Gender Bending

Shankara20

Well, that is lovely
Joined
Sep 20, 2005
Posts
58,546
Top/bottom DomDomme/sub Master/slave Daddy/girl-boy GLBT-Streight
We have discussed, and occasionally argued, the meaning of these terms and how we each manifest them in our lives.

IMHO these are all rolls we, more-or-less, choose to accept. Some accept the rolls with deep convection and some are rather loose and slippery about it. As a bisexual switch I am one of the loose and slippery ones.

To me gender has aspects of accepting rolls as well, although the choosing is made more difficult by the plumbing one is born with as well as how the culture you were born into defines those rolls. When posting here I very seldom use the words "man" or "woman" - I tend to use "male" and "female" and I know when I do that I might be discounting those of us that are trans and intersexed here - I wish I knew language that did not do that.

I do not use "man" and "woman" because I honestly do not know what defines them. I have friends with cocks and balls that present themselves as females, I have friends with vaginas that present as males.

So - gender bending. What do you do, if anything, to "bend" the rules of your societies gender rolls? And does it cost you anything in social acceptance? Do you give a poop? I see gender bending as different from sexual orientation - but that can be a factor as well, what do you thing?

Most here have seen pics of me in my panties - but that is safe for me, under my clothing and at home when alone. When I lived in San Francisco, on weekends I would wear red or pink fingernail polish and blouses, but not at work. Some here may remember a thread I started about going to BDSM events as a Top while dressed only in lace undies and high heals (landing a flogger is a bitch in heals). Now that I am back in Kansas about the only thing I do is wear colored earrings, hug other males, cry in public at times, and say thinks like "guess I was wrong about that" or "I'm sorry" - things a "real man" would not say 'round here. (I have a real fear that my 11 and 7 year old grandsons will see me in one of my dresses but that is fodder for a discussion at another time)

Are you a gender bender?
 
More like gender bent, to answer your closing question first. :D

Do I do anything feminine? Not so much, anymore. It's something that for some reason, I prefer to explore with someone else, rather than simply express on my own. If anything, getting fat and growing body hair made great natural barriers to exploring this more fully, as well.

Sure, I'm frustrated, but not frustrated enough to do anything about it, yet.
 
SpectreT said:
More like gender bent, to answer your closing question first. :D

Do I do anything feminine? Not so much, anymore. It's something that for some reason, I prefer to explore with someone else, rather than simply express on my own. If anything, getting fat and growing body hair made great natural barriers to exploring this more fully, as well.

Sure, I'm frustrated, but not frustrated enough to do anything about it, yet.

I absolutely understand. If I may ask, what about things like wearing shirts that are not considered "traditional" male colors or being more expressive or admitting to enjoying "chick-flicks" or whatever? Not so much expressing your fem, but bending your masculine. How strongly do you embrace the stereotype of "man" in the culture that surrounds you?


:kiss:
 
Used to really enjoy presenting butch, but in my mind it's inextricably connected to bottoming/subbing, or was at the time.

Stuff happened, I gained weight, I got older, I fell almost totally to the D side of the fence, I got me a boy to take it all out on. Now I'm so femme I can even see myself bottoming femme before I can see myself bothering with drag and bad short hair again. But I like it, know it, appreciate it all, love the boys with the pussy to beat on as much as the boys with the pee pees.

Sometimes when I'm doing a guy up the ass I close my eyes and I mentally morph myself into a 6 foot ripped leatherman with 8 inches. I think this says something more about the pervasive hotness of Tom of Finland than anything else. I'm kind of on a kick with the kind of bending where the inside doesn't have to match the outside, lately.
 
Shankara20 said:
in an attempt to engage the lovely lurker


ever dress a little "butch"?


:kiss:

Me? I'm about as prissy as a girl can get. I wear stilettos when I'm in jeans- and that is dressing "down" for me. :rolleyes:

(I'm lurking, because I have a soft spot for boys who are girls. :cool: )
 
Great question. This is a topic that's pretty close to my heart.

The first line of your post was about labels and divisions. I think our society puts too fine a point, perhaps, on transgender/not transgender. (Admittedly, I haven't done extensive research on distinctions between transpeople.) But personally, I struggled for a long time with the fact that in a lot of ways I identified much more strongly as male than female, but clearly had a female body. Was the "dysphoria" enough that I decided to go to the trouble of changing the way society identified my gender? No. I'm kind of settling in now to being a sort of bland-looking bisexual woman, not particularly butch or femme in appearance, because that works for me.

So, when I say I "identify" as male, I mean I identify with male ways of relating to other people socially. I've never been comfortable with women in the way I am with men, can't emote or empathize with them in a lot of ways. I can sort of "turn on" my talking-as-a-woman mode, which is hard to explain... I can kind of "pass" among women after long practice, although I don't feel all that convincing, especially when things start getting emotional. It's definitely artificial, although weirdly exciting at times, like speaking with a fake accent and pretending you're someone else. Obviously, people who I know well are used to the different ways I speak, but it's funny to see new people react when I continuously talk in ways that our society has coded "male".

That's not the only thing, of course; I wouldn't have seriously entertained the idea that I might be trans if there weren't matters around my body and my genitalia that seemed wrong and foreign, but I'm not entirely comfortable getting into that. At any rate, I "decided" to live my life as a woman, partly because I'm lazy and partly, of course, because there are a lot of things about being female that did seem right to me. Do I accept everything that that gender title implies? Nahh. But I kind of see it as stretching the boundaries of gender roles - I'm making space for myself within the category of "female" to live the way I want to and derive pleasure from it.
 
Shankara20 said:
I do not use "man" and "woman" because I honestly do not know what defines them. I have friends with cocks and balls that present themselves as females, I have friends with vaginas that present as males.
Hello, Shankara20. I hope you don't mind if I ask you a question about what you wrote.

I know many people who have been fighting for a long time to dissociate the concept of being female from things like high heels, nail polish, lace undies, and so forth. To them, being female means plumbing and only plumbing. Anything else is a personal choice that has or should have nothing to do with gender.

So for them, I ask the question that follows. Do you think that in some ways the language used in talking about gender bending actually reinforces stereotypical views of what it means to be female or male?
 
Shankara20 said:
I absolutely understand. If I may ask, what about things like wearing shirts that are not considered "traditional" male colors or being more expressive or admitting to enjoying "chick-flicks" or whatever? Not so much expressing your fem, but bending your masculine. How strongly do you embrace the stereotype of "man" in the culture that surrounds you?


:kiss:
I don't really have much of a masculine identity, as such, nor a feminine identity to speak of. I lean a little more toward the fem, but it's a boat race. I'm quite capable of summoning the warrior when he's needed, but that isn't all that often. I don't think about it much. Being six feet tall, barefoot, and weighing in at around 330, I can't help but project "male", despite any behaviors of mine to the contrary.

I'll second Netzach's hairball on the whole "chick flick" thing. I have secretly suspected for some time that even women hate them, and just use the foul things as part of a series of ongoing tests to see how much shit their man will put up with for the priviledge of getting into her pants.

So I don't pay much attention to it, I'm just me, most of the time. Like I said, these things tend to get explored far more when I'm in a relationship.

Edit to add - I like soap operas. Don't ask me why. I'm not feminine enough to watch The View and actually understand what's going on when all four or five of them are talking at the same time, though.
 
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Cutie Mouse, Etiole, didn't anyone tell you the first rule of lurking is Do Not Talk About Lurking? (Sorry, couldn't resist the "Fight Club" reference) :D
 
I can relate alot to what Amadaun posted - the dysphoria and conflict. When I was younger I just wrote off most of the conflicting emotions to being bisexual, a switch, and very androgynous. I just resolved myself to accepting the fact that my sexuality and my identity was fluid. I know I have always projected male energy and it has just gotten stronger as I have gotten older. I think the best description given to me from some friends and my husband was that I was a gay man trapped in a female body. This I could understand! :)

With regards to the outer trappings, ie clothes - have always worn whatever I wanted to and don't see that changing. So be it suits/ties to heels/lace to my current levis/tshirt and birks, its all about my comfort.

~kierae
 
SpectreT said:
Cutie Mouse, Etiole, didn't anyone tell you the first rule of lurking is Do Not Talk About Lurking? (Sorry, couldn't resist the "Fight Club" reference) :D


Yet more proof I am most solidly prissy- that was a really violent, gross, and icky movie. Ew.

(But for the record, I'm not anywhere *near* in a mental place to tolerate chick flicks these days, either. They're all romantic and lovely dovey and awwwwww the great big bad issue/problem/soul searing divide was solved with a snap of the figers... blech. Pardon me whilst I retch quietly into my handbag.)
 
CutieMouse said:
Yet more proof I am most solidly prissy- that was a really violent, gross, and icky movie. Ew.

(But for the record, I'm not anywhere *near* in a mental place to tolerate chick flicks these days, either. They're all romantic and lovely dovey and awwwwww the great big bad issue/problem/soul searing divide was solved with a snap of the figers... blech. Pardon me whilst I retch quietly into my handbag.)


I love that movie. Especially the infamous painful hand kiss. That's kind of queer/baroque of me.
 
I identify as female, and I have the plumbing as well. But I get along (and attempt to understand) the male mindset better than I understand the female mindset. My own gender confuses me horribly, especially the mind games. 'S why I had very few female friends in high school and earlier. I still have very few female friends, to be honest. As for other people...well, whatever floats their boat, in my opinion. I'm not going to immediately shun them. In fact, I usually give 'em a good look over....people who don't fit society's gender norms are oh so fascinating. (People in general are fascinating. I <3 sociology.)

I agree with Kierae on the subject of clothes. Whatever is most comfortable and will afford me the most amount of protection from the weather. Usually this is jeans, a t-shirt, and sneakers. I do, every once in a while, 'femme up' and wear a skirt and heels, but not often. Hell, usually I'll wear nice slacks instead of a skirt. (Part of this is also my deep-seated issues about my weight. Jeans + t-shirt = no one notices the fat rolls. Which now I know is wrong, it only accentuates your weight so I try to get stuff that fits at least a little bit better.)
 
Postscript to my post - most of the angst I had about my gender identification was over a few years ago, and now I'm basically just having fun as a weird queer-ass female person. But, I actually just got over one of the last humps - from merely accepting my body to totally loving my body in all its weird femaleness - a few months ago on a magic mushroom trip. I had a holy showering experience and completely fell in love with my own boobs.

Psilocybin - better than years of therapy! :D
.
 
lame one: I don't drink. I know only one other male who does not drink, and he's a hardcore Christian.

Others? Probably but not intentionally... I really try to distance myself from gender stereotyping in any way, regardless of whether it's my genetic gender or not. I don't really think trans* people are any more distanced from gender roles than anyone else, myself, they've just tried switching camps, not leaving altogether. So, I just act the way I want, I'm sure I do some 'femmy' stuff.

Once, some gay guy told me that I slide my feet as I turn corners, which was somewhat "Dainty".....odd conversation.
 
amadaun said:
Postscript to my post - most of the angst I had about my gender identification was over a few years ago, and now I'm basically just having fun as a weird queer-ass female person. But, I actually just got over one of the last humps - from merely accepting my body to totally loving my body in all its weird femaleness - a few months ago on a magic mushroom trip. I had a holy showering experience and completely fell in love with my own boobs.

Psilocybin - better than years of therapy! :D
.

Boobies!
Even the gayest of the gay men I know love boobies.
 
Netzach said:
I'm kind of on a kick with the kind of bending where the inside doesn't have to match the outside, lately.

I like the sound of that - might even be healthy - but what the hell do I know...
 
CutieMouse said:
I wear stilettos when I'm in jeans- and that is dressing "down" for me. :rolleyes:
oh god I wish I had the ass to dress like that...

*sigh*




and chance red heals?



.
 
amadaun said:
Great question. This is a topic that's pretty close to my heart.

The first line of your post was about labels and divisions. I think our society puts too fine a point, perhaps, on transgender/not transgender. (Admittedly, I haven't done extensive research on distinctions between transpeople.) But personally, I struggled for a long time with the fact that in a lot of ways I identified much more strongly as male than female, but clearly had a female body. Was the "dysphoria" enough that I decided to go to the trouble of changing the way society identified my gender? No. I'm kind of settling in now to being a sort of bland-looking bisexual woman, not particularly butch or femme in appearance, because that works for me.

So, when I say I "identify" as male, I mean I identify with male ways of relating to other people socially. I've never been comfortable with women in the way I am with men, can't emote or empathize with them in a lot of ways. I can sort of "turn on" my talking-as-a-woman mode, which is hard to explain... I can kind of "pass" among women after long practice, although I don't feel all that convincing, especially when things start getting emotional. It's definitely artificial, although weirdly exciting at times, like speaking with a fake accent and pretending you're someone else. Obviously, people who I know well are used to the different ways I speak, but it's funny to see new people react when I continuously talk in ways that our society has coded "male".

That's not the only thing, of course; I wouldn't have seriously entertained the idea that I might be trans if there weren't matters around my body and my genitalia that seemed wrong and foreign, but I'm not entirely comfortable getting into that. At any rate, I "decided" to live my life as a woman, partly because I'm lazy and partly, of course, because there are a lot of things about being female that did seem right to me. Do I accept everything that that gender title implies? Nahh. But I kind of see it as stretching the boundaries of gender roles - I'm making space for myself within the category of "female" to live the way I want to and derive pleasure from it.

I don't like labels - they reduce and confine so many things - but I do use them as a sort of shorthand - I get lazy at times with my posts.

Thank you for your response to my post - as I read it I see part of what I was feeling when I put this thread up on the board. I suspect many people feel a disconnect between what the world sees and what is going on inside. Self-defining your identity is a huge step many do not find the courage to take.
 
Alistunut said:
So for them, I ask the question that follows. Do you think that in some ways the language used in talking about gender bending actually reinforces stereotypical views of what it means to be female or male?
I think it does. I know I take a risk when I talk in terms of stereotypes. Any discussion about labels and applied identities is problematic.

Part of the work I do in my "real world" involves creating material that will catch the attention of traditionally defined "men" - as wide a spectrum on the local male population as possible - and motivate them to act. I am struggling with how to define that population without forcing it into a box. At the same time a part of me screams "that is not me" every time I get an idea of a slogan or image to use. I don't mind the struggle and I hope something useful develops from it - but it will not be something that defines a "real man"

This thread grew from some of my inner dialogue - why should I suffer alone - hee hee

Thanks for your question.

Shank
 
SpectreT said:
I'll second Netzach's hairball on the whole "chick flick" thing.

I set at home and watch movie where things blow up - and I am in my bra and panties and dress what I eat popcorn on the couch....
 
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