BijouBlog

This scenario is unfortunately all-too familiar: a gay man dies, and his partner ends up having to fight the “blood family” for property, a dwelling place, even a burial space. Unless a gay couple takes extraordinary, expensive legal measures, which in some cases means even adopting each other (see this link for a famous case), they are not legally protected, which protections and benefits would happen automatically if they were a heterosexual couple.
 

I know one person the above scenario happened to. He had to leave his dwelling of twenty-five years. His partner's homophobic family banned him from the funeral, and stole the burial plot. Why? He was not legally protected.

In another case, another friend of mine was much more fortunate. They lived in Florida, a state notorious for its homophobia (hello, Anita Bryant). Luckily, the partner's sister and brotherin-law were on good terms with him and followed his instructions about the sale of the house and other matters of the estate. Regardless of the financial situation, they respected the relationship. Their respect showed they saw my friend as a person, not an enemy “other” or an impersonal commodity.

The Edie Windsor case publicized and created much-needed discourse at the highest level the fundamental injustice of our defining only by gender civil marriage (yes, civil, not religious/sacramental). Edie would have had to pay an astronomical amount of inheritance tax on her wife's estate (yes, wife) because, as above, they were not a heterosexual couple. In response to this case, the Supreme Court struck down DOMA.

In other words, the civil society essentially treats those who do not fit heteronormative social structures as second-class citizens in a country which purports (and has failed and still fails to do) to operate under a claim that all people are created equal.

What I've said so far is not new, but I think it is really about not just the issue of same-sex couples being able to enjoy the economic, social, and psychological benefits of civil marriage, but about human dignity.

Human dignity transcends the physical ties of blood and the laws people make to be able to live together (which often results in people using each other as commodities, rather than persons). We experience human dignity by showing empathy and compassion for a person outside yourself, which means being able to find a piece, however difficult that may be, of that person in you, a process of growing, really becoming. To use the language of the famous Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, we need to enter into an I-Thou relationship, rather than an I-It one.
 

The facts (courtesy of Back2Stonewall.com):

David Ashfield was one of the biggest names of 1980s porn, making dozens of movies and appearing in plenty more as a stunt dick.

He was slim, born in 1960, had a huge and thick cut penis and topped (although he started off as a bottom in early Falcon loops). 
 

David starred in movies like Below the Belt, and was famous for big ejaculations.

David speaks for himself; passages from an interview in the October 1987 issue of Hot Shots:

“Fantasies started to come along when I was about 12 years old … I grew up in the desert in Arizona. So of course, I had dreams and fantasies of long blonde-haired country boys; and grass and trees; playing in the woods; you always dream of what you don't have.”

“Do you find it more exhilarating with a live audience?"
"No, because it's a totally different trip. When we're doing the movies we're in a corner, just us and the cameraman; it's still pretty much private, even though there are people there. Everyone knows exactly what's going on, and are all part of the deal. Whereas when I'm on stage I'm a spectacle. I try to be a trouper and do a good job of it, bring out the Scorpio side of my image, but, a lot of times I still get the willies.”

“For the record, what is the main feature about your cock that makes you stand out in a crowd?"
"A lot of guys have a dick as long as mine, but most people don't have one as fat as mine. It's 6-1/2 inches around. And in the movies I can really fuck.

"Do you find a lot of guys can't take you?"
"Some can, some can't. About an even number, I guess.”
 

The crowd historian Elias Canetti claims in Crowds and Power that invisible crowds have always existed.

The most numerous, according to him, are those microscopic entities like bacteria and sperm.

Crowds of them that can't be counted, there are so many.

Think numbers stretching into infinity...

There are some average numbers, though, based on some serious scientific observation.

Hate to disappoint you, guys, but human males don't even close to the top ten in the average number of sperm per ejaculation in mammals.

According to The Book of Lists 2, here are the top ten:

Swine: 45,000,000,000
Jackass: 14,000,000,000
Horse: 8,000,000,000
Dairy Cattle: 7,000,000,000
Zebu (humped ox): 5,098,200,000

Beef Cattle: 4,000,000,000
Eurasian Buffalo: 3,978,000,000
Sheep: 3,000,000,000
Goat: 1,755,000,000
Dog: 1,500,000,000
 

 The above numbers are in the billions! What I find interesting that humans often call each other swine and jackass to insult each other.

(Except those in certain parts of the gay community who are proud of being and behaving as   various types of sex “pigs.”)

Perhaps these numbers would make you think twice, if quantity is your guide to value judgments, about using those terms as insults. In fact, I'm surprised pigs and asses haven't taken over the world, based on their sperm counts.

(By the way, the median sperm count for human males is about 255,000,000 per ejaculation, according to Wikipedia's article on semen analysis. Again, sorry, guys.)

And guys, try to think quality, not quantity.
 

It's pretty much a given, that, as humans, we often laugh at what others think is taboo, or in fact, anything that really makes us uncomfortable.

(My students, though technically adults, still laugh at the word toilet.)

The greatest comedians have known that a joke about sex usually gets a laugh, and the best ones don't always have to necessarily be that graphic.

Here are a few zingers from The Big Book of Famous Sex “Quotes.”
 

A terrible thing happened to me last night – nothing. – Phyllis Diller

Home is heaven and orgies are vile
But you need an orgy once in a while. – Ogden Nash

The perfect lover is one who turns into a pizza at 4 a.m. – Charles Pierce

I know so much about men because I went to night school. – Mae West

Sex is more exciting on the screen and between the pages than between the sheets. – Andy Warhol

Pornography is in the groin of the beholder. – Anonymous

Oral sex: the taste of things to come. – Anonymous

Gordon Grant! He's the total rock solid muscle hunk with a 9 inch uncut cock who's featured in several magazines and brochures we carry and on the covers of our titles Pleasures in the Sun and Hot Truckin'. In Hot Truckin', tough-looking Gordon, called Buck, is a handsome deliverman who sucks and fucks blue-collar types while on the job - first a carpenter, then a painter - both young, handsome, and horny. He and his co-worker (Nick Rodgers) end up picking up a hitchhiker … in more ways than one.
 

Born in Alaska of Dutch and Nez Perce Indigenous heritage, he appeared in such films many of the FalconPacs, like The Lifeguard, Working Late, and The Crotchwatcher in the 1970s and 1980s.
 

He also appeared in Dirty Words, billed as Falcon's first feature film (as opposed to loops). He also went by the name of Don Bowman.

According to a vintage Colt magazine, he worked for two years as a construction worker on the Trans-Alaska pipeline. Ripe fantasy material …

Gordon also did some stunning Colt photo spreads, often modeling two figures in the Village People gamut: cowboy and construction worker. Wow! Such big arms!
 

 

He pretty much epitomizes the original Colt man, a direct descendant of all those muscle beefcake types that appeared in magazines like Physique Pictorial and Tomorrow's Man.

Gordon has passed on, but information is obscure. A couple of sources claim he died in the early 1990s from AIDS related causes, the fate of so many porn stars of that generation, but I could find nothing specific.

Still, he pretty much has entered the Mount Olympus of gay porn icons.