The Male Form

Neoclassical Male,
originally uploaded by Just A Slice .


After the intense topic yesterday, I decided to go a different direction today. In fact, I plan to approach my post in a different order. Typically I sit at my computer and just let my thoughts flow. Eventually a thought comes into focus, and I begin the editing process. When I have finished writing my post then I go about selecting the right art work to further convey to my thoughts with a image.

Tonight I have selected an image, the Neoclassical Male, and will allow that image to inspire my thought process.

I have become aware that all who are actively participating in my blog entries have lost a male lover, husband, boyfriend, companion. Now, as a man, I don't pretend to think that the men we lost are like the flawless images captured in neoclassical sculpture. In fact, I often wonder if men ever really looked the way they were depicted in stone.

As many of you may have noticed I have a great appreciation for the stone image. I have often used photographs of various statues to convey subtle meaning in my posts. I find that people feel less threatened by observing the nude male or female form when looked upon in marble or stone. It also allows us to see beyond an individuals beauty, or natural flaws, and to make room for interpretation. Women in sculpture tend to be more voluptuous, men in sculpture tend to be muscular yet at the same time soft.

What I do find in observing sculpture, is the way I saw Michael's beauty. I loved the lines and curves of his body. I loved the natural masculinity that he exuded. He had pale smooth skin, which under closer inspection was found to be covered in many small freckles. He was never into body building, yet had a large frame, with thick flesh and a natural toned look about him. In the time we were together his abdomen certainly increased in size, which gave him the look of a well satisfied man. Michael stood just under 6 feet tall, and kept his perfectly round head shaved very close. As a boy, and a young man, he had silky blond hair, fair skin and piercing hazel eyes. People would comment to him that he was too pretty to be a boy.

I remember Michael telling me how transitioning through manhood in his early forties became somewhat deflating. He hated that his hair was thinning, and that his lithe swimmers-like body was thickening. We men can be so vain..."we probably think this song is about us..." Michael shared with me that a few months before meeting me he had decided it was time to shave his head. He could no longer get away with the infamous comb over. So he found himself in front of the bathroom mirror, and with clippers in hand, saw the last of his locks fall to the floor. He looked up at himself, and cried. Michael said it was a jarring experience to see his reflection staring back at him. What he saw was a man who was aging. He worried that he was now less attractive, and whose eye would he catch?

I'll tell you whose eye he caught. Another man, several inches shorter than he. A Latino man, unbeknownst to Michael, who was a few years older. A man who had gone prematurely gray several years earlier, but with the ease of a wash in color, and a lot of smoke and mirrors, appeared much younger than his age should convey. The night I met Michael I was completely smitten. I found him to be a bit of a geek, but quite adorable. With more careful inspection, and with several drinks under my belt, I also found him terribly sexy. Okay, not fair. I found Michael to be not what I had been looking for, but exactly what I wanted and needed.

Both Michael and I found each other irresistible. In comparing our dating stories, we learned that neither of us were what each thought of as our type. Yet, we both sensed a common dry and sarcastic sense of humor. Both of us found in each other a sincere compassion for other people and public service. Both of us had three children who were central figures in our lives, my three kids, his two nieces and nephew. We found joy, passion, humor, sexual fulfillment, and most of all we found undeniable love.

I have been single most of my adult years. I have had periods where I dated less, and some where I dated more. In general I had given up on finding my soul mate. I had just figured that the type of loving relationship that I yearned for was just not going to happen for me.

Well, when I stopped looking for the man of my dreams, I found the man of my reality. He was perfect for me, he was opposite from me He was beautiful to me, he needed to cut back in his ice cream intake. He was cautious, I was anything but. We became a solid mass of combined forces that I now know of as true love.

This is the male form. His name is Michael. He is the love of my life. I am beginning to feel him all around me. I miss him more than life itself, and I know that I will be with him again some day.