Being Amber Rhea

Via Melissa (I would never read Gawker Media blogs if it weren’t for her!), powerful words from someone called Slut Machine, on Jezebel:

I’m pissed. It’s an anger that’s been on a slow boil that’s beginning to bubble over, and at this point, there’s no putting a lid on it. I’ve been writing about sex on a pretty public platform for some time now, at first anonymously, and then under my real name. I’ve had to endure ignorant assumptions and cheap shots made about my looks, my weight, my vagina, my tits, my sexual health, my mental health, my morality, my character — and all for what? Being honest? For liking sex? I’ve poured my guts out all over my keyboard, and I’m well aware that that invites criticism, particularly on the internet, where people think they can say whatever the fuck they please — in the most offensive manner possible that they would never employ in real life — with impunity because they’re protected behind a shroud of anonymity. It’s frustrating. And lemme tell you, I am so sick of people telling me, “You write about sex and personal issues. You have to accept that people will sling insults.” Fuck. That. Shit. I don’t have to accept it. I refuse to accept it. Mostly because I know that this wouldn’t happen if I were a man.

Rock on, lady! I can relate. (Today’s understatement.)

And yeah, this is related to the last post because it’s yet another manifestation of the sexual double standard and bullshit sexism in our society. (I kind of hate whenever I type “in our society,” because it reminds me of freshman year of college when my friend Kira and I used to hang out in Washington Square Park between classes with this very disaffected emo guy who was in a punk band, and one time Kira and I went to see them play and their music was all screaming commentary, and one song was just repeating “society” and “brutality” over and over, and Kira said, “I can’t listen to songs with the word ’society’ in them.” But really, there’s no other way to put it that I can think of.)

Octogalore is back in the blogging game after a hiatus, and one line in particular from her post today resonated with me:

“Often, as women, we leave ourselves last in our efforts to be about everything.”

I don’t identify with the entire post, but that line really struck me. I’m just going to repost what I said in a comment there…

This is something I struggle with a lot. And I think it’s partly due to how women are socialized: as caretakers. We are socialized to put others’ needs ahead of our own, and told this is a virtue. And when you’ve been getting that message from day 1, it’s pretty damn hard to resist.

But I try. I push back against those feelings that tell me I’m selfish if I take care of myself or if I don’t donate to every cause or volunteer on every committee or whatever.

And to be honest this is why I had to take a step back from certain corners of the blogosphere. It was making me feel too guilty, reading about all these causes I wasn’t involved in, and the not so subtle undertone of being a bad person if I wasn’t vocal for every cause out there.

—

This part is true too, and I get pissed off at how it’s supposedly so “hypocritical” to point out the glaringly obvious… well, hypocritical from a male liberal definition, of course. It’s funny (not ha-ha funny) how quickly the mask comes off, isn’t it?

How many guys do you know in 2-income households who are doing maybe 10-30% of the household/childcare work and don’t feel concerned in the slightest? Or, how many guys feel like if they are making money and changing the occasional diaper or attending the occasional Little League game, they don’t need to keep themselves in shape? Guys who wear your bra size but look pityingly at your miked Lean Cuisine? OK, you can stop counting now.

Mm-hmm. Now somebody will come out of the woodwork and tell me I’m being antithetical to feminism and a reverse sexist, and this is why they call themselves a humanist not a feminist, and blah blah.

But it’s true. And we’ve gotta keep pushing against that shit so it’s NOT the norm. Not that guys should feel über-stressed all the time either. But it’s not fair to have different expectations for men and women parents. That’s called a double standard, after all.

Via thoughts of an erotic laborer:

A third assumption made in the media that I find especially troubling is the unchallenged double standard between prosecuting prostitutes, and letting clients walk. So on the one hand, they are saying that Spitzer did something beyond the pale of morality, that calls into question his ability to be part of a family unit, and on the other they are saying that what he did generally doesn’t even merit prosecution. No big deal. Unless you happen to be a prostitute, in which case you deserve to go to jail.

I already posted a quote of the day, so this one will have to be for tomorrow (let’s just pretend I do these on a regular basis). Susan Mernit has written a seriously kick-ass BlogHer post, and really I should just say this is the post of the day instead of the quote of the day, because it’s hard to choose an excerpt.

I was going to write a post, at my friend Viviane’s urging, about women sex bloggers who are persecuted and their blogs shut down because their frankness offends members of their extended real world community, but I think the real issue we need to talk about is the high price women are made to pay, again and again, both for being sexual and for speaking their mind.

It’s not about the blogs, you see, it’s about the right for complete self expression. In other words, it’s about being silenced.

In my view, as much as we have strong women coming forth to share their experiences and beliefs, the culture at large is still making those who don’t fit the standard models—whether because of their sexual practices or their social mores—pay a price, and this is particularly true for women.

This kinda coincides with my latest Download Squad post (note the warning label is still intact, with irony apparently lost), but Susan is more eloquent. Read the whole thing. Oh, and she mentions Dacia and Paris Hilton one right after the other. Ha!

(But Susan, one question… Dave Winer is your friend? Really? Glad you guys get along, but geez, personally I cannot be friends with guys who say shit like, “Women are always accusing men of being sexist!” Cue tiny violin, take 5,676,372.)

There has been a whole lot of awesomeness at Bound, Not Gagged lately (in addition to their usual awesomeness, that is), in response to Melissa Farley’s latest piece of “research.” I urge everyone to go read all the good stuff there, listen, think, and learn.

There’s so much kick-ass writing there that it’s almost impossible to choose a blockquote representative of the whole. But Amanda really nails it with this post, so I give you the following quotage:

Today’s feminists rail against prostitution. They reduce women to their orifices and make judgments based on sexual activity - the exact same crime they accuse all men of doing to them. I fail to see the difference. One person who bases my value as a woman on my baby-making abilities and purity is pretty much the same as any other person who does - regardless of gender.

Well, two things, actually; of which two blog posts this morning have reminded me.

1. The “Thirteen is trouble!!1!!! OMG!!1!!1″ thing. Veronica wrote about it. She says she felt insulted by it. So did I - especially because I was such a ridiculously well-behaved kid, all around. When people would start with that “ooooh the teenage years are the hard part!” crap, I would, like Veronica, want to behave like a crazy person, just because it seemed expected of me. But I never had the stones to actually do anything “bad.” And that made me annoyed with myself. But that’s another story. Anyway, the whole “teenagers are scary” thing always pissed me off because it seemed so dismissive, and made me feel like I was being set up for damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

2. The “make them do something they aren’t ready for” thing. Rootie wrote about it in passing, in a very touching post about her son’s 16th birthday. That bit stood out at me, though, as it always had; because from the time I was old enough to recognize myself as a sexual being, it always annoyed the shit out of me. And my annoyance only grew stronger as I got into my later teen years. Because, I was ready for that elusive “something.” And I was so frustrated at how girls were always cast as not being ready, and being pressured by boys who didn’t give a shit about their feelings; and boys were always cast as being ready at the drop of a hat, girls’ feelings be damned. There was nowhere that I fit in that script. The idea of a girl having active desires of her own, having agency, pursuing things she wanted, and - gasp! - at the same time being capable of recognizing others as people with feelings and desires of their own, was apparently beyond the pale. (Or, of course, girls were sluts. That was the other option. But again, it was all about them “letting” the boys “do things to them.” No agency. Always passive.)

And that’s what I think of that.

Ren rocks. And her post today about her faithful blog trolls (including the extremely annoying “concern” variety) seems particularly apt given… well, just see for yourself:

I look around at a lot of other people, homosexuals, BSDM enthusiasts, bisexuals, exhibitionists, other assorted “pervs and freaks” and I think…well, what about them? What about us? I am one of those people…and guess what, y’all, we’ve all suffered too for our sexuality. We’ve been stereotyped, called sick, cast out by family and friends, insulted, made to feel bad or lesser or wrong for liking what we like, doing what we do…

Read the whole post.

It’s great when you can get past the bullshit and just be. Be who you are, do what you love, and allow others the room to do the same - regardless of whether it’s what you love. And, for as much as it’s tossed around as snark, there really is something to be said for, “I’m a unique, special snowflake - just like everyone else.”

(Post about last night’s Social Media Club Atlanta meeting coming soon, when I have time.)

Okay, this is just too damn funny. Where to begin…?

I don’t really know what BlogNetNews is or why I’m supposed to care. Anyone can build an aggregator, but the blogosphere relies on community buy-in, and apparently some of my fellow Georgia bloggers think BNN is something worth noticing, or at least something not worth laughing at? I don’t know. I remember hearing about it a few months ago at Grayson’s, then I forgot; then Sara blogged about it yesterday.

– Okay. I feel the need to interject something here, given the profound lack of basic reading and listening ability many people demonstrated during the fallout of the Creative Loafing hunk-of-shit blogosphere article. People who apparently couldn’t see beyond their own shit got all hung up on, “These folks are just JEALOUS that they weren’t INCLUDED!!1!11!OMGhighschool”. This isn’t about me being jealous of not being listed on freakin’ BlogNetNews, ffs. This is just some funny shit… Ren, got an extra “Typical” file? I need to replenish my stock.

(Interjection over.)

So anyway, after I saw Sara’s post yesterday, I overheard Rusty talking about other bloggers (who I don’t read as often) who had written about this apparent Top 10 list. I decided to check out the BlogNetNews site. There was a link to email them your feed if it wasn’t listed. So I sent a two-line email with my blog URL and my feed URL, with the subject line “For BlogNetNews Georgia.”

Here is the email I received in response:

Amber,

I am sure you’ve heard this before: You are trouble. BNN/Georgia is a humble politics and public affairs blog aggregator. Your content isn’t very local or public affairsy. However, I love the blog and your obviously broad blogging involvement. Take a look at www.blognetnews.com/cotillion . I built it for a friend who is a member. I am wondering whether you might have an idea for a group that you belong to. Thoughts?

Best,
Dave Mastio

BlogNetNews.com
We Serve Blogging

Remember to visit our advertisers

Bwahahahaha… what the fuck.

We will come back to the “you’re trouble” remark. Let’s just stick, for now, with the “your content isn’t very local” part. I sent him some examples…

Search my 5+ years of archives (I haven’t been at that URL for long) if you’re so inclined… on the old blog I had a category for “Atlanta”; on the new blog I have an “Atlanta” tag. I publicize local events of interest very frequently. Everything tagged “Atlanta” at my new URL: http://www.beingamberrhea.com/tag/Atlanta

I organized PodCamp Atlanta. I’m the co-founder of the Georgia Podcast Network. Pretty darn local. I give presentations on the value of hyperlocal content. I attend meetings of the Atlanta Press Club (I’m a member), Social Media Club Atlanta, Georgia for Democracy, Georgians for Choice… the list goes on… to help figure out how to best leverage social media at the local level.

But okay. My content isn’t local or “public affairsy.”

Dave replies again…

Let me be a little more clear. The intent of the blognetnews state sites is to cover state and local news and politics. Reading your posts, I didn’t see you covering what I think fits in to waht I am trying to do on those sites. We are building other aggregators — city focused ones where all topics will be in and national ones that will take narrower slices of the blogosphere. You’d fit in both those places.

The last part of my note was a suggestion that you come up with an idea for a national aggregator where you’d fit.

I replied with a short note…

I understood the last part of your note, but I’m not interested in being part of a national aggregator. My main concern/interest is hyperlocal content, which is why Rusty and I started the Georgia Podcast Network. We feel new media has the most potential for influence at the local level.

I also asked him to clarify what he meant by saying that I’m “trouble.” His reply:

Visits to sex clubs are hardly the stuff of a mainstream site.

Now, this is the REALLY hilarious part. I mean, aside from it being just good old-fashioned sex negativity and compartmentalization of sexuality, it’s also just another boring rehashing of - guess what! - the double standard! Oh, yay! I just never get tired of that.

This is highly (grimly) amusing to me, because Rusty’s blog is listed on BlogNetNews. He recently wrote about our visit to the sex club, too. But, as Jenny said in an email, “You’re a woman. You may choose between your sexuality and your intelligence. You may not have both.”

Lest we forget!

Many other questions spring to mind, too, such as: what makes him think I’m trying to produce a “mainstream site” - whatever that even means?

Btw, Dave is fine w/ my blogging these emails because, as he stated, BNN is “big on free speech.” Just not wrt sex clubs, I guess.

I will reserve further commentary because really, these emails speak for themselves. I wouldn’t want to kick a puppy. (Commenters, however, should feel free.)