Questionable Gender

I guess it started around 13 or so ... when my body became more 'feminine'. As I was quite chubby, though not fat, even then, my breast grew quite early - and I hated it. I had to start wearing bras and I started to look like a woman. And I started to wonder whether or not I really was a girl.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not feeling as if I was born in the wrong body. I don't think I'm a man born in a woman's body or something. I just sometimes have serious doubts about being a woman in the normal sense of the word. Why? Well, let me get it lined up a bit:

First of all: I never really felt like a 'girl', even when I was the right age. My identity has always been defined more or less by what I was interested in: books were in the lead, followed by TV, driving around with my bike (then, that hobby somehow went 'missing' later on) and my interest in technical stuff (everything from video recorders to computers). None of those things was 'typical' for a girl. I played with Barbie when I was younger, yes, but what I played with them was not the usual stuff (family, model and so on). 'My' Barbie usually had a lot of adventures (being already a grown-up, or at least almost grown up) as a private investigator or something. If she happened to be a princess, she would be kidnapped and escape on her own - an adventurer.

I really tried to be a 'real' girl, I did for years, even before I started to grow into a woman. I tried to dress up as a princess (and I know how to move in long skirts, even though I haven't worn a dress in years), I let my hair grow long, I learned how to do my make-up, I played with my friends (who usually wanted to play the 'usual stuff' with Barbie - I played with them, but it wasn't as fun as my own ideas).

It never really caught on ... it didn't go well with the rest of my interests. I never dreamed of being carried away by my Prince Charming (though he's invited to come over, provided he can keep up with a self-reliant woman). I never dreamed of being the fairy tale princess. Had I been one, the Evil Queen (or whoever) would not have fared well. Imagining Snow White coming back after the failed assassination in the middle of the night and pushing her step-mother into the magic mirror ... that would have been me, then.

No wonder most of my childhood heroes were male, at least they got to go out and do something instead of waiting somewhere in the highest room of the tallest tower ("Shrek", anyone?) for something to be done to them. Like Utena (anyone out there who has read the manga or seen the anime?) I preferred to be the prince instead of waiting for him.

Second I've never been a fan of 'normal' love-stories. I didn't read them when I was a teenager and I don't do today (the only pulp-magazines I've read in the past were horror stories like "John Sinclair"). 'Normal' love-stories for me are those where a man loves a woman and does great (or less great) deeds to win her over. Sometimes, embedded in another story, that can be interesting, but I've never read a love-story that was nothing else.

I was fascinated when I read the first slash-story (see the post about slash I wrote for information), because there I had stories which interested me more (even though admittedly 'mere' love-stories between two men aren't any more interesting for me than the kind between men and women).

Third I've always been fascinated by bondage - even before I knew the word. Actually I was quite able to free myself when I was a kid (and the fact that I got a lot of practice then says a lot about our games, I think).

I'm not a real dom, not in the way most 'serious' doms would define it (and I would be a femdom, anyway [and if you don't know what a femdom is, don't worry, until quite recently when I started reading femdom-blogs, I didn't know the word either - although that might have something to do with the fact that I'm German and don't use English in everyday dialogue quite often]). But I've always been fascinated by the whole topic (I own a collection of Eric Stanton cartoons, just in case any of you knows who he is). The whole idea of a dominant woman and a submissive man has always be very interesting to me, which is maybe another reason why I wasn't interested in 'normal' love-stories where the man usually is the dominant. In slash-stories there's always a submissive male, otherwise they wouldn't work - and some slash-stories (especially those you can find on fanfiction websites) feature quite a lot of bondage.

What else is there to tell you?

I have never been one of the usual fan girls (you know, those who plaster their room with posters of their favourite singer/actor/whatever). You would have been hard-pressed to find a poster picturing an actual person in my room (though I own up to having a couple of movie posters [all from "Star Wars" and still hanging in my flat] in my room in my early twenties, including a "Wisdom of Yoda"-poster, but Yoda doesn't count, I think).

I like Hard Rock ... well, sometimes. I was always fascinated by the covers of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal albums (all those scary monsters...).

I'm not a romantic, not the way it is usually defined, so "Gone with the wind", for example, doesn't work for me. (But then, that's 'normal love-stories' all over again.)

I like computer games and technical stuff a lot and hate having to ask anybody (male or female) for help. Not very 'feminine' either.

I wear my hair short, because I like it that way and because it's easier to take care of (and because I got headaches from my heavy, long hair before I got myself a haircut).

Oh, and I chose "A not so average woman" as the title of my blog - that should say it all, anyway... Anyway, enough about me for a while.