I'm not the only one!

[gryphonsegg]

I've spent years and years dealing with this seemingly weird situation where the people around me read me as a woman (and sometimes as hyperfeminine!), but I hate it and never feel like a woman, but there's nothing I can do about it, and I like the idea of being non-binary/genderqueer/genderless in theory but wandering into those waters on the internet makes it clear that I don't look like the right kind of non-binary/genderqueer/genderless person for reasons that have nothing to do with my chosen "presentation" and everything to do with the way my body naturally is. I don't want to get too TMI about my body dysphoria and how it is (contrary to expectation) not all about losing weight and how even if I could lose enough weight to be considered "healthy" by random onlookers I couldn't possibly lose enough to be considered androgynous and still remain genuinely healthy because my body just doesn't roll that way. Suffice to say, I try not to look at or think about my appearance except in terms of judging whether my clothes are appropriate for whatever I'm about to do. The reason I'm posting about my body issues yet again is that I just found out there's at least one other person who has pretty much the same kinds of body issues. this post from Meloukhia got linked at Womanist Musings, and hours after reading it, part of me is still reeling from the discovery that there's another one like me out there.

Comments

[gryphonsegg]

Right, no part of a person's body can be accurately said to be "for" anything. I was thinking in terms of changing cultural perceptions of female/feminine bodies, not what real people's bodies or body parts are "really for." As an example, I remember doing a bit of art history and seeing paintings from past eras in which abstract concepts were personified as women (which is another kind of sexism in itself), and some of them were shown in very dignified, even heroic, poses, and also shown with rather full breasts partially or fully exposed. In the artistic idiom of the times/cultures that produced those works, the bared breasts symbolized bounty or nurturance rather than sexual availability. I'm not saying that's any better in practical terms for real life women. I'm just thinking aloud about the cultural shift toward seeing breasts as being all about sexuality, especially a particular kind of brutish, earthy, and profoundly heteronormative sexuality. Yes, there are women who find breasts beautiful, sexy, and attractive, but in media characters with large breasts are coded as sexy for the most stereotypical kind of cisgender heterosexual man, not for other women or non-binary people or even non-boorish men. When a character or actress or whatever gets hailed as "the thinking man's sex symbol" or when pop culture deigns to notice that lesbians exist in real life, the woman who is held up as attractive to women and/or to a more intelligent and sophisticated sort of man is someone with smallish breasts, and she usually is presented in outfits that de-emphasize the breasts. That thread has been around a long time, of course, but it appears to be especially prominent right now, and so deeply entrenched that a large, or at least very vocal and not terribly small, segment of the population views being breast-fed past six months or so as something that will having damaging psychosexual consequences on children.

I probably will never have children, and I don't view breast-feeding as empowering. I view it as neutral. I just think it's odd that I live in a culture where

[holyschist]

I was thinking in terms of changing cultural perceptions of female/feminine bodies, not what real people's bodies or body parts are "really for."

*nods* It's just a kind of twitchy issue for me.

In the artistic idiom of the times/cultures that produced those works, the bared breasts symbolized bounty or nurturance rather than sexual availability.

Or purity, often.

That thread has been around a long time, of course, but it appears to be especially prominent right now, and so deeply entrenched that a large, or at least very vocal and not terribly small, segment of the population views being breast-fed past six months or so as something that will having damaging psychosexual consequences on children.

I probably will never have children, and I don't view breast-feeding as empowering. I view it as neutral. I just think it's odd that I live in a culture where

Agreed, I think--although this is cut off?

[gryphonsegg]

I was just going to finish by saying I think it's odd that I live in a culture where the breasts=sexual-and-only-sexual has become so extreme.

[holyschist]

Definitely agreed. Also pretty frustrating, IMO.