#informedconsenter

Speaking about trans men in particular here, in relation to the captions and transitioning in general. Being trans creates friction, regardless of whether you are supported or not. Some people seek to ameliorate that through affirmative words, and though there's an audience for that, I don't get off on it.

Because the question is not "what is a man?", but instead "what to do about being a man?" The friction comes from choosing to live, not trying to wrestle the gender goal posts from the establishment. I question the point of seeking validation for my transgressive existence within a framework that excludes me by design. So when I say "friction", I mean the friction that comes from knowing there is no place for you in the larger schema, even if somebody offers you that abstract validation.

In terms of the captions, I'm not interested in telling somebody that he is a man despite X, Y, and/or Z. It seems beside the point. And personally, if I focus too much on validating myself as I am now, I lose out on who I could be. It distracts me from the very thing that drew me to becoming, as an eternal action, in the first place—which is to live fully with an unstable sense of self.

Does becoming frighten you? 'Man' is a mirage of a destination. As you seemingly approach, it distorts and changes shape, until at close examination it reveals itself to be nothing more than an ever-shifting assemblage of granular particles.

On the surface level, you are literally communicating with the viewer (who is expected to be a transmasc Tumblr user at least vaguely familiar with forcemasc). This reading might be your intent because it makes it the easiest to read and interpret. I like this a lot.

A reading I've begun to think about more recently is the speaker in your works representing the self, in the sense that the voice is the viewer from the future. I didn't consider this perspective until almost a year on testosterone, where I look at the twinkish thing I was then and feel an almost protective kind of lust. I looked unassuming then, and I find my past self cute in a way. Seeing and remembering my past self as this "other" only highlights how much I've become something else through my own actions and the influences that shape my actions. I find an arousing potential in the idea that I'll view my current self in the same way in a few years, seeing the gradual changes in online photos as a new person for each swipe.

I hope this wasn't presumptuous and that the idea is interesting to you as well, even if it wasn't your intention.

Presume away. My only intention is to change you. In a way, I put off answering this because I wanted to see where you’d be when this ask was no longer recent. Therefore, I offer you a response almost a year in the future. We do seem to work in seasons of years around here.

I myself am now different from cypionate60mg, even from informedconsenter. If I could debate him into submission, I would. But it was also those “previous” selves of mine that made this “current” one possible, so in a way I’ve forced my present self into existence by having not been content with the present at all.

I liked what you said about the wanting and the flesh being entangled, and the idea that in "actualizing" one is heading toward an illusion. Lacan suggests that ontologically speaking, the self is always an asymptote because recognition of the self is always misrecognition. I misrecognize myself for the being in the mirror; I am inducted into the social and interpellated as "girl" which I naturalize to the self I have taken as object. I think there's an erotic oblivion to this; I am fundamentally incomplete in being constituted by language, I am not a Girl but Man is a fantastical construct; I am nothing—I can be anything. Is the more real self the self that is always in transition, contradiction and flux, rather than the self that thinks it's reached any stable end-point? Also, here's the actually masturbatory part: while you were gone, I wrote ForceMasc captions to myself to fill the void.

Obligatory I'm not a Lacan expert disclaimer, feel free to correct any misrecognitions of Lacan's thinking I may have done. Now that I've rambled, I can close off by saying I am excited about this new blog.

Sorry to force your patience. I kept this ask for a long time, during my second sabbatical, so to speak, because I enjoyed looking at it. I don’t see anything wasted, though you have been quite masturbatory in a way you know I like.

I’m pleased to learn that you replicated me internally. I’m sure I enjoyed being inside you. Your inquiries slip in and out of the desire to be inquired unto. You’ve also reframed the Lacanian asymptote experience as one of pleasurable and boundless oblivion, rather than a sense-making of multiplicity, which does seem to be a naughty miscrecognition. It's one I suspect you enjoyed doing, knowing it could justify your desire. And though I no longer believe that this theoretical edging can utopianize anything, I do still like it as a back-and-forth that we play with or wear in small moments.