Nursery School via First Grade
This is me, a first grader, and I want to write about something very important.
First, pretend I'm you when you were a first grader, because the person who actually is me might not remember this, or I wouldn't need to write it down now and it's important.
---
I remember being four, so maybe there's no reason to think you won't remember being seven. Let's talk about being four. Nursery school. Sitting around a ring to hear the story being read. Little rows of kids, some in front, some behind them, up close. You're already worrying that this is going to get pedophilic. Yes I knew the word pedophilic when I was in first grade. I thought it was a totally creepy concept and of course I memorized how to spell it. No, this isn't that stuff. I didn't know the word when I was four but I felt the concern and got the general notion, minus the specifics, so back when I was already that much aware of the notion, this other thing happened, or was happening, around that time, and I wanted to write about that.
---
Bodies had dirty parts. No they didn't that's too simple. Parts that could have something to do with dirty. Diaper parts, potty parts. Don't put your hands in it, it's dirty. Don't talk about it, talking about it is dirty. That's too simple too but I bet you know what I'm talking about don't you.
Then something that people act as if it is kind of dirty but kind of not. There are parts that the girls have and parts that the boys have. It's described like if you are a girl you get these parts, like being a girl is first and then you get the parts. And boys. They have different parts. Boy parts. It makes you different. Well then it's having these parts, that's what makes you a girl, you weren't a girl and then got these parts. No. Well then having these parts doesn't make you different.
Liking the way they look. Pee from there, it's down there, it's dirty. Not to talk about not to think about but we think about it they call this dirty and it's liking the way they look. Oh I assumed. I didn't know some liked the way themselves looked. Oh I hadn't thought about. What if people with girl parts like me, the way I like theirs, and they're nice I like them anyway. But what if?
Yeah, little rows of kids, some in front some behind them, up close. Someone, somewhere, is playing with the waistpants band of the person in front of them, the latter someone being me. This unknown person wanted to slide a thumb under the edge of my underpants. I wasn't horrified, nor was I elated. I knew it was in that argued-about "dirty" territory. I could stop it. It felt like I was doing the unknown person a favor by not stopping it, and I liked that feeling and I was curious. Content warning update: that's as bad as it gets, we were four. As for the sensations themselves... nothing I saw any lure for. Although I found that I liked the idea that this person had been one of the tomboyish girls in our class and she'd done this to me.
We were defining our boundaries, and our sense of being in control of them, and we were experiencing ourselves as our own curators, granting or denying access, and we were doing that at four.
I'm not saying it wouldn't be an unfair situation if a five year old or a six year old started it, because they're bigger and more advanced, but you aren't protecting us by pretending all that stuff didn't come onto the scene until we were sprouting boobs and whiskers. Just because we're not sexless doesn't make it okay to do stuff to us like we're sex toys. Point is, we were *not* sexless. Or we were not sexuality-less and we were also not necessarily genderless (although some of us certainly might have been).
You're never going to understand it if you keep pretending it wasn't there all along.
-----
My first book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, is published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback, hardback, and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, has also now been published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer. It is available on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble in paperback and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves. Hardback versions to follow, stay tuned for details.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page, for both books.
-------
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on LiveJournal and WordPress. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
--------
Index of all Blog Posts
First, pretend I'm you when you were a first grader, because the person who actually is me might not remember this, or I wouldn't need to write it down now and it's important.
---
I remember being four, so maybe there's no reason to think you won't remember being seven. Let's talk about being four. Nursery school. Sitting around a ring to hear the story being read. Little rows of kids, some in front, some behind them, up close. You're already worrying that this is going to get pedophilic. Yes I knew the word pedophilic when I was in first grade. I thought it was a totally creepy concept and of course I memorized how to spell it. No, this isn't that stuff. I didn't know the word when I was four but I felt the concern and got the general notion, minus the specifics, so back when I was already that much aware of the notion, this other thing happened, or was happening, around that time, and I wanted to write about that.
---
Bodies had dirty parts. No they didn't that's too simple. Parts that could have something to do with dirty. Diaper parts, potty parts. Don't put your hands in it, it's dirty. Don't talk about it, talking about it is dirty. That's too simple too but I bet you know what I'm talking about don't you.
Then something that people act as if it is kind of dirty but kind of not. There are parts that the girls have and parts that the boys have. It's described like if you are a girl you get these parts, like being a girl is first and then you get the parts. And boys. They have different parts. Boy parts. It makes you different. Well then it's having these parts, that's what makes you a girl, you weren't a girl and then got these parts. No. Well then having these parts doesn't make you different.
Liking the way they look. Pee from there, it's down there, it's dirty. Not to talk about not to think about but we think about it they call this dirty and it's liking the way they look. Oh I assumed. I didn't know some liked the way themselves looked. Oh I hadn't thought about. What if people with girl parts like me, the way I like theirs, and they're nice I like them anyway. But what if?
Yeah, little rows of kids, some in front some behind them, up close. Someone, somewhere, is playing with the waistpants band of the person in front of them, the latter someone being me. This unknown person wanted to slide a thumb under the edge of my underpants. I wasn't horrified, nor was I elated. I knew it was in that argued-about "dirty" territory. I could stop it. It felt like I was doing the unknown person a favor by not stopping it, and I liked that feeling and I was curious. Content warning update: that's as bad as it gets, we were four. As for the sensations themselves... nothing I saw any lure for. Although I found that I liked the idea that this person had been one of the tomboyish girls in our class and she'd done this to me.
We were defining our boundaries, and our sense of being in control of them, and we were experiencing ourselves as our own curators, granting or denying access, and we were doing that at four.
I'm not saying it wouldn't be an unfair situation if a five year old or a six year old started it, because they're bigger and more advanced, but you aren't protecting us by pretending all that stuff didn't come onto the scene until we were sprouting boobs and whiskers. Just because we're not sexless doesn't make it okay to do stuff to us like we're sex toys. Point is, we were *not* sexless. Or we were not sexuality-less and we were also not necessarily genderless (although some of us certainly might have been).
You're never going to understand it if you keep pretending it wasn't there all along.
-----
My first book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, is published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback, hardback, and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, has also now been published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer. It is available on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble in paperback and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves. Hardback versions to follow, stay tuned for details.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page, for both books.
-------
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on LiveJournal and WordPress. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
--------
Index of all Blog Posts