"Soon after I got [to Atmore] I saw how a wolf would trick a young boy. They all worked the same way. First the wolf, he gave the new guy some money and bought him what he wanted from the commissary. He told him that he was a friend. He would protect him from the tough guys. He would fight for him. He didn't tell him right off what he was leading to. After he spent
four or five dollars on the boy, he propositioned him."
four or five dollars on the boy, he propositioned him."
In the end, however, this courtship inevitably failed to win the young prisoner over, and matters were resolved violently: "The old wolf beat him up unmerciful," initiating the boy into a new identity. "The other prisoners just looked on," writes Patterson. "They knew a young girl was being born."
-- From Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale,
by Catherine Orenstein.
...most of the dominant mainstreams of our world will only admit to one construction on gender-an inseparable conflation of "penis=male=masculine" and breasts/vagina=female=feminine." Those mainstreams insist that you like "woman (feminine)" or "male (masculine)." A few of them allow for the possibility of liking both, though they cast it as a suspect state of affairs best avoided or outgrown.
--From Genderquerulous, by Nalo Hopkinson
So I'm...involved, lets say, with a transsexual. At first, I did it for the novelty factor. I mean, come on! How many times have I wished I could sleep with a hermaphrodite? I'm attracted to gender-queer. Get over it.
Anyhow, since he is a genuinely sweet, cheerful, kind person who loves animals, nature, cooking, gardening, and is totally willing to sneak me into bars, I actually really like the guy. Which I wasn't exactly counting on. So the scene I'm building up to looks like this: the two of us are in the smoking room of a bar in the Castro. And I've gotta say, he dresses up well (cool leather shoes, nice pants, crisp shirt). But then, so do I (button down shirt that matches my teal glasses, straight jeans, strappy heels). We're waiting for his friend to bring us our drinks (whiskey sour/gin and tonic), chatting, lounging, smoking. We're talking about my height (he's short and I'm in heels), his upcoming trip to LA, where his friend was with the drinks, my friends in Miami, and suddenly "what do you see me as?" And I froze. "I see what you show me," I managed to spit out. Oh how diplomatic you idiot, I shrieked in my head. But how can I see anything else? How can I say anything else? And how could I? That's such an odd question. The energy, the person that I talk with, enjoy the company of, that presence is male. But the body? It's now neither male nor female. How can I say that I see a man, when that's what I feel, not see? But I don't see a woman either. It begs the question of why we have such rigid gender roles. Why do we have to be one or the other? Why is it only one or the other? Why aren't there three, four, five genders? And why is genitalia synonymous with gender?
It's that last question that interests me the most these days. Fourteen hours after we met, as we settled into a warm, happy, tipsy, awkward, post-sex cuddle, that question occurred to me. Resting my head on his chest, I traced his mastectomy scars (now isn't that an odd sentence!). "You seem so, I dunno, calm," I muttered. "How? I mean, why?" He made a quizzical face. "I mean," I continued, "I think I'd be angry, you know? I guess I have no idea how I'd feel, really. I just get the impression that I'd be a lot angrier about being all jumbled up. You know?" He kind of laughed and then tried to explain that the body's genitalia shouldn't determine gender. And I'm lying there going "Whaaaat? Come again?" I didn't understand that night, or even the next few. All I could think was that I was talking to a guy, and sleeping with a girl. But the more time we spend together, the more I've begun to understand. We do tend to define gender by genitalia. It's easy to do. Can you define what a woman is, or what a man is without those markers? It's so very hard to describe what makes a man a man, or a woman a woman. But its becoming increasingly obvious that it shouldn't be based on what body you live in. It just so happens that most men have a pair of testes and a penis. Just as most women have breasts, vaginae and birth babies. Getting to know this boy I've had to realize that he is a boy. Not a boi, not simply butch, but Male.
-- From Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale,
by Catherine Orenstein.
...most of the dominant mainstreams of our world will only admit to one construction on gender-an inseparable conflation of "penis=male=masculine" and breasts/vagina=female=feminine." Those mainstreams insist that you like "woman (feminine)" or "male (masculine)." A few of them allow for the possibility of liking both, though they cast it as a suspect state of affairs best avoided or outgrown.
--From Genderquerulous, by Nalo Hopkinson
So I'm...involved, lets say, with a transsexual. At first, I did it for the novelty factor. I mean, come on! How many times have I wished I could sleep with a hermaphrodite? I'm attracted to gender-queer. Get over it.
Anyhow, since he is a genuinely sweet, cheerful, kind person who loves animals, nature, cooking, gardening, and is totally willing to sneak me into bars, I actually really like the guy. Which I wasn't exactly counting on. So the scene I'm building up to looks like this: the two of us are in the smoking room of a bar in the Castro. And I've gotta say, he dresses up well (cool leather shoes, nice pants, crisp shirt). But then, so do I (button down shirt that matches my teal glasses, straight jeans, strappy heels). We're waiting for his friend to bring us our drinks (whiskey sour/gin and tonic), chatting, lounging, smoking. We're talking about my height (he's short and I'm in heels), his upcoming trip to LA, where his friend was with the drinks, my friends in Miami, and suddenly "what do you see me as?" And I froze. "I see what you show me," I managed to spit out. Oh how diplomatic you idiot, I shrieked in my head. But how can I see anything else? How can I say anything else? And how could I? That's such an odd question. The energy, the person that I talk with, enjoy the company of, that presence is male. But the body? It's now neither male nor female. How can I say that I see a man, when that's what I feel, not see? But I don't see a woman either. It begs the question of why we have such rigid gender roles. Why do we have to be one or the other? Why is it only one or the other? Why aren't there three, four, five genders? And why is genitalia synonymous with gender?
It's that last question that interests me the most these days. Fourteen hours after we met, as we settled into a warm, happy, tipsy, awkward, post-sex cuddle, that question occurred to me. Resting my head on his chest, I traced his mastectomy scars (now isn't that an odd sentence!). "You seem so, I dunno, calm," I muttered. "How? I mean, why?" He made a quizzical face. "I mean," I continued, "I think I'd be angry, you know? I guess I have no idea how I'd feel, really. I just get the impression that I'd be a lot angrier about being all jumbled up. You know?" He kind of laughed and then tried to explain that the body's genitalia shouldn't determine gender. And I'm lying there going "Whaaaat? Come again?" I didn't understand that night, or even the next few. All I could think was that I was talking to a guy, and sleeping with a girl. But the more time we spend together, the more I've begun to understand. We do tend to define gender by genitalia. It's easy to do. Can you define what a woman is, or what a man is without those markers? It's so very hard to describe what makes a man a man, or a woman a woman. But its becoming increasingly obvious that it shouldn't be based on what body you live in. It just so happens that most men have a pair of testes and a penis. Just as most women have breasts, vaginae and birth babies. Getting to know this boy I've had to realize that he is a boy. Not a boi, not simply butch, but Male.
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