Seeking

I generally consider vague hate to be useless. Hate with direction to it can lend you fire and energy, and even if I tend to think that there are probably better avenues, it's doing something. But vague hate? Hate that doesn't have a target, or anything to do about it? It's just an energy suck.

That said: I hate hiding.

I hate hiding, and if I were speaking to you I would not just be emphasizing that vowel, I would be hissing the H and clicking my teeth together on the T; I cannot stand needing to build up all these walls to hide fundamental facts of my being, my self.

"But Lauren, then why do you bind your breasts?"

That's not hiding. That's exactly the opposite.

My body is my body, and it is very important, and I only get one, but the shape of my body is not intrinsically part of who I am; it's just part of what I am. And the what that I am matters, but not nearly so much as the who.

I am not hiding a what when I choose to express my who. I have days when my breasts should not be there. Sometimes this manifests in a disconnection, like the day I woke up under the impression that my pillow was somehow on my chest. Sometimes this manifests almost identically to a fight-or-flight instinct, except with nothing even vaguely worthwhile to focus it on. Sometimes it's just generally terrible.

When I cannot find pants that fit in a store, I leave the store and forget about the pants for a while, because they're a thing I put on me and I can just push them out of my head. When I could not find a binder that functioned, I tried to do the same thing. I could not. I was not putting on a binder in the way one puts on pants; I was not trying to do something to make myself look good/not-naked/whatever. I was trying to make my body look like my body. Had I dropped the thing that was on over what needed to be there, I would not have dropped the binder any more than I would have dropped my legs when I went pants shopping. I would have needed to drop my breasts.

I couldn't. So I wore ill-fitting jeans, except the metaphor breaks down around there because ill-fitting jeans are still usually ill-fitting jeans over something that is the right shape. Dysphoria is a beast unto itself.

I'm not doing what I'm doing to have a perfect pair of jeans; I'm not ever going to. But I think I can find a nice pair that fits, and shows what I already know should be there.

That will never be hiding.

"Born This Way" and "Queer by Choice"

I've started interacting with these ideas, that one's sexuality and gender are innate, or that they are a choice, or some blend of the two. I've been familiar with the "born this way" narrative for some time now--though generally in the format of, "I didn't choose to be [whatever]," uttered in a fiery tone which belies the hurt underneath, "This is terrible; if I could be otherwise I could." The "queer by choice" narrative was a bit less familiar to me, and I ran into it mostly in this collection of quotations.*

What I've noticed, first and foremost, is that my sexuality is kind of a choice. Not as much as some people who are quoted on that page, but I do know how I would go about choosing to be straight or gay or whatever, if I wanted to. I am not capable of controlling my initial reactions to people, but I am usually good at making my feelings stop when I want them to. There have been exactly two exceptions to this rule--I will not go into detail on them beyond that, because on both occasions I made an absolute ass of myself.

I could, if I felt the need, selectively squash my feelings for anyone who was/wasn't a man, or who was/wasn't a woman, or who was/wasn't genderqueer, etc. After a time, I might even find this reflexive. I couldn't say. Outside of individual circumstances--e.g. they're gay/straight/taken and I'm pining--I have never tried to do this. However, I recognize this capacity in myself, and I am choosing not to exercise it. That's a choice. That's my choice.

My circumstance is not universal. Some people do not have any idea how they might go about changing their sexuality--I admit I have an advantage, since my default state is attraction regardless of gender, so I only have to subtract from that. I can imagine trying to nurture an attraction for someone, but I believe it would be more difficult.

My gender fits into this narrative spectrum...differently. I know exactly how I would go about trying to be a cis woman. I also know how I would go about trying to be a trans man. I also know how I would go about trying to have a manly male persona and a feminine female persona and nothing else. I also know...you get the idea.

But I'm not sure I could call refusing to do that a choice. Because I did try. What I found was, I had the choice between being my gender and expressing my gender, or pushing my gender down, never knowing when it might spring back up, and having occasional bouts of detesting (parts of) my body and not knowing why--because I had pushed away the part of me that was in touch enough with my actual gender to figure out why: I only had the part that was trying to be the gender I thought would be easier.

I would...not call this successfully choosing to be another gender. It isn't me making myself another gender; it's me sticking my fingers in my ears and singing, "LALALALALA," when I should probably be saying, "Gender dysphoria."

That seems to tuck neatly into, "born this way," but it doesn't for two reasons. First, I don't think everyone is like me. People have said that they experience their genders in ways different from mine, and I tend to believe them. Unless we are close enough that I can listen to them and think, "You're doing that thing with your right foot that you always do when you don't believe a word you're saying," I don't know why I would do otherwise.

Second...I can't make myself fit one of the molds I tried to fit. But I can affect my gender in an immediate sense. When I was playing a woman in Cabaret, I presented as hypermasculine when out of costume, and this made it much more likely that I would be a woman when in costume. Obviously this doesn't work for everyone, but my gender identity feels like it likes to balance things out, so it worked for me.**

I suppose I'm saying that gender and sexuality are messy. They don't fit into neat boxes, though categorization can be useful. I could never have stopped singing, "LALALALALA," if I hadn't learned the tune to, "Gender dysphoria." We are human. Terms and stories are never useless, even if the only thing they teach is, "Neither of these actually fit quite right." I think bespoke clothing rocks, but I'll wear something off the rack that's in my size before I wear something that's entirely wrong. (Though I admit, I am the sort who will wear something that's entirely wrong before going naked.)

* I found that page because I posted a quotation--from Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg--on my facebook, and I like to google my quotations to see what people would find if they did so. 

** Talking about my gender identity as something separate from me feels artificial. I am my gender. The fact that it is changeable does not mitigate this fact. I felt the phrasing was necessary for this essay, but I did not want that to pass without comment.

(Un)Safe Spaces

I had a teacher in high school who, in reference to a group of singers who were switching between the tenor and the bass part, said, "Don't be bi-sectional," and laughed.

I'm not entirely sure what the point of that was. I can't recall anyone laughing. Privately, I think this may have been because the class was divided into three parts--those who didn't get the pun on, "Don't be bisexual," those who were too offended to find it funny, and those who were just too confused that an openly gay man had made a cheap shot at another member of his acronym.

I was in the second group, and I remember being angry enough that I ended up storming from that class to English. When someone asked me what was wrong--a classmate who shared both classes with me, and had noticed my dramatic antics--I spun around and snapped, "It's not funny until it's absurd!"

I then apologized to my classmate, because none of this was her fault, and I had lashed out inappropriately. I'm not sure that helped any. I've been told I'm rather frightening when I'm angry.

But that is, for the moment, beside the point.

At the time that sentence meant, "Our teacher should not have made that joke, because people telling people they shouldn't be bisexual--or simply that they aren't, as if they knew our orientation better than we did--is a thing which happens. I am hurt because he treated my experience so flippantly."

Another thing occurred to me, when I was thinking about that phrase. Because most people know that, on some level. A thing needs to be absurd to be funny; your audience needs to consider it absurd. So, in making that joke, my teacher was saying, "Bisexual discrimination is absurd."

I cannot think of a more thorough dismissal. It was not even the screwed-up gaslighting that is, "You're overreacting to this hurt," it was, rather, "This hurt doesn't exist; you imagined the blow."

In my opinion, this is the most important thing to keep in mind when writing comedy. Am I dismissing someone's hurt? There's a place for that, in satire, but satire is by definition critical. In satire, the comedian is, by definition, calling someone out, attacking them.

No matter how much we might wish otherwise, attacking a person in power is different from attacking someone who is already under siege. I've got background messages every day--you don't exist; you aren't real; attention-seeker; whore. Attacking me for a mistake I made is not the same as attacking me for something I had no control over, especially when I am already under attack for it.

Half

If I may speak--sorry? No, I'd rather stand, if that's alright. I've been sitting all day. Thank you.

If I may speak? Thank you. I don't really understand why you needed to see me for this. Yes. Yes, of course. It's your decision. I understand. You don't have to explain yourself, I was just registering my lack of understanding on the record.

Right.

So.

I don't particularly think it matters. I mean, any of it. I understand that it matters to some people, including intelligent people. I just don't know why it matters. Like, if you show me a spectrum, and say, "Here's the red; here's the orange," I understand that a lot of people would agree with you on that. I probably would, though I'd draw the line a little differently. But that doesn't explain why we drew the lines there. The what and the why are different things.

That's kind of why I didn't want to be seen. I mean, I came, of course; you can see that. But, if I could choose my medium, I'd rather it be only my words. My tone and body language, too, if I could do that without signaling other things about me, but just my words would work well.

Yes. That's why. Everyone's a little prejudiced about something, so I'd rather be unseen, so each person can make as few assumptions as possible. Yes. I know. They'll probably assign me a gender and things like that. But it's a bit better--like the way that Dr. Thomson probably pops into your head as male if you expect doctors to be male. It's the default, so that means I get your default settings.

Okay--okay, yes, I'll start.

It's an issue of sexism.

No. No, it's not an issue of sexual orientation. I mean, maybe it started out that way, maybe that's a root or even the root, but in practice, it's sexist. It's like that law where more African-Americans were being executed than any other group. The idea behind the death penalty wasn't racist, but it was applied in a racist fashion.

It's true, that a heterosexual person can marry the sort of partner he or she is likely to choose, and a homosexual person cannot. But both of them are granted, for instance, the right to a loveless marriage, and their pools are equally limited.

Anyway. That's not even the argument I hear the other side use. It's about making a cohesive family unit. Or something of that ilk. I don't understand that at all--we get abusive relationships between partners of the opposite sex, and I have to imagine that's worse on the theoretical child. And there are people who can't conceive. But that's not where I'm going.

What about people who are bisexual? You're not stopping me from marrying someone I like; you're stopping me from marrying half my pool of possible mates. It's exactly like outlawing interracial marriage; it's racist because you're telling me who I can and can't marry based on race. Therefore, telling me who I can and can't marry based on sex is sexist. You are taking my race and my partner's sex into account, but you were also taking both our races into account. It's the same thing.

Oh, wait. I wanted to keep anything about me out of this. Can we strike me saying I'm bi? No, I'd say the same stuff; I'd just leave it vague that I am-- Oh. No, I understand. Can we strike this, then? Thank you.

Yes. Yes, I know. Rome was not built in a day. We know the words. Hm? Yes, I said, 'we'. Why? Because we all do. Everyone who's been through any human rights movement does. "Wait," means, "Never," and both sides tend to make in-groups. That's actually an interesting one, from our perspective, since I refuse to pass for gay or straight, so I end up being accused of trying to pass for both--because mixed-race children always had it easier, right? I mean, where I grew up, it was pretty much social suicide to say that someone who'd come out as homosexual was straight and "just confused," but saying the same thing to a person who'd come out as bisexual was fine. Asexual, too.

Hm? Oh, no, that time was intentional. If they're going to know anyway, I might as well make use of it. Uh...I don't see why you'd want to, but I didn't say anything important here. Sure.

I guess my main point is that it's just a human right. You can find a lot of cultures that accept it, and it pops up a fair bit in the animal kingdom, so it's odd to call it unnatural. Really, monogamy is more unnatural than homosexuality. However you look at it. Promiscuity and polyamory are more common than monogamy. No, I'm not condemning it. No, not condemning that either. Wait-- No, just--

Wait.

...

Thank you. I'm not condemning anything. That's not why I'm here, and I wouldn't be here if that were my purpose. I'd just like to be able to raise any children I might have while secure in the knowledge that the law is on their side, if they want to do things that other people have the right to do.

Thank you for your time. I'll show myself out.

To Discussion, Always

Related reading: Gender and Sexuality, Opening the Closet

A few weeks ago, a classmate an I were discussing same-sex marriage for a history assignment. I told her I was having trouble writing my bit, because I honestly didn't understand why anyone would be against same-sex marriage. Don't get me wrong; I understand that people are against it, and I understand that intelligent people are against it. I just hadn't heard any argument that actually meant anything to me.

She explained that in her family, it was considered against family values.

"What makes family values good?"

"Well, what makes them bad?"

And I entirely froze up. She had established that family values meant the values her church held in relation to family, and so any answer to that question felt horribly insulting. However, we were both trying to clearly and honestly communicate our views, so I believe that my knee-jerk reaction was wrong. I should have spoken, so I will speak now.

I believe in freedom of religion until it hurts someone. People are hurting. Imagine, for a moment, that you couldn't marry the person you love because of your respective whats. Not who you were, not that you were incompatible, but simply that one of you was a different race, or that you were both the same sex. Imagine not being granted visitation rights, or inheritance rights, or not being able to get the most important person in the world a green card.

Of course, I'd bet that not all of my readers need to imagine.

I drew the parallel between those against same-sex marriage and those against miscegenation. I've been told that I shouldn't bring up racial issues when discussing sexuality issues, because they are too inflammatory. To this I say: they are inflammatory. Inflammation of the body means that one's immune system has spotted an issue, and is helping to heal it. We need times of tumult, because we need the issue to be visible. Different rights for different people should stick out like a sore thumb--but, and this is important, it doesn't. There was a time when separate but equal didn't seem obviously wrong.

I do not call family values bad, as a whole. Even if I wanted to do so, I could not. I have never found two people who agree on what family values are, save something that aids family stability. I believe that family stability is an admirable goal. The only place I could see an exception is when the family is toxic--in which case I'd argue that it isn't stable. If one needs fear to keep stability, that is not stability. That is slowed decay.

This has been said, but it always needs saying: It gets better.

Part of this is my optimism showing. I believe people are good. I believe that each culture gets better, if far too slowly for my tastes. We see the wrong of a decade ago. We will see our cultures wrongs a decade hence, because we will have improved.

But there is more than that. Even if, somehow, nothing were to change, it would get better for you. There are about seven billion people in the world. Given sufficient numbers, any minority can reach critical mass. It may be hard to remember; your people may be hard to find, but stay alive. I found my music geeks; I found--many!--communities of those who accept bisexuals. In the grand scheme of things, my life is likely far from over, and already I know where I can go for community. Whatever you need, you can find it.

Keep living. Keep looking.

You are not alone.

Opening the Closet

[A person walks on the stage, wearing clothing that accentuates curves well, and has notably feminine curves to accentuate. Jeans and a T-shirt--nothing fancy; nothing that says definitively "these are clothes a female wears" or "these are clothes a male wears". A smattering of polite applause sounds.]

Voiceover [nervously]: I'm not sure I can do this.

Person [confidently, in the same voice]: You don't know I'm a woman. [offscreen confused murmurs] I mean it. You don't. There are a hundred ways to define "male" or "female". If you say my curves make me a woman, what does that mean for flat-chested women? For that matter, does that definition mean that prepubescent girls aren't female?

Voiceover: They don't like it; you should just shut up; they don't like it; [hysterically] they don't like me!

Person [still calm]: You could define it as the presence or absence of a vagina or penis. People usually ignore what that means for same-sex marriage--do we need to drop our pants or raise our skirts at the altar? Even ignoring that, you haven't seen me with my pants off. I could have both, or neither, or the one you aren't expecting.

Other Voiceover [old enough to be Person's parent, sharply]: You obscene little girl.

Person: You could make a case that it's a case for hormones. That's still complicated, more so, in some ways. It's a spectrum, first of all, and people's hormones vary. In fact, the platonic ideal of "woman" would have eternally shifting hormones--that's what a healthy, wild-type, physically female's body does. Even taking that into account, people can take hormones. If one defines it as the body's "natural" state--well, first of all, that's an insult to trans people, but that's the point of this speech, isn't it? And besides that, what is its natural state? If I'm on the birth control pill, is that unnatural enough to call my womanhood into question?

Other Voiceover: Yes.

Person: So both physical definitions--one's holistic impression and the presence or absence of a vagina or penis--are out. Hormones are, as well. You could use them, I suppose, but you'd have to figure out some way to figure out the ones who fall on the line--and really, anything except the holistic approach is an invasion of privacy. That leaves chromosomes. XX is female and XY male, right?

Both Voiceovers [first hysterically, second still sharply]: Of course. Get down, you're making a fool of yourself.

Person: But there are more viable combinations than that. Nearly anything with at least one X is viable--XXY and XYY, to name the most common. One could say that we could define those by how many of them "seem" male or female, but at that point we come back to the same issue--holistic, primary sexual characteristic, hormonal?

[Person pauses to breathe, drops head. The room is silent.]

Person: I don't know how many of you will listen. But...maybe...I'll be that last nudge, for some of you. Or I'll be a nudge along the way. Gender isn't simple; sex isn't simple. [Person looks up.] I am what I choose to be. So are you. So is everyone. So...please.

Voiceover [quietly]: Please.

Person: [shakes head, swallows] Try to understand.

[Person walks off stage. Quiet applause starts, fade to silence and black before we see whether it polite or genuine.]

MIT Essays

We know you lead a busy life, full of activities, many of which are required of you. Tell us about something you do for the pleasure of it. (100 words or fewer)

I write stories. Creating new worlds and new beings, then watching them play or putting them in odd situations is fascinating and good mental exercise. Doing so also lets me get an outside perspective on my own life—I accidentally or purposefully put my characters in the same trouble(s) I have, and the answer becomes clear because I have a new angle on it. Writing is communicating and thinking, which are core to being. To myself, I am what I understand of myself, and to others, I am what I can communicate. Writing aids both sides.

Although you may not yet know what you want to major in, which department or program at MIT appeals to you and why? (100 words or fewer)

What fascinates me most about MIT is how well the departments mingle. Though several of the schools I have researched have diverse majors, many of them have two wholly separate colleges, and never the twain shall meet. Every MIT alumnae I have spoken to has some friends in entirely random majors. Since I am interested in primarily mathematics and music, and secondarily writing and theater, integration of various majors matters to me. I would be bored if I were limited to only one major, or to interacting only with students of one realm.

What attribute of your personality are you most proud of, and how has it impacted your life so far? This could be your creativity, effective leadership, sense of humor, integrity, or anything else you'd like to tell us about. (200-250 words)

I struggled with this question because I think of myself as a whole, so I researched ‘personality’.

The Oxford English Dictionary says that a personality is “that quality…which makes a person what he is, as distinct from other persons.” I can think of nothing more distinctly personal to my self than my singing.

In third grade, I opened my mouth to sing while walking across the blacktop, then came to a complete stop. I knew it was my voice, but it was so much richer, easier, better than I had ever heard it. As I stood stunned, a person turned to me.

“Was that you?”

I nodded.

“You have a lovely voice.”

I had a talent.

As I grew, I found other things I areas where I excelled, but few gave me the same feeling. I learn things and reflect them, like sunlight hitting the moon. Singing makes me a sun.

My obsessions revolve around that idea: I can create something, then radiate it. I can communicate. Writing, explaining, teaching, music, storytelling, mathematics—everything I do for fun came from the idea that started with singing.

I say singing, and not communication, because singing is my first love, and because singing is mine. I recognized singing as a talent long before I wrote for fun, and I remember being baffled at all these students who did not enjoy the school choir.

Even without any friend, singing would give me a home. If nothing else, I sing.

Describe the world you come from; for example, your family, clubs, school, community, city, or town. How has that world shaped your dreams and aspirations? (200-250 words)

My homes encourage sideways thinking. My parents and brother and I all pun and use sarcasm regularly, as well as having in-depth conversations about important issues. The same dinner might include a shoe/issue/eschew pun, a discussion on bisexual rights as they relate to queer rights as they relate to human rights, and an oddly worded sign my mother noticed at her work.

Other than my family, my homes are the gifted community and the arts community. The gifted community means oddly intelligent people, which leads to odd social conventions and conversations that fluctuate and finish randomly. Having fun means looking at how things work and communicating well.

Art is expression through odd media, as all communication is. Spoken language makes no sense to those who do not speak it; written word is a visual expression of that auditory medium. Even in the case of realistic painting or sculpture, one needs to break the subject into simpler shapes to learn to recreate it. And great art means making something new. Looking through standard angles makes that nearly impossible—looking at old paths in the old ways does not create new ideas.

These homes mean I love other perspectives. Each different way of seeing I find is another way to talk to one more person, which allows me to exist outside myself. This is why I want to be both a teacher and an artist—both, if successful, touch many lives, and both communicate.

Tell us about the most significant challenge you've faced or something important that didn't go according to plan. How did you manage the situation? (200-250 words)

The first time I came out as bisexual was in the middle of my seventh-grade homeroom. All classmates within hearing chorused, “Ew!” Having never created a plan that allowed for that outcome, I turned around in my seat and put my head into my book. I took nothing from the event at the time, and had that been my only chance to come out, I would have learned nothing I did not know before.

Luckily, coming out is not something one does once. I came out in seventh grade to near-strangers; I came out to most of my family a few years ago; I am coming out by writing this. I had more chances to find accepting groups—including my mother, who is bisexual herself. Though I found others who were in outright denial about the fact that a person could be attracted to masculine and feminine traits, I am confident enough in myself that I can accept these as marks of ignorance and lack of tact.

I continue to be open, even when I am scared, because I see that fear for what it is: ignorance. Every time I make a mark on others’ preconceptions, I make the journey that much easier for the next bisexual. I make communication that much easier. I do not pretend I change the whole world every time I say that I am what I am, but I leave my ripples, and they add up.

Abby, Maggie and Sylan

Abby had mostly shed the feminine form, and Sylan had yet to truly adopt a human one. For the sake of brevity, Sylan shall be 'it', though it is more animate than that implies, and Abby shall be 'she'.

Sylan was smiling, or doing something we would best understand as a smile. "Ah, the lovely lady Abigail. Delighted." Sylan bowed over Abby's hand.

Abby sighed and muttered, "Again?"

Sylan straightened and tipped his head to the side. " 'Again'?"

"At the very least I can imagine an excuse for Margaret."

Sylan grinned at the confirmation of his guess. "You can't destroy something that encompasses you, darling."

Abby let out a huff, then realized she suddenly looked like someone's (overdone) idea of an adolescent daughter, make-up and all.

Mostly due to Maggie's influence, she deadpanned, "You're not even my real Dad."

Sylan laughed. "Oh, I can see why Maggie liked you. Where did she get off to, anyway?"

"Here," Maggie said, fading in draped over Abby's shoulders. "I die sometimes, though. It's vaguely unpleasant."

Abby gave the long-suffering sigh of old souls and the pretentious. "If you did not insist on touching me..."

"Aw, now what fun is that?" Maggie kissed Abby's cheek. "Wouldn't ever get to do anything, if I went around doing things like that." She glanced at Sylan. "You alright with this? It looks like she's thinking of herself as your child."

Sylan shrugged. "She isn't." It suddenly looked curious, itching to figure something out. "Any pattern to when you die?"

Maggie's eyes danced. "Midnight."

"And does it happen if you're not touching her at midnight?"

"No." But there was laughter in her eyes, and Abby had the barest hint of a smile on her lips. The not-quite-smiling woman breathed, "Three, two..."

"Then why not just refrain for a few moments?"

Maggie laughed outright. "My midnight, dear. Don't you know the stories? Midnight can last hours."

"Days," Abby added, eyes crinkling.

Sylan blinked. "That makes no sense."

"Magic," the girls said together. Maggie continued, "I'm not of your realm, Sy. Good on you for trying though; it'll work anywhere but here." Magic lifted one hand to gesture to the not-space that they had quasi-manifested in. "Wouldn't've, but then Abby convinced me to stick with her." Mag's nose buried itself in the hair behind Abby's neck.

"Some would believe it good for them," Abby said, dancing around a direct statement. " 'They can figure it out now.'"

"I could've given them the exact measurements on the first try, if I wanted to," Maggie sighed in the tone of an old argument.

Sylan shook his head. "Do you follow any rules?"

"I can't create," Abby said, at the same time Maggie said, "I can't destroy."

Sylan blinked. "You two together..."

"Would be a force to be reckoned with," Maggie said cheerfully. "Good thing I've decided not to do anything to the world anymore, or we'd probably be running the joint as non-benevolent dictators. It's just so hard to keep track of who's a person, you know?"

Sylan half-smiled. "I just try to be fair to everything."

Maggie shrugged, then began fading. "Oh. Midnight. Going to take a few minutes this time, I think."

"I'll leave you two your minutes, then. See you later."

"Eventually," Abby noted.

"Probably not me," Maggie said in a chipper tone. "I only come out when it's dramatically appropriate, and you've already met me once."

"What about Abby?"

The Cheshire Cat would envy Maggie's grin. "Well, I hardly need to follow all the rules."

Gender and Sexuality

I will not cover everything in this post.

Quotation marks indicate a reference to the term rather than the group defined by the term.

Includes terms I found interesting, and a few I made up out of roots that I think should make them fairly clear, occasionally with added syllables for rolling-off-the-tongue value.

EDIT: anthro- terms were previously gynandro-/androgy- terms (see comments).

Sexual identity is complex.

First of all, the standard-use terms currently don't define sexual orientation by what one is attracted to. The axes are what one likes and what one is--and the name is taken from the interaction between the two.

The assumptions are: you are male or female; you like males, females, both, or neither, and romantic attraction and sexual attraction are intrinsically linked. From these priors, we commonly call people homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, or asexual.*

These assumptions fail upon contact with the world. Not everyone is male or female. There are people who self-identify as both, neither, inconsistent/uncaring, or somewhere along a spectrum; there are hormone differences that set people along many parts of the spectrum; and even if we limit it to viable combinations of the X and Y chromosomes that science has formally observed, there are more than two options. Any way you care to slice it, a male/female dichotomy doesn't work.

So we've already found that 'hetero-/homosexual' don't work, because they rely on defined genders/sexes to work--you are attracted to something like you, or something distinct from you. 'Bisexual' does not work because 'bi' means 'two', so if we have more than two genders/sexes--never mind a spectrum--the term starts being rather absurd. Even if there were only two, I would prefer 'ambisexual' rather than 'bisexual', that is 'both' rather than 'two', but that's neither here nor there.

Given only the breakdown of strictly defined self-identity, asexual still works. 'A' simply means 'none', and the fact that it may originally have been meant as 'neither' does no harm to the term.

I will now use 'gynosexual', 'androsexual', and 'anthrosexual' for--respectively--attraction to feminine traits, masculine traits, and humans, and keep 'asexual'.

The added complexity doubles in attraction. I have already made the point that being attracted to a female or a male is not quite the same as being attracted to feminine or masculine traits. It is also possible to be attracted to the idea of a person being male/female, much as one can be attracted to the idea of someone being intersex.

Then there's the point that romantic attraction and physical attraction are not so perfectly snapped together. One can be, for example, asexual but andromantic--that is, lacking in a sexual drive, but still having a desire to be romantically involved with males/people with masculine traits.

* Other terms exist, but are much less common.

To see how complicated this gets in practice, I will refer to a previous post. The focus question: "Is Abby/Maggie a lesbian relationship?"

Strictly speaking, neither Maggie nor Abby have set genders/sexes--that is to say, they lack chromosomes altogether, and appear as whatever they want to look like during that slice of time.

Maggie has chosen a female form because that is what she feels she is. She is also attracted to feminine traits--she is gynosexual--is romantically attracted to people who are female/feminine--gynoromantic--and is attracted to the idea of someone being female. In other words, Maggie is a pretty classic lesbian. One could quibble that Maggie could choose to be male or sexless, but that's splitting some pretty fine hairs.

Abby, on the other hand... Abby likes Maggie. This does not spread to sexual love, but that's not because Abby doesn't find Maggie attractive; it's because Abby hasn't bothered to manufacture a sex drive for herself. Maggie was a creative force, so had a bit of one, and honed it because she wanted to, but entropy would have needed to create one from the ground up, and didn't care enough to manipulate one into being. This makes Abby asexual: it's not that she finds sex repulsive, she just doesn't particularly care about it. Romantically, Abby is attracted to traits, independent of the gender/sex of the being. This makes her anthromantic. Abby chose a vaguely female form and influenced Maggie with some positive bias because she recognized that Maggie would find a female/feminine form more attractive, and because Abby cares about as much about her form as about her partner's.

From Maggie's perspective, it's obviously a lesbian relationship. From Abby's perspective, it's a romantic relationship, and she'd probably look at you oddly if you tried to push gender/sex into it. If given the choice between a lesbian relationship, a heterosexual relationship, a male-homosexual relationship, and a polyamorous relationship, Abby would call it lesbian. But that's not a good description; it is merely better than the other three options.

All in all, I just try to stick with 'romantic,' 'sexual,' and 'relationship.'

Being

The general prompt: http://powerlisting.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Random
Power you get is your super power. Hit random page. Next power that shows up is the power of your arch nemesis.

My Power: Magic (bit of a Superpower Lottery win, there)
My Nemesis's Power: Self-Spawn

Added for fun (I chose which was which before I clicked random, though):
My Sidekick: Stinger Protrusion
Nemesis's Sidekick: Destruction

"I think you should be running the show here."

There wasn't a head, exactly, but the hole in the universe was person-shaped. The head-analogue tipped to one side. "Oh?"

"Yeah." There was a stalemate, between the--um.

"What should I call you?"

"Pardon?"

I shrugged. "I don't have a good short description of you. If you don't give one, I'm going to end up with something like 'Black Hole', and that seems rather melodramatic for your personality."

The being stared and blinked--I think. Vaguely shaded: eyes are tiny. "Absence is a common choice. Those who prefer to humanize generally call me Abby."

"Right. Thank you." There was a stalemate going on, between Abby and me. Technically speaking, she--alright, yes, gender-neutrality, but I was calling her Abby--is the most powerful force in the universe. She is entropy. The slow decay of weathering wood, rusting iron, fire snatching up square meters of forest every second. She's not rot, precisely; rot is life's domain, but she is that moment of conversion inside every organism, taking organized energy and disorganizing it.

I was magic. Not a mage, not a magician, not a witch or a wizard. Simply magic. Components of spells, whether they call by word or symbol or thought, called on me. I was the miracles of the land. Like organization increasing in a closed system.

But, by definition, I was inconsistent. If I happened repeatably, I'd be science, and you'd know me in your world.

And, by definition, entropy is quite consistent.

"You were saying?" Abby inquired coolly.

"Ah, yes. Why do you follow him?"

She shrugged--well, actually, she did an eternally graceful movement best described as a shrug. But I really needed to stop or kiss her, and I was not entirely sure if one survived kissing entropy. "I am destruction. If I am to create something, I require a base."

"So you could make lovely driftwood sculptures."

Absence smiled.

The world outside would go chilly from that. So direct an expression on Absence herself meant no thing would smile for that moment. Here, in front of her, it warmed my soul. "Something like that."

"And that's what my Nina is for: someone to affect the fully material plane. But she doesn't run the show." I spread my hands and joked, "What, does your entropy spread to plans?"

"Yes."

"Ow..." I muttered under my breath, rubbing my ears. Smiles warm the soul; direct statements turn you near-deaf. "Unnecessary roughness."

"Nina is losing."

"What--" I started up. "She's fighting?"

"Injury is also my realm, if by a stretch."

One does not say, 'It can't be so,' to that tone. "...I can't feel her."

Abby nodded calmly. "It appears she does not call upon you, Mistress Margaret."

"Maggie," I said automatically. "It's Maggie. Do you know why not?"

"Divination is your realm, I believe." On anyone else that tone would have been infuriatingly calm, but on Abby is simply was. It would be no more reasonable to be angry at that tone than to be angry at a picture of a black hole.

I cast not-water upon the naught-floor and pulled the truth from it.

"As if she ever thought you near her," the man--Sam?--sneered. He actually sneered, my goodness.

"I am her helper. Of course she did not." A blow, then, to the solar plexus, driving the air hard out of him. The words were confident, but the tone was desperate, and only became moreso. "But I can fight without her. Can you say the same?"

He laughed. "Childish. Your mistress aids me in this fight." Another of him came from behind and landed a blow somewhere low along Nina's back. She went down.

They said, together, "And you can do nothing without her."

I realized I had clenched my jaw when the muscles hurt. "Bastard." He only called upon me in truth to make himself anew, none for sustaining, but this was me; this was my domain, and I could right it.

I touched the surface of the water Abby pressed at me, but that wasn't important and pulled.

Both Sams fell. One was female now, the other still male but the wrong height and build. All of his would soon fall such. He ran the bodies hard, sapping what energy the magic infused in them would throw them into comas. And that was wrong, because some of them would doubtless be in some danger Abby pressed tight on all sides, but I only needed one more minute.

Not even a pull, just a shift. From him to them. He had not spread himself so thin, only to one other who was neither present nor the man himself. "One moment Abby," I breathed, "please."

Sam died, and I sliced off a piece of myself to give to little Nina. She'd keep her spikes, when she wanted them, and heal completely from any injuries she'd gotten under my care.

I shut my eyes. I was done.

"Abby?"

"Hush, bright one."

Then the back of my mind went click.

"Dark," I mumbled back, already lost in her. Not evil, not wrong, but dark to my light; perfect, only missing me as I missed her.

Abby smiled against my ear. "Yes." And it was perfect, and it was beautiful, and it was worth it because she made it so.

One does not survive kissing entropy.