quizzical pussy

Oren Regardie will be the first to admit that he’s lucky. And, at least by many people’s standards, he is pretty damn lucky. Let’s look at this: he is married to Poppy, who’s one of those women men just spontaneously collapse over because of her sheer multi-disciplinary awesomeness. He also has me, and I’m not so terrible either. And together, Poppy and I make a pretty adorable, crayola-headed pair; actually, we look like the Manic Pixie Dream Team. In addition, because he’s charming and attractive and because we move in social circles that are very snuggly indeed, Oren never has a shortage of lovely ladies to make out with and cuddle and whatnot. So his life doesn’t suck. It really doesn’t.

Last Saturday night the three of us (a couple of our friends have taken to calling us The Trident) were hanging out in a bar with several friends, many of whom are fetching ladies. The bar is equipped with booths and bar stools and even a dance floor, but only two comfy chairs. One of my friends and I (both of us with chronic pain issues) agreed that the moment those chairs were open they were ours. And, because the Universe loves us deeply, that didn’t take long.

Oren came over to occupy the space between us, and some communal cuddling happened. Then some other ladies joined us. Because of the magnetic nature of cuddling in public, we soon had a joyous heap of people (mostly women) cuddling, with Oren roughly in the middle but not singled out in any way. But something interesting happened, though it’s only interesting when you actually think about it: the bar, which was mostly populated by males, started to kind of sort of wish he were dead. Men–total strangers– kept coming up to him, some congratulating on his pimposity, most commenting enviously on his position and acting vaguely hurt that they were being left out. When he got up to go to the bathroom a few guys hovered around, hoping to take his place. Glares followed him as he returned.

This dimly recalls the little economist who met the three of us on New Year’s Eve and had his mind blown as soon as he figured out our dynamic. “It was nice meeting you. Touché on the harem,” was his parting shot to Oren. But really this is not rare.

The really weird thing is that no one ever thinks to high five (or scowl at) me. I mean, there I was nestled between my incredible boyfriend and my gorgeous fuck-buddy-for-life Viola– kissing each at various points, and holding hands with another pretty chick. I’m going to go ahead and call that motherfucking lucky, but to average bar guy to process that I’d have to be a subject rather than an object, I guess.

Because when you break things down, it’s weird. Oren is lucky, sure. He is. Having two people you love loving you back is goddamn remarkable. But Poppy has relationships with several totally amazing guys, and no one ever seems to harp on that in quite the same way. It holds hands with that weird insidious old-timey sexism that warns never to congratulate a bride because that would be indelicate. You wish her joy. Because it would be rude to imply that her groom is the prize rather then her, and that she accomplished something by finding someone she wants to spend her life with. How vulgar to imbue a woman with agency, or attribute desire to her.

This cuts in every direction. When women are reduced to objects with no desires, men are reduced to insatiable desire.

I started reading Y: The Last Man. I’d been meaning to for a while, and it’s very good. But it’s hard to get around the fact that being the last surviving man on Earth seems to be a fantasy for a lot of guys (though admittedly not the main character of the comic, and I’m sort of expecting the series to deconstruct that), while I physically cringe when I think of any moderately realistic narrative of a last woman because in my mind it would automatically invoke absolute metric tons of rape. It’s such a bleak way of looking at gender dynamics, but is it inaccurate?

I hope so. I don’t know. I sure as hell know I wouldn’t want to be that woman.

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This past weekend I was at a geeky convention¹. I could tell you stories about what happened there: about flirtations both new and continuing, about glances both electric and slimy, about my butt cheeks both covered and substantially less covered.

But instead I’m going to tell you about what I will charitably call an idea for an art project, and why it made me need to leave the room.

On Friday evening there was a chance to present ideas for projects and activities to improve the con, and get funding for them. I was watching the proceedings and trying to figure out how to convince the board that it wanted to buy me a life-size, working replica of the 1989 Batman film’s Batmobile. Another con attendee– middle aged, bearded, paunchy, and probably wearing a kilt² or something– was pitching his plan. He wanted to make a human-shaped PC kiosk, essentially. Quoth he: “The monitor would be the head, and we could make the body male or female, depending on how kinky we wanted to get…”

You know, because a male body’s normal and a female body is kinky. Yeah.

I think I may have been the only person in the room who flinched, or even minded, but Sigyn’s bowl, did that irritate me. I wasn’t even sure why, but I had to leave immediately to go run my hands up and down my intrisically-kinky-because-female body. Wait, no, I left to wander around the convention.

It took me a little while to suss out exactly why I was so bothered that a random nerdy stranger was othering and eroticizing female bodies, especially considering the fact that I live on Earth and we get this all the time. But I finally figured it out the main reason I wanted to Feminist Hulksmash things: in short, I was irritated because he was right. His casual, unaware sexism not only reflected how things worked, it was so self-evident to everyone present that things work that way that no one else even seemed to notice.

The female body is kinky. It is inherently sexual in our culture. Not only that, but even just the words “the female body” are usually code for a young, attractive, very likely white, able, cisgendered, female body. An older female body, a larger female body, etc. may still be seen as kinky, but now it’s a fetish. If you’re a woman and it’s difficult for whatever reason to sexualize your body, your womanhood is questioned, and you become invisible.

Now, these are realities that seem completely obvious to some of us, but there remain people who have never had any compelling reason to think about them. And I guess it bothered me to hear– not these facts, but their fruit, so casually uttered and so casually accepted.

My body is kinky. My body’s worth is measured in erections. Today I may live up to some basic, generic standards of attractiveness (and I’m not even going to pretend that within the current system that can’t be used to one’s advantage like possibly even more than the Batmobile), but tomorrow I may not, and on that tomorrow I’ll be a cipher or an ever more deviant kink. However I feel about myself or my body personally, these things aren’t really my choice. If I am very lucky, then for a relatively short time I can be lust-shaped; person-shaped is a rather lot to ask.

Some people wonder why feminists are still talking about privilege, about the male gaze, why we’re not shutting up now that we can vote and stuff. To these people I answer: It recently occurred to me that a kiosk may have more of a chance of just being person-shaped than I do, as long as you build it male.

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1. Which, as you read this, I may or may not still be in bed recovering from. [↩]
2. I don’t remember what he was wearing, but trust me, if there’s anything my years of con-going experience have taught me, it’s that there’s a 43% chance it involved a kilt. [↩]

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I wrote something somewhere else that isn’t here. It’s about sexual orientation in the Whoniverse’s 51st Century, and how it’s kind of moderately wack even though it seems amazingly cool. Or something. If you’d like to read it, head over to Doctor Her, the feminist Doctor Who blog!

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Porn rockstar Drew Deveaux recently linked this disturbing, uh, thing, on twitter. It presents an email conversation between a lesbian activist and a trans activist. In summary, the lesbian activist asked the trans activist what the “cotton ceiling” was. The term, which was entirely new to me, deals with the concept that trans women are welcomed into feminist/lesbian spaces, but they are largely ignored as potential sexual partners in these spaces. Think the feminist concept of a workplace “glass ceiling”, but with panties. I’ll admit that I’m biased against any glimmer of transphobia, but to my eye, the conversation quickly descended to the lesbian activist more or less asking the trans activist “Why are you trying to force me to acknowledge you as a woman and touch your penis!? Eeeeww!” Of course, this is just my interpretation, but here’s a direct quote:

Lesbians are sexually attracted to females. This does not include trans women with penises.

Hold the fuck up there.

First off, hasn’t feminism– especially queer feminism– been dealing for over a century with how fucked up it is that other people try to define “correct” womanhood for us? Distinguishing between “female” and “woman” here may seem deceptively okay because “female” refers to sex and “woman” refers to gender. But sex is so much more than genitals, and I cannot imagine feeling comfortable telling anyone else what their sex or gender is. If you feel comfortable doing that, please spend the next month speaking as little as possible and concentrating hard on listening to the people around you. You are not the boss of the planet: you can certainly say that women with penises aren’t female, but your simplistic view of bodies and selfhood and reality is not fooling the rest of us.

Second of all, and I can’t believe there’s even a remote possibility that this is going to blow anyone’s mind: Some lesbians want to have sex with women who have penises. Yes, really. Accept it now. I’m a queer woman. I love women. I am absolutely open to dating and fucking trans* people, including trans women. You don’t get to dictate to me whom I am attracted to. You don’t get to tell me what girl love means. I realize that my bisexuality might cloud this issue, but let me assure you that there exist full-blooded lesbians who feel the same way. Let’s put it this way: I can also have completely male-free lady sex involving a penis at any time with a cis woman. It’s called a strap-on. A penis doesn’t make someone male; I speak from a place of experience here.

I don’t think the trans activist or anyone else was saying that all lesbians are transphobic meanies unless they go out immediately and find trans women to have sex with. Obviously, each of us has the inalienable right to be attracted to the people we end up being attracted to. At the same time, there’s a big difference between saying “You’re not the type of woman I’m into” and saying “I’m into women and you don’t count.” I suspect that the plea here is to fully acknowledge trans women in the queer community as women, as lesbians (if applicable), to acknowledge their partners as female-loving people, and to open up to the idea that female-on-female sexuality is more diverse than all vaginas all the time.

In short, stop trying to make goddamn rules about other people’s sex lives. Maybe even consider reevaluating some of the assumptions that led you to create rules for your own.

Feminism doesn’t get to be an exclusive club. Feminism is the anti-exclusive club. We will joyfully include everyone in our goal of equality– including men with penises, women with penises, marginalized groups of all kinds, and even people we don’t particularly agree with, or we’ve already failed. We’re either dismantling hierarchy or we’re just rearranging it.

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There’s apparently some kind of old school tradition that women can propose marriage to men on Leap Day without everyone involved melting in a Raiders of the Lost Ark type scenario. One has to wonder if anyone back in days of yore ever took advantage of this single, once-every-four-years loophole in a culture of crushing sexism, and if they did, what the neighbors said. I have my suspicions that people don’t stop being dicks just because the calendar tells them to, which would explain why I’ve never gotten a pony for my birthday.

Now that women are technically allowed to ask questions nearly every day of the year, and we queers are ruining marriage for everyone anyway, isn’t it time we let Leap Day mean something else?

I vote that Leap Day is the day people of all genders can magically tell their crushes they want to bone them without things being weird afterward. That would be cool.

Although if you develop a crush next week, waiting nearly four years to talk about it sounds like torture. It also sounds like a longer time period than most crushes last. Maybe eventually we’ll have to make this a “Wednesday” thing rather than a “Leap Day” thing.

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One unpleasant side-effect of a campaign to start remembering your dreams is that when you dream about someone who’s died you wake up with their face burned into the back of your eyelids. They’ll gently pad beside you your entire day, drifting through your thoughts and darting into your peripheral vision when you least expect it. Thanks to your lucid dream experiments, you’re now being haunted.

I miss her.

We were roommates for one year in college. I always wished we’d stayed in touch, even though things were a little strained by the end of that year living together. She would get angry at me, she said, because I didn’t put as much work into my academics and writing as I did my part-time jobs and maintaining my long-distance relationship with Reginald. Even then I had to admit she was right, but I also felt like my priorities were my business. I also suspected she resented how effortlessly my good grades came to me. She was gifted, but also a very hard worker. Reginald also moved back in-state at the end of that school year, and he didn’t much like me having friends separate from him. Also, sometimes I’m just shitty when it comes to keeping my friendships together. There were lots of factors, I guess, but one way or another she and I talked a few times over the summer and then passively let our friendship lapse. When we met each other on campus during Junior and Senior year we smiled and were cordial, but we weren’t even a shadow of what we’d been.

What we had been was pretty awesome. She was the only real friend I made in college, considering Reginald’s gentle suggestions that I never talk to anyone but him. She and I, we challenged each other and bickered and then made up and had serious discussions and laugh-until-you-very-nearly-pee discussions. We shared almost everything. We danced together to Leonard Cohen. We competed and supported and comforted by turns. And no matter what, every night we’d read to each other before bed. Both of us being technical virgins, of course we usually read books about sex. Our favorite was (if memory serves) the hilarious¹ Reclaiming Goddess Sexuality, which followed a fictional young woman through what was probably a very historically inaccurate sexual initiation in an ancient matriarchal culture that I have never found any indication existed. It suggested that for first-time intercourse we be positioned side-by-side with our partners². Man-on-top sex is not very empowering, apparently. We sternly reminded each other when our attitudes weren’t goddess-like enough.

At times it was almost like we were having a romantic relationship, except the entire physical/sexual facet was trapped in books and we read it aloud instead of acting on it. Also, we both had boyfriends. But still, I sometimes wondered what it would be like to leave mine and have a girlfriend instead. A girlfriend with perfect lips and big eyes and a mop of short, wavy hair like hers.

And then, a couple years ago, she died.

I don’t know what happened. I was searching for her online one day, thinking I’d email her to see how she was doing, and I found her obituary. She was an award-winning poet. She’d been living twenty minutes from me. She was deeply loved and dearly missed. She was gone. I dreamed about her last night and I woke up and she’s still gone. And I miss her. That’s all I can really say about it. That’s the entire story.

She’d have written it better.

1. Just to be clear before I go into details: we knew it was hilarious. We were naive, maybe, but not stupid. [↩]
2. I’m guessing this meant spooning, but I will likely never know for sure [↩]

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Remember that bra color meme on Facebook? Okay, actually, I’ll probably have to back up for some of you. Remember when Facebook was a thing?

Early last year a bunch of people started posting random colors as their Facebook status, and it turned out they were referring to what colors their bras were. And it turned out that was for breast cancer awareness! Surprise!

I don’t know how effective this exercise was, mostly because I’m pretty sure most people are aware of breast cancer and are more or less against it. If it caused just one person to donate to breast cancer research, or prompted one person to start doing regular self-exams, or started one person on the path to learning potentially life-saving facts about early diagnosis, or anything along those lines, though, I’m all for it.

But something occurred to me the other day when sex education activist and Scarleteen founder Heather Corinna tweeted this link, an article from the Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy that covers sexual harassment/assault, and what survivors were wearing. From the article (also quoted in Heather’s tweet): “While people perceive dress to have an impact on who is assaulted, studies of rapists suggest that victim attire is not a significant factor.” In fact, it may even be the contrary. The article goes on to say, “Instead, rapists look for signs of passiveness and submissiveness, which, studies suggest, are more likely to coincide with more body-concealing clothing.”

The cliche, of course, is the woman in the tiny skirt and the low-cut top who, essentially, sickeningly, people seem to think got what she was asking for. Now, I don’t think anyone is about to run amok with the above quoted statement and start telling women not to wear long skirts and Cosby sweaters lest they appear like they’re looking for trouble. That would be preposterous. I think the key takeaway here, for anyone missing it, is that whenever you’re tempted to blame someone for getting raped, you should shut your fucking mouth, take your fingers off your fucking keyboard, and think again.

Repeat as needed.

This is the awareness I’d like spread. And as I was thinking that, I remembered the bygone bra meme, and I wondered something. What if all the rape survivors with access to social media did something similar. What if we all posted what we were wearing when we were sexually assaulted? Would the world learn anything? Would people finally realize that in all the jeans and hoodies, microdresses, niqabs, soccer uniforms, Comme des Garçons couture, vinyl bra sets, three-piece suits, pajamas, and polo shirts, there is really only one constant: there was always, always a rapist nearby.

I’m not suggesting we actually do this. On most social networks it would mean potentially letting all your family, friends, and acquaintances know something very personal and raw, and I’m not sure I’m up to that myself. But still, I think it would be interesting, and I wonder what would happen, if it would make any difference in the way people see sexual assault. I’d like to think it would. I’d like to think that when faced with enough truth people eventually have to stop being assholes. But, you know, you’d also think that when a sex blogger is faced with enough truth about assholes she’d eventually stop being naive, and that might never happen either.

Still. Jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt.

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Whenever someone tells me that sexism is basically over and feminism is a relic (and trust me, it happens) my brain tries to do a spit take inside my skull. This is one of the stranger head sensations to experience, so the look I give these people isn’t so much anger or irritation as utter discomfort. Because my brain is doing really weird things in that moment.

Because they’re so infuriatingly wrong, see.

I get it. When you start examining sexism you often end up confronting not-so-fun subjects like abuse, sexual assault, workplace politics, pesky healthcare dilemmas, or that old “body image” chestnut that feminists trot out to try to get us to stop looking at women in bikinis. And if you really think hard you’ll find it hard to avoid looking at other unsettling things too: racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. and then your whole day will be taken up having to think about how and why you’re privileged. Laaaaaaame.*

And very few people have all the possible privileges at once, so it’s easy to get caught up in the “Well things aren’t easy for any of us, little camper. But I’m doing the best I can with what I’ve got, and you should too!” fallacy and start arguing that, for instance, sexism doesn’t exist because you are a short man, and height discrimination is very real.

It all gets complicated and messy, you know?

But you know what’s not messy? Popular music! And you know what’s not complicated? Numbers! And you know what perfectly parries any claims that sexism is dead in Western culture? NME’s Greatest Singers of All Time poll! Observe.

On NME’s website, readers are asked to rate various singers of the 20th and 21st Centuries, mostly in the pop, rock, and R&B genres, from one to ten. The selection ranges from Art Garfunkle to Beyonce to Mike Skinner (the garage hip hop phenomenon The Streets) to Patti Smith to Al Green. There are more male nominees, but not overwhelmingly.

So far (as of Tuesday afternoon in my time zone) two women have made it into the top twenty. Monday it was just Aretha Franklin, but Tuesday morning I noticed Janice Joplin had made it to the #20 spot (so maybe by the time this entry posts we’ll have three women on the list). And I think that’s fucked up, not because I think Joni Mitchell should necessarily appear above Kurt Cobain (although one could certainly make an argument for that), but because 18-2 cannot be an accidental, random, “just the way things worked out” ratio. It has to mean something.

(as of Tuesday 6/7/11 1:00PM EST)

If a great preponderance of people agree that men are better at something that’s totally subjective and impossible to quantify outside of pure taste, it means we’ve basically just decided we like women less. We might not really even know why, exactly, but they’re just not as good. Does this seem freshly tapped from the very essence of sexism to anyone else?

There is a problem. Sexism is not over. It is not mass hysteria. It is not liberal brainwashing. And feminism is me, as a woman, wanting to not have to deal with that vague, visceral dismissal of my work, or body, or voice, or abilities. There is a problem. And which singers we all like best is really the least of it, yes, but it’s an easy thing to point out and say: “Now tell me more about this post-sexist world we’re living in, please?”

That said, I still can’t really think of a better singer than Freddie Mercury.

* You thought I forgot ableism, didn’t you?

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I’m a slut. Maybe. Honestly, I don’t even know what a slut really is.

Identities that are defined by the opinions of others are weird, aren’t they? If a slut is someone who’s considered promiscuous or lacking sexual morals, that’s exactly what it means. Considered by whom? Who knows! I think my sexual morals are just fine. But I’m relatively sure your grandma would disagree (although grandmas can be sluts too).

But if we’re going to define slut as someone who enjoys sex and possibly has a more relaxed than average attitude about it, that’s me. I’m a total slut.

That just doesn’t mean I’ll necessarily sleep with you.

This is why I like the concept of Slutwalks. Because I feel that’s more or less what they’re trying to say. There’s a big difference between someone wanting sex and “asking to get raped”*. But you know who doesn’t realize that? A rapist. Also, to an extent, rape apologists.

There’s a Slutwalk being planned near-ish to me and soon-ish to now. I think it’s where I belong.

1. Must start designing a clever sign ASAP.
2. May also will coordinate a slutty outfit. Or not. My most debaucherous moments usually don’t begin with me in a sexy little outfit, oddly enough.

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*Which, just to be crystal clear, is a thing that DOES NOT HAPPEN.

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My new strategy for dealing with all types of intolerance, bigotry, and prejudice:

“Aw, honey, you’re just going through a phase. You’ll grow out of that.”

Foaming at the mouth because a mom’s putting pink (pink!) nail polish on her son? Because that somehow tells him it’s okay to be gay or transgender or something, and that’s somehow bad? Happens to lots of people your age. You’ll settle down once you mature a little.

Think you get to hold personal court over every woman who says she was sexually assaulted to decide whether she’s right about that or not? My cousin Denny went through the same thing (Denny’s always been a little off, truth be told), but he got over it and you can too. Not to worry.

Think you’re better than one fucking person on this planet? Feel innately more correct, important, or that you occupy a moral high ground over any one group of people based on sex, age, weight, race, religion or lack thereof, sexual identity, orientation, or, hell, political affiliation? Bless your heart, all toddlers think they’re the center of the universe! You’re just a tiny bit behind, darling. Once you grow up a little you’ll let go of that and be a normal, healthy person.

It’s not being condescending. It’s being optimistic.

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