Being Amber Rhea

Quote of the day…

…and yet somehow it feels wrong to call it that, as if it’s something awesome.

Because it’s not awesome. It’s sad and it’s true and it’s important for all men to get this shit through their heads.

This is from commenter Elle, on a vitally important, very difficult, possibly triggering thread at The Curvature.

It’s hard for me to believe that every woman has not at least experienced that “mild” form of sexual assault–being groped in public or having a man go too far, and keep going too far even after she’s said no. I hope there are women who haven’t experienced that, but I haven’t met any. Realizing this makes me realize how very far we have to go. Because even as feminist as I like to think of myself as being, my urge is to minimize this stuff, at least when it happens to me, not to rock the boat or “make a big deal out of nothing.”

Been there. So true. And I, too, hope there are women who haven’t experienced anything like this, ever. Because none of us should.

Quote of the day

From Derek, who, I see, has subsequently password-protected his entire blog.

At IDEAfest, I presented “Putting an End to Rape Culture: Challenging Attitudes and Misinformation.” I didn’t expect to get much of an audience (only about 100 people dropped by throughout the day), but I did end up getting between twenty to thirty people, which was an average turnout.

The problem, then? Only four men showed up.

Let me repeat: There were only four men who showed up because they gave at least a bit of a damn about strategies to end the sexual violation of women, at an event dominated by men—over 20 presenters were men and less than 10 were women. The attendees were somewhat more balanced, from what I saw.

I want to make it clear that I’m not phased by the size of my audience, but the gender imbalance. When men don’t pay attention to or ignore information on what they can do to help end rape, especially when it’s practically handed to them, they reinforce the idea that’s it’s up to women to stop rape. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, it demonstrates that the majority of men just don’t care.

And:

The fact that most of the men in attendance were “decent men” does nothing to discount the fact that their gender politics are fucked.

I’ve repeated variations on that particular line so many times that I couldn’t even begin to enumerate them all.

Wednesday

Lots of things on my mind… I suppose I’ll just start writing and keep on until I’m too tired to type. And no proofreading!

~*~

In the “HOLY SHIT I’M AN ADULT” department, Rusty and I put an offer in on a house yesterday. It’s the first one pictured in this post. I haven’t blogged or Twittered about it much because I don’t want to jinx anything, and because I’m freaking out a little bit. Don’t get me wrong, I know this is the right decision and all that jazz; but it’s a BIG decision, and a major commitment. Signing a lease is one thing but getting a mortgage, that’s an entirely different level of “you better know what you’re getting into.” It looks like everything is going to work out w/ this house, but still, I appreciate any and all crossed fingers. The next few weeks will be a flurry of activity leading up to closing, and I intend to enjoy all of it! Then, after closing, there will be a flurry of activity leading up to moving in. Followed by a flurry of activity leading up to having the place looking decent enough for a housewarming party!

Priorities before closing: home inspection and termite inspection (duh); figuring out where the furnace is.

Priorities after closing: Security system; Orkin super-dousing because I don’t play around with roaches; personal pole studio; many bird feeders in the backyard.

A REQUEST: Please do not offer any unsolicited real estate “advice” in the comments!

~*~

I love Rachel Maddow. She and Suze Orman are two of my heroes. Initially I found Suze Orman annoying, but that was before I’d ever listened to anything she said – I just thought she was annoying because she seemed to shout so much. Then I realized the shouting is part of what makes her awesome. But, back to Rachel Maddow. How freakin’ cool is she?? However, I don’t like how in this New York Magazine article she says “I’m not very pretty.” Why the self-deprecation? No, she doesn’t conform to the general media-dictated ‘beauty standard’ for women, but so what? There’s no need to cast that as her not being pretty. It really bothers me. She is pretty, but it bugs me that there’s any discussion of it at all, honestly; when would you see a male pundit’s looks being such an issue?

~*~

I love love love this post at Shakesville, about Congress finally switching to gender neutral language. What is absolutely not surprising, of course, is the reaction to this news from a hell of a lot of people – whining that it’s “not important” and the feminists have their hair on fire again, blah blah. This is a perfect example of how privilege works. Inevitably, in every “conversation” like this, some dude will pipe up and say how there’s not some conspiracy against women and why don’t we feminists just shut up already, it’s just language, get over it. Well, first of all, I’m not fooled by anyone trying to lecture me on the way language works – I’ll bust out the learnin’ that earned me my linguistics degree any day of the week. But the main point is: no, OF COURSE there’s not a conspiracy – THAT’S THE POINT. No one is sitting in a smoke-filled room, rubbing their hands together maniacally as they devise ways to oppress women through grammatical rules. No one “means anything by it.” Everytime someone poses this as an “argument” it just makes me roll my eyes, because it’s like hello, you have just PROVEN THE POINT. The question of intent does not figure into this. The fact that it’s normalized, the default, we just accept it, nobody “means anything” by any of it – that is the problem! I can’t tell you how sick I am of people trying to argue intent against someone pointing out privilege in action. It makes me want to beat my head against a wall because they don’t seem to realize that LACK OF INTENT is the point!! If I hear one more person talk about how someone didn’t mean something maliciously, I’m just going to… well, I don’t know what. Beat my head against a brick wall?

Brief note about Old English: the commenter at the Shakesville thread who mentioned wyf and wer as the Old English words for woman and man, and man as the Old English word for human, is correct. The Old English word wyfman, which became woman, literally meant “female person.”

Also, I love the commenter who mentions how you’ll see exactly how big of a deal male-as-unmarked-case language is when you switch the genders and start using “she” as a general-purpose pronoun instead of “he.” It will blow some people’s minds, and some will get REALLY fucking hostile about it. The Regender tool is also a really interesting way of demonstrating how gender stereotypes are encoded in our language.

See also X: A Fabulous Child’s Story. Thanks to Catherine for showing me her original 1970s copy of the book; the illustrations are wonderful!

~*~

As I mentioned yesterday, Caroline has been doing a bang-up job with the UK prostitution law news. I have briefly glanced at the F-Word thread and even left a few comments at the Feministe thread, but for the most part unfortunately I haven’t had time to participate or do much blogging of my own on the issue. But from what I saw at the F-Word thread, it’s all the same bullshit “arguments” that give me a pounding headache. Kudos to Caroline, Ren, Natalia, and others for fighting the good fight; I’ll be back at it once I have some time, I promise. Even though these conversations with the antis feel SO repetitive, I believe it is extremely important to keep having them, because people’s lives are at stake, and if we don’t speak, then the people in power will continue to actively and passively commit violence against sex workers. Being uncomfortable or annoyed is not a justification for permanently disengaging from these issues. Absolutely, everyone must take breaks, because it is vitally important that we take care of ourselves. But that’s why it’s crucial to have many, many people involved in the sex workers’ rights movement, so that there’s always someone there to speak, and so that everyone can properly care for themselves.

Fundamentally, I just don’t get it, with these “arguments.” At the F-Word, for example – how much clearer could Caroline be? It’s not about whether you think sex work is right or wrong. It’s not about how it’s constructed in our society or why it exists or where it comes from. It’s not about wondering whether sex work would still be around after The Revolution. It’s not about discussions of “normalizing” prostitution, questions of whether sex workers can choose their work, debates about what exactly is being sold. IT IS ABOUT SAFETY AND HUMAN RIGHTS. This should not be a source of debate. Feminists should be united on this, completely. It should be a foregone conclusion. That the conversation always drifts back to ideology, what prostitution “means” and that kind of thing, really disgusts me and astounds me. And this constant conflating of sex work and trafficking? STOP, ALREADY!!! This is what Sex in the Public Square held a week-long forum to address, but I guess most of the antis didn’t bother to read that, now did they. The way trafficking is ALWAYS brought into these discussions, such an obvious red herring but one that always leads to derailment, just floors me.

Sigh… Ren, I’m going to need another Typical file.

~*~

To say this essay by Latoya of Racialicious is powerful would be an insulting understatement. It’s entitled “The Not Rape Epidemic” and is the original version of the essay which appears in the Yes Means Yes! anthology. She has a trigger warning on it, so be aware of that if you’ll be clicking through.

And you certainly should click through, because I think this essay is a must-read, especially for men. The essay resonated with me on a very deep level, to a degree that I feel I can’t articulate. Women experience this shit all the time and most of us don’t say anything – because we know from experience that if we do, it won’t help and will likely hurt. One time a male friend remarked that he couldn’t really see a mutual female friend the same way after learning she’d been raped; I was so bothered by his statement that I said nothing. What I was thinking was, if you truly knew how many of your female friends and acquaintances had experienced sexual assault, you wouldn’t be speaking to most of them if you have such a problem with “seeing them the same way.” Men don’t realize how prevalent this is. They might hear the 1 in 4 stat but often I don’t think it really registers on a “yes, this has happened to someone I know” level.

I want to write more about Latoya’s essay but I can’t find the words. What I want to say about it is beyond words.

~*~

Tomorrow night I’m leading the Social Media Club Atlanta meeting. The topic is “Online Identity and Buzzword Bingo.” You can RSVP on Facebook or Upcoming – or just show up! (Though RSVPing is always nice.) Here are some links I’ll be using for reference material, if you want to read up ahead of time. There won’t be a quiz but there will be a Bingo game, with an appropriately self-referential prize.

• Sarah Dopp: Why I Write About My Life On the Internet
• Nelson “Nelz” Carpentier: The Real Nelz
• Penelope Trunk: Good blogging is simple: Write good posts (and be thankful)
• AV Flox: Hiring the Information Generation
• Caroline McCarthy: What I don’t get about all this hullaballoo over personal branding

And finally this gem from Laura’s LiveJournal, which is short enough that I can just post the whole thing. When I put the link in my browser it wanted me to log in, so I don’t know if the post was friends-locked or what, so I’m not linking; but I doubt she’ll mind me sharing this chunk of wisdom…

Just an observation from Twitter

Robert Scoble is a self-promotion machine. It gets tiresome.

I’m sorry, but I am about to un-follow ever media marketing PR link-spamming mongol because I am sick of their shit. The only topic more boring is…oh, I can’t think of any topic more boring.

That is all.

Heh.

I’m excited about the meeting, but also a little nervous! Please come out and help make it an interesting discussion. (It’s all in good fun, so I hope no one gets pissy about the words on the Bingo card.) Here’s the description again:

SMC ATL: Online Identity and Buzzword Bingo

When: Thursday, January 8, 7:00pm – 8:30pm
Where: Manuel’s Tavern – North Avenue Room

Thanks to Amber Rhea for leading the conversation and bingo game! Bring your bingo dauber and POV on these identity topics!

• Is your online identity different from your IRL identity?
• What does it mean to “manage your online identity”?
• Are there any off-limits topics on blogs? Who decides?
• Rethinking the personal/professional dichotomy and tearing down the walls of compartmentalization: yea or nay?

Note: this is what a dauber is.

~*~

And that’s a wrap. I’m getting sleepy, so it’s time for bed. Rusty and I are getting up a little earlier than usual tomorrow so we can go over to our potential new house and see what the traffic on Moreland is like at the usual time when we head to work. If we have to adjust our schedule to account for it, I don’t mind; I actually like getting to the office early. We just want to be aware!

This post is going to have a million tags.

Quote of the day

From that same thread at Octogalore’s, this time from commenter Suzie:

Nooses have come to symbolize lynching of African-Americans. But there isn’t one such symbol to represent the rape and murder of women. It’s usually represented by a man grabbing a woman. Perhaps some men see Favreau “only” grabbing a woman’s breast. But others of us are creeped out by the idea of two men grabbing a woman, when we know they don’t like her and would like to put her down.

Some of us have had the experience of a man grabbing us, with us not knowing what he intended to do next.

Not an invitation

I am loving these posters from LACAAW:

Have a look at all of ‘em.

[Via Bound, Not Gagged]

*sigh*

Teresa Carr Deni was retained.

FYI, the Philadelphia Bar Association recommended against her retention.

On Ren’s site, commenter Katie wondered if a lot of people just voted “yes” straight down the ballot. It seems like a plausible explanation, at least for some of the votes. But whatever the reason, it doesn’t make the results any less discouraging. In fact, apathy may be more discouraging than malice.

And then, there’s this.

On the surface, it looks like a good article in support of the sexual assault victim and outraged at Judge Deni’s retention. And overall, it is, and the more of this kind of support that gets published in the mainstream media, the better; I’m certainly not going to totally castigate something if people are making an effort. Still, this part chafed:

The victim spoke intelligently and with deep love for her mother and daughter.

She no longer advertises on Craigslist.

“If I’m going to struggle, I’m going to struggle, but I don’t want to be in a position like that where I have to be begging for my life,” she said.

What the fuck???

Why does it make any difference whether or not she still advertises on Craigslist?? Are we supposed to feel sympathy for her on the condition that she’s a repentant hooker? Would all the other points about her situation outlined in the article be somehow less true if she were still advertising on Craigslist??

And, “[t]he victim spoke intelligently and with deep love for her mother and daughter”??? WHY is that in there? I guess we’re supposed to be blown away by this hooker with a heart of gold, AND brains, too!

The article would have been just fine, thanks, without those two sentences! Talk about a slap in the face!

And I hate that the victim seems to be partially blaming herself in the last sentence. And that she now chooses to “struggle,” because as a sex worker, she didn’t have the basic protections offered by most other professions, even though sex work would allow her to earn more money to support her family. I don’t think that part should have been taken out of the article, since it was a quote from the victim. When I say that I hate that part, I don’t mean it in a way like “oh it’s making her look bad” or something. What I mean is, I hate that we live in a world where we’re supposed to be all sanctimonious and nod our heads like, “Yes, yes, now she knows better, she’s learned a lesson, she can go get a respectable job that pays minimum wage where she has to work long hours and not spend any time with her kid… not that that’ll stop us from giving her hell about being a single mother and GOD FORBID she try to collect a welfare check or get childcare or medical care for her family… and if her kid gets in trouble it’s HER fault for not being at home…”

ARGH!!!!

Update: Forgot to say when I initially wrote the post – Look at how the first two sentences in the part I quoted are juxtaposed. They’re positioned as an if/then situation. Or more like, one directly led to the other. “She’s intelligent and loves her family, therefore she no longer advertises on Craigslist.” Because clearly no intelligent woman who loves her family would do THAT.

The next day / Why it matters

So, this.

Stupid Comcast has the worst timing. My cable was out all last night, meaning I couldn’t participate in the virtual rally about which I had helped spread the word. Dammit.

Today, there’s a lot of catching up to do. Lots of good blog posts to read; the folks who participated last night kicked some serious ass. You can find a lot of the posts via Technorati; and of course, the epicenter of the action was Bound, Not Gagged. I’ll be waiting to hear the results of the election in Pennsylvania today, to see if Judge Teresa Carr Deni still has her job.

Speaking of jobs…

In the blog posts I’ve had time to read (and there are many more I haven’t, yet), some people are expressing shock that this happened.

Really?

I’m sorry, but how can you be shocked? Outraged, yes. Fired up and motivated to take action, absolutely. Disgusted with the abject injustice of it, of course.

But shocked?

This is nothing new. Sex workers are treated like shit in our society. And so, rape isn’t rape, depending on what your job is.

I’ll be honest – this is why I never became a sex worker. I considered it, with varying degrees of seriousness, for many years. But ultimately, what stopped me from taking the definitive step and actually doing it was fear. Fear of harm at the hands of a client, partly; but to a much greater degree, fear of harm (mental, physical, emotional) by law enforcement, the judicial system, and society at large.

This has been a pattern throughout my life, in many situations. Fear stops me cold in my tracks, while other people move forward. This isn’t always a bad thing. For example, fear kept me from doing a lot of the stuff my peers did in middle school and high school, like sneaking out of the house. In retrospect that was a wise decision, and it certainly didn’t leave me with long-term negative consequences; if anything, the opposite is true. But the point is, this is a pattern I’ve recognized. And when the paralyzing fear is having negative effects – stopping me from fully realizing a goal or a part of my being – I’ve tried in recent years to push through it. Pole dancing is the biggest example of me being successful at this, and there are many other, “smaller” examples, some of which are known only to me.

As far as pursuing sex work as a job, though, I never was able to push through the fear. I guess it’s that part of my brain that just won’t stop being pragmatic, or… something. Maybe that’s not the best word. I don’t know. Anyway, a fairly loud part of my mind kept telling me that while it’s good to push through fear and not let it define my life, there’s a difference between confronting the fear of being laughed at by my peers, and confronting the fear of being thrown in jail, brutalized, and denied justice.

And so I have immense respect for people who do sex work even in the face of all the odds stacked against sex workers.

I urge everyone to check out Bound, Not Gagged. And speak up. As inspiring as these voices in the blogosphere have been, there has also been a deafening silence from the rest of the blogosphere, not to mention the mainstream media. As far as I’ve seen, the so-called “A-List” progressive political blogs haven’t touched it.

I’ll close with words of wisdom from Octogalore:

It may be tempting for those of us who are not prostitutes to sit this one out. After all, this isn’t about us, right?

Wrong.

If it is not rape to be forced to have sex, at gunpoint, after refusing, just because you’d previous agreed to have unforced sex for money, then who is next?

Maybe they’ll come for those who agree to have sex with a friend of the guy who rapes them? That’s not rape, it’s identity switching.

Or those who agreed to have sex in the past and then are forced to do so at a later point? That’s not rape, it’s time discrepancy.

Or those of us who are or have been strippers? We were willing to do sex-related stuff for money, so this isn’t rape it’s just forced inflation of services.

What if we at one point had sex with a boyfriend as a fun way to settle a bet? Then we ARE prostitutes and it’s back to theft of services.

What if we can be demonstrated to have sex with our husbands in exchange for material security? Then there’s no spousal rape.

What if we are deemed to be dressed too slutty? Then we can be argued to have been willing to exchange sex for money, and cannot be raped.

Per wiki, rape is “where one individual forces another to have sexual intercourse against that person’s will.” This kind of decision says that prostitutes aren’t, in fact, people. Their consent or lack thereof is meaningless.

And guess what? If they aren’t, then we may not be either. This is about all of us.

REMINDER: Virtual rally @ 5:00 p.m. today

Don’t forget to go to Bound, Not Gagged at 5:00 p.m. EST today to join in the conversation and support of the sexual assault victim whose case was reduced to “theft of services” by Judge Teresa Carr Deni. And if the spirit moves, write your own blog post on the subject, too! Sex workers are people just like everyone else, and this kind of bullshit MUST stop. Please spread the word!!

Call to action: Virtual rally for sexual assault victim Monday, Nov. 5th

Who: Sex workers, allies and supporters
What: Live blog action
Why: To oust Judge Teresa Carr Deni in PA
When: Monday, November 5th, 2007 – 5pm Eastern / 2pm Pacific
Where: http://www.BoundNotGagged.com

Calling all sex workers and supporters! On Monday November 5th the Desiree Alliance will host a virtual rally to stand in solidarity with the sexual assault victim in PA whose case was reduced to ‘theft of services’ by Judge Teresa Carr Deni. We support the efforts of local activists in Philadelphia to raise voter awareness about Judge Deni and to encourage voters to vote ‘No’ to retain her in Tuesday’s elections. Please join us by sharing a personal story, reflections, art/poetry or any other messages/images that you feel are important or relevant. New contributors are welcome at the blog! If you’re not already an author at Bound, Not Gagged and you’d like to be, send an email to: BoundNotGagged@gmail.com.

We encourage contributors to make a post either over the weekend or before 5pm Eastern on Monday, then join us at the blog on Monday at 5pm to comment on other people’s posts, add more content, ask/answer questions, etc. Thank you for supporting our efforts to raise awareness about violence against sex workers! If you have any questions, please contact stacey@desireealliance.org.

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More information at Bound, Not Gagged. Please forward far and wide, and please participate!!

De Anza College [whatever kind of players they were] – may I use them as target practice?

[Seriously, possible trigger here.]

Excuse me? No charges will be filed. On this.

…But yeah, feminism is quaint and unnecessary. There’s no such thing as a “rape culture,” why do those hairy feminazis keep making up such stupid terms?