Sol Oberservations @excavatingthesol - Tumblr Blog

smellygrrl-deactivated20130316

If mainstream culture is having issues about the popularity of Sweet Brown, Charles Ramsey, and Antione Dodson interviews... it's not b/c of racism. They're probably mad that these heroic individuals who spoke their truth, amidst all the artificiality of the media, might actually have a chance of making some extra money and getting out of poverty. #keepitreal

When one holds abuse close to their hearts, their view of the world becomes a very threatening place. In a victim mentality everyone is out to do you harm by trying to manipulate you, control you, pry into your secrets, attack you, etc... These are all examples of whispers of an Ego defense mechanism carried on from childhood. When this ego is present, it will do its best to teach others not to care, because that is the way it survived. It will seek out others with addictive traits as a way to keep the fuels of abuse alive. It is the internalized abuse that has not yet healed and it is unconscious, and takes no responsibility, for the path of hurt it can create. As an abuse survivor, I am all too aware of its whispers and they can create a very exhausting way of life. I recognize it when I see it and I've yet to master the way to deal with it effectively so I am often misunderstood when I react to it. Know that I wish Peace to anyone who is dealing with their healing, because beneath that ego is a Spirit of Love & Compassion that never tires...

So he passes out condoms and preaches to the community to use what he doesn’t put into practice in his own personal life. And then you know this other person who puts all these motivational sayings up on his FB wall but when you meet him in person he’s got nothing but shadiness to offer the world. Oh, and then have you have that one person that keeps posting about how much he loves his partner and goes around cheating on him every chance he gets. But we’re not supposed to have an opinion on any of these observations because then it can be misinterpreted as judgment… and only those who judge others for judging are exempt. There is something in all this chusma that we can talk about though and that is the subject of hypocrisy. People who put up a front for some type of approval or commendation but when it comes down to it they don’t live up to what they put up. This is hardly confined to the world of FB, after all FB is simply a reflection of reality and hypocrisy is real all over. So what is the lesson embedded within the frustration of hypocrisy? First and foremost a reminder to do our best to live our Truth and put that on the forefront of our being and by doing so not becoming one of the hypocrites we’re talking about. Secondly a sober reminder that other people’s lives are not our business. Every person is on their own journey. If they have to learn the lesson that lies and deception will only get them so far before the fallacy crumbles, that is their business. All Truth is revealed in time and no one escapes that universal law. Finally, and one of the most important aspects for myself is to give yourself permission to not be a witness to it. If a person chooses to be a car wreck waiting to happen, you don’t have to be a bystander. Distance yourself from the energy of deception for your own sake. If you want to be about Truth, live it… and surround yourself by others who are doing the same.

They say that all emotions can be broken down into two categories: Fear and Love. When one is present the other is absent.

So in my own personal quest to further experience love with other men I had to teach myself to reduce the fear element, especially when it came to physical intimacy. This can be an extremely challenging situation, especially for someone in our generation. After all, some of my earliest recollections of my community focused on instilling terror when it came to sex with other men. Early public service announcements even went as far as depicting getting into bed with death as a cautionary warning to avoid sexually transmitted diseases. It would be almost a decade later when researches would find that these types of messages actually had the opposite effect on people’s behavior. Instead of increasing healthy practices, the anxiety levels were driven up so high that people went into denial mode and actually increased their risk. For many the damage was already done. The need to turn to alcohol and drugs in order to quiet the anxiety of the mind became the common playground for men’s sexual expression. The sobriety that followed “intoxicated liberations” were also chained to fear as most men normalize the worry of what they might have exposed themselves to after their sexual experiences. The anxious anticipation mounts until the next medical clearance and, depending on the results, the cycle continues. All these elements of fear needed to be stripped in order for me to experience any type of raw pleasure. What most would interpret as some type of restraint I began to experience as freedom. As I stepped away from certain patterns of behavior, I noticed that the fear elements I was so used to mixing into my experiences began to fade. In their absence, I was able to experience increased love energy with men. In this love energy I was able to find a genuine compassion for my own health and theirs. It allowed me to sculpt an experience that did not risk our health nor compromise the intensity of the pleasure. That is where I found my sexual liberation, not by adhering to or straying away from any set norm, but by breaking the entire system down to find what worked for me.

SO his friends were making fun of him because of the “unattractive” guy he had hooked up with the night before.

He turned around and said, “I was only with him because I was buzzed.” It was probably one of the most familiar lines I’ve heard throughout the years regarding someone’s regret about hooking up with someone else and it was a line that I never wanted used about me. At some point in my mid twenties I decided that if I was going to hook up with someone they had to be sober. I wanted them to be in their full senses and take full responsibility for their actions. In many ways that condition opened up my eyes to a world of pleasure that someone under the influence simply cannot relate to. Interestingly enough, one of the first steps to me experiencing genuine pleasure was sobriety. Although I had never considered myself an alcoholic, I was a social drinker, and friends absolutely loved when I was drunk. It made for some blurry nights, some to the point of blackouts, and I very quickly grew uncomfortable with not being in control of my own experiences. Even if there were some great moments, at best they could only be recalled in patches. The hangovers added a sense of remorse to the experience and reminded me that I had gone beyond what my body knew was unhealthy. I had to strip all these dynamics away from my experiences with men to truly begin to understand my own raw tastes. I needed to take ownership of my actions and not use alcohol as a crutch to be uninhibited. I wanted to relish in my experience and that meant full cognizance of my five senses. When it was all over I wanted to recall the moment in its fullness and remember every detail possible. Moreover, I wanted the same for the person I was with… a full experience that could be accounted for with pride and pleasure. That one decision to divorce my sensuality from being under the influence opened up a new world of freedom and expression. I didn’t walk away from alcohol because there was anything wrong with it... I walked away from it because there was so much right about the experience of men without it.

SO watching porn takes too much effort from my imagination to pretend I’m not watching my community put their lives

at risk in the name of entertainment, especially when it comes to barebacking. I know, I know… I’m supposed to pretend that disease and illness doesn’t exist at alarming rates in my community. I’m supposed to pretend that these guys aren’t doing it for the sake of money, or because they’re addicted to drugs, or dealing with some type of psychological baggage. I’m supposed to trick myself into thinking that they are somehow expressing some form of sexual liberation by giving into an oppressive state of mind that prefers we all objectify and exploit one another. I’m supposed to pretend that the other guy in the room, behind the camera, isn’t making mega bucks by convincing all these people to put their health at risk in the name of stardom. But then again, I’ve never really been one to do what I’m supposed to, so I’ll apologize in advance for any of you who might find this blog entry hard to swallow (pun intended). I live in a world that continues to turn a blind eye to a disease that has taken the lives of so many and yet we continue to put ourselves at risk, and condoms aren’t the answer. On days like today, National HIV Testing day, you will find a handful of posts regarding this disease that continues to devastate our community. Other than that, it is taboo to speak of it. Now a knee jerk reaction might be “Well we don’t want to repress our sexual activities or create silence around the issue of expression.” Here’s some news, the silence is already there. How many posts do you see addressing any of these issues? If we are to attain any advancement in our sexual expression, it needs to start at the dialogue level. Some might mistake my stance on some of these issues as conservative and that couldn’t be further from the truth. Through my lens, it is actually the conservative platform that endorses high-risk behavior in our community by oppressing sexuality on a variety of different levels. That oppression causes people to react and manifest itself in many of the self-destructive behaviors we see. Liberation for me exists in stepping outside of all these dichotomies into the realness of your own tastes. Exploring a person in all the subtleties that most overlook in their quest to conquer one another. Delving into a person’s essence can be one of the most sensually pleasurable experiences out there. Sexuality is so much more than sex and a person can be sexually liberated without ever having to touch another person. There will be more on that stimulating subject in future writings…

SO on relationships… I think fairy tales pretty much f*cked it up for everybody.

All these ludicrous ideas that someone is supposed to magically appear in your life and fix everything you have going on wrong with you. Real life doesn’t work that way. People are starting to wake up to the reality that life doesn’t have a happy ending once you find your “soul” mate. Others, however, are still shaking off this slumber. You’ll see it whenever someone has a revolving door policy on finding that love of their life. Every couple of months you’ll see a new profile pic of that new husband as they patiently await the virtual rice being thrown at their pictures in congratulatory comments validating their nuptials. And then of course you have to bare witness to all the nasty mini-divorces in between where people hang their dirty laundry out for the world to see. We’ve all seen it, and some of us might even be guilty of it. But that’s beside the point. Let’s look at what all this might be an indicator of… the lack of a real relationship with yourself. If we are constantly looking for someone else to save us from our misery, we’ll never get the opportunity to be our own Knight in Shining Armor. From what I’ve seen, many go towards a relationship, not because they seek compatible companionship but because they struggle being on their own. If a relationship stems from insecure waters, chances are it’s not going to be very successful. So instead of playing this never-ending game, why not get off the merry-go-round for a little while and work on becoming the type of partner you would like to have in your life. If having a partner is even a goal, which for many is no longer even a priority… but we’ll leave that topic for another time.

SO, I can have a man at my door ready to have sex faster than I can get a pizza delivered.

With that said, I’ve never understood why some guys make such a big deal about having a lot of sex when it’s one of the easiest things to accomplish as a gay man. With sites like A4A and apps like Grindr, access has become streamlined and hooking up is as easy as logging on. Now if you’re more into the traditional hook-up scenes then bars and clubs will still be of interest to you. But you might have to rely on alcohol/drugs to ease the socialization because guys still have lots of issues when it comes to interacting. For those on a more direct route, you still have the public cruising scenes and the sex club/bathhouse venues. Even if you just want a visual fix you can just head on over to your neighborhood gym and kick it in the locker room for your eye candy. With so much accessibility I’m still curious as to the reason behind people hyping up hook-ups like it’s something to brag about. Maybe it’s borrowed over from the hetero world of guys being the studs based on how many women they can hook up with… but that’s a different system and it really doesn’t apply to us. After all, in the hetero world women are socialized not to be as promiscuous, so therein lies the challenge. Interestingly enough that dynamic is pretty non-existent in the gay world. However, if we are all living out hetero-socialized roles as playas, then you simply get one big ole group with each member trying to outplay the other. With dynamics like that sex is easier than taking candy from a baby. As I’ve reflected and grew throughout my experiences I realized that it wasn’t so much the access to physical relationships with men but why I was driven to the actions that espoused my Consciousness. Once I accepted that men could not validate me, or reject me for that matter, I was able to start stepping away from a system that wasn’t even built for me or my sexuality to begin with...

SO I’ve heard it said that those who choose to be in open relationships want all the social accolades for being in a committed monogamous relationship...

and simultaneously all the freedoms from being single. Interestingly enough, the topic in and of itself is enough to set off fireworks of debate in the community. On one hand you have a group stating that those who wish to have a monogamous relationship are brainwashed and attempting to achieve a hetero-normative state of conditioning. On the other hand you have the other group stating that only those who can’t find someone to love them enough to be with only one person end up settling for an open dynamic. Others will say that open relationships are simply an immature dating phase regardless of what people want to make of it. Others argue that your partner is bound to cheat on you anyways so you might as well just make the relationship open from the beginning. I think all sides have their points. For myself, an open relationship is not an option. Not because of moral or political issues, but because of health concerns. Most open relationships allow for sexual experiences with others, with or without rules, and since “safe” sex is non-existent, it is an invitation to put my health at risk. I cannot, in good faith, put the person I love at risk for illness. It simply does not fit the parameters of my definition of love. Now the knee jerk response to that is you are always at risk, and that can be true but there are ways to minimize exposure. Others might say that even in monogamous relationships people cheat and that puts you at risk. However, that is not true. In a committed, monogamous relationship, the risk is greatly minimized. If one of the partners is having sex outside the relationship and not being honest about it then that is not a monogamous relationship; that is a deceptive relationship. Unfortunately deceptive relationships are all too common these days and the impact is strongly evident. I’m not interested in a debate about the topic; I’m simply sharing my views on the subject for others who might share the same lens. I do not expect people reading this post to abide by my definitions nor am I trying to coach anyone to be in any particular type of relationship dynamic. As adults we are each entitled to define love as we see fit and seek our relationships accordingly.

SO I’ve seen so many people claim liberation because they are straying away from a set norm...

What they fail to see is that if they are still using that norm as a point of reference then they are still bound by the same system. For instance if a person is resisting a social propriety of virginity by claiming an affinity to whoredom, then they are simply living out the flipside to the same coin. Both labels are part of an archaic system of "values" used to control and manipulate the masses. But once people choose sides they tend to feel the need to defend it at all costs. So all of a sudden you get this cry for public approval by stating that there is nothing wrong with being a whore. And that is correct. Let’s take it a step further though. Just because there is nothing wrong with it doesn’t mean there is anything right with it either. So strip the label of the judgment categories “good” and “bad” and you are simply left with what is. If people were not to receive the social validation, or social condemnation, for the lifestyle they lead, would they still lead it? Reflecting on why we do what we do is a rich path of exploration and self-discovery. One can benefit from asking themselves the following questions: Do my actions bring me closer to or farther away from health? Do my thoughts bring me peace or suffering? Am I living my own truth? Is my soul in harmony with my reality? The answers to these questions are ultimately what guide a person to their own authenticity, free from the labels.

SO I’ve noticed that a lot of us have a difficult time being with ourselves.

We need to be distracted by anything or anyone that takes attention away from our own mind and thoughts. We seek validation from outside ourselves to feel any sense of approval. Many times we seek to belong to any group in order not to feel the suffering of loneliness. But, I’ve learned that there is beauty to not fitting in. One has to move beyond the initial reaction that one suffers from perceived rejection and rise above feelings of isolation to experience this beauty. It is an accomplishment that can only come from spending time with one’s self. Facing, confronting, and embracing all that one has to offer to their own company. No other standards to live up to, no rankings on the social hierarchy, no contests to judge your worthiness of belonging. It is simply you with you. It is breaking down and meshing the taught barriers of your “good” and “bad” qualities to a space of complete acceptance. One has to break away from the need for social validation to experience this freedom of true self-expression. I have only witnessed it, and experienced it, when one was stripped of all the superficiality we are socialized to believe makes us worthy. At that moment when you thought you would break was actually the peak of developing your Consciousness.

SO expressing my thoughts is proving itself to be uncomfortable for some people and that’s ok.

I think it is the price one pays for speaking their Truth and I have reached a point in my life where that has become increasingly important to me. I don’t represent any agency, don’t administer over anyone, don’t hang out with any cliques, and don’t hold any political seat and yet some people hold my views as threatening. At various points in my life I did hold certain “authorities” and I found them stifling. Couldn’t say this or that because it would impact the agency or cause too many political rifts and we wouldn’t want to be seen as “confrontational” or “hard to work with.” But I shed all that years ago. Now it’s just me and I’m finding my voice strong as ever. In that time I’ve learned so much from existing outside the norms that consume most people’s lives. I’ve noticed that people exert so much energy on trying to fit in that they lose the most important aspect of their identity: their individuality. And there are so many different layers to keeping those systems of oppression in place. People’s egos want to hold on to everything as it is then wonder why we as a society don’t change and evolve. So many people caught in a web of illusion that just to speak of it causes discomfort and reaction. It is all understandable and I wish everyone well on their journey, but I’ve had enough of conformity to last a lifetime. I do not wish to stay stifled in tit for tat debates. I am seeking those that share a similar lens on life, because those are the people that help me grow and develop.

SO as queer people of color we are extended a very rare opportunity in this world to flourish...

in the margins of a society that oppresses and condemns. We understand what it feels like to not be accepted by set norms and a majority rule. Many times we are left to deal with our own company, inside our own minds, and break free from a haunting ignorance that would prefer we not exist. It is not an easy passage. We know what it feels like to be put down, to be left out, and to be considered less than. Yet the truth of our identity is so strong that despite all the challenges we achieve the miraculous by simply being visible. So if we can achieve all that, why in the world would we go and re-build other systems within our community that serve to create new status quos and exclude others? All these cliques and labels make no sense to me… twinks, muscle bears, leather daddies, pigs, chubs, etc. Under a guise of creating solidarity based on similarities, do they not simply risk replicating the systems of segregation and oppression they are supposedly trying to get away from?

SO, I am learning that it’s not the topic of Judgment that causes people to react, but rather the subject.

For instance, people complain every day about the harshness of judgment from within the gay community based on looks, weight, age, economics, and health status. A good portion of these judgments are reflected in the ridicule of pictures posted of the heavyset woman in “inappropriate” clothing or the people shopping at Walmart. These depictions are so common, they’ve become acceptable in some circles, yet they are all examples of people placing judgment. Now if we switch the subject to drugs, alcohol, and sexual risk behaviors this same group of people will be the first to call foul and say “Don’t judge.” Interesting huh? All of a sudden the “who are you to judge” button gets pushed because now they feel that they are the target of the subject at hand, and that’s simply unacceptable and their egos rise to defend.

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