“I’m Jerk-ing Off to E-mo-tions” (sung to trill escalation of four octaves)
February 23, 2003
When you’re fifteen and growing up in a surf resort-esque town, it’s uneasy to shake the belief that you’re the sole homo in the world, if not the feeling that you’re the only homo who doesn’t slot politely into a pastel-pink stereotype placeholder. Fortunately, grunge was the big thing at the time, so self-loathing was remarkably fashionable. This, however, was not enough to ease my feelings that something with me just wasn’t right.
I began reminding myself daily that, just like my indulgences in hormone-fuelled self discovery, being into guys was a strictly temporary arrangement. Although no specific date was marked down on my calendar at the time to ralign my ogling from goolies to boobies, I felt I’d made an underlying promise to my sanity that at some stage, I’d stop getting interested in guys and switch to girls.
To assist with this seemingly unavoidable change, I figured I’d need to study some prime example of the female form. If I was watching a picture of some girl while I climaxed, I’d grow to associate pleasure with the curves of the female body, right?
So after flipping through some music magazines, I randomly placed my finger onto a montage of celebrity shots, with my eyes squeezed tightly shut. My finger landed on one woman I supposed I could possibly convince myself to be attracted to.
Mariah Carey.
That’s right. Mariah Carey was my measure against the abbhorance of faggotry, and supposedly the key to the alteration of sexual preference. Who knew after all the research that various writhing religious groups had funded, that lengthy self-probing sessions of “ungaying” wasn’t necessary? The answer simply lay in the melody to “Emotions”.
Although I tried my best to concentrate on Ms. Carey during this self-enduced therapy, my attention invariably drifted across to the moody-looking background dancer with the huge pecs. Or the hot unshaved fella riding the horse with her. Or over to the next page, whence appeared the world’s most famous producer of audio fungus known to man (fortunately, Vanilla Ice has rotted away from the musical landscape since then).
Clearly, this wasn’t working. In fact, somewhat the opposite occured. The final moment which shuddered the notion that I may never actually be attracted to females into my brain, occured during an accidental viewing of a Mariah clip on Video Hits.
CHRIST, I realised. SHE’S A GODAWFUL THING TO LISTEN TO AS WELL.
Not only did the whole experience cement the fact in that I was definitely a homo… it steered me well clear of any pop pap for good. Less than 24 hours later, I stormed into the local Kmart and slammed some money down on the counter for the two first heavy-looking CD’s I could find (Helmet and Machine Head, for the record), and haven’t turned back - in terms of music or how I feel about myself - in the eight years since then.
Mariah Carey, I have a lot to thank you for, not least your overwhelmingly embarassing career.
