Today I read such bile.
Of course I read bile every day. Most of it from hateful Christian extremists, Tea-Partiers, Republicans, trans-hating redfems, etc. spouting their various hate-which-isn't-REALLY-hate-honest! crap we all know and loathe. THAT bile particularly bothered me. The author of that piece of tripe is a post-op transsexual woman with a very clear high-horse complex and very strong mad-on for and trans status that is not identical to her own. Sadly, this is very common.
There are a lot of post-op trans women who are intensely and vehemently bigoted against trans women who still have their penises. Any trans woman who has not yet gotten the Lopitoffame is in their eyes still not yet a real woman. This belief is held with a complete black hole of obliviousness to the irony of radfems who say the same thing about post-ops.
This hatred of pre-ops is ESPECIALLY vehement in the case of non-ops. non-ops are trans-woman who, either by personal choice or by medical reasoning cannot or will not get the final operation.
Women like "Josephine" revel in misgendering non-ops and belittling them in the same way much of society does to them. To post-ops of "Josephine's" type, and woman with a penis who cannot or will not get SRS is just a transvestite, a crossdresser, a fetishist. Trust me, the is a WORLD of difference between tv/cd's and non-op transsexuals.
Now there are plenty of post-op women who have absolutely no issues whatsoever with non-ops. Kate Bornstein and Gwendolyn Anne-Smith for example, two women I'm proud to call friends of mine, not only do NOT hate on non-ops, they publicly speak out in favor of full equality and acceptance of gender variance. Women like "Josephine" however have this bitter bigotry towards Non-ops, and I honestly believe it's because they're externalizing their own still-existing deep seeded repression that they thought SRS would magically fix.
A lot of transsexuals focus WAY to much on SRS as what it is NOT instead of what it IS. SRS is a STEP on the path of a trans woman's life. For those who need it to feel more comfortable in their bodies, it's an important and invaluable step, but still only a step. It doesn't change your chromasomes or give you a womb so to many people you're no more a woman than you were before it. Life continues past SRS with many more new challenges to overcome, ups and downs, losses and wins, angels and ends, yadda yadda. For those who do need SRS, passing that milestone certainly helps them find the strength to continue down their path in life. Life doesn't end with SRS.
What SRS is NOT is a magic cure all for everything that's wrong with you. If you had clinical depression before SRS, chances are you'll still have it afterwards. If you were sexually repressed before it, you likely won't be much less so after. If you had low self-esteem beforehand, well, you'd be surprised how little SRS actually dents that.
Women like Josephine are the ones who treated SRS as that magic cure all, that holy grail that would magically fix everything wrong in their lives. The ones who thought having a vagina would make everyone accept them as a real woman, and that they'd stop receiving transphobic bigotry. They can't accept that SRS didn't make EVERYTHING perfect, something else must be wrong.
So they turn their own insecure failings they thought SRS would chase away and turn it against those they see as lesser. They forget that when they were pre-op they felt every bit as much a woman as they do post-op, and they basically misgender and invalidate their own life history by insisting anyone who hasn't gotten srs yet is less real than they are. It's a classic feel-good-at-the-expense-of-others tactic.
It also has to do with sex. A LOT of Trans women buy into the rad fem bullshit that if you're trans, you're not allowed to enjoy sex if you're pre-op. Because in their backwards logic, real women don't enjoy sex unless they're sluts, and since sluts are subhuman in the eyes of radfems, any trans woman who likes sex is a slut by default and therefore represents only the "worst degrading stereotypes of what a real woman is". Well I'm sorry but fuck that. My wife is a cis woman who loves sex and is certainly no slut since I'm her only sex partner right now, but really, a slut is a name tight-assed people give to people they're jealous of. A slut is someone who is happier than they are doing something they deny themselves.
My friend Danielle Foxxx is Post-op. She loved sex when she was pre-op and she loves it now. The only thing SRS changed for her was it made her feel more comfortable with her body image and it changed the technical aspects of how she fucks.
Some non-ops like me, (Granted I'm an intersexed femal, with female chromosomes and a uterus, but to most people since I have a penis I may as well be trans), are non-op only because something medical prevents surgey. In my case a blood disorder means invasive surgery will kill me. Women like me then have to learn to make peace with the bodies we have in conjunction with who we are as women, a traumatizing journey made all the more difficult by the shallow post-ops joining the chorus of hate telling us we'll NEVER count.
Others however, CHOOSE to be non-op for various reasons. Some don't have the obsession with genitals that "Josephine" does. They don't link bodyparts to identity with the same narrow paintbrush that others do, where what's in your panties is the sole condition to determining what you ARE. These non-ops Are comfortable enough in their identity that they don't need SRS to "prove" anything. They look at it clinically and weigh what SRS gains them compared to what it takes away and they make the difficult choice to live as women with a penis. others simply don't accept gender as a rigid two-sided construct that must never stray from either/or.
The main problem for post-ops like "Josephine" is that they want to hide, to blend in, to just be a woman and forget/bury/ignore all the hardships they survived to get where they are. They hate that all these lesser people who DARE to be *gasp* HAPPY with what they are and comfortable with themselves physically, emotionally and sexually, keeping drawing uncomfortable attention to trans issues by being uppity little bitches telling people about trans issues! How dare they???
So any grief they get for being trans as post-op women is the fault of all these lippy mouth men in dresses, because they're really real women now, why would anyone have a problem with them?
I dearly wish all post-ops could be like Kate or Gwen or Danielle. Sadly I've met WAY too many Josephines. If you actually know Gwen, ask her about Dianne some day. OHHHH has Gwen got stories for you!
Post-op does not make you any more or less a woman than any cis woman or pre-op trans-women. Nor do the clothes you wear. The ONLY thing that makes you a woman is your mind and heart and soul. Some people need surgeries to be more at peace with the BODY, but womanhood is in the soul. Don't step on those who found peace on a different path than yours.
If we all found peace on the exact same path it'd be a goddamned crowded picnic, and I can't afford to bring enough beer to get you drunk enough to stop hating yourself so much you need to shit on me.
4/28/2010
4/26/2010
Internet Means Never Having To Say "I'm Classy"
I'm sure we all agree one of the worst things about t3h interwebs is that for many people it's an excuse to cross boundaries they (hopefully) would not in real life. People who would never crack jokes about Rape or Abortion in real life happily create entire message board threads, photoshop pictures and memes dedicated to such topics. If you've even so much as HEARD about 4chan, /b/tards, or Encyclopedia Dramatica, you know all too well that the very worst in human nature is frequently traded online for the lulz, in ways only the most socially reviled people would ever utter aloud in person.
A lesser example of this phenomenon is personal boundaries. On the internet, people will ask you the most tactless questions you would rarely hear so bluntly in person. I got one such question today. While it certainly wasn't near the crude crap level of 4chan, it was still pretty crass and tactless, and lacking any sense of "Is this an okay question to ask of a complete stranger?"
Some of you who read me regularly online know that I have somehow for reasons I will never comprehend become close friends online with some women who work in Adult films. A few of them even think of me like a sister and have publicly said as much on Twitter.
I know why I love them. My working theory is they love me for pretty much the same reason. They treat me with respect. They treat me like a human being. They accept me fully as a woman and they never question it or give me grief about my bits not matching my soul. And I have always treated them the same. They're people, what they do for a living has no bearing on who they are or their worth as a person.
Today, on my Formspring account, an anonymous user asked me this about the closest of my sisters-in-porn.
- "Since **** ****** still escorts and is doing work for dogfart dot com [GH, WMMGB and BonC]. If you had the opportunity would you have sex with **** ******? Any other Pornstars that you would like to do?"
I don't follow what the woman he asked about does for work. I know she still does porn, I don't much care. She's happy and healthy and enjoys her life. But she's like a sister to me. I don't talk about porn when I'm on the phone with her. We talk about life, kids, family, etc. We talk sex sometimes but not in any way pornified, we talk about it like best friends or sisters would. But we don't talk about who she's working for, or what kind of scene she's got scheduled, or who she most or least likes working with. And we sure as hell don't talk about the idea of her and I someday fucking. I don't imagine the thought ever crossed her mind, and it hasn't crossed mine since LONG before I knew her.
I don't think of my friends in Porn in terms of fucking, I think of them as people I'm friends with who HAPPEN to do sex work. There are a few if they hit on me I'd certainly not say no, but I don't think about it happening. I respect them enough to be honest, the ones I wouldn't refuse know who they are, and they respect me for admitting to that thought process while not ever actively persuing it. The only reason it's ever come up in conversation is when they were asking me questions about my short erotica stories, and what inspires me.
Usually it was brought up as a joke and being my way I'd answer honestly, either 'Well, yes if you really wanted to and you made the first move', or, for the ones I proudly call sister, "No, I don't think of you that way, you're like family". And they respect my honesty, but these are not every day conversations.
Of the 15 porn actresses that I actually call friend, who publicly call me friuend also, the subject has only ever come up with 5 of them, usually as a joke, and never awkwardly, and pretty much forgotten afterwards. It has never been a regular line of conversation, nor would i wish it to be. When we do discuss sex stuff, it's usually in a galpal way, and never has any undertones of it involving them and I. To my knowledge only ONE of them actually would fuck me if the opportunity ever presented itself, but even then we don't much dwell on it because the opportunity isn't terribly likely to ever occur.
But because they happen to be porn stars, and have publicly acknowledged me as someone they love to bits, I get questions from their fans asking me if I want to or even ever have fucked them.
Now maybe I'm naive but I'd really like to think that very few men would walk up to me in real life and ask me if I have or would want to fuck (Insert name here). That's a question I'd humor only from a good friend who asked out of curiousity. If a guy asked me that in real life I'd possibly slap him.
But here on the internet there are no such risks involved with stupid tactless invasive questions. Guys feel like not only is it perfectly okay to ask a woman they've never spoken to before about her sexual proclivities with famous pornstars, but seem genuinely pissed off when I decline to answer as if I'M the one being rude and trashy by declining to humour them.
Only on the internet.
PS - No I will not name names. If you really care which pornstars a chubby girl is friends with check my Twitter. I will not pass along fan messages when I'm on the phone with any of them. I will not give shout-outs. And I will not ask them prying sex questions on your behalf. They are my FRIENDS and I am not going to mistreat them for you because you can't seperate their job from their hearts. You know who you are.
Yeah I know, someone with class on the internet. Told you I was a freak.
A lesser example of this phenomenon is personal boundaries. On the internet, people will ask you the most tactless questions you would rarely hear so bluntly in person. I got one such question today. While it certainly wasn't near the crude crap level of 4chan, it was still pretty crass and tactless, and lacking any sense of "Is this an okay question to ask of a complete stranger?"
Some of you who read me regularly online know that I have somehow for reasons I will never comprehend become close friends online with some women who work in Adult films. A few of them even think of me like a sister and have publicly said as much on Twitter.
I know why I love them. My working theory is they love me for pretty much the same reason. They treat me with respect. They treat me like a human being. They accept me fully as a woman and they never question it or give me grief about my bits not matching my soul. And I have always treated them the same. They're people, what they do for a living has no bearing on who they are or their worth as a person.
Today, on my Formspring account, an anonymous user asked me this about the closest of my sisters-in-porn.
- "Since **** ****** still escorts and is doing work for dogfart dot com [GH, WMMGB and BonC]. If you had the opportunity would you have sex with **** ******? Any other Pornstars that you would like to do?"
I don't follow what the woman he asked about does for work. I know she still does porn, I don't much care. She's happy and healthy and enjoys her life. But she's like a sister to me. I don't talk about porn when I'm on the phone with her. We talk about life, kids, family, etc. We talk sex sometimes but not in any way pornified, we talk about it like best friends or sisters would. But we don't talk about who she's working for, or what kind of scene she's got scheduled, or who she most or least likes working with. And we sure as hell don't talk about the idea of her and I someday fucking. I don't imagine the thought ever crossed her mind, and it hasn't crossed mine since LONG before I knew her.
I don't think of my friends in Porn in terms of fucking, I think of them as people I'm friends with who HAPPEN to do sex work. There are a few if they hit on me I'd certainly not say no, but I don't think about it happening. I respect them enough to be honest, the ones I wouldn't refuse know who they are, and they respect me for admitting to that thought process while not ever actively persuing it. The only reason it's ever come up in conversation is when they were asking me questions about my short erotica stories, and what inspires me.
Usually it was brought up as a joke and being my way I'd answer honestly, either 'Well, yes if you really wanted to and you made the first move', or, for the ones I proudly call sister, "No, I don't think of you that way, you're like family". And they respect my honesty, but these are not every day conversations.
Of the 15 porn actresses that I actually call friend, who publicly call me friuend also, the subject has only ever come up with 5 of them, usually as a joke, and never awkwardly, and pretty much forgotten afterwards. It has never been a regular line of conversation, nor would i wish it to be. When we do discuss sex stuff, it's usually in a galpal way, and never has any undertones of it involving them and I. To my knowledge only ONE of them actually would fuck me if the opportunity ever presented itself, but even then we don't much dwell on it because the opportunity isn't terribly likely to ever occur.
But because they happen to be porn stars, and have publicly acknowledged me as someone they love to bits, I get questions from their fans asking me if I want to or even ever have fucked them.
Now maybe I'm naive but I'd really like to think that very few men would walk up to me in real life and ask me if I have or would want to fuck (Insert name here). That's a question I'd humor only from a good friend who asked out of curiousity. If a guy asked me that in real life I'd possibly slap him.
But here on the internet there are no such risks involved with stupid tactless invasive questions. Guys feel like not only is it perfectly okay to ask a woman they've never spoken to before about her sexual proclivities with famous pornstars, but seem genuinely pissed off when I decline to answer as if I'M the one being rude and trashy by declining to humour them.
Only on the internet.
PS - No I will not name names. If you really care which pornstars a chubby girl is friends with check my Twitter. I will not pass along fan messages when I'm on the phone with any of them. I will not give shout-outs. And I will not ask them prying sex questions on your behalf. They are my FRIENDS and I am not going to mistreat them for you because you can't seperate their job from their hearts. You know who you are.
Yeah I know, someone with class on the internet. Told you I was a freak.
3/21/2010
Looking For Clouds In A Silver Lining
EDIT 04/24/2010 - I have since seen the actual film and am utterly horrified by much of it. But i stand by my opinion that we can use it to our advantage as a tool to teach people what NOT to believe about us. Therefore i'll leave this blog entry as is, with this added note that i think isreal luna is a fucking hateful little moron and needs his ass kicked.
************************************************************************************
Yesterday, on Twitter, my friend Autumn Sandeem from the always effervescent blog Pam's House Blend brought a movie trailer that she found horrifying and offensive to my attention. Video below.
Now, I love Autumn and she is a very smart cookie, but I look at this movie trailer and think something completely different than she does. Autumn's complaints are as follows.
- The film looks to be exploitative and trashy
- It potrays Trans Stereotypes
- It trivializes real trans violence
- Using real trans murder victims in the marketing is offensive
Now a lot of my trans sisters have openly admitted to being awed by my ability to stay positive about my hope for the world regarding trans issues when we still get so much shit just for being us, but I watched this trailer and I saw something completely different, and I'd like to take this time to explain to all my trans sisters why I think this movie is a good thing and should be supported and celebrated actively, not shunned and villified.
First of all, yes it's trashy and exploitative. It's an Homage to trashy sexploitation revenge movies from the 70's. It bloody SAYS so. But that's a good thing. Because the audience for cheesy trash like this is generally made up of cis folks who otherwise wouldn't pay much attention to trans issues. Seriously, do you know how many men realized how evil rape really is after watching I Spit On Your Grave? This is EXACTLY the kind of subversive message movie that changes minds. People who watch this movie will subtly be persuaded as they watch it how wrong transphobic violence is.
As for using the names of real trans murder victims in the trailer. This too is a GOOD thing. Why? Because at least half of the people watching this who aren't Trans are going to be curious about those names. Some guy for example who's never really been exposed to news about Transphobic violence, will see Angie Zapata's name and get curious. So he's going to go and Google her and read about an innocent vibrant young woman who was brutally murdered by a bigoted asshole who targeted her just for being different. He's going to read statements from her mother and siblings tearfully lamenting what that asshole stole from them.
He's going to learn about a real flesh and blood three dimensional young woman whose loss has hurt people and he's going to be horrified and he'll learn to be more sensitive to trans people.
That is a GOOD thing.
I'd also like to point out, however trashy this movie is going to be, the trailer makes it a point to call the acts it draws from, and the attack in the movie that sets up the revenge plot, HATE-CRIMES. It's not whitewashing it. It's not for a moment suggesting we deserve it. It never comes CLOSE to saying "These people are freaks and it's okay to hurt them".
No this trailer is saying "These women are going to go get revenge on some hateful douchebags who hurt them just because they were different".
Another point I'd like to bring up is that while, yes, most of the ladies starring in this movie look like drag queens, there's still diversity here. There's a fat one, there are a few different races among them, and a few of them just look like plain average women. The one who got hospitalized and comatose for example, NOWHERE in the trailer, even once she dresses to kill so to sopeak, does she ever look like any "tranny" stereotype. She always just looks like a woman, period.
I DO understand why some of my sisters hsave a problem with this movie, but I honestly think they're looking at this all wrong. This movie is a HUGE opportunity, if we react to it right.
Instead of screaming "TRASH! STEREOTYPES! EXPLOITATION!", which will just make a lot of people tune us out, here's what we all SHOULD be doing.
Support this movie. Get it played as often as possible to as many audiences as you can reach. And BOOKEND the movie. Explain what this movie gets right about us and then close with a Q & A. This movie WILL make people more curious about our real lives, and it WILL make a lot of people more open to seeing us as worthwhile and deserving of respect.
The truth is, the loud hateful bullies are NOT as numerous as you think. You just see more of them because they ARE loud. Most cis people don't hate us, they just don't understand us, and no one is educating them about us in a way that they can relate to. This movie will open that door for a LOT of people, and instead of screaming about how the door itself is decorated, we should be the concierge, showing people through that door and helping them to a comfortable table.
This is a situation we can use to our benefit. Kneejerk reactions to the trashy stuff won't help any of us in the long run.
For now let's just help as many people as we can through that door. You can complain about the paintjob later.
************************************************************************************
Yesterday, on Twitter, my friend Autumn Sandeem from the always effervescent blog Pam's House Blend brought a movie trailer that she found horrifying and offensive to my attention. Video below.
Now, I love Autumn and she is a very smart cookie, but I look at this movie trailer and think something completely different than she does. Autumn's complaints are as follows.
- The film looks to be exploitative and trashy
- It potrays Trans Stereotypes
- It trivializes real trans violence
- Using real trans murder victims in the marketing is offensive
Now a lot of my trans sisters have openly admitted to being awed by my ability to stay positive about my hope for the world regarding trans issues when we still get so much shit just for being us, but I watched this trailer and I saw something completely different, and I'd like to take this time to explain to all my trans sisters why I think this movie is a good thing and should be supported and celebrated actively, not shunned and villified.
First of all, yes it's trashy and exploitative. It's an Homage to trashy sexploitation revenge movies from the 70's. It bloody SAYS so. But that's a good thing. Because the audience for cheesy trash like this is generally made up of cis folks who otherwise wouldn't pay much attention to trans issues. Seriously, do you know how many men realized how evil rape really is after watching I Spit On Your Grave? This is EXACTLY the kind of subversive message movie that changes minds. People who watch this movie will subtly be persuaded as they watch it how wrong transphobic violence is.
As for using the names of real trans murder victims in the trailer. This too is a GOOD thing. Why? Because at least half of the people watching this who aren't Trans are going to be curious about those names. Some guy for example who's never really been exposed to news about Transphobic violence, will see Angie Zapata's name and get curious. So he's going to go and Google her and read about an innocent vibrant young woman who was brutally murdered by a bigoted asshole who targeted her just for being different. He's going to read statements from her mother and siblings tearfully lamenting what that asshole stole from them.
He's going to learn about a real flesh and blood three dimensional young woman whose loss has hurt people and he's going to be horrified and he'll learn to be more sensitive to trans people.
That is a GOOD thing.
I'd also like to point out, however trashy this movie is going to be, the trailer makes it a point to call the acts it draws from, and the attack in the movie that sets up the revenge plot, HATE-CRIMES. It's not whitewashing it. It's not for a moment suggesting we deserve it. It never comes CLOSE to saying "These people are freaks and it's okay to hurt them".
No this trailer is saying "These women are going to go get revenge on some hateful douchebags who hurt them just because they were different".
Another point I'd like to bring up is that while, yes, most of the ladies starring in this movie look like drag queens, there's still diversity here. There's a fat one, there are a few different races among them, and a few of them just look like plain average women. The one who got hospitalized and comatose for example, NOWHERE in the trailer, even once she dresses to kill so to sopeak, does she ever look like any "tranny" stereotype. She always just looks like a woman, period.
I DO understand why some of my sisters hsave a problem with this movie, but I honestly think they're looking at this all wrong. This movie is a HUGE opportunity, if we react to it right.
Instead of screaming "TRASH! STEREOTYPES! EXPLOITATION!", which will just make a lot of people tune us out, here's what we all SHOULD be doing.
Support this movie. Get it played as often as possible to as many audiences as you can reach. And BOOKEND the movie. Explain what this movie gets right about us and then close with a Q & A. This movie WILL make people more curious about our real lives, and it WILL make a lot of people more open to seeing us as worthwhile and deserving of respect.
The truth is, the loud hateful bullies are NOT as numerous as you think. You just see more of them because they ARE loud. Most cis people don't hate us, they just don't understand us, and no one is educating them about us in a way that they can relate to. This movie will open that door for a LOT of people, and instead of screaming about how the door itself is decorated, we should be the concierge, showing people through that door and helping them to a comfortable table.
This is a situation we can use to our benefit. Kneejerk reactions to the trashy stuff won't help any of us in the long run.
For now let's just help as many people as we can through that door. You can complain about the paintjob later.
3/12/2010
A Happy Personal Milestone
Potential trigger warning, discretion advised. Entry begins after the jump.
As those of you who know me, or who have at least thoroughly read my blog know, nineteen years ago, I was brutally and repeatedly anally raped every night over the course of three months in Juvey. For the last four of those years I've been married to a woman named Fran. Fran has helped me to overcome a lot of that trauma, much moreso than in the years before I met her.
I've been angry with myself for a long time that I still allowed that trauma so much control over my life. There were things Fran and I wanted to try sexually that I just couldn't do, because of the high trigger potential for me. Anything anal obviously, was too high-risk of inadvertantly triggering a flashback, and leaving me in twitching sobs. Fran patiently, lovingly spent the last four years helping me overcome the traumas. She would hold me safe in her arms, whisper soothing comfort in my ear, and make sure I felt safe and loved. She helped me take back the power I had given to the trauma.
Fran was impossibly patient and understanding, helping me work through my lingering baggage.
And tonight, her patience was rewarded. Tonight, for the first time, my wife took me from behind with a strap-on.
She was soft, she was gentle. She caressed my back and bum cheek softly and reassuringly. She let me and my body dictate the pace of the penetration, and of the thrusting, and she stopped when I was ready to stop. And I enjoyed it. She did everything with love and my body knew it could trust her completely. I didn't freeze, I didn't lock up, I didn't hyperventilate. I didn't have one single solitary flashback. And it felt good and I had fun.
And I am SO Goddamned proud of myself.
To a lot of people I suppose receiving anal sex is just a fun side attraction to sex, or something to try once just to check it off on a sexual "been there done that" list.
To me it was a huge personal milestone. To me, tonight, receiving anal sex, safely and comfortably, means that I have reclaimed one more thing from my rapists. It means one more thing now I can enjoy with my wife without letting the past cast a shadow over it.
To me this means I'm healing at long last, and no matter the method. this kind of major healing progress is always something to be proud of.
As those of you who know me, or who have at least thoroughly read my blog know, nineteen years ago, I was brutally and repeatedly anally raped every night over the course of three months in Juvey. For the last four of those years I've been married to a woman named Fran. Fran has helped me to overcome a lot of that trauma, much moreso than in the years before I met her.
I've been angry with myself for a long time that I still allowed that trauma so much control over my life. There were things Fran and I wanted to try sexually that I just couldn't do, because of the high trigger potential for me. Anything anal obviously, was too high-risk of inadvertantly triggering a flashback, and leaving me in twitching sobs. Fran patiently, lovingly spent the last four years helping me overcome the traumas. She would hold me safe in her arms, whisper soothing comfort in my ear, and make sure I felt safe and loved. She helped me take back the power I had given to the trauma.
Fran was impossibly patient and understanding, helping me work through my lingering baggage.
And tonight, her patience was rewarded. Tonight, for the first time, my wife took me from behind with a strap-on.
She was soft, she was gentle. She caressed my back and bum cheek softly and reassuringly. She let me and my body dictate the pace of the penetration, and of the thrusting, and she stopped when I was ready to stop. And I enjoyed it. She did everything with love and my body knew it could trust her completely. I didn't freeze, I didn't lock up, I didn't hyperventilate. I didn't have one single solitary flashback. And it felt good and I had fun.
And I am SO Goddamned proud of myself.
To a lot of people I suppose receiving anal sex is just a fun side attraction to sex, or something to try once just to check it off on a sexual "been there done that" list.
To me it was a huge personal milestone. To me, tonight, receiving anal sex, safely and comfortably, means that I have reclaimed one more thing from my rapists. It means one more thing now I can enjoy with my wife without letting the past cast a shadow over it.
To me this means I'm healing at long last, and no matter the method. this kind of major healing progress is always something to be proud of.
3/11/2010
I Have Musical Tits
Took me awhile to get to this but I promised a friend I'd blog this because it was just too cute.
Tuesday I had an appointment to go to and was listening to music as I went. Now being that our cats chewed through the headphones for our celphone, I hads to listen to it on speaker, and had the phone tucked into my cleavage.
When I got to the bus stop and went to cut off the music so as not to bother the other folks there, a little boy, about 4 years old, pointed at my chest while tugging his mom's hand and shouted "Look mommy! That lady has musical tits!"
The mother of course was mortified, but I told her it's okay, I thought it was cute and funny. Kids can get away with shit that would get grown ups smacked, ans that line became a running joke between me and my Twitter friends all day. I want that on a teeshirt actually.
I have musical tits.
Tuesday I had an appointment to go to and was listening to music as I went. Now being that our cats chewed through the headphones for our celphone, I hads to listen to it on speaker, and had the phone tucked into my cleavage.
When I got to the bus stop and went to cut off the music so as not to bother the other folks there, a little boy, about 4 years old, pointed at my chest while tugging his mom's hand and shouted "Look mommy! That lady has musical tits!"
The mother of course was mortified, but I told her it's okay, I thought it was cute and funny. Kids can get away with shit that would get grown ups smacked, ans that line became a running joke between me and my Twitter friends all day. I want that on a teeshirt actually.
I have musical tits.
2/28/2010
2/22/2010
Gorean Day Afternoon
Some of you among my beloved internet friends know I have an account on the Kink site FetLife. On that site I'm a member of several groups. I live here in Vancouver BC Canada, and saw this in the group, Vancouver Personals.
Now those who know me know my huge distate for the Gorean Philosophy, a terribly Misogynist lifestyle that bastardizes BDSM relationships to support the ideal of a purely male dominated society that believes women are inherently inferior and can be truly happy and truly a woman ONLY when serving a man completely surrendering all control and becoming his unquestioning property.
But I'm a generally polite girl, and try to voice my displeasures as nicely as conceivably possible. To that end you can see my reply is very short, not rude, and clear about my disgust without being derogatory. And the reply from the original poster in the public group is so sweet and fun! Why those Gor folk can't be all bad right?
*sighs*
Just like a Bible-thumper, she put a nice face on in public but in private....
In a Private Message titled "Thanks For The Rude Post Bitch!" she wrote, "just because you are not gorean does not mean you have the right to put those of us that are down I do not put what you are down"
Lovely how she accuses me of things I was careful to barely insinuate, let alone actually say, while making a veiled crack about my being intersexed. So I replied.
"Oh believe me dear that was a hundred times more polite than I could have been, or than Gor deserves. It's a masochisit, mysonynist bastardization of BDSM and is a very dangerous thing when it infects real life. Have you ever actually READ the books? Gor thinks women are nothing more than sexual property whose only purpose in life is to completely submit to man's whim and have NO self identity or individuality. I've dealt with Goreans and had experiences that would horrify you. The one man I ever tried dating was Gorean and he held me prisoner for 3 days torturing me trying to break my spirit so I'd make a good piece of property and not be so ornery, spouting the pillars of Gor the whole time telling me how my servitude was the natural order of things and how no woman is capable of being happy unless she belongs completely to a man. He considered rape training. I HAVE SCARS in places NO woman should. And you want to bitch at me because I shuddered and politely suggested that club should be avoided? I wasn't rude in the slighest young lady, but I very justifiably could have been. "I have EVERY right to condemn Gor as the horrifying evil bastardization of real loving BDSM that it is. And fuck you for your pompous arrogance in presuming I don't."
This healthy dose of brutal honest reality could of course not go unchallenged so I got the expected "Oh but your case is rare and we're so much deeper than your silly bondage!" speech.
Her next reply - "i live and breath Gor. Yes i have read the books. Yes you do have the right to condemn Gor, but you DO NOT have the right to condemn those that are Gorean. We do not condemn those that are not. IF you had read the books, you'd know that there is a lot more to Gor then sex. Men do not think that women are just for sex, thank you very much. It is a much deeper connection them most D/s relationships can ever be. i'm sorry that you had a bad experience, that does not however give you the right to be such a bitch to those of us that live the lifestyle and love it."
So me saying I'd make a mental note to avoid them is being a bitch? Me telling her about the very real brutal living proof I am of what Gor in real life represents is being a bitch? How charming of her! Not to mentioning condemning me is EXACTLY what she was doing. So I replied once more.
"You tell yourself whatever you need to to allow your delusions about the horrible reality of Gor to remain intact, but don't even ATTEMPT to tell me I have no right to condenm your arrogant stupidity in attacking me for a very tame commentary that consisted of ONE emoted line and NO profanity or overt rudeness. I was not in the LEAST a bitch in my public reply. I expressed my disgust in a very civilized and non-derogatory manner. YOU were the one who chose to be belligerant and aggressive and yes, a bitch, to someone who disagreed with you. Do not EVER message me again, and keep your delusions about your hateful misogynist lifestyle that is ONLY a bastardization of REAL loving BDSM to your damned self. If you message me again, I will simply block you. Hypocrisy is NOT something I'm willing to humour or tolerate in my inbox."
For a couple of days she respected that and did not reply again. Or sp I thought. Then someone brought THIS to my attention.
The nutjob who started e-mailing me with vitriolic condecsending attacks over a fluffy emote whined to her Gor group about how I victimized her, by pasting the angriest (yet most brutally truthful) part of my reply to her and claimed I messaged her first to attack her. So as I did here I pasted the entire e-mail exchange to show her for the manipulative fruitloop she is. And the crap the other Goreans in her group used to defend her bullshit, oh GODDESS how it hurts my head. For those who prefer to be spared the joy of slogging through that thread, let me summerize the things said after I posted, NONE of which included "Gee you're right, that WAS pretty dishonest and slezy of her".
- I'm as bad as any nazi, because apparently saying "Gor Is Misogynist" is equal to stuffing Jews into ovens.
- The man who raped and tortured me can't possibly be a TRUE Gorean (ahhh, the old "No True Scotsman" tactic), to hurt me like he did, despite him doing EXACTLY AS THE BOOK INSTRUCTS (whatever means you need to break her spirit, use, that she may know her true place and find joy in it) in his attempt to break me.
- The rape was obviously my own fault for being stupid enough (they assumed) to be alone and naked with a stranger (Who I'd actually known 8 months before I let my gaurd down and took him as a client, as I was a prostitute at the time).
- That any Goreans in my local area should claim to be spying on me and be out to get me just to make me paranoid and cry. Because apparently "fucking with" a RAPE SURVIVOR'S head is loads of laughs.
- That nothing I said mattered because obviously I'm just a bitter hateful unhappy bitch with an agenda and an axe to grind (by defending myself against a deceitful attack) and I'm only attacking them, (I'm condemning the philosophy, I never once attacked ANY of them let alone the one woman who started this all), because I'm just jealous about the deep spiritual connections that only they have that I'll never feel in my empty life unless I embrace Gor and my true role as a woman, (Tell my wife how I don't have any deep spiritual connections, she'll kick your ass while FEELING my pain).
All in all they all came off as condescending cult puppets, like Scientologists or Fundy Christians, using blatant exxagerations and distortions to defend an indefensible position while pretending the facts offered to the contrary simply don't exist.
A reasonable human being adapts their worldview to the facts and evidence. An unreasonable person tries to force the facts and evidence to adapt to their worldview.
And the Goreans attacking me now on Fetlife are unreasonable people.
Run if they ever offer you a glass of Kool-Aid.
And I'm trying very hard to NOT read anything past my last reply to the group, so I have no idea what further insane nastyness has ensued. Summarize it for me if you like, as if I go read it myself I'll only be tempted to post another diatribe dissecting their bullshit, which will resolve nothing. Someone who, from the very beginning, is so entrenched in a belief, will always go out of their way to ignore or deflect any evidence that contradicts it.
I recently for example had a brief e-mail exchange with the host of a Christian wingnut website who was baffled by my claim that no one has ever given me a valid reason not based on religious beliefs why gay marriage should be illegal. I also asked him to tell me how much canned food and blankets could've been bought for homeless shelters with all the money he's spent fighting gay marriage.
He answered, proudly linking me to studies that proved the evils of gay marriage and being gay at all, carefully refusing to even acknowledge not only my question but that I'd even asked it.
I replied pointing out that all his vaunted studies were A) hosted on another notoriously anti-gay Christian website, and that every single one was either a half-assed rewording of Paul Cameron's long since discredited falsified research, or misquotings from studies wherein the actual authors have repeatedly publicly condemned right-wing misquoting of their work.
I also repeatedly the money question.
He replied with basically, oh yeah well the Bible says yadda yadda and God's word overrides any human research!
I replied pointing out that human men wrote the Bible, and even if God DID give them the words, human men are fallible and will always put their own spin on things. I also cited, with links to REAL established studies, not one discredited by anyoneexcept Christian group whose discrediting consists of "Nyah nyah I can't hear you". I explained that Sodom and Gomorah weren't destroyed because of any gay sex, but because their men RAPED people and were also bad hosts in the desert. I explained in detail how the structure of the english language at the time of the first English Bible translation meant the word lie and the word lay were not interchangable, and that the oft-misused Leviticus quote "Thou shalt not LIE with mankind as with womankind" therefore has nothing to do with gay sex, but is in fact the Bible's version of "Bros before hos dude". I pointed out lesbians and transsexuals are not mentioned in the Bible anywhere in any version in ANY context.
I also AGAIN repeated the money question.
The best reply he could come up with to that was the extremely laugh-inducing "Well who are you to say what God meant by .....?"
To which I replied "Ask yourself that very question, and get your damned priorities straight." Then, since he had still refused to even acknowledge the money question, I gave him the answer, as estimated in US Dollars and researched costs for most canned foods and simple blankets and told him for every $5 dollars he spent fighting gay marriage, 3 people could have eaten at a homeless shelter instead of starving to death on a street corner. He never replied again.
The Goreans in that thread remind me of him, and of those like him. Those who think their way is the true, good, right and natural way to live, and that non-believers in THEIR way are just deluding themselves and can never know true happiness. Those who will ignore even the simplest questions that they can't answer honestly without admitting the fallacy in their ideals. Those who blatantly ignore or try to dismiss anything that offers evidence they're wrong, will cite outdated or discredited sources to prove their case, and when that fails will try to turn everything around and make it all about your supposedly suspect motives which automatically negate any valid points you have because after all, YOU have an agenda so they don't need to ever stop and think about what you've said to them so haw haw they're right you're wrong neener neener neeeeeeneeeeer!.
So I will NOT be reading any updates to that wretched thread. It will only upset me and drive me to again try telling a wall that it is a wall and not a door as it so desperately wants to believe.
And you just won't achieve ANYTHING talking to walls. Better to talk to the doors and the windows. At least THEY can be opened without a sledgehammer.
Now those who know me know my huge distate for the Gorean Philosophy, a terribly Misogynist lifestyle that bastardizes BDSM relationships to support the ideal of a purely male dominated society that believes women are inherently inferior and can be truly happy and truly a woman ONLY when serving a man completely surrendering all control and becoming his unquestioning property.
But I'm a generally polite girl, and try to voice my displeasures as nicely as conceivably possible. To that end you can see my reply is very short, not rude, and clear about my disgust without being derogatory. And the reply from the original poster in the public group is so sweet and fun! Why those Gor folk can't be all bad right?
*sighs*
Just like a Bible-thumper, she put a nice face on in public but in private....
In a Private Message titled "Thanks For The Rude Post Bitch!" she wrote, "just because you are not gorean does not mean you have the right to put those of us that are down I do not put what you are down"
Lovely how she accuses me of things I was careful to barely insinuate, let alone actually say, while making a veiled crack about my being intersexed. So I replied.
"Oh believe me dear that was a hundred times more polite than I could have been, or than Gor deserves. It's a masochisit, mysonynist bastardization of BDSM and is a very dangerous thing when it infects real life. Have you ever actually READ the books? Gor thinks women are nothing more than sexual property whose only purpose in life is to completely submit to man's whim and have NO self identity or individuality. I've dealt with Goreans and had experiences that would horrify you. The one man I ever tried dating was Gorean and he held me prisoner for 3 days torturing me trying to break my spirit so I'd make a good piece of property and not be so ornery, spouting the pillars of Gor the whole time telling me how my servitude was the natural order of things and how no woman is capable of being happy unless she belongs completely to a man. He considered rape training. I HAVE SCARS in places NO woman should. And you want to bitch at me because I shuddered and politely suggested that club should be avoided? I wasn't rude in the slighest young lady, but I very justifiably could have been. "I have EVERY right to condemn Gor as the horrifying evil bastardization of real loving BDSM that it is. And fuck you for your pompous arrogance in presuming I don't."
This healthy dose of brutal honest reality could of course not go unchallenged so I got the expected "Oh but your case is rare and we're so much deeper than your silly bondage!" speech.
Her next reply - "i live and breath Gor. Yes i have read the books. Yes you do have the right to condemn Gor, but you DO NOT have the right to condemn those that are Gorean. We do not condemn those that are not. IF you had read the books, you'd know that there is a lot more to Gor then sex. Men do not think that women are just for sex, thank you very much. It is a much deeper connection them most D/s relationships can ever be. i'm sorry that you had a bad experience, that does not however give you the right to be such a bitch to those of us that live the lifestyle and love it."
So me saying I'd make a mental note to avoid them is being a bitch? Me telling her about the very real brutal living proof I am of what Gor in real life represents is being a bitch? How charming of her! Not to mentioning condemning me is EXACTLY what she was doing. So I replied once more.
"You tell yourself whatever you need to to allow your delusions about the horrible reality of Gor to remain intact, but don't even ATTEMPT to tell me I have no right to condenm your arrogant stupidity in attacking me for a very tame commentary that consisted of ONE emoted line and NO profanity or overt rudeness. I was not in the LEAST a bitch in my public reply. I expressed my disgust in a very civilized and non-derogatory manner. YOU were the one who chose to be belligerant and aggressive and yes, a bitch, to someone who disagreed with you. Do not EVER message me again, and keep your delusions about your hateful misogynist lifestyle that is ONLY a bastardization of REAL loving BDSM to your damned self. If you message me again, I will simply block you. Hypocrisy is NOT something I'm willing to humour or tolerate in my inbox."
For a couple of days she respected that and did not reply again. Or sp I thought. Then someone brought THIS to my attention.
The nutjob who started e-mailing me with vitriolic condecsending attacks over a fluffy emote whined to her Gor group about how I victimized her, by pasting the angriest (yet most brutally truthful) part of my reply to her and claimed I messaged her first to attack her. So as I did here I pasted the entire e-mail exchange to show her for the manipulative fruitloop she is. And the crap the other Goreans in her group used to defend her bullshit, oh GODDESS how it hurts my head. For those who prefer to be spared the joy of slogging through that thread, let me summerize the things said after I posted, NONE of which included "Gee you're right, that WAS pretty dishonest and slezy of her".
- I'm as bad as any nazi, because apparently saying "Gor Is Misogynist" is equal to stuffing Jews into ovens.
- The man who raped and tortured me can't possibly be a TRUE Gorean (ahhh, the old "No True Scotsman" tactic), to hurt me like he did, despite him doing EXACTLY AS THE BOOK INSTRUCTS (whatever means you need to break her spirit, use, that she may know her true place and find joy in it) in his attempt to break me.
- The rape was obviously my own fault for being stupid enough (they assumed) to be alone and naked with a stranger (Who I'd actually known 8 months before I let my gaurd down and took him as a client, as I was a prostitute at the time).
- That any Goreans in my local area should claim to be spying on me and be out to get me just to make me paranoid and cry. Because apparently "fucking with" a RAPE SURVIVOR'S head is loads of laughs.
- That nothing I said mattered because obviously I'm just a bitter hateful unhappy bitch with an agenda and an axe to grind (by defending myself against a deceitful attack) and I'm only attacking them, (I'm condemning the philosophy, I never once attacked ANY of them let alone the one woman who started this all), because I'm just jealous about the deep spiritual connections that only they have that I'll never feel in my empty life unless I embrace Gor and my true role as a woman, (Tell my wife how I don't have any deep spiritual connections, she'll kick your ass while FEELING my pain).
All in all they all came off as condescending cult puppets, like Scientologists or Fundy Christians, using blatant exxagerations and distortions to defend an indefensible position while pretending the facts offered to the contrary simply don't exist.
A reasonable human being adapts their worldview to the facts and evidence. An unreasonable person tries to force the facts and evidence to adapt to their worldview.
And the Goreans attacking me now on Fetlife are unreasonable people.
Run if they ever offer you a glass of Kool-Aid.
And I'm trying very hard to NOT read anything past my last reply to the group, so I have no idea what further insane nastyness has ensued. Summarize it for me if you like, as if I go read it myself I'll only be tempted to post another diatribe dissecting their bullshit, which will resolve nothing. Someone who, from the very beginning, is so entrenched in a belief, will always go out of their way to ignore or deflect any evidence that contradicts it.
I recently for example had a brief e-mail exchange with the host of a Christian wingnut website who was baffled by my claim that no one has ever given me a valid reason not based on religious beliefs why gay marriage should be illegal. I also asked him to tell me how much canned food and blankets could've been bought for homeless shelters with all the money he's spent fighting gay marriage.
He answered, proudly linking me to studies that proved the evils of gay marriage and being gay at all, carefully refusing to even acknowledge not only my question but that I'd even asked it.
I replied pointing out that all his vaunted studies were A) hosted on another notoriously anti-gay Christian website, and that every single one was either a half-assed rewording of Paul Cameron's long since discredited falsified research, or misquotings from studies wherein the actual authors have repeatedly publicly condemned right-wing misquoting of their work.
I also repeatedly the money question.
He replied with basically, oh yeah well the Bible says yadda yadda and God's word overrides any human research!
I replied pointing out that human men wrote the Bible, and even if God DID give them the words, human men are fallible and will always put their own spin on things. I also cited, with links to REAL established studies, not one discredited by anyoneexcept Christian group whose discrediting consists of "Nyah nyah I can't hear you". I explained that Sodom and Gomorah weren't destroyed because of any gay sex, but because their men RAPED people and were also bad hosts in the desert. I explained in detail how the structure of the english language at the time of the first English Bible translation meant the word lie and the word lay were not interchangable, and that the oft-misused Leviticus quote "Thou shalt not LIE with mankind as with womankind" therefore has nothing to do with gay sex, but is in fact the Bible's version of "Bros before hos dude". I pointed out lesbians and transsexuals are not mentioned in the Bible anywhere in any version in ANY context.
I also AGAIN repeated the money question.
The best reply he could come up with to that was the extremely laugh-inducing "Well who are you to say what God meant by .....?"
To which I replied "Ask yourself that very question, and get your damned priorities straight." Then, since he had still refused to even acknowledge the money question, I gave him the answer, as estimated in US Dollars and researched costs for most canned foods and simple blankets and told him for every $5 dollars he spent fighting gay marriage, 3 people could have eaten at a homeless shelter instead of starving to death on a street corner. He never replied again.
The Goreans in that thread remind me of him, and of those like him. Those who think their way is the true, good, right and natural way to live, and that non-believers in THEIR way are just deluding themselves and can never know true happiness. Those who will ignore even the simplest questions that they can't answer honestly without admitting the fallacy in their ideals. Those who blatantly ignore or try to dismiss anything that offers evidence they're wrong, will cite outdated or discredited sources to prove their case, and when that fails will try to turn everything around and make it all about your supposedly suspect motives which automatically negate any valid points you have because after all, YOU have an agenda so they don't need to ever stop and think about what you've said to them so haw haw they're right you're wrong neener neener neeeeeeneeeeer!.
So I will NOT be reading any updates to that wretched thread. It will only upset me and drive me to again try telling a wall that it is a wall and not a door as it so desperately wants to believe.
And you just won't achieve ANYTHING talking to walls. Better to talk to the doors and the windows. At least THEY can be opened without a sledgehammer.
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