AQueerTheory of Below the Belt: Deconstructing Gender says

The notion that gender is performative and artificial has become popular among sociologists, critical theorists and feminists. They have often objectified trans women by using their lives and experiences to prove the socially constructed nature of gender. For example, in West and Zimmerman’s famous 1987 article, “Doing Gender,” the authors use a study of a trans woman (Agnes), who actively learns stereotypically feminine behaviors as part of her transition, in order to demonstrate that gender is a social achievement and not something that emerges naturally in a person. What they failed to note is that Agnes and other trans women had to (and still have to) adopt such an archetypal feminine gender expression in order to convince doctors that they are ready to have surgery. The Harry Benjamin Standards of Care basically require trans women to portray themselves as stereotypical women in order to be eligible for a vaginoplasty. While academics are happy to use trans women’s lives in order to demonstrate the artificial nature of gender, they rarely ask trans women themselves to reflect on their experiences or study trans women for long periods after their transitions.

The whole post is great, read it here.

I particularly appreciate this paragraph because it actually preserves gender as a construction, on the one hand, while clarifying how it’s constructed: you feel like “a man” or “a woman” at the identity level and you’re either instructed implicitly by culture or expressly by doctors, parents, or teachers/coaches/trainers how that should be expressed, i.e. it’s constructed and impressed on you.

(Something very similar happens, obviously, when you feel like “a straight” or “a homosexual” or for that matter “an asexual” at the level of orientation… and are then instructed — sometimes brutally — as to how that should be expressed.)

The effect is only exaggerated with trans men and women: the statement “you only get reassignment surgery if you construct your assigned gender” is miles apart from “only those who construct their assigned gender seek reassignment surgery!”

This necessarily implies, by the way, that there are plenty of trans people who don’t, won’t, or can’t complete their reassignment because they don’t conform to (or perhaps identify with) the gender standards constructed for them. (Final note: that some trans people collude with gender construction doesn’t invalidate the point. All trans people are part of the society they live in; not all are going to have critical consciousness about it.)

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Two other great elements that make it worth reading Julian’s post. First there’s an excellent summary of Julia Serano’s discussion of the interplay between “oppositional sexism,” which I first discussed here and “traditional sexism.” Second, there’s a nice summary of the only two standard stereotypes about trans people: the “deceptive” trans (see Jaye Davidson as Dil in “The Crying Game” and the “pathetic” trans (see John Lithgow in “The World According to Garp.”) Here too the externally-imposed stereotypes make a hash of real trans existence.

Em & Lo, on the Sundance group blog Sunfilgered link to a, well, ok, it’s self-evident from the URL...

AwkwardBoners.com is one of those genius sites that appeals equally to 13-year-old boys and, well, us. While awkward boners in public can be kind of creepy … the image gallery on this site mostly just makes us glad we’re not dudes. Sure, there are your standard creepy pervs who get a thrill out of showing off their “accidental” erection (something tells us this guy knows exactly what he’s doing — he’s sunbathing in spandex, ferchrissakes!). But most of the boners captured for posterity here underline the fact that penises do the darnedest things.

Read the quote in context here.

Awkward boners just aren’t a laughing matter — they’re awkward!

Which is funny when you think about it — men are supposed to be so sexually aggressive and all but I’m guessing all of us except the random sociopath (doesn’t care if he’s seen) or exhibitionist (cares a lot) wants anyone to know they’ve got a boner outside of a sexual situation. They make you feel extraordinarily vulnerable.

Note: the guy in the photo they mention (it’s at the top of their post) does look like he knows what he’s doing, but it looks like he’s wearing standard cotton/poly trunks, not spandex. I won’t say how I know — though any men reading this probably know it too — but spandex, or even classic nerdly y-front whitey-tighties, pull your erection up against your belly where we all hope it’ll appear less awkwardly visible. (Not unawkward, just not as awkward. And yes, one of the big reasons anyone over about age 16 wears y-fronts is to minimize the bump.)

And yes, they can happen at any time, at any age, for a variety of reasons. Sleeping’s a killer — the average man has multiple erections every night. Memory’s another. Then fantasy. Then visual stimulation. Then, for better or worse, actual sexual interplay.

Even during sexual interplay it can be awkward as we tend to live in mortal dread of appearing pushy (or maybe for some men appearing pushier than we actually are.) Thanks to the Two Rules of Desire we’re dead sure it neither interests nor arouses you to know we’re hard.

And since this post is all over the map anyway, I might as well add that in arousal terms having a boner doesn’t mean we’re already ravening with lust. Erections begin in men at roughly the same stage lubrication begins in women — early on, at the point of interest and anticipation, not the point of inevitability. Oh, and another thing that a lot of people who aren’t in touch don’t seem that clear on: absent further stimulation they go away again all by themselves.

One last thing: I’m actually kind of heartened by this site — for a lot of men it’s the worst that can happen to you. Also for a lot of men, for better or worse, we imagine we’re the only ones who get awkward boners. That’s mostly because they’re usually nowhere near as noticeable to others as they are to us. (Depending on age we can have dozens of them a day, most entirely unwanted. Most people clearly don’t notice.) The site neatly… ok, not exactly neatly, dispels that idea that we’re the only one it ever happens to.

Via Bill of Portland Maine, senior blogger at Daily Kos from a couple of weeks ago

“I know where I’m going to go on my next break. I’m going to the C Street House in Washington, D.C. You know what this is? It’s kind of a frat house for Christian congressman, where they live and pray together and counsel each other on how to adhere to the nine commandments.”

—-Bill Maher

Read the quote in context here.

Maher isn’t particularly my cup of tea but credit where credit’s due: it’s a good line.

For those who haven’t heard, the C Street House, owned by a elitist, Christian-like cult that falls into the same traps the Jesus warned Pharisees they had fallen into, is pretty much what Maher implies it is — a place where those who imagine they’re going to Heaven can kick back and enjoy freedom from the heavy and grievous burdens they bind to the shoulders of the rest of us. Mark Ensign lived there, Mark Sanford hung out there, now it turns out another canoodling Republican Congressman, Charles Pickering similarly enjoyed himself while living there.

#@!*$%~