This Is More Or Less How It Went Down . . .

I was so relieved when Jody decided to become “Joe.” I found out last summer/fall, and thought perhaps gender dysphoria had been “the problem” all along. Of course, I never asked why she/he had turned on me back in 1979 or so after we’d previously been such good friends. Why the cruelty? Why the malice? And despite having been in a Twelve-Step group for some years, she (she was then a she) had never offered me any amends for behaving with such poisonous hostility. No apologies: not when she first joined that self-help group in the 1990s; nor a decade and a half later, when we finally got back in touch in the autumn of 2007.

And I was so relieved to have her (okay, him) back in my life last year that I never asked The Big Question: why were you sub rosa, so nasty to me in the late 1970s/early 1980s? I figured it was water under the bridge. When I led an AA meeting at the recovery house she was staying in about 15 years ago she claimed she’d done nasty things to me that I didn’t even know about.

“Well,” I responded, “I’m pretty clear on most of it.” She had managed to make my life a living hell when I was a too-sensitive 17- and 18-year old, and she got quite a few good jabs between my ribs in the several years that followed that.

“No, you don’t know,” she insisted at that meeting, because she liked to pretend that she knew more than I do about whatever was under discussion. He still does love to patronize me, for reasons that escape me. The notion that I might know anything he doesn’t seems to pain him.

So several days ago he threw something in my face from my sexual past right here on the blog—something that didn’t even have anything to do with him, or with the woman whom he loved back in the 70s/80s—who may well have fallen in love with me, and whom I’ve always used in my own mind as an excuse for his bad behavior. I didn’t like his dragging the dispute online in that way, sharing ugly little tidbits about my life with my readers; I felt it crossed a line, and in an email I made that pretty clear: I’m not perfect, but if you’ve got an issue with me, tell me to my face, rather than in public—especially one that includes thousands of people. I do not care what strangers say here about my slutitude, but friends/”friends” risk the ban hammer when they pull shit like that. Trolls will be trolls; friends, acquaintances, and colleagues are supposed to make a little extra effort to keep the debates clean, and the joke entries light-hearted. Supposed to.

Joe didn’t see it that way.

“Don’t do the crime if you won’t do the time, Babe,” she—I mean, he—responded. Which raises some interesting possibilities about crime, punishment, and exactly what vengeance is owed: to whom, and by whom. I had always thought these matters were best left up to our relationships with our Higher Powers, and/or our faith in the circularity of karma.

I would not, personally, cast Joe in the role of avenging angel, righting the wrongs committed against humanity—which apparently include my having had too much wine the night before he graduated college this past summer, after I drove down to Anaheim for the party to celebrate same; I did not find out until months later that this had irritated him, despite the fact that others were partying just as hard as I was that night. (He told me months later that I had “behaved badly.” Those whose perceptions I trust reassure me that, contra Joe’s assertions, I didn’t overeact to those last few entirely unnecessary glasses of wine. I drank ’em, I retired two doors down to my room, and I watched television until I could finally sleep, which wasn’t until nearly dawn. My fault: I’d been thirsty upon arriving at the OC that evening, and downed a fully caffeinated Dr. Pepper. Not smart, but the heat was in the three digits that day.)

Before you point it out, I’ll specify that nothing in this train of thought is truly productive for me; I assure you that after tonight I’ll have to excise him/her from my life, and add him to my prayer list as well, for I’ve been commanded to do so by the only Authority I really recognize [quite imperfectly, if you know what I mean—and I think you do; I’m a sinner, like so many in my species]. You know how it is with addictive personalities—at least according to the founders of AA: “resentments are the dubious luxury of normal men.” And I shall have to let this all go. This time, I hope, for good.)

Yet at that moment a few days ago, I did respond. I used the female version of his name, for historical reasons, and threw the moniker “babe” back in his face: “you are,” I asserted, “what you always have been, Jody: a passive-aggressive bundle of hostility. Babe.”

Joe’s reaction: “Nothing passive about me babe [sic]. I’d tell you to suck my dick but you probably would. And I’ve already been there and done that. More than once.” (Not even true, of course: Jody and I may have dated back when I was 15 years old, but every liaison was 100% dildo-free. Nor do I take well to strange men trying to face-fuck me, and I once remarked to my host at a party that “no, Sherm, you are wrong: I would not like to party with Bill Clinton; sooner or later, he’d try to stick his dick in my mouth, and he’d end up in the emergency room.”)

Now, if I could leave well enough alone, would I have a blog? I rather doubt it. My next missive progressed in the malice department; the first part made another transsexual friend gasp when I repeated it; it is apparently in terrible taste to remind a transgendered person that he/she doesn’t have all the equipment he/she would like to possess.

Except that you don’t have a penis. If you did—and I found it in my mouth—I’d bite it off. Slowly, Joe.

If you’re trying to play the “slut” card, don’t even fucking bother. The sexual double standard is a crock of shit to begin with—and you’re in no position to play that game, considering how many years you lived as a woman. Compared to your history, mine looks chaste.

And Joe fired back:

Ah but I do [have a penis] . . . and if you could bite through the latex I’d film it and make a fortune.

Maybe he could make a buck off of something like that, and maybe he could not. But he’s awfully broke for someone who spent years in the “adult entertainment” world. (As a writer; get real. Producer or distributor would have been the only way up for him.) Yet if there were money to be made off of latex-severence, someone would have tried. (And maybe they have; perhaps they’ve even succeeded.)

In any event, if I filmed a snuff movie with Joe I’d get more than latex involved, and I’d probably use more than my teeth. I have better tools available, and I’ll bet you can guess what they are. I did not say that, though. Because, you know: I’m such a fuckin’ lady.

Instead, I emailed:

Fine. But with all my faults–and there are many—I’d still rather be myself than you. And that has nothing to do with your gender dysphoria. Or your looks.

Oddly enough, Joe was unsuccessful in convincing me not to ban him from this site. All that diplomatic balm, and yet I was completely immune to it.

I must have a heart of steel.

UPDATE: Mikal has the best response, so the video he sent the link to will stay at the top of this post until Mr. Henley’s attorneys send me a “cease and desist” letter. Point taken, Doll.

It could be worse: when I worked at the foodie magazine, the female:male ratio was 40:3. The drama in the air was so thick you could cut it with a French-style veggie-chopping cleaver.

I mean, it sounds awfully sexist, but the cool thing about working with men is that they are less controlling, and less inclined to turn every little issues (paperclips vs. staplers—I kid you not) until World War-fucking-Four.

Tagged as: autobiographical, dialogue, Jody, Joe