The Anatomy of a Shrine

Most people don’t realize the fulfillment that a shrine provides. Think of a sacred place where we hold things that together will represent an essence. If we talked about shrines in global history we talk about religion, souls, love. Think of Elsa Pataki and her shrine to Arnold. Shrines represent what we live up to — we hoard to look forward to place.

This shrine surged out of stumbles, new beginnings, coincidences, and things that are not entirely mine. I began it because I wanted to kickstart my inspiration for this blog, and through it I realized many things about what I am trying to represent. I wanted this shrine to become what I am materialistically as a Twink, something that I consider more representative than being an object of unconscious desire.

If you look at the right wing of the shrine we see elements of feminism. I think that as a Twink I don’t believe so much in feminism, however I do believe each of us humans hold a feminine voice within us. A desire to be saved, or a side of us that sentimentally aches as much as women do physically throughout their lives. But also, within these elements lies the skin we Twinks live in. The beauty of still being bare in a pubescent stage of life. We will never be as beautiful as we are today.

And that is why I don’t believe in feminism but I do believe in females. Because Twinks are women with dicks. And we connect with female figures and voices in profound ways, however we don’t see past the idea of being one because externally we enjoy the ease of being men.

Dominoes and wooden pieces represent the games we often are told we play. I used to pass time playing endless games. Maybe that has somehow prolonged onto today, and Twinks do play games. Just not consciously most of the times. I think this is a strong denotation of us having a playful soul, an ache for enforcing rules or following them.

The amazing “Retweet ‘til I die” piece was left behind by the amazing Coco a few Thanksgivings ago, and the pompoms are there because they trendy right now. Also, Glitter everywhere because in good old Venezuela they used to say that having a piece of glitter on your face means the Virgin Mary is taking care of you. Some powerful fairy shit.

I am serious. I believe in fairies, and who wouldn’t think the Virgin Mary is one? I think all women are fairies and hold magic powers that men don’t. That’s why I also sprayed a couple of handfuls of fairies.

Most of these articles are also presents, pieces of art or hand-me-downs from close friends. Some of them I have also found at parties. The Young Justice Comics have been mine for about 10 years now. The illustrated magazine covers I borrowed them from a book about pulp magazines that my gender studies teacher had let me borrow.

The left side of the shrine is supposed to represent camp, as it is the aesthetic and purpose of this blog. Twink culture is camp, we worship campiness and find true enlightenment within anything campy. Camp is life, glee, surprises, and fantasy. And that is frankly all I have lived for since I can remember. I also managed to stick an illustration of super talented queer artist Harry Bush. But I wanted to add more.(queer illustrators please inquire within Flaco)

The two little ying-yang guys hugging and other objects in their vicinity represent the horniness of us Twinks, as well as our affinity to give hugs. We love hugging and squeezing our hearts together with other people.

So far this shrine has been standing in my basement for about 6 weeks now, and every time I go down there to inspect it I say a little prayer hoping that somehow all of these pieces connect into a spiritual entity that will follow me on the short and infinite journey of being a Twink.