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Fag-hagism is a reponse to environmental pressures. What does that have to do with evolution? Everything if we use this theory.
Short term sexual behaviour incurs a high risk for females, in terms of unwanted pregnancy, STDs, but most importantly it endagers a woman's reputation, and therefore the success of passing on her genes. Women weigh the benefits of exploiting the sex market against its risks. Men demand short term sexual activity because they are hard-wired to. Their fantasies often involve lots of women and lots of sex. Women who see many risks in short term sexual behaviour find this replusive and frightening. In a society where immediate gratification is sought and short term sexual behaviour is emphasised, women feel a pressure to put-out and provide it if they are not high-status enough to find that Holy Grail, the caring, long-term partner.
This is where gay guys come in. Women who:
a) feel they are fairly low-status, so have little faith in finding a long term partner
b) See short term sexual behaviour as risky because they have little to gain from it and because their character is not suited to it - are generally risk averse in sexual matters, etc
c) generally fear male aggression and abuse, either because they were victims of it at some point or know someone else who was - or even just because it just annoys the hell out of them...
...unsurprisingly choose to associate mainly with homosexual men and the people who love 'em. Straight women (except other fag-hags who've given up on heterosexual norms) are competition and are bitchy - even when they're being nice to you, it's all subconsciously about getting their man and having their babies and being prettier than you. Gay men are ideal, and are increasingly visible in Western society. Plus, women like display behaviour from men: i.e. writing books, making music, dressing nicely, being cool - gay guys do this a lot. More so than straight guys, who have other tactics to use in this struggle for survival - like being aggressive, and having loads of tools. The only tactic homosexuals have to gain status is display behaviour - but since they're not reproducing it becomes something wonderful - display behaviour for display behaviour's sake. Or art for art's sake as a nice gay guy like Mr. Wilde would have it. Fag-hags usually like the arts and beauty in an aesthetic way and not beauty in a male heterosexual 'that woman looks fertile' way. Gay men get this. Straight guys usually can't.
Fag hags are often bisexual women for the simple practical reason that although they have practically given up on straight men, they've got to get it somewhere. It's not lesbianism, where you are no longer attracted to men because you've given up on heterosexuality so much that it's messed with your brain. It's being attracted to men, but not the ones who could potentially make you deeply unhappy - gay men being gay, and not interested in you, can only make you slightly unhappy in the sense that you can't have them. A man that you can have, but is a jerk can make you much more unhappy than unrequited love. Since quite a few women can live on fantasy alone for long periods of time, this is okay. Fag hags are often prepared to make friends and sleep with other fag hags because there's no reason no to - for once you meet women with the same interests who aren't out to spite you. It makes sense to have a love-in. The reason this sadly doesn't occur often enough is because we are sensitive people who are quite repressed and messed-up, deep down...otherwise we'd be normal and go for the rugby players and bassists in metal groups.
There, with powerful, indisputable scientific reasoning, I have justified myself and the way I am. Can I have a hug? Long-live my strange mixture of celibacy and aestheticism! *sigh*
- Mood:full of BS
...it made me want to go watch The History Boys again. :-D
Now I want to start watching old movies, and not always necessarily the good ones. I watched Strangers on a Train today, and what I've seen that has Humphrey Bogart in it is good (although, like I've said, I've never watched Casablanca). I feel totally deprived.
I always thought I didn't really care for films, but the truth is, I don't really care for films made after the 1960s. I'm not saying modern movies are always rubbish, but I just don't like the actors as much. I don't like modern actors in general. Old Hollywood stars have a certain glamour to them - and they're dead, or at least really old - so they're not annoying me on chat shows or in gossip magazines. They also look an bajillion times sexier, and put more character into their performances. I mean, the old fashioned style of acting is called 'hammy' these days, but it makes you more interested in what's being said and who's saying it. There's more dialogue and less action. I could go on...but I used to get really bored around movie buffs, especially the ones who like cult films and indie stuff. I wouldn't mind becoming an old movie buff, though.
Epicurus:
When we say...that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through ignorance, prejudice or wilful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not by an unbroken succession of drinking bouts and of revelry, not by sexual lust, nor the enjoyment of fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest tumults take possession of the soul.
Sorry, but I'm with Blake on the path of excess leading to the tower of wisdom. I'm not saying that excess leads to a happy life - quite the opposite, but it leads to suffering, which leads to knowledge. Mathein pathein, and stuff. Did they learn nothing from tragedy? Nothing interesting would happen without tumult of the soul. Who's with me on this?
Holy crap, I've lost a lot of weight! Not overnight, but I seem to be losing about a British stone a year at this rate. I used to be fat! I used to weigh 160lbs. I'm not exactly skinny, but for me 130 lbs is slim.
I've been living off noodles and eggs and beans, like a real student. My only exercise is walking everywhere. My housemates eat meals like normal human beings, and have gym memberships. What's with that?!
I checked my bank balance today, and I had a good £100 more than I thought I did. I didn't buy tickets to the summer ball because I wanted to cheap out on getting a cocktail dress. When I'm earning though, I'll buy some more clothes that show my figure off, because my clothes are naturally kind of baggy on me now.
I'm not vain!
Well, maybe a little. ;-)
This guy called Hani, who is in my 1890's lit class, and is somewhat a buffoon, is running for Welfare Officer (I know a few people who are running for something). The first sentence in his manifesto is 'I am a bisexual English student'. That'll make him popular! To be fair, his manifesto is really sensible on the whole, with its focus on health and housing, especially seeing as one of the guys he's running against opens with 'I am in favour of revolution and socialism'...and then blathers on about Palestine. Whilst running for WELFARE officer. Hani might win out of the dearth of competition!
I just had to giggle at student politics in order to take a break form these 3 essays I need to write for next week. *gulp*I'm kind of networking, because people I know are going into politics in some form (mainly activism rather than party political, at the moment) or are involved in the arts. I'm only going to be a EFL teacher, but they are good friends, and it can't help to keep to watch what they do after their finals, can it? Most students at Leeds are either brainwashed by the SWP/Respect, or are content to drink Carling or WKD at Walkabout whilst attempting to live the Hollyoaks dream throughout most of their degree. It's good that I'm finally mixing with the 'weird in a good way' contingent, which strangely seems to overlap with the gay scene, but isn't limited to it. I am meeting straights as well!
I got a snog out of it too, for the first time since I broke up with Damian. A little Greek woman. But a few guys I know seem more promising, to be honest. I will go out with anyone if they interest me and look decent, though.
I'm going to write a novel some day about a girl who is stuck in white working class Manchester and works in a nursing home, (kind of like me if you rewind my life a little bit) until she gets involved in this circle of bisexual university educated weirdos through a relationship she has...but society and class screws up the relationship when they try to move in together. I'll work it out in a year or so when I've lived a little bit more. It's more naturalistic than my usual ideas. One of my recent ideas was an epic poem about a future dystopia supposedly sent by someone who mailed it through a wormhole that opened up when they switch on the CERN atom smasher, to let people in the very near future know what the 24th century is like. Another one of my little bits of silliness was a play or a novel involving a character and their doppelganger, basically about doubleness and alternate versions of the self. Pretentious, or what?!
Sorry for ranting so much lately. I sometimes take things in this paranoid, internalised way that's quite silly, really. I can be a bit more rational.
What's brought this on, you ask? It's just the stupid motion over military research on campus at the latest LUU elections. I voted in favour of the motion to set up a database of where the uni gets its funding from and to have an ethical committee monitor this stuff. The motion just happened to have the misleading title 'no to military research at Leeds Uni' - as if we have the power to actually stop it! They should've just said it was a regulatory motion. It would've stopped the abuse from engineering students who think we want to 'fuck up' their degree, calling us left wing nutjobs , and taking the piss out of the fact that we're art students and don't know about the realities of research funding. Military funding is actually quite a small percentage of research funding at Leeds, even in the science departments.
I can see some of the benefits of military funding, like land-mine detectors and canned food - even if all of it isn't going to save lives, to put it euphemistically...but off I went and voted with my gut on this issue. This is because I damn well think that students should be vigilant about the ethics of research funding. That doesn't make me stupid, does it? Admittedly, a lot of the people on 'no military research' campaign were bad at putting their point across.
It was the same with the Natwast and Royal Bank of Scotland funding oil companies motion. It's not like the NUS has the flippin power to tell Natwest what to do! all they can do is lobby and boycott. Okay, so oil is still an essential fuel, that's why people were criticised for voting in favour that motion. But what's wrong with questioning the ethics of these companies?
I'm feeling a mixture of guilt and self-loathing, all over the way I voted in a stupid university referendum. It just shows how sensitive I am to people calling me a deluded arts student who knows nothing about reality.
...and how important it was that I went! I've just sat through a talk on the state of destitute asylum seekers in Leeds. What this government does is a DISGRACE! It's a deliberate policy of poverty and starvation for people who come from war zones. They are denied legal aid. They suffer racist abuse from the BNP (who are worryingly strong in Leeds) and then can't go to the NHS when they get sick or injured. The government is bribing people to leave the country so that if they get killed when they return, they have already signed a contract that takes the human rights responsibilities off the hands of the British government. Destitute mothers and pregnant women are left without any medical help or supplies of nappies and food. There are 280,000 of these people, and the press is hostile, and the government is pandering to anti-immigration sentiment without taking into the account the effect on human rights. There's so much sheer belligerence where there should be humanitarian help. I'm going down to the drop-in to volunteer on Thursday morning. I couldn't sit through that and do nothing. I was tempted to write a load of angry letters to MPs straight off, but first I will go down and see what I can do in person.
This Wednesday, I'm going to a club night at the Student Union bar in support of human rights charities, but I will have to stay relatively sober and leave early so I can get down to the PAFRAS drop-in. On second thoughts maybe the week after would be easier? I have to go, though!
Meeting was brilliant and ministries were just what I needed to guide me. I've been hiding up my own rear, due to religious doubts, and haven't been for a while. But the religious doubts don't matter, spirituality is a living thing, and anxieties over scripture should never get in the way of doing the right thing, I'll write more on Meeting later. Just had to get this rant out of my system first!
...is pants - utter, utter pants that only Rage Against the Machine fans would like, because you know, it's all about teh revolushun. I mean they should've banned Shelley from writing more than 200 lines of poetry in one work, because his shorter poems are amazing. Milton it 'aint. And I have to have it well analysed for Monday, on top of all the other stuff I have to read.
Whinge.
I just sat through two and a half hours of the Olivier version of Richard III. The English library has been raped, so there was no McKellen version. McKellen is supposed to be very evil in his version, but Olivier can't do evil, instead he does campy stage villain. He also dominated the film so much, I didn't give a poo when he killed the other characters because they were underdrawn. If it wasn't for the strange crush I have on Laurence Olivier, I don't think I could've coped!
I saw a good version of Measure for Measure on Monday. Which surprised me because it was a BBC2 'Bard on the Box' thing from 1994, and kind of low budget. Lucio was mint!
The talk itself: I wasn't expecting much, so I was impressed. At times he did seem to be a self-parody. He went into a wild-eyed preacher rant about the complicity of the left with Islamic extremists, who abuse LGBT rights and human rights in general. This guy does politics heart-on-sleeve. I don't think after 20 years, he's developed much savvy and cunning. Like with the bishop-outing thing; I can see how he justified it to himself as outing hypocrisy more than anything, but he doesn't realise that stuff like that always backfires. People question the morality of outing gay bishops who are publicly homophobic, but while it isn't a nice thing to do, that's not my main issue; I just think that sort of thing is a public relations disaster. Yay! Get yourself branded a gay terrorist! *rolls eyes* Sometimes bad publicity is just that, especially in politics.
As for his campaigning for gay rights in the developing world, I think he made a good case for it, albeit from an emotional standpoint. I reckon for every person who gets pissed off with his desire to globalise the LGBT movement, and his apparent 'gay saviour' complex, there's a couple more who think 'thank goodness someone is doing something for us'. I don't think he makes those stories up about persecuted people coming to him for help, but I'm idealistic, and to cynics he's going look egotistical, rather than altruistic. It's morally the right thing to do, when so many people are still persecuted, and 9 countries actually punish homosexuality with death, to not solely focus on gay rights at home - but he kind of goes gung ho into these things, and doesn't consider it enough. I could be totally wrong about that, of course.
I'm going to go against received opinion and say I like this guy. He fights the good fight with his whole being. I have a high opinion of his character and his ideals, but he makes it soooo easy for people to rip into him. Partly for the fact that he likes to shock people. He gave this long, detailed account of a heterosexual wet dream he head; the point of which was to show that even someone so famously gay as himself has a straight side, and a good chunk of the straight world isn't so straight, so LGBT groups should be more accepting of bisexuality, which they often aren't. However, if you use shock tactics, people take you less seriously. Still, it was nice to be vindicated.
Finally, there was a pointless argument between Tatchell and some of the academics about queer theory, which Tatchell called pretentious and elitist, and I agreed with him. Queer theory is crap. But he made himself very open to accusations of anti-intellectualism in the way he said it, and started a debate that went nowhere. I went and shook his hand afterwards, anyway, because he was good. It's funny because I usually avoid 'fringe' politicians, because I dislike the far-left in general - but gay rights is different, it's just an extension of human rights, that even a moderate liberal like myself can support. He could move into the mainstream if he wanted to, but alas, that's not his style.
I'll post about the strange social in the pub afterwards in my next post, and the people I met up with after a long absence.
light held to rest
in a timely dew-bead
poised on petal folds; when touched, it's
glued gum.
Bubbles
shooting towards
the lemonade surface,
like the misfired thoughts fizzing
my brain.
trilobite fashion
and deposited in beds
of heavy cushions for eras,
not to be disturbed until
the drugs erode and
...I wanted to try a Rondeau.
On the Pull
Someone to hold between the beat,
as disco lights that kiss my feet
become a ring, and round me cast
a spell of longing set to last
'til dawn comes stumbling up the street,
is what I seek. The chatty heat
of moving limbs that seem to greet
the hope of breaking with the past --
someone to hold
is hinted at -- is just a treat
before I make a glum retreat
towards my seat. My thoughts run fast
through small concerns, but then I'm asked
by stray desires: why can't I meet
someone to hold?
People who look down on arts majors, or think the arts in general are pretentious/unimportant, should consider the role of art in psychology and society, even evolution. I have an overblown theory (as I often do) that real individual happiness depends on sympathetic imagination, which is the key to good art. Art = the promotion of altruism = genuine human happiness, even though some art claims to only exist for its own sake. Art explores tensions in society, and by making us use our imagination to sympathise with people affected by those tensions, gives us a greater sense of our place in the world by offering an alternate one. The most obvious way to see this is with Classical and Shakespearean tragedy, which still today provide a way to meditate on the human condition. I'd argue that the sympathetic imagination those things make you use goes beyond religious and cultural duties, (those are part of the tensions they explore) to something more broad - an interest in human emotions, i.e. altruism.
Sorry, this stuff just came into my head whilst doing some reading for my Shakespeare module.
indulge this pleasure for my sake.
