“Come on, Matt, taste it. This is what boys like us do when we like each other.”
Page 10 (‘Introduction’):
“Nowadays, we are assigning gender even before birth. We have become socially conditioned to participate in the gendering of children at the earliest possible moment—whenever a sonogram can identify its genitalia. Gender-reveal parties have become a trendy way to celebrate the child’s fate, steering them down a life of masculine or feminine ideals before ever meeting them. It’s as if the more visible LGBTQIAP+ people become, the harder the heterosexual community attempts to apply new norms. I think the majority fear becoming the minority, and so they will do anything and everything to protect their power.
I often wonder what this world would look like if people were simply told, You are having a baby with a penis or a vagina or other genitalia. Look up intersex if you’re confused about “other.” What if parents were also given instructions to nurture their baby by paying attention to what the child naturally gravitates toward and to simply feed those interests? What if parents let their child explore their own gender instead of pushing them down one of the only two roads society tells us exist?”
Page 140 (‘Losing Hopes’)
“That all changed for me by the time I was in high school. I had begun to sneak-watch Real Sex and Queer as Folk. Although these shows mainly depicted white gays, they still gave me context for a culture that I wasn’t as aware of, and representation to know I wasn’t alone in my effeminate nature.”
Page 167-168 (‘Boys will be Boys’)
“Come on, Matt, taste it. This is what boys like us do when we like each other.” I finally listened to you.
The whole time I knew it was wrong, not because I was having sexual intercourse with a guy, but that you were my family. I only did that for about forty-five seconds before you had me stop. Then you got down on your knees and told me to close my eyes. That’s when you began oral sex on me as well. It was the strangest feeling in the world. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a handbook to learn sexuality as a queer boy. My crash course was happening right in front of me, and despite the guilt I was feeling, there was also a euphoria. Things were happening to me that I couldn’t explain. Feelings and emotions I had not known existed.
After a minute or so, you stopped. You then laid me on the ground and got on top of me. You began humping me—back and forth, back and forth—never penetrating me, though. It was just our bodies on top of each other going back and forth for several minutes while the music on the TV played in the background.
Aretha Franklin was singing ‘A Rose Is Still a Rose.’ The irony of a song playing in the background about the deflowering of a young girl being used by a man. The irony of me lying on the basement floor.
You eventually got up off me and told me to come to the bathroom, that you wanted to show me one more thing. You turned on the light and closed the door. You began stroking yourself in front of me. I just stood there nervous because I didn’t know what to expect next. You said, ‘Just keep watching, Matt.’ So I stood there and watched you for several minutes.
Then you began to moan slightly. I took a step back because I didn’t know what was about to happen, and then it did. You ejaculated into the toilet in front of me. I was very unaware of what sex involved at the time—primarily because I stayed away from it. I knew I didn’t like girls that way, and the first thing folks would ask you if you inquired about sex was whether ‘you were fucking or not.’ And I wasn’t. We also had the bare minimum of sex education in school, so I was unaware of a lot of things.
Watching you ejaculate was shocking. I remember you telling me, ‘It’s semen. One day when nobody is around, you should do this until you get this feeling you never felt before and bust.’
I looked at you and said, ‘I can’t do that, I’m not old enough yet.’
You laughed. ‘Matt, you are old enough. Go ahead and try it.’
By this point, fear had overcome me and so many lines had been crossed that I finally said, ‘I don’t want to do it.’
‘That’s cool. Come on, let’s go to bed.’”
