CarnalNation

Once upon a time, when people still smoked in hospital corridors, a group of us took “Lola” to the emergency room. Lola had overdosed (again), and as she was semi-conscious, she was not looking her best. She was wearing a ratty old chenille bathrobe over her jeans. Stubble dotted her chin and cheeks. Lola claimed to be a true hermaphrodite (that was the word in those days) and ordinarily, she was very chic. Her Biba makeup was usually immaculate, and she was never without her ugly Louis Vuitton handbag. I knew, without knowing how I knew, that some moneyed trick had taken her shopping. (So it wasn’t just any old handbag, it was a trophy.) Lola also had one of the most beautifully expressive, nuanced, and modulated voices I’ve ever been privileged to hear, with something of the gravel purr of the British actress, Joan Greenwood.

So, the mandala...  In my personal and professional contemplation of human sexual behavior and gender expression and the ways in which these things manifest in conflict or in harmony with any given body and mind, I’ve arrived at a fractal vision of sexology that transcends the notion of a simple linear “spectrum” of orientation, expression, and behavior.

We were a motley group of cast-offs. It was some kind of awful morning hour. Some of us had been up all night. I was the lone fish, a reformed hippie waif, beneficiary of a collective glam experiment conducted by the boys, who took pride in their handiwork. “Flawless!” they’d shriek, and then proceed to raid my closet. (I still have a few photos of those boys wearing my vintage finery. One was so much prettier...) And here we were, decoratively flinging our shadows onto the corridor walls, with a sort of fey bravado, and taking turns propping up Lola on a bench. A very sour man, a very red-necky-looking man, sat across from us, glaring. It didn’t take much to imagine the course of his thoughts. “Freakin’ faggots” probably would have been putting it nicely.

Suddenly, Lola startled into full consciousness. She instantly zeroed in on her target, the man who was glaring. With her beautiful, rough velvet voice, she asked for a cigarette. She looked like hell, she really did, yet this man suddenly mustered enough of “the gentleman” to come over and not only give her a cigarette, but light it for her too.

Such was the force of her personality and charm. And I’ll admit I had this thought, “What has she got that I haven’t got?” (Besides moxie!)

Lola stayed awake long enough to finish the cigarette. Within a day or two, she’d mostly recovered from the overdose. Eventually, I lost track of her. I hope she went on to a have a long and happy life. But this was the pre-AIDS party, and Lola partied hard. A long life? I fear not. And I will say that one of those boys, the prettiest one, soon ended a suicide, unidentifiable, having fed the urban wildlife by rotting for two weeks in a canyon in San Diego. (I had a photo of his smile. The forensic dentist found it useful.) Incidentally, this was a death directly attributable to parental abuse, gay bashing, and living at times on the streets from the age of thirteen on. You can guess how he earned a little money to eat. This boy is the first reason I became a sexologist.

Since then, like many people in the Bay Area, I’ve spent most of my life in contact with people of the rainbow—friends, lovers, relatives, merchants, artists, co-workers, bosses, and clients. I lived for many years in the Castro. My kids had their share of stroller trips to the hardware store and the playground across from the house where LYRIC (the Lavender Youth Center) would later be established. Rainbows were everywhere—including shop windows where leather-wearing Teddy Bears clutched their tiny flags. I remember the trans woman at the drycleaner’s, the look on her face and the way she handled that very pink fancy baby dress I’d brought in for cleaning...

However (disclaimer!), in spite of my life experiences and sexological training, the lenses through which I gaze are inevitably cisgendered (among other things). I cannot escape my own embodied, social, cultural, etc., etc. influences completely. So what follows are personal and idiosyncratic observations, not based on any proferred “expertise.”

And another thing: this column is an offering to you, the reader. It’s an opportunity for public dialogue, especially for risky dialogue about difficult or unusual topics. I do not presume to know everything, though I do tend to write with breezy confidence. So please, if you take issue with something, need to comment or correct, I invite you to do so in the comments section. I want to be responsive. I can learn. We all can.

So, the mandala...  In my personal and professional contemplation of human sexual behavior and gender expression and the ways in which these things manifest in conflict or in harmony with any given body and mind, I’ve arrived at a fractal vision of sexology that transcends the notion of a simple linear “spectrum” of orientation, expression, and behavior.

No matter who or “what” we are, I feel we all inhabit an interwoven, dynamic pattern of sexual and gender expressions, a mandala organized around a bright center, the origin of all zygotes everywhere, pulsing with new life, throwing out biological tendrils that curve and curl according to hormonal and genetic imperatives. The tendrils shape themselves into individual predilections, personalities, destinies, and, ultimately, cultures and communities. Try ignoring any portion of this intricate pattern, try destroying any part of it (like the part that makes you most uncomfortable), and the beauty of the whole, and of its parts, is substantially diminished.

Of course, the most basic mandala is a cross, a simple intersection of cisgendered male and female. Unfortunately, it is upon this cross that we have—out of superstition, ignorance, and deliberate cruelty—martyred hundreds of millions (billions?) of souls who have been told they do not “fit.” In our modern world, such “martyrdom” takes many forms—from ostracism to homicide—and perpetrators will “justify” their actions based on a person’s appearance and persona, which “violates” arbitrary standards imposed by a self-styled authority.

I am speaking most specifically of the “standards” of gender expression, based on unsubstantiated “norms” involving body parts; sex roles as defined by class, racial, cultural, religious, social, and political structures (strictures!), etc.; and how clothing, behavior, language, and degrees of “femininity” and “masculinity” play into all this. These standards reflect the huge discomfort that many people seem to have with what they assume is someone presenting an “ambiguous” (ambiguous in relation to what?) gender or non-gender. Readers, please note: ambiguity is often in the eye of the beholder. Most people are pretty clear about who they are and where they are going with it. If you don’t know, just ask nicely.

There are some exceptions. Artists and entertainers are often allowed greater latitude when it comes to socially imposed gender expression standards. You might say that we, the cultural consumers, want and expect them to be weird so we can enjoy vicarious gender jollies with little or no personal risk. Some performers play right into our hands, indeed, they may need us to behold as much as we need them to remind us of freedom.

Three particular people stand out for me as I ponder (through my cisgendered lens) types of martyrdom peculiar to public figures who cannot be confined or defined by the “standards.” It’s not quite an arbitrary selection. It’s personally meaningful to me. I am contemplating Anna Varney Cantodea, of the “dark-wave” band Sopor Aeternus and the Ensemble of Shadows; the recently deceased kumu hula, “Uncle” George Lanakilakekiahiali’i Naope; and the late Michael Jackson (whom I presume you all know).