The few old really pleasing images of feminine or androgynous males have mostly been from French publications. I thought I’d found another.
But when I really looked at this drawing I realized that he’s being put in bondage. The hetero sissyfication fetish.
I won’t complain about the pleasures of others. But ‘forced feminization’ isn’t the kind of self-affirming, very queer kind of male femininity that delights me.
I’ll keep my eyes focused on the waist up.
Were I, mutatis mutandis, a 19th century Frenchman would he be the object of my desire?
No need for me to be French. I could be a Brit who had a perverse passion for French guys.
While dandies were often assailed as effeminate that was probably unfair and an effect of the muscular Christianity popular at least among the Anglophone world.
Sadly most of the world was in the closet, which is why back then gay men hired their lovers.
My annual Christmas card:
Looking up a book on Amazon today the recent forum posts extracts Amazon places below product information caught my eye.
A fellow wrote that his girlfriend had formerly been a boy. Even if I hadn ‘t been in love with a MTF transsexual myself I’d be happy to know that a gender outsider had found love.
But the guy wanted to know if it would be possible for her to get pregnant.
Imagine being that ignorant of basic biology in 21st century America.
Several days ago a young woman came into the shop looking for a particular political book. I recall her ankle boots, brown midi-dress, gray scarf and the color of her lipstick that blended perfectly with her skin color and tone.
I am attracted to women. But I don’t write about my heterosexual component here much. Comparative levels of experience. The five years with Siobhan was the bulk of it.
And my taste in women is pedestrian. With guys my inclinations are uncommon and cultivated. I find most other men who like femme gay males creepy and predatory. In my androgynophillia I identify with no one.
I like actresses from Marion Davies to Jamie Murray. Not that I have casually carnal imaginings about them. Not even Diana Rigg who as Emma Peel has always held the placeholder in my imagination for Ideal Female. Myrna Loy inspires - very oddly - ideas of marriage. Comediennes are often favorites.
I like looking at centerfolds and haute couture models. Serious looking women who buy poetry. Almost any female with a winning smile. And strange women in grocery stores.
So there’s not much to say about it all.
Some women have inspired thoughts of the obvious. I remember seeing a photograph of her (clothed) in Time many years ago.
Would I long for feminine guys if I didn’t identify as masculine?
From my first personal ad:
Androgynous / masculine seeks androgynous feminine
(My androgyny was all internal as it were.)
Personal cliché:
As a man I hope to be the woman my mother was.
I.e., offering unconditional support to one that I love.
The personal ad I remember because it was unusual for me to refer to myself as masculine. Not that I aspired to femininity. I felt more comfortable with neutral words like fellow, guy, male. I didn’t want to be that man’s man: my father.
Funnily enough I had no problem referring to myself as butch. But that was with reference to the desired opposite the fem (as in “no fems or fatties). Hard to believe but the pairing was common among gay men as it remains among lesbians.
Feminine gay men evoke masculine gender performance in me. Women don’t. As I’ve said before I can be a somewhat heterosexist gay man.
Charles was one of the nelliest gay guys I ever knew, far and away the most visibly effeminate that I was involved with. Even a Geiger counter would probably have registered something if Charles had been in the room. I loved this is him: the implied pixie dust, watching his wrist go limp.
That queer erotic gender glue was a strong element in the mix that lead me down the self-destructive path of putting up with every outrage, sacrificing whatever was necessary to be a good provider. The more I fought to cope the deeper I dug into the trap of coping when I should flee.
Even after the crack cocaine finally sundered my life with Charles I still loved him. (Indeed to this day I love him and hate him.)
It wasn’t until a few months after his death I came to see that it fell darkly across my days. It was as if something inside me had died and proceeded to rot. The misery made no sense at all.
Finally I realized that I blamed myself for not being able to save Charles from himself (yes, yes I know). That I had - amazingly - had failed as a man. The disease of masculinity that I’d always held myself immune from had got me.
After the components fell in place understanding seems to have banished the curse. I’m at peace with Charles death. Finally.
Death I think will seem like drowning as sand is poured in my lungs. That isn’t as stark as it seems. So often I’ve envisioned my death as much, much worse.
There’s no denying that were this male model to look up we’d see a face of symmetrical attractiveness. But were his face completely hidden or even homely I’d find him appealing in those garments. I can’t help but read the gender performance into his outfit. One of those fey fancy boys who own too many clothes.
My pointless same-sex erotic appetites seem to tend toward the authoritarian, selfish, even cruel. I want to grab him by his hair and pull him to the floor.
Bernard Montorgueil was the only artist whose name came readily to mind.
I imagine him kneeling, head bowed, eyes wet with submissive, yearning to please.
If anybody told me that I strongly romanticize erotic experience I’d have to own they are right. If I felt impelled to defend myself I’d point out that I don’t expect others do to the same (like those gay virgin boys who hold themselves pure waiting for Mr. Right). Only a fool despises simple lust.
Although I grew up masculine I’ve often felt that my bias for idealized sex (which isn’t contradictory with the sex being rough and raunchy) is part of my psychic inheritance from my momma. I need to break this digression and get on with the first of my stories of vending male bodies.
Moving from Savannah to what was then Atlanta’s raffish midtown, street hustlers were among my earliest acquaintances. Mostly small-town bumpkins, they let men pay to suck their cocks. Too stupid, too lazy, sometimes too addicted to cope with the boredom of a regular job (screaming like a baby I fought against it myself).
In the early 70’s I worked on Atlanta’s only gay newspaper, The Atlanta Barb. As ‘associate editor’ I was typist, copyboy, secretary – did everything that the owner and publisher didn’t do.
A gay hotel in Ft. Lauderdale invited me to come stay for free. (They weren’t crass enough to say that they’d expect a free write-up in return.) I didn’t give a damn about Ft. Lauderdale (my image of which was based on an old Connie Francis movie Where the Boys Are). It was a chance to beg for advertising from south Florida gay bar owners.
I called on the owner of Party Boys, a local gay escort – call boy - service. Unlike the bar owners, he was my age. Wanting to expand into Atlanta he asked if I’d like to open a franchise. You’ve seen the ads aimed at lazy people: Earn Money At Home In Your Spare Time. By his account all he did was wait at home for the phone to ring, dispatch a boy, collect his cut.
Back in Atlanta I talked about it with Bill, the Atlanta Barb’s publisher. Seemed like a way to make some of the money the paper never did. I shared a house with Bill; it was the only pay I ever got from the paper. We’d run it there. Bill was the closest thing to an official gay representative to the city government so it was all put in my name. I became President, CEO and only stockholder of Youngman, Incorporated (a Delaware Corporation).
”Roger the Masseur” had been advertising in The Advocate, a twice-monthly tabloid that was the only national gay newspaper. Our only competitor, only one man.
I’m sure there are many business books with edifying chapters on the importance of employee recruitment. No enterprise could be more dependent on its workers than the sex for hire trade. So talking to wannabe male whores was crucial.
Straight or at least het-identified men were crossed off the list. I’d met a few old guys who thought only straight cock was worth having. One of the few sexual inclinations I couldn’t accept. (And looking like rough trade I drew a fair measure of them.)
Others I rejected because they didn’t have the minimal skills for dealing with people. Some of the clients were going to be skittish, many closet cases calling from hotels. A few seemed too stupid to be trusted to get to the right place and on time.
I hired a couple of friends. Mark wasn’t particularly good looking but he had a knack for winning people’s confidence. Being readily cheerful and amiable was often as good as being physically beautiful. And he was skilled at faking orgasms.
My friend Dick was cute, invariably polite and dressed well. Men would ask for him again and didn’t mind that the clock was ticking while they took him out for a good dinner.
Beloved, nelly David wanted to be a whore. Or at least make money without working. I didn’t know why. Mommie and Daddie gave him such a huge allowance that he always had his designer jeans dry-cleaned and pressed. There was no market for my type of guy. (“No fems or fatties” – do personal ads still start out that way? It was my first inkling that the majority of gay men despised the graceful persona that I adored.)
The prospective male prostitutes were sent to the bathroom with rulers to measure their cocks. I made it clear that if they lied and the client didn’t want to pay it’d be their fault. Nobody claimed to be amazingly well hung. One black man brought photos of himself nude. It looked like he’d taken at least the two biggest cocks I’d ever seen in real life and sewn them together. All by himself he could've created the folklore about black vs. white genital size.
To see if they were able to treat themselves as packages in a meat market I told them that before they’d get the job they had to sleep with me. Not that they had to, it was just a test. I needed to keep their trust and respect anyway. There was a cute blonde bottom I was tempted to take advantage of but didn’t (damn that romantic streak). Not that I’d ever have requests for a bottom (not that the term existed then). One of scattering of data points that makes me wonder if most gay men are bottoms. That has worked out fine for me but I do wonder if it is true and if so why?
But. A fifteen year old had read the Happy Hustler and called me hoping he’d be hired. I said no, no way at all. My own taste for youngish fellows aside I wasn’t going to prostitute them. He asked me if he could come by and talk to me. Figuring I’d talk the nonsense out of him I said sure. He seduced me. Not hard for a young boy with a nice body and cute face. But there’s an art to getting someone naked and in bed without them really noticing the transition. Saying I had a “dick of death*” he introduced me to frotting. Surprised me that I could have an orgasm that way. Didn’t hire him. (* Yeah, I know how that sounds. I make no claims. In revising these old things I’m trying to kill the reticences; anyway why should anybody care?)
The guys I hired were very conventional. K-Mart managers, commercial artists, people without sexual hang-ups who wanted some extra money. So mundane it kills the illicit allure of paid sex, isn’t it? Well, RTP’s local BDSM group meets at Golden Corral for their get-togethers.
In my spare time and in my own home I answered the new telephone. I’d tell the client the fees and ask him about the kind of guy he wanted. In most cases he’d get whoever was available. Since I’d only hired intelligent, likable men the visits went fine.
I don’t have any funny stories. One man liked Dick so well and my voice so much he invited the two of us to have an expensive lunch with him. Another guy who liked my voice I let talk me into coming over. He was looking for someone like Lee Majors. I probably looked more like a drug addict.(Although this would’ve been about the time my little sister weirdly said that I looked like Rod Stewart.) Never made that mistake again. One boy didn’t collect his fee when the client’s boyfriend came home. (I paid him what he’d have earned.)
My only kinky request was from a guy who wanted a black man to make him wash his car and then do push-ups in a mud puddle.
For reasons I’ll recount elsewhere I got sick of working with Bill. I left. He kept the business and I was penniless. Being broke wasn’t that bad. I had some good times and a few adventures. Later I’d again be selling male flesh in San Francisco (including my own) and West Hollywood.
(This ends my reposting of ancient entries.)
