THE NEW SEXUALITY - DEFINITIONS

                                     FROM NYT 2/3/15

SEX Classification as male or female or, rarely, intersex (not exclusively male or female). Sex is usually assigned based on external anatomy but is determined by characteristics like chromosomes, hormones and reproductive organs.

GENDER Roles, behaviors and activities that a given society considers appropriate for males or females. “Sex” and “gender” are often mistakenly used interchangeably.

GENDER IDENTITY Internal, deeply held sense of one’s gender.

GENDER NONCONFORMING Expressing gender outside of conventions (clothes, behavior) typically associated with masculinity or femininity. Not all nonconformists are transgender.

TRANSGENDER Umbrella term for any gender identity that differs from the one associated with the sex assigned at birth.

TRANS* Short for transgender, with the asterisk meant to indicate the 

wide range of identities beyond the norm.

GENDERQUEER A gender identity that falls outside of the male/female binary. A third gender.

PANGENDER Having a fluid identity. Might be expressed as both male and female, or shift from one gender to the other. Under the umbrella term genderqueer.

CISGENDER Possessing the gender identity commonly associated with one’s biological sex. “Cis-” is a Latin prefix meaning “on the same side as.”

TRANNSEXUAL Out-of-favor term for those who alter their bodies hormonally or surgically to align with their internal gender identity.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION Romantic, physical attraction, be it homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, asexual, polysexual, pansexual.

LE CHAT ASSIS

"THE IDEAL OF CALM EXISTS IN A SITTING CAT"

J Renard - The Journal

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

23-1-15

THOUGHTFUL

                                                              Janet this day is 32, 

(We shan't dispute a year or more:)
However, Janet, be not troubled,
Although thy size and years are doubled,
Since first I saw thee at sixteen,
The brightest virgin on the green;
So little is thy form declin'd;
Made up so largely in thy mind.

Oh, would it please the gods to split
Thy beauty, size, and years, and wit;
No age could furnish out a pair
Of nymphs so graceful, wise, and fair;
With half the lustre of your eyes,
With half your wit, your years, and size.
And then, before it grew too late,
How should I beg of gentle Fate,
(That either nymph might have her swain,)
To split my worship too in twain.

Adapted from Jonathan Swift

ERUDITE CAT

On seashore far a green oak towers, 
And to it with a gold chain bound, 
A .learned cat whiles away the hours 
By walking slowly round and round. 
To right he walks, and sings a ditty; 
To left he walks, and tells a tale.... 

Pushkin

PRYNNE POETRY

Rich inVitamin C

Under her brow the snowy wing-case
      delivers truly the surprise
of days which slide under sunlight
          past loose glass in the door
      into the reflection of honour spread
through the incomplete, the trusted. So
      darkly the stain skips as a livery
of your pause like an apple pip,
      the baltic loved one who sleeps.

Or as syrup in a cloud, down below in
      the cup, you excuse each folded
cry of the finch's wit, this flush
      scattered over our slant of the
          day rocked in water, you say
      this much. A waver of attention at
the surface, shews the arch there and
          the purpose we really cut;
      an ounce down by the water, which

in cross-fire from injustice too large
      to hold he lets slither
                                            from starry fingers
      noting the herbal jolt of cordite
and its echo: is this our screen, on some
      street we hardly guessed could mark
an idea bred to idiocy by the clear
      sight-lines ahead. You come in
          by the same door, you carry

what cannot be left for its own
      sweet shimmer of reason, its false blood;
the same tint I hear with the pulse it touches
      and will not melt. Such shading
of the rose to its stock tips the bolt
      from the sky, rising in its effect of what
motto we call peace talks. And yes the
      quiet turn of your page is the day
          tilting so, faded in the light.

MORE GLEANINGS - RENARD

Jules Renard - The Journal

It is, when all is said and done, when faced with the subject of death that we feel most bookish.

There are no friends only moments of friendship.

With its purring, the car accompanies the tick-tock of the clock, it is the only music in the room.

…I am a happy man for I have renounced happiness.

When he drinks with a couple, he always pays so that people may believe he is the lover.

A man in love with truth need not be either great or a poet. He is both without trying.

I am a realist bothered by reality.

CYNICAL VIEW POINT

Vintage   Amy Lowell

I will mix me a drink of stars,— Large stars with polychrome needles, Small stars jetting maroon and crimson, Cool, quiet, green stars. I will tear them out of the sky, And squeeze them over an old silver cup, And I will pour the cold scorn of my Beloved into it, So that my drink shall be bubbled with ice. It will lap and scratch As I swallow it down; And I shall feel it as a serpent of fire, Coiling and twisting in my belly. His snortings will rise to my head, And I shall be hot, and laugh, Forgetting that I have ever known a woman.