She Pierced Her What, Now?
Part of why I post those little Not writing anything, frak off! entries is because there's usually a better than even chance that it'll prompt me to write something.
As a slightly modded person myself, I've been poking around in the pierced and tatted regions of the web. BMEzine has always been a good resource, and if you've got a high squick threshold, BME's ModBlog usually has something interesting to look at.
Every so often I'll find something that I've just got to know more about, and that was the case when I first read about Ashley Crawford's cervix piercing.
Yeah, take a moment and read that again.
Done? OK, good. Moving on: I've discovered that, the more I explore this or that piece of deviance, the more other threads of transgression seem to weave together. Poke around the bisexual realm, and you'll find the polyamorous crowd. Read up on piercings and other body modification, and you'll encounter all sorts of folks with interesting ideas about gender and sexuality. The farther away from the "normal" you travel, the more you'll find that the extraordinary have gathered themselves into their own little interconnected groups.
So, while I wanted to know what Ashley Crawford might possibly have been thinking when she decided that she needed a bit of bling on the end of her uterus, I discovered that there was a lot more going on than just an extreme mod. Not only has Ashley elected to modify her appearance using tattoos and piercings, she has also fully embraced a concept she calls "post gender." She's altered her secondary sexual characteristics through testosterone injections, and has had a bilateral mastectomy. She's not interested in becoming more male, but in becoming balanced, gender-wise.
As someone who's been both feminine and masculine, she's got an interesting perspective on how the perceptions of others change how they relate to her, including one observation that struck me as personally relevant:
Suddenly I was getting cruised mainly by bisexuals, and they didn’t have this dumb way of approaching sex like too many heterosexual men I’d met. That idea that the woman may be reluctant and the guy’s job is to persuade her to fuck anyway by introducing the idea gradually or just by being persistent... How disrespectful! Of course I’m not saying that all straight people are like this or that all queer people are great at respecting each other’s boundaries, but in my own life I’ve noticed an obvious trend there. These days, I get cruised by bisexuals of all genders, dykes, and the occasional gay man, and it’s very rare for me to encounter someone who doesn’t accept that yes means yes, no means no, maybe means we should talk about what we both want and see if it matches up, and most importantly that having casual sex means we are both sluts and that being a slut is no bad thing anyway. These aren’t difficult concepts to grasp — why can’t more straight boys understand them?
Spang! Between the eyes. As a guy who, at various times, has played that game of persistence, I can tell you that I don't much like it at all. I really don't. I hate cajoling, I hate the sense that pursuit is somehow supposed to prove my "worth," I just loathe the whole wretched, uncomfortable mess. Yeah, "yes" obviously means just that, and "no" means what it means...but it's the "maybe" where everything just goes all to hell for me. With women, anyway. With men, it's always been a whole lot more straightforward (so to speak). So I've got a bit of corollary: Why can't more straight girls understand this?
This does not at all mean that I think I've got the full-and-upfront healthy respectful boundary thing going on 24-7...my fuck-ups in that regard have been quite spectacular. But it's only through acute observation of my failures--or, to call it what it is, obsession over them--that I've learned exactly why I'm uncomfortable in a given situation.
What I've come to realize is that I have certain ways in which I prefer to conduct myself in relationships with members of either sex, whatever those relationships might be or potentially become. Those ways seem right and proper to me. But I've compromised those ways for the sake of the game, because that game, with all of its attendant gender role playing, is what comprises the norm in this culture, and it's easy to play.
I don't want to play that game anymore, and I need to be around people that don't want to play it anymore, either.
That's why I was fascinated by this interview with Ashley Crawford. And yes, there are pictures.
Check it out.
Straight girls do understand this. The problem is that many men think that no means maybe.
Posted by: Pea | August 17, 2007 01:54 PM
I'm sure that many straight girls do. My point was more that the game of female reluctance and male persistence--which usually comes into play during the "maybe" scenario--can be played by both genders, often neatly demarcated by their expected roles, and takes the place of the "What do we both want and does it match up?" conversation. I've found that to be much less of an issue outside the bounds of typical gender roles (e.g., in male-male interaction).
Posted by: Ian Wood | August 17, 2007 04:52 PM