Bah, humbug!

I was going to write something about polyamory next, but I think I need a little more research. So instead I'm going to moan about Christmas!

Well, not really. Okay, maybe a bit!

Humbug!

I was recently called a miserable old bugger because I don't like Christmas. The person who said that was actually joking, but she wasn't the first and she certainly won't be the last. Other people have said it and really meant it.

Funnily enough the nobody considers me a misery when I celebrate:
The Winter Solstice and The Summer Solstice;
The Autumn Equinox and The Spring Equinox;
ImBolg, Bealtaine, Lughnasadh and Samhain;
Hogmanay and Apple Wassail;
all thirteen full moons and all twelve new moons (or vice-versa);
everybody's birthday;
Vinalia, Dionysos' birthday (Jan 6th) and Global Orgasm Day!
That's probably not everything, either.

Gimme a break. I don't have time for Christmas!

Festive fun.

I've no great objection to Christmas per se. It's a great festival for Christians - just like Diwali for the Hindus, Channukah for the Jews and Eid for the Muslims. No problem with any of that - you want to celebrate? Go to it guys - go nuts! I'll even give you a present if I can afford it.

Admittedly, Christianity pinched the date of Christmas from European Pagans (this is a matter of historical record) but that's okay. Nobody actually knows when Jesus was born anyway - although the clues indicate some time in September as the most likely - so choosing the date Pagans celebrate the rebirth of the sun was very logical for the birthday of a Messiah.

No problem!

Here's the problem:

It's completely meaningless to almost everyone who celebrates it.
It's been cheap, tacky and tawdry since the Victorians popularised it.
The classical radio has wall-to-wall carols, the shops have wall-to-wall 1970's Xmas hits (Slade! AGAIN!) from the first day of December.

On top of all this the jollity is enforced by Wal-Mart and Tesco for no more reason than it increases profits. We are told that it's the season of "goodwill to all men", which, basically, means buying them expensive things they neither want nor need.
(Bullshit - EVERY season is the season of goodwill, and Wal-Mart has more money than Saudi Arabia, or Poland. No, I'm not kidding here. The people who own Asda have more money, and therefore political clout, than roughly 75% of the world's countries. Turns your stomach, doesn't it? )

The consumerist society's banking controllers have us over a barrel. Again!

But I can live with that, for now.
I buy my family presents because they celebrate Christmas, and good luck to them. What I really object to is the automatic expectation that, because I'm a white person in England, I'll be celebrating it myself in the same way as everyone else. Brainwashing! Possibly racist brainwashing too.

"Are you all ready for Christmas?" says the woman at the checkout.
"No luvvie. We don't really do it." says I.
And, because I don't look Asian or Hasidic Jewish, the poor woman is lost for words.

An it harm none, do what YOU will!

Happy Christmas!

Every culture in the Northern Hemisphere has a midwinter festival of some kind - so in that case I'd like to wish everybody who will be celebrating:

Blessèd Yule
Shalom Channukah
Saturnalia Bona
Hail Sol Invictus
Happy Winterval
and
Merry Bloody Christmas too!

Love,
Seán

Buy Nothing!

Today I'm using the blog to promote something which I think is worthwhile and important - Buy Nothing Day, which is this coming Saturday (29th November - Happy Birthday, Pixie!)

But before that, have a look at this video:
(Hope this works, I've never posted a video before)



Better yet, don't just watch it, steal it from me and spread it around. It's from a website called Bonfire of the Brands. Go check them out. I found it on The Idler, check that out too!

I'm not going to plug Buy Nothing Day for it's anti-capitalist, anti-work ethic. Nor am I looking at it from the environmental perspective. Other people have already done that far better than me. There's a list of them on the right under the heading Kick-Arse Politics.

What I'm proposing is that we use Buy Nothing Day as a way of proving to ourselves and the world of high-brand media marketing that we can and will take control of our own lives.

Advertising

I've nothing against advertising as a thing in itself. In order to get your message across you've got to tell people about it. There are even ads on this blog, and I wouldn't dream of suggesting that anyone abuse the system by clicking them on and then off again! But we are surrounded by it and saturated by it and we barely ever realise just how much we are being controlled.

I understand that it's fairly normal for marketing to be taught as a subject in American schools. I'm impressed, if it's true, and I would like to suggest that we all make a study of marketing and branding techniques. (In fact, I'm using one right now by emboldening the words, Buy Nothing Day every time they appear.)
Why? - So we can become good marketers? No! - So we can defend ourselves against them.

Here are some examples:

Catch 'em young: A recent study in Chicago showed that pre-school children believed things tasted better when they came wrapped in the McDonalds label. That's anything at all - carrots, milk, apples, anything. That's pre-schoolers, 3-5 year olds. That's the power of branding!

Repetition: the vast majority of advertising works on the simple process of repetition. If you tell someone something often enough, they will believe you!

Make it emotive: Nike don't sell shoes, they don't even sell sports shoes. They sell dreams! Watch a Nike ad someday (if you don't feel too dirty). They won't tell you how good their shoes are, how long they will last or the wonderful stuff of which they are made. They show you what you dream of being - a sporting hero. Buy Nike shoes and YOU will score that goal, live in that house, drive that car, shag that appalling mindless bimbo with the bleached hair and tits like halves of grapefruits.

Space creation: Supermarkets are full of psychological tricks and controls. The newest in my local one is a Christmas Santa-and-his-Elves floor painting. It's bright, cartoonish and kids want to play on it for hours. Funnily enough it's right down the aisle of Christmas chocolates.

Smells: Supermarkets do this as well. Bread is a real biggie. Who doesn't love the smell of newly-baked bread? And doesn't it set off your saliva glands and make you feel hungry. Oh to hell with it, let's get an extra loaf. In fact I feel really good now, let's splurge on something else!

AAARGH!

I could go on with this for an awful lot longer - there are psychological tricks around every corner in every shopping centre, every time you turn on the telly, listen to the radio or look at Yahoo/Google/MySpace/Blogger. Please feel free to seek them out. We could create a new hobby - fnord spotting.

The question I'm asking is this: When we go out into the civilised world to buy (say) apples, whose will are we doing? Are we buying them because we want to or because the marketer says we should? And if we do how do we know our choice of apples is our choice?

How much more does this question apply to a pair of Ugg boots, an iPod, or a Renault Laguna?


Buy Nothing!

Buy Nothing Day is a way of - at least temporarily - taking control of our lives and our rampant bloody consumerism. My dad honestly believes that we buy ten times more stuff than we did when he was 25 (about 40 years ago). He may be right.

I read a lovely saying the other day;
The only things which like permanent growth are corporations, goverments and tumours. Damn right!

Our consumerism went too far 50 years ago and it's still getting worse, primarily because we're being influenced by very clever, very evil people who want us to buy stuff. Buying stuff we don't want or need is good for the economy.

Fuck the economy.

Consumerism is directly responsible for all of the environmental disasters we're going through right now. It is destructive to the planet and, worse, destructive to the human soul.

Do your will. Not mine, not the government's, and certainly not McDonalds'!
Just make sure it really is yours, and I'll try to do the same.

Love,
Seán

We Are One!

Happy birthday to me.
Happy birthday to me.
Happy birthday dear meeee.

Happy birthday to meeeee eeeeeee
eeeeee eeeeeeee eeeeeee eeee eee!

Well okay, it's not actually my birthday, that's in two months - cards and really good red wine always welcome - but it is The Dionysian's first anniversary.
I've been writing this nonsense for a whole year! My goodness, I feel a review coming on. How very clichéd and self-referential.
Navel- gazing, anybody?

"What do you think of the show so far?"
"Rubbish!"

I have noticed one thing, which is the fact that I've slowed down rather a lot. It might be because I've got other projects on as well as this or that I'm busier as a househusband than I was as a University Groundsman but mostly, I think, it's because I don't like repeating myself.

That could be a bad idea. I've noticed that many writers, particularly ones on witchcraft, base a whole career on self-repetition by producing a series of books which - in content at least - tend to be updates of previous books. Boring but useful. I'm just not sure I've got the patience.

I've also managed to offend a few people, although surprisingly nowhere near as many as I'd expected. Perhaps the ones who would be offended have stayed away (which would be very sensible) or perhaps most readers are too polite to say anything. I can't believe that most people agree with me. That's highly unlikely.
I really pissed-off the guy from the BNP, though. I consider that a plus!

I've also changed the status to "adult" so I can post pictures of people who have genitalia without Google feeling the need to cancel me.

Let's have a look then.

Using the magic of "tabbed browsing" I can look at the things I've written about over the past year. There's been quite a lot, actually.
There is a fair bit of social politics involving stuff like disabilities, vegetarianism, surveillance culture, drinking, environmentalism, generosity and honesty.
There's some stuff about art, music, film and poetry. There's also deeper stuff about Will and Identity. There's been a SubGenius rant.
There's a lot about love, sexuality, affection and nudity! I like nudity, okay?

The most popular by a long measure (in terms of response) has been the one where I called Jesus a Pagan. In fact the comments were four times longer than the articles.
It certainly seemed to hit the right chord (A Major!), and I'm getting feedback still after slightly more than three months. I even met, a couple of weeks ago, a very nice young fellow called Simon who is a church minister and used that post as the basis of a sermon. I don't actually know what he said - for all I know he could have vilified me as Satan incarnate - but I'm still rather chuffed!

One of the great things about writing a blog is getting the comments, including the ones which tell me I'm wrong. They validate my existence and prove that I'm not ranting into a vacuum. There's not much more pointless than intellectual masturbation, so huge thanks to everybody who has commented and I'll do my best comment on your own blogs (I will, Jake, honest!).

Look to the Future

So what's in store for The Dionysian over the next year?
Errm. . . Dunno actually! I never really plan these things, I just respond to stuff which affects me in some way. I do have some vague ideas about fnords and radio advertising and probably more stuff about nudism and sexuality. I'll definitely be plugging WNBR again next year, and likely one or two other projects and events.

In the end, though, what is the Dionysian for?

Am I saving the world? No, but I'm trying!
Am I giving people something interesting to read and talk about? It would appear so. Phew!
Am I helping my friends do the same? Hope so!
(Note: All the blogs bar two under the heading, "A Rather Good Read" are personal friends. One is my wife! The exceptions are Qelqoth and Ms. Coco LaVerne - and I'm bound to meet Ms. LaVerne's PA, Paul Harfleet sooner or later)

Upon final analysis, The Dionysian is no more than this: A self-created platform for a middle-aged dilettante to ask questions and express his opinions about the world he lives in. No more or less than that, really.
I hope it gives you, dear reader, pleasure and interest in its perusal.
If it does then I'm happy too.
If it doesn't, sorry but there's a whole internet out there to explore. Go find something that does!

And now, because it's my "birthday", I'm going to decorate the post with lovely naked people.
Because I can!

Love,
Seán

P.S. The photos are by the following people (from top down). Please check them out on their Flickr photostreams:

phheww, siberfi, DGHdeeo, spinneyhead, SunCat

If you object to my pinching your picture, please tell me and I'll remove it.

A Touchy Subject

Please excuse the title, it's a pun worthy of a hairdresser's shop I admit but, for some reason, the best I could come up with.

Back in September I wrote a piece called Temple Tarts, and towards the end I suggested ways in which we could improve our attitudes to sex as a society. One of these was to promote nudism and the other to be more open to touch. The response from a couple of friends on Facebook was especially interesting.

Right or Wrong?

One of those friends has an uncle who was a schoolteacher who was falsely accused of child molestation. The case was proven to be total bullshit and thrown out of court, but not until after his life had been ruined. Many people who didn't know either him or his accusers were willing to believe entirely without proof and acted like vigilantes.

In yet another fit of synchronicity, I'm also working in a film at the moment about an innocent man who is accused of the inappropriate touching of a child. It ruins his life too.

Also, back in the early '90s a friend of mine was accused of child abuse. Again it was wrong and proven to be so, but many people believed it. In his case it was because he was male and a known Pagan. Most Pagans over 30 will have some recollection of the Rochdale and Orkney debacles and this was in their wake.

I have no answers here. I still believe that to touch a person who doesn't want you to, sexually or otherwise, is wrong but that the world will be a far better place if we allow more people to touch us. We really need to be open to intimacy and less distant from each other.
At the same time there is this amazing and ludicrous paranoia that anyone (or any man particularly) who is affectionate to a child is doing something sinister.

It's strange: When I was small teachers were distant, dominant dragons. You weren't supposed to like them, you were supposed to obey them. Now my children (aged 7 and 9) often hug their teachers or dinnertime staff. To my mind this is better. There is still some discipline, but the teachers are considered more as human beings in their own right.

Obviously this will happen less and less as they get older and develop personal space, but at the moment it's good and gives the children a sense of security.

In The Beginning

Not long ago I used to think that the primary human sense was sight. I got that one wrong!
Sight is exceptionally important to us. It's how we interact with the world, it's our advanced warning system, it's how we recognise each other. But it's not our first sense.
The first experiences of a newborn baby come through the skin during birth and the moments immediately after. The child doesn't see mum, she feels mum. She feels warmth and comfort.

Our skin is the largest sense-organ we have and we can't turn it off, like we can shut our eyes, and through it we experience everything around us. In other words we need to touch and be touched to fully experience the world as a whole and not just each other.

So why this paranoia over something we need so much? I think it's down to sex.

Touchy, Feely

To touch someone in certain ways is highly intimate and pleasurable, and to be touched like that is much the same. The point of crossover comes in the use of an unwilling person to acquire that pleasure. No longer loving or sexual it becomes a matter of power and dominance.
This is what makes it wrong, the imposition of one's will upon another without their consent. It is, in the words of Granny Weatherwax, "Treating people as things".
Such acts, quite rightly, upset and disgust people. But that's not the problem here. The problem comes in the willingness to believe the worst immediately.

Sex is a natural obsession. Once we've got ourselves sorted out with food and shelter our minds tend to turn that way. Advertisers know this - sex sells, and the manipulation of sexuality for profit is an amazingly effective way of making money. Newspapers know this very well.

Sensationalism feeds the human hunger for stimulation. We are incredibly intelligent beings, we've had to be to survive, but when it's no longer needed for survival that thirst for information can easily be perverted to sell magazines. It's just a more modern form of gossip.

Put the two together and what have you got? You've got a willingness to believe in the most unrealistic nonsense if it's novel enough. Sad but true and I don't think there's a cure. Misquoting William de Worde this time, "A lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on". This is no consolation to my friend's uncle, I know, but it appears to be what happens.

What Do We Do Now?

Well, one thing we shouldn't do is worry too much. The sensationalist newspapers notwithstanding, our society is not populated by rampant child-abusing maniacs. Sexual crimes are very rare in comparison with other crimes, and other crimes are going down.
Here's a link to the official figures.

What we need to do is be affectionate with our friends and loving with our children. We need to do our own will, in other words that which we truly believe to be right, rather than to have our wills controlled by the media.
It's the hundred-monkey syndrome again. If enough people behave in a certain way (eg. considering what the truth might be before believing in the guilt of an innocent schoolteacher), eventually the behaviour of the whole society will change.
We can make our society a better place by starting with ourselves.

Love,
Seán

Music and Mediocrity

After suggestions from some friends on Farcebook I'm going to write about touch at some point in the near future. Meanwhile, here's a rant while I'm taking time to think about it.

I feel I should apologise first. I've got a touch of 'flu, I'm feeling bloody awful and consequently somewhat grouchy and my chavette neighbour annoyed me this morning with her "musical taste".

Music
I love music. Even before I learned how to play myself (which wasn't until I was well past 30) I was incredibly sensitive to music. Music could raise me to heights almost as exalted as those brought by religion, love and sex.
A particular rendition of Nessun Dorma (from Puccini's Turandot, an otherwise dull opera) once reduced me to a quivering wreck. I'm not exaggerating here: I was shaking all over, covered in cold sweat, crying, unable to breathe and my heart-rate had almost doubled. I thought I was going to die there and then!

It's not just Classical either. In fact I listen to a relatively small amount of Classical music
Here are a few examples to explain my meaning:
When I hear The Sisters of Mercy play Alice, I find it difficult not to dance. Kate Bush's Breathing makes me horny (which I'm sure it isn't supposed to do!) as does Leather by Tori Amos. Sing by the Dresden Dolls makes me exultant for the future of the human race but Tomorrow Belongs to Me from the musical, Cabaret makes me want to hide behind the sofa and try not to wee myself.

I'm sure you get the picture. But there's music and there's music.
This morning my neighbour put some music on. It was what is now called R&B. It sounded EXACTLY the same as every other song labelled R&B. Not similar, exactly the same. It was as if someone had created a worksheet entitled, "This is How you Create an R&B Hit" and followed it to the letter, ticking every box on the way. Sara suggested you can get instructions like you could for a Mills & Boon novel.
Actually, I find the term R&B offensive for this type of music. In the 60's Rhythm and Blues musicians included such radical world leaders as the Rolling Stones and Janis Joplin, nowadays it's TLC and R Kelly.
I'd recommend listening to Destiny's Child singing Say My Name (if you can stand it) immediately followed by Janis Joplin singing Piece of my Heart to understand how much the genre has changed.

Mediocrity
I'm picking on modern R&B because it was what my neighbour played, but it's not the disease - just a symptom.
I'm probably coming across by now as some sour middle-aged git who thinks that all music created after 1987 is crap compared to the real stuff from my youth and, if I'm brutally honest, there's a temptation to think like that. Thinking a little more deeply though, shows it to be untrue.
When I was 15 the fashionable and popular music (ie. the stuff that sold) was made by Lionel Richie and Sheena Easton, the stuff I liked was by David Bowie and Japan. What's the difference?

The difference is that the music which sold best was the music which was meant to sell best. Punk and independent labels began because major label executives would not take on artists who couldn't guarantee a specific amount of sales. They knew what would appeal to the mass of the population. It had to be ordinary, bland, homogenized and, above-all, profitable.
It's always been like this since the invention of recorded music, because music is a profitable business. It actually became a virtue in the 80's to provide bland-but-saleable pop aimed to make money and the Hit Factory of Stock, Aitken and Waterman were experts. They gave us Kylie, Rick Astley and Sonia (the bastards!)

There will always be interesting and experimental music made by people who care about music and there will always be bland cash-cows for those using music for making a fast buck. What bothers me is that they do it really, really well. They've realised an unpleasant secret - people are predictable, thoughtless and mentally lazy. People are crap!

Crap!
It's a conclusion I came to quite some time ago. Most people are crap! It's actually quite an upsetting thought for me and it's taken some getting used to because I genuinely believe that the Human Being is one step below a God and capable of reaching two steps higher:

What a piece of work is man. How noble in reason. How infinite in faculty. In form and movement how express and admirable. In action, how like an angel. I apprehension, how like a God!
(Apologies for any misquotes - I wrote that from memory)

Yet, when I look out of my window I'm not looking at potential gods. Mostly I'm looking at barely alive, transparent zombies without thought, or depth. Without even the realization that they are alive. They wear uniforms so that they don't appear different, they watch the same television programmes and listen to the same bland, ordinary and shallow music because they have made themselves incapable of depth, thought or the realization of being truly alive.
AND - those who create this music, this television, these newspapers, bloody well love it that way!

Social Control (again!)
We live in a society which relies on conformity, which even categorizes non-conformist behaviour so it can be controlled. Human blandness, laziness and lack-of-thought are essential to the system in which we live. It's all about money and the ability to make it by predicting the behaviour of human beings.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this. Perhaps it's just an impotent rant because I'm feeling rough. Perhaps Lyall Watson was right when he theorised that the human race produces only 5% of special people, and the rest are destined to be ordinary, but I'm damned if I want to believe it.

Dear Reader, YOU ARE A FUCKING GOD! At least in potential!
Don't let them tell you any different.

Love,
Seán

Temple Tarts

Hooray! We're back on sex!

One of the things I love about the way life works is how significant things tend to clump together. A little while ago in a piece called Sex and Violence I mentioned the concept of the Temple Prostitute and my friend, Pegasus asked for some more info. I've also recently "met" (if that's the correct word for what one does online) a group calling themselves the Temple of Ishtar. On top of that I've found a group of American Qadishtu (more on that word in a moment) and I've just re-read Gilgamesh. Also, my friend Bridget recently gave a talk on ancient and modern Pagan attitudes to sexuality which mentioned Temple Prostitution.

I think the Gods are trying to tell me something, so maybe I should listen for once!

Anyway, I think I need to start off with what I know about these prostitutes, and I think it would a good idea to use some more sensible terms.
We have no word in English to describe the people I'm talking about. Whoever gave them the title prostitute did them a terrible disservice. It's technically correct in that they made their living by having sex with people, but so does a porn star. We have an image (I do anyway) of what a prostitute is like and it's pretty sordid. I've actually met a few prostitutes and, frankly, I'm amazed they make any money! It's definitely the wrong word so, as from now, I'm going to use a new term I've learned - Qadishtu.

Quadishtu
A Qadishtu is a sexual priestess, one for whom the act of sexual intercourse is given as a form of worship. What we know of this practise comes primarily from ancient Mesopotamia. It was expected of a woman that she would, once in her life, act as a priestess in the Eanna temple and have sexual intercourse with whoever wanted her. Most of the time the Qadishtu was someone who made it their profession and lived, or at least worked, in the Temple full-time.
We also have evidence that this practise was common well outside the walls of Uruk and for quite some time. Some 1,500 years later and roughly 1000 miles away in Biblical Canaan and Syria the practise was still going on. Deuteronomy 23:17-18 mentions it:

No Israelite man or woman is to become a shrine-prostitute.You must not bring the earnings of a female prostitute or of a male prostitute into the house of the LORD your God to pay any vow, because the LORD your God detests them both.

There are also references in I Kings, II Kings and Job. The Hebrews (or their leaders anyway) didn't like it at all!

So Who Were They?
Well for a start, they weren't all women. There were men as well. In fact the word Qadishtu refers to a woman. The male word is Qadash or Qedesh and I suppose the plural (it being a Semitic term) would be something like Qadishtim.
There are stories which tell of religious ecstasies where the men would castrate themselves. It appears that these men were naturally effeminate, whether castrated or not, and worked in the same way as the women. There may be a remnant of this in the Hijra of India, some of whom are castrated, many of whom work as prostitutes and are regarded with a mixture of awe and superstitious dislike. Many of the societies that we would consider "primitive" have kept a special place for their "third sex" members
I have no idea whether the customers were all male or not, but I don't believe there was any deliberate form of discrimination. I can see the job of a man being difficult, though, if he is expected to perform on demand. It would be easier for him to be on the "receiving end".

Most importantly though, is what they were doing it for. There are many ways of earning a living and there must have been some distasteful moments where a Qadishtu would have to "lie back and think of Babylonia". The point is that, unlike in our strange and hypocritical modern age, sex and sexuality were celebrated openly as good things. Most of the mythology we read nowadays is taken directly from Victorian and Edwardian scholars who edited heavily according to the appallingly prurient morality of their day. Here's an example:

"O Ishullanu of mine, come, let me taste of thy vigour, Put forth thy hand, too, . . . . . . . . . ."
(Gilgamesh Book VI, R. Campbell Thompson, 1928)

"Sweet Ishullanu, let me suck your rod, Touch my vagina, caress my jewel"
(Gilgamesh Book VI, Stephen Mitchell, 2004)

To be a Qadishtu was a source of pride and honour. It was to be a representative of the greatest and most powerful Goddess Inanna. The word Qadishtu comes from a Semitic root which literally means "Holy"

Inanna
Inanna seems to be a most powerful and primal goddess. She doesn't go all Victorian when it comes to sex either. She shaves her pubes off like a modern porn queen and hangs around outside pubs to take out her sexual lusts on drunken men. (Don't believe me? I got it from Wikipaedia)
She's quite aggressive too, in many ways. Her lovers tend to die by violence, and she can't handle rejection one bit. Despite the constant sex, though, she's not a Goddess of childbirth - just the bit that tends to lead to it!
There are characters just like Inanna all over the mythology of Europe and the Near East, and probably the rest of the world as well. Inanna is her Sumerian name (a language used by the Ancient Babylonians specifically for religious purposes), in Akkadian (ie. the normal language of 2,500 BC Uruk) she's called Ishtar. She's also called, in various languages across the Near East, Astarte, Asherah Esther and Ashtoreth.
The Romans identified her with their own Venus, which is very appropriate as they are both Goddesses of the morning and evening star. Likewise, in Greece, she is considered the same as Aphrodite. In Norse she's Freya and in Ireland she's the Morrigan (lit: "Great Queen").

The Qadishtu's job was one of worship by sex. A Qadishtu was the vessel of the Queen of Heaven herself and to have sex with her would be an incredibly important act of communion, not to be taken lightly. Similarly, if ancient texts are anything to go by, the Qadishtu enjoyed their job a lot. Hell, why not - it was their job to have orgasms for the good of the community!

Where Are They Now?
Nowadays due to 2000 years of Christianity we separate the sacred from the normal when we should be find the sacred in the normal. We separate sex from the spiritual and consider it profane. We hide it away as something "dirty" or "shameful" and don't talk about it in polite company. Even someone like myself, who thinks (and writes) about these things, has suffered the brainwashing that we all get about sex. I don't think sex is dirty or shameful but I still keep pictures of it private. I believe sex is a beautiful and sacred act but I don't think I could do it with people watching!
I consider myself fairly open-minded and well-educated on the topic but most people that I've met during my working life (blue collar) are not. They have a contradictory attitude which makes them disgusted to see teenagers snogging on the street, but lets them watch a porno DVD of the most blatantly abusive type. The only difference between them and me, really, is that we're all brainwashed but I realised, and am trying to do something about it.

So what can we do about it? Attitudes to sex are changing, particularly amongst the better educated and marginal groups like Pagans, but ground-level changes are very slow. In the end, though, in order to change society we need to change ourselves - the only bit of society we've any real control over - and hope others follow. There are modern-day Qadishtu like the lovely Inara de Luna and a variety of sex-educators, workers and helpers but they're often marginalised as nutters or worse, pornographers and therefore "dirty".

Intimacy
I think our attitudes to sex in general could well be improved by improving our attitudes and habits concerning intimacy. Specifically we need to look at touch and nudity.

Touch is a funny thing for an adult human. We're sociable creatures yet distant from each other at the same time. Small children don't care, they touch each other all the time without it being considered a problem. Babies actually physically need to be touched, held, cuddled in order to grow up healthily.
Somewhere between the child and the adult, though, we develop this weird thing called personal space. Personal space varies according to how crowded your upbringing was but it can be considered as about 12" with a person you really like and about 3 or 4 feet for ordinary social contacts. I have no idea why we develop personal space, and I'd be grateful to anyone who can enlighten me. At the same time we also have a craving for human contact, usually in the form of a friend or loved one.
Look at the different behaviours of the adults and children around you and you may notice something quite interesting. Adults will avoid touching and entering each other's personal space unless they are either lovers or one is trying to dominate the other. But, it's perfectly acceptable for an adult to touch a child (hair-ruffling) or a child to touch an adult (like the three-year old who will plonk themselves on your knee).
The answer to this is, of course, to be open to touch. Not to touch other people more, because that would be invasive, but to invite them to touch you. One of the most wonderful experiences I've discovered is the "friend cuddle". Nine times out of ten I've found that, rather than shaking hands with a friend, opening your arms to them has the result of causing a massive sense of relaxation in the other person. Tension drops, acceptance is felt and the two people become both physically and emotionally more intimate. I'm extremely glad to say that Pagans do this a lot and consequently we don't feel so tense if we're crowded into a small area together.
The Free Hugs guy is a genius and pioneer!

What about nudity, then? I've written a lot about nudity, and I'm sure I will again because I like it! One of the things I've found about social nudity is the absolute degree of acceptance, both from other people and oneself. I have found that clothes hide a lot more than just your body. When we dress we are subconsciously projecting an image, even if we don't think about it! Nobody sane and normal deliberately dresses to look bad (fancy-dress parties excepted). When we dress we put a personality on with our clothes and thus hide a part of ourselves.
First-time nudists almost always use one word to describe their experience - liberating!. They're right too. Once you find that you can't hide anything then you almost immediately realise that there was no need to hide anything in the first place. There is no need for a shield because there is no threat to be protected from and the personality that you would otherwise have put on can be your own.
In doing this you are, like with the friend cuddle, inviting intimacy.

What's This Got To Do With Sex?
Nudists will tell you that nudism isn't sexual. It isn't, but it is intimate and intimate is sexy. Sex is the ultimate intimacy. You can't have sex fully dressed (you've got to remove something!) and you definitely can't do it without touching (I'm not talking about phone sex here - that's something entirely different!)
The Qadishtu offered a valuable service to their community. By being intimate and vulnerable, by "opening up" to all comers they performed a marvellous Taoist paradox - they got on top by being underneath. They were valued for their nakedness and loving touch and the sacred nature of lying with them. They were powerful and important people - perhaps a memory of a bygone age of matriarchal communal sexuality - and this sense of acceptance and holiness in the sexual act would be passed into the wider community. Therefore, not only would it be an act of worship to have sex with the Qadishtu, but also to have sex with one's spouse(s) at home

Religion should, first and foremost, be fun. A religion is there to make one's life better and what could be better than more cuddling, nudity and sex - they are acts of worship to the Great Goddess Inanna.

Life is sacred, let's live like it is.

Love,
Seán

Jesus Was A Pagan

Not even a question- a definite statement! But, it's going to take a lot of explaining!

I'm writing this in response to the comments on the last blog between Pegasus and myself. My friend Pegasus could best be described as a multi-faith kabbalist scholar and mystic, and so this essay is dedicated to him. I'm also considering sending this to another friend, Revd. Phil Edwards, who is a relatively high-ranking CoE minister and head of a local university's multi-faith chaplaincy - because I'd value his opinions.
Please note that I'm not a biblical scholar, I'm a Pagan who knows his mythology, so I may get some things wrong. If I do, please tell me. I welcome correction.
Hell, if nothing else it makes a change from all the sex-obsessed stuff I've been writing lately!

Warning!
In the highly unlikely event that this blog is being read by a fundamentalist Christian who believes that every word in the Bible is literal truth - stop reading now! You are going to find the rest of this essay very offensive indeed. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Where I'm Coming From
The chance of finding a Pagan who was brought up that way, and especially one of my sort of age, is rare. Most of us were brought up either Christian or secular, and adopted Paganism when we eventually found it. In my own case my parents were not religious, but I was sent to church Infant and Junior schools. I would probably have been sent to secular schools, but there weren't any - so I was brainwashed! (I don't use that term lightly)
Later, and in common with other young Pagans, I rejected the church outright. The problem with doing this is that Jesus tends to get rejected along with it, and a study of Jesus reads like a text-book version of the life of a Solar Hero or Corn God. It's a pattern which repeats with variations all over Europe, the Middle East and probably the rest of the world.
I still reject the authority of the church, but throwing Jesus out with it brings to mind visions of babies and bathwater!

The Life of Jesus
There are two Jesuses (if that's the correct plural). The first is a Jewish human being, political activist and preacher born sometime around 4AD, the son of a carpenter and his wife. The second is the mythological Jesus whose story is told in the Bible.
Are they not one and the same? Well, sort of! The two blend, one into the other and back again.
We must remember that what we read in the Bible is not a diary. The earliest gospel (Mark) was written around 70AD, roughly 40 years after Jesus' death and immediately after a civil war in Palestine. Memories change and writings are alterable. Even the writings we have aren't complete. There were many "gospels" rejected by the early church and others only recently discovered
Early Christianity was promulgated by Paul of Tarsus. I don't know his reasons for doing so, but what he put forward seems tailor-made to appeal to the Pagan peoples he encountered by virtue of the similarities between his own hero and the pre-existent local gods. It was even common at the time (as often happens in India nowadays) for people to accept Jesus alongside their own gods because he fitted in so well!
Suspicious? So am I. It does seem awfully convenient that the one-and-only-God's one-and-only-Son should be so similar to, say Adonis, Hercules, Balder, Lugh, Dionysos, Cú Chulainn, Krishna and a great deal of others.

The salient points of Jesus' life, which we'll look at in more detail can be broken up as follows:

• Miraculous Birth (and relative unimportance of a human father)
• Miraculous Childhood Feats
• Period of Withdrawal (Initiation)
• Ministry: A Life of Miraculous Acts
• Betrayal and Sacrificial Death
• Resurrection

The Miraculous Birth
Jesus was special even before he was born. Paternally he was of the House of David, ie. Jewish royalty (Luke 3:23-31). That's a fascinating claim considering Jewish birth is passed through the maternal line.
The most well-known story, of course, is the virgin birth. The story states that Mary was visited by God in the guise of a spirit who impregnated her. She then gave birth to the infant Jesus without ever having had sexual relations with her husband. There are arguments that "virgin" meant an unmarried woman - one who had never subjugated herself to a man. These are interesting but, as we'll see, unnecessary. The miraculous birth by non-human paternity is necessary and very, very important. So is the early threat to his life by Herod
It should also be noted that Jesus had to be born at Bethlehem, which translates as House of Bread. In other words a centre of the worship of a Corn God.

Okay, let's compare:
Dionysos is the child of a human woman, Semele and the God, Zeus. His half-brother Hercules also has a human mother Alcmene. Lleu Llaw Gyffes has no known father, his mother produces him "by accident" when proving her maidenhood. Merlin is the child of a human woman and a "demon", while King Arthur's conception is brought about by an act of magic which also indirectly causes the death of his father. Adonis/Tammuz has a birth shrouded in mystery, his mother is turned into a myrrh tree, but who his father is is anybody's guess.
The story of Osiris is long and complicated but one could boil it down to the idea that he becomes his own father - the ultimate in magical rebirth!
Most of these characters are royal in descent, particularly on the human side and definitely divine on the paternal side. Their "human" fathers, where they exist at all, take little part in their upbringing. Lleu is brought up by his uncle Gwydion; Dionysos spends his childhood with the Hyades and his granny, Rhea. The youthful Merlin is the "child with no father" and in turn brings up the young Arthur. The lack of a father figure goes right back to ancient, matriarchal (and unprovable except by extrapolation) tribal society where paternity is highly uncertain. The most important male role-model in a young boy's life was usually his uncle. This pattern was kept as a tradition amongst Celtic peoples right up into Roman times and beyond.
They were often hidden away as children to protect them from a specific danger. In the case of Dionysos, his stepmother, Hera is the one after him. The same goes for Hercules. The baby Adonis is hidden in a box for his own protection, as is Lleu (and a few others were too - qv. Perseus)

Miraculous Childhood Feats
Only one gospel features an early childhood feat for Jesus. Luke 2 tells us about his being found teaching in the temple at the age of 12. It's surprising that only one gospel mentions it, but not surprising that it is mentioned. The proof of divinity by means of a miraculous act is an important part of the overall pattern.
The child Merlin divines two underground dragons which are preventing a castle being built and, almost coincidentally, predicts a major war. Hercules strangles snakes while in his cradle and Dionysos shape-shifts to avoid the Titans who are going to dismember him. Lleu learns all the perfections of humanity to become Llaw Gyffes (a long story!) and the Irish hero Cú Chulainn fights and kills a vicious guard dog with his bare hands.

Period of Withdrawal (Initiation)
Between the birth of Jesus and his 30th year, except the one event mention in Luke, there is no record. Many people have theorised about what he did during these missing years, without any real result. The mythological pattern works well though.
Most of our Corn Gods and Solar Heroes have some kind of missing period which they spend learning, training or coming to terms with the reality of their own existence as demi-gods. Merlin famously becomes insane and lives in the forest among the animals. Dionysos disappears to Phrygia to be trained by Rhea. Arthur's upbringing by Merlin is as much a period of training as any other and Cú Chulainn's training in the arts of love and war by Scatha are in the same vein.
Adonis spends his youth hidden by Persephone, the Goddess of Death, who doesn't want to give him back to the world.

The moment of Jesus' initiation is obviously his baptism by John, after which he spends a period of purification before starting his ministry.
This pattern reverberates through Arthur's pulling the sword from the stone (as Siegfried does from the branstock) and his drawing together of his court, Lleu's finally being given a name and arms by his mother and the beginning of his kingship and with Dionysos, who is struck with madness by Hera but cured by Rhea who sends him out on his own ministry.

Ministry: A Life of Miraculous Acts.
The miracles of Jesus are too many to name in any detail here. Most people know about turning water into wine, driving out demons and raising the dead. Miraculous behaviour is definitely not restricted to Jesus, though.
Hercules has his 12 labours, Merlin has his multiple acts of magic, Dionysos has his ministry of the vine which covers umpteen different myths and a great deal of land! Krishna picks up mountains and Cú Chulainn defends Ulster

Betrayal and Sacrificial Death
By far the most significant points of a Corn God or Solar Hero's story are his birth and his death. His death usually contains three significant aspects: it is unnatural, it is entered into fatalistically and it is brought about by a betrayal.
The story of Jesus has these points well covered via Judas and the crucifixion, even though the Koran and a few others, insist on Jesus' survival. That's a consideration for another time, but it can be said that to be accepted (ie. fit the pattern) Jesus had to be betrayed and sacrificed.
King Arthur is betrayed by his son/nephew Mordred to his death, although he is also earlier betrayed by his wife, Guinevere and best friend, Lancelot. I could go on about the merging and splitting of the myth but we'll be getting off the point.
Merlin is betrayed by Nimue but doesn't die, he's imprisoned forever instead. Adonis is betrayed by Aphrodite in favour of Ares who kills him in the form of a boar. Dionysos is torn to pieces at a very young age by his stepmother's cohorts, but stuck back together later, like Osiris.
Cú Chulainn kills his brother/lover Ferdiad at the behest of Queen Maedbh, interestingly reversing the pattern, although he is later killed by Lugaid after being forced to break a taboo by an old woman.
My favourite version is of Lleu Llaw Gyffes who is betrayed by his lover, Blodeuedd into giving away the secret of how he can be killed. This she gives to her lover, Gronw Pebr, who kills him according to the given formula. For a biblical scholar, it's a bit like the Samson and Delilah story.
It's unusual, but not unknown, for a male to be the betrayer in any of the myths, but the killer is always male and can be seen to represent the "dark twin" of the hero. Arthur has Mordred, Lleu has Gronw Pebr, Jesus has Pilate.
There is a Norse god of light, Baldur who fits the pattern very precisely. His name is Baldur, he is betrayed by his Cousin Loki - in the form of a giantess - and is killed by his brother, the blind god of darkness, Hod.

Finally - Resurrection
After three days Jesus rises again, appears some important people and then ascends to heaven. Funnily enough, he's not the only one, although usually the Solar Hero is promised to rise again rather than actually doing it.
Merlin isn't dead, he's trapped (symbolically dead) awaiting release and King Arthur is taken to Avalon on the point of death in order to return when the country needs him. Baldur will be reborn to begin the world anew after the Ragnarok.
Other heroes don't have a specifically promised rebirth, but their story begins again every Winter Solstice - the traditional birthday of all Solar Heroes.

To conclude:
The tangling of the historical Jesus and the mythological, Solar Hero/Corn God pattern is inextricable, and so it should be. The church's denial of all that came before was a simple claim to political power by means of propaganda and Jesus' Pagan origins were deliberately forgotten. It's easier to control the minds and hearts of the masses if your god is the only one rather than one of many.
The question now remains whether the Pagans can accept Jesus as a demi-god (rather than a threat) equal to Krishna, Merlin, Lleu Llaw Gyffes and a great deal of others I've not mentioned? Similarly, will modern Christians be able to accept that Jesus is not alone, but is one among many as the earliest followers believed.

It's quite common for Pagans to follow one or two patron Gods (no prizes for guessing who does that!) whilst acknowledging all the others. Is it possible for anyone else?

Love,
Seán

Sex and Violence?

One of my Fasebook friends recently wondered why violence is so prevalent in our society. My answer was that we don't have enough sex.

That's a pretty glib statement at first and sounds a bit like a joke. It is a joke, sort of , but that doesn't mean I don't think it's true. I didn't have enough space in the Facebook comments box to qualify my statement properly, so that's what this essay is about. I'm thinking of adding pictures too. (Why not - I like pictures!)

Just as an aside - does anybody else find Facebook to be the world's most amazing consumer of time? I'm beginning to think it may be evil.

Boys and Girls, Chimps and Bonobos

Have you ever noticed the different ways very young children play. At a really young age (crawling into toddling) they tend to play individual games next to each other, but as they learn to communicate boys and girls start to fall into different styles of playing. Boys become competitive and girls become co-operative.

This is an appalling generalisation because on an individual level it doesn't actually work, but the subject is so big I've got to use averages. I'm assuming - and with good reason - that my readers have the intelligence to see the difference between, for instance, "male" and "a boy".

So why should this be? The nature/nurture debate rages on; personally I think it's a little bit of both. The fact remains, though, that by the time they start infant school (3-4) girls play together and boys play against each other.

Let's apply this to our own societies which have been highly patriarchal in character across a vast history of thousands of years. Obviously competition becomes the norm and violence, which could be considered the ultimate form of competition, is widespread.

We could wonder how much different our societies would be if we'd been matriarchal from the start. Actually, we don't have to wonder because we've got a perfect comparative example right in front of us: chimps and bonobos.

I'm assuming that everyone knows what a chimpanzee is. Well, a bonobo - which is endangered and only lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo - is a smaller, slimmer species of chimp with longer legs, more individualistic facial features and a greater tendency to stand upright. Physically they're very similar. Socially they could hardly be more different.

Chimp society is male-dominated and competitive. Extreme violence to males outside the group is normal and violence as a conflict-resolution is common within the group. Bonobos are female-dominated, co-operative and egalitarian as well as very family oriented. They also have conflicts but deal with them in a completely different way: they have sex.

Bonobos have sex for any and every reason they, or we, can think of. They use sex as a greeting, as reconciliation, as conflict-resolution and tension-relief and, frankly, because it's fun. They don't discriminate in terms of age or gender, group sex is normal and permanent pairings are non-existent. You can usually spot a female bonobo by the huge, swollen vulva.

An example (which I think I'm plagiarising from Rev. Ivan Stang) would give a good demonstration of the differences between chimp and bonobo societies:

Imagine a small tribe of chimpanzees at rest. Now throw a large bunch of bananas into their midst. Immediately there's tension. The browbeaten females cower; the braver males make a grab for them. The dominant male beats the daylights out of everyone else until they give in and the bananas are all his. He eats what he wants, leaving the rest to the others to fight over. The females are lucky if they get the skins.

Okay - Imagine a small tribe of bonobos at rest. Now throw a large bunch of bananas into their midst. Immediately there's tension. Suddenly everyone turns to their nearest neighbour(s) and start having frantic, orgasmic sex. In a little while everyone feels much better at which point the dominant female takes all the bananas and shares them out evenly amongst the tribe. It seems that if violence is uncivilised then sex must be the world's greatest civilizer.

The chimps probably developed violent competition due to a lack of resources, the bonobos never needed to. They have all they need and more. Sounds idyllic doesn't it? It sort of is.

Human Bonobos

I'm going to state right now that there is absolutely no archaeological evidence for the existence of matriarchal human societies in our distant past. This doesn't actually mean that they didn't exist (and I believe they probably did), just that we can't prove it. So, I'm going to postulate one.

Imagine living in a place where all your immediate needs are completely taken care of and always have been. There is no need to compete for resources so competitiveness in society is unnecessary. Female-domination would be highly likely. Co-operation and leisure are, therefore, the norms and what could be more co-operative and leisure-based than sex? Lots and lots of sex.

Frankly, such societies would be rare. Should a highly competitive tribe from a neighbouring, but less well-resourced land decide they want all the food, then it's goodbye to our feminist utopia. But they wouldn't be completely forgotten. They would live on in memory and folklore.

They are certainly remembered in the ancient Greek and Celtic legends of the Fortunate Isles away to the West. Tir na nÓg and Tir na mBan in Celtic mythology are perfect examples. These are places where there is no hunger or thirst, where all are healthy and need not struggle, where sex has no shame attached and which are ruled by a Queen.

Patriarchal Religion

The supreme sexual power of women was still recognised (albeit in a somewhat lessened form) in the Middle East in the shape of the Temple Prostitute. This carried on right up to the 4th Century AD and was a form of worship for Astarte (Ishtar). The word "prostitute" has connotations nowadays which cannot be applied to the Qedeshah (local Semitic word). She was a sacred female, a minor queen in her own right and not the servant of the men who came to her. She was a servant of her Goddess.

Patriarchal Judaism didn't like it at all. In order to hold position and gain strength in a world quite hostile to its harsh and ascetic ways the Hebrews had to be competitive, they had to fight - like men!

The suppression of women is Patriarchy's most successful policy when it comes to gaining political power. The suppression of women is also the suppression of sex - remember that woman's sex-drive is far more powerful than a man's - and the suppression of sex leads to an immense build-up of energy. Nothing has suppressed sex like Patriarchal Monotheism.

The human sex-drive is incredibly powerful - it's next on the list immediately after food, warmth, shelter. When suppressed that energy has to go somewhere and a skillful propagandist can sublimate and redirect it in anyway he chooses. Fundamentalist Islam (which treats women slightly worse than cattle) is particularly good at this nowadays.

Back to the Present

So that's the history - but how does it apply to the present day?

Well, we're in a kind of flux position. The position of women in modern Western society has improved immensely in recent years, although true equality is still a long way off. Most of us also have all our immediate needs pretty much sorted and secure. A franker and more accepting attitude to sexuality has also become more prominent, although nowhere near enough.

On the other hand we have several thousand years of ingrained Monotheistic history and cultural propaganda which isn't going to go away.

Even though it's no longer necessary for survival, competition is still encouraged and lauded in ordinary society and on the sports field. Violence is less common than it was, but still prominent.

What we need to do now - and in many ways it's just following a trend that's already begun - is to promote two things: Firstly, the feminine (anarchist) virtues of mutual trust and co-operation and secondly sex - lots and lots (of lots of different types) of sex.

Taoist Bonking

According to the ancient Taoist sages in China, the teachers of wisdom are female. The Tao is female, and in sexual (ie. civilised) terms women are superior to men. The sooner both men and women realise this, the better. Sex needs to be learned and taught and practised a lot and, contrary to our society's norms, the teachers need to be women. This doesn't preclude homosexuality because in a truly civilised society all forms of consensual sex become normal - just like the bonobos.

There are violent people in our society, mostly poor and uneducated young men. There are less than the papers would have us believe, but they do exist. They are brought up to be competitive, suspicious of sex and fearful of difference, just like the boys who killed Michael Causer in Liverpool recently. Had they been brought up in a feminised society, would they have considered a gay person as a threat, or a target? Or would they be too busy with their own sexual experiments to want to go hurting anybody?

It's a huge subject and I've waffled for long enough, so here's a little question to finish:

You and you belovèd(s) have just had a fantastic, multi-orgasmic session - do you really want to listen to somebody telling you to get up and fight? No? Neither would I.

Love,

Seán

Scary Sexuality?

I'm afraid things have been a little busy here at Dionysian Towers, so please accept my heartfelt apologies for this little hiatus. Normal service will be resumed as soon as I've worked out what normal actually is.
Some of my more eagle-eyed friends may have also noticed that this blog now has an "adult" setting. Basically this is because I don't want Google to wag its virtual finger in my direction when I post nude pictures or, as I'm about to do now, write about SEX!

YES! I SAID SEX!
Really, I mean sexuality rather than actual sex. Sex is a lot more fun to do than to write about. Sexuality, on the other hand, should be thought, spoken and written about as often as possible.

The inspiration for this came from my number-one son who, upon hearing that I could sew better than my wife, said, "How gay are you?". Okay, he was just making a joke but there's a very obvious implication there - that sewing is "gay". I recently found out that my late uncle's father worked as a jobbing tailor in the East End of London in the 1930's. He was a happily married, respectable Jewish man and any unlikely questions about his sexuality would hardly have had anything to do with his ability to sew.

We are coming back here to a particular bugbear of mine, the categorisation of human beings. Stereotypes make us less than what we really are - human.

Gay?
We tend to define a person by their sexuality. In truth we define people in many ways, one of the biggest being by their job, but sexuality is seen as a somehow important one. There are precedents, of course, which allow for certain positive generalisations: the lumping of people into "gay" and "straight" gave the world an identifiable group who managed to successfully campaign for the legalisation of homosexual sex. How much, though, of this definition can be said to be true?

I have a friend - let's call him P - who is definitely and obviously GAY (the capital letters are deliberate). He comes across as thoroughly camp - he works as a hairdresser, has perfect nails and calls everybody "darling". He even used to do a drag act many years ago. His boyfriend (and also his ex-) is quite definitely not obviously gay. You would have to ask if you saw them together.

The question is, therefore, how can we define any person as gay in any other way than by the fact that their preferred sexual pleasures are taken with someone of the same gender? There's no correlation to lifestyle apart from sexuality. If P slept with a woman, would that make him a better or worse hairdresser? Would another gay friend, S, be a better or worse prison guard if he was straight? Indeed, can he sew?

Straight?
At a recent Pagan camp a talk was to be given by Mr RH. My friend T asked his girlfriend who this was because he couldn't remember. She described RH thusly: "You know. The one you fancy!"
The thing is, T is "straight". As far as I know he has only ever has had sexual relations with women. But does it make him a better or worse driver, electrician, boyfriend because he considers another man as good-looking and charismatic? Interestingly, RH is generally rather popular with women, but very masculine men seem to hate him on sight!

Some people have described me as bisexual because I consider myself open-minded. I'm affectionate with my close friends regardless of gender and choose not to use a sexual label for myself ("Human, Pagan, Seán. Those are all the categories I need, thanks!"). Yet, I am very obviously happily married to a woman - and we have three children. What, then, would be the difference should I indulge in a bisexual act? Would my vegetables grow any faster? Could I play my flute any better? I doubt it.

I also have two female friends who are both very happily in heterosexual relationships. They don't normally find other women attractive - although they appreciate good looks when they see them just like anybody else. Yet they are strongly attracted to each other, especially when alcohol has knocked a few barriers out of the way. Does this make them lesbians? It might, but who cares? Does it make them better or worse parents?

Queer?
Human sexuality is as rich, diverse and complex as any other human trait - there is no such thing as normal with which to compare. Homo-, hetero-, bi-, are all labels for acts, not people. Some people love the opposite gender, others their own. Some people love being tied up and whipped, some people love multiple partners, some people love enormously fat people. It's even possible for one's tastes to change over the years. In the end we're all queer, because there are none of us who are normal. Is it scary to be queer?

What is scary is the deliberate definition of "normal" into a very strict and limited group of behaviours. The monotheistic religions are particularly responsible for this as a form of social control. Sadly, they have given us groups who believe that they can "cure" homosexuality. Don't believe me? Read this.
In certain cultures different types of sexuality have been considered "normal", consider Classical Greece as a pretty obvious example.

Being Different is Necessary!
The human race evolves not just physically, but also culturally. Sexuality is one of our strongest driving forces after the needs for food, shelter and the security of the tribe. A friend of mine (who may write about this himself yet) considers homo- and other non-breeding sexualities as natural results of over-population. I think they are natural results of our tendencies towards civilisation and social interaction. The Shaman/Witchdoctor/Priest of the tribe is the strange one, and quite rightly so.
There's a rather wonderful book by Stan Gooch called The Dream Culture of the Neanderthals. Yes - I too thought it would be hilarious, but it's actually pretty good. Here's what he says about homosexuality:

. . the priesthood has always been a refuge for types of homosexual and lesbian, as also for other kinds of sexual "deviance" - ie. sexual, presexual, or asexual behaviours whose aim is not the production of children. . . the homosexual/lesbian and androgynous human being has made a significant contribution to the evolution of religion. . .

I would suggest that non-breeding sexualities - which would normally die out as a behaviour pattern amongst most evolving creatures - are necessary to the evolution of both the individual human and human culture as a whole. Therefore (assuming the rule of An it harm none. . .) they should be encouraged. Those who stand for "normality" and simple categorisation are actually standing against the natural evolution of the human race. From this point of view, we need more queers!

Can we be define sewing as "gay" then? I suppose it depends whose trousers they are!

Love (in all its forms),
Seán

WNBR. There's more!

Please watch this video!

Featured video: World Naked Bike Ride 2008 - Manchester

The guy in the blue helmet looks really familiar!

Love (and naked bikes!)
Seán

An Odd Thought.

Just a thought, bit of a radar blip.

Yesterday was Fathers' Day.
I don't believe in Fathers' Day. It's a con to make money for the card and present manufacturers. Remember the Simpsons? -

"No, no, no. It's got to be something warm and fuzzy, like Love Day only not so lame" . . .

"Happy Love Day everybody!"

That's how I see Fathers' Day.

So yesterday I gave my Dad a card I bought for him. He doesn't really believe in Fathers' Day either.
My kids gave me cards they'd made and some vegan chocolate, which I accepted and enjoyed.

So
On a scale of 1 - 10, just precisely how brainwashed, controlled and thoroughly duped am I?
Happy Love Day everybody!

Love (and a deeply exasperated sigh),
Seán

WNBR Update

Well, we did it! Hooray.

It was bloody cold though.

Huge support and thanks should go to the fabulous Meg Fenwick for organizing things again despite being mad busy with the Liverpool city of culture stuff.

There was an estimated 80 people riding, which is about 50% up on last year and we covered a little more ground this time. Sadly, the gender balance was a bit off. There were more women last year than this, which is a shame because it doesn't encourage women to take part. Having said that, Manchester's ride is organized and led by a woman - which is no bad thing at all.

Did we get our message across? I don't know, only time will tell; but perhaps a few people will wonder why they saw a bunch of naked cyclists on Friday night in Manchester and ask themselves what they were doing it for.

If you like to look at pictures of naked people on bikes (Hell, I do!), then you can find some by Lily The Pink here, some by Spinneyhead here and my own here.

There's even a short film report by Granada, interviewing Meg. It starts off with a very handsome young man doing spinning exercises in a vain attempt to keep warm. You can find it by following this link, but be quick as I'm not sure how long it will last.
There should also be short documentary by Gary and Sylvia (aka G7UK) somewhere, but that hasn't surfaced yet. I'll keep looking.

Will I do it again next year? Absolutely! And hopefully so will my beloved, after a little cycling practise.

Love,
Seán

Public Nudity - Hooray!

Firstly, before I start to waffle on, a particularly important diary entry:

On Saturday 7th June my (much) better half of ten years, Lily the Pink (Losing The Thread) and I got married. Twice actually - one legal, one Handfasting (because Pagan weddings aren't recognised over here).

I want to thank all our family and friends for being there and for giving us nice presents. I also want to particularly thank the following people:

Laurette, for being an excellent musician and leading the procession so well;
Morag, (the mysterious LRM) for a superb vegan wedding cake;
Womble, (Womble's Rants) for fabulous photography;
Cath, for being the marvellous maid of honour;
Daniel, ( The Astral Pilgrim) for being the only person who could possibly cope with being my best man.

And finally Michelle Screechowl for being our celebrant priestess and creating such a superb ceremony.

We love you all and if we've missed anybody out - please accept this heartfelt apology, my head's only just stopped spinning.

Now, onto today's subject:

PUBLIC NUDITY

That's about as big as I can get it! (ahem!)

Now is the time of the World Naked Bike Ride. All across the Northern Hemisphere (the Southerners do it in March, usually) people are stripping off their clothes, painting slogans on their naked skin and riding bicycles around highly populated cities. In the UK it has already happened in Sheffield, Southampton and York. It's due in London, Edinburgh and Cardiff soon.
For details of a ride near you please follow this link.

Manchester's ride will be on from 6pm (riding at 7pm) on Friday 13th June - meet outside the Basement Café on Lever Street. I will be there. I hope you will be too.

WHY?
Frankly, why not? Actually WNBR has a proud history starting in 2004 as a collaboration of Artists For Peace in Canada and Manifestación Ciclonudista in Spain. It quickly spread to the rest of the world and is now (I believe) the world's largest environmental protest.

So what's it for?
At base WNBR is a pro-cycling, anti-oil pollution protest. The overuse and overproduction of the private car has been instrumental in the devastating environmental disaster that our planet is going through. Spaceship earth is rapidly falling to bits because we've abused it.
The greenhouse gases that are causing the ice caps to melt are primarily due to exhaust emissions and car production.
Human activity is directly responsible for the extinction of 136 species every day. If that doesn't make you want to do something about it - after you've stopped crying - then it bloody well should.
One way is to stop using the car and start looking at alternatives, like cycling. Nobody is saying that cars should be removed altogether from the world because that would be impossible, but that there are better ways. Car pooling could immediately halve the traffic on the way to work. Walking the kids to school reduces morning congestion to a quarter of its previous level - as all drivers know who work the same hours as schools.

The message of WNBR isn't negative, though. We want to encourage cycling as a healthy, effective and fun way to get around. Here's a link to a lovely list of all the benefits of cycling, such as lower health care expenses, cardio-vascular improvements, stress-relief through exercise, much cheaper fuel and parking and a license to dress like a nutter!

Why naked?
Actually, you don't have to be naked, though most people are. It's "bare as you dare", which is a good way of encouraging fancy dress and body painting.
One of the reasons for the nudity is to highlight, in a very graphic way, just precisely how vulnerable a cyclist is on our roads. According to this report 15,000 cyclists are injured or killed on our roads every year. That's a lot. The point that WNBR is making here is twofold - firstly less cars and more bikes means less accidents and a lot less fatal ones; secondly that drivers need to be more aware of cyclists (as one naked rider had painted on his back last year, "Not Invisible Now!")
To be fair, I understand that many drivers will complain that cyclists don't follow the rules of the road and put themselves and others at risk in so doing. I agree. I hate the stupid bastards too, and if I can use WNBR to promote cycling according to the Highway Code then I will.

Although not to do with cycling, the nudity aspect of WNBR has one further message - that of body positivity. I was quite upset recently by a friend who said she would have ridden naked but she's put on a stone recently, so won't. That is not what it's about!
World Naked Bike ride is NOT a beauty contest.
Promoting body positivity is about saying to the world (especially advertisers and film-makers!) "Human beings are available in a wide range of sizes, colours and shapes - and they're all good!"
We are bombarded with images of the body beautiful, we (especially if you are female) are told that we won't be loved if we're not thin enough, we are made ashamed of ourselves for being imperfect and therefore human. Images of perfect people are used to sell us products so that we too can become equally perfect if we buy them, yet these perfect people don't even exist. They are digitally enhanced to conform to an expected image.
WNBR proves it all to be bullshit. Beauty is not in conformity, it is in diversity. And there are few species more diverse than people.

One more point to encourage nudity: There is one word I've heard again and again (and used myself) from first-time nudists. They said they found it liberating.
That is absolutely the correct word. When you are released from the need to project an image via your clothes, or to hide your imperfections behind them, then you are totally free to be yourself. It really is truly liberating.

Finally, to prove that I really do put my money where my mouth is, here's a picture from last year's ride. It was taken by a very fine gentleman known as Spinneyhead. Thanks, Ian.

Love and bare bicycles,

Seán