tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4427538608110635294.post3946896428830495795..comments2023-08-09T03:21:13.354-05:00Comments on Letters from Gehenna: The World on a Slant: Sexes and Genders and Bears, Oh MyDw3t-Hthrhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11584245136407694660noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4427538608110635294.post-38179268347026331572007-12-05T22:18:00.000-05:002007-12-05T22:18:00.000-05:00(It helps that I spend pretty much all of my socia...(It helps that I spend pretty much all of my social time with people who operate at least partially in geek social role; I'm actively disconcerted by areas with more normative gendering expectations, and thus avoid them.)<BR/><BR/>(This is rendered much easier by the fact that I live under a rock and I like it that way.)Dw3t-Hthrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11584245136407694660noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4427538608110635294.post-70125955048561632007-12-05T22:12:00.000-05:002007-12-05T22:12:00.000-05:00My relationship with the guy who sexually assaulte...My relationship with the guy who sexually assaulted me is the only one I've had that started out according to social norms; this did not, y'know, endear me to the practice. ;)<BR/><BR/>But the overwhelming majority of my relationships have started out with me delivering the geekflirt; generally the conversation then goes to implementation questions, and a couple of times to "Thank you, I'm flattered, but I'm not interested; are there comfort concerns that need to be taken into account now that we've had this exchange?"Dw3t-Hthrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11584245136407694660noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4427538608110635294.post-27299004043904001072007-12-05T22:07:00.000-05:002007-12-05T22:07:00.000-05:00"leading to the common cultural practice of the "g...<I>"leading to the common cultural practice of the "geek flirt", which can be expressed as a direct, "Hi, I'm interested in/attracted to you. If you wish to implement something on the basis of this knowledge, let me know, otherwise let's go back to playing Warcraft/building model airplanes/discussing the physics of Roadrunner cartoons."</I><BR/><BR/>Oh God, you have <I>no</I> idea just <I>how</I> much i wish that was the norm...<BR/><BR/>Direct versus indirect communication, social norms and theorising sexual consent (Antioch rules vs society's expectation of non-verbal propositioning and non-verbal assent as norms)... that's something i <I>really</I> need to blog about...stevethehydrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18334234855643025449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4427538608110635294.post-79949469976079604832007-12-05T21:59:00.000-05:002007-12-05T21:59:00.000-05:00The concept of 'geek' as a gender identity cropped...The concept of 'geek' as a gender identity cropped up in one of the parts of usenet that I spent/d a fair amount of time in, and was enthusiastically recognised by a number of people there.<BR/><BR/>It's an interesting thought experiment to work with, at a minimum. For one thing, it's a construct of gender that is not dependent on genitalia, though assumptions about it are that the people who are geeks will likely be male.<BR/><BR/>But consider:<BR/><BR/>The geek has a particular social status defined by that trait. There are jobs which are socially assumed to be better for geeks or will be primarily staffed by geeks (mostly technical and computer-based); there are expectations about the sort of clothing a geek will tend to wear, and particular expectations about personal appearance (mostly negative); certain social traits (such as social ineptness) are expected of geeks, and some of the negative effects of those social traits are considered excusable from a geek when they would not be, say, from a person presenting as masculine or feminine.<BR/><BR/>The stereotypical social activities of geeks tend to be focused around particular types of activities (model-car building, gaming, computers) which reward particular sorts of maniacal attention to detail and do not necessarily require intimate social dynamics (as one would expect of stereotypical women) or competition (as one would expect of stereotypical men).<BR/><BR/>The geek is typically deemed romantically oblivious (though there is also the stereotype of the hypersexualised and utterly denied geek type), leading to the common cultural practice of the "geek flirt", which can be expressed as a direct, "Hi, I'm interested in/attracted to you. If you wish to implement something on the basis of this knowledge, let me know, otherwise let's go back to playing Warcraft/building model airplanes/discussing the physics of Roadrunner cartoons." (It is slightly more likely for female geeks to initiate the geek flirt than male geeks, in my experience, probably due to the weird sexism of surrounding society causing the female-bodied to be defensively aware of the possibility of sexuality entering into interactions. I once geekflirted someone -- my most recent ex, about whom I write occasionally here -- because he knew I was polyamorous, wanted to seek my advice on how to deal with a potentially-poly situation that was confusing him, and started out with something to the effect of, "I tend to fall for my female friends ...." When I pointed out that I was interested in him in response, he actually bothered to consider it, and said, "Now that you mention it, I notice the feeling is mutual." Engineers!)<BR/><BR/>(That's not as bad as my husband, with whom I had the following conversation back before we were vaguely involved:<BR/>"Did you notice you were flirting?"<BR/>"No." *gets on bus*<BR/>*splutters*<BR/><BR/>He's better now, but it's such a funny story I can't stop telling it! ;) )<BR/><BR/>There's a set of social expectations and stereotypes, behaviours that are expected in performance, failings that are taken as given, and generalised attitudes that are basically presumed of a geek; the experience of same strikes me as very similar to the sort of patterns expected of femininity, masculinity, butchness, femmeness, and any other more commonly recognised gendering tags.<BR/><BR/>It works well in combination with other gender tags, too. If I were to describe someone's gender presentation as "butch geek", for example, I imagine that most people would probably get an understanding of the sort of practical, multi-tool-carrying hefty-boot-wearing occasionally flannel-shirted nerdery that I am attempting to describe.Dw3t-Hthrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11584245136407694660noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4427538608110635294.post-50010894045377950152007-12-05T21:18:00.000-05:002007-12-05T21:18:00.000-05:00And i've just read that for a second time and now ...And i've just read that for a second time and now think that i'm <I>exactly</I> the same kind of genderqueer as you, except that i simply can't be bothered with all the performative stuff, so i just wear whatever i feel (physically) comfortable in (which turns out, surprise surprise, to be "male" clothing, because, y'know, patriarchy <I>allows</I> men to have clothes assigned to them which can actually be worn comfortably)...<BR/><BR/>I need to start stating my gender as "geek" and/or "music elemental"...<BR/><BR/>(seriously, is "geek" regarded as a gender identity? i was musing about its etymology today, and wondering how it got from "circus performer who acts crazy and bites the head off things" to "anyone with an obsessive knowledge or interest in something"...)stevethehydrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18334234855643025449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4427538608110635294.post-15488844706412325532007-12-05T21:11:00.000-05:002007-12-05T21:11:00.000-05:00"Astral penis"??? :oVery nice piece of writing. Ac..."Astral penis"??? :o<BR/><BR/>Very nice piece of writing. Actually, despite what i just said over at Questioning Transphobia, i might not be *quite* the same kind of genderqueer as you; i think i'm just Not The Kind Of Thing That Has Gender. You might as well ask me my miles per gallon.<BR/><BR/>Although, i have had fantasies about being penetrated from the front, and i don't actually have an orifice at the front. What that means, i have no idea...stevethehydrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18334234855643025449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4427538608110635294.post-81736873857464750402007-12-05T20:48:00.000-05:002007-12-05T20:48:00.000-05:00The identity isn't ambiguous.It's just ... here's ...The identity isn't ambiguous.<BR/><BR/>It's just ... here's a way of maybe looking at it.<BR/><BR/>Gender is a shadow. People talk about gender as performance, as acting a role, a lot, but in its social context it's sort of figuring out who people are by their silhouettes.<BR/><BR/>You can get a lot of information out of silhouettes; there are entire <I>art forms</I> operating in that sort of thing, playing with the shadow-images that are iconic; you can tell a lot of stories with silhouettes. It strips out a lot of the three-dimensionality of the people who were casting them, but also one can see how people move and animate their shadows as an active thing, how they <I>wear</I> those flat things like clothing (which is kind of blah unless it's on a body, after all). Just because it's a shadow doesn't mean it's not real.<BR/><BR/>I can't deal in silhouettes without being unable to resist the urge to make shadow puppets. The whole 'what form do you cast on the social wall' question is full of, "Well, if I hold my arm like this and waggle my fingers, it's this way, but if I stand just *so* it looks like that, and ..."<BR/><BR/>"Do Deformed Rabbit! It's my favorite!"<BR/><BR/>None of these things are real to me. I can get different ones depending on how I choose to arrange my substance. Sometimes it's fun to cast the same shadow for a while in a row; sometimes it doesn't matter what shadow I'm casting; sometimes what I want to do is go, "Look! Look! I made Chthulhu!"<BR/><BR/>Like Lilo said -- the genders aren't big enough, and there aren't enough of them.Dw3t-Hthrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11584245136407694660noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4427538608110635294.post-28621341278617223682007-12-05T15:45:00.000-05:002007-12-05T15:45:00.000-05:00I wish there was more definative writing on this b...I wish there was more definative writing on this because it is a mental experience that I am curious about simply because I don't understand it. I know that dreams aren't everything, since I've dreamed I was a dog a couple times and a ROCK a couple time (very odd), but still, I think they say something. <BR/><BR/>For example, looking back at someone like Patricia Highsmith, it is pretty clear what her identity was (since Pat told everyone he was male until forced in teens to do otherwise and required to marry so solved that by marrying a gay male.) But the idea that all presentations are drag? I guess growing up in a relgion which regulated hair length and what you could wear down to the metals you could wear (earrings required, but NOT gold and not longer than a 1/2 inch in length). Going out into the world was a giant, "woo hoo!" And when people said, "well you can't take that, no woman has ever taken that course." I was like "So? Change the rule" (When you are going to hell for shaving your legs, what else matters?). <BR/><BR/>I guess the thing is in adult life, I have never had a problem knowing who I was regardless of what I was doing, wearing, whatever. And I am trying to figure out what that would feel like - to do the same thing but be identity ambigious...is that it?<BR/><BR/>If you want a penis, I recommend the Feeldoe.Elizabeth McClunghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03627373214555333537noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4427538608110635294.post-90871733643257855682007-12-02T23:34:00.000-05:002007-12-02T23:34:00.000-05:00Amazing, and amazingly well-written. Deborah Tann...Amazing, and amazingly well-written. <BR/><BR/>Deborah Tannen thinks my wife, my mom, my favorite aunt, and most of my female friends are really men, too. <BR/><BR/>I'm very happy to be female, but so often I find myself thinking that two genders just aren't enough, and even the genders themselves just aren't *big* enough!CrackerLilohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18176388186521154104noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4427538608110635294.post-23050718319088308602007-12-02T20:15:00.000-05:002007-12-02T20:15:00.000-05:00Thank you for this. :)Thank you for this. :)Trinityhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06846032433424879965noreply@blogger.com