(Background: Psychology references, anyone? Going on the assumption that people do not generally read ahead in textbooks for fun--Erikson categorized human life and success into 8 stages, each with a question to answer and a challenge to overcome, in the form of [good trait] vs. [bad trait] to be added to the personality based on whether or not said challenge was met.
Ages 13-21 are based on Identity vs. Role Confusion. What's interesting about the question ("who am I?"/"what can I be?") is that's it's arguably the most philosophical and the the only non-yes-or-no question of all the stages. This is why teen angst is a thing, methinks. But anyway, the main issues include developing a stance on politics and sexual identity. I'm going to muse a bit on the latter.)
Okay, so, just generally, gender is a socially constructed concept and I personally think the gender binary is kind of bullshit, and I regret that inserting phrases like "socially constructed concept" and "gender binary" makes my point inevitably sound a little (or a lot, judge as you will) pretentious.
I don't particularly know if I'm exactly straight. I don't know if I'm bisexual, either. I don't know if I'm pansexual or just lonely or what. The reason this is a difficult question to assess is because, of course, I have had no experience with. . . anything. Like, should a female human with a pulse and in my general age range express a desire to spend time with me in an even vaguely romantic context, and I felt a reciprocal such desire, I wouldn't refuse. (As in heterosexual relationships. Why should I limit myself to strictly dating people based on the compatibility of our genitals? Why should anybody? No one is attracted to everyone of the opposite sex, no one is attracted to everyone of the same sex. I don't know. I'll stop my filthy hippie ideology for now.) How much of this is my desire to be wanted, and how much is my rejection of conventional sexuality? Ehh, some and some. I will freely acknowledge the attractiveness in people, and since attractiveness is subjective, it can be said that I find select females attractive. But do I want to be Emma Watson (as an example) or know her or date or her or crawl into bed with her? It's quite a spectrum. I've been speaking in hypotheticals for most of the last paragraph, anyway.
I also think I might be a transvestite. (Play this song at your leisure. ;))* I've never tried it because there are no suitable male clothes lying around my house. Basically I dress like this. I don't aspire to dress like a male version of this (which wouldn't be hard), but in terms of formal wear, I'd much prefer wearing this** to, say, this. Matter of preference, etc. I don't want to literally be a man or even pass as one, but suits are both more aesthetically pleasing and confidence-boosting to me than other forms of clothing. I realize that the dress in that last picture isn't even what some people would classify as formal, except maybe for the fact that it's black. Some girls wear dresses to school all the time; I consider myself overdressed for my mandatory job of learning if I'm wearing black pants that day.
This is a bit more personal than my usual blogs lately (because I've barely been blogging, whoops), but I guess I've done it so this will be out on the interwebs, and maybe someone using Google to try and define their identity will find this and know there's someone in the same boat.
Footnotes:
* Also featuring about half a minute of sheer gems of dialogue. This isn't the junior chamber of commerce, Brad!
** Ahem, minus the gun. I'm using iStockPhoto, cut me some slack.
3 comments:
a) To preface, sorry for not commenting on any blogs in the past month? Geeze. It's kind of gotten to the point where I'm slightly ashamed to go on this blog because I've been neglecting it so much. But I'm about to go and comment on all the January posts (which I HAVE read, just not responded to), so watch out for those, also.
b) In regard to defining yourself... okay, I know this is, like, the most oft-used response ever, but I think that you shouldn't worry about defining yourself under specific labels. Easier said than done, and I know some people feel that self-defined labels (regarding sexuality, gender, whatever) are really useful, so that's great if they're useful to you, but otherwise... why worry? Wear what you want. If you ever get to the point where you're like "Oh hey I have just realized that I identify as _____" then awesome, but if not, then also awesome. You know?
c) Regarding sexuality and also point b, personally I don't feel the need to define myself right now. All I know is that I really, really like this one guy in particular, and that's all I need to know right now. If I feel differently in the future, fine, but for right now I sort of feel like all I care about regarding sexuality is this one person, and I don't feel like I need to think about anything else right now. You know? IDEK just throwing my feelings out there to see if you can relate I suppose.
d) If none of this has been helpful, feel free to keep posting your feelings until you figure it all out. Or keep posting your feelings after you figure it all out. Do what you want, I'll support you (unless it's something like murder? In which case I will probs disapprove)
e) lol istock photos
:)
This is quite applicable to me at the moment but I'm not sure exactly what to comment on.
I find that I like to keep my labels loose so they don't start to restrain me. I want to be flexible and I want to believe I can change so writing in permanent marker across my forehead the way I feel about and see myself at this present point in time doesn't seem overly productive.
On the other side of that, I know how empowering labels can feel. While I don't want to be judged and defined solely by a handful of words that I choose, I also think it's good to have a couple ideas in the back of my mind that make up who I am. If I don't have that, I can get really lost and confused and I'm already dealing with enough identity crises-y stuff.
In regard to my sexuality specifically, I saw myself as pretty much straight until I didn't, if that makes any sense. These days I don't have a definitive stance on what's going on... there. Queer? Gender-blind? Bi? I'm still experimenting with the terminology but it's not really a focus for me.
I guess I'm where Vita explains she's at in point c). (having a difficult time typing this next sentence for reasons I don't want to analyse) I have a girlfriend whom I'm attracted to and in love with and that's what I'm sure of and it's enough. For the present.
:) Thanks for writing this post, Rena. It's valuable and useful and I appreciate you for being arguably brave and sharing.
^ "Protip: If you insert "arguably" into any sentence it automatically becomes true."--John Green. ;)
It's just something I've been thinking about (It's not really even a matter of helpful vs. unhelpful or needing to sort things. A bit of introspection is just generally good on occasion, right?) and I wanted to write something coherent for once and see my thoughts formed into little black pixels on white again (and start up a conversation in the comments--which I'm glad to see it has, both in general and on this post specifically) and peruse the ridiculousness that is iStockphoto and casually link to Rocky Horror. I mean, all of the above (even writing a *public blog* about this) might make it seem like I'm taking what's drawn up to be a *major adolescent epiphany* lightly--which really is how I take most things, if I can help it. But everyone processes and reacts to things differently.
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