Rod Fleming's World

19/11/2023

Hot Cross Buns–Cakes for the Goddess

Originally posted 2013-07-08 16:49:11.

Hot cross buns. That’s what this article is about. So why do I have a picture of a Roman sculpture of a bull’s head here instead of a nice snap of some hot cross buns?

Hot cross buns actually originated in Assyria as a part of worship of the Moon Goddess Ishtar. At least that is the earliest record we have of them. The Egyptians continued the tradition of offering cakes to their Moon-Goddess Hathor. They decorated the cakes with bull’s horns, as the ox was the preferred sacrifice of the Goddess. The cakes, therefore, were symbolic of the sacrificed bull, whose flesh would be eaten by worshippers.

Hathor has been identified with Ishtar and Astarte, who was worshipped by King Solomon, as mentioned in the Old Testament (1 Kings 11, 2), and to whom he erected a temple or shrine in Jerusalem.

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19/11/2023

Sex with a ladyboy – is it gay?

Originally posted 2017-03-21 21:33:39.

Okay. So, maybe you just woke up after a wild night, looked over the bed and there beside you, happily dreaming away without a care in the world and looking as though butter wouldn’t melt, was a ladyboy; or, if you prefer, a transsexual. Possibly you’re just considering doing this. Maybe you did already, liked it, and are wondering about yourself. Maybe you’re in a relationship with a ladyboy and still confused. So I’m going to answer the question, ‘Am I gay for having sex with a ladyboy’?

This is a pretty popular question, as you’ll see from a casual Google of the terms, but almost none of the answers make any sense. They’re either written by people who have no experience of transsexuals, ladyboys, bonecas — call them as you will, they’re all the same — or they’re written by people with a hidden agenda, trying to promote a particular political point of view.

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19/11/2023

Baklas and Beer in the Afternoon: A Tale of Manila

Originally posted 2022-04-14 15:32:15.

I have just been to the Bureau of Immigration Visa Extension Office in Makati. I have to do this once every two months, for the economy of the Philippines.

My papers are in and my money has been paid, but for unknown reasons, they’re not handing the passports with the new visas out yet. I have plans for the afternoon so will have to come back on Tuesday. I sigh and decide to get a beer and some food. I had no plans, then, to meet baklas.

Baklas, to let you know, are the local ersion of the ubiquitous ladyboy, the transwomen found all over southeast Asia, under different names. They are highly feminised males who live as women and seek straight men for partners. They are often as beautiful as natal women — or more so.

I head for Market! Market! in Taguig. It’s my favourite mall in Manila by far, partly because half of it is actually outside. Unlike some malls, there are plenty of beer-bars and small restos too, serving a myriad array of meals in price bands to suit any bakla’s pocket, as they say. So I indulge in a taxi — 105 pesos — and, once I’m there, head for the bars at the back, near the van depot. I know from experience that these are good and cheap and so, attract locals — including baklas.

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19/11/2023

Autogynephilia Explained

Originally posted 2016-02-24 06:24:15.

Autogynephilia was defined by Dr Ray Blanchard. His studies focussed on patients born male who desired Genital Reconstruction Surgery (GRS) to change their male genitalia into cosmetic facsimiles of female ones.

Blanchard’s work is the definitive basis of the science on the subject of Male-to-Feminine (MtF) transition desire.

He defined, in the first place, a group he called ‘Homosexual Transsexual’ (HSTS). The most important factors that link the individuals together is that they are uniquely sexually attracted to men, in exactly the same way as women are, and that they are remarkably feminine in manners, comportment and appearance. Their parents and siblings would have noticed from an early age that they were ‘like girls’.

Today, the consensus is that these individuals were subject to in-utero anomalies in hormone delivery. This has been supported by digit ratio studies, neurology and more. These anomalies cause a phenomenon best expressed as Sexual Inversion, in which the subject is psychologically, sexually and morphologically more similar to norms for the opposite sex.

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19/11/2023

Transsexualism: Will it end the gay lifestyle?

Originally posted 2017-11-07 19:57:03.

It’s clear that there is a deal of brouhaha about the extent to which transsexualism is impacting on the lesbian and gay, and to a lesser extent bisexual, lifestyle and political hegemony in the West. This is contributing to an increasingly bitter spat about young transitioners — people transitioning gender before they reach their majority.

There is no doubt that political activists are operating on this body of young people, some with laudable motives, others not so; but why is the lesbian and gay community so exercised?

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I first published this article on 5 May 2018 and while my thinking has evolved since then, the article remains sound and particularly in an era of increased transphobia, especially in the UK, on point. Today I would perhaps use some different terms but the sense is correct.

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19/11/2023

Fear of Islam is common sense in 2020

Originally posted 2015-01-31 03:17:47.

This article was originally published in 2015. If I thought then that things might be better by now, five years later, I was deluding myself. Today we see an upsurge, again, of Islamist violence and hatred. All of our appeasement has failed; the war intensifies. Fear of Islam is just the common-sense position to take, in 2020.

France and the world have been shocked by a brutal and vicious massacre of journalists at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. This atrocity was perpetrated by Islamists with the specific aim of preventing criticism of their ideology. In the aftermath, unprecedented levels of public outrage and grief were displayed all over France.

Just this week, 44 men of the Philippines Special Action Force were murdered by Islamists in southern Mindanao. The officers had their throats cut. This atrocity was carried out by the Islamist group the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which has made a career out of the usual stock-in-trades of the Islamist – murder, kidnapping, torture and extortion. Here too, there has been a massive outpouring of public emotion.

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19/11/2023

Id, Ego and Superego, pillars of self-ideation

Originally posted 2021-04-18 15:51:34.

Autogynephilia is one of range of conditions caused by an error in the location of the erotic target, also known as an ETLE.

As a result of this ETLE, a conflict of self-ideation occurs, in which the subject progressively begins to identify as the ETLE and not as the original host. While this process is going on, self-ideation, either as host or ETLE is weak and variable. Freud’s concepts of Id, Ego and Superego are useful here.

Instead, therefore of looking at the well-known paraphilic qualities of Autogynephilia, we should look at the nature of self-ideation and how it becomes, in some individuals, vulnerable to this sort of attack.

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19/11/2023

Angel: Women in the Philippines

Originally posted 2022-04-08 11:15:29.

I remember Angel well. I was walking along a backstreet in Cubao on my way to the Baliwag Transport depot. As I approach it I hear the familiar call: ‘Hey Joe!’

Usually I just wave my hand and smile but this time it’s a girl standing in a doorway across the street. She’s pretty, fake blonde, so I cross over. The reaction of teenage Filipinas to an approaching foreigner — even one they have just saluted — is too delicious to miss and, as predicted, the girl collapses into hysterical giggles.

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19/11/2023

Philippines Diary: Jeepneys

Originally posted 2015-01-28 14:52:34.

Most people have at least heard about jeepneys, the ubiquitous, colourful and incredibly noisy backbone of the Philippines public transport system. For those who have not, you’ll catch up.

The first jeepneys were in fact modified Willys Jeeps that the Americans left behind. The enterprising pinoys lengthened the chassis and fitted seats. Now they are custom built with stainless steel, all-enclosed bodywork and diesel engines.

Most jeepneys are 20-seaters; 18 in the back and 2 in the front, guv. This makes them unquestionably the friendliest form on transport on the planet, because actually there’s only enough room for 16 in the back and we are talking kitten-hipped pinoys here.

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19/11/2023

The Goddess in The Philippines

Originally posted 2014-03-10 13:59:50.

The Goddess is a big deal in the Philippines and goddesses are out in strength there this week. The occasion is the closing rounds of the Universities Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) women’s volleyball tournament, held at Smart Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City. Teams with names like De La Salle Lady Spikers and Ateneo de Manila Lady Eagles, the Tigresses, the Lady Warriors and the Lady Bulldogs battle it out in front of huge, enthusiastic and thoroughly partisan crowds. And these girls aren’t kidding; this is serious stuff.

The audience is mainly young – but everywhere in the Phils is mainly young. That’s only to be expected in a country where the population has increased by a factor of ten in fifty years. And there are as many men here as women. Filipinos are as passionate about volleyball as Scots are about football.

This is hard sport, and women are seen as true warriors.

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