Personal Narrative: Unhinging An Imaginary Closet Door

Unhinging an Imaginary Closet Door The only object out of place on my father’s thick oak desk was the Pamela Anderson edition of Playboy. Next to an overgrown stack of tax returns and a leather-cased smartphone, Pamela posed in a strapless, black satin dress that accentuated the curve between her waist and breasts. A fantasy for almost any pubescent twelve year-old.
“You want it, Michael?” my father asked, turning his chair towards me. His knowing grin reminded me of when he and I would dress Barbies in matching wedding gowns my mother had sewn.
My family carries a tradition where parents buy Playboy magazines for their son after his bar mitzvah. My brother and father received their subscriptions mere days after reciting their Torah passages. Neither remembers their parashah verbatim, …show more content…
His right hand hovered inches over the office chair’s cushioned armrest, his pointer finger outstretched towards the magazine. Pamela’s arms partially concealed her neck. Her head was turned at an unsettling angle so that her face aligned with the camera’s focus. No blemish, had Photoshop left any, could detract from her arched eyebrows and impeccable mascara.
Besides misconstruing L’dor Va’dor to mean literally passing down adult content to the next generations, my ancestors wanted to avoid having gay …show more content…
Explaining how the heterosexual mold does not apply to queer relationships is like teaching children that circles are not squares. Saying I have always known I am gay is shocking, though people often confessed they had always known they were straight. Accusing my queerness to be a phase or a ploy for attention is belittling. Coming out was supposed to be empowering, yet it became a pretext for pejorative gay jokes and mumbled “faggots” in the