Category Archives: Sexual Identity

Lurking, Substitutions, Sleep

04 Friday Nov 2016

Posted by in Exercise/ Fitness, food, Gender Roles, Sexual Identity, Sobriety

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If you follow my blog, you might have learned a few things about me.

  1. I had a spinal fusion in November, 2015 that effectively ended my working career. The fusion was preceded by a rotator cuff repair in May, 2015.
  2. I am a practicing Roman Catholic, having converted in 2010 at age 59, from The Episcopal Church USA.  “Practicing ” means I go to both Mass and Reconciliation (Confession) regularly, pray The Rosary, abstain from meat on Friday as a penance. Most importantly, I take Church teaching on love and compassion very seriously.  My faith is like  a “hard limit” with me. I realize a lot of you have had some truly crappy experiences with the Church. I understand. I’m sorry it was so bad for you. Part of converting meant I had to get two previous marriages that ended in divorce annulled under Canon (Church) Law.  I totally get the annulment ordeal.
  3. I am a recovering alcoholic, 22 years sober, AA attending. Along with The Church, I use the 12 Steps of AA in ordering and directing my life . Patience and tolerance are among the gifts I take from them.
  4. Partly from AA, partly from family history, and partly from my own personal experiences around sex and gender identity,  I am very accepting around LGBT issues.  If you are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, that’s OK by me. To that end I am curious about your lives and how you view the world.
  5. On the lighter side, I like to cook.  I also like to exercise, swimming and power walking mostly.

This takes us to the first topic in the title, Lurking. All you Butch Lesbians and Bisexuals out there should know I read your blogs. Occasionally I will “like” a post.  I realize most Butches are OK with my reading. Some aren’t.  To those who aren’t OK with people of my demographic reading your blogs, I’m sorry. But I’m not quitting, unless you bore me to death.

Topic #2.  Substitutions. Since I like to cook and am in Recovery, I find substitutions for wine, beer and spirits in food challenging. Most times I simply not use a recipe with alcohol.  I know how alcohol cooks off in a lot of cases.  But the “esters”, those wonderful compounds that give different wines their unique and characteristic flavor, give me a headache. Any tips on substitutes for alcohol would be appreciated.

Topic #3  Sleep.  Between not having a job and chronic, albeit moderate, pain. I don’t sleep well.  Throw in the Cubs winning the Series, and my circadian rhythm has no rhythm. I’m like Ward Cleaver dancing.

That’s it. I’m done for now.

Prurient Interest Made Me Who I Am Today.

02 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by in Sexual Identity

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I love that term “Prurient Interest”. I first came across it when I was reading about how the Supreme Court came up with definitions of “obscenity”, about fifty years ago.  Prurient is defined as “having or encouraging an excessive interest in sexual matters”, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (online).  The Court, way back then, was saying that, if a book or movie appealed only to prurient interest and had no other redeeming artistic or social value, it was obscene.  I don’t know if they argue about matters like these any more.  The time has kind of gotten away from what was considered obscene fifty or eighty years ago.  Does anybody read Joyce’s Ulysses for its powerful eroticism any more?  I saw the film The Lovers (Les Amoreuses) a few months ago.  What is significant about the film is that it figured in what constituted “obscene” in films.  The film would probably get a PG-13 rating today.  It’s actually a pretty good movie, starring Jeanne Moreau, and her character was having an affair.  We can’t leave the subject of defining obscenity without bringing up the Justice Potter Stewart  quote,  “I can’t define obscenity but I know it when I see it.”  By that standard The Lovers is patently NOT obscene. 

“Prurient Interest” basically alludes to curiosity about sexual matters.  What is left unsaid is that curiosity is a good thing and we human beings can’t help but be curious.  My readers will recall some entries I made about my lesbian cousin, Cousins Part One and Cousins Part Two.  I became intensely curious about the phenomenon of “Butch”, so I started reading up.  The sexual  interest aspect was lost soon after I started reading about it, but what remained was an enormous appreciation for lesbian-themed literature. I ordered Best Lesbian Love Stories 2004,  and Set in Stone,  edited by Angela Brown, published by Alyson Books.  The quality of the writing just blew me away.  I am in awe of these writers who have extraordinarily good storytelling skills.   What follows from reading the stories is empathy for the predicament of LGBT people, and respect for LGBT people.

A cheap thrill will dissipate.  Where  the search for a cheap thrill led me were places I never dreamed I would go.

Adventures In Gender Nonconformity

01 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by in cooking, Gender Roles, Sexual Identity, Suburbia

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That term “Gender Nonconformity” is pretty daunting. Why would I, a committed macho-type heterosexual male, dare to venture into this semantic minefield?

In 1961, the 4-H Club came to Skipwith Elementary School. We were still considered a rural area at that time, before the few farmers remaining sold out to the developers.  There were two teachers, facilitators, I guess they would be called now. There were two programs offered, Insect Collecting presented by the male teacher and Home Economics, facilitated by the female.  The unspoken cultural norm was that the boys would sign up for the Bugs, the girls for the Cooking and Sewing.

I signed up for  Home Economics.  I had no real interest, at that time, in collecting insects. The wonders of entomology had yet to seduce me.  I did, however, have some interest in cooking and the other “Domestic Arts”.  I was the only boy in Home Ec.  I do not know if any girls signed up to catch bugs, kill them with ether in a jar and present them pinned to a board.  The point is that it was no big deal.  Nobody said anything.  My mother was not concerned that I might become a “homo”, to use a contemporary term. She always welcomed any help around the house.

I did learn a thing or two. It kindled an interest in cooking, cleaning, and interior design that I still have.  Regrettably, there wasn’t much focus on sewing. I could have benefited from learning sewing. I wish I had pursued it.

“Gender Nonconforming”.  A boy takes Home Economics. A girl collects bugs. It seems the term inflates the significance and obfuscates the reality of what’s actually happening.  I don’t mean to disparage anyone dealing with these issues  and encountering difficulty.  I know that this is a very tough issue, from what I’ve read from my blogging colleagues. Simply put, my experience in doing a “girl-type” thing was, all in all, rather benign.

To all you Gender Nonconformists out there. Rock on!

Loneliness

16 Sunday Oct 2016

Posted by in Love and stuff, Sexual Identity

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I would say I’m starting my day in a fog, but that’s not quite the word. We can feel the Autumn early in the morning. There’s no color change yet with the trees. There is a bit of a draft at my ankles as I sit and write.

I feel an overwhelming loneliness almost every waking minute and I think everything I do during my waking hours is done with the intention of keeping that loneliness at bay. 

I feel shame for my sexual desires, yet those desires are for nothing more than a sexual dimension to my marriage. 

As I write, my wife sleeps. She sleeps a lot. 

Another day in this Hell. 

To No One In Particular

02 Sunday Oct 2016

Posted by in Sexual Identity

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You might think I’m crazy, but what you won’t know is what’s going on inside my head.  That I could love you, , that I could write you a poem, or just write you off.

I would be perfectly happy to wake up naked beside you, with my body pressing against your naked ass and my fingers probing your wet little cunt.

I want to smell your perfume, so that every time afterwards when I smell it I think of you. I want to always remember how your soft lips feel on my ear lobe.

I don’t ever want a yesterday with you. Or a tomorrow. Just a today, just this minute, just right now.

Cousins, Part Two.

16 Friday Sep 2016

Posted by in alcoholism, Health Issues, Sexual Identity

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When our story left off, Annette had just come out as a Lesbian to me and my wife. This revelation would fall under the heading of Confirming Our Suspicions.  Nevertheless, it was a huge deal to come out in the mid to late Eighties.  We came to understand that her sexual orientation was just one aspect of who Annette was a person. What Annette never had was an enduring relationship. She had attractions, dalliances, affairs.  We never met her lovers.

She was a loving and caring aunt, but a realistic, observant and feisty one.  She rapidly discerned that her surrogate parenting job entailed damage control around her brother’s marital and familial escapades.  She once confided in me that Leroy had an eye for “White Trash”.  He would get married, with all the accompanying optimism.  Then the drinking and the late hours at the Safeway would erode the foundation of family life.  Finally  the once-blissful bride would depart, to “find herself”, leaving Annette with the job of taking care of her niece, then a nephew, whilst Leroy was at the store. It actually worked out fairly well, because Annette had both a sense of  responsibility but also fun. There was the pool at Aunt Lois’s for summer days.  In its quirky, near dysfunctional way, the children received nurturing and parenting.

Meanwhile, Aunt Ruby’s health was declining, in a predictable descent; diabetes, impaired circulation, nerve damage, gangrene, amputation, and heart disease.  Ruby passed, leaving Annette and Leroy in the bedlam.

The niece and the nephew, children of different mothers, grew up. Annette’s health spiraled downward, so that the house she inherited from Aunt Ruby fell into disrepair. An opossum moved into the attic through an open vent. My brother named him “Maurice The Marsupial”. Her obesity had rendered her disabled. She moved in with Aunt Lois.  Things were good at first. Aunt and niece would go to farmers’ markets, and cook for the family gatherings that occurred at the holidays.

Annette lived her lesbian life vicariously, through the internet, The Advocate, and lesbian-themed DVD’s. It was no kind of life for anybody to live. Soon the wheelchair was a necessity and the wheelchair ramp became part of the architecture of the postwar bungalow Lois and Annette called home.

Annette became Lois’s reason to live.  She took her to dialysis, the numerous other doctors’ appointments, and in January 2006, to the Medical College Hospital, where Annette lapsed into a coma, and died of renal failure.  There is a reason why they call it Morbid Obesity.

Leroy was the last of the family, Uncle Jim, Aunt Ruby, Annette were gone. About a decade before, Safeway pulled out of the Richmond market. Leroy then went back to school, and became a computer nerd, earning a good enough living to afford his own house with a swimming pool, private school for his son, and Austin Nichols Wild Turkey Whiskey.

His alcoholism captured him, isolating him from the family.  He surfaced for the principal family events, which were now funerals.  My brother, through a circuitous system, involving Magic Jack, would contact him of the passings,  Aunt Lois in May 2011, my Dad in August 2011, Cousin  Bailey in January 2012. He and his son would show up at the funerals.

One day, in March 2012, my siblings, my elder son, and another cousin  were cleaning out the house where Pop, Grandma, Aunt Lois, and finally, Annette had all lived, preparing it to sell and settle Lois’s estate. We were interrupted by a call from Leroy. He had fallen and cracked a vertebrae in his neck.  He was in the hospital.  The neck fracture came from bones weakened by metastatic cancer of the lung.  Leroy was still smoking the Marlboro Reds in the box, just like he did in High School. His son was joined by his daughter,  now an Army wife, who had flown in from Germany. His ex-wives came back as he now lay in hospice.  Within two weeks of that phone call, Leroy was dead.

After Leroy died, we learned his biological father had not died as we were told. Ruby had divorced him. The family was a family of secrets.  There were emotions, numbed by food, turned raw by alcohol.  Were Leroy and Annette ever happy? Probably not.

Cousins, Part One.

09 Friday Sep 2016

Posted by in cooking, Health Issues, Sexual Identity

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They were born on 21 August ten years apart, he in 1949, she in 1959. We’ll call him Leroy, her Annette. Daddy’s brother, Uncle Jim, married their mother Ruby all of sudden.  One week, he was single, living with my grandparents, the next week he was married. He was in his early thirties, a WW II veteran, a CPA.  Ruby, they said, was a widow with a child, Leroy.  That is what we were told. Being children, not investigative reporters, that was a perfectly good explanation.  I remember playing at their house in Highland Park, a North Richmond neighborhood.  Then they moved to Lakeside, in a house near my grandparents with a gate allowing passage between the two houses.

Uncle Jim was hard of hearing. He was in the Navy during The War.  My mother told me he was based in Australia. He was a sonar man.  That was all I knew of his war service until my brother told me he was awarded the Purple Heart when he burned himself with his soldering iron while his submarine was being depth-charged.  It is fairly easy to conclude his hearing loss was attributable, in part,  to the depth-charging.   Imagine, for a while, being in a long steel cylinder, under 60+ feet of water, and people on the surface are dropping explosives on or near that cylinder with the intention of killing you..  Do you think you might be a little crazy after that experience?

So, all of a sudden Bachelor Uncle marries Aunt Ruby and adopts Leroy.  They live near Pop, Grandma and my Aunt Lois, who still lives with her parents.  We visit my grandparents nearly every week.  So we see them a lot. Sometime after 1957, they get a dog, which they name Sputnik, after the Russian satellite.  Leroy likes Elvis and The Mickey Mouse Club. Life rolls along, and they next thing we know Aunt Ruby has a baby. Everybody is surprised. I mean she had a weight problem, but hiding, not talking about a pregnancy with a family that’s pretty damn close is weird. We children were hip to the whole Women Having Babies And Being Mothers Thing. Why they would hide it from us because of some sexual inhibition wasn’t an issue.  I remember seeing my new cousin at the hospital and learning they named her Annette at the urging of Leroy.  To you youngsters out there, Annette Funicello was one of the Mouseketeers on  The Mickey Mouse Club. In the prepubescent world of 1950’s sexuality, she was the hot one to the boys.

We keep seeing our grandparents, aunts, uncle, cousins. We now notice that Annette has a weight problem just like Aunt Ruby and Uncle Jim.  We start to call them The Tank Family.  Cooking  was Aunt Ruby’s passion.  She was good at it and she expected that you eat! Having plenty of food was an obsession of Depression survivors of my parents generation. Annette’s problem morphed into obesity.

Our nuclear family moves in our own specific areas of interest. We see the Tank Family less and less frequently. They move to a subdivision called West End Manor into a typical tri-level. Uncle Jim gets active in the American Legion; Aunt Ruby participates in the Auxiliary. Leroy graduates from high school, gets a job at the Safeway. Daddy gets him in the Marine Reserve and away from service in Vietnam.  Leroy marries someone named Alice whom I never met. The constant is Annette’s weight.  Annette is home, going to high school. She isn’t much interested in boys.

The other constant is Leroy’s inability to form a stable relationship with a woman. He divorces Alice, finds some woman named Myrtle, marries her. I never meet her either. Leroy liked women. Women liked him. He also liked to drink.

After my grandparents die, Aunt Lois inherits the house.  She has a successful career as a civil servant, with a high-powered job with the Defense Supply Agency.  In the early 1980’s she puts in a nice in-ground pool..  The family reconnects at my Aunt’s, like in the days when we were young children.  My sons get to know my cousins’ sons and daughters. (It’s a rarity these days when second cousins are close.)  The next tragedy is the death from a heart attack of Uncle Jim, in 1985, at age 60.  We get even closer as an extended family.

We see Annette more and more frequently. Her obesity spins off into diabetes.   Around this time, Annette comes out to my then wife and me. I had known gay and lesbian people before this, but never had I known one to come out.  All of a sudden, a distant issue becomes very immediate.

 

Streaks

20 Saturday Aug 2016

Posted by in Love and stuff, Sexual Identity

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Love is nothing without forgiveness and understanding.-Pope Francis

I wanted to tell the story of my two cousins, now deceased, who were both born on 21 August, but 10 years apart. That is going to have to wait.

I have to write about streaks. We all have them. There are those times when everything is going well, or not so well. It seems that the good stuff, or the bad, will go on forever. Then it stops. All of a sudden, our mojo isn’t working any more or starts again, just as enigmatically.  I was cruising along, swimming every day, dropping weight, feeling good , taking my vitamins. Then it stopped. You might say I got too deep “in my head”, wondering.   I’ve been feeling not so good since the colonoscopy. My first swim after the procedure the following Monday ended at 100 meters when some nausea  came on. The next day I did a decent workout. The next day, Wednesday,  my  younger son and I had dinner at my sister’s and I was all jazzed up about seeing him.  Then Thursday brought the trip to Baltimore.

Baltimore includes The Things  about which I haven’t written. How I wanted to reconnect sexually with my wife. How it did not happen.  Is she afraid? Am I? Are my fears in a dance with hers?  I am afraid she will reject me sexually, verbally,  with finality, and I will be left with pieces of a life to reassemble at age 65.  I am afraid, in that case, I lack the courage to move on.  I am afraid that my sexual needs, wants and desires  diminish what we do have. Laughter. Conversation. Family.

Then again,  how much longer am I going to step over the garbage? Literally. That’s what it is when you live  with a slob. And slob-ness is infectious.  There is crap accumulating in my respective micro-habitat. Kitchen has crumbs. Trash can is full. Sinks and toilets need a once over.

What’s up? Swimming with tears in my eyes, for sure. Coming back home, doing something to make the house a little cleaner.  Avoiding the pop psychology “Self-Esteem” game, but, rather, doing the next right thing,  whether I feel better afterwards or not.

This  morning on Instagram was a post from Pope Francis, not that he went online and posted it himself.  “Love is nothing without forgiveness and understanding.” Thank you, Holy Father, for another  growth experience.

Hiding

02 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by in cooking, Exercise/ Fitness, loneliness, Love and stuff, Sexual Identity

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I do all kinds of things to hide out.  Mostly they are “activities”.  I’m being busy, waiting for the chance for something exciting, exotic, or just plain memorable to happen.  This is not unique to me and it’s certainly not a waste of time. Because there’s a lot of time between the exciting, exotic or memorable events of life. There are gaps to be filled.

So I swim. In the water I get lost. In my thoughts. In time. In my workout. I love feeling the water on my body as I swim. I love how my muscles feel.  I don’t care much about my pace or whether I am moving quickly or slowly.  I fantasize that a woman desires me because I swim, that she finds me attractive, that I’m wanted.

And I cook. I love the smells, the sounds of a whirring blender, vegetables frying, the colors of the vegetables and fruits.  I love to see heavy cream turn into whipped cream.  I love sharing what I cook with others.

And I try not to think about the void in Passion. The Love is there. Good old Love. Old Love, soon-to-be geriatric Love.  Selfless Christian Sunday School Love. But I need Passion, too. Passion that can flower because that Love is there.  Put all the chips on Passion.  Tattoo your name inside a heart on my bicep Passion.  Staying awake after one fuck, just so we can have another go Passion.   No “good” manners, dirty-talkin’ Passion that would make your friends blush on the outside, while they die of envy.

“Life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone.”– John Mellencamp

501’s. My Kind Of Shrinkage

29 Friday Jul 2016

Posted by in personal grooming, Sexual Identity

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They came from Amazon via UPS. That they still make shrink-to-fit 501’s with a button fly is most gratifying to me. They are made in Egypt now. Back in the 1980’s, when GQ had interesting things to say about clothes, they did a piece on S-T-F 501’s and it impressed me.  Now that I can afford to pay nearly three times as much for these as for a pair of pretty good jeans at BJ’s, I do so. This afternoon, I got naked, put on the unshrunk jeans and stood under the hot shower. I stood there, wondering what Mrs. CorC? would  say if she walked in, and let the jeans and me get good and wet. A nice little puddle of indigo-tinted water accumulates. When I feel as if the job has been done, I peel them off and put them in the washer in hot water. And Bob’s your uncle, when the washing and drying is over, they’re good to go.

Quite frankly, there is something erotic about unbuttoning the jeans to urinate, etc.  Call me crazy.   They look good, especially when paired with a white dress shirt.  I feel attractive and ageless and not 65, with titanium screws holding my spine together. They don’t look or feel like “Old Guy” clothes.  I own enough pairs of constipated khakis to last a lifetime.  I have not worn a suit in ages.  Things have changed fashion-wise.