"hey," a dude, mid-thirties, husky, looked like a longshoreman with his black watch cap, was saying to the owner, who was holding court behind his little glass partition. "HEY." rap rap rap on the thick plastic, "you know those diapers you sold me last week? 1999, man." Dude paused incredulously. "nineteeeeeen-ninety....niiine.." He shook his head, wide-eyed. Way in the back, deep and busy in the liquor freezer case, I almost dropped the beer. S. had dissolved into silent, helpless giggles. Both men laughed, and we paid for our drinks.
***
Finally we made an attempt, "What are you really talking about? What do you mean by 'eradicating craving'?" Aachan Chaa looked down and smiled faintly. He picked up the glass of drinking water to his left. Holding it up to us.
***
Later, after dinner, (fried chicken! beer! fries! side salad. The waitress was really proud of me. She said, "perfect cold rainy night, warm booth, cold beer and fried chicken," she said with an air of approval.) We'd been talking about a wide range of things.
The Iranian executions some months ago "International controversy erupted after Iranian officials executed two gay teenagers who were originally reported to be convicted of homosexuality, however later reports released by the Iranian government after international furor claimed the conviction was for the rape of a 13-year-old boy. The two were hanged July 19."
The photos of the hangings were fucking medieval, devastating, had been viscerally awful and terrifying. you just wanted to throw up. i had to get up and go for a walk and have 8 cigarettes. i wanted to scream. the photos of the two released read as if they were lovers, but later official reports stated they had actually raped another, younger boy, and weren't themselves lovers, and again it's not clear. so the charge wasn't homosexuality, per se.
And the photos, the two teenagers standing on the scaffold crying, were read as lovers, and the heartbroken response was yes. that could happen here, to us. to people i love. However the gay press and blog discussions (which were not about the overwhelming unreliability of what the actual charges were or if they were trumped up or not after the international uproar), and how the whole mess might be initially reported irresponsibly by the gay press here, somehow became for a moment, again, a grand over-reaching irreconcilable clash of civilizations war between cultures and religions (one barbaric, the other vaguely tolerant, east versus west. discussions devolved into incoherent rage against Muslims, Iran, the war in Iraq, god bless America, and fuck ALL of the middle east and there was the very real, awful stench of this could happen to us.
Both teens were convicted by Court No. 19 under sharia law. The teens are identified only as "M.A." and "A.M." Those found having homosexual sex in Iran may face death by either hanging, stoning, cutting in half by a sword, or dropping from a tall building or cliff.
An ISNA report said the couple acknowledged having sexual relations with each other but said they were unaware of laws against homosexuality. wiki
(s. added: "also, there is no anti-gay and lesbian sharia law, at least not exactly. male homosexual sex is illegal according to a hadith or supposed saying of the prophet, but not to my knowledge according to the qur'an, which would be a much stronger law. and i've never heard of anyone in Iran being cut in half with a sword or dropped from a building.")
S mentioned Matthew Limon. in terms of the non-coverage, or muted and sporadic outrage by Gay Rights Groups, no one wanted to go anywhere near the whiff of pedophilia. consensual or otherwise, even though the facts of the case were textbook in terms of how homosexuals are treated as opposed to heterosexuals, and examples that need to be set and so on. maybe i'm wrong about this, but the coverage an attention prior and after the overturn was next to nothing. from the ACLU
***
As an aside, because somehow we ranged into transexuality... (full disclosure: i'm vaguely discomfited by it. i have ishes, based on the one or two FTM's i know, on almost a purely aesthetic level. i.e. unbelievably hot, androgynous girls who transformed themselves into lumpy football players with male pattern baldness. also, it costs a hell of a lot of money to transition. whatever, i'm a judgey asshole. S., however, is completely not. her feeling is wow, i kind of applaud and am fascinated by the total faith in identity... i'll check back with her but i think that's her general feeling. much more expansive and well thought out then mine, certainly.)
Anyway! the point is, "In 1963, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini wrote a book in which he stated that there is no religious restriction on corrective surgery....The new religious government that came to be established after the 1979 Iranian Revolution classed transsexuals and transvestites with gays and lesbians, who were condemned by Islam and faced the punishment of lashing and death under Iran's penal code." Right before Khomeini died his original fatwa, that no one had initially paid attention to, was re-established. In other words, there is nothing in the Qur'an specifically against transexuality, so they are tolerated, or more than just tolerated by the government, since the government pays for the surgery.
(s. went on to say: "and i certainly don't think they're persecuted by the government. (wiki says they are stigmatized by society, but duh. where are they not? the different, and therefore interesting, thing is that the government supports transexuality and pays for the surgery.)
also, as i understand it there is some disagreement/ambiguity, at least in some areas of Iran, about whether you need to get the surgery or can just get the official gender change certificate without the operation. which of course would make all the difference to homosexuals, since you could then marry your lover, if you're into that kind of thing."
"hey did you watch the footage of the "gay on mormon violence" in the castro? what did you think?"
"uhm. pointless."
"well, that's the thing, right? they (mormons) come right out of high school and go straight into 2 years of missionary work. and then they go home and they are RM's. Returning Missionaries. And then they can get married."
"baby, the last time The Lord asked me to do something specifically He wanted me to go out naked in the street and experience aura exchanging hugs and lulz with everyone lucky enough to run in to me. and what do you think i did? true story. He and I had to renegotiate a couple of things after that."
Jennie,
From the heartland comes an interesting take on marriage. The Register has run several editorials more recently along these lines. At a minimum this would help to separate the church from the state and increase momentum for a variety of kinship options - some more elaborate than others. Those options which have been created in the last two decades are now going down the drain as marriage is installed, in Massachusetts large employers told workers to either get married or lose their domestic partner benefits. That's the beauty of equality uber alles - it really means 'more of the same' and cuts off larger vision.
-B.
read Des Moines Register, July 16, 2006, EDITORIAL "Recognize equality through civil unions"
***
Then, because everything is really about me, and The Lord and I still have congress, we were walking home with a little doggie bag for malcolm and i started babbling about coming off meds. i am in total shock how ridiculously hard it's been. Not only has the physical ramp-down been awful, time consuming and violent, but the simultaneous re-acquaintance with the full, rich and really stunning canvas of all emotions all the time, coupled with (plus! bonus) this incredible almost comically kaleidoscope reemergence of my "life-force", overlayed (le sigh) with a kind of uneasy and toddler like confusion and utter personality ego-globalizing of "who am i? what is real about me? what is pervasive? who is i? blah blah blah" i mean, really, it would be hilarious if it weren't so fascinating and scary, i learned a lot on the medication and i wouldn't describe my feelings about it as negative or alienating, it's just been a little difficult. it's like being on a dive in open water and looking up and not seeing the boat for a second. pure panic. and S. said, "oh it's like the broken bowl. all is gone. gone, gone, gone beyond."
WHAT.
“You see this goblet? For me this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink out of it. It holds my water admirably, sometimes even reflecting the sun in beautiful patterns. If I should tap it, it has a lovely ring to it. But when I put this glass on the shelf and the wind knocks it over or my elbow brushes it off the table and it falls to the ground and shatters, I say, ‘Of course.’ When I understand that the glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.”
Aachan Chaa was not just talking about the glass, of course, nor was he speaking merely of the phenomenal world, the forest monastery, the body, or the inevitability of death. He was also speaking to each of us about the self. This self that you take to be so real, he was saying, is already broken.
- Mark Epstein
Thoughts Without a Thinker
oh, that just calmed my shit right down.
No comments:
Post a Comment