Gay-Straight Alliances

In light of recent "bathroom bills" in several states, this essay addresses gender identity in the Bible, which proponents of the bills claim supports their legislation. However, this essay argues that the Bible challenges many aspects of gender, especially in Roman perspective, and actually supports a more tolerant and communal respect for gender identity and the transgender community as a whole.

Following the death of 17-year-old Leelah Alcorn, a transgender teen who committed suicide after forced “conversion therapy,” President Barack Obama called for a nationwide ban on psychotherapy aimed at changing sexual orientation or gender identity. The administration argued that because conversion therapy causes substantial psychological harm to minors, it is neither medically nor ethically appropriate. We fully agree with the President and believe that this is a step in the right direction. Of course, in addition to being unsafe as well as ethically unsound, current conversion therapy approaches aren’t actually effective at doing what they claim to do – changing sexual orientation. But we also worry that this may be a short-term legislative solution to what is really a conceptual problem. The question we ought to be asking is “what will happen if and when scientists do end up developing safe and effective technologies that can alter sexual orientation?”

Yaoi/BL Fandom Survey (only takes 10 mins to complete): https://leeds.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/blfandomsurvey
Male–male sexuality is the central trope of Boys’ Love (BL) manga with stories tending to revolve around a central uke-seme (‘bottom’–‘top’) pair. Although focused on men, BL is produced and consumed primarily by women. This article presents, from an anglophone British perspective, analysis of age-stratified male–male romance – paederasty – as portrayed in BL. My corpus consists of 234 commercially-translated original Japanese BL manga stories, created by 100 different mangaka (author-artists), published commercially in English between 2003 and 2012. A total of 68 (30%) of these stories were identified as involving agestratified relationships, eight of which were selected for detailed analysis. Seven were selected for typicality: Waru (2007) by Yukari Hashida deemed the most typical. Fangs (2008) by Hiroki Kusumoto was also included in analysis as the most atypical age-stratified story in order to test the robustness of identified patterns. I argue that that, from an anglophone perspective, the characteristic themes of age-stratified BL map surprising well onto the eroticised intra-familial dynamics of Freud and the intra- and inter-familial economics of Lévi-Strauss. The patterns identified are evidenced and discussed under the following headings: the mother identified son, the doubly divested man, the castrated father, men on the market and the mother with the phallus. These themes help build and substantiate my argument that age-stratified BL might work, within an anglophone context at least, as a feminist critique of patriarchy through the mechanism of phallic divestiture.

Yaoi/BL Fandom Survey (only takes 10 mins to complete): https://leeds.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/blfandomsurvey

This article addresses the research question: How do Chinese Yaoi fans read Yaoi stories? Yaoi is a female-oriented genre of Japanese popular culture which describes romantic and erotic relationships between men. We interviewed twenty Chinese nationals who are self-defined fans of Yaoi (mean age=23.5 years). Although men were not excluded, none volunteered. A Yaoi fandom survey was created in Chinese and in English with five sections: demographics, Yaoi materials, feelings about Yaoi, social relationships, and other erotic materials (Chinese N=1085; Anglophone N=1615). Thematic Analysis of the interviews produced five themes suggesting the existence of a heteronormative frame: social and family approval, everlasting romantic relationship, heteronormative couple, dislike reversible relationship, and gay relationships in reality. We then selected questions from the survey for statistical analysis on the rationale that these items might inform this frame and help us interpret and contextualise the qualitative analysis. Our survey results support our thematic analysis that Chinese Yaoi fans tend to read Yaoi through a heteronormative frame and, importantly, that in comparison with Anglophone fans, this is differential to Chinese culture.

This article focuses on the exegesis of two words in 1 Corinthians 6:9- malakoi and arsenkoitai. Often translated as "homosexual" in English versions of the Bible [such as the New International Version], I argue that the terms would be more accurately translated as  "catamite" and "pederast," respectively.

The loose and inaccurate translation of malakoi and arsenkoitai should not be tolerated in the English Bible, any more than it should be used to persecute adult homosexuals who engage in legal and consenting relationships. Serious damage has been done by the careless interpretation of these words, attempting to inject a distinct social agenda into Paul’s actual message, which was to avoid sexual immorality like pederastic relationships, and to strive to remain in fellowship with one another so as to avoid unseemly and improper quibbles.

Yaoi/BL Fandom Survey (only takes 10 mins to complete): https://leeds.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/blfandomsurvey

The aim of this study is to compare Sinophone and Anglophone fan fiction consisting of female-oriented male-male romance: danmei and slash, respectively. To increase comparability, we analysed Harry Potter fan fiction in which the characters Harry and Draco are married. Male-male marriage was selected because our online Sinophone and Anglophone BL fandom surveys indicate this to be the most popular story element of the nine options we provided. We analysed five stories originally written in Chinese and five originally written in English which subsequently had been fan-translated into Chinese. Using Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) we found some robust patterns. In contrast to the Anglophone fiction, the Sinophone tended to: stress the importance of family approval for the marriage; incorporate a wedding ceremony; employ clearly gendered roles between partners; utilise extended, as opposed to nuclear, families; and showed the couple to produce children, particularly boys. Hence, the stories mirror the relative social conservatism and social liberalism of their cultures of origin. However, in reading and writing such danmei young Chinese women are still pushing at the boundaries of the traditional family.

For LGBTQ adolescents who attend public schools, there are many risk factors that they face as a result of homophobic and heteronormative environments, including bullying, absenteeism, harassment, sexual assault, substance abuse, depression, and suicidality.  It is important to expand the knowledge base concerning the implementation of a queer curriculum in public schools, and to discover effective ways to teach this literature.  The sample for this research study will consist of a total of twenty high school English classes, with ten of these classes consisting of 10th grade students, and the other ten classes consisting of 12th grade students.  Three research designs will be used in this study: 1) a survey on sexual orientation, and a survey on attitudes toward homosexuality; 2) informal interviews; and 3) classroom observations.  The researcher hypothesizes that the research will show the following outcomes: 1) an integration of LGBTQ identity; 2) an improvement of academic outcomes; 3) a reduction of risk factors among LGBTQ adolescents; 4) the creation of a diverse, inclusive, and accepting climate; and 5) positive attitudes from heterosexual adolescents towards LGBTQ people.  The question asked is: Does teaching a queer curriculum in public high school English classes effect the identity development of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer/Questioning (LGBTQ) adolescents and the attitudes of heterosexual adolescent students?

Yaoi/BL Fandom Survey (only takes 10 mins to complete): https://leeds.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/blfandomsurvey

Researching Sex and Sexualities
University of Sussex 8-9th May 2015
Anna Madill for METHODOLOGIES STRAND

Abstract: Rotten girl on rotten girl: Boys’ Love ‘research’

‘Fujoshi’ (rotten girl) is a derogatory Japanese term for female fans of homoerotic manga and anime in the genre know as Boys’ Love (BL). BL is a global phenomenon and, overlapping with the male-male slash community, one of the largest, female-oriented erotic subcultures. I have underway, what is already, the biggest survey of the Anglophone fandom (https://leeds.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/blfandomsurvey) and have, so far, completed around 12 face-to-face and 30 e-mail interviews. This is the first project I have conducted on sexually explicit material and, although I consider myself to be a fujoshi, I am not, otherwise, a user of pornography/sexually explicit material. In fact, this research has presented a huge challenge to me in terms of becoming more comfortable discussing sexual topics and, even more personally, in making my own investment in MxM public. This has meant dealing with feelings of embarrassment and shame, but also of relief in finding and communicating with other women who have a similar erotic fantasy life. However, the project has also made me feel, at times, frankly paranoid because I have been afraid that my BL may contravene UK prohibited images of children legislation (it doesn’t!). What does BL represent for me that I am willing to put myself through this, spend most of my spare time on it, and, hence, is it really ‘research’?

Biography
Anna Madill is Chair in Qualitative Inquiry and Deputy Head of the School of Psychology, University of Leeds, and member of the university Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies. She is Co-Founder and former Chair (2008-11) of the British Psychological Society Qualitative Methods in Psychology Section and is Associated Editor of the British Journal of Clinical Psychology. Anna received British Academy funding (2011-2013) for ‘Understanding Japanese Boys' Love manga from a UK perspective’ from which she has three book chapters in press, made 12 conference presentations (including a keynote) and many other presentations to academics and the public, and, in relation to which, she has been consulted by the BBC.

As an out gay man who used Grindr as a tool to meet other homosexual men, I often believed that such applications and their innate focus on sex were significantly changing the ways in which gay culture behaved. Had it changed the way gay men presented themselves? Is it implicit in the refocused efforts on HIV/AIDS awareness?

Through an investigation into digital spaces such as Grindr I am able to draw similarities between the postmodern societies we currently live and that of the birth of gay culture throughout the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. This study looks at elements of gay culture including semiotics, social construction, sexual desire and gender identity and how these have been remediated within digital gay culture in the form of Grindr, which results in a convergence of queer and heteronormative concepts. Concepts, which originated from prolific queer theorists such as Judith Butler and Michel Foucault.

The theme of this book is that the gay community has stereotyped itself and has imposed a conformity upon its members that stifles their development and forces them to suppress aspects of themselves that do not fit the approved model of the gay lifestyle. The review focuses on, and criticises, Peter Tatchell's contribution.

This paper grew out of a discussion with a former classmate which I had not seen since high school days. After we discovered we both since had become Christ-followers, the discussion turned to sharing our respective points of view on a variety of subjects – prayer, spiritual life, the Bible – and eventually our views on sexual orientation. I favored the full inclusion of gay and lesbian people in the life of the Church; he did not, yet both of us claimed a high view of the inspiration of Scripture. He said he could not reconcile those two positions, and asked me to explain how I could.
This article is my response to that request.

Yaoi/BL Fandom Survey (only takes 10 mins to complete): https://leeds.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/blfandomsurvey

Little Red Riding Hood is one of the best known fairy tales and its central villain - the wolf - a potent and recurring motif in contemporary popular culture, including Japanese manga. I am studying from a UK perspective a cluster of erotic manga genres (Boys’ Love or ‘BL’) which are produced and consumed predominantly by young women. The sine qua non of BL is the portrayal of romantic and sexual relationships between young men. Manga often presents characters as human-animal hybrids. Add to this the explicitly sexual nature of BL content, its homoerotic and transgressive themes, and the fact that it is created for and by young women, BL is interpretable as a site within which women are attempting to develop new ways of engaging with male sexuality. It is indicative of their psychological potency that European fairy tale motifs have been used as a vehicle in this project. The research question I will explore is: What happens when the fairy tale motif of ‘the girl and the wolf’ – that is, of the female’s initiation into the dangerous aspects of male sexuality – is queered? I will explore how this is presented in contemporary commercial BL manga, the readings this makes available, and the ways this might function for modern women. The explicit eroticism of BL invites a psychoanalytic interpretative lens. Specifically, the disjunction between the gender of the protagonists and audience makes pertinent a Kleinian understanding of defensive splitting and of projective identification. However, a purely psychoanalytic reading is possibly too individualistic and potentially pathologising, and I will draw also on queer theory to preserve my sense that BL can be read as exploring new ways of performing heterosexuality through the use of, often visual, metaphorical slippages and defamiliarisation. I will also pay attention to social and cultural context since I am studying ‘exotic’ texts in translation which are produced in a different legislative and socio-historico nexus.

The American political thriller television series Scandal, starring Kerry Washington and creat-ed by Shonda Rhimes, who constitutes today an undeniable force in Hollywood stirred a few contradictory feelings since it was first aired on April 5, 2012, not only in the press, but also in social media because of the depiction of a black woman, for some a whore, for others a “sister” in power.
As the story goes character Olivia Pope, the star of the show, is partially based on former George H.W. Bush administration press aide, 56 year old Judy Smith. Washington’s is the first black woman leading in a network drama in almost three decades. Controversy doesn’t mean that writer Rhimes remove totally the weight of race and racism in the show. Sex, race and con-flict is nothing new in performing, but also the conspiracy theory of crime and politics and high levels in the houses of power to capture the involvement of the audience.
For some in social media Scandal is a communal experience and with 4.3 million tweets for 2013 season alone the show becomes a social phenomenon through the use and manipulation of social media, what some called “the show that Twitter build”, this combo of a promotions strat-egy and thriller show, a high-stakes soap opera, involving election rigging, a presidential assas-sination attempt, a failed internal White House coup, and many other crazy shenanigans, could be preposterous on virtually every level, but also an fun in a certain way as a “telenovela” –or a “soapy political drama”.
In reality, without the “push” of Twitter and social media the show probably would have being canceled in the first season, all the cast of the show has “live-tweeted” extending their brand image into the digital area, in which we have proof of how –we like it or not- social media change television “enhancing” the way people do their TV viewing.

This is a brief essay on the oppressive natures of school and the rights of students to arm themselves with the creation of Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs). Students who identify as LGBTQ are at higher risk for victimization, among other negative outcomes. For those who identify as LGBTQ, GSAs are often a safe-haven from the heteronormative realities of school, yet students face continued opposition. This essay describes how GSAs can counter the oppressive effects of schooling.

Originating in the United States, a Gay/Straight Alliance (GSA) is an in-school student club whose focus is on making the school a safe space for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer students and their straight allies by raising awareness about, and hopefully reducing, school-based homophobia. The ongoing struggle for GSAs in Canadian Catholic schools is one example of how clashes continue to be played out between Catholic canonical law and Canadian common law regarding sexual minorities. This paper draws upon Foucault’s Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, and The History of Sexuality Vol. 1: An Introduction to analyze one particularly influential curricular and policy document entitled Pastoral Guidelines to Assist Students of Same-Sex Orientation from the Ontario Conference of Catholic Bishops. This paper posits that Catholic doctrine about non-heterosexuality functions as a Foucaultian Panopticon enabling Catholic education leaders to observe and correct the ...

I am struck by how much of what I am saying in this article I published in 2017 may be interpreted as foreshadowing COVID-19.

This line, in particular, jumped off the page at me - like a cave dwelling COVID-19 reservoir bat suddenly roused from its sleep: echolocating itself and navigating my cavernous thoughts frantically.

  "these violent weather phenomena may be viewed as cleansing winds, sent to prompt a review of well-intentioned but misguided or short-sighted, maliciously and materially motivated decisions."

This is a first draft of an updated version of the article that I'm working on, It contains color highlights, enlarged text sections and other devices indicating issues I intend to focus on.

Despite gains in the LGBTQ community, many schools still feel cold and unwelcoming for LGBTQ youth. Identity development is important for adolescents, but LGBTQ students often see the ability to freely share their identity limited in public education. Providing a gay-straight alliance (GSA) club within the school has been shown to increase feeling of acceptance and well-being for LGBTQ students. This article looks at the history of GSA in education, the positive and negative outcomes of LGBTQ inclusion and the author's personal reflection of successes and challenges as a sponsor for a GSA club during its inception year.

youth are at risk for engaging in negative health behaviors and for experiencing at-school victimization. Specific benefits of attending a high school with a gay-straight alliance (GSA), including lower levels of suicidality, have been published; however, it is unclear whether GSAs are related to lower levels of problematic substance use, depressive symptoms, and psychological distress. Using a sample of 145 LGBT youth recruited from college and university organizations for LGBT students, we examined whether attending a high school with a GSA was related to more positive school experiences and mental health outcomes for LGBT youth. The results indicate that youth who attended a high school with a GSA report significantly more favorable outcomes related to school experiences, alcohol use, and psychological distress. The implications of the findings are discussed as they relate to school psychologists. Important limitations of this study are reviewed.

Following the recent and vivid dialogue around the relevant role of the media in the Spanish transition to democracy, this article studies the irst representations of homosexual characters
in the democratic cinema, focusing on the importance of the question of education, of great signiicance for the LGTB activism of the time. It refers to different theoretical sources, including
signiicant works of queer and gender theorists and archival material of the gay activism of the late Francoism. It studies how the irst activism aimed to prove wrong old myths around
homosexuality and to convince the new democratic society of the importance of the acceptance of sexual diversity, and how the so-called strategy of the «Trojan horse» was used in order to introduce, making use of the media, educational messages. The ilm Los placeres ocultos is taken as a case study to examine the legacy of the connection between education and LGTB liberation
in cinema; the analysis is helpful to explore the dificulties of the use of ilm narratives with educational intentions, as well as to understand the irst steps in the creation of innovative
discourses of little tradition in Spanish culture.

Background: Gay-straight alliances (GSAs) have potential to facilitate conversations on transgender and gender-diversity issues among members. We examined how frequently GSA members discussed transgender and gender-diversity topics within GSAs, whether GSAs varied from one another in the extent to which these conversations occurred, and identified factors that distinguished which members and GSAs discussed such topics more often than others. Methods: Participants were 295 members of 33 high school GSAs in the state of Massachusetts who completed surveys that assessed their experiences within their GSA. Results: On average, youth discussed transgender and gender-diversity issues with some regularity, but this varied significantly across GSAs and among youth within each GSA. Youth who had transgender friends, perceived a more respectful GSA climate, and accessed more information/ resources and engaged in more advocacy within the GSA reported more frequently discussing transgender and gender-diversity issues. Also, GSAs with transgender members, whose members collectively perceived a more respectful climate, accessed more information/resources and did more advocacy, and who reported lower socializing or support discussed transgender and gender-diversity issues more frequently than other GSAs. Conclusions: This information could inform GSA programming to facilitate more transgender and gender-diversity topic discussions and ensure that members feel encouraged to participate in them.

In the following paper, I evaluate the rise of the American Alt-Right, particularly as it's personified by Turning Point USA's Candace Owens and Charlie Kirk, in terms of the mercenary "ends justify the means" logic deployed to justify some of the misleading, distorted, or manifestly false claims organizations like this depend on to advance their white nationalist agendas.

The paper ranges widely over gun control, Kanye West's outrageous comments about slavery, Owen's illiteracy about contemporary feminism, and Kirk's theocratic aspirations. But the message is a simple on: TPUSA is the Alt-Right, and their offering of the Red Pill, or in Owens' case the RedPillBlack, is intended either as a narcotic to make us forget that the past can be a prologue to the future, or an hallucinogen to entrance us into believing--especially if we're black, female, poor, or indigenous--that there's no such thing as oppression in America.

Both are false, and both threaten to seduce us into complacency about the justice for which we must continue to struggle, not only in light of the inequalities of class, sex, gender, or race, but for the sake of preserving respect for the truth--the most endangered potential casualty of TPUSA's vision of "Western Civilization," that is the theocratic, heteropatriarchal ethnostate.

I have also divided the piece into three parts, for easier reading and digestion. The Bibliography is in Part 3.

youth are at risk for engaging in negative health behaviors and for experiencing at-school victimization. Specific benefits of attending a high school with a gay-straight alliance (GSA), including lower levels of suicidality, have been published; however, it is unclear whether GSAs are related to lower levels of problematic substance use, depressive symptoms, and psychological distress. Using a sample of 145 LGBT youth recruited from college and university organizations for LGBT students, we examined whether attending a high school with a GSA was related to more positive school experiences and mental health outcomes for LGBT youth. The results indicate that youth who attended a high school with a GSA report significantly more favorable outcomes related to school experiences, alcohol use, and psychological distress. The implications of the findings are discussed as they relate to school psychologists. Important limitations of this study are reviewed.

Rozmowa z autorem cyklu o GEJU W WIELKIM MIEŚCIE o nowych odsłonach w serii, książkach „Nie w moim typie” i „Trzy po trzy”

Hashtag #Gej3 oznacza dwie książki pop, o których się mówi – nie tylko w sieci.

„Myślę, że wszyscy powinniśmy zadumać się nad tym, o co chodzi z tym prężeniem się na Grindrze czy Insta? Po co prowadzić rozmowy o niczym? Dlaczego wirtualne relacje stawiamy ponad realne, dlaczego boimy się tych drugich? I dlaczego pędzimy za ideałami stworzonymi przez Photoshopa?” – autor powieściowego cyklu o geju w wielkim mieście oraz RÓŻOWYCH KARTOTEK śmiało mówi o polskich mężczyznach, a przy okazji odsłania kilka wątków ze swoich nowych powieści, oczywiście bestsellerów LGBTQ-owych.

https://queer.pl/artykul/202846/rozmowa-z-mikolajem-milckem

Originating in the United States, a Gay/Straight Alliance (GSA) is an in-school student club whose focus is on making the school a safe space for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer students and their straight allies by raising awareness about, and hopefully reducing, school-based homophobia. The ongoing struggle for GSAs in Canadian Catholic schools is one example of how clashes continue to be played out between Catholic canonical law and Canadian common law regarding sexual minorities. This paper draws upon Foucault’s Discipline and
Punish: The Birth of the Prison, and The History of Sexuality Vol. 1: An Introduction to analyze one particularly influential curricular and policy document entitled Pastoral Guidelines to Assist Students of Same-Sex Orientation from the Ontario Conference of Catholic Bishops. This paper posits that Catholic
doctrine about non-heterosexuality functions as a Foucaultian Panopticon enabling Catholic education leaders to observe and correct the behaviour of non-heterosexual teachers and students that they deem runs counter to the values of the Vatican. This paper argues that successful resistance to the powerful disciplining regime of the Catholic school is possible.

The legal response to domestic abuse is no straightforward matter. At the end of last year the very definition of domestic violence (sic) in England and Wales was changed by s 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 to include repeatedly or continuously engaging in behaviour that is intended to be controlling of, or coercive of, another person with whom the perpetrator is in a family relationship. This is an attempt to capture the particular nature of domestic abuse, that it is self-serving manipulative behaviour which need not include "violence" but which can be effective because of the personal relationship between the perpetrator and victim.

The Rocky Mountain Civil Liberties Association (RMCLA) initiated independent, non-partisan public consultations to elicit input from Albertans on the issue of Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) — including those both against and for the formation of GSAs in Alberta schools, whether public, separate, charter or private. The public consultation process revealed that there are no deleterious effects upon religious rights, parental rights or authority, or upon separate school privileges in having GSAs held in any school (including public, separate, charter or private), despite pre-emptive allegations to the contrary (for which none of the presenters offered substantiation).  RMCLA recommends minor revisions to specific Alberta statutes be considered in drafting new legislation regarding GSAs.

In this chapter, I build on my ethnographic fieldwork to examine how Serbian nationalist NGOs and movements used religious
nationalist discourse in their struggle against LGBT Pride Parade. In the first part of the chapter, I offer a brief account of their history, organizational practices, and external relationships. I show how these organizations and their supporters, including the Serbian Orthodox Church, fought against an alliance of the state, LGBT NGOs and a broader liberal civil society over which issues and norms had a legitimate presence in the public sphere. I illustrate this further with the example of the anti-Pride “Family Walks” in the second section. In the third part, I focus on the historical roots, social ideology, and current uses of religious nationalist discourse. Finally, I highlight the nationalists’ populist presentation of their anti-Pride campaign as a defense of the collective rights of the Serbian nation, and consider the audience and achievements of this strategy.

ANTOLOGÍA.  Colaboran más de 40 poetas cubanos de dentro y fuera de la Isla.  Incluye poemas tomados de libros e inéditos. Ediciones La Mirada, 2015, 166 pp. ISBN: 978-0-9911325-2-2. Entre los autores incluidos están Abilio Estévez, Alberto Acosta-Pérez, Antón Arrufat, Nelson Simón, Norge Espinosa, Richard Blanco, Magali Alabau, Isel Rivero, Lina de Feria, Alina Galliano, Maya Islas, Damaris Calderón, Reinaldo García Ramos, Amauri Gutiérrez Coto, José Felix León, Carlos Pintado, Juan Carlos Valls, Emilio Bejel, Achy Obejas, Odette Alonso, Néstor Díaz de Villegas, Delfín Prats, etc.  SI LE INTERESA ADQUIRIRLO, BÚSQUELO EN AMAZON.COM.  (Puede que algunas semanas no esté disponible, pero las restantes sí.)

There main foci of the research are twofold. On the one hand, discrimination against one’s appearance (e.g. fattism, ageism, racism, slut shaming, internalised homophobia, transphobia, etc.).

On the other hand, your rights on the pictures you upload (and on the things you write) and the rights you transfer to Grindr and other dating apps by accepting their terms of service, privacy policy, guidelines, etc.

Please go to https://northumbria.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/the-responsibilities-of-queer-dating-platforms to take part to the survey.

Should you have queries or doubts, please do not hesitate to contact me any time

Kind regards

Guido Noto La Diega

Εισαγωγή – Σχετικά με την ιστορία και τους άντρες του Κυριάκου


Ποιοι είναι οι άντρες του Κυριάκου
Όλη η προσωπική ιστορία του Κυριάκου μου είναι γνωστή επειδή μου την αφηγήθηκε ο ίδιος, όχι μονομιάς ή σε μια συγκεκριμένη περίοδο αλλά σε όλη τη μακρά διάρκεια της φιλίας μας, η οποία ξεκίνησε από τα παιδικά και τα πρώϊμα εφηβικά μας χρόνια και συνεχίζεται μέχρι σήμερα. Η γνώση της ερωτικής και προσωπικής ζωής του Κυριάκου που έχω αποκτήθηκε μέσα στο πέρασμα του χρόνου, είτε στη διάρκεια προσωπικών συναντήσεων, συζητήσεων και τηλεφωνημάτων, είτε χάρη στην ανταλλαγή μιας τεράστιας αλληλογραφίας, η οποία οφείλεται στο γεγονός ότι συχνά δεν ζούσαμε στον τόπο όπου είχαμε και οι δυο γεννηθεί και γνωριστεί, στο Κολωνάκι. Ακριβώς γι' αυτό, αφήνω την αφήγηση να κυλίσει σε πρώτο πρόσωπο, όπως την άκουσα εγώ από τον Κυριάκο.

Ο Κυριάκος είναι ένας παλιός, καλός, παιδικός μου φίλος, και τον γνώρισα τουλάχιστον 6-7 χρόνια πριν εκείνος γνωρίσει τον πρώτο από τους άντρες που έπαιξαν ένα σημαντικό ρόλο στη ζωή του και αναφέρονται στην ιστορία αυτή. Όμως ποτέ δεν συνάντησα και δεν γνώρισα από κοντά κανένα από τους πέντε άντρες που σημάδεψαν έντονα τη ζωή του Κυριάκου. Οπότε, η κάθε πληροφορία και η κάθε εντύπωση που έχω γι' αυτούς οφείλεται στις εκάστοτε αφηγήσεις του Κυριάκου.

Οι σχέσεις του Κυριάκου μ' αυτούς δεν ήταν πάντοτε ερωτικές. Οι δύο από τους πέντε υπήρξαν απλώς καλοί κι έμπιστοι φίλοι και προσπάθησαν να τον βοηθήσουν, ή και να τον νουθετήσουν. Από τους υπόλοιπους τρεις, οι οποίοι ήταν όλοι εραστές του Κυριάκου, ο ένας είχε σχετικά σύντομες σχέσεις μαζί του.

Οι σχέσεις του Κυριάκου με τους δύο βασικούς εραστές της ζωής του ήταν πολύ διαφορετικές μεταξύ τους, όπως άλλωστε κι αυτοί οι δύο άντρες διέφεραν πολύ ο ένας από τον άλλον. Όταν εμφανίστηκε ο δεύτερος, η επήρεια του πρώτου φάνηκε να σβύνει. Όταν όμως ο δεύτερος έφυγε από τη ζωή του Κυριάκου, εκείνος αργά-αργά ξαναγύρισε στον πρώτο.

Σε λίγες περιστάσεις της ζωής του Κυριάκου έχει η λέξη 'δεσμός' πραγματική ισχύ. Κι αυτό γιατί όλες αυτές οι σχέσεις αναπτύχθηκαν στα μικρά διαστήματα που ο Κυριάκος περνούσε από την Αθήνα, εφόσον πρώτα σπούδαζε και αργότερα εργαζόταν στο εξωτερικό, σε διάφορες χώρες. Αλλά και όταν ο Κυριάκος βρισκόταν στην Αθήνα, κοινωνικές και οικογενειακές περιστάσεις δεν του επέτρεπαν να έχει ένα κανονικό δεσμό.

Έτσι, η πρώτη φορά που ο Κυριάκος είχε στη ζωή του ένα πραγματικό δεσμό ήταν όταν έφθασε στα 32 του χρόνια. Αυτός ο ομοφυλοφιλικός δεσμός κράτησε δύο με δυόμιση χρόνια αλλά η απρόβλεπτη εξέλιξή του έκανε τον Κυριάκο να θέσει τέρμα στην ωραιότερη περίοδο της ζωής του και σταδιακά να ξαναγυρίσει στον πρώτο του εραστή, ο οποίος πάντα τον περίμενε. Αλλά και πάλι, οι δυο άντρες έζησαν συνέχεια μαζί μόνο τα τελευταία δέκα χρόνια, οπότε χρειάστηκε να γίνει ο Κυριάκος σχεδόν 50 χρόνων για να συζήσει και πάλι με ένα εραστή του.

Αναμφίβολα, από τους πολλούς άλλους άντρες που ο Κυριάκος γνώρισε σαν φίλους κι εραστές στη ζωή του, αυτοί οι πέντε άντρες ξεχωρίζουν ως προς τον βαθμό που επηρέασαν την ζωή του, και γι' αυτό είναι αυτοί οι πέντε που δίνουν εξ ορισμού τον τίτλο αυτής της ιστορίας.

Όπως ήδη ανέφερα, ο Κυριάκος δεν μου αφηγήθηκε την ιστορία της ζωής του όλη μονομιάς, ούτε και γω του ζήτησα ποτέ κάτι τέτοιο. Αλλά όταν επικοινωνείς συχνά με ένα φίλο, όταν ανταλλάσσεις βουνά αλληλογραφίας μαζί του, όταν συναντιέσαι και ακούς περιστατικά και συμβάντα, και όταν όλη αυτή η σχέση κρατάει για περισσότερο από 45 χρόνια, τότε έχεις όλο το απαιτούμενο υλικό εύκαιρο κατά νου και έτοιμο να καταγραφεί σαν μια ιστορία - οποτεδήποτε.
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