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In class Cantaloupe asked something along the lines of "why can't we just do what we feel like and not worry about deconstructing categories?"    I think that is what all of this deconstruction is about; trying to figure out how much of what we want to do is the product of social constructs.  Marcel Duchamp said "You cannot defy convention by being anti-convention. The only way you can defy convention is by ignoring it." So the question is now: can we ignore conventions if we don't fully understand them.  The ovbious answer seems to be yes, of course you can ignore something you don't know about.  But the conventions we don't know about nevertheless shape who we are in major and minor ways.  We are socialized to want to do certain things, to behave in certain ways, to think in certain ways and to feel certain things because of our sex.   Our pleasures and desires are shaped so much by social constructions.  I don't know if it is ever possible to deconstruct these fully for ourselves.  I think for the future what we can do is change the way socialization occurs so that possibilities are framed by gender neutrality.

For me, it seems that the only way to do what I feel is through self examination.  I am trying to think about why I want the things I want to figure out whether I really want them even though I dont know if there is really a me...  All of this is so complicated and I don't think there are really any answers...I guess we just have to keep questioning, keep imagining ourselves on that shapeshifting planet.

Here is a funny little animation that makes me think about gender outlaw-ry and about bodies that don't fit in......... WARNING It might one of the (many) things that I think is funny and others think is totally inappropriate/really, really weird... (sorry)