Out of Control
I am a man
in a man’s body
there was a brief time
when I doubted this
a time when gender was fixed
by cultural controls
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to explain
variations in object desire
people were reduced
to data
that data was used to explain
what didn’t fit
so that men
in men’s bodies
who desired other men’s bodies
were actual women in men’s bodies
genders misplaced
trapped and looking for release
that a man would desire another man
was explained
in terms of heterosexual norms
because only a woman
could would should
have sexual desire for a man
<>
when I realized I desired men
I almost accepted the theory
that I was a woman
trapped in a man’s body
though it never made sense
but it was deemed more acceptable
than man to man attraction
the data proved that
yet my human experience
refused to conform to that data
<>
facts spun to conform
not inform
a pervasive compulsion to control
what
at least in my pants
in out of control
One of the things that Hot Damn! It’s A Queer Slam encouraged me to do was examine, in even greater detail, how our sense of sexual self is ‘created.’ Much of it comes from pop culture. Rampant heterosexuality dominated & even as the lgbtqia community was coming into the mainstream it often remained caught in those heterosexual behaviour constraints such as marriage for acceptance, being a good homo by adopting children to create the typical family.
Even sexual interactions were caught up in this coding – top, bottom, fem, butch, masc, whatever. This piece looks at some of the theories I read about in exploring sexuality – the wrong body has recently morphed into trans body diaspora, which, to me, it logical. But back in the day it was considered a fringe rationalization to make non-het sexuality acceptable.
Similar is the theory that one is haunted/possessed by the spirit of the opposite sex- so its really not me that likes men but the ghost of the woman that has taken over my body.
Both theories that I find amusing as opposed to informative or definitive. I still live in a culture that is sex-a-phobic period. As much as there appears to be an appreciation, say, for women owning their own sexuality it’s still seen through the male gaze of acceptance. It’s also a culture in which suffering is deemed authentic & while pleasure is deemed intellectually shallow.
So I’ve stopped wondering about the puzzle of my sexuality & have opted to ignore any data, any attempt to explain it & choose to enjoy because I am fine with being intellectually shallow.
TOpoet 