Just Something In the Way You Look Tonight

Written 11/21/08
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This post will prove to be incredibly long and probably confusing for most.

So I tried to write this post as fast and as orderly as I could, but like usual my brain was throwing stuff at me three at a time. I hope it makes sense to everyone, but its mostly for me. Probably won’t though.

Its about culture, me finding god/ a power again, and all that splurge of junk. I’m sorry if it offends anyone, but it’s my thoughts.


Here I am riding on the bus to the Macalester two-day swim meet with nothing to do but think the thoughts in my head. This time though, it is a good thing. I positive I’ve needed to think about this stuff for a long time, but the time just wasn’t right.

Last night, as I was studying for my Mass Communications test (these things always seem to sneak up when they’re the most inconvenient. You can always learn new things when under pressure or boredom. This is why I think boredom is so beneficial—as an example, learning to draw so well during all those years of math.) A thought resurfaced from the back of my mind. This was partly because of my frustration of not being able to see the movie Twilight this weekend.

It got me wondering again why there seemed to be so many books, movies, pictures—everything! About Vampires. They seem to be a cultural phenomenon right now. People cant get enough of them, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Underworld the Movie, the Twilight Series, Angel the Television Show, those countless vampire books that never became as famous as Twilight, etc., etc.

So, as with everything that I find interesting, I wanted to know if anyone else had noticed this trend. I typed in vampire obsession (or an equivalent to this) into Google, and lo and behold! It had been noticed. There were pages and pages upon it. I started to read them, and some of them I agreed with, but some of them bothered me.

They all tried to explain why we were obsessed with them, and why creatures that had been seen not a hundred years ago as putrid, lustful demonic shells of humans could possibly become heroes in shows. There was one woman who wrote that we are becoming a godless society, and so we can sympathize with demon creatures because we can understand their lusting for sex and the ability to live eternally without needing salvation. I really didn’t agree with what she said.

The other person said the same thing, but in a nicer way: he said that in an atheistic society we desire the ability to live forever. He said something else, but this must wait, because as the always multi-tasking, always engaging in internal dialogue person that I am, I was looking up another thing on the Internet. I SWEAR I was studying for my test. All three topics at the same time. They were all really important!

So this second thing I was looking up, was because I lately have been missing reading about love. True love. But not just any love, Gay love because it would apply directly to me. This is important because it makes me believe the stories more—something to the effect that I can see myself exist within the stories.

The problem is that there are never enough of them out there. It’s like territory that has never been walked on, or has been charted by inferior mapmakers; a new land that few have the guts to traverse. These maps have become their own locations; unsatisfactory, unauthentic imaginations. These “authors” only talk about sex and how it’s the greatest thing in life. I must admit I don’t have any experience to say how great sex is, but it isn’t the sex that is so great. Just like the maps. The maps are useless if the actual location doesn’t exist. What’s so amazing about sex is the other person there with you, the bonding, and the fact that you both love each other and find each other so irresistible… The map helps make the land easier to understand and makes it better to traverse. The sex helps you understand the person you are (hopefully) getting to know. Again, without the land, the map means nothing. You can get a lot of pleasure looking over a map, but in the end it’s visiting the actual place that makes it unforgettable. Otherwise, we wouldn’t need other people to have sex with. Duh! lol

Worse than having a map and no location to traverse, is a crappy, misdrawn blob that someone assures is the real thing. What can you do with it? Nothing.

Now to what I was looking up. I remembered my favorite gay magazine, XY. I missed it so much, because this magazine had so much potential. I bought a magazine probably a year ago called the Gay Times. There were lots of hot guys, and eventually I read the articles. I tried to pretend that these articles were important, like they mattered, but they didn’t. They were all fluff. It was just like what someone told me about Playboy Magazine: they put articles in there not because anybody reads them, but to pretend like they had depth. These articles were pure, marshmallow peep fluff.

And then I bought the picture edition of XY. The guys in it were so beautiful, and were actually my age. I imagined I felt like my sister Ariell when she used to buy Vogue, and Seventeen Magazine. I could stare at these beautiful faces day in and day out, and Imagine what it would be like to get to know them, to get to hold their hands, maybe whisper sweet nothings in their ears as they playfully smiled back. Some of them almost dared to develop personalities but that’s always when I realized they were just made of paper.

I went back to that Barnes and Noble, looking for another Picture Edition of XY, hoping that a new edition would be there. I found the farmiliar XY symbol and picked it up. I was happy because there was a really cute guy on the front of it, but unhappy because it was half the size, and half of the pages had those damned pointless articles like the Gay Times!

I was frustrated, but I sat down to at least see if the pictures were good enough to buy. They so were. There was this blonde kid, my age, with amazing blue eyes, and lips so full they were heartbreaking. I couldn’t stop looking at him. His features and skin looked to be made of the smoothest marble. Here was another imaginative lover, ready for me to stare at and dream, dream that I could have this; that it would be ok to have.

And then I decided, what the hell, I’ll read one of the articles. I was doubly shocked. It was amazing. The writer was talking about how we, as a culture should stand up for ourselves. Another one talked about how we should start to see ourselves in a positive light, and not treat ourselves like society was treating us. It amazed me. I was so touched by the writing, shivers traveled up and down my whole body.

I immediately bought the magazine, shelling out the $10 dollars and feeling like I had made a bargain. A magazine with beautiful guys, AND substance? Priceless.

So, to see if I could subscribe to the magazine, I went to the website, XY.com. I found that they posted their articles on the website. Score! I found a really long one by the owner of the magazine himself, Peter Ian Cummings. It was called: How The Gay Scene Lost It’s Way. A very gutsy thing to post in a magazine for gay teenagers, I remember thinking.

But his article was the same as his others: beyond amazing. He talked about how the gay culture before the HIV/AIDS breakout was actually a culture worth being a part of. It was a time of being able to learn about ones physical sexuality freely (as long as you knew where to go), but to also search for love, friendship, and a good time. He also talked about how guys used to walk up to another guy they “fancied” and would tell them that they though they were cute. Now, Peter says, everyone is afraid. Everyone has an attitude because they are afraid to show their true selves. Drugs run rampant because it’s so easy to not be yourself when hopped up on alcohol and drugs. People are even afraid to have sex because they are afraid of getting AIDS. I don’t know if this is true or not, but accepting how the culture is today, anything has to be better.

The thing he said that struck me the most was that people were even afraid to tell each other they like each other. Nobody dances with each other because a) you would have to tell someone you like them, and b) slow songs are never played. Its like homosexuality has become acceptable, but love has not. People are too cool for love. Even if two people do go somewhere and have sex, it doesn’t mean anything, it was just a body. They are afraid, afraid to show their feelings, afraid to show that need that ALL humans have of needing someone else to love. To either feel safe with someone, accepted by someone, enjoy time with someone, whatever floats your boat.

What does this have to do with Vampires you say? Do you remember that I said this before:
“The other person said the same thing, but in a nicer way: he said that in an atheistic society we desire the ability to live forever. He said something else, but this must wait.”

Well here it is, what that man said. He said that we are also obsessed with vampires because they have this longing, this desire for blood and human contact, especially in a sexual way.

This is so beyond denying. It is true! All those pictures of the huge, dark, mysterious looking vampire with a look of desire on his face as he holds a maiden’s neck in an almost loving manner. This was made acceptable because it is restated again and again and again in every vampire story; the thirst for blood is insatiable. It made it ok to want sex, to say that you needed it. It would make it ok if you were a Vampire to tell someone that you needed them.

Oh how easy it would be to be a Vampire! To go hunting and quench your desires, not because you wanted to, but because you HAVE to! It would make it all right again. People have forgotten that they need someone to love and to explore their physical desires with. It is a taboo, a pink elephant in the room that no one wants to admit because it would make them look weak. They wouldn’t have that attitude of apathy that everyone seems to parade.

After much thought, the first woman that talked about how people like vampires because we are becoming more and more atheistic did have an important point. She was wrong in the fact that we like vampires because they are the opposite of God. I don’t think that’s true. What she is right about is that this world has become so atheistic.

There are multiple reasons, and which I can fully understand, and which I have believed since recently. One is that the churches, which are seen as the heart or beginning-and-end-point of religion and furthermore God, have screwed things up so much. They have lied; they have spewed untruths and customs that are meaningless to this age so much, that the majority of people can see through the façade. What might have once started as pure faith has become corrupt and not essential. The second reason is Independence. People have become more and more Independent recently. I think that one reason for this independence is that we have been lied to and tried to be controlled so much by much more powerful, paternal figures, that we cant but see the powerlessness these people/ ideas have on our lives if only we choose not to believe in them.

So what is the natural assumption on religion and belief? It is the belief that the church started faith, and it’s end will be the end of faith. THIS IS SO WRONG. The church has attempted to copyright hope, copyright goodness, and to announce that everything else is Evil. It’s true. They will deny it, but they also state that they don’t discriminate and that they welcome everybody. Ha.

(stay with me now) Life is like the stock market, or a push and pull from one extreme to the other (think democrat vs. republican; especially in this last election), in which when one side becomes too powerful or too common, an immediate reaction occurs. The losing extreme cries out so loudly that they have lost the balance, that other people take up the cause and bring the losing side up so that IT becomes the powerful dictator. Take this idea, and repeat again and again and again.

What I am trying to say here is that people have relied upon the church and other factors such as kings/ leaders, etc, so much that they are sick of it. They want to be independent because they have been slaves for so long to more powerful forces. So many people have risen up and declared that they don’t want to live within the lies of the church. The scandals, the drop in liturgy attendance, etc. They are sick of the doctrine because the doctrine is not essential to belief. It’s just not. Who cares what the God’s name is, who cares if Mary really had more children after Jesus or didn’t? It doesn’t matter in the long run.

So people now have voiced their opinions through action that this doctrine, such as attending church every week, needing to pray, etc., is not essential. They are becoming independent of organized religion, even the idea of theology because they are sick of being slaves to it. I once believed this. I once used to wonder before going to bed if there was a God or not. All the time. It bothered me because I couldn’t find an answer. I would wonder if I believed that a God existed sometimes BECAUSE I wanted one to exist. BECAUSE it feels better when I believe that one exists.

The truth of the fact is that Extremes of anything are ugly. They are not good because both need to exist. Too much candy, scary far right republicans, scary far left democrats, too much fruit, we’ve all been there or seen that. Life isn’t only black and white. The majority of it is gray. Different shades of beautiful, ugly, boring, cream colored, yellowish, reddish, dark, and light grays.

And so one extreme of this Independence is that while the majority of people have denounced religion and doctrine as unneeded in order to be more independent, they have also decided to throw belief, and hope, down the drain with organized religions. This extreme mass body thinks that the two are combined, or rather one in the same.

People want to explore their newfound sexual freedom because it’s been smothered for so long. So what happens to the balance between sex and love? The love is trampled on, overlooked and ignored. People are willing to ignore love so that they can experience the sex that they have been denied.

One extreme, to the other. It’s unhealthy. You can’t have sex without love, and you can’t go far with love without desiring sex. People need to learn that you need both. We are in love with Vampires because they NEED to have sexual-like encounters with their prey (they always go for the pretty girls, not the overweight ones), and we are realizing within ourselves that we need sex too.

But the other extreme, love, has now been trampled. Peter Ian Cummings has noticed this. And I totally agree with him.

Another thing about God is that while there may or may not be a God, there IS hope. There is belief that something or some time that is better will come along. There is some power out there that is balanced, that believes in hope, that is strong, that is weak, that can be beautiful one day, but have a bad hair day the next. I’ve stated on my facebook religious preference status that my religion is people. And this is true. Our lives evolve around each other, and we all need people. We all need that one other person who completes us and makes us feel safe with, accepted by, enjoy time with, whatever floats your boat. I think this love we all seek is the faith that we all need. Its not the need to believe that Jesus was born on Christmas time, or that the Torah is the law of the land. It is that we need each other, because we have power. We can change, we can make hopes and dreams a reality.

So this is what has been splurged inside my head. My laptop is about to die, and I’m not so sure what I said was clear, or what most of I said is needed. Please, if you want to tear this apart, do not give me stupid facts. Facts are great and all, but hope is not based on facts or concrete things. I know that the percentage of people that still go to church is the same as it was 200 years ago. It’s just, those people that don’t, also don’t follow the religious rules as they had before, so this makes this time and age different.

Neil