Later this year Haworth will be issuing an enhanced version of MILITARY TRADE. Whether or not you opt to buy a copy, be sure to check out the newly expanded photo section, which features some choice military erotica images collected by Kinsey himself.

"Steven Zeeland does for gender study what others have to settle for wishing they could. His interviews — THE BEST ARE 'STRAIGHT TO HELL' MEETS STUDS TERKEL IN KINSEY DRAG — let you make your own decisions, by allowing their subjects to speak for themselves. . . . And Zeeland's admiration for the soldiers he documents is a subtext printed with invisible but indelible ink." — Brian Pera / Lowblueflame.com

It's high time I donned my Kinsey drag anew. As reported last month, I've resumed collecting materials documenting military initiation rituals.

If you have any photos, clippings, personal anecdotes, audio or videotapes you'd be willing to contribute to this project, please drop me an e-mail with RESEARCH in the subject line.

Needless to say, I have a special interest in activities that appear to entail homoerotic aspects. My aim is not, however, to "expose" these traditions as somehow "really gay." Nor do I want to embarrass the military. On the contrary. My approach will be documentarian — and elegiac.

My goal is to compile a scrapbook of sorts chronicaling initiation rituals military men have used to bond; to integrate newcomers; to self-govern their living and working spaces; to let off steam, etc. I've already written a little about the "crossing the line" ceremony, a sailor tradition that dates back centuries but is rapidly dying out.

It appears likely that this and other military male-bonding rituals will soon become as obsolete as . . . urinals on Navy ships?

My e-mail address remains the same, steve@stevenzeeland.com. I'm a terrible correspondent, but I do my best to answer as many letters as I can. And I maintain my pledge to read and carefully archive every letter sent my way.

By the way, all of my research materials will ultimately end up — Where else? You guessed it: the newly established "Zeeland Special Collection" at The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction in Bloomington, Indiana.

That's all for now. Back to you, Momus.

Steve
March 2001

My late friend and mentor David Lloyd, the San Diego beefcake photographer, liked to tell me that I should author a play based on the life of Dr. Alfred Kinsey. On the other side of the Atlantic, Mark Simpson had an idea of his own for a musical based on The Kinsey Report itself!

There's something of a thread here . . .

Scottish alt.popstar Nick Currie, aka Momus, was just in Seattle performing material from his new album FOLKTRONIC. In one song, "Psychopathia, SX" Nick imagines himself a 1940's hillbilly stationmaster receiving a certain famous sex researcher:

Puffing round the railway track here comes the evening train / Bringing Dr. Kinsey back to talk with us again. . . .
The last MP3 I downloaded from Napster was from 1948: "Ooh, Dr. Kinsey!" by Martha Raye — a singer remembered for her "willingness to travel to the 'ends of the earth' to see soldiers."

The Haworth Press has just repackaged my all-time favorite of their backlist titles: BAD BOYS & TOUGH TATTOOS: A SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE TATTOO WITH GANGS, SAILORS, AND STREET-CORNER PUNKS by the late Sam Steward, AKA porn writer Phil Andros. In the early 1950s, Dr. Steward quit his career as a professor to open up a tattoo shop catering especially to Navy "boots." BAD BOYS grew out of a journal he kept at the urging of a friend and former colleague, who sometimes stopped in to visit. . . .

  "When Kinsey was observing in the shop I always used
  my best lines of patter to steer the customers into his
  areas of interest. This was not hard to do, since hope
  springs eternal in the human genitalia, especially those
  of sailors. . . . "
When the freshly redesigned BAD BOYS arrived in the mail last week, I was pleased. And proud; I'd had the honor of selecting the vintage photo for this cover.

Also, hot off the press, the import-only
THE QUEEN IS DEAD:
JARHEADS, EGGHEADS, SERIAL KILLERS & BAD SEX

This experimental epistolary collaboration between Mark Simpson and me has, if nothing else, violated convention. Heinously.

As one reviewer put it, kindly:

"Quite why a pair of armchair philosophers writing about trannies, military men's bottoms, and cats should make an enjoyable read is a mystery. But it does."
Honestly, I never quite believed that this collection of private correspondence really would become public. Indeed, most of my closest friends advised against publishing THE QUEEN IS DEAD until after I'm dead. And yet, here it is — not only in print, but garnering praise in prominent places.

"One of the most congenial, winning, intelligent and original 'gay' publications for many years."

— The Independent (London)

"This book is full of clever lines. But cleverness alone doesn't do it for me. What makes THE QUEEN IS DEAD different and moving is the graceful arc it makes as the two men become friends and confidants. . . . "

— Hot Press (Dublin)

"What makes this book so appealing is that you can read it on three levels. As a tale of bawdy exploits with enlisted men, it skirts the fringes of highbrow gay porn. It can also be read as a thoughtful critique of masculinity and the urban gay lifestyle, scattered with witty epigrams that are pure entertainment. Equally engagingly, it is a story about the relationship between the writers who, encountering misfortune in love, come to realise the value of friendship."

— The Guardian (London)

Click here for information on how to order this import title from amazon.co.uk.

A NIGHT IN THE BARRACKS — AUTHENTIC ACCOUNTS OF SEX IN THE ARMED FORCES
Alex Buchman, Editor

A NIGHT IN THE BARRACKS is at last off press. This is a collection of non-fiction erotic stories, most of them set on base, presented by my former Marine pal young Mr. Buchman (that guy pictured on the cover of THE MASCULINE MARINE).

I've contributed the Foreword; one clinically-detailed confessional chapter ("In a German Peep Show"); and the 22-page photo insert.

"A NIGHT IN THE BARRACKS is a memorable night indeed. Alex Buchman's keen eye and first-hand knowledge have assembled a collection that is INTENSELY EROTIC AND THOUGHT-PROVOKING. Heartily spitting in the eye of porn clichés and expectations, the book stares you down with its hard authenticity and emotional candor. . . . LEAVES YOU EXCITED, CONFUSED, AND HUNGRY FOR MORE. I look forward to future volumes."

— D. Travers Scott, Author, EXECUTION TEXAS: 1987;
    Editor, STRATEGIC SEX AND BEST GAY EROTICA 2000

Click here to view excerpts and images from Buchman's first book — and for information on submitting stories for possible inclusion in Volume II.or possible inclusion in Volume II.

COMING LATE DECEMBER 2000 FROM
SOUTHERN TIER EDITIONS:

A NIGHT IN THE BARRACKS
AUTHENTIC ACCOUNTS OF SEX
IN THE ARMED FORCES
Alex Buchman, Editor

A Night in the Barracks is at last nearing publication. This "erotica" book is edited by my friend young Mr. Buchman (that guy pictured on the cover of The Masculine Marine). I've contributed the Foreword and one chapter ("In a German Peep Show," an homage to Katherine Mansfield). I also supplied the 22-page photo insert.

"A Night in the Barracks is a memorable night indeed. Alex Buchman's keen eye and first-hand knowledge have assembled a collection that is INTENSELY EROTIC AND THOUGHT-PROVOKING. Heartily spitting in the eye of porn clichés and expectations, the book stares you down with its hard authenticity and emotional candor. . . . LEAVES YOU EXCITED, CONFUSED, AND HUNGRY FOR MORE. I look forward to future volumes."

— D. Travers Scott, Author, Execution, Texas: 1987; Editor, Strategic Sex and Best Gay Erotica 2000

Check back for a new area of this site devoted to excerpts and images from Buchman's first book — and for information on submitting stories for possible inclusion in Volume II.

In June, VILLAGE VOICE Executive Editor Richard Goldstein flew in from Manhattan to spend a night on the town with me and some sailor friends. We partied hard. So hard that Richard very nearly woke up the next morning with a tattoo on his buttocks. On returning to NYC he filed his report, which was published in the VOICE's annual queer issue: Men Who Love Military Men Too Much — And the Sailors Who Oblige Them. I thought that Richard did a fine job portraying the milieu that I have written about and continue to inhabit. Regrettably, I failed to anticipate certain consequences, including, but not limited to: a long list of friends being summarily blacklisted from the tavern mentioned in print; the summary dismissal of the Native American single mother working at the bar the night of Goldstein's visit — for not refusing to let me take photographs; a death threat; and being forwarded anonymous third-party e-mail crediting me with inspiring a military investigative service crackdown / witch hunt.

All this for an article about STRAIGHT MEN in the military.

Goldstein wrote:
"The feeling between them is merely manly, and its goal is friendship, not mating.". . .

"The row over gays in the military has made servicemen hyperaware of homosexuality. 'That may help people who embrace a gay identity,' Steve says, 'but progress has come at the expense of a certain traditional freedom among military men to enjoy physical intimacy without any implications for their identity.' Instead of allowing out-and-proud gays to serve, Steve would rather see the ban on sodomy lifted. Any sort of sex off-duty would be permissible-and uncategorical. Don't ask, don't name."

The same week, I was admitted to the emergency room of my local public hospital with symptoms not dissimilar to those described in media reports of a West Coast outbreak of a virus spread by dust particles contaminated by the saliva of waterfront rats. Also, my day job as Editor came to an unexpected end over creative differences.

To anyone who tried to contact me during this period and never received a reply, I apologize.

No more editing another author's books for me. My new role model is Carl van Vechten.

  Summer 2000 saw the publication of my photographs in the VILLAGE VOICE and HONCHO, which featured a 17-photo layout of mine in its July issue. I'm also quite proud of the photo that adorns Kerwin Kay's Male Lust (despite the mixed results of his mandate that the cigarette hanging from Bremerton sailor Cast Boy's mouth be digitally amputated).
  Thanks in large part to a flood of encouragement from e-correspondents, I'm returning to work on the project formerly known as "MILITARY HAZING." Details to follow.

  January 2001 sees the publication of my letters from and to Mark Simpson: THE QUEEN IS DEAD: JARHEADS, EGGHEADS, SERIAL KILLERS & BAD SEX by the prestigious London-based small press Arcadia. Though nothing at all like my first four books, this epistolary collaboration with notorious ANTI-GAY badboy Simpson will be of interest to anyone steeled (or reckless) enough to brave the risk of "T.M.I." about the sordid details of my private life ca. 1994-1998, and to queer theorists.

Though I continue to read, and archive, every letter sent my way, answering all of the mail this site generates would be a full-time job in itself. Perhaps if the right patron comes along I may yet enjoy the luxury of "just" pursuing my research. Meanwhile, my e-mail address is the same, steve@stevenzeeland.com, and I'll do my best to answer as many letters as I can. Thanks.

Steve