It is so funny how life continues forward in its momentum and we can give so much power to a memory that it literally robs us of our present and possible future. I have had some memories lately that have robbed my of breath as I realized the impact they have had on me. I look now at the very notion of toxic masculinity as it applied to me indirectly. This is how poisonous this stuff is. Forget cyanide, forget lead, forget mercury or any other product you have to child proof or wash thoroughly after use. Masculinity and how it tends to be viewed is some of the most noxious material we can encounter in this world. Allow me to recount my first encounters with this harmful substance.
I remember being a child, free and authentically myself in every way despite the natural mode of development. It wasn't until I was in elementary that I realized others around me did not see me as whole or complete. I have always been drawn to girls/women for as long as I can remember. I unintentionally felt comfort in small circles of girls my age and their conversation than I did my male peers. I had zero interest in playing whiffle ball, touch foot ball, hoops, or any other activity involving running with balls and sticks just to prove how well one can compete and move amongst their peers. I much more preferred playing drawing squares on concrete and black top and play hopscotch. I had no problem turning the rope in double dutch playfully feigning indignation at anyone who would dare try and label me "Double handed." I was a pro at playing various hand games and rhymes like Numbers, Miss Mary Mack, Down Down Baby Down Down the Rollercoaster and such.. This was art. It was rhythm, and music, it was interactive without having to be competitive. You were not ridiculed for not performing well, it was teasing laughter devoid of any real malice.
This apparent joy with my female peers was a threat to the likes of my Mother, Father, Brothers and I was swiftly punished for this type of interaction. I remember my mother calling me into the house and sitting me down. Anger written all over her face as her eyebrows arched in that particular way we still joke about. Malificent eye brows, these things arched with a magic of their own. The spell they casted? Fear. My mother began to question and interrogate me as to whom I played with at school. She called over Herby, the young boy she baby sat who although was in one grade lower than mine attended my school and decided to tell my mother I was not playing with the other boys. She began to tell me how wrong I was. How little boys like me didn't play "girls games," that boys like me had to play ball and with my fellow male peers. She warned me that if she heard that I was playing with these girls during recess that I would get hit when I got home. I had not been warned about getting hit for anything unless it was something I was explained was bad and would hurt me. So this struck me as odd, as my young mind tried to grasp how playing with my friends Christina, Vanessa, Chrissy, Fran and Alexis could possibly be wrong.
I instinctually ran to my "girls" at recess only to stop dead in my tracks and remember my mothers warning. I walked over to the boys and tried to find interest as they threw balls through hoops and simultaneously dribbled this ball while running. Something that seemed intimidating and would require more hand to hand coordination that I could muster. Running and bouncing a ball in place? Sorcery I say!
Well to be honest I was not well received. These boys had already singled me out as not one of them. I was chubby and made no attempt to play with them before, why was in their midst now expecting to be embraced and or included. I heard the first insults as I could not perform as well as they did. I missed my the safety of my female friends.
I attempted to nurture back those relationships and see if I could keep an eye out for Herby, that maybe I could sneak in games with my girl friends.. Some were ready to take me back within minutes. Others, they must have got the memo from my mother or the other boys. There was no longer a place for me there, I was allowed to play but with a stern encouraging verbal nudge that I should go play with the other boys.
How did I become messed up so quick? What just happened? Were we not having fun days before? I made up my mind it was not worth feeling unwanted. I took to music and art rather quickly. These activities didn't require anyone else but me. I had a knack for doodling cartoon figures, something I picked up from my father who always sketched cartoons on everything from inlays of my children books or my cast when I broke my leg at 4 years old. Imaging my excitement as the entire cast of Fraggle Rock was drawn on my cast.Similarly my brother would sketch amazing pics of eagles and wolves and lions with a pencil. Drawing must be ok and a safe thing to do. Music was also everywhere around me. My Father had tapes he recorded at Coney Island when karaoke tapes could be recorded for fun. I can still hear his resonant baritone and sweet tenor as he sang, "Under the Broad walk. Out of the sun, We'll be having some fun." He collected vinyls that he kept in treasure chest also known as milk crates. These vinyls were our every Saturday morning soundtrack to our chores when he happened to be home and not working. These were the smooth sounds of the Delphonics, Stylistics, Dells, Temptations, The Moments, Teena Marie and Rick James, Ohio Players, OJ's, Labelle, Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell. My Sister like my father collected many tapes and the newest CD's. She would write and sing music in her room, she would lip synch to the likes of Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam, Debbie Gibson, Brenda K Starr, EnVogue, Mariah Carey, Soul II Soul, Delight and other popular late 80's/early 90's artists. I could perform safely in my room and lip synch to, or try my vocals at that one song that moved me so much. Music easily trumped my desire to draw. In fact from the music I was introduced to I really loved EnVogue, Mariah Carey, Patti Labelle, Angela Winbush and Lisa Fisher. I would attempt all those high notes and to my surprise I could hit some of them and I actually sounded ok. While I was not as good as the artist I attempted to imitate I was certainly not bad.
I remember once being forced to mow the lawn, which I hated and still do hate the smell of grass which instantly reminds me of forced chores. That damn lawn mower was so loud I felt like I could sing boldly and no one would be able to hear me. Apparently not having learned how science worked, my father and brother ridiculed me for singing like a woman. They reminded me I was not a woman and singing high was unnecessary. I was told only a few men could even sing that high and it was not the norm. I was in elementary I had none of this "bass" in my voive, and singing low was not an option, but I guess these stratospheric high notes were not the "boy thing" to do. UGH, I guess I was messing up again. Doing the wrong things one more time to my parents and siblings chagrin.
Noticing that my comforts lied heavily into female peers, and female singers I remember the first time I was in my room drawing and listening to music and my father opened my bedroom door and told me to get dressed and come out side. I knew not what he wanted nor was he willing to volunteer any info on why, but I knew that I had to. I met him outside to find he had pulled our weighted portable basket ball hoop and forced me to play him. He got so frustrated because I couldn't dribble and run and I remember in a tone of exasperation he snatched the basketball from me and reprimanded me, "Stop dribbling like a faggot! Its like this, DAMN!". I flinched at his words and tone. Faggot I heard before, this was the word my mother spit out with disgust when Ricky Lake and Jenny Jones shows came on and these gay men were talking about fashion or dramatic love relationships. I was equated to that person of disgust in that moment. I was the less desirable, less than person or thing that could be called that word."
This pushed me to try to play with the boys at school and some of the boys from church... I was not going to pretend to dribble so my skill to be BIG and tall, block as many shots I can and guard the hell out of anyone I was assigned to guard to lessen their chance at scoring. I felt so embarrassed and so under the microscope. I had no desire to play these kind of games. Can I please go back to my room and draw my fave Xman, Storm? Can I please go and throw on Envogue's Born To Sing track number 9 & 10?
This awkward abuse transferred to my gym teacher as I moved into middle school. Her name was Miss Brown, she took every attempt to let me know in front of the whole class how unathletic I am. I was chubby and out of shape, I was incapable of doing anything with the ball worthwhile. She pushed this point home when one day when teaching us how to run and dribble the basketball, I in my usual ill coordination kicked the ball away from my grasp and half way across the gym. Out rang the words of the worse rhetorical question, "Whats wrong with you? Dribbling that ball like a faggot!" The boys and the girls laughed at me, I was already sweaty and out of breath. Having developed body issues from realizing I didn't look like other boys. They were lean and muscular or with minor body fat. I on the other hand always packed a little extra. These words stung as they mirrored my fathers dissatisfaction with me at our own basketball session we had prior. She cemented her disdain of me by throwing that ball into my face and into my right eye. She convinced the whole class through intimidation that she was "Passing the ball to me and I was not fast enough, or athletic enough to catch it." However, she never taught us passing at that point and I surely was not expecting it. The insult or the ball toss.
Quickly I knew more of what was wrong with me than what was right with me. I was only comfortable with male peers when I could observe them from a safe distance. This was also when I realized I watched them with a certain attention and intent that strangely made me feel flush. I hated them and was intrigued by them. They were smelly boys that repulsed me and yet I sniffed when they walked by trying to inhale their masculine scent which I was strangely attracted to. I avoided the changing in the locker room opting for the bathroom stall instead. I however, took every opportunity to catch glimpses of my peers male forms as I passed them on the way to my bathroom stall/changing room.
I then started to think, maybe I was made wrong?! Maybe I was supposed to be a girl. Girls were not as intense and foolish as the boys were. They certainly were not as disgusting. Their fashion sense was cool and although smaller or more fitted def attracted other boys... could I ever attract anyone? If I wasn't part of the boys club really, was I perhaps part of the Girls? Parents declared no pretty early on, so I discounted that. All I was sure of was I was different and I was not the "norm" I was not fine as I was, I had to be this other "son."
This had me an angry young male in a world of other aggressive young males. What I determined pretty early on as early as 4th grade was that if anyone hit me I had ton hit them back. In fact my mother instilled in me the fear of God. The threat was if I came home and she found out that someone hit me and I didn't hit them back, the moment I came home she would beat the hell outta me. This sunk in, I had to fight. Finally something I can use my chubbiness and height for. I would fight anyone that attempted to get physically harmful or maybe even verbally. If a girl hit me thinking a boy couldn't hit her back I quickly showed her I was wasn't that boy. SLAP! If a boy called me a faggot or tried to mush/push me... BAM! Punch them right in the face or a good ol fashioned body slam. This earned me quite the reputation in school. I was the jolly chubby gay kid but who would fight instantly and relatively well. Most left me alone.
This anger, this attitude effected everything as I entered the hyper feminine yet misogynistic gay scene in which there was even harder criteria to just be. You couldn't just simply be gay there were sub groups and the more you associated with your feminine side and or took a "feminine role" of receiving another male, you were the butt end of a joke or specific smirk and look. The triggers as other gay men would refer to me as "girl" and I would become irate. I was not one of the girls, school yard proved that. Parents said I couldn't even play or interact with them like that. I was a boy, at least I wanted you to believe that because if I was anything less than what was expected of me it was confirmation of my inferiority as a masculine anything. I already wasn't one of the boys but dammit if you would point that out or make me feel that any more than I made myself feel that way.
I laugh now as I realized I had been fighting for respect my whole life. Can you imagine? I was fighting to be this false idea of who I was supposed to be. I believed the story written for me by people who were not me. It took me a long time to just release the weight of the pretenses. I can be called girl and be honored that someone felt comfortable enough to refer to me as such. I didn't have to be upset at that because I loved girls, I loved women, I loved the feminine. Always have, childhood inclinations proved that. I just had to embrace me, I had to define me by allowing myself to be myself. I realized I was being poisoned and geared to resent the safety of feminine circles and concepts that I believe males severely need. Femininity is he medicine to male misogyny. So much to learn from our sisters, mothers, aunts, grandmothers, and such. That though is an entirely other essay.
Thank you
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