REDIRECTED TO MAYBEMAIMED.COM: Maybe Maimed but Never Harmed

I've never been a manly man. When I was younger, I watched quite a bit of television. I remember lots of the imagery I was presented with quite vividly. In almost every case, I wanted to be the girls. Growing up, I quickly learned that wanting to be more like the girls was a desire frowned upon by pretty much everybody else—not least of all, by the girls.

These days, the same things still come up in daily conversation as they did in years past. "I wish I could lose ten more pounds—I don't feel pretty," I hear women say all the time. In response, everyone simultaneously begins talking about the oppressive nature of our culture's media campaigns. "Oh, come on. You don't have to look like every model in the magazines. You're smart, you're kind; of course you're hot," they'll say to her in an effort to comfort and sympathize.

Most of the time, I think women's self-image issues are physically, though not emotionally, unfounded. All but one of my girlfriends were, to use the obvious example, heavier than the BMI charts would have them feel comfortable about. My femdom fantasies have always been tilted toward larger girls. Hula dancers were an ironic motif, but I attribute this mostly to the healthier, more attractive weight Hawaiian girls tend to carry. I'll never understand the fetish for stick-figure girls. That can be sexy but I think women are sexier if they're shapely.

Issues men may have with their body image, however, are almost never even recognized. If they are, they discuss how unmanly boys feel and offer ways to feel more manly. Nothing we see in our culture tells boys that it's okay to want to feel pretty, to want to be treated in ways similar to the way we see people treating girls. If a boy, like me, wanted that, they call him a sissy and expect him to want to feel bad about it. I find this fact, an association often cited between cross-dressing and humiliation, nothing less than repulsive.

Furthermore, every time I've ever hinted at having body image issues of any kind at all, a very strange thing happens. Rather than address these issues, people turn to my girlfriend and give her a once-over. Then, they turn back to me. "How can you think of yourself as not attractive?" They ask, puzzled. "Your girlfriend is so hot."

Granted, my girlfriend is hot. But what, pray tell, does that have to do with my own self-image? You've just told me that my own self-image should be measured by how hot my girlfriend is. Call me crazy, but my girlfriend's attractiveness should not be the scale by which I measure my own.

Is that what you'd say to a fat girl, by the way? Oh, you're totally sexy because your boyfriend is super skinny. What kind of logic is that? It's not only completely missing the point, it doesn't make her feel better. In fact, it often makes her feel worse. And that's exactly what doing that does to me: it makes me feel worse.

Why is it a taboo to discuss men on the basis of their looks? Even in romance novels, where the gallant and obligatorily handsome man plays center stage, most descriptions about his looks center on his other attributes. His strong muscles. His virile penis. His healthy hair. It's not about the way he looks, it's about what he can offer in every other realm; wealth, health, or power. Even here, men's sexual attractiveness is being judged on everything except their looks. This is crazy.

To top it off, even the pretty men, who were called the derogatory term "twinks" in gay slang for quite a while, are usually portrayed in as decidedly not delicate a manner as possible; sweating profusely, working out, doing some manly chore, or otherwise being rough and tumble. The message? Be ruggedly handsome, sure, but don't be pretty.

By this culture's dogma, being pretty is a woman's job. Women are the ones who are "supposed to" do the attracting; men are supposed to be attracted. But this is insulting, and unfair. Wanting to feel pretty often goes hand-in-hand with wanting to be pursued. The emotions are the same: love me, I'm precious. But being pursued is the woman's job, as if they are the only ones allowed to feel as though they are precious and worthy of loving attentions.

This whole fucked-up mess does a lot of things for men. It makes us get paid more at work. It makes it easier for us to attract people into old age (where, I'm sorry, looks are just not going to follow). It makes it harder to objectify us in ways we don't want. And, unfortunately, it makes it a lot harder for us to talk about body image issues—especially if you're like me and you don't even want to have the traditional Vin-Diesel-the-body-builder look and instead want to look like the lithe, nubile, pretty young things you only see cast in the gender role of supreme femininity.

Well, I have a confession to make. I like dressing up as a girl because, in part, it makes me feel pretty. It does this because putting on frilly panties is the only time I feel the culture in which I live is telling me that I might actually get away with being pretty.

This confession, low and behold, is not uncommon. Men who want to feel pretty end up wanting to emulate women because we have no other choice. Why can men, secure in their masculinity, not also be pretty? Even the dictionary is stupendously unhelpful here. Defining "pretty" results in this definition from Princeton's web dictionary:

pleasing by delicacy or grace; not imposing; "pretty girl"; "pretty song"; "pretty room"

(Emphasis added by yours truly.)

I have been called graceful. I have also been called delicate. I've been called pleasing a bunch more times than these other two things combined.

People I don't know ask me if I dye my hair when they look at its color in the sun (I don't). They ask me if I've ever played the piano when they notice the way my fingers curl around cups as I drink (I haven't). They have remarked on how carefully I treat all my belongings, and how thoughtful I am when I am hosting a guest. But they have never called me pretty.

It may surprise some of you to hear this, but Eileen is actually the first person I have known that has called me pretty. She is fond of my ass and these days I might call it one of the prettiest parts of me, but it was not always this way.

One night many years ago, well before I even consciously thought about why I kept wanting to feel pretty, I was lounging with my then-girlfriend in the bedroom I shared with my brother. I remember only a single sentence from the conversation we had that night. It was this sentence that my girlfriend said to me that cued six years of body image issues centered around my butt: "I would like it if your ass was firmer."

What did firmer mean, anyway? It meant that I should have more of a boy's body. I didn't have a muscular gluteus maximus; I didn't have the body of a strong, rugged, self-respecting man. But you know what, I didn't want that body, either. And that should've been okay.


Addendum: For those interested in a bit more academic self-education (the best kind, if you ask me), I would highly suggest reading the Wikipedia articles on sissyphobia and effeminacy, for a start.

A particular passage of interest is cited below, and serves as a wonderful example of the fact that cultural ideals change with time. My message in this post, if you are to take one from it that I did not actually intend when I started, would be to stay aware of this constantly changing cultural stereotype—in all cultures and in all situations—and to avoid letting cultural noncompliance result in prejudiced or oppressive actions of any kind.

Pre-Stonewall "closet" culture accepted homosexuality as effeminate behaviour, and thus emphasized camp, drag, and swish including an interest in fashion (Henry, 1955; West, 1977) and decorating (Fischer 1972; White 1980; Henry 1955, 304). Masculine gay men did exist but were marginalised (Warren 1972, 1974; Helmer 1963) and formed their own communities, such as leather and Western (Goldstein, 1975), and/or donned working class outfits (Fischer, 1972) such as sailor uniforms (Cory and LeRoy, 1963). (Levine, 1998, p.21-23, 56)

Post-Stonewall, "clone culture" became dominant and effeminacy is now marginalised. One indicator of this is a definite preference shown in personal ads for masculine-behaving men (Bailey et al 1997).

My personal experiences written above are likely the result of my interaction with New York City's leather subculture, as that community is my primary social outlet (for now).

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

I've been really, really pissed off the last couple of days weeks months years. I thought it was getting better and I was beginning to get out of my bitter and jealous funk, but it's just not happening. Might even be getting worse; instead of ranting on my own blog, now I'm ranting in the comments on Elizabeth's blog (sorry about that, by the way). Pretty sad, really.

I had a long converastion with Lady Lubyanka today, whom I am almost certain thinks I am a very angry and very smart troubled young boy. (She would not be entirely incorrect either; but I did have to look up the word erudite when she called me that today. She's such a sweet charmer.) Then, later, instead of spending dinner with friends I became too upset to be social and wanted to leave early, and this ended up as a very long conversation with Eileen about what was wrong.

So what is wrong? A lot of things are wrong and were never right; these things have hurt me from the first moment I interacted even remotely sexually with another person, but they are especially painful right now because of a few personal experiences that I'd much rather not go into on such a public forum. I mention that now to tell you, dearest reader, that these things are not solely the belidgerant words of an angsty youth. These things do happen. They happen all the time.

Even though there's no help in this post, I ultimately thought that writing about how to make things better without also showing the hurt may not actually be that effective. So here is the bitter taste of reality submissive men drink day in and day out:

I wanted to write about the incredibly aggravating notion that regardless of orientation, dominant or submisive, men are expected to be the pursuers while women, dominant or submissive, are expected to be the pursued.

I wanted to write about why many submissive men are just as responsible for debasing their own sexuality as the many pro- (and so obviously not-so-pro-)dommes who take delight in squashing them down while lifting them of that burdensome weight in their wallets. ("Thank you for stealing my money, Mistress, would you like another dollar?")

I wanted to write about the lack of empathy so prevalent in the public BDSM scenes where more often than you'd probably think (more times than I can count and over the course of two relationships) people of all sexes befriend you if you're a guy for the purposes of getting closer to your girlfriends, both significant other(s) and otherwise. After all, you're a guy: you're just a dime a dozen anyway and another twenty like you will walk through the door in the next two minutes. But oh my god, is that a breast standing next to you? Is there a photographer in the house? Someone must capture this moment and make it last a lifetime! (I still remember the near stampede bee line that was made towards my then-girlfriend when we came out to our first public BDSM meeting. It's happened lots of times since then, too; mostly I'm just used to it now.)

I wanted to write about how most people assume that if you're a guy you're probably controlled by nothing more than that little blood-shot rod of tissue called a penis, and how incredibly shameful I feel to be male because so many times these people are actually correct in their accusations of men. (See above. 'Nuff said.)

I wanted to write about how submissive men will pretty much always, without fail, lose a race for sexual satisfaction out of any gender/sex/orientation combination you can come up with. Always. I've had a sex life that any submissive man you point at would kill to have, yet stick me in a room with other orientations and I'm still the first one sidelined, the last one standing by the fruit punch and chips, so to speak. It's not like it hasn't happened before, and it's certainly going to happen again.

I wanted to write about how if you're a submissive guy you're treated with near-fear if not written off if you don't call youself worthless or think you're only value comes from how much money you make. My god, he's submissive but he likes himself. He's gotta be like the unabomber or one of those kids from Columbine—he's clearly fucked up in the head. No self-respecting male would actually be submissive. I mean, he's submissive? Doesn't he not want to be respected? (Yeah, keep talking Einstein.)

If you are a man and you have had any experience at all interacting with almost any sexually oriented community (including non-kinky contexts), maybe you're pretty pissed off, too. Worst of all, maybe a lot of people are telling you that you don't have a lot of reason to be upset. After all, you're a man, and the world handed you an easier time of things than, say, if you were a woman or if you were living in a third-world country. Shut up and be grateful, you selfish little prick.

I'm not ungrateful, you should tell them, I'm very grateful for the things I have. But that does not negate the unjust, oppressive, systematic starvation of my sexual identity, the hurt caused by the intentional and the unintential assumptions made about who I am and what I should enjoy based on it, or the pain from seeing how excruciatingly invasive all of this has become in my bedroom.

That's what I wanted to write about, but I'm clearly in no state to be writing such things. I'm way too angry about it to make any kind of coherent sense. So like I said, move along, keep channel surfing. There's nothing to see here that you haven't seen a million times before.

In reply to my previous post, Eileen left some prodding comments. (I love it when she prods me.)

How can we make the spaces for everyone wider? CV is doing a fantastic job of it; what else can be done?

CV succeeded in creating a space that does not feel fragmented because there was more than just tolerance and acceptance, there was invitation and inclusion. At the same time as we celebrate diversity and showcase our differences, we are also welcoming.

It's not what you do, it's how you do it. Communities can learn a lot from that mantra. Everywhere else I look I see groups built upon expectations instead of invitations. Their party line is, "Come here if you are interested in BDSM and you are gay." The "Join us if" mentality is exclusionary, an odd thing for a marginalized community to be based on, I think. The end result of such things is the current state of the sexuality communities: fractured and divided and so utterly, utterly siloed.

Instead, why not just say, "Join us." No qualifiers, there's no need. Rules of civility and organization operations are no hindrances to this sort of thing. And of course, don't just say it. Do it!

Dom Sub Friends (aka DSF) has what is probably their view of a very inviting tagline: The Friendly BDSM Society. But go to a meeting and you'll be greeted by the most adamantly heterosexual, maledom/femsub group you're likely to meet in New York City. They may be friendly, but they are anything but inviting if who you are is someone like me. On the other hand, they are probably a great find for people who are looking for that sort of thing. (In which case I recommend them—they've never been anything but friendly to me.)

Naturally, communities will organize around their own cultures, and what they determine as criteria for valuing BDSM activity is not mine. It makes sense, then, that I would not find this group inviting. It also begs the question: would they find my culture inviting? Maybe not. (As a side-note, this is why I am very much not worried about people who may pose a threat to CV taking over the population of the group. They simply have better places to go than our little oasis. To quote our current president of vice, we're really pretty boring if you're not actually interested in learning about BDSM with an open mind.)

Therein lies my point, however. They don't need to find my culture inviting, they already have one. I, on the other hand, don't. There are no erotic art shows I know of that display imagery such as that in Van Darkholme's Male Bondage photography book. As a matter of fact, I don't even know of any other books that do such a thing.

Should we start making our own porn? Should I take photos of you? Should we pitch a fit over spaces, or work to make the spaces different, or leave the spaces altogether? And then, will what you're working to make and what already exists ever have significant cross over?

I don't know. I hope there will be crossover, because even though I don't feel welcome in their community I certainly appreciate their presence as a community. Sexual rights are important for everyone. Their presence strengthens my own stance, as mine strengthens theirs. It is not impossible to stand together and still be different, but it is impossible for me to stand with them when I can not call anything of theirs my own and when there is nothing else for me to claim for myself.

Maybe they don't even want anything to do with me, but I guarantee that I'm a voice they'd be better off having on their side, especially with the recent climate of sexual oppression and misunderstanding growing stronger every day. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: for some reason, sex and education seem to be the two topics that otherwise smart people consistently behave very stupidly about.

I don't want to go to the same parties as these other people do. Neither of us would have a good time. My griping isn't because they have a community, it's because mine is practically non-existant. What's sprung up in the past couple of years is truly extraordinary, and I am in the unique position among my tiny social circle of being able to remember what it was like before. I want to cultivate it, and make it grow.

Does that mean making my own porn? I don't know. I'd be willing to try it. There is no greater equalizer than currency. If selling my brand of sexuality earns it a top spot on people's radars, why shouldn't I try for it? That's what I admire about Tristan Taormino. It's too bad she's not a submissive guy. But then if she were a submissive guy, like I am, would her brand of sex sell at all? Would mine?

There is no doubt in my mind that there are other people who have not been lucky enough to find a place where such acceptance and intelligence has coalesced and these people are still looking for it. I hope they keep looking, because I am, and one day we might find each other.

Being loud helps you get noticed. Maybe I am just trying to rouse my little corner into making a little more noise. I feel I have been deafened by the never-ending rhetoric of others that so many people have written about lately.

I think a lot of people enjoy the notions of a BDSM community because it feels good to belong and to know that there are other people who share your feelings. That's certainly true for me, but lately I've been reminded rather harshly about just how much of my own community does not actually include me in any significant way. And it hurts. A lot.

At the risk of posting a rather dreary self-pitying entry (on a Monday, no less), I have to say that I often feel like there is no space here for me. While I know intellectually that I'm not alone, it sure feels like I am.

Because friends were involved and it was free and sounded the least bit interesting, I went to a low-key erotic art show that OneTaste NY was producing. The artwork wasn't bad; it was just so typical. I can't tell if it helped the show or made it worse that the theme wasn't specifically BDSM-oriented. Why is it that even in people's supposedly non-kinky erotic art ideas women are submissive?

The overwhelming feel of the event was decidedly…patriarchal. "This is a flirt-heavy zone," the greeter told us as we entered, and proceeded to inquire about Eileen's weekend. Maybe "flirt-heavy" is just the PC word for meat market now. Maybe that's too harsh, but there's no denying the implication that men would do the purusing and women would be the pursued. There's nothing wrong with that (putting my head in Eileen's lap at a party was how we got together—quite the forward thing for submissive male to do, many people would probably think), but the expectation is nauseating.

Even the men, the poor ignorant sods, are succumbing to the peer pressure. (Maybe that's because most of them are spineless bastards to begin with who are just aching to be told what to do. Oops, maybe that was too harsh again.) You see it in their ridiculous bait-and-switch routines where the submissive men pretend to be dominant only long enough to get the woman to bed with them. Then they turn around and get on their hands and knees and start talking about how pathetic they are. This is probably one of the very few times I'll actually agree with those men: they are pathetic, and I'm not only ashamed but enraged to be thought of as similar to them, not to mention just how many things are wrong with the very idea that this tactic might actually work out well for anyone.

I'm jealous of the submissive women for whom this kind of space must be an incredible cornucopia of sexual celebration. I bet they actually had a blast at the art show. At the same time, I'm sorry, for their sake, that this potentially wonderful environment is all but destroyed by utterly disrespectful men.

In the end, no one's really all that happy, are they? Is there anyone out there who actually thinks the scene as it is right now is just peachy keen? That it couldn't be better?

A really long time ago, friends of mine who were elected to the TES board of directors encouraged me to run alongside them. They told me that I could do so much good for that community. And that was why I chose not to run: it's not my community, really. It's the closest thing I have to a community, so I adore it, but it's not mine because so much of what they do does not welcome or include me in any significant way. Oh sure, they encourage male submissives sometimes but the way they do so is so amazingly repulsive in so many ways that I just can't see myself having much to do with it. I don't begrudge that community their right to exist. I just want one of my own.

So I'm working hard to build it.