July 05, 2007

1426, from O.Fr. transgression (12c.), from L.L. transgressionem (nom. transgressio) "a transgression of the law," from L. "a going over," from transgressus, pp. of transgredi "go beyond," from trans- "across" + gradi (pp. gressus) "to walk, go" (see grade). The verb transgress is recorded from 1526. Transgressor is first recorded 1377.

Almost everyone has a need to be normal, to be perceived as normal, or at least to feel normal. It’s a primate thing. Get too weird and the troop will kick the crap out of you and run you off, to fend for yourself and forage for your own berries. If you've got behavioral or intellectual proclivities that put you at either end of the bell curve, you’ve got two conventional choices: hide them from everyone, or find other people who live at or near the same end of the distribution. That’s it. Both choices serve the same purpose. The first normalizes via concealment. The second normalizes via association.

Most of us know what hiding looks like. It’s the closet. The pleasure wrapped with guilt. The deep dark secret that gnaws at us. In our media-saturated culture, we see the consequences of exposure almost every day. The Congressman whose pages did a bit more than coffee runs and filing. The evangelist who swears he only paid for massages from that nice young man. The teacher who’s boffing the underage student. We also see what happens to those who are pulled from hiding: shame, ridicule, jail...even death.

Why risk it?

Simple: transgression feels good, and we are creatures of pleasure, despite what the grub-like men who've twisted the words of a certain Nazarene for the past 2,000 years would have us believe.

The second choice–finding your kindred at the narrow end of the distribution–seems a better solution. You gather with other people who share your particular brand of quirk, and you've got a troop that makes the primate bits of your brain happy. There's support, and acceptance, and all of those other warm and fuzzy things that make us feel safe and content while we loll in the sun and poke sticks into termite nests for a tasty snack.

A wise villain who killed Captain Kirk once said, "Normal is what everyone else is and you are not." That was supposed to be evil and oppressive and make us feel bad for Geordi LaForge, but in point of fact it's the truth. If you're into getting wrapped up in latex, hog-tied, hung from an eyebolt screwed into a dungeon's ceiling joist, and flagellated by dwarves, you're not usual, not ordinary, and certainly not normal.

And there's not a damn thing wrong with that.

When you find yourself a group of dangling latex-wrapped hog-tied whipping boys or girls to hang out with, all you've done is stack your local deck with people like you. You've created a little bubble of normal, but that bubble remains aberrant within greater society. The normality is an illusion, and if you happen to find yourself outside of that bubble, thou art Freak once more.

There's a phenomenon of justification that finds expression in such bubbles which, I think, hints at an underlying problem of self-acceptance. For example: twice over the past weekend I heard tales of the seduction of underage males by older females, which seems more common in sensually-charged environments with an abundance of both, such as a sci-fi/fantasy convention or ren faire (and if you don't think cons and faires are thus charged, you haven't been to one). It is, in fact, so common that some SCA tournaments issue leather "Jailbait" ribbons that underage folks of both sexes are required to wear on their belts. There are liability laws to consider, of course. But what struck me about the stories I heard at Westercon and elsewhere are the caveats that accompanied them. Variations on "He was sophisticated for a 16-year old," or "We were in love." Now, these things may very well be true. What I heard, though, were attempts at normalization. Underlying them was a naked truth: it was transgressive, and that made it hot.

As a fellow whose first lover was more than twice his age, I stand in judgment of no one, and I'm not going to get into a debate about age of consent laws. I'm just picking a provocative example, and my conclusions could be equally applicable to a variety of sexual practices, kinks, and lifestyles. There is a need to make certain sexual practices OK by trying to shoehorn them into some form of social normalcy. The big one these days is "Homosexuality is OK because it's biologically determined." God forbid someone should do something just because it feels good, instead of being compelled to do it because their DNA has been coiled up a certain way or because they're in love.

Which is part of the problem. There are plenty of people who believe that God has, in fact, forbidden that very thing. To which I reply, with pith and force: fuck that. The Creator of the Universe is concerned about where I stick my cock? Please.

"Transgression," in modern parlance, carries with it more than a hint of sin and the overwhelming connotation of violation–of law, of moral codes, and so on. That's why I began with the word's etymology rather than its definition. It's the Latin root that is of greatest interest: transgredi, to "go beyond." The word, for me, has to do with identifying boundaries and moving beyond them. Obviously, I'm not talking about breaking the kind of boundaries that will result in death, dismemberment, insanity, or poor fashion choices. Punching willy-nilly through other people's boundaries and leaving a smoking trail of emotional wreckage in your wake isn't good behavior, either.

Pushing boundaries is exciting. Breaking them can be intensely erotic. The entire BDSM scene, with its carefully managed balance of trust and staged violation, is founded upon that truth. But I keep seeing people in all sorts of situations back away from it, seeking safety in numbers or in rationalizations. There's nothing wrong with seeking community; far from it. But first?

Make no apologies. Adopt no bluster. Offer no excuses.

Normalize yourself, by yourself, with yourself.

Now: if you'll excuse me, I believe someone needs to be let out of their foot locker for the evening feeding.