Gender

[RavenWings (imported)]

I wanted to ask everyone in here about their thoughts about gender, sexuality, and sex. I know that there is no single answer to the question, that is why I'm posing it.

To me, gender, sexuality, and sex are three seperate but intersecting continuums. I know that society sees gender and sex as the same thing. One is either Male or their Female. I know that there are probably few of you out there today who actually feel that. To me, there are four genders and sexes, none of which necissarily preclude the existance of one gender in another sexes form. I also sometimes think that gender is more a social construct than natural. Among my ancestral Celts, it was not unusual for a woman to both own herown weapons, but to fight in battle along side men. But in the Arab societies, that would be tantamount to blasphamy. So, if gender is merely a social construct, what does that mean for what we do to our bodies?

As I said, I would like to hear people's thoughts on this. I love to debate issues so that I can refine my own understandings of them, and perhaps come to a conclusion based upon my oppinons and the oppinion of others. I have often found this to be the best way to learn about the world arround us.

Thanks

[Andrew (imported)]

I wanted to ask everyone in here about their thoughts about gender, sexuality, and sex. I know that there is no single answer to the question, that is why I'm posing it.

Well, first you would have to define the terms. That is the problem when the conversation uses terms like "gender", "sex", or "sexuality".

For myself only, I would have said, prior to my castration, that my gender was male, my sexual orientation mostly heterosexual, although I had no qualms about blow jobs from gays, and sex was a frequent part of my life. Too frequent, actually, and some of it not really desirable in this day and age of AIDS.

After castration, I think of my gender as "eunuch", but of course when outside the EA identify as male. Sex and sexuality or no longer a part of my life and are not missed.

[jab (imported)]

Everyone will define these terms slightly differently, and ultimately, someone is going to get offended or get their feelings hurt.

I would, however, strongly argue that anyone who believes that becoming a man or becoming a woman is solely a matter of hormones, is a creep. (It might be that simple in utero, but once you're introduced to the world, there's a lot of societal conditioning and the like that starts coming into play.)

And ultimately, a person's self-image is their own. Maybe it's more important to give people permission to view themselves as "someone who made a passage between the two" (a mid-life correction, if you will) and not lose sleep about other people's sexuality too much.

[RavenWings (imported)]

I know that the subject is a hard one to fathom. I think of gender as being more mental than physical and sex as being more physical than mental. Sexuality, i think, has a lot more to do with what gender/sex one is attracted to sexually. I know that I think of myself as being both female and lesbian, but those looking at me wouldn't see me that way. Most people who know me in the 'real' world do not know what I am going through currently. I have tried to find men attractive, but no matter what I try, I cannot find men attractive at all. Women, however, I find very attractive.

I know that among the Inuit of Northern Canada and Alaska gender is a flexable thing. That a person can go from being 'male' to being 'female' while being born either male or female. And that among many Native American tribes, one's gender was not automatically linked to one's sex. A number of berdachi took mates who were of the same sex as they, but the opposite gender, while other took mates who were the opposite sex and gender, but rarely did any of them take someone who is the same sex and gender as they were. Not all were as simple as being male to female or female to male. In a number of tribes, berdachi were more akin to being eunuchs in their gender.

Ultimately, I want a discussion of ideas, and I ask that no one gets hurt or upset by the ideas put forth. I feel and have always felt that there is too little discussion of the peculiarities of gender/sex/sexuality in the society at large. I thought, and hope that I am right, that this is a place that would consider the nature of gender as being important to who and what we all are. I do not know enough people in here yet to fully understand if I am going after a subject that has little interest to people out there or a lot.

Is transexuality mearly a passage from one sex to another? Or is it something similar to what the Inuit practice? Is gender mutable? is sex not as important as gender? and what do sexualities have to do with any of them, or are they just free floating out there?

I just hope noone minds me bringing up this rather prickly subject.

[jab (imported)]

You skate remarkably closely to a near-answer, I think, to the question of whether one can change one's sexual identity. (I've deliberately tried to change the wording to make it, I hope, a less ambiguous question.)

In describing one culture in which such a passage is part of the culture, I suspect we'd find that the sexual roles (male, female) probably aren't seen as immutable and sacrosact (if that's not too pompous a word) as in our culture.

Maybe the question isn't just rooted in one's own self-perception, but is joined at the hip with the culture you're part of.

And maybe that's why the question remains so controversial - because some people immediately see it as referring to the roles in society (this isn't about one person, but whether a man can become a woman) and others see it as an individual, somewhat private thing.

What was *in* that stuff I just smoked?

[A-1 (imported)]

To me, gender is a secondary detail of existance as a whole.

First, our society is WAY too hung up on gender.

Bathrooms with a sex??? Forms with a box to check MALE or FEMALE?

What's up with that?

We finally got the word RACE ejected form informational forms. I do not understand why I cannot go into the restroom with Vi, after all, we bathe & shower together when it suits us and we go into the bathroom at home together all the time unless one of us locks the other out, usually because of a particularly stinky defication.

I just think that this gender issue is way too overplayed.

Humanity needs to lose some of it.

Who really gives a damn if you are Straight, Gay, Bi or Confused? And whose business is it besides yours, anyway? Only those who you decide to have relations with.

I know what I am, but I don't expect everybody to be like me. Hell, I don't expect anybody to be like me because I am unique. So are you all. Screw anybody that thinks otherwise.

Furthermore, one of my biggest problems is how everybody feels that you are either one or the other sex. If you have those types of problems that come from ambiguous genitalia, I wish you a lot of luck in this place we call the world.

A-1

[Mac (imported)]

First, our society is WAY too hung up on gender. ... Bathrooms with a sex??? Forms with a box to check MALE or FEMALE? ... I do not understand why I cannot go into the restroom with Vi, after all, we bathe & shower together when it suits us and we go into the bathroom at home together all the time ... ... I just think that this gender issue is way too overplayed.

I totally agree. My wife and I do the same.

There are times when I feel uncomfortable with her going into the restroom by herself if there is the possibility of danger for her. There is safety in numbers and if more are present (both female and male), perverts are less likely to be a threat.

[RavenWings (imported)]

So maybe gender is this sort of ordered chaos without absolute fixtures?

I'm also begining to feel like I may be one of those few out there actively contemplating this kind of thing. I'm not complaining, chastising, or generally being difficult. I have a lot of time on my hands and spend a lot of it thinking about these things. I am begining to see a pattern of simple acceptance of the gender construct that isn't necessarily just male/female, but rather along the lines of 'it just is'.

I thank you all for your input, though. Maybe I'm just being one of those terrible horrible people who is busy trying to put the world into nice catogorized boxes. Still, I enjoyed, and still welcome any oppions out there.

[haltlos (imported)]

Maybe I should repeat the little theory I try to cultivate right now.

Men and Women have different genitalia.

And that's it!

Everything else is fiction, speculation or, at best, statistics.

Oh, and culture of course.

Fuckin' Culture;

that was also the name of a band I was playing in...

gus

[RavenWings (imported)]

Well, Haltios, that does seem to be about the long and short of it. Of course, for some reason I've never quite fathomed, humans seem to be very protective of their myths, legends and lies.

Still, thank you....

And now that we all seem to be rather in agreement over this, should I just snip this thread? And if I do, how do I close it off?