"if someone craves to be owned and used and useful, entitlement and expectation is exactly what they need to from their partner as a counterpart to that mindset"
I think that's the first actual description of the submissive role that resonates with me. Interesting. "Owned and used and useful." I could live with that.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
D/s Thoughts
For the record, my current thoughts on BDSM is that I'm most interested in D/s, curious about some light S/M, but not interested in intense S/M. And, at least until I've worked out some of my confidence issues, I'm not interested in humiliations play or anything that looks like it.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Anger
Well, finally got to the part where I'm angry at the guy I just broke up with. I'm cleaning up my apartment and realizing: he is a messy bastard and I'm so glad I don't have to live like that anymore. It's not the whole truth and it's not entirely fair, but there it is. I have a right to be mad so there it fucking is.
Realization?
I think I made some kind of realization today- I've always been very commitment oriented in relationships, but I think what I've been looking for this whole time is a family, not necessarily a romantic relationship. More on this later; this post is largely placeholder to remind me for later.
My Feminine Side, Redux
So, my last examination of my femininity from an emotional perspective didn't feel sufficient, and I'd like to revisit it.
First, a review of some of the vocabulary I'm using. I don't promise that these usages are standard, hence the definitions. (Get me started some other time on whether usages of terms like these can be entirely standard. Should make for some interesting frothing at the mouth about linguistic snobs.)
Gendered: something that is done in order to identify with a gender, i.e. "Lookit me! I'm a girl! A GIRL!" (in whatever intensity, that being rather extreme.)
Gender-specific: something that is done that would not be done if the doer were the other gender, but that is not intended as an identifying action, i.e. "What, a skirt you say? Well, yes, I'm wearing one. No, I just like them. Well, no, I probably wouldn't wear them if I was a guy."
Gender-neutral: something that could/would be done by either gender, and has no subtext of gender identification, i.e. "Yep, I'm eating. Nope, that's got nothing to do with gender whatsoever. Seriously."
Another distinction that I will be making is how society interprets an action, how certain groups interpret and action, and how I interpret an action internally.
Ok, I think that gives me all the tools of the trade, let's get started. I think I'll go through the things I do that are perceived as gendered by the world at large and talk about how I perceive them.
1. Geekiness- It is my perception that the world at large sees geekiness as a gender-specific trait, but sees it as gender specific to males. (I have also hear this expressed 'geek is its own gender, with its own set of gender rules.' This is probably also a valid way of stating the situation, though my perception is that most of the gender rules are derived from male gendered traits.) All nerds are expected to dress, act, and show interest in things in a certain way. All nerds, male or female, have their 'nerdness' called into question if they do not follow these rules. For instance, in the gamer nerd subsection, a male nerd who defies the nerd 'dress code' (usually consisting primarily of blue jeans and a t-shirt with a geeky joke or reference to some nerd culture icon on it) will have his nerddom called into question, both by culture at large and by nerds themselves. I've had this happen to me from both perspectives:
Me: "I'm a huge nerd."
Strange Guy Failing to Hit on Me: "Oh, you just left your glasses at home?"
Me: *glare*
From the other perspective, although I forget the exact quotes, I've had a nerd friend of mine basically say 'Man, you're really sending mixed signals...you're a nerd, you do RPGs, etc, but here you are wearing a skirt and makeup! This breaks my nerd meme and confuses me.'
I could probably go on about this phenomenon for a while, but point is, in my mind geekiness is, for better or worse, perceived as male-specific (even for the female nerds), and I definitely identify as 'nerd,' not as something that is a gendered behavior, nor as something that is gender-specific to female, just as something that is an inherent part of my personality. I also break a lot of the gender rules of nerd, as I mentioned earlier and will probably discuss further below.
2. Embroidery- This is one of my favorite pastimes, when I have the time and focus. It feeds my need to have tangible (and preferably visible) results from the time I've spent at a pursuit. It makes me feel skilled, which is a related but non-synonymous need. Additionally, it's a physical hobby, and in a cyber world making something with my hands is a rare pleasure. The world at large sees this hobby as gender-specific to females, perhaps bordering on gendered female. I think I agree that it is a gender-specific activity, if only because I would probably not have gotten into it if I were male, not because I would not enjoy it if I were male. I believe that my reasons for enjoying embroidery are independent of my gender.
3. Girl time- Before I analyze the gender-qualities of girl time I'm going to have to define it, which I don't anticipate being easy, though my guess is that we'll get a lot of the analysis of gender characteristics done in the definition stage.
For me, 'girl time' or 'doing girly stuff' generally refers to participating (usually but not always with other women) in activities that are frequently at least gender-specific to females if not gendered females. The exceptions to the 'female participants' rule are few and far between, but they certainly exist, and occur irrespective of gender identity and sexual orientation. A certain very heterosexual dance maniac occurs to me here.
As for a further examination of the activities, they can range from activities that are at least traditionally very female gendered activities of makeup, nails, and generally engaging in vanity and self-adornment, to activities that I simply engage in with people with whom I feel close and comfortable, which in my life have generally tended to be female when in platonic relationships. The activities also extend to gender-nonspecific activities, but these feel more like 'friend time with girls' than 'girl time.'
So, I would say that girl time is mostly a gender-specific activity rather than a gendered activity, with the exceptions being the self-adornment stuff, which we'll discuss below.
4. Personal appearance- This is the biggie, I think, and yet now I don't feel that I have to write much to explicate it given the previous analyses. The self-adornment is partially gendered for me, despite my previous post. (Look at me, how pretty I am, love me and be attracted to me.) But it's largely become a gender-specific set of skills at this point for me- I get at least as much reward from the process as I do from the result, much the same as we see in my embroidery. Really, I don't perceive much difference between embroidery and doing my makeup, except embroidery takes longer to get results. The aesthetic results have more social baggage, both for me and everyone else, making it more gendered than embroidery, but not by a huge amount. If I had to choose a category, I'd say that my personal appearance activities are gender specific, not gendered.
First, a review of some of the vocabulary I'm using. I don't promise that these usages are standard, hence the definitions. (Get me started some other time on whether usages of terms like these can be entirely standard. Should make for some interesting frothing at the mouth about linguistic snobs.)
Gendered: something that is done in order to identify with a gender, i.e. "Lookit me! I'm a girl! A GIRL!" (in whatever intensity, that being rather extreme.)
Gender-specific: something that is done that would not be done if the doer were the other gender, but that is not intended as an identifying action, i.e. "What, a skirt you say? Well, yes, I'm wearing one. No, I just like them. Well, no, I probably wouldn't wear them if I was a guy."
Gender-neutral: something that could/would be done by either gender, and has no subtext of gender identification, i.e. "Yep, I'm eating. Nope, that's got nothing to do with gender whatsoever. Seriously."
Another distinction that I will be making is how society interprets an action, how certain groups interpret and action, and how I interpret an action internally.
Ok, I think that gives me all the tools of the trade, let's get started. I think I'll go through the things I do that are perceived as gendered by the world at large and talk about how I perceive them.
1. Geekiness- It is my perception that the world at large sees geekiness as a gender-specific trait, but sees it as gender specific to males. (I have also hear this expressed 'geek is its own gender, with its own set of gender rules.' This is probably also a valid way of stating the situation, though my perception is that most of the gender rules are derived from male gendered traits.) All nerds are expected to dress, act, and show interest in things in a certain way. All nerds, male or female, have their 'nerdness' called into question if they do not follow these rules. For instance, in the gamer nerd subsection, a male nerd who defies the nerd 'dress code' (usually consisting primarily of blue jeans and a t-shirt with a geeky joke or reference to some nerd culture icon on it) will have his nerddom called into question, both by culture at large and by nerds themselves. I've had this happen to me from both perspectives:
Me: "I'm a huge nerd."
Strange Guy Failing to Hit on Me: "Oh, you just left your glasses at home?"
Me: *glare*
From the other perspective, although I forget the exact quotes, I've had a nerd friend of mine basically say 'Man, you're really sending mixed signals...you're a nerd, you do RPGs, etc, but here you are wearing a skirt and makeup! This breaks my nerd meme and confuses me.'
I could probably go on about this phenomenon for a while, but point is, in my mind geekiness is, for better or worse, perceived as male-specific (even for the female nerds), and I definitely identify as 'nerd,' not as something that is a gendered behavior, nor as something that is gender-specific to female, just as something that is an inherent part of my personality. I also break a lot of the gender rules of nerd, as I mentioned earlier and will probably discuss further below.
2. Embroidery- This is one of my favorite pastimes, when I have the time and focus. It feeds my need to have tangible (and preferably visible) results from the time I've spent at a pursuit. It makes me feel skilled, which is a related but non-synonymous need. Additionally, it's a physical hobby, and in a cyber world making something with my hands is a rare pleasure. The world at large sees this hobby as gender-specific to females, perhaps bordering on gendered female. I think I agree that it is a gender-specific activity, if only because I would probably not have gotten into it if I were male, not because I would not enjoy it if I were male. I believe that my reasons for enjoying embroidery are independent of my gender.
3. Girl time- Before I analyze the gender-qualities of girl time I'm going to have to define it, which I don't anticipate being easy, though my guess is that we'll get a lot of the analysis of gender characteristics done in the definition stage.
For me, 'girl time' or 'doing girly stuff' generally refers to participating (usually but not always with other women) in activities that are frequently at least gender-specific to females if not gendered females. The exceptions to the 'female participants' rule are few and far between, but they certainly exist, and occur irrespective of gender identity and sexual orientation. A certain very heterosexual dance maniac occurs to me here.
As for a further examination of the activities, they can range from activities that are at least traditionally very female gendered activities of makeup, nails, and generally engaging in vanity and self-adornment, to activities that I simply engage in with people with whom I feel close and comfortable, which in my life have generally tended to be female when in platonic relationships. The activities also extend to gender-nonspecific activities, but these feel more like 'friend time with girls' than 'girl time.'
So, I would say that girl time is mostly a gender-specific activity rather than a gendered activity, with the exceptions being the self-adornment stuff, which we'll discuss below.
4. Personal appearance- This is the biggie, I think, and yet now I don't feel that I have to write much to explicate it given the previous analyses. The self-adornment is partially gendered for me, despite my previous post. (Look at me, how pretty I am, love me and be attracted to me.) But it's largely become a gender-specific set of skills at this point for me- I get at least as much reward from the process as I do from the result, much the same as we see in my embroidery. Really, I don't perceive much difference between embroidery and doing my makeup, except embroidery takes longer to get results. The aesthetic results have more social baggage, both for me and everyone else, making it more gendered than embroidery, but not by a huge amount. If I had to choose a category, I'd say that my personal appearance activities are gender specific, not gendered.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Single
I'm single again, for some values of single encompassed the by expression "without a primary relationship." I though about posting to alt.poly with the subject line "n =- 1". (I am slowly but surely becoming a programming nerd.)
This gives me the good chance to generally be on my own for a bit, maybe learn a few things about myself. My current list of things to do is as follows:
1) Acquire rats
2) Take ballroom dancing lessons
3) Lose another 5 pounds
4) Continue learning to program (possibly apply to grad school?)
5) Acquire more close friends with whom I am not in some way romantically involved
6) Continue doing the sexual self-exploration thing
I think that gives me a good list, which ought to keep me busy for a bit.
Really ought to go a ways toward the self-learning bit, as well. My exploration of new theoretical sexual realms has been temporarily put on hold due to total lack of short-term libido re breakup. However, I expect it to resume shortly...I am quite interested by some of the D/s stuff I'm learning about. I'm not sure yet whether I'm interested theoretically or practically, but I know that the psychological elements of it are fascinating in their implications and possibilities. More reports later on, particularly on this interesting hypnotism theme. Fascinating stuff. There are more things in heaven and earth...and they're freaking INTERESTING!
I'm a nerd, so there.
This gives me the good chance to generally be on my own for a bit, maybe learn a few things about myself. My current list of things to do is as follows:
1) Acquire rats
2) Take ballroom dancing lessons
3) Lose another 5 pounds
4) Continue learning to program (possibly apply to grad school?)
5) Acquire more close friends with whom I am not in some way romantically involved
6) Continue doing the sexual self-exploration thing
I think that gives me a good list, which ought to keep me busy for a bit.
Really ought to go a ways toward the self-learning bit, as well. My exploration of new theoretical sexual realms has been temporarily put on hold due to total lack of short-term libido re breakup. However, I expect it to resume shortly...I am quite interested by some of the D/s stuff I'm learning about. I'm not sure yet whether I'm interested theoretically or practically, but I know that the psychological elements of it are fascinating in their implications and possibilities. More reports later on, particularly on this interesting hypnotism theme. Fascinating stuff. There are more things in heaven and earth...and they're freaking INTERESTING!
I'm a nerd, so there.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Empty
It turns out that, when you remove something from your life because of its negative repercussions, you lose the positive effects too.
If only the positive had outweighed the negative.
If only the positive had outweighed the negative.
You Shouldn't Know
That I still want to be with you. That I want to try couples' therapy. That I'm going to miss you terribly. That I hope we'll be together again one day.
That's all the crap I shouldn't tell you, because it's not real and it's not healthy for you to know. But at least it's out there.
That's all the crap I shouldn't tell you, because it's not real and it's not healthy for you to know. But at least it's out there.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
My Feminine Side
I wasn't always this femme.
This may not be obvious from superficial appearances. Most poignantly, I remember getting dressed up for the big dances in high school- hair, nails, makeup, clothes, the whole nine yards. I was inevitably in tears by the end of the night.
I ended each of these evenings feeling worthless- a two-penny princess in a polyester gown. I felt like a fraud and a failure. Some perceived shortcoming, some social faux pas, or maybe just the shine coming off my night, left me a mess by the time I stood in front of the mirror, scrubbing the mask of makeup off my face, reducing my anxiety and aspirations to so much soap scum on porcelain.
My bipolar relationship with dresses, in particular, is a saga that defined in many ways my transition out of girlhood. It was a dress that prompted my self-starvation, a dress that brought me to tears on my boyfriend's couch, a dress that defined the struggle with my femininity.
The process of selecting a dress, wooing it for months in the privacy of one's bedroom (I'll just put it on for a minute to see how it looks. Perhaps pin my hair up a bit for effect...) and finally wearing it out on the intended occasion is a bit like the swing of a baseball bat. You wind up, put all your strength into the preparation, and unless connect perfectly in at the crucial moment, the execution feels flat and anticlimactic.
And how could a girl fail to be disappointed in her own execution? With the epic hopes that I, in my high-school naivete, set on these evenings, how could the mediocrity of adolescent reality fail to disappoint?
And so, throughout the evening, the panic and self-loathing would build up inside me. I was failing to live up the skin of femininity in which I had clothed myself; I was inadequate to the job. I could not be what a woman was supposed to be. I could not be a woman.
These days, I wear makeup nearly daily and wear skirt or dresses infrequently but happily. I haven't bought a formal gown in years, and I feel better for this fact. But the truth is that on a day to day basis I express femininity in ways that would have sent my adolescent self into self-deprecating hysterics.
The thing is, I'm not expressing femininity.
I wear makeup for many reasons- a nerdy interest in this intersection of art, science, and personal aesthetics, for one. But the importance of that pales to the ritual significance it has for me.
I transform my appearance in the course of 15 minutes every morning- I use exactly the right tool for the job, I experiment with new ideas, and I come out looking good. Additionally, during this 15 minutes, I am focusing exclusively on myself. I am the only thing that matters during this ritual. And each morning, I come out looking the way I need to feel- put together, confident, and competent. In short, using makeup makes me feel powerful, creative, and in control every morning for the low cost of a quarter hour's time and some pretty-colored powders.
My adolescent self felt wretched when she couldn't achieve her own ideals of femininity. Today, she has had revenge. Today, I am not a feminine person. I am a person who has taken the trappings of femininity, once laden with the burden of inadequacy, and has subverted them for her own uses, her own personal rituals of self-confidence and power.
What once controlled me, I now control. Where once I ached to embrace and embody femininity, I now take that which I can use, that which pleases me, that which strengthens me.
I wasn't always this femme. In point of fact, I'm the least femme I've ever been. These days, I'm a woman with one more tool to get what she wants and needs.
This may not be obvious from superficial appearances. Most poignantly, I remember getting dressed up for the big dances in high school- hair, nails, makeup, clothes, the whole nine yards. I was inevitably in tears by the end of the night.
I ended each of these evenings feeling worthless- a two-penny princess in a polyester gown. I felt like a fraud and a failure. Some perceived shortcoming, some social faux pas, or maybe just the shine coming off my night, left me a mess by the time I stood in front of the mirror, scrubbing the mask of makeup off my face, reducing my anxiety and aspirations to so much soap scum on porcelain.
My bipolar relationship with dresses, in particular, is a saga that defined in many ways my transition out of girlhood. It was a dress that prompted my self-starvation, a dress that brought me to tears on my boyfriend's couch, a dress that defined the struggle with my femininity.
The process of selecting a dress, wooing it for months in the privacy of one's bedroom (I'll just put it on for a minute to see how it looks. Perhaps pin my hair up a bit for effect...) and finally wearing it out on the intended occasion is a bit like the swing of a baseball bat. You wind up, put all your strength into the preparation, and unless connect perfectly in at the crucial moment, the execution feels flat and anticlimactic.
And how could a girl fail to be disappointed in her own execution? With the epic hopes that I, in my high-school naivete, set on these evenings, how could the mediocrity of adolescent reality fail to disappoint?
And so, throughout the evening, the panic and self-loathing would build up inside me. I was failing to live up the skin of femininity in which I had clothed myself; I was inadequate to the job. I could not be what a woman was supposed to be. I could not be a woman.
These days, I wear makeup nearly daily and wear skirt or dresses infrequently but happily. I haven't bought a formal gown in years, and I feel better for this fact. But the truth is that on a day to day basis I express femininity in ways that would have sent my adolescent self into self-deprecating hysterics.
The thing is, I'm not expressing femininity.
I wear makeup for many reasons- a nerdy interest in this intersection of art, science, and personal aesthetics, for one. But the importance of that pales to the ritual significance it has for me.
I transform my appearance in the course of 15 minutes every morning- I use exactly the right tool for the job, I experiment with new ideas, and I come out looking good. Additionally, during this 15 minutes, I am focusing exclusively on myself. I am the only thing that matters during this ritual. And each morning, I come out looking the way I need to feel- put together, confident, and competent. In short, using makeup makes me feel powerful, creative, and in control every morning for the low cost of a quarter hour's time and some pretty-colored powders.
My adolescent self felt wretched when she couldn't achieve her own ideals of femininity. Today, she has had revenge. Today, I am not a feminine person. I am a person who has taken the trappings of femininity, once laden with the burden of inadequacy, and has subverted them for her own uses, her own personal rituals of self-confidence and power.
What once controlled me, I now control. Where once I ached to embrace and embody femininity, I now take that which I can use, that which pleases me, that which strengthens me.
I wasn't always this femme. In point of fact, I'm the least femme I've ever been. These days, I'm a woman with one more tool to get what she wants and needs.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Everybody Wants a Meme
One needs labels to process the world. Stereotyping and judging, damaging as they may be, exist because they are fundamentally necessary and beneficial.
When programming, you make the program in such a way that it has pre-determined ways of dealing with any type of input. In order to do this, you have to categorize input. If the input doesn't fall into a pre-defined category, you either force it into one or give an error message.
Is it really so surprising that we're different from programs? We like to think we're more subtle and complex, sure. But fundamentally, we process input and respond to it. If we didn't have categorization, we'd get so caught up in the time it took to fully process each individual piece of input that we'd never be able to effectively respond to the input in our environment.
So, yeah. I judge. I'm human. I'm also willing to redefine inputs or group definitions based on new definitions. Does that make me a good person, or just flexibly programmed?
When programming, you make the program in such a way that it has pre-determined ways of dealing with any type of input. In order to do this, you have to categorize input. If the input doesn't fall into a pre-defined category, you either force it into one or give an error message.
Is it really so surprising that we're different from programs? We like to think we're more subtle and complex, sure. But fundamentally, we process input and respond to it. If we didn't have categorization, we'd get so caught up in the time it took to fully process each individual piece of input that we'd never be able to effectively respond to the input in our environment.
So, yeah. I judge. I'm human. I'm also willing to redefine inputs or group definitions based on new definitions. Does that make me a good person, or just flexibly programmed?
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