**This story was originally published last year in Black Heart Magazine; I had completely forgotten about it until a recent conversation with a close friend on the questionable awesomeness of dildos triggered its resurrection. Enjoy!
Away from the clamour of Soho traffic, under the haze of jasmine incense and soft, amber lights, the coterie of zebra-striped dildos and octopus-shaped vibrators caused a shrieking, laughing ruckus. En route to a hip hop show, my friends and I were distracted by Babeland Sex Shop’s frenzied midnight sale; our shrieking amplified when my friend Joanne picked up a hot pink vibrator the size of her forearm. Unaware of its horse-powered motor, the sex appliance roared seismically and jerked her wrist to nearly dislocate. Despite the laughing and a sore wrist, we left the shop empty-handed, leaving the jumbo vibrator where it belonged: on display amongst the motley sex novelties too freaky to take seriously.
This is not an offensive against sex toys or an attempt to cover a supposed sex hang up. At the risk of appearing defensive, neither is true when sex toys are concerned. I’m a classics enthusiast: handcuffs and blindfolds, and when the opportunity arises with a willing partner, there’s nothing dirtier than the dirty fun squeezed from chocolate syrup squirt bottles and Cool Whip aerosol cans. But as far as dildos and vibrators go, they’re not my kind of kink.
I especially uphold this credo when dildos and vibrators play lead roles in one-person shows instead of being props to naughty role-playing gamers. The final outcome to an operatic climax seems lonely when your partner is a set of silicone-covered batteries. This is when contradictions smash big time because isn’t sex the opposite of lonely? Aren’t sex toys just diversions to cozy up people and create intimate possibilities? If you’re not feeling that, consider this: Ever play Twister by yourself? Or Double Dutch? Spin the Bottle has no game when you have no one to spin with.
I can understand the gratifying quick fix derived from a sex gadget. But still. How you share the gratification (and with whom) is just as important as how you achieve it. A few years ago, in the midst of our blundering, frisky haste, an ex-partner and I not only rolled off his futon (this was after he failed to slide me out of my pants—damn skinny jeans!), but we took the entire black metal frame down with us, crashing it to the ground (right before he gave up with my pants and tried to unhook my bra which he also failed to do). “Oh fuck,” we gulped, pausing to survey the mess. Were we embarrassed? Of course we were. Did we continue? Of course we did. Did we laugh about it afterwards? Like drunk sailors at a dock side pub! Broken furniture not-withstanding, I’ll take clumsy sex benders over the virtues of unresponsive dildos and vibrators.
When it comes to sex toys, it isn’t really about the equipment and sex isn’t a means in itself. It’s easy to forget this when we live in an over-sexed, commitment-phobic society pressuring us to stand in line for something better (because a better ass and sculpted biceps somehow means better sex) instead of standing on the line for each other. It’s easy to focus on the “getting off part” and overlook the after sex action: damp hair on dewy, flushed skin; panting whispers and weaving legs. Let’s not forget the spooning, the post-sex shower and that soft, almost shy little kiss halfway after orgasm right before the calm. Sex is a means to an end. It’s a long-term investment that should be valued along human terms and not glorified for its exchange rate.
I realize I’m mouthing sexual ignorance because I’ve limited myself to window shopping instead of mechanically getting off. Maybe I’m a die-hard puritan who’s missing out on some serious one-on-one action who should really loosen up and give a dildo a whirl. Be that as it may, I certainly don’t knock those who frolic alone with oscillating, zucchini-shaped prongs.
Because sometimes, it really is just about getting off.
Showing posts with label Further Subjects of Change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Further Subjects of Change. Show all posts
Monday, September 27, 2010
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
NaNoWriMo: The Writing Diet
Since November 1, 2009, I've been unofficially participating in the NaNoWriMo Diet.
You can eat whatever you want (seriously); there are no weekly weigh ins and check-ins and there are no beefy, spray-on tanned-trainers dragging you out of bed at the crack of dawn, screaming at you to squeeze those buns. There are no pills, no laxatives, no fasting, no expensive gym membership, no counting calories, and no obsessing about drinking X amount of water a day to keep your weight balanced. You don't have to cut back on your favourite comfort food AND exercise is absolutely not required (but highly recommended for general health purposes).
Dream diet? Not exactly.
See, NaNoWriMo is not about losing—it's about adding.
50,000 words to be exact.
Since 1999, writers of all levels, of all genres, from all over the world, united in procrastination gather every November to sweat, toil, cry, lose sleep, panic (did I mention cry?) in the attempt to write a 175-page novel in 30 days.
The prize? Well, there is none.
There's no cash to be won, no publishing deal to gain, no possible meeting with a literary agent, no movie deals.
The only reward is knowing that by the end of November, you've a written a novel—albeit, a very crappy one, but a novel nonetheless.
Which is why I've decided to unofficially participate in what I call the NaNoWriMo Diet. Unofficially because I didn't register and create my avatar, which means I'm not checking in day to day with fellow NaNoWrimers or reading forums etc...I'm too busy writing to do that.
I call it a diet because it's strict, regimented, demanding. And like any diet, it's a day to day challenge, where motivation is key because at any moment, you can fall off the wagon and yo-yo back to your original weight.
So how am I doing?
Well, it's day 10 and I'm blogging instead of writing the novel so that should tell you something.
My word count is just under 10, 000 words (9393 to be clear) at 26 pages. I'm not in the red yet, but considering the word goals I set myself per week, I'm 8000 words behind.
But I'm not panicking, because NaNoWriMo is not about writing your Magnum Opus or seducing the Pulitzer committee in awarding you the grand prix for literature. It's about writing quantity, not quality. There's no time to edit, re-write, psychologically analyze your characters, or create the perfect subtext. There will be holes in the plot, and in some novels, there is no plot.
And the golden rule of creative writing? The one about showing as opposed to telling? Forget about it, at least for November.
It's about getting the first draft of that novel that's been kicking around your head for a while (in my case, three years) down and done. Because although, 50,000 words and 175 pages in one month is a test of endurance and stamina, the real work is after, when writers re-read their manuscript and realize there is so much more to be written or in some cases, so many pages that must be thrown out. The laborious process of completing the second, third, fourth, fifth draft for the next 10* years is the real test of endurance and stamina for any writer.
And since I know this, I'm cool with the pressure. I'm also cool with the reality that by the end of November, 40,000 of the 50,000 words of my “novel” will be discarded entirely or put away for another project. If I can salvage 10,000 words into something amusing, I'll be happy. After all, you can't edit a blank page, and at least I'll be 10,000 words ahead than where I was last November.
And let's face it, Vancouver in November in cold, gloomy and just pissing with rain all around. The perfect weather for NaNoWriming.
*Ninotchka Rosca wrote Sate of War in 7 years. She wrote what she thought was the final draft within 5 years, only to realize that she had “written out” a character in the 5th chapter for no reason. She just forgot about him. Apparently Ms. Rosca had a 6-week breakdown and pulled a J.D. Salinger. She recovered from the bell jar, re-wrote the novel from chapter 5, weaving the MIA character back into the novel and completed the final, final draft 2 years later.
Sandra Cisneros, my literary whet dream wrote her monumental and magical work, Caramelo in 10 years and poured the loss of her father entirely into the novel. The work is perfection which proves once again that good work cannot be rushed.
Dream diet? Not exactly.
See, NaNoWriMo is not about losing—it's about adding.
50,000 words to be exact.
Since 1999, writers of all levels, of all genres, from all over the world, united in procrastination gather every November to sweat, toil, cry, lose sleep, panic (did I mention cry?) in the attempt to write a 175-page novel in 30 days.
The prize? Well, there is none.
There's no cash to be won, no publishing deal to gain, no possible meeting with a literary agent, no movie deals.
The only reward is knowing that by the end of November, you've a written a novel—albeit, a very crappy one, but a novel nonetheless.
Which is why I've decided to unofficially participate in what I call the NaNoWriMo Diet. Unofficially because I didn't register and create my avatar, which means I'm not checking in day to day with fellow NaNoWrimers or reading forums etc...I'm too busy writing to do that.
I call it a diet because it's strict, regimented, demanding. And like any diet, it's a day to day challenge, where motivation is key because at any moment, you can fall off the wagon and yo-yo back to your original weight.
So how am I doing?
Well, it's day 10 and I'm blogging instead of writing the novel so that should tell you something.
My word count is just under 10, 000 words (9393 to be clear) at 26 pages. I'm not in the red yet, but considering the word goals I set myself per week, I'm 8000 words behind.
But I'm not panicking, because NaNoWriMo is not about writing your Magnum Opus or seducing the Pulitzer committee in awarding you the grand prix for literature. It's about writing quantity, not quality. There's no time to edit, re-write, psychologically analyze your characters, or create the perfect subtext. There will be holes in the plot, and in some novels, there is no plot.
And the golden rule of creative writing? The one about showing as opposed to telling? Forget about it, at least for November.
It's about getting the first draft of that novel that's been kicking around your head for a while (in my case, three years) down and done. Because although, 50,000 words and 175 pages in one month is a test of endurance and stamina, the real work is after, when writers re-read their manuscript and realize there is so much more to be written or in some cases, so many pages that must be thrown out. The laborious process of completing the second, third, fourth, fifth draft for the next 10* years is the real test of endurance and stamina for any writer.
And since I know this, I'm cool with the pressure. I'm also cool with the reality that by the end of November, 40,000 of the 50,000 words of my “novel” will be discarded entirely or put away for another project. If I can salvage 10,000 words into something amusing, I'll be happy. After all, you can't edit a blank page, and at least I'll be 10,000 words ahead than where I was last November.
And let's face it, Vancouver in November in cold, gloomy and just pissing with rain all around. The perfect weather for NaNoWriming.
*Ninotchka Rosca wrote Sate of War in 7 years. She wrote what she thought was the final draft within 5 years, only to realize that she had “written out” a character in the 5th chapter for no reason. She just forgot about him. Apparently Ms. Rosca had a 6-week breakdown and pulled a J.D. Salinger. She recovered from the bell jar, re-wrote the novel from chapter 5, weaving the MIA character back into the novel and completed the final, final draft 2 years later.
Sandra Cisneros, my literary whet dream wrote her monumental and magical work, Caramelo in 10 years and poured the loss of her father entirely into the novel. The work is perfection which proves once again that good work cannot be rushed.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Remarkable, Not Perfect
On the Anniversary of Martial Law
Dear Dad,
I read somewhere that earth is the only planet that has mornings. I’m not sure of the scientific accuracy of that statement, so don’t take it too heart. But if we were to take it squarely for its metaphorical essence then it’s fitting for what this day means: a new beginning.
Ironically, in trying to capture the perfect balance of eloquence and militancy, I’ve written and re-written the beginning of this letter several times over, failing at each new attempt. I know there’s a lesson to be learned here, but if my learning is anything like my writing, it will be a slow and arduous undertaking. It would be easier to just call and tell you everything I want to say, but then that would be too easy. Or not. Or maybe the tricky choice between a letter and a phone call reflects the heaviness of this day. It’s difficult to summarize the full extent of something that is so monumental and transformative—Revolution—is at the same time as concrete and tangible as the people that embody it.
But here I go.
In less than 6 months I’ll be 30.
This upcoming milestone has everything to do and nothing to do with my reflective mood the last few weeks leading up to today, the anniversary of Martial Law. As my youth rapidly closes, I can’t help but think of yours and how it was undeniably shaped under the monstrosity of a dictatorship--and the fearless determination of ordinary-turned- extraordinary people who resisted it. I can only imagine the ideological conflicts you wrestled with as you and countless other youth struggled with the uncertainty and certainty of failure in the pursuit of unknown freedom. I’d like to think that I lived my young life and what remains of it in the best of struggles, like you did, but I don’t have it in me. Or maybe I do, and I’ve yet to challenge my humanity as you challenged yours all those years ago.
I don’t feel it necessary to narrate your life story to you. It’s not the point of this letter anyway. I’m also not going to recount the dark days of Martial Law—the outpour of statements and the kindle of vigils tonight will cover all that. Nevertheless, I want you to understand how profound this day is for me, and how proud I am of you. I’m proud to have a father who participated selflessly under unimaginable historical forces; who was able to act beyond his own fears despite the bloodshed and real possibility of death; who was able to surrender his unshakeable faith to his comrades under trying times; who was able to keep his humility and youthful idealism up to middle age, and I suspect well into old age.
This is of course, not what people see. Because to look at you, is to not see very much: a body made thin by the scourge of diabetes, the too dark skin and the accent that doesn’t belong. In a country intolerant of colour and low bank accounts, people see the lazy immigrant, not the father; the foreign parasite, not the person. They judge your failures, not your effort; they scrutinize your poverty, not the wealth derived from your praxis of simple living, hard struggle.
You taught me that such behaviour and actions are constructs of a system in contradiction, fragments of the new world emerging and at times colliding with the old world; that human “nature” changes as social conventions change. That fighting for social change demands a change in ourselves—and that social change whether it’s a demand for proper health care or overthrowing a dictator may from time to time produce heroes, but transforms humanity in the long run.
It would be nice of course, for the world to see this and everything that you are and everything you are not; to appreciate your intellectual capacity to swallow books whole and your wordsmith mastery over the English language. I want people to listen to the storyteller always giving his children a full cup of stories to drink from, to learn from the grassroots professor joking while theorizing the necessary process towards a classless society. I want people to know the remarkable human being behind the not so perfect individual: your ability to shrink every load of laundry is striking if not down-right annoying, and your inability to understand my grumpy tone when you call at 5 in the morning just to say hello would be completely irritating if wasn’t just slightly endearing.
Most of all, it would be wonderful for the world to appreciate the youthful idealism you possess, the one that was first rooted in the stormy period of the First Quarter Storm and then strengthened during the carnage of Martial Law. It carried you through your prison days, and was at your side during your migration voyage. It may not be the most important lesson of Martial Law, or even the bravest sentiment to uphold during this time of remembrance and re-affirmation. But it’s a crucial facet nonetheless, especially if we are determined to continue the long march towards freedom and democracy (and there’s still so much to do to get there!).
You may not like what I’ve written here. Or maybe you will, what do I know? In any case, I hope your morning stirred when the sun broke. On any given day, it would make a good beginning--but on this day especially.
STP,
Dear Dad,
I read somewhere that earth is the only planet that has mornings. I’m not sure of the scientific accuracy of that statement, so don’t take it too heart. But if we were to take it squarely for its metaphorical essence then it’s fitting for what this day means: a new beginning.
Ironically, in trying to capture the perfect balance of eloquence and militancy, I’ve written and re-written the beginning of this letter several times over, failing at each new attempt. I know there’s a lesson to be learned here, but if my learning is anything like my writing, it will be a slow and arduous undertaking. It would be easier to just call and tell you everything I want to say, but then that would be too easy. Or not. Or maybe the tricky choice between a letter and a phone call reflects the heaviness of this day. It’s difficult to summarize the full extent of something that is so monumental and transformative—Revolution—is at the same time as concrete and tangible as the people that embody it.
But here I go.
In less than 6 months I’ll be 30.
This upcoming milestone has everything to do and nothing to do with my reflective mood the last few weeks leading up to today, the anniversary of Martial Law. As my youth rapidly closes, I can’t help but think of yours and how it was undeniably shaped under the monstrosity of a dictatorship--and the fearless determination of ordinary-turned- extraordinary people who resisted it. I can only imagine the ideological conflicts you wrestled with as you and countless other youth struggled with the uncertainty and certainty of failure in the pursuit of unknown freedom. I’d like to think that I lived my young life and what remains of it in the best of struggles, like you did, but I don’t have it in me. Or maybe I do, and I’ve yet to challenge my humanity as you challenged yours all those years ago.
I don’t feel it necessary to narrate your life story to you. It’s not the point of this letter anyway. I’m also not going to recount the dark days of Martial Law—the outpour of statements and the kindle of vigils tonight will cover all that. Nevertheless, I want you to understand how profound this day is for me, and how proud I am of you. I’m proud to have a father who participated selflessly under unimaginable historical forces; who was able to act beyond his own fears despite the bloodshed and real possibility of death; who was able to surrender his unshakeable faith to his comrades under trying times; who was able to keep his humility and youthful idealism up to middle age, and I suspect well into old age.
This is of course, not what people see. Because to look at you, is to not see very much: a body made thin by the scourge of diabetes, the too dark skin and the accent that doesn’t belong. In a country intolerant of colour and low bank accounts, people see the lazy immigrant, not the father; the foreign parasite, not the person. They judge your failures, not your effort; they scrutinize your poverty, not the wealth derived from your praxis of simple living, hard struggle.
You taught me that such behaviour and actions are constructs of a system in contradiction, fragments of the new world emerging and at times colliding with the old world; that human “nature” changes as social conventions change. That fighting for social change demands a change in ourselves—and that social change whether it’s a demand for proper health care or overthrowing a dictator may from time to time produce heroes, but transforms humanity in the long run.
It would be nice of course, for the world to see this and everything that you are and everything you are not; to appreciate your intellectual capacity to swallow books whole and your wordsmith mastery over the English language. I want people to listen to the storyteller always giving his children a full cup of stories to drink from, to learn from the grassroots professor joking while theorizing the necessary process towards a classless society. I want people to know the remarkable human being behind the not so perfect individual: your ability to shrink every load of laundry is striking if not down-right annoying, and your inability to understand my grumpy tone when you call at 5 in the morning just to say hello would be completely irritating if wasn’t just slightly endearing.
Most of all, it would be wonderful for the world to appreciate the youthful idealism you possess, the one that was first rooted in the stormy period of the First Quarter Storm and then strengthened during the carnage of Martial Law. It carried you through your prison days, and was at your side during your migration voyage. It may not be the most important lesson of Martial Law, or even the bravest sentiment to uphold during this time of remembrance and re-affirmation. But it’s a crucial facet nonetheless, especially if we are determined to continue the long march towards freedom and democracy (and there’s still so much to do to get there!).
You may not like what I’ve written here. Or maybe you will, what do I know? In any case, I hope your morning stirred when the sun broke. On any given day, it would make a good beginning--but on this day especially.
STP,
Inday
Sunday, September 14, 2008
I do not choose my Enemy for my Lover
I curse my female body; because of it you do not notice that there is still something else in me—something more valuable.
-Nadjescha Sanschar, “Ana’s Notes”
Exploitation is a form of parasitism in which an organism engages in what appears to be a mutualistic relationship with another organism, but does not in fact provide any benefit to the other organism.
-Ecological Society of America
First, to your wife.
Who lettered public sweet nothings on your facebook wall (“Hey Baby…), grieving for her dead mother and exorcising a cumbersome fever. You were strategizing how to sex me in the most humiliating, depraved manner, by way of pestering emails, text messages and salivating—with unmistakable savage intentions. I was thinking of your wife. Because you were thinking so little of her.
Second, to the young woman.
The one younger than me. The one I imagine you hijacked, hog-tied and had your dirty, dirty way with—less than a month after your mother-in-law died. To all the other women you’re preying after, the ones you’re bent on perverting in that low-down dirty, dirty way of yours. I think of her and all of them. Because you think so little of her and all of them.
To our “friend” who plotted in your failed attempt to have your sick way with me, compromising sisterhood for her sister’s submission. In thinking so little of me, she thought so little of herself.
You spin yourself as an ordinary guy down on his booty luck, looking for a hand or a rub—or a suck. But you carry in your being all the history of patriarchy—to make you innocent of this would be a defeat for women. Not world historic, as brother Engels noted, but a defeat nonetheless; so I’m delivering this as a reminder of your patriarchal legacy and its parasitic consequences on my sisters and myself. The acquisition of women’s sexuality and baby-makin’ capacity was analogous to the acquisition of land, resources, of creating and conserving the patriarchal family; the domestication of dogs, cats, cattle and the daughters of Eve asserts that women were the first property, putting the debate to rest that pimping really was the first profession. The enslavement of half the human species—the ones that hold half the sky—by the other enabled the enslavement of other “non-people”, and this is the reality of being a “non-person”: you can do anything since society concludes you as nothing; conversely, anything can be done to you, since society concludes you as nothing. Let me also remind you that slavery and exploitation are kindred institutions, and granted, women in the age of HPV and hipster dementia are not beholden to the ball and chain, nevertheless, exploitation, by any other name still wreaks of exploitation, whether it involves the reaping of money—or the reaping of Woman as your sex honey.
Goodbye, once and for all, to patriarchy.
To the masters of the universe and their irrational logic regarding gender relations. Goodbye to parasitic He-Men ruling their androcentric world, trumpeting the “rightness” of their word, holding dominion over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth, subduing over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.* Goodbye to the omnipotence that all human experience is represented in the image of man—and the impotence of sexist ideologies that subordinate women and other groups under man with some justice, but no genuine liberty for all. Goodbye to Hammurabi and his laws that codified the governance of women and the gatekeepers who uphold his canon: The Emperors of Rome, the Emperors of China, the FLDS, all the US Presidents, who is the face Elliot Spitzer, who is the face of John Edwards (“I slept with her, but I did not love her. I love my wife.”). Goodbye, goodbye patriarchy and your culture that enables the narcissism and moronic actions of your sons (“I slept with her, but I did not love her. I love my wife.”) and their belief that women have no life, no thoughts, no culture—unless they have a man, rendering them legitimate and complete among the world of men. Goodbye macho false consciousness and your half-wit, half truths on everything. Goodbye to misogynists and their violent hate-on against half of humanity—“Women [are] objects…if I got what I wanted that was fine…whatever they felt was their own business”; “[My] general attitude against women? Sex is about all they’re good for”.** Goodbye island dwellers, takers who never give, lone rangers, lovers of leaving.
I do not choose my enemy for my lover.
Goodbye to the pussy posses and their YES women who barter themselves at any cost for male approval. Women who greet with tit-shakes instead of hand-shakes (but can’t look at you in the face when it comes to the women’s question) if it gets them honourary membership in the all-exclusive boy’s club (best of luck serving their drinks and inflating their egos—we’ll be here when you’re upgraded for a better model). Men have made their world and their women: war-mongering collaborators a la Madeline Albright who bomb poor, coloured women and their children in the guise of nation-building and democracy; who is the face of Margaret Thatcher, enslaving working-class women to another level of slavery who is the face of Condoleezza Rice, who is the face of Heidi Fleiss—women pimp other women too, and no genuine sisterhood could ever be erected from this. Women who believe running side by side, hand in hand with their misogynist “brothers” will make their revolution and equality, when they’re the running dogs of imperialist plunder. Gunning for class stature and protection, by any means necessary. Goodbye to structures that “empower” women to annihilate each other for the attention of men, and the cultural excrement that buttress and profit from that annihilation—female mud-wrestling and The Bachelor is NOT empowerment (it’s degrading and men laugh at our humility) even if you are victor. Goodbye to constructs that license women to mark their sisters prudish, frigid, cold, uptight, old-fashioned kill-joys and the classic: “You give women a bad name” for refusing to be someone’s Po’Ho or stand-in wife.
Goodbye.
To all of that. To the aim-to-please acrobatics of bending over forwards, bruising our knees, breaking our backs to satisfy our lovers and husbands in the sack (or get sacked), just to prove what good team players we are. Goodbye to Freud’s wack pack “experts” who impose the credo that to be “normal”, women must settle for husband, home and motherhood, or that to be “modern” and “normal” women must have it all: money, career and keepin’ up with the Jones’—within the chastity-belt lockdown of husband, home and motherhood. Goodbye to the neurosis derived from social pressures to catch a man (and keep him), bake his bread, make his bed (and lie in it), keep his progeny from dying young—or into young delinquents; pomp and promenade like an auto-show model, pomp and perform like an AVN porn star to keep his sex life exciting (and goodbye to the lie that the secret to female fulfillment is his exciting sex life). Goodbye to the devaluation of women and the indifference towards devaluation if only to cope against the affliction ruining the second sex—and the hurt drawn from such acceptance. Goodbye to the distortion that pregnancy is her problem; childcare is a female sport and single motherhood is punishment for her sexual deviance—or her inability to keep her man. Goodbye to the objectification of the sum of our female parts, the stigma related to their conversion as things to be trafficked, and the dignity lost in the trade of commodities. Goodbye to the discipline of silence and the axiom of don’t rock the boat will “naturally” lead to peace and equal gender relations; to the art of female patience and the guarantee that one day our day will come, we just have to wait a little bit longer. Wait. Hand on foot. Just a little bit longer.
Well.
Goodbye.
To all of THAT.
Goodbye to men who want their women “smart” and “independent”, but not assertive. Men who want their women to think for themselves, to develop their potential, all the while reining them with the doggie collars of domestication if they stray too far. Goodbye to the popular opinion that men are also victims of sexual oppression by “women-libbers” who’re “stealing” their jobs, managing their life, calling the shots and playing them for booty. In the broadest social relations, oppression entails the violent subordination of one group through power struggle, defeat and domination entirely by another group (and let’s also further clarify: oppression is the subjective condition, subordination being the objective). Men are of course messed up from the sexual privilege they wield, but are not subordinates to sexual oppression. Power wardens and their share-holders (men and women) have the option of betraying their privilege; subordinates have no option except fight—or die on our knees (or in the case of women, on our backs with our legs wide open). Patriarchy is not our bad; the liberation of women will benefit men and all of society in the final analysis—but this demands men to give up their comfort in the light years between oppression and emancipation. Goodbye liberal “brothers” who counsel women on their liberation when they don’t know this side of sexual oppression, and the marginal realities of oppression. The liberal “brothers” will have to hustle if they’re serious about liberating themselves of their patriarchal legacy, liberate themselves of their unlimited sexual access to every pudendum, liberate themselves of cock privilege (!). Liberal “brothers” will have to liberate themselves in all aspects if they really want women to walk with them—not behind or underneath them; if they want power to all people—or to none. It’s hustle time.
And man up while you’re at it.
Goodbye to capitalist hostilities that condone exchange values, but condemn their usefulness; to the belittling of human relationships and the glorification of exchange relationships. Goodbye to the market economy of meaningless possession and cheap thrills; to the power structures rendering us powerless in the muck of apathy and consumer fetishism. Goodbye to the constructs that devours our genuine persons of love, doubts and confidence, but worships the abstraction of greed and individualism. Goodbye to the perversion of human qualities—kindness, courage, loyalty—into “personality packages” for the personality market—and the alienation inherently elemental to the empire of homelessness. Goodbye to the melting pot of alienating love ‘em and leave ‘em, players and pawns, winning and losing practices. Goodbye to society’s endemic fear of our own emotions; to the hurt we inflict, destroying the compassion we could give, but deny others and ourselves. Goodbye to the façade of “strength” and eschewing help, in correlation to giving help—taking that extra step, to feel, just a little more, to recognize we are beyond the price tags of our designated social roles.
To my lovers, past and present.
To the ones who tried, and to the ones who didn’t try at all.
I want a world where our humanity necessarily depends on us standing on the line for each other as opposed to standing in line for something better; understanding that we can and should give more to society than our exploitable assets, measuring our worth entirely in human terms. Where honesty is respected as a gift to honour, not a burden to expel; where commitment to one another is not the loss of individual autonomy, but an expression of our true, sensuous selves; where the act of love is a concrete means to love, not an end in itself, or a lust drug against the chimera of alienation. Where we don’t confuse love for sex and sex for love; wants for needs and needs for wants, or using infidelity as a bona fide way out—or cop out—of problems. I want a world where we don’t reject each other because we dread the complicated madness of emotional binds, braving instead the incomparable splendour of earthly bonds. Knowing when ground-zero strikes it’s okay to have our defenses down, knowing that refuge, or the loss of it, are within these arms, these hands, my touch, this kiss, that I offer for the sanctity of yours. A world where we see in each other the story of humanity in all its troublesome beauty, exchanging trust for trust, affection for affection, laughter for laughter; a world underscoring our ties to each other are those of another nature when we exchange love, only for love.
To my sisters.
Who would never sell each other out. Who would never let each other fall at rallies, at concerts, at work, in the era of post-sexual revolution of free love, free markets, free women, freedom of “choice” and the inequality of those limited choices; women who would never let each other down in time of social decay, in the calamity of bitter change. Sisters who would never turn each other away in the face of penniless setbacks, sisters who would never trade each other for men, sex and money; sisters who welcome sisters who’ve been jilted by men for other women, sex and money. Women who would never conspire with the patriarchy just to climb one more rung on that ladder beneath the glass ceiling. Women determined—not just dream—to break that glass ceiling. Women who are in it for the long haul knowing there is another side to all this madness; knowing there is still madness on the other side, not perfection, but something certainly better than the present deluge of barbarity keeping us all apart. Wild, loose, flawed, angry, pure, frustrated, complex, mad, adroit, maladroit, wise, witty, crazy, sexy, cool, conscious and liberated—we are the women men have warned us about. Women learning to scream, vowing, NO, enough already. Never again. Without guilt and reservation we’ve been socialized to feel (all the freakin’ time), without the shame we nurse and labour when we don’t do right by our men if we don’t stand by our men. Women who know that Eve did not commit the original sin (Eve defied convention, she thought outside the box, she grew, evolved) and with it, the fall of Eden and everything else after the Resurrection. Enough already. Never again.
We are the women men have warned us about.
Women understanding everyday the true value of their existence, not in talk, not in their head, not in the privacy of their homes, but out there, in action. Believing once and for all our lives are worth living, with compassion and conviction, holding half the sky and rooting our place in the best of struggle. Struggling against being forgotten, knowing that a people who lose their past lose themselves; struggling against those who deny our history, our creativity towards society, our resistance to patriarchy. Struggling with the courage to interpret our past, our stories without the imposing deadweight of marginality; struggling with the courage to stand on our own within the bonds of sisterhood; struggling with the courage to go beyond what we know or what we’ve been taught only to know; struggling with the uncertainty and certainty of failure in the pursuit of unknown freedom; struggling with the anger and passion and pity and resentment for all the men we loved and still love as we struggle with ourselves as works-in-progress without fear and insecurity of upsetting or losing all the men we loved and still love. Offering our best human qualities towards the redefinition of humanity as we strip the shackles of our old selves, forging our freedom in the process of our new, liberated selves. Dealing with the clumsy slips and falls of contradiction with all our beauty and coolness, in a language that only liberated women can animate, carrying each other the only way we know how. Struggle, the only way we know how. Love, the only way we know how.
We are the women men have warned us about.
Because when a woman says
sex is a political condition
she can begin to stop being just a woman in herself
in order to become a woman for herself,
establishing the woman in woman
from the basis of her humanity
and not of her sex…
…knowing
that the difference between the sexes
burns much better in the loving depth of night
when all the secrets that kept us
masked and alien are revealed.
-Roque Dalton, “Toward a Better Love”
*Book of Genesis 1:26
**Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality. Dines, Jensen, Russo, Eds.
-Nadjescha Sanschar, “Ana’s Notes”
Exploitation is a form of parasitism in which an organism engages in what appears to be a mutualistic relationship with another organism, but does not in fact provide any benefit to the other organism.
-Ecological Society of America
First, to your wife.
Who lettered public sweet nothings on your facebook wall (“Hey Baby…), grieving for her dead mother and exorcising a cumbersome fever. You were strategizing how to sex me in the most humiliating, depraved manner, by way of pestering emails, text messages and salivating—with unmistakable savage intentions. I was thinking of your wife. Because you were thinking so little of her.
Second, to the young woman.
The one younger than me. The one I imagine you hijacked, hog-tied and had your dirty, dirty way with—less than a month after your mother-in-law died. To all the other women you’re preying after, the ones you’re bent on perverting in that low-down dirty, dirty way of yours. I think of her and all of them. Because you think so little of her and all of them.
To our “friend” who plotted in your failed attempt to have your sick way with me, compromising sisterhood for her sister’s submission. In thinking so little of me, she thought so little of herself.
You spin yourself as an ordinary guy down on his booty luck, looking for a hand or a rub—or a suck. But you carry in your being all the history of patriarchy—to make you innocent of this would be a defeat for women. Not world historic, as brother Engels noted, but a defeat nonetheless; so I’m delivering this as a reminder of your patriarchal legacy and its parasitic consequences on my sisters and myself. The acquisition of women’s sexuality and baby-makin’ capacity was analogous to the acquisition of land, resources, of creating and conserving the patriarchal family; the domestication of dogs, cats, cattle and the daughters of Eve asserts that women were the first property, putting the debate to rest that pimping really was the first profession. The enslavement of half the human species—the ones that hold half the sky—by the other enabled the enslavement of other “non-people”, and this is the reality of being a “non-person”: you can do anything since society concludes you as nothing; conversely, anything can be done to you, since society concludes you as nothing. Let me also remind you that slavery and exploitation are kindred institutions, and granted, women in the age of HPV and hipster dementia are not beholden to the ball and chain, nevertheless, exploitation, by any other name still wreaks of exploitation, whether it involves the reaping of money—or the reaping of Woman as your sex honey.
Goodbye, once and for all, to patriarchy.
To the masters of the universe and their irrational logic regarding gender relations. Goodbye to parasitic He-Men ruling their androcentric world, trumpeting the “rightness” of their word, holding dominion over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth, subduing over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.* Goodbye to the omnipotence that all human experience is represented in the image of man—and the impotence of sexist ideologies that subordinate women and other groups under man with some justice, but no genuine liberty for all. Goodbye to Hammurabi and his laws that codified the governance of women and the gatekeepers who uphold his canon: The Emperors of Rome, the Emperors of China, the FLDS, all the US Presidents, who is the face Elliot Spitzer, who is the face of John Edwards (“I slept with her, but I did not love her. I love my wife.”). Goodbye, goodbye patriarchy and your culture that enables the narcissism and moronic actions of your sons (“I slept with her, but I did not love her. I love my wife.”) and their belief that women have no life, no thoughts, no culture—unless they have a man, rendering them legitimate and complete among the world of men. Goodbye macho false consciousness and your half-wit, half truths on everything. Goodbye to misogynists and their violent hate-on against half of humanity—“Women [are] objects…if I got what I wanted that was fine…whatever they felt was their own business”; “[My] general attitude against women? Sex is about all they’re good for”.** Goodbye island dwellers, takers who never give, lone rangers, lovers of leaving.
I do not choose my enemy for my lover.
Goodbye to the pussy posses and their YES women who barter themselves at any cost for male approval. Women who greet with tit-shakes instead of hand-shakes (but can’t look at you in the face when it comes to the women’s question) if it gets them honourary membership in the all-exclusive boy’s club (best of luck serving their drinks and inflating their egos—we’ll be here when you’re upgraded for a better model). Men have made their world and their women: war-mongering collaborators a la Madeline Albright who bomb poor, coloured women and their children in the guise of nation-building and democracy; who is the face of Margaret Thatcher, enslaving working-class women to another level of slavery who is the face of Condoleezza Rice, who is the face of Heidi Fleiss—women pimp other women too, and no genuine sisterhood could ever be erected from this. Women who believe running side by side, hand in hand with their misogynist “brothers” will make their revolution and equality, when they’re the running dogs of imperialist plunder. Gunning for class stature and protection, by any means necessary. Goodbye to structures that “empower” women to annihilate each other for the attention of men, and the cultural excrement that buttress and profit from that annihilation—female mud-wrestling and The Bachelor is NOT empowerment (it’s degrading and men laugh at our humility) even if you are victor. Goodbye to constructs that license women to mark their sisters prudish, frigid, cold, uptight, old-fashioned kill-joys and the classic: “You give women a bad name” for refusing to be someone’s Po’Ho or stand-in wife.
Goodbye.
To all of that. To the aim-to-please acrobatics of bending over forwards, bruising our knees, breaking our backs to satisfy our lovers and husbands in the sack (or get sacked), just to prove what good team players we are. Goodbye to Freud’s wack pack “experts” who impose the credo that to be “normal”, women must settle for husband, home and motherhood, or that to be “modern” and “normal” women must have it all: money, career and keepin’ up with the Jones’—within the chastity-belt lockdown of husband, home and motherhood. Goodbye to the neurosis derived from social pressures to catch a man (and keep him), bake his bread, make his bed (and lie in it), keep his progeny from dying young—or into young delinquents; pomp and promenade like an auto-show model, pomp and perform like an AVN porn star to keep his sex life exciting (and goodbye to the lie that the secret to female fulfillment is his exciting sex life). Goodbye to the devaluation of women and the indifference towards devaluation if only to cope against the affliction ruining the second sex—and the hurt drawn from such acceptance. Goodbye to the distortion that pregnancy is her problem; childcare is a female sport and single motherhood is punishment for her sexual deviance—or her inability to keep her man. Goodbye to the objectification of the sum of our female parts, the stigma related to their conversion as things to be trafficked, and the dignity lost in the trade of commodities. Goodbye to the discipline of silence and the axiom of don’t rock the boat will “naturally” lead to peace and equal gender relations; to the art of female patience and the guarantee that one day our day will come, we just have to wait a little bit longer. Wait. Hand on foot. Just a little bit longer.
Well.
Goodbye.
To all of THAT.
Goodbye to men who want their women “smart” and “independent”, but not assertive. Men who want their women to think for themselves, to develop their potential, all the while reining them with the doggie collars of domestication if they stray too far. Goodbye to the popular opinion that men are also victims of sexual oppression by “women-libbers” who’re “stealing” their jobs, managing their life, calling the shots and playing them for booty. In the broadest social relations, oppression entails the violent subordination of one group through power struggle, defeat and domination entirely by another group (and let’s also further clarify: oppression is the subjective condition, subordination being the objective). Men are of course messed up from the sexual privilege they wield, but are not subordinates to sexual oppression. Power wardens and their share-holders (men and women) have the option of betraying their privilege; subordinates have no option except fight—or die on our knees (or in the case of women, on our backs with our legs wide open). Patriarchy is not our bad; the liberation of women will benefit men and all of society in the final analysis—but this demands men to give up their comfort in the light years between oppression and emancipation. Goodbye liberal “brothers” who counsel women on their liberation when they don’t know this side of sexual oppression, and the marginal realities of oppression. The liberal “brothers” will have to hustle if they’re serious about liberating themselves of their patriarchal legacy, liberate themselves of their unlimited sexual access to every pudendum, liberate themselves of cock privilege (!). Liberal “brothers” will have to liberate themselves in all aspects if they really want women to walk with them—not behind or underneath them; if they want power to all people—or to none. It’s hustle time.
And man up while you’re at it.
Goodbye to capitalist hostilities that condone exchange values, but condemn their usefulness; to the belittling of human relationships and the glorification of exchange relationships. Goodbye to the market economy of meaningless possession and cheap thrills; to the power structures rendering us powerless in the muck of apathy and consumer fetishism. Goodbye to the constructs that devours our genuine persons of love, doubts and confidence, but worships the abstraction of greed and individualism. Goodbye to the perversion of human qualities—kindness, courage, loyalty—into “personality packages” for the personality market—and the alienation inherently elemental to the empire of homelessness. Goodbye to the melting pot of alienating love ‘em and leave ‘em, players and pawns, winning and losing practices. Goodbye to society’s endemic fear of our own emotions; to the hurt we inflict, destroying the compassion we could give, but deny others and ourselves. Goodbye to the façade of “strength” and eschewing help, in correlation to giving help—taking that extra step, to feel, just a little more, to recognize we are beyond the price tags of our designated social roles.
To my lovers, past and present.
To the ones who tried, and to the ones who didn’t try at all.
I want a world where our humanity necessarily depends on us standing on the line for each other as opposed to standing in line for something better; understanding that we can and should give more to society than our exploitable assets, measuring our worth entirely in human terms. Where honesty is respected as a gift to honour, not a burden to expel; where commitment to one another is not the loss of individual autonomy, but an expression of our true, sensuous selves; where the act of love is a concrete means to love, not an end in itself, or a lust drug against the chimera of alienation. Where we don’t confuse love for sex and sex for love; wants for needs and needs for wants, or using infidelity as a bona fide way out—or cop out—of problems. I want a world where we don’t reject each other because we dread the complicated madness of emotional binds, braving instead the incomparable splendour of earthly bonds. Knowing when ground-zero strikes it’s okay to have our defenses down, knowing that refuge, or the loss of it, are within these arms, these hands, my touch, this kiss, that I offer for the sanctity of yours. A world where we see in each other the story of humanity in all its troublesome beauty, exchanging trust for trust, affection for affection, laughter for laughter; a world underscoring our ties to each other are those of another nature when we exchange love, only for love.
To my sisters.
Who would never sell each other out. Who would never let each other fall at rallies, at concerts, at work, in the era of post-sexual revolution of free love, free markets, free women, freedom of “choice” and the inequality of those limited choices; women who would never let each other down in time of social decay, in the calamity of bitter change. Sisters who would never turn each other away in the face of penniless setbacks, sisters who would never trade each other for men, sex and money; sisters who welcome sisters who’ve been jilted by men for other women, sex and money. Women who would never conspire with the patriarchy just to climb one more rung on that ladder beneath the glass ceiling. Women determined—not just dream—to break that glass ceiling. Women who are in it for the long haul knowing there is another side to all this madness; knowing there is still madness on the other side, not perfection, but something certainly better than the present deluge of barbarity keeping us all apart. Wild, loose, flawed, angry, pure, frustrated, complex, mad, adroit, maladroit, wise, witty, crazy, sexy, cool, conscious and liberated—we are the women men have warned us about. Women learning to scream, vowing, NO, enough already. Never again. Without guilt and reservation we’ve been socialized to feel (all the freakin’ time), without the shame we nurse and labour when we don’t do right by our men if we don’t stand by our men. Women who know that Eve did not commit the original sin (Eve defied convention, she thought outside the box, she grew, evolved) and with it, the fall of Eden and everything else after the Resurrection. Enough already. Never again.
We are the women men have warned us about.
Women understanding everyday the true value of their existence, not in talk, not in their head, not in the privacy of their homes, but out there, in action. Believing once and for all our lives are worth living, with compassion and conviction, holding half the sky and rooting our place in the best of struggle. Struggling against being forgotten, knowing that a people who lose their past lose themselves; struggling against those who deny our history, our creativity towards society, our resistance to patriarchy. Struggling with the courage to interpret our past, our stories without the imposing deadweight of marginality; struggling with the courage to stand on our own within the bonds of sisterhood; struggling with the courage to go beyond what we know or what we’ve been taught only to know; struggling with the uncertainty and certainty of failure in the pursuit of unknown freedom; struggling with the anger and passion and pity and resentment for all the men we loved and still love as we struggle with ourselves as works-in-progress without fear and insecurity of upsetting or losing all the men we loved and still love. Offering our best human qualities towards the redefinition of humanity as we strip the shackles of our old selves, forging our freedom in the process of our new, liberated selves. Dealing with the clumsy slips and falls of contradiction with all our beauty and coolness, in a language that only liberated women can animate, carrying each other the only way we know how. Struggle, the only way we know how. Love, the only way we know how.
We are the women men have warned us about.
Because when a woman says
sex is a political condition
she can begin to stop being just a woman in herself
in order to become a woman for herself,
establishing the woman in woman
from the basis of her humanity
and not of her sex…
…knowing
that the difference between the sexes
burns much better in the loving depth of night
when all the secrets that kept us
masked and alien are revealed.
-Roque Dalton, “Toward a Better Love”
*Book of Genesis 1:26
**Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality. Dines, Jensen, Russo, Eds.
Saturday, June 2, 2007
This is not a Confessional Rant
Because we live under a social construct of contradiction and despair,Under Construction (subject to change) submits to make sense of these contradictions that often weigh us down, yet inspire many to cultivate a just society that aims to deepen the ties that bind our humanity.
Because we are presently besieged by the recklessness of economic booms and busts, wars of imperial supremacy, hedonistic escapism, melancholy and banal tabloid rattle, an understanding and undertaking of an alternative structural composition (whatever that is) should not be shunned, for after all, change (good or bad, but let’s go for the goods!) is not the worse aspiration we could strive for.
Because the present social construct is a myriad of many, many people of many, many thoughts and of many, many actions all of which are more often times in conflict than in concert, a discourse to master the multitude of thoughts and actions from the particular to the universal, from individual achievement to collective will is vital to clarify the madness that consumes us.
Finally, Under Construction (subject to change) is a simple tribute to the befallen and to those who presently soldier on for a brave new world, an ode to anyone and everyone who has ever wanted more both materially and mentally than what this current construct giveth us.
I give unto you, dear readers, Under Construction (subject to change).
Because we are presently besieged by the recklessness of economic booms and busts, wars of imperial supremacy, hedonistic escapism, melancholy and banal tabloid rattle, an understanding and undertaking of an alternative structural composition (whatever that is) should not be shunned, for after all, change (good or bad, but let’s go for the goods!) is not the worse aspiration we could strive for.
Because the present social construct is a myriad of many, many people of many, many thoughts and of many, many actions all of which are more often times in conflict than in concert, a discourse to master the multitude of thoughts and actions from the particular to the universal, from individual achievement to collective will is vital to clarify the madness that consumes us.
Finally, Under Construction (subject to change) is a simple tribute to the befallen and to those who presently soldier on for a brave new world, an ode to anyone and everyone who has ever wanted more both materially and mentally than what this current construct giveth us.
I give unto you, dear readers, Under Construction (subject to change).
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