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seol_plumfallBecause wranet often has these really interesting threads addressing themes, but I am too much of a coward to post my own character ramblings in public there, I think I am going to start a little recurring feature on this blog, a "daily ramble upon a theme," if you will. We'll start with one that comes from wranet, gender and sexuality.
Oh, gender. ... Though, actually, I am a little ashamed that I, Isaac Black, Infamous Lord of Genderfail, do not have a single trans character. However, my characters wouldn't be my characters without a bit of oddness to their genders.
I'll mainly go into Seol and Astrolabe as they are my main characters/favorites/spoiled brats.
Seol has typical male anatomy, is male-identified, and is involved with a female, making him, on the surface, a cisgender heterosexual man. He does, however, fail at male gender a little (or maybe more than a little.)
Seol was raised almost exclusively by women. As a small child he was not only naturally shy but also smothered by his mother, and so he mostly stayed inside the house with his mother and their mostly female servants. When he ventured out, it was generally only to socialize with the extended family (mostly the women) or Chihra's friends (also mostly women.) When his mother could not be with him it was mostly Juneila who sat him, and his best friend ended up being the younger Jia.
And so, growing up, he imitated the people around him and picked up the stereotypically feminine mannerisms they used.
For instance, he tends to express sympathy with complaints before offering solutions; he pays attention to body language as much as he does to words (and tends to communicate heavily using body language himself); I imagine that he also tends to use stereotypically feminine language inflection, with rising pitch at the end of sentences, etc.
Seol also dislikes men. Or rather, does not dislike men, but mistrusts men by default. This is due partly to him just not having many male acquaintances or friends in his life; he's just not used to them so he feels uneasy (because Seol craves what is stable and familiar.) He feels uncomfortable because of the unfamiliarity, he doesn't know how to communicate in stereotypically masculine ways, he doesn't understand male bonding behaviors like shows of machismo or the Friendly Duel -- all things that disadvantage his relationships with men from the start. And then he's also had a series of not unpleasant, but uncomfortable relationships with men who he felt belittled him, patronized him, didn't care to understand his feelings, and so forth.
And then there are all those character traits he has that are "girly" -- he likes to bake, he likes to feed people (symbolic nourishment/nurture/mothering,) he is gentle, submissive, kind, sensitive, he does not like to shake things up or disagree with people in public, likes nice clothes and smells, is oriented to things that symbolize "home" and "family," etc. These are mostly just natural personality traits of Seol without particular bases in his psychological history, and he doesn't believe these things to be connected with his gender... but.
... All in all, Seol seems to be as trans as he can be without actually being trans. Because, despite all the cupcakes and tears and pink, if you asked him if he's a boy or a girl, he would say "a boy." He would acknowledge that he fails at "manliness," but this doesn't really bother him. It's just the way he is.
... Which doesn't necessarily mean that Seol is some amazing gender-sophisticate. Because you can draw a parallel between his acceptance of his femininity/non-manliness and his acceptance of his weakness. Despite being more comfortable with and liking feminine things, he may still be subconsciously identifying "feminine" as inferior to/a failure at "masculine" just like "weakness" is a failure at "strength."
Astrolabe, on the other hand, has a (surprisingly?) more traditional gender and sexual identification. She thinks of herself as female -- Astrolabe-female. It doesn't matter to her whether she adheres to feminine stereotypes or not (sometimes she does, sometimes she doesn't.) She is confident that she is definitely Astrolabe-female and that this implies she will someday mate with a corresponding Astrolabe-male (who, likewise, may not be stereotypically male, but rather Astrolabe's male complement.) At this point nothing has shaken her belief in this yin-yang idea. So she is a cisgender woman.
And when she met the one she thinks is the Astrolabe-male, she had a sort of feeling of eros. Not really a mature sexual feeling, as she is still quite young, but a strong attraction that involves romantic feelings, admiration, a desire to be close and exchange essences -- which for Seol and Astro at this point in their lives are intellectual essences, Seol's being painful compassion/pity and Astro's being existential elation. So you could say she is heterosexual because she wants to engage in this exchange with the Astrolabe-male.
And though she is young and innocent now, you know that with an internal philosophy based around pleasure and joy, she's going to be a huge hedonist when she grows up (but surely a gentle and considerate one.)
Seol, though? ... Has a deeply, profoundly messed-up sense of eros. Seol cannot really feel pleasure (partly his idiosyncratic psychological makeup, partly because of trauma.) Therefore, things that "feel good" do so because they are not painful, not because they positively possess a "pleasurable" attribute. Seol did not understand or even believe in such a thing as pleasure until recently.
This internal philosophy (which is not entirely conscious and which he cannot really express well yet) bleeds over into the way he senses the world. The Light and the naaru feel like pain to him because they give him an overwhelming feeling which he is not able to feel as pleasure; therefore, it has to be pain. He and Astro have identified this pain as "compassion for the suffering of the world," so he's learned to embrace it. But it is still pain, not pleasurable-pain.
... ... ... So you can imagine how this might affect his sexuality.
I imagine him as naturally having a weak libido, which was then further crushed by his trauma, and which is further muted by his youth and innocence. Combined with his pain problem... I figure he's functionally asexual and would describe stimulation as "uncomfortable." D:
He is probably not truly asexual though, and as he matures and (hopefully) heals from all his problems and gets fed a lot of chocolate, he may develop healthier erotic feelings.
Is he capable of romantic feelings, though, and are these feelings towards men or women? It seems to me that Seol can only fall in love with (and in the future perhaps desire) someone he really, really likes, with whom he feels comfortable, and with whom he already has deep emotional intimacy. Given that he is not inclined to open up to men... the crystal ball predicts gynephilic behavior from him (see Turtle Loves Sporebat.)
That doesn't mean he's heterosexual, though. Bisexual? Panromantic? Light knows.
... ... ...
That was wordy.
Seol and Astro are my deepest characters; I'm more interested in their psyches than in my other characters'. But, just for completeness's sake...
Jia is still quite young, and I imagine her gender and sexuality may change as she grows. Right now, she would identify herself as a "girl" while, to an extent, pooh-poohing "girly" things; she's a bit of a tomboy-nerd. She has never had a crush on a man or a woman, but if you asked her to picture the person she would like to marry a hundred years from now, she would picture a man (possibly just because of cultural indoctrination, not because of her actual orientation.)
Galenos is a cisgender heterosexual man. He is quite sure he is male, but does not feel any particular need to prove his manliness. He feels attracted to women, especially those who are elegant, with refined appearances, but kind personalities (belf ice queens™ scare him.) He's never met a man to whom he was attracted, but he doesn't really feel repulsed by them either, so he might have bisexual tendencies.
But he doesn't really spend a lot of time worrying about these issues.
Helaah is a cisgender heterosexual woman. Probably. She identifies as female because she's sure she's not male and she's reasonably sure she's not "neither." And she has only felt attraction to men and disinterest (rather than repulsion) towards women. These attractions were never really strong, though, and had more to do with curiosity than desire. She is strongly attracted to her husband, but these feelings grow out of her admiration for his mind. Like Astrolabe, her feelings of eros have to do with exchanging essences, and intellectual essences are more interesting to her than physical ones.
Later I may do the theme of "body," "strength/weakness," "honor," or something more interesting if I think of it.
Oh, gender. ... Though, actually, I am a little ashamed that I, Isaac Black, Infamous Lord of Genderfail, do not have a single trans character. However, my characters wouldn't be my characters without a bit of oddness to their genders.
I'll mainly go into Seol and Astrolabe as they are my main characters/favorites/spoiled brats.
Seol has typical male anatomy, is male-identified, and is involved with a female, making him, on the surface, a cisgender heterosexual man. He does, however, fail at male gender a little (or maybe more than a little.)
Seol was raised almost exclusively by women. As a small child he was not only naturally shy but also smothered by his mother, and so he mostly stayed inside the house with his mother and their mostly female servants. When he ventured out, it was generally only to socialize with the extended family (mostly the women) or Chihra's friends (also mostly women.) When his mother could not be with him it was mostly Juneila who sat him, and his best friend ended up being the younger Jia.
And so, growing up, he imitated the people around him and picked up the stereotypically feminine mannerisms they used.
For instance, he tends to express sympathy with complaints before offering solutions; he pays attention to body language as much as he does to words (and tends to communicate heavily using body language himself); I imagine that he also tends to use stereotypically feminine language inflection, with rising pitch at the end of sentences, etc.
Seol also dislikes men. Or rather, does not dislike men, but mistrusts men by default. This is due partly to him just not having many male acquaintances or friends in his life; he's just not used to them so he feels uneasy (because Seol craves what is stable and familiar.) He feels uncomfortable because of the unfamiliarity, he doesn't know how to communicate in stereotypically masculine ways, he doesn't understand male bonding behaviors like shows of machismo or the Friendly Duel -- all things that disadvantage his relationships with men from the start. And then he's also had a series of not unpleasant, but uncomfortable relationships with men who he felt belittled him, patronized him, didn't care to understand his feelings, and so forth.
And then there are all those character traits he has that are "girly" -- he likes to bake, he likes to feed people (symbolic nourishment/nurture/mothering,) he is gentle, submissive, kind, sensitive, he does not like to shake things up or disagree with people in public, likes nice clothes and smells, is oriented to things that symbolize "home" and "family," etc. These are mostly just natural personality traits of Seol without particular bases in his psychological history, and he doesn't believe these things to be connected with his gender... but.
... All in all, Seol seems to be as trans as he can be without actually being trans. Because, despite all the cupcakes and tears and pink, if you asked him if he's a boy or a girl, he would say "a boy." He would acknowledge that he fails at "manliness," but this doesn't really bother him. It's just the way he is.
... Which doesn't necessarily mean that Seol is some amazing gender-sophisticate. Because you can draw a parallel between his acceptance of his femininity/non-manliness and his acceptance of his weakness. Despite being more comfortable with and liking feminine things, he may still be subconsciously identifying "feminine" as inferior to/a failure at "masculine" just like "weakness" is a failure at "strength."
Astrolabe, on the other hand, has a (surprisingly?) more traditional gender and sexual identification. She thinks of herself as female -- Astrolabe-female. It doesn't matter to her whether she adheres to feminine stereotypes or not (sometimes she does, sometimes she doesn't.) She is confident that she is definitely Astrolabe-female and that this implies she will someday mate with a corresponding Astrolabe-male (who, likewise, may not be stereotypically male, but rather Astrolabe's male complement.) At this point nothing has shaken her belief in this yin-yang idea. So she is a cisgender woman.
And when she met the one she thinks is the Astrolabe-male, she had a sort of feeling of eros. Not really a mature sexual feeling, as she is still quite young, but a strong attraction that involves romantic feelings, admiration, a desire to be close and exchange essences -- which for Seol and Astro at this point in their lives are intellectual essences, Seol's being painful compassion/pity and Astro's being existential elation. So you could say she is heterosexual because she wants to engage in this exchange with the Astrolabe-male.
And though she is young and innocent now, you know that with an internal philosophy based around pleasure and joy, she's going to be a huge hedonist when she grows up (but surely a gentle and considerate one.)
Seol, though? ... Has a deeply, profoundly messed-up sense of eros. Seol cannot really feel pleasure (partly his idiosyncratic psychological makeup, partly because of trauma.) Therefore, things that "feel good" do so because they are not painful, not because they positively possess a "pleasurable" attribute. Seol did not understand or even believe in such a thing as pleasure until recently.
This internal philosophy (which is not entirely conscious and which he cannot really express well yet) bleeds over into the way he senses the world. The Light and the naaru feel like pain to him because they give him an overwhelming feeling which he is not able to feel as pleasure; therefore, it has to be pain. He and Astro have identified this pain as "compassion for the suffering of the world," so he's learned to embrace it. But it is still pain, not pleasurable-pain.
... ... ... So you can imagine how this might affect his sexuality.
I imagine him as naturally having a weak libido, which was then further crushed by his trauma, and which is further muted by his youth and innocence. Combined with his pain problem... I figure he's functionally asexual and would describe stimulation as "uncomfortable." D:
He is probably not truly asexual though, and as he matures and (hopefully) heals from all his problems and gets fed a lot of chocolate, he may develop healthier erotic feelings.
Is he capable of romantic feelings, though, and are these feelings towards men or women? It seems to me that Seol can only fall in love with (and in the future perhaps desire) someone he really, really likes, with whom he feels comfortable, and with whom he already has deep emotional intimacy. Given that he is not inclined to open up to men... the crystal ball predicts gynephilic behavior from him (see Turtle Loves Sporebat.)
That doesn't mean he's heterosexual, though. Bisexual? Panromantic? Light knows.
... ... ...
That was wordy.
Seol and Astro are my deepest characters; I'm more interested in their psyches than in my other characters'. But, just for completeness's sake...
Jia is still quite young, and I imagine her gender and sexuality may change as she grows. Right now, she would identify herself as a "girl" while, to an extent, pooh-poohing "girly" things; she's a bit of a tomboy-nerd. She has never had a crush on a man or a woman, but if you asked her to picture the person she would like to marry a hundred years from now, she would picture a man (possibly just because of cultural indoctrination, not because of her actual orientation.)
Galenos is a cisgender heterosexual man. He is quite sure he is male, but does not feel any particular need to prove his manliness. He feels attracted to women, especially those who are elegant, with refined appearances, but kind personalities (belf ice queens™ scare him.) He's never met a man to whom he was attracted, but he doesn't really feel repulsed by them either, so he might have bisexual tendencies.
But he doesn't really spend a lot of time worrying about these issues.
Helaah is a cisgender heterosexual woman. Probably. She identifies as female because she's sure she's not male and she's reasonably sure she's not "neither." And she has only felt attraction to men and disinterest (rather than repulsion) towards women. These attractions were never really strong, though, and had more to do with curiosity than desire. She is strongly attracted to her husband, but these feelings grow out of her admiration for his mind. Like Astrolabe, her feelings of eros have to do with exchanging essences, and intellectual essences are more interesting to her than physical ones.
Later I may do the theme of "body," "strength/weakness," "honor," or something more interesting if I think of it.