Being Female
I said before I was angry with the fact that a lot of my life seems to have been dominated by various opinions about what it means to be female which, as I'm discovering, bear no resemblance to my experience or, when I stop to think about it, the reality of other people's experiences. In forming my own ideas about what it means to be female, I've found that I've come to an increased understanding of my transsexuality that is mainly expressed by feeling better about myself and knowing what to do to make my life turn out OK.
Although I've been a lot more secure in that understanding, I've not been secure enough to actually express it. I'm still scared that expressing it will bring Bad Things down upon me. However, I think I'm at the kind of crossroads where that's going to change, and I'd like to change it by trying to talk about what being female actually means to me.
Basically, if I was going to sum up what being female means, I think I'd say that the sole purpose of being female is to be a receptacle for someone trying to penetrate you, and all the results this may bring. Everything from the effects of hormones, to the wiring in the brain that would deal with the female sex organs (assuming I had them) is all wired for this, and there is no higher purpose.
The amazing thing is that it is so simple. There's probably more to it, in the sense of the mechanics of having children and feeling obliged to look after them until they're weaned, none of which applies to me. But really, anyone who is female is pretty much one giant walking sex object whose purpose is to get laid any way possible. Rape is impossible if you're female.
Now, I know if you've read that, male or female, you'll probably be chomping at the bit to tell me that I'm seriously disturbed and discriminatory (because, well, many of you've done it in the past, and if you haven't you probably have now). And you'd be utterly wrong, simply because you'd not let me finish explaining, and you'd have not allowed me to impose my own meanings on the words I've used to be absolutely clear about what I am saying. This is always the problem which has always caused me not to say anything. But I'm more confident now, and I know what I am trying to express. So screw you. And I'm going to finish saying what I wanted to say, because I'm not done.
The main fun thing about being female is the way it interacts with both gender and sexual orientation, both of which I've learned to be more conscious about. Sexual orientation controls who does the penetrating. I've been learning that being lesbian would not automatically mean that I wouldn't want the other female person not to push something inside my body, which is often implied, or that they wouldn't want something like that either.
Gender, though, is more important to me at the moment. The interaction of gender and sex is really, really fascinating, because it's here where gender switches sex on and off based on complicated social processes. For the first time, the idea of inappropriate sex (e.g. rape) becomes a reality, and the whole emotion of consent is set up into being. Gender, in its interaction with sex, also seems to control the how of sex, with active and receiving roles.
The fact that gender also switches off sex is really interesting, because it creates the idea that people with feminine gender, if they are female, are more than walking sex objects. There's more to being feminine than sex, and the wonderful thing is it is gender's interactions with sex that makes it happen, and gender contains all the interesting social programming (e.g. family, the responsibility of parents, social structures). All of this implies many interesting things about the brain, such as the fact that the two are different and separated suggests they developed in different times and, in all probability, in different places in the brain, and evolutionarily it was probably easier to have two different sets of switches to cope with making humans have the full set of behaviours to match what we commonly expect of their genitalia, their external sex. That's two separate sets of switches, even if it means running the risk that they might not be set the same, which is just inefficient if the system was designed from scratch, but doesn't seem to bother evolution much in the way the crap design of our shared oesophagus/trachea doesn't seem to bother evolution much. It could even be three sets of switches if which sex you're attracted to is hard wired not in relation to your sex, but absolutely, leaving more to go wrong. (And they are not even switches, since we do have bisexuality, androgyny and transsexuals who don't need to completely change their genitalia. How much more complexity and scope for error does it add allowing structures that act like that?).
The biggest problem with talking about what it means to be female is that many people lump together sex and gender (and even orientation) and use female to refer to people who are female and feminine (and sometimes heterosexual). This is despite the fact that many of the people who do this know that sex and gender are different and should do better. In fact, I would say the relationship seems to be that the more people know the difference, the less likely they are to question it, because a higher level of knowledge usually implies activism and militancy and less curiosity, which is fascinatingly counter-intuitive. I could be talking about female as meaning heterosexual orientation, feminine gender and female sex, or just as female sex when making my statements. In this article, it should be obvious which I mean from the structure. But did you see that, and if not, why not?
Although I've been a lot more secure in that understanding, I've not been secure enough to actually express it. I'm still scared that expressing it will bring Bad Things down upon me. However, I think I'm at the kind of crossroads where that's going to change, and I'd like to change it by trying to talk about what being female actually means to me.
Basically, if I was going to sum up what being female means, I think I'd say that the sole purpose of being female is to be a receptacle for someone trying to penetrate you, and all the results this may bring. Everything from the effects of hormones, to the wiring in the brain that would deal with the female sex organs (assuming I had them) is all wired for this, and there is no higher purpose.
The amazing thing is that it is so simple. There's probably more to it, in the sense of the mechanics of having children and feeling obliged to look after them until they're weaned, none of which applies to me. But really, anyone who is female is pretty much one giant walking sex object whose purpose is to get laid any way possible. Rape is impossible if you're female.
Now, I know if you've read that, male or female, you'll probably be chomping at the bit to tell me that I'm seriously disturbed and discriminatory (because, well, many of you've done it in the past, and if you haven't you probably have now). And you'd be utterly wrong, simply because you'd not let me finish explaining, and you'd have not allowed me to impose my own meanings on the words I've used to be absolutely clear about what I am saying. This is always the problem which has always caused me not to say anything. But I'm more confident now, and I know what I am trying to express. So screw you. And I'm going to finish saying what I wanted to say, because I'm not done.
The main fun thing about being female is the way it interacts with both gender and sexual orientation, both of which I've learned to be more conscious about. Sexual orientation controls who does the penetrating. I've been learning that being lesbian would not automatically mean that I wouldn't want the other female person not to push something inside my body, which is often implied, or that they wouldn't want something like that either.
Gender, though, is more important to me at the moment. The interaction of gender and sex is really, really fascinating, because it's here where gender switches sex on and off based on complicated social processes. For the first time, the idea of inappropriate sex (e.g. rape) becomes a reality, and the whole emotion of consent is set up into being. Gender, in its interaction with sex, also seems to control the how of sex, with active and receiving roles.
The fact that gender also switches off sex is really interesting, because it creates the idea that people with feminine gender, if they are female, are more than walking sex objects. There's more to being feminine than sex, and the wonderful thing is it is gender's interactions with sex that makes it happen, and gender contains all the interesting social programming (e.g. family, the responsibility of parents, social structures). All of this implies many interesting things about the brain, such as the fact that the two are different and separated suggests they developed in different times and, in all probability, in different places in the brain, and evolutionarily it was probably easier to have two different sets of switches to cope with making humans have the full set of behaviours to match what we commonly expect of their genitalia, their external sex. That's two separate sets of switches, even if it means running the risk that they might not be set the same, which is just inefficient if the system was designed from scratch, but doesn't seem to bother evolution much in the way the crap design of our shared oesophagus/trachea doesn't seem to bother evolution much. It could even be three sets of switches if which sex you're attracted to is hard wired not in relation to your sex, but absolutely, leaving more to go wrong. (And they are not even switches, since we do have bisexuality, androgyny and transsexuals who don't need to completely change their genitalia. How much more complexity and scope for error does it add allowing structures that act like that?).
The biggest problem with talking about what it means to be female is that many people lump together sex and gender (and even orientation) and use female to refer to people who are female and feminine (and sometimes heterosexual). This is despite the fact that many of the people who do this know that sex and gender are different and should do better. In fact, I would say the relationship seems to be that the more people know the difference, the less likely they are to question it, because a higher level of knowledge usually implies activism and militancy and less curiosity, which is fascinatingly counter-intuitive. I could be talking about female as meaning heterosexual orientation, feminine gender and female sex, or just as female sex when making my statements. In this article, it should be obvious which I mean from the structure. But did you see that, and if not, why not?