A Philosophical Queer-y

[joydivision_27 (imported)]

2001: a gender odyssey

Apologies for my long absence from the board.

Many of you know me as the guy who wants a vagina, all the while remaining a "guy" in lifestyle.

(Yes, that bizarre desire and accompanying mental imagery has resulted in far more bulging panties than I care to admit to .....)

I've been off the board for a while because I'm dating a guy now, and we are quite happy together with (my) things as they are.

When I am not in a relationship, I always seem to want to invert my penis & ball sac into a receptor instead of a progenitor. When I am involved sexually with someone, this desire evaporates and I am very happy to have male genitalia.

This contradiction has traditionally led me to believe that my desires / issues are psychological, and have more to do with rejection or loneliness than with innate identity.

However, I am beginning to wonder if my recurrent interest is not psychological at all, but rather PHILOSOPHICAL, or perhaps even anthropological.

Please bear with me ......

I just read an interesting (techie) article on the production of the film "2001 A Space Odyssey."

I was struck by one particular photograph in the article. It depicted an actor portraying an Astronaut, shaking hands with an Aboriginal man (who was originally recruited to portray one of the lower-evolved ape men from the beginning of the film). Apparently, at a certain point in the film's pre-production, a decision was made to locate the "Ape Men" further back on the evolutionary timeline -- closer to homo-erectus, and further away from homo-sapien. I was intrigued by the photo, because the Aboriginal actor was wearing a "genderless" codpiece that made him completely smooth between the legs.

(Small, scruffy, and smooth .... yeah, that was pretty hot!)

Obviously this photo represents a discarded Hollywood fiction (as the film later depicted pre-evolved hominids more as Apes), but I was nevertheless intrigued by the philosophical implications.

In the initial concepting of the film, pre-humans were seen as genderless. Eventual evolution into more complex Beings brought biological and cognitive distinctions.

There is precedent for this idea in ancient mythology. Early artistic depictions of "Adam" conceived him as a cleft Being: part man, part woman. Adam's rib was removed by God and transformed into Eve. Masculine and feminine, once conjoined and unified, were wrenched apart by God (evolution) and were solidified (imprisoned) in their distinctions by "Knowledge."

What this says to me is that the primal state of Being is genderless.

And, ultimately, the post-human evolving cosmic state of Being is genderless.

Gender serves a very obvious biological (reproductive) function in our current state of biological human evolution.

But I really like what those early ideas in "2001" (as well as what the ancient Hebrew mythologies) were suggesting: that primordial Being was unified, NEITHER and BOTH male & female.

Eventually, Beings proceeded/evolved through the necessarily distinct and divided - but we will ultimately evolve back to a unified (genderless), but higher Being as the cosmologic process continues.

Odyssey, journey, transition - all suggest the same thing to me: the interesting and most revelatory part of the process is the middle part. that's the place where insights emerge.

I think that eunuchs, transgendered, and gender-fucked folk have been given a unique and special cosmic glimpse into the next step in our human evolution:

male, female, both, and neither. Oneness, not Twoness, to paraphrase Woody Allen. (Transsexualism, not so much. I think that is more a product of our current evolutionary binary state. Although, at a point in mid-transition, that glimpse might be there. I am not trans, so I couldn't know. Thoughts)?

However, I am SO INTRIGUED with the intermediary state - the place IN-BETWEEN, and in defiance of, genders.

Yes, this interest is clearly sexual for me. But it is also philosophical.

And I wear panties, and I enjoy having facial hair.

Go figure.

Okay .... time for me to go smoke some more pot ......

Thoughts?!

joey

[Francis (imported)]

I don't see anything wrong with what you want to do. So long as you don't harm anyone else, what you do with your body and lifestyle is your business. Neither shouuld you consider it wierd etc. It is just you and that's it. You have a partner who accepts you the way you are and want to be, so I say "Go for it and enjoy it all. "

I have to think about your philosophy up there though It will take me awhile to get my head around the concept. Personally, I do think that there is a continuous psychological and possibly physical gradation between 100% male and 100% female for both sexes i.e. some are male in body and male in psyche and others are male in body and female in their psyche and there is in fact a continuous gradation between with people in between. It is not black and white, it is a continuous band with shades of grey between the two extremes. I think that the error is in considering these various shades of grey as "abnormal" , "sinful",or "perverted" to use some of the kinder words bandied about. The fact is that we are all just part of the complete human spectrum and therefore, by definition, normal members of the human race. Without the full spectrum we would be colour blind. Those people who are gender colour blind are missing a significant part of the human experience. No wonder they are so narrow minded and bitter.

P.S. I like your avatar

[Uncle Flo (imported)]

I consider becoming a eunuch a trancendent state---a movement from one state of being to another. This fits into a portion of your philosophical musing quite well, in my opinion. As an evolutionary stage binary gender makes sense but I think the process would tend toward more gender points rather than fewer. --FLO--

[tugon (imported)]

I, as a eunuch, also feel that I am neither male nor female. I happily exist with emotional and mental traits of both.

One of my experiences in my teens was astral projection also known as an out of body experience. It happened during a period of great depression when I was trying to will myself to die. The great learning from this is the sense of peace and lack of physical concerns we will have in the spiritual state. I now believe that our spirits are without gender and we try to find peace with ourselves when we are sent back to earth to live another life. You probably know some who are very much in sync with their bodies and others such as ourselves that have had to struggle, redefine or even physically alter to be happy. After 41 years of trying to be happy I became a eunuch and found the peace for which I had been seeking. I am hoping not to have these struggles in my next life.

[devi (imported)]

Please check:

OM

OF

OT

[joydivision_27 (imported)]

M

F

T

Why just those three cateogries?

I agree with the distinctions as a currently BIOLOGICAL limitation.

From time prehistoric, the categories have been necessarily binary from a delineated and evolutionary perspective.

However, in the 20th century, technology made transition between boundaries possible.

BUT -- even from that perspective the delineations are binary: male OR female.

"T" still assumes male, female, OR on the way to one or the other.

(Incidentslly -- THANK GOD for that option!!! Only available to us in this era).

However, what i am most intrigued by is the categorical delineation not represented on your checklist. M F T.

How about "I" ?

In flux.

In between.

Indecision.

"T" is not evolutionarily advantageous because it cannot produce offspring.

"H" (as in homosexual) is similarly an evolutionary dead-end, because it cannot produce offspring naturally.

(By the way, I am homosexual, for whatever that is worth ....)

EUNUCHS do not produce offspring either.

So .... I think what I was ultimately getting at is the SPIRITUAL value of Eunuch and transitional sexuality.

Does sex/desire transcend biology? It is certainly a necessary component.

But are there other, equally important aspects to sex?

Perhaps not biologically (yet), but certainly philosophically.

jdv