An ancient ritual: Beating the Bounds for Gangdays…and whipping some boys on the way.

Beating the Bounds: an ancient ritual still practiced today in the British Isles. Communities traditionally reinscribed the boundaries of their parishes by walking the edges carrying sticks, pounding on the boundary marking stones. In an era before maps were common, when literacy was rare, these annual events (also called “gangdays”) were intended to impress upon everyone where community boundaries lay. Since resources were allocated according to parish, it was vital that the knowledge was passed down accurately though successive generations. It also helped keep the neighbors in line. To reinforce the lesson, the gangs would (and d0) stop occasionally to literally beat the knowledge into the boys. Sometimes, the youngsters would also be flung against the rocky stiles. All in good fun! Part of a suite of jolly old British customs that includes flogging the peg boys.

Leathers in Mozambique

From the small volume Scouts in Bondage and Other Violations of Literary Propriety. Edited by Michael Bell, a proprietor of secondhand books from the “ancient coastal town” of Lewes, England. Scouts is a collection of amusing covers, this one from 1959 is subtitled “An Adventure Story for Boys.” What? That’s what Neo-colonial crypto-homosexuality was called in the middle of the 20th century…

Snap, Crackle and Pop: Big Tasty Breakfast Bears!

photo: Denis Bahus

Good Morning from David and Louis from London. These two know how to start the day. Most important meal and all that. They also know how to wear the fundoshi, the traditional, very sexy Japanese loincloth-style underwear. For their video lesson on how to tie one on, click here. Photo by Denis Bahus, via Bearotic.

English Riots close Bars in Birmingham Gayborhood

Big Gay Blogger Joe My God reports that the unrest in England has spread beyond London to Birmingham, shutting down businesses in the Gayborhood there. Popular bars that have shut their doors on the advice of local police include Missing, The Loft, The Equator, Purple Bar and The Angel. More here.

Ahhh…Sand! Microphotographer sees a Universe of Small, Hard Beauty Underfoot

photo: Gary Greenberg

Sand…those little rocks on the beach. Sand…in the 19th century, it was just one more slang term for testicular fortitude. Because you can never have too many ways to say it! Rocks, gravel, sand, guts, nuts…he’s got some set of balls on him! But back in the day, they used to say: “He’s got sand!”

Gary Greenberg, a biomedical researcher from University College London, has recently published A Grain of Sand, a book of close-up photographs of sand. He sees the big picture in the little picture. He’s not the only one.  Way back in the 18th century, proto-homosexual poet William Blake wrote:

To see a world in a grain of sand,

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.

More on Dr. Greenberg’s microphotography  here. More on seeing the Universe in unexpected places here.

NY Times Article: Chewing Gum Art in London

Interesting article in the New York Times: artist Ben Wilson makes art out of tiny blobs of gum on London Sidewalks. You can read the article here.

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-AidanAbroad

Ball Check! Brit Rugby Team plays Doctor.

It’s all fun and games til somebody discovers a lump. Full frontal nudity PSA. These British lads weather the laughter of their team mates and come out smiling with clean bills of health. Point of it all? Other than pure entertainment of course…it’s quick and easy to check your nuts and always more fun with a mate – or a dozen!

Flogging the Peg Boy! Sexy Sailors from London’s Studio Royale.

Another interesting vintage photograph. From Studio Royale of London.* It’s got that mid-century film still thing going on and a nice reference to the old law of the sea. Whether in the legitimate Navies or their pirate shadows authority condensed into the will of a single man, the Captain, and was enforced by, among other things…the sting of the lash.

For another mid-century photo, this one of mysterious provenance, click here. For more on homoeroticism on the high seas, check out Hans Turley’s Rum, Sodomy and the Lash: Piracy, Sexuality and Masculine Identity. NYU Press, 1999.

*Thomas Waugh. Hard to Imagine Gay Male Eroticism in Photography and Film from Their Beginnings to Stonewall, New York: Columbia University Press, 1996, page 256.

Music Musings: Soft Cell’s Sex Dwarf – 1981 Underground Kink Classic Vid

Soft Cell: just another way of saying “differentially permeable membrane.” Biology’s version of the club doorman. You get In. But You: Keep Out. No, really. Here’s slinky kinky Marc Almond  as a young thing back in the day, fetishizing and  valorizing monstrosity in the underground hit Sex Dwarf. David Ball on synthesizer. Together, they were Soft Cell, best known for their hit cover of Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go. Coming at you live, this gem was also covered by Nine Inch Nails, among others.

Originally published in 1981 as part of the album Non Stop Erotic Cabaret, the lyrics to this kink classic by Marc Almond and David Ball:

Sex Dwarf…Isn’t it nice
Sugar and spice
Luring disco dollies
To a life of vice

I could make a film
And make you my star
You’d be a natural
The way you are
I would like you on
A long black leash
I would parade you
Down the high street
You’ve got the attraction
You’ve got the pulling power
Walk my little doggy
Walk my little sex dwarf
(Here, doggy, doggy)
We could make a scene
We’d be a team
Making the headlines
Sounds like a dream
When we hit the floor
You just watch them move aside
We will take them
For a ride of rides
They all love your
Miniature ways
You know what they say
About small boys

Sex dwarf…

I’m in my Rolls Royce
Look it’s so huge
It’s big and it’s gold
With my dumb chauffeur
Looking to procure
Run little doggy
Lure a disco dolly
Run my little sex dwarf
I feel so lonely
Get my little camera
Take a pretty picture
Sex dwarf
In a gold Rolls
Making it with the dumb chauffeur

Sex dwarf…

We could make an outfit
For my little sex dwarf
To match the gold Rolls
And my dumb chauffeur
We’ll all look so good
We’ll knock ‘em cold
Knocking ‘em cold
In black and gold
We can have playtime
In my little playroom
Disco dollies
My sex dwarf
And my dumb chauffeur
I would like you on a long black lead
You can bring me all the things I need

Sex dwarf…

A Quiet Revolution at Oxford with Fluxus Pioneer Yoko Ono

Fluxus Pioneer Yoko Ono talks about god, chaos theory and quantum entanglement – without ever using those words.

An excerpt: “So now I call ourselves the small pebble people. Send small pebbles to the world. Don’t make big splashes with large stones. That will attract people and the wrong people as well. Our quiet revolution will not make announcements, but one day will be accepted by all people as the norm of life. The human race has done that with many things. Like we wanted to fly, and invented aeroplanes. We wanted to see the other side of the moon, and we have. This time, we want to heal our planet, and bring peace to this world. We can do that.”

The full text of her speech, A Quiet Revolution, delivered on March 10th at Oxford University, can be read here.