Who am I? Why am I here?

[ng_moonmoth]

This widely ridiculed line was how James Stockdale introduced himself at the first vice-presidential debate he participated in as the candidate of Ross Perot's Reform Party in 1992.  Nevertheless, it seems like a good place to start.

The quick answer: because ysabetwordsmith asked for prompts which she uses to write poetry, and her April prompt request was too important to me to remain hidden any longer.

What I feel ready to say now (briefly putting on my Evil Genius hat): “Masculinity! You have failed me for the final time! Leave now before I tire of you and feed you to my piranhas, and take your idiotic Man Card with you! I have no further use for it!

Now for the longer answer: I'll tell you what I can and still feel comfortable, but I don't feel like I can say very much right now. I'm operating under an assumed identity here, with the idea that I can exert some control over who finds out what when. This is no doubt mistaken, but I intend to try, anyway, because it makes me feel more comfortable as I step out from behind the facades I have been maintaining.

I have come to realize that what I am uncomfortable with is the concept that the cultural roles a person can inhabit are constrained by their physical characteristics. I put “constrained” in there because it contains “strain” – and I experience myself, and see in others, the strain we put ourselves under in order to be recognized in a particular role by our cultures.

Because certain cultural roles are preferentially granted influence and agency, the tradeoffs one must make for the sake of what role one wishes to be recognized as inhabiting, and how well that role fits with one's self-perception, often come at significant personal discomfort.

This is where I find myself now: at a place where the personal cost of acting in a way seen as conforming to the cultural role into which I was indoctrinated from a very early age has risen to a level I no longer feel I can sustain, and is becoming higher than the cultural cost of failing to conform to that role's norms.

I have more to say on this, but I would like to introduce some concepts that refer to terms some people are uncomfortable encountering, even though I would not consider any of them problematic for any reasonably tolerant person.  I'm playing safe and putting that part under an explicit cut, then continuing.