6:27 p.m. - 2008-03-08
I SAID I WOULD, AND I DID
I promised to post both about the Pornobot and the bearded lady.
The Pornobot is a modification of the
Chomskybot, and it randomly generates near-infinite amounts of Victorian pornography (literary, not visual). Why? Well, as soon as I get it up and running, I'll post the link here, and there will be a full explanation on the site, but until then suffice it to say that I'm trying to call into question the Weber-ian concept of the ideal type, vis a vis Stephen Marcus' application of it in his book The Other Victorians. Plus, I get to make a PORN GENERATOR.
I mentioned in a previous post that I live with drag queens, so it is no surprise that the gender-perfomance of the friends and houseguests of my roommates tends to emphasize the performance bit, rather than the gender. Now, I think this is great. Though I do present as traditionally feminine, I am a big fan of and, I thought, fairly well in tune with the genderfuck/ genderqueer movement.
When I woke up the other morning (rather seriously hungover, btw) and heard a high-pitched female giggle coming from the living room, my immediate thought was "Why the hell is there a sorority girl in my living room?". Time went on, the hangover slackened, but the giggle showed no signs of abating, so I put on some pants and went out to meet this abnormally cheerful person. Look around, and only non-roommate present is a rather butch person with facial hair. She introduces herself (pronoun assigned after hearing name, lets call her Julie) and after moment of somewhat severe cognitive dissonance, I realize that this is the woman who has been laughing. Got it. In retrospect, this makes more sense than my sorority girl theory, but now I can't figure out why 1) this person who obviously transitioning from male to female is still using a girl's name and 2) why the hormones haven't lowered her voice more.
She was here for several days and, after a couple, I gathered that she is not in fact transitioning, but rather identifies as a bearded lady. Which is the point of this long and rambling story. Is this a subcultural group I know nothing about? Certainly Julie expressed joy that a bearded lady was represented in a recent queer journal (if I could remember the journal's name, I suspect all of my questions would be answered by now). If it is a genderfuck sub-movement of some variety, are these beards only worn by women who can grow them naturally? Certain chromosomal or even hormonal abnormalities can cause this, and this makes sense to me, though it would seems to severely limit the possible size of your subculture. On the other hand, it is possible that a group of women are taking low-level hormone supplements in order to grow beards, which frankly strikes me as expensive and somewhat pointless. There are lots of ways to perform non-traditional gender that do not require facial hair.
If anyone sees this and knows more, please post a link/message in my notes. I'm curious about this.
This entry is rapidly becoming much longer than I meant it to be, gotta save something for tomorrow, so I'l wind down with just a few personal comments.
Savemyseoul got on a plane for, well, Seoul, this afternoon and will be there for the next year. I was supposed to bring over breakfast this morning so I could see him again before he left, but I overslept. I'm really sad about this. Savemyseoul should also remember to blog or skype me as soon as possible, since I keep wanting to call him and tell him random unimportant things, and then remember that I can't because he is on an airplane flying over the North Pole and waving to Santa. Or at least he damn well better be (the waving part). Also if he does so, I will explain to him how to change the color scheme on his blog if he so desires. I know tiny but useful amounts of html.
Also, I would like it if he would send me the Scientology War links. I suppose I could go chatroom-diving myself, but since he's already done all of the rather ridiculous research, it seems silly not to take advantage.
To Television Foot, I have a different sort of message. She seems to be misunderstanding the utility that is a blog. While I agree that Diaryland is an excellent place to leave me drunken notes, it is also an excellent place to leave drunken notes for a much larger audience. Please post an entry or I will be forced to take action (not sure what kind of action, but I suspect it will include me dropping the name tvfoot in this blog and instead referring to you by your anagramatic pseudonym...you know which one I mean). You have been warned.
-Britt
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