the appearance of non-normativity is often construed as "pressure" itself, without any action being taken. I think it has something to do with desire. for example, visible evidence of me in the world might "pressure" a young butch girl to transition, I'm often told!

like, I would not even have to go up to her and say, "hey kid, sit down you're rocking the boat, transition or you'll never get to heaven!" I could just walk by and she could know I was trans and transitioned as a kid and that could be pressure, right? that's a common idea.

similiarly, other queers might feel "pressured" to engage in polyamory simply by having a social circle where it is ordinary. even the encounter with polyamory is a form of pressure, just like the encounter with transsexuality. this ends up doing something very funny.

it renders my romantic and sex life, just like my trans body, SO ALLURING, SO IRRESISTIBLE, that w/o any rhetorical work on my part at all, encounter with that sex life or that body can exert pressure upon perfectly ordinary people to join me in elective surgeries & man-chasing!

this is, as you can imagine, a lot of power for one guy to have, which is why I have spent the past few days knitting and watching Love Is Blind and documentaries about Mennonite drug runners--it's exhausting. anyway, thread over