Tuesday 2 February 2010

My Gay Icon

Hello there everyone,
Here's my first tentative contribution to the blog (though I posted this to the group already)...I figure if I can't come to meetings, it doesn't mean I can't be inspired by the themes you suggest. And when I saw the idea to write about a gay icon, I just couldn't help myself. I was writing it in my head ages before I actually typed the first line...so here it is, my description of my discovery of a gay icon and personal hero. A moment that changed my life. That sounds melodramatic, but it's true! If this piece is a little rambling it's because I wrote it based on flowing feelings rather than any logical plan.
(my gay icon is the fabulous Joan Jett and this moment took place at the Trent FM Arena, on 11/11/07)

Bodies pressed to my sides and back, the cold dividing rail in front of me. Abrupt darkness produced a hushed, reverential silence, heavy and tense with expectation. Thunderous chords heralded the appearance of dark shadows moving onto the raised platform, vague and shrouded. Excitement erupted around me upon the first glimpse of those shades, but for what? My expectations were muted, bewildered. I did not realise that the momentary gloom masked a goddess.
Sudden bright illumination revealed her, clothed in brutal black leather, hips jammed hard forward against the instrument strapped to her body. Supple, scarred hands caressed its length, strong fingers flexing. Ecstasy erupted around me, screams of enthusiasm, encouragement and undisguised lust. Bodies surged forwards, twitched and writhed close to me. Only I was still. Transfixed.
For the most desperately fleeting of moments the dark, knowing eyes of the goddess connected with mine. It was impossible that she could see me, surely she was blinded by the light that shone white in her face, and yet I felt exposed and raw before her.
She flexed her knees and bounced, in a way a true goddess never could. She was of this earth, a creature like me, connected by our joint humanity, a bond of womanhood that was unique between us and at the same time shared with half the crowd around me. We shared a secret, which was not yet private.
The music rumbled suddenly from the instrument and filled the high-ceilinged space with rhythmic thunder. It penetrated through my skin and into the depths of my body, wrapping around my hidden soul and drawing it out. She drew in a deep breath between pink lips, which I saw in the expansion of her latex enclosed chest, and then she began to sing.
Her voice was not that of a goddess. It was of the real world, of pain and struggle and heat and lust and sex and love and going beyond limits. It was liquid filth and joyful rapture, the snarl of an animal but tuneful as any man-made instrument. It was the grunt of an engine and the purr of a tigress. It was defiance and protest and insurgence condensed into words.
One song merged into another. Rebellion became passion became lust became challenge became revolution became exuberance. The energy around me swelled in surges, voices rising with hers, echoing hers, moving as she commanded. I could not join the words of the virtual chants, they were unfamiliar. I was crushed between hot bodies and yet isolated and motionless, transfixed still. Sweat poured, glistening over her skin and drenching the floor below her. Still the music thundered and there were cries all around me. The heavy drum beat altered the cadence of my heart and made it beat to her unique rhythm.
I was apart from everything around me. There was only her in the spotlight of my gaze. Inside me a transfiguration occurred. I had not expected or invited it, but with every chord, every snarled word, the confusion ebbed away. My uncertainty waned. Mystery evaporated and the world was suddenly clear and bright. I knew, as I stared at her, I knew.
It was so short a time she was before me on the stage, before she retreated, leaving her platform for the unworthy act to follow. My cheeks burned the rest of the night, feeling her presence and her absence all at once.
Later, in the chill of the night air, I was warm still. I knew, at last. I knew what it was to have an icon, a hero. And I knew what it was to know myself, my desires, and my truth.

2 comments:

  1. A good tentative contribution. Good job.

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  2. We really must get rid of the spam comments. They're really starting to spoil the blog.

    Anyway, I'm off now to find out more about Joan Jett... I wonder if she'll inspire me this way? :-) Nice one Rebecca.

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