Texty

There are a ton of thoughts swirling around in my brain right now about how powerlessness/passivity has become acceptable shorthand for female sexuality, and indeed womanhood itself. But I'd probably piss people off if I tried to write it all out right now while I'm tired.

Short version, though (frank talk ahoy--shy folks look away now):

A) Merely posessing a vagina does not mean your entire sexuality revolves around finding something to put in it. Conversely, merely posessing a penis doesn't mean your entire sexuality revolves around finding a hole to stick it in.

B) Merely enjoying being on the receiving end of penetrative sex does not constitute being sexually or socially passive. (And the converse.)

C) Merely identifying as female doesn't mean your sexuality revolves around penetration or passivity. (And the converse.)

D) Merely enjoying being sexually passive doesn't mean you want to be passive in the rest of your life.

E) Merely enjoying being sexually passive with certain people doesn't mean you want to be put on display for strangers like some prize heifer.

F) Therefore, any assumption that any given female-identified and/or vagina-posessing person should be open to sexual advances from strangers is inherently sexist. And bullshit.

There are, of course, millions of women who do harbor the fantasy of being taken by a dashing, muscle-bound rogue. Some even enjoy being actually submissive, when they're with a partner/in an environment they trust. But none of that means that a given woman should be assumed to want that, and approached thusly. Fantasy, or the exercise thereof in controlled environments, has fuckall to do with how people want to interact with strangers in the real world.

Also--this is the controversial part--women who do enjoy being sexually or socially passive shouldn't imply (or outright state; I've seen this) that the way they like to do sex and socialization is somehow the most authentic expression of female sexuality, or indeed of femaleness in itself. Just because we code sexual passivity or penetration-receptiveness as feminine doesn't mean that's what those things actually are.

In short: You are not your genitals, neither am I, and neither of us should be defining our sexuality, much less our gender identity or the rest of who we are, by how we like to put those bits to use.

(Fair warning that I probably won't respond to comments--not up for a debate. Just need a rant.)

So ... that Time cover, with the breastfeeding toddler? Ugh. Ugh in itself, yes, but also ugh for the shitstorm it launched (as they knew it would--way to up circulation numbers in a declining market, folks!)

This is one of the reasons I'm dreading becoming a parent--especially an adoptive parent who won't be breastfeeding, and who will be working at least part of the time while her kid is still pretty young. The Natural Parenting!!! Brigade is downright viral at this point, and it's virtually impossible to avoid them. Breastfeeding is the most visible of their wars, but they're all over everything related to kids, from conception to birth to grandparenting. According to them, if you're not a biological mother physically attached to your kid from (at least) birth to kindergarten, you're a Bad Person.

Which, of course, is bullshit. Bigoted against fathers, adoptive parents, same-sex parents and mothers who have no choice but to work, yes, but also bullshit, too. Yes, there are some benefits to breastfeeding, baby wearing, etc. ad infinitum, but they have yet to produce any reliable, peer-reviewed studies saying kids who aren't constantly attended like this are suffering.

And in fact, looking at the college-age kids who were raised like this 20 years ago, a lot of them ARE suffering. They're so used to having mom (and occasionally dad) holding their hand 24/7 that they don't know how to do anything on their own. They don't know how to find information on their own, they don't know how to get a job or do their own schoolwork or pay their own bills or do their own taxes. They sometimes don't even know how to travel around their own city. When I did my recent college thing, I was absolutely astonished at the number of kids there who didn't even know how to do basic research, and whose attitude toward education was that it was just a piece of paper so they could get a job outside of the service industry. They're so pampered that they're actually offended by the idea that they should expend any of their own effort to get something they want: they're plagiarists, pirates, etc., and actually get upset when told that no, you have to work for that, and don't get to crib off of someone else's work. (And don't get me started on the ones who think that people who worked hard to get an education don't deserve more respect--including more respect for their opinions. Yes, kiddo, that dude with the geology doctorate DOES know more than you or your high-school dropout Aunt Sadie about carbon dating. STFU.)

I shudder to think that these kids might someday be running the country (or, as is more likely, that my own generation and the one before it are going to be stuck wiping their asses when we should be retired, because they're incapable of taking on the responsibility.)

The entire goal of parenting is to produce a healthy, sane, self-sufficient adult. Yes, that means being there for your infant when she needs you, but it also means teaching your little bird how to fly on her own. If you're not letting her fall sometimes, and learn how to pick herself up and start over again, you're not doing your job. Absolutely, you need to protect her from serious harm, and if you're too busy fucking off on your own whims to notice when your kid really does need you, you're not doing your duty. Parents who ignore their kids or let them come to major harm under the idea that they're "toughening them up" make me want to scream. But if you're playing human hamster ball for your kid, trying to ensure that she never even skins a knee, you're doing her a grave disservice. Your job as a parent is to teach your kid to fish, not just hand her a rod and expect her to know how, and not just give her fish so she never needs to learn.

Some of the problem here, of course, comes down to essentialist feminism. It's one of the few areas in which hardcore religion and hardcore hippies come together: the idea that a woman's natural purpose is birthing and raising children. Women raised to believe this also come to believe that being a mother is the core of their identity, and when they start sensing that their kid doesn't need them as much anymore, they panic, and start getting clingy. Some of them react by having another kid--making sure they have a dependent babe in arms as soon as the older one is walking and talking. Some of them react by trying to keep their kids as dependent as possible for as long as possible.

And no, this is not good for the kids, no matter how they try to spin it. More than anything else, kids need stable, adult role models in their lives. They need to see examples of people who are self-sufficient, fully formed people. If your entire life and identity is centered around them, and you have nothing else, then they're not learning that. (Not to mention that you're also setting yourself up for a serious crisis should you ever lose your source of financial support. If the only thing you know how to do is raise babies, you're completely screwed if your meal ticket goes away.)

One of the other things that irritates me about their justification for this is their citation of the practices of "traditional cultures." OK, 1. Cultural appropriation sucks, and 2. You don't live in that culture. You're not training your kid to hunt and gather. You're supposed to be training your kid to do the modern, urban equivalent of that. Kids in traditional cultures virtually never go far from their families/tribes of origin because they don't need to. Kids in the modern first world aren't going to have their families within reach every time they need something. If you want your kid to eventually have her own job and apartment and to pay her own bills, then she needs to start by learning how to walk and talk and feed herself on her own.

As we've been preparing for the adoption, I've run across some pressure to adopt special needs kids or ones who have other challenges. I've been told that if I'm not willing to raise a kid who needs constant attention for years on end, then I shouldn't be a parent at all. I've even been told that because I eventually want to kick my kid out of the nest in 20 years, that I'm probably not suited to be a parent. And that's just ... mind-boggling. Martyrdom through parenthood is NOT a noble, morally superior thing, and wanting to be a separate person in addition to being a parent doesn't mean there's something wrong with you. On the contrary: it means you're mentally healthy. Living your entire life through your kid? Yeah ... not so much.

Right now, I'm watching my mother-in-law slowly dying because she sacrificed her own health for the sake of getting pregnant 10 times, and raising a bunch of kids. I've watched that family suffer because she had no job skills and didn't work and therefore can't get social security and had no health insurance of her own. I've watched HER suffer because she bought in to her religion's insistence that she submit to her husband's decisions, and therefore didn't know how to cope when he turned into a raging tyrant. I'll be damned if I'd even consider ruining my life--and my KID'S life--by doing that shit.

So, no: I would never have done natural childbirth, because it would've put my health and safety at risk. I won't be breastfeeding (even though it can be induced), because I'd have to go off critical meds to do it. I won't be co-sleeping, because there's a high risk of smothering my kid, and because I want to actually have sex with my husband in that bed. I won't be baby-wearing all the time because my kid needs to have some time on her own to do her own thing--and so do I. I may at some point use the services of a nanny or au pair because I have somewhat limited energy, and it's not fair to my kid to be cared for by a zombie, plus there will likely be times I'm working from home, and need someone to mind her so I can focus. I will be--gasp!--leaving my kid with a sitter sometimes so we can go out to nice restaurants and R-rated movies and other places where squalling little ones don't belong.

Of COURSE I'll be feeding her and loving her and being there for her when she's scared or confused or just needs to cuddle. So will M--hi, she'll have another parent! He counts, too! I'll even be staying at home for the first 6-12 months, when she needs that kind of constant attention. But I won't be living my entire life as if my kid is the only thing in it. I want my kid to eventually have her own life that doesn't center around being a baby machine. I'll be damned if she's going to see her mom do that.

I really wish I could get rid of the Mean Girls who live inside my head. Problem is, there are just enough of them out there in the real world, and they are just rotten enough, that it takes a few dozen nice people to bandage every wound they've ever left me with, and that's left me incredibly gunshy of doing anything that might put me in their sights.

There are a lot of reasons why I often stop just short of true success in one area or another: getting bored, distracted with other stuff, not wanting to commit myself 100% to just one thing, etc. But probably the biggest one is that I'm desperately terrified of tall poppy syndrome. The higher I rise up a given ladder of success, the more salient I am. And the more salient I am, the more of a juicy target I make for people who consider any successful woman fair game for abuse.

Pardon the ego for a moment, but this isn't a matter of lack of confidence in my own skill. I know I'm good at what I do. Not world-class, and I'm always trying to improve, but I know I'm a better writer and singer than a significant percentage of people who already do those things professionally. Problem is that I'm not quite good enough to make it past the initial gauntlet of bile one has to pass through in order to start getting those paychecks, and I don't have any other advantages helping me along. Someone who is utterly mindblowing at this stuff can blast right through the first layer of hate and quickly earn herself enough of a posse to fend off the dogs (see: Adele.) And someone who already has other advantages, from a trust fund, to connections, to a pretty face, to being the pride and joy of a small town, can survive the onslaught long enough to get a toehold.

Me, though? I'm basically an army of one, and if I go riding out on the battlefield, proudly waving my banner around, I'm going to be an arrow-filled pincushion in about 10 seconds. I don't have the thermonuclear device of talent to strike fear in the hearts of the orcs, and I don't have shiny armor or a well-armed cavalry surrounding me, either.

If I wasn't so emotionally invested in my passions, I'd probably take the risk anyway. Truly, there's very little even the most determined orc can do to me at this point in my life to make things genuinely awful for me. They'd have to resort to actual criminal behavior to do that. But I have such dread of the idea of my work being torn to bits, even by people utterly unqualified to do so, who are motivated only by jealousy or a fear of competition, that I'm just not yet comfortable throwing it out there for them to piss on.

Obviously, there are some things I do put out there, but the confidence that leads me to do so--quality and knowing there's already a (small) army of support within that field--is what allows that. I can post fanfic and vids, and know that most people who are interested in the subject matter to begin with are probably going to like my stuff, and that anyone who doesn't is going to be in the minority. Likewise, I can do a bit of solo singing here and there, knowing that I'm generally supported by the rest of the group and a positively-predispositioned audience.

But I have no such reassurance for the other stuff, yet. I don't know for sure that higher-level music or writing folks are going to approve of my stuff. And because I've seen how easy it is for the snark brigade to lay waste to someone's work, I'm just not yet ready to go primetime with it. Maybe soon. I hope. I can see the light at the end of that tunnel, I think.

I just wish this fear didn't get in the way of me doing the work in the first place that will get me there. Getting past the voices of the mental mean girls to just sit down and write something, or hammer on sight-singing or vocalise work is a chore, and I wish it wasn't.

I am not "threatened" by your femininity. I simply find it irritating that you not only feel you need to adhere to your culture's prescription for rigid gender roles and presentation, but that other women are required to do this, too.

No love,
That tomboy who dresses "unattractively"

Seriously? I fucking hate women who reinforce sexism, especially if they're doing it with the excuse of A) Essentialist bullshit about how this is how women "naturally" are, and by denying our "true" femininity, we're being sexist ourselves and/or B) Going off about how true feminism means not only respecting her "choice" to tart up/be a domestic doormat, but going along with her plan to require the same of every other woman (or at least create an army of femme peer pressure to encourage it.)

Just because I'm not interested in looking/acting like Barbie or June Cleaver does not mean I'm a traitor to my gender, asshat. Modern Western ideals of femininity have jack shit to do with what we actually are as human beings. Instead, they have a lot more to do with cultural conditioning to make us (and men) believe that we're naturally best suited to be mindless spooge receptacles and/or baby machines. No, of course there's nothing wrong with sex or parenthood, but presenting those things as if they're inherently feminine or somehow essential elements of the life of anyone who has a vagina? Is bullshit. Knock it the fuck off.

Dear healthcare professional:

If a patient comes to you with symptoms of a potentially worrisome infection (fever + lethargy + pain in alarming places), being condescending about it means you're an asshole.

I didn't come in because I hoped I had the infection, but because I wanted to rule it out. Oh, and BTW? You didn't actually do that. You just blew me off because you assumed a fat chick who used actual medical terminology was probably an attention whore making shit up.

Fortunately for my health, I'm also stubborn bitch, and made you give me antibiotics anyway.

Oh, and the dig about my blood pressure? Totally uncalled for, jackhole. Yes, my blood pressure is a bit high today. I'm in fucking pain. If you'd like, I can send you 20 gigs of pics of my (basically normal) at-home readings.

Y'know, it's almost like some doctors get angry at me for being fat and yet not about to drop dead. It's like they can't deal with the cognitive dissonance, and so want me out of their offices as soon as humanly possible, rather than taking the time to fix the totally-not-fat-related problem I came in with.

This is one of those weird little quasi-Aspie things of mine, so I'm soliciting feedback from people with more social skills.

When faced with a stranger or casual acquaintance who is behaving badly (not necessarily overtly hurtful, just rude or w'ev) do you:

1. Confront the person publicly
2. Confront the person privately
3. Complain about it to someone else, and hope the message gets back
4. Say absolutely nothing at all

( What I'm doing clearly isn't working )

And therein lies the dilemma: How do you keep brats like that from pissing all over everyone else without making things worse? Obviously in many of these cases, there's a larger problem of entitlement that random strangers can't address at all, but I also don't think it's right to just let someone be a total ass and not call them on it in some way. IMHO, that's how these brats get that way in the first place--their parents/teachers never gave them any limitations, so they learned they could do whatever they wanted.

It's hard to teach consideration for others to anyone over the age of 10, but someone's got to do it. I'm more or less brave enough to do so, but I really need to find more effective techniques, because what I'm doing now keeps backfiring.

Now one of them is flailing around so much that he's now claiming that breasts and vaginas are some sort of handicap or something that prevent women from being able to physically compete against men.

Uh, what?

Last I checked, men were the ones with delicate external genitals that are at grave risk of injury if not properly protected. So why shouldn't we be preventing men from competing in physically demanding sports, so as to keep them from potentially injuring their precious jewels? Why, if we don't protect the testicles, we won't be able to continue the species! We'll all die out! So we'd best lock up the menz so they don't lose a single swimmer.

Also? Most women will at some point in their lives give birth and nurse their children. They will do the physical equivalent of passing a cantaloupe through a garden hose and will willingly stick their boobs in a mouth with sharp little teeth and powerful jaws. Most also lose several ounces of blood every month for ~30 years of their lives, work many more hours per week than men (counting domestic labor) and get less sleep. And yet? We survive this. And we live longer, too.

We're not exactly made of glass. However, a single accidental elbow to a man's groin? He collapses and cries. So tell me again: Who's more qualified to play rough?

Truth be told, I think most of the resistance to women competing against men is because they KNOW women of equivalent size and strength are going to be tougher, and they're absolutely terrified of getting their asses kicked by a girl.

Also, ( But, but... If I'm not allowed disproportionate power, that means I'm being PERSECUTED OMG )

Poor babies. Must be so terrifying to go from having 90% of the power in the world down to 70%. Only in the twisted little heads of the entitled would a request for equal opportunity be seen as a demand to bow and scrape. They're honestly just spoiled children who think that being asked to occasionally share a favorite toy is armed robbery. It would be hilarious to watch them throw these tantrums if they weren't causing so much real harm to the people they keep insisting they should be allowed to oppress.

This saga with Chez Fou? Still not over. Now the new owner is bringing up lawyers because Home Depot's subcontractor says they don't see a problem with the work they did and blah blah blah.

Dude. You signed off on the inspection. You signed off on the house. The warranty for the repair has been transferred to you. Welcome to home ownership. We are not your landlord, and therefore it's your freaking problem. Are you going to call us again in six months when something else breaks?

I feel the most sorry for our agent, who has been a beacon of patience and sanity in all of this.

And this wasn't even on IMDB or YouTube comments:

wat is the diffrence between macs and pcs? and wat about dells?

sorry i dont have the y chromosome.

Chromosomes are the least of your problems, dearie.

*waves torch, watches bridge immolate*

It's actually kind of entertaining to be hated by the fauxgressive brigade. Kind of a shame that some of the good folks go down with the ship, but it's actually sort of liberating to see some of my suspicions confirmed just by poking things in the right way.

Some people just want the social cred that comes with identifying as liberal or progressive. They don't want to have to actually live it, or do anything beyond chittering away about it online and maybe voting or going to some fun rally or something. Which is why they throw little tantrums when you question whether the choices they make are making any positive difference or are just reinforcing the status quo. This is especially true of hipsters, especially the ones who just LOVE cultural appropriation and "ironic" bigotry. They go on about the latest political fad, and then you find out that their best friend is a racist homophobe ("but he's really a nice guy!") or something. Yeah, so much for walking the talk.

Funny thing is that I just stumbled into this today. I didn't wake up thinking that I'd stir up a nest of hornets and in the process see some true colors flying.

But I really do have to get back to other things. Sigh...