AltSex- The Post Modernism of Sexuality
Post-Modernism: of, relating to, or being a theory that involves a radical reappraisal of modern assumptions about culture, identity, history, or language
Alt Sex Mode:
Today I am a female, and tomorrow I am a male, and the day after that I am gender queer. Similarly today I am straight, then gay, then bisexual, then pansexual, then try-sexual, bi-curious……
Today I am a cat, and tomorrow I am a bird, and the day after that I am a pony.
Today I am a Dominant, then submissive, then beater, then beatee, then a beater who is submissive- service top……
We are living in a world of infinite possibilities and therefor infinite options.
And while we maintain a system of categorizing these behaviours and proclivities, we may not always feel beholden to them, accurately represented by them, or a need to declare or identify publicly based on these categories. In Anne Fausto-Sterling‘s essay The Five Sexes, she asserts that biological gender itself is not and can not be typified in a binary system of categorizing. In other words “male” and “female” are misnomers, often inaccurate and not complete in there scope of portraying genetic expressions of sex/gender. Her terminology for the instances of non-“typical” gender expression consists of the umbrella category “intersexual” and the sub-categories of Merm, Ferm, and Herm talking about the predominance of which genital set in the intersexual person. She also acknowledges the social complications that the other-than-binary system of sex, ie the spectrum of physical sexual spectrum and the identification and lifestyle that accompanies a “practicing” hermaphrodite, who can in theory and practice be heterosexual with both males and females. This is naturally occurring, at birth phenomena, and other later non-enhanced and non-intervened development purely. When you then consider psychologically expressed issues about A. body identity and B. gender identity you have a clear delineation of medical proof to the existence of sexual multiplicity and a lack of cultural understanding and clarification, if not also acceptance….mainstream culture anyway.
And this leads me to the Alt community. This freedom of sexual expression, lifestyle choice, and personal identity is an INDICTMENT of the existing, previous mode of operation. In our attempt to exemplify the spectrum, to live it out and to inform those around us as to its existence we play out, seek out, and share the experiences of our spectrums, and those we have encountered. This is our sexual post-modernism.
Sex is one of the only true universals of existence. Sexuality, whether expressed or acted upon directly is present within all human beings, regardless of age, and all humans are capable of sexual behaviour, sexual attitudes, sexualizing others and themselves being sexualized. And that is why I believe that sex becomes so problematic for us as a society.
In our urge to categorize, we accomplish several things: a perceived ease of communication, a shorthand for faster communication, organization, and hierarchy but what we are also doing is reducing a complex thing into a simple word, label, symbol or stand in and thus avoiding the need to investigate, clarify, analyze or otherwise deal directly with the subject matter. So in a sense, invoking a term such as “female” obscures as much as it reveals, and brings forward as much as it pushes back….so it neutralizes its subject….which is fine theoretically, but when we talk about those thigns which we are incapable of disconnection, such as survival and sex we can not neutralize, or eliminate the human being in front of us. If you and I are in a room, and one of us demonastrates sexual behaviour, the other will perceive this as sexual and evaluate their own sexuality in so doing. There is a sex act between two people going on, regardless of how consensual, desirable or involved; if both are not touching one another it is voyeurism at the least, but sexual expression does impact all witnesses. Because of this, we have the tendency to “over identify” with others we see as sexually similar, or similar in some way that we can identify with, and sex makes this indentification process harder or impossible to avoid.
So why the complication? Well one idea is because if you are not one or the other thing, then perhaps I am not either, and clearly I invoke this term for simplicity of use and have not bothered to investigate myself, my options my alternatives thoroughly….that’s where AltSex CommUNITY comes in….we have/are/will investigate these things, share, educate, share again, recruit, broadcast, challenge, redefine…..our sex your sex and sexuality as a whole.
>>>>this little rant/essay relates to others Ive written: https://klawdyarothschild.com/2008/11/09/sex-u-all-ity/ https://klawdyarothschild.com/2008/11/05/the-black-box-of-shame/ and is a working compilement of essays that build upon one another…yay
Klawdya Rothschild's Vortex 