Fox News – Sage Telling Your Story

I have never had the discipline needed for any form of consistent journaling or diary keeping. The closest I have ever come to writing with focus has been this SAGE Story Telling Group. I suppose you could say my writings on AIDS were a focused personal collection of my observations and reactions to that nightmare, a journaling of sorts. My AIDS writings though when looked at over nearly three decades beginning in 1981 were actually quite sparse and spread out.

Looking at my expanded title for this topic you may wonder how I am going to leap from “journal” to “dick pics”. It is not going to be very smooth but is being driven in part by a strong desire to document a few of the crazier statements, actions and proclamations, often sexual in nature, that I have run across lately in my excessive Internet browsing and cable news watching. Further documentation, as if we needed any more, that in 2017 the world has gone totally insane.

One phrase I want to immortalize in particular really sticks out and that is “ the smoke of Satan”. This one is perhaps originally credited to Pope Paul VI. He was reacting to what was, and still is, apparently quite significant ongoing and organized homosexual activity amongst the Curia in Rome. Surprise!

This smoke of Satan business has now gotten even worse under the current Pope Francis per some observers. The whole phrase was “the smoke of Satan has infiltrated the Church”. We queers have been called by many names throughout history but I must say “the smoke of Satan” may be my favorite.

I mean what does that even mean? Perhaps Satan is fond of a post-coital cigarette? Or something a bit more-kinky involving blowing smoke up someone’s ass, which is well documented in gay male internet porn often by those with a cigar fetish. I think though the phrase remains open to interpretation, let your imagination run wild.

So the next odd turn of phrase that I think deserves journaling on my part comes from a Republican Congressman named Buddy Carter from Georgia. Referring to the Senate being unable to address health care he recently said, “Somebody needs to go over there to that Senate and snatch a knot in their ass.” At first blush I thought maybe he was referring to anal beads. Pondering further I guess I again have no idea what is being referenced here. If you have Internet access and time on your hands I have included a link to an article detailing the apparently long history of the phrase. Not to cast any aspirations but it seems to be Southern in origin. http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2017/07/27/_snatch_a_knot_in_their_ass_explained.html

And of course what sort of chronicling of the salacious would not include the current vivid description of someone in the White House supposedly being pre-occupied with sucking his own dick. Though I think the comment was meant to be mean-spirited it has been great fun watching various pundits, often on live TV, trying to address this one. Several commentators, mostly women I might add, have tried in part to dismiss the act as ridiculous and physically impossible. Au contraire!

Even a cursory perusal of gay internet porn, using the search term of ‘auto-fellatio’, will show that for some it is truly quite possible to suck one’s own dick. Albeit it helps a lot to be rail thin, flexible like a yogi master and have a long shlong. This slight was directed at Steve Bannon though and of course he is most likely not well endowed, an adept yogi and certainly not rail thin.

One last mention of an activity that certainly warrants a deeper dive into the psychology of it all is the “dick pic’. The current flap surrounds again some jerk working for Fox News apparently harassing female co-workers with snaps of his junk. Without really giving it much thought I wondered if at least the first phone pic of a dick did not come from a cruising gay male. I mean after-all we have been for millennia in the forefront of facilitating hook-ups. A ‘dick pic’ certainly cuts to the chase for some and we have after all perfected the art of non-verbal sexual communication. Perhaps this is just one more thing co-opted by the straight male.

In researching this piece, and yes this did take a bit of legitimate research, I happened on this tongue-in cheek but delightful YouTube video on the history of the ‘dick pic’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sFnktGzxCs

Enjoy!

About the Author

I was born in La Porte, Indiana in 1949, raised on a farm and schooled by Holy Cross nuns. The bulk of my adult life, some 40 plus years, was spent in Denver, Colorado as a nurse, gardener and gay/AIDS activist. I have currently returned to Denver after an extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.

“Ah am again’ a man marrying a man or a
woman marrying a woman. It ain’t right;
it ain’t natural. Marriage should be
between one man and one woman, just as it always has been for thousands of
years! Ah believe in traditional
marriage!”

At least those people who hold such beliefs and who make such statements are consistent : they generally are ignorant of the facts concerning most things. Facts mean nothing to them. Throughout history, so-called “traditional marriage” has not been anything like what these people say. On the contrary, usually marriage has been quite different.

In most early societies, marriage was a private agreement between two families. Neither the Church nor the State had any say in the matter. Of course now-days, a bride’s family is shirking its duty if they do not provide the groom’s family with a number of sheep or horses.

Often, not even family-consent was necessary for marriage. Two people who simply regarded themselves as being married were viewed by the Church as having a valid marriage, provided neither one was a slave of course. It was not until 1754 that England preferred to have couples obtain a marriage license, although that was not regularly enforced. Even in socially backward countries such as America, authorities initially simply inferred marriage from a couple’s behavior rather than requiring either a license or a church wedding. Just living together was all that was needed.

Considering that so many “good Christians” would like to alter civil law to conform to their religion, they would be upset to learn that the type of marriage most often mentioned in the first five books of the Old Testament was not one-man, one-woman, but instead was one-man, several-women. So, in today’s “traditional marriage,” how many women should a man be allowed to marry?

If a man chooses only one woman to marry, then he is allowed to either divorce his first wife or add another wife or concubine if the first wife does not produce a child. After all, producing offspring is the only reason to marry; no one else should want to marry.

Early Christian records document some same-sex marriages. It is said that, in the 4th century, Saint Sergius and Saint Bacchus were united in a church service. They even are portrayed close, side-by-side in a religious icon.

When the Church later promoted two-person marriages, the Church would nullify a marriage if the man was impotent, but not if one of the spouses was sterile. One wonders to what extent the Church went to determine which was which. In 18th-century Ireland, one aristocratic lass insisted upon marrying the great castrato singer Tenducci, only to employ the law of the time to divorce him when she discovered the greater pleasures of a fully intact man. The New York Court ruled in 1898, however, “It cannot be held, as a matter of law, that the possession of the organs necessary to conception are essential to entrance to the married state, so long as there is no impediment to the indulgence of the passion incident to this state.” So apparently, two guys who are partners don’t have to keep trying to make babies.

Only in more recent times have American legislatures and courts felt obliged to intrude upon what has been, in truth, real traditional marriage. Black slaves in America could marry, but only with the permission of the slave owner. By the 1920s, thirty-eight states had laws prohibiting marriage between whites and blacks, Mulattos, Japanese, Chinese, Indians, Mongolians, Malays, or Filipinos. Twelve states prohibited marriage to a “drunk” or “mental defective.” There even was a prohibition to marrying any (quote) “drunkard, habitual criminal, imbecile, feeble-minded person, idiot, or insane person.” If we adhered to this “traditional” concept of marriage today, that would eliminate the right to marry to most members of the GOP and all of Fox News.

In conclusion, and to paraphrase conservative pundit George Will, what is the cost / benefit of so many Americans believing in, and subscribing to, the hate-filled, irrational rantings of so many so-called “good–Christian” politicians, voters, and preachers? The cost to American society, and especially to the civil rights of GLBT citizens, is clear. But, I see no true benefit from having millions of Americans standing foursquare with bloviating ignoramuses. The recent statement by a North-Carolina, Baptist minister who said, “Ah could just puke! Can you imagine kissin’ a man?” is redundant proof that high authority allows for someone of extremely low IQ to insert himself into the debate concerning human civil rights.

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life
stories. I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me
particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at
times, unusual ones. Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived
pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group. I do put some
thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.

Tag: Fox News

Journaling in the Age of Dick Pics, by Pat Gourley

About the Author

Marriage by Will Stanton