I haven't felt much like blogging as of late after the recent loss of my dog two weeks ago, Zahr. Even though no one but Mek is going to read this I feel I may as well ACT like people care. The delusion makes me feel special.
Zahr was only three years old when he literally dropped dead in the yard on Sunday morning. It happened so suddenly and right before we were leaving that the other dogs didn't even realize it; otherwise they would have been over there investigating him and we would have seen something was wrong before we went all the way out there and found he wasn't breathing. We have yet to hear back about the autopsy beyond that they found a mass on his spleen and sent away tests on it.
The day was clouded over and it rained for most of the week after. I like to think God was crying with me. Zahr was a beautiful animal, and though he'd never been a healthy dog, he still had plenty of years left in him if not for this.
Anyway. The show must go on.
I'm meant to be arting at the moment, but in googling a song on the internet I stumbled across this: http://shrink4men.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/you-are-not-a-princess-25-points-for-women-and-men-to-consider/
It contains many, many beautiful truths about the misconceptions women are raised with.
First of all being that a lot of psychotic crap they get off with is perfectly normal for women. If you read the link and other related topics, well, I don't really need to go on about it. It basically covers that stuff where women get to slap men around, talk them down, shut them down, and claim they're insensitive. Which is a load of bull.
Also: FUCKING MIXED SIGNALS, WHAT IS THIS SHIT.
There are three subjects I'm going to bring up on this: the one I just mentioned, about men not being victims. The second will be gender confusion among crossdressers, usually the younger ones(younger as in age, or as in those who have only recently discovered it as a passion). The third is drag as a kink or as a genuine lifestyle.
The first is pretty well covered in the link I provided, but basically: men can be abused, just like women, and they can even be abused BY women. Not just obvious cases such as sexual abuse as a child from a mother or other older woman. But in their adult life in relationships. The link lists slapping, hitting, spitting, and hair-pulling as a few physical examples, but honestly I think those are just more tangible forms of what's really emotional abuse. Not to say that men can't be beat up by women, because they can. But I think emotionally the affects of such abuse are deeper than the actual physical damage, just because, unfortunately, men DO tend to be a bit hardier than women.
When a woman hits a man, it's abuse just as same as him hitting her, but I think what it can do to him mentally is the worst part. Because men are raised to believe they are not allowed to defend themselves. It's like if I were to take home a puppy and beat it and then give it treats for cowering away from me. Later it may grow into a large, very powerful dog, very capable of hurting me and at the least fighting back were I to hurt it. But it won't. It won't even attempt to escape, because it doesn't realize there is something better--for it, there is no other world where it is allowed to fight back. Because the world I have shaped around it is all that there is to a dog.
This is the world society has shaped around men. Women are raised to immediately fight back if a man attempts to hurt them, and I have no beef with this. What gets my hackles up is when women go completely batshit insane because they take the basics of what society calls unacceptable behaviour from a man--physical abuse, disregard of a woman as a human being, etc--and then in their minds they redefine it. What amazes me is that so many women believe that love is more important to them than respect, when they will slap, hit, or apply their foot to a man's shin or groin for a minor offense--not necessarily an encroachment of his love for her, but perhaps what she takes as a sign of disrespect. What women have trouble with is defining the difference between these things, or they consider them to be exactly the same. And they aren't. A man may love a woman and love spending time with her and love the way she inspires him to be a better person, but simply have no respect for what to her might be significant accomplishments in her blogging community or neighborhood reading group. She may love his love and accept his disrespect of those things that are important to her because since they aren't important in what's supposedly a "man's world" then they mustn't really be all that important at all. He would not necessarily love her more if he had respect for these things--in this case it is a matter of some of her interests falling outside of the things he loves her for, and his perspective being somewhat skewed as having been raised a "real man" by society's standards. Other things--her actual personality, the way she straightens his ties before he goes out the door, her snuggling up to him when they sit down to watch movies together--these are what combine to inspire his love for her, because they represent a compatibility in their natures.
It is when a man(or woman) has no respect for their partner at all, or they imagine the other partner has no respect for them, that issues arise. A controlling man becomes physically abusive. A controlling woman may likewise become physically abusive, but the real damage lies in what her physical abuse symbolizes:since a man has been raised to view women as the weaker sex, and physical prowess is raised on a pedestal as a huge symbol in his life to represent what makes him worthy of respect, he is now caught in a situation where he is demeaned in one of the worst ways possible for him. A woman, a biologically weaker being, is beating up on him. But as a man, he is not allowed to hit back, or defend himself--all he can do is back off, back off, back off, apologize, grovel, and beg for forgiveness. Because since he's a man and she's the woman and she's hitting him, well he must have done something wrong.
Obviously there are men who are sensible and rational beings who recognize this when it's batshit insanity, but I think there are a lot more who don't realize how badly their pscyhe is being fucked with. For most men I think you see it happening when a girl dumps him or finds out he's been cheating or some such--in which case I personally feel a slap is well-deserved and isn't likely to do lasting damage. The only situation I would hesitate to see a man do the same thing to a woman for the same grievances is largely out of concern for a woman's actual physical well-being--women are, unfortunately, physically weaker, and a man's slap delivered in anger could do some damage.
Does that mean she doesn't deserve it for cheating on you? No. If she'd do the same to you, she probably does. But I'm not encouraging violence; I'm encouraging you to think about it.
My point is that for men who endure lasting relationships in which this physical abuse is present and constant, or at least frequent, it's a serious mindfuck. You tell them never to hit girls, you tell them they're in the right when they hit you because as women it's their right. But you also tell them that girls are weaker and getting beaten by one defeats their existence as a masculine individual, and that a man who isn't masculine isn't worth shit. So they're caught in a vicious circle. If they're sensible, they'll leave. But if he loves her? Or if he just thinks he loves her? Her controlling habits will only draw him deeper into the madness.
Like I said. It's a mindfuck.
I'll close this off with a bit of statistic. I haven't necessarily checked up on it, but it came up in a published novel, so I'm inclined at the moment to put some faith in its validity.
(If anyone mentions Stephanie Meyer's so-called degree in english literature so help me...)
1 in 3 girls is sexually abused in her own household before she's seventeen.
However, 1 in 6 boys likewise endure sexual abuse as a child.
That's only half as many girls. You hear about women all the time. It used to be the woman's fault, but thanks to serious progression in womens' rights, it is now taken seriously as the deep, fucked up issue it is.
But that also means you still aren't hearing about nearly as many men as there probably are.
Because men can't be victims.
Second thing.
I won't go into this a lot, because I'm aware it isn't anyone's fault, but something I feel like I see a lot and kind of bugs me is when crossdressers are uncertain in their gender's identity and thus will join a wide variety of groups as a member of something they're not actually certain they are. A transsexual MtF may join a drag queen group, or a drag queen may appear in a group for transsexual MtFs. These groups I talk about are what I find on community sites on the internet, like Flickr, ExperienceProject, or even deviantArt. One said "confused" individual actually runs a crossdresser's group on Flickr, but he/she leaves updates about talking to doctors about hormones and transition operations.
Perhaps when he started the group he didn't realize or was still in denial about being transsexual, but at this point, it's pretty confusing for me personally to see a self-proclaimed drag queen with actual breast implants talking about further sex transitioning. I understand that situations change and that gender identity and crossdressing can be indistinct subjects for people starting out on that particular road in self-discovery, but after you HAVE figured yourself out, well, on the internet all I have are the words you publish and the pictures you put up. If you've gone from mere drag queen to having decided you are in fact transsexual, please say so definitely somewhere on your profile or somewhere that will easily be seen. I'm not saying he has to hand his whole group over to someone else--it's obviously important to him/her and they've put a lot of work into it. But for people uncertain about these issues and looking into it for their own sake or others'(or, and I will openly admit it, for certain drag kings looking for possible relationships with drag queens their age...)please try to specify what you are so that this confusion does not spread to people who actually don't know the difference. This could create further ignorance where it could be avoided. I already have people tell me, as if they know me better than me, "Oh, you're a drag king. You're a man in a woman's body/transsexual." I realize this is not meant to be offensive on their part and is due to harmless ignorance; my point is that it's already an issue, and it is easily worsened when these people try to do some research and come across "drag queens" talking about transitioning or transsexuals in the actual general clothes of their genuine sex claiming they're crossdressers(I realize a FtM is capable of being a drag queen, but an MtF is not. She may be biologically male, but putting girl clothes on her body doesn't make her a crossdresser, it makes her your average girl.)
Like I said, I realize people join these groups or name these interests or proclaim these things often when they're in the process of figuring themselves out, so if things change, hey, it happens. But when you are certain of who and what you are, please say so, and if you aren't certain? Let people know you aren't certain. I'm sorry but if you tell me you're a drag queen and I show interest and later you come back and say you're actually an MtF, well, I'm not into women, so I'm going to lose interest. It works the other way too even if you're FtM--mentally female or physically female, neither one can work for me, pre-op or post-op. I'm not attracted to women mentally or physically, even if you were only born female and later changed, and I'm not going to apologize for that. It's just how I am. I'm apologizing for any misunderstanding or emotional hurt it could potentially cause either of us. This isn't just a potential cause of worsening ignorance in people who aren't in the crossdresser/transsexual loop, it can also create mixed signals within the community.
Speaking of mixed signals, on to the third bit. It's important to outline, definitively, whether or not crossdressing is a sexual kink or an actual lifestyle. Some men like bending over for women in the bedroom or being "force-feminized" because every now and then they get off on being dominated. They may call their dominating partner "Mistress" or "Master" or some such as well as enjoy being tied up and being degraded verbally as "bitch" or "slave", etc.
However, other men genuinely wish to be queens as a lifestyle and are merely kinky in the bedroom, just as how some typical feminine women enjoy those same things mentioned above as a fetish. But since men can't be nearly as open about drag as women can, they may introduce these parts of themselves gradually, starting off with it in the bedroom because many women find it creepy or weird, but when put in context as a fetish it may become more understandable to them. This will imply that these things belong only in the bedroom, and a woman who's okay with that may not necessarily be okay with him doing drag around the house all the time.
A friend of mine has a queen boyfriend, and he recently expressed to her his desire to do just that. He wants to be in drag full-time someday with her if/when they live together. She told me she's not shut down to this entirely, but it's something she's not ready for at this point and she and I both were originally under the impression this was largely a sex kink for him, not a lifestyle. She's taking the entire issue very open-mindedly, for which I am proud to call her my friend and help her along with accepting this step-by-step.
He's very lucky to have her.
But another woman who may at first seem accepting of his crossdressing may turn on a man when he opens up about wanting to go full-time. A relationship that otherwise looks healthy and promising may crumble under this issue because of a misunderstanding, or, and I will call this a worse alternative--he may end up forcing himself to conform to gender-traditional roles after all and attempt to "quit the habit" for her sake. Perhaps much of the time he is happy and truly loves her, but he will always know that there is a deeply vital part of himself that she does not accept and will be likewise deeply miserable in his attempts to destroy it for her. It's like clipping a wild bird's wings so you can keep it as a pet and expecting it to be happy because, in the end, it's the woman's happiness that truly matters. Men are always wrong. Women are always in the right. Because the woman is the princess, she is The Wife, and as The Wife she holds over the man absolute authority and rules with an iron fist. If after years of marriage she happens to walk in on him posing in her red cocktail dress and she calls is a hideously wrong perversion of nature, then by God it is exactly that and he has no choice but to put away this sickening devilry to appease her.
A lot of these situations can be avoided by crossdressers who feel the need to eventually go full-time. For men who are all for putting up the bra and heels and "manning up" for their women, well bro, you gotta do what you gotta do. But for those of us who feel the need to embrace this part of ourselves? Listen up.
Don't accidentally lead yourself into relationship disaster by being unclear, on purpose or by mistake, about this part of yourself. If it's a sex kink, tell her it's a sex kink. If it's a lifestyle, tell her it's a lifestyle--don't imply or outright tell her it's a sex kink, or it could end up ruining a relationship and causing you deep emotional pain you both could have avoided. If you feel like you're being unclear? Then make sure you sit her down right now and explain things in detail. If you're uncertain? Well, if you're uncertain about a significant staple in who you are as a person, then you probably shouldn't be looking to hook up seriously in the first place. It's like teenagers in highschool. They go through boyfriends and girlfriends in droves and screw like rabbits. Part of that is hormones, part of that is peer pressure(virgins are socially inacceptable), and part of that is them wallowing in uncertainty of identity and seeking security in a relationship. If you're already with a person and you hit a bump in the road, it's perfectly natural to seek comfort and stability from your wife or husband or boyfriend or girlfriend--in fact it's probably healthier for you to do that than not. But if you're in emotional turmoil and without a partner? You should hold off. Every time. Because you aren't yourself when you're being tossed about by emotions and life crisis--you're a stressed, confused, frightened person who nine times out of ten isn't thinking clearly. People do stupid things for the ones they love--but don't let yourself do stupid things just for the sake of love itself, either because you think life will calm down when you're in a relationship or because everyone and their mother and your mother is telling you to get married already. Chances are you may end up with someone you don't really know or who has the wrong impression of who you are. It will end badly.
Men often complain about women sending mixed signals, but in my experience with drag queens/transsexuals whatever they're saying they are, men are just as capable of doing it. One second I think a guy is happy with his girlfriend and the next he's telling me "if things don't work out" he'd basically like me to cyber with him so he can get off being a bitch in the bedroom. Another guy seems to totally get the drag king thing and then he's telling me it's just a typical teenage rebellious phase and I'll of course like manly men when I'm older. An old highschool friend of three years is fine one week and the next after I've been slicking my hair for a few days he turns totally hostile about the entire issue. A guy who's into drag mentions he'd want to see me dolled up girly now and then as well. I've got nothing against a fem guy for being into fem chicks, but that's a dealbreaker for me. I don't doll up. At all. Ever. The end. It's an issue of humiliation for me.
Mixed signals. Some of these examples aren't entirely relevant, but you get the idea. Issues with drag are already diverse and some are inavoidable for both sexes, so let's save everyone as much trouble as possible and lay it out as clearly as we can, hmm? If you're trans, say you're trans. If you're a queen, say you're a queen. If you aren't certain, say you aren't certain.
I am a teenage drag king. Manly woman. I like girly men. Also, I'm uncompromising as far as the masculinity goes. I want a guy who wants me to be butch all the time as much as I want him to be fem all the time.
-original image from comixed.com found here: http://comixed.memebase.com/2010/04/05/4-koma-comic-strip-any-questions/
