Good points, but I want to highlight this in particular:
And even more, it feels wrong to me to suggest that if we did not feel such a sense of loss, it would indicate that we'd felt something had been wrong with our original bodies, and that the wrongness had now been corrected. Certainly I'd expect a change that major to be kind of freaky and require a lot of getting used to, and there would be things about it that would turn out to be unpleasant to the point of rage-inducing.
The "freaky and getting used to" and the "unpleasant to the point of rage-inducing" are both potentially strong reactions. And to me, they speak of a period of disconnect, as opposed to a sense of relief/joy that now your body is closer to what, on the inside, you'd always felt it should be. There's adjustment, certainly, in any change. But maybe the question is where you end up: with resignation or with a sense of fulfillment? Not sure.
It's undeniable that our bodies go through changes, puberty to aging, losing to gaining weight, pregnancy or injuries and so on, but it seems to me that for most people, there's still something under there that's our 'physical self', such that we still recognize ourselves in the mirror. Which is why I mentioned the texts from post-surgical women. I mean, I don't have penis envy, but I sure do have flat-chest-envy (and before anyone jumps to any conclusions, I'm not that endowed, anyway). And yet, for some women who mention expecting it not to matter, beforehand, they still went through this post-surgery paradigm shift. I can't predict what I'd feel or how I'd react (and honestly, I hope I never have to find out), but the fact that other women have reported this passage, post-surgery, makes me think it's the kind of thing that maybe a lot of us don't realize. Until afterwards. Because we do take that "underneath everything, this is still me, if with some variations" for granted. Maybe? Or maybe there's a better way to put it. Probably.
Sure, plenty of this body-focus is cultural, too -- like telling women they can't possibly be happy unless they starve themselves to near-skeletal. Or telling men that they can't possibly see themselves as truly 'manly' if they have man-breasts or a too-small penis. In a society where wide hips and big breasts are valued, now heavier women are connected but the girls with A-cups end up disconnected, instead, because culture says "be this way" and they're not. Seems to me that's a small taste of what it must be like, for someone whose heart/soul says, "my body should have curves and delicate jawline and a higher-pitch voice" but whose body is hairy, muscled, and has dangly parts. At least with society you can close the door, step away from the television, and take off the annoying bra and heels. But you can never get away from your heart saying that your body doesn't match, to the point that who you see in the mirror never, even remotely, meshes with your sense of self.
As to your last point: in this discussion, I've moved it to gender (and not sex) for two reasons. One, is because unless we're writing stories in which characters are nekkid and horizontal, the secondary sex characteristics remain hidden, or hide-able, or just downplayed. Two, it's the intersection of public-gender and private-sex where a lot of misery seems to occur. So -- given that this is all posited in fiction and fictional worlds -- then I think it's worth asking what happens, or how we reconcile or re-write the world or ourselves or others, when these two sides don't mesh. Even as simple as cross-gender, where physically you're just fine being cisgender but sheesh, this doesn't mean you want to be treated like (read: stuck in the limited options of) a girl. That's a disconnect, too, and while different, it's equally valid as the disconnect of someone who does want, say, to be treated like a girl, and fulfills all the public-gender aspects, but physically there are still those annoying dangly parts.
Yes, in the end, I think it's entirely a valid choice if a character were to state a preference -- regardless of sex or gender -- for a state of being asexual or aromantic. And I do think there should be more of those in fiction, certainly. But I think it's a disservice to say, or even imply, that this is the only acceptable option for someone whose outward and inward don't mesh. That, because you're violating expected results (dressing like a boy, but the unwrapped package shows a girl), that your only option is to never be a sexual being, at all.
But -- and this is circling back to nagasvoice's real-world reminders of violence -- if we are to give that non-matching character a chance for romance, then it means recognizing how we, as humans, find partners and friends and lovers and so on. We do it through a combination: we say, "I like girls who are witty, outgoing, funny, who like to garden AND have curves and good-looking legs," or whatever combination. We might find a girl who's witty, outgoing, etc, but like I mentioned in the original post, if the body doesn't also match what we find attractive then most people are going to be less than attracted. Bluntly. (Or, in the real-world, fly right into violence because their entitled expectations didn't match.) That you wouldn't be as attracted to a funny, witty girl with boy-parts.
Reducing it to sex-only, though, erases people for whom sex/gender don't mesh. Plus the idea of the entire cast walking around naked just makes me think, omg, the sunburn. Or bits being frozen off in winter. Ow. Gender is the construct we lay over the physical, where we can easily shift and realign without being reduced to sex-essentialism. So, gender is the arena in which to discuss such things, and to discuss how we can portray/shift those understandings, in fiction. To show other possibilities.
Which is where the two-spirit notion comes in, and I'm sure each tribe/culture must've had separate gender-clues for two-spirits, little things that let you know: this is a funny, witty girl but she happens to have boy-parts. It's sort of like if you only wanted to marry into, or even only associate with, your own religion, that the person's casual reference to synagogue or mass or shrines signals that this funny, witty girl is, or is not, within your scope of who you'd want to be with. As a lover, or a friend, or a housemate, or whatever.
[this probably should've been its whole own post, as followup. WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME.]
Slight tangent but related: on the dating sites, I'm told it's usually a two-part thing: who you are, and who you're looking for. But I think it should be four-part, some way to recognize or acknowledge that gender and sex can be independent of each other. It's your body, and your soul, and someone else's body, and their soul. So one could say: "I like funny, witty girls who garden, and they can have girl-parts, boy-parts, or both-parts" or "I like funny, witty girls, who have boy-parts, since I don't find girl-parts attractive." It's not only that this is a valid (and honest) position for one to take about what one finds attractive, it also opens the door for someone whose body and soul don't match to find someone who is not just okay with this, but actively desires this.
But short of going anvilicious in fiction and smacking readers with a sex-and-gender lecture, how could this kind of approach be represented in fiction? What kind of models could fiction create, to open reader-eyes to the possibility that there are other ways, better ways, to represent ourselves and find someone who loves us?
no subject
Date: 2 May 2012 05:08 pm (UTC)And even more, it feels wrong to me to suggest that if we did not feel such a sense of loss, it would indicate that we'd felt something had been wrong with our original bodies, and that the wrongness had now been corrected. Certainly I'd expect a change that major to be kind of freaky and require a lot of getting used to, and there would be things about it that would turn out to be unpleasant to the point of rage-inducing.
The "freaky and getting used to" and the "unpleasant to the point of rage-inducing" are both potentially strong reactions. And to me, they speak of a period of disconnect, as opposed to a sense of relief/joy that now your body is closer to what, on the inside, you'd always felt it should be. There's adjustment, certainly, in any change. But maybe the question is where you end up: with resignation or with a sense of fulfillment? Not sure.
It's undeniable that our bodies go through changes, puberty to aging, losing to gaining weight, pregnancy or injuries and so on, but it seems to me that for most people, there's still something under there that's our 'physical self', such that we still recognize ourselves in the mirror. Which is why I mentioned the texts from post-surgical women. I mean, I don't have penis envy, but I sure do have flat-chest-envy (and before anyone jumps to any conclusions, I'm not that endowed, anyway). And yet, for some women who mention expecting it not to matter, beforehand, they still went through this post-surgery paradigm shift. I can't predict what I'd feel or how I'd react (and honestly, I hope I never have to find out), but the fact that other women have reported this passage, post-surgery, makes me think it's the kind of thing that maybe a lot of us don't realize. Until afterwards. Because we do take that "underneath everything, this is still me, if with some variations" for granted. Maybe? Or maybe there's a better way to put it. Probably.
Sure, plenty of this body-focus is cultural, too -- like telling women they can't possibly be happy unless they starve themselves to near-skeletal. Or telling men that they can't possibly see themselves as truly 'manly' if they have man-breasts or a too-small penis. In a society where wide hips and big breasts are valued, now heavier women are connected but the girls with A-cups end up disconnected, instead, because culture says "be this way" and they're not. Seems to me that's a small taste of what it must be like, for someone whose heart/soul says, "my body should have curves and delicate jawline and a higher-pitch voice" but whose body is hairy, muscled, and has dangly parts. At least with society you can close the door, step away from the television, and take off the annoying bra and heels. But you can never get away from your heart saying that your body doesn't match, to the point that who you see in the mirror never, even remotely, meshes with your sense of self.
As to your last point: in this discussion, I've moved it to gender (and not sex) for two reasons. One, is because unless we're writing stories in which characters are nekkid and horizontal, the secondary sex characteristics remain hidden, or hide-able, or just downplayed. Two, it's the intersection of public-gender and private-sex where a lot of misery seems to occur. So -- given that this is all posited in fiction and fictional worlds -- then I think it's worth asking what happens, or how we reconcile or re-write the world or ourselves or others, when these two sides don't mesh. Even as simple as cross-gender, where physically you're just fine being cisgender but sheesh, this doesn't mean you want to be treated like (read: stuck in the limited options of) a girl. That's a disconnect, too, and while different, it's equally valid as the disconnect of someone who does want, say, to be treated like a girl, and fulfills all the public-gender aspects, but physically there are still those annoying dangly parts.
Yes, in the end, I think it's entirely a valid choice if a character were to state a preference -- regardless of sex or gender -- for a state of being asexual or aromantic. And I do think there should be more of those in fiction, certainly. But I think it's a disservice to say, or even imply, that this is the only acceptable option for someone whose outward and inward don't mesh. That, because you're violating expected results (dressing like a boy, but the unwrapped package shows a girl), that your only option is to never be a sexual being, at all.
But -- and this is circling back to
Reducing it to sex-only, though, erases people for whom sex/gender don't mesh. Plus the idea of the entire cast walking around naked just makes me think, omg, the sunburn. Or bits being frozen off in winter. Ow. Gender is the construct we lay over the physical, where we can easily shift and realign without being reduced to sex-essentialism. So, gender is the arena in which to discuss such things, and to discuss how we can portray/shift those understandings, in fiction. To show other possibilities.
Which is where the two-spirit notion comes in, and I'm sure each tribe/culture must've had separate gender-clues for two-spirits, little things that let you know: this is a funny, witty girl but she happens to have boy-parts. It's sort of like if you only wanted to marry into, or even only associate with, your own religion, that the person's casual reference to synagogue or mass or shrines signals that this funny, witty girl is, or is not, within your scope of who you'd want to be with. As a lover, or a friend, or a housemate, or whatever.
[this probably should've been its whole own post, as followup. WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME.]
Slight tangent but related: on the dating sites, I'm told it's usually a two-part thing: who you are, and who you're looking for. But I think it should be four-part, some way to recognize or acknowledge that gender and sex can be independent of each other. It's your body, and your soul, and someone else's body, and their soul. So one could say: "I like funny, witty girls who garden, and they can have girl-parts, boy-parts, or both-parts" or "I like funny, witty girls, who have boy-parts, since I don't find girl-parts attractive." It's not only that this is a valid (and honest) position for one to take about what one finds attractive, it also opens the door for someone whose body and soul don't match to find someone who is not just okay with this, but actively desires this.
But short of going anvilicious in fiction and smacking readers with a sex-and-gender lecture, how could this kind of approach be represented in fiction? What kind of models could fiction create, to open reader-eyes to the possibility that there are other ways, better ways, to represent ourselves and find someone who loves us?