theinquisitor interviews Galina, an early-20-something heterosexual woman living in Boston.

theinquisitor: Where did you grow up? What was the high school like that you went to?

Galina: I grew up in a small town, right on the ocean on the north shore of Massachusetts. My high school was also small - a little fewer than 200 kids in my graduating class. Because both my town and, subsequently, my high school were so small, it was fairly standard to know at least semi-personal details of people's lives with whom you may never have had any real conversation. Because everyone knew each other if not by name than at least by face, high school could feel friendly, yet simultaneously suffocating. Classes were generally on the small side, and teachers were able to develop real relationships with their students. My high school also offered a fair selection of extracurriculars and sports teams, considering its size. J. Crew, Abercrombie, and other stores that carried popular labels at the time, probably got a fair amount of business from the student population. The fact that my town is fairly well-off probably had something to do with that...

I: What were the standards of attractiveness for girls? How "far" did girls go to reach these standards? (i.e. -- how seriously did people take being "hot"?)

G: I think the standards of attractiveness for females were pretty "ordinary" in hindsight. The high school's most coveted girls were those that could be found in any town, at any high school. Very...average. not that I wouldn't call these girls pretty, but the conception of attractiveness was so narrow, that many possibly unconventional "beauties" were likely overlooked by the boys for whom these girls were probably targeting their looks in the first place. There were also exceptions to the "obvious hotness" rule. There were those few girls who were attractive based on their confidence - though that's more rare, especially in a high school setting. A hot girl would inevitably have nicely straightened hair. That’s pretty much a given. I do feel, however, as the years have gone on, the standards of attractiveness have become more blatant, for lack of a better word. Girls are much more overt with their sexuality at younger and younger ages.

I: Can you remember a time in high school that you tried to reach these standards? (Assuming that most people feel as if they are inherently below such often lofty standards.)

G: My self-esteem was so crippled in high school (I’m not even sure I was aware of how bad it was - I felt that my sense low of self-worth was entirely justified by the fact that I did not see myself mirrored in the girls that were considered attractive) that I don’t think I felt that I was anywhere near the realm of the "hot high school girl," so I don’t think I even attempted. I was very self-conscious about my looks, and never got the attention from boys that I wanted, but probably pretended not to care about it. I do remember feeling good about how I looked at senior prom. It was a nice change, not that it helped me catch the eye of any of those eligible high school boys...I don't think I had the personality of a "high school hottie", regardless of how I looked.

I: Did you see a difference in the standards of attractiveness when you went to college? How so?

G: I think I was in a unique situation in college, due to the fact that the vast majority of girls at my school were fairly unattractive. Not to succumb to the popular standards of beauty, but I’d say that all sorts of standards, the women at my school wouldn’t be considered attractive. I think there was still the group of girls that were dubbed “hot”, just like in high school, but perhaps because my college was fairly small it seemed to matter less. I also think more of an emphasis was placed on confidence and other intangible qualities that leant themselves to attractiveness, rather than just physical features.

I: Looking back on both episodes of your life/schooling, do you see any difference between the relationships of GENDER AND ATTRACTIVENESS in high school versus in college? For example, if you attended a very liberal college, perhaps you encountered men and women who had less strict notions gender.

G: I think there may have been more outlets for people who didn't necessarily fit into conventional beauty ideals in college, just by virtue of having a larger student population, or perhaps a more accepting attitude overall. I also think other things were valued more in college by the majority of students (intelligence, shared interests, religion, etc) so physical appearance, and wearing the right clothes became less important. That being said, the sorority girls at my college, while not terribly attractive in my eyes, all sported the designer labels, the latest hair trends, big sunglasses, uggs, and the like. They had their own table in the dining hall and they just carried themselves with an air of confidence that many others lacked.

I: After having emerged from high school and college, which set of "rules of attractiveness”, do you feel impacted you more: those of your high school days or those of your college days?

G: I think your high school years have a huge impact on you just by virtue of your age and the fact that you're figuring things out and doing your best just to fly under the radar. I’ve definitely been impacted by the way I feel I was perceived in high school, and those feelings of not being pretty enough or not fitting into whatever that mold was that made boys want your company. It can make you feel a bit pathetic to admit that, but I think the way the opposite sex (or a potential significant other) responds to you, can really affect the way you feel about yourself. College was interesting because while I felt better about my looks from a more objective standpoint, I still lacked the confidence and self-esteem that had become more valued, which made my experience with boys sadly quite similar in college as it was in high school. I, unfortunately, am a bit of a slave to the conventionally impossible standards of beauty with which I am bombarded and against which I continue to judge myself...
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The Inquisitor interviews Wienerdog!

Q: How do you identify sexually?
A: I identify as a heterosexual woman.

Q: How has your perception of your sexuality changed over the past five years?
A: It has definitely changed a lot. I didn’t really question my sexuality before college but I did while in college quite a bit. My questioning was not just about myself but about others, too.

I used to stress about my sexual identity and it was a challenge to reconcile the things that were confusing like certain feelings that don’t fit in a box.

Q: What do you think changed? Why did it go from anxiety provoking to not anxiety provoking?
A: When I was in college I didn’t have that many things that were anxiety provoking so my self was the whole thing. It’s still about me, but there are so many more things – like my career and other dreams….pie in the sky dreams that seemed would inevitably come to fruition don’t see that way anymore, so those things have sort of taken precedence over sexual identity and similar quandries.

Q: Are you in a relationship?
A: Yes.

Q: How would you characterize the roles that you and your boyfriend play within the bounds of your relationship?:
A : Pretty traditional: the male/female patriarchy sort (lol). They must be traditional because I don’t think about our gender roles.

I’ve gotten older and have more friends in relationships I notice a difference between myself and their heterosexual relationships. They have programmed needs to do certain things – get married, have children, etc. I don’t feel pressure to do any of these things…I just don’t feel like they’re part of my life right now. It freaks me out when I see my friends who do have this inclination. I still feel like a little girl compared to them; I’m still grappling with my adult-woman-life and all that that entails.

Q: How do you feel the fairly traditional gender roles that you and your boyfriend play affect your relationship?

I’m still young enough that sex isn’t about procreation for me, so I don’t feel any of these gender roles.

Even when I questioned my sexuality, I didn’t question my gender role. Even in brief same sex experiments with women, I still had the same gender role. I don’t know if that’s because I wasn’t gay, or why it was. Even when I was questioning my sexuality a lot, I never desired to play the male role, I preferred to be in the female role, to be pursued. As I think back about those relationships [same sex relationships] I was the more “girly” one, I wasn’t the aggressor. f your post.
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Below is an interview with a genderqueer individual living in Portland, Oregon. The answers correspond to the questions, but are not in order:

1. How does gender play a role in your life?
2. How has your sexuality been shaped, if at all, by your gender identification (assuming you have one)?
3. How do you feel about gender identification in general: do you see it as a necessary tool for providing order in the world or is it a hindrance to your own, and the rest of the world's, liberty?
4. Is your gender performance something that you think about often? What has the evolution of your consciousness on the matter looked like? (i.e.: pre college, during college, post college gender awareness)

Throughout my life i've been constantly been "bumping heads," so to speak, with gender. I refused to wear dresses before I could form full sentences and was considered a tomboy throughout grade school, at one point insisting that my parents refer to me as "Bradley James." I don't remember whether or not I considered myself a boy, at that age I probably didn't really think that I needed to choose sides.

Puberty was a wake-up call. I was most bothered by the fact that it wasn't acceptable for me to wear swim trunks anymore. I presented myself as fairly feminine in high school and didn't really question my gender as a girl. I think the message that people are either boys or girls based on physical attributes had finally sunk in-- there certainly was no one else in my life challenging that idea. However, as I began to identify more strongly as a girl, I became more aware of how differently boys and girls are treated. I hated being treated as what I felt like was less and was bothered even more by the fact that everyone else my age was oblivious to the differential treatment.

It was a relief to be in a same-sex environment at Smith College, gender became a non-issue for me, both internally and externally. Without having 2 distinct groups for me to compare myself to, I sort of floated back into a gray fuzzy gender somewhere between man and woman. This seems like a more natural fit for me and I do believe in the whole idea of gender as a spectrum although I'd probably agree that most people fall closer to one end or the other rather in the middle like myself.

I feel like there's a lot of pressure within the genderqueer community to choose a gender if you are somewhere in the middle... to make it easier for yourself and everyone else around you. There are a lot of reasons why I'm pretty content to stay in the middle at this point in my life. The first is that I honestly don't know which gender I would prefer if I were to pick one so I'm not willing to make any drastic changes like surgery, hormones or pronoun switching to be perceived as more male. Why choose to transition when I don't feel any more like a man than a woman? However, I would like to have chest surgery in order to be more ambiguous, not necessarily to identify as a man, and also for the freedom of not having to cover/strap down a part of my body that men don't have to deal with. I want to be able to wear swimtrunks.

Another reason for me to stay in the middle is that I feel like just by being hard to place I have more impact on how people think about gender in general. Even though most people clearly categorize me as a woman, most recognize that they interact with me as they might with a guy and that I'm not the same as other women. I try to make it clear that this difference isn't simply due to being gay but sometimes that doesn't always work... but sometimes it does.

Gender performance is a tricky thing because after you finally have people perceiving you as differently gendered, you have maintain that image. Because people are accustomed to viewing the world with two genders only, most are constantly trying to "categorize," even if they aren't aware of it. It’s so easy to slip up and do something "feminine" and then worry that it will reaffirm the belief that you actually were a girl all along. I know a few FTM guys who feel like they have to hide all feelings of sensitivity in order to be perceived as masculine.

I would argue that my sexuality and gender identity have developed separately. I was a pretty sexual kid and didn't discriminate between boys and girls when I was practicing kissing. When I started to seriously wonder if I was attracted to women was during highschool, the time in my life when I actually stopped questioning my own gender and fully identified as a woman.

How I feel about gender identification in general? Yes, I think it has become an important tool for providing order in the world but not a necessary one. Gender identification outside of my own is such a huge issue that I don't even know where to answer that because I haven't been able to get a firm grasp on it. I think gender is the single most effective form of social organization and that we have become so very dependent on it that it will never disappear. It's actually sort of sickening to think about how early people are stereotyped in life based on their genitalia, which most people associate with gender. My co-worker just found out that she was carrying a boy today. People immediately started talking about clothes with footballs and how it will be so much easier for her than a girl might be because she can send the kid off to the park with his dad. This kid will be ushered into a world that has expectations for him that he may or may not have any interest in fulfilling. I can only hope that gender will become more fluid as more people are open about being differently gendered, more people in general will start to think about gender as more than a "2 box option." It's pretty rare for people to question their own gender; it's just too unsettling.
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Beginning today, Sundays will be the day I take care of a little housekeeping and share with y'all major blog updates, followed by an exciting review of the week's news:

+ updates +

My contribution to this forum will be a series of interviews. Names will always be altered to protect the privacy of those interviewed. Today: the subject is a late twenty-something woman living in New York City.

theinquisitor: How do you identify sexually?
Janice: Gay.

I: How would you characterize your gender identification?
J: I am female. My body is that of a biological female’s. My persona, though, is different from what the conventional idea of what femininity is. I am not delicate or passive. I am pretty aggressive, especially around women, and I suppose more feminine around men.

I: How has your gender performance, which you just stated differs when around men and women, affected your relationships and sex life?
J: I came out when I was 23. Before that, my first boyfriend was when I was 19. Between 19 and 22, I dated a bunch of men, and slept with several of them. For the most part, men were never able to make me feel comfortable or confident sexually, or with my body. I didn’t connect with men emotionally. I never felt as though I was sexy. Despite attempting to “perform” as a typical female – meaning I tried to dress feminine, wear my hair down, and act more passive than I truly am – I, objectively, did not succeed because a) I couldn’t keep up with the façade, and b) I could not carry myself with confidence, because I didn’t have it.

I: Why did you not feel “sexy” around men?
J: I was/am a bit of a tomboy. That’s not what most men consider sexy. That’s not what society in general considers sexy in regards to heterosexual women.

I: Were you sexually aroused by men despite the fact that you lacked comfort/confidence with them sexually/emotionally?
J: Yes.

I: Were you attracted to women while you were dating men?
J: Yes. I slept with a woman for the first time when I was 22. Something ‘clicked’ for me then. Sleeping with that particular woman showed me what sex could really be like. Up until then, I was having orgasms, not sex. With women, my aggressiveness that I perceived to be ‘un-sexy’ with men is attractive to women both on a sexual and emotional level.

I: Did you become more conscious of your of your gender identification/performance after you came out, and after you became sexually active with women?
J: No, I felt like coming out made me so much more comfortable in my own skin. I’ve been able to ignore a lot of the gender hierarchy within the lesbian community. I feel like I ‘came into my own’ in regards to my gender performance. I am able to act on my natural inclinations that are out of sort with the heterosexual expectations of women.

I: In retrospect, do you think you felt confined to a female identity that was not your own while you were dating men?
J: Yes. Sex was empty for me with men. There was no emotional component. I think that this was so because I was not comfortable with myself or my sexuality with men. I didn’t feel comfortable or confident because I didn’t feel attractive. I knew that I was not anything like the female ideal. So, I guess the answer is yes.

I: Again, in retrospect, if you had felt confident and comfortable with men, if being a tomboy was overwhelmingly considered ‘sexy,’ do you think you would still be with men, instead of women?
J: …maybe?...

[End interview]
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