Self-Possesion.
[Cut to save your flist, entry is public just long]
First fuck yous of the year:
Fuck you Charles Bukowski, you fucking desperate, pathetic excuse for a chauvinistic, arrogant, sexist prick.
Fuck you Tenth Avenue cab drivers, learn how to fucking drive, start by keeping your lecherous eyes on the fucking road.
Fuck you sperm donor, fuck you’re fucking company and fuck you’re god damned money.
Fuck all you fucking motherfuckers at the fucking hospital. We are paying you a fucking shitload of money, show some fucking courtesy and respect.
You know what, this list is way too fucking long. I can sum it up.
If you have a penis, FUCK YOU. I am so goddamn fucking sick of being treated like I am somehow invalid, retarded, worthless, clueless, talentless, weak and fucking useless just because my reproductive organs happen to be on the inside of my body. So fucking what if fat gathers on the front of my ribcage? How is that a goddamn invitation to grab at me like I’m fucking tomatoes on sale at the grocery store? How does the fact that I have wide hips translate to me being nothing but a worthy cum receptacle for whoever is willing to trade my father a goat for the right? How is it even a fucking right, EVER? Seriously, why do the half of the species missing that extra bit of genetic material that comprises the alternate gender think they ever have the right to claim possession of the physical person of another human being?
I mean-Fuck, I am so angry and frustrated that I can’t even properly articulate my thoughts.
Alright, so, it’s been fifteen years since the Roe v. Wade case was ruled seven to two in favour of striking down anti-abortion laws in the state of Texas, deeming abortion to be a fundamental right protected by the fourteenth amendment, which is to say the right to personal privacy. It has been fifteen years since the Supreme Court effectively declared the legitimacy of women claiming their body as their personal and exclusive property.
Fifteen years since society was legally forced to acknowledge and respect a woman’s fundamental right to her own body.
I was eight years old that year. I remember the headline in the newspaper, and I remember the pinched faces of the all male news anchors on the channel my father liked to watch, as if they weren’t sure whether or not to be sick. I don’t remember what my father said, but I remember the revulsion in his tone. I remember knowing that my father truly did believe that I was his physical property, and that eventually I would be the physical property of a husband, or become the property of my brothers should he die before I married.
And my father is not alone in this conviction. Even today, fifteen years later, I am confronted daily with belittling comments, appraising eyes and unwelcome hands. I’m treated like a communal meal, like somehow I’m fare game because I’m not living in the pocket of some man every second of every day.
I was reading a story in the paper earlier about a rape trial. It was a tiny article buried in the back of the paper. The court had ruled in favour of the defendant, deciding that this girl’s trauma had been avoidable; deciding that the skirt she’d been wearing had been too short, that she had been asking for the attention and gotten exactly what she’d wanted and deserved. There had been a quote, a woman who had been on the jury, going on about how incidents like these were direct results of the legalization of abortion. Her argument had been that we were seeing young women who had grown up with the concept of physical self-possession but had no concept of self-preservation or self-responsibility because they didn’t have a generation of examples to learn from in their mothers and their fathers didn’t have the right to restrict them anymore. She said that cases like this were even necessary to serve as lessons for the next generation of girls, so that they could learn self-restriction and self-censure, learn the repercussions of how they decided to act and dress.
What really pissed me off about it though wasn’t that she felt the girl deserved it, part of believing in the right of opinions and expression is to respect that right in everyone even when I don’t agree. What really got me was how, somehow, the man who was accused wasn’t mentioned at all. Nowhere did anyone suggest that maybe men should start being accountable for their decisions or their actions, nowhere was it mentioned that maybe men should learn self-restriction and restraint, that maybe they should learn to be conscious of the desires (in this case the plaintiff’s desire to not be engaged in sexual activity with the defendant) of the other gender.
It was story about sexual violence and violation and it was the victim who was the real person on trial, as it will be the victim who has to live with the physical and emotional repercussions of the trauma. And even worse, this kid couldn’t even manage to gain understanding from her own gender, she couldn’t even get the support of the people who might one day need this exact same protection.
(I don’t even want to get started on how our society barely even acknowledges the existence of male sexual assault victims.)
Basically, I guess where I’m trying to go with all this is that sometimes it feels like it doesn’t matter how many laws or constitutional amendments get passed, so long as the individuals surrounding us perpetuate these cycles of discrimination and inequality, the humanity of America will never be allowed to evolve. And it just makes me so angry. I feel like I’m constantly bashing my face into a concrete wall and expecting it to crumble.
It must be so easy to not give a damn about anything. It must be so easy to just suck it up and go along with it, to turn blind eyes, to condemn. And I guess that must be why so many people do it.
I decided to start volunteering at the Rape Crisis Center. Reading shit like the garbage that was pouring out of that jury woman’s mouth just makes me want to rage all the harder against people like her.
I also want to remind you guys to come out to the Warehouse party I’m helping host and promote tomorrow night. There are some great bands and proceeds from everything are getting donated to the New York City Hospice, helping pay for the care of HIV/AIDS victims in particular (my thoughts on sexually transmitted diseases and society’s responsibility towards the sick, regardless of circumstance or sexual orientation, as well as my thoughts on sex education and contraceptives are being saved for another day, I don’t have the energy right now). The theme is ‘red’, so dress with that in mind and come down. There’ll be a lot of rocking bands, it’ll be really fun.
Sense of righteous fury and social responsibility aside, life’s been alright I suppose. Christmas and New Years served as reality checks and the return to class was incredibly welcome. So far they’re going as well as can be expected. I auditioned for a few bands over the break; so far nothing is really getting off the ground for me though.
First fuck yous of the year:
Fuck you Charles Bukowski, you fucking desperate, pathetic excuse for a chauvinistic, arrogant, sexist prick.
Fuck you Tenth Avenue cab drivers, learn how to fucking drive, start by keeping your lecherous eyes on the fucking road.
Fuck you sperm donor, fuck you’re fucking company and fuck you’re god damned money.
Fuck all you fucking motherfuckers at the fucking hospital. We are paying you a fucking shitload of money, show some fucking courtesy and respect.
You know what, this list is way too fucking long. I can sum it up.
If you have a penis, FUCK YOU. I am so goddamn fucking sick of being treated like I am somehow invalid, retarded, worthless, clueless, talentless, weak and fucking useless just because my reproductive organs happen to be on the inside of my body. So fucking what if fat gathers on the front of my ribcage? How is that a goddamn invitation to grab at me like I’m fucking tomatoes on sale at the grocery store? How does the fact that I have wide hips translate to me being nothing but a worthy cum receptacle for whoever is willing to trade my father a goat for the right? How is it even a fucking right, EVER? Seriously, why do the half of the species missing that extra bit of genetic material that comprises the alternate gender think they ever have the right to claim possession of the physical person of another human being?
I mean-Fuck, I am so angry and frustrated that I can’t even properly articulate my thoughts.
Alright, so, it’s been fifteen years since the Roe v. Wade case was ruled seven to two in favour of striking down anti-abortion laws in the state of Texas, deeming abortion to be a fundamental right protected by the fourteenth amendment, which is to say the right to personal privacy. It has been fifteen years since the Supreme Court effectively declared the legitimacy of women claiming their body as their personal and exclusive property.
Fifteen years since society was legally forced to acknowledge and respect a woman’s fundamental right to her own body.
I was eight years old that year. I remember the headline in the newspaper, and I remember the pinched faces of the all male news anchors on the channel my father liked to watch, as if they weren’t sure whether or not to be sick. I don’t remember what my father said, but I remember the revulsion in his tone. I remember knowing that my father truly did believe that I was his physical property, and that eventually I would be the physical property of a husband, or become the property of my brothers should he die before I married.
And my father is not alone in this conviction. Even today, fifteen years later, I am confronted daily with belittling comments, appraising eyes and unwelcome hands. I’m treated like a communal meal, like somehow I’m fare game because I’m not living in the pocket of some man every second of every day.
I was reading a story in the paper earlier about a rape trial. It was a tiny article buried in the back of the paper. The court had ruled in favour of the defendant, deciding that this girl’s trauma had been avoidable; deciding that the skirt she’d been wearing had been too short, that she had been asking for the attention and gotten exactly what she’d wanted and deserved. There had been a quote, a woman who had been on the jury, going on about how incidents like these were direct results of the legalization of abortion. Her argument had been that we were seeing young women who had grown up with the concept of physical self-possession but had no concept of self-preservation or self-responsibility because they didn’t have a generation of examples to learn from in their mothers and their fathers didn’t have the right to restrict them anymore. She said that cases like this were even necessary to serve as lessons for the next generation of girls, so that they could learn self-restriction and self-censure, learn the repercussions of how they decided to act and dress.
What really pissed me off about it though wasn’t that she felt the girl deserved it, part of believing in the right of opinions and expression is to respect that right in everyone even when I don’t agree. What really got me was how, somehow, the man who was accused wasn’t mentioned at all. Nowhere did anyone suggest that maybe men should start being accountable for their decisions or their actions, nowhere was it mentioned that maybe men should learn self-restriction and restraint, that maybe they should learn to be conscious of the desires (in this case the plaintiff’s desire to not be engaged in sexual activity with the defendant) of the other gender.
It was story about sexual violence and violation and it was the victim who was the real person on trial, as it will be the victim who has to live with the physical and emotional repercussions of the trauma. And even worse, this kid couldn’t even manage to gain understanding from her own gender, she couldn’t even get the support of the people who might one day need this exact same protection.
(I don’t even want to get started on how our society barely even acknowledges the existence of male sexual assault victims.)
Basically, I guess where I’m trying to go with all this is that sometimes it feels like it doesn’t matter how many laws or constitutional amendments get passed, so long as the individuals surrounding us perpetuate these cycles of discrimination and inequality, the humanity of America will never be allowed to evolve. And it just makes me so angry. I feel like I’m constantly bashing my face into a concrete wall and expecting it to crumble.
It must be so easy to not give a damn about anything. It must be so easy to just suck it up and go along with it, to turn blind eyes, to condemn. And I guess that must be why so many people do it.
I decided to start volunteering at the Rape Crisis Center. Reading shit like the garbage that was pouring out of that jury woman’s mouth just makes me want to rage all the harder against people like her.
I also want to remind you guys to come out to the Warehouse party I’m helping host and promote tomorrow night. There are some great bands and proceeds from everything are getting donated to the New York City Hospice, helping pay for the care of HIV/AIDS victims in particular (my thoughts on sexually transmitted diseases and society’s responsibility towards the sick, regardless of circumstance or sexual orientation, as well as my thoughts on sex education and contraceptives are being saved for another day, I don’t have the energy right now). The theme is ‘red’, so dress with that in mind and come down. There’ll be a lot of rocking bands, it’ll be really fun.
Sense of righteous fury and social responsibility aside, life’s been alright I suppose. Christmas and New Years served as reality checks and the return to class was incredibly welcome. So far they’re going as well as can be expected. I auditioned for a few bands over the break; so far nothing is really getting off the ground for me though.