Being Amber Rhea

I felt like writing about a few things that I think were missing from Monday’s post, related to blogging, bottom lines, media (new, traditional, and otherwise) and WHAT IT ALL MEANS.

First of all:

I loathe the idea that if you make money from something, then it’s “selling out” and somehow less valuable to your audience and/or community. I love what Kevin Barnes had to say about this. And here’s an appropriate cartoon from Gaping Void:

Do I think it’s important to question a writer’s motivations? Well, yes, obviously. But this isn’t brain surgery; it’s all part of the general practice of media literacy and analysis that a lot of us do reflexively at this point, on a daily basis. What’s the NY Times’ motivation for leading with an inflammatory headline and putting someone’s life in danger? To make more money, of course. And is that problematic? YES, of course. (If you don’t know my answer to that question, then you haven’t been reading my blog for very long!) But what I’m saying is that this is an entirely different thing from making a generalization that anyone who makes money as a writer automatically, without consideration, has bad motives - and that people who do something “for the love of it” or whatever, and don’t make money doing it, are automatically better or more respectable. That’s some bullshit.

Now - to use a phrase my mom hates - with all that being said, I’ll go on and say a bunch of stuff that might appear, to the casual reader, to contradict the above two paragraphs:

Regina and Dacia and others have talked about how it sucks that, basically, the mainstream media* wants to use their writing when it’s convenient, as a way to make a buck, but doesn’t want to associate themselves with them too much; and/or wants them to do the work for free and then loosely cover it under the umbrella of “covering blogs.” And they’re right, it does suck!

But I know they would all agree with me, too, that this is where new media comes in and fills the void. No use waiting for mainstream media to get on the bandwagon and catch up; we all know how long THAT takes, if it ever happens at all. Instead, we can use the tools that are now available to us to get accurate information out there quickly, in our own voices, unpolluted by editors who are “uncomfortable” with certain topics or downright ignorant, and reach people who otherwise might not be reached (and they will have a voice, as well!). Sexuality can be discussed with the full level of nuance and intelligence it deserves, not merely used as a titillating eye-catcher; the voices of individuals can be respected rather than tokenized and used for cheap shots. No need to wait for MSM to get their shit together with how they cover sex work, for example - because sex workers are speaking for themselves (and even reaching out to try to educate the media) and slowly but surely, people are paying attention. People are going directly to the people who are experts in their own lived experiences, not to the MSM as a filter or, as one manager at the media company where I used to work said, “gate-keepers of the news.” No more letting them decide what’s important and relevant. We create the content and we foster a dialogue about it within our communities in a way that MSM just does not get yet. Hopefully they will catch up eventually, but if they don’t, that’s okay, because we’re doing just fine ourselves, and we have a drive and a passion that isn’t dependent on advertiser dollars.

* Let’s just use a rather loose definition of what that means; or maybe I should say corporate media? But I don’t think that’s exactly right either. Hmmm.

So by now you’ve probably heard about seemingly everyone in the freakin’ world getting canned (or voluntarily leaving due to “circumstances”).

Dacia wrote about it the other day and included a master list of sorts. Let us also not forget Regina Lynn leaving Wired, and Playboy Radio putting the kibosh on her Sex in the News segment. And you could really say it all started nearly two years ago, when the Village Voice killed Rachel Kramer Bussel’s “Lusty Lady” column.

In particular, it was really bizarre to hear about Melissa being laid off from Valleywag, because just a day or two before that, I’d heard about Tristan’s Village Voice column being axed, and as Rusty and I were walking from the MARTA station to work, I said something like, “It seems like the only one who still has a job is Melissa, at Valleywag.” Then Rusty said something about all of us starting a site together and how awesome that would be.

Ahem.

Dacia isn’t so worked up about the idea of starting a new site - and neither am I, honestly. Admittedly, after hearing about all the latest news, I did say this on Twitter (tweets listed in reverse chronological order, for those not on the bandwagon):
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Not sure where to start or what to say… but alas most of life isn’t a nice consistent narrative. But then, when I was going through my archives to tag old posts (I gave up ’round about 2004) it reminded me that I used to blog more freely before I didn’t feel the constraints of titles, tags, potential audience, and a million other things. (I’ve told you a million times not to exaggerate!)

Been having a weird week so far. Sometimes I have these “lapses”… not sure what else to call ‘em. Oh and first of all, if my mom reads this (which I don’t think she does lately, she’s been so busy with other things) DON’T GET ALL WORRIED ABOUT ME. It’s a characteristic of depression, unfortunately; sometimes, even though I’m taking my meds and doing everything I’m supposed to do to take care of myself, I have bad days or weeks. Often I can’t put my finger on a particular “trigger,” but that doesn’t stop me from trying.

I really need to find a therapist that doesn’t suck. Truthfully, I haven’t had a good therapist since I lived in Texas. She was one of the only good things about living there. Her, and my apartment. And being driving distance from Niki. That was basically it.

Anyway, one thing that I’ve identified that has been bothering me is that I’m just so ready to find our house and move out of our apartment. For the longest time I was not at all worked up about home-ownership (unlike a lot of other people who just seemed to jump into it because it was “the thing to do,” even though they hadn’t done any proper planning) but I always figured when the time came for it to be right for me, I would know. And now it’s here, and I know. I’m not living paycheck-to-paycheck anymore (fingers crossed that it stays that way!), Rusty and I are together, I don’t want to leave Atlanta, etc. - it all makes sense. I think being mentally ready to move on - mentally already having moved on, in some ways - heightens my frustration. I feel like things are breaking all the time. Like this week, our garbage disposal broke twice (and as of now isn’t fixed for good yet). I try not to complain because I know about having it better than a lot of people, blah blah. But this is my blog so deal.

It’s very important to me to have a “home base” where I truly feel at home, and where things are clean, organized, in their place, and feel comfortable. For a long time that place was our apartment, but increasingly I don’t feel that way about it - I just feel annoyed. I want furniture that isn’t made out of particle board. I’m tired of concrete floors. I hate that there are marks on our walls from where the movers banged shit around when we moved in. All these things didn’t used to bother me (well, the marks on the walls always did), but now they do, and I can only conclude it’s because I’m ready to move on to the next stage. I’m annoyed with nothing feeling “settled.”

I’m sick of: strange noises coming from the upstairs neighbors’ apartment, as if they’re running a wood shop (seriously, we’ve heard sawing noises); the kid in some apartment somewhere that I can always hear from my bathroom, who screams and wails all the freaking time; weird smells in the hallway because apparently some of our neighbors are disgusting; the Phantom Pooper.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no sparkly illusions about home-ownership being the solution to all problems oh except for the part where if anything breaks you have to fix it yourself and buy your own HVAC unit etc. etc. But I am ready.

I felt a little better last night after talking to Rusty about some of this. But I still feel kind of out of whack (<– correct spelling?).

Here are some photos of houses I like:

(as seen here)

(as seen here)

More later.

Yesterday this post by Hugo Schwyzer showed up as a referrer in my StatCounter: Bridging the Porn Divide: sex, feminism, empathy, and the commitment to stop pathologizing the other side.

It’s a long post, and I suggest you read it all before reading my response to it, so you’ll be sure to have the full picture.

(I suggest you not read the comments on his post, unless you aren’t quite as harrowed by such things as I am; more than a few of them provoked this response from me.)

Anyway.
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We did more of the “driving around looking at houses” routine today. One of the places we visited was Kirkwood - and I absolutely loved it! Kirkwood has definitely been catapulted to the top of the list of places we’re considering, no question. I like the little downtown/village area (even the new condo development thing they built isn’t as obnoxious as in some other places) and I just had a good gut feeling from it overall.

East Atlanta is currently second on our list of preferred places, although some of the people who live there are annoying, and I prefer to minimize drama in my life, so I there’s that to consider. It’s the same reason, albeit on a much smaller scale, that we’re not worked up about Midtown. (Rusty mentioned this in his post a few days ago, and Joeventures touched on it in a comment.) Living in Midtown would be nice because it’s close to work and is very walkable, Piedmont Park is right there, it’s centrally located… but so many of the people just suck! For example, here’s their latest trick. Part of me feels like we should move there and infiltrate the MNA, start a counter-revolution, and get Steve Gower thrown out in a coup; but realistically, I don’t know if my blood pressure could handle it. So, I’m torn. I would like to live in Midtown for the location, and if we found a really awesome deal we would definitely consider it; but being surrounded by a bunch of assholes is certainly a huge deterrent.

We’ve ruled out Grant Park and a lot of the North Decatur area, like the area around Northlake Mall and other stuff off of Clairmont and Lavista. We still like Westview and Adair Park, but Kirkwood and EAV win for walkability. Another place we discovered today, that we like and is surprisingly affordable, is the Medlock Park/University Heights area. One downside to it, though, is that a lot of the houses have only one bathroom (that was a trend in the early 1950s, apparently!), and that’s pretty much a deal-breaker for us.

Other areas still to explore: Home Park; Historic West End; Brookwood; Castleberry Hill; northwest/Bolton/Howell Mill area.

Here are some photos of one of our favorite houses that we saw today (which is moot, of course, since it won’t be on the market come January), a renovated 3bd/2ba built in 1928…

(I sized them down to fit my layout, which made them look a little distorted. My bad.)

Aside: the Georgia MLS site uses Ajax in a way that doesn’t suck. There should be an award for that.

I have several posts on particular topics saved as drafts, but since I’ll probably never actually write them all, I decided I’ll just do one post addressing all or most of them. Besides, reading my archives (which I’ve been doing periodically over the past week or so, as I slowly go through and tag the old pre-WP entries and update old URLs) made me remember that that’s how I used to write my blog all the time, that’s what comes naturally to me, and that’s why and how I started blogging in the first place. So, back to basics!
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I have a longer post in the works, but I’ve been bust at work today so I haven’t had time to shape it into anything coherent. But since the GDBF and I in the early stages of house-hunting (it’ll be early next year when we actually do this thing) and I’m the type of person who meticulously researches anything new (aside from a few unfortunate exceptions) and tries to be as educated as possible before making important decisions, I’ve basically been interviewing all my coworkers who are homeowners about their houses. So now I’m turning to my blog readers as well. If you own a home in metro ATL, lay it on me: what do you like about your house/condo/whatever, the neighborhood, etc., what do you not like… anything you can think of that you feel like sharing. Thanks in advance!

ETA: Because I’m not a moron, I can figure out things like “lots of electrical outlets” and “nice neighborhood.” This is exactly why I want to hear specifically from people who own homes in Atlanta. I want to hear about things like what you like/dislike about your neighborhood, what your taxes are like, what your HOA (if there is one) is like, etc. Joeventures’ comment is a good example.

If you haven’t read Amanda’s series of posts chronicling her now-completed stint at Bella’s, you are really missing out on some of the best, most insightful writing in a long time. So get on over there and read it. I’ll wait.

Tonight as I was trying to catch up on my almost 300 unread posts in Bloglines (I’ve been on a self-mandated break from reading many blogs other than a select few; this crap really made me feel down in the dumps about blogging for a while), I noticed that someone else, heretofore unknown-to-me blogger Mariko Passion, has now started a journal of her experiences at Bella’s. Cool! Maybe Amanda has started a trend.

Recently I had dinner w/ Lia of Star Light Ministries. And, no surprise, she is awesome. At one point during our extended dinner conversation, we were talking about all the assumptions that are made about women in sex work, and the problem of assuming that the goal of a ministry for sex workers is for the workers to “get out” of sex work. Because as Lia said, that’s judging the work they do and therefore judging them. Plus it’s just the same old stereotypes - obviously no woman would want to be in sex work, obviously they would all do something else if only they had the chance, etc. ad nauseum. I said that even though I feel like it’s not a popular thing to say in activist communities, because I feel like it makes me look like I’m being selfish (ah, that old meme in my head) or shifting the focus, the truth is that beyond just being irritated w/ these assumptions on general principles, I also take them personally. Sex work is something I’ve been drawn to for a long time - at least 10 years - and although as of now I haven’t actually done anything about it, I do take offense to the notion that there must be some pathological explanation for my interest in sex work. I know myself, I know how I feel, and I know that I feel that sex work is something that is interesting/appealing to me. You don’t have to understand it, but hey, I don’t understand why some people want to become lawyers or sales reps or flight attendants, so there you go. I’m smart, responsible, self-aware, capable - and I shouldn’t have to go into this defensive mode of justifying myself, but that’s how it always happens.

Lia asked why I hadn’t tried sex work. With stripping, my answer used to be* that I couldn’t walk in heels, much less dance (with or without heels). That’s obviously no longer a problem, but my issues with it now are:

• I don’t know of any non-smoking strip clubs in Atlanta. Being around cigarette smoke for extended periods of time, especially in poorly-ventilated areas, gives me a pounding headache and makes me feel generally like shit.
• I hate approaching strangers. I really just can’t do it; I get panicky about it. So obviously a job where I have to hustle for lap dances isn’t a good fit for me.
• The bullshit. We’ll come back to this in a minute.

As for escorting or even stuff like FBSM, when Lia asked why I’d never done it, my answer was much shorter: “I’m afraid of getting arrested.” That’s it, plain and simple. And more specifically, I’m afraid of getting arrested and being victimized by the cops. Insert here yet another diatribe about the importance of decriminalization of prostitution.

(To be fair, there are other issues w/ escorting in particular, like the fact that it seems like you have to pretend to give a shit about what the clients are talking about, really really enjoy their company and hang on their every fascinating word… and as Dacia has said about herself, I, too, have no poker face. I have tons of respect for people who can do it, but I just can’t. But that’s not really relevant, because there are many other kinds of sex work that are vaguely escort-like but not as focused on being a companion.)

Lia said she thought I should (only if I wanted to, of course) do what Amanda was doing: try a brief stint at a legal brothel and just see how it goes. I told her there’s no way I would do that. Why? Because of the bullshit.

Just read Amanda’s posts and you’ll see what I’m talking about. The nickel-and-diming with all kinds of fees. The customers trying to lowball you all the time. The cabin fever. Having to do shifts on the damn CB radio.

And the stuff that’s not just annoying, but potentially dangerous: The lack of adequate security. The creepy (yet required by law - ’cause prostitution is legal and therefore the girls are safe, see!) doctor. The drunkenness of customers, and of people to whom you’re entrusting your safety. The lack of easy access to an exit in case of an emergency. The pressure to potentially put one’s health at risk for the sake of not letting “money” walk out the door.

Obviously all jobs have their annoyances. But these are above and beyond what I could put up with. The second set, the ones that are downright dangerous, are obviously conditions that no job should have, ever. The first set, the “annoyances,” all exemplify a huge pet peeve of mine, something that just drives me up a wall: micromanagement by people on little power trips.

It seems to me that that’s what’s behind a lot of this stuff. It’s the same at strip clubs, with the house fees and drink quotas and tipping every damn person on staff… on and on… to me it reeks of people trying to control things and make themselves feel like Oooh Big Important People in whatever tiny way possible. Insecurity. Bred out of a stigmatized industry, not surprisingly. It seems like a vicious cycle.

Major respect to Amanda for doing this and documenting it. What she’s doing is extremely important, and she is an amazing person to have the patience to deal with it at all. I really can’t convey how much respect I have for her w/ this series.

One thing’s sure, her posts have confirmed what I’d suspected for a long time: if I were to be an escort (or whatever), I’d be independent, no doubt about it. Of course I have plenty of issues w/ freelancing in general, but in this case it is definitely the way to go, no question.

* And just look at the comments on that thread for a perfect example of the “explanations on demand” thing. It’s crazy-making, I tell you.

I know I should be glad men are writing about sexism in tech (and I am) but stuff like this always kinds of annoys me too. The person who marked it for me in del.cio.us (btw, I can’t remember who this person actually is; their del.icio.us handle isn’t one they use elsewhere, apparently!) said this:

Hmm. Good article, but I find myself not wanting to link to Yet Another Man Discovering the Issue (sigh). Still, the code-of-conduct proposed seems pretty good, and at least he links out to women in his post.

It is a good post, and I’m not annoyed at the post itself (because as I’ve said before, it’s vitally important for men to talk to other men about sexism), but rather the culture around such posts, I guess is what you would call it. It’s like, it’s only taken seriously when a man writes about it; when a woman does, we’re just whiny bitches. Which is the whole point, but irony is lost.

So Rusty wrote a thing to import my old blog (first database, April 2002-January 2004; second database, March 2004-April 2007) into WordPress. Yay! It’s something I’d been wanting to do for a long time but hadn’t felt like doing myself, because I didn’t know how easy or hard it would be, and how much time I’d have to spend poking around in shitty documentation and message board threads full of haughty asses. As it turns out, the PHP was pretty simple - very similar to the PHP for my original blog, actually - it was just finding the WP-friendly XML format that was a pain in the rear. The documentation for that is (surprise!) shitty, and apparently Rusty had to do a lot of hunting around to find the right format. See, that is the kind of thing I don’t have the patience for. Like just today for instance, I was trying to find out how to edit my .htaccess file to restrict virtual directory listings. I actually don’t care that much (if I did, I would’ve done it a long time ago) but for some reason I got a wild hair today and decided it would be a good idea. First I went to see if there was an easy setting to check on or off in the Dreamhost control panel. (Control panels have made me forget a lot of command-line stuff; PHPMyAdmin, in particular. I used to do MySQL by command-line only. Now I just don’t care enough anymore.) There wasn’t. So I did a Google search hoping to find what to add to my .htaccess file. And I couldn’t find it! Everyone was trying to be so damn cute. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s these self-righteous uber-geeks on message boards. Somebody had gone on a message board and asked the very same question I was asking; well, to be precise, they phrased it like, “How can I restrict virtual directory listings?” You know what some asshole wrote in response? “By editing .hatccess.” Thanks for nothing, asshole! And then somebody else was like, you have to set the blah blah option, with a link to the Apache man page. And who can read that thing? Look, I’m a pretty hardcore geek (I just don’t feel like I always have to thump my chest about it and get into a pissing contest over who knows the most obscure terminology) but I don’t have time to sit around and try to decipher that stuff. I know it’s an Apache configuration thing. And you, Smart Guy, on the message board thread, obviously know how to do it. So why not just paste in the line of code, let Google pick it up, and then everybody else searching for it in the future will quickly and easily find their answer and get on with their day, instead of slogging through man pages like a “real” geek, or god knows what.

I’m just so over the days of trying to “prove my creds” as a geek. I just don’t care. I have a Master’s in IT, but even the minute I say that, I look like an ass. But I do. I’m a programmer, and if I have to prove my creds, I can always say I wrote my own blog with PHP. But see, I don’t have to prove anything. When I was in school, there were always those guys (always guys) who would make everything a competition about who was geekier. Does anybody like being around them? That shit is fucking annoying!! And it always stuck in my craw in a particular way because they always assumed I didn’t know anything. Because I was the girl. So surely I must need their “computer help.” I mean, even tonight, I said something on Twitter about importing my old blog into WP, and somebody @ messaged me and said something like, “Let me know if you need help or advice.” And I KNOW this guy was just trying to be nice and friendly, but I’ve heard stuff like that for so many years, from guys who maybe sincerely thought THEY were trying to be nice and friendly, but were assuming I was technologically illiterate, that it rubs me the wrong way.

Anyway, like I said, I’m done feeling like I have to prove anything. I guess it’s like my hardware phase, which was roughly late 2000-early 2003. I collected old computers (mostly Macs). I loved delving under the hood of a Mac. To earn extra money, I did things like install RAM and configure software. I built PCs (but felt dirty doing it, so I stopped; I just couldn’t in good conscience keep foisting Windows onto people). Even well into 2004 I had a server in my bedroom, for godsake.

I remember walking into Best Buy in Athens, with my husband, to buy parts (in my PC-building phase; call me a mercenary, I guess) - inevitably the person (usually a guy) at the front of the store would look at my husband and ask what we needed. And even when I spoke - saying something like we need a blah blah watt power supply - he would REPLY to my husband!! Infuriating!!

But anyway, one day I woke up and realized I wasn’t interested in hardware anymore. It hadn’t happened suddenly. My interest had just faded away, without me noticing, until one day it dawned on me: oh, I no longer care about this stuff. And it’s true. Now, I could not give two shits about hard drive maintenance (I guess that’s more of a mix of software and hardware, but I digress) and finding cheap motherboards on Overstock.com.

And now the same is true with a lot of programming-related stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I still think PHP is great. I just don’t sit around at night creating database-driven applications for fun like I did a few years ago. If I need to whip out some PHP, I certainly can; but that’s the thing, nowadays it’s more about need than, I guess, creating a need. I write HTML, CSS, and Javascript - and the occasional smattering of XML and XSL - all day at work and I love my job; but I don’t create random web sites at home for the hell of it anymore. I do think CSS is awesome, of course, but it’s just not the centerpiece that it once was to me. I’m much more focused on getting stuff done, finding the tools to do a job and using them, than messing around with code just because I can.

And yeah, I do get testy when people assume that because I don’t sit up at night coding, that I can’t do a certain code-related task, or that I’m not “geeky enough,” or whatever. Every once in a while someone will start explaining something to me (this reminds me of that NY Times editorial, or maybe it was LA Times, I don’t know, one of those, entitled “Men Who Explain Things”) and I get pretty snippy with them because I don’t like this assumption of ignorance. They always seem so proud of themselves. “Oh let me explain to the girl how the DOM works!” No thanks; I know. Just because I’m not talking about it every second of the day, why must you assume I don’t understand it?

It’s just a matter of how I want to spend my time, and I’ve found other things I choose to devote my time to instead. And this isn’t a judgment on those who DO still enjoy such pursuits; I mean that was me until pretty recently! Just for whatever reason, it’s not fun to me like it used to be. (And I really don’t mean that in the sort of sad way it sounds here.) Such is life.

So all this is a very long-winded way of saying thank you to Rusty for writing the thing to import my old blog! I am very grateful, and better you than me, because I just don’t feel like messing with it, even though I know I can. :) You even converted the old categories to tags… awesome!! :)

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As of this moment, I know I have an issue w/ an unclosed div in the old posts because the comments are closed, but I’ll fix it later. Update: Fixed!

Lately, Melissa keeps writing stuff that feels like something piercing my gut and brings a tear to my eye, and then I struggle to put into words what is resonating so deeply and why. Here’s the latest installment. And my rambling commences after the cut.
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I’m supposed to be working on my as-yet-nonexistent AlterNet piece, but instead I’m sitting here typing this. I know I’m making it out to be a way bigger deal than it is. And don’t get me wrong, it’s not as if I’m all like, “Ooh, AlterNet, big-time internet publication, wowee, zowee, I’d be famous and stuff!” I don’t know if I was ever that particular brand of naive. But for some reason I got a bug up my ass and decided I wanted to try and write something about feminist choices, and how to define them, for a broader audience (insert questionable joke here: “…not just an audience of broads - ha ha ha!!1!”) So I emailed Jill, who is awesome and who also happens to be an AlterNet editor, and asked if they’d be interested; and she said yes, and I said I’d send her something in a few days.

But I’m stressed out about it the way that having a column in my high school newspaper stressed me out. It seemed like a good idea in theory, but when I had to actually get down to it and write something, it was like pulling teeth with myself. I think I ended up only writing two actual columns senior year, and they were both pretty contrived.

And yet I could go home and write ’til my wrist was cramped (and it took at lot more to do that back in the late 90s!) in my journal, scrawl poetry of various levels of emo-ness in my notebooks, type long rambling paragraphs of Opinion in a SimpleText file I kept on my Mac desktop; when I was younger than that, in elementary school, I could fill notebook upon notebook with stories and even what could arguably be called novels (at my parents’ house there are stacks of boxes labeled “Amber’s books she wrote”); and before I could actually write, I was dictating stories to my grandmother at age four.

I guess it’s that I don’t like feeling like I have to follow rules imposed by others? (And yet I’m a stickler for grammar! Ah, I am nothing if not self-contradictory. [I mean, just look at my fondness for parentheses!])

Hence the “I speak my own language” tag you see employed here frequently.

When I was in 4th grade, I won a creative writing contest and they wrote a little blurb about it in the local newspaper. I was quoted as saying, “When I grow up, I want to be a famous author.” It was cute at the time, because I was nine.

…

I don’t want to have to recant on Jill but I think I might. I think maybe this just isn’t the write right (ha, typo!) time for me to try to write something for somewhere other than my blog. I’m sure I’ll try again one day and it’ll come a lot more naturally.

For example, it came pretty naturally with the (never published) op-ed I wrote for the AJC - although I won’t lie, I spent an entire afternoon agonizing about every word and phrase, wanting to get everything right. But the result was, I think I did a bang-up job! Too bad the AJC, apparently, did not agree, but my feelings weren’t hurt; I wasn’t surprised, after all.

…

Tonight I read this post by Melissa, and it brought tears to my eyes. Silly, right? Well, I’ve always been highly emotional and sensitive, so that’s how it goes with me. No making fun.

I’m not sure what, exactly, about the post struck such a deep chord with me - but something obviously did.

I don’t care (that’s a lie; I do care, in spite of the other half of my brain telling me not to - I just try to pretend I don’t [fake it 'til you make it, right?]) what anybody else says; I think there is value in “life-blogging,” living your life online, whatever you want to call it. I might not be able to articulate exactly what that value is, but maybe that’s simply because there aren’t words for some things. But I feel it intuitively, which is how I experience a lot of things… it’s not popular and won’t get people to really believe you, and it sounds like a lot of hippie shit (note the tag), and yet that’s another characteristic I’ve always had: there are things I “just know,” even if I can’t say why.

This kind of writing - and thus blogging - comes naturally to me. The introspection is a huge part, definitely; introspection is kind of a thing of mine, and I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to. I am an INFJ to the core. As a side note - this is why it bothers me SO MUCH when, on threads like the latest pushing-200-comments installation at Feministe, people are so free w/ their assumptions that if you haven’t come to the same conclusions as them, then you must not have examined properly. So go, forthwith, and examine your desires! Because obviously you haven’t, otherwise you would realize how bad and wrong they are, and you would sublimate, sublimate dammit! because it’s the right thing to do, otherwise you’re just pleasing the Patriarchy, because that’s all it can ever be about, really; it can’t be about you.

But back to Melissa’s post. -Well, hmm, what do I want to say about Melissa’s post? Actually, I don’t know; but it got me started typing all this.

More to come, perhaps. I think I need to send Jill an email now and apologize for wasting her time.

Hitting “Publish” now.

As I mentioned on Twitter yesterday, I am totally feeling Kim’s sentiment in this post. I could barely read the whole thing without breaking down in tears.

I didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton in the primary (I voted for Obama) but it wasn’t because I actively disliked her. No matter what kind of irrational vitriol people spewed about her, I’ve always had a fondness for her. And it isn’t “just because she’s a woman” (which pisses me off that that’s dismissed with a just so much of the time) - I mean take a look at the nice round-up Octo has of HRC’s (can’t type that without thinking Human Rights Campaign) policies and such - a lot of which is stuff she did FOR WOMEN, which yes, matters to me a whole hell of a lot and I will not allow that to be trivialized. (But we’re so used to putting our needs last, as women… why should this be any different?)

I will vote for Obama in the general election, of course; and I cannot comprehend the faulty logic of Democrats/progressives/non-Republicans/whatever who say they will vote for McCain as a protest against Hillary not getting the nomination.

BUT.

It will be hard - impossible, I’m sure - to forget all the bullshit that went down in this primary season. The blatant sexism on display with hardly anyone calling it out - and those who did dare to call it out getting ridiculed and shouted down.

Same as it ever was, right talking heads?

It will be very, very hard to ignore the way this all burned inside of me such that I didn’t even want to blog about it, because it felt, as so many things that never make their way to this blog do, too raw. Not coincidentally, that’s the same word Kim used.

And all this, coming from me, who typically feels disinterested in electoral politics! (Although I always vote, of course.) This whole brouhaha has reaffirmed for me why I don’t get heavily involved in political stuff or watch cable “news.”* It’s not just because I find it utterly boring to speculate on who will get what nomination and blah blah blah.

Side note re: cable “news:” To quote something Rusty said the other night as we watched Jon Stewart interview Scott McClellan… “Can you imagine what it would be like if the actual media asked the hard questions Jon Stewart asks?” To which I replied, “I think he can only get away with it because he can use the defense of being a comedy show, not real news. That’s how fucked up we’ve gotten with the media and our concept of news.”

Anyway.

Pre-emptive note, btw, to commenters… I don’t need anyone to lecture me about why BHO is a better candidate than HRC, why HRC sucks, or any of it. That’s not what this post is about, and such comments will be deleted. I think they both would have made great candidates - great Presidents, I should say - and I think they both have their pros and cons in terms of policies and politics.

But that’s never what it’s been about, of course. And accordingly that’s not what this post is about.

All I can end with is, well… the same thing I started with… *sigh*.

I’m thinking of going to day two of the Exotic Dancer World Championships tonight at the Pink Pony South, and it got me thinking about etiquette in strip clubs and some of the hang-ups I still have about them (which really are just manifestations of my general hang-ups with tipping, being in crowded places, and interacting with strangers).

I know from talking with and/or reading the blogs of many current or former strippers that generally when they see a woman in the club, they figure they won’t be making much money from her. Knowing this (and knowing some of the other bad behaviors women often exhibit in strip clubs), I always make an effort to tip well when I go to a strip club - but sometimes my own “issues” win out. I hate feeling stared at, and when I go up to the stage to tip the dancer I can feel eyeballs of drunken men burning a hole in the back of my head. (I have plenty of issues with drunkenness, too; as my personal baggage goes, those are the ones that are too large to fit in the overhead compartment.) Then, I never know what to say to the dancer when I put the money in her garter; small talk is hard enough without loud music and the fact that we’re only dealing with the space of about ten seconds. I feel like I should say something, because it seems like saying nothing would be weirder. I usually try to say something nice about their pole work. But often the dancer just winds up shouting back, “What?”

I also make a point to give more than just a measly dollar to the dancers who do advanced pole work (or any pole work, really) or other moves beyond the bare minimum. I wonder how much is too much during a stage set, though… or if there’s no such thing as too much!

So if any of y’all feel like chiming in with your thoughts/preferences/experiences, I’d be interested to hear them.

I might not end up going tonight anyway, because we’re leaving for a weekend road trip tomorrow morning and I want to get enough sleep, but it’s not like I’ll never go to a strip club again at some point.

Random unrelated thought (not self-deprecating, really, because I’m trying not to do that as much anymore; and yet…) : “issues” should be an item on Stuff White People Like.

I cannot even tell you how much I relate to this post.

This part, in particular, struck a chord with me:

I’m pretty sure I have no real concept of the scale of the sexism I’ve experienced in my life. Women are, let’s face it, used to being victims of sexism - we rationalise it away, shrug it off, don’t dwell on it. Which is all very well for short-term personal happiness, but not for revolutionising society. We go out of our way to avoid sexism, which is often self-defeating when our long-practised skills at avoiding abuse result in a lack of convincing examples to persuade anyone that there is, in fact, a problem.

Writing down all the various instances of sexism I experience on a daily or near-daily basis is something that I’ve thought about before. But I’ve never done it, because I think it would end up being too depressing/infuriating to me. I know I tend to internalize my anger, so that would end up being toxic to me. But the flip side is, it just means there are more ignorant men still out there. And of course the flip side of that is, it is so not my job to educate men - they need to do their own homework.

And this comment…

This post is enlightening. I’d not actually realized these things actually happened, and on such a regular basis. Not you’re not overreacting, those are all squicky and nasty things to happen and make me shudder. Presumably because I’m male, I guess, they don’t happen to me, so I don’t see them. And I really can’t fathom the mindset of any man who would behave like that. I should just learn to appreciate how lucky I am that these things don’t happen to me, I guess.

(And immediately after that one, there’s a comment where some pleased-with-himself dude shows up to tell her other [more important?] reasons why accepting random Bluetooth messages is “a bad idea” - namely viruses, which I guess she never thought of because she’s a girl, or maybe because it’s totally irrelevant to the topic of the post, but I digress…)

I mean I’m glad there are men who are actually willing to listen and learn. (Isn’t it sad that I’m glad about that? I mean, that should really be the default, expected behavior. Ugh…) But I always feel like rolling my eyes when I see comments like that. I got one on Twitter today when I posted the link, from some dude who follows me but I don’t follow him and I have no idea who he is… he said he was appalled. Well, yes, of course he is - because he doesn’t have to deal with this shit. Whenever women explain the (unfortunately) mundane details of day-to-day sexism to men, they are always shocked, shocked!, I tell you. (Well, assuming they’re not calling us lying over-sensitive feminazi bitches, of course.)

My reaction to that can best be represented by this emoticon: :|

Well, yes, that is the definition of privilege: the luxury of ignorance. Not having to know something happens, because it doesn’t affect you. And the first step in pulling one’s head out of one’s ass, of course, is acknowledging the rather simple fact that just because it doesn’t happen to you, doesn’t mean it never happens.

“Someone give me a penis so that I don’t sound like a Feminazi.” - Sassywho

Last night, Jen and Tony were kind enough to give me the dubious gift of a copy of the latest issue of The Sunday Paper. The cover story is (in huge pink letters), “ATLANTA’S HOOKER SCHOOL.” Then in smaller letters, the subhead: “New Program Aims To Make Prostitution A Risky Business For Johns.” (Okay, so it’s not really a hooker school at all, is it, dumbasses? It’s a johns school. But that won’t grab readers by the throat the way “HOOKER SCHOOL” will.)

Now, for those of you who aren’t in Atlanta, The Sunday Paper is a pretty worthless rag. It always has sensationalistic, overblown headlines, especially in the cover stories (I remember one with a big explosion on the cover, and something like “Countdown to Armageddon” - and they were totally serious) and generally includes some of the worst writing I’ve seen in a print publication. They try to publish “controversial” stories with the most watered-down, trite mockery of point/counterpoint you can imagine. And here’s how I think they go about writing features: they have a template, and they drag and drop various talking points from a database, maybe some clip art as well (e.g., in this case: photo of fishnet-clad legs and high heels, standing in a dark alleyway; Julia Roberts 20 years ago), and click “Generate story.” Voila! Your next issue is complete.

I said that at the table last night, and Kim brought up a good point, that if she were still working at a newspaper and getting paid $8.00 an hour, she wouldn’t exactly pour her heart and soul into researching every story in-depth and writing a thought-provoking, well-rounded piece. Can’t say I blame her. And The Sunday Paper is a free weekly, so who knows what those writers are getting paid. This is a topic that isn’t discussed much in all the various rants about the mainstream media and why they suck so badly. So maybe new media and independent media (often the same thing, but not always) can fill the void? But that’s a tangent for another time.

I’m always torn on stories like this. One the one hand, they’re such pathetic, rehashed tripe, that it feels like a waste of time and energy to address them at all. But then I think, that kind of rationale might make sense in some other situations, but when it comes to sex workers’ rights advocacy, we are dealing with an issue that is literally (yes, literally!) life and death for many people, mostly women; and it’s an issue fraught with layers and layers of bullshit, where all of a sudden everybody thinks they’re a damn expert, and everybody loves to hear themselves talk except they can’t be bothered to listen to the people who are actually affected by all the laws and stigma and such; and the silence is rather deafening when it comes to calling bullshit.

So, I feel compelled to call bullshit, yet again. And I just hope that if people keep on calling it out whenever they see it, whether on 20/20 or in some piddly little hometown rag, maybe progress can slowly be made.

Kim actually read the article before me (I didn’t read it last night when we were at Manuel’s), and afterward, she said, “Yeah, you’re going to need your meds after reading this.”

The article starts off talking about how “hookers” are portrayed on film (because that’s so relevant), and how it’s in stark contrast to “the truth.” (Yeah, the truth which includes sex workers being talked about but not talked with, and called “hookers.”) From there it’s just a matter of marking off the various Bingo squares. It includes the phrase “selling their bodies” and refers to them being “victims of abuse.” (No sources are cited, of course, but why bother? I mean we all just know this is true.) And oh of course there’s that whole thing about how “john’s schools” don’t work, but why get sidetracked with that annoying little piece of information?

They do include a quote or two from Carol Leigh (a.k.a. Scarlot Harlot) representing SWOP, which is more than most articles of this type do. But I’m not giving them a cookie. No, they don’t get a gold star for doing what should be the bare minimum in anything purporting to call itself a journalistic endeavor.

One thing that I really hate about bullshit articles like this is that they reinforce the idea in so many people’s minds that “sex worker” == “street prostitute.” Hell, that’s what I thought until I was 18 or 19. In fact, street workers account for only 10%-20% of all prostitutes/escorts/courtesans (not using the term “sex workers” here since that term encompasses many other types of work).

And once again, they don’t give a shit about actually helping sex workers, or any of it. (I know The Sunday Paper certainly didn’t come right out and say, “We care about sex workers!” but with all the victim language and talk about the “johns,” that’s what the superficial message clearly is - even if it falls miserably flat with its condescending, pearl-clutching tone.) They make bank on perpetuating the very stereotypes and stigma they dramatically wring their hands about in articles such as these. It’s so transparent it’s pathetic. Sex workers aren’t people after all… they’re just an easy way to move some papers!

Figleaf posts about pole dancing, and includes this footnote:

[Quick note: The post by 100% Injury Rate, the source of the version of photo I used, above, mentions that the Australian program teaches girls *and* boys, which is at least one step in a positive direction, although it sounds like it's for kids as early as age seven. --fl]

I’m just going to repost the comment I left over there:

I don’t understand why something has to be done by boys/men for it to be seen as valid.

And Figleaf, as I’m sure you will appreciate, if I see one more person dismissively refer to pole dancing as “spreading your legs around a pole” and otherwise talking out of their ass about it, my head is going to fucking explode. Seriously people. If you have never tried it? SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT IT. You don’t know what you’re talking about.

I have NO patience for this. NONE.

On a side note, Figleaf, if you are reading this, I have to say… you know I value and respect your writing, but I’ve been pretty baffled by some of the things you’ve written lately, and what appears to be (in many cases) a regression to more “conservative” sexual and social views. What gives?

And no, before anybody asks, I am not going to fly off the handle about “OMG they’re teaching pole dancing to children!!!“, which is what the expected/approved reaction seems to be. Look. Perceptions never change if we don’t challenge them. Get the fuck over it. And, the meaning of something is different depending on the context! This should not be a difficult concept! (Jenny, I know you’ve written about this, but if it was on your blog, I can’t find the post right now. Or maybe it was in a comment here?) Yes, pole dancing originated in strip clubs. So what?? Jazz music has its roots in slavery… does that mean if you like jazz you’re giving the stamp of approval to slavery?

(Besides, kids climb on poles all the time, we just don’t call it “pole dancing!”)

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!”)

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.)

Well, it’s 2:00 AM and I can’t sleep.

I was really tired tonight last night; I ended up getting in bed at 9:00 PM and falling promptly asleep. Chris had come over to watch a movie, but I was just too fatigued to stay up long enough; so instead Chris just hung out here for a couple hours watching TV and I don’t know what else, since like I said, I was asleep. (Feel kinda guilty about Chris coming over here only to find me saying I’m ready to go to bed.)

About 30 minutes ago I awoke suddenly and violently from a nightmare. The thing that woke me up was the sound (in the dream, fortunately not translating over into the waking world as is sometimes the case) of myself screaming. I don’t remember much of the dream — or rather, not much that I could actually write about. It was one of those hard-to-describe ones that only makes sense in dream-world, and trying to explain it when you’re awake and have your head screwed on straight (or, perhaps instead of “straight” I should say, “typical” or “usual”… taking a card [is that a real phrase or did I make it up?] from this film, which I saw recently and which kind of messed with my head) is an exercise in futility.

Longest. Parenthetical statement. Ever.

ANYWAY. The point is, I woke up from a nightmare, was confused and scared, slowly came back to “reality”, and now I can’t sleep. I’m not wide awake — writing this is taking quite a bit of energy, actually — but I can’t sleep. So I’m sitting here in bed, huddled under the duvet, wondering if it’s too cold for Franny and Zooey but thinking that it’s definitely not cold enough to turn the heat on and actually I would prefer to turn the fan back on, with the only light coming from my iBook screen (brightness turned all the way down, so I don’t kill my eyes), aimlessly wandering through random blogs and web sites so I have something with which to occupy myself until sleep comes again.Sure, I could get up and get the book I’m reading (Microserfs) from the living room, but reading a book would require turning on a light, and I’d rather not eff up my internal clock anymore than it already is.

If I could just get a few more hours of sleep…. then I could surprise everyone by being extremely early to work tomorrow!

Random note: I had a really freakin’ good chicken salad wrap for lunch today. I can’t stop thinking about it. I wish I had one right now to snack on. (I have the munchies.) The only downside was that the green tortilla it was in (I assume that’s a spinach tortilla?) kind of smelled funny.