Being Amber Rhea

I came across yet another random blog thread this morning where it devolved into radfem hand-wringing and sticking-out-of-tongues at the so-called (by them) “YAY PR0N!!1!” crowd. (And no, I am not going to provide a link. I am sick of people going, “OMG WHY WON’T SHE PROVIDE A LINK???” My blog, my call.) As if on cue, a commenter chimed in with, “Well, Biting Beaver used to be a sex worker, and she’s anti-porn and anti-prostitution!”

This strikes me a bit like, “Well, I have a black friend, and she says it’s okay for me to use the N-word!!”

Which is, of course, one of the most fundamental trappings of unrecognized privilege - viewing one person who is a member of a group as a representative of the entire group. (So, for example, a woman who wrecks her car proves that women are shitty drivers; an unemployed Latino man proves that Mexicans are lazy; and so on.)

One sex worker’s bad experience does not negate another sex worker’s good experience; and vice versa. A fundamental concept that we’re all supposed to be keeping in mind here is that people are individuals who experience the world in unique ways, and my experience will never be like yours, or hers, or his… etc.

I don’t want to harp on this anymore, though. I don’t like to fall into the trap of just doing blog posts about, “Oh look at this shitty thing another radfem blogger said!!” because even though I blog for myself first and foremost, sometimes I do worry a bit about what people might think of feminism as a whole if they see posts like this one. -And, yes, I know that if someone draws generalizations about all of feminism based on my complaints with one miniscule segment of the feminist blogosphere, ultimately that’s their problem for not using their brains; but still, I don’t like to be negative more often than positive. However, I do feel compelled to comment on stuff like this from time to time, because it upsets me to see such sentiments expressed under the guise of feminism.

And, now, I’m off to photograph dilapidated old buildings.

I haven’t felt inspired to blog for the past few days, but today, at least, Octogalore has a great post that I’ll quote from at length, to break up the monotony of nothing but Twitter and del.icio.us auto-posts. Also, I do have an idea for a post, thanks to Kochanie, co-blogger at Real Adult Sex; I should have time to write it this weekend.

Bigotry relies on classification. People who are sexist, racist, ablist, homophobic, transphobic, what have you, have convinced themselves that women, people of color, etc. are X or are not Y. That they are able to feel a particular way about an entire group because the group is homogeneous in some way.

Whereas, these people feel that their own group is composed of individuals. Let’s take a white male who doesn’t think highly of blacks or women. He’s decided that blacks are a certain way, and women are a certain way. However, he doesn’t like all white men either. But the reasons he may not like someone in this group allow for more diversity within the group.

That’s why recent statements in bloglandia about individualism are puzzling to me.

There was a discussion which many of you may recall about sex workers, in which some of us who piped up and said we did or do feel good about being able to lend a bit more credibility to the profession by virtue of being educated and not addicted to drugs. Others felt this was not feminist and was exclusionary.

More recently, in another thread, I was referred to as promoting individualism and therefore antifeminist. The context was my suggesting that various women who claimed they were educated and middle to upper class could stand up to patriarchal behavior on the part of their husbands. I was told that I did not understand the capitulation that ALL women need to make as the underclass, and that in suggesting that particular women break out of this trap, I was classist, individualist, etc. It was also stated, to plentiful agreement, that any step women are able to take is purely based on privilege, rather than initiative, guts, creativity, or anything else INDIVIDUAL.

So let’s think about this. By insisting that women are homogeneous, aren’t we playing right into the hands of the bigots?

Read the whole thing. It’s good food for thought.

Rusty and I have discussed the possibility of hiring someone to professionally clean our apartment once every two weeks or so. Given our busy schedules, it makes practical sense. And I’ve had the contact information of a cleaner for about two weeks now, on recommendation of a friend - but so far I haven’t actually contacted her.

I feel weird about this. I guess the word to describe what I feel is guilt - but I’m not sure that’s the whole picture.

For one thing, at a very deep level I just balk at the thought of me hiring a cleaner. It seems absurd. That’s something rich people do.

Also, I don’t want to be contributing to, well, exploitation. It goes without saying that I would be respectful toward any cleaner we might hire, and tip well. And yet, again on a very deep level, I feel bad about it, kind of like, how dare I pay someone to do this?

But when I think about it, that second reaction isn’t exactly fair, is it? It’s along the same lines as the reaction many people have to sex workers, for example. Obviously they must be downtrodden hard-luck types who would rather be in a different line of work, but as it is they’re poor exploited victims with no choice, and no voice. And we all know how I feel about generalizations like that.

And it’s really arbitrary, when I think about it even further, because I don’t have a similar reaction to, say, yard workers. Maybe that’s because when I was growing up we hired people to do yard work sometimes? (Even though, for the most part, they were my parents’ friends.)

So, upon (over-)analysis, it seems like the first part of my guilt-like reaction is coming from a place of being low(er) class myself, and the second part might be coming from a place of relative privilege. Maybe. Does that make sense?

Thoughts, anyone?

[This post is a slightly-edited outtake from my Big Bad Essay. It's actually been sitting around on its ass for a couple of weeks, and I finally decided to kick it out of my Word doc and onto the internets.]

I kind of hated breaking my “Blogs Not of Georgia” links into categories (screen shot, in case you’re reading this sometime in the future after another layout change), but I had to do it, because there were just so many that it was getting difficult to look at without some separation. I made a “Geeky” category and a “Sexy” category, but it gnawed at me so much that I added this disclaimer: “No implication meant that ‘geeky’ and ’sexy’ are mutually exclusive.”

The blogs that I placed in each category were placed there based on the primary or most frequent topic of their blogs. But not all blogs are so easily categorized - hence the catch-all “Just a damn good read” category.

Trying to define and group the non-Georgia* blogs to which I link got me thinking about my blog, and how it would be categorized - and I had a tough time coming up with an answer.

• Is it a web development blog? While I write about web dev stuff from time to time, my blog certainly is no 456 Berea St. or molly.com.
• Is it a feminist blog? Maybe, if only because I’m a feminist and this is my blog - but I don’t spend all day chronicling the inequities of the patriarchy.
• Is it a political blog? Please. One or two “Here’s why Republicans suck” posts per month do not a political blog make. There’s a reason I wasn’t approved for the Georgia BlogWire.
• Is it an Atlanta blog? Again, perhaps by default since I live in Atlanta. I also have an online photo album filled with Atlanta pictures, and write about local issues from time to time - but I’m no decaturguy.
• Is it a sex blog? Not by a longshot; although, some might say it is, simply because I write about sex more often than other bloggers they read - which is to say, the other bloggers never mention it.

That last one in particular got me thinking. I get interesting reactions when I post about sex - and I don’t even do it that often. Perhaps that’s part of the reason for the type of response I get. But, what are some other possible explanations? My theory is, there are several factors at work here. Shall we enumerate them? We shall.

• I write about lots of different topics. People may be caught off-guard when they encounter a sex post immediately after a CSS post.
• Like it or not, the fact is that even in the 21st century, it’s still a lot less acceptable (and hence less common) for a girl to speak bluntly about sex than it is for a guy to do so. Which brings us to…
• I write unashamedly about my love for and appreciation of The Good Fucking. Hell, I use the word “fuck.”
• I love me some cock but there are people who think I’m a lesbian because I have short hair and don’t wear make-up. Add to that the fact that (commence own-horn-tooting) I’m smart and nerdy and have two college degrees under my belt and fancy myself as a bit of a wordsmith… In short, I don’t fit the stereotypes (which are stupid anyway, but I digress).

Several sex blogs are part of my ever-increasing collection of almost-daily reads. There’s a reason these blogs are labeled “sex blogs” and mine isn’t. But then again, is it fair to pigeonhole them either? I know Dacia got some flak from some of her readers when her writing started to shift away from recaps of sexual encounters and more toward ruminations about sex as a social and cultural phenomenon. I think both types of writing are worthwhile, and I don’t think Dacia (or anyone) should feel constrained to write about only one or the other. The argument could even be made that the body of work she produces is more valuable because it incorporates both approaches (and everything else along the spectrum). The diversity results in a more well-rounded, and hence more realistic, picture.

I’m not saying that it’s always bad to categorize one’s writing. Plenty of bloggers - some of the most successful ones, in fact - made the decision to write about a specific topic or subject area, and their writing certainly hasn’t suffered for it. Sometimes, having a specific “category” or “type” can be a good thing - it keeps your writing on track, spurs you to think more deeply about specific subjects, and may result in more insightful writing than if you were “free” to write about anything. On the other hand, it can also be restrictive; case in point, the GDBF saying, “I can’t write about [whatever] because this is supposed to be a political blog.” It’s never good to feel constrained by something that was intended as a means of expressing your ideas and creativity.

Most of my favorite blogs to read are ones where the person writes about whatever they want, whether it be what they did that day or some sort of political commentary. That’s not a hard-and-fast rule, though, because some of my favorite blogs fit easily into a pre-defined category. But even those blogs don’t feel so impersonal, because the person occasionally writes about other, semi-related topics, or injects a personal note from time to time. I like this because it gives me an idea of the person behind the writing - and however inaccurate that idea may be, it’s better than reading something written by someone you know nothing about.

Getting back to sex - why, then, would readers be especially shocked or displeased when a “non-sex” blogger writes about sex, or a “sex blogger” writes about - gasp! - some other topic? I would word my answer differently for each question, but either way it’s really the same answer. In the first case: “Sex is a part of life - but a part that many people don’t want to deal with in an upfront manner.” And in the second case: “There’s more to life than sex - believe it or not, bloggers who write mostly about sex are regular people who actually do other things in their day-to-day lives.” These are just two different ways of saying that many people mistakenly impose a non-existant duality on others (and themselves) when it comes to issues of sex. Sexuality is viewed as something separate from the rest of who you are - which means that when you spend most of your time writing about the aspects of your life that encompass “the rest,” it can throw people off balance to see a post about sex, casually thrown in with no warning. Likewise, if you write mostly about sex, people unfairly detach this from the rest of who you are and see you (through your writing) only as a function of your sexuality, rather than a whole person of whom sexuality is but one part.

Dismantling this imposed duality is no easy task, and a lot of people (understandably) don’t want to put up with all the hubbub from ignorant readers, so they stick to writing one way or the other. Blogs that seamlessly incorporate both are few and far between. Obviously I think this is a good thing and should happen more often, and I say hats off to the bloggers who are moving forward with it. (Joseph accomplishes it particularly well.) But still, we need more.

It is important that people not feel prohibited from writing about sex on a personal level, and that there be bloggers who combine normal, everyday minutiae with stories of The Good Fucking, because sex is something that, as I already mentioned, is typically seen as separate from the rest of who you are. And so many people have an attitude of shame or guilt about sex, that it’s important to get it out in the open as something that’s natural, normal, awesome, and most definitely not something to be ashamed of.

So, uh, back to the original point, inasmuch as I had one… how would you categorize my blog?

* Ed. note: You might ask why I categorized blogs based on location in the first place. Why, because it’s easy, of course!

A few things have me thinking lately about self-perception vs. the perceptions of others. Arguably, self-perception is all that really matters - if you are happy with yourself and your life, then who cares what anyone else thinks? On the other hand, if you find yourself in a negative self-perception loop, being able to take a look through others’ eyes can be helpful in offering some perspective. -Assuming, of course, that those “others” aren’t the same j-holes who contributed to you having a negative self-image to begin with.

What in God’s holy name am I blathering about? Well, maybe it’ll work better if I speak in personal specifics instead of obtuse generalities.

I wrote here about finding some old pictures of myself and realizing that I was a lot better looking back then than I gave myself credit for. That remark might come off as flippant at best, self-gratifying at worst. But for me it was a real revelation. You see, I had been pegged - I was The Ugly Girl. It started in 7th grade and followed me into high school. It started to subside slightly in 10th grade - but not enough to make my typical days any less difficult.* It probably would have followed me all the way to senior year if I hadn’t transferred to Augusta Prep. (Those pictures were taken during junior year, by which time my self-image had improved significantly - but the scars from a few years prior were still fresh. [Pardon the agonizingly stereotypical metaphor - it's late and I couldn't think of anything better.])

Seriously, though - some pretty whack shit went down during middle school and the first two years of high school. Trying to pretend it didn’t affect me deeply would be an outright lie. Transferring to Augusta Prep was like a breath of fresh air - these people didn’t know me, and thus didn’t know that I was The Ugly Girl. I could start fresh. Leaving Georgia altogether to attend NYU was another huge step. Now I was free of the possibility of running into people from my past while out and about. I’m glad I decided to transfer to UGA during my sophomore year - but those 3 semesters at NYU were hugely important on a personal level. I think things would have been very different if I had gone directly to UGA as a freshman from Augusta.

I like to think I’m mostly over all that shit now, at 25. But there are still times when the deeply ingrained self-doubt and fear creep up on me unexpectedly. It’s usually at particularly vulnerable moments (not surprisingly). And when that happens, I have to do my best to push it away and not let myself slip into the old familiar pattern of believing it. It also sometimes manifests itself at seemingly banal moments; for example, if I am given a compliment based on outward appearance - it could be something as simple as “You look nice today” - my knee-jerk internal reaction might be (and I know it’s going to sound like I’m fishing for a compliment here, but that’s NOT THE CASE, so don’t start with that), “Wow, really? They really think I’m attractive? Shock! Disbelief!”

Anyway. So that’s some shit I’ve been thinking about and dealing with. At times I tend to get caught up with this stuff, and I just go in circles thinking about it on an annoying, philosophical level. But it’s important not to let the past just sit around and fester.

* Ed. Note: Becoming closer friends with Jenny and Niki in 10th grade also helped immensely. Credit where credit’s due - I love you ladies. :)