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angel80 on Heavens
Aug. 10th, 2005 02:19 pmAs she notes in her excellent essay, it's so much easier to blame the Other for you not being there than to look at yourself.
Aug. 10th, 2005
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Aug. 10th, 2005 02:19 pm
[BRIEF NOTE] Problematic Masculinities
Aug. 10th, 2005 02:32 pmThis September, there was an interesting--if depressing--article in Xtra, Toronto's GLBT weekly, Michelle Mangan's "Starved for approval".
Body dysmorphia among gay and bisexual men, then, has its roots in a deep-seated sense of alterity that can't be challenged, but that tackled most unsuccessfully whether by eating disorders or by steroid use and compulsive gym attendance. Images exist, images can't be implemented, and so the cycle begins. Women may also be familiar with this cycle.
Recently, I've begun to wonder whether my heterosexual brethren might not be entering the same sort of cycle. In one TTC station, all of the images of physically near-impossible scantily-clad people were of men. It's some sort of comfort, perhaps, that the images of men are being as superexploited as women. That's a certain sort of gender equality. And yet.
[Toronto psychologist Miles] Cohen says gay men are more susceptible to eating disorders for a number of reasons. A large factor comes from growing up gay in a culture that is, despite many recent advances, less than accepting. "Gay men generally start out feeling badly about themselves. You grow up with a sense that you’re bad or this is wrong," he says. "There might be other issues as well. They could be overweight when they’re young and have a lot of teasing."
The combination of personal background, self-esteem issues and the need for acceptance in an image-focussed culture can quickly lead to body dissatisfaction. "When you try to come out in the gay community, you quickly learn there’s a lot of cultural pressure within the community to look a certain way. I think it’s much stronger in the gay community than in the heterosexual community," says Cohen.
"Because we’ve been so beat up by straight society, we can now do this to ourselves," says Robin, a 40-year-old gay man who has suffered from eating disorders for 14 years. He is not only critical of the way he looks, but of the men he dates as well. "I had a 250-pound boyfriend," he says. "I found it revolting."
At 5’9", Robin’s weight fluctuates between 112 and 122 pounds. "It’s a constant battle I have within myself," he says. "I hate myself. I’m full of shame. I don’t deserve to eat."
Robin says growing up in a society that was not as accepting of homos as it is now was difficult. His self-esteem was low, he often felt guilty. When he was 26, he dated someone who told him, "I don’t want to be with a big fat slob." Anorexia, bulimia and obsessive exercise have plagued him ever since.
It is a vicious, if not ironic, cycle. Robin works out to become muscular but because he feels he can never become as muscular and buff as he wants to be, he punishes himself with anorexia and bulimia. Thin and sickly, he is the epitome of what he strives to avoid.
Body dysmorphia among gay and bisexual men, then, has its roots in a deep-seated sense of alterity that can't be challenged, but that tackled most unsuccessfully whether by eating disorders or by steroid use and compulsive gym attendance. Images exist, images can't be implemented, and so the cycle begins. Women may also be familiar with this cycle.
Recently, I've begun to wonder whether my heterosexual brethren might not be entering the same sort of cycle. In one TTC station, all of the images of physically near-impossible scantily-clad people were of men. It's some sort of comfort, perhaps, that the images of men are being as superexploited as women. That's a certain sort of gender equality. And yet.
If Xtra hadn't so rudely decided to remove the years worth of articles available in its online archives, I would have been able to quote some more from Michelle Mangan's article. Robin reported that many of the people who were interested in him were HIV positive and wanted to engage in unprotected sex with him since, after all, he was thin enough to look like an AIDS sufferer, and what could be the harm? Fortunately, Robin reported that he was still HIV negative, even though his efforts to conform to one image still exposed him to some risk of harm.
Unprotected sex, it should be noted, isn't limited to gay/bi circles; if anything, it may be more prevalent among heterosexuals. Lack of interest and lack of expected doom are important factors. Perhaps the most important psychological factor motivating unprotected sex is the desire to demonstrate one's trust in one's partner, to make the encounter all the more attractive and, perhaps in so doing, snag him (or possibly, her). If one's not attractive enough, then it's time to make the offer more attractive. But then, as Goffin and King wrote back in 1960,
Holleran's observations about the trust/life binary, as explained bysandor_baci, make a lot of sense. People want to live happily, people want to trust others, and unfortunately these two goals frequently conflict. It doesn't seem like single heterosexuals have it any easier; a pity, that.
The gay/bi male community's noted for constructed its own images. One set of images, with its own associated cultural networks and associations, that has arisen in reaction to the tyranny of the perfect body, is that associated with the bears. As if an unknowing anticipation of the call to build "sustainable sexual cultures" issued by Gabriel Rotello's 1997 Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Man, the bear community seems--at least from my outsider's perspective--to be relaxed enough about image for it not to worry them extensively. Might not heterosexual males engage in a similar reaction against the metrosexual ideal?
Even so, this project of reaction has problems. For instance, it isn't a rejection of the idea of cultural norms altogether, but is rather the construction of an alternative set of said. Partly as a natural consequence of this group-building, there is apparently some unfair criticism of out-groups, particularly twinks. It's all a maze of images, it seems, however one identifies, and I'm not sure if it's at all possible to step outside this.
Unprotected sex, it should be noted, isn't limited to gay/bi circles; if anything, it may be more prevalent among heterosexuals. Lack of interest and lack of expected doom are important factors. Perhaps the most important psychological factor motivating unprotected sex is the desire to demonstrate one's trust in one's partner, to make the encounter all the more attractive and, perhaps in so doing, snag him (or possibly, her). If one's not attractive enough, then it's time to make the offer more attractive. But then, as Goffin and King wrote back in 1960,
Is this a lasting treasure
Or just a moment's pleasure
Can I believe the magic of your sighs
Will you still love me tomorrow
Holleran's observations about the trust/life binary, as explained by
sandor_baci, make a lot of sense. People want to live happily, people want to trust others, and unfortunately these two goals frequently conflict. It doesn't seem like single heterosexuals have it any easier; a pity, that.The gay/bi male community's noted for constructed its own images. One set of images, with its own associated cultural networks and associations, that has arisen in reaction to the tyranny of the perfect body, is that associated with the bears. As if an unknowing anticipation of the call to build "sustainable sexual cultures" issued by Gabriel Rotello's 1997 Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Man, the bear community seems--at least from my outsider's perspective--to be relaxed enough about image for it not to worry them extensively. Might not heterosexual males engage in a similar reaction against the metrosexual ideal?
Even so, this project of reaction has problems. For instance, it isn't a rejection of the idea of cultural norms altogether, but is rather the construction of an alternative set of said. Partly as a natural consequence of this group-building, there is apparently some unfair criticism of out-groups, particularly twinks. It's all a maze of images, it seems, however one identifies, and I'm not sure if it's at all possible to step outside this.
[NON BLOG] On the subway
Aug. 10th, 2005 10:07 pmAn hour and three quarters ago, I was travelling south on the Yonge-University-Spadina line. I got on at the Wellesley TTC station, dampened by the rainfall that borke after I decided to walk south from Yonge and Bloor. At the College TTC stop, a small man darted in, dropped off some pamphlets advertising St. Patrick's Catholic Church (141 McCaul Street), and left just before the subway began accelerating away.
I looked at the woman sitting next to me, a healthy white-haired woman in her fifties in a black secretarial suit, and across at the Asian construction worker wearing his tape-marked vest.
"He was on a mission," the worker said.
"From God," I agreed. The woman looked at me as I retrieved the crumpled pamphlet and put it in my bag. "He was from some church," I said.
"So," she said smiling as I zipped up my bag, "you're doing your best to keep the subway clean?"
"I'm not," I shrugged, "but it is something to write about."
"You're a writer?"
"No, but I've certain aspirations towards said."
"Good luck!" Just a few seconds later, the subway decelerated into the Queen TTC station.
I looked at the woman sitting next to me, a healthy white-haired woman in her fifties in a black secretarial suit, and across at the Asian construction worker wearing his tape-marked vest.
"He was on a mission," the worker said.
"From God," I agreed. The woman looked at me as I retrieved the crumpled pamphlet and put it in my bag. "He was from some church," I said.
"So," she said smiling as I zipped up my bag, "you're doing your best to keep the subway clean?"
"I'm not," I shrugged, "but it is something to write about."
"You're a writer?"
"No, but I've certain aspirations towards said."
"Good luck!" Just a few seconds later, the subway decelerated into the Queen TTC station.
[C22] France News
Aug. 10th, 2005 10:29 pmThings continue to go well for France in the 22nd century, more specifically in the early 2130s. Economic growth has been reasonably high, new colonies and outposts are popping up, and French technology remains high. The French population is growing sharply, aided by productive relationships with Vietnam, Madagascar, and new Central Africa, supporting a large and prosperous home territory and booming American and Pacific extrametropolitan areas. France is doing well. Trade routes unite France with its colony at Alpha Centauri's mild greenhouse world. More, triangular routes exist: Sol with the French exclave at Procyon's near-habitable world and the new colony at 82 Eridani's habitable world, Sol with the joint French-Iberian-Japanese-Korean-Southeast Asian colony complexes at Tau Ceti and the nascent colony on Epsilon Indi's young garden world, and shortly, a long-haul route uniting Sol with French colonies on the habitable globes at HJ 5173 and 36 Ophiuchi. Things are good for France.
They could be better, though. France has a high rate of population growth, and a higher rate of economic growth. The first mostly cancels out the second, requiring France to be more innovative in order to keep up to its slower-growth European neighbours. French success is, well, questionable. It doesn't particularly help that the world appears to be moving towards a multi-tiered geopolitical structure where the Great Powers (United States, China, India, Brazil) and other reasonably-sized hegemons like Mexico and Southeast Asia are predominating, despite Europe's effective lack of unity. It doesn't help that France risks becoming overextended with its ambitious colonial networks. It certainly doesn't help that the Great Powers keep clashing, even though we have discovered that the aliens are actually sentient velociraptors apparently driven off their homeworld by the galactic hegemons, and that the aliens have a 25% infant mortality rate. This infant mortality rate is particularly worrisome, indicating either a bizarrely underdeveloped medical technology, a lack of interest in saving the lives of young aliens, or some sort of interest in taking their lives. None of these options suggest good things about the aliens' psychology, particularly given how they insist on being our intermediaries.
Ah, well. If they scour Earth bare and slaughter the colonies I'll be sure to let everyone know.
They could be better, though. France has a high rate of population growth, and a higher rate of economic growth. The first mostly cancels out the second, requiring France to be more innovative in order to keep up to its slower-growth European neighbours. French success is, well, questionable. It doesn't particularly help that the world appears to be moving towards a multi-tiered geopolitical structure where the Great Powers (United States, China, India, Brazil) and other reasonably-sized hegemons like Mexico and Southeast Asia are predominating, despite Europe's effective lack of unity. It doesn't help that France risks becoming overextended with its ambitious colonial networks. It certainly doesn't help that the Great Powers keep clashing, even though we have discovered that the aliens are actually sentient velociraptors apparently driven off their homeworld by the galactic hegemons, and that the aliens have a 25% infant mortality rate. This infant mortality rate is particularly worrisome, indicating either a bizarrely underdeveloped medical technology, a lack of interest in saving the lives of young aliens, or some sort of interest in taking their lives. None of these options suggest good things about the aliens' psychology, particularly given how they insist on being our intermediaries.
Ah, well. If they scour Earth bare and slaughter the colonies I'll be sure to let everyone know.
There's a depressing interview over at the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty about Iraq's future. Two excerpts, from separate interviews with Islamist women, are below.
These rights include maternity leave, since apparently such a thing as paternity leave can't exist. The other interview subject isn't much more encouraging.
Kanan Makiya described, in his 1989 Republic of Fear, just how thoroughly the Ba'ath Party and Saddam Hussein had atomized what would now be called Iraqi civil society, using Orwellian methods of divide and conquer and liberal applications of brute force. Makiya also described how, before the Ba'ath Party ascended to power, Iraqi civil society was decidedly majoritarian, gleefully supporting the overwhelming use of force against whichever populations and groups happened to be unpopular: Assyrians, Jews, the Hashemite dynasty, rivals for power. Iraq can move beyond this majoritarianism to levels of democracy surpassing anything ever found in Iraq. Unfortunately, it seems like the new constitution and the new regime isn't going to enable this.
The Kurds will be protected by their autonomy; if need be, Iraqi Kurdistan can quickly pass to independence. Iraq's million Christians likewise don't have much to fear since, early optimism aside, are emigrating massively to such prosperous and stable places including Syria. Secularists and women, alas, and other unpopular groups, unless they can document their persecution and find welcoming governments. They can be guaranteed the first, but the second may be harder to come by given growing xenophobia in likely receiving countries. Life in the Islamic Republic of Iraq will be more tolerable for those groups deemed unpopular true. I wonder, though, whether to some extent the groups stigmatized have simply been switched.
The United States has removed terrible tyrannies in Iraq and Afghanistan, true. The United States has not implanted democracy and civil rights in either country. Rather, it has created not one, but two Islamic republics. It's true that they are fairly traditional tyrannies, lacking the synthetic modernities favoured by Iraq's Ba'athists and Afghanistan's Taliban or by the early Islamic Republic of Iran. It's still true that they are tyrannies, the one in the process of becoming a majoritarian polity marked by all forms of strife and the imposition of private mores to ensure public virtue, the other a collection of warlord states looking like Iraq writ small. Neither, I fear, is going to prove to be much of a model for the wider Islamic world.
Events in Iran, now, will have global import. Almost unique in the Middle East, Iran is a country that works well. Iran has a middle-income economy characterized by reasonably high incomes; Iran has a reasonably high level of technology available to it; Iran has mass politics and an ambitious parliament; Iran has mass media and high Internet penetration. Iran is run by a clerical regime that verges on fascism, yes, but this regime can't dominate everything. The life story of Shirin Ebadi is one element proving this. The widely-reported discontent among the young and the urbanites, desiring secularism and true democracy, suggests strongly that Iran's future will be bright. Spengler was right, in June, to note at Asia Times that Ahmadinejad was elected because Iran's conservative rural peasantry wanted to be protected. Spengler was wrong to expect this to be sustained indefinitely, since, after all, modern urban Iran can trace its origins directly to the dislocated peasantry urbanized and modernized by economic growth and the modern state. Iran just has to wait, hopefully not much longer, for the political demographics to tip in the right direction.
This is why Iran must not be invaded. Michael J. Mazarr's observations at The New Republic on the 5th of this month are accurate, in that an American invasion of Iran would create a new garrison state. Worse still, an American invasion that shattered the Iranian state--as it would, judging by precedents in Iran's eastern and western neighbours--would create just the right sort of opportunity for Iran's real fascists, the reactionaries who've been so far limited, to imitate Iraq's urban guerrillas and wreak havoc. If the United States wants Iran to become fully fascist, this is what the US military should do. Iran shouldn't be sent back a generation because of a nuclear deterrent in the working that may be built only after the current regime has fallen.
And so, ¡No Pasarán!. I've no doubt that the United States as a whole would mean well, but an American invasion of Iran at this point would be the worst thing that it could possibly do for freedom and liberty in the Middle East.
UPDATE (12:27 AM) : Crossposted at GNXP, comments here.
Abd al-Lami: The demands raised by [secularist demonstrators]...are demands contradictory to Islam.
RFI: Why? They demand the implementation of [international] agreements that arose from decades-long fight for the rights of women and from studying the situation of women all over the world. They demand that these agreements be incorporated in the constitution.
Abd al-Lami: Yes. All of us, as women of Iraq, were oppressed for many years. Now, everybody fights for something better. Efforts should be spent on laying down a solid basis for improving the situation of Iraqi women in a complex way. We do not want that one opinion be given priority over another. We want justice, not equality.
RFI: What is your objection to equality?
Abd al-Lami: If we demand an absolute equality between men and women, that would mean depriving women of certain rights.
These rights include maternity leave, since apparently such a thing as paternity leave can't exist. The other interview subject isn't much more encouraging.
Sumaysim: I want to stress one point: This extreme attitude that leftist, liberal, and democratic forces have taken in handling these affairs only provokes an opposite extreme. I call for dialogue. Regarding these activists, whom I do not like to call "secularists" because I have a particular view on the problem of "secularism" but who oppose the application of Islamic law, why do they not gather with activists who support the application, or the practical implementation of terms, of Islamic law? Why don't they try to understand each other?
RFI: Since you have called the leftists, secularists, and liberals "extreme," what about those who have been writing the constitution draft? How about those [women] whose views have been [transparent], beginning from their [Islamic] dress and ending with the [Islamic] formulations that they want to set in the constitution?
Sumaysim: I reject extremism in all forms.
RFI: So why have you labeled as extremists those who want to defend their rights?
Sumaysim: Through my work at the Ministry for Women’s Affairs, I have noticed one very regrettable phenomenon: Those [secularist] women try to accuse all Islamic-oriented women equally, be they moderate or non-moderate. The problem is mainly that the term "secular" has come to be used in various contexts, sometimes correctly and sometimes not. "Secularism" does not mean detachment from religion. No, you can be a believer and a secularist, or, you do not want Islam be used politically. This is the right of every citizen. I believe that the prime human right is the freedom of belief. So how could I abstain from a particular religion?
Kanan Makiya described, in his 1989 Republic of Fear, just how thoroughly the Ba'ath Party and Saddam Hussein had atomized what would now be called Iraqi civil society, using Orwellian methods of divide and conquer and liberal applications of brute force. Makiya also described how, before the Ba'ath Party ascended to power, Iraqi civil society was decidedly majoritarian, gleefully supporting the overwhelming use of force against whichever populations and groups happened to be unpopular: Assyrians, Jews, the Hashemite dynasty, rivals for power. Iraq can move beyond this majoritarianism to levels of democracy surpassing anything ever found in Iraq. Unfortunately, it seems like the new constitution and the new regime isn't going to enable this.
The Kurds will be protected by their autonomy; if need be, Iraqi Kurdistan can quickly pass to independence. Iraq's million Christians likewise don't have much to fear since, early optimism aside, are emigrating massively to such prosperous and stable places including Syria. Secularists and women, alas, and other unpopular groups, unless they can document their persecution and find welcoming governments. They can be guaranteed the first, but the second may be harder to come by given growing xenophobia in likely receiving countries. Life in the Islamic Republic of Iraq will be more tolerable for those groups deemed unpopular true. I wonder, though, whether to some extent the groups stigmatized have simply been switched.
The United States has removed terrible tyrannies in Iraq and Afghanistan, true. The United States has not implanted democracy and civil rights in either country. Rather, it has created not one, but two Islamic republics. It's true that they are fairly traditional tyrannies, lacking the synthetic modernities favoured by Iraq's Ba'athists and Afghanistan's Taliban or by the early Islamic Republic of Iran. It's still true that they are tyrannies, the one in the process of becoming a majoritarian polity marked by all forms of strife and the imposition of private mores to ensure public virtue, the other a collection of warlord states looking like Iraq writ small. Neither, I fear, is going to prove to be much of a model for the wider Islamic world.
Events in Iran, now, will have global import. Almost unique in the Middle East, Iran is a country that works well. Iran has a middle-income economy characterized by reasonably high incomes; Iran has a reasonably high level of technology available to it; Iran has mass politics and an ambitious parliament; Iran has mass media and high Internet penetration. Iran is run by a clerical regime that verges on fascism, yes, but this regime can't dominate everything. The life story of Shirin Ebadi is one element proving this. The widely-reported discontent among the young and the urbanites, desiring secularism and true democracy, suggests strongly that Iran's future will be bright. Spengler was right, in June, to note at Asia Times that Ahmadinejad was elected because Iran's conservative rural peasantry wanted to be protected. Spengler was wrong to expect this to be sustained indefinitely, since, after all, modern urban Iran can trace its origins directly to the dislocated peasantry urbanized and modernized by economic growth and the modern state. Iran just has to wait, hopefully not much longer, for the political demographics to tip in the right direction.
This is why Iran must not be invaded. Michael J. Mazarr's observations at The New Republic on the 5th of this month are accurate, in that an American invasion of Iran would create a new garrison state. Worse still, an American invasion that shattered the Iranian state--as it would, judging by precedents in Iran's eastern and western neighbours--would create just the right sort of opportunity for Iran's real fascists, the reactionaries who've been so far limited, to imitate Iraq's urban guerrillas and wreak havoc. If the United States wants Iran to become fully fascist, this is what the US military should do. Iran shouldn't be sent back a generation because of a nuclear deterrent in the working that may be built only after the current regime has fallen.
And so, ¡No Pasarán!. I've no doubt that the United States as a whole would mean well, but an American invasion of Iran at this point would be the worst thing that it could possibly do for freedom and liberty in the Middle East.
UPDATE (12:27 AM) : Crossposted at GNXP, comments here.