Category: Uncategorized

[Cross Post: http://www.masculineimagery.net/?p=12]

When I began the certificate program in Gender Studies I accepted that I did not know a lot about gender, and probably even less about sexuality.

Before I began the program I accepted that men have a penis and women have a vagina. This was my essential “truth” of sex. I also implied to myself that they had those organs since birth. Now I find myself 5 weeks into the program and I must now accept that most males were born with a penis, but not all of them, and not all people with a penis are “men” or were born with them.

Before I began the program I knew that men tended to be in control in relationships due to cultural precedents, but I wasn’t sure why. Now I have a lot more data on the topic and still don’t have a clue what makes men so special.

The bottom line… I know nothing about sex or gender, and labels are more trouble than they are worth.

I’m sitting in the student union in the balcony around the rotunda. I’m in the perfect spot to be a passive observer to the social interactions and other things happening below me.  I am not an active participant, only an observer. I am sitting above the activity trying to focus on academic work (that focus I believe was lost a while ago). I find myself being very sad and a bit reflective on things. I’m watching all these students enjoy the party-like atmosphere that happens during a Union takeover, but I’m not involved, I wouldn’t know how to be involved. During my undergraduate life I never participated in anything on campus. I kept telling myself this summer that my graduate career would be different and that I would get involved and enjoy my time on campus, enjoy still being young. The fact that it is parents weekend on campus doesn’t help my mood. My parents never went to one of these events when I was an undergrad, and never showed much interest in seeing the campus or anything like that. I suppose most of it is my own fault, I pushed my parents away in a major way when I started college. My aunt has been to this campus more times than my parents have been. My father never set foot on the campus (can’t say I’m surprised, or even bothered by it). I was always closer with my mom anyway, but still, the only time she was ever on campus with me was at my undergraduate orientation and then on the day before my first day of classes, but no other time. Now that I am a graduate student I wouldn’t even think of asking my parents to come to an event like this. The time for involvement was back then, not now.

I keep thinking back on the way that things went before, trying to figure out why I keep doing the same thing over and over. I know I’m on campus more now than I was when I was an undergrad, and I have a desire to get involved and participate in things outside of academics, but I just can’t quite figure out how to dive into it. Times like this I wish I were more like Chris. He isn’t what I would describe as being highly involved, but he has found his own path to being included, and his own way to make an impression on the university. I don’t know why during my first experience on this campus I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that there is something outside of academics. There is so much going on here every day. The academics I can handle, but it is the social that I still haven’t mastered. I barely talk to anyone when I am here, other than instructors and I just feel so outside of everything. I have to get involved on campus, I have to find my own method, but I can’t stand being this outside of being social anymore. I have at least 2 more years on this campus, and I don’t intend to waste them.

For anyone who is curious, below is my planned list of readings for my Tutorial in Sociology on the topic of Masculinity.

Kimmel, M. S. 2007. Men’s lives. 7th ed. Boston, MA: Pearson Allyn and Bacon.

(selected chapters)

• 44 – The morality/manhood paradox : masculinity, sport and the media
• 48 – Culture, gender, and violence : "We are not women"
• 50 – Athlete aggression on the rink and off the ice : athlete violence and aggression in hockey and interpersonal relationships
• 52 – Neo-macho man : pop culture and post 9/11 politics
• 47 – Men are much harder : gendering viewing of nude images
• 5 – (In) secure times : constructing white working-class masculinities in the late 20th century
• 53 – Change among the gatekeepers : men, masculinities, and gender equality in the global arena
• 11 – "Dude, You’re a Fag": Adolescent Masculinity and the Fag Discourse

Crawley, Sara L. 2010. “Visible Bodies, Vicarious Masculinity, and ‘The Gender Revolution’”. Gender & Society 25: 107-113.

Vaccaro, Christian. 2011. “Male Bodies in Manhood Acts: The Role of Body-Talk and Embodied Practice in Signifying Culturally Dominant Notions of Manhood”. Sociological Compass 5: 65-76.

Chimot, Caroline and Catherine Louveau. 2010. “Becoming a man while playing a female sport: The construction of masculine identity in boys doing rhythmic gymnastics”. 2010 45: 436 International Review for the Sociology of Sport 45: 436-456.

Hinojosa, R. 2010. “Doing Hegemony: Military Men, and Constructing a Hegemonic Masculinity”. Journal of Men’s Studies, 18(2), 179-194.

Yeung, King-To, Mindy Stombler and Reneé Wharton. 2006. “Making Men in Gay Fraternities : Resisting and Reproducing Multiple Dimensions of Hegemonic Masculinity”. Gender & Society 20, 5-31.

Conseur, Amanda, Jan M. Hathcote and Soyoung Kim. 2008. “Consumer Masculinity Behavior Among College Students and Its Relationship to Self Esteem and Media Significance”. Sex Roles, 58:549–555.

Hauge, Mona-Iren, and Hanne Haavind. 2011. “Boys’ bodies and the constitution of adolescent masculinities”. Sport, Education and Society 16, 1-16.

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From my friend Jared:

“Odo, while being technically asexual, took on an male persona. When he encountered his first member of his own species, it took on the form of a female, utilizing an appearance similar to the one that Odo presented, so as to make Odo feel more comfortable as well as a sense of belonging.

Thinking about it, do you think that they’re implying that sexuality is a learned trait?”

This question actually relates to the topic tonight in Lesbian and Gay Studies, and to the topic last week in Theo. Appr. to Sexuality. There are two major schools of thought on sexuality. The essentialists that believe that sexuality is inborn and is fixed. The social constructionists believe that sexuality occurs as a result of sociological factors and that through culture and socialization sexuality is formed. There is also a third school of thought that most people don’t talk about, the sociobiologists, guess what they believe? The sexuality is developed sociologically, on top of a very solid biological foundation.

Regarding the specific case of Odo, not being human, Terran or even solid, it seems reasonable that sexuality would develop differently. First of all, I do believe that all changelings (or do they prefer to be called shapeshifters these days?) and other metamorphic life-forms take on an either asexual or hermaphroditic existence. As for Odo himself, I believe that being that he took on Dr. Mora’s physical appearance he did designate himself to be a male when among the solids, however, I do not believe that his sexual feelings were directly powered by any type of male/female attraction. Odo is very obviously attracted to a certain type of person, mostly the strong feminine types. I do not believe this to be a result of his need for female companionship at all, but instead a certain personality type he is attracted to as a result of growing up in isolation. Perhaps he is heterosexual after the abuses he suffered in the laboratory or by the patriarchal Cardasians.

As for the intentions of the Star Trek franchise, it has always been that there is an openness to various ideas in their productions. I personally think that yes, they are portraying sexuality as being a “learned”, or more correctly, a socialized trait that is conveyed through experience with a culture.

I have received notification from the Gender Studies department at UNC-Charlotte that I have been recommended for admission to the graduate program. This does not mean that I am fully admitted, but the last step, the approval of the graduate school is purely a formality. I am told by Dr. Stephenson that I should have official notification from the graduate school after about 2 weeks of bureaucracy. Once I receive the official “offer”, I will be permitted to accept and fully enroll in the program.

At the moment I am very excited, and somewhat relieved. After being denied admission to Cognitive Science I became extreamly nervous about this application. I am still a bit surprised that I have been recommended for the program, and am not sure I will fully believe that i’m in until I get the admissions letter.

I feel more like I can plan for my future now that I have been recommended for the program, and now I feel like I can plan for additional programs to complete in parallel. I guess I was right about all signs pointing to this being the right program for me. I’m looking forward to exploring the dynamics of masculinity during the fall semester.

Tomorrow night is the deadline for the discussion board in my History and Systems class and things are heating up quite a bit. Below are some examples from the course discussion board about this week’s topic.

“Hopefully there is someone out here who is looking to find the thruth and uses this class,discussion board topic and/or the reading and begans to walk toward to right path.In addition I don’t have the stats as of right now but theCountry is getting worse as more and more people are Atheist, devil worshipers etc.”

It would seem that because I do not believe the same what that I do that I am suddenly a devil worshipper. I do not recognize any being, so why would I recognize a devil more than a God?

“Amen Girl, Great post…….. Those who fail to believe in God have little substance not to mention they have NO idea what they are missing. I agree we all have changed and that in itself is evolution. But God created us and know one to DATE has proven otherwise.”

Because I use my brain and look for logical evidence I lack substance, but these people who believe absolutely in a being who exists in the ether are absolutely substantial?

“Because they are scientist, they feel they have no need to believe in the supernatural or because science is considered the ultimate source of intellectual meaning, their pride gets in the way. “

I am agnostic because I am too proud of being scientifically minded to allow myself to believe in God?

"They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised”

Just a biblical quote, but it is aimed at anyone who believes in science. From the perspective of the Bible being created as a social engineering tool, to manipulate people into a belief system, it would make sense for there to be built-in safe-guards against thinking outside of the religion.

I personally will be really glad when this week is over so that the witch hunt can subside and I won’t have to feel like there are 24 spritzer bottles of holy water aimed in my general direction. I wish to co-exist with these people and have no need to judge their beliefs, only to respect the differing views, but yet they are all about the accusations and the conversion.

I have decided to go over a few of my folders of academic crap and pull out some of my better papers. I have now posted those papers online in a simple index.

http://papers.cmkularski.net/

At some point in the past I had a lot of things going on in my life to the point where I required several different blogs just to keep things sorted out. I had interests pretty much flying out my ass and needed a place to blog and insert content relevant to each and every one. Now, things are different. My interests are narrowing and things are becoming more stable and cohesive, so the need for a separate blog relating to each thing is becoming less required. Unfortunately even my more specialized (and somewhat secret) blogs are not doing their jobs anymore either, mostly because they do not represent the real me anymore. I still have kinky interests, but they seem to have no meaning or substance without affection and some type of strong emotional bond, so those areas almost come back under the scope of this blog. Originally when this blog was launched it was to be my one-stop place for all of my thoughts, no matter how pure of problematic. Several years ago I had a problem where I considered suicide a few times, the entry where I announced those feelings and tried to write about them so that I could address them was posted to this blog, but now, it might be more likely to go to another blog, Restricted Access (as the name implies, its locked down). A few days ago, my new exercise routine stirred up erotic feelings in me and I felt like I needed an outlet, but it wasn’t right for my fetish blog, and it seemed a little out of the range of the body blog (since it’s a mental issue), so ideally it would be a personal topic, for the personal blog (this one), but once again, that type of thing ended up on RA, out of public view. The thoughts were personal, but not necessarily enough to be completely private. The separation of the body blog from the personal blog is really a self image thing I think. I keep the two worlds separate because I am afraid of screwing up, and then it would be an issue where it would be reflected in this blog and not just some other auxiliary blog that I can either close, or just ignore and forget about. Now I am realizing that the body blog is an ongoing thing and I do not necessarily screw up when I deviate from my goals, it just indicates a change in direction, just like anything else. The art blog has not been updated in over a year, which is probably a bad thing, since my art is a big part of my life. I don’t share much on there because it hardly seems relevant, because I feel like I am always doing the same stuff. It used to be the clay blog, which was great when I was still actively participating in ceramic classes and needed a way to keep my clay thoughts separate from my personal thoughts. Once again, I do not see why the differentiation was needed, except as a content delivery mechanism for the ceramic website (which is pretty much dead now). One other thing that affects the more “uncensored” blogs is the general audience nature of this blog. I really don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable, and I feel like if I started posting in that way, I just might alienate people. Perhaps that defense is more about a disparity in self image more than alienation, but I just can’t be sure. I am not yet comfortable with bridging that separation.

No matter how weird my life is, I am only one person, and there is becoming less and less reason to have everything separate. I want to be whole and outside of authentication mechanisms I’m not really sure how to go about it. I think I will experiment with web presence stuff other than the blogs at first and see if it is even a doable thing for all parts of me to coexist.

This morning I am watching a USPS package work its way through the system. To my surprise, the package is being tracked better through USPS than if it were moving through UPS.

Label/Receipt Number: 9101 8052 1390 7791 4741 09
Scheduled for Delivery Day: 09/26/2009
Class: First-Class Mail^®
Service(s): Delivery Confirmation^™
Status: Out for Delivery or Available at PO Box

Your item is out for delivery or available at a PO Box at 9:24 AM on September 26, 2009 in BESSEMER CITY, NC, 28016.

• Out for Delivery or Available at PO Box, September 26, 2009, 9:24 am, BESSEMER CITY, NC 28016
• Sorting Complete, September 26, 2009, 8:54 am, BESSEMER CITY, NC 28016
• Arrival at Post Office, September 26, 2009, 8:17 am, BESSEMER CITY, NC 28016
• Processed through Sort Facility, September 26, 2009, 12:12 am, CHARLOTTE, NC 28228
• Processed through Sort Facility, September 24, 2009, 8:24 pm, BROOKLYN, NY 11256
• Electronic Shipping Info Received, September 24, 2009

Pretty cool huh? I can now know exactly what state the package is in once it arrives at destination.