Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 2, August 2001 | Page 87

The Writings of David Wojnarowicz

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sexually attracted to each other, Wojnarowicz and the driver seek refuge in the cab
of his truck for their sexual encounter. The driver assures a concerned Wojnarowicz
that the police will not catch them in the act because they always check the cars
first. Using a stream-of-consciousness style, Wojnarowicz writes:
...and by flashing their flashlights through each one we got
plenty of time just to enjoy it go ahead enjoy yourself and put
ting his big hand around the back of my neck and pressing
gently till my face could make out the outline of his moving
dick I could see the dim hairs covering his balls go ahead use
your tongue a lot and less teeth that’s it more tongue and less
teeth yeah where 1 come from there’s three brothers who come
over to my place when they can get away they come over for
the night and they love it go ahead that’s right enjoy it enjoy
yourself. (1992, 9—13)
Here, the narrative resistance strategy is to emphasize that consensual sexual ac
tivity, even between members of the same sex, is a basic human need that should
be devoid of the guilt and shame levied by an intolerant and puritanical America.
The implication is that forcing homosexuals underground to satisfy their sexual
longings dehumanizes them by shaming them into hiding and silence. The goal of
this narrative resistance strategy is to shame those who denounce homosexuality
as deviant activity; in other words, to hold textually a mirror up to the faces of the
dogmatic and intolerant ones so that they may feel shame upon the reflection of
their own bigotry.
A related strategy employed by Wojnarowicz in his autobiographical sto
ries involved emphasizing how driving homosexuality underground can lead to
dangerous circumstances. Engaging in clandestine sex with strangers, Wojnarowicz
recounted close calls in which his life was placed in peril, including being drugged,
thrown out a second-story window, strangled, hit in the head with a slab of marble,
stabbed four times, and punched in the face seventeen times. Perhaps the most
harrowing experience is graphically recalled in one of the stories of Memories
That Smell Like Gasoline, in which a 15-year-old Wojnarowicz accepts a ride from
a man in a beat-up red pick-up truck. What seemed like a harmless sexual encoun
ter turns into a nightmare for Wojnarowicz when the driver ties him up with a rope,
throws him in the back of the truck, sexually abuses him, and threatens to kill him
by dousing his body with gasoline. The driver ends up letting Wojnarowicz go, but
he was so traumatized by the incident that when he encountered the man in a
movie theater lobby years later, he was still intimidated by his brutal presence.
Wojnarowicz wrote: “I could still feel his gaze; it lingered like the stink after a bad