Regressed spaces and welfare

Sorry for bring a bit slow at putting together this weeks edition of That Traditional Schoolboy's Dorm but you know no sooner than you come back that there are other Real World issues to deal with so my time has been spent rather more on them.
One issue I did kind of mention a few weeks ago was this whole question of mentions of actual Children and experiences on websites about age play, age regression and spanking.

To be honest I don't feel people understand just what the problem area of taking debates  around child raising to what are 18+ "adult sites", the way it may look to outsiders, how it may leave people who whatever they may be doing on such sites are dealing with traumatic childhoods that touch the issues never mind how it can be a site is seen as endorsing a point of view on behalf of its users.

Those discussions simply don't belong on age regression or spanking related sites just for "adults"  never mind having users imply a refusal to support any individual point of view supports or condones another that takes you completely out of the mindset and purpose of being on such sites.

On age regression sites in particular, we are going very much into working with our child-like sides with the mindset of our younger selves writing stories, drawing having role playing stories rooted in our pasts that had no part in grown up discussion of the issues at the time and where the attempt to takes us out of it. For some of us it is a coping mechanism that we badly need - it's not Adult News Central - with all the headlines and debates on the screen distracting us.

It is our place away from all that.

They belong in the relevant discussion forums for politics and parenting issues for those most affected by them.
Let's keep our spaces just for us and the reasons we need them.

Culture wars on Tumblr

Sometimes between what might be a planned post, something unexpected happens  that changes matters.
I do blog about Scouting for personal reasons and on Tumblr had followed a number of blogs connected with it but had noticed a number seemed to be disappearing.

One I loved by by a user who went under the username Redneckerchief who as far as I was aware was an American who blog about youth movements around the world both from the past and the present day.
He looked at some people like me had political and moral issues without political endorsement such as The Young Pioneers in what was the Soviet Union connected with the Communist Party and then things such as Scouting such as Boy Scouts of America (B.S.A.), GirlScouting and their British parents the Scout Association and Girlguilding UK, posting about and images of members engaged learning useful skills and building up good knowledge that would help the become useful, reliable young people, an asset to their communities.

The username came from the fact all these groups used the neckerchief as a symbol of belonging and all of his posts and comments were very much safe for work, respectful of the young people themselves and not in violation of Tumblr's terms and conditions.
Thus it was a surprise to me to see his account wiped out on Friday when I went to  back up my Scouting Tumblr to blogger which sadly is a must given the arbitrary nature of these things.
The sad thing is they take little action against people who hold despicable material such as child pr0n and yet blogs that are about childhood and often positive about things like boys education, traditional school dress and scouting just get axed.
There are times when I wonder if that sites ultra liberal bias such as summing everyone is a social justice activist fighting for 76 genders, putting gay and transgendered, people on pedestal where being so trumps anything else they do (or have done) supporting extreme climate change demonstrators while allowing anti male posts and memes to be posted has something to do with it.
Are things associated more with traditional social models and gender roles something Tumblr and the Liberals want shut down or at least neutered to comply with the second wave of feminism with its issues with men and stay at home Mums?

Boy chat

This last week was pretty interesting in that I spent time chatting on Friday in a chat room with a mixture of people of both genders on a streaming site owned by a Female "Furry" who as it happened between doing comic also had slots for free art in and to which I had entered into the competition.

You see, they all belong on a big Furry site which as it happens I do have an account in my name (Chris_minor) where I do publish pictures of my colouring and that on plus write a bit of a journal about me.

I had interacted with the odd one but never in real time with a group as talked with them about various things we had in common such as our regressed littleness and it wasn't long before I was explaining what being a adult little boy/ schoolboy was as I see it.

I also explained around how for me it was less "age playing" -a kind of role play but more a matter of coming from my actual regressed emotional age so I have less of a character and more just me younger than my 'bone' age.

The only other place I chatted a lot on was ASB.org but that's been down for a good few weeks now and I quite enjoyed it and coming out as ALB/ASB

People I think get into over thinking around things to do with gender, at least in my experience because we are all male and female, boys and girls and so much of everything else is really about us even if generally speaking their are ideas around what is normal for girl and boys and I know with boys we have a 'code' of sorts.

Thing is we can play three ways, on own own, with own own gender which is our social default or with both as in this picture where we all are and know we are boys and girls but we're playing as friend, sharing in the fun.

It doesn't and should not mean we have lost our gender in the play, it's that the play is the bigger thing.

Because I play with a girl doesn't  mean I become her any more than she becomes me it's that we both know what each other is and stick to what is right for us because we are something.

We ARE gendered. We WANT to be seen as the boy or girl we ARE and there comes a point when ACCEPT OUR GENDER and ACT ACCORDINGLY.

Going back to going forward

The endless discourse in my life around sex and gender has taken a good many years to resolve including resolving the misunderstood points, peer pressure and manipulations of others even though you could say in hindsight, the person who knew best actually was me had it been I'd of more aware of the whole topic and had the language skills to do so.

Sex and Gender can have ramifications beyond the academic or purely personal interest level though of which one is just the whole business around buying your own clothes and specifically the area of underwear cos while some forms of attire can be seen as for either or any gender underwear brings its own things such as actual physicality.

Like most boys, until you got to certain age usually connected with either romantic involvements or leaving school your mother bought your clothes and if you were lucky, you'd have some say in it.
Because I was around as a child/teen in the nineteen seventies and early eighties, you were bought boy briefs because your sex was that and for most they would be Y fronts even though it was also the start of point I was trying to figure out why my gender preferences didn't always line up with other boys.

Around late February 1987 when Nick Kamen was stripping off in the Laundromat to his boxer shorts , the very short lived LM "Lone Male" magazine had a feature on boxer shorts which I did try for a while but did find that the tended to ride making for an uncomfortable experience 'down below' and why they may of been cooler than my polyester mix Y fronts they provided no support where I at least needed it.

Under the influence of some in the transgender community, specifically transexuals who thought *everything* I experienced growing up and since  came down to my gender being trapped in the wrong sex body the issue became one of which sexes underwear do I wear. 
And yet briefs are just that beyond being cut for your sexes anatomy and I couldn't see how anything cut for females could really fit well.

I then found I was starting getting much more into regression which in some respects made what was something I didn't feel actually helped me, so the idea of  presenting in a more feminine way was  more redundant because school age regression with uniforms isn't something you 'pass' at in city centre coffee shops and I started drifting back to where all this started, being a school boy who was a boy but had different gender preferences in some areas.

Through my exploration of age regression as a boy and adult school boy I started to move toward putting together a uniform and more boyish 'play' clothes but that returned the focus back to underwear because I knew  what I had worn first time round but had not  changed since.

Though ASB I found out the standard of choice was what I had worn in my childhood and feeling that that whole period of female presentation in  any form had not done anything for my actual problems like feeling good about my sex and finding a way of handling doing both masculine and feminine things and still feeling 'a boy at heart', decided to bite the bullet and put myself back into Y fronts and ditch all else.

One thing I noticed straight off was underwear actually designed for my sex fitted better where it needed to which was a far bit more comfortable on me when doing more physical things.
I am finding ASB age regression is helping me learn to love being a boy all over again, feeling able to hold my own accepted without prejudice as a boy and nothing less and making one decision to embrace my sex and wear our standard has helped in re-integrating me back to being the best boy I can.

That ironically was all I ever wanted from the issues I had around gender preferences and presentation.  

* This is where I feel most comfortable, a boy in his uniform, playing wearing his Y fronts and happy*

Raising an issue

Back in the day there was one organization that in effect I wasn't given the chance to join  because of the closed attitudes of my parents that continues to niggle at me and that was I was never afford the chance to join the Scouting movement unlike most of my peers because they didn't think Scouting could provide the assistance I might need although I was getting along in mainstream activities like games and that in Junior school even if boys did fasten my football boot laces for me and that.

Because they didn't think it could lead to a mindset that regarded even asking for as an imposition although I am sure many a cub scout leader of that era would of found a way of doing it informally even say 'buddying up' with another boy rather than paid adult assistants.

The consequences for me were increased isolation socially from the activities of my schoolboy peers, the development of feelings on my part I could never do what regular non-disabled boys could and the lack of direction in channeling my innate boyhood in a useful and maturing way by real mentoring by adult males.

That discounts the practical skills I could of learnt which all added to the deficit of 'life skills' I left school with and very low esteem.

I'd honestly love to have the chance to re do this properly cos while it would be hard for me I think it would do me the world of good.