Sex is also more variable than the standard male-female duality system. There are numerous variations on the chromosomal make-up of sex.
In working to create a realistic relationship with our sexual identity, it becomes necessary to disassemble our own gender-based assumptions. Gender concepts and gender-bending are fertile fields for discovery of our own concepts of how women and men are “supposed” to act and present themselves. How is it “different for a girl”? How do your dress, your self-image, and your relationship with and representation of gender affect your view of reality?
Journaling Prompts: Life Is a Many Gendered Thing
• My mother thought her body was . . .
• My father thought women were . . .
• When I was young, I thought women . . .
• I think women . . .
• I think I am . . .
• Men are . . .
• If I were a man, . . .
• If I had a cock, . . .
Fun with Gender!
Gender-fuck:
Messing with gender concepts, usually with the intention of challenging assumptions about gender.
Gender-bending and a gender-fuck mentality have been hugely important facets of my process of self-discovery, and of my magickal growth. Gender-play has allowed me to accurately gauge my relationship with gender concepts, and to grow beyond these where that might have limited me before. I encourage you to play with gender, and see what occurs for you!
Five Reasons You Should Create Opportunities to Bend Gender
1. It’s fun. People have the tendency to allow this sort of alchemy to change their default settings where human interaction is concerned, if only for the duration of the experiment.
2. It’s challenging. Try to stay in character for a number of hours, or a number of days, and see how it changes your perceptions of gender-typed behavior.
3. Immediately, this experience will give you a deeper understanding of how you (and your peeps) perceive gender.
4. In the right circumstances, it will afford you (and your cohorts) an opportunity to transcend gender and gender identity.
5. Once you allow this tool to clarify your ideas of, and attitudes toward, the opposite gender and your own, you will be able, if you choose, to use this information to change your reality.
Where to Bend
Throw a theme party. Create a safe space for experimentation. Have a few of your closest (and most adventurous) friends over. Play dress up. Go on a cross-dressing shopping spree. Have a dinner party. Go out for cocktails. Attend a local drag king revue.
• An easy way to start out is a gender-bending Hallowe’en party. People know that just about anything goes around Hallowe’en.
• If you want to create an experience of ritualized gender-play, plan it on an equinox, the time of balance between day and night. Explore the balances of cross-gender experimentation. Design a ritual that mixes fe/male archetypes. Play with the tension, exciting and/or uncomfortable.
• Formalize the experience with a pre-party party where you invoke your alter egos. Trade clothing. Help each other with make-up.
• Or, dress and get into character alone. Come to the event (either cross-dress oriented or mixed), and see how long it takes people to figure out who you are!
• Once you get used to your persona, try going out in public. Go to a bar, a nightclub, a neighborhood party (but only if you have cool friends who won’t trip on you as another gender), or a different city (if you don’t want people to know who you are, or if you don’t want to be “out” about your gender-play).
Please note: Use common sense when cross-dressing in public. Know the social climate of the locale where you choose to experiment. Sad as it is to say, we all know that many people have low (no?) tolerance for people who push boundaries, especially where gender (and therefore sex) is concerned.
Magickal Act: It’s Good to Be King!
What You Will Need
• Drag (costuming).
• Make-up.
• Props.
How-To
• The Clothes Make the Wo/man: Get creative. What kind of guy/girl, boi, boy, drag king do you want to be? Exotic? Sophisticated? Silly? Slutty? Strong? Pick a theme, a hero to model yourself after, or just a set of clothes you like, and set to undertake the completion of your transformation. Remember to accessorize appropriately. Empty your purse into a wallet and pockets. Change your watch. Take off your jewelry. Cut your nails.
• Breastless Wonder: You may or may not want to bind your breasts. If you do, a heavy-duty back brace works well. If your breasts are on the larger side, try to find something reinforced. Ace bandages don’t work too well if you are busty, but work with a smaller bust line. A size-too-small sports bra will also bind you pretty well. There are other methods, like plastic wrap or duct tape, for example, but how much are you willing to suffer for your transformation? In any case, wear a T-shirt or A-shirt under other clothes to hide your bindings. If all this seems like too much, you can also create a great illusion of breastlessness by rounding your shoulders and slouching slightly forward, hollowing your chest, and wearing a loose jacket. This technique works especially well if you have smaller breasts.
• Packing: Women, sooner or later you will probably want to pack. It’s so much fun! Socks are not the best material. If you own a strap-on harness, there are great (and very lifelike) dildos on the market today. Another trick is to hang a substance-filled (hair gel, cornstarch and water, pudding, etc.) condom or balloon over a pair of thong underwear. This is a great technique, lending you lifelike, sort of squishy cock and balls. You may have to adjust your package from time to time, but that just makes it more convincing, right?
• Give Good Face: Make-up is the finishing touch. This is one of the best tools you have to help you pass. A five-o’-clock shadow can be created with a mix of eye-shadows, or with burnt cork or charcoal. Try to make the shade of your shadow just a bit darker than your hair. If you feel really inspired, go to your local costume shop and get a fake moustache or sideburns. Darkening the lines in your face will harden your look a bit, and you can accentuate certain features through the use of a dark blush. Bring out your jaw line with shadow, or set your eyes back a little by lining only the corners closest to your nose. Mess around for a while and see what works. Afford yourself plenty of time for this step. Forty-five minutes to an hour is not out of the question, depending on how involved you want to get.
Pass:
A term common in genderfluid, gender-transitioning, and transvestite circles, which means to pass as the gender you want to be perceived as in the moment.
• Hair Play: In the process of becoming a man, remember, less is more. Pomade, gel, or nothing at all are the traditional styling products that men use. Tie long hair back, leave it down, or hide it under a hat or your collar.
• Fun Toys to Change Your Look: Experiment with glasses, hats, shoes, jewelry (pinky ring, anyone? gold chains?), belts, scarves, ties, jackets, and bags.
Who are you in this new experience of gender? Stay present with your persona. S/he undoubtedly has something to teach you. Take some time to process your realizations post-bend. This experiment has the potential to bring up some issues as well as to shed light on your current mindset regarding gender and/or sexual orientation.
Be sure to enjoy this experience. Flirt, strut, primp, pimp, camp, vogue, and play. Have a wild ride! And don’t forget to have a few pictures taken. These ones will go on your altar, too.
Journaling Prompts: Post-Gender-Bend
• Gender is . . .
• I am . . .
• Men are . . .
• Women are . . .
• Men have . . .
• Women have . . .
• If I were a man, . . .
• If I had a coc
k, . . .
• As a woman, I . . .
In the Stillness: Revisiting the Media Fast
So, you’ve gone for a week without media. How did it feel?
Journaling Prompts: Media Control
• When I don’t consume mass media, . . .
• My ingestion of the media . . .
• My self-image has been [improved, deteriorated, not affected at all] by my media fast. That makes me . . .
Onward and Inward!
Now, find the ritual related to this chapter in the appropriate rituals section in part 2, and initiate yourself. You have made it through some challenging work here. Congratulations!
[contents]
1. Mahatma Gandhi: “You should be the change that you want to see in the world,” http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mohandas_Gandhi.
2. The Alliance for Eating Disorders Awareness, http://www.eatingdisorderinfo.org/eating_disorders_statistics.htm.
3. National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, http://www.naafa.org/documents/policies/dieting.html.
4. The Alliance for Eating Disorders Awareness, http://www.eatingdisorderinfo.org/eating_disorders_statistics.htm.
5. Ibid.
6. “Anorexia, Bulimia . . . and Obesity,” The PDR® Family Guide to Women’s Health and Prescription Drugs, http://www.healthsquare.com/fgwh/wh1ch34.htm.
7. “Mortality and Recovery Rates,” Breaking Free from Eating Disorders, http://www.geocities.com/gina_rlp/mortal.html.
8. Robert Davis, “Teens’ Cosmetic Dreams Don’t Always Come True,” USA Today, July 28, 2004, http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/2004-07-28-plastic-surgery_x.htm.
9. “Anorexia, Bulimia . . . and Obesity,” The PDR® Family Guide to Women’s Health and Prescription Drugs, http://www.healthsquare.com/fgwh/wh1ch34.htm.
10. Rosemary Church, host, “Plastic Surgery Becoming More Common,” CNN, interview aired November 5, 2003, 17:00:00 ET, http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0311/05/i_ins.01.html.
11. “Body Image and Advertising,” Mediascope (Studio City, CA: Mediascope Press, 2000), http://www.mediascope.org/pubs/ibriefs/bia.htm.
12. “Super Heroes & Super Models,” Counselor: The Magazine for Addiction Professionals, http://www.counselormagazine.com/display_article.asp?aid=Super_heroes_and_super_models.asp.
13. “High Heels Dangerous to Your Health,” Yale-New Haven Hospital, http://www.ynhh.org/healthlink/womens/womens_6_01.html.
14. Laura and Jennifer Berman, hosts, “Trouble with Thongs,” Discovery Health Channel, interview aired November 4, 2002, http://www.newshe.com/thongs1.shtml.
15. Victoria Stagg Elliott, “Health Risks Make Some Fashions ‘Dont’s,’” American Medical News, http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2002/08/05/hlsc0805.htm.
16. “Hip-Hugging Trousers ‘Are Health Risk,’” BBC News, posted January 9, 2003, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2643185.stm.
17. Ralph L. Reed, “Bras and Breast Cancer,” Natural Health and Longevity Resource Center, http://www.all-natural.com/bras.html.
18. Nguyen Phawk Yu, M.D., “Bras and Breast Cancer,” Health2Us.com, http://www.health2us.com/bra.htm.
chapter three
Pussy Power!
★ Daily Practice: Quality Time, page 60.
This Is Your Pussy!
Have you explored your vulva lately? Have you ever explored it? Are you on a first-name basis with your hidden flower? Do you know what it likes, how it smells, how it tastes? If you don’t, it’s high time you did! In this chapter you will have the opportunity to begin to build a sweet, open, and loving relationship with the part that most emphatically marks you as a woman.
Why would we want to become more intimate with our intimate parts? The real question is why not? There’s a good chance that increasing our overall awareness of our intimate parts may increase our self-esteem,1 and there are also health-based reasons for having an intimate awareness of our nether regions.
Why It’s a Good Idea to Foster a Positive Relationship with Our Genitals
I am woman, hear me roar . . . right? But if we aren’t on speaking terms with our kittens, that roar might ring a little empty. How can we love ourselves without loving the cleft, canal, wild jungle that lies between our thighs? Our pussies, even more truly and extremely than our breasts—and in a much more hidden and intense manner—are the primary signifiers of our femaleness. They are the visible representation of the one thing that we have, and they don’t. It is the pedestalized and denigrated origin of every worshipful and slanderous espousal you have ever heard about what it means to be a cunt.
When we think of body image, we usually think of our weight, our bellies, our overall level of perceived externalized attractiveness. What about our ideas and concepts relating to our secret spot? Is it a primal wound, or a primal wonder? Is it the seat of abuse, or a treasure chest?
Let’s glorify our cootchies, and raise the banner of pussy power! Your garden may be no-man’s land, or it may be common ground. But claim it for what it is: yours. And for what it does: it creates a map of the differences that exist. You are a woman, with the vulva to prove it.
Figure 2: Adoration of the Yoni
Figure 3: Sheila-na-Gig
Figure 4: East Indian Goddess with Vulva Revealed
Magickal Act: Drawing It
This exercise is about emotion and relationship, and how you view your vulva in a conceptual, abstract manner. Draw six sketches of your pussy. Each drawing will be a gesture drawing and will take sixty seconds to complete. It’s not about accuracy, realism, or drawing skill, but about your emotional concept of your genital anatomy.
Cunt Coiffure—
Snatch Styles: The earliest blue photos available are c. 1845, and show women with big, furry bushes. No removal of hair at all.
Starting in the 1970s, the women in porn (true twat-trendsetters) started shaping their fur. The styles have changed over the years, going from natural to nude.
However, the trimming, shaping, and styling of the vulval fur is by no means new. The practice of waxing, trimming, and plucking pubic hair was widespread in ancient Egypt, Greece, Turkey, and parts of India and Africa.
What You Will Need
• Six sheets of drawing paper, or at least unlined paper.
• Drawing pencils, colored pencils, or charcoal.
• At least ten minutes of uninterrupted time.
How-To
Don’t think about what you will draw before you read the directions, or even before your drawing implement is on the page. Just read the drawing prompt, and then draw immediately!
• Drawing #1: Your vulva, as realistic as possible, from memory. (If you have never looked at it, draw what you think it might look like.)
• Drawing #2: A caricature of your vulva. What is your vulva’s character?
• Drawing #3: If your vulva were a sign (an ad, a billboard, a road sign, a sign for a business), it would look like this . . .
• Drawing #4: If your vulva were an animal, it would be . . .
• Drawing #5: If your vulva were a plant, it would be . . .
• Drawing #6: Your vulva’s personality.
Journaling Prompt
Take some notes about how this process was for you. Was it amusing? Entertaining? Revealing? Emotional? All of these? What do you think of the images that came up for you?
Sexual Comfort and Empowerment
If you don’t feel at home “down there,” how are you ever going to feel comfortable inviting a friend over? As our own comfort levels and intimacy with our genitals increases, it may become easier for us to share our sexual anatomy with our lovers. When we know how we look, smell, taste, and feel, it may become more comfortable to offer our sensual friends an invitation to venture south. And it’s likely that you will gain an overall sense of sexual ease and comfort when you gain firsthand experience w
ith your own genital anatomy.
Fact: The vast majority of women orgasm more easily through oral sex or other direct stimulation of the clitoris than through sexual intercourse alone.
Healthful Self-Awareness
Your gynecologist sees thousands of women’s genital and reproductive organs. Yours may be the only female genitals you ever see, and you can see yours every day, if you’d like! This makes you the potential expert on your genital anatomy.
A lot can be said for taking a look at your cervix, but even short of that, just having an intimate awareness of how your external genitalia typically look is a good idea, just like performing a regular breast self-exam is a good idea. Your inner labia may change in color, texture, and sensitivity level according to where you are at in your menstrual cycle. They will most certainly—noticeably—change with pregnancy. As your hormones change, you may become more susceptible to yeast imbalances. The more awareness you gain about how your cycle works, and about how your genital and reproductive parts look, the more active a role you will be able to take in your own health care.
And yeah, look at your cervix! When your next annual exam rolls around, bring a mirror. When you are in the stirrups and the speculum is in place, ask your doc if she or he has a mirror you can use to look at your cervix. If s/he doesn’t, say, “That’s cool. I brought one, just in case.” Pull out your mirror, and take a look at your magickal cavern. Ask questions. Get answers. After your appointment, take some notes. You will be able to remember with more accuracy what your interior looks like than your doc will. If you see changes from one appointment to the next, bring them up.
Sexy Witch Page 6