Amanda's taken on the "do women actually have sex drives"? crap, and since it's something I've been meaning to say a lot about, I'll dive off her post and take the opportunity.
I'm tired of arguing biological crap about differences between men and women. The big difference is, was, and for a while more at least, will be only this: most women can bear children. Men can't.
Because of that, we're going to view some things differently, particularly the sex thing, cause if women get pregnant, guess who's got to spend nine months giving blood and breath to creating a kid, and who's gonna be stuck raising that child? And women, built as we are, are also more suseptible to STDS. You've just got more surface area. It sucks, but it's true. For these two reasons alone, I'm incredibly picky about my sexual partners.
But let's not forget our social pressures, shall we?
And how fear of the female body and its desires can really fuck you up into thinking that women aren't people.
I was always pretty nuts about boys. In kindergarten, I had two "boyfriends," which I remember thinking was pretty risque at the time (looking back on it, it's funny, because the boys, Nick and Brian - damn, I remember their names 20 years later - were great indicators of what my grown-up taste would be. Troubled home lives, one of them skinny, smart and dorky, the other one more punkish, stout, with the spiked hair and leather jacket - seriously, his parents suited him up very well in kindergarten) and I spent most of gradeschool forming gangs of girls who would chase boys around the playground and tie them up to playground equipment with our scarves.
Later, as I got plumper and dorkier, I attached myself to good guy buddies. Dorky Matthew and Aryan Adam were the two biggest ones from this period. I had very few female friends because it's tougher to find girls who won't play the girly game when you're in gradeschool, since that's the time when you're all rushing around trying to fit in.
After kindergarten, I always formed crushes on one boy in particular, and stuck with that crush for years, sometimes. Not only because it was expected of me to give an answer when asked what boy I had a crush on, but because it helped me narrow down the playing field. It just didn't seem appropriate to go wacky over that many boys, and I do think that I'm sort of hard-wired into serial monogamy. The idea of polyamoury just never worked for me on an emotional level, though there was a point in highschool when I did consider "sharing" a boyfriend with a girl I was hot on. This never happened for a number of reasons, but the big one was just because I couldn't do it, emotionally. I'm not built that way.
Highschool, I was pretty much just batshit insane. I hit highschool theater and there were all these available guys, and suddenly they were actually interested in me *back.* I'd never gone so wacky over so many guys in one year. This was also the first time where I could honestly say that, looking back on it, I had a crush on a girl - let's call her Mistress, who had this amazing, girl-next-door sexual appeal to both men and women, and who made the most of it (she was the one who wanted to share a boyfriend with me [which I couldn't deal with], and then she later got married, and invited me into a threesome with her husband. I was so drunk at the time that I told her, "You know, I'm totally cool with you, but your husband freaks me out. Maybe if you'd married somebody else...?"). Ah, batshit insane.
Undergrad was my second real girl crush, the one that was so incredibly wacky that every morning I woke up wishing I'd become a boy so I could date her (this is where my "and that girl in Speech class wasn't bad either" line comes from). After that, my last two years of college were a frickin' boyfest, which I won't go into detail about because my parents read this blog.
We had a lot of fun in Alaska.
The funny thing is, I always thought I was really weird for liking boys as much as I did and for thinking about sex all the time, and the masturbation thing for women is really tough to figure out because our culture's focused so much on penetrative sex. So you're kinda like, "OK, I'm doing that, that's not doing it for me. And it's kinda messy. Is there an easier way to do this? What's the trick, here?"
The trick, of course, is to gear yourself out of the "penetration" mode, and go for the "What would lesbians do?" mode.
There's a lot to be learned from watching lesbian porn.
You also get a lot of "fear and disgust" of the female body thrown your way pretty early on (there's that crazy moment at puberty when you suddenly realize you're not a real person after all, you're the "other" you're one of those *women*), so you're also battling a lot of "don't touch yourself, ewww gross" stuff. To be a woman in a society that says women are weak and icky can be... tough. To say the least.
So you don't learn how to masturbate in sex ed, and it's not as incredibly obvious as men's masturbation, which always seemed to me like it would be easy to figure out. If you know the mechanics of penetrative sex, you're going to try and simulate it. Trouble is, stimulation for women is mostly about the clitoris, with the penetration part a sort of added bonus for most people.
Luckily, once you figure that out, honey, it's all over.
Funny thing is, though I was always sure I had a serious sex drive, I was always worried about it. Most of the women I talked to in high school didn't actually like sex. Or, they said they didn't. It was something they sort of "gifted" to their boyfriends to keep them happy, they said.
This never made sense to me, as I was always happy to jump on my boyfriend (`till things soured, of course)... and would have been really happy to jump on other people in highschool, too, but women have that "slut" label hanging over their heads. Once you sleep with a guy, you've gotta keep on for a "decent" period in order to be... decent. As previously discussed, this one got me into a lot of trouble, and I stayed with somebody far, far longer than I should have.
It's only been recently that I've fessed up to my attraction for real and allowed myself to stare at boys on the train - never face-on of course, as that "invitation to harrassment/rape" thing is always over my head, too (look at all these social inhibitors to the visibility of female desire) - but you better bet that when the tall, pretty guy in well-fitting suit turns around, I'm totally checking out his ass.
And for those women who keep track of such things: during the four days a month or so when I'm ovulating, I know it - sexual drive spikes on par with any guy's at any time of the day, because suddenly all boys everywhere are beautiful "and that sweetheart female cello player on the train with the short hair isn't bad either." I want to bundle up all the boys and take them home and shower them in kisses. When I'm ovulating, even Blaine the football player looks damn good for a night.
It's really awful.
And it took me forever to come to grips with it, because "girls aren't supposed to feel that way." Girls aren't supposed to think so much about sex, and though I'm still emotionally a serial monogamist, I recognize that the myth of the libido-less female just doesn't apply to me in the least.
I think we're raised to be afraid of our bodies and what they desire: sex, food, strength, and so we don't listen to our bodies and acknowledge what we want.
If you want to know what a lot of female hysteria/wackiness is about, I'd say it's this: being taught to be a non-person, somebody who's not supposed to feel any sort of desire for anything at all, and trying to operate on that level.
That'll drive anybody batfuck insane.
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Some Thoughts on Attraction
Rupert Thomson
Iain Rowan is doing some guestblogging over at Vandermeer's joint, and he's posted an overview of the work of brilliant English writer Rupert Thomson.
My buddy Julian turned me on to Rupert Thomson with one book:
The Book of Revelation.
Read it. The rest will follow.
A true Brutal Woman book - don't say I didn't warn you. Here's an amazon.com overview:
Stepping out of his Amsterdam studio one April afternoon to buy cigarettes for his girlfriend, a dashing 29-year old Englishman reflects on their wonderful seven-year relationship, and his stellar career as an internationally acclaimed dancer and choreographer. But the nameless protagonist's destiny takes an unthinkably horrifying turn when a trio of mysterious cloaked and hooded women kidnap him, chain him to the floor of a stark white room to keep as their sexual prisoner, and subjected him to eighteen days of humiliation, mutilation, and rape. Then, after a bizarrely public performance, he is released, only to be held captive in the purgatory of his own guilt and torment: The realization that no one will believe his strange story. Coolly revelatory, meticulously crafted, The Book of Revelation is Rupert Thomson at his imaginative best.
An incredible look at sex and power, sure, but that's only half the book - the other half of this novel is about dealing with what's been done to you, about breakdown, collapse, and finding the strength to live on.
Really well done.
That's My Nephew
My sister's son Christopher won a year's supply of pickles for being terribly cute, and was written up in the local small-town paper:
PICKLE LOVERS WIN PRIZES
Two photogenic children from Battle Ground are among the winners of the annual Steinfeld's Pickle Pucker Photo Contest.
Christopher XXXX, 15 months, son of Jacqueline Hurley of Battle Ground, won second place in the contest and will receive a one year supply of Steinfeld's pickles....
The interesting part about this article? The interviewer apparently paused upon hearing that my sister's last name was different from her son's, and carefully asked, "Is there a Mr. XXXX?"
I told my mom that my sister should have said something to the effect of, "No, there isn't. He's a 20 year old kid who put in his five minutes, has no job, and doesn't pay child support. This is my fucking kid."
Unfortunately, she didn't. So the guy's name is still associated with this great kid's, and my sister is busting her single-mom ass off to get all her ducks in a row.
After seeing my sister raising her kid, I've got a greater respect for single mothers. These women get nothing but shit from the media - the same media that tells them they're going to hell for getting abortions, but refuse to provide her with free medical care and state-sponsored daycare.
Fuck those fuckers. They don't live in the same world I do.
Oh, How I Loathe Thee
The good news is: People who sleep more are thin! Gear up for the new weight-loss perscription: Sleeping pills! If you're unconcious 3/4 of the day, you won't have time to eat! At this point, I wouldn't be surprised by anything the dieting industry was trying to sell me.
But you know what? They might be sleeping a lot because they're functioning on so much exercise and so little food that their body is physically incapable of doing much more than sleeping.
As someone from a family of binge and purge dieters, I can tell you that a big part of the "dieting strategies" used by the women in my family were this:
Eat once a day, go to bed by seven.
You'll "lose weight" in no time.
But if somebody jumps you on the train, you're pretty much fucked. You'll be so tired, dizzy, and washed out that you'll hit the ground in about 2 seconds. My sister once passed out at a friend's house merely walking across the kitchen.
Which sort of person would you like to be?
If Nick Were Younger, He'd Be My Secret Boyfriend
But, alas, he's old and bitter.
But damn fucking funny. Germaine Greer is now apparantely signing up for Celebrity Big Brother in England. Germaine Greer and Brigitte Nielson (of Red Sonja fame) in the same house?
Oh, shoot me.
Nick's thoughts on programming, which are so purely Nick that I'm reproducing them in their entirety, and sending you his way:
"Unfortunately, America is so anti-intellectual that we don't even have any famous enough to make it onto Celebrity Big Brother. I know I'd watch Fear Factor if there was a chance to see Noam Chomsky eat a rat on the show. Irving Kristol and Murray Bookchin can switch households and speaking duties for two weeks on Ideology Swap. I can just imagine a shot of Kristol peering into a crude hole cut into a wooden plank and saying "You poop...WHERE?" Judith Butler is...The Bachelorette! Or maybe we can have a show where people call in to vote on whether or not Susan Sontag was a lesbian; we'll call it Who's Your Life Partner? Let's just throw the whole lot of them on a show where they have to make their way from the Sahara to Johannesburg: The Subaltern Race.
The possibilities are endless. As an official Nielsen Family worth 40,000 normal people, I demand that production on some of these shows begin immediately! "
Judith Butler as The Bachelorette. Can't you just see it?
I Love Living in a Blue State
Though I find it incredibly sad that people in this country have to fight this goddamn hard in order to get the legal right not to be discriminated against based on who they want to take to bed. There's something really fucked up about that.
No doubt weirdos like me were saying the same thing about color-segregated benches and barstools 50 years ago in this country... 10 years ago in South Africa.
Funny, how long it takes to change this shit, eh?
SPRINGFIELD -- For the first time ever, the Illinois Senate approved a controversial measure Monday that would ban discrimination against gays and lesbians in matters of housing and employment, clearing a long-standing hurdle to passage and inspiring one key sponsor to proclaim a victory for "fundamental freedom."
Why on earth is this a "controversial" measure?
This is why:
Critics of the proposal claim the activists' ultimate goal is not just to end discrimination but to shift social norms about acceptable behavior. Some conservative religious leaders say if the gay rights bill passes, a push for gay marriage will be next.
Holy crap! Society might change! Kids might not grow up hating themselves for being attracted to... people! We might have less teen suicide! We might have to actually treat everybody just like they're real people!
Gosh, that would SUCK.
Who would be society's next sacrificial goat?
Maybe fat people.
C'mon, you knew I was going there.
Monday, January 10, 2005
Packing for Denver
I'll be leaving for Denver straight from work tomorrow.
Now, the big question: how the hell to fit everything I need in carry-on luggage.
The drawback to working out in hotels: you need yet another extra pair of shoes and clothes.
Suck it up.
The Fighting Life: Ah
Sweet fuck, I've missed going to my MA school.
Accountants, attorneys, paralegals, project managers, architects by day -
Kick-ass Amazons by night.
Oh, how I have missed them.
For those in the Chicago area, my martial arts school is offering me the month of February free if somebody signs up and says I referred them. And, seeing's as how my MA school charges me a sweet pretty penny, I could totally use the windfall.
So, if you've been wanting to kick some ass, take a chance and come in for a trial class. Don't worry, it's January, so there's *tons* of newbies. Keep in mind that everybody there was a newbie once, and a lot of them were also 50lbs heavier.
Everybody's a frickin' sweetheart, and Sifu Katalin rocks the house.
Can't Get Enough of These Things
You can just never have too many of these things. I break into uncontrollable glee every damn time.
I Just Can't Pass This One Up
It's MSN, after all:
Ten Things Your Teenage Girl Won't Tell You.
Notice this wasn't number one, but should have been:
1) "Hot damn, dad, sex is great! I want to have it all the time! There are so many hot guys in the world!(And that chick is French class isn't bad either!)"
Ah, to be a teenager again.
Not that I'm much better at 25.
Because Everybody Always Gets Very Passionate About My Depression Posts
When I was in Denver last week (flying out there again tomorrow night), I tore an article out of my complimentary hotel USA Today - you know you're a freakshow blogger when you do something like this.
Apparently:
Lives were threatened and Americans treated like "guinea pigs" because Eli Lilly & Co. officials lied 15 years ago in denying there was any evidence the anti-depressant Prozac could cause suicidal behavior, a Harvard psychiatrist has charged...
Teicher, who considers Prozac valuable, said many of the problems with suicidal behavior were in patients given high doses, and that's how the drug was used for the first few years in the USA. "American people were guinea pigs for a few years. If we had known the truth, we would have used it more wisely from the start," Teicher said.
Isn't that just the shit?
What I worry about with the huge rush for more and better happy drugs is shit like this happening: the same sort of "oops, actually, it's worse for you to be on the drug than off it" thing that happens with a lot of weight loss drugs.
I've got buddies on Zoloft and family members on Prozac, and you know, though I'm all for drugs as a last resort (and for diagnosed conditions, though the "diagnoses" list is starting to look about as long as the "hysterical symptoms" list at the beginning of the last century), I freak at the idea that popping a pill is the first thing we're being taught to reach for. Somebody's getting really fucking rich while we search for "normalcy."
So. Pause a minute and decompress before going for the bottle, OK?
Same goes for pretty much all solutions found in a bottle.
If She Didn't Turn Into a Vegetable, It Wouldn't Be Winning Shit
Million Dollar Baby's taking home a bunch of awards.
Makes me wonder, if Swank didn't turn into a dependent vegetable at the end, would the movie have made such a splash?
You know, I'm thinking... not.
What's Happening
Amanda's got some really thought-provoking stuff up about how the uproar about public schools and what's being taught in them (history, sex ed, creationism) could act as a long-term dismantling of the public school system: making mucho bucks for the privateers. Check it out.
And yea, I'm still irritated with the hullabaloo about the Tsunami. Sure, it's great, the whole world throwing money and people out there; the media frenzy is amazing (everyone's so glad to stop talking about Iraq and whether or not Ashlee Simpson really knows how to sing).
And here's why I'm still really irritated:
Guess what happened today?
About 600 people in South Africa died of AIDS.
That's about 219,000 dead people in South Africa every year. Dead for a stupid, preventable reason. Not a natural disaster. One we can do something about through AIDS research, education, prevention, and giving money to local sustainable community project in SA.
Where's the money? Where's the public outcry? Where are the hordes of relief workers? Nelson Mandela's son just died of AIDS. Wake up, people.
In this country, the highest rate of HIV infection is among black women. Where's that on the news? How come Cheney and Edwards had absolutely no idea this was so during their debates?
Yea. It bugs me. We play "who's giving the most money" on Christmas, and tell people to blow off the other 364 days a year.
Sunday, January 09, 2005
Campbell Hopefuls
A couple of my fellow Clarion compatriots (class of 00, shit, has it been five years?) are up for nomination this year for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in spec. fic. (this is a bit of a big deal in science fiction circles), Amy Sisson and my buddy Greg Beatty (who's got enough weird-ass publications to kill a horse. Check out his Aliens Enter the Conversation)
Buddy Movies
I was watching the extended edition of Return of the King last night, and Jenn popped in and we got into a discussion about what a great job Jackson & co. did sticking to the original heart of the story while boosting the believability and interest of the female characters, and ditching some of the classist bullshit Tolkien was so obsessed with.
And we started talking about these sorts of war movies, how the heart of them is about friendships forged by men, about characters who have been given this huge responsibility, and the arcs those characters take (one of my favorite character arcs is Frodo's, because he's given this one task on which the world depends - all he has to do is throw the ring away. He goes on the tremendous journey, and gets there primarily because he's got Sam, and all he has to do is this one thing: and when the shit hits the fan, when it comes down to the wire, he can't do it. And I always wonder, how would that person live, afterward? Knowing that when you were tested, when it came down to it, you ultimately failed? Great stuff).
Inevitably, we started to try and think of buddy movies about women bonding in this way, women who would carry each other up the mountain, and about all we had was Thelma & Louise, in which the protagonists, of course, die, so that one doesn't really count. Female buddy movies tend to be about women who come together over smaller, more domestic issues, and are friends because they have similiar past experiences or live in the same place. They don't bond over a great world-changing experience. Joy Luck Club, Steel Magnolias, Secrets of Ya-ya Sisterhood.
When you do get those rockin' types of women, they're either saving their children, or their love interest (which is never, of course, a woman). So you've got Linda Hamilton saving her son John Conner (though in the first Terminator movie, she does save *herself* at the end, which, believe it or not, isn't seen that often either), Drew Barrymore throwing the prince over her shoulders in Ever After, and Kate Winslet running through the corridors of the Titanic with an ax in a desperate effort to save Leo.
The reason Thelma & Louise was such a big deal is because Louise pulls out the gun and shoots the fucker trying to rape Thelma. She protects her friend. It's this huge gaping cinematic hole that people have gotten so used to that they won't even mention it when they say, "Why is it women are their own worst problem? Why do they hate each other and compete over male approval?"
Well, you know what, we don't exactly get a lot of great images about female loyalty and friendship.
The best women-bonding-in-war movie I've seen recently was Cold Mountain (Scarlett doesn't exactly bond with any women in Gone With the Wind). They totally nailed that one. Kidman has a great rant about how she's been taught to be an ornament, how she doesn't know how to *do* anything, and her frustration comes through, that idea that now that the shit's hit the fan, she doesn't have any skills whatsoever to deal with her predicament. She and Zellweger get to have a buddy-sort of friendship where a man doesn't come between them; they don't fight over him, and their situation is often a life-or-death one.
In fact, I just went and looked through my DVD collection to make sure I wasn't missing anything mainstream (indy movies tend to get more leeway with this, but I want to stick with what's up for "popular" consumption), and I couldn't find anything else. Keira Knightly goes out to save Orlando in Pirates (there's mutal saving in this movie, which I love), but her and the female pirate don't even exchange any words, let alone form a friendship.
So where are all the *women* watching each others' backs? Apparently, these sorts of movies are reserved for "chick flicks" like Under the Tuscan Sun (I like they way they left this one open-ended, which is why I can stomach it: it's not *really* a romance movie, it's about finding yourself and creating friendships and families - and doing that your own way).
I suppose war, and performing acts that are seen to impact the very Nature of the Universe or Fate of Humanity have always been seen as male preserves. And if women are involved, it must be because they're hot on the guys.
I was clicking through movie trailers at apple.com and was startled by the trailer for Miss Congeniality 2: try to ignore for a minute the fact that they feel they have to figure out a plot device for Bullock to go from snorty to hot again and look at this - the trailer makes it look like a buddy movie.
A buddy movie where the two main characters are female cops, and not only that, one of them is black.
Unfortunately, it's not Lethal Weapon with women, which would be cool; they had to play it with Bullock being prettied up, so there's lots of "female"/"feminine" jokes they can make. But shiiiiit. A female cop buddy movie? When the hell was the last time I saw that?
OK, yea, there's Charlie's Angels. But the recent Charlie's Angels movies are played so over the top as to be terribly funny. The women aren't supposed to really be able to do those things. How the hell they're doing those kinds of kicks in 3-inch heels without busting an ankle, I'd love to know (in fact, I just busted out my pair of 2 1/2 inch sensible, square heels and tried to do a roundhouse kick - it's almost possible, but if you turn that square heel into a spike, I think it's all over, and unless you were a dancer, you'd be on your ass). Women are only allowed to kick ass and be friends if they're little, pretty, and fem enough not to cause anyone to feel insecure. And the angels, though friends, don't spend much time saving each other. They tend to save their male bosses and love interests.
I know that I find myself writing these gaping-hole types of stories all the time. I'm in the business of fantasy sagas, and the first thing I did was create a buddy-buddy central relationship between a man and woman who, I decided wouldn't be sexually interested in each other. I was looking for some sort of "pure" unsulllied friendship that had the same feel of the Frodo/Sam or Fellowship buddy relationships. It wasn't until I got through all of book one (the third version of it), that I started to see that there were pretty much no female friendships in the book, or at least strong ones. The women were still all rotating around relationships with men, even in my egalitarian society. In my female dominated society, where everybody was expected to form close friendships with other women and the default was being attracted to women (the whole Plato idea on its head - women can only truly "love" other women, because only women and women will ever be equal: men will always be inferior), I chose to have the viewpoint character for that society be a terribly staight female fighter with what she considered a rather shameful attraction to men that she'd never really been able to push toward women, and very few friendships with anyone.
There I go, stabbing myself in the foot.
If you see these sorts of images and stories often enough, you internalize them. You make them up that that's what it's supposed to be.
Why are women clawing at each other all the time? Why, as my dad said, do so many people think "you women are your own worst problem"?
Because we aren't taught to like each other. Boys get told to go out and save each other, and women, and kids, and we get told that women are our rivals, our enemies, and that what we're really looking for is to be that lone female fighter, the "token man" who can then look down on all the women around us. That, or you're just supposed to be the usual: a love interest, a damsel in distress, etc. etc.
I want more female buddy movies.
I want women carrying each other up the goddamn mountain.
What Hurts This Morning
Had my Saturday pilates class followed by my boxing class, neither of which I've been to in almost a month, due to holiday closures, and my own holiday and work travel.
This morning's aches are in (surprise) the delts, dorsal muscles, and triceps. Because I'm jogging with something like regularity now, the jump roping was easy. I'll be in Denver most of this week, so I'm packing up my jump rope, CD player, and jogging clothes.
I have two big concerns about living out of hotels, because you generally see two types of female travelers: the ones who deal with it by living on lemon water and exercising 3 hours at the hotel gym every night, and the ones who deal with it living out of stuff they can get out of the minibar, which is convienent after long hours sitting in front of a computer and meeting with hysterical guys all day.
I don't really want to be either of these "types."
I'm packing mixed nuts and protein bars, they have omelettes for breakfast at the hotel instead of those hunger-inducing bread-filled continental type breakfasts, I can order salads from the cafeteria in the central corp. building for lunch, and they've got Lean Cuisine meals in the hotel "pantry" that you can take up to your room and microwave. They've also got a fridge in the room, so I can pack out some string cheese, too.
I'm trying to make them get my traveling schedule down so I can still get to my MA classes on Monday and Saturday. Throw in two jogging days the rest of the week, either one on Sunday and another on Weds or Thursday, or one on Tues. and one on Thurs. I'm also looking into buying water-inflatable free weights that I can pack with me so I can keep my morning free weights routine up.
Mainly, this is my way of battling depression, believe it or not. I'm well aware that living out of hotel rooms is going to be stressful on me, and my best bet for warding off freak-outs is to have very set routines: eating right and exercising has always been the first thing I change/interrogate when my moods start to spike. I've also invested way too much time in these great arm muscles and kicking leg strength to see them atrophy in Denver, or Dallas, or New York.
This is gonna be a bitch, yea, but nothing worth doing is easy, and I think it'll keep me sane throughout what's ramping up to be a really frickin wacky year.
