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On Identity
Nov. 19th, 2013 10:58 pm A couple of things have prompted me to write about my identities - or rather two of them. Tonight; on being a (cis)woman, and being an Aunty.
My ear piercings have partially healed up. At one time I had 6 ear piercings. I took the two catilidge ones out year ago - when I took out my eyebrow and bellybutton ones at 19-ish. But my first ear piercings, the ones that were nice and standard, with a gun, smack bang in middle of lobes, they mean more. I have acquired a sensitivity to most metals which means my lobes turn green within about 2 hours of putting earrings in, and wearing necklaces gives me a rash - not being able to find surgical grade titanium meant I just stopped wearing earrings...ever. It's been about 8 years since I wore earrings more than once a year.
I was 13. It was the youngest age you were allowed to get your ears pierced at the local hair salon. It was £13 with gold earrings and aftercare solution. I went with my two best friends. My Mum drove us. I remember looking in the mirror in the sun visor of the passenger side seat thinking "this is the last time my ear lobes will look like this, this is the last time they will be untouched". Funny, the things you remember.
I manipulated the situation so I didn't have to go first - Lucy went first, then me, then Claire. They gave us the aftercare solution when we paid and Lucy asked the receptionist what would happen if she drank it, and the receptionist looked shocked and embarassed, and I replied "you'd die! Now come on and pay" and felt embarassed too. Lucy made me feel that way often at that age, as an adult with hindsight I'm sad I was so young, so unable to reply as I would now.
I remember my Mum telling me when I was 9 or so that her ear piercings never healed up when she didn't wear earrings because she'd had them so long. Having my ears pierced felt like an important step to womanhood, an induction. It's funny, my Mum never did - I remember her hugging me when I had my pants round my ankles after I'd just discovered my first period and her telling me, with a bit of a crack in her voice, that I was a woman now. Bleeding or not bleeding has never contributed to my sense of womanhood. Having my ears pierced has, oddly.
Someone I know on facebook posted one of those awful 'inspirational text over a photo background' things. But this one gave me pause. It said an Aunt was someone who supported and loved a child without the conditions and trials of parenthood - or in essence it did. I've been an Aunt since I was 13. I am an Aunt 3 times over now, soon to be 4 times over. But I don't have any real connection to my nephews. My eldest nephew has just turned 16, his parents - my brother and his mother - divorced when he was 2 and although I've been there in principle, I've more often *not* been there thanks to uni, and also his living with his mother. He's not a person I think is great - I think the influences of his mother's brother and his mother's new husband (who, incidentally, is the same age as me and went to school with me) are negative - they encourage the 'laddish' in him and frankly in the past few years I've seen techniques I'd describe as bullying to get him conform to their attitudes - attitudes my brother has never been involved enough to refute but categorically would have. As such I have a borderline homophobic, laddish, sexist, cocky nephew with whom I no longer have any real connection.
My other two nephews are through my other, youngest brother (the youngest of my three brothers, still 10 years older than me) - in some ways that brother is like my eldest nephew - the influences in his life were from his mother and her partner and were never in line with the liberal, inclusive perspectives which shaped me. So a few years ago when I cut him out of my life that was inevitable, but he still has a 11 year old stepson and a 2 year old bio-son. Both of whom call me Aunty. But the influences he and his partner are inflicting on them not only are against me, as queer woman, they are against my friends - people of colour, trans people, economic and political migrants. So when their daughter is born next month, my Dad will be pleased in a vacuum where me, my Mum, and my other two brothers have only apathy toward the news, and I will be an Aunty for the fourth time.
I imagine, one day, one of my nephews or nieces realising they are queer, or finding themselves in a mixed-race or mixed-cultural relationship and them coming to find me, and us bonding. But it's a fantasy. The real picture is them growing up in their parents image, and hating people exactly like me, and generally like me, but making an exception - an exception they don't even recognise as inconsistent with their other abhorrent views - making an exception for me, their queer Aunt who sometimes goes out with people who aren't white (youngest brother didn't speak to me for 3 months when he found out the girl I was going out with was black) and has friends who are the kind of immigrants they abuse and want the BNP to send 'home'.
No, I don't love my nephews and nieces unconditionally, but I hope I'll be there to love them if their parents can't.
My ear piercings have partially healed up. At one time I had 6 ear piercings. I took the two catilidge ones out year ago - when I took out my eyebrow and bellybutton ones at 19-ish. But my first ear piercings, the ones that were nice and standard, with a gun, smack bang in middle of lobes, they mean more. I have acquired a sensitivity to most metals which means my lobes turn green within about 2 hours of putting earrings in, and wearing necklaces gives me a rash - not being able to find surgical grade titanium meant I just stopped wearing earrings...ever. It's been about 8 years since I wore earrings more than once a year.
I was 13. It was the youngest age you were allowed to get your ears pierced at the local hair salon. It was £13 with gold earrings and aftercare solution. I went with my two best friends. My Mum drove us. I remember looking in the mirror in the sun visor of the passenger side seat thinking "this is the last time my ear lobes will look like this, this is the last time they will be untouched". Funny, the things you remember.
I manipulated the situation so I didn't have to go first - Lucy went first, then me, then Claire. They gave us the aftercare solution when we paid and Lucy asked the receptionist what would happen if she drank it, and the receptionist looked shocked and embarassed, and I replied "you'd die! Now come on and pay" and felt embarassed too. Lucy made me feel that way often at that age, as an adult with hindsight I'm sad I was so young, so unable to reply as I would now.
I remember my Mum telling me when I was 9 or so that her ear piercings never healed up when she didn't wear earrings because she'd had them so long. Having my ears pierced felt like an important step to womanhood, an induction. It's funny, my Mum never did - I remember her hugging me when I had my pants round my ankles after I'd just discovered my first period and her telling me, with a bit of a crack in her voice, that I was a woman now. Bleeding or not bleeding has never contributed to my sense of womanhood. Having my ears pierced has, oddly.
Someone I know on facebook posted one of those awful 'inspirational text over a photo background' things. But this one gave me pause. It said an Aunt was someone who supported and loved a child without the conditions and trials of parenthood - or in essence it did. I've been an Aunt since I was 13. I am an Aunt 3 times over now, soon to be 4 times over. But I don't have any real connection to my nephews. My eldest nephew has just turned 16, his parents - my brother and his mother - divorced when he was 2 and although I've been there in principle, I've more often *not* been there thanks to uni, and also his living with his mother. He's not a person I think is great - I think the influences of his mother's brother and his mother's new husband (who, incidentally, is the same age as me and went to school with me) are negative - they encourage the 'laddish' in him and frankly in the past few years I've seen techniques I'd describe as bullying to get him conform to their attitudes - attitudes my brother has never been involved enough to refute but categorically would have. As such I have a borderline homophobic, laddish, sexist, cocky nephew with whom I no longer have any real connection.
My other two nephews are through my other, youngest brother (the youngest of my three brothers, still 10 years older than me) - in some ways that brother is like my eldest nephew - the influences in his life were from his mother and her partner and were never in line with the liberal, inclusive perspectives which shaped me. So a few years ago when I cut him out of my life that was inevitable, but he still has a 11 year old stepson and a 2 year old bio-son. Both of whom call me Aunty. But the influences he and his partner are inflicting on them not only are against me, as queer woman, they are against my friends - people of colour, trans people, economic and political migrants. So when their daughter is born next month, my Dad will be pleased in a vacuum where me, my Mum, and my other two brothers have only apathy toward the news, and I will be an Aunty for the fourth time.
I imagine, one day, one of my nephews or nieces realising they are queer, or finding themselves in a mixed-race or mixed-cultural relationship and them coming to find me, and us bonding. But it's a fantasy. The real picture is them growing up in their parents image, and hating people exactly like me, and generally like me, but making an exception - an exception they don't even recognise as inconsistent with their other abhorrent views - making an exception for me, their queer Aunt who sometimes goes out with people who aren't white (youngest brother didn't speak to me for 3 months when he found out the girl I was going out with was black) and has friends who are the kind of immigrants they abuse and want the BNP to send 'home'.
No, I don't love my nephews and nieces unconditionally, but I hope I'll be there to love them if their parents can't.