Daily Blague

I agree with your statements and I particularly love the phrase ..."who melted into a fog of evaporated self-esteem under the glare of weight-lifting Blutos on the other side of the glass wall."

Nevertheless, I don't think this experience is confined to guys, although it may arise for different reasons. I must confess that I feel the same way upon entering a gym and encounter frantic and fabulously fit men and women. It's not fear, but competitiveness, that sabotages my
desire to work out. I know these physical paragons don't look at me or judge my performance-I'm not even on their radar screen because I am not a "body peer".But I judge myself, and because the gap between them and me seems too vast to bridge, I give up before I start.

So thank you for your post...in a wierd way it's comforting to know that men are intimidated too, albeit for different reasons. Now i just have to take your advice and grow up to slim down.

Sexuality frightening? Why do you think that? I don't know many people who think it is. Maybe when you're a child, but for me it is only frightening, well that may not be the word, challenging, when I'm not getting any........

The bestest story about sexuality came at the end of a long Christmas Day. My beloved Aunt Miggy decided that nothing would do but to take me any my friend Dennis to the Palm Court for a "few" nightcaps. Dressed in her morning coat over which she threw on her mink, off we went.

She was always curious that neither Dennis nor I ever had the slightest guilt or trauma with being gay. After a couple of shots she asked Dennis if he really really thought he was a homo-sex-ual. (This was around 1972) Dennis, a noted imbiber of the juniper berry, replied with a straight (!) face, "Miggy, I'm not heterosexual, I'm not homosexual, I'm just sexual." What was his best friend's response? Unfortunately I had a piece of ice in my mouth which I was chewing on, and I spit it over his shoulder as I fell to the floor shrieking with laughter. I thought that we would be ejected. I had a major--and I mean major non-grass yuck. I was laughing days later. You had to know and love Dennis to know how silly the comment was; in fact I am laughing as I post this because, well, just because. And until the day he died, whenever we argued or he did something I didn't like, I'd say, being a true friend, "Oh that's right, Dennis, you're just sexual......." which would immediately either defuse it because he would laugh as well, or...well...........

That has got to be one of my favorite stories. PPOQ's vocal stylings when recounting this anecdote ought to be podcast.

"...I'm sexx-zhew-ull."

You've picked a thread here and in Hypertrophic that will require some real thought for a better post later on, but for now I am surprised you haven't quoted G. B. Shaw and frightening seems very inappropriate.

Puzzling, challenging and mysterious come to mind, at least my mind, but not frightening.

It, sex or more properly the expression of our sexuality, is not something that sometimes cannot be controlled but rather is something that is not controlled or poorly controlled by choice. We choose not to exercise control. Admittedly control is on some occasions difficult or unpleasant, but doable all the same.

To say that comparing food to sex is incorrect because only food is required for life is misleading. Food is essential for survival, but this is only life in the barest essentials. Life, however, at least real life, requires, if not sexual activity, a real understanding and acceptance of one's own sexuality, its expression and the control of that expression.

The more fundamental issue would seem to be categorization of others. The tendency to put everyone in a box and move on without really meeting each person as an individual at the moment.

What real value is there in being able to identify gays, French, American or otherwise, on sight or during a brief encounter? Is it sexual xenophobia, bigotry or promiscuity? What purpose is there in Gaydar? Is it just so I can associate with my kind, not associate with not my kind, or just to find someone for casual sex? Think of the other possibilities: bidar, heterodar, copdar, lawyerdar, snobdar, bloggerdar, ... - they are endless. And, all of these are just lazy. Instead of dealing with the real person a category is substituted and predictable results follow, mainly shallowness.

Acceptance is perhaps the key on both sides of the coin, self acceptance and acceptance of others. Acceptance of others at least to the point of not categorizing too broadly. Gay, fay, butch, straight, asexual, or whatever are categories that seem to serve no real purpose other than to perpetuate an adolescent approach to life.

If we had as much refinement of category and description in dealing with people as we have in dealing with food or wine, our relationships with people, including ourselves, would very likely be more satisfying and certainly tastier.

Ah, the old gym dynamic. I have taken a number of fitness classes at the BSC (our variant of NYSC), with varying results. I used to use the spinning classes for impetus to exercise harder, and abdominals classes for impetus to do intensely boring, somewhat unpleasant exercises. I also briefly participated in the "active yoga" class, which resulted in a dislocated toe, hours in the understaffed late-summer emergency room, and permanent cessation of yoga.

Weightlifting is the most boring of all, and the most culturally insufferable – in the BSC locales I go to, the weight room is populated by cretinous muscleheads desperate to show off their toned muscles and hyperheterosexuality (though I'm always far from convinced about the latter). I have recently bought an MP3 player not because I like to listen to music while exercising (I don't, except on treadmills, where music somewhat relieves the tedium), but so that I don't have to listen to the gym's mind-numbing corporate rock or the meatheads' sweaty, golf-laden stultifying banter. (In the winter, they talk about skiing trips and football games. Please shut up. Now.)

All that said, I won't deny that a portion of what adds some spice about going to the gym is the possibility of (discreetly?) ogling women in spandex.

As for the trainer who told Mr. Vahtra that he should be lifting more weight: the poor victim should keep in mind that most trainers are even dumber than the weight-room regulars.

“To say that comparing food to sex is incorrect because only food is required for life is misleading. Food is essential for survival, but this is only life in the barest essentials. Life, however, at least real life, requires, if not sexual activity, a real understanding and acceptance of one's own sexuality, its expression and the control of that expression.”

I think this quote is one an important one, thank you George. It says far better than I could how I felt when I read the original posting.

On top of the provocative Blagues about gaydar and sexuality, this week my firm had an HR program devoted to dealing with Homosexuality in the Workplace and the fantastic speaker was Brian McNaught. I sat transfixed for two hours, amused to see some of my colleagues squirm. All of what he said resonated with me, but especially the part about the lying and subterfuge one goes thru if one is gay and wants a career on Wall Street, and a career on a trading desk. While I am at an institution that has fantastic policies, I would never discuss my being gay. In some ways, I have had to go back into the closet. I was made partner in big Wall Street firm in the mid-80s and everyone knew and no one cared. The young traders and salesmen were totally comfortable with me and my friends and we partied and had great times together. What has changed? One obvious thing is AIDs and the lack of information most people have about it. I asked McNaught after the presentation if he had ever asked a group how many people would be comfortable sitting next to someone who was gay, and presumably many hands would go up. Then I said, re-phrase it saying someone who was gay and who was HIV+…….. He said he hadn’t but it was an interesting idea.

It is my experience that, broadly speaking, women are far more comfortable with their sexuality then men, that they are far less homophobic. With men it is all about genitalia and their size and the ego that makes them feel that every homo is after them just because they are a man and have a penis. Men don't think it is "gay" to watch two women in a porn movie, but it is "disgusting" and "perverted" when two guys go at it. I could go on and on on this subject but simply put, men are pigs. (I am speaking broadly and of course exclude anyone reading this!)

And while attitudes are better, I think it’s another generation or two away from getting much better. And with Bush in the White House, well……

I think gaydar was a very necessary tool for a gay man to have when our lives were very sequestered, especially in small towns where the gay meeting places might be part of, say a straight strip club, and one had to be very careful. But as acceptance has grown it isn’t as necessary or as well developed anymore, unless you are looking for a curious straight man and then you need all the gaydar you can develop.

One of the final things McNaught said brought me to tears, when he spoke to the parents in the room and urged them to being accepting of any gay children they may have, to remember that one does not choose this life, and it is one with many perils, many dangers straights do not have to face, yet it is not a choice. I remember trying to explain to my Mother that here I was embarking on a Wall Street career, had to lie constantly and remember the lies, did she really think I was gay to annoy her and my Father or was I trying to explain that while I knew what I chose was laden with difficulties, I had no choice? And how many of my peers have been through the same nonsense and heartache?

I do not know why human sexuality is so frightening to so many. And until it becomes less so, then there will be closets, Matthew Shepards, needless suicides, gay-bashings and all the other horrors that on occasion make me regret that humankind has not managed to wipe itself out altogether.

Well, thank you, PPOQ, sometimes I get it right.

Given the nature of blogs interest here in this topic will wane. Wrtie to me, please, if you want to continue the idea.

PPOQ, it's some old French pun isn't it?