“Do you give?”
Do you give in to desire? And if so, at what cost? That’s the question that, as a queer person, you ask yourself when you hit puberty and realise, in the school changing room or the underpants aisle, that… fuck! Your desires don’t match the norm. For kinksters it can be worse. Your desires seem even more remote, less historied, likely to result in mockery or disgust. So you zip them up and let them fester, dirty little secrets, while loneliness grows around you and becomes habit. But then, if you’re lucky, someone comes along who helps you reframe the question. Not: do you give in to desire? But: do you give in to societal expectation? Do you let the conventions of the majority dictate your own shot at happiness? The fuck you do! And in time someone becomes someones, a community of fags or perverts or both, and bit by bit, stitch by unpicked stitch, desire becomes less warped by guilt. Maybe there’s a bike ride or two along the way...
|