watching men

feeling a bit tired and overwhelmed by stuff today. i'd planned to be at uni writing my chapter, but i'm still at home. reading things, sending emails, responding to students and text messages, and now i write here. still no chapter. i'll make a list, go for a walk, come back and try again.

i have in mind zine projects, essays, and other adventures unrelated to my chapter. i still want to write on i am love. i've much to say and want to crystallise my experience of it, before i forget. i also want to write an essay/response to emma's nearly healthy zine. an amazing read that has me unsettled (in a good way) and needing to, again, process my response.

i have two birthdays to attend tonight, and still not sure how to manage this. tempted to turn my phone off and hide in bed instead.

in the meantime, an anecdote from yesterday:

in the pool change room there are 3 boys, blokey and loud, filling the room with their voices. i undress and dress quickly. i swim. when showering in a cubicle i hear the booming voices return. opening the cubicle door, towel around waist, soap bottle in hand, there they are: 5 boys in a row, each under their own shower, all wearing long shorts, all looking at me. but what is that look?

usually in this setting, the look is discreet. nakedness creates silence. or queer, furtive glances; often indirect, sometimes through mirrors. i often notice the queers by the way they look, and because i sometimes look in those ways. i can't deny noticing a nicely shaped arse, or body hair that i want to caress. but the queer glances are often shameful, and the tendency is to mostly look down, away, or at the wall. or a mutual queerness might bring eyes together; a mutual eye-caress. perhaps intensified, or cut short, by the danger of the situation. for this is not a gay sauna and there are straight men around, such as the men who travel in packs. so we look down, dress quickly, pretend we don't care.

and the seemingly straight men don't look. but the 5 boys, filling the space with wide bodies and deep voices, look directly at me. intensely, yet not sexually. they are free to look at anyone - queers, women, other men - directly, and without fear, for they constitute some monolithic beast who can eye-fuck without it being sexual. yet, perhaps a sexuality is played out here not between the look and the object, but between the mutual looking; between the 5 men. they fuck each other through me (and everyone else they look through). their bonds solidify, they spread into each other, they flood the room in these gestures of oneness.

walking back to my desk i notice them ahead of me. they walk in a line, nobody ahead of the others. they fill the width of a road. they walk with their knees slightly pointed outward, feet apart, taking up more space. but is it just about space? if i want to channel the likes of hocquenghem (which i do), i might say that this walk is about sealing their bodies, and unconsciously displaying a fear of anal penetration (turn your knees outward, and you'll see what i mean).

their gaze, their voice, their walk - somewhat alien, but so very familiar.