Third stitch. - "Inpenetrable Masculinity"

28th February 2010

Link reblogged from genderqueer with 24 notes

"Inpenetrable Masculinity" →

guesswhatsvegan:

Great article exploring the relationship between gender identity and preferred sexual role. Otr talks about being a top until he started identifying as trans, when he started reconsidering what it meant for him to be in the dominant “masculine” role. He talks about the desire for sex to be about “gender rebellion,” wondering how to reconcile that with instances when he has sex with cis men and doesn’t top. I can definitely relate to that fear of having masculinity delegitimized in relationships with cis men when your different bodies have already introduced a potential tension and gendered sexual roles may feel like the necessary way to reassert masculinity. I like how Otr explores the different ways he experiences sex AS A TRANS MAN, importantly challenging the idea that man is equatable with specific sexual practices, embodiments, or roles.

“Dominant culture values and assigns power to topping and penetration, as associated with masculinity, but systematically devalues (and denies the active existence of) bottoming and envelopment, as associated with femininity. If I am a man who only tops and penetrates but does not bottom or envelop, I feel like I am perpetuating dominant cultural power dynamics. I don’t want to be that guy.

…

When I’m having sex with people who experience gender oppression, envelopment still feels like a gender rebellion, because I’m refusing to play the privileged exclusively penetrating role.

Because patriarchal culture denies my existence as a man, when I get sexy with cismen, I feel this anxiety knot in my stomach that if I do anything but top them, they will forget that I’m a man, and they won’t remember that I’m male-bodied. So, the meanings of my desires change depending on who I’m getting sexy with, because it seems as if it’s easier for people to assign me to the woman category if I’m getting sexy with a cisman.

…

I don’t know how to separate my desires from internalized transphobia, that is, defining myself by dominant cultural ideas about my body, and accepting woman-assigned sexual roles. I don’t want to perpetuate some boring hetero sexual trajectory, but there are some things, like wrapping my legs around my partners, and taking them inside me, that I don’t want to give up. I don’t know how to get what I want outside of patriarchal socialization that makes me want what I was going to get any way.”

Source: guesswhatsvegan