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Pride, Gender, Sexuality, and Identity
3 years ago
General
Hello FurAffinity,
Going to bare my soul a bit here and ramble on about personal things.
Pride Month always makes me a bit depressed and anxious, and that’s because I don’t know where I fit in. I don’t feel like I belong anywhere. I don’t know what my flags are. I don’t have anything to be Proud of. And I feel like if I haven’t figured that out by now I never will, and may as well give up.
My identity is a tangled mess of inhibitions, bottled-up feelings, ingrained Catholic upbringing, and lord knows what else. I pass as cishet easily enough, I think. But I don’t know if that’s accurate.
Like. I’m a guy, a boy. I like being a guy. I like my penis. The alternative seems like a lot more work. But I’ve been experimenting with a female fursona and I really like her. If you haven’t met her yet, this is Astor:
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/43671829/ (I love this outfit for her)
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/45563522/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/46883398/
She’s petite, and cute, and gets to dress up pretty. My main fursona, Kinto the wild ass – https://www.furaffinity.net/view/37522095/ – is more like me as I exist in the real world, except furry. I have never thought of myself as “sexy”. (If I don’t think of myself as attractive, I can’t think of anyone else finding me attractive, so why bother even trying to date?)
Astor and I are, in some ways, still feeling each other out. For example, Astor is definitely female gendered, but she hasn’t told me what’s between her legs; of course, in furry there’s no reason it can’t be swapped around at will. The idea of Astor being trans tickles me; it certainly is a possibility. But I hesitate to use the descriptor ‘trans’ for myself; it’s a big word. (And am I allowed to make Astor trans without being trans myself?) But, if I could wake up tomorrow as Astor in a furry world, I think I would like that. However, I can’t see myself as female in this human world. Sometimes I think I would like to be less binary, more androgynous, but I am afraid. I have always known that if I ever got a fursuit, it would be a female character, and I’ve never thought of that as odd; if I spent that much money on something, I would want it to be attractive, and girls are attractive.
Most of my characters are female. Most of my stories have female protagonists. Is it attraction and or is it jealousy?
I know a lot of trans folks in the furry community, and I admire them, and honestly envy them sometimes. I don’t know how much of my uncertainty is actually me, and how much is the influence of spending so much time around furries. I feel like there are a lot of signs there that I’m choosing to ignore.
Then there’s the matter of sexuality. I have described myself as theoretically straight but experimentally untested. It’s embarrassing to admit, but I’ve never been in a relationship. I could be asexual, but I’m afraid I don’t have enough experience to actually know, so I’m reluctant to use that descriptor for myself. It would be like saying I don’t like bananas without ever having actually tasted one. I do enjoy masturbation, but have difficulty envisioning myself actually engaging in sex with another person. Some sexual acts just strike me as repulsive. (There’s that ingrained Catholic upbringing coming into play. (Was it too successful? I only did what I was taught (that might be autism, another descriptor I hesitate to use for myself, and yet another can of worms).)) Early on in my furry writing career I felt it was necessary to include explicitly sexual content because I thought that was what was expected; then I realized I didn’t have to write sex stuff if I didn’t want to.
I think it would be nice to be in a (romantic?) relationship, maybe; but, again, I’ve never tried it, and if I haven’t figured it out by now, I probably never will. And I don’t want to inflict my inexperienced self on someone else.
I bottle things up inside. When anyone tries to get close, my instinct is to pull back.
There’s a lot more I could say, and wanted to say but have forgotten to say, and things I may have said too much about, but that’s some of where my head is at this month.
Unidentifiably yours,
Kinto M.
P.S. Still have a bunch of commissioned art that I want to upload to my own gallery, including those pieces of Astor. No idea when I’ll get to those.
P.P.S. I have obtained a room for Anthrocon. See y’all there!
Going to bare my soul a bit here and ramble on about personal things.
Pride Month always makes me a bit depressed and anxious, and that’s because I don’t know where I fit in. I don’t feel like I belong anywhere. I don’t know what my flags are. I don’t have anything to be Proud of. And I feel like if I haven’t figured that out by now I never will, and may as well give up.
My identity is a tangled mess of inhibitions, bottled-up feelings, ingrained Catholic upbringing, and lord knows what else. I pass as cishet easily enough, I think. But I don’t know if that’s accurate.
Like. I’m a guy, a boy. I like being a guy. I like my penis. The alternative seems like a lot more work. But I’ve been experimenting with a female fursona and I really like her. If you haven’t met her yet, this is Astor:
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/43671829/ (I love this outfit for her)
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/45563522/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/46883398/
She’s petite, and cute, and gets to dress up pretty. My main fursona, Kinto the wild ass – https://www.furaffinity.net/view/37522095/ – is more like me as I exist in the real world, except furry. I have never thought of myself as “sexy”. (If I don’t think of myself as attractive, I can’t think of anyone else finding me attractive, so why bother even trying to date?)
Astor and I are, in some ways, still feeling each other out. For example, Astor is definitely female gendered, but she hasn’t told me what’s between her legs; of course, in furry there’s no reason it can’t be swapped around at will. The idea of Astor being trans tickles me; it certainly is a possibility. But I hesitate to use the descriptor ‘trans’ for myself; it’s a big word. (And am I allowed to make Astor trans without being trans myself?) But, if I could wake up tomorrow as Astor in a furry world, I think I would like that. However, I can’t see myself as female in this human world. Sometimes I think I would like to be less binary, more androgynous, but I am afraid. I have always known that if I ever got a fursuit, it would be a female character, and I’ve never thought of that as odd; if I spent that much money on something, I would want it to be attractive, and girls are attractive.
Most of my characters are female. Most of my stories have female protagonists. Is it attraction and or is it jealousy?
I know a lot of trans folks in the furry community, and I admire them, and honestly envy them sometimes. I don’t know how much of my uncertainty is actually me, and how much is the influence of spending so much time around furries. I feel like there are a lot of signs there that I’m choosing to ignore.
Then there’s the matter of sexuality. I have described myself as theoretically straight but experimentally untested. It’s embarrassing to admit, but I’ve never been in a relationship. I could be asexual, but I’m afraid I don’t have enough experience to actually know, so I’m reluctant to use that descriptor for myself. It would be like saying I don’t like bananas without ever having actually tasted one. I do enjoy masturbation, but have difficulty envisioning myself actually engaging in sex with another person. Some sexual acts just strike me as repulsive. (There’s that ingrained Catholic upbringing coming into play. (Was it too successful? I only did what I was taught (that might be autism, another descriptor I hesitate to use for myself, and yet another can of worms).)) Early on in my furry writing career I felt it was necessary to include explicitly sexual content because I thought that was what was expected; then I realized I didn’t have to write sex stuff if I didn’t want to.
I think it would be nice to be in a (romantic?) relationship, maybe; but, again, I’ve never tried it, and if I haven’t figured it out by now, I probably never will. And I don’t want to inflict my inexperienced self on someone else.
I bottle things up inside. When anyone tries to get close, my instinct is to pull back.
There’s a lot more I could say, and wanted to say but have forgotten to say, and things I may have said too much about, but that’s some of where my head is at this month.
Unidentifiably yours,
Kinto M.
P.S. Still have a bunch of commissioned art that I want to upload to my own gallery, including those pieces of Astor. No idea when I’ll get to those.
P.P.S. I have obtained a room for Anthrocon. See y’all there!
Do hope you find someone sweet. Relationships are definitely very tricky
That is exactly the situation I found myself in. I'm kinky, I'm cis-male (very certain on this point), but I'm probably not straight and I've never had a serious relationship.
I decided that aro or asexual makes sense. I've never felt sexual attraction to a person I knew. I do feel like some of my friends would make good spouses/partners - which means I might be in the demisexual zone (only attracted to people I know, not physically attracted to strangers). But I don't have the data to be certain.
I've started saying "I'm aro/ace". It fits. I don't want kids and I tend to prefer m/m porn and kink, so I'm probably gay (or at least leaning that way).
I don't need to get my definition fully correct. It can change over time as I discover myself (and I'm starting late, in my mid 30's).
While I don't have a female fursona (or thoughts of a female fursuit/personality), I do remember fearing that I act feminine or that my shadow looks girly. Which is absurd, and probably just internalised social/Catholic homophobia or toxic masculinity. Being girly/fem was a bad thing for a guy. So was being gay. I never considered myself either, but I feared being that. And now I'm finally trying to actively work through that.
It's okay not to label yourself and just try to be yourself. It's okay not to know what that is.
It's also okay if your perception of yourself changes over time.
Who cares what they are... You don't have to label yourself anything, just be yourself. Be attracted to whoever you are without caring whether that fits into a box. Or not attracted if you aren't. You don't have to be trans to have a female character or a trans character. Boxes and labels don't define you, they're just shorthands people use to try to make sense of the world with minimum of effort. But people and the world doesn't fit in neat boxes.