The slinky, silky, secretive nature of cats is very seductive, I admit.
Many gay men love them, seem to have a psychic link to them, are like cats in their own ability to intuit every subtle wrinkle in the matrix.
In this, cats and the men who love them resemble women with PMS. Nothing is too small to set off their high- maintenance wiring. Some of these men are adorable, my best friends even. But I hate their fucking cats!
What’s wrong with me, doc. I’m a fag. I intuit, I read the ether, I channel the zeitgeist. I just don’t get cats.
I hate them because they’re not dogs. A dog runs to meet you at the door and goes into a little dance, jumping, leaping, twirling, sneezing, running circles around your feet. You are their king. This is what it feels like to be somebody’s Ultimate Top. If they knew how to turn themselves inside out, by golly, they would do it. For you.
Of course, many of my friends are much too tasteful, too self-contained, too secure in their gay selves to need that kind of slavering affection. They are the cat people. No, they are the curse of the cat people.
Here’s what happens when you come home to a house with a cat:
Want to see it again?
Impressive, huh? You’ve got to open a can of food to see that cat, and even then it gives you a pissed-off fashion-model look like it expected maybe a diamond necklace too.
At right is a really ravishing photo of David K.’s cat, Jojo. She’s very affectionate. (No matter what sex they are, cats to me are always female, by virtue of their witchy sensitivity.)
When I visit Casa Nightcharm, Jojo comes and sleeps with me, propping her fragile girlface against my ankle. The yellow eyes make a lovely, spooky nightlight. Jojo is really a changeling, I figure, a dog that got hoodooed into a cat by some wicked pixie, for some probably minor offense like peeing off the paper in fairyland.
I can deal with Jojo. It’s Veronica I hate, the other cat that lives in the house. Veronica, okay. The name alone spells DIVA! Spells Tension On The Set! She’s a fat white Persian. You don’t really live with Veronica, you tiptoe around her many PMS-essy moods.
If you pet her, she will bite you. If you pick her up, you’re handling a screeching, scratching porcupine. In the movie The Omen, they used a nasty black rottweiler to carry out the Evil One’s bidding. Obviously, Damien never met Veronica.
I’m convinced that when we’re all asleep, Veronica sneaks off to ruined churches. Dimly outlined by guttering candles, she wattles down the aisle, pounces on the altar, swipes at the tabernacle until it swings open, then scratches up a Eucharist and snaps it back into her yap. The wafter, I’m sure, bleeds; the statues weep.
But perhaps, I understate. This cat is E-Ville!
That’s not her at left, by the way — I don’t think you can take a picture of a demon — but this malevolent creature shares Veronica’s general attitude. Not entirely by coincidence, the cat here is what is called a Kitler — cats that look like Hitler.
Even people who profess to like cats will sometimes cast a rueful eye on the breed. Camille Paglia, for instance:
In her always rewarding work on art and decadence, Sexual Personae, the scholar-celebrity dashes off a riff on cats that stands somewhere between withering critique and the tribute of a besotted beauty-lover.
“One of the most misunderstood features of Egyptian life,” she writes, “was the veneration of cats, whose mummified bodies have been found by the thousands.”
“Neither silly nor childish,” this veneration was an act of art appreciation. The cat’s “nocturnal primitivism and Apollonian elegance of line,” Paglia contends, captured the essence of the Egyptian aesthetic — which was “haughty, solitary, precise.” Like the Egyptians, cats are innate “arbiters of elegance.”
“Cats have a sense of pictorial composition: they station themselves symmetrically on chairs, rugs, even a sheet of paper on the floor.”
The cat values invisibility: “comically imagining itself undetectable as it slouches across a lawn. But it also fashionably loves to see and be seen… It is a narcissist, always adjusting its appearance.”
The insights tumble out from our favorite oracle of Delphi, the sacred-monster Paglia. Some favorites:
Cats are prowlers, uncanny creatures of the night. Cruelty and play are one for them. They live by and for fear, practicing being scared or spooking humans by sudden rushings and ambushes. Cats dwell in the occult, that is “the hidden.”…
The black cat of Halloween is the lingering shadow of archaic night. Sleeping up to 20 of every 24 hours, cats reconstruct and inhabit the primitive night-world…
The cat is a law unto itself. It has never lost its despotic air of Oriental luxury and indolence. It was too feminine for the male-loving Greeks…
Cats have secret thoughts, a divided consciousness. No other animal is capable of ambivalence …as when a purring cat simultaneously buries its teeth warningly in one’s arm. The inner drama of a lounging cat is telegraphed by its ears, which swerve around toward a distant rustle as its eyes rest with false adoration on ours, and secondly by its tail, which flicks menacingly even while the cat dozes.
Positioning cats as “time-travelers from ancient Egypt,” Paglia notes that they return as important cultural props “whenever sorcery or style is in vogue.”
Well, I’m all for sorcery and style, not to mention Vogue. And for all my misgivings, when I find Jojo suddenly in my lap, as light as a feather, and she climbs up and starts kneading my chest in that weird way cats do, purring lower and lower like a kettle on the boil, I pick up the vibe — a disturbingly erotic one — and I get it.
But then I make the mistake of spotting Veronica out of the corner of my eye: Proud and puffed and Persian. Sitting stock still for hours, glaring at some dust particles swirling around in a shaft of light, and I know that somewhere the gates of Hell are open. She is staring deep into the abyss, and the abyss is staring deep into her. Neither are particularly troubled by the depravity they see — or even surprised.
And — is it my imagination? — does that demon-cat actually smile?
For more Cat-Tast-Trophe:
Sexual Personae by Camille Paglia
Kitlers — Cats that look like Hitler
An Occult Reading of Cat Lore
John Calendo will be on vacation for the rest of the summer.
He returns to these pages in September.
Meanwhile, we’ll continue to titillate, scandalize,
and amuse you with all things Charmed Life.
Poof, you’re suddenly gayer!
Guys I am gay and I do not hate cats but I am not overly fond of them. I have a little dog who is the most wonderful companion that I have ever had. He gives me unconditional love, he is always there to greet me when I come home and he is smart and playful. I will take my little dog anytime over anyones cat. My Ruggles is smarter than any cat and not as sneaky. He is open and forthwright.
Great piece! Jack: I’d like to see Mr. Ruggles stuck somewhere unconditioned.
I honestly have a strong disliking of cats. I mean, they’re cute furry animals, and if you’ve got love to spare they’ll make sure they get it. But I really am not the kindah guy that keeps a cat, besides my parents most likely won’t let me.
I’d say dogs are better, I bet you can train dogs to drive scared, and cute, mailmen onto my doorstep. Praying the door will open in time. Barking to warn his boss some handsome mailmen has arrived to deliver a package, slowly moving towards the frightened mailman which is pushing his body as tight to the door as possible.
When the door finally opened the mailmen was dripping with sweat, as the second dog also cam running from the backyard. Releaved at the words from their owner; “Ennis! Jack! Down you two, scaring some poor mailman!” Unaware of it the mailman had almost embraced the man for safety. He smiled at the mailman and noticed his wet shirt, really dripping with sweat. “You want to take that off?” His da…
Sorry, I got a little carried away. Anyway, I’d prefer dogs above cats, for sure.
Cats are wonderful creatures. Sleek, graceful and vicious. I love that they’re nobody’s bitch. They have minds of their own and the word fetch will likely get you a gushing wound.
Dogs are messy, noisy, dirty and generally make way too much noise. Plus they’re damned needy. I am not a dog person.
My cat and I understand each other. We like our alone time but occasionally we like a little touching so I feel privilleged when he comes over and sits on my lap or lies on my tummy.
This was a great article, particularly the mention of a purring cat biting, I’ve experienced that.
They stare at “nothing” and hear things we can’t. They’re mysterious and beautiful. When I make eye contact with a cat I feel calm and wonder.
Amusing, entertaining and generally unbiased. Nice writing.
As a homosexual male, I must admit how torn I feel over the feline species. Each one of them is female in my eyes also, and Jojo seems like a diamond in the rough compared to the Cruella DeSalem syndrome plaguing three quarters of her kind. Their uselessness and nonchalance compared to dogs is another flaw. I guess it’s the moving art thing…they’re elegance makes them worthwhile.
Well I certainly don’t have litter boxes beneath my equally elegant wall paintings to which I am NOT allergic to. So if you bring me a cat, make sure it’s stuffed. Interpret that anyway you’d like.
I’m not a big fan of cats. I tolerate them at best. Thing is, I keep attracting them when I’m near them and I’m also allergic to their dander. I spend a lot of time with one of my friends who has a dog. He’s a blond Terrier mix (we affectionally call him a “twink” dog) who is friendly, playful, and a big flirt. When I have a bad day at work, he always makes me forget the troubles.
That same friend also has two cats, one of them (male) is friendly, and actually plays with the dog since they’re about the same size, and the other one (female) is an evil bitch. She spends most of the day outdoors doing whatever cats do outdoors (read: nothing) and when she comes in at night, she expects to be pampered and served. I swear she looks at me with contempt when I’m sitting on the couch with the dog. She hates him.
Cats are women you say?
Maybe my cats are weird. They run to greet me at the door when I come home from work. Chirp and meow and want to be petted. Run around in circles around me legs and they’re not even hungry or thirsty. When I go outside the follow me around and come when they are called. Maybe it’s the age old question of nature versus nurture? Or maybe my cats are reincarnated dogs?
I agree that cats are beautiful, and I like how they’re independent and relatively low-maintenance, but I hate how they like to climb all over your stuff. Through your clothes, over your bookshelves and the back of your couch, all over the kitchen countertop, leaving little hairs everywhere. You see it sitting on your stove, happily giving itself a rim job, and you’re like “hey, would you mind, this is where I make my food,” and it looks back at you defensively like “what! what?!”
The difference between dogs and cats:
Dogs look at you and say, “You feed and house me… you must be a god!”
Cats look at you and say, “You feed and house me… I must be a god!”
i got 3 cats and two dogs, each of the cats has their own personality, the big one is only size a cowerd cat, he hide from people specially men, the second male cat is more daring on everything and cative cat he likes to see and hear how things fall and break (hate that of him) he love to play with the ogs try to catch them, the are the same size, the fimale cat was living with us at teh apartmet but as she didn’t wanted to learn to go on the news paper (i’m alergic to the litter) so now she’s living on the lobby of the aparment and stay with me at teh office(is on the first floor of the buildign) and like to go out in the car for a ride, ohh i almost forgot she love to suck and lick my hair (weird)…
before i was a only dogs person, now i’m a 50/50 dogs cats person
I can understand people’s dislike of cats compared to dogs, but a cat’s cute face and child-like antics makes me giggle and warms my affection for them. I respect the dog for it’s wonderful character…there’s no greater loyalty on this earth, but I find dogs generally,er…unnatractive and smelly. I hope to get a cat with some dog blood in him. That would be nice.
No in depth article about cats could ever be complete without T.S. Eliots poem about cats. If you don’t know who he is, he once won the Nobel Price for literature in a time when this price meant something. So here it is:
The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey–
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter–
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that’s particular,
A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum-
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there’s still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover–
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.