SEXIS WRONG

find people who will think I am just dandy because I can cane
someone for an hour without making them bleed? Assimilate
that.
When the term queer first came along, it was such a relief to
be able to embrace a label that encompassed so much of my
experience and identity. But normalization is as relentless as a
marching troop of army ants. Queer is on the verge of becoming
nothing but a synonym for gay. Just the way bisexual has
come to mean gay, under the rubric of being inclusive. After
decades of active attempts to purge bisexual women, a few
lesbian groups now supposedly include bisexual women, but
if these women talk about their male lovers, the atmosphere
in the room is damn chilly. AIDS-service organizations pull the
same lame maneuver. “Please come to our inclusive safersex
workshop for gay/bisexual men, where we will only talk
about your MALE sex partners.” You can’t expect Kinsey-6
men to stay in the same room with the word vagina. There’s
not enough Viagra in the world to erase that trauma.
Living in a human body subjects us to unregulated and unfair
pain and suffering. And we all cooperate in a system that
multiplies that agony. Even when we gratify our basic needs
by eating or sleeping in a warm bed, we enjoy those privileges
on the backs of people who are hungry and sleeping on
cold, dirty streets. At least my slaves can take off their collars
when we’re done playing.
I don’t want to give up the term queer because it still bugs
people like the middle-class gay homeowners in the Castro
who have halted plans to open a shelter for homeless queer
youth in their beautiful neighborhood. I use it because every
time I say it, I get an unpleasant jolt of memories of being
called vile names or bashed, and I guess I hope that if I say
it with enough aplomb and nonchalance, those memories
will lose their power to subdue and terrorize me. The jaws
of assimilation have closed around the word queer, but they
haven’t managed to crush it into dust just yet.
I think the term freak has to be reclaimed, as well. A freak
is somebody who is unusual, stared at, upsetting, revealing
And what about those diversity-loving political
leaders who blithely refer to transgenderism
as a sexual orientation? Hello, not all transgendered
people are gay, and the norms for
gender identity are not enforced the same way
that norms for sexual conduct are regulated.
“Gay Liberation” never included sadomasochism.
Never saw any potential for pride or dignity
in the eroticism of physical restraint and the judicious
application of intense physical sensations. Doesn’t believe in
the spiritual surcease of being forced to slow down, go within,
escape the confines of the flesh, and fly up to a blissful
realm of communion with the divine. Never saw any value in
the establishment of a fantasy realm in which people actually
get to decide what they will experience, and can let go and
trust that their limits will be respected and everything that
happens is done for their benefit. It’s too big a reminder of
what we don’t have in real life—justice, consent, loving kindness,
acceptance, pleasure, attention.
Why is a pamphlet about how to
put a condom on a hard cock more
obscene than a teenage girl with
an unwanted pregnancy or an
adolescent boy who just learned he’s
HIV-positive?
by their difference what is wrong with the status quo. When
a freak appears, the world is instantly divided into gawkers
and the unique, solitary individual who has given them pause.
There are those who cannot hide their shameful or alarming
attributes, and those otherwise apparently normal people
who love them. The cloak of the exile falls upon them, too,
because their eyes and hearts have persuaded them to be
loyal to people who are shunned. Freaks are entertainers,
jesters, satirists, artists, beautiful in a way that few can endure
or savor, intelligent in a way that makes others angry.
If you don’t want to be a gawker and a rube, you gotta join the
circus. Goddess knows I wish I could run away to one.
QUEER FREAKS 323