Everyone say hello to the jerk.... (that's me)
Some of y'all already know how famous (or infamous) I've inadvertently become in some communities.
It all started last summer over two simple posts.
In one post I advocated that people should be dressed properly when they go out of their houses and attempt to conduct business. I expressed dismay at women who thought it was appropriate to go shopping in dripping wet bikinis and nothing else. I expressed equal dismay at men who thought that it was fine to go wander around with nothing on but a pair of shorts about the same size and coverage as underwear. I even noted that my personal experience with customers under-dressing leaned far more on the male side than female.
In spite of attempting to express equality between the genders in my dismay and desire to see better examples of public modesty I was accused of "slut shaming" "body policing" and "misogyny".
All of these are pretty bizarre when you see the essence of my arguments but if you read the whole snowstorm of the discussion that happened then you'd find a lot of people confusing my comments with comments of other people, distorting and twisting my words and generally ignoring the fact that I was emphasizing both men AND women EQUALLY need to dress properly in public.
OK so that's done.
The second flurry of activity came only a few days later.
Someone posted that she had ordered a couple of bloody marys on an airplane and the stewardess asked "are you pregnant?" before serving them. The person complained that it was bad service.
I admit, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is a trigger issue for me; I have very strong and passionate feelings about it because of the high level of trauma, stress and chaos that FAS problems brought to my family because of my Adoptive sister.
Therefore I did not handle myself as well in that entire mess of a debacle that occurred.
Let's be clear about what I DID say versus what I did NOT say.
Wait, no.. check that.. there's now way I could possibly go over all the things I did not say.
Anyway; I said the following:
It's not bad service, it's good caution to prevent pregnant women from consuming liquor.
I advocated legislation that would make it illegal to dispense liquor by the drink knowingly to pregnant women.
That's it really.
WHY? Because most doctors currently in practice graduated a long time ago and much of the knowledge about FAS is still coming out. According to the CDC and the World Health Organization: "There is no known safe amount of alcohol" and "Even a single glass of wine can cause FAS symptoms."
This is reality.. I don't make this stuff up. Now the prevailing idea is that a single beer or wine occasionally may not be terribly harmful but that is beside the point, the post was about two bloody Marys... not a light amount of alcohol to be sure.
Most women do not know the dangers of FAS because most doctors are not well informed; therefore laws should exist which help the social consciousness and welfare of everyone. Currently in most states if you make an infant drink alcohol then you are arrested for child abuse. What is the difference of doing it a few months earlier?
Would I want to see pregnant women thrown in prison? no, absolutely not. But I would like to limit easy and impulsive access to liquor for those who have a lapse in judgment or are unaware of the dangers.
Well; throughout the exchange things got heated on both sides. My arguments became less coherent and more ranty and I realize that I did not make the best case for myself.
What did surprise me though is that out of this people got the idea that I was anti-abortion. I never said ANYTHING about abortion!
People have said that I believe women are stupid. No, that's not the case at all; the fact is that ALL people are not well informed about FAS until they do personal research. Information is not freely available and even OBGYNS have been known to give out incorrect advice about FAS according to FAS organizations.
Anyway.. the entire exchange got increasingly bizarre and surreal. At a few points I attempted to throw water on the fire by explaining that this issue is triggering, that it brings up a lot of very hard emotions because of what has happened to my family in dealing with my sister's FAS issues.
I haven't said this publicly until now but... living with my sister's FAS issues was not easy. As a result of FAS she had a long list of psychological disorders and developmental problems. She's stuck at an IQ of 70 and has wild, irrational mood swings and bouts of anger and depression. She impulsively steals, lies and does all kinds of crazy things. Once she attacked me with a metal pipe, another time she attacked my mother with a kitchen knife. She has been in and out of prison, she's run away and lived in the streets and pretty much everything you can imagine. Finally when she hit 20 everything changed and she started to calm down and get more stabilized mentally. Now at 26 she is relatively average for a person in her late 40s. I say that because of all the extended physical problems that she's endured as she's had to have operations to remove organs that are failing and becoming a cancer to her body. She will never grow more intelligent and with an IQ of 70 she cannot function well enough to maintain a job. I am still proud of her for having tried to do it though several times. She has never been able to complete a high school degree, in spite of many attempts. She does drive a car pretty well and she maintains herself now better than she did before.
So, I guess you can imagine that creates a lot of emotional baggage in conversing about FAS and it is highly triggering. I communicated this and was summarily mocked and ignored.
OK.. fine...
So those two incidents really set the stage for a lot of future encounters.
There are roving bands of people now who have me labeled as a hateful misogynistic jerk who body-shames, slut-shames, man-splains and probably listens to Rush Limbaugh... pretty much every ugly lable that a woman could possibly say negatively about a man is placed on me. As for the men on LJ? well they just think I'm an asshole.
OK, I admit it.. sometimes I am an ass and sometimes I do it on purpose.
I hate word-policing. While I agree that racist and bigoted terms are inherently bad and ought to be avoided I do not see why other words have to be avoided completely.
I have been vocal about this and a week ago I took it too far.
It was an innocent enough reference, someone used the term "Pizza Slut" to refer to Pizza Hut. I think everyone has probably heard that. No biggie.
Well, someone took offense at it and was all "OMG!" and I laughed. Why? because someone had just predicted that there would be a word police invasion only a few hours prior.
The person then commented that she was serious because people had spread rumors about her and the word was really harmful.
OK now I think that's a damn shame. Rumors are stupid. As I've illustrated above, *I* have been a victim of rumors very recently and it sucks. However, I think it's weak and goofy to be so defeated by rumors that a single word will cause you to cease functioning and be so upset that a word is lying there.
Now then, had someone called someone else a slut or referred to a person being a slut or was being ugly with the word then I could have more sympathy... but this was none of the cases.
Well, I commented back and I was a grade A asshole.
I've had a week to ponder it and think on all the angles and there's none that justify what I followed up with by openly mocking the person who was triggered by the word "slut" and got all OMG offended.
I definitely could have handled that better.
Well, the backlash that ensued was bad. I caused more problems for the moderator, who has been incredibly awesome through all of the chaos since last summer, and deeply offended someone who I had no reason to go off on the way that I did.
I would *LIKE* to apologize to her personally or even publicly in the community but I have been given the impression strongly that such an apology would create more problems.
So I'm making this post and I'm leaving it public so anyone and everyone can see it. I'm even leaving the comments open for anyone.
I was a jerk and I'm sorry.
I am not a misogynist; I don't know how to prove it but the very idea that people would think that I hate women or think of women as lesser beings greatly upsets me.
I do not want to dictate to women what they can and cannot do.
I DO want to protect unborn children that are wanted; that's all I ever was trying to discuss in the FAS post... if you're going to abort the pregnancy then go do it... but if you are choosing to keep your child then I believe that it is all of society's responsibility to help and support you and part of that is to make sure that you are well informed about the realities of FAS and keep you from making a mistake that far too many people make out of simple ignorance.
I DO think that people should dress properly when they go out of their houses. Not only do I believe that spandex does have a weight limit but I believe that even at 85lbs spandex is not a complete outfit. Why would a person want to let strangers know what they look like completely naked? It boggles my mind.
Anyway... there are times that I'm a jerk, there are times that I'm an asshole... but that doesn't define me as a person, it merely defines me in that moment.
It all started last summer over two simple posts.
In one post I advocated that people should be dressed properly when they go out of their houses and attempt to conduct business. I expressed dismay at women who thought it was appropriate to go shopping in dripping wet bikinis and nothing else. I expressed equal dismay at men who thought that it was fine to go wander around with nothing on but a pair of shorts about the same size and coverage as underwear. I even noted that my personal experience with customers under-dressing leaned far more on the male side than female.
In spite of attempting to express equality between the genders in my dismay and desire to see better examples of public modesty I was accused of "slut shaming" "body policing" and "misogyny".
All of these are pretty bizarre when you see the essence of my arguments but if you read the whole snowstorm of the discussion that happened then you'd find a lot of people confusing my comments with comments of other people, distorting and twisting my words and generally ignoring the fact that I was emphasizing both men AND women EQUALLY need to dress properly in public.
OK so that's done.
The second flurry of activity came only a few days later.
Someone posted that she had ordered a couple of bloody marys on an airplane and the stewardess asked "are you pregnant?" before serving them. The person complained that it was bad service.
I admit, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is a trigger issue for me; I have very strong and passionate feelings about it because of the high level of trauma, stress and chaos that FAS problems brought to my family because of my Adoptive sister.
Therefore I did not handle myself as well in that entire mess of a debacle that occurred.
Let's be clear about what I DID say versus what I did NOT say.
Wait, no.. check that.. there's now way I could possibly go over all the things I did not say.
Anyway; I said the following:
It's not bad service, it's good caution to prevent pregnant women from consuming liquor.
I advocated legislation that would make it illegal to dispense liquor by the drink knowingly to pregnant women.
That's it really.
WHY? Because most doctors currently in practice graduated a long time ago and much of the knowledge about FAS is still coming out. According to the CDC and the World Health Organization: "There is no known safe amount of alcohol" and "Even a single glass of wine can cause FAS symptoms."
This is reality.. I don't make this stuff up. Now the prevailing idea is that a single beer or wine occasionally may not be terribly harmful but that is beside the point, the post was about two bloody Marys... not a light amount of alcohol to be sure.
Most women do not know the dangers of FAS because most doctors are not well informed; therefore laws should exist which help the social consciousness and welfare of everyone. Currently in most states if you make an infant drink alcohol then you are arrested for child abuse. What is the difference of doing it a few months earlier?
Would I want to see pregnant women thrown in prison? no, absolutely not. But I would like to limit easy and impulsive access to liquor for those who have a lapse in judgment or are unaware of the dangers.
Well; throughout the exchange things got heated on both sides. My arguments became less coherent and more ranty and I realize that I did not make the best case for myself.
What did surprise me though is that out of this people got the idea that I was anti-abortion. I never said ANYTHING about abortion!
People have said that I believe women are stupid. No, that's not the case at all; the fact is that ALL people are not well informed about FAS until they do personal research. Information is not freely available and even OBGYNS have been known to give out incorrect advice about FAS according to FAS organizations.
Anyway.. the entire exchange got increasingly bizarre and surreal. At a few points I attempted to throw water on the fire by explaining that this issue is triggering, that it brings up a lot of very hard emotions because of what has happened to my family in dealing with my sister's FAS issues.
I haven't said this publicly until now but... living with my sister's FAS issues was not easy. As a result of FAS she had a long list of psychological disorders and developmental problems. She's stuck at an IQ of 70 and has wild, irrational mood swings and bouts of anger and depression. She impulsively steals, lies and does all kinds of crazy things. Once she attacked me with a metal pipe, another time she attacked my mother with a kitchen knife. She has been in and out of prison, she's run away and lived in the streets and pretty much everything you can imagine. Finally when she hit 20 everything changed and she started to calm down and get more stabilized mentally. Now at 26 she is relatively average for a person in her late 40s. I say that because of all the extended physical problems that she's endured as she's had to have operations to remove organs that are failing and becoming a cancer to her body. She will never grow more intelligent and with an IQ of 70 she cannot function well enough to maintain a job. I am still proud of her for having tried to do it though several times. She has never been able to complete a high school degree, in spite of many attempts. She does drive a car pretty well and she maintains herself now better than she did before.
So, I guess you can imagine that creates a lot of emotional baggage in conversing about FAS and it is highly triggering. I communicated this and was summarily mocked and ignored.
OK.. fine...
So those two incidents really set the stage for a lot of future encounters.
There are roving bands of people now who have me labeled as a hateful misogynistic jerk who body-shames, slut-shames, man-splains and probably listens to Rush Limbaugh... pretty much every ugly lable that a woman could possibly say negatively about a man is placed on me. As for the men on LJ? well they just think I'm an asshole.
OK, I admit it.. sometimes I am an ass and sometimes I do it on purpose.
I hate word-policing. While I agree that racist and bigoted terms are inherently bad and ought to be avoided I do not see why other words have to be avoided completely.
I have been vocal about this and a week ago I took it too far.
It was an innocent enough reference, someone used the term "Pizza Slut" to refer to Pizza Hut. I think everyone has probably heard that. No biggie.
Well, someone took offense at it and was all "OMG!" and I laughed. Why? because someone had just predicted that there would be a word police invasion only a few hours prior.
The person then commented that she was serious because people had spread rumors about her and the word was really harmful.
OK now I think that's a damn shame. Rumors are stupid. As I've illustrated above, *I* have been a victim of rumors very recently and it sucks. However, I think it's weak and goofy to be so defeated by rumors that a single word will cause you to cease functioning and be so upset that a word is lying there.
Now then, had someone called someone else a slut or referred to a person being a slut or was being ugly with the word then I could have more sympathy... but this was none of the cases.
Well, I commented back and I was a grade A asshole.
I've had a week to ponder it and think on all the angles and there's none that justify what I followed up with by openly mocking the person who was triggered by the word "slut" and got all OMG offended.
I definitely could have handled that better.
Well, the backlash that ensued was bad. I caused more problems for the moderator, who has been incredibly awesome through all of the chaos since last summer, and deeply offended someone who I had no reason to go off on the way that I did.
I would *LIKE* to apologize to her personally or even publicly in the community but I have been given the impression strongly that such an apology would create more problems.
So I'm making this post and I'm leaving it public so anyone and everyone can see it. I'm even leaving the comments open for anyone.
I was a jerk and I'm sorry.
I am not a misogynist; I don't know how to prove it but the very idea that people would think that I hate women or think of women as lesser beings greatly upsets me.
I do not want to dictate to women what they can and cannot do.
I DO want to protect unborn children that are wanted; that's all I ever was trying to discuss in the FAS post... if you're going to abort the pregnancy then go do it... but if you are choosing to keep your child then I believe that it is all of society's responsibility to help and support you and part of that is to make sure that you are well informed about the realities of FAS and keep you from making a mistake that far too many people make out of simple ignorance.
I DO think that people should dress properly when they go out of their houses. Not only do I believe that spandex does have a weight limit but I believe that even at 85lbs spandex is not a complete outfit. Why would a person want to let strangers know what they look like completely naked? It boggles my mind.
Anyway... there are times that I'm a jerk, there are times that I'm an asshole... but that doesn't define me as a person, it merely defines me in that moment.