I Can't Date Jesus Read online

  After that, I gracefully bowed out of regular usage of the apps. When I say “regular usage,” I mean that between the final thirty-six hours of 2013 and early fall 2015, I would go on there every now and again for, uh, stuff. After that, I downloaded them whenever I wanted to be reminded of how awful men were. Then I joined Tinder, which was where you matched with attractive people to go on actual dates, although fun fact: most of the people you match with have no real interest in conversation, much less meeting in person. As fate would have it, I would later become a columnist at Into, a digital magazine for the modern queer world launched by Grindr. I never told the editor in chief, Zach Stafford, that I may or may not have been exposed to fleas in the past by using one of the apps and that I considered the column to be my reparations.

  Despite somehow finding myself once again at the intersection of vengeful insects and fornication, I do like that I allowed myself the space to let go of certain hang-ups I held about the apps and applauded myself for not denying human instinct. But every now and then, I see the scars on my left leg and remember that I always have to be good to my balls. For they have always been so good to me.

  My Lord and Gyrator

  My father was a presence in my life (for better and for worse), but there were things no straight man, much less one like him, could teach a little boy who was into boys. The fishing trips were fun. I also liked swinging and kicking on the punching bag he pinned up in the garage for me and my little brother. I enjoyed all of the designated “boy” things he introduced me to, but he probably clocked other characteristics about me (only he dared not speak of them). And despite my undoubtedly being my mother’s son in many ways, I could tell that she had similar blind spots. This is not a shot at them. They understood life as they had been raised to view it, and that vision did not extend to little boys with certain traits that may or may not have raised eyebrows. It was easier to cater to the more aggressive, traditionally masculine aspects of me than it was to those that came across as softer, feminine, “girly.” It didn’t help much that I wasn’t able to get out and explore life in my teenage years in the way that many teens have the opportunity to do. My mother was strict, and there was only so much I could do—and, as a result, see and experience.

  In such a state of confinement, I found pop culture to be a saving grace. For many who lack access financially, emotionally, physically, or some combination of the three, pop culture is how we get to access perspectives from outside our bubbles. It helps to inform us of who we are in our present, developing who we ultimately might become. The man I’ve become has largely been molded by the lessons learned from the famous women I’ve obsessed over throughout the course of my life.

  My mother told me that she explained sex to me when I was three. Unsurprisingly, it was in the context of procreation. She reminded me of this fact ten years later, when I was thirteen. While walking to the refrigerator—probably to have my eleventh sausage sandwich—I made some quip in response to some talk show segment related to teenage pregnancies. I asked her when she had first told me about sex, and that’s when she reminded me. It made sense to me, because I couldn’t recall not ever knowing about sex, or at least how babies were made.

  Now, when I was thirteen, my mom quickly followed up with how to put a condom on. I was like, “All right, now, Mama, I’m not having sex!” It wasn’t so much that she encouraged me to have sex. In fact, her position was a staunch “Don’t do it!” Still, she was a nurse who, for decades, primarily took care of new mothers—including incredibly young ones. Fortunately for her fears of becoming a grandmother far too soon, I was getting fat and developing a complex. There was also the whole thing where Kenneth in honors biology, not Kim, was looking appealing to me.

  My mom’s medical background provided a technical explanation of a specific kind of sex. As for my dad, we have never, ever talked about sex. He warned me repeatedly in my childhood to never get married, but when it came to talking about sex, not a single remark. Perhaps that was why, as most of my teachers from K–12 were women, I always looked to them as authorities, sources of information on how things were.

  Having said that, neither my mother nor any other woman or man around me spoke about sex outside of the sentiment “Ho, don’t do it” and lamentations about unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. And no one said anything outside the prism of vaginal sex. And absolutely no one spoke of sex in terms of pleasure. Around the same time my mom mentioned condoms, I went to a record store called Soundwaves to purchase T-Boz of TLC’s first solo single, the promasturbation anthem “Touch Myself.” According to the poster of the Ten Commandments that used to hang on the wall in the room I shared with my younger brother—a poster featuring a white man with graying hair and surprisingly good muscle definition—masturbation was adultery, and per that, adultery was in violation of the seventh commandment.

  T-Boz had a solid counterargument: “I don’t think it’s wrong to touch yourself / Ain’t nothing wrong with making it feel good!”

  It did indeed feel good; thus the point went to T-Boz (and Debra Killings singing background vocals), with apologies to Moses. Then there was Lil’ Kim, who rapped “I used to be scared of the dick, now I throw lips to the shit,” on the iconic “Big Momma Thang.” Granted, I was a wee bit late to fully embrace the lyric, but it spoke to me all the same. Listening to women talk about sex felt right, because we shared a similar interest in men. There was only so much you could glean from men singing about women in ways that, try as you might have, just didn’t appeal to you. I loved the way Mr. Dalvin from Jodeci looked in the “Come and Talk to Me (Radio Remix)” and “Cry For You” videos, but I just wanted his clothes and wondered what he looked like underneath them. I can also say this about so many other singers and rappers. Kim, Trina, and Foxy Brown objectified men in ways that I could relate to; even openly gay male singers of that era (and our current one) largely ignored overt expressions of their desire. So, these women appealed to me, ’cause what else did I have? Furthermore, these women were ostracized for being so sexual. Their behavior was taboo—just like gay sex. So when it came to sex, my mother had taught me the mechanics, but female recording artists filled the gaps. That was the only real kind of sex ed I’d ever had.

  As far as visible depictions and musings about homosexuality went, Janet Jackson and Madonna each informed me about sex, but also taught me much more than merely the act of sex. I didn’t know anything about ball scenes from the eighties and nineties, but I did have a chance to see Black and Latino men in their element by way of “Vogue.” I was far too young to understand the politics behind Madonna’s tapping into that subculture for her art at the time, but I did know it was through Madonna that I saw my first images of nonwhite gay men that didn’t come across as caricature. That In Living Color sketch “Men on . . .” in which Damon Wayans and David Alan Grier portray Blaine Edwards and Antoine Merriweather, respectively, scared me as a child. With Madonna, the men looked free; on that show, they looked like fools. The slightest semblance of femininity from a Black man warranted that degree of ridicule.

  You don’t forget that kind of idea when it’s presented to you in such a direct, mocking way. Madonna offered a counterpoint, even if it was one I wouldn’t lean on until I was older. Similarly, since I didn’t have the language to properly challenge the religion in which I was raised, through Madonna—a recovering Catholic herself—I was at least introduced to the novel concept that it was reasonable to look at religion and challenge what you’d been told to believe. (My catechism teachers had no idea she was the culprit behind my many, many questions during CCE classes.)

  Janet Jackson was probably the most impactful pop star of my K–12 years. In elementary school, I used to wear these green denim shorts—think pine, not lime, emerald, or feces green—and in homage to her, I would wear their top button undone. Sometimes, hateful teachers would demand that I button myself all the way up. My love for Janet’s background dancer Omar Lopez is well know
n among my close friends. But when I think about albums like The Velvet Rope, I remember a period during which she slapped me with so many heavy topics that I wasn’t at all ready to handle but nonetheless needed to hear. I didn’t know how to describe these sad feelings inside of me, but at least she provided a partial soundtrack to them. And her musings weren’t confined to sex. She sang about domestic violence as I continued to remain silent about what I had witnessed in my own home.

  Most people would assume that when I first heard “Free Xone,” the closeted gay in me gleamed as a woman I practically worshipped sang out against homophobia. The same about “Together Again,” a track dedicated to friends Janet had lost to AIDS. No and no. On the contrary, those songs freaked me the fuck out. I could listen to the DJ Premier remix of “Together Again” because the shit slapped, but I actively tried to ignore the messaging behind it. “Free Xone” boasted lyrics such as “Boy meets boy / Boy loses boy / Boy gets cute boy back,” so I would skip that track and turn on “My Need.” I would fantasize about boys and then feel guilty, fearing I was hellbound if I ever acted on those feelings.

  All of these women introduced me to themes and affirming imagery and messaging early on; indeed, many of the lessons came before I had left high school. Still, I had yet to go out into the world and figure out my own place in it. Little by little, as I grew more comfortable with myself, the nuggets they had dropped were picked back up, and I found greater meaning in them.

  Nevertheless, when I think about the last and most impactful pop-culture figure of my life, I think of my lord and gyrator: Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter.

  —

  She is the beginning, end, and body roll to me. I have loved this woman from the very first Destiny’s Child video. Long before you other folks banded together to launch the BeyHive, I was setting the stones for the building that housed our meetings with the other true believers. When I listen to Beyoncé, I hear home. Like me, she went to Welch Middle School, and probably heard boys and girls doing the same slow, hazy kind of flow heard on songs such as Lil’ KeKe’s “Pimp Tha Pen” and Big Moe’s “Barre Baby” during lunch in the cafeteria. I know Beyoncé is someone who listened to 97.9 the Box and heard the same New Orleans bounce mixes played throughout the day. I’m sure of it, because “Get Me Bodied” sounds like something by someone who grew up routinely hearing DJ Jubilee’s “Get It Ready” and loved it so much that she wanted to create something that would both pay homage and offer her own spin on it. When Beyoncé does her choreography, she reminds me of the same majorettes I saw at Madison High School, Yates High School, and Willowridge High School football games. That’s why she is always on beat—because majorettes never, ever miss a beat.

  I love that she has remained country as hell and country in a way that is very specific to a Black girl born in Houston but with Louisiana roots. I love that when R & B began to decline on radio, she never picked up a glow stick and joined the EDM wave like so many others fighting to stay relevant. Obviously, she made this choice long after she had cemented her place in music and culture, but there’s still something admirable about a Black woman forgoing trends that pander to white people at the expense of Black creativity. As a Black creative, I know all too well what it’s like to be urged to tone down who you are, sold under the pretense that it broadens your appeal to the “mainstream.” I didn’t have to wait for the Beyoncé and Lemonade albums to know Beyoncé was pro-Black, because choosing to stand firm in who you are and the culture that shaped you is a testament to caring about Blackness, Black culture, and Black people. As a writer who has existed in mainstream media and Black media alike, I know how much more the former means to many people than the latter, regardless of their race or ethnicity, so even if only on a symbolic level, Beyoncé’s stance on remaining exactly as she’s always been no matter what is happening around her has instilled in me the strength to remain the Gulf Coast ratchet bird I am.

  Yet when I think about what Beyoncé most means to me, I think of my friend once saying, “You dance like a faggot.” Jeanne, a lesbian and a dear friend, once shouted it out from the back seat of my car as I danced perhaps far too aggressively while driving to the club. She meant it as a compliment—which she quickly noted after seeing the visible discomfort on my face. For an extremely long time, I didn’t dance publicly because it was one of the characteristics that I always felt was a dead giveaway about my queerness. I never wanted to be perceived like Blaine Edwards and Antoine Merriweather or any of the other gay men in various films and television shows who played similar depictions of the effeminate gay Black man whose only real duty was to service those who want to laugh at a sissy. I remember my mom driving me home from school once, and out of the blue remarking, “Some people probably mock the way you walk and the way you talk.” At the time, that had not yet started to happen, but by the time I entered middle school, it was indeed an issue. Sometimes I took the insults in stride; other times I swung on their asses. It depended on the question of how much I wanted to let it get to me. The answer depended on my mood, and my mood was typically shaped by the degree of madness coming from father at my home.

  As for how I walk . . . I haven’t the slightest idea. I don’t know. I’ve never organized a focus group or had someone record me in motion for analysis. I don’t think I walk with a twist. I don’t think I strut. Honestly, I have flat, skinny feet, and unless I’m wearing a pair of tennis shoes—pardon my country, sneakerheads—that fit just right, my feet normally hurt, and that’s largely been my only focus when I walk. When it comes to how I talk, that too is subjective. For the most part, I speak in a monotonous tone. As a Houstonian, many of us, much like Beyoncé, speak with a slower cadence. Louisiana is a few hours away; both sides of my family are rooted there and some, depending on where they are from, can talk at much faster speeds. My dad is from a teensy town in Texas, but he speaks with the speed of a category-five hurricane. The more engaged I am—or, as I’ve learned since the age of twenty-one—the drunker I am, the faster I talk and my voice goes a lot higher. In my final year of college, I had to take a NewsVision course to complete my degree in broadcast journalism. That included me planning and shooting my own segments to be presented for the class. I remember the reaction to the first three I had to do: no one besides the two stunts from New Orleans could make out what I was saying. I spoke fast and high and befuddled the rest of the folks in the course. It was so bad that Professor Lewis, who liked me but wanted me to be coherent, offered a tip: “Tap your feet and speak with the pace of those slower taps, Speedy Gonzalez.” This helped a bit, but I also tended to speak with my hands—a trait that read as feminine.

  I used to hate the sound of my voice. And I used to hate watching video of me, seeing how I performed all these actions that registered as “gay.” That’s why, as much as I enjoyed tracks like “Vogue,” I certainly didn’t dance to them in public. In fact, I didn’t dance in public at all.

  That was why, when Jeanne said that I danced “like a faggot,” I paused for a second. It was something I needed to get over, and learning to shake off that stigma came with a soundtrack: Beyoncé’s majorly up-tempo and entirely glorious 2006 album, B’Day.

  One of my favorite videos from the pre–visual album era was for “Freakum Dress.” I loved how much that video recalled Vanity 6 and Apollonia 6—groups I had learned of by way of my big sister. As in the old Madonna videos and tours, there were gay Black men acting completely and utterly femme—and completely comfortable with that femininity. So, when I started hearing “Freakum Dress” in the club—or, hell, while walking on a sidewalk—I stopped fighting the urge not to react in public the way I did in private. The same went for the bonus tracks on the album like “Back Up” and “Lost Yo Mind,” which gay Black clubs played obsessively in cities such as Houston, New York, Washington, DC, and Atlanta.

  When Dangerously in Love came out, I used to do the choreography to “Baby Boy” in the oversized dorm room I had my sophomore year of college. It was a s
hame I didn’t do it in public where it counted. Let’s be clear that I’m not really coordinated enough to perform full-out choreography. I’ll say that it’s not impossible, but it would take me too long to learn the steps, because my attention span blows with the wind and I’d rather just dance like a free-spirited thot. Aliyah, my very first friend at Howard, once told me at Club Love in DC (RIP) during our junior year—after I was out and ready to twerk—“Yo, Mike, you dance like a stripper and the rent is due.” God, what a sweet soul she is. I keep it in my back pocket whenever I need to pull out a pick-me-up in this awful world we live in. Naturally, when Aliyah said this, I was dancing to Beyoncé. I don’t dance like that as much anymore because I’m getting older and worry about my knees, but every now and then, I remember to stretch and prove I still have it in me. Some of this comes from inner strength, but obviously that inner strength was instilled in me by Our Lady of Creole Goodness, Beyoncé. Ugh. I love her so much.

  —

  I actually met Beyoncé once in 2011 in Los Angeles, which was the site of that year’s NBA All-Star Game. It was at some CAA party that I was able to go to as a plus-one of my friend Candy. It had been a long time coming. When I was an intern at the radio station in Houston in 2003, no one had told me Beyoncé was going to be there and that I could have come to fall on my knees and honor my savior. I only knew it was happening because while en route to mass on a Saturday evening, I got a text like, “Why aren’t you here?” BECAUSE NONE OF YOU SELFISH JACKASSES TOLD ME. THAT’S WHY. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. No, I will never forgive them. We could have met that day and bonded over a shared love of Pappadeaux’s and fried alligator. She could have gotten so smitten with me that she would have just told me to get in the car with her team and make a living carrying her purse. I would have said, “Hell yes, Miss Massa!”