A sub is just a roll

Or is that a role. Why are some individuals committed to one role, while others are flexible?
I have been thinking about how I might contribute to the sum of knowledge through my blog entries ......beyond helping readers to understand that there is one more self involved asshole blogging happily away.

This is the first of a series of posts, which sampled profiles on fetlife to find some interesting things about gender, dominance and sexuality.  The other posts which followed  are  Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Part 1   Part 2    and    Part 3

Thinking about the malleability of gender and power roles. We grow up thinking that it is decreed, but I am learning that this is perhaps delusion. I originally was ready to proclaim the wisdom of my own insights into the psychology of gender bending and power relationships in the communities that I have come to know. Then I realized that in another life I function as a scientist, and that this topic is subject to some basic empirical research. So I present a bit of research I did which I hope some will find interesting. I basically developed a method by which I could randomly search profiles on Fetlife, the facebook of kink, and simply note the declared gender and preferred power status of the user. I did this about 350 times, and created the chart below. Gender-wise users can describe themselves as male or female or a variety of ambi-gendered descriptions. In the same way they can describe themselve with unambiguous power designations master, dom, domme or submissive, slave, bottom, or ambiguous terms like switch or kinkster, or sadomasochist, all of which I lumped into switch.
The results are shown below.

	Dominant	Switch	Submissive
Female	04%	11%	12%
Ambi-Gender	0%	01%	02%
Male	29%	25%	14%

.HTML Tables

Not Surprising. Almost 70% of profiles describe themselves as male while only 27% say they are female. I think that past research in this area has shown that males self describe as being into BDSM relationships at least twice as often as females.
Sorry Guys!

Where were my assumptions shattered? Well I imagined that close to 25% would describe themselves in gender ambiguous terms. Hey all my friends do!!
3%! alas! And I was ready to do my riff on how power preferences are malleable,but I thought only 20%- would self-describe as the old switcheroo, but it turned out to be 37%. More than chose the old tried and true male dom, female sub categories. So hush my mouth! I am abashed and educated. Gender is still a relatively inflexible category, but top/bottom preferences are much more fluid in the early 21st century, and that in itself is a sign of progressive understanding of gender. In traditional world, gender and power are fixed and inflexible. That so many do not fall into the stereotypical male /female power dynamics is a sign that this world is far behind us.
I think simple examination of the demographics of Fetlife may provide some other insights into the relative flexibility of gender and power. If I can only pause long enough in the continuing self examination to look at it.

End of Days

Hello

Have you come here, googling or whatever you call it in your time, convinced of end times, and looking for information? Welcome! I lived in end times, and it looks like you do too. You say i couldn't have lived in end times? because you are still wandering around looking for the signs? Well that is a very limited viewpoint, and I am here to tell you why.

In the final days, the divine will call the blessed to be at Her side, and the damned? well it will be strife and struggle on a godless planet until finally the curtain is lowered and the show is over.

I lived in New Jersey and our prophets told of the rapture since my youth. "Goodbye New Jersey I have become airborne" to quote one. But Goddess is everywhere, and in everything and the beatific vision, salokya is here and it is now. So are you in heaven? No. Well then it is simple, you are struggling mightily on a planet with no trace of the divine?

Is that the case? Sorry honey Judgement Day!

I wish I could help you out, but I have passed beyond your ken. If there is still a New Jersey, and you are still in it. I recommend a visit to the big blue hole.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Hole_(New_Jersey)

The Sweet Bi and Bye

"We do as we please from morning til the end of the day" Ray Davies

Hail Protean players. Secret life livers, and Second Life subscribers, the negotiators of dual existences, trilifes, and quadentities. Fashion the meat puppet as required, and program the mind puppet accordingly.

Overturn the monolith of the monolife monotony.

Ah didn't that feel better.

In the hindu mythology there are the rakshasa's, the kAmarupas who can assume any form, like Odo in Deep Space Nine, only not so pleasant as they are fond of devouring humans, and acquire all the bad press that seems to accompany this culinary choice. Calumny I swear. Merely the normal preference of higher life forms for lower. Burger anyone?

But really my point is that we live under conditions of identity, and self fulfillment. Did someone say "Be all you can be?" And what would that be? Well let's check out match.com. "I am a male of a certain age. I am a corporate professional, I dress nice. My interests are swatting flies, flying planes, planing boards etc. " So unremarkable as to elude remark. What is simpler. We are, and therefore we are someone and someone is male of a certain age. etc. etc. We aspire to identities, and cling to them from childhood to senescence, awaiting their rapture or ruin finally.

Then the late model tranny is a male who comes to realize his female gender identity... out with the old and in with the new. But then the how do you deal with all those who were fond of the old or called the old daddy, or bastard. Well fret and worry is always a strategy.

But what if it is mostly a crock. A story we tell each other over and over ad nauseum.

KAmarupas of the world unite. We have nothing to lose but our pain.

From Here to Eternity

Recently I heard that the novel From Here to Eternity had been censored to remove references to homosexuality. this struck a chord because From Here to Eternity was my father's favorite book. At first I thought "so there!" speaking as it were from here to Eternity where he resides, but I understand that Prewitt, the character he most admired would not engage in homosexual acts for money. And anyway, the only really interesting communications would be from Eternity to here. But it did serve to remind me that the forces that shaped me, shaped my father. He confessed that his mother had dressed him funny, (knickers in his day), and he had a deep concern with masculinity growing up in a fatherless home. He certainly communicated that to me. I knew that revealing my fascination with femme clothing would have been very troubling for him, and probably trouble for me. Our biggest mistake together, a drunken prelude to an almost fist fight broken up by my mother, was precipitated by his voicing sympathy with my persecutors because I was wearing "fruit boots" ( sort of Uggs).

It was the time of "Are you a boy or are you a girl?" gender relaxation and the sometimes violent reaction to such. But all the boys were doing such things, so a special boy like me could certainly slide there,and I didn't regard my gender relaxed hair, and colorful cloths as particularly revelatory of my deeper secrets. But now what would he say to his hormone soaked, closet full of drag, semi-public sissy of a son, who was already something of a disappointment?

Well if he has been absorbed back into the unmanifest Brahma; If he has seen the play of male and female in the realms of the Devas and Devi, then he may have a gentle comment.

"Are you the last creature on earth who still wears slips?" and he might appreciate that in my way I emulated his dilemma, choosing masculinity for my public persona, and living all of my significant life up to a few years ago as a man. I certainly don't know very well the demons that may have afflicted that very stoic man who provided me with the proper role model which he never had from his own absent, arrogant and morally questionable father. I found a heart ornament from my mother on a lonely beach a few Easter's ago. I have not had such obvious communications from his Eternity. But the connections were so much more strained,. Anyway I am glad that Prewitt did not turn out to be effeminate, and censored. We each have our blessings and our burdens. My father was a model among men. I see his karma at work still and still doing good in my brother particularly another model among men. Me? I have chosen a different path or it chose me.

I Remember You

I remember vividly and still feel it, mostly vicariously, the thrill.. pitter pat.. of a boy's heart when he regards that which is soft, and sensuous, gentle and admiring, curvy and complete in a body that hurts to look at, eyes that hurt to look into... a voice that.. melts.... Mom's register, the female voice. The heart swells.... and that isn't the only thing that swells. Those special memories; just so tickled to have a sweet smelling, good looking girl on your arms or in your arms. To be the rather colorless consort to that gay colorful lilting creature!

So when you begin to seriously emulate her. When you dress as you never dressed as young. A flowing skirt, a lighter tread, sparkles from a little costume bling, and the lovely feelings of your beautful underthings, soft against your body. When you are her if only approximately, and with a few more years on you than she had, when you are her nonetheless, a experience the other side, there is a loss. She laughed, and lilted and flirted with that colorless shy boy, and that boy.... well.... that boy is gone.

It has been very satisfying for me to be transgendered, but like serial monogamy is not polyamoury so serial gender identification is not the full experience, but I am not sure with my hormones, and my sweety titties that I would never never want to surrender, that I could ever have that full experience. Some people, younger than i call themselves genderqueer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genderqueer

I would love to know if someone can actually be both ... male and female in some fundamental way and enjoy both pieces of the dance. In the same day, in the same body.... The mystical union...

Or didn't you know. Yab Yum is Yum Yum.

Pheromones Again

A couple of years ago, I was wondering how estrogen might change the way I smell, and whether that would cause otherwise heterosexual men to be attracted to me.

http://harmonybelle.blogspot.com/2009/12/full-moons-pheromones-and-i-phones.html Well it was sort of a weekend of philosophical discussion and t-group sort of activity this weekend, and a post op T-Girl who has been married was asked by a woman who was curious why She used to be attracted to girls, and was now attracted to men. And what the postop girl said was .... "well men just started to smell good" Things that make you go HMMM... or is that HUM! the night before discussion was about knowing yourself, and how it isn't about you, and other things that sound good, but I always wonder.. like " Is everyone having me on?" Be honest about what you want..etc etc.. I mean I think I want to get up now and get another beer, but beyond that.. like whether I want boys or girls.. or maybe just lots of mirrors... well I don't really know. But I do know that my sissy girlfriend who is after all a boy... well She smells wonderful, and I love to ..well I love to smell her. and that means I love to smell him... and that means... gasp! oh double gasp!! I like boys... cause I actually like to touch her where she isn't a her , and smell her.. and in the morning touching her and making her swell.. and the strong unshowered morning smell of her.. and I can only say that the whole experience is just swell. In evening contemplation, enjoying the lime wafting from my my beer. I can entertain the possibility that it all sounds awfully homosexual of me, and I just looked up late onset homosexuality, and they mean like 20 or something, so that is definitely an F in the Introductory Know Yourself. But I forgot... I take hormones! and while Girls still smell great, now boys smell great too, and could it be just that simple... Better Living Through Chemistry. And now I am thinking with this essay I may just be able to cajol the professor into giving me a C-

OBLIVIOUS

Now that is a condition that I have been accused of embracing and it would explain alot. After all it is reasonable to ask someone to get their sexual preferences straight (or not) before they slip into a senescent state. I am not sure that I am going to make it however. Dont Ask? Don't Tell? How about Don't Know. I have enjoyed the company of t-girls mostly the last couple of years. And t-girls are generally somewhere between boys and girls and some, when they take their clothes off are more boys than girls. It has been a great revelation to me since I started dressing more publically that right from day one, i was willing to be intimate with t-girls, and over time the great revelation has been that I dont mind the boy in the girl. This weekend at a bar hanging out with a friend. We were talking with a gay man my age, about t-girls and what our sexuality was. I was trying to explain that it was complicated. He had a simple rule for gay. He asked what was the last time you sucked cock. well... darn... what a question... 3 hours I said.. and that seemed to take care of the complexities for him. He appeared to be oblivious to the subtleties.

Oblivious.... I have also begun to wonder about forgetting. I find myself increasingly forgetful mostly about names... and names... well I was always oblivious... only now do I have the social smarts to realize that is makes sense to make a point of remembering names... People like when you remember their name. If you live long enough, and get far enough away from your youth, you realize that a whole bunch of it is forgotten or never thought of. Where do those summer days of baseball, and ring alevio and monopoly go when they are never thought of, and when thought of.. how have they all merged into an indistinct something. Imagine if we lived 10 or 100 times longer than we do. Would we essentially be totally disconnected from childhood, unable to remember the least thing? Or is it all lurking there.. (where?) waiting for that silly little sliver of moving consciousness we call ME. to get around to visiting.

Now this gentleman spent a lot of time thinking about the problem.

Buddhism in my understanding says let it go... let everything go... the problem is clinging.. holding on. Oblivion is the great ocean of the eternal.

Jump honey... Mama will catch you. Unless I forget there should be a part two.