As much as I have written about gender-normative interactions in this blog, and despite this dynamic still being pretty attractive to me as a literary resource, and of course, a source of inspiration and arousal, the reality is that I have grown into a not-so-normative self.

I don’t really care enough to actually talk about that here. In fact, on that matter in particular I hate labels with a passion, because these are always conducive of hatred and judgement and to be honest, I have no time for that shit.

What I do care about is the effort and dedication by the vast majority of individuals around me growing up in order to perpetuate the Norm. In its “working” shape, the Norm might be a set of implicit behaviors and social constructs that instigate and uphold the toxic values affecting people in various negative ways (Intersectionality there for ya), but you cannot really share an implicit “value”: In human inter-actuation, bias is almost always expressed violently.

When I was a child, my male family members (father, uncle, grandfather) and – in lesser measure – my female family members would make comments out loud to express that implicit Norm that was obviously embedded deep within the way they behaved: “such and such is a faggot”. Often followed by laughter, as if it was some sort of joke to humiliate a person’s entire existence. These comments generally came out of nowhere, as a critic of what they had just seen but never as part of an argumented dialog. This is because they were just vocalising the poisonous Norm inside them. In fact, the few challenges I presented to my elders as a younger adult in this area were always received with contempt and promptly dismissed, but not because I was wrong, but because the others had nothing to say for themselves (and of course took their own voice as Gospel).

This annoyed the fuck out of me because I never really had the opportunity to debate with my family peers about the shit they were talking about, and I was meant to accept it because they held a position of seniority over me. This is extremely disappointing and patronising, and to date, it boils my piss beyond any hope when it happens. In part because I was never given the opportunity to develop my negotiating skills as a child, which made me struggle later in life when dealing with conflict, but also because their aversion to dialog was the very proof that I had to accept the Norm and give it continuity.

Of course, I am writing this now because I had the urge to challenge this bullshit, and because at the time, this challenge could not be done externally, I had to process everything internally and reach my own conclusions by osmosis and observation. I still am working on it. In fact I truly believe that there’s no Arriving in this life, that everything is process, which again, is in dire contrast with everything that I was taught? told? Made to believe!

I could go on for hours about how much the above behaviors extended both in type and radius (race, gender, country of origin – school, friends, acquaintances, public figures) but this would mean a lot of repetition when, I trust, by now the people that matter have already clocked what I mean.

So, why such commentary? Why so aggressive? Well, the reasons are varied and complex. In essence, I gathered that this could be an expression of perceived superiority. If you are a “faggot”, you are obviously weaker than me, who is a manly man and I do manly things (like psychologically torturing and manipulating my family or drunkenly and violently reacting to concerned challenge of said family about one’s behavior :D). When in actual fact, quelle surprise, you are the Weak Man. In so many levels, it’s hard to even know where to start. This would be wasted breath of course, so I am going to leave it at that. In short, expressing such toxic thoughts in such violent and uncalled for manner denote great weakness. Hiding from criticism show even further weakness. Boo.

For anyone thinking: well, boys will be boys. There’s a clear link to later behavior and effect of this negative thinking. Obviously not on the primary target (you called someone on TV a “faggot”) but on the immediate listeners: I can hands down say that this display of over-confidence and reluctance to discuss anything is directly linked to my lack of self-confidence, that I noticed later in life despite being an obvious over-achiever in many aspects of my life. Ah, the idiocy of it all.

Life is catching up with people. This was never a race against them or anything, that suddenly they kind of seem to be losing (?) but instead It was always there, blanked under the hateful speech and Norm ridden humiliation. When your concerns in life shift because of positive natural life events (having kids, moving in with a partner or marrying, buying property) your focus changes and you stop paying attention to important things, namely Woke culture (fucking hate that term but it simplifies things and focuses the scope of what I am talking about).

Like everything else in life, you can certainly over do Wokeness and I have seen it manifest itself in so many different areas / people of my life in recent years that honestly, it’s extremely hard to pin-point what it means. What I have observed is that you can certainly pretend to be self-aware but have a Norm of your own over your head. The thing is that, again, the Norm is selective. It would not be the same Norm here or in Shanghai. And I would like to remark that everyone is entitled to how they feel, I have absolutely no problem with that, with the caveat that you don’t just assume that I will accept any odd shit, I want a DIALOG.

This is why when people are sadly affected by this shift in behavior (a black person is suddenly your manager, your partner clocks that they are not contractually required to stay with you until one of you dies when they realise that they have made a huge mistake, your children come up with ideas of their own, a trans person decides to go for fucking groceries at the same time as you did and you are offended by this) very few people actually accept that IT’S THEIR RESPONSIBILITY to address whatever they are feeling. Of course without that previous dialog, this is not only unthinkable but extremely hard to achieve. It can happen. Perhaps with time (decades?) but it’s unlikely.

Life (real life) catching up with you and overtaking you “on the wrong side” is not a declaration of war, it’s the unavoidable revolution to fight the Norm (whichever one) and make things better for everyone. If you are unable to see this, perhaps try to start that dialog. You are no longer special, as undoubtedly you were made to think growing up. Feeling special is obviously appealing for everyone. Generally, this is a loaded reward for subscribing to your Norm. Lack of dialog with your peers makes personal differences invisible and intoxicates your relationships.

In essence, listen more and fucking talk.