BijouBlog

But gays serving in the military isn't exactly a newfangled development. In ancient Greece and Rome, soldiers who were also sexual partners served together, died together in battle, and in this case, were martyred for being Christian, not because they were gay. Shocking, and, as you will see, rather hypocritical, isn't it, given the polarization on the gay marriage issue still prevalent in some areas of the the United States, with the Catholic Church vowing never to change its position against any form of gay/lesbian union. 

The saints' story is told in the text known as The Passion of Sergius and Bacchus. The story is ostensibly set during the reign of the emperor Galerius (305-311 A.C.E.), though the work itself may date to the mid-5th century. According to the text, Sergius and Bacchus were Roman citizens and high-ranking officers of the Roman Army, but their conversion to Christianity was discovered when they attempted to avoid accompanying a Roman official into a pagan temple.

After they refused to offer sacrifice to the god Jupiter in front of the emperor, they were publicly humiliated by being dressed in female clothing and paraded around town. Galerius then sent them to another province in the East, Mesopotomia, to be tried by Antiochus, the military commander there and an old friend of Sergius. Antiochus could not convince them to give up their faith, however Bacchus was beaten to death with whips. The next day Bacchus' spirit appeared to Sergius, encouraging him to remain strong so they could be together forever in heaven. With Jesus, definitely, but together!   

Over the next few days, Sergius was also brutally tortured. Sergius refused another opportunity to offer sacrifice to the gods, and Antiochus punished him by having nails driven upright through the soles of his boots. He then forced him to run before his carriage for the nine-mile journey to the fort of Tetrapyrgium. That night, an angel healed Sergius' feet. The next morning, Antiochus was astounded at Sergius' rapid recovery and accused him of sorcery. He forced him to endure the same punishment once more, this time during the nine-mile journey to the town of Resapha. He then gave him a final chance to change his mind. But Sergius refused to do so, and Antiochus ordered him to be led away and executed. 

The close friendship between the two is strongly emphasized in the stories told about them and in their cult, making them one of the most famous examples of paired or “twin” saints, like Christian versions of the famous twins Castor and Pollux in Greek mythology. The late gay historian John Boswell argues that Sergius and Bacchus's relationship contained a romantic element; he claims the oldest text of their martyrology describes them as erastai, which can be translated as "lovers". He also suggested that the two were united in a rite known as “brother-making,” oradelphopoiesis, which he argued was a type of early Christian blessing or ceremony for same-sex unions. 
 

Now, even though Boswell's claim is still open to dispute, I would think, given that the two lived together and shared property together, were not married to women (as far as we know), and, in the course of their martyrdom, were made to dress as women in a unique way to humiliate them, these two men's true orientation is indicated. But, most significantly, they weren't being punished for being gay. If that were the case, their genitals would have been mutilated, according to one source by David Woods, “The Origin of the Cult of SS. Sergius and Bacchus.” They were being punished in that manner for being Christians! 

The picture to the right is a 1994 icon of Sergius and Bacchus by the gay iconographer Robert Lentz, a member of the Catholic Franciscan order, first displayed at Chicago's Gay Pride Parade. 

To read John Boswell's views on this subject, see his book, Same-Sex Unions in Pre Modern Europe. 

(And unlike Jewish baby boys, I wasn't the focus of a big bris party with tons of deli. Not that I would have remembered anyway. Oh well...) 
 

Why even circumcise? There's a clear directive in Genesis 17; all male descendants of Abraham on the eight day after birth, require foreskin removal. Thus both Jews and Muslims follow the practice, Muslims because they regard themselves as descendants of Abraham through his first son, Ishmael. 

But though this text, from a source in the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) called the “P” or “Priestly” source that concerns itself primarily with rituals and explanations for their origins and practices, seems to imply that the practice began with the ancient Israelites, it actually did not. 

Many of the nations who bordered on Israel practiced it, including the Egyptians, the Moabites, and the Ammonites. The Philistines did not practice it (Judges 14:3 and I Samuel 17:26). Thus, one of the most famous Philistines, the nine-foot tall Goliath, most probably sported a huge uncut cock. 

The Egyptians waited until puberty to perform the ritual; in that culture and in many other cultures, it was a rite of passage for young men. In Genesis 34, after the rape of their sister Dinah by a Canaanite prince, Jacob's sons insist he be circumcised before he can marry her. (Yes, this story is in the Bible. It's quite shocking on many levels. Check it out.) 

Based on the Bible, it's not clear if the Israelites originally performed the ritual at puberty; the “P” sources that claim it should be done on infants are rather late. 
 

Some Jewish athletes around the time of the Maccabees (2nd century B.C.E.), actually underwent an incredibly painful procedure to surgically create a foreskin in order to participate in Greek competitions, which meant they would no longer be Jewish. 

St. Paul in Romans 4:1-12, writing a few decades after the life and death of Jesus (a Jew, and thus he was circumcised; see Luke 2:21), claims that Christians don't need to be circumcised like Jews, as their salvation is not contingent on being physically born of a certain people. 

By the way, someone supposedly saved Jesus' foreskin. It is called the Holy Prepuce. (Ew … ) 
 

Since the 1970s, doctors in the United States have come to realize that removing the foreskin on baby boys is unnecessary, potentially harmful, and possibly unethical, unless some medical emergency or specific condition requires it. 

Check out our titles that feature famous cut and uncut cocks. Cut or uncut, the cock is still a cock. 
 

 

If you ever took Psychology 101, you may have learned about the“bystander effect,” a psychosocial dynamic that often occurs when multiple witnesses view a traumatic (but not always) event happening to an individual. 

Essentially, because of social inhibitions, The more witnesses to an event, the less people are willing to become involved. 
 

Why the inhibition? There's many factors that feed into it, but think if it this way as a diffusion of responsibility: how many times you were in situations where you assume others are either more able or just automatically will take care of a problem? Oh, I thought so and so should do it, because it is his job. Or, I just assumed someone else called the police. 

Now, much of the effect does depend on the context, especially if the environment is different or the the group isn't cohesive, but it's not just apathy, as many still believe, based on the supposed reaction of supposed to witnesses to the now infamous Kitty Genovese murder. 
 

The usual story, based on the New York Times story we have heard is that 37 or 38 people saw Kitty Genovese's brutal stabbing outside her apartment building on March 13, 1964, and did nothing, that is, no one called the police. The apathy of the world. The urban jungle. Being lonely in a crowd. People don't know their neighbors anymore in the big city. It all fits, all those social changes are destroying our sense of community. 
 

But I found out that what's really going on here is akin, but not completely, because something happened and there were witnesses, to those urban legends. In fact, my current “brain candy” television viewing (which, it turns out, in this case, ended up far from being that sweet), Investigation Discovery, basing their show on more recent research, pretty much establishes that the usual narrative we have grown up with is not an accurate depiction of what actually happened. 

Here's the rub: no one witnesses the actual stabbing. People heard screams but saw nothing. They saw nothing. Does hearing a scream make you a witness? 

One neighbor saw something and shouted out the window for Kitty's murderer, Winston Moseley, to leave her alone. He could not tell she was stabbed in the darkness. Moseley fled. The neighbor did see her stagger to the door of her apartment building across the street, but he assumed she was probably drunk and/or the victim of a domestic spat. 

It turns out another woman picked up the phone to call the police. She panicked and put the phone down. In those days, there was no 911 emergency service. You dialed the precinct directly. And in some cases, the person answering the phone might tell you to, basing his judgment (based on extensive experience) solely on your speech, to not get involved. Or, perhaps, the person at the precinct might even be led to believe that you were directly involved in the incident. Thus, calling the police during that period actually could be a risky venture. And also, because police departments had not developed the technologies of surveillance and tracking we now take for granted, you could expect to be questioned extensively and even be deemed a suspect just because you made a call. 

Someone else called the police: a female friend of Kitty's neighbor, Karl Ross. Kitty collapsed in the hallway of her apartment building and screamed Karl's name, crying out she had been stabbed. At first Karl did nothing. Winston by then had caught up with her in the hallway and finished killing his prey, inside. (There was no third attack, as the newspaper article claims). Karl by that point had opened the door and saw the attack, but shut the door in horror and fear. Moseley ran off, but soon after, Kitty's neighbor, and, it turns out, good friend, Sophie, had heard the commotion and ran toward the scene, yes, toward a murder (not exactly apathy). Sophie screamed for Karl to call the police. Karl was not there. He had fled the building via a window to his friend's house. 

But why did Karl do nothing, even after he saw the horror? 

Here's the rub, and it could show that the real issue is not apathy, but fear, and not a fear of “getting involved.” Karl Ross was gay. That night, he had also been drinking, alone. In 1964, gays were routinely harassed by the police, even in their own social spaces, which at that point were limited pretty much to gay bars. His fear about calling the police lost precious minutes. 

And Kitty Genovese was a closeted lesbian (well, pretty much anyone gay or lesbian during that period has to be closeted). Her roommate, Mary Ann, was questioned for six hours by the police after the murder, at one point focusing on why there was only one bed in the apartment for two women. Again, anyone considered to be sexually deviant was a target for police harassment. A grief-stricken Mary Ann moved out of the neighborhood soon after, understandably so. 
 

Kitty herself, as far as we know at this point, was not persecuted for being a lesbian. In fact, she was popular with everyone. Her best friend, Sophie, a straight married woman, apparently knew Kitty was a lesbian, but respected Kitty's privacy in that matter. (Kitty also had dated men, not just because it was the norm, but because she worked as a bar manager, and dating men would be pretty much a required “social” dynamic of the job.) 

There's another issue going on here, and I think it could tie into sexism. One of the neighbors assumed the screams were the result of a domestic dispute, and they thus thought it best to not get involved. According to psychologist Frances Cherry, people during that time period were unlikely to intervene if they assumed a man was attacking his wife and girlfriend. 

And there's something else going on here. The values (or lack thereof) that the article was trying to read into the incident, that is, we live an urban jungle where neighbors don't know each other and everyone is a potential enemy, and this distrust and isolation results in apathy, don't really seem to apply on a literal level in this situation. Kitty knew many of her neighbors. She knew Karl, at least enough to call him by name while she was being murdered. And she died in the arms of her best friend, also a neighbor. In this day and age, how many people can even claim they know even the name of a neighbor? 

What's really a shame is that she had to keep the most basic part of her identity a secret. But that didn't prevent her from loving and being loved by her neighbors. And this loving person was brutally murdered by a psychopathic killer who to this day shows no remorse for his action. 
 

 

Kitty should be remembered for her love, not as a victim of apathy. You could say, though, if she's a victim of anything, it's of the sexism and homophobia of the culture at that time. But I don't think Kitty ever saw herself as a victim of anything while she lived, because she loved her neighbor as herself.

 

In 1984, the wingnuts under the auspices of the Reagan administration were consolidating their positions and essentially loaded well their guns in fighting what would become the culture wars of today. 

August seems to have been a rather active month on their part, according to The Gay Decades by Leigh W. Rutledge: 

“August 13 – Jimmy Swaggart, Phyllis Schlafly, James Robinson and Jerry Falwell all testify before the Republican Party platform committee in Dallas, pressing for (and getting) a strongly pro-family, antigay, antiabortion platform. “There were no moderate religious folks who testified,” notes one delegate. 
 

August 19 – On the eve of the Republican National Convention in Dallas, President Reagan issues a statement reaffirming his support for “traditional” family values, and adds that his administration “will resist the efforts of some to obtain government endorsement of homosexuality.” 

August 22 – Jerry Falwell delivers the benediction at the Republican National Convention."

It's obvious that LGBT Americans have made great strides since this era, but note that the leaders of what became known as the Religious Right actually began to consolidate their power base in the Republican Party in the late 1960s. That was a time of both frightening violence and exhilarating freedom, but also a time when many, on both extremes of the political spectrum, were dissatisfied with the way the country was governed.

I am wondering if we are also experiencing a similar threshold time. Can those who would scapegoat LGBT persons for not conforming to their system of social and cultural order regroup somehow? Those justices who interpret the laws of this country give hope that this dynamic will not come to pass. I'm not so hopeful about those elected officials who make the laws, or rather, in this day and age, try to prevent just laws from being passed and executed. 
 

What I am hopeful about is the changing attitude of millenials, even those who identify as Evangelical Christians, toward LGBT issues, especially marriage equality. They've got the technological means to bring about change; I hope that apathy, narcissism, and economic problems won't deter them from making a difference in a future which will belong to them. 
 

 

In 1907, Mcfadden was arrested again for publishing a story in Physical Culture Magazine which was judged to be "obscene material." This time, Mcfadden was convicted. He attempted to have the case heard before the Supreme Court, but was denied on the grounds that the case did not involve constitutional questions. He campaigned nationally to have his conviction overturned, and finally in 1909, received a presidential pardon from President Taft. 

Mcfadden's philosophy was essentially a combination of the naturalistic and self-reliance New Thought (much of it watered down Ralph Waldo Emerson) philosophies: any type of physical weakness took on practically criminal proportions, but one could, though much self-reliance and both physical and mental discipline, overcome such weakness (like he did; he was considered a weak and sickly child and not expected to live long) and improve not only the body (including the sexual organs), but the mind as well.

The mind exerts a tremendous influence over the body. According to Macfadden, one can improve through structured exercise and nutrition programs.

In 1906, he wrote and published a book titled Muscular Power and Beauty, in which explains how to use tension and resistance exercises to develop muscles. A couple decades later the iconic muscleman Charles Atlas would successfully market a course based on these exercises. 
 

One of his more revolutionary ideas was his emphasis on women being physically healthy. Mcfadden encouraged women to exercise and even show more of their bodies than was considered respectable; he campaigned against corsets and high-heeled shoes (which items later became prominent in the fetish-oriented sexuality as early as the 1920s; see description of Bizarre Magazine to appear later on this blog).

Mcfadden was a proponent of "natural movement" in both sexes, which hardly meant sexual indulgence, but rather a disciplining the body so it functioned at full capacity, not only so it could compete in, but also enjoy the benefits of, living. Living of course includes sex, which was natural and wholesome; prudery only encouraged unhealthy shame and guilt. 
 

 

This publication lasted until 1941, after several lawsuits against Mcfadden Publishing Company (he used company assets to finance his own ventures). Macfadden relinquished his interests in the corporation.

After retiring, Macfadden bought the rights to publish the magazine, but he was unsuccessful. The magazine died with him in 1955.