Tag Archives: queerness

Queer Awakenings: Anne Rice’s “The Vampire Chronicles”

Queer Culture, Uncategorized, , ,

Once upon a time, there was a queer boy in West Virginia who thirsted for a piece of fiction that captured in words his own sense of alienation, his experience of loving others who could never return his affections. Who thirsted, as it were, for something he couldn’t quite articulate in words.

Then he discovered the author Anne Rice–the reigning queen erotic horror–and his entire life was changed. Suddenly he was inundated with a world of blood-drinking creatures that loved and hated one another, a world of salty flesh, gushing blood, and the perilous tides of sexual desire.

Perhaps I hyperbolize a bit, but it is true that Anne Rice’s work was really influential for me at a key stage of my development as a queer person, something that has really come home to me as I’ve started re-reading her books after over a decade away.

When I first dipped into Rice’s work, I actually began with The Mummy. Growing up in a small town with not a lot of exposure to queer culture (let alone queer literature), I saw in this book an explicit depiction of same-sex desire that was like a glimmer of light. It helped that Rice is a genuinely good writer, her books full of a lush, decadent prose that really spoke to me. I’m not sure what possessed me, then, but I decided that I wanted to read some of this author’s other work, to see what all the fuss was about.

Though I had really liked The Mummy and its queer characters, it was only when I read The Vampire Armand, however, that I really began to see in Rice’s books an articulation of my own queer desires and feelings that I had never even knew I needed. There was something about the tortured, melancholy vampire with the face of a Botticelli angel that seemed to call to me, something about the ways in which he moved through the world–so tormented, so agonized, so alienated–echoed my own experience as a queer person growing up in Appalachia.

Weirdly enough, I decided, after finishing Armand, to go on to read The Vampire Lestat. If Armand resonated with my own moody, self-indulgent impulses, then Lestat was the brat prince that I wanted to be. Lestat lived and loved in an open way that was everything I knew I couldn’t be (at least, not until much later in my life). Sure he was selfish and conceited and hopelessly irresponsible–and, to be honest, I was none of those things, at least not to the same degree as Lestat–but those were exactly the things that made him so appealing to me as a closeted queer teenager.

By the time I came to Interview with the Vampire, I found Louis quite tedious, though as I re-read it recently I did see something of myself in Louis, and indeed in the vampires as a whole, who have such a unique perspective on the nature of time. Though they are creatures condemned to live until the end of the world–or until they meet some rather unsavoury fate–vampires are surprisingly aware of the passing of time, of the burden of temporality. As most of you no doubt know, I’m a little obsessed at times with the pressures of mortality, so it’s small wonder that I’d see more than a little of myself in Rice’s most tormented immortal.

As philosophically rich as Rice’s vampires are, it’s really their desires that have been their chief appeal to me. Somehow, through language, Rice has managed to capture the complexities, the agonies, and the ecstasies of desire. Sure, her creations are immortal vampires, but the things they want and crave–intimacy, the loss of identity in the body of another–are the things that many of us secretly want. Her brilliance is in being able to capture these within words, to take us into a world that we never knew existed.

Or am I projecting a bit?

Of course, it helps that so many of Rice’s vampires are explicitly attracted to those of the same sex. Though they don’t have sex in the same way as their human counterparts, they nevertheless feel the inexorable pull of sexual passion. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that no author in the modern era is as able to capture the exquisite pain of sex better than Rice. Vampires such as Lestat, Armand, Louis, Marius and the rest are constantly caught in the pull between their desire for eternal companionship and the inevitable bitterness and envy that tears them apart.

These days, it’s hard not to read Rice’s work through the lens of camp, and not always the queer kind. The explosion of trashy vampire fiction in the last 20 years or so–much of it pale imitations of the glories that Rice attained–have unfortunately stained her legacy. It’s important to remember, though, that there was a time when vampires actually meant something. Somehow, Anne Rice managed to take this staple of horror film and render it into something achingly beautiful.

Now, almost 20 years after I began my first foray into the decadent and erotic world of Anne Rice, I’ve decided to return to it. There are now rumours that, once again, The Vampire Chronicles will be adapted for the screen, though this time it will be on television. I’m hoping that, since the series is being made for Hulu, that they can give Rice’s work the rich adaptation that it deserves. After the absolute trainwreck that was Queen of the Damned, anything would be preferable.

If this new adaptation reaches its potential, however, it stands a good chance of introducing these amazing books to a whole new generation of queer viewers. Sure, things are certainly better when it comes to popular culture and queerness (sort of, anyway), but there is still a lot of room for the sort of subversive, lush, sensual type of eroticism that Rice manages to capture.

As always, I’m optimistic. Let’s just hope that Hulu doesn’t let me down.

It Ain’t Easy to be a Bottom in Porn

Gay Pornography, Gender, Pornography, Queer Culture, Queer Film Theory, The Body, , , , , , ,

If you spend just a little bit of time poking about the comment threads on porn sites, you’ll learn something pretty quickly: no one likes a bottom. In fact, the bottom in many gay porn videos is sure to become, sooner or later, the object of scorn and ridicule, the abject that has to be cast out of the collective gay male conscious (as epitomized by the online community) in order for that community to still pride itself on its masculine credentials.

This might seem a bit counterintuitive. After all, it takes both a top and a bottom to make porn work, but you wouldn’t know that from looking at the message boards. Any time a particular model or individual starts to stake out some territory as primarily a bottom, the comments begin. “Throwing a hot dog down a hallway,” “is there anyone he hasn’t fucked?,” “I wonder how much adult diapers cost?” and so on. It’s really quite insidious at some points, to such a degree that one comes to wonder why it is that people watch porn at all, or why the stars themselves would continue to offer themselves up for the derision of others (besides, of course, the obvious inducement of money). You would also be led to wonder why it is that people bother watching gay porn if all they are going to do is complain about someone having too much sex.

However, it’s not all that unexpected to see so much vitriol poured on the bottoms in gay porn. After all, if pornography is a form of spectatorial fantasy and if, likewise, it is a reflection of the social milieu that produces it, it only makes sense that people would find the bottoms in gay porn to be both the object of desire and derision. When it comes to the food chain in the world of gay men, bottoms frequently occupy the lowest rung, the subject of scorn and often pity. There is a bit of a joke among us queer men that a top that shows up on Grindr is guaranteed a success rate, since bottoms on most dating sites are seemingly a dime a dozen. Another joke is that, once you get on Grindr, you basically have to switch from bottom to versatile if you hope to get laid. It’s something of a myth, but even the most far-fetched myths have more than a bit of truth to them.

Queer theorists from Leo Bersani to David Halperin have remarked on the ambivalent relationship that many gay men have to the sex act that makes them, well, gay. It’s all well and good, in the logic of many, to be a top, for that is behaving like a man. Being all masculine and sticking your dick into things is par for the course for the average man. To be a bottom is, as everyone knows, something of a necessary evil, but it’s hardly something that one should seek out. And if you do, you had best be sure that at least your gender performance matches up with the perceived ideals of male behaviour, even if your position in the boudoir does not. No one likes a flaming faggy queen, after all (one need look no further than the many profiles that say something about “masc seeking masc” or “regular guy seeks same” or “looking for a workout buddy” to see what I mean). And heaven forbid you like musicals, or handbags, or anything else that smacks of acting like a woman.

To embrace one’s identity as a bottom in the world of gay porn is to embrace that abject position, the penetrated. It’s one thing if you are able to evince displeasure at doing it (see also: all the “Gay for Pay” actors out there who look like every moment of gay sex is an agony). But if you dare to show that you enjoy it, and if you spend a lot of time bottoming in front of the camera, then you have unforgivably and irrevocably surrendered your male card. Do not pass go, do not collect $200; you’re going straight to the adult diapers section (and can we talk about the infantilizing rhetoric for a minute. Seriously. There is little to no evidence that lots of sex, sex with big dicks, and even fisting leads to incontinence. This is just another example of gay men internalizing the pernicious logic of homophobia).

(An amusing, if irritating aside: some time ago, a friend of mine remarked that men only bottomed out of service to their partner, not because it actually felt good. At the time I was still a virgin, and I felt this clawing fear that maybe my friend was right. Maybe I was fated to never enjoy sex as a bottom! Naturally, that proved to not be the case, and I very much embrace my identity as a bottom. I tell this story because it reflects the misunderstanding that there is something shameful, painful, and/or innately more disgusting about anal sex. Let’s be real. Penetrative sex is a rather disgusting act in all of its forms, but there is much pleasure to be had, so we should let go of our hangups and not force our own assumptions on other’s behaviours).

And of course it goes without saying that porn bottoms who dare to do the unthinkable and get into topping are setting themselves up for all sorts of vitriol and dismissal. After all, how could na avowed bottom, one who is good at what he does, possibly be…versatile? It’s almost as if people are something more than just the positions that they occupy in the bedroom. There are boat loads of specific examples I could cite that have been subjected to this sort of scrutiny, but among the most prominent are Johnny Rapid (a very prolific performer who never fails to draw the ire of many commenters, despite his twinkish beauty and reasonably good performances), Armond Rizzo (don’t get me started on the number of jokes that have been made about his sphincter), and Travis of Corbin Fisher (everyone loves to hate on him when he attempts to top). Unless you’re very very lucky in gay porn world, once you become a bottom, you’re basically a bottom for the rest of your professional life. I mean, you can try to switch off and on, but chances are you’ll be met with hostility.

All of this is not to say that the tops in gay porn don’t come in for their share of criticism from the “fans.” For tops, though, the question involves less shame and more impatience if they refuse to bottom, or if they do that they don’t enjoy it, or that they can’t keep a hard-on. It is only the last of these complaints that’s truly comparable to the sort of shame that’s loaded onto the bottoms in gay porn, who are made to be the scapegoats (in the classical sense) for all of the shame that gay men seem to collectively feel for their desire to bottom.

I would go so far as to suggest that it is precisely this collective shame that explains why so many commenters on message boards reserve their greatest vitriol for bottoms. If, as Leo Bersani said some time ago, there is a certain suicidal ecstasy of embracing the role of the penetrated, then there is also a deep and almost frenzied fear of that position. Small wonder that that so many gay men continue to project that shame and sense of collective abjection onto those who most visibly and publicly give in to that suicidal ecstasy. The fact that a similar discourse does not (and perhaps cannot) surround the prominent tops in gay porn suggests, to me at least, that it is the innate vulnerability of the bottoms that render them so prone to this sort of dismissal.

As a bottom myself, I find all of this tremendously frustrating and hypocritical, just as I find it infuriating to see so many gay men disavow any traces of femininity. Heaven forbid, after all, that we show any trace of anything that doesn’t fit into the dominant model of hegemonic masculinity, that we embrace a certain measure of vulnerability. And perish the thought that we try to think outside of the box that automatically equates bottoming with passivity or misery or try to find other ways of thinking about the sexual positions we occupy.

What’s to be done about all of this, you’re probably asking right about now? Well, to start with, gay men can get over their fixation with appropriate gender behaviour. Dispense with the “straight acting” gay bullshit. It’s so 2004. We can also stop projecting our anxiety about our own sex positions onto porn performers. There are already enough problems in the world, without unloading them onto men who are, when all is said and done, just trying to make a living.

And, finally, in porn as in sex, sometimes we just need to relax, enjoy the ride, and embrace the pleasure.

Why We Still Need Queer Communities

Queer Culture, Queer Theory (General), Subjectivity, Uncategorized, , , , , , ,

The other day, while going for my run around the neighborhood, I decided on a whim to go down a side street I had not explored before.  While running, I happened to notice a rainbow flag hanging outside the back of a home.  Curious, I ran by the front to see if there were any other signs of queerness and, to my delight and surprise, there were several other homes with rainbow flags flying proudly.

Now, I had known for some time that I supposedly live in Syracuse’s “gayborhood” of Hawley Green, but until that day I had not seen many signs of queerness.  As I continued my run, I felt an astonishingly powerful feeling of peace and calm—and even a little joy—settle over me.  I was, I felt, somewhere I belonged.  It was a unique feeling for, while I have lived in queer houses in undergrad (often dubbed “The Big Gay House”), I had never known what it was like to live in a truly gay neighborhood.

I’m sure that you’re probably wondering why I’m spending so much time rambling on about my run (and probably thinking that I sound like one of those pretentious fitness nuts who always prattle on about their most recent physical accomplishment).  Well, it’s because of what that incident brought home to me, namely the continuing importance of queer enclaves in urban places.  Now that marriage equality has taken the nation by storm and we can finally see ourselves portrayed at least somewhat sympathetically in the mainstream media, it might seem as if the bad old days of oppression are over and we can live our lives thoroughly integrated into mainstream society and neighborhoods.

But is that really the case?

If nothing else, the recent brutal beating of two gay men in Philadelphia reminds us of just how precarious queer life still is in these United States.  For all that we have gained, there are still places and spaces where we are not welcome and where we are most definitely in danger.  And, unfortunately, sometimes those spaces are the streets that we walk down at night, holding hands and attempting to take advantage of the fact that we have become, so we are told, just like everyone else.

The fact remains, however, that we are not, in many ways, just like everyone else.  There are still a lot of very narrow-minded people in this country, and many of them, unfortunately also tend to be quite violent in their condemnation of what they see as a threat (to their religious faith, to their masculinity, take your pick).  Often, far too often, they lash out in violence like what occurred in Philadelphia.  Or that happened 14 years ago in rural Wyoming to a young man named Matthew Shepard.

Sure, we have gained a lot in the last 12 years.  As an adolescent and even as a college student, I would never have dreamt that we would have made it this far, that I would no longer have to scour the television for even a tantalizing glimpse of queer people.  Nor would I have dreamt that I could find other men like me with the ease of an app on an iPhone.

And yet, as scholars such as my own idol David Halperin have noted, this hookup culture (so easily facilitated by apps such as Grindr) has in many ways supplanted and rendered obsolete the old ways of forming queer communities.  After all, why bother forming your own neighborhood if you can find others like you (or, as an extension, exclude others not like you) on the dating app of your choice?  There’s no need for community when everyone is simply an individual, interacting with other individuals.

So, in my view, there is still a need for spaces that are specifically queer, where we can explore what it means to be queer in this brave new world of marriage equality.  We still need gayborhoods in which homes and families proudly fly the rainbow flag, serving as beacons of encouragement and peace to those young people still struggling to find themselves.  We still need spaces where we can proudly say, “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.”