Show me...

”Show me your dick” was an actual scientific study. Sexologist John Money wanted to prove that the quintessential characteristic of a man, defined by Western culture was the presence or absence of a penis. With government money, he conducted an observational study of penis possession in a many major American cities hiring sociologists to stand on the corner asking men on the street if they possessed a penis, and then asking them to show for first field data. When I read about the study in a medical journal I thought it was a joke and damn bold. I can barely get my boyfriend to show me his dick let alone on a busy street.
But it got me to thinking what really makes a man a man. I’ve seen the movie “Boys Club” and Hilary Swank was damn convincing. I once date a really butch lesbian in college thinking she was a boy but it turned out she was a girl. All my friends knew, but they wouldn’t tell me, just laughed behind my back as I took her out to dinners and tried to make my move. I went down to feel the dick and got an empty space. It freaked me out. I suddenly knew what it felt like for guys who get tricked by the trannies. I questioned my sexuality, if I was really gay or just a lesbian.
I knew what made me a male at four years old, my penis, and that I had to play with toy trucks and not dolls, and I had to want to get dirty and play sports. I knew I was a male in middle school when they separate the boys and girls, and told us about sex. At first it was annoying being a male, the hormones, and the dick getting hard every five seconds in seventh grade and having to carry a book covering my erection to the board to solve some stupid problem. It’s like the teacher knew exactly when my dick got hard because each and every time he would make me stand.
. I guess it first began with gym, having to be naked in front of other guys and feeling smaller in comparisons. And suddenly in high school there was the pressure of sex. Losing my virginity to a girl was supposed to make me a man. I lost my virginity at fourteen years old to Kiesha in her bedroom. I didn’t feel any different. I didn’t even have an orgasm. I just stuck it in, pounded a couple of times until I got bored. The only exciting part was bragging about it to my male cousins who touched their dicks when I described her body and how it supposedly felt. I lost my virginity to a guy at sixteen years. That didn’t make me feel like a man but more confused. I had to deal with the fact I was gay. I had to deal with that bastard never called me back like I never called Kiesha back.

But back to gym. I somehow swallowed, no pun attended, that the true measurement of my manhood was how I measured up with other men. It was like a trophy competition and I didn’t want to come in last place. I went to a black high school. After practice, the boys would walk around in their glorified nakedness, their dicks swinging in the wind, taking showers so effortlessly as I did everything I could to avoid the showers, not just because they were so damn erotic but also out of fear of humiliation. I wasn’t exactly a show-er. I wasn’t the type that could strip naked and make eyes bulge more like make fingers point and laugh. I didn’t get pubic hair until I was sixteen years old so my dick has always been shy and a slow learner. I didn’t learn how to properly masturbate until I was like nineteen years old. I would try but nothing would ever happen.

Like my dick, my masculinity or manhood has never been much of a show-er or showoff. I don’t know how to fix a car. I can’t watch sports without getting bored. I rather watch Martha Stewart. I don’t drink beer. I don’t gamble. I’m no John Wayne with the deep bassing Barry White voice or that ridiculous walk. Yet, as I gotten older, I’m a lot more masculine when I first came out. My voice got deeper. I guess you can say like my dick what makes me a man, is a grower.

I must admit I’ve always wondered if I had a bigger dick how my life would be different. In eight grade would I had won the Spelling Bee? Would I have made the basketball team in high school? Would I have graduated valavectorian and gone to Harvard and became a hustler for the preppy rich kids. My obsession with my dick probably started the day I watched porn. The guys seemed so huge. I couldn’t imagine that was the normal. And I was a black male, I thought getting the big dick sort of made up for the years of oppression and racism. Getting pulled over by the cops, at least I have a bigger dick. And then I was gay. I wondered if I had a bigger dick would I never considered being a bottom, learned to fix a car or watch sports. If I had a bigger dick would I have better credit? Make more money or own a home. Did have a smaller dick turn me into a writer instead of getting a real job like street walker or stripper. My intention since I was fourteen years old has been to distract those from my dick, tell a joke, wear a shiny necklace, don’t make them look directly at it or pull out a ruler, shave my pubic hair to make it look bigger, put a pretty cock ring around it, anything to get it touched before the person changes their mind like getting drunk and sleeping with a midget.
When I was a boy, I never gave much thought to about the man I wanted to grow up to be. I think I was just trying to survive. I often wondered what would happened to me. I worried if I would be okay. Will I be happy? Will I ever find someone to love me? Would I ever feel good enough? Will I ever have a family?

In the beginning, I didn’t have any male role models in my life. My father got himself killed when I as five years old. Before that, he was never around. I only had three memories of him and none of them were pleasant. The first nine years of my life were surrounded by females. There was my Grandma, my mama, my aunts and my two sisters.

And then my mother abandoned me to my father side of the family. The gender dynamic changed dramatically. I went from all girls to all boys. I never felt comfortable around boys. I never felt masculine enough. It wasn’t that I couldn’t fight, play sports, take out the trash or fix a car; I was just more comfortable with girls. They were less stress. Growing up in a house full of thirty something boys and five uncles, I was fighting a different cousin every day. By the time I was sixteen years old, I was like any other mannish boy. I chased girls. I played the roles but I knew I was gay. I didn’t have the exact words but I knew the feeling. I didn’t look at girls like my boy cousins.

The truth I didn’t look up to any of the men of my family. I was obsessed with Cosby Show and none of the men in my family cared about Shakespeare or education. Most of the men in my family were high school drop outs. All the men on both sides of my family ended up in prison. They were all womanizers. They were all criminals. They were either playboys, hustlers, gang leaders, drug dealers, gamblers and wife beaters. The only person close enough to look up to was my uncle Arthur Ray. He was the most successful of the Whitley men. He was a biggest drug dealer in Texas. He had like four houses. He owned a mechanic shop. He had like thirteen children by ten different women. He bought me my first bike. Actually it was a hand me down. He would pay for my school field trips if I made drug runs for him. The thing I didn’t like about Arthur Ray was that he was always looking over his shoulder for the cops. Everyone was a suspect. He ended up getting fifteen years in prison.

When I was a boy, I just wanted someone to make sure my life was going to be alright. Someone to give me focus. I used to feel so behind with the other kids. I didn’t learn to properly tie my shoes until second grade. I had to beg someone to teach me how to ride a bike. I would look at other kids with their fathers and I’d get so jealous. I wanted someone to teach me how to catch. I wanted to talk to someone about sex. I guess I wanted someone to help fill in the blanks like how to properly tie a tie or teach me how to cut grass or help me build a dog house. I guess I wanted someone to teach me how to be a man. But being gay I guess there was always the disappointment of never measuring up.

Before I went off to college, my sister’s grandfather sat me down and told me a man was supposed to get a good job, find a good Christian girl, marry her, buy a house and go to church every Sunday. There were so many things wrong with that picture. Legally I became a man at 18 years old.

And then when I enter gay life my idea of what makes a man a man changed. It all seemed illusion. It all seemed like drag. It was for sex. I deepened the voice, the walk for sex. It wasn’t real.

It wasn’t until three years later when I woke up in jail after being arrested for a DQI that I asked myself what type of man did I become. And it took another two years when I woke up again to the older man I moved in with when I was twenty two yelling at me that I was lazy, a drunk, stupid, trifling and that he wanted me out, that I realized it was too late. I didn’t escape the ghetto. I didn’t escape the abuse and neglect. I had become the man I feared the most and I couldn’t respect him. I didn’t escape my past. The walk, the talk, the forced masculinity was all illusion. I was a man, but for all the wrong reason.

It took a lot of anger. IT took many fights. It took getting fired from jobs. It took getting kicked out of bars and clubs. It took getting three ribs cracked and three front teeth knocked before I said enough. It took bad relationships. It took dealing with my sexuality.

Now I know it’s a decision. It’s not the type of man I want to be, but dealing with the man I am. The first part of that was facing the mirror. Facing the worse fear in me, will I be okay. Can I take care of myself? I used to pride myself on being the only person in my family to go to and graduate college. I used to pride myself on being the only person in my family to have ventured away from Texas. I used to pride myself on being the only person in my family work a corporate job. I wrote a book. I wrote 53 comics. But I still feel as if I failed. I didn’t learn from my past. I ran. I didn’t pay back my youth. I declared bankruptcy. I couldn’t respect the man I become so I knew I had to change. I want to be able to pride myself to be the only person in my family to learn the lesson.

The worse part was facing the mirror, facing the man I am. I don’t think there’s a switch that tells us that we’ve become men. I don’t think it’s our dick how big or how small. I don’t think it’s the illusion, the walk or talk. Legally we become adult at age eighteen years that is the ability to buy property and go to prison. Legally at 18 years old we’re held accountable for our decisions. I think it’s the consciousness of accountability that makes one a true human-being, man or woman. It’s the ability to look at one’s life and face that we are not what we thought we were supposed to be.

I have to face the molestation. I have to understand it sent me on the journey to try and figure out my body. I had to claim my body back. I have to face the abandonment. It made me so damn angry. I have to face the abuse and neglect. IT made me an out of control pit-bull. I can’t respect that man. I don’t need to physically fight anymore. I’ve been fighting all my damn life.

Facing the man I am, I know he is a good man. He has a good heart. He just needed to reduce some of the noise in his life to get back to his soul. I got into therapy. I surrounded myself with positive people. I got focus. I grew up.

But back to gym, now it’s no longer High School but Ballys. I have no fear of walking around naked in the shower. I know I don’t have the biggest dick. It’s just average. It’s a grower. I’m not competing. I’m a grower not a show-er. It’s not like I got extra dick under my bed or in the refrigerator to pull out just in case an orgy breaks out. You get what you get. It ain’t bad. I’m a grower because it’s taken a long time for me to get comfortable with my body. It’s taken a long time for me to accept it’s as good as it gets and that’s beautiful. Every day I’m learning how to become a better man. It’s how I’m growing. It’s not how I’m showing off.