Sex and Gender

 Yesterday I read two articles in the Guardian.

One is : Labour’s contradictory policies on trans and women’s rights must be addressed by Susanna Rustin. The emphasis of the article is upon sex based rights as opposed to gender based rights and is a plea for the labour party to move in this direction in a clear and unequivocal way. The article ends with the words:

... a group called Labour Women’s Declaration advocates for sex-based rights within the party, and is also engaged in cross-party efforts. Currently, between 20 and 40 Labour MPs are known to be sympathetic. I hope they can persuade Labour to shift its position with regard to the sex-based rights of women. Not only because I agree with them. But because I don’t think it would be at all surprising if voters were to turn against politicians who speak in riddles about the differences between male and female bodies – and deride advocacy on behalf of biologically female people as a relic from prehistory.

The other is: Labour needs to own its policy on gender - and unequivocally back trans rights by Zoe Williams. The emphasis here is somewhat different, and the article ends with the words:

Labour needs to take a stand based on principles of equality with which they are familiar. They could also maybe learn from their history of being wedged – on Brexit, and long before that, on nuclear disarmament – by political enemies who care much less about the issue than they enjoy watching Labour fall apart.

Underneath this manoeuvring is careless cruelty to trans people, who despite being 1% of the population are apparently the issue of the age, and yet whose suffering and exclusion doesn’t feature in the discourse at all. Beneath every confected outrage about trans athletes, trans prisoners and men pretending to be trans in order to lurk in toilets, there is a consistent theme, that trans people are not victims but predators. It’s such a fanciful reversal of reality – in which trans people are beset by horrifying levels of hate crime, homelessness and domestic violence – that the entire debate is starting to sound baffled and stupefied. That’s no excuse for Labour, who should be able to see exactly what course to take.

My own feelings are much more in line with Zoe Williams than Susanna Rustin. 

Schools, Sex Education, Sharing and Pronouns

On Monday 16 September 2019 the trans story at the top of the Google News list is headed: Trans children to get sex education with gender they identify with at Metro.
It's a report based on what claims to be a leaked report from "the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and seen by the Sunday Times".
No links are provided either to the Sunday Times or the EHRC so it doesn't make it easy to validate what it says.
According to Metro "The document also advises that trans boys and girls be allowed to participate in personal, social and health education lessons with the gender they identify with."
So far as I'm aware there are schools that already teach subjects like "sex education, social and health education" to mixed groups of boys and girls.
There's an article here: https://pubertycurriculum.com/sex-education-in-elementary-schools-gender-segregated-or-coed/ which looks at the pros and cons of segregating boys and girls during such classes. And another here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/protecting-children-sexual-abuse/201802/should-boys-and-girls-get-sexual-education-separately that discusses whether boys and girls should be taught separately. And another here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2018/10/19/why-we-shouldnt-be-separating-boys-girls-sex-ed/ So far as I can tell all the authors are non-trans females and don't seem to have any axes to grind. All of them seem to be saying that, on balance, they think that the classes should be mixed rather than segregated.
Metro quotes a "campaigner" named Tanya Carter as saying: "What use is it to that pupil to learn about periods or breast development? No one is asking the girls whether they would feel happy with a trans pupil in that group."
To be honest I think boys should know about these things. Talking about it in a classroom environment could provide a way of allowing children to see that the topics aren't shameful or taboo and help each other understand each other in a better way.
There are other more contentious issues that relate to pupils sharing things like:

• changing rooms
• rooms when on school trips (I think that this means bedrooms, though the article doesn't make this clear)

My take on this is that schools shouldn't actually expect any pupils to undress in any shared space - even where the children are all non-trans and of the same sex. Changing rooms and bedrooms should be private spaces.
Sports are more complex. There are debates about unfair advantages that trans-girls would have over cis-girls (i.e. non-trans girls) in some sports.
If sport in school is seen as a solely competitive activity I can see this as a problem. In terms of sport being a great way of encouraging physical activity and a healthy lifestyle I'm not sure that there need be a problem. Whatever problem does exist here is probably more one of competitive fairness rather than safeguarding. In school sport it needn't be an issue unless we want to make it one. In adult competitive sport I'm not so sure. But the Metro article is about schools so I'll leave the extended debate for another day. 
There are also some points made in the Metro article about using a trans-child's preferred name and pronouns.
My own view on this is that anyone that can't be respectful enough to use names and pronouns in this way perhaps should look for a job where they don't need to use pronouns or peoples names.

Girls, Guys, Shades of Gender, Suspender Belts and Pay Cuts

A little while ago I was involved in conversation with a transvestite that raised some thought provoking ideas.

She seemed to feel that all transvestites are on a path that leads to a need for more and more time to be spent as a girl. Less and less as a guy.

That as time passes there’s a need to be more and more girl-like and less and less guy-like.

And that there’s an inevitability in all of this for all concerned.

As we talked I expressed my disagreement.

For myself I feel at peace with where I am at. My life is a mix of guy and girl, masculine and feminine. I don’t feel a need for the balance that there is at the moment to change.

I know that different people have different feelings and experiences. But I also know what my own are.

Actually at times all these kind of terms can get surprisingly confusing.

Girl, guy. Man, woman.Male, female.Masculine, feminine.Gender, sex. And I think that we (including myself) sometimes use some of these words interchangeably when they aren’t always quite so interchangeable.

However, having spent a little time looking around the WEB at definitions of some of these terms, there seems to be some confusion there as well.

There’s an interesting article here: Sex Difference vs. Gender Difference? Oh, I'm So Confused! – but it isn’t easy reading.

There’s an article on the UK National Health Service WEB site entitled : Gender dysphoria which also seems a little odd. It says:

Biological sex is assigned at birth, depending on the appearance of the infant. Gender identity is the gender that a person “identifies” with, or feels themselves to be.

and also says:

Gender can be defined using very narrow medical terms such as what types of chromosomes you have, or what types of genitals you were born with. However, many transsexuals (and also many experts in the treatment of gender dysphoria) find this type of narrow definition both unhelpful and offensive.

Whilst the World Health Organisation says:

"Sex" refers to the biological and physiological characteristics that define men and women.

"Gender" refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women

My own feeling is that there is more to gender than the World Health Organisation gives credit to. And they definitely have a different understanding of the word sex than do most of the people that I know.

I have a feeling that somewhere in all of this the word psychology should also appear.

I’ve heard it said, and I think that I’ve mentioned it previously in other blog posts, that there’s a view that gender is a line that joins masculine to feminine and that different people are at different places along the line.

There are times when people feel compelled to live their lives as though they were at a position on this line that they don’t really feel that they are really at.

Sometimes even at entirely the wrong end of the line.

Also, for many, the pressure to conform to a role that is either purely masculine or purely feminine has been intense and damaging.

The good news is that the pressure is, in some places at least, lessening. People are being allowed to be themselves. There’s still a long, long way to go, but at least things are moving.

I have this feeling that there are many more than 50 shades of gender, and that they aren’t all grey.

Over the years I’ve grown to accept and, in a way, celebrate, my own gender and have been fortunate enough to have family and friends that are able to accept it as well.

I feel that my position isn’t at either end of the gender line and I’m OK with that. The makeup and feminine clothing that I wear at times is an expression of this.

Actually it’s not just about gender in the sense of socially constructed roles. Nor is it just about sex or genital surgery. It’s more about who I feel that I am. It’s an expression of myself.

I think that different people are in different places when it comes to gender.

That there are lots of people that are in the process of still discovering who they are and where they are.

In a way, perhaps we all are still learning and still making discoveries about ourselves. And if we’re not then maybe we should be?

And I’m sure that the world is always a nicer place when people are allowed to be themselves when the way that  they are and the things that they do are of no harm to anyone.

And then … here’s a list of a few gender characteristics taken from the World Health Organisation:

• In the United States (and most other countries), women earn significantly less money than men for similar work
• In Viet Nam, many more men than women smoke, as female smoking has not traditionally been considered appropriate
• In Saudi Arabia men are allowed to drive cars while women are not
• In most of the world, women do more housework than men

There’s no mention of makeup, nylon stockings, suspender belts, skirts, blouses, dresses or high-heeled shoes.

Instead it’s a list of things that seem to be a result of men exercising unfair and unreasonable control over women. Although, I guess the smoking in Viet Nam represents something of an own-goal scored by the men.

And, ok, to be honest, I’ve heard is said that the history of high heeled shoes fall into that category as well. And there are perhaps people that would say the same of stockings and suspender belts.

As I said earlier. It’s a complex business.

But, for myself, I’d definitely rather have the suspender belt and stockings than a pay cut. Though immeasurably better would be the suspender belt, stockings and equal pay for equal work.

David Cameron, Lord Carey, Gender and Christian Persecution

Today I read this headline from the Daily Telegraph:

David Cameron 'feeds fears of Christian persecution', former Archbishop of Canterbury says

And this from the Daily Mail (PM is David Cameron, the Prime Minister):

The PM's done more than any leader to make Christians feel they're persecuted

The Daily Mail article is attributed to Lord Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury.

Lord Carey says that he likes David Cameron and believes in his sincerity in making Britain a generous nation where “we care for one another and where people of faith may exercise their beliefs fully”.

A little later he suggests that many Christians doubt David Cameron’s sincerity. That according to a ComRes poll more than two-thirds of Christians feel they are part of a persecuted minority.

He does, however, point out that these feelings of persecution may not be justified since “few in the UK are actually persecuted.”

And yet, he says, the Prime Minister has “done more than any other recent political leader to feed these anxieties.”

What has the Prime Minster done?

• Allowed government lawyers to argue against the idea that Christians should be able to wear the Cross at their place of work
• More shockingly: is allowing the Equalities Minister to support a bill that would make the Parliamentary chapel of St Mary Undercroft into a multi faith prayer room
• He is working towards changing the law to allow same sex marriages
• The law might not offer religious believers who are registrars to refuse to carry out same sex marriages on religious grounds
• The law might force teachers to express agreement with the new politically correct orthodoxy (with respect to same sex marriage)

And what might this result in:

• The alienation of people who were considered to be pillars of society
• Christians not voting Conservative in the next general election
• Driving law-abiding Christians into the ranks of the malcontents and alienated

It’s not so long ago that things were very different. Same gender sexual activity wasn’t an accepted thing for people to be involved in. There is historical stuff here and more contemporary stuff here. And some background on LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) issues in the United Kingdom here. Though it actually says an enormous lot more about G than it does about L, B or T.

There have been times when sexual activity between  men resulted in the death penalty. More recently – within my living memory – it resulted in imprisonment. It seems that in 1957 the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Geoffrey Fisher, spoke out in favour of the decriminalisation of consensual and private homosexual behaviour.

It wasn’t until 1967, however, that this decriminalisation occurred when the Sexual Offences Bill was made passed.

A quote from Wikipedia:

Lord Arran, a sponsor of the Sexual Offences Bill, made the following remarks at the third reading in the Lords:

“Because of the Bill now to be enacted, perhaps a million human beings will be able to live in greater peace. I find this an awesome and marvellous thing. The late Oscar Wilde, on his release from Reading Gaol, wrote to a friend:

Yes, we shall win in the end; but the road will be long and red with monstrous martyrdoms.

My Lords, Mr. Wilde was right: the road has been long and the martyrdoms many, monstrous and bloody. Today, please God! sees the end of that road.”

And yet, Lord Arran went on to say:

“I ask one thing and I ask it earnestly. I ask those who have, as it were, been in bondage and for whom the prison doors are now open to show their thanks by comporting themselves quietly and with dignity. This is no occasion for jubilation; certainly not for celebration. Any form of ostentatious behaviour; now or in the future any form of public flaunting, would be utterly distasteful and would, I believe, make the sponsors of the Bill regret that they have done what they have done. Homosexuals must continue to remember that while there may be nothing bad in being a homosexual, there is certainly nothing good. Lest the opponents of the Bill think that a new freedom, a new privileged class, has been created, let me remind them that no amount of legislation will prevent homosexuals from being the subject of dislike and derision, or at best of pity. We shall always, I fear, resent the odd man out. That is their burden for all time, and they must shoulder it like men—for men they are.”

It seems that,in the UK, it wasn’t until 2003 that gay relationships began to be permitted in a similar way to heterosexual relationships. Civil partnerships weren’t introduced until 2005.  The first civil partnership ceremony took place at 11:00 on 5 December 2005 between Matthew Roche and Christopher Cramp at St Barnabas Hospice, Worthing, West Sussex. The usual 14 day waiting period was waived as Roche was suffering from a terminal illness. He died the next day. The article here gives additional background.

In all of this I’m left feeling that for many, many, many years it has been gay people that have been persecuted. The levels of persecution were extreme. The perpetrators of this persecution have included the Church and the State.

Thankfully things have changed and continue to change. A reading of the history of it suggests that the House of Lords has been a lot less willing to support such changes than has been the House of Commons. And some parts of the Church are moving much more slowly than is society in general.

I believe that Lord Arran was right in saying that no amount of legislation would change the way that people feel about homosexuals and homosexuality. Legislation doesn’t do that kind of thing.

But thankfully his view that homosexuals would forever be the subject of dislike and derision or pity … a burden for all time …  demonstrated that he severely underestimated people’s capacity for change when propaganda and misinformation are no longer supported by the fear that unjust laws can engender.

I’m not at all convinced by the idea that Christians in the UK are being persecuted in any kind of systematic or state-supported way.

There have been instances of lack of sensitivity – but equally there have been instances where the law has mainly been involved in preventing people with strongly held religious beliefs imposing the restrictions of those beliefs upon other people.

I’m particularly saddened by the view that support for same sex marriages should be construed as some kind of a persecution of the Church. Thank goodness that there are many, many Christians who don’t hold this view.

If David Cameron has done so much to make Christians feel persecuted then I’m left with the feeling that there are perhaps a lot of Christians that suffer from an excess of paranoia.

Do you believe in sex?

The past week I’ve been working in Bristol, staying at the Premiere Inn at the Haymarket.

The train was on time, no snow and only a little rain.

A couple of nights ago I caught the tail end of a TV programme that featured two girls who were travelling around with parents and grandparents. Having missed the start of the show I’m not certain of the exact details. It seems, though, that the aim of the journey was to help the two girls decide if it was time for them to give up their virginity.

The UK, it appears, is a European leader in things such as teenage pregnancies, sex without condoms and youngest average age (for girls especially) to become non-virgins.

As they say … sometimes one thing leads to another.

The girls spent some time talking with 15 and 16 year old boys at a school. Expert advice indeed.

They said they wished that their mothers could be more open in talking about sex … in particular their own sexual experiences.

They visited Holland … which reputedly has a much more open attitude to sex than the UK. And also much lower rates of teenage pregnancy and a higher average age for loss of virginity.

They talked with a Dutch mother and her 16 year old daughter. The daughter had recently had her first full sexual encounter. Everyone was impressed with the  openness of the relationship between this girl and her mother.

At no point that I saw were the concepts of marriage and sex seen to be related in any way. Perhaps that idea had been discussed or dismissed earlier in the programme.

Soon after meeting the teenager and her mum they went on a walkabout through the red light district of Amsterdam accompanied by a brothel owner as well as the Television crew.

They saw ladies in shop windows … and the brothel owner explained a little about how the places work.

The reaction of the two British girls to this was one of disbelief. Shock. How could people? Isn’t sex all about love? They cuddled mum and cried and sobbed.

I’ve given this reaction some thought. It seems that they hadn’t yet discovered that the significance of sex can be very different to different people.

• A mechanism for procreation
• An expression of love
• A source of pleasure
• A thing to not talk about
• A source of shame
• A necessary evil
• Something that should only ever happen between married people
• Something to sell
• Something to buy

And many other things.

Not all of the above are applicable to all people.

In fact all of the above are applicable to no people.

It’s definitely a some opinions to some people kind of relationship.

And peoples opinions sometimes change.

Once upon a time in the distant past I remember one of those debating sessions in an English class. Pre-puberty, early secondary school.

I am a panel member.

Non-panel members get a chance to pose the debating questions.

Janet Taylor raises her hand.

“Do you believe in sex before marriage?”

Janet Taylor wears the shortest skirts in school. Even shorter than Andrea wears today.

Her legs go a long long way. Maybe she was already post-puberty.

It was, though, more of a question than an offer.

My turn arrives to express an opinion.

“I don’t believe in sex.”

As I said. Opinions change. Puberty does that to a person.

Eventually I came to believe in sex.

At age 18 I was born again. Sex still a belief rather than a practical experience. The belief restricted to the confines of marriage. There were definite rights and wrongs about it.

Today I’m not so sure about the rights and wrongs.

The reaction of the girls in the television programme seemed to be strangely inconsistent.

There are things that I wonder about …

• Maybe some cattle-market-like nightclub dance floors aren’t so different from the red light shop windows of Amsterdam. People seeking the same thing.
• Boys at nightclubs will sometimes invent all kinds of stories to impress girls. At times maybe this is about romance. At other times maybe it’s a lot more basic.
• Maybe a shop window in Amsterdam can be a more honest and safe way of people achieving the same ends without a need to tell lies to each other?

I think that the things that matter most between people include things such as:

• Honesty
• Respect
• Love … in the sense of wanting to help rather than to hurt each other

I guess that in reality love encompasses the honesty and respect.

It sounds a little like things that I heard at Church.

But at Church this was supplemented by an additional framework of rights and wrongs that mattered even more than honesty, respect and love.

These included big stuff like not killing people. Unless of course it’s in self defence, or a “just” war …

And other stuff as well:

• Do not be gay
• Do not be lesbian
• Do not dress in women’s clothing – unless, of course, you are a woman

And you can’t even do these things during a war or in self defence.

Mostly I’ve discarded lists of absolute don’ts.

It’s not that I think that everyone should do them. More that it “depends”.

Sex, like almost all other things, then just fits into an overall framework of honesty, respect and love.

Simple?

Well … maybe.

Easy?

Well … no. Not at all.

I think a lot of this begins with “oneself”.

I recall a Bob Dylan song … “Slow train coming”.

That’s how it’s been in my experience.

A lifetime to get to a place where I can be honest with myself and about about myself. A place where I respect myself. Even my unconventional dressing habits. My flirtations with pornography.  A place where I don’t feel I have to hide it all or live in fear of being found out. A place where I can love myself.

I know … this stuff is in the Bible as well. It says that you can’t love other people if you don’t love yourself.

A little while ago I spent some time talking with a girl that works as an escort. She is married. Has four children.

Her work involves sex. Her husband knows. Her family knows.

They are happy.

Is it wrong?

Whatever the girls in the TV programme feel about this, I have a feeling that it’s a lot less wrong than what happens every weekend at a lot of nightclubs.

Maybe not perfect.

But where is perfection?

But is it art ...

Recently on TV (unusually in this blog, TV in this context actually means Television) there was a show named How to have sex after marriage.


I'd seen it in listings before but never watched it. In fact, last night I missed the beginning and the end of it. But the part that I did see did provoke some thinking.


Amongst a series of other issues, the married couple that it featured had never spent time discussing sex. They hadn't talked about expectations, desires, fantasies. Almost nothing at all. They had just done it and, I guess, were at a place where they weren't enjoying it any more.


During the program the guy was taken into sex toy shops and featured as a sex expert on a spoof radio phone-in show. The girl was given a whole series of demonstrations of sexual positions by a couple of scantily clad models.



In a way I felt a sense of empathy. I don't remember talking about such things with my own wife for years and years. Sex always seemed to be a thing to do ... or not do. Not a thing to talk about.

As time passed it seems to have become less and less of a thing to do. And, though we have sometimes talked about it, we don't seem to any more. There's just a passive acceptance - perhaps more a passive resignation - to the way that things are.


So why? How did things get to be this way?


It's complex, I guess. And yet maybe it's also simple.


Either way ... here are some of the contributing factors.


When we got married, TV shows didn't discuss such issues. A lot of mainstream society seemed to think it wasn't important. Or maybe that whether important or not, sex wasn't really a thing to discuss.


As a young (late teens / early twenties) born-again Christian I learned that sex was a gift of God within marriage. It was about having children. It was about people demonstrating and sharing a love for each other. Maybe as well it was about satisfying needs. I remember one of the New Testament letters where Paul the Apostle says something about it being best for people not to get married. But - if they couldn't live without sex it was better to get married and do it rather than just to do it without getting married. OK ... this is it ... taken from I Corinthians:


It is well for a man not to touch a woman. But because of the temptation to immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband . . . I say this by way of concession, not of command. I wish that all were as I myself am [i.e., celibate]. . . To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain single as I do. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.


So there is kind of an acceptance that people seem to have a need for sex.


Actually, though, I never noticed before how strongly this piece of writing seems to suggest that people should only ever get married if they can't hold off from having sex with each other. It doesn't mention they should get married because they love each other. So, in a way, it's almost suggesting that all the Christian people that are married are the ones that couldn't live without sex. If they could have lived without sex then there was no reason to get married.


Anyways ... that's not really the point that I'm making here.


I think once in a while at meetings people would talk about the idea that sex should be fulfilling and satisfying. But no one that I knew of in Christian circles was teaching about the Kama Sutra. Also, there didn't seem to be much of a notion of fun. And no notion of fantasy. So there was no way to really talk about it as such. No experimentation.


And then there is pornography. There's a lot I could say about pornography. I can feel myself getting distracted from whatever point I was trying to make. So anyway. Here goes.


The first pornography I remember using was, I guess, stuff that my dad had cached away under the bed. At least if it wasn't his it was my brothers or my mums. Maybe a lot of people's first experience of pornography in those days was from unintentional parents. There were no videos, DVDs or Internet. No sex on TV to speak of. Just magazines.


The magazines were all "soft". But they added to the pleasure of masturbation. I've read and heard that men tend to enjoy the visual stimulation offered by porn in a way that doesn't so much appeal to many women.


A few years later as a student I remember realising one day ... hey ... I am 18 ... I can buy this stuff for myself. And so I did.


Soon after that I was Born Again. I remember praying about masturbation. Well ... what I really mean is praying and asking if masturbation was wrong. It would have been round about then that I discovered these words in Matthew 5:28,


But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.


That, as the saying goes, seemed to put the kibosh on masturbation and pornography in one fell swoop.


But it didn't really. It just marked the beginning of a struggle for me.


A feeling inside of me that it was wrong. And yet an inability to stop. Occasional masturbation. Occasional use of pornography. A sense of guilt. Of shame. Of sinfulness. A need to keep it secret. A fear of discovery.


Every so often I'd perform a purge. I borrowed this term from a t-girl that I chatted with once in Portsmouth. She asked if I'd been through a purge - feeling so bad about things that all things girlie go into the bin.


Well, at regular intervals all things pornographic were purged.


But only for a while.


I remember a time as a student. I was staying at a place where three of us shared a room. All strangers to each other.


I got back one night and discovered one of my magazines on the bed rather than under it.


I'd never really had a "holier than thou" kind of an attitude about Christianity. But people knew about my beliefs. That I went to church. If you've ever had the feeling of your stomach dropping through the floor, you know how I felt as I walked into that room.


My first response was to head for the landlady and ask her if she knew who's magazine it was. Inside I felt like I just wanted to disappear.


A few days later one of the guys asked me if I'd managed to find out who's magazine it was. I'd decided by then to just come clean. I told him it was mine. I don't remember what else I said.


I read stuff as that explained why from a Christian perspective all things pornographic are sinful and evil. It was about devaluing women. Lust. Abuse. The use of pornography was a sickness ... maybe even a manifestation of demons ... a thing to be healed from ... a thing to be cast out.


And yet ... I cared about people. I wanted to help other people. I loved other people. I just used porn and kept it a secret.


A part of me thought that marriage would be a cure me. But it didn't.


I'm not sure exactly when my wife found out.


In an ironic kind of way I think it was maybe when we first moved into a house together. The previous occupant had left some furniture and, stuck beneath one of the drawers was a magazine.


I think my wife was sure that it was mine. But we didn't talk about it. Just got rid of it.


In fact it wasn't mine - I was more careful about hiding places.


But a person can't hide something like that all of the time.


Sometimes she would find things and ask me about them. But I wouldn't talk about it.


I've spoken to t-girls that have been discovered dressing by unknowing partners. These girls have vowed to never do it again. And yet ... having purged for a while ... it comes back. I know people that have partners that have learned to accept this. And others that have separated.


I think it comes back because for many people being a t-girl isn't an illness. It's not something to cure. It's about how a person is. It's about who a person is. To purge it completely would be to lose a part of yourself.


So ... is pornography like that? I suspect not. But it fills a need somewhere. In my own case I think it's maybe associated with never really sharing fantasies. Not feeling comfortable about talking sex.


Other things that come to mind are conflicting levels of sexual need. My appetite for orgasm is daily. My wife's has never really been more than weekly. And she is comfortable with the concept of celibacy.


As a child my wife was the subject of sexual abuse. That has sometimes made the experience of sex uncomfortable. My use of pornography hasn't helped her. And we didn't talk about these things until many years into our marriage.


At times I justify myself to myself. The masturbation and the pornography fulfil a need that is a part of me. They provide a way of satisfying needs without making impositions. They provide a release of some kind.


God, though, there are times when I see a scene in a film that fill me with a sense of emptiness because I don't remember it happening for almost longer than I can remember. The scenes were a wife grabs a hold of her husband urgently and ... well ... I don't need to get too graphic really. I guess that it isn't just a fiction that happens in films. I know it has happened to me ... but it's one of those far off memories. Like something you remember from your childhood and you wonder ... do I really remember that or did someone tell me about it? To not have to make the first move. To feel as though it was something that she wanted. In a way I feel like I want to give such a lot more than I receive and yet mostly have only ever had the chance to take.


I remember one time a minister at church invited me to a service at a church a few miles away.


Afterwards he asked if I hadn't felt like going forward when there was an offer to pray for healing for people.


Of course, he hadn't had a divine word of knowledge. Just a chat with his wife, who had chatted with my wife.


After that there were prayers. A purge. I read a book that explained why pornography was so wrong. How it led to child abuse. Destroyed people. Ruined lives.


It remained purged for a while.

I talked things over with my wife.


In a sense though perhaps this marked the beginning of the end of my close association with the church. I couldn't go on forever keeping it secret. And really, deep down, I didn't really believe it to be a sickness that required healing. Not in the sense that Christians seemed to believe. And it wasn't an acceptable form of behaviour within a church. Just like Andrea ... a kind of an abomination.

Since that time my wife and I have talked more. We've faced up to some of it. Other things happened that caused a lot of pain. There were real struggles.

In a lot of ways my wife and I have a better understanding of and acceptance of each other than we have ever had before.

Sexually we are not so close as we were. But in almost every other respect we are closer. It's a better place to be. But ... I do miss the sex. A lot. More than a lot.

So ... where am I now? How do I see pornography? Transvestism? Christianity?


The Born Again evangelicalism is mostly a memory. I don't think I could ever go back there. Not just because of the fact that I use porn or that I am a t-girl. I also find it hard to believe.


I've embraced the fact that I am a transvestite. I'm not ashamed of it. It doesn't frighten me. At times it's a bit of a nuisance ... but so is the more masculine part of me.


The pornography isn't quite so easy.


The anti-pornography stuff that I've read seems to be composed of half truths, perhapses and sometimeses.


Pornography can, but doesn't inevitably, lead to abuse.


Users of pornography might, but do not inevitably, view women as objects. They do not inevitably view women as lesser beings. They do not inevitably just use women. Actually I suspect that an honest historical analysis might reveal that excessive religion was more likely to do this.


The pornography industry isn't exclusively about the degradation of women, nor is it totally made up of women that feel used and abused and preyed upon. Granted, that there are times and places where this is the case. But it is not inevitably so. No more than it is inevitable that every kitchen knife be used as a murder weapon.

I don't believe that people that use porn are just a small minority. The average newsagent seems to have a much better variety of porn magazines than magazines about TV, golf, computers, football, religion ... than almost anything. And there are an enormous number of web pages devoted to it.

I'd rather experience real sex than masturbate and use porn. But, having said that, both of these things help satisfy a need in me that I believe to be natural.

So, in the end I guess I have to say that I'm at a position with this where I don't feel guilt or shame about it. Like the the fact that I'm a t-girl, it's not something I'm planning on shouting out from the mountaintops. But neither will I hang my head in shame any more.

And ... is it art? Well ... maybe sometimes. Really ... it's what a person makes of it. But personally speaking I don't frame it and hang it on the wall.