Gay Lit

I was born gay, and I will die gay. I've never attempted to conceal my femininity, in fact, it is my masculinity that I try so hard to conceal. It works most of the time, but some people are just hard to fool - and some are in denial. My family, for example. Everyone sane knows I'm gay - I hang out in the kitchen during holidays helping out with the dishes instead of playing video games like my straight male cousins, I supervise how my cousin takes care of the other kids, etc...

Despite my being overtly gay, I've never really read anything gay, aside from a site (which seems to have gone offline) called "The Glass Onion" which has a collection of short semi-erotic but oh-so-touching stories about gay love: I laughed, I cried (I really did!), I was amazed, I was moved... I was even a little grossed out. I enjoyed reading this string of short stories - a novel actually- 30+ (even 40) chapters about four high school balls who fall in love with each other - and their families accepting them for who they are (at least, most of them were accepted... Calling Freud, you can psychoanalyze me all you want now...).

This morning however, I talked with Ms Odessa Joson, a humanities professor - and a gender-fighter. She told me that I should pick a love poem now, so that I could rehearse for the poetry reading that I'd already agreed to do for culture week in February (I like all this artsy stuff!). She gave me a book of poems so I could choose, then she mentioned if I was gender sensitive, and that if I would mind reciting gay love poems. I felt myself light up and I immediately agreed. She gave me a print out of this extremely beautiful poem, and asked me to read it. I read it once, and I fell in love. It was by Ronald Baytan, a prolific Filipino writer, and here it is (as cited in Ladlad: An Anthology of Philippine Gay Writing edited by J. Neil C. Garcia and Danton Remoto - uy, proper citation! Hihihi!):

He who sleeps on my lap

My friend
who sleeps on my lap
loves someone else.
He says he is a man
and a man needs a woman
and I disagree.
We argue until he grows
tired of talking
and sleeps on my lap.

on this chilly night.
And I sigh,
knowing he loves
someone else
but still sleeps
gently on my lap,
innocent, not knowing
that I am here
slaughtering
one wicked wish
that when he wakes up
I shall be his dream.

I saw these books on her desk last semester - Ladlad, and Ladlad 2, but I didn't want to borrow them because I was too shy, and she might have been using them in her classes. But this morning, after discussing a bit about the poem above, she gave me these two books and one more (Danton Remoto's Skin Voices Faces) to borrow so I could read in my spare time. I'd just finished Sidney Sheldon's The Other Side of Midnight and enjoyed it immensely, so I have free time to read these books.

After that, I had a class, then one student (who wishes to remain anonymous, at least that's what I got when this student told me "Sir, walang laglagan ha!") approached me and gave me another book. I looked at the title and felt my face light up (for the second time that day). It was a book I'd always wanted to read, but never had to opportunity to do so: David Levithan's Boy meets Boy.

I was so excited, I wanted to read all through my PR class (grad class at the Ateneo), but when a reporter showed a slide with a picture of a chicken and the text "Turkey says its bird flu free..." I started laughing so hard my face was lit up again (because I was a bit embarrassed - I'm new, and I'm supposed to be composed and poised, I just couldn't help myself - I imagined Turkeys talking in small voices: "Wala akong bird flu!!! 3x" - Hihihihi!)

Anyway, that's basically it - I have a lot of reading to do, and I already started with Boy Meets Boy it seems like a great book, but the thing about these gay-themed works of literature (and film) is that they always seem to depress me. It's like I'm reading about/watching something that happens only to a fortunate few. Sigh... Romeo, or Romeo. Whereforth art thou???