the stormy leather god, estrogen, and vietnam

It was a very long time ago, but I just got jolted by it again.

He, the Vet, had walked into my office. There was already a student in there and she overheard him say, "I could have killed you ..."

I think it opened the conversation. But before I knew it, the student had told the Chair, and the Chair had told Campus Police, and the Chief of Police went undercover in my class, day one. A clear misunderstanding. It was a class on Gender and Anthropology. The cop was a pretty good student; raised his hand, took notes, asked interesting questions. I think the whole thing was just a great excuse for the Police Chief to take a class on gender...

The Vet wore army fatigues every day, camo pants, and T-shirts all with references to the war, like "Vietnam, Take One" with a picture of a movie camera filming the horror. Loud noises made him jumpy. He sat by the door, in case he had to run out at any moment. It didn't happen too often. But it did happen.

He had an arsenal. But so, apparently did a lot of other students.

I liked him instantly. We swapped war stories. Only my war was only six days long. And I hadn't killed anybody. All we'd really done was commandeer an empty bomb shelter (with wall-to-wall mattresses), lock ourselves in and fuck like bunnies the last three days. That one became a rabbi. Or a psychologist. Or both. I think both. Point is, it wasn't Vietnam. Far from it.

I remember one year the Vet and I traded outfits. I got to wear his old dress uniform. He borrowed my Stormy Leather for a while. He got me a belly dancer for my birthday once. It was a friendship based on exploring the potential for transformation. And an appreciation of the power of mythology. And on the search for the ritual that might reverse the rage, ease the warrior's pain and make things right again.

So, when I wrote about embodying God, he really has had a lot more experience in this regard — in the other sense of God. The Stormy Leather God.

Here's what he wrote:

"I was God when I was 20 years old. I ripped and I tore. I did decide who lived and who died. 20 year olds should not be God, though I am still being told that others 'would follow me into hell' — no shit, old team mate really said that and it is being taken as a compliment.

"However, for me being God it is not what it is cracked up to be. I was not very good at it — it really fucked me up..."

Right. So I stand corrected.

That's the other kind of God. The one I wasn't talking about. Makes me sound so warm and fuzzy speaking mommie-god, garden-god... But that's not how men embody God, is it?

He found an antidote. Estrogen. Estrogen and belly dance. And years later I got to see her transformation. And what I'd like to say is, in my book, that was God. He Created a Her he could live with. She could calm the rage. And she could dance. And I was jealous.

He could have killed me. But he didn't.

"My cardiologist," he said, "took me off Estrogen because it was beginning to weaken my blood vessels. Unfortunately, the more it diminishes in me, the more I am returning to a creature I do not want to be again, [that kind of] God. So, I finally decided to say screw it... I've been living on borrowed time for years, so if the Estrogen is going to kill me, let it ... at least I will, I hope, return to a place of semi-peace before it or something else takes me down."

So, here's to our warriors, and a remembrance of what war does to them. And how hard they struggle (if they do struggle) to undo all the harm. I salute you, and I salute what you've become. And I honor your bravery when that war is finally done.

And here's to the Estrogen God, the mommie-gods, and yes, the gardeners too. I'll stick to my story, after all. To Herakles, warrior-slave of Omphale, here's to you.

penetration, the game

I've always been fascinated by K.E. Moyer's work on kinds of aggression and their biological basis. What he attempted to do was to figure out how many distinct types of 'animal' aggression he could find that were triggered in the brain without overlapping any other type of aggression. He was of course aiming to understand human aggression, but he thought he'd start with something a bit more primal. He came up with the magic number: seven. One of them is my favorite—it's probably obvious which one. Paul Brain (sic) later on collapsed Moyer's categories to the magic number of five, trying to be concise. However, I think his list is a bit of a cop out, leaving out some of the more juicy categories.

This morning, for some reason I cannot fathom, but surely the psychoanalysts can work out pretty quickly, I thought of trying out Moyer's theory of aggression with a word-substitution game. This, after all, worked fine one year when I was leading services (rephrase: was forced to lead services) and the only way I could stand to do it was to substitute the English word 'God' for 'Nature' — which worked out quite nicely, and kept my blood pressure down. Curiously, 'nature' is a Demotic word (ie, ancient Egyptian), the original being 'neter' which tends to get translated as 'God' or 'gods', so I figure it was only fair to go back the other direction.

So, what follows is Moyer, substituting the word 'aggression' with 'penetration'. Not exactly in his own words. His typology of aggression transmuted to 'penetration.' I haven't tried this yet, so we'll see if it works out at all. Also, I'm sticking to his order; I haven't changed anything around.

1. The penetration of territorial defense — when animals attack and penetrate intruders who enter their territory. After all, the best response to territorial penetration is meeting them head on, so to speak.

2. Predatory penetration — when an animal attacks and penetrates his prey. This form of penetration is NOT (Moyer's emphasis) believed to be hunger-induced, but rather involves the lateral hypothalamus and the specific 'trigger' stimuli (the animals it typically feeds on, the prey, well yum).

3. Inter-male penetration — occurs when another male, preferably a stranger, is present. Androgens are believed to be critical in this form of penetration. (This one is my second favorite).

4. Fear-induced penetration — always preceded by attempts to escape. This form of penetration behavior is most evident when the animal is cornered and is afraid. He will almost always react with penetration before he attempts to get away. Moyers doesn't say so, but I think this one is especially useful in understanding a male reaction to a female he fears. The amygdala and lateral hypothalamus are believed important here.

5. Irritable penetration — this will be evoked by any attackable object or other animal. The ventromedial hypothalamus and amygdala are believed to be the crucial brain structures here. Here Moyers comes up with a great residual category. Aggression, just because. Sorry. Penetration. When grouchy or on edge, just penetrate... don't think or try to figure it out.

6. Maternal penetration — When a female attempts to protect her young from harm. Usually takes the form of attempted verbal penetration ("don't cross without looking both ways...") or just as often involves the use of a cue-tip.

7. Instrumental penetration — It worked before, so I'll do it again. This form of penetration is the only one he ties to being reinforced by learning.

So, does it work? Do we learn anything more about aggression (or about penetration) by trying out a little word substitution? Or maybe, we don't learn anything else at all, because there really is (or was) no difference to begin with? After all, even Freud changed his mind about this a few times... At first he posited that all behavior is triggered by sexual and aggressive impulses. But no, he eventually decided, that might be true for women, but for men sex and aggression were the same impulse after all...