Rainbow flag flying proud at Pride

Gay Pride, Mardi Gras, whatever name we give this major annual event in the gay calendar, is an affirmation of our lives, our rights, achievements, hopes, and possibilities.

These events are meant to be inclusive  (our aim to play a full part in mainstream society), and exclusive in the sense of demonstrating our particular gifts,  qualities,  and means of self-empowerment.  What, then, are we to make of gay critics who see Pride merely as a  big, brash, vulgar display detrimental to our best interests, a social irrelevance,  an excuse to party and little more? Read the rest of this entry »

Biggles delivers the goods

Biggles took to the skies long before James Bond came to life in the imagination of Ian Fleming.  A great British hero, invented by prolific writer Captain W. E. Johns, was fighting our country’s enemies.  Through over a hundred books ( many now sought-after by collectors),  Biggles along with his cousin Algernon (Algy) Lacey and the young Ginger Hebblethwaite were adventurers in a white European male-dominated world - far removed from gay cultural developments to come.

While Johns, a First World War pilot (who reached the rank of Lieutenant), went on to pursue a settled heterosexual lifestyle, closer reading of his stories may surprise us in their suggestion of a hero very much in tune with the modern  gay movement, even down to some dubious titles:  Biggles Gets His Men (1950 ),  Biggles Takes It Rough (1961 ),  Biggles Takes A Hand (1962 ), and  Biggles Sees Too Much (1968 ).

No one could doubt James Bond’s liking for women (reflecting Fleming’s own sexual fantasies), laid on with a trowel in character names like Pussy Galore.  By complete contrast,  in one book Biggles comments that he much prefers smoking to contact with the opposite sex!

Fast forwarding to the  2005 tv episode of Dr Who which introduced Captain Jack, an RAF volunteer, and we find a character who is a conscious tribute to Biggles, even to the point of having a friend called Algy.  Gay actor John Barrowman has since  made the role of Captain Jack ( in Dr Who and the Torchwood series) very much his own. Read the rest of this entry »

Gay spanking is very erotic

It’s time we looked at gay spanking as a  popular safe-sex activity, a sexual therapy, and as a particular turn-on. For some, spanking and corporal punishment in general is seen as an unfortunate fetish linked to childhood or schooldays, and while such associations may well play their part, on the whole the gay experience may transform  these into a positive force for good.

When viewed as a sexual component of  straight as well as gay behaviour, the attraction of spanking requires deeper evaluation. Desmond Morris, famous for books like The Naked Ape and tv series about manwatching and body language, studied zoology before trying to relate animal behaviour to human character traits in the newer field of ethology. Morris links the enjoyment of spanking to its rhythmic similarity to human intercouse, to a like pounding of the flesh. Read the rest of this entry »