{"id":141413,"date":"2019-12-23T11:00:54","date_gmt":"2019-12-23T16:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=141413"},"modified":"2019-12-10T17:52:31","modified_gmt":"2019-12-10T22:52:31","slug":"no-homo-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/23\/no-homo-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Reimagining Masculinity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>We\u2019re away until January 6, but we\u2019re reposting some of our favorite pieces from 2019. Enjoy your holiday!<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/10-athletes-black-and-white-1594937.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-137053\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/10-athletes-black-and-white-1594937.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/10-athletes-black-and-white-1594937.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/10-athletes-black-and-white-1594937-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/10-athletes-black-and-white-1594937-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo homo,\u201d says the boy, barely visible in the room\u2019s fading light, as he cradles my foot in his palms. He is kneeling before me\u2014this 6\u20192\u201d JV basketball second stringer\u2014as I sit on his bed, my feet hovering above the shag. His head is bent so that the swirl in his crown shows, the sweat in the follicles catching the autumn dusk through the window. Anything is possible, we think, with the body. But not always with language. \u201cNo homo,\u201d he says again before wrapping the ace bandage once, twice, three times around my busted ankle, the phrase\u2019s purpose now clear to me: a password, an incantation, a get-out-of-jail-free card, for touch. For two boys to come this close to each other in a realm ruled by the nebulous yet narrow laws of American masculinity, we needed magic.<\/p>\n<p>No homo. The words free him to hold my foot with the care and gentleness of a nurse, for I had sprained my ankle half an hour earlier playing manhunt in the McIntosh orchard. We ran, our bodies silver in the quickening dark, teenagers playing at war.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/06\/10\/no-homo\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Read more &gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ocean Vuong writes, \u201cMasculinity, or what we have allowed it to be in America, is often realized through violence.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1778,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[60329],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-of-2019"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Reimagining Masculinity by Ocean Vuong<\/title>\n<meta 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