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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The sentiment that you have to love yourself first before loving another person never rang true for me. There are dark places in me, places where I use my own face as a dartboard and trample my own spiritual tulips because bitch stole my sweater. Oh, and also because when we get right down to it, I’ve never cared for her much.

But with other people, I can be very loving. I try to plant and nurture their tulips, lend them sweaters. Once I get warmed up, I love unstintingly and honestly and sweetly. I’m really rather good at it. Until it blows up in my face. A lot. Every single goddamn time. Maybe that’s the point of the adage. Maybe you can’t successfully love someone else until you love yourself.

But then I see all these people in seemingly successful relationships and I wonder if I’m really so much more messed up than they are. Don’t we all secretly loathe ourselves¹? How many people on the planet actually love themselves? Are those sixteen people the only ones capable of real, healthy love? I don’t buy it.

However, I do generally like the idea of loving myself. So there’s that.

I’m afraid of it too, though. As far back as I can remember I’ve worked tirelessly to avoid arrogance and self aggrandizement. Maybe it was because early on, a lot of flashy things like getting good grades and the arts came naturally to me; maybe at some point someone told me to keep my head down and stop showing off and I took it ridiculously seriously. I don’t even know. I just know that I became convinced that overconfidence is more repugnant than crippling self-abasement. I no longer actually think this is true, though. And if it is, I’m pretty sure I no longer care.

I’m usually good at projecting confidence even when I don’t feel it. I’ve also mostly avoided outright self-destructive behaviors; I’ve always been terrible at giving up and pretty good at finding silver linings. And I have to admit that I do often suspect I’m rather awesome. I think my nature is probably fundamentally confident, but I’m afraid to really commit to it, and instead I’ve taken on a lot of fucked up beliefs about myself.

This isn’t even about my romantic life, although I have been told multiple times that my self-esteem issues are by far the least attractive thing about me. Really, I’m just sick to death of being so hard on myself. It’s irritating to spend so much time with someone who doesn’t appreciate me. And yes, it is worrying that I have consistently sought out relationships with people who one way or another end up treating me how I feel I deserve to be treated², and I would prefer that that change. Honestly, though, me treating myself like I’m worthless is more troubling, by far.

So I’ve started working on all that self esteem shit, more aggressively and purposefully than I’ve ever done before. If I overcorrect and start seeming at all egotistical as I work through things, I hope you’ll understand. I’m trying out this new thing of not being a dick to myself, you see.

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1. I understand that I may be projecting a rather lot, but really, don’t we?
2. Although, it needs to be said, this is trending better and better.

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I joined OKCupid recently, as one is supposed to after getting dumped. They actually have a recruiter come to your house, pound on your door, tell you to stop watching Dawson’s Creek, and ask you what you want your username to be.

True story.

It feels too early to jump into another serious relationship. It feels like a good time to develop a crush or six, though, or to start the vetting process that will eventually, possibly lead to making out and orgasms and stuff. I’m ignoring the fact that those things are how serious relationships usually start; I’ll cross those legs when I come to them.

I like OKC so far, I do. Mostly. I like taking the wacky tests. I like answering match questions. It feels like placing an order for the perfect lover, even though you know it could turn out more like a botched pizza delivery and you may end up trying to choke down a pie topped with legos and felt. I love the fact that it tells you your match percentage with people. I’m in the 90%s with many of my friends who happen to be on the site, and I find myself idly wondering about all the others. And various exes. And my dog, but not in a weird way.

All this before I have any actual experience proving that a high match percentage means anything, really. The very savvy Viola Sharqtipus once told me, however, that she really does get along better with exceptionally high OKC matches. So because of that and the clinical comfort of numbers, I’m paying attention to my percentages with people.

But on the other hand, the whole dating site thing is proving kind of annoying. I could spend stupid amounts of time just answering messages, which are mostly inane. I want to understand how I’m supposed to respond to a message that says “You seem interesting,” which is more or less what half of them say¹. I’m assuming here that people are not actually intending to have a conversation about how interesting I am, but rather saying “You’re interesting; I, not so much. Say something interesting to me now so we can talk about that!” This comes off as lazy and impolite, contacting me first only to put the burden of starting any actual conversation on me.

I realize it’s not always easy to start a conversation, and maybe it’s not worth the effort if you’re opting to use the shotgun approach to contacting broads on the internet, but do you know what kind of people I want to talk to online and date and be interesting with? People who are a) interesting themselves and actually interested in me, and b) can have conversations.

I had no idea I’d feel so strongly about this, but it seems I do. In fairness, I’m more misanthropic than usual lately. It took me very little time to earn OKC’s “replies very selectively” warning label, and it doesn’t look like it’s going away any time soon.

But I have found a few gripping new people to talk to, and perhaps someday meet. I even met one already, and we got along so well we’ll likely get really wacky and out there and do it again. Of course, because one of my rules for myself on the site is not to initiate contact with anyone over 25 miles away because right now I’m a little burned out on the “driving hours every week to see my paramour” relationship model, all these people live over an hour away so far. But they messaged me first and actually said stuff and asked questions and shit, and you can’t put a number on that².

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1. Along with an astonishingly not-infrequent “I didn’t understand half of ur profile lol.”
2. Although technically I think they all happen to be high percentage matches. Score one for Viola.

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When you read discussions about evolutionary psychology, debates about weight, or even conversations on general attractiveness, someone will always raise the point that human beings are fundamentally attracted to health. This probably seems like a diplomatic, benign way to speak about physical beauty: Can’t we all just agree that we’re programmed to read signs of health as beauty? Isn’t health really the most important factor in choosing a mate?

Every time I hear that, read that, I flinch just a little. It’s such a casual way to tell someone that no matter how she actually looks,  she doesn’t count as pretty.

I am not healthy. My body has not been healthy for several years. I am disabled; I am sick. I have debilitating fatigue, chronic pain, a compromised immune system, and a low tolerance for activity.  I wouldn’t have a breath of a prayer of surviving in the wild. Despite the fact that even I get mesmerized by my ass sometimes, in one sense I’m unattractive on the most basic level. And even ignoring bullshit theories and pseudoscience, being in a relationship with me day-to-day must be frustrating.

Want to do a fun activity together? Depending what it is, I might be able to do it if I have a week’s notice so I can rest. And a free week after, so I can rest. Want to do a fun, spontaneous activity together? Haha fuck you no.

Feel like grabbing a bite to eat together? Okay, but right now I’m off gluten, dairy, sugar, and fifteen other things just in case it helps my illness. So far it hasn’t helped much, but it means we definitely can’t order that pizza. Also, I bring my own sugar-free ketchup or wheat-free soy sauce along, which I acknowledge might be weird.

Do you want a partner who can be your workout buddy? Who’ll go dancing with you every weekend? Who lives a normal, productive, active life? Who can work a normal full-time job? I’ll say it now: you can’t rely on me. I may never be this for you no matter how much I try.

Add to this the fact that even if I were perfectly healthy I’d still have my emotional issues and my weaknesses, just like anyone else, and most people would run away, sweating from the adrenaline rush of having just dodged a bullet. Wouldn’t they?

But I know something they don’t: I’m worth it. Not to everyone, maybe, but to the few, I’m so entirely worth it. I will love them so fiercely and sweetly, we’ll laugh together so joyously, and those things I do offer will bewitch them so thoroughly that my health will be a detail, trivia, like the maze of color in my eyes. Like the ridiculous songs I make up. Like the brownies I bake that I can’t even eat myself, but I know you like them. Like my insatiable lust for the people I love.

I’m no one’s textbook ideal mate. No one describes their perfect woman as always sick. But I make up for it. I try to. I have to believe I do.

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• My reproductive system
• Whom I love and/or marry
• My ability to protect myself
• My blog
• My access to information

If we let them seize the internet, they’ll never give it back. And you just know they’ll end up coming for the porn eventually. U.S. citizens, if you’re against blacklist legislation, please contact your representatives and let them know that SOPA/PIPA are some bullshit.

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In short, hers are Mary Sue problems, and the story never ends. I want it on record that I have never slapped her. I’m not going to insult your intelligence by suggesting that I have never wanted to.

She’s currently in her first serious relationship, with a guy she pursued, something she’d never had to do before. “It’s so empowering!” She made a fist and pummeled the air as she told me this. “I wanted him, and I went after him, and now he’s mine!” To be honest, it doesn’t appear she had to work very hard. As she reminded me, she’s so much better looking than her new boyfriend she’s surprised they don’t get strange looks walking down the street. When he seemed uninterested at first she was indignant. But with a little persistence she seduced him, and she couldn’t be prouder if he were every bit as attractive as she is!

And yet again I was reminded that being the pursuer is something I’ve never experienced. My relationship with seduction has been mostly avoiding mocking laughter by eschewing it. So if it were empowering I wouldn’t exactly know, but it wouldn’t exactly surprise me.

I have this sense that there was once a time, long ago, when people were meticulously taught social graces as part of a well-rounded education, much like children are theoretically supposed to be taught geometry now. They learned how to be charming, how to have presence, how to hold a conversation, even how to tell a story that captivates one’s audience. Of course, this could well be a romanticized version of the past that’s a side effect from getting my working knowledge of old timey social interactions from novels. Dialogue is usually a little snappier when an author’s had the chance to mull it over for months and then edit it a few times. Perhaps these social graces have always been things we pick up only if we’re lucky, with one in a million of us seeming magically born with them like Henrietta was born freakishly adorable.

The one thing I know is that they are skills, and as such can be learned. And pretty much the only group who seem focused on systematically improving theirs are Pickup Artists.

As a community, Pickup Artists are at times awe-inspiring in their pursuit of self-improvement. When I make it a point to observe their process without judging their motives, it becomes clear that what they call “inner game” is largely an effort to build self-esteem. And while beginners learn scripted gambits to start conversations, the ultimate goal seems to be attaining true, engaging conversational skills. It’s only mildly off-putting that having legitimate discourse is often referred to as “improvising” rather than “talking”. The problem (if there is one, and that depends on your perspective) is that for some reason this is all done in the service of getting laid. All that effort to become a better¹ person gets cast in a manipulative light when it’s so single-mindedly libidinous, and frankly dehumanizing for anyone else in the sexual equation. But at least it’s honest.

I’m not honest.

I want what Pickup Artists want. I know what it’s like to feel like a social loser, and deep down, I don’t expect people to overlook that and see that I have a good heart and throw me a great big party with balloons. To be fair, my heart isn’t really all that spectacular. What I really want is to be charming and witty and poised and ever so magnetic. And my motives aren’t just to be well liked and make people smile, although those things are certain wonderful and welcome. I also want to be desired. I want to infect your mind like a melody and stab through you like hunger. It may be weakness telling me this, but I think it would feel empowering.

Even if I never took advantage of it, I’d want to know I had that power to seduce if I chose. It bothers me that the thing stopping me has never been nobler ideas about reciprocity and ethics and all that. Maybe those things factor in somehow, but it’s mostly fear I’d fail and look like a loser.

What makes this even worse is that I’m fairly sure that “Hey, wanna do it?” would work often enough that the question of seduction as art is barely worth thinking about.

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1. …or at least more socially pleasing

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“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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I knew it was a poem. He’d given me several already. Reginald liked to write love poems to girls. Years later my friend Miriam, who also dated Reginald for a while, and I would go back and compare and realize that some of the heartfelt verses given us looked shockingly similar. Kid must’ve kept master copies somewhere.

But this was the first poem I ever unfolded to discover blood smeared all over the paper.

Reginald looked rather like a cat who’d dragged his freshly killed bird onto the porch. I reacted rather like that cat’s owner.

“What, I just don’t even… I mean what happened here?” Beat. “…It’s a very nice poem.” Nice save.

Reginald proudly showed me his hand. There was a distinct gouge. Then he produced a blunt decorative knife. “I designed this years ago to one day spill my blood for my love. And now it’s yours; I have no more need of it. It has done its job.”

I’m not even kidding. He seriously talked like that.

I figured that perhaps my sense of the romantic was underdeveloped. I liked Anne Rice as much as the next little demigoth, but I was more creeped out than moved. Of course my (most) fatal flaw kicked in at this point and told me that I must be the one who had it wrong.

It soon became clear to me, though, that Reginald expected me to perform the same gesture. It was supposed to be some kind of sacred lovers’ ritual conceived in Reginald’s head at some point. That was more or less why he gave me the knife.

I just wasn’t going to do it.

Understand, I really thought I loved Reginald at this point. The bloodletting had meant something to him, clearly, and I didn’t want to ignore that. But seriously? No part of me was happy that I had his blood on a piece of notebook paper, and I wasn’t jazzed about the idea of following suit.

And if I ever did, I knew it wouldn’t be with his Renaissance Faire knife. Thing was fucking letter-opener-dull! And coated in his blood.

In retrospect, this should have tipped me off. This wasn’t ever going to be a healthy relationship. Yes, healthy relationships can involve exchanging blood or playing with letter openers, but they’d at least require a little prior communication. And less peer pressure.

As for my dilemma, one morning I nicked my ankle in the shower shaving and I realized I’d solved my own problem. Well, one of my problems. The other one I kept around for a long, long while yet.

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I’m still a beaten girlfriend somewhere deep down.

I’m realizing how profoundly affected I really am by it all, to this day. My self-esteem was never great to begin with, but staying in a physically and emotionally abusive relationship for years trained even that scant confidence out of me. And while, believe it or not, I’ve scraped a fair amount back for myself, if we’re making comparisons, I can’t escape the learned worthlessness that was my liturgy for so long.

I wonder if I’ll ever let myself feel like an equal in a relationship. If I’ll ever feel entitled to ask for things or even make demands. If I’ll ever believe that I was chosen, that my partner is with me out of desire and not just kindness.

Will there ever be a time when, after I’ve said something stupid and made someone I care about angry, I won’t slip into that old numbness and terror? The cold tingle that comes when the mind spins in a loop of self-loathing and the body feels heavy and wrapped in moss.

This might be one of those things that’s hard to understand unless you’ve lived it, and I hope you haven’t lived it.

I’m afraid that the legacy of a really poorly chosen first relationship will be that I can never behave like a truly healthy partner. And with the amount of hate I have and show for myself, can anyone reasonably be expected to not develop contempt for me?

I want a do-over. I want my first boyfriend to be that nice Mormon boy who hugged me like I was made of lava.

On a lighter note, Bangable Dudes (and Dames) in History: for when the living just aren’t cutting it, but the undead have inexplicably turned sparkly.

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This was a pit.

Actually, more than anything it was like a small community workshop theater. A single room, the club was black painted wood with two pine platforms (also painted black) where the brass poles stood, dull and worn. There was a little neon. And there were men in g-strings.

Between the makeshift stages, a shower was built into the back wall. Wednesday was shower night, but the shower was broken. Of course it was.

I hear that female strip clubs– that is, those where the strippers are women– are more velvety. They try harder. Male strip clubs– specifically gay male strip clubs, I’m told, don’t bother with pretense. I have no idea if this is true in general. To this day, I’ve only been to one, and it was true here.

In we walked, a gaggle of females. The club was dead. We didn’t care. It was Miriam’s birthday, and she wanted to visit this pit on shower night, dammit, shower or not.

There were two guys working that night. Two. A short, wiry guy with a pretty face and a tall, beefier guy with a, well, a face. He had a face.

We chicks danced a little with the newly out dean of a local university. Then we sat down directly adjacent to one of the platforms, ordered drinks, and watched the guys take turns working our pole. It wasn’t until about five minutes into Wiry Guy’s performance that we realized he was wearing an electronic tether over his tube socks.

Classy. Classy is the word for that.

Beefy Guy, not to be outdone but lacking the necessary state-mandated hardware, was at a loss for a moment. Then he wrapped his flaccid shaft clear around the brass pole and seemed to feel better about himself.

Did I mention class?

As the night wore on I got a bit bored. It is a great shortcoming, but I can really only watch people I’m not attracted to writhe around naked for so long before I want to pull out my Nintendo DS. In retrospect, this is probably why Beefy Guy approached me.

“You’re very pretty,” he began.

“Oh. Uh. Thanks,” said my lips. I’m not giving you money, dude, said my brain.

There was some inane small talk on his part and some noncommittal nodding on mine until he saw some bruises on my arms.

“What happened there?” Beefy Guy made his face-which-he-had-yes-indeed look concerned.

“Just some horseplay,” I answered honestly. Clifton and I were hanging out fairly often at the time, and there was a lot of wrassling.

“No one… hurt you, did they?” We were really breaking the stripper fourth wall here.

“Not at all,” I assured him. “I pity the fool.”

“Good. Because I just couldn’t stand that.” Okay, Beefy Guy… oh wait, he wasn’t done… “I could never hurt a woman,” he told me earnestly.

I nodded.

“…except that one time when my girlfriend cheated on me. But she also stole my stereo, you understand.”

“Um. I think my friends are ready to leave. Now.”

I’m very likely never going to that–or possibly any– strip club again. I don’t care if they get the shower fixed.

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