I’ve been thinking a lot about Michael Jackson–my kids are currently obsessed with his songs and his dance moves (son just recovered from a really bad muscle tear from trying to dance like Michael)–and I admit a lot of the songs they’re listening to are taking me back in a very fond way. Like the Billie Jean video–they notice the same things I did–like how not all the concrete slabs light up when he touches them and what the fuck does that tiger mean?

But this is the video I’ve really become obsessed with:

I remember when it came out–how most of the people in my neighborhood had some comment to say about the touching and the rotating and dirty dirty man. Most of the kids loved it, the adults hated it. I personally cringed then and I admit, I cringe now. But now I have the words to say why.

I grew up with a very conservative idea of what masculinity looked like. Working class, religious conservative, “good” immigrants, etc all combined to create the idea that “real men” didn’t go grabbing their thingies (although there was never much of a problem with men like Dr. Dre doing the same thing), or rotating those hips or or or or…

And as a good girl, as a good girl who was secretly a butch trying to model herself on the idea of masculinity she most respected, her conservative working class Mexican father–ai, Jesus. It was a shock to my system to see that the masculinity of my father was turned on its head so dramatically (now, i would call it, “challenging masculinity”–but then, I didn’t have the words). I didn’t understand Michael Jackson to be a fag or a homo or any of those words–I understood him to be … embarrassing. Real men don’t have to grab their dicks like that. Real men are John Wayne. Who are just there. Who “do the right thing.” Like providing for the kids. And working until they collapse. And finding a good woman to rub his thingy, rather than doing it himself.

That idea of what makes “masculinity” is hard to get rid of. I still cringe now for exactly that reason. If I want to model masculinity–how on earth can I model *that*? When *I* do that, I’m just a piece of ass, a pussy to fuck (as much as a fat, baseball dykish type queer girl can be a pussy piece of ass, haha)?

But now, I have a son. I have a son that is growing up in a world where masculinity is expressed almost exclusively through a sexualized relationship with women. That is, Dr. Dre grabbing his cock in the middle of a concert is ok fucking kay–because we all know–he is grabbing that cock as a way to model studliness. Machoness. He’s using that cock to fuck women. Or, women’s asses. Or their bitchy mouths. etc. (and not meaning to target Dr. Dre here, this is relevant to, oh, all gangsta mainstream rappers). He’s using his cock to assert his authority, to wield power.

The thing about Michael Jackson…the thing that made/makes me uncomfortable….is that you can’t say the same thing. Even in his music videos that are about women (i.e. dirty diana, billie jean, etc), women do not play a major role or carry even a major presence. Which, this could be looked at in a negative way–he’s not giving women actresses a chance to represent or challenge his representation of them. But…I see it in a different way. I see it as an opportunity, and intervention, for masculinity.

You can’t say Michael Jackson is defining his cock in relationship to the subjugation of women–because the women in the black and white video (as an example), are his equals. Fellow dancers. People who enjoy moving their bodies, just like he does. (the one glaring exception with this assertion is his “the way you make me feel” video which has aggressive street harassment, but ultimately ends with a hug rather than a hooking up).

So when MJ goes into the back street to do his nasty dance, he is grabbing and zipping up…for reasons that many of us can’t even fathom…because it’s a man expressing sexuality that is not in service of women’s subjugation. It’s a man expressing sexuality that is not about power–at least not that kind of power.

And it makes many of us, including me, uncomfortable–to the point that we don’t even know how to understand what we are seeing. There is literally no point of reference in our history. (and for me, the butch wanna be–I didn’t understand it, how can you express masculinity without a woman in the picture? Isn’t butchness as much about who you are attracted to as it is “expressing masculinity?” ai, dios mio).

As I watch this video more and more though, I see it through the eyes of my son. Of my son who hurt his leg trying to dance like MJ. I see it through his eyes, and I see joy. I see a man who loves to dance. Who loves to dance so much, sometimes it makes him feel sexual and excited. A man who loves to dance so much, sometimes, he can’t contain everything inside himself, and masturbation and sexualness just flows out of him in a way that feels good, looks good, has humor to it, and is only dependent upon his own needs. He doesn’t need a credit card on a woman’s ass or a dog collar around a woman…cuz he has his dancing. He has himself.

I see that through my son’s eyes. And the way my son sits in the back seat of our car, with the MJ jamming super loud, and how his fingers start the tapping, and eventually his whole body is shaking in rhythm to Bad. I see that uncontrollable feeling in his body welling and welling until he can’t sit still any more, and I know that someday, he’ll be sweaty and hot from dancing and feel sexual urges–and I know that he’ll have seen a different way of expressing those urges. That natural joy.

And so while I can’t call MJ “liberatory” or “revolutionary” or what have you… I do say…he’s provided something for a woman worried about how her son will live in this world. And it makes me so extraordinarily sad to know that Anxious Black Woman’s words are the truth:

Not one artist who “graced” last night’s stage is worthy enough to step into the King’s shoes, and it pains me to think that Michael Jackson died without one potential artist to pass the torch to.

He was a man who danced with his sister in a public space–as an equal. And while that’s not everything…it’s a start. And that’s all my son needs.