The Third Sex

So I’m in the pub a few beers down revising GCSE poems for my students. Why should I of all people be getting what I wanted before, namely a knowledge of poems; my muse could have taught me perfectly well altho I it is true was paying then! And, I get to eternally think about her again. In an odd way drink does not affect the mind – I have sat here programming quite intricate programs on far too much drink, it does get hard, but emotional thinking, poetic, seems unaffected. I will see whenever I read this sober! The girl my heart set itself upon had no sexual interest in me. We were friends, but you would have to be a monster for someone not to want to be friends, best-friends apparently ( I never knew what that meant – I don’t have best friends believing in some kind of democratic egalitarianism). No she never fancied me (well she did but before she discovered how I’m built). So a drink seems to have progressed this thought along. I am instantly reminded of this guy I met over a beer in a pub in the Lake District in 2002 that I had dropped into to watch a world cup game.Neither of us really watched football so we ended up talking. I was supposed to re-contact him: I never did. He observed a problem: I like many men he knew appeared to resent the power that women had over us. This thought is now relevant. Knowing that the girl of my dreams never had sexual interest in me opens up a huge vista. It means that sexuality is not enough to have sexual liaisons. This is obvious because I had already “chosen” her, while she didn’t “chose” me. The basis of this “choice” is thus non-sexual (although it is conditioned by sexuality). In an Hegelian way (master/slave dialectic) my future happiness was thus entirely dependent upon her choice (after my decision was made) – me being a man was not enough.

Now I have put a paragraph in place here to enjoy the extraordinary nature of this situation that opens up. After making my choice in her I was actually pushing out my future happiness into a boat that might never return. It didn’t. Even if it had, it would have died: she died. What kind of reckless insanity is this? Am I a gambling man?

So this brings me to my current musings and wallowing. In the face of endless criticism for not being married actually there is logic in this. My beer apparently helps me understand. I am not a complete human being. That completeness has been broken and shattered for I sold it down the river and waved it good buy not knowing whether I would ever see it again. I have heard that this boat was tragically sunk and all life aboard was lost. I wasn’t there to see it sink, I have only word being sent up river that this was the fate of my voyage. I am no longer a complete person.

I feel like Adorno and the Jews lamenting the Holocaust (though in microcosm obviously). They spoke of humanity having been fractured; a flaw so great that it couldn’t ever be reconciled. How can Man live proud and self-identical after what He has done within Himself?

Now if I accept that “my muse” had the power to reject my sexuality and through this my happiness I am admitting a very big thing. I am admitting that my happiness is conditional upon the outside world. I am letting go of the adolescent belief that I am a superman who can determine his own future and status. I am no longer indestructible. I am no longer immortal. How can I enter into a relationship now and at the same time know that my happiness is but an arbitrary whim of the world. It is like the weather. Would I marry a sunny day? Joy on joy until the day turns and the weather is rain and cloud. What happiness can there really be when what I am is simply the beauty in the eye of a beholder? Yes I can chose You, but there is no assurance you will chose me. If you do it is good, but you never had to, so I become an accident, just a lucky dice throw, all that could have been with “my muse” actually could never have been, not really. If she had said yes herself it would simply have hidden the truth until she herself became victim to the roll of the dice. No! The Dream had to die!

How can I be enjoying the vista that has opened up? It is because it shows that I am not these things. It frees me from “relationships”. Oh yes I could have, and I could not have, and I might have happiness and I might have happiness not; but it is all just ripples on the pond. I believed they were the pond! Wrong. In a way I feel more male to have accepted rejection – I am that third sex who is not female but neither the desired sex in the eyes of your beloved. It is that male who is free from the gaze of the female. My friend in Lake District was right in a way we men struggle to escape the gaze of the women who we love.