cutting the other edge
Sex
When the First Amendment Attacks…
Aug 7th
Perhaps you’ve heard the recent news out of California, the sadly-not-yet-universally-obvious conclusion reached by U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, that lesbians and gays should have the same right to wed as hetero adults.
I prayed for this, actually. I prayed that, for once, justice could truly be done, and a verdict reached that upheld human rights. Looks like my prayers were answered, and those of the God-as-a-weapon faction were ignored. Think that’ll make anyone question their beliefs?
I’m not gay. I’m also not married. In some ways, I probably have less of a stake in this fight that most people. The reason I cared so much about the verdict, though, is simple: I want people in love to be happy.
Anti-marriage supporters have to pretend it’s complicated, though, because the basis of their stance is so ugly: an invisible judgmental being will send them to imaginary eternal torment if they allow people different from them to exist in peace.
And underlying that: “I’m miserable and afraid, so you should be, too.”
I shudder at the idea of what ghastly moral labyrinth has to exist in a person’s head to make them want to destroy the relationship of a stranger.
(Photo credit: Jackson Holbrook / Scotty Heath)
Bettie Page, 1923-2008
Dec 12th
Famous model Bettie Page has died in Los Angeles at 85.
She had experienced a resurgence in popularity in the past ten years or so. While do I think that sexism and the objectification of women have been a bit stronger in our culture in this decade than in the previous one, I also admit that one of the good things to come out of the 2000′s has been the idea that there are many different types of female beauty.
Women might have more pressure on them to be sexy than they did in the 1990′s, but there seem to be more different “models” of attractiveness to choose from. A mixed blessing, to be sure.
But it is good, in my opinion, that it isn’t just supermodel gorgeousness or heroin-chic anymore–now we have beautiful athletic women, sexy geek girls, attractive older professional women, and pretty indie ladies.
Women of color, Asian women, and Latinas all get more acknowledgment as potentially drop-dead gorgeous than they did in the past, too. But one of the best beauty trends, in my opinion, is the dawning realization that you don’t have to be stick-thin to be beautiful and sexy.
I am not a large woman. Compared to some of the voluptuous women that model their style after Bettie Page and the other pin-up queens, I feel distinctly like a boy. But I love seeing how many bigger and curvier women are claiming the confidence that comes from feeling attractive, and I give props to one of the icons that helped make that possible.
I might not agree with the path her spirituality took, later in her life. I hope that our society moves away from pressuring its members to regret their innocent sensuality. When I look at old photos of Page, what I take away is a feeling of the beautiful reality of human sexuality–how it has humor, and normality, but also undeniable power.
Sex isn’t the earthshattering boogeyman it’s made out to be, but it also isn’t at all humdrum. It straddles the line between being the most normal thing in the world, and being the most transformational. I feel that Bettie Page had the rare gift of capturing that tension in her poses. She was one of the immortals, and she will be missed.
Dear Beautiful Men,
Jun 28th
I love you. I really do. But stop arguing for a minute and just listen.
The reason you fail with women is that you think they’re all the same.
They’re not some hydra-headed beast–many faces, one monstrous being. They’re not the feminine Borg. They do not communicate by hive-mind. We’re just people.
They’re not a physical wonderland to play in, or an inexhaustible cornucopia of delights sent by God to please you. They aren’t a delectable yet deadly flesh buffet. We’re just people.
They aren’t maddening fairies who grant or withhold favors on a whim. They’re not sucking, conniving tar-pits from your nightmares. There aren’t teeth up there. We’re just people.
When we don’t do what you want, it doesn’t mean we’re malfunctioning.
When we do what you want, it could just be our preference too.
Some of us rock, and some of us are jerks.
You won’t ever “figure out women”, because no one person can ever truly “figure out” any other person–let alone find a key in one woman and use it to unlock the whole gender. Those who say they’ve done so are lying to themselves and to you, trying to rob you of your time and money, just like they accuse women of doing. You know this.
So the next time you see a woman who interests you, please don’t freeze up and strategize. Please try to clear your eyes, your mind and your heart. The woman you see before you is not your mother, your string of ex-girlfriends, or your string of rejections. She’s not an aggregate of magazine and video images. She’s just a person.
You have less to fear than you think you do.
Birth: Now Available for Men
Apr 4th
I check BBC news online each morning as I eat breakfast. I like the international approach, and the relative lack of garishness–7 a.m.’s a bit early for scrolling, dancing crap. Something did catch my immediate attention yesterday morning, though–a pregnant man, looking delighted with himself.
Thomas Beatie, an American transsexual, and his wife are expecting a child. His.
It was amazing to me to watch my inner reactions to this. I consider myself pro-self-definition and pro-sexual-freedom, to what others might consider a freakish fault. But I had to watch myself struggle with this internally. I could feel an almost primordial, biological revulsion, like my stomach did a moral flip-flop. How odd. Men don’t have babies. He must not be a man/but he’s not a real woman. A real woman wouldn’t remove her breasts/but would still want to have a child. Just with a husband/instead of a fellow wife. Which he has, because he’s a man. With a uterus. With a baby growing inside.
I made a conscious decision to find this awesome. It was an easy decision, that gave me happiness, but I’m still mildly surprised that it took even a bit of will. Is there a basic biological rightness/wrongness that I’m just individually able to overcome? Or have I fallen prey to a bit of insidious gender-role propaganda while I wasn’t looking?
Either way, my conclusion–which, sadly, may not be common–represents to me the act of choosing to be on the side of the advancement of evolution, which will invariably mean an increase in morally and biologically challenging scenarios like this. So what? Let the strong survive. And the strong, at all times, have been those willing to adapt and press forward. That couple isn’t just giving birth to a child. They are in essence giving birth to a symbol of possibility.
In a society where so many of the imaginings of just a couple of decades ago–the space race, biological enhancement–have all but been abandoned in favor of desperate safety, I have to applaud this guy and his wife. Good-for-fucking-them. We have the brains to overcome biology and to make our bodies work for us, and we have the strength to come up with a new morality that makes true possibility, psychologically manageable.
Let’s get to it.
Fuck Nice Guys.
Dec 23rd
Recently I’ve come across quite a few mini-rants on the internet from so-called “former nice guys” who are sick of being walked-over by selfish women, and have made the decision to take refuge in cynicism.
They write fed-up manifestos and construct intricate alpha-male dating stances that rival “The Rules” for artificiality and self-contradiction. They pretend to each other that they know “how women think” and “what women really want”, as though women are some many-headed yet singular monster. And they decide, startlingly, that treating women like crapola is a way to win their respect and interest. Sort of a “shock and awe” style of dating.
I understand this. After several abusive relationships with men much like the ones these former “nice guys” decide to emulate, I totally comprehend feeling the need to come up with a set of rules to protect oneself against abuse and powerlessness. I get the temptation to become bitter and cynical, and to draw strength from lumping the other gender together and putting them down. “Men are stupid pigs.” “Women are money grubbing bitches.”
Problem is, it ain’t real power.
That rush you get from deciding others are beneath you, from assuming you know their minds, and from treating them like shit to get their attention–it’s a destructive rush. It will destroy your chances of getting with a quality person. It will destroy, eventually, any relationship you do get into, bad or good. And ultimately, it will destroy you, and any chance you may have to grow as a person.
What’s a negative attitude about relationships and women get you? Shitty relationships with women who feel at home being put down. It may make you feel stronger, for an instant. It may win you more opportunities to stick your penis into a vagina than tact did. Sooner or later, though–if you’re worth anything at all–you’ll want more than this out of your human interactions. And then you’ll be stuck in a dark rut far more unattractive than your false kindness was.
I submit that if you feel bitter that your niceness didn’t get you what you wanted, then you weren’t actually being a genuinely good person. You were engaging in an attempt to socially ingratiate yourself to someone for personal gain. That’s the opposite of “nice”. Real kindness is for its own sake, and is its own reward, even if you gain nothing from it but your own satisfaction. This is called “true character”. It is immediately noticeable, and far more attractive than ass-kissing.
Decent women want you to already BE a good person, not just act like one, or make a big deal about how you’re “trying”. And the older we get, the better we can see through bullshit. True, the good ones of us develop more compassion, just like you have. But we have less patience to go along with it.
Good women are worth being friends with, even if they don’t let you stick your willy in them. If you can’t handle this, or don’t feel that it’s worth your time, that’s your emotional handicap, not hers.
(This goes for “disease to please” women, too. If you aren’t honest with yourself first, you’re the worst kind of liar.)