Some reasons why I love Movie-Cap

As I’ve mentioned, I always found the comic book Steve Rogers to be completely boring. I understand that they wanted his true power to be his unerring moral compass, but he’s perfect in every other way too—he is always sure of himself, he has no fears, no psychological damage… no personality, really. Some like Bernie will debate this to the death with me, but that’s how I see it. But now that he's been depicted on the big screen... I am in love. I find the move version of the character fascinating, and I wanted to ramble a little bit about why. And I swear, it's not just because I want to jump his perfectly formed bones.

Traditionally in comic books, male characters are depicted as masculine self-insertion fantasies. They are extremely strong, emotionally invulnerable, and of course they are very attractive to the women in the universe. This is not because they are depicted as what women actually find attractive, but because the female characters are acting in the service of the masculine fantasy. They look like what male readers supposedly want to look like, and the women are attracted in the way the readers would like them to be.

But this tendency is what contributes to that huge big problem that comics book have in how often they give off a powerful vibe to women of “THIS IS NOT FOR YOU.” Superhero comic books often indulge hypermasculine fantasy concepts— such as high violence, low emotion, powerful men and sexualized women —and most of the people who are conditioned to find those fantasies appealing are men. And if you don’t have that conditioning, you don’t often find shaved bear men built like refrigerators to be all that relatable. I mean, in one particularly egregrious example, take a look at how notoriously terrible artist Rob Leifeld depicts Cap:

Um... yuck? This is exaggeration, not idealization. And yeah, this is worse even than usual, but it's the extreme of a ubiquitous problem. And I find it stomach-turningly offputting.

Given this theory of what masculinity "should be," there is a long history of when a lot of women find a certain man particularly alluring, other men start deriding that man on the grounds that said alluring qualities make him unmanly or even gay. Often it's for excessive prettiness, or just for not being as traditionally masculine as a desirable man should be under their schema. I read that Rudolph Valentino got a lot of that back in the day, and modern day examples include Orlando Bloom and even Justin Bieber. It stems from a combination of envy for their desirability with ideas about how caring about one's looks is supposed to be a feminine responsibility, how men can't be hot because only men care about hotness, so if a man is hot it's gay.

But to play Captain America in the film, they didn’t find a shaved bear of a man with a shape like a refrigerator. Quite the contrary, they found an exceptionally beautiful man. And the difference that makes is unbelievable. It’s not just the fact that I’m a shallow person who really enjoys looking at beautiful men. (Though I am.) It's that in presenting me with a person who is pleasing to my eye, as opposed to an earlier conception of the same person who is less so, they are acknowledging that my eye and others like mine are in the audience. And more than just acknowledging me, they are are courting my viewership. This beautiful man makes me want to come look, to join that audience. For rising out of a medium that has so much history of scaring the female audience off, that is a remarkable turnabout.

But that's not the only subversive, even progressive aspect of how the film portrayed Steve. For how sexy and gorgeous he is, and how we are allowed to regard him in that capacity, he is not excessively or inappropriately sexualized. He's actually a virgin, pretty explicitly so. This is in the face of the enormous cultural stigma against men with no sexual experience. But the film does not portray this as a negative, unmanly thing; far from it, it is one more thing that shapes the admirable man Steve is. Yeah, he was the kind of dork that some associate with being a virgin, but more than that, it's about his personal value system. He has his own strict code of conduct, something that's very important to him. He's the sort of person who wants to wait for the one, for real love, and anything less isn't enough for him. It's so earnest and decent that we respect him for sticking to this belief system even though it doesn't conform to our own. I find that massively progressive. I mentioned this in my initial review of the film, but it bears repeating: how cool is it that they made a tough, masculine action hero that dudes want to be like with VIRGIN stamped on his forehead? And frankly, I find incredibly attractive.

And you know what, I just plain like beautiful men. Not even necessarily in a stroke material sort of way. I DESPISE how often it is a asserted that by "objective aesthetic sensibilities" the female form is inherently more beautiful than the male one. That's such male-gaze-influenced garbage. I love the masculine figure, and even beyond sexual attraction, I just enjoy basking in the beauty of it. Especially a man like Chris Evans. Dreamy blue eyes, perfectly styled good boy hair, full lips, lovely cheekbones, strong jaw. And that body-- well, suffice it to say, like a work of art, I could just look at him all day.

There are other small adjustments that make the character more human and appealing. This Steve Rogers is young. In the comics he’s a more mature presence, but in the movie they made him more of a boy. This I think was an excellent decision. (Especially in contrast with Tony, who is more of a man, but that's another discussion entirely.) Young people are less formed, have had less time to grow past their issues and figure themselves out. This allows for Steve to not be totally sure of himself, to not have a complete handle on the things that he's insecure about. And he's insecure here, in a beautiful, human, sympathetic way. Leading up to the procedure, he was a complete dork. Even when people are no longer the person that they used to be, the self-image created by their previous state doesn’t just disappear. Having spent more than twenty years as a skinny, awkward nerd that got picked on and ignored, a modest guy like him is not going to shake feeling like that nerd right away. Even after a magical transformation into his current Adonis-like state. That insecurity adds a dimension of humanity, that he may look perfect on the outside, but on the inside, he sometimes feels awkward, unsure, and not very special, just like real people do. And you know what else? Sometimes even perfect Captain America is awkward! Steve Rogers is not a smooth operator. I find it unbelievably cute that he's not worldly, doesn't know how to talk to girls, and sometimes trips over the right thing to do or say. I get the feeling that we sometimes think really desirable guys often have a really arrogant attitude in regards to other people, like "I can have any woman I want, what makes you good enough for me?" But there's no superior attitude there at all-- in fact, he sometimes isn't comfortable with himself. So he would never make anyone feel like they're not good enough.

Finally, I was reading a well-written article on The Good Men Project that was about how female dominants more often exist in the form of desiring the position of control and comparative emotional strength, rather than the classic image of the smacky woman in black leather. I was not so interested in the BDSM aspect of it, but I did connect with how it posits, quote, that “The key component of the female gaze… is vulnerability.” Emotional nakedness rather than emotional armor. I had never thought about it that way, but upon reflection it feels true to me. The fact that they included that youth and insecurity in this conception of the character confers a real vulnerability on him. I love that he's such a good man, the fact that that goodness is his real power. He's endlessly courageous, self-sacrificing, and decent. But he's not always sure of himself, not full of himself despite his own goodness. And yes, yes, that vulnerability is SEXY.

This has gone on way too long, so best to stop there. But those are some of the reasons I can't stop thinking about Movie-Cap. <3

I want to take a picture like this

I really don't like Kristin Stewart, I think she's incredibly bland, both in appearance and as an actress, but I love this picture. I got it off 's Tumblr. If I am interpreting this correctly, both of these models are her.



I would love to take a picture like this. I've been meaning to drag myself out as far as I'm capable and photograph myself. I really like the juxtaposition of the feminine version of Stewart with her masculine version. I've watched some makeup tutorials on the Internet about how to make your face more masculine but I haven't tried them yet. I would also love to try to do my hair like man-Kristin's, all sleek and slicked back. And the suit with the suspenders is pretty cool too.

Nearing tech week for Sherlock Holmes!

I turned down a part I got in a show today. That's the first time I've done that except in undergrad when I was choosing one show over another, back in the day when it was the etiquette to do so. The role was Dolabella in the Gazebo Players summer production of Antony and Cleopatra, directed by the awesome Debbi Finkelstein. I've always wanted to work with her, but the role is small and I am called for an awful lot of rehearsal given that, which when it requires an hour round-trip of driving just seems like too large a commitment of time. It would have been fun, but I will have just too much grad school work by then to take away time from working on it for a part I don't feel passionate about. I just hope I sounded polite and gracious when I declined. I still would really like to work with Debbi as a director someday, as I've heard she does good work.

This is a picture of me with our Sherlock Holmes. Tonight is the last Holmes rehearsal before tech week begins. I have enjoyed this process immensely, and I feel really good about the show. Having this role has been great for me. I got it strictly by giving a good audition, rather than people knowing me already, which made me proud of myself. And getting the chance to dig into an interesting character and develop a complete performance To be honest I find this conception of Irene in the script to be a little nonsensical if you scrutinize her too much, but I've reconciled and made her my own.

Lenny said to me a little while ago that she thought my best performances were the ones where I didn't need to worry about projecting the opposite gender-- specifically, Cordelia, the Fool, and Puck. Something I've always wondered was if my acting was hobbled a little by having to distract myself with projecting a masculine carriage. Also, because I am so willing to cross cast, I think I get automatically discounted for female roles sometimes because there's always girls who insist that they absolutely can't play a guy. :-P And then most people tend to not want to cross cast important male roles, which means I don't get considered for those either, which limits me further. I should probably just quit saying I'm willing, though I hate the idea of making myself sound so delicate. But it's been nice to get a real role who's a woman for once and be able to concentrate all my energy into acting the character. Also, it's kind of flattering to have gotten it. It's fun getting to be the Pretty Girl. Don't get me wrong, I've loved me my dude roles, but especially given how down I'm been feeling about myself, it's made me feel good to know that people think I make a believable embodiment of a brilliant, singular woman with "a face a man might die for." ;-)

The cast and crew have been great too. They're all really nice and extremely talented, pushing me to try and do better so I measure up to them. I would be happy to work with them again anytime. Even if you're coming to see me, it would be worth it to come to see them.

Performance opportunity

Tossing around an idea in my head. I discovered recently there's a theater around that will rent out a small performance space for private people to put on one-night engagements. I could get a thirty-seat theater with basic tech for an evening for the cost of fifty dollars. It's a small thing, but I am thinking of going for it and putting on some little production just to get something put on. I put in an inquiry about a weekend date sometime in late August or so, to see if it's possible, and maybe get myself on the calendar.

The question would be what to put on. I have been looking at Aria da Capo, a strange and beautiful little one act play by Edna St. Vincent-Millay that I've wanted to direct for a while, but I think it might be a better use of the opportunity to get a piece of my own work out there. Still, what would that be? I only have one one-act that I think is worth putting on and that's To Think of Nothing. Since it's going to be such a small event, I will likely only get people I know coming, and most of the people who would come have already seen that. It'd be another thing if I thought I could get more of the public to come, get more exposure for the piece I'm most proud of, but again, it's only a thirty-seat theater for one night. Probably not going to happen that way.

I have a couple of ten-minute plays, and people do present collections of them as evenings of theater, but I'm not sure I like putting them all together given how little relation they have to one another. But one idea I did have-- so remember how I was musing about how neat it was my humorous ten-minute piece Just So could be cast as men, as women, as men in drag, or women in drag? I thought that maybe it could be played four times in a row, each time with a differently gendered cast, and blocked differently each time to emphasize what was funny about that particular gendering. I would be concerned that it might get boring seeing the same sketch four times, though the piece is short enough (I think it actually runs only about eight minutes) that might not be too big a problem. I would also have to be sure I could come up with blocking that was different enough for each piece to make the point and keep the audience entertained.

Or, if I'm not sure I could do that, I could write something new. Maybe something that even better facilitated being run four times with differently gendered casting. Or just something else entirely. Have to think about that.

Any ideas?

When lust shuts down your brain

Pondering some things lately that I want to explore here. I've been having thoughts on standards of beauty and dynamics of attraction again, spurred by certain things I've been finding lately in myself.

When women are objectified, they tend to be objectified as sex objects-- that their value lies in their sexiness. When men are objectified, they tend to be objectified as success objects-- that their value lies in their monetary and career success. I get that men get stuck with that lot because society expects them to be providers, but what I wonder is why they get away with being sexually objectified so much less frequently. Women have sex drives and eyes just like men do-- why don't they provide enough demand for pretty men to show up in the media?

I hate to say it, but it seems like in most cases they don't. One thing that's always troubled me in my pondering gender equality is the fact that in my personal experience I have found women to be significantly less invested in the physical beauty of men than vice versa. I know that of the men I have been most attracted to, it wasn't necessarily because of the way they looked, and how far, far more often I have seen couples where the girl was significantly more attractive than the guy than the other way around.

This bugs me because it supports those unequal expectations of beauty that I wrote about once before. It seems to verify the idea that women need to be more beautiful in order to be attractive to men, while men can be less beautiful and still be attractive to women. Which leads to women having to work harder on their appearance, to stay fit, to work on their hair, to dress better, to "put on their faces," while men can get away with putting on weight, or presenting themselves with less polish. That's really unfair, and it encourages women to think that desiring male beauty is basically pointless-- or worse, that there's something weird or unnatural about desiring it.

But still-- it does happen. Maybe less often, maybe less universally, but it does happen. On the rare occasions I DO find myself really, really struck by a man's physical beauty... the feminist in me is kind of happy. Yeah, I know nobody should sexually objectify anyone, it's definitely not feminist to do so, but I must confess I feel weirdly pleased when I find myself drawn to do it. It supports the idea that women and men AREN'T all that different after all, that it probably happens to all of us in differing amounts, and maybe women are just socialized not to do it as often as men are allowed to.

Right now I really really like Chris Evans Captain America. Like, whoa, a lot. Like I'm wasting entirely too much time browsing for NSFW photo edits on DeviantArt I like him so much. I like pretty people, sure, but frankly, any feeling of attraction based solely on appearance occurs rarely for me. Hell, there aren't that many people I feel attracted to at all! What's funny is that with me, there must be a perfect storm of little details about a man's appearance for that to even happen. I couldn't care less about Chris Evans when he looks like this...

But when he looks like this, it knocks the breath out of me. :-)

It's not that I can point to anything in particular, like, oh, I like him clean shaven or whatever, because that's not it. It's just there's a particular confluence here that works for me in a big way, helped along by the "I am a super good guy but also a little awkward" built into the character he's playing. Actually, that's one of the reasons why I don't think it's fair to us straight ladies that guys get to toss off how they present themselves, because sometimes sometimes little details as small as how somebody dresses or parts their hair (see above, heh) that can make the sexy difference.

What's also funny-- or creepy --is how much it makes me lose my mind. I can actually feel it pushing out higher thought. I have heard of this phenomenon, men are accused of giving in to it all the time, but it's a relatively infrequent experience for me. As I said, I'm attracted to very few people in general, much less to the point where I find myself objectifying them. So it's kind of freaking me out how strongly looking at Chris Evans Captain America threatens to push me into thinking like an absolute pig-- to let the feeling in my guts and elsewhere completely overtake the working of my brain. I am at the point where I can't even watch the ads for the Avengers without being all, "Fuck this noise, just take off your shirt and stand there." That, my friends, is pretty much textbook sexual objectification. Who even am I, that that's something that I do? Jared has actually been kind of weirded out by this, saying things like, "What if I did this about Scarlett Johansson? Wouldn't you think I was being tacky?" Hmmm, maybe I would. More likely what I'd think is, what's the big deal? Why so strong a reaction? And yet here I am, having my sensibilities and my good taste swept away by something that in normal circumstances wouldn't be that big a deal for me.

And yet... and yet. Lousy as it is, I am glad that it can happen. I'm glad for the proof that this is something I can experience. There's this one ad for Marc Jacobs cologne that looks like... well, I guess I'll just post it, despite what its presence may do to my blog traffic.

I mean, look at that. Wow, that's... unsubtle. I have a very complex reaction to it.

It's sexualized so blatantly. The man is ripped, naked, and oiled up with just some fake cologne bottle hiding his junk. On one hand, it's tacky. I tend to dislike such unsophisticated, nuance-free depictions of sexiness, and find them more gross than appealing. But being of an idealized standard of beauty and put on display to appeal to sexual interest, this sort of depiction is a rare example of a man being sexualized in a way that is usually reserved for objectifying portrayals of women.  I am very very pleased to see something equalizing in that manner, as well as something that tries to appeal to the female gaze for a change. (Presumably. I have a vague memory of reading that cologne is mostly bought by women as gifts for men.)

Also, I have to say... I find it kind of hot. I really shouldn't, see above about how such depictions are usually gross instead of sexy to me, but for some reason I do. I'm embarrassed to be taken in by such a display. I wonder if this is what it's like when men don't really find exaggerated porn actresses with fake breasts and stylized faces attractive, but are turned on enough by them anyway. But at the same time, for reasons of equalization there's a part of me that is pleased that I am. The argument that men aren't sexualized because women don't like them to be falls flat.

I'm curious-- how often does that happen to other people? When you gauge someone's raw attractiveness largely divorced from their actual self, how often does anyone experience that feeling of lust that you feel it pushing out your higher thought (whether you allow it to or not)? Does it happen to men as often as we seem to think it does? And does it happen to women as infrequently as we think it does? As with the stereotype, I will admit that it happen to me very rarely. But sometimes, one rare occasion, it definitely does happen.

Festival signups and Titus build

Both of my games at Festival, The Stand and Paranoia, have now filled. The Stand will be interesting because this time it seemed I was getting a lot of female players, so in order to accommodate them I opened up a few neutral slots. Now I have thirteen men and twelve women to play seventeen male and nine female characters, which is more skewed to the female than either of the previous runs were. If any of these lovely ladies are willing to be cross cast that will make everything a snap, but if not enough of them are, I will have to consider what currently male characters I can gender swap. Given the setting and historical time period, it's a pretty gendered game, and while there are plenty of people stepping outside of their proscribed roles, it's usually pretty significant to their plot. Still, that should actually be a fun and interesting challenge should the need arise. Festival looks to be a good con overall; it's a good roster of games at this point, and they're almost all completely full. Well done, ninja_report*, for making this happen!

Build for the current HTP show, Titus Andronicus, has begun. Though the show is still several weeks off, their unfortunately early performance dates mean there is no show in the theater before them, so they were able to move in and get started. I hope the extra time proves to be of benefit to them. I went by the last couple days to lend a hand here and there where I could. I really enjoy helping with build week. With work and school I spend so much time doing mental, sedentary work that my body craves a chance to pit itself against physical work of some kind. And It's not often that I get a chance to build things. Carpentry is one of the many things I'd love to learn if it weren't something that required a significant money and space investment, so it's nice to have an outlet every now and then to experience it. And I like the challenge to my body to do that kind of work.

Writing good literature as a good feminist

I want to bring my feminism into my writing. With this residency, as it was in the last, occasionally something comes up in texts that strikes me as unfeminist. In one fellow student's script, the main female character was leered at by literally every male character in the story. I found this to be an unfair portrayal of men and gratuitously sexualizing to the woman. I could say "I think you overdid it with the leering, it feels unrealistic," because that's a critique of the writing. But because we're not here to judge the social responsibility of the script, it would not have been appropriate for me to say, "I think this is an unfeminist portrayal."

Still, I do actually feel that stronger, more fully realized characterization will necessarily be feminist. So I have a responsibility to myself to monitor my writing for it. Now, I would not say that just because a piece is not Specifically Feminist that makes it Unfeminist. Sometimes the story you need to tell is not going to have those markers we are encouraged to look for As Proof of Feminist Sensibility-- an easy example would be passing the Bechdel Test --just as a matter of course. Doesn't mean it takes place in an unegalitarian world, or is evidence of unegalitarian thought. In an ideal world, we'd all be so feminist that you could just choose in a vacuum what to include and it would always come purely from the demands of the story; respect for people of all genders would be taken for granted. But sometimes this comes about because we are conditioned to not think to include those things, so at times we need to make efforts to be mindful.

So I should make efforts. In Just So, for example, the two fussy, pretentious main characters were modeled off Frasier and Niles Crane, so my first instinct was to make them men. But it occurred to me almost immediately that there was literally zero reason why they had to be. And I've resolved to myself to not just go with male characters by default (as many of us are often inclined), so in a case where it mattered so little I decided to take the opportunity to switch. Now I personally think they're much funnier as middle-aged, out-of-touch society woman than they would be as anything else. Now I have an interesting, unusual piece to my credit-- something funny, with women, where the characters' genders mattered so little that, hey, if you wanted to have them played as men, you totally could. Bechdel would be proud. ;-)

As a side note, during the in-class workshop on a whim I chose two male classmates as my readers. They "played" them as women but didn't affect themselves in any way. It pleased me how smoothly it worked. It also struck me that they would probably be hilarious as drag roles. I love the notion that you could play my little show so many different ways-- straight up, as two middle-aged ladies, gendered-swapped as equally stuffy, pretentious middle-aged men, or dragged with two male actors dressed up as women. Maybe I should add an author's note to that effect. :-)

Of course, sometimes I screw up. Fallen, a piece that has a lot of personal significance to me and one I hope I get to work on in my scifi/fantasy independent study this semester, has a pretty blatant example of what some refer to as "manpain," when a female character suffers and the truly important emotional response for the story's trajectory is not from her but from a male character who cares about her. Perhaps what falls under "Women in Refrigerators" Syndrome in it, when a female character undergoes trauma specifically in order to facilitate the emotional journey of the male character.

But being aware of it, I can work to subvert it. I can acknowledge the unfairness of such a situation. Now, Gabriel is my main character, his reaction IS most important to the story I want to tell, but that doesn't mean I should make Rachel into a less complete being by denying her a reaction to her own suffering. I can make her feelings, her journey because of this terrible thing happening TO HER, important as well. It can be about her too, not just what it does and leads to for my male protagonist. In being mindful about what our storytelling choices can mean, we can tell the stories we want to tell in a way that allows feminism to keep our characters fully realized.

Musings on beauty standards across the genders

 
This piece is a little disjointed, and doesn't really make a strong point, but here's a little bit of feminist rambling that's been in my head recently.A huge part of gender inequality is when there is an expectation of one gender that there isn't of another. For example, in this country there is much more social pressure on women to be physically beautiful in order to be valuable than there is on men, and the standards a woman must meet in order to be considered beautiful are much stricter than any set for men. This inequality troubles me, but I think I'm even more bothered by wondering whether or not I perpetuate it.

Though it's by no means a firm rule, to a large extent I buy into the purported female beauty standard. Thought not sexually drawn to women myself, I tend to most enjoy looking at those women who conform to it, and I certainly strive to cultivate it in myself. But in the men I'm attracted to, there is way, way less of a pattern. I may be able to say I tend to find women most beautiful when they're sleekly-built and delicate-featured, but even if I described what I might think of as my male beauty ideal-- strong-built, traditionally masculine, features on the broader and squarer side --that has hardly defined what men I ended up feeling attracted to. Hell, I can name features I actively don't like that I have not minded and not seen as a detraction in the slightest on certain men.

It bugs me that in feeling this way I might be holding women to a higher, more difficult standard than men. Sure, part of it may be that I like a dichotomy. I like women one way and I like men another; I tend to not, for example, like excessively delicate features on men whereas I might fine the same pretty on a woman. I guess when you like a dichotomy you can't expect that the same standards could apply to both. But it bothers me that some of those things that I like in women require a lot more work of than the things I like in men. Body hair removal, for example. I despise body hair on myself. But on men, well, even if I don't specifically like it, I guess it doesn't really bother me. On the other hand, even if we say I like thin women and muscular men, and that still usually involves extra effort and work put in to their appearence since they probably don't look that way naturally. In that sense the standard and expectation is the same. But a man who is a little bit chunky gets a lot less criticism for it than a woman who might be the same amount chunky. Again I, and the rest of society, tend to make the man's beauty a nice bonus to gettting the Attractiveness status while the women's beauty is a requirement for it.

I remember back during the height of The Sopranos' popularity that James Gandalfini, the actor who played the boss main character Tony Soprano, became an extremely mainstream sex symbol. I was quite shocked. Can you possibly imagine this happening with a middle-aged, overweight, not-conventionally-attractive woman? Not in a million years. The handful of female sex symbols who've held that status into their forties and beyond were the ones that kept their figures and didn't look their age. Of course, nobody said James Gandalfini was beautiful. They just thought he was sexy because of his attitude, his bearing, any number of intangible things that women latched onto. Because in our society, it's a hell of a lot easier for men to be unbeautiful and still attain that status than it is when you're a woman.

Sometimes I think that if I were a straight man I'd be an awful one. Assuming in that case I'd be attracted to the same sort of things I find beautiful in myself, my notions of feminine beauty would be pretty unfairly demanding. I wouldn't be able to keep a girlfriend because I'd probably make her feel awful about herself. "Sure, honey, of course you could stand to lose a few pounds. Wait, where you going?" "Hmm, been a couple days since you shaved, huh? Hey, come back!" It's not quite so bad if I'm just applying exacting criticism to myself, but I think I'd be disgusted with myself if I insisted on it from anyone else. Especially since I don't have nearly as exacting standards for attractiveness in men. Yeah, he might have this feature I'm not objectively into, or something that's obviously less than my ideal notion of attractiveness, but it doesn't really affect the fact that I am attracted to him anyway. With women, though, I'm much more likely to fixate on little imperfections.

I remember having a conversation with morethings5* (one of my best feminism-talking buddies) once about how critical we could be about the appearances of people of our own gender, noticing all kinds of little flaws that could compromise an assessment of that person as "beautiful," and wondering if that tendency would remain constant if we were attracted to that gender. But he thought that if we switched genders, our critical targets would switch too; if I were a man, my harsher standard of beauty would apply to men, and I wouldn't need perfection to be attracted to a woman, while he would be the same with the opposite. His point being, I think, that attraction may be influenced by a lot of things, but we tend to be drawn to the whole rather than the sum of the parts.

I hope Jonathan is right. I hope that this doesn't mean I've actually really internalized that men are just fine as they are, but women need to conform to an extremely narrow beauty standard that they must go to great lengths to alter themselves to fit. I hope it's that when attractiveness is a personally relevant question on the table, you tend to answer yes or no, but when that's not an issue on the table you focus more on the parts because the whole has less impact on you.

I was out a little while ago with Steph and Chris Knight, and when the subject of male and female expectations of beauty came up in passing, Chris said something that I thought was a profoundly insightful way to conceptualize it. Basically, he said from his perspective men care about the broad strokes of a woman's appearence, and don't really pay attention to, or worry about, the details. They might want to see a woman with a particular nice shape, but they don't notice the small imperfect lumps and bumps. Or they might prefer a woman with shaved legs, but they don't notice a little stubble or a few missed hairs. The details aren't important, just the general effect.

I actually like thinking of it that way. I mean, you can make all the jokes you want bitching about how we pretty ourselves up for men in countless little ways and then they don't even have the presence of mind to notice it. But I like the notion that while there is a desire for us to be attractive, being just "attractive" is absolutely good enough, and we don't have to worry about being perfect. Because in the real world, perfect isn't a necessary component to being attractive. It makes the expectations less oppressive, because it eases the sense of demand laid on us. Pretty or attractive is attainable. Perfection is not, and in that paradigm the burden of the unattainable is not placed on us.

In case this doesn't go without saying, I don't feel like enjoying, or desiring, pretty is a bad thing. It shouldn't be the ONLY thing we enjoy or desire, but I think it's normal and acceptable thing to like. The problem comes in, in my opinion, when the value placed on pretty supercedes the value of other things that are more important, or becomes the sole indicator of value. And it's particularly troublesome to me when that not only happens but is applied to one gender but not the other. Hell, I am bothered especially by the notion that a Valuable Man must be smart, strong, brave, and good, while a Valuable Woman must be smart, strong, brave, good, and BEAUTIFUL.

See the relationship between Jaime and Brienne in A Song of Ice and Fire for a fantastically observantly-written example of this phenomenon in our culture. Brienne is AWED by Jaime, even though at first she thinks he's a monster, because he's an extremely beautiful man. Since our sensibilities state that men are not required to be beautiful in order to be Valuable, Jaime's beauty makes him seem ABOVE AND BEYOND even simple Valuable status; to her, he's almost superhuman. She regarded Renly, also a remarkably beautiful man, the same way. And Jaime, in turn, is fascinated by the extremity of Brienne's ugliness, because sensibilities dictate that for a woman to be Valuable she MUST be beautiful. To not only be not beautiful but to be downright UGLY makes her almost subhuman.

One thing I know makes me feel better is when the standards are the same regardless of gender, even if though standards might in themselves be high. I was messing around on the Internet looking idly for pictures of Chris Evans (shut up) and one thing struck me. Well, two things, the first of which being I am significantly less attracted to him when he's not Captain America. The second thing, though, was that in various pictures of him, it became clear that he normally has a fair bit of body hair. But for his role as Cap, they waxed his chest. I am a little bit embarrassed to confess that this possibility did not even occur it me, though it totally should have. *eye roll* But I found that to be an interesting moment of equalization for me. I am a lot less bothered by the idea that PEOPLE are considered prettier when they don't have body hair than when it's an expectation that is only applied to women. Again, it's fine to enjoy looking at pretty things, but what's good for the goose should be good for the gander. It's really not fair to say that women are only attractive one way while men can be attractive lots of different ways.

I would like my sensibilities to fall somewhere in the middle. That yeah, maybe we all do look better if we go to some lengths such as shaving or something like that, but even when we don't that doesn't mean we aren't still attractive, aren't still desirable-- both women and men. And maybe throw in there that if men can be desirable even if they're not pretty, then we need to expand that so that society starts to internalize that women can be too.

Courtship roles, reversed

Someday I want to write something that pointedly subverts all the male-female courtship tropes. I want to reverse all the things we tend to expect for people's behavior during the building of a romantic relationship, having the man inhabit the woman's traditional role and vice versa. And I want to do it in a way in which they both come off as otherwise totally normative examples of their gender. I'm not talking about writing a butch woman and a feminine man. I'm talking about two people who are in every way cisgendered and even "normal" for their gender, but do not conform to the traditionally assigned roles that people expect to be filled for two straight people in a romantic relationship, because these things come from society, not anything in our nature.

Once I had an idea for something in which the protagonist was a sort of knight-errant figure who devotedly served and fought to save the kindgom of the beautiful, virtuous royal they loved from afar, in sort of the kind of relationship that Link and Zelda have in the Legend of Zelda video games. Only in this version, the knight would be the woman, and the object of the courtly love would be a wise and beautiful prince. I love that idea. I'd like to explore the notion that our traditional courtship roles are one of the most artificially constructed aspect of our gender norms. There's so much that we've settled on as the model for how these things works. Who is the pursuer and who is the pursued. What qualities make which partner "attractive." The things we're expected to want out relationships. Et cetera. I want to mess with all of those tropes, show that they're external to our expression of our gender and it doesn't change who we are based on what expected behaviors we express.

"Man of the Theater"

I've always liked this image for some twisted reason. In a kinky way I like the bizarre way my body looks with the ace bandage crisscrossing my chest and changing my shape. It was taken by Jordi Goodman during Romeo and Juliet tech week, when I was playing Paris. Part of my pre-show ritual when playing men (which is often for me) is to walk around in just the ace bandage I use to bind down my breasts. It's hard to explain exactly what this does for me, but I guess it's a weird way of acknowledging my femininity and then dismissing it in order to fully take on the male persona I will be playing. For me, I think it's the exposed midriff contrasting with the rest of my appearence. I feel like my midriff is one of the most attractive parts of my body, so when it's exposed I feel like my normal feminine self. But when I'm bound up it's like I've put on a different skin, taken on a different shape, a male one that I want to settle into before I dress it in its costume. Though in my regular life I feel naturally traditionally feminine in most ways, and am pretty secure in that notion, I like sometimes stepping into masculine headspace. This is part of the way I transition into feeling more manly. A lot of girls can't play men because they don't like the implication that they can be unfeminine enough to make a believable man, but maybe this ritual is how I avoid that. You can see my sexy girl belly is still there, but the rest of me is different, reformed into something almost like a man.

There's something kinky about this image, something transgressive that appeals to me. I am fascinated by how flat I look here, strong flat stomach muscles beneath a flat bound-up chest, going down into hips flattened by the cut of my slacks. I also like the suggestion of constraint; not only is my chest bound, even the way I hold myself looks tightly contained and carefully controlled. I remember when I was in Love's Labor's Lost how fixated some of my castmates were on how uncomfortable it must have been; some seemed even slightly creeped out by it. To some apparently this is something kind of twisted. But to me, it's part of changing how I feel in order to feel like the different thing I'm trying to become. Maybe I like this image because of how it shows that process, of becoming that other thing. Maybe I like how different I look from how I normally see myself; I've always enjoyed becoming someone totally different from me. Or maybe it's that very juxtaposition I mentioned before, of constrained, reshaped torso and squared-off man trousers that I put on as markers of masculinity with my beloved midriff that I associate so strongly with appealing femininity. There's some complicated weirdness going on here, and I can't quite put my finger on what it is that appeals so much to me, but all I'm sure of is that something here I find very, very cool. Just out of curiosity, do I look at all masculine to anyone else's eye? Or do I just look like a skinny girl with an ace bandage around her chest?

I call this image "Man of the Theater." I like the pun of the title. I would be a man of the theater if I were a man, since I participate in the making of it. But also, I'm not really a man, so my being a man IS theater. And since I'm not really a man, it's only through the theater that I can be a man at all.

Perhaps sometime, if someone with any facility with a camera wants to, I'd like to reshoot this image a little more deliberately. Maybe do a series of myself in man pants, with my hair slicked, and my breasts flattened out by an ace bandage, where I actively try to look as masculine as possible that way. It might make an interesting study, as I'm so fascinated by the image it produces.

Hemingway's manufactured masculinity



This originally started out as a casual remark on Twitter, but I think long tweet chains are silly especially when you have a blog you are devoted to. So I am doing some of my reading for school, which right now is almost entirely ten-minute plays, when I see "Hills Like White Elephants," a short story by Ernest Hemingway has been included. You know my feelings on Hemingway by now, I assume, which I sum up with the pithy criticism that he reads like a drunken telegram. His prose always leaves me cold, though I guess somebody must enjoy it, and I dislike his cardboard-cutout-cookie-cutter main characters. I can understand why he is enjoyed, I suppose, though I don't really see why he has attained classic status. The only thing I can think of is that people have decided to accept Hemingway into the canon as one of the major bards of masculinity in a way few other writers do. I think he appealed to men struggling to feel masculine who used him as an interpreter, believing he explains what they're missing, supplying them both with a notion of a manly identity as well art that reflected it. But I really don't think that Hemingway really HAD a sense of what "true manhood" was, nor do I think he failed to recognize that. His work is his attempt to reconstruct masculinity, to figure out what it really was. The manhood represented in his work is an educated guess at best. But lots of men read it and, lacking their own sense of what masculinity was and the ability to evaluate the truth of Hemingway's portrayal, allowed the work to tell them what they thought was the answer to their question. They took Hemingway's word for it, unaware that he wasn't actually an authority.

I think my opinion of Hemingway's work is deeply influenced by the fact that I don't like his postulation on the nature of masculinity. I think he got it very, if not totally, wrong. I think his construction of manhood consists of taking his own problems like drinking too much and not being able to get along with any of his wives and calling them "manly things" to make them justifiable. Men want to be masculine, it's a good thing for men, so under this model he's not dysfunctional, he's just manly, which is what he is supposed to be. And I think that spoke to all the men who wanted to be real men but had those same stupid problems. They were happy to hear those problems weren't problem after all, just signs that they were real men. That's an over-generalization, of course, but I think there's something to it.

Propeller troupe's Richard III at the Huntington Theater

I went and saw Richard III last night at the Huntingdon Theater in a lovely trip organized by captainecchi*-- so glad she suggested it! In fact, you can read her impressions of the show here, which match up very much with mine, so much so I was tempted to just let her speak for me and agree with everything she wrote! But for posterity I am recording my own thoughts, given this show impressed me as much as any show I've ever seen.

The show was given the aesthetic of a Victorian insane asylum, and I don't need to tell you how creepy that can be, with the men in white masks, the primitive steel medial instruments, and the constant presence of sterile plastic and black body bags. It even seemed that at the imprisonment of Clarence he was given a partial lobotomy! There are many gorey murders in this play, with tons of stage blood and every onstage death committed in the most gruesome way possible-- drilling into a man's eyes, guts torn out with a hook, and a chainsaw dismemberment behind a plastic curtain that was sprayed with blood. Despite the potential over-the-topness of it, I actually liked it and thought it worked with the stark brutality and sociopathy of their Richard III.

The cut of the script was excellent, keeping the length and frequent dryness of a Shakespearean history down to a minimum and maintaining an engaging pace. The storyline was easy enough to follow, though I had read it before, and despite a handful of confusion regarding people's relationships, it kept remarkable clarity. If I ever were to put on Richard III, I would try to emulate this cut.

Interestingly, this was an all-male Shakespeare troupe. The acting was phenomenal across the board-- Richard Clothier as Richard III in particular with his powerful voice. But as one fequently cross-cast myself, I am always interested in how it's done. I thought it was notable that while the men playing women were dressed in period female costume and affected feminine carriage, they did not much attempt feminine voice, and they all had their normal masculine hair. That disconnect was a little jarring, but their acting was excellent, if representative rather than emulative. It also pleases me to see men effectively to play women, when I am so much more used to the other way around.

The tech was excellent, particularly the sound design; the effects were organic and expertly timed, plus the singing! The entire troupe sang to punctuate the drama and over the transitions, usually psalms or Victorian-sounding caroles and folk tunes. Their voices were exquisite, and it was incredibly atmospheric. I particularly enjoyed when they sang something in contrast to what was happening, like a merry folk song over somebody's brutal murder. There was even a minute when they rendered "Bloody, bloody England" as a kind of rap set to an electric guitar! Out of left field, certainly, but I kind of liked it anyway. :-)

This may have been the best Shakespearean production I've ever seen. I enjoyed it immensely, and now I want to see the Comedy of Errors this troupe is also putting on. Alas, it may be out of my price range, but I will look into it anyway.

The lean-in, roles reversed!

So, as I mentioned, thefarowl* came dressed to my party adorably attired in masculine costume in a black pinstripe suit with a fedora. Some fun photographs we were taking inspired me to get one shot in particular in order to create this contrast:

The first picture is of me as Paris, creepily doing the lean-in on Caitlin as Juliet. This second picture reverses our roles. The creepery-ness has come full circle. :-)

Random feminist grumblings

I am no longer as amused by Feminist Hulk as I was at first. The formula is pretty facile, and I've grown weary of the fill-in-the-blank messages of "HULK SMASH (insert reference to patriarchy, masculine hegemony, gender inequality, whatever)". How helpful, physically breaking down a concept with no physical manifestation. :-P Also, it conflates a lot of things-- veganism, genderqueer, alternative sexuality, nontraditional relationships, and all manner of hippy-dippy things --into the definition of feminism as if they were intrinsic parts, which I dislike. Adding all these unrelated conditions turns feminism into some kind of exclusive club that you can only join if you agree with all these leftist politics that don't even factor into it. Feminism is not a lifestyle, it is a simple straightforward belief. The only "thing feminists do" is believe in the inherent value equality between the genders.

By the same token, I must point out that it feminism and being pro-LBGTQ do not necessarily go hand in hand, nor, I feel, should one necessarily enter the definition of the other. While I certainly believe you should ALSO be pro-LBGTQ and it may be a related issue, it is not in fact the same issue, and I think that the simple, elegant, effective definition of feminism gets clouded enough without giving it corollaries.

Just fucking call yourself a feminist, already. I know many people who refuse to identify as feminists because they dislike the implications. But all it really means is belief in the inherent value equality between the genders! I know the word might kind of imply something different, but that just means more people need to be educated as to the real definition. GET YOURSELF EDUCATED ON IT ALREADY.


I am so tired of people for whom their desire to construct a feminist image for themselves obscures the point of feminism. While you are out there talking about sex toys and objecting to the word "pussy" as a derogative and all the other trappings of feminism you assume, you are not always remembering to act, in all ways, on the belief that there is an inherent value equality between the genders. THAT is all of feminism that matters. The minute you treat a man like he's less or bad because he's a man, or the minute you treat a woman like she's not responsible for her own choices and actions, you are failing in being the thing you are trying to wear the costume of.

I am all about personal responsibility. I believe being a capable, discerning agent of your own actions is part of being an independent and important member of society. Therefore, any notion of feminism that does not expect personal responsibility from women offends me deeply. Either we are adults who owe the same level of responsibility as any other adults, or we are children and cannot be held responsible. So, for example, if I don't want to have sex with someone, I need to SAY SO. Unless I am being forcibly held down and violated beyond my power to control, if I just allow someone to interact with me sexually in a way I do not desire, I am at fault for my own bad situation. The man's at fault too, if only because he should be able to tell when his partner is not into it. But if you're not giving him any indication, what, he was supposed to read your mind? The average man is not a rapist; he is almost certainly going to stop the minute you say something. If it is at all within your power, by not speaking up, YOU deny yourself that agency, NOT the other person in the equation. Be your own advocate, do not make yourself into the victim.

The fact that I am a woman does not need to factor into every decision I make about the way I live my life. I am a person first and a woman second. I swear, the way some of these people see the importance of my having a vagina, they want to reduce me to the sum of my girl bits more than the knuckle-dragging cavemen-types. My vagina is not the most important part of me. I am the most important part of me.

I don't like the Bechdel Test. It's got an interesting idea on it's face, ostensibly intended to encourage female characters who are more than just foils to masculine journey and activity. That I can get behind, but I find this particular presentation flawed. I believe it is possible for women to talk about men (who, we must not forget, are human beings as well) in ways that are not subservient to a male character's narrative, and in ways that contribute to her being a full and complex character. The implication that women just shouldn't talk about men at all because it means they are inherently subjugated in such contexts is offensive to me. Way to encourage the notion that men and women just never can get along in equality.

I also don't like the Vagina Monologues. I don't understand why it is the premier women's performance piece that gets done again and again; is there really nothing better out there? The misandry running rampant throughout it is pretty disgusting to me-- there are so many recollections of horrible things done by men to women, but very, very few depictions of positive, loving men in the speakers' lives. Also, "The Little Coochie-Snorcher That Could" is so offensive I cannot believe anyone puts up with it. That one portrays in a positive light the sexual predation of a young girl by an adult woman. Apparently it's okay if A WOMAN SEXUALLY ABUSES ANOTHER WOMAN, while if it had been a man the Monologues WOULD CRUCIFY HIM. Disgusting. Disgusting to glamorize sexual assault so long as the sexuality is lesbian. A screaming, sexist double-standard. Feminism is about equality, NOT superiority! Gah!

In short: stop being anti-man, stop shirking personal responsibility, stop corrupting the definition, stop wearing it's like it's a trendy outfit that makes you cool, stop thoughtlessly playing at empty girl-power games that accomplish nothing.

As a final note, I am sorry for how often violation of these notions causes me to scream, "AHHH NO WONDER MEN HATE YOU I HATE YOU AHHHH." It is flawed and unfair to assume that men generally hate women, and it is also not good for me to hate women. I acknowledge this. I will probably not stop doing it.

The last straight girl on Earth

Sometimes I feel like the last straight girl on Earth. As more and more of my nominally straight female friends decide that they're at least a little bit bi, I am continually blown away by how few girls I know have that aversion-to-physicality-with-women that I used to think was a hallmark of feminine heterosexuality. And while if this is your genuine setting I wish you Godspeed, but I must confess a slight irritation with how it ties into a certain kind of sexual politics that has always gotten on my nerves.

I've never been a big fan of the expectation that all girls are just a couple appletinis away from a picturesque lesbian encounter. It's almost become the norm that if you go to a certain kind of party that frequently happens on college campuses, chances are you're going to see at least one instance of non-gay girls making out. And when this happens, you're going to have at least some of the guys in attendance hanging nearby enjoying the view. And I find this kind of gross, for a number of reasons.

I guess it's not like it's really my business; people have a right to be into whatever they're into, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody else. I don't even have a problem with guys thinking girl-on-girl is hot. Hell, I think guy-on-guy is hot, so I certainly don't see anything weird or wrong with it. The thing that does bother me is the cultural standard that girls are becoming expected to feel and express some level of bisexuality, in which men are allowed to have pornographic interest, because that's the way men want it.

I guess if the girls are willing to do this stuff and allow it to be watched, who am I to tell them they shouldn't be doing it, but are all these girls really totally okay with interacting sexually with other girls while guys look on to be titillated? The fact that so few of these girls actually ever date other girls gives me a bit of pause, but that's not necessarily an indicator of attraction. Heh, I was REALLY attracted to a certain black-haired friend of Alain's, but that didn't mean I wanted to date him, after all. And I certainly think you're still responsible for your actions-- I don't care what kind of pressure is being laid on you, you have a responsibility to yourself to refuse to do anything sexual that you don't want. Nobody can make you do anything just by encouraging you. But I have a hard time believing that no desire for validation and to be considered desirable factor into it, which is incredibly repellent to me. Are none of the things the girls want being compromised?

And worse, it's never the other way around. Guys never make out for the viewing pleasure of girls. It's just not done-- straight guys are straight, God damn it, they don't go in for that fag stuff. It doesn't matter that maybe I'd like to get the chance to watch two guys who don't look either like twinks or like Tom of Finland models. And really, that's fine, but that girls don't get the same respect for the rigidity of their sexuality is not fine. It's a double standard, one I am very much not okay with.

Apparently emerging research suggests that while men's sexuality tends to be rigidly defined, women are more inclined to blurring whatever lines they fall between. In other words, men are more likely to be inflexibly attracted to one gender and one gender only, while women are more likely to feel some level of bisexuality. Of course these are just trends, and plenty of people don't conform to them. I invite you bisexual men out there to raise your hands with me as exceptions to the rule. But this kind of pisses me off because this emerging viewpoint validates that double standard. Yeah, maybe it is true, but I feel like that people will use that to say, "Well, it's okay for me to lay that expectation on girls because that's just what girls are like. But it's totally not okay to lay that expectation on guys, because guys aren't like that."

That is such phallocentric bullshit. I'm not normally the sort of feminist who wastes a lot of time railing against the patriarchy, but here's one case where I will gladly make an exception, because basically, all the standards and expectations are set up by men, for men. Men's sexuality is consider inviolate because men want it that way, and women's sexuality is considered flexible because men want it that way. I mean, talk about being a victim of the male gaze.

What this comes down to is, as a person with a rather rigid sexuality, I dislike that fact not being respected. Since if that rigidity were compromised it would be actively damaging to me, I dislike when its existence is dismissed with "Oh, all girls are a little bit bi." I want to be like, "No, fuck you. Why don't you go stick your tongue down some other guy's throat for my amusement instead?"

People of course should do what they want. Just because the number of girls who are okay touching each other seems to be going up doesn't change what is true about myself. And of course nobody can make me do anything I don't want to do, no matter what their assumptions or expectations might be. But that double standard gets under my skin, and unfortunately even genuine things that seem to support it are going to get under there as well.

My show postcard

One of the actors in our show is board member of the Gazebo Players, and has made up publicity postcards featuring all of us actors to send out to friends and family to get the word out. A pretty cool idea, I think. Here is mine:



A sneak preview of me as an indignant Longaville. I do in fact look like a boy there. A nerdy, scrawny little boy, but a boy nonetheless. Isn't the Navarre University shirt cool? Another girl in the show is one of the costumers, and she made it. Nice!

Rehearsal weekend over

Weekend of rehearsal is concluded. Things went rather well; we seem to be in a pretty good place with the show, and with the exception of that one goddamn line that I always psych myself out of remembering, I feel like I'm fairly ready. The other day I hit the thrift store, dropped off a big bag of unwanted clothes, and picked up a pair of khakhi cargo pants just baggy enough to look boyish to wear as my costume. The fact that they're a little too big hides some of my feminine definition, but I discovered necessitates the wearing of a belt to not slide below my knobby hipbones. I also broke out the chest binding for the first time in this role. As usual, reactions ranged from people impressed by the fact that I was willing to do it to weirded out by how kinky and uncomfortable it looked.

As some of you know from doing shows with me in the past, I have a odd little tendency to walk around in just the binding before getting into costume. I did this today, and because I was not sure how my fellows in the show, few of whom really know me, would react to it, I was thinking about this today. I didn't experience any real negative reaction, but I did wonder if anyone thought it was strange. I'm not totally sure why I feel the desire to do it, though I think it's complicated. For some reason it relaxes me to lose that outer layer of clothing, so it's become my custom before a play even when I'm not bound. I am proud of how attractive my midriff is, so I'm sure the way exposing it makes me feel about myself gives me a sense of positivity before a show. I think i also like the notion of how before I put on my character I have to stop being Phoebe and start being an empty canvas on which to paint the character. Costumes have always helped me get into character, so the total lack of any kind of costume over the binding I think helps me part with myself and become clear to assert the new personality. There's probably a dash of a need to assert my true femininity before putting on my masculine character; this is not a huge issue for me, but I think this small gesture helps keep it that way. It's an odd little issue of mine, but for the first time I felt compelled to analyze my need for this weird little ritual. Because of the drive, I had to strap down really far in advance, and my ribs were starting to ache by the time the show ended. That was a bit surprising-- normally my breasts themselves are what gets sore, but this time it was definitely my ribs. Will have to work out a way to cut down the time I will have to spend bound up. Still, it's good to know that I'm pretty much totally in order to go on this coming weekend.

Have gathered a fairly good crowd for the planned picnic before the show on Sunday the 24th. Though certain people will be sadly missed, a nice group is amassing that I am very glad will spend the time with me. If you decide you'd like to come with us, just drop me a line and I will be happy to include you in the plans.

I did manage to get to oakenguy's show yesterday. I was kindly accomplanied by my beloved in_water_writ, and I'm very glad I made it. I liked every piece or different reasons, and had the extremely rare experience for me of being impressed with the ability of every single actor involved. Brian was as fun and funny as I expected he'd be, and I must certainly be sure to get out to any future shows of his, so that I may see more of him onstage! I certainly recommend anyone who enjoys Shakespeare and Shakespeare-related material (not to mention Brian!), as I certainly do, to go out to Somerville and catch this show. Afterward Jenn and I had a lovely time hanging out at chatting at J.P. Lick's, concluding a long day with a very pleasant evening.

Kindness's female characters

I love the ease with which Morethings5 acts his female characters. I'm watching the Four-Color Supers game right now and Kindness's guest star character just made her debut. He does it so smoothly and unaffectedly, without turning it into an absurdity. He also plays Gwen in my Burn Notice campaign to excellent and believable effect. It's rare for a man to be able to assume a female persona without it coming off as silly or unnatural the way he does. I like that he never feels like he has to do a voice or put on some elaborate "female air;" he just plays them as people. He's also remarkably unself-conscious about it and I always admire that level of security. I wish more guys weren't so damn terrified of coming off as effeminate or unmanly if they stretched like that. It's a testament to his acting ability that he can make it work so smoothly.

Pondering porn

Not exactly sure what got me thinking about this, but I found myself pondering my feelings about porn, and since they turned rather analytical, I thought I'd codify them in a journal entry. I didn't intend for this to be the behemoth it turned into, but once I got started I found a lot of ground I wanted to cover. This is mostly about the issues porn raises for women, though I have tried to give fair examination to both the masculine and feminine perspectives on them. It occurs to me that I have mostly neglected the straight female use of porn in favor of the straight male use of it. I'm addressing the feminism of visual porn specifically, of which men tend to be the viewers and women the viewed, so this is the relationship I am analyzing. But I don't believe in double standards, so if I establish a rule for one, that means I believe the other must obey it as well. This entry gets a little, well, frank in spots, so if you'd rather not discuss such things, please read no further.

As a woman, as a feminist, and as a user of porn, where do I stand in all of this? As I've mentioned before in this rant of an entry, the biggest problem I have personally with it is the assumption that straight women aren't interested in it and therefore nobody produces decent porn aimed at straight women, or if they do it's all on ABSURDLY EXPENSIVE pay sites that I am not going to shell out for. Guy-on-guy is more readily available (again because it's aimed at men) and that's all well and good, but mostly I just want a hot guy and a hot girl with the focus on the guy. I maintain that if there actually existed more porn that they'd enjoy, more women would get into it, but as things stand right now, I'm most restricted to the written-word stuff. Which works just fine, I'd just like the option is all.

The issue that I want to examine now though is the frequent perspective held by feminists that porn is damaging to women, both those who are in it and by extension all females in general. The assumption here is that porn is filled with desperate women who feel they have no other option being taken advantage of for the sake of making films that are dehumanizing and objectifying their gender as a whole. This assumption is not just held by women, either. I spoke to a friend once who said that, while he did use some porn, he still had a hard time shaking the guilt of the concern that the girls on camera were being degraded and taken advantage of by the process. Is that really the case, that this is not simply a somewhat unorthodox career choice? Are in fact most of these girls actually low-self-esteem sheep who are being caused real damage by their participation?

I'm not sure, but I am inclined to think not. Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, but in this day and age, I'm inclined to believe that probably the majority of them do it because they want to. Not to say there cannot be some other negative factor-- sexual abuse in childhood or thinking she's not smart enough to do anything else --weakening her ability to take positive control of her own destiny. But I want to make it very clear that I feel that an integral part of feminism is that women, as valuable, capable human beings, must be accountable for their actions. If we don't want to be treated like we're helpless or weak, we must not abdicate the responsibilities that come with the rights to live as independent agents of our own lives. That means that not only do we make choices for ourselves, but also that it is not acceptable to blame other people if that choice is a bad one. Perhaps there are reasons why we made the bad one, but ultimately, the choice lay with us. To say otherwise is to reduce a woman to the level of a child, or of the second-class citizen that women have been relegated to in the past. That I find profoundly unfeminist.

And it's not like it couldn't seem like anything other than a bad choice to be taken only by the desperate. Make no mistake, there are certainly reasons to want to do porn. Whether or not you find participating in the making of pornography utterly distasteful or not, you must admit there are a number of thing about it that have an undeniable appeal. I don't know much about the economics of porn, but assuming it's something you are willing to do, I'd bet the money's pretty good for the nature of the work. You don't need a college degree, you don't need any special skills except those that anyone can develop with practice, you probably only work a few hours a day. If you can make a nice living off having sex on camera, you might be able to pay off those student loans, or not have to spend lousy hours on your feet all day waiting tables or working retail. And, of course, let's not forget the validation factor.

Honestly, well... I can understand that better than anything else. It feels good to be know that people find you attractive and desireable-- and the idea that people find you attractive and desireable enough to pay you to display that attractiveness and desireablity, well, who can't see the validation in that? Also, sex and beauty are powerful. When you're the girl that everybody wants, it gives you a kind of value that other people around you might not necessarily have. The appeal of that validation and power are intense; I know, I'm affected by it myself. The small amount of modeling I've done, basically being compensated because I am beautiful, speaks to that instinct in me. Something I've always kind of wanted to do was some kind of sexy pre-show striptease act before a campus performance of Rocky Horror. The idea of the attention, admiration, and, let's face it, the chance to turn every guy on and (every girl green ;-)) in the audience really appealed to me. I never did it, partially because Rocky ended and partially because Jared understandably wasn't quite comfortable with the idea, but I wanted to, and I still do. So I can definitely understand a girl doing something like going into porn because it she liked the way it made her feel desirable and powerful. Crudely put, nobody jerks off to girls they don't find attractive. So there are certainly, at least to me, very compelling reasons why one would willingly get into porn.

Of course, there are equally valid reasons NOT to, and God knows I personally find them even more compelling. I may want to do a show at Rocky, but I would never actually do anything actually pornographic. Though I take for granted in this piece that porn is not inherently morally repugnant, sexual knowledge of me is a privilege reserved to the very, very few who are worthy of it, not a commodity to be bought and indulged in at leisure by anyone at all. That is too important to me. But could it be that that's simply where the dividing line lies? Is the fact that I see the appeal of but wouldn't actually do porn the difference between someone with healthy self-esteem and girls who actually are willing to have sex on camera?

So that begs the question-- if I don't do it as a matter of self-respect, does that mean that the girls who do aren't respecting themselves? Does the fact that I find porn to be something that I would never, ever do for the sake of my personal dignity make it so that I find those who are willing to do it automatically less dignified, and therefore less worthy of my respect? And if it's not so much a choice but a feeling of having no other option for whatever reason, does the fact that porn exists mean those who don't have much self-respect to begin with get put in an even worse position?

I have pondered these questions, and I have arrived at the conclusion that personally I don't believe just because you wouldn't do something yourself means you think someone else is less for doing it. Doing porn is not for me. Neither is polyamory, Islam, or allowing myself to become larger than a size zero. Not to imply that all those things are on a level, they're just what popped into my head, but the point is it's not that I think those things are bad; they just don't work for me. Does the personal rejection of an idea necessarily mean you don't respect it, or at least not think it's not okay if someone else accepts it as part of the way they live their life? No, I don't think porn is classy, I don't think anybody thinks that, but class isn't the sole indicator of worth in the world. I don't think Ikea furniture or not cleaning your bathroom often enough are classy either. Do these things make you a less valuable human being? I don't believe they do, and I don't believe just because I would never do it doesn't mean I automatically devalue those who do.

As for whether or not porn's existence facilitates taking advantage of girls with less self-respect... yes, I suppose it is very likely that at least some girls get into because they lack the self-esteem to keep them out of it. But again, I believe that women must be held responsible for their choices. Self-esteem issues are unfortunate and deserve sympathy, but you are the only one who can do anything about them, and if you don't, you are still not excused from the responsibility to run your own life. It is not the fault of the viewer, who is in all likelihood just looking for something sexy to help him get off, if you're doing something to hurt yourself for all the wrong reasons. I don't believe enjoying the feeling of being turned on by sexy images makes anyone anything other than perfectly human. To me, it's like saying knives shouldn't exist because people might use them to hurt themselves.

Also, I notice nobody ever wonders if the men in porn were sexually abused or have low-self-esteem. Why is it so much more likely for a woman to only be there because she was coerced by some factor, while a man could only be in it because he wanted to? I think we tend to see men as sexual to the point where having any kind of sex at all is a positive for them, one that outweighs any possible side effects. Men can use sex to feel better about themselves too, as well as make bad sexual choices based off of other emotional needs. Men and women are different but they're not that different; maybe MORE women are succeptible to these issues, but if women are at all, that means men can be too. Nobody worries about what being in porn does to male porn stars and I don't know if that's fair. It makes me wonder about the basis for so many of these concerns-- Reports? Statistics? Evidence? --or if at least some of it stems from that notion that the patriarchy is of course willing to do subject women to anything to satisfy their sexual urges. As usual, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle-- some women and some men get into porn because of their negative issues, and other men and other women do it because they want to.

So I suppose I feel that if you do porn, the choice to do so is ultimately your own. But that is not to say I think the user bears no responsibility to behave correctly in this situation. I believe that if you use porn, you've surrendered your right to make value judgments on it. It's biting the hand that feeds you-- it doesn't sound pretty, but frankly, I'm glad there are some people who don't have the hangups that I do, because if nobody was willing to do porn, then I'd have no porn to watch. It reminds me of how I sometimes get teased for the revealing way I dress by boys who like looking at my body. It drives me crazy to be treated negatively for doing something that they enjoy! It's completely unfair, and I think to myself, well, if I'm going to get mistreated for it, maybe I should stop doing it! Also, it seems to say an awful lot about you that you're involving yourself with something you find so base as to warrant your condemnation. If you're going to dismiss the girl you're jerking off to as a whore, what does it make you, the person who's jerking off to the whore? What makes you any better for wanting her to do something that makes her so bad?

Now, I'm just saying this is wrong, not that that nobody ever does it-- plenty of lousy people are happy to stroke off to those they see as having no more value than chunks of meat. But I see this as a problem of the person using it, not as an inherent aspect of porn itself. I really don't think the average porn user forms any opinions about the specific woman he's looking at beyond "You are hot enough to masturbate to," or about women in general. The process is not deep; find suitable material, use suitable material, induce orgasm, move on with life. Christ, at least that's the way it is for me. And I refuse to accept the whole "But you're a woman and you don't have that problem of objectifying like that." Come off it. I use porn for the exact same reason guys do-- to help me get off. I am not any more evolved than they are.

In relation to this a lot of people also raise the issue of whether or not porn teaches men to disrespect women. Does the fact that in porn women are basically displaying themselves on camera for the express purpose of getting off a male audience necessarily result in objectification and dehumanization of the woman? I guess the argument here is that it casts women in the light of being nothing more than the objects of men's sexuality. I wonder if this comes from that outdated notion that using porn is the indulgence of creepy, socially stunted men who don't have any actual interactions with women and so don't learn anything about them as real people, from back when we pretended that not everyone masturbates. First of all, most men use some kind of porn, and a lot of women too. I feel like if you have interactions with actual women, you learn that they ARE people as a matter of course, and good upbringing is to show them respect. I feel like if you develop that, as pretty much every normal person does, porn has no power to negate it. Again, probably MOST men use porn-- does every man in your life have a block against respecting women? Of course not.

I guess you could point out that some porn is made specifically to cater to that misogynistic audience, but again, I think that's more because some people have the problem of misogyny. They also make all kinds of other media, including the completely non-sexual, that projects a negative view of women as well. Just as you pick your other forms of entertainment based on the kind of content you want to see, so do you pick your explicit material. Some people get off on pretty people having wild consensual sex. Other people get off on the degradation of women. Porn exists for both. Just as some people like sci fi and other people like realistic fiction, books, movies, and TV exist for both. This is not a matter of what is inherent to the nature of the medium-- this is a matter of what the consumer looks for. And Christ knows porn is an excellent example of how, if somebody's willing to pay for it, somebody else is willing to make it. Both nice guys and jerks watch TV shows, and both nice guys and jerks read porn.

Related to this concept is the worry of whether, through the omnipresent use of porn in our culture, men are being trained to want things that might not be healthy under the influence of the standards of porn, while the concern for women is whether they're internalizing the need to be an unhealthy pornographic ideal in order to be sexy. They say that women are made to feel bad by men that want them to look and act in these impossible ways that they see in porn, and when they either can't or don't want to, it both makes them feel less desirable and enjoy sex less. That is an unacceptable state of affairs, that I won't argue with. And certainly this is something that does happen. The trouble with this view, however, is that as an unfair byproduct it also demonizes sexuality that might not necessarily deserve it. There's this accusation that if you do enjoy certain things-- and I feel this gets leveled at men more often than women, but since I've experienced it myself I know it can go both ways --you've been conditioned by our porn-saturated culture to indulge misogynistic, phallocentric sexuality, and you're wrong for it.

I really resent this idea of presuming to tell people what is and isn't okay about their sexuality. Real sex, as in, sex that you are having with another person as opposed to watching on your screen, is an intimate act. What is and isn't okay is to be defined by the people involved, not by any external and unrelated standard. And that goes both ways. No, you shouldn't have to have an impossibly enormous rack and tiny waist in order to be sexy, or pretend to enjoy sex acts that you find frankly painful, much less orgasmic. But if you're a woman who gets turned on by getting called "slut" and "whore" by a man who loves you utterly, or playing submission games with him, are you simply expressing your sexuality in a way that pleases both of you, or are you both just products of the misogynist sexual culture that porn allegedly gives rise to? I hate that question because it's makes your private business with your significant other a matter for standards external to you to decide, rather than yourselves alone.

There's a guilt issue here-- if you're a man who likes a very mainstream standard of female beauty, or is turned on by the stylized version of sexuality in porn, you're made to feel like a bad person for it. If you're a woman, you get it both ways-- you feel like you're not attractive enough for the ways you don't conform to that pornographic standard, and you feel like a bad feminist for the ways you do. Are these fair? Can a man help what he's attracted to, as long as he doesn't disregard the feelings of any woman he's with? Should a woman have to be something, anything, she's not because some external force decided that's what she should be? These guilty feelings are dangerous because they lead to people developing complexes over things that needed healthy expression.

True sexual liberation in my opinion is women deciding for themselves what they want in the bedroom. You shouldn't be having sex with a man who doesn't respect you, but you should be able to decide for yourself what that means. You're in charge of your own sexual destiny. If he gets off calling you "slut" but you don't? Ask him to stop. If he wants to throw your legs back and pound you but it hurts? Ask him to stop. He's not a bad person for wanting these things; he's only a dick if you ask him to stop and he doesn't, and you shouldn't be fucking a man who doesn't care about your feelings. But if you do like and want those things, neither you nor your partner should have to feel like you're dirty or wrong for it.

My foremost experience of this was the time I once got into it with a female acquaintance about what she called "pornocratic sexuality." She was extremely sensitive to the notion that pornographic standards are unfairly applied to women, feeling like women became obligated to do things they didn't want to in order to be attractive to the unrealistic preferences of their men. One of the thigns she cited as an example was shaving one's pubic hair, declaring it infantalizing, unreasonable, and denigrating to the nature of the female body. My response was that this was an over-generalization; why couldn't a woman actively prefer herself that way; why would it have to just be to please a man? "That never happens," she declared, and I started to get irritated. So I told her that I shaved everything below the waste, and I'd been doing so for years. Now this isn't something I should bring up often, but I'm certainly not ashamed of it. She basically said I was pandering to a misogynistic pornographic ideal, which demonstrated how insidiously the "pornocracy" influenced us that I could be affected that way and not even know it. That really offended me. Like I couldn't possibly simply happen to like myself better this way? The blunt fact of the matter is I think bush is kind of unattractive on a girl and I feel much sexier without it. I understand the notion of how that kind of thinking can lead women to seeing their bodies as unacceptable and disgusting for being something that is completely normal, which of course is extremely unhealthy and dangerous. But I do it because I want to. This isn't about pleasing the porn-addled expectations of a man, though I won't lie and say I'm not pleased when it does. If you don't want to shave, then by God you shouldn't. I don't think anyone should have to do anything so trivial if they don't want to. But this is something that makes me feel good about myself, and nobody gets to tell me I'm unfeminist for doing what I want to do with my own body.

Also? If a guy honestly thinks, "Well, I like you just the way you are, but I'd probably like you better without a bush"? There's nothing wrong with that. It doesn't mean he finds you unattractive, or that he doesn't respect you. It's just the way things are. I'm sure you like him the way he is even you might like him a little better if he had rock-hard abs. It doesn't mean he's a misogynist monster, and it doesn't mean that you're not a sexy woman.

I've also heard this tied into the idea that porn creates unrealistic concepts of sex in the minds of the viewers. This one makes me roll my eyes, because this is overwhelmingly the problem of the viewer, not the material they're viewing. You should learn at a very young age that you can't believe everything you see on television, from how wrestling is fake to that models are airbrushed to the fact that it usually takes a little more than a good jackhammering to get a girl to come. Again, not to say that nobody ever does this, and that it's not incredibly stupid-- Christ knows I get irritated at people with the assumption that with every chick is two drinks away from a makeout session with her girl friend over there --but a guy is a moron if he gets his ideas about life from porno. I think there's a little bit of that old idea at work here again that only maladjusted bozos that can't get laid look at porn, which I guess I can understand if the bozo at hand has never had any actual sex, but again, normal people use the stuff too, and I believe it isn't too much to ask from humanity as a whole to know how to distinguish fantasy from reality.

See, I think a lot of this comes down to the fact that for me, porn for me is fantasy. It's indulging in a little make-believe sexual scenario and using it to get off when you masturbate. I don't think it's wrong for people in relationships to use porn, probably because it's not real. It's the same as indulging in a little sexual fantasy in your head of something you're not actually going to do. I'm never ever going to make out with another girl, so if that's what he wants to see, well, there's porn for that. Chances are my boyfriend isn't going to have the flawlessly cut abs that I love so very, very much. Does it make me a bad person for enjoying said abs? No, it does not. For that I'll go to porn. It's not that the people in the relationships are unsatisfied with each other. It's just masturbation, which everyone does and in the right moderation is perfectly healthy. If he stops fucking you and only uses porn, well, he's got a much bigger problem than liking girls with big racks, the same way he would with any addiction. So many of the problems people associate with porn I believe are not inherent to it, but come from the misuse of it, or the way it makes people express issues that they have.

So, my conclusions-- I do not find porn inherently degrading to women, or to men for that matter. The decision to make porn is a choice. I do not believe it is acceptable to look down on those who make the porn you use. I believe that men can use porn and completely respect women at the same time, and if they do not, the problem most likely lies within the man and is not the result of porn use. I believe it is up to the individual to determine what sort of sexuality is acceptable to them, and it is not anyone else's place to make that judgment. Porn is fantasy and the indulgence of the desire to get off.

So that, in probably way too much detail and far too many words, is how I feel on the subject of porn. Again, maybe I'm giving too much credit here, (such credit as that is) but I tend to think the complete thought process on the issue from beginning to end is, "That girl is hot. I want to see her naked and have an orgasm." I know that's my thought process. Only for me it's a guy. :-)