wiseMusings

The past week has seen South Africans upset and appalled at the violence enacted in our country over the rapes and murders that have been making headlines as of late.
It was really an opportunity for the country as a whole to introspect and look deep within. Some did, some did not.

Anybody who knows me knows that I overthink, oftentimes to a fault. And so I jumped right in and overthought this (though I do think one can never do enough thinking on a topic as serious as this).
I looked towards my own lived experience. While I haven’t sexually abused anybody nor have I ever had the desire to – to the best of my knowledge – I’ve been a victim. And I did think about what it would have taken for me to be the perpetrator instead of the prey . What would I have needed to internalize? What excuses would I have needed to give myself? How would I have looked back at that experience when the other person saw it as a vulgar act of abuse?

I am a man. I am a man who’s sometimes felt out of place in my own skin. I am a man whose weakness seems to be an overpowering stench to bloodthirsty individuals of my gender who have used that imbalance to remind me of my inferiority at this thing called “being a man”. After years of wishing for the masculinity I see around me, I have made peace with my weakness. I insulate myself in many ways, chief of which is my isolation from most heterosexual men.

Heterosexual men scare me. Not just because of their perceived homophobia, no. But because I am ill-equipped to perform masculinity in the same way that they do. That inspires a wave of envy and sadness; as if my biology co-operated but something else failed to kick in. Nevertheless, I am a man. A weak man.
But a man, nonetheless. Socialized in a certain way, brought up in a certain way, exposed to certain things. I don’t say that for props or out of sadness. I state it plainly as a matter of fact.

I then think about my father. I have very little respect for him, partly because he’s been one of those bloodthirsty individuals of my gender who has used my relative weakness against me in many ways.

But if I grew up under his watch, would I still be the man I am today? Would I be a weak man? Would I be “bad at being a man” if I was raised by that man?

No.

I would be a “strong man”. I would perform heterosexism as if it was my first nature, never mind second. I would have been humiliated, talked down to, stripped down so many times that I would have taken the unexpressed anger and sadness, and I would have used it as a shield to keep all emotion at bay.
I would not be sensitive. I would not be a “sissy.” I would not be “isitabane”. I would not be “umfana ntombazane”. I would be the Real Man that my father had in mind when he named me Tyson – after the boxer Mike Tyson. I might be a drug addict like my brother. Hell, I might even be a deadbeat dad and carrying on the tradition!

But I would not be me.

I would not be open. I would not be a writer. I would not cry at injustices, and aim to correct them. I would not be as intelligent, because a crucial part of myself would be hidden from me. I would not have the deep friendships that I have, that enrich my life in many many ways. I would not have had the romantic relationships I have had. I would not have experienced the absolute beauty of real love, because I would not love myself enough to express my love for men.

In short, I would be like many of the heterosexual men I know, stuck in the prison of heterosexism and the gendered binary of emotion and expression that has tortured many men in ways that I cannot begin to fathom. Heterosexism is a form of emotional violence. And when you have been violated in such a systemic and sustained way, how could you not violate others as a result? What else is the natural consequence of violence?

And so I look at my sexual assault, being called “Wisegay”, having a group of men harass me in the streets while letting other boys my age go scot-free, being told by my sister that her son [my nephew] is more of a man than I am –
I look at all of that as pain outweighed by the joy I get to experience by being myself.
Of course, I would rather live in a world where I did not have such experiences. But this is the world I live in: raw, ugly and intolerant. We all end up with scars in such a world. I embody these scars as my sacrifice; as my small fee for living as myself.

I also see them as an impetus for creating a better world for the generation after me. If I lived a sheltered life, the pressure to do so might not be as urgent or important.

But it is.

In the midst of that fight I, as a weak man, find my strength.

I still don’t respect my father very much. I still think that many men have overcome their socialization, to some degree, in order to be better fathers to their children. My father has consistently failed that test.
In the end, I do not think even being a “strong man” would have gotten his respect.

But in my particular form of strength, turns out I never needed it.