Hello 
I'm Siobhan Curran/Kisa Naumova, and this is my weblog. I tend to write about stuff like crossdressing, Macs, code, cats, wine and Second Life, but in general it's just an ongoing conversation about all sorts of stuff. If you'd like to know a little bit more about what this all is, I recommend starting on this page which has a little bit of info on who I am, and what I'm trying to do — or you could dive into my five years worth of archives if you like.
Otherwise, feel free to close this box and explore...
Check Out My Website, Yeah?
out journey london party randy
Just why April titled this photograph "The worst photograph in the world" when she sent it to me — unless it's a Barley reference — is beyond me, but it gives me a rather good hook into explaining a little of what I got up to this weekend.
Let's go back a little bit — to Bethnal Green in fact.
The thing is, April 
has a lovely set of photos on her site from The Bethnal Green Working Man's Club, and since I needed to go and see her, we figured it would be a really good excuse for a night out.
I wore:
- Stockings
- A Waistcoat
- A frilly denim skirt
- Boots (no, really)
I can't, honestly, sum up in words what the atmosphere in that place was like. Really I can't. Aprils been trying to coax out of me some kind of definition of the place, and all I can come up with is "Burlesque, and guy with a pink furry head!"
But still, perhaps I'll try and describe it some other time. Perhaps I'll try to put it into words. Perhaps, also, I'll mention that I saw the woman of my dreams there.
But not right now. Right now I wanted to share what happened after we left the club, and made our way to a warehouse party elsewhere.
Drunken directions, 67 three-point-turns and some random insults about "kosher Marylyn Munroes" later, we found ourselves in a self-facilitating-media-node surrounded by people dressed up as icons from the 80s.
My particular favourite was the guy in knitted chainmail, complete with Pythonesque coconuts that he used to make clippy-cloppy horse noises.
I'm not sure if the pair of us — two transvestites in a sea of fancy-dressers — stood out at all, but essentially, I was loving it. All around us were Interesting People™, all chatting about this and that project that they were involved with, and instructing each other to "Check out my website yeah? It's totally fucking Jackson".
Being the darlings that we are, we got ushered out of the main space, behind the band, and into a maze of backrooms, where strange men with top hats offered us things that perhaps they shouldn't, and small huddles of people fretted because all the ones with credit on their mobiles had run out of batteries, and all the ones with batteries had run out of credit.
I, being the eternal lightweight, and having three pints of Guinness, several gin and tonics, and God-knows how much wine in me, decided it would be a good time to leave.
We both tottered (which is the correct desctiption of how trannies walk) through the throngs, pausing only for April to take that picture. (The woman on keyboards has just said "Hey, Mr Mixer-guy. I think we need more keyboards and less drums")
We passed the crowds of revellers, smiling and winking and flirting our way past several oddly dressed chaps (and from us, the thought of 'oddly dressed' must come with some kudos), out the doors, down the stairs, out the front doors...
...straight into a line of twenty grumpy-looking policemen with their arms folded.
In riot gear.
With one of those battering-ram thingies.
"Ooh, hello", said April, in (as she's since explained) shock.
"Walk away now", I whispered in her ear.
And so the pair of us walked, rather quickly, to the corner of the road, then ran as fast as we could to her car, and spent the next hour laughing our tits off at what had just happened as she drive me back to her house.
Where we had lots of sex.
Well, put it like this ... they weren't exactly cuddly
Now thats what I call a proper night out!
Mine pales in comparison. Although I do vaguely recall being drunk, groped and robbed. But possibly not in that order.
Uhhhh.....
Mine pales in comparison
I never thought I'd see the day when you said that, Ms Karol 6-clubs-in-one-night Cross. The "robbed" bit doesn't sound good though 
I have this theory about coppers in these situations, I think they are actually quite scared (despite always looking a bit scarey themselves). Think about it this way...it's 1.30 am, you're in a pretty skanky part of North London in front of a warehouse down some pitch black alley way. From above comes the sounds of heavily amplified and distored noises and screaming. You're facing some pretty hefty looking doors, from behind which come the approaching sound of chatting voices. Suddenly the door bursts open and two fantastic looking, lipstick smeared transvestites appear. The one in front looks down at you, breaks into a huge grin and says..."ooh, hello".
If I was a copper, I'd wet myself and run.
I suppose this explains why they said absolutely nothing to us in return, so rooted in shock where they themselves. Quite why I said what I said, I can explain, but it makes no sense. When I opened the door, for a split second, I though they were a group of blokes in dinner jackets and I had the overwhelming feeling that they were about to break out into applause (I told you it doesn't make sense). When they remained silent, I then realised that they were coppers and my next though was "wow, those are really fantastic costumes, so detailed" (forgive me, I had been chatting to GI Joe and Dr Gonzo upstairs, seeing a copper was natural progression).
Luckily Siobhan prompted me with the correct course of action in this situation (and I'm supposed to be the street wise Londoner).
I'm just glad I'd changed into my trainers and wasn't wearing my boots any more 
Remains Of The Day
I mentioned the other day that there seems to be only one pose that I like in photographs of myself. I lied. There are two. This is the other
On Vanity
I'm guessing that it's a pretty well-and-widely-known fact that I'm a self-obsessed, vain little cow. I think to some extents, there's something inherent in transvestites that makes us vainer than most of the rest of the planet (we do spend an inordinate amount of time staring at ourselves in a mirror for a start — and I don't even want to begin to explore the "I fancy myself when dressed" Freudian narcissistic nightmare) — but I have been noticing (because people have been pointing it out to me) that I seem to manage to take vanity to a whole new level.
The thing is though, I think there's a reason for that. And it's nothing to do with whether or not I look like a girl — it's how I feel about myself as a boy.
When I was young, I hated the way I looked. With a passion. My stupid bowl-cut hairdo, my great big floppy lips, my inability to grow a beard, my weedy build — I used to look at the other guys around me and wish I looked more like them. I knew that the girls at my school found me unattractive, and for a early-teenage boy just on the brink of puberty, with New And Strange Sensations In His Pants™, this was a horrible thought.
I wanted a girlfriend — and I was never going to get one looking like Wayne Wibbley from Red Dwarf.
There were certain things that I did to try and rectify this though. For a start, I got my hair cut by someone other than a 70-year-old barber who only knew how to do one style (although, perhaps, in hindsight, switching from a bowl to a mullet wasn't my greatest ever decision ). Secondly, I taught myself to smile with my lips sucked in, to the point where I still do it today.
(You know how sometimes, in pictures of me, there are two little bulges just under my mouth when I smile? Those are my lips.)
There is, of course, a great irony in my lack of facial hair and weedy build at the time. Those are two things that right now would come in very handy
Anyway, having spent God-knows-how-many years as a kid utterly aghast at my physical appearance, it's so strange to look at photos of myself now and think "hold on a second, I do actually look OK".
It's like being a long-standing Mac fangirl, perhaps. Maybe. Having spent so many years on the receiving end of mockery and laughter about my OS of choice, now that things have finally turned around, I feel in someway 'justified' in being a little smug. (Just a little, she emphasises, not wanting to start up that whole bloody malarky again)
So, um, sorry about this irrelevant navel-gazing. It's kinda inspired a vague idea for a post about masculinity, and how notions of boy-me fit into this whole crossdressing wotsit — an idea that I might think through properly before I write about it for a change. I really just wanted to post a picture that April took of me as we were leaving the bar where we had lunch with K 
the other day, not because I want to get all "Ooh, look at me!" or anything ... just because, well, I like it....
...and liking the way I look is something that I've longed to be able to do for years.
oh go on — you know you all want us to say "Ooh, look at you!" (re: first paragraph)
but, you are gorgeous...
On Flickr And Porn
One of the problems of being an online junkie such as myself, is that every time you go away for anything more than a day, you're greeted on your return by numbers like "587" in your unread feeds list in your RSS aggregator.
(Apparently, a list of my feeds is a Desired Thing To Download™, so I've just exported an OPML list of what I subscribe to from NetNewsWire if anyone wants a copy. Apologies for the 'unorderedness' of it — I need to go through and pair down and organise a lot of my recently imported ones that I got from Jon 
. They're all mostly random trannies, Apple-related, or designery things, but somewhere in that list is my cunningly-implemented video podcast that I haven't mentioned, I don't think)
One post that jumped out at me, but I felt I was too late to comment on, was Becky talking about Flickr being classed as 'adult/sexually explicit' and blocked by SurfControl. Site-blocking software seems to be a bit of a 'thing' at the moment, what with Boing Boing being banned all over the world and yours truly falling foul of Virgin (I can't smoke on their trains, at weekends I can't drink on their trains, and now I can't look at rude photos of myself on their trains 
), and while I agree that there does seem to be a rather large amount of cut-n-pasted porn on Flickr, I feel that what Becky 
is saying here...
[...] a seedy culture of Adult picture-sharing is forming. I think something should be done about it [...]
...is wrong.
I think it's wrong, because it's not something that should be addressed by Flickr. It's something that should be addressed by whoever happens to find themselves behind site-blocking software.
Flickr is about sharing photos — not about deciding what photos are 'good' and 'bad'. The people who decide what's good and bad are the community of Flickreenies — ie. you and me. And, as Miss K rightly says in a comment on the original post:
The amount of moderation staff they'd have to employ to achieve this would make it instantly a prohibitively expensive service to use (as well as a culturally stifling and police-state like place)
Therefore it's vital that the community actively help them moderate the site. If you see a photostream of user that violates the guidelines, don't just complain about it to your friends, use the Abuse Reporter to notify the admins.
But regardless of whether there's too much porn on Flickr (and I personally believe that the only reason I come into contact with it, is just the nature of the types of pictures I post and the fact that I'm a trannie), I think that suggesting that Flickr take steps to 'clean up' the photostreams just because they've been deemed 'inappropriate' by some site-blocking company, is kinda like us hiding ourselves away indoors just because some sections of society deem us to be 'perverted'.
If we want those sections of society to respect us, then we challenge them. If the company you work for is stopping you from looking at photostreams, then you need to challenge them, not Flickr.
Email someone higher up. Explain to them why Flickr shouldn't be blocked. Explain why you should be able to flip through a few photographs in your coffee break, or catch up with what your contacts are up to over lunch. Explain to them that it's inevitable that some questionable images will appear on a site with so many diverse members — but that's just how the world works, and they should perhaps trust your judgement and treat you like an adult, rather than blanket-banning anything potentially risqué.
As an academic, whenever I'm accessing the internet at work, I have to abide by the (very strict, actually) rules of JANET. Pornography is something (obviously) that I'm not allowed to browse from within the University.
But supposing I was working on some project, that was examining the role of pornography within contemporary photography (as an art academic, that's not as unlikely as it sounds). I'd either make sure I did all my research from home, or I'd write to The Powers That Be™ and ask for permission to venture off the 'family-safe' areas of the net. And providing I argued my case, I'd most likely get permission to do just that.
My point here, really, I guess, is that it is indeed ridiculous that some companies take it upon themselves to act as 'nannies' and patronise us by telling us what is and isn't good for us to read online. But we shouldn't gripe about what made these sites "objectionable", we should gripe about things like SurfControl and SmartFilter, and the companies that lazily use draconian (and crap, actually) devices like them to protect their own arses rather than treating their employees as adults.
Oh. And if you really positively definately HAVE to look at yours and your contacts' photos, use your mobile.
...protect their own arses rather than treating their employees as adults.
Sorry chuck, but there's a problem here: caching. I remember, years ago, typing "www.microsoft.com" into a browser address bar; trouble is, I mistyped one character and before I knew it a zillion porno pop-ups opened. Now I was in work at the time, moocho panicky browser closeration. Anyhow, quite some time later I discovered the browser-cache and was having a ferret about in it. What do I find? All this pr0n that's been sitting there since I made my typo. Now let's say that instead of the usual gynae' shots of adult women, it had been kiddie-pr0n... I think you can see where this could end up. If the page doesn't get opened in the first place, nothing gets cached — no one risks prosecution over an innocent mistake.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of censorware (in fact, I'm dead pissed off that surf patrol blocks Beckysweb; even if you use the Google 'translate proxy' — the misbegotten f'ing b'stards), but you can see why companies use it.
I do like the idea of 'blocked' sites linking to sites owned by censorware companies, and companies who employ their products — pity it won't work.
Alli' Cat'
You're absolutely right of course, and I probably shouldn't have let my rantiness and a casual throw-away comment about "protecting their arses" deflect from the point I was trying to make.
That point being that it's misdirected to be moaning about the porn that seeps its way onto a (tiny) minority of members photostreams, rather than asking questions of the site blockers (and the companies that use them) themselves.
Just to return to how things work where I work for a second, I was chatting to the guy who administers the university's firewall one day. He described his way of configuring it as "totally paranoid". Close down everything except port 80, and only open things under special circumstances.
It means, for example, that I can't visit Second Life while I'm at work (which is probably a good thing, really). But if I wanted to use Second Life in a lecture (which I'm currently thinking about BTW), then all I'd have to do is ask him to open up some ports and explain why, rather than moaning that SL traffic doesn't go through port 80.
That's probably not the best analogy in the world, but I think it makes a little sense. Whether or not there's too much pornography on Flickr is not the issue here (I happen to think that there's not), and debating it doesn't strike me as being remotely productive.
Personally, I'm going to try and get in touch with Virgin to get some response as to just why I've been blocked — the language? The 'inappropriate' links to (AFAIK) Flickr? Or (to get a little bit 'Ali G' for a second) if it's because I is a tranny.
If it's the latter BTW, there's going to be hell to pay.
With workplace censorship stuff, the problem really is complaining... If you're supposed to be working, there's not really any good argument for why you should be allowed to look at personal sites at work... on the other hand, if you work for a small, friendly company (and you're the only one who can work the server)... well, here I am.
On the OPML file: nice to know whose blogs you don't read. Me having just written (a bit) about the trans strand at the LLGFF an' all. Hmph.
(Sorry, are we not all still scrabbling for traffic? Sorry.)
Hmph.
Reading and subscribing to an RSS feed are two very different things
there's not really any good argument for why you should be allowed to look at personal sites at work
That was something I was thinking about earlier, but I reckoned that 'during lunch' was probably an exception to that.
...if it's because I is a tranny.
That was what I wondered when Beckysweb got blocked. I can't think of anything 'inappropriate' on her site (you, on the other hand, are a totally different 'kettle of fish' ). I'm kind of curious as to just what the blocking process is. Does it just take an 'Angry of Mayfair' letter to the appropriate cyber-nazi?
Alli' Cat'
I'm kind of curious as to just what the blocking process is.
I'm guessing (perhaps wrongly) that it's just some kind of check-list of themes, and that 'tranny' is one of those things. Which is what my whole little 'mission' is, frankly. Although I might not always go about it in an effective way
Low Level Peeking
April pointed out to me earlier that all the photos I've been writing about were taken by her. So here's one I was messing around with myself
I don't think the 'during lunch' argument would cut much ice. The counter to it is, "You're still stealing our bandwidth to twat about with something that's not 'work related'."
(Bit like wot I'm doing now [blush])
Alli' Cat'
"You're still stealing our bandwidth to twat about with something that's not 'work related'."
Well, yes. Technically. But if it's bandwidth that's already there, then what harm is it?
Your work computer is a tool thats provided to you to "work".
If you worked in a cream horn factory do you think it whould be acceptable to turn your machine on during lunch times to make desert for all you mates?
An anonymous coward
do you think it would be acceptable to turn your machine on during lunch times to make desert for all you mates?
A very good point. I stand corrected.
No, not acceptable, but fuck you'd be popular 
That photo is of one of my cameras, so it still doesnt count... 
If you work in a cream horn factory, then it IS acceptable to eat as many cream horns as you desire (based on the principle that you will get sick and tired of cream horns after a month of them — I dont, I love them, but thats another story).
The point is we are not mindless automatons who must spend every second of our working existence engaged in corporate strife. This is a point I press again and again to large companies (which possibly explains the current state of my career) but its something I believe in. Play is good. Play broadens the mind and makes you think. Play engages different parts of the brain and this process makes you a better, more creative person. Enlightened companies understand this and its those companies that will thrive.
I will defend my right to look at transgendered porn on work time for these reasons.
"I'm guessing (perhaps wrongly) that it's just some kind of check-list of themes, and that 'tranny' is one of those things."
If this is the case then yours truly is well and truly bggred because virgin host my site.
And if all else fails there's always this .
Argh! Bloke in a dress! Run away screaming!
If this is the case then yours truly is well and truly bggred because virgin host my site.
I think you're safe hon — I think it's only from within their offices
Why asterisk "bugger" BTW
Of course you are correct, but consider that most companys don not view it that way, your paid to turn up a set number of hours and work, not muck about or enjoy yourself.
Im lucky that I've worked for companys in the past that take an enlighted view of what you can do during work time, but I've also worked for companys that expect you to record what you have been doing all day, and have software to "help" you.
Being able to email/phone your mates, shop on ebay and oggle pictures of boys in dresses is not a right, but a perk of having the "right" job.
An anonymous coward
Its also your right to change your job. I've voted with my feet before...
ASCII MoviePlayer Sample
Play QuickTime movies as ASCII art 
Watch Star Wars Episode IV in ASCII via Terminal
When geeks have too much time on their hands...
I thought this was just going to be Star Wars done as in the above link — I didn't realise just how much work had been put in until I tried it out...
...
Sorry, just going back to this for a moment...
companys that expect you to record what you have been doing all day
Indeed. I once worked for a guy who (metaphorically) measured my productivety in mouse-clicks, completely missing the point of 'creative play' (my work was shite at the time). And I did, eventually, vote with my feet.
oggle pictures of boys in dresses
Ah, you see this is the thing I think. There is an assumption that's made, that "transvestite website" means "furtively rude pictures of cock in panties". And whilst that's still the case a lot of the time, I'd like to think that I, and other people like me, are at least starting to challenge that perception, and maybe change that attitude.
I'll still — of course — come under an "adult" heading (probably because I say things like "wee wee" and "poo"), but I don't really care about that. I am an adult after all.
I'd like to think that I, and other people like me, are at least starting to challenge that perception, and maybe change that attitude.
And I would like to think we are. Unfortunately we are forever clearing images out of our flickr groups of people who want to show off their willies. Or even worse, the guy who joined AngelFlickr last week who uploaded several pics of him in suspenders with his arm up someone elses arse. Now that kind of thing should not be on an openly accessible site like flickr and does none of us any good...
Yeah, see, no offence Joanna, but if you wanna moderate a group, you have to deal with people posting pictures that you might or might not feel is appropriate.
If you set up something then you have to see it through, no matter what someone might upload to it.
Technically, someone posting photos of them fisting someone else whilst dressed in suspenders is "transvestite". Who the hell are you to say that that's Good Transvetism or Bad Transvestism?
I know what you mean.. and yes, that is the role of me (and others) as a moderator.. and I have looked at more willies in the 6 years I've been running the Angels than I care to remember....
But that's not My transvestism.. But its why for every UK Angels there is a TV Chix....
I just am annoyed that two weeks after reporting the fisting photo, its still there...
I just am annoyed that two weeks after reporting the fisting photo, its still there...
Then send an email to Caterina or Stewart
Testing
Testing?
Ah, you see this is the thing I think. There is an assumption that's made, that "transvestite website" means "furtively rude pictures of cock in panties".
Unfortunately the bulk of transvestite sites are mostly that, which is why there’s a blanket ban on it.
To the "mainstream" Transvestites are people who dress up in women’s clothes for "sexual kicks", I've heard some people go on to claim that Transsexuals are "gay men who are out to trick straight men into sleeping with them".
On the whole people seem to find it hard to differentiate between Transsexuals, Transvestites & Cross dressers, which is why they are all (very unfairly) lumped into one category that seems to be "sexual deviant".
Of course, the (seemingly) ever growing number of Transsexual porn sites help reinforce this image, which is very galling for Transsexuals as what those sites offer are pictures of She males.
Human beings are very complex creatures and the sooner we can have the lot of them killed off and replaced with autonomous expert systems the better.
An anonymous coward
Sorry, I can spot a fib when I see one. I can see an exaggeration at ten paces.
Riot gear? C'mon.