Thoughts On Tenderness
It’s a thing— going into the pandemic female presenting and coming out on the other side, a boi, looking oh so very much like a man, and in some ways still very much a girl, at the tender age of 45.
Being out of the studio for a couple of years due to the shut down, my first in-person yoga gig when the pandemic began to recede was in a small new-to-me studio in Harlem. All the places I’d worked prior had closed. My first class back, the room was full, filling me with gratitude and an immense joy to be back. I was nervous and excited and mentioned it to them. It was also my first time with a group of strangers since the pandemic started, which felt intense. I didn’t, however, mention that it was my first time teaching where I was perceived to be a cis man. How does one bring up such a thing casually in front of a group of complete strangers without over-explaining?
That part also felt mine, like it didn’t belong to them. I was very much in the thick of the experience and didn’t have the words or trust built between us yet to know that they could hold it with curiosity and respect. But as I slipped slowly back into the old, somewhat comfortable teacher’s seat, I could feel how drastically my life and everything in it had changed. I could feel the effects of these changes so palpably. It all felt so important and so right and also, simultaneously infinitely complicated and nuanced, and even, bitter-sweet. In most ways I was completely unprepared and felt totally disarmed. In my adult life, I can’t remember ever feeling this far out of my depth. And being out of my depth is something I both seek consistently and am good at.
For most folks like me, transition happens gradually, day in and day out, not suddenly— be a man, now go! It gives people time to adjust and the people in their lives get the opportunity, in their own way, to transition alongside them.
Extremely aware that the #metoo movement had very necessarily shifted the cultural expectations around touch and consent in yoga classes, this was also the first time I ever asked people at the beginning of class if they wanted hands on assists. Everyone gave their consent, so I relaxed into teaching, did my thing, and left the building feeling elated.
A few days later the phone rang and it was the studio owner. She wanted to check in. Owners don’t check in, so I knew something had gone awry. She danced around it for a bit and finally told me that someone had said something concerning about me. It wasn’t a complaint per sé, she said, the student was just confused about my assist. I asked her to tell me more, but that’s all she had. Wow. I was shocked. I had entered that class radiating heart energy imagining that everyone was feeling a little starved for clean, compassionate touch, as I was, and assisted everyone in class. If anything, my mistake was my earnest openness. I assisted them well. Nothing crazy, but definitely steady, meaningful assists that I never would have thought twice about when female presenting, and which never would have been an issue then either.
When I got off the phone, I cried. I would never in a million years want anyone to feel uncomfortable with my hands. But it’s not up to me. I cried because the love of using my hands was one of my gifts as a teacher. And because suddenly I felt alienated from my hands. I also cried because someone being confused is not even an actual complaint, it says more about them than me. Regardless of my intention, it didn’t land as it was meant.
The week after I returned to teach, mortified. I really wanted to continue to offer assists because touch is so very important for all of us in a world where loneliness is a pandemic and a lot of us live alone and don’t have access to it. I know a lot of my students come to class hoping for that touch. I also wasn’t sure how I would feel once in the room. Arming myself in as much gay paraphernalia as possible— a t-shirt with the trans flag on it, a Brandi Carlile trucker hat and an Ani DiFranco hoodie (I mean, come on!)— I hoped to signal that I was not your run of the mil regular ol’ cis dude. I figure if they at least knew I was queer or gay, it would help.
A woman approached me while I was checking people in. Not the one with the complaint, the owner mistakenly had told me her name, but a different woman who the week prior had unwrapped candies, not one, but several, during class. She stood awkwardly far from me so that my cooties couldn’t reach her and stated flatly that she only wanted to be assisted in certain poses. It wasn’t that she didn’t like my assists, it was just that she only wanted to be assisted when she wanted to be assisted. Like a la carte assists. Then she stood there, for what felt like an eternity, perhaps hoping I would ask which poses she wanted me to assist her in, but my spirit, already crushed, said nothing. It’s not that kind of party. My hands are free agents. They go where they choose. Where they are called or invited. This was ding! number two for me and felt like the final nail in my coffin. The loudness, abrasiveness and implication that now I should be at her service in whatever way she desired just kind of killed me. I was devastated.
I taught the class completely shaken and offered no assists.
For two more months I worked at that studio because I believe in giving things a big hard try even if they seem hard or scary. I thought it important to see what I could learn from it and if I could grow somehow into my new self and navigate the space between me and others in a way that wasn’t completely heartbreaking. In the end, it felt impossible, so I quit.
It’s been three years since that happened and I have found a new yoga home. Things are feeling much better and much more delicious. We have all been changed by the pandemic but have also started to move forward. And I have learned a lot about the expectations of being a man and where and how the line can be porous in a non-threatening way. But I haven’t stopped thinking about those first incidents and all the learning they have inspired. Some of which has made me sad for all of us.
I have noticed that the freedom with which I used to reach out and touch my friends and family has hardened a bit. This comes implicitly with being seen as a man in the world. It is baked into all the societal structures in such a way that really inhibits the expression of tenderness through touch in day-to-day life. The world really is not inviting touch from men right now. And rightly so. But I think it does come at a cost for everyone. I am not advocating for men not to take responsibility in this, because we’re at a time when that reckoning needs to happen and is. But as someone who has only recently been a man, I do find it challenging to turn tenderness on suddenly after having to shut it down so completely throughout most of my life. Maybe like vulnerability, tenderness is a two way street and if you close the door, it is hard to do it only partially because it cuts you off from the feeling.
But I am actively exploring how to find my way back. Learning to keep a hand in that tenderness I so vastly had access to before. And how to carve out a different structure that allows for it. Because really, in order to have our tenderness as men, there is no other way than to break the code of manliness, which takes all tenderness out. No wonder cis men have a hard time accessing that part of themselves. No wonder they are angry. Because when they feel it, they have no idea how to articulate it both physically and with their words. At least I had a different experience for forty years that I can draw from. It makes a big difference. But I can’t imagine going through the world without being touched or being able to touch…your father, or your mother, or your brothers, and siblings, your friends. So we must find a way to wrestle with this that breaks the bonds for all of us. I don’t think there’s any other choice, unless we want to live in a violent, angry world. We know that babies who don’t get touched don’t survive. Why should we think we would do better. And the farther we move away from it, the more it feeds an already thriving loneliness epidemic, and the larger the distance gets between all of us. It’s going to require much listening, great imagination and a lot of vulnerability and bravery.
***I will slowly be migrating my writing to substack over the next couple of months and keep this as an information newsletter, so for those of you who substack or would like to, bellow is the link to follow me there.
