MASC FOR MASC & OTHER DIARRHEA

by damien

When I came out in 1990 I was a ballet dancer.

Graceful. Delicate. Demure. Mindful. With a full face of make up on.

That’s what ballet dancers – even the guys – did back then (my make up was flawless by the way).

 

I was not masc. But I also was not a screaming one man Pride Parade.

I was just ………… me. And for about 20 years now, that apparently has not been enough.

 

I have a friend of mine I adore. He knows I care for him deeply but he doesn’t know just how much I love him.

He is one of the most impressive people I have ever met. Great soul. Big heart. Enormous bucket of grace. Just a mensch.

And yet, he is one of these queens who just has to overlook anyone he views as “girly” / “femme” / “gay”.

(By the way – as much as I love him, him and I are both men who have those qualities at times – as most gay men do).

 

As what is now termed an elder gay – a gay man over the age of 50 - (fuckers) – I look back when I came out and I remember the amazing diversity of people at the club that night. Drag queens. Leather queens. Muscle Marys. Dads with sons. Sirs with Boys. Transgender Ladies. Your Basic Bitches. It was wonderful!!! I was stunned at how many different people were MY people. As I got to know them – I was hot and new meat after all – I loved how different they were and yet so similar. All came from backgrounds that included hatred of who they were. They understood my pain and I understood theirs. I understood why they had the different identities they did and it was just a fabulous mélange of men, males, women, and others. It was like being in Oz with Dorothy.

The other thing that was so pleasing back then was no one tried to force me to conform to a single label. There were no gays pushing Masc for Masc.

 

I hate this term. To the point of violence. It is hetero-normative bullshit that is pedaled by gayelles who sit in the corner of their bedroom in the dark regurgitating their self-hatred and chewing it over like mouthfuls of stale cud. These men can all fuck off in the most painful and denigrating way possible.

These men have ruined our community.

I was actively supported and encouraged to move beyond my own self-hatred. A wonderful pre-op trans woman and I were having a conversation one day at a rehearsal. She and I were part of the weekly dance show at this club. PS The club was called Flashez.  A then institution in the city of the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. I made a comment she obviously clued into and, with the most penetrating gaze said to me “the only one holding onto your hate is you, darling. Jettison that bitch and just see how great life can be.” At first I was so insulted. How dare this person tell me I was in any way in any version of “wrong”. Which is how I took it. I mentioned it to my then best friend, and she replied “it’s the only unattractive part of you.” And she said it with love and care and compassion.

Now, there is a whole sub section of gay men who cling to their hatred like a Alien crab to a human face.

 

And it is unattractive.

And it is caustic.

And it plays into our enemies script.

 

“See! They don’t even like themselves!!!”

 

As such. Fuck off to any of you who use this masc bullshit. Fuck off to your outdated hetero-normative psycho-social bullshit. Fuck off to your desire to “fit in with the Joneses”. And fuck off to the bullshit you bring to the world of gay dating.

 

I don’t have time for it. And you should really ditch it. We all have enough in the world to navigate without this obscene and antiquated bullshit that simply been repainted and zhuzhed up for the new generations.

 

Oh. And if any of you have a problem with this – fuck you too.

I didn’t survive 4+ decades of HIV/AIDS and fag-killing to put up with you and your half arsed bullshit.

 

Other than that, I wish you all well.

Damien.