hi, hello, welcome. I'm Portia. It's lovely to meet you today. I like books, and I wanted to talk about books. So, welcome to my channel. I wanted to start this journey off with one of my favorite books, if not my favorite book, in queer literature. It's very special to me, and it is called Bronze Age Mindset by Bronze Age Pervert, also known as BAP. This book is filled with the thoughts and ramblings of BAP rejecting modernity and embracing tradition. And I know that sounds like a red flag at the moment, and his name as well, but it makes sense, okay? He has these very traditional views due to his internalized homophobia as a closeted gay man in modern society. This internalized homophobia leads him to other traditionalistic views, and that explains his affinity for the Bronze Age. BAP dreams of this traditional and brute view of masculinity that was prevalent in the ancient eras of war and fighting and male companionship, which he thinks would save the world today. In the middle of this book, at its crux, BAP explains

how the modern man is directed towards being gay from a young age. This is important because this book surrounds this theory literally and in a literary sense. So, it starts off by talking about the decline of real masculinity in the modern age. As a young boy growing up finding his place in the world, he sees masculinity demonstrated by his father, by his schoolmates, by any male figure in his life. He realizes that this masculinity is just a parody of what masculinity used to be. Because this isn't true masculinity, he gets disappointed in it and wants to escape it. He wants to overcome this reality. To do so, he goes towards the more feminine path in life. On this more feminine path, he grows up more feminine and thus is directed towards being gay. The real twist of this theory is that it's from Bap's own experience. But what blinds Bap in a state of internalized homophobia is that he doesn't realize that there was another factor in this, and that is the admiration for traditional masculinity.

admiration of traditional masculinity, of course, leads to an admiration of men in general in a romantic and sexual sense. So, this is where the problem lies. Bap is scared of coming out, and he tries to hide it and tries to convince himself throughout this book with other conservative views that he isn't gay. He even tries to convince himself that the male companionship and friendship that happened back in ancient Greece was merely friendship and nothing more, and everyone knows that's not the case. So, if that isn't the most obvious telling point of somebody who is suffering from internalized homophobia, then like, I don't know what to tell you. But like I said, this book is filled with a lot of conservative views. So, if you are triggered by obviously homophobia, um, which also comes with transphobia, racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism, then this will be a hard read for you. But I think it is so important to understand that these aspects are under a postmodern prestige. I think I'm just obsessed with like.

post-modern novels that deal with such, like disgusting topics, in order to combat them. You can see this in American Psycho and the stuff that Kathy Acker has written. I just found it so powerful in order to demonstrate the toxicity of certain environments. In Bab's case, that is internalized homophobia and not being able to feel like he can be himself because he thinks society won't accept him. We never really see the consequences of such extreme toxic internalized homophobia as this, so I just think it's such a powerful book to understand how dangerous someone in Bab's position is. Even like, I don't know if you can see, even the margin lines aren't straight, like they're different on every page, and it's just tiny details like that that make me admire this book and Bab's bravery to share it. During this video, I wanted to share one of my favorite passages of Bab talking about the gay minority but in the 50s when the system of global tyranny was being firmly erected.

should not be a surprise from everything that has been said, that the gay underworld was the negative of the new world order, its sieve and pressure valve. The gay underworld was part of the remainder, but now that this world has disappeared, you have no easy way of even knowing where to start. Its boundaries were policed, its entry points were surveilled, but it always existed as a space of freedom outside the pervasiveness of domestication in post-industrial civilization. Obviously that's bap being scared to join this community, even though he wants to, but he's just afraid of what society will tell. That's just one of the many powerful passages in this book, and I really, really, really recommend it for anyone going into queer literature. It really deserves more exposure in the LGBT community because it's getting a lot of people misinterpreting this book from the very wrong circles. I could talk about this book forever, but I'm going to end the video there. Thank you so much for watching. If you liked it, then please

like it and subscribe, and all that jazz. And I will see you in another video. Hopefully, bye.

bronze age mindset - a queer perspective

bronze age mindset - a queer perspective