Scott Capurro

I’m hungry, so I’ll make this fast: It’s not like I’m not attracted to women. I am, but I don’t feel romantic toward them. I don’t want to go on a date with a woman, but I do fantasize about everything. And women make me feel safe. Oprah would say I’m self hating, but I actually hate Oprah. She’s not a woman. She’s the beast.
Enjoy.

Gay Times
May 2008
Scott Capurro

Yoga brings out my hetero side. I don’t mean my arrogance surfaces, nor does my hair thin. Instead, my body becomes less ornamental and more functional. Attention leaves my dick and travels to my outer extremities, as I balance, in handstand, staring out, facing Annette Benning. We smile at one another, or frown, since we’re upside down. She wears white tights and a light blue v-neck jumper. I happened into the workshop she regularly attends in LA, and she has lovely, small, very pale feet.

Asanas, or poses, are sensual, in that the practice wakens the senses. They’re not sexual, because when challenged, students fart and cry. And in that warm studio, where erotic touch has no agenda, I comfortably flirt.

Classes are filled with women. Many are fit, having been athletic and suffering an injury, which is the reason some show up. They’re healing and vulnerable. Aren’t we all?

In fact, I went to Hawaii recently with some Iyengar acolytes from San Francisco, because my knee was becoming intolerably painful. A car hit me while out jogging in 1989, which my leg’s ligaments sometimes remind me of by tightening or wobbling, depending, it seems, on my flailing career.

I needed this trip to Maui, with the discipline of five hours of yoga a day and spiceless vegan food. I could feel the brick of candy I ate at Christmas, the well of booze I gulped at the New Year and the strain of a fight I had with a close friend, all locked up in my bloated belly and tightening calves. I hadn’t breathed deeply since Nixon resigned, and I wanted a full release. I got one, unexpectedly.

When I arrived at the renovated pineapple factory, now a retreat center, I was told I’d be sharing a room with a woman. Arabella is an electrician by trade, and has a soccer player’s body. She’s 5’6”, with strong arms, sinewy, smooth legs and a subdued six pack. Her eyeteeth protrude a bit, and her dark eyes are almond shaped and very bright. We’ve spoken, usually about yoga, in hushed tones before and after class. Arabella’s often accompanied by her recently acquired boyfriend, who’s tall, thin and has a wide smile and big hands. Genetically, they’re the type of couple that should be procreating. Emotionally, she’s demanding and he’s in San Francisco.

Whilst unpacking in our tiny bungalow, Arabella takes a call. Her beau, it seems, misses her and after hanging up she stares at the floor, her freckled forehead wrinkled.

“He’s just broken up with me,” she finally admits. “He does this all the time.”

I stack t-shirts, not remembering what I’m meant to say. Gay men dump each other habitually. After two martinis and a flick of the ‘update profile’ button on Gaydar, they’ve moved on. It must be different for a 36 year-old woman, no matter how hot, with all that ‘clock ticking’ mythology I’ve seen on Trisha.

“Maybe I should be gay,” she moans, as she lies back on her bed, her back arched.

I alert her that lesbians can be just as moody as jealous boyfriends.

“No. I mean, maybe I should be a gay man. Gay men are always attracted to me. Why is that?”

“Because you seem fearless.” I can feel my cheeks warming. “And you have a tool belt.”

“Wanna have sex?”

I’d barely unrolled my denim.

“Let’s pace ourselves,” I say, jokingly.

Arabella giggles and rushes off. When she returns with green tea, she praises my neatness.

“How do you fold everything the same size?”

“They teach you that in prison.”

“You’ve been in prison?”

“No. But I can dream.”

She tosses her pile of sport wear into a corner, and leaps onto her mattress, resting on her stomach, her ankles crossed, her feet pointing, like an anxious teenager. She’s wearing burgundy lycra shorts and she’s reading Kierkegaard. I swoon, theoretically.

Later, our first grueling yoga class over, we gnaw on lettuce and stumble off to our cabin. Arabella, prancing from shower to bed, slips between her sheets, removing her white towel. The night’s very dark, and devastatingly quiet, except for her throaty breath. I shut my eyes tightly like it’s Christmas Eve.

The warm hand I feel must be hers.

“You trim,” she says, as she sinks below my waistline. Her hair is thick, her lips very moist, and her nails soft, as she rummages inside my digestive canal. I grab her bicep and lift her as she pulls me to face her. We kiss. She bites. I get nearer.

And my joint pain goes away.

I suppose the complainers are miserable twats, sure, but worse, they’re uninformed and unevolved. I thought they’d appreciate the recognition, most people walk by or over trannies and hope that they’re an imagination’s figment. I instead paid them respect through recognition, but frankly, like the Diana inquest or the war in Iraq, I fear time has been wasted.
But I do love this piece.

GT Magazine,
April 2008
Scott Capurro

What does one do about trannies? One must do something because they’re using our NHS. One should have a stance. The new trend is the transition from male-to-female, both the unresolved pre- and the braver post-op, with their shiny, pubescent facial hair and round, soft features. With innocuous names like ‘Bob’ (once Katherine, a sweet local actress) and ‘Roy’ (previously a macrobiotic mother of two), they’re even employed by my gay sauna, manning the front desk, offering locker keys and coy, chubby smiles.

Gender lines blur as sexuality takes a back seat. Let’s face it - these days, being gay is as common as poverty. Queers are everywhere, doing everything. I never thought in my lifetime I’d see homos behaving normally, raising monsters and appearing on Judge Judy, but then who could predict Labour’s collapse? Perhaps an evolutionary scholar who understands that liberal politics, when successful, has no common enemy and so nowhere to turn except down. The Greeks should’ve despised the Romans more, and Gordon Brown should bomb Sheffield, although with one eye I fear he’ll miss. And I have friends in Derby. They’re not good friends of course, but they are a potentially rarified breed known as ‘birth males’.

Are men, we, I, even you, so successful, even in Sheffield, that everyone wants to be us? Perhaps because women make less money and in exchange get raped and beaten a lot more, many real chicks are molding their clits into cocks. Which seems odd, since boobs on a girl are hot, but man boobs on a tranny man are definitely not. And all the trannies at my sauna have moobs. Floppy piles of sweaty flesh, sticking to their black t-shirts, leave a bottom rim of moist for one to gawk. Where else should one look? Their eyes are feminine, giving them away, leading me to say ‘Thanks, ma’am’ when grabbing my white towel. And ‘ma’am’ in a gay sauna is as welcome as, frankly, a ma’am, which is to say not at all.

One assumes the sauna owner, perhaps a recent cock convert, prefers his trannies matronly, but when I’m banging away at an out of towner, I don’t want to be stared at by my mom. Like lesbian wardens they peruse the hallways, denim-covered thighs whooshing, replenishing condoms whilst checking for unsuitable sexual behavior, ignoring the fact that their being there is most inappropriate. Because no matter how many male hormones they consume, they’re still full of, if not femininity, then female power, which is infinite and, if one is at all perceptive, distinguishable.

I stare at the porn to distract, and there are more trannies, three in fact, on all fours, being fingered by someone off screen. Like Mark Twain, I’m deluged and slightly nauseated. I stumble into someone bald and small, flat chested and tattooed, bent forward and orally available. I run my hand over their smooth white ass, then reach between their pale legs, expectations lowered by circumstance, and I discover that yes, less is sometimes less. Not bad. And in fact, the mouth is expert. But I can’t suspend my cravings.

When leaving, the same little tranny, now back in uniform, giggles.

“You’ll never guess what happened,” he says.

One shudders, imagining the surprises that might unfold.

“I saw someone I liked, and he passed right by me to have sex with you. Can you believe it? I’m never turned down.”

Pity soars. The blatant hatred and mock disbelief, even within his community, that this person faces must seem insurmountable. I place myself, momentarily, in his tiny shoes. Cock, whether bought or not, doesn’t make the man. Unabashed competitiveness can, and he has that in spades.

I leave, loving my penis. Mine’s not big but it works, and it’s sort of pretty, or so I’ve been promised. But if I were having something surgically sewn to my groin, something that would make me feel more valuable, I can think of so many better options. Like, I dunno, a bottle opener. I’d be the life of any party. How about a Nintendo game, for long flights? Or a cash dispenser, saving me the torture of stumbling through Soho late on a Saturday night. Although for the delivery of bills, a slit would have to be added, which seems to defeat the purpose, unless dropping cash out of my ass is more than just a metaphor for my mortgage. Maybe I’d have a mirror glued to my pelvis, since all anyone really wants to see is a reflection of themselves.