Liposopher: I just pretended I was masculine but neuter, like a robot or a small boy riding a bear. So convenient. But I couldn’t maintain the fraud once I started performing. You can feel how audiences react.
His Therapist: Well, if you’re an object of desire and your primary impulse is to try and please the people around you, that puts you into a vulnerable position.
L: No fooling. But the decades of raw denial … It really messed with my head when I actually liked the attention. For instance, if I was in conversation with a fat woman I found attractive, she’d usually wind up brushing her belly against me.
T: Well, sometimes we can’t help ourselves.
L: I get that now. But back when it was an issue, I just assumed that for some people, their belly was a sensory organ, like the whiskers of a cat. Or curb feelers.
His Therapist: Well, if you’re an object of desire and your primary impulse is to try and please the people around you, that puts you into a vulnerable position.
L: No fooling. But the decades of raw denial … It really messed with my head when I actually liked the attention. For instance, if I was in conversation with a fat woman I found attractive, she’d usually wind up brushing her belly against me.
T: Well, sometimes we can’t help ourselves.
L: I get that now. But back when it was an issue, I just assumed that for some people, their belly was a sensory organ, like the whiskers of a cat. Or curb feelers.
2 months