SexPosFemme Journal

Stereohype

2006-07-23T16:22:00.000-07:00

Having thought about it, I realize now that my last post on stereotypes was a politically correct cop-out. In actuality I feel that for better or worse, stereotypes are on average true. First, some common stereotypes:

Blacks: feel rhythms, musical, spiritual, sexual, athletic, easy going, intuitive

Whites: count rhythms, make bland food, punctual, organized, adventurous

Asians: mathematical, technologically innovative, quiet, precise, operate grocery stores and nail salons, high IQs

Hispanics: somewhat feel and somewhat count rhythms, festive, spiritual, sexual, affable, patriotic about Latin country of origin sporting country's flag, soccer fanatics, prefer blonds

Native Americans: look black, white, or Hispanic, proud, spiritual

Jews: entrepreneurial, scientific, assimilationist, upper-middle class

Arabs: good hygiene,

Notice how the black and Hispanic ones are similar? Being both spiritual and sexual is due to Afro-Diasporan religious tradition. The tradition still exists for black Americans through evangelism and Pentecostalism. Hispanics adapted to the beliefs unlike white Americans because of the larger number of African slaves in Latin America. Blacks and Hispanics are able to be both deeply spiritual and at the same time sexual because the religious path doesn't separate spirituality from sexuality, and while black American Protestantism does, the impulse still comes through in music and dance. Hispanic dances have both European and African qualities. The European aspect includes dancing in pairs, a male lead, repetitive steps, and complex turns. The African aspect includes colorful attire, energetic and sensual shaking, hand-held drums, the names of the dances, and a lively smile. Meanwhile notice how Whites and Asians share similar "stereotypes". Is it sheer coincidence then that blacks and Hispanics tend share a bond while whites and Asians tend to associate more closely with one another?

It appears then that cultures place a premium on time and calculation. Asians made and continue to produce the latest gagdets, but Europe has more economic prosperity because the stereotype of adventure and true. Chinese and Japanese civilizations never ventured out to other shores, because they knew they were the most technologically savvy and because they believed themselves to be the center of the world. Europeans with their proclivity for risky adventure, seized on the opportunity to adapt these technologies from the Asians.
People shy away from acknowledging the truth behind stereotypes because quite frankly, they hurt. No one wants to associate with the labels of lazy or unmotivated, much less unintelligent. But Dinesh D'Souza contends in The End of Racism that all we have to do is phrase the negative stereotypes positively and people will embrace them as truth. If instead of lazy we say laid-back, blacks will often agree. But besides that, what culture is perfect? If they are lazy individuals who presumably have good attributes and strengths, like for instance integrity, then why not groups? All cultures have their strengths and weaknesses and the world would be bankrupt in one way or another without each cultures' contributions. Organization and inventiveness are not worth a life bereft of music or spirit, and the best samba solo won't pay the bills. Both liberal need for colorblindness and conservative goal of individualistic perceptions reflect a psychological bias that makes white and Asian cultures inherently superior a deeply rooted inferiority complex on the part of blacks and Hispanics. If blacks have to see themselves as just as punctual then they're really saying that white is right. This same psychological bias creates the sad irony of Afrocentrists touting ancient Egypt as representative of "black greatness". Even though slaves were traded from the Western side of the continent, and Egyptians are hardly black, Afrocentrists and their ilk cleave ancient Egypt because it represents all they have been conditioned to believe is good and right with the world: money, inventions, and figures. They don't even have knowledge of Egyptian music. You would think that coming from a culture that puts such a heavy emphasis on music, they would pick an African country with a rich musical tradition like Nigeria or Ethiopia.

5 Myths About Sex-Positive Feminists

2006-07-22T12:24:00.000-07:00

1. Sex positive feminists encourage girls to be sluts
I never felt pressured to have sex. I started being a sex-positive feminist when I was still a virgin, meaning I hadn't had vaginal intercourse yet. I clarify what I mean by virgin because the concept of vaginal sex as the main sex and only way to lose "purity" is both patriarchal and heterosexist. In mainstream society a slut is a woman who has intercourse with many men. In sex-positive feminism, a vast range of activities, even just reading an erotic novel, are considered having sex. And most of the leading theorists of sex-positive feminism are bisexual, so they could have female partners most or even all of the time. Betty Dodson is the matriarch of the sex-positive feminist movement and her primary focus is on liberating women and to a lesser extent men from the stigma attached to masturbation. While sex-positive feminists do defend the wide range of sexual choices availible to women, including having multiple intercourse partners, the key word is choice. The focus is on getting women to understand what they want out of their own sex lives and for their own bodies, regardless of how little or how much they decide they do want.

2. Sex positive feminists encourage girls to be dykes
Again most of the leading theorists of sex-positive feminism, including Camille Paglia and Susie Bright, are bisexual. In sex-positive feminism there is nothing necessarily inherently liberating about avoiding male contact or lesbianism, as in lesbian separatism. And unlike in militant feminism, to sex-positive feminists men don't necessarily embody a problem and aren't typified as the oppressor. At the same time, there are lesbian sex-positive feminists, and On Our Backs is a sex-positive lesbian publication.

3. Sex positive feminists are just catering to men's desires
The reason people assume that sex-positive feminists are merely catering to men's desires is because of the sexist notion that only men enjoy sex in the first place. But sex-positive feminism shatters that archaic notion, as it about women's sexual pleasure. Betty Dodson's masturbation techniques focus on clitoral orgasms, and she contends that the clit is women's primary sexual organ rather than the vagina. Susie Bright produces pornography and erotic for women by women, where the women in the productions focus on their pleasure, and the results will cater to women's sexual desires. The fact that men happen to appreciate brazen women who actively participate in partnersex, know what they want, and like sex as much or more than they do is just happenstance, not the aim of the movement.

4. Sex positive feminists defend misogynists
Sex positive is not jerk positive. This myth might stem from either a mainstream or militant feminist assumption that sexual men are inherently misogynistic, that there is no difference between a man being cavalier about sex and disrespecting women. But there is. A man who knowingly spreads infectious diseases is not sex-positive. Neither is a man who deceives his partner. And neither is a man who harasses, sexually assaults, or hurls hostile epithets at women. On the other hand, unlike a more extreme stereotype of feminism, sex-positive feminism doesn't place men in the position of being the villian par excellence.

5. Sex positive feminism is "babe feminism"
Sex-positive feminism has nothing to do with looks. Women are not exactly encouraged to be healthy but neither are they encouraged to be fixated on body image issues. Susie Bright made it clear in The Sexual State of the Union that women who diet aren't working on having orgasms and that anorexic women can develop inorgasmia. Only in mainstream media, the co-opted and packaged version of sex-positive feminism seen in Cosmo and Sex in the City, is sexual energy for women connected to having the perfect body. The women's pornography and erotica feature organic-looking women. The leading theorists are on average 45 years old, Betty Dodson being 72. Contrary to popular belief, even strippers come in all shapes and sizes and have average women's flaws, let the average sex-positive feminist.

Tyra, try again

2006-07-15T11:49:00.000-07:00

Last night the Tyra Banks Show featured a group of ten teens, five boys, and five girls. They talked candidly about their sex lives and the sexual scene in high school. One 15 year old girl had had four sexual partners. Another teen boy had first had oral sex at the age of 10, and didn't remember how old the girl was. Not only were the boys, as expected, very cavalier when discussing their sex lives, but the girls were also quite candid.
In a few short years things have changed since I was in high school and middle school. We still called sex "doing IT" and people who received oral sex in their preteens like me were marked with the scarlet O. It was good to see that the teens of this day and age, whether through their parents, or as I would guess, the media co-optation of sex-positive feminism, are more comfortable talking about sex, an important part of their growth and liberation as young men and women.
Of course it was too good to be true. The parents tried to turn it into a guilty trip to sex-negative land just when the teens were starting to open up. They were made to apologize for having "disappointed" their parents through their actions. Also Tyra flirted with bi-phobia when she suggested that the teens were getting ideas about bisexuality through the media. A very laughable leap of logic, because they could be getting those same ideas from the media that then lead them to become straight. How would we know, and if so, so what?

Sexual Progress

2006-07-10T13:58:00.000-07:00

All three polls the question was phrased as:
Sexual Double Standard (sexual boy stud, sexual girl slut)

The polls had slightly different options, but they were along the same lines. In the second poll, the options were 1. Much deserved 2. Deserved 3. Don't care 4. Terrible and 5. Horrible. There was no ambiguity between the terms "terrible" and "horrible" because having started with "much deserved" it was clear thhe options comprised a spectrum. In first and third polls, the options were 1. Very fair 2. Very unfair 3. Don't know 4. Unfair 5. Very unfair.

In the first poll, the vast majority (69%) voted "very unfair."

Very fair
0 votes (0%)
Fair
0 votes (0%)
Don't know
1 votes (8%)
Unfair
3 votes (23%)
Very unfair
9 votes (69%)

In the second poll, only 1 person said that it was much deserved. 42% voted that the sexual double standard is beyond "terrible", and is in fact "horrible."

Much deserved
1 votes (3%)
Deserved
0 votes (0%)
Don't care
7 votes (23%)
Terrible
10 votes (32%)
Horrible
13 votes (42%)

Finally, in a third poll, only one vote went for "very fair" and only one vote went to "fair". The vast majority (60%) voted that the sexual double standard is "very unfair."

Very fair
1 votes (7%)
Fair
1 votes (7%)
Don't know
0 votes (0%)
Unfair
4 votes (27%)
Very unfair
9 votes (60%)

Are stereotypes true? Part II

2006-07-10T13:13:00.000-07:00

Some common stereotypes

Blacks: feel rhythms, spiritual, sensual, proud, intuitive

Whites: punctual, entrepreneurial, organized, polite

Asians: mathematical/technological, hard-working, precise

Hispanics: festive, carnivalesque, spiritual, very proud of Latin country of origin

Dangerous ground--

Women: Nonsexual, repressed unless sluts

Men: Sexual, confident, unconcerned about body image, FREE!

I thought about it in more detail and decided that stereotypes, whether or not they are true, are unfair measures to use on an individual basis, because they dehumanize. It serves us no purpose to acknowledge stereotypes because this leads to make assumptions about people in advanced, which undermines a person's individuality. I know that the perception is that men are more sexual and women are sexually reserved, trading sex for love or security. That has to be the most sexist concept the society has ever carved out, and thankfully this double standard is waning, as mentioned in my last post. It's my biggest pet peeve for people to assume that women are not as sexual. But maybe generally speaking women aren't. After all, I've been to gay bars and lesbian bars, and what I noticed is that lesbian bars tend to be more about coupling and relationships, gay bars seem to be more about sexual excitement. But when I've been with my bisexual and swinger friends the trend is very different and in those worlds, women tend to be very sexually charged, almost more than the men. And I'm sure there are sexual lesbians, or else there would be no On Our Backs Readership. And romantic gays, or there would be no push for gay marriage. To set that standard for all women of course has always been the beginning of sexual repression and oppression. So looking at it from a feminist standpoint, instead of an "Afrocentric" one, I decided it's better to overlook group traits and trends rather than try to celebrate them.

Are stereotypes true?

2006-07-09T14:42:00.000-07:00

I am under the impression that all stereotypes are true, and that they are aspects of each ethnic groups' culture. Culture refers to patterns of human activity. So aside from what types of food, clothing, or a religion an ethnic group cultivates, certain behavioral characteristics will also sprout among the group as a general rule.
People usually agree with stereotypes being part of the culture if it is phrased positively. For example, people agree that blacks are spiritual but will disagree that blacks are superstitious. The good traits become archetypes and the bad traits arbitrarily get dubbed as stereotypes that are untrue. However, no culture is a perfect, and since they are created and exist on planet Earth they will have their flaws. Therefore negative stereotypes are also true reflections of the culture. Besides, it depends on a subjective spin on the cultural trend. One man's spirituality is another man's superstition. I think in spite of the stereotypes that circulate about blacks, taking the good with the bad, if we embrace the stereotypes, we as blacks will find a lot to be proud of.

Seven Deadly Sins Test

2005-12-30T06:09:00.000-08:00

More or less accurate, I need to get it in gear if my gluttony outweighs by pride, haha let them at least match up. You can obviously tell by this blog why the sloth and lust are in the same (pretty high) amounts.

Greed:	Medium
Gluttony:	Medium
Wrath:	Low
Sloth:	High
Envy:	Low
Lust:	High
Pride:	Medium

Discover Your Sins - Click Here

Image Versus Reality Part Two

2005-12-29T14:29:00.000-08:00

Here's The Day That Sex Died from Susie Bright and Image Versus Reality from SexPosFemme

http://sexposfemme.blogspot.com/
http://susiebright.blogs.com/susie_brights_journal_/2005/07/

Even though most of us could have full rich sex lives, we compare ourselves to characters. Kim Catrall just got a divorce but we still compare ourselves to Samantha Jones who was her character. Carrie Bradshaw had three boyfriends, but the real Sarah Jessica Parker was married to the producer. (Sex and the City). So we think we're not libertines or attractive even if we are. Married people fight over sex, hello you're married you're supposed to be having sex but also that's not why you got married! Young people probably don't have as much sex as really old people at resorts but it's seen as a young thing. Black women carry the brunt of AIDS but sex is seen as a white thing.

The sad thing is the more people focus on those images and try to live up to them, the less of a full rich sex live they'll have because if they're watching TV they're not having sex! I think internet/TV has decreased sex even though there's more sex there because then people aren't doing organic sexual things or socializing. That's why people get so defensive too. They think Sex-Positive Feminists or Bisexuals are all Samantha Joneses, when in reality we could be just like them. I just had intercouse with a man this year at 22. Or they think that we expect them to be like some TV character. Then they say oh this country is so immoral, when people are having less sex or being out and proud than they were in the 50s! Or that black women in videos make black girls look like whores when something like 75% of the black female AIDS cases are heterosexual married women! It just goes to show things aren't always what they seem. I don't even watch that much TV anymore.

Reality shows are more contrived than sitcoms ever could be. If someone says Sex in the City or Rap Videos I just say "oh I don't watch that much TV" and act like I barely know what they're talking about because if they want to compare organic sexual freedom, agency, or theory to some 5 minute Corporate Shill clip or some show made by four gay hairstylists who don't know the first thing about women's bodies, then they're much of nothing.

Bullshit from Black Women's Health

2005-12-13T12:25:00.000-08:00

An article from Black Women's Health entitled Sex or Intimacy: Which Do You Desire? reads: "Unlike their male partners, women are emotional beings who show their affection by touching and also by verbal expression, and they like those same kinds of feelings affirmed and reciprocated. The media recognizes that women are visual and need reaffirmation, so as a result, they capitalize on their need and deceive many of them with shows that view women as being content and satisfied by fulfilling their need for intimacy with sexual intercourse. This depiction is far from the truth. Women want to feel connected to their partners emotionally and spiritually. Once they have established the oneness, the intimate act of sexual intercourse then becomes fulfilling, but without the intimacy, sex then becomes an act that brings both parties close physically, but not mentally. Which do you really desire?"

These types of mythical views in society is probably the reason why black women are being infected with AIDS more than any other demographic bracket of American women. The Down Low hysteria isn't baffling enough and the austere churchy image isn't spurious enough. Now we have to reaffirm sexual double standards, stereotype women and men, alienate the lesbigay community, and erase the identities of the transgendered. Do these images of women run parallel to the statistics about sexual transmitted disease? Or do these images merely run parallel to social standards and taboos that make awareness, concern, safety, prevention, and treatment that much more arduous?

AIDS: 1 Black Women: Zip

SFPD Suspended for Making Scandalous Videos

2005-12-08T09:13:00.000-08:00

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?o=0&f=/c/a/2005/12/08/SFCOPS.TMP
http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_341213127.html

Did you really find those videos racist, sexist, or transphobic? They seemed like innocent jokes to me. The one with the homeless black women getting run over was poking fun at the police officer for pondering, being spaced out, and not getting involved. The one with the arrest of the homeless guy was poking fun at plain clothes officers for being dressed exactly like him and fancying themselves champions for ganging up on someone who's minding his own business. The one with the Asian music was poking fun at them for doing Tai Chi while on duty and missing important calls. They could have been doing yoga or playing hopscotch. It was just supposed to seem random. The one with the girl getting stopped was poking fun at that police officer who thinks he's God's gift to women. He's probably someone who within that social group has that quirk. The one with the officers oogling the captain was poking fun at him because he was imagining the whole thing, and another officer walks in and tells him to get his head out of the clouds. The fact that they were officers and random homeless people shows that he thinks everyone likes him. The only parts I could see as mildly shady were the fact that the female officer was doing her makeup and the fact that one black guy was dressed in drag. It made homeless and trans look unattractive. So they should have found some attractive trans and homeless people. But when I heard racist, sexist, etc, I seriously expected some major shuck and jive or gang rape.

On Whites Wearing Dreadlocks

2005-12-03T18:58:00.000-08:00

I'm black and I don't see a problem with whites getting dreads. We don't know if the white people in question are actually white. They may even be black, or part black, which in America is black. And obviously if they happen to have dreadlocks they might be assumed black. I don't think it's "appropriation", I think the PC police has stooped to a new low by attacking well meaning, at worst naive, at best they suspect they have souls, the nerve.

The only time I would call something appropriation or co-opting is if it involves marketing, perpetuating lies about that culture, and erasing of that culture for profit: for example, Orisha paths or Afro-Diasporan paths such as Vodun being marketed as Voodoo for films and scam artists, depicted as evil, and causing the erasure of any understanding of authetic Vodun. Not someone who's been on earth for all of two decades, may even be black, who decides to do something inspired and respectful like become a Vodun initiate or completely out of the scope of attack like attend Mardi Gras.

The Vodun Mambos et al could sit around whining about white youth sporting Mardi Gras beads, which has nothing to do with the problem of ignorance surrouding Voodoo vs. Vodun, or they can do what they've been doing which is to educate people. If you're upset that white dreadwearers might not know the meaning of what they do, then do something about it. Get the word out. Tell people what the vow of purity and the 77 commandments are, at least so they can know what the discussion is about. Then, you can even take advantage of white middle American interest, not in a deceitful way that embarasses that culture, but in a way that benefits both of you. Look how Eastern religions spread like wildfire from the time Western Humanists took a liking to Swami Vivekenanda. You can't talk about the gym now without Yoga crossing your mind. Buddhist monks themselves benefit from teaching those classes, even to all white audiences. They are secure in the fact that all can be exposed to their spiritual gifts. Look at Holiness Pentecostalism, which is a black and now white mixed tradition, if you want a black example. African dance is another. Historical durges need not apply.

Granted, I can understand if there's a strong religious significance and people find it sacreligious. But everyone who wears dreadlocks uses the term spiritual for starters. Secondly, dreadlocks have secular political meanings so they're not in a completely ethereal or sacred realm that is striving purely to guard against the profane. Third, dreads aren't always limited to blacks who are Rastafarians.

As for white privelege, these individuals are visibly paying their dues by being seen in public. Unless they have a penchant for feeling maligned or condescended, they've done some homework. One can only say "I just think it's cool" for so long, even in one's own head pun intended). They face alienation from both white middle America and members of the counterculture they hope to embrace. If they're not written off they're second-guessed. They're either being obsequious and fawning towards black people or they're part of an inadvertent racist conspiracy to undermine us. The only people who are being obsequious now are extremists who will split every kinky hair until lay Americans feel foolish for wearing sarongs to the beach and using black ink pens.

One last thing, all the arguments about black people who have straight hair being brainwashed, please save it. Although I'm not one of them, I'm sure not all black people with straightened hair are agency-less saps. They wear the hair in some instances because it looks interesting or suits their identities, for example as middle American conservatives. Inversely some blacks who wear dreads know nothing of the history, and are camping out in a chic, artistic Bohemian zest that they'll abandon as soon as there's an opening on the Hill. Meanwhile some whites will keep their dreads. Others may abandon them and feel like they're selling out on themselves and the cultures they have embraced. Others may accept change but never forget what they learned in the past. The lists go on. Anyone liberal between the ages of 18-35 seems to be going through a pitiful phase, and everyone 35 and over who's conservative seems to be a hypocrite who has already sown wild oats. There's no way of psychically channeling someone's hidden motives for doing whatever they're doing any point in time.

Social Issues Behind Eating Disorders

2005-10-10T09:40:00.000-07:00

Susie Bright asks if eating disorders have to do with being upper middle class, career driven, sex deprived, etc.

http://susiebright.blogs.com/susie_brights_journal_/2005/10/sex_survey_at_m.html

Yes there is an eating disorder problem with white upper middle class girls. I'm at a top 10 private university so I can attest. I think it's just a perfectionist mindset and a feeling of not being in control of one's own world/mind.

My last roommate was bulimic. I think it's no coincidence that she was a 22 year old virgin, upper middle class, from a small town, staunch Christian, who voted for Bush (I'm not exaggerating, I was there) because her father told her to, or else she wasn't going to vote at all. Her mom also went along with what her father said.

So I wasn't surprised she was bulimic. She was a senior staring the real world dead in the face, leaving that environment of being told just what to think, and what to decide, and she couldn't handle it. Virginity just ADDED to the chaos, it didn't signal order like people assume. Yes it guarantees no pregnancy or disease, but it's not about taking responsibility, it's about EVADING EVER HAVE to man adult risks. It's based on this assumption that things go just as planned, you get married just when you want to, to just whom you imagined, in the way you dreamed, with the money you need, and your parents approve, and the adult work of staying married, managing finances, and more will just magically take care of itself later, when you're OLDER. Meanwhile her plans and her experiences with men told her otherwise: that you DON'T have control over everything, sometimes not even your own mind, because choices aren't always black and white.

Enter bulimia.

Vodun take on Hurricane Katrina

2005-09-27T12:12:00.000-07:00

So far I've heard two Christian views on Hurricane Katrina. The first one, I call the fundamentalist take, is that the Hurricane is divine retribution for among other things Southern Decadence, debauchery and paganism. After Noah's Ark Yahweh promises not to destroy creation by water. How ironic that by the letter groups seem to have overlooked that or aren't haven't alluding to this passage in scripture. There's a counterview, what I would call the fundamentalist Vodun take on the hurricane. That is that, the New Orleans Voodoo is not the Real McCoy and that this is divine retribution for exploiting the religion and scamming tourists. The problem I saw with both of these fundamentalist takes is that neither account for the impact of the tragedy of innocent bystanders in the region.

Then there's liberal viewpoint:

"As humans, we do not possess the lifespan, intelligence, wisdom and
vision to try to make sense of tragedies such as Katrina.
Faith becomes the only consoling factor as we have to believe that
Olodumare acts through the Orishas for the "long-term" good of this
world."

I was aware of the liberal Protestant view and this seems to be the Vodun twin: ultimate good, incomprehensible to humans, things happen for a reason.

But I stumbled across what sounds to me like the voice of reason. It happens to come from the Afro-Diasporan side of the coin and is as follows:

"I do not disagree with the statements about the authenticity of the Voodoo in New Orleans. However, I do think we are treading a slippery slope when we begin blaming individuals for the actions of mother nature. Historically, no religion or good charater has saved any group of people from any type of disaster. If we used that line of reasoning we would be asking ourselves "if orisha is so powerful, then how did we end up in slavery". There are some questions that we seek answers to because we feel a degree of safety if we can explain why things happen to one and not the other but, the truth is, we will never know. All we can do is try to gather enough faith to believe in some divine plan. Be thankful because there but for the grace of God go I."

If it weren't for a messenger's stigma I think these types of reflections would just put the Shame and Blame Game to rest and refocus our attention on things that common sense rather than common consensus deems important.

Response to "White Sex"

2005-08-20T08:18:00.000-07:00

"White Sex" by Susie Bright reprinted: http://susiebright.blogs.com/susie_brights_journal_/2005/08/white_sex.html#comments

"everyone deserves the chance to be a White Bitch in Heat"...

There are black bitches in heat too. I guess people wonder how, when our counterparts are the Big Black Cocks in question, but that's because around us they get square and big brotherish. And yes the conservative branch of the community or Black Religious Reich is a millstone around the neck of sexual liberation, gay rights, and AIDS awareness. They do all of the same things twofold. So instead using rape to scare people, they'll use rape AND racial guilt (yes they actually racially guilt trip other black people if you can believe that one), sometimes putting the two guilt trip together with this glib anachronistic theory about slave rape (if you can believe that people actually still do stuff like this), to explain their sex-negative mentality. So if you don't share this same fear then you're being naive in thinking it's "your thing" instead of "their thing". But the result is the same as in the White Sex viniettes. Sexual discovery from coming out to grooving back means breaking away from a whole community pattern that is preferably Christian and middle class or aspiring to it.

Because the American Dream is so "clean" and "swell" it's funny that foreigners use America to define most social evils including debauchery. In the third world nontraditional sexual behavior or even bringing it up is an "American thing". It's as if conservative branches in every community have managed to make their views seem like the community identity instead of merely the picket fence, mask, or veil that distorts and corrupts the community within.

Image vs. Reality

2005-08-06T19:33:00.000-07:00

Don't try to talk to me about “Desperate Housewives.” If I had the slightest interest in other people’s sex lives, I’d be a Republican.-Bill Maher

In a recent web journal entry, Susie Bright, one of America's leading sex-positive feminists and sex expert said that when it comes sex, image and reality are inversely related: " the American hype and consumer-driven hysteria about SEX! SEX! SEX! is in inverse proportion to the actual sex in our personal lives." On the one hand it seems that America is becoming more sex crazed and people are just being more hedonistic now than ever. But in fact it's the opposite. She says, "we have less sex than ever." Less than 50 years ago when married couples slept in twin beds and you couldn't mention "indecent" ideas in mixed company? Less than during 200 years ago when there were gender/race specific social/legal spheres? How could this be? The internet, sex therapy, sexy clothes, declining stigma surrounding pre-marital sex and prejudiced towards the existence of sexual minorities. Seems impossible. But when you look at the facts, it makes perfect sense:

1. TV- The more sex on TV, the more there must be some demand for it, because it's not present in real life. Instead of being a supplementary form of entertainment amidst socialization, it often takes precedence and shapers the viewers daily realities. With the influx of reality docudramas replacing the sitcom genre, it's easier confuse fantasy that is the reality show with actual reality, leading some to set much higher standards--for themselves and partners-- and feel less like a part of the "real world" that they feel is represented on screen.

2. Isolation- You can check out/buy books, shop for clothes and groceries, and manage your bank account(s) without interacting a single person or even leaving the house. Add the "Bowling Alone" phenomenon http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/assoc/bowling.html, which means less community leagues, civic groups, neighborhood functions where people see other human faces. Meanwhile, we complain about or outright reject the idea of the 9-5 cubicle working world, but with cell phones, i-pods, and other portable gadgets in near constant use, people are just walking cubicles anyway, perhaps even more insulated than they would be/are in such a work environment.

3. Internet- Those meet-and-greet/dating/hook-up sites such as www.craiglist.com or www.gay.com are in some cases hindering more than helping, in the cases where they're not a supplement or offshoot of organic socialization. Because the exchanges are never in real time, there's a delay, where it can take a week to figure out things about someone that normally take all of 5 minutes, like what they look like or where they live. You have to confirm that the person is who they say they are and if you can feel safe meeting them, when normally the environment would dictate that for the very beginning.

4. Looks obsession- Diet crazes, sex and diet/cosmetic advice juxtaposed on the same magazine cover, and the promises of quick fixes make people confuse sexual satisfaction with packaged images. Sexual liberation threatens to become a brand, like Coke, bottled up and produced by people who may care little about the fruits of it. Image obsession actually makes people more and more sexually deprived. As Bright states, "Those girls in short skirts are anorexic prudes. Those boys with the James Dean sneer are stoned and scared shitless. " Not political, not empowering to real viewers, not positive, therefore not EVEN CLOSE.

The Janus-faced conflation of prefab images/mandates and sexual liberation/choices is ever more self-defeating. What's the point of lowering social barriers if we don't make use of them and put them back up one by one? 50 years ago, with all the odds, people had to know their surroundings, travel, be well rounded citizens much more than today (as evidenced by all the above links). And they didn't have personalized frames of reference, the Kinsey/Klein scales (sexuality as a continuum), post-modernism (race/gender/sexuality as a social construct), the likes of what we have today. But as the factors unfold, we don't have a strong enough grasp on self and true life now that we know what we want out of it.

Movie Review "Sky High"

2005-08-06T15:15:00.000-07:00

Don't let the PG rating or that trite poster with the red superhero cape fool you. "Sky High" is one of the more entertaining, intriguing children's movies I've seen. The special effects alone are dazzling but there's also neatly crafted plot, with some surprisingly deep social underpinnings. "Sky High" is about a high school where teens with special powers can be trained to become different types of heroes and sidekicks. On their first day, all of the new members of the freshman class are classified as either "hero" or "sidekick" based on what their special supertalents. Those with obviously strong powers or legacies are heroes and those with weaker powers are sidekicks. All the popular kids, the usual suspects, cheerleaders, jocks, prom queens, are heroes, and the sidekicks are the underlings. One girl, the earthy, green, granola type refuses to be participate in the labeling system. One boy, the dark, gothic, brooding type is a classified hero but remains an antagonistic outcast with a sordid family history. The metaphors were all too familiar as a mirror for the American high school system down below. True to the form, the binary system turned all the heroes, and their sidekicks, into zeroes, the code turned all the figures into ones and zeroes. I don't know how, but the movie managed not to trickle down into another high school drama about the pitfalls of popularity. It wasn't about being popular, belonging to a certain clique, or high school at all. It was about larger power dynamics that incidentally can realize themselves in a high school setting. So that came out of the movie, without it getting overbearing. After all, they were kids, kids with fun hidden talents, kids that could do really cool tricks, and kids on a mission, and that's what I went to see in the first place. But like the kids and their secret powers, and the location of their schools in relationship to their normal neighborhoods, "Sky High", is on two different levels, in every sense.

Most Annoying Things to Say to Bisexual Women

2005-07-31T07:37:00.000-07:00

(and some of these apply to bisexual men too)

Bisexuality As Half Truth

1. Are you really a lesbian, but you just don't want to hurt my feelings because you think I'm such a nice guy?

2. Are you really straight, but afraid to trust me just because I'm a guy?

3. Are you really straight, but you're just being nice to me because I'm a girl?

4. Are you really a lesbian, but afraid to trust women/don't want to be seen as gay?

5. What would you call yourself if there were no such thing?

6. Why don't you just say you're straight/gay?

Bisexuality as a Plan/Fulfillment of Someone Else's Plans

7. Were you "like that" your whole life?

8. Did you boyfriend/partner/husband talk you "into it"?

9. Why don't you just get a boyfriend?

10. Are you "doing this" just because you think guys like "that"?

11. Don't let some girl "lure" you into "doing that".

12. Are you "in it" just for sex?

13. "Trying" to increase your chances of getting a date?

14. Why do you want "it" "both ways"?

15. Are you really that desperate for sex/love/attention?

16. Do you think maybe you've been brainwashed by society/media into liking girls/guys?

Bisexuals as More Sexual than Others (not that it should matter if you are more sexual than others, if that's actually true about you as an individual)

17. Why don't you just stop thinking about girls/guys?

18. Is that all you ever think about?

19. Why do you have to "go around announcing" it?

20. Oh you mean like trysexual as in you'll "try anything" sexual?

21. Are you coming on to me?

22. It's like you have no standards.

23. (If you're a "virgin" to guy/girls) Then how do you know you're bisexual?

24. (If you're in a relationship or celibate) Then how are you still bisexual?

Bisexuality as an Escapist/Reactive Realm and Trauma/Fear-Based Realm

25. (see #1-4)

26. Do you just feel safer around women?

27. I bet you think all girls are nice don't you?

28. Were you abused as a child? Is that what this is all about? ('Vagina Monologues', thanks a lot)

29. Don't you know the gay/bi/straight community aren't perfect either?

30. Why don't you heal/love yourself/get over yourself?

31. Will you "marry straight" when all "this" is "over"?

Miss Universe Against the Law in Toronto

2005-07-27T07:52:00.000-07:00

Miss Universe Against Law
"CANADIAN Miss Universe Natalie Glebova was forced to take off her official sash at a local festival celebrating Thailand when Toronto authorities invoked a law against sexual stereotyping.

The winner of the international beauty competition held in Bangkok in May, Glebova was to open the festival last weekend sporting her official beauty queen's regalia. However, city employees invoked a regulation against activities which degrade men and women through sexual stereotypes or exploit their bodies to attract attention."

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15990178-13762,00.html
http://www.torontofreepress.com/2005/toronto072005.htm

Toronto, a capital where public toplessness is legal, is also one of the hubs for legal sex prostitution. But pageant queens in sashes and tiaras are banned. From a US perspective, it seems hypocritical. Unless the lines are drawn on image. The problem they have isn't sexuality itself but sexual image versus natural sexual expression. Only, how do they define what's an stereotypical image and what's more natural? Would they check to see if the publicly topless girl had breast implants? Would it matter if she were also pageant queen? Or if Miss Universe were a transman?

In the US, we have it even more backwards. Here, beauty pageants are as old hat as debutant balls and bridal showers. But imagine what would happen to a participant who was either seen topless or had done sex work in Toronto. She's as good as dead. So pageant queen, good, porn star, toast. But are most acceptable of such sexual displays, then why have major networks now pulled the plug on Miss America pageants based on lack of sex appeal? Because they don't know whether they're coming or going, and we don't know when we should. In American society, the problem isn't even image versus reality, much less legality. Instead it's just the narrow, constantly shifting degree of sexuality--just as arbitrary, if not moreso. Image isn't at odds with reality. Image lords over it like a militant vanguard. So you not only are you not supposed be sexual, but you're supposed to imagine you are, and figure you would be if you were on TV. Naturally, that would mean you had a packaged look and persona, were white, straight, and preferably Christian, were goaded on by producers, and had embarassingly knawing insecurities surrounding your looks. Then you'd be en vogue.

In either society, it doesn't matter if the person is championing important social causes like AIDS awareness, it just matters if they seem somehow annoying. It's as though not feeling offended is the antivirus. In Toronto, the face of AIDS has to be your average "unstereotypically sexual" joe. That's at least proportionally more people. Here, worse again, the face of AIDS has be a pageant queen or a crisp politician. If a random citizen goes into depth about AIDS beyond, "AIDS, how awful", then it means she's probably some dirtbag surrounded by bunch of other dirtbags. In either situation she can't be some "anybody" who just does.

Review of Greta Christina's "Bending"

2005-07-20T10:00:00.000-07:00

"She loved being bent over." In a sense, she loved being read over (she being the Novella), spread open, exposed for all the world to see, flap-flipped, probed, fingered, jammed with a foreign object to mark placement, and slammed tightly shut, only to be revisited again and again. In a sense, you loved being bent over (you being the reader), lured into the escapades, made to wait in anticipation of the next sexual idea that arises, and won over more than you dared imagine.

"Bending" is about a girl named Dallas who has a consuming obsession with both sex and one particular sexual position, being bent over. All of her fantasies involve this one position and in all of her sexual relationships she mandates this over anything else. No matter how often or consistently she indulges this obsession, she never feels a sense of completion or "enoughness". So she decides to overindulge herself in activities that revolve around bending in the hopes that she will finally feel satisfied and enjoy it without feeling beholden to it. "Bending" follows a core literary theme of obsession that is present in such great works as "Xenocide" and "Go Tell It On The Mountain," but explores it rather than just establishing it as problematic. The looming narrative question is, what happens when you get exactly what you've been craving all along? Is obsession or satisfaction the true spice of life? The answers culminate in a truly mind-bending, thought-provoking way. Greta Christina's talks more about her latest novella and presents an excerpt here: http://www.gretachristina.com/books.html.

Don't let her modesty fool you. Most accomplished, polished writers can create composite characters that are distinct from their own ideals but very few can create full characters that are step outside of every social status quo in various ways, challenge them, cater to them, and undermine them in the process, while still keeping the characters understandably human on enough levels. Prepare to get bent.

"Toxicity"

2005-07-19T20:44:00.000-07:00

To the tune of "Toxicity" by System of a Down

http://www.systemofadownonline.com/lyrics/0212.htm

Conversion, soft "fair" virgin, heaven-sent pro,
Looking at life through the eyes of a tired club,
Feeding needs as a past time activity,
The virginity of our city, of our city,

Prude, what do you own the world?
How do you own disorder, disorder,
Now, somewhere between the sacred silence,
Sacred silence and deed,
Somewhere, between abrasive violence and creed,
Disorder, disorder, disorder.

More wood for their criers, loud neighbors,
Flashlight reveries caught in the headlights of a suck,
Screaming pleased as a past time activity,
The virility of our clitty, of our clitty,

Dude, what do you own the girl?
How do you own disorder, disorder,
Now, somewhere between the sacred silence,
Sacred silence and deed,
Somewhere, between a rapist's violence and creed,
Disorder, disorder, disorder.
Prude, what do you own the girl?
How do you own disorder, disorder,
Now, somewhere between the sacred silence,
Sacred silence and deed,
Somewhere, between abrasive violence and creed,
Disorder, disorder, disorder.

When I became the sun, I shone life into the man's hearts,
When I because the sun, I shone life into the land's Art!

Composite and Typecast Bisexuality

2005-07-18T09:59:00.000-07:00

"I'm sure a lot of bisexual do get turned on by (for instance) intelligence and assertiveness and big dark brown eyes, regarless of whether they find those qualities in women and men. But I'm beginning to smell the presence of a party line, and I don't like it. I see men and women as being pretty goddamn different" -Greta Christina.

I was starting to think I was the only one who noticed this. In a lot of bisexual work, speakers emphasize their relationships to people as 'composite wholes', where gender is a trivial afterthought, like love-handles. This stance threatens to put bisexuals in two distinct camps: composite bisexuals and typecast bisexuals. And it also doesn't bode well for bisexuals who lean towards either males or females in general. Despite what internalized biphobia would have us believe, bisexuality is nowhere near that poetic or artistic. Bisexuals would have to live on another planet to be fully blind to the existence of gender. For example, the average height for women is 5'5" and average height for men is 5'10". What bisexual can't tell that women are usually smaller people? I find it inconceivable that you could describe someone to me as 5'1", long-haired, curvy and I would have no concern that this particular person also happens to be a man.

Bisexuality in some ways is like interracial dating. Of the people who date both inside and outside their races, do we never notice a person's race, or conceive of people as colorness, composite souls? No. Sure there are women who like the all-American prepster in any color or cherish a "meeting of the minds" regardless of race. But these same women may prefer baldness on black men and not on white men. So we obviously see something. It's common sense that despite characterizations, big pictures will come into play, and that individuals are more multidimensional than our tastes will ever allow. But the only time interracial daters harp on race as a 100% non-issue is when they've had to deal with accusations of race as the sole issue. The underlying theme to every "We Are the World" singalong is clear: we promise we're not total jackasses. Straight, gay, bi, pan, what have you, a whole group of people aren't all either composite or type-cast thinkers. Gender for bis both doesn't matter and does matter. It's as simple and bifoward as that.

Disinformation Guides

2005-07-17T16:06:00.000-07:00

I was browsing Russ Kick's Disinformation Guides on Amazon, which include Everything You Know Is Wrong, You Are Being Lied To, The Book of Lists, and 50 Things You Aren't Supposed to Know. So far, I own a copy of the first one. The best article has to be Wendy Elroy's "Prostitution", that sharply puts the mainstream view of prostitutes as pitiable and simultaneously abhorrent to rest. Note to all whores and renegades: if the same people who "feel your pain" are the ones casting dispersions on you, they probably don't have your best interests in mind. The statistic that 5-20% of all prostitutes are streetwalkers crumbles the image of the streetwalker as the poster-child for prostitution, when a whopping 80% (or more) do in fact "walk the streets", but only if they're being pedestrians. How, when there are always several branches to every profession, could the world's OLDEST one, at least in legal form, not be just as complex? Conflating prostitutes with streetwalkers is like calling all lawyers paralegals, all PhD's sleep-deprived med school interns, all educators poor inner-city schoolteachers. Why, with these sorts of statistics do people continue to hold the stereotypical abused druggie as the model for prostitution and see the pimp as the burly cane-toting crimelord? Yeah they're out there, just like there are paralegals and inner-city schoolteachers, but the least you can take from this is that nothing is monolithic, that Hollywood is off in the western hills for a reason, and that there's no such thing as a "perfect" or "perfectly bad" experience. And yet the blanketing continues and helps exactly no one. So do people fear that without such extreme stereotypes, they'll have no other reason not to consider prostitution themselves? Are they afraid, as with all ethnic conflicts, that not participating in scapegoating will implicate them and put them on the social chopping block? Or is just a case of plain, honest misinformation?

Looking at these articles made me wonder what sorts of disinformation articles I would write. An obvious one would be oft-visited myths, good and bad, about stripping--good ones being that strippers make thousands of dollars a night and look "perfect", bad, that strippers are all coked out and have bloodhounds for managers. Other good ones to consider would "Abstinent Immunodifficiency Sydrome" about why the good Christian wife is the new face of AIDS (because they aren't abstinent and because they are abstinent), and "The Only Untrue Bi is the Binary".

Lyrics

2005-07-17T14:47:00.000-07:00

Green Day "Minority"

Chorus
I want to be the minority
I don't need your authority
Down with the moral majority
'Cause I want to be the minority

I pledge allegiance, to the underworld
One nation under dog
There of which I stand alone
A face in the crowd
Unsung against the mold
Without a doubt, singled out
The only way I know

Chorus
I want to be the minority
I don't need your authority
Down with the moral majority
'Cause I want to be the minority

Coda
Stepped out of the line
Like a sheep runs from the herd
Marching out of time
To my own beat now
The only way I know

One light, one mind
Flashing in the dark
Blinded by the silence of a thousand broken hearts
"For crying out loud", she screamed unto me
A free for all, fuck 'em all
You are your own sight

Chorus
I want to be the minority
I don't need your authority
Down with the moral majority
'Cause I want to be the minority

Eric Albert's "Charmed I'm Sure"

2005-07-16T09:42:00.000-07:00

"Avrat taldor"could become some household phrase you say to your wingman when you're at the bar and you spot your next victim. They're the words that the protagonist must use so his newly acquired sexual powers over others--and by others I mean everyone and anyone--can take root. Of course musing on how pleasant it would be to have that kind of sexual control, access, and opportunity would suffice as erotic adventure, but it's by far the only hypothesis that unravels. In all the slick sensuality, raw physicality, and relentless humor, there remain newer, deeper philosophical territories that make the narrative richer for the digging. I trusted the author's craft from the start, so I knew the plot wouldn't fizzle out into 'the evil temptress- poor exploited hero' dynamic or become an archaic warning about what you get when you trust a female. The story does beckon to some fairytale genre conventions including a witch and a stone, but uses these conventions in a fresh, upbeat way. In effect, Albert becomes the sorcerer, you, the protagonist, the book, your stone, the words, your presented spell, your unleashed sexual thirst, the ensuing outcome, a formula that will leave you, as it did me, "Charmed, I'm Sure".

Review of a Greta Christina's "Are We Having Sex Now or What?"

2005-07-15T10:28:00.000-07:00

When I return to school in the fall, I hope to teach a class and Greta Christina's "Are We Having Sex Now or What?" would be at the top of the reading list. Re-evaluating the sexual status quo, challenging the mixed message of Do It/No Save It that stems from the traditional view of sex as THE BIG IT, this coming of age biography is the fruit of sex-positive feminism. Because of the mainstream frame of reference regarding sex as vaginal penetration, people hear the phrase "sex-positive feminism" and conflate it with things that have nothing to do with it, usually, that it forces girls to engage in vaginal sex as soon and as often as possible, without having masturbated. Hence people attribute it to any mainstream pop-culture convention that reads Sex with a capital S, like the self-effacing Cosmo Magazine with it's 100% focus on "boyfriend's dick" or Samantha from Sex and The City, with her pushy "get with the program" sex as an agenda. Just the other day, I was talking with a wave-two Feminist, someone who helped coin the term "feminist" during the 60s mind you, and when I dropped the names Susie Bright and Betty Dodson, she said "they're telling girls to have casual sex with men and I'm sorry, but that just won't make you happy. Women are built differently. They're more emotional than men." Oh please. I said "first of all none of these women are even straight" at which point she jumped to the second most popular conclusion, saying, "now wait a second, what do you mean not straight? This is worse than I thought." "Thought" is right. This other popular misconception is that sex-positive feminism is about forcing girls to cast IT out entirely in favor of some inorganic escapist brand of lesbianism. It's no wonder I hear lesbians complaining about patronizing assumptions that they "just haven't met the right guy yet" (rather than the "off-chance" that they happen to be telling the truth), because the viewpoint makes women reactive vessels rather than proactive vehicles. So whether on one-side or the other of the mythical gay/straight binary, the wave-twoer's whole relationship to sex centered around IT. Had I read this sooner, I would have pointed it out to her. Instead I told her that it's about creating a distinct, decentralized frame of reference, encompassing any and all healthy, safe, consenting forms of sexual expression. For me personally, the big IT is the big CLIT. But that's not the point. What matters is the last phrase of the essay's title, "What...."