femininity and "fuck you"

as someone who grew up in utah (southern utah, to be more precise), i did not have the privilege RIGHT of receiving a scientifically accurate or particularly feminist sex education.  i took psychology 101 from utah valley university as a concurrent enrollment course in high school that persistently used "sex" and "gender" interchangeably.  i would later take another psychology course in my first year of college that effectively did the same thing.  i was trying to work through my gender/identity issues at the time and this was less than helpful, although i was oblivious to why that would be a problem.
it was only when i entered almost exclusively feminist circles that i then learned the difference.  and then my identity started to make more sense.  now i have a hard time trusting anyone who makes this assumption.  it's harmful to education revolving trans and gender nonconforming identities.  it's confusing to the trans and gender nonconforming people themselves.  it reinforces biological determinism, which suggests that your biology determines your identity.

My Vagina Monologue

This post is inspired by The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler.  TW: sexual assault


The first time I felt arousal was when I was nine years old.  I had a friend who went to my school but was two years older and in sixth grade.  I looked up to her.  She was allowed to stay up late and watch grown-up movies.  She really liked Aaron Carter.  Her mom and my mom were friends.  Let's call this friend Katrina.

I had these pretend games that I liked to play during sleepovers.  My friends and I would be some kind of animal (usually cats or horses), and we would pretend to have adventures and be romantic.  I loved the romantic-type games.  Whenever Katrina and I had sleepovers, we would pretend to be humanoid cats in high school and have sophisticated high school cat lives.

During one of these sleepovers, Katrina was pretending to be a girl cat and I was the boy cat.  I was usually the boy in these kinds of games; not necessarily because I chose to, but mostly because the other people/person gave me that role.  We acted out a whole drama and then Katrina asked me to lay on top of her.  "This is what cats do when they love each other," she informed me.

We kind of made out and she pulled her underwear down.  We dashed to other sides of the room if we heard footsteps outside my bedroom door.  It was clear what we were doing was a secret. 

I have a complicated relationship with this memory.  It's not a bad memory, because I remember enjoying the experience despite not knowing what exactly was happening.  I hate that I have this memory though; I don't know how to interact with it.  It sickened me when I heard this kind of experience is common.