Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Androgyny

Written 15 December, 2009

Androgyny

The other day, while exploring, I saw this androgynous avatar.


It brought to mind a skin maker I read about a long time ago-- Toshiya Okawa, who operates Androgyne Style on the eXceSs sim.

Lacking anything constructive to do. I teleported there.

The building was interesting, I remembered from my prior visit. It still was.


The skins lean far to the feminine side of the gender dichotomy.

Here I am in my own skin.


And here I am in one of Toshi's hermaphrodite skins.


The skins are unfortunately named...
 

Hermaphrodite has long been considered a derogatory term for intersexed persons-- persons born in a state intermediate between male and female. Intersex would have been a much better choice.

The term intersex has officially been replaced with the also derogatory Disorders of Sexual Development... and boy, are intersex activists pissed. They don't considered themselves to have a disorder. They're just the way they are.

Personally, I think there should be a DSM diagnosis called Compulsive Medical Labeling of Variable Characteristics of Human Beings.

And I wish Toshiya Okawa would change the name of hir androgynous skin line.

And hir profile, which fairly sucks.

2 comments:

Kim Kestrel said...

Well, androgynous is NOT the same as hermaphroditic or intersex, which by the way is not the same thing at all, but used interchangeably sometimes by people who fail to learn basic terminology.

Cheyenne Palisades said...

Yeah, Kim, that's why I said the store had an unfortunate name for its skins. Unfortuntely, people like to sexualize intersexuality and transgender, both in SL and on Earth.

Or maybe the seller just doesn't understand the difference.