gender

"[T]he male .... tries to convince himself and women - he's succeeded best at convincing women - that the female function is to bear and raise children and relax, comfort and boost the egos of the male, that her function is such as to make her interchangeable with every other female. In actual fact, the female function is to relate, groove, love and be herself, irreplacable by anyone else; the male function is to produce sperm. We now have sperm banks."

"Yorick Brown: I'll ask the questions around here, Mad Maxine. Like...what the fuck is wrong with you people? Didn't you all lose fathers? Brothers? Friends?"

"Although wanting to be an individual, the male is scared of anything about him that's the slightest bit different from other men; it causes him to suspect he's not really a "Man," that he's passive and totally sexual, a highly upsetting suspicion. If other men are A and he's not, he must be not a man; he must be a fag. So he tries to affirm his "Manhood" by being like all the other men. Differentness in other men, as well as in himself, threatens him; it means they're fags, who he must, at all costs, avoid, so he tries to ensure that all other men conform."

"The male dares to be different to the degree that he accepts his passivity and his desire to be female, his fagginess. The farthest out male is the dragqueen, but he, although different from most men, is exactly like all other dragqueens; like the functionalist, he has an identity - a female; he tries to define all his troubles away - but still no individuality. Not completely convinced that he's a woman, highly insecure about being sufficiently female, he conforms compulsively to the man-made feminine stereotype, ending up as nothing but a bundle of stilted mannerisms."

"The male has a negative Midas Touch - everything he touches turns to shit."

"Women, in other words, don't have penis envy; men have pussy envy. When the male accepts his passivity, defines himself as a woman (Males as well as females think men are women and women are men), and becomes a transvestite he loses his desire to screw (or to do anything else, for that matter; he fulfills himself as a dragqueen) and gets his cock chopped off. He then derives a continuous diffuse sexual feeling from "being a woman." Screwing is, for a man, a defense against his desire to be female. Sex is, itself, a sublimation."

"To be sure he's a "Man," the male must see to it that the female be clearly a "Woman," the opposite of a "Man," that is, the female must act like a faggot. And Daddy's Girl, all of whose female instincts were tromped out of her when little, easily and obligingly adapts herself to the role."

"Every man, deep down, knows he's a worthless piece of shit."

"To call a man an animal is to flatter him; he's a machine, a walking dildo. It's often said that men use women. Use them for what? Surely not pleasure."

"The male is a biological accident: the y(male) gene is an incomplete x(female) gene, that is, has an incomplete set of chromosomes. In other words, the male is an incomplete female, a walking abortion.... To be male is to be deficient, emotionally limited; maleness is a deficiency disease and males are emotional cripples."

"The male is completely egocentric, trapped inside himself, incapable of empathizing or identifying with others, or love, friendship, affection or tenderness. He is a completely isolated unit, incapable of rapport with anyone. His responses are entirely visceral, not cerebral; his intelligence is a mere tool in the services of his drives and needs; he is incapable of mental passion, mental interaction; he can't relate to anything other than his own physical sensations. He is a half-dead, unresponsive lump, incapable of giving or receiving pleasure or happiness; consequently, he is at best an utter bore, an inoffensive blob, since only those capable of absorption in others can be charming."

"Eaten up with guilt, shame, fears and insecurities and obtaining, if he's lucky, a barely perceptible physical feeling, the male is, nonetheless, obsessed with screwing; he'll swim a river of snot, wade nostril-deep through a mile of vomit, if he thinks there'll be a friendly pussy awaiting him. He'll screw a woman he despises, any snaggle-toothed hag, and, further, pay for the opportunity. Why? Relieving physical tension isn't the answer, as masturbation suffices for that. It's not ego satisfaction; that doesn't explain screwing corpses and babies."

"The male is just a bundle of conditioned reflexes, is incapable of a mentally free response, is tied to his early conditioning, is determined completely by his past experiences. His earliest experiences are with his mother, and he is throughout his life tied to her. It never becomes completely clear to the male that he is not part of his mother, that he is him and she is her."

"It is now technically feasible to reproduce without the aid of males (or, for that matter, females) and to produce only females. We must begin immediately to do so. Retaining the male has not even the dubious purpose of reproduction."

"Completely egocentric, unable to relate, empathize or identify and consisting of a vast, pervasive, diffuse sexuality, the male is psychically passive. He hates his passivity, so he projects it onto women, defines the male as active, then sets out to prove that he is ("prove he's a Man"). His main means of attempting to prove it is screwing (Big Man with a Big Dick tearing off a Big Piece). Since he's attempting to prove an error, he must "prove" it again and again. Screwing, then, is a desperate, compulsive attempt to prove he's not passive, not a woman; but he is passive and does want to be a woman."

"Whatever they may be in public life, whatever their relations with men, in their relations with women, all men are rapists and that's all they are. They rape us with their eyes, their laws, and their codes."

"There is a widespread belief in India that hijras are born hermaphrodites [intersex] and are taken away by the hijra community at birth or in childhood, but I found no evidence to support this belief among the hijras I met, all of whom joined the community voluntarily, often in their teens."

"Last night I was seriously considering whether I was a bisexual or not but I don’t think so though I’m not sure if I’d like to be and argh I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, if you like a person, you like the person, not their genitals."

"Weirder and more contemplative than many of its time-traveling brethren, Predestination is a stylish head trip. It also marks Australian actor Snook as one to watch, as she demonstrates some serious gender-bending range."

"A lot of kids are bullied because of their sexual identity or expression. It's often the effeminate boys and the masculine girls, the ones who violate gender norms and expectations, who get bullied."

"There are also third-sex citizens, sometimes greatly attached to one another and with complete faith in one another, who get married together."

"A male child is produced by a greater quantity of male seed, a female child by the prevalence of the female; if both are equal, a third-sex child [napumsaka] or boy and girl twins are produced; if either are weak or deficient in quantity, a failure of conception results."

"We may take advantage of this pause in the narrative to make certain statements. Orlando had become a woman — there is no denying it. But in every other respect, Orlando remained precisely as he had been. The change of sex, though it altered their future, did nothing whatever to alter their identity. Their faces remained, as their portraits prove, practically the same. His memory — but in future we must, for convention’s sake, say ‘her’ for ‘his,’ and ‘she’ for ‘he’— her memory then, went back through all the events of her past life without encountering any obstacle. Some slight haziness there may have been, as if a few dark drops had fallen into the clear pool of memory; certain things had become a little dimmed; but that was all. The change seemed to have been accomplished painlessly and completely and in such a way that Orlando herself showed no surprise at it. Many people, taking this into account, and holding that such a change of sex is against nature, have been at great pains to prove (1) that Orlando had always been a woman, (2) that Orlando is at this moment a man. Let biologists and psychologists determine. It is enough for us to state the simple fact; Orlando was a man till the age of thirty; when he became a woman and has remained so ever since."

"Here we show that sexual fate is also surprisingly labile in the testis: loss of the DMRT1 transcription factor 3 in mouse Sertoli cells, even in adults, activates Foxl2 and reprograms Sertoli cells into granulosa cells. In this environment, theca cells form, oestrogen is produced and germ cells appear feminized."

"All I know is this: he went out for his walk a man and came home female."

"The eyes were the same. But in the shocking V of the shirt were breasts. When he uttered my name in a woman’s voice I passed out."

"... the concept of effeminacy is employed throughout the Iliad in order to create an ‘other’ against which epic masculinity can be defined. Although the presentation of the effeminised male (hypothetical oractual) is often ambiguous and multifaceted, an examination of effeminacy and masculine ‘otherness’, within the context of the gender dynamics of the epic, has important implications for an understanding of the construction of masculinity."

"There is a definite prejudice towards men who use femininity as part of their palate; their emotional palate, their physical palate. Is that changing? It’s changing in ways that don’t advance the cause of femininity. I’m not talking frilly-laced pink things or Hello Kitty stuff. I’m talking about goddess energy, intuition and feelings. That is still under attack, and it has gotten worse."

"A Iliad poem Αh me! You boasters, you women, no longer men, of Achaia! Indeed this will be a matter for reproach, and shameful above all shame,if none of the Danaans will now go face to face against Hektor."

"The avoidance of effeminacy by men, including gay ones, has been linked to possible impedence of personal and public health. Regarding AIDS, masculine behavior was stereotyped as being unconcerned about safe sex practices while engaging in promiscuous behavior. Earlier reports had reported from New York City indicated that that more women had themselves tested for AIDS than men."

"It is a common observation, that the more solicitous any people are about dress, the more effeminate they are."

"An effeminate education weakens both the mind and the body."

"A lot of kids are bullied because of their sexual identity or expression. It's often the effeminate boys and the masculine girls, the ones who violate gender norms and expectations, who get bullied."

"Actualised or hypothetical effeminacy is constructed in the Iliad in order to define, by contrast, a ‘proper’ masculinity, founded on concepts of martial fortitude and civic responsibility, thoroughly antithetical to the ‘other’ which the effeminised male symbolizes."

"Judgement of what constitutes ‘effeminacy’ will, of course, be shaped by his or her culturally established views on gender roles. And, as is true for beauty, while one’s notions of masculinity and femininity may be culturally proscribed, ultimately any judgement as to what is beautiful or what is effeminate will be made on the basis of not only one’s surrounding culture or cultures but, subjectively, on the basis of complex internal factors, both conscious and unconscious."

"In Korea, where beautiful male pop icons are now commonly referred to as kkonminam (kkot= flower; minam= handsome man), Korean male beauty has, by any standard of judgement, taken on a distinctly effeminate quality."

"...the effeminacy of the inhabitants of Bengal not only became more widespread and virulent, but also acquired a more specific meaning in the late nineteenth century sterotype of the ‘effeminate Bengali babu.’ If in the past effeminacy loosely characterized all the inhabitants of Bengal, in the second half of the century it was used quite specifically to characterize the Indian middle class, or a section of this class identified as babus. In Bengal itself, therefore, effeminacy came to be associated with a small percentage of the total population."

"Today’s young woman is very unlikely to be looking for a man who is as effeminate as she, or whose sexual orientation is in question."

"Those who are born of parents broken with old age, or of such as are not yet ripe or are too young, or of drunkards, soft or effeminate men, want a great and liberal ingenuity or wit."

"I'm all for guys being butch and guys being men. I identify with that and appreciate that. But if I'm going to stab my gay brother in the back who isn't butch and who maybe acts a little bit more effeminate, what good is that?"

"The female body played an important role in signaling effeminacy; effeminate sensuality could be expressed either through consorting with woman or imitating them through adopting traditionally feminine modes of dress or appearance. Although largely used to describe men effeminacy, interestingly enough, could also apply to women who did not live to an expected standard of feminity. Given its range of meanings effeminacy, by the mid eighteenth century acted as a “civilization’s barometer"."

"Effeminacy comes from the Latin ex which is "out," and femina which means woman; it means "to be like a woman." The Latin term is mollities, meaning "softness”."

"Men do indeed speak ill of those occupations which are called handicrafts, and they are rightly held of little repute in communities, because they weaken the bodies of those who make their living at them by compelling them to sit and pass their days indoors. Some indeed work all the time by a fire. But when the body becomes effeminate (thelunomenos) the mind too is debilitated. Besides, these mechanical occupations (banausos) leave a man no leisure to attend to his friends' interests, or the public interest. This class therefore cannot be of much use to his friends or defend his country. Indeed, some states, especially the most warlike, do not allow a citizen to engage in these handicraft occupations."

"Many Scottish writers [however] against the background of the Napoleonic wars, began to disparage this characteristic, and imputed effeminacy to Hinduism, conceptualizing the difference between effeminate Hindus and valiant (and virtuous) Muslims."

"The masculine virtues of Rome were mirrored by the literal emasculation of a cadre of eunuchs in its political and social decline, as the use and value of those effeminate slaves gradually rose with the decline of the empire. Eunuchs were a final luxuriant import from the reign of Elagabalus, when Rome was at length humbled beneath the effeminate luxury of Oriental despotism."

"People don't know where to place me. Terry Gilliam used me as a quirky cop in 'Twelve Monkeys', and then he hired me again to be an effeminate hotel clerk in 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'. Another time, I was shooting this indie film 'The Souler Opposite' and six days a week, I'm playing this big puppy dog, then I come to the 'NYPD Blue' set and become this scumbag."

"In a slothfull peace both courages will effeminate, and manners corrupt."

"Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God."

"In Amazon societies, women were mothers and their society's only warriors; mothers and their society's only hunters; mothers and their society's only political and religious leaders. No division of labor based on sex seems to have existed in such societies. Although Amazon leaders existed and queens were elected, the societies seem to have been...ones in which any woman could aspire to and achieve full human expression."

"Survival is the characteristic property of power. To those who think I am suggesting that we have a war between the sexes, I say: but we've always had one...Should or can there be a single standard of behavior for both sexes? Is there such a thing as a biologically rooted female culture that should remain separate from male culture, partly because it is different than or superior to male culture?"