Tag: identities Page 4 of 8
A few quick thoughts tonight. I feel like I have so much to write about and so much to do lately that I’m not really getting anything done, which irritates me. More posts to come!
I’ve been thinking a lot about this quote lately, from PoMoSexuals “Identity Sedition and Pornography” by Pat Califia p. 88 emphasis mine:
Just to set the record straight: I am a female-bodied person who writes about every kind of person I can imagine. Although I briefly contemplated sex reassignment when I was much younger, I decided that would not resolve my gender conflicts. I’m never sure if I have a gender dysphoria or species dysphoria. I often try to explain that I’m really a starfish trapped in a human body and I’m very new to your planet. Or that in fact I am a woman trapped in a man’s body, which really confuses other people but makes sense to me.
It’s fitting where I feel I fit, where I’ve felt for a while. The drag queen masculine femininity that I cling to, the femme fagette in me that is starting to come out even more. I’ve found a better way to express it lately I think, which is making me indescribably joyful, and I’m discovering more about it too, which makes me even more happy.
Onyx and I went into Babeland tonight and looked around. I pointed out toys I wanted, toys that are (hopefully) coming to me soon, and things like that. I had my first encounter with Mr. Bendy while looking at dildos and soft packs and he’s seriously lustable! I kind of (very much) want one, great for packing and playing, which I like.
I’m toying with the idea of packing more often, but as I primarily wear skirts and dresses I would need a soft pack or a cock like Mr. Bendy that will stay bent.
The other thoughts rolling around my brain is that Femmeinist Fucktoy isn’t resonating with me as much as it used to. It went down when I discovered my switchness however long ago, as fucktoy is a very bottom-centric term, and it’s gone down again now that fagette is a larger part of my identity as well.
I also don’t talk as much about feminist-oriented things as I thought I would when I started this blog. Granted, I do believe that talking about gender and sexuality is a feminist act, but that’s not quite the same as being a feminist blog.
My point in bringing this up is that I’m pondering changing the name, and therefore also the URL of the blog. It’s easyish to transition to another URL and name, but what I’m thinking of changing it to is Femme Fagette.
In talking with Onyx about this he mentioned that naming the blog after an identity might not be the best thing to do, as my identities tend to fluctuate rapidly. While I agree with that I feel like this identity will stay around for a while, but I don’t really know that for sure. Thoughts?
I feel like I’m discovering a part of myself I buried away, and mostly just because of a different environment. When just about everything around me is changing I feel the most at home. I thrive on change, as I am always in a constant state of change.
I dressed up last night with my hair in a fauxhawk, in lipstick, a bettie page shirt, and purple pants. To that I added a thick purple feather boa (pic above), and I felt come into myself. My newly cut hair makes me smile when I look at my face. I look like me again.
I was trying to be someone else for a while, someone I thought I wanted to be, or someone I thought Onyx wanted, or someone I thought could be, I’m not sure. I look at pictures of me with long hair and I don’t look right. I look like someone else.
Hair cuts can do that. They have power like that. They can change the way a person looks completely, be subtle or drastic, help mold a new identity. I look in the mirror and I wonder how I tried to be anything else.
This isn’t really a new identity. It’s one I’ve been talking about and theorizing for a while, but I needed a change of location to find it, a change of scenery. I’m still everything I’ve ever been and everything I will be, I just look a little different.
I’m finding the perfect way to meld my sway and shimmy with my swagger, and it’s fun.
I’m in such constant change that this doesn’t feel like change, just discovery. By which I mean, I don’t ever feel like I as a whole changes or my core changes, that always stays the same, but everything else changes, which is lots.
I’ve been waiting for something to kick-start me into discovering these new changes. Seattle is just that.
I felt so stagnant and helpless before we moved, and like I couldn’t affect anything since I had no control over when we moved. Ultimately it was Onyx who decided we should move and made it happen, even though I had been telling him we didn’t have to wait and could do it if we decided to. I’d been saying that for months, and it took him realizing that to make it happen.
Now I’m realizing the possibilities of this city. The possibility of being able to embrace a the side of myself I have been rejecting is overwhelming. I’ve already started introducing myself as Scarlet instead of my given name and I love it.
I can be me here, and that’s what’s most exciting.
I feel especially blessed that I have a partner who is willing and eager to share it with me. Someone who is supportive and excited to watch as I discover and change and progress and who finds me sexy and attractive regardless.
Yes, yes, it’s not Thursday anymore, but, I don’t subscribe to your limiting ideas of the days it’s acceptable to post a Half Nekkid Thursday post, so I’m posting mine on Friday! Plus, I’ve been moving and I wasn’t really online much at all yesterday, so cut me some slack!
Okay, well, now that that’s out of the way… I’m not sure what possessed me, maybe it’s just being in a new city and thirsting for change of any type that I can get my hands on, or maybe it’s just time that I let my long hair go, I’m not sure, but I cut my hair the other day.
I’ve been changing it a lot lately, as you may or may not have noticed. Not too long ago it was bright red and past my shoulders, and when I wasn’t finding any jobs in SLC I decided to get it to a slightly more normal color.
Shortly after that I decided to cut it to a little above my chin, which is where it remained until Tuesday night when I cut it myself, and then Wednesday I had it professionally trimmed/styled.
It’s been shorter than this before (amusingly enough that picture was also taken in Seattle). I’ve shaved my head before as well, and I used kept it about this length, or anywhere from one to three inches, for many years. A few years ago I decided to start growing it out, and watched it fall to chin-length, shoulder-length, and, finally, past my shoulders.
Maybe it’s something about the Pacific Northwest that makes me want short hair, I don’t know, but something made me desire short hair, and specifically to be able to do my hair up into a fauxhawk.
I wanted a cut that I could have look femme if I chose or put up in a fauxhawk or otherwise spike or slick to be boi-ish or fagette-ish. So that’s what I did. I decided that fauxhawk + lipstick = fagette (though that’s one of infinite combinations, of course).
Fagette
Number 184 from The Adipositivity Project
Since we have dismissed the Dominus/submissive power structure from our relationship I have been thinking a lot about what worked and what didn’t with us in those roles and what I want in general. While I enjoy where we are now, and think that is what works best for our relationship, I still find myself wanting more.
I have been feeling more submissive lately in general, but not with Onyx. I have the desire to submit still in me, and while Onyx and I do play along those lines it’s not the same as what I want.
We’ve come to realize and embrace the fact that he and I desire play on different levels. We switch along a Top/bottom level, as he’s a bedroom-only player, yet I desire BDSM along a Dom/sub level or even an Owner/slave level much of the time.
At the beginning of our relationship I was trying to make him fit into the mold I wanted, what I desired, and it never worked because that’s just not part of him. He convinced himself that was what he wanted as well, but we now both know that it won’t work. We’ve accepted that now, and it’s made our relationship better because of it.
I enjoy the feeling of comfort that embracing our switchy natures has brought to the relationship. We’ve always been rather perfect for each other in every other aspect, just never quite fit right D/s wise, which was part of why I started this blog, to talk about our relationship and other relationships I/we might have. Now we fit remarkably well, but I’m still missing something.
I desire to own and to be owned. I need that. D/s are not roles for me, they are me, they are my life. I’m a 24/7 switch, which is contrary to the usual idea of 24/7, but for me it works. It’s not something I slip into and out of, it’s something I want and am all the time, something I shape my life around, but because I fit into different roles it’s difficult to explain.
Lucky for me, both Onyx and I are poly, so there is no need for us to disband our relationship for me to get what I need. We’ve talked about the possibility of me having another partner, and of bringing someone in to our relationship, both of which I am all for, and we are finally at our most comfortable, not trying to be something that we’re not, so now I’m comfortable to look for another or others.
I’m still very much the cuntpet that I defined oh so long ago, the definition that was the catalyst for this blog. I’m very much the Domina that I’ve found myself to be, and now that Onyx and I have found our perfect situation as Top/bottom switches it’s time for me to find others I can explore my cuntpet and Domina sides with.
My perfect situation would be a foursome for me, with or without the others interacting I’m not positive. Switching with Onyx, a Domina to serve, and a sub/slave to serve me, that would be my perfect combination, plus social play partners and such as well. The best of all worlds. Though I’m open to whoever may come along that fits with me, but that is my current ideal (which is, as always, subject to change).
There is quite an extensive scene up in Seattle, and I intend to dive into it headfirst and not bother looking back. I’m finally at the place where socialization is necessary and desired, and Seattle will be a much better place to do so than Salt Lake has been. I’ve already been looking around at the community there, as well as events and such, and I’m more than ready to get out of this state and live somewhere comfortable. T-minus eight days.
From The Full Body Project by Leonard Nimoy
I’ve been thinking a lot about size in general, both big and small and everywhere in between. Chicory (who I met face-to-face yesterday and is fantastic!) and I have been conversing about it, via email, comments, and in our meeting yesterday, and inspired by Thursday’s Child’s Sex and Intimacy Project I want to pose some questions to all of you.
Size acceptance is coming to be an issue I am passionate about. I’ve forever had the same hangups as, well, just about everyone in this culture. The same negative feelings towards my size. Though it’s important to distinguish between health and size, even though our society does not really view it that way. We are told that thin equals healthy and fat equals unhealthy, though I know plenty of thin people who eat much much worse than I do, and yet. But I digress.
The questions I want to pose have to do with the intersection of size and sexuality in your life. They may have no intersection at all, or you may have never thought of the intersection, but either way I want to hear about it. This may seem obvious, but the most interesting aspect, I believe, will be to see how everyone differs and what similarities there are, as well as being able to get a glimpse of the person within their answers.
Weight and size are touchy subjects in our culture, as is sexuality. Both have to do with the body and have moral judgments thrust upon them. Both are aspects of the self that are extremely personal and also that have strong cultural expectations and meanings. Both affect the way we present ourselves and think about ourselves.
The Size & Sexuality Study is a series of interviews highlighting real people’s answers to the questionnaire below. At the end of the posting of interviews (end date not known) I will post my own reactions to the study as well as my own answers, and how reading the feelings and thoughts of all these interesting and informative people has affected me over the space of the study.
Want to answer the questions? Fill out the questions below and send them to me: scarletsexgeek AT gmail DOT com
In order for these interviews to be what I would consider successful I need you to be completely honest. This is about real people talking honestly about their bodies and their sexuality, recognizing what society tells us about our bodies and recognizing how that affects our own ideas about how we should or should not act. If you wish you thought one way but really think another I want to hear that, not just what you wish you thought.
The focus of these questions are not just on large/fat/plus-sized women, I’m interested in answers from everyone of all sizes, all genders, all sexes, and so on. If you want to answer them, please do!
Feel free to skip any of the general info questions you are not comfortable answering, but please do answer all of the others. The more in-depth the answers the better, but in-depth and lengthy are not always the same thing (though they can be).
General Info
Name (what you’d like to be called):
Age:
Gender identity and presentation:
Sexual identity:
Relationship status:
Blog/Website (if you have one):
Publishing
Can I publish your answers on my blog?
If so, can I use your name or would you prefer to be anonymous?
Size & Sexuality
What size is your body (you can use dress/pant sizes, a general description, anything you’re comfortable with, though remember that not all terms mean the same thing to the same people.)?
How comfortable are you with your body both in general and your body size specifically?
How has your relation with and attitude toward your body and the size of your body changed over time?
How important is sexuality to your life?
How has your relation with and attitude toward your sexuality changed over time?
How comfortable are you with expressing yourself and your body sexually?
How comfortable is society with the idea of viewing your body as sexual?
Through answering these questions and/or thinking about your relation to your body and your sexuality, have you noticed any links or similarities between the two? If so, what?
Anything else you would like to add?
Feel free to ask any questions you may have in the comments or via email, but please don’t answer the questionnaire in the comments. sizeandsexuality AT gmail DOT com
I wrote the following in response to Sinclair’s post defining identity alignment assumptions, basically “the assumption that one’s identity categories align with what is either a stereotype or a dominant compulsory cultural norm.” I ended up writing more than I thought I would, and I have more to add so I thought I’d just convert it into a post on here.
There are many identity alignment assumptions that I struggle with, including the assumption that I’m straight because I’m with a cis-man, the assumption that I’m straight because my primary gender identity is femme, the assumption that my gender expression is traditionally feminine instead of femme, and the assumption that I’m unhealthy or somehow immoral because I’m fat. I’m sure there are more, of course, if I started really thinking about them, but these are the biggest that have been impacting my life lately, especially the first.
I’ve always embraced my difference, and not being visibly different (even moreso recently since I dyed my hair a normal color) is difficult for me in general. I find myself having a difficult time embracing the queer community in general because even though I’ve never been straight and never will be straight I am perceived as straight by many, including many within the queer community. Most people want others to be monosexual, it seems, it’s easier to quantify people that way.
I know that I have some assumptions I make as well, though I’ve noticed that my assumptions are different depending on my location. In Utah I tend to assume most people are mormons and straight, but elsewhere I don’t actually think about what religion or spiritual affiliation people might have, and I tend to assume more people I come across are queer. I do often link gender and sexuality assumptions together, such as assuming masculine females and feminine males are queer, but I also tend to assume general queerness rather than gay/straight binary assumptions.
Occasionally I will try to spend a day purposefully assuming the world is the inverse of what society tells us, that queers are the majority (or total) population, that assumed gender expression doesn’t actually denote the sex of the person, that everyone is polyamorous, and that people won’t automatically judge me by my size. It’s a refreshing and sometimes humbling exercise, though it’s often shattered quite quickly.
[End of the comment: start of the extra]
I actively work on my own assumptions, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still have them, though it’s hard for me to pinpoint them. I try to not make the same assumptions about others that I feel others make about me, but I know I do it, like assuming straightness instead of queerness.
These assumptions extend beyond people as well, to places. I find myself making assumptions about Seattle and others make assumptions about Salt Lake City due to the identity associations there. I’ve had people mention being surprised that there is a kink community here, a queer community, pagan and occult communities. People assume that SLC is just a mormon hub that doesn’t have any kind of diversity within it, though they’ve obviously not seen SLC Punk. People are surprised when they find out I live in Salt Lake City, though I don’t wholly blame them because I’m surprised that I live here.
I’m finding myself making the opposite assumptions about Seattle. I know a fair amount about the city itself, and have been reading up on it even more since we decided to move there. I’m excited about the communities there. I assume that it is going to be easier for me to find people I click with there. I assume that because it is more liberal that I won’t feel as shut-in as I do here. I don’t know if these assumptions are in any way correct, however, because I’m not counting on that other factor: me.
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.
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.
A follow-up post to Identity Musings – Part 1 and – Part 2, I highly recommend you reading those two first.
For a long time I wondered if I was just trying to make up an identity that isn’t necessary. If I was so transphilic maybe I was just making up an identity so that I wouldn’t be cisgendered. Is that the case? I still wonder that, but reading through Pomosexuals has helped me realize that I’m not the only female-assigned person to have this conflict inside of me, I’m not even the only female-assigned bi-/pan-sexual/queer person to love queer men and women and to have a boi personae as well as a femme personae, as also evidenced by The Leather Daddy and the Femme.
Still, that nagging fear that I’m just trying to not be cisgendered (not that there’s anything wrong with being cisgendered, but as I mentioned, I’m rather transphilic so it’s not as much a conscious desire not to be cisgendered, but one I wonder if I have internalized), that I’m trying to make more of something that’s inside of me and not exactly being true to it, that fear makes me doubt and question, and I hate it. I’m not sure how to prove to myself that this is the case, except to examine it, embrace it, and see how it feels.
I’ve said for years that my embraced drag queen identity was not just about all gender being drag, but also because I identify with a type of femininity that can not exactly be expressed by female-assigned people. It’s a queer over-the-top femininity that I love and identify with, it’s similar to femme but it’s not quite the same. Part of that identification, I think, is being “larger than life” or, larger than society tells women we are allowed to be. My fatness allows me to inhabit a space that non-fat women can’t (pun intended).
In addition to just being fat I’m also tall, about 5’10”, and have always been tall. I was 5’8″ by 7th grade, I’ve worn size 11 shoes also since 7th grade. I remember being proud of that, proud to wear my freak label, proud to be taller than most of the boys in my class, proud to be large and queer and strange and a freak. It was difficult at times, but I embraced and owned my queerness from an early age, because I knew that there wasn’t another way for me to be.
I identify with drag queens, but I also identify with femmes. It’s two different yet similar kinds of fem(me)ininity, and I try to inhabit them both at different times, perhaps that’s another personae I need to adopt a name for, to adequately seperate the differences so that I can analyze them easier, so that I can understand her better.
The truth is I have multiple personas within me, each with hir own voice, each needing recognition, and so I’m trying to recognize all of them, but it’s a long and dubious process. I’m not sure I’ll ever know all of them fully, but I have to try, otherwise I will be out of touch with myself. Each personae has different desires, and I fully intend to figure them all out.
The first step to analyzation is to recognize that which you are analyzing, right? Otherwise you aren’t able to analyze something you don’t know about. These “Identity Musings” posts have been about just that, going back to track the expansion and development of these identities in a new way, so that I am able to recognize these different aspects of myself and therefore come to a greater understanding of them. I have a more specifically queer related one on the way (since these have dealt mostly with gender).