Sylvie Hill

THE GUIDING LIGHT OF HANDJOBS

Interesting how we romanticize anomalies, which supports stereotypes. And win awards for it!

A black man who carries the touch from a bisexual but balanced, kind chap who jerked him off on the beach and kissed him softly as a late teenager into his adulthood, and never touches another person, nor lets himself be touched? Awww….

Black men, in film, are stereotypically portrayed as tough heterosexual men charged upon sex, sex, sex. But here’s a gay male Black man who keeps himself after a meaningful touch that frees him while binding him to a secret.

I’m trying to assess if the value of this movie, of its winning an award, is mere — shock and awe? Is merely the appearance of ‘unique’ storyline or what.

We loved this story for its sentimentality — but do we realize that this is what a lot of women do already after a monumental temporary sexual action, but likely may be judged as “damaged” or “hung up on some guy?”

Or, what heterosexual men do after an epic touch by a woman who awakens them, retreating from random sex, and so are called “gay?” for when they reserve their subsequent touches for something equally as meaningful?

The movie “Moonlight” about this Chiron here who as a young man – even late teenager – is touched (literally masturbated to ejaculation for which he sweetly says “I’m sorry” — “You have nothing to apologize for,” says the Masturbator) by a nice man in Miami named Kevin, on the beach, by moonlight, with a kiss — won the Academy Award for best picture last year.

I found the flick a wee bit of a rip off of Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening” about a woman in New Orleans named Madame Edna Pontellier, who is ‘awakened’ by a man named Robert who teaches her how to swim. (Chiron, as a young boy, is taught to swim by the local Drug Dealer who takes him in, and whose wife mothers and cares for him). Edna’s learning to swim shakes up her spirit and encourages to try other things — painting, leaving her husband, having dinner parties, associating with the village Single Lady weirdo named Mademoiselle Reisz.

Edna “finds herself” by moonlight and water through this awakening, and kills herself, in the end, by drowning into the very thing that brought her joy.

Chiron also lives a death by not opening his heart to anyone after Kevin, nor sharing his body with another man.

The genius in this film is in the ending, and the parallels. The ending sees Kevin just holding Chiron’s head. Not fucking him. This was brilliant to me, because it reveals the simple kindness of Kevin, and recommended — to me — that sometimes, a touch is just a touch. Kevin and Chiron don’t fall madly in love in some epic Hollywood scene. There is simply a kindness exchange, which encourages me to consider that some monumental sexual touches may be nothing more than a “nice moment”, but not binding for eternity.

Also, Kevin symbolizes parallels – he keeps the clean kitchen like Drug Dealer’s wife Teresa, and makes him green tea and cooks him “the special” back before at the diner. He is also instructional (in his jerking off Chiron), like the Drug Dealer chap was in teaching Chiron to swim.

In all, the message to me was the power and beauty of Guides in our lives. Those who nurture us (food), keep us safe (protect us from thugs and drug houses and druggie moms and give us a warm bed to sleep in), and initiate us into our passions and sexual selves. It’s also about forgiving the Guides who fail us (druggie mom who is incapable of providing for Chiron).

So, I reckon – well done Black (Chiron’s nickname) for portraying a sensitive and honest portrait of what it looks like when our innocence is challenged by growing up, and by circumstance, all the while maintaining our purity.

I’m thinking of the Lars von Trier film, “Breaking the Waves” where the experienced burly man who works the rigs marries a local virgin. When Burly Guy becomes paralyzed and hospitalized from an accident, he asks his wife to continue having sex — for her sake, since he knows he awakened something in her and does not want that to die because his body is broken. And, for his sake, so he can experience desire through her stories of her fucking other people. Of course, it’s Lars von Trier, so the “innocence” is preserved in the most perverse way and to a tragic ending — but for me, the sentimentality hit hard.

The idea that we “save” our Self for someone who awakens our spirit and soul through sexual release is a beautiful one.

There is too much, SO much casual fucking that wreaks of stink and mechanical gyrations in the half light. Of course, personally, I could never take in an inexperienced man again in my life, but someone who healthily reserves his cock and touch NOT out of pent up reminiscence of a prior exchange that blew his mind, but for reasons of appreciation of the power of (that) touch … and his disbelief it can happen again combined with a willingness to invite it (not challenge or test it forth).

Chiron didn’t put Kevin on a pedestal, and Kevin doesn’t present as having loved Chiron. And, this is OK.

The last lesson of this movie about the power of nurturing and guiding, is that with the RIGHT person, casual sexuality can be transformational.

BUT NOTE that for this to work, your sex guru has to be bisexual like Kevin — or, whatever Kevin is. And is the ambidextrous male/female kind-hearted “type” the ONLY type who can effectively offer this NEUTRAL, but sweet and kind experience.

In that, it sounds a vote for transgendered love? Or, to rethink traditional gender roles, and to consider where in a heterosexual union, a similarly casual jerk-off on the beach would effect the same feelings. In the gay exchange where Chiron’s homosexuality was taboo, it was recognition of his secret and the Green light that it was OK to feel that way that touched our hearts, I think.

In the same way perhaps a partner nods that they’re into kink, or validates any of your preferences you thought weird.

It reminds me of manly men I have been with who may have said “hold me” … “but don’t tell anyone.” See: cute, because we don’t expect a ‘manly-man’ to say this.

Which brings me back to the ALLURE of “Moonlight.” I can’t believe a film about a hand job won an award in AMERICA! Well done …

…but then again: James Joyce’s Ulysses started off with a hand job.

Awww, the guiding light of hand jobs. How all great awakening transformations start, eh?

No wonder I enjoyed “Moonlight.”