Norah Vincent, writing in the June issue of The Advocate, said something that caught my eye:

...lesbians, wittingly or not, had never shut themselves off from the considerable appeal of masculinity. Instead they had merely co-opted it, borrowed it, made it their own in such a way as to enjoy it from, as it were, a safe distance. All along, ever since the advent of butch and femme, lesbians have been compartmentalizing bits and pieces of masculinity, not because they feel beholden to straight culture or obliged to imitate it but because lesbians of all varieties have grown up admiring (cryptically) the male virtues- whether the bodily or the cultural ones- and have found ways of incorporating them into an all-female culture. Meanwhile, of course, they have effectively repudiated all the undesirable baggage that goes with having a penis, pasted it onto an effigy called the "typical male", and left it out in the rain. And why not? Gender is a supermarket.

This article, superimposed against the hyper-male issue of Maxim sitting next to it on the coffee table, made clear for me how much my own sexual identity is a repudation of the undesirable baggage that goes with having a penis. However, contrary to what you might expect, I don't seek to flee from the label of "Man", but rather claim it back from the knuckle-dragging types who might read Maxim and think, "This is not an insult to my gender, rather, it is written right at my intellectual and maturity level, which is that of a fifth grader."

I say that a Man can live his life without engaging in violence and still be a Man. That a Man does not need to possess a woman, but rather considers himself blessed by her presence. That a Man is emotional, caring, and communicative. This assertion is directly contrary to the image that I and everybody else has been fed by everything from myth to MTV. Maxim's popularity is, after all, a symptom and not a cause.

That said, I'm frightened by hyper-femininity in bottle blondes and drag queens alike. As much as hyper-masculinity makes me cringe, hyper-femininity is a huge turnoff. All of the women that those guys on the road trip thought were hot, I thought were desperate, disgusting, and pitiful. All of the women we encountered that I thought were hot, weren't impressed by the name of Maxim and shot them down like George Costanza in the model bar without his fiancee photo. I remember distinctly the group strolling into Ed Debevics and saying, "We're from Maxim Road Trip" and the hostess saying (in as droll a tone as possible), "Is that that magazine about big boobs?" The guys were stunned- a woman unimpressed at the prospect of getting into Maxim?!?! Meanwhile, my heart skipped a beat. You go girl!

I love gender ambiguity. I love not knowing at first glance what plumbing someone comes with. I love a mustache on a drag king. I like girly-boys and boyish-girls. I like the thrill of meeting someone online without knowing or caring what gender they are. Unfortunately, I wasn't born with a very androgynous body, and I'm self-aware enough to know how nasty a manly drag queen looks. Additionally, my sweetheart has a very feminine look as well, so from the outside we appear to be a typical couple. But many who have met Singular have said that she is like one of the boys. Spend enough time around us and you'll quickly see that she's the butch and I'm the bitch, not in the formalized manner of a BDSM relationship, but rather in the sense that I will do anything she says and derive satisfaction from doing the household chores and bringing her drinks and such. There's a very negative term that could be used to describe that sort of relationship. I am neither afraid of it nor particularly representative of it. I am no less of a man because I try to keep my partner happy.

And that's the secret of our relationship, not that I subjugate my will to hers, but rather that we compliment each other in matching ways. Isn't that what a long-term partnership is about, finding somebody who is twisted in the same way you are? Time after time, more traditional people do the traditional head-bonk and hair-drag thing, all the while expressing "concern" over our relationship (manifesting itself anywhere from jealousy thinly veiled as a friend's concern all the way to seething hate) and time after time we watch traditional couples crumble into misery. I'm not saying you can't be a manly man and a womanly woman- there are no rules at the supermarket- just that you gotta do what's right for you, be who you are, or else you'll be miserable your whole life.

To be honest, and I'm treading dangerous (and personal) ground here, I don't think that I could date anyone who identifies themselves as "straight" or "gay". Despite the fact that a facet of our sexual identity would match, the fact that those boundaries are there affects many other aspects of their life. How could I crush with my partner over David Duchovny if they can't crush with me over Gina Gershon? It would be like a free-range chicken dating a coop-hen.

In fact, that sums it up pretty well. When it comes to gender, I'm a free-range chicken. Oh, give me land, lots of land, under starry skies above....