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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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Now, this one is a bit more touchy....
Please be candid and keep to the point....
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you felt or percieved eminant danger of a physical OR sexual nature? Discounting war and that sort of social conflict.
I mean more of a personal nature where you are alone and feel danger?
Second... Have you ever been the target of a gay bashing incident? beyond the usual name calling...
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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Physical danger ... well, not from another person. I've done stupid things in my time (such as a time I swam in huge, dangerous waves and suddenly found myself being sucked out to sea) but I assume that's not what you're referring to. I have on occasion (while on public transport, alone, in London at night, perhaps) been in situations where I think it would be unwise to antagonise a group of rough-looking men. But I haven't and I've got away with it, as I am sure have countless others.
Last year I did feel I might have been beaten up by an extremely aggressive man, who accused me of photographing his car. I might have done, but that's because I was photographing a park in Chiswick as a prospective location for a film shoot. Fortunately it was a public place and there were plenty of people around, so he backed off.
I have never been gay-bashed, no, not even verbally. (I wouldn't count "You're so gay!", which is the standard childish insult and applied regardless of sexuality.) Most people would never know my sexuality, anyway, and I don't tell them unless they ask.
David
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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Physical danger? yes. But you will laugh
We have a place near us, an old Iron Age hill fort. known as Caesar's Camp. The woods in a particular part of the area feel very odd. A "run away" kind of odd. It feels dangerous there
I have never been the target of a gay bashing incident with physical violence, but being outed was emotionally disturbing
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Danger of bashing no, danger due to my sexuality yes, thing is I don’t think I should go into it in any detale, I’ve mentioned it here before and thought it doesn’t both me it might bother you.
People will tell you where they've gone
They'll tell you where to go
But till you get there yourself you never really know
Where some have found their paradise
Other's just come to harm
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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fair enough... but is you could skirt along the fringe it might be helpful for my project....
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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I just don’t know how to really skirt this subject, but I’ll try.
Spring of 1966 and the belief of that time about boy to boy sexual behavior we all know too well. I was caught twice, once by my little sister and another time another boy and my self were sitting in the back of class room (talk about indiscreet) at a large table doing shall we say a little exploration. We were not confronted at the time but word got back to my parents.
Well meaning parents decide to send me to a child psychologist. After a while treatment is prescribed, which included hypnoses, and treatment at another location on an out patient bases. I’ll go no further here unless you would like me to.
I will relate this though, after one of my “treatments” I was laying in our living room recovering, basically just starting to come around, and my eldest brother came home early. I must have looked a mess even in the darkened room because he came over and with a great deal of concern ask me if I was ok, and I said to him “Bill you’ve got to stop them their trying to destroy me.”
It’s amazing really the clarity with which I remember all this, it took nearly 13 years for it to start coming back when it did I said to myself this just can’t be real, the clincher was when I stop by my parents house after work one day to ask my Mom what all these weird flashes of memory could be, she wouldn’t discus it with me in detail just started crying and ask me to forgive her.
I did.
I hope this didn’t disturb you too much Marc, Hugs you tight.
People will tell you where they've gone
They'll tell you where to go
But till you get there yourself you never really know
Where some have found their paradise
Other's just come to harm
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Physical danger?
Too often to remember every time! Typically, when on duty at gigs and events and fights broke out - talking down people who are fighting is scary, however much practice I've had. Being threatened with knives and broken bottles only happened a couple of times a year, though. And being on the last tube home with a bunch of drunks is damn scary, as is the walk home from the station.
Sexual danger?
Well, I posted some stuff about breaking up with the older guy who I was having sex with at ages 13/14, in what I now realise was an abusive and exploitative relationship (I loved him: he did not love me in the same way). So I'll quote
"We continued seeing each other, and having sex, and pretty soon that's all W. wanted to do. No walks, no talks, no just doing things and being friends ... just sex. So I told him that I felt we needed to stop having sex for a bit and do other things things together. Also that I needed to get my head together a bit, deal with my parents divorce, spend a bit of time with friends my own age ... but that I was definitely not calling a permanent stop to having sex & I cared about him.
I don't blame him for sulking - anyone would have. I do blame him for trying to come on hot&heavy several times that afternoon - the last time was virtually attempted rape. I was really pretty scared by this. We had a few phone conversations after that, but I was too scared to meet him on his own, and he didn't want to meet in a more public setting, so that was that."
Other examples of sexual danger have generally been when drunk women have invited themselves into my bed (mustn't exaggerate, but it has happened three times) ... I was well into my twenties before I recognised the signs of this and learned ways of firmly dissuading them before they pressed the issue. The first time it happened, I was 18, at Uni, and a girl from my class came round to wake me up in the morning, came into my room, sat on my bed, I backed away, she moved closer, I backed away, ... and ended up with scorched backside from the radiator next to the bed!
Queerbashed?
Twice that count (ie required medical treatment). Once at a free festival at Stonehenge in the late 1970s - I was comforting a mate of mine who had just split up with his girlfriend (I had my arm round him, but it certainly wasn't sexual) and a couple of Bikers wandered past and put the boot in (literally) as they passed, with loud calls of "faggots". But they basically were on their way somewhere, and as I wasn't fighting back I was no kind of sport. I got off with a couple of cracked ribs and bruising.
The second time ... I should know better in about 1980 than to walk down the Mile End Road (the rough bit of East London - think Kray Brothers) at 0300h, holding hands with my then boyfriend. Cost me a couple of teeth ... but the assailants were too pissed to run as fast as we could!
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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Thanks..... believe it or not that was a huge help and has given me an idea for a spin with a few characters.
I wish i could give you a hug right now.... i know what it is like to remember these things....
I just went through an anniversary cycle and it was miserable this time....
add to that the sideways cnversation about child abuse and i was a freaking mess....
thank gods i come out of these funks as quickly as i fall into them... (it's much like falling into a well) no way up and too frightened to go firthur down.
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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oh my god rich... i never knew.... huggs tight....
i know about that part of lying there... and all at the same time being able to think and not be able to think at the same tims.... to move and yet not be able to know why i wanted to move.
that was the worse feeling ever.....
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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Marc, I never wanted to bring it up because I knew what you were going through. My experience diverges from yours in several was but all in all it was the same.
Like I said the clarity of my memories is really amazing, I can remember all the faces, even the texture of the cloth of the nurse’s uniform.
I’ve dealt with it pretty well over the years, so if ya ever want to or need to talk (I mean now that the subject has been broached) I’ll be here.
Hugs
People will tell you where they've gone
They'll tell you where to go
But till you get there yourself you never really know
Where some have found their paradise
Other's just come to harm
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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Thanks Rich.... I appreciate that...
I can still remember their faces as well....
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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Hi Timmy,
I am intrigued, probably because of my interest in atmosphere (which is an extension of my rather more mundane interests in composition, lighting and sound, and the reconstruction of those, rather than anything supernatural).
Does the woodland feel dangerous because of evidence of recent disturbance (er ... I dunno, drug needles and the like, scuffed leaves etc.)? Or something more archetypal than that (stillness, darkness, dankness, loneliness)? Or perhaps stories of the history of the area? Has anyone else commented on the feeling independently and without prompting?
Many places have a very different atmosphere depending on the mood in which they are approached.
David
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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There is no evidence of any disturbance. It is just woodland. There is nothing special reported about it, not tales of the past, no massacres spoken of. And it is just this small sector of it. The trees are quite dense, but there are other places that look similar. It is not particularly lonely either.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Strange. How much is anticipation, though?
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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Since I never anticipated it, and walked in the woods with my dogs regularly, and had my dogs with me, none. I just went by a different route.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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fraid i can't help much with this one...
sexual danger... i dunno, i had a really weird experience in italy once that puzzles me to this day. I'm sure had it occured at both a younger and older age i would have reacted in different ways, but there ya go...
Family holiday toItaly, a place on the coast not far from Rome, it was evening, we'd been for a meal in the nearby town, and while my parents drove back to the little holiday camp/resort we were staying at, i preferred to walk back along the beach. i was 18 at the time, it was the last family holiday before i went off to uni.
anyways, it was evening, there weren't many people on the beach, and i was just walking along when a man approached me. i'm not much of a judge, but he seemed to be in his 30s, tanned, obviousl, typically italian look, ahortish, lightly muscled. He said something to me, and offered me his hand, and not spekaing much italian, i had no idea what he said. he reached out and took my hand, shook it, and then keeping hold of it, asked me something. again, no idea what, so i told him i didn't understand, asked if he spoke english. i remember him going ahh english and shaking his head, then he reached down with his free hand and put it on my groin.
AT this point in my life, i was still a virgin, no sexual experiences whatsoever, and only just come to terms with the fact that i was gay. What he did didn't scare me, so much as surprised me, it was the first time anyone had ever touched me there. i remember blushing bright red, jumping back and saying no firmly in italian... and he just smiled at me, nodded and walked off.
there were times in my life, not that long ago, when i would have run screaming, and others when i would have been pleased with the attention, and gladly gone with him... in fact a couple of days later, i was walking the same area at the same time (quite deliberately) hoping he might appear again. (i realise now how dangerous and stupid that was). i think i saw him in the distance, but he never approached me.
as for physical violence... nothing. my uni's always been pretty safe, and i've never been a party to anything out on the town either.
Odi et amo: quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
Nescio, set fieri sentio et excrucior
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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Never been gay bashed. Only name calling.
The only time I've felt physically threatened directly towards me is when I was dealing with my uncle and owed him money. The worst he ever did was grab me by the collar and push me hard up into the wall and held me there.
My mum used to throw tantrums. She'd get violent and break things. Occasionally she'd hit me. But I never felt seriously threatened, even as a kid. It would hurt, I didn't like the situation, but I was never truly, truly scared.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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