pornegrafo

visions of movement:
the electrical faggot succession

gavin: ’ i suppose you slept with him? ’ i blurted out half scared to ask.

edward: ‘oh yes—once in a while—he regarded it as the best way to get together with another man. he thought that people should ‘know’ each other on the physical and emotional plane as well as the mental. and that the best part of comrade love was that there was no limit to the number of comrades one could have…”

gavin: ’ how did he make love? ’ i forced myself to ask.

edward: ’ i will show you, ’ he smiled. ’ let us go to bed. ’
it was a warm night and we had just a light eiderdown over us. we were both naked and we lay side by side on our backs holding hands. then he was holding my head in his two hands and making little growly noises, staring at me in the moonlight ‘ this is the laying on of hands ’ i thought reverently. ’ walt. then him. then me  ’ … he snuggled up to me and kissed my ear. his beard tickled my neck. he smelled of the leaves and ferns and soil of autumn woods … the old man at my side was stroking my body with the most expert touch. it was as exquisite as the little bubbles that come up from decaying vegetation in a mud bath, caressing the flesh with a feather lightness. i just lay there in the moonlight that poured in at the window and gave myself up the loving old man’s marvelous petting. every now and then he would bury his face in the hair of my chest, agitate a nipple with the end of his tongue, or breathe in deeply from my armpit. i had of course a throbbing erection but he ignored it for a long time. very gradually, however, he got nearer and nearer, first with his hand and later with his tongue which was now flickering all over me like summer lightning. i stroked whatever part of him came within reach of my hand but i felt instinctively that this was a one-sided affair, he being so old and i so young, and that he enjoyed petting me as much as i delighted in being petted. there are so many possible relationships, and one misses so much if one limits oneself to one sex or color or age. at last his hand was moving between my legs and his tongue was in my bellybutton. and then when he was tickling my fundament just behind the balls and i could not hold it any longer, his mouth closed just over the head of my penis and i could feel my young vitality flowing into his old age. he did not suck me at all. it was really karezza, which i knew he recommended in his books. i had not learned the control necessary to karezza and he did not want to waste that life-giving fluid. as he said afterward, ‘ it isn’t the chemical ingredients which are so full of vitality - it’s the electrical content ’… the emphasis was on the caressing and loving. i fell asleep like a child safe in father-mother arms, the arms of god. and dreamed of autumn woods with their seminal smell …
the next morning he made love to me again, this time gazing at my body rapturously between kisses and growling ecstatically. and the same thing happened at the end. i had the distinct feeling that he felt my coming as if he were coming himself - that in that moment he was me. ‘

gavin arthur and edward carpenter 
conversation on walt whitman & more
transcribed by allen ginsberg

.

_refs: allen ginsberg in ‘gay sunshine journal’ #35 (1978). this is a excerpt of the conversation between allen ginsberg (1926-97) and the late gavin arthur (1901-72), setting account of gavin’s memory of an encounter with edward carpenter (1844-1929), who in turn, had a love encounter with walt whitman (1819-92). 
+ walt whitman at 36, steel engraving (1854)
+ edward carpenter at 61 (1905) 
+ allen ginsberg at 37 (1963). photo by richard avedon

ps:
for a deeper analysis of this succession, and the mysticism in their relationship read chapter 4 of  ’ hot little prophets: reading, mysticism, and walt whitman’s disciples ’ (2004) a dissertation by steven jay marsden

visions of movement:
the fight for difference

’ … it’s not a matter of people, it’s a matter of ideas, and the ideas that are happening now are very establishment ideas. we’re becoming  the people we’re fighting. and i think that it’s inevitable that we’re gonna get swallowed up by the larger culture. it’s gonna be safe to be gay, because gay is just like straight. and that’s what disturbs me more than anything else. because i really think that this is a fight for the right to be different, and what we should be fighting for is  the right of every person in this country to be as different as they want without hurting anybody else, but to look different, to act different, to dress different, to behave different. and that’s what those straight people out there are fighting against. they don’t care what you are in the privacy of your own home, but they’re fighting you looking different in front of their children, so that their children would think it’s ok to be gay. and the essence is that it is ok to be gay and those children are gonna have to learn that.

the difference is that we have a chance to lead them. and i think that this is insufficiently realized. i think because gay people have never had that kind of marriage contract, those kinds of restrictions on not only their sexual lives, but on their emotional lives, that gay people have a real opportunity to teach everybody else that they can do without those restrictions, they can create their own kinds of relationship from scratch, they can define their relationships as they go along, they don’t have to go by any rules that were laid down for them - and that opportunity is being lost. the difference between living a gay life and living a straight life, as far as i’m concerned, is really only in choice. and if you’re free to be really gay and do what you please, you don’t have to pay attention to the rules. ‘
vito russo, 1979

_refs: vito russo (1946–1990) answer to the question ‘where do you think the movement is going?’ from ‘army of lovers’ (1979) by rosa von praunheim (1942- ).  for more info about vito russo watch the recent documentary ‘celluloid activist, the life and times of vito russo’ (2011) by jeffrey schwarz.
+ vito russo (undated)
+ 3 unidentified men from old zines

ps:
vito russo died 2 years after he gave the famous speech ‘why we fight’ (1988) where he brilliantly says: ’ … someday, the AIDS crisis will be over. remember that. and when that day comes — when that day has come and gone, there’ll be people alive on this earth — gay people and straight people, men and women, black and white, who will hear the story that once there was a terrible disease in this country and all over the world, and that a brave group of people stood up and fought and, in some cases, gave their lives, so that other people might live and be free. ’  let’s never forget that.

visions of movement:
the creative use of our differences

’ we’re diversifying a lot … the things that the advocate takes for granted now are things we were fighting 20 years ago, that only two or three of us were saying, and gay people thought we were crazy, gay people in the movement. so i think the movement has absorbed an awful lot, even among the most conservative. we’re only beginning to learn, but all of the gay community recognizes now that we need to make creative use of our differences … i think the gay community can be creative almost beyond our imagination now. except, i think what we are also facing, much more seriously than we thought we were facing it in 1950’s and ‘51, are all of the conditions that make for the possibility of a resurgence of something very like fascism, and in a condition like that, women’s rights, minority rights, gays certainly, become expendable.

i think this danger is serious. and at the turning point it will depend on whether these various movements can develop enough maturity and right strategy to prevent this happening … we almost turn our back on our being gay. to be gay is not the same as being political. to be gay i think is almost the contrary of being political. and so we learn how to be good in the democratic party, we learn how to organize radical movements, we learn how to demonstrate in the street and make jack asses of ourselves for a necessity, and we do all other sort of things like this. there are needs for doing it, it’s been very important for us doing it, i think possibly even our gay spirit has learn something collectively to explore what it means to be gay, to shed the heterosexual education we’ve had. we weren’t raised to be gay. we weren’t taught how to be gay, and we’ve only began to think about what it means to re-educate ourselves as a group. ‘
jim kepner, 1978 

_refs: jim kepner (1923–1997) answer to the question ‘Where do you think the movement is going now?’ from ‘army of lovers’ (1979) by rosa von praunheim (1942- ). rosa made also a documentary with the interviews ‘army of lovers or revolt of the perverts’ (1979).
+ punk taking off his shirt (2004) by bruce labruce (1964- ) in ‘so gay’
+ lynn hunik (1970’s) by walter kundzicz (1925-?) ‘champion studio 
+ ‘eager to play’ in ‘honcho’ (oct.1982) by savage
+ [magazine covers]: ‘gay power’ #1 (1969) + ‘gay pied’ #1 (1979) + ‘ink, the other newspaper’ #23 (1971)

ps:
jim kepner was a founder member of the gay movement (whatever that means), he participated in the comunist party (from where he was expelled for being gay), the mattachine society (that he left for becoming too conservative), he edited and wrote inter alia for ‘ONE, the homosexual magazine’, and all through his life collected every single leaflet, recorded every gay meeting, and had one of the greatest gay libraries of the world. in 1971, kepner made the documents and memorabilia that he had been amassing available to researchers at a place he rented. this ultimately became the international gay and lesbian archives, consisting of over 25,000 books, as well as many thousands of other items. kepner’s archives were merged with the collection of the one institute in 1994 at the university of southern california. the combined collection comprises more than 2,000,000 items. [ + info: onearchives.org ]

mon compagnons d’orgueil

’ vous qui fûtes mon frère d’armes
et mon frère de larmes,
vous serez, quelque jour dont j’aperçois le seuil,
mon compagnon d’orgueil. 

vous avez partagé les tristesses, les peines,
les traîtrises, les haines;
donc, vous partagerez, c’est justice, l’honneur,
la gloire, le bonheur. 

travaillons, avançons, croyons, la chose est sûre,
car je sens la morsure
de la fatalité se desserrer un peu,
et j’aperçois le bleu ! ‘

                  robert de montesquiou 

.
_refs:  ’les perles rouges’ (dédicace à yturri) by robert de montesquiou (1855-1921). this poem is extracted from the book ‘le chancelier de fleurs, douze stations d’amitie’ (1907). robert de montesquiou compiled the book in memory of his friend and love of 20 years, gabriel d’yturri (1864-1905) [+info] 
+ finn kohlert in ‘nude voyager’ #1 (1969). a lance publication
+ ray connors in ‘honcho’ (feb.1982) 
+ unidentified actor in ‘manpower’ #4 (1972) by colt studio
+ [frame] le comte robert de montesquiou (1897) by giovanni boldini (1842-1931)

rose petals
for the new year ghost land

’ turgid itch and the perfume of death
on a whispering south wind
a smell of abyss and of nothingness
dark angel of the wanderers howls through the loft
with sick smelling sleep
morning dream of a lost monkey
born and muffled under old whimsies
with rose leaves in closed jars
fear and the monkey
sour taste of green fruit in the dawn
the air milky and spiced with the trade winds
white flesh was showing
his jeans were so old
leg shadows by the sea
morning light
on the sky light of a little shop
on the odor of cheap wine in the sailors’ quarter
on the fountain sobbing in the police courtyards
on the statue of moldy stone
on the little boy whistling to stray dogs.
wanderers cling to their fading home
a lost train whistle wan and muffled
in the loft night taste of water
morning light on milky flesh
turgid itch ghost hand
sad as the death of monkeys
thy father a falling star
crystal bone into thin air
night sky
dispersal and emptiness. ‘
            william burroughs

_refs: ‘fear and the monkey’ (1978) a poem by william burroughs (1914-97). 
originally published in ‘pearl’ #6 (odense, denmark). collected in ‘the burroughs file’ (city lights, 1984).
+ renato in ‘young males’ (1970s) by jurgen

the homogenic attachment:
men’s love

“i can no longer exist without men’s love; without such i must ever remain at strife with myself … since, however, this kind of love is reckoned criminal, by its satisfaction i can be at harmony with myself but never with the world, and necessarily in consequence must ever be somewhat out of tune; and all the more so because my character is open, and i hate lies of all kinds. this torment, to have always to conceal everything, has forced me to confess my anomaly to a few friends, of whose understanding and reticence i am sure. although oftentimes my condition seems to me sad enough, by reason of the difficulty of satisfaction and the general contempt of manly love, yet i am often just a little proud on account of having these anomalous feelings. naturally, i shall never marry—but this seems to me by no means a misfortune, although i am fond of family life, and up to now have passed my time only among my own relations. i live in the hope that later I shall have a permanent loved one; such indeed i must have, else would the future seem gray and drear, and every object which folk usually pursue—honour, high position, etc.—only vain and unattractive. 

should this hope not be fulfilled, i know that I should be unable, permanently and with pleasure, to give myself to my calling, and that i should be capable of setting aside everything in order to gain the love of a man. i feel no longer any moral scruples on account of my anomalous leaning, and generally have never been troubled because i felt myself drawn to youths… . up to now it has only seemed to me bad and immoral to do that which is injurious to another, or which I would not wish done to myself, and in this respect i can say that i try as much as possible not to infringe on the rights of others, and am capable of being violently roused by any injustice done to others.’
          edward carpenter

.
_refs: text extracted from the appendix of ‘the intermediate sex: a study of some transitional types of men and women’ (1908) by edward carpenter  (1844-1929). ‘the intermediate sex’ comprises carpenter’s pamphlet on ‘homogenic love’ (1906), as well as a number of essays he wrote on homosexuality for liberal british journals between 1897 and 1899.
+ tico patterson in ‘rogues gallery’ #1 (1982)
+ robert ‘sinbad’ o’connor by amg (1980’s)
+ ‘homogenic love and its place in a free society’ (1970’s cover. originally published in 1906).

pd: 
on his return from india in 1891, edward met george merrill, a working class man also from sheffield, and the two men struck up a relationship, eventually moving in together in 1898. merrill had been raised in the slums of sheffield and had no formal education. their relationship endured and they remained partners for the rest of their lives, a fact made all the more extraordinary by the hysteria about homosexuality generated by the oscar wilde trial of 1895 and the criminal law amendment bill passed a decade earlier “outlawing all forms of male homosexual contact”. their relationship not only defied victorian sexual mores but also the highly stratified british class system. their partnership, in many ways, reflected carpenter’s cherished conviction that same-sex love had the power to subvert class boundaries. it was his belief that at sometime in the future, gay people would be the cause of radical social change in the social conditions of man. [from wikipedia]

let’s chainsaw art spaces 
… with filthy porn ! 

’ … which pretty much sums up my view of what ‘porn-art’ is and should be. it’s what make your knees go weak, your mouth water, your mind start racing, and your dick start stiffening. it serves as inspiration, but also as communication. no different in fact, from any other art. different people give different reasons for why we have art. i say we have it because an artists sees (or imagines) something that he thinks is so beautiful that it hurts him to think keeping it all for himself. somethings simply have to be shared, they’re too much for one person to hold. art is our effort to share beauty. and porn is just an effort to share sex. no difference, really. the only question is: does it succeed in communicating ? ‘
              scott o’hara 

_refs: ‘i know when i see it’ by scott o’hara (1961-98) ’rarely pure and never simple selected essays of scott o’hara’ (1999) 
+ steve trasher (1987) by jack fritscher in  ’gay san francisco: eyewitness drummer’ vol#1 (2008). steve was a straight construction worker who collaborated several times with jack.
+ illustration by f. r. fowler for ‘drummer’ #62 (1983)
+ frame from ‘the great wrestling match’ by hank trout  for ‘drummer’ #36 (1980)

ps: 
and scott goes on … ‘ “filthy”, … that’s the prevailing attitude toward this work. it’s “just pornography”, and not worthy of any sort of respect … okay class, one more time: there is nothing wrong with sex. sex is natural. and depicting sex, whether on canvas or in a novel or a video, is nothing more than an attempt to communicate how you feel about an aspect of your life that brings you inestimable pleasure. ‘

a tribe of men
… horny men 

 

’ in the summer of 1965, sharing the drive with a stranger, ohio vanished in the rear window. in berkley i turned 21, in san francisco i grew up.
in the same summer jack fritscher also arrived at the edge of the world, and became another cell in the rapidly growing body of gay men. every day there were new arrivals, men who braved the prairies and mountains, in search of a place to call home, to be with their own kind. untold numbers of sex refugees, of gay immigrants, reached the end of the rainbow with no money, and no one to call. but san francisco wellcomed them all. the earlier arrivals helped to provide comfort and sustenance to those who followed. the only agenda was brotherhood and sharing, peace and love.

what followed was fifteen years of sexual freedom, sexual anarchy, sexual invention and redefinition. it was exciting. corporal works of mercy were the order of the day. practices and relationships now exposed to the light of the day, attracted and connected men who had at some time thought that they were the ‘only one’. but for subversive sex to open up, expand, be shared, it needed someone with the loyalty and passion of a monk to search out, record and describe it, write about it, to make it accessible to the uninitiated. 

… it was a time when free and readily available sex, in infinite variety sometimes anonymous but more often not, defined the day. sex was everywhere, really and truly everywhere, and you could have as much as you could handle … with sex everywhere, many people blissfully thought no further than the next, soon to be realized, orgasm. 
jack, however, also recognized uncommon, unknown, or ‘new’ variations beyond the traditional man-to-man ‘naked sweat and grunt’, and sensed that these other sexually charged interactions were rich and significant. he was determined to understand all pieces of this new cultural puzzle we found ourselves in. ‘

          david hurles 
 

_refs: text from david hurles aka old reliable (1944- ) ‘a thousand light years ago: drummer’ in jack fritscher (1939- ) ‘gay san francisco: eyewitness drummer, a memoir of the sex, art, salon, pop culture war, and gay history of drummer magazine, the titanic 1970’s to 1999’ vol#1 (2008) 
+ matthieu charneau  in ‘muto‘ #1_juvenile ardeur (2011) by exterface
+ ‘usher’s captive’ (unidentified actor) in ‘honcho’ (apr.1981) by usher
+ scene from  ’garage sex’ (mid.80’s) by dpr studios
+ tony bronte in ‘zeus collection’ (1982) by zeus
+ brutus and robert payne from ‘manhood rituals’ #1_the compound  (mid.80’s) by drummer

pd:
this volume of jack fritscher ‘gay san francisco’ is part of a documentation process of drummer magazine, as you can further see in jack’s webpage as ‘reflecting drummer’.

warmvelvet asked: wow - your blog totally had me consumed for hours your very very gifted and should have an exhibition - I'd come - I'd pay for your art - it has soul... thankyou...

hello man … many thanks for your words.
they made my smile shine,
thanks! 

drink life
… on each other’s chest


’ on this day
when there’s no holiness
in all this madness of tests
where the heart is
with the sharpest brass knife
let us carve a tiny star
on each other’s chest
watch them light up
bright red
we will bless them with our lips
drink life
neither a seven-year itch
nor death
can split ‘
         assotto saint 

_refs: ‘offertory on a seventh anniversary’ by assotto saint (1957-94)
[via woolfandwilde]
+ unidentified actor in ‘ramrod’ #1 (1976) by target studios
+ branch lester in ‘target album’ #1 (1981) 

ps:
‘saint’s work is motivated by the conviction that the personal is the political; as the author himself wrote in ‘spells of a voodoo doll’: ‘[o]ur writings should very much be a public process that reflects private passions.’ his poetry starts from private and personal passions to confront the aids crisis openly, thus conceiving poetic composition as an act of survival that breaks the silence surrounding people with aids even as it also disturbingly documents the physical and psychological ravages of the disease.’ [from glbtq]

visions of movement: 
lost gaze in a rock desert

‘ gay culture is dead. i guess the idea of gay culture was always an oxymoron, but lately i find myself declaring to it more definitively, “you’re dead to me,” as you might say to a former lover. now, the gay movement is a zombie movement. it vaguely looks like its former self, operating remotely like it used to, going through the motions. but there’s no real life to it, no purpose, beyond bland consumerism. the engine of the gay movement used to be an idea of adventurous and extreme sexuality. gay culture itself was regarded by the status quo as something pornographic and sexually radical.  today, with the emergence of the gay conservatism, pornography appears to be the last bastion of sexual radicalism. that’s why i always express solidarity with gay pornographers. they’re the last glimmer of glamour in the gay movement. ‘
                bruce labruce 

i thought i was so tough, 
but i hover and i twist  
 
  

’ i thought i was so tough, 
but gentled at your hands, 
cannot be quick enough 
to fly for you and show 
that when i go i go 
at your commands. 

even in flight above 
i am no longer free: 
you seeled me with your love, 
i am blind to other birds - 
the habit of your words 
has hooded me.

as formerly, i wheel 
i hover and i twist, 
but only want the feel, 
in my possessive thought, 
of catcher and of caught
upon your wrist.

you but half civilize,
taming me in this way. 
through having only eyes 
for you i fear to lose, 
i lose to keep, and choose 
tamer as prey. ‘
               thom gunn 
. 

_refs: ‘tamer and hawk’ from ‘the sense of movement’ (1957) by thom gunn (1929-2004) 
+ hopper, a navy man from wwii (undated)
+ john coletti aka john traynor (1974), founder of fox studios.

pre-aids kids play for radical steps 
in dick’s warehouse

‘i am someone with aids and i want to live by any means necessary.

i am not dying: i am being murdered. just as surely as if my body was being tossed into a gas chamber, i am being sold down the river by people within this community who claim to be helping people with aids. hang your heads in shame while i point my finger at you.

‘activists’ now negotiate with drug companies just as the jewish councils in the warsaw ghettos of world war ii negotiated with the nazis. ‘give us a few lives today,’ they insist, ‘and we’ll trade you even more tomorrow.’ aids careerists—both hiv-positive and hiv-negative—have exchanged their anger for an invitation to the white house. it is their megalomania and the illusion of power that buys the silence of these so-called community leaders. and where does that leave the rest of us? we’re left fighting for our lives while a group of well-educated, affluent white ‘homo-sexuals’ sit on community boards and advisory councils while we’re left to die on the streets.

our service organizations are a joke. gay men’s health crisis: with all their money and clout, all you get is a free lunch, group therapy and free counseling via my favorite question, ‘have you made out your will yet?’ 

(…)

this is not just tough talk. i truly believe that the current state of aids will not change unless radical steps are taken immediately. if you don’t believe me, then take a good, hard look at the war on cancer.

creating terror is not just screaming, making an artistic statement or getting in touch with your anger. true anger is not a flame. true anger is ice. true anger is calm and sure. it does not require legions of people to succeed. it requires determination as strong as steel. an act of terror can be large or small, innately personal or massively public. let’s use our queerest gift—creativity—to do the right thing. i know some of you are shaking your heads as you read this. many of you will no doubt shrug it off. go ahead. but remember, i want to live. by any means necessary.’
                     kiki mason 
 

_refs: ‘manifesto destiny, i am someone with aids and i want to live by any means necessary’ by kiki mason (died 1996) for stonewall 25th aniversary, 1994. via act up ny. [watch the qt video any_means.mov]
+ jake by griffin international in ‘more than 7 inches’ #8 (1976)
+ unidentified models for ‘quest, the question-and-answer magazine for male homosexuals’ #1 (nov.1973)
+ david and peter in a ‘falcon brochure’ for 8mm loop ‘behind the barn door’ (oct.1976)

ps: 
in march of 1987, aids coalition to unleash power (act up) formed in new york city by a group of people as a diverse, nonpartisan group of individuals united in anger and committed to direct action to end the aids crisis.  

queer warriors get ready
to fight back again

‘ when did you ever see a fag fight back?… now, times were a-changin’. tuesday night was the last night for bullshit … predominantly, the theme (w)as, “this shit has got to stop! ‘
              anonymous stonewall riots participant  

_refs: anonymous stonewall riots participant in ‘stonewall: the riots that sparked the gay revolution’ (2004) by david carter
+ unidentified model by naakkve in ‘mandate’ (dec.1982)
+ fred halsted (1941-1989) by cosco in ‘in touch for men’ #56 (jun.1981)
+ graffiti on the stonewall bar, new york, (1969)

ps:
another witness, michael fader, said: ’ we all had a collective feeling like we’d had enough of this kind of shit. it wasn’t anything tangible anybody said to anyone else, it was just kind of like everything over the years had come to a head on that one particular night in the one particular place, and it was not an organized demonstration…. everyone in the crowd felt that we were never going to go back. it was like the last straw. it was time to reclaim something that had always been taken from us…. all kinds of people, all different reasons, but mostly it was total outrage, anger, sorrow, everything combined, and everything just kind of ran its course. it was the police who were doing most of the destruction. we were really trying to get back in and break free. and we felt that we had freedom at last, or freedom to at least show that we demanded freedom. we weren’t going to be walking meekly in the night and letting them shove us around—it’s like standing your ground for the first time and in a really strong way, and that’s what caught the police by surprise. there was something in the air, freedom a long time overdue, and we’re going to fight for it. it took different forms, but the bottom line was, we weren’t going to go away. and we didn’t. ’

sex alfresco

‘ people are born with an inherent desire for porn. this is a basic element of my philosophy: the idea that watching other people have sex, watching people enjoy themselves, is an essential human pleasure. voyeurism is the most natural of perversions, the most universal. translating that to a video screen, or the four-colour page, or to a written or spoken fantasy, does nothing to change the basic character of porn: it still stimulates our central nervous systems in the same way, the vicarious joy of being a participant in an act that is giving the participants pleasure. it’s equally natural to imagine one’s self in the middle of the action, but, like the voyeur at the window, most consumers of pornography are clearly aware that there is a window there, a line that can’t be crossed: this is fantasy, that is reality, and the two doesn’t necessarily have anything in common.’
              scott o’hara 

_refs: ‘autopornography: a memoir of life in the lust lane‘ (1997)  by scott o’hara (1961-98) 
+ jim in ‘numbers’ (dec.1982)
+ ledermeister in ‘olympus’ #2 by c*lt (undated)
+ unidentified actors in ‘bullet titans’ (1981)
+ mineshaft poster (1977) for the bar at 835 washington st, new york (1976-1985) by rex