These days, my primary sources of erotic imagery are found in yaoi and josei comics like “Gravitation”

Okay, Raven, forgive the total out-of-the-blue regressed fanboy moment, but OMG GRAVITATION! My computer’s Desktop Wallpaper still occasionally cycles through Gravitation imagery like this.

Oh, and also:

having met you once at a conference, I can honestly say you were the prettiest boy I saw.

This is when I usually demur, but I’ll gladly take the ego-stroking today. Thanks.

I tend to prefer androgynous men, as well, and find such a dearth of images depicting men I enjoy within erotic art and photography that I often focus on the women to the exclusion of the men. When I do find art with representations of men I find sexually attractive, I gobble them up, even if it means have to translate homoerotic images for my female (albeit gender-queer) body.

These days, my primary sources of erotic imagery are found in yaoi and josei comics like “Gravitation” and “Kimi wa Pet” (You are my pet) a.k.a. “Tramps Like Us.” These are the better examples, as they’re engaging stories as well as beautiful works of art. Most others I flip through, gritting my teeth, hoping to see those few images that capture my own sexual imagination for later fantasy use.

I find it highly frustrating that there our media displays a very narrow view of both gendered bodies in general and erotic bodies in particular. It leaves me wondering how many of those friends who have questioned my choices in male partners would find interest in body types outside the mainstream if they were not bombarded by images of the current cultural ideal from birth on. I already know that many of them speak to one form of sexuality (hetero-normative), while practicing another, although this is a smaller segment of my friend base.

Oh, and having met you once at a conference, I can honestly say you were the prettiest boy I saw.

I completely flipped over Legolas in LOtR. OMG pretty!!! Pretty and also strong and wild.

Wanting to be recognized as a femme guy while wearing a female body is… Well, I suppose it’s something I hoped you’d appreciate thinking about is all.

And I do; thanks for sharing your experience! I’m not well-versed in the language of “femme” to know that it’s an accurate description of what I want for my male-bodied self, but it’s certainly nice to hear about. :)

Raised as a woman (and still usually identifying as a woman), I’ve always been a little suspicious of the word “pretty” without something more specific, but I can appreciate how it would grow sweeter in absentia.

Beautiful. Graceful. Delicate. Curvaceous. Sweet. Soft. Sensitive. Delightful.

I am, like you, in a difficult position regarding performing or overperforming gendered traits. I want my guy self to be recognized. I want to be seen for who I am in my head, which is not always tied to this heart-shaped face and dimpled smile. But I don’t want to give up having those appreciated either, and except for the days I actively feel like a guy, I don’t want to be stuck with the macho stuff. Frankly, even as a guy I don’t want to be stuck with the macho stuff.

I don’t fuss with my clothes or appearance most days, as a guy or a girl. But when I want to, I want to costume. I want to be glorious, and refined, and tailored, and delicate, and… pretty. As a guy, too. Wanting to be recognized as a femme guy while wearing a female body is… Well, I suppose it’s something I hoped you’d appreciate thinking about is all.

Thanks for posting this.

Doh.

Your description of how you judge it, though, is rather broader than what “pretty” means to me; “shiny” perhaps is more similar. “Pretty” has some connotation of, if not frailty per se, at least some sense of vulnerability; it need not have confidence, or openness, or even kindness, just a fae beauty.

As for me? I’ve never wanted to be “pretty”, or much of anything really, gender wise. Those seem to always be about how one is perceived by others, and I’ve never constructed my self-concept (even in ideal) based on that. (It requires, I think, a certain amount of sheer arrogance to be so self-centered in one’s identity…)

Male pronouns work for me; neutrals would be nicer if it weren’t for the fact that using them connotes emphatic neutrality, with which I don’t identify.

“Calm brilliance” is a phrase I’ve used before to describe the one state/trait I aspire to. I’ve sometimes (inaccurately) called it being bodhisattva. Most of my poetry centers on it, in one way or another.

I don’t know if it’s gender, but I think it’s a lot more me than male or female or any other usual gender. Those are barely relevant.

Which in turn makes me a bit sad for people for whom their gender is a strong shaper of what they want to want, how they behave, etc. Why mold yourself to something so trivial? *shrug*

Anyhow: I think your notion of “pretty” is rather severely overloaded. ;-)

I judge positive “prettiness” (attractiveness with a sweeter, softer aesthetic) by how well (elegantly, efficiently, simply) someone expresses the qualities i value, seek to emulate, and with which i want to surround myself: kindness, grace, open-heartedness, open-mindedness, confidence, and a glowing lack of artificial filters between who they are and how they enact themselves on the world around them. Shiny genuine people, who aspire to follow no standardized social norms, who invent reality for themselves, who trust others to measure their character on an individual basis (and find it worthy).

A part of me wishes that gender mattered more to me, that i cared about how i was viewed, judged, and categorized. Unfortunately (or happily), i am a molly, and when people assign a feminine gendered pronoun when talking about me, i don’t correct them. I know what they mean, and anyway, i don’t have a better suggestion that is more accurate. Yes, i want to be judged and categorized– i just want to be found worthy in my own category. I don’t mind if other people share my style… i just don’t identify as a part of any group. (Sorry i’ve missed all the local omnisexual-polygender-polyamorous-switch meetings!)

My apparent lack of concern for gender-ascribers, “queer” identifiers, and sexual-attraction-niches, has confounded and offended many a strongly-gendered or strongly-sexed friend. They’ve spent a large portion of their /lives/ fighting to be recognized for who they are, how they identify, and how they manifest their sexuality. It’s no trivial effort, but then i trounce along, like some hippy dippy airy fairy kaleidoscope tripper, (un)grouping things into matters of personal taste and personal expression, which is all different and all glorious… just like all of us.

Ugh, gag me. Here, i’ll do it.

But you want to be pretty? Honey, i can tell from your writing. You’re lovely.