Faux Whore

Something about this blog rubs me the wrong way, like fingernails on chalkboard. Yet I find I can't look away. This says everything about me, and nothing about the author.

I think the feeling is akin to watching a cringe-inducing movie about the insecurities of being in junior high. We've all been there - and so the scenes cause discomfort because they hit so close to home.

Faux Whore, Magdelyn, I was there 10 years ago. Heck, I was there 5 years ago. I had a good 5 year run in between. Most of the "true", (but embellished, altered and conflated), back-stories on this blog are from that once seemingly endless period of my life. I guess the fact I'm still writing about it all says something in itself - am I still fascinated with the life of my former self? Or am I hoping to make epiphanies now that distance allows self-reflection?

I used to think that being a crossdressing party-girl night-crawler who explored the dark nooks and crannies of the city's teeming underground - in "his" spare time - was the best I could hope for as a young semi-closeted transperson. It was a very 1970's Lou Reed/New York take on my gender variance.
I had so much self-doubt in my gender identity because I saw a ring of truth in all those now politically incorrect ideas like "Transsexual Empire" and "autogynephilia". After all, I was a horny chronic masturbating self-objectifying scantily clad easy lay of a transvestite who hung out with drug users and S&M practitioners and orgy organizers, and I had a sharp line between my male and female personas. How could I possibly be a "real" woman?

Eventually I discovered the exit, and came to realize that my problem was that I didn't dream big enough, I didn't give society, history, nature, or myself enough credit. Or maybe I was just a decade too early, and we've actually had significant social change and political awareness in the past 10 years. I credit third wave feminism, cutting edge trans activism and books like "Whipping Girl" for expanding the idea of what a "real" woman is, to the point I felt embraced. Say what you will about those things, but they helped me personally, with real consequences. Perhaps they even saved my life.

Now that I've had my fill of all that, and time has created distance, education has raised consciousness, and hormones have changed my inner and outer realities, I'm on the verge of slipping quietly into capitalist professional empowered womanhood, with a career, the love and support of family and friends, and the trappings of liberal yuppiedom. I'm not saying I'm more evolved or mature or civilized now, just in a different place. It was fun while I was there, but I couldn't stay there forever. I live in the daylight now, rather than at night. I'm a teetotaler who goes to bed early, and puts her health and safety above most other considerations. My biggest 'vice' is that sometimes I spend too much time writing here in this fantasy blog.

So it's both painful and fascinating to see someone else go through what for me turned out to be a 5 year phase - and in some of the very same haunts. Not all the details are the same. But there are enough similarities to be like finding an old picture of yourself at 12 with zits and bad hair... or like a car wreck you can't look away from.

I'll be popping the popcorn over here and waiting eagerly for the next installment.