Category: Discourse Page 3 of 4

Body Hair

On November 14, 2009

In Discourse, Gender Galaxy, Introspection

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with body hair, I think that’s pretty common.

I’ve had periods of time where I can’t stand any of it, shaving my pits, pubes, and legs once they show even a slight bit of stubble, plucking my eye brows often freakishly goth-thin so that they are barely there (ah, teenagerhood). I’ve shaved my arms as well, though only once and never again since I thought it felt funny when it was growing in. I have tried shaving, waxing, plucking, rubbing, all to see what works best and what feels the best.

Then there have been periods of time where I love it in one form or another, not getting rid of it anywhere, or just shaving one part or another. At one point I was shaving nowhere but my pubic hair, which was kind of amusing. For a long time I shaved everywhere completely, though I’ve played around with different styles “down there” like a “landing strip” or a vee shape (though I haven’t tried using a stencil) and so on.

Recently I’d gotten lax about shaving, it was simply seeming like too much work, so I decided to stop completely. At some point Onyx remarked that this is the hairiest he’s ever seen me, and that’s true. For the majority of our relationship I’ve been pretty dedicated to shaving. One time when I was scratching my head, arm raised, Marla remarked that she thought my tuft of armpit hair was sexy, and I agree.

I suppose a lot of people associate body hair with masculinity, especially considering a “male” hormone is responsible for the growth of it (it is called androgenic hair after all), and growing more comfortable with an “other” gender expression has definitely been a catalyst for my choice to stop shaving. I’m not exactly interested in passing in one gender or another, and a masculine appearance was not my intention in stopping either, it is more about feeling comfortable in my body.

It’s also quite possible that I may change my mind tomorrow or the day after that or the month after that, I may grow tired of having a thick forest underneath my arms or a dark collection of hairs on my legs and take a razor to them. This is just one fluctuating part of that gender equation.

In addition to the rest of my body hair I have been letting the hair on my chin grow as well, instead of plucking it as usual. I have two little tufts to either side of my chin which are excellent for stroking when desiring to appear deep in thought.

Polyamorous to Polyfidelitous

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On June 25, 2009

In a Love: Marla, a Love: Onyx, Discourse, Introspection, Polyamory

If there were a Venn-diagram for non-monogamous relationships it would probably start as a big circle for non-monogamy. Inside that would be polyamory and inside that would be polyfidelity. Each of these circles would be blurry or maybe dotted lines instead of hard ones. Each circle would overlap with multiple other relationship configurations and various other types of relationship orientations and… well, maybe a Venn-diagram isn’t the most helpful illustration.

When defining a term that has to do with relationships or personal identities in any manner there is always some level of fluidity and openness to take into account. You may know this already, but I’m starting with the basics.

In the book Opening Up Tristan Taormino defines polyfidelity as “a multipartner group of three or more people who have made a commitment to each other to be in a primary relationship.” This can be different or exactly the same as polyamory simply depending on the identification of those within the group. There are no hard and fast lines here, and the terms really just depend on what the people within the relationship are most comfortable with.

Despite the “fidelity” part of the term, which makes most people think of having closed sexual conduct polyfidelity does not always exclude other relationships outside of the polyfidelitous group. Fidelity essentially means “faithful” and doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with sexual faithfulness (though it can). Taormino describes two types of polyfidelitous groups: closed and open, meaning closed or open to new relationships outside of the primary. Not all members of a polyfidelitous group have to be sexually involved, either.

While I dislike the terms “primary” and “secondary” or so on and I think maybe a better way to describe it is that everyone in a polyfidelitous relationship is committed to everyone else. Even if there isn’t a sexual or romantic relationship between the individuals there is always an emotional one and a commitment to being with the other in some way shape or form.

As I mentioned, this could look identical to polyamory or it could look completely different, it just depends on how the individuals want to identify.

So, why am I writing all this about polyfidelity? I will probably be using it in the future and now I can reference this post whenever I mention it.

I posted a while ago about our transition from mono to poly to triad and Not long after that I brought this difference up to Marla and Onyx and we all agreed that the definition for polyfidelitous fit our relationship.

Generally speaking the term triad is used to describe a polyfidelitous relationship between three people, so we had already kind of figured that out but at the same time I’m a sucker for semantics and finding new terms and labels to describe myself so that I can add them on to the long list of labels I already embrace to make such a long string of labels I eventually essentially become label-less again, though that’s another post.

Another term Taormino mentions in Opening Up is “trilationship” which is fairly self-explanatory I think. I pronounce it similar to tree-lationship so it sounds similar to relationship only different–also because pronouncing it try-lationship is kind of awkward. This is another term I will be using in the future.

The Only Thing Constant

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On November 19, 2008

In Discourse

I have this saying: people never change, they only get more defined over time. I remember coming up with it, though I was sure at the time that someone else had probably said it already, though I haven’t looked it up. It’s part of my belief in the stuff personality psychology spouts, I suppose, though at the time I came up with it I hadn’t yet started my Psychology studies. This was quite a few years ago.

This quote isn’t to say that change doesn’t happen. I have this other phrase I like to quote, this one I lifted from someone, I think my sister said it to me originally: the only thing constant is change. I like the slight paradox of it, as well as how it rings true. I do believe people change all the time too, though in different ways than the first saying implies.

The second quote has to do with the general transitive stuff: thoughts, ideas, appearance, situations, all the stuff that always changes. The first saying is all about the core of the individual, not the outer ideas. I believe as life goes on the core of us doesn’t change dramatically, it just gets better and better defined.

Like a sculpture, we start off as a large piece of whatever rock may hold appeal to each of us: granite, marble, etc. We always have a sculpture inside of us ready to be chipped away at. The image is always there, but perhaps we have the ability to decide on what pose or position the sculpture will be in, though the form will be the same. There is some kernel, some idea of the sculpture inside of the block of stone, only one thing that the sculpture will end up being, but the exact shape and form of the sculpture is dependent on all those around us who help chip away at that block, including ourselves. And the first chips are always the biggest.

I remember being told once about a sculptor who would spend days and days just sitting looking at his giant slab of rock that would once become a beautiful sculpture. When asked what he was doing he would always reply that he was sculpting, even though there were no tools in his hand. He was envisioning the possibilities and figuring out what it was that rock wanted to become before he even started chipping away at it to form it into a new whole. I don’t remember who that sculptor was, so if you know/can find out I’d be appreciative, but the message remains the same.

Change is inevitable, but there is some sort of wonderful mesh of nature and nurture that helps us continuously evolve into what it is that we become, and I’m not sure we ever get to become in this lifetime. Maybe.

Kinky vs. Queer vs. Straight Sex

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On November 12, 2008

In Discourse

Something I’ve been thinking of a lot lately has been the differences between “types” of sex and sexual intimacy and encounters. It’s something that both The Leather Daddy and the Femme and PoMoSexuals made me think about a lot, because they both talked about male-female sexual interaction in a non-straight or non-hetero way. They recognized that males and females can interact sexually with each other in a queer way.

One of the main purposes of queer theory is actually to highlight and embrace the fact that no sex is normal/vanilla/straight, or, really, the opposite is emphasized: that all sex is queer. Very little aside from heterosexual missionary for-procreation-only sex is considered acceptable by our fucked up society, while the majority of people have sex that could not be categorized within that extremely narrow social definition.

Granted, ideas of acceptable sexuality have been evolving lately, but I wouldn’t say other types of sex have become any more acceptable, they’re just recognized as “what everyone does” which isn’t exactly an endorsement, though I’ll admit that my vision on this may be skewed by the last two years living in Utah. However, I really don’t think it’s just Utah talking.

So what’s the big difference between queer sex and straight sex? Aside from the usual definition of the sex of the partners (but that also brings into question is it the sex or the gender that matters?) it’s subtle, and may have a lot to do with intention. Can queer hetero sex include missionary sex? I say of course! The wonderful thing about the orbit(/label) queer is that it is very open to interpretation.

Most often the participants of queer sex are queer people, but that brings into the question of what makes someone a queer person. I’d argue that anyone outside of the norm of society is queer in some way, although not everyone would see it that same way. Queer is an important label for same-sex/gender-loving people to embrace, definitely, but I also think queer moves beyond that label as well.

If we define queer as what it’s not, meaning not normal, just about everyone would be able to be labeled queer. I’m not sure if I’ve ever met a normal person in my life, society perpetuates this idea of normalcy, but that doesn’t mean it exists anywhere, and usually those who think they are normal would not be considered normal by others, so where does that leave us?

Personally I dislike the term ‘normal’ for a variety of reasons, including the fact I have a degree in Psychology, but also because I have never believed that normal exists. People are just too damn individualistic for anyone to fit into a stereotypically cookie cutter image of what we are told we should be. Granted, this is a very western concept.

Back to queer sex vs. straight sex: personally I believe there is a different feeling to queer sex than there is to straight sex (though I try not to have straight sex at all, but every once in a while my sex slips into the realm of less-queer). Queer sex just feels a little, well, queer. It feels subversive and non-normal, even if it is normal to us and our bodies and desires. That’s not to say that there is anything wrong with non-normal, quite the contrary, I think it’s necessary.

Queer sex, to me, can happen between people of any sex or gender. The times I feel my sex is slipping into less-queer territory are those instances when Onyx and I have had quickie sex in nearly missionary position (I say nearly because my legs are up and not flat) with little foreplay and sometimes little attention paid to me. This has only happened infrequently, and usually when we’re both tired but wanting sex. I consider it far from the queerer sex we have which includes toys, various positions, or me fucking him rather than him fucking me.

That’s not to say that just anyone who doesn’t have missionary sex is having queer sex, although that is one possible definition. As I mentioned above I believe there has to be some sort of queer intent, though that is a very broad topic and definition. Also, I think queer sex must also occur between queer people, though that definition is also very broad and open to interpretation.

Now to throw kinky sex into the mix. Kinky sex can be defined in a similar way to queer sex in that it can be defined by what it isn’t, and what it isn’t is vanilla, or normal, but see my dialogue about normalcy? Is there really any such thing? What do we consider to be not kinky?

Perhaps I should define kinky in a way other than exclusion, though I’m not sure how to do that because it is also subtle and it depends entirely on perspective and personal definition. I posit that just as most people could be deemed queer due to having anything other than narrowly-defined non-queer sex that most people could be deemed kinky for having anything other than narrowly-defined non-kinky sex.

That, or we just need to get rid of these labels all together, but that brings me to another theory on labels: that we must define them then broaden them in order to be able to abolish them, so perhaps that’s what I’m working on doing right now!

And what about the quote in the image above? Is anything you do really only kinky the first time, because after you do it that desensitizes you to it, making you think less of the kink factor of it and more of the enjoyment of it? That makes sense in some ways, and it’s been my experience that people tend to measure others against their own experiences rather than the so-called “normal” experience expectation.

However, what constitutes kinky sex? For some it would be using toys and props such as dildos, vibrators, restraints, or blindfolds; for others it would be engaging in “extreme” activities such as S&m, D/s, watersports, or enemas; for others threesomes, foursomes, and moresomes are kinky. Just like queer sex, there is a wide range of what could be considered kinky sex, and it all depends on the person putting that label on it. I do believe that kinky sex has an intention behind it, just like queer sex does, but it is also just as difficult to pin down.

What I’m trying to say is that there are definitely differences between these three “types” of sexual interaction, and none of them are better or worse than others as long as you are interacting the way you enjoy and desire to interact. I’m not saying that straight sex is bad, though I do wonder how many people actually have it. I am saying that more people have queer sex than most people may think, but I’m also saying that labels and definitions such as queer and kinky are difficult to pin-down, and perhaps shouldn’t be pinned down.

A Guilty Pleasure: 50s and 60s (Sexist) Movies

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On November 11, 2008

In Discourse, Equality

Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face

I have a secret (or not so secret?) love of old 50s and 60s movies with Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Cary Grant, Fred Astaire, and so on. As much as I adore genderfucky practice there is something so lovely about watching Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire sing and dance in fabulous clothing (which happens to be what is on the television as I write this), or any of the various other very hetero very gender normative pairings that are mainstream movies from that era.

Why are some of my ‘comfort movies’ classics like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes? With winning exchanges like “I can be smart when I want to, but most men don’t like it, except Gus.” “No, that much of a fool he isn’t.”

Granted, there are a few gender bending movies like Some Like It Hot and strong female characters in other movies as well, though inevitably they always end up wrong somehow and the men end up right. In Some Like It Hot there are some wonderfully amusing and genderfucking moments, though they happen on the part of Daphne/Gerald who is willing to dress up as a woman from the beginning, unlike Joe/sephine who only agrees to it after they witness a mob mass-murder.

Though I didn’t used to when I was younger, I now recognize the inherent sexism within most of these films, and instead of being upset about it I shrug and think “that’s the way it was.” I think that is necessary in some ways, however, since there’s no use getting mad over something that happened 50 years ago, and if the same themes or lines were in movies today I would definitely be upset about it. However, my complacency about the sexism and stereotypes portrayed is a little disturbing to me all the same.

Is my recognizing the inherent sexism the most important part of the equation? I can’t help but love movies from that era, partially because they have been my comfort movies for over ten years. It’s always nice to watch a movie with a happy ending, and these usually have them. While as I mentioned above there are usually some strong characters in the movies they are often somehow wrong or proved wrong throughout the course of the movie or they are not seen as sexual or love objects, such as the magazine owner in Funny Face who is obsessed with her career and says that she has no room for love.

I think part of my love of these movies, aside from the happy endings, is the fabulous clothes, hair, and make-up all the female leads always have. Even when they are “broke” as in How to Marry a Millionare or Some Like It Hot they are still femmed up to the nines with elegant dresses, furs, sequens, gorgeous shoes, perfect hair, etc. The men, as well, are elegantly dressed: suits and ties, fedoras, sleek and gorgeous clothing. The femme in me revels in the wonderful hair and makeup.

I’ve always loved the style of these movies, the classicly glamorous look that the starlets represent, the pin-up look that never seems to go completely out of style. I love that the women in the films are actually women-sized, as opposed to the stick figures we mostly see today. Lately I have been wanting to cut my hair, get some rollers, and start wearing it like a redheaded Marilyn Monroe.

In the end, I think what is really important is that we recobnize the sexism in these films when we watch them now, since they were made in times that were trying to portray heterosexist and gender normative ideas as the norm (not to say we don’t still have that now). We all know that the 50s and 60s were trying to portray an image of perfection and normalcy that is basically unattainable, and wasn’t attained even then, although people strived for it. The movies of that era are equally unattainable, like fairy tales or romance novels (minus the smut), but they sure are fun to watch.

Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Semantics: In General

By Onyx V St. Syr

On November 2, 2008

In Discourse, Posts by Onyx

Hello merry readers, guest blogger Onyx back with a small piece I’ve been meaning to write for a while on the subject of semantics.

Those of you who’ve followed this blog for a while knows that Semantics is something that Scarlet often brings up, both through her Semantic Sunday posts, as well as her many posts about labels and identity and the difficulty she often faces trying to explain herself and her ideas to others.

In a couple recent posts Scarlet has done an excellent job discussing labels, their use, their limitations and why she’s a fan of them. I’m going to expand on this and offer some reasons why I feel that labels so often are misused or downright abused and some ways I feel we can remediate this.

I do not claim to be the originator of the ideas and concepts I will discuss. They were thought up by greater minds than mine and all I can hope to do is to communicate them in a clear and understandable manner. My main influence comes from the school of General Semantics, originally espoused by Count Alfred Korzybski and elaborated upon by writers I respect greatly such as Robert Anton Wilson, as well as ones I hold in much lower regard such as L. Ron Hubbard.

To go into depth about all aspects of General Semantics would require a book, or perhaps a number of books. Briefly speaking it can be said to be a discipline dedicated to increasing awareness of how our use of language informs our thoughts and ideas, especially what one might call “common sense assumptions.” Korzybski taught that words always seem to fail to fully describe any situation, object or action and sought to help us avoid the linguistic traps and manipulations we’re all too often subjected to.

Perhaps this can best be described by one of General Semantics’ key phrases “The map is not the territory. The word is not the thing defined.” Our language is unable to ever describe anything in a comprehensive way; instead we describe various aspects of something, small bits and pieces of the whole.

One of the most dangerous aspects of language Korzybski warned is any variation of the verb to be, to say that anything is anything makes us to grossly oversimplify reality and leads us into dangerous thinking. To illustrate let’s look at stereotypes and prejudices that most of us will have observed at one point or another.

“Black people are criminals”
“The Irish are hard drinkers”
“Queers are immoral perverts.”

Feel free to exchange these for your favorite stereotypes if you wish. The point is that these stereotypes gain their power from the verb to be. Statements such as these assign labels to groups in an absolute manner that grossly oversimplifies reality. Sure we can find partial truths in such statements; we can’t deny that some black people commit Illegal acts, or that some queers violate SOME people’s standards of morality, but the oversimplification forced upon us by the verb to begets in the way of a more detailed and accurate understanding

Any description of an object will vary based on circumstance and time, and if we can train ourselves to recognize this we can avoid the largely emotional responses often triggered by this particular linguistic trap. If we can translate the phrase “Blacks are criminals” into the more abstracted phrase “A portion of blacks have at some point in their lives committed an act considered illegal at that point at that point in time and space” we will almost certainly have a far less emotional response and have a better understanding of the nebulous group known as “blacks”.

Of course, these concepts do not only apply to groups, but to anything we choose to describe. Any time we use any form of to beto describe something we run the risk of oversimplifying our thought process and make potentially very flawed assumptions. (Hopefully I haven’t lost you at this point with my simplistic explanation of General semantics, I do have a point, and I’m getting to it, I promise!)

This brings me back to labels. Most people I know seem to have an aversion to labels and will say they avoid them or don’t want labels applied to them. In my experience this seem a result of the how people fall into the to be trap. We often feel that if we accept a label we have to be whatever we think that label describes, and that we can’t be anything else.

If one adopts the label of “submissive” by saying “I am submissive” we oversimplify and limit our ability to fully express ourselves. If instead we adopt the label by saying “I feel submissive” or even “At this point in time I choose to explore and express myself in a submissive manner” we are no longer bound by the label although we can still use it as a means to communicate and express ourselves. Thus the label itself is not the problem, but rather the verb we use to tie the label to ourselves and our identities.

The mental discipline Korzybski sought to instill can be hard to attain in full. Most languages that I’m aware of, English among them make heavy use of to bein various permutations. Likewise our culture seems very devoted to these oversimplifications, perhaps because it seems easier, more convenient. It takes less effort and mental agility to think of things in fairly rigid absolutes. One might ask whether our cultural attitudes were shaped by our language or if our language was shaped by cultural attitudes. Korzybski believed that language at the very least reinforces these unhealthy thought patterns and that they key to overcoming them was to change the way we use language.

Some students of General Semantics such as D. David Bourland have sought to do this by creating a brand new form of English known as English Prime or more commonly E-prime which seeks to do away with the verb to beentirely. Others have argued that we do not need to eliminate to beentirely, but rather simply become more aware of how we use the verb and more careful with its application.

An interesting experiment I propose you try is to go for a day or even longer trying to avoid using to bein any of its forms or at least marking down every time you do it, and then give some thought as to how it oversimplified or even misrepresented the thing you were seeking to describe. I have found it to bea fun and useful exercise that helps me view the world in new and fascinating ways.

Go PoMo!

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On October 8, 2008

In Discourse

I seriously want a shirt that says “Go PoMo!” now. How I hadn’t seen this video before today is beyond me, but thanks to the PoMoSexual group on FetLife I discovered it today, and will forever be on my list of favorite videos, much like Fagette. It also helped me discover PomoWorld.com, which I am now delving into.

At the end, post-credits: “The makers of this film would like to extend a special thanks to homo sapiens; the breeding oxymorons who lurk this giant mudball floating in this vast abyss we refer to as “The Universe”. Do not deny your human fallability. Without you, Dear Expatriates, this concept wouldn’t have been realized.”

I thought some of you may enjoy this as well. For some background: I do have definitions for both PoMo and PoMoSexual in the lexicon. I recently acquired PoMoSexuals: Challenging Assumptions About Gender and Sexuality by the ever delightful Carol Queen, a book I’ve been desiring to get for quite some time, but due to my long list of books to buy I only recently bought it when visiting Powells in Portland on my recent trip. I’ll be sure to post a review once I’m done with it.

On Being a Label Fetishist

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On September 12, 2008

In Discourse

After my stint with labels a while ago, it’s time for me to revisit them as they have been brought up a lot lately. While I did revisit my queer label more recently in a post about my queerness and I have been using my Semantics Sunday posts as a way for me to explore my individual labels, I want to go back to the more general subject of labels.

I want to start by saying this: I love labels. I would even go so far as to say I have a label fetish. This, in many ways, informs a lot of what I do, and there will be more on my label fetish later. As I’ve said before, basically any noun and most adjectives are labels. The problem with labels is that we need to realize that labels are useful tools but do not speak of us as a whole.

From my last post on labels:

An example: you order a burger at a restaurant. While this is a burger, it could be made of beef, turkey, chicken, soy, vegetables, black beans, or something else entirely. It could come with: lettuce, tomato, onion, mushrooms, pickles, garlic, pastrami, bacon, swiss cheese, cheddar, pepper jack, provolone, smoked gouda, or any number of toppings. It could also have: mayo, mustard, ketchup, ranch, hummus, barbecue sauce, or any number of sauces. It could be served on: whole wheat, white, sesame seed, rosetta… I think you get my point. These combinations create an almost infinite number of variations under the common label of “burger.” So it is with any label.

We call both garden burgers and buffalo burgers “burgers,” but they are radically different entities, and are often not (though sometimes are) consumed by the same people.

A lot of people dislike labels because they are limiting or because they believe if they choose to embrace a label it is then expected that they will never deviate from that label or appear in any way contradictory to it. This is part of the reason why I embrace a whole string of labels–femme and boi and faggette and genderqueer and drag queen to name a few… and those are just my gender labels–because if I present myself as a whole large group of labels it’s hard to push me into one box, because I’m already spreading myself across a thousand. By embracing a multitude of labels I am also trying to change the way we think about labels, because I can’t be pigeonholed into one label if I openly embrace multiple labels. How could someone choose just one label to put me into?

But I’m a rare case, though not as rare as some may think. Most people are not as comfortable straddling multiple labels, or orbiting multiple identities in the gender galaxy or any other galaxy. My multitude of labels enables me not to be shoved into one box, but how does that help those who don’t feel the pull of multiple identities, or who feel mostly one gender and a little another but who don’t want to embrace the second label fully?

That’s where realizing that while labels have the ability to box you in, they also have the ability to free you so that you have a better idea of yourself but also so that you can figure out the way you think of yourself, or what you think of yourself as, and then be able to move within or beyond that. Labels don’t have to be permanent nor do they have to inform who you are at every moment, just who you are at some moments or most moments or different transitive parts of you. The “problem” with labels can be “solved” by the realization of impermanence and fluidity, and that even if you embrace a label that does not mean you have to fit anyone’s definition of that label but your own.

I am aware that not everyone is obsessed labels in the same way I am (nor have they fetishized them). I don’t mean fetish in the sense of something that I need to get off, though it can in the right context, it’s more of an obsession or a desire. Perhaps more accurately it is actually a language fetish, theory fetish, or analyzation fetish… and there I go trying to nitpick my label of my fetish into something more precise).

Like I’ve said, I believe labels can be extremely useful when thought of in the right context. Labels are also extremely important, they can bring us together as much as they can tear us apart, the problem is so many focus on our differences instead of our similarities.

And I’ll leave you with a quote from The Leather Daddy and the Femme:

You want me to say I’m bisexual because you’re a woman, okay, I’ll say it. It’s no skin off my ass. But I don’t love women. I love you. Far as that goes, I don’t like most men all that much either. But I’d die for the guys in my tribe. Now are you beginning to get it? … See, it’s all well and good to call yourself whatever. I answer to faggot and gay male and leatherman and all those names, but if answering to a name means I can’t do something I decide I want to do, fuck it. And if someone wants to give me shit for what I decide to do, it’s their problem. … some rules exist just to prop up somebody’s prejudice, and they’re bullshit just like any other rule that’s meant to ensure conformity. … I’ve begun to wish more women were like you. Then maybe calling myself bisexual would make sense. Because believe me, if I had any objection to fucking pussy I never would have fucked yours, dear. I did not just screw you that first night to be polite. [bold emphasis added]

Semantics Sunday: Fagette

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On August 31, 2008

In Discourse, Gender Galaxy

One of my new favorite words, one which I’m even considering adding to my long list of labels up on the masthead, I’ve already added it to my gender description. I first encountered the term in the Fagette video by Athens Boys Choir which is absolutely lovely, hilarious, wonderful, and perfect.

Doing a search on google for faggette brings up over 18,600 results which are a mixture of pages with the Athens Boys Choir video on them or linked, personal profiles like myspace or digg, information for people with the last name of Fagette, some is information about La Fagette, France, and random other things. Aside from the video I’m interested in the Urban Dictionary definition of fagette which reads:

A lesbian or a woman that displays either a masculine or feminine attitudes, mannerisms, and dress depending on their whim at the moment.
At the Lesbian Club, Cheri was such a fagette that she was receiving looks of interest from both the Butch and Femme crowd.

As opposed to the simple other definitions: 1. A gay frenchman. Derived from “faggot” and “baguette.” 2. A female homosexual/lesbian. I would say I prefer the first definition of fagette(s) from UD instead of the other for fagette.

Further, I would propose my own definition (as that’s what this post is all about, right?) which brings it slightly away from sexuality, though I would say queer is a necessity as I believe queerness and gender have some sort of link together but queer doesn’t always have to do with who one sleeps with. I really like the “depending on their whim at the moment” part of the definition, and I think that is key for my own feelings and adoption of this label.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my boi side, especially since reading The Leather Daddy and the Femme since it is so amazing and is a queer femme who also dresses as a boi, who has both aspects (genders) within her and plays with both and in between. I have been feeling more of my boi side lately, but also enjoying and analyzing my femme side, yet another “switch” label for me to inhabit, perhaps, switching from boi to femme and back again and everywhere in between.

It’s often difficult to not have a definite place in this gender galaxy, or to be circling around more than one sun. At the same time it’s very freeing, because through embracing these specific labels I am able to then open up my own gender expression to fit inside or outside of the gender lines as I see fit. Just like I feel it’s sometimes necessary to restrict something or go to one extreme in order to find where you really feel comfortable, and I’ve had to do that.

Back to my definition of fagette. Basically I think of it as a queer who mixes masculinity and fem(me)ininity and creates their own version of both, whether their biology is male or female. I know it’s a rather open-ended definition, but I think gender is open-ended in some ways, a lot more open-ended than society would like us to believe anyway. A fagette can look like Athens Boys Choir: a boy with a vagina, or a bio-female drag queen, or like Miranda/Randy of The Leather Daddy and the Femme, or all sorts of other configurations. There’s something about femme masculinity in it (not to be confused with female masculinity), which seems contradictory, in any way but I’m talking simply gender and not biological sex.

There’s a type of femme which can only be achieved by mixing a little masculinity in, I think, the drag queen is a drag queen because it’s putting a feminine gender on the socially “wrong” body, but a similar gender is difficult to achieve when you are putting a similar gender expression, drag queen, on the socially “correct” body. Fagette is recognizing that wrongness, that queerness, and embracing it.

It doesn’t come out as femme drag queen for everyone, that’s just my experience of fagette, having to map it onto my identity in order to have it fit. It’s similar to what I mean by “femme drag queen,” the purposeful combining of femmeininity and masculinity in order to create a new gender all my own, an androgyny that doesn’t come out looking primarily masculine as most androgyny does.

Fagette is not limited to the gender expression “drag queen” as some drag queens are not fagettes, but some fagettes are drag queens. Fagette can encompass any gender which is a mixture of femme and fag (I believe).

Semantics Sunday: Femme

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On August 24, 2008

In Discourse, Gender Galaxy

Yes, I know, it’s not Sunday (again) I’m getting bad at these, but at least I’m trying to stick to the posting schedule even if it is not the right day! And, that’s what backdating is for! My best excuse for being late is that our mama cat had her kittens yesterday! See all five kittens and the mama or just two kittens close-up. I’ll be posting pics on twitter as they progress.

Somethings I’ve been thinking a lot about since starting The Femme’s Guide (I start off too many posts that way, don’t I? Maybe I just think too much): What is femme? What does it mean to be femme? Who can be femme? Is there any sort of limitation on what femme means?

Something I came across a while ago here via The Femme Show was a definition of what femme is, or can be: “[the femme is] a betrayer of legibility itself. Seemingly “normal,” she responds to “normal” expectations with a sucker punch– she occupies normality abnormally.” – Lisa Duan and Kathleen McHugh from “A Fem(me)inist Manifesto” The abnormality in the normality of feminine can be caused by a number of different things, and in all cases conscious choice is the forerunner, but can also be accompanied by a deviant sexual orientation (queer, dyke, lesbian, bi, pan, etc. to which I also include queer heterosexual), biological sex-to-gender allignment (such as femme males), or etc.

My basic definition of a femme is someone who consciously chooses to embrace fem(me)ininity as a “deviant” identity. Femme is a conscious genderfuck in the rouse of traditional femininity. The major difference between a feminine woman and a femme is conscious gender performance, and anyone who consciously takes on the role of femininity as a deviant identity can be femme.

I don’t believe that femme is reserved for any type of person, there are femmes of all sexes, orientations, sizes, colors, etc. The only thing I believe must be present in order to embrace the identity of femme is just that: embracing the identity and consciously performing femmeininity.

This also doesn’t mean that they must be femme all the time, or that it has to be an all-or-nothing experience. I am an advocate (and practitioner) of gender fluidity, and I don’t believe that once an identity is embraced it must be the dominant identity at all times.

This brings me to the question of how is femme deviant? How is being femme any more deviant than being feminine? In a culture which considers femininity to be a counterpart to masculinity and therefore everything that masculinity isn’t: weak, vulnerable, emotional, etc. when a femme consciously chooses to be femme ze is choosing to take on this culturally slandered role. When we consciously choose marginalized roles while recognizing their marginalization we are, in a way, giving power to them. This is, in my mind, deviant and a small way of rebelling against social order.

The big issue with femme, in my opinion and experience, is visibility. It’s often difficult to be recognized as femme as opposed to feminine.