Springtime of Youth

It is not a sickness to prefer the flowering trees in the springtime to the full foliage of the summer. It is one thing to admire the buds before they've begun to bloom, but flowers are a naturally beautiful expression of sexual nubility. They attract your attention for a very good reason - the reason we are all here in the first place. So let us not forsake this splendorous phenomenon.

Monster Cock

The erect phallus is the most potent symbol of desire in mankind's lexicon. The male sex organ becomes aroused with the promise of pleasure and satisfaction, the stiffness of its rigidity a throbbing gauge of carnal appetite. But one of the saddest cruel ironies of fate (and evidence that if there is a God, he's a sadistic bastard) is the fact that in this life, what we want is so rarely what we get. This tool was clearly made for drilling. But in my life experience - both on the internet and off - I've found that those who want my cock are almost exclusively not those whom my cock wants, and that those for whom my cock literally drips with desire, are almost exclusively not those who yearn to be filled up by it. Intelligent design? More like fiendish machinations. I feel like Tantalus in Hell, tempted by the beauty of frollicking nymphs, only to be regularly served up on a platter to the drunken satyrs of Dionysus' retinue instead. Except that I don't know what I've done to deserve such punishment - it just seems to be the way things are. As if there truly were a madman at the wheel.

Hard To Categorize

Q: Are you male or female?
A: Neither of those terms adequately describes my experience.

I've struggled with accepting the label of "transgender" for myself. I feel like sometimes I'm a phony because I don't take hormones (although I suspect I have low testosterone to begin with), or have any desire to undergo surgery. My experience is mainly confined to my head. But I also feel like the stereotypical "transgender experience" is too myopically focused on transitioning. There is - ironically - too much emphasis on being one sex/gender or the other. The transgender person is conceptualized as occupying an unstable between point, in which their sex does not match their gender, and the ultimate goal is to make those two things align. In the end, they will go from being one sex to another, and their feeling of being transgender should, ideally, subside once their body conforms to their mind.

My experience is different. I don't mind remaining transgender. I don't have any strong desire to align my sex with my gender. I do identify mentally with the female gender, and though I have very feminine physical qualities, my anatomy is decidedly male. I also spent the majority of my life thinking I was a normal male. But I'm not. The whole thing about being transgender is that you get into this headspace where you want the rest of the world - which thinks only in black and white, where sex and gender are the same thing - to treat you as the sex/gender of your mind (i.e., gender) instead of your body (i.e., sex). So, for example, you have a penis, but you feel more comfortable using the women's restroom.

In the traditional transgender experience, this makes sense, because the goal is to transition, and eventually align your ("incorrect") sex with your ("correct") gender. Until you do, you're a work in progress, but you'd still prefer to associate with the sex/gender you identify with, and not the one you've been mislabeled as all your life. But how does this change for non-op transgender individuals? I acknowledge that my experience is not female, and that I will probably never be 100% female, because I don't desire to change my sexual anatomy. And even if I did, I'd have an experience that most females don't have - growing up male. I'd also lack an experience that most females have - growing up female.

But on the other hand, it's not fair to describe my experience as being typically male, either. I really don't fit neatly into either category, although I feel a strong pressure to conform to one or the other. Which is tough, you know. How do I identify? If I say I'm female, I feel a pang of guilt because I'm giving people the wrong impression of my anatomy, and they might get pissed off (like the cat-callers do, or the hypothetical other woman in the women's restroom) when they find out. It also doesn't do justice to the fact that I'm attracted to females, but I'm not, in all accuracy, a lesbian (although in some ways - mentally and not physically - I feel like one).

But if, on the other hand, I say I'm male, I'm not only misrepresenting my gender presentation (why would I go out of my way to cause confusion by telling the waiter or sales clerk who thinks that pretty customer in the dress is a girl, unless I wanted to sabotage his attempts to hit on me?), I'm doing an injustice to my gender identity as well. I may not be female, but I don't feel male, either. The truth is, I don't honestly feel comfortable identifying fully with either label, except insofar as we're willing to concede that we're talking solely about gender, and not sexual anatomy - which is not the way that most of the world uses these terms.

So, ultimately, I would be perfectly fine labeling myself as transgender, as long as it's understood that this is instead of, and not in addition to the designation of male or female. Yet, it still doesn't make it easy for me to navigate a world that presumes that sex and gender are one and the same, and that for those rare individuals for which this isn't true, they are only going through a temporary transitional stage before all is made right, and everybody's sex and gender line up once again. But I guess that's the price of being different in a world that thrives on conformity...

Monsters

If your culture tells you that the only way to express a certain sexual desire is through deviant means, where the fetish itself is indistinguishable from its accompanying vices, then it's not hard to imagine a person having an affinity for this desire going through a tentative and troubled process of discovery in which they must question whether it is the vices they are attracted to as much as the fetish itself. Is it not clear, then, that this strategy - entirely apart from discouraging people from adopting this particular fetish (as if people have that choice) - serves to steer those who are "afflicted" with such a desire into those vice-ridden behaviors that have become associated with it? Is the concept of erotic attraction to specific forms of beauty we don't understand so odious that we must sabotage a person's ability to maintain their human decency in the face of the desire to transgress some contemporary taboo, in the process creating more of the vice we condemn?

If it is at all possible to conceptualize a deviant fetish in a positive light, unmarred by a priori connections with universally condemned behaviors (such as the selfish - as opposed to a mutual - pursuit of pleasure without regard to the consent or well-being of others) - as I have tried to do in the past regarding voyeurism and exhibitionism - even though the deviant's desires may be problematic, would this not be preferable to driving the fetishist into a psychological corner, in which they must choose between ultimately resolving their cognitive dissonance through an internal acceptance of the antisocial tendencies associated with the fetish ("if fetishists are bad, and I have this fetish, then I may as well join the dark side"), and leading a mental life on the knife's edge between flying straight, and giving in during a moment of weakness to the never-ending darkness and self-loathing of a lifetime of denying one of mankind's most basic needs?

Simply put, does nature create monsters, or do we create them ourselves, materializing from our paranoid anxieties as if from a self-fulfilling prophecy?

A Thin Disguise

[description: b/w portrait of a male torso in skimpy briefs]

We expend far too much effort in disguising the natural beauty of the human body, and the effects it has on us. What are we afraid of? That we are all animals, holding on to a semblance of civility by a fragile thread? Some of us do have self-control, and merely want to allow ourselves one of the few and most satisfying indulgences in an otherwise drab and painful existence. It's not so terrible a "sin" that it would make the Earth stop spinning on its axis, or cause the Sun to fall from the heavens. As an artist I am in rapture to Psyche [NSFW], the envy of Beauty married to Eros.

[description: b/w portrait of a nude male torso with erection]

Sexy Clothes

I swear, it's not even spring yet (although we have been having some unseasonably warm weather lately), and I'm already hearing people complaining about how short girls' shorts are these days. Meanwhile, I'm thinking to myself, "just shut up and enjoy the view!" Seriously, this sexual repression bullshit has gone far enough. What's the point of being inundated with "porn culture" if a girl can't wear clothes that flatter her assets in public without being criticized by some neo-puritan dipwad? Are people really so whipped by their morally conservative overlords that they'll treat with utter contempt any reminder that they, too, once entered this life by crawling through a vagina? Do they really think that expressing their insensitive belief that showing skin is "skanky" makes them seem like a respectable individual? Who are they trying to impress? God? (He's not listening). Their pastors? The feminists?

Free Speech from a Broader Perspective

Being a minority is a fast-track method of seeing the limitations of "freedom" and "tolerance" in modern society. Everything looks peaches and cream when you agree with the popular moral fashions of the day. But I believe that words like "liberty" and "diversity" should amount to more than just lip service. We should strive toward creating a sociopolitical framework that is universal - not just adequate to the present day's populist concerns.

People argue that free speech shouldn't protect unpopular and insensitive opinions. But there was a time when the merits of slavery were taken for granted. That nobody questioned the fact that women couldn't vote. That expressing the love between two people of the same sex was considered a heinous crime. Opinions on each of these subjects has changed a lot over time. How is it anything but arrogant to believe that now - this time - we've gotten it all right? What might we be taking for granted today, that in the future will make us look back and cringe?

I believe we should follow a code of law that, if transplanted back into a previous age, would not criminalize an artist or an activist for rallying behind abolitionism, women's suffrage, or the freedom to love who one wants - just because it's not how things are done at that point in history. But here's the thing. Humans are fallible, and sometimes we're wrong. Sometimes the causes we rally behind are wrong, too. We can only really know - as a collective - which of those causes is just in hindsight.

That's why freedom of speech needs to remain blind. If you spout hatred as part of some religious doctrine - just to use an example - then you should be ostracized from the people who actually care about decency, sensitivity, and respect. You should be identified as the blithering idiot that you are. But I will still defend your right to have those beliefs and to express them, because there is something far worse than a world where people cannot express hatred, or other unpopular and sometimes offensive opinions. And that is a world in which people cannot express genuine emotion, and original ideas, because they have to check their thoughts against the national register of taboos before they are allowed to open their mouths and speak.

Yes, you should think before you speak - I am a walking embodiment of that principle. But if you feel strongly enough about expressing what it is you want to say, it shouldn't matter if it defies conventional wisdom. Otherwise, how boring would this world be? We should be resistant to censorship in its myriad forms, because the chilling effect is at least as effective at chilling progressive speech as it is at chilling regressive radicalism. The whole point of free speech is that you suffer the one, for the sake of the other. It's like innocent until proven guilty. If two men were on trial - one of them guilty, and the other innocent - and had to be given the same verdict (as a hypothetical - bear with me), I'd rather let the guilty man go free, than suffer the innocent to face a punishment he doesn't deserve.

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Insensitivity and Free Speech

It grieves me that so much insensitivity in the world today, coupled with the censorship-happy "politically correct" mentality, is contributing to an erosion of public sentiment in defense of free speech. Honestly, in spite of what the founding document for the country I live in declares, I wonder if anyone else but me truly believes in the underlying virtue of the freedom of speech.

Free speech is not about immaturely defending your "right" to utter offensive remarks. It's about maturely defending the right of the person who's insulting you to speak their mind, even though it bothers you, because you understand that only in doing so, and thereby upholding the inviolable sanctity of the principle of free speech, are you, too, guaranteed the right to speak your mind whenever your conscience dictates.

And it won't always be immature, offensive remarks that you'll be spouting. Sometimes, it will be something truly original and revolutionary, that will change the way mankind thinks about life and the world - but in a way that a conservative, habitual-minded majority would bend over backwards to prevent you from broadcasting, given the authority. Dealing with a slew of offensive remarks from the less evolved members of our species is the price we have to pay for those sparks of progressive brilliance. And I gladly pay it. Would you?

A free country must permit public nudity

Do you agree? If not, then prove me wrong.

I'm not going to say that there don't exist reasons to impose a blanket restriction on public nudity. I probably wouldn't agree that they are good ones, but they may at least make logical sense. But I don't understand how telling anyone - at the least - that they can't be nude on their own private property (regardless of who may see them from a public vantage point) - even leaving out entirely the question of public roads and parks - is consistent with a belief in individual liberty.

Disclaimer: Please don't presume that by "permitting public nudity", I mean a total naked free-for-all. There are a lot of shades of grey between that and fining a person hundreds of thousands of dollars for a split-second flash of nipple, and part of the problem is that we don't talk often enough about what those different variations could be. Leaving it implied leaves one person afraid to even open the shades and let some light into their house without covering up first, while another person calls the cops on their neighbor for doing just that.

You might not like it. You might not want to look at it. (Although the same could be said about the new paint job on your house, or the jeans your teenager wears). But the existence of nudist camps and resorts the world over lends a preponderance of evidence to the common sense notion that "seeing naked people" does not produce any real harm beyond what is generated by exposure to a lifelong and unnatural taboo on nudity. On the contrary, it would seem to suggest that the abolition of this taboo, and exposure to the great breadth and depth of body types that people possess throughout their lives, may even be healthy, and combat body image disorders, while improving sexual attitudes.

But aside from whether it's actually a good idea or not, I cannot fathom how telling a person that certain articles of clothing are mandatory - even outside of shared public spaces, schools, businesses, restaurants, private establishments, and residences that are not your own - is consistent with a fundamental belief in the virtue of individual liberty.

Does one person's private belief in the immorality of viewing a naked human body trump another person's right to choose what to wear, or not wear? And does that change if it's not one person's private belief, but the belief of a public majority? Should it?

I would argue no. Am I wrong?