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Jun. 4th, 2008
The Identity Matrix
Jun. 4th, 2008 08:36 pmThe Identity Matrix.
No, not the mathematical concept.. the novel by Jack Chalker, master of sci-fi transformation.
I re-read it this week at work.. this time from an older, wiser, and, admittedly, critical transsexual perspective.
I remember the first time I read the book, I was in that dark period of time between when I originally started cross dressing and when I re-emerged 2 years ago. The "black hole" when I was suppressing and repressing my gender identity issues..
Originally, the concept of a 30-ish geeky, nebbish college professor suddenly body-swapping into a 20-ish attractive girl excited me, and frankly, turned me on something fierce, but I couldn't quite understand why. True, Chalker's works tend towards the titillating anyways, but still.. then, later on in the novel, the main character, "Vicki" (previously Victor) has her mind altered into a completely new, artificial personality, "Misty." The people doing this have the ability to alter the brain/soul/personality such that they create a tailor-made nymphomaniac personality in order to make the perfect stripper/prostitute. They also fiddle her brain into jump-starting estrogen production so that her waist shrinks, breasts enlarge, and her brain is programmed to make her every motion sexual, and makes her voice sultry all the time. All the more titillating and arousing, but again, at the time I wasn't sure why.
Looking back at the book now, as a full fledged transsexual, things make so much more sense. In fact, Chalker makes a comparison to being transsexual at one point, even using the word, and some of the descriptions are very much exactly describing how I've felt, and what I suspect just about every MTF feels at times. There's some wonderful passages in the book, that I intend to gank for personal quotes and email signatures and the like..
For example, "The battle was for the minds, Pauley had once told me, not the shells."
It reminds me of an analogy![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
posicat likes to make about not caring about the hardware, just the firmware that's being run. I like that.
"And me -- just who was I, anyway? I knew the answer, almost instinctively, from every cell and nerve in my body. I was Misty Ann Carpenter, queen of the strippers and sometimes lady of the evening, that's who. And I felt comfortable and right that way."
"What had happened to Victor Gonser, I mused, as the miles of desert and mountain roared past. Where had he gone? I was Misty Carpenter -- but she didn't exist. She'd been created in the same computer by Harry Parch and his technical crew. Was I real -- or some embodiment of a male sexual fantasy? Certainly I wasn't what the average woman wanted to be or admired. I was a toy, a pampered pet, a plaything for other people, a mistress, a lover, too good to be true for the common male libido. And I liked it. If anything I alone was setting women's liberation back twenty years or more. And I didn't care."
"You know it's what's inside that counts, not the body you wear."
Given all the transformation in his works, and I've read the Well of Souls series, the Changewinds series, and of course, this book.. that I often wonder what was going on in Chalker's mind.. and whether writing was his outlet instead.
Hrmm.
.
No, not the mathematical concept.. the novel by Jack Chalker, master of sci-fi transformation.
I re-read it this week at work.. this time from an older, wiser, and, admittedly, critical transsexual perspective.
I remember the first time I read the book, I was in that dark period of time between when I originally started cross dressing and when I re-emerged 2 years ago. The "black hole" when I was suppressing and repressing my gender identity issues..
Originally, the concept of a 30-ish geeky, nebbish college professor suddenly body-swapping into a 20-ish attractive girl excited me, and frankly, turned me on something fierce, but I couldn't quite understand why. True, Chalker's works tend towards the titillating anyways, but still.. then, later on in the novel, the main character, "Vicki" (previously Victor) has her mind altered into a completely new, artificial personality, "Misty." The people doing this have the ability to alter the brain/soul/personality such that they create a tailor-made nymphomaniac personality in order to make the perfect stripper/prostitute. They also fiddle her brain into jump-starting estrogen production so that her waist shrinks, breasts enlarge, and her brain is programmed to make her every motion sexual, and makes her voice sultry all the time. All the more titillating and arousing, but again, at the time I wasn't sure why.
Looking back at the book now, as a full fledged transsexual, things make so much more sense. In fact, Chalker makes a comparison to being transsexual at one point, even using the word, and some of the descriptions are very much exactly describing how I've felt, and what I suspect just about every MTF feels at times. There's some wonderful passages in the book, that I intend to gank for personal quotes and email signatures and the like..
For example, "The battle was for the minds, Pauley had once told me, not the shells."
It reminds me of an analogy
posicat likes to make about not caring about the hardware, just the firmware that's being run. I like that."And me -- just who was I, anyway? I knew the answer, almost instinctively, from every cell and nerve in my body. I was Misty Ann Carpenter, queen of the strippers and sometimes lady of the evening, that's who. And I felt comfortable and right that way."
"What had happened to Victor Gonser, I mused, as the miles of desert and mountain roared past. Where had he gone? I was Misty Carpenter -- but she didn't exist. She'd been created in the same computer by Harry Parch and his technical crew. Was I real -- or some embodiment of a male sexual fantasy? Certainly I wasn't what the average woman wanted to be or admired. I was a toy, a pampered pet, a plaything for other people, a mistress, a lover, too good to be true for the common male libido. And I liked it. If anything I alone was setting women's liberation back twenty years or more. And I didn't care."
"You know it's what's inside that counts, not the body you wear."
Given all the transformation in his works, and I've read the Well of Souls series, the Changewinds series, and of course, this book.. that I often wonder what was going on in Chalker's mind.. and whether writing was his outlet instead.
Hrmm.
.
