The other day I had the pleasure of sitting down to break with a couple of men. They were crude and they were crass. They were obscene. They were ugly in their abuse towards women that they had seen in the street. My stomach was churning, but after what I had done earlier that week I had to sit and endure it. The two men were coworkers one in his thirties and the other in his fifties and the woman being talked about was in her late teens. Both men are married, but the slime that was dripping out of their mouth was reminiscent of a pubescent boy trying to swagger like one of the older boys at the bus circle after school and a construction worker. You can use your imagination effectively here and not get the depths of this conversation smut; I was ashamed of my gender. Luckily my Asperger's came to the rescue and I did not show my emotion, which is good considering what happened earlier this week.
Suspended? It was not really as bad as the conversation in the lunch room, but it was. I was watering out front and the real men were doing construction work. It was a very slow day, so everyone was stretching out the work. A woman walks by. She was taller than average, square broad shoulders, pants, t-shirt, work boots, brown ball cap with pony tail sticking through the hole at the back, which was mid length and brown. I thought she was attractive. She walked past and a coworker began to say something and I was oblivious. He was saying that she was a man. I looked around trying to figure who he was talking about, because she clearly wasn't and I did not see anyone else around. I knew of her, she was More Passive Than Rain's friend. She and her partner lived on the neighboring street with their two children that they raised together. Yes she is a lesbian, but who cares about that and moreover who can tell that by looking at her. Okay yes she works in construction and was not 'all dolled up', but other than that, nothing.
She came back five minutes later, on the other side of the street, and this time the ass began to moan 'MAN'. Then I got stupid, you see if you telegraph your anger to the obnoxiousness of an Asses comments, all you have really done is let them know what hurts you. When I say Ass, you can substitute, Redneck or Bully; he is all three. "What is your problem?" I demanded, and his response was that she was a man. I ignored him for the rest of the day, I know he noticed, because he kept calling for me the rest of the day. I know my response was lame and how I wished that I could punch him one in the nose, but you can't do what you want to do and calling a Lesbian a Man, is acceptable today.
The thing is in this town thinking the way I think means I am not a man. Every man has polarized the world into a place that is black and white. A woman is a bitch or a slut depending on whether they will sleep with him or not. A man is a man or is gay based on whether he thinks this or follows this idea. For men in this town there is no middle ground and it is drummed into boys as deeply as pink princesses and dolls are drummed into girls. Luckily conforming for boys means you get to be a troglodyte with privilege to act that way; conforming for women involves being dragged back into a cave by the hair. Well not totally, because women are not polarized black and white, they are allowed to have a spectrum of views, as long as it serves their caveman husband. Sensibly, I can't think of many issues that can be resolved with a polarized opinion, there are a few, murder is bad, rape is bad, genocide is very bad, Women's Rights are good and there are more. But what I mean is a Man is defined by a list of qualities and deviation from the list means you are Gay or worse and this is not so.
I deviate quite strongly in many areas. I believe in letting a woman decide things, about her body and her actions, more I respect her decisions and choices, even when I don't agree with them. I think that of everyone. I have no problem with gay people, I even think some men are attractive and yes I would have slept with a few of them. This does not make me gay. Really I don't see a real distinction between straight and gay, I am only conforming to societies terms because it is the local lingua franca. Magic Eyes said I was bisexual, just not practicing. Magic Eyes also called me a feminist. For the record, I would never use those terms, because I am not Bisexual, except in morality, and I won't be so presumptuous as to use that word that women have claimed themselves. Most of the people who do not know me at work think I am gay, even the women, the ones that should know me suspect I am gay. The ones that do know me, know I like women and call me at the same time, 'one of the girls.'. I think that last one is a compliment; real men think it means I AM gay.
I told people in the past if I were a woman, I would be a lesbian. Magic Eyes was offended by that statement. What I meant was, if I were a woman, I would be a lesbian, because I would not be able to go near those men, because they sickened me and also that I have no problem with people who chose to break society's expectations, not that if I became a woman …. She told me later that most men who become trans-women, date women.
You see, real men are dying out. They will have a long spiraling death and it will take a long time, and they will kill many people while they slowly cling to their dying lifestyle choices, but they are slowly losing ground and the evidence is there to see, if you can see. Men are starting to respect women as equals. They are starting to see women's choices as valid, they are starting to see that gender roles are dissolving and many others; men are slowly coming around to the fact that these things are okay, and it won't hurt them. But, these men are not the majority in many communities, mostly small towns but also in conservative communities within liberal cities. These men are getting mixed messages, it is okay to have these feelings of identification with women, but it means you are a woman. Well not really, but that is the message that people tell you, they tell you that you are gay. But you are not gay, you like women. Then someone discovered that you can reassign your sex and become the opposite sex. So a whole bunch of men decided that they could then be women and they became women, because society told them they thought like women. But they were still heterosexual men, that believed in the things women believe in. So they dated women who were available to them, lesbians. Lesbians of course do not want to date men, and they rightfully think that men who become women to date lesbians is repulsive; it sounds repulsive. It sounds like something the men in my lunch room would do. But it is not exactly true, it is all a big confusion in society. It is a sad result of the transition of our fucked up patriarchal society into one that is non gendered.
I am not a Man mentally. Mentally I have the morality of a bisexual feminist who is a man and who loves women. If someone reassigned my gender I would date women because men sicken me and I still love women, but I would never choose to become a woman, I know what I am.
Please leave slanderous messages and comments below, I can take it.
No comments:
Post a Comment