How to embrace your gender

[Buttercat Apocalypse]

A response to the how to be a man/woman blog posts

The question of sexuality has fascinated me for a long time. My parents are kinda feminist and tried to put across the idea that men and women are essentially distinguished only by their genitals -- a sad view IMO. As a kid (a very rebellious one) I remember asserting that I could play with barbies if I WANTED TO -- but I didn't. Despite..or perhaps because of my strong urge to prove myself as a person who didn't care what people thought of him, I grew up to be very masculine.

That's the thing. You've got these chemicals in your body, your brain has been built specifically according to your gender -- you don't need to WORK to be your own sex: if you're a free mind then you'll embrace your own energy.

Gender, though, has become a horribly taboo topic nowadays. I think the orthodox view is that women and men are equal in everything -- hmph! So the past liberalism has become today's conservatism. Nowadays to be a self-respecting rebel I have to be against feminism, hah.

Attention all modern day liberal conservatives: men and women are not the same.

Some of you may be like shrugging your shoulders at this like it's obvious, some might be getting out your shotguns. I remember talking to a friend of mine about this and she was like, "so?"... it didn't seem to be any grand shock that men and women were different to her. But from the brainwashing I got from TV etc, and the lack of any reliable role model in my father, I was somewhat on the other side, and hence, I had an inner conflict to resolve.

The golden rule doesn't work in this situation. Sexually, we want different things. Men: do you want to be penetrated by another man's sexual organ? If the answer is no, then you are different to a woman. There is a symbolism here that's impossible to take away: a woman is being penetrated, dominated. I hear some battle-feminists saying sometihng like "all penetrative sex is rape". If you believed in the golden rule, if you were so seperate from reality that you imagined a woman to be the same as you, then this could make sense.

The fact is, sex is not Politically Correct.

It just isn't.

If you're PC then you make children by artificial insemination.

The System, that collection of ideas that keeps us in the rat-race, was previously owned by the catholic church, which made sex bad. Now the church is down but sexual polarity is bad. I realise that my personal brand of conspiracy theory is radical but the way I view it, the System wants to redirect sexual energy into keeping itself going.

And sexual energy is POWERFUL.

If you think about it from the evolutionary perspective, then it only makes sense; passing on your genes is more important even than surviving.

And nature is known for multi-tasking. That same drive to make children drives you to the individual behaviours of your sex with more strength than even the drive to survive.

There's no way I can explain it even to myself in simple words... and I'm not even sure I've finished understanding it, fully; but this energy must be understood by its FEEL.

If you revel in the thrill of overcoming resistence in battle then this is masculine energy.

If you love to feel beautiful then this is feminine energy.

If you would defy an order just for the principle of the tihng -- that you will not be ordered about -- then this is masculine energy.

If you would give your power to another then this is feminine energy.


Masculinity is more like DOING, femininity is more like BEING.

Masculinity is concerned with the flow of freedom. Feminity is concerned with the flow of love.

You couldn't live without either. Whether you "are" masculine or feminine is to do with your priority in this. To say that you are masculine means that your first level is masculine, but then your second level is feminine, etc.

I'd say that Steve's light/dark model has sometihng to do with sexuality. But saying that "darkworkers" are polarised by fear is like saying that "lightworkers" are polarised by shame. Or perhaps it's just incomplete.

The masculine poles are

FEAR on the negative side -------------- FREEDOM on the positive side

The feminine poles are

SHAME on the negative side ------------ LOVE on the positive.

Needless to say that being positively aligned is better in all respects.


The masculine and feminine, like positive and negative particles, seek to balance their energies: and it is the fact that they cannot perfectly balance them that keeps them in the endless dance of life. (When feminine and masculine balance themselves perfectly there is APOTHEOSIS and a new imbalance is created: for example, children. Imagining this with the positive negative particles, it could be matter meeting antimatter and creating energy through their own destruction).

This freedom is the opposite of fear. Fear is the focus on the loss of power/life/presence in the world (words fail to express). Freedom, then, is the focus on the gain of this life. From an evolutionary perspective, it's the increase of the dominence of your own genes. (Femininity, then, is increasing the longetivity of those genes: nurturing).

Femininity seeks to become god through transcendence.

Masculinity seeks to become god through ascendence.

Both are good and beautiful, and no single one could exist without the other.


(going through these ideas makes for total rational-mind overload. It's a truth that shifts and changes by perspective. Wayyy trippy).

[MidasGirl]

Gee I wonder why nobody has responded to this at all. Couldn't be because it's a taboo and confusing subject.......

The problem as I see it, and the reason feminists were born (bless their sweet souls) is because society tended to make one kind of energy superior and the other inferior. If you understand that masculine/feminine energies have nothing to do with the shape (or size for that matter) of the person's genitals, then you feel free to express your energies without fear of judgment.

But (BIG BUT), we make fun of a man who has dominant feminine energy, and sneer at a woman who has a strong masculine energy. Worse, we make fun of the man married to a masculine woman. We think of the typical "butch" as nothing attractive, and she must be a lesbian and what's-that-cute-girl-doing with-that-butch-anyway? We think of the man who wants to feel beautiful, is more in tune with his femininity as "weak" and who must be the "woman" in the relationship right? ("woman" here said in a sort of giggly, embarrassing way).

So, until society stops stereotyping masculine/feminine energies as either strong/weak, superior/inferior, good/bad, dominating/submissive, male/female, then you will continue to see people trying to tell boys and girls they are the same. Which is silly, they are not the same, they are equal. As human beings that is.

Basically, if society is going to embrace masculinity and femininity as completely functional aspects of our humanness, we must stop our judgmental nature. Which doesn't look like it's happening any time soon!

Did somebody say men are intimidated by Hilary Clinton? What? She's not open to being "dominated"?

[Cyllya]

It's kind of hard to tell what you're trying to get across, but...

Attention all modern day liberal conservatives: men and women are not the same.

But the thing is... you're wrong on this point.

Sure, if you picked almost any trait, found a way to quantify it, averaged the scores for all females in the world, and averaged the scores for all men in the world, you'd probably end up with different averages. But people within a particular gender aren't all the same as everyone else in that gender. Men and women are the same in that they're all different from each other.

For example, the average height of men is about 5 feet 9 inches, and the average height of women is about 5 feet 3 inches. But there are plenty of women in the world who are 5'9" or taller. The current tallest women is Yao Defen, who is 7'9". You wouldn't claim that she's actually a man or something just because she's that tall.

Likewise, of course there are some men who do like to be penetrated by other men's sex organ. (And there is a such thing as sex wherein a man is penetrated by a woman, believe it or not. Where's that fall into all this? I bet the misandrist feminists never thought of it.)

Women have babies; men don't. But there are some women who, like men, can't have babies. They're not men.

Typically, women relax and bond by talking to each other, while men relax with stuff like zoning out in front of the TV and bond by hanging out and doing activities that don't necessarily involve conversation. But the latter is true of me, and I'm not a man.

That's the thing. You've got these chemicals in your body, your brain has been built specifically according to your gender -- you don't need to WORK to be your own sex: if you're a free mind then you'll embrace your own energy.

But everybody's brain is built differently. Not all people have the same ratio of the same brain chemicals as every other person of the same sex. A man's brain may not make him inclined to feel or act in ways that you, society, or anyone else has described as masculine. He'd have to work at it. His own main energy is femininity.

Or more likely, his brain makes him inclined to a mix of both. I don't think most people polarize as one or the other unless they've been urged to. And no wonder, since both energies have their goods and bads. The ideal person has the goods of both.

The problem as I see it, and the reason feminists were born (bless their sweet souls) is because society tended to make one kind of energy superior and the other inferior. If you understand that masculine/feminine energies have nothing to do with the shape (or size for that matter) of the person's genitals, then you feel free to express your energies without fear of judgment.

I don't think they were originally so concerned with society saying femininity was inferior so much as they were concerned with society forcing femininity onto females. A somewhat more strict idea of femininity than we bother with today, even. I agree with the second half of the paragraph.

And you're right that femininity is still seen as weak (hence why men are criticized for having any), which it shouldn't be. I think feminism is starting to drift toward addressing that now.

So, until society stops stereotyping masculine/feminine energies as either strong/weak, superior/inferior, good/bad, dominating/submissive, male/female, then you will continue to see people trying to tell boys and girls they are the same. Which is silly, they are not the same, they are equal. As human beings that is.

But if some boys are masculine, some boys are feminine, some girls are masculine, and some girls are feminine, then boys and girls, as groups, are the same.

When society stops stereotyping masculine/feminine energies as either strong/weak, superior/inferior, good/bad, dominating/submissive, male/female, then you will see boys and girls finally believe it when people try to tell them that they're the same.

[september]

Originally Posted by Buttercat Apocalypse

...Attention all modern day liberal conservatives: men and women are not the same.

Some of you may be like shrugging your shoulders at this like it's obvious, some might be getting out your shotguns. I remember talking to a friend of mine about this and she was like, "so?"... it didn't seem to be any grand shock that men and women were different to her. But from the brainwashing I got from TV etc, and the lack of any reliable role model in my father, I was somewhat on the other side, and hence, I had an inner conflict to resolve.

I'm with you so far! Men and women are awfully different. Everyone is different, as a matter of fact!

Originally Posted by Buttercat Apocalypse

The golden rule doesn't work in this situation. Sexually, we want different things. Men: do you want to be penetrated by another man's sexual organ? If the answer is no, then you are different to a woman. There is a symbolism here that's impossible to take away: a woman is being penetrated, dominated.

Wait. What?

Man, if that's how you think of sex, I bet you'd hate to see the sex I have with my boyfriend. We almost never have penetrative sex, and I'm usually on top. More often than not, we're having concomitant oral sex (say it with me -- "69!").

Originally Posted by Buttercat Apocalypse

I hear some battle-feminists saying sometihng like "all penetrative sex is rape". If you believed in the golden rule, if you were so seperate from reality that you imagined a woman to be the same as you, then this could make sense.

The fact is, sex is not Politically Correct.

It just isn't.

If you're PC then you make children by artificial insemination.

Sexuality isn't all about making babies. Before birth control, there were natural herbal abortifacients. They were known about and used. It's not about a man believing they're the same as a woman. But labelling one kind of energy "masculine" energy and another "feminine" energy keeps all us deviants locked up into the molds. And there's more than one or two of us. In fact, if you've read any of Dr. Kinsey's sex research, the good majority of us have a broader view of sexual activity than many of us want to admit.

We're not PC. But going by your description of energies, and going by what my boyfriend and I have actually concurred upon, I, as the female, am the "masculine" one and he is the "feminine" one. The fact that this happens a lot isn't an indicator that I am wrong as a person. In fact, I feel great! I've accomplished much in my life so far. Instead, this is an indicator that the system's not quite right. It seems as though I could talk about how at home I feel both in my body and with my brain, thinking, writing, applying myself, taking on new challenges and "doing", as you aptly describe the masculine energy's peak -- but all I would get told is that that's all well and good, but I'd be much more fulfilled "being". But I tried "being". It made a great circle of vapid, annoying, flitty friends. It sucked. I'd rather play D&D and kick someone's ass in a philosophical debate instead.

Originally Posted by Buttercat Apocalypse

If you revel in the thrill of overcoming resistence in battle then this is masculine energy.

If you love to feel beautiful then this is feminine energy.

If you would defy an order just for the principle of the tihng -- that you will not be ordered about -- then this is masculine energy.

If you would give your power to another then this is feminine energy.


Masculinity is more like DOING, femininity is more like BEING.

Masculinity is concerned with the flow of freedom. Feminity is concerned with the flow of love.

Look, I'm not offended with your classifications, however arbitrary and ad hoc they may be. But what I have a problem with is your labelling of the terms in the gendered way. Transgendered people, gay people, bisexual people -- these aren't just myths, you know. And they're not just diseased or abnormal. I either am or am close friends with all three kinds of these people.

I suppose you could say I have a problem with the arbitrary, ad hoc nature of them too. But I'm not offended, which is the main objection you seem to be anticipating. Just a little weirded out by your cluelessness about how many people perceive the fluidity of sexuality. We don't all go home and beg to get ****ed by our men at the end of the movie, and knowing that is part of what makes me feel alive and happy when thinking about the place sexuality holds in my life.

Originally Posted by Buttercat Apocalypse

You couldn't live without either. Whether you "are" masculine or feminine is to do with your priority in this. To say that you are masculine means that your first level is masculine, but then your second level is feminine, etc.

I'd say that Steve's light/dark model has sometihng to do with sexuality. But saying that "darkworkers" are polarised by fear is like saying that "lightworkers" are polarised by shame. Or perhaps it's just incomplete.

The masculine poles are

FEAR on the negative side -------------- FREEDOM on the positive side

The feminine poles are

SHAME on the negative side ------------ LOVE on the positive.

Needless to say that being positively aligned is better in all respects.


The masculine and feminine, like positive and negative particles, seek to balance their energies: and it is the fact that they cannot perfectly balance them that keeps them in the endless dance of life. (When feminine and masculine balance themselves perfectly there is APOTHEOSIS and a new imbalance is created: for example, children. Imagining this with the positive negative particles, it could be matter meeting antimatter and creating energy through their own destruction).

This freedom is the opposite of fear. Fear is the focus on the loss of power/life/presence in the world (words fail to express). Freedom, then, is the focus on the gain of this life. From an evolutionary perspective, it's the increase of the dominence of your own genes. (Femininity, then, is increasing the longetivity of those genes: nurturing).

Femininity seeks to become god through transcendence.

Masculinity seeks to become god through ascendence.

Both are good and beautiful, and no single one could exist without the other.

This all tells a nice evolutionary story. Perhaps this is even some narrative stamped within the mental modules controlling reproduction in the human mind. And so in that sense, perhaps us "deviants" should be labelled as abnormal.

But the reason we should reject this is the same reason we should reject social Darwinism: is does not imply ought.

Just because nature dispassionately selects for the strongest does not mean humans should dispassionately select for the strongest. Instead, we show compassion and try to help the weak.

And so the parallel: just because nature creates an active/passive narrative to propagate genes does not mean humans should follow the active/passive narrative to propagate genes. Instead, we use our rational capabilities to evaluate and value people in the ways we best can -- on the value of that we contribute to others, intellectually, emotionally, and physically.

It may seem easier or right to give in to instinct. But in the case of social Darwinism, doing so creates horrific results. And in the case of this particular evolutionary story, doing so creates terrible emotional results for those who don't fit. For you see, by advocating that people accept this model, you are in effect excluding other interpretive methods of evaluating the worth of another and promoting the idea that we should value each other based on our gender. But such an interpretation obviously only extends out to a certain percentage of the population, and the dissenting percentage is high enough, I think, that it should be tossed out as a viable theory of understanding ourselves and others.

Whew. Wall of text, I know. But I had to get it all out in a way I considered coherent in response to your thought process.