The Man From Paris

Sometimes bizarre things happen. Fortunately, you understand the reasons behind most of these weird occurrences. But there are some where you simply have to just scratch your head and murmur to yourself, “What in the world…?”

In a hot, sweaty summer Beijing day in 1964, a man arrived from France to China was assigned a post at a French Embassy. That very summer, he met a girl who was six years his senior. At twenty years old, he was young, vibrant, and attractive. There was something about this pretty Asian girl that struck his chord. Needless to say, they fell in love and started their courtship that would last for the next two whole decades. In the process, the girl was pregnant and gave birth to a baby boy. The girl followed the Frenchman wherever he went as he shifted from post to post throughout China. They eventually were united together in 1983 in Paris, living as a happy family.

The man from Paris was Bernard Boursicot. His girlfriend was Shi Pei Pu, who turned out to be a naturally born, full biological male. This is the story that inspired the play “M. Butterfly.”

With immense curiosity, one has to wonder what exactly was going on. Questions were popping up all over the places, ranging from the ethical to unethical. How could a man not discover that the girl he was with for almost twenty years was actually a man? How was it possible then, once the truth was known that Shi was indeed a man, for him to give birth at all to a boy? Did anyone not notice the peculiar situation that was happening around them at that time?

Many things were unanswered. That is to say, unanswered directly from the demands of the public media. If the questions were asked “indirectly” and at the right person, we might have had different answers and cleared up most of the confusions, misunderstandings, and the sheer shock that this whole fiasco had created. That is where we need to dissect and delve right inside the psyche of Bernard Boursicot.

The mind of Boursicot is an interesting prospect. If analyzed correctly, he could be the archetypical example of the most forbidden, misinterpreted, and extraordinary topic that our society as a whole has ever discussed: The power and allure of a straight man’s fantasy for a MTF, aka male to female, aka transgendered woman.

Let me first state the clarification of what makes a male to female. The definition, taken from WordIQ.com, easily explained by the makeup of its name, describes a group of “people who were assigned male sex at birth and feel that this is not an accurate or complete description of themselves. They therefore identify as female or strive to fit a female gender role.” In another words, less the physical incongruence to their minds, they were born women. Further more, for the most part, the major difference between a transgendered woman to a biologically born female is the transgendered woman’s ability to maximize her feminine qualities to great heights and greater still.

What do I mean by “great heights?” There’s a very interesting saying that’s going around the society today: If a woman seems too perfect, too beautiful, or too stunning, she isn’t really a woman. We’ve all been in a situation where a tall, voluptuous, and gorgeous individual walks into a room who commands everyone’s attention and think, “Wow!” Granted, we might have experienced it in a drag show most of the time, but one gets the logic. The point is that this person walks as if trained by a world class model, body curvy and full as Kate Winslet’s, and face as smooth as a porcelain doll. Every gesture she creates is flowing. Every glance she gives is heart-stopping. Every smile she makes is mesmerizing. At times you could almost see a radiant glow emitting out of her, like a star. She is such a woman. A woman who is a superstar in her own right.

That was who Bouriscot saw in the summer of 1964. In his mind, Bouriscot saw in Shi a perfect woman. When they met, Shi was a trained performer for Peking Opera who often portrayed female roles. Bouriscot was so inundate by Shi’s trained feminine movements and calculated conversations that he failed to see the man behind a façade of blush, wigs, and dresses. The person more at fault here, however, was none other than Boursicot himself as he was blinded by the fantasy of what he wanted Shi to become as opposed to what Shi had become for him. He was inexplicably delusional. But can you blame him? He was straight after all. Yet, what’s getting the best of me is not the fact that he was straight, but the structure in the construction of the world of his fantasy.

To pick apart a straight man’s fantasy in this particular instance is no easy task. To try and comprehend why straight men fantasize the way they do about transgendered women will take highly hypothetical inquiries and intensely aggressive conclusions to fulfill my hunger for the truth, albeit a truth skewed and vastly biased. But I will attempt it regardless. And after much debate and arguing against myself, I’ve garnered four viable explanations for this phenomenon, which I call the “Barb Wire Effects.”

The first theory is fantasy displacement. As we grow up, influenced by given environments, our brains are trained to think and react in certain ways. What represents a believed ideology to a person is most likely one hundred percent different than what another person has in his mind. Bouriscot’s youth was filled with teachings of family and catholic values. He was imprisoned within four invisibles walls of yearning and lust as a young adult, and in desperation, he created a fantasy world of which that did not exist in real life, a place he roamed about freely and carelessly. Blinded by his failed retaliation to reality, Shi somehow fit in right in this fantasy world. Shi became Bouriscot’s imaginary maiden who would accompany him to wherever he wished. In an interview later to KPBS On Air Magazine, as Bouriscot succumbed to reality, he shared that, “When I believed it, it was a beautiful story.”

The second theory is idol devotion. This one is as easy to explain as it sounds. We’ve all secretly wanted to be Paris Hilton’s best friend. We all wanted to marry Taylor Swift or Angelina Jolie even if we are fully pledged gays so that we can make pretty babies. It’s human nature to want to be close to a superstar and become part of her posse so that it makes us stand out. Although being next to a fully transformed transgendered woman is not quite the same as being next to Madonna, the immaculate sequined dress on her body, the diminutive mannerisms she possesses, and the ever so gently way she carries herself will have a straight man believe that he is right in the company of a star. A star that’s making him look good at the same time.

The third theory is pure fetish. Some straight men, like us gay boys, have a fondness toward the male private parts, or penises. That’s certainly something they can’t get from their wives or girlfriends. Whether it’s out of curiosity or defiance against the norm, we can’t fathom it. One shouldn’t mistake straight men’s affection for the “winkie” to that of us gay boys’ fascination for the female breasts. With our likeness for boobies, we want to have them as opposed to make love with them. There’s a big difference. The straight men in question want to caress, fondle, and make love to… I shall just stop there before I forget that I am writing a philosophical column instead of erotic porn.

The final theory, which is sort of an extenuation of the third theory, is the straight men’s need to submit. We can juxtapose the analogy of penis and boobs from the previous paragraph to that of both a straight man and a gay man’s fantasy to surrender in bed. Even a hardcore dominating top would sometimes love to take a submissive role, and this is no different for straight men. In this day and age, they are not allowed to speak of being in a submissive role to anyone. Imagine a group of football athletes having a round of beers and out of nowhere one of them declares, “I like to be did in the behind.” And a husband can’t possibly ask his wife to strap it on and begs her by saying, “give it to me, girl!”  Can you picture the horror on her face? That is not to say that most transgendered women are tops, but chances are they are so that they are able to fulfill this part of a straight man’s fantasy.

In the end, a reader must realize that this is not at all a scientifically proven, expertly researched finding but merely a rationalization put together by an opinionated writer. For all we know, maybe it’s true that there’s a little gay in everyone. After another interview with American journalist Joyce Wadler, the fact reveals that Bouriscot, now in his seventies, is residing in France as a publicly out gay man who is sharing the final years of his life with a male partner (Not Shi).

There’s so much to learn about the human nature. Just when we think that we’ve put the final nail in place for the knowledge that we’ve obtained, this knowledge reinvents itself and before we know it, we are looking at totally different information. Like what a colleague of mine, who happens to be fond of transgendered women and will remain anonymous, recently shared with me about his feelings for a transgendered person, “It’s the care that I have for her. It’s not even the physical aspect of what she looks like. There’s an emotion that comes out of her. That vulnerability. That sense of defenselessness because she is still very clueless about herself, about what she is going through. I want to be there for her and help her. It takes a lot of courage and bravery for her to choose the path that she’s taking. That to me is extremely sexy.”

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The Rest Is History (Uncut) *As seen on Fenuxe V2-16

Gazing into the mirror, Paul looks at himself staring back at him, getting ready to start his day with a tooth brush in his hand.

Paul, a partner in a big law firm, the father of a family he takes very well care of, and a responsible citizen of the world when it comes to drinking, is a friend that everyone loves to have. He is very well aware of what his limit is when he sips on his favorite pinot grigio and knows when to stop. He collects wines as a hobby and loves to generously share this passion with his colleagues. As much as he loves wines, Paul only takes on this pleasure for exactly twice a week, on Friday and Sunday nights, to “cleanse the soul.” He understands that overdrinking will lead to dangerous outcomes, but when it comes to alcohol and if consumed methodically, it has a few healthy results on the human mind and body.

Drinking remains at times a stigma to speak of when the discussion arises, mainly because it conceals itself a culprit behind most traffic crimes and domestic abuses. But an average conscientious person must speculate that there has to be another spectrum of pros as opposed to the mounting cons when it comes to drinking. And that inquisitive mind is absolutely right. Furthermore, there are quite a few positive effects of responsible drinking.

Drinking a glass of red wine or that favorite bicardi mixed cocktail you love once every two days will actually “decrease your chances from dying from a heart attack,” as alcohol has the ability to “reduce calcification of the arteries,” as stated by Mayo Clinic, a nonprofit medical care organization. Aside from Mayo Clinic, the National Institute of Health also continues on to report how alcohol will lower the risk for strokes as it has “anti-clotting properties that may prevent clots in the blood vessels.”

No heart attacks and no strokes from drinking? Are we absolutely certain about these findings? The answer, from documented researches, confirms them one hundred percent. And the positive effects of drinking don’t just stop there.

Gallstones, those nasty little cholesterol solidified deposits which sit inside gallbladders can be avoided with light alcohol consumption. According to the 2003’s Nurse’s Health Study, the alcohol composition prevents the forming of gallstones. On the other hand, overdrinking will also accelerate the formation of gallstones, thus this finding is yet inconclusive, but remains to be an optimistic discovery regardless. Another study that has become quite popular with people who might have an unhealthy lifestyle conducted by Harvard Medical School also found that light alcohol intake will “reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes.” One can safely assume that, indeed, alcohol isn’t so bad after all if consumed in a grown up, healthy, and responsible manner, which is what Paul has been proudly doing during his life. But his story continues.

All day, Paul has been working on a rather difficult case involving a bank swindler. He isn’t able to come up with the defending evidences and it has taken him almost three weeks. The trial is at a deadlock. At nine o’clock that evening, he enters a restaurant he seldom frequents and orders a glass of red wine to go with his late dinner. He orders a second glass as a night cap. Then it hits him. Stress mounts, pressure looms, he orders a third glass at ten o’clock. By this time, the alcohol he consumes has contracted his brain tissue and depressed his central nervous system. He is now not able to process his thoughts coherently. What am I going to do? He thinks about his job. When he walks out of the restaurant after his fifth glass at 10:45pm, the communication between his nerve cells and brain has broken down, causing him to appear sluggish. With the alcohol now running through his blood streams, it takes over the functions of his cerebellum, which controls his movements. He is now uncoordinated with his hands, feet, and body. He takes out his keys and gets into his car.

The rest is history.

After he finishes brushing his teeth, he looks at himself in the mirror again. On cue, he hears the bell, which is followed by the opening of his prison cell door. He walks out of the jail cell and joins the others for a roll call.

 

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To See Or Not To See

Too often we take for granted at what’s being presented to us in face value. The logic behind that intuition is easily explained in that we like looking at pretty things. A young wife would rather choose a vibrant, floral themed wall paper instead of the other choice of a dull, brown dark. A successful businessman loves to sport his newly purchased Jaguar rather than driving around in an uninteresting Spectra. Subconsciously, we have the tendency to engage in anything that has to do with the word “beautiful.” In fact, this phenomenon was studied with a group of babies where they were presented with a series of human faces and almost unanimously, the “beautiful” faces received much higher reactions to those that were judged otherwise. Psychologist Dr Alan Slater of University of Exeter concluded that, “this inbuilt notion of beauty persists with us throughout life: not only babies, but children, adolescents, and adults.” If this theory is true, then there is reason to believe that our gay community has fantastically magnified this basic human instinct to a whole new level. And that’s not necessarily a good thing.

Equality, a word that led generations of debates, movements, and wars, has been the single true foundation of what our gay community has been fighting for during the past half a century. The matter isn’t merely about rights, freedom, or embracement, but only the desire to be treated as equals as the rest of the lawful citizens of the world. But if one takes a more amplified look into our society, specifically in the dating scene, it’s shocking to observe the oxymoronic circumstances that are being displayed right in our very own backyard.

Our preferences limit our full enjoyment in life, and there’s nothing truer than when a guy asks another guy out on a date based on a detail out of his initial checklist: Race. A UC Irvine study confirms that, “Race is one of the main selection criteria for daters — which express racial preferences even more commonly than religious or educational preferences.” Surely one can see the cascading negative effects this has on our gay society given the fact that we are supposed to be the premier group to champion the essence of equality.

Let’s do a little experiment.

If you take a moment and close your eyes to observe your environment, you sense air. Air provides us one of the basic ingredients of life as we greedily inhale its presence in its pure grandeur. It has no color, taste, form, or shape. You are doing nothing special here but simply grasping a feel of what’s in front of you. Let’s take another moment to feel something else in front of you by using your hands, this time a person. With your eyes closed, you begin to feel his face. His skin is smooth on the cheek, but scruffy by the jaw line, yet warm to the touch. He has a very sturdy nose and strong thick lips. His ears are slightly inward, covered by his long soft hair. You don’t know what he looks like, but you grow fond of him simply because you made a connection with him through your hands. Studies have shown that touching communicates distinct emotions such as love, happiness, and intimacy*. This romantic power of touching creeps its way to your brain from the sensors of your finger tips, materializing in a vision of someone of whom you fantasize him to become. Alas, you open your eyes, and he is black. Or Asian. Or white. Or Latino. Or whichever race you have on your checklist of don’ts and you become disappointed. From there on, you close the door on yourself at endless possibilities of a future with this person. Within our eyes, love should be blind and unlimited. Within our eyes, we are but the same beings who bleed the same color of blood, cry the same salty tears, and yell the same loud screams in search for the ultimate truth.

But we like what we like. That’s the truth. Thus, we choose to see what we want to see, and we choose to be blind to those we wish not to see.

So, are we still babies? Maybe as a society, we have some growing up to do. Having said that, it’s not hard to see how it would take someone with a tremendous command of persuasion, a keen sense of understanding, and an infinite gauge of patience to change the way we are because baby, we were born this way. 

*Hertenstein, Keltner, App, Bulleit, & Jaskolka, 2006

Greener Pastures *As seen on David Magazine Atlanta issue 651*

We’ve all heard the old saying: The grass is greener on the other side. You ask yourself, at this moment, what in your life symbolizes the “grass” that’s supposed to be important to you. Then you find things that are supposed to be “greener” than your grass. Voila! To your surprise, the list can be astoundingly long. Then, “dog gone it, why don’t I have all these stuff in the first place?” You ask. The answer is simple: Because you just don’t have them.

We are prone to see past things that we already have and ironically focus on the things that we don’t possess. Canadian social specialist Marcy stated that this idea is imbedded in our psychology where people “think that what they want is better than what they have.” This idea runs especially true when applied to our romantic relationships.

You’ve seen it. I saw it. We’ve all been there. How many times have we heard our friends console each other about being dumped by their boyfriends, cheated on, or simply wondered about the existence and meaning of love altogether. The grass in this instance indeed means the “men” who are always better looking, smarter, and do better than what you can ever do for your boyfriend. Your boyfriend is the type that has “mastered the techniques and absorbed the subtleties,” as Blanche put it to Rose, of the old saying in discussion because he wants what he does not have. So he runs off and fetches his greedy sexually excesses. But the reality of the situation is that the grass is not always greener on the other side, and often times than not, the result usually ends in tremendous romantic devastation. Feelings hurt, friends lost, relationships broken are usually the aftermaths of stepping over to the dark side (well, green side in this case). But as intelligent human beings, we come up with ways to make circumstances work. Although not entirely far off the ethical way of things, we make our relationships work through compromising.

Enter open relationships. An idea of such an alien concept dating back to the early 1980’s is now a rampant, normal, sort of the cool thing to do in our gay society. The thought process is broken down as such, using the grass is greener rule: Why can’t I have both the grass I have and the greener grass on the other side? Only in this case the grass is infinite, allowing the pursuer to feed his hunger of lust, and there is one gay commandment that everyone must abide to: NSA, or DL depending on your upbringing. This arrangement has worked out extremely well for many relationships and in some cases, built a stronger bond between two lovers. So at the end of the day, what gives with all the negativities and controversies that this concept has generated?

First, our happiness factor is greatly reduced. This stems from the fact that in a couple, one out of the two is unhappy because the open relationship is generally compromised. Research scientist Patil concluded that being in an open relationship is “uniformly bad, decreasing positive feeling by 15 percent compared with single people.” Second, the “fear response,” as columnist Kathleen Doheny found out, can destroy a relationship. The fear is when your lover is focusing more energy and spending more time with the “second” lover. Jealous broods and envy arises, stuff that can cripple any relationship. And third, the most obvious concern, looks at the health aspect of the relationship. It might be too late to treat that sore after finding out your boyfriend transmitted a certain disease from his other lovers. But don’t you worry. It could get worse.

While there are preventive measures to combat the shortcomings that an open relationship creates, such as practicing safe sex, have a bigger net of open communication, or simply undo the relationship, the inevitable emotional scar carved on one’s heart can take some time to heal and recuperate. As homosexuals, we are hardwired to think and react in a certain way after all, even though not everything we do is generally accepted. We learn and conquer our obstacles, which the generation before us has done to make way for our modern lifestyles. With the concept of open relationship, it will obviously fail for some but work for others. And when it works, it works splendidly.

At the end of the day, it is the bed you choose and pick to sleep on that matters the most. The person that lies next to you is the one who you will openly call your true one and only love. Nothing NSA or DL about that.

About The Peng Perspective

Hello there,

Thanks for checking in. If you are asking why I am here, you could ask yourself the same question - because you love to write. Like you, I love to write. I love to create ideas, situations and embellish their elements to tell a more flavorful story. But for the purpose of this blog, I would like to share not simply just the stories themselves, but the philosophical underlying contexts of such stories that I present.

I delve into current affairs, romantic issues, religious beliefs, or simply the daily mundane happenings and dissect the point that I am making, only that I offer you the point of view from the perspective of a gay individual. I want to create something in that the writing is serious, informative, yet at the same time offers a sense of general understanding. It never intends for one to agree or disagree with the thought process but simply invites the reader to join the ride and observe a situation from a different angle.

My goal, in the end, is for a reader, regardless of sexual orientation, to look at a certain situation, event, or ideology from the outside in and then inside out. I present the material derived from our every day society, then perhaps occasionally apply it into my gay community to compare and contrast. My only hope for the reader when finished reading the writing is for him to be aware of his intuitions of the self. Nothing more or less. 

Please, take a moment to read my blog and if you like what you read, connect with me. Thank you.

Sincerely,

S. Peng

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