Whether or not I died a
virgin was the first thing to enter Raquelle’s mind –
Raquelle who had come to make me come before I left
Michigan to start my chemotherapy, afraid I would never
come again. As if penetration were a proper part of my
last rites. As if penetration were a proper part of
everyone’s last rites.
 Is it inappropriate to
talk about the virginity of someone’s who dead? At the
time, the last drop of sweat stayed on my upper lip – I
couldn’t wipe her away. I just wanted to wait until
Lina had evaporated and I was once again free from her
mortality. And Lina, the presumed virgin, died the next
morning.
Eight months after
Lina’s death. Five months after diagnosis. Four days
to lose my virginity before I had my surgery. It didn’t
help that my week-long sojourn in Ann Arbor coincided
with the week of V-Day, Eve Ensler’s vagina-friendly
national campaign to stop violence against women, which
made me feel guilty about both being a queer man who
still prowled for sex from a straight woman and, more
importantly, for distracting my already-busy lesbian
friends from their vaginal activism. They seemed
all-too-happy to spend time with me, buy me cookies and
cuddle me, but I knew their hearts and vaginas were
elsewhere – maybe this really wasn’t the week I’d get to
bag an unassuming woman…
But this plane was going
to crash, and in the ensuing fire, my virginity would
look at me, laugh, and bring me face-to-face with all
the the wouldas, couldas and the shouldas. So I made my
way to The University of Michigan’s largest theater for
their V-Day show stopping spectacular – the Vagina
Monologues – hoping to find a woman empowered by her own
sexuality.
My most favorite
lesbian, Johanna, was playing the Angry Vagina (you
know, the really dyke-y, man-hating one). I couldn’t
have been more proud. We all entered with rainbow
shirts, large decoupage-d placards proclaiming “We love
your Angry Vagina Joh!” and sat down to form a row of
almost-exclusively lesbians. Robinette, Lara and I, we
were all happy and in love with vaginas. We wanted them
in our lives -- albeit for different reasons. They
wanted to scream Vagina, CUNT and be empowered in their
sex lives, and I wanted desperately to meet a woman, get
her to fall in love (or at least lust) with me and have
sex in the next 96 hours… The countdown to my surgery
had begun. The women shouted CUNT! And I responded
“Please?” CUNT! “Please?” CUNT! “Please!” I looked
around, CUNT! “Where?” Water water all around and not
a drop to drink!
And then, between Vagina
Workshop and The Little Coochie-Snorcher That Could, I
saw him – Adam Rubin. The king of the Co-op-ers who I’d
never met before but whose reputation preceded him.
Beautiful, crunchy, crunchily beautiful. He had that
suburban smile that shone perfectly through his perma-stubble.
He sat down next to me in the middle of the third or
fourth vagina monologue – apparently also a friend of
the Ann Arbor lesbians. We rubbed forearms, I thought
accidentally. He smiled and looked right at me. He
smiled beautifully, but strangely. I had never seen that
smile used before.
He kept his forearm
pressed against mine, ribbed turtleneck on ribbed
turtleneck, for an amount of time that belied his
“straightness,” of which I had so oft heard. He was
incredibly beautiful. Although I’ve since turned away
from liking men who don’t shower, the oil on Adam’s face
made him luminous in that theater against a sea of
empowered women and reluctantly-present boyfriends. And
he kept staring at me – looking and smiling, looking
away, like a coy schoolgirl – and that smile, it was so
foreign. His smile didn’t communicate that he wanted to
hang out sometime, it was a smile that said he wanted to
take me home. He wanted to have sex with me.
Wait, stop. Boy, girl,
penis, vagina, penetration, the end. The traditional
definition of virginity had suddenly changed. It
flipped, flopped, and broke apart, as perhaps it should
have done much earlier in my life. I never said that I
was straight – why had I wasted so much time begging to
bone a broad? No time to reflect on that now, 96 hours
left – full steam ahead. While the confessionals of
empowered women repeated in the background, I was
suddenly in another world – he wants to have sex with me
tonight. Adam wants to have sex with me tonight.
 A touch on the hand
confirmed this and I began to smile back. Smile, turn
away, just like he was doing. While we dutifully
listened to retellings of war and rape in Afghanistan,
our eyes continued to exchange clandestine moments – our
dimples blew kisses at each other. Keep the forearms in
contact… perfect. The lights were mostly down and we
shared this moment, just Adam and me, it was going to
happen.
Maybe we’ll even fall in
love – that smile, the way he shyly looks away, he loves
me. He loves me. I knew I felt it – It was such a
beautiful feeling. I had never felt anything that
strong… until a moment later when I was instantly
bursting to pee. Ohhhh! I needed to pee! Because the
chemotherapy I had recently taken left me a little short
on the warning time in these kinds of moments, I
unexpectedly popped up from my chair. I’m still a
cancer patient at this point, prowling for sex at The
Vagina Monologues, yes. – but a cancer patient,
nonetheless. I squeezed my body in front of Adam’s,
Robinette’s and Lara’s and raced to the bathroom. My
head spun around to see if Adam was looking, and I
caught his eye just returning to the stage… This is it
– I didn’t know how it would fit in my journey or life
story, but I did know that I would go home with Adam and
have sex with him… the way he looked at me... (continue reading)
|
6 COMMENTS ON THIS ESSAY:
Brilliant, concise, evocative, and funny. I should take some pointers from you. Seriously, though, stories like make me despair of ever fully understanding queer communities and lives - and I wouldn't have it any other way. Thanks for sharing.
i kept waiting for the part where he expresses his regret for such a misogynistic crusade. did i miss something?
In response to the previous comment, this essay feels to me like a critique on queer misogyny. I believe the description of the scene during the Vagina Monologues between the author and Adam alludes to this. Not to mention the reference to Cynthia Nixon, a lesbian, and dare I say, feminist icon. This is a funny, challenging essay and I can't wait to read more of his work.
Feminist lesbians be damned. I agree with the previous comment and add, he adores lesbians and considers himself a feminist. He's making fun of them, but in doing so making fun of himself. His crusade seemed more like a means to an end than misogyny. He wasn't afraid to admit the truth of his quest.
Having been an anxious virgin myself, I admit I'm less interested in the politics of Brian's feelings than I am in his having expressed them. I think it is really important to describe fear and desire in a masculine context (as well as all other possible contexts) because so many find these two emotional states inextricably intertwined in themselves and in social expectations of personhood. Also, I thought the piece was well-written and easy to read. Thank You.
Excellent writing...intriguing storyline. I am curious though, what was with the homosexual connotations and "queer" references in your story? Once finished reading your story, I reflected that this is a story about a bisexual man struggling with both cancer and sexual identity. Was this the purpose of your story? If so, great, but I get the impression that you were trying to convey something else.....?