Monday 23 April 2012
Wednesday 18 April 2012
Want some of my ice cream?
I've seen an unusually high number of articles entitles things like
How to make your man/woman feel X
10 things women do that really annoy men
10 cruel things men do to women
6 psycho things women do...
8 things that secretly turn men on...
appearing as things that my friends on facebook have read. I mean, they've actually taken time out of their day to read these sweeping generalisations damning a whole sex with the same ridiculous statements. I'm not going to dissect these and list why they're wrong, sexist, and just basically terrible - that should be pretty obvious to anyone with a brain. What I'm more amazed about is that people actually read these! Why? Do they really think that an article like this will give them some enlightening insight into their friends/partners which they'd never discovered, which they can use to their advantage? Do they think it'll somehow help them in their communications with people of that sex? Don't people realise that if you don't read them, people won't write as many of them!
People are all different! What turns one person may seem utterly revolting to someone else, and what I might find really annoying can seem adorable to other people. The amazing thing about humans is how different we all are - by trying to tar everyone (or everyone of a particular sex) with the same brush you create an image of the world which is very two-dinemsional and dull. There are people on this world who are also female but who I have absolutely nothing in common with - yet according to these articles, because of our genitalia we should act in the same way. If you feel you need to read these to understand a whole sex, you've got it all wrong - you need to treat people as individuals, and get to know them. Their personality, likes/dislikes, turn-ons, annoyances will be different to everyone else you've met. Sure, some people have similarites, but if you treat a whole sex as one object sharing the same brain, you're really not going to get far in your relations with other people.
So to my friends - I really, really hope you were reading those so that you could comment critically on the generalising and sexist nature of those articles, or just to laugh at how stupid and ill-informed they are. Seriously. Or I might have to reconsider your suitability to share in my ice-cream.
How to make your man/woman feel X
10 things women do that really annoy men
10 cruel things men do to women
6 psycho things women do...
8 things that secretly turn men on...
appearing as things that my friends on facebook have read. I mean, they've actually taken time out of their day to read these sweeping generalisations damning a whole sex with the same ridiculous statements. I'm not going to dissect these and list why they're wrong, sexist, and just basically terrible - that should be pretty obvious to anyone with a brain. What I'm more amazed about is that people actually read these! Why? Do they really think that an article like this will give them some enlightening insight into their friends/partners which they'd never discovered, which they can use to their advantage? Do they think it'll somehow help them in their communications with people of that sex? Don't people realise that if you don't read them, people won't write as many of them!
People are all different! What turns one person may seem utterly revolting to someone else, and what I might find really annoying can seem adorable to other people. The amazing thing about humans is how different we all are - by trying to tar everyone (or everyone of a particular sex) with the same brush you create an image of the world which is very two-dinemsional and dull. There are people on this world who are also female but who I have absolutely nothing in common with - yet according to these articles, because of our genitalia we should act in the same way. If you feel you need to read these to understand a whole sex, you've got it all wrong - you need to treat people as individuals, and get to know them. Their personality, likes/dislikes, turn-ons, annoyances will be different to everyone else you've met. Sure, some people have similarites, but if you treat a whole sex as one object sharing the same brain, you're really not going to get far in your relations with other people.
So to my friends - I really, really hope you were reading those so that you could comment critically on the generalising and sexist nature of those articles, or just to laugh at how stupid and ill-informed they are. Seriously. Or I might have to reconsider your suitability to share in my ice-cream.
Tuesday 10 April 2012
You've been a bad girl...
I have a formspring account, where people ask me questions anonymously
and I will answer them. But the number of times people have said
something along the lines of "what's the dirtiest thing you've ever
done?" is rather large. And I'm always baffled when trying to come up with a
response to this. I don't view my sex life as something negative, which
is what the word dirty seems to imply. And how would one even begin to categorise
things into 'more dirty' or 'less dirty' - how does one compare sex
acts?
Ok, so obviously when people say 'ooh you dirty boy, you need punishing', they're not consciously thinking that the fact that their partner wants sex with them is bad, or they wouldn't want to 'do terrible things to them', but it still reinforces the shame and guilt felt around sex.
We hear these sorts of phrases all the time:
Why does it all have to be so negatively phrased? I guess it all falls back to the virgin/whore dichotomoy we still struggle to break free from, where virgins are good, clean girls who never have sex, and 'whores' are unclean, dirty, sexual beings. There's so much to say on this topic but that would completely derail this post. I'll try to keep to the topic at hand.
As a society we have this huge shame and guilt issue around sex, but even in the kink community, which is generally pretty good on the consent and sex-positivity side of things, falls down here.
Yes, it can be all very fun in a roleplay scenario, or during a scene for those who enjoy humiliation and other such things, but when this transcends into common useage it turns an act that can be exhilerating, beautiful, mind-blowing, intimate, euphoric, hot, and just great fun into something which make people feel shame, guilt and negativity. And this isn't because I think all sex needs to be beautiful and deep and intimate. Sure, some sex is, but some is raw and animalistic involving teeth and nails and fists. I still wouldn't call one more 'naughty' or 'bad' or 'filthy' than the other. That, to me, seems to be using completely the wrong language to talk about it.
So, instead of seeing your partner(s) in their lingerie/latex catsuit/banana costume/birthday suit/other (delete as appropriate) and saying 'You bad girl(s)/boy(s)/person/people/dinosaur, I'm going to take you upstairs and do terrible things to you', why can't we tell them how awesome they are, and how you're going to do wonderful things to them? Then you can throw them on/in the bed/cage/dungeon/garden/paddling pool and beat/fuck/tickle/glomp them silly.
Dirty = unclean.
I did some googling (I know, impressive research!) and found a definition. Just in case I was wildly wrong (unthinkable, I know!) and here's what I came up with.
Definitions of unclean:
So by saying something or someone is dirty, (assuming you don't mean they're covered in mud)you're making a few assumptions. Let's leave out the ritual definition, because I assume that people don't use that one very often in this kind of scenario (or at least, I'm not going to address it. So there.) You're assuming they
a) Have no morals, or knowingly go against morals, (I'm assuming this isn't what's meant between two people in a sexual relationship, so we'll leave that one out too)
b) Don't abstain from sex, or do have sexual intentions,
and that
c) having sex or sexual intentions is BAD!
Ok, so obviously when people say 'ooh you dirty boy, you need punishing', they're not consciously thinking that the fact that their partner wants sex with them is bad, or they wouldn't want to 'do terrible things to them', but it still reinforces the shame and guilt felt around sex.
We hear these sorts of phrases all the time:
- 'You've been a naughty girl...'
- 'I'm going to do terrible things to you...'
- 'You filthy thing...'
Why does it all have to be so negatively phrased? I guess it all falls back to the virgin/whore dichotomoy we still struggle to break free from, where virgins are good, clean girls who never have sex, and 'whores' are unclean, dirty, sexual beings. There's so much to say on this topic but that would completely derail this post. I'll try to keep to the topic at hand.
As a society we have this huge shame and guilt issue around sex, but even in the kink community, which is generally pretty good on the consent and sex-positivity side of things, falls down here.
Yes, it can be all very fun in a roleplay scenario, or during a scene for those who enjoy humiliation and other such things, but when this transcends into common useage it turns an act that can be exhilerating, beautiful, mind-blowing, intimate, euphoric, hot, and just great fun into something which make people feel shame, guilt and negativity. And this isn't because I think all sex needs to be beautiful and deep and intimate. Sure, some sex is, but some is raw and animalistic involving teeth and nails and fists. I still wouldn't call one more 'naughty' or 'bad' or 'filthy' than the other. That, to me, seems to be using completely the wrong language to talk about it.
So, instead of seeing your partner(s) in their lingerie/latex catsuit/banana costume/birthday suit/other (delete as appropriate) and saying 'You bad girl(s)/boy(s)/person/people/dinosaur, I'm going to take you upstairs and do terrible things to you', why can't we tell them how awesome they are, and how you're going to do wonderful things to them? Then you can throw them on/in the bed/cage/dungeon/garden/paddling pool and beat/fuck/tickle/glomp them silly.
Being overlooked
So a couple of weeks ago I damaged the soft tissue in my ankle. I've been on crutches to keep the weight off it while it's healing, and mostly people have been very helpful - holding open doors for me when they see me behind them, holding the lift, letting me go first etc. Because I'm just one of them, but I'm temporarily hurt. It's nice that people are being helpful.
On Monday I had a day in London with some of my family. We were going to the Natural History Museum, and my mum suggested we borrowed a wheelchair rather than me hobbling around on my foot all day, so that I didn't get too tired. Great idea, I thought.
So I got into a chair, and started wheeling myself around. After the first few moments of 'Woo, this is fun! Look, I can go backwards! I can turn this way too!' it got a bit tiring on my arms. Then I started to notice a shift in people's attitudes and even perceptions towards me. I was no longer 'one of them', who needed their assistance. I was an object that was in their way. Everyone looked over the top of my head, apart from the children for whom I was at eye-level with, but even they regarded me differently. I was now 'other'. When people realised they'd been standing in front of me blocking my view (it was rather loud and saying excuse me didn't always get heard) instead of acknoledging me, saying something like 'oh I'm sorry', or 'I'll be out of your way in a minute', they muttered under their breaths to the people with them and quickly moved out of the way embarrassedly. It was like I wasn't a person to be interacted with, I was differently-abled, and therefore 'other' and 'different'.
I was having to be careful of my foot - the thing which hurt, and was also the most protruding part of me and easiest to trip over - while wheeling myself around. People backed into me, or just stepped over my extended leg to get to places. No one said 'excuse me'. In fact, no one other than my family said anything to me. I felt quite invisible.
I was only in a wheelchair for 3 hours, and in a few weeks I'll probably be off crutches as well, but I experienced a huge shift in attitude towards those in wheelchairs which I hadn't been conscious of before. It's hurts to think that some people must live their lives experiencing this kind of prejudice. Why aren't people just treated as people? I'm definitely going to make sure that when I'm having a happy, 'smile-at-everyone' day, I smile at everyone.
On Monday I had a day in London with some of my family. We were going to the Natural History Museum, and my mum suggested we borrowed a wheelchair rather than me hobbling around on my foot all day, so that I didn't get too tired. Great idea, I thought.
So I got into a chair, and started wheeling myself around. After the first few moments of 'Woo, this is fun! Look, I can go backwards! I can turn this way too!' it got a bit tiring on my arms. Then I started to notice a shift in people's attitudes and even perceptions towards me. I was no longer 'one of them', who needed their assistance. I was an object that was in their way. Everyone looked over the top of my head, apart from the children for whom I was at eye-level with, but even they regarded me differently. I was now 'other'. When people realised they'd been standing in front of me blocking my view (it was rather loud and saying excuse me didn't always get heard) instead of acknoledging me, saying something like 'oh I'm sorry', or 'I'll be out of your way in a minute', they muttered under their breaths to the people with them and quickly moved out of the way embarrassedly. It was like I wasn't a person to be interacted with, I was differently-abled, and therefore 'other' and 'different'.
I was having to be careful of my foot - the thing which hurt, and was also the most protruding part of me and easiest to trip over - while wheeling myself around. People backed into me, or just stepped over my extended leg to get to places. No one said 'excuse me'. In fact, no one other than my family said anything to me. I felt quite invisible.
I was only in a wheelchair for 3 hours, and in a few weeks I'll probably be off crutches as well, but I experienced a huge shift in attitude towards those in wheelchairs which I hadn't been conscious of before. It's hurts to think that some people must live their lives experiencing this kind of prejudice. Why aren't people just treated as people? I'm definitely going to make sure that when I'm having a happy, 'smile-at-everyone' day, I smile at everyone.
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