Sex Geek

Well, that was a big disappointment.

First of all, the theatres pulled two out of three of the remaining movies I wanted to see in order to complete my horrifically indulgent Oscar marathon.

Second, everything that won was totally unsexy. Which is unsurprising given that all the films this year were totally unsexy. I guess there wasn’t much of a choice.

Third, the ceremonies themselves were totally boring. What was with the annoying commentator roaming around backstage à la reality TV, with absolutely nothing interesting to say? Why did they give our darling Ellen so little screen time, and what was with the vacuum cleaner? Why didn’t anyone make declarations of incestuous love, climb all over the seats or even so much as have a horrendous fashion moment? I mean really. What a crock.

The best thing I can say about this year’s Academy Awards is that the lesbians were looking good. Ellen and Melissa Etheridge seemed to be wearing identical outfits for a good part of the evening, in light and dark versions: handsome fey-butch sorta-tuxedos with satin lapels, Ellen’s in pristine white, Melissa’s in elegant indigo. All the better that Melissa done won herself an Oscar, we got to see her stand up and model - and is it just me, or does her voice get sexier every time I hear her speak? 

Jodie Foster had Ellen’s haircut, only a bit longer and browner, but she was in a dress - not that she’s come out of the closet anyway. Which makes no difference to her hotness of course. I’m just sayin’. And Diane Keaton (who’s not a lesbian but who seems oddly compelling to them) actually wore a dress for once, and didn’t wear gloves. Here I was thinking she was an obsessive-compulsive germophobe. Guess I was wrong - she’s just weird. Well, at least she’s weird with style.

We were also treated to the sight of costume designer Milena Canonero accepting her Oscar for best costume design, clad in a classic tuxedo with a ribbonny kind of tie thingie happening. She mentioned her husband in her acceptance speech, but hey, I’m not picky about that sort of thing. Besides, it makes for an interesting statement when the only gal in a full-on tuxedo isn’t even a huge famous carpet-muncher.

That’s about all the mileage I can get out of my Oscar night. A few sentences about my sisters and their queer sartorial splendour.

Which, I suppose, is saying something interesting, if you think about it - that this year’s Oscars served as a showcase of lesbian style. Can’t say that often. And given that the Oscars are always a fashion show, with full-body shots of every celebrity plastered all over the glossy rags for months following, you can be sure that the tux theme will be picked up on a page of InStyle Magazine or something, much like they’re sure to have pages featuring gowns with chandelier collars and frocks in various shimmering shades of blue. Can’t wait to see what the saucy editorial will look like. Doubtless it’ll be a lot more tame than it should be, with no outright mention of the "famous butch dyke making a bold queer fashion statement" factor and overly glib references to "evening wear with a masculine edge."

As for the sexiness factor of the films themselves - better luck next year, I guess.

I never took to hockey, even though my ex-girlfriend played throughout the three years of our relationship. She used to get mad at me for bringing a book to her games, but I just couldn’t handle being bored as well as cold for 90 minutes while a bunch of girls, their hottie athlete bodies all masked by padding, chased a chunk of plastic around all over an icy rink. I mean come on, we have enough cold in this here country, why would I enjoy subjecting myself to more of it - indoors, no less?

I always found football to be excessively boring even though all my friends in high school were cheerleaders and my boyfriend played the game. Sure, the boys looked good from afar with their little spandex-covered butts and the exaggerated shoulders, but up close they spent more time drinking and acting like assholes than they did playing, and the "playing" part seemed to be a glorified version of checkers featuring a bunch of self-important bouncers with monosyllabic communication skills. (Yes, sadly, the stereotype really does ring true, much as I would have loved for them to all be misunderstood emotionally sensitive intellectuals with great politics.)

Really, the closest I’ve ever come to liking a sport is figure skating, and that probably has at least as much to do with the tiny skirts as it does with the triple-axels. There’s definitely something to be said for cheerleader skirts too - come to think, I did used to make a point of attending the annual provincial cheerleading competitions.

Hmmm. Maybe there’s a pattern here!

Well, in keeping with my general tastes in sports (attire?), tonight I attended Montreal’s first-ever roller derby game, played between Montreal’s Les Contrabanditas and Toronto’s Gore-Gore Rollergirls. And I gotta say, I am now officially a fan. I even bought a fucking t-shirt. And I might even wear it, which is saying something, considering I’ve had a strict no-logo policy in effect since I was 12 or so.

The game was for friends and family only; there was so little room at the venue that I couldn’t even bring a date. So I put on a polka-dot tie and a pair of wingtips - to get into the retro mood, don’tcha know - and went by my lonesome. But despite being all shy and stuff, by the end of the game, I was on my feet screaming and cheering, as the Contrabanditas took the Gore-Gore Girls 91 to 88 after a three-bout game that had girls flying into walls, tearing their fishnets and eating penalty after penalty as the refs nailed them for excessive elbow use and other such unsportswomanlike sins.

The Contrabanditas started out by taking the lead, and the Gore-Gores gradually lapped them until they were ahead. The Gore-Gores’ Lock’N'Roll was a total bruiser - if ever I needed convincing not to strap on a pair of quads myself and get on the track, she certainly provided it. 

The Gore-Gores inched their way forward point by point, with a couple of speedy jammers to their advantage, including the deceptively frail-looking Alicia Arsenic. They edged out the Contrabanditas in the second bout, and kept a lead well into the third.

The ‘Ditas went into a last-minute frenzy to regain their hoped-for win, with Special K pulling some solid moves to help them along, and they managed to nail a three-point advantage in the very last jam. The ‘Ditas’ Georgia W. Tush, a true crowd-pleaser, was as slippery as a buttered pig, and she slipped through the Gore-Gores over and over again, relying on her smooth skating skills and her signature move of faking an inside pass and then dodging to the outer edge of the pack to sail right by.

At the end of that final jam, bleached-blonde Tush flew out the front of the pack like a rock from a slingshot and slapped her hips to call off the jam while the audience leapt to its feet and screamed its approval.

Our Montreal girls were red-faced with arms and legs covered in blossoming bruises, but you shoulda seen their grins.

Maybe I should be a commentator. This is way too much fun.

In the latest issue of Velvet Park Magazine, Lyndell Montgomery (who knew she could write as well as play the electric violin and look all butchly and hot on stage?) writes after attending her first roller derby game:

"I left the arena in Camden, New Jersey that day with a grin the size of New York State. I had screamed and yelled so much and so loud that my throat was pulsing. Raw, like fresh floor burn. My hands were red and swollen from pounding on the floor trackside, but my soul… it had been saved. After all these years I had finally found the place redemption was housed. I walked out to my car a full-fledged, card-carrying member of the Church of Derby.

"In the true spirit of being reborn, let me just say that you too can get yourself saved.

"If you have yet to experience the whip crackling energy of 36 fully laced-up, charged-up, ass-thrashing roller girls about to face off in front of a sold out crowd then I have only one suggestion: Get thine self to the roller derby."

(By the way, Velvet Park is a new dyke culture glossy that I have gotta start writing for. Its latest issue is downloadable here in PDF format for free. Oh, and check out their cool slide show of derby girls all over the States.)

Well, I wouldn’t quite call it salvation, but tonight’s game sure was fun. Here’s hoping the next game is at a venue big enough for me to bring a date!

First, a rather exhibitionistic one: local hottie queer artist Val Desjardins has a new show, Coming Home, at Galerie Espace (4844 St-Laurent), featuring images of her in all her considerably genderfucked sartorial splendour. It’s only on for this week, until the 27th I believe, so git your ass down and check it out while you can. I hit the vernissage this evening with my friend n*q and enjoyed it thoroughly - and no, it wasn’t just the free wine. (Hic.)

If you want an idea of what the show’s all about, you can check out n*q’s interview with Val here, along with a few photos of the work. I was going to say "her work" except it sort of is and sort of isn’t - it’s actually the work of nine artists with her as the subject. Very interesting concept. I don’t know what I’d do if someone chose to interpret me via pale pink stuffed-satin-pillow renditions of seaweed and jellyfish suspended from the cieling with bra straps… but I doubt I’ll ever be asking nine artists to use me as their inspiration, either, so I guess I will never find out!

(Tidbit: Val officially confirms that the greenish-white substance sprayed on her face in her self-portrait is not, in fact, alien jizz, but rather milk mixed with dirt. Thank goodness. Apparently she and her collaborator didn’t even realize it might look like come. Don’t ask me, that’s what she says.)

Post-vernissage, having stuffed n*q with chocolate cupcakes (free at PreLoved in honour of their new collection launch - hot damn, who knew you could get so much free chow on St-Laurent?) and burritos (not free, but cheap), and buttered her up with all sorts of outrageous flattery (I swear, honey, I meant every word!) I managed to convince her she wanted to be my date for tonight’s Oscar-marathon flick Dreamgirls.

Which was, well, a whole lot of girl. Plus a whole lot of guys in really flashy outfits - I lost track of how many times I exclaimed "Oh, what a great tie!"

And yet… despite all the fantastic outfits and the great music… I did not find the film to be even the least bit sexy. It’s downright chaste, really - not a single make-out scene. The best we get is a couple of kisses here and there, and not even hot ‘n’ heavy romantic ones. I mean really… when there’s more of Eddie Murphy tapping out lines of coke than there is Beyoncé getting her freak on with her hubby… they must be missing the point.

Okay, okay, so watching movies is not all about the sex, and yes, a film can be good without sex. I haven’t got a completely one-track mind. But this one’s so very much not about the sex that there’s no edge to it. It’s a lot of fun, but I’d hardly say Oscar-calibre. Too fluffy.

I contented myself by appreciating the film’s many good wardrobe moments. I came out with a serious hankering for a menswear department (glittery diva gowns aren’t really my thing), and happily, I got home to a wonderful phone message from my fag friend M, who has decided he’d rather see his tie collection in circulation than gathering dust in his closet, and has thus offered me the opportunity to peruse it and pick whatever I please. Never mind the incompatible orientations… we’re truly a match made in heaven!

I guess sometimes it really isn’t about the sex. But the next best thing is when it’s all about the clothes.

Girls #1: fierce in fishnets

Y’know, I normally write in this blog about pretty much whatever’s on my mind on a given day. But when I’m working on a story for the Mirror, which of course means that the subject matter is on my mind, I end up feeling like I can’t write about that topic here because then I’d be scooping my own story, thus biting the hand that feeds me and potentially even offending my own journalistic integrity. It’s kinda irritating sometimes, particularly since the vast majority of what I write for them is of personal interest to me - the whole reason I write for the paper in the first place, after all, is because I sent them a note last year saying they needed more queer content (and offering to provide it) and they agreed.

Anyway, all of this to say, it was a fucking blast for me to write this week’s cover story (my first, yay!) about Montreal’s blossoming roller derby scene. I mean really… attending a practice in which fifteen girls in short skirts and fishnets and tattoos skate around, crash into each other and strike nasty poses for a photographer… yum. Better yet - and this little tidbit didn’t make it into the article - when I was interviewing one of the players, it became relevant to mention that I usually write queer articles, and she said "Oh, that’s great! Because there are a lot of, um, ladies on the team…" Needless to say, my gaydar was swiveling all over the place to see if I could figure out who was who. Honestly, I had a hard time guessing, but sometimes it’s even more fun that way. I think I’m a budding fan of the sport, so I’ll definitely be posting about it when they start having regular season games sometime in April.

Girls #2: lambasting and loving The L Word

In an effort to grow my inner geek to gargantuan proportions, I’ve taken on a self-directed reading project this year in which I’ve assigned myself four books a month - one serious queer or SM theory book (so I can justify my penchant for buying them), one "lite" queer theory or queer history book (slurp - brain candy!), one book for my newly relaunched dyke book club, recently re-christened the Queer Ladies’ Reading Society (details at the end of this post!), and one classic novel (to make up for my years of laziness in this department after switching from my English lit major to a translation major back in uni).

In an effort to give myself homework, I’m also aiming to report on each book when I finish reading it, and what better place to do so than a sex geek blog? Sorry, folks, you’re going to be subjected to my book reviews on a more regular basis in the next little while… assuming I can get my ass in gear. I’m not quite finished my last January book yet, and I have three out of four still to go for February, so clearly I’m a bit behind. Eek.

All of this preamble to say, I just finished reading - ahem - a book of theory on the topic of everyone’s favourite lesbian television show, entitled Reading the L Word: Outing Contemporary Television. It was sublime. I mean, what could be better than intellectualizing the newly glamorous pop-culture representation of lesbian lives? It’s already a little dated, since it deals only with seasons 1 and 2, and we’re now well into season 4. (Well, I’ve seen up to the end of season 3, but my buddy J and I have plans for a pirated-episode season-4 marathon in a couple of weeks so I’ll be all caught up.)

But even then… the book manages to be truly thought-provoking, with almost every essay offering some sort of well-articulated critique of the show. Does the show pander to a heterosexual male audience? Do they do a good job of including butch and trans characters and representing their realities with some degree of accuracy? What’s with the weird class representation? Are the sex scenes "lesbian" or "queer"? What about representations of biracial (African American/white), Jewish and Latina identity? Why is it that straight women are attracted to images of female masculinity? (Um, maybe they’re not so straight.) What is the show trying to say about monogamy, polyamory, promiscuity and other forms of relationship?

Despite how each essay picks apart the show - and some of them do so in pretty cutting terms - the ultimate conclusion of every single piece is, "But we love it!" I wonder if this is a result of the editorial decisions made by Kim Akass and Janet McCabe, or if it’s truly because every single person out there who criticizes The L Word also happens to be a die-hard fan. Who knows? At least as far as I’m concerned, they’re preaching to the choir - if I really didn’t like the show, I probably wouldn’t bother watching it. But since it’s both thoroughly enjoyable and frequently problematic, without tripping over the line into completely offensive, it’s definitely won me over.

Girls #3: seeing stars and finding the G-spot

Last night I saw the Montreal Symphony Orchestra play a concert that included Frank Zappa’s piece "G-Spot Tornado," which apparently earned his entirely instrumental album Jazz from Hell a parental-advisory lyrics warning label when it was released in 1986. Amazing, what was (is?) considered to be potentially offensive subject matter! Gawd, female pleasure is just sooo awful… especially when the piece ends with a resonant whack on a gong. Hee hee.

The Zappa piece, as well as the others performed last night, were chosen and presented by Pascale Bussières, a Montreal-based actress who gained lesbian celebrity when she played one of the two main characters in the 1995 film When Night Is Falling. Full confession: I haven’t seen the film, though I’ve had many a dyke look at me aghast for lacking this particular piece of lesbian culture. I’ll put it on the to-do list, I swear!

(Pascale is not, by the way, an actual dyke. Well, I don’t know what she gets up to on the weekends, but she’s married to a dude, has a couple of kids, and lives somewhere on the Plateau, from what I’ve been told.)

Anyway, it was kinda interesting to see the subtext in the evening’s program. I kept looking around, expecting to see a ton of classical-music-loving dykes poking each other in the ribs and grinning every time Pascale went up on stage to talk about why she chose a given piece. Unfortunately, my date and I didn’t see anyone nearby, so I don’t know if the concert truly attracted the kind of audience you might think. Nonetheless, lots of fun. Anytime an orchestra wants to tackle the intricacies of the female sexual arousal system, I’m all for it.

***

As promised!

INTRODUCING…

THE QUEER LADIES’ READING SOCIETY
For the bent and bookish

Ladies and gentlewomen, you are cordially invited to indulge your literary leanings in the company of like-minded dykes at Montreal’s new Queer Ladies’ Reading Society!

Join us for:
· friendly, informal discussion
· reading selections suggested by members
· occasional literature-related activities such as workshops, plays or films
· discounts on book purchases
· monthly e-mail newsletter
· meeting every 5th Monday at 6:30 p.m. at a location easily accessible by metro

The Queer Ladies’ Reading Society will hold our next meeting on March 26. Do join us! E-mail Andrea at veryqueer3 at yahoo dot ca for more info.

The QLRS welcomes woman-identified transfolk, genderqueers, lesbians, dykes, bi girls and queers, including bookish butches, gay girls in glasses, luscious lesbrarians, and lovers of classic cliterature.

In a lecture about sexuality in Canadian film a couple of years back, Tom Waugh, a professor in Concordia’s film studies department and the chair of the Minor in Sexuality Studies, said it seems as though we Canadians can’t just have happy, neutral-value regular old sex in our films. We have to make sex weird. (Just ask David Cronenberg.) If I remembered when he gave the lecture, I’d flip back for my notes and tell you what films he mentioned to back up this claim, but in the absence of this information, you’ll just have to trust me - the man knows what he’s talking about. After all, he did just publish a book on the topic.

Chris Gudgeon, in his book The Naked Truth: The Untold Story of Sex in Canada, seems to agree with the weirdness factor. In the concluding chapter to his volume of humourously presented research, he writes: "As I made my way through the tangled web of neurotica, I developed a respect for this country and its people." Unfortunately his book doesn’t really touch on the topic of sexual representation in our cultural products, but he certainly outlines the rich and twisted role that sex has played in our national history. It’s a great read if you can get your hands on it.

Just in case I needed any further confirmation that Canadians do it weirdly, or at least talk about it weirdly, all I had to do was read the unapologetically pansexual anthology Lust for Life: Tales of Sex and Love, edited by Claude Lalumière and Élise Moser, which has got to be the most tamely titled tome of completely fucking bizarre sexual prose I have ever come across. And that’s saying something. "Tame" is not usually the name of the game when it comes to such works.

It contains such gems as the tale of a soldier who doesn’t fuck a quasi-cannibalistic necromancer virgin; a guy who has conversations with his runaway wife’s suits; a pair of gloves that has an affair with a dismembered foot (by the brilliant Neil Smith, who just published his first collection of short stories, Bang Crunch); a guy who fucks a really old lady with the help of margarine; a bunch of teenagers who dress up one of their own as a girl to send him to wreak revenge on someone, without realizing their intended hit man gets off on wearing women’s clothing; a dyke who decides she doesn’t think her lover is sexy anymore; a pair of gay guys, one of whom likes wearing dresses but who isn’t a drag queen; a lesbian who prefers her imaginary friend to her girlfriend; a dude with a seriously messed-up Santa Claus fetish (ew! ew!); and a superheroine whose powers only rise when she’s aroused.

The anthology does not contain a single story I found arousing, with the possible exception of the gay-guy-in-a-dress one. And yet, somehow, the whole thing is pretty frickin’ good. The writing is totally solid in every piece, no exceptions, and the ideas are so freaky and twisted I couldn’t help but continue, tale after tale, to see what the hell oddity was up next.

I wouldn’t recommend it as wank material, but if you’re looking for some fresh writing and a few surprises, go find it. The True North brave and… freaky!

"If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution."

- Emma Goldman (or not, as the case may be)

***

Saturday night. Meow Mix. Super-hot drag show with King Size, Montreal’s slick new drag king troupe, and even hotter crowd. I spent most of the night in various states of dance and cuddle, which suits me just fine.

I had the good fortune of spending a good portion of that time in close proximity to a very hot tranny boy. Picture it: we’re dressed all sexy, we’re both sweaty, and we’re grinding like it’s going out of style. One song ends and the next song comes on: "Short Dick Man."

Um. What exactly does one do in such a circumstance?

It’s not exactly subtle, as far as song lyrics go. "Don’t want no short dick man… Teeny weeny eeny weeny shriveled little short dick man… Aww, it’s so cute, an extra belly button! … You must need tweezers to find that… Put that shit away…" It ain’t rocket science: small is not only bad, according to this tune, it’s laughable.

Trans guys are not exactly known for having enormous pulsating phalli. Some of them are extremely upset about this - and understandably. If a person feels like they were born in a female body that’s not quite right, and they spend a considerable amount of time and effort (read: self-analysis, therapy, hormones, surgery, etc.) to gain the male body they feel they should have, a good portion of the time they’ll achieve some degree of success. But surgical technology is simply not advanced enough to have come up with a reliable method of creating a functional penis, not to mention there are risks of sensation loss for any such surgeries, not to mention they can be damned expensive.

So a great many trans guys have a testosterone-modified clit (which they may call other things), rather than an organ that, size-wise, resembles a biologically male penis. For some, this is just fine; for others it causes a great deal of gender-dysphoric distress. And given that I’m not generally inclined to quiz relative strangers about their intimate feelings regarding their own genitalia, that particular piece of information is the kind of thing I’m only ever likely to know about a given FTM if we’re in bed together. Not on a dance floor.

I don’t particularly buy into the "size matters" thing, personally. Sure, when it comes to phalli, big is nice, but general competence is a whole lot more important. And I have yet to find someone whose cock can out-size-queen a fist. So really, the phallus itself, in terms of sexual practice, while potentially enjoyable if it’s attached to someone who knows how to use it well, is largely irrelevant in my criteria for judging whom I might want to sleep with.

And as for my own phalli, well - I’ve definitely had a few people express great enthusiasm about the idea of my having one, but nobody’s ever pulled out a ruler. And dyke phallus size is conveniently flexible. I remember one instance in which I laid out my favourite small- and medium-sized cocks for my partner at the time to choose from. The conversation went something like this.

Me: "So, what do you think?"

Him: "I think we should stick with the small one, I’m not sure I can take the big one."

Me: "You haven’t seen the big one."

In other words: depending what you’re aiming to stuff it in, sometimes size is more of a liability than a selling point.

But our society is obsessed with the idea that the phallus is representative of masculinity, virility, strength, prowess, sexual competence and so forth. And while sex radicals have done an admirable job of queering the phallus, and detaching it (often literally) from its dependence on or relevance to biological maleness, the wider cultural message is still that penis equals man, and the bigger the penis the better the man.

If that weren’t still the case, we’d have no call to keep parodying the connection - I lost track of how many times King Size referred to cocks, packing, balls and so forth within the eight or ten acts that night. The drag troupe’s very name is a tacit reference to the idea of phallus size. The size thing is kinda undeniable as far as cultural tropes go.

So here I am, trying to get dirty on the dance floor with a hottie who espouses at least some version of maleness enough that he physically and legally transitioned from a female to a male gender identity. And I’m suffering from a political crisis: is this song insulting? Is it reinforcing a heterocentric cultural norm that’s damaging to queer existence and condescending to queer sexuality? Is it ironic, because it’s being played in a queer setting that’s explicitly welcoming of trans folks, even more so in a context where phallus size was just the object of parody for an hour or more on stage? Is it bringing up really painful insecurities for my dance partner? Or am I making way, way too much of this?

My solution: I just kept grooving. So did he. We didn’t talk about it. We had a fucking great time and stayed on the dance floor all night. I guess sometimes, when faced with the dilemma of how to respond to confounding cultural messages, that’s really the only appropriate response.

Just a quick little Oscar update: the trend continues. Not sexy!

Letters from Iwo Jima: Clint Eastwood normally does a brilliant job directing, and his latest is no exception. But somehow, he managed to create an entire movie with no women in it. Well, they show up as offscreen recipients of letters. And in one or two brief flashback scenes. And that’s it. So much for hetero or lesbo action. But even though every single character is a soldier, being that the film is set in Japan during wartime, and even though they’re in tight quarters most of the time, there was zero homoeroticism either. Clint, baby, you missed the boat!

Blood Diamond. We are treated to another dose of Leonardo DiCaprio, this time as a white South African who’s a soldier turned mercenary smuggler. We are also treated to the presence of the truly lovely Jennifer Connelly, whom the Substitute Date likes to refer to as "man-hands" because, well, her hands are pretty manly. It’s true. (Substitute Date does not say this to be flattering, but I think it’s hot. Gimme a woman with a chunky thumb joint any day.)

Anyway, there’s a bizarre romance between them, which I personally had a really hard time believing, and they didn’t help matters by not even kissing. Like not even once. Like not even the hint that such a thing might happen. They were more like accountants discussing a possible future merger than like two people desperate for connection in a war-torn country while they play at the high-stakes game of diamond smuggling and investigative journalism, respectively. For all that the story is highly dramatic and in many ways heart-wrenching, there is so little chemistry between these two that I was hard pressed to understand why they even bothered to make romance part of the plot.

As far as I’m concerned, they should have spent a lot more time with Djimon Hounsou (nominated for best supporting actor), who is by far the most riveting character of the whole film. Oh, and he gets nekkid. They use artfully placed shadows and stuff to attempt modesty, but good lord, they couldn’t hide that the man is buff.

And that’s all for now. At the moment I’m beginning to think the sexiest thing about the Oscars will be Ellen DeGeneres, who is hosting the ceremony next Sunday night. And while I love Ellen and all, and while it’s great that they’re putting a dyke up on the podium, I really don’t think she’s all that particularly hot, so this is a sad state of affairs.

Head & Hands is aiming to create a zine on the topic of sex education - a sort of memorial for it, now that our wonderful progressive home province no longer provides any in schools. The topic inspired me, so I wrote a piece, which I just sent in about three seconds ago. I figure that thanks to the DIY nature of zines, it won’t hurt anyone’s profits if I post that piece here… so here it is. In case you’re inspired to write something as well, I’ve posted the call for submissions at the end of this blog post too!

***

The Battle-Axe
By Andrea Zanin

Picture it: a battle-axe teacher with short black hair and heavy glasses, with red lipstick so bright it glowed like a traffic light. She ran her classroom like a boot camp, insisting on perfect spoken French and homework handed in on time… or else. She was in charge of sex ed. It was 1993.

Sure, I’d gotten the Tampax(TM)-sponsored lecture about “how your body works” in grade school. I went home with pamphlets featuring pictures of pads soaked in what looked like clear blue windshield-washer fluid – which sure as hell didn’t look like the bright red gunk that leaked out between my legs every month. Nonetheless, at age 11, I felt like a grown-up with my little lavender plastic pack of cotton bullets, finally sharing in the sacred, sanitized secret of womanhood. I was in university before I learned about sustainable, unbleached, and reusable menstrual supplies that would be good to both my cunt and to the planet instead of being toxic to both.

Later, I’d seen the condom demonstrations – tear, pinch, position, roll – as the other kids tittered around the edges of the classroom to hide their discomfort. To this day I wonder if it was discomfort with the idea of safer sex, or discomfort with the non-representational “condom demonstrator” that resembled nothing more than a rounded-off wooden rolling pin… and looked nothing like the penises of my last two boyfriends in shape, colour or texture. Where was the mushroom-shaped head, with the gentle but sensitive hurdle of its ridge to pass over before the sheath could be easily smoothed down the shaft? Where were the pubic hairs you wanted to make sure you didn’t catch on the latex? Where was the advice on how to deal with a softer hard-on, the kind they get when they’re nervous or drunk or tired, the kind that makes it difficult to put on a condom? Why didn’t they talk about lube, and how its use makes condoms less likely to tear, particularly during anal sex?

At various points, I’d watched packs of birth control pills passed around the classroom, generally to a bunch of girls who’d already been popping them for two or three years by that point and a bunch of guys who were completely disinterested. My own affair with the Pill lasted from age 15 to age 20, when I saw a documentary about unethical testing on poor women in foreign countries and vowed I would have no part in its results. Where was that information in high school? Why didn’t they tell me I could use a certain dosage of my pills as morning-after contraception even if I stopped using them regularly? Why didn’t they warn me the hormone doses might make me vomit?

It’s easy to criticize now, but at the same time I’m thankful. My friends in the English school system barely got half the information I did; I found myself passing tidbits down the teenage pipeline and carrying condoms with me at all times to slip to friends at house parties. And three quarters of the real, practical information I was armed with when I started having penetrative sex, I owe to the Battle-Axe. She attacked her subject with ruthless precision and heroic thoroughness. And she changed my life.

She started by handing a list of words around the classroom. Sexisme. Homophobie. Grossesse. Viol. We had to memorize their definitions. For a test, no less – and for in-class discussion! I’d never seen the word homophobia used in school before, only in a couple of articles that I once furtively clipped from my aunt’s bathroom magazines, recognizing some kindred queer souls in the pages of Châtelaine. Sexism, pregnancy and rape – those I knew, but to discuss them in detail in polite company was another story entirely. But the Battle-Axe spoke forcefully and thoroughly, with nary a blush colouring her cheeks. No time for shame. We had work to do, and everyone was expected to contribute. So we did. We learned to talk about sex.

We moved on from there to thick booklets containing detailed descriptions of every STI known to humankind, along with their symptoms, treatment options, and risk factors. We got a repeat of the usual birth-control demonstrations, except that she gave the nurse a whole period and quizzed us like a drill sergeant the following class. IUDs, the rhythm method, the Pill – we knew their effectiveness rates like so many multiplication tables by the time she was through.

The Battle-Axe gave us access to sexual health information, and drilled us until we developed the ability to talk about it. These things have saved me from ever needing an abortion, from ever contrating an STI, from ever lacking the ability to negotiate what I want and don’t want in bed.

Funny enough, I don’t even remember the Battle-Axe’s name. But I kept her classroom materials until I was well into my twenties… and I’m still holding onto her lessons today.

***

Sex-ed Zine – call for submissions!

Remember Sex Ed? Everybody has a story of wooden penises, condom jokes, STI villains and awkward silences. Some might even have vivid memories filled with clinical details of genital anatomy or a really hot sex ed teacher. Since sexual education mysteriously vanished with the 2005 educational reform, how will it be remembered? How will it be re-imagined?  We want to know.

Submission Guidelines
· Editorials (750wds)
· Short Stories & Prose Poems (750-500wds)
· Poems (1-2pgs)
· ComixsPhotos (1-2)
· Illustrations (1-2)

Purpose: This zine is meant to share stories and dialogues about sexuality & identity funneled through the education system. We want to see what happened during sex ed classes now that they aren’t happening anymore. Our mission is to create a space to re-imagine a curriculum that can handle the ambiguity of sex, identity and power.

Your contribution will further Head & Hands/À deux mains’ Sense Project which aims to provide high school students with youth-friendly, comprehensive and peer-based sexual education. Help it grow by submitting your art & stories, making a donation or becoming a volunteer!

DEADLINE for submissions: March 1 st, sexedstories@yahoo.ca
Interested in editing, design or illustration? Contact: Nadine or Christina at Head & Hands 514-481-0277 funds@headandhands.ca sexedstories@yahoo.ca

Mail copies of illustrations & comix to: Sex Ed Zine Project - Head & Hands/À deux mains, 5833 Sherbrooke O CP 446, Succ. NDG Montreal, Quebec H4A 3P8

The annual Oscar marathon is in full swing. For those who are new to my annual tradition: every year, I go see as many of the films nominated for Oscars as I can. It’s my yearly pop-culture catch-up game, and a great excuse to eat greasy popcorn and M&Ms way too much over the course of a month. (Pairing each film with a trip to the gym does help, mind you, if nothing else than my conscience.)

Last year I had a field day: Brokeback Mountain, Trans-America and Mrs. Henderson Presents totally gave me my fill of high-emotion man-on-man action (though the lack of lube definitely made me squeak in sympathy), trans representation (however flawed) and nude retro-showgirl ogling time.

This year… well, the pickings are a little slimmer. So far, nothing particularly sexy.

Well, OK, maybe just a bit.

Pan’s Labyrinth isn’t sexy. Gorgeous and original, yes, but not sexy. Except maybe for the scene where the long-suffering head maid / informer to the guerrilla troops is tied up and (it is implied) about to be raped by the captain she serves by day, and she cuts herself free with her handily hidden knife and stabs him a few times instead. The best part of that is when he falls to his knees and she sticks the knife in his mouth - "It wouldn’t be the first time I’d gutted a pig" - and then slices his face open. The look of surprise, fear, anger, arrogance and admiration on his face is lovely, all the better when blood is involved. Yeah, all right, my idea of sexy might get a little cruel sometimes. So sue me. I promise I don’t cut anyone’s faces up in real life, even if I like watching it in the movies.

Babel isn’t sexy. Except for the totally too-short scene where the (later) woefully mistreated dumpy middle-aged nanny gets to make out with an equally dumpy middle-aged man during her son’s wedding. It’s such an unlikely scene to even have been left in that I was totally tickled. It’s great when the Brad Pitts and Cate Blanchetts of this world aren’t the only people deemed worthy of having make-out scenes. I suppose if you’re into teenage girls throwing themselves at older men, there’s some degree of sexiness in a few other scenes as well, but I appreciated them far more for their dramatic value than for anything hot.

The Departed isn’t sexy. Really well done and thoroughly engaging in a brain-teaser-cum-action-flick kind of way (head-smashing, gun-shooting and other forms of brutal violence abound) but not particularly sexy. It was - how do the critics say? - plot-driven, not character-driven. So although there’s lots of Bostononian-Irish cop/thug eye candy, for those who are into cops and thugs (not really my thing)… and although there’s the obligatory love interest, who’s admittedly easy on the eyes in a pleasantly un-plastic sort of way, and who does, in fact, turn out to be more relevant to the plot than for simply sleeping with two of the main characters… still, I maintain: not sexy. Really, the sex scenes (what few there are) feel a lot more like minor plot devices than anything resembling screen-sizzling chemistry. Though if watching a bashed-up Leo DiCaprio with anger management issues make out with someone turns your crank, by all means knock yourself out.

The Queen… well, by the title alone, and the basic premise that it deals with the British Royals, it should be clear that the film is most definitely not sexy.

Notes On a Scandal, though… sexy.

Picture it: Cate Blanchett (she does seem to be popping up a lot in these here Oscar-nominated films, doesn’t she?) making out with a bright-eyed fifteen-year-old boy. It’s the first film I’ve seen to turn the age-difference cliché on its head - Loving Annabelle, Image+Nation’s lesbian version of the same-old same-old, was tiresome and predictable despite the promise of titillation. But Notes delivers the goods. Complexity, chemistry (believe it or not!), believability. Dame Judi Dench is wonderfully twisted as Blanchett’s battle-axe colleague and new "friend"… her character gives a whole new meaning to the idea of the lesbian vampire, without a single kiss exchanged or L-word spoken. I don’t want to spoil anything more than I already have. Suffice it to say: dripping with subtlety, gorgeously acted, and thoroughly enjoyable. My favourite so far. And nobody even gets tortured!

(By the way - in case there are any die-hard readers out there who are still curious - I never did write back to the 19-year-old who cruised me via alt.com. I know, total cop-out. I promise next time a teenager hits on me, I’ll give you something more interesting to read about.)

Well, at least one film gave me something worth writing about. Five down, six to go. I will surely post again about the sexy factor in the rest of the nominations, provided they give me something to work with! With only one out of the five I’ve seen so far featuring a plot or characters that are even close to meaty in the sexuality-analysis department, I’m not feeling too hopeful.

I’m in the process of having a very interesting conversation with a friend who’s a drag king, and as a result I’ve been thinking about drag a lot lately.

I remember the first time I ever went out in full drag. It was to a Boudoir event about three years ago. I borrowed my (now ex-) boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend’s tuxedo to wear. (Goes to show what his taste in women is like, doesn’t it? Which I suppose also says something about my taste in men…)

I arrived at the event in the tux, complete with tails and cufflinks, sporting a carefully applied goatee. (Insider tip: don’t use spirit gum. Use eyelash glue.) The reaction was… well, kind of amazing, actually. Women who had never looked at me twice were all of a sudden all over me. Women who normally flirted instead started to clap me on the back and compliment my sartorial tastes. (Despite how the tux’s owner had an ass at least two sizes smaller than mine, and I think it showed. Thank goodness for tailcoats.) It was bizarre and fascinating.

Of course, after the third time a woman made a grab for my crotch, it sunk in that I might have done well to pack something there. I don’t think the ladies were expecting exactly the "real thing" they got. In a fit of panic, I recruited an FTM friend of mine (who was in full girl-glam drag at the time) to help me figure out what the hell to do about the crotch situation. He marched me to the merch table and told me to pick out a t-shirt. I took a cute little baby tee, and he rolled it artfully into a six-inch tube and sent me off to the bathroom to stuff it in my underwear. It made for a most impressively sized package, but at least it protected my bits from gratuitous gropings on the part of women I wasn’t sleeping with.

Hey, wait a sec…

Oh well. I guess there’s always next year.

Anyway, I realized at the time that, while wearing someone else’s suit and store-bought facial hair was fun and all, it didn’t really constitute a strong expression of my gender. And not because I don’t have an inner guy clamoring to get out. I do. He’s just a lot more like Prince than like Frank Sinatra. Or maybe Annie Lennox, circa 1983, who’s somehow more convincing while still being pleasantly androgynous.

I’ve always liked RuPaul’s saying, "We’re born naked, and everything we put on after that is drag." That’s what it feels like to me, at least. In my head, I am a perfectly androgynous creature, with a body that’s gender-indistinguishable, or perhaps fully convertible depending on the day. I’ve had intense dreams in which I can shape and mold my body like clay… they leave me feeling mildly panicky when I wake, as though my limbic state were screaming at me that I need to get with the program and start working on my shape-shifting skills, and some part of me believes I should actually be able to do it if I could find the right magic spell or take a purple pill.

Unfortunately in the physical world I’m stuck with a body that’s kind of unmistakeably female. Which is totally great on the days I feel like a girl. When I’m a boy it’s a little harder to handle, and that’s more and more often these past couple of years, though the vast majority of the time I’m somewhere in hybrid territory.

This is nothing new, although perhaps I’ve developed the language to articulate it a little better in the last few years. When I was 12 I started weight training in the hopes of tailoring my body into some sort of more androgynous shape. It worked to a point, but I’ve let it slide for a long time now. Then again, I just got a new gym membership last week, so perhaps I’ll get back there! In the meantime I’ve developed a stupidly large wardrobe as a coping strategy. Really, it’s kind of scary to realize that I feel a deep need for shoes in every colour, in both girly and boyish versions. Or maybe more like "tough-as-nails diesel femme top" and "flashy retro greaser fag" versions. Or something like that.

It’s funny… unlike a lot of butch dykes, FTMs and drag kings of my acquaintance, I never had the experience of wanting to try on my father’s clothing when I was a kid. I learned to tie a tie from a website rather than from clandestine observation. Then again I have no interest in being the kind of man my father is; I’d much rather be a metrosexual than a military man. I also never wanted to try on my mom’s clothes, either, except her high heels, and same goes for my feelings about being like her, though for entirely different reasons - I’d much rather be Wonder Woman than Supermom.

You’d think that drag would be a great option for the likes of me. But oddly, the experience of doing full drag (breast-binding, facial hair etc.) only makes me feel like I’m in costume, rather than expressing some deeper piece of me. Most often, I’d rather wear lipstick with my tie, or pack under a skirt with my cock tucked into a garter… that feels more accurate to me.

I coined a term for that feeling of accuracy a few months ago. When I’m feeling perfectly attuned, sartorially and corporeally, with my gender du jour, I like to say I’m feeling well-gendered.

I get twitchy sometimes when I’m poorly gendered. Like at a recent family wedding when my budget-conscious self said "Dammit, you’re gonna wear that gorgeous dress because you didn’t buy it and pack it and iron it just to stuff it back in your suitcase!" while my boy self said, "But I brought a shirt and tie, too, and that’s what all the other guys are wearing, except mine are really well-coordinated and they set off the colour of my eyes!" I went with the dress. I regretted it. It was too late. It was equally impossible to change from a button-down shirt into something sexy and cleavage-baring the other day when I realized I was feeling way more like a pin-up goddess than a pinstriped pencil-pusher.

Such is life. I can’t pop a Prince pill or take an Annie injection, and I can’t quick-change in a telephone booth every time my pants don’t match my psychic private parts. Physical transition of any kind is pretty much out of the question; if I went whole hog and started shooting up testosterone I’d be just as grumpy about things like pesky body hair and deflated breasts when I felt girly as I am now about things like inconveniently rounded hips and lack of muscularity. Hybridized physical gender hasn’t really become a viable option yet, and honestly I’m not sure if it ever will - how could one possibly keep a concrete body in line with a shifting gender with any reliability?

For the moment, I’ll settle for shoe-shopping.