Spirit Day

Today the news broke that a Pink rights activist (or LGBT as they prefer in America) committed suicide in Brooklyn. This is short on the heels of the half a dozen young people who committed suicide in America in a spate of a month due to homophobic bullying and abuse. Subsequently 20 October 2010 was declared “Spirit Day” after a grassroots campaign by a Canadian Facebook user who started the event, on the social media network, went viral and attracted millions and helped to draw attention to the social evil of prejudice.

On 20 October 2010 probably millions of people around the world wore purple in remembrance of those who lost their lives due to homophobic abuse. The colour purple in the rainbow flag (also commonly referred to as the “gay flag”) represents spirit, ergo the colour chosen as a means of expressing solidarity of grief. Inadvertently an estimated 100 000 Jacaranda trees were also in full, magnificent, purple blossom in Johannesburg and Pretoria.

Activist Dan Savage started the “It gets better” campaign which features several thousand YouTube videos from celebrities to Hilary Clinton and even Barack Obama. One aim of the campaign is to denounce bullying as a “rite of passage” as Obama puts it and also to send out a message of hope to many millions of young gay/bi/trans people who are attacked purely because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. I doubt that there is a gay person out there that hasn’t been victim of some sort of abuse or slight and I can attest from personal experience. Although I was never subject to physical violence I had my fair share of vitriolic insults and snide remarks.

Vitriolic remarks aren’t necessarily confined to interpersonal communications. On Friday 22 October 2010 a “herrie” broke loose at “Die Herrie”, a community newspaper in Oudtshoorn, after one of the staff members, a certain Karin Zaayman wrote on her Facebook profile that: “Aids is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals. It is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.” The owner of the paper responded quite expeditiously and sent a generic response to all the diligent Pink rights advocates including me distancing him and the paper from the distinctly hateful and ignorant statement.

The article was quite the buzz in Rapport and to nobody’s surprise the pig-ignorant public continued in this vein and contributed a slew of hateful statements directed at the Pink community while expressing their solidarity with Ms Zaayman. Many lamented that they have a right to freedom of speech without knowing that freedom of speech is limited by section 36 of the Constitution and the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act, Act 4 of 2000. I have studied both and discussed the latter with the erstwhile CEO of the South African Human Rights Commission, Advocate Tseliso Thipanyane.

I don’t think someone who doesn’t intimately know how it feels to be persecuted because of some prejudice will ever fully understand. I don’t think the plethora of commentators will be aware of how much damage their flippant remarks create. I oftentimes receive email from desperate and often suicidal people and often see the pain in what they endure. I came across the following description of suffocation from an anonymous young person:

The closet is a lot like being trapped. Like being in a cage under

water with your air cylinder almost running out. It's like suffering

from the severest of asphyxiation phobia. It renders you a constant

nervous wreck carrying around nasal decongestant spray to ease

breathing, to make the suffocation that hits a couple of times a day

more bearable. Such is the same for being closeted and even worse when

you are still under you parents’ care and you know full well that you

might be kicked out and destined to live on the street. So you suck it

up. You swallow the anxiety, the panic and the pain and hold on for

dear life to just at least further your education lest you be so much

worse off and god forbid destitute. Reduced to options ranging from

prostitution or meaningless like a job that slowly kills you where

bruises never heal.

You throw yourself into your scholarly activities to forget the part of

yourself that's repressed. And it haunts you the more you repress it.

Your repression turns into obsessive compulsive disorder as a

desperate means to distract your attention. And you know that

'sometimes' is never good enough, that you shouldn't forget to put that smile on your face.

You do not contemplate suicide because it's the easy way out. You

contemplate it because there is no way out. None at all. The

atmosphere presses down on you more than usual and late nights and

early mornings get coloured cobalt blue from angst. Your face is numb. Your soul is dead. Your innermost being is a wreck of paranoia and memories that you would die to forget.

Masculinity, uncertainty and obscure rites of passage

Someone I know quite well alerted me to a (gay) medical doctor and his fascination with all things esoteric including the sickening concept of male rites of passage.

Granted, Mister Medical Doctor is on the wrong side of 40, I am on the wrong side of 25, and I suspect there is also a generation gap between our world views. Aside from the generation gap, one also needs to be mindful of my supposed extreme libertarianism in the anarcho-centre-leftist range.

Maybe I am viewing all of this through my intense disdain for the Patriarchy, which would also explain the anarchist tendencies. I see all rites of passage as incongruous to our Zeitgeist. Moreover, I see attempts to grasp the unattainable through mass hysteria and trance-inducing rituals as inappropriate and scary – hence why I avoid certain charismatic congregations and any 12 step programmes like Alcoholics Anonymous.

I’ve exposed the proliferation of the men’s movement in The patriarchy, the religious right and the threats to human rights in August of 2009 in which Amelia Jones, author of Feminism, Incorporated. Reading “postfeminism” in an antifeminism age dissects the methodology and hysteria of the men’s movement:

The other side of the postfeminist coin is the so-called ‘men’s movement’. Inspired by Robert Bly’s book Iron John (1990) the men’s movement appropriates and perverts the rhetoric of feminism to urge the contemporary American male to 'find a voice of [his] own' as a 'Wild Man'. Bly laments the feminization of the American male at the hands of his female caretakers, and calls for the extirpation of this spineless femininity through primitivist histrionics and rituals of male bonding. The 'Wild Man' immerses himself in mother nature and beats the appropriated drums of his 'primitive' brothers with big sticks to prove to himself that, while he may be a 'minority' his ability to dominate is intact.

Now I know rad-fems can be strident, as exposed in the Mail & Guardian article Lady, tramp, feminist icon. Lady Gaga or Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (as she is known off-stage) must be one of the foremost Pink rights activists of our time. Lady Gaga doesn’t fool around, she asserts herself, and she carries a formidable presence on 15 centimetre heels. However, feminist stalwart Camille Paglia is less impressed and calls Gaga a “ruthless recycler of other people's work” and proclaims that there is an "essential depressiveness and spiritual paralysis" to her. Paglia might be too “old school”. I also wonder what spirituality has to do with equality. It seems both Mister Doctor and Ms Paglia have a penchant for the esoteric.

Via Mister Doctor’s nauseatingly esoteric blog, I came to see a phenomenon called The Mankind Project and it seemingly has a worldwide footprint. I also came across testimony on Facebook of other random gay guys who went on these man-camps only to extol the virtues of the Mankind Project much to my amusement.

My question: why do you feel so insecure and uncomfortable in your own skin that you have to discover your “inner wild animal” in between primitivist histrionics? Darlings, we do not live in the Stone Age anymore. We do not have to stave off wild beasts for our survival and we need no longer hunt or forage for our food. We have a modern service economy with division of labour and we have transgressed the need for strict characterisation between male and female in terms of behaviour and build.

Imagine if women also laagered around their sole common denominator – their sex/gender. I am horrified by the thought of it. Oh dear, the return of Jong Dames Dinamiek! All the shock, horror, shoulder pads, and big hair of the 80s now conjured up in my mind's eye scares me to death.

Men-only events are just plain misogyny in disguise. Men and women are equal – thus no separate events for one sex. Why do men, gay included, seemingly have this existential crisis of late?

We are well aware of circumcision as a type of male rite of passage ceremony but there is also a growing trend towards the reversal of the physical effects of circumcision. One of the organisations helping men undo that was in many instances not their legal choice is called NORM – National Organization for the Restoration of Men. Many websites provide with practical advice on restoration procedures and many lament the fact that socially sanctioned childhood genital mutilation was carried out in the first place. How can any person allow the mutilation/abuse of a baby? It is an outdated “religious” practice and serves no purpose today (the supposed study postulating that it lessens the risk of contracting HIV is extremely dangerous as it could lead to riskier behaviour.)

Back to less serious subject matter... What was refreshing of the Mankind Project is their view on sexual orientation:

• We affirm that all men are welcome on our trainings and in our communities.

• We create trainings and circles in which all men are welcome to discover their deepest truths. We welcome men of all sexual orientations: gay, straight, and bisexual, including those who identify as having unwanted same sex attraction, to do their own work as they define it, to respect the identity and value of others, and to take responsibility for the impact their words and behaviors have on others.

• We support each man in pursuing his path to deeper authenticity. We do not provide therapy nor endorse any particular therapy, including reparative therapy. Any group or organization that states or implies otherwise does so without our permission.

• We do not, and will not, attempt to change a man’s sexual orientation.

• We stand firm in support of gay and bisexual men. We support men who believe that homosexuality is a normal part of the spectrum of human sexuality and of mature masculinity.

• We will not tolerate proselytizing for any religion or belief, organizing training staff into groups that exclude others, guiding men’s processes in a predetermined direction, or grooming men for the training.

• We will not tolerate discrimination on our trainings or in our communities. We support our training and community leaders in identifying and challenging discriminatory language and behavior.

I would solely, based on the above, condone and even praise the Mankind Project for their inclusivity and lack of discrimination. If there is kudos to dish out – the Mankind Project certainly deserves them in this instance.

The Mankind Project goes further to explain the so-called “New Macho”:

The New Macho:

He cleans up after himself.
He cleans up the planet.
He is a role model for young men.
He is rigorously honest and fiercely optimistic

He holds himself accountable.
He knows what he feels.
He knows how to cry and he lets it go.
He knows how to rage without hurting others.
He knows how to fear and how to keep moving.
He seeks self-mastery.

He's let go of childish shame.
He feels guilty when he's done something wrong.
He is kind to men, kind to women, kind to children.
He teaches others how to be kind.
He says he's sorry.

He stopped blaming women or his parents or men for his pain years ago.
He stopped letting his defenses ruin his relationships.
He stopped letting his penis run his life.
He has enough self respect to tell the truth.
He creates intimacy and trust with his actions.
He has men that he trusts and that he turns to for support.
He knows how to roll with it.
He knows how to make it happen.
He knows how to listen from the core of his being.

He's not afraid to get dirty.
He's ready to confront his own limitations.
He has high expectations for himself and for those he connects with.
He looks for ways to serve others.
He knows he is an individual.
He knows that we are all one.
He knows he is an animal and a part of nature.
He knows his spirit and his connection to something greater.

He knows that the future generations are watching his actions.
He builds communities where people are respected and valued.
He takes responsibility for himself and is willing to be his brother's keeper.

He knows his higher purpose.
He loves with fierceness.

He laughs with abandon, because he gets the joke.

On the surface, all of the above seem very noble and my stridency completely unsubstantiated. However, something keeps bugging me. Something I can’t quite explain. I have a finely tuned sense of intuition. It might sound contradictory coming from me that I do not believe in the esoteric. I believe intuition is just astute perceptive skill.

Now my astute perceptiveness tells me there is something more to the Mankind Project than meets the eye and I have thought of joining a camp to experience it for myself. Then again, I am not quite fond of men in general and the “bush” is not really my cup of tea. No, I decided. I shall sit in the comfort of my suburban life, sip on organic vanilla tea and honey bush chai, and contemplate such sociological constructs. I feel no need for a “transition” or rite of passage, but why do so many others have this dire need?