Good evening. I am Pneumonica. Recently, on another forum (one of the two in which I'm "out", now three), I admitted to being genderless. It seemed as though people were very okay with it - a lot of confusion about pronoun usage, etc. I don't actually care much about pronouns - "it" doesn't apply to people, in English there's no genderless that does. However, being a linguist I'm well aware of the fact that artificial language change is nearly impossible. I think French is one of the few languages that has been successfully changed in any meaningful way artificially.
Anyways, it came to a head when a forum contest wasn't announced as being a "gender-split" contest. The previous one had been, and I had bowed out of it for specific reasons of gender identity. This didn't really offend me either - it was a "cuteness" contest, and gender-identity does partially define people's "cute" response, so I could at least see their argument. This time, I was neither told about the split nor asked what to do about it. The mod put me in the male category, and then was indignant when I demanded to be removed. (I admit I was terse on the matter - it did make me angry.) Others began to speak out, some in my favor and some against. The wonderful "what's in your pants" argument was raised in just those terms.
Anyways, efluvium hit the rotor, and now I remain lurking in that forum because a number of people are people I still care about. It was certainly illuminating, and I was left feeling somewhat cored out on the inside. I e-mailed a number of people (and if any of them are on this forum - thank you, you've been helpful). It lead in its meandering way in this direction, and I finally decided to jump in.
Anyways, I'm witholding my real name because I do that on all fora I'm on, but I'm genderless. I haven't told my family, but I've told my fiancee, and I've told a few friends who mostly haven't been supportive (one was, in the wonderful way which is "curiousity", perhaps the best form of support I've gotten). I'm a tabletop roleplaying gamer, and I listen predominantly to the Residents (currently one of the saddest songs in the world is up on my playlist, My Window) and to a lesser extent other avante-garde, no-wave, and experimental music.
I also am long-winded, in case that's not obvious. ;) ;D
Just as a question, when do I get privilege to upload an avatar pic or add a signature? And as a comment, I have read through the TOS/R2LB.
No, fifteen posts isn't much at all. I was just wondering about the cutoff point so I knew how much thread-spamming was needed so that I'd know when I could put my internet face/body on here. :laugh: :P
Thank you for the greetings. I looked through some of the threads before registering, and I already like the sense of humor I'm encountering. Plus, this forum's less likely to seize under the pressure of my deviation the way certain others do. ::)
Deviation is a word implying straying from normal, accepted practices. Normal is a nebulous, fluffy set of equally spurious values and ideals created by mainstream society to impose structure and conformity upon itself. Normal does not exist in this environment... and by that reasoning, neither does deviation.
Welcome to Susan's. :)
Quote from: Leiandra on December 21, 2008, 08:38:37 PM
Deviation is a word implying straying from normal, accepted practices. Normal is a nebulous, fluffy set of equally spurious values and ideals created by mainstream society to impose structure and conformity upon itself. Normal does not exist in this environment... and by that reasoning, neither does deviation.
Welcome to Susan's. :)
Cheers. ;)
Although I would point out that to me, "deviation" means straying from the average, rather than the normal. I'll be the first to say that "average" is hardly "normal". Look out there - do you see a whole lotta "normal" out there among the "average" people of today?
Thanks for the welcome. :)
Hello Pneumonica, and welcome to the forums, I'm glad you brought up about the avatar issue. Wow, 15 post? that's a lot of typing lol ;)
Quote from: Rhonda on December 22, 2008, 08:15:24 AM
Hello Pneumonica, and welcome to the forums, I'm glad you brought up about the avatar issue. Wow, 15 post? that's a lot of typing lol ;)
Jeeze, I'm at 13... er, 14 already. No big deal, that. ;D
Welcome to the fold, fellow newbie.
If you play the song game that been going on in here off and on for a while and find someone to play with, you could get 15 posts in ten minutes or less if you type fast.