Blanche Devereaux with Giant Boner

Blanche Devereaux with Giant Boner

Read on for the story of its making:

My friend Bobby (name changed for anonymity’s sake, although given the above I’m not sure why he wouldn’t want a bit of credit) read my book, and we had a bottle of wine between us and started chatting about it one night.  Bobby identifies as predominantly into men, cisgender (for those playing the home game, a cisgender trait is where one’s behavioral/mental gender and birth gender match in a given circumstance), hypersexual, mostly active.  I’ve blogged about why we might exhibit these characteristics before, and it’s not about birth gender in the least.

“[The book] made me think about what attractions I do have to women.  And I really have none,” he said.

“Everyone’s different.  Sexuality is more like a fingerprint than a gender or an orientation.  Like you, you’re hypersexual, predominately same-sex interested, very active/toppy.  But you still exhibit some behaviors that are stereotyped as ‘feminine,’” I told Bobby.

“Like a love of Golden Girls?” he asked, and I think he might have been joking…

“I know you’re really only into dudes, but you do that same kind of rewriting and reconceptualizing that pervades No Church in the Wild because you neglect to consider all the parts of you that aren’t a perfect match for your birth gender. I like football, that’s not really ‘feminine’ in the stereotypical sense.  And loving Golden Girls isn’t stereotypical ‘manly’ for you either.  But if you destroy the dichotomy of gender and stop trying to fit yourself into one of two imperfect boxes with everything you do, you’ll see your have more in common with the Golden Girls than you have different.  Did you ever identify with a biological female? Like, have a female heroine? Maybe, divaesque?”

“Indeed. Blanche Devereaux,” Bobby said.

At that precise moment in our lives Bobby happened to have much free time.  I am a painter from time to time, and I haven’t had a good live model in about eight years.  In the interim, I’ve painted myself.  But now, I had a thought.

“Would you model for me?” I asked him.  It was too good to be true.  His sexuality (though obviously not his birth gender) - hell, even his personality - was pretty much identical to that of Blanche Devereaux.  Playful hypersexual who pursues men actively and frequently.  Only men.

“Naked?” Bobby asked, tentative.

“Ideally.”

“I don’t know if I want people to see my face.”

“They don’t need to see your face…” I explained.  Because it would be Blanche’s.

I told Bobby he could keep his clothes if he needed to when he showed up at my apartment to sit.  But we both agreed Blanche would be naked.  We’re all ultimately, naked, after all, if we’re portrayed realistically.  Clothes hide a painful amount of expression.  As he sat, I asked him what struck him about Blanche and watched as his body followed his thoughts, waiting for the perfect Blanche moment.

“What about my penis?” he asked.

“Is the part of you that identifies as Blanch Devereaux sexual?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then I suppose this being would be erect… I want to paint the part of you that feels like Blanche Devereaux.  That being is genderless and both genders at once…if you’re comfortable with that?”

“No,” Bobby said, “ I think you’re right.  She’d be erect.”

“She’s pretty much always erect, as far as I can tell.”

Bobby was eventually able to manifest Blanche’s erection, but only if he handled the erection piece outside of our modeling session, during which he reclined on my bed, interchangeably smoking weed and drinking, with gay porn on in the background, while I photographed him until the perfect Blanche moment emerged.

I chose an image of Blanche from an episode where she was extra-flirty, as she comments flippantly about a lover.  It reminded me of Bobby.

So, here you have it – my painted expression of the end of gender and sexuality dichotomies a la No Church in the Wild.  If you like, comment.  I plan to do a series of gay men channeling Golden Girls.  I’ve already got a wonderful expression for a Sophia.