It is very interesting to me what makes (or doesn’t make) people squeamish. For lack of anything better on television this evening I found myself watching “Machines of Malice- Going Medieval” on the Discovery Channel. I don’t think it takes a great leap to figure out that the program dealt with the subject of torture devices. They were dealing with the common and mediapathic ones such as finger and skull crushers, the rack, and the pear of anguish. For each device an engineer tested a reproduction to demonstrate its effectiveness (or lack thereof), often with a neurobiologist to explain what physiologically results it would have (frankly I found her redundant in the case of the skull crusher).

Interestingly, the pear of anguish is featured in almost every History/Discovery Channel documentary on torture devices even though there is skepticism as to whether it had every actually been used (this particular show concluded that it probably couldn’t have been). Despite this, it is the pear of anguish and the Discovery Channel’s handling of its segment that sparked this post.

The pear of anguish, aside from having a nifty name, is a torture device that you may have seen under a more mundane nomenclature. In many ways it is remarkable similar to a modern speculum, although in some ways it is more like an anal rather than vaginal one. The device consists of several arms that fit together to form a narrow elongated form. When a screw at the back is turned the arms spread apart to form a conical shape. Depending on the victim’s supposed crime the device could be placed in a variety of orifices.

Having already demonstrated how the finger crusher would work on an uncooked chicken bone (“you can seen how the blood and marrow are forced out as the bone breaks, if this was a finger it would be rendered completely useless”) this point is where the Discovery Channel shows its frankly bizarre squeamish point.

They first explain that the pear of anguish would be used on blasphemers by inserting it into the mouth and expanding it until the jaw dislocated or broke. They have a CGI animated graphic to explain this for people who truly lack any imagination at all. As with the other devices both before and after on the show the narrator is a bit more enthusiastic than is strictly necessary.

Then homosexuality, which one of the people on the show (perhaps an anthropologist, I don’t remember) awkwardly explains “was looked on really badly back then.” You probably don’t need me to tell you that there is no CGI animation for how the pear was used on suspected queers. Here though is the phrase that inspired this whole post: they go on to explain that “for the crime of homosexuality, the pear of anguish was inserted into the relevant orifice and then expanded.” That’s it, homosexuality portion over.

Lastly we have adulterers who they explain in almost too graphic detail (still no CGI) would have the pear inserted vaginally (and yes they use the word “vagina”) and expanded “until the delicate mucosa tissue passes its breaking point and tears apart.”

This is the part that is really bizarre to me. The Discovery Channel feels comfortable saying “vagina” on this program and describing in somewhat horrific detail how the pear of anguish would destroy one, but can’t use the term “anus” or “rectum?”

This could be a regulator issue. Perhaps “anus” and “rectum” score higher on the questionable content scale that determines a show’s rating than “vagina” does. I can’t see why this would be, but I don’t find it all that implausible.

That said, I found the phrase “the relevant orifice” to be very dismissive. As in fact was the entire mention of torturing gays for being gay. This may not be reflective of a bias against gays. In fact if I had to guess I’d imagine that there is more than one person on the production crew whose “relevant orifice” would have been endangered back when the pear of anguish was supposedly used.

Perhaps what is more interesting than the use of the term “relevant orifice” is that there was little attempt to dismiss the use of the pear on adulterers or blasphemers. It’s as if by being dismissive the producers of the show are trying to reassure us that they don’t endorse the historic view of homosexuality as a crime. Blasphemy and adultery however, are still fair game.

Summer thought I should post this over here too. It’s a few days old now. (from my Livejournal)

Summer and I watched the debates last night. Since we don’t really have sex anymore (although with him coming off of his meds that mights be subject to change, who knows) watching all the debates has been about the most intimate thing we’ve done; if you don’t count the occasional awkward attempt at a hand job. The problem I found is that regardless of the questions, the answers in last night’s debate were all things we’d heard before. If what many of the pundits say is true (and I fear that it is) and the American people care more about who a candidate is that what their experiences or policies are (and how else to you explain all the people who like Sarah Palin) then I think that the debates questions might as well reflect this.

As I awoke from my Benadryl/Vicodin/Ambien influenced sleep this leaped into my mind:

What we need is to have a circus clown make each candidate the balloon animal that they feel best reflects them and then have them justify their decision to the American people while holding said balloon animal.

Yes it would lower the level of political discourse, but then, having watched last night’s debate I don’t think lowering the level of discourse is something we need to be worrying about.

(BTW in my dream Obama choose Dorie, the forgetful fish from Finding Nemo, and McCain choose a squid. Before they could explain their choices, or for that matter why they both choose sea animals, I woke up)

Yesterday Fire and Summer gave me a wonderful surprise. Probably my favorite musical in the world (it’s got some competition, I am a fag after all) was playing in Boson, about 90 min from our house. So yesterday we drove down to Boson, had lunch, and then went to a matinee showing of A Chorus Line at the beautifully restored Boston Opera House.

Now, I mentioned that this is probably my favorite musical, but it is also the musical that I’ve interested in the longest. I first saw A Chorus Line at age ten when after much begging and wheedling, my parents surprised me in a similar (although more spectacular) way. I should note that I’d been interested in seeing the show since I was probably eight (I first heard the soundtrack around age five). Looking back as an adult I know that some of the more overt adult content went over my head, although most did not (“adult content” makes up most of the show, it’s not aimed at kids… at all).

You might ask yourself “what kind of ten year old desperately wants to see A Chorus Line?” In my case looking back I can say “a sexually precocious queer one.” Perhaps it was my (attempted) naughty rendition of “dance ten, looks three,” (which most people know as the tits and ass song) when my age was still measured in single digits, or my enthusiastic singing along with “adolescence,” but my fondness for A Chorus Line was almost certainly one reason why my mother was less-than-shocked when I came out of the closet at thirteen.

I’ve been re-examining the above question because I found myself asking it yesterday. As we were finding our seats we passed two parents with a boy who couldn’t have been much more than ten. See him siting there in his nice shirt and sport jacket (my parents always made me get totally dressed up for theater) waiting for the show to start was like looking backwards in time. I pointed him out to Fire and we agreed that either his folks had dragged him there, or he was a budding theater fag.

I realize that I’m indulging in stereotypes here. That said, go read the synopsis of A Chorus Line if you are unfamiliar with it and find me a young boy who really wants to see it.

As we were leaving the theater, we again passed the family with the boy in question. He had a smile on his face like a Little League baseball player whose team just won the finals. If he’s lucky, he’s got parents like mine (and being at A Chorus Line would seem to indicate that he does) and his story will be a whole lot easier than some of the ones featured in the show we’d all just finished watching. But stereotyping or not, I’d be willing to lay money that the only close female companionship in his future are going to be fag-hags.

Of course, seeing myself back then I would have said the same thing and here I am so who knows? Whether women, men or both (I’m betting men or both) lie in his future, we were definitely looking at a young queer.

The vast gulf between the life and future that a ten year old queer-to-be can look forward to today and what he would have had to look forward to when the show was written is so immense that I realized that soon my beloved Chorus Line will be dated enough to only make sense as a period piece. And while that makes me feel old, and sad that people won’t get key elements of this wonderful show, it also is a spectacular indication of the progress GLBT people have made between the show’s creation in 1975 and today.

As people who know me or have read BarkingShaman can probably guess, reading is a big part of my life. In addition to mid-grade SciFi and fantasy books (although very little fantasy for some time) I have developed a fondness for a specific kind of non-fiction in the past several years.

I enjoy reading books in which people persevere against great odds. Military non-fiction is a good source for this sort of thing as it often contains accounts of everyday people faced with unspeakable horror and terror and yet, usually through training, persevering. In my mind The Ship That Would Not Die and Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors should be considered classics of this genre.

Exploration of new frontiers is another source of these stories. The various books (and one excellent BBC miniseries) about Shackelton’s failed Imperial Trans-Antartic Expedtion relate a tale that Homer could have written.

A very different kind of new frontier is ventured into in the book that I just finished reading about a man blind since age 3 who braves experimental surgery to regain his sight decades later only to find that his brain has lost the ability to process visual data.

It is interesting for me to look at how I relate to the figures in these various books. I find myself wondering, would I be able to ignore my own injuries and push away the remains of my closest friends in order to man an AA gun under Kamikaze bombardment, or would I freeze up? How would I have fared in Shackelton’s party marooned on the pack ice for years? Faced with the chance of sight, would I choose to continue my happy life or at great physical and psychological take the chance that I might venture into the sighted world.

The inevitable (to me at least) follow up to these questions is, how would these people who I admire find me? What would they think of my admiration?

This is more than just a hypothetical question. There is an excellent book, Until the See Shall Free Them about the sinking of the bulk hauler SS Marine Electric. In addition to surviving in frigid waters aboard an overturned lifeboat, her chief mate, Bob Cusick broke the longstanding code of silence regarding the safety standards among the aging ships of the U.S. Merchant Marine. The changes instituted in part as a result of his testimony have likely saved countless lives.

Weirdly, this is where my this question comes almost literally home. Bob Cusick, unbeknown to me when I happened to mention the book to the teller at the bank, retired to my current town. In fact, his daughter walks my dog when she stays at the kennel and we almost rented a house across the street from him. The teller at the bank suggested that I drop a note for him there suggesting that we get together sometime.

I’ll never get a chance to talk to Sir Ernest, or Ret. Admir. F. Julian Becton or the majority of the other names found in the pages of my significant collection. At least not unless I go find them among the underworlds and one lesson that I think most spirit workers get pretty fast is that you do not pester the dead.

The odds are better than even that if I wanted to, I could arrange to meet Mr. Cusick. The problem is that I don’t know if I want him to meet me. I’m too afraid that I’d be found wanting by a man who I admire.

I’ve asked myself what my motivations are in wanting to meet him and the primary reason is that I want him to know that his story meant something to me, even though I’m not a merchant mariner. I’ve considered writing him a letter, could serve the same purpose, but I don’t know what I’d end up saying.

This is just too fucking far. I haven’t really blogged about the overuse of SWAT teams and no-knock raids. Mostly because A) other people are doing it better than I would, especially Reason Magazine and B) well, go look at the link and tell me if you’d feel comfortable criticizing someone riding around in that.