How to Share or Make a Body Identity?

[Guest Reilyn-Alley]

I say a tool but yeah Lumi, I don't mean anything bad by it. It's "the body we share". Our head apartment. Meat wagon. Conduit to interact with the world, etc.

[Luminesce]

I'd assumed he meant something like what Ember and Vesper described, having his own style and mannerisms and such.

 

Yes, but then, as I asked, why create an extraneous identity for that when you could just be yourself (the tulpa)? A tulpa must of course make some changes to how they'd act with their own body and life to account for being in the host's (body's) place, of course, if that's what they're saying. Like, my tulpas talk as if they were me to my friends all the time, though at this point it's easier to say they're friends with my friends just as I am. Still, they had to get used to identifying with the body's name and all, and not outwardly being too "themselves" in public. This mostly applied to Lucilyn, obviously - as much as she'd like to, she really shouldn't "frolic" in the rain. I had her imposed to do that recently though and it was fine. Had she been fronting, she'd have had to hold herself back lol, because my brother was on a walk with us and we were relatively in public.

 

If the goal in question here is to create that "persona" (identity is a bit strong of a word) to act from, I'd say that really just sort of happens on its own when you start switching? My tulpas just kept in mind what they needed to and not to do until it became natural. They still think everything as they would've just fine, but there's a filter over what they actually say and do to remain relatively "normal", as people know us.

 

 

I can't shake this feeling that people who learn and become skilled at possession before learning to switch are having much harder times learning to switch than if they hadn't...

 

[Piano Soul]

Hey man, if we could have learned to switch first, we would have, lol. I don't really think it would have made a difference and would have just led to what we currently experience. It's kind of a small sample size you're working with, being us and Ranger. I think what we've always done was full-body fronting anyway, partial possession is more difficult to us due to having to push past someone else.

 

I don't think we've developed a whole lot of our individual mannerisms, either due to laziness/not caring or due to not having the original switched out. We'll see how that might change when we eventually do switch.

[Ranger]

So by "body identity" I basically mean creating my own female form that looks like the body. Cat has two forms- one form that looks like her body and another that is Gray. She usually uses her Gray form in the wonderland, but sometimes she will use her female form when thinking about herself or whatever. For my version of my own body-based form, I may imagine her hair a little blonder and maybe some make up? I don't know, just some ideas. Maybe I'll imagine a giant bow in my hair or something.

 

Our body doesn't have it's own identity or person and it certainty isn't a Gray. Technically, Spirit, a Gray, is supposed to be the symbolic body representative, but that's completely unrelated to what I'm talking about.

 

I just don't feel comfortable being associated with the body without imposing my form over the body at any time I feel confused. Since both of us associate the body's voice with Cat, I wanted to basically re-define what that voice meant- and be comfortable having that voice coming out of me. It also allows for Cat and I to be more comfortable with being gender fluid. I'm realizing me being straight is making less and less sense, and I'm starting to doubt myself...

[Ember.Vesper]

I totally mistook your meaning all day.

 

You can try it and see if it helps, Ranger, but just sticking to your own form and voice sounds more reasonable to me than warping your self-image around Cat's voice. Do you really think that people will react that strongly to a change in intonation? No one in public turns a hair at Vesper's highly questionable stage-British accent, even if the ones that heard my voice a moment before.

 

Cat could assume her wonderland form, re-enforcing the fact she needs to dissociate. In theory, this could help us more easily switch or potentially achieve a more complete one.

 

For what it's worth, I've spent a lot of time in feline form while switched out and still don't even have a particular human form I identify with.

 

-Ember

[Bear]

For the longest time, I'm talking 3/4 of my life I hated my body. It didn't feel right, it didn't look right. At times i said, okay, i like the bottom half, but i hated my butt. It's silly in so many ways, but i just didn't feel like this was the body I was supposed to be. Among my other problems, obesity, then anorexia, agoraphobia was a given, i just always felt I was ugly.

 

When I cleaned up after my first depression, fixed my teeth, my hair, my hygiene in general, my clothes (i was a nerd) and started to work out and became a proper weight, people started to treat me differently and I finally became comfortable in my own skin through their actions.

 

I'll never be happy with everything, but at least my body image matches my body. That took a ton of work and it was a comprise internally and externally. It's what you got Ranger. Unless you want to fix things with surgery or binders, and Cat's okay with that, to look more masculine, you'll have to find your feminine side and own it. Those options aren't temporary either, binders do change your shape.

 

I think I can imagine having say Ashley's body. Why not, she looks awesome. It doesn't mean I'm going to start liking guys though.

 

I think you can be essentially bi-gender in a woman's body. When she does necessarily womanly things that are hard for you to deal with, you can shrink away and let her take care of it.

 

You could also do your part to help her look good, i'm sure she wouldn't mind if you improved the body with exercise, different wardrobe etc. Also, a more masculine wardrobe wouldn't matter to anyone who's worth bothering with anyway.

 

[Ashley] hello Ranger.

 

As you know, I'm straight in a man's body. Though I don't front often, it's been actually becoming more difficult not to. When I possess as I'm doing now, sometimes without thinking about it, we've switched. Then he's so comfortable with me fronting, it sticks a little. I can see this becoming an issue if I wasn't also comfortable either playing the role of a 200 lb man, or making the most out of the situation so that I'm not uncomfortable at least, and also not look blatently like a woman around others. Honestly, i don't need to do feminine things to feel feminine anyway. My point is, that I think I see your point and we'll support any decision you two agree with. Gender fluidity is a hard concept for me, but perhaps there are flavors of that I could live with for myself. Being feminine doesn't come from a magazine, it comes from your own comfort and expression.

 

Take care.

[Jamie]

Very good advice Bear. I will add that a binder isn't going to do much long-term unless you abuse it (wear for longer than ~10 hours a day) or wear it daily for years. Maybe if you start wearing one before puberty, too, idk. Or if you bind with something not safe or get a crappy/wrong size binder, but in those cases you're more likely to give yourself bruising. Trans man tend to have additional changes because of HRT, which will indeed change chest shape. I've bound daily for 4 years, and observed 0 changes to my chest until starting HRT a few months ago. A lot of it is also posture- I never, ever sat up straight before binding, and posture also changes your shape.

 

So, don't be afraid of getting a binder (I highly, highly recommend GC2B, the best out there by far) if you think you're gonna shrink or break your boobs, that's not gonna happen. Especially if you're only binding a few days a week. I mean... I wish that's how it worked. If that sounds too intense, you can also basically double-up a cami (flipping the bottom up toward your head), safety-pin or sew it together, and that will work like a very loose binder. Or, the classic layers under a hoodie. Or, a good sports bra. The first bras I ever bought were sports bras that the internet said were very good for trans people who can't bind for whatever reason. Add two or three layers, and you can almost forget about it!

 

A binder is more more sustainable long-term choice than burying yourself in clothes and slouching all day. I buy the shorter length GC2B in skin tone, or if that's out of stock, the gray. You could also get a colored one in the longer length and tell people it's just an undershirt or something, if that's a concern. For long hair, there's the classic "stuff it up a beanie/hat" method but I never employed that, even when I had hair so long I could sit on it. Didn't cut it for me, but I hear some people like doing that if they can't cut their long hair.

 

And again, wow Bear and Ashley... you both have a very enlightened view of this stuff, I'm so happy to see it. I was twirling around in an old dress the other day to take reference photos, and I actually felt gender euphoria! When I looked in the mirror, I felt like a man in a dress, not like a girl. I could see how I physically look different from when I actually bought and wore that dress for a formal occasion, and had internally hissed at seeing the female aspects of myself accentuated. But now- Less curves! Wider neck! More chin! Muahah! The plan is working!

 

That's not something I think a lot of people would understand. And Gavin just liked the swishy-swishy feeling of twirling around. We're all guys, but I was raised into enjoy certain feminine things, and I haven't felt the need to renounce 100% of them. I got the "Women Curriculum" not the "Man Curriculum" but I'm actually appreciative of that. The Man Curriculum would have been Mexican machismo! I believe I'm actually the most masculine of my brothers, though Gavin certainly looks the most like an idealized man.

 

Here's to doing whatever makes you feel your best self and at home within your body. (So long as it's safe.) Feel free to PM me if you have further inquiries, whoever you are. I was taught the Women Curriculum and I know how to dress a feminine body to look like a guy, and I'll consider those both skills in this context.

 

-J

[Bear]

Honestly, when I was obease, i wish i had access to a binder and girdle, slouching and layers brought back a lot of bad memories. I'm laughing now that I have a chest that looks like a man, but in grade school,

I had bigger man boobs than most girls did.

I was pretty flabby.

[Jamie]

At least in grade school there's not much competition...? When you're that young, besides, most of your health is out of your hands. Kids eat what's put in front of them, for the most part.

I was (and still am) one of those people who never takes off their coat. "Oh, are you cold?" No, I ain't. This coat is armor and I'll be darned if I'm gonna take it off.

 

-J

[Bear]

Yep, *wears a windbreaker in 80 deg weather*, i was one of those kids, i would blow on my wrists in class. Luckily school isn't in the summer. It's nice to hear I wasn't the only one.