#anthony charuvastra

[yepthatsacowalright]

Finished watching this discussion about on stage chemistry/kissing/intimacy (which @hamish-linklater-btc​ posted on Instagram - thank you so much for finding/sharing!!) and it is so freaking fascinating to me.

Hamish has good thoughts and funny stories as usual, but to be honest I found the three women to be the most interesting to listen to, particularly Esther Perel, the woman in the middle, who is a couples/sexuality psychologist.

I kept pausing and going back to relisten to literally everything she said because every sentence blew my mind. (“In sexuality and in kissing lies two opposites, disgust and delight, depending on how it takes place.” “That’s why people go and find other lovers in the first place. Not so much because they’re looking for another person, they’re looking for another self.” And when she says something about how a long successful marriage is really like a series of different marriages with the same two people. Like 🤯. This woman’s brain is huge.) I’m now devouring a bunch of Esther’s articles and podcasts because she’s so incredibly good at articulating aspects of emotions and relationships that I know I’ve felt, but I’ve never known how to put into words.

Actors, writers, and psychologists talking about intimacy together is something I have craved because to me those three fields of study are so necessarily intertwined, but for some reason aren’t often brought together for discussions and things like this. I know people are worried about embarrassing themselves discussing it, or that they’re going to take the magic out of it and people won’t find the scenes as sexy to watch anymore....but the psychology of it!! Is so!! INTERESTING!!

#being a fan hamish linklater has been and continues to be the wildest ride #he's like a gateway drug to all these other topics i've been interested in for years but haven't been able to find out much about #a couple things of note regarding this discussion though: #the sound is super inconsistent depending on who's talking #so be prepared to adjust the volume often #also one of the audience questions at the end is a kinda weird and irrelevant question about child abuse? #and the psychologists do a great job of interpreting it in a way that is more appropriate to the discussion at hand #but it is odd #so be prepared to skip over that bit if you feel like you need to #(question starts to be asked at the 1:01:08ish mark) #hamish linklater #esther perel #kathleen chaufant #sarah ruhl #anthony charuvastra #on kisses and chemistry #acting #writing #sexuality #intimacy #kissing #psychology

[sociology257-blog]

Esmeralda Bretoux

SOC Sex and Gender Roles

Bog Post 2

Sex; Biologically Defined, and Social Repercussions

 In the article "Mutilating Gender" by Dean Spade, Spade argues that there are several institutions instilled in the medical field and social establishments where they enforce rigid guidelines that inhibit access to necessary medical attention for transitioning, such as SRS (sex reassignment surgery). When anyone expresses any kind of gender ambiguity, they are medically termed as having an illness called gender identity dysphoria (GID). Gender roles are thrown at people in sessions like Psychological evaluations that are required of transgender individuals to complete, or during consultations with surgeons. Questions asked would be phrased as; "when did you realize that you were a boy?" or "why don’t you want to remove your penis if your transition into a male figure?" Spade uses intersex; people who are born with a different set of chromosomal makeup from the standard girl-boy scenarios, as support for how these gender binaries aren't biological, but socially constructed, and that these gender ideals should desist.

This research article; "How Sexually Dimorphic Are We?" by Melanie Blackless et al. goes into depth about intersex individuals on a molecular level. The article argues that there aren't two distinct sex's, that what constitute a person sex are the chromosomal make-up, gonadal structure, hormone levels, and the structure of the internal and external genitalia. This article examines medical studies and literature reviews that focus on the chromosomal makeup of people from different cultures. With that information, this article focuses on the frequency of chromosomal and genital morphology; deviation from the western standard for female and male bodies, and the differences among live births in intersex individuals, findings show that the percentage of people born intersex isn't as uncommon as commonly perceived. It was found that there are several different causes of chromosomal differentiation, such as congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) and late onset 21-hydroxylase deficiency. Some of the chromosomal variations seen are XX, XY, XXX, XXY, XYY, and XO; which is structurally identified as having gonads that are unable for fetal development or pubertal gonadal hormone synthesis. Another variation that was examined were 47, XXX girls; in which they are determined as developing secondary sex characteristics during puberty. 47, XXY and 47, XXX males are occasionally left undiagnosed due to the lack of physical symptoms that would appear in chromosomal testing. The results are that the current understanding of dimorphism is socially constructed and requires change because of these false ideas about what makes a person female or male, are used to create laws that limit the possibilities a transgender person has for living a relatively normal life.

There are political controversy over whether transgender individuals should be able to use gender assigned bathrooms, in states like in North Carolina; where they have "banned individuals from using public bathrooms that do not correspond to their biological sex" (Michael Pearson, for CNN, 2016), it’s no wonder that there are many controversies over what constitute a person a "female" or "male". Many people aren’t aware of the biological variance that exists as mentioned in “how Sexually Dimorphic Are We?”, someone who is either transitioned to male (FTM), or to female (MTF) or those who are gender ambiguous, can’t/shouldn't be told they aren’t acceptable. Even when a person has all the chromosomal and gonadal structures of a "female", the hormonal level can vary person to person. My argument is that in terms of mutilating gender; repeatedly hearing that any form of deviation from the norm isn't acceptable, that there are social repercussion if done so, would you be okay with mutilating someone else's gender when society could easily do it to you?

 Work Cited

 Spade, Dean, and Stephen Whittle. "Mutilating Gender." Ed. Susan Stryker. The Transgender Studies Reader (2000): 315-32. Print.

 Blackless, Melanie, Anthony CHARUVASTRA, Amanda DERRYCK, Anne FAUSTO-STERLING, Karl LAUZANNE, and Ellen LEE. "How Sexually Dimorphic Are We? Review and Synthesis." AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN BIOLOGY (2000): 151-66. Print. Department of Molecular and Cell Biology and Biochemistry, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island

 Pearson, Michael. "LGBT rights: The national battle of the bathroom." CNN. CNN, 23 Aug. 2016. Web. 01 Apr. 2017. <http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/23/us/transgender-bathroom-policies/>.