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“Go on, let him suck your oo-poo.” “No!” “Why not? Go on, let him try, they’re big enough.” “No way, it’s too freaky! It crosses the line!” In our house, oo-poos are breasts—lactating breasts, to be exact. Each of the children has used a di¤erent name for them. For Magnus, our third, they are oo-poos. My wife, Amanda, is pretty tired of having hers sucked dry. It’s January-in-Australia-hot and I’m shirtless on the couch holding Magnus, and it must be said that without casting a particularly vain pose, my less-than-muscular chest does appear to have oo-poos, albeit rather hairy ones. Magnus looks at my oo-poos, half interested in a flush of youthful optimism, yet well aware that the poor excuse facing him will probably not deliver the milky goods. The thing is, it shouldn’t freak me out, but it does. The idea of suckling Magnus just feels, well . . . unnatural, unmanly. For someone who frames a good deal of his research with queer theory, this should not be the case. So I’m one of the relatively few straight men in the world who uses queer theory. Even with other academics I often have to start o¤ with its potted history: that while born out of lesbian and gay studies, queer theory can be applied to pretty much anything when we understand it to simply be about troubling categories. In my work on masculinities and religion I happily use queer theory all the time: Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Judith Butler, Judith Halberstam, I’ve had them all. Among theological texts I’ve enjoyed indecent smells with Marcella Althaus-Reid, tumescent penises with Donald Boisvert, and an array of circular group activities with the Radical Faeries. I truly believe in the value of all these things for all men, gay and straight, in the value of troubling what it means to be a man, and not just for the boring sake of subversion. But here I am, freaked out by the prospect of A River Runs through It Queer Theory and Fatherhood j o seph g elfer 46 01 Part 1_Manu 7/1/2010 5:29 PM Page 46 putting my oo-poo to Magnus’s mouth. It’s probably the first time something has challenged my identity as a man and a father. Having my nipples tweaked by a handsome man in a club? Hey, not a problem. Contemplating three-way dynamics while reading Michael Tolliver Lives: Who doesn’t? But Magnus on my oo-poo? That’s a toughie. I don’t doubt for a minute that most guys have these thoughts, but I’m sure researching masculinities puts an extra spin on the matter. Often as I examine my motivations for my manly and paternal decision-making I frame them by what I know in the literature and contemplate how critical I’d be about my actions if I were analyzing them in someone else. Sometimes I’m happy with my findings, other times I’m not. I’m left to wonder how many of my words are just words that I can easily a¤ord to o¤er and what—if anything—is genuinely queer about the way I do masculinity and fatherhood. Is it queer to live in a four-bedroom house in Melbourne’s western suburbs? Not really. Is it queer to trundle o¤ to work every day on the train while my wife drives the children to school? Not at all. But I do create queer spaces on the page, which I enjoy all the more for the veneer of normativity that my ostensible life provides. But, you know, creating these queer spaces is a lot of work. It takes many hours at the library, introspective walks, much finger-tapping of the keyboard . Here’s the twist with this particular game: Committing to research into masculinities and fatherhood can often require so much time that there is little left to perform your own masculinity and fatherhood. You might find, for example, that you are on the computer writing a creative nonfiction essay about being an academic father rather than being out in the chaos of the family room actually being an academic father, despite the fact that the amount of noise out there is making it blindingly obvious that you should be out there. . . . And then you might find yourself playing a little justification game in your...

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