The Divine Hermaphrodite

It’s easy to claim, I think, for a lot of us, that we’ve felt something deeper while under the influence of a substance. I think many of us have a glimpse of the finer machinery beyond our own valley into the nature of all things, of existence and being. And for the most part, these are little stories we share, but only briefly, in passing, like deja vu less, we have just the right audience. This is much the same as what I have had recent repeat experiences of; however, it hinges on more in the same manner as solid deja vu, which I have fairly often.
To start, I don’t advocate heavy drug use or any kind of thorough use of substances on a regular basis. I occasionally partake of legal hemp in my state, and were it possible, I would enjoy recreational psilocybin if we ever make it that far in legislation, but I’m not holding my breath. Substances with psychoactive effects, I feel, are a mixed bag and not something just to take for a fun time. I don’t use it regularly, but here and there, I find it enjoyable, if not necessary, to remain balanced against the anarchy of the world. Furthermore, I don’t like regaling others about drug experiences as they often sound pretentious, and the same could be said about my feelings towards sex and things of that nature. Yet, as a fair warning, this subject delves into both, and I lack any way of negotiating that without conceding this exemption.

I am a man. That’s not a proclamation but a fact based on any document you could find on me from a job application to my birth record. Growing up, I had plenty of troubles and none more overwhelming than confusion towards my sexuality and, at times, my gender. Had I been a kid now, I don’t think I’d have crossed the mental threshold I recently have but would have been likely looking into transitioning. You see, when I was young, and still now, I had a proclivity for behaviors typically associated with the feminine. Equal to these behaviors were interests, but I skirted those slightly by skewing my interests into concepts that would be vaguely unisexual. At the time, I hated that I liked the things I did or acted how I felt more comfortable, but never really understood why I had those inclinations at all.
Throughout my adult life, I’ve focused on discovering who I am, what it is to be me, and what my identity is. This sounds pretty basic, I’m sure. That’s something that we all do, we all just want to know who we are, and once we know who we are, we might feel more comfortable in the world. For a time, I thought I had it figured out, but the more I dug into my mind, I found bits and pieces of things once broken off or repressed. The further I’ve come in my adult life the more I’ve let slip, the more I’ve reconnected those broken shards into full models of what was once. And now, having become well acquainted with certain substances and focusing on meditation and outer body realities, I have come to an answer for why and how those youthful feelings once manifested and how they have been nurtured into returning.
I’ll explain the trip, maybe just a generalized version of it as details have been different on the occasions I’ve been able to sync myself into this mindset.
When I get high, I get quite philosophical and work over concepts in my mind from the absurdity of language to the most minute of notions. Identity, being that it has been a struggle of fixation of my mind for so long, often crosses that board of thoughts. In addition, I will usually get a body high and just more or less tantrum about in bed, stretching and enjoying the relief coming over my limbs, simply just relishing this brief existence. Here’s your fair warning for what might be more graphic and definitely more than I’d typically care to share.
When in this bodily state, like anyone else, I become enamored with sensation and often become aroused. Not to mince words, but as I touched myself on these occasions, I had a disconnect from reality. For an extensive period, let’s say an hour or so, I felt the warmth between my legs change from the dangling bits of a man to the damp recess of a woman. Not only did my mind mentally tweak to this point, but I felt I could feel the familiar but misplaced organ set into my flesh. At first, I was overcome with fear, convinced I had lost my mind, that I had been mistaken my whole life into believing I was a man, or that I had somehow lapsed and not recognized that I had chosen to transition at some time or another. Later I would find this was not the case, but at that moment, after fear, there was calm, acceptance, even a vague joy, a wholeness that I can’t quite say I have felt before. And as the panic subsided, I began to enjoy this changed flesh, this aberration of mind, or whatever someone more astute may make of this sensation.
This has occurred numerous times, and though the first was likely the most intense, I’ve felt no less intrigue as I reconnoiter with a self that does and yet does not exist. In those moments, I could feel the merging of anima and animous (Jungian theory), and for that time felt complete, balanced, almost unreal. As my partner engaged me, seeing that I was having quite a moment of arousal, my mind painted the picture of that reversed role and felt in the way that I might had it been so. Hardly will I say I am an expert or understand psychology, especially concerning sex and gender, but neither will I say this felt anything but real as this phantasm of vaginal penetration played out with my partner now possessing the reverse of her own genitalia.
But it wasn’t solely physical nor mental. It was so many things, eye-opening in a manner I fail to describe, I’m sure. At once, I felt man, and I felt woman, and I felt merged into a whole being, a scale with both ends loaded equally, balanced. I, for a moment, peered beyond a veil once made ironclad but then voluminous and gauzy. I saw deep into the heart of identity and found the roles and rules of our society or preconceptions and notions of right and wrong per gender to be lacking. These bodies lacking in their solid nature and complexity to be rearranged at will and whim. To see with unclouded eyes, a mind freed of burden and fear, to be that fully realized individual, one must see beyond that curtain and find that otherself waiting beyond and form a proper union.
This sounds, surely, like the ravings of a drug-addled madman or some bizarre new gender or hippie male-feminist soy, so on and so, but from the outside looking in, I can’t imagine it looking clear as crystal and it sounding and feeling like some abomination and a threat to orthodoxy and god and government and all things that create standards and patterns and systems. But like so many things, revolutions of an age, what sounds as madness is sometimes, in fact, the freedom and realization of deeper knowledge and hidden truths.
To assuage contempt, I will say in so many ways, despite my feelings for the movement as it stands now, I am something of a male feminist. And though I know what images that must conjure, I do not desist from this concept. Concept, however, is the main cord to strike here, not so much terms. The concept is, as in any idea about prejudice and an in-group vs. an out-group, that the differences between the two are minor and usually petty when in truth, there exist a greater deal of similarities than anything else. However, due to a predisposition to a mindset that is becoming increasingly antiquarian, it is almost necessary to mention that you support a movement that has become so ingrained in the minds of most that the mention of it becomes redundant. This begins to trail out from where we started, so allow me to meld back into the strangeness of my thoughts.
Personally, I believe this fully actualized person, the Divine Hermaphrodite, if you will, the merged anima and animous, is the way to greater fulfillment and a better understanding of self. That isn’t to say that there are equal measures in each individual between the two and the traits we would attempt to list, though they may be based on long-lasting gender-role stereotypes. Yet, within most, I challenge that there is some rumbling disquiet that leads to questions of whether said thoughts, emotions, or actions are proper based on one’s gender. In coming to terms with these aspects and integrating them, much like that of the shadow, we will find a greater equilibrium in self. Less important, but no less impactful for the physical reality, is that it would reduce the unnecessary process for the many who find themselves uncomfortable in their own skin.
This is maybe a presumption based only on my own experiences, but I’m of the belief that a fair amount of people facing a level of dysphoria when it comes to gender would benefit from such integration of male and female-type mindsets. I think, perhaps because hardly can I insist I am an expert, that a struggle so many face with this is societal. We have hard rules still even in the West when it comes to beauty, career, roles in domestic life, and personal interests that it wouldn’t be hard to suggest that were these people offered freedom to express themselves regardless of norms and standards that they would benefit if in no other way than to feel accepted for who they are not what they are as well as find themselves capable of accepting their true nature. This is, of course, speculation, but were we to help people to integrate and find balance within themselves between these two sets of rules, imposed largely on a sociological level as they are the same coin and very hardly two opposite sides, there would be fewer requirements or demands for surgery. If a woman were imbraced for their skill with mechanical devices or a man encouraged for being very good with children rather than being portrayed as though they are far outside of norms, maybe there would be less incentive to change

physically and instead perhaps open one’s self up emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
This, again, can not be stressed well enough. The melding of the two forces is not the breaking point of two distinct movements but the recognition of the sameness between the two and the cooperation of both in forming a fully realized individual. The gender-role stereotypes that one might rely on to explain these ideas are far from what would logically make sense but is the only reliable way to press the message into easily graspable concepts. What we find is much like the Jungian shadow, the merging of anima and animous is a fuller self that has always been there, and only because of perception severe into two distinct aspects and much like the negative traits of the shadow, one full side has been submerged in a deep trench of negative reflections. The casting aside of those less positive concepts is how we see that within both, there shines equal light and looms equal gloom, yet to push one into another permits those radiant beams to grow greater and reduce those shades to vague darkness in the corners of self.
In summation, I can not stress enough how uplifting, relieving, and maybe even life-changing this experience was for me. I can not easily relate it to much beyond the conquering of any other fear for a trait in ones self once able to admit and accept that aspect inside myself. Still, unlike so many other grim but eventually acceptable truths, this awakening and comingling of what would be archetypically male and female is beyond any previous revelation. It is a fearful thing and one that would easily be met with criticism and fury if not fear. Still, I could see a world wherein we can all permit ourselves to wander and find our proper ground mentally and spiritually, that the distinctions between the sexes will fade in so many ways until only those key elements, the solely physical components, remain and are as unremarkable as the clothes we wear or names we take. This is all, of course, grand thinking, delusions, maybe even no worse or better than assuming a reality wherein we have all confronted, accepted, and integrated or shadow into the greater network of ourselves. Yet, perhaps there will come a day when such things are commonplace, and those still stubborn, fearful of what these changes might bring, are then the out-group. But I would pray not that anyone should be forgotten in this chance at transformation into a whole being rather than fragmented parts.