PLAYING DRESS-UP?

These days I often see men in dresses. I’m not talking about drag performers or people wanting to stand out during a Pride event. It’s just a wardrobe choice and not even a default one because laundry day announced itself a little late. 

 

Why wear a dress? I don’t know. Someone could have stopped me yesterday and asked why I was wearing shorts—an orange and brown plaid, no less—on a morning with a chill in the air. Someone could have asked me why I chose a t-shirt with a busy pattern that clashed with the shorts. And why didn’t I have a light jacket? Had I not been raised by a mother who warned me about catching a cold or pneumonia if I didn’t dress “properly” for the weather?

 

No one confronted me. No explanation sought. No dressing down about underdressing. I was allowed to go on my way, going my own way. That’s how it should be for guys in dresses, too.

 

Perhaps I’m wrongly attributing gender when I refer to “guys.” People can wear dresses. Let lines blur. Let them explore fashion and, if it’s more than that, say, an expression of being nonbinary, let that be, too.

 

I’ve always thought fashion for women offered more choices in color, style and mood. I can’t count the times I’ve walked into a clothing store and gravitated toward a garment that was intended for women. A blouse, not a shirt. A “helpful” sales associate usually redirects me: “The men’s section is over there, sir.” Oh, yes. Shirts in a maximum of four colors, distinguished in terms of style by whether they’re short-sleeved or long-sleeved, buttons down the front or not, collared or no collar. Yawn.

 

This is not a post to announce that I bought a dress, or three, along with glittery high heels. It’s an option now, but I’m one of those older guys firmly entrenched in a certain look, however limiting. ’Tis the season when I stick with Flirts-with-Pneumonia fall fashions, known to others as summer wear. Whatever. 

 

Lauv

About three weeks ago when I went to YouTube to play some music while doing an ab workout before hitting the gym, the channel suggested a new song by Lauv, aka Ari Staprans Leff. Six years ago, the artist had an insanely catchy song called “I Like Me Better” that I listened to every time I was on the treadmill. It was my aural Red Bull, causing me to increase the speed and run harder. Lauv’s discography shows that many other singles have since been released but Lauv remains a one-hit wonder thus far.

 

The new single, “Love U Like That,” is as hooky as “I Like Me Better.” It sounds like a hit. Unfortunately, it hasn’t caught on yet, garnering two million views. (By comparison, the official audio and official videos for “I Like Me Better” have collectively accrued more than half a billion views.) I encourage you to give the new song a listen. (WARNING: Earworm potential.) It’s the video I wish to elaborate on, one in which, yes, Lauv presents as a guy who decides to wear a dress.

 

On first viewing, I stopped my ab crunches—Wait, did he just put on a dress?—but then I continued my workout. The low neckline of the dress shows off Lauv’s hairy chest which is part of this new phase of dressing in dresses. Whereas in decades prior a man in a dress while having a hairy chest or hairy legs was part of a comical image, it’s now a conscious choice to embrace both masculinity and femininity. (It also rankles conservatives even more, but they don’t have standing as “drag” critics.) The robin’s egg dress with an extra long train flows beautifully as Lauv dons a sparkly silver helmet and rides a motorcycle. If I have any criticism of the video, it’s the rain sequence where Lauv wears an unflattering white tank top and the visual effects folks pelt him with an insane amount of water. That’s the part that comes across as overdone. (Side note: I also wish Lauv would manscape his hairy shoulders but, after viewing his social media, it’s clear Lauv loves his hair, wherever it grows.)

 

David Bowie

It's possible this is a stunt to attract new attention beyond what seems like an established fan base. But this has been done before with artists like Sam Smith. Harry Styles, who seems to opportunistically court gay men, grabbed headlines three years ago when he appeared on the cover of Vogue in a dress. Musicians have always embraced out-there fashion. Elton John and David Bowie were among the singers of the ’70s who were known for making glam-fem fashion statements. If Lauv in a dress comes off as a copycat tactic in this new era, so be it. There are trendsetters and trend followers. Isn’t that the essence of fashion?

 

Still, there may be something more to Lauv donning a dress. For several months, Lauv has been public about exploring his sexuality. He labeled a June TikTok post, “when ur dating a girl but ur also a lil bit into men.” He elaborated: 

I havent done much aside from kiss so tbh don’t

 wanna jump the gun but tbh I feel things and 

dont wanna pretend i dont.   

 

Go for it, Lauv! Maybe add capitals, apostrophes and full words as well on your journey. My Word document (and I) would appreciate a reduction in red squiggly lines as I quote you.

 

In July, Lauv titled another post, “I’m gay but I’m not gay but I’m gay but I’m not gay.” He also posted a video on Instagram in which he referred to wondering about his sexuality and said:

I’m in the midst of figuring it out…I’m going 

to be making more videos like this and just 

being open. This is the first song in this 

new chapter.

 

Seeing and hearing him speak was engrossing. It feels like he’s choosing to share the entire coming out process with his fans. There’s all the awkwardness and forward-then-retreat talk people exhibit when they are first coming out or when the stakes are higher. Lauv is an entertainer with a new album that will soon be released. This must indeed feel like risky business. Literally. 

 

There’s more to come apparently in Lauv’s journey. I don’t think he’s going to lose fans. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look as though he’s gaining fans either despite continuing to put out catchy music. The life of a pop star is brief for most. I’m hoping this “chapter” of Lauv’s life will help Ari Staprans Leff be more comfortable with his own identity in terms of gender, sexuality and in other areas as well. May his closet be filled with a vast array of clothing choices and may he step out of it with a better understanding of himself.

 

BAYARD RUSTIN, BY THE BOOKS

One thing that’s been made readily apparent in recent years is that history is not static. In an era of “alternative facts” and politicians meddling with educational curricula, the past stories of a time, place or person can be controlled to align with a particular narrative. 

 

This isn’t entirely new. As a boy living in Canada, I often heard it said that America’s first president never told a lie. It was part of the ongoing effort to enshrine him as a legend, a hero and a symbol of goodness. George Washington being the first president was not enough. If only America still valued truthfulness. What will the “legend” of Trump be?

 

History has long been his-story, told by men, mostly white, presumably straight. The subject matter went down smoothly with clear heroes and villains. Now that women and minorities are diving deeper into history and insisting that their roles be included in the telling, it’s causing resistance. It’s becoming more uncomfortable. Statues of revered white men get toppled. Extra perspectives clutter long-established accounts of The Way We Were. It’s so inconvenient. 

 

I find new accounts fascinating. I’ve always enjoyed history. It was one of my majors in university. I especially liked when a professor or a resource offered stray bits that muddied standard accounts. My eyes glazed over when lectures centered on battle scenes, but I leaned forward every time key moments in history were analyzed in terms of societal impacts. Blemishes in a nation’s history were not to be suppressed. Weren’t we supposed to learn from our mistakes? Alas, we’re in a period of time when many want to avoid discussing mistakes, much less learning from them.  

 

MY GOVERNMENT MEANS TO KILL ME: A NOVEL

 

By Rasheed Newson

 

(Flatiron Books, 2022)

 

 

A few months ago, I read a historical gay novel set during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, Rasheed Newson’s My Government Means to Kill Me: A Novel. The tacked on “A Novel” is important because Newson’s story is heavily footnoted, a practice lending a scholarly quality to the telling. (I think it’s the history geek in me that adores footnotes. They are the equivalent to DVD extras—little anecdotes and explanations that often spur me to exploring online rabbit holes.) Most of Newson’s footnoted references were already familiar to me, having lived through the ’80s and reading my share of both Black history and gay history. It pleased me to know that much of Newson’s extras would offer new learning for others. However, this footnoting, while refreshing and offering something unique in gay fiction, became a hindrance at times. It made the story gimmicky, as the author had, Trey Singleton, his Black gay main character, stumbling into too many historical moments like a queer Forrest Gump. A good idea, taken too far.

 

And one of the things that felt far too far was the author’s inclusion of Baynard Rustin, a real life Black gay civil rights leader, who becomes a guru for Trey, Rustin’s perch not on top of a Himalayan peak but in a New York bathhouse, a simple white towel around the waist serving as an apparel modification from the draped white cloth worn by cartoon gurus. In Newson’s account, Rustin spends A LOT of time in the bathhouse. I recall at least one scene with him having sex. In a footnote, Newson explains that there is no evidence that Rustin frequented bathhouses. This is when I sighed. I may love footnotes, but I’m aware that many readers skip them. An important clarification will be missed.

 

Martin Luther King, Jr.
and Bayard Rustin

To some readers, and likely the author himself, this portrayal may come across as humorous, even enlightened. While the novel states this is a pure fictionalization, it feels like an unnecessary stunt. Rustin is credited with being an early mentor of Martin Luther King, Jr. and helping organize the 1963 March on Washington. No doubt, Rustin was as flawed as any human and entitled to a sex life, but this feels like an offensive twist. Call me a prude. 

 

Still, credit that novel with making me seek out more about the actual life of Bayard Rustin, a name I’d vaguely recognized and associated with the civil rights movement without anything more substantive. I read the Wikipedia blurb and clicked on a few of the footnotes. And then I stumbled upon a picture book about him, A Song for the Unsung: Bayard Rustin, the Man Behind the 1963 March on Washington. I was pleased to find four copies in the Vancouver Public Library system. 

A SONG FOR THE UNSUNG: BAYARD RUSTIN, THE MAN BEHIND THE 1963 MARCH ON WASHINGTON

 

By Carole Boston Weatherford & Rob Sanders

 

Illustrated by Byron McCray

 

(Henry Holt and Company, 2022)

 

 

A Song for the Unsung is a fitting title for a book about Rustin. Music was an integral part of Rustin’s life. Raised as a Quaker, Rustin attended university with support from a music scholarship and at one point recorded an album of spiritual songs. (All this makes his fictionalized bathhouse presence more of an affront.) In many ways, he was an unsung civil rights leader due, in part, to being an openly gay man. His activism took place behind the scenes since his homosexuality was considered a distraction and a way to disparage not only Rustin but civil rights activism. How far we’ve come to have a picture book celebrate the life of Bayard Rustin and, in particular, his leadership in organizing the March of Washington, an event attended by 250,000 and the occasion when Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. The book doesn’t focus on Rustin being gay, offering only a passing reference: “As a young Black gay man, Bayard Rustin was also learning about another kind of inequality and injustice.” 

 

Rustin during his later years, skirted any attempts to cast him as someone who fought for gay rights. In his own words:

I was not involved in the struggle for gay rights as a 

youth ... I did not "come out of the closet" voluntarily

—circumstances forced me out. While I have no 

problem with being publicly identified as homosexual, 

it would be dishonest of me to present myself as one 

who was in the forefront of the struggle for gay rights.  

 

While Rustin was open with peers about being gay, the matter became public knowledge due to an arrest in Pasadena in 1953 for allegedly have sex with two other men in a parked car. He pleaded guilty to “sex perversion” and served sixty days in jail. Rustin received a posthumous pardon from California Governor Gavin Newsom in 2020.

 

In My Government Means to Kill Me, Rasheed Newson portrays Rustin as a wise advisor to Trey and Rustin’s social activism is referenced. I have no idea how Rustin would react to the portrayal of him being a regular presence at a bathhouse. Maybe he’d shrug, maybe he’d roll his eyes, maybe he’d pick up present-day lingo and say, “WTF?” It seems as dignified of a response as warranted.

 

Rustin wasn’t a saint. As well, some of his political leanings and his motivations may be questionable. All that is worth of research and scores of footnotes. To make him a bathhouse fixture comes off as trivializing and downright rude.

 

I shall close this post, recasting Bayard Rustin in a more accurate, reverential regard, quoting from Barack Obama in 2013 when Rustin was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom:

Bayard Rustin was an 

unyielding activist for 

civil rights, dignity, 

and equality for all. 

An advisor to 

the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he promoted nonviolent resistance, participated in one of the first Freedom Rides, organized the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and fought tirelessly for marginalized communities at home and abroad. As an openly gay African American, Mr. Rustin stood at the intersection of several of the fights for equal rights.

 

 

 

HIJAB BUTCH BLUES (Book Review)

By Lamya H

 

(The Dial Press, 2023)

 

 

I’ve been underwhelmed by the many queer memoirs I’ve read from younger writers during the past several years. Typically, my impression is the writer doesn’t have enough perspective yet. There’s always a danger of a memoir coming off as self-absorbed and that seems more likely when the writer doesn’t have enough lived experiences. The woe and the wow come off as overdone.

 

After a couple of my writing friends, one lesbian, the other trans, had spoken favorably of Hijab Butch Blues, I tracked down a copy. For what she refers to as her own safety, the writer uses the pseudonym, Lamya H. The book offers a different take on a person’s coming to terms with queer identity. Uprooted from an unnamed country of birth (Afganistan? Pakistan?), Lamya lived most of her childhood and teens in an Arab country, feeling different based on being darker skinned and less affluent than the people who held status. Her sense of difference grew as she realized a budding queerness, feelings that didn’t have words (other than derogatory associations) within her culture.

 

Moving to the U.S. for college at seventeen was an exit pass of sorts but also an introduction to another place where her differences made her feel inferior and shunned. It’s hard to get a sense of how old Lamya H is—the vagaries presumably are intentional to guard her identity—but she seems to have a couple of decades of working through queerness to refer to as she writes this memoir.

 

Each chapter is named for a specific prophet or character in the Quran or, in one case, a group of characters: hard to spot, impish spirits known as jinn. The experiences of the characters in the Quran or told by elders in the case of jinn are related in the particular chapter, interspersed by parallel experiences in Lamya’s life. It’s a unique structure that sets Lamya’s life against a broader context, helping her find new, more personal meaning in the Quran while also interpreting and accepting her own life. The formula helps forgo a self-absorbed telling. 

 

Readers with fewer minority labels to process may dismiss Lamya’s conflicts. Why continue being a practicing Muslim when the religion is male-dominated and homophobic? The idea of walking away comes easily to those whose religion can be more easily removed from culture, family and the more mundane but ever-present aspects of daily life. I, however, admire Lamya’s efforts to reinterpret her religion, viewing Allah as female or non-gendered, finding power in Yunus who learns when to preach and when it’s better to walk away and rejecting the noble subservience of Asiyah, a queen mistreated by her husband, a Pharaoh, “the most evil man that Allah had ever created.” 

 

Keeping her identity private,

this is the author photo at

the back of the book.

This memoir is about finding one’s place. Lamya’s journey involves figuring out how her religion and her queerness fit in her life and how she practices both in New York City, where her visual minority status as a brown-skinned women wearing a hijab, both stands out and gets lost in the diverse fabric of the metropolis. 

 

There are those who will conclude that there is too much compromise in Lamya’s walking along the path she’s created. Maybe there’s too much time struggling with mental and religious gymnastics. It all works for her. I see her as tenacious in the way she questions, processes and balances the mixed influences in her life. I respect the fact she’s creating her own identity based on mixed influences.

 

It's definitely a memoir worth reading.    

ADJUSTING, TO ABSENCE…AND TOGETHERNESS

Chez Evan. I'm sure there's some
fancy name for the colourful wall
collection but it's lost on me.

On a Friday night in late August, I am sitting in my boyfriend’s Seattle living room. Alone. He won’t be back until tomorrow evening. I’ll pick him up at the airport in his car which was left stranded in visitor parking at my place in Vancouver two and a half weeks ago. It’s a convoluted story, arising from a two-day flight delay in Ottawa which radically changed Evan’s itinerary. 

 

Pre-Evan, I came to Seattle several times a year. Alone. Seattle was one of my weekend escape spots, a break from where I lived in Vancouver. Alone there, too. Somehow being alone somewhere else made my relentlessly coveted time to myself more special. Exciting even. 

 

Now, instead of racing around, trying to snap as many evening shots of whichever area of Seattle I might be in, I’m chilling at Evan’s. Technically, not chilling. Evan lives in a heavily shaded, first-floor apartment where it’s always chilly, even in late August. But here I am, alone, and I don’t have socks on, I don’t have a blanket draped over me and I’m not checking my earlobes for icicles. When he left for his trip, he closed up all the windows. It’s never been like this. Room temperature actually feels like room temperature. Evan always says he needs fresh air when he’s here. He keeps the windows open through every season and walks around with four layers of clothes, dressed for arctic conditions. 

 

I’m a one-layer guy. Layers add what I view as heft, not on Evan, but definitely on me. Sane or otherwise, the perception is intertwined with my eating disorder. Heft = Heavy. I haven’t opened any windows since I arrived an hour ago. There is no window battle—the overt kind which is futile or the covert kind where I sneakily—desperately!—close panes a smidgen and then another smidgen. One of my smidgen maneuvers resulted in an irreplaceable glass vase crashing to the floor, scattering in hundreds of pieces. Evan still mourns. I’d have broken it eventually. I’m highly accident-prone. 

 

BONUS: With the windows shut, I can’t hear dog walkers passing by. Can’t even hear the dogs. This is heaven!

 

Adding to the quiet is the fact the speakers in every room are silent. Normally, it’s NPR or jazz during every waking hour, even when Evan’s gone to work or the yoga studio. I like his station choices, but I can only the same three-minute newscast every half hour once. I welcome silence. Especially when I want to write. 

 

Evan had me download an app to control the speakers, adjusting the one volume in one room while keeping status quo in another. Most of the time, all I want is “Off.” I press a button on an actual speaker and my wish is granted. All the speakers shut down. Somehow that kind of simplicity messes up the app and the timing of the speakers next time Evan turns the system back on, aka, when the moment he returns home. He asks if I used the app for the speakers. I smile what he says is my fake smile. I suppose it’s a slightly evolved version of my eleven-year-old smile I’d offer whenever coerced to participate in a family photo. My grins remain a work in progress. My generation was not taught The 6 Essential Poses for Social Media as a prerequisite to kindergarten. 

 

Without distractions, I read a chapter of a novel, not once losing my place. I’m confident I haven’t added wrinkles to my forehead or made my crow’s feet more pronounced because I haven’t been squinting while reading. That’s because I’ve just discovered that Evan’s shaded abode actually has great lighting. Without clarification, Evan would be offended that my discovery comes a year and a half into our relationship. He’s a designer with consummate style. Lighting is an area he’s especially passionate about. His vintage lamps and art deco light fixtures are prized finds he’s been collecting for three decades. So, yes, I know he has great lighting. What I’ve just learned is they can project a functional level of brightness. For me, bright lights mean easy reading; for Evan, they render everything overexposed. Ambience is lost. Blemishes are exposed. The coffee stain on my sleeve garners too much attention. Reading alone at Evan’s with full-capacity lighting, the pages of my book look white instead of dark gray. Sentences don’t play hide-and-seek.

 

It's nice to stretch out on the sofa as I read. My shoes are off, as they always are when I step into my place or Evan’s. This mystifies Evan. Drives him crazy. A man of style, he views my shoelessness as offering an incomplete look. I remind him I’m Canadian. It’s what we do. I’ve googled it to show him shoes off is the norm in many countries. I feel weird being shoed in someone’s home. I like this Canadian gesture. Quirk, if you will. With no shoes, I can stretch out, feet up on the furniture as I read. Without having to go another round in the shoe debate, I manage to read a second chapter.

 

Pillows are nice but sometimes they
make me feel I should sit on the floor.
(NOTE: Not Evan's home. Too much light.)

Before fully settling in, I had to rearrange a few things on the sofa. Evan loves pillows almost as much as lamps. I stack them just right so I’m sitting straight, not swallowed up. My back has been giving me a hard time lately. There’s sorting to do as well. I move the meat pillows to an empty chair. 

 

For strictly ethical 

reasons, I prefer

Pam's lettuce bikini.

That’s right, Evan has meat pillows. Meat pants, too. It’s not stunt fashion like when Lady Gaga wore a meat dress, slabs of bacon stitched together with a keyhole neckline for peekaboo cleavage. That’s over-the-top offensive, one of those desperate fashion stunts to out-Insta the Kardashians. As a vegetarian of nearly four decades, I stopped wearing leather shoes and belts long ago. I got tired of my meat-loving friends poking holes in my principles. Without leather, my fashion options are fewer—pleather rarely wows. I now have three dozen pairs of Converse to contrast with Evan’s extensive cowboy boot collection. We’re the same shoe size but we don’t play tradesy. 

 

The leather pillows get cast aside. I’m thankful the whole dang sofa isn’t leather. 

 

So here I am. Friday night. Alone in Seattle. Kinda like the good ol’ days. Bright lights, comfy temperature, a peaceful aura, kicking back, shoes off, a safe distance from cow coverings. It’s bliss as a throwback of sorts. Life before Evan.

 

But it’s tainted. This is life without Evan. 

 

Despite the objective perks, I don’t like it.

 

I miss the man. We’re different in so many ways. Sometimes there’s a lot of negotiation. Sometimes we just accept that we’re two different guys who, on the important things, aren’t too different. Our habits and tastes may vary but our values are in sync. 

 

I’m enjoying the moment, but I look forward to driving his car to Seatac, hopping out of the car with flowers in my hand, giving him a kiss and a hug and returning to Home Base Washington. I’ll be closing the windows, a smidgen, then a smidgen more, but I’ll be smiling—genuinely—through my shivers. I’ll continue to deal with his way as he continues to adjust to my way. 

 

In time, we’ll have “our way” fully figured out.

 

IN ADDITION TO CRUSHES, CROISSANTS AND COMING OUT, "HEARTSTOPPER" TOUCHES ON AN EATING DISORDER

The second season of “Heartstopper” on Netflix went down just as smoothly as the first. I paced myself, allowing only one episode per night, stalling the story as I took off for the internet-free family cottage—first visit since 2019 (curses to you, COVID!). 

 

My boyfriend watched the first season under duress. It was the early months of our budding relationship and I suppose he was still learning when to say no. He prefers shows with zombies, cowboys and, the ultimate of ultimates: cowboy zombies. There are probably four of five such series, but I can’t name them. We’ve both gotten very good at no. 

 

I didn’t even try coercion this time. I get that “Heartstopper” is too sweet for viewers accustomed to “Game of Thrones,” “The Walking Dead” and flicks about Jeffrey Dahmer. I wondered if I’d get into the second season. I thought I might have graduated from mild high school drama but, once again, “Heartstopper” was the sugar fix I didn’t know I needed. 

 

For all its lite-ness, the show surprised me by introducing a rarely addressed subject: male eating disorders. At first, the hints that were dropped were too subtle. In the fourth episode of the season, as the gang explores Paris on an extended field trip, Nick buys Charlie an ice cream cone which Charlie refuses, saying he’s still full from breakfast. What? Ice cream from the bf is supposed to be romantic and, gosh golly, it’s ICE CREAM. Who could refuse? 

 

As an aside, was I the only one

distracted by the size and amount

of food Tao & Elle have at the movies?

(I could. As much as I love ice cream, it’s chocolate and that’s never been my thing. I won’t waste calories on a flavor I know doesn’t do anything for me. But then, I’m a guy with an eating disorder. Every bite I consume—of anything—is carefully considered.)

 

Charlie takes a lick. And, because it’s “Heartstopper,” he gets chocolate on his nose and is oblivious to it. Like a four-year-old. Or like an adorable teen boyfriend. Nick swipes his thumb across the chocolate spot and then licks his thumb. Aww. How cute. End of scene. We assume Charlie eats on and lets Nick clean his face after each messy lick. No napkins. Let’s conserve paper.

 

Later, the entire school group gathers for dinner and Charlie looks somewhat repulsed by the meal set in front of him, some sort of meatball dish drowning in heaps of dark gravy. He hesitates, as would many people. He doesn’t even touch it but then that’s because there’s a very public tiff between one of the teen couples. No one eats. Charlie and Nick leave the dining room to comfort one of people involved in the quarrel. There’s a little group hug. Happy, happy. Does he go back and have dinner? Who knows? That doesn’t seem to have any bearing in the story.   

 

It wasn’t until episode five that my eating disorder detectors awakened. At breakfast on Day 2 in Paris, with more skipping and hugging and laughing on the itinerary, Charlie says he isn’t hungry. It’s possible he’s upset from being teased over a hickey—how’s that for a high school plot point? (This is a far cry from HBO’s “Euphoria.”) Charlie’s not feeling well. And then, later:

 

Charlie faints.

 

That’ll happen when someone doesn’t feel well and/or doesn’t eat enough. If this were a teen vampire show, it could even be the result of that hickey. Proving to be a thoughtful boyfriend, dear Nick had wrapped up and carried around the croissant Charlie didn’t eat at breakfast. I’d figured this teensy storyline was an queer adolescent version of saving the damsel in distress. No dragon or evil knight to fight; just hunger pangs sated with a stashed French pastry. Très romantique! 

 

But then “Heartstopper” goes for it. Nick expresses concern about Charlie: “I want to understand.”

 

Charlie, bless him, opens up. “I know I don’t eat like normal people. Some days I’m fine but…other days I feel like I need to…control it. I used to do it a lot last year when everything at school was really bad. Sometimes it feels like the only thing I can control in my life.”

 

Charlie takes a small bite of the treasured croissant. “It’s a bit dry.” A joke for levity. Back to touring the museum. A playful tumble. An admonishment. Time to flee. Boy chases boy. Apparently, the fainting spell has passed. A wee bite of the underwhelming croissant energizes. 

 

I’m the one wanting more.

 

The momentousness of the scene is not lost on me. My obsession with weight began at ten. Anorexia set in at seventeen, roughly Charlie’s age. That’s the onset for many guys—when there’s that push to coax a bicep out of some dumbbell curls, when the dream begins to get a six-pack from a hundred sit-ups. Or a thousand. There are guys who are genetically gifted with tonier body frames. They become the standard. Along with the Brad Pitts du jour, gracing magazine covers and posting shirtless selfies across social media. It’s the look to strive for. It’s what elicits a hundred likes per post. Or a thousand. 

 

Come on, “Heartstopper.” Charlie’s character has the potential of offer something more than, It’s okay to be gay. Charlie shows there’s still a struggle in coming out, there’s still bullying and sometimes it breeds a sense of chaos a young person can neither calm nor control. The Croissant Incident is a welcome start but, when you scratch the surface of a serious subject, there’s an obligation to go deeper…even in “Heartstopper” happyland where animated flowers and butterflies flutter across the screen and where problems last no longer than a zit.

 

I went to bed bothered. The show hadn’t even given Charlie’s condition a label. Some labels matter. Some labels are the first step to understanding differences and, in this case, getting help.

 

The subject didn’t come up in the next episode. I still loved “Heartstopper,” even if I felt a tad heartbroken. Opportunity knocked, then ran away.

 

It’s hard to fit Big Topics into a feel-good show and the second season may have overpacked for its journey, epic Parisian field trip and all. The story arc for the season centers on Nick coming out, a gradual process of telling one person, then another, with hesitation and stumbles along the way. There’s also an absent father, a lesbian struggling with the word love (and vague issues on the home front), a boy discovering he’s asexual/aromantic, another boy crushing on a trans girl, an older sibling returning home to resume being a jerk, a harsh ex seeking forgiveness and two teachers as clumsy with their feelings as the teens. How the heck can “Heartstopper” adequately portray a guy’s eating disorder?

 

With only two minutes left in the seventh episode, Nick’s mother puts the subject back on the radar while cleaning up after an eventful dinner involving the two boys’ families: “Charlie didn’t eat very much.” Yay, mom. Adults in these shows aren’t supposed to solve things, but it’s enough to prompt Nick to search “eating disorders” on his phone. 

 

I cheered aloud. 

 

I conjured up my own visions of flowers and butterflies. 

 

It took nearly four decades for me to be diagnosed and I’ve made little to no progress since then. I felt hope for Charlie, this fictional teen with whom I suddenly felt very connected. Chances are many young queer viewers did, too. That’s me. I’m like Charlie. Early diagnosis and intervention can result in a better prognosis.

 

And just like “Heartstopper” seems to always do, it segued into a perfect song for the moment, “Blush” by Wolf Alice, with the opening:

Curse the things 

That made me sad for so long.

Yeah, it hurts to think that

They can still go on.

 

The final episode of the season is called “Perfect.” Indeed, it’s the perfect title, capturing how hard “Heartstopper” tries to be in capturing happiness, the good people triumphing over the bullies, love winning despite any and all obstacles thrown its way. 

 

But there’s a darker side to “perfect” when it involves eating disorders. And, hallelujah, it appears “Heartstopper” is game to go there. 

 

As they’re together in Nick’s bedroom, Nick says, “Is everything fine? I know you like everything to be fine and happy and perfect all the time, but you don’t have to be perfect with me. Charlie, we said we’d tell each other things. After you told me about your…eating thing…”

 

Eating thing. Nick is treading lightly. It’s understandable. Charlie’s never outed his disorder and people with eating disorders get defensive. They deny the problem, often heatedly, to make the intrusive person back down. It can be quite effective.

 

Charlie, however, neither denies nor takes on a label. Rather than admit to an eating disorder, he reveals he was a cutter in the past. Is this a mental health distraction, bringing up something he no longer does? “I just don’t want you to annoy you or burden you. I don’t want to think I’m some fragile, broken mess…and need to fix me.”  

 

Nick asks Charlie to promise to tell him “if things get really bad again.” It’s a typical response. It’s what Nick needs to hear. It helps Nick feel reassured.

 

That kind of promise is rarely kept when it’s made by someone with an eating disorder. The behaviors associated with eating disorders are done in secret. The person covers up his habits and, in so doing, masks his pain, his conflicts, his imperfections. Indeed, everything must be fine, if not perfect. Or appear as such. This entire way of being is well-learned, well-practiced by the time it’s ever revealed. It’s entrenched. 

 

It will be interesting to see if and how Charlie’s eating disorder plays out in the third season. It feels weird to be excited about the possibilities. I immediately think that many viewers would consider the continued storyline to be a downer. Can we please just let Charlie be happy?  And that’s precisely how a person with an eating disorder views the world, thinking that being happy and “together” and, yes, perfect is the only way he’s allowed to be seen.

 

“Heartstopper” has been bold and bright in putting queer characters on screen—lesbian, gay, bi, trans, ace. Queer people continue to report a higher incidence of mental health struggles. May the show add more flesh to the eating disorder arc. Let Charlie open up. Show his struggles and, in the end, do what “Heartstopper” does so well: offer hope.