%title 2012-07-07 22:21:23
%date New site, personal issues
:blog:fossil:diary:

I don't want every post to turn into an apology for not posting more, but I do feel bad for not writing more here, particularly given how much I've been writing in general. Not since when I was deep in the throes of the Manifesto Project have I spent so much time writing down my thoughts. This has me a little worried given how that project sort of petered out. However, I think that the fact that I've given myself more constraints to work within rather than trying to define something so large as my faith and spirituality is going to be working in my advantage. Even so, this is going to be one of those "the more things change, the more they stay the same" type posts. Â It's also gonna mention some pretty personal stuff (like, say, depression and sex), so I apologize in advance.<!--more-->

To begin with, I should explain that the new project I've started is another blog, this one in the more traditional sense of a log of articles about one topic written in a semi-professional tone (rather than the LiveJournal-esque sense). It's really no secret that I'm pretty deeply embedded within the furry fandom, now. I've been so for something like twelve years now, even. While I'm not necessarily an oldster or anything, I do like to think that I've hung around more than a good portion of people do, if not most. I've done the con thing, tried my hand at art and storytelling, and even gotten into fursuiting, and I've now got these years of experience behind me.

All this I'm combination with a clash of both fortunate and unfortunate events within the fandom for me has givin me plenty of fuel for writing about what all I've seen, where all I've been, and what all I've done. I started to pull all these together into a blog, <a href="http://adjectivespecies.com" target="_blank">[adjective][species]</a>. That blossomed to include a twitter account (@adjspecies), a Google+ page (named the same as the blog), and an FA account (adjspecies). All this to say that I've been having rather a lot of fun writing and tweeting about the not-so-little subculture I've ensconced myself in. Â Or, at least, I've been having some fun, and it's brought some internal strife to the fore.

I've been going through quite a few ups and downs emotionally over the last few years. Â I think a lot of it is tied into creativity: I went through almost a manic high when I began my job at bConnected, for instance. Â That I was able to translate a lot of the creativity that I felt I had into something that would be used by people on a daily basis in order to not only benefit their own lives, but potentially benefit others was just awesome to me. Â However, when I switched from the development cycle to the QA cycle, my level of energy dropped. Â It was difficult for me to have people actively seeking issues with my work. Â I believe that the strongest aspect of my degree was honing my ability to be creative, and this same cycle was evident in my college years (and years and years) as well - create : positive :: critique : negative. Â In the long run, however, I'd say that my degree was a net gain: the benefit I get from having fine-tuned my creativity far outweighs the negative feeling of having to have my creativity critiqued.

If you had asked me five or even two years ago where I would be, however, I don't think I would've been able to tell you, and I certainly don't think that my best guesses would've included anything about working a salaried job as a web developer in the health care industry, wouldn't have included anything about writing anything beyond IMs or tweets, and certainly wouldn't have included anything about gender. Â And you know what? Â If you had asked me even a month or two ago whether I would ever want to share this in a public setting, I don't think I would. Â I mean, I mentioned it basically as vaguely as possible on [a][s], and offered no explanation. Â I don't feel comfortable talking about it, it makes me feel terrible to even think about, but I suppose that's probably a good sign that I should say something about it, and it's part of my New Years resolution to figure this out.. Â If nothing else, it'd give those around me some idea of why things have gotten steadily weirder for me over the past few months.

I have never felt so uncomfortable in my own body. Â I had never done something like have sex with the guy I'm engaged to and felt that it was wrong, nor has the feeling lingered into the next days as despair. Â While I had been plagued with suicidal thoughts before for what felt like no real good reason, I'd never considered anything like self mutilation with the specific goal of removing my sex drive via chemical or physical castration so I wouldn't have to experience it. Â I had never thought back on my childhood and thought to myself that the way my parents had acted around me would prove to be the source of a lot of strife in my adult life. Â They had always been fairly liberal people bringing me up, but I've been impressed with very straight-forward gender roles, and to feel those being tested as the lines blur in my own self-image is causing more grief than any other single thing in my life since I came out in the first place.

I felt that furry would be a safe way for me to explore along the cline of gender identity and you know, I really did pretty alright at first. Â I could pretend to be a female fox and get away with it pretty easily - remember the right pronouns, act just so, and it goes over pretty well. I wrote about that in one of my posts for [a][s], even, how the fact that furry is endowed with both an even distribution of sexual orientations along the Kinsey scale and a population that is 80% male leads to it being rather acceptable for a guy to play a girl on the 'net. Â That is, acceptable as in fairly innocuous - there would be eye-rolling and some banter about the issue, but not necessarily any real issues in a group setting (speaking from experience, it can cause issues among couples, of course). But, you know, I'm just not a girl. Â I certainly think I would be less uncomfortable if my biological sex were female, but I don't think I would necessarily fit within that gender role, either. Â Even so, I went along with things for quite a while, pretending to be a guy sometimes, pretending to be a girl others, and feeling awkward about either for different reasons.

Now, I'm sure that, whether or not it's known, it's probably pretty easy to guess the next step - something in between. Â I should state right off the bat that I don't think that being a hermaphrodite is some sort of ideal, nor do I think it would make me feel less uncomfortable. Â If you pressed me for a possible solution to the fact that I don't feel comfortable with my given sex and probably wouldn't feel comfortable as a biological female, I think the only thing I could think up is that I just wish that biological sex were as fluid as gender seems to be. Â But to the point, I figured that I would give something in the middle a try, since most anything is acceptable within the fandom. Â What did I have to lose? Â I felt bad basically no matter what I did. Â So I went ahead and made myself a new character as a hermaphrodite that steered rather close to the male end of the spectrum (folk call it male-herm, but since that's become almost derogatory, I've left it out). Â Making Â a character in furry is a pretty standard thing, for me - I've got my own small horde - and I figured that this would be something of a lark - a way for me to see if something in the middle would feel more comfortable than either end of the spectrum.

Well, <em>turns out</em>, that made the problem a good deal worse in many respects. Â I had never thought, for instance, that the move would be so polarizing. Â I will, in all probability, lose friends over this, despite having made a few more because of it. Â I've been called disgusting online and to my face, but I've also had more than one person tell me that they find it hot. Â I've done my best to find myself a comfortable spot somewhere within the spectrum and it's turned out to be something viewed as a purely sexual move by just about every party involved, to the point where those opposed have said, and I quote, "I was caught in the trap... grody vagina", or, and here I'm paraphrasing several people, "herms are just a way for gay men to have straight sex while two dicks are still involved." Â Great. Â Awesome. Â I love being called grody or a trap. Â I really enjoy being considered a cheat just in order to obtain heterosexual intercourse; I didn't even <em>mention</em>Â my orientation. Part of me wanted to say, "Yeah, well, if I understood, I probably wouldn't want to shoot myself in the face, so maybe you all should just leave me alone."

The response from the positive side was even weirder. Â Despite some people simply mentioning that it's hot or whatever, many have latched onto the fact that I've got a grody vagina Â as purely a means of reproduction. Â I've attracted a healthy combination of the impregnation fetishists and male-pregnancy fans. Â I'd have to say that a very large part of why I feel so uncomfortable is that I'm now in a committed relationship - engaged to be married, even - wherein children play absolutely no part. Â I've mentioned it once or twice to James, but since he seems on the fence about it, I'm going to take that as a no: no parent should be on the fence about being a parent. Â I want to be a parent. Â Badly. Â And as part of my own gender issues, I feel that I'd make, and I feel really weird saying this, a very motherly father. Â So for this to be totally fetishized with people, turning something that makes my chest ache in that wrong feeling into something that gets you off...well, it's a little hard to cope sometimes.

I can't say all that without adding that the experience hasn't been totally negative for me. Â The comments I mentioned earlier in the negative aspect came mostly from the fact that I got James a (very expensive) commission for Christmas, from a very widely viewed artist. Â When I posted the image to my own FA account, I received largely positive comments and a fairly high percentage of favorites, given the number of views. Â When the artist posted the commission, however, The comments were a mix of both positive and negative, and the percentage of favorites was decidedly less. Â The most striking thing, though, and this is the positive aspect, was seeing the different ways in which people treat art within the fandom: when the patron posts the piece, it's a representation of themselves, but when the artist posts the piece, it's a piece of art. Â It's the difference between, "You look really good," and "It looks really good." Â This is, I shamelessly admit, excellent fodder for [a][s].

Another positive side to the whole situation is the fact that I <em>have</em>Â made a lot of new friends, and in at least two instances, rekindled old friendships. Â The fact that I'm willing to start expressing a gender that, in some respects, more closely matches my own identity is certainly divisive, but the positive side (weirdness aside), has been really welcoming. Â As part of [a][s], I polled my twitter followers as to whether or not furry was more dramatic than society at large and why, and one of the responses is decidedly pertinent: "Minority identity acts as a force multiplier on social dynamics. [...]" Â That I have this extra minority identity now seems to mean that the friends I make are much more willing to set differences aside in order to be together. Â I've made friends with people I don't think I normally would've even considered approaching for such outside this context, and I'm happy for that.

Outside of the context of furry, I don't know how much this means. Â James and I have talked about it quite a bit, and he's very supportive, even if that means that things don't always work out between us in terms of sexual compatibility, but that's always been on the table. Â I have no desire to go through any transition; the goal isn't the same as my concept of self, and I've received a fair bit of trouble in that field as well. Â Several people have told me that they think it's wrong, or that all transgendered people who go through the process are crazy. Â  The latter is supported by a very good friend who is a good way through transitioning, himself: hormones, he says, are not easy on the mind. Â My job, friends, and family are all on the line when it comes to my identity, as well, and I've no desire to even begin any sort of process that would put any of that at risk, even if it were to fix some physical aspect of myself that's causing pain.

The whole situation has caused plenty of problems within my life already, and me forcing it to the fore like this is likely only going to cause more. Â I fully expect this to at least lead to strife, if not the loss of some social connections, but, as I mentioned, this is something that's part of my goal to better myself in the guise of a resolution: I need to figure this out in order to stay sane and healthy, and as much as I love my social interaction with those around me, this need is going to win out in any cost-benefit analysis. Â I met my friends in a good mix of some very adamantly homosexual circles as well as circles that were almost in violent opposition to this; I fully expect anything that has to deal with gender to be divisive. Even if my PN friends or those I've met after stop talking to me, it'sÂ eminentlyÂ important to me that I be able to be comfortable with my concept of self.

Relationships shift between people, and perhaps I'm making more out of this than it warrants. Â When I moved in with my dad and away from my mom, my friends groups shifted; when I moved back, they shifted again, but not quite back to what they were before; and when I graduated high school, I transitioned into a different person and welcomed the change in social circles. Â If all of this comes at the cost of some of my friendships, I'll be sad, but I don't think it will ruin me. Â The thoughts of suicide or weirder will pass given increased comfort levels, and I think that I'll be happier when things have settled down - I will have, if nothing else, come to an understanding with myself about all these issues, I will have begun an interesting exploration of some of the common threads that bind me to this strange subculture that is furry, and I will have grown as a person, as cheesy as that sounds. Â I'm just glad that I'm now able to give back with [adjective][species] as well as partake in even more of the human experience, despite the drama.
