Posted at 7:00 p.m.
The girls tell him that he is not a “real man”. That he has a “feminine energy”. His shrink, meanwhile, believes he suffers from the “good guy” syndrome. Besides being a stutterer. But it has nothing to do, or maybe just a little. Interview to see clearly.
Seated in a small cafe in Rosemont where he has his habits, Kevin, rather charming behind his beard and his big soft eyes, is particularly proud of his choice of first name, for the purposes of our discussion. “Let’s play with stereotypes,” he laughs straight away. A wise choice when you know that in the end, and during the good hour and a half that the interview will last, it will be much more a question of stereotypes in general than of stuttering in particular.
But first, the facts. Yes, Kevin (who is anything but a Kevin, aka “douchebag,” in popular culture) stutters. Although he has reached, after years of therapy, a “level of fluidity acceptable by society’s standards”, he recites. But that hasn’t always been the case. Hence the “baggage” of discrimination and stigmatization, especially since this genetic disorder comes with a wicked vicious circle, which is accentuated in a stressful situation or in a hostile context. “If you grow up in an environment hostile to stuttering, you stutter more. And that was unfortunately his case.
As a child, he remembers, it was “hell”. Especially since he suffers from other disorders, fortunately now resolved. Not to mention various family issues, but let’s move on.
With the girls ? “The desert,” he replies, laughing, with an explosive levity that won’t leave him in the interview. “I experienced a lot of rejection. The girls thought I was incompetent. Inappropriate. […] They thought I was no good. » Reaction? Kevin has become increasingly “anti-social”…over the years. “I didn’t even answer the phone anymore…”
At the beginning of his twenties, he changed town to study at university. And at 23, a girl in his program “finds it to his liking”, as they say. “I wasn’t interested,” he laughs. She was a pretty girl, but I didn’t like her personality at all. Still, he dares, for the sake of the cause.
Tsé, I was 23 years old, I was a virgin. And I was tired of being a virgin.
Kevin
Verdict? “From now on, I am a man”, he remembers having reacted, directly after the act. Yes, madam laughed.
Next ? It’s the “explosion”, continues our man. “I needed to make up for lost time. He travels a lot (“to live and overcome my stuttering”) and, in doing so, meets all kinds of women. “Extremes,” he says, still laughing, from the “star” to the ultra-enterprising woman. Think here: claws and bites. “But for me, it’s not in my nature. And I was told: you’re really too sweet…” Not a real one. And it marks, we guess. Especially when it’s said repeatedly.
Used
One day, he still remembers, a pretty girl approached him squarely in a café, leaving him her contact details. He communicates with her, she invites him to his house, and crack, it happens. “But I didn’t like it,” he recalls. I felt used. She wanted me to behave like a porn actor. She wanted me to come in her face. But for me, it’s degrading. I didn’t want to, and she started laughing! »
He also notices certain patterns: in addition to enterprising women (“and I was so happy to be approached by a pretty girl, I never said no”), he tends to get turned around quickly. “I’d rather we didn’t see each other again…” He had heard that one often.
“But there is no love feeling in it. No love. Girls who have a need to fill come to see me. Me too, I want sex, I’m not made of wood. It’s fun on the fly. But after ? After that, it’s depressing…”
In short, he feels used. Like an object.
It was finally at the age of 30 that he had his first (and only) “blonde”. “The only relationship I’ve had in my life. » Met online. He lives with her for three years of sexual fulfillment. “Great, he said, it’s the first time I had the giggles afterwards. I thought it was just good, compared to the others before, where I felt like an object. There, that was not it. She had love for me. She wanted to see me again. To be in relationship. Well, that knocked me over. »
Except that the relationship took a toxic turn (“she wanted to change me!”) and ended up ending. “And then I had a burst of stuttering…”
It was 10 years ago. Since ? Kevin walked. Funny chimney. In a direction we didn’t see coming, in fact. It is that at this time, he finds childhood friends, in particular a friend who is now trans. “And she’s into the queer feminist scene a lot, so I started hanging out with those people. Surprise, he feels here accepted for what he is.
I have always considered myself marginalized and stigmatized because of my stutter. It’s as if, with this gang of queer feminists, I was with misfits like me!
Kevin
In this “environment” also gravitate polyamorous friends (“a type of relationship that wants to deconstruct possessiveness, jealousy, the notion of fidelity”, he recites), and a certain 1er January 2019, he decides to dare too. He has two polyamorous adventures, all in all rather conclusive. “It was good,” he sums up. Because it was like friendly. There was no pressure. The next day, she returned to her boyfriend. And he was happy. »
And then ? And then came the pandemic, and that way of life was put on hold for many, including him. “I’ve had sex once in two years,” Kevin says. With ? “A queer woman, precisely, more lesbian than bi, but she liked it a lot with me, because I have a feminine energy. And this time, it made me happy. When I was 25, I hated it. But these days, I seem to take pride in not fitting the stereotypes of masculinity. »
Or just stereotypes. Let it be said: it is not because he is a man that he is a “douchebag”, nor because he is a stutterer that he feels bad about himself. “Me, I’m just Kevin, after all. […] I am just me. »
* Fictitious first name, to protect his anonymity