US Pole Dance Championship highlights
I meant to post this weeks ago, but here you go… highlights from the 2009 US Pole Dance Championship, held March 15 in New York City. These ladies are truly phenomenal. I hope that one day with enough practice, I’ll have the strength and control to do some of the AMAZING tricks shown in this video.
Pussy!!
Awesomeness via Renee.
Video from the National March for Sex Workers’ Rights
Via Bound, Not Gagged, of course.
So many awesome people in this video.
Sex worker rights are human rights!
This is awesome
Tuesday stuff (yet another in a long tradition of non-SEO-friendly titles)
This weekend I saw the movie Milk, commemorating the life of Harvey Milk. It was excellent all around; however there were two things that really stood out to me.
At one point Harvey Milk is talking to Dan White, who showed up at a party drunk. White says something like, “You’ve got an issue!” and Milk replies, with restrained hostility, “This isn’t an issue; this is our lives.” (I’m paraphrasing here; I can’t remember the verbatim quote.)
I was so, so, so glad to hear that sentiment expressed in the movie. it’s something I’ve written about before; but I really don’t think it can be stressed too much, and I also think it’s something that some people just don’t get. (And guess what that is? Ding ding – privilege!) Also, unfortunately sometimes the people who are marginalized and who have their lives cast as “issues” end up adopting the same rhetoric in an attempt to argue their case. It’s understandable, since it’s reactionary – but I think it misses an opportunity to address this very important point. Whenever someone talks about, say for example, abortion being “an issue that divides voters,” this is exactly the point I make if it’s a situation where I’m able to make my voice heard. That sort of dismissal (and really, “dismissal” is not a strong enough word – erasure is more appropriate) is so incredibly offensive that I can’t even articulate it. My life, reduced to a “divisive issue.”
All these various “issues” – they are NOT issues to be debated. I am not an issue. Don’t you dare call me a “single-issue voter” in that sneering holier-than-thou tone.
It also occurs to me that some people really do not have any idea how it feels, on a deep level, to be told that your life is worth less than someone else’s. Stories like this one can help drive it home for some people but that’s mainly on an individual basis (the importance of which I am not denying); how do we make EVERYONE “get it?” It’s a feeling that words cannot convey, so I won’t even try. But if you know what that feels like, there’s no way in hell you can prattle on about “issues,” I don’t believe.
The other part of the movie that stood out to me was this… I’ll quote Melissa’s tweet:
Still stuck on the Anita Bryant bit of MILK where she complains that prostitutes will have to get civil rights, too, if the gays do.
When the clip of Bryant saying that played, I muttered under my breath, “Yeah because that would be soooo awful.” No, we can’t give prostitutes CIVIL RIGHTS! God no! What bothers me is I wonder how many of the other movie-goers even gave it a second thought.
See also: Susie Bright’s reflections.
~*~
I hope Daisy doesn’t mind that I lifted the little tilde-asterisk-tilde divider from her. It’s just so much more visually appealing (yet not overly distracting!) than three plain dashes. I think I’m going to start using it from now on in posts that contain numerous unrelated thoughts. (In other words: old-school blogging!!)
Coming back to privilege for a second… last week I promised GriftDrift and Sara I’d blog about it, in response to this post. Once again it is glaringly obvious that there is a lot of misunderstanding about the definition of privilege. It’s so frustrating. And I know I said I’d write a post, but I just haven’t had the energy. I don’t know how many times I and so many others can say the same thing. I know it’s important to keep saying it, for people who haven’t heard it yet; but at the moment I feel depleted. As I said in the comments on that post, privilege has nothing to do with intent. Once you start talking about intent it’s a completely different thing. Also privilege is not a personal failing, or something you can renounce. It is granted externally and you benefit from it, without knowing there is anything there to benefit from. That’s why Peggy McIntosh called it the invisible knapsack. No, there is not some grand white supremacist conspiracy dictating that most clip art, advertisements, media, etc. features white people – and that’s the whole point.
Sometimes I am just out of energy, I don’t have the energy to engage. Sometimes I’m able – usually on a one to one basis, in person. Sometimes online – it just depends. Once in a while it is really beneficial. I know it’s an important thing to do. I just can’t always do it myself.
Dacia wrote a post that mentions the importance of engaging rather than just lashing out. I totally agree with it. I also think that sometimes lashing out is okay, too. You can’t expect people to be totally patient saints 100% of the time when we’ve heard the same lines over and over regardless of anyone’s “intentions.” I guess it’s a balancing act. (See also Renee.) If you’re completely hostile all the time then nothing gets done, no one is reached, no alliances are made. But if you’re completely accommodating all the time then nothing gets done, no one learns, you’re basically a doormat. People have to take responsibility for their shit at some point, whether intentional or not. If you’re a true ally that means you listen instead of dismiss when you are called out on an -ism.
Really what it boils down to for me is, so much of this stuff has to be taken on a case-by-case basis. And it depends on many people fighting the fight in various ways.
~*~
The winner of Miss Pole Dance Australia 2008 is the same woman who won Miss Pole Dance Australia 2006. As before, to say she is amazing is an understatement. However I think her performance this time is even better. It has more grace and fluidity in addition to the awe-inspiring pole work. And, this time she has short hair like mine!! :D
I hope to one day be this good. I have my doubts that it’ll ever happen, but it’s good to have goals. There is always something else to learn with pole dancing!
~*~
I am annoyed by male hip-hop artists who mess up female hip-hop artists’ good songs. Examples: Nas to Kelis, Jay-Z to Beyonce. Stop messing up “Let’s Get It On In Public” and “Upgrade U.”
~*~
In meta news, I realized I can’t redirect amber.tangerinecs.com to beingamberrhea.com like I was thinking about doing, because all my images live on amber.tangerinecs.com (and I don’t feel like moving them). Oh well. The pre-April 2007 blog archives will just continue to live in two places.
Inspiration
I hope that one day I can be as amazing a pole dancer as Sam Remmer of the Art of Dance. Here she is competing in the 2008 Pole Divas Championships:
That reminds me: if you haven’t already, be sure to sign the petition to get pole dancing added as an Olympic sport in 2012!
Election reflections
Now that it’s been a few days since the election, I want to mention a couple things that disappointed me. I didn’t want to go negative right away and kill the “OMG Obama awesome!!!!” buzz (which still lingers some for me; hell, ever since Wednesday my Tumblr has been mostly Obama pictures).
I was disappointed that California’s Prop 8 passed and San Francisco’s Prop K did not pass. Some of the news pundits were blaming black voters in California for passage of Prop 8, but I think that’s BS; my inclination is to think it has to do with low voter turnout in certain areas of the state.
One reason that amendments “defining marriage” are so disturbing to me is that you’re then using a state’s Constitution to restrict freedom of its citizens, rather than expand/protect their freedom.
Good posts about the outcome of Prop 8:
BlackGayBlogger: Finding the Words
The media would have you believe that the blame of the proposition’s passing lies squarely on the backs of Black Californians, which I find to not only be silly, but statistically impossible. I’m not sure of the exact number of Black voters who voted yes on Prop 8, but I can bet that there weren’t enough to make it a majority vote of just that ethnic group.
Sugarbutch Chronicles: post-election: on love
Despite that I do understand what people say about the threat of gay marriage, I don’t really understand. I just don’t. Why? Why why why are we so threatening? On bad days – like this one, when literally millions of people voted against my very personal right, my very personal decision to get married – my heart fills up with emotion and I feel like a little kid after another kid yells, “I HATE YOU!” My eyes well up. I didn’t do anything to you. Just – why?
As for Prop K, while I’m disappointed and frustrated that it didn’t pass, I
And what has your no vote done? Well, people: women, men, boys, girls, of all colors, of all sexual orientations, of all ages, cis and transgender, will still be involved in prostitution. In homes, in hotels, in cars, in massage parlors, in alleys, in clubs, everywhere. The sex trade will continue on, just as it always has. Whether there by choice, or by force, or because there are no other options, people of all kinds will still be selling sex, and people will still be buying it. You know it, and I know it. However, thanks to you, when a young woman is raped, when a young man is beaten, when any of these people get cut up, sodomized, violated, abused, mutilated, harassed, tortured or robbed, they will still have no where to go. They will still fear the law; they will still carry, along with the stigma of being a whore, the stigma of being a criminal. Their murders will still be written up with the tag NHI (No Humans Involved). You have not helped these people, why yes, real live human beings with thoughts, dreams and emotions just like you, at all. You’ve only hurt and marginalized them further.
Bound, Not Gagged also has a wealth of coverage, including this video from Margaret Prescod:
Most important take-away quote from the video, in my opinion: “Criminalization empowers pimps. I really want you to remember that.”
That’s probably all I’ll write about the election results for a while… I’ve got three other posts percolating, about 1) body image, 2) the value of blogging, and 3) pole dancing.
Sam Bee FTW
I love this:
Via Susie Bright, because I am so behind on watching the Daily Show lately.
Song for today
A.k.a. note to self.
I am extraordinary, if you’d ever get to know me…
Children’s television
A thread at Garrett’s blog has inspired me to post a favorite television memory. Does anybody else remember that episode of You Can’t Do That On Television where “the Russians” took over? Instead of green slime they had red slime, and instead of being slimed when you said “I don’t know” you were slimed when you said “freedom.”
Now I just need to look for it on YouTube.
UPDATE: Ha! A coworker found the episode on YouTube!