Selah
“You know what’s nice? A choice. Choices sure is nice to have. Choice of where to be, where to go, when to eat, when to sleep, what to read, what not to read, what to touch, and what to not be touched by.
“We, women, Black women in these Americas, didn’t get no choice. That’s why we’re angry, mad, sad, fighting, bitching, cussing and hard to love and harder to forget. We mad ‘cause we was dragged over here, shackled up here, bred up here and then told to make our babies flourish, make the land grow, make someone else smile, here. What choice do you have when one man chains you, another fucks you and a third crawls out of you? All with demands about how you fit into their choices?
“But those same men, White men who chained us, they fucked us. Our own men who just fucked us; just fucked us. The spoiled wannabe men who crawled out of us, fucked us over. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“I watched other women, swollen bellies, husbands proud and preening, like the mustard seed he carried is equal to the sarsen she’s resoundingly with; stores full of pressed cardboard crap that only lasts a few months; other fool women oohing and aahing and I was happy that my body made its own choice. Happy that my insides said we gonna make one choice that can’t nobody stop or fix or point at or demand or change for you, no life can last in here.
“Sure I got pregnant, half a dozen times. By the fifth month though each one came out, some as bloody lumps that I had to jangle the handle several times before they’d crumble and flush completely; twice, where I had to go to the hospital and they gave me a pill and some awful concoction to make it mushier to flush; and once, the strongest, a little girl, five months bloody, who was strong enough to eke out of me, gasp and die, no bigger than a kitten. She would’ve made a right proud S woman.
“I’m a Black woman who is proud her uterus is broken. Gives me choices. Like whether to fuck men. Any way I can.”
From S, A Novel, Copyright 2018, all rights reserved.
Constructing Womanhood From Woman to Trans
Men often write women as they perceive them rather than how they are.
I had a client who was trans (gender/sexual—-that coin and decision is still up in the air and flipping for him-her) who dressed and lived as a woman. Hair, make-up, dresses, blouses, a purse, effeminate name. The whole shebang (pun!). A friend, a woman, observed this client several times when she would come to meet me for lunch. She then observed this trans client with a trans friend and finally was able to articulate what she saw in them.
“Purses. Trans (MTF) make a big deal out of purses. I’ve been female all my life; got my first purse when I was 5 years old. It’s a bag that I carry crap in. Make-up, my wallet, books, a brush, my umbrella, food, birth control, a weapon, my phone. I may buy nicer purses now that I can afford it that are made of better material but it’s still just a pocketbook. When I see the two of them they make a pronounced effort to signal to the rest of us—-”Look at me! I’m carrying a purse! Because I’m a woman!””
I watched clients, trans ones, from then on, and she was right. Regardless of the internal body dysmorphia that a trans person might experience they were still raised as a male. They were related to as a male. They were socialized as a male to see women from that, a male perspective. They might join the club but for at least 18 years they’ve been designated by the rest of us as members of the other (male) team.
Trans folk often dress as hyper-women, act as hyper feminine, which is why I think there’s such an overlap to doing drag. Drag is men personifying how men see or want to see/be women.
In programs and such I often have to sit down with trans clients and help them lower the volume on their extreme perception of womanhood—-mini-skirts, high heels, overtly sexual clothing and actions. The two trans above—-the one I knew better presented as a man’s version of a women, the second one though, because of low self esteem, actually presented much more believably and was harder to “clock” as MTF. The first was often being pointed as it (trans). It’s like a bad actor in a movie, you notice the forced projection.
Women Are Just People Who Happen to Be Female
When I write women I then make a point of writing women without regard to their being women. Unless I need them to do something particular as a woman, I don’t make a big deal about it. Unless I have a deliberate situation that relegates them based about sex to more or less, in relationship to whatever is occurring, I don’t present them as differently.
Interestingly at times that creates an interesting character because then I have to think about how she’s speaking up, being more direct and I know that I’m playing in a fertile gender dynamic game and I can think about and play with those rules being skirted or broken.
I also think about what it must be like to be a woman who has to deal with all these fucking men.
I’d be dead if I were a woman; several men would’ve killed me. I’ve been told several times that this is my first incarnation as a man and I totally agree. The way I see men ogle women, pursue them, just walk up them—-looking like all manner of worthless pieces of shit—-and start chatting flirtatiously? I’m like WTF?
I read a lot on the subway traveling to and fro from school to other schools so I always have about 20–30 minutes to read. Which for me is a good 50–70 pages. I see guys who just interrupt women who are reading. Do you know what kind of natural New York hell you get from me if you just, not even fine and handsome, interrupted me in your dingo faced arrogance—-”wanted to say hi”, to ask “how I’m doing”?
Even if you were attractive I’d still be taken aback, I might be in relationship. I would prefer for you to wait for the natural pause or shift all readers do on the train and catch my eye. But invading my space? Oh, hell to the no.
The above trans client talked about being on the subway and being felt up, rubbed up on by guys. I looked it up on line and there have been everything from rubs to full on rape-attacks. Do you have any idea how much I would love to pummel someone for rubbing up on me uninvited?
But I’m a man. I’m in a distinctly large male body.
To write a woman, a female character, I explore that upset, that sense of interruption or violation as a normal social grace. How men cross a line with women that they never do with men.
(Okay, some gay men do which I think is a direct product of being raised in a misogynistic society and thinking that bullshit translates to engaging men socially men-romantically. Yes, I shut that bullshit down hardcore.)
I even challenge men, straight ones, who want to come and “discuss” what they perceive or understand to be my sexuality or want to know about it. Excuse me? Unless I am in front of a class or workshop—-I’m off the clock, in my personal life if you just roll up on me, you will get me, Kyle unfiltered—-as I would expect to get umbrage from you if I rolled up on you and wanted details on your hetero romps.
Now I will give the caveat-space of I have a TV show broadcasting for the past 10 years here in NYC so I’ve had people approach me and say “Hey, Kyle, I saw last week’s episode about blah blah fisting blah blah a threesome and I was wondering——?”
That’s fair. If you identify to me how and where you’re making your entree to me from. But if you come up to me on line at West Side Market and say you heard about my sexuality and want to know how I knew about myself—-WTF?
But that too comes from a reduction on non-maleness/male privilege. Straight men can cross lines with everyone but are more careful with other (perceived) straight males.
Women Can Tell Who You Are and Who You’re Trying to Be As A Writer
To write an accurate woman you would want to show how she’s aware of these pitfalls, privilege crossings, interruptions that half the population does to her and how other women support or encourage it. Catching onto and speaking about those invisible rules, lines, hidden negative allowances would immediately signal to a woman, and elucidate a male reader, that you have successfully shifted perspective/presentation.
If you want to write women well, you have to be on their side, even if you can’t, don’t or won’t, join their team. Female readers know allies in literature.
I like to tap into the upset, the anger, the ire, the recognition of double standards based upon sex and condescension based upon privilege and create women who are pressing against it and perhaps through it with behavior that is deeply empowered in the feminine but unladylike.
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Kyle Phoenix is a teacher, certified adult educator, sexologist, sex coach and sexuality educator with over two decades of intensive experience. He studied at the University at Buffalo, SUNY, New York University, and Columbia University. He has worked, consulted and taught individuals and focused professional developments for the CDC, Department of Education, Gay Men's Health Crisis, New York City Department of Health, non-profits, Fortune 500 companies and unions. He began his career facilitating on-campus workshops addressing a wide range of sexuality and sexual health issues and then moved on to teaching at universities, non-profits, private groups and clients, hosting The Kyle Phoenix Show on television and multiple online webinars, including YouTube and Sclipo and writing extensively through his blog, Special Reports, articles and other print and E books in the Kyle Phoenix Series on relationships, finance, education, spirituality and culture. He lives in New York with his family.
Smile, Kyle
KylePhoenixShow@Gmail.com
#KylePhoenix
#TheKylePhoenixShow
Kyle Phoenix on Facebook and TwitterThe Kyle Phoenix Show LIVE STREAMING on MNN.org 1130pm, Spectrum Cable Manhattan, NY Channel 56 & 1996, also FIOS 34 and RCN 83.
Or Click Below to:
Don't forget to watch The Kyle Phoenix Show LIVESTREAM on Channel 56 (Time Warner), 83 (RCN), 34 (Verizon) Thursdays 1130pm
Kyle Phoenix is a teacher, certified adult educator, sexologist, sex coach and sexuality educator with over two decades of intensive experience. He studied at the University at Buffalo, SUNY, New York University, and Columbia University. He has worked, consulted and taught individuals and focused professional developments for the CDC, Department of Education, Gay Men's Health Crisis, New York City Department of Health, non-profits, Fortune 500 companies and unions. He began his career facilitating on-campus workshops addressing a wide range of sexuality and sexual health issues and then moved on to teaching at universities, non-profits, private groups and clients, hosting The Kyle Phoenix Show on television and multiple online webinars, including YouTube and Sclipo and writing extensively through his blog, Special Reports, articles and other print and E books in the Kyle Phoenix Series on relationships, finance, education, spirituality and culture. He lives in New York with his family.
www.kylephoenix.com
Smile, Kyle
KylePhoenixShow@Gmail.com
KylePhoenixShow@Gmail.com
#KylePhoenix
#TheKylePhoenixShow
#TheKylePhoenixShow
Or Click Below to:
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