Delusions of Inadequacy

E for Eclectic writes about Why Female Gender Supremacy is Ignorant Crap, and is linked from SM-Feminists with commentary and also responded to at A Place To Draw Blood Laughing, which I found by chasing links around.

And I'm not going to get into the weirdness of parsing sex- or gender-based supremacy stuff to me, as I'm sure folks can figure out how baffling that is to someone genderqueer. I mean, it needs to be noted as one of those, "Wow, your universe has no space for certain types of deviants to exist, let alone have anything to do" things, but ....

The weird thing about this stuff for me is how oddly restrictive it gets. Not just in the gender-assumption bits, or in the obvious 'men are like this, women are like that' stuff (whether it's male-superior or female-superior, it still has something of that sort), but in the whole rest of it.

Like one of the comments E got was from someone who claimed to agree with the female gender supremacy thing (I think; it's not entirely clear in context) and was full of supercilious contempt and dismissal of a woman. Which probably indicates that a woman who doesn't fit someone's model of Correct Womanhood doesn't count as a woman, and is thus beneath contempt according to The System.

And not only does one have to fit into a gender and do it the right way, one has to fit into a model of what it means to be dominant or submissive or whatever else. Which reminds me of all the posts I've seen recently about female doms/tops being expected to fulfil certain fantasies -- look a certain way, behave a certain way, be into certain things. Not be in to certain other things. (And I'm sitting here watching this one guy who comes across as obsessed with not-being-into-pain, and my thought process goes something like, "I'm not into pain, and I'm doing research about floggers on the side ...." Though that's sort of a complicated side tangent into different ways I'm a freak.)

I've run into a couple of Gorean types who think their fantasy is a model of reality -- both the masters and the kajira. (Which I want to pluralise 'kajirae'; clearly I've been reading too many Greek plays lately.) And they're very clear on what sort of behaviour a "real" woman/sub should have -- the whole demure, compliant, master-this master-that thing. It reminds me of the "How can you call yourself a sub when you're not into humiliation?" person I ran into a long time ago, the whole slender, tenuous thread one must walk in something dealing with power.

Power, for godssakes.

The whole men coming up to dominant women and casting their 'female superiority' stuff there is just ... why should those women give up their power of self-assertion about the nature of their desire for some random dude? Why should I, a switchy sub, give up my power of identity for someone whose sole reason for expecting me to have a certain set of interests and proclivities is the shape of my genitalia? (Even my master doesn't get that; if he wanted me to be something other than complete as myself, we wouldn't be terribly compatible.)

And one of the reasons I value my relationship with my liege is he doesn't play the superior/inferior game at all. We have a relationship in which certain broad forms of authority are his to claim; we also have a relationship in which each of us is good at distinctly different things, and put in a position where we can bring those strengths to our dynamic freely. (I commented, frequently, a while back that I suspect most people's expectations of a d/s relationship included less woodworking -- but I'm good at keeping track of patterns of things that need done, and thus a position in which I'm running the sequencing of repetetive tasks in his service is damn useful to him. I mean, yeah, there were times I'd have liked more kinky sex and less sanding, but that didn't change what mattered to him.) It's specialisation, not inadequacy or inferiority.

I like dealing with situations in which my power is respected enough that I'm not put in charge of things, myself. (And so does everyone else around me; I'm a holy terror when I don't have an authority I respect to defer to.)

I like models that let people find what works for them without having to wodge themselves sideways into someone else's fantasy. There are enough weirdos out there for there to be some people who have compatible stuff, and even if one never comes across one (I, personally, never expected to) other people will remain real and have their own sexualities, and will almost certainly find implementing them more important to them than implementing that of J. Random Perv.