The following is excerpted from The Gay Man’s Kama Sutra by Terry Sanderson._______________
Paragons of [male beauty and] perfection do exist, and occasionally we see them walking down the street and we sigh. But gorgeous men who may look like gods are just human like the rest of us, and while they may be desirable for sex – or maybe just sexual fantasy – they may still be intolerable as human beings.A beautiful face is no guarantee that its processor is an unselfish lover or a charming companion. Arrogance, callousness, and bad breath are not restricted to the plain and ordinary; and thoughtfulness, concern, and generosity can be cultivated by anyone.For sex to have long-term meaning, a pretty face and a toned body are not enough on their own. . . . A sexual hero may have a handsome face, he many have a bubble butt, and a penis like a horse’s, but he won’t remain a hero for very long if he does not know how to make his lover feel desired and, more importantly, his equal.A true sexual hero is someone who can charm his way into your affection, whatever his physical attributes (or lack of them). A man who wouldn’t attract a second glance in a crowded room may have the skills of a true romantic. He may be able to seduce you with his voice alone, or as a caring and attentive lover. Someone who gains his pleasure from your pleasure is worth his weight in rubies.- Excerpted from The Gay Man’s Kama Sutra by Terry Sanderson.Image: Willem Kok.
I’ve always considered tan lines on a man to be incredibly sexy. And by tan lines I mean those areas of flesh left paler than the rest of the body as the result of the wearing of speedos or some other type of swim wear in the sun.
I’m obviously not the only gay man to appreciate and enjoy tan lines. About a Boy and His Briefs, for instance, writes: “Personally, I like a little pale skin hiding beneath my [swim]suit. There is something about the contrast between light and dark flesh that I find exciting . . . intriguing.”
I also think that seeing a naked male body with tan lines can be especially arousing. Think about it: the sight of untanned skin reminds us that what is being revealed are regions of the body that are of special value, beauty, and vulnerability. The presence of tan lines brings all this to consciousness, and signals to us that we’re gazing upon beauty usually hidden, even forbidden, from view.
Tan lines, for me at least, are also a wonderful reminder of summer by the sea – of the sound of tumbling waves, the smell of brine and salt air, the heat of the sun, the promise of desire and fun, and the refreshing enjoyment of a naked afternoon nap in the shaded coolness of a breeze- (or fan-)caressed room.
For these and other reasons, The Leveret is happy to launch a new series of posts celebrating tan lines! Do you have some images you’d like to share? Send them to theleveret2007@gmail.com for consideration. (Believe it or not, good images of guys sporting tan lines are hard to find on the Internet!)
Images 1 and 3: Raphael Laus (DNA, August 22, 2008).
Image 2: jldc8.
Recommended Off-site Link:
Male Tan Lines
Writes stained glass illustrator, Tamsin Abbott:“When I painted my first hare a few years ago I had no idea of the connection I was making and the relationship I was forming! So many people are drawn to the hare and I am often asked why so much of my work contains hares. I think it could be because the hare embodies all those aspects of nature that we want to believe in, that it is wild, clever, bold and free.
“However, the hare has also long been associated with many myths and folklore, witchcraft and shape-shifters and in a way represents the female spirit of nature just as the green man represents the male energy of nature. I think that we all have a need or desire for a spiritual connection and yet we have become alienated from the major religions of the world and somehow the hare sparks something off in peoples’ minds.”
Following is a second and final excerpt from Gay Men and Anal Eroticism: Tops, Bottoms, and Versatiles by Steven G. Underwood.
(For Part 1, click here.)
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The notion that tops and bottoms are socially and morally unequal creatures has been the overriding assumption about male fucking throughout history. That version of homosexuality was accepted in ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt. It was condemned, but still prevalent in Europe through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Age of Enlightenment. Even as late as early twentieth-century New York, gay men operated underground as either the limp-wristed fairies or the masculine “trade” that the fairies pursued.
Today, in a predominately Islamic but westernized country such as Turkey, men who are “active” in homosexual encounters are often not considered homosexual at all. Instead, their domination of passive men is considered evidence of their hyper-masculinity. In El Salvador . . . being fucked is considered a “kind of degeneration,” while the top is “just being a man.” Bottoms are still stigmatized all over the world, including isolated pockets in the West (such as prisons), while tops are viewed as exercising their male prerogative.The Western view about role separation in male fucking began to shift in the middle of the last century, in the 1960s and 1970s. The seeds of that change were planted several decades earlier, by a few turn-of-the-century authors – Karl Ulrichs, John Addington Symonds, Edward Carpenter, and Havelock Ellis – who were the first to launch a movement toward the “normalization” of homosexuality. These writers portrayed gay men as ordinary, normal citizens (not prisoners or inmates in an asylum), no different from everyone else except for their attraction to their own sex. Havelock Ellis’s Sexual Inversion began the first heated discussion over sexuality in a society that was just emerging from the morally oppressive Victorian era.This effort was thwarted by the followers of Freud who, by emphasizing early childhood traumas as its explanation, categorized homosexuality as a clinical abnormality. Normalization was brought to the forefront once again in 1948 by Alfred Kinsey and his Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Kinsey’s assertion that homosexuality was common and that it should not be considered a crime against nature was met with great resistance in the scientific community. Thirty more years would pass before the American Psychiatric Association would finally remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.By this time a gay liberation movement was under way and the existence of homosexuals was taken for granted. Gay men began to regard the separation of top and bottom roles as a mimicry of heterosexual functions and a form of self-oppression. In his essay, published in 1970, “Refugees from Amerika: A Gay Manifesto,” Carl Wittman listed four statements he considers anti-gay perversions:- I like to make it with straight guys.- I’m not gay but I like to be “done.”- I like to fuck but I don’t want to be fucked.- I don’t like to be touched above the neck.“This,” wrote Wittman, “is role playing at its worst; we must transcend these roles. We strive for democratic, mutual, reciprocal sex.” In a radical reinvention of their own image, large numbers of gay men abandoned the stereotype of the limp-wristed fairy as a relic of an oppressive past. They began to have sex with each other instead of trade. They effectively transformed themselves to become the masculine men they’d always desired to have sex with.More than three decades after Wittman’s declaration, the effort to understand the meaning of “democratic, mutual, reciprocal sex” continues.
– Excerpted from Gay Men and Anal Eroticism: Tops, Bottoms, and Versatiles by Steven G. Underwood ( Routledge, 2003).
Opening image: “Relationship” by Raphael Perez.
“March Hare” by Anthony Vanderzweep.“I have, over the years, developed a preference for sculpting animals. Their natural grace and athleticism make them an easy subject for me,” says Vanderzweep. “Rather than just producing a study of nature, I seek to accentuate in a sculpture an animal’s strength or charm, often choosing to elongate limbs or exaggerate the body volume, for the purpose of making a work of art, of beauty, that will be valued for life.”
Earlier this year, Brian W. Fairbanks wrote an appreciation of the book, The Joy of Gay Sex, for the Gay and Lesbian Review.Following are excerpts from Fairbank’s appreciation.______________
Most people probably remember 1977 as the year of Star Wars, the Son of Sam slayings, and the death of Elvis, but for many gay men the year’s most notable event was the October publication of The Joy of Gay Sex, by Charles Silverstein and Edmund White. It was the first book from a mainstream publisher that dared to examine the “how” of homosexuality rather than the “why” approach of both psychologists and priests. The book’s explicit descriptions of gay sex practices, fully and beautifully illustrated, rendered it quite controversial: many bookstores in the U.S. kept it hidden under the counter, forcing customers to come out of the closet when asking for it by name.
Subtitled “An intimate guide for gay men to the pleasures of a gay lifestyle,” the book’s contents were forthrightly erotic, but for me the biggest turn-on was the blurb on the back cover proclaiming The Joy of Gay Sex to be “America’s best selling guide to gay lovemaking.” Yes, lovemaking! How often, even in gay circles, has sex between men been acknowledged with such a romantic and respectable word?With its superb illustrations and positive approach to carnal matters, The Joy of Gay Sex was inspired by Alex Comfort’s 1972 best seller, The Joy of Sex, which celebrated heterosexual relations. But for some gay men, Silverstein and White’s book may have also served as an unofficial response to Dr. David Reuben’s phenomenally successful Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask). Published in 1969, the year of the Stonewall riots, Reuben’s book gave the general (heterosexual) public a sensational and one-sided account of homosexual behavior that reinforced the image of gay men as perverts. In Reuben’s world, gay men were still nelly queens forever looking for sex with strangers in parks and public toilets. The “fairies” that populated the best-selling fiction of Jacqueline Susann and other popular straight authors were equally soulless.Many homosexual men did cruise for sex in tea rooms (some still do), but such behavior, which certainly has its equivalents in the straight world, is scarcely the defining feature of being gay. In contrast to this coldly impersonal image of gay life, Silverstein and White focused on the act of making love – tenderly, passionately, and joyously.
By the 1980’s, when the AIDS epidemic made homosexual acts more controversial than ever, Silverstein and White’s landmark volume went out of print. As one of the titles most often stolen from public libraries, even extant copies were hard to come by. In 1992, Silverstein, in collaboration with Felice Picano, updated the classic as The New Joy of Gay Sex, which included information on safer sex. And recently a “fully revised and expanded 3rd edition” has been published by HarperCollins under the original title.. . . Provocative title aside, the new edition draws our attention to more than matters of sex. There are chapters on homophobia, loneliness, spirituality, friendship, politics, and even celibacy, an option for those seeking a “lack of pressure and stress in their life.” It’s a well-rounded, encyclopedic guide to gay life in general and undoubtedly a useful tool for gay men taking those first, tentative steps out of the closet.
Above all, The Joy of Gay Sex is an enjoyable, guilt-free journey through the wonderful world of gay love. Dr. Reuben stressed that homosexuals were limited in what they could do sexually, but the 1977 book set him straight on that. Other than the absence of entries under the letters Q, X, Y, and Z, both the original book and its recent incarnation provide a remarkably thorough examination of the variety of sexual experiences that two (or more) men can have together.Brian W. Fairbanks
Gay and Lesbian Review
January-February 2008
“Hare’s Breath” by BoblyP.Says BoblyP: “Hare appeared out of nowhere as if by magic and its eye just caught inadvertently [my camera’s] flash.”
The following is excerpted from Gay Men and Anal Eroticism: Tops, Bottoms, and Versatiles by Steven G. Underwood.
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The reciprocal scenario [or set of meanings that gay men assign to fucking], where both men take turns fucking each other, is often exercised as a celebration of equality. What sets this scenario apart from others [such as the purely physical scenario, the intimate scenario, and the power scenario] is the versatility of the men involved. Versatility is a unique and important feature of male anal sex. Some men consider it liberating; they enjoy the freedom the male body offers to alternatively fuck and get fucked. Versatility to them is akin to speaking two different languages. It requires a special kind of playfulness, creativity, curiosity, and coordination.
. . . History tells us that versatility in male fucking has always been, at least until recently, a rare, if at all, notable phenomenon. Starting with the ancient Greeks, from whom we get our first accounts of male anal sex, men fucked men according to status and age stratification.
The Greeks thought that the love between an older man and a younger one was honorable and pure as long as the older man was the top. In fact, such a relationship was considered essential to a young man’s growth and education. It was also acceptable for a guy from a higher class to fuck a slave or a man with lower status, but if a wealthy and powerful adult male was found out to have been fucked, he’d be the subject of scandal and be in danger of losing his social position. What made a sexual act acceptable for the Greeks was not the sex of the partners involved, but rather whether they performed the roles determined by the power balance between them.
The Greeks were intolerant of effeminacy and passivity in men. Boys who behaved effeminately or who continued to get fucked as they aged were suspected and shunned. “Most discussion of appropriate sexual conduct in ancient texts,” writes Byrne Fone, “had as its subtext the seemingly unbridgeable distance between masculinity and effeminacy, between being sexually active and sexually passive, not the difference between homosexuality and heterosexuality.”
– Excerpted from Gay Men and Anal Eroticism: Tops, Bottoms, and Versatiles by Steven G. Underwood ( Routledge, 2003).
Image 1: Peter Foss.
Image 2: Fred Goudon.
The following is excerpted from The Gay Man’s Kama Sutra by Terry Sanderson.
