Tag: identities Page 6 of 8

Semantics Sunday: Femme

On August 24, 2008

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.

Semantics Sunday: Fucktoy

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On August 17, 2008

In Discourse, Identity: Submissive

So it’s not exactly Sunday, but I can fake it.

Fucktoy is a word I have been struggling to find my own definition of. When I started this blog I originally bought ofpleasure.com which I still own and which points to this domain. I then changed it to ofpleasure.com and now to ofpleasure.com. The change from cuntpet to feminist fucktoy happened when I realized that cuntpet was an identity, and it would be like owning slave.com or submissive.com and having that as my personal blog, that is, it would be centering this blog around one identity when I am many. I wanted to change that.

I found a shirt from dyketees.com which says “Feminist Fucktoy: Don’t hate the player – Hate the shame” and I absolutely fell in love with it. That shirt is what inspired me to change the name of the blog and website to The Feminist Fucktoy (and then femmeinist came later, of course). I chose the name before I started embracing my Domina side, and so fucktoy has been somewhat difficult for me to embrace as a Domina, but that’s why I defined it the way I did originally in the masthead.

I don’t believe that a fucktoy is someone soley used by another for their pleasure, which is what a common definition of fucktoy is (from what I can tell). Fucktoy is similar to slut in that sense, the common definition of slut is someone who fucks around but who isn’t gaining pleasure for themselves, only giving pleasure to others. In reality a slut can be many things, but the way I choose to view it is that it is someone who embraces hir own sexuality and chooses to engage in sexual activities in order to experience pleasure, both giving and receiving of pleasure. That is how I view fucktoy as well.

A fucktoy isn’t necesarially the one on the bottom, either, despite “toy” being part of the term, which we often equate as something being used. The beauty of a term like fucktoy is it combines an action with a (seemingly) inanimate object: fuck with toy, but toys are not always inanimate, they can do wonderful things (the SaSi comes to mind) and can embrace their given purpose, which is to bring pleasure in one form or another.

So, my (new) definition of fucktoy is as follows: a person who enjoys sex and sexuality with the purpose of giving and receiving pleasure for the benefit of all involved.

Are you a fucktoy too?

Genderqueer Drag Quing HNT

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On August 14, 2008

In Gender Galaxy, Introspection

Click here for the larger version.

In honor of the Femme Conference which starts tomorrow (more info at the Femme Collective site or my post a while ago) I thought I would post something gender-related. It isn’t exactly naked skin, so half-nekkid might be a little bit of a stretch, but sometimes clothes can make me more naked than nakedness ever could.

The above images (yes, there is a second image if you click on the image above) are representations of me, really a mixture of my drag king and drag queen sides, hence the title, drag quing. All of the clothing I am wearing is mine, the shirt is actually the same shirt I wore to my Junior Prom, all those years ago, though I had a different black suit (not pinstriped) and a pink tie on (which matched my date’s dress–also pink hair and pink socks to match). I love suits, both on myself and on others.

Gender is something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, specifically my gender but also gender in general. Sometimes I miss the butch side of me, the side which used to be most prominent, but has now taken a back seat to my femme-ininity. I sometimes wonder where that butch went, the baby butch I was in high school has morphed into this femme identity, and sometimes I want to bring my butch back.

Recently I shaved Master’s head, and ever since I have been missing my own short hair, my own shaved head. At the same time I love the long hair that I have now, it is the longest it’s been since 8th grade, approaching where it was then, even. I have these mixed emotions about it all. It’s not like I think I have to pick butch or femme, that I have to be one or the other. I know that I settle somewhere in the middle, and that I can decide what gender I feel like expressing at any given moment, on any given day. But it is still hard to reconcile the genders within me, as society makes it difficult to be in that middle-ground.

So, this is my blending of my identities. The long red hair, red lips, red fingernails, with the black pinstripe suit and tie. You can’t tell from the way I’ve cropped it, but I also had on a fedora, a short black skirt, fishnets, and my black doc martins. Perhaps someday, once I get my tripod and a remote for my camera, I’ll show you the whole package. This is my genderqueerness, and I thought you all might like to see it.

Semantics Sunday: Gender Galaxy

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On August 10, 2008

In Discourse, Gender Galaxy

One of the terms I have in my lexicon but also something that I could expound upon for quite some time. I was talking with someone recently about my idea of the gender galaxy and she said something about liking femininity, not wanting to give it up. I kind of balked at her and asked how that was what I was saying at all. I find it so ridiculous that people assume that taking gender off of a binary means that femininity must go away.

On one hand, it makes sense, because a lot of the work of the feminist movement has been, basically, to do the same work as patriarchy and discredit femininity only from the other side of it, discrediting it from the inside, because it’s constructed. One thing I love about the idea of performativity is that it names everything as a performance, the constructed nature about the way we think about gender, but it doesn’t mean that we all don’t have some sort of pull toward one or many types of gender expression.

But, I digress. The term “gender galaxy” first appeared in Expanding Gender and Expanding the Law: Toward a Social and Legal Conceptualization of Gender that is More Inclusive of Transgender People by Dylan Vade, published in 2005 in the Michigan Journal of Gender and Law. He says:

I suggest a non-linear alternative conceptualization, which I call the gender galaxy. The gender galaxy is a three-dimensional non-linear space in which every gender has a location that may or may not be fixed. For instance, butch woman is one particular gender location. Feminine FTM is another gender location. These are two different valid gender locations that are not linearly related.

The article is fascinating, and I highly encourage you to read it as well, for further information of his explanations. He mentions that generally when we try to go away from the two options of (he uses male and female but to me those are sex categories rather than gender, and so I would say masculine and feminine) gender we move it onto a spectrum instead of just a one-or-the-other option. However, moving it onto a spectrum means it is still grounded in that binary, and his idea of a gender galaxy is moving away from that, as mentioned in the quote above.

Gender galaxy is a term that Sinclair of SugarButch has written about and defines, and I highly encourage all you who haven’t to look at his brilliant writings on the subject. One of the best examples of his writing about the gender galaxy comes from his telling of his journey of learning how to navigate within the gender galaxy and finding his identity as butch:

It took such a long time for me to come to comfortably sit in this butch identity, for me to (if we’ll continue the metaphor) navigate the gender galaxy, and find a comfortable orbit around an identity label. Some of us don’t ever settle into that – some of us are radical little spaceships that explore treasures from all sorts of different worlds and words that we orbit. I guess the trick is, in my opinion, to simply find the routes that are the best to navigate (not necessarily the easiest, but the most satisfying), the orbits where there is plenty of oxygen, the alliances that create treaties and share resources and have excellent adventures.

We basically have to make our own gender galaxy maps. And while some gender mapmaking tools – queer theory, gender theory, postmodern theory, queer literature, smut and the language of lesbian desires – while some tools help immensely, I still couldn’t quite escape the praxis, the application of the theory, because of the ways that the social constraints and social policing affected my own process deeply.

I’m working on a post of my own personal galaxy map to femme, how I’ve gotten here, what it means to me, and I’m hoping to be done with that soon. In the meantime, you have Sinclair’s to reference and my ideas of gender galaxy to ponder, as follows.

Basically I see the gender galaxy as having lots of little solar systems, with the sun or focal point of that solar system being a certain gender identity. There are some people who stay in orbit around one sun. Some are closer than others, like the difference between Mercury and Jupiter, and some are farther away and have irregular courses like Neptune. Still others are asteroids or comets, moving around multiple solar systems, moving through the gender galaxy itself without one focal point or another. Some people may inhabit two planets or three or four. The beauty of the gender galaxy is the limitless amount of possibilities.

Obviously, as my own gender identity includes femme and therefore includes femininity (or, femmeininity) I am not anti-femininity, nor do I believe that gender should be abolished or that the gender galaxy is getting rid of gender, on the contrary. Gender is even more emphasized in some ways in the gender galaxy, except instead of confining it the gender galaxy makes gender overly available. Opening up gender from a gender binary or even a gender continuum to a gender galaxy makes it so that there are no expressions of gender that are considered incorrect. We would no longer be able to fail at gender, either, as there is no set limits as to what gender is or could be.

Another Slight Semantic Difference

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On August 8, 2008

In Discourse, Identity: Submissive

So I, basically, shun the word “slave” as many of you may know, and yet I still use the term Master. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and the more I think about it the less I like the term “Master.” It implies some of the same things that “slave” does, only from the other end of it, my problem thus far as been the lack of a better term.

The terms Sir and Lord just are not that appealing to me either. I can appreciate the appeal, but I just don’t have a strong tie to either of them, so they don’t do much for me. While I can understand the desire for either, neither of them click with me, they don’t seem quite fitting. I hear Sir flung around like crazy online, and Lord just seems like a little much.

I like the term Owner, it’s a little more neutral than Master, though has similar connotations, not all of them bad, however. Owner is closer to what I want than Master is, but it’s still not quite right. It sounds strange to call someone Owner, such as “Owner just said something funny,” it doesn’t quite work the same way Master does, it just sounds a little funny.

I like the term Dominus as well, technically it means both Lord and Master, and doesn’t have all the same connotations as Master or even Owner does. I talked extensively about my use of the term Domina just last Sunday, and I feel similarly with the term Dominus, it’s regal and delicious. I left the post by asking about why people don’t use the term Dominus, and maybe I will begin to. The problem with Dominus is similar to Owner, “Dominus just said something funny,” sounds strange as well. Perhaps I just need to either shift my perspective on it, or choose one.

The biggest component of this, really, is how Master/Owner/Dominus feels about it. I haven’t really talked to him about it, but I plan on it. I like referring to him by a title, as he is the only one which I do call by a title. It takes a lot for me to call someone by a title, just as it takes a lot for me to say anything which I mean and which could make me in the least bit vulnerable. He is one of the few people that I have ever called Master, and possibly the last.

Semantics Sunday: Domina

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On August 3, 2008

In Discourse, Identity: Top, Power Play

Semantics Sunday is the day for me to write my own definition of a word, how I feel about a word, and how it relates to me personally and my own identities. This could be anything sexual, gender, bdsm, and poly/relationship oriented, or anything else I feel like throwing in. This is simply my definition and understanding of the word, and not meant to be the only definition that is or could be. If you have an alternate definition, if you agree with my interpretation, or if you have something to add which I left out or which needs correcting, feel free to let me know in the comments!

For my first Semantics Sunday I figured I should use a word that is near and dear to my heart. Since I have already given my lengthy definition of cuntpet I decided I should focus on the other of my identities: Domina.

I recently created a new channel on irc.bondage.com, where I am quite frequently, called #Fiery_Dominas. This is the first channel with Domina in the channel name, which is part of the reason why I started it, however it has inspired comments such as “What is dominas? Dommes plural?” which is relatively ridiculous considering for one thing, Dommes is Domme plural, and for another thing Domina is a fantastic and real Latin word, unlike Domme, which is a slang term.

Now, on one hand, I feel there is nothing wrong with slang terms, and think that they should be used and incorporated, and Domme basically incorporates Dom and Femme (as in french for female, not queer femme), which is not horrible in general, and is rather logical. However, now that I have discovered and embraced Domina, Domme sounds silly to me, it is nowhere near as linguistically luscious or regal-sounding as Domina is, and it doesn’t inspire the same awe. I also feel that Domina is a much more feminine term than Domme, which is partly why I’m so partial to it as well.

Basically, Domina comes from the Latin root dom- found in other such words as dominate, domify, domicile, and domestic, as well as domin- such as dominant and dominus. From various sources I find that “dom-” actually relates to a household or realm, and the actual Latin translation of Domina or Dominus (the male counterpart), is “Lady or Lord of the house/realm.” This makes sense, considering dom- relating also to words such as domicile and domestic. The prefix domin- alone (supposedly) indicates regal status, such as Lady/Lord, or Mistress/Master, which is why Domina is the feminine and Dominus is the masculine (the suffix -a being feminine, and the suffix -us being masculine).

This brings us to the question, if we use Dom and not Dominus, why should we use Domina and not Domme? Well, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t ever use Domme, I’m just saying that I don’t want to use Domme, and furthermore, we could use Dominus as well, should a male dominant desire to be called that. I’m not going to condemn others for using the term Domme, but I do not identify with the term and will not be using it for myself or for others unless specifically requested.

Discoveries of the Domina

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On July 25, 2008

In Identity: Top

I dissected my submissive desires back in June with my Cuntpet Revisited post, and I’ve been exploring this Domina side of myself for quite some time, so I’ve come to some realizations. Nothing quite as profound or in-depth as the cuntpet analysis, but some interesting discoveries, nonetheless.

I’ve found that this journey of discovery has been difficult because I don’t feel like it’s something I can easily share with Master. I don’t have any desire to dominate him, and even if I did I doubt he would have any desire for me to dominate him. But, because of this, our relationship has suffered a little bit. We’ve talked about it, which has helped, but I know he still feels like it’s something that’s pulling us apart rather than bringing us together, and he’s right, but at this point there’s little I can do to change that.

That said, primarily this journey of mine has been internal, and a small amount has been online, on irc.bondage.com, a server I have frequented for many years. I have enjoyed the last few weeks, and my new Domina personae, although I want more. While I do believe that online is a fantastic place to explore new desires and fantasies, this needs to move beyond it. However, I would have to find a sub nearby to play with, and that could be tricky. I deeply enjoyed meeting new people at the play party last weekend, but entering in any relationship is going to be tricky. For now, my explorations will be primarily internal, and partially online.

Even though I have the desire to dominate someone, which is getting stronger all the time really, I’m extremely picky. This isn’t anything new, of course, it’s something I’ve known for quite some time, but it’s something that I am often amazed at. Even at my most horny, most desirous, most dominant states I am still picky as hell. It’s annoying, sometimes, because there are times when I just want to say “fuck it” and pick up the first sub I interact with and play, but I won’t allow myself to do that. I prefer to be picky, but sometimes I wish I wasn’t.

I am an extremely mental dominant. Unfortunately, I haven’t had much of a chance to play with these desires (see above, re: picky), but I can’t imagine playing with anyone without knowing all the intricate details about their desires. Without knowing those it would be difficult for me to weave them around my little finger. While purely physical domination has it’s perks and appeals, there is something delicious about being able to implant yourself deeply into someone else’s mind.

Perhaps it steams from my knowledge and love of psychology, or perhaps my love of psychology stems from my mental domination desires. I’m not sure, really, it’s like the chicken or egg question. I do know, however, that my knowledge of psychology will come in handy for all future mental endeavors. I love the idea of delving into the mind of another and planting all sorts of fun ideas for use later. Playing and toying with someone until all they can think about is me… that brings me to my next point.

I’ve talked many times about my own control freak nature, and I believe this is deeply rooted within my mental domination. I highly enjoy control, both having none and having all, and it’s difficult for me to have anything else. I love total power exchange, regardless of the side I’m on. I am a control addict as well as a control freak, though maybe in some ways they are the same thing.

I am also a rather sadistic dominant. This, too, is not a surprise, really. I’ve had sadistic impulses for a long time, although I haven’t always embraced the term. I’ve always loved biting others for the reaction it gets, I’ve loved spanking and hair pulling, and all sorts of other pain-inflicting things. I curbed these desires, or attempted to, while I was trying to be a “good sub” (whatever that means). I found them coming out in little ways, biting Master being the majority of them.

Within the online realm, I can’t stand when people have “Master” “Mistress” “Lord” etc. as part of their usernames/handles. “Miss” is a little mixed for me, but that’s pretty much the only one. Why do some dominants feel the need to add a title to thier nick? I don’t really understand it. I’ve thought of using the nick MissScarlet, but only for humor purposes (makes me think of Clue, of course). Perhaps this is a little point, and I’m sure it ties in with my ideas of honorifics in general, but it’s rather annoying. It just screams that someone isn’t secure in their role, so they have to shout it to the world instead of exuding it from themselves.

I also can’t stand a large amount of submissives. I knew this already, but now I can’t stand them from a different perspective. I hate what I call “yes subs” by which I mean, submissives who can’t give a straight answer, who answer “whatever Lady wants” or “whatever pleases You” when you ask them a direct question. I understand the reason for it, to an extent, but when I ask a sub what they enjoy, I don’t want to hear “whatever You would like to do to me, Miss” or something like that. The reason for it is to help reinforce submission. I believe it can be a useful tool in training, but not when you first meet someone. It’s ridiculous to tell someone that you don’t know very well “I like what you like” because, well, you don’t know what they like!

I also can’t stand being called Ma’am, but, that’s another issue all together.

I want a real human being. I don’t want a doormat, and I don’t want a “yes sub,” and I don’t want someone who won’t state their own opinions and their own desires. I want someone… well, like me, isn’t it?

My Queer Identity, Or: Problems of Visibility

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On July 21, 2008

In Identity: Queer Intellisexual

Being part of the queer community has been something extremely important to me since I was in high school, though I came out in middle school. I have always been queer in one way or another. I was the fat kid growing up, always the largest in my class, always the one made fun of. I was the outcast. I embraced my queerness, my freakhood, by difference. I wanted to be different, it made me special. I enjoyed it, and I still do.

It was easier to be queer when I didn’t have a partner, or when I had a female partner. Now that I’m with a male, and specifically living with a male and being submissive to a male it is very difficult for me, and difficult to maintain my queerness when in many ways I look very heterosexual. This isn’t necessarily a negative thing, but for me it kind of is. I feel washed over, I feel like my queerness isn’t as easily recognized as I’d like it to be.

Sometimes even those who know my orientation do not credit it because of my current partner. I am forgotten about as queer, and it’s really something that hurts me when it comes from those close to me. I may be with a man, but that doesn’t mean I’m still not queer.

What comes into my queer identity? What makes it up? Kink and poly definitely inform my queerness, because they inform my sexuality and no aspect of my sexuality can be analyzed without the addition of all the other aspects. Really, no aspect of my sexuality can be analyzed without all other aspects of my identity taken into account, including gender and size, which is part of the reason why all those identities are subtitles to this blog, because it’s nearly impossible to understand me without understanding all those identities first.

It’s difficult to be femme gendered and partnered with a biologically male and masculine person and to still be labeled as queer. I can embrace the label all I want, and I can try to make that label known to the rest of the world, but that doesn’t always mean I will come off that way.

I can view the plus side of it, as it means I can walk in the heterosexual world and use terms like “partner” which is the primary way I refer to Master as to new people I meet, and which confuses people or makes people assume that my partner is female. This allows me to get into a dialogue about the term partner, about bi/pan/queer sexualities if I so choose.

Now, this is all well and good, and I do try to use it to my advantage as much as possible. I try to sneak in comments like “Just because I’m with a man doesn’t mean I’m straight” or “doesn’t mean I’m not queer.” There are ways that I can subtly influence those around me, but I often wonder if it is enough. If I constantly have to assert my identity, is it really worth it? But, then again, I have the same issue with my gender identity. Perhaps my identity fetish is just too advanced for easy identification.

I’ve read about similar experiences with other bi/pan/omni-sexuals and queers, and people with FtM lovers, and I know that I am not alone in this, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating. I know that this problem will not change any time soon, but maybe I can figure out a better way to deal with it.

Because That's What All Feminists Are Like

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On July 17, 2008

In Equality, Site Specific

I’m going to add my definitions of femmeinist and fucktoy to the masthead shortly, and I pondering adding “femmeinist” to the Urban Dictionary, so, of course, I took a look at how feminist is defined in there.

At this point in my life I really should not have been surprised at the definitions which were posted, which basically call all feminists sexist, hypocritical, mean, man-haters, etc. all those wonderful negative stereotypes. I really should not have been saddened or surprised, or have thought that it might be any different.

At least the #2 entry reads:

someone who believes the radical notion that women are people.
if you believe that women and men should have equal rights, you are a feminist. there’s nothing “extreme” about it.

That’s something, right? I urge you all to go to the definition of feminist in the Urban Dictionary and vote for that entry and vote down all the other entries which perpetuate negative stereotypes. While, yes, there are those feminists out there, they are not the majority (at least, not in my experience), they are just the ones which get the most coverage.

*Sigh* So, look for my definitions of femmeinist and fucktoy on the new masthead, should be coming within the hour. Also, I may add femmeinist to the Urban Dictionary, but I wonder if people would bash it as well? I definitely will add my definition of fucktoy (on UD as both fucktoy and fuck toy) however, since the definitions there are all degrading. I’m definitely not using it in a degrading manner.

Also, as a note since I’m mentioning site changes as well, I recently added a weekly poll to the top left sidebar, as well as links to my various wishlists (Amazon, VibeReview, Eden Fantasys, JT’s Stockroom, and Extreme Restraints) on the right sidebar under the buttons to my various profiles on other sites. I also added a list of affiliate links on the left sidebar (such as VibeReview, Eden Fantasys, Babeland, JT’s Stockroom, Extreme Restraints, and Amazon) which look rather similar to the wishlist links, of course, as these are the sites I often frequent and also highly recommend. I will shortly add a paypal donate link, just in case anyone feels generous.

Labels: Useful but Often Problematic

By Tai Fenix Kulystin

On July 8, 2008

In Discourse

I posted much of this (though not all of it) on my BDSM Theory group on FetLife last night. The post is here though I believe you have to be logged in to read it. On to the ideas.

I believe that labels are like nearly everything else: they have a purpose, but they are often used incorrectly. When thought of as finite and static they lose their purpose. The purpose of labels is to define someone at one particular moment in time.

We are ever-changing and ever-growing creatures. As is said: the only thing constant is change. Most contemporary psychological personality theory centers around the fact that personality changes over time and through different experiences and situations. There may or may not be some basic tenets to the personality and there may or may not be a biological component (as is debated often ad nauseam). However, just about everyone agrees that there are significant changes which happen over time in personality.

So, why would we want to think of ourselves in static finite terms? We wouldn’t! What fun would that be, to box ourselves in to one term or another, and yet we do it all the time. What are labels but nouns and adjectives? What are roles that we subscribe to but labels? The trap of labels is to believe that they are finite and never-changing, this is true of nearly any label.

The idea that we so often miss is that labels are a category, but not a be all and end all of what one person is or is not.

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.

Just because someone adopts the label of “queer,” for instance, or “slave” it does not mean that anyone else who inhabits these labels looks at all like this person. This queer slave could be male, female, transgendered, transsexual, masculine, feminine, genderqueer, etc. and may be a service slave, a sexual slave, both service and sexual, a brat, part-time, 24/7, a pro slave, live-in, or some combination thereof. This person could have various fetishes such as humiliation, force, objectification, boots, heels, non-sexual service, rope bondage, metal bondage, pain, or anything else. This person in other aspects of life could be a CEO, an artist, an auto mechanic, a teacher, a writer, a sys admin, a starship captain, or anything else.

I think you see my point with that as well. Labels are good for describing generic categories which someone is part of or embraces, but are not good for getting a specific idea of what the person is like, or even what they think, do, or feel. They give a general idea about one general area of a person, but everything else is up for grabs.

While I think we all know this to an extent, it is hard to get away from automatic categorization and stereotyping. I will be the first to admit that I often fall prey to stereotypes, though I have been working to train myself to ignore them, they are so ingrained in us that it is nearly impossible to get out of them. If we were to see someone was a 20 year old straight female slave, for example, I’m sure just from those four descriptors most everyone who read them formed an idea of the person. Even I did.

I think that labels are useful and necessary, and I definitely have a sort of OCD tendency to nitpick my own labels (so far as I have created my own label for myself as well) in order to best explain and express myself to the world, just as you said.

My point is that labels are often attached to other labels, when that may not always be the case, such as the thinking that if someone is x, y, and z, therefore they must also be a, b, and c.