January 03, 2004

Abandon, and my fear of flying

Abandon. The word captures the impulse and its perceived danger so well. It's abandon that I seek and abandon that I fear. When I admired and adored rock stars, it was largely for how much they were able to achieve (or simulate) abandon, either on stage or expressed through their music: the lead singer that collapses in ecstasy, the guitarist that loses themselves in the sounds they're creating, these were my ideals. My core love of music – whether Baroque choral or Bob Quine's frenetic guitar playing - is that it evokes abandon. As a teen I used alcohol. Being drunk approximated abandon. It was the closest I could get. But it comes with such lousy trade-offs. The closer you get to abandon, the closer you get to unconsciousness. In real abandon, perceptions may be distorted, but you're fully experiencing...

Full entry: Abandon, and my fear of flying

October 06, 2002

Mermaids is one of my favorite movies

Mermaids is one of my favorite movies, and there's tons of stuff like that about me. When I was a kid, I knew I wasn't like other boys, but I never had a sense that I was the wrong sex. When I was a teenager and started learning about appropriate sexual roles and behavior, I figured I must be gay. But that made no sense. I'm attracted to women, I relate to women and I want to be with women, as friends and partners. So the last thing I want is to be in an all-male world, even if gay. I don't want a woman's body; I don't want men for sex. But I do want what is considered a woman's role in the world. (Some feminists will say that's naive, that I wouldn't really want it if I knew...

Full entry: Mermaids is one of my favorite movies

November 06, 1999

The sexuality of the emerging millennial generation

Forget about gay rights. The oldsters can fight out those battles. As far as the next generation is concerned, in the words of Kurt Cobain, "What can I say, everyone is gay." Gay rights and abortion rights and other battles of the sixties and seventies are over as far as this generation is concerned. It's only the leaders on both sides who don't get it. In many ways, the views of the new generation are nothing less than the 1970s’ ideals come to fruition. Derailed by a conservative backlash coinciding with the emergence of AIDS, the ideals of pure social liberalism dropped off the radar during the 80s. But they never went away. They just went underground; in schools and on campuses, in grunge, goth and club cultures, kids continued to “be the change you wish to see in the...

Full entry: The sexuality of the emerging millennial generation

Lesbian in a Man's Body

It started with a simple premise. I'm not straight, since I bear as much resemblance to a typical straight man as to a baboon. So I must be gay. But I'm attracted to women. So – I started to think – maybe bi. But try as I might, I simply was not attracted to men. (Of course I can recognize when a man is particularly beautiful or charismatic, but that doesn’t make me want to have sex with him.) So, the only remaining answer in our array of choices is that I must be a lesbian. I loved this idea and embraced it immediately as a playful assertion to confuse and intrigue people. And as I started tinkering with the idea of being a lesbian in a man's body and extending it, the meaning revealed itself to be much deeper:...

Full entry: Lesbian in a Man's Body