Self-Organizing Man

A Taste of FtM Drama

July 19, 2005 – 11:27 am

Buck Angel writes on his blog about the controversy he has stirred up over at Nick’s site, The Transitional Male by being out and proud about his pussy on a Playboy’s Sexcetera.

Apparently more than a few of Nick’s readers think Buck’s open and honest discussion and depiction of his pussy represents FtMs in a bad light.

We’ve heard this one before, folks.  That as the only out FtM in the porno industry (or television or publishing or whatever) Buck is obligated to represent the FtM community in a positive light.

Good luck!

Such a position suggests that Buck should be responsible for how others feel or think about him or that he is somehow obligated to behave in a certain way to satisfy the needs of others.

About 18 months ago a recently out trans person insisted that I should "quit passing" and "come out." 

"You’re very successful and attractive and people need to see you."  When I told him I did not have time to get involved with the causes he felt important, he later declared that I was not political "enough."

Why should I or Buck be responsible for other people’s thoughts, feelings and wishes?  Buck has a pussy and loves it and does not want a phalloplasty.  He is not saying other FtMs should love their pussy.  He’s not saying other FtMs should not have a phalloplasty.  He is saying he thinks phalloplasty surgery " IN MY OPINION, SUCKS. This is just my opinion."

Truth be told, most FtMs agree in private the surgery sucks and is dangerous and costly.  But get us in public and we clamor for penises.  Talking to the public about how incomplete we feel without a functioning penis just makes us look pathetic, I think.   In private we scoff at "Frakendicks" but in public we act like lapdogs who haven’t been fed in two years.

What gets lost in these fights over public personas is the larger questions about why we are having these conversations in the first place.  Why do some non-public FtMs and others have such an investment in Buck’s behavior, or even mine?  What do they get out of having people behave in certain ways?

What also gets lost is our past.  Doctors and bureaucrats and schools did not embrace us when we came out as transsexuals.  There is absolutely nothing normative about transsexuality, ever.  We have to fight hard and often to get hormones, fair treatment, jobs.  Any sense of personal safety feels like manna. 

Yet Buck mentions his pussy, and we don’t want That. We don’t discuss What is Down There.  Alot of us don’t touch it, go near it, think about it and shrink when we see it.  Then we become the Normative Police, forgetting all the crap we’ve gone through to get to a place where we are men with Something Down There.  No, we are Normal FtMs running some mythical PR campaign for a brighter FtM future for tomorrow.

Whatever.  Today interests me more.  What Buck does for me is encourage me to follow my dreams.  What he does even more is relax a tremendous amount of shame I have around my pussy (and I hesitate to write the word, which suggests I still have a tremendous amount of work to do). Buck reflects back to me a strong, sexy man, who likes sex. 

Buck makes it okay for me to be me.  We will probably never do the all the same things sexually, but his possibilities help me relax into mine.

In the end policing Buck’s public persona won’t get me or any FtM whatever it is we think we want.  Rather than trying to reprimand him for liking his pussy, we need to push for more image of us everywhere, more often.

As Buck writes near the end of his rebuttal, "[this work]…isn’t all easy or pleasant, but it is worthwhile."

Will we spend our time trying to become something that has never existed - that perfect pie-in-the-sky FtM - or will we manifest our energies in the sometimes difficult, but always worthwhile, activities of personal responsibility, freedom, committment?  We will get stuck in the rut of the Mythic FtM or find ways to be more compassionate and inclusive of all kinds of FtMs?