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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Howl Now

17:52 / 19.04.06

Following the 50th anniversary of Howl's first reading, there has been a bunch of press, discussing its impact. Relevant questions include: Does it still have meaning? Is it important to you? Can there be another Howl for today's times? Should there be?

As a start, I'd direct to here.

I wrote something that turned into a Howl of sorts last year. One of the appealing things to me about the poem, which is actually also addressed in the Slate article I linked to above, is that Ginsberg seamlessly combined many of his different influences, in both theme and form, into something unique and powerful. For this poem, nearly as important as its words, I think, are its autobiographical and historical details. He's not just reflecting a tone of voice shared by a generation, he's transcribing a generation.

In some ways, today's world is more fragmented than it was in the 40s and 50s, the days leading up to the Beat generation and this poem (and other works). But in some other ways, perhaps more important ways, we are more similar to so much more of the world than we were back then, us "western" people living in capitalistic societies which enable the military industrialist nonsense.

I read the poem for the first time a few years ago, but had spent much of my adult life with some osmosis-like knowledge of its immediately recognizable lines and phrasing. Without Ginsberg, one could say, we wouldnt have Dylan, Lennon, Baraka. Part of me feels that we dont need another Howl. This is depressing to me, because I feel like the reason for that could only be because our world has made so few real advances in terms of what is addressed in the poem. On the other hand, it's possible that Howl is simply ageless, timeless, reflecting things that humanity has always had to and always will have to deal with. So I wonder if, even though we often view Howl as a work of the Beats, as reflective of those times, it's something that should be seen as more Biblical than generational. Then I think, thats the dumbest thing ever. We NEED another Howl now more than ever!

Right? Wrong?

Jawsus-son Starship

15:00 / 22.04.06

Quick Question:

Wasn't he a big ol' paedophile? I read somewhere that he was a member of NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association).

All Acting Regiment

18:00 / 22.04.06

He was definitely gay but that sounds like spurious rumour.

This Wikipedia article doesn't say anything about it, but you could always look on some other websites, there's a lot including this one.

And it doesn't seem ot fit very well with this: In 1954 Ginsberg met Peter Orlovsky, a young man of 21 with whom he fell in love and who remained his life-long lover, and with whom he eventually shared his interest in Tibetan Buddhism.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

19:20 / 22.04.06

I don't know... a Google search on "Ginsberg NAMBLA" turns up an awful lot... I'll have a read and come back. He's definitely on record as being against "persecution" of NAMBLA, afaict... possibly even a member.

I have to admit, this is all news to me, so I'll carry on trawling.

19:58 / 22.04.06

Ginsberg was a pedophile, yes. There's reasons why a lot of people distanced themselves from him in his later years. Gifts of young, drug addled, boys as a Naropa standard might be stretched but there's a root of truth.

And the NAMBLA thing's pretty much confirmable, yes?

Jawsus-son Starship

20:10 / 22.04.06

Camile Paglia has clearly completely lost it;

As far as Ginsberg's pro-NAMBLA stand goes, this is one of the things I most admire him for. I have repeatedly protested the lynch-mob hysteria that dogs the issue of man-boy love. In "Sexual Personae," I argued that male pedophilia is intricately intertwined with the cardinal moments of Western civilization...Allen Ginsberg was the apostle of a truly visionary sexuality. Like the expansive, sensual, democratic Whitman but unlike the twisted, dishonest, pretentious Foucault, he saw the continuity between great nature and the human body, bathed in waves of cosmic energy. Seen from this pagan perspective, Ginsberg's celebration of boy-love was pure and sinless, demonstrating the limitations of Judeo-Christian paradigms of sexuality.

So "the feminist that feminist's love to hate" is advocating man/boy love. Ummmm, has this women always been a fucking lunatic, or is it something she grew into, like ears?

20:54 / 22.04.06

There's a Ginsberg poem called "The Guest" where he talks about a sexual relationship with a much younger man - a (clearly hetreo) guy who's willing to sleep wtih him because of his fame. I have it in the Semiotext(e) USA anthology. Reading the poem, it's clear it's not a hymn to the desire for young (pre-puescent) boys:

Body young and strong
shapely from basketball
Skin muscular stomach strong
"I can't be your lover long

But some lines could, I suppose be read in that way:

But the thing I want most
to embody my joy
is the belly of a boy
and there I get lost

I found the poem quite touching really - it invokes the weirdness of fame, mortality and ageing, and discuss sexual desires that won't conveniently disappear. I like the way he's not willing to censor this uncomfortable material. It's the Semiotext(e) USA anthology if anyone wants to read it.

.. and Math, if Ginsberg was "a big old ped" - would that invalidate everything he's done? Would it mean that we could no longer read and discuss his poetry? Would it mean Howl, for instance, shouldn't be praised?

Jawsus-son Starship

21:07 / 22.04.06

if Ginsberg was "a big old ped" - would that invalidate everything he's done? Would it mean that we could no longer read and discuss his poetry? Would it mean Howl, for instance, shouldn't be praised?

Well, that's really an ethics question. It depends how you view paedophilia I guess. If you view Ginsberg as a paedophile, which he seems to have been (I've done about one minute of research, so I'm still undecided), then you have to think of him as a disgusting sexual predator. Then I'm thinking do I really want to hear what he has to say? I guess it doesn't change the fact that he was a fantastic poet, but can you enjoy his work if you think of him as being someone who you view to hold an intrinsically evil sexual preferance?

Jawsus-son Starship

21:12 / 22.04.06

I've started a thread in Switchboard about this, if any one wants to chat about it...

All Acting Regiment

23:32 / 22.04.06

Are we absolutely sure that an older man who feels atracted to younger men (this being legitmate as far as I'm concerned) isn't being confused with an actual pedophile, as per many homophobic fears?

Remember, older men frequently use the word "girl" to describe women of any age, and Ginsberg being Ginsberg I'd reckon there's a lot of people who'd be out to discredit him. I don't know either way.

All Acting Regiment

23:36 / 22.04.06

And when I say younger man, I mean consenting.

00:07 / 23.04.06

(cross-posted to the Switchboard thread)

Just to confuse the issue further, there's the distinction between pedophilia and pederasty. The former is a sexual attraction to pre-adolescents—to those whom we would label, without hesitation, as "children."

The latter, which was Ginsberg's proclivity, being a sexual attraction to adolescents (see also Lolita). Pederasty is a considerably more complicated matter, since a case can be made that adolescents, coming as they are into their own sexuality, can (at least theoretically) be equal and consensual partners in such relationships. I mean, it's not an argument that I necessarily buy, for a variety of reasons, but it is an argument that can be made.

NAMbLA is an umbrella group for both camps, but from what I understand, the community is sharply and bitterly split between pedophiles and pederasts. And therein lies the problem.

There was a moment there when it looked as if NAMbLA might become an intellectually respectable organization, standing up for the liberation of adolescent sexuality from mores that, in seeking to "protect" young people, instead deny them an expression of their sexual selves.

But the organization's refusal or inability to disentangle itself from its pedophile wing—who advocate a sexuality that is not, cannot be, consensual—crippled it.

In a way, it's kind of a shame. Adolescent sexuality is complex and multifarious, and one-size-fits-all approaches, like statutory rape and age-of-consent laws, present their own problems, unfairly criminalizing some legitimate sexual and emotional expression. By failing to engage with that complexity—by maintaining an absurd all-or-nothing hardline of its own—NAMbLA has all but guaranteed its own irrelevancy, guaranteed that it will remain a house divided against itself, and guaranteed that however the issue of adolescent sexual expression is settled, NAMbLA will be a part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

Jawsus-son Starship

09:01 / 23.04.06

Are we absolutely sure that an older man who feels atracted to younger men (this being legitmate as far as I'm concerned) isn't being confused with an actual pedophile, as per many homophobic fears?

True. However, even a cursory glance around the internet seems to reveal that Ginsberg was at the least a NAMbLA supporter, which raises issues not of his status as a homosexual man, but as a potential pedophile.

All Acting Regiment

09:14 / 23.04.06

Okay. Was just looking for confirmation.

14:53 / 24.04.06

Yeah I think it's really important to distinguish here between people who are attracted to people cross-generationally and paedophiles - clearly it's possible for two adults to have a pretty significant age difference and for one of them not to be considered paedophiles - cf. Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones.

Orrin's Prick Up Your Ears

09:10 / 25.04.06

"an intrinsically evil sexual preferance"

An intrinsically evil sexual ACT, surely? Even then, I'm not sure how comfortable I am with any concept of 'intrinsic evil'.

10:48 / 25.04.06

Orrin's Prick Up Your Ears, you've made me feel guilty. I'll post a bit of something I wrote about this a couple of days ago.

Ought we to reject someone's work due to the nature of their desire? I don't mean in the specific case of a description of paedophile or, say, cannibalistic acts, or its interaction with too painful personal experience, but in principle. I don't think so. In this particular case, when we are dealing with the borders of what is acceptable - in Ginsberg's case, not NAMBLA's - I doubly don't think so.

The fact is there are men who are sexually attracted to youths and even boys. That many of them would wish that the law permit them access to those they desire is an obvious corollary of this fact. That the state will refuse such a change is also, hopefully, obvious. Should such lobbying be forbidden in principle, and if so then precisely which lobbies or classes of lobbies are to be forbidden? Ginsberg thought it ought to be allowed. I don't, and I don't for reasons similar to those that would make me refuse Holocaust denial free speech. NAMBLA represent paedophiles, people who desire children, and they are unwilling to place a lower-limit on the age of the child, but anyone much younger than 14 is likely to be harmed by any such encounter. I find that unacceptable.

On the other hand, I think the statement, someone who you view to hold an intrinsically evil sexual preferance is ridiculous. One does not hold a sexual preference the way one holds a political opinion, and it's not the preference that does the damage. What does intrinsically evil mean, by the way? Is a potential pedophile, something like a potential killer, a potential rapist or a potential thief - a human being - or is it something worse?

Howl is a great poem, and Ginsberg a great poet. I can't really say much to ShadowSax's points in his initial post, but I do want to say that.

ONLY NICE THINGS

13:24 / 25.04.06

Well, pretty obviosusly nobody wants to discuss Howl, and I think I would feel slightly icky trying to do so in this car crash of a thread. Since we already have a thread on NAMBLA, I propose locking this one. if anyone actually wants to talk about Howl, a new thread would be a better bet.