boys will be girls and girls will be boys

i have gender privilege. by this i mean i feel generally comfortable in my skin (actually, i like my skin and its contours lots, but that's another blog entry) and my assigned gender. pretty much everyone in this culture who sees me thinks female, almost automatically, and i don't really object to that. i do not, in my gut, feel uncomfortable as a woman. this affords me a lot of comfort. people who do NOT feel comfortable as their assigned gender simply have a lot more shit to deal with, everything from deciding to stay closeted - coming out of the gender closet seems like one of the most terrifying things - to switching pronouns and names, to clothing and gender presentation. to *pass* as another gender in this culture, you have to walk different, talk different, sound, dress, do everything different. think about it. if you went to the store tomorrow trying to get read as a gender other than your automatically assigned gender, think of all the work you'd have to do to get people to REALLY believe it.

i don't know what to do with that. i am invested in being seen as a woman. so this whole genderless utopia thing, i'm a faker promoting that, que no? i don't REALLY want for there to be no gender. i DO really really think people need more gender choices, and i do really think gender shouldn't be quite the straitjacket it is today. but i really like my gender. i am benefitting from my privilege in this area. i don't know if i really want to give it up. i'm trying to figure out how this DOESN'T make me an asshole, because it looks like a pretty asshole position to take from here.

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all this is prompted by the-artist-formerly-known-as-TWIL switching gender pronouns on me. this has been in the making for awhile, and today *he* formally stated that *he* prefers masculine or neutral gender pronouns. i am having trouble with this. not just because i have known HER as SHE for a year; something else is wrong. i suppose i'm attracted to and relate to him primarily as/because something in my brain says "female". and somehow part of me is reading this as "safe." something in the back of my brain was saying "if you were attracted this way to a man, you would have to be more careful. but she is female, she understands, females are inherently safer." for someone like me, who has friends of different genders and tries not to see them as genders but as the roles they play in my life, this is a smack upside the head. what a sexist thing to do! to subconsciously declare that women, even as objects of lust, are safer, or make more sense, or are somehow easier to deal with or relate to, is fundamentally a false construction. what i'm saying is, i made that shit up in my head and it's fucked up.

so. i benefit from (yet another kind of) privilege and i'm not being fair to the Devine Mr. C (my new name for the Artist formerly known as TWIL, stay with me kids).

damn. i'm a gender misogynist.

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i should offer some behind the scenes info to explain this post and the last. i had lunch with the Devine Mr. C (DMC for short), and it was heavy. mr c and the Boyfriend are in a heavy important fight. the BF said some fucked up shit regarding his privilege. the BF is white, mr c is not. basically, the Devine Mr C feels like he ends up in a lot of situations where people are using him as a guinea pig. ie,"i'm not queer, but i'm attracted to you . . . so you can be my experimental phase!" or, "i haven't dealt with my shit or my privilege, so i'm gonna date this person of color and see what it brings up for me, and expect them to be able to help me with my white identity crisis." basically, DMC feels like he is all too often an experiment for people. that's like exoticization, and it's a shitty feeling. it's sort of like feeling like everyone wants you or dates you for your big boobs, or that fact that you're rich, or your willingness to put out or whatever, only worse, because this brings in an extra-icky element of racism/classism/privilege. to use DMC's words, "i might just be done dating privileged white people." what the BF said was THAT hurtful. yikes.

and even worse than that, i couldn't guarantee i wouldn't have hurt her - damn, HIM - the exact same way. i haven't worked through my privilege either (here i'm talking about white privilege - DMC's BF has, presumably, dealt with gender privilege to some extent, being a transperson). i can't say i wouldn't have said the same damn thing - well, okay, maybe i would have had enough damn sense to keep my friggin mouth shut, but that's about it.

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so yeah, there ya go. such are the thoughts in sarahland today. but at least i was acting, as i told mana, as a good friend and not as a selfish cunt. which was tempting, but no. i was a good little caring cunt. if i'm meant to sleep with DMC, which i'm not sure i AM, it'll happen. what matters is her primary relationship is important to her. (*damn, just noticed. HIS relationship to HIM,
sarah. goddamnit.)

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Devine Mr C and i decided to put off the Intense Conversation about Gender Identity for another day. part of me wants to argue on for feminine pronouns on behalf of feminism - isn't appropriating masculine privilege for yourself through a masculine pronoun leaving your damn biological sisters out in the wind? is claiming "he" for yourself subversive, because it DOES require a re-appropriation of privilege? shouldn't our definitions of female and who is feminine be expanded to include those who are very "butch" or not traditionally female or people who exist outside of traditionally gendered ideas?

basically, don't you belong fighting over here on MY side? okay, there's no need to be that devisive about it, and i should know better than to think someone's committment to feminism is determined by their gender pronoun. damn. sometimes i'm not as smart as i hope i am.

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on another note i just finished another Very Important Book. seriously, if you want to understand issues of Queerness, Third Wave Feminism, Sex Positivity, or my new favorite, Ethical Sluthood - aka Free Love - here are the best books i can recommend:

cunt, inga muscio
real live nude girl, carol queen
sex for one, betty dodson
gender outlaw, kate bornstein
the ethical slut, dossie easton and catherine liszt

the last one is the most recently finished. more about that later. if you read these 5 books, you will pretty much have a damn good idea of what's influenced my thinking about sex, love, affection (all three very different and distinct), a more sex-positive culture, and my pansexual/queer identity. in fact, i might make them required reading. they are so freaking awesome. these are the ways i've become the genius i am, yall. READ.