Whenever I hear of a celeb checking in to be treated for sex addiction (David Duchovny was the most recent) I’m always amused. We are in a culture whose failing economy is presently running only on the sales of Ci*lis, Vi*gr*, and Extenze (you know, the people who email you and pretend to be your mother but you know it isn’t because last time you checked, her “a” key on her computer keyboard worked fine?)

Given the fact that people of failed relationships invest millions of dollars on getting that tingling feeling back between their legs, I would imagine a sex addict clinging on to his (or her, but rarely) disease like gold.

Fot T* girls, the oft used label of “sl*t” could stand in as the lesser cousin of the sex addict. A sl*t, however, needs partners; whereas sex addicts only need to steer clear of carpal tunnel syndrome. To date, I have yet to see a vase painting with amputee satyrs.

But it does make me ponder the poststructural aspect of identity. Before the clinical term of “sex addict” was developed by the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) in the 90s to return unemployed therapists to work, what would a sex addict consider himself? We’ve heard “randy.” In the Austin Powers movie, the protagonist actually harnesses this state into his mojo. How did sex addicts see themselves in the eighties, seventies, sixties? Maybe, in the absence of relief, they could have been seen as bipolar passive aggressives with attention deficit disorder. But those terms weren’t around even then.

Or maybe they were just seen as gods.

So now this leads me to think about the term Transgender. Before the label was widely used in the 90s and included in the DSM, I was hunkered down in my university’s psychology department library, deliciously reading the case studies in George W. Henry’s Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns (1948) and Magnus Hirschfield’s Sexual Anomalies and Perversions (1956). Sure, assimilated (ie. straight-acting) gay historians now look back and dismiss these books for shabby scientific method, portraying gay men as repressed and effeminate acting. For me, however, the gorgeous -almost poetic – prose within the case studies was a gateway to artistic expression of the persona.

Once I dreamt I was fixing a radio and suddenly I got a very beautiful form of music. My father raised his head from the sofa. I was considered by doctors an emotionally unstable child. Howard N pg 507 Henry

I didn’t go out at all. I was much more interested in my sister’s dolls than boy’s games. I wanted to be a girl and I disliked rough dirty boys. I was timid, sissy, and fearful, afraid of strange men. Paul A pg 233 Henry

What Friedan’s Feminine Mystique did to awaken disenchanted suburban housewives coming out of the 50s, Henry’s and Hirschfield’s books put me on the map. I guess that’s why to this day I never force anyone to refer to me as “transgender.” If they called me instead “a limp wristed homosexual sissy who likes to please men,” it’ll be perfectly alright by me.

I’d live for art before I seek validation. The survival of my persona is more important than belonging to a group.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 at 12:25 pm and is filed under Gay Transvestites, Society, Transgender. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.