I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear;
Those of mechanics—each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the
steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The woodcutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon
intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl
sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night, the party of young
fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
(Photo: The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC, including, Tim Allmond, 57, of Silver Spring, sings the National Anthem in front of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court struck down a key part of DOMA on Wednesday June 26, 2013 leaving behind a victory for gay marriage. By Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images.)
If we feel pride, it should be in the accomplishments of our fellow citizens and in any contributions we ourselves have made toward making our country and community a better place, however small and local. Pride of simply being born American leads to hubris, which leads to bigotry and belligerence. For pride to be authentic, it must be something we feel we have earned.
The best American leaders have always made that distinction. We all know this line from John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural address: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” But few seem to remember the next line: “My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”
The brutal Cold War context of these words is almost lost to us now, but the higher ideals behind them are not ambiguous. Kennedy presented himself as a patriot of the United States and as a citizen of the world, seeing no contradiction. These words are, at root, an appeal for authentic pride—citizenship as something that must be earned, in a nation that is part of a community of nations. Those are ideals worth celebrating on the Fourth of July.
Maria Godoy investigates the culinary hardships of Civil War soldiers:
Insects and other critters commonly made it into Union soldiers’ meals in the form of hardtack — a stiff, flavorless cracker that could cost you a tooth if you bit it into it. (The biscuit was meant to be softened by dipping it in stew or coffee.) Along with salt pork or beef, hardtack — which the soldiers called “worm castles” or “teeth dullers” — was a staple of soldiers’ rucksacks. Yum…
The boys in Union blue also got dried navy beans and, occasionally, a “treat” of sorts: dehydrated potatoes, fruit and other items the soldiers jokingly called “desecrated” vegetables (perhaps because their flavor violated the laws of nature?). At least the North had coffee — though it was a brew “you probably wouldn’t recognize in New York,” as 16-year-old Union soldier Charles Nott wrote home. “Boiled in an open kettle, and about the color of a brownstone front, it was nevertheless … the only warm thing we had.”
Confederate soldiers weren’t so lucky: Union blockades kept coffee, flour and other goods from reaching the South. Those jonesing for a cup of joe had to make do with substitutes brewed from peanuts, chicory, rye, peas, dried apples — pretty much anything they could get their hands on.
(Photo: “Camp of 71st New Vols. Cook house Soldiers getting dinner ready,” via the Library of Congress)
Brian Anderson explores the potential of “micro-dosing” LSD, which would allow you to possibly “reap some of the reported benefits of a semisynthetic psychedelic like LSD without going all heavyminded”:
That’s the allure of what’s known as the sub-perceptual dose. It’s an idea that has been gaining traction in certain pockets of the medical community, though it’s neither new nor validated by any formal research. As James Fadiman notes in The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide (2011), sub-perceptual psychedelic dosings have for centuries been known about and utilized by indigenous cultures the world over. Fadiman would know. He’s been in the trenches of legitimate mind-altering research for over four decades, and with time has become a sort of champion of the micro dose.
The problem – as usual – is prohibition’s effect on research:
[Fadiman] can’t establish proper lab conditions without facing criminal charges. The workaround? His volunteers must access the Schedule 1 drug on their own, and then parse the stuff into micro-hits of either 50 or 100 micrograms. Then they self adminster, and finally self-report. And then they repeat.
More Dish on drug research and micro-hits here, here, and here.
Seth Stevenson has some advice that might prove useful for your July 4th festivities:
Here in the U.S., the most-used term seems to be Irish goodbye, which, due to unfortunate historical stereotyping, hints that the vanished person was too tipsy to manage a proper denouement. Dutch leave is a less common, but apparently real, variant. (I picture someone taking a couple pulls on a vaporizer, scarfing too much bitterballen, and stumbling into the night.) And then there’s the old, presumably Jewish joke: WASPs leave and don’t say goodbye, Jews say goodbye and don’t leave. …
Let’s free ourselves from this meaningless, uncomfortable, good time–dampening kabuki. People are thrilled that you showed up, but no one really cares that you’re leaving. Granted, it might be aggressive to ghost a gathering of fewer than 10. And ghosting a group of two or three is not so much ghosting as ditching. But if the party includes more than 15 or 20 attendees, there’s a decent chance none will notice that you’re gone, at least not right away. (It may be too late for them to cancel that pickleback shot they ordered for you, but, hey, that’s on them.) If there’s a guest of honor, as at a birthday party, I promise you that person is long ago air-kissed out. Just ghost.
The most popular post was my late night rumination on the looming death of my beagle, Dusty – although today, she climbed up on her favorite rock in Provincetown harbor and smiled as broadly as a South Park Canadian. My take-down of Cardinal Dolan came in second.
See you tomorrow (we have some July 4th crack fresh from the Intertubes and, of course, continuing coverage of Egypt’s eruption).
Is the failure of the Morsi government an example of how “time moves quickly now,” with the Egyptian public swiftly seeing Islamist rule for what it is and rejecting it decisively, opening the door for more liberal alternatives? Or is this a case where the process [Reuel Marc] Gerecht hopes for [in his book The Islamic Paradox] hasn’t even had time to get off the ground, and the military’s intervention will just return us to the same old cycle of secular dictatorships pre-empting democracy in order to keep the lid on fundamentalists, whose popular appeal endures and eventually prompts another upheaval down the road? The Morsi government was in power long enough to produce a mass protest movement against the Muslim Brotherhood, but was it in power long enough to actually discredit the Brotherhood (at least in its current form) as the most plausible alternative to military rule? If the military actually holds new elections now, will they produce anything like a viable third way between Islamism and dictatorship, Morsi and Mubarak, the minaret and the tank?
Long-time reader, recent subscriber, first-time writer. Your entries on bisexuality have been fascinating, and frankly, long overdue. As a closeted bi male who has been sexually active with both men and women for nearly 15 years, I’ve agreed with most of your readers’ analysis. I just want to point out that I think people’s understanding of genuinely bi people, and particularly bi men, is severely lacking for the reason that Dan Savage hinted at on your blog. Most men who are actually bisexual cannot come out because the vast majority of heterosexual women (and likely even bisexual women) would eliminate them as sexual partners. Hence, I share Dan’s skepticism that many out “bi” men are actually bisexual. On very rare occasions I’ll come across women who are turned on by male-male contact, but these instances are few and far between. In contrast, men are often turned on by the prospect of dating a bi woman, which makes it easier for them to be open.
So bottom line: if you’re a bi guy who wants to continue having sex with women, you really don’t have a choice but to keep quiet in most scenarios. Perhaps if more bi people came out, this attitude might change, but I’m not so sure.
Another is on the same page:
If male-on-male sex was as big of a turn-on for women as girl-on-girl is for men, I guarantee there would be more male bisexuals. If anything, guy-on-guy sex is a turn-off for most hetero woman. Check out the number of women’s profiles on adult dating sites that say no bisexual men.
Another:
Those who say there is no such thing as a male bisexual really need look no further than the pages of Craigslist for a refutation. The number of men who are straight-identified but also have sex with men is legion. You go to Grindr or any of dozens of m4m hook-up sites and the married men there are ubiquitous. Maybe they’re all just deeply closeted gays, but I rather doubt it. There are so many men who are married, happily enough, willing and able to perform with their wives, but also crave a little cock on the side. Most of these men who I have met wouldn’t identify as bi, but as straight, and unless you cruise their scene you wouldn’t know they exist. But they assuredly do exist on the down-low.
As for myself, I’m monogamous and married happily to a woman, but before marriage I had sex with both men and women. I liked women somewhat better, and it was certainly the path of least resistance, socially, so I wound up partnered with one. But it was not a foregone conclusion by any means. Had I met the right guy … you never know.
Another reader:
I will try to keep this brief so that my wife of almost 20 years does not walk in before I send this off – and then I will delete the message from my sent folder afterwards. You guessed it. I’m not out. Not very much. I’m bisexual, and I am a man, and I have struggled for most of my adult life with how to be live in a way that respects my own integrity and the integrity of my relationship with my wife.
I am sometimes attracted to men – good-looking men (go figure) who are better looking and in better shape than I am – but I am also attracted, and with equal intensity, to good-looking women, especially women who seem to have their shit together and who seem like caring people. On a less elevated plane: I find women with beautiful, tanned breasts a huge turn-on. (Yes, Freudians can get to work on me now.) I have not acted on any attraction in either direction – except for seeking out pornography of both the straight and gay varieties. (Actually, I’m more interested in either a straight couple making love in a seemingly tender, loving way or a man satisfying himself solo – much less attracted to gay couples having sex, though I will look at that occasionally online. Not interested at all by any couple, straight or gay, having anal sex. Not my thing.)
I worry sometimes that I am addicted to pornography. I’d like to kick it altogether. But I am essentially in a sexless marriage; my wife has not had much interest in making love, or even engaging in a quickie, more than every four or five months. And then, I know she’s doing it only for me; her libido has been low for most of the past decade, though I try to be tender, patient, and I do my best to make her feel good when we do make love. It’s not my wife’s fault that I turn to porn. I’m an adult, and that’s on me. But I would rather make love to her than satisfy myself in front of a lonely computer screen once she has gone to work. And I know with all my heart that I will never try to sneak out on her with anyone else, woman or man. I’m bisexual, and I have integrity. I’m as monogamous as someone who turns to porn can be.
Eight years ago, I tried to fess up to my wife that I thought I might be bisexual. I knew I was – no doubt in my mind – but that’s how I tried to ease into the conversation. My wife believes in LGBT rights, marriage equality, stomping out stereotypes on campus, making everyone feel welcome – all that. She truly does. Except she tried to persuade me, in gentle terms, that I probably wasn’t bisexual.
When I was a pre-teen, I was sexually abused by an older male relative, and my wife wondered out loud whether I was perhaps looking at male porn online as a way of dealing with that experience. No. I honestly do not believe that experience is what caused my bisexuality. I sought out counseling in my early twenties for the after effects of that abuse (low self-esteem; lack of confidence when I was attracted to women I wanted to date during my bachelor days; anger toward the person who abused me and robbed me of my innocence before my 12 birthday). I know that gay-bashers and LGBT-bashers would like to argue that people who are bisexual or gay have been “warped” in that direction through abuse or “indoctrination” during their youth. I reject that idea with all my heart. I believe strongly that I am bisexual not because of what someone DID to me, but because that’s just who I am.
And it’s okay that I’m bisexual. I’m sometimes attracted to men, sometimes to women, but most of all I love my wife despite the imperfect marriage we share. But do I exist? Do bisexuals exist? Yes, of course we do. Even if many of us don’t feel like we can come out very far, or very often, with our friends, coworkers, or even our spouses. We exist, and my hunch is that most of try to stay healthy inside and get past the self-loathing that plagues too many in the LGBT community. We’re part of that community. And, once more: we exist.
Another:
I’m a straight, happily married man – 90% of the time, I am solely attracted to women and haven’t had any sexual experiences with men… at least, since I was a kid. Back then, I fooled around twice, with two different friends. We were very young. There was no penetration, just play. I didn’t achieve orgasm, but I don’t think I knew how at that point. I do remember being extremely turned on.
Since then, I’ve occasionally found myself desiring a man. I don’t identify as gay, and honestly don’t see myself ever being in a homosexual relationship. I do wonder if I need to be with someone more sexually adventurous. It’s so complicated, and I worry a lot about ruining the good thing my wife and I have by making her feel either inadequate, or suspicious. I wonder if I came out as “bi” if she would still want to be with me. I think she would, but that’s a big chance to take. And I simply don’t care enough about labels to take it.
Another:
You have gotten many emails from readers and they tend to be from the Western world. The discussion about sexuality is much more mature than where I am from. I grew up in Pakistan before moving to US when I was 22. I went to an elite all-boys boarding school, ages 13-18. There are raging hormones and no outlet. While messing around with other boys my age, I had strong crushes on girls. On the weekends when parents and families could visit their kids at the school, many of us would walk around and talk about all the girls who came to visit their friends, and we talked about all the MILFs (yes, my friends mothers!) and how hot they were. Now, is it simple to figure out one’s straightness or bisexuality?
I have crushes on guys even now, but I have stronger feeling towards girls. I actually know at least two dozen guys who were with me in boarding school who were the same way. Most of them are married and will probably never admit to all the experimentation. For all intents and purposes they are straight now.
A female reader:
I’m late to the thread but feel compelled to respond. I still consider myself bisexual by orientation – I first fantasized about men, have had many fulfilling sexual relationships with them, and was very late coming out – but now, lesbian by definition. Because whatever came before, I’m only interested in women going forward. I found that out when I was engaged to a man, but still sometimes thinking about women. I knew if it happened with him, it would happen with any man I was with. After that break-up, I started dating women … and with my first serious girlfriend, I never thought twice about being with men. I suppose on some level I still consider my definition fluid, but not enough to affect who I choose to pursue.
If the experience has taught me anything, it is that sexuality really is about who you want to be with romantically, not who you want to sleep with. Who makes your heart beat faster.
Another:
Here’s my deal: I identify as a straight woman, am happily married to a guy. But about 97 percent of my sex fantasies are about women – very feminine, large-breasted women. But these fantasies involve zero kissing, holding or emotional content – just fucking, and the women needn’t be actual people I know or have seen.
BUT in person, in reality, I’m attracted to very beefy, masculine men (I married one). They’re the ones I look at in yoga class, the ones I’ve slept with in real life, want to kiss and hold and have had satisfying relationships with. When I fantasize about sex with men, it takes me longer to get worked up, and I can only get off thinking about real guys – whether it’s my husband or some guy on TV or at the gym. I can’t conjure up male body parts and get aroused, the way I can with women.
I’ve only had sex with one woman and found it awkward and off-putting. I really don’t want to touch a woman’s slender shoulders or curvy butt or whatever – I’m just not interested. I especially do not want to kiss a woman or have a relationship with her. And no, I’m not a closet case in denial – I’ve explored that idea, and it’s just not accurate.
Weird wiring, eh? But what else to call me but bisexual?
One more:
It seems to me we will find out how many bisexual folks are truly out there when being gay is overwhelmingly accepted. At that point there will be no point in gay folks identifying as bi to try and hide the fact they are gay. One can only hope that some day in the future sexual identity will no longer matter and people can be who they are and find pleasure with whatever sex they choose. I suspect that for every 100% straight person there is someone out there of the same sex that could turn them on. The same applies to 100% gay people.
Stephen Donoghue is impressed by the insights of Robert P. O’Kell’s book on the life of Benjamin Disraeli, gleaned from the cringe-inducing novels of the former British prime minister:
[T]here’s a method to the utter madness of plumbing [the novels’] depths; the genius of O’Kell’s book is the way it gently prompts a re-assessment not of the merits of Disraeli’s fiction but rather its motivations. O’Kell holds that the books represent “an embodiment of [Disraeli’s] fantasies about himself,” that fiction offered “a form of compensation for failure or defeat by imagining transcendent success.”
It’s nothing short of a revelation in insight, and it carries this marvelous book from beginning to end, throwing entirely new light on the frail heroisms of this ungainly, irresistible figure. Disraeli was a vocal Anglican, but he was also a proud Jew, famously retailing stories of how his ancestors, heroic Sephardim, fled from Spain rather than submit to the Inquisition, and O’Kell rightly points out the entrenched opposition that could greet a politician of Jewish descent in a Parliament that had excluded Jews until 1858 unless they swore an oath proclaiming the Christian faith. That Disraeli might have been in part using his fiction as an emotional release-valve for the pressure of his eternal outsider status in British society and politics is a stunning stroke of interpretation. On the one hand, O’Kell explains, “the novels are means of rationalizing the past and reshaping the formative experiences of his identity; on the other, they are a way of keeping the question of identity open by exploring imaginatively the possibilities of further commitment.”
O’Kell’s book is the way it gently prompts a re-assessment not of the merits of Disraeli’s fiction but rather its motivations. O’Kell holds that the books represent “an embodiment of [Disraeli’s] fantasies about himself,” that fiction offered “a form of compensation for failure or defeat by imagining transcendent success.”
