Fun (Warning: Not Entirely PG)
So today I’m having a blast googling Trans Pride buttons.
I just finished having a really “fun” medical procedure (pelvic ultrasound, rah rah rah) and was having some difficulties reining in my sense of humor during it. Those of you who’ve had one know what I’m talking about here... and in my case the gender juxtapositions made it even funnier, like some weird porno flick involving a camera, cold lube and a big stick. When it was done, I wanted to ask the dominatrix - excuse me, I mean, the lab technician - if it was good for her, too, and maybe offer her a cigarette.
I’m also remembering that I once actually did that during a very silly Beltaine ritual, following the symbolic performance (the athame-and-chalice version) of the Great Rite. Ironically, my co-ritualist later came out to me as being Trans... which makes me think, dammit, I knew we should have done it the other way ‘round...
Sorry... but moments like that just plain bring out the comic in me, and always have. I laugh a lot about this stuff. There’s a lot to laugh about.
Not that it isn’t also very deeply serious... we’re talking soul-deep. But that only gives me more reason to laugh. Who was it who said that all tragedy is really unrecognized comedy, that God is the greatest unsung humorist ever?
I’ve always liked that bit in Heinlein’s Stranger In A Strange Land where Mike figures out laughter. He invites his companion to come up with a genuinely funny joke in which there isn’t some sort of hurt involved, whether large or small - some sort of “wrongness” - from embarrassing verbal misunderstandings to physical harm. Of course she can’t - because (he explains) the real essence of humor is the act of laughing in the face of tragedy. We laugh because this is a screwy world and humans are pretty screwy too, and we’re stuck with it, whatever it may throw at us, and stuck with ourselves, too.
I think there’s a lot of truth in that. And so I have to admit that I find my situation rather hilarious at times. I’m not sure what people make of that, but there it is.
So today I find myself sitting in the hospital lobby, pondering all the jokes I didn’t make. (What, for someone in my position, is a reasonable answer to the statement, “I couldn’t find your right ovary”? I’m leaning toward, “Terrific! Now if you could please NOT find my left one too, we’re in business!”) And the hospital has free wifi, so as I ponder, I’m looking at buttons (and t-shirts and stickers, oh my).
What I was originally looking for was something to make light of the whole pronoun thing, to wear next to my name button at church. What I found was a treasure-trove of both crude and high-toned comedy around the experience and perception of being Trans... ranging from the predictable (“Transguys are hot” and “T-boys do it better”) to the unrestrainedly creative (my favorite is “Guess my gender! Win valuable prizes!”).
And it’s really, really good to know that this stuff is Out There. Because laughter not only defuses our own personal hurts, it can also help our culture itself heal from its fears.
A while back, I found myself trying to explain the old TV sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes” to someone who had never seen it. She was absolutely horrified that anyone would make a comedy show about a Nazi POW camp. It struck her as the most unbelivably insensitive and UN-funny thing that anyone could possibly do.
Now, in some ways, I agree - it would definitely be considered “not PC” today. It might be approached as “black humor,” but not as standard, full-on sitcom material. However, at the time, I suspect it served as a release of sorts for the lingering spectre of fear about those dark times. Just as some literary experts have suggested that those dark, scary old folk tales serve a purpose for children, by allowing them to meet their fears in a way that’s controllable, I’d guess that television and film function somewhat in this way for our society as a whole. (Think of all those post-nuclear-war films!)
“Hogan’s Heroes” essentially recast World War II into a fairy-tale theme, in which the good guys always beat the bumbling bad guys through superior cleverness, virtue, and luck... making the world feel safe again. Now, this can be both good and bad - good, because we can’t always live with fear over our shoulders; and bad, because for some it obscures the very real and serious nature of the threat, and of possible future similar threats. But whether for good or for ill, this stuff happens... societies get to a point at which they’ve processed the fear enough that they can begin to laugh at it. And that laughter is a sign that, to some extent, the bomb has been defused.
I remember reading somewhere that twenty years is about the usual time-frame for this defusing to take place. I’m not making any claims... but it’s interesting to note that the academic field of Transgender Studies has been around for, oh, about twenty years now.
For many who were raised in the Good Old Days, there has been an inherent “scariness” in the idea of people crossing gender boundaries, a sense that the order of the world has somehow been broken down. But laughter, and the release that it effects, can mend many broken things. And so I’m glad that we can laugh about it.
It IS pretty funny, after all... as well as being deeply serious, deadly serious. It’s a human thing, so it can be both at once. In fact, according to Robert Heinlein’s memorably human Martian, it almost HAS to be both at once.
So if someday you see me with a button proclaiming, “Man - Some Assembly Required” - go ahead and laugh. I assure you that I’ll be laughing too.
I just finished having a really “fun” medical procedure (pelvic ultrasound, rah rah rah) and was having some difficulties reining in my sense of humor during it. Those of you who’ve had one know what I’m talking about here... and in my case the gender juxtapositions made it even funnier, like some weird porno flick involving a camera, cold lube and a big stick. When it was done, I wanted to ask the dominatrix - excuse me, I mean, the lab technician - if it was good for her, too, and maybe offer her a cigarette.
I’m also remembering that I once actually did that during a very silly Beltaine ritual, following the symbolic performance (the athame-and-chalice version) of the Great Rite. Ironically, my co-ritualist later came out to me as being Trans... which makes me think, dammit, I knew we should have done it the other way ‘round...
Sorry... but moments like that just plain bring out the comic in me, and always have. I laugh a lot about this stuff. There’s a lot to laugh about.
Not that it isn’t also very deeply serious... we’re talking soul-deep. But that only gives me more reason to laugh. Who was it who said that all tragedy is really unrecognized comedy, that God is the greatest unsung humorist ever?
I’ve always liked that bit in Heinlein’s Stranger In A Strange Land where Mike figures out laughter. He invites his companion to come up with a genuinely funny joke in which there isn’t some sort of hurt involved, whether large or small - some sort of “wrongness” - from embarrassing verbal misunderstandings to physical harm. Of course she can’t - because (he explains) the real essence of humor is the act of laughing in the face of tragedy. We laugh because this is a screwy world and humans are pretty screwy too, and we’re stuck with it, whatever it may throw at us, and stuck with ourselves, too.
I think there’s a lot of truth in that. And so I have to admit that I find my situation rather hilarious at times. I’m not sure what people make of that, but there it is.
So today I find myself sitting in the hospital lobby, pondering all the jokes I didn’t make. (What, for someone in my position, is a reasonable answer to the statement, “I couldn’t find your right ovary”? I’m leaning toward, “Terrific! Now if you could please NOT find my left one too, we’re in business!”) And the hospital has free wifi, so as I ponder, I’m looking at buttons (and t-shirts and stickers, oh my).
What I was originally looking for was something to make light of the whole pronoun thing, to wear next to my name button at church. What I found was a treasure-trove of both crude and high-toned comedy around the experience and perception of being Trans... ranging from the predictable (“Transguys are hot” and “T-boys do it better”) to the unrestrainedly creative (my favorite is “Guess my gender! Win valuable prizes!”).
And it’s really, really good to know that this stuff is Out There. Because laughter not only defuses our own personal hurts, it can also help our culture itself heal from its fears.
A while back, I found myself trying to explain the old TV sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes” to someone who had never seen it. She was absolutely horrified that anyone would make a comedy show about a Nazi POW camp. It struck her as the most unbelivably insensitive and UN-funny thing that anyone could possibly do.
Now, in some ways, I agree - it would definitely be considered “not PC” today. It might be approached as “black humor,” but not as standard, full-on sitcom material. However, at the time, I suspect it served as a release of sorts for the lingering spectre of fear about those dark times. Just as some literary experts have suggested that those dark, scary old folk tales serve a purpose for children, by allowing them to meet their fears in a way that’s controllable, I’d guess that television and film function somewhat in this way for our society as a whole. (Think of all those post-nuclear-war films!)
“Hogan’s Heroes” essentially recast World War II into a fairy-tale theme, in which the good guys always beat the bumbling bad guys through superior cleverness, virtue, and luck... making the world feel safe again. Now, this can be both good and bad - good, because we can’t always live with fear over our shoulders; and bad, because for some it obscures the very real and serious nature of the threat, and of possible future similar threats. But whether for good or for ill, this stuff happens... societies get to a point at which they’ve processed the fear enough that they can begin to laugh at it. And that laughter is a sign that, to some extent, the bomb has been defused.
I remember reading somewhere that twenty years is about the usual time-frame for this defusing to take place. I’m not making any claims... but it’s interesting to note that the academic field of Transgender Studies has been around for, oh, about twenty years now.
For many who were raised in the Good Old Days, there has been an inherent “scariness” in the idea of people crossing gender boundaries, a sense that the order of the world has somehow been broken down. But laughter, and the release that it effects, can mend many broken things. And so I’m glad that we can laugh about it.
It IS pretty funny, after all... as well as being deeply serious, deadly serious. It’s a human thing, so it can be both at once. In fact, according to Robert Heinlein’s memorably human Martian, it almost HAS to be both at once.
So if someday you see me with a button proclaiming, “Man - Some Assembly Required” - go ahead and laugh. I assure you that I’ll be laughing too.
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