Randy Elrod's Blog, page 12

Seven Months in Spain: A Totally Different Lifestyle

More people like us are choosing to immigrate to Spain because of the climate, the different pace of life, open-mindedness, and the availability of visas such as the non-lucrative visa and the digital nomad visa. Spain was recently voted the fourth-best country in the world for foreigners to live in. After seven months, we are...

Ejaculation

An Erotic Art Gallery

Ejaculation: What It Is and Why It Feels So Good

It’s best to imagine this post as an episode of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight. It makes the title sing when imagined in his striking British accent, complete with hand and face gestures. He would very likely emphasize the last two words by slowing them down and adding the accented word “fucking” in the middle...

Loreena McKennitt In Concert (The Backstory)

Last night, Gina and I saw Loreena McKennitt for the first time in concert. I have loved her music for over thirty years, particularly her vocal clarity and quality. Afterward, I told Gina the backstory of the song The Mummer’s Dance, which helped her understand why I was so moved last night as the stunningly...

There are Men Too Gentle to Live Among the Wolves

If you look up definitions of “virile,” you will find words like macho, ultramasculine, hairy-chested, vigorous, masterful, and forceful. And phrases like “having traditional masculine traits, especially to a marked degree.” Virility is “any of a wide range of masculine characteristics viewed positively.” Virile means “marked by strength or force.”  I firmly believe that these...

Protected: A Tribute to My Muse and Favorite Model

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

Impromptu (and Candid) Thoughts

(A Four-Minute Read) I retired at the age of forty-eight. Which caused a few years of tumultuous adjustment—tears shed over this self-imposed exile from the stage; once applauded by audiences, admired by peers, and stopped by strangers in the street; how could I not feel some bereavement over the waning of my celebrity, the weekly...

Museum of Prohibited Art

Warning: This post contains graphic images and explicit sexuality. At my first church staff position (a naive and easily manipulated nineteen-year-old) as youth and music pastor, I will never forget the ultra-authoritarian white male pastor ordering me to have a record burning of all the youth’s rock and roll albums. For some ignorant and unknown...

Pleasure: Sinful Desire or A Pathway to Healing?

Could pleasure transcend its conventional definitions of “frivolous amusement,” “a state of gratification,” or “desire,” as the Merriam-Webster dictionary suggests? Might it hold a more profound significance?  What if pleasure is a pathway to healing? Those of us brought up in a fundamentalist religious home may find this question challenging to contemplate. Pleasure, our preachers, teachers, and parents...

Gentle Thoughts for Those of Us Over 40

—Do everything you can to cultivate an inner life, especially since culture is always trying to suck it out of you.  —Try Meditation. Take 10 minutes in a quiet, private place. Set a timer and mentally recite and repeat “The Serenity Prayer,” or write your own mantra. When your mind strays, be kind to yourself...