By Kate McDermott | February 15, 2010 | 2 Comments
“Buck Angel kicks your expectations’ ass, throws them out the window, then bludgeons them over with a crowbar. Everyone needs to meet this man.” - Max Cho '13
Buck Angel doesn’t care what you think about him. But he does care what you think of yourself. This was the overwhelming message I got from the talk Saturday afternoon featuring Buck Angel – The Man with the Pussy, as he is titled on his web site.
Mr. Angel, who took wife’s last name as usual bucking tradition (pun intended – if you want more, try some of his adult movie titles: The Buck Stops Here, More Bang for Your Buck, and my own personal favorite: Buckback Mountain) is the first female-to-male transsexual porn star. But make no mistake: there’s nothing female about this man, vagina included. From bald head to bulging muscles to manly tattoos, there’s no doubt that Buck Angel is confident in his manliness.
When Buck was younger, the trans community, especially for FTM (female-to-male) trans men, was pretty much nonexistent. Prior to his discovery that such a transition was even possible, Buck lived a painful life, self-medicating with alcohol. He would do "tricks" on the streets of West Hollywood dressed as a little boy, hiding his gender under a baseball cap, trying to make money to buy drugs. On his way to a man's home one day, he wasn't sure if he would come out alive – but he didn't really care either way.
When the man recognized Buck was a girl, Buck decided it was time to sober up. Soon afterward, he saw a movie in which a woman transitioned into a man. Buck consulted a doctor he found in a male-to-female (MTF) transsexual handbook and found himself the guinea pig for the doctor’s first FTM transformation. Of his first taste of testosterone, Buck said, “That little shot changed my life…I could feel the masculinity coming out of me.” He knew it was psychological – one tiny shot couldn’t do very much. But it was a symbolic beginning.
Buck had to be strong enough to accept a version of his body that was not the complete man he originally imagined. After he started hormone injections, he found a doctor to do his chest surgery (again as a guinea pig). The next step was clear – to be a man, he really needed a penis. But then he found out how much the penis surgery costs ($50,000-70,000) and how little the penis would function. He joked that after hearing that the chance of losing his orgasm was 50/50, he was done then and there. It was heart-breaking at first – he, like most men, defined masculinity by the penis (at least in part). But then he came to the incredibly liberating realization that he could be a man – a truly complete man – even with a vagina. He took this even a step further and continues to do so in his adult films. He is not a man in spite of his vagina; rather, he uses it to convey his masculinity. The Man with the Pussy is not just a gimmick – this is really who Buck is.
Buck’s psychological transformation was as important as his physical one, though they are intimately connected. Listening to him speak, it was hard to believe that such a happy, confident person could ever have been suicidal and miserable. Today, he seems so completely comfortable with himself that I got the sense that nothing could really shake him. I even went up to him after the tea to ask whether it is difficult to face people who find the idea of a man with a vagina disturbing. He said that he actually enjoys confronting people as much as possible. This is probably because, as manly as this guy is, he’s probably the most unthreatening person you’ll ever meet.
Diego Salvatierra ’13 said he had been fascinated by how Angel and his wife, body-piercing artist Elayne Angel, seemed like such a “normal couple in how they related to each other.” After the tea, he was impressed by how relaxed Buck was when telling his story – “even considering suicide, he seemed to be very honest. It made him seem really approachable.” His frankness immediately put the room at ease.
Buck recognizes that the notion of a man with a vagina makes people uncomfortable, but that’s part of the reason he decided a couple of years ago that he needed to start speaking out. When I spoke to him about this decision, he said that he came to the realization that porn films would not be a good enough outlet for reaching people, especially considering the reputation of the adult film industry. He never thought, however, that he would be speaking at a place like Yale, having never graduated high school.
And yet, Buck Angel has an enormously important message to teach people, even Yalies (maybe especially Yalies). He speaks out because he wants to show that his vagina is not a threat to the world but rather a symbol of how to liberate yourself from societal labels and the stress of conforming to other people’s notions of how you should act. Buck dares you to be comfortable with yourself. At one point during the tea, he mentioned that probably 50% of people in the room had information they weren’t sharing with the world that they wish they could. (I would hazard a guess that it’s a bit higher than that.)
The point wasn’t that we should become cynical Goth hipsters who moan about societal conformity. After all, Buck fully encompasses many a masculine stereotype – muscles, tattoos, cigar, etc. His point was that we should have the confidence to embrace who we are as individuals. When someone asked him about the state of the trans community today, he mentioned that though communities are important, he has some problems with the fact that communities want to put you in their own box, instead of allowing you to craft your own identity. For instance, many FTM trans men had a huge problem with him as a porn star because they thought he was portraying them as freaks. But he felt like he was simply representing himself. We could all do a bit more of that, whether or not we end up as transexual porn stars.
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