A conversation with Jake (Part 2)
“Are you sure you don’t want any soup?” Jake asked.
“Nah, it’s cool.” I was thirsty and in need of a drink, but I was afraid to move and lose my train of thought on its way to remember how we ended up in our conversation.
It soon snapped that our talks of fish from earlier developed to the lost city of Atlantis. After that, it was a certain film that we both watched together after exams. Then naturally, we considered the lead actor and actress in that film. And from that, the ways in which fans treated different gendered celebrities differently.
“It’s kinda the same with celebrities.” I offered.
“Huh?” Jake’s eyes darted from looking up at me with a puzzled look to looking at his mug of soup with soft steam wafting up from it.
“The way people can reconstruct celebrities’ lives based on their genders and the way your parents tried to construct your life and gender for you.”
“Oh… how is that similar?”
“Your parents created your gender, but the similar part is that they refused to look past it when they were making a life for you.”
“I don’t think they created my gender.” Jake frowned. “I was always my gender.”
“Ah, no, I believe that. I mean you were always who you were and your gender was the same as your sex. But your parents wanted to change your gender because of what happened…”
“Ohh, yeah yeah, I get you now. But no, I disagree.”
“Huh?” Now it was my turn to say it.
Jake took another sip of soup, craning his neck out again. He savoured the taste before he responded to my confusion and I could almost vicariously taste what he was feeling in his mouth. I wanted some of the soup now. He did warn me that he’d drink it in front of me.
“You’re saying it was in my nature to be male even though I was nurtured as a female because, at the end of the day, I was born male.”
“Yeah.” I said. Jake summed it up pretty neatly and I didn’t see what there was to disagree with that.
“And I disagree, because someone can be born male, nurtured female, and then identify female as well.”
“That’s different though. I think that’d be because femininity is in their nature.”
“So you’re strongly nature over nurture?” Jake said as he set his mug down on the kitchen table before leaning his elbows on his lap.
“I’m strongly nature over nurture.” I confirmed with a competitive smile.
I knew what was coming. It wasn’t often that I got to exercise my brain like this. And if it could, I’m sure my mind would salivate at the times that I found out Jake had another opinion different to mine. This was going to be interesting.
