There's a new Japanese drama out these days: Last Cinderella. I have an unsettled feeling about it. I can see the old cliches already, even in the first episode. I can see the Japanese drama tendency to preachiness and the desire to either affirm the status quo or to be all outre and trendy and turn the world upside down. I really don't want to watch this drama which will probably upset me except that... Miura Haruma is in it.
I know nothing about this guy. Unlike other Asian faves, he's a total blank to me and I can't say I've ever gotten a glimpse of his soul. He is merely beautiful and I have a horrible deep intense love for beautiful men. The love of the creature, alas. Enjoyment of beauty at its best, lust at its worst.
But there is something else. This guy enters my fantasy life. Oh, not some super duper passionate sex thing...but simply as a boy toy sitting beside me at fantasy conventions. A boy toy to affirm some part of me that apparently needs affirming.
What would having such a prize -- for that's what boy toys are, gnerally-- at my side? I'm not talking about a true may december love, although boy toys could be that as well. Love comes in all varieties. Or maybe I am. But with a boy toy, the thing is to be seen. One must be envied by those who have not thought of one as sexually viable. Is that it?
The desire to provoke jealousy. Here, look at me! Look at me!
I've seen this desire to provoke envy -- the desire to be seen as wonderful, glorious, whatever-- in some of my gay friends -- priests, lawyers, doctors, Indian chiefs. Would it heal the soul to finally be viewed as something great in the eyes of others?
I'm thinking of Tennessee Williams. Love that guy! He had what my friend Rodlyn Douglas had, what Jamaica Kincaid has, what Julien Green had, -- a fierce non-self-rationalizing morbid introspection -- self-examination to the most painful degree. When one reads his women -- sorry folks but it's true!-- one can see Tennessee's heart. Who can read The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone and not see an old Queen pondering his uselessness?
But as a writer back in the fifties, there is just so much truth Tennessee could write about himself? And fierce self-evisceration in one's stories is a brave thing to do in a world such as ours which does not reward honesty and where one must tell the truth slant, as Emily Dickinson says.
Nevertheless, the idea is blossoming in my heart of writing a short story about an older black woman writer who gets into a relationship with a young beautiful Japanese boy. Oh, it'll be painful if I am to be truly honest. I may write fantasies but I don't trust them. My love stories tend to be bittersweet, very bittersweet indeed.
And although the fantasy of the relationship could heal my soul in one way, I think a true exploration of the need to be affirmed --and theinadequacy of human fantasies to heal-- would be nearer healing. Nearer truth.
I know nothing about this guy. Unlike other Asian faves, he's a total blank to me and I can't say I've ever gotten a glimpse of his soul. He is merely beautiful and I have a horrible deep intense love for beautiful men. The love of the creature, alas. Enjoyment of beauty at its best, lust at its worst.
But there is something else. This guy enters my fantasy life. Oh, not some super duper passionate sex thing...but simply as a boy toy sitting beside me at fantasy conventions. A boy toy to affirm some part of me that apparently needs affirming.
What would having such a prize -- for that's what boy toys are, gnerally-- at my side? I'm not talking about a true may december love, although boy toys could be that as well. Love comes in all varieties. Or maybe I am. But with a boy toy, the thing is to be seen. One must be envied by those who have not thought of one as sexually viable. Is that it?
The desire to provoke jealousy. Here, look at me! Look at me!
I've seen this desire to provoke envy -- the desire to be seen as wonderful, glorious, whatever-- in some of my gay friends -- priests, lawyers, doctors, Indian chiefs. Would it heal the soul to finally be viewed as something great in the eyes of others?
I'm thinking of Tennessee Williams. Love that guy! He had what my friend Rodlyn Douglas had, what Jamaica Kincaid has, what Julien Green had, -- a fierce non-self-rationalizing morbid introspection -- self-examination to the most painful degree. When one reads his women -- sorry folks but it's true!-- one can see Tennessee's heart. Who can read The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone and not see an old Queen pondering his uselessness?
But as a writer back in the fifties, there is just so much truth Tennessee could write about himself? And fierce self-evisceration in one's stories is a brave thing to do in a world such as ours which does not reward honesty and where one must tell the truth slant, as Emily Dickinson says.
Nevertheless, the idea is blossoming in my heart of writing a short story about an older black woman writer who gets into a relationship with a young beautiful Japanese boy. Oh, it'll be painful if I am to be truly honest. I may write fantasies but I don't trust them. My love stories tend to be bittersweet, very bittersweet indeed.
And although the fantasy of the relationship could heal my soul in one way, I think a true exploration of the need to be affirmed --and theinadequacy of human fantasies to heal-- would be nearer healing. Nearer truth.
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