OPUS GENERIS is a suite of five classical poems which give a dialectical, forward-moving, depersonalized picture of the gender-identity formation process in terms of traditional classical myth. The aim was to do justice to both the telos of
heterosexual marriage and child-rearing, as affirmed by the Judaeo-Christian moral tradition, AND the zigs and zags of the identity formation process, as covered in classical poetry, and all in the context of a night's poetic
entertainment in two languages and various meters.
Catullus, Cybele and Attis (Latin, galliambics, failure to escape from the mother)
Pindar, Olympian #1 (Greek, epinician, powerful male figure pulls boy away)
Odyssey Book II (Greek, hexameters, boy tries to play the man independently and fails)
Ovid, Daphne & Apollo (Latin, hexameters, boy turns from playing with boys to pursuing a girl)
The aim is not to court controversy as being pro or anti trans, or pro or anti pedophilia. The aim is to provide material that is well balanced enough to provoke
interesting and necessary discussion.
Before OPUS GENERIS, study of sexuality was balkanized into Christians obsessed with marriage and child-rearing as the one true
sexual orientation, and fetish-based people obsessed with every other kind of sexual outlet, all of which is regarded by Christians as
sexual DISorientation. Having studied OPUS GENERIS, people began to see the gender-identity formation process as a dialectic in which one sexual focus gave way to the next.
Matthew Barney's five-part opus THE CREMASTER CYCLE was a major inspiration for OPUS GENERIS, as was Genesis's The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. The way Christian "
conversion therapy" programs failed to cover the necessary territory was a very powerful motivator.
