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Showing posts with label Gay History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gay History. Show all posts

Thursday, June 21, 2018

Hong Kong Men: Distracted And Sexless 3

COMPLETED 24 JUNE 2018.

3.  The Behaviour Of Gay Men In Hong Kong


3.  The Behaviour Of Gay Men In Hong Kong

From Zero To....

1.  Let's start here:  Hong Kong's gay scene went from one of the world's most suppressed and actively prosecuted in the 1970s and 1980s, to (since 1991), one of the most liberal in Asia.


https://hk-bb-top.tumblr.com/post/175026097844/hkminegdie-正片香港
 
 
https://hk-bb-top.tumblr.com/post/175026087504/hkminegdie-香港-素人-基片
 

But.....

2.  Remember, as at June 2018, Hong Kong still does NOT have:
  • the legislative amendment making the minimum age of consensual gay sex at 16 (i.e. equal to heteros), even though the Courts have made it clear, they will NOT convict any gay person who is 16 or over who has gay sex with another person 16 or over.  On the statute books, the minimum age of gay sex in Hong Kong is still 21 and for heteros it's 16.  But the Courts simply ignored the discrepancy, told the government it was utterly unfair and told them to change it.  The effect...? In reality, the minimum age of gay sex in Hong Kong is now 16.
  • gay marriage;
  • civil union or domestic partnership;
  • same-sex benefits by law for married gay civil servants.  The earlier court case that allowed it for a Chinese civil servant and his white partner who were legally married in New Zealand, was overturned by the Court of Appeal who affirmed the strict definition of "marriage" as being between a man and a woman - and said this was a back door attempt to force gay marriage in Hong Kong.  This case will probably go to the Court of Final Appeal;
  • same-sex benefits by law for gays in the private sector - although companies like HSBC already do it;
  • laws against workplace discrimination and dismissal on the grounds of sexual orientation - even though the Equal Opportunities Commission publicly supports having them and has shown up at the Hong Kong Pride celebrations;
  • dependent visas for same-sex couples married overseas;
  • housing for gay seniors;

Why...?

3.  So, what's going on...?  Why is Hong Kong's gay scene flourishing in the absence of a comprehensive legislative framework..?

4.  The answer is, it initially didn't need one.  All it needed was decriminalization and things just took off.  Nobody thought about gay rights.  It was just hedonism that went from Zero to Quantum. Anything to get away from the Dark Days of Criminality.


Glory Days And Glory Holes

5.  Within weeks in 1991, the first crop of gay saunas opened and were packed out (sadly, none of them exist now, but that's not the point);
  • Gameboys - Wanchai;
  • BA Fitness - Wanchai;
  • Central Sauna - Hollywood Road;
  • Male - Paterson Street, Causeway Bay;
  • Bobson - Hankow Road, Tsim Sha Tsui;
  • Rome Club - Ashley Road, Tsim Sha Tsui;
  • Yeuk Tak Chee - Prince Edward, that had been a licensed male bath house for years and was rumoured to be very gay, started getting the younger crowd.
6.  Gay retail opened up in the side streets of Admiralty and Wanchai, gay escorts started advertising in HKMag, gay bars like Waltzing Matilda became more visible in Tsim Sha Tsui and Propaganda on Wyndham Street was the anchor of gay clubs.  Cruising became more overt particularly in Tsim Sha Tsui, Central and Wanchai.  And the really gay gyms like California Fitness took off.  AIDS did very little to stop the hedonistic momentum, although drug and disease rates climbed.


Now...

7.  Now in Hong Kong there's a plethora of gay saunas, a few bars and karaoke joints, rampant gay escort advertising (from Mainland Chinese), gay publications, gay TV, gay radio stations, offline and online gay retail, Pride, Gay Film Festivals, gay pop stars, gay pageants, gay sports clubs, gyms with an overt gay clientele - and gay porn all over the Web.


But Gay In Hong Kong Is A Sex-Based Culture, Right....?

8.  Oh yeah....In addition to all the above, check out the blatant gay Public Displays of Affection going on downtown - particularly in Tsim Sha Tsui and Causeway Bay, SoHo (Central not so much coz it's the business district).  Take a walk in the parks like Kowloon Park and Hong Kong Park and be amazed.  Keep your eyes open in the MTR station and trains and watch the local boys holding hands and kissing. (Forget the fuckn' whites.  They've been doing that here for a while just to be "provocative")  For the local GAMs, such PDA are expressions of freedom and their right to be respected. So long as they're not causing a public nuisance or engaging in public sexual acts or nudity, the Police aren't going to interfere.....

9.  Been to the some of the public toilets lately where gay men cluster...?  Our GAM-Throats-On-The-Street inform us that more and more public toilets around town are becoming "popular".  Gone are the days when it was just 2 in a cubicle.  We've counted, in wide-eyed amazement, 3 and 4 men stepping out of one cubicle and 25 people cruising in one toilet at the same time.  It was just bonkers.


Our Conclusion

10.  Our conclusion is that whilst str8 men in Hong Kong may have become sexless herbivores, gay men in Hong Kong are going to the other extreme and have totally embraced the overt, body-conscious sexuality of gay culture - and all the accoutrements that go with it: the jockstraps, the T-backs, the underwear, the swimming trunks, the cock rings, the butt plugs, the tank tops, the gay brand names, the partying, the drinking, the drugs, the porn, Grindr, the saunas, the cruising, the beach parties, the boat parties........


And Then.....There's This:
If you guys ever have the time , please visit Hong Kong's Kowloon Park Swimming Complex 九龍公園游泳池 Hong Kong, at least once in your lifetime -- To experience the best, public cruising place in Asia -- just for the sake of telling people that you've been there, done that and it's enough!

-----"Cruising in Kowloon Park Swimming Complex 九龍公園游泳池 Hong Kong", 1 July 2017, Welcome To The World Of Simon Lover
(Pictures and videos included.  Just don't say we didn't warn you.....)


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Hong Kong Men: Distracted And Sexless 2

2.  What FuelMix Thinks
3.  Behaviour of Gay Men In Hong Kong


2.  What FuelMix Thinks

(1) Mainland Chinese in Hong Kong

1.  The problem in Very Rich Megacity is not the heat, the urban density  It's the massive wealth inequality, most notable in the sky high property prices. We won't get into what we consider was a strategic mistake by the Hong Kong Government in allowing Mainland Chinese to buy property here in the first place.  It's effect was to distort other parts of the economy and strain the urban infrastructure.

2. Not only was the distortion in Hong Kong economic and financial (it created a stock market ramp-up, aided by monetary cluelessness by the US Fed), it was also psychological.  Hong Kong people were open-mouthed as to where and how these Mainland Chinese made their money. China is at the forefront of digitizing its economy, to the point where large chunks of consumer transactions (even buying vegetables from the market stall) are done electronically on mobile phones.  Cashless is the way to go in China.  Yet paradoxically, here in Hong Kong, these same Mainland Chinese are showing up with massive wads of cash in shiny silver Rimova (only high-end stuff for them) suitcases.

3.  It's not surprising that Hong Kong Cantonese are resentful  of just how much the city has been overrun by Mainland Chinese and their (un-endearing) entitlement mentality. Accusations of "cockroach" and "locust" infestation are mingled with insinuations of "grey money" or "black money", both dismissive references to corruption or financial gain by dubious means.

4.  For years, Hong Kong Cantonese have been ground into the dirt financially.  Sure, they may be educated professionals with a 7-figure salary, speak 3 languages and drive a BMW.  But they may also be low-level office, retail or service types, living in public housing (or being on a waiting list for one) and commuting 90 minutes to work each way.  Neither can compete with or comprehend the near hyper-exponential speed of wealth accumulation of the Mainland Chinese.


(2)  Hong Kong Women And The "6Cs"

5.  Even before the Mainland chinks appeared, Hong Kong women were notorious for demanding "The Six Cs" in men:

  1. Cash
  2. Credit Card
  3. Cartier
  4. Condo
  5. Car
  6. Cock

6.  Our Mainland "brothers" and "sisters" (the semi- official Hong Kong Government term for those from across the border) just made it a lot worse.  We wouldn't be surprised if a chunk of Hong Kong men figured they'd lost even before they started.  That doesn't do wonders for your self-esteem or your "manliness".  Depression lowers Testosterone, you know.

7.  The "why bother?." mentality of some heterosexual Hong Kong men, faced with apparently insurmountable financial and sexual odds, would probably drive them into becoming the grass-eating "herbivores" mentioned in Part 1.  Far better to stay at home with the parents.  Besides, Cantonese families usually have more than one child. Let one of the siblings do the breeding.


(3)  Hong Kong's Work Ethic Encourages Distraction

8.  In a word, "notorious".  Whilst it hasn't reached the "Work Till You Drop Dead At The Office" levels seen in Japan,  Hong Kong's long working hours are both a bane and a benefit.  People get stressed out and very tired.  If they're horny, they'll go to online porn.  It's quick, usually free and there's no emotional commitment.

9.  Alternatively they'll be on Tetris, Candy Crush, Facebook, WeChat, What'sApp, slouched on their seats while commuting on the MTR - oblivious to the Dating Apps being advertised in the train.


(4)  There's Another Way Of Looking At It

10.  The rise of entrepreneurship in Hong Kong is gratifying.  The ecology is taking shape, aided by cameo appearances by people like Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, encouraging young people to become entrepreneurs.

11.  More and more college age types are standing up to their parents wishes and refusing to become doctors, architects, lawyers, accountants - the usual catalogue of "respectable" professions.  Instead, they're becoming risk-takers and self-employed.  Of necessity, that will delay breeding and/or dating as they strive to become financially independent.

COMING UP IN PART 3:
3.  Behaviour Of Gay Men In Hong Kong


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Hong Kong Men: Distracted And Sexless 1

1.  What The Hong Kong Press Reported
2.  What FuelMix Thinks
3.  Behaviour Of Gay Men In Hong Kong 

Underlining,  highlighting and bold print by FuelMix:


1.  What The Hong Kong Press Reported

 In a city already known for its low sex drive, there is a new generation of men who are uninterested in romance and relationships.  Whether technology is distracting them, or its the result of work or life pressure, women are feeling left out.

Most women would agree on the quintessential qualities they seek in a male partner (besides looks): that he should be kind, gentle and considerate. This is especially so for long-term relationships. The good news is Hong Kong has plenty of men around (who might possess some or all of these qualities), but the bad news is that an increasing number of them are uninterested in dating or getting married, and some have gone as far as to ditch romantic relationships for good.

Leading the charge is an infamous cohort of homebound men known as “otaku”. A Japanese term for men who are socially awkward and have limited family and romantic lives, these “geeks” tend to be diehard anime and manga fans who have little interest in dating. 

Then there are the “soshoku danshi”, which translates as “grass-eating men” or “herbivore men”. The term, coined by Japanese columnist Maki Fukasawa, describes a monk-like approach to life and relationships, in other words, no sex. 

There might be exceptions, but these men would rather invest themselves in online gaming and other solo activities than seek female company in their free time.

Studies in Japan estimate that this class of men, normally in their 20s and 30s, account for around 60 per cent to 70 per cent of the male population. Obviously, their reluctance to procreate is a major cause for concern. Japan has had one of lowest birth rates in the world for nearly a decade now.

Now Hong Kong appears to be following in Japan’s footsteps.  

According to Dr Paul Wong Wai-ching, associate professor of the Department of Social Work and Social Administration at the University of Hong Kong, the city has seen a rise in the number of “grass-eating men”.

“These herbivore men don’t connect with others, they don’t establish their own families or have children and don’t really contribute anything meaningful to society, either tangibly or intangibly,” says Wong. “They are like parasites who often live with their parents. So you can imagine how it’s going to affect society in the long run, socially and economically.”

Like Japan, our society is rapidly ageing, he adds. “These ‘grass-eating men’ are not capable of taking care of their ageing parents and neither are they capable of taking care of themselves when they become old, they are childless so they will have no family support,” he says. 

Another type of man you won’t be finding on any dating apps are the “modern-day hermits”. They seek extreme disconnection and isolation from the rest of society, they become practically invisible. This phenomenon is triggered by an overburdened sense of responsibility, and when the pressure becomes too unbearable it causes the person to pull away and unplug from society in a kind of self-imposed exile.

After a long-term detachment from society, their social skills diminish and this affects their ability to find employment. This has a domino effect of creating youths who are financially dependent on family and friends, jobless and lacking in drive. Not only does this mean these hermits never leave the nest or mature, but they are far less likely to have long-term relationships, romantic or friendship-based.

It seems counter intuitive that in a world as busy and interconnected as ours is, we are now lonelier than ever. 

We might not be as bad as Japan, with nearly half a million of these social recluses, according to a 2012 study, but there are still an estimated 20,000 to 40,000 hidden away in Hong Kong, according to Wong. 

Whatever the difference in numbers between here and Japan, this disconnection is threatening the social fabric that binds our community and we need to do something about it. 

While we can agree that dating can be terrifying, unforgiving and unpredictable, it is a rite of passage that many of us undertake as we grow up. 

At heart, humans are gregarious creatures, so whether it’s meeting someone at a party, bar or anywhere else, forming human connections is an integral part of our being. Relationships and friendships are highly important for humans.........

We can blame the prevalence of smartphones, laptops, computers, tablets and other electronic devices. We can even blame it on e-sports, a new pseudo sport that is sweeping the city with government backing. It can also be interpreted as another excuse for people to submerge themselves in the digital world rather than experience the real word.

“Those who advocate e-sports are sugar coating it as a genuine sport that encourages team interaction. It’s nonsense because it is just a limited form of interaction between a few members of a small team,” Wong says.

It’s a mistake to provide an escape hatch for people who want to avoid human interaction. If we continue to condone this kind of antisocial behaviour, we have to bear the risks and social consequences that come with it. 

 

COMING UP IN PART 2:

2.  What FuelMix Thinks
3.  Behaviour of Gay Men In Hong Kong

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Tuesday, June 05, 2018

Gay Berlin

A nice reliable person informed us that Hong Kong Airlines is investigating the feasibility of opening a new non-stop route from Hong Kong to Berlin, Germany.

We pricked up our ears because the financially-troubled and now defunct Air Berlin, had announced that it would start flights from Berlin to Hong Kong from October 2017.

At the moment, Cathay Pacific Airways flies non-stop from Hong Kong to Frankfurt.  They had briefly flown to Dusseldorf as well, but that route has been "suspended".

Berlin has a long gay history.  Prior to the Second World War, it was a hotbed of gay debauchery, gay pedophilia, gay cross-dressing and gay prostitution.  There was a brief hint of that in the movie, "Cabaret" starring Liza Minnelli.

More disturbingly and controversially, it was in Berlin that openly gay, violent, self-avowed "macho" men (they utterly despised effeminate men) met in a known gay bar and were instrumental in forming the National Socialist Party - better known as the Nazis.  They were part of Adolph Hitler's coterie, occupying the highest positions in the Hitler Youth Movement, the Storm Troopers and the Gestapo.

We have written about this in the 3 part series, "The Pink Swastika".  This is based on the book of the same name that challenges the conventional story that the Nazis were violently homophobic.  It is linked here:

The Pink Swastika 1
The Pink Swastika 2
The Pink Swastika 3

In case you faggots didn't know, Berlin is the raunchiest (and most drug-fucked) gay city in Europe, and probably in the world.  Look it up.

What goes on quite brazenly in the Berlin gay scene is wwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy beyond "vanilla".

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The Pink Swastika 3

And you thought the Nazis hated gays...


A review of the book, "The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality In The Nazi Party" authored by Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams.  The book challenges the popular notion that the Nazis were homophobic.

Summary of conclusions drawn by "The Pink Swastika" authors based on the review, The Pink Swastika And Holocaust Revisionist History, Judith A. Riesman PhD, The Institute For Media Education,  September 8, 2006


1.  Berlin was a hotbed of gay culture, gay debauchery and gay pederasty.

2.  Adolf Hitler knew, and was well known, to several gay men in Berlin.

3.  The Nazi party was formed in a known gay bar in Berlin.

4.  Its founding members were known to be gay and in some cases, gay and sexually violent; or gay criminal thugs.

5.  They made no attempt to hide their sexual orientation or their closeness to Hitler.

6.  The Nazis actively recruited gay men, regardless of whether they were gay and sexually violent; or gay criminal thugs.  These gay men were high-ranking officers and staff within the echelons of the Nazi party as well as the Storm Troopers and the Gestapo.

7.  Violence was condoned.

8.  There was a split in the Nazi party between the gay macho, masculine "butch" Nazis who either glorified or lived up to the ideal of the dominating Aryan male physique which was worthy of worship; and those gay men who were deemed too effeminate.

9.  With a few exceptions, it was the "effeminate" Nazi party members who were hounded, harassed or murdered by way of political assassinations.  It appears they were murdered because they knew too much about the gay origins of the Nazi party and Hitler's close relationship with known homosexuals who preyed on young boys.

10. The majority of homosexuals in Germany, estimated at several million, were not touched.  Hitler refused to go after them.

11.  Those that were rounded up were deemed "effeminate" and were sent to Work Camps, NOT the death camps where the Jews were sent.

12.  There is no evidence of wholesale removal of civil rights, travel restrictions or confiscation of homosexual property by the Nazis or persecution of those who sheltered gays.

13.  Since the Nazi party was gay (and violently gay and sexually depraved) at its very core, it was gay men who ordered and participated in sexual degradation, torture and extermination of the Jews.

14.  These facts have been deliberately hidden to portray gay men as innocent victims - whereas they were in reality, the perpetrators of the Holocaust.


FuelMix says:

1.  Hello Apocalypse........

2.  One can understand why this book is such a potential bombshell and why mainstream media and mainstream academics are ignoring it.  Yet to date, so far as we are aware, nobody has come forward to refute the detailed assertions that the authors made.

3.  From our point of view, these assertions are another example of The Apocalypse, the true meaning of which, is that which was hidden is now revealed.  It is often said that History is the diary of the victors - in other words, future generations simply get a whitewashed or wholly distorted and deliberately revisionist version of events and / or the truth.

4.  For over 70 years, gay men appear to have been lied to concerning their history in World War 2 Europe. They were not victims on the scale alleged, but the violently gay-centric Nazi party instigated mass torture and mass murder of others.

The Pink Swastika 1
The Pink Swastika 2

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Originally published 28 June 2017
Republished 5 June 2018   

The Pink Swastika 2

6.  Homosexuals All Around Hitler
7.  The Nazis Were Tolerant Of Homosexuals
8.  "Fem" Homos vs "Butch" Homos
9.  The Numbers And The Facts


And you thought the Nazis hated gays...

A review of the book, "The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality In The Nazi Party" authored by Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams.  The book challenges the popular notion that the Nazis were homophobic.

Underlining, side headings, highlighting and bold print by FuelMix:


6.  Homosexuals All Around Hitler

The authors raise many questions in The Pink Swastika. If he feared homosexual influence on boys, why did Hitler chose known homosexuals to serve as key youth leaders? Karl Fischer, a homosexual teacher, began the Wandervogel (a German version of the boy Scouts), which became "The Hitler Youth" in 1933, under a well known pederast, Hans Blueher, who wrote of man-boy "love." Gerhard Rossbach, homosexual Nazi leader of the Freikorps gave over leadership of the Schill Youth to Edmund Heines, a convicted Nazi pederast, and murderer, all under the watchful eye of Adolf Hitler.

The Pink Swastika reports that while Hitler and his Gestapo chief, Heinrich Himmler methodologically annihilated all German and European Jews via mass deportations to death camps, beyond political homophobic rhetoric after the Rohm murders, and a demand that men produce children for the Aryan race, Hitler refused to attack "homosexuals."

Adolf Brand, a pederast-child pornographer was one of many prominent "butch" advocate homosexuals who continued to live, write and entertain in Germany, untouched by the Nazis. Other homosexual and bisexual leaders cited by these and other authors included Bladur von Schirach, Hitler Youth Leader; Hans Frank, Hitler’s Minister of Justice; Wilhelm Bruckner, Hitler’s adjutant; Walther Funk, Hitler’s Minister of Economics; friend and advisor Hermann Goering, Hitler’s second in command (who dressed "in drag and wore camp make-up"), Hans Kahnert, who founded Germany’s largest "Gay rights organization (Society for Human Rights) which counted "SA Chief Ernst Rohm among its members," Edmund Heines, a pederast sadist, Dr. Karl Gunther Heimsoth, a homosexual Nazi who coined the term "homophile," and Julius Streicher, an infamous pornographer and pederast who was very close to Hitler......

.....A look at another photograph of Hitler finds him voluntarily posing enthusiastically before a massive statue of two nude, muscular men holding hands. This suggests we ask if Hitler had a sexual relationship with his handsome young chauffeur (a not uncommon arrangement as identified in reports of the time). Maurice is identified as the man erased in the SS photograph, his two shoes still quite visible in the picture. Elsewhere, pictures of Maurice reveal a dark-haired, rather Semitic looking young man. Could Maurice have been Hitler’s Jewish, SS lover?.....


7.  The Nazis Were Tolerant To Homosexuals 

Most histories of World War II (see especially Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich) report Hitler’s ties to the "notorious" homosexual, Ernst Rohm and other males within his coterie. The Pink Swastika notes, if anything, that sex laws under Hitler’s Reich Minister of the Interior Henrich Himmler were largely tolerant toward the "2 million" Germans Himmler said were registered in homosexual organizations in 1933, for "only repeat offenders can be incarcerated." "Repeat offenders" meant a fourth public sex offense, or someone who had already served six months in jail for repeated offenses. In 1940, Himmler reiterated that only "multiple offenders" (largely engaged in sex in a public forum) might be jailed. However, wrote Himmler, "artists and actors" might escape any penalty, despite how often they were found in compromising situations......


8.  "Fem" Homos vs "Butch" Homos

..... Historical records suggest Germany had perhaps 700,000 Jews versus 2-3 million "registered" homosexuals, according to Himmler. Whether there were 1 and a half million (Hirschfeld) or 2 to 3 million (Himmler), at most 10,000 German homosexuals were sent to work camps, 6,000 died and 4,000 were released. The 6,000 homosexual deaths are a minimum of Germans who would have been "fems," despised by the homosexual powered elite as well as collections of homosexuals who were also Jewish, Italian, Asian, Black, Communist, Marxist and the like. This still leaves estimates of 20,000 male prostitutes unaccounted for with the under 1% of homosexuals largely interned in "work camps," not.....the "death" camps for Jews and other outcasts. Lively and Abrams point to the nearly 100% extermination effort by the Nazis toward all captured Jews of all nationalities, gassed or interned in death camps. The especial concern of Hitler that all good Germans reproduce in order to create an Aryan nation must not be forgotten. Aryan Germans were expected to breed and it is well known that German breeding farms were established for that purpose. Non-German homosexuals appear to have been of no interest to the Nazis, for there is no record of any attempts to hunt, arrest or harm foreign homosexuals, for any reason.

The evidence strongly suggests these selected German homosexuals were killed for political reasons.....The authors raise some interesting questions, such as where is the record of retaliation for those who hid, hired, nursed and fed persecuted homosexuals? The author’s discussions of the "butch" versus "fems" battle raging between German homosexuals and the effect of this internal war on alleged "book burning" and the like, answer many critical questions.  

In the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Shirer said Hitler welcomed "Murderers, pimps, homosexual perverts, drug addicts or just plain rowdies." In fact, even Shirer sidestepped the brazenly homosexual nature of Nazi party pioneers--a critical body of knowledge for any society contending for a civil existence. The authors cite several million "Butch" type Rohm homosexual Nazis who worked as guards and directors of women’s and men’s death camps and work camps. Elie Weisel, the world famous Holocaust survivor, reported witnessing homosexual guards and administrators who "kept" and raped young Jewish boys at will, "there was a considerable traffic in children among homosexuals here, I learned later."


9.  The Numbers And The Facts

Lively and Abrams report that basic mathematics refute the idea that homosexuals were killed for being homosexual. For were homosexuals treated like Jews, 2-3 million out of 2-3 million German homosexuals should have lost their businesses, their jobs, their property, their possessions and most should have lost their lives. Homosexuals would have been forced to wear pink triangles on their clothing in the streets, they would have had their passports stamped with an "H," barred from travel, work, shopping, public appearances without their armbands, and we would have thousands of pictures of pink triangle graffiti saying "kill the faggots," and the like. If German homosexuals were not Nazis, these 2-3 million men would have been homeless, walled into ghettos, worked as a mass labor pool, then gassed and their abuse recorded in graphic detail, as were millions of Jews. And, if Germany’s several million "gays" were not Nazi victims, they were Nazi soldiers, collaborators or murderers......

The Storm Troopers and the Gestapo were schooled in what the authors call the "Hellenistic" Greek ideal of man-youth-pedagogy. Concerned about the man-boy aspect of homosexuality, The Pink Swastika connects-the-dots for readers from the homosexual power structure in Germany to the current social debate in the United States. The naked, copulatory San Francisco "gay rights" parades, the violent homosexual burning of buildings when Governor Pete Wilson originally refused gay minority rights, the bullying attacks on Cardinal O’Conner and former HHS Secretary Louis Sullivan and scores of others, note the authors, are a replay of the homoerotic Nazis..... 

The Pink Swastika is both an excellent course in Nazi history.....Historical research like this should be pouring out from our institutions of higher learning. That universities are captured by "politically correct" homosexual/feminism only proves how dangerous fraud in science has been and continues to be..... Lively and Abrams have done a yeoman’s job in bringing this controversial and important information to the public forum.....

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Originally published 27 June, 2017
Republished 5 June 2018

The Pink Swastika 1

1.  Lack Of Evidence That Gays Were Nazi Victims  
2.  The Nazis: A Male State Organized On Homosexual Basis
3.  The Super Macho Nazi Aryan (Gay) Male 
4.  Hitler And Homosexuals
5.  Nazi Party Founded In A Gay Bar


And you thought the Nazis hated gays...

A review of the book, "The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality In The Nazi Party" authored by Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams.  The book challenges the popular notion that the Nazis were homophobic.

Underlining, side headings, highlighting and bold print by FuelMix:

The greatest sacrilege to the millions of innocent infant and aged Nazi victims, would be to allow these dead to be exploited as political fodder to re-arm the same ideologues who ushered in Germany’s "final solution". The Pink Swastika challenges the historical meaning of The Pink Triangle and in doing so, brings light to one of the darkest pages of human history.


1.  Very Little Evidence That Gays Were Nazi Victims

Under the banner of The Pink Triangle (a Nazi symbol for incarcerated homosexuals), a mass media campaign by the major broadcasters and press, has been awarding Nazi victim status to homosexuals. Claiming to have been victimized by the Nazis just like the Jews, pink triangles are sweeping the land, embossed on fancy stationary, upscale check books, flags, posters, stickers, shirts, pins, and the like. After losing nearly all of my (Jewish) family in the gas chambers during World War II, I was deeply disconcerted when Holocaust museums world wide advertised new exhibits alleging the Nazi mass murder of homosexuals. One of the complaints of those curating these exhibits has been the dearth of evidence with which to document museum assertions of a Nazi aminus toward homosexuals. Now, here come the authors of The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party, Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams, to document why evidence of a fatal form of Nazi "homophobia" has been uniformly lacking.


2.  The Nazis:  A Male State Organized On A Homosexual Basis

Instead of evidence finding Nazism in conflict with homosexuality, Lively and Abrams report the strategies of the German homosexual movement to ensconce National Socialism (the Nazi party) and Adolf Hitler, triggering a holocaust which engulfed all of Europe. Writing of those days in The Mass Psychology of Fascism, radical German sexologist and Hitler contemporary, Wilhelm Reich, warned that Nazi leadership was both ideologically and actually homosexual. Almost as an aside, Reich noted Nazi leaders such as "Bluher, Roehm.... Rosenberg" represented Hitler’s fascism, which was, Reich said, "a male state organized on a homosexual basis."

But, the primary confirmation of The Pink Swastika and Reich, are the formal writings of Adolf Hitler himself, in the bible of the Nazi movement, Mein Kampf [My Struggle]. Here the reader meets up with page after page of Hitler’s outspoken hatred of Jews, Marxists, Negroes, Chinese, Arabs, women, and all Eastern Europeans.....


3.  The Super Macho Nazi Aryan (Gay) Male 

Hitler is documented as classifying who he and Germany should hate. He hid nothing. Jews and the like were subhuman, they were "parasites" "vampires," "liars" "cowards," "traitors," among other adjectives. But, search the Nazi manifesto for any animosity, contempt, much less hatred of homosexuals. To do so is to search in vain. In point of fact, as Reich knew personally, Hitler eulogized and venerated the archetypal super macho Aryan male,.....

Hitler outlined in Mein Kampf who would live and who would die: He stated who would be slave and who would be master. The Pink Swastika opens his fascist bible to the prototypical Nazi macho homosexual male best expressed today in the widely popular "Tom of Finland" fantasy drawings sold in all homosexual book stores, magazines, as well as in general advertisements for "gay" films and phone sex. Common are the blond, square jawed muscle men wearing Luftwaffe caps, skin tight black pants, high black polished boots, sporting a black leather strap going from the shoulder diagonally across a hairless, bare, Aryan chest, a whip swishing alongside the hero’s slim hips.

The authors recall the 1920s post WW1 Weimar Republic, the near starvation and wild currency fluctuations in Germany against the backdrop of the sex and drug "Cabaret" scene of Europe and Gay Berlin. They point to Berlin’s world famous coterie of Bohemian artists, sadosexual transvestites, lesbians and homosexual nightclubs and baths, as well as the rampant control of Berlin by pornographers, organized crime and drug dealers.....

The famous German Jewish homosexual sex "scientist," Magnus Hirshfeld, reported that roughly 20,000 boys and youths were prostituted to Germany’s flourishing "gay" population. (The British, qua-American homosexual icon, Christopher Isherwood blissfully said of Berlin’s 1920’s boy brothels, "Berlin is for boys...The German Boy....the Blond").


4.  Hitler And Homosexuals

In the midst of such pansexual revelry it could be argued that were Hitler a shy, retiring sort of bookworm, he might not notice the dominating homosexual sensibility and the erotic mix of sexes. However, Lively and Abrams conclude that as a young aspiring Viennese artist, Hitler would be especially familiar with the artistic homosexual fraternity for Vienna was the hub of Bohemian culture. Hitler claims to have been destitute, and in the midst of the Cabaret era, he was reduced to living in a men’s hostel for down-and outers. Both male and female prostitution were rife, the younger the better. Such a poor young artist would have met many "different" and adventurous people whose celebrity, like today, was gilded by an intimacy with homosexuality. The authors present a reasonable body of evidence to the jury of public opinion, including the possibility that Hitler earned extra cash as a youthful Viennese prostitute, serving a male clientele.


5.  Nazi Party Founded In A Gay Bar

In a fascinating read of 204 well documented pages, the authors of The Pink Swastika track down the facts behind the homosexual movement’s current claims for Nazi-victim status. Divided into seven parts, the story opens as the new Nazi party is founded in the smoky din of the Bratwurstglockl, "a tavern frequented by homosexual roughnecks and bully-boys....a gay bar," favored by Hitler’s closest comrade, Captain Ernst Rohm. Almost every biography of Hitler reports that Rohm was a flagrant homosexual and the only man Hitler called by the familiar "du."

Hitler’s beloved Storm Trooper Chief and founder of the Brown Shirts, the authors note, had a "taste for young boys." Almost as close to Hitler as Rohm was Rudolph Hess, known for his dress-up attire as "‘Black Bertha’" in the gay bars of pre-war Berlin" In fact, Mein Kampf was dedicated to Hess while Hitler was in prison. The Pink Swastika reports that Hitler was given power by a homosexual gang, a gang says Dr. Carroll Quigley, President bill Clinton’s college teacher and mentor, that subverted Germany’s free elections by underhanded and brutal strategies.

According to Quigley in Tragedy and Hope (1966) Hitler’s intimate friend, Captain Rohm and his trusted homosexual cadre of Storm Troopers staged the famed burning of the Reichstag, along with other bully-boy tactics, to frighten people into supporting the Nazi party and Hitler. For our purposes here it is useful to see what Quigley says about homosexual Nazi Storm Troopers:

Accordingly....a plot was worked out to burn the Reichstag building and blame the Communists. Most of the plotters were homosexuals and were able to persuade a degenerate moron from Holland named Van der Lubbe to go with them. After the building was set on fire, Van der Lubbe was left wandering about in it and was arrested.
This is especially interesting. The Pink Swastika addresses the many myths surrounding "The Night of the Long Knives" or the "blood purge" when supposedly only homosexuals such as Rohm were murdered by Hitler. Quigley offers another interesting insight, saying that "Most of the plotters were homosexual". He adds that many of those who knew the truth were murdered in March and April while "Most of the Nazis who were in on the plot were murdered by Goring during the "blood purge" of June 30, 1934" (emphasis added).

Also, as Lively and Abrams report, it was under Rohm and his Storm Troopers that the records and books of "the Sex Research Institute," were burned. The authors reveal that Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, the Jewish "feminine" homosexual director of the Institute, maintained detailed records of his many court-referred sex offenders, including important Nazi rapists, and homosexual child offenders, pederasts. Quigley confirmed that Rohm and other key Nazis who knew too much about Hitler’s criminal activities were killed for allegedly plotting against Hitler.

Lively and Abrams track the role of Rohm in recruiting and training a total of roughly 2.5 to 4.5 million Storm Troopers (SA) and Gestapo (SS) compared to about 100,000 men in the regular German army. Once the SA was disbanded after the June 1934 blood purge, most of these experienced SA homosexual leaders moved into other power positions in the German military.

COMING UP IN PART 2:
6.  Homosexuals All Around Hitler
7.  The Nazis Were Tolerant Of Homosexuals 
8.  "Fem" Homos vs "Butch" Homos
9.  The Numbers And The Facts

Originally published 27 June, 2017
Republished 5 June 2018

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Saturday, January 27, 2018

Grindr Fatigue

Underlining, highlighting and bold print by FuelMix:

It’s pointless to try and argue the validity of apps like Grindr and Scruff in today’s gay culture. Whether we like it or not, social media is on a fast track to being the primary way in which we communicate with one another. But there is a difference between using gay social apps to meet new people and spending hours upon hours fixated on the sexual gratification of dick picks and hook-up possibilities. Gay hook-up sites are nothing new, but the increasing popularity and constant accessibility of social media apps has led, in many ways, to the dehumanization of gay men. In other words, Grindr, Scruff and the rest of the lot are creating a bunch of gay sex robots who only know how to communicate with each other via pictures and sexual function.

Anyone who uses social media has been somewhat limited by the nature of engagement. But whereas Facebook at least requires somewhat of a sense of transparency and accountability, apps like Grindr allow the user to operate under the guise of anonymity. This, unfortunately, plays into a darker side of our psyche that takes an unfiltered and inhumane approach to human interaction where the user treats other users like players in a sexual video game.

While at a work meeting or getting a coffee, a person can practically annihilate a person’s self esteem. This, because vulgarity, rudeness and all-out prejudice thinly veiled under the pretense of “honesty,” has sadly become the status quo. A user often forgets that there is a person behind the torso picture. This casual daily phenomenon has led many people to be saddened by the state of gay culture and the humanity of the modern gay man.

The virtual sex lives of gay men have even caught the attention of female columnists like Samantha Allen, a tech and health writer for The Daily Beast. In a recent article titled, “‘No Blacks’ Is Not a Sexual Preference, It’s Racism,’” Allen calls out the state of sexual racism that she says is particularly heated within the gay community.

She writes, “If you’re a gay man, phrases like ‘no blacks’ and ‘no Asians’ aren’t just words that you’d find on old signs in a civil rights museum, they are an unavoidable and current feature of your online dating experience. On gay dating apps like Grindr and Scruff, some men post blunt and often offensive disclaimers on their profiles such as ‘no oldies,’ ‘no fems,’ and ‘no fatties.’”

Naturally, the crude and rudimentary nature of “Grindr speech” is the type of language that most people would not use in face-to-face communication. And for good reason, this form of speech has virtually crippled the self-esteem of many of these popular hook-up app’s users.

John Harrell is an HIV-positive man from Seattle who chooses to disclose his status on his profile. He has gotten a variety of negative responses over his status, but this is the one he remembers most.
“OMG…WTF!!! You’re PROUD to be an AIDS infected Pandemic spreading, Pariah of Society, and cheer when others are infected with AIDS so you’re not the only one Spreading the Filth?!!! OMG!!!! 

Steve Martinez.....is also no stranger to encountering aggressive and hateful language on gay hook-up apps because of his HIV status.

“I was chatting with an older man on daddy hunt,” said Martinez. “The chatting was getting sexual and before meeting him I disclosed my HIV status. He responded with ‘you're disgusting.’ I replied he was ignorant for his age. Then he started calling me a liar and a dirty slut. I reported him to Daddyhunt. They reviewed our conversation and deleted his profile. Shortly after, I deleted my account. I feel kinda insecure and a little afraid now to meet new guys.”

These are but a few ways in which users of these apps can experience harmful engagements from other users. The anonymity granted by these apps can and often do lead to behavior with which the average user would be mortified to be associated with. Yet, even the most astute public persona can be guilty of reducing themselves to their lowest form. By simply using a face picture as a person’s user profile image, the language and behavior a [of] user is usually markedly improved.

But the widespread adoption of social media “hook-up” communication hasn’t only negatively influenced the way we virtually communicate, it has also spilled into our real life relationships. Many users of apps like Grindr and Scruff have reported developing an outright obsession with the virtual hook-up hunt. This form of Grindr mania, whether it be short-lived or a constant presence, has the ability to hinder a person’s relationships, work life, and even their chances at meeting potential love or lust interests ‘IRL.’[In Real Life]

Luke Stephens from Connecticut remembers when he became consumed with the art of the Grindr chase.

“It was Christmas and my mom was visiting me,” said Stephens. “I would’ve given her more of my time, but I was obsessed with three guys on Grindr whom I hadn’t even yet met. It was about the fourth day when I had had just about as much as I could take – so I deleted the conversations and deleted Grindr. My mom left a day later and I felt such guilt for not strengthening the familial relationship that was more important to me than some Grindr guys who didn’t respect the human being on the other end of the digital wall."

Social media hook-up apps are not inherently good or bad; they are merely the newest form of human interface. And like with anything new, it can take some time to develop and perfect our best style of communication. This isn’t a macro problem, it comes down to a micro decision of an individual to treat others like humans instead of virtual sex bots and balance your own virtual communication with your three dimensional life. So, if you believe that you are a nice guy in person, make sure your virtual self isn’t a total douche.

-----"Grindr Fatigue and the Dehumanization of Gay Men", hivequal.org October 28, 2015

SEE ALSO (by FuelMix): 

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Friday, December 29, 2017

Gay Cruising And Public Toilets 11

12.  Cruising A Cultural Art..? Media Says "Yes"

Underlining, highlighting and bold print by FuelMix:


On a Saturday afternoon shortly before Christmas, I found myself in the dungeon-like basement of a sex club in Manhattan to see a site-specific performance called Adonis Memories. It was an immersive theater experience based upon oral histories with patrons of the Adonis movie theatre,  the once opulent movie house-turned-gay porn theater located off Times Square in the 70s and 80s. In its day the Adonis epitomized hedonistic group viewing of pornography, the kind of place where gay, queer and straight men could watch hardcore films together. Meanwhile, just offscreen, it was anything goes between the men in the audience, especially in the theater’s infamous balcony.

The performance, the brainchild of Alan Bounville, a theater artist and activist, makes the audience contend with the gay art of cruising: the practice of fleeting sex between men, usually anonymously and without exchanging names, often in semi-public indoor spaces (bathrooms, saunas) or outdoors (rest stops, forests). Audience members watched actors re-enact Adonis patrons cruising each other, and made them complicit by having them follow the action around the space, deciding what they watched and what they didn’t.

Cruising has been having something a moment in art over the past year or so, though it’s not as if it hasn’t been depicted in fiction and non-fiction for some time. The act has received heavy criticism for depicting gay life as deviant and inherently dangerous. The late George Michael was outed when he engaged in a "lewd act" in Beverly Hills in 1998, and Republican senator Larry Craig was lambasted in media in 2007 when he “tapped his right foot”, which an officer said was “recognized as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct".............
 
But the art of cruising is not simply about shame and self-hatred; it can also be a space of exploration and connection, as queer literature and art have reflected more recently. It’s at the heart of Garth Greenwell’s much-lauded novel from earlier this year, What Belongs To You, in which an unnamed American narrator becomes obsessed with a sex worker named Mitko he meets in a bathroom in Bulgaria. Everything about their relationship is in the context of sex, and as Mitko and the narrator get to know one another, Greenwell presents gay male life through the prism of their complicated sex lives, moments of intimate partner violence, and the risk of sexuality transmitted disease. 

That a book about cruising has been so welcomed by mainstream readers and critics, and featured on best of lists is pretty stunning. As Greenwell discussed in January, it’s been considered impolite to discuss not just in front of straight people, but also within gay circles until now.

Still, Greenwell contends that cruising “spaces can be spaces of exploration and empathy”, ripe for artistic and emotional study. And yet, due to its inherent corporeal hedonism that Greenwell and Bounville..... have recently depicted, it’s largely been left untouched as a site of study within mainstream art or literature. 

The reasons for this are many. One is that apps like Grindr and Scruff have made cruising possible on your smartphone. Another is that fear of HIV/AIDS made the kind of free sexual exchange depicted in the Adonis play extremely dangerous, leading municipalities to shutter many theaters, bathhouses and saunas where cruising flourished. But as Samuel Delaney describes in his beautiful 1999 book Time Square Red, Times Square Blue, cruising was also a victim of gentrification. It was victim to the pressure from real estate developers which led cities like New York to dispatch the NYPD to “clean up” and crack down on any form of sexual assembly, so that places like Times Square could be rebranded as family-friendly and “Disney-esque”.......... 

“I think the marriage equality battle was important and it’s important that we won it,” Greenwall said during an onstage interview in March. But he believes that “it came at a really great cost. And that cost was a marketing campaign that took queer lives and translated them into values that could be appreciated by people who are disgusted by queer people.” .....

“I think it forecloses much of the kind of radical potential in queer life. And that radical potential, I think, inheres in spaces like cruising bathrooms and parks, where the categories by which we organize our lives, like race and class, get scrambled by desire, which is a reason why our culture is so terrified by desire, because it scrambles those things,” he said. 

Cruising inhabits a kind of sexuality that is about seeking fleeting pleasure, allowing for bodily expression to function as free-from commitment in the same vein that same-sex marriage is tethered to commitment. The multimedia artist John Walter addressed the disappearing act by mounting the exhibit Alien Sex Club, “a large-scale installation based on the shapes of cruise mazes, found in sex clubs and gay saunas”, during 2015 Pride in London. Walter wanted to raise awareness about HIV and hosted testing onsite to decrease its stigma. He said: “I’m not actively facilitating sex,” in his exhibits, “I advertise my work on Grindr. If people want to have sex in the spaces I do my work, that’s fine. It highlights the fact that you can repurpose any space for sex.” 

Then, last fall, British artist Prem Sahib had two shows in London which explictly dealt with “cottaging”, though the work is so clean and precise, a viewer might not know the reference unless they knew about underground gay culture. As Vice observed, “the gay aspect of the work is thrilling and affirmative to anyone who’s found themselves cruising in loos, [toilets] losing themselves on a dance floor (preferably Berghain) or lounging listlessly in an odd sauna.” 

But one reason it is so surprising to see cruising being taken seriously in theater, gallery art and literature............. is that a fear of possible cruising has been a driving force in American cultural politics. As the writer and scientist Joseph Osmundson “This has been the year that cruising has reached the literary mainstream,” but also “the year that gay, queer, and especially trans bodies have been made criminal entities simply for existing in public bathrooms.” All over the US, the threat of cruising has created a wave of transphobia, just as cruising is getting an airing in art – .......

It is no surprise, then, that liberals and conservatives alike have been loth to discuss cruising, particularly as the most heralded (if tacitly secure) civil rights win for LGBT people – same-sex marriage – is only barely accepted on the condition of queer life being mythologically private and desexualized. Bathrooms have become such a source of sexual anxiety that, according to a large survey, a majority of transgender Americans avoid public restrooms altogether. 

Good art, though, should walk us right into the mess of locations of conflict. That’s why it is so rewarding when Bounville, Greenwell, Walter and Sahib take us into these shadowy spaces, where so many gay connections have happened (and still happen). Cruising sites are spaces of gay censure and celebration alike, tense with the possibilities of danger and connection at the same time. They straddle the boundaries of the public and private, the respectable and the reviled. Cruising spaces may never be wholly resolved – and thus they remain ripe for art. 

 -----"Out from the shadows: why cruising had a cultural moment in 2016", The Guardian, 29 December, 2016


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Saturday, December 16, 2017

Gay Cruising And Public Toilets 10

11.  Has Grindr Ruined Everything..?  PART 2
12. Cruising a Cultural Art..?  Media Says "Yes"


11.  Has Grindr Ruined Everything..?  PART 2

  Grindr vs Gay.com and Craigslist

Underlining, highlighting and bold print by FuelMix:

In the 1990s and in the midst of the intifada, Sam* was going to school in Jerusalem by day and meeting men from online chat rooms by night. In the holiest city in the world, finding eligible gay bachelors wasn't a cakewalk, but gay spaces provided a vibrant refuge. "There were Muslims, soldiers, people from all backgrounds in these chatrooms," he told me. "Because the clubs only had gay nights once a week, chatrooms were sometimes the only method for meeting gay people." 

For gay men, the birth of online chat rooms changed everything. Suddenly, an AOL screen name granted you access to a world that had hitherto been shrouded in mystery and misinformation. The gay-friendliness of your hometown didn't matter; all that mattered was that you had a stable dial-up connection and access to a keyboard. And in the burgeoning world of cybersex, you could have sex with strangers without revealing your face or lilting cadence. It's all old hat in the age of Grindr and Scruff—but back then, it was a revelation. 

Chroniclers of the early internet praised its power to provide young sexual minorities with support, sex, and even love. In a New York Times Magazine feature in 2000, Jennifer Egan wrote glowingly of the rowdy chat rooms that allowed gay teens to become mired in the same drama as their straight compatriots. "The remarkable thing is that via the Internet, gay teenagers are now able to partake of the normal Sturm und Drang of adolescent life, which before was largely off-limits to them," she wrote. 

But they didn't just change the lives of gay teens—these proto-Grindr sites impacted the lives of gay men of all ages. When compared to the mindlessness of chatting on Grindr today, these early online communities seem downright enriching.  

Of all the websites that Egan chronicled, Gay.com was arguably the largest and most vital. Comprised of hundreds of virtual rooms—there were 122 chat rooms on the "youth floor" alone in 2000—it was a bawdy, freewheeling site that attracted kinky daddies, lonely teens, and the serially monogamous who'd "accidentally" stumbled into a phone sex room.

In its heyday, Gay.com was so popular it attracted more than a million users a day. "We had a community of around 250 chat room monitors who were in there every day, just trying to keep the bashers out and ensure the chatrooms were safe for people," Mark Elderkin, the site's founder, told me.....

Sam looks back on the connections he made on Gay.com with a sense of wistfulness. Compared to Grindr, he says, his anonymous chatrooms interactions were much more intellectually stimulating. "Chatrooms were less about trading pics and more about being witty and having a back-and-forth banter with people," he says.  

The buffet of low-tech options in the late 90s and early aughts also granted the hookup-minded a level of anonymity we regard with suspicion today. "No pic / no chat" was yet to become a ubiquitous bio addition on Grindr; instead, the less-demanding "a/s/l" [age/stats/location] reigned. Pixelated avatars were acceptable digital identities, and chatrooms arguably served as an extension of the anonymous cruising culture that gay life had yet to abandon. 

Perry Miller, now in his late 40s, remembers when Craigslist was the premiere spot for finding hookups. Chaotic and convoluted, it nevertheless provided him with a steady stream of dick. "For me, it was a pain in the ass because I had to have a separate email address and copy and paste the sender's address, attach my photos, and send it from my email," he said. "It was just a mess."  

But he says he misses the freewheeling opportunities for fucking. "On Craigslist back then, you could find more group sex parties than you could ever find on Grindr or Scruff. There were guys who had these things every once in a while where everyone would get naked and fuck around with each other. On Grindr, [there is] all this back and forth for group sex, but on Craigslist, it was just there for the taking."........

While it's easy to wax nostalgic about the relative intimacy of the early gay web, it's also worth remembering that everything that happened online went on against a backdrop of intense homophobia. Many of those who fled to AOL chatrooms, Craigslist, or Gay.com's teen forums had to keep their online lives secret because of the stigma that swirled around homosexuality.....

Sure, the internet helped me grow up, but because I couldn't actually tell anyone what I was doing there, it also made me even lonelier. Late-night talk show hosts wouldn't have dreamed of doing sketches about  gay.com, and I sure as hell wasn't in any rush to tell people I was cybering with guys I met in the "daddy" forum. Things may have been more fun, but fun came at a steep price.

-----"Cruising Online Was Actually Fun Before Grindr Ruined Everything", by Steven Blum, May 26, 2017, Vice.com


FuelMix says:

1.  HHhhmmm.....we don't recall Gay.com with the same intellectual fondness as some other people claim.  There was no shortage of hate, bitterness, abuse and stalking as opposed to the alleged wit that the above article is alluding. Oh and did we mention the Racism.....errrr....."preferences"...?  Did chat rooms allegedly help "young sexual minorities...?" We don't know, we didn't go looking for nigga twinks.

2.  In the post, Old School, we wrote about chatrooms as crypts with a revolving door.  People were desperately spinning in an out to get to the top of the entry list just to be noticed.  Often, there were long, long, periods of silence.  We would take issue with the assertion that compared to Grindr, chat rooms were "downright enriching".  Both Grindr and chat rooms are brain-deadening. From our point of view they were - and still are - the most inefficient ways of getting a hook up.

3.  We can accept that in cities with no gay bars and gay saunas and tight suppressive laws and a forbidding culture (like Africa and the Middle East) then maybe Grindr and chat rooms are the only way.  That being said, the prospects for entrapment still exist.

4.  Here in Very Rich Megacity, Craigslist is a bad joke.  So bad that it occasionally provides blog fodder. We suspect that the vast majority of hookup ads are failures.

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Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Gay Cruising And Public Toilets 9

10.  Has Grindr Ruined Everything..? PART 1
11.  Has Grindr Ruined Everything..? PART 2
12.  Cruising A Cultural Art..?  Media Says "Yes"

10.  Has Grindr Ruined Everything..?  PART 1

Underlining, highlighting and bold print by FuelMix:

It’s pointless to try and argue the validity of apps like Grindr and Scruff in today’s gay culture. Whether we like it or not, social media is on a fast track to being the primary way in which we communicate with one another. But there is a difference between using gay social apps to meet new people and spending hours upon hours fixated on the sexual gratification of dick picks and hook-up possibilities. Gay hook-up sites are nothing new, but the increasing popularity and constant accessibility of social media apps has led, in many ways, to the dehumanization of gay men. In other words, Grindr, Scruff and the rest of the lot are creating a bunch of gay sex robots who only know how to communicate with each other via pictures and sexual function.

Anyone who uses social media has been somewhat limited by the nature of engagement. But whereas Facebook at least requires somewhat of a sense of transparency and accountability, apps like Grindr allow the user to operate under the guise of anonymity. This, unfortunately, plays into a darker side of our psyche that takes an unfiltered and inhumane approach to human interaction where the user treats other users like players in a sexual video game.

While at a work meeting or getting a coffee, a person can practically annihilate a person’s self esteem. This, because vulgarity, rudeness and all-out prejudice thinly veiled under the pretense of “honesty,” has sadly become the status quo. A user often forgets that there is a person behind the torso picture. This casual daily phenomenon has led many people to be saddened by the state of gay culture and the humanity of the modern gay man.

The virtual sex lives of gay men have even caught the attention of female columnists like Samantha Allen, a tech and health writer for The Daily Beast. In a recent article titled, “‘No Blacks’ Is Not a Sexual Preference, It’s Racism,’” Allen calls out the state of sexual racism that she says is particularly heated within the gay community.

She writes, “If you’re a gay man, phrases like ‘no blacks’ and ‘no Asians’ aren’t just words that you’d find on old signs in a civil rights museum, they are an unavoidable and current feature of your online dating experience. On gay dating apps like Grindr and Scruff, some men post blunt and often offensive disclaimers on their profiles such as ‘no oldies,’ ‘no fems,’ and ‘no fatties.’”

Naturally, the crude and rudimentary nature of “Grindr speech” is the type of language that most people would not use in face-to-face communication. And for good reason, this form of speech has virtually crippled the self-esteem of many of these popular hook-up app’s users.

John Harrell is an HIV-positive man from Seattle who chooses to disclose his status on his profile. He has gotten a variety of negative responses over his status, but this is the one he remembers most.
“OMG…WTF!!! You’re PROUD to be an AIDS infected Pandemic spreading, Pariah of Society, and cheer when others are infected with AIDS so you’re not the only one Spreading the Filth?!!! OMG!!!!

Steve Martinez.....is also no stranger to encountering aggressive and hateful language on gay hook-up apps because of his HIV status.

“I was chatting with an older man on daddy hunt,” said Martinez. “The chatting was getting sexual and before meeting him I disclosed my HIV status. He responded with ‘you're disgusting.’ I replied he was ignorant for his age. Then he started calling me a liar and a dirty slut. I reported him to Daddyhunt. They reviewed our conversation and deleted his profile. Shortly after, I deleted my account. I feel kinda insecure and a little afraid now to meet new guys.”

These are but a few ways in which users of these apps can experience harmful engagements from other users. The anonymity granted by these apps can and often do lead to behavior with which the average user would be mortified to be associated with. Yet, even the most astute public persona can be guilty of reducing themselves to their lowest form. By simply using a face picture as a person’s user profile image, the language and behavior a user is usually markedly improved.

But the widespread adoption of social media “hook-up” communication hasn’t only negatively influenced the way we virtually communicate, it has also spilled into our real life relationships. Many users of apps like Grindr and Scruff have reported developing an outright obsession with the virtual hook-up hunt. This form of Grindr mania, whether it be short-lived or a constant presence, has the ability to hinder a person’s relationships, work life, and even their chances at meeting potential love or lust interests ‘IRL.’

Luke Stephens from Connecticut remembers when he became consumed with the art of the Grindr chase.

“It was Christmas and my mom was visiting me,” said Stephens. “I would’ve given her more of my time, but I was obsessed with three guys on Grindr whom I hadn’t even yet met. It was about the fourth day when I had had just about as much as I could take – so I deleted the conversations and deleted Grindr. My mom left a day later and I felt such guilt for not strengthening the familial relationship that was more important to me than some Grindr guys who didn’t respect the human being on the other end of the digital wall."

Social media hook-up apps are not inherently good or bad; they are merely the newest form of human interface. And like with anything new, it can take some time to develop and perfect our best style of communication. This isn’t a macro problem, it comes down to a micro decision of an individual to treat others like humans instead of virtual sex bots and balance your own virtual communication with your three dimensional life. So, if you believe that you are a nice guy in person, make sure your virtual self isn’t a total douche.

-----"Grindr Fatigue and the Dehumanization of Gay Men", by Tyler Curry, October 28, 2015, hivequal.org


FuelMix says:

1.  See the comparison between app cruising and street cruising in the post, Old School.

COMING UP IN PART 10:
11.  Has Grindr Ruined Everything..? PART 2

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