THEGAYUK

Tag: Greg’s Musings

  • 5 tips that will make you want to try Tantric massage tonight

    5 tips that will make you want to try Tantric massage tonight

    If you’ve ever wanted to try something different in the bedroom, maybe it’s time to try tantric. Greg Mitchell explains

    (C) BIGSTOCK

    It seems to me that these days we do everything in a rush, and that includes sex. It’s on tap. Just open up that little app on your phone, and you can be f**king in minutes. Quick and easy. You can even organise a quickie for your lunch hour, and be back in your office with nobody any the wiser about what kind of sausage sandwich you had for your lunch.

    Well tantra is something different. Even if you are in a relationship, when was the last time you and your partner actually took time to make love, made an evening of it, an evening of exploring each other’s bodies? So, for Valentine ’s Day, why not try something different? Instead of going for a romantic, and usually rather expensive, dinner out somewhere, followed by a tipsy quickie when you get home before going to sleep, why not have a quick light meal, and spend the rest of the evening exploring and enjoying each other’s bodies?

    Here are a few tips on tantric massage to help get you started.

    You can make an evening of it, take turns to massage each other. You can make it a prelude to sex or you can spend an entire evening massaging each other. Either way, you will achieve greater intimacy than you normally do. Admittedly it requires a little preparation, but I guarantee you it will be worth it.

    Prepping. 

    Now most of us don’t have a massage table, but I would suggest taking things off the bed, and even out of the bedroom if you can. Why not spread some cushions on the floor and cover them with a duvet, a large sheet and some towels. As you’re going to be doing some massage, then the floor will also offer a firmer surface. If you have a futon, then that would be even better.

    Atmosphere is very important.

    Joshua McKnight at Pexels

    Candlelight is an absolute must, scented candles are even better, as are incense sticks (I particularly like Nitraj Original natural Masala incense available from Buddha on a Bicycle in Covent Garden). Music is also very important. There are plenty of massage, new age and tantra albums out there, but I’ve put together my own playlist, which is a mixture of all sorts; selections from chill out albums like Buddha Bar and Café del Mar, classical pieces, and bits and pieces I’ve downloaded from various tantra albums. I put it on shuffle, so I never know quite what is coming next, but the music often dictates the speed of my massage strokes, and even the pressure. My playlist is on spotify and if you are a member, you too can subscribe to my list.

    Start off with loose clothing.

    So we have now set up the room, we have created a warm, welcoming atmosphere, and it’s time to create the intimacy and the bond that will carry us through the next few hours. It’s best if you start in loose, easy to remove clothing. Stand facing your partner, take each other’s hands and close your eyes. Let the music wash over you and slow your breathing down, taking deep breaths deep down into your diaphragm. Then, eyes still closed start to explore each other’s bodies through your clothes. You will be amazed how sensuous this can feel. Don’t be afraid to touch each other’s intimate parts, but don’t concentrate on them either. Really feel all over each other’s bodies, and finish this section by holding each other closely for a few minutes, enjoying the intimacy and feeling of just being held. Then you can start to undress each other. Again, take your time. This can be unbelievably erotic. Caress each other’s bodies as you take off each item of clothing. Make love to each other’s bodies. Once naked, hold each other again, before lying down and starting on the massage proper.

    One thing tantric massage emphatically is not is a rub down followed by a hand job. In fact Joseph Kramer, tantric massage guru, once stated, “The difference between Tao Erotic Massage and a hand job is the difference between banging on a piano and playing Mozart.” Now you are ready to start playing Mozart.

    Choice of massage oils is personal.

    Good ones are almond oil and coconut oil, but you could equally use baby oil. It can bea good idea to warm it on a radiator before using it, and then pour it into your hands first before rubbing it into your partner’s body. I usually start with my client face down and start on the back, sweeping my hands down to the buttocks. Play with your partner’s body. Remember what feels good for you will no doubt feel good for him too. Try it now. Gently caress one of your arms with your free hand. Doesn’t it feel good? You have magic in your hands. Use it.

    Don’t be in too much of a hurry to get to the naughty bits.

    (C) BIGSTOCK

    Take your time to get to know each other’s bodies. This is where you get to find those erogenous zones you didn’t know you had before. Also remember that, once you do get to massage the more intimate areas, whether it be the prostate or the genitals, your aim is to make your partner feel good and prolong orgasm, not just to bring him off. Use lots of lube if massaging the prostate, and plenty of oil on the genitals. Don’t just jerk him off. Play with his cock, caress it, massage it. You’ll be surprised at his reactions. Ejaculation may or may not happen. It is not the be all and end all of a massage. In fact, it is possible to achieve a full body orgasm without actually ejaculating.

    This is just a tiny snapshot of how you can incorporate something more sensual into your lovemaking, but if any of this has excited your curiosity, then take a look at

     

    http://www.sensualself.co.uk

    http://www.sensualmassagemovies.com

    http://www.tantra4gaymen.co.uk

    http://www.meetup.com/BIG-LINGAM-TANTRA-LONDON

    This article was first published in Feb 2013.

  • COLUMN | Don’t Let The Bastards Get You Down

    Brace yourself everyone. If you think we’ve had to put up with quite a lot of abuse over the last few months, then it’s no doubt going to get worse over the next week.

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  • COLUMN | It’s okay to be different, isn’t it?

    My school days are such a long time ago now that I barely remember them, or is it that I just blotted them out?

    They seem to belong to a different person who has absolutely nothing to do with the person I am now. I had no idea I would turn out to be gay, though anyone with half a brain could probably have figured it out. I was dancing (in my pram) before I could walk, singing perfectly in tune before I had the slightest idea what I was singing about (all lyrics reduced to lalala), and my favourite films were those involving plenty of song and dance, Fred and Ginger in particular. From an early age, all I wanted to do was dance.

    This always singled me out as being a little different, but my earliest days at primary school were surprisingly happy. It was a mixed school and the other boys didn’t seem to mind that I preferred hanging out with the girls and not playing football with them. Well, they probably reasoned, at least they were spared having to pick me to be in their team. My school was in the middle of a highly middle class part of my home town, and the other pupils all came from the same area. Our parents all knew each other. It was a safe and cosy environment. Even so, though I don’t ever remember feeling physically threatened at my primary school, I had to learn to toss off the occasional jibes about being a sissy and a big girl. However in my last year or two, when I was sitting my eleven plus and preparing to go either to an all-boys Grammar School if I passed, or an all-boys Public School if I didn’t, I started to be picked on that bit more. School was not the fun place it had been when I was younger.

    I had been taking tap dancing lessons since I was five and would constantly sail through my various exams. Dancing was not a boy’s pursuit though. The penny dropped when I looked around at one of the annual dance school displays and realised I was the only boy on stage. That was probably behind my decision to give up dancing lessons. l My dancing teacher, a friend of the family whom I knew as Auntie Joy, was pressing my mother and father to get me to start ballet. She had been a professional ballet dancer herself and an Honours Associate of the Royal Academy of Dance. She thought that, physically, I had the perfect proportions to be a ballet dancer. However, no amount of cajoling on the part of my parents was to make me change my mind. I had decided that there was no way I was going to be going to ballet class when I got to my next school, and, it has to be admitted, my parents didn’t try that hard to persuade me otherwise. It had been bad enough been singled out for going to tap dancing lessons. I was hardly going to make things worse for myself by doing ballet.

    Secondary school (the local grammar) was to prove a terrible culture shock. It was my first exposure to boys from the other side of town, boys who were bright enough to pass their eleven plus, some of whom lived on council estates, and who had built up their own set of tools to deal with the harsher environment they came from. Grammar School was pretty egalitarian in that respect. Boys attending came from all over the town, not one single catchment area. No doubt to many of them, it appeared I had a privileged existence, and in some ways I had. We holidayed in Greece (staying with my grandparents there) when air travel was only for the rich; my father ran his own business and drove a Jaguar. This was enough to single me out, but it probably didn’t help that, though I no longer went to dance classes, I maintained a keen interest in theatre and dance, and would often participate in local operatic society productions, for which my father was musical director. No doubt, all this would have been forgotten if I’d been a keen football player or rugby player, but I had absolutely no interest in sport.

    At primary school I had made friends with all the girls. Here there were no girls. I found it hard to make friends and I became an easy target. Nobody actually called me gay (well the word didn’t exist back then), but I was called a sissy and a poof, without any of us really understanding what that meant. You have to remember homosexuality was illegal in those days. There was no way I was going to admit to myself, let alone anyone else, that I was gay, and I still assumed that I would meet a girl, get married and have children. I knew virtually nothing about sex. Children were much more innocent in those days. Still the other boys sensed I was different, and this is what separated me from them.

    I wasn’t the only boy to be bullied and ostracised though. There were others, who found it harder to get on than me, and I briefly befriended some of them, though ignominiously dumped them when I realised that being friends with them was doing me no good whatsoever. I remember one boy committed suicide while I was there. He was an odd, skinny, intellectual boy, with National Health glasses held together with Elastoplast, evidently from a poor family. Nobody would have anything to do with him, and even the teachers teased him. When he died, there was an announcement in assembly, but the whole sorry business was glossed over. There was never any attempt to tackle bullying in the school, and, truth to tell, the teachers often colluded in it, the idea being that a certain amount of bullying was good for the softer kids, that it was character building.

    My elder brother had gone to the same school 4 years before me, and, though we fought like cat and dog at home, he was to prove to be my protector in my early years at Grammar school. He couldn’t be there all the time of course, but at least I had his protection on the walk home from school, and more than once he turned on boys who were calling me names. I don’t know how I’d have coped without him. I wouldn’t have known how to fight back and, other than my brother, my only defence was speed. I could outrun most of the boys in my year, a fact that was first brought home to me on the day we had some athletics tests. To the amazement of all the other boys, who had assumed all sissy boys were useless at sport, I came first in my year in the 100 and 220 (yards, not metres in those days) and also tested well in the long jump. My games master encouraged me to join the athletics team, but I flatly refused, not because I didn’t enjoy running and jumping, but because I didn’t want to spend any more time than I had to with boys who bullied and threatened me. So, for the second time, I didn’t do something I was good at out of fear, out of fear for what the other boys would do to me. I had earned a somewhat grudging respect because I could run, so the physical bullying stopped, but the verbal jibes continued. I was a sensitive child and it hurt. It’s taken me a long time to learn to ignore people who seek to hurt with words. Indeed the scars can take a lifetime to heal.

    The only place I felt safe was in music classes, and my viola teacher, who knew how horrific games lessons were for me, ended up programming my viola lessons at the same time as the games periods, telling the headmaster there were no other slots available. I was eternally grateful to him. A kind, gentle, quietly spoken man, with weirdly wax like hands and fingers, I have no doubt that, though married, he was gay, not that I knew or guessed that at the time, but looking back, it seems plausible enough. I’m sure he recognised a kindred spirit. Still, in a more accepting environment, maybe I would not have accepted his offer of programming my viola classes so I could skip games. I admit I rather regret not participating in sport at school now. To this day, I feel a mild sense of panic when someone throws a ball at me, or puts a bat in my hand. I feel I’ve missed out.

    When my brother went to university, I had to find a way to survive without him. I did so by if not actually mixing with the bad boys in school, by allying myself with them.I started smoking, let it be believed that I had a string of girlfriends. I’d buy girlie magazines like Mayfair, and make sure the other boys got to see them, though, in all honesty, nothing in their pages really did much for me. Still, they had the desired effect. I started bunking off school too. Suddenly I was cool and the bullying stopped.

    But of course I wasn’t cool. My schoolwork started to suffer. Much to the mortification of my parents, I was hauled up in front of the headmaster on more than one occasion. Though I managed to pass 6 out of 7 of my ‘O’ levels (we took a maximum of 7 in those days), I didn’t get the grades I should have done. I went from being one of the top three boys in my class to one of the bottom few. My ‘A’ level results were even worse, and I ended up having to go to a college to re-study and re-sit my English and French, in an attempt to improve my grades.

    I suppose I was luckier than many. I never actually got beaten up (because I could runs so fast), and most of what I had to deal with was just words. Just words? I remember shouting back at my tormentors, “Sticks and stones can hurt my bones, but words can never hurt me.” But it wasn’t true. Words can and do hurt. They hurt me; both emotionally at the time and also in stopping me doing things I was good at and should have enjoyed. I don’t know if I’d ever have been a great ballet dancer or a great sprinter, but the point is I never got to find out, nor did I find my true academic potential. Hell-bent on survival, education was all but forgotten. How many other young people are not doing well at school because of bullying and peer pressure? I have no doubt it is thousands. We hear of the tragic cases, of those , like that young boy at my school, who are driven to take their own lives, and that one young person should feel death is the only way out is reason enough to ensure we, as adults, do everything in our power to stop another child taking their own life. We should also be considering the wider implications of children not reaching their full potential because of the way they are treated by their peers at school. Children feel that they need to fit in, and respond easily to peer pressure. What we need to do is celebrate diversity. We still live in a culture where the boy who is good at football is going to be feted and revered, whilst the boy who is good at ballet is more likely to be ridiculed and called names. We need to tell children that you can be different and still fit in, but until we can celebrate diversity in the adult world, how can we hope to make things better for children?

    Today is Stand Up day. Make sure you stand up against bullying.

  • OPINION | Porn, does it eventually bite you in bum?

    In the news this week is the story of young ballet dancer, Jeppe Hansen. Hansen was on a scholarship with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School, when he was told there was no longer a place for him, it having been discovered that he had appeared in gay porn movies, under the name Jett Black.

    Quite how the Royal Winnipeg Ballet officials discovered this has not been revealed, but the company has stated it has policies and procedures in place, that state that any dancer who wishes to partake in ‘side projects’ must gain approval from the school director. I do wonder, though, if the school would have been quite so intransigent if it had been discovered that Hansen was working as a waiter or even dancing in a fringe production of a musical somewhere.

    There can be little doubt that it is the nature of Hansen’s ‘side project’ itself that is the problem, not the fact that Hansen, like many students, was doing something extra-curricular to fund his education. The problem appears to be sex, not only sex, but public sex, though we should remember that Hansen was doing nothing illegal. He was just appearing in a movie and getting paid for it. One has to ask if they would have had the same problem, if he’d got a role in a war movie which required him to kill and maim people. No doubt he’d have been given a warning and allowed to continue his studies.

    On the other hand it is a little disingenuous of Hansen to refer to the porn he did as art, a statement that only serves to cloud the issue. Though he may have a point, I’d hardly call any of the porn I did art, and, anyway, the whole question of what constitutes pornography, and what erotic art, is probably food for a whole other article. Hansen banging on about his artistic freedom being breached hardly helps, I feel. The issue seems to me much simpler.

    I certainly doubt the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School’s officials wrestled for one moment with definitions of art and pornography. They were just “shocked” and “appalled” that one of their students was having sex on film. But this is where I have a problem with the officials. My reaction to the news was, predictably no doubt, so f**king what?? I would imagine he made a lot more money for a few hours’ being filmed having sex than he would have done working as a waiter, and probably had a lot more fun doing it too. Seems to me he was just being inventive. He was given an opportunity and took it.

    Am I so completely out of touch with how normal people would react? Not as much as you might think, judging from most of the comments left by readers of the news article in gaystarnews, who all seemed to think the Ballet School over reacted.

    As far as I can see, the problems society, and the mainstream media, have with porn are the same ones they have with sex; problems derived from outmoded religious views and the deep seated shame those views create.

    Some of you may remember that, a few years ago, The News of the World revealed that Max Mosley enjoyed indulging in a bit of SM sex. Mosley, quite properly considering that what he got up to in his private life was nobody’s business but his own took out a privacy case against the News of the World, which he won, though, by this time, his reputation was in tatters anyway. The law agreed that The News of the World had breached his privacy by revealing his sexual peccadilloes, but it hardly changed people’s attitudes to what he was getting up to. Again, when the story first broke, my attitude was, so what? Why is this even a news story? Is it just that most people’s sex lives are so boring, they can only get vicarious pleasure out of reading about other people’s, and then, of course, condemning them?

    On the subject of porn, internet figures suggest that most of us are looking at it, but very few would admit to it. We know that most of the people who have at some time looked at internet porn are men, (8 out of 10, compared to only a third of women), but it’s fair to assume that most of them don’t tell their wives or girlfriends. So, although watching porn is common, it’s still not considered acceptable behaviour, whereas watching movies in which people get blown to bits is. Taking the above figure as the norm, that would suggest that, out of the current 503 male MPs in the House of Commons, we can assume that at least 400 of them have, at one time or another, watched internet porn. These same MPs will publicly voice their concerns about the easy availability of internet porn and talk about ways of stopping it. Ah, how we love dual standards.

    Returning to the original question as to whether doing porn can come back and bite you in the bum, then, I am sad to say, that in our present society, the answer is probably yes. In our gay world, doing porn might be becoming more and more acceptable, and indeed more and more gay men are enjoying sex on camera, many being happy to do it just for the thrill, rather than the money, but they really should be careful about who gets to watch it. I suspect many of them would lose their day jobs if their bosses ever found out. Yes, it seems totally wrong to me and I can’t help asking why doing porn can possibly be seen to be a problem for a budding ballet dancer. Are people really not going to go and watch him dance if they know he’s had sex on camera? I suspect the reverse would be true. Oh well, clearly society hasn’t caught up with me yet. So a bit of advice. Unless, like me, you can largely opt out of society, admit to all you have done and refuse to be ashamed, it’s probably best that, for now, you give up the idea of doing that porn movie. Either that or wear a mask.

     

    Opinions expressed in this article may not reflect those of THEGAYUK, it’s management or editorial teams. If you’d like to comment or write a comment, opinion or blog piece, please click here.

  • OP ED | Is Prostitution The Last Taboo?

    This month’s issue is the Vice Issue and, if I appear to have been quiet for a while, it’s because I’ve been away indulging my passion for sunbathing in Cape Town (probably a vice) and my addiction to chocolate over Easter (definitely a vice).

    I was also taking a holiday from my main job, which some would no doubt claim is the biggest vice of all. I work as a tantric masseur, which could well be considered the more legitimate end of prostitution (certainly there are many sites which will not accept a massage ad, which gives any indication that the massage might be sexually pleasurable), and before that, I worked as an escort.

    It seems to me that, even in our more sexually charged world, a world that increasingly accepts sex as a part of life, prostitution is one of the last, great taboos. There are people out there selling all sorts of services, from cleaning to baby-sitting to dog walking, so, if you happen to be good at sex, then why not offer that as a service?

    Presumably the reason prostitution is frowned on goes back to most religions viewing sex as a sin, but though more and more people would no longer subscribe to that opinion, prostitution, or selling sexual services, is still frowned upon. Are there double standards going on here? For instance, society still seems to have problems with women who view themselves as sexual beings. Why is it, for instance, that a man who has multiple sexual partners is considered a stud, but a woman a slut? Feminists, too, often have problems with women who admit to a high sex drive, and often refuse to believe that there are women who choose to work in the sex industry, even when confronted by someone like Dr Brooke Magnanti, the woman who created the blog Belle De Jour, which was, in turn, based on her experiences as a high-class call girl. Believe me, there are plenty of others out there, but they go unnoticed, whilst the media concentrates on the problems of trafficking, coercion and drugs.

    This dichotomy exists in the gay world too. There are plenty of gay men out there, who spend their lives frequenting sex clubs and bars, having anonymous sex with multiple partners, often more than one in a single night, and that is accepted as just part of the gay scene. Many of these men are completely indiscriminate as to whom they end up having sex with, and yet they will look down their noses at anyone who chooses to accept payment for sex. “How can you have sex with someone you don’t fancy?” they will say, though they’d be perfectly happy to join in with a group session in a sex club, with scant regard as to who else was in the group. You can’t tell me they went through a strict vetting process beforehand.

    When I first started escorting, it kept me very busy, and I might easily have had sex with 15 to 20 men in a single week. Yet a friend who once told me that I was the least promiscuous gay man he knew. He had a point. If I wasn’t working, I was, and still am, extremely choosy. Maybe it’s because it can too easily just seem like work, but I digress.

    Now I know of many gay men, who have, at one time or another, worked as an escort. These men have perfectly normal day jobs, whether it be in IT, law or whatever, but of course they keep it completely secret. When asked, you would never be likely to hear them say, “Oh I work in IT, but I also do a bit of prostitution on the side.” Aside from the fact they’d likely get sacked, working as a prostitute or an escort still isn’t acceptable. Mind you, in the straight world, nor is sex outside of a stable relationship, which, come to think of it, could be one of the problems some heterosexual men still have with gay men.

    Actually, rather than society becoming more comfortable with prostitution, the reverse is happening. At present there is a Bill before the Scottish Parliament, (brought by MSP Rhoda Grant) that would seek to follow the Swedish model by making it illegal to purchase sex. I believe they are also considering this model for the rest of the UK. This law seeks to make the client into a criminal. Rhoda Grant recently stated in the Glasgow Evening Times, “People that use prostitutes are people who would rape and abuse,” a statement that is utterly false and completely inflammatory. An article by sex worker, Laura Lee, in Independent Voices on Friday April 5th, seeks to refute these myths, but is anyone listening?

    Closer to home, one will typically find, when talking about sex, that a gay man will say something along the lines of, “I’d never use an escort. I don’t have to.” The inference being, that they are too sexy, good looking, young or whatever for them to even consider the services of a sex worker. Well, let me tell you, there are many reasons a guy might choose to see an escort, and usually, it has very little to do with the way they look. Most are just average guys, the kind of guy you might have winked at in a bar, and some of the ones I’ve seen have been downright gorgeous. Admittedly, there are a few who look better with the lights out, but for the most part, they are just ordinary guys.

    In Linda’s article, cited above, she gives a few examples of the kind of client she might see. Let me add a few more.

     

    1. He’s in a long-term relationship. He still loves his partner, but his partner doesn’t enjoy the same sort of sex he does. Seeing an escort is far safer than picking someone up on the internet or in a bar. His partner is far less likely to find out about it, and the escort is far less likely to turn into a bunny boiler.

    2. Maybe he’s disabled in some way. We do tend to forget the physical needs of the disabled, as if a disability should condemn someone to a life time of celibacy. One of my clients, a sweet and gentle man, had lost both his legs in an accident. Sex wasn’t easy for him, but it was possible and he still had needs. Much better to use the service of a professional.

    3. This is one of the most surprising, but it happens. A young guy, who wants someone with a bit of experience to each them a few things. I wrote an article about one such experience for my blog. Take a look

    4. The businessman in town for a couple of nights. He has a limited amount of time and doesn’t want to waste it hanging around in bars or trying to find someone on Grindr or Scruff (you know how time-consuming that can be). Answer, call an escort. Even better, make the booking before you arrive in town. You may be surprised to hear that many book in advance.

    5. Those who want to have sex with that particular escort; probably because they’ve seen him in a movie (escorting and porn often go together).

    6. Someone who wants to explore and indulge a particular fetish. Believe it or not, it can be safer to explore this with an escort, someone who has a website and umpteen ads on various sites, than someone who is a complete unknown.

    Do we really wish to criminalise these men? Absolutely not, nor should the State be interfering in what is, after all, a transaction between two consenting adults. It’s my contention that the problems of trafficking, drugs and coercion could be more easily be dealt with by decriminalising and regulating the industry, rather than creating more bands of legislation and driving the industry further underground. It’s called the oldest profession in the world for a reason, and it’s time that our attitudes to both sex and the sex industry became more grown up.

     

    Opinions expressed in this article may not reflect those of THEGAYUK, its management or editorial teams. If you’d like to comment or write a comment, opinion or blog piece, please click here.

     

  • Perhaps Try Tantric?

    It’s Valentine ’s Day, the festival of amour, and, for once, I’m going to exchange my mood of belligerence for one of lurve, whilst I expound the benefits of tantric massage and how it can be incorporated into your love making.

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  • COLUMN | Merry Christmas From The Church

    Well Christmas is over for another year, and what did we learn from it.

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  • COLUMN: Barebacking

    Did I miss something? Has there been some enormous breakthrough while I wasn’t looking? Are HIV and Hep C now as easy to deal with as gonorrhoea or chlamydia? I ask because it seems everyone is barebacking these days. Honestly, it’s the new black. How do I know this? Well these days I find I have to brace myself for the inevitable look of disappointment when I bring out a condom, or even mention safe sex. Do they all know something I don’t?

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  • COMMENT: Halloween

    Everyone, it seems, loves a good party. It’s October and all the shops are full of party ideas and of course gifts, for Halloween. Maybe I’m just a killjoy, but I don’t really get very excited about it. As a child, I was only peripherally aware of Halloween.

    Bonfire Night was the big party I used to get excited about. If I ever recognised the day at all, it would be spending it with my childhood friends, furtively reading ghost stories by torchlight, whilst listening to Mussorgsky’s “Night on the Bare Mountain”, in the hope that my mother wouldn’t come in and break up the party. All quite innocent and we’d all be safely tucked up in bed before the witching hour struck.

    In recent years, though, I’ve become increasingly aware of the proliferation of tacky ghoulish merchandise in the shops at this time of year, and I was astonished to read a few days ago that Halloween is now the second most popular family occasion in the UK behind Christmas, with parents likely to spend more than £100 on parties for their children this year. Apparently, he money we spend on Halloween has soared by a massive 2,300% over the last 10 years to be worth £280 million. What on earth has precipitated this change? When did Halloween take over from Bonfire Night, a peculiarly British tradition, which celebrated the day Guy Fawkes failed in his attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament way back in 1605? When I was young, I loved Bonfire Night. Whilst our fathers went about building a bonfire out of old furniture and dead wood, our mothers would be preparing food for the feast – jacket potatoes, sausages and all manner of warming treats. The men were also responsible for the fireworks display and we, the children created the effigy of Guy Fawkes who would be ceremonially burned on the bonfire. After Christmas, Bonfire Night was the most eagerly anticipated festival of the year, for all that we didn’t get any extra school holiday. It was a big, low cost, community event.

    So what happened? When did Halloween take over from Bonfire Night?

    I suppose one theory would be that tripping around in a naff witch’s costume is infinitely less dangerous than burning bonfires and setting off fireworks (the Fire Service are no doubt relieved) but I have a sneaking suspicion that it has more to do with money, or rather commercialism, and where there is commercialism, you don’t have to look far to see the influence of the USA.

    Halloween is absolutely huge over there, and the bigger the festival becomes, the easier it is to get people to spend vast amounts of money on things they don’t need and will no doubt throw away the following week.

    Hang on, isn’t that what happens at Christmas? Indeed it is, and guess what? The modern day Santa Claus is generally believed to be the invention of Washington Irving, a nineteenth century New Yorker, who wished to create a benign figure that might help calm down riotous Christmas celebrations and refocus them on the family. Loosely based on a Dutch gift giving Sinterklaas, Santa Claus was actually a secular figure, and it is the work of various advertisers that has created the image we recognise as Santa Claus today. The English Father Christmas was not a gift giver, but rather a personification of Christmas and a Yule-tide visitor. It is only from the 1870s that he became increasingly associated with the American Santa Claus, and it is the American Santa Claus who now dominates Christmas in all those countries that celebrate it. Now I wouldn’t want to suggest that dear old Washington Irving cynically adopted the idea of a gift giving Santa Claus, in order to bolster the coffers of Macy’s, but I have no doubt Macy’s seized on Santa like manna from heaven, the actual child of heaven (Jesus) being somewhat less interesting.

    In case you wondered, I hate Christmas too. What we get in the run up to Christmas is the absolute opposite of the spirit of good will, the kind of good will that permeated London, during the Olympics this year, for instance. What we do get is millions of people trailing round shops, pushing through the crowds, desperately trying to think of presents for relations they won’t see for another year. The adverts start early, exhorting us to spend! spend! spend!, as we worship the god of commercialism; and if, like me, you decide you’d rather just ignore the whole thing and go away to somewhere they don’t celebrate it, you’ll find the price of a plane ticket out of the country has quadrupled!

    Where will it end? Other minor festivals are now much bigger than they ever were. Valentine’s Day might once have been considered a bit of fun, but now it is big business. Why? Well it’s big business in the US, so why not here too? How about Easter? As children, we of course loved Easter. What child wouldn’t? All those delicious chocolate eggs, but now it seems children expect Easter gifts too. Mother’s Day was a day on which we children got our mother some flowers and maybe wrote her a card. Nowadays, woe betide the husband who doesn’t buy his wife a big present or take her out for dinner. Where America went before, it seems we follow, and I, for one, am tiring of it, as attempts to part us from our hard earned cash become ever more aggressive. I don’t want anyone to get the idea I’m some miserly old grump, who never enjoys a party and never buys anyone a gift. I enjoy a good time as much as anyone and I love giving presents. I just don’t want some American corporation telling me when I should be doing it.

     

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  • COMMENT: I’m Coming Out

    Ok, I’ve decided to come out.” How much further out can you get” I hear you ask.

    Well, we’re not talking sexuality here. We’re talking about something much more contentious and something that carries a whole lot more prejudice. Age.

    My age is something I’ve purposely shrouded in a certain amount of mystery for quite a few years now. Look around the internet and you’ll see it documented as anything between 38 (on one or two rather old websites) and 55. The truth is something of a surprise even to me. If someone had told me when I was 20 that I’d still be gogo dancing, or making a living out of sex at the age I am now, I’d have told them they were mad. People of my age were old. They didn’t have sex anymore and they sure as hell never took their clothes off in public, except maybe at the beach, and then only to swim.

    For months before my recent birthday, I’d been subconsciously dreading the event. I decided against a big party or any big fuss. I hid my birth date on facebook to avoid the inevitable deluge of birthday wishes from people I’ve never met. My intention was to let the day slip by much like any other day. That way, I figured, I didn’t have to think of any big change occurring; and actually it worked. I don’t feel any different now from how I did before this momentous event. The day arrived and nothing changed. I was able to lift the same weight as I always did in the gym. I was able to keep up the same intensity in my cardio workouts. The mere fact that I am embarking on another decade of my life does not make me a different person. Anyway most, no all of those I reveal my true age to, are open mouthed with disbelief. And indeed what have I got to moan about? I’m fit. I’m healthy. I’ve finally got most of my insecurities out of the way. I actually like who I am. What’s more, I may once have thought that older guys didn’t have much luck in the sex department, but actually I find it easier to pull now than I ever did, and most of the guys who run after me are young enough to be my son, some could even be my grandson. They all think I’m younger than I am, but when I tell them my true age, really that seems to turn them on even more. I’m trying to think of the downsides, but honestly I can’t . There surely hasn’t been a better time to be able to call oneself a “daddy”.

    Society has its version of what I should be like now, but I have no interest in it. Society likes to pigeonhole people, put them in boxes, but I’ve resisted all efforts to define myself by strict parameters all my life. Why should I stop now? Those multiple choice questions with little boxes you tick never seem to apply to me. I always need an extra one for the option “none of the above”.

    The young guys at Soho gym, where I work out, think I should tell the world how old I am, more than one of them exclaiming, “I want to be like you when I get to your age!” “You’re an inspiration!” said another, “you should be proud”.

    So that’s it. I’m coming out. At least to those of you who read this blog. A while back I turned 60. As I said, I let this momentous event slip by without any real fuss, but I did do something to celebrate. I was asked to gogo dance at a club and I did. I did this for one reason only – because I can. Well maybe there was one other reason. When I’m 70, or 80, or 90, I want to be able to say I was still gogo dancing when I was 60. For, you see, it is just a number. It does not define who I am or what I can do. I am me and I will adapt to the passing years in my own way, not the way society would thrust upon me.

    Greg Mitchell is a contributor to The Gay UK. You can read more of Greg’s writing atwww.thegregmitchell.blogspot.com

    Opinions expressed in this article may not reflect those of THEGAYUK, its management or editorial teams. If you’d like to comment or write a comment, opinion or blog piece, please click here.