What does it truly mean to be "feminine"?

And what does it truly mean to be "masculine"? Surely theres more to being feminine and masculine than what our society generally portrays the gender roles as.

 

WOW !!!.......that is a really good question, Ive never thought about it before...Im gald you created this thread, Im going to have to give it some thought !!!!!

 

Good question, TreeFiddy.

Just to clarify: do you mean what it is to be masculine/feminine or what it is to be male/female?

 

Yes very good question!!
I'm taking it to mean masculine and feminine myself and will in due course talk about my experinces as a feminine guy, when I have time to do this thread justice!
S

 

Yea, I mean what it means to be masculine vs. feminine

 

Can we start with you, what are your views?
S

 

Hmmm well i don't really know...but I think its less mannerisms like hand gestures, or ways of speaking, or whether or not you're a "neat freak" or a total slob...but more just the way that you approach the world and take on life. Like perhaps a feminine person is more passive/receptive, while a masculine person is more active/agressive?

By this logic someone could be a very feminine person and still talk in a baritone voice and be a total slob, which are traits generally attibuted to masculine people.

 

Now, you'll have to understand that I'm shooting off the cuff here. I am writing from my mind formed by my experience. I had thought about looking up the definitions but figured if you wanted that you would have just googled the terms or gone to one of the many online reference sources.

Some of what I am stating below comes from what I have percieved from before my transition to this point now when i have been living as a female for close to two years, had HRT since May this year & am growing into being the woman that is in my soul. Also part of this is how differently people treat you in either gender or in between. Being percieved as female & treated as such you act more female. Same for F2M transgendered.
I have a good friend wyo is & compare feelings & experiences with him quite a bit.


It kind of breaks down into soft or hard. A female has a softer body, a male harder. The male's genital equipment becomes hard during sex. A male is more likely to have hard line felings where a female gives more leway to other's thoughts. Males typically emjoy 'harder" thngs like auto repair while a female will be more interested in something like sewing. Clkiche's? perhaps but my biggest hobby used to be tinkering with my Volkswagon. Poist transition, I just can't hate the thought of doing it & dread the day that I have to if it comes. I would much rather be designing some piece of clothing or cooking a lovely meal.

Also there is the giving & recieving thing... Not only during intercourse. The male typically persues the female. The usual courting rituals follow this.

Then there's the passive or agressive aspect. Hormones drive this so much it's just plain troubling to me that I used to have some of the traits. Last weekend two of my friends & I went out. One of them is a gay male & the other a hetero biological female. Something earlier in the day had made my girlfriend very mad. Our male friend had had a pretty good day. What she wanted to do was go dance I have been wanting to dance with them for quite a while now & he is open for any idea where he may find other GLBT people & can get a drink so we went to a great GLBT club here that has a DJ & dance floor. Through the night of dancing I could physically see her body relax as she worked off the anger through dancing. After closing was when we saw the effects of testosterone as he had found a guy who he was interested in & another guy came up to us & joined in the conversation. The new guy is hetero who got steered to the wrong bar but our gay friend didn't kno0w this & assumed that the new guy was trying o get in to the action that he had planned for hisw new friend. They rattled horns for a while & at one point my girlfriend & I felt that qe had to step in & ask them to not hurt each other. The boys backed off & we went on with conversation & Mr. Hetero started talking with my girlfriend.l The wierd thing to me came when our gay friend becane territoruial over my girlfriend. I suppose after all that I should state that we are girlfriends not in the sexual way. Just for clarificatioin & perhaps help give the nature of the picture. I had no cause for jealousy so I can't give my perspective.

We can always get into the other physical aspects but they don't necessarily fit like body hair. I have very many very male friends that can't grow leg hair & also females that have quite a bit of facial hair. It was interesting one day when I was in a check out line at the grocery store
feeling quite self conscious about my feminininity because I hadn't been aqble to put on my make-up that morning & an older woman in front of me had a thicker beard than I ever used to be able to grow.

One of the things that anyone that gets HRT for gender change is the diferences in emotions. I feel more in general now. My F2M friend less. I cry much easier & am able to expereince happiness so much mre. MNaybe the happiness is from finally being the person I am but I suspect that some of comes from the emotional aspect of being female.


RE

 

yeah I'm very emotional, yesterday we where discussing something online and I just wanted to burst into tears, I love colourful hippy flowing garments and wrap around skirts, I also wear eyeliner when I go out.
I will talk for hours on the phone, or give a listening eye to my friends and my female friends tend to think nothing of telling me their periods started and how bad it is this time- and it doesn't bother me ethier.
i am very passive in bed and I like to wear perfume, talk to my female friends on here and they generally see me as one of the girls.
I am a slob however, but can get the place imaculate in no time if I know people are coming round, as I have got older I have taken to enjoying cooking (although to be honest i don't know if I would class that as only being in the realm of feminine)
what else, well I'm a nurse, I'm a witch, I'm training to be a counsellour.

maybe one could list masculine and feminine traits and one only really becomes one or the other when they fulfill many of the traits not just one or two.

basically I'm very feminine, I also have a male body which I am very comfortable in

Sometimes although not often, I feel very male, thats ok because I see things like gender and sexuality as being fluid anyway
S
couple of pics of me for anyone who's interested

 

I know this is a bit off topic, but my guess is thats because he didn't want to loose a friend, the biggest killer of friendships is a new lover suddenly come on the scene.
also if the straight guy had been confrontational, then your friend was probably concerned about him not mistreating your girlfriend
S

 

I've added some defining terms about masculine and feminine on this thread, feel free to comment about the articles posted!
http://hipforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2894688#post2894688

 

Indeed.

I guess I'll give my examples here. A few months ago I finally came out as both androgynous, and sexually confused. I've felt bi-curious since I was about 16, and had gender identify issues since my mid-sixteens, I hid it mostly for a year only telling my biological father, but eventually he told my mother about it, I was shocked how accepting she was.

Eventually I had a long conversation with my stepfather. He had no idea I was PURPOSELY looking androgynous, he thought I was trying to look masculine but accidently looked androgynous. I had to explain for him to understand. Apparently I never came accross as that feminine, and I always came across as a guy, so when I came accross as quite masculine, yet was very easy to mistake for a girl, he worried that it would emotionally distress me, since he had no idea the whole time, that I was trying to look androgynous. The thing I learned was... Someones sexual orientation, or even gender identity, can sometimes be very hard to detect, or even be very easily completely misread.

I identify as a neutral-feminine person. But since I am not THAT feminine, have a fair degree of masculinity blended in, and since I meet quite a few masculine stereotypes, almost nobody can tell I am feminine, unless I tell them. I am a really strange person, I am feminine in a very invisible way. I consider myself a person with neutral-masculine interests, quite masculine clothing, combined with feminine emotions, a feminine personnality, and feminine desires. Quite an odd confusing combination, but I'm a bizzare person with a bizzare identity. I tend to scare easily, have a very weak stomache, intense physical vanity, I am very passive, almost certainly the 'wife' of a relationship, very eager to please, I am much more affectionate than sexual, very concerned about my appearance, and how 'cute' I come accross as, I love coming across as fragile delicate needy and very clingy, and dependent, I'm quite caughtious, I'm prone to mood swings, and dislike the thought of being aggresive, or dominative... As well as a million other things. But the thing is, in spite of feeling very feminine in personnality, emotion and how I take care of my body, almost all my feminine sides are invisible.

 

well Nair I suppose the important thing is to just be yourself, sounds liek you have a great mother too!
S

 

What are your guy's thoughts about when we assign things a certain gender?

I see this a lot in other languages. In some languages people refer to themselves (I/me) according to what their gender is.

Example in Japanese: men = boku vs. women = watashi.

In other languages the type of article you use in association with the following noun depends on the sex of the noun.

Example in German: der (masculine the) is used with a masculine word and die (feminine the) is used with a feminine word. Side note: I think it's funny that a skirt is 'masculine'...

Now of course there are many more of these examples in language but we get the idea and I don't want to go into the grammar. So what about when we label an activity, idea, place, or thing as masculine or feminine? Is this also the same as when we label a person masculine or feminine? Why aren't they just neutral?

 

!

 

just reading this again, and you mentioned that a skirts masculine, do you feel that masculine and feminine in language has the same conatations as it does for people?
S

 

I think that since languange is what we use to communicate that it would also hold those same connotations as masculinity and feminity, it makes it easier for us to lable things and ideas. Humans like labels because it makes it much easier for us to understand.

Although the skirt is masculine, I think this is due to archaic reasons... And society has changed but the language has remained the same. I dunno just my thoughts.

 

I think its fine providing it doesn't buy into any sterotypes which then oppress people, but thinking about it again, how could it not do?
S

 

In language it's funny... Mostly because somebody pointed out la porte for door in French was feminine... You know, because you go through it? Language is so sexist sometimes (joking).

Anyway, I think feminine is whatever is peceived as such. I know, that's pretty much it and really simple, but I think that's important because it varies from person to person. So obviously feminine to me conjures images of skirts, perfume, and the color pink.

 

agreed, cause the colour pink in some countries is masculine and blue feminine
S