Month: May 2011

The Language of Gender

On May 29, 2011

I’ve recently begun leading classes and workshops on gender. I have a degree in Gender Studies and am a theory lover and this is something I’ve been wanting to do for quite some time but only recently did I get in touch with the right people here in Seattle to make that dream a reality. The more I think about gender the more I realize there is no basis for gender, the more I try to grasp and understand gender the more I realize there is nothing there to hold.

Now, this is not a new concept both in general or to me. As I said, I’ve got a degree in this and I’ve read quite a lot of gender theory and I know the concepts of “gender is constructed” and “all gender is drag,” but for the longest time that didn’t stop me from trying to figure out what gender is. How can we figure out what something is when there is nothing there in the first place?

I’m sure some would say that it’s obvious, that masculinity has to do with maleness and femininity has to do with femaleness, because that’s what we’re told, and that’s supposedly how the world works, but I (and hopefully you) know that is just not true. If it were there would be no instance of female masculinity or male femininity or genderqueerness or third gendered identities or all the other options that we now have words for. If it were true there wouldn’t be examples of trans* people throughout the entirety of human history and pre-history (or at least people who we can put our label of “trans*” on even though they may or may not have had a similar concept).

In looking at, studying, teaching about, dissecting, and attempting to put my own gender back together like some sort of Frankenstein’s Monster creation I came to the only reasonable (in my mind) explanation of what gender is: self expression. But I mean the core of the self, in the same way that art is or can be self-expression. And therefore too, perhaps, is gender art.

Whether or not a gender preference is inherent in all of us could easily turn into some sort of nature vs. nurture debate, but really, since gender is a language and gender changes throughout cultures and time periods there may be activities that we all have some sort of draw to, but I can’t say where that originates.

All I know is that gender is tricky and complex. If we look at it as a language as Riki Wilchins says (“Gender is a language, a system of meanings and symbols, along with the rules, privileges, and punishments pertaining to their use—for power and sexuality (masculinity and femininity, strength and vulnerability, action and passivity, dominance and weakness). Since it is a system of meanings, gender can be applied to almost anything” – Queer Theory/Gender Theory p35) then I think hegemonic socialization only knows enough for us to scrape by, it knows enough to survive but it doesn’t know how to write poetry, and I want to write poetry.

There are new gendered words springing up all the time these days, which I think is wonderful, and anyone constructing their own gendered way of living in the world is doing the work of learning the language, no matter how that gender ends up looking. We are starting to create the rest of the language that we have been missing, or discover the bits of language that have been relegated to the shadows for years. Because of this it is becoming easier to learn how to create our own conscious gender presentations so there are more people doing just that.

All Over the Place

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On May 17, 2011

In a Love: Onyx, Identity: Submissive, Introspection

When Onyx and I began getting deeper in our D/s dynamic I had no idea the emotional impact it would have on me. I thought about it in some ways, I figured there would be impact on all areas of my life, but I had no idea the scope it would take. In some ways I feel like I’m experiencing NRE (New Relationship Energy) all over again. Surely there was a boost of NRE in March of last year when I returned back from Juneau, and now, after all of the changes our relationship has gone through since February when we took the Delving Into Power workshop, there’s a surge of something if not that.

It’s the little things that are so impactful to me, the rituals that we have intentionally set into our lives to keep our dynamic going. I really love them, but they also frighten me. The more I am of service to him and the more I am submissive to him the more I want to do those things. My collar has been brought up a few times lately by people that I just met, perhaps simply indicating that I’m around more D/s-oriented people, but it is often startling to me to be seen in that light. I still have some internalized domism in me, I think, that needs sorting out.

I don’t equate submission with weakness, at least not on a conscious level, but there is a fuckofalot of vulnerability when it comes to getting in this deep, and I only see myself getting deeper. I don’t believe vulnerability is weakness either, but it is unfamiliar territory. I’m so used to being closed off and walled up that this newfound vulnerability and presence is quite startling, even if it is what I’ve also been craving for so long. I want to be vulnerable, to be present and transparent, to not feel I need to hide or be shamed for my desires or any part of me. For the most part I’ve got that down, but every once in a while something gets triggered and I shut myself off.

I’ve been working pretty ceaselessly to clear myself of triggering patterns, of stories that aren’t mine and don’t serve me, of the reasons behind the urge to shut off or lash out, but it’s not something that I can achieve once and never have to worry about again. It is something I have to do constantly. Sometimes it is simply easier to let the old destructive habit take over for a while. It requires less work and I can let myself go into the spiral of guilt or sadness, then getting more frustrated at myself for allowing myself to get into the spiral but not allowing myself to see the way out of it.

Still, though, I work, I soldier on to clear myself of what I can, hoping to live as fully in every moment as I possibly can. That’s enough for now.

The more I put my trust in Onyx the more I find myself emotionally attached to him. I am also painfully aware that my survival depends on him, since he is very much my Sugar Daddy at the moment ((I am making some money, but definitely not paying my fair share)). He doesn’t seem to mind, but it is worrisome to me, especially as I become more attached to him in other ways as well. I am scared to become more reliant on him, yet that is part of weaving a life together with someone else.

We refer to each other as life-partners, and maybe six years isn’t enough time to make that declaration, but I can definitely see us together for a long time. It is quite wonderful, but also quite frightening.

I love the closeness we are cultivating, the vulnerability I feel is just as amazing as it is frightening. I love the spirituality that we are bringing in to our dynamic as well, and perhaps that is at least one way I can help offset the fright, but that might be a whole other post. I think I still have a bit of processing and exploring to do to find just how I fit with submission and service, although I also recognize that sometimes finding something like that out isn’t necessary. Perhaps what I really need is to just let all the analyzing and processing go and just be in the moment.

Living in the Void

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On May 5, 2011

In Gender Galaxy, Introspection

I’ve been thinking and talking a lot about gender lately. My last class went swimmingly and left me with a lot of things I want to write about on here when I have the time, which seems like rarely. Gender seems to be coming up more and more in everyday conversation, or perhaps I’m now just around more people I can talk about it with. Gender and kink seem to be pretty damn central to my life, including my sex life, right now, which makes sense since that seems to be the only things I can actually post about.

I’ve been dissecting these desires that keep popping up in me to transition, and I think the cause behind them is primarily wanting my gender attribution ((The gender that other people assign onto us, the gender we are perceived as “being” due to the other person’s understanding of gender.)) to be something other than woman or female. This has been making me ask myself why I care to be seen that way, and that I’m not sure of yet other than the fact that I don’t identify with those terms and haven’t for quite some time. Some days I am comfortable being seen as I am not, others I curse the limitations the societal concept of gender forces upon us, all days I want to help others understand this world of gender that I live in and help them chuck those societal concepts to the curb.

My bodily sex and gender desires keep fluctuating, as always, but the lack of identification with most things female, womanly, or feminine save for femme is pretty constant. I’ve said for years that the femme gender I am drawn to for myself is that which is difficult to attain on this body, it is a femme that is generally seen as reserved to those assigned male at birth. It is a drag queen femmeininity, a glitterfag femmeininity, a femmeininity I’ve been told throughout my entire life doesn’t “belong” to me. But what if it does? I’ve been exploring this a lot lately.

At the moment I’m happy being somewhere other than “male” or “female,” “woman” or “(wer)man,” “masculine” or “feminine,” even though it means often not being seen and having to explain myself over and over. I enjoy playing with those concepts but do not fit into any of them any way except for queerly. I’m actually okay with that, or at least most of me is, but part of me is desperately trying to figure it all out. I’m letting that part of me relax and become comfortable with not knowing but it’s taking its sweet time getting there.

And so, I wait. I meditate on otherness, on rarely if ever fitting in to any box, and I become at peace with it. For a little while, anyway, until the next misgendering, the next microaggression. I meditate on what it means to be other gendered, to be genderqueer, to inhabit a genderqueer body rather than a male body or a female body. I meditate on gender and I come up with and/or expand on models that help me explain the exciting and swirling complexness that is gender, and I realize I am okay being in a void, even if that often means I am just fumbling around in the dark.