felicidade se encontra em horas de descuido

27, she/they, queer, brazillian, college student

[tyaz]

I be like ''lord'' ''god'' ''jesus christ'' and the mfs dont even mean anything to me

[zelzahdarkcloak]

What day of the week were you born?

Monday's child is fair of face

Tuesday's child is full of grace

Wednesday's child is full of woe

Thursday's child has far to go

Friday's child is loving and giving

Saturday's child works hard for a living

Sunday's child is bonny and blithe

Voting ended onFeb 17, 2023

[fluent-in-lesbianism]

She probably helped that girl solve her teen sexuality dilemma anyway, because if that were me and I asked an adult for advice only to find out the adult’s not only worse off than me but also the dumbest person alive, I’d accept the lesbianism just to get out of the awkward situation…

[polarcell]

i am so allergic to most straight male love interests and i have no idea why they're so popular. "oooh he's rich and arrogant and aloof and mean to me" yeah sounds like he sucks. "he's possessive and jealous of me and he hates other men paying me attention and he wants me to only spend time with him " ok so he sucks REAL bad, do you want me to kill that guy for you?

[thoughtportal]

[sirenofthetimes]

someone did mamma mia in the style of jane austen and it is everything i ever needed

[invertprivileges]

“Butches who desire other butches are difficult to theorize in accordance with traditional lesbian imagery for writers like Rubin, Brown, and others, because the numerous social restrictions on acceptable forms of desire make it hard to come to grips with something as multiply transgressive as the butch who desires other butches. Two female bodies having sex violates the myth of “natural” heterosexuality, female bodies in men’s clothing violates gender restrictions, and female bodies in (or out of) men’s clothing having sex with each other constitutes a triple whammy. The butch-butch couple confounds all of these conventions, which is why butch-butch makes even some lesbians uncomfortable. Trish Thomas describes what can happen when a butch pursues another butch: “She wonders if I’ve mistaken her for femme…. She becomes concerned that she’s throwing off femme vibes without even knowing it…. And suddenly she gets this overwhelming urge to arm wrestle” (22). Butch-butch sexuality is constantly being assimilated back into familiar categories, as with the butch who worries Thomas must be picking up “femme vibes” or Brown’s description of butches having sex with other butches as “faggots.” Despite such overwhelming conceptual resistance, butches, unconcerned with theoretical disputes, continue to desire other butches. Look down Castro Street any Saturday evening, and you are likely to notice a number of butch couples strolling by. Visit a chic lesbian bar in San Francisco, and you are apt to see two leather-jacketed, buzz-cut young women clinging to each other on the dance floor-and they will be far from alone”

— Inness, Sherrie A., and Michele Lloyd. “‘G.I. Joes in Barbie Land’: Recontextualizing Butch in Twentieth-Century Lesbian Culture.” 

[gatheringbones]

[“Risk taking had never been a strong suit of mine, but at twenty-one, I’d discovered a deep drive to get away, to build a new life. In that new life, I told myself, I’d be a writer. I’d write dangerous new plays and explore whatever ideas suited me. I’d read the works of Valerie Solanas and Angela Davis and as many iconoclastic revolutionaries as I could manage. I’d apply to the jobs I most wanted and to the graduate-level courses I longed to take. I’d say yes to any new opportunities that came my way. I would, I told myself, become a risk taker. And I did. I started writing plays, submitting them to festivals, seeing my own work staged by actors I liked, and being critiqued and complimented by writers I admired. I said yes to parties and weekend trips around New England. I took graduate seminars with professors and students I looked up to. My brain buzzed and popped like neon with the charge of new ideas and a bolder self. I was uncovering the contours of who I could be when I wrangled my fear, and I loved the shape I was taking.

The deepest risk-taking challenge was dating. I hadn’t really seen anyone since my first girlfriend in high school, nor had I made sense of the relationship or the breakup. Despite seeing a therapist regularly, I kept quiet on the subject of relationships. Even after several years, it still felt too tender to divulge, even in complete confidence to a paid professional. I told myself I simply hadn’t hung in there. I wasn’t a convincing enough cool girl. If I tried harder, suppressed the hurt feelings I was certain were unearned and unjustified, I knew I could do better if a second chance at love presented itself. I had to hope for some hypnotized partner to fall in love with my inner beauty.

That’s when I met my first love.

He went to art school, and early in our courtship he invited me to a student show of his photography. Haunting photographs hung on the walls, a ghostly kind of self-portrait of his changing body. He had started testosterone shortly before we met, and the double-exposed photos seemed to show his body as a specter as the hormones took root.

We lived two states away from one another and on the weekends would meet in the middle in Boston, spending long days together. He wrote me letters nearly every day, and I responded like clockwork. His love letters landed like a blow, knocking the wind out of me. I wrote back on thick paper, sometimes sprayed with perfume. He put the letters up around his bedroom mirror. You say such nice things about me. I figure if I keep looking at them, I’ll start to believe it.

Over time our Boston rendezvous turned into weekends at his apartment. We would lay together in his tiny bed and daydream of my postgraduation move to Boston. I started researching jobs and he started looking for apartments.

But every time I imagined our future, I couldn’t imagine myself. This beautiful life belonged to someone else, and he deserved someone better. Someone easier, prettier, cooler, and of course, someone thinner.

I had never seen a fat woman in love—not in life, not in the media. I had never seen fat women who dated. I had never seen fat women who asserted themselves, whose partners respected them. Because this was uncharted territory, I assumed it was also unexplored. My risk-taking resolution ebbed from my broad, soft body. How could he love me if it meant loving this?

Despite having what was described as a “very pretty face,” I was constantly reminded that my body was impossible to want. We were dating at the height of popularity of sites like Hot or Not and TV shows like The Swan. Everywhere I looked, bodies were openly critiqued and ranked, and mine steadily landed near the bottom of the scale—2, 3, 4. His thinness alone earned him a much higher standing. In the cruel calculus of dating and relationships, our numbers didn’t match.

But it wasn’t just him. I had learned that I was undesirable to almost everyone. Desire for a body like mine meant my partners were irrational, stupid, or resigned to settling for less than they wanted. In the years since my first breakup I had struggled to accept interest where I found it. No matter how a potential partner looked, no matter how enthusiastic they were, I couldn’t trust their attraction. I shrank away from their touch, recoiling from their hands like hot iron, believing their interest to be impossible or pathological. Any intimacy required vulnerability, and vulnerability inevitably led back to humiliation.

This is among the greatest triumphs of anti-fatness: it stops us before we start. Its greatest victory isn’t diet industry sales or lives postponed just until I lose a few more pounds. It’s the belief that our bodies make us so worthless that we aren’t deserving of love, or even touch.”]

aubrey gordon, what we don’t talk about when we talk about fat

[schizophrenicarchivist-remade-d]

When I was little my mom’s meatloaf was my favorite food. But ONLY her meatloaf. I didn’t like anyone else’s, and she told me that she would teach me how to make it when I was older. And when I was like 19? She finally taught me, but she told me never to tell anyone else and I was like weird but okay

Anyway, she was super fucking homophobic and abusive to me when I told her I was gay, so here’s the recipe

4-6 lbs of Hamburger/turkey burger

1 pk onion soup mix OR ranch mix

1 TBs ketchup

1 Tbs spicy brown mustard,

1 Tbs bbq sauce

1 Tbs steak sauce

1 egg

mix, shape into a loaf in a big pan, and bake at 350 for 2 hrs (maybe 2 and a half if you’re feeling dangerous)

You can get almost all of these ingredients at the dollar store, and have leftovers if it’s just you. The leftovers make great tacos if (taco seasoning is also like a dollar). Enjoy your revenge loaf

[comfynb]

here’s a mashed potato recipe from my homophobic mother that i swore to never share that would pair perfectly!

(6 servings)

-2lbs red potatoes

-1 cup butter (2 sticks)

-1 cup cream cheese (1 pack)

-Chives (optional)

-Salt & Pepper to taste

1. drop those bad boys (potatoes) in a big ol pot. U don’t even have to chop them just wash them

2. boil til soft!

3. Drain

4. Mash (usually they’re small enough you can use a fork if u don’t have one of those squashers) until its a pretty chunky mix

5. add the other stuff. Keep mashing

I like my mashed potato consistancy more lumpy but its all up to you!! Peel the potatoes or keep them on, it literally makes the creamiest fluffiest mashed potatoes which she always served with the nastiest fuckin meatloaf

[tastefullyterrible]

So after spending hours combing through the recipes in the comments of this post I have created a cookbook. Feel free to use it. The link should work for everyone, its the only file on the google drive! I have referenced all of the recipes I used, all of which are from this thread. I made it for myself, but figured after all that work I should probably share. Happy spite cooking! 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WjcDfZrPMr0Pw9f5GfEy0aTs2KEx4Pub/view?usp=sharing

[animatedamerican]

there is a SPITE COOKBOOK now :DDD

[renthony]

One of my biggest frustrations in trying to discuss queer media is how many people seem incapable of separating "this is an important milestone in representation" from "I did or did not enjoy this piece of media." Media analysis goes beyond just "fandom stuff," and queer media in particular deserves analysis and discussion because of how hard it's been stifled.

It doesn't matter if you hate Steven Universe, it's still important to talk about, because it showed the first queer wedding in American children's television. It has been cited by the creators of subsequent queer family animation as a major milestone in allowing their shows to enter production. The Ruby/Sapphire wedding is a historical milestone, and that doesn't stop being true just because you hate the show or think the ending was bad.

It doesn't matter if you think Will & Grace is entertaining or if you have any real interest in watching it, it's still a majorly important entry in televised queer representation. It kicked down the door to allow even more to come after, and deserves credit for what it did even if you don't personally care about the story.

It doesn't matter if you have any personal interest in Rocky Horror Picture Show, it's still got a ton of important history in queer spaces. Understanding why Rocky Horror showings were and still are hubs of queer expression is important even if you despise the movie and the creator.

Giving credit for representation milestones doesn't mean you can't have criticisms of a piece of media, it doesn't mean you have to like the media, and it doesn't mean you can't prefer other media. It doesn't mean it's free from problematic material, it doesn't mean it's god's gift to television, it doesn't mean it's better or worse storytelling than other stories.

It just means it's worth talking about and understanding the context in which it was made.

[renthony]

Reblogging this to mention a couple specific examples people have brought up in the notes, that I thought were really good--

Glee. How many of us fucking hate Glee? I do. You couldn't pay me to watch an episode of Glee today. Damn important at the time, though!

Rent. Fucking goddamn Rent. I hate Rent. But how many people did it introduce to broader queer stories and issues and community?

The Ellen Show. The show was a HUGE deal, and the impact of Ellen DeGeneres coming out was far, far reaching. Ellen as a person, however, is the kind of rich asshole who hangs out with fucking Dubya. And that's something that can (and should!) be talked about in the analysis of the show and its aftermath, without ever saying that "the show is bad and shouldn't exist and Ellen's coming out should never get talked about."

[renthony]

I just blocked someone for going on a tag rant about how Rocky Horror doesn't deserve to be on this list because it's "irredeemably transmisogynistic," and I need all of you to sit down and listen.

I never said you had to like the things on this list. I never said that you are required to engage with them.

What you are obligated to do, if you want to exist in queer community spaces, is respect the history and culture of the space you're in. You don't get to go into queer spaces and shit on the communities and traditions that kept the community alive. It doesn't matter if you "approve" of those traditions, what matters is that they kept. people. alive.

Every now and then someone gets over-the-moon pissed at me for defending Rocky Horror, and I just want so badly to introduce all these people to the 60-something year old trans woman who came up to the cast & crew when I was helping clean up after a RHPS shadowcast performance to tell us all about how she and her fiance have both been coming to Rocky longer than I've been alive, and how heartwarming it was to see people keeping the tradition alive.

If you have never been part of a queer space putting on a Rocky show for other queer people, don't talk to me about Rocky. Go count your fucking blessings that you live in a world where we can have new, better kinds of representation, but don't you dare act superior to the queers who have been Time Warping since before either of us were fucking born.

[heritageposts]

i saw the trailer for the new feel-good “anti-racist” US war movie about the carpet bombing of North Korea and started writing up something for this blog, partially inspired by the absolute shit storm i got for sharing that post i made with pictures of everyday life outside pyongyang

and then i gave up, because what’s the point? westerners can’t even handle a single picture of a north korean not looking miserable without screaming propaganda

meanwhile, there are no stories about the horrors of life in the ‘hermit kingdom’ that are deemed too outlandish to be believable. i can’t remember who said it, but it’s like the entire country has taken up permanent residence in the western imaginary as some silly little cartoon villain, where the leaders of the country does evil things for no discernible reason. they’re just silly and evil like that, and the citizens, of course, are silly, too. silly and brainwashed.

i watched a video recently of a tourists visiting an auto dealership in pyongyang, and the entire time he was just gawking at the employees and costumers, shoving his phone in their face, and confidently explaining to his youtube audience that everyone he’s interacting with are actually actors.

what level of dehumanization do you have to reach for that thought to even cross your mind? to think that the people you see before you are actors? that entire cities and shops are erected with to sole purpose that you, a western, will see them and be impressed?

what frustrates me the most is the casual cruelty that seeps into any mention of north korea, no matter how small. if north koreans are not being evil, they’re being silly.

a north korean newspaper reports that a group of archeologists in pyongyang have discovered an old rock carving with the words ‘unicorn lair’ (mistranslated), and the western press reports that north koreans now believe in unicorns.

a tourist at a hotel in hamhung is told by the receptionist to be careful at the beach: the waves can get high. that day the tourists goes to the beach, and there are no waves. she retells the story to her instagram followers, explaining that the poor woman at the hotel could never have seen real waves before because north koreans are probably never allowed to travel.

she adds a little teary-eyed emoji.

one of the cities i included in the post was sariwon, a densely populated city to the south of pyongyang. below are some pictures from its “folk customs street”, which was built to showcase old korean traditions and customs

here’s all wikipedia has to say about it

Built to display an ideal picture of ancient Korea, it includes buildings in the “historical style” and a collection of ancient Korean cannons. Although it is considered an inaccurate romanticized recreation of an ancient Korean street, it is frequently used as a destination for foreigners on official government tours. Many older style Korean buildings exist in the city.

it’s just north koreans being silly again. there’s no mention of what might motivate them to build a street like that — why the preservation of old customs, culture and architecture might somehow be important for the city

could it perhaps have something to do with how the U.S. air force dropped 635,000 tons of bombs, including 32,557 tons of napalm, over the korean peninsula during the war? the carpet bombings, which are now the topic of an upcoming hollywood movie about overcoming racism through warcrimes, destroyed an estimate of 85% of all buildings in north korea. some cities were entirely wiped off the map.

in sariwon they missed a few buildings, but not many — after an intense firebombing campaign the U.S. military estimated the destruction of sariwon to be at 95%.

none of this is mentioned on the wikipedia page for sariwon.

we destroyed entire cities. memory-holed the entire thing, called it the forgotten war. and now, 70 years later, we’re convincing ourselves that the people living in the ruins are actors.

and somehow the north koreans are the brainwashed ones

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

educate me tumblr

[dat-physics-gal]

There is (probably, by current models) a state of degenerate matter in neutron stars called nuclear pasta, and that’s exactly what it sounds like. They are atomic nuclei condensed into varying configurations increasing in density as you go towards the core, and these configurations are named after different types of pasta due to the surface level similarity.

there are:

-the gniocci phase, where some nuclei stick together into blobs of 2 or 3 nuclei, just like gniocci tend to do

-the spaghetti phase, where they form long strings

-the lasagna phase, where they form connected sheets

-the bucatini phase, where it’s solid except for some holes

and

-the swiss cheese phase, where it’s solid except for a few empty bubbles

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

I ASSUME YOU WERE JUST STRINGING WORDS TOGETHER BUT WIKIPEDIA BACKS YOU UP

I REMAIN UNCONVINCED PHYSICISTS SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO NAME THINGS

[dduane]

“Nuclear gnocchi’, though… I like the sound of that. :)

[dingdongyouarewrong]

not trying to be sneaky or bait you, but what do you think about cancel culture? is it real or is it just people who don't like consequences?

"cancel culture" is eighty million different things wrapped up in one label, which makes it very difficult to make universal proclamations about what is and isn't "real" about it. one person can say "cancel culture is bad", referencing the tendency for progressive communities to gleefully dogpile marginalized individuals over minor mistakes, and be interpreted as defending millionaire transphobic comedians who deliberately thrive off of and cultivate outrage. likewise, one person can say "cancel culture isn't real because it doesn't have the ability to materially affect any of these people's careers" and be talking about, say, jk rowling, and could be interpreted by someone else as excusing/dismissing, for example, the harassment of isabel fall and other marginalized creators who are seen as wrongdoers. as a result, it's near-impossible to have conversations about "cancel culture" because these are such vastly different experiences that sticking them under one label only makes these conversations harder.

do i think there exist a number of right-wing provocateurs who deliberately cultivate controversial personas, provoke justified criticism through outright bigotry, and then use this criticism as a marketing tool to frame themselves as silenced victims of cancel culture in order to grow their audiences? yes.

do i think there also exists a persistent and very dangerous culture of progressive communities carelessly engaging in mass harassment campaigns of random individuals who have either done nothing wrong or whose harm done is in no way proportional to the punishment this kind of mobbing inflicts upon them? also yes. these are two very different scenarios, and these are certainly not the only two encapsulated in a term like "cancel culture"- it covers so much ground that trying to say anything about it as a general force is near-impossible. unfortunately, i don't really have a solution for this.

[dailyflicks]

Madeleine McGraw as Gwen The Black Phone (2021) dir. Scott Derrickson

[elizabitchtaylor-deactivated202]

I learned about the murder of Kitty Genovese in two separate psychology classes, at two separate universities. It was studied as an example of the “bystander effect”, which is a phenomenon that occurs when witnesses do not offer help to a victim when there are other people present.

I was told by my professors that Kitty Genovese was a 28-year-old unmarried woman who was attacked, raped, and brutally murdered on her way home from her shift as manager of a bar. I was told that numerous people witnessed the attack and her cries for help but didn’t do anything because they “assumed someone else would”. Nobody intervened until it was too late. 

What I was not told was that Kitty Genovese was a lesbian who lived more or less openly with her partner in the Upper West Side and managed a gay bar. 

Now… is it likely that people overheard Kitty’s cries for help and ignored them because they thought someone else would deal with it? Or, perhaps, did they ignore her because they knew she was a lesbian and just didn’t care?

Maybe that’s not the case. Maybe it was just a random attack. Maybe her neighbours didn’t know she was gay, or didn’t care.

But it’s a huge chunk of information to leave out about her in a supposedly scientific study of events, since her sexuality made her much more vulnerable to violent crimes than the average person. And it’s a dishonour to her memory.

RIP Kitty Genovese. Society may only remember you for how you died, but I will remember you for who who were.

[chemicalheart-deactivated202009]

this was one of the first lessons I had in psych too and we were never told about this either nor was it in any of the reading materials

[thelingerieaddict-deactivated20]

I never knew this.

[dsudis]

I also never knew this about Kitty Genovese, but I do know that, in fact, many of the dozen (not thirty-eight) people who witnessed some part of the attack (which took place after 3AM, on a chilly night in March when most people’s windows were closed) tried to help in some way.

One shouted out his window for the attacker to leave her alone, which did successfully scare the man off temporarily.

Another called the police but, seeing her still on her feet, said only that there had been a fight but the woman seemed to be okay.

And when Kitty Genovese was finally attacked in a vestibule where she couldn’t be seen from outside, Karl Ross, a neighbor, saw what was happening but was too frightened himself to go to her rescue–so he started calling other neighbors to ask what he should do. Eventually one of them told him to call the police, which he did, and the woman he called, Sophie Farrar, rushed out to help Kitty even though she didn’t know whether the attacker was gone.

Kitty Genovese died in the arms of a neighbor who tired to help and comfort her while they waited for the police and ambulance to arrive. Kitty was in fact still alive, although mortally wounded, when the ambulance reached the scene.

The man who saw the final stabbing? Who panicked and called other neighbors first instead of the police? The man who said, infamously, that he “didn’t want to get involved” because he was reluctant to turn to the police for help? He was thought to be gay himself. He was a friend of Kitty and Mary Ann’s. After being interviewed by the police he took a bottle of vodka to Mary Ann and sat with her, trying to comfort her.

So, no. I don’t think the evidence indicates that Kitty Genovese’s neighbors let her die because she was a lesbian, because Kitty Genovese’s neighbors tried to help.

See also: Debunking the Myth of Kitty Genovese (The New York Post)

A Call for Help (The New Yorker)

(Also, going by the content of the murderer’s confession, it was indeed a random attack.)

[talesofthestarshipregeneration]

how on EARTH was this “scientifically” studied but the details gotten so wrong and the wrong as hell conclusion published and taught in schools?!?!?! where were those scientists observation skills?! on vacation?!

[deadcatwithaflamethrower]

How to take facts and turn them into an urban legend that gets taught in schools: Make a bad made-for-t.v.-movie about it, watch it, believe everything the movie says, annnnnnnd go!  That’s how it gets taught as this supposed “scientific study.”  Someone got fucking lazy.

Spread the real deal, kids.

[tehriz]

A book about this, “No One Helped”: Kitty Genovese, New York City, and the Myth of Urban Apathy, won the Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Nonfiction this year! if anyone wants to check it out try your local library!

[racefortheironthrone]

I want to add one crucial but telling detail: the story about the 38 witnesses didn’t come out of nowhere, it was handed to the New York Times City Editor by the Police Commissioner in order to distract said editor from asking unwelcome questions about a different case, and the story that was eventually written and which made headlines was almost entirely composed from police sources. 

At the time, the NYPD was coming under quite a bit of criticism about rising crime rates and the seeming ineffectiveness of the police’s response to the problem. In the Kitty Genovese case, even though people did in fact call the police, it took about an hour for them to show up and the first detectives didn’t arrive until three hours later (at which point they mostly spent their time interrogating Kitty’s girlfriend about their relationship, because for “some reason” they considered her to be the most likely suspect for the murder. In fact, the police wouldn’t catch the actual killer until six days later when he was picked up for having a stolen TV in the trunk of his car, at which point he admitted to having committed a total of three murders). It’s not an accident that one of the things to come out of the Genovese case was the establishment of the 9-1-1 system, because at the time that the attack happened, you had to call the specific number of a particular police precinct and it was up to the duty sergeant on the desk to take action - which was usually to send someone out from the precinct to the address reported, because cops on foot patrol wouldn’t be outfitted with two-way radios for several years. It’s more than a little convenient that at a time when the NYPD is coming in for public scrutiny about its ability to do the basic job of responding to reports of crimes in a timely fashion, the Police Commissioner happens to hand the City Editor of the city’s most prominent newspaper a story which puts the blame for the slow response on the apathy and inaction of New Yorkers, neatly absolving the NYPD for its ridiculously poor performance in this case in particular and its response to the rise in crime in general. 

It’s also quite telling that the New York Times ran with the story the way they did. It’s not like there weren’t people on the scene who said they had called the police, or that the basic facts about how many witnesses there were and what they had seen didn’t match the account that the commissioner had given. The writer the Times sent out chose not to include this information because “it would have ruined the story.“ The Times wanted to frame the story as a narrative about how the root of NYC’s problems was urban apathy and anomie - and the news organizations that picked up on the Times’ reporting and made the Kitty Genovese case a national and global story wanted to frame the story as proof that NYC was a dangerous urban jungle that deserved its decline because of the bad character of its residents.  I think the takeaway from this case isn’t just about sloppy scientific research, it’s that you have to always consider how official narratives are used to assign blame to specific individuals and groups and absolve larger institutions of responsibility. 

[rohie-deactivated20191102]

“Years ago a friend of mine had a dream about a strange invention; a staircase you could descend deep underground, in which you heard recordings of all the things anyone had ever said about you, both good and bad. The catch was, you had to pass through all the worst things people had said before you could get to the highest compliments at the very bottom. There is no way I would ever make it more than two and a half steps down such a staircase, but I understand its terrible logic: if we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.”

— I Know What You Think of Me, Tim Kreider for the New York Times

[owlmylove]

after YEARS of seeing this quote online and finding it to be the most deeply and resoundingly profound writing i finally found the source article and absolutely nothing could prepare me for this opening paragraph

[humansofnewyork]

“I knew if they ever found out about me, I’d end up like Johnny Yablonsky. Johnny was soft, he was feminine, he was clearly gay. The neighborhood guys would make him blow them; then beat the shit out of him. He always had a lot of bruises, and absenteeism. He was so defeated. I’ve always assumed he killed himself. And I didn’t want the same thing to happen to me. It was a lot of fear, and shame. The fucking shame. I participated in my own self-negation. I laughed at all the jokes. I tried to tighten up on the masculine stuff. I’d stand in front of the mirror. I’d practice my walk, my diction, the movement of my hands. Somehow I managed to make it out of that town alive. During our first Christmas break at college, I went with my friend Howie to visit his family in Long Island. Afterward he dropped me off at the airport. He thought I was flying home. But I caught the Greyhound Bus to New York City. I put all my stuff in a luggage locker and started walking down 5th Avenue. It was night. It wasn’t lit up like today. All the storefronts were dark; it was like lyric poetry to me. Unopened boxes full of mystery. All I knew was I had to get to Greenwich Village. I kept asking people—is this the village, is this the village? They kept saying: further south, further south. Finally I get to the corner of 8th Street and 6th Avenue, and I’m waiting for the light to change. And this guy starts hitting on me. A few years older than me, good looking. His name was Charlie. And he put a spell on me immediately. From the very first moment, I had a hard-on for Charlie Bacchus. I felt safe with him. He took me to my first gay bar. Then afterward we went to his mom’s loft apartment on Washington Square. She happened to be in Rome. So it was just me and Charlie Bacchus, in this gorgeous apartment, with the door closed, cut off from the rest of the world. There was sex, beautiful sex. First time I’d ever had sex with my shoes off. The next morning I came out of the shower, and wrapped a towel around me. Charlie said: ‘What are you doing? Take that off. You’re beautiful.’ He said it so gently, like someone looking at a painting. And it was my first profound lesson in shedding shame.”