What do men like? What do women like? Is it okay for men to knit? Should women really work on cars? Tell me, what is our society’s hang up with genitalia? We’re so focused on what’s between other people’s legs that we don’t even seem to care about what’s between their ears. I’ve already written about how I identify and present as androgynous, but let me tell you about how freeing it can be to view gender as a spectrum, rather than a binary, and how much easier it makes interacting with people whose genitals and presentation doesn’t match your own.

My lover is a man. He has a penis, and he considers himself to be male. That doesn’t stop him for a second when he wants to put on a skirt and shave his legs. He likes dressing in women’s clothing, from what I can tell it’s because he finds it arousing. He doesn’t want to be a woman, he just wants to be allowed to wear skirts, dresses, blouses, and shrugs. For him, those things aren’t a gender thing, they’re a preference. It took him a while to get to that point, but he’s not the least bit afraid to step out of the limitations of being a “real man” and enjoy himself. I don’t consider myself a woman, so the limitations of gender don’t mean anything to me to begin with.

Gift giving is so much easier, too. We don’t get caught up chasing our tails asking silly questions like “what do men want?” or “what do half-crazy androgynous kinky-people like?” when we can cut straight to the point and ask “What does my lover like?” It’s just silly to generalize people into only two groups, especially when you’re trying to pick something out for just one person. If you think about it, no two individuals like exactly the same things. People tend to talk about what they like. If you’re around someone for any amount of time, they’ve given you at least a few valuable clues about their likes, dislikes, and hobbies. A good rule is that if they mention it more than twice, they probably like it well enough for it to make a decent gift. If they need something, it would make a decent gift as well. Remember, if it isn’t a traditionally “masculine” or “feminine” thing, it doesn’t matter. Some men love to knit, and some women might love to receive a mig welder.

Which brings me to hobbies. How did they get labeled masculine and feminine anyway? It’s not like having a vagina makes you better at sewing, or having a penis makes you more inclined toward woodworking. Women and men both have hands, and that’s all it really takes to do any hands on hobby. For the longest time, when I was trying to pass as a man, I avoided doing any hobbies that might be considered feminine, and it was really a tragedy for me. I love to cook and sew, and I’m good at it. If I refused to cook, I didn’t get to eat the foods I liked, and if I didn’t sew, I couldn’t make things I wanted to wear. There are some hobbies I’m simply no good at or not interested in, of course, and they range from those considered masculine to those considered feminine, but I don’t let labels choose for me. Neither should you. If there’s something you love doing, do it.

Even things that do involve the genitals can be affected by the gender binary. Sex is so much better without gender normality. If you believe that women can only be penetrated, and men can only penetrate, you eliminate so many pleasurable acts. One in particular that suffers from “real man” syndrome is anal penetration. Male bodied individuals have prostates, anal stimulation feels good to many of them, and yet if a man allows himself to be penetrated, even by a woman, people will ask him if he’s gay or gender confused. My lover has experienced this exact reaction by quite a few people, and those more ruled by gender norms won’t hear reason. Although, I’ve also watched the realization dawn on more than one man’s face when they talked to my lover, and I’ve listened to more than one admit that they, too, like prostate stimulation. It makes sense, as well, that women could enjoy being the one to penetrate. Not to mention, taking the aggressor dynamic out of sex can make it more pleasurable for both parties. The one being penetrated, and the one doing the penetrating can be equals, or the dynamic can be reversed, when you take away the dynamic of “men” as aggressors and “women” as passive.

No matter what you define as the specifications to be a “real man” or a “real woman”, no one can live up to it. Unless there’s maybe one extremely lucky individual living somewhere in the middle of nowhere, possible on a desert island in the Atlantic. What we need is to stop the binary all together and let people be people. Let the individuality of each person shine through, and view every individual for who and what they are, regardless of what’s between their legs.