Duality Sucks

Occasionally this happens.

I wrote a piece today for my blog on MySpace. I have gotten adamant insistences that I get it to a wider audience. I think it's a nice story but, to me, it is just one of my stories. When there is adamant insistence from outside sources, though, I guess I am missing something.

So here, for the good folks who read my Blogger blog, is the story from the wee small hours of this morning.

Duality Sucks

I was recently compelled by a couple of friends to join Connexion. It is a MySpace-like community for gay men. I never joined Friendster and it was like pulling teeth to get me to join MySpace; but, clearly, once I joined MySpace, I dove right in, right? So I joined Connexion. I haven't dove right in, there, because I am so scared of gay men. They intimidate me, so.

I feel like Faye Dunaway--my sister, my daughter, my sister my daughter, my sister my daughter.

I love them. I hate them. I love them. I hate them.

I like boys. Men. That is. I enjoy their company, their conversation; I like looking at them and I like kissing them. But there is something about the behaviour of gay men that makes me so uncomfortable, so angry, so bored and tired. But I am one of them and I exhibit this behaviour, too. Not all the time. It comes out of me, in varying degrees and on certain levels, when I am not looking. The funny thing is, it is summed up, almost entirely, by the opening sentence of the pilot episode of my favourite tv show, Queer As Folk.

What you have to know is that it's all about sex.

That's what Hal Sparks' voiceover says to the watcher. And that's the truest statement I can think of. It is all about sex. Whether or not we (as men AND as gay men) are actively thinking about sex, it is always there, like the elephant in the room. That cliche about men thinking about sex every X seconds (the number changes every time I hear the statistic) is pretty darn true--but it's not just that we think about having sex every X seconds: we just think about the entity of sex. Maybe we think about having sex. Maybe we think about the fact that someone, somewhere, is having sex. Maybe we think about someone with whom we would like to have sex. Mayve we think about whether or not someone is watching us and thinking they would like to have sex with us. The exact break down of the thought is unimportant. The fact that sex is the nova inside every (gay) male's being is undeniable.

It's all about sex.

Even the gay men who want to be heterosexuals, who want to be homogenized and living in the burbs with the picket fence and the two cocker spaniels and the house and wardrobe that is muted tones of greys and browns have the underlying thread of sex running through their minds because no matter how much they TRY to be men of substance, reading Jane Austen and picketing for Gay Marriage, adopting children and cuddling in front of the fire, they have to be aware that the reason they must work so hard at having what the world would consider a normal (quotes please) life is because they have sex with men. They aren't thinking about copulating but they know their fornication preference is a part of what defines them.

Who we want to fuck DEFINES us. It is that simple.

And I love that about gay men. I love that our sex lives are such a big factor of who we are.
I also hate it.

I am an intelligent and intellectual individual. Modesty usually prevents me from saying this. I admit it. I play the dumb card far too often because it is easier to get by in this society if you don't have the responsibility, the expectation, of being smart. I have an IQ in the triple digits. I crave stimulation of the mind and conversational banter that goes beyond 'that man over there is so fine'. I read books with a pen in my hand and I argue philosophies of art and humanity with those of my friends who understand that debate does not equal conflict. I quest for spiritual enlightenment and a healthy physical being.

But I go to the gym so that I can look hot and attract that guy I have been obsessing over for the last ten days since I, first, laid eyes on him.

I do not deny that my intellectual side is, instinctively, overridden by the male domination of sexual appetite. It's almost like, the lower you go on my body, the more powerful the emotion: the head is always trumped by the heart and the heart is always bumped by the groin. It's like a freakin divining rod! It is who I am and it is who I hate. No. I don't hate myself. I hate being a foregone conclusion. I hate being a stereotype. I hate not being able to control it. I hate being one of the mass.

But I love being one of the mass.

But I hate being one of the mass.

My sister, my daughter, my sister, my daughter, my sister, my daughter...

There are men at my gym that I love. Yes. I love them. I don't even know their Goddamn names but they walk by me and I say (not even completely) under my breath "I love you...." But then I look at my body and think of how much I want to look like they do and I turn to Pat and say "I hate him."

My sister, my daughter, my sister, my daughter, my sister, my daughter...

I spout the ideals of intelligent conversation and inner substance but the moment I am in a crowd where I am the pretty, the sexy, the witty one, that little dog-door opens up and the sexual inuendo designed to shock comes pouring out.

My sister, my daughter, my sister, my daughter, my sister, my daughter...

I have been surfing the profiles on Connexion. Almost seventy percent of them have a default photo (of the member) in which his shirt is off and the rippling muscles are showing. I make the noise that goes ECH and my lip sneers up on the left side. How base. Then I click on the photos of the guys that are hot.

My sister, my daughter, my sister, my daughter, my sister, my daughter...

Once inside the hot guys' profiles, I find that almost all of their photos are of them in a state of undress. ECH. Gay men are so base. Click.

My sister, my daughter, my sister, my daughter, my sister, my daughter...

I look at my own MySpace profile pic and see, not a face or a personality, but a BICEP. Shit, yeah. I worked hard for that mutha, you think I ain't gonna show it off? Because we ALL use what we can to get what we want and until I have tits like that boy I have been obsessing over, a bicep shot will have to do. I may not be actively thinking about having sex but I know that when a guy looks at my default pic, he (at least) thinks (if even momentarily) about what it would be like to have sex with me. I don't like that I am this way -- in fact it bugs the shit out of me -- but I can't change it. So I will just have to suffer over my difficulties with duality until I become a more evolved human being. Dammit.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to go read my boxed volume of Proust before going to help out at the soup kitchen.

In my tank top and torn jeans.

please note that the photo of me (that I call 'rock star ste') was done by Derik Klein