Medusa kisses

When I hit the early teenage years, I was often made fun of for being so “hairless,” and “like a girl” (especially my legs which wore shorts for Track & Cross-country sports). I did have some hair on my legs, but it was fine, sparse and very light blonde, nearly invisible. I didn’t have to shave my face (nor my armpits) at all until I was 16 and then only but once a week. By the time I turned 18, I had a bit more hair on my face, needing to shave almost every day, but by then I’d gotten so used to being nearly hairless that I liked it. And of course, I was by then exploring my femininity. So I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the extra hair growth and did my best to keep it in check.

As I moved into my early 20s, every year seemed to bring more hair and darker hair and by then I really had to shave my face every day and even had a little stubble at the end of the day. Even my leg hair got much darker. In my mid-20s, I was cursing internally every day in the shower because I really hated having to shave my face, which felt like such an irregular shape for a flat blade to go over (especially my neck and below my chin which never had more than 2 or 3 hairs until recently), but not as much as I hated having hair there, especially now that much of it was brown and some of it black. So I started fantasizing about laser surgery to get rid of the hair. And I started talking about it a lot until my then-girlfriend did some research for me (I was nervous to try and find a laser person who takes men). She talked to several places and some didn’t want to or didn’t seem to know about doing men and several others told her that with my skin type (pale) and light hair, I would be a bad for that. She ended up with the impression that electrology was the way to go and she bought me an intro session to try it out.

Not knowing much and more than a little scared, I arrived at the salon for the first time and met the electrologist. Continue reading “Cooking with lasers; forgiveness and depilliation”

I recently saw an interesting episode of The Boondocks called “Guess ho’s coming to dinner,” where Huey and Riley (the main characters and ostensible children) have a conversation about whether women are “hos” or not. Riley makes a remark about women being hos and Huey counters that not all women are hos. Riley (who often plays devil’s advocate on the show) argues that if you [men] go out with women and you have to pay them, then they are hos. Huey argues that you’re not paying them, you’re just paying for dinner and stuff. Riley says that regardless, if you have to pay [and they don’t], then they’re hos. I wouldn’t say that paying for dating is strictly equivalent to prostitution, but underneath the jokes, I have to admit there is a good point there. If men are really expected to pay for all the dating costs in casual romantic relationships, then the women they date aren’t significantly different from escorts (except maybe a bit cheaper) and not all that far from the proverbial hos that Riley speaks of.

Of course not all men and women are like that, but it is something I’ve struggled with in the dating scene, the expectation that I, the ostensible “man,” pay for everything. It’s insulting to me to think that my company is so worthless that I’d need to pay for someone else to hang around me. It’s one thing when you’re in a serious relationship and one partner is making more money and therefore bears the burden of most of the costs, but for some virtual stranger to expect you to pay for them on a date is extremely sexist and unfair, I think.

At one point, I looked up feminist dating tips online to see what other people’s ideas about dating are and the sites I saw said that it is proper etiquette for the person who initiates the date to pay (at least in the beginning), whether it be the man or the woman. In my limited dating experience, I’ve tried to keep it more or less even (either going dutch or switching off paying). I was a little embarassed on learning this, because I usually make a point not to pay for more than my share on the first date, because I want to make sure they don’t get the impression that I will be paying for all the dates, because I surely won’t be (I’ve got to have money for my shoes, sweetie!), but maybe in the future, in the rare instance that I initiate a date (I get asked out more than I do the asking), I can make an exception and leave it up to a later date for discussion. On a side note, when I was dating last year, I once managed to forget my wallet on both the first and second dates. It was highly embarrassing, but luckily she was sweet enough to spot me for my coffee (and we’re still friends).

OK, categorically, women are definitely not “hos,” but the ones who think things like, “Make sure he pays for everything, or else he’s not a gentleman” certainly are suspect. I, needless to say, am certainly not a gentleman.

Once people get to know me and start to figure out my alternative gender status, they often ask about pronouns. What pronoun do I prefer? She or he? Well, that’s really the whole problem isn’t it? There aren’t good gender-neutral singular personal or possessive pronouns in the English language. There is of course “one” as in “one likes to go to the movies,” or always using the proper name as in “Rafael likes to go to the movies,” instead of “he” or “she,” though this isn’t common usage. There isn’t, however, any real substitute for “him” and “her” or “his” and “hers.”

Some years back, I tried to research new pronoun inventions online, but even among the gender outlaw community, I could find no agreed-upon single terminology. I recently discovered, that an androgyne friend of mine has written a quite thorough essay on some of the most common ones (including usage and potential problems), which you can check out here: androgyne.0catch.com/terms.htm.

Feel free to study up and start using “ze” instead of “she or he.” For me, what works well in writing is “s/he”, “hir”, “one’s” and “oneself” (and “persons” or “people” instead of women/men). I often get lazy though and will go with assigned gender for known entities (but I won’t ever specify an unknown person with “he/him” as I was tought in English class, because that’s just silly – the patriarchy is plenty strong with out my assistance in pretending “male” is the default gender). Talking-wise, I try to speak similarly, though I don’t often try to get away with “hir” as it could be pronounced as “her” or “here,” either of which could be misleading.

As for my preference, I wish there was some gender-neutral pronoun commonly used in our language, but since there’s not, I can live with what we got. I tell most people who ask me this question that a mix of both is preferable. If someone feels it is too confusing to alternate gender references, then I’d slightly prefer the female pronouns. If someone doesn’t get around to asking me my preference, then they’ll probably just saddle me with the male pronouns, which might make me sigh inwardly, but I can take it like a [perceived-as] man.

Cheers to all you ziers and xes, eys and pers. 🙂

This week, there was a piece in Savage Love that had to do with differing libidos between men and women and mentioned a book by Joan Sewell which is apparently getting a lot of press called “I’d Rather Eat Chocolate: Learning to Love My Low Libido”. I think some of the advice Dan was giving was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it still made me mad because [the book, the hype, the advice] is just another example of the media jumping on yet another stereotype that they believe is being reinforced.

The Savage Love column (for as long as this link is good for) is here.
The I’d rather eat chocolate book (with summary descriptions) is here.

This kind of gender stereotyping has had the media skipping through pools of its own saliva ever since women started getting some rights (starting with suffrage or maybe even earlier), they just love the odd opinion that reinforces their preexisting stereotypes, easily ignoring the wealth of differing opinions (which would seem to reinforce diversity, not unity). Continue reading “Low Libidos – more gender stereotyping media frenzy”