[ SECRET POST #3095 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3095 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


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02.
[Poets of the Fall]


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03.
[The Authority/Stormwatch/Midnighter]


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04.
[Anthony Bourdain/Parts Unknown]


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05.


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06.


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07.


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08.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 010 secrets from Secret Submission Post #442.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

08. http://i.imgur.com/v9Zupoc.png

[(Anonymous)]

But isn't #3 it a matter of interpretation and inference anyhow? As I recall he wrote about feelings of intense shame over having been "beaten and humiliated," but imo that doesn't automatically mean he was sodomized.

[(Anonymous)]

Don't you know rape is the only way to humiliate a white man? They're dripping with too much privilege for anything else.

I'll do a TL;DR as well but...

[(Anonymous)]

Here's what Lawrence writes in Seven Pillars of Wisdom:

"They took away my belt, and my knife, made me wash myself carefully, and fed me. I passed the long day there. They would not let me go on any terms, but tried to reassure me. A soldier’s life was not all bad. To-morrow, perhaps, leave would be permitted, if I fulfilled the Bey’s pleasure this evening. "

A little later:

"They took me upstairs to the Bey’s room; or to his bedroom, rather. He was another bulky man, a Circassian him- self, perhaps, and sat on the bed in a night-gown, trembling and sweating as though with fever. When I was pushed in he kept his head down, and waved the guard out. In a breathless voice he told me to sit on the floor in front of him, and after that was dumb; while I gazed at the top of his great head, on which the bristling hair stood up, no longer than the dark stubble on his cheeks and chin. At last he looked me over, and told me to stand up: then to turn round. I obeyed; he flung himself back on the bed, and dragged me down with him in his arms. When I saw what he wanted I twisted round and up again, glad to find myself equal to him, at any rate in wrestling.
He began to fawn on me, saying how white and fresh I was, how fine my hands and feet, and how he would let me off drills and duties, make me his orderly, even pay me wages, if I would love him.
I was obdurate, so he changed his tone, and sharply ordered me to take off my drawers. When I hesitated, he snatched at me; and I pushed him back. He clapped his hands for the sentry, who hurried in and pinioned me. The Bey cursed me with horrible threats: and made the man holding me tear my clothes away, bit by bit. His eyes rounded at the half-healed places where the bullets had flicked through my skin a little while ago. Finally he lumbered to his feet, with a glitter in his look, and began to paw me over. I bore it for a little, till he got too beastly; and then jerked my knee into him." ...

....

"In my despair I spoke. His face changed and he stood still, then con- trolled his voice with an effort, to say significantly, ‘You must understand that I know: and it will be easier if you do as I wish’. I was dumbfounded, and we stared silently at one another, while the men who felt an inner meaning beyond their experience, shifted uncomfortably. But it was ev- idently a chance shot, by which he himself did not, or would not, mean what I feared. I could not again trust my twitching mouth, which faltered always in emergencies, so at last threw up my chin, which was the sign for ‘No’ in the East; then he sat down, and half-whispered to the corporal to take me out and teach me everything."

....

"After the corporal ceased, the men took up, very deliberately, giving me so many, and then an interval, during which they would squabble for the next turn, ease themselves, and play unspeakably with me. This was repeated often, for what may have been no more than ten minutes."

.....

"Their consideration (rendered at once, as if we had deserved men’s homage) momently stayed me to carry the burden, whose certainty the passing days confirmed: how in Deraa that night the citadel of my integrity had been irrevocably lost."

TL;DR

[(Anonymous)]

Lawrence is captured, made to clean himself thoroughly and brought to the Bey's room. When he resists the Bey's advances, the Bey tells his corporal to take Lawrence out and "teach him everything."

Then they beat and whip him brutally as well as "play unspeakably" with him and in the end he also mentions that "my integrity had been irrevocably lost."

So while he may not have been sodomized, it's difficult to come to any other conclusion than that he was in some way sexually assaulted or molested.

Re: I'll do a TL;DR as well but...

[(Anonymous)]

Man, I guess I'm good ad divorcing old things from real life, because that should not have been as hot as it was.

Re: I'll do a TL;DR as well but...

[(Anonymous)]

Well...Lawrence himself had rather mixed feelings about it:

"I remembered the corporal kicking with his nailed boot to get me up; and this was true, for next day my right side was dark and lacerated, and a damaged rib made each breath stab me sharply. I remembered smiling idly at him, for a delicious warmth, probably sexual, was swelling through me: and then that he flung up his arm and hacked with the full length of his whip into my groin. This doubled me half-over, screaming, or, rather, trying impotently to scream, only shuddering through my open mouth. One giggled with amusement."

But I think that was part of the problem too and compounded his feelings of shame and loss of integrity.

Re: I'll do a TL;DR as well but...

[(Anonymous)]

Considering that the best evidence is that it was, in fact, a weird self-insert rape fantasy, he probably found it even hotter than you did. So you're morally in the clear.

Re: I'll do a TL;DR as well but...

[(Anonymous)]

See, this kind of bothers me because, from what I've seen, the evidence that it was a lie is pretty shaky. And several of his biographers (Mack and Wilson prominently) certainly believe it occurred.

Re: I'll do a TL;DR as well but...

[arcadiaego]

The 'best' evidence, really?

[(Anonymous)]

Lawrence anon! You're back!

[(Anonymous)]

I...kind of thought this was someone else responding to first Lawrence!anon.

[(Anonymous)]

Yep!

Oh this movie hooked me SO bad. I just started reading one of the two Lawrence biographies I bought. I'm so excited. But good lord do they go into a lot of detail. Sometimes it feels really, well, intrusive, to read so much into someone else's life.

[elcort]

Yeah a lot of it can feel that way. I'm not into shipping but that would actually be less intrusive than the biographies, really. The movie is far enough from reality.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm reading John Mack's biography (which won a Pulitzer Prize) and at one point he starts describing how Lawrence's mother would spank/beat him to administer punishment and I'm just thinking "Dude...TMI." Granted he did get a lot of the info directly from friends and family members but still...I can't help but think how mortified I'd be if people tried to draw conclusions about my behavior as an adult from the fact that my mom spanked me.

The movie, at least, is fictionalized so I never really get that feeling. There's enough layers of separation.

Although Peter O'Toole is SO TALL compared to Lawrence. O'Toole is 6'2: (188 cm) while Lawrence is 5'5" (166 cm).

[(Anonymous)]

Hey, you should read about Rousseau's spanking fetish in his Confessions. They're online. It's awesome. :)

[(Anonymous)]

OTOH, there's a reason flagellation was called "the English vice"...

[litalex]

But O'Toole was so very beautiful in that movie; I'd rather have him than someone who's of the right height.

[arcadiaego]

I...personally would not recommend A Prince of Our Disorder. It all gets a bit 'his mother caused everything because that's what happens with homosexuals, obviously'. Lawrence and his mother clashed a lot (possibly because they were actually rather similar) but she was hardly abusive.

[(Anonymous)]

Unsolicited rec: Lawrence in Arabia by Scott Anderson is so good. So good. Less a straight biography than a history of the region following a couple different actors (including an American, a German, and a (Palestinian?) Jew. But the Deraa Incident is examined in some detail.

[arcadiaego]

I am just starting that one! Glad to hear it's good. As straight bios go, I thought Hero by Michael Korda was very good and comprehensive.

[arcadiaego]

The Lawrence in the movie is so different from the real Lawrence that he's pretty much a fictional character, so I wouldn't worry about #1 for a start. The homoeroticsm between Lawrence and Ali was written into the movie intentionally, so I wouldn't worry much about #2 either. As for #3 I have been reading about Lawrence for about 12 years now and as far as I'm concerned there's absolutely no *convincing* evidence whatsoever that he made it up, especially given how it ties in chronologically to the mental state he was in afterwards and when he returned to Derra. There were even medical records when he joined the army that said he was scarred. What he may have done was fictionalised the account in Seven Pillars of Wisdom as his way of dealing with it and his feelings about sexuality in general. Have you read his letter to Charlotte Shaw on the subject? I don't think you can conclude he was lying from that.