The Man in the Tights
It was without a doubt the ‘thing’ happening in his tight trousers that started it all. This was the moment I realised I was ‘for’ the penis and I was four years old. David Bowie’s Goblin King stared at me from the screen, all hair, make-up, bad English teeth, an oh-so-pretty face and that bulge and he awoke in my four-year-old self the knowledge that men were ‘other’ and here was a man more other than most. I fell in love, instantly. Now, at this age I was still to be found regularly sharing a bath with my brother and sister. So I had seen ‘boy bits’ before. I have no memory of my brothers ‘thing’, thankfully . It played no part in my head as a source of interest. So what was so remarkable and memorable about this one? What was it about that grey bulge that made me sit up and realise that boys have a penis and girls have a vagina? Well one, it’s a man in tights and like everything David Bowie did, it wasn’t de-rigour, it wasn’t what everyone did: str
