Gender Identity Is an Individual\'s

¶ … Gender identity is an individual's isolated awareness, and personal understanding, of their own gender. Sexual identity. Sexual orientation is the favored term used when discussing a person's bodily and/or demonstrative desirability to the similar and/or contrary gender. "Heterosexual," "bisexual" and "homosexual" are what are recognized as sexual orientations. An individual's sexual orientation is separate from a person's gender identity and expression. Sexuality is connected to but separate from sex. It is a term used to refer to anything in the social or personal life of someone that any erotic meaning to it among other meanings making sexuality a broad term to define. Eroticism is a quality that generates sexual feelings in someone, including metaphysical examination regarding aesthetics of sexual longing, romantic love, and sensuality. The word pregenital labels the libidinal phases preceding the conclusive, genital arrangement of psychosexuality. Pregenital drives consist of the in-between of creation and perversion. Pregenital drives enable a discharge into the perverse act or undergo the transformation needed by sublimation. Genitalia is the side of sexuality that associates with genitalia. Exhibitionism is the act of revealing in a public or semi-public setting parts of one's own body that are not typically revealed like the genitals, the breasts, or the buttocks. Transvestitism is a person's act or behavior associated with the opposite of their own gender. One can be a transvestite and still be heterosexual as the behavior does not promote or become an extension of one's sexuality. Transsexualism refers to an individual who desires or identifies with the opposite of their assigned and/or natural gender. One can be transgendered and be considered either heterosexual or homosexual depending on the gender the person associates with. For instance, if a woman who wants to be a man still like men, when she transitions to a male, she would be regarded as a homosexual. If she remains a woman, she would be regarded as a heterosexual though sexuality in this regard is often lacking a definitive answer. The three contributions to sex Freud made in his theory of sex are as follows:

1. Sexual aberrations was Freud's first essay topic and distinguishes between the sexual object an aim. A desired object is the sexual object and the sexual aim is the desired acts intended with the sexual object.

2. Infantile sexuality contends that children possess sexual impulses, from which adult sexuality only progressively materializes via psychosexual growth. Examining children, Freud acknowledged several forms of juvenile sexual feelings that consist of thumb sucking, sibling rivalry, and autoeroticism.

3. Puberty is the topic of his third essay, "The Transformations of Puberty" and has Freud formalize the dissimilarity between the 'fore-pleasures' of the previous infantile sexuality and the 'end-pleasure' of the act of sex or sexual intercourse. Additionally Freud explains adolescent years are fixated on genitals when it relates to sexual identity.

Being a homosexual, being a transgendered person, these are all considered taboos in life. From the moment one is born to the moment one dies, society expects one to fit a certain mold. From here one attempts to fit this mold to live life successfully and find acceptable mates. However some people attempt to break this mold. The Naked Civil Servant and The Crying Game have two rebellious and socially deviant characters named Crisp and Dil who defy norms to pursue their sexual identity and interests in life. Two other novels, Isabelle and Therese and Maurice share a brief into the lives of both lesbian and gay couples and their often times tragic conclusions.

The Naked Civil Servant is a 1968 autobiography and 1975 film of Quentin Crisp's life. The film is a three-part dramatization of the autobiography. Quentin Crisp is a British gay man in his seventies at the time, who later became a cult figure in the homosexual British movement. Although Crisp is openly gay he is also regarded in the film as a "Queen" for his flamboyant and defiant effeminate behavior. Throughout the film many heterosexual and homosexual males attach a negative stigma to the stereotype of the effeminate gay to which Crisp defies time and time again. The audience sees this at the start of the film when he delicately poses his teacup for the camera and later when he puts on a show for the GIs and wears nail polish and his underwear in public. In fact, his character is that of defiance and what made him so famous within his country. He exhibits a gender identity that is effeminate or feminine and shows the world through his perspective his sexuality and preference.

As previously mentioned, Crisp is openly homosexual and his exhibitionist impulses and self-destructive behavior motivates the struggle within his life vs. unoriginal heroic desire. Similarly to Dil who lives his life, at times showing self-destruction as she guns down Jude and ties up Fergus, by her own rules, choosing to be a woman amidst a time when being transgendered was severely frowned upon. The journey for both Crisp and Dil though hard, ultimately led to a strong sense of gender identity and an awakening of both sexuality and eroticism as they found their way through gender and sex.

The journey for Crisp began after leaving his parent's home and venturing off into various jobs like a tap dance instructor and commercial artist. Although he met some initial success in these jobs, he ends up one of the few places that allows openly gay men. And even with constant ridicule from men from all walks of life, including upper class homosexuals, his defiance and refusal to surrender his elected identity and lifestyle remain. One interesting part of the movie that refers to Crisp's sexuality is the ongoing desire to find his one "great dark man whose love I'll win." He knows he won't find him, but his pursuit of desire is an ongoing theme in the movie.

Dill from the film The Crying Game is also a defiant feminine person, this time as a transgendered woman. Ironically unlike Crisp, Dill finds her dark man in Jody. And although she loses him as he gets run over by an army vehicle, she is still able to find love in one of his mates, Fergus who at the beginning of their romantic affair becomes repulsed at the idea that Dil was once male. Dil much like Crisp were erotic in their encounters with males they desired and seemed to exhibit behavior that connoted to feminine desire. As seen with the heavy drinking by Dil when faced with the prospect of dealing with Fergus's assassination mission and dressing up as a male in order to avoid being killed. Dil can be seen as transsexual or transgender. He forgo his masculine identity in lieu of a feminine one. He remained attracted to men and dated Jody and then Fergus making him at first a homosexual then heterosexual as he officially becomes a she.

Isabelle and Therese from the 1968 movie Therese and Isabelle is a story about two lesbian women who defy convention by having a love affair in their boarding school. Their love is very intimate with scenes of conformity as Therese has sexual intercourse with a boy as an attempt to normafy herself as Goffman states on page 12 of his book, Stigma. Scenes in the beginning of Therese's mother preparing her for marriage put pressure on the young woman to adhere to the gender identity and sexuality society predetermined for her. The scenes are sweet and innocent laced with a tinge of fear as they are become fearful of someone coming into the room to find them making love. A scene in Isabelle's room gets interrupted by a noise the couple hear from outside the hallway. Their relationship ends much like that of Maurice and Clive.