Being Amber Rhea

My comments on Dacia’s post from yesterday…

Comment numero uno:

I think you did as good a job w/ this post.

I think what ppl from the outside looking in don’t get is, it’s NOT a clearcut case of Jefferson being vilified for his sexuality. And it’s not simply that he wrote about his sex life and also happened to have kids (which would be the classic “parent” == “not sexualized” fear response) - it’s that he wrote about his sex life and his kids in a very public way in the same forum… AND arguably took advantage of insecure women AND has a drinking problem.

I think (hope) that there’s got to be a way to fight the very REAL problems of sexual stigmatization and compartmentalization of sexuality without harming oneself in the process… and there’s got to be away to address these issues without letting someone’s bad behavior go excused unde the guise of it. Because no one is talking about that other stuff. Maybe - and I can understand this - they think it’ll make the sex blogging community “look bad” somehow. But the solution is certainly NOT to close ranks and sweep it under the rug for the sake of party unity.

I hate that there’s really no way to say any of this without it sounding like blaming the victim; but the fact is, this situation is so much more complex than how it’s being painted.

The legitimate question remains of, why bring these issues up now, when he’s “down?” Why didn’t anyone speak up before? And yeah, that’s a damn good question. Of course, it’s bc it’s germane to bring them up now; and I can’t fault people for not wanting to invite drama prior to this. But the mere fact that no one has wanted to touch it at all is telling.

Comment numero dos:

Suzanne Portnoy,
There are reasons (which have nothing at all to do w/ sexuality) to question Jefferson’s ability to provide for his kids, but I don’t feel comfortable bringing them up because it starts to veer into invasion of privacy territory, and it feels a little creepy to me. This is essentially a non-comment, I know, but I wanted to say *something*, just so people know that there *is* more to this story than even Dacia has posted here. There’s backstory that the casual blog reader won’t and can’t be expected to know.

I hate doing this cop-out “paste in my comments” post about this topic, but I don’t have any time for much more at the moment. Hopefully that will change later today and I can write more when I get home. Realistically, though, I’ll probably collapse into bed; my Ambien hasn’t arrived yet and I didn’t take a Tylenol PM last night, and guess what, it was back to the nightmares, cold sweats, and tossing and turning.

So, we have this:

For God’s sake you and Ren are the most negative, rage-filled bloggers I know for all your raving about sex ‘positive’ this and that. Like taking every single critical thought about sex positve as personal attacks against your desire to pole dance (did anyone criticize you for pole dancing by the way? I missed that part) or do sex work. Banging your heads constantly against that brick wall of how stuuuuuupppppiiiiid everyone is for not comprehensively understanding the terminology and the meeeaanning and history of “sex positive.” Who fucking cares? Be a feminist and enjoy your pole dancing and write something about how women are being treated outside blogland. Between Twitter updates and disecting comments from ‘radfem’ blogs, your blog has gone down.

So, anonymous commenter, does dissecting comments in my moderation queue that talk about how much this blog sucks because I spend so much time disecting [sic] radfem comments (funny, I thought my high point with that was around mid-2006) further contribute to the downward slide of my blog? Congratulations, we’ve just gone meta!

The possible perceived irony is not lost on me that I am posting the comment here as a jumping-off point for a post, but won’t be letting it out of the moderation queue to show up where this person tried to post it. Well, I don’t care.

And that (”Well, I don’t care”) would typically be the extent of my reaction to such a comment anyway - I mean really, I don’t understand what motivates people to leave such comments (especially anonymously; if you really feel that strongly, at least have the guts to put your name to your words). If you find yourself “bored to death” (this is the clever little fake email address the person entered; boredtodeath@brickwall.com, to be exact, brought to you courtesy of IP address 67.159.46.12) with a blog and think the blog has “gone down,” then truly, I cannot understand the motivation to leave a comment saying as much. To me the solution is simple: STOP READING THAT BLOG. No one’s putting a gun to your head and forcing you to read it, and anyway, as I’ve said countless times, the primary reason this blog exists is for ME, not for anyone else. Or, as Pink would say, “I’m not here for your entertainment.” You don’t like Twitter updates? You don’t like dissection of radfem comments? *shrug* The door’s thattaway, I won’t miss you.

Some things truly do just roll right off me. I think that under normal circumstances, the above comment would. But maybe not, who knows. Because, even under normal circumstances (whatever those are - but I mean, when I’m not dealing with some major life upheaval, I guess) there are some comments that even though objectively I know I shouldn’t give a shit about, because who the fuck is this person and why would I care what they think and it doesn’t matter anyway - well, the comment will get under my skin anyway. I’ll feel that familiar “sting,” that’s the only way I can describe it. And rather than try to quell those reactions, walk it off, suck it up, tell myself it doesn’t matter, I think it’s better to allow myself to feel what I’m feeling, and explore why a particular comment hurts me when another, objectively comparable comment does not. I’m a fan of the introspection and examination, after all (which is why radfems who constantly implore sex-positive feminists to do more “examining” really make my blood boil!).

This comment above, when I first saw it earlier today, made me want to cry. I don’t accept the “If you get upset the bully has won” line. I also don’t believe that crying equals weakness. I could puff out my chest and protect myself with snark and pretend like it didn’t affect me, but the truth is, that comment made me sad. Angry, too, definitely; but sadness was the immediate feeling that swept over me.

I’m on this new/old pursuit of trying to write as if no one is reading. That’s why I started this blog: to write for me. Granted, I won’t do some of the stupid things I did at first, bless my heart, like mention my employer, talk about the details of their ordering system and why it sucks, mention my boss by name and talk about why she sucks, etc. But hey, it was 2002 and not many people were reading blogs - such as, fortunately, the manager of the Borders in Athens!

Oops, digression. But as I was saying, I’m trying to get back to writing for me and no one else - but when I get comments like this, it shakes me up and reminds me that yes, there are people reading, and some of them are downright despicable and will try to hurt me. Either they don’t think of me as a person with feelings (I guess for some people the internet really does lead to depersonalization?) or, more disturbingly, they know full well I’m a person with feelings but they don’t care and they WANT to hurt me. And yes, I know that says much more about them than it does about me, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m hurting.

Believe me, I have plenty of experience with people being malicious toward me for being openly and unashamedly sexual, for being a feminist, for refusing to “know my place” or laugh at their stupid, offensive jokes. So while I understand that this kind of vitriol/backlash/hatefulness happens often and to many people, when I really think about it I still cannot really understand WHY someone would feel the need to lash out at someone for being a feminist, for example. What are they so scared of? (And yes, I know full well what they’re scared of - not that they’d ever admit it. But still, what makes people, even if they’re scared, lash out like that in such an unthinking way?)

As to this particular comment: Did anyone criticize me for pole dancing? Oh, honey, you did miss that part, didn’t you! I have a whole stable of comments from people telling me just how deluded I am, and won’t I please examine some more, and WHY do I do it, c’mon, explain WHY, because the fifty explanations prior weren’t good enough, and apparently I DO have to provide explanations on demand, because if I don’t then it just shows how defensive and insecure I am, and certainly a point-blank “fuck you” would be totally inappropriate…

Maybe one day I will get to a place where all or most of these comments roll right off of me, instead of just some. I’m working on it.

All this reminds me, I have another post started in draft mode about how I think people should be nicer in general, and I don’t buy the “proud New Yorker” thing some people do where they’re like, I’m an asshole and I’m proud of it, I’m going to be blunt, so there! I think that sucks. I don’t think bluntness by itself is anything to be proud of, although at times it can be (e.g., calling out BS, not sugar-coating difficult truths, not gossiping behind people’s backs). Again: context, people. I should finish that post.

I said this on Derek’s blog:

The MRAs crack me up with their constant cries of “censorship!” Never mind that they don’t seem to understand what that word actually means (hint: no, you do not have the inexorable right to scream your head off in other people’s houses and not get your ass thrown onto the lawn) but isn’t it the women - especially us touchy humorless feminists - who are supposed to be so “sensitive?” Not those manly-men, surely not! And yet, whenever I read their comments, I just want to holler for the waaaahmbulance.

Submitted without further comment, because none is needed, and because I’m exhausted. More stream-of-consciousness rambling wherein I do my best to pretend no one’s reading to follow, probably not until after my dentist appointment tomorrow.

Repost of two comments I left at Season of the Bitch.

I have longer posts in the works about each of these sentiments, but for now this will have to suffice until I flesh out my thoughts a bit more.

—
First comment:

I have a big problem w/ people who dismissively cast concern about sexual equality as “bourgeois.” To me, this says, yet again: “Oh, it’s sex, it’s not REALLY important, silly little girl.” And it doesn’t acknowledge the truth of MY experience, growing up in a working-class family and being VERY interested and concerned with sexuality.

I think Queer Dewd a.k.a. Bitch | Lab said it best here.

Major quotage:

Because, lord knows “my” issues aren’t also anyone’s who doesn’t share them. Because lord knows “my” issues are white mainstream middle class feminist fluff. So, heaven help me if I dare speak to something that has profoundly fucking shaped my life and the lives of men and women I love: being sexually marginalized, being erased, having to hide who I am or watch others do so, having to listen to all manner of bullshit.

So, when I dare talk about anything that matters to me, why, I’m a fucking pro-pornstitution feminist and/or white mainstream feminist - if I’m lucky to be called a feminist at all. If I’m even lucky to not be called a man. Because, after all, what it is really all about as I learned a year ago is that I’m all about my moist pussy and my vast, vast, vast, vast porn collection. (oops sorry. Channeling Heart)

Erased. Deleted. Evaporated. My identity, my past, who I am, who my friends are - it doesn’t matter - because I am immediately assumed to be engaged in the issues of concern only to white middle class women or, conversely, a male-identified, patriarchy-fucking, freelancer provacateuring for the right wing. (Damn. Wish I knew who the rest were. I need to do some benchmarking on my competition.)

Because lord knows there are no poor, white, queer women. And it often seems that the only way to have anyone take us seriously on this issue is to focus on extreme marginalization or the fact of poverty, rather than examining the everyday acts of silencing and erasing. If it involves bodily harm or extreme psychic harm, that’s important. But if it’s the harm done to women like RenEv by the way they are treated in this society, then it is *piffle*. If it’s the harm from having your sexual identity erased and you are bisexual: big fucking whoopee. And for christ’s sake don’t you even dare talk about taking pole dancing classes and how that’s personally empowering for you given your working class, Southern, conservative, Christian upbringing. There are more important things in the world and obviously poverty supercedes that.

Except. It. Doesn’t.

Because I (or Amber, or any other woman) can’t be pulled apart into those baby block beads that are discrete from one another, that can be snapped back together after examining each one: one bead poor, one bead queer, one bead woman, one bead white.

I am sex positive because I don’t know what else to call a feminist who fights against the instantiation of elitism and classism in mainstream society and among feminismS, an elitism and a classism that is so subtle virtually no one sees it, and who rails against the way this normalization of class warfare revolves around, among other things, sexuality and sexual representation. I don’t know what to call a feminist who cares about the way these same issues are racialized, who cares about the way sex and sexuality are subject to the same normalizing hegemonic institutions as any other oppressive system we are all supposed to struggle against and dismantle.

—
Second comment:

And also?

My feminism is critical of power relations based on a linear hierarchy. (This translates into me feeling guilty being ‘the boss’ at work).

Fuck guilt. First of all, sometimes hierarchy is necessary - and as long as you’re not being an asshole, there’s no problem. Secondly, we get enough guilt heaped onto us as women, without burdening ourselves with MORE guilt for achieving a modicum of success.

I recently had to ban another commenter. He left two bizarre, assholish comments. And I had no idea who he was, even though he claimed to have met me. (It wasn’t until after I’d banned him that I recollected who he was, thanks to a Twitter reminder from a mutual acquaintance… but I won’t go into that, out of respect for said mutual acquaintance [whom I consider a friend, actually]).

His work can be seen here and here.

After noticing he’d been banned, he sent me the following email, with the subject line “pardon me”:

Apologies for, apparently, shitting on your blog. Whatever it was that pissed you off was unintentional.

have a nice life

This, dear readers and generally sane people of the world, is what we call a NON-APOLOGY.

Not to mention the nearly unfathomable obtuseness of it all. Whatever it was that pissed me off? As if it’s just so difficult to imagine just what that might have been. No clue, really! I must be off my gourd, because seriously, what could it have been!

And then, the clincher… the trademark of non-apologies…

“It was unintentional.”

Well whoopdy-freakin’-do! That makes everything okay, then!

You know, I really do not understand why so many people use the “I didn’t mean to!” thing as some kind of shield. Why do they think that matters?? You didn’t mean to. Okay, great - so you’re not a complete sociopath. And? The act is done. The impact is made. You’ve gotta deal with the fallout caused by YOUR action - intentional or not.

I keep coming back to this post.

All kinds of people do this. Hell, I’ve done it myself, on occasion. And I do think there are rare (I repeat, rare) occasions where clarification of intent does matter. But those are the exception, not the rule, and the ones I can think of would all involve people who know each other really well.

The non-apology. It’s a perennial non-favorite.

Has RSS caused blog comments to dramatically decline? Is it an effect of one’s blog getting more popular? Is it random?

None of those answers make much sense to me, but I and several of my friends (Dacia, Rusty, Jen, Duane… just to name a few) have noticed that we don’t get nearly as many comments as we used to.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Quality is way more important than quantity. The “great post!” comments are certainly nice, but if those are the only comments, well, something is lacking. And I certainly don’t want assholish or outright trollish comments. I mean why do you think I banned valeko, Andisheh, and a few other repeat offenders?

Interesting conversation is what we all want, right? And shit, people, that’s not unique to blogs. That’s life.

And yeah, unfortunately, sometimes when there’s been a lot of conversation on a post I’ve written, it happened to coincide with a very busy time in my off-blog life, so that I simply wasn’t able to sit down and write in-depth replies. Other times, I admit, the flurry of conversation has been a little over-stimulating, and I’ve been content to sit back and enjoy it vicariously - and I don’t mean that in a negative way; what I mean is, I like listening to smart, interesting people talk!

So I hope you all will comment more. I know that lots of smart, interesting people read my blog (flattery will get me everywhere!), and we have lots of good conversations elsewhere (even if they’re getting kind of fragmented, with things like Twitter and Tumblr) - so yeah I guess I’m being selfish and saying, I want some good conversation here!

I don’t want flaming, or stupidity, or trolling… but good conversation. Like hanging out at a (non-smokey, not too loud) bar, except you don’t have to leave your house or spend money. (Unless you want to!)

(I am resisting the urge to create a “navel-gazing” tag to use with this post. Frankly I’m sick of my own self-deprecation. As Fred Stoeker would say, “It stops here!”)

Talk about your Bingo card of arguments! Seriously, if I see “selling their bodies” one more time - and from a feminist, at that! - I am going to lose my damn mind.

Other Bingo-worthy words and phrases in this comment:

• empowering
• collection of holes and body parts Ed. note: ick! Bonus point for use of unnecessarily porny language.
• cash in on it
• post-feminist
• sex-as-a-commodity
• Sorry, but…
• early sexualization

As I said on the Feministe thread from whence this comment came:

And I guess I’m one of those old-fashioned feminists that doesn’t think a woman’s entire self-worth is wrapped up in what she does sexually. The phrase “selling her body” is *extremely* patriarchal and reduces sex workers to one aspect of their being: their sexual behavior. Sex workers are *not* selling their bodies - they are offering a service. Sorry but I thought that feminism didn’t subscribe to the belief that a woman engaging in sex with a man constitutes a transfer of ownership.

I do, however, need a “Stamp of Approval” or “OK!” stamp, because the last three sentences of that comment do not fail. I have no Photoshop skills to speak of, though (aside from putting one layer on top of another to make the above image, and the like) so that’ll have to wait until Rusty feels motivated to create more graphics for my amusement.

Here’s an IM conversation I had with the lovely SakuraSarashi mere minutes ago:

[11:18] sakurasarashi: just got an interesting comment on my blog
[11:20] AmberATL30309: interesting how?
[11:20] sakurasarashi: its SUPER long
[11:20] sakurasarashi: and its from an ex creepy guy
[11:20] sakurasarashi: on the entry i made after being harassed that night
[11:21] AmberATL30309: oh wonderful, one of THOSE
[11:21] AmberATL30309: one word… DELETE
[11:21] sakurasarashi: i approved it… he took a lot of time writing it
[11:21] AmberATL30309: fuck him
[11:21] sakurasarashi: and made some interesting points
[11:21] AmberATL30309: you don’t owe him shit
[11:21] sakurasarashi: and was very respectful
[11:22] AmberATL30309: well, it’s your call. but i used to be all concerned about the delicate fee-fees of assholes on blogs, and then i realized, why? they have no right to my space. they got somethign to say, they can say it on their own blog.
[11:22] sakurasarashi: oh yeah, i have deleted disrespectful comments
[11:22] sakurasarashi: but i dont mind this one… just thought it was interesting
[11:23] AmberATL30309: i’m reading it. he sounds like an asshole.
[11:23] AmberATL30309: classic “Nice Guy”
[11:23] sakurasarashi: haha
[11:23] AmberATL30309: he should read the Don’t Be That Guy post i linked to last night
[11:23] sakurasarashi: i am SO going to link that
[11:23] AmberATL30309: seriously, anyone who makes a statemetn like “Guys are assholes” and leaves it at that? FUCK THEM
[11:23] sakurasarashi: in reply to him
[11:24] sakurasarashi: he has some hella WMP too
[11:24] AmberATL30309: WMP?
[11:24] AmberATL30309: “It’s taken me years of hard work to reduce my creepiness.” - bwahahaha!! oh really, dear, do tell!
[11:24] sakurasarashi: white male privilege
[11:24] AmberATL30309: uh, yeah, he’s kind of drowning in it
[11:25] AmberATL30309: clue phone is ringing… guess what dude… you are STILL CREEPY
[11:25] sakurasarashi: haha
[11:25] AmberATL30309: i’m sorry (actually, i’m not) but guys like this make me sick
[11:25] AmberATL30309: all tiny violin and male privilege
[11:25] sakurasarashi: i can tell
[11:26] sakurasarashi: lol
[11:26] AmberATL30309: i’ve just seen it so many times that it’s SO not funny anymore
[11:26] sakurasarashi: yeah
[11:27] AmberATL30309: anyway, like i said, your call. if it were me, i’d either delete the comment, or repost the comment with the FAIL stamp on top of it
[11:27] sakurasarashi: i was ALREADY in the process of the fail stamp thing
[11:27] sakurasarashi: hahahaha
[11:27] AmberATL30309: lol!!!
[11:27] AmberATL30309: GMTA
[11:27] sakurasarashi: I KNOW!
[11:27] sakurasarashi: can i quote you on the “clue phone ringing thing?
[11:28] AmberATL30309: indeed
[11:28] AmberATL30309: and now to get super meta, can i blog this whole damn IM convo?
[11:28] sakurasarashi: yes
[11:28] AmberATL30309: awesome

Here is the comment in question. It is an EPIC FAIL, as you will see from the number of stamps it required. (It actually could’ve used a few more, but my stamp pad ran out of ink.)

[Click for larger image version, if you're so inclined.]

As posted on my Tumblr (yes, I have one of those, although I don’t use it very often)…

That’s a comment on Tiffany Brown’s post about Violet Blue’s recent SFGate column, which I keep meaning to blog about myself.

Rusty made a fail stamp image with a transparent background that I can put on top of screenshots of stupid/ignorant/obnoxious/pathetic comments, or anything else, really. Fun!

Over at Sherry’s blog, I said:

I like blogs where you get to see pieces of who the writer actually is. How much of themselves they reveal is the choice of each blogger; but I do like when I feel like the blogger is sharing *something*. This is why blogs that are purely “industry blogs” or single-topic blogs bore me to tears. I can read anywhere about what X technology does or what Y politician said. But that doesn’t keep me coming back. What keeps me coming back and wanting to read more is passion.

At which point, my train of thought went where it always does when I think about this stuff for too long, which is down the track of deconstructing everything, and ended up at, “OH WHY ARE WE HERE” (said in your best Goth teen angst voice).

I really hate when that happens.

So, when it does, I decide to change the subject. Because really, what’s the point in entertaining that kind of existential question. It’s not productive and it just leaves me feeling creeped out. If some sort of resolution is demanded (by my psyche or by obnoxious third parties), I usually refer to Cake’s words of wisdom: “As soon as you’re born you start dying / So you might as well have a good time.” It might sound morbid to some, but I think it’s inspiring. It’s basically saying, “We’re here and there’s no getting around that; so let’s make the best of it, dammit!”

There’s a discussion going on at Dacia’s blog (here and here) centering around an ignorant statement one of her professors made:

During our class this week, I was attempting to explain that one of the main things I want to explore in the paper is the emergence of a growing middle class of sex workers as a result of the advantages of the Internet, and the fact that the Internet is creating a more visible and politicized digital space which some women create workspaces that allow them to opt out of other jobs and lifestyles. The prof simply didn’t accept the idea that some women would chose sex work or that a sex worker could be an intelligent (or even sentient) being. Incredulous, she said: “It’s not as if sex workers are writing master’s papers at Columbia!” And the whole class laughed.

Well, that’s some shit. In the comments I said something about how Dacia herself is proof enough to contradict the professor’s statement. Then another commenter said one example isn’t enough to “prove” anything, to which I replied:

One example won’t suffice? Really? Even when that “one example” is the person STANDING RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU after you’ve just denied that such a person can exist? (”You” in this poorly-constructed sentence referring to the asshat professor, of course.) On the contrary - one is all you need in that case.

In the follow-up post Dacia wrote about how anecdotal evidence won’t cut it in an academic paper. This is true; obviously I know this. In fact, some of you may recall that very recently my header quote was this awesome line from Belledame: “The plural of anecdote is not data.” However, there is a MAJOR difference here.

Of course anecdotal evidence isn’t enough for an academic paper. But I wasn’t talking about an academic paper. I also wasn’t talking about instances where - and this is what happens a lot in the blogosphere - people go, “Such-and-such happened to me, therefore it must’ve happened to everyone!” or “I knew X and Y people who did this, therefore everyone does this!” and so on. That, of course, is total bullshit - extrapolating from a few individual cases to The World At Large doesn’t work. I’m every woman; I’m cold, put on a sweater; and all the rest of it. HOWEVER. What happened in the situation Dacia described was very different. The professor was effectively saying, “A person fitting this description cannot exist.” And yet, Dacia IS that type of person and very much DOES exist. So, when someone is basically erasing the possibility of your existence, and yet you’re standing right there? Yeah, one example is all you need.

Anyway, the threads are interesting, if infuriating; you should check ‘em out. It’s definitely true that this issue brings out the bigotry in damn near everyone.

Akismet appears to be having back-end problems - and this was preventing people from being able to post comments - so I’ve temporarily removed it from my addcomments.php code. This means you won’t get any crazy errors when you try to comment, but it also means a disturbing amount of spam might get through. (This is especially a forewarning if you subscribe to the comments RSS feed!) Hopefully Akismet will fix whatever issue they’re having soon, so we can get back to a spam-free existence here at Being Amber Rhea.

Update: Akismet is back, hurray.

I realize I might’ve sounded defensive in the comments for the “Telling My Story” post. My knee-jerk reaction is to apologize, ’cause of that whole “be nice!” thing; but on the other hand, I feel like I have a right to be defensive, after some of the things I’ve heard/seen/experienced over the past ~4 years. What it boils down to is: this is my life, I’m the one who experienced the stuff I wrote I about, and no one gets to tell me how I should feel about any of it.

I wonder… are you actual people leaving fewer comments now, because of all the comment spam? Or is it just an illusion? (Maybe because deleting 50+ spam comments makes me realize how few real comments there are…?) If that is in fact the case, it’s kind of weird to me… I mean, I know it sucks if you get the comments RSS, but my stats show that not very many people get that feed anyway. So what gives?

Maybe it’s all a figment of my imagination. Hmmm…

Eponymous gets the best comment spam lately.

I know he’s been deleting his spam comments, but I’ve saved a few of my favorites in Bloglines, which I will now share with you, dear readers.

porn

Vinnie and the other coworker ignore me. They’re used to my bipolar mood swings.

Amateur

starts in a few days. My lawyer tells me I face staturory rape charges

Swingers Party Sex

Your Creative income might be able to pay the bills or fund a vacation to Cancun, but you’re always going to be working under someone who understands the actual business end of your company.

Gay Sex

Our cat flap?s broken which we think is the reason why the cat?s peeing everywhere. This is apparently how cats tell you they?re pissed off.

I think the last one is my favorite. It’s really hard to choose, though.

A while back, Toadvine said in a comment:

My concept of “our modern voyeurism” has to do with placing sex as an act at the center of our collective consciousness. There is an inordinate attention placed on sexuality wherein we spend more time than needed commenting or viewing or attempting to determine the underlying sexual impetus for behavior be it through psychoanalysis or in watching a television sitcom or in answering questions about which relationship to enter into.

I agree with the assessment that we as a society place sex “at the center of our collective consciousness” - but based on Toadvine’s other comments, I don’t agree with that statement in the way I took him to mean it.

Sex is certainly at the center of our consciousness as human beings. This fact alone is unremarkable - sexuality is a fundamental part of what it means to be human, so of course it’s going to be central to our consciousness.

Sex at the center of societal consciousness is a different matter. Sex is placed on a pedestal, something to be at once strived for and reviled. It looms at the center of our consciousness as a taboo, the elephant in the living room, the opposite of a pariah - because instead of being cast out, the more it’s villified the more central its position becomes.

The stigmatization and marginalization of sex has led to the surfeit of fucked-up situations we as a society currently experience. These problems are caused not by too much exposure to sex, but by a lack of positive exposure to sex. (Hint: “Girls Gone Wild” is not the triumph of a sex-positive society.)

I’ve read a few articles and blog posts about the horrific Duke gang-rape case, for example, wherein the writers attempt to blame the events on “our sex-saturated society.”¹ Blaming such incidents on “too much sex” merely scratches the surface, and belies a lack of any depth of thought about the issue. Mainstream portrayals of sex are unrealistic, infused with judgement, reek of gender stereotype reinforcement, and generally represent an adolescent mentality that’s been carried into adulthood as a result of this sex-negative culture. It’s self-perpetuating for those who don’t choose to break out of it, and this is where the blame truly lays.

You want more examples? I am happy to oblige.

In a sex-negative society, there are men who fetishize date rape. The women in question are there only to be fed roofies and then raped. This is true objectification (refer to earlbecke’s unambiguous definition).

In a sex-negative society, sexual introspection - and hence sexual growth - is not encouraged. The lack of intelligent, frank discourse about sexuality, coupled with the prevalent unrealistic representations of sex, lead to an unfortunate majority of people remaining in a state of arrested sexual development (mentally and emotionally, not physically). Then you get grown women harboring the insecurities of their early teens like a cancerous tumor.²

In a sex-positive society, kick-ass writers like Rachel Kramer Bussel wouldn’t have to spend valuable time belaboring points that should be so obvious as to be not worth mentioning. To wit:

• Embracing one’s unique sexuality embodies the true spirit of feminism.³
• The fact that some women choose to be sex workers does not pose a threat to women who choose other careers, or choose not to work outside the home.
• A profusion of porn does not mean that people who choose not to partake are frigid, sexually repressed ingrates.

In a sex-positive society, I wouldn’t anticipate the likely onslaught of, “But, Amber…” comments, wherein someone will surely use the phrase “baser instincts” - which also would not be a legitimate concept in a sex-positive society.

However, as a preemptive measure against anyone who actively chooses to misread this post, I’ll quote Nikki’s spot-on definition of “sex positive” (and my addendum) from a comment a few days ago:

There shouldn’t be any pressure to be “normal” by being ready to have sex at six weeks after birth, no more than there should be pressure to have or not have sex in order to be “normal” at the age of 20.

It comes down to doing what you are comfortable with, and not caving to pressure from other people one way or another. Pretty simple concept, really.

Legitimate questions/debate may lead to further blog posts instead of commentage, whereas nit-picking and deliberate misinterpretation may lead to me throwing up my hands and being done with it.

The footnotes!

¹ That’s probably not the best example, because there’s so much shit at work in that case - shit related to racism, classism, power struggles, male homosocial behavior, etc. But it came to mind because of the press attention it’s been getting.

² I don’t mean to pick on you, Buttercup, because I really enjoy your blog on the whole. The timing of your post with all these thoughts swirling around in my head was too convenient for me not to mention it here, though. But it is not meant as a personal attack, so I hope you won’t misconstrue it that way.

³ It could also be argued that in a truly sex-positive society, there would be no need for a “feminist movement,” since everything feminism stands for would be par for the course.

I don’t feel like dealing with obnoxious comments (or even inocuous comments) at the moment, or doing much of anything that requires brain power, actually. I would love not to have to go to work tomorrow. As a quick summation, my mom is sick, and we won’t know how serious it is until tomorrow afternoon. So that’s been on my mind all weekend, despite my attempts not to fret about it. Here’s hoping it ends up being nothing major, and all my worries are for naught. Oh, Naught, how glad I’ll be to see you…

In honor of National De-Lurking Week, how ’bout all you lurkers (and I know you’re out there, I check my stats) leave a comment or two and start up a lively conversation while I try to dig myself out from under a mountain of work? K thx.

In other news, we won trivia last night, in overtime. We are the first victors of 2006! A trivia game containing questions about Krystal and penguins? How could we not win?

I’ve added a captcha to the comments form. I know, captchas can be kind of annoying, but I was getting fed up with having to delete comment spam. I know I don’t get nearly as much comment spam as people who use popular blogging systems like WordPress or Movable Type, but it was still enough to grate on my nerves.

Anyway, let me know if you have any problems with the captcha, notice any weird behavior, or just find the thing so damn annoying that you vow never to visit my site again.

Russ wrote this comment:

First: “There’s something deeply disturbing about their obsession…”

Now: “Yes, another one in the series. What can I say, I must be some kind of masochist. This’ll be my next book review.”

Hmmmm……

I answered:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Eat my contradictory ass.

And then:

Actually I’m going to write a post that’s a lengthier and at least mostly-serious answer to Russ’s thinly veiled attempt to “get” me.

So here is the lengthier reply I promised.

First, let’s get one thing straight. I make no bones about it: I am obsessed with sex.¹ Aside from actually doing it, I like thinking about it, reading about it, and talking about it, in an academic sense and otherwise. I enjoy thinking about the place of sex in society, where sexuality fits in the context of identity as a whole, how prevailing societal attitudes about sex leave their mark in other, seemingly unrelated areas, and so on and so forth. In short, I am a sex nerd.

As such, I have given considerable thought to all these issues, and I have clear opinions about them. I think there’s a lot that’s fucked-up, for lack of a more highbrow word. I fervently wish for people/society to get over their/its fucked-up attitudes about sex.

I obviously have my opinions about how things should change for the better. So when I read, hear, or see something that is pretty much the polar opposite of my well-thought-out, thoroughly researched, and over-analyzed ideas of How To Make the World a Better Place, I want to understand what the hell could make people think that way. When I read things like, “A wife’s body isn’t her own, and she’s the only legitimate vessel of sexual satisfaction for her husband on earth” or “we lead mediocre lives where women take control of their own bodies and husbands are ‘forced’ to masturbate,” it makes me punch myself in the face and yell, “What the fuck?!“² Not content simply to say, “Fuck these people, they’re seriously screwed up and I don’t have time for them,” I am morbidly fascinated with what can cause so many people to have such warped views of sexuality.

They say that if you want to successfully defeat your enemy, you must understand them. You might think the word “enemy” is too strong here; but when we’re talking about people who want to pass laws to severely restrict what I can and can’t do with my own body, or who want to use my tax dollars to fund “faith-based” initiatives and feed my children abstinence-only education bullshit filled with sexist propoganda such as “[w]omen gauge their happiness and judge their success by their relationships; men’s happiness and success hinge on their accomplishments” and downright wrong biological information such as “[t]wenty-four chromosomes from the mother and 24 from the father join to create [a fetus]” - well, then I consider them my enemies.³

I want to understand where, why, and how they get their ideas. I want to get inside their heads - well, as much as possible, before it just becomes creepy. If I can do that, at some level I actually harbor the delusion that I can talk some sense into them.

Yeah, I know, I should probably get over that.

¹ I don’t mean obsessed the way Garrett defined it, and which is probably the more correct definition. But cut me some slack, my thesaurus was not being helpful.

³ Quotes from the abstinence-only education textbook Why kNOw.

W00t! RSS for comments works! -Er, mostly. Allow me to elaborate…

There are two options: RSS for all comments (link), or RSS for the comments on a particular post (click the link in the comments form for that post, or the RSS icon in the bottom right corner in Firefox). Why did I not also say “or the RSS icon in Safari’s address bar”? Well, here’s the thing: I haven’t been able to get RSS for individual posts to work in Safari. It gives me this thoroughly unhelpful error message:

Safari can’t open the page ‘feed://amber.tangerinecs.com/rss_comments.php?entry=545′. The error was: ‘unknown error’ (NSURLErrorDomain:-1) Please choose Report Bug to Apple from the Safari menu, note the error number, and describe what you did before you saw this message.

I wonder if Safari doesn’t accept feeds with a query string on the URL? Weird… Anyway, it works everywhere else I’ve tried (Firefox and BlogLines).

The timestamps are also screwed up, but whatever, I’ll figure that out sooner or later.

I modeled my code after Pat’s recommendation to use a PHP file that queries the database each time the RSS reader hits it, rather than writing a .rss file each time a new post (or comment, in this case) is added to the blog. My main RSS feed still does it by writing a file, but I might redo it later, because I think this might prove to be a more elegant solution.

Let me know if you experience any problems or weirdness other than what I’ve already mentioned herein.

Pat has been bugging me about setting up an RSS feed for comments; so, in lieu of seeing Star Wars tonight (we could’ve sworn there was an 11:15 PM show at Phipps!), I decided to work on that. I’ve got it working - sort of. My main dilemma now is how to handle comments for the different entries. It seems clunky to create a separate file for each entry. I know WordPress does it with one file, and then passes the entry ID on the query string. That’s all well and good - but my main question is about backend implementation. How do I make sure that everytime a comment is posted, the comments.rss file isn’t overwritten with just comments for that entry?

There’s probably an easy solution that’ll become glaringly obvious to me when it’s not midnight. I need to get to bed.

I meant to blog about…

• Tiger, which I finally installed. (The RSS stuff in Safari is sweet!)
• The need for realistic, responsible sex education in this country - inspired by this conversation on David’s blog.
• Why I’m not a “person of Faith” (inspired, yes, by my blog stalker from a few days ago).
• Zen-like musings about the importance of “living in the moment” - with the caveat of, as long as it’s a good moment. :P
• More ranting about not having enough time to do everything I want to do.

So, um, yeah… that’s all for now… I’m going to bed now, but maybe I can get the comments RSS working tomorrow.