substantia-candida

[substantia-candida]

If only you could see this portrait: soft and sprawled in morning sunlight limbs askew and eager eyes; firm foundation of embrace; yawns and stretches, catlike: strength, agility, playfulness, delight, ease, comfort

(drowsy attempts at poetry not the best; seemed a worthwhile prompt to capture what was on my mind though. I carry many portraits of you in my mind's eye, all of them radiant and cherished, but seldom voiced) (I know, I know, this is typical "C tries to prove someone will xyz, when K wants it from R", but C will try anyway, bc K is actually that lovely, and deserves to know it's possible)

lol too bad nobody is ever going to be smitten with me and think i’m really enchantingly radiant in a way they want to say a lot of expressive words about! mostly i am not actually sad about this, let the more loving one be me and all that, but apparently i’m sad about it tonight!

[substantia-candida]

The more I learn about other people’s childhood experience of girlhood and femininity, the more I realize how completely different mine was. This is a miniature exploration of the messaging I received about what being girls are supposed to be like, as contrasted with what I infer others received.

Left column) “Normal” girlhood / femininity, demonstrated by the surrounding culture as typical/expected for afab folks, for a lot of people growing up, I infer??

Right column) “Normal” girlhood / femininity, demonstrated as typical/expected *for me* growing up as an (affluent, white) girl in the Pacific Northwest.

In my upbringing, “girl” was defined not in terms of things you can’t/shouldn’t do, but in terms of things you were *able* to do, compared to boys who were viewed as too rowdy/immature/destructive/impatient. The defining traits of “girls”, I was taught, is that they are inclined to explore their world in a wholeheartedly thoughtful/engaged way (not a rowdy, destructive way, like the boys) - and not a restrained “polite” thoughtfulness, but rather, a sort of all-consuming rapturous delight; a jubilant mindfulness of being; a dynamic, tuned-in awareness of the self and the environment. Girls, I was taught, are the ones who get completely engrossed in things, make deep close friends and talk about feelings, wear whatever fun patterns and bright colors they want, dance all over the place, get barefoot and muddy, wear things that twirl around in the wind but can also be laundered, and generally are expected to seek their radiant joy. Girls are allowed to be loud, just in the backyard once you’re done with supper please. Girls are allowed to get angry, just then they talk it out instead of punching, unlike the boys. That’s what I absorbed.

The picture to the left isn’t my experience of gender *nor* was it *ever* presented to me as expected by my community. If your experience of imposed girlhood was about dressing just right, smiling just right, being confined and tidy - or otherwise deprived of unfettered access to a jubilant expression of self - I am so, so, sorry.

To be clear, I think *everyone* (including every *child*, girls and boys and nonbinary kids alike) should be supported in pursuing their own personal triumphant delight, and should be allowed to express it in every vibrant fiber of their self and their presentation.

It’s just that doing so was coded “girl” for me growing up- no, stronger than that: Pursuit of radiant delight *defines* my personal learned/ societal sense of female gender, is the *essence* of the female gender I learned as a child.

And this trips me up, all the time. Things other people say about gender (personal and societal) often just make no intuitive sense to me as a result. If the girlhood you learned was about what you *shouldn’t* do, rather than what you were *uniquely able* to do, then I’m still learning what that means - for you, for me, for society.

[substantia-candida]

Found on elainthemiddle.wordpress.com, origin unknown

This seems super helpful! (Now if only one would make one for different types of sex feelings??)

[substantia-candida]

Yes, definitely my blue!! That orange is pretty underrepresented for me right now, though. I’ve really been occupying a very saturated part of my color space this year - royal blue, forest green, violet, and my fav maroon/burgundy. The only brightness I have really retained in my wardrobe is that bright vivid blue-green. However when I look at these prints (http://aeide-thea.tumblr.com/post/129198864950/bestof-society6-art-prints-by-micklyn), especially the cubes with those pinks and oranges I think YES, those are my colors -- and then I think, huh, but why have I moved away from that bright space? What am I trying to find in dark jewel-tones that I thought bright peachy-green-blue rainbows wasn’t providing?

Echiveria done in my watercolour Moleskine, using Dr Ph. Martin’s Hydrus liquid watercolour. Only 3 colours used - Quinacridone Magenta, Blue Aqua and Hansa Yellow Medium  :)

[substantia-candida]

That's not what "self-improvement" means

Note to self: It's not "self-improvement" if the impetus to improve does not come from the self.

[substantia-candida]

I use a “bikini trimmer“ on my calves, on a setting that leaves the hairs a bit less than a centimeter long, and it’s *perfect*. Instead of having to choose between either A) repeatedly passing through “creepily hairless” and “unpleasantly stubbly” to get to the desired state of “soft and unobtrusive”, or B) letting the growth proceed into “dense forest of madness, enemy of calf-high socks”, I can actually cut it straight to the desired length without delay! It’s magical!

There are lots of body hair trimmers out here that are probably way better than what I have; Amazon will provide =)

i hate all versions of my calves, the hairy version is dark and ugly and the shaved version is naked and increasingly stubbly and there is No Winning

[substantia-candida]

FEMALE AUTHOR COMICS are my new thing

Sometimes you feel like doing a big frilly splash page and you just gotta act on that impulse!!

[substantia-candida]

Helmet Shell

by Julia LaSalle

I’m riding a tricycle around an indoor track and I have a mollusk in my mouth. My husband is leaning over the rails about 15 yards away, yelling and gesturing and urging me on. His face looks mad. Inside my mouth the mollusk squirms.

“Whoever does the most laps while keeping the mollusk alive,” says the announcer, “wins.” When I pass my husband I don’t look to the side. I keep my head straight ahead, looking over the plastic handle bars.

“The mollusk must be alive to win.” That’s what the announcer says. He has said it again and again in a million different ways as if we don’t all know the rules by now. We all know the rules. The mollusk has to be alive to win. No shit. I’ve been holding mine in my mouth for hours.

The whole event is reaching a frenzy. Women are dropping out of the contest left and right, crashing on their tricycles, swallowing their snails, and it’s become clear to me that I have a chance.

I press the mollusk lightly with my tongue, cradling him. Commanding my jaw to stay relaxed even though I’m pedaling fast and my chinstrap is tight. The mollusk has to be alive. That’s part of it. That’s the most important part.

The crowd is scattered; they are hysterical with yells, but the only words I can discern come from the announcer and my husband. The announcer states and restates the rules. My husband urges me constantly and constantly on.

My mollusk wiggles his slime toward the back of my throat, and it breaks my concentration. I blink, see my husband again, and wreck.

I go over the handle bars and while I’m on all fours the mollusk drops out of my mouth.

“Come on, Mary Beth!” my husband screams, suddenly beside me. “Come on!”

The mollusk writhes on the track, his shell in two pieces, his body completely exposed.

“Mary Beth is down,” the announcer is saying, “But she can still go on. If the mollusk is still alive, she can still go on.”

The mollusk’s body is white, almost glowing he’s so white. His body twists and leaves a wet spot.

“Go on, Mary Beth!” my husband yells and I hate him for it.

I scoop the mollusk up with the shell pieces, pop the whole thing in my mouth, and pedal again, until the crowd becomes bored with the few of us left and starts to disperse.

Though my husband doesn’t budge. He continues to scream and yell.

When I crash again, my eyes are bleary. My mollusk on the ground is now a tiny thing. I crushed some of him with my teeth in the fall but a small piece still squirms.

“Get up, Mary Beth!” my husband is yelling—but my mollusk’s shell pieces are gone. “Go on!”

“She can still win this battle,” the announcer says, “if she can put a shell together from the pieces against the rail.”

And so I try.

Alongside the rail are the crushed and dead pieces of other mollusks and trikes, the rubble and flotsam from contestants who didn’t go as many times around.

“Without the shell the mollusk won’t last long,” the announcer says. “A mollusk needs its shell to live and breathe and grow. Mary Beth must hurry.”

I sift through these broken pieces, all various shades of yellow decay. It smells like the sea and has a thousand sharp edges.

“Without a shell a mollusk won’t last long.”

There are two contestants left on trikes. I still have a chance, but it hurts my knees and hands to crawl in the garbage this way.

And when my husband yells “Mary Beth, Come on!” and I see my mollusk curling on itself—the last piece of the slimy white worm—I stand up, remove my helmet, and crush the mollusk with my sole.

From

http://monkeybicycle.net/helmet-shell/

[substantia-candida]

YES, THIS. I’m really still struggling with this.

My current framework is a bit like this, for what it’s worth (very much still under construction!):

Different bodies, situations, etc. remind me of different dynamics. For example, BDSM interactions often make me think about power dynamics. Similarly, bodies often remind me of learned gender roles and patterns, and their associated dynamics.

I learned about sex as an 18-to-20-something in a BDSM-friendly context, so I generally think it’s fine to fantasize about very problematic dynamics (like kidnapping, abuse of power in doctor-patient relationships, military interrogation, treating people like animals) - to find them hot, and to play with them - provided you A) mentally separate the imagery with what’s actually OK and actually true in the real world, and B) get everyone’s consent if you’re actually impacting someone’s experience at all (through words or actions) rather than keeping it entirely in your own head.

When it comes to gender: the gender binary pattern exists, it’s out there in the world, it’s tied up with power dynamics, it’s super problematic, *and* it can also evoke really hot imagery. I think it’s just as OK to think “that person’s appearance and pose in that photograph makes me think about femininity and the ‘delicate flower’ archetype” as it is to think “that person’s appearance and pose in that photograph makes me think about pets, and the ‘taking care of a person like they’re a puppy’ dynamic”. You have no idea if the person in the photograph thinks about themselves as female or wants to be treated as female at all (let alone “delicate”!), any more than they think of themselves as a human puppy or want to do puppy play. Lots of people like puppy play! Lots of people like being referred to with female pronouns! Lots of people like being viewed as a delicate flower! You don’t know yet! Before you treat someone that way outwardly, or assume they want that, you have to ask. But it’s OK to be reminded inwardly, inside your own head, of that dynamic as a thing you think is hot.

i don’t know how to reconcile the fact that i feel different things for girls than i do for boys with the fact that i don’t want to make assumptions about what people’s bodies mean

[substantia-candida]

https://www.etsy.com/listing/206312520/im-sorry-you-cried-in-front-of-yourOh dear! I really could have used this last term!

[substantia-candida]

I just became aware of a rather awful fight in the corner of my feed about the statement “women have penises”. (I’m intentionally not tagging anyone involved because I don’t want to link myself to abusive commenters). One commenter asserts:

“you can repeat a contradictory phrase over and over again until you’ve brainwashed yourself, but that doesn’t make it true. 2 + 2 will never equal 5, and the definition of the word “women” will never include people with penises.”

In response, I want to reference the following post by Slate Star Codex, which is quite long, but I *highly* recommend:

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/21/the-categories-were-made-for-man-not-man-for-the-categories/

The basic gist of that blog post is this: when drawing boundaries between categories (like fish and mammal, or Israel and Palestine, or sick and healthy, or male and female), all you can do is draw those boundaries in a way that is *useful*; there is no such thing as a set of boundaries that is “factually true and correct”.

So given that gender is a boundary-drawing/categorization issue, not a factual accuracy issue, I say let’s get on with the program of defining gender boundaries in the ways that respect the wants of individual gender-having people!

[substantia-candida]

Every time I pass by this marble lion on campus, I am struck by just how indignant and displeased it looks! D=

“Aughh, no, I was sleeping, and now this, are you SERIOUS?? aaaaughhh”

[substantia-candida]

S and I realized something finally this week:

For the entire year, I’ve been worried that I’m not *“really”* into girls in some “genuine” sense, and will be found out as an impostor (not *actually* bi just a confused straight person trying to be something I’m not) and thus that I’m inadequate and can only disappoint S…

…and she has been reading my insecurity as a sign that I’m not really interested in her *at all*, and that therefore she’s inadequate and can only disappoint me.

Does every bi person go through this????

[substantia-candida]

You are SO goddamned elegant!!! That voice saying you aren't elegant is *not your own voice*! It is just a stowaway echo of another's voice, in disguise as your own. Internalization is awful that way, and so we just gotta fight it!

[substantia-candida]

There’s a reason why I chose vision to study for my PhD!

cubes movin up

[substantia-candida]

I am wearing almost exactly these colors today, but everything a bit more saturated - a deeper purple, like the dark flower in the top image. A more sapphire blue.

I definitely have “colors”, a “palette”. Bright and dark blues and greens; maroons and purples; and dark red, definitely dark red.

and I like that, a lot, about being me =)

 by ebiyuka

[substantia-candida]

No relationship can truly grow if you go on holding back. If you remain clever and go on safeguarding and protecting yourself, only personalities meet, and the essential centers remain alone. Then only your mask is related, not you. Whenever such a thing happens, there are four persons in the relationship, not two. Two false persons go on meeting, and the two real persons remain worlds apart.

Osho, Intimacy: Trusting Oneself and the Other (via larmoyante)

There’s truth in this, but at the same time, this strikes me as being just a massive pile of judgment! Wielding your mask is a *valid* defense mechanism; moreover, in protecting yourself, you are protecting something valuable and worthy. There might be *other* ways to protect the part of you that feels threatened (like talking about your hesitations, setting boundaries/expectations in advance, practicing ways to say no...) but “your protections are bad and wrong; safeguarding yourself is useless and you should stop” is not only super judgmental, but also a shallow analysis of what’s going on.

I’ve been trying to focus lately on motivational phrasings that draw power from pursuing what I *want* (by fantasizing about futures that I feel excited about”) rather than drawing power from avoiding what I fear. It’s a hard exercise. It’s really drilled into us that “Go do something different!” is followed by “Because you’re bad and wrong right now!” and not “Because it would be nice if you did, though this is fine too!”