Wednesday, March 9, 2022 — 7 Michigan in Color The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com Holding onto and letting go of the hypothetical you The ironic erotic “Suck my dick,” among its many vul- gar variations, remains a hallmark of the various mundane and profane phrases heterosexual men utter to each other every day. Maybe it’s the immense and intense visceral sensa- tionalism, the colorful imaginative elicitation, a temporal subconscious sexual re-orientation or perhaps just a joke, but there appears to be an ongoing tendency among straight men every- where to ironically express erotic sen- timents toward each other. What might seem to be a banal social phenomenon in actuality places us in an expansive linguistic liminality, especially when we consider the broader implications these suggestive sayings hold in rela- tion to homo-sociality, masculinity and manhood as a whole. To philosophy scholar Jeff Casey, “Queerness is a specter that haunts straight male relations.” He maintains that straight masculinity contains within it a colossal amount of internal contradictions. The rigid chains of het- eronormativity, the paradoxes of the patriarchal system and the corruptive nature of capitalist ideology all serve as a testament to the fervent and phallic testosterone-fueled psyche of the mod- ern (heterosexual) man. The creation of class society (a male invention) has structured our current social existence to be rife with unfettered individual- ism, competition and vice, thus antago- nizing any authentic intimacy among men. It is ironic that the subtext of many straight male bonding activities is exquisitely erotic. Jungian psycho- therapist Thomas Moore ascribes our bodies as imaginative, mythical and mythological erotic landscapes. Our penchant for literalism hinders us from seeing the inherent homo-sociality in the male-dominated endeavors of contact sports, video gaming, working out, pre-going out rituals and night- life, Greek Life, the military and gang activities. As Black womanist Audre Lorde describes, the erotic can be viewed as “providing the power which comes from sharing deeply any pursuit with another person.” When consider- ing the notions of Moore and Lorde in tandem, it becomes clear that much of male homo-sociality is simultaneously homo-erotic (not to be infused/con- fused with homo-sexual). Eros, accord- ing to French writer Georges Bataille, always entails a certain transgression. Sports and video games simulate (phys- ically or virtually) a breaking of soci- etal norms and behaviors through their systemic brutality. We inter-act in ways in which we normally wouldn’t. Act is the key word here. The performance of masculinity that many straight men act out is characterized by what sociol- ogy scholar David Grazian describes as “relentless competitive spirit, distant emotional detachment, an insatiable heterosexual desire, all commonly dis- played by the sexual objectification of women.” Grazian likens the male affairs of nightlife as a homo-social “girl-hunting” ritual rife with rivalry. He makes the claim that pre-gaming — which often occurs along gendered lines — involves an indulgence in drinking, drugs and party music, which maintains and fast lanes confidence and courage for the night ahead. In the animalistic world of mating and dating, Graizan proclaims that males’ peers remain the “intended audience” for their performance. With their sexual encounters as events of the ego, paradoxically, many men objectify women, not just for ephemeral plea- sure, but in order to gain high standing and status, high ranking and reputation among each other. And the post-gaming cool-down, run-down and discourses of the night between male friends only furthers this phenomenon. As feminist theorist Marilyn Fryre explains in “The Politics of Reality,” “All or almost all of that which per- tains to love, most straight men reserve exclusively for other men. The people … whose respect, admiration, recognition, reverence and love they desire … those are overwhelmingly other men … From women they want devotion, service and sex.” The favorite actors and musicians, athletes and politicians of straight men remain majority male. Y’all saw their Spotify Wrapped reveals. Ironically, straight men seek approval from other (straight) men above all else while often avoiding actual intimacy. Casey claims that “Paradoxically, the embodied desire for heteronormativ- ity depends upon homosocial relations that in turn often manifest homoerot- ic and even homosexual desires and behaviors.” In other words, in con- structing a society of male supremacy built on rigid gender binaries and hege- monic masculinity, heterosexual men have indirectly subjugated themselves into segregated same-sex spaces, all of which hold ambiguously erotic ori- entations. This is not to suggest that straight men are repressed homosexu- als, but quite the contrary. Such spaces simultaneously create what gender scholars Nils Hammarén and Thomas Johansson refer to as a “straight panic in which individuals experience anxi- ety about how others perceive their sexuality, and thus, feel a need to con- firm their heterosexuality.” Inevitably, heterosexuality requires homophobia. Psychology scholar Greg- ory Herek asserts that hegemonic mas- culinity is in part determined by “what it is not — that is, not feminine and not homosexual.” It is not enough to not be gay, but one must be anti-gay as a means of maintaining and reaffirming one’s status as heterosexual. Likewise, sexu- ality scholar Jay Clarkson claims that “even the most masculine gay man’s homosexuality denies him the ability to truly achieve the power inherent in hegemonic masculinity no matter how masculine the gender performance because he will always be marginalized simply because he is not heterosexual.” While growing up, I presented more feminine and flamboyantly than I do today. I was thus incessantly mocked and made fun of, mostly by other males, for how I dressed and spoke, for my mannerisms and mere existence in the world. I was threatened by those I thought I was close to — called a fag- got to my face and behind my back by boys I thought were my friends. Even today, as I stand comfortably in my own queerness and bi-sexuality, many of my relationships with straight men have felt oppressive, rife with unequal power dynamics and treatment. My sexuality is rarely seen as legitimate to theirs. The comfortability, desires and pref- erences of straight men, without fail, prevail over anyone else. Embracing my bi-sexuality has become complicated by our society’s dualistic tendencies to see everything within the binary of male/ female, masculine/feminine or gay/ straight. The hyper-masculinization and hyper-sexualization of Black men as well as the vast array of anti-queer sentiments within the Black commu- nity have ultimately convoluted my ability to be physically, emotionally or spiritually intimate with anyone. Yet as queer liberation theologist Marcella Althaus Reid posits, bi-sexuality is not limited to a physical sexual practice but a mode of thinking that transgresses the constrictive boundaries of being. At the end of eternity, our souls have no sex. Sadly, many straight and gay men and women persistently perpetuate bi- phobia, abnegating the multi-faceted essence of our existence. Nonetheless, it is clear that queer men as a whole will never hold as much worth in society as their straight counterparts. Along these same lines, the irony of straight male ironic eroticism is evi- dent in how simultaneously aligned yet antithetical it is to actuality. Con- versational irony is an “intentionally inconsistent” verbalization, which is often associated with aggressiveness, a common characteristic of hegemonic masculinity. In conversational irony, there is often an opposition between what is said and what is meant. Yet as linguistic scholars Rachel Giora and Ofer Fein explain, irony does not entail an elimination of what has been said yet “communicates the difference between the dictum and the implicatum.” So when straight men say “suck my dick” to other men, it might mean metaphori- cally to merely “shut up” or may sug- gest some other negative evaluative expression. Nevertheless, we can also understand what is literally being said as an exemplification of hidden values: receiving (oral) is traditionally associ- ated with masculine sexual dominance, while giving is seen as passive submis- sion. Note, keeping with the patriar- chal positioning and the corrosion of capitalist ideology, giving and receiv- ing become imbued with a hierarchical structure in which to give is perceived as lesser. Thus, an ironically erotic demand for one of the same-sex to suck another man’s dick presupposes the act of giving orally and being passive as an inferior state of being. Even in queer spaces, topping, which does admittedly correlate with giving nevertheless maintains it’s connection to “manliness” through it’s concur- rence with penetration. Despite the venereal vulnerability of bottoming and its bodily byproducts, to bottom in today’s times is to be subjugated to relative femininity, literal passivity and fallacious inferiority as a result of our colonial conditioning. As critical gender and culture scholars Billy-Ray Belcourt, George Dust and Kay Gabriel assert, “In a homonormative semiotics of sex, topping is an enactment of gen- der; it is a performance of masculinity, which is bound up in the erotic life of whiteness.” The unnerving notions of neo-lib- eralism — as observed in our culture’s collective digital mediation of sexuality through the seductive lure of algorith- mically antagonistic corporate-owned social media, dating and hook-up apps, as well as the co-optation and de-radi- calization of queerness — has manufac- tured within modern-day queer spaces an all-encompassing superficiality and hyper-sexuality. To Belcourt et al, “Relations between gay men are stuck in the rut of the sexual.” It makes sense, then, why “suck my dick” and other erotic explica- tives issued by heterosexual males are expressed as ironic. The hyper-sexual nature of homo-eroticism pervades all same-sex male interactions. Beyond KARIS CLARK MiC Columnist It only takes a slight glance in my direction or a minor corridor- collision and an ensuing “Oh, I’m so sorry about that” (or god forbid, a single conversation) for me to start mentally arranging the furniture in our future quaint suburban home by the sea. My heart swells, I suddenly can’t find my words and my face red- dens. I begin to sweat if I’m wearing my leather jacket, and I probably am because, secretly, I want you to com- pliment my outfit. And when you do give me that validation, I smile so wide it feels like the outer corners of my lips tear at their flesh-fashioned seams, but I’m hoping you’ll find it endearing. And when I fall asleep, you appear in my dreams. I’m hoping you won’t judge me, but I didn’t really become a hopeless romantic until anime poisoned my impressionable brain in early middle school. From Kirito and Asuna to Sakuta and Mai, most of the anime I watched portrayed romance as dramatically direct love confessions while the characters sit atop high school rooftops at sunset or watch fireworks shows at the summer festival together. Yet the buildup to these relationships are predict- able and uncomplicated; the audi- ence knows from the beginning that the two main love interests will get together. I didn’t even know liking boys was an option for me until I was at least 14, so while other kids my age were making out behind the classroom buildings after school, I could only live vicariously through the media I consumed. Amid mentally selecting the fonts for our future wedding invitations, the picture of my parents’ wedding photo sitting on my grandmoth- er’s old dining table appears in my imagination. They stand hand in hand, beaming directly at the cam- era and consequently, the viewer. Suddenly, their eyes watch me as I navigate this dreamscape. The fan- tasy I’ve constructed fractures as their inescapable gaze permeates my thoughts. The top and bottom rows of my teeth slowly clench together so hard they grind down my enam- el. My sweat-infused, water-based eyeliner cascades down the space between my epicanthic eye folds and my nose bridge. My words lodge themselves inside my trachea, and in my gasps for oxygen, blood fills my warm face. My heart swells until I can feel it pounding in my fingertips like it wants to break free. When I awake from my daydreams, their smiling faces appear in my night- mares instead. I want to rant to you about these feelings, but I can’t because you’re not really real. The hypothetical “you” in this piece, my chance- encounter dream boy, is just that — a dream. On the other hand, homopho- bia is hyperreal. It looms above me at all times, especially when I start thinking about the future. For many, Queer love is often a transaction, forcing us to surrender parental love for romance. The power imbal- ance for young Queer people always results in an unequal trade, espe- cially when our heterosexual coun- terparts never need to relinquish much of anything. Furthermore, it places undue pressure on the success of the relationship; what happens if I come out and am exiled from my family only for some shitty Tinder boy to ghost me tomorrow? In order to destroy these vivid future anxiet- ies of inescapable familial confron- tation, I must construct even more detailed fantasy worlds as a defense mechanism. It is unrealistic for me to expect to run into my ideal part- ner in the grocery store aisle, which is precisely the reason I hold on to my phantasmal musings of love. If I set my criteria for romance so high, I never need to worry about the future because I’ll never have one with you. When I return from class or the grocery store or wherever I see you in passing, the pile of dishes fester- ing inside my sink is the only thing waiting for me at home. Once I turn on the faucet, I let the running water engulf my hand, slipping in between the finest ridges and notches of my fingertips. As I scrub down chicken karaage residue and tomato paste stains, I wish you were beside me, drying the dishes as I hand them to you. I wish we had eaten out of these bowls and tossed fried ramen in this frying pan together. I wish we were just coming home from class or the grocery store or wherever we met up, walking hand in hand all the way back. In the middle of my daydreaming, I don’t even notice the rising water temperature until my scalded skin becomes red. Instinctively, my left hand turns on the cold water and holds my writhing right hand under the stream. My fingertips, pressed together in pain, rub against my cracked, dry knuckles, embracing each other until the aching subsides. Even within this piece, I had tricked myself into thinking that you, my imaginary lover, could ever protect me. In truth, there is no escaping omnipresent homophobia. It invades and corrupts every inch of my mind, and I keep trying to construct new barriers to run deeper and deeper into my own ideal world. Life is too short to continue evading love and its consequences. Queer love comes with strife but I must allow the pain to wash over me in order to embrace the warmth within the anguish. Even on the precipice of catastrophe, hypotheti- cally rejected by both familial and romantic relationships, I will only have my own hand to hold. Leaning over my sink, with my hands clasped together as if in prayer, I let you go. Design by Zoe Zhang Design by Andy Nakamura ANDREW NAKAMURA MiC Assistant Editor “suck my dick” men will say phallic phrases like “on his ass” as a meta- phor for berating someone. The fre- quently uttered, “F— you” carries with it an ironically ambiguous, obvious yet often obscured notion of eroticism. In the undertones of what’s uttered is the staggering asso- ciation of penetration with weakness and fragility. These phrases falsely equate sexual passivity and penetra- tion as an inherently punitive subju- gation. Deconstructing the ironic eroti- cism of male heterosexuality allows us to see how the social construction of sexuality in our society has played out along rigid patriarchal lines. It also enables us to see the homo-soci- ality embedded in everyday male cul- ture that is often expressed in such ways that eschew authentic intimacy. Sexuality remains much more com- plex than our culture is willing to confess. From the physical and literal to the figurative and metaphorical, we should do more to divulge in dis- course on our every-day sexuality. In doing so, we can gradually unravel the unruly formations of patriarchal power for good. “Paradoxically, the embodied desire for heteronormativity depends upon homosocial relations that in turn often manfest homoerotic and even homosexual desires and behaviors” “Sexuality remains much more complex than our culture is willing to confess.”