Negotiating the Body, Negotiating the Self

I have just returned from an arms workout at the gym and I feel great. I am 57 years old and I have never been in better shape.

"It's easy for you," some have opined due to my extensive background as a professional dancer.

I laugh to myself when I hear this. I think about my dietary habits and about my workout regimen. I think about my general avoidance of alcohol and party drugs. I think of my strict daily schedule. And I answer, "Nothing is easy! I have simply made the choice to live fully in my body."

Negotiating the body serves as the primary means of negotiating identity. I think of my brothers who have undergone gender transition. They negotiated their bodies as an integral step in their identification. I do not understand this exact process and yet I understand my own negotiation every day. I realize that I am empowered with the ability to choose how I live inside my body, my body, an artifact of identity.

People born into medically identified male bodies often complacently pass as men. In other words, most biologically born men, including Gay men, do not feel the need to negotiate their bodies relative to their own gender identity. This complacency often leads Gay men to approach physical aging, for example, with that same sense of submission that they approach the gender assigned to them at birth.

I hear many peers bemoan their bodies. To them I say, if a man cannot accept his own body proudly, he needs to do something about it. Our brothers who have faced gender identity issues have set a powerful example. Given this, I suggest that each Leatherman assess his physical body and actively do something about it if he does not like what he sees.

During the last three months my body has been the key to healing. I have cared for my body and in so doing, I have cared for myself. I invested in my diet and I exercised daily as a means of reminding myself that I have worth in spite of the hardships recently forced on me that suggested otherwise. I refused to be submissive to anyone's idea of me. I used my relationship to my physical body as a means of renegotiating self.

It feels good to move, to exercise, to kiss, to play, to masturbate, to fuck. I redefine myself daily by the choices I make relative to my body. I am a man because I have chosen to be a man through the way I negotiate my body from moment to moment. My relationship to my body forms the foundation of my identity.