Turpitude

by Young

  to see if I could tell

  where the fruits of our amourosity

  fell.

  And, once I did,

  I could not contain, again,

  myself, and on I sped;

  would not refrain,

  but exploded in memoric,

  meteoric

  delight!

  By myself,

  in my bosom,

  where you’d lain

  that night.

  Love,

  Ivan

  “I see. You’ve worked your charm on the Hungarian,” Victor muttered amusingly before he added, “There’s no need to be coy about it.”

  I turned away sheepishly. Although he let the topic drop, he did not sanction it away. Instead, he revived it a few days later on a different continent as an exemplary lesson during one of our tutorials.

  When our Valets emerged, they were the paragons of perfect modern gentlemen, subtly masculine and expertly performed. The scent of fresh Limes, Eau de Portugal and Bay Rum filled the air as we departed from this noble establishment to re-join the aristocrats who had practically bought out Garrard & Co. Limited during our absence.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  The Male Gaze

  “‘I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful,’ said the lake. ‘I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected.’”

  Paulo Coelho

  (The Alchemist)

  1968

  “Gateway to South India”

  The few days Sheik Fahrib and Prince P spent in London were hectic to the nth degree. The doctor’s squabbling wives and their proponents did nothing to bring equanimity to the Assalamu Alaikum household. Instead, mistrust and jealousies shadowed both factions. The sheik’s saving grace was having his companion and clandestine lover at his side when matters got malignant. What the decorous sheik lacked, his charming prince made up for diplomatically with the womenfolk.

  The day of our London departure, the Ship ferried Jabril, the Assalamu Alaikum females, Camilla, Terrance, big-sister Emmaa and Valet Buddy, together with Precious and a load full of precious cargo, back to Sharjah while the rest of us boarded the Al-Fayoum, to Madras also known as “The Gateway to South India.”

  The moment the females set eyes on adorable Precious, they were in love with him. As soon as the Harrod’s delivery concierge handed the animal over to Jabril, he was adored endlessly, even though the art historian wasn’t aware that the leopard would be his and Kifah’s wedding gift from me and Andy.

  Prince P had rented a beautiful colonial mansion on the outskirts of Madras to house his entourage. The moment we boarded the Al-Fayoum, Fahrib let out a sigh of relief. He was delighted to be in the company of like-minded men together with six sympathetic E.R.O.S. recruits. As if a heavy load had been lifted off his shoulders, his robust comportment returned with a vengeance.

  Morning Discussion

  Our Madras tutorials consisted of Señor Triqueros, Lilee, Leon and me. I commented, “It is nice to see our Master back to his energetic self.”

  “Indeed,” our teacher replied. “Young, social constructionism argues that human identity, both individual and interpersonal, is the product of the social contexts within which we spend our lives.”

  Lilee chirped, “What is social constructionism?”

  Triqueros grinned heartily, “You’ve come to the right person to ask that question. After all, my specialty studies are in sociology and communication theory.”

  Since none of us understood the said terms, we kept silent.

  Our professor resumed, “Social constructionism or the social construction of reality, is a theory of knowledge in sociology and communication theory that examines the development of jointly constructed understandings of the world. These understandings are said to form the basis for shared assumptions about reality.

  “The theory centers on the notions that human beings rationalize their experiences by creating models of the social world to share, and they reify these models through language.”

  Leon interjected, “Sir, can you explain it in simpler terms?”

  We gleamed at his suggestion.

  “Of course, lad,” Victor answered. “A social construct or construction concerns the meaning, notion, or connotation placed on an object or event by a society. It is then adopted by the inhabitants of that society with respect to how they view or deal with the object or event. As an idea, a social construct would be widely accepted by society as natural. This idea may or may not represent a reality that is shared by those outside the society. It would be considered an invention or artifice of that society.

  “A major focus of social constructionism is to uncover the ways in which individuals and groups participate in the construction of their perceived social reality. It involves looking at the ways social phenomena are created, institutionalized, known, and made into tradition by humans.”

  He paused before resuming, “Since we are under the auspices of our Middle Eastern patriarchs, let’s discuss their communication and social practises.

  “Let me add: a social construct teaches us what we are allowed to feel or not feel and the way to express our feelings. From it, we understand which relationships are mandatory, preferred, obligatory, optional, or undesirable. We are taught what we can dream and what we must never dream; which wishes are within the realm of possibility and which are not; and last but not least, the common standards of aesthetics, virtue, and common good. In this sense, social constructionism creates each of us. It teaches us how to see, what to value, and how to respond once we have seen and valued.”

  Lilee questioned, “I wonder why the female body is always presented as exotic, and a fascination to be scrutinize and imagine. Why not the male body?”

  Our teacher found her question amusing. He responded after a moment’s thought.

  “My dear Lilee, have you heard of the term ‘the male gaze’?”

  She shook her head.

  “‘The male gaze’ was used by a British film theorist .who argues that within the classical structure of cinema, men possess the gaze, and women are its object,” Triqueros explained. ”It is the gaze, the defining mode of masculinist discourse that constructs the ‘woman’ as textual object. Therefore, the male gaze prevents the woman from being herself - from having a ‘self’ that is separated from or prior to the socio-visual construct imposed by the male gaze.

  “A gaze turns a subject into an object. The male gaze, when turned toward a woman or homosexual man, desires. In either case, it seizes control from the other. The other may experience the male gaze as a violation, a rape; the object of the gaze is no longer another person, but someone to be possessed or disposed of. Within the world of texts, the male gaze might be described as ‘one-handed reading,’ in that its purpose is clearly one of self-stimulation and erotic satisfaction.”

  Leon queried, “Does that mean when Arab men give other men or boys ‘the male gaze’, the recipients are objectified as erotic playthings?”

  “The answer is yes and no. It depends on the gazer,” Victor replied. Before addressing the class again, he turned to Lilee.

  “Homosociality is a term used to describe the basic structure of patriarchy: men pleasing other men via the medium of women. It relies on a process whereby men attempt to establish some intimacy with each other, usually in a triangulated relationship with a woman who functions to disguise the gestures between the men.

  “In the triangle of two men and a woman, the attraction between the two men must be taken as less serious than the attraction between each man and the woman. The attraction is only heightened when either man realizes that he can accumulate further power and influence by forming an alliance with another of the two members of the triangle. Since women rarely have power, the obvious choice of whom to form the alliance with is the other man. The alliance may take the form of cooperation, competition or even aggression. Whatever its
form, the power-brokering alliance cannot be denied. This desire to unite powers with another man is one possible non-genital form of Eros. This kind of desire and attraction creates the exaggerated impulse to homosociality. The attraction can oftentimes be intense and potent. The majority of men operate this way, though few are aware of it.”

  I blurted, “Like Sheik Fahrib and Prince P?”

  Since Leon and Lilee were new recruits, they were taken aback by my proclamation, as this was news to them.

  Leon queried before our professor could respond: “Why do heterosexual men find it difficult to direct their gaze toward another man?”

  Victor, aware of his student’s bisexuality, questioned, “Have you firsthand experience in this?”

  The boy avoided our teacher’s gaze.

  “To read is to risk making one’s self vulnerable, to risk encountering what is called ‘the otherness that bites.’ Most people are highly selective about what they read, and will avoid texts which threaten their comfort or security. A man may not be consciously aware that to read another man’s body is dangerous, but subconsciously, he is aware. He is also aware that to read another man’s body raises the possibility that another man may attempt to read his, and perhaps in the reading, find him wanting,” Triqueros elucidated.

  The tomcat Leon twiddled his fingers nervously and avoided eye contact with us. Though I did not voice my opinion, I had a presage that our teacher had touched one of the lad’s nerves – and that he had eyes for the Señor.

  Lilee remarked, “Why is it also difficult for heterosexual men to turn the gaze upon their own bodies?”

  “To gaze at another man re-positions a heterosexual male as a homosexual, thereby shattering his fragile masculinity. Reading affects the reader much more deeply than it affects the text; gazing affects the gazer more deeply than the recipient. Not only does the male gaze has the power to objectify; it can also feminize,” Victor expounded.

  He continued, “Let me give you an example: Can anyone tell me what exposure is most feared in the shower?”

  None of us answered.

  “It is not the scrutiny of the penis, although this prospect may indeed make many heterosexual men uncomfortable. It is the moment when one bends down to pick up the soap which has slipped from one’s hands. It is in the imagination of this moment that the conservative male is most undone by the consciousness that there may be homosexuals in the shower whose gaze will define him as a passive receptacle of their sexuality – and as ‘woman.’

  “There is a certain paradox here. Although it is the imagined effeminacy of homosexual men that makes them objects of heterosexual derision, here it is their imagined masculinity that is the consciousness of them as active, evaluating sexual subjects, with a defining and ‘penetrating’ sexual gaze that makes them the objects of heterosexual fear.

  “Ultimately, men’s fear of the male gaze is the fear of becoming, feeling, or representing female desire within the phallocentric order. In the shower, the heterosexual and homosexual body is the same; the only difference is in the desirer.”

  I opined, “I have never encountered that problem at Daltonbury Hall or the Bahriji communal showers.”

  Victor laughed before returning to the topic at hand. “The schools you attended are progressive institutions and unconventional establishments,” he clarified.

  “As if the male body were not already a difficult enough text to read, it disappears altogether when a man is unclothed. In a patriarchal system, the penis cues masculinity, and once that occurs, the body, ‘the being,’ disappears and the person becomes a function; the form becomes the essence, the masculinity, the ‘doing.’ The part overwhelms the whole, so that the whole fades into insignificance, leaving the reader in an attempt to read a part or ‘member’ which is, at best, dissociative.”

  The Señor pointed at his crotch before he added, “This part of me, which is so synecdochically identified with the male body, has given me both too little and too much information about what it means to be a man. It has a personality like a cat.”

  He glanced at Leon, who looked away immediately.

  The professor resumed, “I have prayed to it to behave better, to be less frisky, etc. I have followed its nose in matters of love, ignoring good sense, and paid the price. However, I have also come to appreciate that it has its own specialized form of intelligence which must be listened to, or another price will be extracted.”

  He laughed cynically.

  “The penis will not behave: now a penis, now a phallus – the one when we wish the other. It is itself a text that we can barely read, even with double-vision. It is not one thing but two. The phallus is haunted by the penis, and vice versa. It has no unified social identity, but is fragmented by ideologies of race and ethnicity. Rather than exhibiting constancy of form, it is perhaps the most visibly mutable body part - it evokes the temporal, not the eternal. In regards to maintaining a steady will and purpose, it is mercurial, temperamental, unpredictable.’ It is this unpredictability which fascinates, frustrates, and ultimately offends many gazers of male bodies.

  “We do not even know how to count the male body parts, since it is two and not one. The saying goes that girls are made of indiscrete stuff, like ‘sugar and spice and everything nice.’ No quantities are given, nor do they need to be. But boys are made of countable things, such as ‘snips and snails and puppy dog tails …’ Countable, if not to say detachable, things - metonymies of their always castrated penises.

  “But do we count the penis as one and the phallus as another? Or is the penis simply a potential text, a text which seems to self-create at will? As described by some orthodox religions: the penis, which is the ‘logical extension’ of all rational men, was created in the image of the divine logos, and the phallus, which is rationally uncontrollable, must simply be the handiwork of the ‘Satan.’ The phallus is the wily serpent in the garden and, as the only body part which refuses to submit to the brain, the constant reminder of our fallenness. The phallus is the conveyer of original sin.

  “Therefore, dear pupils, it is a contention that the penis is the most hidden of male body parts because of the ideological as well as the psychoanalytical temptation to turn the penis into its evil twin brother, the phallus.”

  He continued enthusiastically, “You’ll notice the genitals on the ceiling paintings in the Sistine Chapel are disproportionately small. This makes them aesthetically safe and of desirable male ideals in ancient Greece. Attractive penises were the penises of pre-adolescents - small with no pubic hair.” Victor gave Leon and me a knowing glance.

  “On the other hand, large penises attached to hairy bodies are considered unattractive and threatening. The cultural index of classical Greek penile beauty is that of modesty and subordination, an abjuration of sexual initiative or sexual rivalry,” our educator explicated.

  I posed, “Is that why men shave their body hair to be considered attractive?”

  “By and large, that is correct. Many men cannot figure out how to read their own penises realistically. Therefore, they refuse to read the penises of others. Judaism attempts to resolve the textual dilemma with the cry, ‘Off with its hat!’ while Christianity and Islam respond more adamantly: ‘Off with its head,’ creating a culture of either symbolic or literal castration. The Christian and Muslim male body was symbolically castrated through body-denial, the circumscription of sexual activity to heterosexual intercourse within marriage for the sole purpose of procreation, and the forbidding of jouissance.”

  I posted an observation, “I take it that one reason for the Enlightened Royal Oracle Society’s (E.R.O.S.) secrecy pertains to our current discussion?”

  There was a knock on the door just as our tutor was about to answer my question. Our group was summoned by Mario and hosts to a forum; thus, our tutorial was abruptly terminated.

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Lover’s Tale

  “Water says to the dirty, ‘Come here.’

  The dirty one
says, ‘I’m so ashamed.’

  Water says, ‘How will your shame

  Be washed away without me?’”

  Rumi

  (Poem Forty-Six)

  February 2013

  My Email to Andy (Part Three)

  Max went about his export/import business during the day, and we met in the evenings. The days were spent exploring the city, with regular touristy itineraries: visiting Buddhist temples, grand palaces and museums. In short, I savoured the sights and sounds of this vibrant Land of Smiles.

  The evening after our effervescent love-making, Max offered to show me Bangkok’s red-light district – Patpong. Although this area catered mainly, (though not exclusively) to foreign tourists and expatriates, it was the heart of Bangkok’s sex industry. Girls and boys roamed openly on its sidewalks, soliciting passers-by for a good time in their respective pleasure domes.

  Although I was not a novice to these kinds of tawdry environments, I was riveted by the explicit shows offered by these club promoters. Farragoes of Thai males and females hassled pedestrians of all genders and ages for a chance to ogle at women performing stunts of creative erotic acts in the nude. One fine example was the infamous ‘Ping-Pong’ show. It featured women executing exotic feats with ping-pong balls in their genitalia.

  It was obvious that Max was a regular at Purrsy Galore, a gentleman’s club. The staff were more than friendly to my fellow companion and greeted him like a big spender. Scantily dressed females escorted us to a table close to the miniature stage where their nightly shows were performed.

  “Waitresses” with girlish waists, enhanced bosoms, buttocks and everything else took our orders. They wiggled seductively for Max to give their bootylicious bottoms flirtatious slaps to show his appreciation before sashaying away. Their teeny-weeny bikinis could hardly contain their oversized breasts from falling out when they set drinks on the low tables. Brief coquettish dialogues in pigeon-English and fake kittenish winks were exchanged before the servers disappeared to attend to other customers.