Guy Time
I realize that my last few post were not of an extremely serious nature, but I am changing that today. Yesterday an article, exploring the nature of buddy movies and epic movies, made reference to the fact that these sorts of films are often on the end of homo-erotic criticism. The article is mainly about surf films, but it addresses towards the end. The author says that although these films are often criticized as homoerotic, they are instead narcissistic. There is quite a discussion about the article going on today here. I would be interested in your views on this matter. Is guy time just guy time, or is there an inherently homo-erotic nature to "time with the boys"? If there is what implications does this have on our lives and our faith. Does it change the way we view male companionship, the way we view Christ and the Apostles. I, as you know, just spent a weekend with Jonathan, and even though I think he is the most handsome guy around I don't think that there is a homo-erotic nature to our friendship. I spent Easter weekend with Taylor; I do think that his curly hair is oh so adorable. But again, is that homo-erotic. Could I be wrong? What do you think?
2 Comments:
Guy time is just guy time. I love hanging out with y'all, but as far as I remember all the people I've ever desired are women.
I think the burden of proof is on those who would like to transform all forms of companionship so that they inherently have a sexual component. They don't. Period.
Moreover, it is quite possible to have an aesthetic experience of the elegance and beauty of a human body without wanting to sleep with it. The fact that often the two are intermingled doesn't mean it's necessarily so.
So I'd say whoever wrote that has an agenda that profits from declaring all interactions sexualized, and making it acceptable and normal for men to desire each other.
Rhetorically clever, but it doesn't reflect my own experience, and so I'm not buying it.
I agree with Jonathan. Any kind of criticism that simply seeks to 'unmask' homo-eroticism is part of a more general cultural neurosis that is so saturated by sex that it can't see anything else.
I could go on about this for a while, but I also think our culture is deeply suspicious of maleness - here I'm in the territory of Robert Bly and his fantastic book "Iron John". Because our pluralistic, equality-obsessed culture imagines all the evil in the world (colonialism, imperialism, the oppressions of women, war, religious factions, violence, etc.) to have come from the plans of men talking together, it is deeply afraid of male friendship and thus seeks to explain it away as repressed sexual desire. By locating its (pseudo) cause and 'naming it' as homo-erotic desire, male friendship seems to become more understandable and controllable to a culture that fears it.
But, as Jonathan also said, its really just characteristic of a kind of reductionism that imagines all human interaction to be driven by sexual impulses - thanks a lot, Freud.
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