So...gender, sexuality, sex...
@Bedbug, you are brave to start the sharing on this stuff. I am grateful to have a place where I can express things about these topics that I am incapable of putting into words with a human being sitting in front of me. I mean, I have taught sex ed--I have no problem talking about these topics at an abstract level. But as soon as I even consider linking them to myself, personally, I get extremely anxious.
As usual, though, there's a lot I want to share. So, hang onto your socks because I might put up a lot of long posts on this thread. It's a big issue for me. For the remainder of this post I'll just share my story about gender. I don't know whether I was sexually abused as a young child, but I know I experienced an odd form of emotional abuse that targeted my sexuality (I don't really know what you'd call it).
For clarification, gender=how we feel, behave, and/or identify on a masculine-feminine continuum. Sex=our physical sex characteristics. Then it gets messy...Sexual preference=who we are attracted to (not just men or women...sometimes one can be attracted to masculine women, or feminine men). Sexuality=all of the above added to the needs for touch, intimacy, and physical pleasure, and embedded within our self-concept and body image and more. Whew.
I grew up averse to being a girl. My father was grossly sexist and demeaned my mother regularly. He had been emotionally abused by his mother and treated badly by his two significantly older sisters, so perhaps it is no wonder. His issues with my mother were far more complicated than that she was a woman, but to the child-me, the message I got was that women were dumb and worthless. My mother emotionally abused my father as well, but the abuse never linked his sex to anything negative. In fact, my mother loved and admired men, generally. She fully believed then, and continues to believe, that men are better than women.
My best friend until I was almost seven and we moved away was a boy. I spent most of my time with him and his older brother, rejecting girls in general unless we played as part of a big group, which we did regularly. I was aware that I was a girl, but I rejected it. There were TONS of kids in our little neighborhood (we roamed wild in a way that few young children do today--we were released from our houses at certain times and called back by ringing dinner bells. Our parents seemed pretty much oblivious to what we were doing unless we came home obviously bloody and battered, or if someone did damage to a house or car). It was liberating and wonderful, and I loved it, but a lot of nasty things happened too. Double-edged sword.
From the time I can remember, I wanted to play "boys' games" (football and baseball in particular), play with "boy's toys" (trains and trucks), etc. My father indulged this from early on, content to have a tomboy, perhaps. I really don't know why--Perhaps I was just the battle ground over which they fought, because they fought viciously over how I behaved and dressed. Fairly early on, my father just gave in and let my mother do what she liked with me.
When I was 4 or so, he taught me how to throw a football and bought me the trucks and trains I coveted. He also would buy me some of the "boys'" clothing I wanted. My mother would promptly take these away from me, saying they were for boys. I cannot begin to express the outrage and confusion this caused me. She was oblivious to my pain. Worse was that most of the time when she took my things away, she gave them to my best friend, Stephen. I remember, particularly, a red electric train that I loved. When she took that away, I hated her with all the passion a 3-year old can muster. And I almost hated Stephen too, I was so jealous. She would buy dolls for me. I hated dolls then, and I still do.
To add to all the emotional confusion, one of my mother's regular comments to me from the time I was very little was, "If you were a boy, it would be different." Usually this was said to me as a way of saying no to pretty much anything I wanted to do, and how I behaved and looked and spoke. I had to speak certain ways, stand certain ways, express my emotions in certain ways. I had to engage in certain activities (ballet being the most painful of them).
As I said earlier, I identified as a boy until I was 9 or so, at least in my own mind. Outwardly when I could by wearing certain clothes, tucking my braids up into a baseball cap. Nothing pleased me more than having someone mistake me for a boy. Through all those years, though, that part of me was actively and intentionally shamed by my mother. So even though I fought her at every turn, I felt there was something badly wrong with me. She regularly told me that nobody would love a girl who acted like a boy. Puberty was devastating. It was the last straw. It defeated me. Maybe I was just so very tired of fighting against my mother. I went to the other side.
By the time I hit high school, my libido had awakened, and I learned quickly that if one wanted a boyfriend, one had to behave in a certain way. This was, after all, what my mother had been training me for. How to act so that people would love you.
To be continued...
@Bedbug, you are brave to start the sharing on this stuff. I am grateful to have a place where I can express things about these topics that I am incapable of putting into words with a human being sitting in front of me. I mean, I have taught sex ed--I have no problem talking about these topics at an abstract level. But as soon as I even consider linking them to myself, personally, I get extremely anxious.
As usual, though, there's a lot I want to share. So, hang onto your socks because I might put up a lot of long posts on this thread. It's a big issue for me. For the remainder of this post I'll just share my story about gender. I don't know whether I was sexually abused as a young child, but I know I experienced an odd form of emotional abuse that targeted my sexuality (I don't really know what you'd call it).
For clarification, gender=how we feel, behave, and/or identify on a masculine-feminine continuum. Sex=our physical sex characteristics. Then it gets messy...Sexual preference=who we are attracted to (not just men or women...sometimes one can be attracted to masculine women, or feminine men). Sexuality=all of the above added to the needs for touch, intimacy, and physical pleasure, and embedded within our self-concept and body image and more. Whew.
I grew up averse to being a girl. My father was grossly sexist and demeaned my mother regularly. He had been emotionally abused by his mother and treated badly by his two significantly older sisters, so perhaps it is no wonder. His issues with my mother were far more complicated than that she was a woman, but to the child-me, the message I got was that women were dumb and worthless. My mother emotionally abused my father as well, but the abuse never linked his sex to anything negative. In fact, my mother loved and admired men, generally. She fully believed then, and continues to believe, that men are better than women.
My best friend until I was almost seven and we moved away was a boy. I spent most of my time with him and his older brother, rejecting girls in general unless we played as part of a big group, which we did regularly. I was aware that I was a girl, but I rejected it. There were TONS of kids in our little neighborhood (we roamed wild in a way that few young children do today--we were released from our houses at certain times and called back by ringing dinner bells. Our parents seemed pretty much oblivious to what we were doing unless we came home obviously bloody and battered, or if someone did damage to a house or car). It was liberating and wonderful, and I loved it, but a lot of nasty things happened too. Double-edged sword.
From the time I can remember, I wanted to play "boys' games" (football and baseball in particular), play with "boy's toys" (trains and trucks), etc. My father indulged this from early on, content to have a tomboy, perhaps. I really don't know why--Perhaps I was just the battle ground over which they fought, because they fought viciously over how I behaved and dressed. Fairly early on, my father just gave in and let my mother do what she liked with me.
When I was 4 or so, he taught me how to throw a football and bought me the trucks and trains I coveted. He also would buy me some of the "boys'" clothing I wanted. My mother would promptly take these away from me, saying they were for boys. I cannot begin to express the outrage and confusion this caused me. She was oblivious to my pain. Worse was that most of the time when she took my things away, she gave them to my best friend, Stephen. I remember, particularly, a red electric train that I loved. When she took that away, I hated her with all the passion a 3-year old can muster. And I almost hated Stephen too, I was so jealous. She would buy dolls for me. I hated dolls then, and I still do.
To add to all the emotional confusion, one of my mother's regular comments to me from the time I was very little was, "If you were a boy, it would be different." Usually this was said to me as a way of saying no to pretty much anything I wanted to do, and how I behaved and looked and spoke. I had to speak certain ways, stand certain ways, express my emotions in certain ways. I had to engage in certain activities (ballet being the most painful of them).
As I said earlier, I identified as a boy until I was 9 or so, at least in my own mind. Outwardly when I could by wearing certain clothes, tucking my braids up into a baseball cap. Nothing pleased me more than having someone mistake me for a boy. Through all those years, though, that part of me was actively and intentionally shamed by my mother. So even though I fought her at every turn, I felt there was something badly wrong with me. She regularly told me that nobody would love a girl who acted like a boy. Puberty was devastating. It was the last straw. It defeated me. Maybe I was just so very tired of fighting against my mother. I went to the other side.
By the time I hit high school, my libido had awakened, and I learned quickly that if one wanted a boyfriend, one had to behave in a certain way. This was, after all, what my mother had been training me for. How to act so that people would love you.
To be continued...
