8:51 a.m. - 2007-02-23
Naked? Embarrasing, and Awesome
There is a billboard on the way into San Francisco from the East Bay--and just the one, because San Francisco is SO anti-corporate, ohmygah, except there are a couple of dozen--for a company that goes by the name of Abercrombie and Fitch. Terry Pratchett wrote that there IS such a thing as hate at first sight, and the first time I saw Abercrombie it was the beginning of a lifelong relationship, the kind that begins in tight smiles and ends in gunplay. I might have hated it because everyone who annoyed me in high school wore it. I might have hated it because I didn't understand why you would pay for clothes that looked old when you could just buy old clothes. I might have hated it because I heard that this arch-conservative more-money-than-God Daughter-of-the-Republic-of-Texas who was so much my nemesis that we actually sort of liked each other (girl was evil but never stupid, and there's something truly wonderful about a worthy adversary) decided, when it was time to get a job, to work there. She didn't last a week, because folding is hard, but nevertheless, their nefarious essences were forever intermingled. I might even have hated them because I instinctively new what I late discovered: that they are a racist company that really only has time or jobs for attractive white people. You can be a gorgeous African-American man and even vote Republican, but if you wear dreads, you're fired. Yeah, a bunch of fucking gems over there at A&F.
For whatever reasons I might have hated them before, the reason I hate them now is that billboard, a billboard for a clothing company that had NO. CLOTHING. ON IT. Just a man's naked chest. Because San Francisco might be the only city in the world where pecs guarantee more profits than tits. I hate Abercrombie because at some point they decided to stop denying the intense homoeroticism of their ad campaigns and start embracing it, and I seriously could not go ANY-FUCKING-WHERE in San Francisco without seeing a guy in Abercrombie, and I don't mean seeing some twenty-something boy, or rather I don't JUST mean seeing a twenty-something boy. I mean men in their forties and fifties in their Abacwombie and Fitch vintage T-shirt and it made me want to go up these men, slink up next to them, and whisper gently in their ear, "You're going to die someday, no matter what happens."
Not that it's limited to San Francisco by any means. See a well-built guy in Abercrombie and a caesar cut and even money he LOVES the cock. Then there was the day, and I believe it was my birthday, back when I turned 20, that I saw a boy dressed all in pink in a parking lot singing that DAMN song that was out at the time, "I like girls who wear Abercrombie and Fitch!" only he then followed up with, "Gay version! I like boys who wear Abercrombie and Fitch!" I can't remember whether I actually started banging my head into the table at TGIFriday's or if I just let out a Sideshow Bob style shiver: "Ughghghghgh . . . "
So imagine driving into a city every day and seeing something that celebrates all that is racist and classist about the beauty myth and knowing that it is aimed right at you, that it presides over the place where YOU are trying to go and get laid like the Eye of Friggin' Mordor. I don't mind telling you that every time I looked at it I didn't feel any lust or desire, just a voice saying, "You don't belong here, fat-ass." And it wasn't as if the men of San Francisco were going out of their way to correct it.
Except of course, for the bears. The bears celebrate a different male form, one closer to my own. If anything, they celebrate a male form heavier set than my own. I went to a few bear nights in San Francisco, and I even made out with a guy at one of them, but eventually they wore thin (ha ha-ugh). Like I said in my previous entry, all the guys there had the same haircut. A lot of them had the same facial hair. It can be just as disconcerting to look out at a bunch of people dressed the same even if they look like you, or more like you, than if they look different. You start noticing the ways that you don't fit in all the more. You notice that there is this celebration of masculinity going on, that there probably aren't a lot of guys in the room who are going to want to hear you talk about Judith Butler and Kate Bornstein. There are probably also very few who are going to want to swap vegan recipes with you. And, of course, you notice that there are a lot of Abercrombie and Fitch T-shirts, and that the only difference is that they're tighter across the belly.
Nevertheless, I envied a lot of these men. They seemed to have no problem with their bodies, taking pride in their size and what it represented. They took off their shirts just the way that so many gay men in the non-bear clubs and parties did, pressing flesh against one another. It . . . I don't know. I took my shirt off a couple of times, but I was self-conscious. I didn't think anyone was looking at me with anything like desire, although I can verify that, at least on one occassion, someone was. Mostly, though, I just didn't like being on display.
Maybe that means I have low self-esteem. Maybe it means I'm just shy. But when Ani DiFranco's latest album came out, there was a song on there that I started listening to whenever I drove into San Francisco, a song called "Half-Assed" that I had on every time I drove past the Abercrombie and Fitch sign that reminded me that I somehow didn't look the way I was supposed to look, as though that sign knew my body better than I did. The second verse goes into the chorus with these lines: "I just want to tune out all the billboards, weld myself a mental shield. I just want to put down all the pressures and feel how I really feel. Just show me a moment that is mine, its beauty blinding and unsurpassed. Make me forget every moment that went by and left me so half-hearted, 'cause I felt it so half-assed."
These days, I am a lot closer to that billboard than I was, although I am still a good few dozen pounds away from it. It's rough. It feels awesome to look better than I once did, but there's a voice in my head that keeps up its J'accuse, saying "Sell out . . . sell out . . . sell out . . . " in the voice of an old friend of mine (any Penn peeps remember John Holz? The man could say sell-out better than anyone). If I tried to argue that I've been exercising for health or the euphoria of exercise, I hope I'd have the good grace not to keep a straight face. I am doing this to try to look better, to make myself more attractive to members of the same sex. The beauty myth is the hook. I am the fish. I have been filleted.
But, is there a way out of it? Is there a way around it? The other day, I was rehearsing at my friend Thora's house, working a scene with her. I was feeling wonderful, not only because Thora is an OUTSTANDING actress on par with the best I've worked with, but because it was the first truly warm day of the year. It is rare that winter comes to Texas, but boy did she show up this year, so it was wonderful to return to more typical February weather--sunny skies and 78 degrees--even if we knew it meant that we'd have another insufferable summer on our hands. We were outside, and Thora brought out the kiddie pool for her two-year old daughter and the neighbor's girl to splash around in, and as I stood there leaning on the chicken wire that kept Thora's chickens out of Thora's freshly planted mung beans, I thought it would be a great time to get started on my tan.
I don't think I've had a tan torso in years. I am not someone who takes his shirt off, ever. Even when I went swimming, I'd wear a T-shirt, preferably a dark one so my skin wouldn't show through. But there was no time like the present, and so I took my shirt off in front of another person, outside, in full light.
It felt wonderful. It was lovely to have the sun on my skin, to feel my shoulders getting warm. More than that, though, it felt wonderful to feel unashamed with the way I looked. I may not have been an Abercrombie Model, but I looked decent enough not to scare a two-year old. I was proud of my body, but I didn't need anyone else to admire it. I just wanted to let it feel the air, and I found myself running my hands over it, just to enjoy the feeling.
A few days ago, I got a phone call from the Boy. I didn't pick up the phone, because I was rocking out with Jaana and Julia's Core Rhythms Salsa Workout. I knew he was going to call. I'd emailed him earlier that day because it was the memorial service for a professor of his who passed away. He texted me during rehearsal and said he'd call, and, witnessing my reaction, my actress said, "You really like this guy." I said I did, but that this wasn't necessarily a good thing. Anyway, when I checked the message he said he was calling while waiting for the subway, just to check in. That sucked, to know I was a waiting-for-the-subway kind of phone call. He was headed into the city, presumably to have a gay old time.
I was jealous for a minute, that he was going into San Francisco to flirt with boys and be flirted with right back. But then I thought of the billboard, and all those guys in Abercrombie and Fitch, and I remembered that I never really had that much fun when I went out in the Castro. I never had much fun at all. And yet I had spent the day in rehearsals and felt wonderful. I felt so happy and thankful to be doing the thing I loved, and I knew that if I had to choose between going back to that life and remaining in Austin, I wouldn't even need a second. I don't think I'd even be able to keep a straight face.
And I remembered the other part of the Ani song that make me think of the Castro, the line that, when I thought about it, described perfectly the choice between my life there and my life here: "Spring is super in the supermarket, and the strawberries prance and glow. Never mind that they're all kind of tart and tasteless as strawberries go. Meanwhile, wild things are not for sale any more than they are for show, so I'll be outside, in love with the kind of beauty it takes more than eyes to know."
And if the weather is nice, I'll have my shirt off.
