From Karo Syrup to Cobra Command: A Personal Theory of Queer Development, Attachment Substitutes, and Plastic Salvation

By Gregory P. Clare

I was raised on Karo syrup. Not metaphorically—though that would be tempting—but quite literally, as the golden adhesive binding my earliest caloric intake. My mother, like many working-class women in mid-century America confronted with bodily inconvenience, chose not to breastfeed. In her case, “chose” might be generous—she was saddled with inverted nipples, a minor anatomical rebellion that rendered suckling impossible and, by her telling, unseemly. The workaround was a bottle filled with commercial infant formula diluted with cow’s milk, sweetened with Karo, and offered on schedule, not demand.

This dietary deviation might appear quaint or negligible were it not for the cascade of psychosexual consequences I am now prepared to lay at its caramelized feet.

Attachment Theory with Corn Syrup

Developmental psychologists have long quarreled over the role of early attachment in shaping later emotional life. Bowlby and Ainsworth, bless their predictable hearts, built models around the ideal of maternal consistency: warmth, touch, and eye contact. I received something else—sterility, plastic nipples, and the saccharine sting of corn syrup across my gums.

In lieu of soft maternal skin, I formed a powerful attachment to a white linen napkin, passed down from somewhere in my family's generational clutter. I gradually imbued it with a scent so sacred and specific that it bypassed words. I pressed it to my face. I sucked my thumb. I entered a trance. These rituals soothed me far more effectively than the well-meaning coos of anyone in my household.

The napkin came everywhere with me—until, one fateful day, my mother, frustrated by my growing dependence at age five, flung it out the window of a moving car, declaring she was “drying it off.” Even as a child, I understood euphemism when I heard it. It was an execution. A smothering of the sacred.

I did not weep. I simply adapted. The thumb sucking continued—privately, tenaciously—until the age of ten. The scent was gone, but the drive to comfort remained. I had learned, by accident, how to self-soothe through substitution.

Catalog Lust and the Closet Behind the Couch

Around the same time that the napkin vanished, I discovered the Sears and J.C. Penney catalogs. To call them erotic literature would be an exaggeration, but not a wild one. While other boys sought superheroes or tractors, I was drawn to the men’s underwear pages—snapshots of firm-jawed models with coy smiles and padded cotton briefs. The J.C. Penney models, in particular, I noted with both delight and rigor, had slightly larger bulges.

I would sneak behind the couch during family TV hour, catalog in hand, and lick the images—not from hunger, but from something closer to reverence. I was compelled, not confused. There was no shame until the world supplied it.

It is difficult to overstate how powerful these rituals were in a home and culture where sexuality was never spoken of unless condemned. These men became icons—not just of desire, but of alternative futures. They were soft yet masculine, polished yet accessible, and completely beyond the reach of anyone in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

GI Joe: Sex, War, and the Rehearsal of Self

Concurrent to this unfolding private world was another development: I owned a GI Joe. Technically, I owned several. Like many boys of the 1970s, I received them under the guise of social grooming: war play, toughness, and leadership. But I treated GI Joe not as a soldier but as an avatar. His detachable clothes, posable limbs, and vaguely sexless perfection offered the ideal medium for my evolving fantasies.

War games were quickly replaced by dramatic survival narratives: GI Joe captured and tied up, stripped, rescued, or sometimes rescued by a more rugged version of himself. The stakes were existential, not military. These were not tales of American victory but of queer transformation. I was already, at seven, staging the themes that would come to define my adult creative life.

The dolls were mine. The fantasies were mine. And more importantly, they were safe.

From Memory to Myth: The Reemergence of GI Joe at Midlife

In 2019, at age 54, I began collecting GI Joes again. This was not prompted by nostalgia but necessity. I had spent over a decade embedded in a conservative, religious, heteronormative town—an academic on paper, a ghost in the faculty lounge. I was tolerated but rarely seen. A single gay man among right-wing parents and pastors, I became the professional queer mascot—useful in diversity reports, irrelevant in every other context.

Creativity, long suppressed in favor of tenure-track conformity, demanded resurrection. What emerged was The GI Joe Project, and eventually Ederhansel’s World: a queer action comic universe populated by reimagined dolls, satirical plots, and chaotic joy. My early napkin rituals became the bedrock for scent-based emotional memory scenes. My catalog longings were transmuted into sexually ambiguous clones and lingerie-clad cyborgs. My isolated midlife was alchemized into a cosmos where COVID contagion met RuPaul and a cast of characters to tease out coping strategies in a world gone mad.

Science might describe this as adaptive narrative reprocessing, a term borrowed from trauma theory. I prefer to call it reclamation through ridiculousness.

A Queer Theory of Plastic Resurrection

In a world where sexual development is often understood through normative stages—infancy, latency, puberty, reproduction—I propose a queerer model. One where substitution (napkin for nipple), fixation (thumb for touch), and fantasy (Joe for connection) serve as the real milestones.

The adult creator is not a separate self but a culmination of these early adaptations—resurrected, rewired, and made visible. Where culture denied touch, I built stories.

Where the church erased desire, I gave it choreography. Where my community denied reflection, I stitched it into frame.

And yes, sometimes it licks back.

Conclusion

Reflecting on my journey, I see how these early experiences shaped my identity and creativity. The interplay of attachment, desire, and fantasy has been a constant thread in my life. As I continue to explore these themes in my work, I invite others to consider their own narratives.

In a world where many feel disconnected, embracing our unique stories can lead to healing and understanding. The journey from Karo syrup to Cobra Command is not just mine; it belongs to anyone who has navigated the complexities of identity and belonging.

As I move forward with my projects, I hope to inspire others to reclaim their narratives and find joy in their unique journeys.