http://www.unimedliving.com/relationships/gay-relationships/same-sex-relationships.html
Expressing love in a same sex relationship is something natural, and a natural part of being human. To want to share love deeply and express sexually is a natural feeling in relationships and needn’t alter or become an issue if the individuals are of the same sex.
If you choose from your heart who you express love with, it will never be unnatural or inferior, yet in this world it has been viewed this way by many for a very long time; even today it is still seen as totally unacceptable by some.
Being in a same sex relationship has the potential to evolve personal growth just as any other relationship does. We do not need to attach the label of gay and lesbian or the connotations this may bring, as these labels do not define whether there is love in a relationship or not; that is a choice made by two individuals.
In fact, doesn’t love give us a sense that we can connect way beyond the boundaries of our physical bodies and what we physically represent? It is possible that the love between two people can transcend way beyond an attachment to gender or sexuality.
People have chosen relationships for many different reasons – for example:
- A person’s looks and physical attraction
- Financial security and being taken care of
- For friendship and companionship
- To assuage loneliness
- To ‘fit in’
- Religious circumstances
- Arranged marriages for reasons of power, wealth and position in society
To connect as human beings and express together is our greatest joy, whether it be a man loving a woman, a woman loving another woman, or a man loving another man.
WE ARE ALL LOOKING TO LOVE AND BE LOVED.
To evolve to this way of thinking, it would serve society to gain an awareness of these rigid constructs of thinking with regards to relationships and how we interpret relationships based on religion, gender, social politics, and education.
In life there is a pressure for people to conform, to belong and to be accepted – the pressure for example of being a young teenager when you fall in love with someone of the same sex. What can be confronting is the rest of the world's reaction to that choice and how we adjust ourselves to living with those judgments (especially if they come from those closest to us – family, friends and work colleagues). This type of pressure has brought so many people much pain and confusion and none of this is relevant or meaningful when it is our heart that chooses who we love!
We can be intimate with another and love who they are – without it being anything to do with what sex they are.
Imagine a day when you never had to 'come out' or say ‘I’m gay’ or had some conjecture made about your ‘lifestyle’ – and instead we were met with the same compassion, pragmatism, and understanding that we bring to nature in all its compositions of intricate and diverse relationships.
Currently there is a worldwide momentum gathering for equality for rights in gay relationships – spearheaded by the laws being passed in 11 countries allowing for the union of same sex couples. This development has been impulsed by the call of humanity to be more equal in its politics andmore accepting of ALL.
Poignantly, it is ultimately up to us to accept who we are first, and the world may then choose to follow. There will then be a natural progression towards greater equality allowing all our unique expressions.
All Relationships are a constant reflection of learning lessons about love.Therefore, whomever we choose to love from our heart – it is always an opportunity to learn lessons about loving ourselves and loving others equally.
Our future is calling us to be more accepting and aware in our understanding of same sex relationships, and of the truth thatevery relationship offers us opportunities to evolveand have an ever-deepening expression of love.
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What is Same Gender Loving?
http://bmxnational.org/faqs/what-is-same-gender-loving/
Same gender loving (SGL)a term coined for African American use by activist Cleo Manago, is a Black culturally affirming description for homosexuals and bisexuals, particularly in the African American community. SGL is an alternative to Eurocentric homosexual identities e.g. gay and lesbian which do not culturally affirm or engage the rich history and cultures of people of African descent. Specifically, the term SGL affirms Black homosexual and bisexual men and women through its African American conceptual origins, African inspired iconography, philosophy, symbols, principles, and values. The term SGL usually has broad, important and positive personal, social, and political purposes and consequences. SGL is only an anti-hate and anti-anti-Black identity, harm-reducing: movement, philosophy and framework.
The term Same gender loving (SGL) emerged in the early ‘90s to offer Black women who love women and Black men who love men (and other people of color) a way of identifying that resonated with the uniqueness of Black life and culture. Before this, many African descended people, knowing little about their history regarding homosexuality and bi-sexuality had taken on European symbols and identifications as a means of embracing their sexuality(ies): Greek lambdas, German pink triangles, the White-gay-originated rainbow flag, in addition to the terms “gay’ and “lesbian.”
The term “gay,” coined as an identification by White male homosexuals beginning in the in the 50s, was cultivated in an exclusive White male environment. By the late 60s, the growing Gay Liberation movement developed in a climate excluding Blacks and women. In response to this discrimination, White women coined the identification “lesbian,” a word derived from the Greek island Lesbos. The lesbian movement, in turn, helped define a majority White movement called “feminism.” In response to the racism experienced by women of color from white feminists, celebrated author Alice Walker introduced the term “womanist.”
The term “womanist” identified woman of color concerned with the oppression of women and with addressing the problem of “racism.” In this spirit of self-naming and ethnic-sexual pride, the term “same gender loving” (SGL) was introduced to enhance the lives and illuminate the voices of homosexual and bi-sexual people of color; to provide a powerful identification not marginalized by racism in the gay community or “homophobic” attitudes in society at large.
As gay culture grew and established itself in San Francisco, Greenwich Village, West Hollywood and other enclaves, Blacks, especially, were carded and rejected from many establishments. Even today Blacks, Asians and Latinos often appear in the pages of gay publications solely as the potential sexual objects of white men. Ironically, gay rights activism was modeled on the Black Civil Rights and Black Power Movements of the ‘50s and ‘60s. Unfortunately, this replication of Black liberation provided little incentive for gays to acknowledge SGL Blacks, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans.
Since the advent of the gay rights movement many Black SGLs painfully discovered that this “movement” provided little space for the voices, experiences and empowerment of Black people. The rigid influence of the Black church and its traditionally anti-homosexual stance has contributed to attitudes that repress and marginalize Black SGLs. The lack of acknowledgement and support in the Black community has led multitudes of same gender loving African descended people to the White community to endure racism, isolation from their own communities, oppression and cultural insensitivity.
The high visibility of the white gay community contributes to the tendency in Black communities to overlook or ridicule Black SGL relationships as alien or aberrant. The Black SGL movement has inspired national dialogue on diverse ways of loving in the Black community. The term same gender loving explicitly acknowledges loving within same-sex relationships while encouraging self-love.
SGL has served as a wake-up call for Blacks to acknowledge diverse ways of loving and sexualities and has provided an opportunity for Blacks and other people of color to claim, nurture and honor their significance within their families and communities.
Seeking support and positive identification, people of color still endure ethnic invisibility in many gay settings and sexuality invisibility in their own communities. It is the intention of the SGL movement to break these cycles. The term “same gender loving” (SGL) has been adopted by women and men from all over the African Diaspora. To same gender loving sisters and brothers everywhere… Peace, self-love and respect to you, to your families, communities and allies.
The Mystery of Same-Sex Love in the 19th Century
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/09/but-were-they-gay-the-mystery-of-same-sex-love-in-the-19th-century/262117/
It was a time of "Boston marriages" between women and intimate letters between men. But what happened behind closed doors is anybody's guess.Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, and Sarah Orne Jewett all had passionate same-sex friendships. (Adapted from Wikimedia Commons images)
In August 1890, Walt Whitman opened an awkward piece of fan mail. "In your conception of Comradeship," wrote British literary critic John Addington Symonds, "do you contemplate the possible intrusion of those semi-sexual emotions and actions which no doubt do occur between men?"
It's a question modern critics have asked as well -- and some have pretty definitively answered it. "Walt Whitman and Gay Liberation are nearly synonymous for me," wrote cultural historian Rictor Norton in a 1999 essay. Norton points to Whitman's 1860 “Calamus” poems as a sort of coming-out letter, filled with lines like these:
Same gender loving (SGL)a term coined for African American use by activist Cleo Manago, is a Black culturally affirming description for homosexuals and bisexuals, particularly in the African American community. SGL is an alternative to Eurocentric homosexual identities e.g. gay and lesbian which do not culturally affirm or engage the rich history and cultures of people of African descent. Specifically, the term SGL affirms Black homosexual and bisexual men and women through its African American conceptual origins, African inspired iconography, philosophy, symbols, principles, and values. The term SGL usually has broad, important and positive personal, social, and political purposes and consequences. SGL is only an anti-hate and anti-anti-Black identity, harm-reducing: movement, philosophy and framework.
The term Same gender loving (SGL) emerged in the early ‘90s to offer Black women who love women and Black men who love men (and other people of color) a way of identifying that resonated with the uniqueness of Black life and culture. Before this, many African descended people, knowing little about their history regarding homosexuality and bi-sexuality had taken on European symbols and identifications as a means of embracing their sexuality(ies): Greek lambdas, German pink triangles, the White-gay-originated rainbow flag, in addition to the terms “gay’ and “lesbian.”
The term “gay,” coined as an identification by White male homosexuals beginning in the in the 50s, was cultivated in an exclusive White male environment. By the late 60s, the growing Gay Liberation movement developed in a climate excluding Blacks and women. In response to this discrimination, White women coined the identification “lesbian,” a word derived from the Greek island Lesbos. The lesbian movement, in turn, helped define a majority White movement called “feminism.” In response to the racism experienced by women of color from white feminists, celebrated author Alice Walker introduced the term “womanist.”
The term “womanist” identified woman of color concerned with the oppression of women and with addressing the problem of “racism.” In this spirit of self-naming and ethnic-sexual pride, the term “same gender loving” (SGL) was introduced to enhance the lives and illuminate the voices of homosexual and bi-sexual people of color; to provide a powerful identification not marginalized by racism in the gay community or “homophobic” attitudes in society at large.
As gay culture grew and established itself in San Francisco, Greenwich Village, West Hollywood and other enclaves, Blacks, especially, were carded and rejected from many establishments. Even today Blacks, Asians and Latinos often appear in the pages of gay publications solely as the potential sexual objects of white men. Ironically, gay rights activism was modeled on the Black Civil Rights and Black Power Movements of the ‘50s and ‘60s. Unfortunately, this replication of Black liberation provided little incentive for gays to acknowledge SGL Blacks, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans.
Since the advent of the gay rights movement many Black SGLs painfully discovered that this “movement” provided little space for the voices, experiences and empowerment of Black people. The rigid influence of the Black church and its traditionally anti-homosexual stance has contributed to attitudes that repress and marginalize Black SGLs. The lack of acknowledgement and support in the Black community has led multitudes of same gender loving African descended people to the White community to endure racism, isolation from their own communities, oppression and cultural insensitivity.
The high visibility of the white gay community contributes to the tendency in Black communities to overlook or ridicule Black SGL relationships as alien or aberrant. The Black SGL movement has inspired national dialogue on diverse ways of loving in the Black community. The term same gender loving explicitly acknowledges loving within same-sex relationships while encouraging self-love.
SGL has served as a wake-up call for Blacks to acknowledge diverse ways of loving and sexualities and has provided an opportunity for Blacks and other people of color to claim, nurture and honor their significance within their families and communities.
Seeking support and positive identification, people of color still endure ethnic invisibility in many gay settings and sexuality invisibility in their own communities. It is the intention of the SGL movement to break these cycles. The term “same gender loving” (SGL) has been adopted by women and men from all over the African Diaspora. To same gender loving sisters and brothers everywhere… Peace, self-love and respect to you, to your families, communities and allies.
# # #
“Love has no gender - compassion has no religion - character has no race.”
― Abhijit Naskar
“The power of love is that it sees all people.”
― DaShanne Stokes
# # #
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/09/but-were-they-gay-the-mystery-of-same-sex-love-in-the-19th-century/262117/
It was a time of "Boston marriages" between women and intimate letters between men. But what happened behind closed doors is anybody's guess.Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, and Sarah Orne Jewett all had passionate same-sex friendships. (Adapted from Wikimedia Commons images)
In August 1890, Walt Whitman opened an awkward piece of fan mail. "In your conception of Comradeship," wrote British literary critic John Addington Symonds, "do you contemplate the possible intrusion of those semi-sexual emotions and actions which no doubt do occur between men?"
It's a question modern critics have asked as well -- and some have pretty definitively answered it. "Walt Whitman and Gay Liberation are nearly synonymous for me," wrote cultural historian Rictor Norton in a 1999 essay. Norton points to Whitman's 1860 “Calamus” poems as a sort of coming-out letter, filled with lines like these:
The one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night,
In the stillness, in the autumn moonbeams, his face was inclined toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast -- And that night I was happy.
After reading such passages, Symonds (who later wrote about his own sexual experiences with men) must have been disappointed by Whitman's reply. "That the calamus part has even allow'd the possibility of such construction as mention'd is terrible," Whitman responded, insisting that Symonds was making "morbid inferences -- wh' are disavow'd by me & seem damnable."
It's hard to imagine any modern poet writing about lying in another man's arms and then calling homosexuality "damnable." But the kind of same-sex intimacy Whitman described -- and enjoyed in real life -- was accepted at the time as a natural part of heterosexuality. When editors did censor Whitman's work, they left the "Calamus" poems intact and instead cut his descriptions of male-female passion. ("Love-flesh swelling and deliciously aching," Whitman wrote, describing a bride and groom on their wedding night. "Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love, white-blow and delirious juice.")
“Certainly, in his poetry, Whitman tries to be omnisexual," says David S. Reynolds, a CUNY graduate professor who specializes in 19th century American culture and has written several books on Whitman. "He even wants to exude a kind of sexuality toward the physical earth and the ocean." But it was more than that, as Reynolds explains. "Showing passion and affection was a more common part of the daily experience than it is today. America was a young nation, a new nation, and there was a sense of brotherhood.”
That brotherly love certainly existed between Abraham Lincoln and his friend Joshua Speed. The two men slept together in the same bed for four years, and Speed wrote to Lincoln in 1842, "You know my desire to befriend you is everlasting -- I will never cease, while I know how to do any thing."
Another American president, James A. Garfield, wrote passionate notes to his college friend Harry Rhodes. "Harry Dear, do you know how much I miss you? In the school -- the church, at home, in labor or leisure -- sleeping or waking, the want of your presence is felt. I knew I loved you, but you have left a larger void than I ever knew you filled." A few months later, Garfield wrote to Rhodes, "I would that we might lie awake in each other's arms for one long wakeful night."
"The thing we don't know about any of these people," says Peggy Wishart, "is the question most modern people have: Were they gay?" Wishart manages Historic New England's Sarah Orne Jewett House in South Berwick, Maine, which is hosting a lecture this weekend on the "Boston marriage." Jewett spent her later years in one of these ambiguous female partnerships, enjoying the almost constant companionship of Annie Fields, the widow of Atlantic editor James T. Fields. The two women lived together, traveled to Europe together, and called each other pet names. (Jewett was "Pinney" and Fields was "Fuff.")
This sort of arrangement wasn't uncommon at the time. The Massachusetts capital was filled with educated women from good families who could support themselves without the help of any man. It made sense for them to seek out each other's company, says Wishart. "And it didn't necessarily occur to friends to wonder what their sex life was like. Women were perceived as being non-sexual to begin with, and most people assumed that if they didn't have husbands, they wouldn't have any interest in sex."
So what changed between the days of the Boston marriage and the era of Gertrude Stein? For one thing, there was Oscar Wilde's trial. In 1895, Wilde was convicted of sodomy and sentenced to two years in prison. Wilde did his best to defend same-sex love in the courtroom: "It is that deep spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect. It dictates and pervades great works of art, like those of Shakespeare and Michelangelo." But the newspapers focused instead on the salacious details, including Wilde's rumored visits to male prostitutes. After that, poetry about men sleeping together in the moonlight was never quite the same.
The other game changer was Sigmund Freud. "You have to remember, ever since Freud, we've viewed everything through this very sexualized lens," Wishart says. "For a Victorian person, that was not the case. I think it's almost impossible for us to fully understand the way they saw these things back then." By 1911, there was enough awareness of homosexuality that when Fields pulled together a posthumous volume of Jewett's letters, editor Mark Antony DeWolfe Howe urged her to censor out the pet names. "All sorts of people [will read] them wrong," he warned Fields.
Today, it's hard to know just how to read those letters. But as Reynolds says, "It's absolutely wrong to impose today's version of homosexuality on Whitman or Jewett. That's done much too often." Instead, he suggests we appreciate the rich humanity of the 19th century. "Lincoln was a very, very human guy," Reynolds says. "He saw himself as a comrade, as someone who loved men and women. A lot of other people also saw themselves that way. It was a much less institutional world than we live in today -- a much more personal world."
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2 comments:
Great Post loved it all the best from Australia
Try and find out about this statement I read somewhere probably 35 years ago "The Wild Wild West was rampaging with homosexuality, but you won't read about that in history books".
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