In Sunday’s dream, I approached my grandmother in our kitchen and, bending to her ear to avoid my brother overhearing, whispered her the confession about Maia. I remembered that on Sunday when returning from work and was horrified of the thought that it may have occurred for real—but thankfully, I realized that it was a dream.

In Monday’s dream, Luda returned home (why do I keep dreaming about that?), and we met in a really huge supermarket where almost everything imaginable was being sold, and continued shopping together.

This troper would like to humbly suggest the above troper read ‘a person paper on purity in language’ by douglas hofstadter. It is written from the perspective of an alternate universe where instead of having gender-defined pronouns, the have race-defined ones (whe for a white person, ble for a black person). The peace comes across as startlingly racist and clearly shows the value of the gender neutral pronoun.

~ TV Tropes

The actual article. It’s brilliant.

DISTURBING AHEAD

The most blatant one? Curiosity.

I think it’s the primary one, anyway. All that later talk about abolishing gender was probably my way of rationalizing a gut feeling, sweeping it under my beliefs. While I do consciously believe that at some point in the future society should discard the concept of gender, my attraction to feminine traits cannot be explained by that alone.

It’s probably a forbidden fruit thing. I was never told about those things, never taught about, say, how feminine clothes are worn, or how legs are kept hairless. And there’s that attraction towards the unknown, unexplored. That’s the primary reasoning behind my gender-bending fantasies. I constantly ask myself, “How would it feel?” How would it feel to have a vagina? To stick something inside, for example, a vibrator? To press one’s own breasts? There are all kinds of questions of pure curiosity about anatomy that I don’t have. Mind you, that’s not limited to the hypothetical female body—I constantly seek ways to squeeze every bit of pleasure from my real body as well. Those who say that “male self-pleasuring isn’t cool” simply don’t have enough imagination, although the lack of adequate inversions of this trope can be explained by the fact that it would probably be seen as “too disgusting” by the primary demographic of those media, which is, unfortunately enough, mostly male.

So, these sick/curious thoughts, magical girl anime, my gender-biased personality perception, and my beliefs regarding the future of gender (resulting in gender-bending dreams)—all of that contributed to the Maia self-image, which has become an irrevocable part of me. I can picture that imaginary face as clearly as the one on my passport.

Why “Maia” of all names? No idea, really. It just came to me in a dream—seriously. One day, after my coming out, I was standing in front of a mirror in the bathroom, wrapped my head in a towel, and then it just flashed in my mind and I mentally said to myself, smiling, “Hello, Maia.” It took considerable effort at first to associate myself with that name, to overcome the conditioning—more on that later. Yet now, in my mind, both identities exist full-fledged, with equal “screen time”, so to speak. If I had to guess, I’d note that the name:
* is of Greek origin;
* starts with the same two letters as Matvey;
* is undeniably feminine, just like the legal name is undeniably masculine—and thus acts as a good counterbalance;
* is a valid (although not that common) Russian name and also a valid (although rare) name in English-speaking countries;
* is pleasantly associated in my mind with various fictional characters, such as Maya the Bee, Mai Tokiha and Mayo Kagura from the Mai franchise, and Maia Mizuki from Daphne in the Brilliant Blue. Not to mention the month of May, which was named after the Roman goddess of the same name as the Greek Pleiad;
* is pleasant-sounding, for me, at least, and rolls off the tongue easily.

In addition to the mental state, there is a mental picture I associate with that identity—one born in dreams and then extrapolated. “Maia of dreams”, so to speak—my idealized self-image for the fantasy situation if I became physically female.

That was, apparently, influenced a great deal by the picture of Luda that has been standing on my desk for years now. This imaginary Maia has a slightly rounder head and black straight hair, almost shoulder-long, alternatively kept in a ponytail or free-flowing. She has round glasses, but more oval in comparison to my current nearly-square glasses. A smaller torso with C-sized breasts (basically like on this picture), wider hips and bigger buttocks, but still quite fleshy and far from the hourglass figure. Clear-shaven chest, arms and legs. Her preferred attires are a free-flowing dark red T-shirt with dark blue jeans, a skin-tight sweater, or a bluish-white dress going all the way to the ground, exposing the upper back and shoulders.

Today, a TV Tropes user described me, in big strokes, a self-made fantasy setting for a play-by-post RPG that he and some other people are currently playing. It includes a humanoid race that can change sexes at will.

Naturally, we discussed the nature of their gender identities for a while, and just in case someone needed proof I was overthinking it (yes, yes, it’s hypocritical to accuse Wikipedians of overthinking it), I tried to apply real-world terms for sexuality pattens I expected to be reasonably common.

Although in all seriousness… Even for humans, there will always be an obscure pattern even more convoluted than any label you can think of. And when gender ceases to be a mostly-immutable part of personal identity, the possible combinations become even more numerous.

⚪

People… it’s a circle.

It’s a bloody circle.

Now you’re really overthinking it…

Why is the circle of the male symbol on this userbox smaller than that of the female symbol? Doesn’t it sort of contradict the point?

Interestingly, this one got it right…

DISTURBING MATERIAL FOLLOWS. IF YOU HAVE WEAK NERVES, DO NOT READ.

Recently, I’ve been trying to picture how I see my ideal girlfriend. Without getting into details, the mental portrait turned out to be looking disturbingly like myself, just in a female body.

With my brutally pragmatic approach to sexuality—in fantasies, at least—one of these fantasies involved going back in time and sleeping with myself—the only male I ever would sleep with, but evidently, it would be preferable for the partner!me to have a female body. The idea seemed appealing at first—after all, we both would know exactly how the other feels, agree on everything, and effectively be able to read each other’s thoughts because we would think in the same way.

But this is where the pleasant part ends. Yesterday on IRC, I said about the WoW character Sikon: “I do not think of my avatar in a sexual way”. My overly-vivid imagination fed me the picture of myself (in my real body) standing face to face with the character. And this is what prompted me to perform a thought experiment.

Assuming that the clone’s memories and personality would be the same as my own, I imagined myself in the role of both the male original and the female clone and, essentially, roleplayed a potential conversation that would occur between the selves. The results were highly disturbing once I realized the horror that both people would experience.
* The clone would realize the horror of having fake memories patterned after someone else’s, having never been born, having no legal identity, no societal status, and no right to exist.
* Whereas the original would lament his inability to ever feel like the clone does: the clone would memories of having both male and female anatomy, even though the former memories would be fake, and thus a wider perspective; while the original would remain male forever, and his fantasy would go unfulfilled.

Also, would they be able to enjoy sex with each other? On a conscious, euphoric level of transcendence and revelation, definitely, there would be immense enjoyment. But on the physical level? Without actual, physiological sex drive towards each other, probably not.

Not to mention that both would retain their views on gender identity, and would still feel incomplete. The mere existence of a physical Maia—even if she was somehow integrated into the society—would not expunge the Maia self-image from Matvey’s mind; nor would she, solely by virtue of being physically female, abandon her Matvey self-image. The only satisfactory (completely hypothetical) options here that would bring the self-image in balance with appearance would be either the physically impossible ability to change sexes at will (which would sort of defeat the point of having differently-sexed clones in the first place), or, basically, a futanari. However, the second option would be hard to swallow even for a society that has begun to accept actual transsexuals (which I’ll never be), because it’s done solely on the grounds that they stick to their new identity for the rest of their lives.

I was tempted to write down the entire imaginary dialogue, verbatim, but that would be probably be too vomit-inducing even by this site’s standards. I presented the point clearly, and that’s enough.

There was something earlier that was related to “my gender thing” (as Madclaw called it). From what I remember, I was in that scene in female mode, and it also included Niobe from The Matrix in her usual red outfit. (Best thing of all? I know why!)

In the main (WoW) part, which imprinted in my memory, consisted of me clearing an instance with Sephi and some other guildmates. I say “an instance” but it was clearly Zul’Farrak, it was just never referred to by name in the dream. And it mirrored the actual memory of us doing so yesterday.

Sephi mentioned offhand in guild chat that she would like to marry a “pretty draenei male” in-game.

But in all seriousness… “pretty, draenei, male” is like “cheap, fast, high-quality”. It’s a “pick any two” thing.

It all adds up… we feel 4% certain that you are…
A Woman!
Compared to others…

50% more male than you — 7% like you — 43% more female than you

So, how am I supposed to interpret the results? (Not that these kinds of tests really mean anything anyway.)

The questions are fairly random and not associated with gender roles, and the calculations are based on users who took the test before.

What can I say? This kind of “in-between” result is close to what I expected, although I thought it would slant towards male. However, it also worries me that when I forgot to answer one question the first time (because I didn’t know what the words “brass” and “knuckles” meant), and then went back to that page and answered it, my score changed to this from “2% certainty of female – 49% more male than you – 1% like you – 50% more female than you”.

The statistics for the questions are quite interesting for 8 million previous takes—given the law of large numbers, I expected such questions to have only slight deviations from 50% gender-wise, but at least one percentage reaches 57% (and I don’t doubt there are more). It’s interesting for the sole fact that it’s based purely on statistics, without presuppositions. The actual answer, however, it too unstable to slight variations in answers and thus should be taken with a grain of salt.

Images are pure Nightmare Fuel, so I’m not going to reproduce them here.

You can take the test here (requires registration).

Edit: Just in case it isn’t clear, I don’t take the test seriously. Neither should anyone else.

I shaved my legs yesterday while bathing, as well as what remained of my chest hair. Poor razor… I don’t think it was designed to handle such strain. Strangely enough, it wasn’t painful at all; I didn’t even bother applying gel when I realized that it actually made the job harder.

See this? It’s bull. Body hair is much easier to shave off than facial hair. First, it doesn’t grow so fast, and second, there are much fewer gotchas to worry about, if any at all—you don’t even need gel or whatever else, I found it quite impossible to cut or otherwise disturb the skin unintentionally.

The shaving itself was a strange experience. With the chest and stomach, it felt heartwarming and exciting, like transformation. As if I was reshaping myself. The legs, on the other hand, didn’t feel anything special, except for the sheer pleasure of looking at them shaved. But then I put my pants on after the bath and then it felt really weird—as if my legs were permanently wet. (And I have a theory why.) Lying in bed felt the same way. Next day, I searched Google for “as if my legs were wet” and got exactly one result, and it was about that, too—so now I know the author wasn’t just making it up. (And knowing is half the battle!)

I don’t think there’s anything wrong at all with that—if anything, you should try it just for hygiene reasons. Stuff tends to stick to the hair. And I think a hairless body looks more healthy and civilized, whether it’s male or female. Plus it’s a fun experience, I enjoy patting my legs and stomach and feeling the smoothness of the skin.

Even my scent has changed, and I like the new one. While it doesn’t feel feminine per se, I’ve come to strongly associate it with the Maia personality.

Now, Maia is a tricky beast. That name came to me in a dream, where it was apparently a semi-conscious attempt to name my constant gender-switches in dreams. However, recently the name has acquired new meaning.

Above all, I’m still LucidFox; I’ve always been. Only recently, I’ve consciously embraced the part of me that has been boiling under the hood for some time: to identify as non-gendered. Since about exteen years, I’ve felt detached from my legal identity, growing more so as time went by. Matvey is not me; it’s a social role I play out of necessity. (Role. Play. Roleplaying. Get it?) But at home and at work, I’m referred to as that, which reinforces my residual self-image and sometimes actually manages to knock me back into the male identity that I have discarded. And so I semi-consciously created Maia, apparently as a projection of the WoW character Sikon back into reality, to maintain a balance of identities.

On the other hand, I find it entirely possible that the Maia identity is just self-deception, a rudimentary image just to give Matvey something to fetish over (and I can feel when instincts start displacing rational thought). Above all, I don’t want to become physically female (not permanently, at least, but I’d try it for a day or week). Nor do I want a conflict of identities, that’s just asking for trouble and various squicky things like a split personality. I just want to be myself, LucidFox. And if the historical concept of dividing humans into two castes stands in the way… then screw it.

And finally, thanks to Sephi for stopping my self-hatred and helping me find self-confidence. I can’t say that often enough, but she’s the nicest person I’ve ever met.

Consider the below post as coming out. My insecurities have simply been boiling too much to keep private anymore. (And no, I’m not going to change my beliefs just because some LiveJournal moderator said so.) You can imagine how desperate I was to blurt everything out when I did it in private OOC conversations to a random (and surprisingly mature, as in non-childish) 25-year-old female roleplayer in World of Warcraft.

She treated my confessions, which were even more numerous (and disgusting to most) than what I wrote on this site, with surprising interest and understanding. Since then, we’ve been freely talking in private about our respective anatomies and experiences with them. I listen to her with great interest as well, because most of what she says is something I’ll never be able to experience—yet I want to know what various things feel like for females, if only for the purposes of fiction (but seriously, who am I kidding here?).

For the skeptics out there, I doubt it would be humanly possible to make up all that. And if you think there’s no such thing as female roleplayer in World of Warcraft, go douse yourself in cold water right now, especially if your name is Ranma Saotome.

WoW was my second major experience in roleplaying in general. I only started on Argent Dawn in September, but I’ve already become attached to the character beyond what can be considered healthy. Blizzard summed it best with their loading screen tips: “Remember to keep all things in moderation, even World of Warcraft”. I actually found myself looking in a mirror more since I started actively roleplaying, just to avoid mentally associating myself with the character’s appearance stronger than my own (which I also became more concerned with lately).

Regarding the Kreia quote itself, I think TVTropes said basically the same thing even more succintly: Poor Communication Kills.

Moderated submission notification

Your message submitted to the moderated community abolishgender has been rejected by a moderator of that community.

Please note that replies to this email are not sent to the community’s moderator(s). If you would like to discuss the reasons for your entry’s rejection, you will need to contact a moderator directly.

Here are the reasons for the rejection as provided by the moderator:

If you truly want to be antigender, you’re going to have to overcome your homophobia and learn to embrace the bisexual potential all people have within them. To reject potential spouses on the basis of their gender is absolutely not compatible with claiming to be antigender.

Being disgusted by your own body parts is also not compatible with claiming not to be self-loathing. There’s nothing wrong with body parts of any type – only with the gender roles that the body parts have become irrationally associated with in our society. The first step in becoming antigender is to reject those irrational associations.

This is the message you submitted:

Time: 2008–10-29 22:47
Subject: Short Time Lurker, First Time Poster
Text:

I’ve been long thinking on what to write here, and anyway, I’ll just write the first things that come to my mind. Anyway, I’m physically male, but I’m utterly disgusted by the “manly man” stereotype (I’ve seen quite a few of those, with their lack of restraint, crude and immature sense of humor, and lack of respect for those who don’t conform to their standards of maleness). I also find traditionally masculine attributes disgusting such as facial and body hair or low voices.

Above all, I’m not self-loathing, I have respect for myself as a person, and I’m quite happy with my life. I’m also straight, the very thought of sex with a male disgusts me. But in my sexual fantasies, I usually imagine myself and my imaginary partner as lesbians or futanari, and I concentrate more on touching-kissing-licking aspects than penetration. Nor do I mind having a penis, it’s fun and offers a lot of possibilities.

In my dreams, I’m male and female with roughly the same frequency, and sometimes I’m just an essentially disembodied observer with no identity.

I don’t know exactly what sparked my interest in things that broke the traditional gender roles (and exposed the fact how artificial they were). Gender-switching at will has apparently always been a fantasy of mine, but that’s mostly because I’ve been curious about what it’s like to be female, and saw it as a form of exploration. I’ve arrived, completely independently of this community, to the conclusion that biological sex was just a random characteristic and it was just as silly to build social restrictions upon that as upon, say, skin color. I also coined the word “postgenderism” itself independently and searched it on Wikipedia on the grounds that somebody must have been bound to think along the same vein before. I was surprised to see how popular the idea actually was.

I’m thinking of writing postgenderist fiction, about a hypothetical future society that shattered the gender barrier, where people don’t, en masse, have secondary sex characteristics (although I’m not yet decided about their reproductive organs: either they have both sets at all times, or they can switch between them or even their complete absence at will).

I’m almost morally ready to start referring to myself in gender-neutral pronouns on the Internet, and for some reason, when I think about that, I have a strange sensation… not sexual arousal at all, but as if all neurons in my body fire at once and giving me warm and pleasant satisfaction. However, I’m confused by the sheer number of proposed gender-neutral pronouns in English (and lack of official ones); “sie/hir” is one that I use to refer to ambiguously-gendered or genderless fictional characters, but that’s probably because it was the first one I learned. What would you recommend?

My idealized fantasy body for a postgender human (and for myself in the real world) looks something like this. While it’s basically female, it’s a far cry from the disgusting skinny role models with back-breaking breasts, and it lies within what would be socially acceptable for a modern male (even the small breasts of this kind are something one could easily get away with). It’s pleasant and relaxing to look at, and not overly sexualized.

Regards,
LiveJournal.com Team