Essay from Jaylan Salah

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Dean Ackles vs. Jensen Winchester

The hunt for the sexual side of conservative men

Jensen Ackles

Jensen Ackles

There are a few times when the female gaze has been taken into consideration when building up a male character onscreen, the articulation of a male character, assuming the sexualization is part of the package, manifesting this eyecandy of a man whose target audience are the hungry women sitting behind their screens, lusting after him and wishing the fourth wall would break so that they could put their hands on him.

Examples are –sadly- scarce across film and TV history, but none has been as enigmatic and gender-defying as Jensen Ackles, one of the two main protagonists in the CW long-running sci fi/horror series “Supernatural”.

Ever since Ackles graced TV screens in 2002 as the transgenic Alec in the ill-fated (and actually really good) series “Dark Angel”, women have swooned over every single scene in which he appeared. A natural scene stealer and surprisingly talented young actor, Ackles stole scenes from Jessica Alba and Michael Weatherly. Back then, after the cancellation of the show, it was obvious for any person with a brain over his neck, an actor like Ackles deserved a show of his own, when the TV lanscape back then had the likes of Chad Michael Murray, Tom Welling, and the older, grungier Jon Hamm, Michael C. Hall, David Duchovny and Julian McMahon.

In her essay “Breaking Down the Schtick: Jensen Ackles, Physical Comedy, Objectification, Consent, and Other Supernatural Topics Inspired By Three Seconds of Footage” Sheila O Malley describes how Supernatural creators and visual artists play the two leads’ hotness factor to the benefit of the female audiences, unlike most TV series –at least back then;

Much of the series is done in extreme closeup which tips right over into objectification. That’s part of the subversive quality of what is going on in the show, and part of the reason why the fan base can be so extreme. The makers of the show know what they are doing, and know that the inherent appeal of these two guys is enormous (by themselves, and together), and so they play up that factor consciously. They present these two guys to us in an almost mythic fashion, lingering on and loving their faces. They are objectified in a way usually reserved for female stars.

When I first watched “Supernatural”, the second season was approaching an end. The first episode that introduced me to the show was “What is and What Should Never Be” which uses Dean Winchester –the character played by Ackles- as a vessel for showing an alternate universe template in which the two ghost huntin’, ass bustin’ brothers could try normalcy and domesticity for the first time in their lives. While the premise could be seen as a trope, something that most genre TV series seek in order to create the nominal mix of mythology vs. light/out of the box episodes, the way Ackles handled the material given to him, was phenomenal to say the least. He embodied Dean Winchester, flirting both with onscreen characters and the camera. He was aware of the hungry voyeurs eyeing his every move and yet he played it subtly without a hint of theatrically orchestrating the performance. Over the course of 15 years, Ackles has played dozens of versions of himself; Demon!self, Angel!self, parodied!self, Mafia!self, Western!self, domesticated!self, to name a few.

As a wannabe geek, I am familiar with how TV abuses its templates, even in Supernatural. But even with the creativity spark skyrocketing as far as the show evolved, nothing would prepare you to Ackles’s portrayal of any version of himself; or in that case, of Dean Winchester.

I fell in love with the show as soon as I saw Ackles smoothly weave a series of emotions reserved to women. Sadness, agony, kindness, flirtatious coyness, and vulgar assertion all took a whole new level of mastery in this man’s hands. The greatest thing about how he portrayed Dean is the way a guy’s guy like Ackles; who started with the plausible 90s dreamboy quality of Leonardo DiCaprio’s fame and ended with the rough-edged, conservative, Southern upbringing boys will be boys blend- is how he manipulated audience into accepting subtlety as part of the sexual grandeur associated with the playboy archetype, which in turn would make the dough from which a whole new level of sexuality was born.

I think what drew us to Ackles –as a generation of horny TV fans, stuck in the blissful nostalgia of dreamy 90s boys and brainless American action heroes, yet unable to ignore the hyphenated, diverse hotties of the 2010s such as Idris Elba, Jason Momoa, Chris Hemsworth and Michael B. Jordan- was that there was nothing super macho, super testosterone-ish about him. When you watch the likes of Jason Momoa, Henry Cavill and the Hemsworth brothers, their sexiness and nudity restrictions are on par with a larger than life image: the big, naked guy. Even leading men like Bradley Cooper, Idris Alba and Ryan Gosling have all been in film, and the big screen treats sexuality differently, with little to leave to imagination and full frontal one item of clothing away from the rating system. With Ackles, there’s no doubting his conservativeness. He plays a promiscuous character very convincingly while keeping his clothes on most of the time. You have no doubt Dean Winchester is as playful, womanizing asshole on par with Don Draper, Hank Moody and Christian Troy yet do not get a full glimpse of that overtly sexual male power. He’s the TV version of Chris Evans, but he can really act!

Female fans flooded the Internet creating a powerful fandom like no other. In this gender-safe, sexual-safe zone where female fans could freely express their darkest sexual desires and fantasies, women’s requests for Dean Winchester strayed from the bizarre to downright creepy. Fans demanded that Dean be bound, tortured, abused emotionally, they even went as far as demand that Dean be raped, physically abused, be transformed into a woman, turn into an animal; whatever strangeness out of the sexual and perverse mind fans of Supernatural imagined it, using their favorite leads as stars of the morbid and the arousing; especially the every affluent Ackles, whose chameleon-like heteronormative sexuality bends the fine line between the masculine and the feminine, with beauty too ephemeral to be attached to a penis, and a deep voice, gruff tone too testosterone-ish to be associated with a vagina. His refusal to be nude –as well as his coyness in not commenting about it- gave the allure of the rare glimpses of his topless form a pleasure for the female –and queer male- voyeur.

Women would anticipate the episode just to take a glimpse of Ackles as the white collar, Sales & Marketing Director of a mega firm, they would drool after Dean the cowboy, Dean the film noir lead, Dean the angel and Demon Dean. In their own way, Supernatural female fans dressed up Ackles like their version of Barbie’s Ken, and it worked! Creators listened to what these horny women requested and handed them Ackles on a gold plate, adorned with garnish.

There was nothing about Ackles, however, that screamed traditional sexy man on the block. He was humble, modest and very Southern, a thick accent obvious every time he opened his mouth, a shyness that kept retreating to the back of the camera whenever he was on stage as part of a fan convention or a fundraiser. Ackles was no modern day activist à la the rest of the celebrities around the globe, he did not publicly express his political views, he did not get involved in controversies, he did not address pressing issues such as gender and sexuality, he firmly resisted molding his character’s elusive sexuality as homosexual, preferring to play it safe –and also in accordance with his conservative views of sex and sexuality- and stick to the playboy persona.

Ackles’s sexuality is part of his identity both as an actor and as a persona in branding himself and subconsciously the show to which he owes his success. Ackles marketed his character as a tormented hero, an atheist who lives the day and practices carpe diem rather than institutionalized religion. While Ackles is a family man, one who carefully and tactfully plans his future and that of his children. He still lives in his hometown Texas and opened a bar that drives its success from his own show.

In a way, Jensen Ackles started his fandom relationship rather awkwardly, relying on his conservative background. Despite firmly resisting the queer gaze that targets his character Dean Winchester, Ackles succeeded in becoming the newest heartthrob in the queer community, attracting gays, lesbians and those who have no defined gender preference, in a way he intimated them; he was not like the LGBTIQ supporters in celebrityverse whose openness about the issues that the gay community faced were part of their brand personas, a means of assuring their fans that they are on their side and of showing the good side of being a celebrity in the modern world. Ackles, however, resorted to his old soul quality of not acting all modern-day activist gone acting. He may not be Lady Gaga, but the majority of his fanbase is queer, gay, lesbian and transsexual. Fan encounters of Ackles supporting his fans individually or one-on-one, encouraging them and supporting their choices leaves more than meets the eye to his persona as well as his sexual power. This is not merely a TV superstar but more of a power figure in the TV industry, which should –hopefully so- be reincarnated in edgier, more diverse works of art.

Jaylan Salah is an Egyptian poet, translator, two-time national literary award winner, animal lover, feminist, film critic, and philanthropist. Jaylan’s first story collection “Thus Spoke La Loba,” published in 2016, explores sexuality, gender, and issues of identity. Her first poetry book “Workstation Blues” will be published with PoetsIN, a publishing house with the purpose of destigmatizing mental illness and supporting international artists.

Author Jaylan Salah

Jaylan Salah is an Egyptian poet, translator, two-time national literary award winner, animal lover, feminist, film critic, and philanthropist. Jaylan’s first story collection “Thus Spoke La Loba,” published in 2016, explores sexuality, gender, and issues of identity. Her first poetry book “Workstation Blues” will be published with PoetsIN, a publishing house with the purpose of destigmatizing mental illness and supporting international artists.

Poetry from Brian Rihlmann

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ARTISTS, ALL
if we cannot leave behind
poetry
a garden
or children
wiser than we were

then we will leave daydreams
of an ideal world
like traces of music
unheard
reverberating across the sky

and etch the scars
of our separation
like bathroom wall vandals
onto other bodies and souls

and the earth

leaving our denuded
and scorched masterpiece
with not a creature left
to piss on the ashes

CASTING OUR NETS
On New Year’s Eve,
a young woman writes in the sand
with a stick of washed up driftwood
faded white as bone:

“Joy”
“Love”
“Empowered”

and then lets the ocean
pull the words into her depths,
as though casting a net
to draw from the universe
the desired things themselves.

I remember writing our names
on a beach somewhere,
inside a heart,
with the word “forever,”

and how we stood
on the cliff above,
looking down on it,
wrapped in each other’s arms.

The waves took that, too.

You know
how this ends.

Maybe I should tell her about that,
but she probably read about
this inscribing-hopes-in-the-sand technique
in some bestselling book,
and I am just a nosy guy
walking alone on a beach.

WE LONERS
we loners
drift far from the harbor
of family and friends
solitary buoys bobbing
on a swollen sea of time
too much time
riding relentless waves
of contemplation
mad surfers with
but one life
yet unafraid of what
curiosity
did to the cat
we pursue threads
of memory and imagination
through crooked passages
howling and dark
snipping the pieces
that stick to our grasping fingers
stuffing our pockets full
and with these
invisible fibers
weave a cocoon
to huddle in
over the years
adding layers
patching holes
and inside
echoes of echoes
swallow the original voice
as their volume swells
a whirlpool of static
mistaken for self
as burly white coated men
drag shackled sanity
off in a padded van
alone
one’s madness
becomes the truth
of a god
whose whims
are chiseled
in stone
we kneel before
our mirrors
then destroy them
THE ROUGHEST DRAFT
You were my roughest draft of all,
a piece written
and rewritten
until my brain smoldered,
and the pen
grew too heavy
for my fingers to hold.

We’re a story
no one could write,
though I tried.

Pages upon pages of you,
of angrily slanted scrawls
and wild loops
crossing lines into margins,
sometimes plunging
off the sharp white edge
like a 2 a.m. drunk
driving off a cliff.

I keep them
in my bedroom closet,
their futile ink fading
inside a cardboard coffin,
buried beneath a pile
of old clothes
that don’t fit anymore.

Short story from Michael Robinson

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Absolution

Michael Robinson (right)and fellow contributor Joan Beebe

 

 Absolution  

She had left the church at age sixteen never wanting to return. Now twenty-six years later she found herself sitting in the pew quietly weeping. She thought, would there be absolution for the kind of life she had had? It all was a blur, the drugs and prostitution. It started the night that her father wanted to have sex with her when she was sixteen.

He came into her tiny room with the shades closed, with the smell of jasmine in the air. She was a medium sized girl. He body had developed nicely, and her father watched her attentively while she lay in bed with a sheer night gown surrounding her delicate body. He stood in the shadows of the room and watched her for a long time. Finally he got the courage to sit next to her.

She awoke, alarmed to find her father watching her with probing eyes. He began to touch her shoulders and her body froze. He continued to move his hand down her breast. His hand started to shiver.  She was unable to mutter a sound other than a weak whimper as he continued to probe her tender body. He was physically demanding in his sexual advances with her. There was no sensitivity as he all but forced himself onto her.

She found herself staring at the ceiling while he pleasured himself with her. She was numb that night that her father forced himself onto her. Now for ten years there had been a chain of unspeakable experiences with pimps, Johns, and being hooked on cocaine. One day it quietly came to her that if she could make it back to the church, she could regain her life before that night with her father.

She had always believed in god since she could remember and she did not blame him for the many years she was mental, physically, emotionally scarred by life. She stumbled into the church with her tattered soul, her clothing revealing her now fully developed body, damaged from years of abuse.

A nun was kneeling at the altar for her morning devotions when she noticed the young woman. The young woman’s physical appearance brought tears to the nun’s eyes. The nun knew her story and had lived the story herself. Both women kneeled at the altar and simultaneously began to weep. It was at this moment that life began for them both. A nun and a prostitute had found peace and absolution for sins that had been committed against them. It was their faith that had allowed them to discover the true meaning of absolution.

Short fiction from Henry Bladon

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Just an Ordinary Experience

Magritte's Reckless Sleeper
The Reckless Sleeper, 1928 Rene Magritte (1898-1967). Purchased 196.9

I knew I shouldn’t have told you my dream about the gravestone. As usual, you wanted to sound clever and said that the apple was a representation of my desire for wisdom, and that the hat was about my fear of power. The mirror was a little too obvious and I was disappointed in you. You can’t say ‘That’s about taking a look at yourself.’ You may as well have said it’s about introspection and searching the soul. I’ve come to expect more from our chats. The bird? Freedom, you stated, with no small amount of confidence. By this time, I was getting weary again. And I shouldn’t have mentioned the candle. That set you off on your usual path of criticism about religion; how you don’t trust it and that it is only there to control people. Stop worrying, it was just a candle.

Luckily, I forgot about the bow, so I didn’t have to listen to your suggestions about my childhood and whether I might have been teased because my mother bought me shoes with bows on and how that has created a subliminal block and led to psychic conflict.

That’s the trouble when you have friends who are psychoanalysts, you’re not allowed to have an ordinary experience. Call me reckless if you chose, but I like sleeping in my box with my red blanket. It’s the place I feel safest of all.

Henry Bladon is based in Somerset in the UK. He is a writer of short fiction and poetry and teaches creative writing for therapeutic purposes. He has degrees in psychology and mental health policy, and a PhD in literature and creative writing. He frequently writes commentary about mental health issues and his literary work can be seen in O:JA&L, Tuck Magazine, Mercurial Stories, The Ekphrastic Review, and Spillwords Press, among other places.

Poetry from Margarita Serafimova

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We were on the beach, and then we weren‘t.

There is nothing more to say.

It is empty, seen from above.

 

In a Capsule of Close-up Infinity

 

When we look at one another,

and only our bodies are between us,

our tenderness is surgery of a star.

 

The whale before the horizon is serenely

and solemnly breathing.

And who are we?

 

The wild stones, in love with the sand,

with curls and quaint beauty,

they breathe too.

And I am breathing with them, mouth to mouth.

 

Leaves, my kings, your bright is dark,

and your dark is bright.

You are in the sky.

 

The stars are coming.

Time is racing asphalt.

 

Leaning on the window’s shutter, eyes closed,

I was inhaling deeply from the bunch of sage you’d hung up there.

“I am having sex with the Earth”, I told you.

“How so?”, you asked.

“Here, like that, with the scent – it enters me, and I give myself.”

 

Soaring is the hyacinth,

a crown of itself,

a crowning of the own,

and an I above the crown.

 

The permutations of love were taking place in a sunlit space.

Spring was maturing into summer,

death was evolving, it now involved planets and roots.

 

It was a circle.

Somewhere in it, I overflowed –

my eyes had mirrored themselves in the deep of yours.

Gray flecked, with lights.

 

 

Margarita Serafimova was shortlisted for the Montreal Poetry Prize 2017, Summer Literary Seminars 2018 and 2019, and Hammond House Prize 2018; long-listed for the Christopher Smart (Eyewear Publishing) Prize 2019, Erbacce Press Poetry Prize 2018 and Red Wheelbarrow 2018 Prize, and nominated for Best of the Net 2018. She has three collections in Bulgarian. Her work appears in Agenda Poetry, London Grip, Waxwing, Trafika Europe, Landfill, A-Minor, Poetry South, Great Weather for Media, Orbis, Nixes Mate, StepAway, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Leveler, Mookychick, HeadStuff, Minor Literatures, Writing Disorder, Birds We Piled Loosely, Chronogram, Noble/ Gas, Origins, The Journal, miller’s pond, Obra/ Artifact, Arteidolia/ Swifts&Slows, Memoir Mixtapes, glitterMOB, TAYO, Guttural, Punch, Tuck, Ginosko, etc. Visit: https://www.facebook.com/MargaritaISerafimova/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel.

Short story from Michael Robinson

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One Night in the Shadow of Bliss

III 

Michael Robinson (right)and fellow contributor Joan Beebe

Lace bra and underpants covered her body, as she stood, in front of the mirror, her eyes were strong. Her pupils opened wide filling with moist tears. Her memories returned to the night when the moon was full when the stars were bright in the night skies, she saw a glimmer of life. The smell of sweetness remained in the air while there was darkness reflecting from her heart. She wanted to leave those thoughts behind and accept warmth of a man’s touch. It was more than his touch, it was her life she began to remember her past which was painful. The following morning her emotions would be raw. However, for now it would be safe to be a woman in love, to feel the sensations of womanhood. She would forget the painful past for those hours with him.

The gentleness between them was electrifying with foreplay. Holding her close to his body, kissing her from the top of body gently, and quietly moving his fingers across her lips. She laid there with her eyes closed enjoying the moment. He touched her breast with his fingers playing with her pierced nipples between his fingers. She knew what would be next because they had always made love with his lips replacing his fingers on the left nipple. The earring in her navel made his touch even more exciting to her.  

She began to moan, breathing deeply. Her skin was smooth, and his tongue covered her stomach the movement of his lips and tongue made her cry as she had several orgasms. She was in a state of total surrender to his every touch. Knowing that her pierced clitoris would be next. Her pubic hair was soft from the wetness of his tongue. He didn’t mind kissing her vagina. He loved the fluid of her body mixed with his saliva leaving a tart taste. It was always like this when they had intercourse. He would wrap his arms around her midsection holding her tight enough that the sweat between them united.  

She loved being this close to someone that made love feel love for herself in this manner. Certain that he would always be gentle and sensitive to her sexuality. It was not being fucked like with the others. It wasn’t that kind of relationship between them. He wanted to satisfy her to make her feel love and connected to him. He wanted her to feel like she and he was more than a one-night stand and each time he was determined to express his desire to be the only man she would ever want to be with. She loved him so she gave herself to him without hesitation.

Touching his eyelids slightly with her manicured red fingernails with her open palm she closed his eyes. Her lips were soft and full. She touched his nipples with her lips biting the hardened nipples of his. He would shake with excitement, as she moves down his body, slowly with intense she made him moan. She gentle climbed on top of him and for what was a moment of ecstasy both had an orgasm together. A quiet moan which gave her gratification knowing he was fulfilled by her.

He was the one man she gives herself totally and he knew it by the way she made him feel and respond to her gentleness. The street lights pierced through the closed curtains reflecting the soft powder blue color of the them. She saw his reflection as she stood with glazed eyes watching him. Her brown eyes did not reflect life but rather despair. She quietly put on her red skin-tight dress. Lying on the dresser was an envelope with payment for the night encounter. The light in the corridor was a shock to her eyes. Her red heels were lost in the thickness of the carpet in the hallway. She returned to the corner in which she worked and waited for her next customer knowing she was loved in a world of pain. 

Poetry from J.J. Campbell

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Author J.J. Campbell

Author J.J. Campbell

J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is old enough to know where the bodies are buried. He’s been widely published over the years, most recently at The Rye Whiskey Review, The Dope Fiend Daily, Fourth & Sycamore, Horror Sleaze Trash and Cajun Mutt Press. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)
———————————————————————————————
long days of pain
 
there’s an old
black soul deep
inside me
these long days
of pain are nothing
new
the ache starts
in the small of
the back and
climbs the spine
until it rests in
my brain
on the good days
i’m only crazy
on the bad days
some motherfucker
is going to find out
how much evil is
inside me
———————————————————————————–
when the darkness takes over
 
laughter is the last
thing that leaves
a crazy mind
when the darkness
takes over every
nook and cranny
it can either be
the slow decline
or a rush of blood
to the head
there’s a shotgun
in the corner for
a reason
——————————————————————————-
sign language
 
my mother
is losing
her hearing
i let her know
the only sign
language i
remember is
how to sign
eat shit and
die
she laughs
and gives me
the sign that
i am number
one
———————————————————————————
the same year you were molested as a child
 
picture that
utopia you
fantasized
about as
a teenager
and then
remember
you realized
what death
was the same
year you were
molested as
a child
utopias never
have existed
at least not
without the
help of
chemical
substances
and a
repressed
society can
never reach
its full
potential
ever
———————————————————————————–
getting warmer
 
the weather is
finally getting
warmer
soon, it will
be short skirts
and a lonely
man seeking
an adventure