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Scarlet Lotus Sexgeek is a smarty-pants, sexy blogger who also runs one of my favorite groups on FetLife, BDSM Theory. I encourage you to join up and see the discussion, but the post also appears on her excellent blog. She writes:
Just because someone adopts the label of “queer,” for instance, or “slave” it does not mean that anyone else who inhabits these labels looks at all like this person. This queer slave could be male, female, transgendered, transsexual, masculine, feminine, genderqueer, etc. and may be a service slave, a sexual slave, a brat, part-time, 24/7, a pro slave, live-in, or some combination thereof. This person could have various fetishes such as humiliation, force, objectification, boots, heels, non-sexual service, rope bondage, metal bondage, pain, or anything else. This person in other aspects of life could be a CEO, an artist, an auto mechanic, a teacher, a writer, a sys admin, a starship captain, or anything else.
The labels we assign ourselves are the most accurate, personal, hard-fought, and precious. But they are also those that can be co-opted by outsiders and twisted against us in painful ways. I avoid complex labels for these reasons. But at the same time, I find myself with them. Student, teacher, slut, sex worker, woman, femme, bisexual, kinky, fetishist, pervert, whore. Those are all words I’ve used to describe myself in the past and even in the present. But they also, as Scarlet Lotus points out, don’t fully define me.
This isn’t a post where I’m going to say, “Oh! I am so much more than my sex, don’t reduce me!” That is too simple. And sometimes it seems that my days are consumed by sex, thinking about it, writing about it, doing it. Ironically, I am not sure I have much more sex than most other people. Sometimes it seems like a non-stop flow and sometimes it feels quite conventional. I wonder sometimes if people read this website, and see how I label myself and expect me always to be fucking. Clearly I update Twitter too often for that to be true. . .
So, I want you to step up and label yourself for me. Tell me *what* (not who) you are and then tell me what that means or doesn’t mean. Of course we all move beyond our labels but tell me how you embrace yours.


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7 Responses for "Labels and Intersections of Identity"
Aw, I’m flattered, you know, and glad that resonated (and made sense). I know what you mean about being consumed by sex but also not necessarily having more sex… which is always an odd almost oxymoron but not quite an oxymoron…
I’ve come to embrace my label fetish (I blame the Virgo in me, of course, and the minor OCD), and I really do believe that labels can be wonderful things, if allowed to be (and we don’t usually allow them to be). I love labels and finding out new ways to label myself and new words which resonate within me, so much so that I have that string of labels as the sub-title of my blog. And, similarly, when a label is not recognized it can be annoying and frustrating.
I’m just babbling now, really (something I do so often), and thus will stop!
This isn?t a post where I?m going to say, ?Oh! I am so much more than my sex, don?t reduce me!? That is too simple.
You know, I think a lot of what I do in regards to sex is in reaction to this. I feel like this is so often repeated that sex itself is reduced and its importance taken away as people shrink from being identified only with sex. That seems to give so much power to an unhealthy relationship among power, sex and other people. So part of me is reacting with “Yeah, I’m more than my sex, but my sex is a BIG part of who I am. Deal with it, or don’t bother dealing with me.”
So what labels do I choose? Well, it’s taken a while to get to a point where I can embrace them at all; they used to feel so limiting. Now, while still having some limiting effects, they serve as points of connection with others, conversation starters and shorthand invitations into some deeper dialogue.
My list includes Christian, dom, genderfucked, guy, anarchist, perv, poly. There are certainly more, but those are some important ones off the top of my head. You might get a kick out of my business card.
Well, I identify as a queer switch woman. My queerness means I do not set boundaries for potential partners based on sex or gender. I label myself a switch because while I like pain, I also like being in charge, while I like being restrained, sometimes I also like humiliating others (consensually, of course). Aspects of my sexuality and myself come out depending on my mood and the company I keep.
Someone once asked me to define myself in only three labels. Oddly as much as I think and talk and write about sex there were no sexual or even gender oriented labels there.
I said: Writer, New Yorker and Atheist.
It’s interesting to see how high up on people’s identity sexual and gender labels rank.
Under those three I would put: Voyeur, Reader, Man, Mostly Straight, Foodie, Top (I probably wouldn’t go as far as dom), Journalist (as in writer of journals), Graphic Designer, Hedonist, Aesthetic, Liberal, Postmoderist (stop laughing), Intrenched member of the Cyberculture, Pervert, Former Punk, Vaguely Indie, Chubby Metrosexual.
I probably thought about this list way too much. I may or may not have involved a database program at some point during the making of this list.
Scarlet - I love the labels you have invented for yourself. They obviously mean something special to you.
Gabe - I love your business card!
Sakura - You know, I wonder if I shouldn’t think of myself more as queer than bisexual. Definitely something to consider.
Jack - I think your labeling priorities are very interesting and very telling. I guess I’m similar in that way, my first two are “student” and “teacher” - those are things that I don’t see changing even if I leave a formal schooling environment.
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