Tag: masculinity

Music of Masculinity

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pull up a chair

I recently did a couple of posts in my music series about The Rolling Stones. It started me thinking about the role music played in my teenage year. How what I listened defined what I believed was masculine. In all footage I’ve seen of The Beatles there is nothing but screaming, swooning girls – no boys. In fact pop rock music fell into those two camps – most of it was in the girls camp. The Beatles, Herman’s Hermits were for girls, The Rolling Stones, The Who were for boys. Donovan: fem; Bob Dylan: masc. Boys who like music too much were suspect – girls could sing along – boys couldn’t – lol. 

The Stones ‘Satisfaction’ was clearly about getting laid, The Beatles “I want to Hold Your Hand’ was clearly about holding hands period. Hand holding was safe for girls. The Stones were never innocent & many of their songs were clearly misogynistic i.e. ’Under My Thumb’ or were calls to violence ‘Street Fighting Man’ – these were the proper role models for real boys – real boys wanted more than holding hands. They wanted action, or revenge. Never mind the fact that by the time they recorded ‘Street Fighting Man’ they were millionaires not revolutionaries.

So how did this resonate in my life at the time? The sneering misogyny & objectification of girls (rarely were they women until they got to the Honky Tonk) was masculinity defined. I felt I would never be masculine enough, aggressive enough, daring enough to live in the reality of their songs. They sold a myth that I saw as reality – much like the Hollywood fantasy that the love of the right person would give you reason to live.

I don’t even think I found the Stones sexually attractive – even then there were rumours that Mick was a bit bi – I had a buddy who said he’d have sex with Jagger but, to be honest, I found Jagger to be too lizard like for me. Speaking of lizards I my first pop jo sex fantasy was the Lizard King, Jim Morrison, then Foxy Jimi Hendrix, but I digress.

I’ve blogged about growing up with out any real role models in a culture that had distorted sense of gender that I ended up with my own distorted sense of masculinity. Pop music of the time merely echoed that that distortion – real men were Born to Be Wild whereas faggots like me could only dream about it.

Rolling

 

Stones 

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Walk Like A Gearbox

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Walk Like A Gearbox 

guys in high school 

knew things about me

that I didn’t know

or rather didn’t fully understand

<>

I was a small blond boy

with very fine hair

that I let grow long

like pop stars of the time

<>

that got me teased

or was that bullied

with name calling

fruit  fairy   gearbox

<>

in the days before

faggot or queer were used

I knew those names meant

I wasn’t manly enough

not that I was fem

but I was not masculine like them

<>

I never knew

what tipped them off

until a guy I knew

suggest I should fix my walk

<>

I had no awareness

of how I walked

or of how 

men were supposed to walk

<>

I had little real body awareness

beyond my awareness 

of the bodies of the boys

changing in the locker room

<>

this guy

gave me some lessons

in how to walk like a man

lessons I didn’t understand

<>

it wasn’t as if I was deliberately

walking any one way

it was something I couldn’t

consciously change

<>

the right walk wasn’t going to cure me 

any more than dating girls

having sex with them

cured me of being a fairy

I once directed a play in which one of the actors for one scene was supposed to walk like a runway model – to sashay. He found it almost impossible to change his usual gait; any attempt to change it, he said, made him feel too self-conscious on stage. Turns out one of the ‘classes’ trans people now take is in how to change their walk to more suit the gender they’re changing to. Whoa – what hasn’t been genderized!

his piece is a true story. In high-school one of straight guys did what happens here. The name-calling started in junior high & followed me until I moved to Toronto. I can’t recall a teacher ever stepping in to stop it. At the time I thought I was being picked on because back un the day name calling wasn’t considered bullying but part of what one needed to become a real boy. I know know it was  verbal abuse.

I didn’t really understand the sexual connotations of those names & I’m sure the kids didn’t either. I was a nonconformist & such was my lot in life. By the time I hit high school I knew my sexuality was behind the name calling – not that I was sexually active with anyone except myself but my eyes told me what I wanted.

I tried the usually things to disprove their taunts – I had a couple of girls I would go to sock-hops with, I was active in some sports & even won a few trophies but that didn’t change the way I walked. Ultimately it was the hair that established me a fairy – too long & being a natural blond very fem. But like my sexuality, my hair was the way I was born & there was no cure for that either.


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Ankles Crossing The Line 

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Ankles Crossing The Line

boys don’t cross ankles

when they sit

only girls cross their ankles

boys can put a foot

on the opposite knee

that is how men sit

you are a man aren’t you

you better start to act like one

how is your belt buckled

only girl have the buckle on the left side

or is it the right side

shirts for boys have buttons on the right side

shirts for girls on the left

or is it the other way

for buckles and buttons

<>

someone always looks

enforces gender appropriate

mannerisms

a code that if broken

meant derision

only girls sit to pee

only girls cross their ankles

when seated 

only girls

can part their hair in the middle

or on the left side

or was it right

I don’t remember now

but in high-school that was vital

<>

I never got any of that straight

because I wasn’t straight

I wonder if there’s a history of gender that explains how things became categorized as being gender specific. I mean things like colours (pink vs blue), actions (standing when a woman enters the room), professions: well okay I do get that one, as many depend on brute strength, but male nurses are suspect, objects (jewelry), scents (Old Spice vs Chanel No. 5). Men wore aftershave, women wore  perfume. I sometimes wear Chanel No. 5.

There are gendered versions of watches, running shoes, shirts, cosmetics etc. Man-sized meals. Real Men don’t eat quiche. Shirley Temple for the ladies, Virgin Caesar for the gents. All of which starts young – toy kitchens aimed at girls, toy tools for boys. Imprinting that never gets questioned. I don’t recall ever asking my mother why all my clothes were blues, blacks & browns – by the time I got to high school I broke free & went for multi-colour & was frequently picked on because of it. 

The desire to look ‘fashionable’ was not masculine. The male uniform was bulky jeans, scruffy shoes, blocky dark plaid shirts & shapeless jacket. If one was on a team a team jacket was permissible. If you weren’t on a team you didn’t count anyway. Boys didn’t dance well at sock hops. Masculinity was always established by violence – or rebel stuff like smoking.

Girls who smoked were sluts, boys who moved were toughs – but that’s another poem. I was a rebel who never smoked 🙂 I was a rebel who wore white shoes, who let his hair grow into a Beatles cut. I once was asked are you a boy or a girl so I guess my even my walk wasn’t masculine enough. Conformity was masculine, nonconformity was suspect.

I’d like to think things have changed but a man wearing a gown to the Oscars created a sensation. The increased notice of trans has made many uncomfortable with the changing clarity we once had thanks to defined, unalterable notions of gender.

My pronouns: it, that. 


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Universal Hunks

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Universal Hunks – A Pictorial History of Muscular Men Around the World, 1895-1975 – David L. Chapman with Douglas Brown – Arsenal Pulp Press. A couple of the photos in this surfaced on a ‘vintage men’ twitter I follow, with a link to the book, which I ordered & have as paperback. Ebook was available but this is one I needed to turn pages.

It is an excellent study on the nature of masculinity around the world – masculinity seen as muscular strength. It also has a sharp subtext on colonization, race & male nudity. I recall in high school some of my male classmates were alway eager to go through the National Geographic Magazines in the school library to find bare breasted women. One guy got suspended for cutting those pictures out, (or maybe it was bra ads in Miss Chatelaine.) I was usually disappointed in how few tribal men got the same tender photographic attention.

Strength & masculinity & violence have been a standard of defining  what makes a man a man. The books reminded of the old Charles Atlas ads that appeared in comic books & men’s magazine where skinny guy on beach get sand kicked in his face by the muscular bully – skinny guy buys the Atlas muscle building course & tosses that bully aside – the message being bullies deserved to be beaten – violence is the way to making oneself respected a man.Of course today if that happened in the USA one of them would merely pull a gun & kill the other in self-defence.

Universal Hunks takes us around the world outside of North America with a series of excellent photos of muscle men. Some became brand names for health products – eat these biscuits & you too can unbend horseshoes. Many enlarged their fame with postcard pictures doing stunts or merely posing in very tight garments or even bare chested. 

The photos gave admirers the opportunity to look as long as they wanted. Many posed for sculptors & painters as well & some shots of those studio moments are included. Many of the photos are amazingly ageless & could have been taken of men last week. None of them deliberately eroticize their subjects, that is up to the viewer, in this case me 🙂

Suffocating

me face down flat on the floor

me: fifteen

the floor: high school gym

pine slats and the smell of socks

lift from the waist

me lifting sweating

I could do this much of the class

I felt safe in one spot

not facing anything   anyone

<>

now roll over

this was a little worse

I could see the other guys in my class

but I’m still safe

in one spot on the floor

I dreaded it all so much

I’d arrive at school in my gym clothes 

to avoid the change room

okay on your feet boys and boys

we groaned up

jumping jacks

<>

I was still safe in one spot

I could keep up with this

it was basketball that did me in

where I could never remember left from right

never could manage a lay up

traveling with the ball – whatever that was

I would pass whenever I could

sometimes I’d fall to get out of the way

<>

but that fear was merely prelude 

to what I dreaded the most

the showers

I’d yank my glasses off right away

soft focus everyone

into naked fuzzy forms

I would slink in as small as I could

rinse down

dart back to my locker

keep my eyes to the floor – to faces

but there was always someone too close

someone I couldn’t keep from focusing on

when I was trying not to look

at hair everywhere on some of them

asses backs around their balls

<>

I would dress barely dried off 

rush up the stairs and outside

to breath

to keep from drowning 

in the damp desires

that were suffocating me

<>

……

Check out my blog about this poem: 

Suffocating  http://wp.me/p1RtxU-1dQ  

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Measuring Up

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Measuring Up

I concede 

I’m not that competitive

whether you are better

isn’t that important to me

I want to be judged

on my merits alone

not on how much 

better or worse I may be

compared with anyone

better is relative

who is the winner

the one who comes in first 

or the one who finishes the race

on their own terms

<>

I grew up

in a school system

where I learned 

I would never measure up

because I wasn’t smart enough

to memorize the times table

smart enough

to regurgitate passages of text books

when I wrote exams

even when I was right

I was given no credit

because my spelling was so wrong

<>

coming out

I was never young enough

buff enough

hung enough

to be desirable 

in the eyes of those

to whom I was supposed to measure up to

<>

it’s hard to give up

trying to measure up

in a culture were getting ahead

is the measure of value

if you aren’t competitive

you’re a loser

no amount of self-confidence

will change that judgement

<>

so I concede

now leave me alone

judge someone

who deserves to measure up

This piece (finished on Dec 27, 2021) is a variation on one of my themes – cultural expectations vs nonconformity. Regardless of which fragment of our splintered culture one may fit even that splinter has it own set of expectations to measure up to. To step out of heteronormativity isn’t enough – because one ends up in one way or the other duplicating that power dynamic. Good queers ape hetero – adopting children, looking askance at non-monogamy, drag queens are now commercially viable.

The imperative to measure up starts early – prizes for best marks, best attendance from kindergarten on. It’s not a big step from beating the shit out of that kid who bullied you to prove you are manly enough to fucking the shit out that guy you pick up at bar proving you are more manly than him.

It’s not enough to be a good writer or published, you have to be profitable or you aren’t a real writer. Home cooks are inadequate until they win competitive baking shows (usually to make their children proud). Recognition becomes the point of productivity. Getting that gold star becomes the point of school not learning; a gold star to make your parents proud of you, not learning much beyond the power of approval.

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Summer Murderer

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typed on Royal – around 1976

“… As a Young Murderer”

<>

1

<>

I

want to kill

rip apart

with my bare hands

I

want blood

to taste

to smear

across my face

over my chin

between the fingers

of my bare hands
<>

2

<>

I

want to kill

instead

I get on a plane 

reading

in the airfoil gamble

I want to rip my book apart

strangle someone

then

then

slowly pick up the pieces
of my half-finished book

then

then

wash my hands

after reading

I often wash my hands

<>

my hands 

are ordinary

not thin tapers

with long artistic fingers
but squarish

with solid grasping fingers 

that create

yes I paint 

you’d never tell from my fingers

that I do anything

except linger

<>

you’re never tell from my hands

that my fingers

savour the skin of knuckles

brick wall ground

grazed as they pound a head

your head

the head that would never think

that of these hands

my hands

passive now

as they touch

the corners of your mouth

<>

3

<>

down the back stairs 

playing on the pipes

‘nineteenth’

playing at them with spoons

‘here it comes’

tapping at the airfoil

pumping on the surface

‘nineteenth’

playing on the pipes

echoing up the stairs

‘here it comes’

<>

4

<>

then I dream

of regrets

sorry sorry sorry

I’m suddenly

all so sorry

I didn’t stop to think

I rarely do

I think of myself

I only prime the repercussion

percussion

playing on the pipes 

lead pipes

“pieces of flesh

and some hair 

were found …”

<>

my hair

is always clean

I like the feel

of fingers

gripping at my hair

pulling it out

roots & all

looking for a hold

to keep me looking 

as they slip away 

as my eyes disbelieve

my act of turning a corner

without looking back

to see if I did

or if I glimpsed the doing

reflected by alley darkness

blind alley

that’s how they found me

dancing

‘here it comes’

my knuckles raw

the spoon of blood

in my mouth 

singing

‘nineteenth’

<>

5

<>

suddenly

my perception clears

a book on my lap

spoons tapping on the pipes

something in the air

a taste of spring lamb

I want to kill

but

am too tired to clean

<>

I

want to kill

instead 

I come back to my vision

a dream revelation

of the endless tease 

of energy

within my grasp

without my control

<>

This poem equates violence with masculinity in a very direct, in your face way propelled by a barely contained anger. I was compelled to write something that was aggressive, unflinching to get away from the emotional delicacy of the poetry I was force fed in high-school. There was lack of real physical interaction beyond the tenderness of a lover’s kiss. I wanted to write things that weren’t safe because my real life was confined by culturally imposed rules of gender behaviour.

I performed this piece a few times while I was still living in Sydney. ‘ taste of spring lamb’ was the name of a poetry reading I gave & I loved the dark energy of this piece. It was also a lesson to me that people see what you’ve written as you – that this was confessional as opposed to a character I was exploring. More than anything it revealed my desire to shock not to kill.

The language departs from my Dylan Thomas influence – no pretty pictures here but definitely some very clear & visceral descriptions.  The narrative voice moves from that rage, to an almost tender self-awareness of both the speaker & he reader – the reach out to ‘touch the corners of your mouth.’ There is the dream logic word association that goes from ‘pipes’ to ‘some hair’ to ‘my hair.’

The title is a reference to both James Joyce’s & Dylan Thomas’ ‘Portrait of the Artist as a .…’ ‘nineteenth’ comes from The Rolling Stones’ 19th Nervous Breakdown. Writing poems like this is probably what spared me from actually killing some (or myself) & from having a nervous breakdown. 

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Welcome To The F Files

https://topoet.ca/2021/06/26/welcome-to-the-f-files/

Next Time

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Next Time

the sex was good

but at this stage 

good wasn’t enough

I craved more than contact

<>

he certainly enjoyed 

the flesh on flesh

but not nearly as much

as he enjoyed the down low

the secret assignation

<> 

his exploration of excitement

of things his wife didn’t provide

I was his walk on the wild side

that made the cultural box

he felt he had no way of avoiding

bearable

<>

the sex was good

I was a non-threatening opportunity

that had nothing to do with me

as a person

as a spiritual entity

he only wanted the release

when he wanted it

<>

his travel here

often took longer

than we played together

play that was clearly more than good for him

but a vitally needed contact

<>

the sex was good

but for me

good wasn’t enough

I want desire

chemistry

there wasn’t enough chemistry 

for me to want more

not enough chemistry

to get an yen for him 

I knew enough about him

I didn’t care

<>

now to tell him

the next time he calls

and I know he will call

they always do

A guy I saw decades ago once joked ‘How long before I show up in one of your poems?’ He never did but he was aware that writers, poets in particular, often write about their lives – it is a way of processing our experiences & a way remembering them. I didn’t tell him that poetry is a fiction that reflects the truth without telling it – reflections are often distorted by the light, by time & the surface that sends back the reflection.

Some of my pieces are composites of real events that I’ve experienced or that friends had told me about. This is one of those composite pieces that reflects that balance between lust & opportunity. One would think with changes in cultural mores men (or women) wouldn’t feel so bound to fulfill the roles of husband or father but many still do.

Whether out of a sense of not letting down the folks, or maintaining their ethnic standards they find themselves in domestic relationship boxes – often though, as in the case of the married man here, he felt little conflict in maintaining two lives. He also enjoyed the ‘sneak’ of meeting up to spending time with me – overtime, going to the gym tonight, etc.

Things between us developed beyond this stage as we talked about our lives outside the bedroom. Not that he was going to leave the missus or anything stupid like that but a mutual fondness was strong. But fondness is no mask in these pandemic years. So I haven’t seen him in over year now; we email occasionally but, to be honest, if we never meet up again, life will go on. He’ll be a sweet memory not a heart ache. He texted that he’s had his vaccine so I know he’ll call.


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Nine

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Nine

O when I was nine

I was still a child

there was no instant communication

news travelled slow

on the radio TV newspapers

that provided an innocence

I knew about war

because my Dad had fought in one

he was a man

my mother was a woman

I was a boy child

who only knew what the culture 

of the time

expected of my gender 

<>

O when I was nine

I did know I wasn’t like other boys

I played backlot baseball

I played with dolls

I  wasn’t the boy my dad expected

I didn’t like to fight

like other boys

I never understood 

why physical violence was required

to be accepted

<>

O when I was nine

I learned to swim

looking at the differences

between boys and girls

anatomy I didn’t understand

the boys where more interesting

I knew shame

when we were caught

I had fear

but no closet

sex was dirty regardless

of the gender of the object

<>

O when I was nine

I don’t that I was making waves

as I waded from nine to nineteen

by the time I left nineteen

I knew

these were dangerous waters

at nine there was only

the fear of getting caught

not the fear

of my culture drowning me

like an unwanted litter of kittens

I heard on a TV documentary about children that our sense of self was basically formed by the time we are ten years old. By then we have absorbed the ‘teachings’ of TV behaviours that inform our subconscious. So, back in the day, I was aware of what the culture of the time expected of my gender. I was also aware that it wasn’t the right fit but I hadn’t developed the language for that beyond feeling it was the wrong fit. Today thanks to instant communication children have a greater knowledge of gender variations. I doubt that at the age of five I would have understood what a faggot was, children today do know what it means. 

Where was I when I was nine? We had just settled in Sydney, Cape Breton after moving across Canada for a couple years. My mother & I had spent some time with her family in Wales during this time as well. I remember ‘living’ in Moncton, Stellerton or was it Truro for short periods of time & going to schools there, briefly. Finally in Sydney, were we lived in three different neighbourhoods before my dad bought a house in Ashby.

One result was that I spent those formative years as a displaced person – someone who was different. My Dad prodded me into things that could show me how to ‘fit in’: cub scouts, YMCA. I did the best I could but felt like an outsider &, as I recall, was fine with that. I did get these weird mixed messages ‘why can’t you be like other kids’ then when I wanted some fad item ‘why can’t you think for yourself.’

I survived partially by hiding in booze & partially by writing & painting as I gradually found language for what I was. Though then that language was loaded – an abomination unto the Lord – sort of stuff. Today I know the tragic flaw wasn’t my sexuality but the way culture regarded not only lgbtq but sexuality itself.


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Sense of Faith

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Week Twelve of The Artist’s Way talks about faith – a sense of spiritual connection that isn’t tied to any particular region or dogma.

‘spirit of the universe

guide me

infuse me

with your dynamic productive energy

as you create through me

works

writing

emotions

that helps open others to

spiritual hope

direction fulfillment

thank you for all’

I wrote the above as one of the Artist’s Way tasks – to write a prayer/affirmation as part of the process of making thought into an action. I recently had a conversation with a friend about prayer. He was concerned that as he held no organized religious beliefs, was his use of prayer hypocritical. Was he  agnostic atheist heretic blasphemer? I told him those terms were based in a Christian construct. As I said that I thought about what Toni Morrison said about the nature of the white gaze which dominates so much of our thinking without us realizing it.

The past few weeks I have been realizing how much of my spiritual ideology is still seen though a Christian gaze, even though I don’t consider myself Christian. The prayer about was written with that gaze over my shoulder, an invisible editor that bargains with the universe in this trade off – like the Biblical trade off in which if you’re good you go to Heaven – we have to be bribed. Why can’t one be good for the sake of being good.

Why can’t I have ‘dynamic productive energy’ without bargaining for it by being of good to others as a result? Can I develop a sense of faith that steps out of the Christian gaze? Even though I say ‘spirit of the universe’ I see that I am engaging with it so as not to appear selfish, or self-serving. That my creativity is only of value if it feeds into the needs of others. Not that I expect faith to exist in a vacuum isolated from culture but I’d like one that doesn’t depend on a culture to approve or validate it. I have faith that that faith is possible 🙂

from Aug 2013

Five Calls

<>

the phone rings

what is it this time

time after time the same

never enough to last a week

if only hanging up could break a jaw

<>

the phones rings

how soon

see you in an hour

the heart dances

faster that the clock ticks

<>

the phone rings

how did you get this number

I don’t want to talk to you

there’s nothing left to say

that’s the price you have to pay

<>

the phone rings

stirring me from dreams

into the charms arms hold

everything to anticipate

nothing to resist

<>

the phone rings

have you heard

didn’t expect to be the one

left here dial tone dangling

cold receiver of sobs

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Distant Woodsman

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Woodsman

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

<>

the savage ravaging chainsaw

eating through still morning air

swooping unseen down from somewhere

clawing its way from deep inside the forest

to me, here, listening intensely

to all its echoed misdirections;

I could never hope to find where it starts;

can’t hear the birds

can’t hear the dry Fall twigs snap beneath my feet

can hear that metal ripper in my chest

tearing its way out into the frost-charged air

<>

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR rrrr

<>

as I move carefully forward

betting against the sunset to find

the muscle-rippled holder of the chainsaw

it stops suddenly in mid-rrrring

starts again 

moving on to yet another splintering hope

<>

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

<>

woodsman!

listen hard

hear me coming

I’m ready to take your place

or at least be cut down

<>

Ap 73

After the set of abstract dances I wanted a piece with a clear narrative line. The Dances tell an interior story, I guess, but they deal with introspective pretensions & unresolved, unresolvable moping around. 

Woodsman on the other hand is, at least, the fragment of a story with poetic overtones 🙂 Even now I like sonics of this piece the way the RRR is underscored by the opening lines, ‘r’ resonates all through the first long verse. My use of language and sonics is deliberate: ‘metal ripper’ is nicely echoed by ‘muscle-rippled;’  ‘twigs snap’ bounced by ‘splintering hope.’

There was a real moment when I heard a chainsaw in the forest. Not an unusual sound on the east coast, mind you, but it is one of those noises that doesn’t mix well with its surroundings. Aggressive, insistent  & somehow very masculine. So what is being heard isn’t merely the saw but the the cultural push to be a manly man. 

A push that drowns out anything else – a noise that says this us how to be a man, a man can’t act certain ways – if he does ‘real’ manliness drowns out everything, even logic. A ‘real man uses women, it’s his right. A ‘real’ man doesn’t question where this push started, he just follows it. In the end I’m willing to follow but the woodsman is going to have to accept me on my terms.

I do have a limited number of the original Distant Music chapbook for sale for $25.00 each (includes surface mail postage). Send via the paypal above along with where to send it.

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