Being Amber Rhea

I’ve lost what little patience I had left.

The following words and phrases, as so often tossed about in the blogosphere, mainstream media - hell, most anywhere - by people sitting up on their high horses feeling so proud of themselves, get me steaming; and with rare exception (as I will always reiterate that context matters), are cues for me to stop listening, because I’ve better things to do than hop aboard the Bullshit Train for another trip round the Armchair Psych Ward.

• Can’t take a joke
• Credibility
• Criticism
• Critique
• Defensive
• Ethics
• Humorless
• Integrity
• Just disagreeing
• Race card
• Satire
• Sensitive
• 4:38 p.m., ETA: Thin-skinned
• Whiners

Congratulations, you’ve got a non-argument. How about a little originality, for once?

Everybody’s a damn expert. I’m sick of it.

12:16 p.m.: Edited to put in alpha order.

Yet again, I say worthwhile things on other people’s blogs, and then cross-post to mine.

I’m not linking to where I originally said this, because 1) my comment is still in moderation; and 2) the blogger in question might not want me to link, and I want to respect that possibility until I know for sure.

Oh, and typos in the original have been corrected, because yes, I can rewrite history like that! Ha!

Anyhow:

Activists who are intolerant of people who don’t “get it” annoy me, because it’s like, wait, were you just BORN “getting it?” Maybe, but probably not. And if you can help someone see the err of their ways without villifying them, they’re more likely to be a good ally.

On the other hand, though, I do have a BIG problem with what I see all too often from a lot of people who are rightly called out on their sexist/racist/homophobic/whatever behavior: “But I didn’t MEAN it!” So?? The intent is irrelevant. The impact is made. The damage is done. The hurt is real. Now, the adult thing to do is deal with the consequences of your (general “you”) actions instead of expecting the person you hurt to take care of YOUR feelings.

As a blogger I sometimes read recently said:

The pragmatics of the argument are obvious, but it misses the basic human element: oppression is ugly and it hurts. And it’s unfair to tell the victim to “suck it up” and “play nice” in order to force the change and equality that they deserve.

As for certain words, the thing I can’t wrap my head around is: what’s the motivation to continue using them? Why is it so IMPORTANT? What do you LOSE by not using those words? This is what I never understand w/ people - or wait, I’ll say it, ASSHOLES - who talk about how they feel so “attacked” by gay rights activists saying they shouldn’t throw around “faggot,” for example. Why is it so important for you to be able to use a homophobic insult?? What do you gain? I want to say to them (and sometimes do, on the rare occasions when I can stomach dealing with them), you better take a good hard look at yourself if that hurtful word is THAT important to you.

And as for “retard” in particular, I cannot grasp how or why anyone would continue using it after, say, reading Bastante Kim’s posts. Using the word out of ignorance is one thing; it doesn’t make it any less offensive or hurtful, but ignorance can be changed. If one is NOT ignorant and yet continues to use the word, I can only conclude that they are stupid or spiteful.

Update: Linked, per blogger’s permission!

In the comments on my “write the book that scares you” post, Miss Nomered said:

My boyfriend is trans (he’s an FTM), but the thing is, we got together when he was already transitioning. That, and we met at a queer group - that and I’m pretty fluid and somewhat atypical in my sexuality.

Now, before I go any further, I want to apologize to Miss Nomered for using her comment as a jumping-off point. I don’t believe she meant it in the way it sounded (or rather, in the way that it reminded me of other, previous comments by other people) - a subsequent comment by her confirmed what was already my suspicion. So, Miss Nomered, this isn’t about you or your comment; simply, your comment triggered memories of other exchanges that I want to address.

This was something else I heard frequently, always with that not-so-subtly concealed tone of judgment. “Well, it was easier for us to stay together, because I’m bi anyway.” Or sometimes, even: “I don’t love people based on their gender alone.” No subtlety at all, there.

This is why I had to start the SOTS Forum message board. So bullshit like that would not impede our recovery process. And for anyone who already has a tendency to turn anger and distress inward (raises hand), that was the last damn thing they would need to hear.

Yes, if only you could be more open-minded, more sexually progressive, there would be no problem here at all! Because that’s what it’s all about, not wanting to diddle a girl.

“How fucking stupid are you??” I wanted to scream.

It was never just about the sexuality issue, although that was obviously part of it. But it was never about, “OMG someone might think I’m a lesbian, and I just can’t handle that, because Teh Gheys are ew gross icky, and I am so totally not gay!”

Not even close.

Not in the same ballpark. Or on the same planet.

Once, there was a voice of reason on one of the “Transsexuals (And Partners, Yeah Yeah Whatever)” message boards: “Your sexual orientation is not up for debate.”

It was sad that this even needed to be said. Sad that I wanted to fall down at her virtual feet with a weepy thank you. (Of course, I wasn’t exactly in the most calm and composed state in general, so a little melodrama* would probably be in order no matter what.)

* Dammit, self. No. Not melodrama. It was the biggest crisis of my life. The way I acted throughout was fucking appropriate.

I’m working on my Balticon wrap-up post. It’s slow going; I’ve been feeling sluggish all day. (I’m telling you, I need that colonic!) It seems like the older I get, the more recovery time I need from travel; and the more sensitive I get to things like air quality in hotel rooms (which is hardly ever good). The Balticon hotel was surreal on many levels.

Anyhow. I just saw this post from season of the bitch, because she linked to me in it.

Women used slut to wound and to mark others as inappropriate, as socially unacceptable, as vicious-a slut will take your man, she doesn’t care, in fact she likes it. She doesn’t deserve female friends, she’s not loyal to women, she just cares about male attention. Slut doesn’t even mean you have lots of sex or even any sex-it just means you look like you might, or talk like you might.

The slut is a monster. Her body is the body of all women (”a cultural body”). She doesn’t recognize boundaries (”harbinger of category crisis”) and she is not like you (”dwells at the gates of difference”). She is what you should not be, she defines by being it what is wrong (”polices the borders of the possible”) and yet, strangely, she makes you jealous. You want to be her. (”Fear of the monster is really a kind of desire.”) Most importantly:

“They [monsters] ask us to reevaluate our cultural assumptions about race, gender, sexuality, our perception of difference, our tolerance toward its expression. They ask us why we have created them.”

My college roommate gave me the craziest look when I told her that I was going to a fetish party the night before Halloween. Despite the fact that at the time, I’d never even had sex. But I’d made myself appear sexual and I’d talked about sex, out loud. That was enough.

(I almost felt the need to justify myself further here by talking about said roommate’s sexual behavior, which shows you how deeply this shit is ingrained-it’s certainly not right for me to pass judgment on her sex life any more than it was for her to do it to me. Hell, it’s stupid that I justified myself by pointing out that I was a virgin.)

But the point is that when a woman publicly appears to be sexual, declares herself sexual, we try to shove her back into that box.

Rusty and I (and yesterday, Rusty, Jenny, Dan, and I) have spent a lot of time talking about what happened in the “Don’t Be That Guy” session. I’m still processing a lot of it, which might also be contributing to why I’m having a hard time writing my wrap-up. Tomorrow night Rusty and I plan to record a podcast about it, so maybe I’ll be able to better express myself by speaking rather than writing.

Oh, but I was trying to tie the season of the bitch post (what’s her name? I can’t find it!) Sarah’s post to the panel experience. She writes about how she is fine with the word “bitch” (applied to her but not to other women) but cannot stand “slut.” I guess I am the opposite… sort of. I mean, I can completely relate to what she says here about “slut”…

That word hits me like a slap across the face-it leaves marks. And it’s so totally unexpected when it does happen, now that I’m not in high school or even college. When it slips out of the mouth of a male friend-not directed at me or a real person-I shudder before calmly and patiently explaining that I wasn’t OK with that word in ANY context, I didn’t care how much I disliked the girl in question. That it’s a word that hurts me as much as any woman it’s directed at.

That’s a feeling I’ve had many times - sometimes when I’m the one being called a slut, but more often when the word is directed at another woman. When it’s directed at me, it depends on who’s saying it and what the context is. Often, it just slides right off as an insult, and even makes me laugh and go, “Yeah, and? You’re damn right I’m a slut, now fuck off!” I do believe that the word can be reclaimed and can be a source of empowerment. Other times when it’s used as an insult, it just makes me roll my eyes at the utter non-creativity of the would-be insult-slinger. Seriously, that’s all you’ve got? Try again, bucko. FAIL. And, during sex? I love being called a dirty little slut or several variations thereof. Hotness! And it’s hot in that context because it’s not used derisively or judgmentally. Context matters.

But there are other words I cannot abide at all. In particular: bitch.

I won’t say “never,” because I know things change, especially in how people experience their sexuality and use it as a way to work through other issues; but right now, I absolutely would not find it hot to be called a bitch during sex. I know this is arbitrary because there are other women who love it and hate “slut,” and a million other permutations. But something about that word… it gets under my skin. It is never funny to me in the context of a joke; it is never acceptable to me as a general-purpose insult (why use a gendered insult when “asshole” will do just as well?)

Yesterday during the panel, there was a point where that word started getting used by some of my fellow panelists - and then, after being met with uproarious, approving laughter, by some audience members. I can’t say whether it stings worse in the mouths of men or other women; they are different kinds of hurt, but in both cases, my reaction is a feeling of deep-down queasiness.

I was already uncomfortable with the direction that panel was going at the beginning, but when that word came out, that’s the point when I started shaking. I don’t know if anyone noticed. But when I was reading an excerpt from synecdochic’s seminal reference post* on how not to be that guy, I noticed my hands trembling and I tried to keep them close to the table so no one would notice; and I tried to keep my voice as even as possible. I don’t know if I succeeded in either of those things. I guess the audio will hold the answer to the latter.

More to come.

* If you have not read this piece? READ IT. Immediately.

Update: Audio from the “Don’t Be That Guy” session is now available.

It’s been very interesting reading people’s definitions of kinky. (Keep ‘em coming!) The definitions are varied, but most of the commenters so far at least seem to agree that “kinky” is subjective.

What fascinates me, though, is that there does seem to be some concept of a generally-accepted meaning of the word, nebulous though it may be when you actually try to pin it down. But when people make your garden-variety stupid “oh, so-and-so is into the kinky stuff!” joke, there seems to be at least a general understanding of what that refers to. (Or not? Am I totally off base here? This is the impression I get.)

Maybe it’s pointless to try to reconcile individual’s personal definitions of/ruminations on the word with a larger cultural meaning, but this stuff fascinates me. I guess it’s the linguistics nerd in me.

I feel like in general, “kinky” is taken to mean “weird,” but “weird” includes stuff that actually isn’t weird by a lot of people’s standards, when you actually ask them. Which is why I think this general definition comes from a cultural level, which can be slower to change than the minds of individuals.

Am I making any sense here? I’m making sense to myself, but I feel like I’m probably making no sense whatsoever to anyone else.

Anyway, I’ll move right along and talk about what kinky means to me. Honestly, when I hear the word “kinky” or that someone is “into kink” or that a place is “kink-friendly” or whatever, I think of BDSM. I wonder how many other people equate kink and BDSM to some degree? I think I do it because I know quite a few people who are into BDSM to some degree and they do tend to use the terms interchangeably - or at least that’s how it appears to me, as a non-BDSMer looking in.

So to my mind, “kinky” tends to involve some or all of the following: leather, corsets, elaborate costumes, various props, bondage, domination/submission, safe words, not necessarily any actual fucking, most likely the term “scene,” and possibly the term “aftercare.”

It seems like in the thread where people were offering definitions, a lot of people were defining kinky the way I’d define sex-positive. I have to admit when I hear about kink this or kink-friendly that, sometimes a little red flag goes up, and I wonder if this is going to be my scene (ha!) or not. Look, I have nothing against BDSM and all that stuff; some of my best friends, an’ all. I’m just not into it. As a friend who shall remain nameless (unless s/he chooses to self-identify!) said about first learning about BDSM: “When’s the part where you have sex?” That’s basically how I feel about it. The whole dom/sub thing, and the props and the costumes and whatnot, does absolutely nothing for me. Now, I certainly like handcuffs from time to time, or being smacked on the ass with a belt, and other assorted fun stuff. But there’s usually fucking going on at the same time… I guess that’s the kicker for me.

Now before any of my BDSM-loving blog associates read this and get all worked up because I’m attacking your preferences - hey, you don’t have to. ‘Cause I’m not. Whatever anyone is into is awesome, for them! To my mind, the most important thing is for people to have the kind of sex they enjoy, and - I’ll borrow a phrase from the BDSM crowd here - to always be safe, sane, and consensual.

So in light of the recently-declared kink week, and my remark that I think kink is subjective, I want to start things off with a question for all you readers - even the lurkers! Come on, click on over from your RSS reader.

What does “kinky” mean to you? Is it particular acts? (If so, which ones?) Is it more of a mindset kind of thing? How do you understand that word in your personal lexicon?

I’m looking forward to hearing people’s answers!

Words of wisdom, from another twenty-something feminist with a degree in linguistics and an eye for bullshit (whose blog I discovered yesterday):

The language we use to talk about sex work (and the metaphorical extensions of sex-work related words) emphasizes this point - by charging a fee to have sex with someone, a woman has sold her body and herself. Linguistically speaking, there’s a metonymy there - the “part” (sexuality) has come to substitute for the whole woman.

That’s objectification, and it’s objectification in the narrow, limited, sex-specific sense of the word - the definition of a woman’s self has been reduced to her sexuality, her value has become inextricably attached to her sex. On the other hand, it’s perfectly acceptable - laudable, even - for me to charge for the use of my brain, or for me to be “valued” for my intelligence. That wouldn’t be considered being “used”, it wouldn’t be thought of as “selling myself”. Paradoxically, that’s like saying that my brain is less valuable, less connected to what I am as a person - it can be partitioned off, the use of it essentially “rented” by my employers, and I can joyfully and proudly accept payment for it while I continue to use my brain outside of the workplace to also attract potentially desirable mates. “Selling” my brain doesn’t take anything from me, doesn’t make me less whole, doesn’t make me damaged goods, and yet somehow, selling my body in a sexual manner (because, of course, if I were selling the use of my body for work in a factory, we again would not be having this conversation) would. If my sexuality is not the sum total of my humanity, if it is not even the primary source of my “value”, then this attitude towards sex work is nonsensical.

Read the whole post.

So everybody knows about this Eliot Spitzer bullshit by now. Of course, I have plenty to say about it.

There’s the obvious point that the problem in the Spitzer situation is not “OMG he paid for sex!!1!1″ but the utter hypocrisy of it, given his history of prosecuting prostitution cases. There’s also the fact that he’ll get off with a ruined political career (if even that), while the women whose services he paid for will possibly be arrested on felony charges, jailed, and for any who are not U.S. citizens, deported; and the real-life hardships of these women will go unacknowledged by the media except as objects to be used for moral grandstanding or sophomoric titillation.

But for now, I want to talk about language. Because, as I’ve mentioned before, words matter.

Yesterday on the way home from work, Rusty and I were discussing the terminology the mainstream media - hell, pretty much all media - uses when discussing sex work. In particular, we were dissecting the terms “high-class hooker” and “high-priced” hooker. Both of those terms carry a mountain of assumptions and implications.

“High-class hooker” automatically sets up the person in question as an exception. Jen said that she doesn’t think describing someone as high-class necessarily implies that everyone else is low-class, but rather “just average.” Well, of course it doesn’t imply that everyone else is low-class, but it does set up the need for a low-class corollary. And more importantly, it sets up a hierarchy of high, average, low - and who defines what constitutes criteria for each class? It’s a nasty, divisive, insidious tactic. It’s classic classism… because of course no one would ever want to be considered “low class.” (Queer Dewd has written about this phenomenon much more extensively/intelligently, so check her blog for more.)

Making a point to designate a particular sex worker as “high-class” serves to differentiate her from most people’s idea of what a prostitute is: a street worker. Street workers may in fact be the most visible element of prostitution - often because they are associated with other problems such as drug use, violence, and more - and the media certainly does nothing to dispel the popular impression of “prostitute” as analogous to “street prostitute.” However, street workers constitute only about 20% of all prostitutes. So yet again, the media reinforces a stereotype and popular assumption that is false.

Rusty said that while “high-class hooker” is total bullshit, he could see how someone could make a case for “high-priced hooker” being apt. I can see how someone could make a case for it - but the case would be faulty and laden with unquestioned societal assumptions.

First of all, the hooker herself is not for sale, as is implied by applying the adjective “high-priced” to her. Using the term “high-priced hooker” reinforces the rhetoric about sex workers “selling their bodies,” which is so often used by both conservatives and radical feminists. The fact that so many people simply accept this idea of sex workers selling their bodies is indicative of a deeper sexual more in our society: for a woman, having sex with a man constitutes at transfer of ownership. (Look at Purity Balls for a particularly creepy example of this belief in action.)

It’s bullshit, of course. A prostitute is no more selling her body than is a seamstress, a massage therapist, a professional athlete, a mechanic, a pianist… you get the point. A sex worker provides a service. (We do live in a service economy, after all.) Clients pay for that service. They do not own the worker. They do not, to use an analogy Ren has used, buy her like you’d buy a car and then drive her home and park her in their garage. That is ownership. Exchanging money for sexual services is nowhere close.

Finally, “high-priced hooker” carries the assumption that the worker in question is somehow over-charging, or charging more than most other workers. I don’t really know what’s going on with that assumption… should she charge less? Is she slightly more respectable because she charges more? But the bottom line is, it’s bullshit anyway, because nine times out of ten the people described as “high-priced hookers” aren’t charging rates out of the ordinary; they’re charging a competitive market rate. It makes me wonder, what the hell do people expect to pay?

More later, when I get time.

First of all, I hate it when people give blog posts titles like “Random Thoughts.” Even worse is when they name their entire blog something like “Random Thoughts.”

And yet, there it is.

I need to go to bed. But sometimes when Rusty isn’t here (he’s in Marietta tonight), I feel scared in the apartment alone. I know that might sound totally lame, but you know what, that’s just too damn bad, because everybody has things about them that might sound lame and yet are true.

One of the Georgians for Choice directors doesn’t like colloquial use of the word “lame.” She’s a PWD (gotta love the acronyms ’round here) and finds it disrespectful. I don’t have any opinion on it. I understand why she would feel that way. I also understand why some people find “crazy” disrespectful/offensive toward people with mental illnesses and such. I’m a diagnosed clinical depressive but I don’t find “crazy” offensive; in fact, in many cases, I find it quite apt. But if I know someone doesn’t like it, I make an effort not to use it around them. Inasmuch as Republicans flap their lips about “free speech” and “it’s just a word!!” you never see them acknowledging that if it is, in fact, “just a word,” then why’s it such a big fucking deal for them not to use it? Just pick another word FFS.

Oh! I found out some good news. Turns out, Club 2Risqué isn’t closed for good after all. They’re just preparing to open a new facility. And the grand opening is four days before my birthday. (Hard to believe I’ll be 28. Argh.)

I need to get off my ass and send my photoset to Project ISM (link NSFW). I took over 100 photos yesterday, and they turned out really well if I do say so myself. I am inching, excitedly and nervously, toward finally being naked on the internet. Encouragement would be appreciated. Anything else - including boring interrogation about “oh but why do you feel you have to do this??” is highly unwelcome.

Songs I’ve been listening to on repeat tonight:

• Birdhouse In Your Soul - They Might Be Giants
• This Love - Maroon 5
• Coming Undone - Korn
• Dip It Low - Christina Milian
• Sister Havana - Urge Overkill (remember them??)
• Bring Me To Life (Original) - Evanescence

I have not yet turned on my new MacBook, which arrived this morning. Delayed gratification!

And now, I really do need to go to bed.