Recovering from surgery: week 4.

After 4 weeks you're allowed to take of your binder during the night and then slowly keep it off during the day. The thing was driving me nuts. My skin was getting really irritated and I didn't feel like I was benefiting from it at all. When I would first take it off I would feel the need to put it back on after a while but by now that was completely gone. I figured it was more a guideline anyway as every body is different. I replaced it with a tight tank top during the day for a few hours to see how it felt. It was much more comfortable. Slowly I increased the time I would wear the tight shits but would keep on the binder at night. Eventually I decided it was enough and took the binder off during the morning to never put it back on again. This was 3 days before my doctor recommended to slowly cut back on wearing it. I know I went against medical advise but I really feel much better. My skin is recovering quickly and I can feel my strength coming back. The last bit of scabs are held in place by the stitches that still need to dissolve. My chest is still itching on the inside as it heals but I feel I am getting closer to the end every day. It's getting harder and harder to restrain myself and not start lifting heavy things again. My gynaecologist told me I could start exercising again but right now that means anything waist down. So, in addiction to my daily walks, I started to do squats again. I'm only using my own bodyweight but at least it's something. It feels good to be moving again. I used to work out 14 hours a week and sitting still is really not my cup of tea. Two more weeks and I can really get started. I'm thinking about slowly adding some exercises so it won't be too much of a shock when I hit the gym again. I really can't wait.

As far as the hysterectomy goes I'm really just waiting for the scabs to fall off and that's about it. Everything is pretty much back to normal. Except the tension in my muscles of course. I really need to fix that. All in due time.

Other then that I am back to work; painting and working on my book. It feels good to be doing something useful again. I'll be using my trans related blog posts as a guideline for my book so I'm printing them out and rereading them all, sorting them out by theme to make chapters. It's really interesting to see how much has changed and how little I actually knew when I started this journey. I have learned a lot. And the people around me as well. Hopefully the book will help even more people.

If you want to see pictures of how my chest is healing you can go to my tumblr account.

Fifty shades of wrong.

A friend of mine is lending me fifty shades of grey. For reasons unclear to me it is in Dutch. The good thing is that I can pretend that some things are just bad translation. Unfortunately that doesn't change the story line. It's very easy to read. It's like popcorn, hot air. You don't need to think about any of it so you're just flying through it. I was quite surprised at that. I'm not saying it's well written, it's just very readable. The story is very simple. Boy meets girl, the conquer an obstacle and live happily ever after. In this case the writer choose kink for the fluff to fill the pages. I really wish she had done her research right. She didn't. I'm hoping it's the translation that writes the Dutch word for submissive with a capital. Somehow I doubt it. And that is just the start. I'm not sure what she had in mind with mister Grey but for someone who is supposed to have 12 years of experience in kink he is extremely naive. Clearly he is not a Dominant or Master by nature if she can manipulate him so easily after such a long time in the scene. Nor is she a true submissive but she doesn't claim to be. She's a brat. She just happens to be a masochist but that doesn't make you a sub by definition. Error upon error upon error. Oh my indeed.



Why does this bother me? For the same reason why The Da Vinci Code bothers me. It's popular writers who don't do their research properly and send these idiotic ideas into the world without worrying about how it will effect people. Does stuff like this effect people? Yes, of course it does. Most people get most of their knowledge from the media. Including me. It's not just internet and TV. Books count just as much. People believe a lot of stuff they see or read, simply because it sounds convincing. Like the mermaid documentary on Animal Planet. A lot of people thought it was real. I wanted to believe it because mermaids are cool and the documentary was very well done. But that doesn't actually make it true.


It's the same with books like these. People think the writers did their research so they must know what they are talking about, right? If someone knows a tiny bit more then you do that doesn't mean they are experts. If someone can change the oil it doesn't mean they can fix the engine. But people think they do. This is just the most recent example of misconceptions that I found. For someone as deviant from the norm as I do I feel compelled to stand up for diversity in any way. This is one of the reasons why I've started working on my book. One of the topics I want to discuss there is love. As far as boy meets girl stories go Fifty Shades is rather cliche. In other words: it is normative. As someone who wants to do his research as well as possible I'm curious about how other people see this norm. I'm trying to gather as much information as possible to get a good picture. As far as love goes, or cultural norms for that matter, one of the best sources would be personal experiences. I was wondering if people would be willing to send me their stories, their experiences and their ideas about what love is, what the norm is and if that norm is correct. I know that's a lot to ask but I would be very grateful. You can post a comment if you want or send me a personal message on my Facebook page if you don't want it to be public. If you have any questions, go ahead and send me a message as well. This book will contain a lot of personal opinion but it should, most of all, be a book for all of you.



And for those who are curious: a fun bit of science behind love.