What is human sexuality?

Is it the organs and appendages that exist for the continuation of the species? Aren’t we supposed to be greater than the sum of our parts?

My interest in sexuality [beyond the obvious fun] has more to do with its mental and social aspects. The words sex and gender appear to be viewed by many as interchangeable, and completely synonymous — and that seems so very wrong to me. To my mind, sex is physiological while gender is behavioural and sociological.

So then,… what is ‘gender’?

Whenever completing a fill-in-the-blank form — usually a registration application of some sort — I encounter demands for intensely personal information [my sex and/or my gender] where I’m supposed to tick the box next to either of these words: male / female. Shouldn’t that, in the context of gender and not sex, instead read: masculine / feminine ?

As a total aside, I want to know why these strangers — whom I will likely never meet — presume that such intimate knowledge [which body parts I possess and use] is any of their frakkin’ business. Why should that determine how they will conduct themselves towards me? Oh, that’s right — there are different rules for treating people of different sexes,… or genders.

In a completely biological context I understand the division between the sexes: it’s like binary = is or is not. It’s black and white, with no shades of grey in between.

Aren’t we as human beings, as civilised entities, supposedly evolved beyond that?

What about those of us who are more comfortable — and better able to function — by simply being human beings without having to drag along all that dead-weight sex/gender baggage? Seriously, most of my activities are not in the least influenced by my reproductive organs. My body’s sex, and society’s nosy and pushy insistence on gender-typing me, have absolutely no bearing and what my mind and my hands can and do accomplish.

In her article Going Beyond X and Y in the Scientific American, Sally Lerhman explores the frenzy behind assigning physiological sex to newborns with ambiguous genitalia,… in many cases, where the infant’s sex simply isn’t immediately visible, and the parents and the doctors are all freaking out right now: OMG!! Do I dress my baby in pink, or in blue??!

History and culture are sexually divisive, from the gender-assigned clothes that others designs for us and expect us to wear, to the sex-oriented names our parents inflict upon us, and on down to the kinds of livelihoods we are allowed [or not] to pursue — regardless of individual aptitudes and inclinations, likes or dislikes.

Third-party expectations shriek at us until we bow to pressure and conform to those expectations, demanding that we throw away all the talents given us and ignore our own individualism, and forsake our ideals just to shut up those who aren’t living our lives.

If we don’t bow, if we don’t conform, we are punished. Oscar Wilde, one of the most brilliant writers ever, was imprisoned for his homosexuality. Others have been brutalized, some murdered, for their fashion choices. How effing twisted is that?

In my writings I cannot escape this theme, that we must submit to a consensus of what we are, based entirely upon whether one is possessed of gonads or ovaries, or in some cases both. My characters determine for themselves* what they are and what they want to be, and they struggle against the psychological bondage inflicted upon them by their indigenous societies and cultures.

How painfully shattering it is to be forced to finally understand that what you can do with you mind and your hands is dictated by the collective’s judgement, based on their uppity and parochial opinions regarding your body’s parts.

Well, then. What do you want to be when you grow up?

And will the collective allow it?

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*remember: in most instances with this fiction stuff, I’m just taking dictation from my characters.