THOUGHTS FOR TODAY

Brought to us by one of the DEMI-GODS that walked the face of EARTH

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY

"If you want to be respected by others the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you."

"Neither man or nation can exist without a sublime idea."

"The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons"

"The second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half."

"Talking nonsense is man's only privilege that distinguishes him from all other organisms."

"If there is no God, then I am God"

"In an abstract love for humanity one almost always loves only oneself."

""The complete atheist stands on the penultimate step to most perfect faith."

The unattainable ideal: Is that what we want?

The unattainable ideal: Is that what we want?

As i engulf myself inside the chatroom and while i wander the gay district of metro manila i feel a very strong sense of wanting and craving not only from me but also coming from all of the gay people around me. There is so much wanting.

It is clear that when gays cluster together in bunches, they like to look good. Sometimes, they like to look pretty, with perfect teeth, good hair and no wrinkles. Other times they like to look hot, with good teeth, perfectly mussed hair and just the right amount of rumple or abs perhaps. However they express themselves, they are usually going for the best possible presentation of self. In fact, it often seems that they are more interested in how they look than who they are. Not surprisingly, shallow behavior begets more shallow behavior, and the hotter a guy is, the more gay society encourages his extreme notions of preening.

I will be the first to admit that I have been party to such behavior. One night, I was out with friends at a popular gay club after work for happy hour. The ex of one of my friends casually dropped by on his way home from kickboxing class, his hands still taped up. He looked as hot as I remembered the DLSU Gymnastics Team being. As the work-weary drunks drooled over him, I too joined in the ogling. The guy was hot. That being said, the whole thing was an act. Sure, he had been kickboxing, but did he really need to come to the hottest weeknight bar in town wearing his masturbation-fantasy outfit? In order to feel attractive to a room full of men, sometimes it is hard to stop at just an outfit.

Now, I know this hot guy reasonably well, and he is a decent, interesting and humorous guy. He really has no reason to go to such extremes to meet a nice, handsome man. We do go to those extremes, though, because in a way, we are looking for those extremes in other people. While on the surface, millions of single gay men insist that they are just looking for a nice man to settle down with, the reality is that they are looking for an unbelievably hot guy to experience nonstop bliss with. Our hot kickboxing friend was a catch without taping up his hands, but who would have bothered to find out if he wasn't showing off his hot arms in a tank top?

This leads me to my concern about an unattainable ideal. Whether we look for it in others or in ourselves, it just slows us down. A guy can go kickboxing or save a kitten from a burning house, but that doesn't mean he is going to be a good boyfriend or rock your world in the sack. The more we try to be someone we think other people will be interested in, the further we get away from who we really are. The more we look for shallow attributes in other people, the harder it is to make good, lasting choices. Don't discount the good-looking people just because they look good. Just make sure there is more going on for you than just something nice to look at. It doesn't take any courage at all to give people what they want and not be yourself. The real you is always the best ideal.

DO STUPID PEOPLE HAVE MORE SEX?

Hello Island Natives!

I don't know if it was the endless sunshine or the polluted air that made everyone so horny, but living in MAKATI, I never had trouble getting laid. Sure, most of the guys are as dumb as a box of hammers, but it's not like you can make a monogamous relationship work anyway. So why worry about it?

Now that I live in Makati, where everyone likes to think they are more sophisticated, I still haven't had any trouble getting laid. I have noticed, however, that even in an allegedly smarter environment, guys with more muscles and dimples than brains always get quick action. No one is scrambling to marry these guys, but I have to wonder: Are the rest of us too smart for our own sexual good? They say an unexamined life is not worth living, but upon further examination, I can't help noticing that people who lead unexamined lives seem to get laid a lot more often.

I don't think blondes have more fun, per se, but since blonde is code for stupid, I have to agree that stupid people do have more fun. From the get-go, people whose minds aren't cluttered with concerns about ARROYO's 2-child policy, the crongress' endless politicking or the abject poverty of our country probably find it easier to laugh at "PALIBHASA LALAKE" reruns.

Almost every week in Malate, I had the opportunity to view the behavior of gay men up close. Not that living in MAKATI didn't give me a lot of insight, but closet models, "male" celebrities and wannabe actors aren't considered a diverse cross-section of gay culture outside of a petri dish. With gay men from all over Manila in the streets' gutters and cramped bars, it was like a social scientist's wet dream, a crucible of bottled sexual energy.

With nothing to do but eat, drink and be Mary, I noticed, even among my friends, a dangerously rapid drop in brain power. I remember one night, we met one guy at the beginning of a wild party who was very attractive and seemed reasonably intelligent. By the time we gulped almost three bottles of San Mig StrongIce, he was borderline retarded, with the carefree personality of a Smurf crossed with a pool toy.

I have always thought that the experience available to us in all-gay circumstances like urban ghettos and gay vacations is like high school redux. Being in an all-gay environment creates opportunities to replay our past while allowing us to cast ourselves in new roles. Since nearly everyone in my general age range and older was in the closet in high school and missed out on a lot of the social machinations, being in this gay environment allows them to be the snotty cheerleader or football player they always wished they could be. Why come together as a community when there are geeks to be tormented?

Ever since "Charlie's Angels" ushered in jiggle television, the gay male population has jiggled right along with it. The macho man late '70s dissolved into the '80s' Soloflex guy and the 1984 Men's Gymnastics team, which sporty spiced us right into the current A&F revolution. The circuit boys lead the dumb jock charge into the new millennium where drugs and unsafe sex are the new red badges of cool. Maybe it is all about the myth of straight guy seduction, where clearly the straight guy involved is so dumb he doesn't realize he is participating in gay sex. In order to fulfill their straight-acting destiny, it is imperative that gay men drop their IQ at a pace that would make the Microsoft stock price look like a leisurely decline. So forget everything you ever heard about the mind being the most important sex organ. It has never been sexier to be stupid. Heaven help us all.