Gender...
My best friend in college was a gay man. He would wrap towels around himself and call himself Queen David. I remember once we were looking at some website about sex. It mentioned that "some men can orgasm from prostate stimulation alone."
My friend tilted his head, and asked "Only some of them? I do that all the time." I bit my arm to keep from speaking.
We'd wrestled once. Someone walked in on us, tangled on the bed, my hands around his wrists. The person laughed nervously, begged pardon for the interruption. The next day I got an e-mail from my friend, reminding me that he was gay, and I wasn't a boy. I still wonder if it was my attraction that bothered him, or being caught looking like he might have straight sex.
I wondered just what made such a difference. I could cut my hair and hide my breasts, warm my dildo carefully. Would it be so different? I watched him with his boyfriend, imagined shrinking, slipping myself into his boyfriend's skin so I could feel what it would be like to be inside him.
I asked my therapist if I was a boy. She thought I'd lost my mind. What's a boy? I wondered. What's a girl? Isn't it just a word, something they called what I was?
Years later I was giddy from having fucked my boyfriend. I got loud, laughing, tripping through the yard, elated. I said things, too loudly.
He shushed me. I didn't know why. He told me he didn't know what the people upstairs would think of him if they knew. I was the top. I laughed it off. Then I saw the fear behind his eyes.
"Squeal like a pig." Such a common joke.
It doesn't really make me wince, but I wonder why it's so common. Is it because men like to think anyone else is "that kind," or is it just because it's easier to laugh and pretend to play a banjo than to admit you're afraid too?
They say the fear is just for women. I walked by a booth for Take Back the Night, selling shirts. "Stop Gender Violence," they read.
I thought about my boyfriend hushing me. "No one can know this happened." I thought of people catching up with him, calling him womanly, wanting a turn.
People rattle off statistics; I don't know the number. 99% of rape victims are women, at the hands of men? I thought of rushing in, a hero to the charge.
But I am the one called "woman." If I wasn't strong enough, my being the top wouldn't save me then, either.
Gender violence. I thought of these things. Shh. Shh. "Squeal like a pig," and the tittering laughter. I thought of statistics. I felt a little queasy. Gender violence. Violence; gender.
I turned away. Voices in my mind chanted. "PHMT. Who cares that patriarchy hurts men too?" The pointing and giggling. "PHMT, PHMT, she's another one lost in PHMT."
I thought of the time the Queen and I talked over lunch. "I wonder what it would be like to have a vagina," he said.
"I want a penis," I said.
"Let's trade," he laughed. "I kind of wish we could."
"Me too," I answered. Then, brightening, "…and have sex?"
It was okay, as a joke. No threat, if he'd become a woman and I'd become a man, I guess.
Straight. Gay. Woman. Man.
"Why do you want to have sex like that? Study feminism; that'll fix this. You don't need to be a boy."
PHMT, PHMT. A playground cackle.
Stop "gender violence." Not "stop rape."
Sometimes I think that what was wrong with that sentence is that it's missing a "Compulsory" and then an "is."
My friend tilted his head, and asked "Only some of them? I do that all the time." I bit my arm to keep from speaking.
We'd wrestled once. Someone walked in on us, tangled on the bed, my hands around his wrists. The person laughed nervously, begged pardon for the interruption. The next day I got an e-mail from my friend, reminding me that he was gay, and I wasn't a boy. I still wonder if it was my attraction that bothered him, or being caught looking like he might have straight sex.
I wondered just what made such a difference. I could cut my hair and hide my breasts, warm my dildo carefully. Would it be so different? I watched him with his boyfriend, imagined shrinking, slipping myself into his boyfriend's skin so I could feel what it would be like to be inside him.
I asked my therapist if I was a boy. She thought I'd lost my mind. What's a boy? I wondered. What's a girl? Isn't it just a word, something they called what I was?
Years later I was giddy from having fucked my boyfriend. I got loud, laughing, tripping through the yard, elated. I said things, too loudly.
He shushed me. I didn't know why. He told me he didn't know what the people upstairs would think of him if they knew. I was the top. I laughed it off. Then I saw the fear behind his eyes.
"Squeal like a pig." Such a common joke.
It doesn't really make me wince, but I wonder why it's so common. Is it because men like to think anyone else is "that kind," or is it just because it's easier to laugh and pretend to play a banjo than to admit you're afraid too?
They say the fear is just for women. I walked by a booth for Take Back the Night, selling shirts. "Stop Gender Violence," they read.
I thought about my boyfriend hushing me. "No one can know this happened." I thought of people catching up with him, calling him womanly, wanting a turn.
People rattle off statistics; I don't know the number. 99% of rape victims are women, at the hands of men? I thought of rushing in, a hero to the charge.
But I am the one called "woman." If I wasn't strong enough, my being the top wouldn't save me then, either.
Gender violence. I thought of these things. Shh. Shh. "Squeal like a pig," and the tittering laughter. I thought of statistics. I felt a little queasy. Gender violence. Violence; gender.
I turned away. Voices in my mind chanted. "PHMT. Who cares that patriarchy hurts men too?" The pointing and giggling. "PHMT, PHMT, she's another one lost in PHMT."
I thought of the time the Queen and I talked over lunch. "I wonder what it would be like to have a vagina," he said.
"I want a penis," I said.
"Let's trade," he laughed. "I kind of wish we could."
"Me too," I answered. Then, brightening, "…and have sex?"
It was okay, as a joke. No threat, if he'd become a woman and I'd become a man, I guess.
Straight. Gay. Woman. Man.
"Why do you want to have sex like that? Study feminism; that'll fix this. You don't need to be a boy."
PHMT, PHMT. A playground cackle.
Stop "gender violence." Not "stop rape."
Sometimes I think that what was wrong with that sentence is that it's missing a "Compulsory" and then an "is."