Self-Organizing Men » Masculinity

I’ll Show You Mine by Jordy Jones

Jay — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 16:22:33 +0000

This piece is a version of an ongoing conversation between two cultural producers who are close, long?erm friends. Each is seeking to expose to the other something of his own understanding of his complicated and evolving sense of himself as a gendered, sexual, thinking human being. There is no attempt to solidify a position or come to agreement since the underlying proposition is that, while individual integrity is of utmost importance, there is no singularly solid position to take and no right way to be a person.

Jordy Jones (J.J.) What is a man?

Doran George (D.G.) Help!

I suppose the easiest way to answer this would be to say he is a highly contested phenomenon. I? like to say that what a man is depends entirely on self?dentity. Anyone who says, I am a man is one. Defining sex by individual choice would be the most democratic solution and, intuitively, would be the use of the term that would result in the greatest happiness.(pgs. 123-124)

Letterman, photography, (pg. 75)

Jordy Jones is a long-time San Francisco resident currently residing part-time in the California High Desert Arts Ghetto of Joshua Tree. He is a scholar, curator, multimedia artist, and community advocate. His work has included the investigation of issues of the human body and its relationship to economics, technology, culture, censorship, and the law. Jones has worked with cultural organizations as diverse as the San Francisco Art Institute; The GLBT Historical Society; The International Lesbian and Gay Association; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions; Intermedia Arts Minnesota; and The Guggenheim Soho, New York. He has served on the governing boards of The San Francisco Pride Celebration and Parade Committee, The Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club, and The Lab. He is a past member of the LGBT Advisory Committee of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission. As male chair of the San Francisco Transgender Civil Rights Implementation Task Force, he was key in implementing trans inclusion in the health benefits package for city employees and for furthering trainings for the police and sheriff’s departments. He has a B.A. in Conceptual and InformationArts, an M.A. in Museum Studies and is pursuing a Ph.D. in Visual Studies and Critical Theory at the University of California, Irvine, where he is a UC Chancellor’s Fellow. His dissertation, due for completion in 2008, is entitled The Ambiguous I: Photography, Gender, Self. According to Mark Leno, member of the California State Assembly representing District 13: “Jordy Jones is San Francisco’s Secret Weapon!”

LesbianHighFemmeFaggot by Gaylourdes

Jay — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 19:50:43 +0000

Say Hello

Gaylourdes is a queer genderfucker fascinated with theories about bodies and music and ideas. Feelings. Gaylourdes is intense and models himself on his gay friends. He likes to speak in masculine terms because it’s easier being campy that way. You could call him a drag king but the performance is not wholly unreal. Surreal, more like. He’s a pansy with a passion for muscle marys: he has a weakness for kooky queer types who love books about drugs and dancing and performance. He loves a style of camp that is vivid in visceral terms; he wishes there were more camp lesbians, so that he didn’t have to rely so much on a specifically gay camp aesthetic to be understood. Then he wishes he didn’t have to say lesbians, because while that’s the heart-shaped box that he sprang from, he realises the ID tag isn’t really what he’s talking about. He wishes he could be in Manjam (a local male revue), he wants to perform and bring his masculinity to life, but he’s not a self-identifying male, and people would probably think he’s just performing anyway. He wants (dreams) to be lean and lizard-like, sinewy and wiry, 47 years old, smoking a rollie, and talking about dancers. (pgs 89-90)

Gaylourdes was once a secretly passionate pianist. He’s a student in Performance Studies and lives in Sydney, Australia. He can be contacted via his blog.

I’ll Show You Mine by Doran George

Jay — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 15:34:24 +0000

Jordy Jones (J.J.) What is a man?
Doran George (D.G.) Help!

I suppose the easiest way to answer this would be to say he is a highly contested phenomenon. I? like to say that what a man is depends entirely on self?dentity. Anyone who says, ? am a man is one. Defining sex by individual choice would be the most democratic solution and, intuitively, would be the use of the term that would result in the greatest happiness. (pgs. 123-124)

Doran George is an artist, dancer, writer, and curator. His “live art” work has been staged across Europe and the United States and has ranged from him being encased in brick for a working day to having a sexual relationship as an art practice. He has been supported by the London Arts Board; The Arts Council of England; The British Council; Chisenhale Dance Space; Arnolfini, Artsadmin; The Finnish Arts Council; The Arts Council of North Savo (Finland); Stichting Fonds De Trut (The Netherlands); and others. He has curated for ?he International Transgender Film Video Festival (U.K. and The Netherlands), ?ital Signs Festival (U.K.) (interfaces between disability politics and contemporary art), and Chisenhale Dance Space. He regularly contributes to symposia and is published in print and on the web in dance, film, and performance art journals and art publications. Doran has a B.A. in experimental dance and choreography and an M.A. in Feminist Performance. He teaches in universities in he United States, Britain, and Central Europe.

About Radicalia Feminista. Phallacies and Queeries: A Phaggot’s Contemplations

Jay — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 12:05:25 +0000

Radicalia Feminista proposes that men are themselves not liberated and therefore cannot liberate women. I wholeheartedly agree. But I sometimes wonder if we are even qualified to talk about men or women except to make reference to phony and dishonest categories that we are made to believe are imperative and truthful. It is my belief that it will not be men who liberate women nor women who will liberate themselves, but a radically different species of ex–men and ex–women who divest and agitate what “male” and “female” have come to signify. (pg. 77)

Tim’m T. West is an author/publisher, poet, emcee, scholar, and activist who, in 1999, co-founded Deep Dickollective and established himself as one of the more dynamic and influential Renaissance artists coming into the 21st Century. In 2003, he released a critically acclaimed poetic memoir Red Dirt Revival, in 2005 a chapbook BARE, and will release his second full-length book, Flirting, through Red Dirt Publishing. Musically, he released his solo debut, Songs from Red Dirt, on Cellular Records. Blakkboy Blue(s) was its highly anticipated follow up. On Some Other was DDC’s third full–studio album project. A cultural critic, Tim’m is widely published in academic nd literary anthologies, journals, and other publications.