get sexxy

Way back in 2012, I hinted in a post called Lexx and psychological health, perhaps that I would be going into more detail. I've also talked about how I feel about the Zev/Xev character in Why Lexx Is Personal.

Guys, my psychologist waited 8 years for me to break open on this. He cannot see how in the world Lexx, a very suggestive show, doesn't affect me sexually. Let's reword that. Doesn't turn me on. I've tried to explain in other places how it all works for me, because I'm a weirdo, but it's taken years for me to find the words that can communicate what's really going on with me, because Lexx obviously hits every button I've got, right? I'm just not in love with the characters or actors or following the show or anyone in it out of infatuation. If anything, it's like I'm brain locked onto the absurdity and sadness behind it all, which I think most of us feel and probably identify with.

Sex is something different to everyone. I vehemently rejected being identified as girly growing up, and I wouldn't be caught dead in anything pink or frilly. (Yes, that's funny now, says Pinky...) I felt all the usual stuff, but I knew by 11 that I didn't feel female, but neither did I necessarily fight to be male. I opted to identify as neither, and developed an androgynous identity without even thinking about it. By high school I was clearly asexual, never went out, never made out, and never cared. I've never felt rejected or unloved, because I never craved that kind of attention. Oh, I had hormones coming out my ears, they just didn't connect in my brain to a behavior, so I never developed objects of interest or significant others (at least in high school). I figured out very quickly that crushes were temporary chemical compulsions, and that they meant nothing to me in the scheme of things. My self identity never relied on my emotions about them, because I didn't have emotions about them. I know that's hard to believe.

Ultimately, when I look around, sex is a tool, a weapon, an illusion of power or helplessness. This is aptly demonstrated by Xev showing Prince she could give him the key and withholding it from him. Relationships are games, and games have objectives. These objectives bring up opportunities to lie and bedazzle and cruelly torment, all in the name of love. We see this aptly demonstrated through May enticing Stanley after years of his own self torment over losing Lyekka, which was likely his fault. Sex also boils down to programming, which we see aptly demonstrated in 790. We also see a sexless character in the form of His Divine Shadow, and an asexual character in the form of Gigerotta (pretty sure I make that case in It's Good to be Queen- Giggerota, Part Three), along with a variety of orientations throughout the series. On top of all these characters, the one who truly stands out is Kai, because he is a sexual conundrum to everyone around him, including himself.

I could go into a long-winded boring thing about love and sex aren't the same thing, nature vs nurture (anyone on twitter sees all kinds of interspecies animal sex, so that argument is clearly invalid), and conscious decisions to commit to love in a sexual relationship, or I could skip all that and get right to the weird stuff. Frogs. I cannot stop laughing when I think about frog sex. Also, human trafficking. I've known real people caught up in that world, and it's very depressing to think about. Sexuality is its own thing, using or belittling other people's sexuality is another. Lexx has gobs of both from every angle, and coolest thing about it is they go there without blinking. They don't sit around explaining their feels to the viewers or psychologically assessing their situations. They are absolutely stuck with who they are from a terrible regime of slavery, and we get to watch them figure out for themselves the rights and wrongs of love and sex.

One of my favorites is Bunny. She's the queen on Prince's chess board, the most sexual person in the entire series, but deeply committed to the one man she loves in a wonderfully psychotic way. The funnest part is how easily everyone lets Bunny off the hook. She's so innocent, right? I just laugh at everyone who sticks up for that. She was going to kill her own friends and mother for sex. Think about it.

There are so many antithetical characters- Xev and Bunny, Prince and Kai, His Divine Shadow and Gigerotta, Stanley Tweedle and 790, Mantrid and Brizon, and sexuality is a huge part of who these people are. Xev was created by society, Bunny was not. Prince uses people, Kai is used. His Shadow is trying to salvage an extinct species, Gigerotta wants everything dead. Stanley wants love, 790 owns love. Mantrid is sexually stripped, Brizon is sexually parasitical. Everything we see in Lexx is about defining sex as either love (addiction included) or power.

My aspie childhood in a rigid belief system on a farm meant the only sex I ever knew happened was out in the field by animals. We just never talked about it. After high school, my sex life is a mess because I tried to be normal like everyone else and copy what they were doing, and it all started with everyone gets married. I was a virgin when I married a pedophile (let's just call rape for what it is, shall we?), was raped twice by people I trusted after the divorce (thank you, alcohol), was escorted to an abortion clinic by a nice man from a churchy family where I was tied down and had a baby ripped out despite protest (very confused about love by then), and gave up even trying to understand after that (and those are the nice stories). Thank goodness Scott happened and we've been married 23 years now. My two fondest sex memories are the cupcake story (my most viewed aspie post ever) and the time I laughed so hard about frogs that I ruined everything.

I was raised in a box by people who couldn't think outside the box. I'm neurologically atypical, and I don't fit into typical expectations. One thing I heard a lot was "You're too smart for any man to want to marry." That lends to loads of questions why. I grew up in a gender based power structure without identifying as a gender, and because of that, I was able to step outside the box and ask the questions. Because I lacked the criteria necessary for me to feel compelled by peer pressure (I'm a little narcisssistic), I've been able to look around and see how unaware that people around me are about being squished into societal norms. I was naturally inspired into a sociology degree, heavily laced with psychology, political science, world religious history, and ethics, and I gravitate to philosophies of all kinds. (Imagine how thrilled I was to find out my first internet nickname was more than a funny guy on a commercial, it's also a very famous paradox.)

Everything is sex to me. Freud pretty much started the whole thing, and you can take it as far as you want- everything we do in life is a sexual experience because we are born sexual beings. You can't separate sex from enjoying an ice cream cone any more than you can separate light from from getting a tan. Our nervous systems and the chemicals sloshing all over them are continually monitoring and sending signals, whether we are conscious of it or not, and while I wonder why everyone around me thinks about relationships and their emotions all day long, my brain is busy working on filling in the holes in social mapping. I was born deficit in that respect, and pretty much grew up seeing people as either acceptable or stupid, never felt close to my parents, and missed all the little things that drive people to "know thyself". We know ourselves in relation to the networks we interact with. I barely interacted.

I am coming to know myself. I discovered in 2008 that two words seem to fit me pretty well, so I simply say I'm pangender asexual. I'm not sure there's any other category I fit into. Because I am so free of gender in my own mind, I am free to think very deeply about the human condition and how people survive their local existences in time and space. I'm able to question authority and society without emotional motivation, and I'm able to research and learn other points of view without challenging the walls of my own box.

Psychological health is dependent in part on one's sexual health, and in my opinion, people are far too worried about their sex lives. I've been privately contacted so many times about sex issues, what do I think of them. If you aren't raping (and possibly killing) another being, you're probably fine. This includes sadomasochism, unless you are dragging around in ragged shreds because you like it so rough (or someone got carried away). My personal opinion on any kind of self harm and self flagellation (including anorexia) is that the psychological roots of something need to be addressed, so if you're questioning your sex life, there's probably something deeper you're really needing to address and it's not really about 'sex' at all. It's about being validated as a person, having dignity as a human being, escaping bad places and people that hurt you, finding your own path to wellness, health, and happiness. Part of healing is openly talking about our stuff.

We can learn all these things from Lexx.

This is my pre-appointment warm up. I usually do this kind of blogging on Pinky blog, but since I promised psyche guy we're really going there this time, I needed to get some words organized. I don't speak nearly so well with my mouth as I do with my fingers. There will be a lot more in session, of course, loads of personal stuff, but it'll still circle around to a chess board, and there's one of those in Lexx, too. How do I see sex? Power. Head games. You're either owning the game or lost in one.

Zev vs Xev

Click for the complete Lexx series at Amazon.com

Pix click to sources.

One of cult scifi's hottest debates is Zev or Xev. Both in real life are cool European models/actresses. But this isn't real life, is it?

This is Lexx.

In a coexistent universe overlapping our own, in the same place, at the same time, Order was making a mockery of the human race across a League of 20,000 Planets. Human beings had been locked into a darker than Orwellian regime for thousands of years, and there was no such thing as freedom of choice, reality TV, or even shopping. Although all of humanity living under His Shadow played their parts in that rigidly controlled and regulated society, women especially were considered inferior, relegated by government to reproduction and slave service if they were unfit for other useful fields, such as bureaucracy and military. Make one mistake, and you could disappear into a judicial process that would repurpose your usefulness into parts for robotic drones. Everyone had a place.

Zev's place was in a box.

B3K- Lexx Wiki

The wife bank was a huge government sanctioned processing center, one of probably several kinds of what we'd innocently call boarding schools, for parents in menial roles that didn't allow room for parenting. At least their girls in the wife banks would be housed and fed during their reeducation into the mundane roles of laborer, service, wife, and prostitute. There was no shame in the programming schools taking over for kids who came from lesser families, for kids who didn't fit in with the aggressive compliance that Order required from families higher up on the food chain (literally).

ThePicBug

At first glance, we assume Zev wound up at the wife bank because she was abandoned, but if we look at the hopelessness pervading all of humanity under the Shadow of Order, I believe her parents either did what they thought was right or were pressured into doing it, maybe both. Best let go early before the horrors of Correction removed her later. No doubt this also included children who asked too many questions and took initiatives that were not in compliance with Order, and were therefore in constant danger of disappearing, being swallowed up in Corrections and never heard from again. I'm sure parents openly questioning or protesting children being removed from their families or whatever social structure there was were met with equal retribution, quashing all thought of doubting Order. Thinking outside the box wasn't allowed. Problem solving skills came with hefty guidelines, and coloring inside the lines led to longer lives.

ThePicBug

So being turned over to the wife bank nearly from birth may actually have extended Zev's life. As we watch her emotionally mature through the series, we realize her natural questioning and initiative were already deeply rooted and she would never be able to accept living as a slave to Order, in any capacity, confirmed by her rapid decline into harsh sentencing after she automatically defended herself almost as soon as she had graduated the wife bank. I believe her parents extended her chances for survival when they submitted her to the wife bank, even if the whole scene seems lame and inexcusable from our point of view. What else could they do? She'd have questioned everything growing up and drawn attention to herself.

ThePicBug

It's very hard to imagine a society without concepts for family solidarity, holiday gatherings, or even the possibility of happiness. Such large scale repression made it impossible for families to thrive at all unless they wholeheartedly supported Order and used their every waking moment to excel in serving it, as we see in the scene of children being awarded Merits of Service. Their parents likely ranked much higher and were more deeply entrenched in loyalty, and therefore had access to opportunities and the perks that came with them. Under His Shadow, this loyalty undoubtedly went far beyond anything we think of as Big Brother, as we see good children being rewarded with special invitations to mass executions akin to Superbowl sized sporting events.

We aren't privy to much of Zev's brainwashing, but we can assume some of it was pretty explicit so she'd be ready to be a good wife. Lexx fans have seen me dancing daintily around ignoring her matron coaching her on the "tower of power" scenes in the past, which immediately clue us in on how deeply sexist and layered society would be around her once she got out of that box. Lexx very clearly shows us both child and sex slavery in efficiently short scenes that leave us hanging with disturbing clues to how deeply controlling His Shadow has become over billions and billions of people that amount to him as little more than cattle in a breeding program.

I wrote all of the above to contrast the 'smut in space' mentality some scifi reviewers have had for Lexx. Fine, if that sells the show, because that's one way to sell the deeper content. Of course it's smut in space, a love slave escaped on the most powerful weapon of destruction in the two universes.

I Worship His Shadow- part 8- Zev Bellringer

I could do an entire chapter on lusticons and what their impact would be on our own society. In Zev's world, however, they were little more than sophisticated DNA resequencers that forced women into such menial roles that they had expiry dates. They were remade to be used up and thrown away. Yes, they were remade into Beauty itself, the stuff of dreamers and poets, but along with that their minds were also stripped down to compulsive service and little else. To give readers some context, I'll cross the line of bad taste and simply ask- which would you prefer, your wife to be a real person like original Zev, or a mistress that's nothing more than a responsive doll? It's a trick question, because deep down we all want both, don't we? Be honest and admit it- we want to be able to use people without repurcussion and consequence, without guilt and self loathing. And Order makes this possible. No guilt, no conscience. Just a lusticon and a very smoothly running society. If you don't want to be made into a love slave, you do your time in a box and color inside the lines. Once you're a love slave, you're no longer a citizen. You are government property and allotted like merchandise with no regard to your feelings, your misery, your sadness, and leaving behind everyone you ever cared about or loved.

It's really important to see this from the Lexx point of view to really get all the rest of Lexx. So many viewers admit confusion, especially by season four, when it's really quite simple. All broken people want is real love, forgiveness, freedom... If you've never been around that kind of broken, you probably won't get Lexx.

All it took was one confused punch after being publicly insulted

So Zev majorly failed years of repressed wife preparation and found herself slung into the heart of the mass butchering of other poor souls not toeing the lines, actually felt ripped off that instead of being put out of her misery she'd be stripped of the last of her menial rights and be forced to ride that tower of power the rest of her quickly expiring days, and not even against her will because even that would be taken away from her via brainwashing program, and how do you even process all that while you're bolted to a slab and nothing but machines and a robot around you? Zev grew up without the warmth of humanity, yet she so beautifully expresses that very thing through the rest of the series.

So let's psyche eval Zev, the escaped love slave. First of all, surreal. Can you even imagine making it through the lusticon and suddenly the world around you has changed? The robot is broken, there's bloody cluster lizard mess and a giant (at least twelve feet long) decapitated cluster lizard on the floor, and whadayaknow, the bands are suddenly easy to pull away from their bolts on the slab. Zev doesn't seem very phased, because her entire life has been so boxed. She's simply in another box right now, a room with automatic equipment still going. And she's had a really long stupid day/week (we have no idea how long she was bolted to that slab for the trip to the Cluster), her crankiness has leveled up exponentially from the new cluster lizard DNA just incorporated into all her cells, and she's in no mood to waste time freaking out about anything. She's just pissed. And you know how funny ugly situations get when a person is a way past cranky. That's right, let's toss a robot head into a brainwashing program and giggle. Surreal.

These come from ThePicBug and click out to larger.

  

Seeing her reflection was a shock. Her struggle with Stan over who would be the human shield was pure instinctual reflex. The grab for the robot head to open the door happened in that hyper aware 'we're gonna die' state. Her dive through the doors and into fugitive escape with Stanley was coincidence. The world just kept flipping upside down over and over. We never see Zev (or Xev) go through this kind of pure flight response again. Everything she goes through after her initial flight response is calculated and consciously thought through, defying the fate that was originally intended for her as a mindless love slave. (I'm still facepalming over 'smut in space'. Really? How shallow are some of these reviewers?)

ThePicBug

By the time we reach season two, we've all fallen in love with Zev. She's way more than feisty and gorgeous, she's real. She's sad and determined and hopeful, and pretty much the tie that binds the crew into a gang with some semblance of a mission. Zev is a decision maker, despite growing up brainwashed in a box, and she very sternly draws her lines around right and wrong. In her heart of hearts, she knows what the good is that she longs for, because she's been so deep in the bad. She's a strong moral character even though she's still trapped in a DNA reboot meant to deconstruct morality into the control mechanism of Order.

The Pic Bug

And then she sacrifices her life to save an undead assassin and a traitor. I wept. I don't get very gooey over TV, but that scene ripped me apart. In the midst of being trapped in experimental medical torture fetish, she is the one who makes the moral decision to fight for the right, and since she never grew up being taught what was right, she got that from her own heart. The depths of Zev came out fighting in a greedy world with no hope left, and she died loving the loveless wanderers who had accidentally helped her escape Order. To see a Divine Assassin kneel and lift her slave bands out of her molecular remains was devastating to everyone but himself, because he could not feel it. But intellectually, that was a defining moment after billions had lived out thousands of years of slavery across a galaxy. The fandom went into shock.

The Pic Bug

And then the fandom split into camps of delight and outrage when a plant used a recombinant DNA process to reconstruct Zev's remains with the DNA of an astronaut from Potatohoe, and we get our beautiful love slave reborn, complete with memories, because Lyekka the plant felt sorry for Stanley's loneliness. Think about this- a living 'lusticon' function, a remanufacturing out of love, no brainwashing this time, and Xev is reborn and given back to the crew as a gift. It was weird and sweet and weird... And it's not our Zev, but it's still Xev, as she knows herself, but redefined. Kinda creepy, but still very beautiful. So... is she part Potatohoe-an? Sort of the astronaut's daughter? Did Lyekka impart any plant DNA into her as well? None of these questions seem to come up, but she's definitely still part reconstituted cluster lizard. (@bonenado adds "out of instant potatoes".)

The Pic Bug

We watch Xev struggle through the rest of the series with what is it she really wants. First we see her relive what seems like teenager/young adult years, except now she's no longer in a box and sparkling with the delight and joy of sexual discovery. As season two goes on, we watch her mature and take sides on right and wrong, tolerating abuse from Mantrid and then stepping up in Brigadoom to fight for a cause. By the time season two ends, Xev knows exactly what love is, and how deeply it will sacrifice itself.

The Pic Bug

Throughout season three we watch Xev go through the heartbreaking layers of being sweetly romanced by nefarious evil with ulterior motive. Xev starts out innocently believing she has finally found love at long last, only to realize she's been used for purposes that go against her strengthening moral principles. Considering that Xev came from deep in the heart of uncompromising moral deprivation, Prince finds she's not so easy to seduce, and even rivals his indestructible ambition with her indestructible cluster lizard tenacity, going so far as to outlast him on his own planet, outwit him at his own game, and even threaten him with her own brand of instinctual cluster lizard evil. She definitely has an edge over falling prey to the Prince of darkness, being only half human, a first for the planet Fire, which allows only human souls to pass into its realm.

The Pic Bug

After the shock of going through season three, season four feels a little confusing, but stay focused. Remember that Zev/Xev came from Order. She came from repression, matured through the kinds of moral ambiguity that break people, she discovered her strength against evil, and now she's finally reached a place in the Two Universes that has never been touched by the long arms of Order- Earth. We don't know if Earth humans are a surviving remnant that escaped the Insect Wars many millennia ago, much like Kai's people did for awhile, but Earth has developed all kinds of evils of its own, from governments to black market, and we get to see what happens when a genuine love slave created in the darkest heart of true evil does when she's kidnapped for porn, used to spike reality show ratings, fought over for unrequited love, captured for black market organ theft, handling a real job as a counselor, and most of all, finding out what Kai would have been like if he'd been born on Earth and how their relationship would have turned out.

Original Zev is played by Lisa Hynes.

Zev is played by Eva Habermann.

Xev is played by Xenia Seeberg.

Unlike many fans, I do not have a preference for one actress or another, and don't wish to see canon changed. The continuity works just fine for me, and I appreciate Zev/Xev in all her forms. Remembering that her character essence is what this show is all about means more to me than having favorite actors. I think they all did wonderful work and sincerely portrayed so many offenses against women with sweetness and strength of form. Following Zev's/Xev's journey across the Two Universes has deeply affected me personally, and if/when I come back to another post on Zev/Xev, I'd like to look more deeply into her role in the prophecies about the cycles of time.

More reading from other fans-
Zev and Xev Bellringer of B3K
Zev&Xev

Lexx and psychological health, perhaps

Originally posted 11-20-12.

This is a graphic discussion about sexuality from the point of view of Asperger’s and synesthesia. I’ve been seeing my psychologist for 5 1/2 years (initially to tackle communication problems), and this year I finally cracked on my sex life, thanks to getting back into Lexx. Other hints can be found throughout my writing here and on bluejacky, but for the most part, I’ve never told anyone this stuff. And now it’s public.

 

It’s gonna get weird with my psychologist, but here we go. Lexx always brings out the weird with people, and I may as well splat my brains on him. I know a huge part of psychological health is one’s sexuality, and he’s lately been trying to get me to talk about mine. This kind of stuff will wind up in my bio if I ever write it.

 

Between the asperger’s and synesthesia, I’m like a bowerbird. I’m not turned on or titillated by anything humans do, say, wear, etc, or very rarely if I am, it usually has nothing to do with what other people think of as sexual. Bowerbirds are funny things. The male has to work very hard constructing an artwork of structure and color, and if the female likes it, he gets to mate. This structure has nothing to do with building a nest or getting food, seems like a huge waste of time, and the male rarely helps the female with the kids after copulation, so it’s a twisted scene of the male pimping his place out with stimulating visuals that the female somehow responds to just by looking at it.

 

That’s me. All it takes is walking into a building and seeing a certain pattern, a certain arrangement of colors, certain lighting, I’m *ready*. There might not be another human in sight, nothing at all sexual about the decor, but it works for ~me~. I am mesmerized by colors, lighting, patterns…. I could be in a car looking out a window at the sky and trees and suddenly there it is, that spontaneous compulsion to be swept up and taken by the gods. I’ve often wondered if some of the ancient gods of earth and sky were dreamed up in an aspie mind that was overwhelmed and took it far too literally.

 

So I realized, as I was going back over my “Dare” Lexx Sex Survey post on bluejacky for typos and coding mistakes before I made it public, that *none* of it turned me on. At all. Never has, not even years ago. Except one shot. Stan wired up in all that electronic stuff, I could get off on thinking about being wired up like that because I’m weird. And it sure wouldn’t take me that long.

 

One thing I’ve been trying to get across to psyche guy is that growing up with stim compulsions and spontaneous orgasms (my nervous system is screwed) is nothing like masturbation. Sex is usually a conscious decision thing, even when it begins with a flood of hormones. Sex of any kind is like a day at the beach in its variety of things to see and do. Spontaneous orgasms are like being caught in a sudden undertow, unintentional and overwhelming, somewhat terrifying in public. I’ve been having those since I was at least 4 years old, or earlier. Kindergarten and first grade were nightmares. Holidays in my 20′s were nightmares. Being at work sometimes was a nightmare. If all it takes is colors, lighting, and patterns to set off sudden waves of unstoppable unacceptable taboo in public, then my life is a nightmare of sensation. Got a little scary driving, too.

 

I have never been able to duplicate that with another human. I am repulsed by the mere thought of being touched anyway. Even if something about another human could possibly turn me on, is that a good thing? Look at all the fans around the world who become obsessed with actors and musicians, so obsessed that they’ll spend large amounts of money to obtain clothing worn by those people or to travel great distances to be near them, to touch them and smell them in person. Can you imagine a person compulsed with spontaneous orgasms having an obsession with another person? I don’t know if that’s how rapes and sometimes murders happen, but I know it’s not a cute thing for me to think about.

 

So psyche guy is finally getting somewhere with my take on sexuality, thanx to Lexx. None of it turns me on, and he calls me the porn queen of Lexx, unphased with what I’m doing to the fans. (Years ago, my most wildly popular post was called ‘Tied Up’.) I know it’s unimaginable for him that entire Lexx sex survey post isn’t much different from any other action sequences I see in sci-fi shows, except in content. I know it’s unimaginable to fans that I would actually love the show so much without one whisper of sexual stimulation in my brain after all the work put into that by the creators and actors. I was never sold on the sex of Lexx. It’s just simply a brilliant show, regardless, and the irony and sadness embedded into all the sexual innuendo is part of that brilliance, because that is really real life for a lot of people. Our sex lives are ironic and sad. The human condition is absurd. And I will be exploring all of that in detail.