masturbation contests

As a teen Peruvian (future) novelist Mario Vargas Llosa went to a military-style boarding school. Academically it was considered a cut above. It sounds like young Mario did okay there, but it instilled no love in him for the military’s “mechanical hierarchies, [its] authorized violence [or] the at times … cruel and monstrous uses” to which these were put. But what sticks out to me (so to speak) are the literally homosexual acts these (almost certainly mainly heterosexual) boys promulgated. 

On the very first day, after getting into their school uniforms and hearing welcoming (?) speeches from the adults, the new boys are turned over to the older boys for the usual hazing rituals. 

A group of cadets took me and a[nother] boy … to a fourth-year dormitory. They made us go through a ‘right angle’ contest. We had to kick each other in the backside as we doubled over alternately; the one who kicked more slowly than the other was in turn kicked, hard, by the hazers. Afterward, they made us open our trousers fly and take out our penis and masturbate: the one who came first would be let go and the other would stay behind to make our torturers’ beds. But, however hard we tried, fear kept us from getting an erection, and finally, bored by our incompetence, they took us out to the soccer field. They asked me what sport I went in for: ‘Swimming, sir.’ ‘Swim on your back from one end of the athletic field to the other, then, perro.’

As Mario figured out the place, he recognized that, “in order not to have one’s will broken [by the relentless bullying], it was necessary to do daring things, so as to earn the good feeling and respect of the others. I began doing them from the start: from the masturbation contests — the one who ejaculated first or who shot his sperm the farthest — to the famous escapades at night, after lights out.” The biggest “escapade,” Vargas Llosa says, was the escape, “going over the wall,” as being caught leaving the compound without authorization meant you’d be expelled “without appeal.” Mario was a regular escapee, it seems. 

Of course you had to boast about your sexual prowess with women — even if (especially if?) you were a virgin, which most of the boys were, I’m sure. The highest prestige went to (as it comes to us in English) the “mad jock with a big cock,” a title Mario proudly claimed.

In his memoir Mario Vargas Llosa at times expresses sympathy for gay men, and disappointment in others’ homophobia, though he presents himself as very het — besides the “masturbation contests,”  that is, although isn't that somehow hetter than het? It’s not like there’s any love or affection in it.

source:

A Fish in the Water

by Mario Vargas Llosa

translated by Helen Lane

1994. Farrar Straus Giroux, New York

When your son’s a rock star

John Taylor, despite his rock star excesses, often comes across in his memoir as a sweetie. Shortly after they formed Duran Duran in Birmingham, England, the boys imagined playing Madison Square Garden in New York City. They made it. And in the time frame they imagined, that is, by 1984. 

What was something they did to celebrate?

When we got to New York, we flew out all of our parents. My mom had never been on a plane before, nor out of the country, and had to get a passport. We put them up in the band’s hotel. They went around as if they were a band themselves on that trip. They went up the Empire State Building together. They rented two station wagons and drove to Disney World in Florida together. They went everywhere together. 

It was the most profound experience my parents had in their later years. They never stopped talking about it. We were fortunate to be able to give our parents that kind of gift.

Duran Duran flew all their parents over to the U.S. Five pairs of mums and dads? Maybe it’s something rock-and-roll bands do all the time, but it’s sure not part of the legend. It gives me a warm feeling to picture the middle-aged Brits peering out of the observation deck of the Empire State and nudging each other, pointing out the sights.

source:

In the Pleasure Groove: love, death & Duran Duran

by John Taylor with Tom Sykes

2012. Dutton / Penguin, NY

Duran Duran fan

John Taylor, bassist for Duran Duran, achieved all his dreams — and, what do you know, they didn’t make him happy. Or they did, at first, but, whew, there’s just no way you can be prepared for the kind of overwhelming fame that hit Duran Duran. I think there were some Durannies at my small town high school in California. I don’t remember much about them. There were kids who dressed “new wave,” but were they Durannies? I think The Cure had more cred. 

John Taylor talks about one fan who really wanted something from her idol:

The fans would do some pretty crazy things over the years but my favorite has to be the girl in Atlanta who was present at a press conference we gave on the reunion tour. I had a cold and was sniffling into a series of tissues, absentmindedly throwing them into a wastepaper bin under the table.

Next time into the city, the girl called out to me at another public appearance, ‘I was the girl who got your cold.’

I wondered what on earth she was talking about.

‘After you left the press conference last year I stole your used tissues. I wanted to get your cold.’

John Taylor’s calling this“crazy thing” a fan did his “favorite” is an odd choice of words, but it probably stands out in terms of commitment. 

source:

In the Pleasure Groove: love, death & Duran Duran

by John Taylor with Tom Sykes

2012. Dutton / Penguin, NY