My response to “20 Things a Mother Should Tell Her Son”

I came across “20 Things a Mother Should Tell Her Son” the other day, and although I think it’s well intentioned, I couldn’t help but notice that it is heterosexist and strongly reinforces the gender binary. So I wanted to add my two cents.

20 Things a Mother Should Tell Her Son

1. Play a sport. It will teach you how to win honorably, lose gracefully, respect authority, work with others, manage your time and stay out of trouble. And maybe even throw or catch.

[Not all boys are athletic. I wasn’t. And I was made to feel ashamed. I was led to believe that my masculinity, my very right to think of myself and call myself a boy depended on liking sports. I’m also wondering why this would be something a mother would say specifically to her son. Don’t we all need exercise? Can’t you get exercise without engaging in competitive sports? And just for the record, authority should not always be respected. When I was growing up, my parents were certifiable, and the society I lived in taught me that I was a piece of shit that no one should care about. If I had respected authority, I would not have survived.]

2. You will set the tone for the sexual relationship, so don't take something away from her that you can't give back.

[The assumption here is that the son will have an exclusive sexual interest in girls. Of course I realize that most boys past puberty are going to be strongly attracted to girls. But some of them aren’t. Some are gay. Others are bi. And I remember reading a study a few months ago that found up to one in ten men who identify as heterosexual occasionally have sex with other men. Maybe they included straight men who masturbate together while watching porn, I don’t know, but that’s still a sexual relationship of sorts. And why is it assumed that men set the tone in heterosexual sexual relationships? That makes women sound awfully passive. Some are, of course, but not all. And shouldn’t girls be encouraged to take an active role in negotiating the boundaries in their sexual relationships?]

3. Use careful aim when you pee. Somebody's got to clean that up, you know.

[Somebody? How about if the son pees in the floor he cleans it up? I’m a man, and I’ve been cleaning up after myself for a very long time. I think there’s an underlying suggestion here that females are the ones who clean toilets.]

4. Save money when you're young because you're going to need it some day.

[Okay, but shouldn’t daughters save money, too? Why is this advice being directed specifically to sons?]

5. Allow me to introduce you to the dishwasher, oven, washing machine, iron, vacuum, mop and broom. Now please go use them.

[And while you’re at it, how about you mop up your piss in the bathroom?]

6. Pray and be a spiritual leader.

[Children do not necessarily share their parents’ religious beliefs. Please respect that. If my parents had it their way, I would believe in a brand of Christianity that teaches people like me are worthy of death and hellfire. I rejected that, and I think I made the right choice. And if I want to pray, I’ll pray on my own terms and when I want to. So I’m not a follower. And I’m also not a leader. I sometimes share my thoughts, but I don’t claim to have ultimate answers so I’m not about to demand or expect anyone to follow me.]

7. Don't ever be a bully and don't ever start a fight, but if some idiot clocks you, please defend yourself.

[I would also encourage boys who are bullied to defend themselves, but some boys are passive. They don’t fight back. It’s just not in their nature. Sometimes boys need others to protect them. When I was growing up, I was taught that boys defend themselves, and if a boy can’t defend himself, he’s not a “real boy” and therefore not worth defending. Let’s stop teaching boys that. It’s one of the reasons so many boys don’t ask for help. They’re taught that it’s shameful and unmanly to be a victim.]

8. Your knowledge and education is something that nobody can take away from you.

9. Treat women kindly. Forever is a long time to live alone and it's even longer to live with somebody who hates your guts.

[Shouldn’t we all treat one another kindly? Why would a son specifically be told to treat women kindly? Shouldn’t he also treat men kindly? Shouldn’t daughters be told to treat others kindly? People sometimes say that boys shouldn’t hit girls. Why not say boys and girls shouldn’t hit…except on rare occasions when it’s necessary to defend themselves or someone else? And once again, this mother is assuming her son will have an exclusive sexual interest in women.]

10. Take pride in your appearance.

11. Be strong and tender at the same time.

[What if a boy isn’t strong? What if a boy is shy, insecure and easily hurt? I was a sensitive boy, and I was taught that boys who aren’t tough aren’t “real boys.” That didn’t make me tough. It made me feel ashamed, and it made me want to hide. I was taught that because I was a boy, I shouldn’t expect anyone to be gentle with me. That message had a horrible impact on me. I’m still living with the repercussions.]

12. A woman can do everything that you can do. This includes her having a successful career and you changing diapers at 3 A.M. Mutual respect is the key to a good relationship.

[And men can do everything women can do. Men can be nurturing parent. Men can be good cooks. Men can decorator a house like nobody’s business. And some men look fabulous in a red dress.]

13. "Yes ma'am" and "yes sir" still go a long way.

14. The reason that they're called "private parts" is because they're "private". Please do not scratch them in public.

[Excuse me, but if your breast was itching or twisted up in your bra in a way that was causing you pain, I would not want you to suffer on my account. Please scratch and adjust as needed, and I’ll do the same, thank you. Balls are especially sensitive, and sometimes they need a little tender loving care. Being so prudish as to demand others suffer is not at all admirable in my book. And prudery is just another way of enforcing the gender binary. “Oh, we have to treat girls and boys differently, dress them differently, keep them covered, give them different roles and keep them separated because they have different parts.” Nuts to that.]

15. Peer pressure is a scary thing. Be a good leader and others will follow.

[Shouldn’t we encourage daughters to be good leaders, too? And what if you’re not a leader?]

16. Bringing her flowers for no reason is always a good idea.

[Wow! Again with the assumption that the son will have an exclusive sexual interest in females. Again we see the gender binary being strongly enforced. Yes, flowers are nice, especially when they’re unexpected, but why is it assumed that it should always be the guy who gives the flowers…to a girl?]

17. Be patriotic.

[But define that however you see fit. Sometimes patriotism means standing up to your government. Sometimes it means going against the flow. Sometimes it means dissent.]

18. Potty humor isn't the only thing that's humorous.

[True, but potty humor can be damn funny, and we could all use a good laugh now and then, so lighten up.]

19. Please choose your spouse wisely. My daughter-in-law will be the gatekeeper for me spending time with you and my grandchildren.

[Don’t plan your son’s life for him. Let him do that. It is his life, after all. You may have a son-in-law and not a daughter-in-law. He may or may not have children. Your son could have a variety of romantic relationships with both men and women. And he may live by himself.]

20. Remember to call your mother because I might be missing you.

Rewrite

I just caught my father giving me one of those looks, a look that tells me that he’s disappointed in me, finds me strange. A look that tells me that he thinks I’m a fool, incapable, unworthy, queer. He generally doesn’t pay much attention to me, but when he does, it’s to let me know how much of a bother it is to provide for my material needs or that I’m not the boy he wanted.
What would I say to him if I could cross 35 years of time and step back into my younger self?

“You know, Dad, if I’m that much of a pain in the ass, maybe you should just leave. The state would give Mom a welfare check and some food stamps. I would hardly notice the difference. You’re not here much anyway. And when you are, you don’t take any interest in me as a person. You don’t respect me as an individual. And you certainly don’t convey to me that you like having me around. You do realize that is your job? You’re supposed to love me, support me, guide me, be someone I can count on, talk to. So what are you doing rolling your eyes at me and laughing under your breath in that way? You think I need that from you? Who are you to make me feel like shit? I’m your son, and you don’t even care that the school you send me to is extremely subpar. I could learn more staying home and watching television. You don’t care, or even know that I feel unsafe in that place and that I dread going there with every fiber of my being. I’m so scared and stressed I’m plagued by migraine headaches, and I’m just eleven years old. I have few friends and I feel worthless, funny, weird, ugly and stupid. I hardly ever get any praise. Certainly none from you. I feel like Mom is the only one who is looking out for me. She does the best she can, but you and I both know she should be in a hospital, not raising children or taking care of a house. I can see by the look on your face that I’ve shocked you by being so direct. I may have hurt you, but at this point, it’s not my job to take care of you. You’re supposed to be taking care of me, and you’re not. You’re crushing my spirit. Stop doing that. Be my father or leave."

Grease Is The Word

My parents grew up without television, so they were used to going to the movies. They regularly took my sister and me to the movies when we were young. In the summer months, we’d go to the Skyline drive-in, and in the colder months we’d go to the theater on Main Street. Both were torn down many years ago.

My father loved westerns, and he took us to see several of Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti westerns. They were, of course, inappropriate for a five-year-old. I can remember the close ups of people who had been shot and being terrified by their open, dead eyes. I think seeing things like that shocked my parents, too. They were used to movies being censored, and the change in the late ’60s and early’70s disturbed them. They stopped going. My sister and I were allowed to go now and then, but our parents didn’t go with us.

Finally in 1978, Grease hit the theaters. Since it was a nostalgic film set in the ’50s, and since everyone was talking about it, my parent’s interest was piqued. I’m pretty sure it was the last film they ever saw on the big screen.



Too Shy

The first two years of college, I worked in the Dean of Students’ Office, which was located in Elizabeth Moore Hall. E. Moore, as we called it, is a rather stately building with a large lounge and a fireplace. It’s open to the public and students often go there to rest or study between classes. Right by the front entrance was a long, high paneled desk. Since I didn’t have an assigned desk, this is were I usually worked. I would stand there and do whatever chore I had been given for the day, and part of my job was to answer students’ questions as best I could and to escort them to various offices if they had an appointment with someone who worked in the building. So there I was ready to greed and assist whoever should come up to the desk.

E. Moore was a regular hangout for some students, and of course I got used to seeing them around. Many came up to the desk and chatted with the students who worked there or with the Dean’s secretary who was also stationed behind the desk.

One of these regulars was a boy named Eric. For some reason, he came to mind today. Eric was a cutie pie, just the type of boy that I adore. He was short, very thin, and he had a pretty face. He also wore insanely tight jeans that really showed off his little butt. (This was the mid ‘80s, so it wasn’t unusual for a young man to wear his jeans so tight.) Eric was very sweet, but the two of us hardly ever said a word to each other.

The truth is, I felt unworthy of Eric’s friendship back then, and I assumed he hardly ever talked to me because he just wasn’t interested in getting to know someone like me. But I don’t recall Eric coming in with many friends, and he spent an unusual amount of time standing there at the desk in order to exchange a few words with the secretary when she wasn’t busy or whoever else would give him the time of day. Looking back now, I realize that Eric was probably shy. Maybe he would have talked to me more if I had found the nerve to talk to him. Instead, I just stood there waiting for him to speak first without realizing he was probably doing the same thing.

If two people are attracted and they want to go off somewhere and rub certain body parts together, or if they're in love and they want to make a life together, I don't get why anyone would be so interested in what kind of body parts they have. Religion or no religion, bible or no bible, it seems people would stop at some point and really think about what they're saying and what they're objecting to. "These two people can't pleasure each other or live together because I don't like the idea of them rubbing those kinds of body parts together, even though they're not going to do it in front of me." Out of all the crap going on in the world, and some are worried about that.  Out of all the crap going on in the world, and some are worried about that.  Crazy. 

I think life is a mystery, and I think magic, prophecy, religion and prayer often stem from our need to understand and take control of our lives. Whether or not those things actually do give us understanding or control is another question. With that said, I don’t think Tarot cards and Ouija boards are any more dangerous or strange than faith healings and exorcisms. From the perspective of an outsider, some Christian beliefs are quite fantastic. I think what we call the “occult” can be fun and interesting. Can you literally predict the future or talk to the dead? I doubt it. But I have to admit that it would give me a great amount of solace if I could believe my parents were still around and that death isn’t really the end.

What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Weaker

What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Weaker

_________

Twenty years ago I talked to my therapist about being approved for Disability Social Security. I was not well enough to work, and I needed an income, but I had heard that it was very difficult to get disability, so I was rather amazed at how quickly I was approved. Amazed, thankful that I would have some amount of financial independence no matter how slight, but also kind of taken aback that those who had reviewed my case, people who were used to turning others down left and right, thought that I, a young man of 26, was ready for Social Security. I even got a Medicare card.

My therapist bluntly told me that when Social Security contacted my doctors, they probably didn’t sugarcoat my condition: survivor of childhood abuse, mood swings, anxiety, severe depression, suicidal ideation, social anxiety, social withdrawal, isolated living adaptation, multiple hospitalizations. And she said those who work for Social Security know from experience that these are things people don’t just get over. You can have cancer or heart disease and be near death, but undergo treatment and within months be well enough to return to work. But people who lock themselves up in their apartments and don’t leave or talk to anyone, not anyone for days and sometimes weeks… They don’t simply get over it. They may learn how to cope, and they may learn how to function a bit better, but there simply isn’t a pill or a surgery that’s going to make it all go away.

I told her that I felt like an old dog who doesn’t quite trust people and spends most of the day hiding under the porch. I expected her to tell me that in time I would get better, but instead, she told me that there’s nothing wrong with being a dog like that. Many people love dogs like that. They accept them. They know that they’ve been abused and don’t place unrealistic expectations on them and give them lots of affection on those days when the dog is brave enough to accept it.

It was one of the most sobering sessions I ever had. For years I had regularly quoted Nietzsche, whose philosophy I greatly admire, but there came a point when my therapist would remind me that I wasn’t getting stronger. And finally I accepted the fact that I have these wounds, and I need to take care of them. They are a part of me. And simply demanding and expecting that they disappear was only frustrating me and making things worse.

I am who I am.

Someone actually felt the need to send me this message yesterday:
"You Posted A Nude Studio Shot Of A Young Indian(?) Male.
If He Did Not Have Faint Traces Of Body Hair- I Almost Mistook Him To Be A Minor....
WE All Are Gay Men But Not Pedophiles.
Lest Not Get Confused With Them By The BREEDERS, Fundamentalists, be they christian jew or moslem and the mormons, "Jesus Flew Here On A Rocket Ship To Convert The Indigenous Americans"…”

Needless to say, this person has been blocked. He won’t be bothered with any more pictures from me that show only “faint traces of body hair.” If others out there doesn't like some of the pictures I post, please don’t look at them.  Stop visiting the site.  Whatever. But please be advised that I’m not going to change, and I’m not going to apologize for liking what I like and being who I am. I’m not going to be bullied by anyone’s ridiculous suggestion that I’m a predator because some of the men I find attractive are young, boyish, smooth, not traditionally masculine and don’t have large muscles. I know that I’m not a predator. I’ve not even had sex in almost 20 years. I’ve never had sex with anyone significantly older or younger than myself. And I would not knowingly post a picture that I believed to be illegal. I am not stupid. I don’t need to be lectured about the law. I don’t need to be lectured about how beauty is only skin deep. I don’t need to be lectured about how I might one day fall in love with some hairy old guy with a wart on the end of his nose. And I’m very much aware that my taste is my own and that others don’t necessarily share it.

Some of us go for the hairy, muscular, traditionally masculine football players. I tend to go for the thin, slightly girlish young man wearing the pink shirt. If this troubles you, that’s your problem.

By the way, I have no idea what Jesus on a rocket ship has to do with anything. And as for the derogatory reference to “breeders,” some of my best friends are parents with partners of the opposite sex. They are sometimes more supportive than the gay men that I encounter…not to mention more intelligent.

The Secret Pond

This is an aerial view of Neil’s Pond, or at least that’s what it used to be called. It was named after the family who lived in the house above it. Even though there was that open field by the pond on the left side, and even though you could see the house and the road if you were at the water’s edge, the pond was very secluded. It was almost entirely surrounded by dense forest. There was a path that led over to it, and there was a path that surrounded it.

In the late afternoon on a warm summer day in 1978, a friend and I went to the pond, and we walked over to the wooded side on the right. This friend was a special friend, and the summer before, we had began to engage in sexual experimentation and play. We were already comfortable with seeing one another naked and experienced in touching each other’s bodies. So I wasn’t shocked, nor did I object when my friend asked me to lower my shorts and lay face down on a bed of pine needles. I knew what was about to happen because our exploration had been leading up to it.

It didn’t hurt. Maybe because my friend wasn’t fully grown. And I was relaxed and receptive. He got it in, and began pumping. He did it for a number of minutes, and then he collapsed. I could feel his body go slack on top of mine. I didn’t move. Didn’t try to turn over. I just allowed him to rest with his cheek against the back of my head and his body pressed against mine.

When he sat up, so did I. I could tell by the look on his face that he was rather amazed that he had gone through with it. We had actually done it. It. The thing everyone talked about. He asked me how it felt, and I told him that it felt good. And it had felt good. It actually felt better than I expected. It had been wonderful.

We didn’t kiss. We never kissed. We were not lovers. We never claimed to be boyfriends. We were just friends who secretly did things like this from time to time. So we simple got up, pulled up our pants, and went on our way. He went to his house and I went to mine.

I loved what he had done to me. When I was by myself, I couldn’t stop smiling. And I knew it was an important discovery. I had already accepted the fact that I was gay the summer before. I liked boys, and I knew I liked boys. I loved looking at them. I thought they were beautiful. I was filled with longing for them. And although I knew about sex, and even though my friend and I had been touching each other, this was the first time we had gone so far. Not only was the experience intensely pleasurable, but there was also something about it that I can’t quite explain. I realized that day that this was something I was meant to do. I didn’t just like boys. I wanted and needed to physically couple with them.

I took my evening bath, and I noticed the water was unusually dirty and pine needles floated on the surface. This pleased me. I liked seeing that dirty water and those pine needles. And I could still feel my friend inside me. It was one of the more significant days in my life. I knew it even then.

The day lives on in my mind as a kind of magic, otherworldly event. But the situation was not perfect. Both my friend and I came from dysfunctional homes, and this was the reason we could slip away for hours at a time without giving an accounting of where we had been. No one was paying that much attention to us. But that neglect is what afforded us the opportunity to explore our developing sexuality. I wish we didn’t have to be so secretive, but the culture was very homophobic. Our parents would have reacted with horror if they had found out what we had done. And our peers would have reacted with derision and ridicule, if not violence. If we had been found out, we would not have been able to live it down. It would have haunted us through the rest of middle school and all through high school. Years later, people would have pointed and said, “There goes those fags who got caught fucking in the woods when they were twelve.”

Of course I internalized much of this hostility. But I never tried to reject my identity or my feelings. I embraced my sexuality. I wanted it. And I wouldn’t have changed it even if I could. But I’m afraid that my friend was more ashamed than I was. He never admitted that what we did was anything more than play. We did cuddle a few times, but he wasn’t prepared to admit to feeling any affection for me. And the next summer it all ended because we were getting older, and we could no longer pretend we were playing. He knew we had been having sex, gay sex, and he couldn’t handle it. We had a fight. Things were said. He went home. And we never spoke to one another again.

Years later, I found out that sometime after high school, he was having sex with men, but he still refused to admit he was gay.


The Young Geologist And The Country Boy

I had an unusual dream last night. It was sort of a screwball comedy-romance. Somewhere out in the country a cave was discovered, and a country boy called in this young geologist to have a look at it. The country boy and the geologist had to fill the geologist’s truck bed with rocks from the cave so they could be analyzed. When they got back to town, they showered at the geologist’s apartment. I was there, and I got to see them naked. We all ended up in the dinning area, and the young geologist and the country boy were wrapped in towels. As a joke, I suggested they took so long showering because they were engaged in some monkey business. That led to the young geologist admitting that he was in love with the country boy. They chased one another around the table in their towels, and finally kissed. Rather a nice dream.

This is the high life?

I’m often surprised at how much resentment there is out there for people who receive public assistance. Some want recipients tested for drugs, closely watched and sharply questioned about how they lead lives. They want an accounting for every penny because they’re sure there’s widespread fraud and waste. They don’t seem to realize that there is little evidence of excessive abuse, and that adding all these layers of scrutiny will only make the bureaucracies bigger and more inefficient, and the people receiving help, who are by and large really poor and in many cases really sick, feel as though they’re being treated like common criminals. Would you want to tell a government bureaucrat how much money you’re spending a month for toilet paper? Would you like handing over a bottle of your urine to a government bureaucrat?

There is this belief that huge numbers of people are living in a grand style at taxpayer expense, and this is bankrupting the country. First of all, the people who think this should spend a few minutes actually looking at government expenditures. This is public information, and it can easily be accessed on the internet. And secondly, these people should listen to those who are receiving public assistance. For instance, people like me. I’m on Disability Social Security, SSI and my rent is subsidized. And I have both Medicare and Medical.

I’m grateful that I live in a country that can afford and is generous enough to help people like me. I’m grateful that I have a roof over my head, food to eat and that my medical expenses are paid for. But this idea that I’m living in luxury is, in a word, horseshit. I live in a small, rundown apartment on the “wrong” side of town. For nearly six months, my kitchen sink has leaked. It’s more than a drip now, it’s a steady stream. I’ve told the maintenance man four times about the leak, but he just doesn’t have time for me. There are 100 units here and just one maintenance man. For several months last year, the tank on my toilet leaked water into the floor every time I flushed. It made a mess, and it was quite a bother, but what could I do?

At every turn, I’m threatened with eviction if I don’t fill out this or that form on time or let inspectors in my apartment at appointed times, which are never, ever at my convenience. And I don’t exactly feel safe going outside after eight o’clock.

I don’t own a car. I don’t buy hardly anything other than groceries and supplies. I dress in the most basic and simplest clothes--t-shirts, gym shorts, hooded sweatshirt jackets. And I wear my shoes until they have holes in them. I live just a couple of hours away from Yosemite and San Francisco, but I can hardly ever afford to go to the city, and I only manage to go to Yosemite once a year for a few days. I went to Yosemite last month because it was so much cheaper to go in December. I had to save for months, and still I had to basically skip Christmas. I couldn’t even afford to send anyone a Christmas card. And this month is no better. We’re just a third of the way into the month, and after paying my bills and stocking up on groceries, I have about $30 left for the rest of the month. So where are these people leading jet set lives on welfare? If they’re out there, I don’t know how they’re doing it by accessing the same programs available to me.

Hollywood stereotypes, sissies and the boy code

I know that it’s frustrating to be stereotyped by Hollywood and the general population. When people make certain assumptions about you, and those assumptions are false, it’s annoying. And we all need to see ourselves represented in books and movies, and when nearly all of those who are supposed to represent us are of a particular type, it can be disappointing, and it can make us feel isolated, like no one really understands us.

But the thing I’ve noticed is this: males in our society are bullied into a gender box. And I mean males of all sexual orientations. If we step out of the box we face criticism, and sometimes violence and discrimination. One of the ways this “boy code” is enforced is by making males afraid of being thought of as being less than masculine. The bullies will emasculate us if we don’t buy into and live up to their code of conduct. They will label us as inferior males and unworthy of respect. One of the things that is outside this code of conduct is homosexuality, but it’s not the only thing outside the accepted code.

If we are to break the boy code, and patriarchy and the idea that traditionally masculine heterosexual men are superior, I think we need to break all of it, not just the parts that are inconvenient for certain individuals. And I don’t see how we as GBT men can break the boy code if so many of us continue to be afraid of being associated with the sissy boys, who, let’s face it, are often gay.

When I was growing up, I noticed that the people around me not only didn’t have answers for those tough questions about the Christian bible, but they refused to even consider them. They simply expected me to accept what they said without question. And the assumption was, if you didn’t believe in a fundamentalist concept of Christianity, you didn’t believe in anything.

But going along with it all without questioning it seemed like annihilation to me, and it still does. It was like I, the real me, would disappear if I simply gave in. And I still resent what these fundamentalist Christians were trying to do to me, especially my family. I love them and miss them, however, I think they wanted me to go along with them not because they had such strong faith but because they weren’t really interested in who I was and wanted me to become a clone of themselves.

I also wonder if some of those fundamentalist Christians really believed what they were saying. I suspect many of them were going along to get along.

I think that it might be arrogant to pray for anything other than strength to accept the way things are because if there is a god, who are we to tell this god how to reorder the universe? I think a definition of faith could be the belief that despite everything, despite all the violence, suffering and misery you’ve seen, despite all the disappointments, humiliations and pain you’ve experienced, life and reality as a whole are basically good. And with that fundamental belief guiding you, I think it’s possible to go through life with an open heart rather than with fear and hate.  Now with that said, I don’t claim to have much faith.

Brad's Party--a short fictional tale