Three's a ........... fun time?

Times are changing. Since the 24^th of February I have been going through what can only be described as a dark night of the soul. I am looking at things again and trying to figure out if what I am doing with this life is actually worth it. The only fact that I do have about life in general is this:

“This life, or any other one for that matter, does not come with an instruction manual.”

We just have to do the best with what we have and try to make it a life worth living. In this dark night of the soul, that I have been going through, I have been faced with so many things from my past that I need to deal with, make peace with. Now I have tried to fit in. Goddess knows I have done anything just to be ‘normal’. I am sure you recall the story of the Granny crossing herself when walking past me, even when I looked completely normal. We have had this discussion on normality before, and I am sorry guys, but I am still not the normal person.

Here is the only fact that know about my life

“It will never be normal and mundane and I will never do things the way as it ‘should’ be done”

Not because I blatantly defy mainstream, but just because I cannot be anything other but me and in order for me to be me, I will always stand out like a sore thumb. My point here is just to make you aware that my life is different and that it is not the same as yours and that you wont agree with all I do, but it stays my blog and my life. So if you don’t like it, then don’t read it.

On this note, Paul and I have decided to explore our sexuality in a couple setting. I know that this doesn’t make sense, so let me explain. Paul and I are both very young still, in the bigger scheme of things of course. Paul is my first official boyfriend. Yes I have had gay flings before him when my ex wife and I separated, but he is my first real gay relationship.

I am Paul’s first relationship. He has been with other men but I am his first relationship of any sort. He has never even kissed a woman let alone been in a relationship with one. So we are both pretty new to this and for those of you that think that a relationship is the same, straight or gay. Well let me tell you, I personally find that there is a huge, no wait, HUGE difference between the two.  The dynamic changes completely. But back to my point, we are both pretty new at this and even though we have both been with other guys our sexual experience list in the area of gay sex, is not that long. There are lots that we still want to experience. But how do you do this in a couple?

Well we have decided that the couple that plays together is the couple that stays together. So, ok this is the spot where my mother in law should stop reading hehehehehe, we have decided to look for someone that can be a friend to us and then maybe this can evolve to friends with benefits. Yes sexual benefits.

Yes I have had all the warnings from all of the friends that are really close to me, which is very little people, and its not that I want to undermine you all but firstly, this is our choice and we are doing what we feel is best. And if you think that our relationship can’t last something like this, then think again. We have already been through it three times. The first time the guy liked me more than Paul and felt it better to leave. The second time the guy liked me more than Paul and wanted to break us up, we kicked him goodbye. The third one was just making things difficult for Paul and myself as a unit, so we ended that as well. Its not that we give half measures when we give, we are just also aware of the fact that we are a unit.

Recently we met a guy. He is a nice guy and we really like him, like really like him. He is good looking and he actually likes both of us. The bonus is that when we asked him whom Florence Nightingale was he didn’t know. That’s not good, but even though he didn’t know he wanted to know and asked about her and read up. This means he is not brain dead lemming and we can actually have a conversation with him.

Nothing sexual has happened. And it is not that anyone is planning for it. Besides something that we didn’t plan on is happening already between the three of us. But maybe that should be left for a later entry. The reason I am mentioning this to you all is that you will probably read a different name here every now and again. And I know how people are.

“Oh My God he is cheating on Paul” Gossip gossip gossip. No one is cheating. We are all consenting adults.

So watch this space people, things are gonna get interesting, whether for better or worse, I don’t know? Obviously we don’t want it to be for the worse and we are trying everything in our power for it go for the better, but who knows what the future will hold?

Mwah!

Skoonheid

Last night we watched the movie called ‘Skoonheid’. It is the first South African film that professes to deal with homosexual issues. This film was also the first South African film ever to win a Cannes Award. So with much anticipation we sat down to watch Skoonheid. …………..

………………

I bought this movie brand new. Not at Cash Crusaders like I buy so many movies. I payed close to R200 at Look and Listen for this movie. Yes I completely regret it. It was an hour and a half of my life that I will never get back again. You expect to see a movie about a forbidden love that cannot be and that ends with duty and lots of tears.

Deon Lotz

Well the main character, Francois van Heerden (Played by Deon Lotz) is a typical Afrikaner male with two daughters a wife and his own wood business. What you find out about him is that he also goes to meetings. At these meetings, butch manly Afrikaner boerre men get together and drink beer. They say that at these meetings they don’t allow ‘moffies’ or ‘colourds’, oh and then they have sex with each other. But that I can still understand. I have so often heard of straight men that has gay sex from time to time, yet they are apparently not gay.

Francois then starts to get obsessed about a boy. Christian (played by Charlie Keegan) is a law student and the child of Francois’s oldest friend. But Christian lives in Cape Town and Francois in JHB. So Francois goes on a “business” trip to Cape Town. He of course lies to his wife without feeling ashamed because she herself is cheating on him, and he knows this.

Charlie Keegan

In Cape Town he makes sure that he gets invited to his friends house so that he may see Christian. And so Francois starts to stalk Christian. But one night Francois goes to the Bronx Bar (which used to be a gay club in town, sadly it closed down) where he gets trashed. He then phones Christian to come and help him to get to his hotel room. At the Hotel room Francois ends up raping Christian, rather violently actually.

The movie ends not to long after that when Francois is sitting alone in the Spur and orders a Coke and a Burger. For about 5 minutes they show how he stares at a gay couple sitting in the Spur and then the movie ends. 

Okay I have to admit that reading it here now it seems like a rather good movie. But it really wasn’t, not at all!!.

Oliver Hermanus

The dialog is just about non existent and not very deep. The acting, even though good is just somehow ……….. not good enough. The creator, Oliver Hermanus, clearly was also a big fan of Brokeback Mountain as this film also has these long pauses on just stuff that doesn’t really have anything to do with the movie, like landcapes. The problem with this is that it worked in Brokeback Mountain. But now it’s been done and you just look like you are trying to re-create a brilliant story of Love. But if you are looking for Love in this film then you have the wrong film. This film is about oppression and forcing others to like you. It’s about obsession and lust wrapped with guilt. Not even in his marriage is there an ounce of Love.

My fear about this movie is that it is not going to paint a positive image for the gay community. I can just see a kerk tannie go “See, I told you! They are all a bunch of perverts and rapists”, and according to the imagery that this movie creates, she will be 100% correct. But don’t take my word for it, rent it and watch it for yourself. Maybe I just don’t have the mental capacity to get it. Maybe I was expecting too much, to see a story of two men, who due to circumstances, cannot Love each other.  But maybe that is just because I am a hopeless romantic!

The Makings of a Teacher

By the year of 1998 I had devoured all I could find about Paganism. The Country was a different place back then. Everyone seemed to always be angry. We had just come out of the time period of Apartheid. We were moving forward yet somehow no one was happy about this. Everyone feared everyone else and everywhere you went certain people were associated with certain wrongs. Whites, Black and Colourds, no one was safe from each other. Well at least in the minds of the people this was very true.

Prior to 1994 you could not find a book on Paganism in any bookshop. That’s only 18 years ago. That’s how young this country really is. We knew we were different. We didn’t go to church, we didn’t believe in the one true God. We loved the moon and knew that we had past lives and that the two of us were connected in at least two previous lifetimes. And so we believed in many other things that Pagans believe in. But we didn’t know what to call it or that we should even call it something.

It is roughly in this time of serious oppression, oppression against race and sex and sexuality, oppression of religion, freedom as whole and even our thoughts, that a friend of my mother brought a Pagan book from over seas.

Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner – Scott Cunnigham

We obviously could not buy the book and so we copied it. Two copies. One for each of us. We devoured the book. Read it over and over. Also we did not have internet access at home and research was limited. Not to long after that mother got her hands on another book. Goddess knows where she got it.

The Complete Book of Witchcraft – Raymond Buckland.

Not too long after that a shop was discovered in city centre. The shops was Wizards. They still exist today but they have moved from Pickbell Parkade to Stadium on Main in Claremont. They had Pagan books. Hellishly expensive for us, since we were never wealthy people who had money to just throw around. But slowly but surely we built up a few books.

So then a few years after that in 1998 in mid April I was sitting on my bed and teaching to people about Paganism/Wicca. I had no idea if what I was doing was correct or that I was even good at it, all I knew is that I knew that this is what I truly wanted to do. This felt right and somehow it felt familiar. None of that has changed. I still don’t think that I am a particularly wonderful teacher. But I love doing it! The course back then was about 24 pages long. Now just module 3 of First Degree is 42 pages. It’s 14 years later. Next year it will be 15 years. At the end of this year I am turning 30. So next year this time I have quite literally given half of my life in service to my Goddess, my God and my Community. Sometimes it feels like less and then sometimes it feels like so much more. But I don’t regret it. Not a single day of it. I look at photo’s of the students and myself, they look truly happy and as cliché as what this may sound, that makes me happy. 

Mwah!!!