homosexual. He didnât live to buy my records. He didnât want to belong; he never even tried. The problem wasnât what many thought it was. My father didnât molest boys; he just looked like he did. And it wasnât even effeminacy, though there was a little bit of that. He couldnât help being out and open â even though there was no âoutâ then. So what this meant was subtle: he was too enthused about everything (but mainly show business) and dressed too well. He wore wristwatches and undershirts before they were fashionable for heterosexual men. But, most blatantly, he loved all kinds of beauty, was obsessed with it.
As you know, it is Christmas, and tonight I caught sight of a particularly tedious broadcast simply because there was nothing else to do. It featured the Georgia Boys Choir. It had a lot of black young men in it. Amazing how, culturally, we can talk about race but pretend not be talking about it at all. Anyway, the choirmaster, who was of course white, was extolling the virtue of his own pedagogy. In this case, that meant reminding the audience that he was teaching virtue by helping young men to appreciate beauty (as opposed to violence). Iâm sure no one out there watching was fooled; itâs no accident that those professions that involve working with youth have a natural attraction for pederasts.
My father was no pederast, but the way the audience must have perceived that fawning choirmaster in those viral Christmas images, explaining how he was teaching young men the importance of beauty â their shining faces and mostly unchanged voices singing âmake the yuletide gayâ â is exactly how people must have perceived my father. You canât be so open about your love of beauty and get away with it. Men are not supposed to be concerned with beauty, unless it is the beauty of a woman, and even then, as we all know, he must make sure that adoration (which should be purely sexual, not emotional) is under control. He must not love a woman too much, too passionately, or heâll lose himself.
Strange how this attitude has still not disappeared. So much else has changed. Sexualities have come and gone, bodies have become unrecognizable in their perfection. And yet the idea of masculinity and femininity is still with us. I am tempted to quote Foucault on power. But itâs even more profound than that â a nostalgia, again, for difference, for friction, for the ârubbing up againstâ in its most primitive and basic form, which is just so eternally sexy. No one knows who was born male or who was born female anymore, and no one seems to care. Gender is irrelevant. And yet our masquerades are ineluctably linked to hard and soft, dark and light, weighty and airy, sweet and cruel. There are no real men anymore, but there are so many convincing imitations. The transsexuals predicted we would all become indistinct in-betweens. But nobody really wants to be an in-between. (Thereâs that word again. It is truly one of my favourite songs.)
I must admit that sometimes I still get the urge for plastic surgery. Apparently it wouldnât be too difficult to actually set my head erect upon my spine. Even though I have a special bed, like the famous Elephant Man, who died trying to lie on his back, I do so yearn sometimes to stretch out and sleep flat.
Anyway, to return to my analogy. My father was that choirmaster, completely recognizable as a dangerous outsider, opining piously about his love of movies, vaudeville, stars, songs, costumes and lighting. He was, remember, a natty dresser. And he was, simply, drawn to men. He liked to talk to them, wine them, dine them, amuse them â it was all he wanted from life. Of course, he was also the perfect husband for my frigid bitch of a mother. Anyway, when they finally drove him out of town, when he finally realized they wouldnât hire him anywhere, he just simply retired from life. My father
As you know, it is Christmas, and tonight I caught sight of a particularly tedious broadcast simply because there was nothing else to do. It featured the Georgia Boys Choir. It had a lot of black young men in it. Amazing how, culturally, we can talk about race but pretend not be talking about it at all. Anyway, the choirmaster, who was of course white, was extolling the virtue of his own pedagogy. In this case, that meant reminding the audience that he was teaching virtue by helping young men to appreciate beauty (as opposed to violence). Iâm sure no one out there watching was fooled; itâs no accident that those professions that involve working with youth have a natural attraction for pederasts.
My father was no pederast, but the way the audience must have perceived that fawning choirmaster in those viral Christmas images, explaining how he was teaching young men the importance of beauty â their shining faces and mostly unchanged voices singing âmake the yuletide gayâ â is exactly how people must have perceived my father. You canât be so open about your love of beauty and get away with it. Men are not supposed to be concerned with beauty, unless it is the beauty of a woman, and even then, as we all know, he must make sure that adoration (which should be purely sexual, not emotional) is under control. He must not love a woman too much, too passionately, or heâll lose himself.
Strange how this attitude has still not disappeared. So much else has changed. Sexualities have come and gone, bodies have become unrecognizable in their perfection. And yet the idea of masculinity and femininity is still with us. I am tempted to quote Foucault on power. But itâs even more profound than that â a nostalgia, again, for difference, for friction, for the ârubbing up againstâ in its most primitive and basic form, which is just so eternally sexy. No one knows who was born male or who was born female anymore, and no one seems to care. Gender is irrelevant. And yet our masquerades are ineluctably linked to hard and soft, dark and light, weighty and airy, sweet and cruel. There are no real men anymore, but there are so many convincing imitations. The transsexuals predicted we would all become indistinct in-betweens. But nobody really wants to be an in-between. (Thereâs that word again. It is truly one of my favourite songs.)
I must admit that sometimes I still get the urge for plastic surgery. Apparently it wouldnât be too difficult to actually set my head erect upon my spine. Even though I have a special bed, like the famous Elephant Man, who died trying to lie on his back, I do so yearn sometimes to stretch out and sleep flat.
Anyway, to return to my analogy. My father was that choirmaster, completely recognizable as a dangerous outsider, opining piously about his love of movies, vaudeville, stars, songs, costumes and lighting. He was, remember, a natty dresser. And he was, simply, drawn to men. He liked to talk to them, wine them, dine them, amuse them â it was all he wanted from life. Of course, he was also the perfect husband for my frigid bitch of a mother. Anyway, when they finally drove him out of town, when he finally realized they wouldnât hire him anywhere, he just simply retired from life. My father
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