BijouBlog

Oh, one of my brain candy shows has started another season on TLC aka “Sideshow America.”

There seems to be the usual people eating strange supposedly inedible objects (many of these people suffer from a disease called pica), but one guy, who lives not far from Chicago, shared an addiction which for many in the BDSM community is not that highly unusual a fetish.

Kevin from suburban Lombard, Illinois is a straight guy (who from what I saw would be very popular in the gay bear community) who is addicted to casts. Yes, casts, what gets put on a limb if you break a bone.
 

Now, from what I saw, it's not like he is always putting on a plaster cast (remember how exciting it was when you are a kid, at least I remember, that you got to sign someone's cast or get yours signed); some that he wears seem to be made of some cloth-like material.

And it's not clear, I gather, from the show, if he is getting off sexually from putting himself into this form of restrictive bondage. Perhaps he is, but it's not something he seems to be able to integrate into his intimate relationships.

He is straight and has had girlfriends, and the one on the show who basically told him shrilly to choose between her and all the casts broke up with him soon afterward, but I wasn't getting the sense that the sex involved doing something with the casts.

He seemed to be more of an exhibitionist, perhaps, and the episode showed an obviously staged, scripted incident involving Kevin and his too-too embarrassed sidekick (who always gets roped into putting his buddy into his more elaborate casts, hello, Ethel) parading down Michigan Avenue. Kevin was in some kind of cast that basically covered his torso and pinned his arms to his sides. It's the type of cast someone would wear if he or she, for example, got hit by a truck.

Now, the usual end of this show is some meeting with a medical professional, in this case, a psychologist. The doctor proclaims, sadly, that Kevin will always be alone. His addiction (I guess fetish, but as I said above, I just can't tell how sexual it is for him), according to the doctor, isn't something he can or even will manage to overcome, much less integrate into the rest of his life.

I've seen plenty of guys get into all types of restrictive bondage (I've even seen a plaster cast scene at one event), but the elaborate bondage was part of a large dominance/submission dynamic. Plus it was clear the guys got off on the activity (not that I could see evidence if the cock was covered by plaster!). Plus they were playing with like-minded people in a sexual setting. In Kevin's case, how he approaches his addiction to casts doesn't really fit into this play party context.

Now I've seen (and known) plenty of guys with sexual fetishes become so addicted to the fetish that they lose sight of actually relating to a person. I think specifically of guys who post multiple times a week on craigslist. (I am thinking in Chicago of Mr. I want to lick the mud off the boots of a UPS driver or Mr. karate kick me in the balls.) I guess they are reaching out and don't want to jack off alone, but the person they play with is a means, not an end.

I do sincerely hope that Kevin will find a castmate (pun intended) because of the show's publicity.

Check out our website for some of classic BDSM videos, and don't forget to check out all our fetish books and magazines too.

Now, at one point in the movie, Reverend Mother guilt-trips the girls into entertaining one day during the holiday season the residents of what appears to be a women-only old folks home with “refreshments, songs, and readings.” Hayley aka Mary Clancy and her partner in mayhem Rachel are actually cooperating for a change. 

Then Mary sees Mother Superior comforting an elderly woman who is weeping. Her family will not be able to come to see her for Christmas. The woman feels slighted, perhaps because she gave them everything when they were young (nothing was too much), why can't they come see her? I have gifts for them she laments. But it's not just that she is laying on selfish guilt. She feels unwanted, useless. Why? Because she can't give to them. 
 

The Mother Superior perhaps senses this feeling. But she challenges the woman to give her family one more gift. “Be happy!” she gently commands. “Put on a pretty face and come down to the party!” 

Now, I think there's more going on here then that old trope of the clown smiling through the tears like Pagliacci, which could be tied into that stereotype of the closeted gay man “covering” because of individual and social rejection. The flamboyance and the wit and the camp supposedly conceal a deep hurt and self-hate. 
 

For the holy haters, being gay means not being happy or even capable of happiness. That a gay person is somehow broken or incomplete. Some like the British romance novelist Norah Lofts in her book Queens of England have even claimed that the word gay, which can still mean happy, “has been debased” (how ironic, given the title of her book). 

Now that gays are out and proud and can “come down to the party” without hiding, both stereotypes are offensive and insulting. But when you hear Mary Clancy's angry response (she, like many others, misses the point) to the scene, “I hope I die wealthy!” I wonder if there's something here that a gay person (or any person) can connect to. 

Giving is not just giving gifts or money or affection or prayers as objects. Giving is giving the self as a subject, without expecting an object in return. The total person, gay or straight or transgender or bi-curious ad infinitum is a gift, and by simply gifting himself to others (coming down to the party), he loses his feeling of being unwanted; his sense of self is no longer determined by what he quantitatively does for others or by what others do to him. Voila! Happiness. 

So be happy and be gay! Live, live, live! Life's a banquet, and too many poor suckers are starving to death! (Well, Auntie Mame was wealthy, but that's beside the point here!) 
 

 

 

The world has recently lost two immensely talented figures, one so tragically by suicide, one dying at a ripe old age. 

Both were able to reach deep into the heart of the human condition, using wit and humor with compassion and grace. 

In her own words, Lauren Bacall: 
 

“Find me a man who's interesting enough to have dinner with and I'll be happy.” 

“I am not a has-been. I am a will be.” 

“Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.”  

“I think your whole life shows in your face and you should be proud of that.”

“You realize yourself when you start reflecting–because I don’t live in the past, although your past is so much a part of what you are–that you can’t ignore it. But I don’t look at scrapbooks.” 

“You can’t always be a leading lady.” 

“I'd like to meet the man who decided that people do or don't look Jewish. What the hell does that mean anyway? Is it the American penchant for pinning things down, categorizing, for pigeonholing people? Whatever it is, it's wrong.” 

"My children give me a great sense of wonder. Just to see them develop into these extraordinary human beings. And a favorite book as a child? Growing up, it was 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe' — I would read the whole C.S. Lewis series out loud to my kids. I was once reading to Zelda, and she said 'don't do any voices. Just read it as yourself.' So I did, I just read it straight, and she said 'that's better.'" 

"You're only given one little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it." 

"Do you think God gets stoned? I think so ... look at the platypus." 

"When in doubt, go for the dick joke." 

On his mentor, Jonathan Winters: "Jonathan taught me that the world is open for play, that everything and everybody is mockable, in a wonderful way." 

"I love kids, but they are a tough audience." 

“You'll always have bad times, but it'll always wake you up to the good stuff you weren't paying attention to.” – Robin Williams as Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting 

“No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change this world. –Dead Poets Society 
 

May they rest in peace and continue to inspire us by making us laugh. 
 

 

 

 

Lately I've been something of a social media maven for Bijouworld and its ancillaries, Bijou Video and the Bijou Theater. In addition to our Facebook,Twitter, and Tumblr sites, we just started a couple of Pinterest sites, Bijou Vintage Gay History, and Bijou Vintage Gay Erotica. Because we do specialize in vintage (or retro) gay sexuality, I've noticed we seem to be, I guess the term is, “trending.” 

And it's not just the usual older folks sitting on the porch, “I remember when” … I am thinking of the whole Mad Men cult, and even some short-lived show on TLC that featured women trying to live exactly like they were living in the 1950s (kind of like a retro Real Housewives!). 
 

It's like anything retro exudes some kind of fascination that I think goes beyond nostalgia. I wonder if it's because so much of the retro items we've been posting and repinning were lovingly created. It's not like someone just took a picture with a digital camera. These items, ranging from a late nineteenth century tobacco box, or even a magazine cover from a 1940s muscle magazine, show a real attention to detail and design. Imagine trying to create these items without today's technology. 

Here's a couple of images we either posted or repinned: 
 

I'm not saying that art becomes less than great because it's easier to make, but in the social media world, where a post can become ephemeral in one second, our retro images and movies can evoke beauty with a capital B in addition to hot with a small h.

Oh, there is a difference! 
 

Check out our pinterest sites for more retro items.

July 20th was the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. I vaguely remember watching it on a black and white television set at my mother's urging, not realizing the import of what happened. 

Now, looking back in hindsight, I remember being fascinated with astronomy and science fiction UFOs and ancient aliens even at that early age, perhaps prefiguring my desire to escape the mundane world. I even told my parents, much to their horror, after watching the made-­for-­tv movie about the famous Betty and Barney Hill UFO abduction with Estelle Parsons and James Earl Jones that if a UFO descended, I would say, “Take me away!” 

And then I remember reading astronomy books from the 1950s which predicted by the year 2000 we would be living on Mars or Venus or in floating space colonies. (Hasn't happened ... and let's not get into flying cars on The Jetsons.) 

We've landed on the moon, one of the Voyagers is now outside the solar system, and there was an article about prediction by NASA that we will find alien life on planets with earth­like conditions in about twenty years. 

I've often wondered if such a discover may transform even further our views about sexuality. Now most sci fi sex (at least the type I remember) is pretty much pumped­up heterosexual sex in revealing costumes. Think Barbarella. Or Captain Kirk fucking every beautiful stacked cosmic computer priestess on the original Star Trek. 
 

And now that we are discovering that sexuality exists on a complex spectrum that doesn't conform to traditional or heteronormative gender binaries, perhaps we could hypothesize that life on other planets is just as diverse sexually. 
 

Could a planet's ecosystem have developed three sexes? Or perhaps like the sea horse, males carry children and give birth? Or, and this would really be breaking boundaries, perhaps one planet thrives on some kind of interspecies sex?

(Remember, that's how Spock came to be!)