So you think you can dance?

Society is sinking faster and faster into a pit of "self."

Sexual exploits and the "sex culture" we are in is dangerous.
It facilitates an unhealthy climate for our children, our teens, our adults and our seniors (no one is not affected by what is happening in the world around us).

One big influence today is the "So you think you can dance Canada" program on CTV. Last night, I watched as the last four danced. This season has been filled with the word "sexy", to the point where you can almost not get a comment without that word being said. In particular, Luther Brown is commented on time and time again as being "sick", "bad", "too sexy", and this is helping out our young women how?

As the camera pans over the audience, we see young women screaming and applauding both the choreographers and the dancers. Rarely do we see young men, rather the audience looks to be filled with young women. So what is being said to them as they watch the women dance?

1. That you are the sum of a sexual object?
2. That you can use sex as a powerful weapon?
3. That sex is it?
4. That sick is good?

I can go on.

Yet, last night as much as I cringe at times when I am watching, I heard some truth in the cracks of the verbal and visual onslaught of sex, I see a picture of submission and lead. Last night as Jean Marc was talking to Vincent, he commented on Vincent's strength to carry his partner. In his ballroom training, Vincent will have learned that to allow the beauty of the woman to shine and radiate on stage and to keep her safe in her movements, it means to lead with courage and bravery. It means to be strong and believe in each step you take. To not waiver in your ability to guide her through the steps.
As the man guides and touches, and takes the steps, the woman is secure that the man will not drop her, and she can fully embrace her movements, because they are in a safe environment.

My hope is that this message is clear, and my hope is that it becomes stronger than the "sex" appeal of the dances that we are seeing.

My hope is that we raise a generation of strong men, and strong women. Who do not waiver in their wanting to dance, in the realm of how God wants them to dance. To find their voice, to find their steps and to dance with passion for their creator. Dance for the injustices out there, for the cultural climate change, for the poor, for the crippled, for the orphans, for the broken. That as our young men and young women learn to dance with each other in mutual love and respect, in purity and holiness, we will see a change take place all around us.

As my wife and I prepare to welcome our baby into the world, I sense this call to father well, but even more so to husband well. To dance well with my wife. (who is a dancer)
Early on in our marriage, we would make a clear space in the room, turn the lights off and turn the music on and just dance with each other, eyes closed, in the dark. Our movements strong and tender, our touch guiding each other to the rhythm of our love of our Father. It was pure and holy, often bringing us to tears and intercession. My wife who has more dance training, free to follow my lead, and found secure in the safety of my untrained steps, because I stepped boldly and strong, tender and loving. Not wanting to crush her, rather love and honor her own movements.

We see a culture around us, who are dancing to get what they want. Not just sexually speaking. We see a climate change of self interest, self preservation.

With words such as, "you just don't understand", "It's my right", "I can do what I wanna do", "I deserve this", "I worked hard for this"...do you get it? Each statement is self speaking and one that is saying, I am more important than you.

In dance, the man leads because he knows what the woman, his partner needs. He isn't doing it for his own glory and what he'll get out of it, he is leading because he knows that in doing so the dance becomes safe, beautiful and can go to greater depths because the woman is free to submit, to find her peace in the her movements.

My hope is that we can go back to the respect and honor of true dancing. Without the word "sexy" being the imprinted word that our culture is screaming into the minds of our young men and young women.

Loving God...Loving Others

We have been hearing a lot about Loving God...loving others at the Church we attend. It has been challenging and though provoking.

I am an ACTS community loving guy, and deep in the heart of my thinking is that one day, we will need each other in ways that go beyond what we can comprehend at the moment.
Not sure why I feel that, but for years I have felt like we are going to get to a place where it will be fellow Christians who will be helping each other out in radical ways, be that with food, clothing, housing, medical care. We won't have the ability to go to stores, hospitals, schools, regular establishments.

With the economical 'scare' that we went through this year...and really it isn't over yet, I wondered, is God shaking things up? Is he allowing things to happen to wake up His Church?

I can't help but think with all I am hearing about loving God and loving others, the radical call on our lives to live fully prepared to give it all up. I look at my own life and battle my fleshly desires and cry out to God to help me with my motives. So that my focus will be on furthering the Kingdom of God. My focus will be on others and their needs rather than mine and getting what I think I deserve.

Realistically my wife and I have had the hardest time so far with finances. We have been open and honest with our struggle and we continue to battle and face it on a day to day basis. Knowing that we could lose our house, we could lose it all, and yet, we continue to hope that one day it will get better. That one day it won't be so difficult and that this road too will become less rocky.

We have had to give up much to follow Christ and in doing so, it has given us a desire to help others who have given it all to run full on toward the cross. Do we really know what we are asking people to give up to follow after Christ? Are we prepared to serve and give to those who are giving it all up?

For my wife and I, we both were in same gender relationships and we both left significant financial assets to follow Jesus. We did it out of obedience. We also left friends, familiar people, family, jobs.

This weekend we spoke at a Gender conference and I was struck with the question? Do we know what we are asking those in the gay and lesbian life to give up? Do we have a concept? and are we willing to be the radical hands and feet of Christ to these people.

Today, as I sat listening to the life lesson, I was reminded of those in my life who walked it with me when I returned home. When I left my house, possessions, material security, my friends, my job, the familiar, and who allowed me to grieve those losses. They allowed my grief to sweep over me and sat with me in that grief.

I heard my wife speak this weekend of her own time of grieving, as she left the familiar, as she left those who called her auntie, and it broke me, as I knew she lived in silence. Fearing those in her community who it was unsafe for her to turn to. I ached for her loss.

Today, I sit in our home, small, old, in need of renovations and some fixings, I see the bills yet to be paid, wondering where we'll get the resources for that, I see our humble home, most of the furniture given to us, not fancy, yet it screams who we are. Because it really has been a community that has built this home.

We are grateful even in this, a time of struggle and hope. A time of radical trust in God and a desire to Love God and Love others. For we have been loved much, by our Heavenly Father, who gave his son to die for us...period...we have been extended grace, even when we didn't deserve it. So in this, we learn to extend grace to others.
I pray for the Body of Christ, that we would see the radical call on our lives to love God and to love others, expecting nothing in return. For if we do that and expect nothing, we won't be hurt when nothing is given back to us.

Lord be Lord! Give us strength, increase our faith, and help us to love!

Today, the headlines read “Bathhouse Blaze”, early Sunday morning a fire broke out in one of Winnipeg’s two bathhouses. Aquarius, a two floor bathhouse, was a low light place to connect with other men for the sole purpose of having sex. The facility also hosted co-ed nights for women to also come and “hook up” or go there for a date night, as one female patron said, a safe place to go.

Having graced the rooms of Aquarius, I know full well what went on behind the entry way. Bathhouses were at one point my friend. A place to have as many encounters with other men as possible, to explore different avenues of sexual pleasure and it played into the excitement of voyeurism. Aquarius was no exception to this fact. The basement of the facility was the dungeon so to speak, with a round bed in a large dark room where I saw men in bondage. Opposite that room was a maze of chain link and a blackened maze of corners, small rooms where one could go and have sex and not see the other person.

Realizing the destructive behavior of the facility, especially in the degrading acts being played out on men as well as women, it became evident that Aquarius was a glorified whore house, only money was not exchanged apart from the entry fee, and the availability of poppers (a drug which induces a person to put aside all inhibition, placing that person in a position of potentially dangerous activity).

I write as a writer who has been to some pretty rough places to get the high of a sexual encounter. What is sad today is that two men died in this fire. One of these men a 23 year old aspiring drag queen, wanted to go into the entertainment biz. When I saw his face, I saw the face of a clean cut male, young and pretty, yet deeply masculine. A face with hope in his eyes. Yet his hope won’t amount to anything, as his life was taken far too early. But the deeper issue with his death is the correlation between his life as a drag queen and his issue with the bathhouse. A drag queen often is one to do fundraising, is looked upon as someone who lives in the public realm. Is often the voice of those in need. Today that voice is no longer speaking, singing or entertaining.

This brings me to the issue of pride. Pride is the big quintessential word of gay, lesbian, bi, transgendered people. The Pride Parade is all about being proud of who you are, and yet, there is a deep seeded, dark issue of sexual addiction in our midst, that is being normalized in our culture today.

“We are proud of who we are, we want rights…we demand them, and we will take down every voice that is against us. Because being against us means you are full of hate.”
Are words that at one time, I used, and heard other gay people speak out loud, and full of force.

Yet having been to bathhouses and having to look at the destructive behavior of my own sexual addiction, I wonder, what kind of pride that was? I wasn’t loving myself, I was actually feeding my addiction and couldn’t see past not getting a sexual fix, the next guy who would turn me on. It was all about sex. Not pride. Pride would be taking care of myself, honoring and respecting myself and others, not using them, for the sake of my own pleasure. Pride is not taking away my inhibitions with poppers and putting myself at risk of disease, or injury. Pride is learning what the roots of sexual addiction are, that are causing us to go to all lengths to get off. Pride is looking at our behavior and or allowing someone in to speak life to us, rather than encourage us in behavior that is hurtful to both ourselves and to others. When did we first come to understand that multiple sex partners are okay, good or healthy? Why isn’t the gay, lesbian, bi, transgendered community standing up in Pride and shouting enough is enough? Treating each other as objects, as sexual toys, as a way to get our needs met, is exactly what Pride isn’t. When will the community that demands respect and pride and the “same” rights as everyone else realize they have a long way to go to “get there”, if they continue to applaud sexual addictions, drug use, and criminal activity.

It is a quiet secret regarding the realm of sexual exploits and the areas of town these exploits happen in our city, where gay men hang out, late at night or during the day, all in the hopes of having sex. Men congregate in bathrooms across the city, to meet someone to have an orgasm. Putting at risk, young children, teens and others who would rather not see what is going on. Sure, you can be as safe as you think you are, but you never know who will walk in, who will see. Why do we sugar coat the issue of sexual addiction?

It is easier to turn a blind eye, to stay silent rather than speak the truth. Maybe it has to be someone who has been there, done it, who has received help regarding his sexual addiction, who needs to stand and speak. So today I speak. I say, “when is enough, going to be enough.” How many lives are we risking when we stay silent? To disease, to injury, to death? How many souls are we actually killing when we don’t say anything? Lives of men and women, struggling with sexual addiction, not knowing their worth apart from the buzz of the moment, only to wake up, empty and alone or empty in the arms of a stranger they just met a couple of hours before.

I know that I have pride in who I am as a man, who I am as a husband, who I am as a father. Would I want my child to grow up desperately hungry for love and affirmation and a sense of worth, so much so they have sex in a bathhouse, in a dark, dingy, smelly cage, inhibitions gone, not knowing how many people are having sex with them? Hardly, the thought of that actually makes me feel sad. So why would we want our friends, our co-workers, our family members, our loved ones to go to those lengths? When will we say enough is enough and stand for human rights, respected and honored?



Bobby Rogers, President and Acting Manager of Gio’s stated…

“Thank you to everyone who came out tonight to help start our community's grieving process. As part of this process, CJOB 680 AM Richard Cloutier respectfully invited members of our community to discuss some aspects of our culture. After consulting with some community members, Chris Vogel was asked to help us out. Chris Vogel , one of the founders of Gio's (The Oscar Wilde Memorial Society Inc.) and leader in Manitoba and Canada with LGBT rights will discuss some of the unique aspects of our community with Richard, Tuesday at 9am. This is such a sensitive topic and troublesome time for us all - please trust that Richard and Chris will help sort through the stereotypes and homophobia that have been drifting in and out of media comments as a result of this tragedy.”


Key words used here are:
Unique aspect of our community
Sensitive
Troublesome
Stereotypes
Homophobia

This is a sensitive matter. Two men died, in a senseless fire.
But what are the bigger issues here? Is there one? What about the reasoning of Pride, and the oversexualized…unique aspect of the gay community?
What about sexual addiction? What about respecting oneself and others? This is rather troublesome.

I listened to the interview with Chris Vogel who stated a few misinterpreted fact.
1. He stated that Aquarius was renovated and was a great establishment. Unless it was renovated in the last 5 years, it was a pretty dark and dingy place.
2. He stated that drugs and alcohol were not used on the facility, and it is a known fact that Poppers are sold and drugs and alcohol are ingested on site (brought in by patrons).
3. He did however say that they needed to have installed fire detectors.

I found that an odd statement, “no fire detectors?”, is that not mandatory at all licensed established businesses. Yet, in the radio broadcast, it was stated that bathhouses do not need a license to operate? So a tragic event took place, 2 men died in an establishment that was not regulated by regular fire and health inspections. So regarding the establishment being a great place to meet and greet, it really was an accident ready to happen. It was irresponsible for the owner as well as the city to allow the establishment to open and operate.

In our city, our motto is “Take Pride Winnipeg.” How is this taking pride? How is this being committed in raising citizen responsibility?

In the end it comes down to citizens making a stand to what is allowed in their neighborhoods, parks, businesses. We live in a free country in which we have freedom of speech and freedom of religion and the right to say “enough is enough.”

Today, I have had enough.

A concerned citizen of Winnipeg.