Harem 

Sometimes I blame it on The World God Only Knows. On To Love Ru and Ouran High School Host Club. When people ask me how I got away with being so halata* when I was younger, I credit these animes that raised me. 

I had known ever since I was a child that Lady Gaga was my Jesus Christ. She, Taylor Swift, and Beyoncé formed my Holy Trinity. I felt no shame in admitting it, in captioning my corny Retrica pictures with “I live for the applause,” in wiping those descended tears from my cheeks when our teacher showed us I Was Here. When I’d feel the sneers and jeers of wannabe studs and jocks, I’d flock to my trusty female companions—the Summers and Joans and Mariannes and Patricias—to affirm my sense of self. The girls with skirts were the only people in my batch who not only tolerated but enjoyed my proposition of listing all of Taylor Swift’s discography from memory. The only people in my batch who not only enjoyed but encouraged my random dance breaks to Poker Face and Telephone. 

While I look back at these moments fondly, I can’t spit out the bitter taste they leave in my mouth. I read once that no friendship is an accident, but what if I made up a purpose for certain friendships? 

Because I know what they were saying about me, the boys in class who laughed too loud and drooled when they slept. I’ve watched enough movies to know how tough a life mine could have been had I presented myself as anything but their version of a boy. So, when I was first asked by a tall, lanky, spiky-haired male classmate why I hung out with girls so much, the first response out of my mouth was Why don’t you? The fight-or-flight software in my brain started running, and I said Am I not more of a boy than you? That I have girls by my side all the time. What about you? Bitchless. Incel. I’m the man here. 

My father calls it collecting and selecting. It’s his way of confirming his boy is not just a boy but a loverboy. A playboy. A Hugh Heffner type, just sifting through the pile of women to find his centerfold. I leaned into the Japanese tropes and the clichés. The singular male fawned and fought over by two or more women who wish to exist within the world of his love. The animes that razed me. In my mind I was a prince charming. In my mind I was a snakecharmer. In front of my boy classmates I’d walk with an air of confidence, a boastfulness, an I told you so energy. 

All to escape the basic fact that I’m as much a girl as I am a boy. 

This then is an apology. To the Chantals and Kayes and Biancas and Sophias. I believed back then that I was precocious. I was always just spoiled. That I could subscribe to disgusting patriarchal standards that made me lie right through my teeth, that made me objectify you. I was a child who conformed. I saw the many children who didn’t. Kicked till blue in the activity center, thrown soccer balls at in the gym, called slurs to their faces. I was less the boy who cried wolf and more the wolf in sheep’s clothing. I used you as a means to an end in a lousy attempt at survival. 

And what’s worse is that they all knew. The girls knew. The boys knew. Everyone knew anyway. For no boy can change his profile picture to a shirtless, surfboard-abbed Gray Fullbuster and be opaque about his adoration. 

I wouldn’t learn until high school that a chant went around among the boys in my batch back when I was nine. A juvenile song. Dumb, cheesy. I look back at it now—now that I am exactly who I was shying away from then—and laugh. And you’ll laugh too. Sing it as you read it; the tune in your head is probably the right one. The song goes: 

“Aidan is so gay! Aidan is so gay! Do you have a condom? Do you have a condom? Aidan is so gay! Aidan is so gay!” 

See? I told you it’s funny. But that stale taste in my mouth, it’s there when I laugh. Because I know, deep down in my marrow, had I heard this at nine years old, I would have been so ashamed and so embarrassed, exactly how I was primed to feel when accused of homosexuality, that I would have never shown my face in school again. That I would have restrategized: picked up a ball, played some video games, joined a frat. That I would have jumped from the harem ship straight into a sea of manhood. 

I hear stories of people who come to terms with their sexuality later in life. They can always pinpoint the exact moment when they needed to let their true selves go. 

This then is a letter of gratitude. To the Athens and Alanas and Keziahs and Annes out there. Thank you for your mantle of protection. You saved my life more than you can imagine. You probably had no idea. We were just kids sitting in Coca Cola booths, I know that. Adding cat ear filters to our selfies, I know that. Quoting Pitch Perfect scenes and belting Kelly Clarkson, I know that. But these are the moments I will point to not when people ask me how I got away with being halata but when they ask me how I came to accept who I am—and who I have always been—today. 

*halata is the Filipino word for obvious. In Filipino gay slang, it’s used when a boy is outwardly feminine.