Me, overcompensate?
Most of the other transguys that I know personally are pretty mellow and don't seem overly aggressive or insecure about their masculinity. Online, I've encountered some FTMs who are just total jacked-up pricks and are very combatative and argumentative. Were they like that before transitioning and the testosterone just made it worse? Do they have a "short guy" Napoleon complex? (I'm 5'9", so I don't.) Maybe they're reveling in the fact that they simply *can* be a dick, and are no longer expected, as a woman, to be nice and avoid conflict. The most obvious and reductivist interpretation is that they're defensive about their masculinity and compensating for their lack of a standard issue phallus and cojones, and I don't believe it's that simple.
However, I have to admit that sometimes I find myself trying to prove my masculinity a little harder than I really need to. This weekend (appropos of my last post) I got in an online pissing match with a guy over an eBay item. Dumb, I know, but he challenged me and I felt like I had to defend myself. After it was resolved, I couldn't bring myself to say anything remotely apologetic to the guy because I didn't want to seem like I was backing down.
Then the other night I was at a party and some people started arm wrestling. At first the matches were all girls against girls, because the party was mostly queer women, with about a dozen trans guys and maybe two bio guys. I guess I wanted to show off, but it didn't seem right to challenge a woman. So I challenged the bigger of the bio guys. Yeah, smart move. We were deadlocked in the first round for several minutes until I called a draw. Then we switched to left arms and he flattened me and just about dislocated my shoulder in the process.
I don't think I impressed anybody with my studly display, although one woman looking on commented that she could feel her testosterone levels rising vicariously. And I've never gone in for that "Fight Club" mano-a-mano B.S. But it was kind of a rush. And I've been hitting the gym harder than ever since then, to the point of further injuring myself.
The thing is, you can build yourself up as much as you want, and you can puff your chest out as much as you want, but there's always going to be somebody who's bigger and stronger than you. And there's always going to be someone with a bigger dick, literally or figuratively. In either case, you've just got to try to do the best you can with what you've got.
However, I have to admit that sometimes I find myself trying to prove my masculinity a little harder than I really need to. This weekend (appropos of my last post) I got in an online pissing match with a guy over an eBay item. Dumb, I know, but he challenged me and I felt like I had to defend myself. After it was resolved, I couldn't bring myself to say anything remotely apologetic to the guy because I didn't want to seem like I was backing down.
Then the other night I was at a party and some people started arm wrestling. At first the matches were all girls against girls, because the party was mostly queer women, with about a dozen trans guys and maybe two bio guys. I guess I wanted to show off, but it didn't seem right to challenge a woman. So I challenged the bigger of the bio guys. Yeah, smart move. We were deadlocked in the first round for several minutes until I called a draw. Then we switched to left arms and he flattened me and just about dislocated my shoulder in the process.
I don't think I impressed anybody with my studly display, although one woman looking on commented that she could feel her testosterone levels rising vicariously. And I've never gone in for that "Fight Club" mano-a-mano B.S. But it was kind of a rush. And I've been hitting the gym harder than ever since then, to the point of further injuring myself.
The thing is, you can build yourself up as much as you want, and you can puff your chest out as much as you want, but there's always going to be somebody who's bigger and stronger than you. And there's always going to be someone with a bigger dick, literally or figuratively. In either case, you've just got to try to do the best you can with what you've got.
posted by The Dickless Dude at 12:34 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home