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raxThis post discusses trauma, abuse, gender, furry, and theory. It's written kinda flowery-like, but fuck it, I feel flowery. Please read it if you'd like. <3
I want to start by sharing an image drawn by tumblr user arijandro: [0]
(A woman in a red riding hood outfit with a wolf's arm and leg stares defiantly out the canvas, one eye bandaged. Behind her in the silhouette of a house is the text "I MAKE NO APOLOGIES FOR HOW I CHOSE TO REPAIR WHAT YOU BROKE.")
This captures something about my own becomings-animal that I hadn't really managed to place before. I don't mean to say that I wouldn't have found foxness if I hadn't been abused, or that I wouldn't mew to say hello if I hadn't experienced trauma; I suspect there are other paths that would have awakened those kernels in me, encouraged those habits, had I not taken the ones I did. For me it doesn't matter; my foxification is intricately tied up in my need to defend and delineate myself in response to trauma in ways that I am trying to pick apart by writing this post.
Sometimes I feel like a terrible unperson, an abomination unto man and God, a thing unworthy of kindness or compassion. There are a lot of reasons for this, but one in particular makes it stick: If I were a person, deserving and beautiful, why would people have hurt me without remorse? Why would others take pleasure from my unwilling suffering? I must be trash, or else the world is so terrible that how could it even exist? This is busted thinking, of course, but it's busted thinking that is incredibly difficult for me to get past, except when I take on the position of the animal, lay claim to it, and demand my own worth regardless of my inhumanity. Here I mirror Susan Stryker, in "My Words To Victor Frankenstein...," reclaiming the monstrous: "I assert my worth as a monster in spite of the conditions my monstrosity requires me to face, and redefine a life worth living." The building blocks of my monstrosity are just baked from a different soil. [1]
My life --- my survivor's furry genderfucked life, with the Pokemon and the fixed-gear bicycle and the androgynous face and the pain and the pink glasses and a ridiculous quantity of pasta in oil sauce --- is a life worth living. The archetypes that called to me, the limb I stitched on to replace those taken from me as the woman in the image did, I took not from humans but from foxes. When I look at art of myself "as a furry," I am using an intermediary to see the self I cannot see in the mirror or in photographs; the human eye, the camera, are not suitable intermediaries for viewing me. (This is why I very rarely commission art of myself; to me, it is offering someone else the chance to build a part of me, and is not something to be taken lightly.)
I am also cat, from time to time --- and I much more often take on the physical trappings of felinity, though you'll catch me occasionally in the right mood with fox ears and different painted whiskers. First of all, being a cat is fun, but it's also a more effective form of externally visible armor. Presenting as feline (I like to call it "going out en chat" because at the end of the day I am a huge dork) taps into a bunch of archetypes about female sexual availability --- even when someone is presenting male, I think (although the one time I tried cat costume in men's dress suit I think something different happened). That's occasionally fun and sometimes terrifying but it's not the main reason I'm doing it --- it also, at least for me, taps into archetypes of feline ineffability and a different means of boundary enforcement. When I'm wearing street clothes, and someone harasses me or pressures me into interacting with them, I have difficulty saying no, I freeze up, it takes a lot out of me to manage that boundary because I am full of fears that the boundary won't be respected when I express it, because when was it ever before? [2] When I'm a cat, I just hiss at them, claw them if necessary, and move on. It's legitimately much easier for me to enforce those boundaries, and it costs me less, when I'm a cat. (Or when I'm a fox, but I tend to just run away.) The costume isn't the thing that makes this possible, but sometimes it's the thing that makes it accessible just then, literally sewing together felinity to evoke that I've sewn metaphorically into myself.
I'll ask it so no one else has to, since we're talking about catgirl costumes: "But isn't furry, like, a sex thing?" I've gotten this question from everyone from academics to cosplayers, and there are a lot of fascinating, snarky, beautiful answers to this question. I'll add this answer to their number: The human Rax who might have had sex is gone, if they ever existed. I had to sew something else in there to build a Rax capable of such vulnerability, but don't worry for me. My paws are softer than hands, my claws more nimble than fingers, and my teeth every bit as eager as a man's. I can love as a cat does, aloof and unconditional, or as a fox, distant and hungry, or as a cactus, slow and resolute; I love as a human does only in that these are ways a human can love and is loving. Furry is not a sex thing. My sex is a furry thing, and I wouldn't and couldn't have it any other way.
It's important to note that this relationship to the animal, while it's amazing for me, is not unproblematic. This post isn't about all of that, so I'm not going to go into detail, but I want to mark space here for a few things. First, this use of animal archetypes is connected to but not directly about the experiences of molar, "animal-born-animal," animals, who affect and are affected by this kind of identity work. Second, there are many people who experience being called animal as deeply negative and hurtful, for both personal and structural reasons. I claim and own and inhabit it, but that isn't the right path for other people, and my decision and comfort is affected by which structural reasons assholes had for calling me inhuman while abusing me. Someone else might respond to that with a fierce declaration of humanity, and that path is also beautiful. But me?
I am become menagerie. When the narrative of the human cannot staunch my wounds, I find another.
[0] If you're also grappling with issues of abuse, survivorhood, and reclamation at the moment, there are way worse things to do than spend a couple of hours reading through this tumblr and crying. I did it last weekend, and I'm so glad I did. It's even better if you also like Homestuck fanart.
[1] As tempted as I am to buy into the idea that it was desert soil all along, the Sonoran desert will never be mine or be me. As I stitch pieces of it into myself and shed self into the sand, though, I gradually stop being un-desert just as I will never be un-Rhode Island.
[2] A lot of times, if I charted them all on a calendar, but there are so many times in my history that it wasn't and a few very recently besides that... it often feels fruitless.
I want to start by sharing an image drawn by tumblr user arijandro: [0]
(A woman in a red riding hood outfit with a wolf's arm and leg stares defiantly out the canvas, one eye bandaged. Behind her in the silhouette of a house is the text "I MAKE NO APOLOGIES FOR HOW I CHOSE TO REPAIR WHAT YOU BROKE.")
This captures something about my own becomings-animal that I hadn't really managed to place before. I don't mean to say that I wouldn't have found foxness if I hadn't been abused, or that I wouldn't mew to say hello if I hadn't experienced trauma; I suspect there are other paths that would have awakened those kernels in me, encouraged those habits, had I not taken the ones I did. For me it doesn't matter; my foxification is intricately tied up in my need to defend and delineate myself in response to trauma in ways that I am trying to pick apart by writing this post.
Sometimes I feel like a terrible unperson, an abomination unto man and God, a thing unworthy of kindness or compassion. There are a lot of reasons for this, but one in particular makes it stick: If I were a person, deserving and beautiful, why would people have hurt me without remorse? Why would others take pleasure from my unwilling suffering? I must be trash, or else the world is so terrible that how could it even exist? This is busted thinking, of course, but it's busted thinking that is incredibly difficult for me to get past, except when I take on the position of the animal, lay claim to it, and demand my own worth regardless of my inhumanity. Here I mirror Susan Stryker, in "My Words To Victor Frankenstein...," reclaiming the monstrous: "I assert my worth as a monster in spite of the conditions my monstrosity requires me to face, and redefine a life worth living." The building blocks of my monstrosity are just baked from a different soil. [1]
My life --- my survivor's furry genderfucked life, with the Pokemon and the fixed-gear bicycle and the androgynous face and the pain and the pink glasses and a ridiculous quantity of pasta in oil sauce --- is a life worth living. The archetypes that called to me, the limb I stitched on to replace those taken from me as the woman in the image did, I took not from humans but from foxes. When I look at art of myself "as a furry," I am using an intermediary to see the self I cannot see in the mirror or in photographs; the human eye, the camera, are not suitable intermediaries for viewing me. (This is why I very rarely commission art of myself; to me, it is offering someone else the chance to build a part of me, and is not something to be taken lightly.)
I am also cat, from time to time --- and I much more often take on the physical trappings of felinity, though you'll catch me occasionally in the right mood with fox ears and different painted whiskers. First of all, being a cat is fun, but it's also a more effective form of externally visible armor. Presenting as feline (I like to call it "going out en chat" because at the end of the day I am a huge dork) taps into a bunch of archetypes about female sexual availability --- even when someone is presenting male, I think (although the one time I tried cat costume in men's dress suit I think something different happened). That's occasionally fun and sometimes terrifying but it's not the main reason I'm doing it --- it also, at least for me, taps into archetypes of feline ineffability and a different means of boundary enforcement. When I'm wearing street clothes, and someone harasses me or pressures me into interacting with them, I have difficulty saying no, I freeze up, it takes a lot out of me to manage that boundary because I am full of fears that the boundary won't be respected when I express it, because when was it ever before? [2] When I'm a cat, I just hiss at them, claw them if necessary, and move on. It's legitimately much easier for me to enforce those boundaries, and it costs me less, when I'm a cat. (Or when I'm a fox, but I tend to just run away.) The costume isn't the thing that makes this possible, but sometimes it's the thing that makes it accessible just then, literally sewing together felinity to evoke that I've sewn metaphorically into myself.
I'll ask it so no one else has to, since we're talking about catgirl costumes: "But isn't furry, like, a sex thing?" I've gotten this question from everyone from academics to cosplayers, and there are a lot of fascinating, snarky, beautiful answers to this question. I'll add this answer to their number: The human Rax who might have had sex is gone, if they ever existed. I had to sew something else in there to build a Rax capable of such vulnerability, but don't worry for me. My paws are softer than hands, my claws more nimble than fingers, and my teeth every bit as eager as a man's. I can love as a cat does, aloof and unconditional, or as a fox, distant and hungry, or as a cactus, slow and resolute; I love as a human does only in that these are ways a human can love and is loving. Furry is not a sex thing. My sex is a furry thing, and I wouldn't and couldn't have it any other way.
It's important to note that this relationship to the animal, while it's amazing for me, is not unproblematic. This post isn't about all of that, so I'm not going to go into detail, but I want to mark space here for a few things. First, this use of animal archetypes is connected to but not directly about the experiences of molar, "animal-born-animal," animals, who affect and are affected by this kind of identity work. Second, there are many people who experience being called animal as deeply negative and hurtful, for both personal and structural reasons. I claim and own and inhabit it, but that isn't the right path for other people, and my decision and comfort is affected by which structural reasons assholes had for calling me inhuman while abusing me. Someone else might respond to that with a fierce declaration of humanity, and that path is also beautiful. But me?
I am become menagerie. When the narrative of the human cannot staunch my wounds, I find another.
[0] If you're also grappling with issues of abuse, survivorhood, and reclamation at the moment, there are way worse things to do than spend a couple of hours reading through this tumblr and crying. I did it last weekend, and I'm so glad I did. It's even better if you also like Homestuck fanart.
[1] As tempted as I am to buy into the idea that it was desert soil all along, the Sonoran desert will never be mine or be me. As I stitch pieces of it into myself and shed self into the sand, though, I gradually stop being un-desert just as I will never be un-Rhode Island.
[2] A lot of times, if I charted them all on a calendar, but there are so many times in my history that it wasn't and a few very recently besides that... it often feels fruitless.
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(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-03 01:32 am (UTC)"going out en chat" ♥
I like this phrase in particular, that personal expression does not end in en homme vs en femme. I am going to have to roll it around in my thoughts for a while. I have a feeling that it is the outline of a much deeper cache of useful tools for survival and expression.
Of the partially-human archetypes that are easy to express in street-clothes, en chat could work particularly well, because people have ideas about how to relate to cats and cat-people.
"The archetypes that called to me, the limb I stitched on to replace those taken from me as the woman in the image did, I took not from humans but from foxes."
This is fascinating. In contrast with therianthropes who believe that they were born animal at heart, and who work to reveal that true heart, this essay shows how a personally constructed animality, too, is equally powerful and sincere. Though the traits of the furry animal self were chosen and built, they are potentially no less earnest than than the discovered and not-chosen traits of a therianthropic animal self. Discovering what was latent (in the case of therians), or building what needs to be restored (in the case of your furry self), are structurally similar acts.
I think your essay is particularly illuminating if viewed as the complementary companion of Akhila's essay on therianthropy and the social construction of animality and humanity, "For a non-essentialist understanding of animality."
"When the narrative of the human cannot staunch my wounds, I find another."
One of several lines in this that would do well as framed calligraphy.
I have no specific line of theirs to cite, so I hope that I am not misrepresenting them: I have the impression that for the Silver Elves, their being elven is partially based on recognizing what traits of humankind (the self-proclaimed "normal people") that the Silver Elves dislike and cannot align with, and then being otherwise. (For example, humanity's inclinations for warlikeness, conformism, and disrespect for the environment. The Silver Elves speak against those traits in particular.) Zardoa of the Silver Elves wrote that part of how he came to know that he was an elf was because he had tried to be a "real man" (source). He found it was not in his nature to be a Man, but an Elf, an archetype that only seemed outside the realm of possibility until he met other real elves.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-03 02:12 am (UTC)Thank you! I'm really glad it was thought-provoking for someone; it was one of those things that I just had to get out, and I was hoping it would do something for someone else.
I have a feeling that it is the outline of a much deeper cache of useful tools for survival and expression.
If you find something and are willing to share, please let me know!
Discovering what was latent (in the case of therians), or building what needs to be restored (in the case of your furry self), are structurally similar acts.
I think they are not only structurally similar, but not fully distinguishable. I don't think every therian has deep trauma that pushed them to build an animal self, or that my foxness is purely a reaction to abuse; but even if the animal nature is inherent in some way, the shape of mine is a result of the life I've lived, and even when that animal nature isn't inherent, the structure it produces becomes something intrinsic? I feel like there's a logicknot here and the point is that you can't unravel it but I can't words it.
Akhila's essay is awesome and thank you for linking me to it! We're definitely looking at similar things.
He found it was not in his nature to be a Man, but an Elf, an archetype that only seemed outside the realm of possibility until he met other real elves.
This resonates a lot. Thank you!
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-03 02:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-03 02:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-04 12:39 am (UTC)My thoughts about various aspects of my own identity are pretty much "bluhhh? what???" at the moment as everything's a big jumble of confusion (in a mostly positive way, I think?) and it's really interesting and helpful to read a thoughtful piece on identity, so thanks!
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-04 12:58 am (UTC)I'd love to talk with you about identity stuff sometime, yours or in general! I also might be in SF in early/mid October. Perhaps we can combine these things?? (perhaps your couch is free? :D)
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-04 01:12 am (UTC)We are going to be out of town (wedding and trip to Canada, which will be a first for me!) from the 12th to... I think the 18th or 19th of October, but other than that we'll be around and our couch, as always, is open to you.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-04 01:20 am (UTC)The event I need to be there for (Pokemon, unsurprisingly) is on the 12th and the 13th, but I'd love to come in a couple of days early and hang out with y'all! I can just head to Pokemon on the 12th and crash elsewhere, probably closer to the event as it's off in nowheresville again. :) If that works for you, I'll find a flight that arrives sometime between Tuesday and Thursday and let you know?
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-04 01:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-06 02:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-07 03:52 am (UTC)Also, you are 100% welcome to stay here when we're out of town. We really wouldn't mind at all! Our couch is open even if we are not here.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-04 07:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-04 08:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-09 09:14 am (UTC)First off, I am so sorry for getting you involved in my insanity last year. I don't know whether an apology at this late point is worthwhile, but I do feel one is owed to everyone caught up in my derangement.
Against the notion that foxes are subhuman, I think that being a fox is a way of ensuring that I am at least an animal. The ability to identify, and then seek to satisfy, one's own needs is what I consider "animal", and even that is difficult. Sometimes difficult to the point of impossible, for me. Meanwhile, the category "human" just seems hollow, there to be filled with whatever virtues and capacities one wants.
I don't think about it in this light very often, but being a fox does tie in to my own history of abuse. The discovery came earlier, but the foxhood never did have to be abandoned, as other things did. In particular, it stays with me that foxes have such a vivid look, and such discordant, cacophonous calls. That matches the times when I feel... pretty but broken, I suppose. Pleasing to one sense, horrible to another.
That's all I can articulate at the moment. I hope things are going well for you.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-03 01:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-03 02:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-03 03:05 am (UTC)This entire set of statements (the paragraph around them) is very good poetry.
Thank you for writing.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-03 03:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-03 03:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-03 03:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-03 07:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-03 01:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-03 11:04 am (UTC)thanks for writing.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-03 01:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-03 02:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-03 03:19 pm (UTC)Thank you for reading, and I'm glad the stuff I'm doing here made sense! I'm still trying to figure out how to take D&G (and other crazyawesome theoretical stuff I've read) blowing my brain open and use it to say things that will make sense to people who haven't read it; it's hard, because there's so much in there! But hopefully I'm getting little bits of it through. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-04 07:09 am (UTC)When I developed monstrosity, it wasn't a defensive move or a re-construction, but it felt like something I needed to have in order to be whole. In a way it was like a protective charm against forces, both internal and external, that would surpress emotion and reverie.
I love as a human does only in that these are ways a human can love and is loving.
That seems like an important distinction to make. It's human, but maybe not the associated memetic baggage around "human".
Being around other sexually weird people helped me realize that those "ways a human can love" existed, too. And that it was OK to pursue them, no really, because there are people who're making it work. When I look at the various kink communities, they all seem kind of ridiculous, but at the same time there's a comfort in that, that other people are doing ridiculous things (and it's not like the forms of sexuality that aren't considered kink didn't look ridiculous, either).
I hadn't thought of furry as a means of boundary assertion before, but it makes sense. I think being in-character makes it easier to be assertive for a lot of people; for sure it's simpler!
When I look at art of myself "as a furry," I am using an intermediary to see the self I cannot see in the mirror or in photographs; the human eye, the camera, are not suitable intermediaries for viewing me.
So many feels. <3 I've been mulling over a few different images that I might commission someday, if I find the right artist or artists.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-04 08:05 pm (UTC)This is super true and one of the most useful things about people being open with their sexualities/kinks/what have you, I think.
Thanks for sharing how some of this stuff works for you!