“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
 
And whether pigs have wings.”
  —Charles Dodgson, ‘Through the Looking-Glass’
 
Yeah, I’ll be king
When dogs get wings
  —Tom Petty, ‘It’s Good to be King’

I thought to write something of the “why” of my alienation in my blog post, but how does one compress a lifetime of exploration into a few paragraphs? What to put in, what to leave out? Especially when some of what I have to say would likely be very controversial round here, going against conventional wisdom and “what everyone knows” as it does.

How to talk about a lifetime of misandrist bigotry (starting at home with mom) without raising a firestorm round here? How to talk about the number of times I’ve heard “Are you gay?!” (mostly from women) because I cannot function in the straitjacket of traditional masculinity? How to talk about the way that the conjunction of these two experiences creates a painfully impossible double-bind?

And finally, how to talk about the many casualties I have seen that have resulted from other males experiencing much worse than I have? Corey Taylor seems to be one casualty, and his grief and anger comes through clearly in Bother. Shall we answer this grief as Carmilla does by turning the guy into a woman (and vampire) without even consulting him first, and give him The Gift of being predator instead of prey?

Here is yet another casualty: Hate Bounces, by Zed the Zen Priest.

And here I had better stop before I get the other foot stuck in (although some may argue that I already have). As we used to say on Usenet, though, I am wearing my asbestos underwear. :3

Is it the Aspergers, or the being T? There is a high correlation between the two.

Indeed there is. For me, at least (and I suspect for a good number of others), the conjunction point of that correlation is something called “love shyness,” and what Dr. Brian Gilmartin called the “male lesbian.” When I first went to read his book, Shyness and Love: Causes, Consequences, and Treatment, I found so accurate a self-portrait that I had to stop—it was just too painful. I still have not read the entire book, but have read enough to get the idea.

Shyness & Love, published in 1987, has been out of print for a number of years, and copies are difficult to find. In 2004, Seth Gobin found a copy, and contacted the author for permission to transcribe the book into PDF format and post it on the Internet where people may download it free of charge. In his request, Seth mentioned Asperger’s, which is not discussed in the book. In his reply granting permission, Dr. Gilmartin made some comments about areas where the book needs additions and revision, and then remarked, “Many of us now believe that as many as 40% of the cases of severely love-shy men would qualify for a diagnosis of ‘Asperger’s Syndrome’.” This letter is included in PDF file with the book transcript.

Much of the material for his book came from a study that Dr. Gilmartin conducted using a survey questionnaire and interviews. He included in his book many of the comments his respondents offered regarding their dissatisfaction with their maleness, and their desire to be female. Being the 1980’s, no one would admit that they had even thought of doing something about their feelings. In the new millennium, “male lesbian” and the longer “a lesbian trapped in the body of a man” have been added to the popular lexicon, and it has been widely acknowledged that many people who feel this way are actively expressing it in their lifestyles.

The resources page on love-shy.com, a site which is itself a serious resource, includes a download link to the book. Another resource is the blog, crossdreamers.com. There are at least two posts about Love & Shyness, part 1 and part 2.