Determinants 2

Sigmund Freud, when a child, happened upon his parents while they were making love. He wrote later, and others joined him in writing about what he had written, that the experience had an effect on his life. So there's an example from my 'Determinants' previous post of "accident" playing a role in how we respond in childhood to our sexuality; because it's obvious to most parents that childhood sexuality begins almost immediately. A comic example mentioned by Anthropologist Clyde Kluckholn in my Humanities 5 undergraduate college class, was the spectacle of Navajo, young Indian boys (members of a peaceful Native American tribe) breast feeding with an erection; A fact which might for most suggest earlier weaning.

Freud's confession was used in an attack on Freud's psychoanalytic postulates by a Medical doctor, Nat Morris, in his 1974 book A Man Possessed. The whole scheme of the attack was repeated in 2004 by another Medical Doctor, from Northern Ontario, Canada, Medical School. Medicine wants the psyche for IT'S province. So far it's failed miserably.

Earlier than the firewood-gathering saga, in which I repeatedly mentioned I simply did not know, and do not know now what happened, where we lived some miles from my Grandmother when my family first returned from America, there was at the end of our tennis court, behind the house, a neighbor's carpentry workplace. On a gorgeous sunny day, early in the morning, the neighbor choreographed a scene in which I stood on the stairs to his workshop and watched him masturbate. I now know that some child abusers are clever at directing very young children and come from a place where they consider what they are doing is completely normal, sane and ordinary. I was three or four at the time.  So young that I was still in what must have been the traditional anal stage of childhood development. After the scene watched from the steps, some days later, I took a cricket stump, speared a large human turd in the tennis court outhouse, and flung it in the direction of the carpenter's workplace.  Later still, when a cousin visited, I led a pantomime in which we would hammer nails into the head of the carpenter. From this I deduce that the scene I watched was later interpreted by me as having been a violation.Even, or especially, children know what is right, and what is not so right.

There is one other memory from about the time we lived with my Grandmother that I have told very few people. My impression, now vague, is that the very few I told it too failed to convey they knew what I'd said. So, I'll try again. A neighbor child, a girl my age, played with me in the empty garage at the end of the front yard. In the garage there was a oil can with a long, thick spout. I couldn't have been older than five. I put a few drops of oil in the depression of her navel, while she was lying on the oil-slicked floor, on her back. I then sealed the oil, or tried to, with a piece of plastercene (playdough). Is it too much of a stretch to posit that at age five boys sometimes symbolically impregnate?

Unlike Freud not only did I never see my parents making love I have not one single memory of them even touching, or even sitting near each other. Yet, they were nearly always together for more than fourteen years when my mother died of polio. By huge contrast, while my father was away in the war my mother was so lonely she had me sleep in her bed. On one occasion she had me put my arm around her while she slept on her side with her back to me. It was awkward, a long way to reach up. Not long after, days later, I asked her if I could see her breasts. She quietly declined. When we returned from the surf we would stand in our swim suits at the hall mirror, shoulder to shoulder, looking back into the mirror, to see who had the best tan.

So, when I read 'Medical' books pooh-poohing Freud's theory of childhood sexuality I'm certain from experience that they are wrong, and worse, probably in denial. Similarly, not finding anything Oedipal in Hamlet, and making too much of the fact the Greek didn't know he was marrying his mother, I just laugh. Little boys get their cues to adult sexuality from their mothers, period!

Barry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Determinants

Factors which may or may not, sometimes for some people, or never, have an effect on our orientation to love and sex include the attitudes and behaviour of our parents, and/or parent figures, chance life occurences, the actions of our siblings, what we're exposed to in movies, plays, books, art works and schools.

For now I'd like to dwell on only those things which happened in fairly early childhood, say up to about age six or seven. My life was idyllic, yet in retrospect it seems now most probable that my parents, grandmother (who had all the money) and myself  had no inkling of just how lucky we all were. We lived in a huge, eccentric version of what later became known as the 'California Bungalow' a sort of Pasadena Gamble House, but twice the size, and funny looking, only half a mile from the ocean north of Sydney, Australia. Architectual styles spread all over the world, even back then, with speed. The movie theater built at the time, nearby, for which my father was the architect copied German, 'poured conrete' Bauhaus (sp?) concepts which allowed curved surfaces. My grandmother's house however probably had no architect; the builder must have simply copied something Californian from a magazine. It looked like the home of characters from a fairy tale by the time he got through. It was still being modified when my immediate family moved closer to the city of Sydney.

Yet even in that Eden there was a snake in the grass, and of course in the guise of sex.  That should not have been a surprise to my mother. Young mothers in their happiness and naivete tend to think well of everyone and miss the sound of rustling in the grass. The grandfather of my female playmate, Muriel aka "Moo-Moo" asked my mother if he could take me in his little truck to find firewood up and over the hill. She gave permission. When I was later home alone with my mother she found that my clothes must have been removed and put back on different from how she put on my clothes. I had then, and have now, no memory of anything having to do with my clothes. But, my mother was adamant, and called the police. I remember the flashing lights of the patrol car at the foot of the garden in the dark, and my father, home from work, shouting what he was going to do to the grandfather of my friend. I was queried over and over but I told nothing because I could remember nothing, and in spite of many attempts at recreating the scenes of the day I still could remember nothing. Even today I still have hopes of being able to catch some wisp of an elusive memory.

Moo-Moo's family never forgave my parents. Later, around age 13 I visited mother and daughter while I was in boarding school; they were friendly but aloof, unsmiling, almost grim.

See? Nothing happens in this narrative from life experience because I don't know what happened. But, the impact of "nothing" was huge. Quite early, in 'Paradise' I accidently learned that the world was not a safe place.

Barry

(To be continued)

 

 

 

 

 

Preamble 2

Before I continue with my 'threat' to talk about sex and the sex act caution warns me to put what I'm going to say even further into a context. That is, my intent is always to have as context sex in marriage for the purpose of procreation, or later to celebrate the children that have already arrived. That doesn't mean sex can't be a heck of a lot of fun, to say nothing of thrilling, exhilarating, astounding, bonding, and even transformational.

As I go along I'll probably blurt out things better left silent, but I'm not going to worry too much about that because I'll admit up front that in my life I've been bad, even wicked. Perhaps it's having recovered from irresponsibility that motivates me to write about this subject. I notice, btw, that nobody from AOL Journals has shown up at my door with a warning or suggestion on what to say and what to not say.

It's inherently invasive, I fear, to talk about something as private as the sex act(s) in a public place; sex is obviously experienced differently by different people, and even more differently by people at various times in their life, and with various partners. I want to share my gratitude (to the Creator) for sex, by extolling the benefits and comfort bestowed by sex. I couldn't even dream of offering instruction. There are a zillion books on the subject good for that.

When I was seventeen, living alone in San Francisco, living behind an 11 storey apartment building at 947 Green Street (an address which looked down on Alcatraz in the Bay) in what had been intended as servants quarters, I attended Lowell High School, which at that time was on Hayes Street, but since then has been rebuilt at another address.

One of the books I took out of the school library was the first sex study book written by Kinsey. The librarian at Lowell told me on the phone the other day that the book was out of print, and was no longer in the library. I asked her if she'd give it out to a student these days. Yes, she said, and said with emphasis. The cheap, vulgar movie made about Kinsey released not long ago obscures the good that book contributed to the world. I read the book avidly. I needed to know, I was lonely. I needed the book. It made me laugh and laugh, and made me feel a whole lot better about myself. It caused me to relax, that's what it did, relax and not worry too much: made me certain that in good time sex would eventually become a part of my life.

Gotta run right now. Talk to you later.

Barry

 

 

Warming up for Sex Entries

Some writer I greatly admire but strangely can't remember at this precise moment said, in effect, that the end of fiction writing is to describe the sex act, "...but how do you get there?"** What's amazing about whoever it was that wrote that - the name might come to me before I finish writing this entry - is that you'd think he, of all people, would just dive in. But no, even he was scared. I'm scared. And not just about the act, but love in all its guises and expressions. My summary: It's smart to be scared, but cowardly not to dive in - if I may be so crude - when the prize is nearly won. One steps into the unkown, with prayers of thanks. 

My very favorite book on love and sex is titled On The Way To The Wedding, by Linda Schierse Leonard, Pub: Shambhala, 1986. Here's the table of contents:

The Wandering

1. Through the woods

2. Prince Charming and the Special Princess

3. The Ghostly Lover

4. The Bewitchment

5. The Demon Lover

6. The Ring of Power

The Loving

7. Into the Clearing

8. The Missing Bridegroom and the Woman in Black

9. Beauty and the Beast

The Wondering

10. The Devine wedding

11. The Veil

12. The Vow

13. The Ring of Love

So, there's the menu. Enjoy.

The best nuts and bolts book I've ever read, which probably should be read together by the lovers, but in cold hard practice read separately is probably best, except perhaps by teenage married couples, is titled The Art of Sexual Ecstasy, by Margo Anand. Hot! Handle with care: For adults only. (Teenagers, some, can certainly be "adult.")

The single biggest and most surprising conclusion I've come to about sex, beside the obvious that everything goes best in marriage, is that the bond ultimately is fueled by the senses, but is maintained by somewhat frightening psychological connections. Marriages fail, obviously, at least obvious to me now, when these intricate psychological connections are not in place.

The Leonard book given first above, treats those connections in a sweet, poetic way; they can also be discussed bluntly in the manner of Freud, but in today's climate of anti-psychoanalysis I'll probably avoid that angle until I simply can no longer resist. May I leave you hanging with a promise to return?

Love,

Barry

** Norman Mailer (Give the guy a break!)

 

 

Competition / Gamesmanship

"When you play Bobby, it's not a question
  of whether you win or lose, it's a question
  of whether you survive."

                - Boris Spassky
             Soviet Russia: World Champion
             chess player up to 1972 when he
             lost to Fischer in a famous match in
                   Iceland.

Robert J Fischer is now a citizen of Iceland. The
United States government took away his passport
when, in 1992, he entered the former Yugoslavia
to play another match with Boris Spassky for a purse
of five million dollars. Fischer ignored the US Government's
order and for a while lived in Japan where he married a
Japanese woman chess champion.

The match in the former Yugoslavia was virtually an
exhibition. Fischer won, but the purse was split
3 million for Fischer, and two million for Spassky.
You wouldn't be too far off to conclude they were friends,
and are still friends. Boris Spassky is an admirable man,
educated, sophisticated, and humane. I met him at
a chess tournament at a hotel near LAX, Los Angeles.
He is witty, urbane, has lived in Paris, and does
what educated people do: attend the opera, the theater,
and seek culture and Peace.

If any chess players read this, and are curious about
precisely what Spassky means when he talks about
"surviving" Bobby's chess skill, take a look at game one
from the 1971 Interzonal match Fischer vs Bent Larsen.
played in Denver. In that game Fischer sacrificed his Queen,
early in the game, in the center of the board, yet won
handily against a world class Grandmaster. Additionally
Fischer won the next five games as well, winning the
match 6-0. Bent Larsen suffered a psychological collapse.

Barry

Hunting Rabbits

Rabbits are beloved in America, correct? I mean there's Bugs Bunny, a charming, humorous do-gooder who knows full well how clever he is when he opens, "What's up Doc?" Such poise, such self-assurance, even insouciance. Only a monster would ever dream of harming a rabbit. Then there's dear, sweet, adventurous Peter Rabbit, who unwisely disobeys his mother and almost gets caught by the farmer.  

Not a shred of shame surfaces when I freely admit that I have killed thousands of rabbits: I've dug them out of their warren, sent ferrets down their holes to chase them out into nets, caught them with dogs, shot them with rifles, trapped them with buried steel jaws that grab them, and, most efficient, poisoned them with strychnine sprinkled on thistle roots.

All of that carnage was perpetrated before I was sixteen years old, quite willingly, while on vacation, and for a while living on my Uncle Hugh's sheep station in Australia. Rabbits, you see, destroy sheep grazing land.

Rabbits even in the semi-wild have communal meeting places where they all defecate their small pellets of what looks like finely ground grass turned brown. Their droppings form mounds about the length of their bodies.  A good place to leave a root pellet of poison is near one of those mounds dropped into a strike of a mattuck which leaves freshly turned soil. The next morning the dead can be found, white belly up, next to the disturbed earth. In one night we brought home for skinning nearly 400 rabbits whose skins brought in about 40 Pounds, Aust. All of that was so long ago it would be impossible to translate that amount into present day dollars. (Well, I do remember my Uncle buying a used motorcycle for 150 pounds.) For us children it was a fortune. One time the money was taken from us, because the amount was too large for "children." The manager of one of the properties bought his own place, using what he'd saved from salary and earned from rabbit skins.

Rabbits caught in traps, or pulled out of burrows, have to be killed. It's done by stretching the rabbits neck while holding both legs with the other hand. Little boys, I swear, think nothing of it.

I believe this truth about young boys is capitalized on by MS Rowling in her six books about children. Oh, it's covered over, but just beneath the surface the motor of the fiction is softly humming.

Barry

 

 

Star Gazing

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0204/CenA_wfpc2_big.jpg

Via Nasa of course, and the Hubble telescope, but more immediately from spearsJD a most admirable gentleman on a writer's message board. The object is 10 million light years away. The blue stuff is new stars, suns, in the making. The material for this may come from a Black Hole. Andromeda, a nearby Galaxie to our Milky Way is only 2.2 million light years away. 

Barry

(More on space later. Maybe tomorrow)