The Lair Poster

I have only seen one or two episodes of The Lair and I must say that it is pretty quality….soft-core porn. 

Unfortunately, many of the gay networks, like Here! TV which produces the show, have yet to find a way to balance hot gay men with actually intellectual content, but the intentions behind The Lair are clear. The thousand sex-scenes per episode get the message across.

They wanted to make vampires hot using mostly porn stars. Like:

Johnny Hazzard

But, what is interesting about their take is the attempt to claim, or reclaim, this metaphor of the vampire. Instead of the dark, brooding condemned to night beast, instead the vampires are hot sexy club-going beings who get all the men they want. 

Without knowing it, director Fred Olen Ray has created an equal but opposite depiction of the mythic creatures than Meyer’s Twilight. Ray, like Meyer, chose one aspect (in Ray’s case the hyper-sexuality, in Meyer’s the youth/romance) of vampire myth and elaborated it. 

This is not to say that Ray’s series has the mass appeal that Meyer’s books and soon to be movie will, but the amateur of the Twilight series is comparable to the amateur writing and acting of The Lair.

More importantly, the show casts gays back into their sexual stereotypes, much different than Ball’s attempt to bring them out into some kind of light. 

In any of these cases, vampires are something of a pop culture obsession right now, and there are gay undercurrents (as well as unfortunately mormon ones) lingering on the surface of the craze. 

Check out a scene from the Lair, but beware, it’s not PG:

“Raymond McNally, a noted vampire scholar, suggests that the birth of the myth of the vampire is actually traceable to a Hungarian Countess, Elizabeth Bathory (1560-1614), who sexually preferred young women and likes to dress in men’s clothing. These origins are overlooked in most vampire fiction.” From The Encyclopedia of Lesbian and Gay Histories and Cultures by Bonnie Zimmerman.  

The vampire represented, and still does, the ideal of taking another person and penetrating them. They are completely at will to the vampire, making it a highly sexualized scenario. 

The vampire Dracula is often traced back to Vlad the Impaler a Transylvanian military governor who used to impale his enemies on poles inserted at the anus. The impaled would then die a slow death as he slowly slid down and onto the pole. 

George E. Haggerty wrote in  Queer Gothic, “The vampire moves with the suave invisibility of the prototypical gay man. He offers companionship, friendship, and even love before revealing his true and deadly nature; appears silently and takes his pleasure ruthlessly; and suffers for his sexual transgression by being shut out from the light and condemned to an eternity of darkness.” 

The vampire has appeared in many types of cultural texts for centuries, reincarnated by the different social codes of society. Haggerty believes that the plight of the vampire is the representation of the gay community’s struggles. The vampire is cast out as a result of the sin of irregular penetration: so is the gay man or woman.

Watch how Interview with the Vampire courts the gay theme of the path to darkness. Louis’ last sunrise..

True Blood

So, Alan Ball, writer and director, has created a series about…um… Vampires. Trying integrate into society. Despite the opposition of the Christian Right, Southern Rednecks, and Republicans. What community does that sound like….

In the opening credits of Alan Ball’s series, True Blood, a sign along the backwoods Louisiana town reads “God Hates Fangs.” The series is set in a small Southern town and revolves around the relationship between Sookie and Bill. Bill is a vampire, mostly a good vampire, but sometimes he bites Sookie during sex.

The series is already more than half-way through its first season, but already it has introduced two gay vampires, a gay man who likes to wear lipstick, a gay senator who enjoys male prostitutes, and much more sexual ambiguity.

The more intriguing facet of the show, though, is the arguments that the vampires make to the mainstream media and world in support of their integration. As a result of the creation of True Blood, a blood substitute, vampires are no longer a threat to people, they are not a threat to children, they have the right to be citizens too, they can contribute to society like everyone else.

Listen to the arguments that are made for “Vampire Rights,” in the trailer for the show.

Alan Ball remarked in an interview with MediaBlvd Magazine, “On the one hand, it’s a metaphor for any disenfranchised group, wanting to assimilate and wanting equal rights and power. On the other hand, it’s a terrific metaphor for a shadowy, secret organization that is all about amassing power and, if you get in their way, they will get rid of you.”

While Ball is reluctant to say that his vampires are stand-ins for the gay community he, gay himself, has created a series that unites the sexual fluidity of the vampire world with a minority group. Vampires do have sexual prowess, and that is one of their markers. Sexuality and an inability to step into the light, where the rest of people can go.

Whatever the case, Ball is known for his characterization of the community. From his gay main character in his award-winning series Six Feet Under to the gay undercurrent in his Oscar-winning American Beauty, Ball has used original writing to portray gay themes.

This time Ball has used the Vampire, an ancient symbol of power, in a new way with the sexual ambiguity standing out as a representation of the gay community.

Gay Vampire

Why is it that the movements of current sexual ambiguity and the LGBT cause have escalated on similar scales in entertainment and pop culture?

Historian Trevor Holmes wrote specifically about the connection between gays and vampires, bringing up Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire. He writes that the homo-erotic connection between the two main main-characters is represented by their living arrangement. Lestat creates Louis into a vampire, they move in together, they adopt a child together, and they break up due to infidelity.

Louis and Lestat

The 90s also gave rise to a different entertainment medium creating the vampire with a gay theme: Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

There is the obvious connection with Willow the witch, Buffy’s best friend, coming out in the fourth season of the show. Some scholars who have analyzed the show, such as Michael S. Pearl, see the relationship between the male vampires, Angel and Spike, as homosocial.

Even the act of creation of a vampire in a male-male situation is seen as a feminization of the man being made. Angel made Spike.

Willow and Tara Buffy

Holmes writes that the beginning of the vampire being motivated into a gay metaphor happened with Bram Stoker’s Dracula. He writes, “Is Dracula the first gay male vampire text, including as it does scenes such as the Count’s possession of the feminized Jonathan?”

Dracula

The vampire has countless facets as a metaphor, with many of them linking back to gays in current interpretations. Entertainment has been drawing path with the trend, flaring up now with True Blood, The Lair, and Twilight.

• “The regime of modern sexuality and the rise of vampirism as cultural metaphor are contemporaneous events, unfolding over time. Both have their antecedents in the eighteenth century, both develop variously throughout the nineteenth, and both find their elaborations in the last decades of the nineteenth century and in the first of the twentieth. ” From Gay Histories and Cultures by George E. Haggerty.

Twilight

Stephenie Meyer is recreating the ancient vampire myth, and she hasn’t even read her Bram Stoker.

I must admit, I have not been able to put down Meyer’s new teen romantic, drama, hit, about-to-be-blockbuster hodgepodge. As a ( I am reluctant to admit) vampire fanatic, I was not exactly jumping to read the newest fan-favorite. Somehow a Mormon writing about vampires seemed counter-intuitive. But that does not mean the books are not alluring, even if the main character, Bella, thinks taking a benedryl before bed is a sin.

Meyer is 33, a Brigham Young graduate, a former housewife, and she is not a fan of R-rated movies. And, before Meyer set out on a literary journey into one of the most legendary and sexualized myths of all time, she had never written before.

In an interview Meyer noted that she had only seen a few clips of Interview with the Vampire and was still getting around to reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Reading her book, I understand why she has been propelled to the bestseller list by her typically 12-year-old cult following. The writing is choppy, the plot predictable, the diction 3rd grade, but yet there is something that is stirring about the romantic entanglement between her two main charachters. Something innocent.

Unfortunately Meyer has taken the vampire, a sexually furious-ambiguous and (in recent pop culture) homo erotic icon, and spun it into a Disney channel hetero-normative tool of the Mormon right.

The two main characters, Bella and Edward, are thrust into romance by a primordial urge. They are in the a forbidden love because Edward (the dominant man) is dangerous to Bella (the weak fragile girl). She is hopelessly enraptured with him, and although she is normally a forceful girl, she dedicates herself to him for life despite never having any boyfriends. Did I mention she always has dinner on the table for her father by the times he gets home from work…

As a fan of the ever evolving vampire, I am a little worried that one of the few mainstream figures that has been used to represent (in a glorious way) the outcast members of society, is suddenly turned into the Mormon ideal. It is obvious in her interviews and website that Meyer is trying to downplay her 50s religious ideals, but her writing reveals that she is not quite the expert at fiction yet.

As the vampire is twisted away from the greatness that, to name a few, Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Alan Ball (True Blood), and Interview With the Vampire created, there is a group of people who are alienated as well.

Vampires have come to be understood as a group of people who are different, scary to the mainstream world, but who are violently misunderstood. They have mirrored the struggles of the LGBT community, as represented by Ball’s new show.

Vampires are not beautiful 17-year old boys with fast cars and great style who every girl wants to be with. They cannot walk in the light and sparkle like Meyer seems to believe. They are us, they are gay, they are transgendered, they are misunderstood and hunted, and I refuse to let the Mormon Right ruin a metaphor that is ours.

http://www.whitehouse.gov

South Carolina is known for many things: having some of the nation’s worst schools, being the birthplace of the Civil War, and holding the ranking as the 3rd worst STI rate in the nation. 

I grew up in SC, warned that the war was not the war, but was instead the War of Northern Aggression. Now, I am wondering what name the blue, conservative Christian State will give their new war against the AIDS crisis.

South Carolina, as of 2006, was reporting that per 100,000 people in the state, they had an average of 525 reported cases of STIs. This is 200 people above the national average, and a little less than 200 points above New York’s number: 356. (Where I now reside)

HIV/AIDS lives here under this STI header, but has accumulated statistics of its own. What is terrifying is that the CDC reported that from 2001 to 2005 the number of reported cases in ages 15-24 increased every year (especially so in black men). While white men still have the largest percentage of cases, their numbers are remaining constant. 

South Carolina, true to form, is trying to break national records. From 2001 to 2005 the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control reported the number of people with HIV/AIDS increased from 10,237 to 12,715. 70% of the 2005 cases were in black men. Even though New York has a larger population, as of 2005 the CDC reports that South Carolina held a 28% reporting rate right next to New York’s rate of 29%.

While trends have held 25-33 as being the most likely age range for contraction, it is actually the youth demo that is growing. Specifically so in South Carolina, where the majority of their STI infections are in the lower age range. Oh, I forgot to mention, my wonderful home state also is well-known for having one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates as well. 

While the CDC reports that most of the cases in the US are the product of either male-on-male action or “unknown,” it is more important to look at why youth rates are rising. Is a younger demographic becoming more sexually active in general or is the nation just incorrectly educating their youth about sexuality?

It is interesting that SC, who has never been seen as progressive or liberal, is the site for STIs, youth pregnancies, and rising HIV/AIDS rates. Suddenly, is the conservative cause (which once dubbed AIDS the “gay cancer”) experiencing the backlash of their own Abstinence programs?

Whatever the case HIV/AIDS is rising here, in America. Not just in Africa. Not just among the lower classes. And certainly not just among homosexuals. There’s a time to place blame, and there’s a time to act. The AIDS crisis is not over, and it is killing your children.

Where The Gay Cause Meets the Christian Right

I spent a lazy Sunday night watching TV, eating take-out with my boyfriend, and calling a nearby Exodus International counselor. Richard Gabrielson was an affable man on the phone, while fumbling and awkward, and genuinely tried to provide me with some solid information.

What I was really after was some information on conversion meetings and places in New York City. Gabrielson was hard pressed to find me much information, but I gave him my email and he said he would update me in the following week. He did not seem that connected to a large network of help, but he was dedicated to trying.

Exodus International, founded in 1976, is a corporation focused on, as its name suggests, freeing those suffering from SSA, “Same-Sex Attraction.” Their website offers an interesting FAQ which answers the tough questions that the enterprise encounters.

One interesting question included in their list: ” Is AIDS God’s judgment against homosexuals?” And the crux of the response:

“In brief, AIDS is better seen as a reaping of consequences than as God’s wrath on a specific group.”

But, despite their hardcore bible-based assertions, Exodus, and other similar organizations like Homosexual Anonymous, have undergone major changes in the past years as a result of opposition groups like Ex Gay Watch. With outside pressure they have seemingly turned to softer ways of pushing their ideals.

“I really encourage everyone I counsel to get connected with a church,” Gabrielson said after spending 10 minutes searching for words, “one that is in line and can help them understand traditional Christian values.

Gabrielson has affiliated his local church, St. Andrews in Vestal, NY, with Exodus International and now holds support groups for friends and family of those “suffering from SSA,” as well as for the sufferers themselves. His personal contact info can be found on the broader Exodus website.

While Homosexual Anonymous has an affiliated church in New York City, Exodus International’s closest installation is a Hispanic church on Long Island.

Their is no question, from the testimonies and statements on their site, that the corporation is extremely dedicated and passionate about their cause, but Gabrielson did not give me the impression of a smoothly running operation.

After mentioning the Hispanic church (which I had already found on the website), Gabrielson said, “I’m so sorry about this, but I’m not really coming up with anything else. “

I had expected a swift indoctrination, an outpouring of idealism, a zealot, but I instead found a nice old man at home for the evening.

Exodus International is famed for their harsh efforts at curbing SSA and conversion. In 2005 Zach Stark was forced to the Exodus affiliated Camp Refuge by his parents. The camp used strict teaching methods to try and convert its attendees, and the whole of Exodus’ ideals came under review when his Myspace posts on the subject went viral.

The fight between conservative Christians and GLBT groups is a huge and nasty one, but the ideas of Exodus International (in a subversive way) try to bring the groups together.

As a gay man I have been scared and angry at these Exodus-like groups for most of my life, and I was struck with nerves when I picked up the phone to call Gabrielson. But, the most zealous thing he said was, “God Bless You,” at the end of the call.

Is this the new approach to success Exodus International is taking in order to seem more “Christian” or digestible? Or, is the “international” in Exodus International breaking down into more grass roots operations?

Whatever the case, I got off the phone with Gabrielson and laid down to watch a movie with my boyfriend, hand-in-hand, feeling a little safer about the world I was living in.

And So The Division Begins!

Don’t worry, breathe, you can drop those pesky pronouns at the door. I’m not gonna make you use them. I recently took a class where we looked at this whole concept of gender. I had never really thought about it too much before. To me, it just was. But, I realized, as I looked further, that this acceptance was the problem. From the moment we are born we are given a pink blanket or a blue blanket. From there it is toy trucks or a toy stove… and the restrictions only keep coming. Why am I limited by half of my options as an individual as soon as I am born? Why is biological sex so important? We don’t define ourselves by the kind of liver we are given, so why by the kind of genitalia? The good news is, this new generation is waking up from ages of not seeing the issue, and is finally starting to speak out. “I am not my penis!” It is important to see sex for sex, and gender for gender, and realize the problems made by the blurring. So ditch the he/she and the penis/vagina categories, they are too simple. Here… make your own.

Hero Harvey Milk and the hero-in-the-making, Sean Penn, who will play him.(Xinhua/Reuters, file Photo)

What Hollywood does not do often is create heroes out of minorities or “fringe” members of society. But, that is exactly what Gus Van Sant and Focus features has set out to accomplish in their new film Milk, due in theaters in December.

Harvey Milk, upon whom the film is based, was the first openly gay politician elected to a major post in America. Working on the San Francisco City Council in the 70s, he helped defeat anti-gay referendums. Milk was assassinated in 1978.

Van Sant, an openly gay director, attempted to work on another film about Milk in the early 90s. He backed out due to creative differences. The film that he is creating this year, wrote Paul VanDeCarr in his article “Harvey Milk Lives,” is 15 years in the coming. Finally in 2008, the formula is right.

What is interesting is not the the fact that this movie is being made, but that is it being made into a major Hollywood blockbuster. Sean Penn stars in the film as Milk, and James Franco plays his lover. It’s trailer is playing in the theaters alongside major motion pictures such as Burn After Reading.

Much like 2005’s Brokeback Mountain, Van Sant’s production features two A-list stars engaging in intimacy on the big screen. 20 years ago, for actors such as these to accept such roles would have been career suicide, but now….

The real triumph, though, is Milk’s creation of not only gay characters, but gay heroes. This is an achievement that major motion pictures have not seen before. Milk was nothing short of a hero, fighting for his rights and the rights of his people, death threats ringing around him every second.

“If a bullet should enter my brain,” Milk said famously in the political will he left behind, “let that bullet destroy every closet door.“

Heroes are generally thought of as ideal citizens, maybe even representations of what society wishes to see in its individuals. Van Sant has revitalized a hero’s story lost to mainstream culture, and put a visible actor up in his image. The film is anticipated to draw up Oscar buzz, and certainly controversy.

The 1984 documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk, did win various awards, but it in no way reached major audiences, and it was said to have limited and specialized reception.

Is the tide of Hollywood perception and production changing? Van Sant’s success certainly seems to make that statement. Merely his ability to make the film is a beacon to the times, and to the LGBT cause. It is hard to gauge change, but when blazing indicators flash up into the mainstream the ripples are felt.

The gay community has seemed to settle into their fringe status. Yet, there is a surprising ability of cultural progression, facilitated by voices of the few (then Milk and now Van Sant), to surprise even those who have hunkered down.

Maybe gays can look forward to having heroes that not just their community knows about. And hey, who knows, maybe soon it wont just be the gays who idolize these catalytic individuals.

The Trailer for the Exciting Upcoming Film Milk 

A testament to Harvey Milk situated on Castro Street in San Francisco.