Posts Tagged ‘gender’

Label me, Genderstats

Jun 3rd, 2009
by Sinclair.
17 comments

If you're new here, you should know that this site contains BDSM, kink, gender explorations, and explicit queer sex. You may want to subscribe to my RSS feed, or not. This warning will self-destruct.

Hello
My name is
Mr. Sinclair Sexsmith
My identity is
academic, activist, BDSM, bookworm, buddhist, butch, compassionate, dominant, dyke, empowered, faggy, female-bodied, female-born, feminist, femme-fucking, femme-loving, Green, genderqueer, gentleman, guy, hippie, intentional, introvert, kinky, lesbian, lover, meditator, metrosexual, open, pervert, poet, prettyboy, pro-label, queer, reclamation, romantic, sacred whore, sadist, sadomasochist, service top, sexsmith, sir, stud, sugarbutch, tantra, theorist, top, transbutch, transmasculine, vegetarian, yogi, wordsmith, writer
What’s yours?

I ran into this Yay genderstats! fill-in-your-own-gender form from a Genderfork link a while ago, I think, but haven’t been able to find it again – I wanted to give the link to the folks at the Northwestern University in Chicago when I did the F*cking with Gender workshop but didn’t find the link. (I still have to write up the workshop notes and resources, which I’ve started, but haven’t finished. Coming, I swear!)

The description says “There are exactly 939 options here, and a total of 4.6469×10282 or 4.6 trenovemgintillion possible combinations, more than there are elementary particles in the universe.” Statistics for this project are also fascinating – 43% of the over 2,000 genderform labels generated included “female” or “intelligent,” but only 6% included “butch.” However, 12% included “femme” – twice as many as butch. Maybe if one added up ALL the femme-like words and ALL the transmasculine butch-like words, they’d be slightly more even, but I think it’s interesting comparing just those two words. More people included “submissive” (21%) than “bottom” (18%), but that claiming those words are more common than “top” (13%) or “dominant” (16%).

Interesting! I mean that’s not exactly a scientific study, but from my experience that is an accurate reflection of the queer communities.

Actually, recently I said I thought it was more common – from my experience only – to run into femmes who are tops, but I’m rethinking that now. (I think I just notice it in a different when a girl is a top, because it means we’re probably not compatible in bed.) Maybe it’s closer to 50/50.

Looking over the list of words, organized in alphabetical order and by frequency, I’m struck that though there are dozens (hundreds?) of words for gender, lots of things about religion and spirituality, lots of general terms for human emotional experiences, some for relationship orientation, but there are very little for class or race. Those things are highly influential to gender identities, too, and should be included, I think. I may just email the creator about that and suggest some additional sections or words.

Have you filled in your own gender/identity yet? I’m not sure my comments will let you paste the whole table into it and publish it accurately, but if you want to paste just the labels part into the comments, I’d be curious to see what other people list. Please share!

Define: Unthought Known

May 22nd, 2009
by Sinclair.
8 comments

The “unthought known” is a phrase that I first heard through my therapist, when we were talking about trauma and memory specifically. But immediately, I recognized it as extremely useful to identity development, especially in that many of us feel that we’ve always been this way (whatever way “this” might be – queer, kinky, gendered), but never really knew that we were.

That’s basically the definition – something you’ve always known but have never thought about, have never really known that you know.

I remember going through these realizations multiple times as I developed a feminist identity, then a queer sexuality, then a butch gender. As soon as I had those moments which really “clicked,” I was almost confused as to why I hadn’t gotten to this sooner. It was so familiar on a cellular, deep-gut level, and yet it was never how I’d been previously.

One of my former writing mentors used to say, art is a way to get to know what you don’t know that you already know, and I think that’s related – or, maybe more specifically, art is one of the techniques that we can use in order to get the unthought known to become the thought known, as sometimes the creative process can take us to new places and uncover connections to things that are already inside of us, but that are not quite conscious.

I did some research online trying to find more references to it, and there is not a whole lot. It’s a psychology term that was coined in 1987. I did find one interesting essay – Embeddedness, Reflection, Mindfulness and the Unthought Known by Michael Robbins – which is worth reading. Only 4 pages, and it discusses some very interesting concepts related to the unthought known and mindfulness.

What then is the “unthought known”? Christopher Bollas first coined this provocative phrase in 1987 (Bollas, 1987). Basically it refers to what we “know” but for a variety of reasons may not be able to think about, have “forgotten”, “act out”, or have an “intuitive sense for” but cannot yet put into words. In psychoanalytic terms, it refers to the boundary between the “unconscious” and the “conscious” mind, i.e. the “preconscious mind.” In systems-centered terms, it refers to the boundary between what we know apprehensively, without words, and what we know, or will allow ourselves to know, comprehensively with words. (In many ways, although the methods are very different, the psychoanalytic goal of “making the unconscious conscious” is equivalent to the systems-centered goal of making the boundary permeable between apprehensive and comprehensive knowledge.) [... W]e conceptualize the unthought known as what we already know but don’t yet know that we know.

- Embeddedness, Reflection, Mindfulness and the Unthought Known by Michael Robbins

I find it really useful to think about in terms of gender and sexuality, since so much of those identity concepts are deeply, deeply embedded but often completely subconscious. What do you think? Are there particular things in your life that have been “unthought knowns”? How did you get them to be thought knowns? What was your identity development process around them?

Poll: What do you think about labels?

May 12th, 2009
by Sinclair.
39 comments

You might want to vote in the poll before you read me yammer on about my own thoughts on labels and identity, so I don’t unfairly influence your answers.

What do you think about labels?

  • I use some labels, but I'm skeptical; they need a lot of work and intention in order to use them well. (52%, 217 Votes)
  • I avoid labels mostly, usually I find they don't apply. People are more complex than that. (24%, 100 Votes)
  • I like labels, and find them useful to describing myself and learning about others. (16%, 66 Votes)
  • I hate labels, I don't want to be boxed in. I'm just me. (8%, 33 Votes)

Total Voters: 416

Loading ... Loading ...

I realize this is a very non-scientific poll, somewhat limited to the visitors of this site, and therefore not a very good sample of the queer communities’ attitudes toward labels … but hey, you gotta use what you got, right? And this is what I got.

So please, leave comments with more explanations (or feedback on why my poll sucks) about your relationship to labels, and read my own thoughts about labels and identity below.

—

In pursuing this work of identity, specifically gender and sexual identity, one of the first and deepest and most difficult things I come across is the concept of labels.

I see questions about these things all the time: why do we have to label ourselves? Why is the lesbian community so into labels? Why can’t we move beyond labels? What good are labels? Why do I have to conform to someone else’s idea of what I am or am not? Why can’t I just be me?

One of my “gender rules” (something I’m working on, hopefully more on that in the next few weeks) is that everyone is the expert of their own gender, and so thus to always respect however another person feels about their gender. So if you want to reject labels, and that is the way you feel most like yourself, most liberated, most outside of this confining system of gender, then I say go for it and more power to you.

That’s not the case for me, though, not really. I find a lot of liberation inside of the labels – I don’t feel restricted by them, I feel more free to be more myself than I was before.

So I find this curious. I don’t want to be prostelytizing about how everyone needs labels, and I don’t assume that what works for me works for everyone – or anyone – else. But I do know it works for me, and as I’m developing my own gender theories, I’m struggling a bit to explain why.

There is a perception, espeically of the lesbian communities I think, that lesbians are really into labels. From the outside, a lot of words are thrown around connected to lesbianism and queer women, like butch and femme, dyke, homo, queer, bisexual, I actually think the dominant attitude in lesbian communities is very anti-label, very much a rejection of gender identity and sexual identity words. It seems to me that the heat of the community – the visible folks, the young and activist-oriented – are embracing the word “queer” very strongly, which is a much more inclusive term than many of the others, a huge umbrella under which bi, poly, trans, gay, kinky, genderqueer, non-conforming, et cetera, all can come together and find a place.

What I’m saying is, I think it’s interesting that from the outside, this community appears overly obsessed with labels, but once you get inside of it, there are a lot of ways that the dominant discourse discourages labels and micro-identity development.

But when I started thinking through that, I wondered: maybe that is just true for me and not necessarily a truth about the community as a whole. Perhaps that’s just unique to my experience (and, to be fair, the experience of many other butches and femmes, as I’ve heard stories of gender identity development from many of us and they are similar) and perhaps the dominant community thinks something else. But, I thought, it’s not like there is a study I can turn to about what percentage of queers embrace labels!

And, gee, if I can’t use my blog for research like this, then what the heck is it good for?

I hope the options give a wide enough range of your relationship to the concept of “labels” that one of them fits pretty well for you. If it doesn’t, please do leave a comment and tell me, more specifically, what you think about labels, identity, and you personally.

For every girl, there is a boy …

Apr 27th, 2009
by Sinclair.
6 comments

I don’t remember why, but at some point this weekend I thought, “I should find that Gender Subversion poster and put it on Sugarbutch.” Probably to talk about the difference between gender and personality, which I’ve been kicking around in my head lately (i.e., well: they are not the same).

And then, while catching up on my reader today, there it was, on Fourth Wave Feminism.

crimethink

Buy this poster on Crimeth Inc. & support their wonderful work.

A Love Letter to Femmes

Apr 1st, 2009
by Sinclair.
17 comments

Maria See put the original call out for the Femmethology literally years ago, and ever since I first saw it I knew I wanted to contribute something to this unique anthology on femme identity. But what? I didn’t feel like I could necessarily speak from a place of authority on What Femme Is, there are hundreds – thousands! – of versions of femme, and no matter what I know about femme or how many femmes I’ve interacted with, I am an observer, a witness of femme, I don’t feel like I create it myself.

So what would I write?

I wrote a few pieces, brainstormed, but nothing I really loved. Nothing really got to the heart of what I was trying to say, which was … what? I wasn’t sure.

But it hit me on the very last day the editors were accepting submissions, and I sat down and wrote this Love Letter in one long sentence, and spent the rest of the day editing and polishing. I’m not going to reproduce the text here (you’ll have to buy the book for that) but I will present you, here, with a recording of me reading the love letter that appears in Visible: A Femmethology Volume Two.

Hope you enjoy it.

[display_podcast] Sorry, the podcast plugin seems to have broken – you can’t hear the piece in the browser anymore, but you can still download the mp3.

Thanks very much to Audacia Ray for recording and producing this mp3!

In case you missed it, see more information about the Femmethology here.

On Butch Eyebrows: waxed or natural?

Mar 31st, 2009
by Sinclair.
13 comments

That’s the question I posed to the hive mind an hour ago. And like all terribly important dilemma questions, I got a slew of responses:

eyebrows2

I especially like what Janie said – that eyebrows “should be sculpted minimally to best feature one’s eyes.” Uh, so, how does one do that?

And you’re going to have to educate me I’m afraid: wtf is this “threading” business? I thought it was similar to waxing. Why recommend it in particular for butches? What’s the difference? I’m confused.

PS: I promise I won’t turn this blog into a mirror of what I’m doing on twitter. There are much smut and omphaloskepsis and media reviews and gender explorational writings in progress.

Pumping: How to Grow a Dick

Mar 11th, 2009
by Sinclair.
18 comments

I wrote about clit pumping in February 2008, and since then, I’ve researched pumping a bit more.

Pumping is most well-known, probably, for endless spam emails: Make her feel your Wang! Make Your Meat-Stick Massive! Give Her Real Lovefest! Turns out, the more you engorge your cis-cock with blood, the bigger it becomes. Similar to working a muscle, I suppose – this is the way you work that particular muscle.

And about two years ago now I heard from a friend that clit pumping was all the rage at a particular trans conference they had attended. Reeeeeally, I asked. How does that work?

Apparently, quite well. Some guys grow inches on their clits from pumping. I did a bit of research (i.e.: googled it, and tried to avoid the nasty sites), which is how I stumbled across a clit pump that I reviewed a year ago, and then a great sex toy store asked me to review multiple pumping products and compare them together.

I feel a bit like Goldilocks and the Three Pumps, trying these out – which one will be just right?

The Clit Pump:

This is the same clit pump I reviewed before – I didn’t realize until it arrived that they were the same. It comes highly recommended, though, now, from multiple sources, so if you’re looking for a clit pump, this is probably a good one.

It was interesting enough that I sought out more information on pumping, but ultimately I wanted more suction and pressure than this little thing could offer.

I’m still not really sure what the appeal of a clit pump is for gals who aren’t looking to enlarge their clits – or, why you would want to enlarge it, I guess. Is it simply an extension of the penis pump? Someone just assumed a woman might want a bigger clit? Bigger = better, etc?

Generally, this pump is weak in pressure, and not deep enough in the cup. The plusi s that it is actually made for my anatomy and thus fits easily over a clit, unlike the penis pumps, whose openings are 2″ wide. On to those next.

penispumpThe Large Pump:

More pressure, more depth in the shaft of the device – depth indeed! Like 12″ of depth! Maybe a bit overkill, I certainly don’t need more than two inches max. The opening is big, too – 2″ around, with a plastic sheath inside – and kind of a challenge to find the seal on the suction. In fact, I often felt like I was pumping my labia as well as my clit, because it’s hard to get a seal just around my clit without getting the labia in there too.

It’s a bit unweildly, feels awkward to have this huuuuge long thing protruding from my clit, so it was kind of uncomfortable. After I got the hang of the suction, it got easier to actually pump: I squeeze the little bulby thing to the point of pressure (not pain) and hold for a few minutes (five, not twenty). The squeeze-pump style is alright, but sometimes felt like it was letting out air rather than making the seal tighter.

So, this one is better with suction … but uselessly too long for a clit, and awkward.

penisheadThe Penis Head Pump:

Aha! Maybe this will solve it – still has the pressure of a “real” penis pump, but it’s smaller, not quite as GIANT and awkward. Let’s see.

Suction: still difficult. This one has a bit of plastic built around the edge of the opening to make sure the seal happens, but that’s, again, only useful if you’ve actually got something to stick inside of the pump itself, which I don’t. Once I get the hang of it, once I get the placement right one time, I can usually get it again and it gets easier. But I’m still pumping my labia (not what I want – at times, that’s painful for my labia piercing) in order to get a seal, and I’m not crazy about that.

Pumping action: This has a squeeze-trigger type of pumping action instead of a squeeze-bulb, which I like better. Easier to add precisely the amount of pressure that I’m aiming for, the bulb feels like it lets some of it out sometimes.

Size: Fine … better than the huge one, easier to wield, but still feels like it wasn’t made for my anatomy. Because, uh, it wasn’t.

In conclusion … Oh yeah – there’s an important question I missed here: does this work? YES. My clit is definitely bigger than it used to be, not so much when unaroused, but it definitely gets larger than it used to when aroused. And this is, well, fun.

The Penis Head Pump is the one that I would keep using, were I to keep using a pump. But, I might not continue pumping very often. After a few months of trying out all three of these in various capacities, I’ve noticed that my clit, though noticably bigger, is also, I think, decreased in sensitivity. I’m having a harder time coming now than I ever remember coming in my life. I’m not sure why, but it could be related. So I’m going to back off for a while (of pumping and of my hitachi, sigh) and see if that helps me get off easier.

Have you tried pumping? What was it like for you? Are you interested in doing so? Leave your two cents in the comments.

Cock Confidence and the KinkForAll Conference

Mar 11th, 2009
by Sinclair.
4 comments

I had a wonderful time at the KinkForAll conference at the LGBT Community Center yesterday. Major thank-yous to Maymay and Eileen (remember her story? mhm I do too) and all the unorganizers and folks who brought food (oh my lord what were those sticky chocolate wafer things?!) and attended and presented – I left with a lot of things on my mind and a lot of ideas to take home.

Some of my favorites? Calico’s presentation on “Dirty Sexy Money” – I thought we’d talk about sex work, but in fact we were talking about money play and the ways that money can enhance power differentials in role play scenarios. That definitely got my mind going. And also, in Jason’s “What Can’t You Do with Vet Tape?” presentation, I learned that you can’t really use vet tape to beat someone up, but oh boy can you ever use it to tie someone down. I liked the blindfold/gag demo and I am very inspired to pick up some of that. A #kfanyc investigation on twitter reveals that jeffersequine.com is the place to pick it up online. And Barbara Carrellas lead a quick sex magic/tantra presentation that had the whole room breathing, visualizing what we wanted. I will definitely be looking up her workshops and trying to catch one full-length, I’ve heard wonderful things about her and her work for years but have yet to attend.

I did my own presentation as well, and at the last minute called it COCK CONFIDENCE in a butch/femme context. I had some notes, but was also not feeling very well, and twenty minutes goes by so fast!, so I had a lot more to say about the subject that I didn’t get to. Here goes.

1. What is cock confidence?

Particularly, what is it in a genderqueer context, with a strap-on as opposed to a cis-cock?

Most of us who strap on have had those moments of awkwardness when we go from the hot-and-heavy making out to “oh my god, this is really gonna happen,” then the sudden realization: “oh shit, when (and how) do I whip it out?”

Cock confidence is knowing when and how, and doing it smoothly so it doesn’t ruin the mood. This does not necessarily mean taking yourself (or your cock) incredibly seriously, sometimes a little bit of camp and sillyness can be totally appropriate and keep you laughing and connected to the hot lil piece of ass that you’re about to fuck.

(I happen to be a particularly serious lover, so it didn’t even occur to me that taking it seriously was separate from having confidence, though I think those are two different things.)

2. How do I get (more) cock confidence?

Two particular things come to mind here: you can develop confidence solo, with yourself, and you can develop it with a lover.

Lots of us have lovers, but they don’t necessarily validate our cock confidence, or perhaps our cock confidence is so low that we want to gain some of our own before we bring it into play with a partner. Do this on your own! Get to know your cock, get it out, wear it, put it on, clean the house, watch your weekly tv show while you’re wearing it. Get off with it on and see how that feels. Incorporate it into your own self-luuuuv rituals.

The more comfortable you are putting it on and taking it off, the more practice you have at it, the easier it will be to do with a lover present too. You’ll struggle less with the buckles and snaps if you have done it a dozen or fifty or a hundred times already. You’ll get the feel of how long it takes when it goes smoothly, so it won’t feel as long and endless of a process when you’re doing it in front of someone else.

Secondly: practice cock confidence by getting with someone who respects the way you want to wear and wield your cock. This, in my experience, is best done by talking to the person you’re fucking, either the one who you are already sleeping with (an ongoing partner, perhaps) or the one you are trying to get in bed, preferably before you’re in bed together.

And this is where gender discussions as foreplay come in.

I’ve written about gender as foreplay before, but let’s see if I can’t go into a bit more depth here. I find it rather easy to bring up gender during a date, it’s often one of my early talking points when I meet someone new (”What do you do?” “I’m a writer, mostly of smut and gender theory.”), but I’m not sure exactly how it comes up or what I use in order to discuss it.

If I’m on a date, I start a conversation about chivalry and the ways that I use it as courtship and interest, as a way to enhance the gender differences between us, and as respect. Chivalry is so connected to gendered interactions, it leads automatically into a discussion of gender. I like to ask about someone’s gender, about how they came to the gender they’ve got, to tell their gender story.

The gender story is a big one – how I came to be the way I am – it tells so much about where a person is at, their past loves, past heartbreaks, what they’ve learned from relationships and what they know now to be true about themselves.

Someone asked me how to make this gendered conversation sexy, or sexual – foreplay rather than analytical conversation. The short answer is, I’m not sure I know, since the analytical conversations about gender really do turn me on.

The longer answer is … what about gender turns you on? Talk about that stuff. Does it turn you on to talk about cocks and cufflinks and gender as a form of power play and femme markers like stockings, earrings, makeup? Talk about that. Is it suits and dresses? High heels and combat boots? Or is it some other version of femme and butch, of not conforming to gender, of wearing boxer briefs under a mini-skirt, of genderqueer or head-shaving and how liberating it is to not have any hair, plus it feels good, run your hands over it. It’s more than just physical markers, too, of course. So talk about that – what does your “inner gender” mean, say, feel like? What makes you feel the most like you, the most sexy, the most wanted, the most desire?

All these discussions of sex and gender are absolutely to determine what kind of chemistry and compatibility you might have with this person once you get in bed, to determine whether or not it’d be a good match. You might be very physically attracted to them, but that doesn’t necessarily make you a good match in bed – I’m sure this is not news to most folks, but it doesn’t hurt to reiterate.

I mean, I don’t really fuck without a cock. I joked about this at KinkForAll – “I mean, what would I DO?!” Of course, I don’t really mean that (and I hate to perpetuate the idea that lesbians don’t have anything to do together in bed, since there’s no cock involved). I have plenty of ideas about what to do with my hands, mouth, fists, without involving a cock.

But that’s not the kind of sex I prefer.

(Obviously, you already know that, if you read this site.) I prefer strapping on. I prefer a submissive femme girl on her knees gulping my cock down her throat, I prefer throwing her onto the bed before shoving my hand between her legs. And conversations about gender, and how I use gender as part of the sex play, are key to knowing whether or not a girl would be into that before we really start to get it on.

I watch what happens when I mention my cock. I watch her reaction, I watch her eyelids flutter as she checks to see if maybe, just maybe I’m wearing one right now (I am). I watch her skin flush on her neck as heat comes to her body.

And that’s how I get my cock confidence.

Any questions? Class adjourned.

PS: Lolita got a shot of me during the Cock Confidence workshop, thanks Lo!

On Butches: Coming Inside

Mar 5th, 2009
by Sinclair.
20 comments

The truth is, it feels embarrassing, really, to come while strapped on and fucking. The amount I have to let go and risk is sometimes too much for my heart to open up.

It isn’t fair to say that she doesn’t have to do the same amount of risk and letting go when I throw her down onto the bed, shove my hand between her legs, push my fingers inside until she’s screaming and thrashing under my forearm holding her down.

But it’s different, isn’t it?

Let’s not say one is harder than the other, it isn’t about hierarchy: only that one is not the same as the other. But, why? Maybe because that’s the way her body is “supposed” to work, biologically it is built to take inside, to be invaded, to tilt the bowl of her pelvis up and open the hinge of her hips back.

I don’t like making generalized statements like that: “women are made to x because biologically, bodies are built like y,” there is so much unfinished in that statement, and there is some sort of deeper, inner sense of gender and self that is discounted because of our binary system of classification under biology.

But there is something, something about the ways that entering inside, being permitted to come inside, being permitted to invade, to be permitted to take and thrust and enter, is not what my body is made to do, so I am on shaky ground, out of synch with what my cells know. There is something so vulnerable about having sex organs (like a silicone cock) outside the body, something so exposing about the ways I get … hungry, desperate for a safe haven, so dependent upon another for fulfillment and satisfaction.

And there is the moment of orgasm: shuddering and losing control momentarily and I don’t even know if my eyes are rolling back and my mouth is lolling open, such a moment of unconsciousness when I usually have such precise purpose when I am on top, fucking her, sliding in and out, rocking against her. I know exactly how this feels and exactly where to put my hands and such confidence in the ways that I am moving. But in that moment I lose that and all I can think of are those guys, those stupid guys in every bad movie where they are completely lost in their own world and the girl is looking up at them with a face like, really? Really. You’re just going to keep going and you can’t even tell that I’m totally disconnected, and that might be my worst fear, that I am alone in those moments of pleasure, so wrapped up in how my dick feels in her pussy that I don’t even know the ways she is not enjoying this.

And then I am spent and small and soft and dribbling and drained.

I know there’s more to it than that. I know.

But there’s a tiny aspect of it that infiltrates my mind when I find myself close, when I feel my cock tighten and balls lift, muscles pinching. I can’t do that, I can’t let go.

Maybe that’s why it has been nearly impossible to come while strapped on with anyone since Callie. It happens, sure, but it is inconsistent and unpredictable, which makes it all the more embarrassing and exposing. Maybe I haven’t trusted enough. Maybe it’s all mental. Maybe I am still terrified to expose myself, now that I see how easily I have lost myself in the recent past. On the inside of every cell wall in me has YOU CAN’T HAVE ME written a hundred times in tiny print. But maybe I need to go in there with a delicate eraser and figure out what pen it was I used, and write something else. Or maybe I need to leave the walls blank and clear so I can see right through them.

Because when I come inside her, and then come back to myself, and to her, like I did on Sunday morning, nearly falling off of the bed, sheets and blankets completely askew, light coming in the slatted blinds behind us, and she looks at me with those blue blue eyes with so much clarity and witness, so much reverence and strength, though there is a part of me that panics, there is also a part of me that has come home.

Gendered Sources of Physical Power: Beauty vs Strength

Feb 15th, 2009
by Sinclair.
12 comments

I don’t know exactly where I first heard it, but somewhere I read once: men want to feel powerful, and women want to feel beautiful.

Now: calm your “oh my god social construction of genderrrrr!” self and let’s start with some further clarification. Women feeling beautiful, in this expression, is also actually a source of power; and men feeling powerful, here, actually means “feeling physically strong.” At least mostly. Agreed?

So really, it’s saying that men want to feel strong, and women want to feel beautiful. These are two – of many – major sources of power based in the physical body.

I know this is a cliche. I probably read it in the context of gender deconstruction and the socialization process of gender. I know this goes along with conventional, normative, often damaging gender role assumptions that value men for their physical strength and women for their physical beauty.

And as much as I am aware that those concepts are socially constructed, I also have seen the ways that they are played out and real for many, many people. So maybe we’ve internalized the values of the culture. This is one of the problems with social constructionism in general – if something is created socially, then in theory it can be uncreated socially, right? But just because something is done socially – rather than biologically, say – doesn’t make it any less real or “authentic” or deeply ingrained in many of us.

And this gendered source of physical power is amplified, I think, in butch/femme culture, where we go inside these roles with purpose to explode them, exploring the socialization and de-essentializing traits said to be inherent in biology. Is it as easy as explaining that we are continuing to internalize the compulsory mutually exclusive gender paradigm? I don’t know, maybe. Certainly that probably accounts for (to pick a completely arbitrary number) 45% of it. But there is something else in there, something deep-seated underneath in me that swoons and grows and stretches its wings and feels so greatly alive when she whispers, “you are so strong, so strong” like she did last night.

And I remembered all the times I gazed in awe at her beauty (every time I see her) and remember the ways she swoons to be seen, femme and whole and holy, and I wondered if I should be saying more about strength and less about her physical attractiveness. Am I just buying into what the culture tells us we should be or say or value?

[ Yet - oh I do tell her I value her other qualities (don't I? Yes). The depth of her calm understanding and respect feels like such a gift each time I encounter it. I fear it could so easily go the other way, yet she has the connection to the world at her core which means she values others' experiences. And she's strong enough in herself to know that my feelings are not about her, and to accept that with grace and clarity. And then there's her wonderful good moods, her energy, her interest in keeping the spark lit behind her eyes. Her deep ability to feel, to observe, to respond. Her analytic skills, and how she can dissect things into pieces (while still respecting the whole!) and look at how it all fits together. There is much more to her than her beauty, heaven knows I know this. ]

And yet: in the deeply intimate moments, this is what comes out of my mouth: pretty girl, pretty girl. you are so gorgeous. I love the curves of you – here, and here. your skin glows so beautiful in the morning light.

And in that moment last night, when she commented on my strength, my heart swelled and burst like a wave cresting, and the inner cavern of my chest was smooth as a sandy beach, just for a minute, perfectly even, soft, made up of a thousand tiny grains, the breakdown of everywhere I’ve ever been.

I don’t know why it matters so much that I am seen as strong. But it does, it does.

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