The Right Entrance
the girls
had their own school
a Catholic separate school
we’re talking 60’s – 70’s
Cape Breton
I don’t know if there was one
for Catholic boys
but the girls had their own
to protect them
from the unruly attentions of boys
schools I went to were mixed
but there was
boys’ manual training
girls’ domestic science
separate entrances for boys for girls
mixed classes
but boys’ gym
girls’ gym
the best way to control
those masculine urges
was segregation
guys who got laid were men
girls who got laid were easy
girls who didn’t were teases
guys who didn’t
bragged about doing it
or salivated endless about pussy
boobs
because they were men
never once
never
was there a sense
that the guys were in the wrong
it was only the girls
who need to be protected
guys weren’t taught
to think differently
in fact
we were encouraged
to get a little
get laid
get into her panties
find’em
feel’em
fuck’em
forget’em
this was masculine prerogative
entitlement
a natural urge
that resented any attempt
to curb it
do you want your sons
to grow up to be fags
yeah sure
free and easy access
to pussy
is the cure for queer
yet I grew up
gay queer a fag
full of fear
yet sure of who I was
& who I wanted to have sex with
I tried dating
getting a little
getting a little wasn’t enough
to cure me of anything
so I forgot’em
but I did learn
which entrance
was right for me
This piece is a documentary. All of it is my high-school experience though some of the facts go back even further in my history. When my family moved to Cape Breton I was enrolled in a nearby school with a mixed gender & to a degree religious population. Entirely white as well I might add. Protestant with a scattering of Jewish students – who we knew were Jewish because of the many holidays they had.
It wasn’t until I got to high-school that I realized there was a separate school system for Catholics, particularly girls. Rather it was a high-school run by a teaching order of Catholic nuns. It wasn’t limited to Catholic’s as I think one of my sisters went there because it offered better secretarial training. A class that was never offered to boys – we did get an introduction to basic accounting though.
Beyond this religious segregation there was a gender divide in the rest of the school system for sports, non-academic vocational options – boys got manual training & shop; girls got domestic science & shopping. Most of the academic classes were mixed but there was separate entrances for grades & genders.
Sydney did have a sizeable black community, as well as a large Native community – but we only saw them if our teams were playing against them. As best as I can remember there was no racial mix in my high school except for one, lone Japanese girl.
The four f’s ‘find’em’ was a real mantra usually used by ‘guys who didn’t but bragged about doing it’ The piece also reflects how gender doesn’t equate sexuality – that even though I had all this male behaviour example I turned out queer, having no queer male behaviour example to lure me into the unnatural side.
The ‘entrance’ that was right for me? I’ll leave that to your imagination 🙂
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