|
"They were Adonises. These gods of the gridiron in their letterman jackets and distressed denim. Seeing them come down the hallway, muscles bulging against a tight blue sweater and flashing a million-watt smile, was like watching John Wayne or a young Ronald Reagan show up. Virile. Chiseled. Strong.
The folk heroes. These modern-day Davey Crocketts would pull up in their gas-guzzling pickups spewing noxious black plumes from phallic tailpipes. With a lip full of Skoal and a chip on their shoulders, they prowled the halls like they would the unyielding forest surrounding our town, on the hunt for their prey.
Then, there were the righteous. These were pious men of God who would make even Carlo Acutis, the beatified Italian teenager, feel the need to confess. Adults loved them. Peers respected them. God blessed them, and – perfectly pressed and immaculately dressed – they made sure we knew they were the elect.
When I was first asked to write an introductory essay for a project about masculinity in Appalachia, I accepted with the understanding that these were the three masculine archetypes that made up my turn-of-the-century Eastern Kentucky high school – and I fit none of them. I was openly gay. I was slightly chubby. I was politically left and religiously agnostic.
I did not play football for the same reason I did not hunt or particularly enjoy reading the Bible; it’s too violent. I did not pursue girls, though I knew plenty; my friendship circle was exclusively female, and my days were spent in the company of young women.
I did not spend my days dreaming of glory under the Friday night lights or of Saturday dawns spent in a deer blind. My daydreams were instead about one thing and one thing only: escaping what sociologist Paul Kivel calls the ”act-like-a-man box” but what pop culture would come to call “toxic masculinity” – and with it, Appalachia. To this day, I still get mistaken for a woman because I wear my hair long and enjoy a good pink outfit. What could I possibly have to say about being a boy in Appalachia when I am clearly so bad at it?
A lot, it turns out. As this project shows, there is no one way to be a man – nor is there one way to be an Appalachian man. Our region contains multitudes, and perhaps in no way is that truer than in the type of men you will find here. There are those I mentioned above – the quarterbacks and the hunters and the Christians – but they are not the only men who call these hills and hollows home. There’s Evan, the young social media star creating comedy trap music. There’s Leo, a transgender boy trying to find his place in a hostile society. There’s Damion, a 12-year-old child who has seen more trauma in his young life than most of us could shoulder.
As you will see as you meet them and others, these boys have inner lives full of so much more complexity and tumult than we often realize. Resilient and different though they may be, these boys are each trying to make sense of this world and their place in it. They are attempting to reconcile their own beliefs with the society around them, often feeling misunderstood and even maligned in the process."
|
