The Rime of the Postmodern Mariner

More ramblings of Rhys Hughes.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

This Hermetic Legislature

Dan Ghetu of Ex Occidente Press in Romania has excelled himself this time with a tribute volume to the magnificent Bruno Schulz. Of the three major tribute anthologies that Ex Occidente have released in the past few years, this one is the most aesthetically delightful.


More information about this anthology can be found on the relevant Ex Occidente webpage. Needless to say, I'm proud to be a part of this book. My story 'The Messiah of the Mannequins' appears here together with tales from George Berguno, Mark Valentine, Reggie Oliver, the wonderful Michael Cisco, Colin Insole, Mark Samuels, Karim Ghahwagi, John Howard and many others...


Friday, June 22, 2012

Desperate Straights


It recently occurred to me that all masturbation is gay. Let's consider it from a male perspective first. Masturbation involves a male hand on a male organ. Male+Male=Gay. A male hand is giving pleasure to a male organ. By no stretch of the imagination can that be considered a heterosexual act. Even if the images in the mind of the masturbator are straight, his hand isn't straight, not if it is willingly manipulating a male organ, which in fact is what it is doing. The same holds true for female masturbation. A female hand on a female organ for the purpose of sexual pleasure is a lesbian act.

So all masturbation is gay, that much is clear. But in fact, if we consider the matter more closely, we will soon discover that all sex is gay too, even straight sex, especially straight sex. When a man has sex with a woman, what organ is giving him pleasure? Is it the woman's organ that is giving him pleasure? No, it's his own organ, a male organ. When a man has sex with a woman, he is getting pleasure from a male organ. That is plainly a gay act. So straight sex is gay.

The only way that a straight man having sex with a woman could not be a gay act would be if it was the woman's organ that was giving him the pleasure, rather than his own organ. If he feels the pleasure of the woman's organ directly, then he could be said to be enjoying straight sex. But he would have to remain a man while experiencing this pleasure. And yet, the only way he could feel the pleasure of the woman's organ directly would be if he became that woman through some sort of mind or identity transference. And then he would no longer be a man experiencing pleasure directly from a woman's organ, but a woman experiencing pleasure directly from a woman's organ. If other words, he would be a lesbian. And lesbians are gay.

There seems to be no logical way around this. As I have proved above, a man who enjoys sex with a woman is experiencing gay sex. To remain straight he would have to not enjoy sex with a woman. Only then could he be said to be not gay. But a man who doesn't enjoy sex with a woman isn't straight, because (as we all know) straight men enjoy sex with women. Therefore he is gay. All straight sex is gay sex. To make the symmetry nice, I will now proceed to construct an argument proving that all gay sex is straight. I thank you for your time.