A national LGBTQI+ storytelling project curated by Maeve Marsden
featuring a book, event series and an award-winning podcast

A national LGBTQI+ storytelling project curated by Maeve Marsden
featuring a book, event series and award-winning podcast

248 Pierce Eldridge – Douche

Being a young queer baby is practically the equivalent of having to be an undercover private investigator to your own sexuality. Pierce tries to find out the basics of gay sex, with hilarious results.

Pierce Eldridge (they/them) is a sensitive gender non-conforming curator and writer based on the Gold Coast; with lavender bulbs blooming for brains. They have a distinct interest in poetry and photography, often blending the two disciplines when discussing the intersections of art, queerness, and contemporary cultural phenomenons. Pierce is actively involved with the Queensland Aids Council, winner of the QC’s President’s Award for Volunteering 2020, and has ambitions of initiating community led workshops, on the coast, to activate safe spaces for queer people.

Transcript

MAEVE

Hi, I’m Maeve Marsden and you’re listening to Queerstories. This week, Pierce Eldridge is a gender non-conforming curator and writer with lavender bulbs blooming for brains. They’re actively involved with the Queensland AIDS Council and winner of the QC’s Presidents Award for Volunteering 2020. They performed this story for Bleach Festival on the Gold Coast. This particular event was open-air, with the general public able to mosey by and eavesdrop, should they so choose. As you listen, I want you to remember that and consider the fact that Pierce is pretty sure they spied a fairly conservative-looking straight family listening at a pivotal moment.

PIERCE

Being a young queer baby is practically the equivalent of having to be an undercover private investigator to your own sexuality. When I was in high school, I found it really difficult to find information about gay stuff anywhere. I had so many questions: How do I kiss a boy? How do I flirt with them? How do I know if I like boys? How do I know if a boy likes me? And mostly, how do we bang when it comes down to it?

This was around the age of 16, which was the year I received my very own clunky Toshiba laptop for my birthday – very flash – meaning I didn’t have to use and share the home office computer with my family anymore. With what I was lucky to have answered by the friends I had at school, the not-so-clear I took to my computer with; opening Google and typing in, “How do I have anal sex?”

What opened up to me was a world of vast information, some things were very heteronormative, which I honestly don’t want to talk about that right now, but ultimately what I found left me feeling incredibly anxious, particularly when it came to topic of preparation. Altering my question into a new one, “How do I douche my arse?”

The uncomfortable reality of this search left me on websites with mechanisms, pieces of elaborately designed equipment that I, at the age of 16, wasn’t able to attain myself. I had attempted purchasing a little bulb squishy thing online with my savings debit card but would instantly freeze up when clicking the ‘Confirm Purchase’ button for fear that it would arrive to my doorstep, and somehow into my mother’s hands, leaving me ousted by a butt cleaner. So, I had to think of something a bit more inventive, something a little more discreet. What could I possibly find around the house that could potentially act as a squirting mechanism to flush my insides out?

I mused about the outdoor hose connected to the side of the house in the backyard. For obvious reasons, I didn’t go there because I knew that it would maybe be too public a display of my craving for butt sex, so I had to be a little more inventive. I went to the refrigerator with the idea of finding a water bottle.

I remember instantly feeling like this could work, right? It has just enough of a tip to insert into anus, might be  tough around the edges, there’s likely to be blood, but if I just got it in there enough to really get one good squeeze of water in… bing, bang, boom. I’d be ready for gay sex! (WHISPERS) Gay sex, gay sex, gay sex…

I searched through the refrigerator and found a classic Pump-up water bottle and ran straight to my bedroom to hide it behind my bed for a few days, waiting for the perfect moment when my parents and little brother weren’t in the house. The object of my desire felt close to being satisfied, and the water bottle became a totem to my insatiable roaring for clean ass freedom!

And so that day came. Everyone had left the house, I rushed to grab my Pump water bottle, took it with me to the bathroom, locked the door and filled it with, as suggested, lukewarm water. The process I had read online was simple, right? Stick it in and then squeeze (SIGHS).

But, you know, this was my first time, you know? Would this pop my cherry? Will I break my hymen? Do I even have a hymen? I didn’t have enough time to ask any more questions, so as if trying to emulate intimacy with my bottle partner, I got down on all fours and, with a moment’s hesitation, stuffed the un-lubricated lid into my ass and squealed at the pain, which I mocked myself for later.

If I was going to do this, I’d have to be resilient, so I squeezed the plastic water bottle, crinkling it hard as a flood of water entered me, and pulled it out to start the pulsing process. Really squeezing and working my cheeks now, Swishing the water around as if it were mouth wash. It was uncomfortable. I stood and did a few unnecessary jumps which made me feel like my stomach was cramping and then, Sha-bam, I was ready. I politely took myself to the loo, emptied my loins, and had a really beautiful shower with Dove body wash to was myself super clean. I felt liberated. I felt gay… with the sweet release of an empty intestine.

After my shower, I pledged total companionship with my water bottle saviour. I disposed of it so no one in my family would attempt to reuse it. They’re also here tonight. This is their first time hearing this story, so, Hi Mum and Dad. Lucky you didn’t use it again, did you?  And decided that whilst I still had the home to myself, I’d take a nudie swim in the pool out back.

It was a warm summers day, I jumped straight in… Yes, the story isn’t over. I jumped straight in and almost as soon as I hit the water, I felt the same strange, cramping feeling of my insides… People in the crowd know this feeling… of my insides screaming to expel themselves from my body. A few thoughts ran through my mind, but most of all I was thinking, “What the fuck?”

The immediacy of the feeling of the need to do a huge shit hit me like a tonne of bricks, so I swam to the pool’s edge, I jumped out as fast as I could, and instead of running inside to use the bathroom like a normal person would, I decided, because it was really coming out of me now, to run to the backyard where I squatted, and a cannon ball of poo exploded from my arse. Like, really exploded.

I turned to look at the destruction I had caused in the yard and was mortified. My body pulsated with so much adrenaline as I began to feel disgusted with myself; the whole turn of events, and the shitty, so to speak, situation I was now in. It was huge, and it was all over the place on the ground. And instantly I knew, of course… I knew by any means that I could not leave it there for someone to find ‘cause it was clearly quite human.

I found a towel to wipe my wet body down with whilst cursing aloud at all the online blogs that didn’t warn me of the side effects, which may include explosive bowels, and went inside to grab a few plastic bags to pick myself up with. This was catastrophe, my poor insides were all mixed up, and I felt saddened to have gotten this all so wrong.

I prepared myself by covering both of my hands with two plastic bags, yet when I returned to the backyard, of which I had just shat my guts up into, my poo… um, it was gone. Uh.

As if needing anymore stress right now, obviously I fucking panicked. God. Jesus. Sorry, Mum and Dad. I panicked, sending me into a maddening search for my poo, and noticed that… Oh, dear… in the yard, standing over where I had thought I had just shat, was my dog licking her lips.

Most of my younger queer life was like this; not the shitting in gardens part but finding and trying to forge an understanding of myself through online or books or movies, or with my own imagination. Sorry, just going back there, my dog ate my shit. I just wanted to reiterate that.

Needless to say, obviously it didn’t go very well. It wasn’t as glamorous as I had been subscribed to online. But if had I known what I know now, I would go back and tell myself it’s okay to have stumbled because no one told you. It’s also okay to do all this research online by yourself because it was too difficult for you to be able to tell anyone around you or ask for help. Thank you.

MAEVE

Thanks for listening. Please rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast, follow Queerstories on Facebook for our updates, and me, Maeve Marsden, on Twitter and Instagram. If you enjoy Queerstories, consider supporting the project on Patreon. Even $1 per month helps me continue to share these amazing stories with the world.

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Credits

Queerstories is produced by Maeve Marsden and recorded by wonderful technicians at events around the country. Editors and support crew have included Beth McMullen, Bryce Halliday, Ali Graham and Nikki Stevens.