Monthly Archives: May 2009

Naked Yoga: A Stripped Down Exercise

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For the past 10 years, Ray Whetstone has been teaching a nude yoga class in Oakland Park. Whetstone demonstrates the pigeon pose. (Sun Sentinel/Article by Michael Laughlin / May 5, 2009)

I am straight.

I repeat that to myself as I walk into a dance studio, pull off my shirt, and drop my shorts and undies onto the wood floor.

I’m surrounded by 17 other nude men – and mirrors.

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In a moment, we’ll start practicing yoga.For 20 years, I’ve taken yoga classes in sweaty gyms, incense-drenched studios and even in an office conference room. But always with my clothes on.

Tonight will be different for me, but not for most of the men in the room. Ray Whetstone has taught naked yoga for more than 10 years in South Florida. I learned about it by stumbling across his site, arcoirisyoga.com.

Arco iris is Spanish for rainbow; most of the men here are gay.

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“The automatic assumption is that nudity is sex,” he says. But not here. He notes that in all his years of teaching, every man’s dog has remained downward.

I place my mat in a corner spot, so I’ll have one neighbor instead of two. In the minutes before class starts, I stretch out in corpse pose, so I won’t have to look. When we stand up to start the class, I tilt my gaze slightly upward, so if I see anything, it’s faces and shoulders.

Then I fill my head with yoga-ese.

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Yoga is all about letting go of external labels that get in your way, I remind myself. Going within. Testing your focus.

Besides, if anyone’s looking to score, it wouldn’t be with this 50-year-old.

“We’ve had straight boys here before,” says Whetstone, who in 1998 became the first openly gay elder ordained by the Presbyterian Church. An optometrist, he commutes to Naples four days a week to work. Teaching naked yoga two nights a week is his recreation. Continue reading →

Sex-ting

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My God!  So it’s come down to even this.  We Americans are so uptight about nudity, we are willing to criminalize our children.  How did this kind of thinking ever survive the Sixties?

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No one in their right mind would condone child abuse committed by an adult … they are child abusers plain and simple; they need to be locked up.  But this issue is entirely different.  It’s like comparing a common cold with cancer.  A thirteen year old girl sends her friend a nude picture of herself: she’s not a wayward young girl–she’s a purveyor of child pornography.  A seventeen year old boy has sex with his fifteen year old girlfriend: he’s not a misguided kid in love–he’s a child abuser and so labeled for the rest of his life.

So this modern day phenomena called sex-ting has gotten the self-righteous moralists in our society up in arms.  Once again, the sky is falling, never mind the natural curiosities in all normal children.  Instead of teaching them self-respect, that the human body is a beautiful thing, not something young people should be e-mailing to their friends, but something to be shared with someone special when they grow up … instead they’re being kicked out of school, arrested, labeled as sex offenders,  their lives ruined and their self-body images contaminated.  Is this what we want going on in our society?

Why not try some good parenting, preserve their innocence, and help them understand self-respect?

How Male Bisexuality Got Cool

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By Rachel Kramer Bussel: editor of Best Sex Writing 2009 and host of In The Flesh Reading Series.

Two men on couch From TV bromances to political man crushes, male bisexuality has gone mainstream. But is it a sign of true sexual attraction-or just an act?

Last year, when Charles Forman, the 29-year-old heterosexual founder of the popular gaming Web site I’m In Like With You, was caught on camera holding hands with 22-year-old Tumblr founder David Karp (also straight), the first thing he did was send the photo to the gossip blog Gawker. “Did you see the gay picture?” he instant-messaged the Web site, which then posted an entire photo montage of the two boys in various states of PDA. Forman then linked back to the montage from his own blog.

“He wasn’t the typical macho straight guy,” says one woman of her bisexual boyfriend. “I got off on it.”

The whole episode had more than a whiff of publicity seeking. (Gawker calls Karp and Forman “fameballs.”) Still, the very fact that the pair of Internet wunderkinds decided that cultivating a mystique of bisexuality could help their careers says something about the moment we’re living in. “Why would any straight guy call a press conference to announce his bisexual inclinations, unless the whole thing was intended as a joke?” asks Ron Suresha, editor of Bi Men: Coming Out and Bisexual Perspectives on Kinsey. “I don’t know why these famehounds claim to be bisexual, but they don’t set off my ‘bi-dar’ one whiff. While I’m hopeful that their posed bisexuality is a harbinger of a new generation of heterosexual men who are actually willing to face their bi desires, from a distance this photo-op male ‘bonding’ seems completely contrived.”

Still, whereas bisexual women had their fling with pop culture in the 1990s-when everyone from Drew Barrymore to Madonna messed around with women, not to mention the famous Vanity Fair cover showing Cindy Crawford shaving k.d. lang-”bromances” are now the driving force behind Hollywood comedies and Style section features, as men find more ways to play for both teams, or at least act like they do.

Examples are everywhere. In John Hamburg’s recent movie, I Love You, Man, the gay guy who unwittingly goes on a date with Paul Rudd isn’t just played for laughs, but to some degree, sympathy. This summer will also see Lynn Shelton’s buzzed-about Humpday, in which two straight male friends decide to make a homemade porn video. And Brody Jenner’s reality show Bromance blurs the line separating friendship and attraction in what Videogum’s Gabe Delahaye calls “basically the gayest thing ever, made more gay by everyone’s desperate attempts to provide chest-bumping proof of their heterosexuality.”

The term “man crush”-which, like bromance, connotes a male relationship that resides somewhere between platonic and romantic-is already this year’s official media catchphrase. “Rams GM Devaney Has a Man Crush on Eugene Monroe” gossips manlier-than-thou NFLGridironGab.com. “Warren Buffett’s Chinese Man Crush” titters the headline on a Business Insider profile of CEO Wang Chuan-Fu. And while it’s not all that surprising to find Newsday’s music critic proclaiming his “man-crush renewed” after a Seal concert, it’s less expected in a Boston Globe story about President Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy, or in an AOL News piece about the King of Saudi Arabia.

It’s an emerging version of male bisexuality that’s more pose than sincere. The celebrities who engage in it take pains to make it clear they’re straight-half-ironically goofing around, often as a blatant grab for attention. But the fact that they’re even taking it that far is something new. Take Jimmy Kimmel’s 2008 YouTube sensation “I’m Fucking Ben Affleck,” created in response to his then-girlfriend Sarah Silverman’s “I’m Fucking Matt Damon” video. Five years ago, few male celebrities went there, and the ones who did were often already branded as outsiders, like Michael Stipe. Now, the most mainstream of leading men clamor to act bi for the camera.

In addition to these tongue-in-cheek, sometimes tortured expressions of straightish-male love are indications that some men-non-celebrity civilians-are embracing a nuanced version of bisexuality as well. Benoit Denizet-Lewis profiled a bisexual bodybuilder named Todd in his book America Anonymous, which was released in January. Todd’s clients are mostly gay men, but some just like watching him “flex and show off.” These are men who say they’re bi or straight-and Todd believes them. “It’s just a fetish for them,” he says. “Over time, I’ve seen them have successful marriages with their wives. They seem to be very happy, from what I can tell.”

Gay men have long fetishized straight guys, but what’s happening now goes beyond that. It’s not just about being seduced into a same-sex encounter, but about men claiming bisexuality or bi-curiosity on their own terms. Hence, it makes sense that, according to Humpday director Shelton, her film, even with the gay sex, is “about being straight. But specifically, it’s about the limitations of straightness and it’s about how absurd the extremities of straightness can be, basically.” Continue reading →

Adam Lambert

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I don’t watch much TV.  Never have watched American Idol … until I ran across this:

Who has the balls to take Johnny Cash’s Burning Ring of Fire, rearrange it, sing it and not ruin it?  Who is talented enough to make this song his own?  Who, these days, hits notes that make the fine hair on your neck stand up?

I had to learn more about Adam Lambert!

Tonight begins the final round on American Idol.  Does it matter if he wins or not?  Of the finalist on this show, there have been many we love to listen to: Kelly Clarkson, Ruben Studdard, Fantasia Barrino, Carrie Underwood,  Taylor Hicks to name a few–but there has not been a mega star, a performer with great looks, amazing talent and incredible showmanship.  I would love to see him sing with Cher.

Lambert has been a stage actor since he was about ten years old; he was cast as Linus in San Diego’s Lyceum Theater’s production of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.   He also played a part in The Ten Commandments: The Musical at the Kodak Theatre alongside Val Kilmer.   He was the understudy for the part of Fiyero in the touring and Los Angeles casts of the musical Wicked.   Since 2004, he regularly performs at the Zodiac Show, which was co-created by Carmit Bachar of the Pussycat Dolls.  He also performed at the Upright Cabaret.

He’s a dynamo on stage.

FROM THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, THE MUSICAL

Everything he has sung on American Idol has amazed the judges, every song incites the audience.  No matter the genre, no matter who sang the original song, Adam infuses his style and makes them original.  Some of his songs work better than others, but they are always as fascinating as he is to watch.

Is Broadway ready for a star who is part Elton John, part Mick Jagger and part David Bowie?  Time will tell.  All we have to do in the meantime is fasten our seatbelts and enjoy the ride.

Australian Play Opens with 13 Nude Men

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Brisbane playwright Sven Swenson knows nudity is good way to get people into theatres, but there’s much more to his decision to put 13 naked men on stage in his new play.

In the opening scene of The Truth About Kookaburras, the action takes place in a football club dressing room where the first few minutes of dialogue are exchanged in the buff.

“I’m writing about the search for male identity in the 21st century,” Swenson says.  “I thought that the most compelling physical image of that was the nude male form.  To have 13 naked men on stage is overwhelming.”

“As a writer you go through those arguments with yourself of ‘That’s a big ask, will the audience accept it?’ ” Swenson says.  “I think male nudity is something we shy away from in contemporary art, and I wanted to harness the power of it on stage.  A couple of people have said, ‘Are you doing it for the titillation factor?’ but if I was going to do that, I’d have left it until the end.

“It’s also that we see them physically naked in the opening minutes of Act One, but emotionally naked later when they’re clothed,” he says.

The Truth About Kookaburras is the latest in a long list of plays by Swenson. Previous works include the inaugural winner of the Premier’s Drama Award, Road to the She-Devil’s Salon, as well as Heavenly Bodies and Beautiful Souls, Wiredancer’s Waltz and Dangerfield Park, a finalist in the Premier’s Drama Award last year.

“It took me a long time to get the courage to write it.  I knew it would need to be a frank, fly-on-the-wall approach if it wasn’t to be just a naff attempt.”

The play tells the story of a buck’s night at the Kookaburras’ football club.  A raucous party of booze, strippers and testosterone ensues, but by morning one player is dead and a long-buried secret revealed.  While partly inspired by true accounts of footballers behaving badly, Swenson mostly drew from his experiences as a security guard for a stripper while working as a young actor in Melbourne many years ago.

A murder mystery, the play ultimately examines the nature of masculinity in a post-feminist age where traits of traditional manhood can be met with disapproval.  Conversations with friends and strangers played an important role in the research process.

“One guy in his early 20s was saying it was so fantastic how far women have come, with the knowledge that we haven’t reached equality in so many ways.”

“But he was saying there are things that have been taken away from men, and asking what replaces them? We are no longer the breadwinner or protector, necessarily. Our identities have been wrapped up in that for thousands of years. In such a short space of time that’s changed, and probably for the greater good. But then what does it leave men with? Women have a trajectory that they’re still on in order to achieve and gain true equality, but men I think don’t know where to go any more. What is our trajectory?”

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We need more playwrights like Sven in America, especially here in Texas.

Beautiful Mag

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One of my favorite online magazines, and one of the few I subscribe to, is BeautifulMag.  Originating in Paris, they are probably best known for their outstanding and tasteful pictures, accompanied by informative articles.

OUR CUBAN SPECIAL COMES TO AN END. WE HAVE TRAVELED TO HAVANA AND LEARNED ABOUT ITS HISTORY. WE HAVE TASTED A BIT OF MUSIC AND SENSED THE BEAUTY OF THE ISLAND THROUGH THE WORK, THE WORDS AND THE EYES OF PEOPLE LIKE KEVIN SLACK AND ANDREAS DELROSI. WE EVEN WANDERED TO THE HIDDEN GARDENS OF LOS JARDINES DE LA POLAR. TODAY WE FINISH IT WITH THE ULTIMATE FREEDOM: LOS CHICOS DESNUDOS, CUBAS NAKED BOYS.

OUR CUBAN SPECIAL COMES TO AN END. WE HAVE TRAVELED TO HAVANA AND LEARNED ABOUT ITS HISTORY. WE HAVE TASTED A BIT OF MUSIC AND SENSED THE BEAUTY OF THE ISLAND THROUGH THE WORK, THE WORDS AND THE EYES OF PEOPLE LIKE KEVIN SLACK AND ANDREAS DELROSI. WE EVEN WANDERED TO THE HIDDEN GARDENS OF LOS JARDINES DE LA POLAR. TODAY WE FINISH IT WITH THE ULTIMATE FREEDOM: LOS CHICOS DESNUDOS, CUBA'S NAKED BOYS.

See what I mean?  Kinda makes you want to go to Havana, and now that we have a President that can think rationally, maybe some of us Americans will able to do just that.

Fascinating, those darker shades.

Beautiful covers Art:

Entertainment:

Fashion:

Sports:

Travel:

BeautifulMag covers what’s going on in the world today, in a way that will delight you.  Check them out at BeautifulMag.

Middlesex

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I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.

So goes the opening sentence of Middlesex, a novel by Jeffrey Eugenides.

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From Jeff Turrentine, The Los Angeles Times: “Eugenides has had nearly a decade to relax, and the happy result is a novel that’s as warm, expansive and generous as its predecessor wasn’t. (…) Among many things, Middlesex is the author’s love letter to a city that could probably use a few more. (…) Middlesex isn’t just a respectable sophomore effort; it’s a towering achievement, and it can now be stated unequivocally that Eugenides’ initial triumph wasn’t a one-off or a fluke. He has emerged as the great American writer that many of us suspected him of being.”

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A review by Debbie Lee Wesselmann on Amazon.com:

From the first sentence of Jeffrey Eugenides’ MIDDLESEX, I was hooked by this complicated tale of a young girl who grows into a man. The story of Cal Stephanides begins generations before his birth, in a small Greek village, when his grandparents succumb to incestuous desires. Immigration to the United States keeps Desdemona and Lefty’s secret intact – until their grandchild Cal reaches puberty. Told with both humor and earnestness, the story grows more engaging with every page.

The brilliance of this book emerges not from the superficial story of a hermaphrodite but from the context – historical, scientific, psychological, political, geographical – of Cal’s birth and subsequent rebirth. MIDDLESEX is about much more than gender confusion. Cal’s mixed gender can be taken as a metaphor for the experience of first- and second-generations born of immigrants.

While the context of this story provides the substance, the characters provide the vibrancy. Cal emerges as a reliable and likeable narrator. He is sensible, good-humored, and intelligent. The spectrum of his experiences provides a smooth transition between childhood and adult, enabling the reader to embrace the character as both male and female. Cal’s family is affectionately portrayed, even with their failings. (Cal’s brother, Chapter Eleven, annoyed me with his name, a running gag, but even he ended up a full-blooded character by the end.)

Eugenides has written an expansive, compelling book. Despite its length of over 500 pages, the novel is not a slow read – unless the reader wants it to be, to make it last. Accessible, intelligent, well-paced and plotted, it should appeal to a wide range of readers.

I can’t recommend this novel highly enough.

Mother nature can be an inventive force, even cruel (considering the eye-of-the-beholder). In Cal’s case, the narrator and main character in Middlesex, he was born a hermaphrodite.  After his confused early years, he learned to accept his condition, even cherish it, though it led to challenges most of us can’t begin to imagine.

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Cal tells us his family history which leads to why he emerged in the world with characteristics of both sexes.  He tells us about his emotional and confused early years, his challenges and trials, his failed romances, and then how he came about to accept his unique fate.  It’s a must read for anyone looking for something different.