Chatting with my dear friend Casey (F, NY), we were discussing gender issues, and I’d suggested to her – in what I hope was a not-at-all-weird way – that I wished she had been my mother (no, seriously, in context it wasn’t weird, and I’m not really at liberty to explain the context). And Casey asked: “Serious question, if you were my little boy(?) what would you have liked to hear growing up?”
I replied
“That’s a good question.
I’ll try to answer it, but not here.
There’s a ton of pain [to] get through to answer that.”
So I’m going to answer it here, with my SG family. First, the pain. Please skip the rest of this post if you want, I will 😀.
My paternal grandfather was way old when my father was born. He’d been born fairly early in Queen Victoria’s reign, and my father I suppose had a fairly Victorian upbringing – which doesn’t excuse anything, just saying. My mother was a good old-fashioned stay at home, clean the house, raise kids, and obey your husband woman (I mean still is, in fact).
I have a big sister – I’ve mentioned her in Misogyny the Sequel - Sexual Harassment, Science, and my Sister – who had to live through a childhood filled with misogyny, and who pretty much retreated into her own bedroom, and own world, and wasn’t the sister to me that I’d have loved her to be. I understand fully, and I have no issue with her.
Anyway, one great Victorian¹ idea my father had was that in order to prevent me from becoming a “homosexual” (yes, those really are scare quotes), he forbade my mother from every showing me (as a male child) any physical affection. So I was never cuddled, never hugged, never kissed, or shown any other physical affection by my mother (and obviously not by my father, thankfully). As a child, of course, I had no idea this wasn’t normal. As an adult, I did learn from my mother that this really was the way it was. And it’s taken me decades to realise just how much that has fucked me up.
Another brilliant fucking idea he had was to send me to be educated at (ages 4-6) a convent, and then (7-18) a boys only school run by Catholic priests. I hated it – but you probably guessed that. I met girls for the first time since age 6 when I was 18. I am very un-fond of men². I’m a lifelong radical feminist. This may all be connected.
My parents sent me to a psychiatrist when I was little, because there was something wrong with me. Well duh. I know I’m different in the way my brain works, but there’s now no way I can disentangle what is built into my brain from what is caused by my childhood. Whatever.
I’ve been married twice, though I’ve never in my life been on a date. I’ve no idea how to go about it (yes, I know it seems odd to marry without dating, but I don’t mean arranged marriage, just odd circumstances). The only thing that really amuses me about this whole shit thing is that while my father was so deathly afraid of raising a man who’s sexually attracted to men, he ended up raising a woman who’s sexually attracted to women. Way to go father, you’ve got yourself a lesbian daughter.
That’s the end of the pain bit. In my next post I’ll actually answer Casey’s question.
¹I’m not sure this was a prevalent Victorian idea – I can’t believe it was.
²OK, in general.