Making The Case For Intersexuality

Yesterday I released part 4 of In Between and Neither. It's not the ending of this story as some have asked me. Consider it to be the introduction having come to an end. The real story starts from here. How it'll end? I will tell you right after I know how my own life is going to proceed from here on.

Also yesterday was the first photoshoot with the photography student. This time she mostly did profile shots. Later this month we'll probably do another shoot involving more full-body shots. The question she and I have been mulling over is how to use a photograph to basically show that a person is intersexual.

Take my case: when I'm just walking or sitting about, everyone will assume that I'm just a regular girl, whether walking around fully clothed on the streets or in a skimpy bikini at the swimming pool. Including a picture of me in her project is therefore going to be about as effective as including a picture of any reasonably attractive regular girl. Nobody will be able to tell the difference. So what's the solution?

The most obvious solution is of course to take away every bit of clothing, to show everything and make it completely obvious that this body of mine with its near-perfect feminine curves has an oddity to it. A possible problem with this is how to do it without make it look out of place. It has to be done in a tasteful manner. I'll leave that issue to the student. I just discussed it with her, asking her about the target public, which turned out to be mostly teachers and students at her school, so there's the assumption of a reasonable level of maturity among the viewers. I guess I'll find out later this month what she came up with. I'm just the model :)

Moving on... the aftershocks of my dating trial are still causing damage and it'll probably take a while longer for things to settle down a bit. With relationship and sexuality no longer being of relevance to me they have already been dumped into the 'unwanted and evil' bin by my emotional side. I think it's acting mostly out of confusion, as it seems to be unable to understand anything about these topics. Logically I can not seem to make head or tails out of it, other than to discard both as silly courtship and reproduction rituals which have no relevance to me. Whether trying out this dating thing was the right choice is still very much up for debate.

Anyway, at least I did keep my date as a good friend, and Wednesday we're going to see a movie: Casablanca from 1942 with Humphrey Bogart (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034583/), a classic I have wanted to see for a long time. I'm a sucker for certain old movies and this might be one of them. Another one I saw a while ago thanks to Pieter was 12 Angry Men from 1957 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050083/) which was fascinating even though the characters in this movie never leave the room they're in until the very end. It was all in the acting and dialogue, in other words. Definitely recommended.

Next week is going to be busy again, with that movie on Wednesday and my usual torture appointments on Tuesday and Wednesday. At least the latter seems to be making serious progress now, with the last traces of facial hair rapidly diminishing and playing an increasingly less important role in my daily life. With some luck it may be done by the end of the year. I'll then have spent somewhere around 5,000 Euro on it, and recouped maybe 750-1,000 Euro via my insurance company. Being intersexual is an expensive hobby.

Pieter is also going to have a friend over from Taiwan this coming week, who he'll have to show around this little country. It's somewhat funny that it takes less than a week to show basically everything of relevance in this country. I have never met this friend of Pieter before, but I doubt I'll see much of her except at breakfast and sometimes dinner. Not that this matters to me, except that I may have to cook for myself a few times. I like strict planning :)

Going back to yesterday's talks with the photography student, one thing she was quite adament about and which I agree with is that of including teaching about intersexuality at schools, during biology and other relevant classes. it's ridiculous that each year in this country alone tens of thousands of children if not more are born intersexual and 80-90% of this country or so isn't even aware that intersexuality exists, or what it is really, with a similar pattern among medical personnel. I would really like to lobby politicians to give this issue some attention, but I'm not sure my voice carries any kind of power. Most likely it will just get ignored.

I also compared the current taboo on intersexuality with that of the racial segregation in the US in the 60s. It took a few coloured people to stand up and say that they weren't going to take the way things were any longer, and that they demanded change. This is what should happen among intersexuals as well. The student's experiences when contacting AIS Nederlands, an organization for intersexuals, was that none of its members wanted to do anything for her project except just maybe have an anonymous interview. My experiences with other intersexuals are much the same.

Intersexuality isn't something to be ashamed of. We were born this way and we deserve to be recognized as such, public opinion be damned. Who's marching with me? :)


Maya