imaginary lines
“We’re all on the line.”
I always liked the description of sexuality as a line with homosexuality on one side, heterosexuality on the other side and bisexuality plonked in the middle. People like to describe themselves or other people as one thing or another, but the reality is that most people probably lie a little further along the line than they care to admit. Hence, for example, the rabid rantings of desperately scared religious folks suppressing fleeting same-sex attractions they believe some nasty fairy put in their head. But I digress.
I was just thinking about gender characteristics, and if they could lie on a similarly imaginary line. I used to think that gender characteristics were pretty much imposed by society, as I couldn’t relate much to the ones that were supposed to be mine. But I now realise this is because on my imaginary line, I personally lie somewhere in the middle. I don’t feel either particularly female or particularly male, and I’m quite sure I would feel comfortable in either type of body. A quick glance around shows me that not everyone of my gender shares my mid-line position. And this is nothing to do with social conditioning, as anyone who has observed the preferences and behaviours of young children of different genders in the same circumstances will testify.
Everything and everyone is on slidey lines and slippy curves. There’s no precise male and no exact female. They are but convenient generalisations. Our own personal understanding of gender and sexuality doesn’t go halfway to giving an understanding of the variety of biological and physiological realities that exist in our quirky, individual human bodies.
Nothing troubles me more in our society than our insatiable desire to classify and categorize everything.
LikeLike
Thanks for your comment. I’m not sure if you mean you’re troubled by the imaginary lines. I’m afraid I rather like classifying everything as, for me, it helps make sense of things. The problems arise when people and things are classified erroneously …
LikeLike
Imaginary lines don’t bother me at all; if cross, so be it, I am comfortable in my own skin.
LikeLike
Very pleased to hear that.
LikeLike
Some AFAB (assigned female at birth) trans* people consider themselves “neutrois”, and some trans* people think themselves bi-gendered. Neither or both. So there are two axes. If you google for “The Gender Diamond” you might just find my blog! The * means not conforming to the classic idea of transsexual, changing from one to t’other, but being possibly somewhere in between, while still seeking physical changes.
LikeLike
Haha, yes, a line is a bit two-dimensional!
LikeLike