Jessica's Escape

An opinion piece written by Jessica Mathis (aka Jessiebanana/Me)

I’m ready to be redefined.  As a people, I not only encourage the redefinition of society, but I believe it to be completely necessary and fundamental to our evolution.  Call me a crazy liberal, morally bankrupt, science fiction freak that lives a thousand years in the future all you want, but I still believe it.  We’ve redefined what it means to be a woman, man, parent, husband, wife, mother, father, child and person; we’ve redefined marriage, law, political government and religion; we’ve redefined justice, compassion, equality and safety.  It’s no longer socially acceptable to kill the weak or harm someone because you’re angry.  Raping women and beating your wife and kids simply because you’re the man, the provider and are stronger and able is not acceptable.  People aren’t property, daughters aren’t pawns in a game of chess and entering a relationship for money is considered prostitution.  Superstition doesn’t rule day-to-day life and the highest court isn’t the bible, it is a fair and unbiased law supported by the people and not a divine unknowable power.  We no longer live by the rules of nature, subject to physical limitations and situation.  Men don’t dominate women and intelligence isn’t a genetic birthright.  Theoretically we are all equal and growth is preached to be entirely up to the individual person.

Whether we realize it or not, as a society, we are moving towards androgyny, racial, cultural and sexual androgyny and I’m ready to be sexually redefined.  What makes me a woman and you a man then?  Gametes and secondary sexual characteristics aside, what is it?  The biological support for gender is weakening everyday we separate ourselves from biological forces.  With the aid of contraceptives we have children when we want, on our schedules, hell we don’t even have to have sex to have children.  Eggs are fertilized in vitro everyday and sperm are separated from their producers, stored for years and used thousand of miles away.  Secondary sex characteristics can be bought at your local plastic surgeon and the more we learn about genetics the more we realize how wrong nature often gets those as well.  No, the definition of gender far exceeds the physical.  It emotional and psychological, but without all of the traditional biological forces guiding our behavior we are truly left to our own devices, our own will and individual development.

Without biology keeping us in our place as woman and man, I believe a new generation of gender will be born.  My hypothesis is that people will soon be living in total indifference of their gender.  You can see signs of it already.  How many of you know straight men that choose and prefer female friends?  How many of you know plenty of straight women who watch UFC and take up Rugby as a sport?  Characteristics typically associated with atypical sexual orientation or oddities, such as the “tomboy”.  As the divide between the gender roles break down and women frequent men’s activities and vice versa, we see more people saying, “Hey, I enjoy this!”  Women are no longer fixed to the home and obligated through circumstance to be caregivers.  Men no longer have to run around flexing their biologically superior muscle to defend themselves or us.  Machismo has died and in its place are men who are exploring all aspects of their personalities and discovering their real interests.  There is evidence to suggest that there appears to be a trend of sex hormones shifting in favor of higher testosterone in women and lower testosterone in men.  A bit of food for thought, possibly.

Gender means less and less everyday, or so says the fight for equal pay, and by association, so does sexual orientation.  Sexual orientation is completely dependent upon the binary system of gender and where you fall in it.  There is much talk and theory on what makes you gay, straight or bi and what sexual orientation means for people born intersex (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersexuality), but I’m not especially interested in that.  My thoughts fall more along the line of philosophical ramblings.  If the standards and definitions of gender are collapsing it can be of little or no surprise that we see more and more people saying, “I’m typically straight, I just happened to fall in love with this one particular person.”  Even within the gay community, much to it’s dismay, you get more and more people declaring themselves as bi or pansexual, where it used to be and still is frowned upon.  Let’s get one thing straight, haha, no pun intended, as much as people are hung up on the mechanics of sex between gay people, sexual orientation has absolutely nothing to do with equipment.  There is nothing a woman can do to a woman, that a man can’t and there is nothing a man can do to a man, that a woman can’t with the aid of her local sex shop.  The actual act of sex is pretty basic and boring.  There are holes and there are things you put in holes and move in a rhythm.  Sexual orientation is all about who you are attracted to.

I’m someone who has grown up loving Prince, oh the beautiful men, and not particularly identifying with one gender, as far as roles are concerned, or another.  I dress my ultra femme hourglass body in the way it looks best, but my hobbies and attitudes have never pointed one way or the other.  I came out when I was 17 and have dated women since, but that wasn’t the end of the story for me.  As I’ve matured and gotten more in touch with what my sexual desires and preferences are in the mechanics of sex and learnt what I’m looking for emotionally and intellectually in a romantic partner, I’ve realized that for me it has little to do with gender at all.  I’m looking for certain characteristics and traits.  These characteristics and traits typically manifest themselves in women for me, but as what defines women and men change and become less fixed and more apparent in both sexes, my fixed orientation breaks down with it.  If a beautiful man who captivated me (Eddie Redmayne, Robert Pattinson, you can call me any time) walked into my life and was willing to work on our sex life, I would not turn him down for something as insignificant and trivial as sexual orientation, just as I didn’t let gender stop me from playing Rugby or taking Physics.

My biggest point here and that point that I want everyone to take home, is that the definitions and social dynamics that regulate both gender and sexual orientation are not just changing, but breaking down.  We have the ability and freedom to develop as individuals.  We can define for ourselves who we are, what we are and what we want.  We don’t live in a society that demands a need for gender conformity or definition, so why should we attempt to live by a one-size-fits-all template?  Some people fit perfectly in that template, and that’s fine, but many people don’t and we should develop independent of presumption.  We strive for happiness in arenas our ancestors could only dream of and when you think of how people just 50 years ago would react to our definitions of gender and sexual orientation now, it’s amazing. Now what I am not saying is that labels are irrelevant, because that isn’t true.  What I am saying is that the labels and definitions that once held meaning and purpose have become unnecessary and restrictive in our socially advancing society.  We’ve come so far, but I’m ready for the next step.  I’m ready to redefine my self as an androgynous human being, with female secondary sex characteristics and gametes.  I am not my sex. I have a sex.  My sexual orientation doesn’t dictate my behavior and frankly doesn’t exist, instead I have behaviors that are currently identifiable as a certain sexual orientation.  I’m open to myself and experience and my reactions to individuals are on case-by-case bases.