identity, image, rambling....
SilverOz
until I've worried it to death and left the corpse on the carpet...
I said it earlier, but didn't really follow up on it, the connection I
see between the current pervasive image of "submissive" on the net,
and the image of women.
The net, like the wide world, is mainly het. And, it appears, mainly
male dom. So the predominant image of "submissive" is female.
And the "chatroom speak" style has the elements of stereotype and
behaviour that made me for years not want to be female. The
debasement of self, the fluffy headedness, the focus on "smiling
softly" and other such vaseline-on-the-lens little girlisms.
I'm not any of that, I don't want to be any of that, but if I don't,
then what am I?
Same as if I don't end up being as women are supposed to be, wearing
those clothes and that makeup and being obsessed over men and cooking
and mobile phones with diamong chips... Am I a woman? Or am I all
the things that not-a-woman is supposed to be: ugly, bitter, a failed
man?
Someone, and it probably was MetalFem years ago, called me misogynist
because I was so much against the stereotype of woman that I was
despising it, and therefore anyone who seemed to me to fit it. So I
spoke of it in disgusted terms, and thus was disgusted with anyone who
was "accepting" it. Because I couldn't accept that anyone worthwhile
was like that.
Same same this sub thing I guess. After all, they are much of a
muchness really. The gorean/chatroom ideal of female submissiveness
is very much stereotyped woman, which should come as no surprise.
After all, the male version is very stereotyped man.
The stereotype male sub is like that too, very subservient, very
lesser, I suspect the average male sub is worse off than I am because
of that - the stereotype even more damaging to them.
So here I am, not-woman, not-sub, and struggling with the difficulty
of maybe therefore being the stereotype of those things. Not-woman is
the butt of many jokes - bitter, ugly, unfulfilled, unworthy,
unwanted. Not-sub? Dunno, although the experience on the ground is
that not-sub is lonely as hell :) "Submissive support groups" are
like "women's support groups", apparently populated by aliens. I just
don't seem to play well with women. (My one disastrous foray into a
butch/femme space really drove that home!)
Long ago in the mists of time, before the net.culture of BDSM
solidified, a bunch of Aussies on the thyst-l list decided we needed a
local one, and started it. thyst-l and ausbdsm were both of them far
removed from what became "standard" BDSM net.culture. So imagine my
shock when I tried other lists and was inundated with it!
The C/capitals thing happens on ausbdsm nowadays, I hate it but say
nowt, for various reasons. One of which is I know I'd be a voice
crying in the wilderness, at least here I know there are other who
think like me and will voice it.
Identity is a weird thing. I coped with this problem by saying "I am
not a submissive I am a Zebee" when I first ran into the fact that
whatever people said "a submissive" was, I didn't fit.
BUt I still twitch when I see the submissive/woman stereotype of
girly weakness being embraced so happily. Deep from within me is "but
if that's right, then I am so wrong, so wrong, so wrong, and I am all
the terrible things that not-girly not-weak not-pretty women are..."
Solution? Ain't none that I can see, except to hold on to the idea
that the world is not binary no matter how pervasive that idea is.
That not-stereotype-submissive doesn't mean therefore
stereotype-unwanted, stereotype-unlikeable.
Hmm... How do the blokes deal? Anyone want to pipe up? When
confronted with all that relentless "male sub is female sub with dick
and unwanted small ugly dick at that" images, how do you deal?
SilverOz
--
========================================================================
Control, Dominance, Submission: Thoughts and controversies
http://peter-masters.com
====
Australian BDSM Information http://www.master.webcentral.com.au/abis/
========================================================================
Her Serene Highness
"SilverOz" <ze...@zip.com.au> wrote in message
news:slrnb915uj...@zipperii.zip.com.au...
> More on this identity and image thing, which I can't seem to let go of
> until I've worried it to death and left the corpse on the carpet...
>
> I said it earlier, but didn't really follow up on it, the connection I
> see between the current pervasive image of "submissive" on the net,
> and the image of women.
Firtst, I like being a woman. Most of the imagery you are discussing
concerns 'girls' of all ages. I have no desire to be a 'girl'. When I was
a girl I wasn't a 'girl'.
'Girls' make me sick. They were the ones who bullied young women when I
grew up, because said young women weren't 'girly' enough. We though feminism
had killed them, but like Count Dracula, they've made a comeback. In part,
this is because many women fell inadequate because they aren't 'girls', and
they are told that if they won't behave that way, they'll be alone.
While I can be girly, I've never been a 'girl'. Being a 'girl' is the
female version of being the male bully who calls smaller boys 'faggots' and
then forces them to suck his dick in the bathroom while his gang laughs.
Outside the bathroom he may pretend to be everything we've been taught a man
should be, but he's not really a man- he's a bully who contorls through
fear. 'Girls' do the same thing. They simper in front of all the guys and
act like the sweetest thing ever- but they are the enforcers of female
subjugation. They want to be the queens on the fleapit- who cares if it's a
fleapit as long as they rule? Meanwhile much of their energy is directed at
making other women feel inadequate- and when they meet a woman who can't be
cowed, they try to isolate her and remove her humanity.
Women of all stripes tend to be attracted to 'boys', and men of all stripes
tend to be attracted to 'girls'. They're sociopaths masquerading as ideal
people. But they have no depth, and they will turn on others in an instant,
while making themselves look good. Nothing is ever their fault. People are
mean to them (the whine of the 'girl'), or they are misunderstood (the
whimper of the 'boy'). And while people stand around feeling sorry for them,
they grind their shoes into the faces of the weak, forcing them to conform,
die, or get out of town. But because they act 'nice', they get away with
it.
I was speaking to a friend today who mentioned that het female subby subs
and male dommy doms do this all the time, especially on the internet where
they can't be punched out. They're easily recognisable if you know the
signs, though- they have almost no self-sense of humor, talk and act in
stereotypical fashion, and freak out when someone tells them they are wrong.
The one thing they can't bear is being laughed at. They feel that they must
be taken seriously. When pushed, they'll show their true colors. The
'girls' will become nasty and huffy ("You're MEAN!") and the 'boys' will
sputter that it was all a joke ("I'm MISUNDERSTOOD!"). What you won't see
them do is take responsibility for their actions.
These types are pack animals. They protect each other. They're shrewd, but
they have no empathy. They're also less strong than they pretend- they lack
the fundamental toughness that comes through accepting life's jolts. And
they will gravitate towards ideas that support their pack mentality and
gender presumptions- which is why the planet of Gor is lousy with them,
since it discourages thought.
Just think of them as head cheerleaders and linebackers gone to seed, and
their strength will ebb to nothing.
Conrad Hodson
>
> BUt I still twitch when I see the submissive/woman stereotype of
> girly weakness being embraced so happily. Deep from within me is "but
> if that's right, then I am so wrong, so wrong, so wrong, and I am all
> the terrible things that not-girly not-weak not-pretty women are..."
You seem to have a conformist vulnerability going here--a backdoor to your
brain that lets a bunch of people's opinion or style undermine your own
validity just because they constitue a herd and you do not. Or am I
misreading you?
>
> Solution? Ain't none that I can see, except to hold on to the idea
> that the world is not binary no matter how pervasive that idea is.
> That not-stereotype-submissive doesn't mean therefore
> stereotype-unwanted, stereotype-unlikeable.
>
I don't even see it as all that pervasive. Don't forget the way those
bullshit chatrooms work--most of them are highly proscriptive and
unfriendly to any approach that differs from their own. This newsgroup is
wide-open by comparison. The result is that those who don't fit in those
rooms move on rather quickly, and a very strong selective pressure
operates to maintain conformity there.
But consider the real world instead. In spite of all the maledom
chatrooms, in spite of a historical legacy of male authority in many
cultures, what do we see actually predominating? Loads of men wanting to
be submissive. And they're not on so hopeless a quest as they had ten
years ago either. What I've observed is that now as ten years ago,
dominant men and submissive women seem to be in rough balance of
numbers--certainly I hear about as many "nobody for me!" complaints from
each gender of this persuasion. OTOH, ten years ago I saw about twenty
male wannabe subs for every dominant woman with room on her dance
card. Today it's more like two or three to one--and the difference is
because a very large number of women are deciding that it's really OK to
let their dominant or top or switchy sides come out and play.
> Hmm... How do the blokes deal? Anyone want to pipe up? When
> confronted with all that relentless "male sub is female sub with dick
> and unwanted small ugly dick at that" images, how do you deal?
>
By ignoring it. Why not, it's obviously not to my address. Why should I
feel like I even have to deal with it? But then I don't like the
abusive/denigrating styles of D/s regardless of which gender's on
top. And you know what? By my observation, very few other people do
either--if you do your observing among real players.
I understand and agree with Ugol's Law, mind you--I know people who
actually enjoy emotional abuse of the "you lowly worm" sort. We have some
on this newsgroup, including some very articulate ones. But they're a
small minority--their kink is perfectly OK, but very few people seem to be
able to enjoy it real-life.
Fantasy is another matter. As we all know, fantasies aren't realities all
that often, not in full detail, and many of us enjoy fantasies that are
technically unfeasible, biologically unsurvivable, etc. I would wager
that most of here have another category as well--fantasies that got us
hot, but didn't work out that well in real life. Real players have the
benefit of that experience--but the overwhelming majority of chatroom
posters do not. They've built a culture that's very much a matter of the
blind leading the blind (no offense, Brian, you're far more clued than
that!)
My former sub enjoys the chatroom stuff along with (or in spite of) being
very much a real-life player as well. The culture of deliberate ignorance
there bugs her sometimes though--she rather proudly told me once of being
kicked out of three rooms in a single night for the crime of "being too
R/L". On another occasion I had dropped by for a play date after work,
and she had been in a chatroom while she waited for me. I arrived, and
she signed off with a "Master's here to play, gotta go." We had a great
time for about three hours, and then in the afterglow we got to talking,
and the subject of chatrooms came up. She reconnected to show me, and she
had about twenty messages waiting, all from women, all saying stuff like
"You have a _real_ Master?" Twenty of those, not one "Cool, what all did
you do" or "What's he like?" response like you'd expect from people with
actual experience.
And these are the _women_. As we know, women in the scene usually don't
have that much trouble filling their dance cards compared to single
guys. If the women have a twenty-to-none experience ratio, what does that
suggest about the men in those chats? CHuDWah's to a man would be a safe
first order approximation.
So my ultimate point is--why let your image of yourself be influenced by
the utterly clueless? I know there are a lot of them, but when in all of
history has that not been the case? I know your style is a long way from
mine, but it's based in reality. The people who are bugging you are
afraid to even so much as explore reality--why should you care about their
opinions?
Conrad Hodson
SilverOz
Conrad Hodson <con...@efn.org> wrote:
>On 6 Apr 2003, SilverOz wrote:
>>
>> BUt I still twitch when I see the submissive/woman stereotype of
>> girly weakness being embraced so happily. Deep from within me is "but
>> if that's right, then I am so wrong, so wrong, so wrong, and I am all
>> the terrible things that not-girly not-weak not-pretty women are..."
>
>You seem to have a conformist vulnerability going here--a backdoor to your
>brain that lets a bunch of people's opinion or style undermine your own
>validity just because they constitue a herd and you do not. Or am I
>misreading you?
Nope, I do have this irrational and somewhat conditioned reflex. Lots
of women do, because this isn't just about BDSM. HSH hit it - it's
about the girly thing, but that's been hammered into women everywhere.
>I don't even see it as all that pervasive. Don't forget the way those
>bullshit chatrooms work--most of them are highly proscriptive and
>unfriendly to any approach that differs from their own. This newsgroup is
>wide-open by comparison. The result is that those who don't fit in those
>rooms move on rather quickly, and a very strong selective pressure
>operates to maintain conformity there.
As it does here, just the conformity I like :)
Again, it's not just chatrooms. It's all over the place. I'm old
enough to remember when "lady doctor" was a usual term, because
everyone knew doctors were men. ONe of the reasons I really hate
"domme" as a term.
All my life I've been not-woman. To be not-woman in BDSm as well
hurts :) Most of the time, of course people treat me fine, but now
and then... I get Sirred a lot in places where people do that. (only
once in meatlife, a busdriver was staring me straight in the C-cup,
but the boots and jeans and bike helmet and leather jacket overrode
that in his mind.)
MOst of the time I cope fine by saying "none of ths is real:, but
after a while, the pervasiveness of it - and it really really *is*
pervasive! - gets to me.
I am not surprised you don't get it. You are male, and mostly top.
And, I believe white. Meaning that you don't get that much in the way
of nasty stereotypes to contend with. Oh they are there, but they are
not held up as *right*. Yes, everyone thinks of bullies and abusers
as male, despite many being female, but they aren't approved of in the
way the girly stereotype is.
It's changing, but slowly.
>And these are the _women_. As we know, women in the scene usually don't
>have that much trouble filling their dance cards compared to single
>guys. If the women have a twenty-to-none experience ratio, what does that
>suggest about the men in those chats? CHuDWah's to a man would be a safe
>first order approximation.
You will find, I think, that most of the women in that situation are
like most of them men in that situation. Already in a relationship.
Meaning their ability to go find someone is restricted.
And again, it's not just chatrooms. It's all over the net, and the
whole girly thing is all over the world.
Free Radical
Conrad Hodson <con...@efn.org> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSU.4.21.030406...@garcia.efn.org...
> On 6 Apr 2003, SilverOz wrote:
> >
> > BUt I still twitch when I see the submissive/woman stereotype of
> > girly weakness being embraced so happily. Deep from within me is "but
> > if that's right, then I am so wrong, so wrong, so wrong, and I am all
> > the terrible things that not-girly not-weak not-pretty women are..."
>
> You seem to have a conformist vulnerability going here--a backdoor to your
> brain that lets a bunch of people's opinion or style undermine your own
> validity just because they constitue a herd and you do not. Or am I
> misreading you?
>
That is my impression also.
While we are biological robots we are very complex biological robots with
programming that allows for a lot of personal control over much of the
programming. Identity is not formed externally. Some people are more
likely to accept external programming than others but it is still put
together internally from bits and pieces of our experiences combined with
the development of genetic tendencies.
A chat room is the last place I would look for material to use in my life
long project of building and modifying my self perception.
When it comes to conformity most people become misshapen while squeezing
into it. Conformity is necessary for some objectives. But finding one's
personal identity is not one such objective.
M Shirley Chong
> BUt I still twitch when I see the submissive/woman stereotype of
> girly weakness being embraced so happily. Deep from within me is "but
> if that's right, then I am so wrong, so wrong, so wrong, and I am all
> the terrible things that not-girly not-weak not-pretty women are..."
Why do you care? Or what is it that makes you so uncomfortable
inside your own skin?
Does it matter what the rest of the world thinks?
What would it take for you to be comfortable with yourself?
Comfort is something that comes from within; you can't re-make the
world to make yourself comfortable.
Shirley
to reply via e-mail remove the trees from my address
Free Radical
> In soc.subculture.bondage-bdsm on Sun, 6 Apr 2003 18:05:25 -0700
> Conrad Hodson <con...@efn.org> wrote:
> >On 6 Apr 2003, SilverOz wrote:
> >>
> >> BUt I still twitch when I see the submissive/woman stereotype of
> >> girly weakness being embraced so happily. Deep from within me is "but
> >> if that's right, then I am so wrong, so wrong, so wrong, and I am all
> >> the terrible things that not-girly not-weak not-pretty women are..."
> >
> >You seem to have a conformist vulnerability going here--a backdoor to
your
> >brain that lets a bunch of people's opinion or style undermine your own
> >validity just because they constitue a herd and you do not. Or am I
> >misreading you?
>
> Nope, I do have this irrational and somewhat conditioned reflex. Lots
> of women do, because this isn't just about BDSM. HSH hit it - it's
> about the girly thing, but that's been hammered into women everywhere.
>
Some people like being girly. And not just females. For many I imagine
that it is a way of acting more than being the center of their identity.
The girliest of girls and boys are far more than just that. And there have
always been young girls who don't act girly. I have never been enthusiastic
about girls who act girly. In fact I tend to get down right impatient with
that. But I have never lacked for female comrades.
SilverOz
M Shirley Chong <eit...@forest.pcpartner.net> wrote:
>SilverOz wrote:
>
>
>> BUt I still twitch when I see the submissive/woman stereotype of
>> girly weakness being embraced so happily. Deep from within me is "but
>> if that's right, then I am so wrong, so wrong, so wrong, and I am all
>> the terrible things that not-girly not-weak not-pretty women are..."
>
>
>Why do you care? Or what is it that makes you so uncomfortable
>inside your own skin?
>
Conditioning, mostly.
Some get more of it than others....
I don't go around all the time caring about it, but not only do I
think that it's important to show why the objection to the girly sub
stereotype isn't arbitrary, it's also important to show the people
out there like me that they aren't the only one.
yeah, yeah, everyone tells me "you are silly for caring, for letting
it affect you", but when I say the same to arachnaphobes...
SilverOz
anneliese
When I was growing up, I was expected to be "Daddy's Little Girl". I
wore white ruffled ankle socks, black patent Mary Jane's, and I even
wore white gloves to church on Sunday. I took ballet lessons, piano
lessons, and could curtsey to perfection. I *hated* every minute of it!
Now my dad *really* wanted a son. So, I *also* learned how to fish,
salute, turn a square corner, and build model airplanes. We even
assembled a black and white TV from a Heath Kit. Now, *that* was fun!
How did I reconcile these two roles? I wore jewelry made from electrical
wire and transistors.
Now that I'm an adult and not *expected* to be "feminine" I enjoy
dressing up a lot more. For me, feminine and womanly are the same thing.
But then, I consider the goddesses Freya, Brigit, and Hera as feminine.
anneliese
--
Endorphins are living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
(with apologies to Ben Franklin)
Her Serene Highness
news:slrnb91kuj...@zipperii.zip.com.au...
> In soc.subculture.bondage-bdsm on Sun, 6 Apr 2003 18:05:25 -0700
> Conrad Hodson <con...@efn.org> wrote:
> >On 6 Apr 2003, SilverOz wrote:
> >>
> >> BUt I still twitch when I see the submissive/woman stereotype of
> >> girly weakness being embraced so happily. Deep from within me is "but
> >> if that's right, then I am so wrong, so wrong, so wrong, and I am all
> >> the terrible things that not-girly not-weak not-pretty women are..."
> >
> >You seem to have a conformist vulnerability going here--a backdoor to
your
> >brain that lets a bunch of people's opinion or style undermine your own
> >validity just because they constitue a herd and you do not. Or am I
> >misreading you?
>
> Nope, I do have this irrational and somewhat conditioned reflex. Lots
> of women do, because this isn't just about BDSM. HSH hit it - it's
> about the girly thing, but that's been hammered into women everywhere.
But there is a way of getting past it. At an early age I aspired to be a
'gentleman and a scholar'- the only way I knew to express my desire to read
and learn, to teach, and to be a decent person with good breeding and
manners. (I'm not the only woman to take this route. Louisa May Alcott did
the same- so did many of the women who fought as men during the American
Revolutionary and Civil Wars, on both sides.) Now I'm a gentlePERSON and a
scholar. I grew up knowing that men could be pretty much anything- finally I
grew past the point of even wanting to be a man.
>
>
> >I don't even see it as all that pervasive. Don't forget the way those
> >bullshit chatrooms work--most of them are highly proscriptive and
> >unfriendly to any approach that differs from their own. This newsgroup
is
> >wide-open by comparison. The result is that those who don't fit in those
> >rooms move on rather quickly, and a very strong selective pressure
> >operates to maintain conformity there.
>
> As it does here, just the conformity I like :)
Or like better. The attitudes are here too. And they can grind you down.
>
> Again, it's not just chatrooms. It's all over the place. I'm old
> enough to remember when "lady doctor" was a usual term, because
> everyone knew doctors were men. ONe of the reasons I really hate
> "domme" as a term.
So do I. I find it idiotic- and faux Francais. I can kick anybody's butt
without having to be female. Besides, I'm too gender dysphoric (or maybe
just too comfortable with my spiritual androgyny) to care anymore.
>
> All my life I've been not-woman. To be not-woman in BDSm as well
> hurts :) Most of the time, of course people treat me fine, but now
> and then... I get Sirred a lot in places where people do that. (only
> once in meatlife, a busdriver was staring me straight in the C-cup,
> but the boots and jeans and bike helmet and leather jacket overrode
> that in his mind.)
Even when I look like a woman, I'm a not-woman. I have the self-assertion,
frankness, and open pigheadedness that is usually associated with men. My
expletives are colorful and rather poetic. There are advantages to being a
not-woman- you get to have conversations about things other than housewares,
you get to ogle women openly, and you can take up room on the bus. You also
get to see grown men run in terror of a woman who is physically half their
size, when they realize she's smart and relentless. When supposed male
dominants do it, it cracks me the hell up. It cracks up the real dominants,
too.
Does it make life lonely? Yes. Lots of things make life lonely. Being a
black woman who listens to Bach makes me lonely too. I went through a period
very recently where I felt terribly insecure, because dominant men kept
rejecting me. Not on looks or size, mind you- but on my brain being as big
or bigger than theirs. Several told me point blank that I knew too much
about SM. One, with whom I have a bizarre friendship, told me I reminded
him of himself- he couldn't 'teach' me. I felt shamed because I failed their
tests, ignoring that they had failed mine by being butt-heads. Then I
recently met a very nice man who has less experience but wants to learn, and
who knows how to do things I've never attempted. He loves my smartness. He
doesn't feel threatened. He loves the kind of woman I am- and he's helped
me stop lacerating myself over not being a cheerleader.
>
> MOst of the time I cope fine by saying "none of ths is real:, but
> after a while, the pervasiveness of it - and it really really *is*
> pervasive! - gets to me.
>
> I am not surprised you don't get it. You are male, and mostly top.
> And, I believe white. Meaning that you don't get that much in the way
> of nasty stereotypes to contend with. Oh they are there, but they are
> not held up as *right*. Yes, everyone thinks of bullies and abusers
> as male, despite many being female, but they aren't approved of in the
> way the girly stereotype is.
It can be hard being white too- it's just different. And being male- very
hard. But being female and yet not-woman by current social standards? Not
fun. Reading history has helped. My heroes are Joan of Arc, Colette,
Sojourner Truth. There are many different ways of being a woman, of being
female. When I talk about my internal ambiguity- how different activities
will lead into an internal sex change- it's because in the current social
climate the only women who seem to be like me are fey gay men and a few
uberfemmes, and a handful of incredibly intense and beautiful studly butch
women. My BF, who for a variety of reasons is just coming into his own, is
totally straight in sexual orientation, but would make a great woman. The
other day I realized that while he looks like the guy, right now I seem to
function as the guy- and it works. And I have D cups.
>
> It's changing, but slowly.
>
> >And these are the _women_. As we know, women in the scene usually don't
> >have that much trouble filling their dance cards compared to single
> >guys. If the women have a twenty-to-none experience ratio, what does
that
> >suggest about the men in those chats? CHuDWah's to a man would be a safe
> >first order approximation.
>
> You will find, I think, that most of the women in that situation are
> like most of them men in that situation. Already in a relationship.
> Meaning their ability to go find someone is restricted.
Some of us have an incredibly hard time filling our dance cards- if we have
taste and good sense. A large number of my single female friends can't find
dates- because they are good at their SM and attractive to boot, and have a
funny thing about not putting on sex shows. They want one on one
relationships with experienced men who are not afraid of smart, independent
women who want to give it up- but they are like spirited horses. Most buyers
can't handle them, don't want to learn how, and blame the horse for being
'too much'.
>
> And again, it's not just chatrooms. It's all over the net, and the
> whole girly thing is all over the world.
And the 'girls' keep on winning by undermining their sisters. Meanwhile,
they not only hate us- they hate men too. Creating an illusion of being a
fluffy bunny when you are really a piranha takes a lot of energy, and
engenders a lot of contempt for the mark who is taken in. Sometimes 'girls'
don't even realize they hate men. My mother sure doesn't- and she hates
them worse than poison. One of our biggest problems with each other is that
I genuinely like men, and most of them like me back (as opposed to simply
feeling lust). 'Boys' can't stand me though, but then I tend to be more
internally masculine than they are. I also have no problem admitting that I
enjoy eating them alive. Not anymore. It took a while. I do the same with
'girls', too.
Speaking of 'girls', my boss has backed off. I think she realizes that I'm
not a victim.
Her Serene Highness
"M Shirley Chong" <eit...@forest.pcpartner.net> wrote in message
news:3E90E7C9...@forest.pcpartner.net...
> SilverOz wrote:
>
>
> > BUt I still twitch when I see the submissive/woman stereotype of
> > girly weakness being embraced so happily. Deep from within me is "but
> > if that's right, then I am so wrong, so wrong, so wrong, and I am all
> > the terrible things that not-girly not-weak not-pretty women are..."
>
>
> Why do you care? Or what is it that makes you so uncomfortable
> inside your own skin?
She shouldn't but many of us go through periods like this. Some of us
permanently live that way.
>
> Does it matter what the rest of the world thinks?
Because maybe she feels isolated in so many other ways that this is the last
straw?
>
> What would it take for you to be comfortable with yourself?
>
> Comfort is something that comes from within; you can't re-make the
> world to make yourself comfortable.
Very, very true. Over the past few weeks, I've come to a level of comfort
with myself because I made myself get there. The only person yyou have to
live with is yourself.
Her Serene Highness
"anneliese" <anne...@sonic.net> wrote in message
news:3E90F195...@sonic.net...
>
> How did I reconcile these two roles? I wore jewelry made from electrical
> wire and transistors.
And I treat cooking like a wiring diagram- I want to get it right so that it
'works'- which for me mans that people like it.
>
> Now that I'm an adult and not *expected* to be "feminine" I enjoy
> dressing up a lot more. For me, feminine and womanly are the same thing.
> But then, I consider the goddesses Freya, Brigit, and Hera as feminine.
>
> anneliese
So do I. Throw in Kali, Inanna, and Athena. Too often we let others define
'female' in very narrow ways. I thinlk this is why education is important-
so we can learn to think and define for ourselves.
M Shirley Chong
> Conditioning, mostly.
>
> Some get more of it than others....
And some are born rich and some are born poor. So what? I think it's
what a given person makes of what they were given as children (for
good or for bad) that makes a life.
It doesn't sound to me like you're happy with what you're making of
what you were given.
Let me try a different question: if you were happy inside your own
skin, what would that feel like? What would that look like? How
could an outside observer (granted a period of time to observe your
behaviour) tell you were comfortable?
Some people deal with the conditioning that *everyone* is given (the
conditioning itself varies with culture, age, etc, but exists for
everyone) by not questioning it and fitting themselves into what
their particular conditioning dictates. Some people make sport of
their conditioning, play with it by going along with it sometimes,
contradicting it sometimes, generally using it to add spice to their
life. Some people defy their conditioning to the point where they'd
rather damage themselves than do anything they perceive as going
along with their conditioning.
What is the right way? That's a silly question and you know the
answer to it as well as I do. The relevant question is "what is the
right way for you?"
> I don't go around all the time caring about it, but not only do I
> think that it's important to show why the objection to the girly sub
> stereotype isn't arbitrary, it's also important to show the people
> out there like me that they aren't the only one.
Like you in what way? In not being what your particular conditioning
says is the right way to be? In being unsure of how one fits into
prevalent cultural images?
Why is it important *to you* to reach whatever population it is you
have in mind and not, for instance, "faggy" straight boys?
> yeah, yeah, everyone tells me "you are silly for caring, for letting
> it affect you", but when I say the same to arachnaphobes...
And where did *I* say "you're silly for caring"? I'm not everyone,
I'm me. I'm perfectly happy taking responsibility for what I do say
but I won't take responsibility for what "everyone" says.
Me, I think that if you can answer straightforwardly why you care,
you may find important hints as to how to deal with it. In my
experience, people usually have their own answers, they just can't
see them in the flood of all the other stuff in their heads and in
their hearts. Setting those things forth, examining them, comparing
them and ranking them tends to let the answers rise to the surface.
SilverOz
Her Serene Highness <nysm...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>'gentleman and a scholar'- the only way I knew to express my desire to read
>and learn, to teach, and to be a decent person with good breeding and
>manners. (I'm not the only woman to take this route. Louisa May Alcott did
>the same- so did many of the women who fought as men during the American
>Revolutionary and Civil Wars, on both sides.) Now I'm a gentlePERSON and a
>scholar. I grew up knowing that men could be pretty much anything- finally I
>grew past the point of even wanting to be a man.
I went through the same thing I think. That being a man of some kind
was easier than fighting all the time, and I wound up as something
else.
>Even when I look like a woman, I'm a not-woman. I have the self-assertion,
>frankness, and open pigheadedness that is usually associated with men. My
>expletives are colorful and rather poetic. There are advantages to being a
>not-woman- you get to have conversations about things other than housewares,
>you get to ogle women openly, and you can take up room on the bus. You also
>get to see grown men run in terror of a woman who is physically half their
>size, when they realize she's smart and relentless. When supposed male
>dominants do it, it cracks me the hell up. It cracks up the real dominants,
>too.
Heh. I don't get out enough to see doms do that I don't think, but I
have noticed that I dont get hit on much or deal with the "I can dom you"
style of flirt.
But as you note - it makes for lonely too. I suspect part of the
problem is there's a socialisation that the man is supposed to be
"older" than the woman. That is, a woman who is together needs a more
together man. Rather than an equal. But then what is equal?
For years when I was young, I attracted what I think now were the sub
guys. Used to utterly confuse me!
>tests, ignoring that they had failed mine by being butt-heads. Then I
>recently met a very nice man who has less experience but wants to learn, and
>who knows how to do things I've never attempted. He loves my smartness. He
>doesn't feel threatened. He loves the kind of woman I am- and he's helped
>me stop lacerating myself over not being a cheerleader.
I found men like that, which helped a lot. Mind you, every time I
peruse the personals, I get more depressed :) I still want a dom who
is not part time (and much less than that now, what with one thing and
another) I still want a partner.
even though it's a truism that the kind of BDSMer that's rarest is the
kind you are looking for, I think I have a smaller pool than usual :)
I think you are right about "girls" and hating men. If not as strong
as "hate" then at least not being that comfortable with.
Although there are femme women who have no problem.
I get along well with men as friends. But scare 'em off for more than
that, and am too picky too :)
Now if there was a functioning transmat system it might be easier, but
being allthe way over here makes it harder.
It's amazing how much most of this is conditioning. Oz is a very
misgynistic society, people who have lived both places tell me that.
Overtly misogynistic anyway.
LususNaturae
Zebee,
I could see you weren't feeling like people in the other thread
were hearing what you were saying, and I agree. I wanted to say
so there, but I never got my thoughts lined up well enough to
post them.
I'm snipping most of your post because this is the part I'm
ready to respond to.
>Same as if I don't end up being as women are supposed to be, wearing
>those clothes and that makeup and being obsessed over men and cooking
>and mobile phones with diamong chips... Am I a woman? Or am I all
>the things that not-a-woman is supposed to be: ugly, bitter, a failed
>man?
I think it's true that women get a stronger dose of this than
men do -- though we all experience it. I believe it's worse for
women because they have always had, and still do have, less
opportunity to define themselves and their self-sorth by
accomplishments. Even the accomplishments which are seen as
womanly are seen as less valuable than male accomplishments.
It's human nature to see our identity and our self-worth as
largely defined by who we belong to. We are a social animal
which by nature lives in tribal groups. We have to belong
somewhere socially.
And that means we have to conform to some social norm. If we
don't, we're in trouble. If I can't be what society expects an
N to be, then I can't be an N. No one will react to me as an N.
I won't feel like I'm an N.
As an undersized man, I have always been very aware of those
points in my life when I was able to achieve a better self-image
by physical accomplishment. Growing up on a farm, I learned to
work long hard days. As a teenager, I was surprised and
gratified to find that I could outwork any young man my age,
except for other, bigger farm boys. This was a way in which I
measured up as a man. Similarly, it was an ego boost to find
that, although I couldn't compete with larger boys in baseball,
basketball or football, I could become a champion wrestler.
Excelling at even a less popular sport was perceived by myself
and my peers as a manly accomplishment.
The only ego boosting physical accomplishments for women are
winning beauty pageants, "catching a husband," and having
babies. And women's attitudes reflect this.
Another area where a man can earn ego points is in his
profession. Women are getting better opportunities there, but
they lag behind men in prestige, and I think, for that reason, a
woman tends not to get as big a sense of self worth from her
career, and therefore it doesn't become as big a part of her
identity. (Of course, in that way she may escape the identity
crisis which men frequently experience when they retire.)
Just some quick thoughts.
--
Lusus Naturae
LususNaturae
<con...@efn.org> wrote:
>You seem to have a conformist vulnerability going here--a backdoor to your
>brain that lets a bunch of people's opinion or style undermine your own
>validity just because they constitue a herd and you do not. Or am I
>misreading you?
We all have that back door to our brains; we all have conformist
vulnerability. We are a social species which requires a certain
degree of conformity in order to achieve social integration.
If we're very lucky, we may escape the worst effects of the
conditioning that operates upon that back brain and that
conformist vulnerability.
--
Lusus Naturae
Free Radical
anneliese <anne...@sonic.net> wrote in message
> Now that I'm an adult and not *expected* to be "feminine" I enjoy
> dressing up a lot more. For me, feminine and womanly are the same thing.
> But then, I consider the goddesses Freya, Brigit, and Hera as feminine.
>
> anneliese
---
For a person looking for identity through gender roles Gods and Goddesses
are probably a good place to turn. There is enough diversity in the roles
that there should be something for nearly everyone to identify with.
SilverOz
>what you were given.
I'm exaggerating mostly. I certainly haven't been happy in my time
about it, and sometimes it reappears.
>
>Let me try a different question: if you were happy inside your own
>skin, what would that feel like? What would that look like? How
>could an outside observer (granted a period of time to observe your
>behaviour) tell you were comfortable?
No idea.
>Like you in what way? In not being what your particular conditioning
>says is the right way to be? In being unsure of how one fits into
>prevalent cultural images?
Like me in knowing that they aren't as they are stereotyped to be.
Not knowing as in the "correct" answer to the question when it's asked
of you at school or by authority figures, but knowing.
>Why is it important *to you* to reach whatever population it is you
>have in mind and not, for instance, "faggy" straight boys?
Because I don't feel for them in the same way. Because if I'd known
there were more like me before, I might have got happier earlier.
>
>> yeah, yeah, everyone tells me "you are silly for caring, for letting
>> it affect you", but when I say the same to arachnaphobes...
>
>
>And where did *I* say "you're silly for caring"? I'm not everyone,
>I'm me. I'm perfectly happy taking responsibility for what I do say
>but I won't take responsibility for what "everyone" says.
Your entire post on the subject, especially this one came across that
way. That somehow I'm wrong for thinking and doing all this, that I
shouldn't care or shouldn't let it hurt me.
What I hear is "weak, foolish", which might not be what you said, but
it's what I hear.
yeah, the correct answer to that is that it's my fault and none of
your own, and it might be so. doens't change what's in my head I'm
afraid.
>Me, I think that if you can answer straightforwardly why you care,
>you may find important hints as to how to deal with it. In my
>experience, people usually have their own answers, they just can't
>see them in the flood of all the other stuff in their heads and in
>their hearts. Setting those things forth, examining them, comparing
>them and ranking them tends to let the answers rise to the surface.
>
Why do I care? Because I was badly hurt, condemned, laughed at, told
I was nothing, told I was ugly, unloved and unlovable.
And whether or not I'm supposed to let that hurt me doesn't matter
much, it did.
If I can find other young women out there who are finding the same
things and say "you aren't alone, I did it too, and while some things
will still hurt, and you won't get the stuff people tell you that you
will get if you just become different, you will get other stuff."
Which still doesn't stop me hurting, doesn't stop the old wounds
aching. But if I can maybe help someone else avoid getting wounded in
the first place by helping them see that they aren't alone or
freakish, then that's good enough for me.
Because I am not a freak, no matter the many years of people telling
me I am, no matter the pictures I see every day, the relentless
emphasis that the only women, the only submissives, are people who are
nothing like me except for chromosomes...
SilverOz
SilverOz
LususNaturae <lususn...@1stConnect.com> wrote:
>On 6 Apr 2003 21:10:46 GMT, ze...@zip.com.au (SilverOz) wrote:
>
>Zebee,
>
>I could see you weren't feeling like people in the other thread
>were hearing what you were saying, and I agree. I wanted to say
>so there, but I never got my thoughts lined up well enough to
>post them.
I think yo uare right, and I'm glad you posted.
>
>I think it's true that women get a stronger dose of this than
>men do -- though we all experience it. I believe it's worse for
>women because they have always had, and still do have, less
>opportunity to define themselves and their self-sorth by
>accomplishments. Even the accomplishments which are seen as
>womanly are seen as less valuable than male accomplishments.
Yes, and there was a long time when it was very much about Dr Jonson's dog
on it's hind legs, that if a woman does accomplish in a male domain it's
so amazing. And I note that I still see stuff about if she's married and
has kids, whereas you don't see that with men unless it's very relevant.
It's changing, I have seen it change in my lifetime, my mother has
seen more. (She was the only woman in one of her pracs at Uni and said
it was amusing in hindsight to see the guys trying to work out if it was
going to be OK or not to partner her. In hindsight, at the time it was
mortifying to be so non-human.)
>And that means we have to conform to some social norm. If we
>don't, we're in trouble. If I can't be what society expects an
>N to be, then I can't be an N. No one will react to me as an N.
>I won't feel like I'm an N.
Not only that, you are not-N. And that can be nasty. If you aren't a
manly man, you are a faggot wimp. If you aren't a pretty feminine
woman you are a man hating hairy legged lesbian and so on. Seldom
stated quite so openly, but it's all around. More of the social thing
I guess, if you aren't of us, you are enemy.
>
>Another area where a man can earn ego points is in his
>profession. Women are getting better opportunities there, but
>they lag behind men in prestige, and I think, for that reason, a
>woman tends not to get as big a sense of self worth from her
>career, and therefore it doesn't become as big a part of her
>identity. (Of course, in that way she may escape the identity
>crisis which men frequently experience when they retire.)
>
I suspect that whatever has taken most of your life will hurt worst
when it's gone. If your life has been about your children and
marriage, then as you get older, that changes and maybe goes away. If
it's been about work, then retiring will hurt badly. Clearly a spread
of things is better in this regard :)
I still get a reflex ick when confronted with groups to promote women
in computing, or support groups for same. It feels too much like
ghettoisation and giving in to me. Too much like accepting we don't
belong. even though it does seem clear that there is a difference in
how women and men view computing in general - that is that while the
outliers cross, the majority don't.
heh. Maybe one of the advantages of being so damn confused about
identity is that you don't get hurt when you can't do one of them
anymore...
SilverOz
Free Radical
SilverOz <ze...@zip.com.au> wrote in message
> Which still doesn't stop me hurting, doesn't stop the old wounds
> aching. But if I can maybe help someone else avoid getting wounded in
> the first place by helping them see that they aren't alone or
> freakish, then that's good enough for me.
>
> Because I am not a freak, no matter the many years of people telling
> me I am, no matter the pictures I see every day, the relentless
> emphasis that the only women, the only submissives, are people who are
> nothing like me except for chromosomes...
>
Focusing relentlessly on a perspective of the majority that is not like you
won't stop the pain either. No matter how much emphasis there is on
homogenizing all of us diversity will still prevail.
Free Radical
SilverOz <ze...@zip.com.au> wrote in message
> Not only that, you are not-N. And that can be nasty. If you aren't a
> manly man, you are a faggot wimp. If you aren't a pretty feminine
> woman you are a man hating hairy legged lesbian and so on. Seldom
> stated quite so openly, but it's all around. More of the social thing
> I guess, if you aren't of us, you are enemy.
>
Yes it is all around. That attitude does not flow in a single river. This
group reeks of such coming from many different directions
SilverOz
I don't focus relentlessly.
But neither am I blind.
Free Radical
SilverOz <ze...@zip.com.au> wrote in message
> >Focusing relentlessly on a perspective of the majority that is not like
you
> >won't stop the pain either. No matter how much emphasis there is on
> >homogenizing all of us diversity will still prevail.
> >
>
>
> I don't focus relentlessly.
>
> But neither am I blind.
>
> SilverOz
>
Then you can see that the exception is more common than the norm? That is
what I see.
SilverOz
>>
>> But neither am I blind.
>what I see.
NO one is exactly the norm. Many strive for the ideal, many do their
damndest to inculcate the idea that not striving for the ideal is
wrong.
It's not *about* logic. SHall I put that in <blink> tags?
Free Radical
Free Radical <freera...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > I don't focus relentlessly.
> >
> > But neither am I blind.
> >
> > SilverOz
> >
>
> Then you can see that the exception is more common than the norm? That is
> what I see.
>
Addendum: I also see that belief in the norm is far more common than belief
in exceptions.
Free Radical
SilverOz <ze...@zip.com.au> wrote in message
> NO one is exactly the norm. Many strive for the ideal, many do their
> damndest to inculcate the idea that not striving for the ideal is
> wrong.
>
> It's not *about* logic. SHall I put that in <blink> tags?
>
You come across as being so analytical that I tend to take that for granted.
I certainly do not want to dismiss your feelings on the basis of logic.
Conrad Hodson
> In soc.subculture.bondage-bdsm on Sun, 06 Apr 2003 21:51:53 -0500
> M Shirley Chong <eit...@forest.pcpartner.net> wrote:
> >SilverOz wrote:
> >
> >
> >> BUt I still twitch when I see the submissive/woman stereotype of
> >> girly weakness being embraced so happily. Deep from within me is "but
> >> if that's right, then I am so wrong, so wrong, so wrong, and I am all
> >> the terrible things that not-girly not-weak not-pretty women are..."
> >
> >
> >Why do you care? Or what is it that makes you so uncomfortable
> >inside your own skin?
> >
>
> Conditioning, mostly.
>
> Some get more of it than others....
>
> I don't go around all the time caring about it, but not only do I
> think that it's important to show why the objection to the girly sub
> stereotype isn't arbitrary, it's also important to show the people
> out there like me that they aren't the only one.
Two different issues here. I'd agree completely with your wanting to
offer more varied role models to the next generation--that's ultimately
the way progress happens.
The other issue, though, concerns not the harm that rigid stereotypes do
to society, but the way that you seem to be letting them get to your own
personal self-esteem. Several of us seem to have spotted this assumption
independently in your writing on this topic--perhaps you should consider
the possibility?
It could be useful; social change happens over many years and millions of
people, and it can be tough to make a noticable impact in the Big
Picture--discouraging sometimes. But self-image and self-worth exists
entirely between your own ears, and change there depends far more on you
than on anyone outside.
Conrad Hodson
SilverOz
Conrad Hodson <con...@efn.org> wrote:
>
>The other issue, though, concerns not the harm that rigid stereotypes do
>to society, but the way that you seem to be letting them get to your own
>personal self-esteem. Several of us seem to have spotted this assumption
>independently in your writing on this topic--perhaps you should consider
>the possibility?
Umm.. I thoght I did. Mentioned it right up there, "conditioning".
Good lord, I thought it was bleedingly *obvious* in the writing I've
done on it that it has had that effect.
>It could be useful; social change happens over many years and millions of
>people, and it can be tough to make a noticable impact in the Big
>Picture--discouraging sometimes. But self-image and self-worth exists
>entirely between your own ears, and change there depends far more on you
>than on anyone outside.
And I haven't said anything different.
Yes, it requires me to be all strong and shit.
Happy?
SilverOz
Nicole Diver
by saying "I am not a submissive I am a Zebee" when I first ran into the
fact that whatever people said "a submissive" was, I didn't fit."
Okay, I am going to take a stab at this, and probably mess it up, but I
hope that you will at least understand that it is kindly meant, even if
it falls short of saying what I want to say.
I am a bi poly switch. These are words I use to describe myself, more
as identifiers for others to use than anything. They are descriptions
that indicate some of my interests. The words don't define me, they
describe parts of me. And if I decide they no longer suit, I will
change them. Identifiers are fluid. People grow. People change.
I change my appearance on a regular basis. Sometimes I have red spikey
hair and wear a lot of black with dramatic makeup. Sometimes I let my
hair grow long, wild and curly, and it's a golden-brown shade (with a
little silver now), and I wear my aging hippy clothes--flowing batiks,
bright tiedye. Sometimes I read, sometimes I throw myself into
painting, and sometimes I wear overalls and safety goggles and use power
tools. Sometimes I am what you would call a girlie-girl, sometimes I am
not. And if people don't like it, so the hell what?
SilverOz, I am simply amazed that you care what society in general may
or may not think of you. To paraphrase here, you are what you are, it's
different from what I am, (or Conrad is, or SlackTop is, or Ty is) and
it's okay. My amazement stems, I guess, from the fact that you are
obviously an intelligent, articulate woman. The only labels that matter
are the ones you choose for yourself. If you want to be a biker sans
makeup, be that. If it ceases to make you happy, be something else.
You get to decide what being a submissive is "for you".
I'm probably not making a lick of sense, and I'm afraid I'm starting to
sound like my sixth grade teacher. I guess in a round about way, I'm
trying to say that I understand, and that I spent very many years trying
to live up to lables that didn't fit, until I decided that if I was
going to avoid going crazy I had to define myself, and not let others do
it for me. And I was surprised to find that some people, or even many
people, were not judging me as harshly as I thought. If you say you are
a sub, you are a sub. You don't have to look like a pin-up girl, nor do
you have to smile softly and acknowledge the inherent superiority of het
male doms nor do you have to believe in the inferiority of subs, male or
female. Unless you want to, and it makes you happy to do so. You
choose what sub means for you. You choose what being a woman means for
you. I understand that it can be difficult and painful to feel like an
other. But there is great potential to make that 'otherness' a
strength--to revel in your individuality and uniqueness. Play to your
strengths.
And my hope for you is that someday when you say "I am a Zebee", that
you can say it with confidence and joy.
So I hope I didn't make too much of a hash out of this. Good luck with
your search for self, SilverOz.
Nicole----
"Thou art to me a delicious torment."
Emerson
Conrad Hodson
<Lots of her usual good stuff snipped>
> Some of us have an incredibly hard time filling our dance cards- if we have
> taste and good sense. A large number of my single female friends can't find
> dates- because they are good at their SM and attractive to boot, and have a
> funny thing about not putting on sex shows. They want one on one
> relationships with experienced men who are not afraid of smart, independent
> women who want to give it up- but they are like spirited horses. Most buyers
> can't handle them, don't want to learn how, and blame the horse for being
> 'too much'.
> >
"putting on sex shows" for instance. Do your "one on one
relationships" have to be monogamous? Do your "sex shows" refer to play
parties? If so, I don't see how the "dance card" metaphor even applies.
I was referring to most of the women I have as friends in the scene. Most
of them have a good deal of party/public play experience, and something
close to half of them are poly. The relationships they form come from
playparty encounters or sometimes from entirely different venues--and most
of them have a strong dislike of traditional "dating" that grows out of
the exact "girly" social dynamic that SilverOz was just objecting to.
These women don't usually have trouble connecting for a flogging or a
dinner out, either one. Typically because most of them don't do the girly
thing and wait around to be asked. They're about as likely to request
sex, a movie, a weekend at the beach or a playpiercing as I am. And in
the circles I prefer to move in, that forthrightness has a good chance of
drawing admiration rather than rejection.
Carol Queen once pointed out that "you'll never get what you want if you
make it too hard for people to give it to you." If a woman gets caught up
in the nice-girl indoctrination of only having coffee, or sex, with
someone who seems like he might be Utter Perfection and a good prospect
for traditional monogamous marriage, she will indeed spend
a lot of time alone. A woman who accepts that life is an experiment, and
who takes one-half the chances of non-perfection (or rejection) that men
are routinely expected to take in the conventional dating game, will
usually have a dance card full enough to worry about schedule conflicts.
And I'm not talking just about young anorexic ultrafemmes, either--because
those don't predominate in either the local scene or my address book.
There's considerable truth to the T-shirt slogan a friend of mine
wears: "Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go _everywhere_."
>
> And the 'girls' keep on winning by undermining their sisters. Meanwhile,
> they not only hate us- they hate men too. Creating an illusion of being a
> fluffy bunny when you are really a piranha takes a lot of energy, and
> engenders a lot of contempt for the mark who is taken in.
As it should. But some guys know better. My grandfather once warned me
about "women who put so much in the store window there's nothing left back
in the stockroom." Wise man, and he gave me that advice at the
hormone-fogged time of life when it was very helpful. But then I'm more
likely to turn on to a woman with forge soot or shop grease or honest
garden dirt on her skin than makeup.
Sometimes 'girls'
> don't even realize they hate men. My mother sure doesn't- and she hates
> them worse than poison. One of our biggest problems with each other is that
> I genuinely like men, and most of them like me back (as opposed to simply
> feeling lust). 'Boys' can't stand me though, but then I tend to be more
> internally masculine than they are. I also have no problem admitting that I
> enjoy eating them alive. Not anymore. It took a while. I do the same with
> 'girls', too.
Pity you don't mean that literally. I get boxes of ladybugs for my garden
to eat the aphids--it would be great to be able to import you for a while,
drop you off beside some obnoxious clique, and know that you'd work your
way through the problem in a month or so. :-) (If I'm wrong, and you
really _do_ mean it literally, please let me know ASAP--I'll need to take
up a collection for your airfare and expenses!)
>
> Speaking of 'girls', my boss has backed off. I think she realizes that I'm
> not a victim.
Perceptive of her. And good for you, and best of luck. And if I haven't
said so already, I really enjoy your contributions here--whether I agree
with them or not, they're always worth reading and carefully considering.
Conrad Hodson
Conrad Hodson
>
> misgynistic society, people who have lived both places tell me that.
> Overtly misogynistic anyway.
>
And my apologies if I've failed to allow for the differences. This is an
international forum in my native language; it's all too easy to overlook
the sneaky differences in basic assumptions in a venue where you and
karinne are an equal number of keystrokes away.
Conrad Hodson
SilverOz
Nicole Diver <nicol...@webtv.net> wrote:
>SilverOz, I am simply amazed that you care what society in general may
>or may not think of you. To paraphrase here, you are what you are, it's
Most times I don;t. Sometimes I do.
Aint logical. It just is.
>
>I'm probably not making a lick of sense, and I'm afraid I'm starting to
>sound like my sixth grade teacher. I guess in a round about way, I'm
Umm.. yes.
You and others mean well I know, but I am mildly surprised that you
think I don't *know* this stuff. (I mean really, your 6th grade
teacher, my 6th grade teacher, every frigging advisor on the
planet...)
Logically I do, intellectually I do.
Identity and security is not about logic.
Well not for me anyway, others may be able to decide "this is not
logical so I will not do it", but I can't do that.
Yes, it gets me in the insecurity, and that hurts. Can people fix
that by saying "you shouldn't let it hurt you"? Bullshit they can.
Can they fix it at all? probably not. They can make it easier
by acknowledging that it's not logical, and they could even do their
damndest to avoid any idea that dealing with it is easy and anyone who
doens't know how is obviously blind and stupid not to have heard this
stuff, and so you just tell them and they can do it no worries because
if they'd heard this business about "don't let it get to you" before
they'd have not let it get them, so they can't have heard it...
What I want to say to people who are struggling with the same issues
is that it *isn't* easy. If you've been hit by it, then it hits hard.
The steps are what everyone says they are - try to focus on yourself and
try not to measure yourself by these unreachable things. Even though
it seems impossible not to be affected, not to feel those looks,
those categories, those fates that are said to be yours for not being
"proper". It won't be easy and when you are low or worried or uncertain,
or something just batters at you, then you won't be able to do it.
You'll fall back into those old fears, those old insecurities, and the
people trying to help will make it worse because they can't comprehend
why you aren't strong enough to stop it, they probably don't even think
of it in those terms.
Eventually, it works out, eventually you can piece together an identity,
a self, that works. And maybe you'll then be able to explain the hurt
so that in your turn you can maybe give others that bit of support and
light without them feeling frustrated and annoyed at people who think
it is so damn easy.
Because it's not. It is doable, although your path won't be like mine
or anyone else's, and there'll be ugly moments on the way.
SilverOz
Free Radical
SilverOz <ze...@zip.com.au> wrote in message
> Identity and security is not about logic.
>
> Well not for me anyway, others may be able to decide "this is not
> logical so I will not do it", but I can't do that.
>
For me it is very much about logic. That is not to say that insecurity can
not penetrate the logic. But logic is my primary defense mechanism against
bad feelings. Which I am afraid often has me coming across as unfeeling and
insensative to some people. I am as emotionally vulnerable as most people
and care very much about the feelings of others. Although my primary sin
may be a tendancy to underestimate the vulnerability of others.
Conrad Hodson
>
> >don't, we're in trouble. If I can't be what society expects an
> >N to be, then I can't be an N. No one will react to me as an N.
> >I won't feel like I'm an N.
This is one I can't buy. We most certainly do _not_ "have to conform to
some social norm". This paragraph is actually a clear and precise
manifesto of brain-dead herd-animal conformism, riddled with mistaken
assumptions and half-truths. (And I know it's not your quote, Zebee, I
lost the attribution to who said it.)
Look at the wording up there. "If I can't be what society expects an N to
be, then I can't be an N". That's just nonsense. I'm a man by accident
of birth, not because society said so. I'm a blacksmith because I taught
myself to be one, not because someone put me into a training program or
issued me a license. I'm a writer because I write, not because I live up
to some social image of what a writer ought to be. And I'm a published
writer because some publishers liked my stuff, not because I won the
approval of even a small fraction of the general public. (With the web, I
could be a _widely_ published writer even if nobody liked my stuff; as it
is, they rip it off, which has to be the highest form of flattery.)
>
> Not only that, you are not-N. And that can be nasty. If you aren't a
> manly man, you are a faggot wimp. If you aren't a pretty feminine
> woman you are a man hating hairy legged lesbian and so on.
Again, this simple dichotomy doesn't reflect the world I see around
me. In particular, we have a lot of women here, especially in rural
areas, who wear wool shirts and work boots, tend animals and repair
buildings, who are nonetheless perfectly happy about boffing
guys. (Confuses the hell out of stereotype-oriented dykes from back
East.) We also have quite a few men out here who find such women
powerfully attractive.
The first thing that attracted me about Margaret was how sharp she was in
conversation. The second thing was her skill when she gave me a ride to
the bus station--two of us and a large suitcase deftly balanced on her
rather small motor scooter. Nary a stocking nor a feminine wile in the
lot of it. She's rather butch in many ways, encountered a great deal of
pressure to conform in femmy ways but she _fought_ it, and she's made me
inordinately happy for almost 36 years now. Her willingness to stand her
ground and say "bullshit" to society in general (and occasionally to me,
goes with the territory) is one of the things I love the most about her.
I couldn't ask for a better primary partner.
Conrad Hodson
"We build our own cabins, grow our own gardens,
And we ain't afraid of bears.
We wear wooly socks, wooly shirts, wooly woolies
Till it gets kinda itchy under there.
Then we go in sauna with no clothes onna
If the boys look we don't care
We got liberated views on whose lovin' whos
And we don't shave our armpit hair!"
--"Yukon Women"
SilverOz
Conrad Hodson <con...@efn.org> wrote:
>
>This is one I can't buy. We most certainly do _not_ "have to conform to
>some social norm". This paragraph is actually a clear and precise
best I can say is "If marketing didn't work, they wouldn't spend
millions on it".
meaning what you say is logically true, emotionally not. For me,
anyway.
SilverOz
M Shirley Chong
> I'm exaggerating mostly. I certainly haven't been happy in my time
> about it, and sometimes it reappears.
Am I mistaken, then, in taking your post seriously?
I wrote:
>>Let me try a different question: if you were happy inside your own
>>skin, what would that feel like? What would that look like? How
>>could an outside observer (granted a period of time to observe your
>>behaviour) tell you were comfortable?
SilverOz wrote:
> No idea.
So do you know where it is you want to go? Is comfort within
yourself one of your goals (I should have asked this much sooner)?
> Because I don't feel for them in the same way. Because if I'd known
> there were more like me before, I might have got happier earlier.
This seems to me to be giving the power of happiness to outside
factors. Nice when it works but if it doesn't work, well, not so nice.
If there were no one else like you in the world, how would that
change your life?
> Your entire post on the subject, especially this one came across that
> way. That somehow I'm wrong for thinking and doing all this, that I
> shouldn't care or shouldn't let it hurt me.
>
> What I hear is "weak, foolish", which might not be what you said, but
> it's what I hear.
I'm very sorry about that. It sounds like an incredibly painful way
to live one's life. It sounds like you have internal doubts and then
"hear" them in other people's words as well so they seem like
external doubts as well.
> Why do I care? Because I was badly hurt, condemned, laughed at, told
> I was nothing, told I was ugly, unloved and unlovable.
>
> And whether or not I'm supposed to let that hurt me doesn't matter
> much, it did.
When I was seventeen, the first man I ever slept with was forty four
years old. It was a wonderful relationship and I have never
regretted a single thing about it.
But it left me naive in certain ways. So naive that after that
relationship had ended (amicably and even lovingly), the first man I
slept with was a very poor choice. After we had made love, he
started making fun of me, of my body, etc, and he revealed he'd
gotten involved with me on a bet.
OUCH! OUCHOUCHOUCH! That was painful and it wasn't good pain.
And yet I got over it. The old wound doesn't twinge me. Every now
and then I wish I hadn't been so naive. I was used to a relationship
in which each partner made a genuine attempt to commnicate clearly,
without ulterior motives (he more successfully than I but there was
that little twenty seven year difference). It truly never occurred
to me to doubt someone with whom I appeared to share a mutual
interest. It hurt badly at the time and that's why I wish I hadn't
been so naive but I got over it.
That he would sleep with someone whose body he apparently found
repellant said a lot about him and none of it complimentary. I came
to realize that it didn't say anything about me--that his perception
of my worth did not have to equal my reality.
In the end, my ability to grin at him in a rueful way and say we'd
shared a mistake gave me, apparently, incredible power over him. He
went through a period where he tried to stalk me and was quite
obsessed with me. Somehow when I stopped caring what he thought of
me, it freed me but fed some sort of obsession in himself.
And to think this was back in the days (pre-thirties) when I really
did care what other people thought of me! <LOL> I have often joked
that I am in training to be a crusty, eccentric old lady and there's
an element of truth to it.
So part of my curiousity is what is it that let me get over it and
you not?
And maybe I'm assuming too far, in that my path (giving less than a
flying fuck what other people think of me) is one that anyone else
would want. For me, it's been liberating and fun but perhaps that
would translate into "lonely and isolated" for others.
> If I can find other young women out there who are finding the same
> things and say "you aren't alone, I did it too, and while some things
> will still hurt, and you won't get the stuff people tell you that you
> will get if you just become different, you will get other stuff."
<nod> I go through that phase as part of recovery from problems I've
had. It's such a revelation to me, it makes me feel so good, that I
want to share it with anyone in the world who may be stuck where I was.
I also suspect that it's part of how I convince myself that I've
left the old behind. Sort of setting agent for change.
> Because I am not a freak, no matter the many years of people telling
> me I am, no matter the pictures I see every day, the relentless
> emphasis that the only women, the only submissives, are people who are
> nothing like me except for chromosomes...
Ah, okay.
You see, I've never had a choice about it. I've known all my life
that I *am* a freak. I'm fat, really fat, in a society that
practically worships thin women. I'm bi-racial from a time when such
children were best borne far from the mother's community and then
abandoned to whatever kindness of strangers the baby happened upon.
I had a naturally skeptical turn of mind at a time and place where
being "born again" was practically a rite of adolescence. I was
bisexual and knew it before I ever realized that most people are
not. I was a liberal in a conservative area and I cared about
politics many years before anyone I knew of my own age did (I
cheered when Spiro Agnew resigned; the teacher in that class was
shocked both by the resignation and my happiness over it).
I've never been able to "pass" in the many ways that people are
supposed to pass in their cultures. It's revealing that one of my
favourite fantasies for years was to be able to be invisible.
I took the classic outsider's path of coming to prize my
freakishness. Of finding value in precisely those things least
valued by others.
Not that I think this is something imposed on me from outside. My
mother tells me that my "NO!" period started early (before I was a
year old) and has lasted up to the present moment.
It's probably just as well that I don't truly fit in, here on SSBB
or anywhere else. A NO! without a cause is a sad thing indeed.
But that's *my* path, my solution and it's not necessarily right for
anyone else in the world.
M Shirley Chong
>>Why do you care? Or what is it that makes you so uncomfortable
>>inside your own skin?
Her Serene Highness wrote:
> She shouldn't but many of us go through periods like this. Some of us
> permanently live that way.
Should or shouldn't, doesn't matter. Nor do I deny that many people
live that way all the time.
My question was just that--a serious question. I didn't think it
conveyed a message as to some sort of "correct" answer but
apparently it did (both you and SilverOz took it the same way).
I meant it in the sense that if one can figure out why one cares,
one can then choose to accept or modify that caring. And modifying
the caring may be one route to resolving the problem.
Perhaps I was wrong in thinking that the post and topic that started
all this was open to any sort of analytical approach (if it isn't,
then I am the wrong person to be answering altogether as I do not
deal well without logic and analysis).
I wrote:
>>Does it matter what the rest of the world thinks?
Her Serene Highness wrote:
> Because maybe she feels isolated in so many other ways that this is the last
> straw?
That could be; I don't know because I'm not SilverOz. If this is so,
then perhaps the problem isn't identity, image, stereotypes, etc,
but loneliness or depression.
If the problem is something else, then fixing that something else
may render the question of stereotypes unimportant.
I wrote:
>>What would it take for you to be comfortable with yourself?
>>
>>Comfort is something that comes from within; you can't re-make the
>>world to make yourself comfortable.
Her Serene Highness wrote:
> Very, very true. Over the past few weeks, I've come to a level of comfort
> with myself because I made myself get there. The only person yyou have to
> live with is yourself.
"Because I made myself get there" is often how I address my own
problems. I have a disease, a dis-ease, a condition called
depression, incompletely controlled by medication (and no, I would
rather gouge my eyes out than ever consider playing with jkay so
it's not a problem <EG>) so relying on my emotions to solve my
problems is sometimes not an option.
For me, realizing that I can control my own comfort level is very
liberating.
Her Serene Highness
"Conrad Hodson" <con...@efn.org> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSU.4.21.030406...@garcia.efn.org...
> On Mon, 7 Apr 2003, Her Serene Highness wrote:
> <Lots of her usual good stuff snipped>
I'm talking about something very different from you, I think.
I'm bisexual. I'm not 'bi'. I didn't start having sex with girls because
guys think it's cool. I actually planned to live wth a woman at one point.
For me, sexual monogamy is important- but I've seen women forced into not
being that way because they wanted a man who wanted a harem. I'm not talking
about women who choose to have multiple lovers- I'm talking abouthaving sex
with 'girls' because Sir wantsto see you do it, the same way he'd like to
see you have sex with a dog. He would never do it, of course- real men
aren't bisexual, only slave girls.
I know you did not mean it that way, but much of your note was rather
patronizing. Still, you don't know me. I've helped to found at least three
SM organizations, and have helped to edit three SM-related magazines. I'm
directly quoted- extensively- in one classic SM book, and I partly inspired
characters in at least two fictional ones. I actually know Carol Queen.
You can want something and not get it, not because you make it hard for
people to give to you, but becuase they don't have it to give. There are
many sexually monogamous people in the SM community. Not all of us are
polygamous, and we don't want to be. Some of us love playparties- I ran them
for several years, so I guess that means I like them. None of that has
anything to do with finding a man who likes experienced women in a society
that says the man is supposed to be older, smarter and gets to pick from the
youngest and most teachable.
Old cats and dogs in the pound want owners too- do they get euthenized
because they are making it hard for humans to want them, or because most
humans want lively kittens and puppies and not older animals?
I am not talking about men who act like knuckle-draggers. I'm talking about
men who are terrified of any woman who will challenge them and quetstion
them. We see them here all the time.
Her Serene Highness
"M Shirley Chong" <eit...@forest.pcpartner.net> wrote in message
news:3E915F...@forest.pcpartner.net...
> I wrote:
>
>
> >>Why do you care? Or what is it that makes you so uncomfortable
> >>inside your own skin?
>
>
> Her Serene Highness wrote:
>
>
> > She shouldn't but many of us go through periods like this. Some of us
> > permanently live that way.
>
>
> Should or shouldn't, doesn't matter. Nor do I deny that many people
> live that way all the time.
>
> My question was just that--a serious question. I didn't think it
> conveyed a message as to some sort of "correct" answer but
> apparently it did (both you and SilverOz took it the same way).
Unfortunately, that'sthe question people always ask before perkily saying,
'snap out of it'. As if snapping out of it is going to change the rest of
the world.
>
> I meant it in the sense that if one can figure out why one cares,
> one can then choose to accept or modify that caring. And modifying
> the caring may be one route to resolving the problem.
I have figured out why I care, and have dealt withthat- but while it's made
life a little easier, it still hasn't brought me any closer to being with
the man I want. In part, that's because one's dead, and the other is far
away.
>
> Perhaps I was wrong in thinking that the post and topic that started
> all this was open to any sort of analytical approach (if it isn't,
> then I am the wrong person to be answering altogether as I do not
> deal well without logic and analysis).
>
I think that some things can't be solved by analysis. I could sit and
explain over and over why I am a desirable partner, to a man who only dates
25 year olds who have sex with strange women without protection because he
likes it and because he can 'train' them- and not get anywhere. I can
explain how my accomplishments in and outside of the bedroom could be an
asset to a man who wantsto learn more about SM- and be rejected because I
know more than he does, and he thinks only men should know certain things. I
could have a very very faggy boy try to explain to me whyhe should be my
ideal sex partner- but if I'm not turned on by faggy boys, it won't do any
good.
Marina Muilwijk
news:v922f7s...@corp.supernews.com:
>
> SilverOz <ze...@zip.com.au> wrote in message
>
>
>> >Focusing relentlessly on a perspective of the majority that is
>> >not like
> you
>> >won't stop the pain either. No matter how much emphasis there
>> >is on homogenizing all of us diversity will still prevail.
>> >
>>
>>
>> I don't focus relentlessly.
>>
>> But neither am I blind.
>
> Then you can see that the exception is more common than the norm?
> That is what I see.
Yes, once you've learned to look. But you do have to learn to see that
the exceptions are not freaks doomed to a lifetime of misery ("it's not
their fault they are like that, but they'll never be happy").
And, of course, you can never escape the dream images of advertising
and movies. You know they're not real (female scientists in real life
don't wait for a hero to turn up so that they can take their glasses
off, let their hair down (thereby becoming attractive, which of course
they weren't before) and forget everything about their science), but
still there's this tiny voice inside you that says "this is how things
should be".
And then you go and buy that washing powder so that you can be just as
happy as the woman in the commercial.
Marina
perrin
Hmmm. Which god could a malesub identify with?
perrin.
--
perrin's naff little stories
http://bestpornhost.com/perrin
Marina Muilwijk
news:slrnb920s6...@zipperii.zip.com.au:
> Not only that, you are not-N. And that can be nasty. If you
> aren't a manly man, you are a faggot wimp. If you aren't a pretty
> feminine woman you are a man hating hairy legged lesbian
Imagine being a hairy-legged lesbian (though not particulary man-
hating). And then hearing that you're no good as a butch, either,
because you weren't a tomboy and you don't know how to repair a car (or
even drive one). At least I was smart in an environment where being
smart was OK. Probably as a result of that, being smart became very
important to me. I may be not-woman and not-butch, but I am smart and
have the degrees to prove it.
> I still get a reflex ick when confronted with groups to promote
> women in computing, or support groups for same. It feels too much
> like ghettoisation and giving in to me. Too much like accepting
> we don't belong. even though it does seem clear that there is a
> difference in how women and men view computing in general - that
> is that while the outliers cross, the majority don't.
This university has a "women in the university" group. I've looked at
their newsletter a few times, but I don't feel I belong with them.
Partly because most members are faculty (I'm lowly computer staff),
partly because they worry about issues that don't concern me (like
childcare facilities), partly because I personally don't have any
problems and somehow can't feel the kind of solidarity (or maybe
sisterhood) that would make me want to help women in particular. So
instead I joined a union, which supposedly helps everyone, and has
about 30% female members.
Unlike some female coworkers, I don't even get insulted when someone
addresses a group with me in it as "gentlemen".
Marina
Her Serene Highness
"perrin" <perr...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:pleka.120$L37....@newsfep2-gui.server.ntli.net...
>
> >
> > For a person looking for identity through gender roles Gods and
Goddesses
> > are probably a good place to turn. There is enough diversity in the
roles
> > that there should be something for nearly everyone to identify with.
> >
> >
>
> Hmmm. Which god could a malesub identify with?
>
> perrin.
Mercury? Loki? Prometheus? Attis? Bacchus?
Her Serene Highness
"Marina Muilwijk" <m.mui...@library.uu.nl> wrote in message
news:Xns9356939D4...@131.211.16.24...
Even if you do learn the truth- that you are not doomed- the doubt remains
in limited amounts. You explained this beautifully.
There's a part of me that wants to be a cheerleader. In fact, with the BF,
I do feel like a cheerleader, with him as the quarterback. But I'm a
cheerleader in logging boots and a smart mouth, and he's a quarterback who
wears lipstick and cries. Neither one of us have to pick on the other
children in the schoolyeard, because we're aware of being 'different' also.
Plus, we don't want to.
>
Her Serene Highness
>
> It could be useful; social change happens over many years and millions of
> people, and it can be tough to make a noticable impact in the Big
> Picture--discouraging sometimes. But self-image and self-worth exists
> entirely between your own ears, and change there depends far more on you
> than on anyone outside.
>
> Conrad Hodson
True. And when black men try to catch uptown taxis ate at night, their
self-image will take away the feeling of hurt when taxis pass them by. By
the same token, fat women who have high self-esteem will be fashion models
next year, because the world will stop calling them pigs. And women in SM
who love sex will no longer be told they have to be sluts or whores, because
their love of sex will have positive language attached to it. And all of
this out of wishful thinking. If only all this could be true.
I do think self esteen matters a great deal. It doesn not erase the reality
of the outside world. For instance, I've also been told I'd be a perfect
sub and would find lots of upscale educated men- if I were white. Most
upscale educated men in the scene are white, and want white women. True, my
self-esteem tells me that I don't want a man who can't buck the racial line-
but will that comfort me when I need a beating? Should I just find partners
who don't care about that, even if we have no or few other interests in
common? Should I simply tell myself that I don't care if I can never have a
conversation about movies or theatre or physics with my lover again, or that
I can have all those things- but be celibate? And all the while, know that
although nothing is wrong with me and I like myself, I'm seen as less human
than other women?
Granted, I wanted a woman 13 years ago. I fell in love with the woman of my
dreams- who had the body of a hairy Jewish man 20 years my senior. Being
flexible, I took my gorgeous dominant woman in the form she was given to me,
and hearned to adapt to penile sex. But inside where it counted, my husband
was the woman I wanted, and he wanted me. But it wasn't easy, and I'm going
through similar things again.
>
Her Serene Highness
No. You have to be more than strong- you have to not notice that you can't
have the person you want. you have to sleep with 3 people and become poly
and call yourself an ethical slut, so that people won't have to listen to
you whine anymore. You have to watch men your age go for 20 year olds who
need training, knowing full well those 'girls' will be gone in a year, and
say nothing even though you have all the qualities those men want save one-
the ability to twinkle like a star at every thing they say, instead of
simply conversing back. Even better, you have to smile like the Buddha while
men who know nothing set themselves up as experts on SM and are taken
seriously, while you get ignored because you didn't havethe sense to grow a
penis. And none of it is supposed to bother you, because that will make you
sound like an obnoxious asshole. And we all know that's the greatest crime
a woman can commit, while there are men who make entire careers being that
way.
John Warren
news:_teka.6753$n95.2...@twister.nyc.rr.com...
Coyote?
Given my deserved reputation for the mindfuck, he naturally comes to mind.
--
www.diversifiedservices.biz
(Books, Videos and Toys for the Scene since 1992)
Her Serene Highness
"LususNaturae" <lususn...@1stConnect.com> wrote in message
news:4sr19vof8h5ti4kbb...@4ax.com...
>
> As an undersized man, I have always been very aware of those
> points in my life when I was able to achieve a better self-image
> by physical accomplishment. Growing up on a farm, I learned to
> work long hard days. As a teenager, I was surprised and
> gratified to find that I could outwork any young man my age,
> except for other, bigger farm boys. This was a way in which I
> measured up as a man. Similarly, it was an ego boost to find
> that, although I couldn't compete with larger boys in baseball,
> basketball or football, I could become a champion wrestler.
> Excelling at even a less popular sport was perceived by myself
> and my peers as a manly accomplishment.
>
> The only ego boosting physical accomplishments for women are
> winning beauty pageants, "catching a husband," and having
> babies. And women's attitudes reflect this.
Thank you for understanding. Not only that- but if I succeed in a sport or
the world of work, it makes me less womanly. If I suceed while wearing
makeup, I must be sleeping my way to the top. If I succeed without it, I
must be s dyke.
Why are so many people on this list acting like we're the only ones who got
indoctrinated, and like they've never heard of sexual stereotypes? Why do
they behave that logic will make them go away?
>
> Another area where a man can earn ego points is in his
> profession. Women are getting better opportunities there, but
> they lag behind men in prestige, and I think, for that reason, a
> woman tends not to get as big a sense of self worth from her
> career, and therefore it doesn't become as big a part of her
> identity. (Of course, in that way she may escape the identity
> crisis which men frequently experience when they retire.)
>
> Just some quick thoughts.
>
> --
> Lusus Naturae
I'll be finishing up a PhD in a few months, and you know what? I'm still not
respected in my family, because I don't have children. I don't go home for
holidays. It's painful when I'm not dating. There are times when I've dated
men I ordinarily would have fled from because I wanted to feel 'normal'. In
my local community there are men who want to date me, but we have nothing in
common but SM. I've been told by 'friends' that this should be good enough
for me- after all, it's good enough for them. And then their relationships
break up after a year, and they don't know why. And many of the women have
become 'bi' or 'poly' to make men who 'deserve' two women happy- but they
don't feel they can insist on having two men. All of this makes me want to
hide in my room- but I can't socialize with anyone in my room.
perrin
LOL. I think the reason I asked the question was not to be given a
specific list but really to draw attention to a hole (that I thought was
obvious but clearly isn't) in FreeRadical's assertion that we could all
identify with gods and goddesses for gender roles. I think it would be
really difficult for most malesubs (certainly for me) to think of
themselves in any god like way. The idea of being an omnipotent powerful
being does not square with being divorced of power in service to one's
Mistress.
Her Serene Highness
> On 07 Apr 2003, ze...@zip.com.au (SilverOz) wrote in
> news:slrnb920s6...@zipperii.zip.com.au:
>
> > Not only that, you are not-N. And that can be nasty. If you
> > aren't a manly man, you are a faggot wimp. If you aren't a pretty
> > feminine woman you are a man hating hairy legged lesbian
>
> Imagine being a hairy-legged lesbian (though not particulary man-
> hating). And then hearing that you're no good as a butch, either,
> because you weren't a tomboy and you don't know how to repair a car (or
> even drive one). At least I was smart in an environment where being
> smart was OK. Probably as a result of that, being smart became very
> important to me. I may be not-woman and not-butch, but I am smart and
> have the degrees to prove it. >
SISTAH! Woo-hoo! I took the same route. I'm too femmy-looking to be butch
and I can't play pool. I became smart instead. And I still overachieve as
compensation. My fantasy was to marry Katherine Hepburn- my ideal butch
lesbian. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find her. If you do, please send
her to my house.
> > I still get a reflex ick when confronted with groups to promote
> > women in computing, or support groups for same. It feels too much
> > like ghettoisation and giving in to me. Too much like accepting
> > we don't belong. even though it does seem clear that there is a
> > difference in how women and men view computing in general - that
> > is that while the outliers cross, the majority don't.
>
> This university has a "women in the university" group. I've looked at
> their newsletter a few times, but I don't feel I belong with them.
> Partly because most members are faculty (I'm lowly computer staff),
> partly because they worry about issues that don't concern me (like
> childcare facilities), partly because I personally don't have any
> problems and somehow can't feel the kind of solidarity (or maybe
> sisterhood) that would make me want to help women in particular. So
> instead I joined a union, which supposedly helps everyone, and has
> about 30% female members.
I'm the same way. I'm a feminist and humanist, but I don't feel immediate
solidarity with women who have children. I don't even feel immediate
solidarity with women.
>
>
> Unlike some female coworkers, I don't even get insulted when someone
> addresses a group with me in it as "gentlemen".
::Laugh:: Male honorifics don't freak me. But then, I tend to 'feel' male,
whatever that means.
perrin
<snip>
>
> Unlike some female coworkers, I don't even get insulted when someone
> addresses a group with me in it as "gentlemen".
>
>
>
> Marina
>
Maybe you should just stick your hand up and say in a loud voice,
"Excuse me, I really object to that...... I'm not gentle."
Nicole Diver
together an identity, a self, that works. And maybe you'll then be able
to explain the hurt so that in your turn you can maybe give others that
bit of support and light without them feeling frustrated and annoyed at
people who think it is so damn easy."
Sigh. A self-fulfilling prophesy. I said I would probably hash it up,
and then proceeded to do so, apparently. I'm going to give it one more
try then, and see if I can get it better, then quit the field.
I never said it was easy. Not once. I never said that it was logical,
or that it happened smoothly, or that it was all sweetness and light. I
never said that I was encouraged to find myself, in school or otherwise.
I have intimate knowledge of how it feels to be something that others
dislike/make fun of/try to beat out of you. That bit about my sixth
grade teacher? I was afraid I sounded like her because she lectured and
hectored me for an entire miserable year, not because she was daily
supporting and encouraging my choices in self-identification. She had
me banned from the library in order to improve my social skills, so that
I wouldn't spend so much time reading. That's the support I got out of
her. The one refuge I had, and she took it from me.
I worked hard, damn hard to get to where I am. I work hard every day to
stay there. So screw that little diatribe about my lack of
qualifications to tell people about cobbling together an identity that
works. I have no obligation to share my pain with anyone for their
eddification or to prove that I've suffered "enough" for a valid
opinion. That doesn't mean I won't share what I've learned for myself,
or that it doesn't have worth. I shared what parts of me I was willing
to share with you, and they annoyed you. You think that makes me
shallow Mary Sunshine, then so what.
The really funny thing about this conversation is that when I first came
here, and had a little mini-rant about a label that someone else had
applied to me, you encouraged me to embrace it.
perrin
<snip>
>
> Hmm... How do the blokes deal? Anyone want to pipe up? When
> confronted with all that relentless "male sub is female sub with dick
> and unwanted small ugly dick at that" images, how do you deal?
>
> SilverOz
>
>
I think for a male sub having to cope with the girly-man stereotype
it is perversely easier in some ways and in the longer term than it is
for a female sub coping with the girly-woman stereotype. This is because
although it is more derogatory for him he has to deal with it from day
one. The connotations are so obvious when you identify as a male sub
that you need to develop your coping strategy immediately.
I remember watching a television program a long time ago (before I
knew about submission) about female fantasies and I sat there thinking
shit I have every one of these. Before I knew I was a male sub I used to
think about myself as being sexually female, so I had to come to terms
with that within myself long before I exposed that to anyone else, by
which time I was comfortable with it. I am otherwise not feminine in any
way. I am heterosexual and masculine in appearance, mannerisms and
lifestyle. Overall I'm comfortable with myself regarding my sexuality
and this means really I don't care what anyone else might think. I am
not involved in any scene though, just with my wife and online. It may
be different for those involved in their local scenes.
The other coping strategy would be to fit the stereotype, all power
to the guys that do that and it's their perogative. It's not me though.
I think the major difference for you is that the girly-woman
stereotype has crept up around you. You feel like it is beginning to
surround you and encroach on your identity. You are having to develop
your coping strategy retrospectively which is way more difficult,
although I believe the answer to be the same. Fit the stereotype or just
be comfortable with yourself. Easier said than done.
StormWolf
>I'm not any of that, I don't want to be any of that, but if I don't,
>then what am I?
I gave up a long time ago trying to label who and what I am. Like
you, I don't particularly fit the common understanding or behaviors of
"submissive" or "female". Part of that is because I switch....it's
part of who I am. Part of it is because I don't "flag" behavior that
other sub women do. I'm not cute and I don't do cute, girly things.
You can always try the option I've gone with. When someone asks what
I am, I tell them "I'm a moonlight." I don't see why "I'm a SilverOz"
wouldn't work just as well. :)
>Same as if I don't end up being as women are supposed to be, wearing
>those clothes and that makeup and being obsessed over men and cooking
>and mobile phones with diamong chips... Am I a woman? Or am I all
>the things that not-a-woman is supposed to be: ugly, bitter, a failed
>man?
Well, if you are, then I know of at least a dozen other not-men out
there, myself included. So, at the very least you're not *alone* in
your neitherness. What it all boils down to is where you draw your
"normal" line and how far from that you're allowed to deviate.
In my world, I've adjusted to there being more than just "men" and
"women". There are all sorts of people on a scale between the two.
That makes some number of people uncomfortable. Which is not really
my concern.
>Someone, and it probably was MetalFem years ago, called me misogynist
>because I was so much against the stereotype of woman that I was
>despising it, and therefore anyone who seemed to me to fit it. So I
>spoke of it in disgusted terms, and thus was disgusted with anyone who
>was "accepting" it. Because I couldn't accept that anyone worthwhile
>was like that.
Is that it? Or is it that you're tired of not being accepted because
you don't fit into it? I know I don't hate "women" or "submissives".
I hate that the category is being defined to narrowly...and that makes
me lash out. Because the people that *should* accept me into their
ranks often don't.
>So here I am, not-woman, not-sub, and struggling with the difficulty
>of maybe therefore being the stereotype of those things. Not-woman is
>the butt of many jokes - bitter, ugly, unfulfilled, unworthy,
>unwanted. Not-sub? Dunno, although the experience on the ground is
>that not-sub is lonely as hell :) "Submissive support groups" are
>like "women's support groups", apparently populated by aliens. I just
>don't seem to play well with women. (My one disastrous foray into a
>butch/femme space really drove that home!)
I don't either. Most lists drive me batty. Because I don't cap my
name, I'm expected to simper. When I don't simper, I'm told I need to
change. There's not enough room for other definitions.
>BUt I still twitch when I see the submissive/woman stereotype of
>girly weakness being embraced so happily. Deep from within me is "but
>if that's right, then I am so wrong, so wrong, so wrong, and I am all
>the terrible things that not-girly not-weak not-pretty women are..."
No, you're not wrong, Silver. No more than I am. But we *are*
different. Perhaps relics of some inbetween time between what has
come to be known as "Old Guard" and this newer type of identity. But
we do exist. And we're not alone.
>Solution? Ain't none that I can see, except to hold on to the idea
>that the world is not binary no matter how pervasive that idea is.
>That not-stereotype-submissive doesn't mean therefore
>stereotype-unwanted, stereotype-unlikeable.
That's about all that you can do. At least, as far as I've found.
And keep looking for groups or people that can accept that. If they
can't, move on.
moonlight
karinne W
> >Me, I think that if you can answer straightforwardly why you care,
> >you may find important hints as to how to deal with it. In my
> >experience, people usually have their own answers, they just can't
> >see them in the flood of all the other stuff in their heads and in
> >their hearts. Setting those things forth, examining them, comparing
> >them and ranking them tends to let the answers rise to the surface.
> >
>
> Why do I care? Because I was badly hurt, condemned, laughed at, told
> I was nothing, told I was ugly, unloved and unlovable.
>
> And whether or not I'm supposed to let that hurt me doesn't matter
> much, it did.
>
> things and say "you aren't alone, I did it too, and while some things
> will still hurt, and you won't get the stuff people tell you that you
> will get if you just become different, you will get other stuff."
>
> aching. But if I can maybe help someone else avoid getting wounded in
> the first place by helping them see that they aren't alone or
> freakish, then that's good enough for me.
g*ddamn I get this. Get it so hard, it hurts with the memories. Heard all
the same stuff. Tho' today you wouldn't know that...those I talk about it
to, the few, are others who I know would 'get it' too. Having things like
ugly and freak(cause you're too smart) and unloveable/dont' belong pounded
into one's head while young and forming worldviews doesn't go away. Do
others, now, see me as 'attractive', whatever that is? Yeah, you bet, not
'classically' or in the popular way, but yes. Do I see it? Maybe once in a
great while.
Do I let it affect my life now? Rarely, I suppose, but it's part of what
"made" me. I (as you, I believe) am a fighter, though likely in different
ways. I may not be "ok", whatever that is, but dammit I will make it.
>
> Because I am not a freak, no matter the many years of people telling
> me I am, no matter the pictures I see every day, the relentless
> emphasis that the only women, the only submissives, are people who are
> nothing like me except for chromosomes...
>
I don't look like "the pictures" either...but I have learned to enjoy being
a woman. Just like I enjoy being all the other stuff I am. I don't like it
all the time, I don't like anything all the time.
We are such creations of our lives...
karinne
> SilverOz
StormWolf
wrote:
>Hmmm. Which god could a malesub identify with?
My answer? Any of them. I tend to prefer sub males that are strong
willed, independent, and who *want* to submit to me....they don't have
to simper or not be a man's man. As long as they'll let me go
shooting and fishing with them.
moonlight
StormWolf
<eit...@forest.pcpartner.net> wrote:
>Why do you care? Or what is it that makes you so uncomfortable
>inside your own skin?
>
>Does it matter what the rest of the world thinks?
>
>What would it take for you to be comfortable with yourself?
>
>Comfort is something that comes from within; you can't re-make the
>world to make yourself comfortable.
I think the answer to all of these is that it gets *tiring* to swim
against the stream. Sometimes it would be nice to just be able to sit
and rest and just *be*.
That's hard to do...for anyone, really. But when you don't "fit",
sometimes finding a space that you do fit is a godsend.
moonlight
TyMeDwn1st
>> Your entire post on the subject, especially this one came across that
>> way. That somehow I'm wrong for thinking and doing all this, that I
>> shouldn't care or shouldn't let it hurt me.
>>
>> What I hear is "weak, foolish", which might not be what you said, but
>> it's what I hear.
>
>
>I'm very sorry about that. It sounds like an incredibly painful way
>to live one's life. It sounds like you have internal doubts and then
>"hear" them in other people's words as well so they seem like
>external doubts as well.
For what it's worth, my gut response to your words to Zebee was pretty much the
same as hers, and I find this more recent statement to be pretty patronizing.
The therapy-speak of "it sounds like..." is grating, especially when it seems
to carry a sub rosa comment that she's simply imagining and magnifying the
misogyny of society in general and Oz in particular.
--
Ty
Who is mostly just
a slightly skewed
Donna Reed
This address is white-listed. Mail sent to it may bounce back to the sender.
perrin
Strong willed, independant do not equal god.
Her Serene Highness
> >
>
> LOL. I think the reason I asked the question was not to be given a
> specific list but really to draw attention to a hole (that I thought was
> obvious but clearly isn't) in FreeRadical's assertion that we could all
> identify with gods and goddesses for gender roles. I think it would be
> really difficult for most malesubs (certainly for me) to think of
> themselves in any god like way. The idea of being an omnipotent powerful
> being does not square with being divorced of power in service to one's
> Mistress.
goddesses.
Her Serene Highness
> StormWolf wrote:
> > On Mon, 07 Apr 2003 13:43:13 +0100, perrin <perr...@yahoo.co.uk>
> > wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Hmmm. Which god could a malesub identify with?
> >
> >
> > My answer? Any of them. I tend to prefer sub males that are strong
> > willed, independent, and who *want* to submit to me....they don't have
> > to simper or not be a man's man. As long as they'll let me go
> > shooting and fishing with them.
> >
> > moonlight
> >
> >
> >
>
> Strong willed, independant do not equal god.
>
> perrin.
But it can. I'm a submissive- I'm also a Goddess.
anneliese
> Free Radical wrote:
>
>> anneliese <anne...@sonic.net> wrote in message
>>
>>
>>> Now that I'm an adult and not *expected* to be "feminine" I enjoy
>>> dressing up a lot more. For me, feminine and womanly are the same
>>> thing.
>>> But then, I consider the goddesses Freya, Brigit, and Hera as feminine.
>>>
>>> anneliese
>>
>> For a person looking for identity through gender roles Gods and
>> Goddesses
>> are probably a good place to turn. There is enough diversity in the
>> roles
>> that there should be something for nearly everyone to identify with.
>
>
> Hmmm. Which god could a malesub identify with?
> perrin.
How about Hermes?
"...his connexion with fertility and with all manner of beasts, and the
fact that he is god of luck and can give wealth, honest or dishonest in
its origin (he is god of traders and also of thieves), all suggest that
he is, like Apollo Nomios, a deity whose influence extended over the
traditional ancient form of wealth, flocks and herds and their increase.
He likewise is connected with human fertility, and one of his oldest
cult monuments is simply the phallos, which remained a prominent feature
of his cult. Occasionally he governs the fertility of the earth also...
he is credited with having invented fire-making; and as he is the
servant and messenger of the greater gods, he even appears as a cook..."
http://www2.herkos.artsfac.csuohio.edu/myths/Hermes.html
--
"Hi, I'm anneliese - a fire sign sub..."
Endorphins are living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
(with apologies to Ben Franklin)
Janet Hardy
> SilverOz, I am simply amazed that you care what society in general may
> or may not think of you. To paraphrase here, you are what you are, it's
> different from what I am, (or Conrad is, or SlackTop is, or Ty is) and
> it's okay. My amazement stems, I guess, from the fact that you are
> obviously an intelligent, articulate woman. The only labels that matter
> are the ones you choose for yourself. If you want to be a biker sans
> makeup, be that. If it ceases to make you happy, be something else.
> You get to decide what being a submissive is "for you".
Would that it were that simple. I'm a close fit for SilverOz in many
ways -- I never figured out the girl thing, I'm happiest and most
comfortable when presenting rather androgynously, etc. I'm not as strong
as she is -- it's so much easier to present a traditionally feminine
appearance that I go ahead and do so; my desire not to have to explain
myself, and my desire to be conventionally "attractive" in personal and
business contexts, outweighs my sense of who I really am. I can't change
my actual affect -- I still look people straight in the eye, speak
before beign spoken to, am usually the aggressor in romantic encounters,
take up as much physical space as my body is entitled to, etc., etc. --
but most people aren't clued in enough to masculine and feminine
signifiers to "see" that on a conscious level; they read me as
intimidating, not masculine (all because of a little extra length on the
hair, a few hairs tweezed out of the eyebrows, and a few subtle shifts
in clothing style).
But the genuine consequences -- not just in terms of opinions or
perceptions, but real-world physical, emotional and financial harm -- of
not fitting into social gender norms can be severe. Being "not-woman,"
as SilverOz puts it (correctly), can get you ostracized, mocked and even
attacked; it pounds the hell out of your social life (particularly if
you have any interest in social/sexual interactions with men), holds you
back in many businesses, costs you polite service in many retail
environments, etc., etc.
Most traditionally feminine behaviors translate at a subconscious level
to "deferential" (qv. dropping the eyes, raising the voice at the end of
a sentece, using approval-seeking sentence-enders like "Right?",
giggling, et al ad nauseam). A great many traditionally feminine
appearance signifiers are expensive, time-consuming and/or physically
handicapping, which translate at a logistical level to "it's so
important to me to look attractive that I'm willing to hurt my body,
wallet and schedule to do so" -- another form of deference, really. A
woman who refuses to adopt that deferential pose is challenging cultural
authority, and she *will* pay a price for it. This isn't a matter of
worrying about people's opinions, it's a matter of a correct perception
of genuine harm.
Janet
-----
... But I Know What You Want - the first collection of stories by the
"mystery writer" James Williams. "Williams explores his characters, men
and women, gay and bi and het, with an easy intimacy, as if he had at
some time inhabited each of their bodies" - Dossie Easton. Now available
at http://www.greenerypress.com .
StormWolf
wrote:
>LOL. I think the reason I asked the question was not to be given a
>specific list but really to draw attention to a hole (that I thought was
>obvious but clearly isn't) in FreeRadical's assertion that we could all
>identify with gods and goddesses for gender roles. I think it would be
>really difficult for most malesubs (certainly for me) to think of
>themselves in any god like way. The idea of being an omnipotent powerful
>being does not square with being divorced of power in service to one's
>Mistress.
If you think that all God/desses are omnipotent and all-powerful, then
I could see where this could be a problem. However, they aren't.
They come in a wide variety of flavors, colors, and mental makeup.s :)
moonlight
anneliese
> John Warren wrote:
>
>> "Her Serene Highness" wrote...
>>
>>> "perrin" said...
>>>
>>>>> For a person looking for identity through gender roles Gods and
>>>>> Goddesses
>>>>
>>>>> are probably a good place to turn. There is enough diversity in
>>>>> the roles
>>>>
>>>>> that there should be something for nearly everyone to identify with.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Hmmm. Which god could a malesub identify with?
>>>>
>>>> perrin.
>>>
>>>
>>> Mercury? Loki? Prometheus? Attis? Bacchus?
>>
>> Coyote?
>>
>> Given my deserved reputation for the mindfuck, he naturally comes to
>> mind.
>>
>
> LOL. I think the reason I asked the question was not to be given a
> specific list but really to draw attention to a hole (that I thought
> was obvious but clearly isn't) in FreeRadical's assertion that we
> could all identify with gods and goddesses for gender roles. I think
> it would be really difficult for most malesubs (certainly for me) to
> think of themselves in any god like way. The idea of being an
> omnipotent powerful being does not square with being divorced of power
> in service to one's Mistress.
>
> perrin.
>
What I find interesting is that several of the above Gods are associated
with being tricksters. (Hermes, Loki, Coyote). I immediately thought of
the "Messenger" gods. Those who, while powerful within their roles, are
the servants of greater gods and goddesses.
I don't see myself as divorced of power and so, hadn't included this
parameter in my mental search. I see myself as powerful. However, all my
power is used to the benefit of my master. In a sense it becomes *his*
power. As such, he can use it as he sees fit, even to taking it away
from me at times. Did any of that actually make sense? I can feel this
but its hard to explain.
anneliese
--
Her Serene Highness
"TyMeDwn1st" <tymed...@aol.comPEARLS> wrote in message
news:20030407113112...@mb-cd.aol.com...
> M Shirley Chong eit...@forest.pcpartner.net wrote:
>
>
>
> >> Your entire post on the subject, especially this one came across that
> >> way. That somehow I'm wrong for thinking and doing all this, that I
> >> shouldn't care or shouldn't let it hurt me.
> >>
> >> What I hear is "weak, foolish", which might not be what you said, but
> >> it's what I hear.
> >
> >
> >I'm very sorry about that. It sounds like an incredibly painful way
> >to live one's life. It sounds like you have internal doubts and then
> >"hear" them in other people's words as well so they seem like
> >external doubts as well.
>
> For what it's worth, my gut response to your words to Zebee was pretty
much the
> same as hers, and I find this more recent statement to be pretty
patronizing.
> The therapy-speak of "it sounds like..." is grating, especially when it
seems
> to carry a sub rosa comment that she's simply imagining and magnifying the
> misogyny of society in general and Oz in particular.
Maybe some of us are more sensitive to misogyny than others. Some of the
stuff written here reminds me of a recent conversation with the BF, where he
told me that he wishes I wasn't so 'obsessed' with racism. I told him that
I wish I wasn't either, but since the bleach hadn't worked I'd have to
remain obsessed. It's easy for him to not be obsessed- he's a white guy from
Massachusetts who lives among white people. If I had grown up in a totally
black world with black people running things, I wouldn't be obsessed with
racism, either- which is one of the things that affects relations between
African Americans and West Indians.
When people write, 'well, I'm a bi poly switch, and I'm happy!' I want to
scream. Being bi at a play party, or feeling it's a giggle to shock the
straights by holding a girl's hand on the street is not the same thing as
buying a house with a woman, introducing her to your parents, or working out
a retirement plan and will. Not all bi poly switches are like that, but most
of them are. It's also not the same as loving a person with all your heart,
and watching that person grow old and maybe die. There are poly people who
do this with one partner, but they usually don't do it with all the people
they 'love'. Being a switch like a person changing partners at a dance is
not the same as working out the difficulties of being in one role- but not
fitting it the way most of the people around you do, because you are queer
in ways they (and you) can't fully understand. Not all switches are like
that, but most of them thank goodness are not struggling with issues over
gender and what it means, and what they want it to be for them compared to
the rest of the world.
Some of you seem to be lucky enough to be living in another part of the
universe, where there are no Western gender roles. In fact, you behave as
if you've never heard of them, even as you act them out. Or somehow, you've
found a way of never conforming to anything. But some of us want family
ties. We want to own property and have jobs that make more money than you
can make at a bookstore. We are not computer programmers or entrepreneurs.
We want to fall in love, maybe have a kid or two, or not, do SM, and die in
our own beds- but we don't fit the standard ideas of male and female because
we are the wrong height, the wrong shape, the wrong skin color, the wrong
age, the wrong soul, the wrong something. We're strong but we would like to
relax sometimes and not be strong, but we can't even relax in the SM
community, because it has rules too. One of those rules seems to be that
you have to pretend that you've escaped gender and sexual presumptions
through your superior force of will while living them out with a vengeance.
No wonder people like Zebee and myself feel invisible and marginalized.
Thanks for saying something, Ty, Lusus and Marina. It was beginning to
hurt.
Her Serene Highness
"StormWolf" <moonl...@kc99.rr.com> wrote in message
news:ta239vsg6dr4ejkgl...@4ax.com...
> On 6 Apr 2003 21:10:46 GMT, ze...@zip.com.au .
>
> In my world, I've adjusted to there being more than just "men" and
> "women". There are all sorts of people on a scale between the two.
> That makes some number of people uncomfortable. Which is not really
> my concern.
That;'s the secret, itsn't it? Opening up the realm of possibility.
StormWolf
wrote:
>Strong willed, independant do not equal god.
That depends on your definition of God. As a pagan, I don't buy into
the "all powerful", "all knowing" stereotype of the JCI deity.
There's lots more out there than that and they have human qualities
and foibles.
Some are androgynous, some are hermaphrodites, some are homosexual,
some are....the list goes on. Some, also, are submissive to the will
of others. If you want to look for deity role models, they're out
there.
moonlight
perrin
No logical reason why it should, but it makes much more sense to me
to imagine a femsub Goddess than a malesub God. I can imagine a male Dom
speaking of 'his property the helper Goddess' much easier than I can
imagine a femdom speaking of 'her property the helper God'. This
probably says more about the way I view women than it says anything else.
Obviously I'm a sexist pig malesub!!
anneliese
>On Mon, 07 Apr 2003 16:40:08 +0100, perrin <perr...@yahoo.co.uk>
>wrote:
>
>>Strong willed, independant do not equal god.
>>
>That depends on your definition of God. As a pagan, I don't buy into
>the "all powerful", "all knowing" stereotype of the JCI deity.
>There's lots more out there than that and they have human qualities
>and foibles.
>
Heck, even Jesus had his foibles. He was short tempered and like to hang
out with the "wrong crowd". :) All those prostitutes, tax collectors,
loan sharks, thieves, etc. sheesh! What's a poor mother to do? Seriously
though, if a person strongly identifies with the Christian faith, then
it *does* get a bit more challenging to find a malesub role model.
You've got one god doing triple duty and within that, one aspect doing
double duty as both God and man; Omnipotent ruler of All and the Servant
of Mankind.
>Some are androgynous, some are hermaphrodites, some are homosexual,
>some are....the list goes on. Some, also, are submissive to the will
>of others. If you want to look for deity role models, they're out
>there.
>
Hmmm... would it be valid to say that those areas which permitted or
expected women to be "strong" (warriors, etc.) also allowed for the fact
that there were submissive men? And, that this will be reflected in
their mythologies?
anneliese
--
"Hi, I'm anneliese - a fire sign sub..."
Endorphins are living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
TyMeDwn1st
> No logical reason why it should, but it makes much more sense to me
>to imagine a femsub Goddess than a malesub God. I can imagine a male Dom
>speaking of 'his property the helper Goddess' much easier than I can
>imagine a femdom speaking of 'her property the helper God'. This
>probably says more about the way I view women than it says anything else.
> Obviously I'm a sexist pig malesub!!
>
>perrin.
You might enjoy googling for LadyGold's description of her role/status in her
former relationship with Serion.
Uh, well, you probably wouldn't enjoy the googling, but the results might be
interesting.
Free Radical
> Free Radical wrote:
> > anneliese <anne...@sonic.net> wrote in message
> >
> >
> >>Now that I'm an adult and not *expected* to be "feminine" I enjoy
> >>dressing up a lot more. For me, feminine and womanly are the same thing.
> >>But then, I consider the goddesses Freya, Brigit, and Hera as feminine.
> >>
> >>anneliese
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > For a person looking for identity through gender roles Gods and
Goddesses
> > are probably a good place to turn. There is enough diversity in the
roles
> > that there should be something for nearly everyone to identify with.
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
Isn't that going to depend on the sub and how he views the nature of his
service?
---
Thoth served as an arbiter among the gods. In the Osirian legend, he
protected Isis during her pregnancy and healed her son Horus when Seth tore
out his left eye. Thoth was later identified with the Greek god Hermes in
the form of Hermes Trismegistos ("Hermes the thrice great"), in which form
he remained popular in medieval magic and alchemy. Thoth was also a god of
the underworld, where he served as a clerk who recorded the judgments on the
souls of the dead. Alternatively, it was Thoth himself who weighed the
hearts of the dead against the feather of Truth in the Hall of the Two
Truths.
Free Radical
> Even if you do learn the truth- that you are not doomed- the doubt remains
> in limited amounts. You explained this beautifully.
>
Is there anyone who felt like they were the model of typical? I sure
haven't met them.
StormWolf
Secret? Maybe. I know that I had to take several classes in my
anthropology coursework on gender and the body before I had it driven
home that these are social constructs that we have to buy into and
propagate. That the very culture we live and breathe indoctrinates us
to follow along.
Taking a step *outside* of that culture for a moment can be a scary
thing. Living outside of it is even harder, particularly when some of
the values are the same...or needs are the same.
I now recognize 5-6 sexes in people...and believe me, that upsets
some of the people I speak with who want to stick to "male" and
"female". And that's not including the range of genders that are
available to interpret sex. (Sex being physical characteristics of
internal and external reproductive organs, gender being the mental
constructions of male and female)
I'm coming to grips with the idea that genders are even more variable.
And that makes it ok to be outside the "norm". I may never get that
idea through to many people....but in my small bubble of the world,
I'm making progress. My friends all seem to accept my outlook....and
so I forge on. :)
moonlight
StormWolf
wrote:
>Hmmm... would it be valid to say that those areas which permitted or
>expected women to be "strong" (warriors, etc.) also allowed for the fact
>that there were submissive men? And, that this will be reflected in
>their mythologies?
It's certainly possible. Most of the ones that I'm aware of that
could be considered genderbenders or containing both genders are Asian
or Indian (India, not NA) in nature. I'm sure there are others out
there that would also qualify. I can think of one or two Loa/Orisha
that also bend around to non-"traditional" roles as men and women. I
would think that if the culture provided for the concept of
two-spirits or women taking on a masculine role that there would also
be models of behavior for men taking on a feminine one. Not *quite*
the same thing as D/s, but it might be a place to start looking.
moonlight
Free Radical
Her Serene Highness <nysm...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> Thank you for understanding. Not only that- but if I succeed in a sport
or
> the world of work, it makes me less womanly. If I suceed while wearing
> makeup, I must be sleeping my way to the top. If I succeed without it, I
> must be s dyke.
> Why are so many people on this list acting like we're the only ones who
got
> indoctrinated, and like they've never heard of sexual stereotypes? Why do
> they behave that logic will make them go away?
>
Because the stereotypes you have about stereotypes do not hold up under
scrutiny. Sure they exist. But they are only fragments of all perceptions.
Most women are not primadonas (thank God). Most men are not John Wayne.
And most people seem to learn this and adapt.
I see a lot of people and groups fighting sterotypes striving to replace
them with other equally confining stereotypes. Anyone who expects that the
entire humanity is going to understand and embrace completely their
individuality is destined to a life of dissapointment. It ain't gonna
happen, for anybody.
When I see people in pain from the effects that indoctorination has had on
them I want to make that pain go away. For some I guess that will take no
less than a total overhaul of human nature. Which leaves me facing a life
of frustration and disapointment. Because it ain't gonna happen. Some
people will keep returning to the same sharp edges to reopen the same wounds
almost as if the wounds themselves have become an integral part of their
self identity.
Free Radical
perrin <perr...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
> LOL. I think the reason I asked the question was not to be given a
> specific list but really to draw attention to a hole (that I thought was
> obvious but clearly isn't) in FreeRadical's assertion that we could all
> identify with gods and goddesses for gender roles. I think it would be
> really difficult for most malesubs (certainly for me) to think of
> themselves in any god like way. The idea of being an omnipotent powerful
> being does not square with being divorced of power in service to one's
> Mistress.
>
That is not quite what I said. I said there is enough diversity in the Gods
*and* Godesses that nearly everyone should be able to find something to
identify with. You can always turn to the humans who served them.
I would think that it would be very difficult to be divorced of power under
any circumstance. It would be pretty hard to avoid the power that goes with
service. Most of the Gods and Goddesses served something other than
themselves. Perhaps the closest to being divorced of power a person can
come is to become self serving enough that they have no external power to
draw on.
M Shirley Chong
> For what it's worth, my gut response to your words to Zebee was pretty much the
> same as hers, and I find this more recent statement to be pretty patronizing.
> The therapy-speak of "it sounds like..." is grating, especially when it seems
> to carry a sub rosa comment that she's simply imagining and magnifying the
> misogyny of society in general and Oz in particular.
I am sorry--I apologize with all my heart. I didn't mean it to sound
that way at all. I certainly didn't mean to deny that both she and I
are living in misogynistic cultures.
Obviously I have a blind spot about this and I'm uncertain as to
what is in that spot.
One place where I'm blind is that I didn't know that "it sounds
like" is therapy-speak. I talk like that and I write like that and
never realized it. I will try to stop it (not sure where I picked it
up).
I did feel that SilverOz was projecting into my serious and
not-meant-to-carry-an-ulterior-message question of "why do you
care...?" things that were never intended at all. I wanted to
acknowledge her feelings but did not want to lie and say "oh yes,
obviously that is what I intended all along" when the fact is that
is *not* what was intended.
Is there some way I can better communicate these things?
Shirley
to reply via e-mail remove the trees from my address
Free Radical
Marina Muilwijk <m.mui...@library.uu.nl> wrote in message
> > Then you can see that the exception is more common than the norm?
> > That is what I see.
>
> Yes, once you've learned to look. But you do have to learn to see that
> the exceptions are not freaks doomed to a lifetime of misery ("it's not
> their fault they are like that, but they'll never be happy").
So how does a person learn to look? Does having others challenge the
perspective help? Or does it just add to the load of "you are not ok"
input?
I am sure it is different for different people. What worries me is that I
can not tell the difference.
SilverOz
>
>
>> I'm exaggerating mostly. I certainly haven't been happy in my time
>> about it, and sometimes it reappears.
>Am I mistaken, then, in taking your post seriously?
Nope. Mistaken perhaps in thinking I am overwhelmed or consistently
unhappy.
>So do you know where it is you want to go? Is comfort within
>yourself one of your goals (I should have asked this much sooner)?
I don't think of it as "goals". Or "going" anywhere. It's not a
matepahor that makes sense to me in this case.
>
>> Because I don't feel for them in the same way. Because if I'd known
>> there were more like me before, I might have got happier earlier.
>
>
>This seems to me to be giving the power of happiness to outside
>factors. Nice when it works but if it doesn't work, well, not so nice.
I don't think it's the only way that would change things, it's one way
I can think of that might have done. If it happened, good oh, if it
didn't, then that's life.
Many things in my life might have been different. If someone else
gets to learn from it, I can't see that as bad.
>
>If there were no one else like you in the world, how would that
>change your life?
It obviously can't change the bit that's already happened, and I can't
see how it can change what's to come, as I have no idea what's coming.
>I'm very sorry about that. It sounds like an incredibly painful way
>to live one's life. It sounds like you have internal doubts and then
>"hear" them in other people's words as well so they seem like
>external doubts as well.
That's how insecurity works, I am surprised you are surprised.
>So part of my curiousity is what is it that let me get over it and
>you not?
There are lots of ways to answer that question including "Who knows?"
and "because I'm obviously inferior to your exalted and competent
self"....
I've no idea how you think an answer to that is possible.
>And maybe I'm assuming too far, in that my path (giving less than a
>flying fuck what other people think of me) is one that anyone else
>would want. For me, it's been liberating and fun but perhaps that
>would translate into "lonely and isolated" for others.
Or "as possible as fkying to the moon".
I sometimes care, I sometimes don't. I'd also be very surprised if
you never ever under any circumstances care what anyone at all ever
thinks of you, good or bad.
>I took the classic outsider's path of coming to prize my
>freakishness. Of finding value in precisely those things least
>valued by others.
I took that to, to some extent. But if you *are* blonde, and blue
eyed, and from a certain social strata, you don't get to revel in your
freakishness that easily. Because you aren't obviously a freak, just
non-obviously one, just on the very edge of "acceptable", and so lots
of people, with good motives and bad, spend effort to get you back to
acceptable.
Your family, your teachers, your friends. And of course all the
marketing aimed at you to say "this is how people like you should look
and act".
So while I took that path, it was against one hell of a lot of
opposition, and a lot of wondering if I was "people like me" or not.
SilverOz
Karl Kleinpaste
> For a person looking for identity through gender roles Gods and
> Goddesses are probably a good place to turn.
I see as absurd the idea of determining self-identity through the
fantasy life of self-comparison to deities. Qualitatively, it smells
to me approximately the same as finding self-identity through Internet
chat room "experience". Fantasy life is still fantasy life.
Staying grounded in the real world sounds better.
--
Plug:
Online counseling therapy, by and for those in alternative lifestyles.
http://www.kinkycounselor.com/, where lifestyle understanding is shared.
Janet Hardy
M Shirley Chong wrote:
> One place where I'm blind is that I didn't know that "it sounds like" is
> therapy-speak. I talk like that and I write like that and never realized
> it. I will try to stop it (not sure where I picked it up).
It isn't. It's a basic communications tool used to ensure that the
message received is a reasonable approximation of the message sent. (It
has two answers: "Yes, that's pretty much what I was trying to say," and
"No, that's not what I was trying to say; let me explain again.")
Therapists use it to make sure that they're correctly understanding what
a client is trying to tell them, and encourage its use by people who are
having difficulty communicating... but that doesn't make it
therapy-speak, it simply makes it careful communication.
Janet
--
SilverOz
Free Radical <freera...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>Marina Muilwijk <m.mui...@library.uu.nl> wrote in message
>
>> > Then you can see that the exception is more common than the norm?
>> > That is what I see.
>>
>> Yes, once you've learned to look. But you do have to learn to see that
>> the exceptions are not freaks doomed to a lifetime of misery ("it's not
>> their fault they are like that, but they'll never be happy").
>
>So how does a person learn to look? Does having others challenge the
>perspective help? Or does it just add to the load of "you are not ok"
>input?
>
"challenge the persepective" sounds confrontational and "not ok" to
me.
To show someone lots of others who have done OK doesn't help, it
doesn't say "you can too" it says "and you haven't so you are scum".
If you want to help someone, you have to find what it is that they are
afraid of, scared of, can't do, and help that thing. And I don't
think people should do therapy without training....
For example, if someone has a thing about their looks, what is the
result they fear? "If I'm fat I'll never get a partner"? How can you
help that? Can't show them fat people happily partnered, that just
reinforces "*I* will never get one.". Can't say "I'd partner you
but..." because that's clearly (to them) a lie, a lie you feel safe in
saying because you'd not be called on it.
I think all yuo can do is not try and overtly help, just treat 'em as
a worthwhile human being, and at the same time look in yourself for
the messages you send. With the fat person, do you think (even if you
don't say) "why are all these fat women in the scene"? If you do, it
will inform your attitude without being spoken, and they'll pick up on
it. Male or female, they'll feel it because they are tuned to those
nuances.
SilverOz
--
========================================================================
Control, Dominance, Submission: Thoughts and controversies
http://peter-masters.com
====
Australian BDSM Information http://www.master.webcentral.com.au/abis/
========================================================================
SilverOz
perrin <perr...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>LOL. I think the reason I asked the question was not to be given a
>specific list but really to draw attention to a hole (that I thought was
>obvious but clearly isn't) in FreeRadical's assertion that we could all
>identify with gods and goddesses for gender roles. I think it would be
>really difficult for most malesubs (certainly for me) to think of
>themselves in any god like way. The idea of being an omnipotent powerful
>being does not square with being divorced of power in service to one's
>Mistress.
>
NOt all gods are omnipotent, nor were they all acting on their own.
I don't think the trickster gods are suitable for a malesub, but I
could see Apollo as one. He had strengths of his own, which he put at
the service of Zeus and Hera, and was valued for that. He didn't
rebel or make trouble like some others, but he wasn't a doormat
either.
SilverOz
Marina Muilwijk <m.mui...@library.uu.nl> wrote:
>
>Imagine being a hairy-legged lesbian (though not particulary man-
>hating). And then hearing that you're no good as a butch, either,
>because you weren't a tomboy and you don't know how to repair a car (or
>even drive one). At least I was smart in an environment where being
>smart was OK. Probably as a result of that, being smart became very
>important to me. I may be not-woman and not-butch, but I am smart and
>have the degrees to prove it.
*grin* I can imagine that, yes! I can repair a car and all that, but
when I thought "aha! Maybe I have a lot in common with butches", I
was disillusioned because the butches apparently thought the main
thing about being a butch was you had to love femmes. (Oh and hate
hets...) Blew my het little brain I can tell you.
Finding the labels rejecting you is one of those formative experiences
I guess. I have things about me I take pride in, because trying to
forge that pride is the only way I found to cope when I realised that
there was no identity for me but that.
>This university has a "women in the university" group. I've looked at
>their newsletter a few times, but I don't feel I belong with them.
>Partly because most members are faculty (I'm lowly computer staff),
>partly because they worry about issues that don't concern me (like
>childcare facilities), partly because I personally don't have any
>problems and somehow can't feel the kind of solidarity (or maybe
>sisterhood) that would make me want to help women in particular. So
>instead I joined a union, which supposedly helps everyone, and has
>about 30% female members.
Yeah, I saw those when I was working at a university, and didn't
bother either.
There was a movement in the faculty I was working at to deal with the
female student dropout rate in computing, and to get more women studying
it, and they even asked me to join and talk to the students. I said
no, because I couldn't see how my experiences would help them at all,
because I didn't see any difference between how i viewed machines and
how blokes viewed them. That I'd worked with men all my life and didn't
understand the problem they said the female students were having.
I probably should have gone if only to say "there are some of you
wondering what the hell this is all about, what the problem is.
That's OK, not everyone thnks women are weird for doing this".
>Unlike some female coworkers, I don't even get insulted when someone
>addresses a group with me in it as "gentlemen".
I;ve found the blokes get more upset or embarassed about that.
Although that might be having encountered someone who gets upset about
it before. I find excessive drawing attention to me as the lone woman
more annoying.
SilverOz
M Shirley Chong
> Maybe some of us are more sensitive to misogyny than others. Some of the
> stuff written here reminds me of a recent conversation with the BF, where he
> told me that he wishes I wasn't so 'obsessed' with racism. I told him that
> I wish I wasn't either, but since the bleach hadn't worked I'd have to
> remain obsessed. It's easy for him to not be obsessed- he's a white guy from
> Massachusetts who lives among white people. If I had grown up in a totally
> black world with black people running things, I wouldn't be obsessed with
> racism, either- which is one of the things that affects relations between
> African Americans and West Indians.
Is there a place within reasonable distance of eastern Iowa (I don't
want to move too far away from my ageing parents)--say within 300
miles--where a Korean-English middle aged, 300 pound woman with
multiple disabilities and no conventional job skills fits in? I can
tell you that I don't live in that place.
I live in a very small town (about 5000 people) where I am the only
non-caucasian resident. I've been told to my face that people won't
give me their business because they would rather support "American
owned" businesses. My parents are naturalized citizens which means
they had to *prove* they were good candidates to be permitted the
privileges of citizenship here and I was born here. I don't know how
I could become more "American" without some sort of fantasy Star
Trek type converter device.
There is a small private college here with a huge endowment and they
make an honest effort to promote diversity on campus. Since the vast
majority of their students live in campus housing where pets aren't
permitted and are 25+ years younger than I am, I don't have much
contact with the college. Most of the people who live here in town
assume that I am associated with the college.
I am fat, really fat--about three hundred pounds. I'll write it
again just so everyone can see it: 300 POUNDS! I'm fat! I'm really
really fat! I had one beauty, long thick dark brown hair that I
threw away on a stupid attempt at dieting. A low calorie, low fat,
low protein diet that caused my hair to fall out in handfuls. I
looked like I was on chemo. I went off the diet (for other diets)
and the hair never recovered. It's still very thin and lacks body,
25 years later. If my aim is to be an eccentric crusty old lady,
then I have certainly succeeded: I have the hair of some old ladies.
<LOL>
I don't have a lush, voluptuous body. I have very small tits (AA),
so small that I had to have a bra custommade for the very few
occasions where I feel wearing a bra might be a good idea (comes to
less than once per decade, so it wasn't a good investment). I have
rolls of fat. I have an apron of fat that hangs down and covers my
pubic bone. I have really fat thighs (I'm an extreme of a pear
shaped woman). I hae a really fat backside. My body doesn't do all
the things I wish it could do. Doesn't mean I can't enjoy the things
it does do and doesn't mean that I can't find myself attractive.
That I do not always feel attractive isn't anyone else's problem but
my own--I don't have to choose to agree with the conventions of what
is attractive in a female body and if I do make the choice to accept
them, then the hurt follows as night the day. It's a hurt that is
self inflicted. The hurt is *mine* and is not the fault of anyone else.
I am disfigured. I have facial scars caused by pressure sores caused
by medical malpractice. The left side of my face is paralyzed; it's
most noticeable in my left eye and the left corner of my mouth. I
still have the occasional kid come up to me and ask why my eye is
dead. The eyelid of that eye covers approximately half the eye so
that light doesn't reflect off the cornea unless I happen to be
looking upwards, which I think gives the illusion that my eye is dead.
I sometimes dribble liquid when I'm drinking because my mouth
doesn't work quite right anymore. Not all the time but I generally
end up wearing a bit of any meal I eat. I've learned to use a bib.
I have a problem with equilibrium. The surgery that left the scars
and facial paralysis damaged the nerve leading to my inner ear,
which means that my brain is sometimes fed conflicting information
from the two. This means that I'm often dizzy, I move in an ungainly
and awkward manner, I use a crutch or service dog for balance and
about once a year sustain a major injury due to falls. Last July I
spent 45 minutes passed out cold on a motel room bathroom floor when
I fell and hit my head on the toilet. Right now I have one arm in a
sling because I greenstick fractured my collarbone in another fall.
I was falling to my left but my fucked up sense of balance said I
was falling to my right, so I threw myself to the left to
compensate. Falling left plus throwing weight to the left equals a
harder landing than my collarbone could tolerate.
I no longer speak clearly. I slur my words because I can't open my
mouth properly.
I could go on and on and on. How about the part about how women in
this society are "supposed" to marry men who are taller, larger and
earn money? I'm 5 foot 6 inches tall; my husband is 5 foot 1/2 inch
tall when he's wearing his really thick snow boots. I'm larger than
he is by quite a margin. He hasn't been employed since 1996. I know
that it's a topic of conversation among some of the people who come
here for seminars and classes. So what? If that's what they want to
talk about, that's their problem. It's sure not mine. They'll say
whatever they want to say but whatever they say does not equal my
reality, just theirs. I happen to think he's a terrific partner.
I know I don't make as much money as presenters with similar skills
and training philosophy who are a closer match for whatever it is
that most potential seminar attendees think is a dog trainer (I
suspect younger, more athletic, caucasian, whatever). So what?
Obsessing about it won't put one single more penny into my bank
account. How much I have to work to make a certain amount of money
is how much I have to work. It doesn't matter if a certain white guy
from the southwestern USA gets more for doing a seminar--I can't
divert funds from him to me (altho' if I could, I would be
tempted--I happen to cordially despise him but not for his maleness
or whiteness; I despise him because he's a liar and a cheat and, in
my opinion, a modern day snake oil salesman). I work as hard as I
have to work.
When I chose not to care what other people think of me, I found it
incredibly liberating. I did make a bad assumption in SilverOz's
case, that she might be happier if she didn't care either. There's a
line from a song and I can't remember the line or the artist: "I do
not want what I cannot have." It fits me and it's comfortable for
me. So comfortable that I do tend to forget that other people are
not comfortable that way.
I made a conscious decision not to care because I wanted to stop
giving things outside of myself that power. I came to feel that if I
cared, it meant that the wounds I sustained from the outer world
were essentially self-inflicted wounds. I still get wounded but it's
not by my own hand.
It's not, obviously, the path for everyone. Maybe it's not a viable
path for anyone but me. Doesn't matter--it *is* the path for me.
> Some of you seem to be lucky enough to be living in another part of the
> universe, where there are no Western gender roles. In fact, you behave as
> if you've never heard of them, even as you act them out. Or somehow, you've
> found a way of never conforming to anything.
I don't know that I'm acting out any Western gender roles--what did
Western gender roles ever do for me except tell me that I'm an ugly,
undesirable freak who deserves any unkind remark made by anyone who
can conform in some small way? It's not a model that works for me,
so why should I worry about trying to make it work? If it works for
someone else, fine--if they are happy and fulfilled, that's terrific.
As DLynn said once, words to the effect of "if there's no cheese in
one branch of the maze, blow the maze up. What did the maze ever do
for me?"
> But some of us want family
> ties. We want to own property and have jobs that make more money than you
> can make at a bookstore. We are not computer programmers or entrepreneurs.
> We want to fall in love, maybe have a kid or two, or not, do SM, and die in
> our own beds- but we don't fit the standard ideas of male and female because
> we are the wrong height, the wrong shape, the wrong skin color, the wrong
> age, the wrong soul, the wrong something.
I decided that I could choose what I wanted out of life and that my
decision would substantially affect my happiness. I like being
happy, I really prize it, perhaps because I am depressed. Happiness
just seems like such a neat thing to me.
So... Family ties? Got them and lucky to have them. Own property?
Got that, at a rate of financial sacrifice that the "experts" say
can't be sustained (people get tired of it). Well, okay, five years
along and I'm still sacrificing. Job? No job skills, so I made a job
for myself. I'd love to have a regular 9-to-5 with benefits but it
ain't gonna happen, so I can choose to eat my heart out over it (a
most unsatisfactory meal) or get on with doing what I have to do.
Fall in love? Do that without planning to or even wanting to.
Children? Inability to carry a pregnancy to term runs in both sides
of my family and I'm no exception. Got pregnant three times,
miscarried each time. Looked at the lives of people I knew who chose
the high tech treatment route and decided that I couldn't deal with
it emotionally or financially (at that time, one in vitro treatment
was $30K and most insurance didn't cover it). So again, the choice I
made was not to regret the choice I made.
Everyone makes choices. Doesn't matter how easy or difficult someone
else's choices are because I'm not allowed to highjack anyone else's
life. My choices are as easy or as difficult as I choose to make them.
> Thanks for saying something, Ty, Lusus and Marina. It was beginning to
> hurt.
As I said in my post to Ty, I sincerely apologize. To hurt was not
my intention and I can see that I have hurt inadvertantly. Obviously
I have a blind spot and I'm not sure how to fill it in.
Would it help if I stated at the beginning of each post what seems
to me to be obvious: that my view of the world is based on what
works for me and I have insufficient experience with how things work
for others to figure out how those things work?
SilverOz
Her Serene Highness <nysm...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>No. You have to be more than strong- you have to not notice that you can't
>have the person you want. you have to sleep with 3 people and become poly
>and call yourself an ethical slut, so that people won't have to listen to
>you whine anymore. You have to watch men your age go for 20 year olds who
>need training, knowing full well those 'girls' will be gone in a year, and
>say nothing even though you have all the qualities those men want save one-
>the ability to twinkle like a star at every thing they say, instead of
*grin*
Yeah. And what's more, smile when people with and without partners
tell you that there are lots of people out there who would love to
have you, and maybe they'd do it themslves but....
Like I say, I'm not blind. TO ignore all that crap is as silly as
obsessing over it, there's a middle way. But to say "it's not there"
or "It doesn't affect me" is not a social lie I'm happy about.
Sometimes the anger and hurt overflows. Would it be more acceptable
(and lead to less patronising) if I'd punched walls instead of talking
about it?
It's all a part of me, as much as the intellect, the bikes, the
reading, the computers, the horses, the fencing. I note with interest
that some folk get really threatened and disturbed when I suddenly go
emotional. THey are so used to the calm intellectual me, when the
passionate wild me surfaces, it shocks the hell out of them.
SilverOz
SilverOz
Free Radical <freera...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>When I see people in pain from the effects that indoctorination has had on
>them I want to make that pain go away. For some I guess that will take no
You won't do that by telling them they are full of shit and the things
that have hurt them badly all their lives don't exist and if they just
got their heads out of their arses they'd know that.
SilverOz
SilverOz
StormWolf <moonl...@kc99.rr.com> wrote:
>
>I now recognize 5-6 sexes in people...and believe me, that upsets
>some of the people I speak with who want to stick to "male" and
>"female". And that's not including the range of genders that are
>available to interpret sex. (Sex being physical characteristics of
>internal and external reproductive organs, gender being the mental
>constructions of male and female)
IT's something I've wondered about, and been ambivalent about.
This idea of many genders/sexes, rahter than two with really wide
boundaries.
Is it the Apache who recognised early that some kids didn't fit, and
had a special category for them? Considering I've been not-female
for as long as I (and my parents, and cameras) can recall, it would
have been nice if that had been OK, instead of a calamity.
SilverOz
Janet Hardy <ver...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>ways -- I never figured out the girl thing, I'm happiest and most
>comfortable when presenting rather androgynously, etc. I'm not as strong
>as she is -- it's so much easier to present a traditionally feminine
>appearance that I go ahead and do so; my desire not to have to explain
*grin* I never could, people used to try to make me over, but it
looked and felt so *wrong*.
>woman who refuses to adopt that deferential pose is challenging cultural
>authority, and she *will* pay a price for it. This isn't a matter of
>worrying about people's opinions, it's a matter of a correct perception
>of genuine harm.
>
Thank you!
Yes, it is. The way I will never get a job in the "corporate" sphere
of banking or finance, because I don't present correctly. Yes, even
geeks have to present correctly there. All sorts of places and
situations where being what I am means I am treated differently and in
most cases worse, than "proper women".
The geek culture and the bike culture (some bits of it anyway) are OK
about it, but I don't live my life there.
SilverOz
M Shirley Chong
>>My question was just that--a serious question. I didn't think it
>>conveyed a message as to some sort of "correct" answer but
>>apparently it did (both you and SilverOz took it the same way).
Her Serene Highness wrote:
> Unfortunately, that'sthe question people always ask before perkily saying,
> 'snap out of it'. As if snapping out of it is going to change the rest of
> the world.
I'm unsure as to how attempting to change the rest of the world can
be done by "snapping out of it." Perhaps I lack imagination.
I think what you're saying is that the question "why do you care?"
is often followed up with an answer that invalidates that person's
answer. Is what you're trying to tell me (is this better than "it
sounds like" Ty?) that this is a question better avoided because of
the responses it has gotten from other people?
I wrote:
>>I meant it in the sense that if one can figure out why one cares,
>>one can then choose to accept or modify that caring. And modifying
>>the caring may be one route to resolving the problem.
Her Serene Highness wrote:
> I have figured out why I care, and have dealt withthat- but while it's made
> life a little easier, it still hasn't brought me any closer to being with
> the man I want. In part, that's because one's dead, and the other is far
> away.
No, it isn't always *the* answer. It may be an answer or a clue to a
different answer. I don't seem to be making that very clear--that
I'm not trying to promise "do this and your life will be wonderful."
My intention is to try to figure out what is going on.
I'm beginning to think that I should shut up and drop the whole
matter. I was mistaken in thinking that a post to SSBB included an
unspoken agreement to get responses, even responses that are not
precisely what the original poster wanted.
I wrote:
>>Perhaps I was wrong in thinking that the post and topic that started
>>all this was open to any sort of analytical approach (if it isn't,
>>then I am the wrong person to be answering altogether as I do not
>>deal well without logic and analysis).
Her Serene Highness wrote:
> I think that some things can't be solved by analysis. I could sit and
> explain over and over why I am a desirable partner, to a man who only dates
> 25 year olds who have sex with strange women without protection because he
> likes it and because he can 'train' them- and not get anywhere. I can
> explain how my accomplishments in and outside of the bedroom could be an
> asset to a man who wantsto learn more about SM- and be rejected because I
> know more than he does, and he thinks only men should know certain things. I
> could have a very very faggy boy try to explain to me whyhe should be my
> ideal sex partner- but if I'm not turned on by faggy boys, it won't do any
> good.
I am very unclear (can I plead lack of sleep due to broken
collarbone?). I don't think logic and analysis has the possibility
to change anyone but the person doing the logic and analysis.
Explaining to someone else why they should be attracted to someone
else is always doomed to failure. It can only change the inner
world, not the outer one.
Changing the inner world is so much easier and so much likely to
reap faster success than changing the outer world, I tend not even
to consider options that involve changing the outer world. It can
happen, it does happen, I've seen it happen in my own lifetime--but
it seems so remote a possibility that I concentrate on possibilities
that seem less remote.
It doesn't mean that I don't do what I feel I can to change the
world--but I don't stake something so important as my happiness on
my success in doing so.
Stephen Harris
> Hmm... How do the blokes deal? Anyone want to pipe up? When
> confronted with all that relentless "male sub is female sub with dick
> and unwanted small ugly dick at that" images, how do you deal?
*blink*
It's relentless? Wow. I have to admit that I don't seem to have even
noticed it!
Wow.
I guess I just spend my life in blinkers and don't pay much attention
to what most people think of me :-) Or maybe I'm lucky and have fallen
in with a crowd of people who know better ;-)
--
rgds "Pleasure, little treasure"
Stephen,
An Englishman in New York, and loving slave to his Mistress, Tori.
BDSM thoughts, writings, poems and stuff: http://bdsm.spuddy.org/
SilverOz
>is often followed up with an answer that invalidates that person's
>answer. Is what you're trying to tell me (is this better than "it
>sounds like" Ty?) that this is a question better avoided because of
>the responses it has gotten from other people?
to me it sounds as if the question being asked is not "why do you care
about it, what is the effect on you, I want to know because it's info
I don't have" but instead is "why do you care? No one with sense
cares". A feeling that was reinforced by the rest of your post.
So yes, some of it is reaction to having had bad experiences with
questions like that before. Note that most discussions about this
problem end up by the person being told "you shouldn't care about it,
be strong and it will all be OK".
>No, it isn't always *the* answer. It may be an answer or a clue to a
>different answer. I don't seem to be making that very clear--that
>I'm not trying to promise "do this and your life will be wonderful."
>My intention is to try to figure out what is going on.
I'm not sure you *can*. Being as much a prisoner of your world view
as I am of mine. You seem to be thinking "but I solved it this way,
so it's obvious that's how it's done, you seem to be not doing this
obvious thing".
>
>I'm beginning to think that I should shut up and drop the whole
>matter. I was mistaken in thinking that a post to SSBB included an
>unspoken agreement to get responses, even responses that are not
>precisely what the original poster wanted.
And your posts are getting responses, but not the ones you wanted?
>Changing the inner world is so much easier and so much likely to
>reap faster success than changing the outer world, I tend not even
>to consider options that involve changing the outer world. It can
>happen, it does happen, I've seen it happen in my own lifetime--but
>it seems so remote a possibility that I concentrate on possibilities
>that seem less remote.
The outer world has to change too, if only because that's what outer
worlds do.
But working on changing it in small ways is not wasted work, if it
was, women in the public service would still have to resign when they
got married.
>It doesn't mean that I don't do what I feel I can to change the
>world--but I don't stake something so important as my happiness on
>my success in doing so.
I don't see me or HSH doing that either. Not sure why you think we
did.
We are saying that the outer world is doing things to us that make us
unhappy, which is not at all the same thing.
SilverOz
SilverOz
NO one feels that way. It's a matter of how close you thnk you can
get, and whether that's close enough to make yu think you've done OK.
Consider how someone going to a good university and getting lower
marks than most would feel.
Do you think most would feel "getting good marks is just a marketing
thing I shouldn't pay attention to?"
Some might feel "Hey, I got the best I am capable of, I'm OK".
But I find it rather hard to believe that no one would think "must do
better" and doubly hard to believe that some people here wouldn't be
encouraging them to do better.
If the goal is something someone feels worthwhile, then they do have a
habit of indicating so.
M Shirley Chong
>>One place where I'm blind is that I didn't know that "it sounds
>>like" is therapy-speak.
Ben Clarke wrote:
> I don't believe it is.
>
> I use it, and it was not picked up in a therapeutic context.
Maybe it's British. I'm often confused on stuff like that.
I've been in therapy and been evaluated four times and can't recall
it being used by any of those people.
But apparently it is therapy-speak to some people and I don't wish
to offend.
M Shirley Chong
>> One place where I'm blind is that I didn't know that "it sounds like"
>> is therapy-speak. I talk like that and I write like that and never
>> realized it. I will try to stop it (not sure where I picked it up).
Janet Hardy wrote:
> It isn't. It's a basic communications tool used to ensure that the
> message received is a reasonable approximation of the message sent. (It
> has two answers: "Yes, that's pretty much what I was trying to say," and
> "No, that's not what I was trying to say; let me explain again.")
That's the sense in which I use it. I don't remember picking it up
from any specific source although clearly I must have.
> Therapists use it to make sure that they're correctly understanding what
> a client is trying to tell them, and encourage its use by people who are
> having difficulty communicating... but that doesn't make it
> therapy-speak, it simply makes it careful communication.
Okay, that makes sense.
I'm still not sure when to avoid using it, though.
SilverOz
>
>I'm still not sure when to avoid using it, though.
>
I don't think you can tell. Especially as the times you want to use it
will be the times that will remind people who have had bad experiences
of those bad experiences.
Never having had therapy, it doesn't have bad associations for me,
beyond the tedium of "management training" sessions which no one every
took seriously :)
(They probably should have, but that particular workplace had been fucked
up for 150 years, expecting it to change cos of a few ratepayer funded
training sessions was overly optimistic.)
IF someone already thinks you are doing the therapy thing, that is you
are professing an interest that is not real but for some other reason,
then nothing you will say, no form of words, will work. The trust is
either already lost, or not there at all. I dunno how to gain the trust,
I doubt it is possible in this venue.
Conrad Hodson
> > It could be useful; social change happens over many years and millions of
> > people, and it can be tough to make a noticable impact in the Big
> > Picture--discouraging sometimes. But self-image and self-worth exists
> > entirely between your own ears, and change there depends far more on you
> > than on anyone outside.
>
> True. And when black men try to catch uptown taxis ate at night, their
> self-image will take away the feeling of hurt when taxis pass them by. By
> the same token, fat women who have high self-esteem will be fashion models
> next year, because the world will stop calling them pigs. And women in SM
> who love sex will no longer be told they have to be sluts or whores, because
> their love of sex will have positive language attached to it. And all of
> this out of wishful thinking. If only all this could be true.
Sorry. I was trying to make a point about what parts of self-image
problems happen where (as a guide to solving them) I was _not_ trying to
be Pollyanna, especially about real-world outside pressures and
discriminations. I'm a social rebel and happy to have been one, and I
certainly advocate trying that approach to anyone oppressed by society. I
never claimed that a "well fuck off, then!" attitude would solve _all_
problems, because it certainly won't. (Neither will any other single
approach.) But it's certainly a good "immune response" for your
self-image to have--and I was lucky enough to be raised with parental
support for social rebellion.
> I do think self esteen matters a great deal. It doesn not erase the reality
> of the outside world. For instance, I've also been told I'd be a perfect
> sub and would find lots of upscale educated men- if I were white. Most
> upscale educated men in the scene are white, and want white women. True, my
> self-esteem tells me that I don't want a man who can't buck the racial line-
> but will that comfort me when I need a beating? Should I just find partners
> who don't care about that, even if we have no or few other interests in
> common? Should I simply tell myself that I don't care if I can never have a
> conversation about movies or theatre or physics with my lover again, or that
> I can have all those things- but be celibate? And all the while, know that
> although nothing is wrong with me and I like myself, I'm seen as less human
> than other women?
None of the things you've mentioned sound like dealbreakers to me. Do
that many of the scene people around you care that much about race? It
seems very alien to me, though I understand that society Back East is much
more about drawing lines. At least, people from there have what seem to
me to be very out-of-place concerns with social class and racial
markers. Perhaps this is skewing our respective views of "the world"?
>
It seems to me that if you (who sound like a wonderful high-powered and
interesting sort) are "seen as less human" by a large part of your
environment, perhaps you should move? Intellectual conversation _and_ a
good bdsm connection don't seem to me to be too much to ask--and I've
known a number of hot, intelligent black women in the scene who seemed to
be able to find intelligent partners who could indeed talk about physics
or theater or equivalents.
But then, that's an important sort of common ground to me, too. Not every
bdsm encounter has to include it, but it's certainly in the top three
factors, along with trust and play compatibility. I've never had a
friend react badly to my being with a black partner (and I'd be shocked if
that happened) but if it did happen I'd be in the market for a new friend
not a new partner. Perhaps it's just where I live, perhaps it's just my
taste in friends and playpartners? I don't know, don't have any
experience living on the East Coast, but from all I've heard from people
who do I don't think I'd be very happy there. Could the same be true of
you? I'm not trying to be presumptuous or gloss over problems I only
partially understand, but the things you complain of would all bother me
too.
Conrad Hodson
StormWolf
>Is it the Apache who recognised early that some kids didn't fit, and
>had a special category for them? Considering I've been not-female
>for as long as I (and my parents, and cameras) can recall, it would
>have been nice if that had been OK, instead of a calamity.
Several NA tribes and other cultures as well. But, we often view them
as more "primitive" than our evolved understanding of Westernized man.
moonlight
Free Radical
SilverOz <ze...@zip.com.au> wrote in message
> >Is there anyone who felt like they were the model of typical? I sure
> >haven't met them.
>
>
> NO one feels that way. It's a matter of how close you thnk you can
> get, and whether that's close enough to make yu think you've done OK.
>
> Consider how someone going to a good university and getting lower
> marks than most would feel.
>
> Do you think most would feel "getting good marks is just a marketing
> thing I shouldn't pay attention to?"
>
> Some might feel "Hey, I got the best I am capable of, I'm OK".
>
> But I find it rather hard to believe that no one would think "must do
> better" and doubly hard to believe that some people here wouldn't be
> encouraging them to do better.
>
> If the goal is something someone feels worthwhile, then they do have a
> habit of indicating so.
>
I think I am becoming confused by a changing context and focus. Well more
confused. Appearantly I started out confused. I am under the impression
that you did not have a goal of changing. You have made it clear that you
do not fit into a particular standard of normal. And that at times
reminders of what is supposed to be normal push buttons that bring out old
feelings of insecurity. Since these feelings are not based on logic the
knowledge that those reminders are not the reality of what is normal does
not reduce the feeling.
It is also my impression that these feelings do not make your life
dysfunctional. They are just an ordinary part of living. And by sharing
those feelings with others who may be struggling it might help them to
realize that such feelings don't have to make them dysfunctional either.
Am I even close to understanding?