BOYS WILL BE BOYS

I live in Manukau City, South of Auckland; New Zealand. We have the densest pacific island population of any country in the world. The given is that meeting other like minded queers like yourself is easy, since geographically we’re all in the same city. You would think it were that simple. The Polynesian Princes of south Auckland are as closeted as the gays in the NRL. They have refined their visibility to a passing fragrance of I WANNA FUCK YOU BUT I”M WITH HER. The problem with this metaphor is that it reeks of homos in south Auckland but these men have succeeded in making themselves invisible.

So therein lays the problem of trying to engage and understand a type of man that exists only in theory. I imagine this type of man as wanting to express his sexual fluidity and attraction to the same sex however being stunted by his contradicting physicality, one of which is typically hetronormative and in gender specific terms what is appropriate for him to conform to i.e. “I am built in the manner of a man that is only biologically compatible with a significant other of the opposite sex”. This belief system is made a mantra that affirms a masculine stereotype and a gender ideal that is perpetuated, driven and motivated both sociologically and politically by a western heterosexual statuesque and moral majority.

The art works posted on this blog are inspired by this idea. This is JERRY THE FA’AFAFINE he is pleased to have finally found you and met you...


UNPACKING OUR CULTURAL BAGAGE


Gay Marriage, the Samoan Community and Its Hypocrisy

This is a blog post from a blogger named Patrick Thomsen who manages a blog called AccidentalAnarchist

I enjoy researching the Samoan Gay experience online as a means of engaging discourses around themes of homosexuality amongst Samoan and Pacific communities. This relates to my arts practice and the thinking behind a lot of what gets expressed here under the output of JERRY THE FA'AFAFINE.

I always imagine some day i'd write my post grad based on what visible information existed online and was collected on this blog. For me this space is where I get to share what is often a truncated version of some of those findings. The translation to my own social media output is always aligned to my visual language as an artist. So sometimes the conversations are articulated as art works. (FLASHING LIGHTS AND PRETTY LIL PICTURES)

I wanted to share the above blog post titled 'Gay marriage, The Samoan Community and its Hypocrisy' because here for the first time is a refreshing perspective on the issue. This intelligent and articulate voice carefully and in a sharp and considered manner, disassembles a lot of SAMOAS cultural double standards when it comes to sex and homosexuality.

This text is the first one in a long time that I've felt connected to as an artist. I really enjoyed the writing. Please click the Link and have a jack at it yourself. It may speak to you as it clearly has to me. As a gesture to the conviction of equality I thought I gift to you a picture of myself and what I really look like.


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