Oh no, she's gone off the safe topics again 2005

Hey, cool! The nice folks at Blowfish have a new podcast. If you want to hear some folks who are totally comfortable with sex and sex toys talking about things you might want to buy, this is for you.

Are they or aren't they? 2003

As many who know me could attest, I have a soft spot for guys who like guys. I think it's sweet & sexy. Little surprise, I suppose, that I have lots of gay friends and decided to live in the Castro. It's not just that I am not homophobic; I'm positively homophilic. So, with, as Sir Ian McKellen puts it, the "gaggle of beauties" in the cast of the Lord of the Rings films plus all the deep affection between both the characters and the actors, it's not news that I as much as anyone else thought:

"Frodo and Sam have got to be a couple. What other interpretation could there be? Maybe they haven't done anything about this smoldering romantic passion, but, jeez, there's no denying the devotion between them."

And that remained my interpretation after seeing the first two films and rereading the first two books. But now that I've seen and reread Return of the King, I've changed my mind. Certainly, it's possible to imagine a romantic relationship between these characters - lines like Sam's (from the book) "I love him, whether or no" don't make it much of a stretch - but now I do not feel that is the relationship which Tolkien wrote or the filmmakers intended or the actors portrayed. And, most importantly, this lack of sexual attraction doesn't make the relationship any less significant.

To their credit, all of these storytellers (intentionally or otherwise) have left room for interpretation and personal reaction, but I believe that the relationship between Frodo and Sam which they describe is one for which we do not have a contemporary model. I've read of Sam as Frodo's "batman"; of their relationship as that between a WW1 officer and the enlisted man who acts as a servant to look after his belongings and take care of him. Oddly enough, that relationship, though it was known less than 100 years ago, is not as familiar and understandable to us today as that of a knight and his esquire.

What is essential to understanding their relationship is the context of a society divided by class; Frodo and Sam are unequal. They are master and servant, well-connected gentlehobbit and working-class gardener. It is Sam's duty, his role, to support Frodo in whatever way he can. Sam is not expected to understand Frodo or the great matters in which he has become involved. Today we would see that as unfair to Sam, as subjugation. "Don't worry yourself with matters above your station" is not an approach which we in the 21st-century West consider good or just. We want Sam to be recognized - by himself perhaps more than by anyone else - as Frodo’s equal. But with them as equals, we have no model for Sam’s unstoppable, selfless devotion other than romantic love.

Think about that for a moment. Our culture doesn’t have a model for that kind of love. It’s like not having a word for some concept in your language. What does it do to us not to be able to express an idea? Or imagine such a relationship? Perhaps our problem is that we use the same word, “love”, to describe many forms of affection, quite a few of which are completely non-sexual.

I am interested to see how these characters will be interpreted in the future as Tolkien’s intent, the model for the relationship, and widespread experience of friendly but class-divided relationships fades. Will the devoted same-sex friendships of Lord of the Rings create a new model for loving, non-sexual relationships? Will Frodo and Sam be claimed as role models for gays and bisexuals? Or will the current rifts remain? Will homosexuality remain something that the characters are “accused of”?

***

This topic all came to mind when I was rereading Return of the King and got to this bit near the very end:

When all was at last ready Frodo said: ‘When are you going to move in and join me, Sam?’
Sam looked a bit awkward.
‘There is no need to come yet, if you don’t want to,’ said Frodo. ‘But you know the Gaffer is close at hand, and he will be very well looked after by Widow Rumble.’
‘It’s not that, Mr. Frodo,’ said Sam, and he went very red.
‘Well, what is it?’
‘It’s Rosie, Rose Cotton,’ said Sam. ‘It seems she didn’t like my going abroad at all, poor lass; but as I hadn’t spoken, she couldn’t say so. And I didn’t speak, because I had a job to do first. But now I have spoken, and she says: “Well, you’ve wasted a year, so why wait longer?” “Wasted?” I says. “I wouldn’t call it that.” Still see what she means. I feel torn in two, as you might say.’
‘I see,’ said Frodo: ‘you want to get married, and yet you want to live with me in Bag End too? But my dear Sam, how easy! Get married as soon as you can, and then move in with Rosie. There’s room enough in Bag End for as big a family as you could wish for.’

That passage reminded me of a similar one in the last Lord Peter Wimsey mystery, “Thrones, Dominations”, in which two characters with a very similar relationship, Lord Peter and his manservant, Bunter, are deeply depressed by the prospect of having to part ways when Bunter marries. What I had forgotten until just now when I went to see if I could find the passage quoted on the Web is that it was not written by Dorothy Sayers half a century ago, but was Jill Paton’s relatively recent completion of Sayers' final unfinished work. Perhaps Sayers included the conflict and its pleasing solution in her notes, but it is equally possible that it is the invention of a mind of the latter half of the 20th century, perhaps even one which had been exposed to Sam’s dilemma.

Notes & additional reading:
1 - Nancy Marie Ott’s “JRR Tolkien and World War I”

2 - Web Behrens’ “The queerness of Hobbits”

3 - r. savage on “Forms of Love” and the tower of Cirith Ungol sequence

Even the Statistics Agree 2003

After admiring the American flag flying at Market & Castro on my way home, I was just reading the wonderful news about the Supreme Court overturning that Texas sodomy law. As a steenkin' liberal, I try to make a point of voting in CNN's little home page poll when it's on a topic of interest. Today's is "Do you agree with the Supreme Court's decision overturning a Texas law which criminalized sodomy?" I voted yes and, as usual, waited to see the display of the current results:

69% yes.

Heh. Yes, indeed.

I'll drink to that 2003

From a discussion of X2 on a queer gossip board I like to hang out on comes this rationale for choosing Ian McKellen over the younger, prettier men in the cast:

"they gotta have something going on upstairs before I'll go downstairs"

Happy, Healthy, same thing. 2003

Adam, who reads this site and who I don't know from a (glory) hole in the wall, but who is assumed not to be a hole in the wall based on his ability to type, wrote me a note, which almost got weeded out by my spam filters, requesting an image of the afore-mentioned penis in a trenchcoat.

I'll go one better: a whole website including all the ad campaigns, not just the Dick Tracy one.

By the way, it turns out to be "Healthy Penis", rather than "Happy Penis". It's so hard to remember their cute little names...

(Maybe this weekend I'll get the time to take a picture of the graffiti too).

Department of Redundancy Dept. 2003

In the subway stations of San Francisco there is an ad campaign running to promote awareness about syphilis (which has not raised my awareness enough to be sure I'm spelling it right). The, er, spokesman for the campaign is Happy Penis, an erect cartoon dick in a trenchcoat.

Tonight I noticed that the poster on the platform at Castro Street station has new graffiti. Someone drew a penis and testicles at the midpoint of the front of the aforementioned trenchcoat.

Spring 2002

Conversation with a friend in Alaska:

Dinah: How's the weather?
Jack: gorgeous
Dinah: mm, nice. Pretty good here too.
Jack: nice, sunny, everything's melting
Dinah: Greenery coming up yet?
Jack: Nah, still 6 inches of snow on the ground...
Dinah: mm, Spring is coming.
Jack: yeah, still not here, but I'm hopefull...
Dinah: She's headed north, hopping freight trains and fornicating under trees with hobos leaving crocuses in her wake

Pretty Scenery 2002

Ah, it must be spring. Not only are there blossoms on the trees and new green grass everywhere, there are attractive men snoozing on the morning train where they can be admired without the need to pretend not to be gazing at them.

From my vantage point on the upstairs seats I could just see his face from the upper lip down as he leaned against the window on a pillow made of his jacket. Reddish hair (as evidenced by his sideburns), pale skin, light freckles, a fascinating tattoo (is that a ring of dancing bunnies around his arm?) peeking out under the sleeve of his bright orange "i agree with marty" t-shirt, red-framed glasses resting beside a copy of Dorothy Sayers' Murder Must Advertise. Mmm, delicious creature.

He had woken by the time my station came along, so I paused on my way out to say "Pardon my insatiable curiousity, but who is Marty and what are you in agreement about?" It turns out he is Marty and the shirt was a gift from a friend who found it in a thrift store. We expressed our mutual belief that clothing which endorses us is a good thing and that Dorothy Sayers' books are very enjoyable. He said he likes how they are so romantic and then it's "oh and here's a mystery too" almost like an afterthought.

Swoon.

Naturally, I was not wearing my jacket with MetaGrrrl on the back and I neglected to mention my own name. Clearly, I am not much of a strategic thinker when it comes to chatting up cute boys. Ah well, a hopeless romantic as yummy as all that must be taken anyhow, so I'll just get a little vicarious pleasure to perk up my morning. Ah, spring...

This is a much much lower statistic than I expected. 2000

I think it was all that healthy respect, responsibility shit that brought my score down. Darn my moral immorality!

Don't forget to lay in supplies 1998

Still recovering from my weeks of hard work. Definitely not enough weekend.

Nerves soothed. Thanks, Sherman!

Car hassles solved. Thanks, Joe!

Mood improved. Thanks, Dishboy!

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The secret to eternal fabulousness?

Cucumber salad. You heard it here first.

Summer after sophomore year of college 1985

Re-reading old love letters. I'm in a randy mood. [Southern Faire fling] would be interesting to meet again. I hardly remember him. [Former flirtation] would be great to have a roll in the hay with [pure speculation here], but I wouldn't want any sort of long-term romance, I don't think. (?) I think I'll seduce Christopher [Franges] when he's about 45 or 50. He'll be gorgeous. Like John Dizikes. Unless, of course, he's involved with someone. [First long-term relationship], you better come visit me! I'm already going into withdrawals. I need your skin near me.

Better get a bunch done before Jinx [my mum] gets here. More later.