Memoir, from just outside the box
Locker Room Talk
JFA / 2019
Recently I had the neighborhood ladies over for drinks. After an evening of niceties, there were two ladies remaining, the school teacher and the lesbian. The lesbian made a comment about the need for non-specific bathrooms, which led me to talk about the origins of non-heterosexual orientations. I began with the comment, "I know a lot about this." The teacher immediately responded, "You're not the only one who knows anything." I backtracked. "I didn't mean to suggest that you do not know anything. I just happen to have read a lot about this subject."
“All fetuses begin as females. They develop with ovaries, labia and a clitoris. Development is cephalo-caudal, head-to-toe, so while the brain is further along in progress, for xy-chromosome fetuses, a spate of male hormone flow then begins. The result is that the clitoris lengthens and enlarges to become a penis, the ovaries drop and form testes, and the labia lengthen and join up at the midline and become the scrotum. All the while, brain development continues. If, at any time in this stage of growth, the strength or timing of the hormonal flows are irregular, there will likely be some sexual areas affected, either physical or orientation-related.” I paused and continued. “There are some psychiatrists who posit that another type of origin for sexual orientation is produced by an absent father and a strong mother.”
The lesbian, a bit peeved, stated, “There was nothing wrong with my parents.”
Backtracking again, I said, "I do not agree with the psychiatrists on this issue, but they have a lot of followers. There is, in my mind, no need for further speculation regarding sexual orientation. The Hormonal Variations Theory explains the full range of differences."
The teacher asked, “Can you recognize a homosexual when you see one?”
“The theory suggests that there are some physical anomalies that arise from a hormonal dysfunction but it depends solely on when the anomaly occurs and how strong was the hormone involved. So, one might see a male with narrow shoulders and wide hips and assume a hormonal imbalance, but the sexual orientation would still depend upon when, and how strong, the hormonal differences vary from the norm during fetal development.”
The two women turned up the heat again and agreed that I had a caveman mind. They condemned me for my old-school sexism. Thus, the evening ended.
My mistake? I got a little drunk and broke my vow to not talk about anything serious with anyone, ever. It is unlikely to happen again. I did offer my two guests the title of a book, 600 pages of non-fiction by a Pulitzer-winning specialist in genetics and immunology, "The Gene: An Intimate History" by Siddhartha Mukherjee.
People have fixed views and not all of those views are bound by reality. I need to find an island or just shut the hell up. So it goes.
GAL / 2020
Do you remember the movies you saw in college? My first taste of foreign cinema unfolded in the late 1960s. The three movies that come to mind all deal with mysteriously disturbed women.
"Repulsion" (1965; Britain); written and directed by Roman Polanski; starring Catherine Deneuve.
Carol lives in London with her older sister Helen. Carol is remarkably detached and struggles in her daily interactions. When home, she enjoys looking out the window to see a group of nuns outside of their church playing soccer. Carol is troubled by her sister's relationship with a man named Michael, whom she seems to dislike. She is bothered by his habit of leaving his razor and toothbrush in her glass in the bathroom. At night she is unable to sleep, haunted by the sounds of her sister's lovemaking. When Carol walks home from work, she is bothered by a crack in the sidewalk. That night Helen questions Carol for throwing away Michael's belongings. Helen and Michael leave for Italy on holiday, Carol is left alone in the apartment. Carol takes a rabbit out of the fridge for dinner. Instead of cooking it, she is distracted by a number of Michael's possessions left around the apartment, including an article of his clothing, which she smells and it makes her vomit.
"Persona" (1966; Sweden); written and directed by Ingmar Bergman; starring Liv Ullman and Bibi Anderssen.
A projector begins screening a series of images, including a crucifixion, a spider and the killing of a lamb. A boy wakes up in a morgue. He sees the large screen with a blurry image of two women. One of the women may be Alma, a young nurse assigned by a doctor to care for Elisabet. Elisabet is a stage actress who has suddenly stopped speaking and moving, which the doctors have determined is the result of willpower rather than physical or mental illness. In the hospital, Elisabet is distressed by television images of a monk's self-immolation during the Vietnam War. Alma reads her a letter from her husband that contains a photo of their son, and the actress tears up the photograph. The doctor speculates that Elisabet may recover better in a cottage by the sea, and sends her there with Alma.
"I Am Curious (Yellow)" (1967; Sweden); written and directed by Vilgot Sjöman; starring Lena Nyman and Vilgot Sjöman.
Lena lives with her father in a small apartment and is driven by a burning passion for social justice and a need to understand the world, people and relationships. Her little room is filled with books, papers, and boxes full of clippings on topics such as "religion" and "men", and files on each of the 23 men with whom she has had sex. The walls are covered with pictures of concentration camps and a portrait of Francisco Franco, reminders of the crimes being perpetrated against humanity. She walks around the city and interviews people about social classes in society, conscientious objection, gender equality, and the morality of vacationing in Franco's Spain.
In hindsight, these were training films, preparing me for future relationships with women. It was a good thing to get an early hint of the dark disturbances that often loom in the psychological shadows.
WDL / 2014
I always like watching Sissy Spacek. She is from Quitman, Texas, about thirty miles south of Sulphur Springs. She was the Quitman High School homecoming queen in 1967. I've been through Quitman a dozen times, always with Susan. We always stopped at the used cowboy boot shop in town. Whenever I see Sissy Spacek in a movie, I think of Susan, especially when Spacek uses certain mannerisms or lets slip a bit of East Texas twang.
Via Match.com, I first met Susan in 2005 at a Starbucks in Rockwall, Texas. I found her to be gorgeous, very girlish-looking for her age, 54. I loved her languorous accent. In our conversation about our high school days, I popped the question.
"So, you were the homecoming queen, weren't you?" I was guessing, but I felt a powerful certainty.
She blushed, maybe surprised at my perception, but for sure she was blindsided by the question. "What brought that on?" She looked amused.
"I just put the sweet and blonde and your smile together. You were, weren't you?"
"Yes, I was." Susan had been the Sulphur Springs homecoming queen in 1968. She seemed to prepare herself for whatever was next.
"So," I said, "are you over that, yet?"
That got an even bigger smile, and raised eyebrows. This was, after all, an unusual first date interrogation.
"Yes, I was over it long ago."
“My Aunt Florence had a small cottage on a tree-lined lot she’d inherited, walking distance to the beach, ten miles north of Benton Harbor, Michigan. When I was a kid, the family used to go up there from Chicago a few times a summer. A girl named Viola lived just down the road. Viola and I were five years old. One night, she and I slept together in a Sears mail-order teepee, pitched amidst the trees next to the cottage. I have always gravitated toward blondes who like the outdoors, and who wear shorts and cowboy boots.”
This week's article reminds me of those drones floating around in the Northeast, apparently with no place to light.
Sorry, Greg, you certainly have evolved