Barbelith Underground > Temple > Genderqueer and neck deep in magic

xk, I'm interested in how you relate the 'skins' you talk about to your everyday personality or gender presentation.And I'm also interested what you mean when you say there are specific personas or characters that come out -- could you tell us more?

Weelll...

The person I present as a functional whole is actually often experienced as a shifting of multiple internal perspectives. Usually there's a few 'surface' aspects paying attention and interacting with the world. (I should go dig out the book Sacred Pain it has a kickass description of this sort of thing in it). Close companions of mine often label or name the different perspectives and yes, some of them sound different. I am prone to silly muppet like antics as readily as severe stern decrees. I don't identify as a multiple because I experience myself cohesively as a whole, a shifting vast ocean sometimes, but a whole undivided me-ness. Even the skins are part of that collective self. Self-pluralism maybe...

My primary perspective is gender neutral though it can shift very quickly into a sexualized viewpoint of either: female/lesbian (primary), female/hetero (secondary), male/hetero(often), male/gay(rare). When I unpack these pairings I sometimes experience cultural baggage noise, as if I've plopped traits or abilities into gendered jars and access that gender label when I access the trait or ability.

However, often it isn't a trait or ability it's an entire way of functioning and instead of just a momentary gender shift for a specific action an entire skin is activated to deal with a situation. As the state of consciousness with most of the fully formed ones is not normally used during every day interactions this rarely occurs. When it does occur the shift in body posture, language use, and general demeanor is very unsettling for other people and I'm not certain it has much to do with the gender of the skin as much as he/she/it is just unsettling by nature. Two of these skins are very similar in nature but are gendered opposite, and interestingly enough the male skin is less ruthless than the female. They both present as absolutely crazy people unless in appropriate settings.

It reminds me, a little bit, of roleplay in BDSM (which is arguably a ritual or potentially magickal space, anyhow) where the 'role' takes over and kind of becomes its own autonomous entity.

My Domme role doesn't function so much as a skin as so much as allowing free reign to some of my sadistic tendancies. It's like the difference between the fancy dinner self and the eating pizza on the couch self, more an issue of editing than being. That said during BDSM there are skins that can come online and the shifting back and forth can be instant. The key distinction I make between my Domme role and the skins is the state of consciousness. I use my Domme behavior all over the place when it is appropriate. It's way less of shift and more just permission to act a different way. The only difference I can think of between my Domme role and my Priest role for example is the editing of sadism, which obviously isn't true during Ordeal work when it can be a requirement.

Is this making any sense?

I should add I personally view my skins as an adaptive trait to some very specialized circumstances and they've been refitted to work with my magical and religious practices. There's some discussion as to if the circumstances surrounding their inital creation was just a means to end, the being wired to do this, or if it's truly a refitting job. Though hey, we are what we are.