(no subject)

[the_fantastic_ms_fox]

I'm posting assignments here so's I can retrieve them at school. Still, if you want to take a gander at the extension of last week's Sex/Gender brainstorm of dubious acedemic, but definite personal value, here it is. (I know it needs editing.)

Analysis Paper #1 for WS 316 Graham Fox - 200063151 September 21st, 2006

I find word association difficult as my first association is often an idea, a feeling, or a picture, and when words come, there is not always a clear sequence: hence the pictures and double responses.

My associations indicate that for me, "gender" is either a pleasing academic pursuit or a chronic social headache. This is a telling split, one that paralells much of traditional scholastic inquiry's efforts to control by sorting. Maybe I'm trying to make sense of the paradox formed by being raised under the doctrine of 'gender is an obstacle and illusion,' while living in a society that takes it as fundamental mechanism of order.

Failing to bridge this, and needing to resolve not just this paradox, but that between the categories I've labelled, and the behaviours that defy them, I seek comfort through labelling roles of behaviour through tiered categories. I imagine I adopted this habit through an early interest in medical science and classical theology; categorical approachs to understanding and regulating life and morality repspectively (often through gender) which begin with a normalized/healthy default, then work outwards to define and name all forms of deviance.

More recently, my own gender variance has found defying cateogries to be a source of mental health. My experience in the discipline of gender studies has confirmed this - decategorization being a radical take that validates gender studies as novel while separating it from women's studies, as it denies that the category of "women" is internally consistant let alone primary in identity formation. Some members of transgender health organizations have encouraged me to see categories of gender as convenient handles and little more.

On the other hand, others within transgender organizations and literature have argued that gender roles are empowering. This leads me to question my second-wave-feminist upbringing; I begin to wonder if intellectuals such as myself that challenge the idea that '(conventional) gender roles should exist at all' are doing a disservice to those who find such labels to be a source of empowerment and comfort.

"Sex," for me, is primarily an act whose saturation with emotional and social ties both invite and scare. It's also a way of living out biology, being connected to larger social processes whether one likes it or not.

I associate sex with "Touch" and a idea of "Together/Unity." As a child, I was encouraged to cuddle and my cuddling habits draw positive feedback from friends and lovers. My spiritual (and perhaps political) beliefs centre on dissolving ego boundaries and, aided by my culture's notions of 'making love,' I have extended this to sex. Perhaps this view stems from my upbrining in a culture where Judeo-Christian ideas and classical Grleek ideas agree that the ideal should rule the material: (heterosexual) sex should be sanctioned by marriage; it should be driven by "pure" love (associated with spirit, God and learning), not lust (associated with the body, sin and irrationality).

What then do I say about my association of "Kinky" or "Teys" My expeience with both as a port of and eparate from sex have been almost entirely positive. I feel some residual phobia though, and worry about others' misconceptions, especially among the progressive circles I esteem. I cover for my kinky habits, both to others and myself, by explaining them as "ecstatic," again tying them to an escape from flesh. I don't mention the toys, and own only those that are consider a part of normal sexuality for my generation and presented gender: condoms, lubricant, and sometimes gloves or velcro strars.

Sex, for me, is also a social ritual. Again, with this tie to intellectualism, I feel grounded, stable, and less vulnerable in the face of biological drives that cut to our core. Yet I live in a strongly individualist society that expects a young man to be casual, fearless and free with his (hetero-, and in some circles, homo-)sexuality on the one hand, while I also inhabit circles that encourage me as a mid-twenties only son and eldest bachelor of the extended family to have an eye on forming a traditional nuclear family. The compromise is dating.

Sex brings up the dichotomy of "Consensual/Non-Consensual." The former is our safe default, something framed by a society that relies on written contracts (which can be coerced through legal means), expects informed consent, and romanticizes handshake deals (which are idealized as uncoerced). On the other hand, only two years ago did I see how the threat of nonconsensual sexual violence shapes our society: in how woman strangers want more distance at night, or alone in a closed room; or in how the threat of prison rape keeps me from breaking some laws.

Kink(y sex) often plays at non-consensuality. I feel it's wise that people have this safe, codified avenue; but I worry about condemnation, even from within the kink community. One can be sexed non-consensually: read, embodied or even surgically altered as one or the other or neither gender against one's wishes.

What about the biological character of belonging to a sexed category? I think of the word "biology:" I've heard that "the story of biology is the story of sex." Thus, biology is a source of intellectual inquiry into sex cushioned by the safe and certain trappings of material studies. Our culture's fixation on objective facts equivocates the scientific with the certain, and the material with the static. Organisms can be categorized as sexual, or non-sexual; people are sexed according to biological signs: chromosomes; primary and/or secondary sexual characteristics. We are fed biology as destiny: its only change lying in the before-time of of evolution; the creation myth behind the status quo.

Along these lines I think "hormones:" I learned the word "hormones" in association with teenage ("mis")behaviour associated with puberty: excess sexual expression, mood swings, pretention at adulthood etc.... Hormones have since become biochemical intruders; agents whose presence or absence trigger bodily and psychological changes without one's consent. In either case, they're presented as seeds of chaos, the exception being their use as medical control over one's own body.

Finally, still along these lines, I think "Embodiment:" Sex is a part of the body. Having (good?) sex is being in one's body. Being in one's body is right, even spiritual. The concept of actively being in my body is a new to me. The term "embodied" also smacks of spirit affixed to, bound in, flesh: the body is both a source of stability for and a dead weight to the incorporeal. This interest speaks to my experience of my cultures attempts to make sense of other modes of thought: intuition, meditation, holistic mindfulness and others things overlooked by traditional redutionist prescriptions for mental clarity.