In Celebration of My Receding Hairline

Today I’m celebrating the hairline no one wanted, the receding corners by my temple greys, the forehead that expands everlastingly… During this quarantine time I’ve been simmering like stew, noticing the cavalcade of feelings surrounding the wide and deep chasm between how I feel and how I’m perceived.

I’ve been fighting since age 7 when I was told to put a shirt on for no other reason than my box-checked [penis/clitoris/glans-head] size. This country wants my body covered in specific ways for the comfort of the patriarchy, for the survival of rape culture, and for the unfair and power-hungry led economy. Though I had no puffy areolas nor breast tissue at the time, my flat undeveloped chest was a ticking timebomb some commander sent troupes to disengage. I was instructed to start minding society. The directive was clear: listen to the songs pointing out differences between “boys” and “me”. Develop an us-and-them narrative, that I might start solidifying my rank within the camp for which I was assigned. Start playing different games, perceiving different things, enjoying/celebrating/existing as/finding pleasure in everything and anything: differently. These pills that I was expected to obediently and unquestioningly swallow from that day forward though, made me angry.

Furious.
Beside myself, grieving.

How dare this community mandate I remove the pleasure of the sun from my back, my chest, and my shoulder blades?!

Many of your values, United States, have never been remotely close to mine, though we also share so many of the same. Your limits upon the civil rights of some were not and still are not about me nor any other marginalized body. They had nothing to do with my little a-gendered physique or budding egalitarian heart and mind. This was true then and is still true today.

30 years later I began hormone replacement therapy (testosterone), and little by little I started to see in the mirror a wonderful vision form: the me I’ve had in my mind for many years, a person inside who most of you had probably never noticed, or even knew how to see. 30 years is a master’s journey in the making…

So many “drag” costumes became my daily clothing in those years. It was characters of mine who taught me how to dress ~ male, female, object, other… for decades my art intuitively shouted louder and more articulately than I knew how to consciously say, especially about how much I wished I could be acknowledged and understood for the me I am inside. My character-acting career had been a pressure release valve I’d installed at the age of 11, and which I hadn’t realized I’d been so deeply, regularly utilizing.

In these past three years on T developing secondary male sex traits (including a gloriously receding hairline), I’ve gotten to stare in awe at an emergent face I thought I’d never get to see without paint and stage lights demanding. They start the kids out so young, you see, swallowing pills, learning lines, playing with toys/games/jobs they’re told are “appropriate”, and giving up the ones they’re told “are not”. It’s common that at some point in life the only accessible image in the mind of who we think we are—who we’re even supposed to be—is one put there artificially.

This is violence to little bodies.
Burden upon tiny hearts.
Stress upon growing minds.
To assimilate.
To unlearn how we perceive even our very own secret and sacred selves inside.
To wave the white flag and succumb to injustice gracefully.

Adolescence comes and we quake in nightly horror at what happens to the body naturally. We learn to control these bodies over anything and everything. We often forget what we dreamed of becoming. We let go of our passions, or they’re stolen from us by a stealthy media-run machine which cares only that we participate in the system and the always-scheming economy—that we keep IT going. “This life is expendable”, we’re told. “It’s just the way things have always been.” “Boys will be boys.” “She asked for it.” “They stepped out of line.” “They wouldn’t participate and so they got what was coming.”…

I’m grateful I’m able to live my best life today, one where when I look in the mirror I see the echoes and lines lifting me up in this life. I can see each of my ancestries iterated behind THIS face and THIS body. I am not the women who came before, and I am not the men, nor am I the few unnamed fence-fuckers for whom I am legacy. I am made up of each of these bloodlines, each of these bodies, each of these ancient voices singing battles, triumphs, fears, struggles, loves, lessons, and meanings for their lives which lead irrevocably to mine.

My face is both and neither: a dish done at least three-ways. My character is viscerally, vulnerably, authentically showing, and for the first time no mask has been donned—they’re off and away.

I am not passing.
How incredibly, joyously, free.

Play On My Friends,
~ Creature

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The Voices in Our Head

Photo by Jonathan Beckley

Today I responded to an individual seeking connection and advice in a forum I participate in. It occurred to me while I was writing that I was speaking to multiple people who are or who have been in my life and thought, perhaps, my writing would be helpful to others.

For a little context (though I think these particulars may not be the most important part of my response): this person is young. They grew up in a home experiencing physical, mental, emotional, sexual, and spiritual abuse. They got out at a young age and in the few years since seem to have pursued a fair amount of therapy and are good at self-reflection (judging by how they write). The crux of their angst and the reason for reaching out is a common one: fear that their urge to be sadistic, and harboring “extreme fantasies” (their terminology) is problematic, or somehow that these things define a broken or irreparable spirit. It’s common for people with sadistic tendencies and desires to worry about them—I’d even say healthy that we do so. When the negative voices take over our thoughts, how do we re-find or truly know who we are, how do we heal, how do we become better and safer in our own skins and with others? These are some of my thoughts…

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It sounds like you have a really good understanding of your situation and yourself. In my experience intellectual understanding is not the same thing as “being ok”, and being ok is a lifelong process… you have probably started examining your behaviors, reactions, thoughts, and coping mechanisms at a younger age than most people do. That’s great. It’s also not the whole picture of what will be. I find that the cycles we go on in our lives are spirals, repeating the loop over and over again, familiar and not entirely always the same. The best part of that cyclical-spiral is when we’re onto ourselves, we’re given the opportunity to create space around the experience of trauma. We may never be able to lift ourselves completely from the center of our emotions, but if we can see it coming, or recognize it as it’s happening, we can choose a kind of softness to surround the negative moments with, knowing they’ll pass when they’re ready to: they are not the truth. I hope that’s an experience you can have.

To address (what I hear as) a certain amount of guilt surrounding the fantasies you have and potential play activities you engage in which you deem to be “sadistic”, I hope you know somewhere inside that having those turn-ons doesn’t make you a terrible person. It’s wonderful that you have connection to kink communities who can teach you safety, negotiation, and consent. Your explanation of how you associate with your sadistic thoughts and desires seems to be a healthy one (based on what you wrote).

Pain is part of a continuum with pleasure. I often think of “pain” as “extreme sensation”, as opposed to something inherently destructive. My masochism has taught me a lot about the resiliency of my body, my mind, my emotions, and my spirit—a true gift, as an individual with the need to do a lot of work around trusting the core of who I am, and better know what I am capable of. As a sadistic person (also), I’ve had the experience of witnessing the transformation of worry and fear, of tension and stress within my masochistic subs into voice, sound, movement, processing… much needed release.

The human mind is capable of incredible things, and I think one of the most brilliant aspects of this is our capacity to turn bad experiences, fear, and trauma into opportunities for pleasure via fantasy and sexualization. Of course it is on every individual to keep checking in with themselves to make sure that what we are up to is, indeed, not destructive to ourselves or others; however the impulse to press into what seems depraved or “wrong” is also an impulse to rewalk/redefine a path inside—a path that has been laid down harmfully, alchemizing it into one which might end in safety and pleasure for all. Without release such as these fantasies and adult-playground games, we hold on too tightly to what has been, at forfeiture of who we could be today.

It sounds to me like you’re on the long path of healing. Healing is messy and ill defined. We experience it at our individual paces, and sometimes the places we think we’ve long healed from will burst open again, or never fully come together as we wish… This life is full of opportunity to tend to ourselves, and learn to tend to ourselves we must. You did a good thing by reaching out. Know that you are not alone. You are not awful or wrong for thinking the things you think. You are on a road to somewhere else: somewhere where pain is chosen, survived gratefully and with intention, and accepted as the the gift it is to those who need it. Keep yourself questioning as you walk your path, stay skilled in your endeavors, and be as safe as your know how to be. Communicate. Those you love, those you play with, those who meet you in the place of your wants and needs are matches for you in this life. Walk beside them as you’re able to, and know that in the very conversation about what’s to be done, there’s more than healing: there’s light.

Play On My Friends,
~ Creature

My writing takes time, research, and consideration: it is my art.
Please help me continue by joining my Patreon campaign, Donating, or booking a professional or educational Session with me. Thank you!

Your Brilliance is Never Sexed

Your Brilliance is Never Sexed
By Creature KPW

Maleness is meaningless without femaleness, and vice versa. They are both out of context without a deep understanding and recognition of the many shades of intersex which exist; dancing forms and variations binding two ends of all that is together. Whole. We are in lust, as a society, with extremes. But to be whole we must embrace and desire not only that which is sharply pointed and easily defined, but also all of the matter which fills our outlines. Colors and shapes, curves and knobs, bumps and erectile tissues forming uncomfortably, ridges and caverns aligning for an experience of pleasure (even when defined by social standards as shameful or pain). Experience your truth. All that we are, inside and out, is potential. This is everything. You, man with a hammer, are an emotional, sentient darling capable of all things named beautiful. You, daughter of the ocean with your tides and nurturing arms, are clear and strong, capable of overcoming nations with your acuity. You, child unnamed by parents and disowned by society are desperately needed—your innate knowledge of both and neither is a thirst upon the land. We are defined as individuals by who resides between our ears, defined by the movement of our limbs and the sounds uttered from the throat, defined by the variety of choices we make, defined again by research we take, tricks we learn, growth we handle, the silence we sit in that we may function another day in increased grace. Our hearts know these things when we allow ourselves to listen.

You are never a category—especially not one culled from a cursory glance between the thighs at birth.

What universes we are able to explore from that thigh-bordered region though, can deliver us whole, broken open and reassembled a million times (with others, or unto ourselves) to the galaxy, the stars, the everything we are made of and more. Insects and our other siblings stalking the planet will chew us back into dirt one day soon enough, taking what nourishment we provide as a last act: our offering to these tiny Gods. They grant us oneness with the dirt beneath the feet of all who walk—unity with the substance we so dearly love it is the name of our home: Earth. Created from clay, the promise is that in time we return to that state. The circus of our animation is but an echo in the universe. We are built from stories and your echo matters too…

Listen closely to your own life, and it will tell you where to go. Your dreams are what make you meaningful, large or as small as they may be. They inform you and are of your spirit. No form, no box, no ticked line can take your dreams away from you. Dreaming reminds us to truly connect to something, anything, that matters in these moments alive. You are significant. You will die. What matters is connection. Recognizing others as an integral part of your own wholeness.

Care for this house that we share so that as time marches on many more lives may also nest here, seeking a moment of safety in their bodies, dancing with the many articulated forms of life surrounding us in the vast jungle of love we call the Universe. Painful, terrifying, sobering, awful, blessed, grinding: life. You are something brilliant. This may mean little until you find your own capacity for love, a name reflected in the possibility of knowing the brilliance of offering: self.

Play On My Friends,
~ Creature

My writing takes time, research, and consideration: it is my art.
Please help me continue by joining my Patreon campaign, Donating, or booking a professional or educational Session with me. Thank you!

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