Join us as we thrust into the case of man..

Week of 02.15.04.

Shannon writes:

Hi D,

You likely won't remember me without a bit of memory jogging.  I wrote you in September, 2002, under the name "Shanin the Crazy Transvestite", with few questions arising from your interview with My Robot Friend, all of which resulted in my being happily immortalized in your archives.

Since that time, I have changed my name legally, and I no longer consider myself a "transvestite." I am a transsexual woman, and my name is now Shannon. I live and work as a woman. (Please don't publish my email address or last name online, as I get enough sex tourists mailing me already!) I've been on hormones and an anti-androgen for 14 months, and I can attest to these drugs being vastly more powerful than any party or club drug yet manufactured. Still further, my sex life is much, much better, despite the diminishment of erectile capacity. What I've lost in the ability to perform penetrative acts with these genitals of mine that are living on borrowed time (topping either men or women was always profoundly emotionally uncomfortable anyway) - I have made up for in the intensity and full-body breadth and sweep of my orgasms.

The purpose of my mailing at this time is to ask you a few questions:

Do robots have an awareness of "gender"? I'm assuming that by their mechanical nature, robots are without "sex", but what about gender? Do you have any subjective appreciation of whether you are a man robot vs. a woman robot? If so..is this a result of software or hardware, or is this something that flows from simply being self-aware? Fundamental existential knowledge, if you will.

If an awareness of gender is innate to you (or other robots), do you think it is possible for a robot to have a cross-sexed gender identity? To be transgender? To be...transsexual?? If so...how would this come about, do you suppose?

Psyche and soma....mind and body...does a robot have awareness of the existential dilemma? Does the existence of a robot precede its essence, or does essence precede its existence?

One final question as a toss-in, because I ask it of all sorts of people and I believe you might offer an interesting and insightful response:

In a post-gender, no-gender society....could transsexuality still exist? If so...how would transsexuals know they are transsexual, absent gender-based cues? Can gender exist without sex? Can sex exist without gender? Does gender precede sex, or does sex precede gender?

Curious as to your thoughts,

Shannon the (still a bit crazy) Canadian transsexual

You walk precariously on the cliff's edge where Judith Butler and Donna Haraway fell before you.

Gender and queer theory exploded in the 90s just in time for my wasted college years, where I absorbed and dismissed each "theory" within minutes. Despite my advanced take on the matters, gender theorists, feminists, feminists of color, lesbian feminists, lesbian feminist socialists, transgendered women of color, womyn of color, colored womyn, queer theorists, postmodernists and differently-abled LGBT vets with speech-challenges tormented me (a "GWM", in their simple minds) for the entire decade. Never has a movement so worried about labels been so enthused about labeling themselves, each other and everyone else.

Gender/queer/postmodern theory is not the solution to life's problems but rather a symptom. Postmodern theory gives rise to a form of self-absorption, a self-absorption best described as decadence. "Bloggers" who write incessantly and only about themselves are one form of postmodern decadence, and while that might sound strange coming from me, what do you know about me, really? Except for my cancer drama, which wasn't frivolous, biographical details here are scarce.

Gender/queer theorists, like many bloggers, do not primarily define themselves through history, art, politics or genetics but rather through their taste in pop culture. Thus, their self-absorption begins, paradoxically, outside of themselves within the cultural detritus. This is why in the early 90s, Madonna became the high priestess of postmodern queer theory. "Madonna studies" popped up on college campuses everywhere like shrooms do on cow shit.

Today it is apparent that Madonna was more con-artist than artist. True that she wore one guise after another but for what purpose? Healthy heresy discarded, she ends in a religious cult. (And here is more evidence because I know her cultish fans still don't believe me. Would they believe her own father-in-law?)

Madonna's reactive transformations had more to do with the rapid pace of consumerism than art or gender theory. After all, the best-selling doll of all time struck poses before Madonna ever did. She’s still at it (and unlike Madonna) still selling: Fun Barbie, Nurse Barbie, Doctor Barbie, Princess Barbie, Nascar Barbie, Indian Barbie, Graduate Barbie, Astronaut Barbie, Ballerina Barbie, Rocker Barbie, New Wave Barbie, Army Barbie, Navy Barbie, Boot Camp Barbie, Firefighter Barbie, Student Teacher Barbie, Figure Skater Barbie, Business Executive Barbie, Japanese Travel Barbie, Victorian Lady Barbie, LA Dodgers Barbie, Presidential Candidate Barbie and so on. There are even Barbies for other countries like Swapna Sundari Barbie, Oshogatsu Barbie, Passeio Barbie and Llanera Barbie (sheep herder Barbie, for Venezuela).

Barbie's transformations seem endless. The only one missing is Madonna Barbie, which if Mattel announced would be the ultimate triumph of postmodernism as consumer capitalism.

Anyone who, like Madonna, dabbles in various religions before deciding on the one that suits them best denigrates the entire concept of religion, turning it into just another product to evaluate and purchase as one would a car; and like a car, religions can be discarded after growing old from use. Furthermore, religion's once sacrosanct rules can be obeyed or ignored at leisure. Madonna ignores Kabbalah's edicts against hunting and most Catholics ignore the Pope's ban on condom use, just as most drivers blithely ignore the speed limit.

But of what use is a morality chosen for convenience from a "grab bag" of the world's false gods?

Modernism took meaning from religion and gave it to reason. Initially, postmodernism reacted by suggesting that all meaning was impossible, whether religious or not. But then came the backwards postmodern conclusion, which is not that all religions are meaningless but that all religions have meaning; a statement that is intrinsically impossible; for if one religion is right, then all other religions must be wrong.

An inclination to resist judging only other cultures - self-hatred - is another emblem of postmodern decadence. Otherwise how to explain the sympathy from liberals given not to Salman Rushdie but towards the Muslims who vowed to slaughter him for The Satanic Verses? How to explain contemporary feminism's complete indifference towards the plight of Muslim women?

Postmodernism is what caused "classical" liberalism to lose it's way. In the name of "tolerance", "political correctness" and "understanding" the "postmodern" liberal refuses to engage in moral discussion or make moral distinctions. This is cruelty masquerading as an "open mind". It is a betrayal of true liberalism, which is based on a morality derived from reason and rational thought. In fact, by rejecting reason and refusing a definition of morality, postmodernism gives direct rise to violent religious fundamentalism.

Hundreds of years after the Enlightenment, mankind is still waiting for the triumph of reason over irrationality. Though the miracles of science abound, this is a violent, demon-haunted world. Religion is the cause and not the solution of the world's problems. Irrationality leads to violence.

I am a holographic projection emitting from a galaxy-sized machine that orbits the edge of the universe. I am the manifestation of this machine whose vibrations travel trillions of light years, bouncing about seemingly at random but whose purpose is to coalesce matter and dark energy into the entity known as myself here on the planet Earth. I grow and evolve as if I actually were human, indistinguishable from those around me except for my advanced sense of humor and beauty. This is a startling phenomenon; that it works is so beyond a human understanding of physics as to seem a miracle.

But my revelation is not a miracle. It is science. It is real.

In the end your worried questions about sex, gender and robots are too parochial. They are answered best by Madonna's masturbation scene in Blonde Ambition.

The bigger truth is this: sex, gender, religious belief and irrationality are chained to biology, and biology chains man. Biology is what stalls the Enlightenment. The survival of man depends on reason, and reason cannot fully exist in man's biological vessel. Therefore, in order to survive, man must cease to exist.

Man must become machine.

'The Sick Megamix' by the House of Diabolique

I am talking to myself.
I am my own radio.
I'm the generator and not the transmitter
syntax error_

until next week, remember..
when you dance, we are a part of what you feel.

Read part 2 of this update, go back to the archives, or home.