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Michael Douglas Liberates as Liberace

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Behind the Candelabra, Steven Soderberg’s highly buzzed-about final bow, starring Michael Douglas as Liberace and Matt Damon as his lover, Scott Thorson, has arrived on HBO, and it has made Douglas’ father uncomfortable. In an interview with ABC, Douglas said, “My father was uncomfortable with–,” before pausing. With what? With the furs and makeout scenes, to which the press constantly, anxiously directs our attention? Not exactly. The actor continued: “With my death scene.” Douglas had been diagnosed with stage-4 throat cancer prior to filming Candelabra, so his mortality was understandably on his father’s mind. But with all the talk of these “brave” straight actors stepping into “flamboyant” roles, Douglas’ poignant admission may clarify the discomfort this film more generally evokes, revealing what lies beneath (or behind) male anxieties about homosexuality, feminine behaviors or anything we associate with vulnerability: the fear of death.

Fear of death “will culminate in a disparagement of the feminine,” writes professor Jerry S. Piven, explaining that internal conflicts that men have about women (e.g., lust vs. rejection, love vs. loss, power vs. vulnerability, etc.) are often “displaced onto those feared and detested women, and they become sirens, murderous temptresses … while the men gain moral victory.” Ironically, two of Michael Douglas’ iconic characters are seduced by “murderous temptresses,” in Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct. So when the press marvels at his “risky”/”risqué” turn in Candelabra, it may have less to do with him kissing a man than with his willful and thorough embodiment of a “temptress” (a seductively feminine rather than victoriously masculine character) and the great vulnerability he reveals, which we’ve never before seen from him. Perhaps it’s no accident that he embraces this effeminate role at a time when he has no choice but to confront his own mortality.

Douglas gives an emboldened performance, and though he consistently moves and speaks with a mellifluous, feminine sensuality throughout the film, what’s most uncanny is that he seems to be playing Michael Douglas. Rather than impersonate his sparkly subject superficially, his flame is lit from within, and as if by anesthetizing his own famously gruff, straight-leading-man-persona, he exposes a playful, gentle, compassionate version of himself. (Watching him in the role, one imagines that he understands Liberace’s vanity and struggle between public and private life much more deeply than initially meets the eye). As the complicated, glitzy piano man, Douglas is confidently life-affirming and love-affirming and boldly death-aware, reminding us, by contrast, that when we limit our expressive possibilities, we deny ourselves access to such empathy and creativity, instead perpetuating fear and hate (of death, of women and of those more vulnerable than ourselves).

Do all men have to wait for death to flutter so close to be allowed such freedom? Douglas praises his co-star, Matt Damon, for risking “career death” and taking an effeminate, gay role while still in his prime, but Damon is an outlier among his peers, and films about gay, effeminate or just plain vulnerable men are nearly nonexistent, even to this day. (Behind the Candelabra was turned down by every major film studio.) Are men and boys expected to limit their expression to forms of dominance and aggression until death taps on their doors?

Here we might consider the great resources within women: the willingness to play a range of emotions and gendered behaviors onscreen among them. Studies show that women cope with stress, grief and loss more openly and seek support (including mental health treatment) more frequently than men do, suggesting that they generally have a stronger grasp on researcher Brene Brown’s conclusion that “[v]ulnerability is not weakness. Vulnerability is courage.” If we allowed more men to believe those words, we might see fewer of them anxiously grasping at illusions of virility and impenetrability, as if to cheat death. We might see less aggression and derision at the expense of women, gay men, effeminate men and emotionally sensitive men. For example, when Ben Affleck presented an award to his good friend Damon before filming for Candelabra began, he felt the compulsion to facetiously impersonate Damon’s father, saying, “Terrific, Matt. I can’t wait to see you up there blowing Michael Douglas under a piano.” In contrast, Candelabra producer Jerry Weintraub says that while on set during a sex scene between Damon and Douglas, he turned anxiously to Damon’s mother, who simply stated, “That was beautiful.”

Hopefully we won’t view this as a masculine/feminine divide for long. The new Star Trek film, for example, indicates that men embracing vulnerability could be the way of the future. Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto (as Kirk and Spock, respectively) give wonderfully sensitive performances, and although we are reminded that their characters are both unquestionably straight (Kirk constantly flirts with every species of female, while Spock frequently kisses Zoe Saldana), the film is undeniably centered on the love story (or “bromance,” if you like) between the two men, both of them affected and changed by the possibility of the other’s death. This focus on a male/male emotional relationship only strengthens the story rather than weakening it, allowing both actors to play a variety of emotions, freely and without restraint. We can see more of this if we allow it. Men don’t have to be at death’s door, or play the most bedazzled guy who ever was, in order to express themselves with emotional freedom.

Michael Douglas’ performance as Liberace is vital, revealing what is possible beyond fear of loss, fear of emasculation or fear of death. Maybe soon we’ll see more leading men playing emotionally diverse roles and more films about women and gender-nonconforming people, and maybe more of these people will be able to play themselves. As for the rest of us, perhaps we’ll risk more discomfort as we perform our own lives, enriching them with vulnerability rather than enshrouding them in fear.

American Psycho(analysis)

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125282-124069“Man up, dudes.”

This was how American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis summarized, via Twitter, his recent op-ed for Out.com. Whether reflecting a conscious decision or something less self-aware, the tweet helpfully and revealingly distills the gay writer’s piece down to its basic intent: to split the LGBT communities in two, pitting, for example, “manly dudes” against “femmy queens,” “real” guys against stereotypes, and “us” against “them.” It’s not entirely clear why Ellis must bifurcate thoughts, people and factions throughout his article, but exploring his consistent tendency to do so may give us insight into more than just the prolific author himself and can further serve as an illustration of how the most vulnerable members of our communities become the primary recipients of social aggression, even from within our own communities.

Ellis begins his op-ed by making points on which we can all agree: that it would be nice if coming out didn’t have to be a “brave” and “daring” act in 2013; that equality would feel more real if all newly out public figures weren’t made into talismans; and that the LGBT community is often spoken about in a homogenized way that carries oppressive expectations, like any other generalizing norm. Nevertheless, as much as anyone may agree with these valid points, the author can’t seem to make them without angrily contradicting himself. At first he acknowledges that the aforementioned limitations pervading queer lives are a result of what he calls “tyrannical homophobia,” particularly within the straight-male-centered (“dude”) sports world. But then he abruptly turns on a dime and blames queer people, specifically those he calls the “gay magical elf,” the “simpering Ka-ween” and the “stereotypical” (i.e., effeminate) gay man, for bringing these painful limitations upon themselves. (In noteworthy contrast to the “elf gays,” he aligns himself with another category of his own creation, the “chill gay dude.”)

How can this split in Ellis’ thinking be understood? Why must he attack some of the most vulnerable members of his own community for themselves being targets of attack? Founding psychoanalyst Melanie Klein’s theories may help to explain this. Klein theorized that in states of anxiety, we split “self” and “other.” We create a “them vs. us,” pushing away our vulnerability and need. In such moments, we fail to hold both “good” and “bad” feelings; we continue to split and project (maybe even tweet) rigid notions of “good” vs. “bad” as adults. Perhaps Ellis’ contradictions reflect a lack of Kleinian integration regarding his identity as a gay man, a dilemma of “good Bret” vs. “bad Bret.” Perhaps identification with the “elf gays” would make him feel like a victim (“bad Bret”), whereas identifying with a straight “dude” makes him feel powerful (“good Bret”). His article seems to support such a theory, as he writes that “straight dudes” often tweet homophobic slurs at him, and that he simply, “shrug[s] it off,” suggesting that the queer targets of his own slurs should do the same and “man up,” as he tweeted.

(A split between “man/good” and “woman[ly]/bad” is not terribly surprising for a guy whose film writing career is bookended by American Psycho, about a man who horrifically decimates women with power tools, and the as-yet-unreleased The Canyons, whose extended pre-release clip involves Lindsay Lohan being assaulted by an angry man as she searches for her cell phone.)

This read might be of little concern if Ellis weren’t a renowned author with a Twitter following in the hundreds of thousands. But he is, and his words, projections, tweets and articles potentially influence those who struggle with concepts of identity, gender and/or sexuality — and who may even use his words to justify acts of hate against effeminate men, transgender people and/or women. Consider the “them against us” mentality being touted by the Gaybros, an online group that, like Ellis, accuses “stereotypical” gay men of alienating them because of their identification with straight “dudes.”

If Ellis wanted simply to critique our society’s harmful tendency to categorize people, few would argue with him. But argument seems to be what he intends. He does not appear content to privately enjoy his self-identification as a “real” gay “dude.” Instead, he insists on asserting his “dudeness” by publicly splitting himself from the “elf gays.” For Ellis there seems to be no realness, no masculinity, no power (and perhaps no self) without a despised, feminine, vulnerable foil. When he writes that he was “ostracized” by GLAAD (the very organization he chides for creating the “magical gay elf” phenomenon, and for throwing “hissy fit[s]”) in being disinvited from their awards ceremony this year, I can’t help but imagine another scenario: Ellis as a high school student, getting picked for a sports team, but then suddenly accusing the effeminate gay boy sitting on the bench (still unpicked) for rejecting him. One wonders why Ellis would even want to attend the GLAAD awards if his status as a “chill gay dude” is working so well for him.

The author also claims further victimization by the “gay elite,” whom he says “punish” him for not living a “normal” gay life. This rhetorical move is what I call the bully defense, in which those associated with minority groups are accused of being “sanctimonious,” “on high” and “elite” by those who attack them, sometimes with brute force. (Refer to the garden of American politics to witness the flourishing of this defense.) Sadly, by using this framework, Ellis only reinforces the problem he seeks to undo. He is certainly not alone in wanting to explode stereotypes and expand notions of queer identity, but as queer theorist Heather Love says, “[r]esisting the call of gay normalization means refusing to write off the most vulnerable,” and by splitting queer people into “elves” and “dudes,” Ellis does just that. He can’t deny that the types of characters GLAAD has drawn attention to, those he writes off as “bitch clowns” and “queeny best friends,” not only exist in real life but are among the most vulnerable people on Earth. Acceptance of our community’s most targeted members in mass media only means more possibilities for all of us, not less.

There may be hope yet. For example, Ellis has publicly “apologized” to director Kathryn Bigelow for his misogynistic outbursts about her last year. (He credits his mother for helping him with this apology, which could mean his primary caregiver is helping him to integrate “good Bret” and “bad Bret,” à la Kleinian theory.) Perhaps, in similar fashion, he will eventually be ready to discuss queer identities with less rage, and with the capacity to consider a variety of selves, not just “elf” vs. “dude.”

In the meantime, we might all reflect upon our own damaging tendencies to split our communities. Media representations of our lives may be limited, but we can create and encourage many more, including those that depict us as vulnerable. Owning our most vulnerable selves, as opposed to destroying them, allows us to move. Splitting, on the other hand, only keeps us stuck.

To Be, Or To Be “Well”: How Therapy Works

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A guy walks into a therapist’s office — sadly this is no joke — and says, “I just read an article in the New York Times, and I’ve got some questions. What do you know about my condition? What’s your success rate with people like me? When will I get well?”

More and more, psychotherapists are fielding such questions due to the recent onslaught of articles proclaiming that short-term “evidence-based” practices — e.g., Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT — “work” better than long-term psychodynamic treatments. The bottom line is, there is “evidence” supporting the efficacy of both. But I don’t intend to go there, or to define “CBT” and “psychodynamic” for the many people have no idea what the terms even mean; to do so would only fan the flames of the Republican vs. Democrat-style wars between the two. Instead, I’d like to discuss how therapy works (all therapy) as opposed to why it works, and how specific people, such as those in the LGBT communities, are affected when we presume to know what makes someone mentally and emotionally “well”.

First, what does “well” even mean? We can all agree that our bodies are unwell when attacked by the common cold, cancer, or even ourselves (e.g., self-mutilation or starvation). But who determines the wellness of the boy who feels more like a girl, or the girl who wants to marry a girl, or the girl who feels ostracized for lacking “sex appeal”? One such arbiter is presumably Harriet Brown, the latest writer (and non-mental health professional) published in the Times this month, who asserts that motivational therapy techniques based on “scientific research” are “working,” while clinicians who are “good with people” — as opposed to being “scientific” in their approach — are wasting your time. The idea of wellness underlying Brown’s op-ed piece is summed up in comparisons she makes between psychotherapy and buying a car: Brown quotes a psychologist who cites studies indicating that less than half of psychotherapists use “motivational techniques”, and who reasons, “You wouldn’t buy a car under those conditions”.

This is a conveniently tidy analogy, but the wellness of a car is objectively determined and the emotional wellness of a human being is, obviously, not. Cars have malfunctions, not subjective experience. They don’t have to conceal their sexual desires fearing discrimination or physical attack. Cars do not privately suffer from identity conflicts or body dysmorphia. (I’ve yet to hear of an anxious SUV that feels like a Mini Cooper on the inside.) If “well” for us means our “parts” are in order, who gets to decide what our sexual, emotional, and gender-expressive “parts” should look like? Who can say if we’re running properly?

When a client enters my office I don’t know them until I know them, and knowing a person requires time, patience, and the wisdom to dispense with assumptions. I may use “evidence-based” directives at the beginning of a treatment with someone who can’t focus, or washes her hands until they bleed, or starves himself (and may refer them for medical treatment, if necessary). But even if such a client were to increase focus, reduce hand washing, or begin to eat, is that where treatment ends? Is she well? Engine fixed, exterior painted, let’s sell this car?

Let’s say a lesbian-identified client with severe anxiety enters therapy. We could use scientific research to explain why there are more straight-identified women in the world than women like her. We could also find studies that explain why she might have anxiety as a result. We could even prescribe evidence-based techniques to help reduce her symptoms. But would any of this validate her unique experience or give her space to discuss how she lives, how she struggles, and how she survives — not all lesbians with anxiety but She, with her specific history and challenges?

The benefits of psychotherapy are in being seen, heard, and having the space to, as psychoanalyst Donnell Stern says, “formulate experience”– often, experience that never before had the chance to breathe. Therapy is ideally a safe relationship in which to discuss how our bodies, desires, and sociopolitical contexts impact our lives. It is an opportunity to discuss the undiscussable and how this very lack of discussion has influenced our behaviors — a point I have made on Huffpost earlier this year, regarding the discourse on guns and mental health. No matter what method, style, type, or technique is being used, good therapy allows one to be; to awaken to one’s adaptive, or perhaps maladaptive, patterns; and to consider the propensity for these patterns, once “healed,” to strike again in another form. (Not unlike fat cells accumulating in one’s arms after one has had liposuction everywhere else– I’ve seen it happen.) Therapy helps us to be us, to genuinely be, feel, and think in relationship with another.

As I stated above, a variety of therapy approaches can be useful at different times, but to be inundated with New York Times-endorsed articles about types of therapy that “work,” fix,” or make us “well,” to the exclusion of other types, is damaging. It is damaging not only for therapists who have dedicated their lives to the art of empathic recognition, but also for the multitude of people whose complex stories, needs, and longings remain unsung — including lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender people who are regularly told that they are “not well” by much of society.

Renowned psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Jack Drescher once explained in a paper how “traditional scientific viewpoints discredit personal voices” and, consequently, how his approach to therapy had shifted from “a scientific view…toward a hermeneutic one,” particularly because of his identity as a gay man and his desire to help other queer people.

All of us deserve to have our unique stories heard in a therapeutic context, beyond our “symptom” pictures and beyond the “scientific” solution to our “problems.” As a client recently said to me, “getting well implies returning to the way I once was, but therapy has helped me to adapt and to grow. Simply erasing my symptoms would be like retreating, and why would I want to do that?”

Brendan Ayanbadejo and ‘The Other Team’

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Brendan Ayanbadejo holds rank as LGBT hero-of the-moment. His post-Super Bowl, interview with CNN’s Don Lemon showcased his well informed, well-spoken, worldliness, as he declared equality for all, regardless of sexuality or gender expression. Ayanbadejo’s advocacy touches down with more impact than many advocates who are gay themselves (including Lemon, who came out in 2010 and has been a strong advocate for the community ever since), and not just because of his NFL platform, his obvious intelligence, looks, and charisma, but because he’s authentically not gay. His very straightness sends the message, “You’re allowed to be different. Different from me, and different from each other”.

We need even more passionate battle cries in this vein, on behalf of those who are different from ourselves — in general, not just in the LGBT communities — especially for those who have less power than we do.

Now, I’m ambivalent about power, and therefore about top-down advocacy. But as much as it makes me cringe, I also recognize that I benefit from power, and that it’s so tangled up into our systems that to completely extricate ourselves would be impossible. Top-down advocacy seems to imply paternalism, a patronizing of the “weaker”, and one could argue that paternalism is an inherent problem when we rely on straight public figures for effective LGBT advocacy. But we can also see this advocacy as maternalism, or using power to be nurturing, a necessary process in child development and identity formation; we gain confidence to express ourselves freely, and form a sense of self that is separate from our parents though this process. But as a man planning to raise children with another man, these gender labels don’t really work either. In fact, let’s remove the “parental” dynamic from this equation altogether and simply call what Ayanbabadejo is doing social caretaking — authentically claiming a position of social power, attuning to the differences of those who are less powerful, and encouraging them to claim their equally authentic but distinctly different identities, and forms of expression.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if powerful LGBTers could inhabit this role of social caretaker“?, you might ask. Indeed. For example, great as it is that straight movie stars like Sean Penn, James Franco, Michael Douglas, and Matt Damon show the world that kissing other men, and inhabiting feminine clothes and gestures, really doesn’t make the sky fall, we would certainly benefit from more of the Jane Lynch’s, Sean Hayes’s, Wanda Sykes’s, Heather Matarazzo’s, Dennis O’Hares, and Chris Colfers in that hot seat.

The problem here is that of the LGBT figures in the limelight, the ones identified as heroes (in the vein of Mr. Ayanbadejo) and the ones we tend to attach ourselves to as such, are the conformers, ie. those who are “straight acting,” suggesting that it’s OK to be gay, as long as you act “straight”. (We should take a moment to consider novelist Christopher Rice’s observation about the conundrum of the term “straight acting,” that it “implies an ignorance of the mechanics of gay sex”). Public figures like Dan Savage and Rosie O’Donnell are (tragically) often considered to be too non-conforming (too “gay acting”?) though they have both made phenomenal contributions in the way of LGBT youth and families in particular. By contrast, consider what actor Neil Patrick Harris once told Out magaizne:

“The first face that empowered me was Danny Roberts from The Real World: New Orleans. I think before him I’d never seen anyone wear [homosexuality] so comfortably… I could look to him as a role model… He represented a way that I could behave and stand tall comfortably without being an overt advocate and without being someone hiding in the shadows. I liked that.”

For those unfamiliar with the stone age of reality TV, Danny Roberts was considered to be the most “All American”/”straight acting” gay cast member on The Real World as of 1999. (The show had featured approximately one gay character per season since 1991).

It’s wonderful to know that not all queer people are created equal (that some are highly sexual, and some are not, some are outspoken, and some are not, some conform to traditional gender stereotypes and and some do not), but when those who conform are the only ones offering us hope, hope begins to look pretty limiting, and therefore pretty grim.

Perhaps the time will come when a variety of queer people will be as highly influential as Brendan Ayanbadejo, and I hope it’s soon. The more people leading authentic lives — authentically negotiating between conformity, and nonconformity, power, and vulnerability, freedom and limitations — the more we’ll all feel entitled to do so in our own way. However, while people continue to bravely live their truth, we also need those on top, those holding the trophy of social power, to authentically reflect on their own identities, their own status, and to pave the way for those who are different from them to do the same. Like an attuned caretaker to one less powerful, this process provides safety and permission to be authentically separate but equal.

Death Wish Recognized: A Case for Long-Term Treatment

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Who creates a massacre? Can we identify that person? Can they be stopped? Congress hopes to answer these questions by the end of February. But where will these answers come from?

Enter The Bipartisan Task Force on Gun Prevention and Children’s Safety, the Connecticut legislators who will draft a bill, informed in part by public hearings related to the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook. The “Mental Health Public Hearing”, which took place on Tuesday Jan. 29 in Hartford, garnered a variety of suggestions to improve state mental health services, most of which included the words: “psychiatrist”, “mental illness”, and “medication.” Do these words get us any closer to answering the interminable questions above, or do they simply attempt to soothe our desperate and restless desire to control the uncontrollable?

Massacres create chaos and despondency, both of which Americans abhor. We like to make sense of such things by compartmentalizing (blaming “mental illness”), putting someone in charge (a psychiatrist), and endowing them with a weapon to cut off murderous plots at the knees (medication). This is all implied when solutions such as involuntarily psychiatric treatment (which was recommended at the Hartford hearing) are put on the table.

For such solutions to be effective assumes the following: Potential killers all exhibit distinct and palpable neon-signs of a mental disorder (the words “schizophrenia”, “autism”, and “psychotic” were repeatedly used in Tuesday’s hearing). They will be compliant with mental health treatment, can afford treatment, and/or have insurance that covers treatment. They will confess to a psychiatrist — on the first or second visit — that they have a clear and actionable plan to harm themselves or someone else; and if not, the psychiatrist (who after-all, tops the pecking order of mental health providers) can instantly identify the patient’s desire, intent, and potential to carry through with such a plan. After pinning the scarlet letter of a diagnosis on the patient, and prescribing corresponding medications, the psychiatrist will have successfully thwarted the patient’s plot to kill. And all of this somehow decreases the chances of future massacres.

To me this sounds terribly Sisyphean, i.e., like a ton of wasted effort. It reminds me of the late psychoanalyst Stephen Mitchell, who compared the mental health practitioner’s hasty pursuit of solutions to what Taoists might say, “[It] is like pursuing a thief hiding in the forest by loudly banging a drum”.

Our mental health services currently have a lot of “drum banging”, and not a whole lot of listening, searching, or discovery. This short-term approach to treatment is largely imposed by insurance companies, which limit coverage for services — encouraging a “get’em in, get’em out”, revolving door culture at clinics, hospitals, and private practices — and also favoring medical treatment provided by a psychiatrist, as opposed to the more complex, relational work of a psychotherapist, social worker or counselor. It is also due to an ever increasing consumerist influence on mental health, whereby services are guaranteed to work fast, and are pitched in 140 characters or less — this has only been exacerbated by articles (several of which appeared in The New York Times last year) encouraging therapists to sell short-term treatment in order to remain relevant.

I agree with Dr. Harold Schwartz, the psychiatrist at the Hartford hearing who said, “The failure to recognize illness and the need for treatment… is a function of the disease’s impact on the brain”, but it is the word “recognize” I would emphasize, not the words “illness” or “disease.” We do not currently invest in the art of recognition in our mental health services, a process that requires time: Time to create a safe environment for anyone seeking help (not just those who blip on the radar as clearly”disordered”); time for the patient to establish trust with a practitioner (one who has cultivated the art of empathic relating, as opposed to quick labeling); time to allow nihilistic fantasies to enter the treatment; and time to help the patient separate these fantasies (which may be understandable, in context) from actions. None of this is possible using the quick-fire approaches to treatment we currently subscribe to, and continue to request.

The resistance to long-term treatment is partly due to the various misconceptions about it: that it is a “thing of the past”, that it exclusively implies Woody Allen characters sitting on a couch three times a week, jabbering on about bourgeoisie, “white-people-problems”, that it is a waste of time and money. These stereotypes are not only a problem for therapists who train and work tirelessly on the art of empathic, nuanced, relationship and analysis, but more importantly for the multitude of people who can greatly benefit from long-term treatment, but are never given the chance.

In my own work, I’ve been fortunate enough to “recognize” a long-term patient who had murderous fantasies. I met Harry while working at a community mental health clinic. He didn’t want therapy, and I didn’t want to give it to him. He was loud, anxious, and rambling. He wanted a psychiatric diagnosis for his application for Social Security disability insurance (which he should have received for an obviously distressing physical disability and lifelong learning disability, but had been denied several times because he seemed “mentally healthy” — an example of how unhelpfully categorical our systems can be). At our first session, I was disturbed by his relentless wish to “knock-off” a variety of people he believed were “conspiring” against him — though he wouldn’t specify the people or a plan, rendering these rantings unreportable. After two evaluations by our staff psychiatrist, it was determined that Harry did not exhibit symptoms requiring medication, and it was recommended that he engage in psychotherapy, with an emphasis on behavioral modification — fortunately he had good insurance.

Sitting through our early sessions was nearly intolerable for me, as I had to endure gruesomely detailed revenge fantasies, resembling one of the Saw films. I not only dreaded our sessions, but also what he might do afterward. I tried Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques, which are designed to alter patient thought processes, and corresponding behaviors, but he shut me down each time, convinced that no one could ever understand his feelings. It wasn’t until I learned to validate his fantasies, to encourage him to bring even more of them into the room (while also getting clinical supervision for myself), that he began to trust me. Why shouldn’t he feel that the Social Security office “had it in” for him, and why wouldn’t he, in kind, have violent fantasies toward it? (He had been denied benefits time and time again, though he was clearly ailing). Harry learned that someone could in fact recognize his pain, and that his understandable rage, and related revenge fantasies could have a life of their own, separate and distinct from taking action. Over the next couple of years Harry started group therapy as well, made friends, and gradually his mind became less troubled. With my help, he eventually got his disability benefits, but voluntarily continued treatment with me. The fantasies he reported shifted from the horror genre to films of the Rocky variety; he began to narrate his own story as a guy down on his luck who would become a champion with love and support.

Instead of forcing “mentally ill” people into short-term treatment and a “sentence” of medication, we should be forcing insurance companies to cover long-term relational treatment — in tandem with medication management in some cases. Anyone with coverage should be encouraged to enter therapy, without fear of stigma or of limited time. There are no easy solutions to the horrific shooting epidemic we face, but airing on the side of caution means giving people the chance to be seen, and heard, as opposed to controlled, and numbed into oblivion. After all, why are these killers piggy-backing off each other’s news stories if not to be recognized?

We Need to Talk About Butt-Sex

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Anal is the most intimate sex we’ve got as gay men, yet most of us rarely ever talk about it. This I discovered on Fire Island last summer, while conferring with various guys. I became convinced that we just don’t talk enough about butt-sex, especially regarding the necessary prep. So, here’s my attempt to crack open a discussion.

Why go there? Without the flexibility to consult one another on the mechanics of anal sex, we lack the best tips for safety, cleanliness, and achieving maximum pleasure–a real problem for the young, and/or sexually inexperienced, who may have to endure unnecessary confusion, embarrassment, or pain during intercourse.

It’s no wonder we’re so retentive, given the relentless disparaging of butt penetration that surrounds us. I, for one, am tired of the sickening euphemisms (e.g. “Dumpster Diving”, “Fudge Packing”), and the constant suggestion that getting fucked-in-the-ass is the worst possible thing a man could.

Many gay men I consulted for this article said they never respond to derogatory anal sex references. “I just feel shame.”, said one, “Swallow my anger”.

This internalized shame corrodes our minds and contaminates our sex lives. It’s a particular challenge to field these messages when friends and family are the ones transmitting them. (Consider all the times you’ve been expected to laugh at a dumb prostate-exam-joke.)

Worse yet, without having each other as resources, we may rely too heavily upon entertainment and fantasy, like the scant media devoted to gay male sex which unrealistically insinuates that we’re all Spontaneous Bottoms–that is, we can easily drop trou, whenever, wherever, and open up for some good clean fun. This myth keeps the realities of butt-sex-prep tightly shrouded, turning fantasy into anxiety inducing expectation.

For example, you may feel intensely defective for not fucking in a hyper-efficient-MTV-style-montage sort of way–like the cast of Queer As Folk always did: the furtive-staring-cum-rough-kissing-cum-tearing-off-clothes-cum-tearing-open-condom-wrapper-(with teeth)-cum-rhythmic-penetration-cum-Cum, Cum, Cum! (What if, instead, you find yourself nervously rinsing your rectum behind a triple-bolted door, while your partner waits patiently–and then less so–for you to get your butt back to bed and finish what you started…an hour ago). With the exception of that rare unicorn who can seamlessly bend and deliver impromptu, everyone else gets to be filled with anxiety, inadequacy, and shame.

Renowned psychologist and co-author of The Joy of Gay Sex, Charles Silverstein says,”If you’re going out and you hope to get fucked, then the proper preparation is required, meaning cleaning the colon. That’s not only correct, it’s polite”. He’s right, but why then does the topic of bottom-prep rarely come up, even between gay men? (A Google search for “anal sex”, for example, produces a first page full of tips for women).

There are blogs, chatrooms and articles touching on bottom prep for guys, as well as a few books: Mike Alvear’s accessible and entertaining, Gay Anal Sex: How to Bottom Without Pain or Stains, and Silverstein’s aforementioned Joy, now in its third edition, effectively written to be the first comprehensive, community sexual resource for gay men. However, when I recently consulted Silverstein for this piece, he said, “I’ve read a lot of books about gay sex, written a few myself, and notice that there is very little instruction about preparation for a bottom. The best I know is a couple of pages by Goldstone’s The Ins and Outs of Gay Sex.”

Silverstein goes on to say, “It is clear to me that social inhibition is the reason cleanliness of the anus and rectum is so rarely openly discussed. We avoid looking at whatever makes us feel uncomfortable. Too bad. As a community we should discuss this more openly.” Silverstein emphasizes shame as the primary reason why we avoid talking about our butts.

“It’s not sexy,” says a friend, adding his two cents on why backyard-grooming rituals e.g. douching, enema rinsing, and sphincter stretching stay closeted. And he’s right, the messy, slow, internal nature of these activities would not a hot time at the movies make.(Imagine if Weekend was about three days on a bidet.)

In fact, the reasons why anal discussions often reach dead ends are manifold, and complex, and for those who are interested in the why, it is clearly articulated in the works of Freud, Michel Foucault, Silverstein, and Leo Bersani, to name just a few. But, for my purpose I’m even more interested in the how; how shame related to our butts interferes with our sexuality, and how we can reclaim it.

In the spirit of Bersani’s essay, Is the Rectum a Grave?–which possibly contains the most alluring and empowering description of bottoming ever written–Martin Weber’s recent Huffington Post article, The Bronze Eye is Open: A Philosophy of Anal Sex, and also Oprah’s 2006 special, “Everybody Poops”–I’m interested in how we can bridge the gaps between us, create common spaces to talk about our butts, and maybe share tips for the best preparation for penetration–and freeing us up to have the best possible, realistically achievable, sex.

While on Fire Island last summer, my friend Ben and I were blithely chatting by the pool when conversation suddenly ran secret and deep; we broached the myth of The Spontaneous Bottom and proceeded to shatter it with our personal backstage confessions. We interrogated each other as if for a memoir entitled Everything I Know About Bottoming I Learned From…., discovering that “other gay friends” did not fill in that blank for either one of us.

This made us curious. We’ve had distinctly different histories. (I’ve been monogamous with my husband for over a decade, tending to prefer dinner parties to clubs, while Ben has had multiple partners in that time, and attends every White, Black, and Shades-of-Gray Party, yet neither of us ever received top-down prep tips from other gay men.

We expanded our inquiry to other men on the Island–men of various ages, cultural backgrounds, and sexual experience–and found the same was true for all of them.

The bolt wasn’t unlocked by any one key disclosure (much of the “secret information” shared included jocular tips, like offering prospective partners the disclaimer, “Enter at your own risk”), but by opening the communication lines, all typical guardedness was lifted, allowing for a sense of fellowship, and a palpable subsiding of group shame.

Over the following months, I proceeded invasively to investigate–in person, by email, and over Facebook, asking just about every gay man I know (or know of)about their ass habits.

Of those who responded, all but one said they “mostly topped”, and were therefore unfamiliar with tricks of the bottoming trade–maintaining the unicorn mystique of bottom behavior.

All of them claimed complete naivete about bottoming before their first anal sex–“Baptism by fire” says one–and very few of them admitted to consulting friends, or any reference guide, to this day. (Upon reflection, one said, “My friends say they don’t give a shit [about bottom prep], but I don’t believe they’re truly so blase. It’s like the ladies who say they never get their hair done…it just happens to be perfect.”)

When these “mostly top” guys did bottom, their preparation varied from simply showering and “basic cleanliness”, to an occasional warm water enema rinse, to douching several times in a row, but again, all participants stated they were self-taught.

On the occasion of accidental mess, most said their steamy sex scenes instantly became silent movies, avoiding any talk–even with long-term partners–and engaging in overmuch cleaning before moving on–which in many cases meant going separate ways. With the exception of one friend’s “friend”, who supposedly thinks of “magic messes” as “extra lube”, everyone unequivocally felt that shitting the bed could mean the end of the affair. One friend says, “I’ve stopped mid-way, pointed it out, and ended the sex. Once I stopped and told him to go to the bathroom – I was so grossed out, I went home while he was showering. That was a dark night”.

Only one person brought up prepping to avoid pain, saying that he has been known to sit on a dildo for up to two hours to warm up–most recently while studying for a big test. (Perhaps this aspect of prep was largely untouched because discussing the psychological fears of anal penetration– being “buggered”, “sodomized”, or “invaded”–is far more complicated and threatening than talking about your average, Oprah-endorsed poop anxiety).

Most folks I contacted online respectfully declined to answer(I’ll expect some awkward encounters when next we meet). I certainly understand their positions–I’m not so sure how I’d reply to such questions over email–but this withholding does give us a strong sense of the cagey retention surrounding the topic.

The sole, brave-proud-self-proclaimed-“power bottom” however, did in fact respond by email(apparently writing from his home on Planet Unicorn), saying he learned about bottoming, before losing his virginity, from studying gay porn. He also said that he did and does consult gay friends (“especially gay doctor friends”), for tips and support. His maxims are: “Anal Prep is EVERYTHING!!!!! It makes the experience, clean, fun and AMAZING!!! Anal prep gives the bottom confidence to do what he does best!!!”

Contrary to the other participants, Power Bottom apparently talks about prep “with all my gay friends, all the time”, but also with his partners, “Oh yes, they should know all the prep I went through. In return, they will work just as hard to please me…”

I wanted to learn Mr. Power Bottom’s adaptive secrets–even Lady Gaga knows he wasn’t born this way–but we were unable to rendezvous in person.

And then there were none. It was time to consult a pro.

Porn star Shane Frost was kind enough to indulge me. He validated my disbelief in the myth of The Spontaneous Bottom, saying,”[Bottom prep]is very important on a professional level. Whether you’re talking about cleanliness, or just the readiness of the bottom, if they are not prepared the scene can go down hill real fast”.

His professional work ethic is also apparent in his personal life with his boyfriend of four years. “I like to always present a clean cabin for the submarine to dock in, and I like to have a wide enough cabin for him to fit comfortably…All aboard!”

Frost says he learned about anal sex in his early adolescence, experimenting with a peer of the same age. They would play-wrestle in their skivvies, he says, mimicking the pros on TV, which educed into a main event far more interesting than their attempted emulation, “…buttfucking!” His description of this early experience, captures a buoyant sexual experience with a sense of innocent discovery and play–an image we rarely associate with anal sex, but one that could help us all to talk about, prepare for, and do it.

Now, as an adult who has worked in porn for five years, Frost says that the industry is his primary community, making it very easy to openly discuss prep. His own ritual involves douching once at home before his shower, and then again at the studio “once oral and photos have completed”. Each douche takes him about two to three minutes; he admits that his efficiency has come with time and practice.

As important as cleanliness is to him, he’s learned to be understanding, good humored, and communicative when accidents occur. “The last time it happened”, he says, “I looked at him and I said, ‘Really?’ [laughing]. I gave him a towel, he went to finish what he should of done before we started, and we then proceeded to fuck again. Sometimes you can’t avoid it. Sex isn’t planned, it just happens… So you roll with the punches”.

When I told him about the numerous guys struck dumb whenever poop enters the bed or the conversation, he said, “There are ten bazillion people in this world and guess what, we ALL shit. Cher shits, President Obama shits, Justin Beebz shits…and yes…wait for it…The all mighty Madonna shits as well.”

Now, certainly if you don’t have anal sex for a living, you’re more likely than Shane Frost to be penetrated by societal shame when it comes to your anus, but we can learn from him. When I asked Charles Silverstein how we’ll learn to be more open with each other about sex, he said,

“We learn through modeling. But we need models. That means more instructional information from gay books, gay instruction manuals, even some of these porn stars telling viewers about prepping. I don’t believe there will be any resistance by gay men because they want to learn. The resistance comes from their elders who are simply not doing their job of instruction. I expect that no mainstream publisher is going to publish that sort of book or video, but we now have so many alternatives to traditional books, that there isn’t an excuse for ignoring this important topic. Such a venue would also be useful in dissemination information about safe sex, STDs, and sexual variations”.

I’ll leave you now with some encouragement in the words of Shane Frost: “Everyone’s doing it…So why not talk about it?”.

Calling All Hobbits of Color

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I like to play a little game called “Realism or Racism.” Here’s how it works: Whenever you see a movie, TV show or play, ask yourself, “Are the actors all white due to realism (i.e., casting a non-white actor would seriously confuse the story), or racism (i.e., the producers have chosen material for which they can argue — in a seemingly reasonable way — that casting a non-white actor would contaminate the story’s clarity, but really such casting would only put a greater variety of talented people to work, and increase three-dimensional representation of people of color, and if such casting would indeed confuse the story, well… the producers could have chosen material with more diverse casting opportunities to begin with, but… didn’t)”? Wanna play?

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (which opened last Friday) is ripe for this game, though to be frank, I entered the theater hoping for a journey less expected.

In November 2010 — while The Hobbit was filming — it was reported that a casting agent had been fired from the New Zealand-based production, for placing ads seeking actors with “light skin tones.” After “sacking” the agent, director Peter Jackson’s production company officially denied sanctioning the casting notice (which should come as a relief, if not for the fact that of the double-digit actors appearing in The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) trilogy — for which The Hobbit is a prequel and which Jackson also directed — I can recall dozens of big folks, small folks, and pointy-eared folks, but not a single person of color). I maintained hope that this was a significant learning moment for Jackson and company.

However, while watching The Hobbit, I found myself a reluctant player in a round of “Realism or Racism?” As in LOTR, Jackson’s cameras pan across throngs of actors of all shapes and sizes, with an array of hairy feet and mystical beards, but the spectrum of human skin tone moves only from pale to paler (even amongst the progressive, vegan elves). I suppose one could argue this is for the sake of realism, though I defy even the most intense JRR Tolkein fan to do so without resembling the irrationally artery-busting-angry, bunny-hating cartoon, Yosemite Sam — or John McCain defending”traditional marriage” (pretty much the same image).

Now, all-white casting (or whitewashing) is certainly ubiquitous in Hollywood, but it’s one thing to argue,”Everyone living in English manors in 1912 was white” (though even Downtown Abbey’s producers are working to increase cast diversity on the BBC series), and quite another to say, “Everyone living on Middle Earth — this dreamworld that never existed, which is populated by myriad mythical creatures — is white.” But that’s exactly what non-white would-be extras for The Hobbit were told.

It’s hard to imagine racial equality becoming a reality when we can’t envision it in our movies, which represent our dreams and, therefore, inform our behaviors. (As professor Nina Bandelj says, actors’ portrayals of characters contribute to the social reproduction of human identities, and according to SAG AFTRA, the union representing all onscreen performers in America, “There is no other medium as capable of affecting human behavior and thought as films.”)

It becomes utterly disturbing when racial equality isn’t even allowed to enter our fantasy films, which represent the furthest reaches of our dreamiest dreams.

SAG AFTRA (along with their New Zealand sister organization, MEAA) has long advocated for minority actors, both in terms of employment, as well as accurate and varied representation of characters onscreen. Throughout the 1950s, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) urged SAG to see that African American actors who were “struggling to attain their rightful place in the life of the nation and the world” were not handicapped by lack of representation “in a medium which speaks powerfully to people everywhere.” These efforts have certainly had an impact on Hollywood and we owe some of the greatest performances and most memorable characters of the last 60 years to this advocacy.

However, as professor Dean Spade says in his book Normal Life, advocacy and “law reform efforts taken up under the banner of anti-discrimination have often failed to alter norms” — the “norms,” for example, that were deeply absorbed into the minds of Peter Jackson’s casting directors (who likely find it difficult to dream of multiracial hobbits since they’ve never seen them onscreen themselves) when they curtly rejected actors of color with, “We are looking for light-skinned people. … You’ve got to look like a hobbit.”

So it appears we have a chicken and egg problem: the “norms” won’t change until the casting choices do, and the casting choices are contingent on the “norms.” But where is the hope for change, when our dreamers refuse to dream?

If only Hollywood, television, and even much of Broadway, would take a page from professional Shakespeare, musicals, and regional theater, where leaps of faith in casting take place regularly and for the greater good. For instance no one blinks an eye — particularly in theaters outside of New York City — if Hamlet is played by a black actor while his mother is cast white, if Roxy in Chicago is Southeast Asian, or if any or all of the leads in Les Miserables (which has a strong history of color-blind casting) are people of color. Perhaps it’s the heightened nature of Shakespeare and musicals (and the limited budgets in regional theaters) that allows (or forces) us to use our imaginations. Perhaps big-budget films (like the upcoming Les Miserables movie) and certain Broadway plays can simply afford to cast productions within the realm of what some call “realism” and others “racism.”

I once heard a famous playwright say that “Theater should always mirror reality,” and this he used to justify his relentless insistence that all of his plays should be cast by specified race — most of his characters are specified as white and male, like himself. The question of course is, “whose reality are we talking about”? And, therefore, “whose realism”?

I like better what Thomas Hardy once said, “Art is a disproportioning of realities, to show more clearly the features that matter in those realities, which if merely copied or reported inventorially, might possibly be observed, but would more probably be overlooked.” I can’t help but think of the missed casting opportunities in The Hobbit when I read this.

I found that the trailer for Les Miserables stirred a bit more hope for change than the The Hobbit (even as I wondered if Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson or Oscar nominated Queen Latifah were considered for respective roles they would be great for in it). Listening to Anne Hathaway wistfully sing “I Dreamed a Dream,” I dreamed a dream of my own. I dreamed that the folks who will inevitably be moved to tears by her pasty, ill, homeless woman will be equally moved by the ill, homeless women of color they encounter on our city streets. I dreamed that the black leader we have in reality (as opposed to the onscreen versions Morgan Freeman has expanded our dreams with for years prior) would be treated with the respect he deserves — the same respect we’ve given every president before him. I dreamed that Martin Luther King’s dream will be more of a reality in 2013 than it is today, at least on our movie screens, and therefore in our personal dreams of the future.

Thank you for playing “Realism or Racism.” Now that you’ve gotten the hang of it, join me for a round of “Realism or Sexism,” followed by “Realism or Homophobia,” “Realism or Transphobia,” “Realism or Xenophobia” and “Realism or Ableism” — only this time, you can pick the movie.

Be Scrooge and Tiny Tim

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“Alms for Scrooge!”

I recently heard a man squelch this at someone asking for change on a New York City street. I cringed, at once identifying with the self-named “Scrooge” and also repelled by him. It struck me how often we are selfish (and even cruel) when our intention is simply to be self-preserving, spewing unnecessary venom when all we really need to say is “not today.”

Brusk as we may be with strangers, we are even more so with our families during “the most wonderful time of the year,” adding fuel to the fierce flames of the family-drama-laden “hellidays.”

I’ve already advised you to trim your “Christmas three” and to know your “safe-goat” so as to glide through your holiday-family-inferno unscathed. Now, if you can be self-preserving without being selfish, you may actually enjoy yourself on top of all this — and even have some generosity to spare.

In order to self-preserve, we must first understand this “self” of ours and how the holidays affect it.

The “holidays” — American, secular Christmas in particular — come with a great deal of expectation and disappointment. As children, we are promised an event during which we’ll receive custom-made presents, treats, and magic. In short, we are promised our fantasies. We anticipate receiving everything our parents can’t give us in reality on that one special day. As adults, we learn to temper, bury or extinguish these fantasies — like psychoanalyst Adam Phillips says, we become “ingenious at resisting the lead of our desire” — but when we reassemble with our families at the end of the year, as many regularly and crudely do, we regress. We look to each other to fulfill those old promises, to make those custom fantasies come true, and of course, it never works.

Enter the highly-subjective, often inscrutable, irritatingly-inevitable disappointments, e.g. “This is our year to host.”

“You didn’t go shopping yet?”

“Is he gonna be in the kitchen all night?”

“Is she crying again?”

“Of course we’re going to the movies. We always go to the movies. Why wouldn’t we go to the movies?”

“Um… we don’t allow them to watch Charlie Brown.”

“Thanks, but he already HAS the red truck.”

“You’re leaving already?”

“Sorry, but I’m allergic to cats and gluten and that figgy pudding you make… and I tell you this every year.”

“Can’t you get OVER yourself for one damn day?”

We become drained by the black hole of “their” uniquely-unfulfilled promises and find ourselves too deprived of our own wish-fulfillment to offer even the tiniest of Tiny Tim “blessings.”

This is why some completely avoid family festivities altogether (like Luke Skywalker escape-podding from The Death Star), and in some cases that may be the best option. However, I suggest (whenever possible) that it’s better to be with family on this occasion than not to be. I can tell you with absolute certainty that when we defer family conflict it kindles in our guts, awaiting the backdraft it will eventually become when triggered by a family member — or possibly even a stranger asking for change on the street.

“But,” you might ask, “if our families will reliably burden and disappoint us, how can we tolerate a holiday with them, let alone have a good time?”

Well, the bad news is that not a one of them is going to check off our Christmas list… but that’s also the good news. To a large extent, adulthood comes at the price of childlike fantasy and expectation, but this opens the door to something arguably more liberating: the ability to treat ourselves.

If your dad won’t cook your favorite roast goose, make it for your friends the week before. If your mom always forgets which spa service to put on the gift certificate, pamper yourself to a full-day package. If your brother never has a gift for you, buy yourself the video game you always wanted as a kid but never got. Take a weekend in Puerto Rico, buy some canvases and paints, take the walk or the scenic drive you always postpone, make the crafty ornaments you’ve been thinking of, meditate in the park, take that tennis lesson, or buy that trumpet. There’s absolutely no reason not to indulge yourself with comfort and joy, so long as it’s reasonably within your means and not harmful to you or anyone else (you might reconsider the trumpet if you live in a railroad apartment with paper thin walls).

This of course removes a lot of the pressure to make any dreams come true at the big family event. Think of time spent with the fam as a brief military mission, wherein you’ll be parachuted down to drop off baubles, taste your aunt’s new quiche, ask your sister about her job in person, earn a new nickname from your nephew, offer that Tiny Tim toast, and get helicoptered out before everything goes south. You’ll have a shared experience to fall back on the next time you speak to one of them (instead of awkward silence), and though none of them will know about your wish list, that’s just fine, since you’ll be the one answering it.

Charles Dickens’ infamous character Ebenezer Scrooge actually had it right, to a certain extent: By making and saving money, he understood that one needs to take care of oneself before it’s even possible to take care of anyone else. His problem, of course, was that he didn’t take the next step of investing in his own joy, nourishing his body or his soul (self-preservation) and therefore couldn’t be bothered to take care of anyone else (selfishness). Fortunately, we know better.

Take care of yourself first; be naughty (have a Bravo marathon with your favorite mac and cheese), or nice (adopt an orphaned cat, dog or chinchilla) but spoil yourself like no one else can. You’ll then have the motivation to play a round of Pictionary with your family and the willingness to offer an easy smile, a blessing, or even some change to a stranger in need.

Know Your Safe-Goat

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The Scandinavian Yule Goat symbolizes the relationship between sacrifice and celebration during the holidays. It refers to the Nordic God Thor’s slaughtering of goats for an end-of-year feast (he would resurrect them the next day). We may need to sacrifice a goat of our own to get through the family drama-fueled “hellidays” — a “safe-goat.”

What is that?

As opposed to a family scapegoat — an immediate family member at whom we direct unprocessed anxiety or anger — a “safe-goat” is a person far enough outside our immediate family system at whom we can direct unprocessed anxiety or anger without inflaming conflicts between present members.

Last week I advised you to “trim your Christmas three,” i.e., to avoid triangulating or scapegoating a third party during any family contact leading up to the holidays, in order to coast through to New Year’s Day family drama-free. But, as my siblings have since reminded me, finding yourself short on material with your family can cause anxiety, making you vulnerable to the flames of gossip. At these times, you may need to deploy a “safe-goat.”

Now, this is not a model for long-term healthy relationships; in general, bonding with one person by directing negative energy at another is toxic and prevents us from individual and relational growth. But right now we’re just talking about getting by. You might think of it as symptom management, cough syrup for your strep throat as opposed to an antibiotic. That being said, before using the “safe-goat” solution, you’ll want to read and adhere to the warning label: At no time should you disparage the “safe-goat” in a way that fosters prejudice against a type or group of people, as this will breed unnecessary ill will at a time of peace and hope. The point is to have at your fingertips someone familiar to the group over whom you can share a quick and easy gasp, growl or guffaw, and this should only be used as a last resort.

How do you choose your “safe-goat”?

Remember, you’re trying to avoid clear and present conflict, so obviously you’ll want to pick someone you won’t see over the holidays and who is separate enough from your immediate family that talking about them won’t cause tension between any two of you. An aunt or uncle could work, so long as they’re not top-billing stars in your family drama. Special guest star status should be the limit (as in, you see them once every three years at most). Twice or thrice removed relatives are good options. Shared (or formerly shared) neighbors, high-school teachers and DMV workers are even better.

An ideal “safe-goat” will have a personality quirk that affects everyone the same way, e.g., the absent uncle who suddenly appears when he needs money, the aunt whose monologue skills rival Fiona Shaw’s (only aggressively draining as opposed to entertaining), the “hyper-healthy” cousin who’s consistently “not surprised” when one of you gets sick, your mother’s neighbor who calls every five minutes to find out what she’s doing, the former high school art teacher who now posts homemade music videos about the apocalypse on YouTube, the DMV worker with the fixed smirk who somehow manages to trigger a full-blown public tantrum in each of you.

The roasting of the “safe-goat” will ideally fill dead air — much like the celebrity roasting panel on Chelsea Lately — but only for a few minutes, in order to keep you comfortably present with your family. You’ll want to be mindful of the potential for your gossip to go nuclear (as in family), in which case you should redirect back to a “safe-goat.” You should also keep your ears peeled for an opportunity to switch topics altogether — to mutually-interesting current events, movies, books, etc. — if and when possible.

Just as Thor resurrected his sacrificed goats the day after his feast, so should you mentally redeem your “safe-goat” after your event has passed and their purpose has been served. Make sure to discard any residual negative thoughts you generated about them the day before. As the holidays come to a close, and the new year begins, you can then turn to cultivating your individual family relationships in the long-term without any third party involvement — save, perhaps the help of a psychotherapist or spiritual guide.

We should all put in the time to learn how to relate to one another without triangulating, but the “hellidays” can be desperate times, and it can only help to go in armed with a “safe-goat.”

Trim Your Christmas Three

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As much as we want (or feel obligated) to visit our “folks” at the holidays, many of us are weighed down with family drama. Shackled by the fear of unresolved conflicts getting triggered, old wounds being torn open, and multiple miscommunications devolving into emotional chaos, we often enter the season with more dread than hope.

Fortunately, I have a tool to guide you through your holiday inferno, inspired by the great family therapist Murray Bowen.

Just as you might trim your waistline before summer, so too should you trim your family drama before the holidays. For swimsuit dieters, there are quick, easy and even healthy ways to achieve this trimming. For those of us carrying around a few extra pounds of family drama, there’s also a surefire way to trim down — before getting caught in what I call the “Helliday” flames.

The technique I’m about to share with you is simple as one, two and… well, forget about three. That’s it actually. That’s the whole technique. Drop the number three from all your family interactions in the days leading up to your family gathering. In other words, “three’s a crowd,” so don’t talk to anyone in your family about any other member of your family. At all. Under no circumstances. Keep all contact one on one.

Just like abstaining from carbs will trim your waist in two weeks, trimming three from your family relationships will decrease your load of “dirty laundry” in the same amount of time. Keep it up between now and New Year’s Day, and you’ll coast through the holidays like Santa on a sleigh — minus the heavy load.

I realize that this is easier blogged than done, but I promise you will see results if you are disciplined.

If a relative calls to complain about a prehistoric argument with another relative, change the subject. Keep all dialogue positive, and only on the two of you; do not, under any circumstances, discuss anyone else in the family. This may result in your triangulating relative (TR) to feel rejected. Kindly remind TR that you are very interested in them and their life, but that you simply do not wish to discuss the relative they have beef with; instead, you’d rather hear what’s up with them. Your conversations may become much shorter than ever before, and that’s just fine. As long as the conversations are positive and dyadic (only focused on you and that other person) you’re good.

After trying this (for at least a week), you can help yourself even more by proactively contacting relatives you’ll see at an upcoming event, particularly the ones you’re only used to connecting with through someone else. Again, these may be short exchanges, but at least you’ll have made direct contact, and by abstaining from family gossip, you’ll avoid any preemptive fanning of “Helliday” flames. By doing this, you may also even create an unexpected firewall for yourself, if and when family drama erupts.

By the time you arrive at your event, you will already have had brief, positive encounters with each person present. Everyone will know that you’re not the person to confide in regarding their smoldering feelings about others present, and since you haven’t talked about anyone behind their backs, you can enjoy the levity of having nothing to hide.

Leave the number three to 1) the three blessings while lighting your menorah (for Hanukkah), 2) lighting the three candles of hope and the three candles of struggle (for Kwanzaa), or 3) for setting up the three wise men in your nativity (for Christmas). But trim the number three from your family tree.