Deconstructing my father

My father has largely been a source of negativity in my life. My parents divorced when I was 3 years old and my time with him from that point onward has basically been divided into three time periods: 1) ages 3 to 15 I was afraid of him and hated him and was afraid of becoming like him 2) 16 through 20 I forgave him for being a bad father and understood the things in his life that led him to be the fucked up man that he is 3) 21 to present I’ve been somewhat actively trying to pursue a positive relationship with him on an adult level, treating him as an equal and demanding the same in return.

My father’s main problems have always been his ego, his greed, his verbal abuse, his short temper, and his self-centeredness. His life has been countless failed attempts at artistic (mostly film) projects trying to get whatever he wants at any cost regardless of how it affects those around him. He likes to feel in charge, he likes to lead the pack, but really he’s just an immature kid trying to assume the role of the alpha-male which is the position he was in throughout his childhood. He was the oldest of 8 children and was forced into being a third parent and taking care of his 7 siblings denying him his natural growth as a young boy. His father was physically abusive to him, and generally he has had a fucked up life with a fucked up family: drugs, death, suicide, being poor, prison etc. all of which contribute to his inner turmoil. Since he was male and the oldest he was taught to be strong and take control of others from a very young age and if he didn't he was abused or punished until he did.

On the positive side of things he is a very good director. He is politically savvy and very down to earth, smart, and easy to get along with when he isn’t wrapped up in his ego. He has directed many independent videos/films, and written a number of articles. Only a few of his projects have generated any real income but all have had moderate critical success or were enjoyed by those who had access to them.

My mother left him because of verbal abuse and because of his complete economic and emotional selfishness. He is THE typical story of a self-centered artist. His occasional film or video gig bought him enough food to slide by while my mom paid for rent, myself, and everything else. Divorcing him was most definitely the right choice for her and I.

When I was young I was really terrified of him. His bouts of anger often reduced me to tears, he was insulting, mean, and horrible. He had virtually no respect for me one moment and after the tirade was over he would apologize later but never change his behavior on any real fundamental level. It was only when I became a teenager that I really began to pity him instead of hate him. He was and is a failure in his own eyes, his family's eyes, and in society's eyes. He never had a chance to have a normal childhood as a basis for his life and he has built such an ego around himself he sabotages his own work because, for him, it never lives up to the acclaim he feels it deserves.

He has aged and with it I think has come the slow understanding that he has really fucked his life up. He has let down my mother. He has let down me, his son. He has let down his siblings he was supposed to help raise, most of which are fucked up, dead, or barely getting by. But instead of intrinsically changing the life set out for him by his socially constructed gender he uses that same structure to do the only thing he knows how to do: start project after project and hope one takes off, generates lots of money, and use that money to solve his problems. This will never happen and money doesn't solve problems. Even a modicum of success does not make up for decades of bankruptcy and emotional detachment. Due to this I have always had a shallow and tenuous relationship with him. My whole life I acknowledged his character flaws and even though I knew there was a real person in there I knew I would probably never truly see it. I would never really reach HIM, just the bullshit he uses as a facade to cover up his emotions and insecurities.

I was wrong.

During his most recent short film he was, as usual, hoping for the best. Seeing the world through the lens of his gender he saw the answer to his problems lying in becoming a successful alpha male: money, fame, and power. This would be it - this is the big one, it's going to make him $10,000 each week once it takes off and becomes a feature-length hollywood production that he will direct. He'll be famous and never have to work again. I saw the final product and it was beautiful. It was intelligent, sweet, and incomprehensibly optimistic about the world and the human race. It was political and revolutionary. And like most revolutionary pieces of art, it didn't do well. After a month of good reviews and sub par audience attendance at an independent theater the final showing came. The credits rolled, the movie ended, the crowd left, and I found myself standing outside the theater doors knowing something was wrong. The manager of the theater, a friend of mine, came up to me and said that he had just learned, because of the lack of ticket sales (let alone the lack of producers coming to throw money at it) my father wasn't able to pay the theater for the month of showings. He was in the process of letting the owner know that he would pay as soon as he got the money but that he didn't have it now. During my realization of how serious that was the doors opened and I saw my father, his face covered in tears, his voice barely audible, look at me and the manager and barely croak out a single word: water. He closed the door as the manager ran off to find him a bottle of what he requested and left me in shock.

I had known my father for almost 25 years and I had never once seen him cry. I'm sure he had here and there, but it was rare and I had certainly never been witness to it. In that one moment of pure vulnerability I completely and finally understood him. It was a culmination of all the understanding I had done over the last decade. He was fucking alone. He never had a normal childhood and he had never matured because of it. He didn't know how to relate to people unless he was bossing them around. He had taken every last shred of his positivity, his happiness and creativity that he had buried inside of him - he took it past fucked up layers of anger and abuse he had suffered and poured it all into this one work of art; a story of a young man trying to do something good with his life. Something he, having dropped out of high school, having been a parent since he was born, having never been taught how to have a non-dysfunctional relationship to people and society and women, had never been able to do. And not this movie alone but he had poured his heart into his work before, and had seen it all fail. He never had a chance, and maybe he could have been lucky enough to work past his problems earlier in life but can I blame him that he didn't? Can I blame him that his salvation of money, power, and fame was created by viewing the world through the lens of his own socially constructed gender? How many men are lucky enough to have a radical feminist critique present in their own lives so that they can smash their inner patriarch?

So, in a moment of pure unabashed emotion I forgave him for all he had done. I hadn't forgotten it, and I don't let him get away with it when it still happens, but I forgave him. I felt love for him and for the first time in my life I wanted to call him dad instead of his first name.

My dad is the failure of the male gender in a world that builds men up knowing most won't succeed. He is the powerless working class man, he is the self-centered artist, he is the failure of the education system, the long lost first born child, the abusive father, he's a thousand stories and male stereotypes and more rolled into one. Society failed him so he failed those closest to him. Patriarchy built him up and patriarchy tore him down. The problem with gender archetypes is that they aren't real life. A man can't succeed when there's a corporate empire trying to control him. An artist can't express himself when one needs so much money just to have a place to live. A father can't raise a family when he was never raised himself. A husband can't have a healthy marriage if he never knew one was possible. A man has to fight to be a feminist because he's led to believe he is something else: that he's a man instead of being a human being.

Seeing the world through the lens of patriarchy is deadly. Seeing it through the lens of feminism is liberating. I don't think it's too late for my father, I don't think it's too late for anyone, but I know that if he ever wants to release his anger, his sadness, and create a real future for himself - one filled with love and peace, not money and power - then he has a lot to own up to and a lot of work to do. Maybe I'll try and talk to him about it if I can muster up the strength.

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Believe it or not...

Believe it or not I can go through the day without seeing a scantily clad woman.

I was confronted recently with a leftist newspaper that featured various female models for fashion and a nude woman advertising an event (with her breasts and vagina covered by items for that event). Shaking my head at another product of manarchists (it’s a great word, use it) I set before myself the following question: as a heterosexual male is my need to constantly see hot ladeez on par with my need for food? Answer: no. It fucking isn’t. So why do I see more advertising and more references to ‘sexy’ women on a regular basis than I do for food? Or for that matter seemingly anything else? I can’t go outside without getting bombarded by marketing pornography.

I can only assume the rainbow of negative effects this has on women which has often been detailed by great feminist writers more talented than myself, but how does it affect me and me fellow str8dudes? Now here I’m going to be really honest and hope to foster the kind of environment that really gets all the shit out. Cuz, in case you didn’t notice, us hetero guys got a lotta baggage. All this constant temptation, all these ludicrously unattainable bodies, sexual imagery, wanting eyes, and subjugated individuals really does a number on my psyche. The relentlessness of it makes me feel lonely and miserable. It reminds me that I’m not currently dating anyone or who I am dating is not nearly as hot as this perfected digitally created courtesan and by the time I see it 100 times on my way home from work it starts to get to me and make me think about three words: women, bodies, and sex. It ingrains in me this need for more, more porn, more women, more ads. That’s a big part of it, the wanting more, the feeling like all these hundreds of women I see daily want me and I SHOULD want them. Maybe I’m weak, maybe I’m just pathetic but you know what? I prefer to blame the corporate empire smothering me in hypersexualized advertising for 24 years rather than blame myself. (And if it seems like I’m exaggerating I’d just like to point out that I live in New York City so no, I am not).

Now, onto more gritty honesty. One terrible thing that seems to be happening to me after such a long saturation of immoral representations of women is that I get agitated when I see the ads. I get annoyed. I think look, I get it, I’ll never date a woman that hot, so why are you fucking shoving this into my face? No one looks like this! They’re all photoshopped! You’re making me become more and more critical of actual people! There’s only so many millions of perfect photoshopped models I can see before the imperfections of real women start comparing and losing. I want to be attracted to real women ok? I really do - but this bullshit is making it harder and harder. I don’t want to turn into an asshole. I don’t want to, 20 years from now, not be turned on by my life partner (if I have one) because she’s ‘too old’ or ‘not thin enough’ or doesn’t have ‘perfect skin’. I don't want to judge women on their looks! This is how hetero men become assholes, people. Take note.

All this stress contributes to the general difficulties that come with all romantic relationships and perhaps my greatest fear of all is that one day, in a fit of anger, I’ll blurt out some subconsciously implanted misogynistic desire for the supermodel aesthetic in the form of an insult to a current partner. Could this happen? I hope not but I’m not holding my breath. Shit, I grew up on Baywatch people.

So what’s the answer to all this? First of all, men need to realize the reality of this situation. We have to love women for who they are, not what they look like. Second of all we need to take a stand in our personal and public lives - we need to not purchase products made by misogynistic companies and we need to reject negative representations of women and the representations of drooling men associated with them. Perhaps most importantly when in a relationship we have to be honest: we have to listen to women when they think we are being assholes, when we're being sexist, and we need to be open to critique.

Simply put: we need to reclaim our gender! I’m not a stereotypical meathead – are you? Are your friends? Are you sold on something because a woman in a bikini tells you to buy it? Do you really want to be that dumb pawn? I doubt it. So just opt out of our sexist society as often as you can. Don't buy into the game. Be honest about your troubles like I’ve tried to be in this post. Just getting it out makes me feel a little bit better but you know what feels really good? Having open and honest feminist relationships to all the women in my life. Feeling real love from family, friends, and lovers. Nothing is more fulfilling than love!

Oh and there's one more thing you can do: get a graffiti marker and fuck up those ads! Not only will it fill you with a justified sense of righteousness (something us guys usually feel, except unjustified) but it will let men and women who walk by feel somewhat less alone in our divided and materialistic world.
Epilogue: well then...epilogue sure is an official sounding word! Anyway, expect more articles from me under the maniker (ha haaa jk it's moniker wow i'm hilarious) of tokenstr8dude in the future! I'll be talking about masculinitiy, male sexual problems, men relating to society and people, men's role in patriarchy, and a variety of other issues that the heteronormative male populace I hail from rarely talks about! Sound exciting? Hell yes it does!

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The invisible queer woman!

Recently, I got out of one of those "unofficial" kinds of relationships. For the past six months or so, I'd been going back and forth with this woman who was in another relationship and yet, she told me, would rather be with me. Still there were a bunch of other complications, like the real fact that there were other people she'd rather be with, too, and not in the sense of setting up a polyamorous sort of deal where we'd be honest with each other and upfront and all that practical and necessary stuff. It was more like every time I turned around when we were out together, she'd be hooking up with someone else, and occasionally even a friend of mine. My begrudged and broken heart notwithstanding, I found it really difficult being in this pseudo-relationship without actually being able to answer in the affirmative whenever anyone asked if she was my girlfriend, and not just because I really wanted to say she was (there, I admit it!). Rather, as a feminine-presenting woman, my sexuality is often made invisible when I'm single.

I've struggled with this for some time, even going so far as to try to attempt to genderfuck, but what ends up happening is that a) I feel ridiculous and uncomfortable, like I'm acting out a part and b) well, I kind of look like a feminine woman trying unsuccessfully to genderfuck. Furthermore I feel like this totally negates the entire reasoning behind genderfucking; namely, that in playing with gender roles, we interrogate their limitations and why they exist in the first place. Interestingly, in the queer community I currently belong to (downtown Toronto), genderfucking and androgyny have become the standard to which queer women are expected to measure up. Thus it's not surprising that those who don't fit the paradigm (i.e. me) feel like this supposedly supportive community that is so rich in and tolerant of diversity might not be all it's cracked up to be.

I find it very interesting that our gender presentation and our sexuality are so inextricable, and I wonder why that is. Historically, this isn't really new in communities of women who sleep with women. This isn't the first time that the ways we express our gender have been used as "evidence" of our sexual behaviour. For instance, I think it's important to note the history of butch/femme identities, which supposedly denoted what kinds of sexual practices a woman might be into. However, many butches and femmes have argued that their outward identities had less to do with sexual roles than simply finding comfort in one's own skin. So why, then, if that's where our history lies, are we homogenizing a queer identity?

Something in me wants to cry out, perhaps naively, "This isn't supposed to be happening amongst queers!! Aren't we all about self-definition and a radical dismantling of the rigidity of sex and gender?!" Still, in the Toronto scene, it seems there is a pretty small margin of people who fit into what a queer woman is "supposed" to look like. Recently I attended a workshop on queerness and body image. While I was expecting a discussion that largely focussed on body type in terms of size, I was necessarily reminded of my white privilege when the discussion turned to racialized bodies. Many of the participants were people of colour who began to articulate the concern that for them, Church Street (the downtown strip that used to be known as the gay village, though increasingly less so), and other queer enclaves in the city are actually pretty inhospitable environments. Someone mentioned that while we homos like to believe we are inclusive and progressive by virtue of our sexual marginalization, our communities are by no means immune to the many other forms of oppression out there (ie. racism, ableism, etc.). One of the participants spoke about how this racism is often hidden under the guise of "preference"; he said he couldn't even count the number of times someone he was hitting on had responded, "Sorry dude, I'm just not into Asians".

There is absolutely a problem of representation and a lack of a sense of inclusion in these spaces, especially considering that this is a community that rallies around the word "diversity" as a way of getting the hetero world to acknowledge and accept us. There is evidence of this everywhere. How often do we see queer characters of size, of colour, and/or with disabilities in television and movies? How often do we see these people having any kind of sexuality at all, for that matter? Sexuality is sort of a tricky thing to be unified by. We aren't understanding of marginalization overall by virtue of our sexualities, as much as I'd like to believe that's possible. So I'm rolling up the sleeves on my girly shirt, because we've got a lot more work to do.

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Yeah, I used to be cool.

So I know a lot of my friends wouldn’t believe me if I told them, but I was totally the coolest person back in school. I was friends with everyone, and everyone wanted to be friends with me. Sometimes people knew my name before I knew theirs. I think I even remember breaking a couple girls’ hearts.

But it all ended in 7th grade. In 7th grade something weird happened. It wasn’t anything particularly isolated; there was a wide-sweeping change in how we organized ourselves and related to each other. I think it was puberty. But the bottom line? Well…I was placed at the bottom of the line. I was no longer cool. And particularly among men, I became a target.

As I’m sure my parents can attest, I was a very energetic little kid. In terms of gender performance, I was just like I am now – a healthy mix of femme, mostly andro, and the occasional spout of earnest butch – except that when I was little I acted as if I was constantly wired on caffeine. This meant, I think, that when I was femme, I was really femme. I would roar around with my trucks just as much as I would dance little pirouettes in the hallway. I was so energetic that everywhere I went it felt like a production. Maybe that’s why, in elementary and middle school, I was so popular. A big part of my self was bouncing around and having fun; I was a fun magnet. Lots of little kids are.

So you’re probably wondering why this loser is talking about how he (used to be) cool in elementary and middle school (and you’re also thinking: no wonder he’s not cool anymore). Well, it’s because of this age thing, I think. I wasn’t cool anymore because my way of behaving as a male – at our around the time when everyone else my age hit puberty and began reorganizing according to gendered expectations of sexuality and resulting behavior – no longer became acceptable. What was interesting was that, even despite my gender variance as a kid, I had a ton of male friends growing up. At puberty, however, a gender mechanism initiated; “appropriate men” actually had to reject the company of gender variant boys. So, at or around 7th grade, no longer was I (in the confident, gender-variant way I behaved) an appropriate kind of boy for another boy to be friends with. In the company of women, I don’t think the rules were necessarily the same; there were complications when it came to romantic interest that set up a standard of rules and regulations for how to interact, but most of the time that wasn’t as big of an issue.

I’ve been reading some stuff lately by Nancy Lesko, and she’s really awakened me to issues of age when thinking about the construction of identity in adolescence. She advocates for a reorganization of primary and secondary education (and, I’d argue, child-rearing) that transforms the child-parent/child-teacher relationship into more of a mutual educational relationship as opposed to this slave-master relationship whereby information and rules about behavior are funneled one-way into the child. I really don’t think, in most schools, there’s enough done to encourage harmless, deviant behaviors from the norm. Shouldn’t that be encouraged? I guess it’s easier said than done. But I do think it would neutralize some of crazy moments of behavior shifting and make middle school a tiny bit less horrifying.

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GodMen: Christianity With Cocks

I almost feel bad criticising the people behind the GodMen conferences. The organisers aim to promote discourse, confront taboo and explore the interaction between Christian living and male identity. The church, as a cultural institution, is rife with misogyny, homophobia and sexual hypocrisy, so it almost seems churlish to criticise this effort at change.

GodMen fails. Though well meaning, the rhetoric used by the conference organisers only serves to reaffirm traditional models of masculinity, not to explore them.

The aim for the GodMen conferences is to create a male-only space where issues specific to the Christian male can be discussed. Discussion covers such topics as masturbation and pornography and, though there is still a consensus that these acts are sinful, the fact that these topics are being aired at all is a very good thing.

But there are two major flaws to the GodMen project. The first is a terrifyingly essentialist view of what a man is, and the second is an ongoing attempt to blame women for the crippled spirituality of some straight men.

The first problem is aptly summed up by the GodMen FAQ:

We have a society where men are often demeaned for the sake of a joke. When boys or men behave consistent to their male nature, our society has a knee-jerk reaction and says men must tone it down. Lower their voice. Put on a helmet. Take Ritalin. In GodMen NONE of our maleness is toned down because we believe, as the Bible states, that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. It's a privilege many men never experience.

Now, that's problematic in a whole host of ways. I'll start with what they are presenting as "our male nature." The over-prescription of Ritalin, I concede, affects males more than females, but the rest is just bullshit. Why is a helmet emasculating? Why is aggression, signified by a loud voice, such a lofty goal for a guy? As a society we are too willing to sacrifice the lives of our young men in the pursuit of masculinity. We romance the concept through wars, extreme sports, hazing rituals and bar fights, but claiming it as a Christian virtue is frankly offensive. Significantly, Newsweek reports the shows opening with "karate fights, car chases and "Jackass"-style stunts" on screen and continuing with a song called "Grow A Pair." Quite what that has to do with God I'm not sure.

Though "fearfully and wonderfully made" is a powerful concept, I prefer to wonder at our variety rather than our ability to embody outmoded conceptions of gender.

Now, I'm sure some of you are wondering why exactly these discussions couldn't have gone on in the mainstream Christian community. The answer, it turns out, is women. Evil, soul crushing women with their oppressive flower arranging. Behold:

“In most churches, you’ll see flowers and ferns at the front,” says Stine. “That’s saying, ‘This is a place that a woman has composed'.” So GodMen sought to create a place where men could admit to flaws without being judged bad Christians and be unapologetically male

Okay, I'm simplifying the rhetoric somewhat. But GodMen was designed to combat the "feminization" of the church. Ignoring the fact that the pastor is probably male, that God is represented in exclusively male terms and that the "traditional family values" being preached expect a woman to be pregnant and barefoot (or, as my father put it, "Well fucked and badly shod"), the creators of GodMen present the Christian community as a sinister gynocracy, constantly judging poor oppressed men for their god-given inability to control themselves.

I think we all recognise this as the last resort of people being asked to confront their privilege. Like the racist complaining about "political correctness", any man complaining about how oppressed he is by women is trying to fight the realities of equality by framing them as an invasion. This distorted view is carried on into the GodMen blog where we find out that, and prepare yourself for this, women are even invading the golf courses.

They argue, and it is true, that women vastly outnumber men at church services. This is irrelevant. Victims of sex-trafficking are predominantly female, it doesn't mean that the women are in charge. Flower arrangements are hardly going to destroy 2000 years of patriarchy.


In Galatians, Paul writes that "there is no man, no woman" in Christ. GodMen's ministry tells men that their biology defines them and that female spirituality inevitably leads to hypocrisy and deceit. Religion should be about communion with the Other, not backing up your prejudices with supernatural authority. I love the attempt at dialogue, but meaningful conversation relies on questions, not easy answers.

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AskFannie: Femme-phobia and Fucking Fabulously

So, I was forwarded this question that was answered by their resident advice columnist, the "Cruise Director" on the trés classy website, Manhunt. The response was so profoundly sexist and femme-phobic I simply had to offer some counter-advice.

I'm 18, have a nice body, cute butt, and all that, but nobody on Manhunt hits me up. I think what's causing all the ignores is my femininity. I'm kind of femme, yes, and it probably shows in my pics. I have long hair, too, and I think that adds to the rejection. I'm not a tranny or a cross dresser, I just happen to be not as masculine as some other guys. And with everyone wanting "hot masculine muscle jocks…" well, my question is, what am I supposed to do? I'm kind of lonely and it depresses me that most guys don't find guys like me attractive (except the very old sugar daddies). Sometimes I just wanna chop off all my hair and live in a gym just so I can have some male contact, but I don't want to compromise who I am. Help!
-- Pretty but Lonely

PBL, first off, please disregard everything "Cruise Director" said in his column. Being a femme guy is one of the wonderful gifts that queerness offers. Not saying that straight guys can't be femme, but heterosexual masculinity is steeped in machismo. Gay men, by virtue of their sexual orientation which defies gender expectations, have more wiggle room in terms of restrictive gendered behavior. This is very evident when we take into consideration early formation of modern queer male identity in North America.

The first half of the 20th century marked one of the first times in recent history where homosexual men were able to come together and love openly. It's interesting to note how the only men who were considered queer by society-at-large were the femme men who were the receptive partners in anal sex. Sexually dominant partners were considered "trade" and typically were butch, masculine, and were considered by society to be within the realm of acceptable male behavior. It was their gender performances that made men queer, not who they had sex with. If we think of gender performances of gay men, in this light, can we really call the str8-acting, femme-hating "hot masculine muscle jocks" to be truly queer?

I’m not saying that all gay guys who act butch are internalized-homophobes or that all femme guys are champions of queer gender performance. (I am a little bit.) But I believe that a big factor in this push for the exclusive valorization of the macho masculine man in the gay male community is largely driven by misogyny. After all, gay men make the best patriarchs; thank you, Plato.

Now, you say that all the men that you meet on Manhunt are only interested in "hot masculine muscle jocks.” One important thing to realize is that the sample of men who are on Manhunt isn’t necessarily indicative of all gay men. Even the name “Manhunt” suggests that the hot muscle jocks who are trolling online for their next hook up are looking for men in every hegemonic understanding of the word. Guys who are obsessed with their own masculinity and can only find other butcher masculine guys attractive are missing out. Missing out on you and your fabulously hot self, and on the gender liberation that queer sexuality can afford. My suggestion to you, PBL, is to ditch the Manhunt and try meeting guys in an environment that isn’t so misogynist/femme-phobic/repressed.

Where you ask? There are plenty of venues to meet people. The night life scene is an obvious choice, but there are plenty of other ways. Try volunteering for a queer organization, go to an event at the local Queer Center… basically go to where gays flock and you’re bound to meet someone. One thing that “Cruise Director” and I agree on is that it doesn’t hurt to be more aggressive in terms of pursuing guys. If you find someone attractive, let the person know! What’s the worse that can happen? He’ll say no. Just put on your stiff upper lip and give him a good ol’ diva snap. You’re too good for him anyway.


send your questions to askfannie@gmail.com!
Also, enjoy the following from our lovely friends from the Village People.

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On wanting to be a dyke.

Okay, it’s time. The pink elephant in the room needs to be acknowledged.

For too long have we rallied at pro-choice events, for too long have we attended Indigo Girls concerts, trailed the Aimee Mann roadshows, and followed the Ani Difranco dykescapades. We’re the gays who meet a guy and then u-haul after just a few great dates. For too long have we dressed unfashionably, eaten excessive amounts of tofu, and dreamt about a life full of suburbia, station wagons, and kids. It’s time we had a voice.

We are the lesbimans.


It’s a tumultuous existence, I admit. We’re loaded with incongruence: gay men, but drawn to lesbians; we find powerful women riveting; we believe overt, male-embodied masculinity is passée and often revolting. We wish we were dykes.

Why are we lesbimans?

Okay, okay. Mostly because we feel rejected or out of place in the mainstream gay male community. But this rejection isn’t really about not being cool or not being attractive enough. Actually…maybe it is. There’s a sense of security I find with lesbians, and it’s a security I can routinely find. No other group of people makes me feel so comfortable. But that security comes hand-in-hand with the fact that I am here because I am generally uncomfortable among gaggles of gays. I’m not pretty enough, I’m not quick enough, I don’t have a snappy retort or I’m not butch enough, I care about things like politics, family and equality, and I clearly – clearly – can’t dress myself with anything that doesn’t involve a hoodie.

But I can’t just say that I don’t like mainstream gays because I feel rejected by them – I have to come up with something else. I think a big part of it is that gay masculinity, as it stands, is far too anxious, far too restrictive for me to even want to try and deal with. After spending half of my college career coming to terms with my sexuality and my identity, I don’t need to spend the rest of my young life trying to maintain a gender image that in all honesty I find completely ridiculous. I love Jake Gyllenhaal, but Brokeback did more than make gay romance okay. It solidified the nearly unattainable gay ideal that is traditional masculinity and brought us back to the YMCA-singing, butch-fetishizing, self-hating Marys.

So how did this all start? Why are gay men, of all people, obsessed with being butch?

I remember going on a date with someone ten years my senior (he was 33, you do the math), and I tried to gently suggest that I have a lot of lesbian friends. He seemed off-put. “Lesbians?” he asked. I could tell he was trying to figure out if I was joking about being friends with them or not. He finally got that I was serious. “Of course I’m not friends them,” he replied. “I mean, they’re lesbians. They eat pussy.”

A former professor of mine once outright asked me if I hated women because I’m gay. Astounded, I tried to work out the concept in my head. My 33-year-old date filled in the gap I was missing; gay male culture, historically, has been organized around the desire for an environment completely void of vagina. Perhaps, back in the day, this was about creating a community and trying to stay alive. Perhaps it was about passing – being gay, but tricking the world into thinking you’re straight. And maybe even it was about self-censorship – being gay, but not offending anyone with any of that, god forbid, flamboyant behavior.

But times are a’changin’. Nowadays I’ll go to lesbian bars and actually meet guys I really like. There’s a community of us growing, and we don’t need to isolate ourselves by gender in order to find what we’re looking for.

Stay strong.

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Missed Connections

Flirting is Lust’s immature cousin, and like any embarrassing family relative at whom you just can’t help but laugh and point, he’s impetuous and uncontainable—he does whatever he wants whenever he wants, sometimes under the influence and often with a case of verbal diarrhea. Flirting quickly sneaks up on its unsuspecting host and, especially when aided and abetted by his trusty partner in crime Alcohol, steals the reins of the body’s every thought and behavior, convincing it to do stupid things that only seem stupid in retrospect.

The flirting game isn’t the easiest game to play; its many rules assign consequences for almost any wrong move—and that’s true even if you’re straight. The flirting game may offer heterosexual singles significant challenges, but in comparison to their non-hetero counterparts, they seem to have a better hand with which to begin: they don’t have to worry about being bashed for unwanted plays, and, if they’re playing the travel version of the game, they may find companionship much easier than someone who has to hunt down a bar or community center tailored to a specific audience. Drop a horny or lonely gay man in a random nightclub setting and chances are—by virtue of numerical and norm-based supremacy—that the club aims for a straight audience. To flirt successfully in a heterosexual setting demands that the gay man play with strategies more covert—maybe even shadier—than the average straight player would need to use.

Case in point: My attempts to make a connection at a concert Friday night. Sure, it wasn’t Gwen Stefani or Madonna, and, granted, I really should have known that a bluegrass show at a Texas bar wouldn’t have been the best of places to try meeting gay guys. The desire to flirt, however, cares not for time nor place (and neither should my right to flirt).

I spotted him from the back. He was taller than me, probably hovering around the six-foot mark, and, when he turned around, he was cute. He was laughing and giggling with a girl, yet not in the traditionally reserved, macho way that other guys might be acting around their girlfriend; no, his goofiness rendered a picture of good friends of different sexes—or, I crossed my fingers, a girl with her gay best friend. More clues to tip off the ‘dar: He never wrapped his arms around her as a protective boyfriend might; instead, he kept distance, as if to make body contact between them awkward. As if to send other people signals that he was not with this girl. As if to say I am available. I am single. I wouldn’t mind an eye-fuck. Or a fuck. Or sex. With the same sex. Or…

I digress. While the other men in the bar were dressed in cowboy button-downs or t-shirt and jeans, he sported a cleanly-ironed pale pink button-down that Ryan Seacrest have made a trend. If he were straight, he’d be classified metrosexual, but when he opened his mouth to speak, he leaned more towards my team: there was an lilt in his voice that rubbed off as slightly Valley Girl. Like he was used to rattling comments quickly to his girl friends at a mall while they window-shopped (or people watched—or, I had hoped, guy-watched).

Had he been a girl (and had I been a heterosexual male), flirting standards would have demanded that I make the first move, that I approach him and make small talk, try to charm him, and somehow pass my number along. But he was not a girl, and I am not a heterosexual male. Interestingly, one of the challenges in the flirting game is that the rules and norms themselves not only strangle open acts of homosexual flirtation, but also provide less defined structure. A guy-girl flirtation: sure, the guy should start. A guy-guy flirtation: uh… who makes the first move? The one who is more masculine? But how would you know? What if both of you were self-proclaimed queens? What if you both of you were big, bad muscle daddies? Who goes first?

Because I was standing behind him, I thought I’d go first. But by “going first,” I meant getting closer to him. I did—I scooted up immediately behind him. I couldn’t speak to him—no. What if he was straight? What if I pulled out an obvious come-on, or worse—a bad one? So, uh, you like this band? BORING. No—I would protect myself from rejection and play it safe, as homosexual flirting in a largely heterosexual space might demand: I’d just do all I could to make him make the first verbal move.

So I made eye contact whenever I could. I talked on the phone behind him so he could hear my voice, slightly infused with a Valley Girl lilt. When someone in the audience did something funny, I laughed to match his laugh. He sang out loud; I sang out loud. He joked with his friends; I joked with mine. Eventually, I got to the point where I was standing side-by-side with him, singing lyrics, dancing goofily together (but not together), and cheering the band along with all four of our arms pumping fists into the air simultaneously. Unforced, I might add—I was still being me. I did everything I could—while staying authentic to my own mannerisms and style—to signal to him: Look at me. We’ve got stuff in common. Maybe we should talk to each other and see if there’s anything else…

About three and a half hours of enjoying the concert in close proximity to him, the show ended. My friends drifted towards the exit. I followed, without any exchange of words with a guy I’ll never see again. The hopeful side of myself wondered if this is where Craigslist’s Missed Connections would come in handy. No, manontheside, no. How ridiculous.

Outside, underneath a corner lamppost, I waited for a few more friends to exit the venue. Instead of seeing one of my straggling friends, I spotted him. He stumbled down the sidewalk, towards me, with his best girl friend (I had hoped). He stopped. We recognized each other from inside the venue, a quick acknowledgement of eye contact and small, mutual smiles. Then he turned the corner, with his girl still at a distance from him, and continued walking to their car. Flirting, the immature cousin, strikes again.

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When a Man Loves a Lesbian

A funny thing happened the other night.

So there’s this girl. She’s a foot shorter than I am, spiky blonde hair, piercing eyes. Tough personality. Tough like Jackie…but in a more deviant way. A totally hot kind of way. She’s definitely the top between the two of us.

The other night I went out with some new friends and she jokingly started flirting with me as she usually does. Poking me, proclaiming that she’d win in a fight between the two of us, rubbing my newly shaved head. Mid-flirting a gay guy leaned over and asked me, “You’re gay, right?” I told him I identified as queer. The girl stopped rubbing my head, stepped back and said:

“Omg, you’re queer?” She laughed. “I KNEW you wanted me to fuck you.”



She pulled over her girlfriend and told her (told everyone, loudly): “Hey, this guy wants me to fuck him! How you feel about that?” Her girlfriend shrugged, and head-rubbing resumed. “Yeah, I’d fuck you!”

I couldn’t stop laughing. Laughing in that haha-you’re-cute-haha-keepdoingthat kind of way. I recently transitioned from gay to queer because I know I’m attracted to women at some level, and mostly because I’m sick of categories lately. But this? A lesbian? A butch little spiky-haired lesbian?

Attraction is so weird. Like many a gay guy I’m into men that have masculine characteristics (often self-loathingly, I admit), but I’ve noticed lately how this attractive kind of masculinity is starting to slowly slide across the grid into other sexes. I’m noticing that FTM trannies are kind of hot, too.

One of my ongoing quests is to learn how to adapt attraction, to change who I find attractive to a more diverse audience of people. Gay guys everywhere are plagued by homogenous schemes of attraction – only white men, only masculine men, only tops. It’s one thing to recognize that attraction is unbalanced, but it’s another to try and change it.

Luckily I’m starting to see results. I guess I can add tough lesbians to the list. Next, please?

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