FlyHole

Text and images in FlyHole are appropriated from the short erotica, “The Dildo in my Pocket,” published in Manscape (March 1985). The original story is about a “woman” who “disguises herself” as a man in order to pursue the gay man “she” is in love with. Despite using outdated language and transphobic tropes, the story accurately depicts the concerns and fears many trans-masculine people have about passing, takes seriously the gay desires that some trans-masculine people have for men, and portrays the main character as a competent lover, capable of bringing a cis gay man—and, presumably, Manscape’s readers—to orgasm. Through the use of collaged images of flies onto sections of text from “The Dildo in my Pocket,” the main character is transformed into a housefly who transitions into a man. Through this alteration, the transphobic notion of trans people are grotesque is reworked into a science-fiction, anti-assimilationist parable. FlyHole holds onto Mascape’s trans-masculine history, while circumventing heteronormative gender-assignment.

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