Parlez-vous Gay? Bauer. Gscene magazine. June 2013

Parlez-vous Gay?

There’s a ‘Les Mis’-type revolutionary warmth that occasionally blows across the channel, reminding us that we are still a constitutional monarchy and not a republic like our French neighbors. Images of students and idealistic youths waving banners from rooftops have always reminded us of the continental power of idealism. And even when that idealism shifts into the occasional fracas, we are reminded of how far the ‘youths’ will go on the elders’ behalf, in order to instigate some long overdue changes. 

Images of fresh-faced youths have been used as a marketing tool ever since the School of Athens to remind us of latent power. The Nazis’ blond haired blue-eyed, tight chested, bulging thighed model was a perfect and beautiful mirror to the monstrous, ugly, paunched, middle aged instigators of the Third Reich that came in the form of Hitler and pal Joey Goebbels. After all, everybody knows a great diversion tactic. 

But that vital, youthful face is always open to be exploited for evil means. Universally they represent ‘hope’ - they’re the ones who have more time to see out the so-called ideals of their elders. Except that they never do. The Hippies didn’t and neither did the Hitler Youth (except for that turncoat last Pope). And in the same way, neither has the French organisation La Manif Pour Tous (Demonstration For All), the most recent youth cattle-prodding exercise by the French right- wing, who are against same-sex marriage. Not gays. Just same-sex marriage. 

What we are seeing this time around is a softer, more wholesome Kristallnacht. A peaceful, apparently non-political gust of righteousness sweeping through the French political landscape. But hang on a minute - I'm not suggesting for one moment that France would ever be capable of separatism and genocide - it's a western developed nation for lords sake. It's bound by the Geneva Convention, no less.


“La Manif Pour Tous (the most recent youth cattle-prodding exercise by the French right wing)... is against same-sex marriage. Not gays. Just same-sex marriage” 

Modern linguistics were also developed in France, that is, the Philosophy of Language, your meaning, or someone else’s control behind the words. Think of ‘nationalism’ as being proud of your country and ‘socialism’, as a fairness for all against rampant capitalism. Put them together and what do you have? ‘National socialism’ – socialism for the good to the nation? No, because the term national socialism was piggybacked by ‘Nazism’ – a term that defies its very description. These inversions are important because they trick people into believing something different, usually the opposite. 

It’s that subtle reversal, or the spaces in-between the language, that’s the trick. Now think of the American Pro Life movement, which is a movement against a woman’s right to choose abortion. The natural opposite, if you are for a woman’s right, turns you into something altogether different. That’s right – you’re Anti Life. So, whoever gets there first claims the term and controls the meaning.

Let’s take a look at the language that this French organisation uses. 

The Demonstration For All is not for all. By the same token, any direct action against this provocative group will be seen as ‘non-family loving’, violent opponents will be seen as the ‘queer thugs’. They also state that they are a ‘spontaneous’ movement yet are ‘entrenched deeply in the republic’. That they are ‘non combative.’ It’s a ‘non-partisan’ and ‘non-denominational’, ‘deeply peaceful’ movement which is vigorously opposed to homophobia. Excuse me? I didn’t quite get that?
They are also for ‘sustainable humanity’ (they mean ‘natural’ child birthing methods here) which therefore turns homos against ‘sustainable’ humanity. Hang on, I’m beginning to sound like a Gestapo officer and I haven’t even left Café Nero... 

Here’s a peek at their manifesto:
Principle 1: Serve a clear purpose. Marriage equality and same-sex parenting is muddy and these parents are confused – they don’t understand the ‘love’ part. Kids of different sex couples also become confused because they don’t know what the ‘love’ thing is either.
2: To have an objective of sending ‘clear and strong’ messages to the elected and the citizens. These messages express the refusal to accept marriages of persons of the same-sex, adoption for all and the implementation of the theory of ‘gender’. Just to recap here – they are supposed to be opposed to homophobia and queer baiting of any form.
3: Respect the individual. Never endangering the lives of others, to observe a great respect for political opponents (whether reciprocal or not) and to distinguish people from their functions and mandates. Sounds good to me.
4: Respect the Common Good (ie gay parents are disrespecting the ‘common good’)
5: Keep popular support (As opposed to any gay ‘underground’ becoming ‘mainstream’)
6: The Demonstration For All is a popular and spontaneous movement. Through this opposition to marriage for all, this movement is a catalyst for the expression of the French people. The actions cannot impede or block the French people. (Not French gay people, however) They must also gather as much support as possible. (Does this all sound dodgy yet?)
So far there are cells of this movement in Australia, French Guyana, French speaking New Caledonia and London. 

Maybe drop them a line and show your support of the good, natural and righteous people of the world. Let them know who the real libertarians are. You decide who you think is operating on a premise of equality and fairness, and please let them know. I’m sure they’d love to hear because - as they list on their website, these are their sole ‘virtues’. Just think of the opposite of that statement and you become, by definition, non-virtuous without even leaving the sofa.

Parlez-vous gay? Gscene article. June 2013

The real cost of walking down the gay aisle

"Taboo busting" (?) review in Guru Magazine.

Review of the Brighton Science Festival.

Is film finally fucked? Beige Magazine article. April 2013.

Is film finally fucked? Beige Magazine article. April 2013.

Is film, finally fucked?

Men and Mental health

Charlie Bauer Phd will be giving his public lecture, 'Do I look Gay' at the Brighton Science Festival, Saturday, 9th February, 2013.

Brighton Science Festival 2013 -  Click here for tickets.

The Right to Arm Bears. Bauer. Beige Magazine. January 2013

THE RIGHT TO ARM BEARS
 

I’ve more than a passing interest in the Boxing Day firearm amnesty that took place in Los Angeles. It appears that some people had even forgotten about guns stashed under their beds. Some had been ‘gifted’ firearms and shoved them into lofts and garages together with all the other unwanted tacky gifts after the holidays. So it’s no surprise, being the season of goodwill and everything, that those who showed up at the amnesty bearing arms, were given $100 and $200 supermarket vouchers, depending on the size and capacity of the weapon they handed over. My only hope was that they don’t use it as some sort of upgrade coupon.

It’s been impossible not to sense the global hubris around the recent slaughter of the innocents in Connecticut. How easy it’s been to say, in the aftermath of such horrors, that America have got it so very wrong when it comes to gun control and the freedom to bear arms. How easy it’s been for everyone to judge and relate the madness of a single psychotic gunman against the National Rifle Association and come up with a flawed image of a nation and its constitution. And whenever we think of the NRA merely upholding their constitutional right, the world has the audacity to then question what America’s perception of freedom actually is. It seems to be, historically speaking, that everybody’s confusing ‘freedom’ with ‘imposition.’

Whenever something is taken away from us within British politics, we somehow comply, subliminally feeling that it was probably for our own good – even if we are paying for the act of a single madman. This collectivism works here, but America is less structured around the docility of its citizens. So, we have to wonder whether a firearm amnesty would actually work? Let’s face it; you can’t unmake an atomic bomb. And you can’t redefine gun control in a country that has come of age with that culture without opening up even more outdated cans of worms within the amendments of the same constitution.

I think perhaps it’s time we took an honest side step and think about how America became an armed nation in the first place. For that we need to go beyond the romance culture that dictates that guns and money look somehow sexy together. We need to have a brain amnesty within our collective language regarding firearms and what we all believe America represents on the subject. For instance, maybe next time you pass Abercrombie and Fitch you’ll look beyond that enormous image of a healthy, naked male torso and replace it with the hunched, bloated figure of Ernest Hemingway leaning over, with a rifle in his mouth. It was, after all, at Abercrombie and Fitch that the American writer purchased the gun he used to kill himself.

This romanticism is where current British piety falls flat within the dangerous, judgmental island mentality, particularly when we proudly state that our laws are set up so that the only gun on British soil would be an illegal one. In the past gentlemen dueled against each other, I say ‘gentlemen’ here because the lower classes were only allowed to use their fists. It was colonialism, again very much a class thing, that took this same firearm culture further afield, usually to places where unruly ‘natives’ refused to play ‘fair’ when it came to handing their sovereignty and land over. The seeding of the current crisis is when portable firearms such as muskets were introduced as inter-tribal currency in places such as South Africa, New Zealand and indeed, the USA. If ever the missionaries were taking their time utilising the calming methods of religion and spirituality then the seat of colonial power would only use firepower force to hasten things up. Let’s face it time is, after all, money.

I still find it hard to look at the paintings and etchings of partially clothed natives being handed government documents they can’t even read, in return for a share in what was their own sovereignty. These romantic gatherings always seem to obscure a very different landscape as they shield the body mounds in the burnt villages that stretch out far behind them. It’s no surprise that these so-called ‘savage natives’ look so relieved in these images – probably because they’d never witnessed first hand the new technology of a musket before.

It was within these exchanges that the first handover of firearms was instigated as an unwritten right to defend oneself from such atrocities ever happening again. Don’t forget that selling someone their own freedom back is the oldest trick in the book.

At this point weaponry became a colonial tactic, which was a forbearer of what we now know as ‘ethnic cleansing’. It’s always been an intertribal catalyst with the knowledge that with one side fully armed it could only lead to a hasty defeat of the other. The colonialists could just leave them to it and return later as a voice of reason within the mayhem, with treaty in hand, and separate the warring tribes ‘peacefully’, thus taking control. In this way, it’s hard not to draw parallels between urban gang and gun culture of the late 20th century without thinking of the real colonial roots of inter-racial gun crime.

Throughout these crazy colonial times it was important that Britain remained whiter than white as well as gun free. The seat of colonial power would not tolerate the internal threat of the same ‘freedoms’ (dressed up as insurgent actions) coming from its own people, as did the French, Spanish or some other neighboring ‘liberated’ countries.

Gun control in Britain was about keeping the monarchy safe (remember, the only guns on the streets were used exclusively by the upper classes and around issues of honor). It would only be much later that the working classes would be entrusted with firearm technology, and then only in the trenches to exercise their own feelings of honor. And when that war was over, the weapons went back into the toy box and the country was again clean. Don’t forget that the first world war was not just the first modernist war, it was also the first post-colonial war.

It is important to remember that the right to bear arms is not actually a right or freedom but an imposition. The same guns used in Connecticut also hail from a time of colonial force, which became translated into a constitutional text as a ‘freedom’. And by stating it as a ‘freedom’ (second amendment) it means that the individual citizens become culpable because they ultimately have a choice to bear arms. What this effectively does is postulate the murdering of children, or anyone else, as a birthright by placing the onus back onto the citizen’s shoulders.

The Right to Arm Bears Published Article. Beige Magazine. January 2013