metaphors for the changing self
Dec. 15th, 2005 10:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
egypturnashIt's funny. I think all of the MtFs I know who do a lot of online roleplay pass through the same class of role: the artificial girl-thing. At least all the ones I know well enough to talk about how kink intersects with the change.
Different people do it in different ways. Ashy came up with the magical shemale vixen constructs Mnemora and Arial in a bolt of inspiration many years ago.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
queenofstripes had various toy-girls like Theeka or Hladolet emerge from the back of her head. I've been plastic toy spiders, a windup raccoon, a safe toy version of a horrible salamander (picture in progress, there), I've been a sorceress who turned herself into a cobra and erased her memory of what she was before. I've been a wind-up abstraction. Even Peganthyrus' story had a note of deliberate artificiality to her. uniformvixen is now regularly playing a wooden mannequin girl with a porcelain fox-face. dracono has been, varyingly, inflatable rubber dragons and various toy dragons and jackals. I can think of a couple more who I haven't gotten permission to mention in public - it's not exactly nice to out someone as trans and talk about a common kink without their permission!
Artificiality. Constructs.
Some are independent and powerful, but a lot of them are, well, toys. And when we're not toys we seem to end up as dangerous monsters. Sometimes both at once.
The metaphor is clear now, now that I'm ingesting massive amounts of chemicals to turn myself into a woman via technology. It wasn't before. And most of these roles I cite were played long before the thought of real-life gender change came to mind.
We end up being constructed women in text and art long before we reconstruct our flesh as women.
And I find myself wondering: is this just something that my particular circles do? Some shared, transmitted kink? A particular framework for D/s games that's been swapped around? Or is it something that just about any MtF who roleplays ends up doing? I can think of a couple of people who are in the larger circles of furry fandom, outside my immediate circles, who have a lot of signs of being closeted MtFs and do the artificial girl thing.
Feeling disconnected from your body, knowing it'll never be quite "right", that the best you can do is to be a constructed, artificial thing. Playing with it before you really admit it to yourself.
And if it's quietly common - what about FtMs? I don't know any myself. Are there FtMs whose transition is preceded by playing toy boys online? Or is there some different, but common, FtM fantasy? I don't know. Nobody ever really talks about this in a formal context. Fantasies are generally taboo, and the fantasies of transsexuals are doubly-taboo because gender's just something you don't change...
Different people do it in different ways. Ashy came up with the magical shemale vixen constructs Mnemora and Arial in a bolt of inspiration many years ago.
queenofstripes had various toy-girls like Theeka or Hladolet emerge from the back of her head. I've been plastic toy spiders, a windup raccoon, a safe toy version of a horrible salamander (picture in progress, there), I've been a sorceress who turned herself into a cobra and erased her memory of what she was before. I've been a wind-up abstraction. Even Peganthyrus' story had a note of deliberate artificiality to her. uniformvixen is now regularly playing a wooden mannequin girl with a porcelain fox-face. dracono has been, varyingly, inflatable rubber dragons and various toy dragons and jackals. I can think of a couple more who I haven't gotten permission to mention in public - it's not exactly nice to out someone as trans and talk about a common kink without their permission!Artificiality. Constructs.
Some are independent and powerful, but a lot of them are, well, toys. And when we're not toys we seem to end up as dangerous monsters. Sometimes both at once.
The metaphor is clear now, now that I'm ingesting massive amounts of chemicals to turn myself into a woman via technology. It wasn't before. And most of these roles I cite were played long before the thought of real-life gender change came to mind.
We end up being constructed women in text and art long before we reconstruct our flesh as women.
And I find myself wondering: is this just something that my particular circles do? Some shared, transmitted kink? A particular framework for D/s games that's been swapped around? Or is it something that just about any MtF who roleplays ends up doing? I can think of a couple of people who are in the larger circles of furry fandom, outside my immediate circles, who have a lot of signs of being closeted MtFs and do the artificial girl thing.
Feeling disconnected from your body, knowing it'll never be quite "right", that the best you can do is to be a constructed, artificial thing. Playing with it before you really admit it to yourself.
And if it's quietly common - what about FtMs? I don't know any myself. Are there FtMs whose transition is preceded by playing toy boys online? Or is there some different, but common, FtM fantasy? I don't know. Nobody ever really talks about this in a formal context. Fantasies are generally taboo, and the fantasies of transsexuals are doubly-taboo because gender's just something you don't change...