Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (institute for sexology)

Institut für Sexualwissenschaft

(Institute for sexology)

In remembrance of Lucy Meadows 1981-2013

Teacher, Lucy Meadow’s privacy was gone

Soon after her full gender reassignment

Caught the attention of Richard Littlejohn,

Who all but demanded her retirement:

“He isn’t only”, Littlejohn prattled on,

Cajoling with thinly-veiled incitement,

“In the wrong body; he’s in the wrong job”;

And he further suggested Miss Meadows “Stop

Putting his own selfish needs ahead

Of the well-being of the children he has taught”.

Then came the hate mail, word having spread,

And Lucy, evidently, deemed fair sport,

By Littlejohn’s hounds, was later found dead;

Poisoned by carbon monoxide; in short:

She’d killed herself, and the coroner’s dim view

Of the press, was a justified, “SHAME ON YOU!”

Mindful of Lucy Meadows (R.I.P);

Let’s travel back to a long ago date,

In Berlin: May 6th 1933;

When Germany was a Nazi-run state,

And when The Institute for Sexology,

Was trashed; and the staff, all forced to vacate;

Were for the most part, imprisoned or killed;

And the vacancies, Nazi officialdom filled.

The Institute for Sexology would

Today be over a century old,

If it hadn’t been looted and closed for good,

And research was left to continue, unfold,

Hence destigmatizing misunderstood

Subjects, otherwise illicitly sold,

Kept under wraps and perused with caution:

Homosexuality, abortion,

Gender and feminism were nigh-hated;

Deemed un-Germanic, unworthy, uncouth;

And let’s face it; it can’t be overstated:

The same rules applied most everywhere; in truth,

Minorities were, in the main, ill-fated,

And the wrath of radicalised völkisch youth,

Unleashed in Berlin on the late-spring day,

Had long before then, been simmering away.

The Institute, founded in 1919,

Was the brainchild of a German physician;

Magnus Hirschfeld, who for many years, had been

An advocate for gender transition,

And rights for the gay and transgender scene;

A brave, undoubtedly hazardous mission;

Though The Weimar Republic government,

Gave him concessions, if not full-consent.

But alas; in line with the times; Magnus Hirschfeld

Was often a target for hard-right hatred;

One night, he was almost fatally quelled,

By a mob, who beat him and left him for dead,

And when it transpired he’d survived being felled

The disappointment could even be read

In rags, whose censurers had plenty to say

About Magnus Hirschfeld; born-Jewish; and gay.

The Institute lays claim to the first ever

Full-gender-reassignment, there performed,

On Dora Richter, who’d once tried to sever

Her penis, perhaps from feeling malformed,

At merely six years of age! Though whether

Or not, those early childhood feelings were formed

Even earlier, I’m unable to find

An account, with gender dysphoria in mind.

“Dörchen”, as she was affectionately

Known to Hirschfeld, by whom she was employed,

Had previously worked, respectively,

As a baker, an actor and a null-and-void

Soldier, upon having been effectively

Ejected from the draft she’d failed to avoid;

And finally, she found the Institute, where

She lived till the Nazis came visiting there.

For fourteen years, the Institute continued

Research, during which time it became a kind

Of refuge for those who were mainly viewed

By a public, misguidedly inclined

To smear them with names undoubtedly crude;

Most likely with tabloid opinions in mind;

How liberating must it have felt to be free,

To express gender and sexuality,

In a respectful and safe environment,

Where trans employees were supplied with passes,

(An implemented legal requirement),

Allowing them to move among the masses

In dress unrestrained by birth-sex assignment;

Lecturers held educational classes

Relating to matters either outlawed

Or at the very least, roundly ignored;

The institute championed, equality

For women, (in a male dominated age),

Homosexuality legality,

Gender and many more sources of outrage,

Drawn on, for the sake of inhumanity,

By nationalist preachers, given centre-stage,

Condemning, with furious indignation;

The more so in times of hyperinflation.

In 1933, when he came to power;

Adolf Hitler, unleashed a remorseless surge

Of hatred, which Joseph Goebbels, by now,

Reich Minister of Propaganda, would merge

With hypnotic speeches, crowned with a vow

Of terrible revenge on the Jewish scourge,

Coupled with the purging of “Homophile” clubs;

Whose members deserved the severest of drubs.

Less than five months later, the institute

Was raided by students; Nazis to-a-man;

Given free-rein by the government, to loot

And destroy, like Nazis do, because they can;

And accompanied by a brass-band to boot!

The institute library they overran;

Every book therein deemed fuel for a fire,

And ceremoniously thrown on the pyre.

Institute employees, were, by the SA,

Manhandled with prejudice in the extreme,

And, in accord with the aforesaid vow, they

(The survivors)were told they could either team

Up with Nazi-state scientists, by way

Of collaboration, or join the endless stream

Of humanity, flowing beyond prison gates,

To an ocean of expendable inmates.

Dora Richter; (so I read), hadn’t died,

But escaped; settling eventually,

In Czechoslovakia, where she applied

(Successfully) for a new identity.

Magnus Hirschfeld, temporally deprived

Ill-fate; having long-ago left Germany,

He’d been traveling the world all the while,

And he died, two years later, in exile.

As for the Nazis, the war, and all the rest;

It’s a well- documented history;

But what of humanity put to the test?

Have the lessons, received post-victory,

Been all but forgotten north, south, east, and west

By majorities, favouring bigotry?

Far-right politics, impossibly

Is rising again, from what I can see;

Populist leaders, of hard right agenda,

And rank manifestos beyond the pale

Are, seemingly, each a strong contender,

On many a nationalist campaign trail;

Anti-Pride, and anti-transgender;

These authoritarians, should they prevail,

(Their vote-base grows daily, evermore vast),

Look set to repeat the mistakes of the past,

And Richard Littlejohn, is still employed

At the Daily Mail; brain-washing millions,

In spite of Miss Meadows, whose life was destroyed

By the likes of his shallow opinions;

Ignorant and baselessly paranoid

Rhetoric, fit for fascist dominions,

Brazenly printed, published and believed

By too many readers, too easily, deceived.

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Know Your Place

Know Your Place

Andrew Tate phoned up his local escort

Agency, who, due to a word misheard,

Sent round a girl, not his usual sort,

Of a demeanour completely absurd.

She, entirely at odds with his wishes,

Entered his house, went straight to the kitchen,

Opened cupboards, and spoke to the dishes!

Andrew hollered; “Who let this mad bitch in!?”

At which his house security appeared:

“This is the escort they’ve sent you”, said one;

“I have to admit, she is pretty weird;

Would you like me to go and get my gun?”

But Andrew was back on the phone, now raging;

“Who the fuck is this you’ve sent me?” he cried;

“I can’t take her to the fight I’m staging”.

“I’m sorry sir”, the manager replied,

“Can you repeat your request regarding

The type of escort lady you required?”

This Andrew did, on top of demanding,

The agency receptionist be fired;

"Of course sir, and we’ll also send a new

Escort to you straight away, free of charge;

After all sir, it’s the least we can do;

We'll even throw in a naked massage”.

With this assurance the call there ended;

The manager summoned and dismissed his

Employee, who, being most offended,

Took him to a tribunal, and this

Reportage, I must now draw to a close,

Lest I influence the outcome one way

Or the other, as far as judgement goes;

The jury being given final say,

Regarding the strange case of Mr Tate’s

Request for a woman who, “Knows her plates”.

The Warring Twenties

The Warring Twenties

Remember when the wall fell?

A mountain peaked with hope

Arose and for a spell

We jointly climbed its slope

But it soon became a task

Impossible to bear

The slope was left to bask

In wanton disrepair

The mountain disappeared

Collapsed upon itself

And in its place appeared

A mirage formed of wealth

Attention soon arrested

Another race began

Now violently contested

By zealous jealous man

The mirage seems quite far

From being justly claimed

And the warring twenties are

Most very aptly named

Tripping at an Eighties Music Theme Party

Tripping at an Eighties Music Theme Party

A flock of steam girls watched videos of all-kestrel

manoeuvres in the park, on TV, as Gary and a new man,

performed rude-mode antics, all over Steve’s strange

icehouse, whilst Adam’s pants, freshly washed by Marilyn,

hung drying in the human league lounge

where, to cut a long story short, I’d lost my mind

earlier, upon being asked, by George, if I’d mind

keeping an eye on Andrew and Michael’s kestrel,

while they and he had a fun boy three in the lounge,

recently vacated by Gary and the new man,

who’d just been informed by Marilyn,

of a killing joke, concerning a very strange

incident which had suddenly occurred by the strange

icehouse, driving Steve out of his simple mind,

before the police, called by a now miserable Marilyn,

appeared with guns and roses, and shot the kestrel

I’d agreed to keep an eye on, and which the new man,

followed by Gary, carried into to the lounge.

George, Michael and Andrew, were playing lounge

music to a foreigner, born in the USA; a strange

land, completely unknown to the new man,

and Gary, neither of whom seemed to mind;

both being, as it were, preoccupied with the kestrel,

whose death even now was being spoken of by Marilyn

to the police, who turned out to be in the Marilyn

joy division, and as such, were invited into the lounge,

where they held a private investigation of the kestrel,

whilst drinking orange juice mixed with a strange

herb, said to have a eurythmic effect on the mind,

and which was secretly added by the new man.

I’d just now, sat silently watching the new man

surreptitiously stir the herb, handed to him by Marilyn,

into their orange juice and I was put in mind

of a materiel girl, reclining spiked, in a Bauhaus lounge

chair, all night long, at a party equally as strange

as this one, albeit minus Andrew and Michael’s kestrel,

which, to my mind, had earlier appeared, in the lounge

after the new man, egged on by George and Marilyn,

hovered, in a strange way, over my drink, like a kestrel.

Free Sestina

Free Sestina

A sports presenter exercised free-speech,

To criticise government policies on Twitter,

much to the vexation of right-wing football

fans, as well as home secretary, Cruella Deville,

who complained to her friend at the BBC,

who in turn, reprimanded his employee.

“if you want to remain our employee,

control yourself; curb your free-speech,

lest you tarnish the good name of the BBC.

In future, don’t post anything on Twitter,

criticising the policies of Cruella Deville;

try sticking with tweets about football,

or at least, if you digress from football,

be a responsible, impartial, employee;

lay off Brexit and Cruella Deville;

we shouldn’t have to tell you: free-speech

has its limitations, maybe not on Twitter,

but certainly, here at the BBC.”

So said the Tory donor chairman of the BBC,

to the pundit; but still, right wing football

fans bitterly bombarded the Twitter

account of the reprimanded employee;

exercising their powers of free-speech

to condemn his tweets re Cruella Deville,

and as far as the PM, and Cruella Deville

were concerned, the chairman of the BBC

should silence the pundit’s free-speech,

once and for all, even concerning football;

they felt he should no longer be an employee,

after what he’d tweeted on Twitter,

and, incidentally, how could it be that Twitter

allowed Nazi comparisons with Cruella Deville,

on their platform, now every left wing employee

has been sacked by Elon Musk? The BBC,

following Musk’s lead, should sack the football

pundit, and enforce laws, banning free-speech,

on any left-wing employee, of the BBC,

tweeting on Twitter, slandering Cruella Deville,

and mixing football with anti-Tory, free-speech.

Fisherthem

Fisherthem

It’s easier scoffing at Sam Smith all day,

Than trying, for once, to see things their way,

But if that’s an effort, don’t be a div;

Show some humanity,

Live and let live.

A Mouse in the Dark

A Mouse in the Dark

There’s a clip, where Robert Plant appears,

In polka-dot shirt and trousers tight;

Saying, “Thanks for eleven years”,

Thus ending Led Zeppelin’s second night,

At Knebworth; August, nineteen seventy

Nine; a gig which wasn’t meant to be

John Bonham’s swan song in the UK,

(In less than a year, he passed away),

And though I attended that one, of two

Concerts, the story I here relate,

Concerns not the band, so much as a mate,

Along with other people I once knew,

All given aliases, as their real

Names are best left anonymous, I feel.

It wasn’t my first all-day festival

Attendance; I’d been to a few before,

(Though Knebworth, I remember, best of all),

And I’ve since been to one or two more,

But farther from the stage I’ve never been,

The crowd was the largest I’ve ever seen;

I hoped we were near a portaloo;

The night before, having been resigned to

Taking a dump in the open air,

Crouched by a bush, and exposed by torchlight;

Shone by the steward’s with mirthful delight,

As I wiped in resignation and despair:

And of that anecdote I’ve more to tell,

Along with a few others as well...

“What’s the time Graham?”, “Quarter to ten;

When’s the first band on?”, “I dunno; three?

At least five hours; I’ll skin up again;

Can I nick a fag Graham? Cheers G”.

Graham, Troy, Jim, and yours truly,

The previous day, had duly

Arrived by train, late afternoon,

And, seeing as it would be dusky soon,

We pitched up the tent in the nearest spot,

Or I should say: Graham pitched up his

Small tent, whilst we, basically took the piss,

Drinking warm larger and smoking pot,

Using tobacco from Graham’s cigs;

The same as we’d done at previous gigs.

Jim toked on my badly rolled joint,

Sucking, frowning and sucking, once more;

“It’s too tight”, he said, “There’s no fucking point”,

Adding, in a tone I tried to ignore:

“As usual”, upon handing it back,

To me, and I, achieving the same lack

Of success, winced involuntarily.

(Even now I wince occasionally,

Recalling dwelling painfully,

On the barbed remarks, he often dealt,

Impervious to how I felt,

Upon being addressed, disdainfully,

And though I never once heard him say

“You cunt”, I felt like one anyway).

The two man tent being pitched, Graham stood

Surveying his work: “It’s a bit small,

But I reckon it’s probably good

Enough; none of us are all that tall”.

Jim, needing a pee, walked hurriedly,

To a dome marquee, which supposedly

Contained toilets, and as the night drew,

There was a breeze; it was chilly too;

I tried to catch eyes with good looking

Girls, as Graham, Troy and I made our way

To a party of sorts where, hippies lay

Stoned, spuds on a bonfire were cooking,

As Jim showed with Clare; a girl he’d met

In the dome, where they’d had a tête-à-tête.

August nineteen seventy nine:

New wave was king of the music scene;

Punk had been, for a while, in decline;

Debbie Harry was a post-punk queen;

Tunes by the likes of The Boomtown Rats,

And Squeeze (Remember Cool for Cats?)

Were repeatedly played in night clubs,

And on juke boxes in cafés and pubs;

But: "Hold up," you say, "New wave? Squeeze
And The Boomtown Rats were not so!"

My dear pedantic reader; I know;

Allow me some poetic license please;

They charted well, not least the top ten,

Though both were indeed, “Pub rock” back then.

In any case; that night in Hertfordshire,

I travelled back in time, to a decade

Prior to that long-ago year,

Whilst smoking a joint, expertly made;

Passed to me, by an aged hippy,

Whose ramblings, exceedingly trippy,

Filled the vacuum left by the cease

Of guitar and bongos. Here follows a piece;

A fragment, of wisdom, he shared:

“A mouse in the dark is deadlier than

A tiger, and that’s the truth, man”,

I nodded sagely, and he declared,

As a large log on the bonfire caught flame:

“Your Genesis top; I’ve got one the same”.

Suddenly, it seemed the gathering

Entire had focused attention on me

In anticipation of how blathering

My reply to the hippy might be;

And when he, with an inquisitive frown,

Asked, “Did you buy it at The Lamb Lies Down

Tour, Earls Court, in seventy five?” I

Responded with a face saving lie:

“Yeah, what a gig, Peter Gabriel was great;

What do you think of his solo stuff?”

But he had evidently had enough;

“I can’t say I’ve ever heard it mate” .

And with that he wrapped himself up tight

In a blanket, and went out like a light.

Grateful for this reprieve, I turned

With a smile, as I passed the joint

To Clare, and wasn’t at all concerned

When Jim, re lavvies, touched on a point,

Which later touched me, considerably:

“There’s no toilet in the marquee,

But I only needed a piss”, he said,

“So I had one in a bush instead”.

It was quite cold, and the fire was dying;

But Graham and Troy seemed cosy enough,

Albeit, crashed out, sleeping rough

On the grass, and there’s no denying,

When Clare said, “Leave them, let’s go to your tent”;

Jim and I nodded, in mutual assent.

Earlier on I’d chatted with Clare (who

Incidentally was my age, i.e.

Eighteen, and very pretty too)

About things rock related, namely

Led Zeppelin; she being of the view,

Their best album was Zeppelin Two.

I asked if she was here alone,

And she said yes, she was on her own,

But was meeting her friend by the main gate

Tomorrow; and now, she needed somewhere

To sleep, which Jim offered, with room to spare:

A large tent that could sleep at least eight!

Yes, he was devious, through and through,

(And Clare in retrospect probably knew).

There in the tent, the three of us lay with

Clare in the middle; I tried to prepare,

In the dark, a half decent spliff,

Which I was hoping to share with Clare,

Who, I suppose, I may as well admit,

I’d fallen in love with a little bit;

Please, don’t laugh, this story’s impact

Would lesson in wanting of the fact

That I was green in actuality,

And Clare’s age, along with her prettiness,

(Already mentioned in parenthesis),

Combined with our commonality

In music; formulating, in my mind,

A potion, making us two of a kind.

I nudged her gently, but she gave no

Response; Jim was dozing snoring;

I tried sleeping too, but couldn’t let go;

Was Clare asleep or simply ignoring

Me? After what seemed like an age,

I could feel the beginnings of a rage

Inside, and as time dragged, it got worse

And worse and I uttered a curse

And the rage grew into a thundering

Wind and I knew, from experience,

This wind was a prologue to an immense

Tempest; oh God! An intense sundering

Bowel breaking pain; I couldn’t stand it!

……In short; I was dying for a shit.

“For fucks sake what are you trying

To do?” Asked Jim, as I clambered over

Him; I couldn’t say I was dying

For a shit, else my Casanova

Credentials be obliterated

In Clare’s eyes, (though she was irritated

As well, going by the gasp she gave),

So, in a futile attempt to save

Face, I said, “I think I might have dropped

My Zippo somewhere by the bonfire,

And I’m sure Jim muttered “You liar”,

But a tortoise can rarely be stopped,

Once it’s decided to rear its head,

So I ignored Jim and from the tent, fled.

I headed for the dome marquee in haste,

And, on recalling what I'd been told

About about the lack of bodily waste

Provisions, I put the tortoise on hold,

And approached a few stewards, standing

In front of the main gate, disbanding

Gate crashers, bidding no doubt, to get close

To the stage, hence receiving a dose

Of verbal abuse, (and maybe a touch

Of physical); there was some hedgerow

Behind which, the stewards I begged to go,

As I needed a dump so very much;

“Yeah, but don’t take forever”, said one;

I was there in a flash with flies undone.

"Don’t worry; I won’t leave a mess,

I’ve got a bag; I’ll throw it in the bin”.

Said I, in a state of half-undress

From behind a bush, having shat in

A discarded crisp bag (no mean feat)

And presently, wiping clean with an old sheet

Of newsprint, ripped from The Daily Mail

By a kindly steward; “You done yet pal?”

Came a gruff call, and suddenly beams

Of powerful Torchlight were shining

On me; very clearly defining

My arse, and accompanied by the screams

And laugher of girls, their attention

Drawn by stewards with comic intention.

“Here have a look at this, girls” I heard,

As the audience and laughter increased;

I was quite panicked and hurriedly spurred

As well as embarrassed, but at least

The stewards had let me shit, in the dark

Before shining their torches for a lark,

(Although on later contemplation

It wasn’t much of a consolation);

I vacated the spot and tried to find

My way back to our tent and (hopefully)

Clare, but was very soon hopelessly

Lost midst tents identically designed;

I’d have more chance, in a dark house,

Blindfolded, in search of a mouse.

But there was a reference point: the crown

Of the marquee dome, its silhouette

Stark against the moonlit sky, since sundown,

And I figured out a very safe bet:

Judging our tent to be a hundred

Or so yards, give or take, I wandered

A radius of that distance and after a mile

Or ten, found Troy and Graham, by a pile

Of dead bonfire debris, and still asleep!

From there, my mission was easy as pie;

I left them to oblivious shuteye;

Found the tent, unzipped the front, had a peep,

Saw…Clare, naked; Jim lying beneath,

And stared, frozen in shocked disbelief.

Jim evidently cared not a jot

I pulled myself away from the spot,

And heard cries, of abandonment and joy;

I spent the next hours, tired and worn,

In the marquee dome till eight in the morn

And upon my return, found Clare had gone,

Jim looking smug, with all his clothes on

And there was Troy and Graham as well;

Friends reunited, outsiders might say:

Looking back now, things were never that way.

We walked to the main gate, queued for a spell,

And when we got in, Jim and Troy found

No reason to stay, and left homeward-bound.

I took a drag on the not too tightly

Rolled joint, replayed last night’s events,

In my head, then, if I remember rightly,

I fell asleep, and dreamed of tents,

Hippies, Clare, a mouse, Jim, Troy and a bag

Of shit; I awoke, scrounged another fag

From Graham, watched Chas and Dave (the first

And, I’m sorry to say, by far the worst),

Support act; followed by Keith Richard’s band,

And Todd Rundgren, and if either were good

I can’t recall, but from where we stood

They appeared as small as ants, and

Any further details can be perused

On Google, (which, indeed, I’ve used).

Led Zeppelin, were kind of okay;

They sounded a bit tired, but my main

Gripe was they were too far away;

I'd rather have seen them again,

In a smaller venue, but as I’ve said;

John Bonham, next year, would be, sadly, dead;

And, in spite of my griping memory,

I can still say I saw the legendary

Band’s very last, UK performance,

Before they changed their original line

Up; and to end this story of mine,

Here’s a verse, typed in accordance

With Wiki; and in dedication to John;

A great drummer, too prematurely gone:

The Song Remains The Same, Celebration

Day, Black Dog, Nobody’s Fault But Mine….

Led Zeppelin played a compilation

At Knebworth, in nineteen seventy nine,

Of classics, opening with the above,

And closing with, A Whole Lotta Love;

A heartfelt, “Thanks for eleven years”,

Was drowned by two hundred thousand cheers;

And on the way home, in the morning train;

I fancy my ears were deafened, ringing;

Most likely I was silently singing,

Songs, indelibly stamped on my brain;

And forty years later, they’re still there,

As are, it would seem, Roy, Graham, Jim, Clare.