On a slightly related note, while flipping through the Suicidegirls photo book with avivahg at Borders the other day, I made an observation which she heartily agreed with. Where are the divas? The goddesses? I guess I’m in the minority, but I’m much more turned on by pictures of a woman in the full and confident bloom of her sexuality, than some gothic lolita with a faux-innocent look on her face. In fact, this is a problem with erotica in general. What’s with the focus on “barely legal teens”? Sometimes it seems like the only alternative to jailbit is grannies. Call me crazy, but I’d rather look at a full-grown woman with real breasts, hips, and even *gasp* some hint of pubic hair who looks like she’s comfortable with her body and knows what she likes. I understand I’m in the minority here, but I’d think that at least the sexually enlightened alt-porn market would accomodate me. Where are the gothic goddesses? But no, it’s all cracked-out little raver girls…
OK, rant over.
EDIT: I realized I wasn’t as clear as I could have been about what I had a problem with. I wasn’t using “goddess” and “diva” as euphamisms for “full figured” – not that there’s anything wrong with that, either. It’s the persona of the innocent, inexperienced child – or the slutty, used child – that turns me off. That and the emphasis on getting them as young as possible. Not that there’s anything wrong with playing that role. I just happen to find a more mature, confident attitude attractive, and I wish more erotica portrayed that. There’s just something damn sexy about a woman glorying in her sensuality. That’s why bellydance is so awesome to watch.
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Well, some of us naturally thin/un-curvy, shave for our benefit, and still are comfortable with the body and what we like.
Not that you were targeting me in particular, I just end up sometimes seeing the backlash against the exaltation of one body image type to be as harmful as the original sentiment.
Or at least annoying, since I’m not gonna go run out and gorge myself because someone says they hate skinny chicks.
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It’s really more the makeup, dress, and poses, and the dearth of alternatives, that I’m complaining about. Honestly, every time I’ve tried to figure out my “favorite” body type, hairstyle, skin tone, etc. I’ve come up blank, because I’ve seen girls of just about every description that I found attractive. I’ve often been *quite* attracted to skinny chicks.
I realize you didn’t feel targeted, but just to be clear: you’d be the last to fit the profile I described above. You come across as very mature (in a good way), adult, and as someone who knows exactly what she likes. You’re definitely on the “diva” side of the dichotomoy described above. Not that I’m suggesting you go into modeling, or anything 😉
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You’re definitely on the “diva” side of the dichotomoy described above
Only if “diva” is meant in the flamboyantly-faggy drag queen way.
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I added an addendum above that, I hope, makes my complaint a little clearer rather than muddying the waters further.
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I realized I wasn’t as clear as I could have been about what I had a problem with. I wasn’t using “goddess” and “diva” as euphamisms for “full figured”
Well, it was more because you mentioned hips, breasts and other body parts explicitly that I thought that.
I’m not a fan of the “goddess” term, particularly. People who call me that get glared at, and if in a bad mood, punched. “Diva” has multiple meanings, so it’s hard to really pin down that term. hence an affinity for it if it’s used in the gender-bending context vs. the strictly female context.
I prefer to keep my gender (i.e., chromosomal makeup) as a secondary concern w.r.t my sexuality. logistics certainly necessitate some consideration, but since I’d like to see the gender effect minimised from what it is now, any term that pigeonholes me into a gender [role] that I did not sign on for can get my ire up. That was a run-on sentence, but it had no convenient breaking point.
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I’ll keep that in mind, and I hope I haven’t offended you in either my original post, or in my attempts to clarify. I’m really not trying to pigeonhole anyone; I just know that certain things turn me on more than others.
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well, for the most part, people seem to be flattered having their chromosomes validated by others. So I don’t think you run quite as much risk in the general pop’n.
As for me, you’re not in my dating demographic, and you don’t know me that well, so it’s not like I could really get bent out of shape about something like that. My frustration lies in the seeming inability of some people to see past the gender lines, even when they’re presented with ample explicit and circumstantial evidence to the contrary. It can be very frustrating to date someone like that. And yes, this has become less about the topic at hand and more just me rambling on about myself and things that have come up in the recent past.
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Do you mind rambling a little further? I’m in the mood to have my mind expanded, and regardless of dating potential I’d really like to get a better handle on what you’re saying.
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Sure, I can ramble. What specifically about? We can take this to email if you like, since I’m progressively scrolling down further on the friends list to reply (busy day).
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Email’s fine (avdi at avdi dot org). I’m not sure, exactly… maybe about what blind spots, or potential blind spots, you saw in my post which inspired you to ramble in the first place. If you don’t mind my asking, what kind of failure to see past gender lines, either on my or another’s part, were you referring to?
I’m not sure how to phrase a post like mine in gender-neutral terms, since the entire range of personas I discussed reside within a subset of people who have thoroughly embraced the feminine, in one form or another. Or am I missing the point entirely?
I hope these questions can at least provide a jumping-off point.
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pardon the intrusion, but as someone with an affinity for gender fluidity- both in regards to myself and others- i just wanted to say thanks for posting that.
for a long, long time, i preferred to associate almost exclusively with those who identified as anathema to the social gender dichotomy, both because i found in them kindred spirit as well as because i find the social imposition of rules regarding one’s own body (especially when taking into context that there is such a monumentally huuuggggee difference between biological *sex* and one’s personal and performed *gender*) to be deplorable at best, and the root of a plethora of social and psychological (and psychosocial) ills at worst. i’ve since opened my mind a great deal and have become more readily able to view *everyone* as having the potential to skew the social “order”, but it still means a *lot* to locate fellow gender warriors, as it were…
i hope you don’t feel invaded by this as i don’t believe we’ve ever met before and i’m obviously dropping in on a personal conversation, but i couldn’t help but say *something*. 🙂
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hope you don’t feel invaded by this as i don’t believe we’ve ever met before and i’m obviously dropping in on a personal conversation, but i couldn’t help but say *something*. 🙂
If people didn’t say things, no one would ever meet one another!
Besides, it’s a public (pubic?) post, so my words were free for all to read and thus comment on. Feel free to comment further should you feel so inclined.
I tend to be guarded with people I don’t know yet, including fellow gender-transcendants (in-group judgements and pettiness are not unheard of), but I am always willing to respond to honest curiousity or have respectful dialogs on these matters.
w0rd. and stuff.
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I tend to be guarded with people I don’t know yet, including fellow gender-transcendants
moi aussi. it’s not entirely unheard of that we have encountered each other along the way (i would have been the incredibly tall mohawked and pierced thing, typically known to lurk in corners and watch with a notebook); i’m semi-new to the area, still, and ridiculously shy…
i’ve been working on an ethnographic research project regarding the ways in which people involved in counterculture (specifically the goth/punk cultures, or whatever it is that is left of them) isolate and identify themselves as individuals, be it by strict sexual associations or gender performance or race/ethnicity or age or something different altogether. it’s fascinating to me the way many groups within the larger community still manage to negotiate gender and associated sexual/gender-based roles in the way(s) dictated by the status quo, and even more fascinating that there is not more of a connection between those of us who attempt to transcend and transform roles and boundaries within counterculture and those who do it in mainstream society (as in, with the LGBTQ community)…
…and i could go on, and on, and on about this. i think maybe it would be cool to pick your brain, sometime, now that this- albeit faceless- introduction has been made.
o, and my name is aurora. nice to meet you. 🙂
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oh, I know who you are – most if not all of my Baltimore friends have you on their list – I just never met you, that I am more or less sure of.
I’m Sarah (icon changed to be actual photo), and you’re one of the few females (chromosomally speaking) that has any height on me. I DJ at Chiaroscuro and am usually occupied with school and work frustrations…feel free to pick away whenever they let up enough for me to be out…
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yeah, ok, i recognize the face. awesome. 🙂
i’ll leave it up to you to come after me when you have some time; i’m always up for a good conversation. maybe LJ would be a good start? yer welcome to add me if yer so inclined…otherwise, i’m sure our paths will cross at some point or another.
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Done & will do….
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What is it with me and tall chicks? If I manage to get all my female friends together at my next birthday party I’m going to feel like a hobbit.
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i don’t know enough tall people!
it’s quite a strange (but nice ;)) experience for me to be involved with someone close to my height; my three most serious relationships were with people who were barely chin height to me (an ex-girlfriend is 5’1, an-exnongenderspecificcreature is 5’7, and an ex-boyfriend is 5’9…). i like short people, but it’s fun to be able to look someone in the eye when you’re talking to them 😉
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So.. how tall are you?
I’m 6’0.5″. And sometimes I wear heels. Although I’m so naturally clumsy I try to avoid high heels.
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6’1. my favorite boots have a 3.5″ platform. 😀
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Wow! A woman I could look up to. If only slightly.
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An interesting line of study. It’d be interesting to see how many guys in the “scene” would make angry and vehement denials if accused of being gay – just like any guy at a redneck bar. I’d wager a fair percentage of them would. And then on the other hand you have the girls, almost all of whom, in my limited experience, at least claim to be bisexual. It’s an odd culture.
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it’s funny; on one hand, the “goth” community idealizes femininity in all sexes, making sexuality highly variable. on the other, no amount of counterculture immersion is going to completely counteract the pervasive influence of mainstream social roles and ideas, so there is a *lot* of backlash against the “queerness” here…
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hahahaha….
As a guy who is continually “first considered” gay when people meet me at the club (at least 8 different people have told me later that “oh, I was sure that you were gay” )… I find this idea interesting..
Although I do deny being homosexual–if only because I find myself unable to be attracted to other men no matter how hard I try to think or feel about it–I do not do this vehemently or angrily…
If anything.. I find it to be a kinda “sad fact of life..” just means my choices in finding a sex partner that I will be attracted to are far more limited than if I were bisexual…
As for the whole “most women at least claim to be bisexual”–I think has that absolutely correct.. the goth community idealizes femininity (HA! there’s a ‘nin’ in femininity!) way above masculinity–at least as the commonly perceived gender stereotypes go..
Rivet heads and punks , on the other hand, tend to do the reverse…
Totally off topic at this point…
Tu parles francais?
Where did you move from? Matthew and I have talked about having lived in Tampa around the same time, attended the same clubs (different nights), pretty much know the same territory. You wouldn’t happen to be from the Tampa area too, would you?
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oui, un petit peu…et toi?
i took french for about 5 years and loved it, but also promptly forgot most of it once i wasn’t speaking regularly anymore. matthew and i talked briefly about taking french classes so that we might go to europe and visit, some day, and i would really, really like that. french or russian.
i moved from colorado; i grew up in a maryland suburb of DC and moved to boulder, CO for school. lived there for about a year and a half, and spent the rest of my time in colorado in denver and adjoining suburbs.
i’ve always found it interesting the way certain people migrate to and from the same cities; it seems as though florida, the MD/DC area, colorado, and new york go through cycles with all of us. i’ve lived in three of the above, thus far, and would love to visit florida sometime as i’ve never been but have heard a whole lot about it.
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Moi aussi. Je parle un peu. I studied French formally for 4 years, but for several years prior on my own.
About Florida – You’re probably better off getting info from Matthew about it. I grew up there, and therefore – the way so many people do – I have only bad to say about it.
Funny though, my former boss and his wife moved to Colorado after my old company was bought out by Worldcom. This is the company I worked at in Florida. One of the few good memories.
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Well, it was more because you mentioned hips, breasts and other body parts explicitly that I thought that.
Point taken. I guess I singled those features out because the “barely legal” esthetic more often than not seems to be associated with skinniness, shaved-ness, etc., presumably because they suggest pre-pubescence.
Emma Thompson, hands down. Very rarely does nude, but even still, my choice for most beautiful woman. Fell in love with her in Much Ado About Nothing, where there is a very small scene of her glory, but otherwise, a wonderful film. (As long as you fast-forward through the Reeves shots…)
Emma is Mother Earth, a natural beauty.
Well imagine what it’d be like if you lived in Japan.
I’d probably become a monk…
Suicide Girls is very much after the amateurs. Professional models are pretty much not welcome. If you have your own pay site, if you are on anyone else’s pay site, if you have anything at all that might be viewed as a conflict of interest then they say no.
Some of the models and photographers on SG are good. Many of them are not. This is the way of SG.
I really want to parody your handle: “aliennights”
feel free. 🙂
I won’t, though. It just sounds cute. 😉
ya silly 😉
What the hell is Suicidegirls? The name itself depresses me and the state of women in this country…
Heh… it’s not as bad as you think (or maybe it is, depending on your point of view). Suicidegirls is a porn site featuring girls from the gothic and punk subcultures in various stages of undress. It’s claim to fame, apart from relatively high production quality (i.e. some of the photography arguably rides the line between porn and art), is that their girls keep up an active communication with their fan base, writing journals on the site, replying to fans comments, etc. They aren’t just anonymous bodies.
Oh lord, I can just see it now….
“Hi, my name is Azrael and these are my breasts.
October 5, 2004:
Today I felt like committing suicide. What is the point in life when all there is to live for is a stream of meaningless encounters and worthless experiences. Here is a picture of me holding a whip to signify how life whips me with pain and loneliness.”
“Dear Azrael.
You are so hot. I could totally pound your ass.
Jason.”
“Dear Jason,
Thank you so much for the comment. It really means a lot to me to know that I’m hot. I guess I won’t commit suicide.”
LOL
I tend to agree, even though my girlfriend is a Lolita.
so i guess way back up the chain, a dozen entries or so above, when a poster exclaimed that there is a ‘nin’ in femininity, that the poster was exclaiming due to the nin~ness of reznor, rather than the nin~ness of anais . . . ah well ;