March 14 2009
My first awareness of my body came from my older sister (see My Sister). I was about four. My Mother and Sis were there. Sis would say “His skin is soft, just like a baby” and stroke my arms. I internalized an image of being soft and smooth. I remember being disappointed later when she stopped. “Your skin isn’t that soft anymore” she said.
The other image was of being skinny. Sis would say, “Look you can count his ribs” Which she would proceed to do on numerous occasions. That did not feel as positive as being soft and smooth, but it did not hurt until one day when I was four, and visiting my cousins in California a car stopped and a horrible woman started pointing at me like a thing and talking about me. I stopped running around without a shirt after that.
I felt a queerness, an otherness that needed to be hidden from others. I was a soft, skinny, fine-boned boy. I felt shame for my body and hid it. I was uncomfortable in sports clothes. I wore baggy clothes to hide under and tried desperately to get fatter so that I would look more like a boy.
I danced exactly once before I turned 20. I remained self-conscious. and ashamed until years later when I worked some of my issues out and found Dance Church.
