Is it wrong of me to find a wanted killer attractive? I glanced at the cover of the Herald Sun on the way to work this morning, and was slightly disturbed to realise that Hell's Angel gunman Christopher Hudson was actually kind of hot, in a rough trade sort of way.
I'm going to hell now, aren't I?
32 comments:
We're all heading there anyway, you may as well beat one out over a bikie/drug dealer/killer on your way.
'beat one out', strummer? why, what an appropriately violent metaphor for masturbation! LOL
You really need to find a boyfriend.
If you're going to hell R*YAN and I will be right there with you. I was over at his house tonight and we were talking about this exact same thing!
Did you check out the shirtless pic HAWT!!
I think it is true what they say about crims having close set eyes.
Well finally!! ... someone has come out and said it LOL
i have his shirtless tattooed pic on my fridge! ..
I find him hot too and have been telling everyone at work what a sweet looking boy he seems. I guess the crunch will come if I go and visit him in prison.
You know I happen to vaguely know the family of the man who was killed. I know you think this is pretty flippant light-hearted joshing around about current affairs but the fact this guy is a cold-blooded murderer, whose victim isn't even buried yet should be enough for you to keep your fantasies to yourself. Can you imagine how hurtful it would be for his wife, children & family to find that you and your friends find their husband's/dad's/brother's murdered attractive.
...
Perhaps anonymous should lighten up a little.
Wrong crushes happen all the time. It doesn't detract from the heinousness of this man's crime.
it's not about having a 'wrong crush'. it's about keeping it to yourself when, as anonymous says, 'the victim isn't even buried yet'.
you say anonymous should 'lighten up a little'? what a callous thing to say. he knows the family of the victim. he has every right to take the tone he did.
show some respect, all of you.
Anonymous 10:39 - I work only a couple of blocks from where Tuesday's inccident occured, and thus I assure you that I'm only too aware of the gravity of the crime that occured that day.
I also respect and commiserate with how you must be feeling regarding the family of Brendan Keilar, the man shot and killed by Hudson.
That said, I'm also very much aware of the intrinsic connection between sex and death, amor and le morte, which is what led, in part, to this post that has so offended you.
Sex, and sexual desire, are inarguably physical, as is death, and thus the two are forever linked.
What is orgasm, after all, than a giving up, however briefly, our conciousness and the control of our bodies, and being swept away by a force beyond our control? Little wonder the French call orgasm 'the little death'.
I do not believe in silencing my desire, nor keeping things hidden and silent. This blog is a testament to that.
Thoughts and feelings kept repressed are never healthy. Better that they be given voice, even if that expression is done in a way others might find distasteful and repugnant.
I'm sorry if that is how this post has seemed to you; it certainly wasn't intentional.
Let me ask this: how soon after the Challenger space shuttle explosion did you hear your first jokes about dead astronauts? For me, it was a matter of hours.
I believe that by laughing at death, we diminish our fear of it, and its power over us. That doesn't mean I am laughing at the memory of those whom death has taken.
My deepest respect to you, and to the family of Brendan Keilar - and to the life he lived, and untimately sacrificed, by coming unasked to another's aid.
The lady doth protest too much methinks
Hi Richard,
I haven't seen you in about a decade, but its good to see you're still finding big hairy hetero acting guys attractive.
let me ask you something, richard: if it was your lover or a loved relative that had been murdered by christopher hudson, would you still be blogging about how hot he is?
just curious.
Anonymous 20:34 - and here was me thinking i was trying to treat the subject with the weight a couple of previous commentators clearly felt it deserved...
Conrad - what can I say, I'm a creature of habit. i hope you're well, btw.
stan - possibly not, although i have no doubt i would still be writing about him in one way or another. i've explored my father's sudden death as the subject of poems and spoken word pieces; the untimely deaths of friends in short stories; and written about sex and death, in various guises, for over 15 years. it's just something that I do. *shrug*
OK, Richard, here’s the deal. I won’t criticize you for finding this gunman sexy, if you similarly ignore the fact that I find a man who murdered his own parents, Sef Gonzalez, somewhat sexy too.
Check out his own website (though it's not been updated since he went into jail), his Wikipedia entry and the photo that makes the point.
Richard, no matter what you write - as the self important wanker that you are - it was still incredibly offensive. although i suspect the notion of the feelings of others is lost on someone such as yourself.
I'm fine Richard (Brad A. says hi too),
Actually, I find the discussion here quite fascinating. It reminds me of Mike Leigh's Secrets and Lies, looking at the boundaries between what is and what is not acceptable to say. I imagine (possibly incorrectly) this sort of issue pops up quite regularily in different contexts from a gay point of view (even more-so in other countries where admitting you are gay not only breaks people's expectations of what they thought your were even if you happen to have open-minded friends, but also societies values).
Apart from "I think" vs. "you think", maybe you could write a post on speech and these sort of social boundaries, like why such speech does empower you, or why people do find such speech offensive. Would, say, cultures that don't fear death so much find it offensive to the same degree?
*shrug*
oh that's right, richard -- you're a 'writer', an 'artist'. you're excused then.
feel free, then, to continue to publicly blog about 'beating one out' a day or two after the next poor bastard is murdered on our streets. but not if it's a relative or lover of yours, of course.
your attempt to equate the 'little death' of orgasm to the big and very public death of this solicitor was self-important, patronising and arrogant. and weak. your kind of 'anything goes' mentality is the reason why society is at such a crossroads. no, i don't believe in censorship, either, but i do believe in bounds of common sense. even of, gasp, sounds incredibly old-fashioned...decency.
i believe you head some major arts organisation... can't wait to see what you program.
can't say i'll be attending, either.
we are all fucking voyeurs and don't any one of you forget it. you act all high and mighty about not equating sex and violence/death in respect to the family but did anyone see the front cover of the herald sun on wednesday? richard was only articulating what a mainstream newspaper was exploiting; hell the goddamn mx newspaper was discussing his tats for christsake. and talking about oldfashioned decency it was only a hundred years ago that we were attending public executions and loving it.
how many of us were a little disappointed that he turned himself in and didn't die in a shootout with the police? or have acted like experts when talking about bikie gangs? sure you might know the family now but how many jokes have you told about other peoples' misery?
g-man, that's bullshit. so mainstream media is exploitative. all the more reason not to perpetuate it. all the more reason *not* to blog about wanking over a murderer the day after his victim has died.
you can make your point about 'sex/death' and all that crap without flippantly referring to 'appropriately violent metaphors for masturbation'. LOL!
by your reasoning, if the mx or the herald sun does it, then it's a free for all. in any case, richard watts wasn't 'articulating what a mainstream newspaper was exploiting'; he was simply articulating his own selfish desire.
he's already admitted he probably wouldn't do it if it was a relative of his in the news; but it's someone he doesn't know so that's OK.
in fact, what the hell has anything you say got to do with the points that have been raised here?
what i was trying to get at, and i am sorry that wasn't clear to you barry, is not that just because the media does it that means that it okay but that the media is tapping into something we all feel. have you every made a joke or laughed at one that was at the expense of someone else's suffering? no? i have. i heard this joke about hitler's gas bill the other week and i laughed even when my best friend's father barely survived the holocaust. there is good taste yes and i don't necessarily agree with the reference to masturbation however i take issue with the argument that you wouldn't do it if it was your father etc. probably not but what about the flipside, what about laughing at the plight of a stranger? most of us do that.. and we don't read too much into it.
but considering that you barry obviously don't then i can say that i am truely thankful that there are such pillars of virtue in the community nay in the human race as yourself.
I don't find the post offensive -- mainly because it *isn't* a cheap joke -- I think its an interesting observation about socially innappropriate human behavior that many find difficult to control.
In addition, if the post had come out in a few weeks from now, to err on the safe side of acceptability, much of the impact, and why it is interesting, would have been lost to many
Of course the connection between violence and sexual attraction is an interesting one. For centuries women and men have been drawn to strong men who are also violent and sometimes killers. It seems the original comments may have been the start of an important discussion, had they been framed with a degree of respect and intelligence, instead of, essentially, "this killer makes me horny."
i doubt however that anyone who knows the victim has been offended by this. Why would they? They are far too busy attending to the recovery of the survivors and the burial of their father and husband to read this...
Stilg - I would never criticise anyone for their choice of who they find atractive - if choice is, indeed, the right word to use for something that we often have no concious control over...
hey anon you fuckwad your talking about a bloke here who got his head punched in a year back when he stepped in to stop a woman getting the shit beaten out of her in the street so dont go spouting crap about him having no feelings for others
My, my - if this is what happens when I make an off-the-cuff comment, imagine how many passionate comments I might get should I actually set out to be controversial...
Glad all those people are feeling safe on their anonymous high horses. Sheesh, if you're going to criticize someone at least have the guts to say who you are.
I'm glad you said it Richard, cause I thought the same thing when I saw the front page of the Age the other day. The man is hot...no getting away from it...and it does give you pause I suppose because we're not used to thinking about evil being beautiful.
Unfortunately it often is otherwise it wouldn't have such a following.
Wow Mr Watts! - dissapointed I found this comment thread after the fact. I know you're tough skinned, so you don't need me to tell you to ignore anonymous commentators. It was phenomenal the amount of people who admitted to me in the last week that they found Christopher Hudson attractive - every single one wondered allowed if something was wrong with them for feeling this way. And before reading your post I thought it was limited to my own circle of friends! What does it say about gay men that a number of us desire a dangerous, and potentially scary man??
evol kween. the discussion is valid. but
richard began it in such a crude way. i know decency and restraint are old fashioned, but he could have showed some, and put his brain to work to discuss the points you raise. it was the flippancy of his comment that maybe irritated people..
Oddly enough craig, I would argue that my original post wasn't flippant; although I freely admit that my response to strummer's masturbation comment certainly was. In some ways I think it's that, not the post itself, that subsequently got some people up in arms. And just for the record, no, I haven't been knocking one out over Christopher Hudson...
For crying out loud - nobody would have complained had Richard written a post about how hideously ugly he finds the guy, so why the uproar about saying he's attractive? It goes to show that those who protest subliminally equate 'attractive' with other kinds of desirable qualities, like solid morals and a squeaky clean reputation. Good looking people can be cunts, and ugly people can be saints. They aren't inextricable. Being photogenic doesn't exempt you from exemplifying scum-of-the-earth. It was just an observation, like 'has anyone else noticed he looks like X from that boy band,' or 'his eyes are really close together,' or 'gosh, I could really picture him baking cupcakes in a pink apron.' These observations are neutral, nothing at all to do with his crime or personality, and people who object with such 'thou shalt not' narrow mindedness are the ones who ought to keep their opinions to themselves. Far out.
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