7 Obvious Signs That Your Relationship Isn't Total Crap

There is a lot of bullshit in the world, floating around, killing my buzz. One example: gender-essentialist dating/relationship advice. It makes so very little sense, and is so divorced from my particular concept of the way People and The World function, that I can't imagine how the authors even come up with this shit.

It's as if someone took a list of things that they have found unpleasant or problematic in their personal relationships, then ran that list through some sort of automated stereotype enhancer fueled by sitcoms and really terrible commercials.

(Oh, wait, I think we call that overculture.)

It's not about milk.

My mother said, "If Ron Paul is president, at least you'll get your raw milk."

She was trying to be funny, a little, and sad, which is the best you can do when talking about politics right now.  A little funny, mostly sad. I find that I've lost any taste for laughing over the latest ridiculous thing that anyone was caught saying. I've lost any desire to follow this primary. The perverse rush that comes of tracking down sources for the latest terrifying promise or the next apocalyptic Dominionist wet dream scenario? It's gone.

All of the blitzy front-page HuffPo stories about Republican shenanigans fall flat, now. As if our laughter could insulate us.

As if raw milk were some kind of consolation.

Yeah, I'm one of those hippie-foodie types. I don't think the Feds ought to be raiding natural foods co-ops. I think there are bigger threats. Trying to keep up with the news in this arena puts me in contact with some pretty fucked up ideological circles. (Yeah, I am all good with that article until the Ron Paul endorsement. And the comments are scarier than many one sees on the internet at large.)

Identity politics is a powerful force. I'll admit that I had to do some research on the whole Ron Paul issue before I really understood how terrifying he was. I'll admit that I had some vague, theoretical conversations about interventionism with (generally white, male) friends of mine in which Paul was portrayed as a possible solution.

And some of those friends, when confronted with more evidence, will admit that he's got "problematic ideas." They'd never, you know, vote for him or anything. But...there's this sort of wistfulness about them when they say it.

Because the fear that he inspires (in all fairness, all of these candidates terrify me) is visceral and cannot be ignored. It is not a theoretical downfall. These are not problematic ideas.

I don't have the luxury of weighing the hypothetical moral benefits of a progressive social platform vs. a non-interventionist foreign policy. His anti-choice stance is not hypothetical to me. His religious agenda is not an interesting theory. It's real, and terrifying, and something that will affect me directly.


I don't know what this post is supposed to be, exactly, maybe An Open Letter to Fauxgressives Who Belong to Too Many Privileged Classes to be Scared of Ron Paul.

If you're not truly, personally frightened of the guy, let's just not fucking talk politics until after the election, OK?  Or maybe ever.

If I want my milk that bad I'll go live on a fucking farm. No way in hell does that even rate. I am sick of people pretending like it does.

agree or disagree: the intricacies of consent (a personal story)

TRIGGER WARNING - discussion of sexual assault

I don't remember his name.

That's not a problem; I'd rather not remember. Part of my mind obsesses, though, runs through generic lists of names, trying to discover it. I can't shut it off.

I didn't really know him - he was a friend of a friend, who happened to be in the same place as me at the wrong time, I guess. I was having a bad day. Week. Year.

I was sitting in my car in the parking lot of the liquor store when I decided I'd sleep with him that night. We were getting a hotel room, four of us, because we still lived with our parents and didn't have a secure location where we could drink, smoke, fuck, whatever. I remember standing at the ATM. I paid for that room.

Agree or disagree: someone is consenting to sex if they go to a private place with you.

I didn't like him, especially, he was unimpressive. I was bored, all evening. After the drinking and the smoking, after the lights went out, I was relieved. I thought things might finally get interesting.

Agree or disagree: someone is consenting to sex if they get drunk or high with you.

Apparently, he had never heard of foreplay. Even though I was pretty drunk, and stoned out of my mind, this was a problem for me. I tried to slow him down, guide the process a little. He was totally non-receptive.

Agree or disagree: someone is consenting to sex if they allow you to remove their clothing.

I tried to stop everything, completely. Told him to stop, repeatedly. He ignored me. I decided that I might as well just go along with it, because it wasn't *that* bad. I was fucked up, and my pain tolerance is generally pretty high. After a few minutes, I tried to stop him again. He ignored me. I let it go. Repeat.

Agree or disagree: a person is consenting if they agree to have sex with you at first, but changes their mind after you've already started.

It seemed to go on forever. I would try to stop him until it became apparent there was nothing I could do, and then I'd try to put up with it until I couldn't take it any longer. I felt the need to remain calm. I was terrified.

Agree or disagree: a person is consenting if they say yes, but their body seems to be saying no.

I eventually got away - I told him I had to use the restroom. He let me up. I was too stoned, or too scared, and I forgot to lock the door, and he followed me in. I shoved him, dodged past him, got dressed, left.

Sat in my car, freaking out. I knew he'd follow me, but he didn't. (He was too busy telling my friends what a bitch and a tease I was.) I called a friend who lived hundreds of miles away. She called a friend who lived closer to me, and he came and picked me up. It was light when he arrived. He took me out to breakfast. Didn't ask too many questions.

The bruises took weeks to disappear. One night, I got drunk and told my mom about it. She said, "Once things get to a certain point you can't expect to be able to stop them."

For years after, every sexual encounter came packaged together nicely with a panic attack. Sometimes, when I started to freak out, I asked my partner to stop. Sometimes I didn't bother.

Often they didn't notice.

Until very recently, this night was filed in my brain under the tab "bad sex." I had a therapist who tried to convince me it deserved another label. I didn't bring it up with any therapists after that.

I recently began the process of becoming a volunteer sex ed coordinator for a non-profit. I haven't done any real sessions yet, I am still in the training stages. Monday, I attended a class on consent.

Part of the purpose of these practice sessions is to address some of the comments, concerns, or issues that might come up in a real class. To plan what you'll say when a student says, "Of course s/he wanted it."

"It doesn't matter what you think someone wants," I said, maybe a little too intensely. "What matters is what they tell you they want."

One of the facilitators paused, looked at me, and said, "Oh, you'll be good at this."

It was a very triggering session, and I should have known it would be, but somehow, until that moment, I was interacting with consent as a concept, as a theory, an idea to explain.

But I wonder how my experience would have been different if, in 7th or 8th or 9th grade, someone had told me, "What matters is what you say. What matters is what you agree to. And you can change your mind." I wonder how my experience would have been different if, in 7th or 8th or 9th grade, someone had told him, "Everyone has the right to give consent, or not. Everyone has the responsibility to respect that."

Would that have changed anything?

Even now, I can argue the concepts and defend the importance of explicit consent, but in my mind, my experience is somehow different.  My own brain is like a rape apology greatest hits album.

I arrived at this conceptual struggle somewhat late in the game, so it's an ongoing process for me.  But might there be one kid, in one of my sessions, one teenager who hears it? One person who learns to pay attention, to back off if they feel their partner hesitating? One who learns how to communicate their own boundaries?

One who doesn't watch all of their own feminist theory collapse in the face of the ways they blame themselves?

I really, really hope so.

creepy dudes see the world as their daughter

This may be incoherent; I am sleep deprived.  You have been warned...

With some regularity I am caught between biting my tongue and pointing out the danger inherent in certain thought processes, ideologies, movements, etc.  Usually I bite my tongue, because a) I really hate conflict, and 2) I often don't have a really solid example to justify my fears that right-wing politicians and conservative evangelicals and random douchebags (Venn diagram of that one looks quite like a circle from a short distance, BTW) are OUT TO GET ME and RUIN MY LIFE.

Ahem.  See here .  The Daughter Test?  Seriously?  The government should outlaw everything that you don't think your (female)* kid should do?

Like crossing the street with no hand to hold?  And leaving veggies on the plate at the end of dinner?  And wearing the wrong length/type or skirt? Sitting too close to the television?  Running with scissors?  Dating that person you don't approve of?  Generally being strange in any way that offends your personal aesthetic?

Really, think about that - the government should have the same rules that you do for your child? 

And I'm the crazy socialist hippy liberal.  I thought I was supposed to be the one restricting your freedoms and such!  I just wanna take away your assault rifles and your SUVs, not tell you that you can't go hang out with Jimmy because his daddy's an atheist.

So, thank you, random douchebag contingent, for contributing a concrete example to the paranoia vault.  It is muchly appreciated.

Thing two, from the political/religious side of the fuckery, is this.  Inspirational pro-life movie about how abortion is SO EVIL that it's less evil to lock up girls in a basement dungeon until they give birth, or something.

Self-described pro-life.  Self-described horror.  I haven't actually seen it, just the trailer, and I think there might be some disconnect there what with the "Don't have an abortion because we are scary and will come get you!" not really helping their case, so much.  I mean, when was the last time you saw a locked in a basement movie in which those doing the locking were supposed to be the hero?

Logical disconnect = not my problem.  People who like to fantasize about locking women in basements and forcing them to give birth = everyone's problem.  Everyone who happens to have a uterus, anyway.

So how's that for you?  People who want the government to be your parents (literally), and people who want to kidnap women pursuing legal abortions and lock them in basements.  SCORE.  At least I get to be increasingly smug in my insistence that we are TOTALLY FUCKING DOOMED.

Zombie apocalypse sounds better every day.


* Because, of course, it's the girl children that need to be protected and legislated over.  There is a whole separate level of creepy to this which deals with the actual relationship between fathers (with their protecting and controlling) and daughters (with their helplessness and silly woman brains) in our culture, but that wasn't the point of this post.  This note is simply to point out that I understand that angle, and it's totally worth discussing, but I am not going there at the moment because I've had almost no sleep in the past 36 hours and I need a nap.  And I didn't even need the government to tell me so!

Quick note: "You look great!"

Why are you required to say this anytime you see a woman that you haven't seen in some time?  I am getting tired of all the "you look great!"s.  I look exactly the fucking same as I did last time you saw me.  Move on with your life.

Is it just me?  Is this required for men, too?

trigger me, baby (thoughts on how FA is great for everyone but me)

Note-sub-1: Trigger Warning: for weight issues, dieting, eating disorders, and assorted mental and emotional hell.

Note-sub-2: Disclaimer: This entry is personal.  This is about the way I feel about myself and my life and I do not intend to imply anything about anyone else via any of the words I write below.  This is only about me, and a struggle that I am currently and actively engaged in.

Note-sub-3: On a lack of specifics: I am avoiding including things like numbers and pants sizes except when absolutely necessary, as they are exceedingly difficult for me to write, and often triggering when I read them elsewhere.

This is going to be difficult - but it is necessary, for reasons listed below.
Reason Number One:  I am gaining weight, and it's terrifying.

I exist with a moderate level of discomfort about my weight.  This moderate level of discomfort varies, from me being barely aware of how much I hate myself to being actively, passionately engaged in despising the image in the mirror.  When I gain weight, though, when things stop buttoning and zipping, my awareness is heightened.  I am suddenly consumed with my chin and my arms and the calorie content of one fucking tomato. 

It is not that those last however many pounds are that relevant, it's that the only way I am able to exist at relative peace with myself is to Not Think About It.  To not think about how I look, or how I walk, or what I am eating or what people think of me.  Jeans that won't button are hard to ignore. 

Reason Number Two:  It's the fucking holidays.

It's time to dress up and look pretty and go to swanky New Year's parties and...oh yeah, I forgot, only skinny people can do that.  All the formal dresses and strappy shoes and pixie haircuts and whateverthefuckelse - they're for skinny people. 

Looking pretty is the whole reason people go to those stupid parties - to look pretty and look at other pretty people while I, of course, am sitting in the corner in my hopelessly generic purple and green mother-in-law ankle-length dress from the thrift store because it's the only thing they had that fit over my ass, eating way too much shitty dip.

Party on.  I think I'll just stay home.

Reason Number Three:  It's the fucking holidays.

And it's resolution time!  It's time to admit that none of the shit I said I'd do last year actually happened.  It's time to admit that instead of losing weight this year, or the year before, or the year before, or the year before that, I've been steadily gaining, and it's only a matter of time befor I'm completely unable to even leave the house because of the stairs!  Wow, 2011 sounds swell.

Once I've admitted all of those things, it's time to plan.  It's time to add and subtract and divide, and weigh everything and make worksheets and go into HYPER SELF-BERATING MODE whenever I skip the gym or eat anything that isn't on my list.  This, of course, will last a week or two, result in no significant weight loss, and make me more miserable than I've been in at least a month.

Reason Number Four:  This isn't me.  Or is it?

I know how to lose weight.  In high school and college when I got above a certain number I'd opt for ridiculously simple plans.  I'd eat salad and hummus for a week or two.  I'd fast one day a week for a month.  I'd limit my portions of everything except fruits and vegetables. 

I'd go to the gym every single day, for an hour, or two, or three.  I'd have a week of 500 calorie days, while going to the gym.  I'd lose enough, and stop worrying about it for a while.

When I lost a scholarship and had to leave college, I spent a summer proving that I was in control of my life by losing a few sizes.  My mother told me I was too thin, and I felt like I'd won a prize.  I also thought she was being ridiculous, and I kept losing weight until I met up with the worst idea I'd ever had.

I settled into my first "serious" (what does that even mean?) relationship and stopped worrying about my weight as much.  For about six months I was genuinely happy.  When things went to hell, the way things do, my weight was a huge issue.  We argued about it all the time (or, he yelled and I cried).  Weight gain that started out slow and probably benign was then fueled by secret grocery store trips and fast food runs.  I ate in secret, in huge amounts.  He wanted to track everything I ate, took my ATM card and wanted every receipt.  I got around it.  He paid for a personal trainer and I followed up my appointments with McNuggets.

By the time I got my head out of my ass and skipped town, I'd almost doubled my weight from my lowest point.

And, yes, I left.  I moved on.  I am happy and well-adjusted and I respect myself, or something.  Except I never lost most of that weight, and it's been four years.

Reason Number Five:  I'd actually like to be healthy.

I would actually like to eat few processed foods, and be active and go hiking and biking and take some dance classes and YOGA.  My addled brain needs yoga.

I want to be one of those whole-grain-grass-fed-I-grew-this-lettuce-myself types.

Somehow I can't separate the two.  Somehow the whole-grain-grass-fed-I-grew-this-lettuce-myself girl is really skinny, in my head, and reading ingredient labels and counting calories are the same thing.  And I can't go to yoga because everyone there is skinny.  And I can't take a dance class because OMG leotards.  And I can't go hiking because I am out of shape and I know I'm conflating these things, and I know that "capable of completing a challenging hike," is not the same thing as "comfortable with one's appearance in a leotard."  They're different, only they aren't, to me - no matter what I do it's all the same thing, the same people and the same words, it's just me being not good enough.

Reason Number Six: I am triggered as fuck.

Not just because of reasons 1-5, but also: because my cousin is going on a "weight loss plan" with her TEN-YEAR-OLD daughter.  Because I told my mom that I thought that was horrific and my mom just said, "Well, she does need to lose weight."  Because apparently the pantyhose I wear are too light, "since I gained some weight."  Because it's a constant theme of every holiday function, who lost or gained what on which program and why you should try it!

And how can I defend myself to them when I can't even defend myself to me?

_______________________________________________________________

My resistance to Fat Acceptance is defensive, I know that now and I knew when I first encountered the idea.  I knew that my reluctance to accept this whole concept that Fat Isn't Bad stemmed from the knowledge that they were talking about me, too.

And I do a pretty good job of maintaining that cognitive dissonance.  So far, it is OK.  For everyone else.  I have no right to police or judge or really give a fuck about what other people do or don't do or how they look or don't look.  Totally.  Not.  My.  Business.

It's OK for other people to be fat - really, truly OK - it's just a modifier, not a quality judgement, it's no more indicative of value than eye color or hair color or nose shape - but it's still not OK for me to be fat.

If it's OK for me to be fat, then I will never, ever, ever lose weight. 

And I will always struggle in the ways that I struggle now.  I will hate myself in the morning before I leave the house.  I will hate mirrors.  I will hate shopping.  I will hate events that require me to dress up or dress down or have a costume.  I will hate pictures of myself.  I will hate dancers and runners and yogis and ice skaters.  I will hate everyone that I walk past in a day at work who is perfectly thin - people whose clothes fit well.  People who don't have to worry about how offensive their very presence is to all the normal, skinny people.  I will hate talking to people.  I will hate sitting and standing and walking and turning and raising my arms.

It's so exhausting, all that hate.  It wears me down little bits at a time.  Sometimes I fight through it, and sometimes I sit on the bed and cry because I just don't have the energy to choose clothes, look at myself in the mirror, and go out into the world anyway. 

But I can't let it go, not really.  I can't move on.  I can't just accept that I am stuck like this forever and ever and ever and that I will never really like myself, and never really be OK with my body, and never feel comfortable and never feel like I fit in.  I'll never feel in control, never do any of the physical things I like to do, that it will just get worse, and nothing will get better, ever.

And somehow, going back to reason #4 - if I am never able to be the person I was before that relationship, if I'm never able to heal from that damage, to purge what remains of that time, then he wins, doesn't he?

And if I sit here and bitch at myself and weigh my rice, then he wins again.

And I know that I've got it all twisted, and I know that I don't have a fucking clue, but attempting to articulate where I am, right now (I just started tracking all of my food yesterday) seems important.

the myth of a "moderate" pro-life movement - thoughts on the rape and incest exception

A friend posted this article on Facebook recently, and I was halfway into a comment on her post when I realized that I'd probably exceed the character limit without ever actually making my point.

She expressed horror that anyone would oppose abortion in cases of rape and incest.  I find the concept of a rape and incest exception is incredibly problematic for a variety of reasons.  Below are three.

1) It would be impossible to implement.

The legal system's response to allegations of rape is far below even remotely acceptable.  Who qualifies for this rape exception?  Women who report?  Women whose reports are taken seriously?  Does the rapist have to be caught?  Convicted? 

Sure, because pressing charges is not amazingly traumatic.  Because cops always listen.  Because judges don't use any possible excuse they can cook up to acquit.

What about incest?  I'm sure those parental notification laws would be really convenient there!

2) It's inconsistent and blatantly misogynistic.

If you fervently believe with all of your conservative, religious heart that abortion is equivalent to murder, of course you want it to be illegal. If you sit around on Tuesday evenings mourning for all the little lost babies (who would all, of course, have grown up to be white, cis, het, Christian Reconstructionist genuises who cured cancer and paved the way for the glorious return of Jesus Christ by retaking both houses of Congress) then of course you're out picketing clinics and harassing women who are foolishly attempting to fend for themselves and be in control of their own lives.

I don't agree with you - I think you're misguided to the point of being evil. But in the land of if...thens, you've got a pretty solid case.

If you believe that abortion is murder, except when the woman in question was victimized, then we need to take you back to logic school.

You have here invoked a hierarchy of evil deeds, in which killing an innocent being is less heinous than continuing the victimization of a rape victim via forced pregnancy. Not an entirely ridiculous premise - people are allowed to have their own values and assign them varying points on the "how horrified this makes me" scale.

Continue down the list, though, and your Horrifying Deed Index looks like this:

1) Most Horrifying: Forcing a rape victim to complete a pregnancy
2) Slightly less horrifying: Murder
3) Not horrifying: Forcing a woman who had consensual sex to complete a pregnancy

The only difference between 1) and 3) is the victim status of the woman in question. We have agreed that forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy to term is a horrible violation, but ONLY if that woman did not consent to sex. If the woman did consent to sex, then she deserves what we've already termed is horrible. We are punishing women for having consensual sex.

Anyone with any knowledge of rape culture knows that we do this anyway, as a matter of course, but the idea that the rape and incest exception is the more "moderate" position is frankly terrifying to me. If you're a "no abortion, ever" conservative, then you're "extreme" - but this position does make logical sense from some ideological standpoints. The "no abortion for you - you asked for it" conservatives are portrayed as reasonable and accomadating, when in reality their misogyny is just as frightening as that of their arguably more principled counterparts.

3)  It perpetuates the myth of a moderate pro-life movement.

Obviously, or hopefully obviously, I do not believe that abortion rights should be restricted.  But one of the most insidious things about encroachments on reproductive freedoms is that they come in pieces.  No one really believes that abortion should be legal and available BUT all women should have to hear a detailed description of the physical characteristics of the fetus.

The powers that push for those laws aim to chip away at reproductive choice a little piece at a time.  Chip, chip, chip, until the system is so complicated and the regulations so inane that no one will be practicing anywhere in your county, or your state, or the next three, and your choice isn't one at all.

Every single time a new law or regulation or requirement is passed, it takes a little bit of the decision-making power away from women who ought to be trusted to make their own decisions.  And every time we step back and say, "well at least they're not EXTREME pro-life," we're missing the point. 

There are only two positions here - women should be able to make their own choices, or they should not.  Women have the right to decide what is best for their lives, or they do not.  The seemingly gray area in the middle is a lie, and to believe that lie is to fall into a trap that strips our choices and our options away a little at a time, until we have none left.