The Last Of The Red Hot Lovers–The Good Life On The Gender Spectrum

Randy Belleville grew up in a family with a strict father, a brutal older sister from whom he learned about sexual diversity, and a beautiful mother who would forever be his ideal woman. 

He never realized how lucky he had been and how what he thought was a dysfunctional family provided exactly the kind of formation that would be necessary in a gender fluid age.  His father was a handsome ‘rogue’, as Casanovas of his generation were called, men of an irresistible sex appeal, confidence, and savoir faire.  His mother had been on the cover of Vogue, a protegee and later confidante of Diana Vreeland, and his sister, once she sorted out her confusion, became a stone dyke.



The transformation had been radical and surprising.  Neither Randy nor his parents expected such a rough coming out, from frilly dresses to shit-kickers, heavy-duty tats, flannel shirts, and a ball-busting claque of tough-girl Bernal Heights bull-daggers – in one fell swoop.  She was nice enough when she came home – she left her hefty black leather and bike chains in San Francisco and wore buckskin and beaded chamois when she came East – but there was no doubt about the sincerity of her change.  She was irretrievably hard core lesbian , and everything in her dress, speech, mannerisms, and attitude left no doubt that this was not some trial run or dress rehearsal.  It was the real thing.




Randy’s mother and father took it well.  The fashion industry was seriously gay, and some of the hottest models on the runway circuit bent left and right, so her mother, while initially taken aback that her highly heterosexual self and husband could have produced such an anomaly, quickly regained her balance.  “Whatever, honey”, she said when Annette set sail for the Coast.

Her father was somewhat more non-plussed.  He, for all his tolerance and compassion, simply could not imagine two men together.  To be sure, some of the hottest sex scenes on film were in  Blue is the Warmest Color, and no man he knew could resist all that licking and sucking; but men? As much as he tried – for the sake of his daughter whose increasingly pan-sexuality included the chain-and-whip ripped male side of Folsom Street – he simply could not find buggering acceptable – as good and fine as normal sex.  He tried to never let this show when his daughter rode up to New Brighton and chopped and channeled Harleys with a gay ‘boyfriend’ from San Isidro, but when they left, he had to shake his head and, despite himself, admit, “What’s this world coming to?”



Why Randy was so lucky was thanks to his unusual family triad.  His father was the macho male but with grace, sophistication, and charm.  He had a winning way and a silver tongue and no woman – except for his daughter’s friends – could resist him.  He was for Randy the model of sexual success.  His father could finish his morning coffee and slide into bed with any one of a number of many paramours who were quite happy to see him before work; and slide into a hot liaison with any number of other women who waited for him after the closing bell.   His father had not only been a role model but a generous teacher, unhesitating in talking sex with his young son and encouraging him from a very early age.  “They (women), despite their coyness and demurrals, want it as much as you do, never doubt it”. 

His mother was the sexual woman of his dreams.  The toughness of the fashion industry never toughened her. Despite her classic looks, marginally anorexic figure, and stern, totally posed runway demeanor, she was sensuous, sensual, and becoming off duty.  She was the perfect combination of glamour, allure, and feminine sexuality.  All women, advised his father, wanted to be like her; so, if you treat them accordingly, they are yours.



His sister Annette had introduced him to a new sexual twist.  The gender spectrum, she explained, was a blended scale of sexual identity and preference.  In San Francisco, she had met grey-asexual, peri-oriented, erasure, and demi-sexual men and women among others.  There were simply not enough cognitive categories to account for the almost infinite number of sexual possibilities on the spectrum.  If one was adventurous, one could invite anyone to bed and find out later where the experience fit.   Sex was a journey, his sister said, not a destination.

In one way Randy wished that he could be untethered from traditional sexuality.  Given his sex drive, union with demi-women, polymorphous females, and whip-and-traces mistresses, should in principle appeal.  There was only so much that one could milk from one cow, and limitless sexual combinations and permutations were attractive indeed; but in another way, the whole idea of a sexual side show – hairy, bearded women; three-titted dwarves; and divas with two heads…or rather their modern sexual equivalents …- was distasteful.  This smorgasbord, this kaleidoscope of sexual freaks, couldn’t possibly equal the infinitude of heterosexual cultural diversity.

Usha, only child of wealthy Sindhi Pakistani Muslims, for example, had dark beauty, desire, and the infinitely complex and unknowable family calculus of Lahori father, Goan Christian mother, childhood in Karachi and young adulthood in Jaipur.  Who could predict what unique, marvelous, sexual potency would result from that heady mix?  What more diversity, unexplored nests, and dark alleys than that?



Or the Pedersen woman, Danish ice queen with sexual wanderlust who lured Randy to bed in Rawalpindi after a dinner of kebabs and brick-oven baked Afghan tandoori naan.  Or the Haitian princess, black as coal, one of Duvalier’s former mistresses, now a follower of Senghor and Negritude who seduced him and took him home to her Petionville mansion?  Or the waitress at Salty Dog, single mother of a 3-year old, living in Gaithersburg on a three dollar above minimum wage salary plus tips, who took a shine to him and his silvering hair?



In other words, what was the point? There was an inexhaustible source of women within one category of the gender spectrum alone.  Why, given the infinite, marvelous range of behavior, personality, character, and physical beauty, would anyone be tempted to edge on a few notches and try something else? When the resources of the spectrum’s largest profile – heterosexuality – were limitless, why would anyone even bother to change sides?

The received wisdom is that while most everyone is born of one of two genetic/physical sexes, biology does not rule.  Cognitive choice – the ability to self-identify sexual character and the will to express it – is more human than DNA.   This however denies millennia of two-sex polarity, and the innate, hardwired, ineluctable drive to mate with the opposite sex.  The gender spectrum, viewed from a historical perspective – not to say a mythological, Biblical, storied one – seems politically correct, logically suspect, and fanciful at best.  More importantly, while there may be a few aberrations from the norm (estimates of LGBTQ incidence are lower than three percent of any population) there is no reason to promote these aberrations as normal and desirable.  While one should be tolerant and accepting of those on the socio-genetic margins, advocacy for a new norm seems counter-historical and certainly counter-productive.

“I don’t have a problem with that”, said Randy when presented with radical Genderism by his sister, an anything-goes, pan-sexual, free-for-all, Rubik Cube of sexual desire.  “Whatever”.

Not so many people outside of the Coastal sexual elites would agree with Randy’s laissez-faire attitude.  The Bible for one thing has to be reckoned with; and verse after verse in both Old Testament and New categorically condemn homosexuality, a practice against God’s creation.  While Coastal progressives insist that the Bible’s words are not absolute and must be read only in light of a socio-economic and cultural contexts, it is hard for most Americans  to dismiss what has been sacred for millennia.  What would Biblical scholars think of the pan-sexual gender spectrum?



So Randy, partially woke thanks to his sister, was aware of the fire sale of sexual oddities going on in progressive corners of America; and realized that thanks to this juggernaut of idealistic reformism, he would have the 97 percent heterosexual field to himself. “Let the b-ggers have at it”, he said,” and leave the rest to me”.

Women who for so long had been taught that maleness was toxic, and that male pursuit was anachronistic and ignorant, were delighted to be noticed by a man who cared little for these nostrums of sexuality; and Randy was delighted that an already abundant field had become now his alone for the picking.

There is always room for all in the big tent, but the choice seats are always reserved.