Where I struggle is when it seems like the stereotypes are so entrenched in me that they’re what I’m most aroused by. Then again, I see signs of this shifting as my overly intellectual understanding of my sexuality is replaced by experience.

I’m in complete agreement with you here: the beautiful thing about self-awareness is that it brings conscious choice to one’s feelings and experiences. In other words, have your feelings, lest you let them have you.

“Furthermore, I’ll admit that I kink on being “financially dominated”. I also love kneeling at the feet of women wearing leather boots. Devoid of emotional context, both of these are pretty distasteful things for me. My anger comes from the fact that it is difficult for me to enjoy these things because, and I face this daily, while some may have painted me as the poster-boy for railing against stereotypical male submissive iconography (and hey, I helped them do that), I am not free of “societal programming,” just as no one else is, either.

However, it does me only so much good to question my desires, regardless of where they come from. I would much rather question my reactions to such desires, rather than the desires themselves because (”despite” my submission) I’m actually all about getting what I want.”

I resonate with a lot of this, especially lately where I’ve been having a series of realizations about where my actual sexuality is tangled up with the stereotypes that were the only outlet I knew. On the one hand I’m glad to be able to make the distinctions, and on the other I’m not sure that this conditioning will ever be completely unraveled, so I might as well just enjoy myself. Where I struggle is when it seems like the stereotypes are so entrenched in me that they’re what I’m most aroused by. Then again, I see signs of this shifting as my overly intellectual understanding of my sexuality is replaced by experience.

Thanks for this, Maymay! Would it be weird to say I feel like I’ve arrived or something? :)

Only if what you mean is that me blogging about you means you’ve arrived instead of feeling self-confident in your own writing. :)

Just wanted you to know that I’ve met you once and saw you play, and since reading your blogs I’ve been an admirer. You’re doing good work; thanks for signal-boosting me.

Oh! Really? I’m sorry that I don’t remember that. Where did we meet? And of course, it’s my pleasure to signal-boost something of yours that I like so much as this post I wrote about. :)

what’s that weird identa.ca pingback?

It’s a pingback, just like any other. Except instead of pinging your post from my just this blog of mine, I’ve also sent you a pingback from my Identi.ca timeline. (Identi.ca is the open source version of Twitter, which I prefer to use over Twitter.)

Your comment never appeared on my blog, only here!

Check your WordPress blog’s spam queue. My comment has a huge number of links in it, and by default WordPress will spam any comment from new commenters that has more than 2 links in it.

Just wanted you to know that I’ve met you once and saw you play, and since reading your blogs I’ve been an admirer. You’re doing good work; thanks for signal-boosting me.