she/her/hers
["first" in a series of cyber/real interactions in which nic bravo and i make an anthropology of her transition as source material for community/friend art project documenting two years of becoming-self]
kristen and nic are in the car.
ks: i volunteered to interview you because in our real life we never ask each other questions. our friendship/household is all about an examination of boundaries and consensual communication. that being said, doing this publicly [as we decided, across various electronic media] makes me really nervous. one, because of the fear of upsetting you or asking something that i shouldn't, and two, the fear of being publicly scolded [which is a major girl-fear: shame].
nb: i want to turn inside out and make grotesque the idea that queer bodies/queer lives are public or a teaching tool.**
[potential primary documents: public health texts/PSAs. home economics text books. body diagrams. taxpayer-funded workbooks that tell middle schoolers you will not achieve your dreams if you have [hetero]sex[ual intercourse] before you are married in the eyes of god and the state of florida. all the material that teaches us to be normal.]
[...] for this project i want to abandon consent. i am willing to be made uncomfortable and to feel violated. my hope is that doing so, and documenting these efforts, will make things easier, in the future, for other trans(itioning) young people. it's a martyr project.
ks: is there a safe word?
nb: no.
___________
i feel really uncomfortable doing edge play/work**-- which i consider this to be-- without a frame or way out. this is why i love theory, it makes a frame. when the pain of something becomes too much to bear you have a scaffold of words and paper: to lean the body against. something to focus your eyes on. people sometimes construe theory as a way of making sense, of ordering, and i agree with that but think it's something else too. the distraction that makes going on bearable. what are the ethics of this: a friend who wants to be violated in the name of art, and how to contest/question this with an ethic of love, of consent && without pathologizing someone's desires.
all this is a paraphrase, and i hope nic bravo contests it all.
___________
*the body that 'fits' these models can be general or unspecified. the body that questions these models is what. what is the relationship between silencing and demanding that one speak (explain)?**
**NOTbinaryNOTbinaryNOTbinary