Norm and dogma

How to behave like a living organism?

And above all, what does it mean to be alive?

I don't have an answer. Well, I have my answer. Which, at a time when everyone has a podcast, is basically the same as saying that nobody has the answer. 

The herbal tea of life

If I continue to follow the binary program I was downloaded after birth (option: school-work-retire at 97 years and six months), I'll end up as a neat cell in the big Excel spreadsheet of civilization. Merged. Formatted. In Arial 11.

A program implanted like a sleep-inducing herbal tea with flowers of conformity, by infusion, a sort of gentle but tenacious intravenous, our daily cultural infusion, once served lukewarm in a cathode-ray tube, now shot in stories of compressed dopamine.

As a result, I become a semi-finished product, caught between maturation and decomposition, heir to a rancid dogma that floats in the historical, social and economic bath of our societies - a puddle that smells a little like a wet old sociology textbook, with a touch of dead frog.

The existential winter garden

I exist, therefore I am? No. I function, therefore I expire. I'm an out-of-date compote in an out-of-date software program, fed on the norm, the taboo, the "it's not done", and the "you can't wear a skirt when you have a liver" or "you can't wear heels when you've already seen the sea in November".

And what about nature? Exploited. Never consulted. Invisible intern forgotten in Zoom meetings. No wonder she's taking her revenge with passive-aggressive heatwaves and bipolar borderline storms. The society has turned her into an open space, a kind of existential winter garden, and the open space has become an open burn-out.

Existing differently: the gentle path of assertive non-choice

I had two options.
 The noisy route: get involved, take a stand, brandish a megaphone to shout "walk straight, it's for the robots!", and march, placard in hand, with slogans hand-stitched by woke earthworms. 

I thought about it, but when it comes to activism, I've got the energy of a wind turbine in a windowless cellar.
 So I chose the silent route.

It's a path where you don't change the world, but you do change your socks and, let's face it, sometimes trade in your sneakers for heels.  

A step aside, not a revolution. A quiet walk between DNA and intuition, like an infusion that dreams of being a peated whisky. Not always logical. But alive.

Textile revelation: cotton has no gender

Then one day, it hit me. Not a mystical flash, no. Just a feeling.
 I felt, more than decided, that the gender of clothes was a collective delusion. A social hallucination based on "skirts are for girls", as if the fabric had a chromosome. So I chose to follow the material. I thought "well, this dress is comfortable" instead of "well, this dress threatens world order". So I went on.

I chose a thin top because it grazes the shoulders like a whisper, not because I wanted to spark a viscose revolt.
 I wore a skirt for its fluidity, for the way it accompanies movement rather than constraining it - not to shake the pillars of textile virilism.
 I slipped my legs into tights for that slightly electric caress, that fine, taut, almost living sensation - not to electrocute the guardians of binary good taste.
 I walked in heels because they reshape the silhouette, sculpt the head carriage, demand body awareness, a chosen allure - not to defy the moral high ground.
 I chose lace for its precision, its refinement, this way of being fragile and sophisticated at the same time - not to make a political statement in filigree.
 I wore nylon for its invisible presence, its almost mystical lightness - not to blur the boundaries of identity with unruly fibers.
 And this bodysuit? This bodysuit holds me just tight enough to remind me that I have a body, that it's there, that it's mine. Not a weapon, not a flag. A second skin. Period.

And if all this is bothering you, I thought, maybe it's not me questioning the codes - it's just your itchy labels.

But then I saw: aesthetics has a genre. So does tactile pleasure. Even my calves were gendered by society. And without realizing it, I was betraying Team Pantalon. Rest their souls.
 Across the street, society looked at me the way a granny looks at a nipple piercing: with a mixture of awe, embarrassment and judgment in a robe.
 Well... not always. Because, strangely enough, it's sometimes these same grannies, these old-timers who you'd imagine stuck in their naphthalene principles, these grandmothers who you'd thought stuck in the days of patriarchal knitting, who have given me the most benevolent glances. Sincere smiles, a compliment, a "you look elegant", "it suits you" whispered with more courage than any theoretical "allies" in Doc Martens.
 On the other hand, the younger generation - the connected, degenerate, TikTok-influenced woke... they're often the giggliest, the most mocking, quick to laugh foolishly, to film on the sly, to point as if they're still playing emotional blind man's bluff. They snigger, convinced they're being discreet, while oozing hostility at full volume. It's as if the more they're given access to everything, the less they know how to see beyond the frame.

Gender flowers and other human passions

But why should we be surprised when we live in a society that gave flowers and plants, for example, a gender before it even understood them? Flowers. These photosynthetic entities that live their best life in the sun, that talk to each other, that can hear for some, that can adapt, that do weird things with bees - without ever waking up in the morning panicking about their level of masculinity. They don't give a damn whether they're "feminine" or "too manly for a jar".

But we humans have to understand. So we label. We classify. We style. We put things in IKEA boxes that we can't close again, with labels that remain firmly stuck, indelible, even after a thousand discoveries. The genre remains fixed, even when we learn that it has never been so fluid.

Cross-dressing? I don't cross anything, thank you very much

Ah, that famous label, I read it somewhere. It's a term that's applied to people who like to mix styles, as if that made them pathological, sexual deviants, or people lost in their own identity. Seriously, since when does dressing as you like become a disease? Maybe it is for some of them, those who hide, those who want to be something other than themselves, I don't know. 

I've got nothing against cross-dressing - as long as it doesn't hurt anyone, I couldn't care less - but it seems totally absurd to me to stigmatize a simple clothing practice as a psychological aberration or perversion. As far as I'm concerned, it's not because I'm wearing a dress, a heel or a bodysuit that I have secret desires or that I question myself. And no, it's not about sexuality. And if it is, it's even less of a question. Because, come to think of it, what isn 't sexual in this society? We sexualize everything: hierarchy at work, so-called "masculine" clothing, relationships of power, complicity, body aesthetics, hairstyles, poses, miniskirts, big cars, words, silences, perfume ads, even fruit in commercials. So if you start worrying about a dress, tights or a touch of lace, maybe it's not the fabric you need to psychoanalyze. 

Frankly, if we start banning anything that doesn't fit into a strictly defined framework, we're taking a big step backwards. Do we really want to go backwards, and deprive women of their right to assert themselves through their clothes, to claim ownership of their bodies? Do we really want to end up saying: "Sorry, no more skirts. You understand, your body no longer belongs to you. It now belongs to the soft sciences and hard fantasies - to psychology, to sociology, and above all to the fragile virility of those who confuse light dress with a declaration of war."

And while we're at it, for the benefit of those who are worried: yes, I have a beard. Short. Neat. Manly enough not to be mistaken for a woodland fairy, not manly enough to star in a Scotch whisky commercial. I'm a man. Straight. Exclusively so. Although sometimes, in the middle of a fight with my partner, I think it might be more peaceful to change sides. But no: zero attraction for men, and far too much for women. That's the way it is. Deal with it.

I don't want to be a woman. I don't pretend to know their condition. Mine is enough for me: it's already an escape game with no way out. And yet, we live in a patriarchal society, designed by men for men... and even then, frankly, it's no picnic every day.

I'm very sympathetic to the issues of gender and sexuality. I find it legitimate, natural and necessary. But it's not my fight. And that's also what tolerance is: knowing how to stay in your place while respecting others.

Fetishism: the catch-all word

Fetishism. A word that's thrown around like a thinly disguised insult. A catch-all word that sounds like a condemnation. But seriously, I've played sport all my life, and I've seen some fetishists: sneaker fetishists, golf club fetishists, bicycle helmet fetishists. Obsessed with gear. Not for sexual reasons. Just because the marketing is good. I'm not even talking about fans of cars, watches or ties. The tie - that masterpiece of the absurd, transformed into a totem of respectability, a flag of civilized elegance. A string that we wrap around our own neck, as if we were preparing a label for shipment. We tie it in front of the mirror with the gravity of a monk, adjusting its collar as if we were locking a gilded cage. It descends straight down the torso like a disciplined line, and says without speaking: "I'm ready. I'm fading into the mold." It hangs there, ridiculous and solemn, like an office leash you bring yourself to the boss and say, "Here, I tied the knot all by myself! You can walk me wherever you like now, I'm corporate up to my glottis." 

So why should lace be psychiatrized?

When a ceramist shudders when shaping clay, it's an art. When I feel a tactile sensation when I touch silk, it's a disorder?

Nylon, silk, cotton: look for the gender mistake.

It's not a coming out

No. It's not even that.

Because where exactly should I come out from, when it’s the rest of the world that has decided to shut itself in?

There's no point in going out if you've never been inside.

It's a lesson.  About unlearning.

We're told to unlearn, but... frankly, who's really going to unlearn something when, in reality, it's hard to know what we already know? The human body, that great mystery. We think we know it - we've all got these "absolute truths" that we trot out whenever it suits us. Fascia, for example. This mysterious tissue that connects us from head to toe, is still a fairly new field of research on the scale of science on the human body. But already, the "experts" are out there, everywhere: on YouTube, in podcasts, on Instagram, ready to invent THE method, THE path, THE truth (of course there are also a few who, really, work on the subject with seriousness, patience and a good dose of passion). And that's exactly what you find in the world of training. Strength, cardio, stretching, biomechanical behaviours... Every month, a new rule comes out of the hat, with studies carried out on laboratory mice, of course, because there's nothing like a squatting rodent to tell you how you should train. It's hardly surprising that every "discovery" is quickly transformed into a dogma that's thrown in your face like a sign: "It's this, or nothing!" And you find yourself running like a hamster, lifting weights following the latest article by the "expert" of the hour. And why? Because it's the scientific truth. But who decided that we should apply everything, without questioning, just because some guy came up with a graph with arrows and percentages?

The problem is that we forget to mention one little detail: every time we tell you that something is a truth, the previous one is probably being bent under the table. What we thought was the base yesterday, has become an old leftover cake today. And tomorrow, it might just be the recipe for a bad dessert that's been abandoned. And all the while, we're talking about "revolutionary methods". The truth? Everything changes all the time. No surprises. Just look in the drawers of training history. "Today, we run like this. Tomorrow, we'll do it differently." That's how it works.

Then yes. Of course it is. The experts are there to tell you how to breathe, how to lift, how to stretch, how to train... But the real question is: how many times do you have to relearn the same trick before you realize that, maybe, you don't really know? 

Our bodies are made to be open, to welcome diversity, to adapt. Not to follow some pre-written rule that some expert has decided to impose on us from the top of his mountain of certainties. True transformation is not hidden in dogma. It lies in the ability to open up to what we don't yet know. Exposing ourselves to the unknown, and accepting that progress doesn't come by following a magic recipe, but by daring to step outside the box and play with the variables.

Remember: just as the body is a complex machine, made up of billions of bacteria, cells and fascias, training cannot be reduced to a series of imposed "truths". To make real progress, you have to stop believing. Because that's where real freedom lies: in openness, in adaptation, in the unexpected.

B.R.