buggered as a boy

“I’m a great lover.

Trust me. I’ve been practicing since I was a little boy”

I know – it’s horrible. It’s a slogan I was kinda wanting to put on a greeting card. I ran it past my wife and she said no, absolutely not, it’s not funny and it makes her skin crawl. This from the woman who once teased me with the phrase that has become the title of this blog, uttered one day a decade ago in her old apartment in Cambridge, Mass: I was pouting about something and she said “Oh don’t be a pussy. You’re just all sensitive because you were buggered as a boy.”

For a moment I couldn’t breathe. She had actually knocked the wind out of me. She was making fun of my deepest truth, the Thing That Is Discussed In Hushed Tones, my Holy Pain, which made me the deep brooding loner I always aspired to be.

But that shit was FUNNY. The phrase was funny. The word was funny, coming out of her American mouth:

Buggered. 

Buggered as a boy.

And her usage was correct, if technically – despite my dear godfather’s repeated attempts – inaccurate. And for the first time ever, I laughed about it. Well, maybe not about  it, but certainly around it. The balloon of sacred pain was suddenly and surprisingly popped.

But here she was, this Mocker of the Unmockable, telling me I can’t discuss in greeting-card form the incontrovertible fact that victims of abuse are great in the sack. Thus, a blog was born. Because she is, of course, right. Sexual abuse is a subject that is both openly, obsessively discussed, but also one which is taboo; it is analysed endlessly, yet entirely misunderstood; it is ridiculously, horribly common, and yet the bearer of the affliction is encouraged to believe s/he is unique and alone. Sexual abuse and assault happens a lot. I could trot out numbers, but I’m not interested in them. I just know that I know lots of people who had bad experiences where someone in a position of power who should have behaved differently, behaved terribly.

And that many of them are really good shags.

Why is this, you ask? Well – I have a penny theory: When the kid is being buggered, they hate themselves. They grow up still harboring that hate, sometimes mis-labeled as ‘Shame’ or ‘Guilt’. One of the only things that can temporarily smother this shame is the love or affection of another person – the “you like me?! You really like me?!” moment. How do we get others to like us? Well – we could sing a really good song, or tell a really funny story, or cure cancer, or… or… or fall back on one of the oldest things we know, which is sex. Because in that Holy Fuck moment when you blow someones [ahem] mind in the sack, they give you a look that is all good, all love, all wow. And for that moment, we feel good about ourselves, we forget the nasty, sick little shit we secretly believe we are.

Just for that moment. But damn, that look is like a drug…