As a transgender woman/femme of colour navigating this patriarchal society: I have interpersonally and socio-politically understood fetishization through experiences of exploitive intimacy as well as conditions of always being desired sexually but never loved physically/mentally. Yet also as a body/sex-positive/affirmative assault-survivor in processes of healing, I not only wish to understand the violences of fetishization but the roots of such drive for dehumanization as well as the complicities among us all who are impacted by the colonial constructions of sexual/physical values of exchange... I often wonder of the differences between 'kink' and 'fetish', of how they intersect and challenge each other's ideals and notions of sexual/physical norms as well as their relations to our diverse roots/triggers of pleasure/desire. From reading, communicating, and reflecting: I have understood kinks to be "abnormal/non-conventional" physical/sexual practices/concepts/fantasies, while fetishes are usually described as sexual fixations and psychological needs for a specific/certain object/act. Some explains it in simple yet confusing matters that "all fetishes are kinks but not all kinks are fetishes"... And such conversations first bring me to the needs of discussing our understandings of kinks as a colonial impact, as some would have suggested that intersex/queer/trans bodies and sexualities are kinks by historical/cultural/educational marginalization. Especially when we know that "kinky" hair have also been used to describe coily/twisted/curly hair often with Black/Afro-Indigenous hair as abnormal, non-conventional, or a social spectacle in hierarchal comparisons to settler-European standards and norms of non-textured/straight/wavy hair. So with hair as an introductory, layered, and intersecting matter between both understandings of 'kink' and 'fetish', I wonder what the differences between having a "hair kink" and having a "hair fetish"... Through analysis and thought I come to realize that perhaps having a hair kink is of being physically/sexually/mentally hyper-aroused/attracted to the visuals/concepts of certain/specific hair, while having a hair fetish requires certain/specific hair to be physically/sexually/mentally satisfied. Even with the example subject/object changing, ie. feet kinks vs feet fetishes, the analysis remains sound and I can understand how partnerships of safe kink/fetish play can work out in both favours with one having kinks of hair being gripped/pulled and another having hair fetishes (ie. sensory fixations of touching/grabbing/smelling/licking hair). While one could have roleplaying kinks of being worshipped/served with another having the feet fetish to focus on and be at one's feet... Kinks are interpersonally and socio-politically shaped by what we have been taught, considered, and understood to be non-conventional intimate practices/concepts/fantasies between bodies, which is heavily historically/culturally based in the normality of perceiving sexuality as purposes of human reproduction. And embracing open/diverse sexualities and intimate physical expressions/practices/desires is decolonizing our perceptions of what is sensually/sexually "normal". Yet while I can be easily kink-positive and accepting, it takes more to unpack fetishization as it also often feeds into the colonial-patriarchal notions of physical/sexual normality with slippery slopes to hyper-sexualization, objectification, and dehumanization.
Fetishes still can be expressed and practiced healthily with the focus to be objective and direct. And while I think it is dehumanizing to the root of objectifying certain body parts or requiring specific features to be satisfied sexually to the sight/mind/touch, I still have witnessed and heard community testimonials of healthy practices/expressions of fetishes of hair/feet/toes/armpit/nipples/anus...etc. Though what causes the red flags for me is the slippery slope of giving into colonial-hierarchal categories of exotic/forbidden desires and the fetishization of identities. When the focus is no longer objective and direct, it places the subject in a dehumanizing position during such exchanges/shares of physical/sensual intimacy while the fetishizer focuses and emphasizes on their sexual satisfaction/release. Thus I come to understand that kinks are rooted in sub-cultural, anti-conditioning desires/fantasies while fetishization is deeply rooted in psychological repressed attractions/needs for a physical/sexual relief... And when transferring realizations to the lived aggressions/experiences/violences of being fetishized, I console myself on the fact that I will never escape the socio-political/sexual realities of fetishization when the slur "tranny"'s history begins as a porn category of sub-dehumanization. Even now in 2020, people still ask what "transgender" means and if a trans woman means to have boobs and a dick at the same time, because that's what most have seen/witnessed/understood through mis-notions/representations of an entire group of people through fetishizing media like main-stream pornography. And while the situation can still be non-violent and sensually/sexually safe if the fetish focus is on "the feminine penis" as many cis-men are attracted to women/femmes with dicks and it all works out fine, but when such mental fixation conflicts with one's colonial-patriarchal cis-heteronormative constructions/definitions/understandings of being, then it often leads into violence towards others and internal struggles within the self/ego... As kinky concepts and fantasies (should) have consent and consistent communications between participating partners, many hold fetishes as psychologically personal and private thus not unpacked and often acted upon urges or intended self-serving satisfactory. Needlessly to say/state that all is but our humanities navigating through sensuality, intimacy, and sexuality, and though both kinks and fetish are socio-psychological evidences of colonial-hierarchies of the body, fetishization remains deeply in relations with repressed fixations, control, and fears.
As an immigrant and East-Asian islander, I have also felt the racial fetishizations forced upon me physically/sexually as focuses of exoticism as eroticism in degrading positionalities. From men guessing my ethnicity as ways of flirting to non-consensual nicknames/catcalls of "Ling Ling"/"Panda"/"Fortune Cookie"...etc. and while I'm still trying to settle my feelings around being called "Bubble Tea", many still don't know that bubble tea is Taiwanese or where Taiwan even is. Though such experiences only has led to more socio-political analysis and reflections for collective accountability, as I have noticed my own attractions/interactions with men of colour to be even more critical in understanding intersections of raciality and sexuality. Despite growing up queer/trans and learning how to repress interpersonal truths/desires/pleasures, I began practicing/expressing sexuality/sensuality after coming out and coming to what we know as Canada. And such journey of a trans-woman/femme being exploited/fetishized for her body in discretion began with white men as I navigated through Kitchener-Waterloo as a queer teenager. Yet along the way and after moving to Tkaronto (Toronto), I not only have found belonging to queer/trans racialized chosen-familites/social groups/communities, I also find myself less sensually/sexually attracted to white/European-descent peoples/features. I've often joked about "decolonizing my pussy" and decentering from our attractions to whiteness especially as an immigrant who knows/understands the powers/corruptions/violences of both white supremacy and settler-colonialism, but I've also wondered privately about my sudden increase of interests after being rap*d twice with both times encountering men of colour... I find myself to be the best investigator for my own feelings/behaviours, thus it's also part of my psychological responsibility to constantly unpack and unlearn while calling for socio-political accountabilities. I often question my own complicities within discourses of anti-Black racism and racial fetishization even as a POC who experiences racism, xenophobia, and racial fetishization as well, but I must align myself with such constructions of violent hierarchies due to my lightskin and participating on settling on stolen lands. It is continuing difficult conversations within and around that pushes us to do/be better. And I couldn't help but wonder if my preferences of raciality can be a form of fetishization instead of realizations/growth away from the colonial-patriarchal whiteness... From talks with another trans sister/femme of colour on our lives being fetishized on a daily, we critiqued of how such attractions based from internal conflicts/fears only feed the egos of normality; while some searches/obtains empowerment from participating hyper-sexualization, some finds empowerment/healing from desexualization (especially after sexual violences). I personally know many fabulous queer/trans racialized sex workers who can testify to their challenges against femme/trans/fat/racial fetishization/dehumanization by turning the table and still profiting/monetizing as reclaiming power. However for myself, I ask if I can build my own tables and grow intimacies on my own terms of balancing between sensuality/sexuality through softness... And when asked about removing/detaching myself completely from such societal-obsessed sexualization and hierarchies of fetishization, my friend suggested that I dedicate myself to demisexuality -
So there it is, not demisexuality to be exact but empathy: my weapon/shield against the violences of such fetishization both within and around, is hyper-humanization. Which is also what I believe in when we speak of decolonizing human intimacies and relations, as not exchanges of power but a sharing of powers. I dare to dream of loving/caring for each others bodies/minds while exploring/honouring our pleasures. I can only dream of a world without hyper-sexualization/fetishization as representations in media with understandings of consent blurred and cheated on. I dream of un/relearning sensual and emotional intimacy, by hyper-humanizing and empathizing with all bodies/identities/expressions that we encounter, interact, and access. I want to not only combat our fears with compassion, but filling the gaps of difference by creating safer spaces of intercommunal desires/pleasures as well... On the socio-psychological and political spectacles of fetishization/sex/fear, it is through a collective effort of transforming mindsets/relations to honour our bodies, humanities, and souls for freedom. As my powers birth from growing gardens of revolutionary justice, not from the games of colonial-patriarachy and its tools of desirability as poetics of hierarchal violence.
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