Splintered into memories, passed
hand in hand (we were
with you), permutations
shift and flow (pour a
drop), hearts looped in
ease, bodies
perhaps joining, here
and there, for a few hours
or (grant me the courage
to take this shot) forever;
chatted in vinyl booths, gravy jetted
over something uncomplicated,
unconditional.
What do you value most?
Do you feel you have value for others?
How has trauma affected your value systems?
Going to have to find some way to process this new loss. I’m broken. Right now, this is how I remember this time in my life. Maybe I’m romanticizing, maybe I’m wearing Ruzz-colored glasses. But I’ve always thought about it like this, and it’s what I want to say today.
It was the late ‘80s into the early ‘90s. The group who became My People. Among everything else that held us together (it would take volumes and I still wouldn’t be able to explain), we were adolescent polyamorists, ethical sluts before we knew the term, mildly to not-so-mildly kinky, sex-positive teenage swingers who bounced happily in and out of each other’s beds (back seats, sleeping bags, couches, beaches, movie theaters, swimming pools hashtag-firecrotch, and dark corners of numerous houses of worship). Sex was another thing we did as friends, like sneaking into movies and faking IDs and running up the down escalators and pushing the tables together at the diner and tipping extra when we left and rescuing each other in the middle of the night and never letting each other slip through the cracks. We swapped spit and became each other’s storykeepers.
Hurt feelings and broken hearts? Sure. We were still idiots. But never judgement. No gender stereotypes around who got to enjoy sex and sexuality and who didn’t. I can’t recall a single nonconsensual moment. No body shame, no walks of shame – no shame at all, just Sunday morning hilarity as we tried to locate who’d ultimately ended up in whose bed, or wherever.
Most pairings fell along hetero lines, most of the gender identities cis – though maybe not, and that evolved for some of us over the years. But this part, too, remains remarkable to me: the physical love and affection between the young men (at the time, teen boys) in our vast extended crew.
Whatever the opposite of toxic masculinity is, this was it. Sometimes they bro-hugged, but usually they bear hugged. They kissed on the cheek like long-lost siblings after just a few days apart. They were randomly and enthusiastically naked together. They cried; sometimes they sobbed. They’ve seen each other (we’ve all seen each other) through incredulous happiness and unspeakable grief. They had sensuality, and not much inhibition. They were – they ARE – complex, challenging, fully formed human beings.
We were equals, all of us. We were each other’s wing… wingpeople (bullshit, you can be mine)? And though the insecurity and introversion and imposter syndrome that clung to me even then, I learned that I could be desired and be respected. That I could fuck and be friends. That I could NOT fuck and be friends, or fuck and not be friends, or whatever felt right whenever it felt that way. That it wasn’t actually hump-or-death. That it was all up to me.
That I could take up space in groups of men. They showed me that groups of men could be safe places, in the first place. They showed their peers (my own brother included) that boys could and did cry, and shower each other with affection, and treat people well, and that it was a good thing. That other people weren’t objects.
And they created the imprint that would help me, eventually, figure out how to value my body. To value myself.
Dedicated to my twisted METNY fam. RIP Matty. Love you forever, asshole.
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