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Passing (as a Student)

I don’t know what it is about me, but the ladies in the cafeteria & some students (who aren’t in my class) as well as some administrators, seem to think I’m one of the students. It doesn’t matter how I’m dressed, though today, on a non-teaching day, being in jeans & hoodie probably doesn’t help. But even in a suit jacket, I’m still assumed to be a student. (Must be my acne.) There aren’t any grad students around, either.

Still, I’m wondering if I just don’t radiate professor. Probably I don’t, and I don’t think I will when I’m 80 years old, either.

I suppose the anarchy ring doesn’t help, nor do the new piercings, nor does the fact that the campus, in general, is pretty mainstream: sadly, no blue-haired kids, no goths that I’ve seen. A lot of athletes, though; I get the feeling a lot of people here have never met a NYC hipster before.

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Writer’s Digest

There’s an article in this month’s Writer’s Digest about “Alternative Fare” and specifically the LGBT markets in publishing, and I was interviewed for the T section.

Boyd points out that people of variant sexuality have always appeared in literature. “There is a long line of novel characters who are gender variant, from The Well of Loneliness to Orlando to Middlesex. I like to think of my work as having inherited a great deal from writers like Gertrude Stein or [Virginia] Woolf.”

The bit that was clipped was my clarification that people have always written books about being in love with someone who is gender variant, as in Stein’s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas and Woolf’s Orlando.

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Gay Men, Sham Marriages, & Anal Sex

Sonia in CO directed me to this interesting selection of YouTube videos by the always-astute Wayne Besen about sham marriages, but what caught her eye, and mine, was the comment by Zeke:

Why are discussions about gay spouses and the spouses that they betray, take advantage of, lie to, devastate, degrade, etc. ALWAYS, 100% of the time, about gay men and their victim wives. Why do we NEVER, EVER hear people talking about married lesbians and the husbands that they betray, take advantage of, lie to, devastate, degrade etc.? Lesbians marry men just as much as gay men marry women but yet they are NEVER discussed in the same visceral judgmental terms that are used speak of gay men.

He goes on to talk more about the way men are always villains and women always victims when we talk about divorce, in general. But I think the one thing that Zeke didn’t mention is how people are freaked out by sex between men, because they think it’s all about anal sex. I think that’s one of the reasons people are more offended/freaked out by gay men than by lesbians. I mean, women are also so valued for “being” sexy but we don’t talk much about women’s sexuality either, so I think – other than the uber-femme “fake” girl on girl porn, we tend to think of women who have sex with each other as doing something more like naked cuddling than – pardon my french – fucking.

There’s a story in Judith Halberstam’s Female Masculinity where she talks about this one case, in the UK, a century + ago, where the judges ruled out the possibility of these two female headmasters having sex with each other because – according to him – that wasn’t *possible.*

We also tend to assume women are more loyal, & more emotional; that women who leave a husband for a woman are doing so for love, while men – you know – men are always just out to get their rocks off.

That is, I think what Zeke missed is all the latent sexuality issues going on when we talk about divorce & relationships, & with all the gender stereotypes that come into it.

This, plus the recent Vatican issue, makes me wonder when we’re going to work out that half the problem is that men who come out as gay are villified because of all our own sexual hangups & mythologies.

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He’s Come a Long Way, Baby

Charles Busch‘s current production of Die Mommy Die! was reviewed in The New York Times today:

Directed by Carl Andress, “Die Mommie Die!,” which runs a peppy 90 minutes, is infused with the good-natured comic brio that has made Mr. Busch a drag artist whom middle America can embrace. Even theatergoers who don’t catch the copious old-movie quotations, verbal and physical, should enjoy Mr. Busch’s hair-trigger comic timing and rubbery mugging, which brings to mind vintage Lucille Ball. (The association is underscored by Mr. Busch’s choice of red wigs, designed by Katherine Carr.)

I’ve seen a bunch of Charles Busch’s shows over the years – including Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, The Lady in Question, Shanghai Moon and Times Square Angel – and always find them smart and fun. I even met Joan Jett in the bathroom at one production! So do go if you get a chance, or rather: make the chance.

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New Piercing

I’m pleased as punch that I got a chance – right after my keynote at Fantasia Fair – not only to meet the Bearded Lady of Provincetown, but to get her to stretch my previous ear piercings so that I could wear these lovely new omegas I bought in her shop.

She tells me that I can make them bigger in a few months, too. Betty’s starting to worry.

If you’re coming here after Fantasia Fair, do remind me of the resources I said I would post. I know some (a lot) of them are probably about sex, so you might want to start by browsing the posts marked s.e.x. on this blog.

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Trans Couples: Jeanne & Diana

There are not a lot of stories of successful transsexual / non-trans partner marriages. One recurring theme that I see is the need for pacing. Unfortunately too many trans-partners once they have their epiphany rush like a runaway freight train towards transition. Like most runaway freight trains these relationships typically end in destruction.

I’m not going to say that there is any one right way to transition. We all know that those paths are as unique as the individuals who tread them. However, if a couple is going to have any possibility of remaining intact each partner must be willing to recognize that compromises will be an integral part of the process.

Continue reading “Trans Couples: Jeanne & Diana”

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Gentle Giant

Sometimes when Endymion lays around like this, you can see the seam where they stuffed him full of stuffing.

Of course he became real a long time ago, since everyone who meets him falls in love with him. He’s kind of a gentle giant, sweet-natured, and kinda huge.

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Sisters Perpetually Indulged

In SF, two of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence received communion, and Catholics – and Bill O’Reilly – are raising a ruckus and talking about “San Francisco values.” The Archbishop who served them has apologized, but a Jesuit theologian commented,

“The general sacramental principle is that you don’t deny the sacrament to someone who requests it,” said the Rev. Jim Bretzke, professor of moral theology at University of San Francisco, a Jesuit Catholic university. “The second principle is that you cannot give communion to someone who has been excommunicated.”

He said such people are designated “manifest public sinners” in canon law.

“This is someone who violates in a serious way one of the Ten Commandments or one of the important laws of the Church,” he said. “While I can see Bill O’Reilly and others might be offended, the sisters do not meet the criteria the church has for denying Communion. Over-accessorizing and poor taste in makeup is not an excommunicable offense.”

Bretzke added, “Even if these people were bizarrely dressed, the archbishop was following clear pastoral and canonical principles in giving them Communion. The default is, you give Holy Communion to one who presents himself.”

They make me thankful every day I was raised by Jesuits.

But the more important issue, to me, is that the Sisters practice what others only preach.

(Thanks again to Lena for the news item)