Death

I'm watching "Dark Side of Porn--Does Snuff Exist" because...I felt like watching something and I have it, lol. And it occurred to me--isn't it natural that people would have a certain ('morbid') fascination with death? The old saying about death and taxes isn't entirely true--the only things that are absolutely certain in life (at least for humans), the only things that are without a doubt going to happen, are birth and death. It's ok to show birth in grade 8 classes, but death is this huge hush-hush taboo thing. I'm not saying that we should be killing people on film for the education of pre-teens, but I think that a video of cool, calm trip through an actual morgue, with no pretty CSI-esque actors or fancy camera angles would be ok, if not a good thing. Why hide death? Why make it scary? It's going to happen to us all, so why hide it? No, don't revel in it or glorify it, just tell it like it is.

I recently had a discussion with friends about death. One of them was saying that life used to be cheaper, but the other one (and I) didn't agree. There are places where human life is still extremely cheap--there are people in 'civilized countries' who consider human life to be very cheap. It wasn't that life was cheap, it was that death wasn't hidden. You could walk down a street and see corpses (you still can in some places, but they get cleaned up more quickly and there's a system in place to deal with them). My point was that more people are now considered human. People could walk by those corpses in the street because they were the poor, they were trash, they were sub-human. It's become less and less acceptable to have that attitude, and it's able to be applied to fewer and fewer people. I'm not saying that we should go back to the bad old days where people died all the time and it wasn't an individual tragedy every time because...people died all the time. If you grieved that deeply for everyone you knew who had died, you could never get on with your life. I heard once that humans only truly grieve for about fifteen people, because that's the size of family groups our ancestors had. If you whipped through those before you were out of childhood, you'd be a pretty emotionless adult! Maybe it was different. Maybe they really were able to go, "Nuts, lost another baby! Let's get makin' another!" I don't know.

But now we've almost become the opposite. We've become obsessed with living. Not with being alive, just with living--for making our hearts pump blood for as long as possible. We stuff our old people in homes, fill them with tubes, so they can last that extra month. And in some cases it's a great thing, because they'll recover or they'll get to see their grandkids that one last time. But at what point does quantity of life outweigh quality? At one point do we become so obsessed with a state of not-dying that we're not actually living? How much do we miss out on because of fear?

One thing I've always found fascinating is post-mortem photography. Seriously. Check it out. These are just portraits of people who just happen to be dead. And that's my point. Why can't we have memorials like this, show things like this to our children? They shouldn't live their lives in fear of death, they should live their lives...and know that they will die someday.

My point is, it's going to happen if you're in denial or not.

So I don't think that people who watch accidents are morbid freaks, or people who watch Faces of Death or even horror movies. In many ways, modern society has taken away our ability to watch the natural world. How many of us have even seen a chicken being slaughtered? But that's where we came from. I would be more worried if people weren't curious. I'm not saying that we should traumatize people--when I was nine or so, my mother decided that we could only continue eating meat if we either a) went to a slaughter house or b) killed a rabbit. Luckily we didn't. But if someone makes a choice to explore their natural world, to learn more about something that will happen to them, to someone they love (to everyone they love, given enough time) why do we now look at them like they're perverse? We have lost our connection to ourselves, to the cycles that created us that we are still very much a part of. We stuff our dying into hospitals (I don't mean people that we're trying to save. I mean terminal cancer patients, people who are not walking away). Wouldn't they rather die at home, surrounded by loved ones? I know I would. But we might upset someone. We can't bring death home with us.

I recently re-read Neil Gaiman's brilliant Sandman series. My favorite character has always been Death, I've had a huge crush on her since the very first. I'm sure that says more about me than anything, but I was also very impressed by his concept of the Necropolis, a whole realm or dimension of undertakers. They spend their lives surrounded by death, but they learn to respect it and not let it become a job, while not having it bother them.

My point? I don't know if I have one. If I do, it's this: we are part of the cycle of birth and death. We cannot foreseeably remove ourselves from it, and an insistence on doing so just causes friction.

Listening to: Mein Teil by Rammstein

Supermodels and Tulips

So, what do supermodels and tulips have in common? Less and less. But...

I'm reading Michael Pollan's fantastic book The Botany of Desire (I find it really sad that this is the first thing that pops up when I Google 'botany'. Yes, it's a great book, but it's not "Botany"! And that most of what came up was about the show, which, again, I was happy to find out

about, but...), where he talks about beauty, in nature and our subconscious, correlating to health: symmetry, size, colour, etc. The healthier something (a plant, animal, human) is, the more beautiful we perceive it to be.

There are, of course, exceptions. Like the tulip. During the 17th century Dutch tulipomania (great word, that. It's reading as a typo, of course, but it's a real word), the most prized flowers were 'broken'--they had a contrasting patch of colour on each petal. People noticed that these flowers had fewer bulblets (I don't remember the actual word and don't feel like looking it up) making them even more valuable, but they had no idea why until the invention of the microscope. That's right. The beautiful pattern was caused by a virus that weakened and eventually killed the flower, so now any tulip that emerges showing the broken pattern...is killed. We don't have them anymore. Beauty doesn't always mean health, especially with people. (Another wonderful example that Pollan doesn't mention is the 19th century vogue for looking consumptive. Logically, it makes no sense: people with consumption are not healthy [or particularly beautiful] but, for a time, it was beauty).

Which, of course, brings me to our own whacky time, and the reason I made the link in my sleepy brain last night. Illixim is beautiful. Like, freaking gorgeous. And built like Henry VIII, like a good, proper, round nobleman. None of this scrawny, peasanty shit. She's round and healthy and...fertile? ...that's just creepy. Anyway. But now, of course, our ideal has shifted. "She's not healthy. She's fat."* Well, how does the exact same person, shifted across a few centuries, become a completely different state of being, a totally different ideal? If most of our current ideal people were moved back in time, and had the privilege of being noble, everyone would be trying to fatten the poor dying things up! (they also would have laughed their asses off at body builders. Muscle meant you worked.)

Can't we find a happy medium, where we can move past our biology (or worse, culture) and realize that weight and health and beauty are subjective, if they're even very interconnected? My philosophy about weight (and no, I don't always remember this when I have to go buy new pants) is this: as long as you can do what you need to and you want to in your life, then be whatever weight you are. If you find that your weight is interfering with something you want to do (or muscle, or endurance, or whatever), then change it. If not, why not? Why let an arbitrary, and obviously fluctuating ideal influence your life?

(lol, I feel kind of bad for always posting long, boring rants. Illixim's the fun one. "Here, look at sexy, naked pictures. Don't mind my wife's ranting, here, pretty pretty!" Although, c'mon, that painting of Henry the Eighth is damn sexy. I'll give you a random oddity: if you scroll down to the bottom,

Preceded by "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" by The Rolling Stones

Billboard Hot 100 number one single "I'm Henry VIII, I Am" by Herman's Hermits August 7, 1965 (one week)

Succeeded by "I Got You Babe" by Sonny and Cher

Really? It comes right between that and that?)

*Not my views

Spayed!

So, I hate my period. Not just like, 'meh, I don't like it, myeh myeh'. No. I fucking can't stand it. The thought of having it for the next fifty-odd years (even as infrequently as I actually get it) fills me with dread and disgust. I hate the smell, I hate the mess, I hate the way it makes me cramp. I'm pretty sure that most of the depression I have during my period is strictly blood-related. And the fact that I can't reconcile being a non-woman bleeding out of a hole I don't even use. Seriously. Keeping a hole in your body thats only purpose is to bleed and drive you insane? I think not.

Soooo my doctor learned that I'd never been to the gynecologist, so he made me an appointment. I was seriously freaked out. I mean, I don't like having things in there at the best of times. And I insisted on it being a woman. Illixim went to a man, and he was so super creepy perky. Totally unsettling.

So I get there, and it's a very tall, very mannish woman who could easily have been trans (even my grandma thought she was a lesbian, but I'll get to that). And she's totally cool with Illixim being there, and she gets that we're a couple and includes her in the discussion and asks what I'm there for. I tell her about the evil period of doom and how what I really want is for it to go away. And she's all "Have you considered a hysterectomy?"

[pause for rant. I really hate the word hysterectomy. You're not removing my hysteria. Which, c'mon, totally loaded word. It's fucking infuriating. Anyway.]

And I'm all, "Derrr...will it MAKE IT STOPPP?!!!!"

So, upshot. Yes. It will make it stop, and there are no non-surgical complications, and I got to have this whole discussion in a backless hospital gown tucked under one of those stupid sheets, which is always a great way to make Grown-up Decisions TM, but nothing got stuck inside me and I went away with hope.

[note: I tried the whole 'take birth control to minimize period' thing. I started taking it in the middle of my period. My period stopped, and then started again. Immediately. Everyone was all 'Oh, yuss, just take it for a few months and it'll settle down and maybe you won't get it." FUCK THAT NOISE! I would rather get my period every six months or so and yes, have a week of utter miserable hell, than have it settle down for a few months. Noooooo.]

So I went home with my handful of brochures and went to several semi-ridiculous sites. Ok. I get that for some women having their uterus removed is really traumatic, because they have cancer, or they want children, or whatever. But making a website where you can't use 'child related' things in your username so it won't offend anyone? Wow.

I had several people ask me about the whole having (or more to the point, not) children. And I did have a little unhappy Darwin dance in my head, I will admit, and some evolutionary guilt over opting out of the gene pool. But technically, I could still have children. They could still be my eggs, they would just need to grow somewhere else. But I would still be contributing as much to the continuation of the species as say, a man: I would be donating my genetic material in germ form. Also, I really don't want children. I hate the little fuckers. Sure, I'll hang out with them from time to time, and babies are amusing for about an hour. But I hate people. And I sure as hell hate what amount to even more ignorant people. So, no. And besides, I shouldn't have children. I would be an insanely shitty parent. I am -way- too involved in myself, my life, and my happiness to bring some attention-stealing parasite into my world. But at least I can admit it. And who would want to bring a kid into this shit world, while I'm on the subject?

At some point during this period I watched Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, and I just loved the line "I barely survived my own childhood, I don't want to be responsible for someone else's" or however it goes. Totally sums up my philosophy. So, yeah, that was a total non-issue. Again, see above re: involved in myself. I was only worried about the consequences directly involving me.

But they sounded pretty minimal. So I made another appointment and went in to say yes, I want the surgery.

[At this point, I should probably mention something else about myself. I have a medical fetish. Like, a really big one. Since I was at least five. But I've never had any major medical things, especially not voluntary ones. When I was little I had a Sesame Street book about Grover going to the hospital to get his tonsils out, and I loved it. It was like preschool porn for me. But did I ever get surgery? Nooo. Did this influence my decision...maybe. A little. Yeah. Totally.]

And then I waited. And finally, on November 16th, Louis Riel's execution day, my surgery date was set for December 22nd, the day after Winter Solstice. Very significant seeming.

So, I set my affairs in order, got a will kit, joined my grandfather's memorial society (weird, very weird. But then, I have a morbid family. I come by it honestly). Just in case. And I waited. Then the surgery got postponed to January 4th, because some woman had the gaul (is that the right kind of gaul? gall? I think it's gall. But the other one is funnier and makes me think of Asterix) to have cancer. I know, right? (No, seriously, the woman who called to let me know was super apologetic. No matter how many times I said, you know, it's alright, cancer completely trumps my elective surgery, she just kept apologizing.)

[another rant: I hate when that happens. It really angers and depresses me. Like, how many people did the poor receptionist have to talk to who honestly thought that their shit was more important than saving someone's life? Those situations, when someone is apologizing for something a) reasonable and/or b) out of their control...Fuck, I hate people.]

So I got to have Christmas not as a cripple. Yay. Then it was just more waiting until...

The hospital! Illixim was going to work, because there was no point in her freaking out rattling around the hospital (as it turns out there was, because she was just freaking out rattling around work. Oh well.) So I got a ride from a friend, but he didn't stay, so I was all alone and a little anxious. I forgot my coat in reception and had to go back down and get it. But everyone was super nice and made everything really easy.

[I just thought of another of my Weird Deciding Factors. You should read that in John Candy's voice, like from Little Shop of Horrors. He was my favorite actor as a child, mostly if not entirely because of his last name. Anyway. Illixim, being a responsible pet owner, believes that pets should be spayed or neutered. And I'm a pet. So...]

So I read my book and waited for like three hours, until they had to take my book away and shuffle me down to the surgical waiting room, where I had the only magazine (it was also really cold, so me and the patient in the little booth directly across from me were both huddled under blankets. I had been cold since the first waiting room, where the only non-nice nurse had been all "Don't touch the bed if you don't have to, someone else has to use it!" but then I was cold so I grabbed the folded blanket and tucked myself in on the chair--which I moved to a better position. I also nabbed a chair with arms in the surgical waiting room. I always think, I am a human, and I adapt my environment to suit my needs! Anyway. And she kind of glared at me when she saw me with the blanket. Weird.

So, I had the only magazine, which was great. Unfortunately, it was from ICR. And worse, it was only like three pages long. So I didn't even have any length of religious wackery (I'm not one to bash religions, but some of it is just wackery, plain and simple. Like, when someone says "reason for the season" THE ONLY thing that comes into my head is Ned Flanders) to occupy me, but then people kept showing up to talk to me, like my gynecologist, who was also my surgeon, which was nice, and she patted me on the knee, which made me feel better. She also told me I would have to take a stool softener, and I'm not sure if she told me it would be a big red pill and I absorbed the information subconsciously, or if I just psychically knew, but it is indeed a big red pill. Then they put me in the operating room and started hooking me up and putting a railway tunnel...I mean IV...in and all that. They also gave me some funny-smelling gas and I started grinning like an idiot, and the last thing I remember thinking is, jeez, why am I grinning like an idiot, I should probably stop but I can't seem to...Luckily they didn't put me in the stirrups until I was out.

Then I woke up and two women were leaning over me, and I was pretty dopey and out of it. One of the first things I remember them asking was "Why did you decide not to have children?" Honestly. I shit you not. 'cause, wow, timing. Everyone joked later that I should have said, "What?! I can't have children?! What did you people do to me?!!!" But I just grinned blearily and gave them the Don't Be Afraid of the Dark party line.

Then they wheeled me into my room. A private room would have been $120/night, so I said no, but...I got a private room anyway, as it turned out. Yay!

And then I laid there for a bit and people ambled around and I really hated my catheter. Seriously. Nothing else hurt. Just the catheter. And eventually the IV. The holes in my abdomen? Nope. The stitches in my vagina? Nosir. That would make, you know, sense.

And then Illixim and my grandma (who was a huge hit with all the nurses) showed up, and I was so happy to see them! And I felt pretty good. Illixim had found a get well card in the hospital gift shop that had a picture of a cat that looked like one of ours, but it was a religious get well card. I'm not sure how that works. "Get well, or Jesus will kill this cat"?

Eventually my grandma left and we had some food and I was still feeling good (except for the damn catheter) so they decided I could get up and walk around. I walked to the bathroom and back and was sitting back on my bed when I really, really had to puke. I told the nurse as quickly as I could, and she brought me one of those stupid, tiny kidney bean shaped dish things. Like, yes, if a bee had to puke, it would be plenty. A human being? Not so much. Yeah. I felt pretty bad. So the catheter stayed in.

Then they gave me some Gravol, which made me really, really sleepy, and then Illixim had to go, so I read, but then I was awake, so I made them give me more--not because I was queasy, but because it had put me so wonderfully to sleep and I was feeling sorry for myself.

Of course, they kept taking my temperature/blood pressure/oxygen-finger-clampy thing all night, and it was bright, and there were crazy old ladies across the hall, so I didn't sleep -well-, but...the light string that attaches to the pillow is brilliant.

Of course, when I woke up in the morning, the catheter wasn't bothering me, and I had cream of wheat, which I've never had before, and now I know why. Because it's lumpy phlegm. But that's ok.

And then Illixim showed up again, and I was so happy. And then we signed my release and she wheeled me out and I found out about how our bank had fucked up, so my grandparents got my prescriptions, and then I went home.

And I've felt, overall, better than I do during my period. And now I won't get it. So, rad. Totally in favour. Everyone should go get one. I've been moving a little slow, but it's been rare for me to be in pain. Mostly it's just discomfort, which is totally worth it. And I can (I mean, have to) rest for six weeks. Which reminds me of Stupid Internface. So in the morning this guy shows up, literally two minutes after they took out my catheter, and the nurse is still standing there from having taken it out, and he goes, "Have you been up to pee yet?" Nurse: "We just took out the catheter." Internface: "Oh. Ok." Then he talked at me some more, told me I should just rest for two weeks, making me want to remove one of his organs and tell him that, and then asked if I had been up to pee yet. Nurse: "We JUST took out the catheter." And, you know, I've been laying here this whole time. In your view. Not peeing. Or walking. *facepalm*

Oh yes. I also wanted to email Adam Corolla and tell him I'm suing him for tearing the stitches in my vagina, because his book is freaking hilarious. Except that I hear it in the voice of Spanky Ham. Which doesn't seem to be entirely inaccurate.

Strange's gender meme

I am evolving.

Stunning

I'm quite fond of this one. I don't always appreciate 'feminization' or cross-dressing in kink, but that's probably because so many people do it for reasons that I don't understand or agree with. For example because men cannot submit, therefore they have to be more feminine. Or because being more feminine or more like a woman is degrading or humiliating. Or because men aren't pretty or beautiful unless they're dressed in a feminine way.

The person who submitted this to Male submission secrets has the right idea. This is why I enjoy cross-dressing, not 'feminization'. It's because a man can be masculine and butch and stubbly and muscular and all those wonderful things, and he can also look absolutely drop dead gorgeous in heels and stockings. And the best part is, wearing those heels don't make him 'feminine'. He can be totally butch in those heels and lingerie. He can be a big strong man in lace petticoats.

And that is what makes 'cross-dressing' really sexy to me.

Really, I wish it wasn't cross-dressing. I wish that men could dress in skirts and heels and have it be as normal as women wearing pants. That's just the world we live in, for now.

Relatable

Is it strange that I look at this photo and I think 'aww, cute couple'? I want to see more female dominants in action.

For some reason, our city is mostly made up of male tops and bottoms of both genders (at least the kinksters that come out to events and munches). I only see one other female top with any regularity. Though thankfully I see at least twice weekly, so if I have a question or opinion, I always have her to bounce it off.

I don't always identify as a female dominant. I don't even identify as female all the time, but I am dominant to my boy and I am female sometimes. And I find I don't relate terribly well to a lot of the male tops. Perhaps in a bigger city, I'd find someone more relatable. Maybe I'd relate better to gay male tops, or trans male tops. Cis male tops don't have the same experience and don't seem to be coming from the same place.

Maybe I'm just more of a sadist, haha.

Photo from My Darker Sides.

on the subject of fetwear

What I love best about both of these images is that these sadists is that they are not dressed to the nines. They are comfortable. They are happy. Their masochists are happy. They're both grinning. One of them is wearing fuzzy rainbow socks, for goodness sake. If this isn't a picture of women who are comfortable and at ease with themselves and their partners, I don't know what is.

Both of these images are from male submission art.

suck it

As always, I adore art from Hobbit Dragon. And a sexy picture of a boy sucking his lover's cock... how could you go wrong?

Cocks come in all shapes and sizes. Some are detachable. Some are colorful. Some are skin colored. Some glow in the dark.

My cock is silver, hard and detachable. My cock is the same color as my skin, soft and flexible. I have two different ones. I bet most boys aren't that lucky.

Pretty woman - handsome man

This is from model mayhem.

her cock

I've been struggling with a lot of my identity for the last few years, but lately I've had a bit of a release of that. I don't need to say 'I am butch' or 'I am femme'. I'm not male or female. I'm not only a sadist or only a top. I can bottom. I can be girly. I can get waitresses to flirt with me in my plaid shirt. I can pack. I can wear lacy undies. I can hurt people. I can top. I can fuck and be fucked and it won't change who I am. I am lots of things and I don't need to pick one or the other.

I can be many things all at once.


I believe photo, as well as some of the sentiment, is from here.

portrayal in art

Some art by men for men. It's funny, looking at the way people identify depending on how they seem themselves. In art, gay men tend toward the muscular, be they submissive or dominant. And they're almost always naked.

In art, straight submissive men are almost always nude or mostly nude, usually trim or young looking, but the straight dominant men in art can be any shape or size, but generally are only naked if they're going to be penetrating their sub. I've seen big and small, but almost no short ones.

With women, when they're gay, they're generally portrayed as butch or femme. Either end of the spectrum can be dominant, but if it's a butch/femme couple, I'll go out on a limb and say the butch will usually be in charge. We're still talking art here, not real people. With straight women in art, the submissive women are usually smaller than their partners, well endowed, the ideal woman sort of idea. With dominant straight women, they're usually very tall, the same sort of ideal woman, but amazon. Or, though less commonly, very large, for those with face-sitting fetishes for the most part.

I don't think I've ever seen art of an overweight submissive straight female. The only time I see differently shaped straight male submissives is when they're being humiliated by their (usually) female dominant. Actually, to be honest, I've never seen art of a gay couple doing humiliation play. Obviously the population tends towards heterosexuality and therefore I have a much wider range of heterosexual art to pick from. But it's still pretty fascinating.

The trends are interesting to look at. It shows us how some of a large group of people see themselves and their partners.

Art by Sean.

her cock

That's a perfect color for her cock. It took me a second to realize that it wasn't physically attached to her. Lovely picture (and lovely bum).

Found here.

Identity

I thought of a clever title for this one earlier, but I've totally forgotten about it.

I 'came out' not that long ago as a gay bottom...who is a lesbian. The funny thing is, everyone I told went, "Uh, yeah...duh...", which kind of stole my thunder, lol. But it was a big revelation for me. More on this later.

Growing up, we're all told that there are two genders: male or female. Boy or girl. Man or woman.

As we grow up a little, the luckier/more enlightened of us find out that if you're not happy with your birth gender, you can switch. But that's still only two options.

I don't want to transition. I don't feel like I need to; I just have a phantom penis, ok? I've known this for a while. Strange, luckily, is the same way. But she also enjoys vaginal sex, which I don't at all--I find it painful, and I get bladder infections. So I've gotten kind of disenfranchised (I love that word) with my vagina. Last night we were doing a scene, and Strange opened my labia, and it felt really weird, like my scrotum had been opened into my two separate testes. I mentioned this, and Strange went along with it, which was awesome.

Later on, when she was sounding my urethra, I asked, "Why is it that I enjoy anal, and sounding, and don't enjoy the cooch at all?" She laughed and said, "Because you're a boy, you don't have a cooch." Which is really how I feel, more and more, and how I may as well be, for all intents and purposes. The only thing my vagina does is bleed sporadically. Which I can do without.

But I don't really want to have surgery to get a penis, either. That would be weird. I -have- a penis, why would I need another? I don't need one that people can see. Strange can see it, and that's enough. It would be like in the Last Unicorn, when Mommy Fortuna gives her a horn that everyone can see. She doesn't need a horn--she's a unicorn. She has one.

That being said, it might be nice to have interchangeable parts from time to time--stick on a dick and have it respond like a dick, and be able to leave my breasts on or off. Or have surgery be really minor, like in the Uglies series.

I recently read Dick for a Day, which was good, interesting and depressing. I don't want to be a 'man' and I don't want to be a 'woman'. I just want to be me. A 'woman' body with a 'man' body superimposed on top, and not really one or the other. Patricia Cornwell's essay thing was the stupidest thing ever, but I really enjoyed Poppy Z. Brite's. I've read several of her books, and I love the way she depicts gay characters, but it made me wonder about her 'sexuality. She wrote:

"In my dreams, I have a dick. Not in all of them, only in the good ones. Not just for a day, but for always.

"The first time I dreamed of having a dick, I was seven. I was standing in the bathroom wearing a pair of big white boxer shorts, and attached to my body was a new organ filled with wonderful sensation. The sensuality of the dream was marred only slightly by the fact that I was Tom Bosley of Happy Days.

"I've always known I was queer, but saying 'I'm not a lesbian, I'm a gay man in a female body' doesn't help matters a great deal in high school, so I stayed home nights dreaming, and eventually writing, about the torrid sex lives of gay boys. In 1995, Kate Bornstein's book Gender Outlaw finally clued me in to the liberating term 'non-operative transsexual.'

"A dick for a day? I would spend the day worshiping it, as dick possessors tend to do, and letting it do the thinking, as dicks will. I would give it over to the mouths and hands and assholes of as many tantalizing men as I could get my hands on. I would be the worst nelly slut you ever saw. And, for once in my life, I would mourn the coming of night."

It really clicked for me, because that's exactly how I feel; like I can be a lesbian and only sleep with women, but still be a gay man in my head, and enjoy gay erotica much more than lesbian, etc. I don't have to be limited by my body, or anyone else's rules but my own when it comes to sex. I read somewhere recently, I don't remember where (it was probably Dick for a Day) that the mind has no sex. By sex, they mean gender, although it's funny the other way, but it's still profoundly true: in our heads, we create the way we look. It's like those movies where people die/go into a computer/whatever and they look different, because they don't look the way they do in a mirror, they look the way they do in their heads. So I can be a woman with a cock, or a man with breasts, or neither, or both, or one or the other, and any and all of them are perfectly natural and no one in my head looks twice.

Which brings me back to the gay bottom thing. Among my circle of friends, it's become sort of a gentle, teasing joke, especially that they all knew before I did. But, on a very physical level, it's how I have sex: I suck, I fuck when asked to, I touch, I get jerked off, I cum, I am fucked up the ass, I'm sounded. This has to effect me somehow, having my vagina basically be a wound that I carry that doesn't heal. Would I stitch it up, if I could, and just leave the bits behind that I actually use, like it was some sort of appendix that I've out-evolved? I used the analogy (I love analogies) with Strange today of those fish that live in caves, that eventually no longer have eyes. Would I? I don't know. But for now, I'm glad to have come to these realizations, and have it be ok, at least with the people who know me.

Now, as for actually interacting with gay men...that's another story. While I have my 'Top 10 I Would Fuck If I Were A Man" list, actually carrying it out is unlikely. To reverse it: if a man approached me and said, "I'm a non-operative transexual. I have a phantom vagina." I would be...uncomfortable. I certainly wouldn't want to have the same effect on a gay man, that's the last thing I would want. But maybe at some point we'll actually meet some gay men, and I'll get to know them well enough to be able to tell them how I am, and then we can swap stories or whatever.

But until then, Strange is really all I need. Anything else would just be gravy.