SEXIS WRONG

domasochists running amok and flogging people at random;
there are so many people out there who need to be spanked
that just thinking about it has confined me to my bed with a
restorative cup of cocoa and a double dose of Wellbutrin.
In the wake of the 9/11 attack and passage of the USA Patriot
Act, our elected representatives handed the Justice Department
sweeping new powers of censorship surveillance and
the ability to effectively repeal habeas corpus. Your government
wants to know what you check out at the library and
where you go on the Web. The Feds want to know where
your charitable contributions go, which foreign languages you
speak, how you worship, and where you go if you leave the
country. You’ll probably never know you’ve had your pockets
and your credit report turned inside out by the Powers That
Be, because it’s illegal for anyone who rats you out to tell you
Uncle Sam is looking over your shoulder at ads for piercing
jewelry, VCR head cleaner, and used jock straps. Have you
seen any coverage of the Patriot Act in your local homo bar
rag, perhaps between the ads for gay dentists and lesbian
realtors and the outcall masseurs?
In guidelines issued by the Justice Department, transgendered
people have been singled out for special scrutiny under
the guise of rooting out terrorism. Our ability to change our
legal documents, work, or travel freely was curtailed by an
Attorney General who seemed to think he was the progeny of
Senator Joe McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover. Talk about unsafe
If you hate taking off your shoes at
the airport, think about what they’re
going to want me to take off. I can’t
pay my rent, much less buy a penis.
sex. Throw a blanket over that image, will ya? Is there a doctor
in the house who can perform an emergency vasectomy?
Don’t forget to ask which one of them plays the woman.
This is my life. I have a full beard and a driver’s license that
says I’m a girl. I can’t change it because the Department of
Motor Vehicles wants an affidavit that says I’ve had genital
surgery. Even if I had health insurance, it wouldn’t cover that
procedure. So if I want to travel, I have to do it with a passport
that doesn’t match my gender. If you hate taking off your
shoes at the airport, think about what they’re going to want
me to take off. I can’t pay my rent, much less buy a penis. I
don’t even think I could afford an hour with somebody else’s
penis.
I fuck anyway, of course—I enjoyed witnessing and executing
penetration long before I became a testosterone-based lifeform.
But the dildo in my strap-on harness is illegal in several
states. Right-wing think tanks have written model obscenity
legislation that includes banning sex toys along with titty
mags and boy-boy X-rated videos. If I try to sneak my dick into
my native state of Texas, perhaps when I’m over there petitioning
a court to revise my birth certificate, I’ll have to tell the
nice rent-a-cop at the airport that it’s a dog retrieval dummy.
But I won’t be making that trip any time soon because, guess
what, no frankendick, no piece of paper that says you’re a
guy. It’s wonderful, being pre-op. All of a sudden, nobody
wants me to use their bathroom. Better start walkin’ like a
camel, because I’m going to have to hold it forever.
The sad thing is that oblivious straight people usually treat me
better than gay men or lesbians. The fags are afraid I’ve got
cunt cooties, and lesbians have never been nice to “dykes
who just gave up when it got too hard to be a butch woman
so they traded it all in for male privilege.” Yeah, I’ve got so
much male privilege that I am constantly sick to my stomach
for fear I’ll say the wrong thing, be seen reading the wrong
book or talking to the wrong person, and be read as a tranny
and stomped. My male privilege only lasts as long as nobody
knows. Kind of like when everybody is nice to you at work
until you bring your same-sex lover to the company picnic. No
more heterosexual privilege for you.
Now that sodomy is legal, the part of my sex life that I refer to
as “foreplay” is no longer a criminal act. Until the handcuffs
come out. Then it might be assault, even if the person in the
handcuffs is dribbling quarter-cups of precum and consent.
Sodomy is legal in England, too, but after a
1987 investigation of a circle of friends who
played in one another’s homes and videotaped
some of their parties, British courts sent three
gay men to prison for participating in S/M activities
with one another. The Operation Spanner
case included about a dozen defendants, and the bottoms
were convicted of assaulting themselves. And you thought it
was hard for Scott O’Hara to suck his own dick! In the last
few years, people in New England and San Diego have been
arrested at play parties and charged with public indecency,
assault, possession of weapons, and other rot. So why do it?
Especially, why do it someplace other than my bedroom?
I won’t deny that I’m an exhibitionist who enjoys casual sex
and mayhem with strangers. But I also want to participate
in the public life of a community. If I stay home and watch
television or go to the supermarket, I’m not going to see any
people who are like me. S/M play parties are not just opportunities
to do elaborate scenes on equipment that won’t fit in a
studio apartment. They also offer a chance to see old friends,
make new ones, teach someone how to play safely, learn a
new bondage trick, eat potato chips, show off a new outfit,
show off a new relationship, ease loneliness, and bolster our
ego strength and survival skills. Where else am I going to
322 EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT SEX IS WRONG