Cassandra Says

2011-03-14T03:11:00.000-07:00

Watch as a dictatorship explodes

Never in my life did I think I'd see the small, isolated Libyan town in which I spent the years from 2-8 on the news in the West. But here it is - rebel and Gaddafi-controlled forces are clashing in Brega.

I have seriously conflicted feelings about Gaddafi. About Libya itself, only positive feelings - I loved Libya, it was a wonderful country in which to be a child in many ways. But Gaddafi, well he's a difficult figure to get a grip on.

All ambivalent feelings aside, though, it's long past time for him to go. And any leader that turns fighter jets on his own people has officially lost any shred of legitimacy that he ever had.

In general I'm very much against Western intervention in the Middle East because historically no good has come of it. This is a special case, though. The rebels just don't have enough firepower to fight Gaddafi, and let's face it, the reason Gaddafi has so much firepower is that we sold it to him. So just this once, there's a legitimate case to be made for intervention. Give the rebels weapons. Seriously, that's all that's needed - cut off Gaddafi's access to new resources via a no fly zone and a naval blockade, give the rebels guns, and leave the rest to them.

It's hard to explain to anyone who didn't grow up there how startling it is to see a rebellion in Libya at all. The bravery of the rebels is astonishing. No one expected this to happen during Gaddafi's lifetime. But, now that it has happened, and his son has proved that he would be just like his father if he was allowed to take over, it's time for the Colonel and his whole cadre of supporters to go.

Again, I wouldn't usually make a case for outside intervention in the Middle East, but if the West just sits back and lets the Libyan rebels be slaughtered when Gaddafi's troops reach Benghazi no one in the region will ever trust a word that we say about human rights again. So let's all hope that for once the UN actually does the right thing, before it's too late.

2010-11-22T04:23:00.000-08:00

So, I'm doing a really cool feature for Gothic Beauty...

Which will focus on the connection between goth and visual kei, and one particular individual's influence over the development of fashion in both scenes in Japan. Pretty cool, huh? But then I started doing some research and looking at lots of pictures and, well...

See, here's the thing. VK generations 1 (X Japan) and 1.5 (Luna Sea, Penicillin) were, other than the crazy cat lady hair, really pretty cool looking. One of the reasons for this was that the major style icons of the period were, well, honestly, really fucking hot. So when they wore crazy outrageous outfits it worked (most of the time), because they had the bodies to pull it off (OK, granted that there was no excuse for Yoshiki's wedding dress - no one could have made that look good). But then you got to generation 2, and while there were still some guys who could pull off the outfits (Gackt, Toshiya from Dir en grey), they were getting a bit thinner on the ground, and there were a few tragic cases of "wow, that outfit really isn't working for you". And then you get to generation 3, and...holy shit, what happened? Not only have the clothes gone to hell, so have the people. I mean really, I looked for guys who still looked cool, I really did. And I came up with...well, Uruha from Gazette is pretty hot, but what the hell is going on with his outfits? And Miyavi is gorgeous, and made a fabulous goth boy, but he seems to have outgrown VK for the most part. So that leaves...well, I guess Uruha will just have to carry the torch for "VK dudes who can wear hot pants without looking like complete idiots". But do they really need to be purple and shiny? And why are they so damn baggy?

Fashion critic is displeased by this evolution. Or devolution. Anyway, a visual illustration.

Generation 1.5 - Luna Sea. Observe how awesome he looks. Treasure this memory, kids, because it's all downhill from here.

Generation 2 - Dir en grey . OK so, on the plus side, great bone structure, and he at least looks like an adult man, albeit one who could use a few cheeseburgers. But the boots? Seriously, wtf is going on with the boots? And again - food, it is your friend. This seems to have been about when VK fans decided that anyone who appears to eat more than once a month is too fat.

Generation 3. Alice Nine. Oh dear God why? The eyes, they bleed. Also note the distinctly fetal features on most of these boys. And I do mean boys. Seriously, has the one with the red hair even hit puberty yet? Seeing anyone who looks that young in hot pants makes me feel like a pedo. Do not want.

Also these guys are a perfect illustration of the concept of why you need to try clothes on to make sure they fit. Not a single garment in this picture fits. Not one. Scroll back up to the first guy - see how much better he looks? OK, so he's just more genetically blessed than these kids, but also, his clothes fit. This is important. There is nothing sexy about baggy shorts, not even if they are made out of leather.

The one lone hope...Uruha, The Gazette. Though the rest of his band could use some work, especially the dude with the hankie over his nose. Anyway...seriously, kiddo, you're like Obi Wan for the VK scene - you are our only hope. There is literally no one else with the body to carry off the clothes in this generation, and that's just sad. Please don't let them starve this one into emaciation too.

Also, remember what I said earlier about clothes needing to fit? This guy's do (other than the baggy purple shorts), and observe the difference. It's like magic!

2010-10-23T00:09:00.000-07:00

Argh! Why is it that OK Cupid guys cannot follow simple directions?

Sample message.

"How locked in are you to the age group thingy?"

From a dude who looks to be about 20 years older than me. OK, folks, look - some people are willing to date way outside their age range, and that's fine. But not everyone is, and that's not an unreasonable position to take. It's not a "thingy", preferring to date people around your own age. And I can't help but wonder how this guy would respond to a woman who's as substantially older than him as he is older than me sending him "how locked in are you to the age group thingy" messages. Because I can't help but notice that it's always men just blithely assuming that women young enough to be their daughters should be willing to date them.

So, in case anyone from there follows this link, just to make it clear...I am not interested in dating anyone more than 10 years older or younger than me. Friends that much older or younger, or even more so, are fine. But not romantic/sexual relationships. In fact, within 5 years would be ideal, so at this point that would mean people aged 32 to 42. People aged 27 to 47 might be acceptable if we get along really well. People under 25 or over 50? Nope, no way, not under any circumstances, because I don't want to feel like I'm dating either my child or one of my parents. And if I was a man no one would ever expect me to be open to dating people old enough to be one of my parents (though they'd probably pat me on the back for dating someone young enough to be my kid).

Seriously, guys, introducing yourself in a way that makes it clear that you're not going to respect even the most basic of the other person's boundaries, with a side order of "oh those silly boundaries of yours!", is not a good way to get a date. At that point, not only do I not want to date you, I don't want to be friends with you either.

2010-10-05T18:02:00.000-07:00

Ironic moment given all the talk about women in journalism recently

Yesterday I went to do some local reporting. New client/publication for me, they're a start-up. While I was there I met this guy who's supervising contruction/restoration on an old building. And that's when things got annoying.

This guy repeatedly referred to me as a "cub reporter". Um...I am 37 years old. OK, granted, I probably look a little younger than my age, but not that damn young. And even if I was that young, it would still be rude and infantilising to refer to me that way. And sexist. What do you think the likelihood is that he'd have referred to a man, even a young man, that way? Not very strong. The chances of him referring to a man my age that way? Close to zero.

This guy was wierd and creepy in general - I have very curly hair, and he asked if he could have a lock of it. As in, just cut off one individual curl and keep it as a souvenir? Oh, no, that's not wierd and creepy at all. (Rolls eyes) I mean, I understand that my hair type (curly, but very soft, and naturally tending to fall into the kind of distinct curls most people only get through artificial means) is unusual, but still, to ask if he could cut off a bit of my hair? WTF?

It's guys like that who make me really appreciate all the men I have to interview who aren't creepy wierdos. I just did a pair of interviews last week and both guys were lovely, and they're rock stars - if they can manage to be polite and civilised, what's builder/architect guy's excuse?

2010-10-04T19:32:00.000-07:00

My photography is getting better! Check out the latest set.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/41888774@N08/sets/72157625084075320/

(I'm going to post to Flickr from now on - will upload the Arch Enemy pics at some point, they came out well too. Angela is super cool - so great to see a really strong, asskicking woman fronting a metal band, and not doing it in a bikini.)

Although this isn't at all the best shot (blurry, taken from far away) I really love it because it sums up the whole feeling of the show.

Now these are great shots.

2010-10-03T19:13:00.000-07:00

Oh, Cosmo…

It was always a bit silly, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t always this bad. Or maybe I’m just remembering it with rose tinted glasses because I started reading it when I was 13 and didn’t have enough life experience to realize how stupid it was.

Check out the latest article. Which addressed Breast Cancer Awareness Month by…discussing ways to get men to pay attention to your boobs. Um, isn’t the answer to this question as simple as “be in the room with a straight man”? OK, so I’m oversimplifying and attraction is a complicated thing, but still. It’s really not that hard for a woman to get men to look at her boobs. Really, if a man is at all attracted to you, he’s probably going to be more than willing to give your boobs plenty of attention.

So why, then, do we need a huge article full of what are apparently tips to get your boyfriend/husband/random UPS guy to go “OMG, you have boobs, that’s so hot!”? They’re boobs. They accomplish that just by existing. They don’t need a PR campaign.

There’s also the weirdness of responding to a disease that causes many women to lose their breast and, you know, die, by reminding everyone that boobs apparently exist as toys for men to play with. Notice that all the tips are about ways to make sure that your boyfriend/husband enjoys your boobs, not that you enjoy them. (Seriously, people, hot pasta sauce on the nipples? Ouch!)

I’ve always had weird feelings about all this because I’m kind of on the busty side. So in my experience the idea of having to go out of your way to persuade men to pay attention to your boobs sounds completely ludicrous. It’s like “10 tricks to get your child to eat ice cream” – no tricks necessary, this will pretty much happen by itself. Most of the time the real trick is how to stop men from focusing on your boobs when you’d rather they didn’t.

It’s a weird position that I’m in relative to the media attitude towards boobs, because I’m bisexual, and I like boobs, I really do. Trust me, straight guys – I probably check them out at least as often as you do. But there’s a level of empathy there that men don’t seem to have, for logical reasons. So, when I hear about, say, the topless coffee shops in Portland, my first thought is “ouch, second degree burns on nipples from hot, hot steam” rather than “yay boobs!”. But at the same time I can see the appeal, for a guy raised with the idea that boobs are essentially toys made just to make him happy.

Society encourages us to think of boobs as somehow separate from the woman they’re attached to, is the problem. For men this probably makes life easier – they can enjoy staring at boobs without feeling awkward, because they can turn off their awareness of the woman the boobs are attached to. But for women it creates massive cognitive dissonance, because it’s bizarre to think of part of yourself as essentially disembodied. And for women who’re bi it’s even weirder, because we have the same “stare at boobs” impulse as straight men do, but we also know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of the stare.

Also, I think part of my issue is how childish the whole thing seems. I have no problem with the fact that straight men love boobs – hey, it’s very much to my advantage that they do, so I’m not complaining about that – but there’s something so juvenile about the idea that they’re encouraged to act like they’re unable to recognize the fact that the boobs are attached to a person. It creates this weird situation where men are essentially trying to get past the woman who’s in the way and is blocking their access to her boobs, and they get all whiny and petulant when said access is not granted. Which makes me think of a baby crying for it’s mommy to breastfeed it, which just isn’t very sexy at all.

Just one more example of how sexism screws things up for everyone, I guess. If a man can only relate to a woman as a collection of disembodied parts, he’s going to have a hard time forming strong, emotionally rewarding relationships. If a woman thinks of her own body as being made up of disembodied parts, sex is going to be really weird and awkward and not very satisfying. It would really be to everyone’s advantage if people would learn to appreciate boobs in a more grown up way, as part of the whole person/experience.

Yeah, not holding my breath on that one.

2010-09-17T00:48:00.000-07:00

For any JRock fans who may be lurking...

So, I just interviewed Yoshiki yesterday, which was kind of funny timing given the explosion of arguments about health I've been reading and participating in all over the place. And it made me think...to what extent is it ever really OK to question anyone else's decisions about their health? I mean here I am talking to this guy who's had multiple back problems and neck surgery, and he was totally upfront about the fact that he's aware that he might be risking his long term health by going back to drumming. In that kind of situation, to what extent is it anyone else's business to say, hey, are you sure that's a good idea? Is it ever OK to question the other person's decision? My feeling is no, not unless they're a family member or close friend. I mean, in some situations one can express concern, but even then you have to be careful that it comes across as "I hope you're going to be OK" rather than "do what I think is best for you".

I dunno, it was just interesting in the context of all the online arguments about weight going on right now, and the ones about women in broadcast journalism set off by the Jets players harrassing Ines Sainz (as another female reporter who often walks into male dominated, homosocial environments - yes, sometimes it is risky, but if you don't do it you're resigning yourself to a very limited career). Where's the line between reasonable concern for a fellow human being and unacceptable intrusion into someone else's life?

2010-09-11T17:00:00.000-07:00

In which smart people on the Internet give me advice, and I realise that I am a statistic

So I've always been one of those women who was rather smug about the idea that even though most women wear the wrong bra size I'm not one of them. Why, I've been measured and fitted in a good lingerie store! OK, so that was years ago, but still! In fact, I've argued with people that although they insist most women with my band size tend to be chubbier than me that is in fact my band size. I just have big ribs, blah blah.

Well, as it turns out I was actually wrong about my band size. I thought I was a 36 (and in fact I wore a 38 in my teens, when I was at least as thin as I am now, pre-fitting). In reality? Well, I'm currently wearing a 34 as we speak, and thinking it may be time to get myself to a store and try on a 32, because I can still comfortably get my whole hand under the band of the 34, which apparently one should not be able to do. Also, the 34 is more comfortable than the 36 was - seriously, I put it on and immediately went "wow this is so comfy and look how totally straight the back is".

So I will be getting my ass to a store and being fitted soon. I was wearing a 36D or DD depending on style, and currently have on a 34DD, and I'm sort of bulging out of the cups a little at the side, so I think I may in fact need a 34E. Or, if it turns out that the 32 band fits, that would probably make me a 32F? Which I sort of don't even want to contemplate, because holy shit it's hard to find bras in that size. Bye bye shopping in department store sales ever, basically. I'm hoping that it turns out that the 34 is fine.

The lesson here, ladies, is get fitted. I honestly had no idea how much better a smaller band would feel. Though in my case there's a lot of formerly anorexic thinking of myself as a lot fatter than I am mental nonsense going on in there too.

Also, on a related note, I just realised that I'm not eating as much protein as I should be. As in, about half as much as I should be. Yikes. See, in general I have a pretty balanced, healthy diet, but I do eat a lot of veggies, and I guess I sort of gradually reduced my protein intake without intending to, thus getting to where I am now. And again, of course the ED issues play into this and old stuff I used to believe about how much I should be eating is always at the back of my mind (I can still come up with calorie counts with ease, and it's been about 15 years since I recovered). This stuff is poison, you never really get rid of it. I mean, I'm 37 and I'm a size 6, if anything that's way below average for a woman my age, but do I think of myself as thin? Lol no.

So now I'm sitting here contemplating how to add more protein to my diet while at the same time planning my upcoming bra fitting. Body issues, they just never stop.

2010-06-16T07:20:00.000-07:00

The most incompetent management in the world

You know, working around the music industry you see some dumb shit. The business by it's nature attracts some, um, difficult personalities. But to turn up at a show you're supposed to be reviewing to find no press pass? Um...

But it gets better! On top of that add, no photo pass, when you've spent the whole day discussing how you're going to get pics approved by the next day. You know, the ones you need a photo pass to take in the first place.

I mean I sorted it out and was able to get in and take photos, but holy crap that was a mess. And that was after forgetting to tell me about an event that I would have covered if they had in fact told me about it.

And now we still have to get through the pic approval process. Oh joy!

It's really sad when fantastic artists are paired with management that's impossible to work with. Seriously, the artist? Love. The management...well, saying "hate" would be bad for my karma, but definately do not love.

(These people manage writers too. When I finally finish my novel, remind me not to have them represent me - I prefer not pissing off people I work with.)

2010-05-11T12:09:00.000-07:00

Wait, Finland isn’t in the Western Hemisphere?

File under “xenophobia makes people stupid”. From a PR release about a band from Finland that’s releasing an album in America.

If you live in the Western Hemisphere, chances are you won’t understand a single word Regina sings, and that’s OK. The Helsinki-based three-piece band sing in their native language of Finnish, lending a surreal, otherworldly quality to their distinguished blend of electronic beats, folk and world music, wild percussion, and slightly hazy melodies.

Um, I’m sorry, I’m confused. I was under the impression that Finland was in Europe? Which is in the Western Hemisphere? I mean, you can catch a ferry from the UK to Helsinki. Apparently it’s the world’s first long-distance ferry, capable of crossing multiple oceans?

Note that languages that are not English are “surreal” and “otherworldly”. You know, if you’re incredibly, embarrassingly parochial. Also, is there some community of people in China or India that would automatically understand lyrics that are in Finnish? I mean, since people in the Western Hemisphere obviously wouldn’t understand them (OMG the words are so long! With so many vowels!), I’m assuming this implies that people in the Eastern Hemisphere would be more likely to speak Finnish? Because all places that seem “foreign” to a (stupid) American are all just one giant homogenous mass.

Who wants to place a bet that the person who wrote this would also identify, say, Mexico as being outside the Western Hemisphere, even though it’s geographically located directly south of the United States?

Xenophobia doesn’t just make people assholes, it also makes them really really stupid. In fact maybe that’s the way to get people to modify their behavior – since clearly they don’t care if they’re being assholes, maybe pointing out that their xenophobia makes them sound like fucking morons is the way to get them to think twice about what comes out of their mouths (or keyboards).

2010-04-26T16:36:00.000-07:00

Hail Satan and pass the sunblock

Holy shit this is the most hilarious marketing idea I’ve ever seen. I thought the Linkin Park MMPORG game was bad, but this is worse/better.

From the press release.

TESTAMENT confirmed for 70000TONS OF METAL!

Amon Amarth Death AngelEpica FinntrollMoonspellObituaryRaven Saxon Sodom Sonata Arctica Stratovarius SwashbuckleTestamentTrouble Uli Jon Roth Witchburner

70000TONS OF METAL will sail Monday, January 24, 2011 aboard the Royal Caribbean “Majesty of the Seas” from Miami FL to Cozumel, Mexico and will not return you to the real world for four days until Friday, January 28, 2011.
Make no mistake, 70000TONS OF METAL is not your grandma's cruise. It's also not one of the cruises that share the ship with normal cruise guests. This is an all heavy metal cruise! Can you imagine that? A whole luxury cruise ship full of metalheads? And since there is no backstage area you will have the opportunity to mingle side-by-side with the artists in this incredibly fan-friendly scenario that has no comparison. It's like everyone has a backstage pass!
Ticket prices start at US$666 plus US$249 taxes and fees per person and include all on-board entertainment, all meals, non-alcoholic and non-carbonated beverages at the dining rooms, most on-board restaurants and 24 room service!
What are you waiting for? You might even need a vacation from this vacation when all is said and done! Check out http://www.70000tons.com/ for more information and book your cabin NOW!

OK, so, does the ship’s captain wear a Viking hat and have a raven sitting on his shoulder instead of a parrot? Does he have a steel instead of a wooden leg, encrusted with studs? Do they serve devil horn breakfast pastries and Odin’s Blood cocktails?

Also, yeah, man, Cozumel is so metal. You guys can hang out with all the super metal families on vacation and kids on spring break. Couldn’t they at least have gone to Stockholm or something?

2010-04-12T01:39:00.000-07:00

New Pictures!

Verdict so far on the new, better camera - I love this thing. In fact, I love it so much that now I kind of want a proper DSLR. Dammit I hate it when my Dad is right. (He thinks I should get a Canon Digital Rebel or a Nikon D60 - what say you, photography nerds? I think the Nikon is too heavy - the D5000 is more appropriately sized for my dinky hands and dislike of carrying bulky crap around, but it's expensive.)
So anyway, some shots with the new camera. Some of these are pretty damn funny - I love it when rock dudes make ridiculous rawr metal faces, it makes for such silly pictures.

First, some moody shots with cool lighting (the old camera would have just made this one big blur).

(And yes, that is indeed a 6 ft tall punk rock dude wearing a skirt. The skirt was kind of cute, actually, but I seriously question his leggings, sneakers and bare ankles decision. Someone please buy this man some socks.)

Sing!

I want to give the audience a hug? (He's not really getting into the whole rawr evil metal spirit here, I have to say)

Oh hey there photographer lady

Hilarious Hamlet pose

Getting sweaty?

Look at me, am I not hot?

The absolute winner of the night, though, was...

I'm a little teapot short and stout (figuratively speaking)

Is it just me or does he look like he's attempting to entertain a room full of kindergardeners? Yes, sweetie, you are so hardcore.

More pics to come!

2010-04-12T01:08:00.000-07:00

Race Fail 2010 - Part 62132154534

I was going to post this in comments on the latest Race Fail Opus on Jezebel, but it looks like they closed the comments. Is someone over there finally realising that they need to moderate this shit? Because it was a fucking mess, what with all the whining about how white women feel so excluded from conversations about racism (yeah, let that one sink in for a minute) because WOC are just so mean to them. Apparently "that thing you said was racist" is the same thing as "STFU white lady, you don't get to speak". You know, if you're a whiny, entitled, overreacting idiot.

I have to admit that as a young, naïve college student I too was confused when I first encountered the notion that WOC feel excluded from mainstream feminism. I didn’t understand why. The thought was upsetting. I didn’t get it.

Then I started to pay attention to what happens when WOC try to speak in feminist spaces, and to observe the consistency with which white women try to re-center themselves and make the conversation about their hurt feelings, and the racist bingo that ensues when WOC object to that pattern. I observed the way in which even the mostly gently worded pointing out of racism is interpreted as a violent attack (seriously, fellow white ladies, you need to calm the fuck down - someone telling you you're wrong on the Internet is not equivalent to them beating you up, and I have to wonder why you only seem to have these panicked little freakouts when it's black people telling you that you're being a jackass).

So now I get it, what I didn't get back then about why WOC feel like mainstream feminism isn't exactly welcoming them with open arms and taking their concerns seriously. Sigh. Suggestion to my white sisters – any time you feel the urge to tell a WOC that you just can’t listen to her until she moderates her tone because she’s making you feel attacked? You’re being an asshole, and you should probably shut up for a while until you can get some perspective. You know how pissed off you get when men tell you that you’re being hysterical castrating bitch and they just can’t take you seriously until you put things in a way they find more congenial? Maybe you should stop and think about how infuriating that is before you turn around and do the same damn thing to other people. Racist (and sexist, and heterosexist, and so on) systems need to be examined and critiqued in order for changes to be made, and if that makes you feel uncomfortable, well, too bad. It’s not personal…unless you respond by throwing a fit about how awful it makes you feel that WOC feel marginalized, at which point now it is about you, because you’re being an asshole and that makes you part of the problem in a very direct sort of way. You know the song We Shall Overcome? You are now the thing that needs to be overcome, as a direct result of the choice you just made to respond with defensive attempts to maintain your role as the most important person in the (virtual) room rather than with empathy. Congratulations, you win the "how to kill feminism in 10 easy steps" prize.

I’ve read through all the comments on that post and haven’t been able to find any examples of the “all white people STFU” thing that a lot of white people claim is happening. What I see is people being called out for making dumb, offensive comments and then trying to derail the conversation into a discussion about how having racism pointed out makes white women feel bad. It’s worth noting that there were plenty of white women participating in that conversation without being told to STFU, so, those who insist that their race is the only reason they’re being called out, well, clearly they are incorrect. Are they even reading the things people are saying to them? Because it’s not “STFU white lady”, it’s mostly “that specific thing you said was really dumb and here’s why”.

Most commenters on Jezebel are pretty good at spotting when a man is speaking from the “my privilege is being challenged, man the barricades” perspective, so I’m not sure why so many people seem to find it so hard to take that same sort of critical thinking and apply it to race issues. In theory that should be a fairly easy logical leap to take, but a whole lot of people don't seem to be able to make it. Or maybe they just don't want to.

2010-01-13T19:55:00.000-08:00

Just like the quote in the article says - holy shit!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/13/cape-town-giant-shark-attack

See, this is why I swim in swimming pools. Nice, safe, totally lacking in giant animals with sharp teeth swimming pools.

Also a question - why do so many people have a lemming-like instinct to do incredibly dangerous things even when the danger is pointed out to them? I mean if you're in Cape Town, a known hub for shark attacks, and there's just been one, and the authorities have told you to stay out of the water for now - why are you swimming?

2009-12-06T22:03:00.000-08:00

This is my new favorite thing....New Moon in Lolcats.

(For those of you who've been spared the whole Twilight soap opera...well, first, I suggest you take a moment to give thanks. It's a series of melodramatic, poorly written novels about a girl who falls in love with a sissy emo vampire, and they can't have sex because the author is a Mormon, so they just angst and mope at each other for hundreds of pages. Oh, and there are werewolves, and prose so purple even Anne Rice would be embarrassed to have written it. Seriously, this shit will make you long for Lestat, and I don't even like those books.)

Enjoy!

http://microsuede.blogspot.com/2009/11/movie-review-twilight-saga-new-moon.html

2009-11-29T22:37:00.001-08:00

Updates

So, I’m all moved out and in my own place for the first time in 13 years. In the past two weeks I have (drum roll please)…looked at about 30 apartments, picked one, decided it wasn’t suitable after realizing the windows didn’t have proper locks and the landlord was a slob and the kitchen was too small, picked another one, spent an ungodly amount of time at IKEA, bought furniture, built furniture with the help of my Dad, moved almost all the stuff I’d accumulated over the more than 10 years in my last apartment, hosted a friend from out of town the day after I moved in, done two phone interviews and one in person (journalistic kind), been interviewed for a potentially cool new job. Blog friends, I am TIRED. Oh, and I seem to have caught a cold – big surprise there, huh?

I’m also starting to date again, which is interesting. I’ve gotten so used to trying not to check out attractive people that it’s weird to be allowed to do it without feeling guilty. I’m trying not to let it distract me from job hunting, which is where I really should be focusing. I’m also loving my new apartment, which is gorgeous. Will post pictures later, when I’m less tired. In the meantime can I just say how nice it is to finally sleep in a real bed again? When I moved into my old place my ex brought his old futon, which we said we were going to exchange for a real bed at some point, but it never happened. Now note that this was not a nice, traditional futon that’s meant to be a bed, those are cool, and pretty comfy. This was a cheap American futon of the kind that college kids buy for their dorm room. I think the fact that, despite my bringing it up multiple times, we never actually got a real bed, is emblematic of what was wrong with that relationship, and why I’m no longer in it. I’m willing to bet my ex will still be sleeping on the same futon when he’s 50. Me, however, I’m loving the real bed with the comfy mattress and the proper duvet cover that actually matches the sheets and the overall look of the room.

In theory I guess I’m supposed to be depressed or lonely but actually I’m feeling pretty upbeat. It’s just so nice to actually live in an apartment that’s decorated in a way that I like, and to be able to keep it clean without having someone nagging me that my preference for good hygiene is somehow weird or OCD. Not having anyone else to answer to is awesome, is what I’m saying. Plus being able to play the music I like whenever I feel like it? Also awesome.

It feels good to be starting over. A little scary, but good. So, how is everyone else doing?

2009-10-27T19:51:00.000-07:00

Local TV news drops the ball again

So a cable/a couple of rods snapped on the Bay Bridge, hitting 3 cars and forcing closure of the upper deck. This is apparently the result of the cracks in the foundation that they found during the final stages of construction a few months back and that were mysteriously fixed much faster than anticipated. Hmm…think maybe it might have been smarter to take the extra time and do a more thorough fix, guys?

The really awesome thing, though, is that only one local TV channel bothered to interrupt their very important Tuesday afternoon schedule of sports programming and Friends re-runs to inform the public of this. Um, guys, this is possibly the highest traffic bridge in the Bay Area? And we’re not yet sure of the safety implications. You don’t think it might have been a good idea to let people know there was a problem?

But nope, the Friends re-runs continue uninterrupted. Idiots.

Also a giant tree fell in the park near my house today. Yep, it’s that windy. Luckily the tree didn’t hit anyone and now there are kids running all over it playing.

2009-09-22T03:04:00.000-07:00

Hey there blog friends. I know I've really sucked at updating for a while now, but I have an excuse. Several of them actually.

So I'm getting divorced. Yay! As odd as it might sound "yay" is kind of an accurate summation of my feelings at this point. Man is pissing me off in so many ways it's not even funny.

So there's that. Also I've been getting a lot of freelance work and I've been busy with that. I'm also looking for a day job (blech). And learning photography, which as it turns out is not only a useful skill to add to my resume, but something I actually like - I blame my Dad the devoted shutterbug for this. Clearly it's genetic.

The wierdest thing about impending divorce is realising that I'll be dating again soon, after a really long time. I mean it's been nearly fifteen years...holy shit!

Dating in your thirties looks to be interesting. The wierdest part so far? I have a profile on OK Cupid which I've had forever just so I could take their silly quizzes, so I updated it with a couple of pictures and bam, suddenly tons of guys are hitting on me. Which is fine, but...why are most of them so damn young? Is this the cougar nonsense as cultural phenomenon playing out? Because seriously, there are multiple 21 and 22 year old boys trying to ask me out, which is like...oh honey no. I mean as friends, sure. But in terms of dating, what the hell am I going to do with a college kid? I mean I remember dating guys that age, and they were kind of annoying then - now? Yeah, I just don't have that kind of patience any more. I mean sure, they have minimal wrinkles and nice tight asses and all, but...

Well, I found this really cool blog that kind of sums up my feelings on this. The phrase "never send a boy to do a man's job" springs to mind.

This is what confuses me about the cougar thing. Really young guys are, for the most part, terrible in bed. I mean sure they have lots of energy, but for the most part they have no idea what to do with it. Way back in high school I dated a guy 18 months younger (which is a lot more of a gap when you're that age) and, after I broke up with him, ended up comparing notes with a friend who'd dated him too. When we got to talking about how he was in bed there was an awkward little pause, then she said "well, he was enthusiastic". To which I said "yeah, enthusiastic, that about sums it up, doesn't it?".

Please tell me there are some men a bit closer to my age out there who're single too, because if I have to date 21 year olds I think I may literally die of boredom and sexual frustration. I'm picturing myself falling asleep during dinner, or while some poor boy is enthusiastically but ineptly attempting oral, and it's not pretty.

On the other hand I guess the fact that there are lots of them out there who want to date me is theoretically a compliment? Still funny, though.

PS I've been doing CD reviews recently, and holy crap some of this stuff is hilarious. I know we've brought back 80s clothes, and that's bad enough, but did we really need to bring back 80s hair metal too? Check out a band called 69 Eyes - it's like stepping in a time machine and landing in 1987. On the plus side at least the dude has a nice deep voice and isn't doing the strangled cat thing? I suppose that's a positive. Doesn't make up for the cheesy lyrics, though.

2009-08-24T10:20:00.000-07:00

Observe as I gradually start to suck less at photography!

OK so I'm in the market for a new camera (mine broke) and I need some advice. Any camera lovers among my readers? The first set (sexy punk girls) here I took with my friend's little Casio point and shoot, and they came out great because the light was good and I was super close (and I'm getting better). The second set (grr metal guys) taken with a borrowed Canon G10, and are nice and sharp BUT with some seriously wierd light effects going on. What is that sort of misty white haze in some pictures? I'm thinking/hoping it might just have been me not knowing how to use the settings, because if so that camera might be an option.

Suggestions? Feedback? Since it looks like I'm going to be doing a lot more photography over time I really should try to get better at it...

(Canon G10)

(Also note how the wierd blurry white mist thing is worse in some pics than others - anyone have any idea why? If I could solve that problem this camera might work, because the detail is good, see how you can actually see that bass dude HAS NO FUCKING EYEBROWS, SERIOUSLY MAN, WTF WERE YOU SMOKING WHEN YOU DID THAT TO YOURSELF? But yeah, detail is fine for web, but the wierd fuzzy white light thing is a problem. Anyone now how to tweak the settings to fix it?)

2009-08-03T02:19:00.000-07:00

This is horrifying

As a person who's not religious, and one with a strong belief in personal autonomy, I'm not against suicide. Each individual's body belongs to them and them alone, and what they choose to do with it is their decision.

However...that's not what this is. This is an attempt to rid society of people deemed "defective", and it's very wrong. The fact that it seems to be in part motivated by the desire to save money and maximise profits on the part of providers of managed healthcare, as in the Hawaii example? Disgusting.

Our elderly deserve better than this. They took care of us when we were children, fed us, wiped our asses, cuddled us when we cried...the idea that we might accept their being encouraged to refuse healthcare out of a desire not to be a "burden" on us is heartbreaking. And history teaches that if the people behind this get away with it with the elderly, it won't stop there. This is a huge threat to the safety of disabled people.

Everyone, please pass this around and get people talking about it. There has to be something we can do about this. People are not expendable.

2009-07-29T17:51:00.000-07:00

Journalists get lots of freebies, especially music journalists, but this has to be one of the cutest I've seen so far. Some background - VAMPS are a Japanese band with sort of a campy vampire theme (they're fun, not scary). And what you're seeing here is their own makeup line, VAMPAddict, from Shiseido. This just amuses the hell out of me - band themed lipgloss? Seriously? It's from Shiseido though so the quality is good. The whole concept is just kind of awesome for a band that has lots of female fans (and lots of male fans too - I wonder if they make eyeliner?).

2009-07-28T02:11:00.000-07:00

I want one of these as a pet. OK, so my cat would probably try to eat it, but still, holy shit cute. Look at it's little blue feet!

Explanation here.

2009-06-07T02:13:00.000-07:00

Anyone know a great tailor in the Bay Area?

Local readers, help me out. I have a tailor that I use for simple things like hemming jeans, but I don't think he can handle what I have in mind. I was cleaning out my closet and found a vintage Red or Dead skirt in this amazing subtly sparkly purple denim. Seriously, this thing is gorgeous, but I must have been heavier when I bought it because it's a bit too big. Also too long - oh high end designers, why do you assume everyone is 5ft11? So it needs hemming, but I'd also like to have them narrow it a little all the way down, and make it taper in at the knee to make it more pencil-ish.

Anyone know a local tailor who can handle that? Normally I'd just take my chances with my own tailor but hey - vintage, one of a kind, etc, don't want to ruin it.

2009-05-28T22:00:00.000-07:00

I am a huge sap

OK, I admit it, this made me cry. Normally I'm a cynical bitch but when it comes to animals that seems to totally go out the window.

You have to love the use of music too.

2009-05-22T23:16:00.000-07:00

Whiny loser with possible OCD issues meets feminist blogosphere, hilarity ensues

Cock bibs? Seriously? OK first of all…do you not want women to lick your balls too? If so, how are they supposed to achieve this, by ducking under the bib, thus rendering its use pointless? And how exactly would you end up with a quart of saliva in your pubic hair? Are your pubes made out of shredded ShamWow? Are they super ultra absorbent? And why is saliva in your asscrack bad thing anyway?

Look, sweetie, here’s the thing. Sex is messy. By definition it involves copious amounts of bodily fluids, which do tend to get everywhere. That’s why they invented towels, Kleenex and showers. Though given the level of maturity indicated by both the idea of the Cock Bib as humor and the idea that saliva is icky, perhaps baby wipes might be more appropriate in your case.

I keep meaning to post about the ridiculous Double X launch and particularly Linda Hirschman’s stupid potshots at Jezebel. The comments on this post are actually a perfect example of why Hirschman et al seem to hate Jezebel, and why I love it. Oh no, women being all crass and direct and unladylike! Help me to my divan before I swoon! If we go around talking openly about sex how will we ever convince men to value us on the grounds that our special feminine delicacy gives us moral authority? It’s not like part of the point of feminism was that women should allowed to be people, crass humor and all. Nope, it would be far better for all of us if we maintained a po face at all times, lest we be suspected of being unserious.

If that’s your idea of a social justice movement, fine. You’ll have to excuse me though, I have the online equivalent of a bar table full of witty female friends to get back to.

2009-05-08T05:34:00.000-07:00

Sometimes there are just no words

You know, it's not like I don't know that a lot of people on the right are batshit crazy bigots. It's not like they do a very good job of hiding it. But sometimes, when they're talking amongst themselves, they don't even try to hide it. Sometimes the level of condescending racist bullshit is so thick that not even the strongest galloshes will allow you to make it through.

Witness this article on Redstate.com, always the place to go for intellectually rigorous journalism. It begins with the salutation "Dear Black Americans" and just gets worse from there. Quotes in bold.

"Sometimes — no, actually always — the true friend is the one who tells you what you don’t want to hear. The one who does not indulge you, the one who will neither promise you nor give you candy and other bennies. Instead he tells you to sit down and eat your green beans and spinach — and if you want that nice car, then quit whining, get an education, earn a good job, and earn that nice car."

Yep, Republics are just like your dad, always there to remind you to eat your vegetables even if they aren't tasty. This is not at all patronising or racist, it's for your own good.

" I ask you to consider, why is it that you hate Republicans so much? "

Gee, I wonder why?

"We received not one ounce of gratitude from you, but we did it anyway."

No I don't.

2009-02-25T17:05:00.000-08:00

On what Chris Brown did

Notice that I’m not saying “on what happened to Rihanna”. That’s how things are usually constructed when we talk about violence against women – “she got herself beat up”. By fairies apparently. Certainly not by an actual person who bears responsibility for what he did.

So I’m going to just say it. Rihanna didn’t just “get beaten up”, someone beat her up. We know who it was, because he turned himself in to the police. Stop it with all the shit about “we don’t know what happened”. Yes, we do in fact know what happened. Chris Brown beat up his girlfriend. Why he did it really doesn’t matter. I don’t care if she hit him first – if that’s what happened then sure, he had a right to defend himself. But looking at Rihanna’s face, that’s not a picture of what happens when someone is just defending themselves. That is not a proportionate response. That is what happens when someone decides to beat someone else up.

It doesn’t matter if she was jealous, or cheated on him, or gave him an STD. Those could all be reasons to dump someone, but none of them are reasons to beat someone up. Even if he did “just snap” in the middle of an argument, he had the option to walk away before things got that far. He chose not to. That means that yes, we do know what happened here, and there is someone to blame.

Every single friend of his and every single member of the media who’s insisting that we don’t really know what happened, that this is just unfortunate for both of them, should be ashamed of themselves. We know what happened here. A man beat up a woman. It doesn’t matter why, the fact remains that he didn’t have to do it, but he did. That’s a choice that he should have to live with for the rest of his life. Can we please, as a society, try to make sure that he does have to live with his choice instead of trying to make excuses for him?

2009-02-20T01:27:00.000-08:00

More health-related oddness, and the slow drip of ideas adding up to a need to mainstream the Fat Acceptance movement

Anyone else ever taken the Real Age test? Mine is 29.6 (my actual age is 35.4). Sounds good, right? But there are a few…issues. First off, who designed the nutritional analysis and why do they think it’s still 1965? They ask you to estimate how many servings of various vegetables you get per week, but offer only about 10 to choose from. OK broccoli is cool, cabbage sure, but where are all the other options? What about eggplant and zucchini and snow peas and bean sprouts and yams and…So they end up telling me I don’t get enough veggies, when I eat a couple of servings of veggies for both lunch and dinner. Do I need to start adding broccoli to my breakfast now?

Speaking of veggies, I get a dire warning to “vary your veggies” with a big red X for failing to do this is making you older. OK, so in an average week I eat…drum roll please…eggplant, zucchini, broccoli, yams, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, carrots, some sort of fresh green beans, and spinach. Also bell peppers and asparagus, but only in the spring and summer because in winter they, like strawberries, are a sad imitation of themselves. Plus black beans, kidney beans and garbanzos (plus lentils too). Yeah, about beans – it tells me I should be eating more of them. Problem is, the test won’t allow you to indicate that you eat more than 1 serving of beans a week. Um, what? I probably eat at least 5 or 6 servings a week. Gotta say, a bit culturally clueless there…there are cultures where legumes are a daily staple, shouldn’t the test make space for people to indicate that consumption? The whole food section is very “stuff white people like”. Then it suggests that I’m probably low in vitamin E, and recommends that I eat sweet potatoes… which I actually DO eat, but there’s no place to indicate that. So I’m baffled – why not give people a wider range of veggies to choose from, and include the option to indicate that they eat beans if you’re going to count those as veggies? Were they high when they designed this part of the test?

It also scolds me for not knowing my exact blood pressure, which is apparently really really bad because OMG everyone has high blood pressure now! Except I’ve had low blood pressure my entire life. Another scolding for not knowing my exact cholesterol numbers…and then it helpfully lets me know that I’m consuming about half the recommended cholesterol limit a day. Um, think maybe we could connect the dots here? Again, it’s been a while and I don’t know my exact numbers, but they’re low and always have been.

Then it tells me I eat too much saturated fat. I eat chicken breast almost every day, maybe 1 oz of cheese a day and no other dairy, lean beef about twice a week and lots of olive oil, and maybe 1 serving of ham or sausage a week (and I mean literally one serving, as in one sausage, in pasta sauce). That’s too much saturated fat? Seriously?

Also why does it tell me that I could be getting more fiber even though I already get tons? “Eat more grains”. Um…I eat some form of high fiber grains at each meal – unless I’m calculating the serving sizes wrong it just wants me to eat bigger portions? Basically I eat brown rice or occasionally brown pasta with lunch and dinner, and sometimes some sort of sandwich with whole grain bread as a snack. Plus a small portion of whatever I had for dinner the night before as breakfast (I don’t like most Western breakfast foods, other than oatmeal).I’m confused – how in the hell could I be getting MORE grains? Also why doesn’t it let you indicate that you’re consuming whole grains rather than the processed white versions? Makes a big difference nutritionally, that.

The one piece of nutritional advice that they’re totally right about is that I don’t get enough calcium. I’m not sure how I could get enough, though, since I’m lactose intolerant and hate the taste of milk. Suggestions?

But my favorite part was the section covering exercise. I get at least 30 minutes cardio a day, plus strength training 6 days a week, but apparently that’s not enough! Oh no, I get a little blurb about increasing my cardio plus a helpful hint to increase the number of different types of cardio I do. Not that it gave me the option of indicating the ones I already do, I guess it’s just assuming that 30 minutes a day = only one type of exercise? Not quite sure WHY it would assume that…And then a little blurb about flexibility training, which is pretty damn lulzy for someone who used to be a competitive gymnast.

So yeah, overall I think this thing is a useful tool but it could do with being a bit more precise and expanding the range of options you can choose from. Especially the food section – people, there are veggies other than peas, cabbage and cauliflower! No, seriously! And some of us eat legumes every day, not just “at least once a week”!

Pop quiz – do people really think that healthy adults under say 50 need to be constantly monitoring their blood pressure and cholesterol even if they have absolutely no indicators for developing high blood pressure or high cholesterol? Do other people constantly track this? Because from my POV, well, it’s been low every time it’s been tested and nothing about my health or lifestyle seems to have changed, so…

Also, I’m not sure I’m thrilled to see them pushing high consumption of soy products. Isn’t the jury still out on whether that’s good or bad for women with a family history of breast cancer? Because my Mom died of breast cancer, and my Dad’s sister had it too, and yet they’re still telling me that I should try to eat more soy.

Now here’s the point where all the reading of Fat Acceptance blogs I’ve been doing comes in handy. So I get to the fitness section and see the following. BTW, just FYI, my BMI is in the “healthy” range and nowhere on the survey did I indicate a desire to lose weight, and I did indicate that I already get some form of exercise every day.

If you’re not getting the results you want from your workout, try adding a different cardiovascular activity to your weekly routine. Here's why: Based on your answers, we estimate that you burn close to the number of calories needed to help you grow younger, but you may be able to do even more. Most people can safely burn up . . . to 3,500 calories per week. However, talk to your doctor before you change your workout. Regular cardio activity can make your heart and arteries younger and stronger, enhance your immune system, protect you from stress and depression, and boost your brainpower.4 Ways to Increase Your Cardio
Keep moving. Do anything that requires steadily moving your large muscles (thighs, butt, back, and chest) -- running, skating, cycling, skiing, power walking, swimming, dancing, jumping rope, and doing household chores that take a little hustle (raking leaves, washing windows).
Hop on a machine. Try the stair climber, elliptical trainer, treadmill, stationary bike, rowing machine, or cross-country skier.
Take classes. Sign up for dance, step aerobics, kickboxing, or water workouts -- just to name a few.
Play games. Try singles tennis, basketball

OK, so, my BMI is normal…why is it assuming I’m not getting the results I want from my workout? Are we now just assuming that EVERYONE wants to lose weight, even if they’re not actually overweight? Note the part where it says that based on my answers I’m probably burning enough calories already…so why assume I need to do more?

And that, my friends, is what prompted me personally to move from passively supporting the Fat Acceptance movement as simply a moral necessity in that all people deserve to be treated decently into wanting to get actively involved. When we’re starting to assume, just as a matter of course, that everyone wants to lose weight and should do so even if the medical establishment says that their weight is “normal” (mine is in the 35th percentile for my age and height and look, I’m still automatically being offered weight loss advice) and they already work out…we have officially jumped the shark as a culture. Even if you’re not fat, don’t get too comfy – what if you GET fat? Basically everyone should worry about their weight, a lot. Because we all know that there’s nothing better for your health than stress, right?

2009-02-17T21:06:00.000-08:00

So I’ve been reading a lot of blogs from the Fatosphere recently since the lovely Theriomorph directed me to Shapely Prose. It’s been rather a revelation, and there’s a post coming up about that. In the meantime, it got me thinking about the idea of healthy eating and what that really means. I know what it means to me – eating foods that make me feel good physically and also give me pleasure. What it seems to mean to a lot of people is something very different, though – low fat, or low carb, or some other diet plan based on the idea of banning certain “bad” foods.

I don’t think there are any bad foods. Well, OK, high fructose corn syrup is pretty much entirely bad, but that’s sort of a frankenfood and not a naturally occurring food item. If our food suppliers had stuck to using plain old sugar to sweeten things we’d all be a lot better off.

My idea of healthy eating is based more around trying to make sure I eat as many good-for-me things as possible rather than trying to eliminate “bad” things. I used to totally buy into the “x foods are bad” way of thinking, and it wasn’t until my late twenties that the seismic shift in my thinking occurred. Since it did I’ve been a whole lot healthier, and happier. I’m not a child; I don’t need a list of OMG FORBIDDEN SINFUL foods to scare me into eating well. I just need to pay attention to what I’m actually craving and give my body what it wants.

So, to start me off writing about this stuff, how about a recipe? I’m a serious foodie so I cook a LOT. I love talking about food, and am seriously considering trying to broaden my journalistic focus to include food writing. Anyone else who reads this like talking about food? Have a good food blog you want to share? Let me know.

Cassandra’s weird and wonderful Vietnamese/Japanese hybrid curry

This recipe came about because I love Vietnamese curry, and I love Japanese curry, and one day I was making a Vietnamese curry and thought “hey, I wonder what would happen if I added mirin to this”. The answer? Awesomeness.

Ingredients
Olive oil
1 large chicken breast
5 zucchini, or 1 eggplant, or a pound of carrots
2 small onions
3 heaping tablespoons curry powder
5 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons mirin
1/3 cup coconut milk
5 cloves garlic
1 inch piece of lemongrass, finely chopped
Chicken stock

Sauté veggies in olive oil till softened. Add onions, garlic and lemongrass and sauté for another few minutes (don’t let garlic burn). Add chicken and brown. Add curry powder and stir fry until fragrant, then add soy sauce, mirin, chicken stock and coconut milk. Simmer until preferred consistency is achieved. Serve over rice – I use brown jasmine, but any rice you like will work. Serves 2.

This is especially good on a cold day when you need some comfort food to warm up.

2009-02-14T00:47:00.000-08:00

Body Image Stuff

It’s taken a while for me to admit that I have some body image issues. Which is silly really – what woman doesn’t? Our culture is pretty much designed to give women body image issues – they make us better consumers. And keep us too distracted to focus on stuff like, say, equal pay.

For some reason I’ve always been reluctant to actually talk about my own personal body image issues, though, but lately I find that I want to. Why? Because I think that the veil of silence surrounding this stuff is part of the reason that the issues are so widespread in the first place. Because I think that the pressure not to talk about them is a form of sexism. Because women aren’t supposed to say this hurts me.

So, with a hat tip to Theriomorph for posting this wonderful essay that finally pushed me over the edge into actually being willing to talk about it, here’s my personal situation.

My entire life I’ve felt like I needed to lose weight. The funny thing about this is that this feeling seems to exist independently of what my weight is at any given time – I pretty much always feel like I need to lose 20-30 pounds. I felt like that at size 14, and I felt like that at size 5. Right now I seem to waver between a 6 and an 8, and yep, “I need to lose 20-30 pounds” is always there at the back of my mind.

The funny thing is that technically I’m not even overweight. According to ye olde BMI chart my weight is just fine. Even at the upper end of my personal scale – an 8 – I’m still thinner than most women my age (35). And yet I feel fat. I look in the mirror and see someone who needs to be thinner.

I suppose part of the reason I’m reluctant to talk about this is that I know that some people will read it and go “oh ffs quit whining, you’re not even fat, not like me!”. And they would in fact have a point. Like I said, I’m not unaware of the fact that the average American woman is bigger than me. The average woman in the media though…ah, now there’s the rub.

If you were to go by the media standards a woman my height (159 cms) should be a size 2 at most. Even that has been considered a bit hefty on some occasions (anyone remember when they were calling Jennifer Love Hewitt fat? She’s a size 2). Never in my adult life have I been that small. Not even when I went through what I can only 20 years later admit was a bout of borderline anorexia as a teenager and was eating less than 700 calories a day, less than 300 during the truly scary period. The smallest I ever got was a 5, and that was on the aforementioned nothing but rice cakes, chicken broth and bananas diet, with an extremely active lifestyle. Even when I’m thin enough that you can see my bones through the skin my hips are still 36 inches. I have D cup boobs. I’m just not blessed with that wispy ectomorph type of physique. Blame my stocky Celtic ancestors, with their muscly legs and their childbearing hips.

Why the persistent wish to be an ectomorph? I’m not even attracted to female ectomorphs. I’m most often attracted to women with builds a lot like my own, just a bit thinner. I am however extremely attracted to male ectomorphs, and maybe that’s part of the problem. Maybe it’s a fear that if I don’t lose weight I won’t be as appealing to the men I’m attracted to as I would like. Maybe it’s just being aware of how the world treats fat women, and fearing the weight of all that loathing crashing down on my head. Maybe it’s just a desire for approval.

That’s the sick thing about dieting, that even when you’re displaying blatantly unhealthy behaviors it gets you tons of approval. When I went through my less than 700 calories a day phase not a single friend or family member went “ok, this is nuts”. Not when I obsessively tallied everything that I ate, not when I started refusing foods that I’d always loved, not when I felt like I was drowning and I was desperately waiting for someone to say "no, stop, you don't need to do this". For at least a year I was hungry all the time. Even in the summer I felt so cold that I needed a sweater. I shivered when everyone else was sunbathing. And no one said a damn thing other than gee, you look so much prettier lately, what’s your secret?

How do you deal with that, the rage that you feel towards the people who were supposed to love and protect you for watching you hurt yourself and praising you for it? It was my mother who bought me the diet book that recommended the appropriate serving of rice at each meal as being two tablespoons. My father still asks me how my weight is doing before any other question, and no amount of visible discomfort on my part or requests that he please not go there has ever dissuaded him from doing so. How do you process the fact that other people actually approve of your acting like a nutcase? That they like you better when you’re miserable but highly decorative?

I haven’t behaved like that for years now. I made a deliberate decision in my late teens never to count calories again, because it just wasn’t worth what it was doing to my mental health. I eat a healthy balanced diet that even includes sweets. And yet, the voice in my head persists, the one that says if people knew what you looked like under your clothes they’d be horrified. The one that says, no matter how hard you try it will never be enough. No amount of reassurance from adoring partners both male and female that my body is just fine has ever been able to make that voice go away.

What scares me is…is this even unusual? The wall of silence around women’s feelings about their bodies is so solid that most people just don’t talk about this stuff. Sure, we make the publicly required protestations like “oh my ass looks so big in these pants”, but we never talk about the real stuff, the stuff that hurts. And I’m finding more and more that I want to talk about it, because I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that not talking about it is part of what got us all into this situation in the first place.

So, hey, if you want to talk I’ll listen.

2008-12-06T00:19:00.000-08:00

Observe my photography skills

You know, when I decided to start writing about music again I had no intention of doing anything other than writing. When I discovered that photography would be part of the deal it was just kind of...OK. Not something I've ever made any effort to learn how to do, but it can't be that hard, right?

Many months later I'm here to tell you, it's a lot harder than it looks. Half of what I get ends up being out of focus (discovery - it's actually much harder to shoot in digital than with a traditional camera), it's a lot more complicated when you can't use flash, and I really need a better camera. However, like most things, if you keep it at you do eventually improve.

Lately I've been getting a few shots that I actually, gasp, kind of like! A most unexpected development. Now if I can just figure out how to pull that off more consistently...

These shots are of Dir en grey at the Regency Center in San Francisco, if anyone's wondering.

2008-11-28T21:00:00.000-08:00

Oh my goth

Ah, my people. It's not that I don't love you, honestly, but you have to admit, sometimes you are a bit ridiculous. Hark unto this piece of ad copy.

EAU DE GHOUL They all started telling stories, then, of how fine and wonderful a thing it was to be a ghoul, of all the things they had crunched up and swallowed down with their powerful teeth. Impervious they were to disease or illness, said one of them. Why, it didn't matter what their dinner had died of, they could just chomp it down. They told of the places they had been, which mostly seemed to be catacombs and plague-pits ("Plague Pits is good eatin'," said the Emperor of China, and everyone agreed.) They told Bod how they had got their names and how he, in his turn, once he had become a nameless ghoul, would be named, as they had been."But I don't want to become one of you," said Bod."One way or another," said the Bishop of Bath and Wells, cheerily, "you'll become one of us. The other way is messier, involves being digested, and you're not really around very long to enjoy it.""But that's not a good thing to talk about," said the Emperor of China."Best to be a Ghoul. We're afraid of nuffink!"And all the ghouls around the coffin-wood fire howled at this statement, and growled and sang and exclaimed at how wise they were, and how mighty, and how fine it was to be scared of nothing.Dessicated skin coated in blackened ginger, cinnamon, and mold-flecked dirt, with cumin, bitter clove, leather, and dried blood.

Yep, that's what I want, a perfume that makes me smell like dirt, dead skin and...cumin? I'm so confused.

Also this company makes a scent called Glowing Vulva. Um, yeah. If this is a realistic scent I'm thinking dabbing it on your neck and wrists might not be the best plan.

Then again, let's look at this in a positive light. I might quite enjoy having a glowing vulva. Why, think of the money I'd save on lightbulbs! Next time I wanted to create atmosphere during an intimate moment I wouldn't need to get out the candles, just undress. Also, guys, just try claiming that you're unable to find the clitoris when it's GLOWING.

And then there's this.

BRIMSTONE In Hermetic alchemy, brimstone is one of the Three Heavenly Substances, one of the primary alchemical Priciples. It represents the strength of will and the vigor of passion, and it is a symbol of the process of fermentation. A smoky, gritty blend, husky and gray.

Um, isn't brimstone supposed to smell like sulphur? Mmm, sulphur, what a perfect scent for a perfume.

More mocking one's own later. I mean the Twilight movie did just come out...

2008-11-24T22:58:00.000-08:00

Need some input from the workout junkies

So I've been having an odd issue when I lift weights recently and I'm hoping some of my lovely readers might be able to help me figure it out. Whenever I start doing bicep, tricep and chest exercises I get a wierd pain in my elbow. I mean literally in the ball and socket joint. It's only there while I'm actually doing the exercise, and it's a sharp pain that happens as I bend the joint. It tends to fade after the first set of reps, and by the third I can't feel it at all.

Could this just be a sign that I need to warm up more? Am I using weights that are too heavy? Advise me, people. It's not a sharp enough pain that I feel like I'm injuring myself but it's odd enough to make me wonder what's going on.

2008-11-04T18:44:00.000-08:00

So far, so good

The numbers are starting to come in and it looks like Obama is in the lead. Everyone has Ohio going to Obama, and if he wins Ohio he's pretty much in. Guess the voter suppression didn't work this time, huh?

I've been staying out of the whole online debate ever since I realised that it was going to turn into a massive intra-left food fight, but I will say this. Initially I would have preferred Clinton (because of a stronger committment to feminism and more foreign policy experience), but once it was all decided, I always said I would support whichever Democrat was chosen. And I have.

Gore actually won the popular vote in 2000, but Republican cheating handed Bush the Presidency. This time it looks like even with them making every effort to suppress minority voters Obama is still going to win by a clear majority. Which tells me that the Bush govenment is so unpopular that even with all the attempts at fraud (calling Latino voters and telling them they can vote by phone ffs, how stupid do Republicans think people are?), they still can't win. Part of it is the war, of course, but I really think the collapsing economy might have played a bigger role. And I think that the banking crisis was the real nail in the Republican coffin.

So, first order of business of an Obama presidency - sort out the economy. People are hurting, and it needs to be fixed ASAP. Second, foreign policy - the Bush administration did a lot of damage to America's image overseas, and a whole lot more people hate us than did 10 years ago. Pulling out of Iraq is a necessary start, but a start is all it is. There's a lot of work to do. Even those of us who would have preferred Clinton, this is not the time to hold a grudge about that.

Everyone, it looks like we're in. Now let's all roll up our sleeves and get to work.

2008-10-14T21:22:00.000-07:00

First day home from the hospital

Hell Week, or, what happens when your beloved pet gets sick

I really have been intending to blog more lately but the last week has just been such pure hell I haven’t gotten around to it. So what happened was…

The weekend before last my cat (who shall from now on be known as CC for Cassandra’s Cat) starting acting weird. Listless, antisocial, hiding under the chair, not eating. At first I thought he was just in a bad mood but then he started throwing up. And then I figured he was trying to get rid of a hairball, but it just got worse and worse over the next few days.

Then on Tuesday night he started wailing at me ever time I walked past. It was a really weird upset sound like he only makes when he’s really in distress. So of course I started freaking out but the vet’s office was closed. I ended up staying up all night trying to see if I could make him feel better and worrying. First thing in the morning I called the vet and made an appointment, and by the time we got there CC was clearly fading fast. He could barely even stand up by that point, and he really didn’t like the vet, wouldn’t interact with her at all.

So then the vet takes a look, asks me how old he is, feels around for his internal organs, and tells me he has kidney failure and probably lymphoma throughout his intestines and we should talk about putting him to sleep. At which point of course I go “WHAT? But he was fine up until a few days ago.” So she says that we can put him on fluids and she can take X-Rays and see what happens. I very reluctantly leave CC in her care, because I do not like this woman at all. A couple of hours later I call her (note that she doesn’t bother to call me) and she says they did an X-Ray and he has a mass near his heart that she thinks is a tumor. Again she starts talking about putting him to sleep. But I press her and she says well actually the pet hospital could run some more tests and maybe we could get him chemo, though she’s still painting the direst picture possible. So I say “OK then let’s do that right away”.

So finally at about 5PM CC arrives at the proper pet hospital. At which we finally find a vet who actually seems to like cats. By this point CC is so miserable he’s hardly responding to anything and he has no strength at all. The nice vet admits him to the hospital to run more tests and is very understanding about how upset I am and promises to call me if anything changes, and with an update in the morning.

Well, after a mostly sleepless night I get a call and guess what? CC does not have a tumor, or any signs of cancer. What he has is a benign cyst (note – NOT a tumor), weakening kidneys (he’s 17) and anemia. So they treat the kidneys with a fluid drip and the anemia with an iron shot. Later that day I go to visit and he’s weak but moving around and wanting to explore. He also actually EATS when the nice vet tries to feed him – not much, but at least a bit. I leave scared and upset but a little more hopeful.

Next day nice vet calls me all happy to say that his blood count (anemia) is getting better and he’s drinking on his own and generally looking livelier. In fact he tried to bite the vet techs when they gave him a pill. She wants me to take him home and see how he does there, and she feels confident enough to release him since his kidney numbers are also improving.

Finally I get him home on Friday night and he’s SO HAPPY. Weak and a bit wobbly on his feet, but purring and happy to be home. All weekend I’ve been watching him and giving him his medicine and trying to coax him to eat. He’s still a bit weak, but he’s eating well and drinking on his own and the fluids I give him under the skin once a day are clearly helping. He’s still not a totally healthy kitty, but he’s doing better and he’s clearly happier.

The moral of this story is…don’t give up. If you love someone or something, be prepared to fight for them. Positive thinking is powerful.

And also, always ask for a second opinion, and trust your gut. If I’d listened to the first vet CC would now be dead, and he would have died lonely and scared in a strange place. I still don’t know for sure how much time he has left, but however long it is at least he’s comfortable and happy, and I’m appreciating every day I have with him.

Also I HATE the attitude American society has towards old people and old animals. As soon as vet # 1 heard how old CC is she wanted to put him to sleep, without even running any tests to see what was actually wrong with him. I really feel sorry for her elderly parents – I wouldn’t want someone with an attitude like that taking care of me when I’m old. What is wrong with this society that it doesn’t treasure its elderly? After a lifetime of caring for others we just want to throw them away?

I think I’m moving back to Europe when I get old.

Of course now I have to figure out how the hell I’m going to pay off the massive vet bill but you know what? Whatever it takes it’s worth it. There aren’t many living creatures in this life that any one of us truly love, it’s worth holding on to the few that you do.

2008-09-26T02:16:00.000-07:00

Call for career advice

Hey there blog friends. So, I'm at sort of a turning point career wise and I could do with some input from some smart people. And then I thought, hey, lots of smart people read my blog, why not ask them?

I'd particularly love to talk to people with any experience in print journalism. If you're willing to play career counsellor/sounding board drop me a line at cassandrasez at gmail dot com.

2008-09-17T20:51:00.000-07:00

Population control and ethics

I read an interesting article in Salon today. Interesting for lots of reasons – the interaction between population levels and the environment is a complex one and worth exploring – but mostly interesting in this case to see a group of experts who disagree on many things all agree on the fact that the problem can only be solved by allowing women to control their own reproductive capabilities. Which is exactly the opposite of what one side in the upcoming election wants to see happen.

Now I know that abortion is a contentious issue for American society. I don’t think it should be, because the fact that women should be allowed to control their own capacity to reproduce is so simple and obvious that anyone who doesn’t grasp it is, in my opinion, an idiot. It’s interesting to note that all the experts seem to agree that this is in fact that key to controlling world population numbers – give women education and choices and they tend to choose to limit their reproduction to the replacement rate or below.

But really it’s not abortion that’s the big issue in this debate, in my opinion. What it really comes down to is that there’s a set of people in American society, who have more and more influence in American politics, who believe that any attempts to control reproduction are morally wrong. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most of these people are distrustful of science. Even the most cursory look at the science suggests that unchecked population growth is a disaster.

So I’m just going to come right out and say it. A generalized opposition to the idea of women controlling their own reproductive capacities is morally unacceptable. Not just for the feminist reasons, though those are obvious. Also because the world cannot sustain an indefinite number of people, and because this society in particular already consumes more than it’s fair share of the world’s resources. Anti-abortion policies are bad enough; anti-contraception policies are a crime against humanity that endangers us all.

And that, folks, is one of the biggest reasons to vote against McCain and Palin. These people aren’t just obnoxious ideologues, they’re dangerous. America already consumes more than any society in the world – more than even China, which has a population far larger than ours. For America to even contemplate not limiting its population growth is completely unethical. We have no right to allow our collective hubris to overwhelm our rationality. We need a government that understands that contraception is a good thing. Right now we don’t have that, and if McCain is elected we’ll have another one that actively opposes the idea of women controlling their reproductive capacities, which research the world over shows is the key to keeping population numbers under control.

These people are dangerous. Don’t let them win.

2008-07-18T01:27:00.000-07:00

When I am an old woman I shall give young women compliments
(I already wear purple)

I’ve been seeing more and more comments about women and appearance around feminist blogland recently (not that this is a topic that ever goes away for long) and I find myself feeling rather irked about the whole thing. This is one of those issues where I feel fundamentally out of step with most of my fellow feminists. I don’t have an instinctive distrust of the very idea of conventional beauty, as it seems many feminists do. I don’t distrust or resent women more attractive than myself. I don’t hate younger women for having tighter asses. In fact, what is it with the constant “perky boobs” references from so many feminists? Seriously, what is that about? Are they under the impression that those women in possession of such boobs have chosen to tweak their own genetic make-up in such a way as to make their boobs perky on purpose, just to spite the less perky? Why is this being used as a dismissive insult by feminists?

This is one of those moments where I bless the fact that I didn’t grow up in America or the UK. I grew up mostly in the Middle East. In all honesty I think that growing up there influenced my feminism in all kinds of ways, but one of the clearest ones is that I find this sort of constant ranking of other women in terms of their appearance and inability to empathize with those women who fall at different points in the ranking absolutely baffling.

I like looking at beautiful women. Now, admittedly this is probably in part because I am attracted to women. I think it’s more than that, though. My mother also loved looking at beautiful women and she was as straight as a ruler. Most of my mother’s friends were the same. I remember my mother’s friend Elizabeth, a gorgeous woman who looked like Natalie Wood, who I spent much of my childhood observing. As a little girl I always thought that it would be great to grow up to look like Elizabeth, but even knowing that I wouldn’t (I always wished that I could have really dark eyes like her, instead of the light brown I ended up with), I still always found her fascinating to observe simply because she was really, truly beautiful. And I wasn’t the only one. I can remember my mother’s much older friend Theresa, whose house felt almost like mine as a kid and who used to cut my hair till I was in my teens, fussing over Elizabeth, doing her hair and helping her with her make-up. It was always clear to me that she took pleasure in having young, beautiful women in her home, and that part of the reason was that she had three sons and no daughters or granddaughters. When I hit puberty, it was those two women, Elizabeth and Theresa, along with my mother, who taught me how to take pleasure in my own appearance, how to see personal adornment as a game, as something fun and creative that you did because you felt like it, and that if you didn’t feel like it on any given day you just didn’t do it. That was how I grew up, with the idea that beauty is a fun thing, something to be enjoyed, a way that women bond with each other.

I was always aware that there was another way to see things, but it seemed sort of blessedly irrelevant to me, cocooned in the warmth of my mother’s circle of friends (a circle, by the way, in which it was always clear that men were essentially peripheral – they were allowed to share part of us, but there was another part that we all reserved just for each other). That other way never really hit me full-force until I went away to school, and was confronted with just how much ugliness British and American culture is able to create out of women’s beauty, how it poisons the pleasure that we take in our own appearance and that of other women, how it teaches us to rank ourselves and hate those above us on the scale, and despise those below. And every holiday I would go running back to my mother for reassurance that things didn’t have to be that way. I would sit cuddled up in a big chair with Elizabeth’s daughter (my pretend baby sister since I never had a real one) and watch her putting on her make-up and re-learn the fact that beauty could be a game, sit at Theresa’s kitchen table and let her remind me that food is supposed to be a source of pleasure too and wish that she really was the grandmother that she felt like to me (my own paternal grandmother was a horrible, bitter, angry woman who never had anything good to say about another woman in the entire time I knew her). And then I would go back to school, and try to shut down and not take in any of the poison that was being fed to me, and deep in my heart refuse to learn to hate other women just because some of them were prettier than others, because I knew that it didn’t have to be that way.

It wasn’t until my thirties that I realized that there was a term for what I was doing, the way that I talk about women and beauty around the women that I grew up with and the women that I trust who I know now (Mr. C’s mother and his brother’s wife, a few close friends) and the different, more careful way I talk around all the other women who I don’t feel it’s safe to be honest with. The term is code-switching. Like most other people who code-switch, most of the time I do it without even being consciously aware of it, pick up subtle cues about which people I can be my real self around and which people I need to be wary with and adopt the way of speaking that is expected of me. I still think that the mainstream American way of talking about women and beauty is poisonous, and I go out of my way to avoid people who gulp down the poison and insist on feeding it to others, but really, it’s impossible to avoid completely. It’s too pervasive. All that you can really do is to observe which people are completely invested in that framework, which ones automatically rank all other women and either envy or scorn depending on that ranking, and try not to get too close to them.

It hurts me to see that poison coming from feminists, though. It hurts me no matter which target it’s being aimed at. Every time I see someone making generalized comments about “blonde bimbos” or “fuckbots” on a feminist site I lose a little more of my faith in the ability of the movement to effect any lasting social change. Every time I see the term “collaborator” being used in a way that makes it clear that the judgment being made is being based purely on the appearance of the woman being described, I wonder where it all went so horribly wrong. How can we possibly achieve anything if we don’t learn not to hate each other? How can we work together if we can’t learn that the fact that a woman doesn’t look like us doesn’t mean that she can’t be trusted? The anger that some women are treated differently by society than others based on their looks is a valid anger, but why the hell are feminists directing it at the women who happen to fit the preferred look rather than the system that insists on ranking all of us?

So, this whole thing has been bothering me. Of all the odd things to bring it back to me, it was actually a random meeting with a stranger that did it. I was on the train on my way to meet a friend for dinner and there was an older lady sitting in the seat in front of me. She wasn’t familiar with the train system and asked me how many stops there were until the place she was going (presumably because I was the only person around who looked like they might speak Spanish…which I actually don’t very well, sadly, but I do know enough to give directions so we managed). So we chatted back and forth for a while, and I was trying to explain that I was getting off at the same stop and could show her where to go, but my Spanish sucks so I wasn’t able to say it properly. So, we get to the stop and she gets up, and she doesn’t realize until we’re actually getting off the train that I’m getting off too. The she sees me and smiles and we get on the escalator together and I lead her over to the map and try to explain where she needs to go. And then I realize that I’m running late and that I have to get going, so I say goodbye and I’m trying to explain in my crappy Spanish (I understand what’s said to me a lot better than I can speak myself), and I feel bad for having to run off and not just walk her over to where she’s going, because she’s an old lady and it’s kind of a rough neighborhood if you don’t know your way around. And then she smiles and pats my cheek and says “mi nina linda, esta bien”. And you know what? That little comment made my day. Hell, my week. Because it’s been so damn long since I had to leave the warm safe little cocoon that I grew up in where women were actually nice to each other and we gave compliments just because we could. And I want to live there, and not in this alternate hell-world that is mainstream America in which older women hate younger women for their perky boobs and fat women hate thin women and thin women look down on fat women and everyone seems to hate tall skinny women just because the fashion industry loves them. And the fact that that hell-world of ranking and competition and constant sniping has infected feminism breaks my heart, because we of all people should know that hating other women because of something as random as how they look is poison, and yet I see it all the time. Why do we do this to each other? Can we please just stop?

When I’m an old woman I want to be like the older woman I met on the train. I want to be like my mother, and her friends. I refuse to hate younger women because they have perky boobs, and I refuse to participate in this system where we cut each other down based on where we fall in some stupid ranking system that’s almost totally arbitrary anyway (this season big boobs are in! next season, super straight hair!).

When I’m an old woman I’m going to randomly tell young women they’re beautiful, just to make them smile. In fact, I may just start now.

2008-07-11T01:15:00.000-07:00

Finally, a serious post!

This (links to Feministe) really pissed me off. First of all, the idea of using scanners that show what essentially looks like a picture of a person’s naked body on women in a Muslim country? Culturally tone deaf at best, actively intended to provoke at worst. I commend the people who broke this story, and the reporter who allowed herself to be scanned so that people could see exactly what the scans look like. Now the question is, what can we do about it? Because forcing Iraqi women who work in the Green Zone to go through those scanners is classic colonialism at it’s worse, and it needs to stop.
Also, why do they need to save the images? Anyone have a good explanation for that? And, given that the technology exists to replace the individual’s body with a generic torso and only show security personnel non-body items that might represent a breach of security, why is that technology not being used?
To add yet another layer of fucked up, the same scanning process is also apparently being used in airports in the USA. This is an unacceptable breach of privacy in general, but it’s especially problematic for women, and for trans men and trans women who may not want potentially hostile strangers alerted to their trans status. Invasive, open to abuse, a clear overreach of government power…I’m not seeing the upside here.
So the question becomes, what can we do about it? In the case of Iraq and the Green Zone, who do we need to put pressure on to make them switch to a system that replaces the images of people’s actual bodies with generic torso images? In the case of the USA, is it possible to start a campaign to force to TSA to do the same?
I’m not kidding, people, this is a fucking outrage. If they must use these scanners (and I’m not convinced of that either, but putting that aside for a moment), why can’t they use the ones that prevent images of people’s naked bodies being shown to whoever happens to be operating the machine? And why the hell do the images need to be saved once the person has cleared security? This needs to be stopped.

2008-07-08T18:10:00.000-07:00

Controversial admissions (hat-tip to Octogalore for the idea)

1. I love the fact that I look younger than I actually am. I am also willing to take steps to maintain that illusion, up to a point and if and when they become necessary. Though probably not surgery, because I’m a wimp and fear pain.

2. Although I was properly Marxist in college, I have since come to the conclusion that Marxism is incompatible with human nature. People are competitive, fractious, uncooperative creatures, and attempts to impose Marxism on them always seem to end in nasty infighting and a trail of dead bodies. I’d rather people just be openly grasping and competitive – far rather a challenge to my face than a knife in my back.

3. I am not attracted to men who are even the slightest bit overweight. Most of the men I am attracted to barely make it into the “normal” range on the BMI scale, and none of them are past the middle of that range. I have nothing against fat people in a general interpersonal sense, but in terms of men and sex, the leaner the better.

4. With women I’m much more flexible on weight, but I’m only attracted to women who’re pretty femme. Not ultra-femme, but the slightest hint of butch and my libido is dead in the water. I’m also not attracted to women who don’t have fairly substantial breasts.

5. Lack of intelligence irritates me. I don’t mean lack of formal education – some of the smartest people I’ve met have had little formal education – but lack of genuine, biting intelligence is a friendship deal-breaker for me.

6. I eat lots and lots of tuna. I know that it’s bad for the environment, and that tuna (and most other big game fish) are overfished and endangered, but every damn time I go to eat sushi I order maguro and tuna sashimi. Given my choice of (barely) cooked fish I’d choose ahi every time if it wasn’t so damn expensive. I am a bad environmentalist.

7. I have no respect for ideological purity. I’m a pragmatist. If I want to get something done I’m willing to work with whoever can help me attain that goal (within some limits…rapists and child abusers I’d draw the line at). I think that the general leftist tendency to insist on ideological purity and refuse to work with people who don’t meet that standard is a big part of why we expend so much energy and end up with so little to show for it.

Anyone else want to join in? C’mon, you can tell me – what are your controversial admissions?

2008-07-04T13:03:00.000-07:00

Ah, Miyavi...

You know, I'm sure this is just a case of his trademark peace sign being rather unfortunately placed. He couldn't possibly be giving the universal signal for...well, you know.

The girls on LiveJournal are going to have so much fun with this picture.

Yes, I will at some point return to real blogging. Eventually. For now please continue to enjoy the pretty pictures.

2008-06-08T04:41:00.000-07:00

Still Female Desire Week

So, femminess in men. That’s a complicated one for me. I always LIKE it, but I don’t always find it sexy. Sexy up to a point, and then something in me shifts and the appreciation goes from being sexual to being purely aesthetic. Ironically the latter is actually more objectifying, in my opinion – I stop thinking of the person as someone I’d like to fuck (which after all is still very much an interactive thing) and start thinking of them as a beautiful object, like a painting. Yeah, I know, no one else thinks this way.

I’m going to take a stab at actually illustrating where the lines are drawn for me later, but it’s too late and I’m sleepy. For now, something simpler.

A couple of weeks back I interviewed a guy who got his own post last time we did Desire Week. My own response there was weird and interesting – in person I wasn’t particularly attracted to him, though I certainly would have described him as attractive. Part of that was probably being in work mode, admittedly, but still, I found it interesting that I reacted one way sitting talking to him and completely differently to watching him on stage. That ties in to another thing that I want to post about. To a certain extent sexiness is a deliberate thing – some people can turn it on and off like flicking a switch. In general this is something that women are better at (not by accident or genetics either, imo), but some men know how to do it too. And that, honestly, is what I think was going on in the case I’m talking about.

Anyway, back to femminess in men. While I was doing some research pre-interview I came across a really funny fanvideo on YouTube. Normally I find fanvids boring, but this one made me laugh. When you put a bunch of clips together…wow, he really is pretty damn girly, isn’t he? And again, I don’t find him sexy in most of these clips, but I do always have a special fondness for girly men. They make me smile. Check it out – I honestly don’t see how anyone could fail to find this guy adorable and endearing.

I really wanted to ask him about the whole crossdressing thing during the interview but I got the feeling that the American management dude would have been very much Not Amused by that.

BTW, just in case anyone doesn’t quite grasp the scope of the girliness in this case, behold! (Can’t find the original pic, this is a version that someone doctored to make it look like the cover of a woman’s magazine, but the pic itself is unaltered)

Little pink panties. Aw, bless. The funniest thing is that they look like the women’s panties that were actually designed to mimic men’s briefs, adding yet another layer of genderfuck. And that’s why we love him, folks.

2008-06-06T21:35:00.000-07:00

It’s Female Desire Week again

And I’m a bit slow getting started. Sorry. What can I say? It was a nice day. I went out for a walk.

Anyway, female desire. Things we crave. Things we like to look at. Men we like to look at.

Funny how taboo that still is to admit for a lot of people, that women look, that men get looked at. Personally I’m profoundly uninterested in associating with either women who won’t admit that they look or men who’re uncomfortable with being looked at. This is me, folks – I’m a sensual creature. I’m visual. I like to look.

So, men I desire. The basic characteristics have always been remarkably consistent…slender bodies with sleek muscles, smooth skin. Dark hair, dark or bright blue eyes, skin tones ranging from golden tan to ghostly pale. Pretty features. Sharp cheekbones, full lips, strong jaws. A combination of masculine and feminine elements, that’s what gets me every time.

I posted a few examples last time, but why not add some more? Let’s start with this guy, since he’s so thoroughly sexualized himself for female consumption over the years that it’s easy to find pictures of him in various states of undress and a multitude of styles. Hakuei. Lead singer, Penicillin. Face of hip Black Peace Now clothing brand. Sometime actor. 6ft, about 130 pounds, 38 years old, lean and toned and just about perfect. I love tattoos…this man has gorgeous tattoos. And an awesome natural sense of style.

I could talk about the music or the career but you know what? This is Female Desire week, so none of that matters, because I don’t desire him because of his career.

I desire him because he’s beautiful.

Much more below. Please try not to drool too much, it's not good for your keyboard.

2008-04-18T17:01:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the jokes just write themselves

I’ve been quietly watching the latest meltdown in the feminist blogosphere with my mouth hanging open for the last few weeks. First there was Seal Press showing everyone how not to do PR (“Hi, WOC bloggers! Pikachu, I choose you! Now let me be as patronizing as possible…hey wait, why are you mad at us? You’re so hostile!”). Then there was Amanda Marcotte showing how not to build a movement. I mean really, how hard would it be to just say “oops, sorry, I forgot to include links, I’ll go add them now”? Not to mention, you know, actually either writing in a way that demonstrates a deep knowledge of your subject or handing the task over to someone capable of doing so.

And then there was the angry, defensive meltdown with people coming in to defend the poor vulnerable white girl and everyone else rolling their eyes and going “you have to be kidding me”. And then there were a few people who actually tried to take this conversation in a productive direction – OK, so feminism as a movement is fucked up when it comes to race. We need to fix that. How do we do that?

But then there are some people who just have to make it all about them. Because heavens forbid anyone talk about the bigger picture when someone’s feelings are hurt. And then we have a white girl responding to criticism from women of color by comparing herself to Malcolm X. Seriously, you cannot make this stuff up.

So, in order to save everyone just coming into this mess the trouble of reading through 100 identical comments from Amanda explaining why no one is allowed to talk about the big issue until she feels better let me summarize. Shorter Amanda.

My only comment is this…a clever man once said that when you find yourself in a big deep hole you don’t ask for a bigger shovel, you STOP DIGGING. I can’t find a link to the actual speech, but guess what? I can still give him credit for being the smart person who came up with that idea rather than pretending it was all my idea. It was Bill Clinton, and it was during some sort of speech while he was campaigning against Bush.

See how easy that is? Even if you can’t pinpoint exactly where or when someone said something that stuck with you, you can still give them credit for influencing your ideas. Really, it’s not that hard. If I can do it so can everyone else.

My response to this whole mess…I’m not giving up the word feminist, no matter how many assholes use it too. It’s a good word and it means something, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let a bunch of racist, classist, arrogant jackasses have the movement that so many women worked so hard to build.

So, my own response to Amanda et al and the way they’re behaving right now. Since I started with a song, I’ll give you another one and let Favorite Band speak for me. Especially appropriate since the first words of the song are “shut up”, which is exactly what certain people need to do right now.

(Affectionately known as “the fuck you song”)

One final note…as well as being pissed off I’m seriously disappointed in some people over the way they’ve behaved here. Amanda, you used to be a decent writer. I used to read Pandagon all the time. You were smart and funny and interesting once. What the hell happened? Please, for the love of all that is good, rethink the direction you’re going in before the people who used to enjoy your work lose what little remaining respect they have for you. It’s never too late to wise up. And that goes for all the white bloggers currently making asses of themselves over this - all of you are smart people and all of you are capable of being better people than this. Please, be better people than this

PS I will probably come back and edit this later when I’m less sleep deprived…anything obvious that I’ve missed, anything I forgot to link, feel free to point it out and I’ll fix it. Because that’s how it’s supposed to work, people! Blogging is about communication, isn’t it? It should be.

2008-03-31T16:26:00.000-07:00

The final Ministry tour…no, they’re serious this time!

I get concert information e-mailed to me from a number of sources (LiveNation, friends, the venues themselves, Live 105 Radio), and guess what I found recently? Ministry is doing a farewell tour. Which is great, but…um, wasn’t that what they said last time? I distinctly remember going to what was supposed to be their farewell tour a couple of years ago. And yet here they are again.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just kind of funny. How many farewell tours are they going to do? Is this going to be like when a furniture store has a “Going Out Of Business” sale that lasts for five years? In 2010 am I going to be getting another set of “come see Ministry’s final performance!” messages?
Eh, maybe Jorgensen has kids he needs to send to college. Now there’s a scary thought.

2008-03-26T01:29:00.000-07:00

Body stuff, the TMI edition

OK, so there’s something that I keep running into in all corners of the blogosphere and the media, and it’s annoying me.

Personal grooming issues. Why are these any of anyone else’s business? I mean OK, if we’re talking about people who do not bathe and are thus offensive to the sensitive nasal passages of those who have to be around them then I’m right with you. But when it comes to stuff that’s purely cosmetic? I’m just not seeing why this is or should be a matter in which public opinion is relevant. Especially not public opinion that’s based on either traditional gender roles or the desire to defy them.

So here’s my story. I am generally not a fan of body hair, on either sex. I have never dated a hairy man and never will. I have been shaving my legs and armpits since I was about 11 and have no intention of stopping any time soon. Even really hairy arms turn me off. This does not mean that I feel any need to interfere in other people’s grooming habits – see post below. Unless I’m sleeping with them it’s really none of my business.

However, despite generally falling into the anti-body-hair camp the common assumption that women will remove all of their pubic hair annoys me. And don’t get me wrong – I have done so, and will probably continue to do so sometimes. I started trimming the sides as an adolescent because I practically lived in the swimming pool and didn’t much care for the sight of hair protruding from swimsuit. I started shaving everything off in my mid twenties because I was living in California and it was really hot one summer. I did it on a whim, liked the way it felt and decided to keep doing it.

I always hated the way it looked, though. I hate the way it looks in porn too – I feel the same way I do looking at bald heads. Like, something is missing and I find it aesthetically displeasing. It’s not even the political argument about it making women look childlike with me, because honestly, an adult woman with huge breast implants and a shaved groin does not look like a child. She does however look a little odd to me, and not in a way that I like.

I’ve never liked the way it looks on me either. It makes me feel sort of bald and oddly unsexy. Which interestingly enough is Mr. C’s take too – feels cool, looks weird. He shaves most of his public hair off too, mostly for tactile reasons and to feel less sweaty when it’s hot. So nobody in my immediate vicinity is exerting pressure in either direction. And politically I’m totally neutral on this issue – I don’t think it’s a political issue at all, but an aesthetic one.

And aesthetically I don’t like the way I look fully shaved. So I’m letting some if it grow back. I seem to be leaning towards the neat little triangle look, because landing strips make me think of Hitler mustaches and that’s just not sexy at all. Or the stripes that they paint on the highway – also not sexy. The way I feel with the little triangle of dark hair though? Totally sexy. Which generally leads to better sex, which is a good thing.

Note that I have no opinion one way or another about what other women do with their pubic hair unless I’m sleeping with them. It’s just not relevant to my life in any way. I am not critiquing other women’s choices or suggesting that they change what they do.

How the hell did this ever become a politicized issue in the first place? And why are we letting it stay that way? If I see one more discussion about this on a feminist website I’m going to start throwing things at the screen. And men who feel the need to opine about the pubic topiaries of women they don’t even know and what they feel would be best for them to do…STFU. Nobody cares, she’s not sleeping with you anyway, your opinion is irrelevant.

Why can’t issues of personal aesthetics be just that? Why the need to impose ones own preferences on the world at large? Can an aesthetic preference not be just an aesthetic preference?

Discuss.

2008-03-15T02:11:00.000-07:00

Body Stuff part 2 (the short bit)

Meant to write about this earlier but have been in a bit of a mood this week.

So last weekend I saw a girl that made me smile, and the reason why is sort of relevant to all this body stuff. She was maybe in her early twenties and was taking a walk with her (really, really cute) puppy. Left the puppy tied up outside the coffee shop/health food store while she went in to shop. Many longing looks from puppy, where oh where has mommy gone and is she ever coming back, etc.

The part that made me smile? It was a really nice sunny day and so the girl was wearing a little cotton minidress. Kind of alterna-looking girl in general, sort of punk/rockabilly, with tattoos all over her calves. And hairy legs. In a girly mini-dress.

I sat there watching people walk past and react to this girl, saw them double-take and try to grok pretty feminine girl + hairy legs + tattoos + cute puppy. It was so much fun – people love to slot everyone into neat little categories and this girl was clearly fucking with them big time. And it was marvelous to behold.

There’s something really great about watching a woman be completely comfortable in her own skin. Maybe because you see it so rarely. Anyway, it put a smile on my face.

And the puppy, which attempted to jump into my lap and licked my toes and was generally friendly and full of energy – gah! I want one.

Interesting how cool people always manage to raise cool pets. This one was a rescue puppy that the girl found on the street and it was so happy and well-socialized that you just knew she was doing a great job making it feel loved and wanted.

And there ends today’s story.

2008-03-04T22:08:00.001-08:00

Body stuff, part 1

On an e-mail group I’m part of there’s been a discussion going on about how appearances can affect a person’s perception of the world, and by extension their personality and possibly even their politics. That happens to be a subject that interests me so I thought I’d bring it back over here and broaden the discussion a bit.
I think that the way a person looks can have a huge impact on the way they see the world. For a start it affects the way other people treat you. There are certain expectations and assumptions attached to people who are tall, or people who are fat, or people who are thin, or people who are unusually attractive, and in most cases those assumptions have both positive and negative elements. People who are tall are expected to have leadership abilities, which is great if they do, but must kind of suck if they’re shy and retiring by nature. Weight carries all kinds of expectations and assumptions, wherever a person falls on the size scale. And so on and so forth.
The interesting question for me is if a lifetime of being reacted to a certain way, having most people one meets make the assumptions that go along with being tall, or fat, or skinny, or pretty, or ugly, or whatever, actually has an impact on an individual’s personality. I think it does. How can it not? Human beings are social creatures – we define ourselves largely in relation to each other.
It gets even more interesting when you look at appearance issues that are tied up with gender presentation. I have had many short male friends who have noted that their lack of height is assumed to mean that they are less masculine somehow – there are social penalties attached to being short and slight for a man. For a woman it’s the opposite – models may be idolized but in general women are more likely to face mockery and gender policing as a result of being tall than as a result of being short. In some ways being short is actually an advantage for a woman (and I say this as someone who stands just over 5ft2) – men don’t feel threatened by women who are short, and one can get away with being a lot more assertive in terms of personality without being gender policed if one is physically unthreatening. A tall woman with my personality would probably be seen as a ball breaker, but because I’m small and femmey and entirely physically unimposing I get away with behavior that I’ve seen other women called every sexist insult in the book for.
In general people of either sex who are considered to fit the stereotypes associated with their gender well in a physical sense have a much easier passage through life. I’ve actually done experiments with this, and can report that when I go out in public in skirts and figure-hugging tops and make-up and heels people of both genders are a whole lot nicer to me. It’s not just about men wanting to get laid either, because straight women are a lot friendlier and more helpful too. I get better service in stores and restaurants, co-workers are friendlier, the wheels of the social system seem to be greased in many ways. When I go out in jeans and sneakers people aren’t rude or unpleasant, but the sense of friendliness and niceness does drop. The difference is more noticeable in men than in women – when I’m decked out in full girlie regalia men actually go out of their way to do favors for me – but it’s there in women too. I used to have a job at which every time I wore a skirt at least 3 or 4 female co-workers would stop me in the corridor and compliment me. In all these scenarios it almost feels like I’m being approvingly patted on the head for conforming perfectly to what is expected of my gender, even though my personality remains as assertive and non-girly as ever.
Male friends report a similar pattern in reverse (except without the random women going out of their way to do favors, because our society does not encourage that at all). Every femmey guy I’ve ever known has reported harassment when they’re all femmed up, and every one has said that on those occasions where they make a point of looking more masculine the harassment magically vanishes. It’s a weird, interesting phenomenon.
I wonder how much of this is homophobia. Gender non-conforming appearance is often taken as a sign that the person is queer – could that be why there’s such a difference, or is there more too it? If that’s the case, then why are openly gay people of either gender generally less likely to be harassed if they’re fairly gender conforming in appearance? And how does the day to day experience of being a butch woman or a femmey man and being greeted with covert or overt hostility and confusion, or being a gender-conforming person of either sex and thus being allowed to be more or less anonymous, affect the way the individual experiencing those reactions sees both themselves and the world around them?
I’m still mulling all this over. Particularly in reference to feminism as a movement. Anyone else have any thoughts?

2008-03-04T14:25:00.000-08:00

Goth alert!

Was everyone aware that there’s a new Bauhaus album coming out? I’m not kidding – I got a little e-mail notification the other day. Is that awesome or what? It’s been about 25 years since the last one, which is kind of scary to think about…I was just a kid when they broke up, so how old does that mean they all are now? And they might even tour, which should be wierd...are they still up to running around on stage?
Also, what is it with all the old goth icons coming back? I went to see Siouxie last month (she was pretty good, BTW, although whoever is running the mixing desk at her shows really needs to turn her mic up louder). And The Cure are back out there too. And it’s not just old goth bands either, because The Pixies came back too. Did some marketing genius finally realize that older people will go to shows if you give them something they actually want to see?
In any case this little mini goth revival is making me happy. And I will most definitely be buying the new Bauhaus album. If I wasn’t so damn goth I’d be positively cheerful.
(Currently listening to Double Dare)

And of course there’s always the all-time ultimate goth song…

The bats have left the bell-tower, dude.

2008-02-29T21:11:00.000-08:00

Choice, but for whom?

This post and the comments that follow it over at BAs blog got me thinking. Apparently a certain individual threw a tantrum at BA because she pointed out that Planned Parenthood has always had endemic racism in its policies, and that the problem continues to this day. Apparently she wasn’t supposed to point that out because loyalty to organizations that have historically done a lot of good for some women is more important than other women (you know, the ones it didn’t do so much good for) being able to point out problems that they have with the way said organization operates.

I call bullshit. And also lack of intellectual depth and the ability to comprehend complex issues.

See, here’s the thing. For middle class white women PP actually has done a lot of good. From the POV of that demographic (mine, BTW) PP looks like an unmitigated good.

If you’re a black woman it looks a whole lot different. PP has a long and ignoble history of imposing forced sterilization on black women. It also has a recent history of recommending methods of contraceptives to black women that it does not generally recommend to middle class white women. Depo-Provera? Problematic in all kinds of ways, likely to have long term effects on women’s fertility that they were not expecting. And that they also were not warned about, long after the fact that such problems might arise became clearly apparent. And then there’s Norplant. Ugh.

From any rational outsider’s POV it looks very much like part of the mission of PP is to make sure that poor black women have as few children as possible. And it looks like that because that is in fact part of the philosophy that underpins PPs approach. Google Margaret Sanger and eugenics if you don’t believe me.

So, when you look at PP what you have is an organization that has really helped some women and really hurt others. Which doesn’t mean that we should automatically want to nuke the whole organization – what it means is that we should be trying to change the organization so that it is responsive to the family planning needs of ALL women, not just some. The whole organization needs an overhaul from both a practical and a philosophical POV.

Why is it forbidden to point this out? Yes, I know that PP and all other family planning organizations are under threat from right wing wackos. That does mean that it would not be prudent to just shut the organization down completely. It most emphatically does NOT mean that the organization should be immune to criticism. Precisely because there are so few alternatives PP needs to be forced to change the way it approaches reproductive issues for WOC. And yes, I said forced, not asked gently and politely, because when did any large organization ever respond well to that?

So anyone who feels the need to shout down WOC when they offer pointed critiques of PP just because it offends them to have it pointed out that one of the organizations they admire is far from perfect and needs to be called on its shit? STFU. I’m not kidding. Your knee-jerk defense of a deeply flawed organization does not help anyone, least of all the women who depend on that organization’s services. So shut up and listen to what the woman has to say and you might learn something.

Go over to Black Amazon’s blog and read her posting and then follow the links. The blog she’s talking about seems to be allowing comments again, so have at it.

Edit - Also read Sylvia's follow-up post. Excellent question, isn't it? Also note that the certain individual who threw a tantrum at BA has now decided to delete the whole argument, which is basically the blog equivalent of taking your toys and going home. Rather telling, that.

2008-01-14T21:03:00.000-08:00

Feminist stuff...music and sexism

I was recently part of an intra-feminist conversation about misogynist and sexist themes in music, and it got me thinking about how much of the music I love is generally considered to be Not Feminist Approved. Which of course got me thinking about what that means, for something to be feminist approved or not feminist approved. Most of the music I love falls under the not approved heading just by virtue of genre – we’re all supposed to be listening to music written by and for women with somewhat political themes, right? Indigo Girls et al?

I don’t like that kind of music. I don’t like the male equivalent either, the stuff that as a socialist I’m supposed to like – Billy Bragg, etc (with the notable exception of the Manic Street Preachers, who are blatantly socialist, but then they don’t write music that sounds like a dirge). It’s not that I have anything against that sort of music, really, I just find it boring. I prefer my political theorizing to come in the form of a book, or an essay. I prefer music to hit me in an emotional way – the music I like best tends to bypass the brain and head straight for the gut.

There’s stuff that I can’t listen to because the lyrics piss me off or creep me out, though. If the lyrical content is sufficiently off-putting it distracts me from the actual music.
What do I mean by off-putting? It’s usually lyrics that are hateful towards any group of people as a group (stuff that’s more “you pissed me off, specific person!” I’m fine with). Stuff that’s hateful towards women will tweak my “fuck you, asshole” response pretty fast, obviously, and stuff that’s racist or homophobic has the same effect too. Apart from anything else it seems so very stupid, to be angry at any group as a group, especially if they’re a group with less social/structural power than you. Especially if it’s a white guy bitching about women/black people/gay people/whatever, my response is pretty much “Eh, shut up”. Which would explain why, although I love metal, most nu-metal irritates me. Well, there’s the fact that most of it sounds like it was written by a whiny 12-year-old, too.

I never have understood why feminists are supposed to dislike anything raunchy on general principles, though. Raunchy stuff that’s actively hateful towards women? Don’t like that, generally. But just plain raunchy? Why is this a problem?

So, I decided to put together a list of songs that I love that, at various points in my life, I’ve been told that as a feminist I’m not supposed to like. Some of them I can actually see why I’m not supposed to like them, but I do anyway. Some of them I think whoever thinks I’m not supposed to like them is falling into the trap of assuming that women just aren’t supposed to like sex, period, in which case…bite me. Once I started putting the list together I realized that what all the songs have in common is a sort of gleeful reveling in one’s own perversity. They’re not just sexy; they all leave me with a big smile on my face. It’s the idea of songs that talk about sex in a way that makes it seem like some or all of the participants are fucking miserable that puts me off. As long as it sounds like everyone is having a great time? Bring it on.

So, here’s my list

(Anything with a nifty little underline is a link to a downloadable version of the song)

Ministry – Stigmata (Violence, blood, kinky as hell…yeah, I know why I’m not supposed to like this one. Don’t care – best song to fuck to EVER.)

Dir en grey – Zomboid (Gleeful perversity at its finest - how can you not a love a song in which the macho male narrator declares himself addicted to come? There’s a reason why they’re my favorite band, folks, and it’s not just because Toshiya’s pretty. However, if anyone at your workplace speaks Japanese DO NOT play this song where they can hear it. Not only will you get fired, they’ll probably sue you for emotional trauma.)

Zilch – Electric Cucumber (Pretty much every feminist friend I’ve ever had has been horrified that I love this song. Vulgar, raunchy and utterly marvelous. Especially the part where the male singer says “eat me, beat me, treat me like a mother-fucking whore”. Me, I think that were it not for the unfortunate him-being-dead part the person who wrote this would be just my kind of guy.)

AC/DC – Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (I don’t have a digitisable version of this to upload, dammit! But I love this song. I once heard an AC/DC album described as “another ten songs about drinking and shagging”. That sounds about right. And again, it’s the gleeful tone that makes it work so well for me.)

SADS – Porno Star (The title alone should put this on the “Nice Feminists Don’t” list, and yet…I love this song. Then again, this guy could make just about anything sound sexy. Even the term “cock rock” doesn’t quite suffice for SADS – I could put almost any song of theirs on this list and it would fit right in.)

Miyavi – Night in Girl (This is the song that made me fall in love with Miyavi, musically speaking. Not that I don’t like all the pretty stuff, or the bluesy stuff, or his rawr rock stuff, but this? This is just plain hot. Perfect rhythmic acoustic guitar and ridiculously sexy voice and delicious lyrics with a playing-with-gender twist. Also, note to those who don’t think it can be done – as blatantly sexual as this is there isn’t the slightest sense that the man doesn’t like women. Quite the opposite in fact, which is especially remarkable when you consider that he was only 19 or 20 when he wrote this.)

Placebo – Nancy Boy (Sexy gender-ambiguous boys, how do I love thee? Oh let me count the ways…This also reminds me of my teenage clubbing days. Good times.)

D’espairs Ray – Marry of the Blood (If you’re into BSDM this is your house band. What do you get when you have a band with two doms and two subs? Stuff like this…slow and hypnotic and kinky as can be. I may well go to the otherwise tedious Taste of Chaos tour just to see these guys. Especially if Zero is going to be wearing the tight leather skirt with the big slits up the sides.)

Led Zeppelin – Whole Lotta Love (Clichéd as all hell, this is true, but still a sexy song. Also somewhat sexist in that typically 70s cock rock way. Not truly misogynistic though, I’d argue, just garden variety cluelessly sexist.)

Zilch - Fuctrack # 6 (This one makes the Genitorturers sound like Sesame Street. Right at the beginning you have a bitchy domme come in and say “I wanna fuck you in the ass until you bleed” and it just gets better from there. Pretty much everything by Zilch is raunchy and perverse and funny as hell, but this one may be the winner. And I love it, oh yes I do! This song isn’t so much sexy as laugh-your-ass-off hilarious.)

So, what are your “I’m not supposed to love this but I do” songs? The really raunchy ones that the Spinster Aunt would not approve of? C’mon, you can tell me.

2008-01-02T21:34:00.000-08:00

Election blues

Has anyone else been following the coverage of the Iowa caucuses? I’ve mostly been turning a jaundiced eye away from the whole thing, mostly because all of the candidates are predictably uninspiring.

Hilary Clinton is a great politician, there’s no doubt about that, and she’s getting better all the time. Bill’s footprints are all over her campaign, and politically that’s a good thing – he has better instincts than she does. Actually Teflon Man has better instincts than any other politician of his generation. With both of them working together she may well get the nomination.

I wouldn’t vote for her, though (if I was allowed to vote, which as a non-citizen I am not). The reason I wouldn’t vote for her is simple – I have no idea what she would do if she was President. Every time I see her speak it’s all surface and no content – you can listen to her deliver a half hour speech and come away with no idea of what she plans to do except that there’s something vague and undefined in there about healthcare (she does get some points for being consistent in her interest in that issue).

Obama is more or less the same. Everything he says sounds good, but you come away with no idea what kind of a President he would be, because he never really says anything of substance – it’s all vague platitudes and rousing but imprecise promises.

These are our two leading candidates. Oh joy. Vague and vaguer. Vote for either of them and you have no idea what they care about or what policies they’ll implement, what’s really important to them and what they’ll be willing to trade away. That applies to most politicians, of course, but the constant press insistence that both of them are different because of their gender (her) or race (him) grates. Neither of them seem different to me – it’s politics as usual. Don’t commit to anything because then you might actually have to act on it.

I still think Edwards is a better candidate. I know the media doesn’t agree with me – even though he’s pretty close in the polls most media outlets are barely acknowledging his existence.

He may pull it off, though. Americans like sincerity and trustworthiness in a candidate, and he certainly does a better job of projecting those qualities than either of the other two. He has that same sort of folksy, relaxed charm that Clinton (Bill, not Hilary) has, and that might make the difference.

The real reason I want him to get the nomination is that I feel like I actually have some idea what he’d do with it, though. He’s the only one who ever seems to say anything. I also think that the press assumption that his legal background is a liability is silly – Americans don’t like corporate lawyers, but lawyers who represent normal people against corporations? Those they like. Plus he has a sort of warmth to him that the other two notably lack.

The folksy quality grates for me, honestly, but I still think he’s the one who’d have the best chance of beating whoever the Republicans put forward. Unless it’s McCain, then they might well end up neck in neck, just because their demeanors are so similar.

The media seems to be pretty sure that both of those two are doomed, though. Me, I’m just going to sit and watch. And scowl every time another media outlet doesn’t even attempt to hide its biases. Since when did they stop teaching the fact that that’s unprofessional in journalism school?

2007-12-27T10:20:00.000-08:00

Benazir Bhutto RIP

Go read this right now.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7161590.stm

I really can't express how sad and angry this makes me. I'll try to say something more coherant later, too shell-shocked right now.

(Thanks to Natalia for the link.)

2007-12-24T15:46:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas, Happy belated Hanukkah or Eid, Merry Festivus…

Just a quick post to wish everyone a happy holiday season. Whatever holiday you happen to celebrate, even if it’s only “yay, I get the day off work!”, I hope it’s a good one.

Also, why do I associate Elvis with Christmas? Is this the fault of my parents for always making me watch TV? And if so, why does, say, It’s a Wonderful Life hold no appeal? Last night I watched The Hogfather, which was SO much more fun than most holiday movies, and today I was cleaning out my hard drive and came across the following punk Elvis cover, which for some reason felt completely holiday-appropriate to me.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

2007-12-11T01:29:00.000-08:00

The Boob Wars terrorize feminist blogland…again.

So everyone read the Pandagon posting in which Amanda giggled with girlish glee over the fact that some sexist asswipe at Details doesn’t like women with big boobs, right? There were so many things wrong with that posting that I hardly know where to start. I couldn’t even be bothered to engage over there, because seriously, any woman who thinks that men making snide judgmental comments about women with big boobs, including implying that such women are stupid and lacking self esteem, is, like super-cool and awesome! And totally feminist-friendly! I'm not exactly feeling the sisterly love. I mean seriously – that Details article is dripping with contempt for women who don’t meet the author’s specific beauty standard. It’s Misogyny 101 for dudes who like skinny girls with small tits. Anyone who would praise that and think it’s something for feminists to celebrate? Clearly not the sharpest tool in the shed. Not able to think beyond “hey, this guy is saying that women like me are the superior model!” and realize that the entire premise of the article is “woman as consumer product whose worth shall be judged by whether or not men want to fuck her”, and that’s the exact opposite of everything that feminism stands for.

I ran across an excellent example of just why calling this kind of shit feminism is so very stupid today. Check out this Salon article.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2007/12/10/big_breasts/index.html

And then check out the comments.

Notice anything interesting? A certain tone to the replies from men, perhaps? The pervasive idea that women’s bodies are everyone’s business but their own? That there is a “proper” breast size and that it’s up to men to determine what that size is? And that once such has been determined, women must strive to meet men’s expectations (whatever they happen to be this week)? The boldly and repeatedly stated insistence that women’s own opinions about their bodies are essentially irrelevant, that their lived experience doesn’t matter?

Here’s the reality that the Pandagon piece missed by a mile – the very idea that women can and should be judged by the size of their boobs as if that size was somehow a reflection on their moral or intellectual status, and that there is a “proper” size that is to be determined by men, is REALLY REALLY FUCKING SEXIST. That men feel free to do this is not something that feminists should be celebrating, even if the particular conclusions drawn by those particular men make a particular woman feel good about herself as long as she isn’t bright enough to think through what the implications of that framing are for women as a whole.

In other words – my dear misguided sexist-jerk-cheering-on sisters, kindly remove your heads from your asses for long enough to realize that whether or not the specific standard of boobage being proposed as the ideal is one that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy and appreciated IS COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT. The idea that there is and/or should be a standard is inherently sexist. The men proposing that standard, whatever it may be in any specific case, are essentially treating you as a product – “I prefer BMWs to Saabs”. That is not a victory for feminism.

And I’m not just talking about Amanda, BTW. I’m talking about all the other feminists who sat there (and continue to sit there on Feministe) going “I don’t see what the problem was with saying that the Details article was funny” after many, many other women have explained slowly and clearly exactly why buying into such blatant misogyny is not OK.

2007-12-06T02:06:00.000-08:00

Attack of the Sex Pixies

So apparently the Sex Pox have a new name. We’re the Sex Pixies now. Which is cute, I suppose. At least they’re not comparing sex positive women to a disease that causes boils and then death any more, right?

In honor of the new name I decided to make a sex pixie of my own (credit to Kiya for the idea). Isn’t she cute? With her widdle wings?

Now here’s the thing. This whole sex pixie business…I’m assuming it’s meant to appeal to one’s memory of childhood fairy tales in which the pixies were adorable but fundamentally untrustworthy creatures who did things like steal babies and generally caused trouble for decent, law-abiding people. Yes, dear, we get the analogy. We, the sex pixies, are the harbingers of the Patriarchy, pure evil wrapped in a cute shiny package designed to hide our true (evil…did I mention that we’re evil?) natures. All we do is cause trouble for nice honest decent feminist women, with our suspicious affection for grooming rituals and pretty shoes and our tendency to pretend (admit) that we sometimes enjoy sex, even sex with men! Oh, the horrors! Don’t panic, I have your smelling salts right here. Go ahead, take them. I won’t be needing them since I’m not prone to fainting spells.

Nothing but trouble, the sex pixies. All we do is make other feminists look bad, and give men the idea that not all women view them with the maiden aunt’s jaundiced eye. The good feminists know that we don’t really like sex or shoes or booze or any of the other stuff we say we like, we’re just kissing ass so that the boys will like us. Because we have no needs or desires of our own. Women aren’t sexual, you know, not like men, those brutes. Plus we make other women feel bad, what with being so bright and shiny and what the hell does she think she’s wearing, that slut? Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for that to slip out. What I meant was I feel so sorry for you because you have yet to see the light, my sister. Come sit with me and I shall explain it to you. Yes, I know that I’ve explained it a billion times before and you’ve told me you don’t agree, but I know that you will if you just listen harder. Silly little girl, thinking that you can think for yourself. That’s the last thing a feminist should be doing – why, she might draw entirely the wrong conclusions. Better to just let the collective do your thinking for you, because after all, when did that ever not turn out to be the best thing for everyone?

Now that we’ve explained who she is, let’s meet the Sex Pixie (de-winged this time, because they’re less dangerous that way). Be careful, she’s tricksy. Don’t get too close.

Funny thing about the Sex Pixie…turns out that she looks pretty much just like everyone else. In fact, this one looks just like me. Take a good look…is she really all that scary? Does she seem like she’s out to destroy womankind? Or does she in fact look like any other ordinary woman who you might find yourself standing next to in the morning waiting to get coffee, or chatting to on the train, or sharing an office with, or nodding hello to while you’re out walking the dog, or…

Don’t believe it, sisters! Under that friendly smile lies a heart of ice, dedicated to nothing except extending the dominion of the Patriarchy. She doesn’t have thoughts, she doesn’t have feelings – all she has is a maniacal desire to please men. Even if she’s a lesbian. It’s OK to call her a slut or a sociopath or insult her intelligence, because she’s not really a woman. She’s a Sex Pixie.

2007-11-13T23:23:00.000-08:00

Help me edit this book review!

I have to review a book as part of a job interview process, and book reviews aren’t something that I normally do. How long are these things supposed to be anyway? I don’t have a word count to work with, and we all know that brevity is not my strong point.
I know we have some environmentalists around here – has anyone read this book? If so, what did you think? Am I capturing the essence of it at all?
Oh, and the dude wants it to be funny and engaging rather than “I am so fucking serious, man”.
Help! Review below.

It’s hard to know where to begin when describing a book about environmentalism that is guaranteed to infuriate most environmentalists who read it. Break Through really does represent such a fundamental break from the way that people are used to thinking about environmental issues that it may take some people a while to understand exactly what the authors are proposing.
For a start, it talks about money. Most environmentalists, and indeed leftists as a whole, are rather uncomfortable talking about money. There’s a pervasive sense that an interest in things like financial markets and international trade is somehow unseemly, and a fundamental belief that these things just don’t have much to do with the environment.
Break Through takes that belief and rips it up into tiny little pieces, then makes them into paper airplanes and fires them directly into the eyes of more traditional environmental groups. How does the book accomplish this? For starters, consider the following statement.
“Material prosperity is a pre-requisite for ecological concern”
To most traditional environmentalists this sounds like nonsense – environmentalism is supposed to arise from one’s deep emotional responses to the beauty and majesty of nature, right? If so, what does prosperity have to do with anything?
Rather a lot, as it turns out. A significant portion of this book is dedicated to demonstrating the fact that when people’s basic material needs are not being met, the environment is that last thing on their minds. They’re too busy putting food on the table, or trying to avoid being shot at, to worry about saving the environment.
Take Brazil, for example. This book does an excellent job of explaining exactly why saving the Amazon isn’t all that high a priority for most Brazilian people, and isn’t something that even those who do care can do much about. Here are the facts. Brazil spends the majority of its money servicing its foreign debt. The reason it does so is that the military dictatorship that ruled the country in the 1970s borrowed heavily from abroad. As it turns out, they borrowed more than they could repay. In 1982 the dictatorship defaulted on its foreign loans and rolled over its debts. By the time the rolling over was done Brazil found itself with massive interest payments to make. The country currently owes about $511 billion. The initial loans have already been repaid several times over, but because of the magic of punitive interest rates that doesn’t matter – Brazil still owes $511 billion to its foreign investors. What that means is that, even though Brazil has some of the most progressive environmental laws in the world, it can’t afford to enforce them. After making its loan payments it doesn’t have enough money left to guarantee the safety of its professional middle class. Mounting an effective resistance to deforestation is simply out of the question. Not only that, but the very industries that are destroying the Amazon actually help to generate the capital required to service the debt. In those circumstances, preserving the rainforest just isn’t going to happen.
Contrast this with statements such as that made by environmentalist John Terborgh, head of Center for Tropical Conservation at Duke – “Poverty alleviation if not what conservation is all about. It’s a different enterprise. It’s a separate issue.”
Is it really?
There is of course an alternative approach, one that doesn’t ignore the economic reality, one that might actually allow Brazil to do something about protecting its great national treasure – wipe out its foreign debts. Break Through throws out the following challenge.
“In calling for the elimination of the dictatorship debt, we are most definitively not calling for debt forgiveness, a concept that implies that the debtor countries committed some sin for which they should be forgiven. It is not the indebted people of Brazil who should be forgiven but those who blithely insist that the dictatorship’s debt is either moral or legal. Brazil doesn’t need our forgiveness. It needs justice to be served.”
And one has to ask oneself…why not? Do we really want the Amazon to be saved? And if we do, why aren’t we looking at impediments to its being saved right now and doing whatever is necessary to get rid of them?
The Brazil example, and the way the book addresses it, is a perfect illustration of the fundamentally different approach to ecology that the authors are suggesting. The old way of “doing” environmentalism, by viewing nature as something fundamentally separate from man that man is encroaching upon and by setting limits on that encroachment, just isn’t working. Consider this – the UN states that we would need an 80% decrease in greenhouse gas emissions. So far none of the countries that signed the Kyoto treaty are meeting even the far more modest reduction goals that the treaty demands. What does that mean? At the rate things are going the UN targets are never going to be met. And then there are the developing nations, whose emissions are rising all the time.
Break Through has a lot to say about China and India and what their emergence as global superpowers means for the environmental movement, and many environmentalist aren’t going to like it. Activists who focus on anti-racism and global development, on the other hand, will probably find themselves nodding vigorously at statements such as the following.
“China, India, Brazil and the rest of the developing world will not agree to any international approach that constrains the economic aspirations of their people – nor should they. The average Chinese consumes 15 percent of the energy of the average American. It would be immoral to attempt to lock the developing world into energy penury.”
Herein lies the rub of the current approach to global warming on an international level – the message being sent to developing nations is essentially “stop”. It is constantly implied, or flat-out demanded, that China and India in particular keep their emissions in check, and if that means that they remain stuck at their currently underdeveloped level – oh well, sucks to be them! Western environmentalist simply do not seem to grasp the idea that this is simply not acceptable to the countries being told to make sacrifices that the already developed nations are not willing to make themselves.
This is the most important reason to read Break Through. It joins up the dots between what’s happening to the environment and the global anti-poverty movement. It doesn’t start from the assumption that some nations will have to make sacrifices in order to make things better for others – instead, it starts from the premise that people whose basic survival needs are being met have a lot more freedom to care about things like protecting the environment.
It also starts from a radical re-imagining of man’s relationship to nature. The traditional environmentalist viewpoint sees man as standing apart from nature – Break Through proposes a model in which man is a part of nature just like everything else is. This model is a major challenge to the view that most environmentalist have of nature as something “separate from, and victimized by, humans”. A lot of dedicated environmentalists aren’t going to like it, but this reevaluation of the relationship between man and nature is what’s needed in order for environmentalism to grow into something that’s actually relevant to the situation we find ourselves in today.
The old environmentalism is based on the idea that all you have to do is show people what’s wrong and they’ll fix it, otherwise known as the show people pictures of the cute dead baby seals and hope that they decided to drive their cars less approach. This approach has been notably unsuccessful so far. The new environmentalism being proposed in Break Through is about trying to find positive, creative ways of addressing problems. Reams of social research have shown that people respond better to positive approaches than to guilt – what this book is suggesting is that environmentalists harness that tendency and use it to get people excited about improving the world we all share.
Perfect example – Global warming preparedness, or as the book calls it”recasting global warming in terms of preparedness for natural disasters and extreme weather”. The authors created a proposal outlining their ideas for this in 2005-2006. The UN International Panel on Climate Change adopted a similar plan in 2007, with an “aggressive strategy” including building seawalls.
Many environmentalists resist ideas like this, on the principle that they represent accommodation. A perfect example of the leftist tendency to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory – and I say this as a person who was raised to be a leftist from the cradle. The problem with the accommodation argument is that it’s already too late to worry about whether or not we’re accommodating – climate change is already underway.
“Even if humans had stopped emitting greenhouse gases starting in 1988, when NASA scientist James Hansen announced to Congress that global warming had arrived, all of the changes today resulting from global warming – the melting of Greenland’s ice sheet, the slowing of the North Atlantic Gulf Stream, warmer ocean surfaces, and more intense hurricanes – would still be under way. There is so much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that even if humans stopped emitting greenhouse gases tomorrow, the planet would continue to heat up for several more decades and probably longer. As surely as the science of climatology tells us that the warming of the earth is caused by humans, it also tells us that a dramatically warmer and transformed climate is almost certainly inevitable.”
Given the choice between adapting and dying, isn’t adaptation the smart thing to do?
Traditional environmentalism has focused on the politics of limits – put caps on greenhouse gas emissions, only allow X number of people to visit area Y – and the pollution paradigm – one can approach the management of entire ecosystems the same way one approaches what goes into one small stretch of river. These approaches fail to engage the public, and they do not scale well to something as vast and complicated as climate change. Break Through offers a new way forward, an appeal to human potential rather than a scolding admonishment for corrupt mankind to leave nature alone, an idea which would be impossible to accomplish even if mankind were motivated to do so.
“The narrative of overcoming helps us to imagine and thus create a brighter future. Human societies will continue to stumble. Many will fall. But we have overcome starvation, disease, deprivation, oppression and war. We can overcome ecological crises.”
People respond better to challenges than to guilt. This fact cannot be repeated enough, which is why the authors repeat is throughout the book. Simply withdrawing from nature is impossible – man does not stand outside nature. We have always shaped our environment in one way or another. The question isn’t whether or not we’re going to continue to shape our environment, its how. Like it or now we’re piloting the ship – the option to just step back is not available to us. Attempting to frighten or guilt-trip people into withdrawal from some imagined nature that does not involve mankind isn’t going to get the results that we need. The problem isn’t that people aren’t scared enough; it’s that environmentalists are so busy trying to convince them that things are hopeless that most of them are too depressed to even think about what they might do better.
“The problem is not that people don’t see the nightmare, but that they do not allow themselves to dream.”
If you have any interest at all in ecology, or in global development, read this book. It may not have all the answers, but it’s the first real attempt to start asking the right questions.

2007-11-02T22:03:00.000-07:00

Wow, they have tragically Wapanese people in Europe now too?

Via Something Awful…person wanders around Helsinki with a camera taking pictures of walking fashion disasters. I don’t mean just “that shirt does not go with those pants”, I mean DISASTERS.

The whole Hel-looks section is worth pointing and laughing at, but this one in particular caught my eye.

Good thing I wasn’t drinking anything at the time. I think the following quote sums up my feelings quite nicely.

Zack: Do you realize we're the last generation of people that didn't grow up with a manga aisle in our bookstores? There are people reading this born in like 1989 that see this picture and think, "I don't get what's wrong with that" as they stroke their ermine rabbit doll with monster hooters.

And the sad thing is that I LIKE anime and manga. I just don’t like what happens when socially maladjusted people base their entire lives around them.

I am mildly disturbed by the fact that I can actually visualize Bjork, who I adore, wearing something like this in a music video. Especially the fluffy hat/ears combo.

I am forced to admit, however, that the lolifail pictured above still looks better than this guy. Check out his self-description.

Nu rave and renaissance, the time of Christopher Columbus and baggy shapes inspire me - but always with a touch of Nazi Germany to avoid a too clowny and buffoon look!"

Um…this is his non-clowny look? Wow.

(PS Veronica, I know that you had the misfortune to work anime conventions once upon a time. This one’s for you, sweetie.)

Fair Warning - The links above lead to Something Awful, so I guarantee that there will be something crass and stupid and offensive in the comments somewhere (and my linkage does not imply that I endorse said comments). Just so you know.

2007-10-31T00:31:00.000-07:00

Note to stupid people – a 30 year old man fucking a 13 year old girl isn’t the girl “acting out”, its child abuse (and statutory rape).

Via Feministe…has everyone seen this story about a mother who forcibly pierced her daughter’s genitalia in an attempt to stop her from having sex? She also shaved her head, apparently in the hopes of making her less attractive to men (like, say, Mom’s creepy child abusing boyfriend).
How is this woman not in jail? Yeah, I know, we’re not supposed to criticize mothers, blah blah…but she HELD HER CHILD DOWN AND HAD HER GENITALS PIERCED WITH THE INTENTION OF MAKING IT SO THAT SHE WOULD BE IN TOO MUCH PAIN TO HAVE SEX. All the commenters saying that that’s not punishment…hello? Deliberately inflicting pain on your kid isn’t punishment? In what alternate universe is this, exactly?
As if that wasn’t horrifying enough, check out the comments from the jury foreman. Apparently being sexually abused by your almost-stepfather now counts as teenage misbehavior and the poor mom just had to stop her crazy out of control kid…by sticking sharp things through her genitalia.
What the fuck is wrong with people in this country? I mean OK, I know the USA was settled (actually invaded and colonized if we’re being accurate) by puritans, but that was hundreds of years ago – haven’t we moved on intellectually even a teeny bit? Do we really still think that little girls should be punished for the crime of having sex? Seriously? Even if said little girls were too young to legally give consent? And we also still think that parents own their children and can do anything they want to them?
I swear, there are days when I despair of people ever dragging their minds out of the Dark Ages. Grown men fucking children – BAD. Deliberately inflicting injury on your child – BAD. Jury deciding that being abused is the kid’s fault for being wild – ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME WITH THIS SHIT?

2007-10-27T18:26:00.000-07:00

This is the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever read

Behold! What would happen if a particularly dim-witted MRA met an evolutionary psychologist for a round of drinks, over which they discussed the possible future of the human race as determined by “sexual selection”? Maybe something like this.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=489653&in_page_id=1965

To summarize – apparently we’re all going to be 7 feet tall with huge dicks and/or “pert” boobs. Except for the goblin people, they’re going to be just hideous.

You know, I read The Time Machine in high school, too, but unlike our friend here I didn’t assume that HG Wells was Nostradamus.

Also, this dude is an economist. In what way does that make him an authority on genetics, exactly?

Ah, the Daily Mail. Has anyone seen this story reported in a newspaper that isn't written by rabid howler monkeys? I'd be curious to see what an actual journalist would make of our wacky economist friend.

2007-10-24T16:04:00.000-07:00

Music that did not need to happen

So I get these e-mails from a web store that I occasionally use to buy CDs. The e-mails are basically just a list of all the new stuff they have available in whatever category you told them you were interested in (I’m on the rock and pop list – no country or jazz for me, thanks, and they don’t have a punk list). Most of it is the stuff that you would expect, but there are some oddities.

Take the latest one. Apparently there’s a new album from Helloween coming out. Remember Helloween? Dreadful Euro metal band with a singer who sounds like someone just kicked him in the balls while he was singing something from La Traviata, complete with operatic tremolo? Videos and album covers with a pumpkin motif? Yeah. Not one of the finest moments of the eighties. This band still has a record deal? How is that even possible? Oy.

Next up – Duran Duran, who have a new album with Justin Timberlake on guest vocals. Wow. Generation-spanning mediocrity! Is the bass player still hot? Because that was always pretty much the only reason to pay any attention to Duran Duran.

And I saved the best for last. Manowar. Remember them? Imagine if the Gor people formed a metal band. Yes, it really is as awful as it sounds. Furry loin cloths and all.

You know, I love metal, but sometimes…sometimes it’s just embarrassing.

2007-10-13T17:43:00.000-07:00

I had the worst night/morning ever yesterday. Thursday night I got dizzy in the shower, and at first I just thought the water was too hot, but I turned it down and that didn't help. And then just as I was trying to figure out what to do I fell...I have no idea how, just collapsed. Not even sure if I passed out for a few seconds, I just found myself on my hands and knees, wondering what the hell was going on. And I don't remember hitting anything, BUT somehow I knocked chunks out of both my front teeth. Which I realised when I felt something wierd in my mouth and spit out bits of tooth.

How I managed to knock out part of my teeth without A. feeling any impact or B. giving myself a concussion I have no fucking clue.

Cue confusion and panic, not helped by the fact that I still felt weak and woozy. And of course this happens when Mr. Cassandra is thousands of miles away.

Finally I dragged myself to the couch and called Mr. Cassandra, then my dentist...at 2 AM. Went in at 8:30 and didn't leave till 10:30. I now have front teeth again, BUT it's not permanent, I need to go back for crowns or veneers later, and they're still not sure if I damaged the tooth root.

WTF? I knew that I was sick, and I have low blood pressure so I get dizzy sometimes in extreme temperatures, but seriously, WTF?

I think I need to really take it easy for a few days. Oh, and I'm not allowed to bite anything with my front teeth or use an electric toothbrush for two weeks. And there are cuts on the inside of my mouth that I didn’t notice at first, and my teeth are now hot and cold sensitive, and the roof of my mouth hurts like hell, and I have a constant headache that makes me wonder if I actually do have some sort of mild concussion…although I don’t feel any nausea, so probably not.

Whine, bitch, moan, complain, etc. That was a hell of a way to start the weekend. I was intending to go meet up with some friends for a girls night out, but now…no chance. Especially since I’ve been instructed to eat mushy food for a while, which I am NOT happy about.

I don’t feel good. Someone give me a cuddle.

2007-10-05T17:14:00.000-07:00

Friday Random 10

Yes, I know I’ve been away for a while. Sorry, I was busy. But now I’m back! And I promise that I will try to be a better blogger. Honest.

Sneaker Pimps – Spin Spin Sugar
Manic Street Preachers – Suicide Is Painless (MASH theme)
Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers – Get Off Of The Phone
Portishead – Sour Times
Atsushi Sakurai – Sacrifice
The Dead Boys – Sonic Reducer
SADS – Porno Star
Schwein – You’re My Disease
Gene Loves Jezebel – Jealous
Buck-Tick – My Fucking Valentine

My randomizer is in love with Atsushi Sakurai this week, apparently. He showed up three times! (Solo, with Buck-Tick, and with Schwein). BTW…anyone who likes industrial stuff who hasn’t heard Schwein should really give them a try. Collaboration between KMDFM, PIG and Buck-Tick. Great stuff. Hey, look, here’s a video! Also, I missed them last time they toured here because I wasn’t paying attention, so if anyone hears about another US tour then let me know.

You're My Disease

I swear to God Sakurai just gets sexier every year. Can you believe this man is over 40? (He’s the one singing who’s not the dude from KMDFM).

Here’s the Sacrifice video. See why I affectionately refer to him as “The Gothfather”? And that voice…the man has one of the most beautiful voices I’ve ever heard, male or female. I have no idea what he’s saying half the time but I don’t care, because that voice! Rich, layered, sometimes velvety soft, sometimes rough and raw, sometimes smooth like melted honey, sometimes so pure and beautiful it will take your breath away. DAMN that man can sing.

Sacrifice

Anyone who’s ever wondered how I ended up into so much Japanese music – blame Sakurai. A friend from Osaka introduced me to Buck-Tick when I was in college, and it was love at first listen.

Look, some bonus Buck-Tick! I couldn’t find the My Fucking Valentine video on YouTube, so here’s Romance instead.

Romance

2007-08-31T22:04:00.000-07:00

Time waits for no-one

So it’s my birthday in…a couple of hours. And that’s a weird feeling. I’m turning 34. I don’t feel like I’m turning 34. I don’t feel like I’m even close, honestly. It’s like…aren’t people this age supposed to be a little more, I don’t know, sorted? As in, pick a career track and stick to it, be so settled in a relationship that even the though of being with someone else would be inconceivable (I’m settled, but not THAT settled), feeling generally like things are winding down? I don’t feel like things are winding down. I feel like I’m due for another big dramatic change, actually.
Physically I don’t feel old at all. I mean, I can see lines where there used to be none, and the body is not as firm as it used to be, but in general…I actually feel healthier overall than I did ten years ago. It doesn’t feel like things are breaking down – my back doesn’t hurt, I have less headaches than I used to, if anything I have more stamina now. I do seem to need a little more sleep, though. All the things I really like are the same things I really liked when I was 25, or even 17. I’m calmer, there’s a sort of serenity there that wasn’t there even 5 years ago, but other than that…nothing much seems to have changed.
Eh, it’s weird. Anyone else have any idea what I’m talking about? It’s as if I have this idea in my head of what 34 looks and feels like and that’s not how I look or feel, and it’s wierding me out.

2007-08-09T01:46:00.000-07:00

More musings about gender and desire

All this deconstructing of gender has got me thinking about how it ties in to patterns of attraction. Specifically, how it ties into my own patterns of attraction.

In my case what attracts me has actually been remarkably consistent through the years – I say remarkably because there have always been clear messages that the specific things that I’m attracted to in men are, well, a bit weird. Not so much culturally approved of.

There’s a definite sense of pressure in American (and British, though not quite so strongly) culture for women to be attracted to men who are rather…macho. It manifests in a number of different ways – sometimes it’s about fetishising power, sometimes it’s about muscles and/or the overall sense that men are “supposed” to be substantially larger than their female partners, sometimes it’s about money. On a physical level there are multiple male “types” that are held up as cultural ideals. And none of them appeal to me sexually at all.

Typical example – the jock thing. I don’t like jocks. I don’t find them sexy. I do find people who have a strong sense of physicality about them sexy, and I have a distinct preference for men who are physically fit (that whole endurance thing always helps, you know?) but the big bulging muscles? Blech. Not my thing. The behavior that often goes with them? Even less sexy.

I can look at those men and find them aesthetically pleasing; I can see why other people find them sexy. But for me…on a sexual level it just does not compute. No response. It’s not even revulsion, it’s just…nothing. A blank space where desire “should” be.

That can be a disconcerting feeling when you’re young, that sense that there’s a way your libido is “supposed” to work and it doesn’t work that way at all. It was for me. I’ve gone through various stages of trying to convince myself that I can be attracted to those men, and it’s never worked. My body just won’t cooperate.

I also never, ever understood the idea of being attracted to wealth, or power. For me attraction is almost entirely physical – if I think someone is sexy I really don’t give a crap what he does for a living or how much money he has. Those things are simply irrelevant as far as my libido is concerned. I’ve known lots of women to whom those things do matter, but for me…again, does not compute. I try to understand it and my mind blue-screens on me.

It makes me wonder, though…are other women actually attracted to those things? As in, the idea that person X is rich actually makes them horny? Or is it a practical thing? Are they choosing to put their financial wellbeing ahead of their actual desires? Or does attraction work differently for them than it does for me, on a less specifically physical level? Are they the weird ones, or am I? Because I just can’t wrap my head around this idea of being attracted to wealth or power at all, and I sure as hell have no desire to wrap my body around it.

A powerful personality, on the other hand…now there’s an interesting thing. See, I’m a dom. But the men I’m attracted to aren’t really all that sub-ish on the surface. If I meet someone and their body language is radiating submission right from the get-go I’m really not all that interested. I want a challenge. I want to MAKE them submit. In my ideal sexual scenario there’s always an element of power struggle. People who give in too easily bore me. Most of the men I fit well with aren’t really subs, not exclusively, they’re switches. There have been a couple of cases in which the first person they were ever submissive to was me. Not only don’t I want them to submit immediately the first time, I don’t want them to submit immediately ever. A fulltime D/s relationship wouldn’t work for me at all. I’d lose all interest in the other person on a sexual level. I’d feel like his Mommy.

I’m not quite sure what to call that. Is there even a word for it? I know that it’s not a unique thing, and I know that there are men out there who complement me perfectly, because I’ve met them. I also know that couples that work that way tend to confuse and vex a lot of BSDM folks, probably because they’re not quite sure how to classify them.

I’m not sure how that particular kink intersects with my sexual preferences in general, but I’ve always wondered if there’s some sort of connection. Which brings us to…

The men I find sexy. I’m ignoring the girls for now because in all honesty I’m a lot more flexible there, and I don’t have quite such a clear “type”. With men though, I’m not very flexible at all, preference-wise.

So what do I like? I like skinny, but ideally with a little muscle definition, especially in the abs. I like pretty, REALLY pretty. Most of the men I find truly appealing were probably mistaken for girls quite a few times when they were younger. In fact, looking back, I don’t think I’ve ever been really attracted to a guy who hasn’t been addressed as “miss” at some point. I like dark hair and pale skin. I adore high cheekbones and full, pouty lips. Pretty hands do terrible things to me. I have an odd fetish for collarbones, and for shoulders that look bite-able. I also tend to prefer dark eyes, although blue or green eyes on a person with black hair can be stunning. Kind of sounds like the goth stereotype so far, huh? I’ve always wondered how much of my initial attraction to that particular subculture was all about the boys (and the girls – damn, did I love goth girls when I was a teenager). I also really, really like clothes. I’ve never dated a man who was indifferent to clothes, one of the ones who dress mostly just to avoid arrest. I like guys who I can play dress-up with.

A quick glance around my blog should give an idea of what I’m getting at. See, skinny pretty boys as far as the eye can see! I tend to plaster my site in VK boys, partly because that particular scene abounds in men who fit my type, and partly because those particular guys tend to be shameless camera whores, so it’s not too hard to find pretty pictures of them. OK, so in a couple of cases it’s because I also like their bands, but the guy I have up on the sidebar right now comes from a band that I’ve never much cared for, and as sexy as he is I still think he sings like he has peanuts up his nose. Sometimes it really is just about the ass.

Now here’s where the whole idea of gender comes in…how would YOU describe those guys? I kind of feel like part of what I’m responding to may be a very specific gender identity, or at least gender expression. Note the complete lack of interest in anyone conventionally macho. Note the preference for all things femmey. But, just to complicate matters…there’s a certain point at which men become too femmey for my tastes. I can think of dozens of VK guys who fit that description, who to me just look like, well, girls. There isn’t the particular blend of masculine and feminine that seems to be the sexual trigger for me. What do you call that? That weird mix of masculine and feminine characteristics? And why is it that in my case it’s so damn specific?

The one way in which I used to conform to typical ideas about what women are “supposed” to want is height. I always had a preference for really tall men. Which is sort of funny, since I’m 5ft2 and even the teeniest men are usually taller than me. For a while in high school I refused to date anyone under 6ft tall. Then I moved to London and met this one guy who was maybe 5ft7? 5ft8? And just the sexiest damn thing I’d ever seen. At that point I started reevaluating the height requirement. It never really disappeared, though; I just sort of slotted him away in my mind as the exception to the rule. I still clung on to the idea that men are “supposed” to be tall.

In the last few years that’s started to change, and I’m not quite sure why. Maturity? Not caring so much about what other people think any more? In a weird way I think maybe my insistence on the men I dated being tall was a way to counterbalance the gender ambiguity of the men I preferred in other people’s minds. As in, OK, so my boyfriend’s girlier than I am, but hey, he’s a foot taller than me! That has to count for something, right? Please don’t beat both of us up, random sexist dude.

Lately I’m finding that I just don’t care about how tall men are any more. I still love the look of tall + skinny, but the idea of man who totally fits my type in every way but just happens to not be very tall doesn’t trigger the same instinctive “I can’t do that” reflex that it used to. In fact, of all the men I’ve encountered over the past year or so the one I reacted to most strongly in terms of sheer attraction was about 5ft7. And OK, so he’s GORGEOUS, but still, in the past the fact that in heels I’m looking him right in the eye would have bothered me, and now it doesn’t. What’s up with that?

And then there’s another thing, a thing that I think had a lot to do with that instinctive feeling that I shouldn’t be going for men who weren’t tall that I had for a long time. If you take a guy who fits my type and he’s, say, under 5ft8, what’s your initial impression of that guy going to be on a physical level? Petite. In some cases positively delicate. And that’s something that’s totally verboten in our culture, women being attracted to men not just in spite of the fact that they’re delicate and sort of vulnerable-looking, but because of it. Women aren’t supposed to feel protective about men. We aren’t allowed to have that feeling that a lot of men have about women who are fragile and delicate and beautiful, that weird combination of lust and protectiveness and sheer fascination. It’s OK for men to feel that way about women, but for a woman to feel that way about a man? Freaky. Not OK. Positively unnatural.

And yet in some cases I do feel that way, and I think I always have. Maybe it’s a dom thing, maybe not. Who can ever really untangle those things, the way kinks and aesthetic preferences intersect? The way your personality affects what you’re attracted to? The way how you like to fuck affects what you’re attracted to?

I also think that this is part of why I’ve always been so puzzled by the standard boilerplate feminist argument that men are big and scary and aggressive and dangerous and women are little and frail and delicate and vulnerable. Those men that I’m attracted to? Even the really tall ones are still pretty damn delicate, really. The dude currently decorating my sidebar? 6ft1, 127 pounds. Not exactly burly, probably not much use in a bar fight. The guy who I recently encountered who I had such a weird visceral reaction to? He weighs about 115 pounds, which is less than many women I know. I’m supposed to view this person as physically invulnerable in the sense that some radfems seem to think all men are? Once again…does not compute, at least not for me. And I’ve met lots of men like that over the years.

In an odd sort of way I feel protective about those kinds of guys. Actually, there are lots of men who I feel protective about. I have a concert buddy who I get incredibly protective about sometimes, and OK, he’s only 17, but he’s about 6 ft tall and he towers over me. And it’s not just the age that triggers that protective instinct, it’s the personality. There’s a particular dynamic that I always seem to have with gentle, soft-spoken, introverted guys, and a sense of protectiveness has always been a part of that. I see those men as vulnerable, in some ways far more vulnerable than myself, and in a certain way that’s part of the attraction.

I’m guessing that the standard explanation for all this would be that it’s a kink, a sex thing, and on some level I’m sure it is, but then again…why should we assume that men are invulnerable? And isn’t vulnerability part of what attracts most people to each other? Is it really so odd for that to be part of what attracts someone to a particular person, just because of gender?

I’m still trying to sort all this out in my head. I had a weird moment there, when I met that man, the one who I was really drawn to, and I realized that that sense I have of him as soft and delicate and oddly vulnerable is part of what I find so attractive. And then I realized that on some level I’ve always been that way, I’ve just written it off in a lot of cases as something else, as sisterly feelings or kink or some other thing, when in fact I think it’s something that’s far more basic than that. It’s part of my nature to be drawn to and want to protect vulnerable things. It’s also part of my nature to be fascinated by beauty. Combine the two and of course I’m going to find that person nearly irresistible. Why the hell did I ever try to convince myself otherwise?

In this case I blame both the patriarchy and the feminist theory. How often do you get to say that?

Opening the floor to comments now. Does anyone else have any idea what I’m talking about here? Am I really the only woman in the world who feels this way? Do other women have that same protective feeling towards the men in their lives, just not necessarily so much based on appearance? Do any of us really buy the theory that men are invulnerable? And if most of us don’t, how the hell did that idea ever become such an entrenched part of feminist theory? And finally…how does this all tie in to the way we conceptualize gender, and what it means to be “masculine” or “feminine”?

2007-07-30T23:35:00.000-07:00

Some thoughts about gender.

Advance warning – this whole post is going to be me thinking aloud. Completely unfiltered and basically stream of consciousness. It’s possible that I may offend. If so, feel free to tell me so. In fact, feel free to tell me that I’m an ignorant jackass and here’s why! I won’t mind.

That said, I’ve been thinking about the ongoing grudge match that a small number of radical feminists seem to have against transpeople, particularly MTF transwomen, and a few things have been sort of jumping out at me. This isn’t meant as an attack, BTW – if there’s one thing you can say for me it’s that I’m honest. If I mean to attack you I’ll walk right up and smack you in the face with my gauntlet rather than sneaking around nipping at your heels. So, not an attack, just some musing.

What got me started were some comments by Qgrrl over at Alas. I don’t just mean her comments on the latest round of fighting either – I’ve been reading her musings about how she feels about this issue for a while now. And then I read a post over at Heart’s place about a trip she and a few friends took to some sort of women’s festival, and something clicked in my head. It was weird. I still don’t AGREE with the radfem critique of transpeople, not least because I dislike the fact that the way they frame it really does come across as an attack on the PEOPLE rather than on an ideology or a way of thinking and that just isn’t OK with me. I do, however, feel as if I understand where they’re coming from a little more, and I’m wondering if anyone else is seeing the same thing I am.

(Note : This is also where I may piss people off. Sorry, I’m really trying not to.)

So I was looking at the pics that Heart posted of the roadtrip she took, and you know what jumped out at me? Other than Heart herself almost every woman pictured falls into a certain stereotype, and that stereotype is intimately tied up with how we conceptualize gender as an issue.

This is a tricky area, discussing people’s sexual personae. What I’m trying to say is that there’s a certain type of woman that I encounter over and over again in feminist circles, and that that type of woman has a very distinct gender identity. It’s sort of butch, but there’s more to it than that, I think. I’m not even sure what descriptive term to use for that particular gender identity, but I’m willing to bet that everyone who has any familiarity with feminism knows the “type” I mean. It’s probably the most common “type” of woman that you meet at feminist events, along with the hippy earth mother “type” (ie. Heart, or our buddy Daisy). I’m going to call this “type” radfembutch, for lack of a better term, although if there already IS a better term let me know and I’ll use it instead.

(And no, male readers, terms that are designed to communicate disdain for a woman’s appearance do not count and I will not use them.)

The fact that the English language doesn’t seem to have a word for that “type” is interesting to me, and I think that it’s significant. It’s a basic principle of linguistics that anything a culture considers worth thinking or talking about, it has a word for. So why don’t we have a word for that particular female gender identity? It’s not like that identity is all that uncommon. I’m willing to bet that everyone here can point to a woman they know, even if only peripherally, who has that identity. So why the gap in the language?

I think it’s because our culture doesn’t much like those women. It doesn’t know what to do with them, how to classify them. They confuse a lot of people, because most people see gender as a binary and so they don’t tend to deal very well with people who don’t fit easily into the categories “masculine” and “feminine”.

Neither do transpeople, and I think this may be where the grudge match comes from. I looked at those pictures from Heart’s road-trip, and I remembered Qgrrl’s comments a while back about how the language used by transpeople made her uncomfortable because it made her feel erased. From what I can tell, she very much of the radfembutch type – not at all comfortable with being “feminine” but not identifying with “masculine” either. Not quite sure where she fits, feels as if she had to figure it all out on her own.

That has to be a scary position to be in. I’m not sure that those of us who have always felt more or less comfortable with our gender identity can really understand just how unsettling that might be, to feel like society was determined to slot everyone into neat little gender categories and not feel like you fit into any of those available. For a teenager that could be terrifying.

So, I started thinking about that, and wondering how many women involved in radical feminism had to go through something like that. And then something clicked in my mind, and I finally saw WHY those women are so protective of their “space” and why so many of them are so very hostile to anyone they see as an interloper. If you’d spent most of your life feeling like you didn’t belong, and then you found a place where you DID feel like you belonged, wouldn’t you be protective of that? Wouldn’t you want to hold on to it?

Qgrrl’s point seemed to be that trans language, particularly the word “cisgender”, left her feeling discomfited because she felt like it excluded her experience (and I’m not her, so if she happens to come across this and I’m misunderstanding what she mean then please, jump in and correct me). I’m guessing she’s not the only one. It seems to me that there are TONS of women who fit that mold, and that many of them feel like they found a home within feminism. I wonder to what extent that may be what’s really going on with the trans issue. The way that I see some radical feminists reacting looks as if they feel threatened in some way, and other than Heart most of those women do seem to be kind of on the butch side. How does that play into this whole issue? Is that where the root of the conflict lies, with one group feeling like their home and their identity that they worked hard to create is under attack, and the other group (transwomen) feeling like those women are attempting to exclude them from places that SHOULD feel like home purely out of spite? In some cases it does look like spite, but in others it honestly looks more like fear, or confusion, and in an odd way that’s kind of encouraging. Spite or malice are hard things to get around, but fear and confusion? Those can be addressed. Compromises can be made. People can become more comfortable with things that once disturbed them.

Putting that aside for a second, the little flash of clarity I had while looking at those pictures had a second part. I’ve seen a lot of arguing amongst feminists about the idea of a feminist “dress code” or image or whatever you want to call it, and what usually ends up happening is that two opposing camps form. One camp says “there is no dress code, what the Hell are you babbling about, you’re just being paranoid” (otherwise known as the “no one’s trying to take away your mascara, honey” argument when the speaker is being patronizing). The other camp says “Of COURSE there’s a dress code, are you blind? Go to any feminist event and take a look around and you’ll see it”.

Now I fall squarely into the second camp. Yep, there’s a dress code. Of course it’s not official, because that’s not how feminists do things. It’s there, though. But again, I always wondered WHY the other side didn’t see it. Then I looked at the pictures taken at the festival and I had a flash of clarity.

The women who have that radfembutch gender identity that I was talking about earlier? For them it doesn’t feel like a dress code. For them it feels natural. It’s what makes them comfortable. The mainstream idea of “feminine” makes them distinctly uncomfortable. For most of those women, feminist culture probably feels like a safe haven, and feminist events like the one place where they can be themselves and nobody will give them any shit over it.

I really don’t think they realize that for other women, ones who don’t have the same gender identity as them, that look, that way of being, isn’t comfortable at all. It feels unnatural, just as unnatural as a skirt, heels and lipstick would probably feel to them. For a feminist like me, whose gender identity is pretty “feminine”, feminist events don’t feel like a safe haven or like coming home. I feel out of place. People look at me funny, and it’s not just me being paranoid. I’ve seen pictures of myself taken at those events, and I stick out like a sore thumb. Even if I’m in jeans and a t-shirt and I have no make-up on.

This is the complicated, confusing part that I’m trying to get at. It’s the meat of the whole issue. Gender identity is about more than clothes. Put me in basically the same clothes as the standard radfem “uniform” and I still don’t look like I belong. I don’t feel like it, either, and people don’t TREAT me like I belong. They look at me suspiciously, like I’m a spy. Or possibly a really evil, dangerous ninja. And it’s weird.

And yet I’ve had this conversation with radfems of that type, and they’ve told me that I’m imagining things. And I’ve tried to understand why they don’t see it, and ended up confused. And then I had that moment, and it clicked. Those women can’t imagine why I (and other women like me) don’t feel comfortable in their environments because they really believe that what feels natural to them is what’s natural for all women. They think women who feel differently have been brainwashed.

That’s not an unusual way of thinking, really. Most people assume that their subjective reality is the “truth” in some metaphysical sense and that everyone else is lying or wrong. In truth, though, everyone’s subjective reality is a little different, and we all see the world in different ways. Most of us never really grasp the fact that our reality isn’t universal and that others do not necessarily feel as we do. And that, I think, is where all these intra-feminist conflicts come from, the inability of people to see the world from someone else’s perspective.

I’m not saying that I’m some mystical being who’s above all this, by the way. It took me a while to grasp the fact that my reality wasn’t universal. For years I truly believed that everyone was bisexual and that people who said they weren’t were either deluded or lying. I finally accepted that I was wrong, but it took a while. I’m not sure that most people ever even try.

I’m not sure if any of this makes sense to anyone else. I just had a weird moment where something clicked and things that had been confusing me suddenly made sense. I’m still not sure what to do with that, but it was interesting enough that I though it might be worth sharing. Does anyone else get what I’m talking about? And, if I’m right and the core of the conflict here is partly that there are some significant differences in gender identity within feminism, and those differences are making it really hard for people to communicate with each other because our basic frames of reference are so different, what can we do about that?

It occurs to me that people who are used to doing work on race issues might have some interesting things to say about this, since they’re probably accustomed to having to deal with the “different frames of reference” thing.

Anyone?

2007-07-28T02:43:00.001-07:00

Random Friday stuff…
Dinner tonight – chicken and sausage gumbo, which for some reason I was craving even though it’s been warm. Odd, since in warm weather my Cajun/Creole cravings usually manifest as Jambalaya. Maybe I’m coming down with something, I have been sneezing all day.

Also, coming off a conversation about food at APs place…I have an idea to throw to the peanut gallery (heh…eh, OK, I’m not funny). Does it seem to anyone else that a certain sector of the Left suffers from an odd sort of anhedonia? Almost as if the awareness of all that is crappy in the world renders people unable to take pleasure in simple things? Food, sex, music, whatever…it seems that for a certain subset of leftist people EVERYTHING must be Terribly Serious Business and the idea of doing anything simply because it gives pleasure is regarded with extreme suspicion. Thus you end up with mushy awful hippy food, oddly un-sexy cuddle-sex between people who don’t seem to be particularly attracted to each other, Billy Bragg and/or what my hairdresser calls “sad lesbian music”, and so on and so on. And on an intellectual level I think I understand why, but on a gut level…hey, it’s not my revolution if I can’t dance to it.
Why is there such a refusal to seek out and embrace joy on the Left? Do people think that if they’re happy they’ll be bad activists? Am I the only one who thinks that everyone needs to recharge their batteries occasionally? Is pleasure inherently a dangerous thing? Is it to do with the idea of self-indulgence? Fiddling while Rome burns, as it were? Is it just that nobody wants to think of themselves as Nero?
All of this confounds me, unrepentant sensualist that I am. I don’t WANT to live like that. I’d be miserable if I did. I think most of the people who do ARE pretty miserable, and I don’t think they need to be. So why? And am I a Bad Leftist because I don’t feel that way?

All of this musing sprang from one mention of the dreaded lentil loaf, BTW. I started thinking of leftist gatherings I’ve been to and it struck me that at every one of them the food has been dreadful. And this is the Bay Area, foodie Mecca, where you can’t walk more than a few blocks without tripping over a gourmet cheese shop or a farmers market. I just don’t get it. Where is the virtue in rejecting pleasure?

2007-07-26T20:45:00.000-07:00

A bit of comic relief...

The whole Amp debacle reminded me of some other cartoons that I’d been meaning to post. I’d been looking for these for a while and I’m so glad that I finally found them, because they’re AWESOME.

These were written and drawn by the dude whose naked torso adorns my icon. See, I told you I didn’t just like him because he’s pretty. They probably aren’t quite as funny if you don’t know the band well enough to get WHY he’s making fun of the other two in the specific ways he is, but they’re still cute and amusing. Anyone who actually does know the band will love these cartoons to death, especially since the reasons for making fun of both guys still stand nearly ten years later.

(I have to say though that I, personally, would have made fun of Kaoru’s collection of anime geek toys too. Seriously, what kind of grown man has a rubber ducky collection made out of Gundams and Evangelion figurines?
I nominate him for the “World’s Sexist Geek” award.)

Now for the cartoons...first up we have Die. The thing about the hair...for some reason known only to himself the guy always has a little fan at his feet on stage, which produces a hilarious Victoria's Secret commercial-like effect with his silky locks blowing gently in the breeze.
Yes, it really is as silly as it sounds. Bless.

Bold is the actual text from the comic, normal print is the translator's added comments.

Title of Manga: "The 'Lone Wolf' Guitarist"
"I am the Lonely Guitarist..."

"Fluttering out my red hair, I will melt all your hearts!!!"

But... hang on a minute!!

Doesn't the Die I draw, kinda remind you of *'Gachapin'? (To all the Die fans of the country, I'm sorry!)
The small print to the bottom-right says "Sorry Die-kun~"

The green thing in the pic above is Gachapin, BTW. It's from a Japanese kid's TV show that was kind of like Sesame Street.

And now Kaoru. This one used to be affectionately known to the fans as "The God of Death". I never will understand why so many people find him so intimidating, I've met the guy and he seemed perfectly nice to me.
Also, his cheekbones really are that impressive, if not more so, up close.

Title of Manga: "The Guitarist of the Soul"
I am the Guitarist of the Soul...

I spike my hair up like blades, and I want your soul...

The arrow pointing to the character behind says "Kyo-kun". Tragic as it is to say this, the difference in scale in the pic isn’t all that far off the reality. Poor Kyo, he’s his own chibi.

But... hang on a minute...

Kaoru-kun is REALLY similar to the Grim Reaper, isn't he!!This ain't even funny/a good joke...(To all the Kaoru Fans of the country, I'm sorry!!)

See, I DO like geeks! OK, so I mock them relentlessly, but it’s done with love.
(PS I didn’t do the translations, so don’t kill me if they’re not exactly right.)
Also worth noting for those who got bent out of shape about Amp's cartoons...exaggeration and mockery are inevitable parts of the art of cartooning. That's just how it works. Cartoons are funny precisely because the readers understand the visual shorthand.

2007-07-24T21:04:00.000-07:00

The Alas drama continues, plus some more anti-trans bullshit

The radfems versus Alas fight seems to have broken out again. Well, actually it’s more like a certain tiny subset of radfems plus a few garden-variety bigots versus pretty much everyone else on the left, with a side order of said tiny subset of radfems versus Amp specifically.

Now, in the interests of full disclosure, I will point out that I’m not exactly unbiased here. Alas was one of the first places that I found that made sense to me when I started dipping my toe into blogging, and I’ve always been glad that it existed. I found a lot of other interesting blogs through Alas, and encountered some really great people. I also happen to like Amp, even when I don’t agree with him – he seems like a thoroughly decent human being to me. We could really use more of those.

So, I’m not unbiased here. However, even taking that into account…look, I can see why people might have been offended by Amp’s cartoon. (If those people took themselves far too seriously and had no sense of humor. Oops, there I go again being biased.) But, yeah, I get why the cartoon ticked some people off. If said people wanted to say “you know what, Amp, that pisses me off and I’d like to tell you why, and ask you to explain why you chose to tread on such sensitive ground” then OK, fine. That’s part of what blogs are for, after all, thrashing out our differences.

However…in what way is Amp’s weight relevant to this discussion? The man is a cartoonist, people, not a model. Washboard abs are not in his job description. A perfect body isn’t in the job description for a blogger, either – if it was most of the blogosphere would be out of business. And that’s OK – not everyone has to be conventionally beautiful, or skinny, or whatever. Pretending that everyone IS required to be physically perfect is, well, kind of fascist to be honest.

So, I’ll say it again over here. Argue with the ideas if you like. Critique the logic or the reasoning, but can we please lay off the personal insults? It’s irrelevant, it’s childish, and it’s shallow. Knock it off.

And about the trans issue, I’m just going to repeat what I wrote over on Alas.

“I’m no authority about trans issues, but here’s what bothers me about the way this conversation keeps playing out. It’s as if people want their abstract political theories to be more important than other people’s actual lived experiences. The implication seems to be that we have a theory on gender and trans people are fucking it up by existing, so they should shut up. We liked the theory, why should we have to change it just because that group of people over there keep telling us that it doesn’t work for them and doesn’t describe their experiences?

The problem with which is, those people do exist, and ignoring them and/or demanding that they stop mucking up your tidy little theory makes you A. not a very good theorist and B. a collossal asshole. Theories are MEANT to evolve, that’s why we call them theories, not rules.”

Is that clear enough? Theories are fine, theories are great, but when your theory consistently fails to address the lived experiences of a whole bunch of people you might want to do a little rethinking.

2007-07-24T17:38:00.000-07:00

I totally stole this from Verte. Apparently my personality is 73% masculine and 43% feminine. When compared to other people my age and gender, however, I’m only 10 % feminine. Even though I wear heels and lipstick almost every day and cry over baby birds. Are all the women my age completely wimpy and passive or something? Because that’s what the test seemed to be measuring, woman=passive and unsure of self and man=active and competent. This is the problem with having a psychology degree - you can always tell why these kinds of tests are set up the way they are and what specific questions are designed to measure.
Test is here if you’re interested.

http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=9417365772332679709

2007-07-24T14:41:00.000-07:00

Depressing stuff

I went over to the Guardian page to figure out what was going on with the floods back home – I will admit that at first I didn’t take the whole thing that seriously because, um, heavy rain in the UK? Not exactly unheard of. I was wrong, though – this time it really is a big deal. British readers, how are you all doing? Is everyone OK?
Then I wandered off to look at some of the other articles and made the mistake of reading the comments posted in response.
Apparently MRAs are making some serious inroads in the UK. Every single article on the Guardian Women’s page has some prat posting a response in which he whines tediously about how evil Western women are and how he’s going to get himself a mail order bride, so there! Articles about FGM – not so much the practice itself as how to limit its application amongst immigrant communities in the UK, where the practice is illegal – bring out the “male circumcision is just as bad” brigade (hello thread hijack!). Articles about anorexia prompt more self-centered whinging about the evilness of British women and how anorexia is somehow caused by feminism (even though the disease pre-dates the movement).
And all I have to say is…my British brothers (the MRA ones, I mean, I’m quite fond of the rest of them), kindly STFU already. Or at least find something important to complain about. There’s a fucking crisis going on, can you not lay off the whining for a few days and go help sandbag or something?
I’d almost forgotten how entrenched that particular kind of snotty, whiny, dismissive sexism is in the UK. Now I understand why so many of my British sisters are so pissed off all the time.
And seriously guys, all this whining? Not very manly. Not that I care much about preserving traditional gender roles, really, but since you’re all so concerned about your manliness you might want to keep it in mind. You’re not exactly helping your own cause here.

PS. If any of the “male circumcision and FGM are exactly the same” lot come across this and are tempted to start an argument on my blog…don’t. I’ve heard it a million times, and you’re still wrong. I’m quite willing to entertain the idea that male circumcision is unnecessary and should be eliminated, but to claim that the two practices are the same is just plain dumb. Not to mention incredibly cynical and self-serving.

PPS. It’s not just the MRAs that need to STFU. All the whining about immigration? The British population has increased by only 4 million since 1971. That’s not exactly a crisis, so again, STFU already.

2007-07-17T21:16:00.000-07:00

Male readers – Care to give me some advice? (Women can play too)

So I have this new friend, acquired through some recent concert-going experiences, who has presented me with a most confusing problem. Well, for me it’s confusing. I’m hoping that it may be a little less confusing to other people and that they can help me figure it out.

Where to start? So, this girl is a lot younger than me, in her early twenties (I’m 33). We seem to be developing a big sister/little sister sort of relationship, and that’s cool, that works for me. I like her, and I’m happy to play that role if she needs me to, which seems to be the case. She’s also very different to me in a lot of ways. Actually, she’s different to pretty much any other friend I’ve ever had, and this is where my big sisterly prowess is failing me.

She’s a pretty geeky kid. Into comics and roleplaying games and such. Kinda tomboyish. Not quite comfortable in her own skin. Really insecure about her weight. She has an awesome personality and she’s smart and funny and all that good stuff, but yeah, geeky and awkward and thoroughly unglamorous (and not at all interested in having me glam her up, either).
She’s also never had a boyfriend. Never even been kissed. This is mind-bending to me. Especially the part where she is quite convinced that this is a permanent state and that she never will find a boyfriend. She is convinced that no man has ever been interested in her, which to me seems pretty much impossible – after all she really is a lot of fun to be around and she has tons of male friends. And yet, somehow none of those friendships ever turns into anything romantic (which again seems odd to me, since I have a habit of hooking up with my friends both male and female).

It’s not that she doesn’t WANT a boyfriend, she just seems to have no idea how to go about getting one. I’ve been trying to help, but I’m having a really hard time figuring out how to get her past the “no one wants me” mindset. See, I’ve never felt like that. Not even as a teenager. I was an arrogant little shit when I was a teenager, and even worse at her age – I always pretty much assumed that I could have almost any man I wanted unless he was already spoken for. She keeps saying things like “I know you won’t understand”, and as much as I want to argue, she’s right – I don’t understand. And that’s making it hard for me to be of any assistance.
So, female readers…did any of you ever feel like that? If so, how did you get past it? What can I do to help and support her?

Then there’s the other problem. The kind of guys she’s interested in? Not the kind I’m into at all. Not something I have any experience with. She adores boys who are shy and geeky and sweet as can be, almost innocent-looking. To me they kind of seem like life-size teddy bears, to be honest, though of course I’m not going to say that to her. The thing is, I don’t know any men like that, and I’ve never had any as friends. Most of my male acquaintances could be described not so much as “quiet” as “damn, does he ever shut up?”. My male friends are LOUD, brash and confident and often pretty full of themselves, honestly. I don’t have any experience dealing with sweet, shy, geeky guys. I suspect that I probably scare the crap out of them.

How do two shy people hook up, anyway? I can see the kind of guys she likes around and about, I am able to identify them, but I’m not sure if my intervening and trying to get to know them with the intent of introducing them to her would be a good idea or if it would just freak them out. It seems like most of those guys are WAY too shy to approach her even if they realized that she’s interested, which I don’t think they do.

Shy guys – how does one approach you? As in, in a way that would be comfortable for you? Can you even tell when another equally shy person is interested in you (it’s not like she’s going to just say “damn, dude, that’s a fine ass you have there” like I might)? Where do you all hang out? Since she’s into general geek stuff I’ve been suggesting that she might want to spend more time at comic stores and other geek hangouts, maybe join some kind of sci-fi book club or gaming group. Can you think of anything else? Where do sweet, shy geek boys hang out other than in the IT department?

I’m seriously at a loss here. Help me!

2007-07-04T21:22:00.000-07:00

Help!!! Does anyone know anything about taking care of birds?

So I seem to have adopted a baby bird. I found it hopping along in the middle of the street looking lost, and I was worried that it would get hit by a car so I tried to move it to the sidewalk...then I realised that it's a baby that must have fallen out of it's nest and it was hopping because it can't fly yet. It even still has down. I tried to find it's nest but no luck, and I tried putting it in a tree to at least get it away from cats but it just sat there looking helpless. Then every time I went back to check on it it hopped into my hands and begged for food. So, because I'm a huge sap and I was pretty sure it would die if I left it there overnight, there is now a baby bird living in a shoe box on top of my stereo. Watch as any trace of bad-ass reputation I may have ever had goes up in flames...

The problem is, I know nothing about birds and have no idea how to take care of it. I'm a city girl, I've never even held a baby bird before. I made a sort of sugar water and fed it some with a dropper, and I think it's warm enough, but I have no idea how much or how often to feed it. It seems to be sleeping now. Should I wake it up again later to feed it? Is it worth taking it to the pet store and seeing if they have any idea what to do with it? To reiterate - this bird is TINY. You could probably fit three of it in my hand, and I have small hands. Putting it back outside in the morning isn't an option - it can't fly, and it can't hunt. So what do I do now?

2007-06-29T23:04:00.000-07:00

See, and I said I wasn’t going to talk about anything serious.

I have to get up early tomorrow so it turns out I’m chained to my computer for the evening (boo hiss), and you know what that means? Actual blogging!

I’m guessing that by now everyone’s heard about the attempted car bombs in London. Those were both pretty close calls – its sheer luck that they were found before they went off.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, and there’s one nagging thought that I can’t get away from. Not only that ignoring the underlying problem that’s causing things like car bombs isn’t going to make the problem go away – obvious, but people do seem to have a hard time grasping this fact – but that a really big part of the problem isn’t being addressed by either the media or the governmental powers that be at all.

By which I mean – I have yet to see any mainstream acknowledgment of the fact that, whatever anyone may think of the actions taken by Muslim extremist groups (for the record, no, I do not approve of those actions), they actually do have some valid grievances. I’m not sure if it’s because people can’t quite separate the means of expressing those grievances from the underlying issues, or if the racism and cultural imperialism runs so deep that people genuinely do not see that the Arab world has some really valid reasons to be angry with the West, and particularly with the USA, the UK and France. I’m guessing it’s a mixture of both. Regardless, the fact remains – the Arab world has all kinds of reasons to be angry with the West, and most of them have nothing to do with religion per se. Most of them have to do with things like the West’s nasty habit of propping up vicious dictators, our disconcerting habit of ignoring human rights abuses by our allies while screaming about those of our enemies, our quite blatantly utilitarian approach to the region in general. Pretty much every time the Western powers have gotten involved in the Middle East they’ve royally screwed things up (drawing completely inappropriate borders in an attempt to carve up territory amongst our greedy selves, anyone? Selling torture devices to the Saudis?), and we have yet to demonstrate any ability to learn from past mistakes. We have also yet to apologize for them. As much as people here may not want to acknowledge this, lots of people in the Middle East dislike and distrust us, and it’s not out of religious bigotry. There’s a history there. Look at the way we hung the Kurds out to dry after the first Gulf War. People distrust us for a reason.

I really don’t see any way in which this situation is ever going to be resolved without that basic fact being acknowledged and dealt with – that the Arab world has legitimate grievances, that the West did a lot of very bad things during the colonial period, and that some of the bad things continue to this day. What is it going to take to get people to see that? Do you actually have to grow up in the Middle East to grasp this fact?
Because every time I try to talk to people about this issue I’m confronted by this blank look, as if the very idea that there might be actual reasons why terrorist organizations exist and have popular support is completely incomprehensible. It’s not incomprehensible. It’s very easy to understand if you just take the time to study the history, and if you acknowledge that people there are just like people here. They feel the way they do for a reason. They’re not just crazy. Until that fact is addressed…well, I’m seeing a lot more car bombs in our future.

2007-06-29T23:02:00.000-07:00

Crazy radfems again

BelleDame pointed me over to yet another completely batshit screed over in Twisty-land. I swear that woman gets more reality-challenged every day (Twisty, not Belle).

This particular rant was all about a disabled athlete who was profiled in Sports Illustrated. Not a magazine I have much (or indeed any) respect for in general, I have to say. Fawning articles on sports celebrities and boring stats interspersed with the occasional bikini issue. Yawn. However…

Twisty’s basic point seems to be that EVEN THIS POOR DISABLED WOMAN is being sexualized (or pornified, or whatever the hell she’s calling it this week) by the eeevil male-dominated media.

To which I have to ask…um, in what way is a disabled woman being “pornified” any different from any other woman being “pornified”? Like, it would be OK if she wasn’t disabled? We already know that’s not what Twisty thinks, so what the hell is she on about?

Now, I’m not a PWD, so I may be wrong, but I’ve never gotten the impression that PWD particularly want to be viewed as desexualized by virtue of their disability, which is what Twisty seems to be implying would be desirable. Or assuming. She does that a lot, makes assumptions about groups to which she does not belong and into which she does not seem to have any particular insight. I guess it’s that “I’m every woman” thing again. Except if she doesn’t even speak for me, a white Western woman of similar class and cultural background, then how in the hell can she possibly speak for Class Woman, much less Class Women With Disabilities?

Her little spiel did give me some insight into how she thinks, though, and the thing is I don’t think it’s just her who thinks this way. I think it’s a lot of radfems.
The underlying assumption here seems to be that all women find the male gaze oppressive and wish to be freed from it. All women dislike being viewed or depicted in a sexualized way, see it as something forced upon them that they are powerless to resist. Eliminating that sexualization is a major goal (in some cases it seems to be THE major goal) of the feminist movement. I think that most of her readers would agree, actually. This seems to be a very common radfem view, although it isn’t universal.

And here’s where I part company with Twisty and Co., ideologically speaking. The idea that all women resent being viewed in a sexualized way and see the male gaze as something oppressive that they wish to be freed from? Not true. It’s true for some people, most definitely, it may even be true for many people. I can particularly see how that feeling might be very common amongst women who have been abused in a sexual way, although interestingly enough it’s not universal even there. But the idea that that viewpoint, that desire, is universal amongst ALL women, everywhere? Not true. Demonstrably false, in fact.

Where I really parted company with that group forever to the point where I’m not sure that any sort of agreement or working together is possible, though, is over the idea that eliminating the sexualization of women in that particular, clothing and make-up, how women are seen in the media in the First World way is the primary goal of the movement. Because…huh? See, I think our first goal, our VERY first goal, before we worry about anything else, should be dealing with the things that actually threaten women’s lives in a practical sense. The fact that the vast majority of the world’s poorest people are women? That’s a problem that needs dealing with right now. The fact that that poverty is literally killing them? Also a right-now sort of problem. Human trafficking? Another right now problem.

Now, one could construct an argument that these things are related to each other, that, for example, a tendency to view women in a sexualized way contributes to the trafficking problem, and I would actually agree with that. The problem is that she’s putting the emphasis in the wrong place. Getting rid of Sports Illustrated and all glossy magazines (because the ones for women are just as guilty of this as the ones for men) would not solve the trafficking problem and, quite frankly, an excessive focus on things like that makes Western feminists look like selfish assholes who don’t care about anything but themselves. This point has been made over and over again by WOC, but it never seems to get through. OK, fine, so you (Twisty, whoever) really, really care about the way women are depicted in the media. It bothers you. OK. BUT…do you seriously think that’s priority number one? And if you do, what the hell have you been smoking? Seriously…the mind, it boggles. No wonder people think we’re trivial and irrelevant.

The whole thing is fascinating to me, though, because something finally clicked in my head when I was reading that thread. The problem that I have with a lot of radfems is exactly this. They really, truly believe that all women feel as they do, and that any woman who says she doesn’t is either lying or brainwashed. They genuinely do not see that other women have different priorities.

That’s a problem, because most women don’t share their priorities. Not at all. A lot of women have some concerns about the way women are depicted in the media, but in terms of wishing to be free of “the gaze” altogether and never looked upon in a sexualized way by men again? That’s pretty unusual. It’s not the norm. It’s certainly not the highest priority, not even for privileged Western women. The idea that it could be a high priority for women in the rest of the world is simply laughable. You think someone cares about whether a magazine takes pretty pictures of a disabled athlete if she’s worrying about how to feed herself and her family? If she’s in the middle of a war zone?

Like I said, it’s a matter of priorities.

2007-06-29T21:14:00.000-07:00

I really will catch up with the blogging soon…
Apologies to all, I’ve been a crappy excuse for a blogger recently. My only excuse is that it’s summer and the sun is shining and the birdies are a-chirping and I’m finding the idea of walking away from the computer and going outside much more appealing. That and looking at all the baby squirrels running around. Seriously, have you seen those things? So cute! Plus I’m going to two shows this week and spending time with a friend who I’m not going to see for a while, plus looking for a new job, so I’m sort of distracted in general.

Speaking of those shows…I’m thinking that I will deliberately wear the most obnoxiously bright colors I can find just to annoy the gothic lolitas and the whiny emo kids. There’s an aspect of my personality that probably doesn’t come across online very well, a tendency to want to sort of poke and prod people who I find annoying just to see if I can get a reaction out of them, and the lolitas and emo kids REALLY bring out that part of me. I keep wanting to smile and tell jokes and be all “cheer up, kids!” - not because I actually want to cheer them up, just because their moping annoys me. I was seriously contemplating showing up in some kind of cute little pencil skirt and tank top ensemble just to prove a point “hey, kids, guess what, there is a way to do cute and feminine without looking like an overgrown infant!”. That wouldn’t be very practical in a mosh pit, though, so jeans and a t-shirt it is.
The other advantage of bright colors is that it should make it a lot easier for my friend to actually find me after the show, which is always an issue. Being petite of stature does make one hard to spot in a crowd of much bigger people. At least my friend has bright, and I mean BRIGHT, red hair so she’s easy to find. She’s like a homing beacon.

So yeah, I will get back to the serious stuff soon. When the sun stops shining.

2007-06-22T15:50:00.000-07:00

Summer concert fun and fashion trends that need to die.

So it looks like I’m actually going to see Dir en grey twice. A friend of mine lives in Santa Cruz and she’s moving soon, and I’d kind of like to see her before she goes, so what better way to send her off than spending a whole day wandering around in the sunshine, then seeing a show?
I’m still not looking forward to the Deftones. I’m thinking of heading for the bar when they come on. Hey, at least the bar area will be entirely fangirl-free since none of them are old enough to drink.

Ah, the fangirls. I do love DEG but damn are most of their American fans annoying. Between the whiny little emo kids and the gofflings who talk about cutting as if it was something to be proud of and the completely deranged Japanophile babes who will no doubt spend the entire day stalking the band and generally behaving as if they’re at an N’Synch concert. And then there are the Gothic Lolitas. How did a perfectly respectable rock band end up with such idiotic fans?

Oh yeah. The Internet. Most of those kids fell in love with the band through pictures from ten years ago, when they were still Visual Kei and wore dresses and make-up. I really don’t get VK fans – it seems as if all that it takes to get their attention is a dude in a skirt and lipstick. Any dude will do, really, as long as he’s Japanese – they don’t seem to be able to distinguish between individuals at all. Everyone’s “beautiful” as long as he has enough make-up on and sufficiently overexposed photos (it really is amazing what you can do with lighting). Either beautiful or, God forbid, “kawaii”. I’m really starting to dislike that word.

Dir en grey haven’t been VK for years They pretty much look like a normal rock band now, with some added gore and extra bonus tattoos. So why do the little VK girls cling on, like badly dressed leeches, turning up at every damn show and whining about how the band don’t look girly or play their oldest songs any more? The first time I saw DEG there were a group of teenagers behind me who spent the entire show whining about the bass player’s shoes. Apparently motorcycle boots are unacceptable footwear for a rock musician. Who knew? They seriously expected him to get up there in a miniskirt and heels, as part of a summer metal tour headlined by Korn, in America…even though nary a skirt has been seen for years and years. Why? Why the insistence on clinging to the past? There are tons of current VK bands out there who still wear all the sparkly crap. Wouldn’t those kids be happier at an An Café show? Please? So that I wouldn’t have to listen to them bitching all the damn time?

Seriously, how does a band that looks like this…

And sounds like this…

Clever Sleazoid.

(Remember, kids, “someday I will fuck your parents”!)

Continue to attract fans like this?

(And yes, people really do show up for concerts dressed like this. Sad to say but the first pic is far more typical of what they end up looking like. The second one is much too pretty - they never look like that in real life.)

(Well, OK, there is this to explain why the little girls stick around...

But still!)

Seriously, I don't get it. I would provide photographic evidence of this bizarre incongruity but I couldn’t actually bring myself to take pictures of the fans at any of the shows. I was worried that the fugliness might break my camera. It was like a Hot Topic exploded. And that was before they started talking. Some of them were even threatening to parapara. At a METAL show. Are they trying to get their asses kicked?

Much as I try to be non-judgemental it’s really challenging to do so with the Gothic Lolitas. I had a friend from Osaka when I was in college who took a trip home right as the whole movement was exploding. He was so horrified by all the girls traipsing around in ribbons and bonnets that he called me to complain, going off on a spiel culminating in the words “could they be any less sexy if they tried?”.
In fact I still think his summation of the look was about as good as it gets.

“They look like over-decorated cakes.”

And this was from a girly goth dude who wore eyeliner every day.

Why has this look migrated to the US? And can we make it go away?

I’m sure I’m going to take a malicious sort of pleasure in laughing at the goth lolis who will no doubt turn up in Santa Cruz (they always do). Watching them sweat like pigs in their horrible polyester dresses under the summer sun in hippy beach town should be amusing, not to mention what the Deftones fans are going to make of them. They’re even funnier in the pit. Who goes into a moshpit with ribbons in their hair? And then whines because their poufy little dress gets all mangled and they lose some of their 50 billion ribbons?
The temptation to garrote them with their own ribbons is ever-present. Hey, I never said I was a nice person. Whenever they start whining I’m always tempted to dump them in the pit at Slayer. Have fun, kids!

This is part of why I keep pushing Dir en grey. They really are a great band, and they deserve better fans. Actual metal fans, not the whiny emo kids who hate all the new stuff anyway.

And if one more person calls Kyo “kawaii” when he’s covered in his own blood I’m going to poke her eyes out with a fork. How exactly is this cute?

It’s like puppies and kittens and fluffy little bunnies! Except not at all.

Oh, and did I mention the stalking? It’s pretty creepy. No wonder the band seem to be going out of their way to avoid their fans here. Some of those kids freak me out, and I’m not the one who they’re trying to molest. They even stalk the roadies, which is just sad.

I’m sure the actual show will be great, but I really could do without the fangirls. Eh, at least San Francisco will have a better crowd. We don’t speak idiot here.

If any of you are planning to go see the Deftones I really can’t recommend highly enough that you get there early so that you can catch Dir en grey. They’re a killer live band, and they really do need some exposure among actual rock fans rather than just the Japanophile kids. The new album’s awesome, too. See, look, here’s another song!

Grief

And another one! This one's softer and he's actually singing rather than screaming. Don't say I'm not considerate.

Ryojoku no ame

Please, God, let some other adult metal fans in the US get exposed to this band so that I don't have to go to shows with insane teenagers any more. I'm begging here.

2007-06-19T00:18:00.000-07:00

Movie Recommendation.

Has everyone seen Pan’s Labyrinth? If you haven’t you really should. I didn’t go see it in the theater, can’t quite remember why, but then this weekend I finally rented the DVD and…
It’s one of the best movies I’ve seen in years. Perfect from start to finish. There’s literally nothing I would change, and I used to get paid to write movie reviews. I’m pretty picky.
The reviews of this movie really didn’t do it justice, probably in part because most reviewers were too overwhelmed to write anything coherent. There are so many layers there, myth interwoven with a painfully realistic story about fascism, as well as a story about children and imagination. The visuals are stunning – I especially loved the fairies that look like praying mantises. I also loved the fact that the kid looks and acts like a normal kid, not one of those horrifyingly perky Hollywood robo-children.
About the “this movie isn’t for children” reviews…I’m not sure that I agree with that, actually. It’s definitely not for toddlers, but at 7 or 8 I would have loved this movie. Kids will of course bawl their eyes out at the end, but then lots of movies for kids have that impact. There’s definitely violence, both real and fantasy, and kids may not pick up the political subtext or know what to do with it (although both Mr. Cassandra and I noted that as children both of us would have done so, probably because we grew up in dictatorships).
Also, can we just lay the whole “all male filmmakers hate women” myth to rest? No man who hated women could have possibly made this movie. Both the young female lead and the older character who’s spying for the rebels are portrayed with far too much affection and respect for that. That’s one of the best things about this movie, actually – the main character is a child and she’s not treated with the slightest trace of condescension. None of the characters are.
Having seen the reviews in the American press, and then the actual movie, the thing that jumps out at me the most is how afraid Americans are of death. I don’t mean just in a personal sense, I mean death as an idea, a phenomenon. I don’t think any American filmmaker would have given this movie the ending Del Torro did – they’d have felt compelled to make it happier, to “explain” things. Most of the earth believes in some sort of spirit world that’s separated from the mundane world by the thinnest and most permeable of veils. Americans, and Brits, in fact the entire British Diaspora, are actually in the minority in terms of their insistence on a strict separation between one world and the next. I really do think that an inability to accept mortality is at the heart of that. In many ways I feel incredibly lucky not to have been brought up within that mindset.
Anyway, if you haven’t already see this movie! It’s beautiful, it’s haunting, and it will make you remember what it was like to be a child, before all your perceptions of the world were forcefully blunted. Just don’t be surprised if you get weepy at the end.

2007-06-12T22:34:00.000-07:00

Ouchy

Good news – I’ve started seriously working out again.
Bad news – My deltoids hurt every time I raise my arms. I think it was the Pilates moves that did it. Damn Pilates…it looks so easy until you actually DO it. My abs seem to be fairly strong still, which is good, although I won’t be able to actually SEE them till I lose some weight. Strong abs are still good from a strength and stability POV, though, so I’m feeling pretty happy in spite of the muscle pain.

Funny thing though…I used to feel weird about strength training. I always worried that I would develop Governator-style muscles, which I find disgusting on both men and women. Lately I’ve realized that I’m probably not even capable of developing those kinds of muscles, genetically speaking. Both of my parents are small-ish, and my Dad had some decent muscle tone when he was younger but he never got bulky even when he was working out every day. Honestly the diseases for which lack of exercise is a contributing factor should be far more of a concern, since I have multiple family members with those.

So, I’m working out. The weird thing is that once I got past the mental block I actually LIKE feeling stronger. I was a strong kid, it’s nice to feel that way again. Honestly, I’m feeling really resentful of the whole ideology that women are supposed to be delicate little flowers and therefore weights? Are you insane? Just, like, jog or something! Except I don’t like jogging, and I do kind of like the strength training.

And speaking of the whole woman as fragile flower idea…some dude called me “doll” on Sunday. It was the weirdest thing…I was crossing the street and this random guy smiles at me and says “Hey, doll” and then follows me and tries to chat me up. And I’m thinking…”doll”? Dude, I’m 33, could you not think of a more age-appropriate generic sexist endearment? Don’t women sort of move beyond the realm of baby-talk at some point? Honey or darling or whatever I would understand, but when I hear “doll” I think of some teen or early-twenty-something girl in a cute little sundress, possibly with pigtails. I was in jeans, t-shirt and sandals, with no make-up on and my hair down. Doll?

I ran this past Mr. Cassandra and a couple of male friends and got “the guy had no idea how old you are, he probably thought you were about 25” and “well, you are kind of small”. To which I think…how hard is it to tell a woman’s age, really? And what the hell does height have to do with anything? OK, I was wearing sunglasses so the tiny telltale lines around the eyes (which Mr. Cassandra claims do not exist and I, obsessive weirdo that I am, have seen the beginnings of since my late teens) weren’t visible, but still…doll? I’m not sure whether to be amused or insulted.

Older readers (by which I mean older than me)…at what point does this stuff stop? Is it just a matter of how one dresses, ie. if a woman isn’t in obviously middle-aged clothes she still gets it? Do people take their age cues from stuff other than a person’s actual face, or is it just that in the minds of some men women are never really adults?

I just thought it was a weird thing to say.

2007-06-09T03:13:00.000-07:00

Weird-ass late-night blogging

Now here’s a thought, a philosophical question if you will. Female beauty, how one feels about it, how one relates to it, to what extent one resents it’s ever present prominence in all of our lives…
How does one’s sexual orientation affect that? How one feels about those things? How one reacts to other women who are considered beautiful?

For those of you who are thinking “Cassandra, what are you babbling about, and why? What have you been smoking?” let me explain where this is coming from. I’ve been having a little e-mail chat with a friend, and we happened to be talking about women getting jealous of other women who are dating men the first set of women lust after. Jealous in the insane, wanting to claw eyes out, potentially bunny-boiling sense.

Neither of us seem to get it, and that got me thinking. Is this a bi thing? See, if I see a man I have the hots for with a beautiful woman my usual reaction isn’t to think “I hate her! She’s a bitch!” so much as it is to think “Damn she’s pretty. I can see why he went for her. I wonder if she likes girls?”. I usually end up enjoying looking at both of them for a while. When single I usually end up creating a fun little fantasy threesome in my head. I sit around with male friends and point out women I find beautiful, and if they say “why yes, she really is beautiful” that doesn’t make me feel bad about myself at all. I just don’t look at it as a me or her, only one queen in a hive kind of thing. There’s plenty of honey to go around.

Am I a bizarre freak of nature who for some odd reason just isn’t that competitive with other women in terms of looks, or is it because I like looking at beautiful women just as much as I like looking at beautiful men? That I see beautiful women as potential lovers rather than as rivals? Or did my mother just fail to implant me with the hatred and distrust of other women chip, radical free-thinking weirdo that she was?

And then I started thinking about radfems and political lesbianism and all that stuff. And something struck me as odd.

I went to a few radfem gatherings back in the day. You know what always seemed weird to me? How little hugging there was. Any other time I’ve been in a group of women who all know each other there’s been cuddling all over the place. I cuddle my female friends constantly. Even women I’m friendly with on a fairly superficial level get hugged hello and goodbye. I do this with my male friends too, but I realize that I may be a little unusual in that regard. What can I say, I’m cuddly. Anyway, it always seemed odd to me how little hugging there was in radfem groups, in fact how cold the interpersonal energy was in general. For all the talk about loving women and sisterhood I wasn’t feeling much affection there, which is part of the reason I stopped going.

It’s even odder when you realize that most of those women identify as lesbians. Put a room full of lesbians together and I’d expect hugging, even flirting, lots of happy physical interaction, but nothing. Nada. What’s that about? Why the coldness?

And then I think – political lesbian. What does that really mean? In most cases it means a woman who is heterosexual in orientation who has chosen not to fuck men for political reasons. Actually fucking women is not required, as Sheila Jeffries has been kind enough to point out. ATTRACTION to other women is not required. In fact, in an odd way it almost seems to be discouraged. Every time I hear the term “safe space” I can’t help but notice that “safe” seems to mean “non-sexual”, and if we’re talking about a group of lesbians isn’t that a little odd? That we would want it to be non-sexual? Why would we want that? Why is that a desirable goal?

I guess if you’re not actually attracted to other women it’s a desirable goal. If being a political lesbian is about retreat from men, who in many cases the women who thus identify have been hurt by and don’t trust, then it makes perfect sense.

But what about the actual lesbians? The ones who are attracted to other women? Where do they fit in? If they were to get flirty in that space, would that make it no longer safe? Isn’t that really weird and stifling, if they feel that they have to muffle their sexuality in order not to make the basically straight women who have chosen to self-define as lesbians uncomfortable?

And then I started thinking about the radfem dislike and condemnation of beauty rituals in all their various forms. It sort of makes sense, really, if you keep the idea “political lesbian” in mind…if one isn’t actually attracted to other women then why would one want them to be beautiful, or to make oneself beautiful in order to attract those other women? I’m not even talking about men here, I’m talking about the way women who actually are attracted to women relate to each other. How much of the “beauty practices suck” stuff is coming from actual lesbians and how much is coming from political lesbians? And if it’s coming from political lesbians…well, why should anyone else listen? That’s such a small, narrowly defined group of people and their entire ideology is founded on a rejection of sexuality, why should anyone else really care what they think about it?

And then I’m back to where I started. I love looking at beautiful women. I enjoy having them look back at me. To whatever extent I indulge in beauty practices, it’s as much to appeal to other women as it is to appeal to men. Not only that, it’s to appeal to MYSELF. If I can look at another woman and find her beautiful, why can’t I look at myself the same way? And is that maybe why, although I certainly have tendencies to beat myself up about the slightest weight deviation, in general I cut myself more slack than most women seem to? Because I look at myself the same way I look at other women, with an eye that seeks to find beauty rather than to find fault? Or is it a cultural thing to do with growing up in the Middle East, where women are in general far more inclined to praise other women’s beauty than to look for flaws?

How does everyone else feel about this? I know there are a few people hanging around here who’re not entirely straight…does any of this make sense to you? What about the women who are straight…does this sound totally nuts?

I’m curious more than anything. Indulge me. How do YOU feel about all this? How does it affect your politics? And how you relate to other women?

Also, some big heavy questions in the post below that are not entirely unrelated to the stuff here. I’m on a roll! A radfems are pissing me off roll. So what else is new?

2007-06-08T21:55:00.000-07:00

Sparkle Ponies are Go!
Otherwise known as, kiss my sparkly ass.

Kim has a brilliant post up about a certain article in Bitch magazine Everyone should read it. Funny and informative.

She’s right, you know. This stuff is bad for the movement. And yes, I know that everyone who’s not a radfem has been FORBIDDEN! Did you hear that, FORBIDDEN to talk shit about radfems, but you know what? I don’t care.

See, here’s the problem. As far as the general public is concerned? That IS feminism. Bitching about make-up and clothing and children’s toys and how people have sex – that’s what feminism is all about as far as most people are concerned.

Now, those of us who’re actually involved in the movement know damn well that’s not what it’s really about. I don’t give a shit what any other woman wears or who she fucks as long as she genuinely wants to make the world a better place. There are lots of ways to go about making the world a better place, and lots of different stuff that people can focus on, which is cool, people being individuals with different priorities and all.

HOWEVER…some issues are quite clearly more pressing than others. Helping victims of domestic violence escape dangerous situations and get on with their lives? Important. Providing counseling to rape victims, and working to raise awareness of how common rape is and why that’s a bad thing? Also important. Making sure that all women are able to exercise control over their reproductive abilities, and that means being able to HAVE kids if they want them as well as being able to NOT have kids if they don’t want them? Really fucking important.

Make-up? Miniskirts? Little toy horses for pre-teens? Give me a fucking break. Priorities, people!

Imagine you were a young person who knew nothing about feminism, and the article Kim fisked was the first feminist-identified thing you ever saw. What impression of the movement would you take away? Would you think that feminism was worth taking seriously? If you were a woman, would you think that feminism was in any way relevant to your life? Or would you be thinking “You, woman who I do not know, are fucking nuts. Whatever you have been huffing, please stop. It’s clearly not good for you.”. You’d be thinking “what kind of stupid, pointless movement is this?”. And you’d be right.

I mean seriously…the person who wrote that thinks that My Little Pony toys look like animated kiddy porn? Did she see an episode of Sailor Moon and somehow mistake it for porn? Has she seen any actual porn, ever? Or any actual anime porn, which is way freakier than even the freakiest live-action stuff? Because hey, I’m pretty kinky, and even I’m having a hard time imagining how anyone could depict those toys as pornographic. Has she ever seen a horse, either? Horses really do have rumps that are higher than their chests and shoulders, and they have some of the biggest asses in the animal kingdom. Big muscular ass plus long skinny legs equals a creature that can run really fast. One does not need a conspiracy theory to explain this.

And then there’s the anorexic part of the article. Um, forgive me for pointing this out, but by equine standards My Little Ponies are positively zaftig. I’ve never seen a real horse with legs that short and chunky. Also, when did it become acceptable to use “anorexic” as a general pejorative with a nice little implication of sluttiness on the side?

Of course there’s an argument to be made about toys for girls versus toys for boys and how very different they are and what message that sends. If people want to make that argument, fine, let’s talk about that, but could we drop the extraneous bullshit and focus on the real issues? Please?

And another thing…those toys are marketed at horsy girls. I happen to know quite a few horsy girls. I rode horses myself when I was younger – hey, I can even jump! And I still have the pants and the nifty little jacket!

You know what’s interesting about horsy girls? Not the most patriarchy-compliant of girls in general. Rather more independent of spirit and physically adventurous than is generally perceived as appropriate for a girl. Riding horses can be a downright liberating experience for a girl. It teaches a sense of one’s own competence and ability to master difficult skills. It teaches girls to be at ease in their own bodies. It teaches that a being of small stature is not necessarily at the mercy of a being of much greater stature. It also teaches interdependence rather than codependence, working together to achieve goals. It is, overall, a good thing for the girls involved.

The author is sort of right in one way, though, even though she sniffed something out and then completely misinterpreted it. For many girls there really IS something sexual about riding horses, it’s just not at all what she thinks. A lot of girls get into riding precisely because they love the feeling of being in control of a creature much larger than themselves. There’s a reason we use the word “riding” for sex too, you know. I honestly wonder how many toppy women first realized just how toppy they were as a result of learning to ride a horse. I will also point out that many women say that they rarely or ever experience orgasm. The horsy or formerly horsy women I know? Not so much. Learning to feel comfortable in your own body and take control of something 10 times your size has many interesting fringe benefits.

And no, random lurking weird guys, I do not mean that the women fuck the horses. It’s a symbolic thing.

You know the funniest part of all this? I hate My Little Pony and always have. At one point I convinced myself that the reason for that was that I was a feminist and they were oppressive to women in some mysterious way. Then I grew up and grew a brain.

I don’t hate My Little Pony because I’m a feminist, I hate it because I’m a goth and a punk and a metalhead. I loathe all things pastel and sparkly. It has nothing to do with politics, it’s an aesthetic preference. Those of us who are rational adults learn to distinguish between the two.

I think there’s a lot of that going on in radfem circles, people going “hey, I really hate X and it annoys the crap out of me, and I am a feminist, therefore the reason I hate X must be because it’s anti-woman”. This is sloppy thinking. One can always invent some grandiose theory to support one’s preferences, but in the end many preferences really are just preferences. I don’t hate pastels because I’m a feminist, I just hate pastels, period. I am drawn to things that are dark and spooky and primal because that’s my nature. Not everything is about politics. People have individual preferences and personalities, and that’s OK. The problem comes when people start extrapolating “I hate X and find it offensive” to mean “therefore X is oppressive to women as a whole and it must be stopped!”. One of my best friends loves all things pink and sparkly. I think she’s nuts and tease her about her desire to be Kylie Minogue when she grows up. She thinks my love for all things dark and spooky is weird and teases me about my dark gothy lipstick. So what? People are ALLOWED to be different. Some of us actually kind of get a kick out of those differences.

So, back to the main point. I think that all this focus on trivial shit is damaging to the movement. Not only is it a distraction from the more urgent issues, it’s bad PR. Think that feminism doesn’t need PR and that we should be above such worldly concerns? Guess again! I’ve lost count of how many younger women have told me that they don’t consider themselves feminists and feel that the movement has nothing to offer them right after telling me that they care about all the things that feminism is actually supposed to be about. Does this not strike anyone as a problem?

Like it or not, every movement needs to be aware of how it present itself to outsiders, and every movement needs fresh blood. If a movement is presenting itself in such a way that no fresh blood is forthcoming, that movement is going to die a slow, painful death. Is that really what we want? Are those of us of the “I’m a feminist, not the nuts kind” variety willing to sit back and watch that happen?

2007-06-05T17:31:00.000-07:00

I am vexed. Also, a gay Satanist Republican? WTF?

Mr Cassandra came home the other day with short hair! OK, it's really not all that short, and it's still pretty awesome-looking, but it's at least 5 inches shorter than it was. Apparently his boss thought that the old style was "unprofessional". Which was sort of the point, really - he's in design for fucks sake! Why should he look "professional"?
So yes, I am vexed.
At least they didn't make him shave off the facial hair. I'm rather fond of the facial hair.

Remind me not to buy the boss a drink next time I see her, the depressingly conventional little twerp.

And speaking of facial hair...anyone who hasn't seen Veronica's commentary about her little skirmish with a certain gay Republican Satanist really should go check it out. His name is - and I'm not kidding about this - Jack Malebranche, and he is a very manly man indeed. So very manly that he feels that the entire gay community, and the straights too, should join him in heaping scorn upon any man who he feels is too queeny. See, apparently the problem with gay men is that they're too gay! If they would just see things Jack's way and be manly like him then homophobia would vanish, just like that!
Bears, apparently, are still too gay for his tastes.
Also, he loves Anton LaVey, and has chosen to attempt to recreate his look. Either that or he's going for the Emperor from Flash Gordon, I'm not quite sure. I do however assure you that his overwhelming attention to his own personal grooming is in no way unmanly (even though everyone else's is, apparently).
There's also some wierd crap in there about Spartans and gay samurai and a bunch of other assorted stereotypes that he would like to see replace the idea of gay men as femmey. The fact that the Spartans murdered babies considered to be insufficiently tough and the samurai were as meticulously groomed as even the queeniest queen appears to have been entirely lost on him. But hey, they all carried big manly swords!

File Mr Malebranche under "people are inherantly stupid and selfish". He'll certainly have plenty of company there. Perhaps he and Sheila Jeffries can have a little "we hate everyone who isn't just like us" party.

2007-05-31T23:23:00.000-07:00

Some thoughts about women-only spaces and what they mean to feminism.

I’m sort of thinking aloud here, so bear with me if I ramble and feel free to interrupt me and ask for clarification.
I’ve been reading a lot about women-only spaces lately. (I refuse to use the term “womyns” or any other similar linguistic conceits because, call me crazy, but I kind of like being able to communicate with the entire population, not just that percentage of it who are liberal arts grads. Also, I already suffered through Lacan at university, and once was enough.)

This seems to have become a nexus of conflict among feminist, this concept of women-only space, in part because of the issue of whether or not mtf transwomen count as sufficiently womanly to be allowed entry into such spaces. I have mixed feelings about that issue which can’t really be explained in yes/no terms. I also have mixed feeling about the idea of women-only space in general. So, at the risk of saying something offensive and having everyone think I’m a giant asshole, I’m going to try to write my way out of my confusion.

On a gut level I’ve never understood the need for women-only spaces. I think that part of the reason is that, through no choice of my own, I spent the majority of my adolescence in one.
I went to an all-girls boarding school. We were of course allowed out occasionally to go shopping or to visit our families, but for the majority of the time we were confined to the school grounds. My alma mater sits within the grounds of a former abbey. The actual place is gorgeous – old buildings, carefully manicured grounds, green and full of flowers in the spring and summer and picturesquely snowy in the winter.

I fucking hated that place. As pretty as it was on a superficial level, from a social perspective it was Lord of the Flies with snow and tennis courts. This is no surprise, really – it was after all full of teenagers, who tend to be rather unpleasant creatures regardless of their gender. It also featured a staff nurse with alarmingly Nurse Ratchett-like tendencies (I remain to this day convinced that she hurt the kids on purpose as often as she could – Pink Floyd anyone?), bizarre and inexplicable rules, an overly regimented schedule that would surely have been excellent preparation for anyone considering a career in the armed forces, and copious quantities of brainwashing in the art of being a proper young lady with all the obnoxiously classist implications one might expect. Oh, and windows that didn’t close properly combined with non-functioning central heating – in the winter, in Scotland. Apparently pneumonia is supposed to build character. I’m not kidding – I once spent an entire term being forced to play sports outside in the snow while I had bronchitis. See what I mean about Nurse Ratchett?

I’m fairly certain that my distinct lack of rose colored glasses when contemplating the idea of women-only space can be attributed to my attendance at that school. It was there that I learned that the concept of sisterhood as a thing that one can rely on is nonsense – women are people, and people are selfish, arrogant and cruel. Some people are wonderful creatures, of course, but the majority? Selfish, arrogant and cruel. Even if they have vaginas.

There were less than 10 men ever allowed within the grounds of that school, except on the couple of days per term that parents showed up to drop off or pick up their kids. There were 3 male teachers, 3 gardeners, a groundskeeper cum janitor, and a doctor who showed up for an hour or two about once a month. That was it, and two of the gardeners were teenage boys, not men. As far as men who could have represented a threat to the safety of the female students – please! Two of the teachers were married to other teachers and watched like hawks by their wives, and the other one was almost fired when he started a (completely consensual and non-sexual) relationship with one of the students – and before anyone starts freaking out, note that he was 22 and she was 17. Those men were no threat to us. The gardeners were scared to death of the students, unsurprisingly given the massive difference in class – if any of them had so much as winked at one of us he would have been out on his ass with no references immediately. The doctor was forbidden to see any of the students without a female nurse present. The janitor we had more contact with, since he was always puttering about fixing things – those were some old buildings and there was a lot of maintenance to be done. He was a lovely old man – I remember going back to visit a couple of years after graduating and running into him walking his dogs, two giant Irish Setters. He gave me a hug and asked me how things were going in London – it’s a small school, news travels fast about what alumni are up to, plus one of my friends who was still there liked to play with the dogs.

So, from the point of view of those who think that women-only spaces are valuable and necessary I experienced exactly what they want for girls. I spent my teens in an environment where I could have wandered around in my underwear in the middle of the night without any fear of male violence whatsoever, although the janitor would have scolded me and made me go fetch a scarf lest I catch a cold if he had caught me.

And yet…that place caused me more psychological trauma than any other situation I have ever experienced. Like I said, my strongest association with the place is Lord of the Flies. It was horrible. Hazing was standard, bullying was commonplace and the staff made no attempt to keep it in check, it was so looks-obsessed that I knew multiple people with eating disorders by the time I was 12, the academic competition was insane BUT everyone was required to pretend they weren’t actually trying lest they face the mockery of their classmates for being a geek. Yet, those who were naturally academic to the point of not needing to study who nonetheless made great grades (like me) were still harassed because our not having to study just wasn’t fair! The class dynamics were insane – I once witnessed a girl being bullied and told that she was a “plebian” who was destined to be a complete social reject because she was using the wrong brand of hairbrush. Hers was insufficiently expensive. And that’s the tip of the iceberg. Anyone without a pedigree was guaranteed to be treated with contempt. The few students who were not white were treated like shit. Imagine the situation when they put one student who was from Nigeria in a dorm with another student who was white South African…yeah, that was fun. And not a single other student defended the Nigerian girl, because nobody’s mother knew her mother and besides her parents were vulgar new money so who cared how she felt? I’m not even going to repeat some of the comments made to my friend Yvette, who was Taiwanese.

Then there were the female teachers who actively abused the students. One of my first experiences of sexual harassment was at that school – my housemistress used to pat me on the ass and give me this horrible, creepily salacious wink. She was in her fifties and I was 12. She also once walked in on one of my friends when she was in the shower, pulled the shower curtain open and stood there talking to her. She refused to allow my friend to put on a towel even when she started crying. When my friend got back to the dorm she sat down on my bed shaking so badly I thought she was having some sort of seizure. As soon as I hugged her she started sobbing. The last time I heard anything about that girl she was in her twenties and still having flashbacks. And that teacher was far from the only staff member who pulled shit like that.

That place taught me that women are every bit as capable of being crappy excuses for human beings as men. There was no male influence making those girls or the female staff act the way they did – that stuff came from their own hearts.

For a significant percentage of the students, that women-only space was an extremely hostile environment. Those girls didn’t come together and celebrate their innate womanly empathy, they ripped each other to pieces like a pack of wild dogs, and some of the staff circled the fight and picked off the weak members of the group any chance they got. The only way to survive was to form your own pack and protect each other.

So, when I hear people glorifying woman-only space as somehow safe, my immediate reaction is – what the Hell have you been smoking? How little knowledge of human nature do you need to have to think that, when put in a group, women will automatically be kind to each other? Women are people, and people kind of suck. Also, have you never studied group psychology?

I did feel safe from male violence there, though. Which was good, since I had quite enough to worry about with the teacher who kept grabbing my ass.

The thing is, even before I got there I rarely felt at risk from male violence. I spent most of my childhood in Libya and Saudi Arabia. There were multiple occasions on which I was targeted as a result of my race – kids threw rocks, yelled taunts, beat me with sticks, one once hit me hard enough to knock me right off my bike – but most of it really was about race and not gender, at least in Libya. Saudi Arabia – now that was where gender started to enter the equation. But the interesting thing was…race was still part of the issue.

I can clearly remember the first time I heard the phrase “All Western women are whores”. I was about 11 or 12. It was sneered at me by a man in his twenties who was backing me against a wall and trying to grab my boobs, and it was in response to my “I’m just a kid, please leave me alone”. Lovely, eh? That was definitely male on female bullshit, but there’s no doubt that race was a part of it too.

Similar things happened intermittently throughout the time I was in Saudi. Creepy behavior from guards at the airport or random men in stores, muttered obscenities (I’m pretty sure that the fact that I completely forgot how to speak Arabic while I was there was in part the result of my subconscious wish to not be able to understand what those men were saying to me) – yep, happened all the time.

And yet…I never actually felt like I was in danger other than that one time. Pissed off, sure, but endangered? Nope.

I used to go out and run around in the middle of the night with my friend who lived a few doors down. We would sneak out the window and shimmy over the walls after our parents went to bed. There was a sports complex being built across the street and we would go and play football there, or just hang out on the bleachers and talk. The desert is lovely at night, we enjoyed being outdoors. When she left to go back to America I used to go outside by myself. 15 year old Cassandra used to go sit on the swings in the playground alone and count stars at 3 in the morning, climb the monkey bars, walk along the walls.

I felt completely safe doing that, even with the harassment (important point to note, that one - feeling aggravated, annoyed, pissed off etc is no the same as feeling physically threatened). Why? Well, for a start there’s almost no street crime in Saudi outside of the major cities. Everyone knew that. Parents let their kids play outside all day with no supervision. Your chance of getting attacked by a stranger if you didn’t live in Jeddah or Riyadh? Close to zero. And, with all the things I resented about being there, that part I loved. In fact, I never even questioned my ability to move around safely – I took it as a given.

And then there’s the other side of the race issue. As a rich foreign kid with white skin I was pretty much immune to any kind of retribution for my behavior. No Saudi girl would have been allowed to wander around like that, but me?

Twice I was picked up by the police on my late-night rambles. The first time I was 10 and my friend was with me. The cops asked us where we lived and we pointed across the street, and they gave us a lecture and told us to go home. The subject of violence was never even raised – they were more worried about us hurting ourselves by falling off the bleachers or misusing the sports equipment. There was sexism there, sure – what do girls know about sports? – but in terms of the threat of male violence? There was none at all. The second time I was 14. The cops found me lying on top of a platform in the playground, listening to music. That time I was about 10 blocks or so from home. They scolded me and insisted on driving me home, and waited outside for a few minutes to make sure that I really stayed inside. One of them saw me peeking out the window and wagged his finger at me. Again, my fear of male violence during this encounter? Zero.

Now, can anyone tell me what the elephant in the room is, here? Race. Class, too. What do you think would happen if a Saudi policeman in any way harmed a young ex-pat kid? Very Bad Things. It would be an international incident. Not only would my parents be furious, so would the British Embassy. No cop in his right mind would do something so likely to fuck up his career.

This is why I have so many problems accepting the idea of sex as the only or primary axis of oppression, by the way. I was the classic colonial kid. Of course I was disciplined by my parents and the teachers at my special ex-pats-only schools, but as far as the locals were concerned? I was untouchable and I knew it, and so did all the other ex-pat kids. Most of those kids grew up to be horrible little brats precisely because of that – we could be rude to adults and get away with it as long as those adults were locals. That’s not a good lesson for a kid to learn. By the time I was about 4 or 5 I knew that I could get away with just about anything as long as my parents didn’t catch me. That sense of untouchability, which is strikingly common amongst ex-pat kids, is all about race and class. Even though I was female, my race and my class insulated me and I was always very much aware of that fact.

And yet…that wouldn’t have made much difference if we had been in another country, one that wasn’t as “safe”, one with more street crime. The kids I knew who grew up in Malaysia or Lebanon or Pakistan or Thailand or Haiti were obnoxious little brats who ordered adults around, but they would never have run around alone in the middle of the night, because even with the insulation of their race and their class it would still have been too dangerous.

What am I getting at with all of this? I guess I’m trying to figure out why, even though I was raised as a girl, I still grew up without the sense of fear of male violence that seems to be standard in most other women. The assumption that most people would probably make is that it’s because of my all-girls school, but I’m not sure about that. I think I was pretty much fearless long before I got there. There were very few other girls there who felt comfortable wandering around alone at night the way I did (and still do). I don’t think it’s purely being a privileged colonial kid, either, although I’m sure that’s part of it – like I said, I have friends who grew up as colonial kids in other parts of the world who never had that innate sense of safety.

Part of it is probably personality, but I don’t think that’s the whole story either. Personality isn’t entirely innate, after all.

You know what I think a big part of it is? Having parents who raised me to think I had the right to go anywhere I wanted and expect to be treated fairly (and yes, I’m aware that the fact that they were able to teach me that without lying through their teeth is the result of white privilege). They taught me that the fact that I was female did not mean that I should expect to be harassed in any way, and that if I did encounter harassment I was in no way required or expected to tolerate it. They also taught me that I had the right to fight back if anyone threatened me – the first time I was bullied in kindergarden my Dad taught me how to adopt a fighting stance and throw a punch. I tried it out the very next day – I decked the evil little brat who had been bullying me. That boy never gave me shit again. That was a VERY important lesson, and one that most girls are never taught.

Did I mention that I love my Dad?

Being taught that I had a right to defend myself helped give me a sense of boundaries, no doubt about that, but I still think that the fact that I grew up in places with almost no street crime is key to the way I turned out.. My parents never taught me to fear strangers or to be constantly looking over my shoulder because it wasn’t necessary. That’s a gift that not many kids get, and one for which I am profoundly grateful. Then again, without the lessons I got about defending myself would it have made any difference?

So, how does all this tie in the concept of women-only spaces? I’ve lived in one, and it didn’t help me at all. What creates a feeling of safety is living in an environment that’s, you know, SAFE. There’s a lot more to that than just eliminating men from the picture. I felt safe as a child and a teenager in two of the most male-dominated places in the world, and that carried over into the way that I relate to the world as an adult. I felt profoundly unsafe in my women-only environment – I was sexually harassed by the person most directly responsible for my wellbeing for fuck’s sake! I’m pretty sure that the fact that I constantly threatened to tell my parents was the only reason she never took things any further.

This is part of what bugs me about the idea of women-only space. It’s based on the idea that men are often violent – which is true, that I acknowledge, although I have issues with the assumption that ALL men are not to be trusted – but it’s also based on the idea that women are not violent, or inclined to abuse power, and that’s just not true. I know that first hand.

The more I think about it the more I think that a more effective strategy in terms of giving women the feeling of security that some seek in women-only spaces is the thing my parents gave me – the idea that they have the right to expect decent treatment, and the idea that if they are treated badly they have the right to fight back. The external stuff we can’t control, but the lessons we teach our daughters? That we can control.

The problem with women-only spaces is that they’re temporary. Unless we all plan to live on communes, we have to deal with men all the time – at work, in public spaces, in most cases in our own homes. Wouldn’t if be more effective to teach women how to create safe spaces for themselves even when men are around? Wouldn’t that be a far more radical notion – not that male violence is so inevitable that retreat is the only solution, but that male violence is simply unacceptable and should be treated as such? Wouldn’t we serve our daughters and younger sisters better by teaching them to expect better treatment and how to fight for it? Do we really need women-only spaces for that, or would it be far, far more effective to seek the changes we want in the everyday world? Isn’t the very idea of women-only spaces admitting defeat in a certain sense?

I don’t like the idea of accepting defeat. The idea that women don’t feel safe in their everyday environments pisses me off, and I don’t think it’s acceptable. I don’t want to retreat, I want to fight, and I want to give younger women the tools they need to fight, too. Most importantly, I want to give them the message that they are ALLOWED to fight back. I just don’t think that retreating to women-only enclaves sends that message at all.

Readers – I’m curious. How many of you had parents who sent the message that you were entitled to expect not to be harassed and that you had the right to fight back if your boundaries were overstepped? I really wonder how many girls ever got that message, and if it’s in any way tied in to which women become feminists and which women don’t. The first few years of life are key from a developmental point of view – what effects does it have on a girl to be told that she had the right to have boundaries and defend them even when it pisses other people off, as opposed to being taught that her entire purpose in life is to please others?

2007-05-25T14:37:00.000-07:00

Totally shallow, superfical post that has nothing to do with politics.

OK, so I know we have a few gym rats, jocks etc who stop by here occasionally. Does anyone know a really good exercise for the triceps? I'm having a hard time finding one that works. It needs to be something that can be done at home, without a weight bench, because I hate gyms and I, um, don't own a bench. I do own barbells, though, and I'm already using them for my biceps. I just can't seem to find a good exercise that focuses specifically on the triceps. Anyone have any suggestions?

2007-05-23T21:12:00.000-07:00

Feminism and power
Or, damn has the fallout from the release of Full Frontal Feminism been ugly!

I took another sanity break from blogging and it looks like all kinds of crap went down relating to the release of Jessica Valenti’s Full Frontal Feminism. I’m not going to talk about any concerns about the book’s content, because I haven’t read it and therefore have nothing relevant to add to the debate. However…

This debate seems to have stirred up another round of the ongoing conflict between WOC bloggers and the online feminist establishment. I’ve always stayed out of those debates, and avoided blogging about race in general, because I’m a fairly privileged white woman so what the hell do I know? Then I read Black Amazon’s reaction to the whole thing, and I started to have second thoughts about that policy.

Part of what BA said was that silence implies agreement and she’s right. If most white feminist bloggers sit back and say “oh, I don’t think I should get involved”, and therefore don’t comment on the whole mess, then the working assumption is going to be that they think what’s happening is OK.

What’s happening is not OK. It never was OK. Versions of this same situation keep playing out over and over again over a variety of issues and the script never seems to change.

Enough is enough. If WOC are consistently saying that they feel marginalized, excluded, talked down to, then you know what? Those are complaints that need to be acknowledged and dealt with. Dismissing those complaints as WOC just being “too sensitive” or, ffs, “jealous”, does nothing to resolve the basic conflict.

First of all…take a look at the words that are used every time this happens. Semantics are important – the words people use tell you a lot about what their underlying attitudes are.

The words that are consistently used to dismiss the complaints WOC keep making about white feminists…well, those words paint a pretty clear picture, and it’s not pretty.
“Oversensitive”, “Jealous”, “Too aggressive”, “Unreasonable”. If these words sound awfully familiar, it’s because they are. These are the words that men have been using to dismiss women’s opinions since the feminist movement began. Why, exactly, does anyone think it’s a good idea to use those same words to dismiss the (very valid) issues raised by WOC? Does the fact that several prominent feminists keep using these words not strike anyone as a cause for concern?

What all these words have in common is that they are both patronizing and infantilizing. These words frame the debate as one between a reasonable person and a person who is not being reasonable. The assumption behind these words is that the person using them is the standard, the default, and that the person being criticized is somehow lesser than. The implication is that the person complaining really has no valid reason to complain. These words are the verbal equivalent of patting a child on the head and telling her to take a time out.

When these words are consistently used towards WOC one has to wonder about the mindset of the people using them. Why are these people dismissing the complaints made by WOC without even really taking the time to consider them? Because that’s exactly what seems to be happening over and over again.

“We all know that I’m right, so why should I listen to you?”

That’s what all those words say to me. The question is, why do the people using those words assume that they’re right and anyone disagreeing with them is wrong? Do the words “white privilege” sound familiar? And just how many WOC have to say that they have some issues with the way white feminists behave before those same white feminists actually listen?

This is what I have a hard time understanding. Most feminists can spot a case of male privilege in action at 50 paces. How is it that the very same people can be so unconscious of their own privilege as white women? How can they fail to see that they’re doing the exact same thing that we all call men to task for doing so often?

“Why should I care what you have to say when I already have all the answers?”

That’s what I hear when I hear those words, and it bugs the crap out of me.

And then there’s another thing. When many prominent white feminists have been called out on their reflexive use of their own privilege, the way they have reacted is by attempting to position themselves as people with neither the intention nor the power to do harm to other women. That’s bullshit. Women do harm to other women all the damn time.

This is a major structural weakness in the current feminist movement, this denial of power, this idea that women simply aren’t capable of doing harm. We’re all sisters, right? Until one sister steps out of line and everyone else smacks her back down again. Some sisters are more equal than others, it seems.

The fact is that in our current society here in the USA all women are not equal. Not even close. Under the law they may technically be equal, but in reality? There are layers upon layers of status and privilege based on race and class, as well as a host of other factors. In fact, here’s the really taboo subject that mainstream feminism doesn’t want to touch…the way things are structured right now, there are many situations in which white women, particularly middle and upper class white women, have a whole hell of a lot more power than many MOC, especially if those men are poor.

Ignoring these layers does nothing to help the cause. In fact, it does all kinds of things to HURT the cause, as can be seen right now.

If women like BFP and BitchLab stop blogging because they feel like they keep getting smacked down and dismissed every time they disagree with the dominant discourse, how does that strengthen the movement? If the sisterhood chooses to stick its collective fingers in its ears and yell “I can’t hear you!”, how does that make feminism as a whole stronger? And if feminism isn’t a vehicle to address to problems of ALL women, not just the problems of interest to a narrow group of women who share a more or less common social background, then what the hell is the point of the whole enterprise?

WOC have been complaining that they feel marginalized and ignored within the movement for decades. This is not a new thing. Those women are not trying to marginalize the issues feminism has traditionally focused on, they’re trying to open up the debate and put more issues on the table. Why is that so damn threatening to some people? Why can’t everyone see that broadening the scope of what the movement focuses on would actually be a good thing?

When I studied feminism at university more than 10 years ago I honestly thought that by this point this issue would be resolved. I thought that at some point the feminist establishment would have to stop being so damn stubborn and actually LISTEN to what WOC have been saying since the very beginning. Why is that not happening? The internet should make it easier. The technological medium allows people all over the world to interact in real time. It should be a medium tailor made for collaboration. Why then is the door to the feminist club still so firmly shut, and why is it that every time a WOC feminist tries to pry it open she gets it slammed in her face?

This shit needs to change, and it needs to change now.

Black Amazon’s original post is here:
http://guyaneseterror.blogspot.com/2007/05/id-like-to-thank-academe.html

2007-05-23T01:02:00.000-07:00

So apparently there was some more drama over the past few weeks while I was MIA. I must have some sort of spidey sense for this shit, given that I keep going missing at exactly the right moment. Anyway, continuing the goth meme (partly for ironic purposes since it’s been bright and sunny lately)…

I was tidying up and I found this card game that I bought a while back as a novelty gift, but somehow it got lost in a pile of CDs and such and I had to buy a different gift. Perhaps I should tidy my apartment more often? Anyway, the game is called “Gother Than Thou”. The boy and I tried to play it, but it’s not very exciting. We were considering adding some sort of drinking component to make things more interesting. There was one amusing part though.

This is one of those games where sometimes you pick a card and have to ask a question, or the other person has to perform a challenge. Most of it’s pointless, but there was one card that we both thought was pretty funny because neither of us could do it. Not even former teenage goth me. It’s totally my era and everything, but…I failed.
The card contains the following text/challenge.

Sing This Corrosion To Me.

Should be simple, right? Is there a better known song in all of gothdom other than Bela Lugosi’s Dead?

Except…one immediately starts singing the chorus. And how does the chorus go?

Hey now, hey now now, sing this corrosion to me.

Repeat ad infinitum. Hey, nobody (at least nobody who wasn’t a pretentious twit) ever claimed that Andrew Eldrich was a lyrical genius. Or that his lyrics made any sense at all, really (seriously, listen to Vision Thing and tell me it’s not complete nonsense).

So, my challenge to all my former goth readers is this…Sing This Corrosion to me. Or, well, type it. Without listening to the song, give me the lyrics to an actual verse.

Bet you can’t do it without cheating.

2007-05-11T00:31:00.000-07:00

More summer music stuff
Ah, dilemmas…So, apparently Slayer are on tour this summer. I used to rather like Slayer, back in the day. The new album’s not bad. I’d kind of like to go.
Small problem, though…they’re touring with Marilyn Manson. Who is not only a person with no apparent musical talent of any kind (seriously, he’s like Baby’s First Book Of Shock Goth Cliches with some craptastic guitars and a synthesizer mixed in), he is also quite possibly the ugliest person in the history of rock music. Perhaps I could wear dark glasses and earplugs for that part of the show. Or I could just go get drunk.
Why must bands I like always tour with bands I can’t stand? Who programs this shit, anyway? I mean seriously…in what way are Slayer and Marilyn Manson a good fit, musically speaking? Not to mention the crowds…I have visions of pretentious little baby Goths getting ripped to shreds in the moshpit. Hmm, maybe this will be entertaining after all.
Which brings us to the other problem…in my experience the Slayer audience seems to be mostly comprised of huge dudes in the 6ft 2 and 200 pound plus range. I am 5ft2. I’m gonna get killed if I go in the pit, and hanging out on the edges is so boring. What is a girl to do? And will there be any other women there at all?
Stay tuned, folks. And until then, a quiz…what is the most unintentionally hilarious death metal band name and/or album title ever? A friend and I are sort of trying to outdo each other by coming up with the dumbest of the dumb. So far my vote is for Obituary’s “Slowly We Rot”, but I’m open to suggestions.

2007-05-10T00:23:00.000-07:00

Of femmey boys and other lovely things…

The comments in my last post, and in some of those that linked to it, ended up mentioning femmey men. Now, as should be blatantly obvious to anyone who has ever seen this blog before, I rather like femmey men. I’m not crazy about full drag, at least in the sense that I don’t usually find it sexy, although I often find it aesthetically pleasing in a non-sexual way. Femmey in a more general sense though…yes indeed, that is something I like. Pretty faces, smooth skin, eyeliner and lipstick, hair colors not found in nature, hairstyles not traditionally considered masculine…all these things on men I find appealing. The real sweet spot for me seems to be men who are androgynous – neither classically masculine nor classically feminine. Contrasts, if you will, are my thing.
I have also spent most of my life post-puberty involved in subcultures within which femmey or androgynous men are very much admired, and are accepted by everyone. From my early teenage gothdom, and the various points at which I’ve revisited it, to the group of Visual Kei-loving guys I hung out with in college, to my fondness for seventies glam rock, to the skirt-wearing hippie guys I know here in the Bay Area, I’ve been around men who don’t fit the traditional masculine mold for a long time. As a result of that I’ve seen close-up the way society treats femmey men, and it’s not pretty.
Jesse, who I hung out with in high school, used to get guys trying to (or threatening to) beat him up on almost a daily basis, just because he was a pretty boy with long hair who wore eyeliner. Danny, another friend from high school, was gay baited constantly, and he didn’t even dress femmey, he was just a gentle guy who wasn’t very “masculine”. Hiro, who I knew when I was in college, was forced to take up aikido as a teenager because he was coming home with blackened eyes and bruises so often that his mother was scared for his safety. He wasn’t wearing drag, either, he was just an androgynous boy who wore showy black clothes and eyeliner. Alec, who was first a friend, then a boyfriend, and then finally a friend again, got gay-baited all the way through high school not because he was actually sleeping with men, but because people assumed he was. And then there’s the ex-boyfriend who was gang raped in Edinburgh because he was deemed too femmey – he was wearing tight jeans, a brightly colored silk shirt, and eyeliner.
Interesting thing…a big part of the supposed “justification” for the harassment all these men went through was that their femminess was deemed to be a sign that they were gay. In reality, only one of these five men had any sexual interest in other men (Alec), and even he wasn’t sure about that himself at the time.
Where does that idea come from, that femmey=gay? I know plenty of gay men who don’t fit that stereotype at all. In fact, the vast majority of the femmey men I’ve known have been straight.
I think the “I want to kick your ass because you’re gay” thing is a smokescreen, really. I think what the harassment of these men is really about is enforcing societal norms of what a man is “supposed” to be in a much broader way. I do think that sometimes it’s about sex – I suspect that a lot of the “I’ll kick his ass!” impulses are a result of other men feeling some kind of attraction to these men and not knowing what to do with that feeling. It’s far, far easier to say “he’s gay, and that's just wrong!” and then hit someone than to deal with the idea that maybe you, yourself, average dude, might not be quite as straight as you thought you were. Sometimes I think it’s about the idea that there are rules that everyone has to follow and those who flout them should be punished, because God damn it if I have to follow the rules then why should other people get away with breaking them? I think sometimes it’s about fear, and sometimes it’s about demonstrating what little power one has by picking on those who rank even lower in the pecking order than one's discontented self. It’s a complicated thing.
I’ve tried to raise the subject of these femmey men, what their experiences are, how society treats them, the ways in which that might be a problem, in many contexts, amongst both feminists and MRAs, and in both cases the response has been a resounding “so what?”. That bothers me. It especially bothers me coming from MRAs, who after all are supposed to be the advocates for men. What about these men? Why do they not count? Why is their pain irrelevant? Should MRAs actually be calling themselves MMRAs (Manly Men’s Rights Advocates)?
I suspect that my inability to swallow some radfem arguments about Class Man has a lot to do with the fact that I’ve spent so much time around femmey guys. The typical feminist arguments about Class Man do not fit this group at all. This is one of those cases where the party line simply does not match my actual life experience. What am I supposed to do, ignore the evidence of my own eyes? Pretend to believe in the existence of Class Man as some kind of monolithic group when all of my actual experiences are telling me that there is no such thing as Class Man, that men come in all kinds of varieties, and that not all of them are the enemies of womankind?
I mean seriously…I’m supposed to see these guys as the enemy? Wry, sarcastic Jesse who was always ready with a joke and a late night phone conversation to talk me down off the ledge when I was an angsty teenager? Gentle, goofy Danny, who was always there for me when I needed him, who felt more like family than my real family a lot of the time? Sweet, empathic, protective Hiro, who two weeks after meeting me saw me walk into a club and knew instantly that something bad had happened to me, who pulled me into a corner and cuddled me and stroked my hair until I finally broke down and told him about the creepy landlord who kept groping me…and who helped me find a new place and made sure that he was there when I told the landlord and when I actually moved out so that nothing else would happen to me? Alec, who kept me sane while my mother was dying of cancer? My poor darling ex, who instead of reacting to what happened to him with anger or bitterness turned into one of the kindest people I’ve ever met? This is the face of the enemy? Are you fucking kidding me?
And Anne Coulter, Michelle Malkin, and the lovely StormCloud are my sisters, whom I should trust. Are you smoking crack?
It seems to me that, when one is young, those femmey boys are often the best allies a budding young feminist can have. There’s strength in numbers, after all, and when one is taking one’s first steps in bucking the system it helps a lot to be around others who aren’t too thrilled with the way things are currently arranged either. I’ve known many such men over the years, and a lot of them have been far better allies to me than most women I’ve known. Each and every one of those men holds a special place in my heart, and anyone who doesn't understand why is unlikely to be a person I want to know.
So, allow me to raise my glass to all the femmey guys out there. I know how much shit you all deal with on a daily basis, and I admire the courage it takes to be yourself when everyone around you wants you to be something else. Any time you need an ally, I’ve got your back. After all, there have been so many times when you’ve had mine.

PS This is an excellent excuse to post a couple of pics of my favorite femmey boy, yes? I’ve always loved these pictures…partly it’s the smug grin in the first one, and the ridiculous cuteness of the kids (the nephews of the main guy – apparently good looks run in the family), and partly it’s just the sheer subversive humor of the whole concept. Well, that and the fact that I’d like to borrow the boots. The second? He looks so adorable I want to give him a cuddle.The third one…OK, let’s be honest, it’s the thighs. And the contrast between the girly outfit and the very boy-like body language. Good thing he’s wearing those boxers!
(Actually, not necessarily a good thing. Damn boxers, why must they provide so much coverage?)
Also note that this ties in with one of my other fundamental beliefs…ultimately all clothing is costume. It exists to be played with.