There is one F word that someone like me always hated and feared. Faggot. This word incited such an anger and such a fear in me as the heavy connotations associated with the word was so detrimental to ones reputation. Once called this vile word many men I grew up with felt they had to prove themselves the very opposite, if they were at all to be sociably accepted in some manner and or have a modicum of respect. I was no different.
I trembled whenever I heard the word. First time I heard the word it was my gym teacher of East Middle School in Brentwood, Ms. Brown. She saw something in me and despised it, I could only assume it was my homosexuality or what she perceived as such. I mean there was no way to assess such a thing, I was not sexually active nor was I one of those kids who had a date to anything or a steady someone. Socially I was a chubby kid with a smart mouth and a joke at the ready. I was known for my singing and ability to impress people with my large vocal range, being able to sing Jodeci, Tevin Campbell, and Mariah Carey with little effort. Even with this talent, I never felt I had anything worth noticing enough to make me popular or wanted by my peer group. The other boys around me all were athletic. They loved B Ball or Football or baseball. I most certainly did not. For one I'm not running unless a wild animal is in pursuit, or a deranged monster from one of these movies. I also never wanted to draw attention to my frumpy and plump body. I wanted to meld into the mix and be ignored. This dreaded fear to draw any attention to myself while changing in the locker room or how my little extra poundage jiggled when I ran. NO SIR! I would not willingly subject myself to that. This woman must have saw this insecurity, this awkward avoidance of anything physical within a group setting. She latched on to this and made it her personal mission to what I assume was to "toughen" me up.
In one particular class she was showing us how to dribble the ball. I had big feet and was not a coordinated young man by any means. I often could not get the hang of dribbling the ball in place without it hitting the tip of my sneaker and go sailing off and away from me. She looked at me, eyes squinting with disapproval and loudly blared, "Stop dribbling the ball like a faggot." She proceeded to grab the basket ball and throw it at my face. It hit me in my right eye and I felt so assaulted. Having always been one to finish what anyone started with me, I bum rushed her and snatched her heavy gym keys from her neck and proceeded to wail on her with them. That led to more than a few weeks in what the school called, In School Suspension. This allowed the unruly problematic kids to sit in a room the whole day and only eat one thing off the lunch menu... PB&J. And not just any PB&J... this Peanut Butter came in a loaf... that's right like a bread. It was dense and in a plastic tube-like binding. It was sliced from its cylindrical shape into a circle... think about that for a minute. So thick you couldn't even spread it. It just sat on your dry hamburger bun like a hockey puck. Every period a teacher, teachers assistant or elect student would drop off your classwork to you so you can be in the loop of what was going on in the class you should have been attending. I spent more time in the In School Suspension that in any actual classrooms.
WHy you ask?
My mouth and my temper. I was quick to tell adult and child alike that when it came to me, don't ask me shit. Mind your business was my tag line and mantra. I repeated that often, freely, and with much gusto. So far what I could ascertain from my social status was that I was a troubled child with no noteworthy physical features or aptitude.
My father was the next person to call me Faggot. In an attempt to teach me basketball and show me a "mans sport" the way I attempted dribbling the ball... again... and the way I ran after it after it got away from me incited an annoyance in my father who told me to be firm with the ball I was on control and to NOT go "running around with it like NO Faggot."
This was exactly why I hated sports. Why did I have to play games that consisted of hitting balls with sticks, or running with a ball through a field as people chased you to take it away? Bitch, have the ball it aint that serious. Each time I was forced to play touch football, wiffle ball, basket ball a piece of me became fearful. Why must I be subjected to being compared with my older siblings and other boys I could never measure up to? This was torture. I longed to throw on my cassettes and lip synch to my favorite artists while drawing illustrations of comic book characters that I conjured from the creative chamber of my imagination.
This word followed me through school. Each year some brave and silly soul would call me out my name or allude to my sexuality being anything other than heterosexual and in essence questioning this mantle I called manhood. I fought a lot. I body slammed, and punched and insulted my way through the ranks of offenders and all to be left alone. I assumed this being left alone, this second guessing by my would be adversaries was respect for my maleness, for this notion of this one identifying factor that I gave so much power to.. and yet I still felt alone. I still felt apart from the other boys and men.
As I came into myself more and into my sexuality and lived life I let go a lot of the pain and toxic mentality that centered around this idea of maleness. This effected my choices in intimate partners in that I didn't want anyone like me who was perhaps deemed "feminine" and less than, I wanted the regular boys I always wanted to be and would never. I wanted this fantasy of hyper-masculinity that I thought existed based on the narrative of life around me. I was the asshole with the " NO fems" ready to tell another man who may be interested in me and whose love and affection I probably could have benefited from, that they were not wanted simply because we were on the same side of not masculine enough. Can you imagine that? There are dating profiles all over the place that exclude the fats, the fems, and the like and yet the fats and fems don't want the fats and fems either. They want the abusers, the ones who hold power by embodying some fantasy of masculinity that in reality does not exist.
Mind blown as I look at how toxic this is.
I think about any oppressed marginalized people and groups and you will often see this reversal, in their seeking for freedom and the shift in privilege and power you see the desire to want to be the holder of the same power, wielding it similarly. I cannot determine if this is simply human nature or not but its scary to see the effects it has in our community.
I see it with lesbian couples too. The idea and notion of "masculinity" equates with power and aggression and therefore any woman who exemplifies something deemed "masculine" may be found more attractive to those who are not.
Things are never black and white, there are the gray areas and that must be acknowledged. There are the colorful and that too has to be acknowledged. One of my hardest things to come in contact with in my relationships was when to be aggressive both sexually and in general and when to be passive while not feeling like someone was questioning my manhood or diminishing it.
"So what I bottomed for you aint your bitch!"
Messy aint it?
This is the topic I would love to see amongst more men.
I recently came across those who embrace a moniker of Radical Fairies and Faggots and empower the word. I'm at a place now that I can totally take hearing that from another gay person but from s straight man I react with the anger of my youth.. This has just happened more recently. I have been public about the abuse by some in our spiritual community and some of the offenders have resorted to name calling. Namely the many slurs associated with my sexuality which held this underlying slight at my manhood.. I realized as I stewed in anger that I had not fully dealt with my thoughts regarding the illusion of masculinity and manhood from a perspective of male misogyny. I did not realize how much IM ready to still have to prove myself to people I can give less than two shits about and that are actual offenders and supporters of Domestic Violence. And I'm allowing my manhood to feel questioned and examined? LAUGH MY WHOLE ENTIRE ASS OFF!
I'm glad I have this outlet to write it all out and think about how these words will only have power if I allow them to, that these people who really aint shit should not rile me up so else I give them way too much of my energy and worse... peace of mind. No one deserves that shit.
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