Aichman depicts this story between the two men is so touching and had such a lasting impact on me - I found myself thinking over different passages and interactions in the days and weeks following finishing the book. Without spoiling too much for those who are yet to experience Call Me By Your name in some capacity, the book really does communicate this idea of ‘the forbidden love’ as well as the element of true love as a reality.
This book was both painful to read, as well as a complete pleasure. The way Aichman describes Italy as a place, as well as the hidden references to mythology and literary classics made this such a joy thread - funny, clever, considerate and at times downright scandalous. I don’t think I’ve read a modern novel quite like it before.
A gorgeous story that’s skilfully written and allows for complete escapism and emersion into the love story between Elio and Oliver - and the ending completely shattered my heart. A must read for any hopeless romantics, or even those looking to get lost in a wonderful journey of navigating love.
New Arrivals: First Edition of THE GAY COLORING BOOK [Washington, DC: Guild Press, 1964].
Extremely uncommon pre-Stonewall celebration of gayness, featuring a protagonist named Percy (“color me gay”) and his assortment of friends, all representing various iterations of gay stereotype from fey to femme to rough-trade. The final, poignant panel depicts Percy in an army uniform and is captioned: “My name is Percy. / Color me drafted.” Though riddled with what would in time come to be considered offensive stereotypes, it is inconceivable that this coloring book could have been produced for anything other than the gay market; it is full of inside jokes - bath houses, cruise bars, and sugar daddies - that would have been lost on the uninitiated reader of the era. We thus imagine the market to have been resultingly tiny, a supposition reflected in the lack of any evidence of this title in commerce and the presence of only five copies in institutional collections (per OCLC, as of 2016).
Excerpt from the book: The Other Side of Silence: Men’s Lives & Gay Identities - A Twentieth-Century History by John Loughery
Paul Phillips was a young black gay man growing up in the Midwest during the early 20th century. He was the son of a fairly prosperous middle class lawyer within a family exemplifying the aspirations of the talented tenth. Somehow, rumors of Paul’s extracurricular activities revolving around his “sexual behavior and preference” reached his father. Quite calmly and plainly, his father explained to Paul that he was living his life within an “unnatural” condition since he did not evince a desire for the opposite sex within their small segregated community. To help his son overcome this “condition,” a trip was planned to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
For a total of seven day, Paul was interviewed and examined. At the end, the doctors reported to Mr. Phillips and his wife that nothing could be done to change Paul; he would be a “homosexual” to the end of his days. And, that under Minnesota law at the time, they were required to report suspected gay men to the Rochester police, gay being a criminal offense. For whatever reason, the doctors, to the great relief of Mr. and Mrs. Phillips, declined to report Paul to the law enforcement authorities.
After returning home from an exacerbating trip that required them to camp out because they were not allowed to stay in white only hotels, Mr. Phillips came to a rather judicious conclusion about the sexual nature of his son. If his son suffered from an “illness” for which there was no cure, he would allow his son to lead his life as before, but lead it with DIGNITY and caution. Mr. Phillips said to Paul:
Find yourself a friend you can trust and bring him …What you do in your own room is your own business.
Mr. Phillips feared for Paul’s welfare. He understood the dangers of clandestine meeting spots where those like his son found one another and sometimes the law waiting for them.
It took Paul sometime to find a congenial lover, but at college in Topeka, Kansas after becoming a lawyer in the mid 1920′s, he met another black man, a musician who played the organ for churches near school and together they began a relationship of mutual affection providing a respite against an often hostile and prejudiced world.
![New Arrivals: First Edition of THE GAY COLORING BOOK [Washington, DC: Guild Press, 1964].Extremely u](https://64.media.tumblr.com/49bcfaee87dbf8e5a4417a921b601129/tumblr_o21jenCqqm1rzbphwo1_640.jpg "New Arrivals: First Edition of THE GAY COLORING BOOK [Washington, DC: Guild Press, 1964].Extremely u")
