Being Amber Rhea

At WAM!, in the book proposals session, Courtney E. Martin said, “Write the book that scares you. Write the book that you needed to read.” When I heard that, my heart leapt to my throat. Her words have been resonating in my head ever since.

My comments at the time, in my liveblog, were:

Eeeek… that’s why I started the SOTS Forum site… but of course, I recently shut it down (though I plan to restart it as a Google group; a lot of that was because I broke it and couldn’t figure out how to fix it). But also, it just started feeling too detrimental to be hanging out in that place that I had passed. Maybe that sounds selfish… but that is how I felt.

Maybe one day I will feel like writing that book. I don’t know.

One of the other panelists in that session (don’t remember who, and apparently I didn’t liveblog it) said she firmly believed that everyone in the session has a great book in them. I don’t doubt that I do. It’s the getting it out part that’s terrifying. And not just because of this part (another quote from my liveblog), though that’s certainly part of it - and a passable excuse, if nothing else:

A lot of people talk a lot about writing a book, but actually doing it is a huge sacrifice of a lot of other activities. You have to spend a lot of time just sitting in a chair, writing.

And, last relevant liveblog quote for now:

Courtney: “The book that’s inside of you may be the book you don’t want to write.” It may be the thing that feels too painful, or pisses you off, or is too real or too personal.

She wrote a book about body image. She says she never wanted to write it, because dealing w/ body image issues had been so painful for her.

I can relate… more than a few people have said I should write a book about significant others of transgender people. And I don’t disagree… I mean, I *could* write a good book about it, and from a perspective that hasn’t been done thus far. But I just don’t know if I want to. That stuff, even though I’m “over it” in some ways, in other ways I just want to leave in the past and not think about.

Okay, now I think I’ve sufficiently set this thing up.

As mentioned above, I started the SOTS Forum site in December 2003, and ran the support forum there until earlier this year. Part of the reason for shutting down the forum was that I did something stupid one night while mucking around with FTP, shell access, and god knows what else, and basically deleted the entire database (or at least the message board front-end interface; I still don’t really know). But partly, just like the line about sitting in a chair and writing, that was a convenient excuse. Don’t get me wrong - it’s very true, I don’t have the time, necessary technical prowess in this particular area, nor the disposable income to pay someone what they would deserve in order to fix my fuck-up. But I’ll be honest: I had been thinking of shutting down the board for a while.

I didn’t really want to shut it down, wholesale. I wanted to pass it onto someone else who would take over as admin, webmistress, etc. Except nobody was stepping up. And I had been distancing myself from the board for a long time: posting only occasionally, and mainly just taking care of behind-the-scenes issues like combating spam. The reason - and even though I know, logically, it’s not “selfish,” it still feels that way and I feel guilty - was, to use a phrase previously used by a cisgendered* partner of a FTM in California who was a lifesaver of support for me in the first few days following my discovery: “It was getting too detrimental to wallow in other people’s pain.”

I was glad the board was there - hell, I created it specifically because of the glaring lack of support resources for SOs at the time when I needed it - but every time a new member would join and describe her (it was, 99% of the time, her) pain and agony, it was like I was reliving all of that misery, yet again.

I created the board because nothing like it existed. I created it to be the support forum I needed. And now, should I “write the book that [I] needed to read”?

Let’s face it, that book still does not exist. First of all, there are only a handful of books out there by SOs of trans people at all (some are mentioned here, and even with that list, I was reaching); and the ones that do exist are mainly of the “my partner transitioned but I stayed with them and it was tough and here’s how we did it” variety.

Which is great, and those books serve a purpose, and speak to the people who need it. But what I always got from those books’ existence, and more significantly the lack of books by the partners who didn’t stay?

Well, it was the same thing I got from the online support forums “for transsexuals and their partners” (the “and their partners” glommed on as a superficially-inclusive afterthought):

“If you really loved her**, you’d stay with her.”

In so many words, and not. I got it both ways.

And, too:

“Think about how she must be feeling! It’s so much worse for her!”

This is when I truly learned the importance of safe spaces.

The board - especially the “SOs only” area, visible only to those to whom I granted access - was sacrosanct. There was no accusatory language, no projecting, no trying to turn someone’s life falling apart into a teachable moment. There was no judgment. If you decided not to stay with your transitioning partner, it wasn’t because you didn’t love them enough, or you were transphobic (that was the accusation that always galled me the most), or you weren’t willing to stick it out through hard times (Religious Right anti-divorce rhetoric, anyone?) - it was because you were doing what was right for you. What a concept.

I wish the board existed, now, in book form. I want the details spelled out - the process of going through the five stages of grief (because in many ways, it is like mourning a death), trying to keep up external appearances while your world crumbles from the inside, the self-doubt and self-loathing and self-hatred and second-guessing and all the rest of it. I want the affirmation spelled out in all caps, underlined, italicized, bold:

You are not a bad person for not staying in a relationship with your trans partner!!!

I want that book to exist. I know the ability to write it is in me. Part of me wants to, but part of me feels resentful that someone else hasn’t already done it.

And, anyway: I think I’m still too scared.

—

* We never used that term on the board; I guess because no one knew it?
** A big no-no: using female pronouns when I’M NOT READY TO HEAR THEM. Hello, my life crisis is NOT political; do NOT make it about YOU.

Rachel signed my copy of Dirty Girls, “from one dirty girl to another.” How apt. Little did she know that one of Rusty’s nicknames for me is “dirty girl.”

When I first heard about the book, I had a personal “heh” moment re: the title, and at the same time I wondered if Rachel would take any flack about it. I’ve read, in various places both online and off, criticisms of terminology used to describe women who enjoy and pursue sex unapologetically, as dirty, slutty, nasty, etc. ad nauseum. Hell, I’ve even made such criticisms myself, especially wrt mainstream porn copy. So to the simple-minded, it might seem like a contradiction that I like being called names while fucking and being called Dirty Girl pretty much whenever (only by Rusty, though).

But like my personal penchant here, I see the title of this book as a reclaiming of words that have been used against openly sexual women.

Enough about that, though; get me started and I’ll pontificate all night instead of actually talking about the book. I’m not very good at writing book reviews, so I’ll just jump right in…

I received it yesterday, so I’ve only had time to read a few stories so far. Of course among the first I read were those written by people I know - Rachel’s “Icy Hot” and Melissa’s “A Prayer to be Made Cocksure” (love that title, btw). I also read the first story in the book, Marie Lyn Bernard’s “Fucking Around.”

“Icy Hot” is straightforward erotic fiction, but it’s not cheesy. That’s my problem with a lot of erotic fiction I’ve read; it just seems too silly. I can’t take it seriously, much less get turned on. Fortunately Rachel doesn’t do things like use the word “sex” as a euphemism for vulva. Personally, the idea of fucking in 105-degree weather makes me feel ill, but really that just shows that it’s good writing - because I could also really get a sense of how good an ice cube would feel on my skin in that situation.

Melissa’s story “A Prayer to be Made Cocksure” is written in a prose/poetry style that I used to try to achieve but always failed at. She pulls it off. It’s really a thing of beauty, and doesn’t feel forced or overly emo. It has a feel of timelessness, which I think was the point. I loved it, and I just have to say again that I LOVE that title!

And, I just loved “Fucking Around.” Basically she describes fucking different cities, or people that personify different cities. It might sound weird or corny, but you just have to read it. It was an excellent choice to kick off the book.

Thanks, Rachel, for sending me a copy of Dirty Girls, and I look forward to reading the rest as soon as possible!

Via Amanda.

The rules:

• look up page 123 in the book that is nearest to you at this very minute
• look for the fifth sentence
• then post the three sentences that follow that fifth sentence on page 123.

I’m reasonably certain that I’ve done this meme before, but of course I’m too lazy to dig through the almost six years of archives to find it.

I’m currently reading Stephanie Coontz’s The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap, and the sentences tend to be long. Here goes:

Conservatives who endorse the Bush administration’s Gag Rule, which prohibits physicians in federally funded family planning clinics from even mentioning abortion as an option, tend to be outraged that courts and federal agencies have “hamstrung” teachers and principals in the public schools by prohibiting corporal punishment. Liberals alarmed by the denial of free speech in family planning clinics and the lack of civil liberties for pregnant women accused of alcohol or drug abuse have been far less concerned about the privacy rights of men accused of child abuse or rape.

In 1967, conservatives successfully advocated expansion of welfare workers’ power to remove children from their families when the mothers were unmarried, on grounds that lack of marriage constituted, in and of itself, a “poor environment” for children.

Yes, that was only three sentences.

I highly recommend The Way We Never Were; it’s very interesting, and knocks down pretty much every piece of rhetoric about “family values” or “tradition.”

From Wendy McElroy, via Ren:

Degrading is a subjective term. I find commercials in which women become orgasmic over soapsuds to be tremendously degrading. The bottom line is that every woman has the right to define what is degrading and liberating for herself.

The assumed degradation is often linked to the “objectification” of women: that is, porn converts them into sexual objects. What does this mean? If taken literally, it means nothing because objects don’t have sexuality; only beings do. But to say that porn portrays women as “sexual beings” makes for poor rhetoric. Usually, the term sex objects means showing women as body parts, reducing them to physical objects. What is wrong with this? Women are as much their bodies as they are their minds or souls. No one gets upset if you present women as “brains” or as spiritual beings. If I concentrated on a woman’s sense of humor to the exclusion of her other characteristics, is this degrading? Why is it degrading to focus on her sexuality?

<hint type=”passive-aggressive”> McElroy’s book XXX: A Woman’s Right to Pornography has been on my Amazon wish list for a while now. </hint>

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these silly quiz/meme things that purports to hold the key to vast secrets of my being; so here you go:

I haven’t read Orlando. I’ll be honest; I hadn’t even heard of it before this. Adding it to my Amazon wish list now…

Side note: I hate the code Quizilla generates. I always have to practically rewrite it. Can we please leave the <font> tag to rest in the 20th century, where it belongs?

As a precursor to my eventual full book review of Robert Jensen’s Getting Off, I wanted to post an excerpt from the chapter entitled “Pornography as a Mirror,” in which Jensen colorfully describes scenes from several porn movies in order to drive home the point of how awful and misogynistic all porn is.

With all the porn Jensen has watched (for research purposes, you understand), one can only assume that he summarized these particular movies because they’re the most effective at validating his thesis - and the most likely to garner a reaction of shock from readers. So what’s the deal with this…?

A scene from Delusional, a 2000 release from Vivid:

Lindsay, the film’s main character, is a woman slow to return to dating after she caught her husband cheating on her. She says she is waiting for the right man - a sensitive man - to come along. Her male coworker, Randy, clearly would like to be that man but must wait as Lindsay explores other sexual experiences, first with a woman named Alex, whom she meets online and assumes is a man. Later, after Alex and Lindsay have sex with a man in the kitchen of a restaurant, Lindsay is finally ready to accept Randy’s affection. He takes her home and tells her, “I’ll always be there for your no matter what. I just want to look out for you.” Lindsay lets down her defenses, and they embrace.

After kissing and removing their clothes, Lindsay begins oral sex on Randy while on her knees on the couch, and he then performs oral sex on her while she lies on the couch. They then have intercourse, with Lindsay saying, “Fuck me, fuck me, please” and “I have two fingers in my ass - do you like that?” This leads to the usual progression of positions: She is on top of him while he sits on the couch, and then he enters her vaginally from behind before he asks, “Do you want me to fuck you in the ass?” She answers in the affirmative. “Stick it in my ass,” she says. “I love the way you slide into my asshole. … Deep in my ass. … I’m coming on your cock in my ass.” After two minutes of anal intercourse, the scene ends with him masturbating and ejaculating on her breasts.

So, wait. Where’s the degrading part in that scene?

It just sounds like sex. And by some people’s standards, pretty vanilla sex. Even for people who would consider it at the kinky end of their personal spectrum, due to the dirty talk and assplay, I really can’t imagine anyone finding it degrading who didn’t have bigger hang-ups about sex in general. In fact, the only part of that excerpt that I see as degrading to women in any way is this:

Lindsay lets down her defenses

Note, that’s not a line from the movie. Those are Jensen’s chosen words to describe the onscreen events. I find it very telling that he uses language which casts the woman in the passive role, and the man in an active, even conquering role, with the implication of sex being a conquest and women having “defenses” which must be “broken down” by men.

This is, of course, the sexual script that’s reinforced by the dominant culture day in and day out, to the detriment of everyone. This skewed view of gender roles (as Figleaf would say, women as the “no-sex” class) is exactly what Jensen claims to be opposing. Yet with a few words, he’s revealed volumes about how entrenched he still is in sex-negative cultural norms.

…there’s a new episode of Mostly ITP up. This one is an interview with David Kaufman, author of the fascinating book Peachtree Creek: A Natural and Unnatural History of Atlanta’s Watershed. And I think it’s one of the best interviews we’ve done to date. In addition to talking about the history of Peachtree Creek and what it’s like to go canoeing in raw sewage, we also discuss the current water situation (crisis?) in Georgia, and what can be done about it.

So, Robert Jensen has a new book out, called Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity. If you’ve been paying attention to this sort of thing, you already know my feelings about Mr. Jensen. But now, with the release of his book, plenty of people who call themselves progressive or liberal are falling all over themselves to praise him. And it makes me sick.

I don’t know if I want to read the book or not. On the one hand, I feel like I should, because of the “understand your enemies” thing (which is why I suffered through Female Chauvinist Pigs and Pornified), and also because I think if you talk about a book without having read it, you’re talking out of your ass (this was one of my main gripes about the Full Frontal Feminism fallout).

On the other hand, I don’t know how much head-desking I can take. I’ve read enough of his articles to know what Jensen’s M.O. is. And would a fisking of his book really accomplish anything? If it would, then I might be convinced to read it. But also, Chris Hall has already posted an excellent, thorough review at Sex In the Public Square. Here are a few key excerpts:

I can go on for hours and hours about what irredeemable psychic flotsam the great mass of porn is, and could probably fill several volumes thicker than Jensen’s on the mediocrity, body fascism, poor production values, labor abuses and sexism that dominate mainstream porn. These are all things that people of good conscience should find troubling about porn as it exists today. And yet, even as I calculate all the sins of pornography to the nth degree, and catalog the ways that I find it disappointing and trivial in taxonomies so detailed that the Library of Congress would have to invent a whole new indexing system, there’s something else: I think that in porn lies our salvation. For those of us who hate the ugly gordian knot of fear and loathing that our society ties our sexualities into, porn is essential. We need a genre of literature and art devoted to sexual arousal just as much as we need those that make us laugh, cry, or cringe in fear. And at the same time, we need to develop a critical language that we can use to think and speak about pornography. Without these things, we’ve resigned ourselves to remaining forever mute about our sexual desires.

[...]

By using this thin sliver of pornography to talk about the whole, Robert Jensen has eliminated alternative genders and sexualities entirely. He doesn’t have to wonder what it means to have a transgendered man like Buck Angel making a good living billing himself as a “man with a pussy.” Dykes who make porn for other women, like the Cyber-Dyke network, are not even acknowledged. There is not even a whisper of the thousands of web pages and videos and magazines that focus on women dominating men, or cock-and-ball torture, or any other of a million practices. These sexualities do not even exist in Robert Jensen’s cosmology; he has written them out of existence as neatly as a respectable family who resolutely doesn’t speak the name of the cousin living as a “confirmed bachelor.” But all of these identities and practices come with legal and social consequences. To simply discard so many lives in a book that claims to honestly explore the nature of desire in our society is not only intellectually dishonest, but hateful.

[...]

Robert Jensen’s passion is reserved for visualizing women’s sexual pain. Never once does he turn that passion the other direction to look at the possibilities for women’s sexual pleasure. There is not, in the end, so much difference between Jensen and the most misogynist, exploitative porn director; neither can imagine the sexual role of men as being anything other than to fuck, nor can they imagine women’s roles as being anything other than to be fucked. And that’s why, regardless of my doubts about mainstream porn, I can never, never imagine aligning myself with Jensen and his ilk. Because at the heart of his arguments, I see the same misogynist bullshit that I want to excise from pornography.

[...]

One of the things that keeps misogyny a thriving monster in our society is sexual shame and guilt. Violence against women and gays comes not from people who are comfortable being open about their desires, but by those who feel that their desires are somehow wrong. People have a limited capacity for accusing themselves. There are only so many times that a man will look at women and feel guilty about his lust before those thoughts whip around like a serpent devouring its tail. Then, the problem isn’t him. It’s that bitch in the short skirt, the whore who’s tempting him and who deserves whatever she gets. And then, we know the rest of the story. We’ve heard it too many times to forget. November 19 was the Transgender Day of Remembrance, and December 17 will be 5th Annual International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers precisely because we know how the story of people driven by sexual self-hatred turned inside-out ends.

So what do you think? Should I bother reading this book and posting a review?

To some readers, this may appear to be coming out of nowhere, but just bear with me!

I don’t think it’s right to suggest that for one person to have their voice heard, another person must not have their voice heard. For example, when Ren’s ever-endearing blog trolls trot out the tired old “Yeah Ren your blog is great and all, but what about the sex workers who don’t love their jobs like you do? Why aren’t we hearing from them?” - everyone in response seems to agree that yes, we should be hearing from them, but that does not mean Ren needs to shut up. Her voice matters just as much as theirs, and her experience is just as real and valid as theirs.

Obviously, there is always the issue of what is appropriate at a particular time or place. You probably don’t want to break the news of your recent engagement at a funeral, for example. But just because I don’t want you flapping your lips in my living room doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t flap ‘em all night long in your own.

With regard to accomplishments in general, I also get a sense that all too often, we eat our own. This is why I’ve got the following quote from Octogalore in my ever-growing header quotes rotation: “We need to be able to feel good about certain achievements without falling on our swords every five seconds.” It really resonates with me.

I’ve noticed this behavior in a few organizations I’ve volunteered with, and it’s gotten to the point where I’m almost ready to bow out completely. I wonder, if someone in my “inner circle” (read: blogroll) of feminist blogging buddies got a book deal, would everyone else turn on her? Talk about how yeah that’s great, but such-and-such other person could’ve written a “better” book? Or would that only happen if the person was perceived to be white, middle class, or otherwise relatively privileged? Is it suddenly okay to draw generalizations about the lives of some people you know online, but not others? To my mind, the power of blogging lies in the idea that everyone is an individual with a unique life experience and a story to tell. And no, of course that story is not going to be totally fascinating and compelling to everyone, but it still matters in the sense that anyone’s story matters.

And, finally, I’ve never been one to enjoy wallowing. Sure, some wallowing is necessary and even cathartic from time to time; but then you identify problem areas, brainstorm possible solutions, and move forward. While it sucks that the bloggers getting book deals don’t represent a wider segment of the whole, that’s the reality right now, so what can we do to change it? We can do things like write letters to feminist- and blogger-friendly publishing companies, suggesting bloggers whose writing they might be interested in (and might not know about); we can make use of self-publishing services such as Lulu.com and use the metrics of sales from those efforts as part of a pitch to an established publishing company; and I’m sure we can brainstorm tons of other ideas that are constructive and don’t rely on tearing one person down in order to lift another up.

Wow, I was just reading about Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America’s Soul at Viviane’s blog, and then Thomas IMed me and we were talking about something completely unrelated, and then he mentioned that he was reading a book he thought I’d like, and by the way, the author lives in Atlanta and is doing a reading tonight.

How is it that I never know about all the cool things that are going on in my city, right under my nose? At least I found out about it ahead of time this time, instead of the morning after, which is usually the case.

So, I’ll be there tonight, with camera and recorder in tow, hoping to snag an interview. Here are the details; if you can come, please do!

August 2
7:15 p.m.
Discussion & Signing
Georgia Center for the Book
Dekalb County Public Library
215 Sycamore Street
Decatur, GA
404-370-8450, ext. 2285
gcb@dekalblibrary.org

There’s also a longish excerpt on the book’s web site.

Thanks, Thomas!

Last night I finished reading Audacia Ray’s Naked on the Internet. I was motivated to read it fast because I’d promised to write this review on the June 10, but once I started reading, I knew I would’ve devoured it the way I did no matter what.

I was totally blown away by this book. I had high expectations anyway, because Dacia is super smart and a kick-ass writer, and because the topic is fascinating and basically uncharted territory as far as books go. (Oh, and because I love to see my name in print, and there’s plenty of it in chapter three.) But the finished product was even more amazing than I’d expected. Just… damn.

Instead of spending the entire post gushing about the book’s awesomeness, I want to focus on a few specific things that really stood out for me.

In chapter one, while talking about the differences and similarities between lifecams and other types of webcam projects, Dacia writes:

The degree to which women who operate lifecams have had to be on the defensive about their choice to keep their cams uncensored (hence the entries in their FAQs and blogs that speak to the issue) is indicative of the fact that many people feel conflicted about seeing sexuality as part and parcel of the scope of a woman’s life.

I had a bit of an “a-ha!” moment when I read that - not because it’s some completely new concept that I’d never considered, but because it’s something I’ve long seen as a fundamental, pervasive societal problem with how we understand sexuality, but I’ve struggled to put it into words.

Society has a need to compartmentalize women’s sexuality, and even though I understand the historical “whys” and “wherefores” behind it, ultimately whenever I pursue this train of thought I’m left with a big WTF. I think this compartmentalization - whether forced onto women by others, or by women feeling that they have to conform to it - is the unifying feature behind countless pieces of the Bullshit Puzzle, and we can’t successfully solve problems on a piece-by-piece basis until we undertake the radical task of addressing this compartmentalization.

A little later in chapter one, while talking about Ana Voog’s pregnancy, Dacia writes:

[B]ring a baby into the picture, and suddenly people are up in arms about whether a woman who’s making homemade porn (even if that’s not what the women themselves choose to call it) is fit to be a parent.

I was talking about this with Figleaf when he was visiting last week. I asked him if he ever worries about being “outed” because he has children. He was pretty confident, almost to the point of seeming dismissive, in his answer that no, he doesn’t worry, and why should he? Of course, this is how it should be - a foregone conclusion. The fact that adults have sex lives - which they experience and express in myriad ways - and raise children should be ridiculously mundane. And yet, unfortunately, in the minds of many, it’s not - and especially when the parents in question are women. For some reason, female sexuality seems to be a much bigger threat - to whom or to what, is the part I can’t figure out.

One other thing that stood out to me was this bit in chapter three:

[T]hough many women have the potential and the drive to be freer, they still feel the sharpness of societal constraints when they’re moving around the world outside the blogosphere.

I can relate to that so, so much. Even though I have a ton of ideals wrt sexuality and I try to live as authentically as possible - because anything else feels destructive - the reality is that I still live in a larger world that, for the most part, is very sex-negative. My personal feelings about sexuality and sexual empowerment don’t negate the power of the double standard, the madonna/whore dichotomy, or a society that has legal buy-in to the idea that (for example) a woman who goes to swinger parties is an unfit parent. And on a smaller scale, sometimes even hanging out with local bloggers, many of whom I’ve come to consider close friends, I feel like I have to “tone down” my interest in and enthusiasm for sexuality. I try to actively fight against these kinds of inner reactions, but old lessons die hard.

I could go on writing about every part of the book I underlined or drew exclamation points next to, but if I did that, we’d be here all night. So in conclusion, I’ll just say, flat-out: READ THIS BOOK. I am in awe of it, and I guarantee you will be, too.

Orgasm schematic from 1950:

From: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Sex by Drs. Willy, Vander, and Fisher, as well as Other Authorities. Cadillac Publishing Co., Inc., New York. Copyright 1950.

View larger size on Flickr to get the full effect. More detailed photos of each page here, too.

My sophomore year at NYU, I took a human sexuality course. (The actual title was, “Sexuality and the Human Experience.” I know… how collegiate!) For the most part, it was a great class - knowledgeable professor with a clear passion for the subject, lots of good discussions, laid-back atmosphere.

But, I will never forget, early in the semester we were given diagrams of male and female genitals and reproductive systems, and we had to label the various parts of each. Pretty basic, right? Well, apparently not. I remember the guy sitting next to me having a really difficult time with the female anatomy. He kept nudging me and asking questions. “Is that the clitoris?” “Wait, what’s this called?” And so on. I was incredulous. I kept thinking, “Wait a minute… you’re in college - you’re an adult - and you don’t know this stuff?”

And I wept for the future.

But later, I thought, well… really, why is it that I know any of that stuff? It’s because I took responsibility for educating myself. The schools I went to sure as hell didn’t teach it. “Sex ed” in school, for me, consisted of three basic themes: 1) You’ll bleed every month, here’s why; 2) the biological mechanics of reproduction; 3) STDs are disgusting and awful and the most terrible thing that could ever happen to you, and we’re going to show you photos zoomed in 100 times to completely freak you out!

We never did the put-a-condom-on-a-banana demo. After we were told repeatedly, “DON’T HAVE SEX UNTIL YOU’RE MARRIED!!!” a quick afterthought was dropped in to the effect of, “But, if you do, use a condom.” But we weren’t taught how to use a condom.

The clitoris might as well not exist. And my god, there is no such thing as masturbation.

Given these circumstances, it’s really, really fortunate that I’ve always been the type of person who loves learning, and likes to educate myself as fully as possible about any subject matter that I take an interest in.

It’s fortunate, too, that we had cable TV. Because honestly, I got way more sex education from MTV than from school. This isn’t a wring your hands kind of moment; in the early 90s, MTV didn’t suck like it does now. And it had excellent shows like “Sex in the 90s” where I learned about real-world shit like being a single mother with AIDS (dire example); or the fact that lesbian and gay folks don’t have special gay germs that you can catch (upbeat example). This was back when everyone was still kind of freaking out about AIDS, so it was a common topic on MTV, with plenty of benefits and specials and whatnot, all stoically narrated by Kurt Loder.

In addition to MTV, there was a brief period of time when we were somehow getting free (read: illegal) HBO. I would stay up late and secretly watch “Real Sex” with the volume turned way down. I learned about various sexual practices and heard from actual adults who partake; in particular I remember an episode about a bunch of hippies in a lodge in the woods or something, having some kind of tantric orgy.

Contrary to Republican hysteria, no, all this information did not make me run out and fuck everything that moved.

Instead, it made me feel more safe than I had previously.

So, to review: The “sex ed” I received in school was paltry at best. Sex was never mentioned by either of my parents (and, somehow, I knew better than to ask). I educated myself.

And this was before the abstinence-only revolution, and toward the tail-end of the AIDS panic that started in the mid 80s.

So what the hell are kids learning now?? It really scares me.

I could write reams about what I think school sex ed should look like. It would involve pretty much dismantling the current educational system overall, for starters. Unfortunately I doubt any real progress will be made any time soon, and I worry about kids having to grow up in such an environment.

There is one good thing though… namely, Heather Corinna’s new book, S.E.X. It could not have been published at a better time. Teenagers (and plenty of adults too, for that matter!) need to read this book. It has the information we all need. Even if the fundie nutjobs manage to get it banned from various libraries, I really hope kids manage to get their hands on a copy, somehow. I feel like we ought to start a blogger fund, to send copies of the book to kids in rural areas! (Only halfway joking there.)

Okay, that’s all I’ve got for now. Seriously, I could keep going for hours on this topic, but I need to go to bed at some point. To anyone reading this, I say: go buy Heather Corinna’s book, and give it to a teenager!

I tried to express what I mean wrt the whole FFF thing in this thread, but apparently it’s still not coming out clear enough. Sometimes I have problems articulating what I mean clearly. Add to this the fact that sometimes it becomes difficult to tell whether it (or how much) is attributable to me not being clear enough, and how much is the other person/people not wanting to hear me. It becomes frustrating.

I need to write a separate blog post, I guess, trying to explain, once again, once and for all, what I mean. I’m tired of people - even well-intentioned people - sort of assuming that because I’m not falling in lock-step with arguments made by BA, Donna, and BFP, that I’m a-okay with the dismissive remarks about them just being “jealous” or “sensitive.” That’s bullshit, and I am in no way endorsing such stupid, petty assessments of the situation. Other people have given me a primer on the existing grievances WOC have w/ the larger feminist and political blogosphere. Magniloquence did so in the thread at sassywho’s, and then I felt embarrassed because she went to that trouble when really… none of it was news to me. But I guess something about what I wrote made her think that it would be news to me? I don’t know.

The grievances are real. WOC have been marginalized in the blogosphere, and it sucks, and it needs to stop.

But still - I am not okay w/ a lot of how the FFF fall-out went down. I do not think JV deserves to be treated as a whipping girl. I do not think it’s unfair to point out that at a certain point, all the noise gets mixed together and when you’re in a vulnerable spot, you have to retreat inward and take care of yourself and tune out the people yelling at you from all sides. And I don’t see why saying that is assumed to be a tacit endorsement of negative treatment of WOC by men and/or white bloggers, or why mentioning that JV has feelings is assumed to have a corollary of, “And the WOC bloggers’ feelings don’t matter.”

Frankly I’m tired of it all. I might do one more post to try to explain myself, but maybe not. Because I get tired of trying to explain myself. I get frustrated.

And I don’t like the assumptions being made, by some very intelligent bloggers who I consider friends and whose opinions I respect immensely, that, basically, I haven’t examined enough if I don’t agree with X, Y, and Z perspective on the matter.

It all sounds too familiar.

And YES, as a matter of fact, for anyone who cares to ask, this is all about me, because this is my blog.

I feel like this is something I could maybe explain more clearly to individual people, one-on-one, talking rather than writing. But even then, I don’t know if I’d be heard.

Queer Dewd had a lot of good things to say and so I will defer to her on much of what I’m trying to express, because she is very good at articulating things that I struggle with.

But even then, it’s not complete. There are things I have been trying to express, that apparently just aren’t coming out right.

This whole thing has left me feeling very wary about much of the blogosphere where I previously felt comfortable and at home.

The whole FFF thing? It just goes to show why I can’t write a book. I’m way too sensitive, and I wouldn’t be able to handle people shitting all over me. And you know, legitimate criticisms or not, at a certain point when you’re the subject of all that shit, it becomes hard if not impossible to differentiate the legit stuff from the self-congratulatory ad hominem. And who has the time or energy for it, anyway? It would send me spiraling into a flare-up of depression. And then, at a certain point with this stuff, people start going, “Oh, why isn’t she addressing any of our concerns?? Why isn’t she answering??” Maybe because she’s fucking exhausted and can’t stand the constant barrage of what, eventually, all just sounds like “YOU SUCK YOU SUCK YOU SUCK” - and what could she do to redeem herself, anyway?

I’m just sorry that it all turned out this way. There are constructive conversations to be had about the book’s strengths and weaknesses, but their potential is being drowned out more and more every day.

ETA: I don’t care what anyone else says… this post almost made me cry. Let’s review again… I’m highly sensitive and I also have the sometimes-blessing, sometimes-curse of being very able to put myself in someone else’s shoes. And as I’ve explained, in this whole situation I feel like I can relate to Jessica to an extent, and at a certain point it just becomes, let’s remember she has feelings.

And yes, I get it, the people with the legit critiques have feelings too. Believe me, I get it. But this isn’t a pissing contest. It’s about piling on and just backing the fuck up for a minute.

This may get me skewered but I’m past caring. Actually, I almost didn’t post any of the stuff I wrote about FFF because I felt I didn’t have the words to accurately convey what I mean. I still feel that way, but I posted it anyway.

Jessica might not even like me IRL if we were ever to meet, but still, something about this is seriously twisting my gut in the wrong way.

I was planning to write a nice, structured review, but I just couldn’t get my thoughts to be cohesive enough. It’s obvious I’ve been out of college for a while, and thus not having to write formal essays and such.

So, what follows is kind of a stream of consciousness screed, with bits and pieces of comments I left elsewhere over the past week mixed in.
—

I finished Full Frontal Feminism the other day. I’ll go ahead and warn you - this post probably won’t be pretty. Because, I’ll be honest - I’m pissed. And I don’t intend to self-censor in order to potentially not offend someone. I hate that feeling of having to choose my every single word so carefully because it might offend some person I don’t know, for a reason I can’t anticipate.

I liked the book. And, even though back when I was only 1-2 chapters in, I said that I thought it spoke to the upper class women I knew in college who thought feminism was “quaint” and viewed sexism as a thing of the past - now I’m not so sure. I mean, I still think it can speak to those women, some of them at least. But I think it also, most definitely, can speak to some middle class and working class young women. Knowing myself, I can say this for sure: if I had read this book when I was 18, it certainly would have spoken to me. Working class, depressed, socially awkward white girl living in a (verbally and emotionally; with rare occasion, physically) abusive household.

And yes, I identify with JV more than a little bit - and even more so than before, after reading the book and getting more of a picture of her experience growing up. So yes, I may get a bit personal in my review and lash out; I’ll try to keep it as confined to the book itself, but I’m also fucking pissed at the way people are ripping into her - and yeah, I get it, many of them have legit reasons to be pissed based on shit that’s gone down in the blogosphere, but from where I’m standing it looks like she’s become a goddamn punching bag, and white privilege or not for me to say that, I’m fucking saying it, because that’s what I see, and I don’t care who you are, but it’s not right to do that to someone.

Now, let me also say upfront, before anyone starts saying I’m just sucking JV’s proverbial cock… I liked the book, but I did not think it was perfect, or an end-all, be-all feminist manifesto. It had some problems. In particular I have some issues with how she seems to resort to the same old “Yeah, you can wear make-up/heels/whatever, but make sure you remember it’s not a feminist choice! Don’t kid yourself!” trope. You can do certain things as long as you feel bad about it, or, at the very least, don’t feel good (and god forbid empowered) by it. Also the marriage chapter was pretty weak (not surprising; there’s generally at least one weak chapter in any book like this that covers a broad range of topic areas) and fell into stereotyping and telling women what they should and shouldn’t do. She was very adamant in saying that women should not change their last name when they get married, for example. Chapter 11, “Beauty Cult,” was a mixed bag because I could relate to the first part of it so much that I almost started crying… it brought back some really painful memories. But the rest of the chapter fell into stereotyping again.

So about chapter 11, that reminds me. People are saying things like, where does Jessica get off talking about body image issues, when she’s young and hot. Excuse me?? That is so fucking offensive. Talk about invalidating someone’s life experiences. Plus, it sounds really high school. And she probably got enough of that kind of shit, you know, in high school. When people were abusing her because of her looks. Which, regardless of how she looks now, that’s what happened to her and that kind of thing leaves lasting scars. I should know, because that’s what happened to me. People who are dismissive about it seem to me to be lacking compassion and stuck in a state of arrested development, and yes I said it. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t see myself with a completely objective eye. The way I see myself in the mirror is all mixed up in psychological shit, stemming from things that happened years and years ago. Is that so hard to understand? I’m betting that’s how it is for most people.

So yeah, I feel like I relate to Jessica. From what she wrote in this book about her own experiences growing up, I see a lot of similarities. And I know how that stuff feels. Or at least, how it felt for me. And moreover, I know how it feels to have people not take me seriously - online and off - when I try to open up about some of the most painful experiences of my life. (I’m looking at you, Amanda Marcotte.)

You know, a lot of folks in the feminist blogosphere talk about playing the “oppression Olympics.” Like back when that shit went down with Heart and ChasingMoksha, and Heart was all, oh, I can’t be racist because I married a black man, and I did it as a political statement. As if that isn’t supremely racist right there. So, when people called Heart on her bullshit, it devolved into this whole “who’s the most oppressed of all” game, and people (rightly) called bullshit on that. But, I can’t help feeling like what’s going on here is a game of oppression Olympics. As in, she’s white and not dirt poor and went to college, therefore, painful experiences in her life don’t matter or aren’t as important, and issues of oppression that don’t have to do with race (as if it’s possible to separate any of that stuff out anyway - intersectional analysis, remember?), or don’t have to do with the most extreme examples of classism possible (Queer Dewd wrote about this), don’t matter.

And the cover. What the fuck about the cover. You know what, I don’t give a shit. And I was pissed back in October when Nubian had a meltdown about it. What should Jessica have done - put a woman of color on the cover? Then wouldn’t she have been accused of just using people of color to make a point? (Which is one of the things she being accused of now, incidentally, but not because of the cover.) She has said she chose this cover because she feels like it represents her. And for all the people who are pissed because ZOMG IT’S A NEKKID WOMAN - fuck off. Seriously. That’s another reason I think it’s a good thing the cover is what it is. To challenge those old assumptions about sexy/smart that still pervade even supposedly “progressive” thought. (And yes, I know, I’ve heard the complaints about “well that’s not sexy to me.” You know what I mean. Give me a better word and I’ll use it.) Plus, if that cover can jump off the shelves to people and potentially sell more books? All the better. If that’s what it takes to get some people to read it, and they end up seeing the benefits of feminism, then awesome. (Plus the fact that authors have very little say over the cover, but QD already wrote about that in detail, so I won’t bore you. Suffice it to say, the way some people were going on and on about it, I was thinking, “Your ignorance is showing.”)

Do I think more women of color should have book deals of their own? YES. Absolutely. But I don’t understand why that should mean this book can’t exist. Yeah, yeah, no one said that - not in so many words exactly. But the sentiment has been floated; it doesn’t take much to read between the lines. “Oh, if only she had done this; if only she had changed that.” Until suddenly, it’s a completely different book.

As Queer Dewd has pointed out, Seal Press has a history of publishing feminist books by women of color and other traditionally marginalized feminist voices. They tend to specialize in niche areas. And anyway, why should one book be all things to all people? It can’t. It’s impossible. It would be stupid to try.

I do think there are areas where Jessca could/should have done more when it comes to talking about how certain issues affect WOC. For example, chapter 8, about motherhood. Barely a page is devoted to the fact that while society expects white, middle/upper class women to be baby-making machines, the same does not hold true for WOC and lower class women. She sort of glosses over it. She devotes a little more time to the related issue of eugenics and forced sterilization in chapter 5, when she talks about organizations like CRACK advertising in poor black neighborhoods; but in general, the coverage of that whole area was pretty weak. On the other hand, the stuff in chapter 5 was probably sufficient, given what I understand to be the book’s intended audience, and the fact that it’s a primer rather than an in-depth examination of any particular issue.

Oh, and about the language? Well, there were parts of it that I didn’t like, but it had nothing to do with there being “too much cursing” - I mean, just take a look at this blog; I drop F-bombs like they’re going out of style. People who have a pearl-clutching attack because of that can blow it out their asses. What I didn’t like was the few times Jessica fell into ad hominem; it wasn’t often, but it did happen. There was a line about “prudes,” for example. That was unnecessary, and I feel like it actually kind of undermined the valid, strong point she’d just made.

—
Okay! This isn’t in any kind of order (obviously). Later I might update with links to other blog posts, and such. I’m feeling too lazy to do that at the moment, because it’s late and I need sleep. A bunch of people have written about it… Queer Dewd, Ren, Blackamazon, Petitpoussin, Donna, Sylvia, Jill at Feministe, and many others who I probably haven’t read. Google ‘em.

More to come, I’m sure.

Hope it’s not too late for this… those of y’all who can, should go downtown and check it out.
—

WHAT: ATLANTA Save the Book Review READ-IN! Bring a book (or many books!) you love, and let’s create a critical mass of readers to put the pressure on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to reverse its
terrible decision to “reorganize” its book review out of existence! They got rid of the book review editor, and without an official champion for books within the paper, the quality of books coverage is endangered! It will become disorganized and sporadic, if not simply perfunctory, until, worse, it’s no longer there.

TIME: 10:00 AM until…you decide!

DATE: TODAY, *rain or shine

LOCATION: Converge in front of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution at 72 Marietta Street. Hold open your book and read aloud or to yourself. Trust me, you won’t be the only one. Picture hundreds of people doing the same thing! [*directions below]

WHO: Open to any and all readers and lovers of books, newspapers and literary discussion. Come one, come all Atlantans (or ATLiens), Georgians, and maybe even some of you hardcore out-of-staters. On hand to say a few words: Atlanta novelists Joshilyn Jackson and Joseph Skibell, bookseller Philip Rafshoon of Outwrite Books, George Weinstein of Atlanta Writers Club, and Shannon Byrne of Little, Brown.

WHY: Because the city of Atlanta wants a robust, reader-friendly, intelligent book review, not just a section run on auto-pilot from above. Teresa Weaver has created and run exactly this kind of section for almost ten years now and we want the AJC to reward her expertise, not eliminate her job. Again, if you haven’t signed the ‘Protect Atlanta’s Book Review’ petition yet, here’s the link to it: ‘Protect Atlanta’s Book Review’

DIRECTIONS: MARTA: The MARTA stop is Five Points. Exit onto Marietta St., the AJC building is less than two blocks west (left). For an online Citysearch map, look here.

—
Originally posted at Bookslut; thanks to Rachel for letting me know. Between her and Dacia, it seems like I’m far too often finding out about local happenings from people who live in New York.

Fancy that… I don’t exist!¹ (Dan Savage’s take on Joan Sewell’s I’d Rather Eat Chocolate: Learning to Love My Low Libido.)

See also: “Chocolate” and sex (figleaf’s post on the matter). He’s actually read the book, which I suppose I’ll do at some point. If I was able to make it all the way through Female Chauvinist Pigs and Pornified without taking a claw hammer to my eyes, I can probably manage the trifecta. Anyway, figleaf is much more charitable than I imagine I would be. But who knows, maybe I’ll surprise myself with a sudden stroke of even-temperedness after reading the book. Stranger things have happened.

Anyway, if after hearing about yet another book that reinforces the tired old dog-and-pony show of men being ravenous sexual fiends and women just wanting to cuddle and bake, you feel the claw hammer inching dangerously close to your eyes, I suggest you hop on over to Sexerati and read Lux Nightmare’s interview with Dacia, about her forthcoming book Naked on the Internet. (Full disclosure: I was interviewed for this book, during which time I talked about being ‘libidinous’ and dealing with male partners who didn’t want sex nearly as much as I did.) Amazingly, Dacia’s book operates on the premise that women are individuals with unique sexual identities.

Asexuality is, of course, just as valid a sexual identity as any other. But no matter what identity one is talking about, a problem arises when one extrapolates their own preferences/experiences to the entire rest of the world. I completely agree with Rachel Kramer Bussel’s point that it’s important for women to speak their truth about their lives. (Coincidentally, I just left a comment to that effect yesterday on a radical feminist blog where I think my presence might be less-than-appreciated, but which I read and find interesting nonetheless. In fact, I’ve spread that mantra all over the blogosphere in recent months.) But again, the problem comes with making the logical leap that your personal experience is representative of the world at large.

Okay, morning rant over. Now to come up with good questions for the would-be interviewees in the previous thread!

¹ Ed. note: I am, generally, no fan of Dan Savage, and this column does a good job of proving why. You can cut the self-congratulatory male privilege with a knife. I’m citing it, however, because David IMed it to me first thing this morning and got me thinking about Sewell’s book, which I had conveniently pushed to a far corner of my mind several days ago.

My copy of Sheila Kelley’s The S Factor: Strip Workouts for Every Woman came today, and I am giddy with happiness about it. Not only is this book an excellent work-out guide, it’s also chock full of awesome affirmations and ways to help you examine and analyze and break down all the bullshit and feel better about yourself.

Level 2 pole dancing class starts in less than a week. I’m nervous and excited.

Attack at will, but I don’t have time for some kind of nuanced post where I choose every word oh so carefully.

This photo is not from tonight. It’s from February, when Jenny, Niki, and I got together in DC and were boozing in the hotel restaurant. But it came up in my random Flickr sidebar, and I thought it was appropriate, so I figured I’d include it in my next post.

Anyway. If I don’t start ranting now, then when? But I’m kind of drunk and it’s hard, and I still have this on-again, off-again headache. And Sara is distracting me. But I’ll just jump right in and give it a try.

So over at fucking Will Hinton’s blog a few weeks ago, that guy Expat Teacher wrote some shit about “porn deadens sex.” O, woe is me, I’ve never heard that line before!! First of all, I fucking HATE how people will throw out a fucking platitude like that and just expect everyone to just swallow it, without asking what the fuck they even MEAN by that statement or anything. Everyone is just supposed to nod approvingly. Because we all just KNOW that porn is wrong an dbad, right? Right??

Those fuckers in that thread absolutely REFUSED to hear what I was saying. I lose my patience real fast with some people. I mean, when people just refuse to hear me? Then what the fuck can I do? There’s nothing else that I can do at that point. I have made myself excrutiatingly clear, endured personal attacks and having my words twisted all around,m posted explanation after explanation, and still… they DON’T. FUCKING. GET IT.

The absolute funniest part was when some guy (and most of them were your garden variety straight white middle-class males, of course) ended up saying EXACTLY the same thign I had said, but as if it were COUNTER to my argument!! So then I posted his shit and my shit side by side to call him out… natch, no response. Here’s the link to that specific comment. (It’s good I can still do links, right?)

And not a one of them comprehended ANYTHING I was saying about class. Guess what?? That’s because they are head-up-their-asses, middle class white dudes with THE MOST privilege of any type of people in this society, and guess what, that’s why they can’t see it!! It’s awlasy these kinds of fuckers who like to think we live in a meritocracy. That’s bc they don’t realize all the shit they THINK has happened to them out of a meritocracy, is largely because of them being at the top of the fucking heap. Someone said on a blog somewhere, the best way to think of privilege is, if one person is on a smooth road and another is on a road filled with potholes, let’s not say one is a better driver. Or wait, maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe it was like, let’s not blame the car. Ah shit. I am fucking this up. Anyway, I think I have it bookrmarked in delicious somewhere… it was some brilliant stuff. I’ll find it later. –[Sober update: The analogy I was grasping for came from Alas, A Blog (via The Angry Black Woman). Here's the part I was trying (and failing) to articulate: "Imagine two roads: one smooth, well-paved, well-maintained, the other lumpy and full of cracks and pits. Most people will drive over the smooth road without even noticing it - but that doesn't mean that the smooth road hasn't facilitated their driving. Nor does it mean that the person driving on the smooth road has more merit, as a driver, than someone stuck on pothole avenue."]–

So here’s what I want to talk about with class. This guy was all, “I would like to see sex shops zoned into a particular area.” Well that’s how it Already IS, fucker!! That’s how it’;s BEEN for decades now, and guess what, that’s where the PROBLOEMS come from! Just think for one nanosecond about the term “slumming.” That is fucked up. That implies a direct corrolation between porn/sex/dirty stuff and LOW CLASS. And let’s not forget lower class folks are presumed to be “wilder” and all that bullshit… oh and when it comes to sex shops, strip clubs, etc., eben if they DON’T want it in their neighborhood, guess who has the most effect when it comes to NIMBY (not in my back yard) bullshit? It’s not the poor!

Look I was blind to a lot of this stuff (not all of it tho) for a long time but now that I see it? I fucking see it EVERYWHERE, and it pisses me the fuck off!! Because to me it is now so fucking OBVIOUS, that it pisses me off that some people just.don’t.see it.

Okay and this is one of the main things that annoyed me about Pamela Paul’s book Pornified too. She doesn;t want porn to go away. She just wants it to go back to being something confined to the wrong side of the tracks. And she doesn’t see anything wrong with that! She just puts it out there like there’s nothing worth examining. She even used the phrase “low class stripper” a couple times and just didn’t think there was anything wrong with it. (She also misquoted Andrea Dworkin, and while I am no Dworkin fan, it pisses me off when people misquote so egregiously, especially with feminists who get a bad rep anyway just for being feminists. She NEVER SAID that thing about “all sex is rape.” THat is a MADE UP LINE and somehow Paul’s editor let that shit slide!!) Check out Amy’s review of Pornified… even tho she is a radfem and anti-porn and I disagree w/ her on a lot of stuff, her review pretty much sums up the problem with the book.

I truly believe that until we begin to dismantle this deeply entrenched classism that is directly intertwined with erotophobia in this country, we will never make any real progress.

Well, this did not make any sense. But I’m going to go ahead and post it because it’s LONG. I’ll try to write more on this subject later. I want to talk about why sex workers are so reviled and why it’s total bullshit the way some radfems say “sex workers are the patriarchy’s dream girl”. No they fucking are not, you idiots!!

More to come. Later. Maybe. I hope. Arrrrrgh.

Ha!! Email from Jenny:

All right… I just stumbled across a Charlotte Brontë quote that MUST be shared. Rest assured, I loathed Wuthering Heights back in the day, and the wordiness and melodrama below are reminiscent of why. Regardless…

———————-

The thought came over me: am I to spend all the best part of my life in this wretched bondage, forcibly suppressing my rage at the idleness, the apathy and the hyperbolic and most asinine stupidity of these fat headed oafs and on compulsion assuming an air of kindness, patience and assiduity? Must I from day to day sit chained to this chair prisoned within these four bare walls, while the glorious summer suns are burning in heaven and the year is revolving in its richest glow and declaring at the close of every summer day the time I am losing will never come again?

That just needed to be shared.

My plans to go to the Pink Pony dashed, I instead spent the evening at Barnes and Noble, eating cheesecake for dinner and reading Pamela Paul’s Pornified¹ (which Sara Beth awesomely gave me for my birthday). I made it through the introduction and first chapter before the store closed.

What do I think so far? Well, by page 3 I was already brimming with unwritten commentary. In the introduction, Paul wrings her hands over there being “no stigma attached to porn anymore” (completely untrue, btw) and pines for the days of good old-fashioned shame being part and parcel of porn use. She relates an anecdote in which she worries about what a nosy septuagenarian couple think of her. (Sophomoric aside: I wonder if I’m the only one who found the phrase “she fingered her pearl necklace” amusing, placed as it was just after the elderly woman’s rant about kids these days. I wonder if Paul did that on purpose. I’m thinking not.) Overall, the introduction left me bristling at Paul’s harsh, judgmental tone, and wondering how she could possibly not see that the more things change, the more they stay the same. She actually writes, “It just plain wasn’t considered nice to look at dirty pictures.”

In chapter one, at least, Paul does an okay job of not inserting her personal ‘ick’ issues. Not great, but at least she seems to have made an effort, which is more than I can say for Ariel Levy. Also, unlike Levy, Paul provides actual citations, and notes that many of the surveys are not representative of the general U.S. population, and explains why.

Still, there was plenty of non-Paul material to rankle me in chapter one. The chapter consisted mainly of interviews with various men about their use of porn. Most of these men demonstrated a profound hypocrisy - they claimed to be sexually progressive, yet were all too quick to make statements such as this one:

“It’s not like I would ever date a porn star seriously,” Ethan explains. “They’re not the kind of women you could bring home to your mother. My mom would go out of her mind seeing me date a slut, a girl with no moral compass whatsoever.”

I love how Ethan and his fellows talk out of their asses as if it’s the gospel truth. And if that’s what they really believe about women who work in the sex industry, then the fact that they continue to view porn, go to strip clubs, etc. as if it’s no skin off their backs speaks volumes about what they think of women. Progressive my left nipple. Again, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Oh and also? I should do a shot every time one of these interviewees makes an appeal to “evolutionary psychology.” I’d be ready for NaDruBloDa a month early. Seriously, stop talking about how men are “biologically programmed to fuck as many women as possible.” Just stop. No one wants to watch you rationalize your sense of entitlement.²

And just a quick tangent here, but that bullshit about “those kind of women” - ah yes, othering! - annoys me on a personal level. It started about 8 or 9 years ago, when I realized that, hey, I wouldn’t mind doing a lot of this stuff that’s apparently so awful, and guess what? I’m not a drug addict, I wasn’t sexually abused, I’m not incapable of having a relationship, and whatever else is supposed to be wrong with me if I want to (for example) be a stripper. (As we know, that idea fizzled out back in college, for a variety of reasons. And though I can now walk in heels, I imagine there might be other crap I’d have to put up with. For instance, I’ll be damned if I’m going to wax my asscrack. The customers would either have to deal with natural ass, or my employer would have to subsidize my ass-waxing sessions, as well as the required daily moisturizer, hemorrhoid cream, etc. Okay, parenthetical statement is now longer than the original sentence…)

Anyway. We’ll see where the book goes from here. Honestly, I don’t have high expectations. And oh god, soon I’ll have to write about the trainwreck that was Glenn Beck’s 4-part “exposé” about porn. Yes, I actually suffered through all 4 parts. It was excruciating.

—————————————
¹ Interesting factoid about the book. The hardcover edition (which I have) is subtitled, “How pornography is transforming our lives, our relationships, and our families.” But the paperback edition is subtitled, “How pornography is damaging our lives, our relationships, and our families.” Hmmm…
² I will smack the first person who comes along and asks why I’m saying there’s something wrong with having lots of sex partners. Read anything else sex-related I’ve written on this blog and then come back, k?