Archetypology field trip

1.0.04

on the art of mating

Let's a have a free try-out lesson in the field. You're standing in the middle of a crowded square. Alone, no friends around, just strangers you have never met. Old, young, male, female, tall and small, slim and average and fat, black, brown, yellow, white, ugly, pretty, working, waiting, observing, searching. Just some people. Now, pick one and ask him something. "What?! Why? Something...?" Don't you feel the urge to ask strangers random question? No? Ok, let's go back to the weird safety of your wired or wireless communication device - there are thousands of profiles of strangers - of course, self-defined as gay or bi - without a word of their own, often barely with something that could be called a picture, except for couple of parametric data filled in. All of them are waiting (and stating) that "if you want to know something, ask me". Do I?

Among the fundamentals of life, there's one quite difficult to overlook. It relates to what is visible, drawing the attention, catching the eye of the on-lookers. It is the effort of almost every sexual living being to attract the mates. To set oneself exceptional. In size, any quantity or even - as with human race sometimes - quality. There's too few of us men with 10-inch endowment, not commenting on practical use of such gift, so instead of that, more-or-less we are trying to show our talents, abilities, sensibilities, thoughts, unique view of life. Are we? "I'm a normal guy searching for another normal guy." Good luck! "What should I write about myself? No once cares, no one is reading it anyways!" But if there was someone who cared, whould there be anything interesting at all to say about yourself? Something that would differentiate you from 7 billion of earthlings? Any reason to choose right you?

Back to drama: Now just imagine walking a street - there's a super-cute guy approaching you! Would you dare a direct look? Would you shy away? Think of all the cultural implications (you might be called names!), experience (you might be beaten!), deeply imprinted fears (you might be riducled and ostracized and rejected!). Think of the beauty, the urge, the desire. He's pretty, so you want to look, naturally, but you shouldn't. "He might find out that I'm gay!" Wait a moment - isn't that exactly what we want? In a safe way... surely. Maybe we are more afraid of that expected archetypal iconic disgust in his face, wounding us as it comes from the one whom we fancy. "Fag!" Ouch! That really hurts, be careful about the bleeding... "Actually, he might really hurt me!" So, what are we doing last couple of liberated decades for being able to play out there with the other kids safely? Building the inconspicuous establishments? Constructing the exclusive dating sites?

While they were created with noble cause of safety and simplifying our troublesome mating, the safety means no adventure, simplicity means lack of story. The paradox of the internet age is, that it makes our searching not only easiers, but also more vain, pointless, difficult in some way. Be it the first archetypal "coffee" or just random cruising, we are often missing topics to talk about with those complete strangers. Bars, clubs, steam rooms, darkrooms and chatting rooms are safe but also sterile and artificial. They provide no stimulus, impulses, situation that would inspire even small talk, if it is possible to talk at all - through the noise and smoky haze. Do we want to talk? Do we enjoy that "manly" practicality of our encounters? Would we wish to talk if we knew what about? Would it make us feel more safe, would it make the banging more enjoyable?

Now one more scary outer space travel. Teleport yourself into your gym, or yoga class or on the football pitch. Engaged in the activity you fancy, would you ponder what to ask from your sparring partner? Would you not know how to flatter him? Would you not find a way to ask for help or just throw yourself on the ground and get attention? Would you think long what you two might have in common? Ok, maybe you don't like sports. Maybe not only sports. It may be biking or hiking trip, indulging in cinema or enema, visiting zoo or loo, leather-craft workshop, electro-minimal concert (if there are any of those) - any of the places we enjoy, any space where we feel at home, any activities we like to do - they are abundant in topics. But... too real, too straight, too dangerous?

Let's hide in the electronic shelter again. Looking at the statistics of porn-sites, there's not many folks out there who admire 80's physique magazines with artificial bodies of grinning bodybuilders posing in geometrically absurd poses. We love cowboys, soldiers, skinheads, daddies, skaters - men with aura of adventure, story, topic around them. We love kink with a taste of danger, real-life voyeuristic glimpses of sportsmen in lockers and showers or grasping each other in the fervor of the game, we love men in context, be it natural one or artfully altered. A flawless smooth boy can be emerging out of the sea and looking at the camera with over-dramatic intensity, again and again and again, until he dissolves in that water - but he will not have a fraction of the eye-catchiness of two pairs of ordinary hairy legs sticking out of tent near dying fire on a gloomy beach. Because that associative line - tent ... camping ... frienship ... intimacy ... dare ... night ... - is a fantasy we can grasp.

Following our favorite hike trail or playing our beloved game offers not only a bliss of topic to share. Not knowing it, not being conscious about it, not intending it - engaged in our activities (in which we feel at home, as natural us) - we are becoming attractive, mesmerizing, beautiful. Same as those men who catch our own eyes in the random sight impossible to capture, those who tickle our fantasy while sub-merged in their routines, those who tease our soul in the course of pursuing their task. They are not self-stylized. They are not acting. They are real. They are themselves. Maybe even enjoying themselves. Doing what they do. The ancient archetype of beauty is seldom aware of itself.

Now a bit of perspective. Do we feel attracted more towards the sweaty playful jovial inaccessible team-mates, or the random stranger in a bar who is standing or sitting (like us) and searching (like us) and waiting (like us)? Unfortunately, all these artificial spaces that make our meeting and mating easy and safe, are designed for searching, they put us out of the context of any story, out of the course of life. We are becoming cut outs of the pictures - just the body taken away from the changing room, from the landscape, from the bedroom, placed against the grey background (or whatever color are the walls of the bar). Our life (game, ride, trip, hike, swim, stripping or dressing) stops here. We are no more ourselves, no more doing our stuff, we are now being dressed for a party, and being in a bar, and being searching. A not-myself choosing from a crowd of not-themselves.

The desire to find someone is hanging on the walls and in the air, we are not us - we are not players, travelers, swimmers on the lake, explorers of ruins nor a random guy changing the dress - we are looking for. We are in a mode of seeking - and trying to pick from other beings who are in a mode of searching. Aside of the obvious parametric data (shape, size, smell, ...), we are all monotonously identical in this only outward active characteristic - wanting. Have you ever seen a porn pics of guys just checking out other guys in a bar?

It's almost an iconic scene of gay life (or perhaps a "gay death") - a crowd of clones looking furiously at each other, searching, ravening, hunting ... Alike. Boring. Clumsy. Desiring. Evading. Frustrated. Gay. Hopeless. Impermeable. Jerking their bodies. What a sparkle of an interest could our soul find in one of them? What distinguishes one from another anyways? What stirring discussion it inspires? ("Do you like the music?" "Are you coming often?" "Are you here with friends?") That is still nothing in comparison to the question that the next daybreak will pose: What portion of a day (or night) we practice just mindblowingly dull non-creative sport of "searching for a lover"? And how much time we spend doing the things that we like, being in places we enjoy, treating our eyes and ears with the art that we appreciate - instead?