Tag sports

Take My Penis, Please

Dusty 2 Comments

Warning: I’m not sure how offensive this is going to get. Can it get more offensive than my title? you may ask. Of course it can. I don’t know how far I will go. I am not intending to offend everyone who is capable of being offended; there is a specific group of people that I intend to be maximally offensive to, but they will never care at all what I say, and the rest of you fine people are not targeted for intentional offense. I suppose the issue is more that this post might make you feel — kinda squidgy. Uncomfortable, like. For that, I’m sorry, but I can’t write anything other than this right now. I won’t. This is the one for now, until I finish this. Then I’ll go back to less squidgy things. Promise.

I mean — if I can.

I am a white male. I am, more specifically, a cis/het white male American. If any of those terms confuse you, allow me to explain: American should mean I was born in any of 35 countries or 13 territories in the North and South American continents or in the Caribbean; but because I was born on the pushiest, grabbiest, most narcissistic nation in the Americas if not on the planet, it only means that I was born in the United States. And I was: in the Northeast, in the state of New York, to be precise. “White” means nothing: we should probably switch to blanco, the Spanish version of the color name, because the “blank” cognate is much more appropriate than “Caucasian,” the usual, err, technical term for my race and ethnicity. Because “Caucasian” makes no sense. To find any of my ancestors who were anywhere near the Caucasus region (The hunk of land between the Black and Caspian Seas, which is mostly Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Russia.), you’d have to go back so far in my family tree that it wouldn’t be recognizable as my family tree. My race is, basically, “Nothing specific,” and my ethnicity is “More of the same.” I suppose I am European; what I know of my national heritages includes Welsh, English, Scottish, German, and French; my family name is most probably derived from a Saxon word that means “Defender of the Home,” though my grandfather theorized it came from “Dall’Umpre,” from Umpre, which he thought was an area of Spain where the Basque people lived. That’s way more interesting than my family heritage actually is, though. I’m just white. Moving on.

The “cis/het” is the most recent addition to my descriptors; I will add that I use the pronouns “He/him,” because I, unlike a whole bunch of goddamn idiots on the internet, am not upset nor offended by the use of pronouns. I speak English, I read and write English; I understand the necessity of pronouns in my language. If you don’t, allow me to present English without pronouns: here is the same paragraph I am finishing up now, without any pronouns. Ready?

The “cis/het” is the most recent addition to Dusty’s descriptors; Dusty will add that Dusty uses the pronouns “singular male signifier subjective case/singular male signifier objective case,” because Dusty, unlike a whole bunch of goddamn idiots on the internet, is not upset nor offended by the use of pronouns. Dusty speaks English, Dusty reads and writes English; Dusty understands the necessity of pronouns in Dusty’s language. If the audience reading this paragraph doesn’t, allow Dusty to present English without pronouns: here is the same paragraph Dusty is finishing up now, without any pronouns.

Isn’t that fun? Sorry: Isn’t the activity Dusty just completed fun?

Of course not. It’s garbage. Everything is better with good pronoun use. Everybody should, therefore, embrace the appropriate use of pronouns. Which means respecting what other people want you to use in reference to them. And which also means including your preferred pronouns in your self-description/introduction when you can, so we all can get used to asking about and respecting people’s preferred pronouns. I know that it may feel strange, especially to those of us who had the habit beaten out of us, to use singular “they,” or to use a pronoun that doesn’t obviously match a person’s appearance, or to use one of the new pronouns like xe/xem/xer [Those are pronounced “zee/zem/zurr”, and are, in order, subjective, objective, and possessive: Xe wanted a ride on xer pony, so we gave xem a turn.]; but suck it up. Practice a little bit, don’t feel bad when you unintentionally make a mistake; just do your best, and you’ll get used to it. My first trans student — pardon me; I had trans students whom I did not know were trans students at the time they were in my classes — my first out trans student used pronouns I wouldn’t have associated with him, based on my assumptions about his appearance, and I struggled with it more than once; but over the four years I knew him, I stopped making the mistake, and he never got mad at me about it. Partly because I never said anything like “This is hard and I’m tired of it, why can’t I just call you ______?” The only expectation, the only burden being asked of us is, “Don’t be an asshole.” Which is too much for some, I know, but don’t let them influence you: you don’t have to be an asshole. So don’t.

“Cis/het” means that I am cisgender, which is the opposite of transgender, meaning I identify as the gender to which I was assigned at birth, and which matches the stereotypical assumptions based on my appearance, at least most of the time — I had very long, very pretty hair for a long time, and I was frequently mistaken for a woman, which I did and do find flattering. Because the “het” part means I am heterosexual, so I am attracted to members of the opposite gender from myself, in this case women; calling me a woman means I would be, in my eyes, far more attractive than most men. (I say “most” because there are some very pretty men out there.)

Why am I saying all of this when most of you certainly already know this? Two reasons: one, it’s difficult to ask about all this stuff, and I know some people are still confused; it took me quite a while to remember what “cis” meant. And it’s difficult to ask for clarification because the issue seems very sensitive, and it often is: but remember, the only expectation is, Don’t be an asshole. I constantly ask my students to explain what their slang and lingo means, and they think it’s cute that I don’t understand. They love teaching me, even though they cringe, visibly, when I use the slang myself. You know why? Because I’m not an asshole. (I’m based, fam. frfr.) And also because I’m not an asshole, I very much want to normalize this entire topic: I want everyone to be comfortable talking about preferred pronouns, and transgender and cisgender people, and heterosexuality and homosexuality and bisexuality and pansexuality and asexuality, and everything in the queer world, in general. Because this is the queer world. Right here. Right now. We all live in it. There is no “normal.” There’s just — people. All of us. And all of us need to not be assholes: and that is the only expectation that matters.

The second reason I am talking about all of this is because there are, apparently, too many people in this country who don’t understand, or who misunderstand, and I assume that some of my friends and loved ones and my beloved readers are included in that group. That is not an insult: none of you are assholes. (Because assholes wouldn’t read what I write every week. I don’t hang out with assholes.) But some of you are uncertain, or confused, or misinformed, I assume. So I want to clarify. I want to help, and I believe that understanding reduces tension, and there is too much goddamn tension in this country right now. (Please also note: I am not an expert in this, and there is stuff I don’t know and stuff I get wrong. This is just what I do know, presented in the hopes that it will be helpful to some.)

So here I go: not talking about my penis.

The last word I used to describe myself is “male.” I identify as male. I think of myself as a man, which is not the same thing as being male: when I was young, I was male, but I was only a boy; when I was an adolescent, I was male, but I was an asshole. And in this whole list, the only one that has anything to do with my genitalia is the last one: because the main reason why I was an asshole when I was a teenager was because I had a penis, and the usual teenage sex drive, and the common total lack of morals or empathy where that sex drive was concerned. Too much focus on the penis makes one less of a man, I have found.

That’s why I picked the title. Because honestly? I don’t need it. I don’t care enough about it, and it drives me fucking nuts that there are so many goddamn people who believe that the existence of a penis attached to my body is somehow the most important defining characteristic when it comes to my gender and sex; so I’m sick of it. Take it. Give it to someone who wants it. I wish them well of it.

I wrote last week about being proud, and what it means to be proud. I am proud of being a man. I believe that is something I have accomplished over the years — though I will immediately and repeatedly say I didn’t do it all by myself. But I am not proud of my penis. My penis did not make me a man. My penis did even make me male: because the category of “male,” biologically speaking, means “of or denoting the sex that produces small, typically motile gametes, especially spermatozoa, with which a female may be fertilized or inseminated to produce offspring.” [Also, writing this I realize that I may not be a male, because I have not to my knowledge ever produced offspring. So do my testicles actually produce spermatozoa? Maybe not.] Which means that my testicles made me male, and more generally, my XY chromosome structure (So far as I know. As I have never had my genes examined, I may not be chromosomally male, any more than spermatozoically male. That’s not a word.). Know how I know that my penis didn’t make me male? Because if I lost my penis in an accident, nobody would identify me as anything other than a cis male: because most people (Obviously no longer including Republican lawmakers, who are trying to pass bills requiring genital examinations as a prerequisite for sports. For fucking sports.) do not check my penis before deciding that I am a male. So its lack would go unnoticed in the face of secondary characteristics: I would still have facial hair and body hair in a “masculine” pattern, and I would still have a relatively deep voice, and I would have the same shoulders and hips, hands and feet and facial structure, and I would still be 5’10”. Those things, amusingly, are much more to do with my heritage, with my race and ethnicity, than with my gender or sex, because I am squarely in the average for most adult white people. Those things are also, at this point, not dependent on my testicles; I could lose those in an accident (And seriously, take ’em. Useless lumps. Itch and sweat and get in the way. And give me cancer scares. [Also, PSA to testicle-havers: do self-exams in the shower. Get used to how your testes are shaped, because you are looking for changes as a sign of potential problem.] Totally pointless, and very annoying.), or have them removed if they became cancerous, and still keep most of the same traits that would make people identify me as male; the ones that might fade would be easily recovered with some simple hormone treatments. Which many of my fellow men will get voluntarily as they get older, even without losing their testicles. And that won’t make them men, either, just as the natural decrease of testosterone doesn’t make one not a man. Regardless of what all those ads on the radio and the spam emails want me to believe.

You know what else didn’t make me a man? Having sex. I know because I had sex when I was still — I don’t want to say “a boy,” because that takes this into weird[er] places; I was between about 15 and 17 when I first had sex, so not a boy: but I was sure as hell not a man. I was an adolescent. I was immature. I was selfish. I was, as I said above, an asshole. And, again, not having sex would not make me not a man: if I lived the rest of my life as a celibate, I would still be a celibate man, and everyone would see me as a man, with no idea of what my sex life was or was not like. The vast majority of you, thankfully, not caring, and wanting to know nothing about it, as I don’t want to discuss it. Further, having children does not make you a man, because I don’t, but I am. (Again, and this still makes me chuckle, the ability to produce sperm that can father children apparently does make you male, which means I might not be male. Well, Mom always wanted a daughter.)

Being aggressive does not make you a man: I am an introvert, and I hate and fear and dread confrontation of all kinds. I can do it, and I have when it is necessary; but I hate it. Being violent does not make you a man: I have never committed an act of violence, never been in a fight, never fired a gun, never killed anything larger than a mouse. (Killing a mouse does not make you a man. Elsewise cats would be men. Though of course they don’t want to be men: cats don’t want to be anything other than cats. Why would you? Once you’ve reached the peak, you don’t come down if you don’t have to.) Loving sports, especially blood sports, does not make you a man; I don’t care for most sports, but the ones I do like are generally skill and grace sports, like gymnastics and skateboarding.

We’ll come back to sports. Because there are a whoooooole bunch of assholes focusing almost exclusively on sports these days, in relation to this issue.

I think to be a man means, in part, not being an asshole. And I hate that, not only do millions of people disagree with that, but millions of people think the opposite: that being an asshole makes you more of a man. It does not. It just makes you an asshole.

And here’s the point: believing and affirming that trans men are not men, or that trans women are still men (or confused men, or “biological men”) makes you an asshole. Not a man. Not a rational person. Not a defender of women, or of people in general. It does not mean you adhere to science and accept objective reality. It means you are an asshole. Because you are helping to oppress and potentially destroy the lives of thousands upon thousands — millions, more likely — of trans people. Men don’t oppress and destroy innocent people. Monsters do that.

So okay, out of all of these things that do not make one a man — including a penis and testicles — what does make one a man?

Well that’s the thing: it changes, doesn’t it? It depends on context. I know that’s an annoying answer (This is why my students hate English sometimes, and prefer math, where there are definite answers. It’s easier that way. But please remember that life is poetry, not geometry.), but it’s the only one, and we know it. I’ve been giving some examples of the classic standards by which we define men, along with counterexamples that show those standards are not actually definitive: appearance does not make one a man, genitalia does not make one a man, fatherhood does not make one a man (Though it sure would be nice if more men were fathers and more fathers were men — though also, more fathers should be women and more women should be fathers. By which I only mean that shitty people shouldn’t be parents, and people who are parents shouldn’t be shitty people.). The only answer that actually fits all circumstances is this: I make myself a man. By deciding that I should act like one, according to my definition of a man’s behavior, and then doing it.

This is a dangerous answer, though. Because if I happen to think that being a Nazi and slaughtering millions of innocent people is what would make me a man, and I did that, then by my definition I would be a man; and I think it’s clear that would make me a monster, not a man. So there have to be some real standards of manhood, for the idea of manhood to have any meaning or value; and since, as I said, I am proud of being a man, I think we should retain the idea of manhood and manliness. I just really, really need us not to focus that idea on the genitalia. And preferably without any gender distinctions, because I think anyone can be a man who wants to identify themselves that way. Anyone who shows the qualities I define as manly qualities will absolutely be welcome to be called a man by me, if you want me to.

So what does manhood mean? First, it means being responsible, because being a man is about being an adult. Children are not men. Nor are they women: they are children. For me, the major difference between childhood and adulthood is responsibility. Responsibility means knowing what is needed, and then being strong and using that strength to do what is needed. Please note that this is not exclusive to men, because women also must be responsible and adult in order to be women — and also, children can be responsible and even adult in some ways, while still being children. The difference there is that children who must be adult are being harmed by that: asking adulthood of children is asking too much, and is harmful even if the kid can handle it; it’s still bad to make kids grow up too fast. Adults are those for whom responsibility doesn’t harm, it actually helps. I feel better when I am responsible, when I do my work, when I do what is necessary. I don’t like it, a lot of the time; but I feel better for it. Another aspect of adulthood which is necessary for manhood (and also for womanhood) is control: self-control, that is. Children do not have good self-control, but that is forgivable in children; it is less so in adults, in men and women. (Though I will note that everyone can be irresponsible from time to time, and also can give up self-control and let loose, sometimes. Just not all the time. Not when it matters. And to be an adult, you have to know when it matters.)

I will also say that one of the toughest kinds of self-control to have is the ability to keep yourself from controlling others. It is also, however, one of the most important. I have been struggling lately, because one of my classes needs to learn that it is important for them to pay attention to the class when I am teaching it; the way I am teaching them that is by not teaching them for a time, and letting them teach themselves. And they are doing a terrible job. And it is so damn hard for me not to stand up and take the class over and make them all learn the way they should be learning: but I need to not control them, I need them to learn. So I’m controlling myself, and letting them learn this vital lesson. It’s hard. But I’m doing it. Because I am a man. Men control themselves. (Also: please note, therefore, that rapists are not men. They are monsters. And any definition that allows rapists to be fully included in the ranks of men is a shit definition. Remember that when we talk about penises as man-defining.)

So that’s what distinguishes men from boys, from children. What distinguishes men from women?

As I said, it’s unclear: it changes. It depends on context. There is not a single trait of manhood that I could name that should not also be part of womanhood. Which is why transphobic bigots have to rely on the one clearly distinct difference in their eyes: genitalia. Ask them about intersex people (Intersex people are those who have more than one of the traits for male and female biological sex — so both ovaries and testicles, for instance. There is a wide range of people with a wide range of traits, and the term is non-exclusionary. Read more here. Note, for instance, androgen insensitivity syndrome, which can affect people with XY chromosomes and can, in some cases, mean that their cells reject male-trait inducing hormones entirely: and they will be phenologically [Is that a word? Should it be “phenotypically?”] indistinguishable from someone with a stereotypically female phenotype), or about men who lose their genitalia, and they will dodge the question. Every time. “Intersex people are so rare,” they will say. “I’m talking about MOST people.” Sure: most of the time “shit” means excrement; but sometimes (say, on 4/20) one might want to go out and buy some “good shit,” and would be VERY upset if someone sold them a baggie of excrement for $50. If you insist that “shit” only be used, ever, for the most common cases, you are losing some very important uses of the word — and your definition, therefore, is shit. A shit definition of shit. So too with simple definitions of “man” and “woman.”

I think in our society most people see the major distinction as being one between strength and kindness. Most people in our society see strong qualities as men’s qualities, and kind qualities as women’s qualities. People who are not assholes, of course, understand that everyone should be kind and everyone must be strong; but if there is a meaning to gender at all (And by the way, I’m totally cool with dispensing with gender entirely: I’m a human and a person much more than I am a man. I said I was proud of being a man, but I am really proud of being strong and responsible and kind.), I think it lands there. I think that I am a strong person, and my accomplishments that have required strength are the ones I am proud of, as a man. I have developed greater strength over time, and I am proud of that; though I think there is an upper limit (like, it’s not true that the stronger I get, the manlier I get, ad infinitum: if I am twice as strong as I used to be, I’m not two men [though I might like just repeating the syllable in one word, like I could go from being a man to being a manman, and then a manmanman].), I do think there is a general area where having enough strength to get through something — and often, to help someone else get through something — distinguishes one as a man from a child, because a child would need to take strength from someone else, where a man would provide strength to someone else who needed it. And a child who got through something requiring strength just on their own is seen as — grown up.

But here’s the thing: I may be a man because I am strong — but I am a good man because I am kind. So let’s not pretend that either virtue is exclusive, or disallowed to anyone in any category. Let’s not be assholes. Which category certainly includes a subset of both men and women. But recognize, again, that there are no traits that are exclusively men’s traits, and no traits that are exclusively women’s traits.

Which is why the debate over trans rights is so goddamn stupid. They have to focus on the only thing that they can point to as exclusively male: my penis. And ignore all the exceptions to that oversimplified definition. Most particularly, they have to ignore that the logical result of that argument is this: if someone who wasn’t born with a penis acquired a penis, then they would, by the anti-trans bigot’s own definition, become a man. This is why the more intelligent anti-trans bigots focus instead on chromosomes: which is just as reasonable and intelligent as distinguishing between people based on their skin color. You can describe someone with their chromosomes, if you can know their genes; but you can’t define them that way. Also, if you look at the intersex links I put above, you will find that there are people with chromosomes that just don’t fit into either category. “But those cases are so rare,” they say. “I’m talking about most people.”

You know what’s amazing about these people, and these arguments? That they then make the exact opposite point by claiming that trans athletes are a threat to sports. To women’s sports, of course — they never talk about trans men in men’s sports. (Someday a trans man is going to join a men’s gymnastics team, and he’s going to wipe the fucking floor with those dudes. But anyway.) Do you know how many trans athletes there are competing at the collegiate level in this country? In this nation of 330,000,000 people or more?

36. 36 trans athletes. (Source)

Out of 520,000 NCAA athletes, nationwide. (Source)

It is impossible to get a complete count of the number of trans athletes, of course, because not all of them are out; but whatever count you come up with, it is vanishingly small. So if you’re going to ignore intersex people and insist there are only two biological sexes, then you should bloody well ignore the tiny percentage of trans athletes and just let people compete. Actually, you should just let people compete even if there are millions of trans athletes: because people who want to compete should be allowed to compete. I wrote once before about how biological differences are sometimes accepted and sometimes not in sports, and it’s earth-shatteringly stupid to say that Usain Bolt has a fair advantage and Caster Semenya has an unfair advantage because Bolt has a penis and Semenya does not. Protecting women’s sports from trans athletes only makes sense if you pretend that trans women are not women: and they are. More importantly, why are we so goddamn concerned with some people winning sports and other people losing? Aren’t they still sports if you lose?

Or did all of my PE teachers lie to me?

Sports are supposed to be fun. I keep hearing they’re not about winning, they’re about sportsmanship and competing and building team spirit and so on; but apparently not so to Republican legislatures around this country, and all the assholes on Twitter, who are fucking up sports, and fucking up the lives of young people, because they hate and fear trans people. The assholes who constantly use videos and photos of trans adults to mock the idea that someone can be trans: and yet nobody speaks of all the men in the world who look damn “feminine,” and all the women in the world who look damn “masculine.” They only attack trans people, which shows how absurd their bigotry is: exactly like racism, exactly like thinking someone is less because of the color of their skin, but ignoring when some “White” people have darker skin than some “Black” people. Or more orange skin than any human anywhere. Because it’s not actually about appearance: it’s about hating the idea of trans people. They see trans people as toxic, as dangerous; as able to spread their “condition” (variously called an illness, a delusion, and every other shitty word that assholes use to insult other people unfairly) to others like a contagion.

That’s why all the arguments about people “turning” children trans, of trans kids being “peer pressured” into seeking gender-confirming medical care like puberty blockers or hormone treatments or even surgery. Look: I am a high school teacher. I have trans students, and I have had several trans students in the past. I did not know all the trans students I had in the past, because not all of them were out; until the last decade, none of them were out, so far as I know — but of course, I don’t know if any of my earlier students were trans and I never knew it, because they might have been visibly indistinguishable from other people of their identified gender; and some of them may have been transitioning without me knowing about it.

Know how much that affected me, or my relationship to them as students?

Neither do I, because I don’t know who or how many there may have been. So I’m going to have to say the impact of their being trans was — none. No impact. Didn’t matter in the least. As with the former students who have come out as trans, or queer, or genderfluid, or anything else under the sun: none of my relationships have been affected by their gender identity. Which is as it should be.

But those people themselves have been sometimes greatly affected by their gender identity. In every single case that I know of, these young people have been happier when they have been accepted as who they are, as people who have been able to find their way to live their truth, to define themselves according to their own standards. As I have been doing for myself in this blog, because I have a right to: and not because I have a penis. Those young people have struggled mainly because they have had people who denied their self-identification, people who told them they were wrong for being who they are, for knowing who they are, and for defining themselves, as we all not only have the right to do, but the responsibility to do, the obligation to do. And then, as reasonable human beings should, the rest of us are responsible for accepting what other people determine their own identity to be. As I have accepted with my trans students, which is why I have never had any trouble with them being trans. Nor will I ever: beyond sometimes slipping up with names and pronouns. But I’m not an asshole, so I do my best, and I always accept people for who they tell me they are. I don’t question or argue with it. Because it’s not up to me, and I don’t try to control other people’s choices, because I am a man, and I am not an asshole.

And in no case, not one case of any student I have ever had, or ever will have, has genitalia been anywhere in the consideration.

Right! See how horrible that is? The very idea of an English teacher judging a student by genitalia? SO WHY THE FUCK DOES ANYONE DO IT, EVER??? How can anyone rationally decide to pass a law requiring genital examinations as a prerequisite for participation on a specific sports team? How can that happen? What kind of insanity is that? It’s as ridiculous as me asking all of you to read this essay I titled with a consideration of my genitalia. Don’t nobody want that. (Actually, the anti-trans bills are unquestionably worse than my title for this piece. But I still feel guilty for talking about my piece in this piece. Kinda.)

By the same token, taken one small step further: we don’t actually judge anyone’s identity by secondary sexual characteristics, not in terms of identity. Nobody thinks a boy with a high voice is not a boy. Nobody thinks a girl with a flat chest is not a girl. Nobody (sorry, guys) thinks that a teenager with a sad peachfuzz mustache is actually a man. But also, I have students with more facial hair than I will ever grow: but I still don’t think of them as more manly than me. Because I am an adult, and they are not, however thick and luxurious their face-locks. Appearances don’t matter. Not for who people are.

So.

If someone wants to be called by a different name, call them that. (Definitely don’t ever be the person who uses only the name on the attendance sheet: my wife’s birth name was Anthony. Because her dad was a prick who wanted a son, not because she is not a woman. On a much less controversial note, my official name is Theoden, but I prefer to be called just Dusty. Partly because most people can’t pronounce Theoden correctly.) And because pronouns are not at all more meaningful than names, if they want you to use different pronouns, then use the different goddamn pronouns. Mistakes are fine, but do your best, and don’t be an asshole. (Unless you identify as an asshole, in which case, fuck you. And don’t ever make an “I identify as…” joke. They’re not funny.) Don’t judge someone by their appearance. Yes, someone is perfectly able and permitted to be a trans man or boy and wear dresses and long hair, as someone is perfectly allowed to be a cis male and wear dresses and long hair. Yes, someone can be a trans woman or girl and have facial hair. If you think it doesn’t look right, nobody cares what you think. It’s not up to you. If someone changes their name or identity or preferred pronouns several times, just try to keep up: and expect to make mistakes, and expect those mistakes not to matter, so long as you are being kind. Don’t question why they changed; it’s not up to you. Don’t say they’d be happier if they didn’t change, or you liked them better before; it’s not up to you. Your only job is to try not to be an asshole.

And one last thing. I wanted to write this blog because I heard about recent polls that show that the public view of trans people in this country is, in my opinion, going in the wrong direction. This research from Pew shows that the majority of Americans believe people’s sex is only what is assigned at birth (and that majority has grown over the last six years), and that the majority of Americans think that trans athletes should not be allowed to compete on teams that match their gender identity, and that almost half of Americans think that medical treatments should be limited for trans youth under 18.

So let me be clear. Gender is not determined by sex. Sex is not determined by chromosomes. And neither is set in stone and immutable. That being the case, who is the one person most likely to know best what their gender identity is? Themselves. (Notice the singular “they” there. And if you wanted me to write “Him/herself,” then get over it.) We know ourselves better than anyone else knows us. And sure, not all of us know ourselves very well; I have been confused about how much of myself I have discovered just in the last few years, and I’m 48 years old. So it’s reasonable to think that young people who think they may be trans may be unclear, or uncertain — just as some cis people are unclear or uncertain about who they are, for countless reasons, including the possibility that they may actually be trans, and not know it, or not be able to accept it.

In that case, you know who are the best people to help the young person figure out what their real self, their true identity is? It’s not reactionary, transphobic, attention-seeking Republican lawmakers, that’s for goddamn sure. No: it is the young person’s family, and their caring medical professionals. And of course some people have fucked up families, who shouldn’t be allowed to influence their children’s choices: but don’t you think that’s true in whatever way the family is fucked up? Macaulay Culkin’s family should not have been allowed to steal all his money. Brittney Spears’s father should never have been granted conservatorship over her. Abusive parents should not be allowed to abuse their children. But if you think that trans youth are only trans because their parents, or their friends, or their teachers, or their social media, tell them they should be trans, then you’re either an asshole, or an idiot. The world tells trans people they should not exist: nobody tells cis people they should be trans. Nobody chooses to be trans, just as nobody chooses to be white: some of us just are. The world should allow us to be who and what we are, so long as we don’t cause any harm. And trans kids don’t harm anyone by being trans. Or by playing on sports teams. Or by receiving gender affirming care, which is often critically important to prevent harm being done to the one person most likely to be hurt by a trans kid: themselves.

And if it helps, if the young trans person who told me that he wants a penis wants mine, he can have it. Take it. Please.

But it’s still not going to make you a man.

You’ve already done that, sir: because you are strong, and you are kind.

Now if only everybody else could be the same.

This Morning

Dusty 1 Comment

This morning, I am thinking about this bullshit.

We celebrated Michael Phelps’s genetic differences. Why punish Caster Semenya for hers?

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Semenya is an in­cred­ibly powerful runner from South Africa, a two-time Olympic champion. She has also been the subject of controversy since the beginning of her career a decade ago. Semenya is believed to have an intersex condition, though she doesn’t publicly speak about it: Her body allegedly produces testosterone at a higher level than most women. On Wednesday, the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that if Semenya wanted to continue to compete, she would be required to take medications to lower it.

The CAS, which was upholding a previous ruling by the International Association of Athletics Federations, admitted that the decision was tantamount to discrimination. But, a statement read, “discrimination is a necessary, reasonable and proportionate means of achieving the IAAF’s aim of preserving the integrity of female athletics.”

“Preserving the integrity of female athletics.” What a remarkable way to phrase a ruling that has nothing whatsoever of integrity in it.

What a remarkable decision: in a world where sports fight tooth and nail to keep people from doping — that is, using artificial chemical treatments to give some athletes an advantage over others — the IAAF is going to use artificial chemical treatments to give some athletes an advantage over others. It’s just that in this case, the chemical treatments are meant to make the other athletes win, rather than the one being forced to take the drugs. The one being doped.

Make no mistake: that’s precisely what this is. The arbitrators here decided to chemically handicap Caster Semenya because she is a better athlete. Because she is more likely to win. When criminals fix horse races, they use two different strategies: one is to give the winning horse a boost, and the other is to give the losing horses a drag. Since the term “dope” comes most prominently from references to opium, it seems likely that the use of the term to represent cheating through chemical substances springs from precisely this: using dope to slow someone down so that someone else can win. [History of the word “doping” found here, which also includes the magnificent user comment, ‘I believe “dope” has also been used as slang for “good”, or “excellent”.’ Thanks, Craig J.!]

I presume the next step is to cut off Usain Bolt’s legs, and replace them with shorter legs; because a large part of the reason why Bolt has won nine gold medals and holds three world records is because he is 6’5″.

But even among top sprinters, Bolt stands out, and this is partly because of his height.

“Bolt is a genetic freak because being 6ft 5ins tall means he shouldn’t be able to accelerate at the speed he does given the length of his legs,” says former Great Britain sprinter Craig Pickering.

“At the beginning of a race you want to take short steps in order to accelerate, but because he’s so tall he can’t do that. But then when he reaches top speed he has a massive advantage over everyone else because he’s taking far fewer steps.”

[Emphasis added] [Source]

So clearly, Bolt has an unfair advantage. Seems to me that is because of his sex: men are taller than women, and so if Bolt has too much height, it’s because he’s a man. A more mannish man than other men. We should add a third category of sports: women’s sports, men’s sports, and super-manny men’s sports; Bolt belongs in the third group, along with Lebron James and Michael Phelps. The only way to maintain integrity in sport is to prevent Bolt from taking advantage of his genetic aberration and unfairly dominating his event.

This entire argument is, of course, preposterous. It’s obscene to take an athlete with a natural advantage — the same description that could be applied to every single dominant athlete in the history of sport; the first article comparing Michael Phelps to Semenya does this well — and decide that their natural advantage is somehow unfair. The whole point of sport is to reward those who have natural advantages. Of course we like it better when the people who have trained harder and worked harder are able to win; but we love cheering for the genetic aberrations who have the natural gifts that give them an advantage. And really, in the modern world of competitive sports, there is no such thing as a top level athlete who doesn’t have genetic advantages: it’s just that some of them are more visible than others. We can talk about Lebron James’s size and strength as part of his gameplay, but though Michael Jordan lacked those genetic advantages, there’s no question that he had agility and speed and coordination and reflexes that were inborn and greater than a normal person’s. Look at Muhammad Ali’s speed, which was unmatched by heavyweight boxers and allowed Ali to dominate over stronger men: wasn’t that a genetic aberration? Wasn’t that an unnatural gift? Am I supposed to believe that the only reason Ali could float like a butterfly was because he trained harder? Ridiculous.

No: the point here is that Semenya has an advantage that we as a society (and by “we” I mean the fucksticks at the IAAF, not myself and probably not you) think is wrong. She has “an intersex condition,” I keep reading, which means her body produces more testosterone than most women’s bodies and which therefore makes her a better athlete.

When someone has a hormonal “condition” that makes them abnormally tall, and therefore gives them an advantage in basketball, we don’t see that as unfair, nor as wrong. When someone has a hormonal “condition” that gives them greater body mass, and therefore an advantage at sumo or in football, we don’t see that as unfair or wrong. Again, as the article points out, Michael Phelps has a genetic aberration that means his body produces less lactic acid than the normal human body, and yet he was lauded as having a lucky gift  — not sentenced to inject lactic acid in order to give other swimmers a fighting chance against that unnatural freak Phelps.

The entire argument, the only argument, against Caster Semenya is that she is not really she, that she is more he than she, and therefore she can’t compete against shes unless she becomes more she-ish. That’s it. If she was abnormally tall and therefore had the same advantage Usain Bolt has, it wouldn’t be a question. If she had less lactic acid, and therefore the same advantage Michael Phelps has, it wouldn’t be a question. She probably does have greater reaction time and naturally greater twitch-muscle  mass, as that is what sets sprinters apart; but the IAAF isn’t talking about that. Just about her lack of sheishness. I mean, it’s not even subtle:

The combination of her rapid athletic progression and her appearance culminated in the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) asking her to take a sex verification test to ascertain whether she was female. (Wikipedia) [Emphasis added, but unnecessary. You saw it too.]

Do you think it’s also a factor that Semenya is a married lesbian?

Of course it is.

This case is much more about humanity’s discomfort with gender. We (Again, not me, and probably not you; mostly fucksticks.)  want to think that there is an easy line to draw, and that line has value. Sports is one place where we really, really like drawing that line. Because men are generally stronger and larger, and therefore have an advantage in most sports, we like to think it’s fair to separate men from women and have them only compete against each other. (You want to talk about unfair advantages, let’s throw some men into women’s gymnastics. Watch some 6-foot dude try to compete on the uneven bars. That will be funny as hell.)

But there’s nothing fair about that. Caster Semenya shows that. Transgender athletes show that, and the fact that most people have far less of a problem arguing that transgender athletes shouldn’t be allowed to compete with their identified gender simply goes to show that this argument is really about what kinds of gender identifiers we are comfortable with.

It’s clearly not about a level playing field. Serena Williams has won 23 Grand Slam titles partly because she is taller and stronger than most women tennis players. (Being taller gives her more reach and a more powerful serve because she can swing the racket in a wider arc, generating more speed and thus more force.) That’s not to say she’s not an incredible athlete; she is. I like using tennis  s an example because it requires an inordinate amount of training in addition to the physical gifts that make a player great, and Williams has obviously mastered the sport to an unprecedented degree. But the simple fact is that one reason she wins is because she hits the ball harder and faster than her opponents can, and part of the reason for that is because she has the genes to be taller and stronger than most people. But because Serena Williams is more she-ish, nobody argued that she should be given performance-debilitating drugs in order to level the playing field and give all the other women a chance.

An even better example is Shaquille O’Neal. Shaquille O’Neal is 7’1″, which is extraordinarily tall, though not unheard of in the NBA: but he was also 325 pounds when he was playing, which is entirely unheard of in the NBA. He outweighed everyone he played against. Because of that, he had an advantage, and in O’Neal’s case, it was his only advantage: I watched him play hundreds of times, and believe me, that man had not a single skill when it came to basketball. No, I shouldn’t say that; he was a good passer, which is a skill and helped him win championships. But as an offensive player, he had exactly one move: he would catch the ball (using his height to reach above any player between him and the person passing to him)  and then, with his back to the basket, he would dribble the ball and simply– step backwards. When he was close enough, he would turn around and shoot the ball, from the kind of range that allows anyone with eyes to hit the shot. He could do that because none of the men defending him could push back, because O’Neal outweighed them. If they tried to set their feet and shove him, it would be a foul; if they tried to out-muscle him, he would win, every time. Because he was bigger. And stronger, which surely came partly from lots and lots of physical training; but mainly because he was bigger. He pushed his way into the Hall of Fame with his enormous ass.

That is an unfair advantage. But because it doesn’t have anything to do with gender, nobody ever investigated O’Neal. Nobody ever ordered him to lose weight before he would be allowed to play. Nobody ever questioned whether he should be allowed to play with other men.

Either accept that Caster Semenya is a woman by any rational standard, and allow her to compete and crush all of her competitors like bugs the same way that Shaquille O’Neal was allowed to use his genetic aberration to win NBA games; or else accept that the separation of men’s and women’s sports along gender lines is stupid, and change to something that makes more sense.

This Morning

Dusty Leave a comment

This morning I am still thinking about being positive, but I actually mean to do it.

As soon as I posted yesterday and then  went back to read it a little later, I realized that despite saying at the outset that I was going to be positive, most of yesterday’s post was negative. Either it was things we need to stop; or it was, once again, simple criticism. But as Ned Flanders said to Homer, “It’s easy to criticize, Homer,” (to which Homer replied, “Fun, too!”), and I should stop taking the easy way. Well, not stop, necessarily, but make an effort to do the right thing instead of the easy, fun thing. At least some of the time.

So what positive things can we do to make boys less suckish?  We can expand their options, starting when they are very young, and try to steer them in directions according to their interests and abilities, rather than their gender or with an eye to their future. For instance, when buying boys presents, get them an Easy Bake Oven along with the football. Buy them Legos, and also buy them stuffed animals. (I’m aware that these present examples are archaic, and I couldn’t care less. Substitute in whatever you want from the world of Pokemon or whatever.) Enroll them in dance class, and in music lessons with non-manly instruments: flute and violin and the French horn (Somewhere there’s a buff, tattooed flautist slowly twisting her flute into a knot and dreaming of doing the same to my neck. [Just out of curiosity: did you read that pronoun as I wrote it, or did you substitute a male one in there?] But I am speaking of traditional gender stereotypes in order to encourage defiance of them; I think that “manly” instruments according to the prejudice are the rock band instruments, drums and guitar and bass, maybe saxophone and trumpet. Orchestrals are welcome to tell me I’m wrong.) Get them into knitting and quilting and gardening, grow their hair long, let them help Mom on the weekends instead of Dad.

That’s a big one, I think. Encourage boys to spend more time with girls. One of the things that has made me a better man is that my best friend and strongest influence is my wife, whom I’ve known since I was 20; also, my profession is populated  predominantly by women, and so most of my work friends are female. I think it helped also that I was a Mama’s boy, my mother’s favorite son, and that my very best friend as a lad was a girl, with whom I used to play imagination games with our stuffed animals and her little woodland creature figurines. Man, those things were cute.

I think that most of the traditional competitive activities are fine if the competition is dialed down about thirty-four notches. Football is a fun game when it’s pickup tag/flag football, the kind of game where every side scores a touchdown every play. Same with most team sports. The problem comes when there is a focus on winning and losing: when the point is fun, or even when the point is to compete with one’s self and try to do better than one did the day before, then I think sports can be a fun physical activity, even a valuable one. This generally means that team sports are less positive than individual sports, because in team sports, while there is the cooperation and camaraderie of the team, those teams always turn on the weakest link, the one kid who dropped the ball and cost them the game, just like Jack’s hunters turned on Simon, and then on Piggy. More importantly, the team sports focus on wins and losses: and that means that anything  that gets a win is good. When one focuses on improving, then the sport tends to promote good habits, rather than an anything-goes mentality.

Let’s see, what else? I think reading is a key. A large part of toxic masculinity is a focus on self and a lack of empathy for others, and reading builds empathy and tends to downplay the value of selfishness, especially if one reads tragedies or stories with a tragic hero, because at least half of the time, the protagonist’s tragic flaw is arrogance or egotism or both. Watching hero after hero go down in flames that he set himself has a sobering effect on the male ego, I think. Reading is also quiet and intellectual, and therefore antithetical to the activities approved under the Toxic Masculinity seal. And if we can also remove the gendering stereotypes of books, that would be great, too; some of my favorite books are romances, and books by female authors or about female characters or traditionally female roles and situations — or all of the above.

Okay, one controversial one, and then I’ll call it a day. I think that dating and romance should wait until after the first towering inferno of adolescence has passed. One of the things that makes teenaged boys awful, in my opinion, is the terrible tyranny of the penis. It may be an exaggeration to say that everything that teenaged boys do is intended to get them laid — but it may not. The old trope about boys thinking about sex every seven second is, if anything, an underestimate. This monomania leads to all kinds of terrible treatment of girls by boys — and also of boys by boys, especially in our world of suppressed homoeroticism. It also leads to competition between boys for the affections of those they desire; and boys quickly learn, if they don’t already know from sports or the kind of friendly bullying that boys do to each other, that the easiest way to get ahead of your rivals is not to be better than them, but rather to make them look worse. That’s one of the reasons why boys are so quick to embarrass and shame each other, and do things that make other boys look bad, especially in front of girls. I don’t know if it is possible to stop boys and girls from dating until they’re around 18 or so, but it would surely be helpful, especially if we could encourage them to be friends instead. Maybe if we put a focus on friendly activities instead of dating activities in high school: like maybe the prom? Shouldn’t be about bringing a date? Just a thought.

That does lead me to an interesting thought about changing porn, both how we view it and what the standards should be for pornographic content; maybe if it was more acceptable and had better intentions behind it, it wouldn’t be so very encouraging of violence and objectification.

But I think that topic is not one I want to get into.

I guess I’ll just leave it with this: we should encourage boys to hug. Handshakes are lame. High fives, especially intricate ones, are cool; but you know what’s a far, far better way to greet your friends and to show your affection for one another? A good, genuine hug.

Here’s one from me to you.

 

This Morning

Dusty Leave a comment

This morning I am thinking about being positive.

I’ve been as critical as I can  be, the last few posts; I think I should try to come up with some positive solutions to the problems I’ve been describing. After all, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.

Okay, actually, that’s the first thing. No more either/or thinking. No more win or lose, no more all or nothing. (Okay, maybe a little bit of all or nothing. I don’t want to be definitively black and white about this.) It is entirely possible to be both part of the solution AND part of the problem; I  think most of us are like that at least some of the time. It says something positive about you if you have enough self-awareness to recognize that you are part of the problem, and if it is a serious enough, complex enough, intransigent enough problem, then the effort, the incremental steps towards being part of the solution, are good enough. Working is enough. Trying is enough. There are also those who are only part of the solution, not part of the problem, and they will be the ones moving things forward; if those of us who are still stuck with one foot in the muck can just ooze out of their way, that will be enough.

Example? Sure. I do a lot of things right as a teacher. I focus on the actual material and the skills that students can gain from it. I am open and willing to take student input on what we will do in class, how long we will work on it, and so on, so I give them agency in their own education and also some ability to make their education more useful and appropriate. I care about them, but I do not mother them. I know and love my subject, and I model that love and that knowledge for them, as often as I can. So with the problem of, say, adults who don’t treat teenagers with respect but expect both respect and unending effort (and humility) from teenagers, I’m not part of the problem, only the solution. With the problem of education being detached from utility and from interest — the sort of education that stops at “The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell” — I am part of the solution and not part of the problem.

But when it comes to argument, I still tend to want to win, and to show myself as smarter and more right than my opponent, and I am all too willing to see my students as my opponents. I overwhelm them and cow them, and make them feel like they’ve been defeated, rather than like they’ve been taught. I do this in all of my arguments. I am aware of it; I am trying to fix it. I am trying to stop myself from taking up arguments in class; two years ago I inserted myself into a class assignment on writing argumentative essays, and I wrote essays in response to my students’ arguments; I don’t do that any more. So I’m learning. But it’s difficult, because I run a discussion-based class, and I want my students to offer attempts and theories, but I also want to challenge them to go further and explain better what their point is. Too often that challenging discussion can slip right into an argument.

So I’m working on it. Still not there yet. If someone else could come in and fix that for me, it would be great, thanks.

But that’s not the positive solution I wanted to offer today. (It’s part of it.) The issue I wanted to talk about today is the one from yesterday, the way that teenaged boys suck. I feel like I’ve got some connection to this problem, though not as much as someone who is actually raising a boy, so I can at least offer some suggestions.

The first one is the most obvious: toxic masculinity has to end. Not the competitive indoctrination, which is a separate issue; but the idea that men must be manly, must be strong and especially silent, must enjoy and appreciate only manly things: all that has to stop. The training in violence that comes with this also has to stop, for more reasons than just for the sake of the boys who our society makes into brutes. So if we can continue to work on the problems of bullying and emotional isolation and gender specific activities and traits and strengths, that would help enormously; I think those things would help all of us be less douchey, not just teenaged boys.

But yes: the thing that I believe will make the most difference with teenaged boys is the constant shouting in their faces that they must be competitive, and they must always strive to win. Sports is the first and most obvious issue here. Sports, especially little league sports, have to be changed entirely and immediately. We need to stop keeping score. We need to stop talking about winning and losing, and about doing whatever it takes to be the one on top.

That probably has to start with how adults consume sports. I was listening to NPR yesterday, and the news host was  talking about the Tampa Bay Lightning, a hockey team who just got eliminated from the playoffs in the first round by a team they were supposed to beat. And though part of me questions whether that is even news outside of Tampa Bay (or Columbus, the team that beat them), the larger issue was the tone of the story: the host actually asked a Tampa sports reporter if the people of Tampa felt angry and betrayed by the loss, in addition to being shocked and disappointed. And the Tampa reporter said: Yes.

Look: if your year, or even your day, is ruined by a game lost by a team that happens to share a zip code with you, you have bad priorities. I will die on this hill.

I am fully aware of the arguments for team spirit, how it brings people together and gives them something to cheer for and to bond over; but there is too much evidence that losing hurts more than winning, and that our time and money would be better spent on almost any other activity rather than watching professional sports (Just look at how “winning” a professional franchise affects a city) to sustain that argument. We’d be better off treating sports as something fun to watch sometimes, and more fun to play, if we’re not too hardcore about winning. That’s how sports should be treated with young boys.

That’s how everything should be treated with young boys. And with grown men. There are serious things that need to be taken seriously: the problems with the world, and the causes of suffering. That’s where we should be aggressive, and take no prisoners and never retreat and never surrender: getting clean water into Flint, Michigan. Ending the spread of AIDS. Peace in the Middle East. You want to teach your kids to fight? Teach them to fight those things. Fight to make this world a better place.

Otherwise, maybe we should teach our kids to just have fun. And we should mean it.

(To be continued.)

This Morning

Dusty 2 Comments

This morning, I am thinking about teenaged boys. I am thinking about why teenaged boys suck.

Why do I say they suck? Because teenaged boys are, almost without exception, annoying, obnoxious, lazy, cruel, abusive, self-centered, vicious, snide, concupiscent fools (Sorry, but I love that word and never get to use it;  means “horny.”) who would be better off locked in a box for about ten years and only let out when they stop being bastards.

Who am I to say these terrible things  about teenaged boys? Easy. I was one. And I was as much a bastard as any of them, and worse than most, because in addition to being a savage amoral wastrel, I was smart, and so my cruelty was particularly biting, and my foolishness was particularly poignant, because I could have been so much better than I was.

Fortunately, I survived it; too many teenaged boys don’t, because they team up with other spear-wielding thugs to kill the pig,  and end up being the pig. Once I got out of being a teenager, and realized just how terrible I had been for all that time, I mellowed: I got better. Most of us do. But I don’t think that all of us gain much from our experience other than regret; I’d like to use my knowledge of teenaged boys — knowledge that has since been reinforced by observation in my years working with teenaged boys — to try to make the situation better. See, I don’t think teenaged boys have to be this way. I think they are put into a position where being this way seems the best option, if not the only one. Left to their own devices, teenaged boys would still be obnoxious — all teenagers are — but not a tenth as bad as they are now.

First let me deal with that last dig at all teenagers. No, actually, first let me say that I genuinely like most of my students. There are a few who are really pretty rotten, but even those grow out of it in time. Most of them I get along with quite well. But that’s because I am a teacher, and I can get them in trouble; they are on their best behavior with me. But then I watch them interact with each other, and I remember how nasty we all are at that age. It’s that contrast, between how they treat me respectfully and kindly, and how they treat each other, with the basest and most flippant brutality, that makes me want to try to make them better, all the time, particularly to each other. Okay? This blog, regardless of the apparent bitter hyperbole (Bitter, it is; hyperbolic, it ain’t. If you think it is, watch a group of teenaged boys going to lunch together. Watch them pick out the weakest of the pack, and pick on him, relentlessly, mercilessly. Even if — especially if– all of them are friends. Friends make the best victims. I can attest to that.) is not born out of hate. I don’t hate teenaged boys, and I don’t hate my students. I know how much better they could be, and I am maddened and saddened that they aren’t like that.

Next thing: why do I say that all teenagers are obnoxious? Two reasons: one, because the teenaged years are hell internally, with the ravages of adolescence and the psychic pummeling of hormones. Everything sucks when you’re a teenager, and so you suck, too, because when in Rome… The second reason why all teenagers suck is because they are all in this impossible position where we start expecting them to act like adults, but we give them literally none of the pleasures and privileges that make adulting worth the effort it takes. Seriously: what makes it worthwhile for me to act like a grownup? I get respect; I get independence; I get freedom. I can have my own family, my own job, my own property. I can be in charge of my own life. And teenagers get none of that. The closest they come is being able to choose romantic partners — but often those choices get  refused by parents, or mocked by peers, or rejected by the would-be romantic partners themselves — and cars. Teenagers get cars. In exchange for having to drive everywhere their parents don’t want to, which at this point is everywhere. (Don’t even talk to me about how they don’t have to work and pay bills: many of them do work, and that work is in addition to their actual full-time job, which is being a student, and as one of the people who make that job hard because I make them do work, believe me when I say BEING A HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT IS NOT EASIER THAN HAVING A JOB.) And while we put all the responsibility we can onto teenagers, we don’t ever talk about that weight, that stress they have to carry; instead we talk about how lucky they are that they don’t have to deal with all the terrible things that adults  deal with. How is that supposed to make teenagers feel? They’re already suffering, and we run them this, “Just wait until you’re older, when things will REALLY suck!” Wow, thanks, Dad, now I’m motivated to try even harder and suffer more now. Because then I’ll get to keep on suffering my way through the rest of my life. Super!

But this isn’t about all teenagers; this is about the boys and the special ways that they suck. And the special reason for the extra suckitude of male adolescent humans is this: it’s competition. That’s right: I’m still on the same topic, just homing in on one particular aspect now. The rise of toxic masculinity. Also known as: Boys Will Be Boys.

We very carefully and meticulously teach all boys that competition is the only way they are allowed to find happiness. Sports, video games, playing Army with their friends; it doesn’t matter what era, what environment a boy grows up in: he is taught to fight, and to revel in victory. Even me, as non-competitive and anti-sports as I was, I was taught to take great pride in the fact that I was smarter than most other people. I was pulled out of class for advanced reading and advanced math; I remember in first grade I wasn’t even pulled out, I was just given access to the more interesting books to read, sitting in the classroom with all of my peers who were struggling with the Dick and Jane style readers while I got to read on my own; and my math workbook had some kind of banner on it reading “ADVANCED” in some large font that could be read all the way across the room, by the kids in the remedial section of the class. Spelling bees, gold stars, student of the month, honor roll; all of these things separate us into winners and losers as readily as do sports. And where girls are taught, at least some of the time, to play cooperatively, using their imagination,  playing dress-up and baking cookies for each other, boys are sent outside to wrestle and break stuff, especially each other.

(*Note: I recognize I’m being grossly stereotypical in this depiction of children’s upbringing, and of course there are exceptions; I had massive quantities of stuffed animals and was encouraged to use my imagination. Lots of girls play sports and are as competitive as any boy could ever be. I’m speaking in generalities. Bear with me.)

Breaking stuff, then, is really all we know how to do. So we get very good at it. We find each other’s vulnerabilities, and we stab at them, again and again. And the rest of society? They laugh, or at most, they say, “Take it outside,” with a strong intimation of “Come back with your shield or on it.” I was taught that story, that ethic, when I was a child. What the hell was I supposed to do with Spartan battle training when I was in elementary school? How was I supposed to think about it? How was I supposed to deal with that moral fable about the Spartan boy stealing food, keeping an animal concealed under his tunic while he is being interrogated by the farmer he is stealing from, until the boy drops dead because the animal has disemboweled him under his tunic, and the Spartan boy showed no sign of the pain. What the hell do I do with that? Do I admire it? Do I try to emulate  it? I do: because my friends will, and so will my enemies, and if I say, “Jesus Christ, that’s insane, that kid should have given up and admitted the thing was under his shirt,” my only reward for that honesty would be a contemptuous sniff and the old standby insult, “Pussy.”  Or something along those lines. I was taught that Spartan story in elementary school, while we were learning about the ancient Greeks. I did not learn how they admired close male bonds, both Platonic and romantic: I learned how Achilles savaged Hector, not that he did it as revenge, because Achilles was maddened with grief over the loss of his lover and companion Patroclus at Hector’s hands. No no, I can’t hear about that love; that’s gay, bro. Tell me more about how Achilles dragged Hector’s body around Troy through the dust of the battlefield. That’s manly as fuck. That’s the guy I want to be.

Did you know that in the Odyssey, Odysseus meets Achilles in Hades? And Achilles says that he regrets his famous choice, to die young and be remembered gloriously? The greatest of all Greek warrior-heroes, and he wishes he had lived a quiet life as a farmer, surrounded by loved ones.

Yeah, they didn’t teach you that story, did they? Or if they did, it wasn’t when you were young and impressionable? Or they didn’t emphasize that story, focusing instead on the slaughter of the Trojans by the Greeks in the wooden horse? Or the slaughter of the suitors when Odysseus finally returns home after twenty years away –and his first act is not to embrace his son or his wife, but rather to kill and kill and kill?

That’s what we teach boys. We teach them to fight and to win. No wonder that they act like everyone is their enemy, and they have to hurt them all, as much as possible: that’s what we want them to do. Teenaged boys suck because we do, and we pass that torch straight into their eager hands. Burning end first.

This Morning

Dusty Leave a comment

This morning I am thinking about competition’s price.

Competition pushes us forward, motivates us to work harder and to seek that competitive edge, that special something that separates the winners from the losers. The will to win is what makes Olympic athletes, and Fortune 500 CEOs, and America — particularly Donald Trump’s America. And as long as you are one of the people born with the opportunity to be a winner — someone with the physical gifts that an athlete needs, or with the background and connections to network your way to the top of a major corporation, or you happened to control half a continent with an embarrassment of natural riches, which was conveniently emptied of 95% of its population by disease just before you arrived to take over, well! Then competition can help you strive to achieve all of your potential, can create a situation where you can be dominant and reward you for that dominance. Competition can make you great.

But there’s a price. There’s always a price. Capitalism should have taught us that: there is no such thing as a free lunch. Somebody always has to pay. We think that the price we pay for winning is the hard work we put in to be the best, but that’s not it: that’s the labor that produces the end result, but it isn’t the cost of the raw materials, and it isn’t the waste that is left behind. Before I lose you with this oh-so-clever industrial metaphor (Which, I confess, is essayed with only the dimmest understanding of economics and industry, at least half garnered from civilization-simulator video games) let me make my point: the cost of competition is twofold. It consumes the soul of the winner, and the life of the loser.

Competition requires an environment where competition can thrive. That means it needs a contest, an opportunity for too many people to struggle for too few resources (Or, in the modern sportsing era where athletes “earn” the GDP of a small nation every year, it is too many people struggling for too many resources which are all consumed by one enormous glutton rather than being distributed to all in need) and for the possession of those resources to be claimed by the winner of the contest. This quite obviously hearkens back to natural selection, the struggle for survival, which also produces winners and losers — or, more appropriately, those who live and those who die. Competition takes that same instinct and channels it into a situation that is not life or death, with essentially the same result: all else being equal, those with greater determination win — the early bird gets the worm — but inevitably, those with the greatest adaptive advantages are selected. You can see it in sports, where athletes are bigger and stronger and faster than ever before.

But even more than that, for our strongest to survive in competitions, we have to train them, essentially from birth, to compete. Tiger Woods is a perfect example of this: he was raised, quite literally, to win. And so he won, and now he is back to winning, and I suppose that gives his life meaning and makes all his effort worthwhile. But look at the cost: look at the rest of his life. The man has destroyed his own family life; he has ravaged his standing and reputation in society in every way other than what standing he gets from the fact that he can hit tiny white rocks really, really far with a metal stick; he has damaged his body nearly to the point of crippling himself; he has struggled with substance abuse.

That’s what it looks like when you’re the best.

I mean, it makes sense. If you are raised and bred to compete, then you would be likely to compete in everything. Having just one wife wouldn’t be enough: you have to have the best wife, the hottest wife; and then you need more wives. Getting high isn’t enough, you have to be the highest in the history of highness: you have to beat out such luminaries as Snoop Dogg and Bob Marley, and when you try to hang with those guys, it’s gonna cost you. And when you aren’t gifted with a freakishly impossible advantage (That would be Shaquille O’Neal, who didn’t have to work hard to be successful, simply because nobody else in the basketball world was that big. Andre the Giant, as well.), then the cost of beating out other people with the same gifts you have is — well, whatever it takes. Sacrificing every other part of your life so you can get in more training is only the first step: after that comes cheating, and doping, and Lance Armstrong, who was gifted with natural ability (His lungs are preternaturally efficient, allowing him to move more oxygen and therefore put out greater physical effort for longer — like, say, when you’re riding a bike uphill) and a drive to win, and who still used performance enhancing drugs. And also ruined his otherwise successful life thereby. Of course, he wouldn’t have had that successful life if he hadn’t won, but it’s hardly his fault that our culture rewards only the first person across the finish line; I don’t doubt that Armstrong could have been top ten in every Tour he won, even without the walrus testosterone or whatever the hell he stuck in his veins.

And that’s the final cost. Competition may make winners: but it also therefore makes losers. And everything that winners gain, losers — well, lose. And the very nature of competition requires that loss to hurt, because otherwise the losers won’t strive to become winners. So at best, with only two people competing, competition creates as much overall suffering as it does overall reward. But of course there’s never only two competitors: which means that inevitably, in all cases, competition makes more suffering than reward. Competition hurts us. Always. Even, I would argue, those who do win, because at some point, no matter who you are, you stop winning. Athletes retire, companies get eclipsed by new up-and-comers or by simple shifts in the economy or the culture, and nations — no matter how great — fade and fall. Competition makes losers of all of us. That’s the price.

 

Tell me about the rabbits again, George.

Dusty Leave a comment

I’ve decided I want to be stupid.

If I were stupid, I couldn’t be a teacher. No, that’s not true: I couldn’t be a good teacher, but we all know there are plenty of bad teachers out there. So I wouldn’t be a good teacher any more, which is sad; but I wouldn’t know it, so there wouldn’t be any problem. What’s more, I wouldn’t ever worry about being a good teacher. I’d never have to worry about whether my students were really understanding the point I was trying to make, because I’d never have a point. I wouldn’t have to read their essays any more, and write comments on them trying to make them better, and feel the frustration when they don’t pay any attention to those comments but go right on making the same mistakes; I could start grading essays according to how many words they are and whether they follow MLA format perfectly and how many words over three syllables they use. I wouldn’t realize the damage that standardized testing does to students, and to education, because I wouldn’t understand the purpose or the power of education, and I wouldn’t know what an opportunity is lost when students are beaten down with tests; I’d just do what I was told, and teach to the test, and threaten my students with bad grades if they don’t pass. So I’d never have to worry about lesson plans ever again. I would swallow all of the snake oil that gets sold to teachers, and I’d believe everything the salesmen said about it, so I could change entirely my policies and lesson plans and teaching methods every three or four years; so I wouldn’t even get bored. Every day would be a PowerPoint presentation and a jigsaw lesson, followed by a standardized test. And you know what? I bet my students would love me. Because they’d never have to think, either.

If I were stupid, I couldn’t be a writer. But wait: that isn’t true, either. It just means I couldn’t write well. But – assuming I still wanted to be a writer, which I probably wouldn’t because I wouldn’t be able to see the world the way I do now and I wouldn’t care about what I couldn’t see; I wouldn’t believe that art could help make the world a better place, as well as making me a better person; I wouldn’t even believe that writing was an art, because I’d think that art was only painting pictures. So if I were a stupid writer, that would work out great: because my books wouldn’t take so long to complete, and I wouldn’t have to work so hard to write them well. I could just vomit out whatever drivel I wished about super-powered vampire werewolves who drive around at night in Lamborghinis (which I’d always call a “Lambo” because I couldn’t spell the full name) –

Dear God, I wouldn’t have to worry about spelling any more.

– fighting demons with their super-powered vampire werewolf kung fu and having sex with hot chicks at the same time. Then I could self-publish my e-books on the internet.

I bet they would sell a million goddamn copies.

I could stop reading challenging books: right now I am reading Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things because I will be teaching it to my AP class, and I am also reading Bertrand Russell’s Wisdom of the West (a condensed version of his three-volume A History of Western Thought) because I admire the hell out of Bertrand Russell and I am thirsty for more understanding of philosophy. But fuck that – sorry, screw that (if I were stupid, I’d believe that cursing is bad, especially the F-word): if I were stupid, I wouldn’t be teaching that strange and wonderful and ethereal and challenging novel; it’s got weird sexy stuff in it, and I’d know that was wrong to show to little kids like the high school juniors in my AP class. Plus I wouldn’t understand it because the story jumps around a lot and the plot is hard to follow. Plus I wouldn’t like it because it isn’t set in America and there aren’t any super vampire werewolves in it. Plus my class wouldn’t teach any full novels, because that takes too long and isn’t necessary to pass a standardized test that only asks you to read short passages and excerpts. And there’s no way I’d read philosophy, especially not a survey of philosophy starting in ancient Greece; I’d think the Greeks were homos and philosophy is gay. I’d get rid of every book like that and just read James Patterson. And books about sports. Though I’d prefer the audio books, because it’s easier and faster and not as boring.

Speaking of sports, I could watch football instead of spending my Sundays doing school work or reading or writing, and go to bars at night with my buddies and drink beer (and I’d just drink cheap American beer, instead of having to take the time to peruse the menu looking for good beer) and watch more sports and yell real loud when my favorite sports-squadron scored a goal-unit-basket. And I could wish that I had been good enough at sports to go pro, but known deep inside that it would never have happened, because I’m white and black people are better at sports. Which is why I would like baseball and hockey and NASCAR so much, because lots of white people are good at those sports. Though not hockey as much because they’re all Canucks and Russkies. Though watching the fights would be fun. And I could watch MMA and laugh when Kimbo Slice (That’d be a great name for one of my super vampire werewolves! Maybe I could change it to Jimbo, and then he wouldn’t sue me. Then I could make him white, too.) challenges his opponent to actually compare testicle size during a pre-fight interview.

Though I would have to worry about the size of my genitalia. And whether the size of my hands and feet gave an accurate representation of that size.

Speaking of hand and genital size, if I were stupid, I wouldn’t have to argue and debate and worry about politics: I could just vote for Donald Trump to make America great again, and go back to watching football. And then I could watch Fox News and never have to worry about reading or thinking about what is going on in the world: I could just be sure that America is the best country, that we have to have a strong enough military to keep everyone from invading us, but that if they did invade us, I’d be ready with all of my guns to fight them back, just like in Red Dawn, which would be one of my favorite movies. And maybe I’d have to worry about that socialist Bernie Sanders getting voted in, but I’d be pretty sure, in my heart of hearts, that America would never let that happen: I’d probably secretly believe that the Statue of Liberty and the statue of Rocky Balboa would come to life and drag Sanders down into New York harbor. And I’d never worry about that broad Hillary getting elected over The Donald: no way would America pick a woman over a man. We all know you can’t trust a woman with power – what happens when she has her period? She’d fire the nukes if she didn’t get enough chocolate ice cream! (I would have written Haagen-Dazs, but I can’t spell that, either. And Ben and Jerry are socialist hippies.)

I would believe that a wall on the border could keep out Mexican illegal immigrants. I’d believe that immigrants are bad. I could ignore uncomfortable irony like the history of my own family’s immigration to this country. Because I’m white.

I could chant “USA! USA!” without irony. And tear up when a small child or a crippled person sings the Star-Spangled Banner at my ballgames. And secretly hate that Beyonce sings better than anyone in country and western.

I could listen to country and western music. I wouldn’t have to change radio stations any more, because there’s only one country station here and I’d love every song because they all sound the same. I wouldn’t have to listen to challenging or depressing lyrics, or admire musical talent or songwriting ability; I’d just like the ones who say America is great and talk about drinking American beer and driving around in trucks. Which is all of them.

I could stop taking criticism to heart. I would think I was great because I am American, and a white male, and therefore I am the best people in the world, and everyone else is just jealous of what I have. Except for that genital thing. But I’m sure I could convince myself that there was no problem there. My hands are pretty big, after all. And it wouldn’t matter to me if people thought my writing was bad, or my teaching, or that I was behaving in any way wrongly: because I’d think they were haters, and Taylor Swift (who I would totally listen to, and try not to think about how hot I’d think she is because she’d be too young for me, but I’d know in my heart of hearts that she would totally have sex with me if I ever met her in a bar, because I am an American white male with not-too-small hands.) would have told me that haters gonna hate, hate, hate, and I just needed to shake it off. Man, that song is just so catchy! And that Kanye West guy is a racist. Though his wife is hot. And of course she married a black guy, because she’s got a huge butt and black guys like big butts. Sir Mix-A-Lot told us that.

If I were stupid, I would think that “were” sounds weird: because I wouldn’t know about the subjunctive mood and statements that are contrary to reality requiring a different verb; so I’d just say “was.”

If I was stupid, I wouldn’t worry about my diet. I wouldn’t care if animals suffered in factory farms, because they’re just animals and they don’t feel pain, plus the Bible says they’re here to serve us. I’d love bacon more than anything except steak, and best of all would be steak wrapped in bacon and topped with lobster. Wrapped in bacon. Maybe with a bacon milkshake on the side. I wouldn’t care about my cholesterol, because I’d know that America has the greatest health care system in the world and I could have all the triple and quadruple bypasses I needed when my ticker started giving out. And I wouldn’t care about my weight, because I’d lift weights – that is to say, I’d do it differently than I do now, because I would do bench presses and curls and maybe five sit-ups a week and call it good – because as long as my pecs and arms were big, I’d think I was hot, because check out these guns! Plus women don’t think the same way about appearance. Men are visual, they need chicks to be hot; but women just need them to be manly, so they feel protected and safe. And I’ve got all the guns I need. Get it? Get it? Because I meant my biceps AND the Glock on my nightstand!

 

 

Yes. I want this. Last night I went to see Of Mice and Men on stage, and it was lovely and heart-wrenching; but if I was stupid, I never would have gone to see it, and it wouldn’t have made me sad. And then afterwards, I spent a fair while writing an irritated response to a comment on Facebook from a woman who didn’t understand everything I was saying in my argument, but she was pretty sure I was a socialist and wanted to take tax money away from hard-working Americans to give to the junkies on welfare. But then I had to delete my reply. Because reasoned discourse is no longer acceptable in this country: all we care about is if people agree with us, and if they don’t agree with us, there must be something wrong with them; and if they tell us we are wrong, then we get offended. I had to delete the comment because I am a teacher, and teachers are not allowed – ever – to be offensive, even if the only reason we are offensive is because other people don’t like our arguments.

I had to delete my comment because six years ago, an offended woman on Facebook nearly got me fired and banned from teaching in Oregon by complaining about a comment I made, which led my employer to my blog, where I had written things that were true, but not polite, and not acceptable coming from someone who was supposed to love and protect and coddle all of the children while preparing them for the tests and cheering for them at football games, which is, I think, how most political entities view ideal teachers. I was called “morally reprehensible” for what I said. And the worst thing is this: that I have had to think about that, and whether it is true, and decide that to some extent it is, and then I have had to feel both shame and doubt because of it.

And last night, I realized: as long as I am a teacher in America, I will never be able to say exactly what I think, and I will never be able to argue, especially not about controversial issues like politics and guns and war and racism and religion and education, because telling someone that they are wrong, especially when they are, is offensive, and particularly for me because of my history, offending anyone, anyplace, anytime, could very easily get me fired. This means not only that I will always have to worry about what I write and post online, but also that I cannot use my abilities, my greatest assets – my intellect and my words – to do what I think is right, to try to make the world a better place through critical thought and reasoned argument, because I will never be able to argue, not as long as I teach. And probably not after that, because I’d like to be either a professional writer or own a small business, but if I make people mad at me by taking their bad arguments apart online, they will give me bad publicity, which will hurt my career, whatever career it is. I will always have to worry about what someone else will do to me if I tell them they are wrong. Because reasoned discourse is dead. We prefer circuses.

And I decided that I don’t want to worry about anything any more. I just want to do what I’m told and work hard and do the things that make me feel good.

I’d rather be Lennie than George. All the way to the end.