Pride, Shame and Values of Men

 

Dedicated to my boi kusi, my man Sami.

 

Duality is an inevitable aspect of life. With beauty to be admired, the undesired is looked down upon. As for strength, weakness is the indicator. Happy ending for Cinderella would mean tragic outcomes for her stepmother and stepsisters. Good and bad are the drives for every story to go forwards and that also serve as mirrors to reflect our values at the end of our own stories. For the stories of our community; LGBT+ and kink, Pride has become the happy ending of the battle against constant shaming from the conformed world. Yet, can we truly, as individuals and communities, base our values solely on our own pride?

 

Our civilization, for the most part, was built, non-ironically, on the domination of a few and the submission of the masses. The ruling power strategically employed fear of the divine to form the governing rules. This led to set expectations of duties and respect for conformity; preventing unrest and rebellion. Nowadays, even with the enlightenment of liberating mankind from the chastity of Kings and Bishops, we can see that most societies are still affected by the perfected art of shaming from the elites. Shame may look different in different parts of the world but they all stem from a single root; the desire and arrogance of the strong to conquer and dominate  the weak.

 

The battle against shame for a more liberated way of life is universal, regardless of genders, races or social creeds; but for the LGBT+ and kink communities, it was and still is the battle for sexual freedom and liberation of self-identities. Many of these liberating values often contradict the current status-quos which were breached to us since we were young by our parents, educators and influential figures in our lives. These teachings, more often than not, only focus on the virtuous aspects of living which then leaves us in even more darkness for not daring ourselves to ask, ‘What if?’ And if there is anything as absolute as history repeating itself, we then often find ourselves having the same identity crises as our parents, teachers and for we are all but perfect in the eyes of others.

 

Like many other civil movements, LGBT+ Pride rose to action from the anger of gay people and our allies against systematic fear and ignorance, which had permeated onto every layer of social fabric by the work of the conservatives. The movement reached its peak during the height of the AIDS epidemics when ‘alternative’ lifestyles of kink and fetish with their unsafe sexual practices were looked down upon. LGBT+ Pride brought awareness to the public for new opportunities of same-sex marriage and social rights for us gay people and propelled into more profound and positive changes for self-identities and as it resulted in an overall improvement of our society.  

 

At the same time, history also shows us that once the battle has been won, the submitted, now having a bit more freedom and pride in their fight, often succumbs to their own arrogance.  While activism for LGBT+ and kink has indeed brought much real awareness and actions to equal rights and sexual positivity, it also gave rise to a sense of vanity to compensate for the lack of opportunity to express ourselves. Within the community, the need to be unique has resulted in an explosion of self-identities that would allow more intolerances than acceptance. Each intolerance is an angry voice that would destroy the same original belief that was built upon the Pride Movement.

 

Capitalization of Pride and Fetish has also resulted in a new generation of gay men more obsessed with themselves. The notions of self-love and betterment of mental health are slowly replaced by issues of body image, addiction and pay-per-view sex. The young generation, while having more freedom to express themselves, are the very victims of depression from the unattainable standard of the gay lifestyles they see daily on social media. We, like the older generation, still lack the proper guidance to love ourselves and find our own meaning outside of sexualities and fetishes.

 

Looking outwards away from our communities, this negativity arising from arrogance can also degrade our relationships to others as we have bias and fail to respect their beliefs in a rational and optimistic way. It took a great effort for us to create an equal platform to express our point of view freely with our parents, co-workers and leaders in our collective society. However, we often let our shame blind us from sympathizing with others. Often our anger is too loud for us to listen to others’ voices. Dissonance would become even greater as trusts are compromised from the lack of understanding and rising negativity of both sides. 

 

We tend to forget to listen to our own inner selves in a world full of noises, and yet the value of any man, in the end, is just the collective experiences that we all have from the moment we are born to the day we die. The way we love ourselves is much learned from our parents, teachers and influential figures in our lives, who have learned from their own. Our values as individuals and communities should not rely solely on our experiences as gay and fetish people but also derived from our interactions with other members of our own families, workplaces and societies.

 

Given the number of people on this Earth, each and every interaction we have with others makes our values unique to ourselves. At the same time, we all share the human experiences, both happiness and sadness, that allow us to understand, sympathize, and show compassion to one another. Whether we are men or women, gay or straight, into leather or rubber, prefer rope over chain… we are unique in the way we live our lives and yet there is room for us to love the whole of humanity if we let our hearts and minds open to the human experiences on Earth.

 

Like Princess Diana showed the world to accept AIDS patients through acts of kindness and love, we should also try our best to accept ourselves and others in a similar way. Once we have accepted ourselves fully, which is often the hardest thing to do, with both our strengths and weaknesses, while being content with what we know and have for ourselves, accepting others and their values will be simple. Anything can be right or wrong, good or bad based on our unique values and morals that help us to decide… and we just need to focus on the good and positive things in our lives to keep our minds stable and set our hearts free.

 

In this polarizing and conflicting world, perhaps believing in love and kindness is much to ask for, but looking at how humanity has prevailed through countless acts of kindness, such a request is not at all impossible. As long as we are able to take pride in our good values and aim ourselves to do as much good as we can, things will turn out for the better in the end.

 

Have faith in yourself, have faith in others and have faith in all.

 

Be kind to yourself, be kind to others and be kinds to all.

 

Love yourself, love others and love all.

 

Love is Love is Love.

 

ML1109

Me and my man Sami, Singapore 2022, one of the few rare times we can be together.