My phone buzzed for the second time. I got up to my desk to reach for it, groggy and naked. The sensation, both familiar and odd, of my large manhood balancing between my legs, slapping my thighs in rhythm, made me smirk with pride. I immediately lost my smile as I read the messages from my dickhead of a landlord. I answered him that I wired the money last week, and to look through his junk folder. He would always try to find some reason to pick on me and harass me with non-issues, since he found out I was gay. The old man was the pinnacle of stereotypes on his generation.
As I poured myself a mug of coffee and a bowl of cereals, I pondered with writing him a new reality. One in which he would be infatuated with me, but also younger and overall nicer. That would resolve him, but not the larger problem of which he is only a symptom. As I started distantly while eating my breakfast, a plan started forming in my mind. Sure, I could write out homophobia, or just prejudices of all sorts. That wouldn’t be enough, though. Power might be starting to get to my head…
As I now sat at the dining table, with my sweatpants, a second coffee and the magical anatomy book, I opened to a random page and asked:
"Show me what you know about sodomy."
Two definitions appeared. One I was well too aware of, and one I tend to forget, similar to bestiality. Reading rapidly over the page, I could find statistics, explanations and, mostly, a long historical report, with cultural explanations. It would fill several pages. I crossed it all except for the first definition.
"Anal or oral copulation with another person, especially with a member of the same sex."
I bit my lip for a moment. What I had in mind didn’t include oral sex, but I didn’t want to throw it out either. I decided to add one word.
" Anal, or rarely oral, copulation with another person, especially with a member of the same sex."
It wasn’t all, though. I wanted to make sure that my landlord wouldn’t see any bad in my desires towards men. I started writing more, to replace the old by a new, better suited definition. After a lot of back and forth, rewriting, erasing and adding, the page read like this. The book even made additions of his own:
"Sodomy, commonly referred to as Bonding, is an intimate act performed between two persons as an act of camaraderie and trust. In homo sapiens, the lubricant formed by the interaction of the pre-seminal liquid with the rectal cavity’s lining is rich in a hormone considered the most potent of the Oxitocin family. This allowed for strong social cohesion in first humans, who would regularly maintain their clan unity through sodomitic rituals, especially toward new tribe members. Sodomitic relationships within a clan ensured newborns with a strong network of adults to care for them, as well as more peaceful behaviors. It is believed to be one of the causes for homo sapiens’s supremacy over other hominids. However, sodomy is not practiced casually, nor with anyone. It requires a close kinship or a strong friendship, as it is a highly intimate act, and involves a deep level of attachment and loyalty.
With time, societies built around this essential act of humanity, creating various cultural rules and taboos. This is why different societies even nowadays have different views or practices when it comes to bonding. Throughout history, leaders would often seal treaties and pacts with a sodomitic ritual, usually regarded as imperial to the agreement, whereas more material concerns could be viewed as symbolic. As kingdoms expanded, it became usual in certain highly-structured regions of the world for a leader to have an elite group of diplomats with whom they kept a tight sodomitic bond and who could represent them at sodomitic rituals, especially with lower-ranking nobles.
Although bonding is universally considered an intimate act to be performed privately, some societies consider it banal enough not to consider public bonding an exhibitionist act. Among western societies, team sports culture is a prime exception to this taboo, as locker room camaraderie allows it, or even encourages it. Other taboos usually align with other incest, rather symmetrically. Most nations would regard as normal a bonding act between two individuals that are one degree closer than their tolerance to incestuous relationship, although exceptions exist here as well. Examples abound of cultures where the tolerated degree of kinship is the same or even inverted, as it was the case in some ancient Balkan tribes, as well as some minutely documented observations with nations from western and northern Australia, and various oral records on every continent. In such generally complex systems, a man could for example marry a woman while still being under the kinship taboo regarding bonding with her brother. To many, this seems counter intuitive, as bonding with a spouse’s sibling allows for better care of the child, as well as a natural desire to become a legal guardian in the case where the parents would deceased. However, in the societies mentioned above, these basic needs are fulfilled as wholly, although differently.
Sodomite is a term used to refer to, in its singular form, a close friend or clan member or, in its plural form, two persons who practice sodomy together."
The words settled, and I could feel a vague feeling pass through me as reality was altered.