Right, well, it's been a couple of weeks since my last confession...

Been reading Judith Butler..something about the performative nature of gender, since I'm supposed to writing an essay about gender roles and female body-building. Apparently, according to Butler, gender identity is a kind of cultural 'discourse' qualified by hsitory. In other words, gender is an 'idea' that became popular and consequently invested the 'idea' with authority, since more and more people adopted the now stereotypical traits that we all think are innate. All a bit confusing really. She writes about Drag Queens, and how they 'perform' feminity, using it as an example of gender in performance. The ideas of gender are so well ingrained that it seems natural and biological, but she argues that before the popularity of biological sciences, (pre-19th century) people just saw the body as a lump of flesh riddled with the marks of original sin etc. So, it turns out I'm not actually a 'man', I'm a collection of stereotypical traits invested with historical authority...I'm sure my ex-girlfriend would agree, but the trick is to relate all this to female body-builders.