ABCs Of Kink

Connections

April 13, 2018 by ABCs Of Kink

Photo by Jonathan Beckley

There are days I need to be quiet. Hours of nothing. Stillness. Rumbling within. Mouth glued shut around my impending vocal boom. There are days I need not to move.
~Creature/Karin Webb

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A new acquaintance on Fetlife asked me about being ftm today. They said they had a theory about why there’s an 8:1 ratio of trans women to transmen (I number I hadn’t heard before). They thought it might have something to do with societal privilege and how it’s less acceptable in our culture to be a feminine man vs. a masculine woman. He is getting at something there, of course it’s not the whole story. Here are a couple of other things I think:

Patriarchal society is always more interested in what happens to what it perceives as male bodies, than what it perceives as female bodies. How that plays out can be deconstructed in a number of ways.

There’s an economy in place meant to keep men from a full experience of their bodies, their emotions, their sensuality, and their femininity in order to control their physical strength. Men are rewarded economically for “being men” and aligning themselves with macho values.

Trans reality flies in the face of that economic hierarchy and people who have been vested with “membership to the club” face a lot of violence when eschewing privilege by honoring their identities. Adversely, people who have never been rewarded or welcomed into the club, those who have been neglected or maligned since birth, can more easily pass under society’s radar when not adhering to the rules. Being a butch woman is more socially acceptable than being a feminine man.

When you’re part of a minority class, assigned at birth, it’s hard to want to claim space in the class of your oppressor even when you feel you belong to it. You often understand more nuances concerning the reality of privilege because you’ve grown up experiencing it from the oppressed end. Identifying as “butch” rather than “trans” can sometimes be enough for survival, or may feel more accessible to someone who already has to survive on other levels in their lives (economic, racial, sexual, etc.). This may be one reason it appears there is a disparity in the number of trans men vs. that of trans women.

Dominant society’s interest in AMAB bodies far exceeds its interest in AFAB bodies, and shines a spotlight and throws money there. AFAB bodies are not invested in socially or monetarily, they can sometimes more easily disappear.

Connected to this phenomenon, take a look at lesbian and gay cultures, and you’ll see the same imbalance magnified. Most major cities will have at least one (usually more) dedicated gay male spaces that run 24/7 as gay male spaces, in effort to proudly serve that community — which also may benefit trans women, yet historically much less so welcome trans men. In these same cities there might be one or two lesbian “nights” around town on a weekly or even monthly basis. This speaks extremely loudly to the economic divide which is reinforced when 2 privileged people in relationship (gay men) are funding their community vs. two underprivileged people in relationship (lesbian women), who are often unable to fund or network to the same extent for theirs. Here we see the cis gay and lesbian communities mirroring dominant culture and even exacerbating a gendered resource divide.

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On Wednesday evening I hosted the first (I hope) meetup of people who identify somewhere within queer, trans, kinky, sex worker, sex worker friendly, POC, people with disabilities, and politically active. We talked about a number of things — our needs and desires as individuals, what actions we’d like to see happen around us or navigate making happen ourselves, what’s already going on in RI, Switter, sex worker strikes, stripper unionization, poverty, women’s work, what it’s like to strip in different parts of the country, how artists fund their art, how race and gender and disability and poverty intersect with all of these notions, how struggle can make you more informed about a lot of issues, the differences and overlaps between chosen work, survival work, and victimization…

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Recently a conversation about the history behind the terms Womanism and Feminism came up. It was a good one to be having.

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On Wednesday morning Trump signed FOSTA into law. You can sign this petition to overturn FOSTA, I hope you do.

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A friend recently mentioned I should make t-shirts which say:

Sex Work is
Women’s work
POC’s work
Trans work
Work for People with Disabilities
& Poor People’s work

Sex Worker Rights are Human Rights
Support Sex Workers
Decriminalize

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From shit we rise.
It’s starting to feel like Spring…

Play On My Friends,
~ Creature

Please support my work on Patreon. For one time donations click here: Support the Artist
~Thank you.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: doing something, feminism, FOSTA, intersectionality, patriarchy, POC, political action, poverty, sex trafficking, sex work, stripper strike, trans people, unionization, war on sex workers, womanism, women's work

In Service to Gold

April 9, 2018 by ABCs Of Kink

My “Ropes” performance adjusted for a film scene. Photo still from the short film “Legitimate” by Izzy Lee

I’ve been trying to figure out where to put my energy these days, and it’s a little overwhelming. Moving forward in a career which I feel has no real definition other than “utilizing my talents and drive” is hard. It takes risk, and energy, and for building blocks to be invented and reinvented constantly.

I write this blog on kink, sexuaity, gender, identity, and politics. I get paid through my Patreon campaign to support it. It’s steady work even if it isn’t a lot of money, I make about $375/month. That’s not as much as I’d like, but I’m grateful to have built up to this point. Hopefully as my blog’s reach grows so will my patreon supporters. I know I need to be better at advertising and asking people to support it directly. Here’s practice: If you enjoy reading this blog, or have mentioned it to someone else, or have found yourself thinking about my writing from time to time, please consider contributing to support me through My Patron Campaign. Thank you.

I am also a professional Dominant. I don’t gig doing this very regularly. Though when I do have the opportunity to, I enjoy it extraordinarily. I am a consummate lover of connection, and have a personal fetish for being paid and feeling valued on the job. Professional Dominance highlights my interpersonal skills, natural sadomasochism, lust for research, enjoyment of teaching and challenging the people around me, love of doing things well, and affecting others. It challenges me to be fully in the moment with my client. Each scene is just that (similar to my theatrical practice), a moment in time with a beginning, middle, and end, and we rehearse these adult games, these flesh sports, these sensational experiences for so many varied reasons — definable and not. It is a fantastic ride. I do BDSM sessions, and I also train people in submission and service. I enjoy guesting at various dungeons and sceneing with other Doms when I have the opportunity to as well.

I just started camming. It’s an ok way to make some money on the side. So far other than it being a bit on the boring side, it’s entertaining enough. I enjoy private shows the most — again being a connection lover it feels more rewarding financially, conversationally, and in the moment. There’s definitely a learning curve I’m on, but it’s an interesting way to fill a few hours when I’ve got them.

I teach drag king classes, performance art skills, all about the creative process, ballet and other movement techniques, character development and acting, gender exploration workshops, sex/gender/identity lectures, sexuality education, BDSM skills, the list goes on, and I also direct. My clients are high school GSAs, colleges and universities, business companies, people who organize a group of friends to get together, individuals who approach me for help with a certain project, piece of art, personal idea, or desire. I love these gigs and feeling helpful when I’m supporting someone in a way that’s important to them, or encouraging a person to try something new, or teaching skills that are valued.

I perform my own original performance pieces for production companies, party hosts, bachelor and bachelorette parties, event coordinators, bars, theaters, and schools who hire me to be in their curriculum all over the country. I create new content, choose from a long list of performances I’ve created over the years, offer up my solo show: NO SHAME, or rework a favorite piece to be more appropriate to the particular audience I’m performing for. My work spans performance art genres from drag to burlesque, monologues, character acting, spoken word, mask, dance, puppetry, interactive characters, living statue, storytelling, physical theater, and straight up performance art. I’ve been a professional in this career since I was 11 years old, and have multiple degrees, certificates, and awards in my field.

I make art. Visual art. I’m immersed in a couple of projects currently. I create my own costumes, props, sometimes set pieces, and other objects my performance and visual art installations require. My visual art is multimedia spanning across costuming, jewelry making, puppet and doll creation, design, painting, found object manipulation, photography, animation, and whatever else I need to learn to make an idea materialize.

None of these things on their own are paying my rent. Together they are keeping me at a level barely afloat, and I wish I was not as close to my bottom line. For now it seems to be working though, and I’m grateful to be at the place I am at. It’s been a lifetime to get here. I spend a good percentage of my time doing administrative work rather than actually creatively building and gigging. Booking, negotiating, applying for opportunities, website building and maintenance, outreach, networking, research on whatever specific idea I’m currently working on, trying to maintain a reasonable social media presence, the list goes on… That’s the bulk of where my time is spent.

Do I wish I made more money and that it wasn’t so hard to stay afloat? Yes.

Do I think I’m valued by the communities of people I work with? Yes, in fact very much by some, and that feels extraordinary to me. It helps me not give up (I often feel as though I could).

Do I wish I was spending more time creating and gigging than grinding away at office duties for most of my day? Absolutely! I would love to have a booking manager/office manager supporting me by piecing this crazy career together. It’s hard to find someone with the skills I need though who’s willing to get paid gig by gig.

Am I grateful to be where I am? Very grateful. Thank you.

Thank you for reading this blog. Thank you to those of you who find ways outside of reading to support me. Thank you to people who send gigs my way, hire me directly, and think of me when they have questions about identity or sexuality, or hire me to have talk sessions or counsel them as they work toward personal goals of their own. I am passionate about these things, and all of the pieces help me grow into who I mean to be.

I don’t see the difference between art which is hanging in a gallery, the art which is my body telling a story on stage, or the beauty and gold I can cultivate and coax out of someone’s body/mind/emotional experience when we intentionally meet with a goal in mind. I love people. I admire struggle and meaning making and connection. I get excited to share what I know and what I see and explore unknowns with those interested and willing. This work is real work, and sometimes it’s hard to reckon with the reality that even attendants of fantasy and muses with far-reaching skills need to eat.

Play On My Friends,
~ Creature

Please support my work on Patreon. For one time donations click here: Support the Artist
~Thank you.

Filed Under: Perspectives on Kink Blog Tagged With: different perspective, diversifying income, gig economy, muse, need a booking agent, passion for my job, performance artist, professional artist, professional dominant, sex work, supportive work, teaching, therapy, women's work

Normal

April 6, 2018 by ABCs Of Kink

Male. Female. Born. Body. Sex. Biological…

Many people don’t understand the limited meaning of phenotype vs. the complex reality of genotype when invoking the “biological argument” concerning sex and gender. You know, that argument which mistakenly believes it’s trumped a whole discussion thread about who’s allowed to identify how by blurting out, “there’s two sexes, male and female, you can’t argue against biology!”. When one actually looks at the science which is biology though, the biology argument is quite clearly in favor of behavioral diversity and a spectrum of identities. In short: don’t judge a book by the cover a doctor drew of a newborn baby’s genitalia, because there is much much more to a child’s genetic story…

Instead of “Male. Female. Born. Body. Sex. Biological.” Let’s go with:

Phenotype. Genotype. Chromosomes. Gonad development. Hormones. Brain development. Behavior.

Based on biology we should respect each individual’s identity, which can be defined and redefined over the course of a lifetime by the person who owns the body in question. The number of times a day I introduce myself with inaccurate shorthanded terminology is exhausting, but it’s the only way to get a conversation started with most people:

Bisexual

Male/Female/Trans/FTM

Born/Body/Sex

I do not, these days, use the shorthand “Biological Female” or “Biological Male”. It would be inappropriate for a number of reasons even in reference to myself, and it serves as a form of erasure for intersex individuals when everything is argued based on that false dichotomy of terminology. Here are some reasons I don’t even know if I am “biologically female”:

I don’t know what my chromosomes actually are, I’ve never had them tested. It’s entirely possible my chromosomal arrangement is not 46xx.
I do not know for sure what the state of my gonad development was, I’ve never had them looked at in depth — though I was pregnant for a few weeks at the age of 17, so I can assume my gonads developed in a typically female fashion.
I do not know what my hormone levels were prior to taking Testosterone for HTR (hormone replacement therapy). Now that my hormone levels are more in line with a typical male’s levels, and I am am physically attaining secondary male physical characteristics, I think we can safely say I am not currently 100% “biologically female”, even if I was prior to HRT.
I have never had my brain scanned (excellent and very recent article, btw). Over the years there’s been mounting evidence that there are differences in cis male, cis female, and transgender brains — even prior to any HRT regimen. These differences indicate that brain sex develops separately from gonadal sex, and there are measurable reasons why some people with passing female or male external genitalia feel, think, and experience dissonance with that sex categorization.

If something can be masculinized or feminized, like the gonads are and the brain is in fetal development, doesn’t it stand that “masculine” and “feminine” are by default on a spectrum which everyone, regardless of sex, has access to and may fall developmentally within grey areas of? There is much more to our genetic realities than phenotypic categorization, which is useful only as a generalization, and in that generalized state does much harm to certain individuals.

He said “You’re attractive as a female”. I know he didn’t mean it that way. By “that way” I mean I don’t think he was dismissing my stated genderfluid identity on purpose. I think this specific man is older and doesn’t have the language practice to say something more refined, or interesting and affirmative such as, “you’re attractive” or “regardless of your sex/gender/identity I find you stunning and want to spend time with you.”

I don’t want to be attractive “as a female”, just like Clair Huxtable didn’t want to “still look good” on her 46th birthday. I want to be attractive explicitly “as me”. Why is there a need for modifiers, which only serve to trip people up? The concept that attraction is gendered rather than an individualized appreciation is ludacris.

I identify as: woman, boy, imp, and creature. Not girl. Not man. My phenotypical femaleness is an annoying base description which persists from the mouths of those people who refuse to or fail to acknowledge the transness of my whole identity. Over and over again, the shorthand persists, even though it is hurtful and incorrect for all of the reasons I’ve stated above. Repeated emphasis from bullying mouths wears one down. I don’t like being exhausted by persistently advocating for who I am because of the way people want to (read: feel comfortable) typify me — a thing they have been taught to do by a limited language full of misnomers fed by schoolyard repetitions. It’s disheartening.

I love my body. My body is the body of a genderfluid person, not the body of a biological female. That is what is normal for me.

Normal is how I feel on Testosterone. Before which I experienced a lot of anxiety and depression, and didn’t like myself as much.

Normal is people seeing me as trans, fluid, and nonbinary (not man or woman) and celebrating all of who I am instead of asking me to pick a side for their comfort.

Normal is the expression of my whole self, as I’m feeling it in the moment, visibly communicated and understood by the world around me.

Normal is my natural body, hair unshaved… (record scratches to a halt).

Here’s something interesting and newly observed by me:

My entire life I have felt uncomfortable when I’ve shaved my armpits. Fascinatingly enough, I shaved them a week ago, which is the first time I’ve shaved my body hair since starting on testosterone. Historically any time I’ve shaved my armpits, even in adolescence, I felt as though my naked armpits were ugly, naked whale looking things, and I’ve only enjoyed them when they’ve been shaded by the growth of my natural hair. I don’t feel that way this time around. I have no opinion with hair or without hair about how my armpits look. This is new.

It reminds me of my lifelong connection to my hands. My whole life, since childhood, I would look at my hands and they never seemed real to me. I felt like they were supposed to be paws and that they should look more like paws. I never really “recognized” my hands as my own when I looked at them. Shortly after starting testosterone last June I had the experience of glancing down at my hands and recognizing them as hands, and as my own hands. Normal. I can see my body as mine and as attractive and right for the first time in my life.

If HRT is causing me to be less dysphoric about my body, what exactly does “dysphoria” mean when pertaining to gender identity?

My medical records state that I have Gender Dysphoria. However, I feel better than I ever have about my body and my health since I started HRT. I feel normal. Perhaps what this indicates is that society is dysphoric in its dichotomic expectations of individual human beings, which lay outside the parameters of varietal biological reality. Maybe in a world where when I said “I identify as gender neutral/fluid/FemmeBoy” and I was treated and recognized as such, I would not “need” testosterone to feel normal in my body and less anxious. Then again, even in that world I would still wish my facial hair would grow, my clitoris was larger, and my sexual appetite more regular. Yet again, also in that world being prescribed testosterone for these reasons would probably be “on label usage” instead of an off label experiment to allay the psychologies of those with a dysphoric “mental illness”.

This is all just to say, “I am me, and you are you”, let’s respect one another for the experiences and preferences we have about our own bodies, shall we? Those preferences and experience are backed by a science we call “biology”.

Play On My Friends,
~ Creature

Please support my work on Patreon. For one time donations click here: Support the Artist
~Thank you.

Filed Under: Brain on Download Blog Tagged With: AFAB, AMAB, better communication, biology argument, dysphoria, gender, HRT, identity, phenotype vs genotype, respecting identity, sex development, transgender